I don’t necessarily agree with everything Pat Buchanan says or writes, but his purge from MSNBC is a sign of the times, and his characterization is correct:
The modus operandi of these thought police at Color of Change and ADL is to brand as racists and anti-Semites any writer who dares to venture outside the narrow corral in which they seek to confine debate. All the while prattling about their love of dissent and devotion to the First Amendment, they seek systematically to silence and censor dissent.
Without a hearing, they smear and stigmatize as racist, homophobic, or anti-Semitic any who contradict what George Orwell once called their “smelly little orthodoxies.” They then demand that the heretic recant, grovel, apologize, and pledge to go forth and sin no more.
Defy them, and they will go after the network where you work, the newspapers that carry your column, the conventions that invite you to speak. If all else fails, they go after the advertisers.
I know these blacklisters. They operate behind closed doors, with phone calls, mailed threats, and off-the-record meetings. They work in the dark because, as Al Smith said, nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.
Now let’s count down, 4, 3, 2, 1 … can you believe that he agrees with Pat Buchanan on something, time to send e-mails about how he shouldn’t be allowed to teach at an Ivy League law school.
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O/T: via hotair. I thought you might be interested in this, Professor.
Suffolk poll shows Brown up 9 over Warren in MA Senate race;
Update: Brown op-ed supports Blunt bill on religious exemption from mandate
Feb 17, 2012 9:15 AM by Ed Morrissey
I completely agree with you on this one. As a Jew, I’m not a huge fan of Pat Buchanan, but I don’t think he ought to be blacklisted. Especially since he does provide a reasonable point of view which, even if wrong, gets you thinking.
Tolerance is a difficult concept
I dislike the implication of tolerance: that the tolerant one is somehow superior to the one being tolerated. There’s a smugness in the concept that you can only appreciate if you’re the one whose views are being tolerated.
Huh…?
I never connected “tolerance” with “superiority”. Kind of the opposite, really.
Tolerance ought to be neutral, but as practiced by the supposed tolerant left, not so much.
Remember the Bible-thumping, gun-toting, bitter-clinger characterization? That’s what passes for tolerance today. It may be less blatant than that, but the smugness is present, nonetheless.
OK, I see, I think. You are saying “tolerate”…as in a pretend tolerance. I was saying tolerance…as a true practice…was a virtue.
Of course, we COULD get off into WHAT is appropriate to tolerate and what is not, but that would be another discussion…
I agree. The implications of “tolerance” suggest a master-slave dynamic.
This passage from George Washington’s letter to Moses Seixas, leader of Jewish congregation of Newport Rhode Island, in 1790, has always been a favorite of mine:
“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.”
I’d kind of given up on Pat Buchanan but that’s a terrific, withering summary.
And I’d forgotten about Orwell’s “smelly little orthodoxies.”
Echo chambers as far as the eye can see. It’s one thing on blogs where it is virtually impossible to control but broadcast media does it even though it hurts their audience share and earnings. Everything is now political. The game is on.
I’m still waiting for someone to really make the Left apoplectic by challenging the true shibboleth of the times: unwavering, uncritical approval of all things homosexual (as defined wholly by the Left).
Despite no genetic markers identified for homosexuality, we’ve accepted it must be scientifically an “orientation”. Such a claim seems on the face to fly in the face of evolutionary theory.
Moreover, one could plausibly claim that what gets called “homophobia” (that is, an aversion to homosexuality) has more grounding in evolutionary theory than the claim for a homosexual “orientation” does.
But to broach these ideas makes one a ‘bigot’, despite the fact that they are the clear result of logical thinking from given predicates (not the unreflective emotional response connoted by the word ‘bigot’).
Stigmatization works. And it’s become heterodox to simply broach the possibility that what was once orthodox might in fact be true…
The only way to overcome these guys is to jump up in support of those they try to trash.
cf: the Muhammed cartoons
Off topic: Mickey Kaus calls on MSM to “boost Newt now!”
http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/17/note-to-msm-boost-newt-now/
I’ll go with the stopped clock on this one.
But…Helen Thomas…
How do we square her ousting with the Buchanan thing?
(I know the answer…it is a thought question.)
…time to send e-mails about how he shouldn’t be allowed to teach at an Ivy League law school.
