The Charlotte News

Monday, August 20, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the four-person ceasefire negotiating subcommittee met for only 70 minutes at Kaesong this date, as a new crisis threatened efforts to end the Korean war, with "partisan forces of either side", according to allied headquarters in Tokyo, possibly trying to wreck the negotiations. That statement was in reply to Communist charges that U.N. forces had ambushed a Communist patrol inside Kaesong's five-mile neutral zone on Sunday, in which a Chinese patrol leader had been killed and a Chinese soldier seriously injured. North Korean Lt. General Nam Il, chief Communist delegate in the talks, said that the Chinese patrol had been carrying out policing duties in conformity with the neutrality agreement. This date's subcommittee meeting was the shortest since the subcommittee had been formed to attempt to break the impasse on where to establish the ceasefire line, the 38th parallel, as demanded by the Communists, or along present battle lines, as the U.N. demanded.

There was no report of progress in the talks, as press continued to be barred from the subcommittee meetings, even prevented from sitting on the veranda outside the conference building for fear of leaks. The only report was that as the Communist delegates entered the meeting this date, they bore no smiles.

In ground fighting, South Korean infantrymen, using hand grenades and bayonets, removed Communist defenders from four hills in the eastern sector this date, and were within a hundred yards of the top of two other hills. Hand-to-hand fighting erupted along the front from Kumhwa to the east coast. No full-scale attacks had been launched, however, by either side since the beginning of the ceasefire talks on July 10. Nevertheless, according to Eighth Army headquarters, the Communist had suffered 9,590 casualties during the previous three weeks, through August 17. It said that South Koreans were doing the limited fighting for the U.N. forces on the east and east-central fronts, supported by U.S. Naval vessels, heavy air strikes, and U.N. artillery.

During the weekend, allied jet fighters clashed in three battles on Saturday, resulting in two Russian-built MIG-15s being destroyed and one additional MIG probably destroyed, plus six damaged. All allied warplanes had returned safely.

Following the release the previous day by eight Republicans of a minority report regarding the investigation of the firing of General MacArthur and Far Eastern policy, Democrats, led by Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming, defended the Administration's Far Eastern policies against Republican contentions that any final peace which left Korea divided would be a "delusion". The eight Republicans, led by Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, had labeled the Administration policies "appeasement" and blamed those policies for the loss of China to the Communists, adding that the Yalta agreement had caused most of the country's difficulties with Communism in Asia. Senator Harry Cain of Washington, one of the authors of the minority report, told a reporter that he and others were not contending that a ceasefire agreement had to provide for complete withdrawal of the Communists from Korea, but that no permanent peace could be had without unification. But Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut said that he did not know how Korea could be unified politically or economically after the U.N. had divided the country into North and South.

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., opposed any cut in the proposed military aid to Europe, as two Senate committees, Foreign Relations and Armed Services, reached the voting stage this date in consideration of the Administration's 8.5 billion dollar foreign aid program. Senator Lodge had proposed in a motion to approve the 5.3 billion dollar military aid portion of the bill. Senator Tom Connally said that the committees would consider the $7.5 billion House-approved measure first, but that such consideration did not mean the Senate would necessarily accept the House cuts. Senator Hunt told a reporter that he would support a move to transfer policy direction of the foreign aid program back to the State Department, contrary to the House bill which proposed creation of a separate agency, which he saw as a dig at Secretary of State Acheson.

Oliver Edmund Clubb, suspended State Department official, told HUAC this date that his personal diary showed that he had met with Whittaker Chambers at the New Masses office in 1932. He turned over to the Committee several volumes of his personal notes compiled during a 23-year period as a foreign service officer. Mr. Clubb, however, had told the Committee in an executive session the previous March that he did not recall ever meeting Mr. Chambers. For his part, Mr. Chambers had testified to the Senate Internal Security subcommittee the previous week that Mr. Clubb had come to the New Masses office early in the 1930's, where Mr. Chambers was one of the editors of the magazine at the time. Mr. Clubb then obtained his old diary from Peiping and found the entry from July, 1932. In the diary, he had said of the New Masses that the "so-called revolutionary organ is a horrible rag". Mr. Clubb had received a hearing on July 31 before the State Department Loyalty Board, but no decision had yet been announced.

