Wendy Bell Claims Free Speech Victimhood

From Friday's rant (about 35 seconds from the end):

The phone lines are always open for conversation but beware anyone who wants to silence me for my views or you for yours. Because that's what we saw happen this week. That's not America.

After the negative press over her Sunday monologue Wendy Bell posted this rhetorical question on her Facebook page:

Where do you believe an American’s right to free speech ends? Should facts be thrown out over you not agreeing with them?

I don't think that Wendy Bell understands what free speech in a free society actually means. However horrid her "on the fence" views are (and they are) she has every right to hold them.

If other people, on the other hand, find those view abhorrent (and there certainly are a lot of people who do!), they have every right to communicate their disgust to KDKA Radio and/or Wendy Bell's advertisers. Her free speech rights do not shield her from such criticism. It's embarrassingly sad for her that she seems to think so.

If, after all this bad publicity, those entities don't want to be associated with her "on the fence" cruelty, they have every right to sever whatever ties they might have with her (for example, her advertisers pulling ad revenue or KDKA Radio showing her the door).

If they wish to continue to be associated with her, that's their right, too. But even then their freedom to associate with Wendy Bell (either KDKA Radio or her advertisers) does not shield them from public criticism, by any means.

And yet, Wendy Bell seems to think that any criticism of her is an assault (by the left, of course) to undermine her First Amendment rights. It isn't. Criticism does not equal censorship. In the unlikely event that her advertisers pull their ads and KDKA Radio fires her, she'll still have those rights. It's ridiculous for her to be claiming some sort of First Amendment victim hood here.

Wendy Bell is not the victim here. The people who are dying are the victims here. The victims would be those who would die if the stay at home guidelines are lifted too early - lifted because of someone's belief that an earlier recovery of the economy is worth more than the lives of a few hundred thousand already old/frail American citizens.