Comment

Pat Buchanan Promotes 9/11 'Truth'

198
agarrett9/15/2009 3:45:38 pm PDT

re: #145 vxbush

vxbush,

That’s a fine question (should Beck be held accountable for his internment camp rumor?) Can I answer both yes and no?

Yes, he should be responsible. I’m all for it. People should take responsibility for what they say and do, and should also take the consequences for it. But you asked if he should be held accountable - and that leads me to ask, by whom?

If being held accountable, for Beck, means making viewers aware of his dumb statements, and ideally seeing a ratings fall / cancellation, then we’re on the same page, and we agree. If it means a government or private group going over his rants and deciding they don’t belong on TV, I probably wouldn’t agree (I say probably to exclude something like the station owner deciding he no longer wants to carry that loon.) If it means he can be held liable for the actions of a third person who heard his rants, and decided to kill off someone who might later have been involved in these internment camps, then no, I can’t agree. I need a much tighter chain of responsibility before I’d go along with liability.

Anyway, if you’ve followed this far, let me go a bit further… I generally like what Charles does on this site. I think bringing up the statements of kooks, publicizing and ridiculing them, is a very good thing. I like it a good bit less when people start talking about purges, but tend to just consider that hyperbole. However, when the same talk (publicizing, ridiculing, and demonizing, not purges) starts coming from government circles, I become much more sympathetic to the stance of the article.

Thanks for taking things seriously enough to argue them well.