The freedom to hate.
You can “hate” anyone you want as long as you don’t threaten, intimidate, or commit violence against the targets of your hate, right? Isn’t that right is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution?
It used to be. But who gives a crap about the Constitution when someone’s delicate feelings might be hurt by being called a name?
You have the freedom to be an idiot too. Two students at the University of Connecticut were seen on video walking through a student housing parking lot shouting the N-word. Yes, the two kids are morons. They deserve the disapprobation of their fellow students and their community.
But arrest them?
Two male UConn students were arrested in connection to a viral racial slur video, according to UConn Spokesperson Stephanie Reitz.
Reitz said the two students were charged under CGS 53-37, ridicule on account of creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality or race.
“A third person had accompanied them as they walked outside of the apartments, but the police investigation determined that individual had not participated in the behavior,” Reitz said.
UConn Police Department arrested 21-year-old Jarred Mitchell Karal, of Plainville; 21-year-old Ryan Gilman Mucaj, of Granby.
“Ridicule”? It’s now, apparently, a crime to be rude. You tell me if this warrants giving a kid a criminal record.
Police said the video was taken by one of the witnesses inside the apartment. Police said an investigation showed that the males walked back through the apartment complex after leaving a local business and played a game in which they yelled vulgar words.
“As they walked through the parking lot, Mucaj and Karal switched to saying a racial epithet that was heard by witnesses,” police said. “The investigation revealed the third male did not participate.”
Once the video went viral, the racial grievance industry revved into overdrive. Demonstrations, wild, hysterical calls for “action” — all on a account of a couple of idiot kids playing an idiot game mindlessly shouting words into the empty air. And that’s their crime; they said the wrong words and hurt people’s feelings.
Except it was caught on video. And since it’s now a crime to be stupid, they were arrested.
It’s wrong to use the N-word — always and forever. And it’s wrong to hate. There’s no place for it in America. But the day the government can invade your mind and deem what you think to be a crime, we might as well import Kim Jong-un to run the country.
Has anyone ever asked what we lose when we criminalize “behavior”? Or make “ridicule” a criminal offense? If we can criminalize this, what else can we make it illegal to say or do?
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