A whole bunch of years ago, when I was sitting in a court room during divorce proceedings, I noticed the words, “IN GOD WE TRUST” emblazoned on the wall above the judge’s bench. And I leaned over to my attorney and, indicating the wording, said, “So…the whole separation of church and state thing…?”
“Not so much,” said my attorney.
Well, a blow for remembering that shoving God in your face isn’t exactly always appreciated was struck in Kentucky when a judge ruled that a state law regarding homeland security had crossed the ever-flexible line in that regard. The law apparently treated survival in a manner similar to the way AA treats alcoholism: You have to acknowledge your dependence on a higher power for survival. And the judge rightly said, “Uh uh. Unconstitutional.”
The state representative–who is, not coincidentally, a pastor–declared that it wasn’t a matter of religion. “God isn’t a religion. God is God!” he declared. He also pointed out that the words “In God We Trust” appears on all the money. Which is true. But the mandate to put the newly declared national motto on all the money (not just the few coins on which it previously appeared) didn’t occur until the 1950s, at the same time that the words “under God” were inserted into the pledge of allegiance. You know, back when Congress was desperate to prove that we were different from the Godless commies, not to mention falling over each other to weed out Reds in our society and consequently ruining the careers and lives of a lot of good people.
Not that we’ve moved beyond the need to persecute people, harass them, and boycott them simply because of opinions they might or might not possess; the spirit of Tailgunner Joe is alive and well to this day, I can assure you. So the insertion of God into various aspects of life by government fiat has a not-so-proud legacy. I’ll be interested to see if the good pastor’s observation about the money triggers the next law suit.
More details can be found here:
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Hmmm, I’d be surprised if a lawsuit to change the money got very far. You are correct that the mandate to have the motto was from the 50s but it had been used on more than just a few coins before then–apparently it started during the religious sentiment of the civil war. According to wiki the motto was put on the gold Double Eagle coin, the gold Eagle coin, the gold Half Eagle coin, the silver dollar coin, the half dollar coin, the quarter dollar coin, and on the nickel five-cent coin beginning in 1866. It disappeared off of the nikel from 1883 to 1938. All coins have had it since 1938. The penny has had it since 1909, the dime since 1916.
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Paper money only got the motto in 1957.
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With such a long history the Supreme Court is likely to continue the precedent of Aronow v. United States
I agree, just as any future lawsuits to remove “under God” from the pledge of allegiance are likely to be about as successful as the one a few years ago was.
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Doesn’t mean that keeping the God references is a GOOD thing, mind you — it’s just not a battle worth fighting, in my opinion. I’d much rather save that energy for more crucial things, like the influences Jason refers to downthread.
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(And as I believe I’ve mentioned before anyway, I don’t say the Pledge at school functions anyway. I stand respectfully, but I won’t speak it. Loyalty oaths and I don’t mix.
I know about the suits a few years ago, but since this precedent has now been set, it may prompt someone to take another run at it.
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It’s only precedent in Kentucky, though.
a pastor–declared that it wasn’t a matter of religion. “God isn’t a religion. God is God!” he declared.
So we used God as the Thin Green Line between us and the dirty godless Commies, and amazingly enough, we’ve ended up with a bunch of good God-fearing A’mer’kins who don’t understand the idea of separation of church and state. Who think their religion is everyone’s religion, or else it should be.
Now, Pastor? Here’s the compromise I’ll make with you: I will agree not to give you a piece of my freethinking scientific humanist mind on what exactly I think your God really is, and in return, you will keep your reasoning where I can see it.
So they’re saying that God will protect us from people who think God wants us destroyed?
Reminds me of a bit from 3rd Rock from the Sun. Joey Levitt is on the school basketball team, and the coach gathers them around for a pre-game prayer. He notices the other team also praying, and says, “So, our god is stronger than their god?” The coach replies, “There’s only one god,” and he comes back with, “Then does anyone else see a serious conflict of interest here?”
People forget that the separation between church and state isn’t just to protect the state, it’s to protect the church.
(It just occurred to me that even the phrase “church vs. state” implies Christianity, since not every religion has something specifically called a “church”.)
When people insert religion into politics, that changes the religion. Look at what we’re finding out about “The Family,” the secretive group that includes such paragons of virtue as Senator John Ensign and Governor Sanford. Both these guys ran on campaigns tauting Christian values, then went to sermons declaring that Hitler understood the teachings of Christ better than anyone else in the 20th century.
I’m not making this up. I’m not comparing them to Nazis or making any other inflammatory comparisons. This is actually what they believed. They also believed that the true message of Christ was that certain people were above laws because they were chosen by God to lead the country.
All of this was kept secret while they used the trappings of more mainstream Christianity to convince people to vote for them. That’s bad for the American people in general, but it’s also an abuse of the religion and a betrayal of the Christian people they were keeping secrets from.
We have the separation of Church and State for very good reasons. I’m glad the courts made the right decision in this case, but I’m still worried about the general direction this issue is going in.
Are you talking about Doug Coe? It’s worse than you know. Hillary Clinton, who came perilously close to becoming president (some would say)declared him “a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.” Jimmy Carter used him at t the Camp David Middle East accords.
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Can’t really comment on his Hitler comments since I don’t know exactly what was said and in what context except to say that I am always amazed when people use Hitler in any kind of positive light to make a point and are then amazed when people are appalled by it. Louis Farrakan calls him a “great man” and tries to defend the statement by pointing out that “great” does not mean “good”. Point taken but it makes me wonder about their intelligence. Why make a point with an analogy that will make everyone ignore the point?
Time Magazine sometimes runs into that “great doesn’t always mean good” thing when they do their “Man of the Year.” The Man of the Year is supposed to be the person who had the most impact on the world, positive or negative. That’s why at various times, the Man of the Year (now Person of the Year) was Hitler, Stalin, and Ayatollah Khomeni. Really, if Time had been true to its convictions, they would have made Osama bin Laden Man of the Year in 2001 and accepted the blowback from it. They didn’t; instead they made the MotY Mayor Rudy, which was absurd because the only reason he was in the news in any story not having to do with censoring art exhibitions was because of bin Laden’s actions.
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Yep. Doug Coe. His Hitler comments came in private sessions and sermons where he held up Hitler and other despots as men who had the right idea about power. He qualified it by saying that sure, they were bad guys, but on the right track about demanding loyalty and power.
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Some choice quotes from a quick internet search:
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“Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense power these three men had, these nobodies from nowhere,” Coe said.
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Later in the sermon, Coe said: “Jesus said, ‘You have to put me before other people. And you have to put me before yourself.’ Hitler, that was the demand to be in the Nazi party. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives ahead of your own life and ahead of other people.”
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Coe also quoted Jesus and said: “One of the things [Jesus] said is ‘If any man comes to me and does not hate his father, mother, brother, sister, his own life, he can’t be a disciple.’ So I don’t care what other qualifications you have, if you don’t do that you can’t be a disciple of Christ.”
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My point isn’t specifically about Coe, though. He and his group are just an example of how government and religion are not just a bad mix for government, but also for religion. The same thing can be seen in Iran right now. Their highest political leader is also a religious leader and he’s made up his mind that anything he wants to do is the will of god. That’s causing problems with the other religious leaders who are looking at the election irregularities and seeing a subversion of their values for political power.
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That’s a world away, but The Family is in our own government. So as extreme as the Iranian situation might be, the only thing that keeps us from going down that same route is our diligence.
There was a time when the Man of the Year issue was something of some significance but they’ve diluted it with dumb stunts to the point where it’s lost all interest. the 2006 Person of the Year was me. Well, me and you. And everyone else. Which sounds like an Onion joke only it was the real deal.
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It isn’t that one can’t use Hitler as an example of anything other than evil incarnate. In fact, I can’t say anything this Doug Coe fellow says in the quotes Jason gives are untrue. (I’d like to hear the one where he supposedly says that Hitler understood the teachings of Jesus better than anyone else. That sounds pretty hard to justify.) Hitler was a nobody who gained great power and demanded complete loyalty. No argument there.
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To then compare this to one’s commitment to Jesus is just shock for shock’s sake. Again, I can’t really complain about the message–I suppose one could make a pretty compelling case that if one believes that Jesus is what the church says he is you should be at least as devoted to him as the nazis were devoted to Hitler. It’s just that it makes little sense to me to make an argument in a way that stomps all over the message you are trying to get out.
“It’s just that it makes little sense to me to make an argument in a way that stomps all over the message you are trying to get out.”
Getting into why they do it despite the problems is where it gets scary.
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They’re telling their people to be more like Hitler. Sure, they can say, “not the bad stuff, just the ruthless demands of utter devotion,” but are the bad things and the things they want to emulate really separate? If they were, there would be other great leaders who were examples of these principals without the evil stuff. However, they don’t seem to have found anyone significant besides Hitler, Pol Pot, and Osama bin Laden to exemplify. They think those are their best choices, so I have to think that there aren’t any alternatives they could use. That makes it hard to believe that there’s anything good to be gained by holding these men up as examples. If the best example he can give of a leadership lesson is a soldier chopping off his own mother’s head, then that’s not a good lesson.
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Bill, beyond that I am little surprised that you don’t see anything in what he said that is worth complaining about. I thank that teaching people that Jesus valued hatred of family is pretty objectionable.
Isn’t that quote pretty much one from the Bible? If so, no, I can’t really complain about him using it, kind of comes with the job description. I guess I’d have to see how he interpreted it to see if I had any objection. I’d always heard that the word “hate” as used here was to be seen as more like “putting in second place”, that, in other words, one should love God above all things. The use of mother, father, life, etc is because those are the very things one SHOULD love–just that God deserves more. Was Coe actually advocating hating one’s own mother/father/life? I would assume that if so there should have been some juicy quotes of his own that are not just selections from the Bible.
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The only reason I could see to use Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, etc as examples would be to point out that these guys were sociopaths, murderers, loons, and not the sharpest knives in the crayon box but they accomplished much despite all those disadvantages because they had the will to do so. How many great things could a person accomplish if they approached performing good deeds with such will? (And when one looks at the lives of some of the greats like Ghandi one does see a certain degree of ruthless single mindedness in the pursuit of good.)
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Maybe that was what they were going for. I don’t know, haven’t read anything more than the snippets posted here and at a few other places. At the very least, it illustrates another disadvantage to using bad guys as examples–you’re opposition will use your words to paint you as sympathetic to them.
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Good advice for all–when saying the word “Hitler” in public carefully consider if anything you say could possibly be construed as a compliment to Hitler, either through confusion or deliberate misinterpretation on the part of the listener. Given that there ARE actual Hitler enthusiasts, holocaust deniers, anti-Semites, etc, it behooves one not to risk being seen as sympathetic to their cause.
