#JoinTheConversation

#CauseAndEffect

Oh, freedom of speech is certainly a fickle thing. The American Founding Fathers put this right in our constitution to ensure no government, society or church can impede a person's right to express their ideas and opinions without fear of reprisal from the government or censorship. This is a right that many people hold dear. It is our freedom to express our ideas that we establish our societal norms and boundaries.

Of course, we do still need to watch our tongues. We can't just decide that because we have said right that it gives us the liberty to slander a person's good name or disclose classified information that could cause harm. There is always a catch. My Dad always used to repeat the phrase "cause and effect." This mantra is even more important in the digital world where your opinion can come back and bite you ten, twenty and even thirty years in the future. Trust me, people do and will hold it against you.

Discounting laziness, if you gave me a choice of doing the right thing and not, I try to be a good person. However, there were many times when my ideas were not fully realized. Hence, my father telling me "Cause and effect Coral... cause, and effect." I remember one day in particular that stands out as the best example of this. A traveling carnival came to town. All week my school did not stop talking about it. At my age, my parents were not going to let me go on my own so they designated one of my sisters as my keeper for the day. Needless to say, she was not keen on watching me. Once we arrived, we separated from each other like we had the plague. I found my friends, a group of guys my age and older.

We had a blast. We got sick off kettle corn and cotton candy. We rode all the fastest, spinniest, and tallest rides. We chased each other around and played keep away with random people's stuff. Yes, we were assholes. We stayed until the park literally had to kick people out. I looked around for my sister, who was noticeably absent. So instead of doing the smart thing, which would have been to find a payphone and call my parents, I decided to walk. The guys also failed to figure out that perhaps this was a bad idea. Their suggestion was to walk with me to ensure I didn't get lost. How noble.

It was already dark and I assume we left on our journey some time after ten pm. Further down the main road was a golf course, and we may or may not have snuck in to see if we could find any golf balls. After being chased out by a security guard, we ended up back on the main road bound for my house. Fast forward several hours of walking, laughing, and talking, we finally turned down my street. To my shock, I saw several police cars flashing their lights around my house. My first thought was, "Oh no, I hope my mom is okay." (She was often sick.) The guys, of course, all took off once they saw the welcoming committee.

My mom and dad were livid, as they should be. My dad even said, "For being someone so smart, you don't think these things through, do you?" He was right. It didn't matter that I got As and Bs in school. Books were easy. The thought that my parents would wonder where I was did not cross my mind once. Here they were trying not to think about someone kidnapping me not to mention the thoughts of someone torturing and raping their little girl. The action of me not calling directly correlated with them fearing I was in danger.

This type of event is not a singularity. Since Dad drilled it into my head, it is often something that I think about before I click send. If someone like my boss or a client read what I wrote, how would they react? This is especially true when I am writing about something controversial. I love having my thoughts and positions challenged because it gets me to dig deeper into my reasoning. I am forced to validate or invalidate my own claims. It makes me become a better person because I am thinking outside of just accepting the status quo.

That doesn't mean that people always agree or even not get angry over the words, things, or actions I put online. While I try to remember to keep to facts and not attack a person's character because they believe in something different, there will always be the perpetually offended. The reason certain topics are so controversial is because those ideas are so woven into the fabric of who our society is, it is a direct challenge to a person's sense of self when they feel it is being attacked. While I see it as a challenge to the idea, they see it as more personal.

On one aspect they are correct, everything we do is personal. However, in our current state of society, people have become overly sensitive. We are seeing political correctness to the nth degree. In exchange, some parts of society have determined that they do longer want to balance on the tightrope of decorum because they just stopped caring. This means we have representatives of America that also stop caring about decorum and in the world of politics, the causality of bluntness can be war.