Defending my right to offend

As a result, I take both the bravos and the beratements with a grain of salt. On the one hand, it's survival mode (no one enjoys receiving irate messages on their answering machine from readers so incensed at them they actually forget to leave a number where they can be reached!); on the other hand, it enables me not to worry too much about how readers may react and just write about what's on my mind.

An honest opinion will always resonate with people; it will touch them, infuriate them, excite them, move them, perplex them, but it will never leave them cold. And I can't think of a worst fate for a column than to leave you, the reader, cold.

The funny thing is... I seem to be an equal opportunity insulter when it comes to language issues in this province and the narrow-minded battles that constantly ensue. I have received just as many angry emails from the Mouvement Montréal Français and Les Jeunes Patriotes, as I have from Galganov supporters and Canadians Against Enforced Bilingualism (a lovely bunch of Ottawa-based anglos who have made it their life's work to circulate emails bemoaning the plight of unilingual anglos in Canada and their inability to snag any bilingual government jobs). I am talking about letters I couldn't possibly print in a community paper.

Here's the deal, people. You can't claim that you support free speech "as long as it doesn't offend anyone or hurt someone's feelings". You may not always like what I have to say. It may offend your sensibilities and your faith in what you believe to be true, but that's how free speech works. The very purpose of this constitutional right is not to protect popular speech (why would something popular need protecting anyways?) but to protect speech that is unpopular, perceived as "wrong", possibly offensive or even hurtful. In short, my right to express myself freely entails my right to offend you.

You are free to do the same. I welcome letters to the editor disagreeing with me, as long as they are fit to print and have a point to make. Simple insults won't do. I once found my name mentioned in a blog written by a Republican sympathizer in reference to a column I once wrote criticizing the Bush administration, in which I was referred to as "a Commie, terrorist sympathizing French scumbag, hater of the U.S." Although this person's insults managed to reduce the debate to childish name-calling, said author is still entitled to say what they want. I really don't mind.

Controversial scribe Salman Rushdie once said: "The idea that any kind of free society can be constructed in which people will never be offended or insulted is absurd. Democracy is not a tea party where people sit around making polite conversation. In democracies people get extremely upset with each other and argue vehemently against each other’s positions."

While I don't go out of my way to offend someone, I certainly won't censor myself from stating my opinion from fear of offending. On your end, it’s no big deal to support the free speech of somebody you agree with or whose opinion leaves you indifferent. The true test of how you feel about free speech takes place when someone says something you can’t stand. How do you feel about it then?