5 Cases Of Free Speech That Will Make You Hate Freedom

5 Man Decorates His Property And Business With Confederate Flags And Nooses

Despite some rather unfortunate connotations, the use of Confederate flags as ornamentation isn't all that out of the ordinary in many parts of the U.S. There's technically nothing wrong with it -- putting a rebel bumper sticker on your F-150 or a flag on the roof of your double-wide doesn't automatically make you a racist, after all. You could just be really into the musical stylings of the Van Zant brothers, or have extremely strong opinions on cotton- and tobacco-related issues.

Start hanging a bunch of nooses in public view around your property as an accompaniment, however? That's just a wee bit harder to defend.

That's Robert Tomanovich, proprietor of Robert's Discount Tree Service in Livonia, MI (note that MI stands for Michigan, not Alabama). Recently, Tomanovich's neighbors became understandably flustered when they noticed a hangman's rope dangling from a tree outside his home. When someone complained about it, that's when a second one appeared, this time at his nearby tree-service business. And even though nooses and trees do go together like the world's darkest s'mores, it's doubtful that the act was intended as a wacky advertisement.

This raised no small amount of concern among nearby residents, as expressed by one neighbor, who did an outstanding job of completely missing the point:

"It's a tree that is easily climbable. Any kid could climb the tree and hang himself."

Another neighbor described the situation a little more accurately:

"One hundred fifty years after Abraham Lincoln's death, we are still going through this kind of atrocity. A hangman's noose and a Confederate flag?"

When a local news team showed up to ask Tomanovich about the situation, he quickly ducked inside his house. But luckily one of his more amenable employees was on the scene, who admitted to hanging the second noose and expressed his remorse by stating, "Screw 'em. I love it. We're going to put up more."

Tomanovich's wife later made herself available to reporters, and in one of the more spectacularly ridiculous defensive arguments of all time, vehemently denied that her husband was in any way racist. According to her, the nooses were actually a tribute to a dead friend who committed suicide by hanging. Which makes total sense -- that's exactly why I have used hypodermic needles scattered across my lawn. It's a tribute to my uncle who died of diabetes.

Tomanovich himself eventually gave a half-hearted attempt to explain his (perfectly legal) actions to the press, but walked away from reporters mid-interview. His explanation? "I had two women in my house naked, and I didn't want them to see them." But before heading off to deal with all the rampant Benny Hill skits taking place inside his house, he proved definitively that what he did wasn't racist by invoking the that old, tried and true standby, "I know black guys. I have black friends."

4 RFK Jr. Calls The Use Of Vaccines A "Holocaust"

Bobby Kennedy the elder is remembered fondly by many, and who knows what he may have accomplished were he not cut down in his prime by a crazed gunman. His namesake, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., carries on his legacy of impassioned righteousness, but unfortunately it's in an arena that's about as credible as chupacabra-based homeopathy. In a move that made Jenny McCarthy look like a well-reasoned and responsible member of the intelligentsia, RFK Jr. claimed that vaccines are a "holocaust" on children.

To his credit, he apologized for the comparison a week later, but in a way that let everyone know just how thoroughly committed he is to his debunked view on scientific reality:

"I want to apologize to all whom I offended by my use of the word to describe the autism epidemic. I employed the term during an impromptu speech as I struggled to find an expression to convey the catastrophic tragedy of autism, which has now destroyed the lives of over 20 million children and shattered their families."

Yes, I think we can all agree that autism sucks. It's perfectly understandable that he might have ill-advisedly knee-jerked the disease in with the murder of 6 million Jewish people. But the truly fascinating part is that he thinks it's just the word "holocaust" that we have a problem with ... and not that he still believes that vaccines cause autism. Look, I realize how suspicious it must seem when every reputable study on the issue says the exact same thing. If it wasn't for that kind of healthy skepticism we'd never have come to find out that man never actually landed on the moon or that contrails are in fact an alien plot to spread saltpeter among the breeding population of New Mexico. But there can be a fine line between crusader and crackpot, and perhaps RFK Jr. should reevaluate the situation before he accidentally publicly refers to vaccines as the "Bull Connors to our Alabama babies."

If you really need a cause, how about starting a grassroots movement to prevent your family members from driving?

3 High School Students Organize An "Anti-Gay Day"

People seem to finally be giving a shit about the specter of school bullying, and that's awesome. Being a little different from your peers shouldn't result in years of (potentially violent) harassment, and a national day of silence that brings attention to the plight of gay and lesbian students seems like a good way to raise awareness. But not for some of the students at McGuffey High School in Pennsylvania, who decided to take action against such an outrageous plea for tolerance by organizing an "anti-gay day."

Those involved in the counter-demonstration showed their solidarity by donning flannel shirts for some reason -- perhaps invoking the fundamentalist evangelical bent that was so prevalent in 1990s Seattle grunge bands? They then proceeded to tape offensive posters on gay students' lockers along with some pushing and shoving, name-calling, and other demonstrations of hormonally befuddled immaturity.

Apparently, this wasn't an isolated incident. In granola-nibbling Oregon of all places, some students took action against the day of silence by heading to the local mall to have some T-shirts printed up with slogans like "Gay is not OK" and the more timely version, "Gay day is not OK."