I don’t know the bible well, but I haven’t been able to find anything to indicate that the quote comes from the bible. It seems that it’s something Coe came up with himself. Apparently that’s a pattern, as Coe claims that there are many secret teachings that Jesus did not share with the masses and were only intended for the elite.
Luke 14:26
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Not to be confused with Austin 3:16– “I just whooped your ášš”
Thank you for finding the passage. Your google-fu was stronger than mine today.
Bill Mulligan wrote:
>>”It isn’t that one can’t use Hitler as an
>>example of anything other than evil incarnate”
I am reminded of the Classic Trek episode with a evil federation historian (?) had set up shop on a planet and had implemented a nazi-like society which, naturally, had gotten out of his control. When trying to exlain himself, he commented that he had done it because (if I am quoting correctly), “It was the most efficent time earth ever knew”.
Even given that the Jesus quote is from the bible, I’d still say that Coe was massively out of line.
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If someone says that a person should aspire to be as loving as Jesus, I’m okay with that. Aspiring to be as loving as god sounds really hard, but not blasphemous.
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If someone advises people to make others devote themselves to you as much as they would Jesus, that’s not good. Nobody deserves godlike worship. Nobody deserves followers who chop their mother’s heads off, which was one of Coe’s examples. When Coe says that Hitler was on the right track, it’s not because Hitler was inspiring that level of faith in Jesus, it’s because Hitler was trying to obtain that level of devotion to Hitler.
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So even with that being a quote from the bible, it’s still dangerous. He’s not preaching that the right way to follow Jesus is to make people follow Jesus with that devotion. He’s preaching that the members of the Family are people who deserve that level of devotion themselves.
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That’s the kind of thing that needs to be made public, not kept secret. The people that these politicians are winning over by talking about Christian values need to know that he’s part of a group that has different values. That’s the kind of thing that (I’m trying to get back to the original topic) is where religion and politics shouldn’t mix. If politicians start thinking that they have their own special religion that sets them above others, that hurts both the people and the religion.
No argument there…but I’d have to see some quotes from the guy actually stating what you are saying he believes before I’ll share in the condemnation. It isn’t like I can’t believe that Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter and John Ensign have been cavorting with a nut but I prefer to hang people on their own words, not second hand interpretations of same.
There’s some video on the internet of his sermons. The ones I’ve found are a little chopped up, perhaps you can find better.
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As for cavorting, not all cavorting is the same. From what I can find, Hillary was meeting with him in the White House for brief meetings and at social events. My impression is that she and her husband tried to connect with him in the way that politicians try to connect with everyone. They talked to him some and dropped his name when it was useful, but I don’t know of any evidence that they had a deeper connection than that.
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Ensign and Sanford worked with him on a much deeper level. They stayed at the Family’s C-Street house, which is registered as a church despite Coe not being ordained as anything. They went to his sermons. Apparently there was a lot done in the house and in his sermons and private sessions that was not done elsewhere.
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Short version: He made have had significant contact with Clinton, Carter, both Bushes, and the recently disgraced politicians, but it doesn’t seem like all of them were in on The Family’s secrets.
I can’t vouch for the absolute veracity of the article but here’s Mother Jones on Hillary and Coe:
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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics
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Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection.
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…When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian “cell” whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.
Clinton’s prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or “the Family”), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship’s only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has “made a fetish of being invisible,” former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.
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Clinton declined our requests for an interview about her faith, but in Living History, she describes her first encounter with Fellowship leader Doug Coe at a 1993 lunch with her prayer cell at the Cedars, the Fellowship’s majestic estate on the Potomac. Coe, she writes, “is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.”
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These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives’ group into what may be Coe’s most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast. Though weighted Republican, the breakfast—regularly attended by about 40 members—is a bipartisan opportunity for politicians to burnish their reputations, giving Clinton the chance to profess her faith with men such as Brownback as well as the twin terrors of Oklahoma, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, and, until recently, former Senator George Allen (R-Va.). Democrats in the group include Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who told us that the separation of church and state has gone too far; Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is also a regular.
Oh, yes, let’s once again bring up the dread bogeyman of Hillary’s being President while COMPLETELY ignoring Barack Obama’s “uncle” Jeremiah Wright and that man’s utterly incredulous (and blatantly white-hating) outrages that *somehow* Obama never managed to hear (while STILL managing to defend “uncle” Jeremiah’s statements as being out of context).
Then, let’s also forget that Obama, in his “great” race speech swore that he could no more renounce his “crazy uncle” than he could his own grandmother; yet after Wright made a couple more outrageous comments a few months later, Obama DID renounce his association with “uncle” Jeremiah.
Hillary only attended some meetings; Obama had his marriage officiated by Wright. Obama had his daughters baptized by Wright. Obama spent 2 decades’ worth of Sundays (when he could) listening to Wright’s sermons and apparently spending a fair deal of his “off-time” in Wright’s company.
The separation of church and state doesn’t matter to the Republican Party. They are all in favor of controlling people’s lives, especially minorities.
I thought that was the democratic party’s health care reform.
I thought that was the democratic party’s health care reform.
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*Obviously*. Because trying to encourage people to talk about living wills and end of life care is effing evil! It might lead to death panels and stuff!
No, no, it’s the Democratic Party’s budget policy. Because the Federal government is much better at spending money than individual people are. They have so much practice, for one thing.
I’m guessing you didn’t read the article that Peter linked. The man who inserted the language that the judge deemed unconstitutional was a Democrat.
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From the linked article:
Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, who inserted the language into the 2006 legislation, said Wednesday that he hopes Conway will ask Wingate to reconsider his decision. Conway has 10 days to do that and 30 days to appeal.
Riner, who is pastor of Christ is King Baptist Church in Louisville, said the decision is a “very disconcerting thing.”
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Some people need to remember that idiocy regarding church-state separation is NOT the province of a single political philosophy.
It’s only bad when the other guy does it. Stick to the narrative.
We’ve had a case recently that held that our currency is discriminatory against the blind. I haven’t seen what Treasury has come up with to address that issue, but if we can legally order our coinage and bills revamped to not discriminate against the blind, certainly there’s a chance that we’ll see our money become religion-neutral.
I’m pretty sure I’ve read that some countries have bumps on their bills to tactically indicate the denomination. Assuming those would still work in bill reading machines, I’d guess part of the basis for the suit was that it was a solved problem elsewhere.
My pet duck has bumps on his bill.
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It’s raining here in southeast Michigan.
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BREAKING NEWS! it doesn’t take a law suit to remove “under god” from the pledge. An age of congress put in there a act of congress can remove it! And guess what the party in power SAYS they believe in separation of church and state. So rather than fight meaningless law suits why don’t they just get off there buts on change the law. they could have it on Obama desk in 24 hours if they wanted too. Rather than cry about how unfair the world is write to your congress man or woman and make them change this if you care about it so much. They have the votes, say your doing it for Teddy!
“Act of Congress”
Now there’s a contradiction in terms.
An act of Congress is massively less likely than a successful lawsuit. People would declare that any significant effort by a congressman to remove the wording would be a hate crime against god.
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We’ve got people screaming at town hall meetings on health care. There’s no way a significant number of congressmen would be willing to stand up to the firestorm that would come over this issue.
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A lawsuit isn’t likely to succeed either, but at least isn’t not something that would make Congressmen think they’re jeopardizing their careers for. Many of them could just avoid comment and say that it’s a matter for the courts to decide.
It doesn’t need to be removed from my Pledge of Allegiance. I stick with the original. Everyone else says it wrong.
I’ve never quite understood the compulsion of my fellow conservatives to force religion into every aspect of public life. There’s freedom of religion in this country; you can exercise your religion just about almost anywhere. The amount of physical space where religion should be separated (courts, schools, etc.) is so miniscule compared to the rest of the nation that I simply don’t understand why they’re so fixated on forcing it into that final .001%.
Because they are the type of people who can’t stand the fact they don’t have total dictatorship. And they can’t deal with the fact that some people don’t believe as they do. I think the people who yell the loudest about these things are the same ones doing stuff that they aren’t supposed to. Some of the loudest “protect the kids” people in government have been caught doing exactly what they are sooooo against. How many protect marriage idiots are cheating on their spouse, going through a divorce or on their 2nd or 3rd spouse. Many.
They can’t control themselves so they try to dictate to others.
Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense power these three men had, these nobodies from nowhere,” Coe said.
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Later in the sermon, Coe said: “Jesus said, ‘You have to put me before other people. And you have to put me before yourself.’ Hitler, that was the demand to be in the Nazi party. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives ahead of your own life and ahead of other people.”
Great. They’re taking lessons from the losers.
I really wish Christians wouldn’t try to put the word “God” in laws for no good reason. I can’t imagine they think that someone’s spiritual curiosity will be piqued when they see that little phrase inside a gigantic law book. “Why do you believe in God?” “Kentucky State Law.”
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The state representative does make an interesting point, however. Can’t someone believe in God without having a religion? Isn’t that a pretty good definition of Deism? Not that that makes put the word “God” in our law books a good idea, of course.
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Regarding Jesus’ commands that you must hate your family and your own life to be his disciple, most would say that Jesus is saying you must love him more than everyone else. If it seems like a weird way of saying that, Jesus would probably agree with you. In Matthew 13:1-23, Jesus tells a similarly confusing parable and later explains to his disciples why he spoke so confusingly.
There are many in this country who don’t believe in any deity, or question that there is a deity and there are those who believe in a Goddess.If you can’t include everyone else’s beliefs in the law, then you should not put God in either.
I’m all for keeping politics out of religion, but when you say that laws have to “include everyone else’s beliefs,” my mind starts whirring through all the current laws that are objectionable to some, not to mention the in-between issues.
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Abortion is murder to many.
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The death penalty is a severe human rights violation to many.
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Some people want to legalize pedophilia between a consenting man and boy.
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Like I said, I don’t want God mentioned ham-fistedly in our law books, but I think there’s got to be some point where we draw the line of people’s feelings and beliefs and just flat-out state that some laws must be followed even if you find them offensive or repugnant.
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You did make me think of something interesting, though: if the neutral version of “man” and “woman” is “person,” and the word in between “him” and “her” is “hir,” what should we use for the in-between or “God” and “Goddess”?
To MrBlake: There is a very good word that already exists. It’s “deity.” It’s perfectly gender-neutral and it’s faith-neutral. (It won’t quite satisfy the atheists but it should be suitable whether you worship YHWH, Allah, Vishnu, Freya or that willow tree in your front yard.)
