There isn’t a shred of evidence that deranged Tucson-massacre suspect Jared Loughner ever listened to talk radio or cared about illegal immigration. Indeed, after 300 exhaustive interviews, the feds “remain stumped” about his motives, according to Tuesday’s Washington Post. But that hasn’t stopped a coalition of power-grabbing politicians, progressive activists, and open-borders lobbyists from plying their quack cure for the American body politic: government-sponsored speech suppression.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting rampage, Democratic leaders mused openly about reintroducing the Orwellian “Fairness Doctrine” — a legislative sledgehammer targeting conservative viewpoints on public airwaves. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.) assailed the Federal Communications Commission for failing to police broadcast content and vowed to “look into” more aggressive language monitoring. Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) blamed “incendiary rhetoric” for triggering “unstable individuals to take violent action.” In his own manifesto calling for resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine, Rep. James Clyburn (D., S.C.) pressed public officials to “rethink parameters on free speech.”
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This week’s fashionable new-media meme is to deride talk-radio hosts for taking these speech-squelching threats seriously. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jay Bookman sneered at the “persecution complex” of conservative broadcasters who reacted to Slaughter and company. Politico’s Keach Hagey dismissed concerns about the Democrats’ chilling campaign against right-leaning media outlets and knocked conservative talkers’ “defensive posture.” (Sound familiar? This is the same tactic they used against Sarah Palin and all those on the right falsely accused of being accessories to the Tucson massacre: Attack ’em. Attack ’em for responding. Accuse the smear victims of playing the victim card. Repeat.)
Make no mistake: The Hate Speech Inquisition is real. And it’s being fought on all fronts. Last week, using the non-radio-inspired Tucson massacre as fuel, the National Hispanic Media Coalition called on the FCC to gather evidence for the Left’s preconceived conclusion that conservative talk-radio “hate speech” causes violence. It’s Red Queen science — sentence first, research validation later.
The head of the NHMC is Alex Nogales, who has filed more than 50 petitions to deny broadcast licenses and has led anti-corporate crusades to “force” broadcast stations across the country “to hire Latino reporters and anchors” and adopt “diversity initiatives.” Grabbing the Tucson-shooting limelight, Nogales told Broadcasting and Cable magazine last week:
“We can’t stand there with our arms crossed and make like there isn’t a reason why this is happening. . . . We started this dialog in the last immigration debate four years ago. We could see that it was just out of control. It started with just an issue of immigration, then every pundit on radio and TV who wanted an audience started talking about it and started using the worst of language, and now it has spilled out into mainstream.”
Loughner’s wild Internet rants and creepy campus meltdowns clearly demonstrate that crazy doesn’t need a motive. But progressive censors need their bogeymen, and Nogales isn’t about to give them up for reality’s sake. The NHMC first filed a petition in October 2009 demanding that the FCC collect data, seek public comment, and “explore options” for combating “hate speech” from staunch critics of illegal immigration. The petition followed on National Council of La Raza president Janet Murguia’s call for media outlets to keep immigration-enforcement proponents off the airwaves “even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights.”
Nogales’ group is part of a larger “media justice” coalition dedicated to curtailing and redistributing conservatives’ political speech under the guise of diversity and decency. As left-wing philanthropists at the Media Justice Fund put it: The movement “is grounded in the belief that social and economic justice will not be realized without the equitable redistribution and control of media and communication technologies.” But, hey, we better just ignore these communications control freaks lest we be accused of suffering a “persecution complex.”
The Praetorian Guards of civility keep telling us that “words matter.” Threats should be taken seriously, they insist. Except, of course, when those words and threats are uttered by those hell-bent on regulating their opponents’ discourse out of existence.
It is very disturbing to fully understand that the Constitution is a major impediment to the realizations of progressive desires. It is equally unnerving to know that giving voice to this verity immediately brands the speaker as a paranoid conspiracy nut in our current political atmosphere. It is an awkward position and it plays perfectly into the hands of progressive designs. Modern progressives are like the ridiculous Irish Parliamentarian, Sir Boyle Roach, who announced in a speech on the floor, "I would destroy half, nay the whole of the Constitution in order to preserve the remainder."
The moniker "hate speech," if it ever had any meaning, has now become the equivalent of putting your hands over your ears and screaming. It found this identity from the gay-rights crowd who have regularly been censoring absolutely any argument, no matter how gentle, that suggests the behavior in question might not be entirely moral.
