Laura Ingraham's Stalinism

[Science Fan]

Logging on to the net this morning, I was shown one of today's "news" articles, which mentioned that conservative media personality Laura Ingraham referred to those who have decided to boycott her show as "Stalinists." This just illustrates how depraved the right-wing has become. It used to be that the right-wing in America supported free-markets, freedom of speech, and individual liberty. Now, with the rise of Trumpism, it's plain for everyone to see that they don't, and Laura Ingraham's latest comments reveal this.

In a free-market economy, a private business is free to stop advertising on Laura Ingraham's show. In a free society, people are free to boycott her show, if they do not like what she is saying. This is the very essence of freedom and free markets ----- that people get to vote with their feet and pocket books on what shows they watch and support. This is not Stalinism in any way. Stalinism would be taking place if the government forced Ms. Ingraham to take certain positions. That is not occurring. She's simply disgusted with the operations of freedom and free markets and thinks things should be otherwise.

So much for the right-wing not being fascist. Trump, as the leader of the GOP, has been bitching about free markets and free speech since before he was elected. The right-wing may as well come out of its closest now and admit to being what everyone has seen them for --- a party of racists who care nothing for free markets or individual liberty if it gets in the way of their bigotry and hate.

[henry quirk]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

[Walker]

People have a pretty good bead on where the hate is coming from.

[henry quirk]

Yeah, from where I stand it seems to (mostly) be comin' from somewhere to my left (but I'm right-handed, so...).

[Science Fan]

The hate is coming from both the left and right wing. It's just that while the left wing has always confessed to hating individual property rights and the operation of free-markets, while the right-wing claimed to support such ideas, we now know in the days of Trumpism that the right is just as much interested in condemning free-markets as the left is. A private company decides not to advertise on Ingraham's show any longer, and she calls that Stalinism? That's the essence of a free-market transaction.

[henry quirk]

Did she suggest any of those advertisers ought to be forced to support her program?

Nope.

Whether her assessment of 'stalinism' is accurate or not, all she did was exercise her 1st A right.

Not seein' your problem with that, Sci.

[Science Fan]

Henry: She claimed that free-market activity was Stalinism. That's a sure sign that she has no clue what free-market capitalism is about. I'm willing to bet very, very few right-wing pundits will bother to point this out. The fact is that the GOP is in many ways further to the left than Hillary and Obama.

[Science Fan]

When the right-wingers called for a boycott of the NFL, because they thought wealthy black football players were being ungrateful, was that the right-wing engaged in Stalinism? It was certainly the right-wing engaged in hypocrisy: The same people who boycotted the NFL fully supported trust-fund baby Trump, a man who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars and who went around for more than a year bad-mouthing the USA. So, the fact they never boycotted Trump because he was ungrateful shows the motivation behind the NFL boycott was racism.

[henry quirk]

She expressed an opinion...that's the sum of it...I wouldn't worry so much about it, if I were you.

She's just a friggin' talkin' head...not worth you gettin' your panties in a twist over.

Like the football players: she's overpaid for doin' not much of anything.

Surely, an intelligent guy like you has better things to invest himself in?

The Left, the Right, the Middle: meh.

Live; navigate 'round, under, over, through the folks who'd play fast and losse with your head (cuz they will, if you let 'em).

[Walker]

Her bosses endorsed her.

Sanity prevailed.

[Science Fan]

She expressed an opinion that violates the basic principles of free-market capitalism and freedom of speech. It's about time that the right-wing in the USA be exposed for being a lot like the left-wing.

[henry quirk]

"She expressed an opinion that violates the basic principles of free-market capitalism and freedom of speech. It's about time that the right-wing in the USA be exposed for being a lot like the left-wing."

Yep, she expressed an opinion...not seein' how that opinon violates the free market (cuz I can [as you should] ignore her and spend my money as I like).

Yep, she expressed an opinion...not seein' how that opinion violates freedom of speech (cuz I can express an opposing opinion or I can [as you should] ignore her [cuz she's a head on TV and not worth my time]).

And the Right (in all it's formal glory) is just as communitarian as the Left: this is not news, Sci.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

Logging on to the net this morning, I was shown one of today's "news" articles, which mentioned that conservative media personality Laura Ingraham referred to those who have decided to boycott her show as "Stalinists." This just illustrates how depraved the right-wing has become. It used to be that the right-wing in America supported free-markets, freedom of speech, and individual liberty. Now, with the rise of Trumpism, it's plain for everyone to see that they don't, and Laura Ingraham's latest comments reveal this.

While I do agree that does hold true for a lot of today's conservatives, specifically coming from the trump side of things, I don't think Ingrahams response illustrates what you think it does. She said that what they hope to achieve is 'stalinist' in nature, that being a censorship of someone through a boycott of their ads. She is not saying that these companies should legally be required to stay with her, it's a cultural critique and not one founded in trying to find a political solution.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/laura-ing ... -stalinist

After a weeklong hiatus from the show, Ingraham returned on Monday. Although she did not address her mockery of Hogg, she railed against “speech czars” on the left who she claimed wanted to silence politically disagreeable ideas.

“Their efforts are Stalinist, pure and simple,” she said. “Their objective is a total transformation of American society, not through rational discourse and open debate, but through personal demonization and silencing.”

I don't agree with her initial comments about Hogg, but I do agree with her sentiment here about the solution that followed. A few years back when google ad-sense was created, we had a really good thing going on where someone's content could be (and always was) differentiated from the ads being displayed on their medium. It got rid of the perception of a middle man that needed to give a thumbs up of approval to the ideas of the person in account, before letting their ads be shown alongside them. That's certainly changed in recent years, and now there is pretty much a direct line drawn from an ad being shown on someone's place of content to that person's personal opinions. That is a very, very dangerous slope to go down, in my opinion, and I don't like it at all.

I don't care if a coca-cola ad is shown on an ISIS or Nazi youtube video, because that has never meant what people interpret that as meaning. It is an ad based service that has agreed and chosen to run on a website, and not a service that has given selective agreement on an individual level. There's no way in hell that terrorists are even collecting that ad revenue.

Even in theory, I don't get it. I mean, don't Nazi want to drink sodas too? Richard Spencer is an absolutely deplorable human being, but if people are in fear of funding him via the ads on his youtube videos, there are already utilities and practices in place where you can make sure that's not a thing - either use an adblock, or just don't watch his videos. A company should be trying to maximize their profits, not putting forth a bad precedent for the future where a product being advertised is indistinguishable from the person promoting it. As with ingraham, this isn't to say we should to force companies to stay with someone, through legislation.

[Science Fan]

If sponsors directly sponsor her show, then there is a connection between their products and her show. This is not a YouTube arrangement where an ad may come up on a video in an arbitrary fashion. There is nothing dangerous about people refusing to buy products from a company that takes a political position they disagree with. It's called freedom.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

She expressed an opinion that violates the basic principles of free-market capitalism and freedom of speech. It's about time that the right-wing in the USA be exposed for being a lot like the left-wing.

There's a stark difference between trying to change something by opening up a dialog and giving her opinion, and forcing it through legislation. Which one do you think that Laura Ingahram is trying to do, here?

It's often said that trying to de-platform someone by attacking their advertisers is going against freedom of speech, but that's not necessarily true, either. What I would say, is that it goes against the spirit of the law.