There weren't any newspapers back in 476, when the German warlord Odoacer took control of Roman government in the west. No headlines blared about the fall. No pundits noted the irony that the poor young emperor whom Odoacer "encouraged" to resign in favor of a monastery was named, with fitting diminution, for the founder of Rome and her greatest ruler: Romulus Augustulus. Not that it would have mattered, because a tree will long put out a few leaves and shoots after the trunk is dead to the core, and nobody will really notice the difference. So it is in history. Rome retained a "Senate," not that it accomplished anything, and "consuls," honorary and pointless. The young sons of Boethius were elected consuls simultaneously, and it was one of the proudest moments of that man's life, he being the last of the great classical Romans. But it was like being chosen for the local chapter of the Lions or the Elks; not much more than that.
Why should we believe that such a fall cannot happen to us, or has not already happened? The National Catholic Register reports that a new law has been enacted in Little Britain, on whom it seems the sun does nothing but set, prohibiting Catholic teachers in Catholic schools from teaching Catholic doctrine to Catholic students. It's easy to guess the specifics. The British Duma is not exercised over that most revolutionary of Catholic and Christian affirmations, that the God through whom all things were made took flesh of the Virgin and became man -- a doctrine that John Adams, alas, once called pernicious. Catholics may talk all they want about that, because that is thought to be irrelevant. But they may not talk about the sin of sodomy, lest they offend the feelings of those people -- some lonely and unfortunate, some simply confused, some wilfully perverse -- who are committed to the sin, and who demand that they be free from criticism for it. The law, apparently, has been pushed by a woman member of the Blair cabinet, a Catholic and, what's more, a supernumerary of Opus Dei. She's delighted by the innovation, as is her fellow Catholic Mrs. Blair.
And so it is that the hard-won freedom of speech, and the even harder-won freedom to exercise one's faith, are dismissed as inconsequential, or rather are put to death, for what exactly? For what great boon to civilization? Even if you disagree with faithful Christians on this matter, is such a law really worth the ruin it must bring? For it is unimaginable that freedom of speech, once so blithely abrogated, will be respected and safeguarded in all other instances. And these freedoms are, as our own Declaration suggests, inalienable from man as a rational creature. Or perhaps we now consider instead that man is a creature distinguished not by the mind, but by regions further south, and for that reason we must keep tight control on what he thinks and says and teaches, but that he can copulate as he pleases is a right so precious that all others must cede to it.
What puzzles me is the fecklessness of it all, and the colossal historical ignorance. Rights like these were paid for in blood, and there are even now many millions of people across the earth who know nothing of them. But the rights are traded away for what is either a passing madness, or a late stage in the sexual and cultural collapse of the west -- it must prove to be one or the other. The women who trade that freedom for a public square as cuddly, and as ineffectual, as a child's playroom have no idea what they are doing, and do not stop to wonder whether, when the history of this age is written, they will prove no more than silly shortsighted fools, or villains. But the same thing is happening on this side of the puddle. A coarse-tongued man who is no more a racist than Joe Louis or Jim Brown, who has made a long career of a strange combination of taunting, satire, and intelligent discussion, whose lampoons of the late Cardinal O'Connor made what he said about a basketball team seem like an invitation to tea, is sent packing -- not despite the chill it will cast on speech on the radio, especially political speech, but precisely because it will cast that chill. I don't like Mr. Imus, and I'm not going to defend his dirty remark, but his shtick has always been what it is. He is coarse, as I said, but he is not wicked, and he doesn't seem to possess a genuinely guileful bone in his body. He's a somewhat old-fashioned liberal who does more for good causes in a week (on his ranch for suffering children, for instance) than somebody like Hillary Clinton has done in her entire life. Meanwhile she for her boundless ambition is willing to set a precedent that we thought we had averted in the amendment passed after FDR's wartime innovation: she will make it conceivable for a President and Spouse to share four terms among them, and thereby build what will effectively be a dynasty, such as America has never known. But why should that matter? Her supporters in New York have for many years been attempting to compel Catholic hospitals to provide abortions. What's freedom of religion, compared to the license of the zipper?
A Harvard president is brought down for saying what must not be said; truth is no defense. He too was a liberal, and he too did not really mean to hurt anyone's feelings, not that that should be decisive. The woman who led the charge to dismiss him was the same radical feminist, it turns out, who drove the fraternities off the campus of Duke University -- where they would not come under the supervision of the college. But you know the rest of that story, I'm sure. Now the pundits are saying that the falsely accused lacrosse players were no saints; after all, they hired a stripper for their party. But I'm confused, now. What happened to that sacrosanct license?
If freedom of speech does not include the freedom to express one's opinion about what is right and wrong, or wise and foolish, and if it prohibits one from criticizing any group for any reason, and if it goes so far as to turn discourse into pinky-extending etiquette -- and I am not defending the obscene -- then there is no freedom of speech. If freedom of religion does not include the freedom to preach from one's holy book, to say "This is just" and "That is unjust," and to train one's children up in the faith, keeping peace with one's neighbors as one does so, then there is no freedom of religion. And if these freedoms are gone, then all freedom is gone. The sartorial license may remain, as it is sometimes convenient for tyrants. It brings about the very chaos that will justify their tyranny. And would it really be better to suffer under the soft tyranny of an all-nurturing and all-repressing beneficent Motherland -- a tyrannanny -- than it was to suffer under Stalin? Maybe it would be better. Not by much.
The irony is this, Tony: if we lived in a world that heeded learned eloquence of this sort, we wouldn't need learned eloquence of this sort. Long, my friend, may you cast your bread upon the waters.
Posted by: Steve Hutchens | April 17, 2007 at 10:13 PM
As a good liberal, I'm so confused: what takes precedence--sex or race? Race or sex? Oh, I'm so confused!
Posted by: Bill R | April 17, 2007 at 11:02 PM
How is this different from the US government persecuting Mormon polygamists?
No, not in the moral sense. I wouldn't defend polygamy against the gamut of Natural Law folks on this site, even if I disagreed with Natural Law. But from a governmental perspective, both seem to be the government taking an ethic espoused by a portion of the population and making it into law, at the expense of the religious liberties of another portion of the population. On legal grounds, I can see two distinctions:
1) "A much smaller portion of the population believes that it is wrong to teach sodomy is a sin, than believes it is wrong to marry multiple women." Likely true at this point, but I'm sure I could craft a survey to show otherwise, and it may well become true in another decade or so if the tolerance mafia have their way.
2) "Polygamy is an action; teaching about homosexual behavior is just speech. You can argue for polygamy all you want; just don't practice it." But this is a fine distinction. Teaching is more than speech. It is instruction, molding the thoughts of the next generation, and thus is subject to more restrictions than plain free speech is.
I'm no lawyer, and would like to hear others' opinions on this. Can I maintain the power to ban polygamy without abuses as Tony has described here?
Posted by: Yaknyeti | April 17, 2007 at 11:23 PM
Bill - Just remember that neither race nor sex is important compared to political views. :-) Then you'll do fine.
