I've always believed it's acceptable for each of us to express our thoughts as we please. Your life is no one else's business as long as you're not intentionally causing them harm.
Thanks to our Constitution, we have that form of freedom paid for repeatedly with the lives of young Americans defending it in multiple wars.
However, things of late have changed. A relative few others in 2021 work diligently to cancel others' rights to think, speak and act freely.
They prefer to act upon their lowest level of reasoning by whining, howling, complaining, even whimpering to their heart's content because others choose to embrace their right to free speech and expression, to think for themselves.
My request is for another flawed human being to refrain from telling me, under threat, that I must believe as they do or apologize for my thoughts and opinions.
Since you are not me and never will be, there's no way you can understand the complexities that make me tick, any more than I can yours.
Should you feel like demanding that your beliefs become mine, please take deep breaths, count to 10 (better make that 30), replenish your God-given brain with life-sustaining oxygen and hopefully learn during those blessed moments why I don't have to become your mini-me.
We understand all Americans are born into a country founded upon a divinely inspired Constitution that guarantees certain inalienable rights, the paramount of which are the freedom of religion, expression and speech.
This guiding document wasn't written to protect the rights of those who subscribe solely to a particular faith, race, culture or radical ideology. Unlike "canceling" our nation's fellow brothers and sisters, it was intended to include every citizen.
Contrast this philosophy of unfettered liberty with the demands of totalitarian countries that demand everyone reason and march in lockstep. In a restrictive nation of sheeple, a Constitution such as ours would be canceled before the ink was dry.
Yes, sadly, there are those in today's antagonistic America who believe they have the right to "cancel" the words and thoughts of fellow citizens who refuse to pay homage to their radical and destructive ideology.
Sadly, these "cancel culturists" take pleasure in making miserable the lives of those who opt not to follow their dictates under threat of removing their right to earn a living solely because they dare act and speak freely.
For such bully-boy tactics to work most effectively, a majority of decent folks across society must become cowed and willing to cooperate with what amounts to plain vanilla extortion: "Do what we say and do, comrade, or we will do all we can to ruin your life."
It makes me wonder who in power bestowed such ability to damage fellow citizens who retain the same constitutional rights the cancelers have.
The cancelers at this point have recruited enough like-minded institutions and corporations to join their nasty Constitution-canceling sport. They need such alliances for their extortion to work.
Now, I'm the first to acknowledge and support the canceler's constitutional rights, since they differ not one whit from my own. And I have no desire whatsoever to cancel their beliefs or words they utter, though I may vehemently disagree with their views and schemes.
No ,valued readers, I don't expect any adult who wasn't raised in my shoes to always agree with or support my thoughts and opinions, or how I choose to freely express them publicly. It's integral to a civilized society.
Yet I also understand the Constitution-canceling contingent can adopt the opposite of my beliefs without affecting me personally, or my freedoms. Their intent clearly is akin to that of every bully boy: To force their will upon other freedom-loving Americans.
To band together with the sole purpose of denying another person their livelihood, free speech, socialization or expression because they differ from the cancelers is nothing less than evil manifested in the human heart and mind.
And surely to gosh the majority of Americans have no problem in 2021 America spotting evil and how pervasive it has become.
So I encourage those sharing these words and feelings to fight back against this damaging scourge that has increasingly reared its ugly and deformed head across our United States.
Refuse to be bullied or "canceled," even if it means retaining and setting free the most capable and fearless attorney you can find to uphold your rights as a citizen. Stand up for your freedoms.
The cancelers feel a lot to me like that clique of kids in high school who believed their lives were superior to those of their classmates in everything they said and did. Remember them?
Most of us recall who they were and how they excluded those not in their group so they could feel special about themselves. We see how well that turned out over the decades after Americans left high school behind, grew up and became adults with responsibilities. In the process, most among us matured into sensible ways of thinking and behaving well beyond childhood rudeness.
Cancel culture for me is just a willingness by mean-spirited, full-grown Americans to remain arrested in the juvenile period of high school cliques where few respected everyone's constitutional rights to interact, live and work freely with independent and unrestricted minds.
Now, rather than trying to harm or cancel any other human beings in this free country, what say we all go out into the world and treat everyone we meet exactly how we want them to treat us?
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at [email protected]
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December 04, 2021 at 04:44PM
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MASTERSON ONLINE: Fight for freedom - Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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