Consider three “F” words in common vernacular. One, four letters long, is an old English word used as an expletive. Another, six letters long and often shortened to three, is understood as a slur against gays or behavior associated with them. The third, four letters long, is a common childhood complaint, usually presented in the negative, that is an increasingly common justification for action and intrusion by the government.
We all know the first. Many of us use it, as a verb, as an adjective, as an expletive, in wide and oftentimes creative range of meanings and intents. It can be positive, it can be negative, it can simply be a release of energy. It’s generally forbidden from broadcast television and radio, it’s one that most people don’t use in polite company, it’s one of George Carlin’s seven dirty words, but in terms of outrage and offense at its utterance, we’re talking church ladies and parents of small children. Perpetually aggrieved advocacy groups will pounce on it if uttered by someone who they’d like to be aggrieved by, but by and large it’s just one of those words that most use but only when it’s “safe.”
The second is a term whose use has become a cri de coeur for the gay community. It wasn’t always that way, not by a longshot. Kids used to use it against each other without having any sense of the formal connotation. Guys used it (and still use it when they’re apart from their women, strangers and people who might take offense) to call out their friends’ behaviors. But in the past decade or so, it has become one of those words that activist groups have decided should be removed from the language. The word is indeed a slur when expressed with a particular intent, and it’s not one I’d ever use as such, but the intent is what should be viewed with offense. Still, it has been branded so effectively that its more common use has been pushed underground, possibly never to arise again.
As offensive as those two words are to many, it is the third is the one that’s truly become the bane of our society. It is the reason offered by millions of people, ranging from the president to your neighbor, for imposing their belief sets upon you against your will and without your consent. It is a cudgel used to beat down your opinion and your point of view. It is a truncheon against not only your beliefs, but your right to even have those beliefs. It’s a lever to bend you to the will of others, to homogenize your personality, to sap your independence, to deprive you of joy and liberty and to debar your pursuit of happiness. It is the excuse for forced redistribution of wealth, for the imposition of rules and regulations, for the interference our freedom of association, our freedom of contract, our economic liberty, and even our freedom of speech. It is used to quash our natural, biological tendencies towards voluntary cooperation and spirit of competition. It’s the most insidious word in modern political discourse.
That third “F” word? Fair.
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