Two Republican Senators, Homer Capehart and John W. Bricker, said, in a minority report, that the controversial majority report of the Senate Banking subcommittee which had investigated the RFC had shown that the President and DNC chairman William Boyle had "transferred Pendergast politics to the national level". Chairman of the subcommittee, Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, responded that the statement was "scurrilous" and politically motivated. Senator William Benton of Connecticut said that the minority report "abounds with false innuendos" and that much of it did not even deal with the RFC, that the authors were using the forum to attack individuals for partisan political advantage. The majority report of the subcommittee, however, had stated that the RFC had fallen prey to "an influence ring with White House contacts".

The President was preparing a special message to Congress seeking additional relief and rehabilitation funds for flood-stricken areas of the Midwest. The President had conducted an 80-minute conference with Congressional leaders at the White House this date.

A shrunken hurricane cut across the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and moved into the southern Gulf of Mexico 30 miles northwest of Merida, continuing on a west-northwesterly course with maximum winds of 75 mph, the minimum for hurricane force. The hurricane was expected by weather forecasters to increase in size and intensity, however, while over the Gulf during the afternoon and night. At its peak, the storm had killed at least 109 people and destroyed property valued at 56 million dollars as it passed over Jamaica the previous Friday and Saturday. Kingston had received the heaviest blow, with Port Royal also suffering damage, as winds reached 130 mph. It was not yet known the extent of damage across the Yucatán Peninsula, as communications had been severed by the storm.

In Atlanta, AFL president William Green, speaking before the International Typographical Union convention, described Senator Taft as "an organizer of Communism in America", as the Taft-Hartley law had made workers so resentful that they might turn toward Communism.

In Paris, Prince Igor Troubetzkoy said that there was a "climate for reconciliation" between him and Barbara Hutton, notwithstanding the Mexican divorce from him granted to the Woolworth heiress. He said he still wanted Ms. Hutton back.

On the editorial page, "Security Program and Danger" finds distressing the action of the House in cutting more than a billion dollars from the Administration's 8.5 billion dollar foreign aid program, as that figure had been carefully determined by General Eisenhower, the Joint Chiefs, and the State Department, after long study of the state of European preparedness. Had the House made a similar study in cutting the billion dollars from the program, it might have made some sense, but instead they had taken the meat-axe approach.

In the Senate, the economy bloc, led by Senators Taft and Walter George, were preparing to perform their cutting.

One explanation for the large House cut was that the Congressmen had apparently been unable or unwilling to reduce non-defense spending by any significant amount, notwithstanding the fact of their claim that the Truman budget would be cut. Having thus failed on non-defense spending, they apparently were seeking to redeem themselves.

But the aid bill was a defense measure, designed to create European armies and bolster European arms production, in the hope of deterring Russia from aggression. Every division of European troops trained and equipped with U.S. aid decreased the job commensurately of the U.S. in the event of total war. Such a large, indiscriminate cut in the program tended to undo all of the good work which had been accomplished in Western Europe since the end of the war. While economy was desirable generally, economy which threatened security was a "highly irresponsible gesture".

"Here We Go Again" applauds the President for having vetoed the bill which provided special pensions for certain war veterans with non-service related disabilities. But the House had overridden the veto by a vote of 318 to 45, a sufficient two-thirds majority, and the Senate would likely follow suit. It concludes that veterans whose disabilities were not service related had no greater claim to Government care than any other citizen. If the Government was to make special provision for such persons, it should provide those same benefits, it posits, to all citizens.

"The Record of History" tells of eight Republican Senators, not content to allow the record of inquiry into the firing of General MacArthur speak for itself, having insisted on filing a minority report, released to the press the previous afternoon. While that release time, on Sunday, was calculated to achieve maximum publicity for want of other headline news, it was hardly necessary as the report contained no news. It was a summary of what the opponents of the Roosevelt-Truman foreign policy had been saying for years, "a mish-mash of obfuscation and misrepresentation".

