The purpose of free speech isn’t to protect speech that is pleasant, agreeable, kind, nice, friendly, and popular.
Instead, the purpose of free speech is to protect speech that is rude, offensive, unpleasant, vulgar, unpopular, and controversial, and which goes against the narrative of the people who are in charge.
Therefore, I support free speech for Whoopi Goldberg, Joe Rogan, Roseanne Barr, J. K. Rowling, Gina Carano, Ann Coulter, Ilhan Omar, Milo Yiannopoulos, Louis Farrakhan, David Duke, Bill Maher, Paul Joseph Watson, Cenk Uygur, Al Sharpton, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Chris Rock, George Carlin’s ghost, Muhammad cartoonists, American flag burners, communists, socialists, fascists, Nazis, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, abortion activists, anti-abortion activists, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the Proud Boys, Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, atheists, you, me, and everyone else.
Huffington Post writer Kimberley Johnson recently made the following tweet:
“Out on the road the other day I saw an affluent black man driving a BMW with two bumper-stickers. One was pro-NRA and the other one was a Tea Party sticker that read, ‘Don’t tread on me.’ This left me very confused.”
In my opinion, that’s a lot worse than what Roseanne Barr said six weeks ago. Barr was commenting on what she perceived to be a certain physical resemblance. Johnson’s comment is about what she believes people are supposed to think. What a person thinks is a lot more personal than their physical appearance. Barr’s comment was offensive. Johnson’s comment was dehumanizing.
Fortunately, in one of the best commentaries ever on the subject of racism, Colion Noir went on Fox News, and invited Johnson to appear on his own show to have a discussion about this. I encourage everyone here to watch his appearance:
“We should rip Barron Trump from his mother’s arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles.”
Fonda’s statement is worse than Roseanne Barr’s earlier statement, because:
1) Fonda involves an innocent child who never chose to put himself in the public eye.
and
2) Fonda tries to incite violence against an innocent person.
When I first found out about this, I said to myself, “Let’s see if the media pays less, as much as, or more attention to Fonda’s quote than to Roseanne’s quote.”
But then I soon realized that it had already been five days since Fonda had made his statement. So I already know the media isn’t giving it anywhere nearly as much attention as it gave the Roseanne’s statement.
I’m against canceling any of Fonda’s upcoming movies, just like I’m against cancelling Roseann’s show. (I now see the show is coming back, but under a new name, and without her. How can they kick someone off their own show? That’s just so wrong. “We hate Roseanne”s comment enough that we fired her from her own show, but we’ll still collect our paychecks for being on new episodes of the show.”)
It took less than 24 hours for them to fire Roseanne. Fonda hasn’t been fired from anything even after five days, as far as I can tell.
In 2005, the Washington Post reported the following:
… a politically ambitious butcher from West Virginia named Bob Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. After Byrd had collected the $10 joining fee and $3 charge for a robe and hood from every applicant, the “Grand Dragon” for the mid-Atlantic states came down to tiny Crab Orchard, W.Va., to officially organize the chapter.
Also known as Robert Byrd, that guy later ran for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from West Virginia, and won. And he kept getting reelected again and again and again.
In 2010, he died while in officer.
If he were still alive and healthy today, he would still be in office.
After he died, Hillary Clinton referred to him as
“my friend and mentor”
You can hear her saying it at the beginning of this video:
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 