National PC Radio

Humans profile.  Every last one of us.

Don’t believe me?

If you’re a middle-class black American, and you see a bunch of people who scream “Latino gang-banger” up ahead, do you modify your behavior?

If you’re an openly gay American, and you see a group of guys in mullets mulling about showing signs of obvious angry intoxication up ahead, do you find an alternate route?

If you’re a couple of NPR listeners, in your alpaca and tweed and too-perfectly-gray hair, and a bunch of Hells Angels walk into the gas station as you’re looking for an air freshener for your Prius, do you get out of the way?

You all do, of course.  Because while none of you may like to discriminate against other human beings, our self-preservation reflex recognizes threats.  It’s human nature.

And when you get on a plane?  Yep – young men who look middle eastern rate a second glance.  Maybe more.  It’s because humans are hardwired to try not to get killed.

I do it.  You do it, no matter what kind of mewling liberal PCBot you think you are. And Juan Williams did it – and made the mistake of offending his holier-than-thou masters at NPR.

Yesterday NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am getting on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims.

This is not a bigoted statement. It is a statement of my feelings, my fears after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by radical Muslims. In a debate with Bill O’Reilly I revealed my fears to set up the case for not making rash judgments about people of any faith. I pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber —  as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals — are Christians but we journalists don’t identify them by their religion.

To be fair, both belong/ed to sects of Christianity just a little relatively far out on the fringe than Wahabbism.

But here’s the important part:

And I made it clear that all Americans have to be careful not to let fears lead to the violation of anyone’s constitutional rights, be it to build a mosque, carry the Koran or drive a New York cab without the fear of having your throat slashed. Bill and I argued after I said he has to take care in the way he talks about the 9/11 attacks so as not to provoke bigotry.

Which is something most Americans of all creeds believe.  The US is still the best place on earth to be a Muslim.

National Public Radio seems to see itself as a benign national thought police.

Maybe it should fund itself…

63 thoughts on “National PC Radio

  1. Cupkaake,

    Only Angryclown can get away with that kind of stuff. Please bring a much better game than this.

  2. Cupcaake? Do you wear pants with the zipper in the back?
    ‘Cuz then I would know it was Angry Clown.

  3. my guess is Cupkaake is a high school dropout, perfect demo for the group he supports and their thinking. If Mitch allows it I really want to take the gloves off, I think civility has just about been thrown out the window. I had a year of training over at Anti-Strib for this.

  4. A little research reveal that NPR does, in fact get a lot of its funding from the fees “member stations” pay to carry their programming. Where do the “member stations” get the money to pay NPR? From CPB, which is about $400 million of Federal government Largesse.
    As Mitch mentioned, NPR & PBS do a regular little dance where they play up their federal funding and quasi-public status to get money from private donors and sponsors, and then play up their indirectly-funded status when they get in trouble with the taxpayers.

  5. Mitch,

    Respectfully, if you are honestly going to start pointing the sausage fingers in regards to a “general cheapening of the discourse”, I need to call an “et tu Mitch”(hint: it’s latin) on the majority of the comments found here. 1,000 monkey on 1,000 keyboards comes to mind…feel free to call things out as you see them, but at least pretend to be somewhat neutral. If you don’t like a voice that happens to choose to not join your little smooshie-cookie circle than just ban me and keep preaching to the small choir of hangers-on here that devour your keyboard poundings and mew on with milky cries of, “yes, more”. At least then I know where you stand, as someone unable totally unable to handle opinions other than those that reinforce your worldview.

    Love me or hate me it’s still an obsession.

  6. Naw, Ben, CupBukkake just hates black people. Loves to see them thrown out of a job when they get “uppity” and don’t know that their place is to make white liberals feel good about their selfs.

  7. Ben,

    You are so very insightful. Take the gloves “off”, please make a series of pathetic baseless personal attacks that will only highlight your personal failings in life. Topics I think you could try: homosexuality, lack of funds(money), blunt head trauma, family issues, poor fashion(esp. socks or belt not matching shoes), diet, sports(or lack of), or gynecologic cancers/spotting issues.

    This will only reinforce my earlier comment that the majority of posts here are vapid and vacuous attacks addressed at the level of

  8. Respectfully, if you are honestly going to start pointing the sausage fingers

    Sausage fingers?

