Commenting on public issues these days, one almost has to wish for earlier times when Americans disputed with one another over Communists in government or mutual assured destruction -- subjects for grown-ups. Who back then would have conceived that today's great schisms would involve such items as Duck Dynasty and "Pajama Boy"?
What will it be next year, a shouting match over whether white toilet paper is racist?
Of course the present controversies, especially involving Duck Dynasty, carry a heavy symbolic freight. I had barely heard of the program let alone viewed it, but apparently it is the most popular cable TV show in the country. I'm a stranger in a strange land.
It seems that Phil Robertson, the leading actor on Duck Dynasty, delivered himself of some insulting remarks about gays in a magazine called GQ. It's amazing that the interview was even printed.
The now-famous quotes I've read are couched in distastefully vulgar language, although no more so than the way many homosexuals speak. No one in the Church of Progressivism would have jibbed at the wording, however, if something similar had been directed against straights. But gays (and lesbians, and trannies) have now been elevated to the cultural Marxist pantheon, along with virtually everyone else except hetero white males.
So the cable network boots Robertson off the program, which tells you something about how deeply the values of the Left have penetrated the entertainment industry -- this organization voluntarily sacrifices its biggest cash cow because an actor has offended a population segment that, I suspect, makes up about 0.002 percent of Duck Dynasty's audience.
Predictably most of the published outrage against the network feeding Robertson to the sharks has a legalistic and defensive tone. His First Amendment rights have supposedly been violated. Nonsense. The First Amendment, among other provisions, prohibits the government from passing any law limiting freedom of speech. How quaint. Legal suppression is irrelevant; private institutions, including corporations, now do the dirty work themselves. They don't have to show you no stinkin' badge.
What most of the defenders of Robertson's nonexistent "rights" do not understand is that the cultural Marxist ruling class wants to destroy them. If they can't do that, they'll at least make sure that the people they see as the yokels in flyover country know their place, and what they can and can't say.
I understand there's a movement to boycott the network, A&E. While I doubt that it will have much effect, it's an encouraging sign that large numbers of citizens are tired of having their brains washed and their mouths taped and are willing to act directly against their oppressors. It's the only recourse they have.
2 comments:
Good to read some common sense on the Duck Dynasty imbroglio. I, too, have not viewed a single episode. My concerns are these:
1. Being virulently anti-gay is unlikely to help us regain control of the federal government, and therefore such expressions should be avoided. They hinder more than help. If I would be free to live my life as I choose, within the law, I must be willing to allow others the same privilege.
2. The purpose of government is not, or should not be, to enforce anyone's religious imperatives on the public at large.
3. The intense social and economic ostracism of the left on anyone who expresses contrary opinions is unfortunate and to be resisted; therefore, I support the boycott against A&E.
4. As conservatives, we need to pick and choose our fights carefully, with a long view, and avoid unnecessary controversies. We have a tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot and to fight battles we cannot win, and do not need to win, in order to restore the Constitution, limited government, and economic prosperity.
That's the way I see it, anyway.
Stogie,
I agree with all your points.
This isn't question of "rights." Robertson had a right to declare his feelings about gays, but I don't care for the boorish style in which he went about it. A&E had the right to fire him, subject to whatever contractual arrangement existed. But Robertson stated them in a forum unconnected with the show, and the network's reaction showed it to be narrow-minded and oppressive.
As far as I know, Robertson performed his "job" so well that he was instrumental in making the program a big hit and gathering lots of advertising money for his employers. Sacking him out of pure ideology was small-minded and indicated how little real freedom of speech is tolerated by our pop-culture commissars. That goes for society's other institutions and organizations.
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