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The Armchair Economist
Confessions of an Angry White Male
Paying the price
for free speech
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Business New Haven
6/4/1995
By: Mitchell Young
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One afternoon a little over 55 years ago, my father returned from high school in Poland to discover that his mother, father and sisters were gone. From the earliest time I more or less understood what had happened, but like my brother and sister, would ask about how and why. My father answered simply that no one could understand what was happening. That the world had turned so upside-down just couldn't be true.
My father was determined that his children would never be burdened by his tragedy. And so it was rare that he would provide any information or anecdotes of his experience. And when I announced to the Cub Scout troop that he would be coming to share the tales of struggle and war he simply and quietly refused, leaving me and the Scoutmaster to explain to the assembled boys.
Over the years he shared bits of tales of how a small group of friends found their way to the woods and the underground and fought as “irregulars” abetted by the Russian Army. When the war finally ended, they would escape their “friends,” heading to Israel, the U.S. and elsewhere. In the woods they struggled and fought, and of his band, many survived the war. But, like my father, they would never escape their experiences.
Last summer, my father was reunited with his family. Ironically, he left me with a responsibility to never forget something that I never really understood.
As it did for many, the past 50 years numbed my father to many of the injustices in the world. But the bombing in Oklahoma City, and the discussion that has ensued, would have caused real pain for my father. I'm happy he wasn't here to see and hear it.
Over the past few weeks we've been assaulted by a destructive virus: an American ebola. The virus struck just as we were recognizing the half-century that has passed since the end of World War II's horrors and triumphs. The early symptoms make it clear that we have forgotten how we arrived there.
Those already infected have asked us to recognize that the senseless killing was a response to an attack by the government on an innocent religious group. That some of these same people actually believe they have computer chips in their head or homing devices in their money doesn't make the virus they're spreading any less sinister.
President Bill Clinton demonstrated Presidential leadership when he pointed out the obvious truth about free speech in America today. For those who were listening, a collective gasp could be heard from sea to shining sea. Do I really want to call a DMV employee a “moron” anymore?
When Clinton took it a step further, attacking the sacred cow of the news media, the talk radio hosts, the nation gasped again at hearing the ugly truth. Yes, even if political correctness offends, words matter, speech matters. To many women (not necessarily militants), hearing the word “feminazi” from Rush Limbaugh is like hearing “kike,” “wop,” “nigger” or “mick.”
Before I go further, let me tell you that at election time last November, I lurched so far to the right that I had to visit a chiropractor. But then something really ugly happened, so ugly that all I can see is my father coming home from school and his family gone.
And how have we reacted? G. Gordon Liddy, who has always been a creep, twirled around in his studio chair, pursed his lizard lips and reminded us that he stood on top of the dung heap. Most of us probably hadn't even noticed that he had slithered out from under his rock a couple of years ago.
His I-love-being-evil routine has proved profitable by tapping into the angst of “PowerlessMan” and the mindless radio sales machine. Locally (on WELI and WAVZ in New Haven and WPOP in Hartford), he spews forth his slimy venom. A poison paid for by some of you, who no doubt have been paying attention to demographics and dollars, not content.
Liddy, as we're sure you've heard by now, recently crowed about the best way to shoot a federal agent wearing a bulletproof vest. In another time, this might have been passable as “shock radio.” But in the aftermath of so much personal tragedy, to use the public airwaves in this way to promote his personal profit is disgusting. Liddy - and the radio stations and advertisers which support him - are not acting out a Norman Lear morality play. They're shaping the world we live in.
To add injury to injury, the radio broadcasting industry has decided to honor Liddy for exercising his First Amendment rights. The hypocrisy of this reeks in an industry that well understands one axiom of media: “We're entitled to free speech, but speech ain't free.” Liddy wouldn't be on the radio for 15 minutes without advertising support. Liddy can stand on the street corner, or gather an audience in his home, but the question is, why should you be providing an infrastructure and paying for him?
Unfortunately, Liddy isn't the only reptile that has learned how to ram-charge his bank book by tapping the “PowerlessMan” market.
The National Rifle Association, in a multi-million-dollar national direct-mail effort, describes federal law enforcement agents as “thugs wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm-trooper uniforms.” These words hold special meaning for some Americans, and they have no place in NRA fundraising brochures.
The NRA is not a fringe group, but an important lobbying force and heretofore a respected national organization with more than three million members. Thankfully, former President George Bush reminded us that Al Wicher, a Secret Service agent who helped protect Bush as President, was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. Bush felt it necessary to tell us that Wicher “was no Nazi. He was a kind man, a loving parent, a man dedicated to serving his country.”
Unfortunately, far too few of the powerful have joined Bush in distancing themselves from this dangerous rhetoric. To the contrary, Presidential aspirant U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) made a pathetic and pandering appeal for support from NRA members.
Remember our history: It didn't start with the agents of the Weimar Republic, but angry regular guys in funny uniforms feigning patriotism and spewing what were derided (for a time) as cockamamie ideas. They sowed dissension and disorder, but no one really thought the world was going to turn upside down.
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