Long ago, Bill Maher said something I didn't like, but had a hard time disagreeing with. It does take a certain kind of courage, an evil kind, a world-hating kind of courage to commit the attacks of 9-11. Courage, the commitment of soul and body to a clearly dangerous or life-ending action, can be bent to many purposes. Destroying thousands of people, and running toward and into those towers both took courage. One act was evil, one act was saintly.
I didn't want Maher kicked off the air.* I do want Limbaugh kicked off the air. For me, there's a difference that neither the ACLU nor Maher want to see.
Maher spoke his truth, and the truth. Courage is not a straightforwardly good thing. It's a quality of action, and even bad actions can take courage.
I mean, he's right. I really does not take courage to sit in a control station in the US and guide a drone in Pakistan. It's just doesn't. It might be an honorable thing to do, but it does not take guts to do it.
Limbaugh chose a rhetorical angle for ratings. That's his job. And he went one too far this time. His consistent references to feminists as feminazis are political, and annoying, but fair. Even clever. Calling a woman he's never met (and that's all I'm going to say about what he said) a slut, for three days, is personal attack, slander, and astonishing bad manners.
Now, what they have in common. Both of these media hosts committed acts of bad manners for which they were/are censured (not censored -- please note) by the public. Media broadcasts happen in a communal space, and one in which more than a host's target audience is listening. And if they hear you say FUCK around their kids, those other listeners are likely to tell you to watch your mouth. If they have any courage at all.
Because as a media host, answering to the public to which you speak, is, in fact, part of your job. Media hasn't been a one way messaging tool for a very, very long time now.
The fact of it is that birth control pills, which are used for all kinds of serious medical conditions as well, cost about $360 a year.** If you're in graduate school and have painful ovarian cysts, it would be really awesome if your insurance company would pony up for that co-pay. On a grad school budget, $360 is a lot of money. If you're on any financial razor's edge, that is money you have to think hard about spending. And, even if you just want to fuck-for-fun, that is way less of a burden to an insurance company's bottom line than the cost of pre-natal care, delivery, and the health care of that kid. If I were an insurance company CEO, I would be delighted with this particular mandate, which is why you haven't heard diddly from the insurance lobby about this burdensome mandate, fewer babies means more profit --- but I digress.
The ACLU might have said that Limbaugh gets to say what he wants, but the gov'ment is not going after Limbaugh, and the gov'ment did not go after Maher. The community did and is. And now, we have the tools to do that very, very loudly. We're all media hosts.
And like all communities, sometimes this community of media hosts will get it right, and sometimes we will get it wrong.
What's happening to Limbaugh is that he stuck his cigar into the wrong controversy at the wrong time. Women, it turns out, really don't want governments, or men, or insurance companies, or churches telling us what we can and can't have in terms of health care, or when and whom to fuck, or when and why to have children. We don't want our doctors to have the right to LIE TO US if they think that lie might prevent us of having an abortion (in both Arizona and Kansas, so far). It turns out this is really a bridge too far. And we said so. We brought the pressure. We exercised our moral agency. Like adults. We don't want to live in a climate of fear. One of the motives of feminism is that women are really tired of having to fear men. It gets in the way of loving them.
Now, did that action take courage? Have we, any of us, gone up to Limbaugh and personally told him what an unconscionable asshat we think he is? I haven't. I did publicly put my name on several petitions. I'm on the record. But that's all.
But those differences aren't helping me with the problem here. The problem here is that Maher wants Limbaugh on the air for first amendment reasons, and I LOVE the first amendment. Love it. The problem is that when a fellow citizen, or a whole bunch of us at once, tells someone that they should watch their mouths -- that's not a first amendment infraction. It's speech, it's an expression (in this case) of a community standard, and it can have real effects on real people in real and lasting ways.
So there's my answer to my problem.
Maher should not have been kicked off the air because he just hurt some people's feelings, at a time when they were really easy to hurt. The problem they had with Maher wasn't the solid logic of his statement, it was that he didn't seem to be sad and hurt enough, he didn't seem as freaked out as most of us were. Maher didn't say what we wanted to hear. And to that we should have put on our big-people pants and argued back. I mean, Maher can get up on his logical high horse sometimes and forget that he's also pushing (or intend to) emotional buttons.***
Limbaugh stuck his cigar into a matter that attacks women's health, sides with people who want us to live in fear of them, who want us not to trust our doctor's, to have sex only for procreation. (In which case, who is going to use all that Viagra???) They really want to hurt us for adhering to their religious or moral principles and beliefs. You can tell because these laws have hugely negative effects on us physically, emotionally, and financially. Limbaugh is adding to climate of fear for women, and he's doing it not because he believes in any thing, but just for the cash.
And that too is not courage.
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UPDATE: The Arizona law would make it possible for any employer to FIRE a woman for using birth control, even if she paid it for it herself, against the employer's moral objections. Yes, folks, your boss could be in charge of your private life. And this is where all this is going. Control of women is one of the goals here. And that's just bonus points, just gravy, just lagniappe. The real goal here is to kill the Affordable Care Law.
That your personal life, or your own moral values or religious beliefs would be subject to the objections of the CEO of your corporation, and that your use of pills or condoms would be subject to inspection, I suppose, by your manager -- that is just sprinkles on the cupcake.
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* Yes, I was one of those un-American's who knew that there was more historical context to those attacks than simply a bunch of psychotic and hell-bent America haters deciding it was time to destroy us. Though, there are and were a bunch of psychotic and hell-bent America haters and I have no problem with hunting them. Though, I think drones and big footprint ops are the wrong way to do the hunting.
** If you don't know how birth control pills work, you might ask your state legislature or school board why that information was not in your abstinence only sex education course. Hint: they do not work like Viagra (which is covered for co-pays).
*** His show actually has a pedagogical goal, and that is to teach people to separate emotional responses from logical conclusions. His schtick is pretty intense, actually, because he's doing exactly, and strictly, what Socrates and Plato wanted us to learn about thinking logically.****
**** Problem is these are matters of moral reasoning, and that's a little fuzzier and more emotional than just straight up logic -- which is what hurt about Maher's courage argument. Most Americans were in no kind of shape for a coldly logical argument that week.