When a reporter showed up, one of the students explained, "I'm not comfortable with you guys making a whole day about what you believe. So if you're going to make a whole day out of it and not talk and a have a 'moment of silence,' then I can wear my T-shirt." Well, while that may certainly be a valid expression of your rights as a citizen, teenage arbiter of all things proper and just, maybe we should wait on an opinion from you until after you've gone through your college "experimentation" phase.

2 "Hands Up, Don't Shoot!" Protesters Crash A 100-Year-Old Vet's Medal Ceremony

Dario Raschio defied the odds and achieved his dream of becoming a pilot during one of the worst possible times and in one of the worst possible places to be in that line of work -- the Pacific in 1942. He watched from overhead as Marines stormed the beaches of Tarawa and Saipan. He narrowly avoided death several times, not only at the hands of enemy combatants, but also by sharks after a splash-down off the shore of a Japanese-held island. Even if he had gone on to cruelly raise chinchillas as a tee-ball alternative after the war, the man deserves our respect.

When Mr. Raschio achieved another impressive goal (living to see his 100th birthday) officials decided to hold an awards ceremony for him during a town hall meeting in Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately, some folks saw this as the perfect moment to barge in and scream their minds on a completely unrelated issue by flailing around and chanting, "Hands up, don't shoot!" (even though a lot of reasonable people by that time had already come to realize that the premise behind this particular mode of protest was completely bogus).

Instead of enjoying the moment he'd waited the better part of a century for, Mr. Raschio was reduced to pleading with the 100-plus interloping roof-raisers: "Give me a chance." He then requested that they at least show a little respect to Senator Ron Wyden, who had shown up to present him with his awards. Then another individual, possibly believing Mr. Raschio to be a disguised, shrunken Donald Rumsfeld on an unfinished covert CIA propaganda mission, began yelling from the back of the room about the removal of troops from Iraq.

Whatever your political leanings, letting your feelings be known is certainly something you should be allowed to do as long as you're not harming anyone or affecting their livelihood. But there's a time and a place, and party-crashing a centenarian war hero's medal ceremony is neither of those. Especially when said centenarian might start having shark flashbacks and head to his car to retrieve his spear gun.

1 Pat Robertson Tells Parents To "Smack Kids Around" For Listening To "Devil Music"

Pat Robertson has said a lot of stupid shit over the years, to the point where it's not exactly news when he spouts off such surreal gems as blaming the 2010 Haitian earthquake on a French-caused pact with the Devil, or recommending that housewives pray the demons out of any clothing bought at thrift stores.

But at least the man's "holy shit"-inducing levels of insanity are consistent. He's been unwavering in his stalwart resistance to the ever-pervasive forces of darkness, and there's probably no better friend to have in your corner when you need to give those fiends from Beelzebub's domain a Bible thump in the puss. However, at least as far as we're aware, this may be the first time he's publicly recommended treating children like a speed bag in the service of God's glory:

The following surreal story sounds totally made up, but I assure you it is quite real. A woman emailed Robertson's somehow-still-on-the-air show, The 700 Club, distraught over her son's habit of listening to "devil music." The kind of music that, according to her, "speaks of the beast within" and "the infection in people." We have no idea what the boy was actually listening to, but feel free to make your own Zac Efron jokes here. Anyway, the woman went on to say that her son was "constantly mean and nasty," causing her to "worry for his soul."

Robertson starts off rather reasonably with his response, realizing that puberty might have a little something to do with the boy's behavior. But then he starts giving parental advice straight out of the 1953 handbook for underage ass-whipping:

"But it doesn't hurt to smack a little 11-year-old around a little bit and say, 'Look, kid, I'm your parent. You're not going to listen to that garbage in my house. If you do I'm going to tear it up and break those records ... um erp CDs or whatever. iPod? However you get that mess."

His co-host intervenes a little at this point (resisting the urge to comment on how Robertson apparently thinks kids still listen to ABBA LPs on vinyl), noting the child's age and suggesting that removing some privileges might be a better idea, but Robertson is on a righteous tear and doubles down:

"I know he's only 11! He's just a little twerp! And you make that little twerp behave!"

Presumably because it's impossible for married women to have unruly children, Robertson then assumes that the woman in question is a single mother and there couldn't possibly be a man in the house. Maybe when she wrote that her kid was mean and nasty to "us," she was referring to her out-of-wedlock lesbian basement devil gimp or something? And then he wrapped things up by emphasizing just how important it is to have a brawny, no-nonsense man like himself around the house to curtail any shenanigans before Satan's able to get a hoof in the door:

"The little kids wouldn't do that with me, I promise you. Big Daddy's home! Wham!"

Now, let's be clear about this. A little reasonable corporal punishment now and again doesn't necessarily make the parent administering it a monster (as long as they don't go all Adrian Peterson about it). The real issue here is that Mom's being told to dole out the whuppins on this kid based on his taste in music, when what it is he's listening to is never made clear. For all we know the mother may have been frightened off by the rebelliously scruffy yet scripture-friendly members of Creed. The point is that Robertson is condemning something without evidence, and that is egregious and inexcusable. Unless it turns out to actually be Creed, in which case the man is a genius.

For more from Ross, check out 6 Human Beings Who Just Invented New Forms of Sucking and 5 People Who Overcame the F#@% Out of Awful Disabilities.

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