Being offended not a third option

This archived article was written by: Cristopher Palo

The Military and Mixed Martial Arts clothing company, Rangerup, has a facebook page advertising merchandise and or general all-around Tomfoolery. Oftentimes they post a video about their web series, The Damned Few, or post about new merchandise or even promote their movie made with fellow military and MMA clothing sellers, Article15 clothing. 
Sometimes they post philosophical quotes and with as many years in service of this nation, they are guaranteed to have opinions on.
One of these quotes, ”The first amendment wasn’t designed to protect your fragile feelings. It was designed to harbor free thought. You have two choices if you don›t like something: 1) Ignore it. 2) Say something back. if you›re unable to do either of these things, that makes you a coward. Being offended is not a third option.”
That is the word that seems to ooze from people’s mouths every time they hear a statement that they don›t agree with. “That’s offensive” has become a Get Out of Jail Free Card when having to use critical- thinking skills.
“The mark of a educated mind is being able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Aristotle would roll in his grave if he heard some of the dribble that came out of people’s mouths today. 
It seems that if people hear an opposing view, it’s automatically an attack, not an opportunity to re-evaluate one’s belief, discarding old ideas for new or even cementing, through valid mature argument, ones that already hold true.
Institutes of higher learning used to be a haven of intellectual though and exposed eager-young minds to controversy, allowing for students to make decisions based on the intellectual debate that classrooms fostered. Today one has to walk on egg shells so no one gets sued because someone, somewhere heard something and took it offensively.
Now-a-days there may as well be faculty member akin to the Handy-Capper General from Kurt Vonuguts, Harisson Bergeron, on staff.  Someone that walks around and makes sure everyone is just like everyone else and no free thought, no individuality to offend anyone. Everyone is brought down to the lowest common denominator and anyone that is different is wrong and offensive. 
How are we supposed to live and thrive when actual legal officials live by the motto, “your facts are not as important as my feelings.” 
Recently a Price judge used his position to take a child away from a same-sex-married couple, because he didn’t think same-sex couples could raise a child as well as a heterosexual couple. 
He let his feelings get in the way of his judgment and used his position to enforce his beliefs. He was offended that these women got married and were raising a child, threatening to take the child away and put in a heterosexual household.
Instead of taking his feelings out of the situation and evaluating it based on facts, he chose to rip this family apart.
Many instances like this where facts are not observed and only emotions and feelings are taken into account cause decisions to be made based solely on personal values.
If you don›t like something don’t do it. If you don’t like same-sex couples, don’t have sex with someone of your same sex. If you don’t like guns, don’t own one. If you don’t like vaccines, don’t get one. It’s that simple. 
If you don’t like what someone says and you tell them it hurts your feelings, think about that statement. Think about what you are actually saying. You say you have given that person control over you life and allowed them to produce subtle vibrations in the air that traveled to your ear and hurt a concept completely made up by you.
There is no physical hurt. You can still walk, you can still talk, your friends and family are safe. So what’s the issue?
Some people act like you killed their dogs when you say something to them they don›t like. It’s like they have created this fantasy world and everyone has to do exactly what they want or they cry. Welcome to the real world. People are rude and mean, they spit and fart and say terrible things. You can either get upset about it spending time and energy on giving the person more power than you’d like. Or you can walk away, grow up and take the power away from the person who said mean, hurtful words.
It’s time that we grow up and thicken our skin. We are a global leader. We should be acting as such, instead of the prepubescent whiney teens we portray ourselves on the world stage.