(Photo generated by AI)

Editor’s Note: All Opinion articles reflect the opinion of the writer only, not The Messenger or Johnson County Community College. JCCC students interested in writing for The Messenger’s Opinion page can contact us at themessengerjccc@gmail.com.

By Richelle Wagner

On February 26, Johnson County Community College’s student media site, The Messenger, ran an op-ed titled “USAID – A Murder” written by Cash Navarro. Two days later, I submitted my rebuttal, “Inflation Is The Real Killer, Not Spending Cuts.” A full 6 weeks later, it was finally published. In that time, I was offered a staff position, an editor resigned, and a dossier of my supposedly “offensive” social media posts was sent to the faculty advisor. I haven’t seen the dossier, and was never told who compiled it. When my piece was finally published on April 16, it was under “guest author” – no pay, no staff position – because I refused to censor my personal social media. This is my answer to whoever tried to cancel me. “I’m a free American, I can talk about what I like to.” – Dave Smith

What Happened
After submitting my opinion piece, I was invited to apply to become a staff member. I did, and on March 14, I was offered the position. The Editor-In-Chief emailed me saying, “Going forward, your main point of contact will be our Opinion Desk Editor.” I never did hear a word from him about my piece or anything else. I did receive some notifications that social media pages of mine (that I hadn’t posted on in a while) were getting an unusually high number of views. It did cross my mind that someone was poking into my social media history, but I shrugged it off. I stand by everything I’ve ever said or written. On April 2, I got word that he had resigned from The Messenger. Finally, the editing process was moving forward on my piece. Then I got a surprising email from the Student Media Advisor, on April 7, entitled “Questions about Social Media posts.” I was informed of the staff handbook for the first time, including the following section.

“Messenger employees should practice common sense when posting to social media sites. You are always an ambassador of The Messenger, the SNC and this college, whether you are at work or not. If your words or images are something you wouldn’t associate with your own byline, do not post it. Do not give others a chance to use your words against you.”

Later that day, I spoke to the advisor on the phone. He informed me that someone had sent him a compilation of my social media posts, concerned they would be offensive if connected to The Messenger. Someone had done some extensive research. I asked if this had to do with the opinion desk editor resigning. He said he could not comment on personnel matters.

The advisor’s position was that posts I had made before being a staff member were none of his business, but he was concerned about what I posted going forward. He asked me if I would be comfortable living under the social media guidelines in the handbook, while acknowledging that they were vague. I decided not to be on staff, to forgo payment for my piece, and be a guest author, because I was not going to censor myself. 

The advisor and I had a nice, long talk. I didn’t feel like he was being malicious, but trying to deal with a tricky situation. He advised me to clean up my social media for the sake of my career. I’m sure he thought he was giving me good life advice, but I was not going to take it. I don’t want to live in a society where people have to be careful about what they say. I want people who get complaints like these to tell the complainer to grow up. You can’t go through life never being offended, and the earlier you realize that, the better. 

What does it mean to be offended?

A social norm is a rule (usually unwritten) about how people should behave. We all have a different set of social norms in our heads. You would be hard pressed to find even two people with the same exact set. When someone else violates one of these rules that we ourselves live by, we get offended. In the past, when we lived in small villages with one culture and a close-knit social fabric, people would enforce these norms on each other. A punishment could be a weird look, a criticism, or even shunning. This was effective in maintaining that group’s culture, and we can see that today in the Amish.

Today, we live in a culturally diverse society, with lots of different opinions on what the rules should be. If I went around criticizing every single person I saw who wasn’t living up to my personal standard, I would be at it all day, every day. The only people I try to impose norms upon on my children, and even they argue with me. 

So when someone tells me that I’ve said something that has offended them, my response is “That sounds like a personal problem.” To take it to such an extreme that you are afraid of who you are associated with is cult-like behavior. Cults have such strong social control that they can doom-spiral into deadly dynamics. 

A better response 

So instead of being concerned about having me, a person who says “offensive” things, associated with The Messenger, I wish the faculty advisor had taken a step back and realized that this standard is ridiculous, and that the person complaining was the problem, not me. He should never have advised me to censor myself. I shouldn’t have had to make this choice. 

Stochastic Terrorism

My instinct, when I see an opinion article I disagree with, is to write a rebuttal. I didn’t send a sternly written email to the school demanding that the article be taken down. Though it could be argued that Navarro’s article skirted the line of incitement to violence.

“Yet that is all the justification needed to put literally millions in harm’s way? That’s because this isn’t about corruption, it’s about power, and taking this is the first of what I can assure will be many massive acts by Musk and Trump. Do expect this to become a trend if nothing is done about it.”

And just 20 days later, violence was perpetrated against a Tesla dealership. The left loves stochastic terrorism when they’re the ones doing it. But if someone on the right makes an honest argument for a policy they are falsely accused of violent speech. 

