Voice in the Wilderness

YCT hoax drives activists to apoplexy and worse

The Austin blogosphere has been aflame with wrath recently about the Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) purported illegal immigration protest, which turned out to be an email hoax.

I read about the YCT “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game” at the University of North Texas and….uh, please don’t get mad at me, be offended, throw cream pies or cakes at me, call me a "bigot in training pants", or say I’m a meanly squinty-smiling white boy….I think the whole event looks pretty tame. Surely, the premise is provactive, as all conscience raising events should be. Yet the substance of the “game” is to simply to explain YCT’s opposition to President Bush’s guest worker immigration policy. It is not the type of activity I would engage in, but I hardly see how a group of whitebread college kids using lame schtick to make a point about illegal immigration is going to do anyone real harm. Is it goofy and potentially offensive? Indubitably. But is it harmful? No.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the counter protest to the YCT Texas Independence Day event Thursday. As shown on the video on the Statesman website, hundreds of counter protestors completely box-in the the 3 or 4 resolute YCTers, intimidating them with loud, angry invective designed to stilfe, not engage. Then the police had to intervene to restrain the mob. It is ugly and frightening how some leftists react toward people with whom they disagree.

The young man on the video brazenly speculated that the threat of an angry mob caused the UT YCT chapter to scrap its own “catch an illegal immigrant game”. Maybe. Or maybe he learned he had been duped by the hoax and was trying to save face for the quixotic counter protest. But even if it is the first case, that should be more troubling. The idea that shutting down unpopular speech using the heckler’s veto and physical intimidation is profoundly chilling. I am disappointed that no other local bloggers I know of have picked up on this threat to free speech festering on our local, public university campus.

Instead, several local bloggers have issued dyspeptic fulminations about the non-event.

• On the austinbloggers.org metablog, Pinkdome.com posted the slanderous assertion that members of UT YCT chapter were “bigots in training pants” on March 1 (To pinkdome.com’s credit, they wisely retracted this incendiary headline on their own site later on).
• Outlaw Liss cited an anonymous email about the YCT non-event then encouraged and celebrated physical retaliation to expressions of unpopular speech.
• Roman Candles cited the same anonymous email and effusively lamented the offensiveness of provocative protests with which she disagrees
• The Burnt Orange Report cited the same anonymous email and lambasted UT-YCT Chair Lauren Conner for having the temerity to strongly denounce the rumor. BOR goes on to say “Apparently, this email has caused the chair some negative publicity for the organization” without verifying the source or veracity of said email.
• Richard Lawrence Cohen slipstreams the hoax meme spawned by the anonymous email and proffers all sorts of hyperbole and moral equivalence, laughably comparing YCT members to abusive prison guards. Mr. Cohen then preaches to YCT that “those who are different from them… are as fully human as they are and are not to be ‘hunted’ as if they were less so. This cognitive error is responsible for much of the evil that human beings have inflicted on each other throughout history”. I don’t mean to sound too harsh to Mr. Cohen. From the posts on his blog, he seems like a bright, earnest and articulate man. Yet, is he aware that his condemnation of a YCTer, someone who is politically different from him, as “pudgy, meanly squinty-smiling white college boy” may have helped create a “cognitive error” on the part of the intimidating and violent counter protesters?

Curiously, many of the same critics were of a different mind during another, well publicized protest, the Congress Avenue march on January 20, 2005. The the next day, the Austin American Statesman printed the following story:

Inauguration protest shuts downtown bridge
At least one vehicle was damaged and three people were arrested Thursday when more than 1,000 demonstrators protesting the presidential inauguration marched from the capitol building to the Congress Avenue bridge.

Police briefly tried to contain the demonstrators, who did not have a permit, then closed the bridge to automobile traffic in both directions for about an hour until the demonstrators peacefully dispersed about 6:40 p.m. Police estimated the crowd at 1,500.

Given that this article is from the liberal Statesman, that is a pretty damning description. KeathMilligan.net does a splendid job of capturing the mayhem on video. The same spirit of anger, rebellion and intimidation is present in the Congress Avenue march as the YCT counter protest. Illegally disrupting downtown traffic and business is bad, damaging other people’s possessions and getting arrested are worse, and yelling “pig” at policemen is repulsive and base.

Given the real damage and ugliness caused by Austin’s professional protester class, you would think local bloggers would mete out at least the same level of vitriol for the unlawful, Congress Avenue march as they did for the entirely legal, peaceful, constitutionally-protected, if quirky, YCT immigrant protest. So what exactly were YCT’s critics talking about the day after the Congress Avenue debacle?

