I love NPR. And if I didn’t live in a big city, I’d be more passionate about cutting federal support for what is truly an essential public service in small-town and rural American (public radio is essential here in New York City, too–but it would survive just OK without federal funding).
This is from Glen Beck’s website: an analysis of the shenanigans involved in editing the “sting” of the NPR fund raiser. It’s actually pretty damning. And not to NPR or Ron Shiller.
Of course, if NPR did what Pam Key of The Blaze did, it would be dismissed by the right-wing as biased left-wing propaganda (“consider the source” is always one of my favorite non-arguments). But considering thissource, I’d say it’s hard to argue with. Kudos to Key for this and other stories, such as: “What You Didn’t See: NPR Execs… Proud of GOP Past, Love Fiscal Conservatism, Compare Fairness Doctrine to Communist Russia & Defend Intellect of Fox Viewers.”
I haven’t watched the two hour version. Nor do I plan to. But if I were a betting man, I’d guess I’ve probably said everything Ron Schiller said. So what? I’ve said a lot of things. Why Schiller and NPR caved so quickly because of a misleadingly edited video is another issue. Maybe we liberals really are cheese-eating surrender monkeys after all. Or maybe NPR isn’t that liberal. Probably the former.
"Maybe we liberals really are cheese-eating surrender monkeys after all."
It pains me greatly, but, looking at how things have gone in this country the past 30 years, I don;t see a better explanation.
I've been thinking about this tendency of liberals to fold at the first sign of resistance a lot lately (it's hard not to). I've also been poking around at the political psychology site yourmorals.org . According the the survey results starting to show up on this site, self-identified liberals and conservatives both see themselves as having positive moral traits. The difference comes when considering negative moral traits. Here The more conservative, the more less negative moral traits people view themselves as having.
I think this difference is one of the major causes of traditionally liberal groups folding in the face of criticism. The more you see negative traits in yourself, the more likely you are to fold when accused of improper behavior.
Now this is tempered by the fact that I came up lower on positive traits than and higher on negative traits than either liberals or conservatives. So maybe the real surrender monkeys are those in the middle who can see both sides…then again maybe I'm wrong (there I go, giving in).
Maybe. I always like to keep in the back of my mind the possibility that I might be wrong. And I like to think that is a good trait.
Maybe the link to surrender is different. Maybe it has something to do with liberals liking to believe that everybody's beliefs have value.
So if somebody really believes something really strongly, it must have more value? And if it has more value, then you can't go telling them to abandon their values. And what if what you believe in really strongly in the value of compromise, trying to please everybody, and working toward a greater truth?
Conservatives, on the hand, value "conviction" and generally have no problem casually passing judgment and dismissing the values of people they disagree with.
If it's "can't we all just get along" liberalism versus "there's a culture/terror/drug/immigration war going on and I'm not going to back down" conservativism, then liberals will eventually cave in, in some ideological urge to compromise.