It seems that the Commonwealth's Attorney in Fayette County, Kentucky, Ray Larson, has taken some heat for posting some of our stuff and has taken the repost down.
It started with an article in Time titled "Ferguson: In Defense of Rioting." Bill Otis wrote a post critical of this article. Bill says some pretty controversial things from time to time, but this one didn't strike me as one that would cause offense to rational people. C'mon, defense of rioting?! Of course such a preposterous thesis deserves to be skewered.
Bill's post also says, "I want to make only one point -- that the Ferguson riot had next to nothing to do with the expression of dissent, about racial issues or any other." He didn't say the Ferguson protests had nothing to do with expression of dissent, he was specifically referring to the Ferguson riots. Again, that didn't seem to me to be a statement that any reasonable person would find offensive. Of course looters are just seizing an excuse to grab free stuff. Can any thoughtful person believe for a minute that smashing store windows and stealing the merchandise makes a positive contribution to race relations in America? Quite the contrary, such behavior serves only to reinforce negative stereotypes.
Well, Lexington Herald-Leader columnist Merlene Davis is all upset about this post and about the CA reposting it. She related her phone call to the CA. "But, I said, discounting that racism exists could turn off a lot of people who live it every day."
Huh? Did she read the post? Did she make any effort at all to understand it? Nothing Bill said in any way implies that racism does not exist. The post quite clearly is referring only to the motivations of the rioters. It says nothing at all about the existence of racism in our society.
Nobody alive in America today and paying attention can honestly deny that racism exists. Nor can anyone paying attention honestly deny that some people holler "racism" to get away with things. Those two statements are not at all inconsistent, and neither implies a negation of the other. Ms. Davis says,
Do we seriously want an honest conversation about race in this country, as AG Holder famously said? Well, a good place to start is to stop slinging the "racism" accusation so loosely and to stop demanding that writings be taken down simply because they express ideas that some people are uncomfortable with.
The CA took down the post due to the controversy. Okay. I don't really have a problem with that. It's his site, and if a repost of our stuff is causing hard feelings among some of his constituents, whether rightly or wrongly, taking them down is a reasonable thing to do. My "banned" title on this post was a bit facetious. He says that he posts different perspectives on his site and looks to us as a source of a pro-prosecution and pro-victim perspective. I hope he will continue to do so.
Bill's post also says, "I want to make only one point -- that the Ferguson riot had next to nothing to do with the expression of dissent, about racial issues or any other." He didn't say the Ferguson protests had nothing to do with expression of dissent, he was specifically referring to the Ferguson riots. Again, that didn't seem to me to be a statement that any reasonable person would find offensive. Of course looters are just seizing an excuse to grab free stuff. Can any thoughtful person believe for a minute that smashing store windows and stealing the merchandise makes a positive contribution to race relations in America? Quite the contrary, such behavior serves only to reinforce negative stereotypes.
Well, Lexington Herald-Leader columnist Merlene Davis is all upset about this post and about the CA reposting it. She related her phone call to the CA. "But, I said, discounting that racism exists could turn off a lot of people who live it every day."
Huh? Did she read the post? Did she make any effort at all to understand it? Nothing Bill said in any way implies that racism does not exist. The post quite clearly is referring only to the motivations of the rioters. It says nothing at all about the existence of racism in our society.
Nobody alive in America today and paying attention can honestly deny that racism exists. Nor can anyone paying attention honestly deny that some people holler "racism" to get away with things. Those two statements are not at all inconsistent, and neither implies a negation of the other. Ms. Davis says,
I wasn't so much pissed as I was dismayed that our district attorney believes, as evidenced by the posts, that racism is an excuse and not a reality lived daily by some of the people he is supposed to serve.It's both, Ms. Davis. Racism is a reality and accusations of racism are used as an excuse. The repost does not in any way "evidence" that Mr. Larson does not believe that racism is a reality, and for you to draw that inference shows a dismaying narrow-mindedness.
Do we seriously want an honest conversation about race in this country, as AG Holder famously said? Well, a good place to start is to stop slinging the "racism" accusation so loosely and to stop demanding that writings be taken down simply because they express ideas that some people are uncomfortable with.