Posted by: Yaknyeti | April 17, 2007 at 11:25 PM
"Can I maintain the power to ban polygamy without abuses as Tony has described here?"
Probably not. Look for it soon in a neighborhood near you!
Posted by: Bill R | April 17, 2007 at 11:27 PM
"Can I maintain the power to ban polygamy without abuses as Tony has described here?"
Probably not. Look for it soon in a neighborhood near you!
Indeed. That the trendsetters believe that they have won the battle for gay "marriage" is most made evident by their having moved on to the effort to legalize polygamy. See, e.g., ACLU of Utah to Join Polygamists in Bigamy Fight (7/16/1999).
The problem is not Tony's position, but the old adage of Emerson's that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Nearly every good principle, if taken to its most extreme possible limit, can lead to very bad results. Thus, Justice Jackson's famous observation, "The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact." What is wanting and what would allow you to "maintain the power to ban polygamy without abuses as Tony has described here" is "a little practical wisdom." In our day, "foolish consistencies" trump "practical wisdom."
Posted by: GL | April 17, 2007 at 11:56 PM
Your Latin Catholic sensibility and my increasingly Orthodox sensibility often leave me saying of your postings "well, that was okay, I guess, sorta." But I'm also a lawyer and zealous believer in religious freedom, and on this posting, you eloquently hit a nail right on the head.
Posted by: Reader John | April 18, 2007 at 05:43 AM
GL -
I think that is the precise problem today - that the one who tries to exercise practical wisdom in political discourse will inevitably be accused of inconsistency. But what's sadder is that every time someone tries to draw the logical lines between today's new "right" and tomorrow's acceptance of some horror, they are publicly shouted down (or worse). Only time proves them to be prophetic rather than hyperbolic.
Posted by: Mark B, Hanson | April 18, 2007 at 05:47 AM
Wildly public firestorm after firestorm such as Harvard's Summers (see this on women and science careers) and the selective show-trial tactics toward Imus can only move in the direction of paralysis in editors and publishers, if not writers. The territory that remains is superficial malice, diffuse vulgarity, and received platitudes. This is existentially, soul-deep, dangerous. Freedom of speech, whether it is merely discursive and analytical, or artistic, or suggestively comic, is part-and-parcel of essential human agency, not to mention political competence. Our losses in this era of identity- and victim-politics accelerate.
On the other hand, with the absence of minimum unbiased decorum or mature sensibility (at any age), the drive is to the ever-more-transgressive -- adolescents begging for boundaries -- and interference is inevitable. The craven and squeamish demand for "Nice" over True or Accurate, wherever on the political or theological spectrum it appears, is also contributing to the erosion of venerable agreements to aim for the heart of the matter. Fortunately Dr. Esolen's aim is sure.
Posted by: dilys | April 18, 2007 at 07:33 AM
Pretty soon the issues will be inescapable. Better not to compromise, or make the typical concessions we see everywhere, even if it makes one somewhat persona non grata. And again:
“To corrupt a man, get him to tell lies in public. Make him espouse what he does not believe. To make sure he does not believe what he espouses, make what he espouses unintelligible.”
Theodore Dalrymple:
"I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better."
Posted by: dilys | April 18, 2007 at 07:57 AM
For those who would like to reconfigure American public education so that people could take vouchers and get help in paying for "private" schools, this is an object lesson in why it could be a very bad deal. Government money always comes with strings attached and, eventually, someone will come around who decides to yank those strings in unfriendly ways.
Posted by: Michael Simpson | April 18, 2007 at 08:28 AM
Dear Yaknyeti,
I think that the distinction here is that in the UK the issue does not involve the practice of sodomy (which is legal) but the banning of free speech (the ability of the RC Church to teach in its own facilities, and to argue in public, that sodomy is wrong). On the other hand, the "persecution" (which is no such thing) of Mormon polygamists to which you refer is not a matter of exercise of free spech, but of practice, of concrete actions in violation of established law. To my knowledge there is no law in the US forbidding such Mormons from advocating polygamy and seeking to change the law (which is in effect part of what is being done to RCs in the UK), and likewise the RC Church in the UK does not have the legal authority or enforcement power to prosecute any practicing sodomists there. So I don't think there is any inconsistency involved. And we are likewise consistent in making both sodomy and polygamy illegal as generally injurious to society.
Dear GL,
Re: "the old adage of Emerson's that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.'"
I've seen this originally atrtributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. Can anyone verify the correct attribution?
Posted by: James A. Altena | April 18, 2007 at 08:36 AM
Michael Simpson, I have to respond since I advocated vouchers on another thread. I did so as a sort of shorthand, and I shouldn't have done that since I don't really believe in vouchers, for the reasons you give. I should have said, give money to a scholarship fund to enable children to go to private schools. Indeed, government schools have become one of the most dangerous institutions in our society; teachers are nowadays trained in teaching "social justice" rather than knowledge. Most colleges and universities count as government schools, since in order to receive government funds they must toe the line on any number of policies. (That's one reason we send our daughter to Hillsdale College, which doesn't accept such subsidies.)
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 18, 2007 at 08:54 AM
Let me give you an example of what I believe to be a failure by a court to "temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom." In the Under the Sun thread, I refer to Judge Richard Posner's opinion striking down the Indianapolis ordinance regulating minors' access to graphically violent video games. In addressing the analogy made to New York v. Ginsberg, a 1968 Supreme Court decision upholding a New York law restricting minors' access to non-obscene as to adults sexually explicit material (what the Court called "girlie magazines"), Judge Posner wrote the following:
Ginsberg did not insist on social scientific evidence that quasi-obscene images are harmful to children. The Court, as we have noted, thought this a matter of common sense. It was in 1968; it may not be today . . . ."
American Amusement Machine Ass'n v. Kendrick, 244 F.3d 572, 579 (7th Cir. 2001).Indeed, it probably wouldn't be "a matter of common sense" today and, even if it were, that would now be deemed insufficent, for doctrinaire logic (i.e., foolish consistency) would control. That a man with a mind like Judge Posner's would feel comfortable with such a state causes one to despair. Without proof with a high degree of scientific certainty of some concrete harm to minors from sexually explicit material or graphically violent video games, parents can expect no assistance from the state in keeping such material out of their children's hands. Common sense (i.e., "a little practical wisdom") is no longer enough. And so Yaknyeti correctly wonders whether Tony's common sense approach to the problem in Britain would lead to our being forced to accept polygamy because common sense is no longer a check on logic.
Posted by: GL | April 18, 2007 at 09:49 AM
Dr. Esolen, if I rightly understand Francis Schaeffer's comments in the mid-1970's, he believed America had already become largely tyrannical (a manipulative tyranny -- I like your term tyrannanny --rather than a Stalinistic one) and that at best a small window of opportunity remained for recovering freedom. If I have understood him correctly, then I agree with him and believe that the window of opportunity passed long ago. How else, to cite one obvious example, could we murder 1.3 million of our own unborn children, without enough outcry to interrupt the smooth flow of the economy nor even the orderly broadcast and high ratings of American Idol? It seems a tyranny that provides enough bread and circuses hardly needs to conceal its identity, for the people readily confuse comfort with freedom and worship the tyranny as the source of both.
