Freedom Breeds Confidence

For those of you that did not hear, I have a shocking news story that could only happen in California. However, I still would not have believed it unless I had heard it for myself:

Daniel Galli and his four friends were wearing Patriotic T-shirts to school as they do on a frequent basis. They were sitting at Lunch when the vice principal approached them and asked them to turn their shirts inside-out, because it was Cinco de Mayo and the vice principal said that their shirts were insensitive to Mexican Americans. He said this was supposed to be their holiday. When the boys refused, they were sent to the principal’s office. The principal then threatened to suspend them if they didn’t comply. So, the five of them returned home and changed their clothing. When interviewed by the News Media, one Mexican American girl said, “I think they [the boys] should just apologize… We don’t deserve to get disrespected like that. We wouldn’t do that on the Fourth of July.” (http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Students-Wearing-American-Flag-Shirts-Sent-Home-92945969.html)

When I was watching this story online yesterday, I wanted to walk right through my laptop and scream at this girl: “You airhead! What kind of logic do you call what you just said? These boys (who largely represent Conservative America, in my opinion) wouldn’t care if you did wear a Mexican shirt on the Fourth of July.” I wanted to tell her that we conservatives are not self-conscious like she is. We are not self-conscious as she insinuates we would or should be. This girl’s family likely came to America, the land of opportunity, to seek a better life. They came to a land that is the land of opportunity because it’s based on certain principles. One of those principles, among so many others listed in the Constitution, is freedom of expression.
The principal, vice principal, this girl, and many like them don’t seem to understand the way our patriotism and our pride in this country give us the self-confidence to recognize other people’s rights. At Utah’s annual Veteran’s Day Conference every November, anti-war protestors stand outside and shout offensive and ‘insensitive’ things at the men and women who have and are putting their lives on the line so these protestors can stand outside and be jerks. When they do this, the veterans and those of us with family members and friends who have served, or are serving, in the military have the self-confidence to ignore the protestors and recognize their right to protest. We have the self-confidence to realize that what other people think of us does not determine our happiness.
Yet, when four boys want to exercise their Constitutional right to, in a sense, say how grateful they are for that Constitutional Right, the school administrators and this girl start whining like spoiled bratty little kids and saying that they don’t like American shirts on their holiday, and that these boys should have to give in to their temper tantrums. These people don’t value freedom. They don’t value it because they’ve already surrendered their freedom to other people to determine how happy they are.