More thoughts on the firing of Juan Williams from NPR

Here are my reactions to passages from an Associated Press story "Gone From NPR, Williams Begins Bigger Role On Fox."

According to the AP, during his appearance on The O'Reilly Factor Friday, 

Williams went on to note that commentator Nina Totenberg said 15 years ago that if there is "retributive justice," former Republican North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms or one of his grandchildren will get AIDS from a transfusion.

An NPR spokeswoman said Totenberg has repeatedly apologized for her comments. 

I'm not a huge Totenberg fan myself, but there is a significant difference between her case and that of Williams: Totenberg apologized for her comments, and Williams has not. My guess is that conservative bloggers (like this lunatic) fail to mention this fact. 

The AP also reports that 

Veronica Richardson, 38, a paralegal from Raleigh, N.C., said the firing revealed that NPR had a "political agenda." She said she would stop listening and donating to her local station, WUNC-FM in Chapel Hill. 

"I think it's unfair to fire someone for a comment that was innocuous to begin with. It's how many people feel," said Richardson, who describes herself as a libertarian. 

Richardson's problem is that Williams' comment was not "innocuous to begin with." It had the effect of legitimizing Bill O'Reilly's irrational fear of Muslims. Before you conclude that such comments are harmless, perhaps you ought to get to know a few American Muslims and ask them about it. In addition, bigotry is not a legitimate "political agenda," and neither is firing those who express it. Bigotry is rooted in ignorance of non-political matters; reforming bigots is therefore not political. 

Finally, according to the AP, 

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said he will introduce legislation to end federal funding for public radio and television. 

"Once again, we find the only free speech liberals support is the speech with which they agree," he said in a statement. "With record debt and unemployment, there's simply no reason to force taxpayers to subsidize a liberal programming they disagree with."

Liberals like me have been saying that conservatives' irrational fear of Muslims is bigotry. I do in fact disagree with Williams' comments, but not because I am a liberal. I disagree with Williams' comments because they are rooted in ignorance about factual matters. And I don't care whether most Americans agree with Williams or not. Their agreement with him wouldn't make his comments any less false. Conservatives have a long history of using propaganda, including false propaganda, to further their political goals. And if DeMint want to ally himself with bigots, he can be my guest. 

DeMint also assumes that NPR can air only those views with which Americans agree. Think about that. He assumes not only that the airing of minority opinions on NPR is forbidden, but also that Americans agree with him. This is a conservative delusion in the Obama era: that the conservative wing of the Republican Party is representative of Americans in general, and that Obama and the Democrats are ignoring the will of the American people. DeMint, and the rest of them, are out of their fucking minds. Andrew Sullivan writes: 

"A convenient Tea Party mantra has been the presumptuous, and seemingly amnesiac notion that President Obama 'betrayed the American people,' that 'We the People have spoken and never wanted Obama’s policies.'" . . .

I have one loyal and valuable reader who keeps going nuts about the health insurance bill being rammed down the throats of the country.

But Obama explicitly campaigned on it; it was never hidden; he didn't change it significantly from his final campaign message (although he opposed mandates in the primaries). It was fought over in the presidential debates. And he won the election by a landslide on that platform. And he passed it after months of Congressional wrangling. There was nothing faintly wrong or treacherous or deceptive about any of it.

Jim, I understand your political reasons for doing what you're doing, but to many of us, you sound about as insane as Erick Erickson. Your contact with reality is tenuous at best. Take your meds. 

My enthusiastic agreement with a conservative blogger . . .

. . . and the patron saint of the Republican Party

I happened to notice a post on Andrew Sullivan's blog about South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint yesterday. According to Sullivan, DeMint has said that

“People are beginning to see that there's no way we can pay the interest on our debt and every week, we're borrowing money to pay the debt we have and are creating new programs that are costing more money,” he said. “Hopefully in 2012, we'll make headway to repeal some of the things we've done, because politics only works when we're realigned with our Savior.” 

