Free speech confusion

I saw a guy on the street with a sandwich board protesting a local car dealer. I don’t know what his beef was. The print was too small. That’s free speech. Some guy investing his own money and time to make a public point about an issue that is important to him. Notice some dopey educrat hasn’t offered Mr. Sandwichboard the opportunity to address the student body. No TV or radio station has yet to offer up even 30 seconds to Mr. Sandwichboard. It’s all on Mr. Sandwichboard – his time, his money.

It would seem to me, given today’s headlines, that we are confusing free speech with a right to be heard. See Mr. Sandwichboard can go out on a public street and try to make his point. Nobody has to listen. Nobody has to offer Mr. Sandwichboard time on the TV, radio or space in the newspaper.

Neither does some ass of an Ivy League college with a Three Stooges haircut have to offer the world’s most dangerous and deranged man an opportunity to participate in a “distinguished lecture” series under the guise of free speech. If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to address New Yorkers, let him do what Mr. Sandwichboard did. ‘Ol Mahmoud should get signs that read “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and “Praise Allah for 9-11.” He should march up and down some NY street. Then, after the NY city police pulled the mob off of his bloody corpse, we could have a discussion about stifling free speech.

Also, free speech isn’t always free. Protestors get arrested all the time for being public nuisances. Mr. Sandwichboard restricted his activity to median. Had he wandered into traffic, I suppose the public’s safety would have to trump Mr. Sandwichboard’s free speech.

People today, particularly libs and young people, seem to think that free sppech guarantees them the right to say whatever they want AND denies anybody the right to challenge them. The Dixie Chicks go on anti-American rants in foreign countries. Then when country music buyers stop buying their CDs, the Chicks rant about their free speech rights being infringed upon. Huh? Logic like that coming from these dopes dictates that the Chicks ought to, as Laura Ingraham so eloquently put it, shut up and sing.

Rosie O’Donnell can blurt out any stupid thought that pops into her otherwise empty head on national TV to an audience of similarly empty headed buffoons. But when sponsors of the show have had enough, they can stop spending money to produce her show. Rosie can be as stupid as she can be but nobody has to listen to it or pay her for it.

Last point: A Colorado university student paper is running a four word editorial…Taser this F*** (spelled out) BUSH. Now I guarantee you that IF (I’d say when but I’m not at all sure, given the state of “education” these days, there will be a when.) the adults step in and slap the editorial board down for their vulgarity in the student “newspaper,” there will be a hue an cry that the university is attacking free speech. The editorial board can decide to print that profanity – that’s free speech. But the board can also be fired or reprimanded for their tasteless decision. Free speech doesn’t inoculate one from the consequences of that speech.