How NOT To Deal With Things That Offend You

This display on a couple’s home in Sacramento, Ca. has caused quite a controversy. As you can tell from the link, there are all sorts of calls to have the effigy removed. The absolute worst part about it is the fact that the people are being called “unamerican”.

They keep using that word; I don’t think it means what they think it means.

Here’s my response, as posted to a forum I frequent:

Spit on the guy, call him names, do what you will, but don’t try to pass a law to prevent them from being able to do it. The fact that someone can do something so distasteful, and be legally within their rights to do so, is precisely what makes this country worth dying for. The notion that laws limiting this sort of crass display are now needed because the country’s going to hell and we need some decent laws to clean it up is the single most dangerous idea circulating in this country. What it equates to is the beginning of the end for America as we know it. I’m not saying that a country with some of these laws wouldn’t make some people feel better, or maybe bring about some less offensive displays, but there are already places that have no such public protest. China comes to mind. The fundamentalists attempting to bring decency back to this country will be its undoing, and if the founders could see it happening they’d be weeping. That’s not to say that the base, idiotic behavior going on as a result of our free society and political correctness isn’t repulsive, but trying to abolish the freedom that allowed that stupidity to exist in the first place is infinitely worse.