The story of a company pulling its advertising for a sit-com about American Muslims under pressure from a conservative family-values group has a lot of people mad on both sides of the issue.
Lowes Home Improvement, a furniture company (not the movie theater), pulled its advertising from this show about Muslims in Detroit after the Florida Family Association wrote and complained it would have "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values."
That all seems overblown and extreme, when the worst thing that's going to happen to American Muslims is that they're going to get the same vacuous sit-com treatment that Jews, blacks, Hispanics, gays and other minorities have gotten on American TV, and be trivialized and homogenized. Maybe that's a sign of "having arrived" or "being accepted"? Maybe it's silly or politically correct? It's hardly likely to unleash the mullahs' murderous propaganda on to unsuspecting couch-potatoes.
The answer to speech that seems hateful and racist is more speech, however, not less, and that's not what the left or Sen. Ted Lieu are reaching for as solutions.
Moveon.org is agitating for Lowes to return their advertising support, and Sen. Lieu is looking for laws he can prosecute Lowes with (!). This is very bad stuff, and frankly, worse that the original offense of the conservative group, because these moves by the left and Lieu attack the whole system supporting the First Amendment, and don't just spread hate and mistrust.
The left has a hard time accepting the idea of the corporation as person, or the corporation as a profit-making entity, or the corporation as anything, really. They love collectives, but not in the form of corporations. So they think the solution to a speech problem they don't like is to impose behaviour on a free agent in a free market. That's wrong. They don't get to do that under American law. But of course, they are busy trying to erode that law.
No corporation can be forced to place or withdraw advertising. It's a free act in a free market and depends on the judgement of the corporation itself. Moveon.org, a nonprofit and a PAC, would ask for no less for itself. What if some moral majority somewhere in some state were able to compel Moveon.org to give some of their money to rightwing causes and support conservative businesses, out of some notion of "balance"? That's why I definitely oppose signing the petition about this.
Sen. Ted Lieu is worse. First, he said he would respond with some kind of legislation about this incident, as if he could write a law forcing corporations to support loopy sit-coms that are supposed to mainstream minorities -- the melting pot method used on every other minority in America. Or force corporations to do *anything* regarding their advertising. There is no way in hell that should pass.
Worse, he is casting around for California laws (Lowes is in California) that could be used to prosecute this speech of theirs -- this decision first to advertise, then pull the ad, then put up a Facebook explanation apologizing for putting their foot in, then pulling the Facebook.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong of Sen. Lieu. But how did he get like this? What on earth drove him to reach for these outrageous authoritarian solutions -- suppressing the speech and actions of corporations?!
It turns out Ted Lieu is an immigrant, his family came to this country from some Asian country not specified when he was 3, and he had a hard life, starting out in a basement, working in a store, working his way up. So he is very sensitive to the idea of immigrants and minorities being harmed by conservative groups like the Florida Family Association. Understood.
Ted Lieu did so well under the "American Dream" (and, despite George Carlin's dark propaganda, he didn't have to be asleep to enjoy it). He went to Georgetown Law School, and also served in the military. He has an impressive personal record. But how did he get through Law School, and clerk and not learn a thing about the jurisprudence of the First Amendment?! There isn't any possible law in a state or in the nation that could force a company to advertise a show they don't want to advertise, just because they once *did* wish to advertise with it, and then changed their mind.
That he could even tell a reporter that he was going to look for such a law is just extreme -- and gravely troubling. I could never, ever vote for such a senator. All he is doing, in fact, is reinforcing the stereotype and fueling the fears of the conservative Florida group that classic liberal American values are undercut by alien ideologies.
If he doesn't find a law to prosecute Lowes with, he's going to pass some kind of condemnatory resolution -- really ill-advised as bullying and a chill on speech and a misuse of legislative power -- and also organize a boycott of Lowes -- something that elected officials should not be doing -- it's more the prerogative of civic groups or unions.
You can't force people to engage in politically-correct behaviour in society at large, in the marketplace. To be sure, there are rules imposed on schools and workplaces for such behaviour, and some would debate this is a good thing. But in the outside marketplace of ideas, goods, and services, there isn't such a "code of conduct" -- and can't be. It would be impossible to create and enforce without doing huge damage to the notion of free speech.
Lowes didn't do anything wrong. They caved under pressure from a community group, but that's their business judgement -- they saw a controversy brewing, and they wanted to remove their brand from it. If 30,000 people hate that, they can just not buy Lowes stuff. But they can't force Lowes to say things they don't believe, or enter a politicized fray.
Once again, there's another troubling undertow to all this in the Wired State. Nobody can say anything bad about the obviously bad Islamic agenda in a place like Iran without fear of political incorrectness or fear of having it somehow apply to American Muslims in Detroit. The left goes around braying constantly that they don't want to be accused of antisemitism just because they ferociously single out and criticize Israel,and constantly complain that they're in a context where they can't criticize Israel without being called antisemitic -- doesn't that same principle apply to Islam? And I'd add that in many cases, the leftists *are* antisemitic because they've become absolutely obsessive, unhinged, and hateful about Israel.
Has the same thing happened with this group in Florida, on the question of Islam -- the inability to distinguisn countries and individuals related in some way to them? It seems so. They should at least wait until the show airs before pouncing on some actual thing that actually undermines American values!
Meanwhile, Sen. Lieu and the left are the ones in this story actually active undermining American values supposedly in the name of tolerance. There are plenty of other ways to respond. They could condemn the group in Florida and Lowes, but rather than trying to deny them their First Amendment-protected speech, they should find new advertisers for the show.
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