Welcome to the re-education with Eli Lake.

That's me.

Today's show is all about the new war on comedy.

Later on, we have special guest John Viner, a veteran comedy writer in Hollywood who has

contributed to hilarious shows like Family Guy and Duncanville.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

For my generation, Generation X, this was something that children learned in kindergarten.

It was obvious, a cliche.

Like, I disagree with what you have to say, but I will fight for your right to say it.

Americans have until very recently been a free speech culture.

The censors were the villains to comics, DJs, musicians, and authors who challenged dogma with controversial speech were the heroes. Just watch The People

versus Larry Flint. It's about struggles of the late pornographer to publish Hustler magazine.

Unpopular speech is absolutely vital to the health of our nation.

It was a tribute to the rights of Americans to offend their neighbors.

I'm not trying to convince you that you should like what Larry Flint does.

You don't like Howard Stern.

You can always change the station.

I don't like what Larry Flint does.

But what I do like is that I live in a country where you and I can make that decision for

ourselves. So the story went. And then it began to change, slowly at first, and then rapidly.

Speech itself became a form of violence. In the 1980s and 1990s, this idea was limited to a fringe

inside the academy.

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