"What We Have Here Is Failure to Communicate"

"'Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney," yelled Ben Marble, a Mississippi physician who lost his home in the hurricane. "Go fuck yourself." Marble was handcuffed and later released....."

As you know, I taught political philosophy for a few years for a otherwise reputable university. But I cut my teaching teeth with a Introduction to American Government class -- the training wheels of political science courses.

For civil rights, I'd locate some rather extreme uses of the various rights to bring it all home to the kids. The kids thought they were enlightening presentations.

There was one in particular about a court finding that calling a police officer a "mother fucker" was protected speech, because it was speech considered to be critical of the government (and not necessarily the man inside of the uniform).

I'd always close the section with a caveat that although Americans -- they -- had tons of rights, they should be judicious in their exercise of them. For instance, I'd tell them, I'd been pulled over on a dark street by a cop, who violated several of my constitutionally protected rights. I, unlike the guy in the example, did not call the cop a "mother fucker." Instead, I listened intently to his instructions, followed them to the letter, and drove off unmolested with a warning. I'd tell them that. And when they'd give me that look, the one that says, "You look more like a guy who'd shout 'mother fucker' at a cop than a Uncle Tom, who'd slobber him with 'yes'sah boss's, I'd point out that the guy who'd yelled "mother fucker" received a brutal beating that left him with a plate in his head and a partially paralyzed left side. He'd had every right to call that cop a mother fucker. What he'd forgotten and the thing I wanted them to learn was, the Constitution protects your speech from government infringement; it does not protect you, as it did protect him, from a beat down. "Discretion," I'd say, "kids, it's all about discretion."

They'd give me that look, the one that says, "Yes'sah boss."