South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have consistently produced some of the best social satire in the 14 years that the show has been on the air. In celebration of their 200th episode, they did a mash-up of many of the story lines they’ve dealt with over the years, including the use of Muhammed.
After the first half of the show aired, a Muslim website threatened the pair with violence for referencing Muhammed. In response, Comedy Central censored the second half of the show.
It’s rare that I find anything said by Andrew Sullivan to be quotable or worth discussing, but he summed it up well:
…It actually helped illuminate the unique intolerance of Sunni Islam among world religions today. SP has long had Jesus and Satan, they have ridiculed Mormonism, eviscerated Scientology, mocked Catholicism and showed the Buddha actually doing lines of coke. None of the adherents of these other faiths have threatened to kill Matt and Trey, but, of course, some Sunni Islamists did so.
So what does Comedy Central do? They wussed out even further. They bleeped even mentions of the name of Muhammed spoken by characters.
Matt and Trey responded to the censoring with this statement:
In the 14 years we’ve been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle’s customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We’ll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we’ll see what happens to it.
The sadly ironic part has been bolded. Comedy Central ought to be ashamed for caving to such threats, thereby encouraging continued radical Islamist violence.
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We give too much power to those who take offense. When people claim something is “upsetting,” they are attempting to use their own emotional state to define the intrinsic quality of something else. This is dishonest. Something may or may not be likely to give offense, but whether it does is dependent on a particular individual and their state of mind, and not the thing itself. Sadly, more and more these days what people are finding “upsetting” is merely a different point of view.
That’s exactly what happened at Duke, where a pro-life event was abruptly canceled after a number of students said it was “upsetting and not OK.”
As part of a “W
eek for Life” series of events held at Duke over March 15-19, DSFL had reserved a Women’s Center space for a “Discussion with a Duke Mother” on March 18. A Duke student and mother was to speak about motherhood and the challenges of being in both roles. But the day before the event, the reservation was abruptly canceled in a voicemail to the group.
Meeting with the group on March 18, Duke Women’s Center Gender Violence Prevention Specialist Martin Liccardo said that because the event was associated with the Week for Life and DSFL, the event could not be held at the Women’s Center.
Liccardo told the group that the prospect of holding a pro-life event in the Women’s Center during Week for Life was too upsetting for some students: “We had a very strong reaction from students in general who use our space who said this was something that was upsetting and not OK. So based on that, we said, OK, we are going to respond to this and stop the program.”
This is a similar form of suppression as the heckler’s veto, but instead of verbally disrupting an event, the outside party feigns emotional trauma from merely being exposed to the speaker or event. The result is the same: a growing inability of society to engage in dialog at any level.
At issue is not whether anyone has a right to be offended, but the expectation that anyone else should care or react to protect your sensibilities. Unfortunately, such reactions from school administrations and event organizers are all too common. Their cowardice in the face of the umbrage-industry only encourages them to continue on through life taking offense at anything which doesn’t confirm to their narrow ideology.
UPDATE: Duke University has reversed course and will allow the event to go forward.
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This story seems like one of those “teachable moments” I keep hearing so much about:
The University of Oregon student body has been learning some useful lessons in liberty as the campus debates what to do about an extremely controversial group’s presence on campus. Last week, the student government narrowly voted to defend free expression when it voted down a resolution designed to push the group off campus for good.
The organization is the Pacifica Forum, a discussion group hosted on campus by an emeritus professor, as permitted by university rules. The group is so controversial, it appears, because every so often it discusses topics that a lot of people on campus find extremely offensive—such as the swastika or Nazism—well, not just because of the topics, but because some of the participants appear to the critics to be voicing far too much sympathy for ideas of white supremacy. You can find this criticism of the Pacifica Forum in full force on the Facebook.com group “UofO students and community members against the Pacifica Forum,” and you can find defenses of the group’s right to free expression in reasonably good order on the website of student publication the Oregon Commentator.
…The group met at the university’s Erb Memorial Student Union until a few weeks ago, when it met in a larger space than usual because of the expectation of hundreds of protesters for the discussion of the swastika on January 15. The protesters came and disrupted the event.