Here’s the thing, although not everyone agrees about abortion, the laws in the lawbooks are put there to decide the legality of such. Some, like NAMBLA, would have you believe that consenting relationships between grown men and boys are okay, but again, the laws in the lawbooks that talk about that are talking about the legality of it. From what I gather, the bill wasn’t discussing the legality of God, belief in God, or worship in God. It seems that the insertion was totally unnecessary. So why have God mentioned at all? By excluding the word one makes no statement about belief, worship, or existence, and therefore is inclusive to all. Sometimes it can be difficult to make rules that are inoffensive, but excluding offensive parts often is the first step to doing so.
Deism is a religious belief. A belief doesn’t have to be part of an organized religion to be religious.
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Even Atheism is a belief about the roles of higher powers in our lives, it’s the belief that that role is zero. Thus, even if we wouldn’t call it a religion in the same way as organized religions, I would say that it is a belief about religion. Thus, I wouldn’t want a declaration that there is no god on our money any more than I want a declaration that there is a god.
Can’t someone believe in God without having a religion?
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Beyond what Karen said, about those who don’t believe in God at all, the problem here tends to be that it’s Christians deciding it’s their God that is being talked about. It’s not an all-inclusive “God” that’s they want it to be referring to, but to their version of said supreme being, at the exclusion of all others faiths.
Sadly, this is quite correct, the idea that “religious expression is great — but only for our religion.” The best example of this is shown when the idea of prayer in public school comes up. The folks pushing this aren’t advocating Hebrew blessings, Wiccan prayers, Muslim words of worship or Buddhist teachings. It’s the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” — and anyone who advocates keeping prayer (from the church) and public schools (from the state) separate is made out to be anti-Catholic or anti-Christian.
From what I read in the article, the “God” in question wasn’t specified except by calling him “God.” Any religion that has at least one God could be included. Now obviously, the atheists, agnostics, people who believe in multiple non-hierarchical deities and those who believe in a “Goddess” are still out in the cold, but simply “God” is actually quite inclusive. If the representative were referring to the Christian God we all assume he was referring to, he’d have to separate that God from Judaism, Islam, Latter-Day Saints, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, just to name a few.
Not that we’ve moved beyond the need to persecute people, harass them, and boycott them simply because of opinions they might or might not possess; the spirit of Tailgunner Joe is alive and well to this day, I can assure you.
No kidding. Apparently a lot of people are flipping out because some CEO wrote an op/ed piece on health care reform. An op/ed piece supporting health care reform, mind you, but it was the wrong reform. So much for dialogue. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=8322658&page=1
Well, he’s the CEO of Whole Foods so you know he must be some kind of cigar smoking Rush Limbaugh type, a villain right out of a captain Planet episode.
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President Obama says we should have a dialogue on health care, a CEO writes an op ed piece on just that and suddenly a bunch of Obama’s “supporters” jump ugly at the guy and try to get him fired. These folks are just sorry they missed Mao’s “hundred flowers” campaign.
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And they are hurting Obama and his campaign for health care reform but just watch–if his attempt ends up as badly as Hillary’s did (a prospect that once seemed unlikely but is a distinct possibility now) these same people will be quick to point fingers at the mistakes the administration has made, completely ignoring their own culpability.
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Someone at a conservative site made a suggestion that he was certain would never happen but I wonder–it’s the kind of thing that got Obama the White House. He suggested that Obama be seen going to Whole Foods, buying some healthy food and, when he is asked by a reporter about the boycott, simply brush it off, say that when he said he wanted a dialogue he meant it, that he had nothing to fear from people offering their own suggestions, hëll, if I were him I’d invite that CEO to a meeting and listen to what he said. Ignore it, probably, but go through the motions.
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He suggested making Medicare weaker, a sure losing proposition among the elderly.
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He is right that Americans need to eat a better diet, but his idea of the government forcing people to eat better also is a hot point.
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And I agree with the boycott, not because of what he just said, but because of the things he has been saying over the last couple years.
Thenodrin, I absolutely agree that they have every right to boycott their little hearts out. The baptists had every right to boycott Disney when they thought that Disney was too wiling to treat gay families as something less than evil.
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The jokers that tried to shut PAD up by threatening his livelihood at Marvel have the right to do so.
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It is an attempt to stifle speech one does not agree with though. What gets me is that boycotter’s often are unwilling to admit that. They want to use the threat of financial harm as a cudgel with which to keep people in line but they don’t have the honesty to admit that this is what they are doing. I guess it doesn’t sound noble enough.
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Notice that Obama has not urged any such boycott. You’d think that would tell them something but I think they have an agenda of their own and the President’s best interests may not be part of that agenda.
Okay, so correct me if I’m wrong (it is 5:30 in the morning), but isn’t a boycott simply refusing to buy a certain product? If so, then I do not see what all the fuss is about. Whether or not the cause of the boycott is in the least bit rational, of course it’s okay to boycott something. It’s your dollar, if you don’t want to spend it there for any reason (whether you don’t agree with the bossman or perhaps that your grandfather was insulted that they don’t carry his favorite brand of cornflakes) go right ahead. One of my co-workers has stopped getting food at a restaurant right next door to us because when you buy a sandwich there they put the meat on the bun and leave all the toppings to the side, whether or not she asks them, “Hey, if I’m going to pay $9 for a sandwich, will you please actually make it for me?”
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Perhaps this is just because I work in a customer service job where it’s not entirely uncommon to hear someone with $300 in late fees refuse to pay all of them off for $15 and declare “I’m never coming here again, from now on I’ll only go to Spotlight!”, but I can’t really see what all this fuss is about. Generally when I see that I just kind of roll my eyes and make fun of them behind their back to my co-workers after they stomp out of our store. It’s their dollar, they can take it wherever they like, and if they chose to bring it to me I’ll greet them with a friendly smile and help them.
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Point of fact being, I can’t help but see the anti-boycott, where all people are forced to spend money there??? But that clearly makes no sense. Attempting to write the boycotters off as loons, start a new add campaign targeted to a different demographic, build some new stores in up-and-coming neighborhood shopping districts… If a group of people were attempting to start a boycott of a business I worked at, sure, I might get kind of annoyed if it was for no discernible reason, but what am I supposed to do? Go out there and foist their dollars from them?
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But allow me to get back to my original point. Whether or not their a bunch of nutjobs, their well within their rights, and to question the validity of any boycott shouldn’t be about whether or not it’s a good, sound, moral thing to do, it should be concerning the reason why the people are up in arms. I can see the argument that to boycott something for the given reasons is an attempt to punish that person for having the wrong opinion, but your average, everyday boycotter should never have to feel bad about where they spend their money (unless they want to).
I can see the argument that to boycott something for the given reasons is an attempt to punish that person for having the wrong opinion, but your average, everyday boycotter should never have to feel bad about where they spend their money (unless they want to).
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I think you’re muddying the waters a bit there, Jasmine, by lumping a whole different bunch of scenarios and basically saying they’re all boycotts and indistinguishable.
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Why people do something matters. To take an extreme example: Killing someone because you were driving along and in the darkness they stepped in front of your car is one thing. Killing them because they were trying to kill you is another. Killing them because you found them cheating with your significant other is yet another thing. Killing them because your dog instructed you to is still another. The result is the same, but there’s different degrees of culpability.
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To cease patronizing a restaurant because they consistently get your order wrong makes perfect sense. To cease patronizing a restaurant because, say, the manager had a letter printed in the local paper in which he expressed die-hard GOP sentiments and you’re a yellow-dog Democrat, does not make perfect sense. Or any sense. At least not to me. At least not in a free society.
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People like to declare that they have the right to strike back at people economically because they don’t like the things they’ve said. Sure. They have that right. But in a society that is supposed to value free speech, it’s not one they should employ. Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean they SHOULD do something.
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It’s easy–it’s so easy–to say, “Well, I don’t like this person’s opinion, and therefore I don’t care that people are making his life difficult because of it.” The thing is: Defending free expression ISN’T easy. It’s a lot of work. It means doing more than paying lip service to the notion that you will defend someone else’s right to say what they want, even if you find those sentiments repellant.
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Free expression is called “free” for a reason. Boycotts are deliberately constructed blockages in the river of ideas. They are designed to impede that freeflow and that, to me, makes them intrinsically wrong. Any person who on the one hand had contempt for people who showed up here and declared they were boycotting me for my opinions about race or copyright infringement and on the other hand fully support boycotts of others who have voiced unpopular opinions really need to take a step back and see what side of the free speech fence they’re really on. Attempts to chill free speech can’t be wrong when it impacts on someone you like and right when it impacts on something you don’t like. The principle remains the same, whether you agree with the speaker or not.
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PAD
Okay, but that still doesn’t solve the problem I’m having. Boycotting may be something you see as objectionally, morally wrong, but it’s still something that’s well within a persons rights. So much so, that again, that the alternative end to the boycott seems to be forcing people to shop where they don’t want to. Which is, as I said before, totally crazy. Or I could, in support of the man’s free-speech, shop there myself (but of course I don’t shop there myself, for a list of reasons topped off with that there is no Whole Foods within 200 miles of my home).
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So what’s the next step then? We can write people off who stop spending their money there because the bossman said something they don’t like as rash or unkind people… and then what? Are we supposed to be assuming that everyone in this world will make calculated and sound decisions? Again, crazy. It seems that the only sane(ish) response to try to quash a boycott is to shop there yourself, but spending money at a grocery store because other people aren’t and you feel sorry for them isn’t the best way to go about picking your grocery stores. Just like stopping spending your money at one because you didn’t like something someone there had to say. So again, what’s the ideal alternative to a morally objectionable boycott? Something that employs both sound reasoning and also doesn’t anticipate everyone in this world making practical choices.
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We can call them mean for stopping shopping there, and we can call them dumb. But again, it’s totally their decision, a call they get to make, and in no way should they be punished for what stores they do and don’t shop at. Sitting back and declaring these boycotters mean and/or dumb seems to be the best alternative to the boycott so far… but is there really any point to sitting back and calling someone these names? Not that I don’t do it all the time, but it’s not as if it ever did anything for me besides maybe made me feel better about my actions in the short term.
Okay, but that still doesn’t solve the problem I’m having. Boycotting may be something you see as objectionally, morally wrong, but it’s still something that’s well within a persons rights.
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Jasmine, why did you say that? Seriously. Why? I mean, I already said, “People like to declare that they have the right to strike back at people economically because they don’t like the things they’ve said. Sure. They have that right.” So why is it that the first thing you bring up in rebuttal is acting as if I I’m contending that people are NOT within their rights? I really want to know, because whenever I discuss this, people do that incessantly and I just can’t get over it. It’s like I’m talking and there’s this wall between the words I’m speaking and their intended recipient.
