Her words cut deep, but she has the right to say them.
The focus of this month’s journal entries have been political in nature. Today’s entry is no exception. I can write about such things because we have freedom of speech. Our Founding Fathers were supreme champions of freedom of speech. But we should never forget that Alexander Hamilton was shot over something he said. Because in their infinite wisdom our Founding Fathers also gave us the second amendment, the right to bear arms, which is a reminder that while we can pretty much do and say whatever we want-you better watch it, buddy! I own two guns and am a big supporter of the second amendment as well. But I digress… No one knew the hazards of freedom of speech better than Victoria Woodhall, a leader in the woman’s suffrage movement in the early 1870s. Woodhall was the editor of her own newspaper and ran articles about how to perform abortions, the best way to operate a brothel, and how to talk to the dead. She was arrested in 1872 on federal obscenity charges. Woodhall is one of the women included in the book the Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Outlaw Women of the Mid-west. She pushed, bent, and stretched the boundaries of free speech further than any other woman I’ve ever researched. If she were alive today she would be voicing her opinion about free speech as much as the law would allow. I believe she would have taken the side of those free-speechers who always argue the slippery-slope: if you muzzle free speech, before you know it, we’re living in 1984 and Big Brother is picking out our ties. Those seeking to control free speech, on the other hand, argue that if we allow Johnny Soulpatch to burn the flag, before you know it, we’re living in “Lord of the Flies” and Piggy is fighting for his life. But I have to believe there is a middle ground between government rule and mob rule. A place where only those who can make obscure references to literature, art and pop culture on their weekly cable show will be allowed to speak freely. A utopia… if you will. Throughout history many country have not agreed with our freedom of speech practice. Even in the late 1800s it seems America’s enemies saw our diversity of opinion regarding that right as evidence that we’re weak and divided, (that’s what Woodhall thought too and one of the items she pointed out when she ran for President of the United States) but it is the very presence of a vibrant marketplace of ideas that ensures our continued survival. That, and the high-tech weapons that can lock in on the glint off a scimitar from five thousand miles away. What annoys me about all this is why even the most repugnant ideas, like some of those Ms. Woodhall clung to, receive the same freedom of expression as more accepted ones? Perhaps it’s because the American system is less a “free marketplace” of ideas than it is a playground. And the best way to dispense with unpopular ideas is to let them roam free, so they can be kicked up and down the jungle gym by the cool ideas. I have no problem with people who respond to what they don’t agree with. I enjoy the drama of a toppled podium and the sound of microphone feedback as much as the next guy. What I do have a problem with are the people who fail to see the glaring hypocrisy of screaming the words “shut up” into a bullhorn. Take for example a young woman who was once my niece. She has the right to tell me that she “hates me, never wants to have anything else to do with me ever,” and demand that I stop “cyber stalking her.” The hypocrisy is that several days later she’s reviewing my entry on Linkedin. We’re not always going to like what someone has to say to us or put in print, but I, along with people like Victoria Woodhull would fight to the death their right to do so.
