When celebrities like Tim Robbins, Barbra Streisand or the Dixie Chicks—and even former celebrities like Linda Ronstadt—impose their views on their audiences, they often find that sizable portions of their audiences turn on them. After all, if you pay money to hear someone sing music, you hope that the singer will have the common courtesy to not denigrate your political views in the midst of the performance you’ve paid for.

Unfortunately, celebrities these days don’t see it that way. Not only do they feel the need to engage in political lectures during entertainment performances, but they then complain about “censorship” and “chill winds” after audiences react negatively to their ungracious behavior.

Of course, if you or I were in a (non-Hollywood) service business, and if you or I started haranguing our customers about their political views, we probably wouldn’t be in that business very long. Just ask Leslie Farr, an Amtrak train conductor who was suspended from work after making critical remarks about John Kerry:

Farr [...] used the train’s public address system to tell passengers they would be delayed because of Kerry’s train and then quipped that they should vote accordingly in November.

Now, I think Farr’s statement was just as ill-advised as any on-stage diatribe from a leftist Hollywood performer. However, according to the logic of folks like Tim Robbins, Farr’s suspension is evidence of sinister plot to stifle dissent. (Was John Ashcroft on that train? Has he suddenly become a Kerry supporter?)

So, the question is, when will the Dixie Chicks come to Farr’s defense? If they don’t then it’s obvious: Hollywood’s twisted notion of free speech—that is, speech that captive, paying audiences aren’t allowed to find objectionable—is a “right” that only they enjoy. Petty commoners like us have to live by different rules