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EMIL
FRANZI |
Freedom of
speech is hardly an absolute October 3, 2007 |
The recent performance by
Iranian leader Ahmadinejad at Columbia University and
other locations was an unconscious example of mutual
enabling. Columbia President Lee Bollinger and others
in the national media enabled Ahmadinejad to win a
major propaganda victory over the United States, while
his appearance enabled a panoply of varied center left
denizens from America-haters to naive liberals the
chance to assume their usual morally superior pose
about freedom of speech.
Make no mistake, he won. Those who think we showed the world how wonderfully tolerant we are and how irrational Ahmadinejad is totally clueless about how the media works elsewhere. They continually project their own value system on others and assume it is shared. That’s the origin of their many half-baked beliefs including the ludicrous notion that everything can somehow be resolved by talk and that everybody is open to it. The multiculturalism they superficially profess is totally ignorant of how different many other cultures really are. We are neither equal nor similar to those cultures and they behave differently. President Bollinger’s opening remarks condemning him made some here feel good (and others feel bad — one is apparently supposed to be more polite to evil dictators) but they will never be seen or heard in the Middle East and many other places. They’ll get edited versions presenting him as a respected world leader being paid homage at a leading American educational institution complete with the applause supplied by the fools in that audience who gave it. The same spin will occur over the rest of his highly choreographed trip. Bollinger and others were but stage props in a propaganda conflict Ahmadinejad grasps and they don’t. While Bollinger’s tolerance doesn’t extend to our own military who’s ROTC units he has banned from Columbia, he further said he would have also invited Adolf Hitler prior to World War II giving his cluelessness historical perspective. Feting Ahmadinejad will be useful to him at home and throughout the Muslim world and demoralizing to his real opposition. The same would’ve occurred had Hitler been similarly presented. Both cases are supposedly examples of the wonders of tolerance and free speech. More relevant are the unintended consequences. The classic limitation on free speech has always been yelling fire in a crowded theater (What do you do if the theater IS on fire — whisper?) Yelling it when there isn’t a fire is banned because it could get easily get people hurt. Other limitations are placed on such things as false advertising or fraud. Why should the danger to the Republic ensuing from catering to and aiding its enemies, present or future, be any less relevant? Ahmadinejad like Hitler and other successful fanatics is both exceedingly clever and fundamentally honest. Hitler told us just exactly what he believed and many chose to ignore it. Iran’s equivalent has done likewise. They both told us they want the Jews dead — got it? Censorship, an act of government, is not what is needed. Responsibility is. Possessing the freedom to do something doesn’t mean you should. It is irresponsible for the president of a major American university to invite someone he himself describes as a loathsome creature (he and many others are too politically correct to use the word “evil”) into any forum — period. Pimping for such scum, even if you do it with reservations, is ultimately suicidal. If you do it gleefully it’s just stupid — or evil itself. It is also a total betrayal of the opposition to the current Iranian regime both in that country and others such as Lebanon and Iraq. Those who argue against American intervention in foreign countries but endorse appearances by Ahmadinejad here are willfully interfering in those nations by increasing his prestige and allowing him a great propaganda victory. Here's a reader comment on the above article: Title:
CIA AND THE SHA
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BUT WATCH WHAT YOU SAY! |
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