October 24, 2003

Hey, is there Free Speech in this Country or Not?

The left is always trying to get somebody fired. It reminds me of the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland:

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting `Off with his head!’ or `Off with her head!’ about once in a minute.

Rush Limbaugh makes a perfectly reasonable comment but commits the banned-by-the-left action of referring to someone’s skin color, and he’s pressured out of a job. General Boykin refers to terrorists who are trying to kill us as Satan, and the left calls for him to resign.

This is hysteria on the left. The left says they and they alone have the right to free speech. They want to control what other people say.

Few on the right called for the Dixie Chicks to be banned from showbiz when they slammed Bush. A lot of their fans stopped wanting to hear their music, but nobody tried to get their record contracts terminated.

In the recent matter of Gregg Easterbrook, Easterbrook was criticized far and wide for making patently racist comments, but few if any pundits on the right called for him to be fired. Little Green Footballs specifically forgave him following his apology:

There’s no weaseling here; he apologizes directly and simply, and it comes across as totally sincere. Very classy. Case closed.

Glenn Reynolds stated that “a simple blog update could have (mostly) taken care of this flap. ”

Following Easterbrook’s apology, he was fired, and most conservative pundits regretted this and found it disturbing.

It’s only the left that tries to get you fired for what you say.

Somebody needs to remind the left of this sentiment:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

And to conclude, here’s an excellent Ramirez cartoon on the subject.