Dilys, thank you for the great quotes. They bring the nature of propaganda and political correctness, hitherto fuzzy for me, into sharp focus.
Posted by: Reid | April 18, 2007 at 10:47 AM
Sometimes it seems like obscenity is the only protected freedom of speech.
"Can I maintain the power to ban polygamy without abuses as Tony has described here?"
Abuses will always be present, potentially.
What I wonder is whether the movements to repeal anti-sodomy legislation could have succeeded without obscenity legislation having been overturned previously.
Posted by: Kevin Jones | April 18, 2007 at 11:35 AM
Yes, Dilys, those are superb quotes, and thank you for your own analysis, too. That's very powerful, that statement about the practice of communist discourse, and you see the same phenomenon in our line of work, on college campi. Why bother to use reason, when public humiliation does the job more effectively and quickly? In fact, there's a certain fascinating and imposing power in unreason: if it's loud enough and preposterous enough, it stuns by the sheer evil.
I forgot to mention in my post, though I suppose you could take it for granted, that the real misery of the situation in Britain is that it occurs without any protest. A few Catholic bishops will harrumph, but the people generally will accept it, because they no longer believe in freedom as a principle. We're not much healthier here. Had a candidate for national office said, years ago, "I want to take the profits of XXX company and use them for YYY," his political career would have ended on the spot. That is what Mrs. Clinton said, and there was no outcry.
The reproductive "freedom" Reid mentions fits nicely here, too. It is not a freedom at all, but a safeguard against the unwanted results of brainless license. The combination of pill and forceps is meant for security; we are afraid of the true freedom of a sexual being, willing to exercise continence, or willing to sin but to take the consequences of sin. We want "safe" sex. That's what the foolish revolution of the sixties has led to: not a more natural life, but a regular pharmacopia and surgical supply depot meant to insulate us from nature, including our own nature.
Yaknyeti asks an excellent question, which I'd answer as GL has done (only I couldn't have done it nearly so well and learnedly!). No civilization can be required to commit suicide, and that is what a monogamous civilization would do were it to permit polygamy -- and you can imagine the cultural chaos that would have developed had a newly settled west gone polygamous. The same reasoning would permit us to say to Aztec worshipers of Quetzalcoatl, "No, sorry, but the first amendment does not permit you to carry out human sacrifice, and please do not bring up the subject of abortion, because we're late for work and don't want to talk about that, and it isn't human sacrifice to Moloch because, because, well, it just isn't."
How to put it? The clear intent of the British law is not to preserve public order and the coherence of civilization at the expense of a particular aberrant religion. The intent is precisely to stifle that religion, regardless of the fact that its practice poses no harm at all to public order, and indeed is one of the few foundations of civic life that Britain has left. We don't want to hurt Mormons, but we can't have polygamy without committing cultural suicide. We British lawmakers DO certainly want to hurt Catholicism, and we will put to death our own freedoms to do it.
Posted by: Tony Esolen | April 18, 2007 at 12:03 PM
Forgive me if this is too obvious to be worth pointing out, but one of the difficulties we have discussing this in the context of our wider culture is that it defines "freedom" as "the ability to do what we wish without harm to others (and leaving abortion and other ills arising from that liberty-as-license definition out of the definition of harm)" and the idea that freedom requires limits and a certain structure (indeed, a well-defined structure whose boundaries we once knew by heart) in order to permit actions to be truly free?
That is, a Christian who knows that true freedom comes in absolute obedience to God's commands (and that the culture's idea of "freedom" is instead slavery to sin) is making an argument in terms that the culture is no longer capable of understanding....
Posted by: Dcn. Michael D. Harmon | April 18, 2007 at 12:56 PM
Without denying the existence of natural freedoms that Tony cites (viz., of speech and religion), I think that to ask whether the power to ban polygamy might be maintained without slipping into an eventual denial of freedom of speech or religious practice for groups (like us) also out of favor, is already to have drunk the kool-aid of liberal democracy's founding myths. Government naturally exists (and rightly exercises any prudent amount of power) to maintain good order, not to be referee between competing, often mutually exclusive, notions of good order. That is to say, that polygamy should be banned primarily because it is evil, and that traditional Christian teaching on homosexual behavior should be encouraged primarily because it is good. Prudence might influence the extent to which, if at all, such an ideal might practically be implemented, but abstract notions of "rights" ought have nothing to do with it.
Posted by: Steve Nicoloso | April 18, 2007 at 01:35 PM
Well said, Steve Nicoloso. It has often struck me that freedom in the sense that the American colonies fought for it (not to mention the sense that many modern Americans think the colonists fought for it), appears little, if at all, in the Scriptures. When our Lord says "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," the freedom He intends, the only freedom He seem to think worth discussing, is freedom from sin (specifically freedom from practicing sin). He says this to the deliberate consternation of His hearers, who want to understand freedom in political terms.
Posted by: Reid | April 18, 2007 at 02:49 PM
James A. wrote:
Dear Yaknyeti,
I think that the distinction here is that in the UK the issue does not involve the practice of sodomy (which is legal) but the banning of free speech (the ability of the RC Church to teach in its own facilities, and to argue in public, that sodomy is wrong). On the other hand, the "persecution" (which is no such thing) of Mormon polygamists to which you refer is not a matter of exercise of free spech, but of practice, of concrete actions in violation of established law. To my knowledge there is no law in the US forbidding such Mormons from advocating polygamy and seeking to change the law (which is in effect part of what is being done to RCs in the UK), and likewise the RC Church in the UK does not have the legal authority or enforcement power to prosecute any practicing sodomists there. So I don't think there is any inconsistency involved. And we are likewise consistent in making both sodomy and polygamy illegal as generally injurious to society.
I agree that this is a valid distinction.
Posted by: GL | April 18, 2007 at 03:00 PM
Anthony Esolen writes, "If freedom of speech ... prohibits one from criticizing any group for any reason ..."
'Just a technical point: Imus was not "denied freedom of speech." He is still legally entitled to express whatever he thinks and believes. It's just that those offended by his remarks have, thankfully, not been denied the same freedoms. They are not prohibited from criticizing him and they are free to reward companies that advertise on his show or radio station with their custom -- or not -- if they so choose. Let's not confuse "freedom of speech" with suppression of dissent. People who objected to Imus' remarks simply exercised their own First Amendment rights.
Because of our freedoms, there are inevitable connections between what is PC, what is considered shocking, and what is profitable. The Dixie Chicks were out, then in, as public sentiments changed. "Shock jocks" become millionaires by attracting attention to themselves. Imus' lack of sensitivity has both made him a millionaire and come back to bite him in the butt. He can thank his freedom of speech for both.
Posted by: Francesca | April 18, 2007 at 03:24 PM
Thanks to everyone for the responses.
