Monday, March 19, 2012

Free Speech in a Time of Choler


For those who doubt that the modern left is turning into what Orwell warned us against...
Angelo Carusone, who started both the Stop Beck and Stop Limbaugh campaigns and who now works at Media Matters, prefers to call his efforts “education.” (Politico – Left’s War on Rush)
Meanwhile, people who are supposed to be taken seriously because they are senators shovel BS like this...
"Rush Limbaugh's comments were just nasty and directed at a particular young woman who had a particular point of view and was expressing herself. Bill Maher's a comedian. It's much different," said Schumer. "Rush Limbaugh has tremendous weight in the Republican Party and no one will rebut him. Bill Maher's a comedian who's on at eleven o'clock at night, but has very little influence on what's happening here." (NY Mag)
Breitbarting the Left

Oh, OK. If you label your misogyny as comedy, and you’re on late at night and you don’t have what someone subjectively considers “much influence,” it’s OK.

 Rolling along unquestioned and answerable to no one breeds this brand of arrogance and stupidity on the left, but Breitbart jammed a stick in the spokes, and the liberals with skinned knees are crying to mommy.

The Breitbartian pushback tactics are working...

Obama Henchman Cancels Bill Maher Appearance
David Axelrod will not be appearing as a guest on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” despite reports last week that he was scheduled to do the show in the next few weeks. (Politico)
Liberal Pigmouth Withdraws from Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association annual dinner
A couple of years ago, “comedian” Louis CK “joked” on the Opie and Anthony radio show about Palin coming to the Republican convention “holding a baby that just came out of her f-ing, disgusting [C-word], her f-ing retard-making [C-word].”
Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren posted a blog using similar language calling for a boycott of the Association’s dinner. Susteren wrote in her blog: “Another pig….and a media association has hired the pig, Louis C.K., to be their headliner for the big media dinner? Really? I am not going. I refuse to go. Everyone in the media should join me in this boycott.”

Following Van Susteren's criticism, Louis C.K. has withdrawn from the Association's dinner. (Newsbusters)
John Nolte over at Breitbart laments the flame wars and wishes it would all end, while reminding us that it was the liberals who started it, and they are now being burned by the flames they fanned.

We don’t want to shut people up, we just want to confront the liberal manufactured outrage BS machine with their own medicine.  Everybody on all sides needs to drop the bs. We all make mistakes, we all say stupid things in our lives, and no one is immune from criticism.

Maher Defends Limbaugh

In a strange twist, while we on the right use Bill Maher's crude misogynist vulgarity as a bludgeon against the left, Maher was defending Rush Limbaugh.
He also defended his earlier Twitter defense of Limbaugh, saying that Limbaugh had apologized and so the left looks bad for not accepting. “I said I don’t like it that people are made to disappear when they say something you – or people try to make them disappear – when they say something you don’t like. That’s America. Sometimes you’re made to feel uncomfortable, okay?” (Politico)
He argued that “the word they are upset about” was not said on HBO, but during his stand-up comedy act, “which I consider the last bastion of free speech.” (Politico)
And that is what this is really all about. Free Speech. Bill Maher is right. You speak freely and take the consequences. Noisy pre-fab offense-taking and the boycotts they spawn pollute the environment even worse.

The left could learn something from Maher. At least he takes a defensible and logically consistent position

Politico – Left’s War on Rush
Politico – “They Thought I was Finished”

47 comments:

Always On Watch said...

I find myself so very weary of all the barbs being tossed all over the place.

I'm not speaking of your posts, Silverfiddle. So please don't take my above comment the wrong way.

Somehow, as a society we have reached the point that tossing out insults is now considered the fashion, the thing to do.

I'm reminded of comedy routines involving "I can top THAT. Listen to this." Blah, blah, blah.

Just because we have freedom of expression shouldn't mean that we take all leave of etiquette, IMO.

infidel de manahatta said...

Free speech is dangerous. Free speech equals free thought and that is something liberals can never tolerate.

Anonymous said...

Andrew Breitbart 1969-2012

The fearless citizen journalist who never let the lies of the left go unchallenged, understood the left. Like cockroaches, leftists do their best work in the dark, but when the lights come on, the bugs scatter. Breitbart was a great light. May his family and friends find comfort and peace in this time of sorrow.

