Davis Merritt: Social media give mindless speech a free pass

Are more and more Americans taking leave of their senses? Are the real and imagined stresses of modernity finally getting to us? Or has the medium finally become the message?

At least three recent events of varying significance suggest the third alternative. In ascending order of their import:

▪  Kansas Republican Party executive director Clay Barker’s coarse and small-minded attack on Chloe Hough, a Topeka waitress who wrote on Gov. Sam Brownback’s restaurant bill, “Tip the schools,” then posted it on Facebook. Barker, claiming to reflect “what everyone is thinking” about the waitress, wrote of her “arrogant stupidity and utter ignorance” on a TV station’s Facebook page.

▪  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order for the Texas State Guard to “monitor” U.S. training exercises this summer because of some paranoid Texans’ conviction – spread by social media and stoked by an exploitative radio conspiracy theorist – that the maneuvers by special forces disguise a plan to take over the state and confiscate everyone’s guns, perhaps with help from imported ISIS fighters.

▪  Anti-Muslim online hatemonger Pamela Geller’s rationalization that she actually saved lives by sponsoring a prophet Muhammad cartoon contest because the two would-be terrorists shot dead by a security guard would have picked another, unguarded target and killed innocent civilians. Geller also claimed that the deliberately provocative event with its $10,000 first prize was an important exercise of First Amendment rights, not mere taunting.

It would be tempting to laugh off the mindlessness of everybody involved, and 30 years ago we could have.

Thirty years ago, GOP executive Barker might have called the waitress ignorant and stupid in private, but he would have thought at least twice about calling a press conference to deliver his classless and gratuitous insult. She would have left her message with the governor and, perhaps, told a couple of friends. In this digital age, however, they each had instant access to the world and, without bothering to think deeply about implications, dove in.

Thirty years ago, some Texans might have been wary of an unusual appearance by the U.S. military in their counties, but mainstream media would not have reinforced their private irrationality. In this digital age, the fear went viral with such heat and speed that the governor felt it necessary to placate the chatterers by ordering the State Guard to keep an eye on things. In doing so, he failed to point out that Texas is already home to almost 200,000 U.S. military personnel.

Thirty years ago, Geller would have been a slightly loony, even pitiable woman known to no one outside her immediate circle. In this digital age, her hatred and unreasoning fear of all Muslim things and people are expressed mainly through an organization she heads called the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Built on the framework of the Internet and fed by contributions from Americans aroused by her flaming rhetoric, it’s much more than self-sustaining. In her 2013 tax return, Geller reported taking in almost a million dollars. She gave herself a $192,500 salary. Virulence pays.

Another common thread in those anecdotes: All the players – Hough, Barker, the fearful Texans, Abbott, Geller – were exercising First Amendment rights. But having that right and a medium to exploit it doesn’t make all speech right. Nor does it make all speech deserving of attention. So let’s not.

This story was originally published May 11, 2015 at 7:01 PM with the headline "Davis Merritt: Social media give mindless speech a free pass."