I first learned of Joy Reid when I heard her on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. Hewitt is conservative, but he often invites lefties on his show. Reid is a lefty, but she’s spunky and articulate, so I enjoyed listening to the interview even though I disagreed with just about everything she said.
Reid is the managing editor of TheGrio.com and a political columnist for the Miami Herald. She also writes a blog called the Reid Report.
Following the recent cultural dust up over A&E’s suspension of Phil Robertson, the star of its wildly successful reality show Duck Dynasty, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana made a statement critical of the cable channel. In response to Jindal’s statement, Joy Reid published an open letter to the governor. As usual, Reid is spunky, but wrong. In defense of the governor, I have written an open letter to Joy Reid in the same, well, spunky style.
Dear Mrs. Joy Reid:
It’s me, Konabianca. Mind if I call you Sweetie? Barack Obama calls lady writers “Sweetie,” and I know how much you admire him.
You were pretty tough on the governor, Sweetie, accusing him of being ignorant and not knowing that the First Amendment restrains the government and not a cable channel. But I read the whole statement, and he’s clearly not claiming a violation of the Constitution. He’s pointing out the appalling cowardice and hypocrisy of the media.
Here’s the part of Governor Jindal’s statement that you quoted:
“The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with… [Here you removed the part in which he says he finds much that’s on TV to be offensive but tolerates it anyway] …this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views. In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.”
You see, Sweetie, as the Left has taken control of our culture, our entertainment has become cruder and cruder. And “TV networks,” as well as print media and cable channels, used to loudly defend their right to say and do just about anything on the basis of the protection provided them by the First Amendment.
I won’t list all the disgusting entertainment that I’m talking about. You know what it is. And Governor Jindal mentioned just one recent example, the degrading public sex dance of a formerly wholesome young actress. (Thanks, Lefties!) The governor’s point is that these media businesses that once fought government censors in order to air their trash are now censoring one of their biggest stars merely because he expressed an opinion about homosexual behavior that is out of favor with powerful American elites.
You don’t seem to have read the governor’s statement very carefully because after accusing the former Rhodes Scholar of not understanding the First Amendment, you next accuse him of trying to expand the government to give it control over a cable channel’s business decisions. Read his statement again. He made no such call for government intervention. After all, he is a conservative.
Then, just as I was about to give up on your reasoning skills, you ran headlong into the truth with this quote: “…freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.” Absolutely right! By definition, all our freedoms are costly. Phil Robertson has the freedom to say what he thinks, and other people are free to disagree with him and abandon him. But this works in the other direction too. People in our society are free to engage in homosexual sex and be quite open about it; other people who disapprove of this behavior must also be free to disassociate from those who practice and promote it. Nobody should ever be forced to bake a wedding cake for an event that violates his conscience. Not in America. We may be free to live as we please, but we are not free to force others to abandon their beliefs and pretend they approve of our behavior.
And finally, you have an error about Phil Robertson’s comments in your letter. You said that he is a guy who “equates LGBT Americans with people who have sex with animals.” This isn’t correct. To equate things is to say that they are the same. What Robertson actually said was “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.” He’s plainly NOT equating homosexual behavior with bestiality. To morph is to transform. When we tolerate small sins in our lives, those small sins have a way of morphing into much bigger sins. This is a profound truth that has been taught to Christians for a long, long time.
I’m surprised, Sweetie, that with your Harvard education you don’t have better reading comprehension skills. But hey, I’m just a housewife who went to public schools.
Sincerely,
Konabianca
p.s. About that “stupid party” thing. They must have taught you at Harvard that we have two major political parties in this country. Informally, they are known as the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. Given those two choices, I’ll take stupid any day.
Konabianca 