Appetite for Muzak

Repressive regimes one and all suppress music that they find arousing rather than sedating. The state mercantilists of the P.R.C. want all the dulcet sounds in their economic elevator to be nicey-nice. The once and future Soviets could never stand rock or jazz - too "decadent".

Conservatives and Constitutional "originalists" sometimes suggest that the freedom of speech ensconced in the First Amendment pertains only to political speech. Over and over again, authoritarians have shown that the edgy speech of artists (and charlatan pretenders, too) is something they rightly fear and is vital to human freedom, including political freedom. Protecting that is the essential job of the free speech clause.

American conservatives, like the communists before them, love to attack Hollywood. Their reasons are similar.