I’m Offended
I n today’s culture, to be offended often means that someone feels emotional discomfort because of something someone said or did. It used to be that to offend meant that someone had actually done something more grave than “stepping on someone’s toes,” but such is our world. The simple truth is that we have no control over what will cause people emotional discomfort. Take our political system, for example. If I were to get up and talk about how great trickle down economics is, most of the Republicans in the room would think it was a great speech, but the Democrats would be “offended.” So here’s the problem. If we remove the right to offend people, we remove the right to free speech. As people define it today, the Constitution of the United States guarantees a right to offend people. If we have any hope of defending our right to free speech then we must also defend the right of others to offend us. Yes, I said to offend us. Just because someone doesn’t agree with us doesn’t mean tha...