re: #15 CuriousLurker

Agreed. We, as a society, can define what we consider acceptable public discourse—not what someone has a constitutional right to say (or not say), but what we’re willing to reward financially.

It’s business. If I own Acme Widgets, Inc. and provide a great product & stellar customer service, people are going to flock to my company. If, OTOH, my salespeople start treating customers rudely and/or the quality of my product starts to slip, then people will take their $$ elsewhere. As the owner of Acme Widgets, I can either read the writing on the wall and try to improve things, or continue on the road I’m on and eventually go out of business.

It’s not a free speech issue, it’s a business issue. Everyone has a choice.

And what is acceptable on talk radio today, becomes acceptable on cable news tomorrow and then main stream news, within political parties etc…It coarsens the dialogue and divides us even more.

I am all for vigorous tough and tumble debate, but this has become the politics of personal destruction, and it is ugly.