We live in an era where free speech is abundant—and I love this. Unfortunately, that same abundantly free speech is often coupled with ignorance and illogical argumentation. Notice how I used the word argumentation. While the connotations of this word illicit meanings of rage-filled, heated, and often violent confrontations, the word itself means something entirely different. The denotation reveals something, well, a lot more logical: "the action or process of reasoning systematically in support of an idea, action, or theory." This is the lovechild of the likes of Aristotle and Plato. It is a science.
Let’s get back to free speech because it is something near and dear to my heart. This is arguably (See how I keep using this word?) one of the most, if not the most, prized, valued, pointed to, and revered freedoms that we as Americans enjoy, yet our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and teachers have failed to educate us on what the freedom of speech means. It means, “the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint.” Notice that this doesn’t have a caveat about how the expresser of said opinions will be free from looking like a fool—and trust me, I’ve done enough of that in my life to know that it’s not a freedom afforded to me. That would be an interesting world to live in where we got to say whatever we wanted without sounding moronic or upsetting anyone else…
The point is that you can say whatever you like, really! You can do it on YouTube, Facebook, a relatively unknown blog (Oh, that’s me!), the radio, or on TV (If you are lucky enough to have that sort of distribution). That doesn’t mean that you won’t offend anyone, people won’t debate the merits of your argument (There it is again.), or you won’t lose your job. That’s not a protected right, nor should it be. Feel free to argue that point with me, if you choose.
The recent gush of speech from Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty in GQ magazine has a lot of people upset. A&E fired him because of what he said. And that, too, has offended a great many people. It seems that the most common argument being made is that this is an affront to free speech. It isn’t, and it never was. It turns out that his message has not been censored or restrained. You can still read the article here.
A&E made a decision as a business (although I won’t call it a business decision, which I’ll get to shortly) to no longer have Phil on their reality TV show. This was a moral decision based on their belief that what he said was homophobic bigotry. That’s the end of the story for all of us. We don’t need to argue about whether or not you think gays are going straight to hell or if you think god will have to sort them out with the drunks and terrorists. You can think or say whatever you’d like, just like Phil can. Just remember that somebody (like your employer) may not want to associate with you anymore. That’s just how free speech works. Yes, they didn’t likely have any legal rationale for letting him go (I said likely. There are probably a few attorneys out there that will say this is a smart move.), but in the entertainment industry where you can let someone go for gaining 10 pounds, the law isn’t usually on your side. Hell, even Hooters can do that.
Back to A&E’s decision: It wasn’t a good business choice. They are likely to loose more viewers than they are going to gain or maintain over this decision. The demographic for this particular show, as we can clearly see, is not offended by his comments. For A&E (and I don’t know what they were thinking, so this is purely speculative), it was something they felt obligated to do for their own moral reasons, much like the NFL will punish and suspend a player for making comments that don’t fall in line with their code of conduct. He’s been sidelined from the game, but his free speech has not.
What makes me happy is that this is the same level of outrage that happens everyday when an employee gets fired for speaking up about overtime violations, unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, and hostile work environments… Yeah… Don't we look foolish.
I haven’t heard it on the Internet today, but I bet there are more important things that we’re missing out on because of this. Here is some news in science. Here is some news that really does affect your personal freedoms. And here is some world news because it’s healthy to know our world.
You're welcome.
The point is that you can say whatever you like, really! You can do it on YouTube, Facebook, a relatively unknown blog (Oh, that’s me!), the radio, or on TV (If you are lucky enough to have that sort of distribution). That doesn’t mean that you won’t offend anyone, people won’t debate the merits of your argument (There it is again.), or you won’t lose your job. That’s not a protected right, nor should it be. Feel free to argue that point with me, if you choose.
The recent gush of speech from Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty in GQ magazine has a lot of people upset. A&E fired him because of what he said. And that, too, has offended a great many people. It seems that the most common argument being made is that this is an affront to free speech. It isn’t, and it never was. It turns out that his message has not been censored or restrained. You can still read the article here.
A&E made a decision as a business (although I won’t call it a business decision, which I’ll get to shortly) to no longer have Phil on their reality TV show. This was a moral decision based on their belief that what he said was homophobic bigotry. That’s the end of the story for all of us. We don’t need to argue about whether or not you think gays are going straight to hell or if you think god will have to sort them out with the drunks and terrorists. You can think or say whatever you’d like, just like Phil can. Just remember that somebody (like your employer) may not want to associate with you anymore. That’s just how free speech works. Yes, they didn’t likely have any legal rationale for letting him go (I said likely. There are probably a few attorneys out there that will say this is a smart move.), but in the entertainment industry where you can let someone go for gaining 10 pounds, the law isn’t usually on your side. Hell, even Hooters can do that.
Back to A&E’s decision: It wasn’t a good business choice. They are likely to loose more viewers than they are going to gain or maintain over this decision. The demographic for this particular show, as we can clearly see, is not offended by his comments. For A&E (and I don’t know what they were thinking, so this is purely speculative), it was something they felt obligated to do for their own moral reasons, much like the NFL will punish and suspend a player for making comments that don’t fall in line with their code of conduct. He’s been sidelined from the game, but his free speech has not.
What makes me happy is that this is the same level of outrage that happens everyday when an employee gets fired for speaking up about overtime violations, unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, and hostile work environments… Yeah… Don't we look foolish.
I haven’t heard it on the Internet today, but I bet there are more important things that we’re missing out on because of this. Here is some news in science. Here is some news that really does affect your personal freedoms. And here is some world news because it’s healthy to know our world.
You're welcome.
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