Hearing the Falconer #18 ~ 26-March-2019 ~ Should Judge Jeanine Have Freedom of Speech?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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26-March-2019: Should Judge Jeanine Get Freedom of Speech?
Judge Jeanine Off the Air for Two Weeks
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Freedom of speech for Jeanine?

Conservative pundit Judge Jeanine made some offensive comments on her FOX news show recently and now it seems that she is off the air, at least for a couple of weeks.

Trump is outraged by this. Many FOX fans are outraged. I suppose many liberals are pleased.

Should political moderates be outraged or pleased? First, we should remember that Fox is a company and, within certain broad limitations, companies can hire who they please, fire who they please, and make whatever rules they please for their employees.

But, for now, let's consider freedom of speech more broadly. When people say things we hate it would be too extreme in one direction to do nothing about it at all, but it seems too extreme in the other direction, especially if we value Freedom of Speech, to silence the person whose speech we hate.

The correct and moderate response to speech we hate is to SPEAK against it. To publicize contrary views. To counter wrong with right, lies with truth, ignorance with knowledge, prejudice with tolerance, and darkness with light. This is the moderate and centrist way. The one thing we cannot do, if we want to preserve freedom, is to silence the speech we hate. That is too extreme and too dangerous.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life