White Lightning Axiom: Redux

To hear liberals tell it, free speech is under siege. When crooner Linda Ronstadt imposed her unsolicited fawning views of America-basher Michael Moore on a Las Vegas audience at the Aladdin casino recently, a large portion of that audience did the principled thing: They got up and left. The management at the Aladdin asked Miss Ronstadt to do the same. These people must have been First Amendment insensitive; according to the New York Times, they interfered with Miss Ronstadt's "right to express a political opinion."
But didn't the audience members have the right to express their opinions? And didn't the Aladdin, which was footing Miss Ronstadt's bill, have the right not to be made a forum for political discourse? No, says Los Angeles Times media critic Tim Rutten. When the "drunken mob" at the Aladdin refused to take Miss Ronstadt's rants sitting down, the "most fundamental of liberties came under assault," he claims.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 9:01 AM