Free Speech, RIP

As the Kenyan's administration continues its heavy handed and not-so-subtle campaign to implement total government control over us, free speech, our first cherished right, has become a casualty.  Killed in action as it were.  I refer, of course, to free political speech as a protected right guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.  We have two examples of this government sponsored mind controlling political correctness in the news today.  

The first is Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.  Now admittedly, he's made some statements that high profile folks shouldn't make, but being boorish doesn't warrant waiver of the right of free speech.  His comments about Magic Johnson, for example, were clearly in bad form.  And his request to his gold digging girlfriend as to whom he didn't want her to bring to the games is a matter of opinion and well within protected speech.  Magic Johnson is a professional athlete, a famous celebrity, and as such is subject to folks stating opinions about him. The statements Sterling were made, as they are true, are not libelous.  Dumb comments?  Of course . . . some thoughts are better left unsaid, as discretion is the better part of valor.  But the media, the sports community, the NBA brass, and all sorts of folks are all up in arms about free speech.  Note that it's his free speech they are trying to stifle, but not their own.  Since then he's made some apologies, but that's not enough for the PC crowd; they smell blood in the water.  He's lawyered up now, and intends to fight the $2.5 million fine levied against him by the NBA as well as their demand he relinquish ownership of the team.

The second example of political correctness gone completely out of control is the story of a small town New Hampshire police chief, who was heard referring to the Kenyan as a N-word.  See?  I even hesitate to use a perfectly good word out of fear of being turned in to Big Brother.  But the First Amendment specifically protects political speech, and if you wish to label a sitting president whatever, you're free to do so.  His comments were overheard by a third party Yankee do-gooder who turned him in.  Now the hue and cry is for his apology as well as his resignation.  He adamantly refuses to do so with this statement: "For this, I do not apologize - he meets and exceeds my criteria for such."  He's right.  The media is in cardiac arrest over this, and as they always do, seek to stifle his free speech, but not their own.  Remember back a few years?  This same media had nothing nice to say about George W. Bush, and they leveled all sorts of ad hominem attacks at him for anything and everything.  Back then the media respected and exercised their own political free speech, but not W's.

I'm reminded of a story by the comedian Ron White, as he's being arrested for disorderly conduct after a bar brawl.  He famously referred to free speech when he said. "I had the right to remain silent.  I did not have the ability."  So here are two eighty-something gentlemen stating the obvious.  The left wing media can't handle truth, so they first shout you down, then comes personal destruction.  In both of these cases, it should have been funny.  It is funny - but not to the wound-too-tight media.  What happened to free speech?  Why is it dead?  Why is everyone so thin skinned?  Why do we no longer adhere to the notion  that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me?"

Perhaps as freedoms erode, civil discourse erodes with them.  And that has lead to a lowering of the culture to a teenager's perspective.  As a culture, it's past time to grow up - again.