While it does not propose to summarize the report, it suggests that it should not be passed over without failing to observe that it had failed completely to consider the contemporaneous background of past decisions in formation of policy, instead judging them against the backdrop of current circumstances, and ignoring the while the accomplishments of the Truman Administration in foreign policy, many of which, it suggests, had been notable. While Presidents Roosevelt and Truman and their Secretaries of State had made errors in foreign policy, the broad view of history would in the future, it predicts, credit both Presidents with good results in foreign policy.

"Copyreader's Lament" tells of newspaper copyreaders being condemned to spend numerous hours reading through the "society" pages for errors, including item after item regarding the bride's "original of candlelight duchess satin design with fitted bodice and a bertha of imported Lorraine lace," or of the bridesmaids' "ballerina dresses of net over matching taffeta in strapless style with shirrred bodice and full skirt". They were forced to digest such tidbits as the alma mater of the bride and her sorority, as well as where the bride's parents entertained the reception after the wedding. Such redundant trivia mounted up such that the poor copyreader was reduced to curses or tears or both.

So, it remarks, it was refreshing to note the Associated Press story from Antibes, France, which told of the marriage of jazz musician, Sydney Bechet: "Sydney Bechet got married today and there was a real Muskrat Ramble here on the French Riviera." It finds such a description much superior to the hackneyed "ceremony of quiet dignity, etc. etc." It goes on to provide further quotes from the story, each of which had also departed refreshingly from the usual dry recitation of fresh connubial bliss warmed over.

"Man, that's real sassiety."

Drew Pearson, writing from Berlin, tells of the East Berlin youth rally, despite published reports to the contrary, not being a flop, as it had drawn a million youths and no such mass political gathering could be considered a failure.

The State Department, despite a meager budget, had done a very good job of attracting 250,000 German youths into the Western sector, providing them food, literature and a view of the much better living conditions on the Western side of the Iron Curtain. But when the rally was only half over, orders had come to close up certain youth depots, as the food was costing $12 per day at one center and the State Department's budget, limited by Republicans in Congress, was exhausted.

But 750,000 other Communist youngsters had never entered West Berlin, enduring the poor accommodations and scant food offered them in the Eastern sector. Such a result meant that democracy would lose out to Communism by a ratio of 3 to 1.

He describes the North Korean show at the rally, with the highlight being a dance operetta in which a Korean mother, after her child had been killed by the Americans, was the heroine. The climax came when she threw three grenades into an American camp, where three Americans then tore her clothes half off and took turns beating her, as she took from her blouse the flag of the Peoples' Republic. Just as the Americans had tied her to a tree and were preparing to shoot her, a shot had rung out and Korean guerrillas came to her rescue, whereupon the heroine shot an American officer at point-blank range. These scenes had prompted the audience into frenzy, providing 20 minutes of applause and giving the Korean actors multiple curtain calls as Russian women rushed up to embrace the Korean orchestra leader. The audience then left the theater chanting, "Ami, go home!" It was a sample of the type of propaganda which was regularly being instilled in Communist youth.

Mr. Pearson had sat in one youth center in West Berlin talking to three boys from Saxony, one a carpenter's apprentice, another a locksmith's apprentice, and the third unemployed. They expressed dislike for Communism and when he asked them what they thought of a United States of Europe, they responded adamantly that it was necessary, as unity was required to defeat Communism and war.

Mr. Pearson was struck by the remark, finding that while the West was handing out soup and bread and providing aid through the Marshall Plan to build buildings, railroads and roads, all important, the Communists were selling an idea; and sometimes people would fight harder for an idea than for their stomachs. He believes that where the West was missing the boat was in not providing both an idea and bread, the idea of uniting Europe in prevention of war. While there had been some effort in that direction by the U.S., he suggests it had not been concentrated enough, insufficient to continue outselling the Communists' phony idea on a 75-to-25 ratio.

