Sunday, January 5, 2014
The Right's Selective Free Speech Outrages
It's curious to read or hear complaints about "political correctness" and non-government-involved"free speech" issues by people on the right, then observe how these same people ignore those suppposed infringements on their precious "freedoms" when they involve an issue they support.
For example, I'm fairly sure I won't read about how unfair it is that Dick Metcalf lost his job because he wrote a column in a gun magazine about regulations and the 2nd Amendment:
From the New York Times: BARRY, Ill. — The byline of Dick Metcalf, one of the country’s pre-eminent gun journalists, has gone missing. It has been removed from Guns & Ammo magazine, where his widely-read column once ran on the back page. He no longer stars on a popular television show about firearms. Gun companies have stopped flying him around the world and sending him the latest weapons to review.
In late October, Mr. Metcalf wrote a column that the magazine titled “Let’s Talk Limits,” which debated gun laws. “The fact is,” wrote Mr. Metcalf, who has taught history at Cornell and Yale, “all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.”
The backlash was swift, and fierce. Readers threatened to cancel their subscriptions. Death threats poured in by email. His television program was pulled from the air. Just days after the column appeared, Mr. Metcalf said, his editor called to tell him that two major gun manufacturers had said “in no uncertain terms” that they could no longer do business with InterMedia Outdoors, the company that publishes Guns & Ammo and co-produces his TV show, if he continued to work there. He was let go immediately."
Another example is the right's most recent "free speech outrage" over some millionaire and his family who shoot ducks and get paid gazillions of dollars pretending to be red necks.
Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty made some filthy remarks about the gay community; told his interviewers how happy African-Americans seemed to him during the Jim Crow era in the south; and, just recently, we found out that he advocates child rape. (Yeah, that's harsh, but what else would you call it when someone encourages grown men to marry 15-year old girls? I've read many times how people on the right apply that term to the Prophet Muhammad for doing exactly the same thing.)
Martin Bashir lost his job for suggesting that Sarah Palin receive the same treatment as some slaves received when she stupidly compared the ACA to slavery.
He publicly apologized and lost his job.
The fake red neck good ol' boy still has his job after slandering an entire group of Americans, the gay community; after denying the tragedy of what southern African-Americans experienced under Jim Crow; and after suggesting men should get their wives while they're still young girls.
Apology for his slander? None. And he kept his job.
When You Defend Phil Robertson, Here's What You're Really Defending
Here's another example of the GOPers censoring speech they don't like:
Bill Moyers Documentary Blacked Out in NC
JANUARY 4, 2014
Legendary journalist Bill Moyers has created a new documentary about North Carolina’s politics in 2013 titled North Carolina: State of Conflict. As of press time Saturday, UNC-TV does not have the show scheduled to air in our state – essentially blacking out the documentary to all but those who are able to access it through the internet.
The rightwingers who valiantly stood up for Phil Robertson believe in the unalienable right of free speech (even when the government is NOT involved), but ONLY free speech for what THEIR ideology supports.
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25 comments:
1) My grandmother married my grandfather at 17, he was 23. Child rape? They were married 57 years.
2) What was that Bashir qoute again? Yeah, he should have been canned. Too bad Phil will be back. My views on that one at RN USA.
3) Metcalf spoke out against private and monied interests, had to go. It is after all about the bottom line. Metcalf should now market himself as a reasonable and sensible gun advocate.
4) There is more one could say, on both sides of arguments. But really, what's the point? Either you'rer preaching to the choir or you're being villified by those with antagonist views. No one it seems is really concerned about or apparently cares about... oh, never mind.
"Phil Robertson. Here he is offering Christian marriage counseling to a young man:
I said "Well son, I'm going give you some river rat counseling, here. Make that sure she can cook a meal. You need to eat some meals that she cooks. Check that out. Make sure she carries her Bible. That'll save you some trouble down the road. And if she picks your ducks, now that's a woman."
