Your right not to be offended is not ensured by anyone

It's ironic that Penny Arcade should address this issue only a day before I should come face to face with it in noteworthy fashion. In reality, I run up against it on a daily basis, but read on.

On Tuesday, I went to my biweekly writer's meeting, which was held this time at a Panera bread restaurant. We had reserved the room in advance for 7:00.

At 7:00, the Plum Borough PTA was still in the room, and their reaction to our polite requests to wrap it up so we could come in was to be belligerent and outright lie by claiming that Panera did not allow the room to be reserved (this, in spite of a huge sign saying, "reserve this room by ...")

Standing outside the room, waiting for the store manager to throw the bums out, I was pretty hot. I grew up in Plum, and I've never been much of a fan of how things are done there, so I had some choice words for Plum and their arrogant PTA.

(In particular, what kind of kids are being raised by a group that thinks they run the fucking world, and feels that deception is a valid method for getting what they want? I feel sorry for those kids for all the therapy they'll need.)

As we were entering the room apon their departure, a man I've never met before took me aside. Turns out he was greatly offended by my language (and I assume, by me badmouthing the mothers of Plum). He wanted an apology to his wife and son who were sitting nearby.

Apparently, I was being louder than I realized. I had not intended my statements to carry beyond the group of friends I was speaking to.

In any event, I apologized to the man and his family, because ... why not? I mean, I hadn't meant to disrupt their dinner ... they weren't causing me grief and I was honestly sorry to have drawn them into the ensuing drama in any way.

However, I feel sorry for the man. He seems to think that he has the right not to be offended. That's not true. If it were, I'd be able to file dozens of lawsuits each day against people who offended me. Furthermore, he seems to think that someone complaining about stuck-up, arrogant mothers from Plum is worth taking a stand against. Apparently, he never watches the news. If you're going to be offended enough to make a stand, there are far worthier causes than my big mouth.

Really, though, what kind of idiot thinks they've earned the right or privilege not to be offended? How can I get in on that? I mean, I'm a white male, and I find the way people treat me insulting and offensive on a daily basis. Guess what I don't have: anyone who gives a fuck.

I mean, if you're in a minority group, be glad that someone cares enough to want to protect your from insult and offense. As a white male, I'm apparently supposed to put up with whatever insult is lobbed my way. Apparently I'm some sort of privileged class that has earned the ire of everyone.

If your skin is so damned thin that you can't take a few dozen insults per day, you're not going to survive this world.

Beyond that, every time you demand that someone not insult you, you're violating their right to free speech. I mean, the right to free speech is guaranteed by the US constitution and other documents in other governments. I'm not aware of any legal document that guarantees your "right not to be offended."

If we truely wanted to enforce a "right not to be offended," it would make communication utterly impossible. I mean, every time someone uses the term "hacker" to mean "criminal", I'm offended in much the same way as a homosexual would be if the term "gay" were used in a derogatory manner.

Get over it, for crying out loud. I mean, for some reason it's OK to insult the entire hacker community (I mean, the mainstream media even uses the term in a derogatory manner!) but if I happen to accidentally insult an alternate lifestyle group, I'm the devil. How much will it take before every word in the English language is unusable because someone has attached a negative connotation?

How would the thin-skinned feel if the mainstream media said things like, "The cult called the Protestant Church was involved today in ..." ... because that's pretty much how I feel every time I pick up a newspaper or turn on the news!

I was going to take a job teaching computers a while back. Early in the process, I found that I was forbidden from using the terms "master" and "slave" while teaching, despite the fact that official documentation of the technology I would be teaching used those terms!

I'm not belittling the problems that various groups have had under the cruel hands of the ruling majority. I'm not denying the cruelty of kids in high school.

What I am saying is that it's going too far when the emotionally fragile infringe on other's right to free speech.

On top of that, as Gabe and Tycho demonstrate, it's outright impractical.