Is Free Speech a One Way Street?

There aren't too many people sticking up for Ann Coulter these days, but here's a columnist who does. He's Ian Robinson of the Calgary Sun and he actually believes in the unpopular notion that free speech should be an equal opportunity right; you know, for everyone, as opposed to the PC policy wherein leftists get a pass from every unacceptable word they utter. Imagine that!

In his column he chides the imbecilic left to just grow up ideologically...my phrase not his. Here a bit from his piece:

...the reason for the e-attack can be summed up thusly: Eeek! Eeek! Ann Coulter used the "f-word."

From the furor she caused, you'd think she'd killed somebody. (Oops. Sorry. That'd be Ted Kennedy.)


Depending on your point of view, Coulter is either:

a) Funny, smart, gorgeous, vastly entertaining, and usually right.

b) The spawn of Satan's loins who, if you look carefully at that elegant neck, bears the vestiges of a pre-surgery Adam's apple.

Call me crazy, but I tend to come down on the "a" side.

Then again, my e-mails (or, as I like to think of them: Death threats from people completely unfamiliar with SpellCheck) call me mean things, too.

Just because I wrote that I hate panda bears and want them off my planet because they're too dumb to do the horizontal mambo, called recycling a fraud, suggested cops hit winos with their batons until they behave and that we herd crack addicts into northern gulags .... people call me a right-wing nut, too.

Coulter is currently being ravaged for her grotesque insensitivity in saying, in connection with John Edwards, candidate for the Democratic nomination for president: "I was going to have a few comments about John Edwards you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot.' "

It was classic Coulter, and it followed lines like: "What's Al Gore up to these days? About 400 pounds."

It was mean.

It was politically incorrect. It was topical, given that therapy was prescribed for the young black guy on Grey's Anatomy after he used the term to describe another actor on the show. And it was kind of funny, if your sense of humour runs to the savage.

Plus it made the point that Edwards is a politically correct wienie.

If people want to take Coulter to task for it, not only do I get that, as a free-speech fetishist, I applaud it.

And let's face it, it's not a nice word and it's offensive.

What I don't applaud is the complete absence of fair play in dealing with political commentators who say such things.

Coulter said a rude thing.

Fine.

Fry her for it.

She's a big girl and at the end of the day, she'll just sell more books.

But what if she'd said: "I'm just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live."

What if, instead of making a crack about John Edwards' sexuality, she'd opined that she thought it was a good thing if somebody murdered him?

She didn't. That juicy piece of political commentary came from comedian Bill Maher -- a left-wing version of Coulter -- on his HBO show, only it referred to Vice-President of the United States of America Dick Cheney, after a suicide bomber blew himself up in proximity to Cheney during a trip to Afghanistan.

Where is the outrage against Maher?

Where is the bleating from the mainstream media?

Coulter used an unpleasant word.

Maher, in essence, advocated the assassination of an elected official by an Islamofascist terrorist because he doesn't like his government's policy on Iraq.

Which is the greater sin?

Where, for that matter, was the outrage against one of the bloggers hired by the Edwards campaign -- who later resigned -- who denigrated people of faith as "Christofascist" women-haters, and who threatened to have sex all day long without having babies just to spite those silly Christians who believe in foolish notions like sexual continence and fidelity and marriage.

(The promise to refrain from procreation was quite the relief to those of us who saw her photo on the web. Like the panda, we do not want those genes passed on.)

All those spammers who mobilized to attack Coulter?

You want to be offended?

Fine.

Go for it.

Enjoy.

If they had any integrity, any sense of proportion at all, they'd turn their attention to Maher and HBO over his comments.

But somehow, I doubt they will.

Thanks, Ian! We needed that!

Oh, by the way, I'm still plugging Ann's delightfully witty and well documented book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism here, along with a host of many other fine books worth reading. Check 'em out on the right hand side of this blog.