James & GL - The practice/ speech distinction was my point (2) above, and while it is a distinction, I'm still not convinced that it holds up. Protests (practice) are allowed under free speech regulations, and while they are regulated, this suggests at least a blurring between word and action. And while I don't have access to read the article, Tony's initial comment suggests that what is banned is not all speech decrying homosexual behavior but "only" the teaching of such beliefs to students. As I said above, isn't teaching subject to more stringent regulation than other "speech"?
I didn't cover the argument (3) that polygamy is a danger to society while disapproval of homosexual behavior is not. This also seems like a double-edged sword. Those who see Christians as repressive homophobes will argue that many of the disfunctions prevelant among homosexuals are due to societal repression, and that forbidding Catholic schools from teaching disapproval of homosexual behavior will decrease suicide and depression amongst homosexuals. But perhaps this is the best place to argue the distinction.
Steve N, & Dcn. Harmon - Lest you think I've had something funny in my Kool-aid, I believe that the case against the practical outcomes of deviant sexual behavior can and should be made. However, I'm always looking for a way to reason with those who disagree with me on their own turf. If I can't do that, then I either have to try to find a more fundamental principle on which to argue or simply agree to disagree and hope that more of our legislators vote the way I want.
James - In talking about Mormon persecution, I was thinking more of the Utah statehood era than the present time.
Posted by: Yaknyeti | April 18, 2007 at 05:33 PM
I have to admit I'm a bit surprised that Imus has now popped up on two threads. If he disappeared off of radio forever would many of us really cry? What he said was wrong. I'm surprised at the uproar since no one has dragged rap artists into the street naked and beaten for their crimes yet, but I for one will shed no tears.
And since I can't read the article...a member of Opus Dei helped bring this about? I thought they were the Popes mindless drones! Where are the dark masters when you need them!
^
|-Humor people...
Posted by: Nick | April 18, 2007 at 05:56 PM
Francesca,
I disagree with you -- I know that Mr. Imus was not, technically, denied his First Amendment rights. But freedom of speech should not be something merely enforced by recourse to law. A man who is hounded out of his neighborhood by people who will not speak to him is also not, technically, denied his rights. And it is abominable that somebody's livelihood could be destroyed because of an off-the-cuff remark, coarse banter not meant for anything at all -- especially when that same coarse banter, and worse, is the stock in trade of the people who hounded him out. Does anyone believe for one moment that no one on that basketball team has ever engaged in the same banter, and even used the same words? Good grief, I don't want to defend Don Imus! I don't like the man! But what kind of ugly precedent does this set? Your ox may not be gored, but I'm a conservative in academe, and though I have tenure, I know full well that that alone protects me from the same sort of vengeance. The hypocrisy here is thick, too. Imus's show is not by miles as malicious and coarse, even lewd, as is The View, televised and watched by millions.... I am also not buying the notion that sponsors suddenly vanished of their own accord; this was a well-orchestrated attack. A pox on every one of them, from Imus to Rosie to the sharkish newscasters to the coach who flung gasoline on the fire.
Posted by: Tony Esolen | April 18, 2007 at 08:55 PM
I agree with those who think the Imus firing is not a big deal and not chilling at all. The man made tons of money by deliberately being as outrageous and offensive as he could. The whole schtick is about trying to go as close to the edge of intolerable as he could. Like Howard Stern and any number of shock jocks before him, he was bound to eventually cross a line and get fired. I couldn't care less about the merits of the particular case that happened to be the one that did him in. It's what he was aiming for all along.
Posted by: Matthias | April 18, 2007 at 09:49 PM
Imus's firing is extremely chilling. It was part of a long-term campaign to remove conservatives from the media. Imus is not conservative, but he does not like Hillary Clinton and made fun of her regularly. As reported in How Hillary's Hit Man Got Imus, an investigative piece, Media Matters, a leftist "watchdog" group, went after him. Media Matters is funded by friends of Hillary and by George Soros, "the billionaire financial speculator who profits at the expense and decay of Western civilization."
All conservative talk-show hosts realize that this is ultimately aimed at them, and at Fox News. There has been a growing campaign to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine," the FCC regulation that was supposed to ensure equal time for all views. However, it had the effect of keeping controversy off the air, allowing the liberal views of the media to be defined as mainstream and non-controversial. When it was repealed in 1987, conservative talk radio immediately became a big force in the media, as millions of Americans found their views represented for the first time in their lives.
Many credited Rush Limbaugh with making possible the Republican majority in Congress in 1994. The freshman class made him an honorary Congressman. Since then the left has been working to remove him and other conservatives from the air. The success of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, and the success of conservative bloggers in exposing Dan Rather's fraudulent report on President Bush's National Guard service, increased the passion and frenzy of the left's campaign to block conservative speech.
NBC's Keith Olbermann, who is close to Media Matters and regularly smears conservatives on his show, is now calling for the removal of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Neil Boortz. Al Franken called for Glenn Beck to be fired for questioning the loyalty of Black Muslim congressman Keith Ellison. This is considered hate speech, but Rosie O'Donnell can say any obscenity, even to accusing the Bush administration of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, and this is okay.
Tony Blankley's column, A post-Imus 'Republic of Virtue," likens Imus's attackers to Robespierre in their motives. He goes on:
"But a culture that cheers on collective efforts at suppression of heresy, dissent or other unpopular words is every bit as chilling as one merely enforced by law. And there is usually a political agenda (often hidden) behind such public exhortations to suppression: Crassly silence one's political opponent in the name of public virtue. Or, as in the case of Mr. Imus, use his suppression as a chilling threat to others -- who are one's true political enemies.
Mr. Imus used a nasty phrase, reasonably believed by many to have been hateful. His transgression was merely a convenient moment to launch an intimidating suppression campaign against other "hate speech."
But we all know that "hate speech" is in the ear of the listener. In Europe, citizens can be -- and have been -- criminally prosecuted for calling elements of Islam violence-prone. The great crusading journalist Oriana Fallaci was forced to live out her last cancer-ridden days in exile to avoid paying the penal price for her honest (and accurate) expressions on that topic....Mr. Imus may be an imperfect martyr -- but the malign forces that brought him down must be opposed ferociously."
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 19, 2007 at 05:20 AM
>>>Mr. Imus used a nasty phrase, reasonably believed by many to have been hateful. <<<
I think the basic problem, aside from certain elements of society wanting to establish thought police, is the inability of many people today to deal with a--holes in an appropriate manner. Look at these female basketball players--they're strong, mentally tough, accomplished, adult women. Yet somehow or other, they buy into the notion that they have been irreparably damaged by Imus calling them "nappy haired hos". We should all be so oppressed! I heard worse when I was in kindergarten back in Brooklyn, only then we knew how to deal with it.
Because these women have been raised as hothouse flowers, they only know how to respond by getting up on a high horse and making a federal case out of . . . nothing at all. Imus is a jerk, they should have treated him like the jerk he is, which is to say, they should either have ignored him or ridiculed him. They should have laughed it off, perhaps by embracing the epithet and showing how ridiculous it is (after all, the term Khristianioi, best translated as "greasers", wasn't originally intended to be complimentary). "Yeah, Imus, we "nappy-haired hos", but we can whip your sorry white ass on the basketball court and in real life any day of the week". Instead, we get sanctimonious drivel.