They got to where they getting hard to find, mainly because these boys are waiting until they get to be about 20 years old before they marry 'em. Look, you wait ‘til they get to be twenty years-old and the only picking that’s going to take place is your pocket. You got to marry these girls when they’re about fifteen or sixteen and they’ll pick your ducks. You need to check with Mom and Dad about that of course.
In many parts of America, this is an argument for statutory rape. More specifically, it is an argument for men seeking to elide the power of grown women, by seeking their sexual partners among teenage girls. This style of svengalism is generally seen as repugnant to our morality. Phil Robertson believes that society should withhold civil rights from consenting gay men, while allowing men like him to push the age of consent to its breaking point. The contradiction here is as predictable as it is ridiculous.
The loudest of doomsayers, so often, carry the weightiest of sin."
"The homophobe accuses you of sexual immorality and damns you to hell, while preaching a gospel which would make wives of children.
I don't have any gospel of my own. Postwar, and the early pages of Bloodlands, have revealed a truth to me: I am an atheist. (I have recently realized this.) I don't believe the arc of the universe bends towards justice. I don't even believe in an arc. I believe in chaos. I believe powerful people who think they can make Utopia out of chaos should be watched closely. I don't know that it all ends badly. But I think it probably does.
I'm also not a cynic. I think that those of us who reject divinity, who understand that there is no order, there is no arc, that we are night travelers on a great tundra, that stars can't guide us, will understand that the only work that will matter, will be the work done by us. Or perhaps not. Maybe the very myths I decry are necessary for that work. I don't know. But history is a brawny refutation for that religion brings morality. And I now feel myself more historian than journalist.
History contributes to the disenchantment of the world,"
Only because we choose not to learn by it A Reader. The Mystics of Faith, like the Mystics of muscle have great rhetorical and actual power over the people.
Ah, the wonders of the human race eh? But that is a subject for philosophy discussions. Something most are not concerned with and avoid like the plague(s).
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2014/01/republicans-made-their-choice.html#comment-form
Anonymous left THIS LINK that perfectly illustrates what, IMO, extremist conservatives stand for.
Yes, none of it is censorship. Not A&E doing whatever it wants with Robertson. Not even the last example of a government TV station choosing not to air a partisan hit piece by one of the State Ministers of Information.
I am of the belief that if you don't like something, change the channel.
Phil Robertson is a fake. And a bigot. Exactly the type of person a lot of the cons love.
Whipping up hatred for those with a more consevative view is most assuradly what SOME but certainly NOT all progressives seem to be most concerned with.
Seems to me to be an awful lot like those they unjustly or justly criticize. Seems to me a bit of self reflection is in order.
It's hardly "whipping up hatred" when shw points out hypocrisy. It's pointing out hypocrisy.
Indeed, but for SOME that is always a ONE way street. Applies to SOME of BOTH political perspectives.
RN, I'm not sure how you see it as whipping up hatred when I show that SOME conservatives are selective when they loudly complain about criticism of the nasty things Robertson said about gays, African-Americans, and child marriage and call it a violation of his "free speech," when OTOH, they're silent when someone like Bashir loses his job for saying nasty things about one woman.
PS. Robertson encouraged men to marry 15 year old girls because they are more easily manipulated. Not only is that repugnant, but it is illegal in most states--I don't know how that works in southern states, but a 15 year old girl is hardly mature enough for marriage. This isn't the early 1900s when such marriages were common and the average life-span was 45 years old.
Would you approve of a granddaughter marrying at 15 to a man in his 20s or 30s? Of course not.
I was thinking maybe you wouldn't be sure. I really can't determine a better way to say what I mean.
My three posts concerning Roberson and his bigotry and racism made my view quite clear.
Did you answer my question?
The first amendment only applies if you agree with what is being said.
I have never seen DD but Robertson has the right to answer a question when asked and he said what he believes. Even if I don't agree with someones opinion they have the right to it. Today you are damned if you state what you feel if it goes against the norm.
