Liberals are liars and hypocrites, too

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup at KOS

Says Meteor Blades, Danny Goldberg at Alternet explains why criticizing Zero Dark Thirty is not an assault on free expression.

But, of course, no one said it was and criticizing Zero Dark Thirty is not the issue.

Why Criticizing 'Zero Dark Thirty' Is Not an Assault on Free Expression

As a long-time defender of the rights of artists -- including controversial ones -- I find it intellectually dishonest for champions of Zero Dark Thirty to pretend that serious criticism of the film amounts to an assault on free expression.

Responding to public statements by actors Ed Asner, Martin Sheen and David Clennon urging Academy members to refrain from voting for Zero Dark Thirty, Columbia Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal said "to punish an artist's right of expression is abhorrent."

Talk about egregious and bold intellectual dishonesty.

And what would DG say about a conservative effort to deny a movie any awards because it endorsed homosexuality and condemned Christianity?

Or because, like Reds, it was a full-length hymn of praise for Bolshevism and the Russian Revolution?

Or because, like JFK, it was such a shocking heap of malevolent lies?

What would he say about efforts to deny awards to Piss Christ or various other “works of art” to which conservatives in general and Christians in particular volubly protest?

Well, what have liberals said about such efforts?

Per DG, Ed Asner, Martin Sheen and David Clennon (Who?) have urged the academy members not to vote for Zero Dark Thirty, apparently for any of the various awards the academy can bestow upon a film.

The point, I suppose, is to enlist Hollywood whether it will or no in damning torture, to erect the lie that torture never obtains useful information into a dogma for which support on every occasion is mandatory, and to visit exemplary punishment on all those associated with the film for not clearly and unmistakably damning torture and supporting that dogma.

It is the usual liberal effort to punish non-PC-compliant expression that liberals always insist doesn’t count as censorship though similar conservative efforts to punish blasphemy, for example, most certainly do.

For DG and, I suppose, for MB, the central issue is how this film affects popular opinion about the use of torture and the film deserves to be criticized for – according to him and, so far as I know, every liberal who has checked in with an opinion – either giving the false impression torture was in fact or at least may have been useful in getting OBL or supporting the false opinion that it is a necessary tool of national security.

For him, that makes such punitive efforts as those of Asner and Sheen perfectly legitimate.

And for Asner, Sheen, Clennon (Who?), and also Meteor Blades.

So they deny it is what it is - an attack on freedom of expression in Hollywood - and pretend it is what it is not - "serious criticism."