{"id":30334,"date":"2025-10-01T00:11:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T07:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/?p=30334"},"modified":"2025-09-24T12:52:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T19:52:30","slug":"fuck-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/fuck-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuck Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Well, here we are. Once again, we have elected a regime who does not seem to tolerate push back. Rather than trying to bring us together, they are working to drive wedges between us and spending most of their time going after political rivals or those who have worked against them in the past.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the political spectrum, we have folks who got woke. I\u2019m one of them. I believe it is rooted in very positive language and cultural changes. I learned a lot about compassion and empathy. I think we all have.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem: some folks are using the \u201cwoke\u201d movement as an excuse to push back against all sorts of art and politics and words and actions taken out of context. There have been lot of folks that needed to be checked, but now it\u2019s become weaponized by some people.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m very non-elegantly trying to say is that both sides have these rogue and overzealous movements on the outskirts or fringes of the political spectrum. Those squeaky wheels are getting all the grease and we are starting to see artists and politicians either literally being censored by the government or pushed out of their careers or \u201ccanceled\u201d by well meeting wrong, thinking liberal folks. Shit, some are being killed.<\/p>\n

This is not America. The idea of free speech is the first fucking amendment! It\u2019s the first one we realized we needed to fix in our beautiful constitution.<\/p>\n

People say terrible and hateful things! That\u2019s their right. That\u2019s how we know we also have the right to speak up and say whatever is in our hearts. Sometimes those may sound like terrible things to others, but the freedom to say them is what creates discourse. It\u2019s what creates conversations and hopefully statesmanship in office. It\u2019s what allows us to argue. It\u2019s those arguments that not only explain your point of view to others but allow you to solidify your own beliefs and start to really think about who you are and how you can explain it to others and yourself. It\u2019s the linchpin, the cornerstone, the foundation of a free society.<\/p>\n

The Jimmy Kimmel removal from the air is a shot across the bow. It really is the government pulling levers to remove a comedian from the air for speaking out, satirizing, and doing what comedians are supposed to do: push the limits!<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem\u2014he didn\u2019t push the limits at all. If you go back and look at the transcript, there\u2019s nothing there that\u2019s a fireable offense, which is why they\u2019re putting him back on the air as we speak.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure all of you know this story. The administration pushed against the owners of Disney and some of the cable networks that licensed the show. A couple of those cable companies were in negotiations to be bought or buy others and felt that Kimmel should go. It was only when there were threats of millions of cancellations of Disney and Hulu, that he was reinstated. It\u2019s all backroom bullshit. It\u2019s not the first time something like this has happened.<\/p>\n

On February 11, 1960, Jack Parr was the host of The Tonight Show<\/em>. Sometime during the show, he mysteriously stood up and walked off the set. Later he confirmed that it was a censorship issue when the network cut a joke about a \u201cwater closet\u201d the night before. In case you don\u2019t know that term, that\u2019s what they call bathrooms in some places in Europe. At any rate, he was able to speak his mind elsewhere and viewers heard and understood his outrage.<\/p>\n

Now, he walked off the set on his own and didn\u2019t come back for a month. That\u2019s a little different than this. It\u2019s still the same issue though in 2025 as it was in 1960.<\/p>\n

When he came back on the air his first joke started with \u201cnow where was I before I got interrupted.\u201d Love that!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a musician; I say things on stage and talk about how I feel and what I think about politics. I try to do it with an empathetic thought in my head and nonjudgmental tone. Not everybody does that, but I feel like you catch more flies with honey, dig?<\/p>\n

I have a tattoo on my arm of Woody Guthrie\u2019s guitar that says, \u201cthis machine kills fascists.\u201d<\/p>\n

This issue is important to me. I disagree with a lot of people, but I support everyone\u2019s right to say what they think. There\u2019s never been a more important time to speak up and speak out. I hope if you do that, you align with me, but if you don\u2019t, then I applaud your bravery for standing up.<\/p>\n

Heroes like Lenny Bruce, Dave Attell, Norm MacDonald, and so many others are an inspiration to me. Standing up and speaking up, knowing it will land you in jail, or in your career is terrifying and courageous.<\/p>\n

Censoring comedians or musicians or any kind of artist is a slippery slope. There has to be some kind of cultural check on our leaders. There\u2019s no such thing as a little bit of good censorship. One little break in the damn will flood us all.<\/p>\n

Parody makes us laugh, but it also gets us thinking about different aspects of situations and people that we might not have thought of before.<\/p>\n

We have reached a boiling point where people are being murdered in broad daylight for their beliefs. You simply can\u2019t legislate or control thought. You also can\u2019t intimidate it.<\/p>\n

This is no longer something to just worry about in the abstract. It\u2019s happening now. This regime is coming after anyone who disagrees with them. I disagree with them. Am I supposed to just not speak up? It\u2019s getting scary out there. How brave are you? How brave am I? Let\u2019s find out, shall we?<\/p>\n

If you disagree. I\u2019ll never understand. You better believe, though, that I\u2019ll fight for your right to say it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, here we are. Once again, we have elected a regime who does not seem to tolerate push back. Rather than trying to bring us together, they are working to drive wedges between us and spending most of their time going after political rivals or those who have worked against them in the past. On the other side of the political spectrum, we have folks who got woke. I\u2019m one of them. I believe it is rooted in very positive language and cultural changes. I learned a lot about compassion and empathy. I think we all have. Here\u2019s the problem: some folks are using the \u201cwoke\u201d movement as an excuse to push back against all sorts of art and politics and words and actions taken out of context. There have been lot of folks that needed to be checked, but now it\u2019s become weaponized by some people. What I\u2019m very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smoke-signals"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30334"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30337,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30334\/revisions\/30337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}