Doctor Laura and the First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

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The inspiration for this was a “rant” by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the typical backlash and her response, which led to a second backlash. All along the predictable, liberal v. conservative dispute over political correctness v. common sense. In this era, there were countless reactions online, on television, in print- it's just the way of things.

My feelings on this: she was [mostly] right, while being terribly wrong on a couple points.

To begin, nigger is just a word. Contextually it can be an inflammatory, derogatory, hateful, dreadful, despicable, deplorable, no-good word. Her use of it, altho questionable was ultimately justifiable, whether or not you agree with her reason for using it. Some of her other remarks during the rant were [borderline] racist. End of the day, right or wrong, her gaff should have been cause for discussion, not condemnation.

Dr. Laura, herself, attempted to tie this back to The First Amendment to Our Constitution, but she made a second gaff in her attempt to do so.

“With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility”
-Stan Lee
With any right given explicit provision in Our Constitution, there are implicit responsibilities. We have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, guaranteed to us. The typical reaction to anyone making claims similar to Dr Laura's (about the repression of those rights) is that Our Constitution does not guarantee the right to be heard or the right to earn money from speech.

The thing is, these freedoms are utterly meaningless if we, as an audience, don't put the necessary effort into understanding what's been said and the context in which it was said. That is our responsibility and our challenge, in the era of the sound bite and instant, online publication.

We undermine our values and ultimately our country when we don't step-back, sit-down and figure out what has been said and (perhaps more importantly) what was meant by it, before reacting. This is because, we close the door on important dialogues, we insulate ourselves and our ideologies, undermining our ability to participate, cooperate and realize our potential.

Remember, the punditry within the old-school press, the majority of the blogosphere, talk-show hosts on TV and radio earn a living from having an opinion. They aren't paid to be informative, they aren't paid to be right. They are paid to draw an audience, to sell opinion and to incite controversy. There is not much money in being earnest and rational, so we, the audience, need to be.

Hear.
Understand.
Think.
React.