We’re still wondering what George Carlin would say 16 years after the comedy legend’s death.
Few fought harder for the right to tell jokes without compromise. Like Lenny Bruce before him, Carlin saw the inside of a jail cell for telling “obscene” gags.
What would a free speech warrior like Carlin make of Big Tech censorship? The UK’s attack on social media posts? The Twitter Files?
There’s little doubt about Howard Stern’s take on those subjects. He’s very much alive at 70 and cracks wise three days a week via SiriusXM radio.
And, on any given day, he has precious little to say about the First Amendment. It’s actually worse than that.
Stern, who once fought like hell against the FCC’s speech police, now sides with the government players behind today’s anti-speech movement. The bigger the government, the better for Stern 2.0.
He went “all-in” on COVID-19 protocols, becoming a modern-day Howard Hughes in the process. Instead of rallying behind small business owners forced to shutter their shops, Stern pushed vaccine mandates.
His message to those who questioned pandemic rules that aged so poorly?
Now, the U.S. Government represents a growing threat to free speech, a subject you likely won’t hear on his broadcasts. We’ve since learned that The Twitter Files, an unholy alliance between the Deep State and Big Tech, was only the beginning.
A flicker of the old Stern emerged when Cancel Culture threw everything including the kitchen sink at podcaster Joe Rogan during the pandemic. The “Fear Factor” alum locked horns with rocker Neil Young over COVID-19 protocols.
It was the perfect time for an aging free-speech warrior to defend the new King of All Media. Stern briefly sided with Rogan, but it hardly became a narrative worth his attention.
“I’m against any kind of censorship… I really am. I don’t like censorship.”
Long-time listeners know when a subject gets under Stern’s skin, you’ll hear about it for days on end. Weeks. Months.
In recent years, Stern has looked the other way as the woke mind virus cast a chill over Comedy Nation.
He did a little censoring himself. He unofficially banned comedian Gilbert Gottfried, one of the show’s most popular guests, from the show. He did the same podcast giant Adam Carolla. The former “Loveline” host says Stern disagreed with his COVID-19 views.
Meanwhile, a stand-up generation that grew up listening to Stern grabbed his irreverent baton. Think Tim Dillon, Andrew Schulz, Ryan Long and more. Have any of these rebel comics become regular Stern show guests?
If not, why not?
Stern even proudly declared himself “woke,” ignoring the ominous context behind the phrase. Without woke there is no Cancel Culture.
Earlier this year, Stern threw softballs at President Joe Biden, months before the leader’s dementia-like state became too obvious to deny. Yes, the same president whose team strong-armed social media giants to squelch speech.
The line of questioning never occurred to Stern. He preferred playing lap dog instead.
Now, Stern is all in on Vice President Kamala “Joy and Vibes” Harris. Stern admits he’s an MSNBC addict, so the stance makes sense given his media filter. He even raged against Trump voters, calling them stupid and comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler.
That rant picked up where Stern left off in 2022.
“I’m hoping there is still some more brilliant, bright, vibrant people who love this country … They have never lived under a dictator. Their freedoms have never really been threatened… And they have no idea what it would be like to live under a different type of system other than democracy.”
It sounds a bit like life under a Harris/Walz administration.
Remember when Walz’s police pelted citizens with paintballs to enforce a curfew designed to ebb the “mostly peaceful” protests following George Floyd’s death in 2020?
Democrats are collectively awful on the free speech front.
In a matter of days Harris, VP candidate Tim Walz and former First Lady Hillary Clinton have all threatened free speech.
Harris railed against misinformation in an undated clip that went viral, vowing to use the government to crush it once and for all. She can start with her own rhetoric, which includes provable lies about “very fine people” and “bloodbaths.”
Walz and Clinton echoed those anti-speech sentiments. Clinton brought up potential jail time for sharing misinformation, a comical stance given her ties to the Russian collusion hoax.
Walz argued that so-called “hate speech” isn’t covered by the First Amendment.
It is.
“There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.”
— Tim Walz pic.twitter.com/js8WhTpqkt
— The Rabbit Hole (@TheRabbitHole84) September 17, 2024
Democrats are all-in on speech repression. Consider future presidential hopeful California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The progressive star just made it illegal to create political deep fakes, a ruling that critics say would impact A.I.-based political satire in the Golden State.
We’re still waiting for the signature Stern rant on that subject.
Reason magazine weighed in on the Democrats’ stance on speech earlier this year.
The share of U.S. adults who favor government intervention to restrict false information has grown 50 percent in the last five years, and Democrats are nearly twice as likely as Republicans to support that intervention. Democratic state officials are now taking action to urge the Supreme Court to roll back longstanding First Amendment freedoms, belying their party’s claimed commitment to preserving democracy.
The New York Post offered a similarly grim outlook on the party last year.
A Pew Research poll released Thursday found that 70% of Democrats think the government should restrict what appears on social media, a dramatic change from five years ago, when a majority of Democrats supported a free marketplace of ideas.
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Stern has grown past his raunchy brand of yore. He’s older, wiser and aware of how it would look to have a 60-something host throw bologna slices at strippers.
Good for him.
It’s still jarring to see him today and recall how hard he once fought against free speech scolds. Bill Maher is roughly the same age (he’s 68) but makes the fight for free expression an integral part of his work on both HBO and his “Club Random” podcast.
Stern’s epic free speech battles once consumed his broadcasts, captured in his ‘90s era “Crucified by the FCC” box set.
Looking back, Stern’s war footing makes more sense.
At the time, Stern’s battles were to protect his shock jock status. His career was on the line, and he fought back with every syllable he could muster. The government pummeled him with fines. Several radio stations canceled his quasi-syndicated show.
The media licked its chops, framing every defeat as the one to crush Stern’s career.
He never backed down.
Former WYSP Program Director Andy Bloom, who worked with Stern in the early days of Stern’s simulcasting experiment, feted Stern’s comedy as a testament to free speech.
In the years I worked with the Howard Stern Show, some of the most challenging days were when he played “Guess Who’s the Jew,” or had Daniel Carver, the former KKK Grand Dragon, on the show. Carver said some of the nastiest, crudest, and most racist invective on either side of the Mason-Dixon line, and he wasn’t joking.
I believe Stern understood that by having Carver on, he showed him to be the ignorant, uneducated jackass he was. He was much less scary after Howard (Jewish) and Robin (African American) stood toe-to-toe with him and pushed back. Somewhere along the line, I think — I don’t know, that even Carver had to stop hating, at least as much, and started doing it as an act.
Sunshine, then and now, is the best disinfectant.
Now, with several SiriusXM contracts in the bank, Stern can afford to let others fight the free speech battles. The checks have cleared. His legacy is secure.
Is it?
We still pine for Carlin’s wisdom on free speech. Carlin never sold out or betrayed his core values. He grew crustier in his final years, a misanthropic streak curdling his best lines.
You still never doubted his principles. It’s why we wonder what he’d say about the latest headlines. We’d listen, take notes and know he had the First Amendment’s back.
Always.
We can’t say the same about Stern. We’re in a once-in-a-generation fight to protect free speech, a battle spreading across the globe. He’s uniquely situated to take a stand and use his clout to preserve speech for future generations.
Instead, Stern is ride or die with a party that embraces censorship.
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