House of Eratosthenes

The Sounds of Silencing
Why do Americans on the left think only they have the right to dissent?
Friday, October 13, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Four moments in the recent annals of free speech in America. Actually annals is too fancy a word. This all happened in the past 10 days:
:
[She goes on to list the four things]
:
There’s a pattern here, isn’t there?

It is not only about rage and resentment, and how some have come to see them as virtues, as an emblem of rightness. I feel so much, therefore my views are correct and must prevail. It is about something so obvious it is almost embarrassing to state. Free speech means hearing things you like and agree with, and it means allowing others to speak whose views you do not like or agree with. This–listening to the other person with respect and forbearance, and with an acceptance of human diversity–is the price we pay for living in a great democracy. And it is a really low price for such a great thing.

We all know this, at least in the abstract. Why are so many forgetting it in the particular?

Let us be more pointed. Students, stars, media movers, academics: They are always saying they want debate, but they don’t. They want their vision imposed. They want to win. And if the win doesn’t come quickly, they’ll rush the stage, curse you out, attempt to intimidate.

And they don’t always recognize themselves to be bullying. So full of their righteousness are they that they have lost the ability to judge themselves and their manner.

And all this continues to come more from the left than the right in America.

Honestly, I don’t know who’s delivering more devastating body-blows to the American Left: Peggy Noonan, or Ann Coulter. They’re both female. They both have valid criticism for our liberals, which is in turn rooted in solid fact. Both of them use iron-clad logic. And yet the liberal response is to scourge Annie, and ignore Maggie. It seems all the liberals with an opinion about how to respond, agree that these are the appropriate responses, and they’re not interchangeable.

Why is that? How in the world can the style of delivery be so important, and the content of the criticism be so trivial?

Anyway, she’s on to something here. But what’s new. Liberalism, as we know it today, is unfit for any medium powered by dialog. It is a post-industrial-revolution ideology, an ideology molded and shaped by the pubescent development of electronic broadcasting. It has evolved to take full advantage of technology, now some seventy years old, capable of taking one man’s thoughts and thrusting them upon many listeners, viewers or readers.

The technology responsible for collecting responses and delivering them back to the original speaker, is much, much newer. It’s not that liberals lack the brainpower to participate in a dialog — it’s that the ideology to which they cling, is poorly developed for hosting one. It came to maturity during a period when leading-edge technology encouraged a monolog, and nothing more. So they don’t want to “bully,” per se. They’re just compelled to do so. They can’t tolerate a free exchange of ideas, because the principles they seek to support, will not stand for it.

Which brings me to…

Air America Parent Files for Chapter 11
By Claire Hoffman, Times Staff Writer
October 14, 2006

Red ink finally got the better of the nation’s blue-state radio network.

The parent of Air America Radio, plagued by management and financial problems since its inception, filed Friday for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

The filing in New York by Piquant, the network’s parent company, became necessary after negotiations with one of the privately held company’s founding creditors broke down, said Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn. She declined to identify the creditor, but Piquant has had troubles in the past with its business partner, MultiCultural Broadcasting Inc.

The liberal radio network, which bills itself as a progressive spot on the dial, will remain on the air � including on Los Angeles affiliate KTLK-AM (1150) � while operating under Bankruptcy Court protection.

Wassup? This was supposed to be the liberal solution to Rush Limbaugh, et al. Why is the runway never quite long enough to support the takeoff of the Air America jet? And how come the hopes and dreams of liberal talk radio, seem to be pinned to the hopes and dreams, such as they are, of AA?

There’s something about the medium of talk radio that is hostile to the liberal viewpoint. That, or else the liberal viewpoint has not quite yet been fairly hosted in the medium of talk radio…and AA is enjoying less than sunny prospects, simply because the right people haven’t been in charge. Both of those may not apply, and one, or the other, must. Which is it?

Well, I’m ready to rule out the second of those two simply because if there’s a Rush-Limbaugh-like liberal market in talk radio, yet untapped, this would involve downright vulcanic levels of heat and pressure, fully capable of finding their own outlet if the market fails to create one artificially. AA would have a competitor for releasing this juggernaut of liberal talk-radio-ready angst. More than one competitor. Many competitors.

So assuming I’m right, and it’s really the first of those two options, that the talk radio medium is not equally friendly to the liberal viewpoint as it is to the conservative one…and therefore, will everlastingly remain that way…it goes to support my response to Peggy Noonan. Yes, liberals are bullies. Not because they want to be, but because they have to be. That is the chosen medium of what they seek to promote, and what they seek to promote, exists to be promoted. Not discussed…just propagated, outward, no response necessary or desired. It’s an archaic set of principles, doctrines, rules and axioms designed to be mass-produced and mass-consumed. But not to be pondered, and certainly not to be questioned or criticized.

And so, you re-try the Air America experiment a hundred more times, in a hundred parallel universes — you’ll get back the same result a hundred times. While Rush Limbaugh lights his cigars with as many hundred dollars bills as he wants to. Anybody who’s listened to AA, and also listens to Rush Limbaugh, knows what I’m talking about. Rush is ready to discuss why he believes the things he believes, Randi Rhodes just chirps away about President Bush being a liar. She’s not ready to discuss what the lie was, or why she thinks it was a lie. And so listening to Air America, is boring.

Eh, not that The Blog That Nobody Reads is some kind of huge party all the time. But when you can’t discuss why you think the things you think, you’ve got to be boring all the time. It’s guaranteed. You’re reduced to just repeating the conclusions you’ve reached, over and over again, until the show’s over. If Rush Limbaugh did that and nothing more, we never would have heard of the guy.

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Noonan IVSaturday, October 14th, 2006

Noonan IV
Saturday, October 14th, 2006