I have been defending the BBC’s favorite renegade, Jeremy Clarkson, for years now. But I cannot do so today. Per reports:

Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended by the BBC after what it called a “fracas” with a producer.
Sources said he was accused of hitting the producer in an incident last week, and the remaining three episodes of the current series might not be broadcast.
The BBC confirmed one episode – due for broadcast on Sunday – would not be shown, but gave few further details.
Clarkson, 54, has not commented, but has been joking on social media about films that could replace Sunday’s show.
He was given what he called his “final warning” last May after claims he used a racist word during filming.
At the time, he said the BBC had told him he would be sacked if he made “one more offensive remark, anywhere, at any time”.

Typically, Clarkson gets himself into trouble for making risqué jokes, or for being more boorish than is usual, or for consciously and deliberately violating whatever article of p.c. faith has come into vogue this week. Typically, his critics are whiny, dull, and easily offended types who need to get out more. Typically, I have no time for the complaints whatsoever. In this particular case, however, Clarkson does not seem to be in trouble for his attitude but because he actually hit someone. That’s unacceptable, and there is nothing wrong with our acknowledging that.

Indeed, drawing such distinctions is crucial if we are to maintain a robust culture of speech. From Berkeley to the U.N., the would-be censors of free expression attempt to conflate critical or hurtful speech with actual physical damage, and thereby to justify its prohibition grounds that are familiar even to libertarians. Invariably, ”hate speech” and other linguistic restrictions are sold to the public on the presumption that to say something ugly about a person or a group is akin to actually touching them. Thus is discomfort confused with safety. Thus is opprobrium morphed into injury. And thus do the self-appointed arbiters of taste come to bring the power of the bayonet into abstract debates. For those us of who hope to maintain the hard distinction between physical violence and plain language, this is worrying indeed.

Alas, in the interest of saving Clarkson’s career, many of his apologists have been willing to blur these lines themselves. As of today, a Change.org petition demanding that the BBC reinstate Clarkson immediately has gained almost 400,000 supporters. The end game, per the description, is to restore Clarkson’s “freedom to fracas.” Here are a few sample comments, from the most recent signatories:

I pay my TV license to ensure that irreverent people can express themselves. If you become boarding and politically correct, you may disappear BBC.
A minority of over sensitive people should not ruin one of Britons favourite shows.
Jeremy is a bastion of light in a dark PC world

This is all well and good. Or at least it would be if Clarkson had been punished for speaking. But he wasn’t. According to the BBC, he is being punished for hitting a producer. If true, that is something altogether different from political correctness, and his well-meaning defenders should acknowledge that readily.