SC
4 min readFeb 28, 2021

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It’s not like the right can’t put forth their ideas. The first amendment guarantees a free marketplace of ideas, it does not force people to buy into or accept them if they’re trashy ideas or hurled at you packaged in filth. If the right wants to sell their ideas more effectively, they should simply stop marketing, branding, and packaging their ideas with hate rhetoric and filth. It really is a simple enough concept. Basic marketing 101.

Truth is, the right stopped selling real ideas long ago. They’re are selling hate and filth packaging with no product inside.

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It’s kind of rich to whine about people being offended when that particular rhetoric and propaganda is specifically designed to offend. “Yay! It worked. Listen to those Libtards cry. Snowflake.”

And then the whining starts.

“Why won’t anyone listen to meeee? I have opinions no one wants to hear. Do I not matter? What’s with all the flak? Gasp! I’m being CaNcElEd. All those people I was obscene to and mocked for their ideas don’t want to listen to what I have to say anymore. (shock). How could it be?”

So who’s the Snowflake now?

Ever hear the expressions what goes around comes around or you reap what you sow?

Years ago when I was in college there was this religious zealot guy who had some very particular far right ideas. Every day he’d come stand in the center of the Concourse (the main campus thoroughfare) to recruit for some group by screaming misogynist scriptures mostly out of Revelation at students along with slurs and hate speech directed at women. You couldn’t walk by without hearing, “SLUT! SHAME ON THE HARLOT WHO ENTICES SIN WITH HER FLESH! COVER YOURSELF, YOU WHORE. GOD CONDEMNS YOU.” and so forth and so on. It actually got worse. Words like bitch, witch, cunt, devil, evil doer, satan lover, etc made frequent flybys. This went on every.damn.day for months.

Obviously, women complained to campus security and the administration. Basically, the ruling came down that his comments, “while distasteful to some" (mhmm), were protected by the first amendment as both free speech and freedom of religion.

They actually are. They absolutely are.

But nobody with any real moral fiber wants to hear that filth, particularly not if they’re female. Why on earth would I adopt and practice a religion that condemns me to hell for all eternity because I’m a woman? It’s a condition I was born with due to my father’s genetic contribution, not one I caused myself. What sort of God thinks that is just? Not one that’s worth my devotion and worship.

That man has the right to his own religious beliefs. He has the right to share them in the marketplace of ideas.

I have the right to evaluate and judge those ideas as being right or wrong for myself and society AND then choosing to accept/adopt them or not.

Further, the marketplace of ideas is not a one way street. It’s a sandbox where everybody gets to play or it doesn’t really exist at all. True and lasting freedom of speech depends on civility and equity.

Which means, I have the right under the first amendment to respond to that man’s ideas by telling him I think he’s full of shit, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s a deranged and hateful lunatic, a menace to good society, that he’s gonna be the one burning, etc.

Or, I could choose to stay within the boundaries of what Benjamin Franklin expounded upon as “polite discourse" and kindly suggest he work on his reading comprehension skills, explain allegory, metaphor, and the historical context of apocolyptic literature within Jewish society under Roman occupation (between all the slurs and flying spittle), or just point out the helpfulness of reading the whole book to one’s more correct understanding of God and evil.

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If the far right and conservatives are having problems getting and keeping their ideas on the marketplace it’s not because they are being suppressed and denied free speech. It’s because they have badly needed a refresher course on civility and polite discourse for a very long time.

They’ve been acting like the obnoxious toddler who’s embarrassed mama has to jerk out of the sandbox because he/she hordes all the toys and throws sand in all the other kids' eyes. You know that’s not what mamas teach their children about playing nicely.

Throwing “sand at" one’s peers squanders the investment mamas make in their children.

So now, they have a choice. They can get their heads on right and relearn how to engage in appropriate and humane civil discourse, or be treated like an overly aggressive monkey who throws his poop at all the other monkeys in a fit of pique and be ostracized from society at large or even cast out.

Y’all’s choice. Are you civilized human beings who want to positively invest in the society and culture you live in OR are you fecal hurling lesser primates who cannot be trusted to not destroy troop cohesion or not attack it’s other members because you’re irritated and resentful and unable to control your emotional state?

The rest of us are eagerly awaiting your answer because we don’t want to need to ostracize you or jerk you out of the sandbox for a time out. But we will to preserve the sandbox. So, Please choose wisely and tone down your own rhetoric before criticizing others who are simply responding naturally to long term conservative aggression and vitriol.

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