• Outlaw Liss delivered hard-hitting commentary on the travails of Apprentice contestants.
• Roman Candles was doing penetrating, in-depth reporting on how the Norwegians think President Bush was a devil worshipper.
• Burnt Orange Report was also doing penetrating, in-depth reporting on how the Norwegians think President Bush was a devil worshipper.
• Richard Lawrence Cohen engaged inquiring minds by bringing to light his crush on New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

Maybe if they received an anonymous and inflammatory email about the march, they would have been roused to greater concern.

(Author’s note: During this time, I was blogging on the lawful and entirely peaceful Texas Rally for Life to show what a positive, constructive protest can be.)

All kidding aside, I hope the adults in authority regain their moral bearing before someone is assaulted and/or seriously hurt in a protest. Given UT's limp-wristed, Orwellian doublespeak about the YCT event (scroll through about 2/3 of the story), I fear that the UT mandarins lack the spine to protect free speech or reign in the campus ruckus raisers and their flash mobs.

Are any local bloggers or activists savvy enough to know that infantile outbursts like the YCT counter protest and Congress Street march provide material conservative pols will use to drive values voter turnout in the next election? Does anyone have the moral fortitude and vision to lead the local activist community in a more positive and constructive direction?

UPDATE: March 7: See "More YCT Hoax Fallout"

Anonymous Do-Gooders Seek to Save Us From Ourselves
KeathMilligan.net recently chronicled the efforts of Onward Austin, a local activist group pushing an even more draconian public smoking ban than the one that has been in place since June 2003. Onward Austin's vaguely Orwellian website features soft colors, affirming graphics, and scurrilously little information. The "About Us" link doesn't tell you a whole lot about them....at least not anything that's really useful, like

• The names of the organizers
• The names of the financial sponsors

The "Facts" link lists lots of statements that look like facts, but curiously no citations for any of the alleged facts. (Sorry, simply foisting top level URL's on the reader and making them dig through dense websites does not count as reference. That only has the form of an online citation, but denies its power).

By contrast, Keep Austin Free is eager to tell you all about themselves. The scrappy opposition, composed of several local bars, restaurants, and other businesses, is fighting valiantly against this unilateral rush to ban that could cause an economic quagmire. Prominently featured on the front page is the perpetually vest-clad James White of the Broken Spoke. 219 West owner, Paul Silver, has no problem listing his name on the home page, as well. Why is Onward Austin so clandestine?

I am no fan of smoking or the tobacco industry. Both my grandfathers passed away prematurely because of a lifetime of cigarette smoking. I wouldn't shed a tear if they all went bankrupt tomorrow.
Yet, I am perturbed by this abuse of government power to micromanage legitimate individual behavior and economic activity. If you are really bothered by cigarette smoke, stay away from the Broken Spoke or avoid working at Antone's. But don't stir up public passions with questionable evidence and feel-good propaganda or hector the local government to do your bidding. By all means educate, but don't coerce. Using the government for these crusades also sets the precedent for the politicians to pursue other, big government abuses. Don't encourage them!

So what is really driving Onward Austin and other, anti-smoking proselytizers? Since they conveniently hide their identities and funding sources, it is a little hard to say. However, some of their rhetoric provides tantalizing clues:

• "For every 8 smokers the tobacco industry kills..."
• "Smoke-free policies protect our most vulnerable citizens."
• "Hospitality industry workers deserve protection from secondhand smoke as much as bankers, lawyers or office workers. "
• "...improve the lives of youth by addressing smoking initiation, promoting cessation, eliminating secondhand smoke exposure, and reducing tobacco industry influence "

In other words, the evil tobacco industry is out to exploit the vulnerable and oppress the working class. What might this tell us? Ask yourself:

• Who has it in for the tobacco industry? Perhaps trial lawyers are trying to build a body of law upon which they can launch yet another raid on the bank accounts of Big Tobacco.
• Where does the Tobacco Industry send its political contributions? If they largely favor one party, the other is probably none too pleased.
• Who is known to go around organizing campaigns that act as self-proclaimed protectors of oppressed worker? What kind of compensation have they received for their efforts and from whom?
• Based on the text of the proposed smoking ban, who might stand to gain financially?

In anticipation of the vote on this smoking ordinance, it would be helpful if local news organizations with staff and resources would track down the answers to these questions. However, judging from the Statesman's desultory coverage today, I am not encouraged.

(For more information, check out The Facts About Second Hand Smoke and Second Hand Smokescreens.)