Free Speech

The Northern Valley Beacon, also known as "where reason goes to die," chides me for suggesting there is a  "huge left wing conspiracy to deny rightwingnut conservatives like Ann Coulter their free speech rights by heckling them." As usual, I will have to speak more slowly so the NVB can understand.  I don't recall ever positing a "huge left wing conspiracy."  Unlike the NVB, I don't see bogeymen around every corner. I don't think there are any "left-wing conspiracies."  In my original post on this matter, I suggested I was no fan of Ann Coulter.  Why?  Because for Ann Coulter, there is no reasonable liberal.  They are all traitors; malicious fiends who lie about caring about America while they secretly sell us out to our enemies or to the French. She isn't really interested in seriously critiquing the left.  What makes NVB so insipid is that it is the exact same as Ann Coulter, but on the left.  Like so many on the left, like the MoveOn.org crowd that is so popular in the Democratic party these days, NVB does not really bother to argue with its opponents because it doesn't really take its opposition seriously.  Thus all the asinine Hitler and Stalin references from the Brown Country Democrats at NVB.  In their minds, no thinking person could support George Bush, or the war in Iraq, or have voted for John Thune.  Such a person must be stupid or malicious, or perhaps a little of both.  In education, once you have contempt for your students you are unable to teach.  In politics, once you have contempt for your opponents you are unable to persuade.  Ann Coulter/Northern Valley Beacon.  Peas in a pod. 

The NVB complains that some people were prevented from entering Bush's town hall meeting in Fargo.  I wish the Bush administration had not done so.  But let's be sane about this, unlike the NVB which makes another characteristically foolish Hitler reference (heil to the chief?).  Not letting someone into a building is not the same as silencing them. Also, town hall meetings are often choreographed to make the politician look good.  I wonder why Tim Johnson's Social Security Town Hall meetings require you to fill out your question beforehand so it can be read to the Senator?  Could it be that they are screening out any questions that might prove embarrassing or difficult to answer? Perish the thought.

A question for NVB.  If Bush is Hitler, what is left to describe real Hitlers?