After our founding fathers finished discussing the contents of the Constitution, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

The question is, have we kept it?

P.C. culture, in which people advocate being “politically correct,” is taking over the nation. Being politically correct, or P.C, is to believe that people should be careful that their actions don’t offend a particular group of people.

And while I do believe being “politically correct” is important, to be perfectly honest, it has become a huge constraint in society, especially on the freedom of speech.

Many people use the phrase “white, cisgender male,” cisgender meaning that the person identifies with the sex he/she was born with, to describe people who are generally ignorant.

For example, one of my Facebook friends has posted before that the voices of white, cis males “literally do not matter,” that “they should unfriend her if they disagree with her,”  and that “all men are s***ty until proven otherwise.”

Afterwards, many of her friends would comment their unbridled support, while men would usually try (unsuccessfully) to defend themselves or prove that they were different, much to the utter disgust of the women.

I’m not saying that her words are unwarranted. After all, many groups have been oppressed by white cis males throughout U.S. history.  If I tried to argue otherwise, I would be blatantly lying.

It’s obvious that this woman is being incredibly rude and prejudiced. But under the rules of P.C. culture, she is “speaking the truth,” and has every right to say what she wants.

And she does have the right to say what she wants: the First Amendment allows her to.

But social justice and the Bill of Rights aside, why do some people have to be so rude about expressing their opinions? Although it could be argued that some perpetrators of ignorance deserve a taste of their own medicine, personally, I believe a better saying to consider when online is “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

After all, aren’t people more inclined to respect and listen to someone else when they themselves are treated with (albeit not always deserved) respect, instead of mockery? Petty comments and jabs at someone’s character only fuels the fire until it becomes an all-consuming inferno of hatred: no one wins, and no one’s opinion changes.

Take a look at Donald Trump’s Twitter, or the endless vines and Youtube videos that epitomize his pettiest and most hateful comments, as well as the reactions to said comments. The reason so many people hate him goes beyond his bigotry: people hate him because he’s a jerk.

And let’s make it clear that I’m not saying that everyone should beuber careful not to hurt each other’s feelings, or that people shouldn’t state their opinions on a matter that they feel passionate about. I’m saying that if proponents of P.C. culture (as well as everyone else) exercised just a tad of decorum and learned to be a bit more forgiving, both online and offline, their messages would be much stronger and effective, and no one would feel personally victimized.

To build off of the importance of manners when stating opinions, here’s an ironic twist to ponder: because so many are unforgiving when it comes to not being politically correct, many people, not just white cis men, can’t even speak without having to fight stereotypes.

Additionally, many people now have to calculate their every move because P.C. culture demands that everything that could be even slightly offensive should be treated as something akin to a crime.
Jay Leno was called “kind of racist” by one of his interns because he said he didn’t like Mexican food (Howell).

So, here is the paradox: the freedom of speech is restricting the freedom of speech.

Bettina Aptheker, a professor of feminist studies at UCSC, wrote, “freedom of speech is a constitutional guarantee, but who gets to exercise it without the chilling restraints of censure depends very much on one’s location in the political and social cartography” (Chait).

Aptheker speaks the truth. While everyone can technically say whatever they want, not everyone can speak without being attacked or slapped with a stereotype. After all, our forefathers were addressing the government when they created the First Amendment, not “Twitter tyrants” or “social justice warriors.”

And what about some of the hypocrisy in P.C. culture? Many feminists (not all of them) regularly share memes or statuses online that share their need for their prospective boyfriends to act a certain way, or complain about how all men are heartbreaking casanovas who have no regard for the female soul.

Again, I’m not saying that these kind of posts are completely unwarranted, but what kind of message is being sent when the preachers of tolerance and equality partake in some of the same activities they warn against? Online complaints of males by females only serve to give fodder for groups like the “Meninists” to use when arguing that meninism is necessary because females are the ones who “objectify males.”

I’m not trying to champion or protect people who aren’t P.C. I’m not trying to say that everyone who stresses importance on being P.C.attacks everyone at the slightest mess up. I’m saying that the “trolls” who do attack everyone at the slightest mess up are like Youtube ads: irritating and useless.

So maybe it’s time that some of us realize that attacking people for stating their opinions is not the answer, and that doing so slows down the progress that many are striving to make. Political correctness shouldn’t be used to give someone unlimited power at the expense of others’ rights, and it certainly shouldn’t be used to ostracize certain groups of people, either.

If these attacks continue, sooner or later, all we’ll have left will be Twitter feuds, petty, hateful memes, and decades more of struggling to repair the damage caused by P.C. culture.

If P.C. culture can not be controlled, a republic will not be kept, and Franklin’s implied prophecy will become a reality.