John Mellencamp is passionate about the First Amendment. So long as you aren’t saying anything mean.
I don’t think people fought and gave their lives so that some guy can sit in his bedroom and be mean. I don’t think that’s what freedom of speech is.
On to how Mellencamp interprets freedom of speech and assembly:
Freedom of speech is really about assembly — for us to collectively have an idea. We want to get our point of view out so we can assemble and I can appoint you to be the spokesman. That’s freedom of speech — to be able to collectively speak for a sector of people.
And on what our country has done to the meaning of free speech:
But somehow it’s turned into “I can be an ***hole whenever I feel like, say whatever I like, be disrespectful to people and not be courteous.” It’s not good for our society. Not being courteous is not really freedom of speech.
Apparently we’ve been misinterpreting the meaning of the First Amendment for years. Only chosen spokespeople have freedom of speech; you sitting at home reading this are NOT free to say what you want. Be courteous, always. And most importantly, free speech only applies when the “collective” has an idea. How very Marxist.
Remember (back before Obama ruled the world) when Mellencamp was crowned collective spokesperson for the Kerry-Edwards campaign and Bush-haters?
Singer John Mellencamp sang a specially written song that called the president “just another cheap thug” and ridiculed him as the “Texas bambino.”
Don’t get confused. Calling Bush a “cheap thug” is absolutely OK, but saying mean things about John Mellencamp on your blog is worth a tirade to CMT.
In the future, before you open your mouth, make sure you’ve been deemed the spokesman on the issue. People are crazy.
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“Texas bambino”? Does he know what “bambino” means? That’s…not really an insult, is it? “Yeah, well you’re a…a…a BABY! Yeah, a BABY, that’s what you are!”
Whew. I’m so glad we’ve got a really up-and-coming, edgy wise man on the mountain, like John “Cougar” Mellencamp, to set us straight on civil liberties. He can strum a guitar, so that automatically means he’s a terrific Constitutional scholar. MUCH more so than, say, someone who actually knows something about the Constitution.
Okay. Back from Perfunction, where the PTB have corrected Mellencamp’s quote to “Texas bandito”. While that at least makes sense as an intended insult, it’s not exactly Oscar Wilde-caliber. Given that in terms of intellectual firepower, Mellencamp’s the equivalent of a zip gun…eh. No shocks there.
Freedom of speech does, however, allow you to parade your profound ignorance before the world. Perhaps he slept through his Constitutional law classes at junior college.
Wow! I’m so glad that my misinterpretation of the Bill of Rights has been corrected by our good musical comrade! I have decided to take Mr. Mellencamp’s advice and contacted my chosen spokesperson with the request to announce the following message:
“John Mellencamp is a jackass.”
So, he really is as big a dumb-ass as Bruce Springsteen? Good to know.
duchebag…
Mellenball’s quest for relevance continues…his career, not s’much. Isn’t he shilling for GM or something these days? Or trying to invent corn-based marital aids?
“Freedom of speech is really about the assembly” I thought those were two different freedoms – freedom of speech AND freedom of assembly…I’m so glad he cleared that confusion up. I feel so much smarter now after reading his wise, educational remarks. Who is this man again?
A life-support system for a talking ass, as it turns out.
I have to admit that I agree with what I think he was trying to say. I do get tired of being somewhere in a family type environment like a baseball game and listen to the idiots dropping f bombs around kids. If you ask them to be a little more respectful they claim freedom of speech.
With freedom of speech comes responsibility. There is nothing wrong with having more (un)common courtesy.
Nobody’s arguing that we should have less civility. The problem comes in with Hasbeen O’Baggy trying to redefine both freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, when he really isn’t qualified to do much more than re-cap the ketchup.
I wasn’t saying he is correct in trying to redefine freedom of speech. I think he is a hypocrite on the issue. I just agree that it has become more of a “I” issue, as in I can say whatever I want regardless of those around me.
Oh but aint that america for you and me
Aint that america were someting to see baby
Aint that america, home of the free
He’s like an uber-hypocrite.
