Soap Box

What is free speech?

To me it means being able to express your opinion viva voce, in print or by some broadcast method.

It gives you the right to say what you want to on any subject, the right to agree or disagree with any issue, any policy or anybody else�s opinion, no matter how prevalent the opposing ideas may be.

What it does not do is give you the right to lie or slander, incite a riot or falsely accuse. And it does not give you the right to suppress the opinions of others as they have just as much right as you do to express it, no matter how much it disagrees with your own.

It is not meant to enable you to out shout, disrupt or intimidate a person with an opposing view. There is no law that requires that you listen, so if you don�t like what someone is saying, show your disdain by just staying away or critiquing them after the fact.

Freedom of speech is supposed to let both sides have their way, say their piece, to let all sides be heard and let the people who are affected by it get up and have their say, disputing or supporting it. It�s called debate.

What recently happened in Charlottesville, Virginia had nothing to do with free speech, the right or wrong of removing a statue from public view or civil discourse representing both sides of this explosive spectrum.

No, it�s a clash of cultures, a face off of the intransigent and the people who went to Charlottesville went there looking for and determined to cause a violent confrontation, and, in spite of what the preponderance of the talking heads would have us believe, I saw violence on both sides of the barriers, both sides had clubs and aerosol irritants and I even saw one man squirt fire toward the face of another.

It was a display of the worst social conduct America has to offer, and I�m sure our enemies loved every minute of it.

We saw raw hate on display in Charlottesville, hate of the caliber that had the power to move people to violence that cost the lives of a young girl, run down by a depraved fanatic, and two law enforcement officers who were killed in a helicopter crash.

And the most shocking thing in this whole debacle was the reluctance of the police to stop the violence before it got out of hand, an order that had to be issued from above, because it goes against the instincts and the training of any good police officer to stand by and watch violent confrontations.

Enforcement of the law has to be where the rubber meets the road, in this situation, our police have to be given the ability to do whatever needs to be done to maintain order on our city streets, and until that element is added to the equation this kind of behavior is going to escalate until we see our cities burn and the casualties start piling up.

We�re better than this America, the overwhelming majority of the people in this nation does not belong to a hate group and deplores seeing this type of confrontation and desperately want to see it cease and desist.

Personally, I soundly condemn every hate group, every faction and every person who went to Charlottesville for the sole purpose of fomenting and participating in the chaos.

There are many powder kegs out there across the country just waiting for the fuse to be lit by some group or gaggle of individuals with an ax to grind, and America, don�t think that this will stop, even if all the so-called offensive statues and monuments are removed, it goes much deeper than that.

These are the seeds of insurrection and make no mistake, it has little to do with free speech and much to do with changing America, and if this bud is not nipped now, the path it will take will eventually find its hateful way to your part of the world.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

� Charlie Daniels

PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST

Feel free to comment on Charlie's soapboxes, but please refrain from profanity and anonymous posts are not allowed, we need a name and you MUST provide a valid email address. If you provide an email address, but leave the name as "Anonymous" we will pick a name for you based on your email address. No one other than website administrators will see your email address, not other posters. If you post without a valid email address, your comment (whether positive or negative) will be deleted. � TeamCDB