Marquis Childs tells of the planners who were trying to estimate the needs of the country in its defense capability being under tremendous strain to get it right, as their recommendations to both Congress and the National Security Council would tend to be final. The Joint Chiefs had wanted to leave the decision to Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, but he had politely declined the responsibility, leaving it to the heads of the three military services to determine among themselves.

The decision on air power would be especially tough. Both Congress and the Pentagon favored a 163-group Air Force, plus 40 more groups for the Navy and the Marine Corps, with an additional 10 carrier or transport groups for a total of 213. While that figure was not to be taken too seriously, the hope was for a compromise at around 135, 40 more groups than presently extant, plus the 40 additional Navy and Marine Corps groups by 1954. As the Navy was the largest in the world and the Army was reaching a point at which it could be expanded rapidly in an emergency, the deficiency was in the Air Force.

In his book, Cracks in the Kremlin Wall, Edward Crankshaw had set forth his belief that there would be no large-scale war with the Soviets in the foreseeable future and that the only way the Soviets could conquer the West would be without war, by frightening the West into turning society into an "apparatus of totalitarianism indistinguishable from the society of Soviet Russia".

Mr. Childs echoes that sentiment, saying that while no one doubted the need for increased armed strength of the country, if it were to be undertaken in an atmosphere of hysteria and fear, with "inflation eating like a cancer at the base of society", then any victory would be hollow.

"Pitchmen of the Press", in the thirteenth in the series of articles originally published in June-July, 1950 in the Providence (R.I.) Journal, for the second edition in a row regards columnist Westbrook Pegler, this time regarding his obsession with alleged bedroom peccadilloes of the powerful, namely the late President Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor. It begins: "It is appropriate that Pegler during the 15 weeks that his column was studied, officiated at the marriage of his primary literary obsession, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and what may be his second, sex. He did this by the ingenious method of dealing with the sex life of the Roosevelts."

On April 24, Mr. Pegler had written: "The relationship [between FDR and another woman] was not platonic. The very fact that the widow and other beholden people … concealed her presence put the stain of guilt on the situation."

The piece posits that Mr. Pegler could see "a stain of guilt faster than any man alive". He was referring to the presence of Mrs. Winthrop Rutherford, at the time 53, in Warm Springs, Ga., when FDR had died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945. The fact of her presence had been related by the late President's secretary, Grace Tully, in her book. But all she had said was that Mrs. Rutherford was a "saintly old lady". Mrs. Rutherford had commissioned the portrait which FDR was having done at the time of his death. Her presence, therefore, was entirely appropriate and conveyed nothing suspicious.

For three days during the study of the column, January through April, 1950, Mr. Pegler had proceeded to suggest by innuendo that Eleanor Roosevelt was also having an extramarital affair with a former New York State policeman, Earl Miller, who had been FDR's bodyguard while Governor of New York and subsequently became a friend of the family. Mr. Pegler did not assert outright that she was having this affair, but certainly implied it. He based the assertion on the fact that a rock crystal vase which had belonged to FDR's mother, had been given to Mr. Miller after her death, as well as his having been mentioned three times in Eleanor Roosevelt's memoir, plus the fact that Mr. Miller had given Mrs. Roosevelt his horse. He found confirmation in the fact that Mr. Miller and his wife began divorce proceedings and that members of the Roosevelt family had intervened to try to patch things up, a set of facts which Mr. Pegler found sinister.

He also believed that the publication of Mrs. Roosevelt's memoir disqualified her to be a representative of the U.S. at the U.N. because her late husband had an affair supposedly with another woman, an assertion Mr. Pegler dared Mrs. Roosevelt to deny. Per her usual practice, Mrs. Roosevelt ignored the dare. But Mr. Pegler found this to be "intentional withholding of material information from writings sold to the public as truthful historical background", rendering her unfit for her position at the U.N. He even went so far as to suggest that if she did not leave voluntarily, she ought be kicked out.

