2016 Feb 15^th

The title of George Will’s column this morning is, “The progressives’ itch to regulate the nation’s speech.” Before I read the column I wondered to myself, ‘How can this be?’ Liberals, have since George Carlin’s hilarious joust with the FCC over the seven words you can’t say on television, made sport of attempts to censure naughty speech. At the risk of a longer than usual blog I herewith reprint a selection from “More of the same,” a little book of essays I published in 2009.

I see by the paper that the Supreme Court has taken up the case of deciding whether or not the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, has the authority to ban certain words from television and radio. Well, ban isn’t the right word, although if they can fine the broadcaster $325,000 for each utterance, it amounts to a ban. Some years ago a comedian named George Carlin did a routine he called “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television.” Of course he said the words anyway proving that you could say them, but then he got arrested. Carlin had the words numbered, and comics since then have gotten around the ban by using Carlin’s numbers instead of the words: as in, “You stupid number 5; number 6. You’re just a number 1 head!” This is entirely legal. Carlin subsequently added a few more words to his list. You still can’t say any of them on television; indeed I’m not going to list them here. Some precocious child or particularly sensitive adult might read this.

The Supreme Court focused its concern on just two words, the S word and the F word. These were both members of the original Carlin seven. There was some discussion about whether it made a difference if the words were used specifically to describe bodily actions, or just used as expletives. The court decided it didn’t matter; the FCC can ban them.

Never mind, synonyms are perfectly acceptable. We can use feces instead of the S word, and coitus in place of the F word. These words are slightly longer than the originals, and leave something to be desired as expletives. Stubbing one’s toe and shouting, “Oh feces!” lacks much of the force of the S word. Coitus has much the same problem. Saying, “Coitus this stupid wrench!” just isn’t as satisfying as using the F word. It is good to know, in any case, that these are perfectly acceptable to the FCC and the Supreme Court.

As you can see, I found the notion of progressives trying to regulate speech a bit of a stretch, but then I discovered Will’s interesting logic.

Will begins by claiming Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton are hostile to the first amendment…that’s the one guaranteeing, among other things, freedom of speech. Will’s premise for this curious attack is SCOTUS recent ruling that corporations have the same rights as people and can spend unrestricted sums of money on elections. The court has decided that money spent on an election is the same as someone speaking in favor of a particular candidate, in short, that corporations have the same free speech rights as people. This means, according to George Will, that if you oppose the notion that money is speech and can be given in unlimited amounts to influence elections, then you oppose free speech and, of course, that you oppose  the First Amendment.  (When Mr. Will finds a hopelessly recalcitrant opponent; his comment is an exasperated “Please!”) Maybe Mr. Will’s contorted logic now merits a “Please” from his opponents.

I am curious; if corporations have the same rights as people, do they have the same responsibilities? If they do, why, when they break the law, and they do break the law, do they never serve time in prison?