I am afraid that the vast majority of conservatives have no idea how badly they were routed in this matter.
Average, everyday Americans received millions and millions of messages that conservatives and Tea Partiers and Sarah Palin--the whole bunch of us--really do condone violence. It is very important to remember that the Left predicted this violence (from Obama and Pelosi to Bill Clinton on down)--the American people got this message loud and clear too. Gradually, through a thousand outlets, the Conservatives Are Dangerous message is getting through.
The worst aspect of this whole thing was the way some of our most beloved conservative leaders (Peggy Noonan, Rich Lowry, Charles Krauthammer) lined up to sing Obama's praises after his speech in Tucson. This completed the message cycle: conservatives racist/violent, Obama/liberals caring and loving.
As a conservative, I feel like a guy who's just had his house burned down by a crooked small-town fire department. After the fire, the arsonists spread rumors that I set the fire myself. Then the insurance company denies my claim and I can't rebuild my house. My house and reputation are in ruins.
As I stand in my front yard with my smoldering home in the background, the fire chief comes in to say some antiseptic words about how bad fire is for houses. Instead of calling him out for letting his crooked firemen (Krugman, Olberman, NY Times) destroy my home and reputation, my own neighbors (Noonan, Lowry, Krauthammer) praise the fire chief and absolve him from any of the blame for encouraging the people who destroyed my home and reputation.
My home--our home--is conservatism. Our reputation is for fairness and decency. Now we have the GOP sitting boy-girl-boy-girl at the State of the Union, trying to achieve validation that we are not monsters.
We have been thoroughly and completely routed, the Oklahoma City playbook has been re-run, and we are doomed in 2012.
This is turning into the Left's equivalent of the Reichstag Fire - they're manufacturing a crisis in order to justify imposing their point of view. Joseph Goebbels would be extremely proud of our liberals...
I half suspect many Americans think the idea that progressives want to legally muzzle them is a joke.
Don't be fooled. It's already legally entrenched here in Canada. Like the coat hanger, it has hooked this generation, and it is difficult and painful to dislodge.
Continue to wage war with words in the tradition of one of the most splendid civilizing influences in the history of man: The parliamentary system.
Don't forget the Democratic creed--so eloquently delineated by that great orator, Rahm Emanual: Never let a good crisis go to waste. It represents an opportunity to do things you never thought possible before.
Leftist idealogues would like nothing better than to prohibit free speech because they know what a free thinking, fully informed electorate would think of their extreme ideals. They just didn't think they'd ever have an opportunity to actually prohibit it. Now they think they can, and you know what? They are dangerously close to being right.
I think it would be easier to understand the dynamic in play here if you eliminated the personalities and the politics from the equation. Consider, for instance, a math teacher and a student in a classroom, who have a dispute mediated by a principal.
Teacher: "Jim is standing 10 feet from the edge of a cliff. He takes six steps forward. How many more steps can Jim take before he falls off the cliff?"
Student: "Five steps."
Teacher: "No, that is incorrect. The fifth step would take you over the edge."
Student: "Your mother is a prostitute."
Teacher: "How dare you talk about my mother that way? Besides, it wouldn't matter if my mother was a madam or a saint; five steps would still take you over the cliff."
Principal: "Both of you, pay attention to me. I want you to stop the personal attacks. Our student is understandably angry that his judgment is being questioned, which wounds his self-esteem. Who can say that the fifth step might not lead to walking on air? We can also understand why the teacher feels threatened, because she is obviously both insecure and closed-minded. As the only real adult in the room, I say stop the personal attacks. I believe there will come a time when we should genuinely question whether the rules of gravity actually apply in this situation, as well as how long the teacher's mother has been running a brothel. But until then, let us agree to debate these points with civility."
I think that little parable pretty well sums up the parameters of the current debate….
Buck up Michelle. Conservatives ALWAYS play the victim card, blaming the "liberal media," liberals, gays, feminists, the ALCU, and Muslims for everything they think is wrong in the country, and especially when they lose elections. I thought conservatism was about taking personal responsibility, so why not do it?
Because if you did, you'd have no appeal, because people wouldn't be scared. You have to have your bogeyman (see the erroneously named "Ground Zero Mosque;" see "death panels;" see "Obama bowing to foreign dictators;" see "birthers;") otherwise no one would care about you.
