There is always a very good possibility that, whichever Republican wins in the primaries, you won’t like that person. You may even be tempted to throw away a vote by abstaining or making a “protest vote” for a third party candidate. I’ve urged against that conduct on the ground that, no matter how bad the Republican candidate is from your point of view, the Democratic candidate will only be worse. My particular sticking point on this issue is the Supreme Court, but you can substitute just about any policy or practice in its place. Just today, Richard Baehr reminded me that free speech will also be on the chopping block if too many conservative voters, dissatisfied with the primary process, decide to “make a statement” in November 2008.
UPDATE: No surprise that Michelle Malkin has extensive blog coverage of the increasing momentum behind the attack on conservative talk radio.
UPDATE II: Incidentally, liberals are right that talk radio is dangerous — for liberal ideas. From 1987 through 2002, I spent all of my drive time listening to the liberal gold standard, aka NPR. That, as well as the SF Chron, the NY Times, the New Yorker, and the New Republic, completely informed my universe of ideas.
I got disenchanted first with NPR. I’d find myself in the car hollering at the radio “that’s wrong,” or “that’s illogical,” or “that’s stupid,” or “that’s anti-Semitic.” Eventually, I couldn’t make myself listen to those shows any more. The question became, then, where to go? I like talk in the car, not music, so I decided to amuse myself by listening to . . . gasp . . . Rush Limbaugh.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Rush wasn’t the brutal idiot so beloved of liberal stereotypes. Instead, the show had a format that allowed Rush to develop ideas and, because of the interview and call-in format, to defend those ideas. Most he defended well; some he defended badly. I was impressed despite myself — and despite the irritation of the constant commercials, something I’d gotten used to doing without during my public radio years.
From Rush it was a hop, skip and a jump to my favorite radio personality, Dennis Prager, the man I consider the most logical, humane, liberal, rational spokesman around. Again, Prager is able to be precisely this because the long, open format of talk radio allows him both to expand upon and, even more importantly, to defend his ideas. It didn’t take me long to discover Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt. By then I realized that the blinkered world that is NPR can be very informative, but that it is not a marketplace of ideas. Every story is carefully constructed so as to advance a conclusion, but that advocacy is hidden from the credulous liberal audience. Nothing is challenged; no fresh air is allowed; and most importantly, no alternate views are given free voice. Instead, opposing views are limited to 10 or 15 second bites that are immediately rebutted in the static format of a 6 minute radio story.
I eventually concluded that while talk radio definitely has its faults — the primary one being that it doesn’t provide a well-rounded news report, because it’s primarily an opinion format — the virtues far outweighed the faults. There is no hidden agenda, because each show’s host is remarkably open about his beliefs. There is lots of time to develop ideas, especially because of the interview format. And unlike NPR, which is careful to give 98% of its interview shows to people with whom the hosts agree, talk radio hosts such as Hewitt, Medved and Prager seem to relish the opportunity to have on people with whom they do not agree. These ensuing conversations, therefore, provide a rare marketplace of ideas — rare, at least, in today’s one-sided major media.
Which gets me back to my original point — the liberals are right to fear talk radio because, once ideas are removed from the rigidly orchestrated framework that is the MSM and NPR, and get full airing and debate, liberal ideas don’t smell so good any more.
Filed under: Free speech, Presidential elections |
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
This is off-topic, but for those of you who saw the Sopranos-inspired Clinton advertisement, I think I have the campaign theme song Hillary was searching for:
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/elton+john/the+bitch+is+back_20046531.html
We need a major house-cleaning in Washington. The patricians are getting annoyed that the plebians dare call them up and complain. How dare they! I mean can you believe the chutzpa of these citizens who think they know better than the almighty Congress what’s good for their country? We’ve got to shut them up!
If the liberals were honest, and said what they really think, instead of invoking all this statistical analytical legerdemain, they would say we think talk radio is dangerous, we think they lie and incite people to violence, and this reckless dangerous populism is dangerous to the nation (i.e., to the govern liberal consensus) and must be made to shut up. But instead, this urge to censor will be dressed up as a crusade for truth, justice and equity and blah blah blah. That way they won’t have a bad conscience for imposing censorship. As Graham Green pointed out a generation ago, there is nothing liberals avoid more than a bad conscience. No matter how many sins must be glossed over in order for them to have one.
