Are we safe if a comedian does not have free speech? Were we safe when musicians did not have free speech? Did the executive branch always hate the first amendment or is this a new trend?
In September 2025, ABC/Disney abruptly suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr publicly denounced Kimmel’s political jokes. The news “jolted the U.S. media” and “intensified free-speech fears” as Carr threatened to revoke broadcast licenses from stations airing what he called “garbage”. In effect, ABC and affiliate Nexstar folded. Nexstar called Kimmel’s show “not in the public interest” and pulled it, and ABC took it off the air indefinitely. Critics warn this is state-sanctioned censorship. As one labor organizer put it, “Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t suspended because of what he said. He was suspended because the FCC threatened his employer. That’s state-sanctioned censorship and it is a giant red flag… Authoritarianism isn’t coming, it’s already here”.
These events should unsettle all Americans. It should scare the shit out of you. It wasn’t long ago that both Democrats and Republicans recoiled at the idea of such government pressure on media. Prominent figures from across the aisle have condemned the FCC’s intervention. House leaders accused Carr of “bullying ABC” and waging a “war on the First Amendment,” and even conservative senators likened Carr’s threats to a mob boss’s intimidation (by the end of that week, Senator Ted Cruz in a rare display of courage, publicly called out the FCC’s tactics).
Whether you love or loathe Kimmel’s jokes, the idea that an unelected regulator can bluster a network into silence should alarm anyone who values freedom. I’ve heard some deeply ignorant people claim it is cancel culture. Cancel culture is an angry mob of keyboard warriors. Suppression of free speech is when the government uses coercion. The first is a bunch of angry assholes, the second is a violation of our first amendment and a violation of the current president’s promise to “restore free speech.”
PMRC’s Filthy Fifteen
Historically, Americans have faced very similar fights. In the 1980s, Gen Xers watched TV while their favorite rock songs became “porn rock” in the eyes of moral crusaders. In 1985 the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center),a group led by Democratic Senator Al Gore’s wife Tipper Gore and other Washington wives, compiled a notorious “Filthy Fifteen” list of rock and pop songs they deemed objectionable. Songs by AC/DC, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and others were singled out. The PMRC urged record companies to ban this music; their crusade was widely seen as censorship in Stepford wives’ clothing. It is in my opinion that Tipper Gore made the Million Mom’s possible.
This group was able to get their husbands to call a senate hearing. The record industry would either self monitor themselves or face escalated efforts.
At the Senate hearings on music content, three popular musicians showed up. Frank Zappa, Dee Snider and John Denver. They came to defend the First Amendment that was under threat by non elected and elected officials. Zappa blasted the PMRC’s plan as “an ill-conceived piece of nonsense” that “infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children,” describing it as equivalent to treating “dandruff by decapitation”. Dee Snider made history and made it clear: it was none of Congress’s business to regulate protected artistic expression.
Under public pressure (and a realignment of music industry interests), the record labels eventually agreed to “Parental Advisory” stickers. The era ended with rock lyrics more labeled than censored, a narrow and incomplete victory for free expression amid the culture wars. Had it just been the record labels and the senators there, I believe the hearing would have ended worse for musical artists and the first amendment. Suits have proved too many times that profits over principal is the name of the game when facing government coercion.
Reagan and the First Amendment
It’s worth recalling that this all happened under President Ronald Reagan, the conservative icon of my generation still revered by the GOP today. Reagan famously crusaded against government intrusion on speech. In 1985 while all of this was going on he declared freedom of the press “one of our most important freedoms and also one of our oldest”. And in 1987 he vetoed legislation to codify the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine, warning that “content-based regulation by the Federal Government is… antagonistic to the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment”. Even Reagan knew that once the government starts policing ideas or jokes on air, the First Amendment is in peril.
Today’s FCC-Kimmel showdown is a 21st-century echo of those 1980s battles. As in 1985, powerful forces are pressing private media to silence critics. The lesson of history is clear: Americans must oppose censorship regardless of who it targets! Free speech is not a partisan privilege; it’s a universal right. Conservatives who cheered Reagan’s free-press rhetoric should now oppose the government’s strong-arm tactics just as liberals who defended Zappa and Snider back then oppose them now. If we let government officials dictate what makes it on TV (or radio or the internet), we all fucking lose.
Key Parallels: Then and Now
In both 1985 and 2025, Washington elites and insiders tried to muzzle speech in the name of public interest.
Both instances show why we need First Amendment vigilance. The Founders wrote that truth and debate should flourish “in the market of ideas,” not be throttled by government fiat. Reagan reminded Americans that government policing of the airwaves is uniquely dangerous. Will republicans listen to that wisdom now, or continue to cave as our freedoms to speak our minds erode.
Free Speech Needs Defenders Today
The irony is that some of the very people who claim to champion free expression have been silent about the FCC’s censorship campaign. A genuine commitment to the First Amendment would demand pushing back whenever any party, president or regulator tries to quash dissenting voices. Just as Gen X rock fans once united behind Zappa and Snider, we all now must stand behind any artist or journalist under threat even if you disagree with their jokes or lyrics. Pen America warned that Disney’s capitulation looks “more redolent of autocracies than democracies”. That indictment applies equally to those who bully networks into silence.
We need leaders, both corporate and political, who will protect the First Amendment, not abuse it. American tradition is to trust families, fans, and viewers, not bureaucrats, to decide what entertainment is acceptable. Both conservative Reagan and liberal rock stars taught us that lesson decades ago. It’s a lesson every citizen must remember now. If we love free speech as Reagan and Rock stars did, we must refuse to tolerate its erosion today no matter who’s in power.
Don’t Let Hearts of Glass Disappear from the Shelves
In a world where late-night hosts can be shut down and rock songs once get “Filthy Fifteen” labels, a book like mine—Hearts of Glass: Living in the Real World—might be next. It’s got grit, heart, and stories the censors don’t want you to hear.
- Paperback : https://tertulia.com/book/hearts-of-glass-living-in-the-real-world-pat-green/9781967232000
- eBook: https://www.barnstormerpublishing.com/product/hearts-of-glass-book-1-living-in-the-real-world-ebook/10?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=SROKYNZMZ6QRH74JNOZEBF26
- Audiobook: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781967232185-hearts-of-glass
Read it before the “authorities” decide this kind of truth is unacceptable. Support raw voices. Keep free speech free.
Stay totally awesome!
Stay true to you!
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