Kivus

It’s a familiar refrain among people in the “young” media (i.e. shows who have a target audience the skews towards late teens, early 20s). It normally comes out like this “Yeah, well, I thought we have freedom of speech in this country…”. That simple phrase is used to defend all sorts of questionable comments by people from Bill Mahr to Rosie O’Donnell. What the people making the claim of freedom of speech are upset about, however, is not the right someone has to say something, it’s the fact that people might face some consequences for what they say. Though people have the right to say what they want, other people are allowed to react to what the first person says, and it’s this second part of the equation that’s usually forgotten.

The classic example of Freedom of the Press v. Freedom of Consequences occurred a few years ago when the Dixie Chicks said they were embarrassed that our President hailed from Texas. What followed was a backlash, as people stopped buying their CDs (or destroyed ones they owned), people stopped attending their concerts and radio stations stopped playing their music. The most common defense of the Dixie Chicks (normally from people on the left) was that the Dixie Chicks were simply “exercising their freedom of speech.” Well, yes, the Dixie Chicks were exercising their freedom of speech, and at no point where they kicked out of the country (like on the left’s seemingly popular figures, Hugo Chavez, might do) or executed (like another leftist favorite, Fidel Castro, might do), instead the general populous decided they did not agree with the Dixie Chicks’ point of view, found the Chicks’ comments offensive, and decided they would not support their music as a result. It wasn’t the government that came down when the Dixie Chicks insulted our president, it was the general public who responded.

A more recent example occurred on FOX’s television show _So You Think You Can Dance_. Choreographer Wade Robson had the dancers perform a dance he described as “anti-war”. Depending on your point of view, you could take this to mean either “a general opposition to war” or a specific criticism of the United States’ on going struggle with islamo-facists, specially in the Iraqi theater. A number of people, myself included, took the latter opinion and voiced enough concern towards the network, the show, and in forums discussing the show, that one of the show’s producers issued an apology for the performance. (Robson issued a “clarification of intent” on his website as well, but tried to remain semi-defiant but adding that it was “not an apology”.) As one would expect, various television review sites were dismayed that the show was apologizing for their dance number. The usual calls of freedom of speech and freedom of expression were made. Once again, these people failed to understand the difference between Wade being allowed to say what he said without having harsh retribution from the government and the general public being allowed to react to Wade’s seemingly ignorant statements.

I’ve written here previously about the Left’s attempts to stifle opinions they don’t agree with, but it’s clear that’s only half of their “strategery”. The other half is try and prevent people from standing up when the Left makes claims, no matter how outrageous these claims are.

After a strong showing last week, the 1/2 Hour News Hour did a pretty good job on their follow up effort. The overall solid show however, is overshadowed by Dennis Millers’ _The Buck Starts Here_ segment, a segment that absolutely annihilated the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. Though I will describe the video, it’s truly something that you have to see for yourself:

Miller piles on Reid, from calling him a “dim bulb”, saying his speech “oozes like a stuck chalk gun”, and even throwing in a Dorian Gray reference for good measure. Up until this point, I’ve found Miller’s segments to be rather stale, but he clearly brought his “A” game this week, in explanation of how a “hack like [Reid]” could be in a position of leadership.

The news segments this week were on par with the high quality news segments from last week. Jokes included takes on: Paris Hilton heading back to jail, Hillary Clinton turning to faith in time of crisis (and Bill not being able to remember Faith’s last name), Castro looked trim and healthy…standing next to Michael Moore, Dennis Kucinich being more popular than the “TB Airplane Guy”, and one particular joke that drew a mixed crowd reaction: “A recent study shows 71% of College Girls are sexually active…the rest…just lie there…”

Though not as good as Dennis Miller’s segment, the other “skit” segments were pretty strong. The best was a segment dealing with “The Evolving Male,” i.e. a man who was more in touch with his feminine side so he could better relate to his wife. The looks on the wife’s face as the husband explained his marriage style were priceless, and gave a good setup for when he busted out with “will you grow a pair!” The opening segment was also fairly solid, in it featured a producer / agent who were trying to convince the show’s hosts to do more “moderate” jokes. When the hosts refused, the agent leaned over, pulled off his mask and turned out to be Rush Limbaugh. Not an earth shattering segment by any means, but a solid way to start the show.

For the 2nd week in a row, the 1/2 Hour News Hour put on a solid performance with some really funny moments. Odds are, the Dennis Miller piece will get some media play and therefore there should be an audience spike next week to see what the show is all about. If the show keeps up on its current pace, I’d bet that the people tuning in next week will be watching the following week too.

“The Left’s favorite Argument is there is no argument.” Thomas Sowell started a recent column with this statement, a statement that rings true in both the Left’s current strategy and what appears to be one of the Left’s current primary goals: the stifling of the free flow of ideas through the use of tools such as government and political correctness. Sowell’s column in particular discussed the usage of this tactic in regards to man-made Global Warming, one example of a situation where the Left tries to prevent debate by tossing out things like a “consensus” of scientists agree on it or saying that we can’t afford to debate the issues because of the critical window we’re in concerning the future of the planet. Futher discussion of Algore’s “reason” will occur later, in addition to a discussion of how the Left is trying to stifle free speech on talk radio via “political correctness” and a current example of their tactics in action, i.e. discussion on the latest immigration “compromise.”Kivus › Edit — WordPress

In a recent column on Real Clear Politics, Robert Tracinski broke down what might be the “most alarming” part of Algore’s new book _The Assault on Reason_, namely its “justification for government controls over political speech.” Tracinski breaks down how Gore appears to suggest the usage of “tools” like anti-trust laws and the FCC to prevent alternative media sources like FOX News and talk radio from being able to exert influence on the political debate. Using these “tools” they can try to fulfill their idea of having the “ability of the leftist elite to impose its conventional dogmas on the national debate, without the need to persuade or convince others.” Utlimately, Tracinski sums it in the concluding sentence of the piece:”To do this while billing himself as a defender of reason is an act of supreme insolence.”