We will forever be grateful to all the work you've done on behalf of bringing America back to her greatness. The greatness lost when Obama was elected. When the Greatness was turned to Madness.
It would be illogical and madness to reward absolute failure with a second term.He has damaged this country beyond belief. He has us well on the way to a 17 trillion $$$
debt we can't pay. He has the Congress in disarray. He has alienated most of our greatest allies and moved the country into both religious and color disharmony. He has trampled on our Constitution. He is in the process of reducing our military into a shell of it's former self, and therefor putting us in danger of becoming a 2ned or even 3rd world nation. Yes, Obama deserves to honor of being known as the great divider.
The only greatness he has earned is the great job he has done in destroying America

Bunkerville said...

When Free Speech turns into Free Lies it causes much of our trouble.The left simply says we are trying to stifle speech and are racist, right wing whatever. While many of us on the Right try and base our speech on truth, the Progressives for the most part feel no such commitment.

jez said...

By the way, I find Louis ck to be one of the most thought provoking comedian at the moment, if you can see past the swearing (which he does less of these days).

Ducky's here said...

It's curious, I think some of the people who post here are intelligent and worthy of engaging in dialog.

However, when they start taking the likes of Limbaugh and Breitfart seriously you know they are so fucking stupid that after work they have to follow a designated coworker out to their car because they forget how to find it.

Someone at Breitfart wishes the flame wars would end. Screw him and the fat liar he rode in with.

So confront the nasty liberal machine. Just make sure you have something with a little more substance than Limbaugh and Breitfart or you're going to be standing there holding nothing but your dick.

Andrew Breitfart is dead, fuck him.

Silverfiddle said...

Ahhh... Schmucky from Beantown, always so witty and urbane...

I love he Breitbart gets under your skin, even after he's gone. Like Rush says, they live in your lefty heads rent-free, 24/7, and your hateful, unintelligent childish comments show it.

heh heh heh...

Grung_e_Gene said...

Come on! Liberals started it. What nonsense. Are we going to move forward or not?

If not fine, but this whole 'Let's let bygones be bygones but you're to blame...' is not going to fly.

Breitbart was a liar and slanderer, his and Dana Loesch's hit job on teachers, which I recounted at my blog;

This recent attack in Missouri is spearheaded by Dana Loesch, who runs one of Breitbart's hit piece slander websites, is the co-founder of the St. Louis Tea Party and is a regular contributor on CNN (your liberal media).

The videos are of two University of Missouri-Kansas City teachers Judy Ancel and Don Giljum. A Washington University (near St. Louis) student named Philip Christofanelli, downloaded a streamed video class and provided that video to a group run by... convicted criminal, Sean Hannity darling, and Andrew Breitbart employee James O'Keefe. Once it was in O'Keefe's hands he edited it to show the teachers actively encouraging violence by Union workers. Dana Loesch received the video and ran with it.

Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder joined Dana Loesch on on her radio show to engage in The Two Minutes of Hate against those awful thuggish anti-captialist teachers:
Pete Kinder: What would be the reaction from the lame stream media, if we had a Tea Party leader out there—

Dana Loesch: Oh, right.

Peter Kinder:-advocating violence-

Dana Loesch: Right.

Peter Kinder:-and preaching violence to impressionable young minds? They sit around matter-of-factly—you can hear this on the two videos that are up on BigGovernment.com., you can see it—matter-of-factly discussing violent overthrow of the capitalist order or the existing order.

Dana Loesch: Well, and this is-and there are a lot of people that like to say, 'Oh, well, this-you know, it was done in a—they were just talking about, you know, different—they were just learning, and it’s academic freedom, and, you know, it needs to be a'-that’s not what they were doing. You had people-

Peter Kinder: That is not what they were doing.

Dana Loesch:-who were giving their personal experiences engaging in this stuff.

This nonsense from Loesch and Kinder fits into the crafted alternate conservative narrative the Right has spent years working into the fabric of society.
- It attacks the "lamestream" media.
- It contains the specious 'Could you imagine if one of us was caught saying x' catch-phrase which is used by the Right as a cover of their bigotry and lies.
- And it is a manufactured outrage, using videos and narratives which are lies, to denigrate a group whom the Right hates.

Jersey McJones said...

Yeah, I didn't understand the outrage from the media about the Limbaugh flap. Limbaugh says stuff like that all the time. Who cares? He's not a news outlet. He doesn't claim to be one. So, what's the fuss?

As for this stupid remark, "t was the liberals who started it" is just stupid. You'd have to be retarded to believe that. Crazy, flaming, over-the-top rhetoric knows no political bent. It's everywhere, among every group, and it's been forever.

JMJ

Silverfiddle said...

I listen to Jersey and Gene and all I hear is "Boo Hoo!"

It's not your world anymore, lefties!

The public square belongs to all of us. You no longer dictate the terms!

Get used to it!

Jersey McJones said...

