Today’s Ithaca Journal editorial page is a good primer on what passes for “free speech” in what claims to be “the most enlightened city in America.”

First, there are letters to the editor about recent liberal calls to censor both Rush Limbaugh and "the Wizard of Id" from the city’s airwaves and newspapers.

Then there is the paper’s own editorial, which calls for the end to “inane, insulting and infuriating” Native American nicknames for sports teams.

In support of their call for censoring these team names, the paper trotted out the usual litany of alleged sins committed by the United States against Indians. In fact, the newspaper went so far as to compare the U.S. to Nazi Germany in its choice of team names:

Imagine, just for a horrifying moment, the Nazis won a partial victory in World War II….Move to the 21st century. Sitting in a giant football stadium in Berlin, you get set to watch Paris play Warsaw for the German national collegiate title. The Frogs vs. The Ghetto Fighters, complete with a tall man dressed like Joan d' Arc on a paper mache horse chasing a short Moses parody with foam rubber tablets and oversized staff. …Inane? Insulting? Infuriating? Good. Now you get it. Native Americans have been enduring this cultural insult for decades.

Ironically, however, the paper, in using hypothetical “European” nicknames as “The Frogs” and “The [ Warsaw ] Ghetto Fighters” to illustrate what would be “hostile and abusive” towards those of European descent, did not bother to condemn other “ethnic” nicknames, such as the “Fighting Irish” or “Trojans.”

This would seem to demonstrate that, in Ithaca, “cultural insults” are apparently fine against some ethnic groups, but not others.

In fact, between the Indian nicknames, “the Wizard of Id,” and Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, it would seem to demonstrate that even the local newspapers support censorship, as long as the “right” voices are censored.