[CLUE-Talk] [Fwd: MRC Alert Special: ABC's War News Touts Doubt and Dissent]

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 03-25 22:47, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-03-25 at 21:00, Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> 
> > MRC doesn't deliver news. They are only acting as watchdogs. 
> 
> Watchdogs? That's about the most laughable thing I've heard all day,
> thanks. What they're doing is nitpicking the news for anything that
> doesn't agree with the conservative viewpoint. 
> 
> Note that they're not pointing out factual errors -- they're just taking
> digs at anyone that dares to go counter to the conservative viewpoint.
> 
> Here's an interesting snippet: 
> 
> Previewing new protests, he insisted that anti-war activists represented
> more than the tiny fraction of the country that shares their views: 
> 
> "Tiny fraction?" Last I checked, polls were indicating at least 30
> percent of the population thinks we're doing the wrong thing - that's a
> "tiny fraction?" I pity anyone taking guidance from people who don't
> recognize 30 percent of the population as a significant portion. 

Then that would be yourself.  In a prior discussion, you seem to have
thought 33% was low enough to dismiss on another issue:



<quote from previous thread on clue-talk>

Actually, your survey proves my point... most people believe that                
abortion should be legal, even if they disagree with it. That doesn't            
fit into the "pro-life" camp:                                                    
                                                                                 
"more than two-thirds said that, regardless of their own opinion, the            
decision to end a pregnancy should be left to a woman and her physician.         
Further, while 57% of respondents consider abortion an act of murder,            
more than half that group believe that a woman should have the right to          
choose an abortion."                                                             
                                                                                 
Two-thirds of the people don't want the government interfering in                
a woman's right to choose whether they have a kid or not. I'd say                
that puts the "pro-lifers" far outside the mainstream.

</quote>


That was written by you, and you used this as an argument for the media NOT
to seek out the anti-abortion crowd when discussing the issue. If we are
going to have a cutoff point where it's okay for the media to dismiss
certain people because they are "out of the mainstream" (apparently your
definition of which is 1/3 or lower), shouldn't it apply to all topics,
then? Personally, I WANT to hear from the anti-war people, especially if
they have something meaningful to say, and I don't think any entity is
preventing them from getting their say - their message seems to be getting
out.  Same with pro-war people. I don't want to see and hear slogans from
either side, I want to see informed debate[*] - from both sides, on all issues
- in a perfect world.
 
> Unlike the right-wingers, I don't have a problem with people exercising
> free speech ....

I guess right-wingers do have a problem with free speech, if free speech
involves stealing newspapers:

http://www.loudcitizen.com/Commentary/JC/freespeech.asp

I haven't seen conservatives stealing the New York Times lately. And
O'Reilly and Limbaugh have power over what goes on their show, and power
over little else. And neither show presents itself as news - they are both
obviously entertainment. 

It's not right-wingers calling for hate speech legislation. Hate speech is
a nice way of shutting down debate on issues, especially if you can say
something not directly related to race is "racist":

http://www.arc.org/erase/vouchers/voucherpress.html


[*] As to what informed debate isn't: driving down to the cancelled study
group last night, I saw this brilliant slogan on one of the overpasses:
"Draft CEOs". This is so stupid that I don't even know where to begin. Maybe
the person or persons that hung this slogan have informed opinions about the
war, but this slogan doesn't show it.

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at americanisp.net  
http://users.americanisp.net/~seanleblanc/
Get MLAC at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mlac/
Begin -- to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, 
and thou wilt have finished. 
-Decimus Magnus Ausonius