free speech is not free speech
Originally published at What She Says. You can comment here or there.
I am sad tonight. Because I have done yet another foolish thing because I say more than I should. I blabber and rant and rave. I am wild and I leap before even the thought of leaping has occurred. I AM the leap, I am the pig, the whole wallow, running right off the cliff. I am not an adult, but I am an adult. I love my job, I hate my job. I love my house, I hate my house. I love my city, but I hate my city. We should not live in the south. We should not live in this conservative, wing-nut state. Maybe we should just leave this weird, split down the middle country.
I am a flaming FLAMEING liberal, but things are bothering me. Something is stirring. The FCC’s idea of questioning reporters in newsrooms, and, (I’m uncertain this is true, depends on who you read,) that as part of their study to ensure that entrepreneurs have equal access to the media they would monitor newsrooms and radio studios, would put monitors into newsrooms. Well, that is frightening. Terrifying! And the thing about the couple who don’t want to bake the cake for the gay wedding? Jesus? My first impulse is it’s a private business and they can serve who they want, but that could fall under the equal protection laws. I am confused. Last year Bill Maher showed a photo of the police during the Boston bombing mess. They didn’t look like policemen. They looked like soldiers. And that is frightening. That picture-all I can think is-Fascism. What is happening?
I learned today that free speech is not really free speech. We regulate our media-the FCC does that. I don’t know why I haven’t really thought about that before today. And in light of this FCC “study?” I am stirred up and confused and sad. Because I don’t understand. There are too many of us. Dale insists that we could run the USA the way the Swiss run Switzerland. They are tiny-8 million. We are huge-330,000. But they have just as much diversity as we do, they have the same challenges. But the big difference? They, too, have a constitution, but they are constantly amending and reshaping it, which just makes sense. But for whatever reason, the concept of changing the constitution, or just doing away with it (hasn’t Britain?) scares the shit out of people. It’s two hundred years old. Shouldn’t we be rewriting it by now? It’s nuts that we don’t. But, as my libertarian student asked-who would you want to do that?
Exactly.
~r.