Mark Madden column for the ages...

If there was government action taken against Avery, sure. But there has never been a constitutional right to free speech in private enterprise. This misinterpretation of the First Amendment happens too frequently.

 

Wrong -- I am not misinterpreting anything.

I am reacting to the fact that every time one of these idiotic suspensions/firings happen -- to punish speech -- the people who didn't like the speaker or what he had to say celebrate it as if this is a good thing, someone's speech being silenced or punished -- even if it is by a private corporation.

And that is where the slippery slope part of it comes -- the next step is silliness like the fairness doctrine, which is government-sanctioned, and since people are so quick to celebrate punishment of speech they don't agree with, well, how can it be bad? Right?

It is never good to celebrate the infringement on certain rights, even if it is by a private enterprise, because people aren't usually saavy enough or smart enough to make that distinction, so when the government does start putting in laws which punish speech or infringe upon speech, the same groups of people are celebrating it because they don't know any better.

The response should be that people don't buy tickets to the NHL, don't buy merchandise and send a clear message that we take our ability to speak freely seriously......

 

I can see the connection between what happened to The Dixie Chicks at the start of the Iraq War and what is happening to Avery.

Granted, it is a connection as thin as a thread, but they both spoke openly about something and were punished for it.

It's tough to see that in this country.

 

The thin thread holding that connection together snaps when you take the subject matter in both instances into consideration.

I mean, really.

 

As the NHL has the right to tell their employees they represent the league and acting like a jackass isn't the portrayal they want.

 

I know a guy who was covering a high school football game. Gets to the school and doesn't like the press box set-up. Seats are occupied by fans/friends, no place to work, etc. So he starts yelling, "Fuck this," and that it's a bunch of bullshit and that the fucking asshole school had better learn how to do things right because he's not putting up with this third-rate piece of shit set-up.

One of the school administrators hears this and calls the managing editor of the paper on Monday to complain. Guy is called in and confirms that he lost his temper and the account of what happened was accurate. He was given a suspension and ordered to write a letter of apology.

Was the paper wrong? Did it punish "speech?" Or did it reprimand an employee who represented the paper in way the paper deemed to be unacceptable?

Are our rights to free speech threatened because of what happened to this guy?

 

It's a massive -- and massively stupid -- overreaction. Another piece of Bettmanian stupidity but, unfortunately, in this country, we have allowed the government to subcontract the abridgement of our civil liberties to every other institutional entity in our lives. Try to go through life -- hell, try to go through high school -- without taking a drug test which, without cause, is a pretty obvious violation of Amendments IV and V. I short, I agree with zag -- except about The Fairnes Doctrine, on which he's got to stop listening to the talk-radio morons and to George Will -- but don't see any turning back, alas.

 

Nope...you're on company time, you act with decorum.

 

Your company owns your soul.
Get used to it, drones.

 

Says the man or woman using a fake name on a message board.

 

...this news should make Madden happy. According to a rumor that I've heard, long time Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Bob Smizik is taking an early buyout/retirement effective today. There are more hits (early retirement deals) happening at the PG because of the poor revenues being posted locally and nationally in the newspaper business.

 

Please, Madden will wish he had a 30+ year career like Smizik.