Ugly ideas, glibly dispensed
Andrew Marantz of the New Yorker attacks Tucker Carlson. Mad academics advocate terribleness                                  

"Can Tucker Carlson be shamed?," by New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz, was a fairly standard smear effort.

In the opening paragraph, Marantz quoted from a Carlson segment in which the host warned of political cultists who "seek power, and they plan to win it, whatever it takes. If that includes getting you fired, or silencing you, or threatening your family at home, or throwing you in prison, OK."

Marantz observed "At no point was he interrupted or arrested by jackbooted thugs," as though the scribe had with that flippant comment discredited Carlson's message.

But the New Yorker author didn't acknowledge that Carlson was cautioning a nationwide audience, at least some of whom do experience related problems. 

Stories have for a couple of years told of Trump supporters being refused commercial service in public accommodations, and of Big Tech overlords banning voices like Alex Jones, Laura Loomer, and Dennis Prager -- not to mention mega-banks and credit services cutting off access from conservative political figures.

(A fresh illustration is ticket-seller Eventbrite's denying access to Brigitte Gabriel's ACT for America. Breitbart noted: "The ban arrives just one week after a former Nancy Pelosi intern wrote a hit piece on the organization, relying on information provided by the discredited SPLC.")

From across America have come hundreds of stories of Trump backers suffering brutal attacks and property destruction inspired by political bigotry. Carlson's own home recently came under assault by Antifa terrorists. 

Marantz made no mention of any of those realities. The writer claimed Carlson has espoused views that "sound uncannily similar to white-nationalist propaganda." 

Of course, Marantz didn't provide any supportive quotes, let alone explain weasel-phrase "uncannily similar," or show just how 
Carlson's rhetoric might fit the dire portrait daubed. He merely asserted damning association. (Didn't liberals used to condemn McCarthyism?)

Marantz cites the left-wing Media Matters, which has publicized dusty audio not to Carlson's credit (as jokes beyond their moments sometimes aren't).

Marantz quoted Media Matters head/Carlson attacker Angelo Carusone approvingly, but the New Yorker wordsmith didn't note Carusone's past blog mocking of "Japs," "trannies," and "Jewry."

Had those phrases been uttered by a conservative, online petitions would immediately pop up. Events would be cancelled. Jobs would be lost. Callow Antifa hordes, weapons at the ready, would likely mass on the offender's doorstep.

But when said by Media Matters' dodgy ringleader Carusone, the Andrew Marantzes find other things with which to concern themselves. The point isn't to augment the left's language police with conservative fellows, but rather, that those who blog in glass houses should leave stones where they lie.

Marantz has questioned the concept of free speech before in the New Yorker's pages, and lent spotlight to other terrible notions, too.

"Public universities have no choice but to welcome far-right speakers seeking self-promotion. Should the First Amendment be reinterpreted for the digital age?" was the subheading of a 2018 New Yorker Marantz article.

He decried universities that expend resources to safeguard "pugnacious right-wing speakers" like David Horowitz, Heather Mac Donald, and Charles and Donald Murray. Nowhere did he blame protesters for engendering costly precautions.

He attacked Horowitz et al with the same McCarthyism "guilt by association" tactic he would subsequently wield against Carlson, citing Richard Spencer in the same breath as them. 

"Such speakers often portray themselves as soldiers for free speech," Marantz wrote. "But more often they use the First Amendment as a convenient shield."

Seeking to orate without prohibition, he communicates, is the tell-tale skull-and-crossbones stain of dastards.

Marantz quotes Berkeley Law Professor john a. powell: "[I[t's not that I don't understand or care deeply about free speech. But what would it look like if we cared just as deeply about equality? What if we weighed the two as conflicting values, instead of this false formalism where the right to speech is recognized but the harm caused by that speech is not?"

To my mind, liberty of thought and speech is the rock atop which all other rights sit. If arguments in favor of freedom cannot be articulated, no other right can be asserted. When the right to speak one's thoughts is weakened, every single other guarantee is imperiled.

powell and others posit that damages which supposedly accrue from hearing 'unpleasant' expression are of equal weight as physical harms. They argue that some random listener's emotional disquiet is sound reason for government slapping shut citizens' mouths.

Later in the piece, powell wonders whether traditional notions of what constitutes personal injury are sufficient "Given what we now know about stereotype threat and trauma and P.T.S.D..."

Words, though, don't lend themselves to definite causation. Nor do ideas produce certain negatives.

One defensible restriction on speech is the ban on untruths and substantive omissions from food labeling. There is a legitimate public interest in complete information, as physical damages can be reasonably thought potential from misleading data.

That such damages might vary by degrees between individuals is inconsequential. General injury is safely assumed.

But there can be no similarly reasonable assumption that emotional or psychological damage necessarily results from words. And, should a listener desire to avoid encountering certain ideas, they are free to do so. They can not attend a given event, turn the channel, or not purchase a book.

But they have neither the legal nor moral right to edit the world in which we all live, to keep others from speaking or prevent them from hearing desired speakers. 

(Mario Savio, of 1960s UC Berkeley Free Speech Movement fame, was cited by Milo Yiannoupolos as as a philosophical forebear. Marantz related that Savio's son, Daniel, told the Guardian that Milo's laying claim to Mario's tradition was "a sick joke." There can be no better illustration of contemporary liberals' hostility toward the fact of free speech's universal benefit than that ill-considered shriek.)

Another Berkeley academic Marantz quoted was Adam Jadhov ("I consider myself an activist, not just an academic.").  

Jadhov warned of a "shadowy political element weaponizing a narrow interpretation of the First Amendment." He cast oppositional political speakers as evildoers exploiting protections for nefarious purposes, not fellow citizens legitimately exercising Constitutional rights.

Jadhov aligned himself with Antifa, but said he's not sympathetic to violent elements. That claim is dubious. "I do, however, think it's important to stand up against hypernationalism and Fascism in all of its forms. That might entail breaking unjust laws, but that's how progress has always been made."

No, that's untrue. Individuals are not authorized to determine for the entire society what is "unjust." That way lies anarchy, not the order and ultimate fairness produced by a Constitutional nation with democratic government.

Fantastically romanticized 'rebels,' whose chronicles litter collegiate library shelves and whose images adorn Hot Topic t-shirts, should not be credited with positive changes. Ours is a country of laws, not of men. Ballots, not bullets. And it is through the democratic process that the people's will is voiced, justice advanced, and legitimate evolution realized.

Inspiration certainly can and has risen to offices of authority from popular groundswells. But it takes systemic power to effect practical advancement on a national level. No matter how emotionally urgent, sentiment without practical ability accomplishes nothing of substantive, lasting value. Nothing that makes our lives richer, and our country more free or fair.

Would only that forces presently villifying Tucker Carlson -- whether they boast New Yorker bylines, Ivory Tower titles, electoral clout, or activist bombast -- apply their abilities to strengthening existing liberty.

That's much more respectable than exhuming long-passed radio ribaldry.