Arianna, although I admit I did not see the actual video, Beck's inflammatory phrase, “They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!”, although he obviously falls badly on his face in denying his saying it, falls under the generally accepted parameters of acceptability with regard to great leeway of interpretation. That means that while he used this exact phrase, he can argue that he didn't literally mean “slaughtered” as in physically murdered but meant it rhetorically as in a manner of speaking, implying that the Obama administration and the Democrat's planned policies and legislation would make life so miserable for Americans that it could be taken in the same way as the phrase, “You're killing me!” Obviously, for one thing, his denial seems to refer to the exact phrasing you quote, Arianna, and therefore he cannot have this battle. (On top of that, he's on the side that generally ropes us into a strict constructionist approach, so the idea that he would want to escape the literal meaning of these words is obviously far-fetched and therefore would make him want to deny its use altogether). He therefore loses this tiff on the grounds that his denial is of the literal meaning, not its interpretation. Were he that intelligent (as to argue for the symbolic meaning), he'd win the day with intelligent people. But they are not in his audience and they are diminishing increasingly as a force that seems to threaten either economically or politically, as they once did, sadly. Therefore, while in oratorical and rhetorical realms, Arianna is the clear winner, in the actual realm of where people are at, especially numbers-wise, its clearly a draw, with the state of American politics today seeming to pull to the right, suggesting that he might even win this one just on that basis, since Fox viewers will rah-rah-rah their hosts the same way the conservatives of my youth during the Vietnam War used to say “My country [is right whether it's] right or wrong.” Stubbornness and persistence, then as now, particularly as exemplified by the character of President Nixon, won and wins the day over reason, logic and moral persuasion. A similar phenomenon seemed to be at work the other day in a dispute between View cohost Joy Behar and Rush Limbaugh. On his show the other day, he played a clip of his being introduced on the Miss America pageant, in which Ms. Behar claimed that he was booed. On the clip, the sound of loud and enthusiastic cheering is definitely heard, which he claims disproves Behar's statement, however, there is a lower noise significant enough to be heard that does indeed sound like booing, even as played on Limbaugh's talk radio show. Limbaugh's intelligence seems as developed as Beck's because what gives away the booing is his playing of the two guests being introduced before him, in which you hear much less enthusiastic cheering, and then plays his clip, in which you definitely hear thunderous applause and enthusiasm for Limbaugh, but there is definitely a bass sound totally missing from the other two applauses. The show aired yesterday, 2/2/10, the same day that Arianna's article appears if you want to check it out yourself. It sounds very similar to a Red Sox-Yankees game, particularly one played in Fenway Park, or to be more seasonable, like a Super Bowl, where fans of both teams descend on the stadium which is always in a neutral city. Now if Behar had said he was only booed, then Limbaugh would win this round. But Behar did not use the word “only”, even in Limbaugh's own disclaimer. Hence, Behar carries the day on this one. Again, the presence of a growing number of Americans who love emotion-based reasoning and detest thinking as a member of a jury, Limbaugh might seize this one as Beck may have seized his victory from the jaws of defeat, the way “all's 'fair' in...war”.
What is more significant here in terms of Beck's remarks is less whether he did or didn't say what he did, but rather that his words, which he clearly did say, like much of his ongoing diatribe, are incendiary, and, if nothing else, function the same way yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater causes people to be hurt and was once overruled by the High Court (a Court oh, so, so different from the present Roberts one) as unprotected by the First Amendment, in that they actually cause people to be lead to the exact fate he is accusing the Obama administration and the Democrats of causing. To still clearly a majority of Americans who are not convinced and converted by the likes his him and Limbaugh, the danger of Beck's and Limbaugh's overuse of this incendiary language is their becoming diluted and less effective in inspiring fear in people, like “the boy who cried wolf”. And for those who argue, “No they are actually quite effective because they are the most popular talk show hosts”, my response is, “So what? Most people don't listen to or watch talk shows. They're surfing the net! Arianna probably has lots more fans than they do.” But getting back to the dilution of this overly used incendiary language, here's the down side, which is actually a great danger. That is, the more watered down such inflammatory references to killing become, the more lightly life and death are taken by people who do join such a camp. Such people, numbed to the pain and hurt (as well exemplified in your quote, Arianna of Stuart Burguiere's comment “What suffering?”) of other people, will not think twice about doing something violent and dangerous to counteract the stated and perceived threat (in this case, the “slaughter”) will inevitably foster a dangerously zealous patriotism and religiosity and, in the process, many American citizens will turn into killers almost as callous as Al Qaeda's worst. For that alone, Beck needs to be brought to task publicly as one who is metaphorically shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. For this reason, Arianna, your making it an issue is a necessary first step because obviously refutation of such incendiary speech that occludes and masks its lethal danger is something that cannot be overstated. And regarding my own seeming paranoia and conspiracy theory, there's a truism in life that you become and you create what you perceive and your prism of the outer world becomes the world you create to yourself and, through others who are likemindedly inspired by you, a real change in the outer, objective world. Hence, in my presenting a vision of a world gone dangerous with much to fear from events that do not necessarily foreclude such, presenting the logical consequences of someone who puts such a drastic vision out there. It is not the vision of extremist violence and apocalypse that is inherently paranoic but rather the departure from reason and consistency of thinking that allows a different type of motive to create such a vision in the first place.
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