This is another one that I see all the time in comics, and it never fails to completely miss the point. Yes, we’re in America. Yes, we have the Freedom of Speech, and it’s the single most important right we have. But it doesn’t mean that you have to be an asshole.

In America, you’ve got the freedom to believe whatever you want. There are viewpoints I consider to be stupid and hateful and that I despise with a passion and I’d like nothing better than to see them completely excised from the collective human mindset, but they exist there, and we don’t have morals and ethics and Constitutional rights for when things are easy. We have them for when things are difficult, so we all just have to grit our teeth and allow people to go on believing these stupid, hateful things and expressing them the way they see fit.

Just like I have to grit my teeth and agree that yes: It is not technically illegal for you to be openly hostile to women and to claim that in doing so, you are in fact being an asset to this community you seem so proud of.

But you know what? It’s pretty fucking inconsiderate, and when you start putting your own selfish desires above the fact that you are reveling in propping up institutional hatred for another group within your community, then you’re every bit as bad as all the other awful people that we have to deal with because we value the fact that it’s legal to speak your mind.