That should read “governing liberal consensus.”
Trent Lott is not a liberal, he’s an elitist. It’s elitism, not liberalism, that thinks populism is dangerous. I wrote my Senators (both Dems) about the immigration bill: “this is not about Republicans vs Democrates nor liberals vs conservatives: it’s about the Congress vs the people. And that is bad.” As to holding my nose, I’ll wait until we have some nominees. If it’s Hillary vs McCain, Bloomie looks good to me!
“I’d find myself in the car hollering at the radio “that’s wrong,” or “that’s illogical,” or “that’s stupid,” or “that’s anti-Semitic.””
Sadly, you have become the thing you claim to have reviled — except, in your incarnation of “it” — you jettison any accountability standard other than partisan conformity and fidelity to your identity politics. I’d hesitate, if I were you, to attribute such a dyspeptic personal evolution to the comparative milquetoast reporting of NPR.
Pastor Ray: huh?
Pastor Ray: huh?
Comment by Ellie | June 21, 2007
He stopped commenting after his little sock puppet act was exposed through replying to one subject, but under two names. Two names that before, acted like they were different people when they attacked Book.
Now he or maybe his entire family of sock puppets, is back for more Greg behavior. Or maybe they’re all the same person. *shrugs* Who knows with the fake Left what wonders human imagination and illusion may produce eh?
I’d find myself in the car hollering at the radio “that’s wrong,” or “that’s illogical,” or “that’s stupid,” or “that’s anti-Semitic.”
You got poisoned early on by logic, Book. Should probably call up the Leftist indoctrination program and ask for a refund, because they didn’t do a good job.
I was impressed despite myself — and despite the irritation of the constant commercials, something I’d gotten used to doing without during my public radio years.
You were a victim of the classical low ball technique. By lowering a person’s expectations to almost nothing, you can get him excited even over minor progress. Of course, Iraq is where the media dips the audience into a perpetual depression, constantly depressing a person’s expectations devoid of any joy.
Every story is carefully constructed so as to advance a conclusion, but that advocacy is hidden from the credulous liberal audience.
It is very hard to hide such things from students of history, meaning those that specialize in human psychology, the means of societal control, and the art of propaganda. Powered by human historic conventions and wisdom, it becomes very very hard to fool such a person. Even commercials take a sort of active interest in order for the audience to figure out the mechanics of how it works. How it was designed in such a way to make you laugh, to make you pay attention, and to get you to remember their brand name? And this is for commercials, stuff we know is designed to convince and is a sales point. Most people are vulnerable to real propaganda because most people think they are not vulnerable to real propaganda. They see a human interest story for example, and they believe that their emotions were wholly the result of their own will and values. That is not entirely true, so we have a sort of Greek tragedy where hubris precedes the fall.
The position I have described here varies from cynicism and pessimism in that being aware of one’s vulnerability to propaganda doesn’t require you to assume everything is a lie; meaning propaganda should be seen as a specially crafted material designed to convince human beings or to invoke certain reactions/emotions in human beings. These may be true emotions and events shown, it may be half true, or it may be a complete fabrication. The ability to discern the difference, is lost in the pattern of cynicism and pessimism. Because cynicism and pessimism have their own pattern and expectations, and you cannot accurately judge the true state of creations without also removing your own blinders and expectations.
I once said that cynics are the easiest to convince with propaganda. The principle by which that operates is only that anyone with a specific pattern in their thinking, can have that thinking manipulated easier than if your set of beliefs were random/variable. Let’s say someone with prejudices or just an opinion of the Israelis as warmongers just out for land and stuff by exploiting Palestinians. That person’s thinking may be manipulated through actually getting the Israelis to say they are going to grab land. Just tell people what they wish to be true, and they’ll believe it. The deception/manipulation part comes into it when what you tell a cynic and what a cynic believes, isn’t really what is going on. So when a person makes his life and death decisions upon a view of a reality that isn’t real… you just did an Iago on him.
