If you haven’t seen it yet (and by now you probably have): a spirited — to say the least! — response to Congressional archdhimmi Lindsey Graham, from a Colorado pepperpot by the name of Ann Barnhardt.
Move over, Pat Condell! There’s a new kid in town.
Watch it now, before it’s taken down.
6 Comments
This gal’s got spunk:
I love it!
Yeah, Lindsey Graham is a jackass.
However, having skimmed a small sampling of Barnhardt’s expressions of her first amendment rights, I’m pretty sure that her own understanding of the separation clause leaves much to be desired. In other words, she demonstrates a marked tendency to base her views on a very constrained (hence, constraining) understanding of Christianity. For instance, since god’s plan for women doesn’t include political parity with men, women’s sufferage was a huge mistake that ought to be be corrected.
Barnhardt is very worried about Sharia being implemented in this great land. I think the much more salient danger in this part of the world is the readiness of people to embrace a biblically-based political theology.
Some time ago, there was an art exhibit in Brooklyn which included a piece of art which was offensive to many Christians, including then-Mayor Giuliani, who demanded its removal and used strong arm tactics to do so. A few years earlier, there was a similar brouhaha over a piece of art called Piss Christ.
If the shrill and annoying woman in this video is as passionate about defending the rights of these artists to display their work as she is about Terry Jones’s right to burn the Koran, then she has a legitimate position. Otherwise, she is just another angry fool.
Lots of superficially-calm fools out there, too.
One eyed man, there was never a question that the artist who created Piss Christ had a right to display it. The question was, should the artist have received government money for it. The answer is no. To see why, imagine the same work without the piss. Or imagine something called Piss Mohammed.
In any case, your belief that it is wrong to defend any right unless you also defend every right, seems wrong-headed to me. There are many times when the ACLU decides to pass on a project.
Dom: you raise a very good point. The Piss Christ guy did get a government grant, although I don’t think the artist exhibited in Brooklyn had one. I would argue that art can be meant to shock and startle, and what offends one group may not offend another. One man’s fish is another man’s poisson. The reduction ad absurdum argument is that public money should only be used to support Norman Rockwell exhibits. Nonetheless, I’m sympathetic to the argument that people ought not to be taxed for something which a great many of them find offensive.
As for consistency: as a matter of principle, if you believe (as I do) that any idea, no matter how repugnant, ought to be protected by the First Amendment, then you can’t discriminate among different ideas and only defend those you approve of (to use a preposition to end a sentence with). I find Terry Jones and the Reverend who protests outside military funerals to be equally despicable, and I believe that they both skirt the edge of what is constitutionally protected (because both involve speech which is clearly meant to be inflammatory, and hence also borders on the proscription against yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater). However, while I would defend the rights of both to do what they do, I would not personally want to defend them in court. I am a liberal, and as such, my liberalism ceases at personal inconvenience.