    WTF?

    in regards to a “general cheapening of the discourse”, I need to call an “et tu Mitch”(hint: it’s latin)

    Parumper annus , ego bulla Latin. That’s Latin. I took a year of it. And a BA in English, where I read “Julius Caesar”, from where the “et tu…” line comes.

    Just saying – you’re not equipped to condescend. Don’t try.

    on the majority of the comments found here. 1,000 monkey on 1,000 keyboards comes to mind…

    You can think anything you want. But most of the “1,000 monkeys” here can dig up the *facts* when needed, and have spent years shredding facile (hint: that’s latin) lefty arguments here and on their own blogs for years. It’s not as if you’re coming here with anything that all of us haven’t seen, responded and destroyed for years.

    feel free to call things out as you see them, but at least pretend to be somewhat neutral.

    I’m not. I’m a conservative. I’m open and honest about my biases. I try to run a civil discussion, but I am not neutral at all.

    If you don’t like a voice that happens to choose to not join your little smooshie-cookie circle than just ban me and keep preaching to the small choir of hangers-on here that devour your keyboard poundings and mew on with milky cries of, “yes, more”.

    No, Cake. Here’s what will happen. You are welcome to comment here; I don’t ban people, unless they break one of two rules. I don’t publish, or even explain the rules, because both of them are utterly commonsense. Only three people have broken them in the past five years.

    At least then I know where you stand, as someone unable totally unable to handle opinions other than those that reinforce your worldview.

    Waaah. Read the blog. I encourage commenters that disagree with me. My regulars include Angryclown, Dog Gone, Penigma, Discordian Stooge, occasionally Jeff Rosenberg of MNPublius – people that can make smart, if usually wrong, arguments (or, in the case of the Clown, at least snark at a major-league level).

    I mix it up with the likes of Erik Black, RT Rybak and David Brauer on the air.

    And I am a former liberal.

    So I don’t need anyone agree with me to “reinforce my worldview”; it’s my experience AS a liberal, and what I get from talking to liberals, that reinforces my worldview.

    Your reversion to stereotype is noted, mocked and rejected.

    Love me or hate me it’s still an obsession

    Don’t flatter yourself. Thus far, you’ve given no reason for either.

    You’re just a lefty commenter with some facile, easily-disposed-of arguments and a whole lot of the kind of snark that may pass for smart on “Blog of the Moderate Left” or “Firedog Lake”, but is just kinda boring here.

    Please feel free to use your time in the Shot In The Dark comment section to improve your information, your logic and your argumentation skills.

  9. And Cupcake, we’re still waiting for the citation of the Glenn Beck quote that you have ignored. Remember?
    “But when Glenn Beck calls the sitting President of the United States a racist and a Muslim”?

    You said it. You’ve failed to back it up. You have zero credibility until you do.

    The only obsession I have is with honesty, and it seems you haven’t any.

  10. Here is a particularly flagrant example of an NPR commentator making a remark that expresses her personal opinion of a US Senator in a manner some might find offensive. It happened in 1995 and no action was taken against the commentator.

    http://neoneocon.com/2010/10/22/npr-and-its-standards/

    Nobody except trolls like Cupcake really believes that opinions are only expressed by Fox News. It’s obvious from his tone that he wishes Fox News didn’t exist. They are more upfront about identifying their biases than NPR, CBS,CNN etc. The MSM would do well to encourage more, not less diversity of viewpoints. The faux diversity of progressives is a code word for an anti-American point of view. They don’t believe in American exceptionalism and they are terrified of offending people who would decapitate anyone who disagrees with them. Where’s Mohammed? They don’t ask and they don’t tell.

  11. Golfdoc, the latest spin from NPR is that anyone who works for their news div. is not allowed to express any editorial opinion that they wouldn’t make on NPR.
    Since Totenberg’s Inside Washington comments would be welcome if they had been given on NPR, she is safe.
    Now anyone who works for NPR is under notice that NPR’s liberal bias and PC sensibilities must be expressed wherever they appear.

