Watch your mouth

Free expression gives Americans a sense of liberty and pride. Unfortunately, the politically correct (P.C.) Gestapo, also sometimes referred to as the militant left, is holding the right to free speech captive. It's happening so slowly, so discreetly, that most of us aren't in a state of alarm. But we should be.\nTake Michigan's Janice Barton as an example. Barton observed a few Hispanics speaking Spanish to each other and commented to her mother privately that she wished, "spics would learn to speak English." An off-duty Hispanic sheriff jotted down her license plate and had her hauled off to the pokey. What was Barton's offense, you may ask? She was found guilty of committing a hate crime. \nAn appeals court reversed Barton's conviction on Nov. 1 (People of the State of Michigan vs. Janice Barton, 2001), but only on the reasoning that she could not have known she was committing a crime at the time. The ruling neglected any mention of Barton having the right to free expression. \nGranted, the word "spic" is distasteful and discriminatory. Barton, though, was merely expressing private thoughts. She committed no crime whatsoever. \nThis case is odd in part because campus fraternities are the P.C. Gestapo's usual targets, as painstakingly documented by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Consider New York's Syracuse University, for example. On May 7, a white fraternity member attended several graduation costume parties dressed as Tiger Woods, a famous golf player. The student was later charged with harassment and disorderly conduct. \nLook at a case from the University of Georgia, too, where an administrator sent an e-mail last July to all its campus fraternities, ordering them to "make sure that no…flags/confederate flags…can be seen from any house windows." Oddly enough, this edict even prohibited showing the Georgia state flag. There's pride for you. Fortunately, the university later retracted.\nIn a country where men in years past died so that we might have free speech, it seems nothing short of tyrannical for members of the left elite to make politically correct speech the only permissible expression in America. Yet their heart-wrenching lingo cannot help but enlist the support of Americans weary of racial discrimination. Who wants to be guilty of "hate crimes," harassment or prejudice? \nBut consider what exactly constitutes a hate crime. Under such ambiguous language, a pro-lifer could be charged with a hate crime if she refers to abortionists as "baby-killers." Someone who verbally opposes educational vouchers could be guilty of hate crimes against poor minorities.\nWe might disagree with certain forms of expression or the content being expressed. But our offense does not permit us to bar certain groups of people from expressing their ideas. The First Amendment doesn't say that Congress can't completely toss free speech out the door. It says that Congress can't restrict free speech at all!\nThe value of free speech is, well, priceless. Free expression and equal rights are the only avenue to political improvement. Without these rights, abolitionists who opposed slavery would not have been free to express their opposition and would have been convicted for treason. Those who marched for civil rights in the '50s and '60s would have been silenced for interrupting the status quo. To be free, Americans need free speech. Don't let the leftist P.C. Gestapo take our rights away. Speak out before it really is too late.