People who try to see through the layers of human deception, manipulation, and motivations are harder to mislead. Normally because they don’t make assumptions about human nature. Human nature to them is whatever human nature is. Meaning instead of a cynic believing that all people are motivated by selfish and flawed goals, the seeker of truth attempts to see things for what they truly are. If they are truly selfish and weak, then that is what they are. But if they are not, then that should be accepted as well. This is a very hard exercise for fake liberals and Leftists to do, because they have gotten so used to the ideological narrative that they no longer apply critical thinking. Without critical thinking, you cannot break the traditional mold in which your mind has parked itself in. The Left is predictable because they are not mentally flexible. People that are predictable are easily destroyed. Whether by internal stagnancy or outside operation.
Nothing is challenged; no fresh air is allowed; and most importantly, no alternate views are given free voice.
Like any scientific experiment on human behavior, you have to control the variables and tighten the conditions down to something you can control and observe.
These ensuing conversations, therefore, provide a rare marketplace of ideas — rare, at least, in today’s one-sided major media.
The 21st century version of Haggling I suppose.
Which gets me back to my original point — the liberals are right to fear talk radio because, one ideas are removed from the rigidly orchestrated framework that is the MSM and NPR, and get full airing and debate, liberal ideas don’t smell so good any more.
Liberal ideas are quite nice; since after all you are a chief proponent of them. It is only fake liberalism that pollutes and corrupts the waters with its phony product. Phony and dangerous, filled with toxic chemicals that aren’t beneficial to you. Fake cures, complete with laudanum and opium extracts for the concerning customer.
It’s sewage pretending to be drinkable water, Book. That’s why it smells. MSM=Main Sewer Media.
Ymarsaker:huh?
It’s Pastor Ray’s bio, what’s to huh about it?
[…] stunningly dishonest piece of advocacy writing about the Supreme Court In an earlier post, I pointed out how much more informative talk radio is than its MSM counterparts (including NPR), […]
It would be so self-satisfying to just not vote if the candidate stinks. But then I don’t deserve bitching rights, so I’ll vote for the lesser of evils if I have to.
But what’s making me very angry and more so all the time is to be waved off by the elitists as someone who ‘just doesn’t like brown people’ vis a vis illegal immigration. No – I just don’t like law-breakers who expect to be given a pass and my senators and representatives who are willing to do so. In fact, the latter arrogant peacocks are worse – those entering illegally want a decent life that their own corrupt officials can’t/won’t/don’t make possible.
I started listening to Rush in 1988 on the way home from work and I couldn’t believe I heard this guy saying right out loud what I thought quietly for years. The conservative talkers have honed the art of discussion and debate. If the left’s foot stomping hissy fit for ‘equal time’ becomes a reality, just how long can they hope to keep a conversation going? After all, critical thinking requires more than their usual responses of racist, bigot, homophobe, and hater. I don’t think they can carry it off.
It’s almost inconceivable that the race would be Hillary vs. McCain, but…..
As far a Bloomberg is concerned, he’s just a wealthier Corzine. A “human ATM” on a planetary scale.
Ya gotta vote for the one closest to your positions, otherwise we loose the Court, property rights, free speech, where to live, choice of career, add your own….
Al
The next president of the United States will be Al Gore who was elected in 2000.Take it to the bank and cash it. All the rest is just blah blah .
“partisan conformity and fidelity to your identity politics” — That in a nutshell is American liberalism in the 21st century. Thank you, Pastor Ray, for such a cogent phrase, even if you did point it in the wrong direction. Bookworm’s point, and it is an excellent one, is that liberals (as reflected in liberal talk radio) practice “partisan conformity” and “identity politics” while conservatives (as reflected in conservative talk radio) actually engage in the give and take of political debate and the exchange of ideas. She’s right.
[…] chronicling the almost pathetic decline of the New York Times. On the other hand, inspired by a probably righteous fear of talk radio, Hillary and Nancy may well be busy plotting its demise, and are apparently planning to use […]
[…] more via Jeff Goldstein, JammieWearingFool, Bookworm Room Posted By: Sister Toldjah in: Outrageous, Congress, Clueless Wonders | EMail This Post | Print […]
[…] To the extent any of you are new readers floating over from the Hugh Hewitt show, this is a recent post I did about my talk radio […]
[…] Filed under: Politics — ymarsakar @ 7:06 am Inspired by this Bookworm post concerning her conversion to the dreaded neo-con faction, I would just like to make a simple point. A simple short point, I […]