In truth, it’s not pertinent to ask what’s become of the First Amendment. That’s addressed to government’s law-making, whereas the assaults on it are consequences of a guerilla war of government coercion and of private intimidation.
Examples are so rife it’s nearly impossible to know what was the latest affront, but a very recent one was a sports announcer’s apologizing for a reference to Adolph Hitler in relation to comments regarding leadership.
Who knows all the background details? Perhaps it was merely stupidity that caused the man to believe he should grovel or perhaps he’s just so shell-shocked from reading of similar circumstances that he figured he’d be taken to task for the remark. That is, maybe no one leaned, mobster style, on him, though it has that stench.
In recent history there was a remarkable figure named Adolph Hitler, and if anyone has an inkling of doubt about his leadership abilities, look at the films of hundreds of thousands of screaming devotees just dying, and quite prepared literally to die, to do anything he asked. Compare what he asked to what they did. Was that not leadership? Tragically, catastrophically, he used his power to lead them in vile directions.
Where’s the harm in stating historical facts? Are we into Newspeak? Jewspeak? This probably was not a case of the latter, because Jews are always talking, even in jocose contexts such as The Producers, about Hitler. Is it that non-Jews are not supposed to mention him or was it mention of him in association with a quality generally admired that was wicked? Nothing is too far-fetched to be plausible these days, so perhaps it was because the commentator has a German name.
Whatever it is/was I wish everyone would go read the First Amendment, ignore all the word-burning fanatics that spurn what it says, and also have the guts to tell the fanatics to stuff it if they’re offended by inoffensive statements.
That’s my opinion.
Y.C.
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