“We need a new NAFTA.”
“What,” you ask. Aren’t we getting one with the USMCA?”
“Oh! I wasn’t referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement and its successor—if it is implemented—the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. No, I was thinking the North American Free Thought Agreement.”
“Say, what?”
“We need some kind of agreement that allows us to speak freely,” I add.
“We already have that. You’ve heard of the First Amendment, haven’t you?”
“Sure. And I understand that it both frees and protects. We can say the word fire, but not in a theater. Maybe I should qualify my NAFTA. Most likely, I am really asking for a NATFfHA, a North American Thought Free from Hypocrisy Agreement. True, by its very nature such an agreement would be somewhat more personally restrictive than the First Amendment because it would require any freely thinking person to think aloud only after cleansing himself or herself of hypocrisy.
“The agreement would have several benefits: 1) It would eliminate the need for anyone to say, ‘Who does she think she is?’; 2) It would ensure the free flow of options for debate; 3) It would guarantee that any thought, no matter how absurd it is or seems, would get a public hearing free from any ties to an individual’s lifestyle or past; 4) It would free debates from their dependence on ad hoc and ad populum arguments, and 5) It would lead to insights and judgments based on experiment. If we eradicate hypocrisy, we eliminate most of the judgments opposing sides make on the basis of emotion.”
“What,” you ask. Aren’t we getting one with the USMCA?”
“Oh! I wasn’t referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement and its successor—if it is implemented—the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. No, I was thinking the North American Free Thought Agreement.”
“Say, what?”
“We need some kind of agreement that allows us to speak freely,” I add.
“We already have that. You’ve heard of the First Amendment, haven’t you?”
“Sure. And I understand that it both frees and protects. We can say the word fire, but not in a theater. Maybe I should qualify my NAFTA. Most likely, I am really asking for a NATFfHA, a North American Thought Free from Hypocrisy Agreement. True, by its very nature such an agreement would be somewhat more personally restrictive than the First Amendment because it would require any freely thinking person to think aloud only after cleansing himself or herself of hypocrisy.
“The agreement would have several benefits: 1) It would eliminate the need for anyone to say, ‘Who does she think she is?’; 2) It would ensure the free flow of options for debate; 3) It would guarantee that any thought, no matter how absurd it is or seems, would get a public hearing free from any ties to an individual’s lifestyle or past; 4) It would free debates from their dependence on ad hoc and ad populum arguments, and 5) It would lead to insights and judgments based on experiment. If we eradicate hypocrisy, we eliminate most of the judgments opposing sides make on the basis of emotion.”
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