The slow death of free speech?

"I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." -Voltaire

It seems like we've traded free speech for political correctness.

1) Imus-- What he said about the girls' basketball team was cruel and inappropriate. (However, I don't think it's necessarily more cruel or inappropriate than the things thousands of other entertainers say everyday.) But...to be fired for that? Of course that was a PC, butt-covering move on the part of the station. But wouldn't it have been better if people (us) just said, "What you say is hateful so I'm not going to listen to your show any more."

2) Isaiah Washington-- Okay, the guy seems like a complete jerk, and the more he talks, the deeper he digs his hole. Again, his comments were bigoted and uncalled for....but to be fired for something like that? Again, I disagree. I never liked his character, and I don't like what I've seen of him as a person. Still, I believe people should have the right to voice their opinion, no matter how odious it may seem to me. (I think the only "correct" way to fire Washington in this case, would have been if TR Knight filed a sexual harassment lawsuit-- which would have been valid under "creating a hostile work environment"-- but that's not what happened. It seems to have been entirely a political move.)

3) Livejournal-- This is a little bit different and moves into more of a censorship territory, but the fandoms have been having a summer feud with LJ. I don't have a livejournal anymore, but I read others' LJs and have been sorta keeping up with the developments. People are having their journals deleted without warning, prompting mass exodus to Insane Journal, Greatest Journal and the like. The journals are primarily deleted for having sexual content (some of it artistic), I believe, but here's the thing that is really upsetting people-- Livejournal does not have a clearly stated and enforced policy about what is and is not acceptable. [None of these people have had outright porn on their LJ.] As one LJer said, "If they did have those rules, I wouldn't like it, but I would know that those are the rules I have to follow." But right now, it seems to be capricious.

So...what do all these things have it common? Shutting down free expression and exchange of ideas. Do I want to call people racist or homophobic names or post erotic drawings on the internet? No. But that's not the point. If it's okay to say to Isaiah Washington, "I don't like what you said so you lose your job," what happens when people don't like what I say? If we only allow "free speech" when it's speech we agree with and approve of, that's not free speech at all. A free society allows the free exchange of ideas--even hateful ones-- believing that people are smart enough to make their own decisions.

To me, it seems that censorship even on LJ starts moving things too close for comfort to book banning.

"Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings." ~Heinrich Heine

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." ~Noam Chomsky

"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion." ~Henry Steele Commager

"Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage." ~Winston Churchill