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04/26/2003 Archived Entry: "famous liberal"

IT'S HARD TO BE A FAMOUS LIBERAL: Marni Soupcoff has a marvelous column in The American Enterprise On-Line dissecting some self-absorbed drivel from Tina Brown.

What drivel? Nonsense such as this: “In Republican America you can speak out against the Government — you just have to be willing to risk a cancellation of your concert dates if you are the Dixie Chicks, or an anniversary screening of Bull Durham at the Baseball Hall of Fame if you are ‘dissenting scum’ like its stars Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. But you can’t smoke a cigarette with a roof over your head.”

This diatribe is what Charles Bloomer has described in these pages as misunderstanding free speech. Freedom is commensurate with responsiblity. The use of freedom, including the freedom of speech, entails responsibility for the consequences of one's actions. Celebrities are perfectly free to speak their minds about issues that concern them. The rest of us are equally free to decide whether we agree with their views and the manner in which they expressed them. We may also decide to vote with our feet and our pocketbooks by deciding whether we will continue to financially support these celebrities. That's the essence of a marketplace of ideas. (By the way, I think liberals should get most of the blame for the anti-smoking stuff.)

Fortunately, when it comes to the whining of wounded celebrity liberals, Soupcoff and Bloomer will have none of it.

Replies: 1 Comment

A single conservative man's dream Marni is :-)

Posted by Steve Martinovich @ 04/27/2003 04:13 AM EST