The disruption appears to have been organized by student government president Emma Kallaway, and Vice President Getachew Kassa who, according to the Oregon Commentator’s January 25 issue, helped to coordinate a rally prior to the disruption:
“We wanted to create fear and anger in the forum, and we accomplished that today,” said Kassa.
According to campus newspaper the Oregon Daily Emerald, the disruption was severe enough that law enforcement officers had to remove several protesters from the room.
And that is how not to deal with “bad” speech.
Some people have bad ideas. Some people subscribe to hate, and they seek out like minded people to discuss these views with. That’s just a part of life.
At issue is how you deal with such people. If all they’re doing is exercising their rights to speech and association, then theatrics are the wrong way to go. Protesting, disruption, temper tantrums – all just serve to bring attention on the target group.
The best way to deal with bad speech is with more speech. If people are listening to their ideas, then use your own speech to say why they are wrong. Don’t toss aside your own principles to have them silenced.
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Air America, the great liberal hope launched in response to Rush Limbaugh, is now off the air.
While conservatives can be forgiven for engaging in a bit of schadenfreude, we should be weary of what comes next. I fully expect this to mean renewed calls for the reinstatement of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” so that liberals can force on America that which we are clearly not interested in.
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The long awaited Citizens United decision has been handed down, and it appears to be a resounding victory for free speech!
From Volokh Conspiracy:
The Court held 5–4 that restrictions on independent corporate expenditures in political campaigns are unconstitutional, overruling Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and parts of McConnell v. FEC, and it upheld the disclosure requirements 8–1 (Thomas dissenting). Justice Kennedy explained that the Court was overruling some of its prior decisions because it was not possible to rule in favor of the petitioners on narrower grounds without chilling protected political speech. According to Justice Kennedy, the Court is re-embracing the principle that a speaker’s corporate identity is not a sufficient basis for suppressing political speech, as held in pre–Austin cases. It would appear this holding applies equally to unions.
The media is predictably spinning it as “rolling back” and overturning “key campaign limits,” rather than as upholding First Amendment rights.
It will be some time before the jumble of partial concurrences and dissents is fully dissected.
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The biggest bullies in America, collective referred to as Congress, are tackling the issue of cyber bullying. Their solution? An all out assault on the first amendment via the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act:
‘(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
‘(b) As used in this section–
‘(1) the term ‘communication’ means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; and
‘(2) the term ‘electronic means’ means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.’.
Nothing could possibly go wrong with such a broad piece of legislation. Some of the things I seek to do with this blog could accurately be described as: intimidating politicians into actually obeying their oath to defend the Constitution, harassing corrupt officials into complying with the law, and causing substantial emotional distress to those politicos who think that mortaging our children’s future is a viable means to achieve reelection.
In other words, you can pry the keyboard from my cold, dead fingers.
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Some people wonder what the big deal is about letting government run a little insurance agency, or help people out by spreading some of other people’s money around. Out of compassion, of course. Well, here’s your answer:
Political intimidation has always been part of the current Congress’s health-care strategy: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu” is tattooed on every lobbyist and industry rep in Washington. But Max Baucus’s latest bullying tactics are hard to believe by even these standards, as the Senate Finance Chairman has sicced federal regulators on the insurer Humana Inc. for daring to criticize one part of his health bill.
Earlier this month, Humana sent a one-page letter to its customers enrolled in its Medicare Advantage plans, which offer private options to Medicare beneficiaries. Humana noted that, because of spending cuts proposed by Democrats, “millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable.” The Kentucky-based company also urged its customers to contact their Representatives. Pretty tame stuff, as these things go.
Mr. Baucus took it as a declaration of war. He complained to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal health-care agency, which on Friday duly ordered Humana to cease and desist. CMS claimed the mailer was “misleading and confusing” and told the company it has opened an official probe as to whether the mailer violated laws about how the insurers that manage Advantage plans are allowed to communicate with their customers, as well as other federal statutes.
And here’s the actual letter.
Once government involves itself in any way, it will justify all manner unconstitutional restrictions on liberty in the name of protecting the political class in charge. Private companies beware: you work with these thugs at your peril.
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That’s the hope following Wednesday’s rehearing of Citizen’s United. SCOTUSblog paints an optimistic picture for freedom lovers:
Three Justices — Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — have explicitly urged the Court to overturn the two precedents that sustained congressional limits on campaign financing by corporations and labor unions. Kennedy and Thomas only seemed to reinforce that position on Wednesday; Thomas remained silent, but had given no indication earlier of a change of mind.
