Take these seemingly harmless phrases: thorn in the side, knotty problem, uprooted, blooming idiot, out on a limb, nut case, fruitcake, going bananas, shady deal, sticks and stones breaking bones, wooden acting.
Offensive? Hardly, at least to the vast majority of people. Yet to one group these phrases are all crude epithets, objectionable beyond belief.
The Specimens of Arboreal Persuasion Promotion Society, or SAPPS for short, wants to stop what they view as sordid slander of trees. They denounce the casual use of denigrating words and phrases that they feel do irreparable harm to the reputation and essential well-being of trees. They want people to cease treating trees as second-class species and give them the opportunity to pursue life, liberty and happiness – or at least as much happiness as is possible for entities that must depend upon third parties for a satisfying sexual experience.
But SAPPS know they have stereotypes to slash and burn, barriers to bulldoze, and skepticism to hack down. So to accomplish their purpose, the group’s ultimate goal is to restrict election to Congress and other higher offices such as dog catcher to – get this – trees. Yes, as unlikely as it seems, SAPPS wants the upper branches of your government populated by a veritable forest of lofty flora of both the deciduous and evergreen varieties.
It is not for us in a free and open society to criticize or condemn anyone’s beliefs, as wooden-headed as they may be. But it should concern all of us when a group complains that what we take for innocent and innocuous expressions unwittingly cause harm and hurt.
So it is with these tree expressions, which all have exceedingly negative connotations, according to SAPPS, and generally reflect poorly on trees – undermining their chances for electoral victory, much less for societal advancement, a difficult enough endeavor for a species that is rooted to the ground.
Moreover, just where would we be, the group argues, without wood, pointing out that the extensive contributions of trees to the historical development of civilization is all too often overlooked in textbooks. Why, without wood, they say,
In addition, SAPPS say trees make critical contributions to the health of humans, providing shade in the increasingly hot weather and helping recycle the air that we breathe. Trees house us and feed us and even provide sap to put on our pancakes. They provide paper for us to write on. And unlike humans, deceased trees have the common decency to fall down where they stand and decompose, thereby replenishing the life-giving soil. SAPPS feels strongly that it’s just not right for one species to treat another with such disrespect.
Largely through the efforts of SAPPS and similar groups, the government is finally contemplating a crackdown on offensiveness. A study commission is in fact now examining the issue and is expected to recommend nothing short of a total ban on affronts, insults, and general offenses to the senses.
If offensiveness is made illegal, civil libertarians no doubt will want to know how anyone will know what constitutes an offense. Simple. It’s just like obscenity; nobody knows exactly what it is or how to define it, but everybody knows it when they see it.
Rulings on offensiveness ultimately will be made by the Supreme Court, which has become something of an expert on offensive decisions in recent years, but the government is also expected to establish an official Board of Offensive Behavior to hear complaints from any person or group who feels he, she or it has been maligned.
In this manner, if you don’t like something you hear, you will have some recourse: Complain to BOB and if you prove your cultural, ethnic, sexual, or political sensitivities or sensibilities have been ruffled, then the offending party will be fined, jailed or have his, her or its mouth washed out with soap.
Obviously, it will become necessary to control and curtail communications to a degree. Again, libertarians may carp that this erodes people’s right to speak freely, but then there is no constitutional right to offend people. Only when everything offensive is stamped out can open discussions be carried out free of the fear of hurting someone’s feelings. (This, by the way, is the central philosophy of the revisionist view of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.)
The irony is that while this movement toward official sensitivity grows, the efforts of SAPPS have been stunted. Trees are still being abused, the group claims, and there has been no groundswell of public support for the plight of trees. Not only are trees still the subjects of offensive language, whole forests are being butchered while the government and the media stand by and do nothing. And the group has had absolutely no luck with its primary mission of replacing elected officials with trees.
However, some success has been reported by a splinter group, LESS: Let’s Elect Some Shrubs.