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My big problem is that people are all for their rights; just not for the rights of other people. People who make statements that are unpopular made be under the impression that they have a right to say what they wish. Imagine their surprise when they learn that, no, they don’t. Because, again, boycotts are designed to quash unpopular opinions. To make sure that people are punished for saying them; to try and remove their platforms by getting them fired; to make sure that anyone who has a similar opinion keeps their lip zipped lest they be victim of the same sort of financial backlash.
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In other words, I completely concede that people have the right to launch boycotts. I just wish that those people were likewise conceding that they are attempting to deny the rights of others to voice unpopular opinions.
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The alternative end to the boycott seems to be forcing people to shop where they don’t want to.
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No. The alternative end is to force people to realize that in a free society, people should be able to voice their opinions without their ability to earn a living being in the balance for it. In other words, it’s getting them to think about what a free society and being a supporter of free speech really means. As long as they believe that an appropriate response to a speaker’s opinions is to assail the speaker himself and try to shut him down, shut him up, and shut him out, then they will invariably still be embracing the philosophy of Free Speech for Me, but Not for Thee.
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Or I could, in support of the man’s free-speech, shop there myself (but of course I don’t shop there myself, for a list of reasons topped off with that there is no Whole Foods within 200 miles of my home).
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There’s none near me, either. There’s a Walmart, a Stop & Shop, and a Pathmark, and a King Kullen. I don’t shop at the King Kullen. Know why? They never have enough people at the register and they don’t have the brands I want. I have no idea how the store manager feels about health care.
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So what’s the next step then? We can write people off who stop spending their money there because the bossman said something they don’t like as rash or unkind people… and then what?
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Then we’ve failed. I’m not interested in “writing off” anyone. I don’t believe that people’s minds cannot be changed. Naturally there will be people who are intransigent in their beliefs. But there are others who are open to thinking beyond their current opinions. “The unexamined life is not worth living” quoth Socrates. Some people live by that credo, and some would rather drink the hemlock than examined their opinions.
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Are we supposed to be assuming that everyone in this world will make calculated and sound decisions?
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I think that ship’s sailed. But the alternative is to…what? Give up? I don’t think so.
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Again, crazy. It seems that the only sane(ish) response to try to quash a boycott is to shop there yourself, but spending money at a grocery store because other people aren’t and you feel sorry for them isn’t the best way to go about picking your grocery stores.
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I’m not talking about feeling sorry for someone. I’m talking about taking a principled stand based upon a firm belief in freedom of expression. I never bought a Dixie Chicks CD in my life until people shouted that they should be boycotted; then I did. If there were a Whole Foods around, I’d probably drop some bucks there. Because I believe that free speech really SHOULD be free. I’m not big in just giving lip service to the notion or advocating it only when it suits my needs.
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PAD
Jasmine, I don’t think the point of calling the boycotters mean, dumb, misguided or anything else is too make them feel bad or punsih them–it’s to convinse others not to support them and demonstrate public support for the ones being boycotted. A boycott is effective when the company or business feels that they are losing public support. Letting them know that this is not the case may stiffen their spine and keep them from giving in.
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And I don’t think the logical extreme anti-boycott move would not be to force people to shop there–which is impossible–but to organize a counter boycott against those who boycott others for their political views. Unfortunately, that is also off the table, since those of us who feel that boycotting people for their ideas is wrong can’t very well go and do it.
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But we can 1-patronize the boycotted establishment if possible and 2- let our voices be heard. If the boycotters can’t handle that they need to take up a hobby less injurious to their delicate sensitivities–carp fishing, perfect example.
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A few years ago there was an organized boycott against Disney World for having days that encouraged families with gay members to attend. Those who did not agree with the boycott did not kidnap Southern Baptists in the middle of the night and force them to ride Space Mountain (wow, that sounds…really dirty). They just kept on going to Disney World and let people know about it.
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So the Whole Foods boycotters can instead go eat a McDonald’s Toadburger with my blessing. I will, however, feel free to join those who point out that they are behaving in a manner inconsistent with a devotion to free speech. If that bothers them they can argue the point, ignore us or change their ways to make their actions more in line with their professed ideas. No coercion at all…at least on our side of the issue.
I feel like all I did in my posts was repeat myself (trust me, the unedited version had more of it), and wish the reader to impart that all that was written was the product of an unfocused and sleep-deprived mind. I don’t think anyone anywhere even came close to saying that people don’t have the right to boycott. If it came off that way, I apologize. I was merely attempting to reason out a solution to the problem.
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Of course I never thought that anyone would expect the solution to be forcing people’s patronage, as I said many times over, that’s incredibly crazy.
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But (and perhaps this comes from my experience working with the public in both a customer service job as well as being the media face of a non-profit that constantly got stomped on), although the idea of wishing to educate people about the consequences of their actions is nice… it’s just not something that I see possible for the majority. I’ve come to understand the public as a generally nice, pleasant group who on a good day will be friendly and polite, but when the mood strikes them to make rash decisions and refuse to concede until you finally convince them there’s nothing you can do to help them (and then continue on asking for phone numbers to call and complain at and tell me that “You clearly don’t care!”… etc.). They are a group who may nod, but then ask you for the information again a second time because they weren’t listening when you offered it up the first. I generally like people, because I think people generally are in good moods, but I generally never expect people to be reasonable because I’ve been let down too many times.
I generally like people, because I think people generally are in good moods, but I generally never expect people to be reasonable because I’ve been let down too many times.
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I read that, Jasmine, and I am reminded of an exchange early on in “Men In Black” when Edwards (Will Smith) is asking K (Tommy Lee Jones, “Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it. And K replies:
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“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.”
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I think a person is reasonable. People, however, can get unreasonable very quickly. That’s where the dogpile mentality of the boycott gets its force. People start shouting, “Boycott!” and rather than give rational thought as to whether it’s the right thing to do in a society that tries to encourage a free exchange of ideas, they set reason aside and just pile on.
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It would be a waste of time for me to go to a bunch of people marching in front of a Whole Foods and try to tell them en masse that trying to punish an entire store full of clerks and management because they don’t like the CEO’s opinions about health care is antithetical to a free speech based society. To say nothing of: What’s the end game? The fact is that Whole Foods not only provides health care to its employees, but my understanding is that it’s a dámņëd good package. But here come the boycotters, who care so much about health care that they’re going to try and make a dent in the store’s business. And if they manage to succeed to such a degree that the store can’t meet its payroll and has to shut down, why then, nice going guys. You’ve just put a store full of people out of business, which means that–wait for it–they just lost their health care.
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You can’t convince people of that.
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But you can convince A person of that. Which is why I keep putting forward my convictions on this matter (convictions which I’m quite sure will prompt people to immediately start boycotting my work, because life thrives on irony) because I’m hoping to get people to agree with my sentiments. Some people won’t budge from their position, I’m quite sure. They will continue to believe that “I disagree with everything you have to say and will try to hurt you financially” is superior to, “I disagree with everything you have to say but will defend your right to say it.”
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But there will be people who I do convince. They might not say so. They might be quiet about it. If nothing else, if it’s people who are in the public eye as I am, they might not want to say they’ve come around to my point of view because THEY might have people shouting for boycotts of THEIR work, and they don’t want to have to deal with it. I don’t blame them. I don’t expect people to share my Quixote Complex.
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Right this minute, everybody “knows” that trying to shut someone down economically because they hold a position you find repellant is the right thing to do.
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Imagine what they’ll “know” tomorrow.
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PAD
PAD: People like to declare that they have the right to strike back at people economically because they don’t like the things they’ve said. Sure. They have that right. But in a society that is supposed to value free speech, it’s not one they should employ. Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean they SHOULD do something.
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What of the case, such as sponsors recently leaving Glenn Beck’s program, where continued patronage makes the speech possible?
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If I don’t like the views my local restaurant owner expressed in a letter to the editor, my eating at his restaurant has no direct effect on his ability to write letters to the editor. But if I continue to buy ad time on Beck’s program, that directly contributes to his ability to broadcast his views.
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Not saying at all Beck shouldn’t be able to speak, but why should I have to pay for his soapbox?
What of the case, such as sponsors recently leaving Glenn Beck’s program, where continued patronage makes the speech possible?
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I don’t expect corporations (i.e., sponsors) to take moral stands on issues. That’s not their job. Their job is to sell products and make money.
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The purpose of corporations is to be able to avoid individual responsibility. Which is why I expect more from individuals.
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PAD
So much for dialogue. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=8322658&page=1
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I just read the article. It says that some of his shoppers read his article. Then it says that some of them disagreed so much they decided to boycott, while others agreed and decided to shop there more.
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The article doesn’t say anything about stifling dialog. It shows disagreement, but everyone quoted or referred to seemed to completely understand what the CEO was saying. There was no mention of trying to keep him from saying more.
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There was, however, a mention of that CEO’s habit of making fake aliases online and trashing the competition in an effort to drive their stock down, but that particular bit of dirty pool wasn’t related to the health care issue.
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The CEO is refusing to do interviews or any other follow up to his op-ed. I suppose he could be considered to be stifling himself.
Boycotting the store until the guy reverses his opinion and/or is fired is not about stifling dialogue? There ahve been people who wrote to PAD and Marvel saying that because of his politics–which were expressed in his blog not in his comics–they would not buy any books written by him. Isn’t that an attempt to stifle him?
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Nobody was talking boycott over his online shenanigans. This is purely over his opinions on healthcare and is a warning shot to anyone else who fails to tow the line.
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People are of course free to do as they wish with their money, including attempt to punish others for whatever thoughtcrimes they deem worthy of offense but let’s not pretend it isn’t what it is. (And what it also is, in my opinion, is evidence that the Obama healthcare bill supporters are feeling desperate. This is not the actions of a winning team.) (and it can backfire–the people behind the Glenn beck advertiser boycott have been successful in getting 20 or 30 sponsors to leave the show, yet viewership is skyrocketing.)
Sorry, but boycotting the store doesn’t seem like a crazy scare tactic to me.
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I have no problem with boycotts. It’s pretty much the same thing as not voting for a politician you disagree with. By your definition, that’s stifling opinion too, isn’t it? If you don’t vote for a politician, he loses his job because of what he said and did. I don’t consider that unfair and I don’t consider the people decided to spend their money elsewhere as unfair.
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They listened to the man’s opinions. They decided not to associate with him anymore. He’s still able to express his opinions. Discussion is alive and well.
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And Bill, I really am getting sick of your bûllšhìŧ. You had infinite benefit of the doubt for Mr. Coe, but you instantly claim that the Whole Foods shoppers are exaggerating the CEO into a cigar chomping villain. With Mr. Coe you said, “I don’t know the context” over and over again without making any effort to find out, but you couldn’t google Hillary Clinton fast enough. People screaming lies at a town hall and refusing to let other people speak is something you have tried to downplay, but a few people saying they don’t want to shop at a store anymore is “Obama healthcare bill supporters are feeling desperate”. All of them, apparently, as your first post on the matter held Obama personally responsible for these people’s reactions.
