I think this Non Sequitur cartoon makes the point I have been trying to make about language fairly well. Remember, it isn't the collection of audible vibrations that matter, it is the meaning of the words that we should care about.

See our other commentary on the subject of censorship here.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in a heated exchange with Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, told the Senator to "...go fuck himself..." CNN.com 6/24/2004. This exchange seems to be news only because a number of people are still unable to comprehend the fact that it is the meaning of words that matter, not the collection of vibrations they make in the air. Dick Cheney said the word "fuck" in his retort, but his response was the same as if he had said "...go to hell..." or even "...get away from me...". It is the meaning of words that matter, not the sounds they are comprised of (see our other commentary here).

In fact, it is not the Vice President's choice of words that matter here, but his inability to have a discussion on the issues. This is the way politics are under the Great Divider, George W. Bush. Cheney, when he saw Leahy on the Senate floor, became incensed about Leahy's calls for an independent investigation of the allegations against Cheney's once and future company, Halliburton. Cheney verbally lashed out at Leahy, the actual words of which are unimportant. When Leahy reminded the Vice President that he had referred to Senator Leahy as a "...bad catholic...", bringing religion into a political debate where it had no place being, the Vice President lost control and ended the "conversation" with his now infamous tirade. There can no longer be a "frank exchange of views" in the Senate, or anywhere else for that matter, without people being labeled as "bad Catholics" or "un-American", or someone just getting mad and storming out.

It is time for us to return to civilized politics, where people who do not get what they want, or think is best, fight the good fight to fix the perceived injustice, but always accept the outcome as the result of our imperfect, but best possible system. Dick Cheney has clearly lost site of that. He has become unwilling to accept anything other than complete victory for him and the administration and has become part of the greatest dividing force in Washington since the Civil War. Remember, this is America. People have the right and the responsibility to disagree and still co-exist peacefully. If we can not have a civilized debate, then it is Democracy that is the casualty. We must be able to make informed decisions based on as much information as we can get. One of the keys to that is an informed dialog amongst politicians, and amongst us average Americans.

Cheney's response to this incident included "...after he'd done so, then he wanted to act like everything was peaches and cream." Of course he did Mr. Vice President. Senator Leahy is a civilized American who understands the importance of debate on the issues facing us. You need to grow up Mr. Vice President, learn to accept criticism, whether you feel it is fair or not, and get on with the task of running this country. Temper tantrums only hurt that ability and are not appropriate, no matter if there is profanity involved or not.

I hope that this incident will help spark a return to that civilized debate. I fear however that it will only serve to highlight for many the fact that Dick Cheney has a "potty-mouth".

I have been trying to avoid commenting on the Rush Limbaugh/Donovan Mcnabb fiasco because, at times, it seemed that all of the things that needed to be said were being said. McNabb himself made most of the best points highlighting the facts that no one in the booth with Limbaugh challenged his remarks, and that criticism of McNabb's performance was appropriate but bringing race into the issue was not. Despite that however, there seem to be several important points that are not being made in the media which I will attempt to address here.

1) Rush Limbaugh's comments were racist

While he couched his statements in words that are less inflammatory, his meaning was still clear. As I have said on many occasions (including in this very forum Phallic Plate Highlights Puritanical Evil and We Must Save the Children) it is not the actual words that matter, it is the meaning behind them. What Limbaugh said is exactly the same as "...those damn liberal journalists are just a bunch of nigger-lovers...". Again, he didn't use those words, but his meaning was quite clear. For those of you whose first reaction to my last statement involves the word "ridiculous" or something similar, take a second and try and figure out the difference in meaning between the two statements. Please explain how the two comments differ in what they are saying. If you can find any differences other than the actual words themselves, please let me know. I don't expect many messages on the subject that actually contain any valid differences.

2) Limbaugh's defense is almost as moronic as the original statement

Believe it or not, Limbaugh is actually trying to defend his racist remarks with "All this has become the tempest that it is because I must have been right about something," "If I wasn't right, there wouldn't be this cacophony of outrage that has sprung up in the sports writer community." So let me get this straight, the fact that people are outraged proves that the statements were correct?!? So if I someone were to say "Rush Limbaugh is a Nazi", and Limbaugh's fans were to be outraged by it, that would prove it to be true? I have yet to see in print where anyone else has challenged him on this stupidity. Perhaps everyone feels that such a defense is so moronic that it speaks for itself. Maybe that is true, but I'm not taking any chances.

3) Freedom of speech does not mean anyone is required to pay you for speaking

I have heard a number of people, including Limbaugh supporters this week, complain that 1st amendment rights were violated after having been terminated from, or forced-out of, a paid speaking or writing job. Ann Coulter and Bill Maher, two casualties of comments about 9/11, leap to mind. You'll remember that Ann Coulter wrote "We should invade their countries, kill all their leaders, and convert them all to Christianity." and Bill Maher said "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away, that's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building--say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." Both statements were intended to be inflammatory, and both resulted in the end of the engagement for the author/speaker. However, neither was arrested or in any way incarcerated for their statements. That is freedom of speech, the right to state your opinion without fear of criminal reprisal. The 1st amendment does not, in any way, guarantee anyone's right to be paid for saying what they have to say, they simply have the right to say it without fear of criminal charges so long as it does not violate the great test devised by Oliver Wendell Holmes, that of "...clear and present danger...". Those of you who want to whine about the 1st amendment rights of Rush Limbaugh, take it elsewhere, no one is buying it!

