Response to Thomas Cannady on "Censorship"

Submitted by Merry Whitney (United States), Dec 26, 2005 at 10:58

"We in America have laws against hurting people with comments..."

No, political correctness has no legal teeth. We in America have laws against slander and libel, and laws against inciting violence. But we have an absolute right under the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law .... ; .... or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press... ... ") to spew insults, epithets, or any and all manner of coarse and denigrating verbal abuse which stops short of assault ("words or actions that put another person in apprehension of battery").

Certainly, polite society has always frowned upon too-freely exercising that absolute right -- traditionally, by ostracism or simply excluding habitual offenders from guest lists and avoiding their company whenever possible.

But those who are careless about "hurting people with comments" are not the only boors who deserve to be shunned. The PC police and their minions have done more damage to honest discourse in the past thirty years, than rampant hate speech could have done in a millennium.

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