What the hell did I say???

JMJ

Z said...

The one who LIVED to get lefties as excited as Ducky is was Breitbart himself; I'd send him Ducky's rants if I could. He loved that.

Darth, thanks for your kind words. Andrew was an amazing good guy, believe me. More than most people know.

As for Maher...yes, he's logically consistent but so witheringly insulting to everything I hold near and dear it's hard for me to excuse him. And I was a HUGE fan in his early days, by the way.

I'm with AOW: REAL tired of the ugliness, bickering, and an atmosphere which seems to make us think THERE IS NO TRUTH. the left says one thing, the right says another, stats are thrown around, stats are found wrong. IS there no truth?
Will the sky EVER be JUST PLAIN BLUE again?

Jim at Conservatives on Fire said...

Free speech isn't always free. Sometimes there is a price to pay.

Ducky's here said...

I've got better, z. Not my best game.

My challenge is to have someone explain just what Andrew managed to do, other than be the media equivalent of Snooki.

His bit claim to fame was the A.C.O.R.N. expose which was a flat out lie. Not that the fringe right has enough self respect for anything else.

So how does this guy become such an icon. He spent the last few months of his pathetic life getting drunk and appearing on rabies radio shows touting the birthers and Sarah Palin.

In other words, he was so freaking pathetic he couldn't get a rise unless he appealed to the dumbest of the dumb. Big muckraker, you sound like you think this guy was some reincarnation of Lincoln Steffens.

Ducky's here said...

A couple of years ago, “comedian” Louis CK “joked” on the Opie and Anthony radio show

----------

A pair of beauties there. They got kicked out of Boston long ago.

Don't know what they have to do with politics. Usually they are more into stuff like blind dwarf boxing. And I will guarantee they draw the same crowd that yammers on about invading Afghanistan to "protect our freedoms".

Ducky's here said...

The left could learn something from Maher. At least he takes a defensible and logically consistent position

----------

Bore me later.

Talent on Loan from Synthetic Morphine is still on the air (although his audience numbers have been declining for years).

The fact that his advertisers consider him a liability is just the actions of your precious market. So don't give people the tone about consistency.

Silverfiddle said...

"So how does this guy become such an icon. ... In other words, he was so freaking pathetic...

Quacked the anonymous unaccomplished nobody from Beantown...

Besides starting the Bigs, he inspired citizen journalism all over the place, but his greatest accomplishment was sending lefties like you into screeching hissy fits.

Jersey McJones said...

"Quacked the anonymous unaccomplished nobody from Beantown..."

Silver, why do you resort to such lowbrow debating tactics? Who are you to say who is "accomplished" or not?

Read you Bible, Silver. You missed a few important points.

JMJ

Z said...
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Z said...
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Z said...

The Bible seems to be unimportant and 'fundie' until a Christian doesn't sound like their idea of a Christian. odd.

Ducky, I've asked you a few times to please show us how Andrew was a drunkard...his family'd like to know that 'fact', too. As I've tried so hard to get you to understand, he admits having drunk at Tulane during his college days.......know anybody who didn't? Andrew was just honest about it. I was with him many times, I hate to disappoint, but he didn't drink to excess. That's the last time I'll say this as it's almost unseemly to have to defend a man like Andrew Breitbart.

Also, odd that Congress stopped funding after ACORN was exposed by him, huh?

YOu keep making up your own dream world of Conservative hate; it doesn't seem to be working, huh?

Silverfiddle said...

Jersey: The anonymous Beantown Quacker bashed Breitbart, a man of many accomplishments, and asked what he had done, so I answered.

Lowbrow? From you? If we removed "F***ing retarded" from your vocabulary you'd be speechless and defenseless.

Cram it where the sun don't shine, cupcake.

Ducky's here said...

True, the trash can doesn't function.

Be as mean spirited as you like, z.

Fact is that when a large group of people point to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Andrew Breitbart as stalwart sources of sound reportage they should consider the point.

Limbaugh and Breitbart make you ignorant. Strutting as if you're proud of that ignorance is sad.

The fact that Congress acted like a bunch of cowards is news? Come up for air once in a while, z.

My thesis is that government is monolithic. This D vs. R thing is strictly Kabuki for the fools. The fact that Congress ran from controversy is hardly new.

But Breitfart did a service. The fringe right decided to extend the attack to planned parenthood. Now you've taken it out of the province of the poor, whom everyone shits on and tried to take on middle class moderates.
You got your teeth kicked in.

And that's all a cheap puke like Breitbart can do is hit soft defenseless targets. And you praise him for that?

Ducky's here said...

