It must be National Offensive Idiot Day

[fictional]

so, i'm walking home from class minding my own business, when suddenly my senses are assaulted on Ho Plaza - by two sets of people, the first being sets of gigantic posters saying "Animal Holocaust - To Animals, All People are Nazis".
Edging carefully by this enormous display, I hear someone (who I later found out to be named "Ryan") talking into a microphone so loudly that it felt like the stone walls were reverberating. The subject? The glorious hero - Christopher Columbus.
Let me favor you with an excerpt (And I assure you, I am not joking, nor making this up.)

Ryan: When I was in high school, my global studies teacher tried to tell me that Columbus' navigator was Black, and therefore we should celebrate the great contributions of Black people to the discovery of the New World. To which I replied, "Well, Columbus was headed for the Indies, and he ended up in the Bahamas, so I think we can take that as further proof that affirmative action doesn't work!"

He also went on to refer to the indigenous population as "so-called Native Americans" at which point I was so torn between speechless rage, a helpless urge to laugh hysterically, and the violent desire to throttle him, that I walked on, sputtering to myself. I'm sure I looked like a crazy person.

Some people just shouldn't be allowed in the gene pool. It's funny, because ideally of course I believe in freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly, and all that...but despite it all, the urge to just prevent people from saying asinine and dangerous things still runs strong within me. I will continue to defend people's rights to say whatever, but I'm left feeling sort of confused.

Comments

[guinness-duck.livejournal.com]

That's the problem with free speech. But I still believe in it just the same. But sometimes even stupid radical messages can serve a point.. no, I'm not saying anything intelligent came from his battle, I'm just saying that it's these kind of people who can make good people think, and maybe pushed to the edge enough to not sit in silence any longer but to stand up and speak out.

The idiots know they have a voice, and they use it. The good, those with real ideas and real beliefs for change, for improvement, for betterment sit in silence, so apathetic and appalled with the system that they turn themselves away from it all. They allow the voice of the idiots to dictate policy. I don't blame the idiots for the condition of things, I blame all those good people too apathetic and too beaten down to take a stand. They are the ones who have given up. They are the ones who let these things happen.

If listening to Gorbachev speak showed one thing to me, it showed that one voice can always make a difference. It's whether or not we let their voice be the only voice heard..... that's up to us.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

No, I know.
I agree with all that you say.

I guess the thing that I was confused about was mainly why my reaction was "to throttle" and "to silence", which goes so strongly against my own beliefs. It made me feel kind of faschist inside my soul, if you know what I mean.

[soulhaus.livejournal.com]

....i believe in the freedom of whapping this mr. ryan fellow with a plank of wood full of rusty nails.

:)

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

...she's so kinky...
i like it.

*grin*
*mwah*

[soulhaus.livejournal.com]

*wink* hey baby, i'll show you kinky... mwhahaha ;)