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Bill, your insincerity is no longer worth my time. Bye.
“Boycotting the store until the guy reverses his opinion and/or is fired is not about stifling dialogue?”
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Well, it is and it isn’t.
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It is in the fact that it is discouraging the CEO from continuing to voice his opinions. But, it isn’t in the fact that he can continue to voice those opinions so long as he is willing to face the financial consequences.
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He isn’t going to go to jail. He is still “free” to hae and voice his thoughts.
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Just as we, consumers in a mostly capitalistic market, are “fee” to react financially to his comments.
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People in America are allowed to tell someone to shut his mouth, and can even pay him to keep quiet (or deny him money if he doesn’t). Just as we are also allowed to continue talking if we so choose.
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Theno
I’m with you, Thenodrin.
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Boycotting is an effort to exert pressure on the CEO, I just don’t find it to be an unfair effort. He has an opinion, they have a different opinion, they’re trying to win and they’re doing it in a way that doesn’t keep him from talking and doesn’t distort his position.
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That’s my metric for fairness. Are they honest and are they taking away any of his rights. Deciding not to give the man money is perfectly within their rights, so it doesn’t violate either of those things.
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Just a note, I don’t really think that a boycott is the appropriate reaction. I don’t see anything fundamentally wrong with it, it’s an expression of opinion in itself, but I don’t think this group will really help the debate.
By insincerity I think you mean unwillingness to buy into your sound bite view of the world.
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You thought that one of coe’s quotes was made up and not in the bible. I found it with a simple google search. You wanted to believe that Hillary Clinton’s associations with the man were just on casual level. I pointed out that a writer at Mother jones stated quite the opposite (another tough one–google Hillay and Doug coe.)
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I never claimed that “Whole Foods shoppers are exaggerating the CEO into a cigar chomping villain.” I have no idea if the ones organizing the boycotts and calls for his firing are actual Whole food shoppers. I guess we will have to see the effects when sales figures come out. maybe he will see an increase in people shopping there as a means of supporting different opinions.
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As for me holding Obama personally responsible for the actions of his more intolerant supporters, you are either deliberately lying or incredibly misinterpreting what I said. not only does the statement “President Obama says we should have a dialogue on health care, a CEO writes an op ed piece on just that and suddenly a bunch of Obama’s “supporters” jump ugly at the guy and try to get him fired.” NOT claim that Obama is responsible for them, it, to me at least, clearly points out that these people are doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the president was calling for. And I then said that if the reform bill fails they will be the ones blaming him, not their own incompetence. that would really seem inconsistent with the idea that i am holding Obama personally responsible but i guess that just didn’t fit your view. So ignore it.
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My suggestion is to buy a bobblehead doll and talk to it. It will give you the feedback you need. Feel free to ignore any points I make and comfort yourself in the notion that what seems like me pointing out the occasional hole in your ideas is actually me being insincere (which means I secretly agree with you but are pretending to…oh, I don’t know. It’s your reality.)
Bill Mulligan said:
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“(and it can backfire–the people behind the Glenn beck advertiser boycott have been successful in getting 20 or 30 sponsors to leave the show, yet viewership is skyrocketing.)”
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Not doubting your word, but this is the first I’ve heard of skyrocketing viewership. Any Nielsen data on this?
Bill, your insincerity is no longer worth my time. Bye.
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Bill Mulligan is a personal friend of mine, and I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that the *last* thing he is is “insincere.” He just disagrees with you, that’s all.
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He’s also, in this case, right. Boycotts are a form of reprisal, not rebuttal. They are an attempt to discourage behavior by punishing someone in the pocket book. Yes, they’re legal — no one is arguing otherwise. But they *do* stifle speech, or at least represent the attempt to do so.
I saw a link on drudgereport-
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http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/08/27/big-beck-goes-over-3-million-viewers-beats-oreilly-in-demo-cable-news-ratings-for-wednesday-august-26-2009/25541
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the basic gist of it was that even though beck is not in prime time he leapfrogged over Hannity to the number 2 spot, second only to O’Reilly in ratings and actually ahead of him in the coveted 25-54 age bracket.
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According to the LA Times http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/08/as-boycott-continues-glenn-becks-audience-swells.html
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Beck had his third, fifth, and second-largest audiences on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
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From that standpoint it would seem that the boycott has been ineffective, though it’s also true that 30 some odd advertisers have abandoned the show. Fox says that they merely advertise on other Fox shows so they haven’t lost any revenue but it seems to me that it has to cost them money to not have ads for an hour…I don’t know how this works, there must be some advertisers that actually cater to conservatives or I’m sure Limbaugh would have been boycotted off by now.
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There have also been claims that the Whole Foods boycott has failed since the stock has been rising but that is not a true judge of a boycotts success–sales figures will tell that tale.
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The boycott people should be worried about is the one against GM and Chrysler–I couldn’t tell you how many people I’ve heard say they would never buy a car from them since the bailout. If that holds true–and I can’t say I’m optimistic that either company has some amazingly great car in the pipeline that will turn the naysayers around–all the work and money we’ve invested to keep them afloat will have been for nothing. (I should note that the people I’ve heard from weren’t down on GM because of the politics of the bailout. They just thought that any company that needed that bailout probably made crap cars. That’s a bad perception to have out there and one they had better be prepared to turn around).
I have no problem with boycotts. It’s pretty much the same thing as not voting for a politician you disagree with. By your definition, that’s stifling opinion too, isn’t it?
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Well…no, Jason, it’s not. It’s not remotely the same. The reason you vote for a politician is because he’s theoretically going to be representing you, your beliefs, and your interests. So naturally you’re going to want someone in office who matches up as closely as possible with your priorities. His opinions are part of the services that he renders.
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Boycotting a chain of stores–or, more to the point, if you were a customer of that store and now no longer will frequent it–because you don’t like the opinions of someone connected with it…that’s just being punitive. If you say, “I disagree with what you have to say, but will defend your right to say it,” then you are a supporter of free speech. If you say, “I disagree with what you have to say, and thus will attempt to hurt you financially for saying it,” then you’re not a supporter of free speech. Or, more to the point, you’re a supporter of YOUR right to free speech. Just not his.
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That’s what boycotts are: Attempts to smother free speech. The fact is that you don’t know for sure that the CEO of Shoprite or Pathmark or whatever has opinions that you would find even more disagreeable. You haven’t checked or done due diligence. And why should you? If the CEO of Stop and Shop believes that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, what the hëll does that have to do with whether or not they have the best looking fresh produce?
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Instead what you’re reacting to is that they are SAYING what they believe. A boycott is an attempt to punish people for having the temerity to say things that you find objectionable. It attacks the speaker and not the issue.
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Tell me that Whole Foods refuses to sell food to overweight customers because the CEO feels that they’re a drain on health care, and therefore you’re going to refuse to support them, then that’s something I can understand. Tell me they’re refusing to hire anyone on Medicare and that you’re organizing a picket, and I’ll wave a sign with you. But this knee-jerk tendency to shout for boycotts every time someone says something that people disagree with…it just bugs me. Boycotts should be the absolute last option to be used, not the first tool out of the box.
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Don’t you see that popular speech isn’t what needs defending? It’s unpopular speech. It’s bad ideas. Why? Because most things that we accept nowadays to be good ideas started out as being widely believed to be bad ones.
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PAD
PAD, that said what I was trying to say far better than I could. Guess that’s why one of us is the professional writer and the other one is me.
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And Bill Myers, as always, thank you my friend. If I could I’d give you a manly hug and help you unpack a few more boxes.
PAD, I’ll grant you that not voting for someone isn’t the same as boycotting him. You’re right that voting for politicians is specifically about the opinions they have, not a product unrelated to their opinions.
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However, my point was that doing something that affects a person’s opinion isn’t bad. The way Bill Mulligan puts it, any effort to get someone to stop saying something is unacceptable. That’s completely wrong and it’s why I raised an example of another case where people do something that “stifles” someone. By following his logic to the next step, just talking to a person and explaining how your opinion is different from theirs is wrong, because that’s an effort to get them to stop saying something.
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PAD, you say that boycotting is punitive. Okay, but that doesn’t bother me. Just because an action is punitive doesn’t mean it is unfair. Dozens of businesses have dropped their advertising from Glen Beck’s show on FOX News. Why? Because he’s crazy and they don’t want to be associated with the crazy guy. At least one of those businesses didn’t even know their commercials were on his show and didn’t want to be there to begin with. I think every bit of that is reasonable. Is it punitive? Sure, but it is completely fair and it’s not more than he deserves, so it’s not a bad thing.
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Boycotts are not an attempt to smother free speech. They are an *element* of free speech. That’s like saying that only negotiating a contract at a table is acceptable, because striking is an attempt to force the employer’s opinion. Everyone in this country has a right to protest, that’s a very well established part of our rights. Boycotts are a type of protest, a way of trying to change behavior.
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That doesn’t automatically mean they’re a good idea. A boycott might be a terrible way to make your statement in certain situations. It also doesn’t mean that any given boycott is fair, a boycott can be unfair just like a trial, a news article, or anything else can be unfair.
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But a boycott is not automatically “flipping out” and it isn’t automatically unfair. That CEO, a man who *has* done unfair things in order to get what he wants, is still perfectly able to express his opinion.
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PAD, I also don’t buy your argument for diving up what things are worth protesting and what aren’t. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, is lobbying for a certain position on Health Care. The only reason that he gets national attention for his opinion is because he’s a businessman. So his ability to spread this position comes from him making money off these people. If he’s able to affect the Health Care debate even a little because of his opinion, that’s not significantly different then him being able to affect employee benefits because of his opinion. I don’t see the logic in saying that one thing is protest worthy and the other is not.
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Just keep this one thing in mind. The only way that I’ve even heard about this man’s opinion is through stories about customers being upset with him. So if both sides are getting more attention drawn to their opinions, then free speech is winning, not losing. If you want to say that boycotting is going too far in this case, I could probably agree with that, but these people are not “flipping out” and they do not deserve to be compared to the people yelling lies at the Town Halls.
Wow, that was long. I apologize for writing a thesis paper.
You could have shortened it by eliminating the line “The way Bill Mulligan puts it, any effort to get someone to stop saying something is unacceptable.” and had the additional benefit of not disagreeing with a statement I didn’t make. But that may be more likely to succeed than arguing the facts.
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PAD supports free speech. You support speech you agree with. Both are valid positions to take but I think that PAD can stand behind his position with a good deal more pride.
