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On her Wednesday show Megyn Kelly opened her show by
outlining the issue involved in the media attacks against Pamela Geller. I
posted about it yesterday.
When Geller sponsored a Mohammed cartoon context in Garland,
Texas a couple of jihadis decided to shoot the place up. They were killed by a
quick-thinking Texas law enforcement officer.
On Thursday evening Kelly continued her statement, adding
not merely that Geller had the right to do what she did, but that she had a
duty to do so. By Kelly’s lights, Geller was defending a core American
principle, the liberty of expression.
Kelly explained that Geller was committing a justifiable act of
defiance against those who attempt to ban certain statements about one specific religion. If blasphemy against the prophet
of Islam is forbidden we are on the road to the establishment of a religion.
In Kelly’s words:
Well,
last night we had a thoughtful discussion about free speech and American values
and why our commitment to liberty as a nation requires everyone to stand up for
the rights of those speaking, even if they’re using the most offensive of
words. It’s not about aligning ourselves with the words. It’s about defending a
core American principle. First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh explained how,
not only did the people organizing a “Draw Muhammad” event down in Texas have
the right to do it, which some had questioned, but how what they did was
actually important and of real value because it was an act of defiance.
Defiance
towards those radical Muslim fanatics who mean to impose their radical moral
code on us, namely that certain figures may not be drawn or parodied upon pain
of death. What happened in Texas is that a group said no, you don’t get to
control speech in this country, even if a religion finds it offensive. Sure
enough, the jihadis showed up with AK-47s and tried to murder everyone there.
Now
some suggest that the risk from the event is that some of our Muslim nation
coalition allies might be less inclined to fight the jihad if they see some
private group like this one hold a private event. So private citizens shouldn’t
do things even behind closed doors now, lest they cause offense? Because our
friends in Egypt might get ticked off.
But the
fact is we don’t compromise America’s bedrock principles just to make other
nations like us more just as we don’t require them to change their values
before we fight a common enemy. Otherwise, Egypt’s “We will kill you for
leaving Islam” might be a deal-breaker. The bottom line here is that some in
this country have been so busy trying how to figure out how to avoid causing
any religion any offense, they have forgotten what is offensive to Americans,
namely those who would trample on our core ideals. In America, we stand for
liberty and freedom to offend, to provoke, to persuade and to defy.
Alan Dershowitz was on Kelly’s show and he responded to her
statement:
Let me
start with you first and applaud your statement. It was fantastic. It is the
paradigm for how Americans have to look at our freedoms and our First
Amendment. Jefferson would have been proud of you.
7 comments:
All this really is may be traced to the theory of the "heckler's veto". That is any offended or angry person's ire is sufficient to shut down the speaker. SCOTUS has spoken on that and always in tune with Ms. Kelly's position. It is mystifying as to what people don't see.
Jim Sweeney,
After 40 plus years of defending American citizen's rights and having provocative speech used to impugn that service I have come to believe that it is simply a matter of respect. People, especially Americans, have no respect for anything that they have not earned. Here, many of them are no going to take the time to earn. They take for granted all that being an American gives them. There is little thought as to how any of those freedoms, goods, and services were gained or the costs to maintain them.
This especially if it requires them to involve themselves at any level that might call for sacrifices on their part. They expect to get a free education as long as it doesn't require them to be challenged. They expect to get a free college education as long as they are not required to think or hear words that might offend their delicate sensitivities.
They expect everyone to provide them a good job at extremely high wages with a very short work week. If they are women they want to be treated as princesses and given all kinds of respect, deference and free stuff because of course they deserve it. They are responsible for their bodies except when they are not. Everyone has to be a mindreader in order to figure out whether yes means yes or they somehow lack the ability to say no because society made them incapable of adult actions.
Americans have become a society of takers with little understanding of what it takes to be the makers. In other words we are gradually growing a large number of brats who take umbrage at everything and take no responsibility for anything. If one is not challenge then one fails to understand how easily slavery seeks up and overtakes them. A little lessening of freedoms in order to feel safe only leads to the loss of both safety and security and more importantly the freedoms that undergird them.
Whoever wrote those words for Megyn Kelly deserves applause.
It is a curious issue, usually with the left defending freedom of speech and the right defending the protection of symbols.
