| Media Matters highlighted this without comment, under the headline, "Lawyers try to explain to O'Reilly that his 'rights' aren't violated by private criticism":
Biil-O kicks things off with this statement (onscreen wording varies slightly), under the banner "Civil Rights Watch":
I'm a big boy with a big megaphone, and I can defend myself. But many of you can't. If you're labeled a bigot, or punished in the marketplace for holding holding a non-liberal opinion, you can't right that wrong.
And this far-left fascism is very wrong. It must be called out. Fair-minded Americans can disagree on issues, but our freedoms must be protected.
So, it's wrong to be labeled "a bigot", even if you are one, but it's fine to accuse people of "far-left fascism". Good to know!
And this is vital to protecting "our freedoms", which of course, do not include the freedom to marry, if you happen to be gay or lesbian. This is all par for the course, of course. And there's nothing terribly new about it. After all, the slaveholders of Virginia were fierce defenders of "liberty" and "freedom". So we should be used to this by now, right?
Well, not so much, actually. The two lawyers in this clip try ro set O'Reilly straight on the fact that he doesn't have a constitutional right to be free from criticism, but what's going on here is really much deeper than that, and cuts right to the core of the movement conservative mindset, which is basically not just that they have a constitutional right to be free from criticism, but a God-given right to do whatever the hell they want to do without any opposition whatsoever. This is, in short, the rationale of theocracy--but they conceive of it, and try to express it in the language of American secular democracy.
Their goal here is quite Orwellian, to make it impossible to express--much less defend--the actual meaning of free speech for all, and to rewire that language to instead mean the right of conservatives alone to speak without contradiction. And anything short of this total domination means that they are victims. |
| Toward the very end of the election cycle last year, I heard a radio debate over Proposition 8, during which the advocate for Prop 8 said something incoherent about her First Amendment rights. I know that after the election, Prop 8 supporters went to court to try to prevent the names of those who donated money from being made public, arguing that their anonymous "speech" was protected under the First Amendment. They lost in federal court. But her near rant did not seem related to that. She seemed to believe that Prop 8 itself was about protecting her First Amendment rights. I took this to be derived from the deliberate confusion of the right to marry with forcing churches to perform marriage ceremonies against their will.
But even though I thought that must be where it originally came from, it clearly had become much more for this woman. It had, instead, fused into some sort of ontological claim: Prop 8 and the First Amendment had somehow become deeply fused together in her mind, so that they might almost be used interchangeably, and it might actually be difficult for her to explain where one stopped and the other began. At least, that's how it struck me at the time. It struck me as deeply, deeply strange. And this tape of Bill O'Reilly reminded me of her.
In sharp contrast to their profound confusion and paranoia, the decision refusing to hide the identity of Prop 8 donors drew a very thoughtful commentary from the First Amendment Center, which said, in part:
As Valentine's Day approaches, let's consider a rarely discussed First Amendment freedom - the right of petition - by recalling a centuries-old question posed by those Shakespearean lovers Romeo and Juliet: "What's in a name?"
Ms. Capulet's poignant question to Mr. Montague came as the threat of violence loomed over their star-crossed love affair. By contrast, there's no love lost in two contemporary and dramatic disputes over naming names, in Tennessee and California - but both disputes also involve concerns over potential retaliation and violence.
In Tennessee, Nashville voters rejected a proposed ordinance variously called "English Only" or "English First" that would have mandated local government to do business only in that language. In California, voters approved "Proposition 8," overturning a state Supreme Court ruling allowing gay marriage. Supporters of the two proposals sought to keep confidential some or all of the names of donors to campaigns backing the measures. They cited potential dangers, including individuals' being accosted at home and receiving telephoned death threats, as well as business boycotts and a possible "chilling effect" on supporters of like causes in the future.
In both instances, officials ultimately determined that the names would be made public, with the particularly bitter California fight reaching a federal courtroom. In a ruling Jan. 29 on a request for a preliminary injunction to block release of the names, U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr. said advocates failed to show a direct connection to violent reaction, and that "if ever there needs to be sunshine on a political issue, it's with a ballot measure."
....
As it happens, in both Proposition 8 and English Only, substantial support came from non-local contributors: In Nashville, of the $89,000 raised by backers of the proposal, $82,500 came from a Virginia-based group, Pro English. Much of the post-election debate in California has been about the role that out-of-state political and religious groups played in swaying Golden State voters.
As a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision - Brown v. Socialist Workers '74 Campaign - provides, such names may be kept from the public only when there is an immediate and real threat of violence or retaliation. But that narrow exception should not apply to the mere concern about negative reaction or because of theoretical danger.
Although this editorial comment doesn't say so, what's really happening in these two cases is a struggle between democracy and plutocracy. There is, in fact, no good reason whatsoever that outside money should be allowed into state or local initiative elections in the first place. Why should outside money have any influence over an election in which the money donors cannot vote? The desire for donor anonymity is simply a direct consequence of the logic of plutocracy.
Whether it be God or whether it be Mammon, movement conservatives believe that their cause is so just that it cannot be questioned, and true freedom consists of ensuring that all such questioning cease--indeed, that all such questioning be rendered inconceivable.
That's the ultimate goal of hegemony.
Anything less would be a mortal threat to poor conservative victims.
Which is why blowhard bigots like Limbaugh, Tancredo and Gingrich are going ballistic with claims that Sonia Sotomayor is a racist, a bigot, un-American. They are trying desperately to turn our language inside out, to turn our entire self-understanding inside out. For them, the logic of self vs. other is all that there is. Whatever the conservative self wants is good. Whatever the other wants is evil.
That's why Bush II, Bush I, Reagan, Nixon, all can do anything they want in office, and even to suggest that they should be investigated is tantamount to treason. But Clinton should be investigated endlessly, just on principle, until something, somehow, is finally dug up that can be used to drive him from office.
The logic here is perfectly clear: The conservative "self" is good, therefore whatever bad acts it must perform are done for the greater good, and really aren't bad acts at all. The (liberal, black, gay, Latina, immigrant, etc.) "other" is evil, therefore whatever good acts it performs are done in the service of evil, and really aren't good acts at all.
That's why conservatives can't be called bad names like "bigot," but those who would say bad things about them must be called out as "far left fascists." It's all perfectly logical, and not the least big hypocritical. Because conservatives deeply believe in this logic of double standards.
They're the good guys, don't forget. Just like the Catholic Church in the Spanish Inquisition. |
