Freedom of Screech
Our man Boomer in Phoenix likes a weekly live-audience radio program there featuring historian and Mideast specialist Steven Carol and Attorney W. J. Wolf.
“Both are conservatives,” he notes, “but they don’t trash the current president, rather promulgate the constructive questions of what actions need to be taken.”
“During Carol’s introduction of Wednesday’s discussion,” he recalls, “the local Tea Party poohbah was arguing loudly with someone sitting nearby. Carol literally roared into the mike,
‘When you stop interrupting, we’ll finish our presentation.”
Order was restored.
Our comment: Great to hear about a forceful injection of common sense into the once-proud institution of public discussion.
Loudmouth blathering — as in the disrupted town forums on healthcare reform — has been widely confused lately with freedom of speech, and freedom of speech is precisely what loudmouth blathering makes impossible.
(Boomer recommends Carol’s books: Middle East Rules of Thumb and Encyclopedia of Days)