One-Sided Propaganda

A college, and by extension its student media, should reflect a marketplace of ideas, not a monoculture. A publication that claims to represent students must include ideological diversity, or it’s just propaganda. The moment a paper starts purging dissenters, it ceases to be a journalistic institution and becomes a mouthpiece for left-wingers. When young journalists are taught that dissent is dangerous and conformity is safe, the future of the free press is at risk. Journalists need to be brave and stick their necks out to speak truth to power, no matter whose feelings get hurt, because the public has a right to know the facts and hear all sides of the argument so they can make their minds up as informed citizens. If the colleges teach students that it’s best to shrink themselves and be careful what they say, how will our future journalists do the hard work? They won’t, and that’s why we’ve seen such a decline in mainstream media audiences. People don’t want to hear the same approved talking points ad nauseam. That’s why podcasters who flout the rules of respectability have become so popular. That genie isn’t going back in the bottle. People have options; they aren’t limited to three TV channels anymore. 

A Clear Distinction

We need to make a very clear distinction between legitimate bigotry, of discriminating against individuals because of their immutable characteristics, and criticism of actions or ideas. When the woke want to talk endlessly about race, ethnicity, gender, etc., it’s lauded as a needed conversation. But when a conservative merely mentions these issues, they are accused of racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, etc. As a consequence, these words have become meaningless. It’s a double standard used to suppress conservative speech. 

Incitement of violence, threats, defamation, and harassment are not protected speech. I have not committed any of those crimes, and to my knowledge, I have not been accused of them. This is the standard by which a public school should be operating under. A private institution can choose not to print ideas that go against its ethos. But the government can’t do that; that’s the cost of taking taxpayer money. If the left wants an ideologically pure college, they should open a private school and pay for it themselves. 

A Tactic to Suppress Political Speech

Cancel culture is a tactic to suppress the political speech of one side, and it worked very well, until it didn’t. Years of capitulation led to a culture of fear, few people dared to speak their minds freely. It’s quite sickening how many messages I have received over the years secretly agreeing with me, while confessing they are too afraid to publicly lend me their support. I lost relationships with family and friends and got cut off by people because I refused to keep quiet, and always spoke the truth as I saw it. That’s a price I’m willing to pay.

The Marketplace of Ideas

The left don’t argue on the facts, they can only make emotional appeals. That’s why they tell their followers not to consume any media that strays from progressive doctrine, even 1%. And they try to stop others from hearing conservative ideas at all. It’s how they pushed the Overton window so far to the left so quickly. But their tactics created a backlash, people got sick and tired of the woke mob going after reasonable people. They lost the moderates with their extreme cult-like fanaticism. Cancel culture only works when they have the perception of being the majority. And for a long time, they kept up that appearance because they scared so many into silence. 

Cancel Culture Was Effective

The tactic has been surprisingly effective, until it wasn’t. Maybe it was the attempted assassination of President Donald J Trump, or maybe it was that our President won the popular vote. But conservatives have finally realized that we are the silent majority, and shouldn’t be silent and scared anymore. I used to be one of few voices willing to go against the seemingly overwhelming majority opinion. But now it seems to have flipped. I scroll Facebook and see a political post I disagree with, and wanting to make a counter-argument, I look at the comments and see three of their friends have beaten me to it! Where were all these people before? They were silently watching, and now they feel safe enough to stick their heads up and make their opinions known. We are no longer going to let the bus be driven by the very small minority of woke lunatics who spend every waking moment of their lives screeching about how offended they are. 

But giving porn to children is fine?

The left will get offended and demand the censorship of anyone who has ever expressed a political opinion they disagree with, but at the same time cry wolf anytime there are reasonable restrictions put on public school teachers from providing pornographic materials to young students. Not only is it illegal to provide minors with pornographic materials, but it needs to be a fireable offense for a teacher to provide it to elementary school students. Taxpayer money shouldn’t be used to purchase such pornographic materials for elementary school students. Often, when concerned parents share photographs of these books, their posts are taken down from social media platforms because they are deemed too explicit. The same thing happens when a parent goes to a school board meeting and reads out the explicit material given to their child. Their mic is cut, and they are told that what they are saying is too explicit to be spoken at a school board meeting. Examples: here, here, here, and here. This happened to our very own Carrie Schmidt of Johnson County, one of many examples throughout the country. Excuse me, but how do we have no ability to protect our children from porn in public schools, but you assume the right to tell me, an adult, what to post on my personal social media, while being a staff member of the student newspaper? If I was creating porn that would be fine, it’s only because I have the “wrong” political opinions that they want me censored. I will not censor myself, and I will not be a member of any organization that demands that of me. 

Law is Downstream from Culture

My situation seems to sit in a legal gray area. But whether or not this is a legal act, whether or not the constitution protects me from it, we should have a culture that makes such tactics unthinkable and ineffective. It should be taboo to even suggest that an article shouldn’t be published because you don’t like something they posted on their personal social media. Digging through someone’s internet history to try to find something to feign offense to, in an obvious attempt to silence their political opinion, should be met with laughter, not concern. We should think of them as poor, misguided cult members who have lost their faculty of reason. We can’t allow our public discourse to be limited by the chronically offended. We can not allow ourselves to be a society ruled by the loudest complainers.