I’m not one to pass up a free speech discussion, and last week’s Rush Limbaugh debacle… I’m not one to pass up a free speech discussion, and last week’s Rush Limbaugh debacle certainly fits the criteria for one. The incident isn’t terribly weighty in itself; just something for people to get up in arms about this month. But it’s interesting for me because it demonstrates one way in which language is used to push and enforce ideologies.

For those who may have missed out on the controversy, Limbaugh’s statement, made in reference to Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, goes like this: “[McNabb is] overrated … The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well – black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. There’s a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”

Roughly translated, Limbaugh was saying that McNabb made magazine covers while the defense made plays. His assertion that McNabb has been hyped up by a “socially concerned” media is a supportable argument. In fact, Slate’s Allen Barra did so in detail on Thursday, posting a column that makes the argument while citing all kinds of Eagles stats.

For instance, since McNabb became the starter for Philadelphia in 2000, the Eagles offense has never been ranked higher than 10th in the league in yards gained. The defense, on the other hand, has never been ranked lower than 10th in least yards allowed. Barra goes on at length, but I will leave the statistical stuff to him.

What concerns me most is just how easily a man can lose a job for stating an opinion. Limbaugh’s remarks received no backlash for about two days – his colleagues at ESPN didn’t even think twice about them before the criticism started pouring in. But then it was open season. Everyone from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to publicity-hungry Democratic presidential candidates gathered their pitchforks and torches and cried, “Resign!” from the rooftops.

Did they actually think about Limbaugh’s point or do any investigating of their own? It certainly doesn’t look that way. They simply heard a conservative commentator talking about a black man and loaded the bandwagon with crusaders.

The same thing happened to Trent Lott last year. While speaking at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party, he told the elderly senator that the country would have been better off if he had been elected president in 1948. Granted, that was a different case with more history.

Back then, part of Thurmond’s platform included segregation, and Lott took a similar stance as a fraternity brother in college.

But as I re-read these candid, cordial praises that he offered to an old man on his birthday, which make no overt mention of anything racial, I hardly get the impression that they are innuendoes from a devoted bigot. It seems more like Lott’s enemies found a spin opportunity that was too good to pass up.

Charlton Heston is another man who knows something about criticism. Despite dedicating time and money to the civil rights movement long before it got a popular endorsement, Heston has taken fire from all sides, most recently receiving it from Michael Moore’s misleading, Academy Award-winning documentary, “Bowling for Columbine.” In a speech he delivered at Harvard in February 1999, Heston identifies such speech policing as the opposition in a “cultural war.”

He states: “If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don’t celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.”

I highly doubt that Rush Limbaugh will find himself in an unemployment line any time soon. He has plenty of fallbacks behind his on-the-side ESPN career. But events like this set a precedent that is applicable at all levels – if you break this established social code, if you speak your mind in such a way that can be interpreted or twisted to be insensitive or offensive, your whole life can be stripped from you.

This cultural war has offenders on both sides. Speak out on patriotism the wrong way and the Right will brand you an America-hater. But I find that most of the speech police reside on the Left, lunging at and destroying anyone who violates the etiquette of their social agenda. We enjoy a high degree of free speech in this country, but something’s wrong when critiquing the media makes one a racist and a birthday wish can cost a man his life’s work.

Eric Miller expects his supporters and critics to speak freely, and he promises not to use your comments to dismantle your life. Contact him at [email protected].