    In my market the local NPR affiliate, KIPA, Honolulu, finished up its fundraiser yesterday by making a short announcement that once all the facts were known people would see that it was necessary to fire Juan Williams because he violated his contract.
    The station then played an “All Things Considered” segment where Melissa Block interviewed two young “experts on journalistic ethics”. Both repeated the NPR line that Williams deserved to be fired.
    I imagine they sent out emails to a list of journo’s looking for interview subjects and grabbed the first two who agreed to come on the air and back up NPR’s decision.
    Wonder why they didn’t interview Mara Liasson?
    You can read the transcript here:
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130757465

  12. “Their news coverage as a rule is little different than that of the Big Three or CNN (although they do have some terrible reporters and anchors). While “tone” is very hard to view objectively and turn into “evidence”, it is (Ill be charitable) no further from the center than the Big Three or CNN are.”

    Mitch, I would argue with you that Fox News is very good at blurring the line between their opinion pieces and their proportionately small news content. I try to watch some Fox News programming, as part of looking at multiple news sources, both foreign and domestic.

    Imho – I don’t see a lot of News coverage from Fox where there is a clear attempt by news to undo misinformation stories circulating with the Fox opinion folks — I have yet to see any news coverage of the facts of the ice-cream-for-votes story as a recent example. My impression has been a fairly consistent news-subordinate-to-Fox-opinion delivery.

    It has been my personal observation that far too many of the conservatives with who I speak – or whom I read – cite opinion sources from places like Fox news – or Rush Limbaugh – as NEWS when it is not reliable factually.

    As to the conclusions drawn about Obama for having listened to the sermons of Jermiah Wright, I think that is simply funny. Obama attended a ‘mega-church’, Jeremiah Wright’s sermons were far from the only ones made from their pulpit. He showed great approval for some aspects of Rev. Wright’s preaching – and the reverend has a credible track record of service to this country in the navy, and of service to his community and his church in many regards. To assert that Obama is guilty by association for views of Rev. Wright with which he disagrees — and has stated he disagrees very publicly — is like someone here holding you responsible for the views I make in a public venue blogging (or Flash, or Pen, or anyone else) despite you having publicly made it clear you hold different views.

    You and I agree on some things; we disagree on others, and we treat each other as friends with respect and kindness. I think that having friends who hold different views, or come from different backgrounds or who embrace different experiences is enriching. It is as important – sometimes more important – to look for the common ground in having those enriching relationships.

    But equally important for anyone outside those relationships looking in is NOT to make the assumption that having common ground means people share ALL positions or are the same.

    Hold Rev. Wright responsible for his statements; hold Obama responsible for his as well. That means recognizing where they are the same — and givin credit for where they are different.

    I’ve seen a lot of guilt by association thrown out here (and it’s not only here it happens everywhere on both sides of the political aisle). I would be very disappointed if you decided you no longer considered me a friend because I didn’t conform to your opinions. To me, that would mean that you would require me to make my thoughts subordinate to yours.

    I don’t think you would ask that of me; I certainly don’t ask it of you. So….why should we look at the relationships of other people that way?

    As to the Soros contribution – yes, Soros funds political commentary sources. Does this mean any funding of every organization from Soros is political? Not necessarily; some things are clearly not political. Every donor who makes political donations – whoever they are, right or left – should be give a fair scrutiny of what they donate, and for what purpose, and not have it automatically assumed to be anything. Conclusions should come after facts are studied, not before, not without.

  13. Dog Gone, it was hard for you to write that comment without mentioning the most egregious propaganda-as-news in this century, but you did it. I am referring to the Rather/Mapes scandal over the over the fake TANG memos. This was a major news operation that based an anti-Bush story on poorly sourced documents just two months before the 2004 election. Within hours of the broadcast the memos were demonstrated to be fakes using the simplest sort of analysis.
    This was no less than an attempt to sway the election of the president of the United States using forged documents. Nothing Fox has ever done comes close this subversion of both politics and journalism by liberals.

    You say “It has been my personal observation that far too many of the conservatives with who I speak – or whom I read – cite opinion sources from places like Fox news – or Rush Limbaugh – as NEWS when it is not reliable factually.”

    Who do you read that quotes Limbaugh as a news source? I almost never see Limbaugh mentioned at all in conservative blogs or on Fox. Ditto Fox cited as a news source for an opinion story.
    Search Mitch’s blog — Limbaugh has never been mentioned only as making news, not as its source.

    On the other hand I seem to run into a lot of libs who get their news from The Daily Show.

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