The people who advocate tolerance are the least tolerant. There are parts of the country where marrying young is accepted but and those are mostly in the south which is a cultural difference.
@dmarks --- Not even the last example of a government TV station choosing not to air a partisan hit piece by one of the State Ministers of Information.
-----
So government is allowed to regulate speech?
May I submit this matter has clear 2nd Amendment implications.
The flap over A&E's skillful little ratings ploy is manufactured outrage.
Speech is NOT free... Bill O'Reilly gets about $20MM in salary alone. Hannity about $17MM....which just goes to show that speech can be 'cheap'...but it sure ain't free
From the article linked to by Shaw in her commentary... My inbox is full of "love the sinner, hate the sin" defenses of Robertson's 2013 remarks. But Robertson doesn't love gay people. He thinks they're, well, "full of murder". His views on gays are hateful, inasmuch as they are full of hate.
I'm a Christian and I do not believe homosexuality is a sin. But this guy can't even use that defense... that "it's in the Bible" (which I don't believe it is). No, his comments are just hateful and should rightfully be condemned by all real Christians.
Including his incredibly ignorant comments about Black folks living in the pre-civil rights era and marrying young girls because they're easier to manipulate (as Shaw pointed out).
But some Cons overlook the hate and ignorance and conclude that those who voice our disagreement with Phil are "judging others by our pompous, PC driven lives".
"Tolerance" for religious Conservatives seems to exclusively involve tolerance for their intolerance.
Scud [syn - an unguided missile notorious for missing targets]: “The first amendment only applies if you agree with what is being said.”
For your edification, here is what the First Amendment actually says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech …” (First Amendment, U.S. Constitution).
While Congress shall make no law, there is nothing in The Constitution that obligates me to agree with your claptrap, or prohibits me from criticizing your claptrap. I AM NOT CONGRESS. Unbeknownst to you, political correctness is also an exercise in free speech, whether you like it or not. So if you don’t appreciate my criticism of your claptrap, then suck it up.
Scud: “There are parts of the country where marrying young is accepted but and those are mostly in the south which is a cultural difference.”
There are NO parts of the country that countenance child molestation, sexual exploitation, pedophilia, or underage sex which is universally regarded as “statutory rape” whether consensual or not. If you think otherwise, I challenge you to visit my southern state and discover for yourself how sexual predators are treated here – usually with handcuffs and ankle chains.
If you think marrying underage girls is a good ole Southern tradition, here’s more free speech for ya:
You think a family reunion is a good place to pick up girls.
You can't marry your sweetheart because there is a law against it.
Your family tree doesn't have any branches.
You dated your daddy's current wife in high school.
So how do you like this exercise in free speech, scud?
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Like RN's latest post. He takes an unknown, not followed by liberals, loon from the left, and claims it is the main stream liberal policy coming soon from all progressives. That is dishonest garbage from the right.
Legs,
As always you go to extremes.
I do like your examples, you must be from Arkansas or Mississippi.
You did forget if you divorce your wife are you still first cousins.
That post of yours was a hoot.
Sid,
Although RN and I spar from time to time (and I did call him on this), he is still considered a friend. Time to chill.
Scud,
The pleasure was all mine.
Sid, while I would not be so presumptuous as to make the assumption you have a reading comprehension issue your comment suggests you 1) do not read my posts regularly, 2) you did not read the post in question thoroughly, or...
Whatever the case no hard feelings... :-)
Why does everyone refer to me as "Legs?" There are times when I consider myself well armed. You miss the beauty of being a cephalopod: Versatility.
(O)CT(O)PUS, skud calls you "Legs" because he thinks your arms are legs. A common misconception.
He calls me "wicked," which here in Baaahstin is actually a compliment. As in "That movie was "wicked good!"
I thought the post was about "selective free speech" from the right. I consider RN's post about an unknown progressive cited as future progressive policies, as that.
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