Me thinks Ashley needs to have her wages garnished to support all of the "poor" people and leaches that she evidently doesn't realize exists! Granted, some of what she says may be true, but some of us are getting tired of being raped for the benefit of others who haven't paid into the system. When you are barely scraping by eating boloney because you have to pay most of your income into the system, and then you are behind a "family" in Walmart buying $300 worth of steaks with food stamps; then they pull out a roll of hundred dollar bills to buy cigarettes, CD's, and beer. Followed by carting their haul out to their 2008 Cadillac Escalade in the parking lot; while you take your 99 cent package of boloney out to your 1979 Ford Escort with bald tires. And then gee whiz, there isn't a little bit of "hate" boiling up inside????
Freedom of speech shouldn’t be misused
My Opinion
Ashley Nietfeld
Dodge City Daily Globe columnist
Freedom of speech is an American right that should never be taken for granted. We have the ability to speak out when we feel something is unjust, as protesters did this week in San Francisco in support of Tibet. Newspapers can print stories about corrupt politicians without fear of being shut down. Writers can pen novels about the horrors and desecration they face in a concentration camp, so people can understand the hate that boils beneath many others.
But what about when that right is taken for granted, and it's used to tell someone that their religion, sexuality, beliefs or ideals are wrong? When it's used to cut down somebody else or to make someone feel small and insignificant for expressing the truth about who they are? Is it still our right, or are we abusing a privilege given to us simply because we happen to live in the United States?
Nothing I've previously encountered prepared me for the blatant hatred I've seen in my job at the newspaper, when people call into our Globe Exchange to preach their ideals at the expense of others. Nameless neighbors degrading people they've never met, judging them based on something they never asked you to agree with in the first place.
And yet, how many anti-abortion activists will help a teenage girl tell her mother she's pregnant before the fear of disappointing her parents leads her into the clinic? How many of those who look down on users will support a drug or alcohol program that struggles to pay the rent? How many will mentor a teen who feels isolated before he picks up that gun?
It's always a lot easier to look down on people and judge them without hearing their story, without bothering to help them pick up the pieces.
Preaching about something won't make a difference. Telling an addict that what he's doing is wrong won't make him quit and won't make all the drugs in this world disappear. Complaining when a woman who speaks another language uses food stamps to purchase groceries for her family doesn't mean she's here illegally, and it won't keep her out of poverty or fix our broken welfare system.
I also know that this article won't make a difference to those who have already chosen to hate. It won't keep someone from turning to page three and remarking that the only people who commit crimes in Dodge City are Mexicans, ignoring the story on another page about the white man who's been raping his stepdaughter since she was seven. It won't keep a divorcee from flipping on the news and sneering that gays are trying to ruin the sanctity of marriage. It won't keep the thin, pretty teenage girl from mocking her overweight classmate who comforts himself with food whenever his parents start fighting again.
So why do I bother writing this? Well, I suppose I'm just exercising my own freedom of speech.