This is what comes of raising kids in "Nerf World". What are these women going to do when someone does something REALLY bad to them?
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 19, 2007 at 09:04 AM
Thanks, Stuart and Judy. Matthias, my friend -- I don't know if we've ever disagreed before, but I suppose there's always a first time. I must disagree with you about this, and it's really telling that Imus is being commonly associated with Howard Stern, with whom he has almost nothing in common.
I don't feel sorry for Imus. I don't like him. I am angry at the sight of rank injustice. If a man is mugged and beaten, I don't have to like him to want to cry out against the mugging. If there's a "line" of civility which public figures must not cross, that line had better be commonly observed and easy to recognize and impartially invoked. None of that is the case here. It is especially troublesome that we are talking about an ad lib that was suggested to Imus by the sports anchorman, suggested on the spur of the moment. That doesn't quite rise to the level of an ad lib, which itself does not rise to the level of a prepared statement.
I must confess that even at my college, which is wrongly called "conservative" because, apparently, two or three dozen conservatives can teach there without getting booted out, I must watch my tongue, and I have tenure and all my promotions in hand. Had I not had tenure, many years ago I would almost certainly have been fired for an ad lib (it had nothing to do with women), also prompted by somebody else, also taken out of context, and entirely innocent of malign intent. Had a friend of mine not had tenure, some years ago he too would have been booted out -- and he almost lost a promotion because of it -- for something un-feminist that he said to comfort a tearful young lady who was suffering through a feminist class on fairy tales. Meanwhile, the young men at my school commonly tell me of the angry bias directed against them in certain introductory classes in social work, sociology, and psychology. What can they say about it? Nothing -- unless they want to invite recrimination.
But that's fair, I guess. It reminds me of something Anatole France said -- I can't remember the exact quote, but the sense of it is this: the law, in its majestic impartiality, forbids rich men as well as poor to loiter on streetcorners and sleep under bridges. Apply that wisdom now to our day.
Posted by: Tony Esolen | April 19, 2007 at 10:06 AM
Stuart, the women on the basketball team did not, as far as I can see, "buy into the notion that they have been irreparably damaged by Imus calling them 'nappy haired hos'." Had that been the case, they would not have extended to Imus the forgiveness that his other public critics have denied him.
I find myself somewhere in the middle on this. I don't think the Imus case as chilling as Judy and Tony suppose (though I agree with much else to which they point), or part of any larger movement to suppress conservatives -- we are talking about racial slurs here, not political views, unless one wants to join liberals in supposing all conservatives as racists -- and I do agree that Imus bought what he paid for with the coin of free speech. However silly or hypocritical they may be here, free speech means that those outraged by Imus have a right to seek to persuade others to call for Imus' dismissal and to boycott the TV and radio stations and their sponsors if the yfail to do so. (And I doubt that Imus is going to suffer much loss of livelihood for very long.)
To put the shoe on the other foot -- if Al Franken were to call Benedict XVI "a diddler of little boys" on a TV broadcast, and outraged protests from Catholics led to his dismissal by Franken's network, would we find his subsequent apology convincing and sufficient, and say that it's all right and we shouldn't take away his livelihood? Given human nature, I suspect not.
This all gets us back to the points of some previous threads (mostly by Tony, if memory serves me rightly) -- first, the inability of people to discipline their public behavior by what were once common standards of decency; second, the increasing unwillingness of people to believe in and accept apologies and bestow forgiveness; and third, the modern cult of victimhood and entitlement to (endless) "reparations" (which in many respects is the flip side of the second).
I'm surprised that no analogies to Howard Cosell have been raised here.
There is a hilarious cartoon reprinted in the newest issue of "US News & World Report" that neatly captures all of these elements. It shows a rapper in full regalia saying "(Bleep) (Bleep) (Bleep) (Bleep) (Bleep) (Bleep) (Bleep) (Bleep) (Bleep) (Bleep) Imus".
Posted by: James A. Altena | April 19, 2007 at 10:20 AM
>>>Stuart, the women on the basketball team did not, as far as I can see, "buy into the notion that they have been irreparably damaged by Imus calling them 'nappy haired hos'."<<<
That makes it difficult to explain the statement by one of them, who said that they were irreparably damaged.
>>>Had that been the case, they would not have extended to Imus the forgiveness that his other public critics have denied him.<<<
That's something of a non-sequitur. Are you saying that people who are irreparably damaged cannot forgive? That, e.g., a person shot and paralyzed for life cannot forgive the one who shot him? In any case, it's really easy to forgive someone after they have been destroyed for the damage they did to you. Kind of like how Darth Vader forgave the captain of the star destroyer that let Han Solo get away--"Apology accepted, Captain", he says as the man's lifeless body slumps to the deck.
>>>To put the shoe on the other foot -- if Al Franken were to call Benedict XVI "a diddler of little boys" on a TV broadcast, and outraged protests from Catholics led to his dismissal by Franken's network, would we find his subsequent apology convincing and sufficient, and say that it's all right and we shouldn't take away his livelihood? Given human nature, I suspect not.<<<
I've always thought that one should not wrestle with the pigs, because you get dirty and the pigs like it. The Catholic League, and Anti-Defamation League and other professional grievance mongers invariably succeed in giving such people more air time and thus more weight than they deserve. Of course, this serves the agenda of the grievance mongers, since if they could not convince us that "Piss Christ" or "Dogma" were lethal threats to the Church, or that anti-semitism is rife in America, the fat check would cease to come in and they would have to get real jobs.
Which brings us to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, men who peddle in racial grievance for their livelihood. Yeah, Sharpton has made a few feeble nods in the direction of cleaning up Hip Hop, but then there is Tawana Brawley, and the race riots in Brooklyn that he incited. And with Bro' Jesse, let's not forget Hymietown. So, apparently, there are different standards at work here. It's OK for Sharpton and Jackson to slander entire races--not in jest, but in deadly earnest--without suffering the least degree of ostracism. Indeed, so large are the cojones on these two, that, like cockroaches, they still come crawling out of the woodwork at the slightest hint of a racial epithet against blacks, and they have the unmitigated chutzpah to lecture Don Imus and demand his head on a plate. If this was not truly an excercise in raw political power masquerading as moral indignation, then certainly we would have seen equal condemnation of these two clowns. But we don't, because being both black and liberal (it has to be both, by the way), they have a Get Out of PC Jail Free card.
