Doug McIntyre: Free speech is easy to support when you agree with the speaker

Last week talk radio giants John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou of Burbank-based KFI-AM (640) were suspended from the enormously popular "John & Ken Show" for calling the late Whitney Houston a "crack ho."

Talk about kicking someone when they're down! Dead is about as down as you can get. Whitney fans were understandably furious.

Still, while piling on might make people mad, "ho" can get you fired. Just ask Don Imus.

"Ho" is street for "whore" and has a racial component the "w" word lacks. For example, politicians are routinely called whores with zero fallout, which seems unfair to actual whores. At least they do something for their money.

With the suspension, John and Ken fans are indignant their champions have been silenced, even if it's only for a few weeks. John and Ken haters celebrate the bellicose duo's comeuppance.

Both sides should think a second time.

John and Ken's First Amendment rights have not been violated. Nobody has a right to a radio show or a newspaper column. The First Amendment prohibits the GOVERNMENT from limiting our right to self-expression. Our employers can tell us to zip it whenever they like.

And more and more bosses are doing exactly that - enforcing draconian "zero tolerance" policies on jokes, office flirtations, and even religious expression.

While we celebrate free speech in America in a million ways we also pillory those who cross the ever-shifting and often arbitrary line

of what's currently considered socially acceptable.

Self-expression is under assault by a growing chorus of activist groups who are professionally offended.

The threat of lawsuits and/or boycotts against the employers of political opponents is often enough to frighten giant American corporations into cowardly silence.

At nearly the exact moment KFI was censuring John and Ken, MSNBC fired Pat Buchanan after deeming his new book, "Suicide of a Superpower," racist. MSNBC president Phil Griffin told reporters, "I don't think the ideas that (Buchanan) put forth (in his book) are appropriate for the national dialogue, much less on MSNBC."

But it's not just the left going after conservative voices. The Susan G. Komen cancer charity was subjected to a bullying boycott from anti-abortion activists resulting in a major flip-flop followed by the resignation of their senior vice president, Karen Handel.

Lowe's was vilified twice, first by the right for sponsoring a show about Muslims living in America and then by the left for caving to the right.

The right would ban flag burning. The left would ban "In God We Trust."

The John & Ken Show is in-your-face about local and state issues from a decidedly non-politically correct perspective. Personally, I find their bluntness refreshing especially in a city where you get in more trouble for speaking the truth than regurgitating a politically correct lie.

Do they cross the line? Sure. But remember, one man's outrage is another man's chuckle. That's life.

The speech police who want to sanitize the airwaves are putting the hoods back on the Klansman. Fear of saying something spontaneous has our leaders tethered to their TelePrompters. We're better off with unpleasant truths than sugarcoated lies.

It's easy to support free speech when we agree with the speaker. The real test comes when we hate the message or when the message itself is hate.

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Doug McIntyre: Free speech is easy to support when you agree with the speaker