Today the Supreme Court upheld the rights of a radical Christian Church to protest at military funerals claiming that God is killing our soldiers due to His intolerance of gay people. I'm not going to touch the religious aspect of this, my issue for today's blog post is around Free Speech.
On January 8th, 2011 there was a tragic shooting in Arizona. U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was targeted by an unstable man. In the hours and days after the shooting speculation was pointed towards Sarah Palin because of her rhetoric pointed towards "removing" certain members of Congress. There were a lot of passionate comments posted by readers on-line in regards to these allegations. One person said she's allowed to say things like this because it's her Right to Freedom of Speech. When I read that statement my thought was "this guy completely missed the point". I'm not saying Sarah Palin is responsible in any way, shape or form for that shooting. I don't know and I don't think any of us will ever know. What I do know is that the temperature of the political debate during this past years elections seemed to be turned up to extreme levels. Those levels are dangerous and can potentially have devastating results. Instead of defending her right to free speech I would have hoped for self reflection and a change for the better.
As Americans we should recognize the power of our words and the impact they can have on the people around us. Just because it's our Right doesn't make it right.
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