The President Speaks: Free speech

Good evening. If I appear somber tonight, it is because I am troubled by recent controversies in the media. The controversies revolve around free speech – what somebody has the right to say and what somebody has the right not to hear.

As Americans, we have always been eager to exercise our right to free speech. We have not always had the maturity to use the right properly or the wisdom to know how easy it is to abuse that right. We also have not had, and do not have, the foresight to realize that if we abuse our right to free speech, the government can, and it should, take that right away.

Today we Americans are not strong. We use profanity freely. We become offended if somebody criticizes our bad language. In love with our so-called right to be a slob, we are enamored of ourselves rather than respectful of someone who demands their right not to listen to our garbage talk.

People who oppose profanity do not oppose my right or yours to have a strong, unusual or scary opinion. Like Thomas Paine said, I have a right to free speech but also a duty not to abuse it. For us that means not swearing in situations where it is not necessary or proper – such as on the radio or riding a bus.

What really do we need to be publicly profane about? Unjust wars. There was plenty of profanity used in protest of the Vietnam War. A few years ago there was a lot of profanity used opposing the Iraq War.

The problem with profanity is that it is easy. It is fun, energizing, rhythmic. People can rally profanely around a person or a cause that they hate, but become as disgusting and intolerant as those they oppose.

This is the danger of profanity, especially when it comes from poets, rappers, talk show hosts, film makers, comedians. The people we expect to have vision have led us into a cesspool.

We need new vision. We need people strong enough not to profanely reflect the disgusting morals many business leaders and my fellow politicans cultivate under noble words.

A truly spiritual emphasis by churches will attract people longing for goodness, who need an alternative to our profane greedy culture. These seekers desperately avoid the cynicism of profanely complaining about injustices. They wait to be inspired, to have somewhere to go to trust and feel honestly, to speak freely, to see how good others are.

We need artists to change, to create grand visions, even if it means producing less and making less money. Artists need to combine their anger and frustration with beauty so that listeners and viewers do not lose their spirit or their faith in institutions and America.

I think we have lost our ability to dream, not to fantasize about becoming rich, but to dream about a humble home where we can watch our children play in the back yard, and then, at middle age have the grandchildren come over for pie and a dip in the plastic wading pool we take delight in inflating.

These things make families happy. They make our neighborhoods stable and America great. You can always swear if you break your leg or get stung by a bee. People will understand.

There is a place for everything. We have misplaced profanity by using it all the time because we do not feel free. We show the extent of how powerless we are by how much we swear.

When Americans say we have the right to free speech, that humans have a right to free speech, we need to think our profanity through. Rather than challenge others to say why you shouldn’t be profane, ask yourself something. Will anyone dying, longing for peace, looking for truth or justice or courage, maturity, manhood, wisdom or spirituality be inspired by your profanity?

The philosopher

Chadwick thought baseball would get the nation outside,
Help those who play it develop manly pride,
Playing a game for boys that would challenge them to be men,
Learning to control that temper which rises again and again.

When you use your power and test your skill,
Things don’t always go your way.
You often want to kill.
Henry C was saying that along with passion their must be good will.
Whether you win or lose you must be king of your spiritual hill.

A place in the sun

When poets believe in beauty
They will sit on one of these benches looking at the capitol
Asking for forgiveness for having idolized absolute profanity and absolute perversion
For rejecting absolute truth and absolute justice

They will repent
Vowing to be absolutely good
As a poet and a person

Removing their sunglasses
They will cry over the glaring perfection of the capitol
Their maturity for now loving it
And the disgrace they once proudly made of poetry

Friday, June 15

Dear Jim,

How are you? I’m sitting outside at my favorite coffee shop. I just said hi to a young Asian women who sat down across from me. I was looking at her sleek expensive computer that is as attractive for a computer as she is for a woman. She was amused by my gaze at her PC. We made good eye contact.

There was another young woman sitting at the table to my right. She was tall and white. She was wearing shorts and sandals and had backed her chair away from the table to face my table. Her legs were stretched out and her feet up on the seat of the chair in front of her.

When I glanced at her feet, her toenails had horrible baby blue polish. I thought ”Oh Christ!”. It’s the shade of the season, so for the rest of the Summer I’ll be seeing toenails of women who have no sense of color.

Before the Asian woman sat down, two cute 18 year olds stood across from me. They were talking.

You know how we used to wear worn out jeans? We wore through the denim so that white threads of the material were visible. The more knee there was the longer the white threads of material were.

Well, one girl had really short shorts. The front covering her pockets was so worn and the threads so long, that you could see the whites of the pockets. I could have peeked at her undies if I wanted, and if she was 28 I would have. But 18. I cringed.

Remember the term root huggers? It always cracked me up.

What was great about the Asian women was that she was dressed modestly not sexually. I could have looked at her all day.

There’s been sad news in the world of famous people. A week and a half ago a celebrity writer and a celebrity fashionista killed themselves. They were boomers.

The media is talking about depression and getting help, about staying connected to your family and friends and neighborhood. But nobody has mentioned that these two were boomers.

We boomers took ourselves too seriously. We still do. We isolated ourselves even further from our stifling Godless culture when we claimed to know all the answers and to have the right to do anything we want.

When I saw the news I thought ”What’s wrong with us boomers?” I wonder how many people made the connection?

You should have seen the photos of the writer. He was very striking, very handsome. He looked like a man of the world- sophisticated and successful, somebody who would attract attention as soon as he walked into a room; somebody you would look to for wisdom; somebody who made you wonder how come you aren’t like that.

I was afraid when I saw the news. I had envied his success – a cook who became a great and famous writer. Now he’s dead. Am I supposed to be happy?

Another thing the media hasn’t mentioned is that boomers have contributed to the destruction of America and Western Civilization. So you can say it serves the boomers who kill themselves right, for boomers have insisted on destroying western culture. Or you can say the boomers have led the nation into the sewer, but they are not mature enough to face their shit so they kill themselves.

Ten years ago I read the beginning of his most famous book. He was working in a restaurant in the seventies. He talks about how the staff used to steal from the owner.

He told a story about the time the crew was cooking for a wedding reception in the dining room. The bride came into the kitchen, said something to or looked at the chef, then they went outside. The chef pulled up his apron, pulled down his pants, then fucked her against the dumpster.

I put the book down. I was disgusted. Like I wrote to you in July, “My generation!!”

Sunday is Father’s Day.

Love,

Dave