Jimmy Kimmel and threats to free speech
Sadly, for far too many conservatives today, their defining principle is power.
It has become fashionable to ridicule concerns about ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel and his television program last month, but we should not dismiss the very real danger to free speech this represents. This is because Brendan Carr (President Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Communications Commission) openly threatened during a podcast interview to pull the broadcast licenses of ABC stations that carried Kimmel’s program.
Now let’s be clear: What Kimmel said was not a “mistake.” It was a lie. Jimmy Kimmel is a liar. He knew, as did everyone else who paid even scant attention to news coverage, that Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a homosexual terrorist who shot Kirk for his Christian views on sexuality. There is no credible way to spin Kimmel’s monologue as an “opinion” or as a “comedy” routine. It was not. It was a lie and Jimmy Kimmel is a liar. Had Kimmel been fired (not just suspended) by ABC for lying, with no pressure from the federal government, I would have no problem with his termination. But the pressure from the FCC cannot be ignored.
I am old enough to remember when Democrats tried (and failed) to manipulate FCC rules to silence Rush Limbaugh. Conservatives vigorously opposed this as a lawless and tyrannical attack on free speech. Principled conservatives warned that abuse of power by one side would encourage similar abuse of power by the other side. Sadly, for far too many conservatives today, their defining principle is power. If you argue there should be any norms or limits on how to use that power against the Left, you are a “faggot” or a “cuck.”
“But Scott, the Left did it to us!”
Yes, they did, and there have been many people who were subject to wildly disproportionate consequences for even noxious speech. Kimmel himself openly celebrated his own company terminating Roseanne Barr for things she posted on Twitter. But if we really believe that cancel culture is bad, and we really do believe that government has no business regulating or punishing speech, then we need to support free speech and oppose government meddling across the board, whether it is done by “our side” or the other side. Plus, having the federal government threaten to punish broadcasters is much more dangerous than a private employer unjustly terminating someone’s employment, from an actress/comedian to a janitor or cashier.
This is not to say there should be no rules for the use of the airwaves. We certainly do not want hardcore pornography blasted into people’s homes over the airwaves. There is a case for licensing to prevent television (or radio) signals from interfering with each other. But the guidelines for “public good” are far too broad and vulnerable to abuse by authoritarians, so Congress should update the law to more strictly limit the authority of the FCC. It should not even be a question whether the chairman of the FCC can threaten to revoke broadcast licenses for content that is politically controversial. Perhaps revocation of a license could be subject to approval by Congress, and would be subject to a filibuster in the Senate.
We live in a dangerous time. Democrats have proven themselves to be authoritarians who have repeatedly threatened broadcast licenses, as well as social media companies for failing to prohibit “offensive” content. (Elizabeth Warren has been especially outspoken about the latter.) Now, because the Republican Party is led by a lifelong New York City liberal who is also a very brittle man who openly calls for government action against people who criticize him, Republicans are falling in line to his demands as well. Republicans need to reject New York values, and go back to the heartland values that served the party for so long.