...simply give the free and open marketplace of ideas the opportunity to decide on it's own what they consider "insulting?"  The listeners are smart people who can make up their own minds and they don't need an army of outsiders (who don't listen to those stations anyway) to tell them how they should think.  This is an extremely slippery slope being embarked on by banning speech that is simply offensive or insulting.  Who gets to decide on what "insulting" is?  This, in no way, condones what he said but simply focuses on the appropriate reaction thereto.  One of Murphy's corollaries is "When attempting to fix a minor malfunction, you inevitably create a major malfunction." 

Ben and I are spreading ours, just as people who were outraged at Greaseman or OJ Simpson (remember his book and TV special that never happened?) or Don Imus spread theirs.  If you want to defend Boortz's indefensible remarks, go for it!

...inadvertently missed "This, in no way, condones what he said but simply focuses on the appropriate reaction thereto." I'll just restate the original observation that I don't think it's a good idea to be punishing speech.  That's not defending Boortz, or Imus, or O'Donnell, or anyone else who makes a brainless, insensitive remark.  People need to be able to decide on their own what constitutes "offended" and when self-proclaimed unaccountable and unelected groups start making those decisions for the rest of us using their own criteria for "offensive," we all lose.  Just turn off like I do. 

is that there's some sort of true "free market of ideas" out there. The truth is that there is a well-funded right-wing "noise machine," backed by the big bucks of people like Richard Mellon Scaife, Rupert Murdoch, the Moonies, etc., etc.  There's also an increasingly corporatized media, with conservative companies like Media General owning papers up and down the East Coast, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress, The (Lynchburg) News & Advance, the Danville Register & Bee, the Bristol Herald Courier, the Manassas Journal Messenger, the Potomac (Woodbridge) News, the Culpeper Star-Exponent, and The (Waynesboro) News Virginian.

Where's the "free market" here, exactly?

...this discussion.  Your focus is on the information dissemination infrastructure whereas mine is on the consumer of the output. 

I'm not taking the bait on this becuase there is an equal and growing list on the other end of the spectrum that has just as pervasive an influence in the opposite direction.  Like you said, it's how you "frame" it.

For that reason, I think the "free market place of ideas" is alive and well as far as a forum for dissemination but also the consumer has a choice on where to turn for their information.  They make choices with their remote.  No one in this country is compelled to listen to anything they don't want to...except our kids who are held hostage at school.

I believe that those institutions and businesses you rattled off would likely cease to exist or change their message if the bright, intelligent American consumer wasn't buying what they're selling.  They simply couldn't stay in business.  Maybe you don't like their "message" or the way they form the debate and content but, unless you assume the American people are just stupid, there are a lot of people who simply disagree and continue to chose them.  If you want them as viewers or listeners or readers, give them a credible alternative choice that convinces them yours is the better alternative.  Referencing a "right wing noise machine" is just convincing me that people who hold the same views spend a lot of time reinforcing their own beliefs by referencing and quoting each other which does nothing to move the consumer of those other media toward your own point of view.

That's the "free and open market" I'm talking about -- consumer choice.

...it was Hugo that talked about "framing."  Sorry.

You are only provided protection from the government when it comes to free speech.  We have every right to protest and demand firing.  And he has every right to be fired by his employers.  As long as the government stays out of it, everything is as it should be.

This is a country of responsibility.  You take responsibility for your words.  True, the government, and those hired by the government, can't persecute you.  But you not protected from being fired or censored by your bosses if you say something offensive, and the people are the ones who have to bring this to the attention of the bosses.  That sounds free-market to me.

Protest him.  Voice your anger.  It's how we effect the market, and how we make ourselves heard.

expressing our consitutionally protected right to free speech.  We are NOT the government, we are not "censoring" anyone, we are simply telling this jerk's employers and listeners what we think.  They can take - or not take - whatever action they deem appropriate.

...since you've made that distinction.  As long as you're telling listeners, sponsors, management, etc what you think ("I find this offensive because...") that's EXACTLY where i think we need to be.  Your original post, however, called for him to be fired and, as you said above, that decision should be left to someone else as appropriate. 

Obviously, the "liberal bloggers" don't have the power to fire Neal Boortz.  That decision rests in the hands of his wise, benevolent and ethical management.  Ha.

And I'm working down a list of advertisers from my local station, asking them if they agree with Neil Boortz - that the shooting victims were wussies?

I'll be very curious to hear their answer.  As far as I'm concerned, anyone who agrees with or condones what Neal Boortz said is as bad as he is.

The fact that the government cannot invoke "prior restraints" on speech does not relieve us from our moral and societal obligations to (1) refrain from being hurtful or offensive and (2) refuse to purchase hurtful or offensive speech.  I never bought the CD with "beat the b*tch with a baseball bat," I don't buy books by Ann Coulter, I don't patronize Bill-Oh and I don't buy from Rush's advertisers. To suggest I owe them my money for their free speech is to torture the liberties in the Constitution.

Oh, wait. We're doing that already.

...the suggestion you owed anyone any money?  I think your approach is fine and precisely the one I'd take--only as an INDIVIDUAL and not as a part of some elitist lynch mob trying to define for other people what constitutes "offensive" or "hurtful."  You know you've made a mark on society when your name becomes an adjective as in "Let's Dixie Chick the guy!"  I've seen the sales numbers for the Coulter and Bill-Oh books and I'm sure they're not really missing you for whatever that's worth although that drags politics into something that should be apolitical...it is, right? 

Go to  http://mediamatters.... or to http://www.democrati...

From Media Matters, here are a few headlines...

  * On the August 3, 2006, edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Neal Boortz asked his audience: "I want you to think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how -- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage."

  * On the July 19, 2006, edition of his radio show, Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show, Boortz claimed that "at its core," Islam is a "violent, violent religion," and said, "[T]his Muhammad guy is just a phony rag-picker." Boortz asserted that "[i]t is perfectly legitimate, perhaps even praiseworthy, to recognize Islam as a religion of vicious, violent, bloodthirsty cretins."

  * On the March 31, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Boortz said that then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) "looks like a ghetto slut." Boortz was commenting on a March 29 incident in which McKinney allegedly struck a police officer at a Capitol Hill security checkpoint. Boortz said that McKinney's "new hair-do" makes her look "like a ghetto slut," like "an explosion at a Brillo pad factory," like "Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence," and like "a shih tzu." McKinney is the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia.
  * On the October 24, 2005, broadcast of his radio program, Boortz suggested that a victim of Hurricane Katrina housed in an Atlanta hotel consider prostitution. "If that's the only way she can take care of herself," Boortz posited, "it sure beats the hell out of sucking off the taxpayers."
  * On the October 14, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz stated that if the country is faced with an impending national disaster, then "hell, yes, we should save the rich people first. You know, they're the ones that are responsible for this prosperity."

Oy vey.

From what I've read, Cho went into each classroom shooting at students who were sitting at their desks.  The Boortz scenario, where 25 students were first lined up in a standing position, before the shooting started, just didn't happen.  The students had no chance to rush Cho en masse, from what I understand. 
 

Who is being advertised on the commercials during his show? If we know who they are, I will know not to support them.  Tell them you will not do business with them and they will get the message.