Tuesday, January 11, 2011

While It Is Still Legal to Do So, Let Me Be Clear, Louise Slaughter Is a Dumbass

Rep. Louise Slaughter has suggested the Federal Communications Commission is “not working anymore,” adding she would look at ways to better police language on the airwaves.
She goes on:
What I’d like to see is if we could all get together on both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, and really talk about what we can do to cool down the country. Part of that has to be what they’re hearing over the airwaves.
Ah yes, it's the damn air waves.

But, let's be fair and take a look at what is really being said out there. She may actually have a point. Just look at what one person said about a leading government official:
[He has] a superabundance of secretions which he could not find whores to draw off

Then there is this:
...[He] is a tissue of machinations against the liberty of the country...


And this was written about another government official:
He is not scrupulous about the means of success, not very mindful of truth, and..he is a contemptible hypocrite.

And this:
...treacherous in private friendship…and a hypocrite in public life
 Good God! Can  anyone show some civility? Next we will be having duels in the public square.
Of course, the first quote above is John Adams on Alexander Hamilton. The second is Thomas Jefferson on Hamilton. The third is Hamilton on Jefferson and the final quote is Thomas Paine on George Washington. And, we did have that Burr-Hamilton duel.
 
So, while I am still allowed to legally do so, let me be clear, Louise Slaughter is a dumbass, if she thinks aggressive discourse started with the airwaves.
 
There has been more than one writer in history who has been inspired to right passionately as a result of anger.  
 
Penn Jillette correctly states:  
Hyperbole, passion, and metaphor are beautiful parts of rhetoric. Marketplace of ideas can not be toned down for the insane.

Alexander Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow wrote:
 In the American imagination, the founding era shimmers as the golden age of political discourse, a time when philosopher-kings strode the public stage, dispensing wisdom with gentle civility. We prefer to believe that these courtly figures, with their powdered hair and buckled shoes, showed impeccable manners in their political dealings. The appeal of this image seems obvious at a time when many Americans lament the partisan venom and character assassination that have permeated the political process.

Unfortunately, this anodyne image of the early republic can be quite misleading. However hard it may be to picture the founders resorting to rough-and-tumble tactics, there was nothing genteel about politics at the nation's outset. For sheer verbal savagery, the founding era may have surpassed anything seen today. Despite their erudition, integrity, and philosophical genius, the founders were fiery men who expressed their beliefs with unusual vehemence.
In otherwords, there is nothing that can get the creative juices flowing, that will cause others to take notice of writing, like outrage. And as Chernow notes, this can lead to verbal savagery. It did in the Founding Fathers. It is thus at the very core of the foundation of this country. That some members of Congress would attempt to somehow censor what helped create this country is shocking and a good indication of the trash dump that Congress has become.

Further, keep in mind that the censors always see themselves above the fray. Their words, in their minds, should never be censored, despite such outrages as calling Julian Assange a terrorist and calling for his assassination.

Murray Rothbard warned about what this censorship game was really about when he wrote:
 It is interesting, by the way, how left-liberals deal with political anger. It's a question of semantics. Anger by the good guys, the accredited victim groups, is designated as "rage," which is somehow noble: the latest example was the rage of organized feminism in the Clarence Thomas/Willie Smith incidents. On the other hand, anger by designated oppressor groups is not called "rage," but "resentment": which conjures up evil little figures, envious of their betters, skulking around the edges of the night.
Bottom line: The real danger under censorship is who gets to define what is acceptable speech and what is not.  The Founding Fathers understood this was the real danger, and though they attacked each other viciously in their writings, they not for a minute attempted to censor anyone. Indeed, as Chernow tells us:
To his credit, Washington never sought to oust Jefferson from his cabinet, despite their policy differences, and urged him to remain in the administration to avoid a monolithic uniformity of opinion.
Tragically, the country has moved from a period when Washington tolerated dissent in his cabinet, to a period when the Louise Slaughters in Congress can't tolerate outside aggressive speech in the style of Hamilton, Paine and Jefferson. Let us hope her calls for censorship fall on deaf ears.

4 comments:

  1. And don't forget that the Jackson campaign accused John Quincy Adams of being the Russian czar's pimp!

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  2. We had the venerable Palin calling for Assange's assassination just recently. She now is forced by the mob at the Hill to eradicate her political map of those vicious cross hairs. From hero to zero in one event. Amazing.

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  3. You have no idea how stupid this filthy parasite is! I had a meeting with her several years ago and she has the mind of a 12 year old brat...Like most Liberals.

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