You may not know it, given the stealthy way that internet providers work, but free speech is

I was going to talk about G-d, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind reminded me that there are many people who do not like to see or hear the name of the Deity mentioned. (You have to capitalize it, even if you’re going to capitalize on it.)

Liberals, for one; but also some religious people. For the latter, it is a tenet of their religion — not to be confused with tenet commandments. Some liberals claim to be religious, but this is a serious essay.

The people who don’t want to see or hear a certain name (except for the Charlie Hebdo–massacre types — and we’ll get to them below . . . as, I expect, someone else will) are people who are upstanding and devout.

More so than I am, because I am sitting down and don’t care about naming a deity (that’s a generic term, which is allowed), but I don’t want to upset them more than I will in days to come, when I temporarily forget their aversion to my doing so. I console myself that in the beginning there was the Word. The objections to it came afterWord.

I’ll use ($$$) instead, here, because most people can relate to money, and their interest is piqued when they see it in print. It also will remind them symbolically there’s a payoff for being religious or devout. There is a difference between religious and devout, but you’d have to get some guy with some skin in the game to explain it to you. And not thin skin in the game, either.

Religion ($$$) is on a lot of peoples’ minds recently, and I certainly can’t blame them, given their track record.

($$$) hates evil, lies, and sin. So don’t do those.

($$$) especially appreciates love, warmth, and kindness. Do those.

Enemies have their own gods (that’s a generic term, and is allowed), but they don’t allow you to talk about them (it’s a generic term that is not allowed).

You should avoid them. Nothing good will come of trying to match your god against someone else’s. We have seen this. History is replete with replete performances. Lots of people have died, and for what? So that we could live.

And that voice in the back of my head says that that is kind of a central point of religion, but if you think I know how to express it, you are more nagging than the voice.

Now let us think about our brethren. Are there any other familial relationship that religious folk refer to that end in “-thren”? If so, I don’t want to hear them.

And that’s a problem with those who are religious, and occasionally those who are devout. They will go on and on into details that you don’t want to hear.

Just like me.

(I’ve discovered that it now feels unnatural to type that phrase without the middle word.)

This phrase concisely expresses the attitude of the world. Or, I should say, the universe.

If you are a conservative, you already know this, and that is enough.

But had you been birthed liberal by a birthing person, that phrase would echo loud and long, by yourself, your coffee partners, the media, Hollywood (I don’t know why they’re not considered media), your professors, and government and bureaucracy at all levels. In perpetuity. You see, nothing they — or you — achieve will ever squelch it.

It reverberates like the yodel of a Bugs Bunny character in the Grand Canyon: Their “Boo Hoo” becomes — well — systemic.

“They can’t get to the polls on election day!” and “If they could, they can’t show identification because they don’t know how to get them!”

“They can’t pay their rent.”

“They can’t make their car payments or their college loan payments. They can’t resist committing crimes.”

And you know what gravity says when you step off a cliff?

Boo Freakin’ Hoo.