On the Arizona Killings
Jan 09, 2011 14:39 Filed in: Politics Subjects Civil Liberties
The shooting yesterday of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six others, plus numerous injuries, is the predictable result of a campaign of slanderous vitriol waged by right-wing media—the largest and most influential of which is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, with its Fox News cable channel—against liberals and Democrats.
Words have consequences. When you incite people to kill, some of them are nutty enough to do just that. When you demonize your political opponents, there are plenty of people out there who will take you seriously and try do something about those “demons.”
Here are a couple of possible solutions:
1. Resurrect the Fairness Doctrine. Conservatives hate the Fairness Doctrine with a fiery passion, because it would put a damper on the lies and slander that are the standard fare of right-wing talk radio. In a perfect world, the Fairness Doctrine would be unnecessary because commentators would behave ethically, but this is not a perfect world, and the right-wing media have become a vast sewer of political poison and sludge, pouring it into the minds of predisposed persons who don’t know better and haven’t the time, energy, or inclination to actually find out the truth.
The public airwaves are--surprise!--owned by the public, and there is no reason why licensees should not be required to act in the public interest by presenting both sides of controversies, or allowing persons attacked to defend themselves. The Fairness Doctrine is constitutional and it worked well for a long time. Abolishing it was one of Ronald Reagan’s gifts to the right wing. It should be reinstated immediately.
2. Make the inciters of political violence civilly liable to the victims of the crimes they encourage. Right-wing media frequently commits the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, and there is no First Amendment protection for such behavior. If Glenn Beck’s violent fantasies incite a lone gunman to kill a federal judge, then the survivors should be able to bring a wrongful death action against Beck and his employer, Fox, on the grounds of incitement to kill, and Beck should not be able to hide behind the 1st Amendment because he didn’t pull the trigger, or because millions of his listeners didn’t immediately run out and try to kill the demonized judge. Given the size of the audience, such killings are foreseeable, in fact, inevitable. Beck and his ilk know this; they may be corrupt liars and demigogues, but they aren’t idiots.
The same would go for anti-abortion websites that publish the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortion. Killings are inevitable. Are the lone killers the only ones responsible? I hardly think so.
Words have consequences. When you incite people to kill, some of them are nutty enough to do just that. When you demonize your political opponents, there are plenty of people out there who will take you seriously and try do something about those “demons.”
Here are a couple of possible solutions:
1. Resurrect the Fairness Doctrine. Conservatives hate the Fairness Doctrine with a fiery passion, because it would put a damper on the lies and slander that are the standard fare of right-wing talk radio. In a perfect world, the Fairness Doctrine would be unnecessary because commentators would behave ethically, but this is not a perfect world, and the right-wing media have become a vast sewer of political poison and sludge, pouring it into the minds of predisposed persons who don’t know better and haven’t the time, energy, or inclination to actually find out the truth.
The public airwaves are--surprise!--owned by the public, and there is no reason why licensees should not be required to act in the public interest by presenting both sides of controversies, or allowing persons attacked to defend themselves. The Fairness Doctrine is constitutional and it worked well for a long time. Abolishing it was one of Ronald Reagan’s gifts to the right wing. It should be reinstated immediately.
2. Make the inciters of political violence civilly liable to the victims of the crimes they encourage. Right-wing media frequently commits the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, and there is no First Amendment protection for such behavior. If Glenn Beck’s violent fantasies incite a lone gunman to kill a federal judge, then the survivors should be able to bring a wrongful death action against Beck and his employer, Fox, on the grounds of incitement to kill, and Beck should not be able to hide behind the 1st Amendment because he didn’t pull the trigger, or because millions of his listeners didn’t immediately run out and try to kill the demonized judge. Given the size of the audience, such killings are foreseeable, in fact, inevitable. Beck and his ilk know this; they may be corrupt liars and demigogues, but they aren’t idiots.
The same would go for anti-abortion websites that publish the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortion. Killings are inevitable. Are the lone killers the only ones responsible? I hardly think so.
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