Mr. Pegler next turned his attention to Secretary of State Acheson and a report released by the State Department which stated that 91 employees had been discharged for homosexuality on the basis that they were security risks, subject to blackmail. Mr. Pegler had used the theme of homosexuality previously, a favorite device being "to describe enemies as flouncing and pouting, in plain reference to effeminacy, even when the men described were unquestionably masculine". Mr. Pegler took this report by the State Department as the basis for asserting that it had been lax regarding the presence of homosexuals. He even said that it compared unfavorably with the vigilance exerted by Adolf Hitler on his minions, ordering the shooting of Captain Roehm for being homosexual—when in fact Hitler had him shot for personal reasons having nothing to do with homosexuality.

He did not reveal that the percentage of homosexuality in the general population was four percent, while at the State Department the incidence was less than two percent.

It states that perhaps his most revealing reaction to sex came in reference to the Kinsey Report. In a book about the report, Morris L. Ernst and David Loth had said that there was a wide difference between the laws regarding sex and the sexual practices of people in general, primarily because laws were made or influenced by those who knew little about normal sexual behavior. They had written, "Celibates have been the most dogmatic expounders of the normal and the moral in sexual behavior." Mr. Pegler, reading this quote, became very upset, asking, "Who, then, however, would Mr. Ernst prefer—prostitutes, homosexuals, and other perverts as arbiters of sexual behavior?" The piece suggests that Mr. Pegler had equated celibacy with the opposite of "prostitutes, homosexuals, and other perverts", ignoring the fact that every normally married person was non-celibate.

It also notes that had he continued reading the Kinsey Report, he would have found on page 48 the following sentence: "Lewdness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder."

While communicating an obvious truth, the author apparently mistook the source of the quote, as it was not in the Kinsey Report...

By sheer coincidence, this series appears in The News in 1951 coincident, in the chronology of the presentation daily since April, 2008, with a time in 2018, nearly 20 years after we inaugurated this website, when media talk is focused on the recent bans by various internet platforms of a certain comic who regularly performs his circus act on the radio and formerly on these internet platforms, broadcast from deep in the heart of Texas via a gravelly voice reminiscent of George C. Scott's interpretation of the actually mellow-voiced General George S. Patton. Is it a denial of free speech?

In the technical sense of the law, it is not, as the First Amendment to the Constitution only forbids restraint on free speech by state, local or Federal government action, be it direct as with a law or indirect as through a government regulatory agency or government funding, with certain exceptions to the restraint on interference recognized from the pre-Constitutional common law, most notably speech which presents, judged by objective reason, a "clear and present danger" of arousing violence in the hearer of the speech, Justice Holmes's proverbial conception of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, actual threats of violence aimed at a person which the speaker has the present capability of carrying out imminently, in that instance amounting to criminally actionable conduct rather than pure speech, and civilly actionable defamation, that is a false statement which defames another person, which is published such that it is heard or read by a third party, and which results in damage to that person.

In the past, courts have also upheld limitations on speech based on statutes or ordinances purporting to ban obscenity, but since such statutes have largely been deemed unable to pass Constitutional muster for being overbroad, that is encompassing innocent speech, or unduly vague, that is not reasonably understood such that a person could conform their conduct to them, they are largely obsolete and so we need not deal with them. Moreover, "community standards", by which such "obscenity" is supposed to be judged under the law, are such in present times and for many decades into the past that to suggest any form of speech, be it private or public, as "obscene" these days is laughably absurd and utterly stupid. Any such person is obviously playing a game with reality, ignoring the fare pervading movies readily accessible in the community for decades, internet presentations, tv presentations, etc., all pervading a particular community, while seeking to focus attention on one individual because of disagreement with that individiual for reasons having nothing to do with the supposed "obscenity". And that sort of indirect usage of "obscenity" laws to get at someone some other person does not like or with whom they disagree politically or otherwise, or for just the sheer desire to demonstrate their political power, has been true in most such cases throughout the history of the country, the very reason such laws are generally regarded as obsolete, not Constitutional, and thus not worth the paper on which they are printed if still on the statute or ordinance books in a given state or locality.

Generally speaking, in the United States, one can say about any damned thing one wishes, short of actual threats of violence, actionable defamation, or calls to armed violence, whether against the government of a place or against some other entity or person.

