I never listen to Don Imus. I think he and his soulmate Howard Stern debase the public culture and they ought to be taken out and shot. I’m ever so slightly less certain whether they ought to be taken off the air though. Although I don’t think the free speech issue is substantial, it ought not to be dismissed casually. So let’s follow this and see where it leads.

Does taking guys like Don and Howard off the air amount to censorship? In my opinion, the party who pays the costs and benefits from the revenues, i.e. the broadcaster, bears the ultimate responsibility in this matter. It is CBS or NBC or WFAN or Sirius or MSNBC who chooses to air Imus and Stern and their ilk, or not. These broadcasters are responsible for degrading the public discourse, or not. And they bear responsibility for the consequences of doing so, should there be any.

The broadcasters make their choices based principally on economics. Fine, that’s their right; it’s their money. If we the people loathe and detest what they do, fine, that’s our right. If we boycott them and withhold our money from them, fine, that’s our right too. If we pressure our FCC and our Congress to take such matters in hand, pass laws and regulations against poisoning the public discourse — as was the case up to a decade or two ago, then something changed, I’m not sure what — fine, that’s our right and, I’d add, our duty as citizens. I’m willing to then leave it to the courts to decide whether such laws and regulations violate the First Amendment or not.

Your right to throw a punch ends where my nose begins. The right to free speech is not the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. Imus and Stern can stand out on the corner of 42nd and Broadway and exercise their free speech right as easily as over the public airwaves. Denying them the public airwaves does not deny their free speech right nor, in my opinion, does it amount to censorship. But the public airwaves belong to you and me, not to CBS or NBC or WFAN, although it never seems that way. If the American public deems the public behavior of the Don Imuses of the world unacceptable, it’s our right to petition to have such junk taken off the airwaves, which, in case you forgot, belong to us.

I’m an ardent First Amendment-ist — a card-carrying member of the ACLU for God’s sake — but you see where I’m coming from. I believe the Imuses and Sterns are in fact yelling fire in a crowded theater, that theater being the public airwaves. If they must speak to that audience that wants to hear them, I say let them do so somewhere other than in that theater — which, need I remind you yet again, belongs to us.

But what about Sirius and MSNBC? They aren’t using the public airwaves; their cables and satellites belong to them (though public subsidies, tax breaks, etc., made such ownership possible in the first place). That admittedly makes some difference. But in my opinion, it doesn’t take away we the people’s right to petition, object, boycott, picket, not patronize and otherwise show our displeasure with Sirius and MSNBC, by putting our money where our mouths are.

The argument is made that there’s an audience for Imus, Stern & Co. and it’s censorship to deny this audience its entertainment. Sure there’s an audience for these guys. There’s an audience for Nazi hate talk too, and for snuff films, and for bestiality pornography. (I got two emails within the past few days inviting me to participate in such a website; wonder what they know about me.)

There’s a sociological argument that dudes like Don and Howard offer society a safety valve for otherwise unacceptable thoughts and behavior, thereby performing a public service. Can’t speak for you, but that certainly ain’t the case for me.

Well then: Isn’t it hypocritical to single Imus out for this incident when he has been guilty over the years of so many similar offenses? This viewpoint has nothing to do with either free speech or sociology, but it does have to do with another unattractive form of public behavior known as the lynching. Scapegoat alert! Don Imus is fair game! Let’s pile on!

When this happened to Martha Stewart — not previously one of my favorite public figures — I actually was moved to sympathy. While it’s unlikely I’ll come to feel sympathy for Imus — ever — the present spectacle does carry a whiff of hypocrisy.

That said, my concern over the relentless coarsening of our public discourse and our lives outweighs my concern over this particular public flogging. I mean, calling a bunch of near-champion athletes “nappy-headed hos” — then having one’s producer chime in with the ineffable “jigaboos” — is simply disgusting. These poor women were just minding their own business when Don Imus, armed and dangerous, took them out in a drive-by shooting.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Mark your calendar! Sunday, April 22, is the Kensington (MD) Book Fair. I’ll be there all day, signing copies of To Love Mercy and chatting. The fair, a/k/a International Day of the Book, takes place in picturesque Olde Town Kensington amid the antique shops along Howard Avenue just east of Connecticut Avenue.

P.P.S. And come to Politics & Prose this Saturday (6 p.m.) to hear David O. Stewart talking about “The Summer of 1787,” his readable new history of the creation of the Constitution from Simon & Schuster. David is my fellow member of the Holey Roaders, writers group par excellence. P&P is at 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington DC 20008.