When there’s a Republican President, I’m going to send one of those emails because I don’t think you should be teaching at an Ivy League law school.
I think you should be a federal judge.
Dang thing will allow just one “Like” click per comment. Yes, we need sensible Federal judges. But then, you’ll probably need to abandon the blogging.
Why? Richard Posner blogs. (Note to self: It’s a blog I should resume reading.)
Buchanan’s signal “crime” was to work for Nixon and never seek public absolution for it. He is a bit of an Old Fogie, but so what?
The best response to this is, buy his book!
I thought his great crime was that awful “red meat” speech at the Republican National Convention. I watched it live, and felt that I was watching all the steam run out of George H W Bush’s re-election campaign.
A friend of mine attended the convention, and the speech, and he said the people he respected in the room were horrified. Fortunately for us, the Democrats had a decent candidate in that election.
The word “decent” does not suit your statement about that candidate.
The US was fortunate to have Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as Presidents.
I’m surprised some enterprising person hasn’t made a full time business out of providing “heretic” apology form letters for those who are bold enough to speak out but don’t want the leftist blowback … “Speak or publish your truth now and include one of our professionally written heretic apologies at the end for a risk free experience – try it for 30 days, if it doesn’t work, we’ll either try to help refund your reputation or assist you in changing your identity at no cost.”
🙂
Sounds like a job for The Justice Brothers! Heh. 😀
(and, just for the Professor who must take so much heat from leftists, in homage: Rush reading one of your blog posts!!)
Love it! 🙂
Without a hearing, they smear and stigmatize as racist, homophobic, or anti-Semitic any who contradict what George Orwell once called their “smelly little orthodoxies.” They then demand that the heretic recant, grovel, apologize, and pledge to go forth and sin no more.
Gosh! That pretty well sums up the Don Imus contretemps.
He was hired by MSNBC to be a conservative clown. I do not think Pat Buchanan is a clown (I disagree strongly with some of his positions) but balanced debate was certainly not the goal at MSNBC. And Buchanan knew that. They hired him specifically so they could use him as a parody of a conservative and when his usefulness was done, they fired him. If you get in bed with people like MSNBC, don’t complain if they give you crabs, trash your home, and steel money from the bed stand.
Well said!
What’s next? Being locked up for hate speech because you don’t BELIEVE in “global warming”. (In other words it is intolerable for one to have the view that the climate of the earth is complex, naturally dynamic, and ever changing. It is unacceptable not to have FAITH in the persuasions of the global activist group IPCC. One is to BELIEVE hysterically that we must take drastic measures NOW to redistribute money to third world dictators and green cronycapitalists… I mean to prevent the oceans from rising and an apocalyptic end to the Earth as we know it. One must conform to this BELIEF or be outcast.
Even funnier, the conpiracy theorists on the left think anyone with these views are being paid by some dark mysterious oil company. I don’t even get paid for my full time job as a mother.
Off topic: Thanks for the Post of the Day link, amigo!
I’m not sure, libertarian_neocon, what your screen name says, since the two concepts are largely exclusive. Nevertheless, I am also Jewish, I am no longer a liberal, which means I can deal with the idea that people who disagree with me should be punished in some way. I don’t think MSNBC should have fired him; they knew what he was and hired him.
Nevertheless, at best Buchanan has a problem with Jews; whether he’s an outright anti-Semite may be discussed,although I think he is. I think checking his statements over the last couple of decades or so lead to that conclusion.
Still, if this is the claimed reason why MSNBC fired him it’s a hopeful sign, because the left doesn’t seem to have problems with outright anti-Semites like Sharpton, and even those leftists who cannot be consider anti-Semitic by an6y measure don’t find anti-Semitism to be disqualifying, or even worth bringing up.
The thing is, he was probably hired by MSNBC for these very reasons. Buchanan was a scarecrow conservative, on one hand — racist, anti-Semite, etc. But look, even he agreed with “us” on Bush’s foreign policy. He completely rehabilitated himself via New York Times and other liberal news media in the early 2000s. I remember when in 2002 Bay Area liberals were saying that they like Buchanan as of late. And now that foreign policy conservatism is no longer the main issue, liberal media has no use of poor Pat.
I’m not sure why Buchanan is a conservative anyway. He’s an isolationist and a protectionist.
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