Let them twist in the wind... or you know... flourish.

In America, we've more or less staked our future on the "marketplace of ideas," where free and open debate flows and sometimes offends. Those who can back up their words with well-thought out, reasonable arguments have a better chance of making an impact on the market than those with weak, unsupported claims. Once in a while a bad idea will endure much longer than it ought, but it is my judgment that such ideas are "bad ideas," and clearly the opinion is not shared by those who perpetuate them. Eventually, we have faith, the unworthy will be weeded out through natural selection.

A recent post by "Zoevenly" railed against Joel Stein's back-page essay in Time Magazine. Joel also believed that if left alone, things will work out for the best, but his essay was directed toward government interference in the housing market. Zoevenly interpreted his essay as nasty, calling people who bought homes during the housing market idiots and comparing them to small children. She uses several emotional appeals, which I intend to elaborate upon in future posts, so will skim over now. The point is that she (either deliberately or unintentionally) misinterprets some of the subtleties of his argument, focusing on the harshness of his criticism and apparent lack of empathy for those hurt by the collapse of the housing market. She takes a neo-Liberal stance, viewing government as the caring father who should rush its wounded daughter to the hospital when involved in a catastrophic accident, even if the accident resulted from the daughter's foolish actions. Stein does not see government as a father, but as a meddler, but Zoevenly sees Stein as a know-nothing, exclaiming in the final portions of her blog that he had not been reading such-and-such articles, and that anyone who knows anything agrees with her, yadda, yadda...

Although Stein's arguments were ungentle, they've found a receptive audience in me, one member of the larger audience, and even though another member of the larger audience, Zovenly, finds his remarks offensive, the rightful punishment for his remarks are only the loss of readers and the criticism of other individuals. The government is not going to step in and punish him for his point of view.

A recent political cartoon in the New York Post depicted two police officers moments after shooting a crazed chimpanzee to death. The caption read "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." The reference is to the recent attack of a chimpanzee which tore part of a woman's face off and had to be gunned down, a crazed chimpanzee which arguably could have written a stimulus package whose level of coherency would match that of the package put together in Washington. It was a political cartoon, meant to be a little bit bawdy, but strike its point candidly. Unfortunately, it missed its mark. Monkey or an ape imagery has been used throughout American history to demean whomever we hope to demean, such as the enemy during a war, or even the President when he's unpopular. Many have interpreted the comic as making a direct reference to President Obama, and as monkey imagery has been particularly popular with anti-black racists, the New York Post set itself up to be hammered by anyone who wanted to take a swing at them.

I was surprised and a bit impressed at the way the editors chose to handle the situation. Yes, they wished to address the cries of racism, but their response was not purely backpedaling. Instead, they explained the original meaning of the comic and apologized to those who were truly offended, yet at the same time took the opportunity to re-emphasize their viewpoint:

"It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.

Period."

The New York Post also refused to offer any apology to those who had "had differences with The Post in the past - and [saw] the incident as an opportunity for payback."

Refusing to make a complete apology is risky, and could have negative repurcussions. The New York Post could lose even more public support, and thus lose readers, and thus lose revenue. In the same way Stein put his ideas up to compete in the marketplace of ideas, they choose to let their viewpoint battle against the views of those who want them to fall flat on their face. If I were to mention now that it is the federal government's sacred responsibility to step in now and make SURE that the New York Post suffers even further for its controversial cartoon, you probably would tell me that I am off my rocker and should go write an economic stimulus plan.

Al Sharpton has demanded that the FCC "re-examine" waivers to its media ownership rules that allow Rupert Murdoch to own two newspapers (the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal) and two television stations (WNYW and WWOR) in the New York areas. This neo-liberal plan of changing the rules because you want to punish specific content was ruled to be unjust in Texas vs. Johnson.

Sending in the government to stifle offensive speech is NOT the best way to run a democracy. In this case, the speech wasn't even intended to offend the group of people it offended. True, it would offend Democrats, but it was meant to be a political attack, not a racist attack against blacks or any other ethinic group. If the New York Post begins to become a racist newspaper that depicts the death of a popular President, then the New York Post will suffer the consequence of losing its customers in the marketplace of ideas. However, let the economics of ideas decide the fate of the paper. If the FCC is called in to destroy anyone who says something that MIGHT be considered racist and/or offensive, then speech will become stifled. Even hate speech must be tolerated if we are to have free and full discussion, but in this case this is free and full discussion that is being falsely branded as hate speech so that it can be suppressed!

Rupert Murdoch has issued an apology, accepting responsibility for the printing of the cartoon and attempting to mend the hurt feelings. He says that after speaking to others about this, he has gained a better understanding of the hurt caused.

A controversial piece of speech, presented in a privately-owned newspaper has led to discussion and, for at least one man, a better understanding and increased awareness of sensitivites. Perhaps Senator Gillibrand (D) was mistaken when he said that this type of speech, "serves no productive role in the public discourse.” It obviously got people talking about issues that are important to them. That's an important enough role.