>>>I'm surprised that no analogies to Howard Cosell have been raised here.<<<
But that monkey really could run.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 19, 2007 at 10:36 AM
To prove my point, the AP had this photo up on the web this morning:
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards shakes hands with Rev. Al Sharpton after speaking during the 'Keepers of the Dream Awards Dinner' Wednesday, April 18, 2007 during the 9th annual National Action Network convention in New York. Wednesday, April 18, 2007 in New York. Democratic presidential contenders are scrambling for support in what's being dubbed the Al Sharpton primary. This election, the high-profile Sharpton, fresh from the fight over Don Imus' derogatory remarks, is attracting all the party's major candidates this week for his annual National Action Network convention. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
In other words, it's OK to be a race-baiting, Jew-hating demagogue and shakedown artist, as long as (a) you are black; and (b) you are a Democrat.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 19, 2007 at 10:59 AM
Tony,
I generally agree with you, but on this one I must part company. In a better age, Imus would have been fired years ago or never even made it on the air. He undoubtedly said as bad or worse things in the past and it is undoubtedly true that his firing is because he violated on the PC taboos. Nevertheless, belittling young women and calling them names soaked in a history of slavery, racism and sexism demonstrates the type of brutish, ungentlemanly behavior that use to be grounds for firing. (My mother tells me about how different it was working as a bank teller in the late 1940s and early 1950s than it was in the late 1980s and early 1990s when she retired. Coarseness which would not have been tolerated back when she was young was common by the time she retired, and not just among the customers, but also among the staff. She even has said, "Mr. ___ would have fired ___ had he said such a thing when I first started at the bank.")
So, while his firing was without question politically motivated and yet another excuse for a media circus, Mr. Imus got what was coming to him -- he lived by the sword (cutting words) and now he has died by it (though I expect him back somewhere within six months, so its more of a flesh wound than it is death; the chilling effect will be minimal or even nonexistent if he signs a new big contract).
Posted by: GL | April 19, 2007 at 11:38 AM
I don't think the Imus case as chilling as Judy and Tony suppose (though I agree with much else to which they point), or part of any larger movement to suppress conservatives
From the first article I cited, How Hillary's Hit Man Got Imus:
Imus's comment came as an opportunity for those people who have long been trying to shut down conservative talk radio. I think they used Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, rather than the reverse. They were practicing how to do it. Look for an escalation of complaints about all kinds of speech.
While I was writing the above I got a phone call from a friend who does some work for the NRA. He alerted me to this campaign:
Do they really believe the NRA was trying to send an anti-Semitic message? No, they are just feeling their oats and trying to silence as many conservative outlets, people, and organizations as they can. (Imus isn't conservative, but he was an enemy of Hillary Clinton.) Every victory, like the firing of Imus, emboldens them and endangers us.
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 19, 2007 at 11:46 AM
Listen, of course this was a move to improve Sharpton's standing as a power broker for east coast democrats. Of course, the man is a special sort of slimey evil.
The problem, and where I disagree with both Tony and Judy, is that Sharpton should be drawn and quartered *too*. Imus, as GL pointed out, would have been fired a long time ago if higher standards in the media were still enforced. I'd rather not meat a allow a wrong to exist on the principle of fairness. *That* sounds PC to me.
Posted by: Nick | April 19, 2007 at 12:27 PM
I don't like Imus and I would be glad he's gone were it not for what this portends. For me it's less a question of "fairness" than the need to understand what this is about and where it will lead. It's about what Jesse Jackson called "detoxifying the airwaves." In the name of wholesomeness he and his like want to remove everything with which they disagree. Like GL and Nick, I would like to see higher standards in the media; however, I would like the standards set by me, or GL, or Tony Esolen, but not by Jesse Jackson, because his high standards would exclude everything I want to listen to.
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 19, 2007 at 01:09 PM
>>>“Comments by people like Rush Limbaugh, who calls Senator Barack Obama and actress Halle Berry, quote, ‘halfrican-Americans.’<<<
That's so bad! Why, it's far worse than Harry Belafonte calling Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice "house slaves". That probably explains why Bro Jesse hasn't taken the Bannana Boat man to the woodpilte along with Imus.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 19, 2007 at 02:39 PM
I would like the standards set by me, or GL . . . .
It would be best left to you; my tastes are rather plebeian. You may take the boy out of the farm, but you cannot take the farm out of the boy. ;-)
Posted by: GL | April 19, 2007 at 02:44 PM
It is pleasant, isn't it, to have a cordial in-house debate, with room for charitable disagreement and -- maybe -- encouragement for closer analysis? At least I'm finding it so.
GL and Matthias are causing me to think about a fundamental principle of fairness, something that underlies our common law tradition. That is, you can't condemn somebody for breaking a law that in effect does not exist anymore. At the beginning of Measure for Measure, the count Angelo, a Puritan, finds himself in temporary control of Vienna while the Duke is absent (though the Duke, in disguise, is watching to see what will happen). The Duke wants Angelo to enforce laws that have lain idle, and Angelo does just that, to an extreme: he determines to enforce a law against fornication that had been on the books but had remained inactive. The punishment is death. The sinner who falls in his net is a young nobleman who is affianced to the young lady he has gotten pregnant, but they were waiting for a dowry to come in before they solemnized the wedding. So on something of a technicality -- betrothal in those days was all-but-marriage -- he is condemned to death for violating a law that he and everyone else had been violating with impunity for many years. It's what tyrants were known for: using incomprehensible or unsuspected "laws" to bring down an enemy. If the IRS wanted to use the same false rigor, we'd all of us be in prison, I bet.
Posted by: Tony Esolen | April 19, 2007 at 02:53 PM
>>>If the IRS wanted to use the same false rigor, we'd all of us be in prison, I bet.<<<
Don't give James any ideas.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 19, 2007 at 02:59 PM
GL and Matthias are causing me to think about a fundamental principle of fairness, something that underlies our common law tradition. That is, you can't condemn somebody for breaking a law that in effect does not exist anymore.
Good point, Tony, but then, one has to start somewhere, even if it is not the place which you and I would pick. In this case, however, Imus did break a law that was in effect -- the PC law. Our problem is not that what he did last month was worthy of his being fired; our problem is that what he has done for the last three decades or so did not lead to his being fired long ago.
It is kind of like hate-crime laws. I have no problem with harsh sentences for those who kill or injure because of some prejudice. I would like to see the principle extended to all who kill or injure intentionally. The solution, then, is not to lessen the sentence for "hate-crimes" but it is to strenghten the sentence for similar crimes which we do not now classify as "hate-crimes" but should. Likewise, the solution to the Imus problem is not to let him off the hook because what finally got him was "hate-speech" but to expand the definition of "hate-speech" to include much of the rude and crude remarks he has directed at others which does not disturb the "PC thought police."
Posted by: GL | April 19, 2007 at 03:02 PM
Tony, I think it's a similar thing when the government makes laws or regulations so complicated that an ordinary person cannot obey them. Thus innocent business owners have been assessed huge fines for inadvertent violations of OSHA; landowners have gone to jail for violating the Clean Water Act by putting dirt on a hitherto unsuspected wetland (i.e. a puddle), corporations must hire armies of lawyers to comply with the labyrinthine Sarbanes-Oxley law that is supposed to prevent Enron-like corruption. Unfortunately, the tyrants' enemy seems to be all ordinary people.
Some of this and similar things are dealt with on overcriminalized.com.
