Mike Huckabee Denounced Monty Python As Blasphemy
Mother Jones quotes a Mike Huckabee sermon from 1979:
There was a time in this country when a movie like The Life of Brian which, I just read—thank God the theaters in Little Rock decided not to show, but it’s showing all over the Fort Worth–Dallas area, which is a mockery, which is a blasphemy against the very name of Jesus Christ, and I can remember a day even as young as I am when that would not have happened in this country or in the city in the South.
Any fair story that takes Mike Huckabee down a peg is fine by me, and this one quotes Huckabee in context and makes him look foolish — because he was.
Life of Brian was a work of brilliant satire. Its targets were not Jesus or even Christianity generally, but a certain sort of humorless and unthinking scold: someone like Mike Huckabee. The sort who, listening to the Sermon on the Mount, mishears Jesus as saying “blessed are the cheesemakers” — and immediately rationalizes to other audience members that Jesus must have been referring to the “makers of dairy products generally.” The Pythons mocked the concept of groups which hate each other yet, to the outside world, seem identical — like the People’s Front of Judea and their arch-rivals, the hated Judean People’s Front. I could go on and on. It’s a great movie.
The opposition to Life of Brian was absurd. Strom Thurmond’s role in shutting down the film in Columbia, South Carolina was unconstitutional and shameful. And Huckabee should have to answer for his comments, which were sillier than John Cleese’s silly walks.
All well and good.
Yet Mother Jones, which put out the story, does not seem to recognize a rather obvious parallel to the Pam Geller/Garland situation.
Because all Mike Huckabee was doing was criticizing a movie that he (ignorantly) believed was blaspheming his religion. He wasn’t committing violence against the filmmakers, or quasi-condoning others doing so.
Imagine that, rather than protests and even bannings, a couple of Christians had shot up a movie theater where the film was playing. And that Mike Huckabee, after issuing a pro forma, unenthusiastic, ritualized denunciation of the violence, had focused a sermon on how the guys from Monty Python had brought this on themselves, by being so provocative.
Now that really would have shown some crazed intolerance on Mike Huckabee’s part! And I’m sure Mother Jones would have been among the first to denounce Huckabee’s shameful remarks.
I trust that I need not connect the dots further.
Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 5/11/2015 @ 7:44 amThwow him to the grownd roughwly.
Captain Ned (1711ec) — 5/11/2015 @ 7:55 amThe number of times that you mention Pam Geller on your blog is inversely proportional to the number of people that might take your blog seriously.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 5/11/2015 @ 8:06 amWonder how he’d react to a showing of Jesus Christ: Superstar.
Another Anon (f43943) — 5/11/2015 @ 8:10 amWatch out for the Judean People’s Front!
Beasts of England (bfce1e) — 5/11/2015 @ 8:22 amWasn’t it Mother Jones who recently raped a bunch of college kids?
ropelight (baa9dd) — 5/11/2015 @ 8:24 amHuckabee is a fool and he is again becoming a fat fool. The definition of an instant in my world is the interval between his appearance on TV and my grasp of the remote.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 5/11/2015 @ 8:35 amHuckabee’s not my guy, but he has a right to his own opinion. Even in 1979.
This renewed interest in the life history of our presidential candidates is a refreshing change from past media practices. It will be fascinating to read their the articles on Hillary! and Bernie, and everything they said back in the day.
Meanwhile, the Saudis are not fully engaged in Obola’s Camp David conference on Iran, and ISIS has promised an attack in about 2 hours and 15 minutes (2 pm ET.) Greece is on life support, and the papers that predicted a Labor victory in last week’s elections are now predicting the collapse of the UK under a unified Tory cabinet. And presumably someone still buys these newspapers or subscribes to their websites.