I had an interesting conversation yesterday that I think underscores the misconceptions people have with regard to censorship. The topic of discussion was the report from TheStranger.com Swinging at Bush about a fan, Randolf Sill, who attended a Seattle Mariners game with a sign in Japanese stating that "President Bush is a Monkey's Butt" and "Americans are ashamed about our corrupt president". The article continues:

Mariners security staff, however, were not amused. When they caught on during the seventh inning, a cop escorted Sill and his sign to the security office, and seized the sign.

To make matters clear right off the bat, this discussion has nothing to due with either the truth of the article (whether or not the incident ever occurred) or the truth of what the sign was saying. This is not the issue at hand, so for the purposes of this discussion only, lets assume that the incident did, in fact occur as stated in The Stranger.

The issue at hand is whether or not Mr. Sill had the right to bring the sign and say what he did, and whether or not police/security should have removed Mr. Sill and taken his sign. Why, I asked, was he removed and why was his sign "seized". No one has the right to seize property that was not somehow involved in a violation of law. While you may not agree with Mr. Sill, no one can claim that any violation of the law occurred. One person suggested to me that it was because it was private property (Safeco Field). To those who would think that, I pose a question. If you come to my house, and I don't like something you say, does it give me the right to take your wallet?

So then, lets assume the sign was not in fact confiscated, because that would be theft and then the security guards would have to be thrown in jail. I am assuming they would know that and would not do something so stupid. So perhaps, the sign was seized temporarily and returned to Mr. Sill outside of the ballpark. I don't like it, but I can accept it. Lets then move on to the initial question, and the crux of the censorship issue, should the Mariners have been able to remove Mr. Sill from their property because of his sign?

Many Americans might say "yes", that Mr. Sill used the word "butt" (actually he used a Japanese word that might have been considered even more offensive by Japanese, I don't really know, I don't read Japanese). In fact, the law at this time says that they can, that the community has the right to set standards of obscenity. That it is OK to censor Mr. Sill or others like him is often justified by saying that the ballpark is a family place and we must protect the children from such language. This is where these people completely miss the boat! It is not the word "butt", or "ass" or any other collection of sounds (See other discourse on the subject here) that will hurt our children, it is censorship. WE MUST PROTECT OUR CHILDREN FROM THE EVILS OF CENSORSHIP AT ALL COSTS. Believe me, children have much more than a passing knowledge of the butt, after all, each child has one. So what is worse for a child, to see someone (especially in a way that they don't understand at all) equate an indivdual to a part of the anatomy to make a political point, or to show a child by our actions that censorship is ok? This is America! One of the greatest things about this country is that we have a free exchange of ideas. Mr. Sill was not bothering anyone. He was in his seat, enjoying a ball game, holding up a sign that made a political statement for the TV cameras. No one gets upset when a different political opinion, such as "God Bless America" is held up on a sign at a ballpark. Why is that? Is it because "God Bless America" is a popular sentiment. If that were the case, then what Mr. Sill says is even more important to be protected, since it is unpopular speech, the kind of speech that the 1st Amendment was designed to protect. The only way the Mariners could justify this action in my mind is if their policy was to remove all signs from the ballpark that are not specifically, and solely related to the ballgame. Just as an FYI, I wouldn't agree with that policy either.

Remember, censorship is the evil that must be wiped out and that we must protect our children from. It is for the children! SAVE THE CHILDREN FROM THE EVILS OF CENSORSHIP!

My wife sent me a link to this article from Reuters which discusses (including photograph) of a piece of Renaissance artwork that consists of a plate painted with the head of a man made up of penises and containing the Latin expression "Ogni homo me guarda come fosse una testa de cazi" (Every man looks at me as if I were a dickhead).

While I figure that she sent it to me as a response to my sending her a link to the George W. Bush Butthole Mosaic from Art of Resistance, there is something in the article that did catch my attention. The article appears to quote the Oxford Ashmolean Museum as calling the work "...a rare example of bawdy Renaissance art which survived the suppression of later, more prudish, generations." A statement which really highlights one of the major evils of the world, censorship of any type.

Those of you who know me have heard me rant often enough about the stupidity of people considering themselves hurt by the collection of sounds that form words. People can be hurt by the meaning of words, but not by the audio vibrations that they consist of in the air. Thus, if someone uses the word "Dick" instead of "Penis", there should be litle difference in the same way as there is virtually no difference between other synonyms such as H2O and Water. You are more likely to use one or the other depending on circumstances, but no-one should be offended by either.

The same holds true for any type of art. In this case, we have a piece that is probably not that representative of its day, but is one of the few surviving pieces of a style that was probably much more prevalent. We'll never really know however since much of those works were destroyed in fits of censorship in later years. Our puritanism and lack of common sense when it comes to censorship has robbed us of a potentially valuable insight into the past. I'll say that another way. We have stolen the past from ourselves and our children!

Having made that argument, the next logical question is then "Where do we draw the line between art and simply filth for filth's sake?". Of course, there can be no other answer than simply "we don't!". Defining anything that anyone could possible consider art as less than that would be censorship unto itself and would have the same effect, no matter what we think of the work. If you want to "protect" your precious eyes and ears, or feel that something could adversely affect your children, then fine, look or walk away. However, never attempt to destroy art, or stop speech. To do so is censorship, and that practice must stop now.

[Update] Sunday, September 21 2003 11:55 PM GMT
For those of you who have contacted me with the "I missed the point" argument of "H2O and Water aren't synonyms since one is the chemical name and one is its common name", think of it this way. If I say "I would like a glass of water, no wait, make that a glass of H2O" you would probably think me quite ridiculous since both requests are the same.