Michelle Malkin recently did a roundup of the type of civil behavior the Left would have us emulate. Warning: it’s pretty, uh, uncivilized.
She followed up today with The Hate Speech Inquisition.
It’s strange, ironic even, that the same people who deconstructed speech to the point where many words mean absolutely nothing (e.g. “racist”) now tell us how desperately “words matter.”
With apologies to George Orwell, in our brave new world all words are important, but some words are more important than others. And while normally their words of proclamation are the most important, pragmatism dictates that they step aside temporarily and give that status over to the opposition for awhile. This week, “hate speech” is the most important speech.
There isn’t a shred of evidence that deranged Tucson massacre suspect Jared Loughner ever listened to talk radio or cared about illegal immigration. Indeed, after 300 exhaustive interviews, the feds “remain stumped” about his motives, according to Tuesday’s Washington Post. But that hasn’t stopped a coalition of power-grabbing politicians, progressive activists and open-borders lobbyists from plying their quack cure for the American body politic: government-sponsored speech suppression.
Because that’s how we roll around here now. Never, ever let a good crisis go to waste. We’re back to seriously talking about the “fairness doctrine” – an odd misnomer if ever there was one. And the leftwing victims groups are hauling ass to the finish line for their win:
Make no mistake: The Hate Speech Inquisition is real. And it’s being fought on all fronts. Last week, using the non-radio-inspired Tucson massacre as fuel, the National Hispanic Media Coalition called on the FCC to gather evidence for the left’s preconceived conclusion that conservative talk radio “hate speech” causes violence. It’s Red Queen science — sentence first, research validation later.
But then, that’s how we do all science any more. It’s far more pragmatic that way. Because that’s what we need around here: fewer standards and more pragmatism.
Pragmatism: A form of relativism that holds that any belief that is useful is true and any truth that is inconvenient is necessarily untrue.