Loose Lips

Shock jock radio jerks are in danger of killing free speech for people who actually have something to say. Immediately on the tails of Imus's firing, a scandal erupted involving Opie and Anthony. Personally, I've never had much use for insulting juvenile humor. And since I'm too cheap to pay for satellite radio anyway, I've never heard Opie and Anthony's show. I heard the news reports. Their show had some crude comments demeaning Laura Bush, Condi Rice, and the Queen of England (she was visiting at the time). Apparently they didn't even say it; they just laughed at it.

In any case, I don't really care what they said. I find it very sad that people turn to this sort of thing as entertainment. But then again, I love South Park, so there's no accounting for taste.

The problem is by pushing the limits they are making an opening for others to be silenced as well. There are many conservative commentators that believe there is an effort by liberals to use this "He said ____! Fire him!" routine to silence conservative radio -- a medium not adequately controlled by the fair-minded gatekeepers that control everything else that makes it into public discourse.

Free speech is about the freedom to express ideas, especially political ideas. That is, in fact, the reason it appears in the Bill of Rights. By abusing the idea with worthless blather, the lowbrow attempts at humor could erode the free expression of real ideas. People's failing to exercise self-restraint often results in restraint being imposed from the outside, becoming an encumbrance on us all.

The Right to be Heard

Most people have no idea what a "right" really is. This can be seen from time to time, usually when someone is claiming a right.

One of those misunderstood rights is the right of free speech. This is quite possibly the most bastardized of the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. There is much to be said on the topic, but I will concentrate on just one small aspect in this post.

There is a phrase that I hear people use: the "right to be heard". It is often used as a rallying cry on behalf of a minority voice, a person cast as being repressed. The most amazing place I have seen this used is in the proceedings of the Supreme Court of Florida. In their decision to make Gore President, they wrote, among other impeachable nonsense, about "...the right to speak, but more importantly the right to be heard."

A right is something you already have at the outset. You cannot get a right, only lose one. Your right can be ignored or usurped by others who violate your right. For someone to violate your right to speak, they would have to silence you or at least to prevent others from hearing you.

But the concept of a right to be heard is utter nonsense. You could violate someone's right to be heard simply by not listening to them. You would violate NBC's right to be heard by flipping to ABC. You would violate the rights of a babbling madman on a street corner if you ignore him and walk on by. You would be violating my right by not reading this blog. And considering very few people ever see anything written here, a lot of people are violating my rights!

The very phrase attempts to grant a right to someone that imposes an encumbrance upon everyone else to fulfill the "right". If everyone has a right to be heard, enforcing that right would force you to listen.

There can be no such thing as a "right to be heard", Craig wrote into the eternal oblivion of a hundred million other never-read blog entries.