The closest case I can consider is the Flag Desecration Amendment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_Desecration_Amendment
Of course you can say the average Republican isn't offering to kill someone for desecrating the flag, although the average Muslim isn't offering to kill someone for mocking their prophet either.
It is certainly a strange thing, to be willing to kill and willing to die for a symbol, but apparently many people are able and willing, legal or not.
If such people decided they wanted to desensitize themselves, I wonder if any therapists would recommend "immersion therapy" where you give them a gun, and have them watch people trying to provoke them, and keep repeating until they learn to control these impulses? It might work!
I remain astounded in the face of the blindness of liberals as they face the realities of Islamic society, and the mandate of the Koran around its central tenet: submission.
It is a wonderful accident in Western Europe that we have the separation of church and state. And in the case of the United States, it is good for both. This tradition goes back to when Constantine convoked the Council of Nicaea, and then stepped down and allowed them to conduct their business without his interference. He desired Christian unity, but didn't have theological or clerical credentials. This is the beginning of Western church-state separation. Even though Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, the clergy and institutional church would operate separately. We are fortunate in this regard.
Islamic society allows for no separation of church and state. They are inextricably integrated. I do not understand how all the "brights" do not see this. We have Hillary Clinton saying that Christian churches have to change their beliefs to match her own recent enlightenment about homosexual "marriage," but angry Islamists are absolved from the consequences of their behavior because they were enraged by "a disgusting internet video" or a cartoon contest.
Leftist must eventually come to grips with their monolithic view of power and oppression and consider the real implications of these beliefs. Just because someone is a minority, underdog, disenfranchised, impoverished person does not mean said person is right and pure in their motives, desires and beliefs. We have to be clear about our American history and culture and promote its fundamental goodness... The structure of which makes it possible to deal with our shortcomings. The Left exploits our faults and failures as justification for undoing the entire American experiment and replacing it with the tyranny of feelings.
It is not necessary to have a Mohammed cartoon contest. It's incendiary, and wherever there are incendiaries, there's fire. So I'm not a Pamela Gellar fan because she's unkind. However, there is no doubt she has the right to conduct the contest. With all the vacant, gratuitous filth coming out of Hollywood in the name of "free expression," at least Gellar's is connected to an actual right granted in the Constitution. That said, she lacks wisdom. Yet that's not enough to stop her or pander to her would-be assassins.
At the same time, there is a reflexive paradox in the liberal response: pity and license. They feel sorry for the Muslim, while realizing they themselves are in a trap with their absolutist views on free speech (except for Republicans). No one wants to be pitied, and a virtuous civilization cannot endure licentiousness. So once again, the Left finds itself owned by feelings of anger, resentment and pity... all at once. Life sucks, eh? It sucks even more when you have no idea what the hell you're talking about. Because you can't think straight.
People used to say Catholics could never be loyal Americans, because they would be loyal to the pope. But Christianity shares scriptural passages about "render under Caesar what is Caesar's" and others about God and mammon.
Traditional Islam as laid out in the Koran, and as lived out through Sharia, and as practiced in the countries of origin for immigrant Muslims, is not compatible with Western civilization and the delicate separation of church and state in our tradition. For the Muslim, all is one, and each must submit to the will of Allah, as prescribed by the Koran and interpreted by clergy -- not by a secular legislature, executive or courts in the realm of government. Notice the Christian response to "Piss Christ" and the Islamist reaction to a few cartoons of Mohammed. There is no equivalence. This is a cultural phenomenon, not intellectual.
Culture is decisive. Always.
It seems these days the left fears free speech enough to stigmatize it. College and university students abhor thoughts contrary to theirs.
Gamergate and the Hugo Award fights come to mind.
IAC,
As George Orwell said, “So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.” The progressive pursuit of “diversity,” or almost anything they "feel" passionately about, is playing with that fire. In the final analysis the Left always gets burned, but not before they have done a tremendous amount of damage to all who come in contact with them. Free speech is its first victim. All of the other rights follow.
I never liked what the KKK or the other ilk just like them, but I defended their right to do it. What better way to know who the unthinking people were and challenge them.
I am beginning to wonder if the person who stated that "the second amendment was there to protect the First was not somewhat prescient. I suspect the Founding Fathers knew we would grow to disrespect our freedoms to the point that an all pervasive government would seek to control the very thing that would challenge them, free speech.
All the free stuff that government provides comes with the chains that shackle us.
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