Fenster writes:
DUCK 1:
Over at Salon, Matthew Bruenig takes on “free speech hypocrites” of all stripes. He argues, with some truth, that the Duck Dynasty dust-up is more or less the Dixie Chicks dust-up in reverse, with the same offenses and complaints. Concerning Robertson’s “offenses”:
. . . we have here a perfect analogue to the Dixie Chicks spectacle: a popular entertainer said something offensive and outrageous to many, and an economic actor punished him for doing so.
Concerning the complaints, a kind of symmetry as well. Liberals cried foul when the Dixie Chicks got whacked, and now it is fowl the other way round. His conclusion: no one really cares about content neutral rules and each side is only out to win.
Everyone else has a substantive agenda and merely stakes out the short-term positions on content-neutral procedural justice that further that agenda. Filibusters are good when they block what I dislike, but bad when they block what I like. States rights are good when states do what I like, but bad when they do what I dislike. Private economic coercion of expression is good when it shuts down comments I dislike, but bad when it shuts down comments I like. And so on.
Given this reality, why do we even play the game where we pretend to believe in some sort of content-neutral procedural justice rules? Who are we trying to fool? What’s the use of having shell arguments about process that everyone knows are driven by core disagreements on substantive agendas? I don’t get it.
Maybe this is tongue in cheek and he doesn’t really get it. But I don’t think it is hard to get. Of course people are hypocrites. They are not required to be other than that, to play fair or to support the other side when it scores a point. What is required is free speech. That’s all.
It is OK to make hypocritical and incorrect statements that one’s free speech rights have been abridged. That’s free speech too. What is not OK is the abridgment of free speech. And that hasn’t happened in either of the above cases. I hardly feel as though all as well in the Republic. It would be nice to have less toxicity and hypocrisy. But as to free speech, both the Dixie Chicks and Phil Robertson can say what they want. They are not entitled to a megaphone, or a platform or a column in the New York Times.
Free speech is hard enough. It shouldn’t have to carry the burden of things it is not.
DUCK 2:
And as long as we are talking about ducks at Christmas, a quick shout-out to Kalle Anke is in order. God Jul!
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
Happy Christmas to you as well. I forgot all about Kalle Anka, since it’s not part of our family Christmas tradition, but yeah, it’s definitely a thing in Sweden, just as that guy says. We roast a turkey, and I have nothing to add about those other ducks.
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This isn’t Dixie Chicks in reverse becuase the Dixie Chicks made statements that were offensive to their own fanbase while Roberston made statements that were offensive only to a shitlib minority that doesn’t watch his (very popular) show. And that is a world of difference.
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I am trying to see how there is a world of difference. Seems to me like a distinction without much of a difference. Granted much of the DC furor was from fans directly. But it also had aspects like DD, what with corporate actions designed to appease some angry crowd or another–suspension to please libs with DD and banning the music from play with DC to satisfy conservatives.
The fact that the “fan base” was angrier in one instance and the “non-fan base” in another does not seem to me to be particularly relevant. And I don’t think you can even draw those fine lines between fan base and non-fan base. Dixie Chicks were well liked on the coasts before the dust-up. And while Republicans and evangelicals provide more support for DD than Dems, the latter are not far behind.
According to Experian, 14% of Republicans and 13.5% of Evangelicals watched an episode of DD over the past four weeks. That contrast with 9.5% of Dems. That’s not much of a gap.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/12/20/the-politics-of-who-watches-duck-dynasty/
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Fans can vote with their wallets which gives companies a perfectly non-ideological reason to drop their support for entertainers who shit their own nests. As opposed to the purely ideologically-driven attempt to kill DD, perpetrated by small numbers of shitlibs who get worked up over the gay thing. That a minority belief system can have so much sway on the media is the difference.
Also, ‘Democrat’ is not equivalent to ‘shitlib’. People who identify as Democrat do so for multiple reasons and are not universally socially liberal. That 26% of DD’s audience is Democrat doesn’t mean much, especially since shitlibs are a minority of Democrats.
I went back and read over the Dixe Chicks incident. The way they chose to express their disagreement with the Iraq War was as if it were calculated to press every rage button in the average Red Stater. I’m not surprised by the outcome.
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So it is OK for Cumulus to throttle the Chicks by instructing 42 stations not to play their music, but it is not OK for A&E to suspend Robertson because they didn’t have as compelling a market-based rationale? Maybe. Let’s see what happens when the shoe is on the other foot the next time, when conservatives bay, as they will, for corporations to do the right thing for religious or patriotic reasons, and not just pay attention to the money . . .
