Hard to know what to make of this piece by Eliott C. McLaughlin — except, of course, that it pretty much sums up the state of journalistic thinking in the MSM these days, which includes a reflexive disdain for constitutional principles it disagrees with while trying to be “fair and balanced.”
Experts: Angry rhetoric protected, but can be disturbing
Here’s how it begins:
Letting disgruntled citizens vent is important to national security, experts say, but some messages emanating from angry Americans in recent weeks have pressed the boundaries of free speech.
Important to national security? Free speech is important for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that, since John Milton’s Areopagitica essay, it has been the basis of all the liberties of modern democracy. And what, exactly, are the “boundaries of free speech” in a society whose Constitution states, in the First Amendment, that “Congress shall make no law.. abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
Politicians have reported slurs as well as threatening letters and phone calls. Congressmen have reported vandalism to their offices. One said he was spit on. Another said his brother’s gas line was cut after a Tea Party member posted his address online.
Tea Party leaders denounce the threats and deny involvement, pointing to fringe elements — not Tea Party members, per se, but groups with degrees of overlapping ideologies.
But the angry rhetoric is not isolated to fringe groups. Both mainstream liberal and conservative camps have joined the chorus, and while some of the language sounds threatening, most of it is protected.
You’d think an organization such as CNN — which is trying desperately to reposition itself as a middle-ground alternative to the open partisanship, whether real or perceived, of Fox News and MSNBC — might think twice before trotting out the usual tiresome and, in the “spitting” case, debunked leftist talking points.
It continues:
As the Tea Party held its April 15 tax day protest against government spending, related groups were planning an April 19 protest at Fort Hunt National Park near Alexandria, Virginia. The purpose of the latter, the groups say, is to “restore the Constitution,” and the location was chosen because it is the nearest point to Washington where firearms can be carried openly.
Here, CNN raises the fearsome specter of an armed rabble, a latter-day Whisky Rebellion, just across the Potomac from the nation’s capital, when in fact it’s a group of citizens exercising their Second Amendment constitutional rights in complete accord with the laws of the state of Virginia. You can certainly take issue with the protest’s high-stakes symbolism — and any outbreak of violence would be disastrous — but not with its legality. Maybe CNN should get out more, and take a look at some other states that permit open carrying of firearms — you know, redneck, racist places inhabited by wingnuts and troglodytes, such as…
After backing away from the now-discredited Frank Rich talking point that the Tea Partiers are a powderkeg just awaiting a match, McLaughlin quotes a First Amendment scholar:
“When you drive dissent underground, it’s bound to bubble up somewhere, usually with violence,” said Robert Richards, a founding director for Penn State University’s Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment.
The 1950s brought us McCarthyism, the 1960s brought civil rights, and the 1970s delivered the Vietnam War — all issues that stoked anger and protest in the United States. During those same eras, Richards said, the Supreme Court was tackling a slew of cases that defended the rights of people and the press to criticize the government.
Today, after decades of relatively unfettered free speech, you still see anger and demonstrations, but the violent element is not nearly as constant.
“There’s less reason to erupt in some type of violence because you can get your message out there in other ways, other more appropriate ways,” Richards said.
Left unremarked is where the violence came from back in those halcyon days of civil-rights and Vietnam-era protest:
Dr. Jerrold Post, a George Washington University political psychology professor who spent 21 years with the CIA, said that in nations where free speech is snuffed, such as Yemen and Pakistan, domestic terrorism is more prevalent.
“Free speech relieves the pressure of discontent in some ways,” said Post, who founded the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior.
So… free speech is a good thing, right? Not so fast —
Post said he is concerned, however, about messages coming from the conservative base. Last month, GOP chief Michael Steele called for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be put on “the firing line,” and House Minority Leader John Boehner said that a congressman “might be a dead man” because of his health care vote.
“I find some of this rhetoric recently — ‘reload’ — quite scary,” Post said of a Twitter post by Sarah Palin directing followers to her Facebook page, which had crosshairs on the districts of 20 congressmen who voted for the controversial health care bill. “Some people are going to hear that as, ‘Take up your arms.””
Of course, that’s only when Republicans do it. When Democrats do it… not so much.
McLaughlin’s pieces rambles on at endless length, backing and forthing in an old-school sort of way, trying to be “balanced” while winking every now and then to let the reader know we’re all on the side of the angels here. To his credit, he makes the point that there is a difference between abstract speech and actual violence, and that there’s a tricky legal line of demarcation between them at times, as exemplified by the Hal Turner case.
Still, the last words are given to Dr. Post, who does his best to channel Frank Rich:
Post speculated that today’s anger stems from a feeling of “groundlessness.” The face of politics is changing, whether it’s a black president, female secretary of state or gay, Jewish liberal as one of the most visible figures in Congress. Priorities are changing, too, as gay marriage, immigration, health care and drug legalization are among the most heated debates of late…
America has blamed Reds, Islamists, illegal immigrants and the “axis of evil.” The left has blamed the right. The right has blamed the left. Today, the Tea Party’s “them” is a perceived “soft center in Washington who doesn’t understand,” Post said, and it helps to have “an external target to blame.”
“It makes sense of the senseless in his life,” Post said. “There is a deep-seated need in human psychology for enemies. We define ourselves by what they are not. We end where they begin.”
In other words: whatever. Your attempts to make sense of this senselessness welcome here.