Free speech for dummies

Let’s say it plainly: Rush Limbaugh was wrong to use the language that he used to describe a woman with whom he disagreed.

Even he admits he was wrong.

The reason is simple. He called her names, and name-calling doesn’t have any part in adult public discourse. Heck, if we all behaved a little better, it wouldn’t even have any part in school playgrounds, but let’s start with the adults and then worry about the kids later.

Rush Limbaugh, a professional talker, should have known better.

So should Judge Richard Cebull, the chief federal judge for the District of Montana. He didn’t say anything exactly, but he stepped his foot in it just as badly as Limbaugh when he forwarded an email “joke” about President Obama that was not just in bad taste, but disgusting and racist. To say that he should have known better is such a truism that it boggles the mind that he didn’t.

It is tempting to say that Limbaugh should lose his sponsors and the judge should lose his job because it satisfies our sense of outrage, but ultimately the problem is not just an individual or two, but all of us in a society that has grown increasingly tolerant of rudeness, scapegoating and, yep, name-calling.

Unfortunately, at this point, we would have a hard time taking all of the people off the air who use vulgarisms and casually insult public figures as well as their own callers. There are just too many of them. And the fact that we only notice this coarsening of public discourse very occasionally when a big-time celebrity like Limbaugh gets caught with a potty mouth should remind us that our own standards are too low as well.

Let’s not pretend it has something to do with conservatives being uncontrollable boobs who hate women either. There are plenty of examples of vulgar attacks on women from liberals such as Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz. Vulgarism is an equal-opportunity destroyer.

But we don’t want to take those people off the air. They didn’t get where they are today by talking dirty; neither did Rush Limbaugh. Usually, when any of these people talk nasty about someone of the opposite political persuasion, they think they are being funny. If they don’t hear anyone laughing, maybe they will get the idea that what they are really being is rude. A lot of people who are not on radio or TV should learn that same lesson.

Censorship should begin and end at the tip of our own tongues. We don’t need to outlaw foolish and hostile speech, but rather to watch our own. If we all start talking politely to each other at work and school, at the local store, and on the Internet, then the occasional person who uses foul language as a churlish weapon will be shamed by our deafening silence into making sure it never happens again.