Musing of Free Speech and the Tennessee Football Coach

One of my loyal conservative clients posted this about a Tennessee Football coach fired for producing a song critical of President Obama:

http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=12989255

I post this because it illustrates an important issue. Hand in hand with freedom of speech, if you are going to have it, is the reality that at times, you may not like the way other people chose to exercise that freedom and in fact, you may be offended be them. But offense is taken, it is not given. And if we all went around censoring our speech and expecting others to do the same, we would have a society governed by benighted, tyrannical and ignorant minds.

That being said, while I don't agree with the politics of this coach nor what I think is crude and uncivil, I cannot deny that it is a clever and a most likely effective method of conveying his beliefs.

If he was in a public school, which it appears he was, he could not be fired for this and would have a rock solid civil rights case. Since some conservatives don't think people should sue for $, he could at the very least bring suit to be reinstated.

As to myself, I am currently a loyal Pres. Obama supporter, but I am first a
defender of the constitution and would give my life to defend this
man's right and all Americans' right to freedom of speech. Everyone
has a right to express themselves, even in manners that might cause
others to take offense.

Some of us are forgetting that. Some of us are also too frightened of forces in our world that kill and use fear of death to silence others. This is because at first they intimidate, maim and kill those that are ostensibly less politically correct, less tolerant and less diplomatic than we are, so we denounce and chide the victims of these intolerant forces and assuage and soothe those that think they have a right to kill when they decide to take offense, claiming God or some higher right justifies their behavior. But mark my words, if we don't stand up for those that so express themselves, the wrath of the small minded will then be focused on us for the slightest affront or the most innocent of comments.

Due to this risk, while we may state we do not agree with these more strident voices, we should more fully censor and condemn those who seek to silence them by abusing their powers or by using the excuse that they act in the name of some higher power.