Listen up, angry drivers and rebellious teenagers! Did you know that in the United States, it’s a violation of your free speech rights for a police officer to punish you for giving him the finger? Well, now you know.That’s still probably not the best idea. For starters, enraging people who carry semiautomatic pistols is rarely a smart move, and anyway Emily Post says it’s rude to give anyone the finger — your grandmother would be so embarrassed.
But I’m concerned that fewer and fewer people understand that not all bad things are illegal — and fewer still appreciate why that’s a valuable distinction which protects our freedom to do good things. When it comes to crimes, the government can exact a physical punishment — it can literally put the guilty person’s body behind bars to be guarded by armed men and women. It’s the ultimate deprivation of liberty short of being killed. That sort of power should be reserved for clear instances of wrongdoing to society that virtually everyone agrees can’t be accepted — murder, theft, rape.
The Trudeau salute we westerns know all about that
Classy.