Why Al Sharpton Shouldn't Be Fired

I’m a free speech purist. This means that I am perfectly OK with talking heads saying things with which I agree or making giant fools of themselves with inflammatory rhetoric. This includes instances in which meatheaded Keith Olbermann wants to make a political donation or when Al Sharpton is taped hysterically screaming about “homos” and “Chinamen,” as disgusting as the speech seems.

I’m tired of the media witch hunt-fueled “99%” by the free-speech poseurs, our friends on the Left. I’m tired of people whose first reaction to speech with which they disagree is censorship. 

In the past several months, progressives have employed fascistic tactics in hunting down and attempting to bully off-air anyone who doesn’t share their views while remaining completely silent on the hate speech from the Left. A progressive wished on live radio for me to get raped, and the male-dominated Soros sites wrote not a word of condemnation. I and others asked for the administration to stop its war on the First Amendment and for women to buy their own birth control, and progressives try to kick us off the airwaves. I’ve watched as Michelle Malkin is deluged with sexual and racial slurs daily simply for disagreeing with the administration. There is a “War on Women” to be sure, just not the one the Left wants to discuss. 

The Left targeted Limbaugh over his disagreement with the sentiments expressed in a White House set-up on birth control. Did they hold to their own standards when Mike Malloy, with whom I’m being more generous than fate has been to him by using him as a comparison, remarked that former president George W. Bush should be “Seal Team sixed?” Or what of another progressive who said conservative women should have their ovaries cut out of them? 

We already know the Left’s double-standards on speech. “For thee, not for me.”

Laws protecting speech weren’t instituted to protect only opinions with which you agree. That’s the biggest test of your devotion to free speech: do you believe in it so fiercely as to demand its extension to individuals who spout incredibly offensive nonsense? I do. Once a line is drawn, it’s easier to draw another. Andrew Breitbart recognized this; it’s why he vehemently believed in “more voices, not fewer.” He didn’t impose a litmus test of whether or not he agreed with your remarks. 

I’ve always felt that people should be free to let the crazy fly. If someone wants to advertise to the world that they’re a poster child for inbreeding by espousing racist rhetoric or other slurs, let them do it. It’s a giant red flag for the rest of us to avoid this person and decide for ourselves whether or not they should be taken seriously. The organic, collective refusal to acknowledge people who subsist on shock is far more punishing than a scandal created by censorship. 

I challenge the Left to demonstrate some semblance of consistency and condemn Sharpton’s remarks. I also challenge the left to demonstrate such an adherence to the First Amendment. Considering the way they’ve persecuted faith-based employers over the HHS mandate, something tells me I won’t have much luck.