Speak Your Mind, Lose Your Job

Singer Linda Ronstadt Ejected by Las Vegas Casino

So, ex-Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown's ex-squeeze gets the ol' heave ho for stating her support of Michael Moore. Reports say about a quarter of the audience showed their displeasure and turned soccer hooligan ugly. Some demanded their money back. Now, it should be noted that the song that Ronstadt dedicated to Moore was an encore song. In other words, the show was over and she was opting to give the audience a freebie. Okay, granted many encores are planned ahead of time but it can never be assumed that a performer will be called upon to perform one. And, the ticket price is the same with or without encore.

But what is the deal with those mutants on the right? I always hear them complaining about the "left-wing thought police" and how they dare not say anything that is not politically correct for fear of being chided. And yet it is the right wingers who are the first ones to clamp down on anyone who doesn't toe their line. Of course, this is not the only example. Lest we forget:

• in response to Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines telling an audience, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas," several radio stations boycott the Dixie Chicks music.
  
• Whoopi Goldberg's reportedly off-color comments and calling the President* a "cheap thug" and a "liar" at a private fund-raiser for Kerry have lost her a gig with Slim-Fast. Do you think it matters that executives for Unilever, the parent company of Slim-Fast, have donated twice as much money to the Bush campaign as to the Kerry campaign?
  
• the various uproars against Barbra Striesand, Danny Glover, Sean Penn, George Clooney, Ted Turner, and on and on and on...
  

And yet, maybe I didn't get the memo but where is the call for a boycott against the works of Ted Nugent, Charleton Heston, Lee Greenwood, Bruce Willis, James Woods, Tom Cruise, Toby Keith, or Dennis Miller? My goodness we even elected Ahnold "Yeah, I said 'girlie man'" Schwarzenegger as governor. (Who, BTW, has proven to be an even greater money-whore than the feckless Gray Davis but the so-called "liberal meda" hasn't really made much hay with that, have they?)

It is the right wingnuts that get their knickers knotted whenever a celebrity speaks out for the left. "We don't pay you to hear your opinions!" And these same people have no problem shellin' out their pennies when the opinions espoused lean to the right. What is it about being a celebrity that should limit one's right to voice an opinion? What jobs require one to submit to censorship? I'm not proposing we have our food service workers opine on the events of the day as they serve our salad. But they are allowed to voice their opinions and we are allowed to listen or ignore them. But to say, "I'll never eat at that Denny's again! Do you know who that waitress voted for?" Get over it!

Okay, so you're saying that the Ronstadt concert is different because it was in the performance of her job that she spoke out? Sorry, but I must disagree. If all you wanted was to hear Ronstadt's music, you could buy a CD. You go to a concert to experience the performer and that means more than just their music. You get to experience a bit of their personality and that can include their politics. No one says you have to like it but you can't say that it's not what you paid for.