I want to kill you

Freedom of Expression Unchallenged

We’ve all said, or thought, something like that: “I could strangle him!”, “Someone needs to shoot her!” We’ve all made threats we never intended to carry out. We’ve all said things we didn’t mean.

With that, I am concerned about recent charges in the news: citizens are being arrested for threatening to kill Senator and Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama. Even a Fox News guest has joked about killing Obama, right after calling him “Osama.” (View video here.)

Local man charged with threatening Obama, The Charlotte Observer

Man Charged with Threatening to Kill Obama Appears in Court, The Washington Post

Though I find it disturbing and wrong, I am not surprised that people in our country would like to kill Obama, or Bush for that matter. Obama is threatening us with change and Bush has mired us in debt and war. Also, let’s not avoid the obvious– there are plenty of racist people who do not want to give any minority a chance to run our country.

For proof, here is a link to a video where the KKK’s International Grand Wizard, Ray Larson, claims that if Barack Obama is elected he will be assassinated. He says, “If that man is elected president, he’ll be shot sure as hell.” (View the video here.)

Search YouTube for “Antichrist.” The number of responses that include Obama is startling– and many of the videos are scary. There are blogs dedicated to this unsettling propaganda. Even Snopes.com  and UrbandLegends.com are getting in on the deal; so are the McCain Campaign and Time Magazine: An Antichrist Obama in McCain Ad? (Read the Snopes response to the accusation here and UrbanLegends’ response here.)

This type of behavior is pathetic and sickening and, though I completely disagree with all of these messages– hate, assassination, religious slander, blatant lies, racism, I want to remind us all of something very important:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
— The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Recent arrests make me wonder, is the government’s goal to police our thoughts? Will everyone– the guest on Fox News, the YouTube and Blog contributors, the racists whispering at their secret meetings– now be subject to arrest and imprisonment?

Speak up, listen up, act up.

As Charles M. Blow says in his recent New York Times Op-Ed, Racism and the Race, race may be a huge factor in this election– and that’s a sad shame.

So, while I will fight to support everyone’s right to say and believe what they want, because if we don’t use and stand up for our rights we risk losing them, I will also be shouting about equality.

We’re past this. We’re smarter than this. Voting against someone because of the color of their skin is horribly immature and hate-filled. Let’s do it, America. Let’s prove to the world that we have grown up. Let’s vote for change– real, all encompassing change.