When did "Free speech" - as in "I don't like what you're saying but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" - ever mean it's okay to shout "FIRE" in a crowded theater?
Let's get real and follow the circle to its close: you can say whatever you want (or try to), and in America you may (theoretically) have the right to do so, but there's nothing about "Free Speech" that says you have the right to avoid, evade, or otherwise deflect the consequences (positive or negative) of that 'Free Speech.
[I say "theoretically because of this: [ http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?4986S ]: Walter F. Murphy, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Emeritus, at Princeton University and a top Constitutional scholar gave a televised speech that slammed President George W. Bush's executive overreach. He was recently told that he had been added to the Transportation Security Administration's terrorist watch list when he attempted to check his luggage at the curbside in Albuquerque before boarding a plane to Newark, New Jersey. Murphy was told he could not use the service. "I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list," he said. When inquiring with a clerk why he was on the list, Murphy was asked if he had participated in any peace marches. "We ban a lot of people from flying because of that," a clerk said.
'Free Speech' and the 'Consequences of Free Speech' are closely related but they are surely different. A man and his pals can call each other 'queer' if that's alright amongst themselves, however, as an outsider, call a man and his pals 'queer' in some parts of this country (which is your right in our 'Free Speech' nation) and we're apt to be burying you come morning.
There's a difference in 'tact' and emotional content in saying, for example, to a woman, "Your face would stop a clock" versus "When I look at your face time stands still" - as Mel Gibson discovered when he claimed that "...Jews controlled everything..." Jewish media and celebrities have said much the the same and more than Gibson did and not a 'shot' has been fired in their direction, partly because, I surmise, they were insiders speaking of insiders, and "feeling their oats" (different emotional content). For example, the article "Do Jews Run Hollywood? - You bet they do--and what of it" by Ben Stein, which until recently was posted on E! Online (and has now been quietly withdrawn) was written he says, in reflection, and after thinking about Marlon Brando's comments on"Larry King Live":
Brando said: "Hollywood is run by jews; it is owned by jews--and they should have a greaqter sensitivity about the issue of people who are suffering. Because...we have seen...the greaseball, we've seen the Chink, we've seen the slit-eyed dangerous Jap, we have seen the wily Filipino, we've seen everything but we never saw the kike. Because they knew perfectly well, that that is where you draw the [line]." One guess as to what Brando was chided for.
As Imus's (and McGuirk, and "Sidiot"'s) network is discovering, courtesy of `MSNBC's withdrawal of advertising, while free speech may be free, some of the CONSEQUENCES of free speech are not. They can be downright expensive. And properly so. Racist comments about races or ethnic groups OTHER THAN YOUR OWN by major, influential, and highly connected media figures are not trivial. The First Amendment guarantees the right to say, amongst other things, hateful things (within limits), but it does not guarantee the use of a giant megaphone to do that with. So all the gripes about free speech miss the point: Say what you will, however unwise in time and place but then, please, please, be a 'man' and take the medicine of your consequences. Free speech doesn't mean free conseqeunces.
When did "Free speech" - as in "I don't like what you're saying but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" - ever mean it's okay to shout "FIRE" in a crowded theater?
Let's get real and follow the circle to its close: you can say whatever you want (or try to), and in America you may (theoretically) have the right to do so, but there's nothing about "Free Speech" that says you have the right to avoid, evade, or otherwise deflect the consequences (positive or negative) of that 'Free Speech.
[I say "theoretically because of this: [ http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?4986S ]: Walter F. Murphy, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Emeritus, at Princeton University and a top Constitutional scholar gave a televised speech that slammed President George W. Bush's executive overreach. He was recently told that he had been added to the Transportation Security Administration's terrorist watch list when he attempted to check his luggage at the curbside in Albuquerque before boarding a plane to Newark, New Jersey. Murphy was told he could not use the service. "I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list," he said. When inquiring with a clerk why he was on the list, Murphy was asked if he had participated in any peace marches. "We ban a lot of people from flying because of that," a clerk said.
'Free Speech' and the 'Consequences of Free Speech' are closely related but they are surely different. A man and his pals can call each other 'queer' if that's alright amongst themselves, however, as an outsider, call a man and his pals 'queer' in some parts of this country (which is your right in our 'Free Speech' nation) and we're apt to be burying you come morning.
There's a difference in 'tact' and emotional content in saying, for example, to a woman, "Your face would stop a clock" versus "When I look at your face time stands still" - as Mel Gibson discovered when he claimed that "...Jews controlled everything..." Jewish media and celebrities have said much the the same and more than Gibson did and not a 'shot' has been fired in their direction, partly because, I surmise, they were insiders speaking of insiders, and "feeling their oats" (different emotional content). For example, the article "Do Jews Run Hollywood? - You bet they do--and what of it" by Ben Stein, which until recently was posted on E! Online (and has now been quietly withdrawn) was written he says, in reflection, and after thinking about Marlon Brando's comments on"Larry King Live":
Brando said: "Hollywood is run by jews; it is owned by jews--and they should have a greaqter sensitivity about the issue of people who are suffering. Because...we have seen...the greaseball, we've seen the Chink, we've seen the slit-eyed dangerous Jap, we have seen the wily Filipino, we've seen everything but we never saw the kike. Because they knew perfectly well, that that is where you draw the [line]." One guess as to what Brando was chided for.
As Imus's (and McGuirk, and "Sidiot"'s) network is discovering, courtesy of `MSNBC's withdrawal of advertising, while free speech may be free, some of the CONSEQUENCES of free speech are not. They can be downright expensive. And properly so. Racist comments about races or ethnic groups OTHER THAN YOUR OWN by major, influential, and highly connected media figures are not trivial. The First Amendment guarantees the right to say, amongst other things, hateful things (within limits), but it does not guarantee the use of a giant megaphone to do that with. So all the gripes about free speech miss the point: Say what you will, however unwise in time and place but then, please, please, be a 'man' and take the medicine of your consequences. Free speech doesn't mean free conseqeunces.