Miami Marlin’s manager, Ozzie Guillen, was suspended for five days for making comments to Time magazine that he, Guillen, loves Castro and respects him for staying in power so long. He later apologized for his comments.
Wait a minute. Guillen, a native of Venezuela, was on U.S. soil and made his comments without anyone egging him on. It was, apparently, his thoughts that he chose to verbalize. (By the way, he has also stated publicly that he likes Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, a Castro ally.)
What’s puzzling to me is that Guillen is here in America, a nation that prides itself for its free speech segment of the U.S. Constitution and publicly humiliates and shows disdain for a man speaking freely in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia.
Ozzie Guillen may appreciate Castro and Chavez. He has a right to make such a statement even as a guest in our country. His rights were stepped on by the politically correct police who decide what’s proper and improper in a society that will allow late night “comedians” to slam, disgrace and say heinous things about persons they find despicable.
Ozzie, welcome to America. As far as I’m concerned you have a right to speak freely in America, even if I disagree with your choice of political dictators.
—Keith Hansen
Comments (3)
Add commentOzzie's a citizen
But hey, I'm sure he would welcome you here as well.
Who in Philadelphia did he insult?
The Boat people
and the criminals Castro gave the US, I guess.
You're right, J.B. -- Ozzie has been a citizen since
2006, which Mr. Hansen could have found out with little effort before writing his opinion piece.
Hansen reaches for some indignant high road, saying Ozzie's "rights were stepped on by the politically correct police who decide what's proper or improper . . . .", when actually Ozzie's speech was squashed by his employer and their apparent desire for maximum ticket sales=$$'s in their new $ 2 billion stadium in Little Havana. (Sponsors of late-night comedians and other misc. folks who "talk" for a living are often boycotted, as well. Rightly or wrongly, consumers frequently exercise a kind of push-back/"policing" of their own with their threat of withholding purchasing $$'s.)
Of course Ozzie has a right to free speech as an American citizen. Similarly, the Marlin's have some rights as a private business, from whom Ozzie draws a paycheck. In apparently typical Ozzie fashion, he blurted out an opinion that a vocal and powerful group of Cuban-American citizens disagreed with, and they made demands of the Marlin's owner. These fans get to "express themselves" with their ticket purchases (or lack thereof), and they threatened to do so. Did Ozzie decide, by apologizing, that his hefty salary was worth more than his free speech? Money talks, idealism (around free speech) walks? He could have said, upon further reflection, "screw the lot of you, Castro rules", but he chose his sizeable paycheck instead.