Jesse Russell, over at Dane101, wrote a nice piece about Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the conservative radio host who has announced she is quitting after a tirade in which she accused a caller of "black-think" and insisted that she had the same right to say "nigger" as black comedians.
Like virtually all talk radio personalities, Schlessinger responds to criticisms with the allegation that her "first amendment" rights are being violated. It was this bizarre conspiracy theorism that Ron Johnson was appealing to in his Tax Day Tea Party speech, when he said that "unlike liberals, we conservatives actually believe in free speech."
Unless, of course, that speech involves too much talk about the Koran. Then again, if you read Ron Johnson's statement on "freedom of religion," which states the candidate "believes freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion," you realize that none of his rhetoric on the issue is aimed toward any principle other than following the rule of telling the Christian right everything it wants to hear.
Despite troubling signs of bigotry on the right, the only real loss for free speech that has taken place in Wisconsin recently (I'm not having the GAB debate today) was the state's rejection of an Assembly candidate's ballot slogan: "NOT the white man's bitch."
Profanity? Tell all the female dogs out there that. Seriously, how can one assess one ad as profane and a barrage of racial epithets not so? Ironic, that in the land of the free, we pride ourselves on free speech absolutism, unhindered by the speech codes of Europe, but that we allow government officials to split hairs over various words that refer to sexual, scatological or even animal descriptors.
"Bitch" has always been allowed on network television at least for as long as I've been familiar with it. I distinctly remember Monica Gellar being referred to as such at her new job. Second season...perhaps? Here's an equally good example of Chandler dropping the B-Bomb.
If "bitch" was good enough for an American institution as important as FRIENDS, it is good enough for our ballots.