The CA took down the post due to the controversy. Okay. I don't really have a problem with that. It's his site, and if a repost of our stuff is causing hard feelings among some of his constituents, whether rightly or wrongly, taking them down is a reasonable thing to do. My "banned" title on this post was a bit facetious. He says that he posts different perspectives on his site and looks to us as a source of a pro-prosecution and pro-victim perspective. I hope he will continue to do so.
I had no idea that anything I write is even known about in Fayette County, but I'm happy C&C is widely read.
Just so that people will know, I said in my testimony before the HJC last spring that "of course" it is true that racial bias still exists, and that anyone who denied it is "out of his mind." I said this in response to a question by Ranking Member John Conyers, at about the 1:03:20 point of this C-SPAN tape:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?319651-1/overhauling-federal-criminal-code
As Kent notes, what Ms. Davis is doing is spinning a false dichotomy. The truth is (1) racism exists and, also, (2) is increasingly used as an all-purpose excuse for bad behavior, including and especially the window-smashing and theft that went on in Ferguson. You cannot watch Al Sharpton (among others) for five minutes and come to any other honest conclusion.
What's actually going on here is the sort of New Age McCarthyism I have criticized in earlier posts. And Ms. Davis seems to take it to a new level: That to criticize rioting is to criticize protesting. She gets her mileage only from conflating the two, which is preposterous and (as Kent explains) corrosive to the very ideas she purports to champion.
The claim of offense is increasingly used to intimidate conservative speech. Like Kent, I don't blame CA Larson for wanting to keep amicable relations with the people paying his salary. I say many things that "offend" one person or another; indeed, my support for the death penalty, though widely shared, has been repeatedly denounced as not merely offensive but barbaric (and racist, for that matter).
OK. Critics of a conservative point of view have the same right to disagree with the opposition that I have. But if they think -- much less if they intend -- that their claim of being offended will silence opposing viewpoints, they are seeking a society everyone who values freedom of thought should resolutely resist.
hmm, another example of seemingly undue censorship of a viewpoint because persons taking offense. I hope this sequence of events provides Bill and Kent with still further understand of why I adopt a no-censorship approach is service to my commitment to "freedom of thought" and freedom of expression.
You have this backward. There was no censorship here. Mr. Larson took down his OWN posting, apparently because of (probably excess) deference to a single person who found its content offensive.
That is self restraint by the author, on grounds of courtesy -- something the commenters on SL&P could use considerably more of.
Because several of them employ absolutely no self-restraint, nor any other kind of decency, my wife and I have been insulted numerous times, including anatomical and religious insults. It's disgusting.
If you want to accommodate that kind of behavior, it's your blog and your decision. I won't, nor will I participate in any forum in which it is allowed.
Lest there be any misunderstanding (and the capacity of people to misunderstand never ceases to amaze me) there is a world of difference between (1) demanding that someone take down a post because of disagreement with the ideas expressed, and (2) having a policy against comments that resort to personal insult, libel, threats, or profanity.
The latter have little or no value in the discussion of ideas, and the core purpose of free speech is not threatened by banning them.
This distinction came up in the oral argument in the Supreme Court in Elonis v. United States. On page 27 of the transcript, Justice Scalia asks counsel for the defendant about the standard that the speech has to be something that would reasonably place a person in fear. Counsel says that "is a very low standard." Justice Scalia says, "It may be a low standard, but to my mind it doesn't eliminate a whole lot of valuable speech at all."
Although I very rarely need to do so, as our commenters are a good group, I have on occasion deleted a comment or not published a comment from a not-yet-trusted commenter for violation of our standards. On one occasion I closed a thread to new comments because the whole thread was veering too far in that direction.
However, I have not and will not delete or deny publication to any comment just for disagreeing with us. Commenters who disagree with us are more than welcome. They spice up the blog, and we appreciate them.
"[C]omments that resort to personal insult, libel, threats, or profanity...have little or no value in the discussion of ideas, and the core purpose of free speech is not threatened by banning them."
Bingo.
And the notion that one cannot tell the difference between such comments and substantive disagreement is absurd.