【Second Opinion】Clearing the Public Square in Hong Kong and the United States (Mark Simon)
There is no more damaging character charge in civil society than the label of racist.
Within the nastiest and most hateful of those I have met in my life, racism has always been at their core. Nothing tears a society apart more quickly than racial mistrust. As such, the racist is rightfully shunned and disregarded in public discourse.
So when someone is called a racist I take it seriously. If true, I think this disqualifies that person from a life in terms of elected or appointed public office or even a position of rank in the private sector.
Last week, former Mexican Ambassador to China, now a Washington DC political consultant, Jorge Guajardo, accused conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson of racism based on a screed Carlson delivered against former President Obama. Carlson asked Obama to name the benefits of diversity that Obama was praising as part of an attack on Donald Trump.
Guajardo took his cue to attack Carlson for the above comments from Media Matters, a left wing media advocacy group, which has as a goal the dilution of conservative commentary in the public square. Guajardo bolstered his charge of racism by how he had been a neighbor of Carlson, with Carlson even throwing him a house warming party years early. Guajardo wondered if Carlson would have thrown the party if Guajardo had been of a darker skin tone.
The attack was personal and meant to damage Carlson. Guajardo completed his attack with a follow up comment that Carlson had become a racist since joining Fox News, a conservative news outlet the American Left despises.
An attack on the person became a political attack on an opposition institution. This is no different from when the United Front in Hong Kong attacks this paper's columnists, with a side comment to shut Apple Daily as the platform for those columnists.
Just as I do not agree with all Apple Daily's columnists, I think Carlson is wrong in not seeing that America is stronger because of our many heritages. But I do not think he is a racist nor do I think his commentary outside the bounds of civil discourse. I also know a number of people at Fox News, and they are not racists.
The same applies to Apple Daily. We are not independence activists nor are we outside civil discourse in Hong Kong.
My argument with Guajardo was déjà vu, as I only needed to change out the names to replicate the arguments used in keeping discussions of democracy alive in Hong Kong.
CCP and Media Matters use the same tactics. Attack the person, and then drive it through to the institution that is the real target. Sadly, they also have the same goal, to push opponents into silence and out of the public square.
I do not know if it is progress that the CCP is forced to use the tactics of the American Left. Yet I do think it's sad the American Left has equaled with the CCP in its desire to drive opponents from public debate.
Yes, there are awful statements and bad ideas that surface in the public square. In response I have no qualms with the crushing of a bad idea or a loud rebuke of uncivil comments. However this is best done by discussion, and not attempting to muffle an idea or voice before a word is uttered.
The public square is where opponents meet in civil and open conversation. It is the battleground of ideas without the horrors of actual battles. To lose access to the public square leads us not to pacification, rather for those on the fringe, those with ideas not accepted by others, those removed from the public square, it leads to the streets.