The First Amendment gives us the right to make our own personal choices, but how many times have you had friends or coworkers call you into account for doing something, wearing something or liking someone that they don’t feel you should.
They not only do it, but are persistent about it as though if they don’t give up you will be forced to change your mind. They even enlist others, take polls to increase their numbers and power to pressure you.
I think people should just mind their own damn business.
On further and more serious reflection, I sure hope this isn’t some convoluted pro-life argument that assumes pro-choice people get offended when a pregnant teenager exercises her choice and has the baby.
Generally, though, nosy intrusive people get on my nerves, too.
Not only does the First Amendment having nothing to do with “making personal choices,” you are not generally allowed to make choices that harm or restrict others. The general rule is “if it does no harm, you are allowed to make your own choices.”
If you’re shoveling people into ovens, wearing a Nazi uniform, and liking old Adolf, friends and co-workers are going to speak up. Or the Allied armies are going to mind your business for you.
I hate it when they try to back their arguments with the Bible (live in the Bible belt here).
I always bring up the Parable of the Rich Young Ruler (that’s the ‘easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich man to go to heaven’ one). Dude stomps away from Jesus at the end of the story.
These self righteous folk think the moral of the story is that rich people can’t go to heaven. I point out that Jesus let the dude go. The moral of the story is that everyone has the right to be wrong.
They usually can’t argue after that, because they think I’ve admitted that I’m wrong. I’m actually pointing out that they have the right to be wrong, but when it gets them to shut up I generally don’t explain that part.
It’s 200?, and the Dixie Chicks went on their rant about GWB. Huge backlash ensues, and many people I know were saying that they should not be criticized about their rant because they have to the right to say whatever they want.
Now, this wasn’t in response to someone saying that they should be jailed or something like that - this was in response to someone merely disagreeing with them.
They never did realize the irony, even when I explained it to them.
To clarify how benign my latest crime was, I’ll explain: I had been working a lot of overtime hours and didn’t have the energy to do my laundry so even though it was a warm day, I wore a black, short-sleeved blouse to work, because it was the only short-sleeved blouse I had clean. When I went to the smoking area, someone immediately seized on the opportunity to call me an idiot for wearing said blouse. Whereupon, others chimed in with their opinions, while the rest just kept silent and ignored it.
I refused to defend myself because I considered it rude for them to start this in the first place and figured it would just blow over in time. The time that it took to blow over was approximately 6 weeks. I finally started taking my breaks in a different location so I wouldn’t have to listen to it anymore.
Do you really think that people should act this way? They could have just speculated amongst themselves as to why I was wearing said blouse. They didn’t have to belittle me or confront me demanding an answer. I don’t owe anyone answers for my own personal choices. Do You?
Since my fashion sense sucks, I don’t even know why it would be an issue for you to wear said blouse.
It sounds like you have a history of being a doormat to these people, so they feel free to say anything they want - even when it is extremely stupid and carried on for far too long (6 weeks???)
However, if they did, it would actually be the First Amendment that gave them the right to say whatever they wanted about how I dressed, spoke, acted, etc. The First Amendment does not, as you seem to believe, give us a constitutional protection from criticism. Almost precisely the opposite, as it happens.
The First Amendment gives me the right to tell you you’re clearly suffering from a major personality defect if you can’t speak up and say “maybe it would be a stupid choice for you, but I’m perfectly comfortable wearing black in the summertime. Get over it.” It also gives me the right to spend the next six weeks (or more!) talking about how you really need to work on that, and even to offer you fliers for assertiveness seminars that could help you with the problem you clearly are in desperate need of remedy for.
It also gives you the right to call me a loser for taking so much interest in your personal state. But it only works if you use it.