In fact the whole idea of praying for Breitbart's loved ones makes me a little curious.

People like Breitbart and his cabana boy O'keefe, Neil Boortz, Freethinker favorite Michael Savage and other right wing icons who have made careers of race baiting get the prayers and you don't call for prayers for the family and friends of Trayvon Martin? Who?

Just collateral damage in this stinking hate war that right wing haters have developed.

Z said...
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Z said...

The trash can does function; I found that you have to enlarge the screen.

Ducky...please show where any Republican's race baited.
I won't be responding to the rest of your hatred; I'd written here quite a lot and then remembered this extreme hate is your illness, not mine. Good luck with that.
Your commentary deserves a long and detailed response which would be easy...but not worthwhile.

Congress is cowardly when you don't agree. Your hubris is breathtaking.

You're right, I should have left my more mean spirited comments to you; I didn't want to hurt you. I see that we have different life rules.
all the best.

Z said...

Ducky, by the way...re the Homosexuality in Uganda situation you said to me "If you can't read I can't help you" (ironic, considering you never seem to read the posts before you comment, isn't it)...please take note that the article I can't read includes that Mr Rick Warren (no hero of mine at all, by the way, especially for "Purpose Drivel Life") has "... recently condemned the anti-homosexuality bill, seeking to correct (what he'd said earlier)"

He'd compared homosexuality to pedophilia in the past... Gee, maybe that thinking might have impressed upon some of the (millions of) new Christians in Uganda enough to have kept them from dying of AIDS. That's something I care deeply about. re pedophilia, I'm sure you know that many Africans practice having sex with practically newborn babies because they think that will keep them from getting or cure them from AIDS.

Anonymous said...

Resorting to name calling indicates 1 (or both) of 2 things:

1. You're stumped and have run out of valuable points to add to a discussion.

2. You believe in your ideas too much, and the mere mention of disagreement only signals to you that the opposition must be stupid, unintelligent, or whatever.

Either way, it means you need to take a break. Chill out for a while, and come back when you're ready to dispense with the name-calling.

If you truly think that people who don't believe as you do must be less intelligent than you, then there really is no point to even having these discussions. You've already made up your mind, and your only 2 goals are to either comiserate with like-minded individuals, or convince the "idiots" that they're wrong.

Neither of those involve listening or self-examination. Once you've stopped practicing those two things, then you might as well already be dead.

Silverfiddle said...

Jack: Thank you. Maybe Jersey will listen to the message if its coming from you.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Shouldn't product labeling and advertisement standards apply, though?

Bill Maher claims to be a comedian, but his material is rarely if ever funny.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Sort of like wrasslin' on the SciFi Channel. Huh?

Ducky's here said...

z, look it up yourself. Warren pushed for the law making homosexuality a capital crime in Uganda.

Then when public opinion got real hot he backed off because it was bad for business.

He was a coward pure and simple and his hate is pretty well established.
Now. in the tradition of the right and the likes of Andrew Breitbart we use Warren as representative of ALL evangelicals. Own it.

Ducky's here said...

Well Jack, the topic here for several of the last few articles has been Breitbart or Limbaugh.

Now when you lionize those two fucking assholes it's a little ironic to go off and cry to momma about the left's name calling, no?

Oh wait, I forgot, Bill Maher. That's the best these guys have.
Well if the difference isn't obvious here it is. Nobody really givs a damn about Maher and he's not a primary source of news for the left unlike Breitfart or Limbaugh who have a much larger megaphone.
We've had Freethinker mention how much he relies on Michael Savage. z is in thrall to Glenn Beck.

Now I ask you, how is it possible to engage people who believe those medicine show hawkers? Michael Savage? Glenn Beck? Andrew Breitbart and these people have the outright gall to call left wingers uninformed? Bore me later.

Z said...

Ducky, please don't speak for me. I'm not 'in thrall' of Beck :-) I think you know that. What's sad is people have maligned him so badly that all those dots he connected between Obama and various situations were proven and the media ran from it; they just kept maligning him to protect their guy. That's a teeeny bit scary in America, where people used to want to know all sides of everything and make their own minds up. You lefties have really shut down THINKING, haven't you.

I am IN THRALL of Andrew Breitbart...no doubt about that. The finest, most passionate patriot we had going.

As for Rick Warren...I am not a fan; he no longer speaks for me than you do. He represents WHACKED "Evangelicals"... He's a supporter of CHRISLAM, you'd LOVE him :-)

viburnum said...

Now I ask you, how is it possible to engage people who believe those medicine show hawkers? Ed Schultz? Lawrence O'Donnell? Chris Matthews?

