Freedom of Speech and Fallacious Arguments

In the (Non) News today, a guy said a massively dumb thing which demonstrated his prejudice and small mindedness, it spread virally and now he is unhappy that there are consequences that follow from his actions.

Was that general enough? I’m not going to call out the individual or what they said because there’s no reason to draw more attention to it, but let’s say, hypothetically that a faux celebrity from a television show about a family that runs a business, let’s say it’s a fowl business and the entire family has played a role in the business and apparently participate on this show. (Never watched it, have no interest) Further, let’s say that one of the individuals expresses an opinion to someone in the media that, according to polls, disagrees with a majority of the folks in the United States. But, to make things worse, he expresses his opinion in a manner which is unacceptable to a more than a majority of the population.

Here’s the rub: There seems to be a vocal minority who believe that this person needs support because their freedom speech is being violated. This irritates me and now I’m exercising my freedom of speech to disagree.

This is and never was a freedom of speech issue. This individual was given the opportunity to express his opinion, as egregiously stupid and narrow minded as it might be. No one stopped him. In fact, media doing what media does, it facilitated this individual’s ability to be heard much further and wider than he probably intended or, arguably, has earned. His freedom of speech was magnified by the media’s willingness to provide a forum for one more faux celebrity to be heard saying something dumb.

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequence. This joker got to say what he wanted. The company which makes the show his family benefits from has a concomitant right to protect their show and if they believe the right way to do that is to fire this guy from the show or simply “suspend” him in hopes that this blows over, they are well within their rights to do so.

We, as consumers, have the right to not watch the show that includes this bozo and that, more than anything, is what the production company and channel that broadcasts this show is worried about. They are concerned that audience members will stop watching. So, to protect their investment, they are exercising their right to place consequences upon this dope as a result of him saying stupid and offensive things.

I noticed on Facebook this morning, there appears to be a bit of foofaraw around defending this yokel. Statements like: “I support [insert name of faux celebrity here] and his right to express his faith and his beliefs”.

Again, this is an attempt to paint an issue as a freedom of speech or, worse, freedom of religion issue when it very, very clearly is not. What’s being asked for is a freedom from consequences and that’s not captured anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

No one is impinging on his ability express his faith or his beliefs but anyone, including those who employ him, are well within their rights to protect their investment when he goes off the rails and says stupid things. Sadly (not really) for him, there is no protection from stupidity.

There’s also, in this statement, more going on than the simple words. Inherent in this call for support is this message: “Support this goober because he expresses views that I agree with” and for that I have zero tolerance.

So, No, I won’t support an individual hoping to not suffer the consequences of his actions. I won’t support views that are discriminatory and result in impinging actual rights of actual human beings.

The result of this is exactly what should happen: A person said a stupid thing and their ability to say that stupid thing – the venue they were given to be heard in the first place – was taken from them. This person can say what they want, but we don’t have to provide them an opportunity to keep saying it. And we, as a people, can choose to walk away from people like this, not offer them a venue, not offer them an ear. We can turn our backs on this kind of nonsense and make clear that this person and this message are things we do not want to hear. I hope we do so.