We live in interesting times.
bobathome (13c842) — 5/11/2015 @ 8:47 amwell why would they take Zaphod seriously, the situation is not disimilar from the move ‘they live’ with the blank magazines,
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/11/2015 @ 8:53 amHappyfeet luvs Huckabee
JD (3b5483) — 5/11/2015 @ 8:55 amwell Hirsi Ali, or any number of people who have been threatened with death, for pointing out the thanos impulse in that faith,
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/11/2015 @ 8:56 amthe idea that there will be stages of candidates in the coming year upon which a Mike Huckabee is perched fills my heart with despair
he needs to be purged
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:03 amOh, grow up. You’re referring to the president of the United States. Jesus.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:04 ami do not understand Mr. carliitos
respect is something you have to earn
and the office of the presidency hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory
not for many many many moons now
clinton bush obama
it was in this epoch of fail that the decline of failmerica achieved critical mass
mccain and mitt mitt both ran entire campaigns where the best they could do was to volunteer to manage the failure
it got to the point where failmerica couldn’t even make twinkies
to say nothing of putting up a functional health care website
there’s a lot of people in the whirl to respect without cheapening the idea of respect by extending it to one so unworthy as the president of the united states
maybe someday this will change though
but for now it is steely-eyed realism what must be our sextant if we are to chart a course to a more better tomorrow
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:25 amcarlitos seems to be in a bad mood.
We’ve had bad presidents before. Wilson was pretty bad although the left likes him.
Wilson was followed by Harding and Coolidge who gave us the “Roaring Twenties.” Roosevelt gave us the Great Depression but he had the excuse that nobody knew how to deal with that situation.
Obama seems to be driven by ideology in spite of better understanding of economics.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:33 ameven the perv king of saudi arabia gives the US president the back of his hand
that’s just where we are
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:35 amyes Wilson fracked up most everything, domestic as well as foreign, he was also an academic, although more accomplished then Zaphod,
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:35 amThose who think that juvenile name-calling will help their cause are wrong, in my humble opinion. Especially with regard to the POTUS.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:39 amand that is why the Daily Show ended in 2002,
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:41 ami think it’s more in the realm of canaries and coal mines
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:43 amOk, hold it. LIFE OF BRIAN is balphemous. So are the cartoons of Mohammad that Pam Geller was involved with. I don’t take blasphemy perticularly seriously, nor do I believe anyone else should. But let’s not pretend that we, who do not adhere to a fundamentalist religious belief, get to define what those who do may call balsphemous.
Believing that LIFE OF BRIAN – or cartoons of Mohammad – are blasphemous isn’t silly. Believing that their blaphemy against a religion to which their creators do not subscribe is grounds for censorship isn’t silly either. It is deeply dangerous and offensive for free thiking people. In which category I specifically do NOT include MOTHER JONES and its Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressive audience.
C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:50 amcarlitos, I see that my choice of appellations is having the desired effect. The feckless clown in the white house continues to drag our country into the ditch. Exercising my right to express my opinion of the man is about all I can do, and so I’m grateful for the opportunity.
Perhaps you are of the opinion that we should have different standards based on skin pigment? I’m not a list-oriented guy, but just today he has failed at yet another initiative, the attempt to get the sunni regimes in the middle east to role over for Iran and its bomb. These are self-inflicted wounds that will take many years and probably tens of thousands of lives or more to rectify.
Governments can fail. And yet we blithely skip down a road that is littered with progressive milestones documenting only failure … Freedom from Fear … War on Poverty … War on Drugs … Hope and Change …
Instead of making the best of an imperfect world, our government seeks only utopia and in a universe that has never existed and never will. And the people who work for this government as its bureaucrats are self-selecting in the direction of vile and vengeful.
About an hour and ten minutes until we see what ISIS has brewed up.
bobathome (13c842) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:52 amI have no special love for Huckabee — though I will forever love his quip in the 2008 debates that Washington was spending as recklessly “as John Edwards in a beauty shop” — but I hope that if Huck’s 1979 musings are grist for the mill then the same rule will apply to the garbage that was coming from Hillary!’s mouth in the 1970s and 80s. Let’s go back to her mirth at the idea that she helped a child rapist avoid a long sentence for his crime by suggesting that the victim was a nutcase that sought out older men. I think we can see the seeds of her Monica Lewinsky strategy in the way she handled this matter.
JVW (05e1e2) — 5/11/2015 @ 9:56 amthe earlier link is to David Corn, so caveat emptor, and squirrel!
