Freedom of Speech, Do We Still Believe in It?

Did I miss when we took freedom of speech out of the constitution? I'm starting to think so. Every day you hear in the news how political figures are trying to revoke someone's right to free speech because they don't want to hear or watch something that offends them. Recently, Don Imus was in the news for his derogatory remarks that he made against a basketball team. Now the powers that be are waging a war against rap music again for the degrading words that entertainers use to talk about women. I agree those type of statements are wrong but my problem with this is we the people are blaming the person that is doing it rather than blaming ourselves for giving them the publicity that the entertainer wants. If we as a society would just cut them off financially, then they will eventually be out of money to do these things. Silence and ignoring the entertainer will keep them from having the millions it takes to promote their concert tours and albums.

Another point that I would like to make is that we make the choice of what entertainment we participate in. We are not forced as a culture to listen to a certain media outlet, each of us have choices that came with our freedom. If we would stop whining about the media portraying what we see as negative press and stop letting them feed off of our views, they will stop making it more important than things like cancer research, we will be stomping all of the degrading voices in the entertainment industry.

This is a fight that has gotten out of control with the news stations and political groups help. When you turn your T.V. on, do you have more than one station? When a song comes on the radio can you change the station? If a newspaper has a story that you don't agree with, are you forced to read it? As you can see, we have choices, so let's use our power too chose instead of claim it is not our fault and it is the entertainment industries complete fault.