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 19, 2007 at 03:11 PM
>>>That is, you can't condemn somebody for breaking a law that in effect does not exist anymore.<<<
It's called the principle of "desuetude", and it can and has been used as a legal defense. A law which is rarely and capriciously applied is effectively invalidated.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 19, 2007 at 03:12 PM
>>>Unfortunately, the tyrants' enemy seems to be all ordinary people.<<<
One thing you left out: the criminalization of politics, in which people are prosecuted for legitimate policy disagreements. We saw this most recently with the Scooter Libby case, but the phenomenon goes back to the Iran-Contra matter. Just as certain people, unable to push their legislative agenda through Congress have tried to circumvent the people through the courts, so the same people, unable to win policy debates in the legislature or in public opinion, have taken to prosecuting their opponents for perceived violations of law.
This should be extremely worrisome to all. The breakdown of the Roman Republic began when members of one faction sought to criminalize the political actions of another. Thus, a magistrate, upon resigning his imperium, would find himself in court, all of his actions as Consul, Praetor, Proconsul or Propraetor subjected to extensive second guessing and ex post facto criminalization. This led to Cicero saying that a man had to raise three fortunes while serving as governor; one to pay off the debts he incurred getting elected to office, one to defend himself against prosecution when he returned to Rome, and a third on which to live in retirement. But more seriously, it meant that magistrates became more and more reluctant to lay down their imperium, and governorship and military commands were repeatedly prorogued precisely to preserve their immunity from prosecution.
Ultimately, this was the reason Caesar marched on Rome: not being allowed to stand for Consul in absentia, and in danger of being stripped of his imperium by Senatus consultum, he had only two choices--to meekly go into exile, or to march on Rome to defend his dignitas. Being Caesar, he chose the latter. Sooner or later, we're going to find ourselves dealing with someone like Caesar, because when legislating and governing become mere games for the ruling class, divorced from the necessary responsibilities that go with it, the actual job of governing falls to someone determined and ruthless enough to see it through. Such men don't suffer fools gladly, and Congress these days is a house of fools.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 19, 2007 at 03:22 PM
Wow, Mr. Koehl, that's a deeply disturbing analysis, all the more so because it seems correct.
Posted by: DGP | April 19, 2007 at 03:33 PM
Yes, that's very true, Stuart. I think we may be seeing the consequences already in the lower quality of people in elected office. You have to really love power, or be naively devoted to good government, to put yourself at risk of losing everything you have including your reputation if you make the wrong enemies while in office.
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 19, 2007 at 04:20 PM
>>>Wow, Mr. Koehl, that's a deeply disturbing analysis, all the more so because it seems correct.<<<
If I should suddenly disappear, you'll know why.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 19, 2007 at 04:41 PM
Dear Stuart,
>>>If the IRS wanted to use the same false rigor, we'd all of us be in prison, I bet.<<<
"Don't give James any ideas."
and,
"If I should suddenly disappear, you'll know why."
No false rigor for you, Stuart -- just the true rigor of Hell, where all the lawyers observe due process in exquisite detail. But for that, I'll call in GL and Bill instead of the IRS. Now prepare to disappear!
>>>Stuart, the women on the basketball team did not, as far as I can see, "buy into the notion that they have been irreparably damaged by Imus calling them 'nappy haired hos'."<<<
"That makes it difficult to explain the statement by one of them, who said that they were irreparably damaged."
Well, I admit I missed that statement in the media, and didn't know from your post that you were quoting something. But: a) was the person who said it only venting per personal emotional reaction of the moment, or was she acting as appointed spokesman for the entire team in saying it, andd b) was the remark made before the meeting between Imus and the team was aranged?
>>>Had that been the case, they would not have extended to Imus the forgiveness that his other public critics have denied him.<<<
"That's something of a non-sequitur. Are you saying that people who are irreparably damaged cannot forgive?"
No to both sentences. It's not a non-sequitur in that forgiveness is not being truly extended to the extent that the focus remains on the damage to self rather than on redemption of the offender. I trust that in meeting with Imus, the team members sought the latter and not the former.
The rest of your post doesn't really address the point I made. As Tony Esolen wrote:
"GL and Matthias are causing me to think about a fundamental principle of fairness, something that underlies our common law tradition. That is, you can't condemn somebody for breaking a law that in effect does not exist anymore."
I was simply suggesting that a certain moral law (not "law" in the legal sense, but in the sense of an ethical standard whose violation brings consequences) of decency in speech ought to exist here; that there should be tangible (though not necessarily legal) consequences for violating it; and that application of those consequences should be equitable and unbiased.
I believe it was the late Fr. Louis Tarsitano who had an article some year back (was it in Touchstone?) regarding the forced admission of a female cadet into the Citadel. In it he made the point that, with the objective existence of conscience as a constitutive faculty of human nature now effectively denied, people are no longer able to distinguish between a legal and a moral "right" to do something, and thoughtlessly equate the two. Which is why the libertines push their legal agenda so hard -- if e.g. sexual aberration is decriminalized, then ipso facto it also becomes morally right as well. And the "shock jocks" such as Imus, the rappers, etc., etc., are simply verbal libertines, who equate the legal right to free speech with a moral right to be gratuitously offensive and insulting and to violate with impunity every moral standard of common decency.
Now, how about a parallel with Earl Butz? :-)
Speaking of double standards -- in recalling Butz, I'm reminded that scarecely a year after his dismissal for his tasteless jokes, a high-ranking official of Carter's administration called Ralph Nader "a dirty little Arab." Immediately a hue and cry was raised for his resignation. The official (whose name I've forgotten -- I think he was a step or two in rank below a Cabinet secretary) refused either to resign or apologize, reiterating "he is a dirty little Arab." Whereas the Republican president Ford sacked Butz, the supposedly more liberal Democratic president Carter took no disciplinary action against his offical whatsoever, and the fuss blew over within 72 hours. That certainly wouldn't happen today.
Posted by: James A. Altena | April 19, 2007 at 06:32 PM
>>>I'm reminded that scarecely a year after his dismissal for his tasteless jokes, a high-ranking official of Carter's administration called Ralph Nader "a dirty little Arab." <<<
How totally unflattering to dirty little Arabs.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 19, 2007 at 07:08 PM
Tony Esolen writes, "And it is abominable that somebody's livelihood could be destroyed because of an off-the-cuff remark, coarse banter not meant for anything at all -- especially when that same coarse banter, and worse, is the stock in trade of the people who hounded him out. Does anyone believe for one moment that no one on that basketball team has ever engaged in the same banter, and even used the same words?"
I think Imus is being given way more attention than he deserves -- both here and elsewhere. That said, I don't think his livelihood will be "destroyed." He's already made millions by making outrageous comments and thereby attracting attention to himself. He'll probably make millions more by writing a book about his "victimhood," and then he'll end up being given another radio show, perhaps with a more carefully targeted audience, and probably a syndicated column to boot. Controversial shock jocks of all political stripes go through this cycle quite frequently and the more publicity they get out of each uproar, the richer they become.
It seems unfair to suggest that the women on the basketball team would be similarly coarse. There's no evidence to suggest that and they seem to have been quite gracious and forgiving about the whole situation.