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/11/2015 @ 10:01 amit’s not just Salman:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/05/gulf-leaders-snub-obamas-latest-summit/
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/11/2015 @ 10:15 am@JVW;
The problem being that everybody willing to go back and actually examine Hillary’s record (instead of her narrative) ALREADY know she’s an immoral scumbag, and the ones who would think she’s wonderful aren’t going to be convinced otherwise even if she’s caught barbecuing small children over a fire of rare hardwoods.
C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd) — 5/11/2015 @ 10:17 amSplitters!!!
Gazzer (c1d25a) — 5/11/2015 @ 10:24 amNo, I meant exactly what I said. Juvenile name calling isn’t going to help your cause.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 5/11/2015 @ 11:12 am@Carlitos;
How about adult, accurate, name calling?
C. S. P. Schofield (c8ae79) — 5/11/2015 @ 11:38 amThe problem being that everybody willing to go back and actually examine Hillary’s record (instead of her narrative) ALREADY know she’s an immoral scumbag, and the ones who would think she’s wonderful aren’t going to be convinced otherwise even if she’s caught barbecuing small children over a fire of rare hardwoods.
I get that there are about 47% of us who know that Hillary! is the depths of depravity, just like her syphillis-ridden felonious husband, and that 47% of us won’t stand to hear anything negative about the potential first girl President, but I submit to you that there is that 6% of voters (some of whom are low-engagement voters, some of whom are wishy-washy moderates who are undecided) who need to continue to hear about the Clinton family’s shenanigans between now and the 2016 election. I’m still confident there are enough people who will see the light.
JVW (05e1e2) — 5/11/2015 @ 11:39 amI’m Catholic, and when they(People’s Front of Judea) voted to clap for Brian at the end of the movie, I found it hysterical. Satire is just that. If your religion can’t withstand a satirical piece/cartoon, then it’s not much of a religion. My spiritual beliefs are between me and my God—anyone else’s opinion is unimportant and a waste of precious time.
It’s the same with our leaders. If you want to get bent over someone calling the president “Obola” or “Shrub”, so be it. If it bothers you, or them for that matter—tough! Free speech is just that. Don’t like it, then there are plenty of other countries in the world that don’t adhere to that belief that may suit your needs better. You can get there in a day’s travel.
hadoop (657247) — 5/11/2015 @ 11:44 am‘Life of Brian’ is their masterwork. Huckleberry seems to want to be the right’s Sharpton.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/11/2015 @ 11:45 amwell that was back during Clinton’s first term as governor, if that account is accurate,
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/11/2015 @ 11:47 amI wonder if Huckabee saw the scene where Stan declares his desire to have babies, he might come to a better understanding of the film.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/11/2015 @ 11:51 amBTW, the full film is (legally) here
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/11/2015 @ 11:53 amI find any response to Huckabee beyond pointing and laughing to be a waste of energy.
JD (ef7925) — 5/11/2015 @ 12:17 pmi’m just saying a Corn byline without an audio sample, things are not as they always appear:
http://www.bizpacreview.com/2015/05/11/george-zimmerman-reportedly-shot-in-the-face-sick-reaction-from-social-media-203580
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/11/2015 @ 12:20 pmok explain to me again how there’s people what think this man should be president
it makes NO sense
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/11/2015 @ 1:00 pmExactly.
What’s wrong with Huckabee calling something what it is? He was speaking in his role as a Christian preacher to a group of Christians. It was his job to provide spiritual guidance, and if that includes pointing out blasphemy when he sees it, then he was doing the right thing.
egd (1ad898) — 5/11/2015 @ 1:16 pmCan someone remind me of the body count? Now that it’s just normal to think satirizing a religion means you deserve what you get.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/11/2015 @ 1:53 pmthe Python gang, admit they couldn’t do that today, of course they don’t point out their part in deconstructing middle class mores,
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/11/2015 @ 1:56 pm@egd;
There’s nothing wrong with Huckabee calling the film blasphemous. There’s nothing wrong with calling him an idiot for caring, either. Just as the residents of Dayton Tennessee had an absolute right to jail their schoolteacher for teaching a curriculum other than the one he was hired to teach, and nothing wrong with Mencken mocking them for setting that curriculum in the first place.