By following his logic to the next step, just talking to a person and explaining how your opinion is different from theirs is wrong, because that’s an effort to get them to stop saying something.
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No, it’s not. It’s doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing in a society that’s supposed to value the free exchange of ideas: It’s meeting free speech with more free speech. It’s engaging the person’s ideas rather than attacking the person.
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PAD, you say that boycotting is punitive. Okay, but that doesn’t bother me.
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If you believe in free speech, then it should.
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Just because an action is punitive doesn’t mean it is unfair.
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That’s maddeningly vague. “An action?” Are we talking about the relative fairness of spanking a child?
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Dozens of businesses have dropped their advertising from Glen Beck’s show on FOX News. Why? Because he’s crazy and they don’t want to be associated with the crazy guy.
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And that’s their corporate decision. Where I take issue is when people decide they’re going to pressure advertisers INTO dropping their advertising. That’s a tactic that goes back to the 1950s when advertisers were pressured into severing ties with any TV show that hired anyone on the blacklist. A tactic that was embraced by various conservatives in the subsequent decades when they found various programs to be objectionable–you know, like the Smothers Brothers, with its liberal-minded political commentary–and lobbied advertisers into dropping their support so that the networks couldn’t make a profit off them. My belief is that any tactic that is eagerly embraced by right wing conservatives is something that should be avoided.
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We’re supposed to be liberals. We’re supposed to be ABOUT the free exchange of ideas, encouraging it, talking about it. Not suppressing it, which is entirely what boycotts are designed to do. If the CEO of Whole Foods is fired by the company, liberals will jump up and down and cheer, much like the monkey men bounding around the 2001 monolith. Why? Because they managed to shut down someone whose opinions they disagreed with. How can you possibly not see what an obscene idea that is in a society that should be embracing free speech? In a country that was founded specifically because another country was intolerant toward ideas?
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Boycotts are not an attempt to smother free speech.
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Yes, they are. People delude themselves into thinking they’re simply another form of free expression, but it’s not. The entire point of boycotts are to quash free speech and, ideally, to destroy the career of someone voicing unpopular ideas. It’s like saying that the Catholic Church was indulging in free speech when they excommunicated Galileo.
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They are an *element* of free speech.
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No. They’re not. It’s like saying apples are an element of oranges.
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That’s like saying that only negotiating a contract at a table is acceptable, because striking is an attempt to force the employer’s opinion.
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No, it’s not. If the answer to free speech is more free speech, then the answer to attempts to restrict labor freedom is to engage in a labor-related response. Furthermore, that goes back to what I was saying earlier: That for far too many people, boycotts are the default response rather than the last tool you reach for in the toolbox. A work stoppage isn’t the first thing you do; it’s the LAST thing you. It’s what you do when nothing else is working.
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The CEO is refusing to do interviews or any other follow up to his op-ed. I suppose he could be considered to be stifling himself.
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I would not be surprised. And in a free society, that’s not a good thing.
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I would suggest you read “Free Speech for Me, But Not For Thee” by Nat Hentoff. It’s a chilling history of attempts at censorship by both liberals and conservatives in an ongoing effort to shut each other up. It’ll open your eyes.
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PAD
PAD, I’m sorry, but you’ve just not making any sense on this issue.
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And that’s their corporate decision. Where I take issue is when people decide they’re going to pressure advertisers INTO dropping their advertising.
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If a corporation wants to remove it’s money from another corporation, that’s okay. If a private individual wants to remove his money from a corporation, then that’s an attack on free speech.
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That doesn’t make any sense.
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No. They’re not. It’s like saying apples are an element of oranges.
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Like hëll it is. Boycotts encourage the people who agree with you not to shop somewhere. Picket lines do that, *plus* they discourage the people who *don’t* agree with you from crossing the picket line. A boycott is suppression of free speech because it pushes an opinion on others, but you’re just fine with picket lines? Are you really going to tell me that picket lines, which do everything that boycotts do plus some, are free speech and boycotts aren’t?
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You haven’t thought that through.
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PAD, you give an example where a CEO is using his position as CEO to deprive his employees of health care. You say that would be worth striking over, even though it’s his legal right. Yet somehow, using his position as CEO, which he got through the money of his patrons, to influence the debate and keep millions of people from getting health care doesn’t warrant a boycott. So one action to deprive him of money, even from people who agree with him, is okay while another action to deprive him of money isn’t okay.
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I don’t think my eyes are the ones that need opening. If you honestly think that boycotts are somehow an attempt to squash free speech but striking in front of the store isn’t, then you haven’t thought through the intended effects of both things.
And that’s their corporate decision. Where I take issue is when people decide they’re going to pressure advertisers INTO dropping their advertising.
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If a corporation wants to remove it’s money from another corporation, that’s okay. If a private individual wants to remove his money from a corporation, then that’s an attack on free speech.
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That doesn’t make any sense.
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Sure it does. Corporations typically take the path of least resistance. I’m not saying it’s “okay.” I’m saying that’s what they do. A corporation isn’t designed to be protective of free speech. That’s the job of individuals. A corporation is designed to make money for its employees and/or stockholders, period. Anything that prevents them from doing so, they’ll try to avoid.
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It is our job as citizens to do what corporations cannot do or at least are not designed to do: Stand up for individual liberties and freedoms. Corporations are the lowest common denominator when it comes to free speech advocacy. Shouldn’t we aspire to higher than that?
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Boycotts encourage the people who agree with you not to shop somewhere.
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Yes, and…?
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Picket lines do that, *plus* they discourage the people who *don’t* agree with you from crossing the picket line. A boycott is suppression of free speech because it pushes an opinion on others, but you’re just fine with picket lines?
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If it’s over commerce? Sure. If someone doesn’t want to pay you for your work and you refuse to work, that makes perfect sense. But if someone voices an opinion that you don’t like that has nothing to do with your job, and your immediate response is to call for a work stoppage, then you are quite simply out of your mind.
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Are you really going to tell me that picket lines, which do everything that boycotts do plus some, are free speech and boycotts aren’t?
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Uhm…no. I don’t think so. Wait, let me check: Yeah, uh, no, I didn’t say that. Picket lines are physical manifestations of commerce-related work stoppages. They’re less about free speech than they are about informing the public as to why certain services are not being provided.
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You haven’t thought that through.
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Yes, I have. If nothing else, I had plenty of time to think it through while I was walking in a circle during the WGA strike. And by the way, during that entire time, not once did we even try to prevent anyone from entering a building, or discourage them, or do anything rather than simply explain why we weren’t busy writing next season’s TV shows.
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PAD, you give an example where a CEO is using his position as CEO to deprive his employees of health care.
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No, Jason. I really didn’t. Anywhere At all. With all respect, isn’t it possible that the reason my answers don’t seem to make sense is because you’re not actually reading what I’m saying, but instead reacting to your interpretations of them?
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I don’t think my eyes are the ones that need opening. If you honestly think that boycotts are somehow an attempt to squash free speech but striking in front of the store isn’t, then you haven’t thought through the intended effects of both things.
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No, I honestly think it’s two different things. I think boycotts are not only somehow, but genuinely and demonstrably, an attempt to squash free speech, whereas I think striking in front of a store is pretty much just about trying to use economic muscle in a situation where one’s own economic interests are being threatened.
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PAD
But a boycott is not automatically “flipping out” and it isn’t automatically unfair. That CEO, a man who *has* done unfair things in order to get what he wants, is still perfectly able to express his opinion.
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OK, so what unfair things has he done? And more importantly, how is the boycott related to the “unfair things?” He’s not being boycotted for running a dogfighting operation, or for cleaning the fish in his grocery stores with bleach, or (the only “unfair thing” I know of that he actually did) running a smear campaign on a store chain that he was trying to take over. He’s being boycotted for expressing an opinion contrary to the consensus among his customers. How is that fair? How is it even rational? What’s next, Chili’s putting a mission statement next to the entrance alongside the fire marshal’s certification? “This restaurant receives an A from the Health Department and a B+ from the ACLU?”
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I’m frankly not a huge fan of pickets, but at least they usually have something to do with what the business being picketed actually does in the course of its business operations. This boycott is an activity that imposes a financial cost on the CEO, his employees, their families, the stockholders, not because of anything they’ve done, but because of how the boss thinks. How is that not reprehensible? Free speech should in fact be free- it should be generally free of consequences. Nobody, from CEO to janitor, should have to stop and think about his livelihood before expressing his opinion on current events. (I post under a nom de plume because I work for an elected official, which is a little bit different. Plus it’s a Calvin and Hobbes reference.) Thenodrin is right that we, in America, are free to engage in this sort of behavior. People are free to do a lot of really crappy things. This is one of them.
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PAD wrote: We’re supposed to be liberals. We’re supposed to be ABOUT the free exchange of ideas, encouraging it, talking about it.
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I’m not sure that’s a “liberal” thing. Apart from gay marriage and abortion, I’m not a liberal by US standards (by the political science definition, every major party in the English speaking world is “liberal,” which doesn’t make it a very useful category). As a conservative, I think that conserving liberty is the whole point of having a republic in the first place. I recognize that my ideological allies haven’t exactly been saints in this regard lo these last 60 years, but neither have your fellow travelers. (This boycott, case in point.) I think that as AMERICANS we’re supposed to be about the free exchange of ideas.
PAD, you give an example where a CEO is using his position as CEO to deprive his employees of health care.
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No, Jason. I really didn’t. Anywhere At all.
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Not anywhere? Not anywhere at all?
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PAD: Tell me they’re refusing to hire anyone on Medicare and that you’re organizing a picket, and I’ll wave a sign with you.
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So the scenario you set up is that you’d strike over a CEO who won’t have employees with medicare. Yet somehow that isn’t *at all* like depriving his employees of some health care. Nothing alike? Not even a little bit?
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Tell me something, PAD. How exactly does a group of people strike against a grocery store without *also* boycotting it? How many employees do you think are continuing to shop there while they strike?
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Strikes *are* boycotts. They’re boycotts plus some more, because they not only mean that those people aren’t buying from the store, they’re also doing things that make it harder for the store to sell to other people. The store doesn’t have as many employees, so they can’t produce as much product to sell. Many people won’t cross a picket line for various reasons, even if they don’t agree with the cause. That last one is a big one, the picketer’s opinions are forced on people who don’t agree with them.
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The entire point of a strike is that it puts finical pressure on the businesses to change their position. Yet somehow, boycotts are evil and wrong because… they put finalcial pressure on businesses to change their position.
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I’m not anti-strike. If that’s the best way to get a message across, then it’s a valid form of protest. But it makes absolutely no sense to say that one form of financial pressure on a business is wrong while a more severe one is just fine.
