Michael Moroz, a high school student in Philadelphia expressed his beliefs in his school newspaper, and for his effort, he received death threats. Freedom of speech is dead. If this group has its way, the only speech that will be allowed is speech 'they' (the in groups) deem appropriate. It's shocking to me that anyone would consider the responses to his article appropriate or acceptable. We are living in dangerous times, and if we don't speak up, we may lose the right to do so. Here's the article with more information on the subject. Note it's from Breitbart. You probably won't see it elsewhere.
In this "day and age" ANYONE has to watch what they say. Yes, we do (supposedly) have Freedom of Speech, but people also have the right to disagree and some of those that disagree can/will get nasty in their responses. Heck, I've seen this happen on forums and it's happened to me. No death threats, but definitely some angry responses.
The one line the article that said the person who threatened to shoot the boy was only suspended for a day and not required to apologize...... Well, that sent me over the edge! Excuse me while my blood is boiling!
The older I get, the less I understand what is going on around us in this country, and the world. .. a day doesn't go by without shaking my head about something in the news!
Since I follow a lot of political discussions on Twitter, I've seen some of this. It does seem as if the rhetoric is heating up, and people jump from 0-60 much quicker than they used to. Society is a lot different from what it used to be, when people would actually have civilized discussions, without jumping to invectives and pejorative language. Nowadays, it seems if someone disagrees with some, they immediately make threats. I think it's related to the inability of many to communicate effectively and think critically.
The whole thing started by the politico correctness and then it went to raises. When I was young we would say the people where coloured and the term black were considered not right. Then it changed to back being acceptable. The word nig** is called raises except if you are black and then it is OK. They are using language as a weapon to discredit whoever they want. I am a master in Neurolinguistic Programming [NLP] and done some research and showed that people tend to put feeling to certain words which gives someone else the power to push your hot buttons if they know the right words. I had a client connected to a machine which showed stress he was going through a bad divorce when I would say the word lawyer his stress went off the chart. This is just a word and nothing more he was allowing it to control him. Like I say they are using words as weapons.
Oh my goodness, @Bonnie Thomas , you are so right about this! My head does a lot of shaking, too... and one by one we're seeing what used to be our freedoms being taken away... and I'm pretty sure I remember when it started more heavily but I suppose I shouldn't even say it here. (See, there goes freedom of speech, when we have to wonder whether or not to share our feelings and beliefs. Hmmm...) What *I* don't get is why more people don't *SEE* when it started... or at least when it started getting worse. And so many want to continue the same horrible mistakes politically?! Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire!
Yes, very true, @Martin Alonzo. I grew up among people of all backgrounds. We were all friends, hung out together, went to school, church, shopping, etc. together. We would all joke around using what are now considered slurs, and we'd laugh about it, because we were each proud of our heritage, and slurs weren't offensive. I'm still proud of my background, and wouldn't be offended if someone called me a mick or harp, the same as my then friends weren't offended when called guinea, dago, etc. Words have the meanings we assign them, and can only be used to offend if we allow them to offend us. I choose not to give power to others in that way.
Ya know, @Diane Lane , I was thinking the same when I read @Martin Alonzo 's post... and I got to wondering if maybe the solution to the horrid rising level of racism is to just let people try to get along and NOT do things to get on the news... not try to make things sound worse just to crank up the media. Granted, of course, it's always been a problem, but there *was* starting to be a little bit of improvement before the first thing that really set it off... what was it? Either the George Zimmerman fiasco, or the first police-involved shooting. It was escalated immediately before anyone took a moment to try to ask if the person was in the process of committing a crime, or if they "took the first shot." It didn't seem to matter... only the skin color mattered and the media got hold of that fact before trying to get the "who what where when, and more importantly, WHY" of the story. In this day and age, that should NOT even be a consideration... don't we know by NOW that everyone's the same? Uh... yeah, don't bother answering that, I guess... it's obvious... the media won't LET anyone remember that.
I find it interesting that some things are reported with a spin, to drum up business. After all, media is in business to get clicks these days. Notice how George Zimmerman was white, not Hispanic, yet if he were getting an award, he'd for sure be labeled Hispanic. I'm tired of things being twisted to make them more newsworthy. I don't even watch the news anymore. I have the apps if I want to see what they call news, but where I live, if I want to know what's going on, I have to go to the Facebook groups, because Houston stations don't bother to report what's going on down here. I found out about the recent local home invasion on Facebook, not the news. It took a day for the Houston stations to pick it up.
Yeah... I noticed that. But him being Hispanic and a known trouble-maker wasn't as newsworthy as what got all this started... gotta go for the impact, ya know. GRRRRRR And the story that always comes out first is like "Oh, this poor victim was just walking along without a weapon and a cop shot him him in cold blood!" And they get that out and viral so heavily that by the time they get OFF the spin and report the real news like "Oh, well maybe he DID pull a gun first" or "Well, we have learned this was a robbery in progress and he took the first shot" no one is even calm enough to listen any longer... all they see is colors. THAT is the racism. They only remember the first false story. Maddening.
That is the problem with being politically correct, @Martin Alonzo, times are a-changing and so are the terminology. When I was young, there was that term negro and later it was changed to black in order to be politically correct. I didn't know that the term black is already passe and colored (coloured) is the politically correct one. Just a segue, some people just cannot agree to disagree. That boy's belief is being questioned by those who are sending threats on his life. That is silly. Just like when our Miss Philippines replied to the interview during the Miss Universe pageant - her opinion regarding US bases in the Philippines. Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach said that she favors the US bases to be back in her country. That remark earned jeers from the activists. But mind you, Pia is now the Miss Universe.