When speech is punished, it has a chilling effect. That’s the design of the punishment; if you choose to speak your opinion, we will destroy you, thus you will speak no more.
For years I have said that the mantra of 21st century America is simple; you have the right to your own opinion, as long as you agree with me.
To run away and hide behind the rhetorical “speech is free but still has consequences,” is to completely mistake the point and miss what is happening in America. To claim that when someone uses their speech to destroy you is just that person exercising their own freedom is to ignorantly regurgitate an adult version of “neener neener.”
Each of us loses our freedom and our rights when we use such to take away the same from someone else. I have the right to bear arms, but only unless and until I use that right in the act of taking away freedom, speech, or property from an innocent person; then I lose my right. So should it be, seemingly, when it comes to speech.
No, no, no I did not just genuinely suggest we should vocally castrate people, but something must be done. A little outrage at the very least?
Enter the latest story that has come, gone viral, and gone entirely of yet another person being destroyed for expressing a thought, feeling, or opinion. Since the opinion she expressed is not popular (it doesn’t agree with the American “me”) it’s just fine that she has been publicly pilloried. Apparently, she’s just an idiot for speaking at all.
27-year-old Kaitlyn Walls is a single mom from Dallas, Texas. Earlier this month, she got a job working at a daycare. But the morning before she started, she posted on Facebook, quote, “I start my new job today, but I absolutely hate working at daycare.”
Was she stupid to post that on her very public and seeable Facebook page? Only if you accept the maxim that in today’s America, you better keep your mouth shut unless you’re saying something everyone agrees with. If so, then yeah, she was an idiot. And you live in a terrible society.
News flash; most people hate their jobs, or at the very least dislike them immensely. It’s called work for a reason. If it wasn’t work, as Red Foreman (Google it) famously taught us all, it would be called “zip-a-dee-doo.”
But, alas, for expressing a totally benign and normal thought out loud, Ms. Walls was fired the moment her bosses saw the post; an interesting reaction from an obviously cowardly decision maker.
I’m a boss and a business owner and, of course, I would want to protect my company’s good name. A conversation with Ms. Walls was warranted, without a doubt. Depending on her reaction, perhaps I’d ask her to clarify her statement or stay off Facebook for a few days, and I’d request that she understand the power and gravity of her words. That’s what I would do if I lived in a reasonable America, but I do not. So she would have to be fired. Why? Because my business deals with the public, and the public is stupid beyond words.
Perhaps no group of people today is more sensitive or stupid than parents. Good God you people have thin skin. Whether you’re getting teachers fired because 30 years ago they posed nude for a magazine shoot, or you’re shutting down totally legal businesses because your precious snowflake shouldn’t have to see or walk past a store that sells cigarettes, you are a busy bunch. And a vile one at that. Get a life and a clue, for God sakes.
Knowing that their clientele was idiotic, the daycare center had to fire Ms. Walls, who made things worse by trying to clarify herself once the angry mob came after her. The initial post (about hating daycare) spread quickly in a very short time after it was shared by members of an 8000-strong Facebook group popular with Ms. Walls’ hometown. You read that correctly; because a woman posted that she didn’t like working at daycare, a group of ninnies became so offended (because of course Ms. Walls is asserting that the ninnies’ children suck) that they blasted her post and started demanding an apology from her. That’s when she blew it. She of course should have just apologized, for that’s the only way you survive in today’s America when you express any thought outside of the acceptable realm. But Ms. Walls instead decided to not take the mob seriously and posted “”Lol, it’s all good, I just really hate being around a lot of kids.”
Oh, honey.
Poor, dear, Ms. Walls, we hardly knew you. Ms. Walls made the fatal mistake of not taking seriously how angry people get at the most benign things and tried to make a joke of it. So she paid. Dearly.
Within minutes, everybody in Ms. Walls’ hometown, was talking about her post — including her boss-to-be at The Colony Preschool and Child Care Center, who called her to tell her not to bother coming in that day. Or any other day, for that matter.
“I’m a single mom trying to get out on my own,” Ms. Walls told CBS. “I really needed (that job) really bad. On Monday, the mother-of-one updated her Facebook page with this comment: “Man, I made a big mistake. I’m so sad. I feel like a failure here looking at my daughter crying because I’m afraid that I’m not going to be able to find a job because of my own stupidity.
“I’m not going to post anything like it ever. No matter how I feel.”
Perfect. That’s exactly what the mob wants; silence. Unless and until you are willing to express only what we accept, like and agree with, keep your mouth shut.
Now that’s freedom.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/04/27/single-mom-fired-before-first-day-over-facebook-post/
