What have we become as a nation and people?
News out yesterday from The Kansas City Star that "The program director of KMBZ radio in Kansas City says the station has no choice but to air commercials with racially biased and anti-Semitic claims from a write-in candidate for the US Senate from Missouri."
What?
What happened to the "march of progress"?
Apparently this is true.
Some racist and anti-Semite (read: Jew-hater) from Springfield, one Glenn Miller is paying for it and running for the Senate.
According to the article: "One of Miller's ads, aired during the Darla Jaye talk show program in the evening, urges whites to 'take their country back' and disparages Jews and non-whites."
More: "Under Federal Communication Commission rules and federal laws, a 'legally qualified candidate' must be given reasonable, uncensored access to broadcast airtime if he or she can pay the cost."
I hope that every Jewish person and every person of color--African-American, Hispanic, Chinese, Asian of any kind, Native American, heck, Irish, etc.--all turn out to make clear that we, as Americans, don't tolerate this kind of hate and ugliness any longer in this country.
Let's make this message clear, people.
We used to be better than this, as a country and a people.
At least some of us thought so.
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8 comments:
What do you mean by "we don't tolerate"? The liberal version of a "don't tread on me" flag? Do you have some sort of plan, what we should do? Let stations
I certainly don't approve of the bigot's message, but it is one of those things we have to put up with in a free society. The other alternative is that whoever is in power gets to decide what their opponent's ads can say.
,,,and your blog is acting very strange--articles are appearing in my RSS feed, and comments are showing up in email many hours before they show on the blog.
Nonsense.
While, sure, we can and should allow for free speech, it should only be to a point and that point is that you can't do this "hate speech" and call out racist and anti-Semitic rants. That allows for a great deal of speech, to be sure, and it's done--and very successfully--in other countries, like Canada, as I wrote earlier. This way, anyone can say anything, except true ugliness, hate, and proposed violence.
Legally and practically, it can be done and it's what we should do here.
mr
And your last statement that "The other alternative is that whoever is in power gets to decide what their opponent's ads can say" is patently untrue, also, in a country where the courts are unbiased, nonpartisan and protected by laws to be so.
It can work.
mr
According to the blog Muses of a Mom:
"Norman Leboon was arrested for posting a youtube video threatening the life of Congressman Eric Cantor and his family. The political verbiage has been very heated on both sides of the aisle and words do have power. Fortunately no harm has come to the representative or his family. “Norman Leboon will be charged with two federal counts: threatening to kill a member of Congress and interfering with his federal duties, and posting video online containing such threats. He was scheduled to appear in federal district court in Philadelphia on Monday afternoon.”
And you're saying "anything goes" with free speech?
Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic here. It's my stance that there must be a line that cannot be crossed in speech in societies.
mr
You are basically saying that in a perfect world, the courts would draw the line in the right place, and the party in power wouldn't use the law for their own advantage.
In a perfect world, we wouldn't need hate speech laws in the first place.
Canada doesn't have constitutionally protected free speech. Well-intentioned people like you are part of the reason we need a bill of rights
The harm from the government determining what is and is not hate speech is far greater than the danger of an anti-semitic jackass. The line has to be way over on the side of freedom, even if it means that some people are free to spew racist nonsense.
Existing law is sufficient in most cases. "I hate all Mexicans, send them back where they came from" has to be protected. "Go beat that guy up because he is Mexican" is not, but the "because he is Mexican" part is irrelevant. Credible threats of violence are not protected.
It seems that we agree on this, too, then. Saying someone should beat someone up being covered does it.
But racist and anti-Semitic hate speech can't be allowed, period.
It's an easy comparison of allowing this, as it was allowed just before the Holocaust, comes to mind. I think allowing hate speech is the kind of thing, too, that "allowed" the 3 morons who beat up and killed Matthew Shepard in Wyoming to think it was okay.
That is why there must be a line drawn in speech. Sure, it should allow a lot, but not everything.
Your closing line seems very much in line with what I'm saying.
And your statement: "Well-intentioned people like you are part of the reason we need a bill of rights", as usual, cracks me up. Thanks for writing.
mr
Ask your gay friends how much tolerance this country has for ugliness and hate.
I think there are a lot of people who are cozily insulated from the bigotry that thrives in the US. Perhaps when they're confronted with a political ad disparaging this or that minority, it might cause them to realize that bigotry, racism, and intolerance are alive and well, and still harming people every day.
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