Free Speech
I remember in high school and in college getting into these huge debates on free speech. As a rule, we are able to speech freely in this society but there are problems. Not only yelling, FIRE in a crowded movie theater but how about yelling, Nigger or Honky. What about just saying George Carlin’s seven dirty words? What about that student in Florida, who stood up to ask John Kerry a question, then went into a diatribe, do the rest of the people in the room have the right for that guy to shut up?
Now, before you think that we can look to our founding brothers for answers, I’ll warn you that they didn’t agree on this either. John Adams who was one of the greatest of the founders. He was a deep thinker. He signed the Alien and Sedation Acts which clearly limited speech and the press.
Back to modern times, what about that student in Alaska, with that sign, “Bong hits 4 Jesus“. All of this came up because the Flying Nun, Norma Rae, Sally Field got censored on the Emmy’s. She was speaking out against the war and said God Damned. Now, the Emmy’s were broadcast on Fox. Was she censored because of her words or her anti-war stance?
I’m willing to bet the impetus of censoring Field’s speech was due more to the post-”wardrobe malfunction” FCC chilling effect than it was a political motivation. Of course, we are talking about Fox, so we may never know whether that was the case.
I have the unedited broadcast on my blog: gaiastears.blogspot.com. I got it from Youtube. If it was not politically motivated, they would have just bleeped out the “G**D*mn” part.
Arratik - You are probably right but the combination of money and politics can’t be denied.
Impeach Now A - I’ll have that posted later on today.
thanks for your comments.
[...] the comment. Considering what we hear everyday, it wasn’t that bad, in my opinion. See the previous post for more on Free Speech. Emmys - Sally Field censored [1:45m]: Play Now | Play in [...]