Free speech

Free speech has consequences. During the Age of Reason, the thinkers who influenced the Founders of America wanted the freedom to express their views, both verbally and in print. They were also aware that disagreement with the government or the power structure, or even their friends and colleagues, could have consequences, and they accepted that. And just as they demanded the right to disagree with others, they knew that others would disagree with them. The point was that everyone had this right, and with every right there is responsibility.
   This is the real meaning of Freedom of Speech, as specified in the First Amendment: Accepting that others have opposing views, and are equally free to express them.
    Juan Williams was free to express his fear of airline passengers "wearing Muslim garb," as he did on a Fox network program. But the consequence of doing so was that he lost his job with National Public Radio (NPR), which has a longstanding policy that its on-air commentators and analysts remain neutral -- a policy that Williams repeatedly violated numerous times, and for which he was warned numerous times. We are all free to have and express opinions. But often, a condition of employment is that we adhere to company policies. NPR's policy is that of journalistic neutrality.
   NPR, which is partially funded by the government, has a well-deserved reputation for neutrality in its news coverage. Fox does not have such a reputation. One consequence of Williams' action was that he lost his job at NPR. A second was that he got a new, higher paying contract with Fox.
   As reporter Scoop Henshaw once said to the Samurai Rim Man: "My opinions are not relevant to what I do. I have many opinions, but when it comes to reporting the news, I don't let them interfere."

ARCHIVE QUOTES -- "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -- George Bernard Shaw.
   "The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government to tolerate speech." -- Justice Anthony Kennedy.
   "I disapprove of what you say, but I  will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire

FROM THE RIM -- Patriotism is not always the last refuge of a scoundrel; sometimes it's the first. Samuel Johnson said it was the last, but Boswell later noted that Johnson meant the "pretended patriotism" which in many is only "a cloak of self-interest."