Posted on 03/09/2007 12:57:28 PM PST by SmithL
The Chronicle's story today on the ongoing furor over Ann Coulter and the 'F-word', reports that the backlash includes a campaign initiated today by a gay rights group and media watchdog to persuade mainstream media outlets to dump her for good.
The organizations in question, GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, are seeking to get rid of Coulter from the airwaves and from being syndicated to newspapers.
Is all this a step too far?
Ironically, GLAAD itself is the target of a campaign by the American Family Association to get the Ford Motor Co., a development noted by the gay web site, Queerty.
Taking a leaf from HRC's book, should other organizations petition to take Bill Maher off of HBO because of his off-color remarks on the possible untimely death of Dick Cheney. That happened to Maher once before, when "Politically Incorrect" was summarily dispatched from ABC after he made comments perceived to be politically incorrect about Al Qaeda.
So, how far might, or should, this erosion of offensive speech go?
Is there a difference between activist organizations pushing to boot Ann Coulter off the air, and, say, the government of Turkey banning You Tube because of perceived undignified references to Kamal Attaturk (since lifted by a Turkish court). Or schools and libraries banning literature considered "dangerous." Or New York City banning the "N-word", no matter how much it is part of the vernacular (as is the "F-word"). Or, for that matter, Europe criminalizing Holocaust denial.
All terribly offensive, of course, but so are Klan marches, and neo-Nazi marches through Skokie, which the ACLU defended
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
"This has nothing to do with Free Speech. Coulter isn't being prosecuted by the government. She has the right to say what she wants, and others have the right to complain, boycott, or whatever. It wasn't a Free Speech issue when Freepers boycotted the Dixie Chicks, and it isn't a Free Speech issue now."
I'll tell you what is a problem though, and that's the media jumping on the bandwagon and using their power to attack Coulter. The media still have influence, and they still use it for evil.
We ridicule the DUers when they post stuff about the Dixie Chicks having their "freedom of speech" taken away by all those "right wing haters".
How are we supposed to respond when we have folks the right using the same ridiculous argument?
She can say whatever she wants, and the papers are free to run her columns or not. It's obviously not a free speech issue.
Ever heard of Michael Savage?
"First Schlesinger now Coulter. It seems the conservative white women are the only ones willing to risk anything to stop the homo/race pimp/liberal agenda. Why are white men so unwilling to do what they have done?"
That is my point as well. If Bush/Frist/Hastert et.al. had half the spine of these two ladies, we wouldn't have lost the last election. Reid and Pelosi don't hold back, nor any of the Dems.
I'll take that as a compliment.
And back to reality....she told a joke. She didn't really call anybody anything.
I seem to remember he (Savage) did stand up for himself on the homo issue on TV but another problem with that is that White Men cannot maintain their credibility with the general public. White Men are seen as the problem, the threat, and the evil among the masses. Your average Oprah watcher could never conceive of the types of things this group of people has done for humanity.
Eventually when White men are removed from doing anything in society and branded officially dangerous, then society will implode. I thinks there is lots o'money in rebuilding a society that has been destroyed by stupidheads.
Pardon my buffoonery ;)
>>And back to reality....she told a joke. She didn't really call anybody anything.<<
Exactly! If I said, "I can think of a few names to call Hillary, but Joe got sent to rehab for calling someone a cracker." that doesn't mean I am calling her a cracker.
A lot of people fail to notice what she actually said.
Likewise, in Hillary's campaign announcement, she did not actually say she is running. I am waiting for that to come back to haunt everyone when it becomes clear she cannot win the nomination.
That may be a problem, but it's still not a Free Speech issue.
"That may be a problem, but it's still not a Free Speech issue."
It can very quickly become one, with the media grooming the public to sit still for laws that ban speech that the left doesn't like.
It's a South Park thing.
New episode that aired on Wed, will probably be shown again on Sat.
Why all the frenzy over name calling, mean-spirited rhetoric, and such?
Hillary.
They know that Hillary is dirty and they want a general agreement before the election gets going that will negate all talk of Hillary's shenanigans past, present, and future.
More proof that something is definitely up (to no good). Why else would a Clinonista (Begala?) have a new book decrying the insulting language of both sides -- even going so far as to feign disappointment with his Rat Party? I've heard interviews on the radio but I cannot remember the author.
Come to think of it, Atlas was a White Guy wasn't he?
Supposedly, bipartisan government is a scale depended from a point won in open debate; while this may sound good in theory, what we have seen since about 1960 is an ever-increasing set of restrictions on the terms of the debate get mostly hung on the liberal side of the string until the scale has now become weighted to one side only and it turns into a dredge being dragged through the sludge.
The only reason this country hasn't become a Democrat bulldozer is that once every few years the string breaks and the swamp settles back in.
I know - I was trying to respond in South Park fashion! (Sheila Broslofski)
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