So the scenario you set up is that you’d strike over a CEO who won’t have employees with medicare. Yet somehow that isn’t *at all* like depriving his employees of some health care. Nothing alike? Not even a little bit?
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No, it’s really not. In this hypotehtical example the hypotehtical CEO isn’t denying anyone health care. He’s denying people a *job* for unethical (and I would hope illegal) reasons.
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The entire point of a strike is that it puts finical pressure on the businesses to change their position. Yet somehow, boycotts are evil and wrong because… they put finalcial pressure on businesses to change their position.
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No. In the former instance, striking employees are trying to get a company to change its position with respect to working conditions. In the latter consumers are trying to retaliate against an executive because they don’t like his personal views which have nothing to do with any official “position” of the company. There’s a world of difference between the two.
So the scenario you set up is that you’d strike over a CEO who won’t have employees with medicare. Yet somehow that isn’t *at all* like depriving his employees of some health care. Nothing alike? Not even a little bit?
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No. Not even a little bit.
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First, I didn’t say I would strike; let’s keep our terms correct. I said if you had proof that his opinions were impacting on his hiring practices, you had a legitimate cause for objection and action (not to mention probably the makings of a discrimination law suit), and I would join you in showing support walking the line, much as directors and actors joined the WGA in showing their support.
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Second, the point I was trying to make, and which obviously whizzed right past you, is that there is a huge difference between simply having opinions and allowing those opinions to impact on how you do business. Boycotts are not free speech; they’re attempts to smother free speech. Pickets and strikes are not free speech either; they are economic sanctions undertaken because the employees are being directly harmed by the actions of their employers. So you’re asking how one is free speech and the other isn’t, except I’m saying neither of them are, so I honest to God have no blessed idea what you’re talking about.
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Tell me something, PAD. How exactly does a group of people strike against a grocery store without *also* boycotting it?
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I suppose they don’t. So? It doesn’t make it any less an economic tactic used to rebut an economic tactic.
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How many employees do you think are continuing to shop there while they strike?
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Probably none. Still unclear what you’re going for. I get the sense there’s something driving your thinking here that you’re not discussing, Jason, because you’re just jumping all over the place here and not making any real connections.
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Strikes *are* boycotts.
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Well, no, I think they’re two different things, but if you insist they’re the same thing, fine. Let’s say you’re absolutely right and strikes and boycotts are 100%, up and down, soup to nuts, the same thing.
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So?
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I’m saying that a strike isn’t about free speech, it’s about economic attack, the goal of which is to encourage discussion. I’m saying that a boycott isn’t about free speech, it’s about economic attack, the purpose of which is to discourage discussion. So it’s the same thing, and neither is about free speech, although at least strikes are designed to get people talking, so that puts it slightly closer to the side of the angels.
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Either way, my view is consistent and the conclusion is the same: Boycott or strike, either way, it’s not about free speech.
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PAD
When a person boycotts a store, that person isn’t trying to HURT the store or its owners. That person is trying to STOP HELPING the store and its owners. There’s a big difference.
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A boycott is trying to give the owner or the store an better incentive to change something than he has to keep it the way it is. Whether the boycott is taking place for a good reason, however, is another matter entirely.
Wow, I must have been stripping furniture in an unventilated room or something when I wrote my last post. My first paragraph was a complete non-sequitur.
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But I was being sincere.
When a person boycotts a store, that person isn’t trying to HURT the store or its owners. That person is trying to STOP HELPING the store and its owners. There’s a big difference.
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Maybe you weren’t here for the past year, during the Eric Holder debacle in which I opined that maybe, just maybe, people were reluctant to discuss matters of race because there were far too many people who were ready to yell “racist!” and “boycott!” if they didn’t like what they heard. And people showed up by the carload on this site and many of them said exactly this:
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“I have never read anything of yours before, but because of what you’ve said, I am going to make sure that I will never, ever buy anything you’ve written, you racist.”
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Hëll, people who said they had never even HEARD of me before were going to make sure to throw my name on a blacklist to make sure that none of their friends came near my work.
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And that’s not even counting the yahoos who showed up during the entire Scans_Daily thing to say much the same thing.
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Previous patronage is not a requirement, believe me. For me the past twelve months have been the year of the boycott, during which time I haven’t been able to swing a cat without finding someone ready to not support my work and prepared to do whatever they can to bring down my career because they either don’t like my opinions or at least their translation of my opinions.
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PAD
I saw a link on drudgereport-
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Color me skeptical. 😉
From PAD: Hëll, people who said they had never even HEARD of me before were going to make sure to throw my name on a blacklist to make sure that none of their friends came near my work.
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I don’t remember seeing that on here, and that is kinda funnysad to hear. I don’t think your post did anything to refute my post’s claims, though.
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I wouldn’t worry about those boycotts if I were you. People who go from “haven’t bought anything yet” to “haven’t bought anything yet and never will” aren’t depriving you of anything, are they? And I doubt that many people would spend time telling their friends something like, “If you notice there’s no Peter David on my bookshelf, THERE’S A REASON,” especially as time goes by and the grass does its work.
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Besides, we haven’t even touched upon the BENEFITS of stupid people boycotting you. Remember when that issue of SPAWN came out with the KKK in it, and a woman was so incensed she BOUGHT EVERY COPY SHE COULD FIND just to keep it out of the hands of others? Maybe you’ll get one of those one day. I’m pulling on that wishbone myself.
Boycotting the store until the guy reverses his opinion and/or is fired is not about stifling dialogue? There ahve been people who wrote to PAD and Marvel saying that because of his politics–which were expressed in his blog not in his comics–they would not buy any books written by him. Isn’t that an attempt to stifle him?
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Actually, Bill, it’s even better than that. There was, for instance, the Conservative who wrote to Marvel during the run of the Madrox limited series who declared that not only was he going to cease buying everything I wrote in the world, but that he was going to boycott Marvel (and urge friends of his to do so as well) for as long as Marvel saw fit to employ me. Why? He was outraged that Guido had been depicted as wearing a t-shirt that had a pro-Democratic slogan on it.
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The thing was: that was entirely the artist’s doing. I hadn’t called for it in the script. I just simply said that Guido was in the room. The artist took it upon himself to have Guido making a political statement with a t-shirt.
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That’s another thing that’s so adorable about boycotts: facts take a back seat to righteous indignation. There are people to this day who still boycott Dominos because its founder, Tom Monaghan, has an anti-abortion stance, even though he sold his interest in the company over a decade ago.
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PAD
It is in the fact that it is discouraging the CEO from continuing to voice his opinions. But, it isn’t in the fact that he can continue to voice those opinions so long as he is willing to face the financial consequences.
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Yes, but…he shouldn’t have to. Free speech should mean free of financial or personal consequences. Boycotts are a deliberate attempt to try and curtail an audience and access to that audience.
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He isn’t going to go to jail. He is still “free” to have and voice his thoughts.
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It’s like saying that a newspaper is free to voice anti-government sentiments, as long as they are willing to face being shut down by the government. After all, the individual writers are still free to write their opinions down and stand out on street corners passing out leaflets, so no harm done, right?
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The answer to free speech is always more free speech. Attempts to stifle, curtail, or punish free speech is never the answer…except, to far too many people, it is, because it makes them feel good. But it has nothing to do with fostering dialogue and nurturing ideas and everything to do with payback, which is a cheap and unworthy sentiment for a free society.
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PAD
extremely embsarrassed to be a native of kentucky now.
Well, you always have fried chicken. You can hold your head up over that, at least.
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PAD
You know, if there was a slightly larger community of atheists in America, then they could easily set up an underground program where they black out the “In God We Trust” with a sharpie, on *every* *single* note that they come across.
Defacement of currency in such a way does not make it unfit for circulation so technically it would not be illegal.
(The full details of the relevant law on currency defacement is USC Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 17, point 333)
It would probably be very unpopular with the majority though.
Whether or not it’s a good idea, defamation of currency can be hilarious. I recently ran across a $5 that had “Snake Lincoln” on it (I’m assuming a portrait to promote his new hit, “Escape from D.C.).
Alan Coil says:
Not doubting your word, but this is the first I’ve heard of skyrocketing viewership. Any Nielsen data on this?
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Not sure if this is what your looking for but…
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/
Ah, I see. So, when we compare the viewership of “reporters” on cable networks that typically conflate news and editorial stances (on both sides – I’m by no means picking on Fox alone here), Mr. Beck is taking viewers from, for instance, Messrs. O’Reilly and Blitzer.
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Not that he’s particularly becoming more popular in general, just seizing a larger chunk of a rather singular demographic…
I don’t think beck can possibly be taking viewers from O’reilly–they are on the same channel at different times. What seems to be happening is that he is becoming more popular, if only briefly, than O’Reilly. Unless O’Reilly or Blitzers viewership is going down as Becks is going up there’s no reason to think he is taking their viewers.
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And really, is this surprising? beck is popular but he is not as well known as Limbaugh or Olberman or O’Reilly. A boycott will alert people to his presence that would otherwise not have given him much thought. There are many cases where people protesting against a film have probably only made it more likely to be seen (I even know of one case where the producers hired protesters to create a controversy over their lousy horror movie. It worked.)
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Craig writes:
I saw a link on drudgereport-
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Color me skeptical. 😉
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I know this was written tongue in cheek but there are a lot of people who believe this and I never figured out why–Drudgereport is just a collection of links to other media sources. Unless there is reason to think he is actually making fake links to fake versions of the New york Times and others why would a link on Drudge be any different from a link on anywhere else? I realize that his emphasis on links to stories that advance his agenda might torque off those who do not have said agenda but that doesn’t alter the veracity of the link. Looking over what he has on his site, if you were to ignore anything linked by Drudge you would be left with The Sanford Herald. (Recent hard hitting expose–“City Debates Allowing Urban Chicken Farming”)
“Drudgereport is just a collection of links to other media sources.”
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Sometimes. Many times, it is links to made up stuff, stuff coming from 20 or so bloggers with an agenda to destroy Democratic office holders, and an agenda to destroy the USA.
Sounds like a job…(drop voice 3 octaves)… for Superman!
Many times, it [Drudge Report] is links to made up stuff, stuff coming from 20 or so bloggers with an agenda to destroy Democratic office holders, and an agenda to destroy the USA
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Drudge Report links to Hugo Chavez?
…stuff coming from 20 or so bloggers with an agenda to destroy Democratic office holders, and an agenda to destroy the USA.
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Someone needs to tell them that if they destroy the USA they’ll take down both Democratic and Republican office-holders alike. Rather than aiming for the destruction of our nation, perhaps they could boycott the Democratic party instead.
Bil, Bill, Bill…boycotting the Democrats is the same as trying to destroy the good old U.S. of A. don’t you know?
