First, Last

Among the many examples of RWS™, Congressional Rs, and their willing teabagging fodder neither respecting, agreeing with, or understanding the US Constitution is the way they respond to the occasional person who questions their venom or lies. "My First Amendment rights are being violated!!!" they shriek, tears flowing, waves of victimization slopping the shores of their self-pity.

The latest boos and hoos come from "Dr" Laura, who's parlayed her lack of qualification into a multimillion dollar enterprise, based on rudeness, hate, biblical misunderstanding, and advising people on stuff about which she bears strong opinions, and no education (a hallmark, pretty much, of mamas of grizzle). To Sarah Palin and to Michele Bachmann and to Sharon Angle, the First Amendment not only guarantees their right to say stuff, but it also wraps its arms about them (when they're not trying to amputate them) like the ivy at Liberty U., protecting them from criticism. You can say whatever you want, right or wrong, true or false, and if anyone pushes back, it's a violation of the Constitution. Take to the streets.

The mind reels; or would, if it had any reels left.

Sorry, pandas: if you're not being rounded up (or put behind a fence!), taken to court, or censored (by the government!), your free speech hasn't been infringed. You'd think it didn't need explanation, except that it evidently does:

You, the realest of real Americans, have every right to talk stupid. You have every right to be stupid. Heck, there's one whole political party for you that counts on it, and there's a nationwide propaganda machine that's predicated on it. So go crazy. But you'll have to show the rest of us where exactly it says in the Constitution that your rights to stupid include the abrogation (big word) of the rights of everyone else to call it what it is. Or that you will suffer no consequences.

At least there's one conservative who sees a teensy problem. I wonder if there are any others. And I wonder how low the people who listen to and admire such idiocy will have to sink before they come out the other side.