I am also not persuaded that the DC incident is an example of a minority trampling on the majority but DD is an example of the Silent Majority trying to speak out. Public opinion is a hard thing to nail down easily, I know. But, gay-is-sin or not, majorities of Americans support gay marriage. Some are positive about it, some are no doubt more live-and-let-live about it. But I don’t think there is a Silent Majority out there who would agree with Robertson’s comments from 2010:
“Women with women. Men with men. They committed indecent acts with one another, and they received in themselves the due penalty for their perversions. They’re full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant God-haters. They are heartless. They are faithless. They are senseless. They are truthless. They invent ways of doing evil.”
You say the Chicks pressed a rage button? Maybe so. Phil’s comments aren’t anything to sneeze at either.
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Fenster, you’ve got a point but you’re also wrong.
It’s true that most people–conservative or liberal–like to suppress opinions that they don’t like but this isn’t just a freedom of speech issue, it’s a freedom of religion one as well.
The right to freedom of speech is not absolute, context–as you like to remind us–is important. Phil was suspended for his personal views of homosexuality, stated in the context of an interview about Phil’s personal beliefs. Phil was censured for his “private space” views of homosexuality. Even then, no one has a right to expect the market to prop up their personal views but equal opportunity legislation prohibits any employer censure on the basis of religion. Phil was censured on private religious grounds.
On the other hand, Prior to the Iraq war, lots of people expressed their misgivings at the upcoming conflict and earned no censure as a result of it. But their expression of misgiving was given in context appropriate forums and as a result they were able to express their views without censure.
The Dixie Chicks, however, promoted a musical concert–which was ostensibly politically neutral– and used it as a forum to promote a public message. They were essentially engaging in political advocacy, in a time of heightened emotional debate about the legitimacy of war. They were censured for their “public space” comments. Context Fenster,….. context.
Had Phil, at the express disagreement of his contract, engaged in anti-gay advocacy, I’d have no problem with him getting suspended, but from what I’ve read in the paper, he stipulated that he wanted to be open about his Christian beliefs and his contract allowed it. He was suspended for his personal private views, in other words for who he was–a Christian–after agitation from the Gaystapo.
No one is obligated to purchase goods from a Christian, Communist or homosexual but on the other hand, in a modern Western Liberal Democracy, no one is allowed to have their economic rights stripped of them either for holding a personal view which is unpopular.
The Dixie Chicks made a statement which the market didn’t like, there’s no evidence that the Robertson’s suspension was made on economic criteria at all. In fact the evidence is to the opposite.
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You’ve got both a legal and ethical argument going here and I don’t think they are the same thing exactly. Where the law is concerned, you argue that Robertson’s contract rights have been violated. Honestly I don’t know the particulars of the contract and therefore have a hard time making a conclusion about the law. But from what I have read the legal case is not the slam dunk you describe.
There’s speculation all around, some self serving no doubt. One source says A&E went in to this with warnings to Phil not to go over the top with his beliefs, but that Phil was determined to have it his way. Another says the contract was not directly with A&E and that it therefore had no right to suspend. Another says there would certainly have been a morals clause, the kind which are routinely so broadly drafted as to make it easy for the employer to say embarrassment has been caused. So I think the legal analysis falls into the we’ll see department.
I agree with your argument that Phil was suspended for issues not much related to economics. Suspending him puts in jeopardy not only all the nice money from the show, but also the zillions in revenue from tie-ins. I don’t know how that part of the contract works either. Presumably there is sharing of items emblazoned with the Duck Dynasty name, but the DD term itself is likely owned by A&E and I don’t know what happens to the tie-in money if the show collapses.
Personally, my bet is that it is the awareness of the legal risks on this money that inhibits A&E from pulling the trigger, so to speak. I also would be surprised if the same thought has not occurred to the Robertson family. Which is not to suggest the family is only interested in money. It is clear Phil at least sees this as a proselytizing opportunity. But as a tough guy, I can imagine he might be thinking about how to have his cake and eat it too–keeping the platform with few restraints, and keeping the revenue too.
But a lot of the last links in our comments chains have dealt with a narrower issue, which is whether the DD dust-up is the same as the DC one, run in reverse. I started it, I know, I still think it is worthy of discusssion (See below!) but I must concede it is not the issue on which the controversy hinges.
And on the DD/DC distinction, I still don’t get why you see a world of difference. For example, I doubt that the fans who got angry with DC did so because their statements were made in concert. Doesn’t it seem more likely that they were ostracized because of the nature of the comments themselves? I just don’t see people discarding their CDs on account of the venue, yelling “NOT AT A CONCERT!! NOT AT A CONCERT!!”
