A Page From the Painfully Obvious

I saw a vehicle today with a multitude of marginalizing and misguided bumper-stickers such as: “Free Palestine from the occupation”, “Free speech means questioning those that are free”.
I can’t remember all of them – there had to be at least a dozen.

I was moved by the staggeringly backwards mind-set that the bumper-stickers were proudly projecting.
So painfully obvious was the fact that this person had to be distinctly ignorant, or anti-Semitic, or both. Palestine is a terrorist group. Anyone arguing otherwise is a Palestinian or just plain ignorant.
Furthermore, aside from the painfully obvious ignorance and prejudice of the bumper-stickers, the stench of radical-leftism reeked from the vehicle; the kind of pungent stink that could only come from a true believer. This type of aficionado mind-set kept people believing the world was flat long after mathematics proved otherwise.

“Free speech means questioning those that are free” implies a myriad of mischaracterizations of genuine “free speech”. Such blathering is to be expected from one who proudly endorses Palestine – an organization which tramples and despises free speech, personal freedom, and civil rights as Western evils that are to be eradicated.

In truth, free speech means exactly what it describes – the freedom to speak or communicate. It implies nothing inside the realm of only speaking to or “questioning” those who are free. Free speech -- referring to questioning those that are free -- automatically indicates that the one doing the questioning is inherently not free.

Does this message indicate that one is to question freedom -- that free speech questions freedom? Communists would emphatically say: YES! Furthermore, they would use that argument to limit the speech of the people. History is clear on this point.
Regardless of what it is supposed to convey, any scenario that I could decipher from that ridiculous bumper-sticker was insipid and common senseless at best.

As a Marine and someone who has been deployed overseas in service of our extraordinary country, I find myself feeling sorry for the poor sap driving the vehicle tattooed with several mind-numbing and unintelligent slogans.

This person clearly has no idea what Authentic American values are, how much Americans have sacrificed to keep our values and beliefs alive in our country – how much we have sacrificed for the good of other nations, or how to articulate what being an American means.

They clearly know exactly how to articulate anti-American beliefs and values. More depressing though is the idea that by virtue of knowing how to articulate anti-American values one may fundamentally know what authentic American values are and simply reject or disdain them.

And that is why the battle for America is not against any country or group outside our boarders. It is against the left – right here within our own boarders.