What do you do when even the world's most notorious panderer hates you? You work on your persecution complex of course. This sort of paranoia is a natural response when one sees one's friends suddenly turn their backs on you. But even uninterested parties are starting to sound the Big Brother alarm, now that Howard Stern's radio show has been permanently dropped from six of Clear Channel's stations.

We should be worried when allegedly monopolistic media corporations cave to government pressure, leading to reduced free speech. But support from the foremost advocates of free speech has so far failed to materialize around the nationally acclaimed shock jock. As columnist Dan Savage wrote: ". . . what distresses me about Stern's predicament is that civil libertarians, lefties and sex radicals aren't furious and distressed, too, and that they're not rallying to his side -- and they should be."

Perhaps, in failing to support Howard Stern, civil libertarians, lefties and sex radicals have finally learned something about the way the free speech issue is framed in this country. Perhaps they've realized that as far as the general public is concerned, free speech is often synonymous with bad taste.

As others have lamented before, whenever free speech debates come up in this country, they're almost always about defending the most vulgar, disgusting, and hateful materials available. In the popular mind, the folks clamoring for free speech are people like 2 Live Crew. To civil libertarians, these groups are equally entitled to the right of free speech; to the vast majority of the public however, these are not exactly the sorts of people that good, God-fearing families want to throw their support behind.

The reason that vulgarity is so closely connected to free speech arguments is simply because it's the most likely reason for free expression to be challenged. At first glance it seems depressing that we so often have to go to the wall to defend the rights of people to be disgusting – but we should really be happy about that. It means that free speech isn't being abrogated for political content alone. America has managed to fiercely protect political speech, regardless of what the opponents of campaign finance reform think. In spite of Stern's belief that he's being attack for political reasons, we should take some comfort in the fact that left leaning media networks like Pacifica Radio and Air America haven't had their offices raided by jack-booted thugs just yet.

Yes, we should be glad that the biggest free speech issue going on right now is Howard Stern's right to discuss blumpkins on his radio show. But, just because it's about vulgarity in the service of cheap laughs doesn't mean that we should take the Stern case lying down. As much as it might gall wonky, uptight, libertarian types, they should be willing to bite the bullet and join forces with the unwashed blue collar Stern fans in the million moron march (if it ever comes together). Even if it means hanging out with these people for several hours under the hot D.C. sun.

Doesn't free speech mean that much to you?

-B. C. Silvia
-4/14/2004