{"id":2909,"date":"2012-03-10T19:17:34","date_gmt":"2012-03-11T00:17:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/?p=2909"},"modified":"2012-03-11T09:37:22","modified_gmt":"2012-03-11T14:37:22","slug":"freedom-of-speech-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/2012\/03\/10\/anti-americanism\/freedom-of-speech-then-and-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of Speech, Then and Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1920, the famous Marxist Rosa Luxemburg<\/a> wrote,<\/p>\n

Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party \u2014 though they are quite numerous \u2014 is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters. The essence of political freedom depends not on the fanatics of ‘justice’, but rather on all the invigorating, beneficial, and detergent effects of dissenters. If ‘freedom’ becomes ‘privilege’, the workings of political freedom are broken.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2012, speaking\u00a0of Clear Channel Communications, which provides a variety of programs, including the Rush Limbaugh show, to the Armed Forces Network, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said<\/a>,<\/p>\n

I would hope the people that run it see just how offensive this is and drop it on their own volition.\u00a0 I think that is probably an issue that should be left to the folks that run that network. \u2026 In other words, I\u2019d love to see them drop it, but I don\u2019t think I\u2019d legislate it<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gee, thanks Carl!\u00a0 No doubt tears of gratitude should be running down our cheeks.\u00a0 If you’ve ever wondered what kind of “progress” people are talking about in the context of “progressive” politicians like Levin, now you know.\u00a0\u00a0When it comes to realizing\u00a0that there’s no such thing as freedom of speech unless it applies to people who don’t think just like him, Levin doesn’t have a clue .\u00a0\u00a0It was obvious enough almost 100 years ago, and to a Marxist, no less, but apparently Levin is a slow learner.<\/p>\n

And what of Limbaugh?\u00a0 The Left, in one of their signature fits of contrived virtuous indignation, is trying to silence him for a remark about a woman that pales to utter insignificance in comparison to the misogynistic bile <\/a>their own paladins have\u00a0poured on conservative women.\u00a0 Why does it matter?\u00a0 Because, whether you like his politics or not, Limbaugh has probably done more for genuine freedom of speech than anyone else in this country since H. L. Mencken resigned as editor of the American Mercury<\/em>.\u00a0 Before Limbaugh came along, individuals could say pretty much whatever they wanted.\u00a0 However, the mainstream media had a virtual monopoly on what a Marxist like Luxemburg might call the “social means of communication.”\u00a0 In other words, they controlled the “voices” that could actually be heard by a significant audience, and they saw to it that the ideological message that voice promoted had a relentless slant to the left.\u00a0 Limbaugh was the first to succeed in making a genuine crack in that monopoly.\u00a0 His lead was followed by numerous other conservative talk show hosts, and, eventually, Foxnews.<\/p>\n

The country is better off for it.\u00a0 Thanks to Limbaugh and others like him, freedom of speech really means something in this country.\u00a0 Compare our situation with that of any major country in Europe, and you’ll begin to understand why there’s reason to be grateful.\u00a0 Consider Germany, for example.\u00a0 I happen to follow the media there rather closely.\u00a0 They have big media on the “right,” like the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung<\/em>, and big media on the “left,” like Der Spiegel<\/em>, but they have nothing like Limbaugh or Foxnews.\u00a0 As a result, the message as far as anything that really matters is concerned is surprisingly uniform.<\/p>\n

For example, anti-Americanism in the media there expands and subsides, much as it does in other European countries.\u00a0 During the most recent extreme, from\u00a0about the last few years of the Clinton Administration through the first few years of the Bush Administration,\u00a0anti-American hate reached truly astounding levels.\u00a0 Occasionally, it was hard to find any German news on Der Spiegel’s<\/em> website because the available space was all taken up with ranting diatribes against the evil Americans.\u00a0 \u00a0It didn’t matter whether you read Der Spiegel<\/em>, or boulevard mags like Stern<\/em>, or wannabees like Focus<\/em>, or the FAZ<\/em> on the moderate right, or the Deutsche National Zeitung<\/em> on the brown-shirted fringe, or even if you only watched the news on TV.\u00a0 The relentless, mindless anti-American bile was everywhere.<\/p>\n

To their credit, a good number of Germans tried to push back.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the only “voice” they had was a few little blogs.\u00a0 So it is with most major ideological issues.\u00a0 There are nuances and differences in tone between the “left” and the “right,” but the overall message is surprisingly uniform, particularly in the broadcast media.\u00a0 Limbaugh put an end to that in this country.\u00a0 When there is a slant to the news, it is immediately called out and recognized as such by loud and strong voices, regardless of whether it happens to be to the left or the right.\u00a0 Hack politicians like Levin have always found that kind of genuine freedom uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

One could cite many examples of the allergic reaction of the old media in Europe to the possibility that anyone who doesn’t “think right” might be heard by a significant audience.\u00a0 The recent vicious “legal” persecution of Geert Wilders <\/a>in the Netherlands comes to mind.\u00a0 In the UK, the old media used their political water boys<\/a> to resist erosion of their control of the message by Fox News, and Iranian Press TV<\/a> was banned for “breaching the broadcasting code.”\u00a0 They cheered loudly when the government went to the extreme of banning 16 people with some semblance of a public voice, including\u00a0US radio talk show host Michael Savage<\/a>, from entering the country.\u00a0 If nothing else, Savage would have been a useful anodyne against the BBC’s relentless slanting<\/a> of the news against Israel.\u00a0 The UK once allowed pacifists a voice in her public media even as her troops were being evacuated from Dunkirk and she fought on alone against Hitler.\u00a0 Obviously, times have changed.<\/p>\n

In a word, be happy if\u00a0Rush Limbaugh\u00a0really irritates you.\u00a0 If you can still hear him it means there’s still some semblance of freedom of speech in this country.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1920, the famous Marxist Rosa Luxemburg wrote, Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party \u2014 though they are quite numerous \u2014 is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters. The essence of political freedom depends not on the fanatics of ‘justice’, but … Continue reading “Freedom of Speech, Then and Now”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,69,53,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-americanism","category-censorship","category-politics","category-the-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwEq0-KV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2909"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2912,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909\/revisions\/2912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}