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.