I agree with the post; that MOTHER JONES clearly doesn’t give a fat damn about offending Christians, probably because Christians aren’t likely to try to blow up the magazine’s offices. But the implication that LIFE OF BRIAN is not blasphemous is wrong. It is. That is, more or less, the point. And in this day and age when so many panjandrums of the Political Left are ready to crucify (figuratively….so far) anyone who blasphemes against THEIR irrational beliefs, it is well to keep in mind that the important point is not whether some speech is blasphemous, or unpleasant, or hateful, but that it is protected by the First Amendment.
C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd) — 5/11/2015 @ 2:30 pmWait a second, i’m confused. Was it not the peoples front of Judea?
Jeffrey (2eddb6) — 5/11/2015 @ 2:40 pmJeffrey,
The Pythons were “The People’s Front of Judea”, unlike those “splitters” the Judean People’s Front, the Judean Popular People’s Front, the Campaign for a Free Galilee, and the Popular Front of Judea.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/11/2015 @ 3:56 pmHe was speaking in his role as a Christian preacher to a group of Christians.
He was calling for censorship. How is that preaching to the flock?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/11/2015 @ 4:06 pmFWEE RWADERICK!
Bugg (bd9445) — 5/11/2015 @ 5:14 pmI’m sure it’s a very general reference to makers of all dairy products.
“LIfe of Brian” was arguably a (very funny) vanity movie. MP fan George Harrison financed the whole thing, even filming in Morocco. Harrison even has a brief cameo.
Bugg (bd9445) — 5/11/2015 @ 5:16 pmThat sounds like something Huckabee might have said 🙂
Oh, that’s a full stop, not a comma. Never mind.
Seriously, though, I reject this idea that a person deserves respect just because he happens to be president. Or, as I sometimes hear it put, that one should respect “the office of the presidency”, regardless of who occupies it. We’re a republic, not a monarchy, dammit, and we should behave like one. The president is just another public servant, and deserves no special regard just because he happens to hold that job, even if he does it well, let alone if he doesn’t. W Bush deserves respect because he’s a fundamentally decent person, not because he was president; so does Mitt Romney, who was never president. Obumble was trash before he became president, and he wasn’t magically transformed into treasure on 20-Jan-2009.
Milhouse (bdebad) — 5/11/2015 @ 5:43 pmPam Geller?
Oh, right. Pam Geller.
What about Pam Geller?
Patterico (9c670f) — 5/11/2015 @ 5:55 pmshe gellin like a felon
happyfeet (831175) — 5/11/2015 @ 5:59 pmC. S. P. Schofield (a196fd) — 5/11/2015 @ 2:30 pm
It was the state of Tennessee which proscribed the teaching of evolution. Many people thought there was going to be a test case with a lot of publicity. Some people in Dayton (which was not a particularly pious community) thought the town could profit by being the venue; high school science teacher John Scopes agreed to be the defendant. Ironically, Scopes later admitted he couldn’t remember whether he’d actually taught that chapter of the biology textbook; that semester, a lot of classes were cancelled – IIRC for spring football practice and Scopes was an assistant coach. There was never any clash between him and the school authorities.
Mencken had a lot of fun mocking the “rubes” that appeared in Dayton during the trial, but nearly all of those were from out of town; the Daytonites who had arranged the trial came to regret bitterly their publicity stunt.
Rich Rostrom (d2c6fd) — 5/11/2015 @ 10:18 pmMike Huckabee = Biguth Dickuth
Icy (006dc3) — 5/11/2015 @ 10:59 pm“Making it worse? How can it be worse? Obola! Obola!”
Icy (006dc3) — 5/11/2015 @ 11:06 pmI’m not a Huckster fan, but he was really young when he said that, wasn’t he? And censorship, believe it or not – is a form of free speech.
EPWJ (992ed5) — 5/12/2015 @ 12:31 amI totally disagree. That movie IS blasphemy.
