David McElroy

After slaves were freed in the United States in the 19th century, how much really changed for them? For the most part, they worked on the same land, did the same labor and worked for the same plantation owners. How exactly did their lives change when they were told they were free?

The slaves in the United States had worked hard and had nothing to show for their work. When we look at the sharecropping contracts they signed after they were allegedly free, it’s clear that their lives were just as controlled as they had been before. The only difference was that they now had a piece of paper that said they were free.

If you look at the typical sharecropping contract they signed, it’s clear that they didn’t have a chance to change their lives. They were leasing small tracts of land from the plantation owner. They went into debt — to the plantation owner — for the tools and animals they needed to work the land. They were required to mill the cotton at his cotton gin at a specified price. They were required to pay back the money for the tools out of the first cotton of the season. If there was anything left over, they could buy their own food, of course. But the plantation owner had the right to end the contract and kick them off any time he wanted.

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There was a time when I was mostly worried about politicians lying to me. These days, I’m just as afraid of the vicious lies from political activists, online and otherwise. The ones who know they’re lying are bad enough, but the really scary ones are those who are so full of hatred that they have no room for nuance — or even truth.

Truth can be a nebulous concept to an angry person. For someone who is filled with rage and is convinced that the other side — whichever that “other side” might be — consists of evil people, anything is justified as long as he strikes out at those enemies. If he lies a little in spreading his message, well, the other sides is even worse about that. Besides, since it’s the only way to get people to listen to the ultimate truth, a little lying is justified to get their attention.

You can’t just give a reasoned opinion today if you want to be heard. You have to scream. You have to be angry. You have to demonize the people who disagree with you. If you try to be reasonable and understand why different people see the world in ways that are different from your ways, the truth is that your voice is going to get lost in the crowd. It’s going to take a lot longer to be heard. It’s a lot more work and there are fewer immediate rewards.

So many people who write and speak to the world politically take short cuts. They lie when it suits their needs. They don’t worry about little things such as fairness. They don’t worry about holding themselves to a higher standard than they expect of “the enemy.” And they scream their message to a willing audience that’s angry, too, and will amplify the message by way of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media tools.

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I’ve come to the conclusion that most people are confused about what “free speech” means. It seems as though rude people want to use it as a way to avoid the consequences of their rudeness. I think it’s time we realized what free speech really means — and I also think it’s time for more of us to stand up for public civility.

In a discussion on my Facebook page, a woman decided to act out her childhood anger with people where she grew up by calling everybody in the state “inbreds.” I told her that she was being rude and insulting to others, in addition to being inaccurate. After a few minutes of a thread involving six or eight people — all letting her know she was in the wrong — she finally played her trump card.

“What happened to free speech?” she whined.

Nothing happened to free speech, but as my friend Ike Pigott responded, “Speech is free, the consequences aren’t.”

We’ve become a rude and mean society, with many people believing that it’s acceptable to verbally trash others at will — and also believing that they’re being infringed upon if anyone calls them on the behavior. Sometimes the rudeness is political. Sometimes it’s cultural or based in some form of “tribalism.” And other times, it’s just based on saying what feels good at the moment, for various emotional reasons.

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