A current example of the Left trying to stifle free discussion and debate has arisen around the latest attempts at a “comprehensive immigration bill.” The latest “comprehensive” bill (deemed by Rush Limbaugh as the “Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act of 2007″) has been met with criticism from all sides of the political spectrum. The acts by the bills “defenders” however are focussed primarily on those on the Right who oppose the bill (a group that includes William F. Buckley and George Will) labeling people who have legitimate issues with the bills as “nativists”, “protectionists” and, of course, “racists”. Instead of trying to opening debate why they feel the Immigration bill is not purely an amnesty for those who have entered the country illegal, the bill’s defenders lob ad hominem insults at people who question the bill’s authenticity, hoping that accusations of racism will be enough to keep those opposed to the bill from freely voicing their opinion.

The most recent article of NewsMax contains an article entitled _After Imus and Roise, Who’s Next?_ that discusses how “media watchdog groups” have set their sights on trying to give people like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly the Imus treatment. What NewsMax points out, but most media outlets fail to mention, is that these so called “media watchdog groups” are actually the creation of former operatives of the Democrat party and that the people who fund these groups are the people who fund the most radical of the Left wing organizations. Basically, these groups listen to popular conservative media and try to use their “willing accomplices” (as Rush likes to call them) in the “Drive-By” media to try and stir up controversy about quotes taken out of context, hoping that their mere existence will cause people to be more careful with their discussion of issues. They’re simply another tool that the Left and Democrat Party use to try and prevent people from freely expressing their ideas.

The above examples are far from of a full enumeration of the way the Left is trying to stifle the free flow of ideas, but merely a small taste of the tactics they’re employing to try and make their way of thinking the only “acceptable” way of thinking. Thankfully there are forums like Talk Radio that allow some of the propaganda spouted from the Democrat Party to be countered, however, as time goes on, the Left’s efforts to quash those forums will only intensify and it will be up to people who truly value the freedom of speech to stand athwart their efforts and yell Stop!

David All pointed out an interesting article in Advertising Age today. The article did not really state anything new, but reiterated a point that’s been made before: The left has more traction in the Web 2.0 World than the Right does. There is some discussion in the article about possible reasons why the left has gained such a foothold on the web, but it does not delve in depth into any particular reason.

A discussion about the main content in the _Advertising Age_ article will come in a later post, but in this post I wanted to give some further explanation as to why the left seems to have such a presence on the web. I think what most people fail to acknowledge is that the people found on a number of the most popular “democrat” websites are the far, far left; the radical left; the “kooks” of the left. There have been whole books that have examples of the hatred and bile that is found on sites such as DailyKos or MyDD, so I won’t delve into that here, however, it’s worth noting that at least a percentage of the people who frequent these sides lack a sense of civility that would be required for participation in other media. Though they have attempted to use this particular style of venom and personal attacks in other places, such as Air America radio, those attempts have all been spectacular failures.  This leaves only the web as a way to distribute their view point.

Pointing again to the primary consumer of the democrat websites, one begins to wonder why this particular subsection of the Left makes up such a high concentration of the Left’s website traffic. Looking at how different “market” segments of the left can receive information, it’s quite a simple break down. Moderate or “centristic” democrats can turn to CNN, ABC News, CBS, etc… for their nightly news and views points. Moving further to left, you have NBC and the NY Times. A little further to the left will give you MSNBC (who is doing their best to court the kook fringe of the left) but has still not reduced itself to the type of content found on the popular democrat sites. This leaves the far, far left with a need to express their radical views and the web provides them a forum to do just that.

As previously mentioned, a deeper discussion of how the Left and the Right are utilizing the Web, and especially Web 2.0, will come later, but to end this particular post I will mention, that despite all their hatred, the most the fringe left has been able to produce are a landslide loser in CT and a race among Democrat presidential candidates to surrender America’s future to terrorists in Iraq.

“We’ve got to get the money out of politics!” If you’ve watched the news, listened to the radio, read a newspaper, etc… over the last 2-3 years, you’ve no doubt heard someone say just that: “We’ve got to get the money out of politics.” In fact, recent legislation (namely, McCain – Feingold) have been written to accomplish just that. While readying Tom DeLay’s _No Retreat, No Surrender_, however, I began to ask myself a question: Why? What are the problems with money in politics?

Now, obviously I am not saying that I support congressman being bribed for their vote (a.l.a. William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, allegedly), but I am saying I’d rather have an oil company paying to fly a congressman to A.N.W.A.R. to view potential drilling locations then have Congressman jet around the country on my tax dollars.

Speaking of my tax dollars, a tangential aspect of “getting the money out of politics” is the concept of “publicly funded election.” Though a full discussion of publicly funded elections is probably deserves its own full post, I will add now that my logic from the previous paragraph carries over. “Why should my hard earned tax dollars go to some general pot where any yahoo can use it for his political campaign? Why can’t I decide what I want to do with my money? What can’t I decide who I want my money to support?”

So who benefits most by not allowing money from the private sector into politics? Well, certainly not the tax payer, and certainly not those politicians who scrapped by in a life of public service. No, instead it’s those politicians who can afford to augment their vast personal wealth with tax payer funded perks, politicians like Speaker Pelosi or Senator Kennedy. In other words, the same people who are decrying private sector money in politics are those who have the most to gain by keeping it out.