So rednecks need to be politically correct now?

Wait. Before the National Association of Rednecked Persons attacks me, let me be clear that I dont mean redneck as an insult. Indeed, redneck pride has been on the rise ever since Jeff Foxworthy got rich informing people they might be a redneck. (One clue: if your school fight song was Dueling Banjos.)

Redneck reality shows have been all the rage: Rocket City Rednecks, My Big Redneck Vacation, Hillbilly Handfishin and, of course, Swamp People.

But the gold standard is Duck Dynasty, which follows the Robertsons, a family that struck it rich selling duck calls. Its like a real-life version of The Beverly Hillbillies. All of the men look like they stepped out of the Hatfield-McCoy conflict to smoke a corncob pipe.

What all of these and countless other reality shows have in common is their shock value. And guess what? Sometimes the shock is manufactured. If the cameras werent on, the silicone life-forms on the various Real Housewives shows probably wouldnt be throwing wine in each others faces as much as they do. TLCs awful reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo tries its hardest to turn an uncouth Southern white family with a childrens beauty pageant fixation into the sort of genetic and cultural horror show that sparked the progressives to advocate eugenics. And everyone, everywhere, mugs for the camera.

But heres a twist. Phil Robertson (who shhh! has a masters degree from Louisiana Tech) gave an interview to GQ magazine in which he said that, as a Christian, he has problems with homosexuality. He got a bit too detailed with his anatomical analysis. But his real sin was calling homosexuality a sin comparable with bestiality.

In response, A&E has suspended Robertson from the reality show about his own family. That right there should give you a sense of how real this reality show is. If its about the family, some producer in New York City cant decide whos in or out of the family. If NBC News decided it simply didnt like the Republican Party anymore (not altogether implausible), it could decide not to report on the GOP. But it would stop being a news organization in the process. Instead, it would be producing a kind of reality show for which it makes up its own version of reality.

Sarah Palin jumped into the fray. Free speech is an endangered species, she warned on her Facebook page. Those intolerants hatin and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.

Well, yes and no. There are no constitutional free-speech rights involved when a private entertainment network decides to cut a character from a fake reality show. A&E has free-speech rights, too. Everyone has a right to an opinion, and everyone has a right to an opinion about that opinion.

But Palin is not entirely wrong, either. Liberals love free expression so long as you free-express things they agree with. Particularly when it comes to homosexuality, theres zero tolerance for dissent of any kind.

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