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Like most people who have ever worked in the media, I have had people call for my job.

You always know they mean business when their first call goes to the advertising director instead of the editor. There is nothing quite like a threat of losing advertisers to turn a publisher into a big chicken.

I had so many people try to get me fired at The Montana Standard or with Butte Broadcasting that I lost count years ago. They called my bosses or my bosses’ bosses, but they never called me.

While I never did get fired, I did have some people manage to get my column suspended while working at the Standard. Later, others made it so my columns had to be preapproved by publishers who would not know a good column if it punched them in the face.

Stuff like that happens when you have spinal-deficient decision makers who value the voice of one angry caller more than they do years of commitment from an employee.

One time, a brand-new publisher came to town and met with a family that was hell bent on getting me fired before she even stepped foot in her own office. When she did get to her desk, her first order of business was to stop me from writing columns.

It proved to be an unpopular decision, and the new publisher quickly changed her mind when some readers started pushing back. So many of those readers brought up the “free speech” argument.

Of course, I had to correct these people when they brought up the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

While the publisher’s move was cowardly and weak, it was not a violation of my First Amendment rights to free speech. If the decision makers of the paper did not want to publish a column that I wrote, it did not necessitate a constitutional crisis.

Actually, it had nothing to do with the constitution at all. Neither did the time the paper pulled a column I wrote about Tim Tebow mania. They did not like that I poked fun of the evangelical quarterback praying on the field.

I was not allowed to offer my religious view because it might offend those throwing their religious view in our faces.

Still, the newspaper had no obligation to run the column just because I wrote it. Those in charge of the paper at the time certainly had the right to be shortsighted and gutless.

Had the paper fired me because advertisers were threatening to pull their ads, it would also have not been a violation of the First Amendment. Free speech comes with consequences. If you say the wrong thing, it can cost you your career.

As much as I do not like it, “cancel culture” is also not a First Amendment issue. The firings of people like Tucker Carlson, Roseanne Barr and others were not a violation of their rights. If a company does not want to be associated with people who make controversial statements, there is nothing in the law that makes them.

When Twitter banned Donald Trump from the social media site, it was not a violation of the First Amendment. Facebook is not violating your rights when it suspends your account, no matter how petty the reason. Likewise, when people threaten or insult me on my Facebook page, I am not violating their free speech rights when I block them.

The First Amendment only comes into play when the government is doing the infringing on the free speech.

That is what happened in the case of Jimmy Kimmel. ABC did not suspend his late-night television show because of pressure from advertisers after the comedian joked about how President Trump talked about his beautiful new White House ballroom when a reporter asked him about the death of Charlie Kirk.

After Kimmel’s suspension, many people have made the argument that the broadcasting giant owned by Disney has the right to fire an employee, and they are absolutely right. However, the move was clearly made after threats made by the Trump administration to pull ABC’s broadcasting license because it did not like the words of one of the president’s biggest critics.

Brendan Carr is the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, or the “frickin’ FCC” as Family Guy calls it. Here is what Carr said about the situation a short time before ABC indefinitely suspended Kimmel’s show:

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

A warning from a mob boss would have been more subtle. There was no disguising or sugarcoating. A top government official threatened ABC with “action” if it did not stop Kimmel from saying things he and the president do not like.

It was a move that Vladamir Putin and Kim Jong Un would certainly applaud.

That Carr said that in the first place is disturbing enough. That ABC bent a knee because of those words is where the violation of the First Amendment comes in.

The same is probably also true for CBS’s cancelling of Stephen Colbert’s show a while back. Paramount, the owner of CBS, was needing approval from the Trump administration for a merger with Skydance Media. So, Paramount announced that it was canceling Colbert, another critic of Trump.

Paramount listed money as the reason for the canceling. We know better than that, but at least Paramount had a little cover for its bootlicking move. ABC, on the other hand, did not even try to hide it.

Luckily, ABC learned that so many Americans do not support the suppression of free speech. When faced with losing billions of dollars from people canceling their Disney+, Hulo and ESPN subscriptions, ABC suddenly found its spine, and Kimmel’s show will return Tuesday night.

But the damage by this ordeal is already done. The First Amendment was already violated.

Free speech is not a left or a right issue. I was never a fan of a lot of the stuff Charlie Kirk said, but I would have stood in front of a tank to protect his right to say it.

Free speech means putting up with someone screaming at the top of his lungs something you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. Free speech is the heart and soul of our democracy, which cannot survive without it.

Nazis have the right to free speech. Klan members have the right to free speech. You and I have the right to free speech. So, too, do comedians.

We might alienate ourselves from public or lose jobs for exercising that right, but we still have that right.

When the free speech rights of anyone come under attack from our government, though, all our rights come under attack. If they can sidestep the First Amendment, then the Second Amendment very well could be next. We have already seen the government completely disregard the Fourth and Fifth Amendments this year.

Jimmy Kimmel might not be your cup of tea. Maybe you think he is hypocritical or unfair. Maybe you do not like Trump, or maybe you have a Trump flag flying in your yard and on your truck.

I get all that. But if you were celebrating Kimmel’s dismissal because you do not like him or what he had to say, then you are missing the point.

A comedian or commentator you like could be next. You could be next.

Remember the words of the poem “First They Came” by Martin Niemöller. If we do not speak out for people like Jimmy Kimmel, then there might not be anybody left to speak up when they come for us.

 — Bill Foley, who does not fly the flag of any politician, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.