Facing consequences

Dilbert exits

Some of you seem unclear on the concept, so let’s go through this step by step: You can say, write and publish anything you want in this country.

You can say Joe Biden is a plagiarist of minimal talent who ascended to high office mostly because he presented as an adult to Americans exhausted by the drama-club antics of alternative candidates.

You can say that the only people trying to make critical race theory a thing want to use it to scare other people into giving them money and power.

You can say that it must be easy to play quarterback in the National Football League because middle-aged guys can do it.

If you choose to say anything, you have to understand there are consequences. Somebody is going to disagree with you. Somebody is going to think you’ve exposed yourself as facile or ignorant or just plain stupid. Maybe somebody will be offended and decide not to invite you to their Super Bowl party next year.

You say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and you might get punched in the neck.

I do not endorse punching anyone in the neck. Though I once said that if you must punch someone in the neck, it should be a Nazi. It is illustrative of our point that some of you were offended by the very idea that some poor Nazi might get punched in the neck, to the point that some Child of God actually wrote a letter to the editor decrying imaginary violence against Nazis. (To plagiarize Dave Barry: I am not making this up.)

So my saying that Nazis are more deserving of punches in the neck than non-Nazis had consequences: a chiding letter.

I have to live with those consequences. Such is my struggle.

Being free to express yourself is not the same thing as being immune from the repercussions of that expression. Freedom of speech just means that the government isn’t going to stop you from unpacking your heart in public. We generally don’t practice prior restraint in this country.

That doesn’t mean they can’t put you in jail if you advocate the use of force to incite or produce “imminent lawless action,” or your words are “likely to incite or produce such action.”

Let’s say you’re hanging out with a bunch of stabby-minded sycophants and wonder aloud: Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest? Under the laws and Constitution of this country, you might be held accountable for those words, whether or not Thomas Becket gets it in the neck.

Our courts also frown on inciting suicide, and if you make false statements of fact, you might find yourself facing criminal or civil liability. If you’re a low-brow entertainment channel masquerading as a news operation and knowingly lie to your viewers about whether a national election has been stolen because you are feeling ratings pressure from entertainment channels even less scrupulous than yourselves, you might find yourself pulling out that big check register in the three-ring binder.

If you’re selling a product, there’s a limit to how far you can push the puffery. False and misleading advertising is frowned upon.

You get it? You’ve got freedom of speech. You don’t have freedom from consequences.

Though the Supreme Court recognizes that “liberty of the press, historically considered and taken up by the Federal Constitution, has meant, principally although not exclusively, immunity from previous restraints or censorship,” I’m subject to consequences too. I can be sued for libel by anyone who gets their feelings hurt by this column, including all those snowflake Nazis out there.

More realistically, I can be fired at any time for any reason because Arkansas is an “at-will” employment state where either the employer or the employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time for any reason or no reason at all. It would be perfectly fine for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to let me go because I wrote something that someone in an office across the way didn’t like.

This would be really scary if I didn’t have 30 years of experience writing pretty much whatever the hell I want, with the only real governor on this column being my conscience (and the editor I sleep with, who occasionally reminds me that there are thoughts better kept to ourselves).

I think if I wrote what the Dilbert cartoonist said the other day, I’d be looking around for a box to pack up the few personal items that remain at the office. There’s a reason most outof-the-closet white supremacists aren’t up-and-comers in the world of finance and commercial real estate. It’s just bad business to employ shouty bigots these days (unless you are a low-brow entertainment channel masquerading as a news operation courting a specific low-information demographic).

And before one of you Dilbert sympathizers comes forward to defend Scott Adams by saying he’s not a white supremacist but a radical truth-teller, I understand there is room for a nuanced reading of his statement, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt (he’s not hateful, just expressing what he believes are uncomfortable facts), he still comes across as intellectually dishonest, cynical and insensitive not only to Black people but to everyone who dreams of a world where the content of one’s character is determinative. It’s ignorant, and ugly, and possibly cynical.

There are plenty of other cartoonists a newspaper can employ. Most of them aren’t as funny (or as sour) as Dilbert, but they’re not likely to cause headaches for our editors or inspire readers to throw rocks at us. Adams is an undeniably talented satirist of workplace culture, but that doesn’t outweigh the baggage he’s now taken on.

Trevor Bauer can probably throw a baseball better than 90% of Major League pitchers, but I don’t expect him to land a new contract with any team anytime soon, or maybe ever. (Maybe the Cleveland Browns will consider him as a backup for Deshaun Watson.)

Adams can complain he’s being “canceled” — this newspaper’s subscription to Dilbert is being canceled — but he can (and undoubtedly will) continue to produce and distribute the strip through alternative means. If you want to look at Dilbert, you’ll be able to find the strip easily enough.

Adams complains that this will hurt him financially, but I’m not sure I believe that. It’s possible to view getting oneself “canceled” as a career move. Adams obviously has an interest in railing against wokeness and prosecuting an empty but lucrative culture war against his neighbors.

Maybe a certain low-brow entertainment channel masquerading as a news operation courting a specific low-information demographic will be interested. If it has anything left in its budget after Dominion gets through with it.

Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@adgnewsroom.com.