Sunday, June 18, 2006

The quote everyone missed...

What frosted me the most about the latest from the Dixie Chicks wasn't the comments from Natalie Maines. It was this from Emily Robison:
"It was the bullying and the scare factor," shudders banjo and guitar player Robison. "It was like the McCarthy days, and it was almost like the country was unrecognisable."
Bullying? Scare factor? Uh, Mrs. Robison, I'm going to explain something to you in very simple terms. You see, when Natalie Maines first made her comments about President Bush during that concert in London, exercising her free speech rights, a lot of folks heard about it.

And a lot of them are exercising their free speech rights when they say what they think. This does not excuse death threats... but one of the things that comes with freedom of speech is the consequences for exercising it. If you say something that royally offends others, they are going to say what they think. This includes your fellow country artists, or the guy who sent you an angry letter explaining why he's not buying your CDs, and why he thinks your bandmate's comment was BS is not a reminder of the days of McCarthy.

It's just free speech, Mrs. Robison. I'm sorry if you don't care for it.

1 comment:

Ken Prescott said...

There is a line from the movie Jarhead that sums this up:

There is no such thing as free speech. You must pay for everything you say.