by Robert M. Traxler

Should the American Constitution be looked at as a racist, sexist, homophobic, document written by “Old White Men” and be sent to the ash heap of failed government experiments?

Free speech is not important; correct speech is more important in the eyes of many on the left. Criminalizing speech is a correct and badly needed concept, and the left gets to judge what is criminal. If we go back and read Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, he uses words like Negro, Black Boy and the pronoun his/he in referring to all people. In our ultra-politically correct speech universe, he could be condemned or jailed for hate speech.

Folks, you cannot make this stuff up. If the founders of our nation can be judged in hindsight, let’s be fair and look at others in the same light.

Perhaps looking at things in the context of the time is a fair and proper thing to do? Nope, in a socialist nation the only free speech is the currently politically correct speech. To not toe the party line is counter-revolutionary and even criminal. First Amendment? We don’t need no stinking First Amendment. Speech should be criminalized, after all it hurts people’s feelings and is insensitive.

Many of you will say I spend way too much time harping on free speech; what is wrong with being sensitive to others, what is wrong with protecting the feelings of a given group? What is wrong with condemning those who spew hate speech? Nothing is wrong with any of that; the extreme danger is the government and institutions of higher learning criminalize speech, as places like New York have done.

Do I like it when folks call me a racist, sexist, homophobic, Russian agent, Nazi SS, unredeemable, traitor, knuckle dragging, Neanderthal? No, No I do not, but should the folks on the hard left be jailed for calling many of us those names? Not no, but hell no! Free speech means just that, free, and not speech regulated by the government. In short, folks have a constitutional right to be rude, crude and socially unacceptable, both left and right.

The Bill of Rights that make up the first ten amendments to the Constitution are in place to regulate the central government, to deny the federal government the ability to become a nanny state, an over-reaching, over-controlling entity that has unlimited power. The folks on the hard left are apoplectic over the appointment of Supreme Court Associate Justices who believe in the original intent of the founders. Justices who do not believe the Constitution should be what they want it to be at the current time, but rather the original intent.

The Green New Deal as written and posted on the Green Party’s website will violate at least three amendments to the Constitution. Proposed new laws governing politically correct speech will violate the First Amendment; that damned Bill of Rights stands in the way of National Socialism. That damned Bill of Rights stands in the path of expanding government into an all caring, all controlling force for good, and according to many on the left the only allowable and ultimate force for good.

If a landlord can be jailed in New York for calling an illegal immigrant an illegal immigrant, what is to stop the government in Michigan from jailing folks calling many of you a racist, sexist, homophobic, Nazi? Hate speech is in the eye of the beholder, or should we say the belief system of the offended party?  Denying free speech is a two-edged sword, one that cuts when swung to the left and right.

The hypersensitivity of the left today, safe zones in schools and jailing folks for expressing rude, crude and socially unacceptable words, can change into right wing hyper awareness in years to come. The only protection we have from an over reaching nanny government is the Bill of Rights. Caution, my liberal friends, today’s banning and criminalizing language you do not approve of can be changed at the whim of the social media mob tomorrow to include you and your speech today.

A heartfelt thanks to those dead old white guys who insisted on a document being added to the proposed Constitution in 1789, who would only approve a document with a system in it to stop an overriding federal government, and they called it the Bill of Rights.