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In Reply to: The U.S. vs. John Lennon posted by Duilawyer on March 30, 2007 at 08:38:55:
I'm not sure whose thinking you find convoluted. To my mind, it's Rosy's. But, based on your reasoning, I guess you would also defend Joe McCarthy's right to brand people "communists" and ruin their lives?Rosy DESERVES to be fired. If we can't see that, then we have truly lost our way. People, particulary those on television, do have the right of free speech. But they have a duty and obligation, by virtue of using the "public's airwaves," to speak responsibly.
Free speech has it limits. Drug manufacturer's can't promote cures that their medicines can't deliver. Advertiser's cannot mislead or deceive the public. Rosy O'Donnell cannot go around pretending that things that are demonstrably FALSE are the gospel truth.
Whatever free speech means, even if it gives a person the license to completely disregard the simple groundrules of public discourse (like, for instance, knowing what the f___ you're talking about before you open your big mouth on national television), it certainly does not prevent ABC (is that the network?) from exercising it's own free speech and showing this moron the door.
You know, we have really come to a very sorry state of affairs when so many people in this country base their opinions and political decisions on mere heresay, and when newspapers and politicians are only too willing to exploit it for their own agendas. It makes me sick. And Rosy O'Donnell, and people like her, make me even sicker.
Follow Ups:
Whatever she said, so what? If its wrong, and I heard her go on about fire does not melt steel (burning jet fuel does!!), she should be allowed to say it without threat of loss of her job. Anything else is Naziism at its worst. And using code words about she "should be held accountable" is just doublespeak for censorship, punishment, and repression.
Are you saying that if Rosy O'Donnel is saying something patently false, let's say a week or two before a major election, on a media outlet that is parially owned by, let's say, George Soros, that this would be protected free speech?Free speech is meaningless -- unless it is founded on a high regard for thhe truth. Rosie could claim that George Bush is an alien from outer space plotting the destruction of the human race -- not too far beyond what she is already contending. Is this protected free speech? Yes, sadly. Does ABC have to provide her with a forum in which to unleash this sewage into current of civilized and reasoned political discourse? ABOLUTLEY NOT!
The thing I fear is the silent tolerace of these falsehoods by those in the mainstream media and politics, by those who see their advantage in letting these small fires burn because it suits their agenda. The scariest thing is that there are even those in Congress who are willing to purvey these falsehoods because, cynically, they know the American public, or at least a portion of it, is ignorant enough to put some credence in it.
This is nothing but another iteration of "the Big Lie," the basis of the rise of Nazziism.
Rosey, and other trash talking, non-thinkers like her, whether on the left or the right, need to be exposed and discredited. They can say whatever they like, but noone has an obligation of any kind to actually aid and abet their political psycho-babel -- not ABC, not anyone. In fact, we have a moral obligation to discredit them and oppose them. This is not repression or censorship, this is merely sweeping out the barn.
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