Singer Hank Williams Jr. lacks a grasp on the free speech rights ensured by the First Amendment.

In the debacle surrounding Williams getting canned as the singer of the intro song on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” the country star wrote that ESPN “stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It’s been a great run.”

The First Amendment ensures Williams has the right to say what he pleases without the government punishing him.

Even though Williams made an off-kilter comparison of President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner to Adolf Hitler and Benjamin Netanyahu, the U.S. government didn’t punish him like governments do in some countries without such protections. Go to China and try to speak negatively about the government. Go to North Korea. Go to Cuba. Even in some free countries, such as Italy, speech rights are under fire. Few countries have nearly the wide speech protections afforded in the United States.

We’re very fortunate.

Williams forgets that ESPN also has free speech rights. The cable sports channel has the right to broadcast Williams over the air or to not allow him. In other words, free speech protects Americans from censorship by the government, not censorship by their employers. You can be fired for saying something stupid.

The First Amendment doesn’t protect speech in private (i.e. non-government) interactions.

By the way, as a rule, no one should make comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis anymore. Such analogies always are hyperbole and offensive.