You can’t be offended unless there’s a well-defined line, delineating between the socially acceptable and the taboo. No line, no offense. But finding where such a line exists is no easy task. Nor is finding who guards the line from the delicate and easily wilted.
Too often these days people speak of an uncrossable line. However, no line, however distant can survive without round-the-clock surveillance. Human beings are by their very nature a pushy bunch. They will push up against offensiveness unless there’s sufficient push back. Signs, while easily installed, are hardly adequate at stemming the revolt.
Did we learn nothing from Caesar’s Rubicon traversal? Had there been something of a meeting of swords on the banks of that Roman river, who knows what the results might have been. We have the change to make things right. We can secure the line with willing and able participants, who’ve devoted their lives to unromantic work. Cameras, like signs, are supplemental. Without a third party representing the core of civilized society, it won’t work.
A offensive line can be built with the cast offs from professional football. These country arm boys, whose shoulders skip their necks and go straight to their ears. People fortified by milk and cheese, reared in America’s true dairy land. Not many of us would choose to make a tasteless joke, no matter how hilarious, when staring into the eyes of a snorting three-hundred pounder. There needs to be someone to tell you when you’ve crossed the line. Or, better yet, show you.
You may say something you regret.
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