I hope you’ve been paying attention to the fevered attempt to take down Tucker Carlson. This would be quite the coup for the left: They’ve already celebrated the body-slam of former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, they’re currently holding Jeanine Pirro in a head-lock, and to pin Tucker Carlson would fill them with unholy glee.
This serves as a perfect lesson of why leftism is incompatible with Catholic social teaching . This branch of moral theology is based on the principles of human dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity – all of which guide us as we navigate our lives as political and social animals. At this moment, the left is treating us to a real-time demonstration of bare-faced duplicity. Plus, operating as a bully mob, they are employing that duplicity as a means to censor conservative thought. These actions are an affront to the foundational principles of the Church’s social doctrine.
Carlson is only one of many conservative journalists targeted by biased media and left-wing politics. The current mission is to thoroughly gut and destroy Fox News, not only by targeting their journalists and hosts, but also by encouraging advertisers to boycott Fox. A staffer for Media Matters spent hundreds of hours watching the Tucker Carlson show and digging through old videotapes, her sole intention to find enough “dirt” on him to destroy his career. Enter “Bubba the Love Sponge” Todd Clem, a businessman and radio “shock jock” with a successful show and substantial fan base.
Between 2006 and 2011, Tucker Carlson was frequently a guest on the Love Sponge radio show, and yes, he made some shocking and even inappropriate statements. But of course! That was (and still is) the essence of that radio show: Shock, provoke, and titillate. No need to condone or excuse any of it, but it was intended to entertain a particular audience at a particular time. You know, Like Saturday Night Live.
Uh huh. Saturday Night Live – infamous for its capacity to shock, provoke, and titillate.
So, let’s examine the duplicity. Though conservatives and liberals are all lampooned on SNL, the show is a favored media platform used by the left to shape viewers’ political opinions. The same people who are feigning horror and disgust over Tucker Carlson’s past gig have no objection to SNL’s ribald humor, bawdy skits, and indecorous comedic approach to racial or cultural differences. Nor do these same people have any objection to the same variety of black-hearted humor and lewd language that audiences hear from Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert (both of who claim to be Catholic, by the way). Anything Tucker Carlson said a decade ago on Bubba the Love Sponge was no more shocking than what is aired on those other entertainment venues. In fact, SNL, Kimmel, and Colbert habitually use language far more profane than anything heard from Carlson; their modus operandi is provocative and lewd entertainment.
No, the left has absolutely no problem with off-color humor or crude language, but they will pretend they do if it fuels their vendetta against those who question their political agenda. Their supposed revulsion is a deliberate sham, and it’s directed toward those of us who understand the immorality of profanity, prejudice, and prurience. Don’t fall for it; this faction wants to commandeer your sense of decency and use you as a weapon in their arsenal.
This is nothing more than a ploy to destroy a man they see as their political adversary because he raises legitimate questions about liberalism, a man who acknowledges his past indiscretions and has moved above and beyond. The left simply hates Tucker Carlson because he’s a threat to their power.
Not only is duplicity on full display, we are witnessing willful lying, a faction that pretends certain reprehensible language and statements made by one man were offensive and intolerable. However, the same and worse is not at all offensive nor intolerable when made by persons who share their political agenda. Where was the indignation when Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) made abhorrent anti-semitic comments? Or when she suggested that Trump isn’t human? What about when Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich) referred to the president as a motherf__er? Nothing. Apparently none of that was offensive to left.
To be very clear, the left is engaged in an overt attack on human dignity. Lying and feigning emotion diminishes that person’s dignity; the determination to ruin a man’s reputation and career is an affront to his dignity; the refusal to forgive past wrongs (non-criminal) is a dismissal of human dignity; and denying people the right to use their intellect to freely discern his or her beliefs is the oppression of human dignity.
Furthermore, the ultimate goal is not only to silence Tucker Carlson, it’s to destroy conservative news sources and attain a leftist news monopoly.
The majority of mainstream news media sources have already become a political arm of leftist politics, and leftist politicians will not be satisfied until all dissenting voices have been suppressed. This is censorship at its worst. There is good reason that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects a free press: One of the first ways a totalitarian government seizes power is to gain control of the media.
When one political faction is able to monopolize news sources we lose balanced discourse, and we are no longer free to discern what is best for the common good. Human beings are called to use conscience and intellect together to discern how government can best serve society.
The Church clearly states that each individual human person exists ”with” and “for” others, and each bears the responsibility for attaining the common good. This is the heart of solidarity. When one faction limits or suppresses news sources, they limit and suppress solidarity. How can we share in the charitable care and service toward others if one particular political faction assumes control of determining what is just and good for society? Pope Benedict XVI clarified the principle of solidarity in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate when he stated that “Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State.”
If the left succeeds in gutting Fox News, it’s a death-knell for our constitutional right to free press. What then remains is a one-party media, an environment of indoctrination, and the roots of totalitarianism. Moreover, this is the rejection of free will and the suppression of human intellect. We are witnessing the violation of human dignity and an affront to our solidarity as human persons—the complete contempt of Catholic Social Justice.