Georganne (e37667) — 5/12/2015 @ 6:30 amTo heck with the religious satire, the best part of the movie was the “What have the Romans ever done for us” skit. Leave it to the Arabs to shun “the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health” because they want to be the ones to hold the whip. It’s all of Arab irrationalism wrapped up in one scene.
J.P. (cc46f4) — 5/12/2015 @ 11:45 amfrom a legend originally found in the Talmud, regarding Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/baryochai.html
Once, when Rabbi Shimon was together with Rabbi Yehudah ben Ilai and Rabbi Yose ben Chalafta, Rabbi Yehudah praised the Romans for their construction of markets, bridges and bathhouses. Rabbi Yose remained silent. But Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said that all those engineering marvels were made for their own self-interest. When the Romans heard this, they rewarded Yehudah by appointing him to a position in government. Rabbi Yose, for not supporting him, was punished by exile. For his disparagement of the Romans, Rabbi Shimon was condemned to death.
Rabbi Shimon escaped with his son to a cave, where they hid for 13 years, and during this period according to later versions of the legend came the material we know as the Zohar.
kishnevi (870883) — 5/12/2015 @ 11:57 amYes. The thing about Roman self-interest is it worked out pretty well for everyone for the most part. That’s why they could keep their army small, and pushed out to the frontiers mostly.
The Roman army was brutal and ruthless. It was also surprisingly mostly not there.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/13/2015 @ 1:39 pmC. S. P. Schofield
I don’t know how you’re getting from A to B. It is perfectly legitimate for religious leaders to protest negative depictions of their faith. The cure for bad free speech is more free speech, not imprisonment.
The residents of Dayton, TN could have fired their schoolteacher, but jailing him is wrong, and inconsistent with modern first amendment law.
Kevin M
Was he? I didn’t see anywhere in the quoted language or linked article where he said government should punish Monty Python for making or showing their movie.
egd (1ad898) — 5/13/2015 @ 2:24 pm58. The Romans were ruthless and brutal to the Jews. Hadrian tried to destroy Judaism, and might be the worst antiSemite in history not named Adolf (Bar Yohai and his colleagues were survivors of that persecution which is no doubt why he had to hide for thirteen years). Jesus lived in the early phase of the confrontation, and the church came of age as it reached its climax. Part of the split between Christians and Jews came about because the Christians preferred to avoid what was happening to the Jews.
And of course if the Romans had not been so set on dominating the Jews, there would be no Second Exile, at least in that form and no Palestinian problem in the modern age. But the Romans believed in might makes right, and that therefore they had the right to loot their subjects at will via a corrupt tax scheme. Tax collectors were collaborators who got rich off their neighbors…which is why Jesus’s association with them was scandalous, and why the Talmud classifies them with thieves.
[/rant]
But that is why Judaism thinks Bar Yohai was the one who was right in that discussion.
kishnevi (91d5c6) — 5/13/2015 @ 3:17 pmI didn’t see anywhere in the quoted language or linked article where he said government should punish Monty Python
You have a strange idea of what censorship is, then. If all the theaters refuse to show it because a Christian preacher threatens to ruin them, that is still censorship. Just like the gays are doing to that hotelier.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/13/2015 @ 3:55 pmDid Mike have an opinion on The Holy Grail?
papertiger (c2d6da) — 5/13/2015 @ 4:01 pmI consider my self an ardent, if incredibly imperfect, Christian. And I loved Life of Brian (I haven’t spoken in three years, until he came along..!). Not quite as good as Holy Grail (Nee-! Nee-!), but damn funny-!
NeoCon_1 (324e03) — 5/13/2015 @ 4:49 pmkishnevi, I don’t actually disagree with you.
The Jewish revolts were actually among the exceptions.
When the Romans got done fighting each other, there were something like 66 legions. And Augustus decided that was too many. So he cut it by something like half.
So, let’s see. 66 legions cut in half times 5 thousand men per legion equals not a lot for an empire of 70 million.
