NPR's Contradictions

NPR's moral failures go far beyond firing Juan Williams for a politically incorrect remark. It's deeper than being irked over his appearances on allegedly right-wing Fox News.

NPR's CEO, like Progressives everywhere, is caught in the contradictions of subjectivism. Faux liberals that they are, they preach tolerance for everything - because according to their ethical philosophy there are no objective principles of morality - then display intolerance for a remark they regard as "inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices.”

There's no way out of this inconsistency for a faux liberal. It's built into the basic fiber from which the Progressive cloth is cut.

Not content with CEO Schiller's getting herself into hot water by publicly remarking that Williams should've "consulted his psychiatrist" before making the statement, NPR's Ombudsman doubled down on the lunacy.

In a story headlined: "NPR's Firing of Juan Williams Was Poorly Handled" the lying fence-sitter said:

Juan Williams once again got himself into trouble with NPR for comments he made at his other job, at Fox News.

Right. His firing was "poorly handled" but he really did bring it on himself.

She tripled the foolish factor by adding:

Instead, this latest incident with Williams centers around a collision of values: NPR's values emphasizing fact-based, objective journalism versus the tendency in some parts of the news media, notably Fox News, to promote only one side of the ideological spectrum.

That's rich. NPR is objective but Fox is biased. Um, NPR proudly upholds Progressive values (a fact favorably noted by over a third of its listeners as one reason they tune in). Those values are entirely the opposite of fact-based and by definition are not objective. Progressivism's core epistemology comes from Pragmatism, whose central premise is there's no such thing as objective anything.

Apart from all that blatant hypocrisy, the firing of Juan Williams shows that contemporary liberals never mean anything they say about black people.

Here, a black liberal gets fired for making a mild comment about Muslims. (One that even moderate Muslims in this country would agree with if they weren't too scared to speak up, and one he even qualified to nullity later in the same program.) But since blacks no longer have it institutionally bad in this country, they've outlived their usefulness to white race hustlers like Vivian Schiller. So, Muslims are now the au courant 'oppressed' group that faux-liberals can drool all over with their faux sympathy.

If it should come to pass someday that this idiotic series of wars finally comes to an end - contrary to Gen. Petraeus' belief — then Muslims will settle into being just another group whose more vocal self-appointed spokespeople yammer about their victimhood. Then there will no doubt be some new convenient 'oppressed' group that so-called liberals can use to undermine individual freedom.

Of course, the real outrage here is not chiefly the depressingly familiar hypocrisy of yet another Progressive, but that NPR - a (partly) taxpayer funded news and editorial radio program - exists in the first place. Let them compete in the open market and they can be as intolerant - and embrace as many contradictions - as they like.

Commissar Sebelius Rankles at Free Speech

Here's an interesting little P.S. to my recent rant about Commissar Kathleen. Here, batting way out of her league (not a far stretch, I admit), she expresses her fear of unfettered and anonymous political advertising against things she favors.

The Secretary argued that for voters to determine which campaign advertisers are on their side “is difficult if not impossible right now and I think that is pretty dangerous.”

Well, that should surprise no one, I guess. Not satisfied with ignoring the 4th and 5th Amendments, she naturally now feels compelled to openly attack the 1st. As the old saying goes, "Those who believe absurdities will soon enough commit atrocities." (A variation on an aphorism of Voltaire's.)

Ah, the so-called liberal mind. Always worried about the big bad forces of evil pulling the wool over the eyes of an unsuspecting public. Why, it might even lead to something like the astroturf Tea Party movement! If only we were as smart as the Obamamites. Thank heavens we don't need to be with good Samaritans like Commissar Kathleen watching out for us.

It would be funny if it weren't for the fact that this woman is in the process of becoming Public Enemy #2 as the features of ObamaCare begin to take effect.

I Don't Like Pamela Geller

PayPal has decided that Pamela Geller is engaging in 'hate speech'.

I don't like her. She's a loudmouth, pushy broad. I'm convinced that the larger share of her popularity is the result of her French Revolution-style appeal to the mindless, angry mob. They're always ready to chop off a few heads solely for emotional satisfaction and rarely bother to understand the issues at more than a gut level. A part of her appeal, I suspect also, is due to her physical appearance. I'm not altogether sure how she can legally employ the blog name Atlas Shrugs, either.

But you know what? None of that matters a whit. She has the right to say any goddamn thing she pleases on her blog. I don't have to read it, nor does anyone else if they don't like what she says. And she sure as hell does a valuable service in repeatedly exposing the horrors of the Islamists and their supporters. I've never read anything of hers that struck me as dishonest in the least.

PayPal has the right not to do business with her, of course. But if they don't they're sheer hypocrites at best and manipulative Progressives at worst. I'm inclined to believe the latter. After all, there are dozens of websites that preach 'tolerance' for jihad and if that isn't hate speech nothing is.

