Yesterday the editorial LiveJournalists told us that it’s not okay for some to practice free speech, especially when what they are saying is wrong or offensive. The editorialists take three people — a missing soldier in Iraq, a Vietnam war commander, and Christian Science Monitor journalist Jill Carroll — and blast those who have said harsh things about them:
THIS Sunday marks the second year since the capture of Army Reserve Sgt. Keith “Matt” Maupin, the single soldier listed by the Army as an Iraqi hostage. Insurgents seized Maupin after attacking his convoy outside Baghdad. A week later, Al Jazeera showed him on a video, flanked by armed, masked men.
If he miraculously survives, he’ll be entitled to support from his employers, thanks from those he served and a stretch of silence from self-righteous armchair soldiers who would question Maupin’s patriotism and courage.
Such self-righteous pundits have logged countless hours on the Internet recently, but their kind has been around for decades. They were particularly venomous in 1968, when Navy Commander Lloyd Bucher and his crew returned from almost a year as North Korean captives.
[snip]
Though his men revered Bucher for saving them, Cold War ideologues in the United States reviled him — from the comfort of their offices, of course.
[snip]
The La-Z-Boy warriors were in peak form again this month. This time they trained their judgment on a young reporter kidnapped while working for a newspaper noted for rejecting sensationalism.
[snip]
One needn’t be an excitable broadcast executive or cable pundit to make stupid remarks. But these commentators’ judgments about Carroll expose a frightening mindset. They don’t seem to know or care what war really entails.
Jill Carroll valued accuracy enough to learn Arabic before moving to Iraq. She was pilloried while still in captivity.
Sgt. Matt Maupin, whereabouts unknown, surely learned about the harsh exigencies of war. If he comes back alive, would armchair warriors listen when he talked?
Self-righteous armchair soldiers and pundits, armchair and La-Z-Boy warriors, and ideologues who express stupid opinions from the comfort of their offices…why, the editorial LiveJournalists are describing themselves!
It’s okay for them to express their opinions (from the comfort of their chairs and offices) even if those opinions are offensive and/or wrong, yet it’s not okay for others to do the same?
Let’s take one of the LiveJournalists’ more recent offensive editorials, where they criticized Harris County black voters for supporting traditional marriage:
Inner city black voters in Harris County, many of whom have long experience with the denial of civil rights, favored the marriage amendment by an even higher majority than the general Harris County voting population. Black discomfort with homosexual marriage is rooted less in conscious discrimination than in religious belief, but support for the amendment brought blacks into incongruous accord with members of the Ku Klux Klan, whose members rallied in Austin in support of Proposition 2.
Phew! Talk about your self-righteous armchair punditry from the comfort of an office!
It’s offensive, it’s wrong, and it’s allowed under the First Amendment.
