Freedom of speech does not mean other people have to listen to you or, in this case, pay you to speak on the radio.

I worked in radio in my college days. I was told, you never know when your last day on air would be.

Just as bad as calling African Tootsies cockroaches on the radio. Freedom shouldn’t be used to take away the freedom of others.

Freedom of speech does include the right to be able to say things that are offensive to some – or even to all – or else it’s not really freedom, is it?

However, there are no Constitutional (American) guarantees that an employer has to put up with speech that the employer finds to be offensive to himself or his audience. So the employer is perfectly free to hire and fire on the basis of “pleasing speech only”. If the order to fire had come from government, then we’d be having a different conversation.

This hardly seems to be controversial.

Kimberly Ray is not in jail. The system is working as intended, freedom of speech is still intact.

@johnpowell I don’t think anyone is claiming she was in jail. Freedom of speech in indeed still intact and she can’t be legally punished for her words. But her employer can still dismiss her for not doing her job in an acceptable manner. The same thing could happen to me if I was offensive to a customer in work.

@johnpowell Ok I actually misread your answer, I get what you are saying. I’m in agreement.

Yeah, my point is that freedom of speech is about protection from the government. If you come into my house and start talking shit I can kick you out. But feel free to stand on curb and say whatever you want. Nobody has to give you a venue, much less pay you.

Firing them was stupid. @CWOTUS said pretty much what I would say.

Firing them wasn’t stupid if you think it will hurt your business. McDonalds will fire you too if you lecture customers about the health risks of eating their food while someone is placing a order.

@elbanditoroso Oh sorry I have to disagree with you there. What those radio hosts did was bad press for the station. Like I said earlier if a retail worker turned around to a customer and call them “an ugly prick”; the same thing could happen.