Censorship is bad

So, the media and the blogosphere has been aflutter about how Bill O’Reilly continually referred to Dr. Tiller as a baby killer. They’ve cut together lots of instances of him disparaging Dr. Tiller & calling him names like baby killer. They’re implying that this encouraged the nutcase that shot him.

And I acknowledge that it’s possible (and even likely) that this (and other pundits) had an influence on Scott Roeder, who decided to shoot Dr. Tiller in his church (!?!?!?!) recently.

I don’t like Bill O’Reilly. And I think that he says incredibly moronic stuff. But I don’t care. Blaming O’Reilly for someone else’s actions means that we’re not assigning personal responsibility to Roeder. If I take a gun and point it at another human being and pull the trigger – I am responsible for that action.

I think that the people who are likely to be pushed over the edge into acting illegally and immorally are people who have serious psychological problems. Balanced people (who are, contrary to my feelings sometimes, the vast majority) do not decide to shoot someone. They throw temper tantrums, they protest, they annoy me in restaurants by talking their nonsense so that I can overhear it, but they don’t kill people.

So do we try to prevent idiots like O’Reilly from inciting a small minority of crazy people with their crazy talk? Absolutely not – one of the things that makes me most proud to be an American is freedom of speech. Even to people I disagree with, which includes anti-semites, pro-lifers and other people whose views I find despicable.

Let’s not kid ourselves – O’Reilly, Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and their ilk are motivated by popularity and more importantly, dough. The hyperbole is a necessity to get attention and ratings. If they were more moderate in what they said, they wouldn’t get as much attention. So, they have to ratchet it up. Do they actually believe what they’re saying? It’s possible, but I think that they take their general beliefs and exaggerate them because that makes for better entertainment. (Also, I really want to believe that they are more reasonable people and that they are playing a character because I don’t want to think that they’re as evil and hateful as they come across in the media. But I’m sometimes naive about such things…)

And it happens on the left as well. I have gotten totally burnt out on listening to Air America because of similar issues. I prefer NPR which I find to be much more balanced – but they’re reporting the news and not pushing “personalities” or commentators, so it’s a different perspective and audience. It seems to be more focused on providing information and allowing me to draw my own conclusion. You know – sorta assuming I’m an adult with a brain that’s capable of thoughtful reflection. Interesting perspective, eh?

In addition to freedom of speech, let’s not forget that America is a capitalist country. If you don’t like what someone on the tv says, don’t watch them. Don’t support the companies that are advertising on their show. If these folks aren’t getting the numbers and bringing in the advertisers, they’re going to lose their megaphone (although, the internet gives everyone their own megaphone, doesn’t it?).

Here in the U.S., every nutcase has the right to have their say. And just because some people are stupid or crazy and may act out in an unacceptable way based on what a nutcase said on tv, the radio or online is not a viable reason to shut up a nutcase.

Because if we start limiting what the nutcases can say, the definition of nutcase can spread or change until we find that we are limiting people’s right to speech simply because we disagree with them.

And that’s unAmerican.