Worse still, to have a corporate policy that refuses to do business with those who engage in so-called hate speech is utterly silly because the very concept of hate speech is silly. It's just another way to suppress through moral intimidation ideas one dislikes. If – as PayPal has demonstrated over the years – it's open to all comers, they should ignore content. Otherwise, it means they're wading into the debate over free speech and choosing sides. If they want to do that, fine. But how about a little consistency?

Unfortunately, from a modern politically correct corporation — i.e. one utterly swamped by cowardice — that's about the last thing one can expect. It's bad enough that publishers knuckle under to Islamist threats when Ayaan Hirsi Ali is out there every day, bravely speaking the ugly truth about Islam. But to preemptively weasel out with regard to one of the blogosphere's staunchest defenders of Western Civilization... That's the lowest form of gutless.

You know, maybe I don't dislike Pamela Geller as much as I thought.

UPDATE: [6/15/2010] PayPal caves! Bravo, Ms. Geller. A victory for free speech, the power of viral Internet protests, justice, and common sense. Now, if we could only get a similar campaign started to get the voters to reconsider their decision to pull the lever for Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Henry Waxman,... Hey, that may already be in progress!

Elena Kagan, Free Speech Foe

I've been deferring writing about Elena Kagan, the new nominee to the Supreme Court, until I had time to do some reading. I've done enough.

Given that her legal resume is so thin – zero experience as a judge, barely any as a litigator, but decades as an academic, administrator, and political functionary (during which she's been very cagey about stating her views) — I didn't expect to find any clear Sotomayer moment. Surprisingly, that moment has arrived.

From a brief filed on behalf of the government in, of all things, a case involving depiction of animal cruelty, Kagan wrote:

“Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs.”

Here is the full text of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There is nothing ambiguous about that language. It doesn't provide any wiggle room for dividing speech into two classes, one of which is off-limits from government censorship because of social utility, the other vulnerable to quashing for lacking value in the eyes of Federal censors.

The Solicitor General's stance in that case didn't even turn on such not-really-very-complex issues as whether a corporation's speech is suppressible in a way that individuals' is not, as in Citizens United*. (A clever Progressive red herring, since corporations are owned ultimately by individuals, but never mind that now.) No, it was just plain advocacy of censorship of speech lacking the golden passkey to the public's ear: social value.

[Note: That the videos the brief describes are revolting, that the animal cruelty depicted might well be justifiably suppressed on other grounds, is irrelevant here. (PDF warning)]

Sadly, it's almost a given that Elena Kagan will be given a pass by the Senate. If Sotomayer could be approved then, paraphrasing a line from The Lion In Winter, "there's hope for every ape in Africa." But it will be yet another travesty inflicted by the current Administration, and among the worst. As I said during the campaign, policies can be undone, legislation diluted. There's no undoing a Supreme Court pick and little likelihood of undoing its effects for two generations or more.

Of course, the Republicans really couldn't stop it if they wanted to, and most show no signs of caring very much. (There are notable exceptions, such as Sen. Inhofe.) But whether anything can be done to stop it, I'm with Jeffrey Lord who argues she should be grilled anyway. At least it would have value in bringing the issue of the proper role of government into the center ring.

Unfortunately, that's about the best we can hope for this time around.

And, oh by the way, before I forget. About that money quote that should shock the conscience of any right thinking person... That's pretty much been the standard Supreme Court view for a century. It's something of a wonder that Kagan lost the argument.

*[Update: (5/15/2010) Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority in the Citizens United case, said:

"When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves." (Hat Tip Terry Eastland, Weekly Standard.)

This is what Kagan, and Obama in his revolting STFU Address, disagree with.]

Levant Free Speech Case In Canada, When Winning is Losing

The Canadian Commissariat to Filter Free Speech recently... er, reboot. The Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission recently settled the case against Ezra Levant in his favor. Sort of. As Levant himself says better than I could:

This censor approved what I wrote. His decision is not that I have freedom of speech. His decision is that I have his approval. I'm not interested in his approval. The only test of free speech is if I can write what he disapproves of with impunity. That's what freedom of speech is, to piss off some second-rate bureaucrat like Pardeep Gundara and know that you have the right to do so, because you're in Canada, not Saudi Arabia. [emphasis added]

And, to think, it took them a year and dozens of bureaucrats to decide this.

Sadly, Levant's view is not widespread in Canada, as is evidenced by the fact that this tribunal exists at all. Canada's government is apparently in favor of free speech, provided only that no noisy, hypersensitive constituency is offended. (In this case, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities).

Gee, political Muslims, offended by unflattering cartoons. Who would have thought? The jihad against free speech, and every other form of individual liberty, continues.

Free Speech, By The Numbers

Rasmussen recently released some polling statistics on the issue of free speech. The numbers are troubling. No, make that horrific.

Twenty-eight percent (28%) think it is a good idea to ban hate speech, which is loosely defined as comments intended to put down or incite violence against people on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and other legally protected categories. Nearly one in five voters (19%) are undecided on whether such a ban is necessary.

