Shock Radio

Somebody (probably my mom, since only two conservatives read this blog and the other one is busy) wrote that Media Watch is using the Imus fiasco as a platform to go after Hannity and Limbaugh. I hate to admit it, but ny first thought on that is "we can only hope." Mom says it is the thought police going after conservatives. If ever there was a thought police in this country, it's conservative Christians. Sorry mom, but that is the truth.

So: we know that people like Hanity and Limbaugh have a corosive effect on discourse in this society. We know that their speech is full of hate and bile, that they support a society of oppression and degredation, and that they contribute to the disenfranchisement of and sometimes violence agaisnt blacks, gays, and women. Not only that, but they're both idiots. America will be a helathier place without them and their ilk vomitting forth their hatred and poluting our airwaves.

And does that give us the right to shut them up?

(this is personal: I've hated and been embarrassed by Limbaugh since he was on local radio in my home town in the early 80s).

Remember, the right and especially the Bush administration has been trying to stifle and even silence Liberal speech--and even moderate dissent--for years and doing a very good job of it. Is what's good for the goose also good for the gander? Or when they go after academics like Noam Chomsky or Edward Said, when they burn Dixie Chicks albums and force them off the airwaves (prompting death threats agaisnt them from conservative terrorists along the way), when they refuse to distribute Michael Moore's movies and push a Barbara Streisand flick about Regan off of broadcast TV, when they shut down Howard Stern, when they call the editors of the New York Times traitors, when they attack our right to read what we want to read say what we want to say and think the thoughts we believe, not to mention their scurilous attacks on journalists everywhere--are we just supposed to sit back and take it because they have a right to speak their minds? Or do we say something? I'm not talking about government censorship: that's a tactic that they've abused themselves. I'm talking about boycotts, about protests, about engaging the sponsors who pay for their filth to be broadcast. Why shouldn't we do the same thing the Family Values Council does to us?

Or does that just destroy discourse even more? Hmmm?