Confusing Unfunny With Unacceptable

Filling in for Michelle Malkin, See Dubya observes:

Um, no. No, I most definitely wouldn't. I don't care if the guy had two thousand felonies, I don't want the state shooting people for property crimes. Battery cables on the testicles and summary executions may be cool within the Mahdi army or Chi-Com dungeons, but not here in America. There's nothing conservative about that sadistic, statist fantasy and as a conservative myself I don't like being associated with it.

That regarding the whole KSFO kerfluffle, documented here by Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters.

The troubles for KSFO began in 2006 when a fifth-tier liberal blogger from San Francisco, hiding behind the pseudonym “Spocko’s Brain,” started sending the station’s advertisers complaint letters.

What puzzles me is when bloggers, even conservative and even supposedly Libertarian ones make this leap from someone doing a funny, or, in this case, unfunny bit, to someone proposing actual legislation, or policy.

It's fine to say one is put off by the hyperbole that they wish it weren't done. But to attack it from the perspective of what you want our legitimate government to do, or not do is akin to creating a straw-man.

Were the radio host in question a congressman giving a speech on the floor of the House, SeeDubya might have a point. But given that this is a radio host purported to be funny, there is no point to the rationale for shutting down the speech.

Let the market drive it. If enough people in the Bay area enjoy it, or are willing to see it as one example of over-reaching in an otherwise funny program, so be it. And as long as the people listen to KSFO, the sponsors would be foolish to go anywhere else.

I don't even mind an individual contacting a sponsor of something and issuing a complaint. That's as much free speech as the offensive initiator of the incident. But when we start using mass media applications to drum up support for this or that effort to restrict or punish free speech, the truth always becomes gray, people take sides for entirely different reasons and the orange can be tossed out the apples when it didn't belong in that basket in the first place.

But once we start taking entertainment and give it the weight of genuine authority, it seems to me we're fighting apples with tactics we should reserve for oranges.

Comments

[See-Dubya]

Dan--

Fair enough, but for the record I don't want to "shut down" his speech or the station, and I'm not the one urging any action against the station. I just think that remark was way over the top and he ought to apologize for it--and stop the Kos circus, too. As for letting the market drive it, that's what Spocko is doing by appealing to the advertisers. KSFO's the one who's trying to shut things down here by bringing out the lawyers against Spocko's ISP.

And if you listen to the audio stream I linked--zip ahead to about 54 minutes in--it seems pretty clear to me he's not really joking about the execution, though maybe he was about the torture. There were other incidents they talk about--like the Nancy Pelosi target thing--which they specified were just "botched jokes". This one, I don't think so.

[Dan Riehl]

Fair enough, See Dubya. Personally, I think there's a fair amount of right wing talk that ultimately hurts, more than helps. I just hate seeing these organized efforts to close down speech. And I realize that you didn't advocate that while expressing your opinion.

[Mr. Pelosi]

I think that the incident highlights one thing. That conservatives just aren't funny. Sure there are some who are unintentionally funny, like George Bush riding a bike or George Will throwing a baseball, but those are rare (and wrong to laugh at). Take ex-comedian Dennis Miller. Formerly one of the funniest guys in the biz. Actually had some funny quips about Ronald Reagan (Allah rest his soul) in his time. Once he flipped and became a Republican he instantly attracted silence (his horrible MNF stint sure helped). It's unfortunate but it happens. Now all he's left to do is bide his time until he flips back to being a liberal (like a 'political' Gabor sister...to para-quote him). Ho hum. I guess when you stand tall as the most moral party, it's kinda hard to provide points of view that entertain. I mean try going to a party and make jokes about Hilary Clinton being a lesbian who murdered Vince Foster because he had the goods on her affair with Tipper Gore. See...not funny. You didn't laugh. The only person who would think it was funny is Vince Foster...and he's dead. So it's borderline 'matinee at Vegas' funny which doesn't work. So the conservatives should stick to the 'John Kerry hates the troops', 'Barrack Obama dresses like an Iranian President', and 'John Dean is unbalanced'. At least you'll get laughs when your friends assemble into a political circle jerk to chuckle about inflation and the budget deficit preventing the Democrats in Congress from shoring up an social programs. Take that poor people. Now see, it got you giggling. Why not get in your convertible BMW and go paint-ball some of those mother-f*%king illegal aliens on their way to their lowly meat packing jobs. See...that's the laughter that comes from being on top for so many years, but it won't get a room of lesbian loving, drug arrested liberals laughing.

[Purple Avenger]

Now that this tactic has been validated by the left as acceptable, the axe would seem to have two heads.

[San Diego Charger Fan]

Validated by the LEFT but INVENTED by the right. I think SHOTGUN has two barrels is a better analogy, Avenger. The righties cry and cry about everything...even when they win.

[djangone]

Ahh, the sweet stench of entitlement speech from the right. Melanie Morgan hasn't had her speech 'close[d] down,' whatever that means in the semi-literate Riehl world. Shrieks of victimization from the right, a technique honed to a fine edge by Michelle Malkin, only make all of you seem even more like cowards. Spocko effectively did nothing more than let Morgan's sponsors know what she's been saying. Why should she worry that they have transcripts of her diatribes? Doesn't she have the courage to stand by her words?

As for the free market determining the outcome, voila! It will. The free market determines the value of her sponsors' brands. If a sponsor feels she's stained their brand, they'll take steps to address it; if not, they won't. Where in there has regulation entered the picture? Are you against a brand's right to preserve its hard-earned equity? That'd be a nice position for a so-called conservative.

By the way, do you have any idea at all what you meant by this paragraph? Did the drugs kick in just before you began writing?

'It's fine to say one is put off by the hyperbole that they wish it weren't done. But to attack it from the perspective of what you want our legitimate government to do, or not do is akin to creating a straw-man.'

[Horatio]

"But when we start using mass media applications to drum up support for this or that effort to restrict or punish free speech, the truth always becomes gray, people take sides for entirely different reasons and the orange can be tossed out the apples when it didn't belong in that basket in the first place."

Hey, sounds sorta like how the GOP used the media to convince the country to go to war with Iraq, eh?