'Duck Dynasty' and a free society

[WestVirginiaRebel]

L.A. Times:

Normally at this time of year, the culture war fight is over a guy with a white beard. That's true again this year. What's different is that Phil Robertson has taken Santa's place, and instead of a war on Christmas, we have a war on "Duck Dynasty."

 

The patriarch of the popular A&E reality show said some crude things about homosexuals to GQ magazine. A&E was sufficiently offended that it suspended him from a show about his own family.

 

So far, the controversy understandably has been framed as a fight over free speech. My National Review colleague Mark Steyn writes: "Most Christian opponents of gay marriage oppose gay marriage; they don't oppose the right of gays to advocate it. Yet thug groups like GLAAD increasingly oppose the right of Christians even to argue their corner. It's quicker and more effective to silence them."

 

I think Steyn has the causation right. The free-speech issues are the inevitable consequence of a venerable argument about what a free society is.

 

Maybe I see it that way because I have Yuval Levin's wonderful book "The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and the Birth of Right and Left" fresh in my mind. Levin chronicles the argument between the Irish-born British parliamentarian and the English-born American polemicist over the role of government and the merits of the French Revolution.

 

As Levin shows, Burke, the father of modern conservatism, and Paine, an early champion of progressivism, were liberals in the sense that both defended a free society. But their assumptions about human nature and society led them to very different places.

________

 

Burke vs Paine, and the Beards.

[Draggingtree]

15 Quotes About The Duck Dynasty Controversy That Every American Should See

What is being done to Phil Robertson shows just how far America has fallen. The thought police are waging an all-out campaign to take down one of the biggest names in the United States, and if they are successful none of us will ever be safe again. We are becoming a nation that is governed by bullying, intimidation and unwritten speech codes, and if you happen to say the “wrong thing” you could lose everything. Liberal pundits are gleefully declaring that making statements such as Robertson made “should get you fired from most jobs“. That means that they believe that unless you conform to snip http://dcclothesline.com/2013/12/26/15-quotes-duck-dynasty-controversy-every-american-see/#more-22798

[Valin]

http://youtu.be/tGUBNq9MMTE

[SrWoodchuck]

 

Via TheoSpark