View From the Phlipside - Dr. Laura

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

It looks like the end of an era in talk radio.  Dr. Laura Schlessinger has survived flaps over her qualifications (she’s a doctor of physiology not psychology or counselling), nude photos and a fair sized contingent of critics.  In the end it was her repeated use of the “N word” in a discussion of race relations on her show, 11 times in about 5 minutes, that brought her highly successful program to an end.

Let me make a couple things clear.  First, I am not and never have been a fan of Dr. Laura’s.  Just a personal taste thing.  I didn’t like her style.  Plenty of other folks did and do.  Second, I don’t think Laura Schlessinger is any more racist that the average person in America.  Race is the single most difficult and complicated issue in America.  If you think there’s a simple answer to it, you’re nuts.  It’s complex and nuanced and highly volatile.  Enter that ground at your own risk.

No what grabbed my attention in all of this was Dr. Laura’s comments when she announced her departure from the show.  She said she wanted to get her First Amendment rights back again.  This is the stuff that makes me crazy.  Her First Amendment rights were never infringed.  Never, as in not ever.

Yes, groups have worked for years to pressure her sponsors and affiliates to drop her because they don’t like what she says or how she says it.  That has nothing to do with her First Amendment rights.  In fact the pressure groups have Constitutionally protected rights to do just that.  The First Amendment protects the individual from the government infringing on our rights of expression.  It does nothing, nor should it, to offer any protection from the consequences in an open society and free market to what we say.  The First Amendment has never been absolute under any circumstances.  Classically the example given is that you have no right to shout “Fire” in a crowded building if there is in fact no fire.

Dr. Laura exercised her First Amendment right to discuss a volatile and extremely important issue in American society.  She did so very badly and is now paying for that mistake.  While it may be unjust to call her a racist it’s equally wrong to claim her Constitutional rights are being taken from her.  She wasn’t being racist, she was being stupid.  And the Constitution doesn’t protect you from that.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010