I am my kid’s marm

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Dear Dr. Laura:

How are you? I am fine.

Are you really surprised at the hubbub? Really? You are actually surprised??? I thought you were a little smarter than that. Aren’t you a Doctor?

In closing, I wish you well.

Take care and have a nice day!

Your pal,
–Tom

For those not paying attention, Dr. Laura Schlessinger (henceforth referred to only as Dr. Laura for my spelling sanity) dropped the N-bomb on her national radio program something like 11 times in a chat with a single caller.

Wow.

The firestorm that resulted led to her quitting her radio program. Here are some recent quotes from Dr. Laura (in no particular order) regarding the incident:

“If you’re that hypersensitive about colour and don’t have a sense of humour, don’t marry out of your race.”

“I want my 1st Amendment rights back, which I can’t have on radio without the threat of attack on my advertisers and stations.”

“I articulated the N-word all the way out – more than one time. And that was wrong. I’ll say it again – that was wrong.”

Dr. Laura was attempting to make some sort of esoteric point about how it’s acceptable for black people to use the N-word but not for whites. Well played, Dr. Laura. I think you proved the point only too well. If that’s what you wanted then you did a good job.

And what’s it to you? I mean, do you feel left out? Why the great umbrage about something like that? Do you lose a lot of sleep because you can’t run around dropping N-bombs all the time? Girl, you need to get your priorities straight!

I can understand the point she was making even if I don’t agree with it. Are white people being deprived because they can’t use the word, too? Oh the social injustice!

I have one quibble for you, Dr. Laura. It’s about your “first amendment rights” as you put it. Oh my, how dramatic! You apparently have a flair for histrionics. I’ll try to make this very short and to the point:

Dr. Laura, your first amendment right to free speech has not been impinged.

We Americans tend to think of free speech as a very beautiful thing and it certainly can be. It is one of our most important and fundamental rights. However, free speech can also be ugly. If you don’t believe me, go check out Craigslist sometime. You’ll see a very ugly side of humanity.

True. There are some limits on free speech. For example, you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater. (If it makes you happy though, please know that you still can yell “movie” in a crowded fire station if you want.) You also can’t libel, slander or incite violence. These sort of restrictions seem pretty reasonable to me.

Additionally, your right to free speech doesn’t guarantee that won’t be any consequences from you exercising that right. Advertisers also have freedom of speech and freedom of choice. They don’t have to continue to support you. Your audience (and even the general public) also have rights.

As far as I can tell, everyone’s rights here are working just fine. Dr. Laura, you got to shoot off your mouth as is your right. Your rights are not being impinged, however. Are you in prison? Charged with any crime? No.

Can employers fire employees who exercise their rights to free speech? Of course! It happens all the friggin’ time. Choice and consequence. You know, now that I think about it, it’s almost like society needs some sort of airlock. 🙂 At the end of the day all we have here is just a garden variety incident of “poor me” and “my rights have been violated” and “I’m sorry.” Tough noogies. Deal with the consequences of your actions.

I’d like to close with a little Dr. Laura trivia.

• Did you know that Dr. Laura’s Ph.D. is in the field of physiology?
• Did you know that Dr. Laura married a dentist when she was 25, and had at least two extramarital affairs before they were divorced? (Source.)
• Did you know that Dr. Laura, who disapproves of divorce, has also been divorced?
• Did you know that Dr. Laura  had an affair with a married man?
• Did you know that Dr. Laura, who disapproves of pornography, was the subject in some nude pictures which were eventually released to the internet? Dr. Laura at first lied and said the pictures were not of her. She later admitted they were.

Here’s a couple interesting Dr. Laura links:

Laura Schlessinger – Wikipedia
Know Your Right-Wing Speakers: Laura Schlessinger

And here’s my favorite Dr. Laura video clip. 🙂

Link to video just in case YouTube is hosed.