But, also generally speaking, private persons or entities can prohibit exercise of free speech, as long as in doing so they, also, break no law. One can, for instance, through trespass laws, prevent someone from entering on one's private land or space, leased or owned, regardless of whether the intruder is purporting in the process to exercise free, protected speech, even if the most vigorously protected speech, political free speech. Companies can restrict employees or persons with whom they contract, that is patrons, from engaging in certain types of speech while on their premises or utilizing their particular service, even if the restriction is, by its terms, fascist in its implications. The notion that free speech generally can be used to organize economic boycotts or other forms of protest against such entities tends to neutralize the adverse impact on the principles of free speech.

That is especially true of the comedian in Texas, who has, by his own humble estimates, "millions of listeners daily" to his radio broadcasts, podcasts, internet shows still available at his own website, etc., and so surely could organize at least a few of those millions to go out to Silicon Valley in California and parade up and down on the public sidewalks in front of the corporate headquarters of the platform purveyors who have "banned" him—that is, of course, if any one of those "millions of listeners" really gives a good goddamn about any of the absurd claims and plain lies the comedian communicates on a daily basis, plainly done with tongue firmly in cheek, as no one could be that nuts to say such things in seriousness or gullible enough to believe them.

Thus, applying the purely technical application of the law to the matter, private individuals and businesses can practice bans on free speech without violating the law. Caveat is due, however, in California where private blacklisting is banned by statute, arising under the California Constitution. Other such state or local restrictions on private individuals and businesses banning free speech might also be applicable, as nothing prevents any state from affording greater protections of freedoms than those provided by the Federal courts interpreting the Federal Constitution—or, better phrased, which narrow the recognized restrictions on those freedoms allowed by Federal court interpretation. The states and localities cannot, of course, infringe liberties arising under the Constitution or with which the Constitution forbids interference, those being protected under the Fourteenth Amendment, including First Amendment free speech. All state constitutions also reiterate recognition of the First Amendment liberties, allowing for greater expansiveness of those liberties than recognized under the Federal interpretations, but never narrower interpretations, as the Federal interpretations provide the minimal standards for the liberty interest in issue. So, any private business, entity, or person would be wise also to consult state law before acting to limit another's liberty interest, lest they be in for a rude shock via a knowledgeable lawyer contacted by the person whose liberty interest is thus infringed.

But, assuming for the moment that no state violations of free speech are being practiced by the internet entities in question, something which has not been addressed by the self-appointed legal "experts" on the tv and on the internet, the next question becomes whether the principle and spirit of free speech has been violated in the case of the instant ban of the radio and internet comedian. The answer at first seems plain enough, that it has been.

Yet, upon closer inspection, we have to answer in the negative. For the comedian in question still is around on the airwaves. We were able just last night, for instance, some two weeks after imposition of these internet bans, to find him after a couple of minutes of browsing the AM dial, though we had never before sought to tune him in on the radio, only previously occasionally gathering a couple of minutes of laughter here and there from his outrageous comedy routine practiced on his internet outlets. His program also still exists regularly at his own website. So, he is not "banned" from the internet or radio.

His voice not only has not been silenced, but he enjoys more free speech than most of us pikers who have to subsist on our own unmicrophoned, unmegaphoned, naked voices transmitted in muted tones of ordinary human intercourse or in such fora as this, that is, print placed on the internet or otherwise purveyed. He still has unbridled freedom to hawk his vitamins and other wares to those who enjoy his brand of humor, though much of it is, to anyone of normal sensibilities, quite beyond the pale of acceptability, even sick, especially when it makes cruel jokes about various incidents of gun violence, even claiming that they did not occur in some instances. That, except to the very ill, is not the least bit funny.

