I swear it feels like just yesterday I was angrily writing about why saying criticism of Ann Coulter is attacking free speech, but here I am doing it again. In bars and on message boards, I see the same complaint surrounding the firing of Don Imus both from his television simulcast on MSNBC and from his actual radio program: they’re coming after our free speech! It’ll be you next!

For the love of whatever you find holy, stop that. Don Imus was an employee and was being paid to have his mug on television and his voice on the radio. If they decide they don’t like what he’s saying, for whatever reason, they can choose to let him go. That’s how the media works. This was not a situation where the United States government arrested Imus for being racist and put him in jail over saying something mean. That would be an affront to free speech.

If people think that a man being fired for something he says on television is an affront to free speech or censorship means preventing free expression, then they might want to stop watching television and movies or listening to the radio. Everyone is censored, people are constantly prevented from saying things. And people are fired all the time after doing something live. Think about how many SNL cast members were fired after saying “fuck” on live television. I have yet to hear anyone come to their defense.

And look at it the other way around. Doesn’t arguing that media companies can’t fire people who say things they dislike attacking their freedom of speech?

Think about it. You’re MSNBC, you hire a cast of pundits and hosts because you like what they say and want your viewers to hear the expressed opinions and whatnot. Something changes, the hosts and pundits are saying things you never expected, and now your station is propagating viewpoints or making comments that you heavily disagree with or downright detest. Isn’t it perfectly within your rights to let those people go to prevent your station from being associated with such things?

I don’t think there is a single person arguing on Imus’s behalf who also argued on Bill Maher’s when he said the 9/11 hijackers weren’t cowards. People are defending what he said, not free speech in general. I didn’t want Maher to be fired from ABC because I thought what he said was, while offensive, something that deserved to be said. I can’t begrudge ABC for not wanting to have that on their network and it would be idiotic of me to say a television station has no right to limit what its employees say.

This is not an issue about free speech. Period. For the record, I supported Imus losing his MSNBC simulcast but not his radio show. Hopefully he’ll find a home on Sirius/XM. Seems more his audience.