I wonder if we really have freedom of speech anymore.  We’re supposed to have it, and our Constitution guarantees it.  The first amendment says, in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . or abridging the freedom of speech.”  In the southern part of our country, known as “Dixie” to many, it seems that freedom is not for all, considering what has happened to some female singers.

            This is not a new phenomenon.  During the 1960’s there were many people beaten up and even killed for nothing more than peacefully assembling (see Constitution again) and asking to be served food at a public lunch counter.  During the 1970’s, anti-war protesters were hosed down and told to similarly shut up and go away, often with police dogs chasing them.

I mention those speech issues because I witnessed them.  My family moved from New England to the South when I was eleven.  Some of the boys in my class picked fights with me at recess because I was a Yankee.  I tried to say I liked the Dodgers, but they weren’t talking baseball.  They also taught me, curiously enough, that the plural of “Ya’ll” is “All Ya’ll,” but let’s leave the freedom of colloquialism alone.

Soon, I saw white guys with ax handles on the sidewalks waiting for “them” to come out of Woolworth’s.  In high school I had teachers who liked Joe McCarthy and wanted to invade Cuba.  We took a required course called Americanism Versus Communism, to make sure our minds were right when we went out into the world.  You wouldn’t dare suggest the working class or poor in America were getting screwed.

The Cold War was in full swing, and you best not say that we probably had more nuclear weapons than we needed – you built bomb shelters instead.  Most of the adults in my neighborhood, some of them Lutherans, hated Martin Luther King and every speech he gave.  I will say that I agreed with one of their ideas, that burning the flag is not “free speech.”  I think the writers of our originating documents thought speech was spoken.  Maybe what we need is a law banning the lighting of fires in public spaces.

            The Dixie Chicks are the singers getting lambasted for saying basically that they don’t like George Bush.  The critics, of course, have freedom of speech to disagree with them.  I would even support the right to boycott the Chicks’ records.  For full disclosure,  here, I inform you that my wife has one of their albums; the only song I know on it is “Goodbye, Earl.”  It’s about this kinda redneck guy, see, who . . . never mind – the issue is not if you like their music, or what happens to Earl, but something else entirely.

And remember, boycotts are very American (see Revolution, American, Causes of).  But where is the American “fair play” reciprocity?  It’s odd to me that there are those who are protesting the Dixie Chicks in the same fashion that those they hated in the 60’s and 70’s did for other causes. 

For example, I was reading about the new movie about the Dixie Chicks, “Shut Up and Sing,” and saw a photo from it.  In the photo there is a guy parading around with a sign reading, “Try the Chicks for Treason.”  Wow.  I would hope that guy is a rarity, but I wonder.  Right wing media types love to shout “Shut up!” to anyone who dares to disagree with their views.  No freedom of speech for them anymore.  Maybe the sign guy watches Fox.  The South has a great many positive attributes, and has certainly come a long way with their version of tolerance, but there is critical thinking to be done yet.

            It would seem that people like the sign-carrier don’t mind losing a freedom or two if, as many of them say, they have “nothing to hide,” and they think it will make the country safer.  The long view, though, is that if you don’t stand up for the rights of others, sooner or later, yours will be in jeopardy, too. 

--KZ