Why do we have rights?
The Jimmy Kimmel thing is a great excuse to scrap the broadcast licensing system.
It was the cancel heard around the world. ABC shelved Jimmy Kimmel over … nothing. I mean, have you seen the clip?
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So, a couple of things.
There is jurisprudence this tall on what the First Amendment means, how far it goes, and what it doesn’t protect. You didn’t come here for a treatise, so let’s summarize swiftly and note, before we start, that most of what applies to freedom of speech in the USA applies, mutatis mutandis, in Canada. You can’t sue me because I enjoy throwing around Latin expressions.
Essentially we have the right to say pretty much anything we goddam like. Personally I’m a free-speech absolutist and would only tolerate two exceptions: 1) slander/libel, which is dealt with in court, and 2) incitement to violence against identifiable people or groups. I lump the “don’t should ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre” in the second category.
Notably, I would not have hate-speech laws. The Criminal Code provisions against incitement to violence and stiff civil penalties in cases of libel are enough. We don’t need a bureaucracy to determine what’s acceptable speech and what should be shunned. It either reaches the point of criminal prosecution or it doesn’t. If the latter, it should be legal.
Jimmy Kimmel totally had the right to say what he did, and nobody is arguing that except maybe for one politician with a very fragile ego and his former vice-president who is giving the world an eloquent example of why the Constitution should be required re-reading for anyone who expresses views publicly.
Former Vice President Mike Pence: “The First Amendment though does not protect entertainers who say crass or thoughtless things as Jimmy Kimmel did in the wake of a national tragedy... I would have preferred that the chairman of the FCC had not weighed in.”
Actually, that’s precisely what the First Amendment protects. Freedom of expression was not put into the Constitution to protect the Mike Pence’s right to say apple pie tastes even better with vanilla ice cream on top. It is a constitutionally protected right precisely to protect speech that is unpopular. Crass, even. Thoughtless, too.
For instance, anyone has to right to say that certain groups of people are less intelligent than others. Sure, it’s stupid. Of course it’s offensive. I’m not saying anyone should say shit like that. I am saying everyone has the constitutional right to do so. And point out that the emperor looks funny without clothes on.
Jimmy Kimmel’s crack about the presumed shooter in the murder of Charlie Kirk may not be to everyone’s taste. I didn’t find it witty or funny myself. It doesn’t matter.
Does ABC and its parent company, Disney, have the right to yank the show off the air? Yep. For any reason they want, pursuant to the contract signed with Kimmel. Nobody can prevent Kimmel from speaking. But he doesn’t have a right to a paid platform.
Except that…
When the U.S. government, through the Federal Communications Commission, makes threats to the licenses broadcasters need to operate by pressuring them to remove certain content the government doesn’t like, we are dealing with the pure definition of censorship.
Maybe the solution is to do away with broadcasting licenses, which were super useful in the 1920s until about the time high-speed internet and YouTube were invented, and let technology and free markets decide who should be successful as a show host.
Who’d win in a truly free market of ideas? Fox News or Jimmy Kimmel? I, for one, would love to find out.
On a completely different note, I expressed mild enthusiasm for the Build Canada Homes (stupid-ass name though) and the Ottawa mayor’s pledge to end youth homelessness because both programs appear to have the right fundamentals and isn’t it a nice change to have evidence-based programs that experts agree are set up properly?
Yes. Yes it is.