Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Seal the Chamber

In the wake of harsh criticism over her repeated use of the "n-word" on radio, Dr. Laura is ending her radio career:
Embattled radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger announced Tuesday she will not renew her contract that is up at the end of the year, telling CNN's "Larry King Live" she wants to "regain my First Amendment rights."
[...]
In announcing her decision "not to do radio anymore" after being in the business for more than 30 years, Schlessinger said, "I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry or some special-interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent."

While Dr. Laura still claims to "regret" the incident, I'm a little dubious, not the least because the "n-word" was among the least offensive elements of the tirade she went off on.

In any event, as is so often the case, "First Amendment rights" translates to the right not to be criticized by private parties. In fact, we can translate this entire whine as abject fury that Dr. Laura's professional position forced her to actually listen to Black people's "special-interest group's" opinions. Dr. Laura's real complaint here isn't about the First Amendment. It's that her echo chamber wasn't as secure as she thought it was.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, quite a fair amount of mind reading you did there on Dr. Laura. Have you thought of taking your act on the road? Your ability to know exactly what was going on inside her mind is incredible. As for the use of the "N word" ... well, big "F-ing" deal. We're all adults. Again, this seems to basically be a way for the general useless class (lawyers, humanities professors, race hustlers, street jugglers) to gain status and feel important. However, this race gig is probably about up and you may have to find honest work in the future.

Unknown said...

Blah, I couldn't even listen to it after "you're hypersensitive"/"but that's not racist to meeee!"

Though ah, why call Dr. Laura for race advice in the first place? It's not like there's a stellar record there...

Side note: lol, "race hustlers"? What is that and can I be one? Your anonymous commenter sounds like the one I had.