Freedom of speech is History

     If you've been following the news at all lately you will have been bombarded with the discussion around the confederate flag in South Carolina.  The people there are all about how it is a symbol for racism.  Which for many folks it is.  But it undoubtedly is a reminder of our history.
     Our history is checkered, not always what we wish it could have been.  We really wish all those southerners would have realized that slavery as an institution was evil and wrong.  I would stipulate a lot of them did.  The reality was, that for many large plantation owners and their employees, slavery was the machinery that made them wealthy and comfortable.  To give their slaves freedom was the same as a farmer of today vowing to never use his tractor again to farm with.  I am not saying they were right, I am saying the idea of freeing the slaves left wealthy folks poor, and already poor folks in competition for jobs and resources even more pinched.  So the south went to war to preserve their way of life.
     Fast forward now to the present, and how people view that flag flying over a memorial.  A memorial to a war where more Americans were killed than any other.  Where men and women died, for good reasons or bad.  A memorial to those people, and the mistakes that were made.  Part of that memorial should be a reminder of where we could be, and how easy it is to get there.
    You know what happens when you put things in a museum?  They get forgotten.  We doom ourselves to make the same mistakes of hubris and self delusion our forefathers made before us.  Do we like the way the south was in the past?  No.  But that is the point of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.  It was specifically put in place to protect unpleasant and painful speech. Taking down the flag because it is "hateful" is spitting on free speech.
     Do I like racists?  Do I want to hear their vile utterances?  No.  But I really, really need to hear what they are thinking so I know how to help fix the problems of today.  I really need to know that those folks are out there, and that not everyone has stepped into the enlightenment we delude ourselves is the 21st century.
     I was recently told on a friends Facebook page that anyone who disagreed with the President should be forced to keep their mouth shut, because we just don't understand how hard it is to be President.  I had to remind him that as a citizen of the United States, I have a duty to speak out if I disagree with the President.  He is not infallible, none of us humans are.  So we need to speak about what is wrong in our eyes so our representatives can help fix it.  That is the form or government our forefathers put in place.  Political, disagreeing speech is the basis of our government, that is why they put Freedom of Speech first in the Bill of Rights.
     Our country has moved too far away from self reliance and the willingness to disagree in a civil manner as a method of fixing what we don't like.  Now we just call things offensive and demand that others accede to our wishes.  It is high time we toughen up and let all comers speak, no matter how much we don't like it.  The symbols of our past are to be included, because we need them to help us remember how we got here, and the pitfalls that lie all around us.