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But you remind me of a great old comics story I read a long time ago. I’m almost 100% positive it was the Submariner vs Human torch, pre-WWII, when Namor was a villain. At one point he flies through space with a bomb…yeah, yeah, I know…and right after he delivers it to Uranus (fnar! fnar!) he exults “Ha ha ha, now the Earth will be destroyed…but wait…I also live on the Earth! Oh no!” showing an admirable degree of willingness to admit to minor slips of memory. Would that all of us would learn from his example.
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(If anyone know what story that was from or, conversely, that nothing like it EVER happened and I am exhibiting the effects of many a well deserved childhood beating, let me know.)
Sounds like a job…(drop voice 3 octaves)… for Superman!
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Superman’s job is to destroy Democratic office-holders and the rest of the USA?
I realize that his emphasis on links to stories that advance his agenda might torque off those who do not have said agenda but that doesn’t alter the veracity of the link.
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Once you make that connection between a link and Drudge, it DOES alter the veracity of the link because of Drudge’s agenda.
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How do you get around this? Don’t link from agenda-driven sites like Drudge.
No, it really doesn’t. The New York Times prints an article. Drudge likes it and links to it. In no way, shape or form is the article any less true (or more so) than before. And unless one makes decisions based on a simple formula (Drudge likes this = Not True) it shouldn’t matter. I mean, what happens if Glenn Greenwald and Drudge both link to the same source? The universe implodes? It rains frogs? My Uncle Paul picks up a dinner tab?
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This is not limited to liberals, there are plenty of conservatives who would doubt that the sun will rise tomorrow if Daily Kos said it would. But it’s a poor substitute for an argument.
Once you make that connection between a link and Drudge, it DOES alter the veracity of the link because of Drudge’s agenda.
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I doubt the editorial policies and philosophies of the Associated Press, the New York Times, and Fox News are in any way altered when Drudge links to them.
I doubt the editorial policies and philosophies of the Associated Press, the New York Times, and Fox News are in any way altered when Drudge links to them.
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They are not, no, but people who see the links are. And yes, Bill Mulligan, the same applies to links froming from Daily Kos. Like it or not, believe it or not, the perception of these article are affected when they are linked by sites with agendas.
They are not, no, but people who see the links are.
Then they’re not thinking critically. Because anyone with an Internet connection can create a Web site and link to any other site. Those being linked to have no way of knowing about or controlling that.
And yes, Bill Mulligan, the same applies to links froming from Daily Kos. Like it or not, believe it or not, the perception of these article are affected when they are linked by sites with agendas.
Maybe it is for some people, but that doesn’t mean it makes a lick of sense. If Drudge links to an article he didn’t write from a news outlet for which he doesn’t work and over which he has no influence, the act of him linking to it doesn’t affect the validity of the article in any way. Not a whit. Not an iota.
The idea that you can dismiss something just because Drudge linked to it is just plain lazy thinking. It would be like dismissing a story in the New York Times because Fox News ran it too. I think Fox is more biased toward the right than the NYT is toward the left, but that doesn’t relieve me of the burden of thinking critically about content from both sources.
Maybe it is for some people, but that doesn’t mean it makes a lick of sense.
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A lot of things don’t make sense. But as can be proven time and again, ‘perception is reality’. As I said before, you don’t have to like it.
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Although, in general, I would suggest people link to original sources, and not the agenda-driven bs headlines of sites like Drudge and Daily Kos.
In point of fact, of course, I didn’t link to drudge–that would be unwise, since the headlines change and by the time someone went there it could be gone. I said I saw the link on drudge and then gave the actual link. If that makes someone instantly disregard any info at the link, oh well. Since we all agree that this is nonsensical, if someone disagrees with me and uses where I got my link from as an argument against it, he or she will look foolish. Which is all I ask for.
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So, with all due respect to Craig, I would encourage those of us who engage in political discussions on line to freely mention where they got their information from. If your opponents, from the right or left choose to reply with irrelevancies, well, so much better for you.
Reasons like this are why I’m not so hot on being in a small town. I know several addicts and ex-addicts (alcoholics and otherwise) who would be very interested in going to a support group to help keep them clean, if it weren’t for the fact that the only one in town is AA, which is religious. Now, it’s not as if AA isn’t a great group, but if my arguably alcoholic ex-roommate who was raised Hari Krishna and is now a staunch atheist wanted an irreligious option for his court mandated rehab, he’d be SOL (I’ve actually been to the halfway house and as you can guess, it’s covered in prayers and Bible quotes).
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I was raised irreligious (I honestly think that aside from my parents, Star Trek taught me most of my early childhood lessons of morality) and just have a hard time getting behind the mindset of anyone who wants to do anything more with religion than inform me on some cool stuff and ask if I want to go to a meeting. Literature on my doorstep or a visit to my grandma’s Unitarian Church is perfectly understandable (besides, learning is fun!) and harmless, but to have a representative out there declaring for me that if it wasn’t for this being he believes in I’d be dead… that’s about as reasonable as getting into conversations with religious people who tell me, “But if you don’t have God, your life is meaningless!”
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And now really, I must sleep. Feel free to take apart a paragraph that will likely make no sense to me by the time I get to read it again.
Jasmine,
“Reasons like this are why I’m not so hot on being in a small town. I know several addicts and ex-addicts (alcoholics and otherwise) who would be very interested in going to a support group to help keep them clean, if it weren’t for the fact that the only one in town is AA, which is religious. Now, it’s not as if AA isn’t a great group, but if my arguably alcoholic ex-roommate who was raised Hari Krishna and is now a staunch atheist wanted an irreligious option for his court mandated rehab, he’d be SOL (I’ve actually been to the halfway house and as you can guess, it’s covered in prayers and Bible quotes).”
With all due respect, the idea that the addicts you know refuse to go to a program that has a tremendous success rate because it is “religious” goes a long way toward explaining why they’re addicts – everything has to be their way. That is a HUGE trait of an addictive personality – that everyone has to cater to the addict and everyone has to think like the addict and when the world doesn’t agree with this philosophy and the addict realizes they are in a world they can’t control, they compensate by using their drug of choice.
And AA is not “religious” the way you make it sound – like Bible passages and Gospel songs dominate meetings. Many atheists and agnostics do get a lot out of AA because it does not promote a faith per se, it asks members to put their faith in God AS THEY UNDERSTAND HIM. This obviously incorporates all faiths, as well as those who don’t believe, since the main emphasis is to believe in something greater than yourself. I think it would be more accurate to term AA a “spiritual” group. The term “Higher Power” is used a lot. If someone has a problem with that…well, AA’s track record speaks for itself.
It tries to help fill a void in people that alcohol – as well as drugs, eating, sex, shopping and other addictions can’t fill.
I feel passionately about this because someone very, very close to me was in a severe downward spiral as late as last November. She is beautiful yet extremely narcissistic. In her more lucid moments she would say she shopped to excess and obsessed about her looks and drank heavily because she had no self-esteem. After the taste of the food passed and the excitement of receiving another new outfit in the mail faded all she had was the bottle. She had a dysfunctional family, anxiety problems that were very severe and depression and she tried to mask it all with alcohol. Many a time, she would say she knew she was hurting herself and those around her, but that AA wasn’t for her.
Long story short, she hit bottom, to the point where I flew down to help her in person. I said, “Well, I’m going to an AA meeting (after looking up the closest one on the internet) even though I’m not a alcoholic. You might as well come with me,”
She finally gave in and at that first meeting, something clicked. She picked up her initial “desire chip” and had a smile that I’ll never forget. She was READY.
Though she is stubborn and often has a love/hate relationship with AA, she knows it has helped her tremendously and she’s happy it’s there. She told me that even though she still does not consider herself religious , she feels AA has given her perhaps the most important “belief” of all – true belief in HERSELF that she literally could not buy or get from an area where if you are not born with a great body you buy it, people are judged on how expensive their cars are, etc. Very narcissistic.
Which she admits she still is. But she is taking better medication, working out, meditating, consciously trying to be a better person. It’s funny, because she was telling me today how she feels the Bible is “bûllšhìŧ” yet she has prayed more in the past few weeks than she can ever remember and some remarkable things have happened
She still considers herself more spiritual than religious, but she feels the program has helped her tremendously and helps her not only not drink but live better and be better.
She says her hitting bottom and me taking her to that meeting saved her life. can there be a more powerful endorsement than that?
So AA has affected my life in an extremely positive way because it has affected her life in an extremely positive way. It could help your friends to. It doesn’t work for everyone and not everyone is open to it, but it has helped millions of people and it could help your friends as well. Wy not encourage them to give it a shot?
To me, not going to a program that could help “heal” them because it might have some “religion” in it is as insane as those who don’t give their children modern medicines even to save their life BECAUSE of religion.
Amen.
Kudos to you for helping out a friend, Jerome. It’s easy to just write people off when they are going through something like that–it’s one of the most unfortunate aspects of mental illness, people who would never ignore someone with a physical disease can somehow treat someone else with a mental illness as though it’s all their fault and something they have complete control over.
While I agree with most of what you say, I have a problem with this:
“the idea that the addicts you know refuse to go to a program that has a tremendous success rate ”
I hate to tell you, but there is no “tremendous success rate” in any of the 12 Step programs. There have been studies (which aren’t as scientifically rigorous as they could be) that have shown a “95% success rate” and other studies that have shown a “75% success rate”. There are also highly rigorous studies from Harvard and Mayo that have shown both of those studies were terribly flawed, and another independent foreign study that predicted the success rate of 12 Step groups at somewhere around…5%.
Behavioral science (from the POV of sociology, my area of greatest knowledge and education) hasn’t really delved as deeply into the “effectiveness” of 12 Step programs as they’ve could, and many numbers (or debunkers) have had agendas (current 12-Steppers, members of SOS, you name it).
As someone with no agenda, save being a sociologist and having been a substance abuse counselor when I graduated from college with my first degree like 12 years ago, I can tell you:
* the rate of recidivism among users is about 75% for alcohol treatment programs
* it would be hard to measure “success”; is that never taking a drink ever again, or taking a drink once (slip) and realizing WHY it’s wrong. Not to mention “sliders” (I know a lot of people who are in NA, but drink like fish – that seems counterproductive to me).
I’m not the biggest fan of 12-Step programs (even though I advocated them as a counselor), but I will say they WORK FOR SOME; they are by no means a panacea, and frankly, there’s tens of millions of people that 12-Step programs would/could never work for.
However, even given that, you never know until you try, and trying means actually trying.
The big thing I take from the 12-Step programs is one of their mantras, which I believe is 10,0000% right: you cannot elicit any change in yourself unless you are willing to change the people, places, and things in your life that augment and encourage negative/destructive/counterproductive behavior.