Sullivan also reports that

DeMint said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn't be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who's sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn't be in the classroom. “(When I said those things,) no one came to my defense,” he said. “But everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn't back down. They don't want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion.”

(Sullivan's source appears to be GoUpstate.com.)

Sullivan objects to DeMint's attack on homosexuals. "'Freedom to religion' [sic] means firing gay high school teachers. Fiscal conservatism is to 'realign with our Savior.' On gay high school teachers, it's worth remembering that Ronald Reagan as long ago as 1978 aligned with Harvey Milk in opposing discrimination in the Brigg's Initiative," Sullivan writes.

Sullivan cited a piece by Dale Carpenter posted at the Independent Gay Forum about Reagan's views. As it turns out, there is one issue on which Reagan and I agree.

Reagan was "anti-gay;" I am most certainly not. But Reagan was also admirably tolerant toward homosexuality in his politics, and it is on this point that Reagan and I agree. According to Carpenter, biographer Lou Cannon claims that

Reagan was "respectful of the privacy of others" and was "not the sort of person who bothers about what people do in their own bedrooms." This attitude was consistent with Reagan's larger philosophical commitment to individual liberty and limited government. 

Cannon also states that Reagan was "repelled by the aggressive public crusades against homosexual life styles which became a staple of right wing politics in the late 1970s." Reagan was courageous in his battle against religious conservatives:

In 1978, for example, Reagan vigorously opposed a California ballot initiative sponsored by religious conservatives that would have barred homosexuals from teaching in the public schools. The timing is significant because he was then preparing to run for president, a race in which he would need the support of conservatives and moderates very uncomfortable with homosexual teachers. As Cannon puts it, Reagan was "well aware that there were those who wanted him to duck the issue" but nevertheless "chose to state his convictions."

In defense of his position, Reagan wrote at the time, "Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this."

While Reagan could not condone homosexuality, then, he could not accept unjustified discrimination against homosexuals. DeMint looks like some time traveler from the 1950's by comparison.

And this brings me to that blogger I mentioned earlier. Killtruck defended Ann Coulter's decision to speak to GOPROUD, a gay conservative group, at HomoCon in New York City last month. It appears that WorldNutDaily chose to punish Coulter for her decision. Killtruck writes,

Color me radical and unconservative.  It’s one thing to be against gay marriage.  Many conservatives are against gay marriage for a variety of reasons, some of them are even related homosexuality.  But WorldNetDaily seems to just be against gay people.  Much like the Ground Zero Mosque (Park 51 hates it when you call it Ground Zero Mosque, so be sure to call it that every time), WorldNetDaily has every right to drop Ann Coulter for any stupid reason they want, and I still have the right to express my opinion that they are homophobic dinosaurs and big jerkfaces. 

Killtruck goes on to say, "I’d like to go into how great the gay conservatives I’ve gotten to know are, but there’s no way to do it without sounding patronizing."

I doubt that I would agree with Killtruck on much else; it sounds as if we most certainly would not agree on the issue of the proposed mosque in New York City. (And why must you do something that other people hate? Is it just to be an asshole?) But I do agree with her on one thing, enthusiastically: homophobia is wrong. Of course, I would go further than Killtruck: Killtruck seems to suggest that some forms of legal discrimination against homosexuals are acceptable, and I find any form of legal discrimination against homosexuals completely unacceptable. Killtruck does, however, support civil unions for homosexuals, as do I. And for that, she deserves praise. Her views on this issue are actually pretty sophisticated and nuanced and progressive, and I respect that.

Yes, it's true: I agree with a Snark and Boobs blogger, on these two small things, at least.

Now, all conservatives have to do is give me one good reason to think that homosexuality is wrong or that homosexuals should be discriminated against. I haven't seen one yet, and I've seen a lot of bad arguments on this topic in my time. A lot. So, good luck with that.

By the way, Conservative, the polling appears to indicate that you would do well to follow politicians who are more like Reagan and less like DeMint. Your choice.