I’m not defending the Roman Empire. I’m suggesting it lasted for a while for a reason.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/13/2015 @ 4:53 pmI am on your side. The Romans could be entire bastards. I am not excusing that when I point out that if they were, all the time, they would have needed more soldiers.
They weren’t just ruthless to the Jews. Bring up Boudicca.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/13/2015 @ 5:08 pmOr the druids.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/13/2015 @ 5:09 pmhttp://thechive.com/2012/04/17/beautiful-girls-of-the-israeli-army-31-photos/
I’m still a bit grumpy about the Haifa port visit and the IDF chick who was hung up on the mixed marriages.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/13/2015 @ 5:32 pmPer Wikipedia, Augustus made it 25 legions, although later it got back to 33 legions of 5500 men each. Don’t know if the legion lost in the Teutoburger forest disaster counts and I have seen mentions that in the early phase of the War of the Destruction (ie, 66 CE) the Zealots came close to wiping out another. But also per Wiki, the auxilia were equal in numbers to the legions, with a total strength of 250,O00.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_army
And gives the overall population as 45.5 million in 14CE though I did see mentions of the 70 million you give.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire
That gives a figure of one soldier to every 182 civilians
Quick comparison of active US military to total population gives the comparable figure as 1:228
http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=united-states-of-america
This post has been brought to you by the folks at Too Much Time on My Hands Inc.
kishnevi (37d538) — 5/13/2015 @ 5:37 pmHerman the German actually took out three legions. To the last man. This comment brought to you by son of Godzilla.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/13/2015 @ 5:42 pmAre we having an argument, kishnevi?
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/13/2015 @ 5:51 pmKevin M
So now not only is censorship active suppression, but refusing to give business to someone you disagree with is censorship.
That’s utterly ridiculous.
egd (1ad898) — 5/13/2015 @ 5:52 pmRefusing to give your business to someone you disagree with is fine. Threatening to ruin them if they don’t comply with your demands is censorship. Especially if the people whose business you’re threatening to take from them don’t themselves necessarily agree with you, but will obey your boycott for fear that if they don’t they will be next.
Milhouse (bdebad) — 5/13/2015 @ 6:09 pmMilhouse says it better than I could, but yeah.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/13/2015 @ 6:34 pmSteve@69…Ha! A little voice in my head said three legions, but I thought that can’t be right.
We can’t have an argument. I don’t have time for one. Remember I said I was going to be TSA’d? Tomorrow is the first day. I will be back home on Sunday, so heckling will be only intermittent until then.
(Test Steve’s knowledge base time). One stop will be Sailor’s Creek.
kishnevi (adea75) — 5/13/2015 @ 6:56 pmMore to the point, egd, here’s your original comment:
But then you seem to jump to an conclusion that what he really said he would punish the theatres with some sort of peaceful boycott. That’s not in the quoted language or linked article either, and I don’t think it’s at all reasonable to think that’s what he meant. Especially in light of what happened in Columbia SC, which Patterico linked to. That was not a boycott, it was outright censorship. Not by government, but I’m sure you’ll agree it was censorship all the same. Government is not the only source of force, and it’s far from the worst.
Milhouse (bdebad) — 5/13/2015 @ 7:37 pmIf he had threatened to bomb their theaters or kill them, then it is censorship. Organized boycotts are not censorship. Individuals are free to follow or not follow his suggestion to stay away from the theater.
Using violence, either privately or under the guise of government, to prevent speech is the kind of behavior we want to prevent when we condemn censorship. Shutting people up who speak out is not the kind of behavior we want to condone.
Even if Huckabee were advocating censorship, he didn’t have the power or wherewithal to actually prevent the theater from showing the movie. They could have shown the movie and dealt with the (possible) loss of business.
I don’t agree that it was censorship. On the one hand, there was no threat of boycott or government action. On the other hand, the fact that it was a Senator contacting the theater could have created a reasonable fear in the theater owners that the government would somehow punish them if they showed the movie.
And I don’t see how Patterico could so quickly conclude that the Senator’s behavior was unconstitutional. Government officials don’t surrender their right to free speech because of their employment. He should be well aware of this.
egd (1ad898) — 5/15/2015 @ 7:14 am