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Contributors
Thomas Lifson - Contributor
Thomas
Lifson is a management consultant in Berkeley, California,
specializing in US-Japanese management issues. A self-styled
recovering academic, he graduated from Kenyon College
with a degree in political science, and received a
masters degree in East Asian studies from Harvard,
an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he was
a Baker Scholar, and a doctorate in sociology from
Harvard. He subsequently taught all three fields on
the faculty at Harvard, and also taught economics at
Columbia University’s Graduate School of International
Affairs. He is a partner in the award-winning winery
Sunset Cellars, in Alameda, California. Mr. Lifson
is proprietor of the website American
Thinker. [go to Lifson index]
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 Chilling
Effect
Stopping at nothing...
[Thomas Lifson] 10/25/04
Political
thuggery is on the rise in America. Because most of it is directed
at the right, the legacy media does not find the
trend towards organized political violence of much interest,
beyond briefly noting individual incidents, particularly if videotape
happens to be available. That is why the wave of attacks on
Bush-Cheney campaign offices and supporters,
including bullets fired,
has not inspired front page articles all across America. The
wave continues with news from
Saturday morning.
A thought experiment: imagine that all across America offices
of the NAACP or Planned Parenthood were attacked. Do you really
think that the New York Times would not feature the
campaign with numerous front page articles, while the editorial
page thundered against the violence?
The latest
wrinkle comes in the guise of pie attacks. Thursday night,
high-profile writer Ann Coulter was assaulted by two men while
speaking at the University of Arizona. The rushed at her and
each threw a pie in her direction. The incident was captured
on home video. It has received a certain amount of play, therefore.
The miscreants were arrested and now face charges. Ironically,
the most serious among their criminal liabilities relates to
damaging the black muslin scrim backdrop, which, because of
the $3000 in damage, qualifies them for felony charges. For
attacking Ann herself, and attempting to silence her political
speech, they only face misdemeanor charges of assault and disorderly
conduct.
Make no mistake,
throwing a pie at a speaker in front of a crowd is no prank.
It is an attempt to intimidate and humiliate the speaker. It
thus has a chilling effect on future political speech. If there
is an established danger of getting a pie in the face, how
many people will be willing to go in front of audiences? Who
wants to have clothes and hair ruined, and become an object
of laughter? Who wants to have pictures forever living on the
internet, of wiping goo off face and hair, looking ridiculous,
like a wet puppy, only funnier?
The damage
to our political culture of this chill on free speech far exceeds
the cost of a piece of muslin cloth, or even the entire auditorium
where the speech took place.
Saturday
morning on Fox & Friends Saturday, guest host Mike Gallagher,
a radio talk show host himself, revealed that he had spoken Friday
in State College Pennsylvania, as a counter-speaker to Michael
Moore, who had been paid $30,000 to speak to students. He revealed
that a campus group had offered a bounty of $1500 to anyone
who could hit him in the face with a pie. This seems like a
clear-cut incitement to violence. No details were offered,
but I cannot understand how law enforcement would not immediately
move to arrest someone publicly offering money for the commission
of an act of violence.
Astonishingly,
regular program host Julian
Phillips remarked
that he always finds pies “funny.” He quickly backed away from
any implication that he was advocating attacks, but he repeated
the word “funny.”
I was appalled.
As I grew
up and studied history, I struggled to understand how it was
that a modern and cultured nation like Germany could descend
into Nazi barbarism. How could ordinary Germans just stand
by and let the Nazi madmen take power? I came to the conclusion
that organized political violence had a lot to do with it.
The opponents of the Nazis did not dare speak up because they
feared for their safety.
We are on
a slippery slope if America tolerates political violence. It
is a crime against democracy and liberty. The specifics of
the weapons involved are less important than the intent to
use violence as a political weapon.
If the worst
charge that can be brought against the wielder of political
pie-in-the-face is a misdemeanor unless he is unlucky enough
to damage the scenery then we need new laws. Stealing or
damaging property is a less serious crime than creating an
atmosphere of fear in the political discourse.
If we do not
defend our free speech rights, we will surely lose them. CRO
copyright
2004 Thomas Lifson
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