First Amendment and celebrities

The First Amendment is one of the hallmarks of the American way of life.  Other countries have tried to imitate it, but they have restrictions on speech that contrast their laws with our First Amendment and leave them short of our unabridged right to free speech.  Forget time, place and manner restrictions; Oliver Wendell Holmes pretty much took care of that a century ago.

To paraphrase what Voltaire said, I may hate what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.  Political speech is next to religious debate for the amount of heat it generates.  I enjoy the exchange of ideas and the attempt to convert someone to my way of thinking, which rarely happens.  As long as the debate is mature, I have no problem with that.

I do, however, have a problem with celebrities exercising their right to free speech, especially when it involves politics.  Of course, I don't think they should be silenced.  They have as much right to speak their minds and embrace positions that oppose mine just as much as a private citizen would.  But there is a difference.

Celebrities have unlimited access to media.  Private citizens do not.  Joe Sixpack down the block isn't going to get on television shows once, much less with the regularity of Alec Baldwin.  Nor will he host a show like Bill Maher.   This gives the celebrity almost unfettered access to media outlets that he or she can use to trumpet his or her particular political viewpoint.  It also gives their candidates added benefits in the form of celebrity endorsements for which they don't have to spend money.

To be sure, the overwhelming majority of these celebrities are liberal.  They support the Democratic Party as regularly as they breathe.  The rare conservative celebrity who dares to voice his or her opinion is shunned, oftentimes shut out from working on projects because of his political viewpoint.

This is not a figment of my imagination.  There have been rare but solid reports that reflect the liberal bias in the media with accompanying stories of people not hired because of their conservative views.  To suggest this is McCarthyism runs the risk of tripping over a corollary to Godwin's Law, but it's true:  Conservatives have to play ball or risk being blacklisted by the mainstream media and Hollywood.

Trying to combat this is nearly impossible.  Congress and both the MSM and Hollywood are in such an incestuous relationship that no legislation seeking to curb this would ever stand a chance.  Even if it did, the First Amendment would prohibit it.  If things were more balanced, I probably wouldn't mind so much.  But when such strident viewpoints are married to powerful media figures like David Letterman, Bill Maher, Jaime Foxx, Brian Williams, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Alec Baldwin and their ilk, supporting a conservative counterpoint is well nigh impossible.

What's more, younger people are cowed by these figures, whether through peer pressure to join the cool set or by the presence of the celebrity.  When the First Lady of the United States is chosen to announce the award for the Best Picture Oscar, how is someone supposed to divorce the obvious connection between celebrity and the liberal agenda.  George Bush's wife wasn't invited to do this.  For that matter, one of their very own, Ronald Reagan, didn't have his wife do this.  Perhaps time will tell.  But I'm skeptical.

Moreover, what makes these celebrities so much smarter than the average citizen?  Are they imbued with greater knowledge?  Have they studied more?  Do they take time away from their press junkets to really investigate what's going on at a grass roots level?  To be fair, there are some that do.  But many of them simply choose a position and make it their own, sanctifying it with their celebrity and thereby putting their imprimatur on it for the public to see.  For many people, a celebrity's stamp of approval means more than their own thought.  If it's good enough for Ms. Wonderful to support, then so should I, goes the reasoning.  And this doesn't go unnoticed by the MSM and celebrities.

I like to think I'm somewhat intelligent.  I know I'm well-read.  I can think for myself.  The last thing I need is come nitwit celebrity trying to convince me that he or she has all the answers, or that the person he supports does.  No one does, conservative or liberal.  But celebrities believe that they and their minions are the only ones who have the answers and are hell-bent on foisting them on the masses, no matter how uninformed they may be.  They are verging on my one-word description of conservatives who, in my opinion, are at their worst when they're arrogant.  Liberals, heretofore, are not only hypocritical but now also arrogant.

I don't like being told what to do by anyone, conservative or liberal.  But the way liberal celebrities lecture people and snidely criticize anyone with a conservative bent, I'm less likely to accept them pleasantly.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles