You're wrong! And You're Fired!

Michael Savage, either deliberately or without premeditation, inserted himself in the national spotlight recently by asserting that children diagnosed with autism are faking their condition and merely need some firm parenting. I don't know much about autism, but the condition seems pervasive and severe enough to go beyond just bad parenting. Like Savage though, I'm not a doctor and I haven't conducted any in-depth study of autism control groups, so my opinion on the matter ranks right up there with the radio host's.

But I don't really care about that. What concerns me is the reaction to Savage's comments. Rather than ignore him or publicly repudiate him, dozen of parents gathered together (in front of his station I presume) and protested, demanding Savage be fired.

Fired? Really?

I suspect Savage is wrong here, but I think there's room in the medical community for his opinion. The guy isn't a doctor, statistician, or scientist, in fact I don't think he has any credentials to make the statement he did. The guy gets paid to shoot his mouth off (echos of Imus here) and he opened up the big guns on autism and apparently enough people are nervous about the medical validity of the condition enough to demand Savage be permanently silenced.

Incensed parents of autism: is the answer really to quash Savage, deal a death blow to his career? For anyone who suffers to listen to an extreme contrarian point of view, is the answer to crush them rather than dismissing the source as inconsequential or engage in debate, heated even? For that matter, when was the leap made to link a person's job to their unpopular opinions? Why should they necessarily lose their employment for sensational statements? Especially if they're in the media and get paid to entertain? Imus paid too harshly for his insensitive, racist comments. He should have been punished in-house, maybe some leave without pay or a fine on his salary. But I don't like that a small group's howl of protest successfully led to his sacking. It's a bad trend where Americans learn the methodology of eliminating anyone that says or thinks something that cuts to the left or right of conventional thinking.

And so here we are again. Savage, perhaps insensitively, labels an entire group of people as fakers. That's simply not enough to warrant his dismissal. I don't think autism's status as a medical condition so fragile that it can't withstand the half-cocked statement of an average shock jock. If it is, then perhaps we should be listening more closely to what Savage has to say on the matter. It seems he just might be on to something.