The United States of America, by God, is certainly a place where we all should feel free to say whatever we want. By the grace of the pen of those who drafted our Constitution, we have been given the natural, unalienable right to opine, whether what we spit is foolhardy or informed.
We are all protected by the First Amendment, but as any anti-Eminem picketer would cry, "There are limits!" There are implications and inferences restricting absolute free speech technically surrounding the law. For example, we can't defame; we can't use fighting words, and we can't trespass or intrude. (But, we can rap about killing our wife and mother. That's cool.)
But there is also no clause and no hint at the idea of "personal responsibility" in the First Amendment. That is, the law does not attempt to discern between good taste and poor judgment, and it does not make exceptions for idiots or morons. Truly, the amendment is as accepting to an expression or an idea as Ellis Island was to European immigrants. Give us your tired, your poor! Give us your misinformed and under-researched!
What I am getting at: There is no limit to what we are going to hear. So the best we can do is learn to tune out or go ahead and climb atop our soapbox, saddle up the high horse and join the great debate.
So when actors, television personalities or rock stars exercise their First Amendment right, we can't fault them. They may be in the public eye, but the only thing fame or notoriety offers them is a thicker channel with which to broadcast an opinion (which may or may not be as valid as ours). We can, however, not listen. We can agree, or we can vehemently rebut. But, wouldn't it be silly to march around with signs and a megaphone protesting a celebrity's (Sean Penn, Michael Moore) right to publicly disagree with the government? Wouldn't it be ridiculous to burn records and engage in radio boycotts when a band (Pearl Jam, The Dixie Chicks) takes a shot at President Bush? Wouldn't we be comically hypocritical if we rallied at a public campaign designed to enact censorship on a musician (Eminem, Marilyn Manson)?
Yes.
No where does it say we have to like everyone or everything that is said. Certainly, we don't even have to respect someone's ideas, and we can hate his haircut, and we can laugh at his faux-Goth bumper sticker. But, no matter what, we do have to live with it all. The same right you exercise when you picket or rally or vie for a boycott is the same right artists, musicians, politicians, columnists in an award-winning collegiate newspaper or charged citizens exercise when they create, express or emit.-รก
I laugh sometimes, but I sympathize with the terror many must feel when they listen to a particularly vulgar record or read an inflammatory quotation. I recognize their ensuing fervor is passionate, if misdirected and cartoonish. But, the thing is: it's useless. So, yell and paint your signs, if you want. Stage a sit-in. Call your Congressman. Avoid the film. Throw away the record. It's not going to do any good. Your right is their right, and, just like you, they'll use it as they please.
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