Just don’t go …

There’s no law that says you have to listen to entertainers you don’t like, go to movies you don’t want to see, watch sports you don’t enjoy, or go to lectures and speeches you don’t want to hear.

You have the right to blow off any or all of these. 

That’s your God-given right as an American citizen. If there’s something on TV you don’t like, change channels. If there’s a book that offends you, don’t buy it.  If you don’t believe in God, fine; you don’t have to.  If you are offended by pro athletes kneeling during the national anthem, you don’t have to watch or go to their games. 

In short, you have the freedom to choose what you want to see, hear or buy.  But your freedom, as they say, begins and ends at the tip of your nose.   

I exercise my right to blow off things I don’t like all the time.  

You could give me free front-row seats to a Rolling Stones concert and I wouldn’t go.  I don’t like the Stones or their music and never have. Not one single song.  At the same time, I wouldn’t bother to talk anyone else out of going, much less prevent them from going. 

Just because I don’t like the Stones doesn’t give me the right to stop other people from going to their shows or buying their music. I don’t have that right. So, if you’re a big Stones fan I may not understand why, but hey, it’s your time and money.  Go for it. 

I’m constantly surprised so many people ignore their right to ignore something they don’t want to see, or avoid listening to something they don’t want to hear. More puzzling is why so many of them feel that just because something offends them, they have the right to decide that others shouldn’t be allowed to see or hear whatever that is.    

If you don’t want to see or hear something, don’t.  It’s that simple. You cross a line when you prevent others from even having that choice. 

What brought this up again was that recently some white supremacist booked a venue at the University of Florida to spew his nonsense.  Over 500 protesters showed up to heckle him, with some even getting tickets to his event so they could shout him down inside the hall.

For the life of me I don’t understand that.  

Sure, he’s got a First Amendment right to speak. He also paid to rent the venue.  That means he not only had the right to speak but also the right as a paying customer to use that facility. As a public university, the school had an obligation to let him do both.   

But nobody had an obligation to attend. So why did they?

What did the protesters hope to accomplish? To diminish him and his followers by showing how many people refuse to accept his racist rhetoric?     

Honestly, if nobody had showed up except for his handful of looney-tune followers wouldn’t that have accomplished exactly the same thing? 

By mounting massive protests and threatening violence, protestors elevated the media coverage of this loser. The university also piled on by spending more than $500,000 for enhanced security just in case things turned violent.  The governor of Florida even declared a state of emergency over this event.  That all made it the lead on nightly news broadcasts and online.   

If nobody had paid any attention to this loon in the first place, he’d be just another right-wing nutjob baying at the moon. Kind of like the jerks in a bar who’ve had too much to drink and want to hold court on their pet peeve. Sooner or later everybody just starts ignoring them. 

That’s what we all should be doing.  Instead of turning our backs on the purveyors of this crap, we give them more attention.  That only encourages the jackasses.  

That seems to be lost on the protesters. 

The tragedy in Charlottesville might never have happened if the counter protesters hadn’t come out in such numbers intent on causing a commotion.  The small number of far-right extremists would probably have just marched around a bit, spouted stupid drivel, and when nobody paid any attention would have skulked away back under the rock from which they came. 

But no.  By aggressively engaging and taunting the right-wing extremists, the counter protestors got what they apparently wanted – a full-fledged riot. It also unexpectedly culminated in the death of one of their own.  What the protesters didn’t realize is that they gave the handful of neo-Nazis and Klan wannabes there exactly what they wanted, too: widespread media coverage. 

The same thing happened at the University of Florida the other night. Hundreds of protesters gathered to challenge a couple dozen white supremacists, catapulting what would otherwise have been a silly evening of crackpot theories into the national spotlight. 

Okay, in their defense some talking heads will quote Edmund Burke, who said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Yet I suspect most of the protesters at UF or Charlottesville weren’t as high minded.  They were there for their own selfish reasons.  They wanted to act up under the pretense of opposing “evil” – which they believe gave them the freedom to break laws, violate the rights of others, and cause chaos.  It had little to do with stopping the “triumph of evil,” and more to do with smug, self-centered, self-righteous overreaction to inconsequential threats just to prove their own virtue.

And to become part of the news.  And part of a “movement.” Kind of a latter-day Woodstock for people to talk about with their like-minded friends for years. How brave they were to stand up to white supremacists and neo-Nazis.  How they risked life and limb to “do the right thing.”  

There was nothing brave in what they did either in Charlottesville or at UF.  It takes no guts to be part of a mob. It takes real courage not to join in. 

Whether it’s BLM, Antifa, far-left liberals, or middle-aged Madge and Tom reliving their glory days protesting the 60s draft, they are the new witch hunters who do more damage than the evil they are supposed to be preventing.

They are always on the lookout for new transgressors, or potential threats. It makes little difference if their targets have no more than a dozen lame-brained followers or the cause is completely nebulous, such as protesting racial injustice or income inequality, they are always ready with hand-painted signs, pepper spray and an excess of attitude to jump into the fray.   

They don’t realize what they are doing, and usually not what they want, either. It’s all about showing a “united front” against whatever.  Being part of the crowd.  And getting on the news.   

The world has changed since Burke. Now the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil and stupidity is excessive media coverage of those who should otherwise be ignored.

There’s plenty of real evil in the world that should command our attention.  ISIS, Al Qaeda, a nuclear North Korea, a nuclear Iran, human trafficking, and genocide come to mind. 

Some jerk who thinks we should kick out anyone who isn’t white isn’t up there.  Nor are monuments to Confederate soldiers, or the people who don’t want them removed.  

Get a life.  If you don’t want to hear someone or see something, don’t go. 

But leave everyone else alone to make their own choices. 

It really is that simple.