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May 26, 2003 Some may remember Bill Press. He used to be the left's foil to Pat Buchanan on the CNN program "Crossfire." He's still occasionally on some CNN show giving the left's opinions on the issues of the day. He also writes a syndicated column which, thankfully, appears in only a few, left-leaning newspapers across the country. In a recent column, he likened public reaction to the Dixie Chicks', Sean Penn's, Mike Farrell's, and Martin Sheen's belchings to the "witch-hunts" conducted by "the disgraced, ex-Senator Joe McCarthy." That is, of course, utter nonsense. He went on to lament the "sudden disappearance of civility" in public discourse and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of talk radio, the internet and the Fox News Network. He complained about Phil Donohue, et al, being booed off the stage while giving commencement addresses at several universities as an example of this lack of civility. Again, utter nonsense. The free-speech provisions of the 1st Amendment only guarantee that one cannot suffer GOVERNMENT sanctions for expressing one's opinions--not that those public utterances should have no consequences whatsoever. As Babs Striesand, Ed Asner, Phil Donohue and The Dixie Chicks have a perfect right to their opinions (and to publically express them), WE have a right to be indignant when they trash our President and our Country IN those speeches and publically express that indignation in any way we see fit short of actual violence. For decades, we've seen conservative speakers at universities shouted down and denied the right to express their opinions by a vocal minority of radical leftists-- of which there seems to be a plethora in any given university. To the left, payback is turning out to be a real bitch (if you'll forgive the uncivil term.) While it's a certainty that government sanctions against these people is an unconstitutional no- no, that's NOT what's happening here. What's occurring, with the CD burnings, boycotts, booing and hissing at speeches that SHOULD be occasions for uplifting, hopeful and inspirational messages instead of dissing our country, is a perfectly acceptable, wholly constitutional, expression of OUR rights to free speech that are every bit as important and valid as the free-speech rights of the left. Once again, the left simply doesn't "get it." ------------ Email David Allen Jared: Pappadave@sbcglobal.net Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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