“Ve haf vays of making you not talk”
Bookworm on Sep 26 2008 at 3:59 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama, Free speech
Being a circumlocutious type myself, I’m not normally a fan of Glenn Reynold’s bullet point approach to sharing information. Nevertheless, it makes a powerful point in his post setting out an ever expanding laundry list of the efforts the Obama campaign is making to stifle open political debate. What’s really scary is that this list is all about Obama’s efforts to stifle just one ad the NRA is running about the gun positions he’s taken over time. It doesn’t even touch on his (or his acoyltes’) earlier efforts to shut down radio stations that had speakers critical of Obama, to black mail people planning to donate money to Obama, or his own exhortation to his followers to “get into people’s faces.”
When it comes to free speech, Obama doesn’t believe in a marketplace of ideas, where open debate is the best disinfectant for bad or untrue political ideas. Instead, he has a Chicago-style approach to free speech, which is that free speech works great if the other person is threatened with cement shoes.
Are Americans, by what looks today like a 3% margin, really willing to turn the country over to this man? And did you ever think that the Democrats would front a candidate who makes Bill Clinton look like a model of temperate, Constitutionally-oriented rectitude?
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Greetings:
In a Nazi POW camp, the commanding officer had the American POWs fall in to formation in the cold and snowy weather. He told the prisoners, “Ven I gift du zee order, du vill bent to zee right und say “tick” zen you vill bent to zee left and say “tock.” Ready, begin.”
All the POWs began bending to the right and saying tick. Then all, save one, bent to the left and said tock. The Nazi CO approached the uncooperative American POW and said, “Listen, ve haf vays of maken du tock!”
Being a circumlocutious type myself, I’m not normally a fan of Glenn Reynold’s bullet point approach to sharing information.
Do you, perhaps, find some of his conclusions and statements lacking in justification and elaboration?
I want him to do more of the thinking work, Y, so I have to do less. If you just gives a snippet, I have to click over to another site, read it, and than consolidate the information to match the point I assume Reynolds is trying to make. With me, for better or worse, my posts spell everything out.
Bookworm, please remember: The only point that Glenn is always trying to make is “Heh.”
Days after this story broke, it remains difficult to retrieve the actual text of the letter that is being sent to the television stations. I have found only one link to the actual pdf, which is in a format from which I can’t seem to copy text.
The unfortunately named link is one I hesitate to place here, but it’s the only full copy of the letter I can find, so with apologies, here it is:
http://www.thebitchgirls.us/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/obama.pdf
The two critical paragraphs, where there is legal language, and it leaps off the page at you, are (I have to type it in here myself as the pdf can’t seem to be cut-and-pasted) :
Unlike federal candidates, independent political organizations do not have a “right to command the use of broadcast facilities.” See CBD v DNC, 412 U.S. 94, 113 (1973). Because you need not air this advertisement, your station bears responsibility for its content when you do grant access. See Felix v. Westinghouse Radio Statins, 186 F.2d 1, 6 (3rd Cir.), cert. denied, 313 U.S. 909 (1950)
Moreover, you have a duty “to protect the public from false, misleading, or deceptive advertising.” Licensee Responsibility With Respect to the Broadcast of False, Misleading or Deceptive Advertising, 74 F.C.C.2d 623 (1961). Failure to prevent the airing of “false and misleading advertising” may be “probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility.” Cosmopolitan Broad. Corp. v FCC, 581 F.2d 917,927 (D.C. Cir. 1978)
Now I’m no lawyer, and Book can tell us a lot more, but this seems highly threatening to me. What do you all think? If I were the TV station manager receiving this letter, I’d certainly see a threat.
I’ve seen the NRA ads in question. They’re no more deceptive than many other ads over the last few weeks that have inundated the airwaves. If I could make one point about factcheck.org’s analysis of the ads:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/nra_targets_obama.html
Factcheck takes several Obama quotes and uses them to claim that the NRA ads are false. Well, at the above link, here are some parts of these Obama quotes:
“While a complete ban on handguns is not politically practicable, I believe reasonable restrictions on the sale and possession of handguns are necessary to protect the public safety.”
“I don’t think that we can get that done. But what I do think we can do is to provide just some common-sense enforcement.”
“And by the way, here’s another thing you’ve got to understand. Even if I wanted to take it away, I couldn’t get it done. I don’t have the votes in Congress.”
These are non-denial denials, aren’t they? If he has a principled position, why not simply spell that out? Perhaps because his principled position is what the NRA says it is. In each case he says that he doesn’t have the political power to enforce the goal. It’s reasonable to assume that if he gained that power, he would enforce the goal, isn’t it?
There’s plenty more at that site on many other claims beyond these. In most cases, the NRA position seems to be quite reasonable. At least as reasonable as the claims made in many other political ads!
The First Amendment’s Free Speech clause is beloved by both conservatives and liberals alike. Obama’s use of the law – as a government agent – to force TV stations to withdraw the ads is a clear example of government censorship. Democrats will be flooding the streets in protest of this outrageous and blatant government censorship attempt… any day now they’ll be in the streets… any day now… right?
McCain’s campaign has never once threatened censorship, no matter how outrageous the ad. Obama’s team engages in censorship tactics with some frequency. One team talks the talk AND walks the walk when it comes to loving America, loving liberty and freedom, and in particular loving Freedom Of Speech in the beloved and sacred First Amendment. It’s not the Obama campaign.
Alinsky Rule # ? : Use their rules against them
“Instead, he has a Chicago-style approach to free speech, which is that free speech works great if the other person is threatened with cement shoes.”
How true!
Is America ready to try Cook County Machine politics throughout the United States?
Well, at least the trains run on time in Chicago.
Uh, Zhombre…not really! They are also pretty filthy and outmoded.
Now, Danny, it’s a well known fact, Chicago has a world-class modern transit system, and those who deny this is so or disparage Chicago transit do so for blatantly partisan political reasons. You have no right to make such patently false and misleading statements designed to create panic and mistrust of the great infrastructure of the great city of Chicago, and appropriate legal action will be taken.
>>those who deny this is so or disparage Chicago transit do so for blatantly partisan political reasons.>>
And are obviously racists.
and than consolidate the information to match the point I assume Reynolds is trying to make.
Like what Jewel said, I stopped thinking that Glenn was trying to make any “points” that I had to backtrack on. I just read the links if I found the snippet or comments about it interesting.
Glenn sort of only reports the news. If you go there for Glenn’s views, then yeah, you’ll have problems.