I imagine that lots of people would shake their heads at my crusade to repeal the “Casual Profanity” rule in the Spokane County Parks and Rec adult softball league. It seems pretty trivial, after all. What’s the big deal about curbing my language for a couple hours once or twice a week? Am I such a prolific and uncontrollable cuss that I can’t control my tongue for such a brief period of time?

Well, the answer is actually quite easy. The reason I’m taking on this little fight is:

• I’m an adult and like to be treated like one, without a nanny umpire telling me what I can and cannot say.
• The government doesn’t have the right to dictate what words I use in a softball game.
• The heavy-handed umpire restrictions are getting worse. Three weeks ago it was the F-Bomb. Two weeks ago it was “Shit”. Last week it was “Crap”. What’s it gonna be today?
• Oh yeah, there’s the little matter of the First Amendment.

Look, I’m not a big cusser, but occasionally I do let fly a colorful adjective, as is my right as a mature adult. I was happy to grant the government power over my speech for four years, because in most cases the power was not used, or used sparingly. But that power has been abused, and so now it must be taken away.

Once we realize that the government is really only interested in exercising power, the better off we all will be. Sure, some uses of that power are justified, and necessary, but there are way too many areas in which we have wrongly handed over our freedom to government in the interest of safety, security, or a cuss-free softball game.

It’s got to stop somewhere, don’t you think?

In a similar vein, John Stossel, writing for Reason.com notes that among some of the things at which government excels, lately it seems the most pervasive seems to be attacks on freedom.

Something’s happened to America, and it isn’t good. It’s become easier to get into trouble. We’ve become a nation of a million rules. Not the kind of bottom-up rules that people generate through voluntary associations. Those are fine. I mean imposed, top-down rules formed in the brains of meddling bureaucrats who think they know better than we how to manage our lives.

So maybe I’m making a big deal about cuss words and softball, but then again, perhaps we all should ask ourselves, “What freedom will we be losing next?”

I think in light of that, the question “Why fight to cuss?” pretty much answers itself.

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Tags: County, First Amendment, Free Speech, freedom, Liberty, softball

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 12:23 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.