Ace See Hell You -

Ace See Hell You - Doug Grow, sanctimonious as ever, held forth on the Lindner flap last week in the Strib, expressing muffled indignance that the ACLU would take Lindner's side in the debate (as well they should):

Tigue, a First Amendment lawyer best known for defending adult bookstores, strip clubs and pornographers, not only is willing to defend Lindner ("if he pays me"), he stands firmly for the rights of Lindner's constituents.

"It was more than a year ago that he called the Dalai Lama a cult leader," Tigue said. "That means the people in the last election elected him knowing full well he'd made such an idiotic remark. It's clear [that] the majority in his district don't mind being represented by an ignorant bigot."

Writing is rewriting; I have to wonder what Tigue said before Grow selected the quotes that best reflected his own thesis.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the Lindner flap lately. Yes, he's ignorant. But let's look at some of the claims the left is making, via Grow:

There is no question that Lindner's remarks are absurd, even hateful.

Hateful? Please, Doug - where does ignorance become "hateful?"

But why are DFL House members seeking to drag Lindner's sorry mind before the House Ethics Committee? Why not let him choke on his own free speech?

According to Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, one of the things that motivated the DFL caucus to push for an ethics hearing and a censure was the behavior of Republican representatives.

"The silence Monday is what most concerned us," said Hornstein, the grandson of Nazi concentration camp survivors. "What really struck me is that he is saying that his beliefs are common to the beliefs of the majority." Hornstein said he has not heard Republican House members repudiate that notion.

So you get in trouble for what you don't say? Let's look at the very likely case, that the GOP wants to move on to the many important issues facing our state and let the whole stupid Lindner flap fade with time (as such things always do) - that means "his beliefs" are "common to the beliefs of the majority?"

Mr. Hornstein: What an incredibly, mind-numbingly stupid thing to say.

Here's what Lindner said, and what it means:

• "Gays and Lesbians were not persecuted during the Holocaust". Untrue, obviously, and based on a faulty conclusion drawn from the dust-flap of a book about the homoerotic aspects of Naziism. And yet DFLer after DFLer has queued up to call the statement "homophobic". Homophobia (an etymologically suspect word - "Homosexual" means "attraction to those who are the same as you" in the original Greek". Homophobia would be "Fear of those who are the same as you...") should mean "genuine hatred of gays". But according to many gay activists, the very act of being "uncomfortable" around gays is, itself, homophobic.
• "We don't want the US to turn into Africa". To hear the Afro-American DFL's response, you'd think Lindner was wearing a pointy hood and a white sheet.Yet read his comment carefully; he didn't criticize africans, he pointed out that Africa is beridden with AIDS. Now, does that mean gays should be removed from the Human Right Act? That's another argument. But the fact that the Minneapolis DFL contingent are piling on Lindner as a "racist" for pointing out something that happens, inconveniently, to be true (Africa is plagued with AIDS!) is doublespeak of the lowest order.

I think I've changed my mind since the last time I posted about Lindner. While he doesn't represent the Republican Party I want to see, I'll support him; he may be ignorant and ill-informed, but he's no less so than many of those who oppose him for the most specious political reasons.

And the good news from all this; the main reason the DFL is piling on Lindner with such aplomb is that they really have nothing else going on. Quick - name a DFL legislative initiative. Any initiative. "Harping on GOP initiatives" doesn't count as an initiative, by the way. Throw those out, and there really is no answer, is there?

So the good news is that the DFL has no game. The bad news is that they're taking it out on the First Amendment.

Posted by Mitch at March 15, 2003 12:18 PM