I get the feeling some times that we’re turning into a nation of wimps. Everyone seems to be whining: It’s not fair! They didn’t give me a chance! The deck is stacked! His podium is bigger than my podium. What they said is a racist micro-aggression.
And, therefore, they demand the rules should be changed: They shouldn’t be able to say that! We need a campus code that stops that. They should be thrown out of school. They shouldn’t be able to teach here. They shouldn’t be in invited to speak on campus. They shouldn’t be able to run for office and say those kinds of things. They should be thrown off the podium. Why is the media just trying to stir up dissent?
We’ve all heard it. It comes from every part of the political spectrum — the left, the middle and the right — and from every part of the religious spectrum, from evangelicals to atheists.
What is going on? When did we become a nation of wimps? Am I over stating it? Well, let’s just look at the politics first. The complaints about the last debate seemed to be:
– The liberal media wasn’t nice to me.
– The questions were unfair.
– There were a bunch of “gotcha” questions.
Think about it. These are people running to be president of the United States. Come on. You ask any experienced campaigner what the solution is to the Social Security funding problem and he’ll answer by telling you what he had for breakfast that morning. His ability — his skill in being able to sell the non-answer and avoiding what he doesn’t want to talk about — is probably an essential skill for being president.
Or you take someone like Ben Carson, who has never been on the political stump before. Suddenly, he’s in the lead and the press is all over him.
I can kind of sympathize. Like all of us of a certain age, we tell stories and, over time, the stories get polished until you reach a point when you can no longer remember what was the original part and what was the polish. You start talking and your wife gives you that look that only a wife of 50 years can give you. (I once told Karen, just remember it’s easier to get a new wife than it is to get new material, but it didn’t stop her.)
Now, poor Ben has been talking to evangelical audiences and, over time, I’m sure in his memory of his early childhood, sins have worsened as his journey from the edge has become more inspiring, so he should just move on and stop complaining about his treatment.
Today, you go to any college campus and they all believe in free speech, provided no self-identified victimized group finds it offensive, provided that they agree with the opinion stated and provided that they don’t consider it a micro-aggression — little itty bitty small insults that they add up until they’re big. Lest you think this is just a racial thing, it also applies to people who think guns are great and that it’s treason to speak against them, that we should fly the confederate flag, and whatever happens — no matter what was said or done — it should never interfere with the college football game this Saturday. How the Southern Conference is going to handle this new “no like – no play” rule is going to be interesting.
The problem is not that people are saying these things, because they’ve always said these things, but that the people supposedly in charge are a bunch of wimps. They don’t want to offend anyone, so they end up offending everyone. They just can’t bring themselves to say that these are the rules of the debate, and if you don’t like them, don’t come. Or on campus, if you try to physically block a speaker, we’re going to have you arrested and you’re going to be kicked out of school for a year because we believe everyone on campus has a right to hear the speaker and the free speech principle is more important than you.
I will confess: I’m on the Board of Directors of the First Amendment Coalition, a California nonprofit. I believe in a strong, free, bare-knuckled interpretation of the first amendment. That means that people are going to say things that are nasty, racist, anti-Semitic and just plain mean. Every tissue in your body wants you to go stomp on their face.
If your ideas can’t stand up to nasty attack, maybe they’re not good ideas. I’m willing to take the chance. We should all be willing to take the chance and stop wimping out. Free speech has served us all well for several hundred years, and it’s no time to give it up because it’s sometimes bad manners.