First, let's let a shiver go down the spine. These are Americans we're talking about, not Canadians.

Now, let's recover and think for a moment.

The article starts by saying that fully 88% of Americans "strongly guard their right to free speech." That's a little vague to say the least, but at least it suggests that those polled believe they have one, even if very few are likely to have ever read the Constitution. It's in the air, so to speak.

So what have the 28% been breathing? A "good idea to ban hate speech..."

Er, to be defined by whom? The Supreme Court? The Congress? Some politically correct chancellor of the University of Madison, Wisconsin, like Donna Shalala ?

[Note: the numbers add up when you read that "(53%) say the United States should refrain from banning so-called 'hate speech.'"]

I can only hope for the sake of their souls that these people have never actually heard of the First Amendment. No, I take it back. It would make no difference to that sort of person. Their desired form of social behavior would trump a mere triviality like a Constitutionally-enshrined right to the most basic freedom possible. That answers the question "good, how?"

"It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken,” Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, “when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.”

Certainly. An air of mutual respect. And that will be achieved by coercive government muzzling of opinion, how exactly? Yes, certainly, stopping some harsh words from being spoken out loud, for heaven's sake, is much more important than the free speech clause of the First Amendment, and every advance in American culture it has made possible.

Fortunately, the courts in America do largely recognize that right. Among other cases,

[A] state court judge in New York dismissed a libel case brought by several Puerto Rican groups against a business executive who had called food stamps “basically a Puerto Rican program.” The First Amendment, Justice Eve M. Preminger wrote, does not allow even false statements about racial or ethnic groups to be suppressed or punished just because they may increase “the general level of prejudice.”

Still, you have to wonder what those 19% who can't make up their mind on the subject are divided about. Perhaps, they should move to Canada, where they can be given a little moral assistance.

"Equally revealing was a comment from Dean Steacy, an investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission. When asked what value he gives to free speech in his investigations, Steacy breezily dismissed the question. 'Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value,' he said."(Jacob Laskin discussing the MacLean's/Steyn trial.)

Scary. I live in Northern Idaho. What a difference sixty miles makes. Then again, maybe not.

Canada's Mortifying Trial

Americans generally pay little attention to what goes on in Canada. That's unfortunate, since in so many ways it is more like the U.S. than any other country. And, like any two very similar things, studying the differences can be instructive.

Canada is a land of immigrants, mostly of British ancestry with, of course, a good deal of French and some German, and many others. As a result, along with other factors, the country's citizens share many of America's values and ideals.

Not least of those, until recently, was placing a high value on the right of freedom of speech. Tragically, serious attacks on that fundamental right are occurring right now, and with little attention paid, at least in major U.S. newspapers. The most recent, and probably the most dangerous, case in point is the trial of columnist Mark Steyn on charges of "hate speech."

["As previously reported in Pajamas Media, Steyn was accused of “flagrant Islamaphobia” after his bestselling book America Alone was excerpted in Canada’s oldest newsweekly magazine, Maclean’s, in 2006." Steyn on trial]

The very concept of "hate speech" is hateful to anyone who values freedom. Negating the right to say something that some other person might find 'hateful' is to undercut the right at its root. There's never a need to protect speech that everyone finds pleasant.

I couldn't count the times when I've read something hateful printed in the New York Times, or any of a dozen other major publications. To advocate, for example, that every citizen be partly enslaved by limiting their productive output — in order to combat the alleged problem of global warming — is hateful to my ears.

To others, such as certain Muslims in Canada — egged on and backed by one of the jihadists most successful public relations firms, CAIR (among others) — what Mark Steyn said in his book is considered hateful. If it is, so be it. That is irrelevant. He has the right, no matter what the politically correct Chinese-style tribunals in Canada might say.

Among other 'offenses', Mr. Steyn is accused of daring to use:

"subtle, seemingly intellectual arguments” rather than “overtly racist” speech. But his accusers still regard it as “venom clothed in the language of reason.”

One could argue — successfully, I've no doubt — that Steyn's comments, while laced with "sarcasm" are eminently reasonable. But, that's beside the point. He has the right to be as unreasonable in his speech as he damn well pleases. Anyone who is offended doesn't have to read or listen. There are ample avenues for those who disagree to make their views known. Today, too many.

One argument in favor of restricting speech that underlies such nonsensical laws is the belief that humans are inevitably determined, or at least strongly influenced by what they read or hear. Apart from the obvious facts that humans possess free will and that there are wide disagreements throughout society, if that were true I would have an adoring audience of millions by now. Sadly, I have to honestly report, I do not.

On this subject, we'll give the penultimate word today to Thomas Jefferson who said, when defending a bookseller in 1814 who obtained a requested volume and suffered legal action in consequence,

"I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate."

(Page 102, The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia)

Canada should be mortified, too.