Lamar Howell's Weblog

In church recently I stood with other veterans to be recognized and thanked on Veteran’s day. I was wondering where the American flag was when suddenly it appeared on the screen, projected. The American flag is a symbol. A projection of the American flag from computer graphics is a symbol of a symbol. I felt rather odd, being recognized alongside a picture on a screen which would instantly be “slipping into darkness”  (as the song goes) into a black screen. Albeit, a convenient way to present a twenty-foot flag. 

I wonder if, when we sing the national anthem at ballgames and graduation events, we are singing about symbols or real values. Land of the free. Home of the brave. When I consider our troops serving overseas, my firstborn one of them, I say with more than a concession – yes, Americans are brave. But are we free, and what does that mean?

Sure, we are “free to move about the country,” free to change jobs, choose a university or a bank, free to say “no” to a salesman or ignore the phone, and free to hate people on American Idol.  But I don’t think choices like that define freedom. Freedom involves the willingness to listen to ideas, however rare in popular culture. The flip side of that is where it gets precarious. If we are unwilling to listen to unpopular ideas, then how far will we go to restrict others from expressing those ideas?

I’ve been on college campuses where someone is in the “free speech” area – an oxymoron in itself (if Americans are free to speak, why are there zones?)- where the speaker is shouted down by someone who hasn’t signed up to speak in the area. If we are not willing for ideas to challenge our thinking, are we really free, and do we still believe in free speech.

Recently Bill Clinton was speaking at a university when someone asked a challenging question. Clinton said something to the effect that “If you’ll shut up a minute I’ll answer your question.” That is odd – if someone who has an argument will cease and desist, then you can . . .  argue?  Argument is good, but friend, in the US it is gone. If you want to argue in a public venue you are seen as a hindrance to the common good, not a “team player.” And it you keep at it, you become a suspect, a security risk, or an enemy. It’s sad and sick when a free speech utterance ends with the words  “Don’t taze me!” (reference John Kerry speech)

 I feel that I’m to start street preaching, even simply reading the Bible in the public square. Maybe read excerpts of Dante’s Inferno. I will speak for, at the most, twenty minutes before the police will arrive. Even if I suddenly switch to reading from “The Cat in the Hat” I will be viewed with suspicion.

Funny, but it will not be perceived as a free speech issue, but as a oddity in our society. Why would any sane person want to shout anything on the streets? Let me ask you this: How do we know when free speech in America is gone? Do the authorities come at night with clubs and drag “the enemy” out of their homes like they did in the Soviet Union? I’m afraid we won’t be so noble as to deserve that kind of extinguishment.

Freedom is not gone only when it is snatched away by the state; it is also gone when it is no longer missed. Even more so, you know something is gone when the idea is so novel that it scares the common man. 

“Captain, I request permission to speak freely.”     Circle one answer.                                                               

• Request granted

• Request denied