To: Ms Yvette Felarca

Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School

North Berkeley, California

From: Sgt. Mom

Re: Selective Application of the Right to Free Speech

1. It saddens me that I must inform a member of the teaching profession that the right to free speech – with certain exceptions for slander/libel, incitement to break the law, and falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater – is inalienable. It is certainly not within the rights of you or your so-called organization to make decisions regarding the exercise thereof by organizations of which you do not approve. I know, this may come as somewhat of a surprise to you.
2. It is also a misguided notion for you and your so-called organization to enforce your judgement by exercising physical, organized violence upon those expressing opinions which you have ordained as unfit. This establishes an extremely bad and dangerous precedent in the civic life of this nation. I would suggest that you review the political and social history of Weimar-era Germany, with special attention to the party-based brawling which led to breakdown of a sort-of-stable social situation and the rise of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, or acquaint yourself with this history, if such study has not been included in your previous education.
3. By the way, do not assume from the tenor of this memo that I therefore approve or disapprove of Nazis, self-appointed social justice warriors, censors of any political stripe, the KKK, Donald Trump, freaks like the Westboro Baptist Church, or Twitter and Facebook mobs descending upon your employer threatening you, your employer and your students. I merely wish to emphasize to you and other community organizers what a horrifically bad idea you are endorsing.
4. But having established the precedent that organized violence is an appropriate response to those whose political and social opinions you disapprove of, you have opened a particular dangerous can of worms; that persons who disapprove of your own political sympathies may respond in kind with perfect justification. As you deal, so will you be dealt with – and you will have no basis for complaint, having chosen to overturn a painfully-struggled for convention in American political life that violence against a political opposition is off the table. It is a slippery slope, this business of physically attacking other people, merely for exercising their rights.
5. Hoping that you will consider these words carefully and take them to heart – although I am not holding my breath on that.

I remain, as always,

Sgt. Mom