The Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris on January 7 brings into focus a common theme pervading our culture…the “right” to not be offended. The jihadists who gunned down a dozen people for publishing offensive cartoons may have used the most extreme measure to intimidate, but the impetus—“thou shalt not offend me”—infects almost every line of discourse in society today.

When we begin to talk about free speech, people often retreat to a defensive argument that it’s not a violation of free speech unless the government inhibits speech[1]. But, free speech is more than just freedom from government interference. If people do not feel free to speak their mind due to the threat of retaliation, then speech cannot possibly be said to be “free” regardless of whether or not a law has been passed.

It must be pointed out that being “offended” is an emotion, and we are (or should be) in control of our emotions. The hurtful impact of words comes from within YOU, not from the external source of those words. When your mother told you, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you,” she wasn’t lying to you. She was describing how an adult SHOULD handle hateful speech in a mature and reasonable nature.

Have words ever made me angry? Yes. Have I sometimes lashed back in anger? Yes. Getting angry was not wrong; letting my anger affect my response was wrong. It is still wrong.

Should people generally try to be civil and not “give offense” to others? Absolutely. The world would be a better place if we all treated each other with more respect. HOWEVER, we can go a long way toward making the world a better place if we refuse to allow other people’s words to cause us to lash out—especially to the point of hunting down and killing those who offended us.

Is it permissible to condemn hateful speech? Of course! The same freedom of speech exercised by someone to utter hateful speech gives us the right to tell those people they are being hateful. Or, to put it another way, the freedom that someone has to call you a bootlicker is the freedom you have to call them a whingy coward[2].

This applies to discussions of religion, video games, political causes, the environment, race relations…everything. We must be free to speak our mind about anything, or we are free to speak our mind about nothing.

[1] Of course, there are more and more people calling for government inhibition of free speech through hate speech laws, hate crime laws, etc. My position on that argument should be made abundantly clear through this post.

[2] I’m trying to keep this post PG. The insults hurled around on Twitter and other places are much, much worse.