Milbank to Beck: "Stop encouraging" potential murderers
July 30, 2010 2:36 pm ET by Matt Gertz
In a column that will run in Sunday's Washington Post, Dana Milbank discusses Byron Williams' aborted attempt to gun down leaders of the Tides Foundation, a group often demonized by Glenn Beck. Noting our research indicating that Beck was virtually the only one on cable or network TV talking about the organization, Milbank writes:
It's not fair to blame Beck for violence committed by people who watch his show. Yet Williams isn't the only such character with a seeming affinity for the Fox News host. In April 2009, a man allegedly armed with an AK-47, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun was charged with killing three cops in Pittsburgh. The Anti-Defamation League reported that the accused killer had, as part of a pattern of activities involving far-right conspiracy theories, posted a link on a neo-Nazi Web site to a video of Beck talking about the possibility that FEMA was operating concentration camps in Wyoming. The killings came after Beck told Fox viewers that he "can't debunk" the notion that FEMA was operating such camps -- but before he finally acknowledged that the conspiracy wasn't real.
Beck has at times spoken against violence, but he more often forecasts it, warning that "it is only a matter of time before an actual crazy person really does something stupid." Most every broadcast has some violent imagery: "The clock is ticking. . . . The war is just beginning. . . . Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government. . . . You have to be prepared to take rocks to the head. . . . The other side is attacking. . . . There is a coup going on. . . . Grab a torch!. . . . Drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers. . . . They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered. . . . They are putting a gun to America's head. . . . Hold these people responsible."
Beck has prophesied darkly to his millions of followers that we are reaching "a point where the people will have exhausted all their options. When that happens, look out." One night on Fox, discussing the case of a man who killed 10 people, Beck suggested such things were inevitable. "If you're a conservative, you are called a racist, you want to starve children," he said. "And every time they do speak out, they are shut down by political correctness. How do you not have those people turn into that guy?"
Here's one idea: Stop encouraging them.
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I've always believed Beck is really acting...the problem is, and this was what happened when Limbaugh's popularity grew, is that a large segment of Beck's viewers not only believewhat he says its likely their main source of information.
Couple this with the fact that Obama has brown skin, and the fear and ignorance that fosters...well, Milbank is spot-on here
I'm no lawyer, but I also feel that the way
Beck and others skirt the line of their various slanders,
incitements to violence (Limbaugh, to name another)
should also prompt some legal scrutiny.
My gut tells me their speech often goes beyond
the "protected" kind.
Stop encouraging them? Mr. Milbank, you're not cynical enough, it's an election year. If they're not spitting-angry, how else do you get them to vote Republican?
Stop encouraging them? Mr. Milbank, you're not cynical enough, it's an election year. If they're not spitting-angry, how else do you get them to vote Republican?
"See? I must be telling the truth exposing the Evil Barack Empire!! THEY are trying to shut me up! Don't be surprised if I am suddenly off the air one day!"
Republican playbook tactic #1: Play the Victim
Don't worry, Glenn - you'll still have your mass rallies. Right now, you do your little comedy spiel - but we know that Aug 28 will be the day you finally break out and start holding political rallies! Why, soon you may be filling stadiums the size of Nuremberg's!
Seriously - this guy is close to modeling himself on Hitler. He evens apes him on the cover of his book! The only difference is that it will be "Progressives" who have to go to the camps.
It will just be to make them work, after all. They just sit around collecting welfare and entitlements and telling everybody else what to do, blaming all the problems in the country on the REAL Americans, those "racists" who actually DO all the work and EARN a living. Work camps for Progressives will make them finally contribute to this society, instead of just taking from it. They can go to classes where Prof. Barton can teach them the TRUTH, not that secular hogwash they were fed in our socialist-run schools.
Hail Beck!
This man is an accessory to the murder of the police officer in Pittsburgh. Beck should be in jail or deported as a domestic terrorist.
He's a radical who's inciting violence against public safety officials.
The correct phrase is Reactionary or Conservative Reactionary and not Radical. Reactionary is the term for extreme conservatism like Beck (and fascism).
Benito Mussolini said: A wacko, nut job by any other name would smell just as bad.
Beck, STFU before more get hurt.
If we were talking about an isolated incident, this is a reasonable position. When a pattern of violent behavior by people clearly responding to specific examples of Beck's rhetoric (as Williams' targeting of the Tides foundation), I believe he absolutely should be held responsible, as should his employers.
Since these asses take it right up to the line and scream "Free Speech Rights" maybe we should establish a newer precedent for just where that line should be.
Personally, I'd like to reprise Laurence Olivier's role in Marathon Man.
So tell me, Glenda, "Is it safe?"
I would like to see Beck find a place in obscurity like Father Coughlin and Joe McCarthy. we can hope.
Could a commenter who is better versed in the legal limitations of free speech, please weigh in on when incitement to violence causes a person to become at least partially responsible for the violence that ensues. I remember a case (I believe from the '80s) where a white supremacist was held accountable for skinhead violence in either Oregon or Washington because he and the materials that he produced were shown to have played a significant role in the skinheads behavior/training. The Southern Poverty Law Center brought the case and won.
Tom Metzger, Wikipedia