One side-effect of the Coulter debacle has been a discussion about what free speech is. Naturally, those decrying her latest little venom spewing have been accused of not supporting free speech or some other form of anti-freedom accusations. Basically, if you’re not supporting Coulter, it’s because you’re a dirty liberal who wants to shut down any opinions that don’t agree with your own. The same charges were leveled against anyone who agreed that going out of your way to piss off Muslims might not be a smart idea.

Now, from a strictly angry liberal moonbat political potshot perspective it would be incredibly easy to point out the hypocrisy in these charges. The same people who immediately hide behind the “free speech” banner are the ones who call liberals America-hating traitors who should be rounded up and charged with treason. Ann Coulter complains in the same breath she says liberals should be hung or sent to Gitmo.

But that’s the easy target. No, what I’m more curious about is the very notion that in order to believe in free speech you have to support all speech. There seems to be this sentiment flying around, particularly in the more conservative circles, that in order to claim support of free speech, one isn’t allowed to speak out against anything publicly said. One should be allowed to stand up and spew as much hatred and bigotry as one wants, and we all have to clap our hands and enjoy it.

Take a gander at the recent actions against Ann Coulter. The Human Rights Campaign is encouraging people to pressure Universal Press Syndicate, who distributes Coulter’s column, to drop her. The pseudo-libertarians are quick to say that this is against free speech, and a quashing of her rights to express herself. Again, this has been leveled any time liberals lash out against speech they deem hateful or insensitive.

Such an argument is simply crap. The first amendment begins, “Congress shall make no law…” We as citizens have no more power to “abridge” the freedom of speech than we do to declare war or appoint Justices to the Supreme Court. There is nothing, nothing whatsoever about myself and others protesting someone for hateful speech that goes against your freedom to say it. We cannot send you to jail, we cannot force you to say anything else. We can express our dissatisfaction, that is all.

In the case of Comedy Central, all they are saying is that they do not want their network to say such things. To suggest it is wrong for them to censor that which they do not want to broadcast is to suggest that THEY do not have the freedom to express as they see fit.

You see, one offshoot of free speech is that people who say things you dislike are also free to say it. Now that means two things: one is that people are free to say hateful things, the other (and the one people forget) is that they are free to express their distaste with what someone else says. You’re free to say Mexican immigrants are sucking up welfare, I’m free to call you a racist asshole. See how that works?

But you wouldn’t know that to read around. From a comment on another site:

Ann Coulter is an American, guaranteed freedom of speech by our Constitution. Don’t be a good Democrat or a good Republican, be a good American and support our Constitution. That way you can continue to expose your ideas to total strangers and good friends. We’re Americans, and we need to stand together behind the principles of freedom for everyone.

—Gale Harold

Right, the Constitution. The part that said Congress won’t do anything to prohibit free speech. And no one’s suggesting it should do anything of the sort. Rather, we’re suggesting that citizens should express their opinion OF the speech she is free to express, and if business want the support of those citizens they will act accordingly. Keep in mind these are the same people who support Bill O’Reilly and his famous boycotts. Another bit from NewsBusters, quoting Jane Smiley:

“…they are exactly the sort of persons our society needs to innoculate itself against.”

Wow. So society has to be innoculated against conservatism. Is this what liberal media elites like Smiley view as free speech?

Once again, no one is suggesting there should be a single law against a dang thing Coulter says. But this is where these people drop away from the sphere of logic and into the realm of hypocrisy which, as I said, I’m not going to discuss too heavily.

The actions from folks like the HRC are never petitions to Congress to have Coulter or anyone else arrested. No one wants her legally barred from writing, and if her website manages to reach 10 million people a day and fund itself by companies who support her bile, then that is entirely within their rights. However, they must realize (as do anyone on my side of the fence) that a social backlash may exist for such comments.

I want people to go back to 2001, post 9/11. Bill Maher was fired for saying the 9/11 hijackers were not cowardly (a sentiment I agree with, as despicable as they were), and an editor of a newspaper was fired for criticizing Bush for his failure to act immediately after the attacks. That was entirely ABC and the Daily Courier’s decision, amongst others who did similar things.

I think it’s shortsighted to fire someone who may still do a good job over a disagreeable comment and will 100% argue my OPINION that they should have kept their jobs, but under no circumstances do I believe there should be any legal protection against such actions. Moreover, to dip into the “hypocrisy” bucket one last time, I have a feeling everyone arguing for Coulter’s “free speech” argued for these people to be arrested for treason (keep in mind many of them cite the Alien and Sedition acts and Lincoln’s actions in the Civil War). At the very least, they said nothing in Maher’s defense.

But that’s just it. ABC can fire Maher, UPS can dump Coulter, newspapers can fire whoever they want if they don’t want their publication or programs to espouse a given message, and we as citizens can tell them what we’d prefer. As long as it’s not the government telling a given outlet to drop someone, it’s entirely within their rights to hire and fire whomever they please, just like it’s our right to express our opinions of said hiring and firing.

That, my friends, is how free speech works.

A tragic day indeed. One of America’s greatest heroes, the man who valiantly fought the Red Skull, Captain America, will be killed in an upcoming issue. And what’s extra sad isn’t just that he’s killed, no. It’s the how.

On the new edition’s pages, a sniper shoots down the shield-wielding hero as he leaves a courthouse, according to the newspaper.

He gets sniped. It’s not like Superman, where he gets killed by the first bad guy capable of defeating him. Some dude with a sniper rifle picks off Captain Goddamn America on his way out of a courthouse. That’s so anticlimactic, and not exactly a hero’s way out.

It makes one wonder if there’s a political intention in this. Much as Superman is “America’s hero”, I think Captain America has always been (ignoring the obviousness of his name) the one who really fights America’s battles. Hence the Red Skull and others. Batman fighting the Taliban? Strange. Captain America kicking Jihad Joe’s ass? Awesome.

So having Captain America sniped? It just sounds like a message of some kind. Or maybe I’m reading too far into it.

Once again, FOX News shows us why they’re the nation’s most trusted news source. And you know, it’s true. While everyone else is being all negative with their coverage, FOX can always be trusted to find a positive spin on things. Take a look!

As always, thank you to the lovely link site Reddit for this little gem.

Sometimes I feel like I’m beating a very, very dead horse, but I think it’s warranted. Bush is out here talking about the progress we’re apparently making in Iraq, and in an attempt to silence his critics by making them sound unreasonable, he only makes himself sound like an idiot. Observe.

“Other members of Congress seem to believe that we can have it all: that we can fight al-Qaida, pursue national reconciliation, initiate aggressive diplomacy and deter Iran’s ambitions in Iraq — all while withdrawing from Baghdad and reducing our force levels,” Bush said in a speech to the American Legion.

“That sounds good in theory, but doing so at this moment would undermine everything our troops have worked for. There are no shortcuts in Iraq,” the president said.

Much as I hate stealing sentiments from another site, Chris over on AmericaBlog nailed it on this one. We have a president who started a war that, from the onset, many of his critics were against because it would distract from the fight against al Qaeda.

We were fighting al Qaeda, didn’t have to worry about reconciling anything, were unworried about Iran doing anything in Iraq, and had no soldiers in Baghdad roundabout 2002 and early 2003. Bush was “The Decider” and decided to bring that situation upon us. The reason we can’t fight al Qaeda is because of his debacle of a war.

It seems like with everything he says that isn’t patently false, Bush proves more and more how the Iraq Fiasco is hurting the War on Terror more than it’s helping.