Freedoms

Thursdays are a good day for many reasons, it is my Friday at work cos I work Mon-Thurs 10 hour days. It is also the day I get my weekly neighborhood newspaper. It is a warm fuzzy that I get every week, and one of the articles was "Death of comedian should remind us of our freedoms." George Carlin championed one of the greatest gifts this country has to offer, the gift our founding fathers gave us more than 200 years ago, free speech. Through his own brand of comedic shock and awe, George pushed the boundaries at every chance he got and did his best to bring every taboo into the light and question the ideas of censorship and repression.

From behind the flag, we as a people have the right to speak openly to each other about any topic we choose, even if it means denigrating the powers that be or questioning mainstream thought just as George was famous for. In a lot of places outside of the western world, something as simple as our First Amendment is still a distant dream.

So if you think we are in a bad way here in America,remember how incredibly privileged you are to live in a society that sees freedom of speech as an inalienable right granted to evey resident regardless of their race, creed or religion and regardless of what they have to say and whether it might offend someone.

Remember that men and women shed their blood so people like George Carlin could get on stage and say whatever they wanted, free from persecution or retribution and so people like you and I could voice your opinions and criticize freely without fear of retribution.