Hitting the Murky Boundaries of Freedom of Speech

Who has free speech and who doesn’t?

In theory, we all do. But in reality, an awful lot of us don’t.

I would love to live in a world where we could say anything about anybody. So would--I imagine--a Marine staff sergeant from Camp Pendleton who just got disciplined for shooting off his mouth. And so would--I imagine--a Los Angeles cop who just got disciplined because she took a perceived cheap shot against the chief.

Do military personnel have free speech?

Do police officers have free speech?

No, not really.

These people are ordered to take orders. They are told, going into either profession, that a strict discipline is going to be maintained and enforced at all times. If a superior says, “You will,” it is not an option to respond, “I won’t.”

But men and women have minds. They would like to be able to express opinions freely, without fear of slaps on the wrist or worse. This is supposed to be America, they say.

If only it were that easy.

I, myself, enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of the press. But if I should write right now, “This newspaper stinks,” I have a hunch that my boss wouldn’t say, “Hey, good line.”

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A Marine is the last person I’d expect to defend the right to do and say as you please.

Marines are among the most regimented people in the world. They form, they conform, they follow a code. I don’t expect them to encourage individualism.

Yet the reaction has been mixed, reportedly, at the California base where Staff Sgt. Paul Rinnander, 29, enraged a superior officer by expressing a private opinion in public.

Or at least “in public” being in the camp newspaper, which interviewed Rinnander one day at random.

A question was asked: “Is there anything that bugs you about the Marine Corps?”

A loaded question, full metal jacket.

There is no way to answer it, unless you are a mindless, mealy-mouthed, euphemistic empty uniform. If a base newspaper asks 500 different Marines if there is anything that bugs them, I can’t believe all 500 would say, “Sir! No, sir!”

Rinnander answered the question.

“Recruit discipline,” he said. “There is a total lack of discipline and respect shown by Marines coming out of basic training.”

You’ll notice that he didn’t condemn the Corps, didn’t say the Corps needed to be disbanded, didn’t advise the Corps to lighten up on its discipline and to stop being so damn tough on every poor Tom, Dick and Gomer.

No. He requested more discipline. He wanted young Marines to show more respect.

Unfortunately, that’s not the way Sgt. Major Lewis G. Lee interpreted it. He blew his lid. He is the very model of a modern sergeant major, and he felt the staff sergeant didn’t demonstrate the true semper fi spirit.

“You take a swipe in public at what the commandant and I and a lot of fine Marines are trying to do, you shoot your mouth off to a newspaper, and you’re going to hear from me,” said the sergeant major, making it perfectly clear what bugs him.

He tongue-lashed the staff sergeant (by e-mail tongue) and ordered him to leave California (and his family) posthaste for reassignment in South Carolina.

I just wish Rinnander could say something like, “You can’t handle the truth!”

Instead, he said, “I’m in the Marine Corps to help defend and protect the Constitution, and I thought that meant freedom of speech.”

Sir, no, sir.

Freedom of speech isn’t the issue. Even so, I do wonder what Sgt. Major Lee would do if the camp newspaper should ask 500 more Marines, “What bugs you?”

Suppose 400 reply, “Sgt. Major Lee”?

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Meanwhile, at the LAPD, a 10-year veteran has reportedly been disciplined for distributing to other officers blank forms that urge Chief Bernard C. Parks not to attend their funerals.

Officer Teresa Golt was told to cease and desist--at least while on duty. “Do it on your own time,” a superior wrote.

Some department members supposedly oppose Parks’ policies. If they die in the line of duty, they don’t want him to come praise or bury them.

Are they free to say so? Or are they being insubordinate to a superior?

Good thing this isn’t the Marines. The commanding officer would send them all to South Carolina.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com