The Authoritarian Left
It was when I learned about the Canadian Human Rights Act, during my last crack at law school that I took a close look at what the political left was selling, and firmly decided that I was not buying.
But I digress. We’re looking Stateside right now.
What gets me about these JournoList archive revelations is how much this is like the opening of the Soviet archives at the end of the Cold War — viz., we are learning that the most paranoid right-wing fantasies were not only realistic, but if anything, milder than the true state of things.
First, go see the teaser video of Tucker Carlson on Hannity.
Then, see the listserv messages he is talking about, wherein a law professor and a prominent journalist (supposedly a moderate) at The New Republic call for the FCC to refuse to renew Fox News’s broadcast license.
These are authoritarian tactics — verging on totalitarian, if they would succeed. I knew they wanted to shut down Rush Limbaugh’s radio program with a revival of the Fairness Doctrine or “localism” regulations. I did not — never even dreamed — that they could go after Fox, the number one cable news network.
I’m sorry, right-wing noisemakers — you were right, I was wrong. These people are that evil.
Update: See also Doctor Zero, on the Tao of Breitbart, and Ed Driscoll, with some more background info.
Driscoll mentions Krauthammer’s fundamental law of American politics, which has it that conservatives think liberals are stupid, whereas liberals think conservatives are evil. I now think they’ve both got it wrong: the truth of the matter is that conservatives are stupid and liberals — or at least these particular liberals — are evil.
You do realize, of course, that the most paranoid left-wing fantasies have also not only realistic, but if anything, milder than the true state of things. It has nothing to do with political point of view but the nature of politics. The dropping of the fairness doctrine was clearly part of a long plan to place conservatism at the podium of radio. Achieved through political power. Nothing new.
Actually, that’s very far from the truth. During the 1980s, there was considerable concern among Conservatives that the only thing preventing the big 3 TV networks from being non-stop opposition to the Reagan administration was the fairness doctrine. The ones pushing repeal made a strong case both at the time and in retrospect that principle was the motivating factor.
Actually, you are very far from the truth, Michael.
Taking control of the media away from the centre and the local has quite clearly been the conservative plan for decades and been hugely successful. The political conservative movement was quite openly taught the strategies of control of the radio and then into cable TV by the evangelical movement through their alliance. Celebrate the achievement!
Nothing could be plainer – except of course if one is not an interested in history but an interest in the paranoid hysteria of “the left is a tyranny” mumbo jumbo.
Yes, the right’s clever plan to take control of the media was to eliminate government’s control over content, at a time when the right was in control of the government – diabolically clever, those conservatives.
The big question is whether the authoritarianism is limited to the Journolisters, or other journalists more widely. We’ll find out by how other journalists cover this story. If, as with Climategate, the vast majority of those not directly implicated circle the wagons and pretend there is nothing wrong, we will know for sure that something is rotten with the whole state of journalism.
I think one of the most fun things about conservative social engineering is the many neat ways you can ignore its existence.
The simplest assertion is the one made: that conservatives would never, in the particular, use government power to remove the power of government – even when the reduction of government control over many aspects of life is the general plan and the central plank of conservatism.
When else is the conservative movement going to assert its program?
Well then, let me offer a couple cites and request one in return. Here is Mark Levin talking around the 17-25 minute mark to Mark Fowler, one of the people who led the charge to repeal the Fairness doctrine when he was at the FCC.
http://citadelcc.vo.llnwd.net/o29/network/Levin/MP3/levin02162009.mp3
Now, of course this is his account, and can be presumed to be made favorable to him. Nonetheless, the motivations discussed are freedom of expression not political advantage.
On the other hand, those noted right wing apologists at the Pew Research Center are skeptical that the repeal of the fairness doctrine had much to do with the rise of conservative talk radio. Rather they suggest that radio syndication was the decisive factor
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/546/fairness-doctrine
But, to be honest I’m open to persuasion on this point. Why don’t you point me in the right direction?