That lineup has always put the focus, as the Court volunteered to take on new constitutional questions in the Citizens United case, on the Chief Justice and Justice Alito. While both have been skeptical in the past about campaign finance laws, supporters of such laws had fashioned an array of arguments they hoped would lead Roberts and Alito to shy away from casting their votes to create a majority to free corporations to spend their own treasury money to influence federal elections. None of those arguments seemed to appeal to either Roberts or Alito.
This is a good opportunity to clear up some misconceptions about free speech. NPR asks:
The question always is: Who does the First Amendment apply to? Do only individuals have the right of free speech? Or does this right extend to corporations and unions as well?
These are the wrong questions. The First Amendment says:
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.
NPR (along with the rest of the advocates for government regulation of speech) thinks the First Amendment creates a right to free speech, and that reasoned people can debate its scope, or divine through enlightened discourse just who that creation applies to. The text does not justify this approach.
The amendment references “the freedom of speech” as a right already in existence – as is the case for all true rights – in the course of restricting government. The Constitution did not create the right, and has no more say as to whom it applies than it does the application of the right to life, or any other right. These are natural rights that predate the document created to protect them.
Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.
The restrictions placed on government in the First Amendment leave little room for debate. What part of “no law” is unclear?
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The French have not been laissez faire when it comes to Muslim influence, as the French parliament has voted for a commission of inquiry regarding Muslim women’s wear. This could potentially lead to a ban on burqas and niqabs, and other scary-sounding foreigner-wear.
What do proponents of a ban believe? They think the veil is oppressive, that it implies many things about women. They could very well be right, and there are definitely other reasons that people in support of Nicolas Sarkozy’s attitude (“the burqa will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic”) have for disliking burqas.
But the burqa could be the most dangerous, offensive, and harmful piece of clothing, and a ban still couldn’t justified, and it couldn’t succeed. A government-mandated ban on the burqa is a ban on expression, and thus an unnecessary and unwelcome intrusion on one’s private life. Read more
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The “Franking Commission,” officially known as the Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards, exists to administer the use of the franking privilege by members of congress. The franking privilege allows members to inform their constituents of legislative matters through mail, with the taxpayer picking up the cost of such “official business.”
Just like they want to censor talk radio, Democrats are seeking to use the Franking Commission to build an Orwellian filter between congressional Republicans and their constituents. First, they have argued that Republicans shouldn’t be able to mail a chart detailing the convoluted structure of proposed government-run health care on the basis that it is misleading.
Set aside for the moment the question of whether or not it actually is misleading (because one first has to read a 1,000+ page bill to know whether it is or not) and ask whether it makes sense for one partisan group to determine whether or not another partisan group is being “misleading.” Clearly that’s not the kind of determination partisans should be officially making about other partisans, as it can too easily be abused for political purposes. Democrats are not engaged in honest fact-checking, but politically motivated censorship.
Second, Democrats want to be able to choose the language Republicans use to describe the Democrats’ legislation. Moreover, this censorship applies to telephone town-halls and not just congressional mailings. (Hat-tip: QandO)
“It came to me from the Franking Commission and I have the email from the Franking Commission here if you’d like to see it,” Carter said. “We held a telephone town-hall… When you hold telephone town-halls you have a recorded message that introduces the town-hall and the subject matter you’re going to be talking about. You have to now submit that language to the Franking Commission.
“What we proposed as language was as follows, ‘House Democrats unveiled a government-run health care plan,’” Carter said. “Our response from Franking was, ‘You cannot use that language. You must use, ‘The House majority unveiled a public option health care plan,’ which is Pelosi-speak or ‘just last week the House majority unveiled a health care plan which I believe will cost taxpayers…’”
Political parties will often try to use language that they believe frames a debate to their advantage. So long as everyone is free to express their ideas, this is a healthy reflection of our ability to debate policy in an open manner. When one political party attempts to enforce their chosen language through coercion, it violates the spirit of the marketplace of ideas. That Democrats are systematically looking to use the force of government to silence opposing views in numerous formats shows how dangerously committed to authoritarianism they remain.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science and work in public policy, but please don't hold that against me.