So, this "angry" comedian still has his freedom of speech quite intact and we do not in the least fear for a condemnation or abrogation of his rights and liberties. And, even the internet platforms which "banned" him, may, of course, still reverse those bans at some point in the future; but, at present, they have not infringed his liberty interests in the same way they might have were they to ban, for similar alleged violations of their policies, ordinary individuals without access also to broadcast via the radio, not hawking vitamins or other wares which can be purchased much more cheaply elsewhere, and who earn nothing, not millions of dollars annually as reportedly does the comedian, from their exercise of free speech. Anyone, of course, with a few dollars to spend each year can have their own internet website—though having it found on the internet and visited by anyone is another issue, first requiring a subject in which many people are interested, not "Why I went on vacation last summer at Myrtle Beach with my little dog, Scooter—including my very own photos", or similar such topics, and some rudimentary understanding of how search engines work, especially as Wickedpedia has developed a way to hog the search engines such that nearly every topic for which one searches initially produces an entry from Wickedpedia, however uninformative an article therein typically tends to be—but that's another topic.

In short, we do not fear for the comedian's future or his dedicated audience's inability to access him either on radio or the internet. He has not been banned even by private entities from either location, only from the dedicated platforms of certain companies for violations of their policies.

Had a syndicated columnist in 1951, such as the loathsome Westbrook Pegler and his peddling of unsubstantiated rumor as fact, had his column terminated by the syndicate purveying it or even had he been fired from the parent newspaper for repeated violations of policy regarding printed statements which were defamatory in nature or the like, would anyone then have raised much of an eyebrow, especially if that well-paid syndicated columnist also had another outlet for sharing his or her views? Would they now?

We have to wonder why some of the people who claim today self-righteously that the comedian's voice has been "silenced" in derogation of his right to free speech, have not shown the least concern for liberty and free speech, or the rights of viewers and listeners to partake of it, when private companies have fired employees from regular broadcasts or terminated contracts in recent times over unproven allegations of sexual harasssment, stemming from the McCarthyistic "Me Too" movement which has been popular of late, based usually on unsubstantiated claims from years and even decades in the past, never once proven, and usually not even adjudicated, in a court of law. Where are the defenders, for instance, of Charlie Rose and his free speech? Mr. Rose had something worthwhile to say on a daily basis, based on fact or at least recognized opinion, not baseless rumor, certainly not defamation.

The comedian in Texas, whom we describe as a "comedian" because no one could be so crazy as to believe a tenth of what he has to say, has little of note to add to human discourse in any of his daily rants on "freedom", which typically revolve around either preservation of the supposedly threatened interests of the white race, as his rant did last night on the radio regarding some action taken in Australia to protect minority interests against intrusion by the majority whites, the conspiracy by the "interdimensional" "lizard people", not human, of the "new world order" "globalists"—presumably not indistinct from the object of Clare Booth Luce's 1943 coinage of "globaloney", referring to the early U.N. planning—against the Trumpies, Brexitentialists, or their ilk and their conception of "freedom", or the actual object of most of his comedy, gun "rights" under the Second Amendment and related topics—one local advertiser on the distant radio station through which we tuned in his program last night having presented advertising, not surprisingly, from a local store which promoted the ability to "build your own" AR-15 assault rifle, the logical extension of which being that you, too, can become an object of scrutiny by the "mainstream meteor".

They say, "Know thine enemy." We know ours, for we occasionally listen to this comedian on the radio or on the internet, wherever we can find him, to understand what others might be hearing and perceiving, oblivious to his special brand of comedy, in an effort better to understand human behavior in the society. He is not an endangered species by any stretch of the imagination. He is certainly not banned and continues to earn millions hawking his wares to those who don't get out much to shop around for better prices, while also taking advantage of their apparent ignorance of law and fact to pass off his comedic rants and rages without a hint of the artifice being practiced, feeding them, in consequence, twisted principles and interpretations of reality in the process, based on his understanding in advance of what those tastes, by demographic study of his audience, most desire for satiation of their taste buds. He has not been "banned" and he is crying all the way to the bank by the recent bans from certain platforms, which he effectively dared the entities in question to undertake by his repeated violations of their well-promulgated policies, disagree with them or not. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression of ideas have not been infringed in the least and so we feel no need to die to protect his damned right to say whatever the hell he wants, in accordance with Voltaire's expression.

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