Unilateral disarmanent

Regarding this post, a friend writes:

I disagree with your post. You say: "A boycott is a serious measure- it seeks to silence the boycotted show instead of engaging and defeating its ideas. It's a viable tool when the ideas that we seek to silence are so atrocious, like Nazism or something, sure- let's boycott." I think you need to differentiate between state action in silencing speech/ideas, on the one hand, and concerted, community conduct that seeks to silence speech, on the other. With respect to the former, I agree that an extremely high bar ought to be set, if at all, for boycotting or restricting speech. With respect to the latter--concerted, community conduct--I disagree that you can't or "shouldn't" institute a boycott unless the ideas are atrocious.

Here's why. Generally, to have your voice heard widely in the market place of ideas you need to appeal to mainstream companies that will advertise on your program or newspaper. In other words, companies that feel that the folks listening to your show will like their product/service and, more important for purposes of this discussion, that their product/service will not be tarnished by its sponsorship of your show. The system thus is geared, as a general matter, to moderate the views of folks who are attempted to disseminate their views--or, at the very least, the system sets some outer limits to the views that are capable of being expressed through mass media, like television.

This is a good thing--you still have a First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression--you just don't have a right to the financing to disseminate your views in the broadest manner possible. To the extent that boycotting becomes overused, moreover, people will simply stop participating or companies that advertise will stop caring--so there is probably a natural limit to its use.

I submit that this is positive state-of-affairs, and, I might add, a mechanism that serves to limit both left-wing shills and liars and right-wing shills and liars. Under your proposal, however, Republicans can take full advantage of boycotting, while Democrats do not--all for some unspecified, nebulous "high-ground." In the mean time, Republicans are disseminating fully all manner of views at the expense of Democratic views.

I think that this position is somewhat better suited to back in the day when King Arthur Flour or whoever sponsored an entire show. Nowadays, I think most advertising is done in a hands-off manner- advertisers essentially look not to the content of shows but to a set of demographics that they want to put X number of "points" of advertising in front of, and will contract with stations or local affiliates that basically say "show this Ford ad 50 times to 350,000 25-39 y.o. males" etc.

I have no problem with the general idea of not wanting to finance ideas or behavior you find offensive. I typically don't buy Coors products because the Coors family gives a lot of money to the sort of people who blow up abortion clinics. I also think it's fine to boycott Fox News- essentially don't give ratings points to the channel. I also don't buy the Weekly Standard.

I think that boycotts against advertisers are somewhat different. They're typically aimed at not just cutting into the revenue stream of the offending show, but to generate economic pressure so that the station pushes the show off the air. I agree with your distinction between state censorship and privately organized boycotts, but I still think that it's not "liberal" to try to silence one's opponent through economic pressure.

It's certainly problematic to unilaterally disarm on things like this, and I tried to make that clear in the post. This sort of thing is a real problem for the left, and very clearly manifested itself in the 2000 recount where Dems were unwilling to use the sort of tactics that the GOP did- like sending in a mob to shut down the Miami recount, or take self-contradicting positions on ballots ("we have to bend the rules to allow military voters in Pensacola to vote even if they mailed their ballots late" and "we need to hold Palm Beach voters to a strict reading of the rules"). Our refusal to use those tactics (or "squeamishness with them" to put it in a less noble fashion) had real consequences over the past 8 years. It's an issue that I very much struggle with, and one that the left must come to terms with.