Well, the Super Bowl is over and the Ravens won, but in a very real sense we all lost something a few days earlier. Forty-niners cornerback Chris Culliver will begin sensitivity training and education immediately after the Super Bowl because to a question he answered that he would be uncomfortable with a gay player in the locker room. A chastened Culliver now understands his words were hurtful, and is eager to learn more about homosexuality. All well and good, but does anyone but me feel the cold hand of totalitarianism in this? Re-education camps were a favorite of the Soviet communists for those who thought or spoke unkindly of the Soviet state or its leaders. Have we come so far down the road to fascism that an American citizen can no longer state his true feelings about something without being sentenced to sensitivity training by those who think he should not have said it? I’m glad I lived when I did, when this was still a free country, and freedom of speech did not mean freedom to say what you thought except if a favored minority or victim group objected. When asked what he thought of the re-education camp he said,

The camp’s not bad, the food’s all right

I don’t mind that I’m up all night

Just learning how to know how someone feels

And writing down those words that hurt

And trying not to be so curt

When thinking what I’ve done my mind just reels

To think that I once had a thought

About a group I hadn’t ought

To say aloud what I so truly felt

The punishment does fit the crime

My words have hurt, I’ll do the time

And I accept whatever I’ve been dealt

For words are poison I know now

And hurtful but now I know how

To think in ways that those I’ve hurt can teach

The Bill Of Rights was long ago

And out of date and this will show

We celebrate the death of our free speech