fbpx
09.30.2009 0

The Real Plot Against Conservative Speech

  • On: 10/22/2009 10:06:31
  • In: First Amendment
  • by David Bozeman

    Rush Limbaugh, at least for now, will not fulfill his dream of owning an NFL team. That great arbiter of acceptable public discourse, Al Sharpton, claims at least partial responsibility. Accusations that Limbaugh had made racially charged remarks, such as that slavery was not all bad, sealed his fate.

    Also from conservative talk radio, Michael Savage has been officially banned from England by government officials who have deemed him a hate monger. Yes, the once cosmopolitan London — now dubbed “Londonistan” by author Melanie Phillips because of its thriving radical Islamic population — will not welcome an outspoken American conservative.

    Many on the right perceive a worldwide attempt to stifle conservative speech.

    Though liberals would avail themselves of an opportunity, say if a Fairness Doctrine fell into their laps, they are not really seeking to silence conservatives. Their aim is really much more clever. As Bernard Goldberg has noted about liberal bias in the media, there exists no organized conspiracy to silence the opposition. They axiomatically believe that most conservative speech is extremist and proceed with that world view, sure of their high level of journalistic integrity.

    Liberals seek not to silence conservatives, they seek to marginalize them. Whether intentional or not, liberal predominance in news, art, entertainment and academia lends legitimacy to their agenda while sidelining traditional and conservative ideas. In the 1960s and early 70s, for instance, biologist and author Paul Ehrlich warned of impending worldwide food shortages due to over-population. His dire scenarios never materialized, but his academic breeding and ‘daring’ attacks on the excesses of capitalism helped mold the fashion that is the modern environmental movement. Despite controversial data, man-made global warming is no longer an issue among the intelligentsia and the Hollywood set — it is dogma. Surely no rational person would re-open a debate already settled by such beautiful, revered liberals as Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore (by way of his factually dubious Oscar winner An Inconvenient Truth).

    Another famed ‘documentarian,’ Michael Moore, has won plaudits from Hollywood, the Cannes Film Festival and a seat of honor beside former President Carter. On behalf of those struggling Americans who will never see Hollywood or the French Riviera, Moore’s latest salvo is Capitalism: A Love Story, the premise of which is that our titular economic system has got to go. Who is Moore’s right wing equivalent detailing the horrors of Socialism? The left has Oscar night — the right has the (unjustly ignored) Liberty Film Festival.

    Beautiful trendsetting liberals tend to win all the glory because they need it more. They validate each other with film awards and Nobel Peace Prizes, keeping their pet causes and ideas novel and headline-friendly. The late actor Ron Silver bucked his industry after 9/11 and supported President Bush, but it was the Dixie Chicks who were hailed in The New York Times editorial pages and even a documentary for ‘daring’ to criticize Bush. Actors like Silver and fellow conservative Jon Voight never win plaudits for their courage. They are,at best, industry anachronisms. In Canada, Mark Steyn (a favorite of conservatives in the US) was actually tried, though later cleared, on human rights charges for writing about mass Muslim immigration and its effect on Western culture. He surely deserves a nod for trying to keep thought control from seeping through the border.

    Also to its advantage, liberalism need hardly ever justify itself but merely glom onto the dazzling personas of such self-styled idealists as the Kennedys, the Clintons and the Obamas. Liberal thought need hardly ever identify itself, either, whereas Rush Limbaugh’s name is preceded with ‘right-wing talk show host,’ usually meant derisively.

    Limbaugh is like the kid in high-school who was popular with the student body but was never allowed to sit with the jocks and the Homecoming royalty. Liberals want Limbaugh and others to speak, if only on the margins of public discourse, so they can feel noble about themselves by comparison. Fortunately for Limbaugh, the snooty classes, with their power to decide fashions and distort comments out of meaning and context, don’t necessarily reflect the values of everyone else. He may never own an NFL franchise, but the love and affection of millions of listeners a day is a nice consolation prize.

    David Bozeman is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.


    Copyright © 2008-2024 Americans for Limited Government