There's obnoxious, opinionated, butt heads on both sides and IMO they are all performing a public disservice. Cant is unconvincing, rant is not reason, and invective conveys no information whatsoever. To borrow a phase, bore me later.

dmarks said...

Ducky is right about Michael Weineer (who calls himself Savage for some reason). He's a real loon. I remember his rant that autism is fake and doesn't exist. That puts him on a par with Bill Maher who insists that handicapped people aren't human and should be treated like we treat animals.

Ducky's here said...

viburnum, there's a reason left wing talk radio hasn't been nearly as big as right.

Here's something I'll throw out as an example. Right wing talk has trained it's listeners to react like trained seals whenever Saul Alinsky is mentioned.
Now would it be possible to talk to the right about Alinsky, his organizing style (done in conjunction with the local Catholic parish) and his distaste for the New Deal and its bureaucracy?
Alinsky worked with the religious, disliked big government and favored local movements. I fact he was very similar in thought to the original tea party.

I'll just throw that out and ask if the current atmosphere allows that discussion. Just an example of the way media has conditioned us and blocked rational dialog.

Here are my news sources

Broadcast:
NPR and News Hour

Magazines:
The Nation
The Progressive
New York Review of Books
The Economist

Podcasts:
Democracy Now!
BBC World News
BBC Africa Today
Counterspin

I invite others to name theirs

Silverfiddle said...

Broadcast: None. I like Michael Savage, but do not rely upon him for news since he often jumps the gun and gets things wrong. His value is his observational style, angry rants, and frequent detours into food, drinks, The Bible, old stories and anything else but partisan politics.

Podcasts: None. I don't own any pods I could play them on.

Magazines (on-line): Economist.

Websites: Various newsfeeds, AP, CBS, Daily Beast, HuffPo, Reason, Mises.org.

I essentially use a triangulation method, reading different sources to figure out what's going on.

Trekkie4Ever said...

Darth Bacon, excellent! I couldn't agree more.

Apparently, in the minds of the Left, free speech was designed for their purpose and no one else's. And if someone does have an opposing view, they are quick to insult and spew their hate against them.

Breitbart was a man of great intelligence, courage and strength, and as Silver pointed out still ticking off the Left even after his passing. How pathetic.

Z said...

Ducky, nobody's talking about the things you find wonderful about Alinsky because it's not THOSE THINGS which are upsetting to so many Americans.
My gosh, you do know how to obfuscate, don't you. Stay on track.
Hitler could watercolor....don't know why you don't concentrate on that instead of killing millions of Jews, huh?
gad.

viburnum said...

Ducky: "Right wing talk has trained it's listeners to react like trained seals whenever Saul Alinsky is mentioned."

Who's telling you this crap and why do you believe them?

"Now would it be possible to talk to the right about Alinsky, ....I fact he was very similar in thought to the original tea party."

Which would explain why his principles are known and being applied by them.

What's blocking rational dialog is antipathy to opposing viewpoints so that ideas are shouted down instead of debated, condemned out of hand instead of considered. There is some of that on both sides of course but from what I see, far more on the left then the right. My own perspective on the causes of that is that the 'left' is a far flimsier coalition of conflicting aims and ideas, and can't risk vibrations at the roots. Standing on bedrock is a much more comfortable position to debate from. ;-)

Always On Watch said...

Wow! What a comments thread!

Some bickering, of course. But other comments are worthy of a policy debate.

jez said...

"There is some of that on both sides of course but from what I see, far more on the left then the right."

Well you would notice it more on the left, because your remarks would attract aggressive replies from lefties. On the other hand, a non-conservative visitor here, for example, gets more replies from the conservative shouters than from the reasonable ones, so his perception is skewed towards shouty conservatives.

viburnum said...

jez: Well you would notice it more on the left, because your remarks would attract aggressive replies from lefties.

That's my point. The response is often aggressive even when totally unwarranted. Merely expressing an opposing viewpoint is not legitimate cause for ill mannered insult and invective. Freedom of speech entails a responsibility to defend your ideas not to have them accepted with out question. If you can't defend your ideas without resorting to shouting you probably don't understand why you hold them in the first place.

And that holds true for both sides.

jez said...

viburnum: sorry, I was trying to say that the left needn't really be any more aggressive than the right in order to explain your observation.

MathewK said...

Wow, maher defending Limbaugh, the lefties must really be off the rails and going more insane than usual for even their elites to try talking some sense into them.

dmarks said...

I see that the vast majority of Ducky's news sources are hard leftist and/or official government news agencies (mouthpieces of the ruling class).