D'Sousa on Imus -- Stop the Insanity

Dinesh D'Sousa notes that our outrage over restrictions on free speech is situational, a fact that has also roused comment by Islamist propagandists.

Remember the Muhammad cartoon scandal? When the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed the cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, many in the West viewed this solely through the lens of free speech. The media coverage suggested a confirmation of Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis. We believe in free speech and they don't. Many conservatives rallied to this viewpoint.
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How often during the Imus brouhaha have you heard the words "free speech"? Hardly.

Did the First Amendment even come up? Nyet. Did dozens of other radio hosts choose to echo the epithets directed at the Rutgers women's basketball team in order to affirm their solidarity with Imus and their enthusiasm for civil liberties? No, there has been an almost-universal howl of outrage. The man must be fired! Everyone involved should have sensitivity counseling to make sure this doesn't happen again! All of this is indicative of the racism that is endemic in our society!

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No wonder the Muslims are chuckling. They see that when our sacred cows are gored, we scream bloody murder and demand accountability and heads on a platter. By contrast when someone elses's sacred cows are gored, we proclaim ourselves loftily on the side of free speech and demand that they "get over it."

He continues with a long itemization of the insanely complex ground-rules over what can be said or expressed, or even thought in today's media climate and calls for those, like Mike Nifong, who play the identity game to be held accountable for the damage they have done.

Read the whole thing here.

I remember that back during the civil rights era one telling argument advanced by proponents of reform was that our system of discrimination made us look bad in the eyes of the world at a time when we were engaged in a global conflict of values. Well..., the same argument applies today. Our insane PC system of "protected" and "preferred" categories of people provides ammunition to those who seek to destroy our culture and our persons.

The identity mongers have held sway for far too long and have caused untold damage to our society. We can no longer afford to cater to their demands. It is time to at long last heed Martin Luther King's call for a society that measures people by the content of their character.

Steyn on Imus

As usual, Mark Steyn gets to the core of the situation and articulates it better than anyone else. First of all he points up the real ambiguity of Imus' remarks.

I don't know whether calling the Rutgers basketball ladies "nappy-headed hos" is a mean old white guy's racist slur or an artful parodic jest on the way black women are talked about by black men -- or at least by the ones on the record charts. After all, the only way mean old white folks know the expressions "nappy" or "ho" is because they heard 'em from hip young black folks. Indeed, one could argue it's a tribute to how non-racist America is that an elderly Caucasian would wish to talk like a gangsta rapper.

He's right. There are many contextual levels of meaning involved here and attempting to force this whole thing into the standard white racist/black victim template obscures, rather than clarifies the issues at stake.

It's a good rule of thumb in American scandals that, no matter how big an idiot someone is, the outrage over him will always be more idiotic.

Again he's right. As soon as the reflexive posturing starts sanity goes by the wayside.

And saddest of all were the Rutgers basketball gals themselves. Almost a century and a half after the abolition of slavery, 40 years after the civil rights era, a group of young black women who've achieved great success went on TV and teared up because of a cheap crack by an over-the-hill shock jock. As a female correspondent to the Powerline Web site commented:

"Here are these tough women on top of the world and they are so fragile that a remark knocks them down. Hey, why wouldn't they have said 'F--- you? Who the heck is this fool Imus? We are queens of national basketball and there is no stopping us now. We can be and do anything we choose to be or do. . . . We don't need Al Sharpton to protect us. . . . ' But no, they look devastated and say they are damaged irreparably.''

And once again Steyn shoots and scores. The whole point of the grievance industry is to convince people that they are mere victims, incapable of functioning in this cruel world without the constant protection and advice of the hustlers.

Mark Steyn is a national treasure -- of which nation I'm not sure -- but we should all be glad that he's there to remind us of reality underlying the farce endlessly presented the MSM.

Read him here.

Meanwhile, George Will has a piece on Jackie Robinson, whose courage and determination helped to change the nation. He doesn't make it explicit, but the implicit contrast between this great man and the whining "victims" and cynical hustlers of today is striking.

Read it here.