Tucker Carlson the Witch

Tucker Carlson

Fox host Tucker Carlson is under attack for comments he made on the “Bubba the Love Sponge” radio show some years ago. Advertisers are reportedly pulling out, despite his show’s high ratings.

I’ve spoken about this sort of thing before, with reference to the (Virginia governor Ralph) Northam yearbook controversy. Such witch hunts must stop. Doesn’t anyone see that this is McCarthyism? Worse, in fact, than McCarthyism was. We used to all agree that this was wrong.

Whether or not what Carlson said was somehow erroneous, or upset somebody, he has the right to say it. Not that his comments were themselves egregious, but that does not matter. And in this case it was not even anything said on his show. To try to hound him off the air because of it, therefore, is extreme sharkvaulting blacklisting. Logically, the intent is to prevent him from ever again practicing his profession, anywhere, from making a living--because you disagree with something he said. This is not honourable or decent behavior now any more than it would have been in Hollywood in the 1950s. But it is beyond anything seen in Hollywood in the 1950s. 

Although literally about the Salem witch hunts, Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" was also a thinly-veiled criticism of McCarthyism,

Whatever he said is properly irrelevant, unless it involved slander or calls for violence. But the accusations against him are ludicrously trivial in comparison to any McCarthy or the House Committee on Un-American Activities ever levelled. The charge in those days was belonging to or supporting a political organization, the Communist Party, that sought in principle the violent overthrow of the US government; at a time when Communism was a clear and present geopolitical danger. All Carlson is accused of is opinions that are unfashionable in some circles, although demonstrably acceptable in others--as witness the gratifying ratings enjoyed by Mr. Love Sponge.

If the harpies and inquisitors keep getting away with this, nobody is safe. What is permissible to say in these same witchfinder circles changes so quickly and unpredictably year to year and even month by month that anyone could be professionally destroyed at any time for something they said several years ago. Who could have predicted just a few years ago, for example, that it would soon become a “hate crime” to oppose gay marriage? Yet people have lost their jobs over that one. 

Senator Joseph McCarthy

Freedom of speech is an inalienable right. It is also essential for a democracy to function; because it is essential to make it possible to discuss the issues. Which is precisely what Carlson was doing, and precisely what the blacklist bullies seek to prevent. It must never matter what Carlson said, or whether either you or I agree with it. It should not matter even had he said it on his own show yesterday. If you don’t want to hear it, you don’t watch.

But the attack on Carlson does matter, and must concern us all. Our basic freedoms are under assault, as is the very fabric of our society.

Some will insist this is not a free speech issue, because government is not involved. That is so in terms of the US Constitution. But in terms of the Lockean theory on which it is founded, the very purpose of having a government is to protect our rights and freedoms from each other. Granted that here it is not government that is infringing on freedom of speech, but a mostly faceless mob. Government exists to protect us from such things, just as, and for the same reason, we expect it to protect us from lynch mobs. 

Families and friends of victims of the 1950s Hollywood blacklist protesting.

The puzzle is how to do this here. Sponsors have their own freedom of speech, and therefore a perfect right not to sponsor some program with which they disagree. Consumers have the perfect right not to buy a product, and so to boycott. Networks have the right to cancel a program if it is no longer profitable. And on the whole, government in a democracy is not a reliable protection against mob rule; essentially, the same mob elects them. Relying on government to help here may be asking the fox to mind the henhouse.

Voluntary action may do the trick: organize to boycott in turn any business that pulls their ads. Make a point of buying from those who do not. 

Matthew Hopkins, intrepid witchfinder general; the Media Matters of his day.

Sadly, in the meantime, however, even if this works, a good many lives may be destroyed.

Another possibility, it seems to me, would be a law making it illegal to advocate either “deplatforming,” discrimination in employment, or boycotting on grounds of speech, given that the speech itself is legal. Unfortunately, this too would be an infringement on freedom of speech; but one that can perhaps be justified by genuine public need. In the words of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, this restriction, like those against slander or fraud, could be “demonstrably justified.”