Savage: "Free Speech for Me, Death for You"

At their annual gabfest in New York last month, Talkers Magazine bestowed their coveted Freedom of Speech Award to Michael Savage, whose syndicated talk show is carried on over 350 stations.

Savage enjoys speaking freely on his show and dishing out the red meat that his 3.75 million radio listeners love to hear. He has amassed a lavish record of on-air bigotry -- dismissing child victims of gunfire as "ghetto slime," referring to non-white countries as "turd world nations," calling homosexuality "perversion" and remarking that Latinos "breed like rabbits."


However, Savage doesn’t think some people deserve to have free speech. In fact, he apparently doesn’t think that some people even have the right to live. Like when he a told a gay caller to his short lived TV show on MSNBC "to get AIDs and die."

Well, the host of The Savage Nation has done it again. He was so angered by the behavior of a group of Hispanic students, who were conducting a hunger strike at San Jose State University that he told his listeners that they too should die. (not of AIDs but of starvation.)

According to Media Matters, on the July 5 broadcast of his radio show Savage discussed a recent hunger strike organized by students in the San Francisco area to show their support for The DREAM Act, a provision of the 2007 Comprehensive Immigration bill. The DREAM (or Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act would provide a pathway to citizenship and other benefits for certain illegal immigrants who entered the United States before the age of 16 if they graduate from high school and enroll in either college or the military. In discussing the students, Savage stated:

"I would say, let them fast until they starve to death then that solves the problem. Because then we won't have a problem about giving them green cards because they're illegal aliens, they don't belong here to begin with."

So let me understand, it’s okay for Savage to say all kinds of hateful things, on his radio show, for three hours a day and five days a week, but if someone else -- like the gay caller or this group of Hipanic students want to express their opinion they should just die. And this clown gets a "Freedom of Speech" award.

Could you imagine what would happen if a liberal talker expressed a similar sentiment. Randi Rhodes was pretty upset when Randall Terry held a sit-in at Terri Schiavo’s hospice. What would have happened if Rhodes said that Terry should be given a fatal dose of barbituates by Schiavo's nurses?

Or Stephanie Miller was outraged when a group of anti-gay Christians wanted to protest at the funerals of some of the Virginia Tech victims. Imagine if Stephanie said "too bad there isn’t someone around who would shoot them."

According to the San Jose Mercury News the two dozen Hispanic students, who were conducting the hunger strike are asking Savage’s syndicator, Talk Radio Network to fire him and are also asking for apologies from the radio stations that carry "The Savage Nation."

They have also posted a letter on the activist website Indybay.org articulating their outrage over Savage's death wish.

Little do they know that TRN, which specializes in right talk, is probably delighted with Savage’s comments. Also, they will not get any apologies from Savage or the managers of affiliated stations. In fact, Savage will probably string out this controversy as far as he can.

Afterall, he holds the Talkers Magazine Freedom of Speech Award.