by Corey Widdison

Created on: May 18, 2009   Last Updated: May 21, 2009

Holy cow! Has everyone adapted a thin skin or what? Recently our President of the United States of America was on the Jay Leno show. While there, he said an off color joke suggesting that his bowling score was so bad it was only good enough for the Special Olympics. Obviously that was not a good thing to say and he apologized for it. But that was just not enough. Since then, it seems like everyone has been saying how horrible that was and how offended they were that he would say such things. Everyone is so up in arms you would think that this was the first time anyone had ever been offended. How about we just let it go already.

If we are going to get offended at something like this, then where does it stop? Do you get mad and demand that someone apologize to you or change their behavior every time you are offended? And if you are offended, isn't that your problem anyway? Maybe I am a little bit cold, or maybe we are getting a little too sensitive. There are a whole lot of people around us, and a whole lot of different ideas out there. Everyone seems to think that their idea is the only one that should be heard and the rest of us should go along with it.

Sorry to tell you, but I bet you would find that there are a lot of people who find what you think, and say, and do to be offensive. Who is to say who gets their way? Who's feelings are more important, yours or theirs?

Lets just say for example that you are around some people who are your same race, but these guys hate every other race, and the things that they are saying are offending you big time. What do you do? You may feel that because they are racists that they should be stopped, and no longer allowed to say what they have been saying. You might even think that it is your right to make sure they can no longer say such things. After all, they are racist scum, right? Now lets flip things around a bit. Lets say that you are discussing with a friend your feelings on religion and someone near you gets offended by what you are saying because they are atheist. Do you think it is reasonable that they should be able to stop you from talking?

This is the kind of thing that really just gets my goat. I hear people all the time say how much they love freedom of speech and how grateful they are to live in a place where they can speak their minds. Then they turn right around and tell someone else that their swearing is offending them and they can't say such things in their presence. I wonder if that person ever thinks that instead of trying to force someone to comply with you, maybe they could just walk away from the situation. I know, I know. Sometimes you can't just walk away. You are stuck. Well, if you can't walk away, can't you just do that thing that grandma always talked about? Man up! How about instead of choosing to be offended we realize that not everyone thinks the same way you do and make a choice to ignore them instead. Nope, we have been babied far too much for that to happen. We think that we are the only ones who matter and everyone should be offended when we are and do the things we want them to do. Well that's just not the way things are, buddy.

There used to be this word people talked a lot about. That word was tolerance. Tolerance has become somewhat of a bad word as of late. We say it like it means weakness. Well it's not. Tolerance is what keeps us from going to war with each other every time we disagree.

All I am saying is try not to be so offended so much, especially if you want your speech to be free. They have already taken God out of school, and who knows what's next. If it's good for the goose it's good for the gander. Don't try to shut someone up if you don't want them to shut you up.

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