Short and Sweet Blog

Before I have my say about the political aftermath of the tragic shootings in Arizona let me address the human aftermath. I pray for the repose of the souls of the dead. I pray that the Lord’s healing grace touch each of those injured. And finally, I pray that the Lord’s comfort and consolation embrace the families of the dead and injured.

After the tragedy, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn has become so concerned about the stimulation of latent violence by the speech of his political opponents, particularly Sarah Palin, that he has this to say on the Bill Press Show between minutes 8 and 11 (click or paste link below):

What Rep. Clyburn has not made public, however, is anything specific about what is actually being said that he believes is so frightening and inciteful to violence that it must be addressed by censorship. Rather than giving specifics about the language which concerns him, this is what Clyburn follows up with:

‘Free speech is as free speech does,’ he said. ‘You cannot yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater and call it free speech and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that.’*

I am confused. What in particular is being said by Palin or any other opposition leader that Clyburn thinks important to restrain? If not concerned about any specific words is Clyburn possibly concerned with the vehemence with which the opinions are stated? Should stating any and all political opinions in emotion laden terms be something which is banned because of its potential to cause a violent reaction in those who hear it? Or is it the combination of the emotional tone and what they say which concerns him? Remember, Clyburn believes that there is something about this political speech which he believes is on a par with, no is even worse than, shouting fire in a crowded theater? I conclude, in the absence of a clear explanation by Clyburn of what concerns him, that everything Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh has ever said troubles him and, importantly, what they say and how they say it is, in his opinion, calculated to and intended to stir fatal passions. Distilled to it’s basics this appears to be his point.

So it is Palin & Co.’s provocative manner when they state their basic philosophy, a philosophy anathema to Clyburn, which he believes threatens to bring about violence in America. Clyburn apparently believes that those who embrace and vehemently advocate a limited role for the federal government foment thereby a culture of violence and are a clear and present danger. It is her philosophy which resists enlargement in federal government power which is the real reason that he says of Palin that, although attractive she “is just not intellectually capable of understanding” the connection between what she advocates and the potential for violence. Interestingly, however, the dimwitted or sick people to whom she directs her emotional statements understand the call to violence implicitly contained therein or it wouldn’t be dangerous speech, would it?

Rather than engage in careful reasoning from proposition to conclusion, Clyburn says something which he hopes will result in something he really likes, muzzling his political adversaries. He wants Sarah Palin to either keep quiet or change her worldview to one more in line with his own. If anything said by Palin, Limbaugh or Beck created the same clear and present danger that yelling fire in a crowded theater does, it would already be illegal. Without a single citation to dangerous speech targeted at the congresswoman or anyone else (other than the cockamamie idea of the ” crosshairs targeting of Giffords’ district” as politically vulnerable somehow incited violence against her), Clyburn thinks that Palin-speak is worse than yelling fire in a crowded theater. It is pretty clear that speeches and diatribes recognizing the tautology that enlarging the power of the federal government must, by definition, limit the power of other lower governments and the people themselves, just does not create a clear and present danger of violence. If Clyburn believes that the act of speaking in various ways about this basic tautology stirs up potentially fatal violence it is incumbent upon him to quote the words, clearly describe the tone in which they were said and explain how these things together create the equivalent of shouting fire in a theater.

Clyburn can’t and won’t do this hard headed reasoning and connecting the dots. He would rather hide behind the idea that that Palin’s just dumb. If she asks for explanation Palin would be admitting that she was too stupid to get it. The idea that Palin just “doesn’t get it” doesn’t even try to explain his point. It’s like he’s taking the position that the cool kids know something the square kids don’t and Palin will never be cool until she admits that the cool kids are cooler than she ever will be.

Is it ever okay to muzzle a truthteller or someone who is trying to do their best to be a truthteller? One would have thought that people like Clyburn, who is a member of a generation and a group of the people who are rightfully proud of having “spoken truth to power” would celebrate this, right!!! If you ask him, John Kerry is also a man who tried to speak truth to power about a very serious subject.

Was it John Kerry’s free speech which stirred up Bill Ayers to engage in the bombings of the US Capitol or Pentagon? Regardless of what you believe about John Kerry as a truthteller, should he have been muzzled? More recently, should we have made vituperative anti-Iraq war speeches illegal? Remember what Hillary Clinton said about that in a very vehement way indeed:

And how about this typical Keith Olbermann diatribe which you don’t even have to listen to and you still know what’s in it? Should this be banned? Considering the messenger and the ratings I suppose this is a bit less than frightening.

Oh well, they took this Olbermanism down but you know what I mean, don’t you? Maybe it was too much even for MSNBC