Hate Speech

The recent shootings of Islamist terrorists (OK, call them something else if you wish.) in Texas has sparked a discussion of "hate speech."  Many folks seem to be blaming the woman who organized the Muhammad cartoon event for the shootings.  Hogwash!

If anything should be protected under the First Amendment it's "hate speech."  What kind of freedom of speech is it if only expression we like is protected?  That's the real test of "freedom," how far we go to protect speech we (or at least some of us) hate.

BTW, I'm waiting for the play, "The Book of Islam."  It's probably being screen written right now.  And it will probably get all the awards and accolades as "The Book of Mormon."

And when will some guy win art prizes for putting, say, a Quran in a beaker of urine?  Where's Mapplethorpe when we need him?

Both tax measures here went down by sizable margins the other day.  Locally, the school millage was defeated by 10%.  Statewide, the so-called (and misnamed) road repair proposal was lambasted by more than 3 to 1.  Of course people voted against higher taxes.  It probably wasn't such a hot idea to have a tax-increase election so soon after April 15.  But I wonder if many people voted no as a protest against those who spend our money.  We just don't trust our elected and appointed officials to spend money wisely.  Their track records are pitiful, aren't they?  That was a good part of my opposition to both proposals, a lack of trust that the money would be spent intelligently.

It was great, though, hearing proponents, of both proposals, tell us that the increase in taxes we'd see would be "just a drop in the bucket."  Apparently none of them ever thought of the cumulative increase(s).  Let's just put it this way, if they had passed and we toss in the extra money ObamaCare has cost me over the past year and a half, that "drop in the bucket" has cost me about $3000.  That's some "drop."  In fact, I taught a whole semester of college history last winter to pay for that "drop," just the "drop," not all of our taxes.

Ah, but remember that sage of DC, Joe Biden, reminding us that "paying taxes is patriotic."  If that is so, I would certainly invite all those who think I'm being unreasonable in opposing so much taxation to voluntarily pay more on their own.  I guess until I see that, we'll have no real discussion.