100/50 WORDS
You Can’t Have My Free Speech
Thrifty Word Challenge 100 Words #35: & 50 Words #56: Free Speech
There is a shed near my building, where temperatures are being taken of staff coming into work. People from different departments including myself have been drafted to sit in the shed for two hours to do this, taking temperatures and entering staff into a database on an iPad. It could be a very long two hours, but I found something to make the time go by. And that is The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, and the episode I listened to was, Free Speech and the Satirical Activist with guest Andrew Doyle.
As I sat in the shed for two hours with the beautiful weather outside, I listened to the two men talk, and the world outside wasn’t as bright as the sun would make me believe. There were shadows creeping along, looking to claim anything that would shine a light over humor, truth, even compassion. These shadows would rather you believe that they are all that existed, and that the light is wrong. The light would burn you not heal you, and it could not be trusted. And it didn’t matter how much light shined over the darkness because some people believed that it were demons dressed as sunlight while angels danced in darkness, and people’s perceptions are beyond frightening because you can’t argue with them. Your words are twisted around, and if you dare say something unapproved by them, then you must be destroyed, even killed. Nobody blinks at murder anymore. There was just a recent news story about a man shooting a young man in the face because he was asked to wear a face mask, and this man went home to get the gun, return to the scene and then shoot the young man because of the words spoken to him. And this man thinks himself an angel while the young man’s demonized. That is the kind of world we are living in now because we have to watch what we say, and in the meantime, our right to speak our minds, our thoughts and our hearts are under attack.
I had this vicious nightmare this morning. This man in a mask was bent on coming after me, and I don’t know what I did, if I even did anything. But he wanted to destroy me, and everyone in my dream that tried to protect me from him were not just killed, they were brutally killed. It was one of the most violent dreams that I ever had in a long time, and I never saw his face. All I knew was that he wanted to kill me, and in the end, I barely escaped.
So, I want to know for all of us now and the future leaders later, are we losing the fight to speak, to write our words, to even think what we want to think? Do we have to fear for our lives because we won’t conform to others and their beliefs? Where do you stand on Free Speech?
Please choose either the fifty-word or 100-word challenge, not both. See the guidelines for your chosen challenge below:
100 Words
50 Words
Remember, in order to be considered for the challenge, you need to write exactly 100 or 50 words (contractions such as ‘you’ll’ and ‘y’all’ count as one, as do articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ and all 23 auxiliary verbs ‘am’ ‘is’ ‘are’ etc. Hyphenated words count as one word.) The editors reserve the right to add or remove words to ensure the exact word count. Please keep an eye on your tags as laid out in the submission guidelines above.
Please use the kicker 100 WORDS or 50 WORDS and ‘Thrifty Words 100 Challenge #35: Free Speech or ‘Fifty Word Challenge #56: Free Speech as your subtitle and submit by 8pm EST on Friday 1st October. All stories submitted by the deadline will be released the next day in the weekly roundup.
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