By REY FLORES
Life used to be much easier when people did not get offended at the slightest comment, joke, or just about any form of expression. Sure, we have always had to have certain content be restricted in all forms of media, be it profanity, pornography, racist epithets, or violence. There has always been an unwritten, but yet prevailing, code of conduct of societal decorum, which was all we needed.
Today, one can’t even make a compliment to a woman without being accused of sexual harassment. I know for a fact that most thinking people do not abide by these modern sensitivities. Not only do we not live by these ridiculous snowflake rules, we laugh about them and mock them.
It’s not only understandable, but absolutely necessary, that we do address real incidences of racial inequality, sexual improprieties, and flat-out violence based on these behaviors and beliefs. No doubt about it.
Take, for example, the sexual assault charges that two of Hollywood’s big shots, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, are facing. These two guys wielded a lot of power in their industry and took full advantage of it. They abused their power to prey upon and victimize women who were counting on them to be mentors and people who would help their acting careers. Instead, these guys did the exact opposite and broke that trust in the most heinous way possible, but they say that it has always been like that in the entertainment industry.
This #MeToo movement does have a role to play in today’s conversations because of people like Cosby and Weinstein, but it seems hypocritical that these same modernist feminists are the ones who promote promiscuity and reckless sexuality in their own films and their overall attitudes. Many of these #MeToo feminists are also huge supporters of abortion.
I have always said that abortion is the best friend of piggish men who want to have all the sex they can get with women, without ever respecting her or being held accountable if they do indeed impregnate a woman during one of these unholy trysts.
Politics is yet another huge arena where power, corruption, and lies rule the day. Our political climate is at a boiling point, which gets further exacerbated by the criminal actions of the Democratic Party who apparently can now have people lie under oath and get away with it.
Let’s revisit the Brett Kavanaugh case. Not only had this man been proven innocent of any wrongdoing by six — count them, six — FBI investigations prior to the recent judicial hearings, and even after the seventh investigation, this guy came out as clean as a newborn baby.
Yet we had hordes of unhinged lunatics swarming Washington, D.C., in protest, screeching “we believe survivors!” while trying to tear down the doors of the Supreme Court during Kavanaugh’s swearing-in ceremony.
What survivors were these mobs talking about? Christine Blasey Ford? What an absolute joke. The only evident “survivor” status this woman has is that she has survived — that is, avoided — being tried for lying under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Diplomacy, decorum, mutual respect, and common sense are all we need. We do not need a political correctness run amok in our society. This only traps us and enslaves us to be a bunch of phonies who cannot even be honest with each other for fear of offending someone.
Just this past Halloween, college campuses across the country banned certain costumes which were deemed offensive by some self-appointed thought police made up of crazy college professors and their brainwashed minion students.
Halloween is a secular holiday that many of us Catholics do not celebrate. But, nevertheless, it is a mainstream holiday, which at best is just a day for people to dress up in a silly or scary costume just for the fun of it. I’m not talking about any occult-like activities, but of the harmless nonsensical fun people have on this day.
Students at any college-related Halloween parties could not dress up as an Indian, a Mexican bandido, or anything that would offend a certain ethnicity, race, or culture. I think we can all agree that it would definitely be in bad taste to dress up in blackface à la Al Jolson. Barring blackface is offensive because of the racist history behind it. Anything else is up for grabs, in my opinion.
Guys were also discouraged from dressing up like a woman character for fear of offending transvestites, transgenders, and whatever other made-up trans-this, that, or the other. Heck, they just might even offend someone dressed up as a Transformer.
My point is that when we are ruled by a fear of offending each other, true expression is stifled. Worse yet, an encroaching and dangerous environment of censorship is being fomented among us, where even wearing a crucifix around our necks can get us accused of offending some nonbelieving heathen.
I take offense at the irrational thought and deception being passed off as news and information in this day and age. I take offense that my First Amendment rights are being infringed upon constantly because anything I may say, do, or express in any other way will be deemed offensive — and maybe even unlawful one day soon if we keep going down this terrible trajectory.
We have the freedom to express ourselves as long as it is not deliberate in malice or intended to deliberately hurt or offend others. We must be our own judges of prudence. We must know when to speak, how to speak, and most important, know when to shut our mouths if we have nothing beneficial or constructive to add to the conversation.
Pointing fingers, being hypersensitive, and being willfully ignorant will get us nowhere but in trouble. We all need to grow up and quit trying to hurt people and also quit being such sensitive little snowflakes.
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(Rey Flores writes opinion and book and movie reviews for The Wanderer. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
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