Penetrating The Liberal Mindset

By Michael Parish

James Kalb, in his indispensable The Tyranny Of Liberalism, exposes the inner workings of public discourse in liberal societies. All arguments have to constructed along rational lines and presented in equally rational terminology. All others are neccessarily excluded from debate. It goes unmentioned, however, that this discourse occurs in a liberal controlled public arena. Therefore, "rational" is merely a synonym for liberal, with illiberal views conflated with whatever is deemed groundless at the time and dismissed as such. In our current cultural climate, that amounts to a an ad hominem dismissal of everything but officially approved "progressive" thought as the product of "racism, sexism, and homophobia." A slightly belated, yet still relevant, case in point, from the saints over at MediaMatters...

"Yesterday, John Stossel took to the air on Fox News to defend the right to discriminate based on race. Yes, you read that correctly. "

Actually, no one has ever presented a specific right to disriminate, but the right of freedom of association as embedded in private property rights, which includes the right to discriminate. Notice how they're already portraying this illiberal position as suggestive of a loose screw, in spite of its long history as part of the classical liberal tradition. Yes, I did read that correctly...and what's more I understood it!

"On Megyn Kelly's Fox News show, Fox employee John Stossel said: "Private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won't ever go to a place that's racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I will speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist."

Okay...an unpopular opinion in this day and age, but certainly a legitimate one, and one that makes perfect sense. The writer disagrees, of course...

"Stossel is the only the latest in a long line of news personalities to divide America along racial lines, and it needs to stop. We need to send a message loud and clear, first to Fox, and if it's unwilling to listen, to the sponsors who support it: Enough is enough: stop promoting racism on your network."

Ooh! A guy argues for a different approach to discrimination and suddenly he's "diving America along racial lines." All multicultural societies are inherently divided along racial lines as part of their nature, and this has nothing to with T.V. journalists sporting 70's gay porn 'staches. Notice how rejecting the liberal line on this issue immediately equates to "promoting racism." Just like CNN does everytime they have Tim Wise on as a guest commentator...

"But Stossel didn't just argue for the right to discriminate. He went a step further, suggesting the "public accomodations" section of the Civil Rights Act should be repealed, thus allowing private businesses to practice racial discrimination. This is the section of the law that prohibits a lunch counter from refusing to serve African-Americans...a practice which was commonplace when the law was passed. "

Yes, the practice was commonplace when the law was passed. In 1964. But now the same people who agitated for that bill are running the country, and the values disseminated in its institutions have changed accordingly. Anyone attempting to violate the now-ultimate taboo would be protested out of their livelihood overnight. This is why Stossel's argument has merit to it, dumbass.

"The government, Stossel says, should be protecting the rights of businesses that want to discriminate, not the rights of minorities facing pervasive discrimination. "

Whoa Whoa back up for a second. Freedom of association is a negative right that exists in the absence of state intervention, not a positive right that exists only as a statist construct. Get your political philosophy straight before commenting. Also, there is no such thing as a "right" to enter someone else's property without their approval, as I assume that's what you're implying.

"Enough is enough: stop promoting racism on your network."

That fuckin' red herring agin....

"This isn't the first time a Fox personality has treaded the line on race. Fox News operates under the direction of President Roger Ailes, a longtime political operative with a history of race-baiting and racially inflammatory campagin tactics. Glenn Beck, one of Fox's top-rated hosts, has repeatedly called both Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor "racists" who dislike white people and white culture., and Sean Hannity and Bill O' Reilly have also stoked racial insensitivity with on-air comments. "

I realize I am now in the awkward position of defending a television network, and talking (air)heads, I despise. I can't vouch for Aile's history, but I fail to see the sin in Glenn Beck's criticisms of the Magic Negro and the Wise Latina. So now it's "racist" to accuse members of ethnic minories of harboring resentment against whites while simultaneously acceptable to immediately assume all whites are racist because they're white? The advanced logic at play here is fascinating.

"It's not just the hosts: in just the past week, Fox has also presented a platform for the extremist anti-immigrant group Americans For Immigration Control, which has been linked to white nationalist groups and has drawn fire from the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center for their anti-Latino rhetoric."

Ah yes. Raising concerns about the economic and cultural consequences of unconditional open borders automatically brands you an "extremist." And keeping note of immigrant's criminal proclivities is "anti-Latino rhetoric." That this earns you dissaproval from a pair of shyster organizations makes you dangerous. The bar for being a threat to civil society keeps getting reset lower and lower.

For no apparent reason the article repeats the phrase "Enough is enough: stop promoting racism on your network" two more times.

"Now Stossel is adding to Fox's questionable record of rhetoric on race. At some point this stops being a question about individual hosts or guests...and starts to be a question about the whole network. It's time for Fox News to be held accountable for the racially charged statements and racially insensitive statements it allows on the air."

It feels odd defending a guy whose sub-Reason pop-libertarianism I loathe. Notice in addition to the ludicrous leaps in logic the subtle authoritarianism at play here: Faux News has to be "held accountable" for the illiberal racial views it "allows" on the air. In a country where freedom of speech is a constitutional right, can't a network allow on the air any views it wants? This evidently does not occur to the morality police over at MediaMatters as they go about their self-appointed task of keeping others "accountable."

See what I mean?