Of course conservatives use government power to reduce the power of government – as you say, that’s their raison d’etre. My point is that, when the conservatives have in fact reduced the power of government, they have also therefore reduced their ability to control things like the media – by definition. The real issue is whether one recognizes a distinction between telling people what to do and letting them decide for themselves – typically conservatives do and (US-style) liberals don’t – as you have shown, Alan.
I disagree. When you cut a tree down you want it to fall in a certain direction. You remove regulation in a certain way so as to allow your plan to come into effect. The real issue is recognizing that manipulating the power of government works on the upsizing and the downsizing. It is effectively done by both liberals and conservatives.
But, oddly but as you have shown, this is not acknowledged by the conservative due likely to the need to hug the myth of government is out to get conservatives and to hide the fact that the power of the government can be and is often as well used by small government conservatives as by big government liberals (or big government conservatives for that matter).
The government not doing something to achieve a policy end is as powerful as the government doing something to achieve another policy end. The key is controlling the government to achieve your end.
Michael, I kick myself from not saving an obit from years ago of a contemporary of Billy Graham which sets out how he participated earlier the evangelical success in radio and advocated and assisted in the beginning of rolling out the plan for adoption of the same strategy by political conservatives. I do not see this as a “conspiracy theory” matter but a successful understanding on contemporary media – including the idea of creating syndication by businesses not disassociated with the general plan.
If it happened in that way, that’s sharing a successful business model. Whereas the authoritarians in the piece linked here want to use the State to put people they don’t like out of business.
Or is your position that conservative/libertarian programs tend to win out in a free market?
You do not have to use the tools of government to be authoritarian. You can limit the use of the tools of government but still not be encouraging a free market. The free market, as we all know, is not free but comes at various costs. I prefer a well regulated market, the sort that has benefited the western world since about 1117 AD.
Alan – A “free market” is not anarco/capitalism. It requires certain governmental action, i.e. protection of property rights, lack of coercion, open availability of information, etc. That doesn’t make it a “regulated market.”
Conservatives do one thing better than the left, in a free market and that is attract money and the support of monied interests. Their greatest success in the last 30 years was to create an infrastructure of media, based on Rupert Murdoch and the Unification Church cash. They also created a revolving door between think tanks funded by Scaife, Coors et. al., the government and the above mentioned media. This infrastructure has allowed the right to dominate all three and has set the agenda for the world. If money is the grease of political movements, the right has run rings around the left and has shown it how total domination and government power works.
Greg –
I’d trade the media position of the right for the media position of the left in a split-second. Even after twenty years for talk radio and thirty-five for think tanks like Heritage, the left still has control of the commanding heights — the major networks and the top universities. (And if you think that doesn’t matter far more than the piddling corners the right has carved out for itself… (aside from the brilliant success of Fox News!))
I disagree, Cliff. It is the power of law that keep the old “marche overt” idea safe for the customer. Bread and beer have been fairly regulated since the Middle Ages. Current regulatory practices for consumer good is based on the same recognition of the unequal bargaining position. But it is still “regulated” while still free.
The major networks are dinosaurs (as far as news. When was the last time Jon Stewart or Colbert made fun of them? CNN and Fox on the other hand…. Let’s not forget where Glenn Beck spent his formative years. ) and I am still waiting for the revolutionary guard to come out of the universities. It never seems to happen.
The university crowd has its own ideological enforcers.
I’m in the process of being drummed out of the club for liking and defending the Tea Party folks…
Oops. That went in the wrong spot. A very poorly regulated marketplace of ideas, Ben.
I provide a free space, except for when I dislike someone.
A benevolent despotism, I suppose…
(When you get to the end of when a thread will branch out, reply to the last one in a higher level — up there, a reply to my post that you and then Cliff had replied to, would have ended up right where you wanted it.)
I work so much better within simple structures….