Laura Ingraham

[Laura19]

This is hardly a racist comment. Laura would happily say the same of a white player. This is as ridiculous as the Girl Scouts changing their name of Samoan cookies because it was called racist.

Shut up and dribble? Haha, clever....wish I would have thought of that!!

[Archangel]

Ingraham has made similar comments about Barbra Streisand and Bruce Springsteen except she said, "Shut up and sing!" In fact, I think it was the name of a book with which she is associated. (I am not sure if anyone in the public eye writes their own material these days.)

I continue to be amazed that the opinions of athletes and musicians, well, celebrities in general don't get short shrift from we, The Great Unwashed. If these folks couldn't sing, act, or score 50+ points in a child's playground game, they would be just like everyone else. They aren't special and their opinions are no more relevant than anyone else's. That is all.

--Gabe

[jimmyb]

Typical liberal response..
By once again a privileged celebrity ..
I wish I had to live life so oppressed.

[BluesStringer]

I have always admired Laura Ingraham. She is a common sense conservative with a great gift of articulating the message in easy to understand terms. She wrote a book over 10 years ago titled "Shut Up and Sing". Basic premise of the book, and I suppose this rowe with LeBron, athletes and entertainers, keep to what you are good at and don't ruin it with leftist BS that we do not want to hear. Haven't watched her that much on TV, but she's good on the radio. During the campaign, she articulated what Trump was all about better than Trump did.

I'm as OK with Ingraham's brand of opining as any other major-media commentator generally speaking, but I was bugged by the title of that book as I am with the premise of it that you accurately describe above. The First Amendment is not intended to protect the listeners from speech they don't want to hear, it's intended to protect the right of the speaker to say it. Nobody has to listen. Attempts to stifle speech because of the perception that a majority doesn't want to hear it is just as antithetical to First Amendment protections as stifling speech that the majority does want to hear. Ingraham is a lawyer who interned under Scalia. She touts that part of her resume often. While I don't personally believe Scalia was all he was cracked up to be, I defy anyone to cite a ruling or even public statement outside of ruling deliberations he ever made that would support the stifling of unpopular political speech. It is precisely the kind of speech earmarked for perpetual protection by its author(s) when the First Amendment was written. Scalia was a master at rhetorical allusions to original intent of our founding documents, so it's rather perplexing to ponder from what formative influence as a budding attorney Ingraham got the notion that trying to stifle speech based on what the speaker "is good at" is in any way consistent with conservatism, constitutionalism, orignalism or just plain ol' right & wrong, but at least on this one subject, she clearly is double-minded in thinking she can claim those traits while using her bully-pulpit to stifle others' free speech.

I don't even have a clue what James said that all the hubbub is about here, and that's because I choose not to listen to people whose opinions I don't trust for being intellectually sound, mostly accurate, thoughtful beyond just knee-jerk considerations of party and/or ideology and so on, but it doesn't bother me at all that he said whatever he said in public so others could listen if they are/were so-inclined. I have learned to love freedom more than I hate my ideological adversaries. I think Jefferson, Madison and other Founders would appreciate more Americans learning the same lesson.

Blues

[pc-not]

Point taken, Blues. I agree, but what I intended to differentiate from your take was the fact that people paying to attend a concert, ball game or awards ceremony, don't want to hear a political diatribe about some leftist (or right wing) issue. If I was an NBA fan watching all things basketball on NBATV, I don't think a player dissing a political commentator would interest me. i may be wrong, though, as most subjects morph into race, immigration or gender issues today.

[BluesStringer]

.... I don't think a player dissing a political commentator would interest me.

The liberty-supporting solution to that is to simply not listen. The liberty-killing act is to stifle. That's all I'm saying.

i may be wrong, though, as most subjects morph into race, immigration or gender issues today.

I'm afraid I don't know what this means, but that may be because I don't know what James or Ingraham said about each other. Whatever, the solution to wrong or "bad" speech is always more right and "good" speech. Stifling is never a right or good solution. That's all I'm saying.

Blues

[Laura19]

The MAIN point here is that it is not racist. Some of us are tired of that word being used inappropriately