THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 9, 1995 TAG: 9506080018
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
The past week has brought instances of the kind of free speech we need more of, from Bob Dole, and the kind we need less of, from G. Gordon Liddy.
Senate Majority Leader Dole denounced entertainment awash in vulgarity and violence. His motives may have been political and his examples ill-chosen, but this is a subject that deserves discussion and he started one.
Censorship isn't the issue, consumerism is. Laws aren't needed to stop the culture from being debased, just millions of individual buying decisions by people - particularly parents - who change the channel and refuse to subsidize sleazy recordings and films.
It doesn't hurt if leaders - political, religious and cultural - make an issue of entertainment that crosses the line.
At the other end of the spectrum is speech that doesn't help improve the public dialogue in this divided country: remarks by talk-radio felon G. Gordon Liddy, who encouraged gun zealots to break the law.
Liddy has already counseled listeners to shoot to kill ATF agents if they ever raid their homes unannounced. More sensible advice would be to put up one's hands and call a good lawyer. But Liddy's stock in trade is not sanity but inflammatory rhetoric.
Sunday, Liddy urged gun owners who possess banned firearms to ``refuse to be disarmed.'' That is, defy the law and presumably resist its enforcement. Liddy said that ``any law which infringes on your right to keep and bear arms, any arm of your choice, is unconstitutional, just don't obey the damned law.''
Those inclined to take such advice should recall that Liddy's view of what's constitutional is not as authoritative as that of the Supreme Court. Liddy's listeners can practice civil disobedience by resisting the law and taking the consequences. But the responsible way to test gun laws thought to infringe the Second Amendment is in court, not in the streets.
Few Americans possess the sorts of weapons disallowed. The owner of a legal gun has no reason to fear government agents out to confiscate weapons. But in Liddy's overheated imagination, ``they want to disarm you.'' And his solution is massive resistance. ``They're not going to put 100 million Americans in jail.'' But are 100 million Americans at risk? No.
Such talk will rightly be seen as laughable by the average law-abiding gun owner, but it risks inflaming the passions of heavily armed paranoiacs and could lead to violence against law-enforcement personnel who have a tough enough job already. Oklahoma City reminds us such people are abroad in the land.
For that reason, Liddy's remarks are tantamount to yelling fire in a crowded theater. Maybe only a few excitable listeners will panic, but they can cause a lot of damage.
As an ex-FBI agent, Liddy should know better than to feed the fantasies of those not securely tethered to reality. But Liddy long ago traded law enforcement for law breaking and now makes his living from fearmongering. He's entitled to speak, but he deserves to be scorned for speech so irresponsible. by CNB