By the way, I'm not at all hostile to poor old Imus, although I'd prefer not to listen to him. He seems a dyspeptic, sour, crotchety person who is an equal-opportunity hater, but maybe that's just part of his (very lucrative) shtick. I feel sorry for him and hope his life gets a little more cheery. I'm not sure why he's being called on this particular comment since he's been spouting the same kind of thing for about 30 years, but I'm not about to deny anyone their right to express their distaste or to boycott his show or those companies that advertise on it.
Posted by: Francesca | April 19, 2007 at 10:18 PM
"Well, I admit I missed that statement in the media, and didn't know from your post that you were quoting something. But: a) was the person who said it only venting per personal emotional reaction of the moment, or was she acting as appointed spokesman for the entire team in saying it, andd b) was the remark made before the meeting between Imus and the team was aranged?"
And c) was the remark actually made? And if so, by whom? Perhaps this was merely someone else's characterization of what a team member said.
Posted by: Francesca | April 19, 2007 at 10:23 PM
Missing from this whole discussion is the real power behind the kerfuffle - the rich powerful corporations whose advertising had been paying Mr. Imus.
Corporations like Proctor & Gamble and Staples Inc. were (indirectly) paying Imus a lot of money to be obnoxious and offensive, so that they could sell their products to the people who like to listen to obnoxious offensive people. They found this arrangement perfectly satisfactory as long as not too many people who didn't like Imus paid much attention to him.
Then one day a few people got upset and made a fuss, and the advertisers dumped Imus. They found the harm of being associated with him had come to outweigh the benefits.
Imus's rise and Imus's fall were all about corporate profits. He got his job because he was useful to those corporations; he lost it because he ceased to be useful.
This is the way freedom of speech is supposed to work: if you don't like something you speak against it. If you don't like Proctor & Gamble subsidizing racist rants and "jokes", you speak against P&G and boycott their products. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it works in part because you get some help from unsavory characters like Sharpton with their own agendas. That's life in the rough and tumble world of a free society.
You are free to speak up in ways that please your corporate masters. Others are free to call attention to your speech in ways that embarrass your corporate masters. You may get rich, you may go broke.
That's democracy, that's capitalism, that's freedom of speech. And I. Like. It. That. Way.
Posted by: Matthias | April 19, 2007 at 11:38 PM
You like capitalism and yet you speak of corporate masters. So what does that mean, you like slavery?
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 20, 2007 at 03:05 AM
Controversial shock jocks of all political stripes go through this cycle quite frequently and the more publicity they get out of each uproar, the richer they become.
Exactly. I suspect with the passage of a few months, we will all see that the Imus' incident will prove the adage that all publicity is good publicity. In our age, folks like Imus are like John D. Rockefeller, Sr., of whom his sister once remarked that whenever it rained soup, his bowl was always right side up. Imus isn't going to go hungry. He would have to suffer actual harm for this to have a chilling effect. I suspect for Imus and his ilk that summer is just around the corner.
This is the way freedom of speech is supposed to work: if you don't like something you speak against it. If you don't like Proctor & Gamble subsidizing racist rants and "jokes", you speak against P&G and boycott their products. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it works in part because you get some help from unsavory characters like Sharpton with their own agendas. That's life in the rough and tumble world of a free society.
Again, spot on. Freedom of speech means freedom from government restraint. That means you have to duke it out in the marketplace of ideas. And if your ideas (as you express them) offend enough people, you will find that you have fewer customers. You may even have to put the "going out of business" sign up. Like furniture stores around here which hold annual "going out of business" sales only to reopen under a new name a few weeks later, expect Imus's days out of the marketplace of ideas to be short.
Posted by: GL | April 20, 2007 at 06:16 AM
Judy, I think Matthias is speaking of people who live off corporate masters (specifically the broadcaster under discussion) rather than suggesting we all live under corporate masters.
That said, I think Matthias raises an interesting point in mentioning the role of corporations and their profits in the process. A corporation is, as we know, a person under American law. In fact corporations are about the only persons rich enough to pay the fees required to have full access to the courts. At the same time a corporation is, literally, a soulless person, having no eternal soul to fear losing or to seek the salvation of. A corporation cannot fear the loss of reputation in the same way a man, created in God's image, can. Indeed the only morality a corporation recognizes -- a morality it legally must recognize -- is the obligation to make a profit for its shareholders. It feels loss of reputation only in terms of loss of sales. If loss of reputation perversely increases sales, then the corporation most naturally considers this a virtue.
Corporations are also persons who dominate our daily lives. In the proximate sense, they provide our food, our clothes, our transportion, our shelter, and our employment (the Lord, of course, is the ultimate provider). Their morality affects us as individuals and as a society, perhaps far more than we like to think. If this is what capitalism (and democracy and freedom of speech) means, namely that a significant part of national morality is ultimately nothing more than the pragmatic pursuit of profit, then surely we must despise it. If the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, what must become of a nation that makes the love of money the basis for morality? If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
Posted by: Reid | April 20, 2007 at 12:58 PM
Reid has read me right. Sorry for being sloppy with my rhetoric - I was trying to figuratively address Mr. Imus with the phrase "your corporate masters."
It's the corporate angle that makes the Imus affair so different from the Summers affair. Lawrence Summers represented Harvard University, an institution whose motto is "Veritas" and is theoretically supposed to be devoted to the pursuit of truth. He was wrongly punished for doing exactly what he was supposed to do - try to pursue truth. Harvard's official goal is a noble one and I think we all should be saddened to see evidence of its being undermined in the name of politicial correctness.
Commercial radio in contrast has no nobler mission than to deliver listeners to advertisers. This goal is neither good nor bad in itself. It needs checks and balances in order to avoid doing evil. That is why we have laws against things like obscenity. And beyond the law we do need the vehicle of public outrage and boycotts to put checks on abuses like hateful and bigoted speech. Both of these checks - the law and public outrage - are crude, blunt instruments that don't work perfectly. But they do need to be there.
Posted by: Matthias | April 20, 2007 at 04:02 PM
>>>an institution whose motto is "Veritas"<<<
A typo. It actually reads, "Vanitas".
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | April 20, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Now the reason I came to your site is that an important message has been sent down, just like a News Update. Please read and pass it along. I have a message to tell you about Revelation. The message is from God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost sent in the Spring of 2006. It is about the meaning of First is Last and Last is First. The message is this: In the morning I go to Heaven. In the afternoon I live my life. In the evening I die, death. What does this mean? In other words this means Birth is Last and Last is Birth. To understand this don't think from point A to point B. Think of this as a continous circle of life. Birth, Life, Death, Birth. God also said that Judgment will be before Birth in Heaven. AS birth on Earth is painful so will birth in Heaven. It is possible that this message was delivered by one of God's Angels. Yes, God has recently made contact and he sent a messenger. Spread this message along, just like a chain letter. Oh, one more thing of interest. Did you know that Mike Douglas died on his Birthday. Melanie Steffan
Posted by: Melanie Steffan | July 24, 2007 at 03:24 PM