| a free marketplace provides that consumers have a right not to buy, or listen to, or otherwise subsidize products, ideas or people they find unappealing. It's called choice, which everyone seems to understand when they're doing the choosing.
The conservative sees individual members of the public deciding on their own that they are no longer going to financially support the Dixie Chicks, or the United Way of Florida, or this or that movie star. These people are exercising their free will; they are making choices that they are free to make. The liberal does not believe that those creatures out there have any brains, or any will of their own. To the liberal, "the public" consists of helpless thralls, blown this way and that by Giant Powers like Clear Channel Communications, the White House, and even Free Republic. Yes, to hear the Dixie Chicks' manager tell it, we here at FR are controlling the minds of millions, all of whom operate in lock step with whatever we say. Heh. It is true that FR and all these other Giant Powers now have sufficient mass communications punch that offensive statements by liberals become more widely known — and much more quickly — than they used to be. And it is also true that there is a certain Howard Beale aspect to it — we really do urge people to get out of that chair, walk to the window, throw it open, and yell, "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" But that's not the same thing as operating mindless robots. It is the exercise of our own free speech. What really frosts the liberals is they are no longer the only ones who can do this. Susan Sarandon had no trouble using her celebrity to urge "the public" to keep Dr. Laura's television program off the air. But let a half-dozen big United Way donors in Florida do the same thing to her, and all of a sudden the Gestapo is coming. Liberals have been shouting conservatives down for years. They have used their positions in academia and the media to keep conservative views off the air and away from the podiums for as long as I've been alive. Now conservatives have built their own podiums, and some of them are getting pretty big. People are going to be hearing exhortations that liberals don't want them to hear. And to the extent that they agree, they will act. Too bad. while (goesAround) |
This is where the dialog breaks down... where conservatives and liberals start talking past one another.