I can see that being the case. PARTICULARLY in Mellencamp’s case, in fact.
JasonM, wasn’t that song itself meant to mock blue-collar Americans? Or am I confusing it with about 30 of his other songs?
TheIrish, you stole the words out of my mouth. A jackass who can’t sing at that. How ’bout them apples, huh, Cougar??
Glad I grew up in a house where Mellencamp and the aforementioned Springsteen were disliked for their hatred of America. Gosh, more free speech he probably wouldn’t like.
Posting mean and as**ole comments is what Deceiver is all about, isn’t it?
Back in 1983 when he was just John Cougar he won a Grammy Award and his acceptance speech was one sentence, “I’m an idiot.”. I thought he was being down on himself for letting some agent or manager hang that stupid pseudonym on him, but maybe I was wrong.
Yes, I believe it was. Like countless other songs by the likes of Mellencamp and Stinksteen in which the point is, “America is eee-vil and oppressive, the American dream is a lie, etc.”
In his attempt to redefine free speech, Mellencamp is promoting the current “shut up” strategy the left is using. That is, free speech is for the left only…everyone else can “shut up”.
Let’s see…constitutional law, science, economics…is there *anything* celebrities aren’t experts in? Who needs education when we have celebrities?
“is there *anything* celebrities aren’t experts in? Who needs education when we have celebrities?”
I ask that same question everyday, Baba Yaga.
wow..that’s some scary shite.. free speech is for ‘the collective’ ?!?
i knew american lefties leaned a little marxist/communist but this comment is striking in its misinterpretation of the bill of rights. unfortunately, the current president shares these views. ‘god’ help the u.s.a. !
Hey is that Neil Young’s baby brother?
It’s too bad Billie Bob Thornton isn’t writing a Sling Blade 2.
Another Democrat that seems it is okay for them to talk bad about dirty Republicans but how dare we utter a bad word about the messiah and his following. I believe Lindsay Graham said it right yesterday during the hearing on Sotomayer -”If I had said the same thing you said, I would be hung” Yep. Freedom of Speech for ya.
And here you are, yet again. They have these things called other sites, you know.
With credentials like this, shouldn’t MelonKampf be headed for the Supreme Court in place of Sotomayor?
And yet you just can’t stay away, can you? Because apparently this is the ONLY SITE on the entire Internet.
Hey Mr. Cougar, visit Iran and Cuba for collective “free speech.” Hope you don’t end up in their fine jails like others there who want free speech. Or shot in the head.
Poor Jonnie Cougar, he is amoung the deluded Dems who feel that the people who should be allowed to speak for the masses are of course themselves. What he was saying is that “HE” is of course the elected person to speak, even without a vote.
Definitely not the only site on the internet. Perhaps some of you need to get ahold of this fact and broaden your horizons a bit. Just sayin’ some of you sound all angry and repetitive, and if shi%ting on people was no longer an option, then what would you do?
I do keep checking in to see if anybody has anything witty or clever to say. which used to be the case, but I am always disappointed lately. It all seems to be about mean-spirited crap rather than genuine hypocrisy, and despite the admonishment to be “civil”, or at least “entertaining”, I haven’t found either civility or entertainment here lately.
Awww. Thanks so much for instructing us on how to live. Wouldn’t have known what to do otherwise.
I imagine that “shi%ting on people” probably won’t be an option much longer, as one freedom after another is going the way of the dinosaurs. Maybe then you can start your own site to instruct people on what we are, and aren’t, allowed to say–I mean, it IS all about keeping you happy.
If you don’t like what anyone here has to say, maybe you could pile another mattress on top of the other 22 and try to ignore the pea.
Best of luck.
He is one of the ELITE!
His words are worth more than ours. Even if he sucks, he gets paid to spew.
Do not buy anything from people you disagree with, email or write them and tell them why.
Shut-up and sing/act.
holy shit, what an asshole….(I say this “collectively”)