Tag: H.L. Mencken

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media and media people

A Babylon Bee in Facebook’s Bonnet

H.L. Mencken, satire, free speech

Would the likes of H.L. Mencken and Jonathan Swift be free to say much on the “open” platforms of modern social media — that is, before being suspended, blocked, demonetized, stomped?

Depends.

Imagine: 1920s-​vintage tweets by Mencken lambasting literary Puritanism and “chiropractic” or 1720s-​vintage tweets by Swift pummeling prejudice against poor people — neither would likely inspire high-​tech gendarmes to swoop in swinging their truncheons very immediately.

President Trump would also be an acceptable target.

But let HLM or JS skewer Democratic Party panjandrums, and the skill of the skewering would constitute the first bill of indictment. Especially during the last days of a presidential election.

As the often funny and spot-​on Babylon Bee has learned, plenty of faux-high-​minded rationalizations would be spouted from Twitter, Facebook, and Google mouthpieces as the social media behemoths go about suppressing the satiric discourse … as if scripted by satirists!

Thus, Facebook has just demonetized the Bee for “inciting violence.” And how was this violence incited? By spoofing the silliness of a senator.

Are such suppressors of satire somehow led by — say — an invisible hand to … self-satirize?

Apparently, yes.

But what is the answer to invidious discrimination by “neutral” platforms?

Andrew McCarthy of National Review is not alone in wondering whether the giant tech firms are abiding by the terms of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects them from prosecution for the speech of others on their “open” platforms. But maybe the bottom line is … we should just outlaw punch lines. 

They’re pretty painful if you’re the one getting punched. I mean, c’mon, man. “Punch” line? Pretty violent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

God Knows You’re Good

Henry Louis Mencken, Black bloc, Antifa, protest, terrorist, violence, Milo Yiannopoulis, Gavin McInnes

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom,” wrote H. L. Mencken, “is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels.”

Henry Louis Mencken (1880 — 1956), master prose stylist and social critic, knew whereof he wrote. But he also penned things to which few would give their hearty assent.

Today, we find several controversialists who, like Mencken, side with individualism against collectivism. They are raising a ruckus.

But are they “scoundrels”?

Does it matter?

The big news, last week, was the anti-​Milo Yiannopoulis riot in Berkeley. But also last week, Robby Soave explains, “Black bloc ‘anti-​fascists’ attacked right-​wing media figure Gavin McInnes outside a New York University building,” where things got so crazy that one protester, a professor, screamed at the police for protecting Mr. McInnes when they “should” have — get this — been beating him up!

She called McInnes a Nazi. And insinuated he was a rape threat, etc.

So what did Reason writer Soave do? “McInnes,” he noted, “routinely says obnoxious things that deserve criticism. He’s something of a Diet Milo.”

What Soave did not do was ever address the Nazi charge, the rape charge, or any of the calumnies hurled at McInnes. Were Mencken the one being attacked, would he have written that the Sage of Baltimore “routinely writes obnoxious things that deserve criticism”? 

Sure, true. But is that the stance you want to take? 

Soave finds Milo and Gavin icky.

I feel his pain. But … when “Nazi” is the charge, calling the accused “obnoxious” and “deserv[ing] criticism”? 

Gavin McInnes isn’t a Nazi. Or a rapist. And he retains free speech rights, regardless of what one thinks about his anti-​feminism, or other controversial opinions.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

Better Than a Thousand Boneheads

H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, when they took over the early 20th century journal Smart Set, served it up with a great motto: “One Civilized Reader Is Worth a Thousand Boneheads.” That’s how I feel about my readers. I almost always enjoy the comments section of ThisIsCommonSense​.com, and sometimes learn something important.

I especially enjoy it when my readers show they are on the right track, thinking of reforms that exhibit a sense of both justice and savvy use of incentives and disincentives to restrain the political class. Jennifer Gratz suggests “making the hurdle higher for politicians to get on the ballot”:

Tie ballot access for state-​wide candidates to the same burden as initiatives. Names only appear on the ballot if they meet the same signature gathering threshold as a state-​wide initiative: same requirements, same laws, same restrictions, same burdens.  Win in one state and politicians may stop messing with the I&R process.…

Clever.

As I reported this weekend on Townhall​.com, Michigan legislators are in “voter suppression” mode again. It’s no surprise, since politicians tend to “have their own, almost personal, reasons to disdain direct democracy. They see citizen action as direct competition. And so their ‘reform’ ideas so far put forth run the usual gamut of insiders’ vexation with ‘outsiders.’” Perhaps the only permanent solution to constraining their lust to restrict citizen input is to constitutionally put them on the same footing as citizens.

What better place than ballot access for statewide offices?

Were party-​supported candidates and incumbents all required to get the same number of signatures onto the ballot as initiative measures, the insiders would just have to lower the required number of signatures.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture media and media people political challengers

The Interposeurs

Media people interpose themselves between current events and the news audience. They consider it their job to sort out “the issues” before news consumers even start thinking.

This is the source of media power.

Recent investigations into current media coverage of the GOP presidential race shows that the basic media bias may not be pro-​liberal/​anti-​conservative, but, more generally, anti-​libertarian. Ron Paul’s candidacy, though receiving an amazing amount of support from enthusiastic fans and generous donors (Rep. Paul has quite a kitty going into the campaign), has garnered (according to a recent Pew Research Center study) little news coverage to match his popular success: Less, even, than Santorum.

But is ideological bias at the root of the problem? After all, each candidate has a personality, and personality is obviously a big factor in show biz success. And politics, it has been said, is show biz for homely people. No wonder political coverage looks more like junior high and high school tribalism than a truly mature enterprise.

According to the irreverent H.L. Mencken, journalists like to play messiah. Thinking they can “save the day” every day, they tend to favor those politicians who treat the eternal rescue mission of government policy with a cheaply salable scenario. Paul, in identifying government more often as a problem than a solution, horns in on the public rescue biz.

Maybe this helps explain why “Ron Paul did markedly better in the blogosphere than in the press.” And why journalistic coverage swings more extremely than does blogosphere coverage.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.