How to Mess with the Thought Police 

Okay, I was sitting in the dining hall eating a bowl of soup (as if you care), and I somehow started thinking about campus speech codes. You know, the ones that deem certain words offensive and create protected groups. At one of the floor meetings, my RA told us that we couldn't say things like "that's gay" or "that's retarded" because "you never know who you're offending." That seemed a little strange to me, because that means anything that offends a large number of people can be considered hate speech. I wonder what would happen if I started an organization to protest the name of the school because the word "Syracuse" is offensive to us. We wouldn't even say why it's offensive, but we'd try and get a petition with 1000 signatures saying that the name of the school is hate speech and should be changed. Hey, if it offends enough people, it must be offensive, right? We could even come up with some stupid reasoning for the argument. "In our group's secret language, the word 'Syracuse' is a derogatory term for Mexicans. That's not very nice. We need to change it!" Would they have to change the name of the school because it offended us? It's a stupid reason to be offended, but none of this so-called "hate speech" is really that bad in context. I can understand certain words offending people, but every group shouldn't get special protection just because they're different. In any case, that's how these words started. Somebody decided to use a certain word to insult a group of people, others started using it, and it eventually became "hate speech." What I find odd, however, is that not everyone is protected from being offended. Here's an interesting example of hypocrisy: I'm overweight. If somebody wanted to call me fat, or fatty, or some other annoying word, they could get away with it. That's not right by their own logic. Every group should be protected! I'm rambling again, but this was just an interesting thought. Could you make a word hate speech just by saying that it offends you? I encourage college students to try this one out. By the way, I really am overweight, but I don't go crying to the authorities whenever someone makes a fat joke. I just deal with it. Other people should learn to do the same. One more note: The counter's at 40! I'm impressed. People still aren't staying very long, but it's good to know that someone is actually looking at my work.