Queer Bookworm

cajunboy:

karion:

In the coming week(s), in light of the latest Rush Limbaugh cry for relevancy (his “slut” stunt), I suspect we are going to hear a shit ton about how liberals don’t like free speech when they disagree with the content. Because advertiser after advertiser has pulled out, and the Republican candidates are distancing themselves, Rush (like Dr. Laura and Sarah Palin before him) is going to start wrapping himself in something and claiming it is the First Amendment, and how his free speech rights are being suppressed by the liberal media.

The First Amendment is NOT at issue here. In fact, Limbaugh is demonstrating precisely the desired and expected result of free speech: the market is deciding what speech to value. Rush Limbaugh is experiencing free market speech.

The very first word of the First Amendment is “Congress.”  Congress shall make no law…..abridging the freedom of speech.  The Amendment restricts Congress from enacting laws restricting speech.  Over the years, judges have construed “Congress” to include most governmental actions, such that the First Amendment practically means that the Government (federal, state, local) cannot pass laws or take actions that impede or punish speech. Within certain parameters (reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions), the government cannot deny you a permit for your NAMBLA parade, the government cannot throw you in jail for calling Obama a Muslim, and the government cannot censor your radio show because you call a woman a slut.

But the market?  The free market, the darling of the Republican party?  The free market can have their way with your speech.  They can reward it, by advertising on your show, ostensibly to reach like-minded listeners. If the free market thinks your content is of negligible shock value and just ignorant, stupid, and worthless, the market can reject you. And the free market is rejecting Rush Limbaugh.

So this week, when you hear about Fox News ‘completely disingenuous, wide-eyed outrage at how Limbaugh’s free speech rights have been violated by the liberal media, make your own googly eyes at just how deceptive our media has become.  There is absolutely no government action at play here. Limbaugh isn’t facing FCC fines. No one is censoring him. No instrument of the government is persecuting him.

The free market is rejecting what he is selling. It is more than free speech - it is free market speech.

I’d yet to hear this sort of thing until I watched CNN’s election coverage last night and one of their reporters just so happened to “run into” Sarah Palin. Then the big-haired queef from the North just couldn’t help herself: “I think the definition of hypocrisy is for Rush Limbaugh to have been called out, forced to apologize and retract what it is that he said in exercising his First Amendment rights.”

And so it begins.

(via wilwheaton)