I also think you have not addressed the issue of corporate action adequately. The DC comments on stage were made in March 2003. Within a week Maines issued a formal apology: “”As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect.” After than Cumulus media banned airply of the DC in 42 stations, and as long as two months afther the apology, two DJs were suspended for playing the DC in the face of a from-the-top ban. It is one thing for individuals to express disapproval through boycotts–but how is a ban imposed from the top like a boycott?
In fact, wherease you note that there was an economic justification for the DC reaction, the argument runs the other way, too. The station manager who did the firing noted that “”we pulled their music two months ago, and it’s been a difficult decision because how can you ignore the hottest group in country music?” In other words, there were strong economic reasons to *continue* to play the DC’s music, too. It was the power of politics, not individual choices, that fueled the ban. Seems to me that what prompted the ban was not all that different from what prompted A&E’s action. Different, yes, and we can parse the differences till the ducks come home. But not all that different IMHO.
I’ll also say that if Phil Robertson had his way, what makes it to prime time would not be a matter of economics alone, either. I don’t like A&E’s reflexive anti-Christian (or anti-redneck) stance. But don’t kid yourself that the DD Network (why not?) would be a hotbed of free expression, providing whatever the market wanted.
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I’m not arguing that there aren’t conservatives out their who would censor free speech. The Dixie Chicks CD crushing event was a defacto book burning with echos of the 30’s. The Left does not have a monopoly on stupidity and intolerance.
If we put aside Robertson’s religious views for a moment and consider matters from a more economic perspective, the question here is, “What obligation do private businesses have with respect to the propagation of private expression?”
As far as I’m concerned, a private business has no obligation whatsoever to propagate private expression except where the nature of business is to provide information to public domain for the purposes of informing the public about contemporaneous events and ideas. i.e. the news media. Conservative stores do not have an obligation to sell Liberal books but Conservative newspapers do have an obligation to report accurately on events pertaining to Liberal issues.
Furthermore, I believe that private business are perfectly entitled to make business decisions on ethical grounds which may be financially harmful to themselves. If A&E want to make a dumb financial decision on some moral principle I’m perfectly fine with that.
But business does not have a right to arbitrarily suspend contracts (that’s why the details of Robertson’s contract are so important, civil rights issues aside) nor engage in cartel behaviour in order to restrict the supply of a good in any way. Given the concentration of media ownership, this point is particularly pertinent and there is evidence of plenty enough anti-Christian collusion.
Considered from an economic perspective alone, if Robertson was in breach of his contract and A+E want to make an ethically principled decision which is economically dumb, I’m perfectly fine with that. But if Robertson wasn’t in breach of his contract, then A&E has no way out. (Which is what I suspect is happening.)
As saustoff has noted, the Dixie Chicks offended their fan base and some of the (private) distributors of their music. On the other hand, Robertson’s comments did not alienate him from his fan base (it appears that the comments may have strengthened and enlarged it) , though, his comments did alienate some of his distributors of his work. and they made a principled, but financially dumb decision–which they then reversed.
The difference (considered from an economic perspective) is that Dixie Chicks engineered a demand-failure of their product whereas in the Robertson’s case, the Cathedral wanted to ensure a supply-failure of the product in the presence of high demand. The Dixie chicks were silenced by ‘the people” whilst The Cathedral attempted to silence Robertson. Two totally different mechanism at play here.
BTW a free market is value neutral when it comes to the content of speech. it will provide porn just as effectively as the Gospel if there is a demand for it. That’s why when it comes to the relationship between freedom of speech and the market, anti-cartel provisions need to be enforced for it to prevail. The problem is one of market access not market success. Robertson was having his access to the market being taken away from him, the Dixie Chicks went stale.
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No. “Who, whom,” remember? It’s good when we win. It’s bad when they win. The two are opposites.
I don’t want culture warriors who lose and laugh. I want sonsabitches who go in there and win. I’m not an olympian observer. I’m the guy they want to make unemployable for my views.
The Constitution is a dead issue as far as its enforcers are concerned, those principles are dead in this country, and it never applied here anyway. The left wants to normalize their views and pathologize everybody else’s. When they get enough power, they do it with the force of law. We need to push back.
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I take it you are not using “who? whom?” in the Steve Sailer sense of the term but rather in the original Leninist sense of: everything is subservient to the need for our side to win.
Sailer uses the term all the time, too, but usually he is making fun of liberals who, under his view, are the ones who see things in “who? whom?” terms but don’t come out and say it. Whether Sailer finds liberals guilty of hypocrisy or of actually being on the “wrong side” is harder to tell. For the most part I don’t find Sailer to be a culture warrior. He tends toward the Olympian observer–hence the Orwell quote about the primacy of truth and the difficulty of finding it right past one’s nose. As you may have suggested, that’s more where I come from. But hey as the UR tagline says, there’s no shortage of opinions here so bring ’em on.
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