…the government would not fund a major media outlet, taking taxpayer dollars to disseminate viewpoints that are anathema to many taxpayers. As Jefferson said, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.” NPR/PBS have been an abomination for American values since their inception.

Just in case you were wondering what I thought about the Juan Williams situation. And I actually like a lot of NPR programming. But I suspect that the programming that I like would survive just fine absent federal dollars. And if not, I’d survive just fine without it.

And Juan Williams apparently agrees. You know the old saying that a conservative is a liberal who just got mugged? Well, Juan just got mugged.

[Update in the afternoon]

A proposal for a “Juan Williams Law.”

This legislation would outlaw all government funding for any news organization, whether private or non-governmental in nature. This restriction would include not only National Public Radio but all domestic news outlets, whatever their ideology or bias, or even if they claim to have none. (I am not talking here, of course, of international operations such as Voice of America, which have the legitimate task of representing American interests abroad.)

The legislation would further outlaw any future stimulus funding or bailouts for news organizations, again irrespective of ideology.

It’s easy to understand that government financing of the news is at best unseemly and at worst totalitarian. The possibilities for corruption are myriad. I am not one to dwell on what the Founders intended, but I am reasonably certain they didn’t want a Fourth Estate that was bought and paid for by the government, even in part.

I would go further and argue that it’s a violation of the establishment clause, given the degree (and it’s a large one) to which “progressivism” is a religion. Juan was duly punished for his heresy.

They’re just wrong:

Saying the Berlin Wall fell when the world “stood as one” is na?ve and delusional. Thinking a man will be a great leader because of one speech, two books, and the crease in his pants is a sign of poor judgment.

Ignoring mass protests, plunging polls, and three huge shocks at the polls is willful stupidity. Thinking one can pass a bill that impacts everyone against the will of most of country without courting a backlash is nothing short of inane.

When this backlash occurs, it is dense beyond words to claim that this stems from a fear of “the other” (meaning non-whites and immigrants) while these rebels strive to elect blacks to the House in South Carolina and Florida, Hispanics to the Senate in Florida, Hispanics to the governors’ mansions in New Mexico and Nevada, and to elect the daughter of Indian immigrants to the state house in South Carolina, home of secession and massive resistance, where the far right gave twice as many votes to black conservative Tim Scott as to one of Strom Thurmond’s sons.

There are words to describe this, but “bright” is not one of them. This meritocracy has created an “elite” without merit. In everyone’s eyes but its own.

Some things are so stupid that only an “intellectual” could believe them.

…and the unpersuaded yahoos:

…maybe that is what defines an elite: the lip-curled reproach to anything that has come before this privileged and smug generation—tradition, faith, heroic self-denial—and the illusion that their disdain is somehow a broader and more enlightened “love.”

For the most part, the “yahoo” non-elites do not begrudge the gentry their private jets, their private clubs, and their private schools. They do, however, begrudge them the superior dismissal of their values, and the constant attempts to control how others get to live their lives.

The ineducable masses begrudge the hectoring about their taste for “gas guzzlers,” from people who ride in limos. They dislike being dismissed as “provincial” or “parochial” by people who only associate with others of the same neighborhood and mindset. They are weary of being portrayed as less compassionate, less well-meaning, gosh darn it just lesser people because they believe in giving an equal-opportunity hand-up, rather than an impossible-to-sustain equal-hand-out.

The elites don’t want to be called “elite.” But they reinforce the perception with every tax-shelter they pursue, every privilege they grasp, every tax bill they can’t be bothered to pay until they’re forced to, and when they pretend that middle-class wages are undertaxed, greedy, ignoble, selfish, and unfair.

I wouldn’t mind quite so much if they were really, you know, elite, instead of someone who managed to get a piece of paper from Harvard or Yale.