An Easter break to spend time with her children
Is there a free speech right to bully?
Fox’s Laura Ingraham is wrapping herself in the free speech flag.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham returned to her show Monday night following a week vacation in the middle of a mass exodus of the program’s advertisers over controversial remarks she made about a Parkland shooting survivor. Ingraham focused on freedom of speech in her first show back, and attacked the left’s alleged stifling of conservative voices.
Ingraham was returning to her show after announcing on March 30 she would be out the following week for an Easter break to spend time with her children. The announcement came at the end of a week in which more than a dozen sponsors of her show pulled advertising over her criticism of Parkland shooting survivor and gun control advocate David Hogg.
The Fox News host had taken to Twitter in late March to mock the 17-year-old for getting turned down for admission by multiple colleges.
See, that’s not “criticism,” nor is it a simple matter of “conservative voices.” That’s a middle-aged adult with a Fox News megaphone making fun of a teenage boy for getting college rejections. That’s not political debate, it’s not philosophical disagreement, and it’s not “free speech” as normally understood. It’s “free speech” in the bare minimum sense that it’s not a legally punishable crime, but there’s a lot of territory between “not a crime” and “okay.” It’s not a violation of Laura Ingraham’s free speech for her employer to tell her to go away for awhile when she bullies a teenager in public.
Ingraham focused on the left as a whole on Monday and announced a new segment called “Defending the First,” a recurring feature which she said will “expose the enemies of the First Amendment, of free expression, and every thought, while showcasing those brave voices making a difference.”
Brave? Really? So it’s brave for a famous Fox News “personality” to try to humiliate a teenager in public? That’s making a difference? A difference of the good kind?
“I have been the victim of a boycott,” Ingraham said. “It is wrong. You shouldn’t do this by team. It is the modern way of cutting off free speech.”
But bullying children isn’t “free speech” in the sense she’s using it there. She wasn’t bravely stating an unpopular principle, she was insulting a kid. Nothing is lost if that kind of “free speech” is cut off.
Notice, for instance, that I’m saying this without resorting to personal insults aimed at Ingraham. I’m saying she’s wrong in what she said yesterday and what she said about David Hogg, without bringing anything personal into it. Notice how easy it is to do that.
It’s easy if you have a fully developed theory of mind, and believe that other people matter as much as you do. It isn’t so easy if you believe that no one has a right to think differently than you.
I thought the right wing point of view was that money is speech and corporations are people. So corporations reassigning advertisement money is just people using their free speech.
You ignored the incredible irony: boycotts are free speech. This is just someone who wants to be insulated from criticism, and is wrapping herself in the flag to do it.
Hmm. Isn’t it more that boycotts are one of those things where free speech and other freedoms clash?
Like, people can organize a boycott of, say, that new lesbian restaurant in town, but should they? Doing so may be legal but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.
I assume that Ingraham is equally vocal in opposing the government imposing sanctions and blockades and trade embargoes – the ultimate form of boycott – on countries that won’t dance to America’s tune? No? Just the boycotts that threaten her financially, then.
“I have been the victim of a boycott,” Ingraham said. “It is wrong. You shouldn’t do this by team. It is the modern way of cutting off free speech.”
No Laura, you should be overjoyed that you are experiencing the sweet fruits of capitalism. You can sleep well knowing that it is alive and well here in the good Ole’ USA. Plus to get to see how all of your network’s efforts to make money as speech the law of the land have been so successful.
If boycotts ever stop being effective it might well be a warning sign of capitalism’s decline. How over joyed you must be knowing that your moment of angst signals such health for free markets.
Free markets where people are allowed to vote with their dollars and a country where reduced ad buy isn’t silent but rather proclaims ‘Screw You!’ for all to hear. Comforting indeed as you prepare to spend more time with your family.
“she said will “expose the enemies of the First Amendment, of free expression, and every thought, …”
“Every thought?” I wonder if she’s really thought this through. I’m sure that there are lots of thoughts she would not be interested in defending at all and plenty of thoughts she’s actively opposed herslf. There are also lots of thoughts unworthy of defence.
Well, sure. Something being permitted (free speech) does not mean it is laudable in any way. And in this particular case, especially, we have two examples of free speech. Laura Ingraham has the ‘right’ to say what she wants in her Tweets, outside very specific exclusions. (We can argue that some of the exclusions need to be expanded, but we’ll probably never get to the point of bullying being made illegal, solely because of the collateral harm.) But then her critics have the ‘right’ to organize a boycott, refusing to spend money on products whose advertising revenue supports her show. I would argue that this is a case where the free speech rights actually are working out as they were meant to.
The validity (or lack thereof) of the motivation behind the boycott does not affect the validity of the technique of the boycott itself. Your piece, of course, quite correctly calls her out on attempting to blur that line in her own favor.
I’m not sure what you mean by “the validity of the technique.” The…legitimacy? Validity of a technique has to do with whether it works or not, no?
So Ingraham will be speaking out against both Fox and Sinclair for having tightly aligned and controlled positions for their staff and affiliates? You know, team positions?