"It's a free country!" I taunted my parents when they attempted to crush my efforts at expression. Growing up in a military town in Oklahoma, I felt the power of those words to the core of my being. It was drilled into every freedom loving student at East Side Elementary. Is there anything more patriotic than such a declaration? Of course, we all know what a load of crap that is where sassy kids and their parents are concerned, but even as an well-aged citizen of the good ole U.S. of A. my free speech has boundaries. According to the Art Law Library, those limits include obscenity, fighting words, fraudulent misrepresentation, advocacy of imminent lawless behavior, and defamation.

Are you kidding me? I happen to think fart jokes are obscene, but it's a staple of children's programming. Slurrs against the Sooners are fighting words in my home. I have purchased more than one crappy book based on bogus reviewer claims from the back cover. What's more American than civil disobedience? I'd love to see a day go by without bogus celebrity news flashing across my computer screen.

Fortunately for all the free world, I am not in charge of defining such things, so go ahead and tell your stupid fart jokes, say what you will about Barry Switzer (you wouldn't be the first), recommend wretched texts, condem the tea party protestors, and expose the world to Lindsay Lohan drivel. In any event, I'm thinking those parameters are pretty much arbitrary. They are subjectively defined and favor the popular, which is not exactly the intent of the First Amendment as I understand it.

I'm still yelling "It's a free country!" at those in authority who censor speech even though I struggle with some things some people would like to say (I'm looking at you, mean people!). Even so, I figure that we can determine for ourselves if our books, art, music, movies, or video games are obscene, fight worthy, fraudulently misrepresentative, advocate lawlessness, or defame. I'm banking on humanity to keep us above the fray.

You know who agrees with me? Neil Gaiman. And he's a real writer with international experience. That's right. In his defense of free speech, he writes that in his country of birth, England, there is no such thing. Hard to believe, I know. He also pointedly writes, "If you accept -- and I do -- that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending the right of people to read, or to write, or to say, what you don't say or like or want said." Yeah, mean people suck but they get to have their say too.

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. (Texas v. Johnson)