While we remember that no greater threat to democracy exists than that which comes from within, let’s also remember the words of Evelyne Beatrice Hall (sometimes incorrectly attributed to Voltaire): “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Has there ever been any concept more central, more crucial or more critical to the American democracy? Is this solitary, sacred concept the steel-reinforced concrete foundation of this nation, above all else? If your answer is “yes” or even “I think so,” then this question is next: Why are we tearing down that very concept in the name of social progress or anything else?
With all the attacks on democracy we’ve been withstanding, do we really need one that masquerades as something benevolent? The right wants a president who openly flaunts a desire to be the American dictator, while the left – yes, the left! – does all it can to can freedom of speech in the name of social justice, not through draconian laws that would be blatantly unconstitutional and would make the threat more obvious, but rather, through socially imposed consequences of the maximum severity short of physical harm: Utter any sign of disagreement with the “progressive” majority, and say goodbye to your livelihood. The canning of Jon Gruden is only the latest of too many examples.
Gruden’s personal emails, no matter how repugnant to a majority they may be, are his personal messages in a free nation where he is supposed to be free to think what he wants to think and express what he chooses to express without reprisal from anyone. Even if the messages had been intended for the public, freedom of expression belongs to him as much as to every other American.
Instead, he joins a long list that stretches back through Roseanne Barr, Paula Deen, Hank Williams Jr. and all the way back through Jimmy the Greek. All of them immediately lost their jobs, even their careers, as part of an iron-fisted show of force that says, “If you buck the social majority, you’re done.”
Amid all the predictable handwringing and hackneyed proselytizing on ESPN after the Gruden story broke, former Buccaneer Anthony “Booger” McFarland, who played for Gruden in Tampa Bay and is now an ESPN analyst, tucked a subtle tip into his reaction to the debacle, whether deliberately or not. “We’re trying to get rid of the very things Jon Gruden is promoting in his personal emails,” he said. Really? How does anyone promote anything in a personal email?
While rightly taking great exception to one of the emails, former Bucs head coach Tony Dungy, also now a network analyst, said he “has to believe” Gruden’s claim of no racial prejudice in his comments. “He apologized. Let’s move on,” Dungy said.
Make no mistake, I disagree with Gruden’s choices, and I’m surprised at and disappointed in him. I just flat-out thought he was cooler than that. That said, the messages were private, and I don’t doubt his claim that he intended no harm to anyone (thus the privacy). I also don’t doubt the likelihood that he sometimes deliberately used irreverent language in private as a vent for the constant pressure he was under as an NFL head coach. How many of us have done something similar to one degree or another, oh great “don’t judge” generation?
And have we completely lost sight of the benefits of gentler remedies? Whatever happened to an idea like the commissioner having a sit-down with Gruden years ago and saying, “Look, you have to clean it up. This has to stop.” Does anyone doubt it would have stopped? In fact, hadn’t it by the time it was discovered? Are we this enamored of punishing the past?
Why didn’t the president of CBS Sports sit down with Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder in 1988 instead of firing him for inappropriate comments that were based on ignorance more than anything else? Was it because Snyder had already admitted the foolishness of his comments (which were not on the network) and apologized? Was the pres that pumped about getting in the fun of a good firing that he would be patted on the back for, beautifully progressive guy that he no doubt was?
I said it on Mediavenger Radio in 2016, and I’ll say it again: Hank Williams Jr. should have sued ABC Sports for kicking him off the Monday Night Football opening for his obnoxious, asinine comments about then-President Obama. I’m not a Williams fan to begin with, and his comments were laughably ludicrous. I didn’t miss his dopey song one bit, either. Nonetheless, I didn’t hesitate to defend his right to say what he believed, and I hope the next victim of the same brand of nonsensical overkill in the supposed service of shaping American society (by force) will fight back in the courts. Gruden recently filed suit, and I hope every American who loves freedom and cherishes privacy will be glad he did.
It’s a principle that’s at stake here, and again, one central and sacred to American freedom. And if the majority is so right that its every crushing reprisal against perceived non-believers is fully justified, then why would any action be necessary? If almost no one disagrees, then why the need to silence or eliminate the few who do? Isn’t that every dictator’s dream?