Michael Savage’s Islam-critical message that is not helpful
(Note: in this post I criticize Michael Savage for his bad language and what I perceive as his unseriousness, and in return I get a good talking-to by several readers who say I have not understood Savage and am being unfair to him.)
CNS News reports that “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is pressing advertisers to withdraw their sponsorship of Michael Savage’s nationally syndicated radio program because of Savage’s alleged ‘anti-Muslim bigotry.’”
CAIR quoted Savages on-air diatribe as follows:
—I’m not gonna put my wife in a hijab. And I’m not gonna put my daughter in a burqa. And I’m not getting’ on my all-fours and braying to Mecca. And you could drop dead if you don’t like it. You can shove it up your pipe. I don’t wanna hear anymore about Islam. I don’t wanna hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I’m sick of you.
—What kind of religion is this? What kind of world are you living in when you let them in here with that throwback document in their hand, which is a book of hate. Don’t tell me I need reeducation. They need deportation. I don’t need reeducation. Deportation, not reeducation. You can take C-A-I-R and throw ‘em out of my country. I’d raise the American flag and I’d get out my trumpet if you did it. Without due process. You can take your due process and shove it.
—What sane nation that worships the U.S. Constitution, which is the greatest document of freedom ever written, would bring in people who worship a book that tells them the exact opposite. Make no mistake about it, the Quran is not a document of freedom. The Quran is a document of slavery and chattel. It teaches you that you are a slave.
I strongly believe that using emotional, abusive, insulting language as Savage does is wrong and counterproductive. It is demagoguery at worst and intellectual onanism at best. With regard to a similar issue, immigration, Savage is very fiery, creating the impression that he’s a hard line restrictionist. But in fact he’s not a restrictionist but some kind of liberal on the issue. So what was all the emotion about? Just stirring people up for the sake of creating excitement, and not even having the conservative position that he seemed to have. It’s deceptive.
In the case of Islam as shown in the above quote, at least Savage accompanies his disgusting language with a substantive argument—crude though it is—and a policy. The substantive argument is that Muslims follow a religion that is antithetical to our entire political system and society. The policy is that Muslims should be deported. Now that position is obviously in need of a lot of articulation before it is a policy and not just hot air, but at its core it is fundamentally correct. Islam is in fact incompatible with our society, and therefore Muslims do in fact not belong here in large numbers. The problem is that someone who uses crude and vile language as Savage does cannot be trusted to be serious about anything. A second problem is that even if he did have a serious position, his unserious language undercuts it. It confirms in people’s minds the reigning liberal assumption that anyone who says that a culturally different or hostile group is incompatible with our society is motivated by raw hatred, rather than by a rational concern for the common good. Over the last 40 that liberal assumption has opened our borders wide and precluded any politics or even any discussion of civilizational defense. And Savage has just provided evidence that the liberal assumption is true
So thanks a lot, Mr. Savage, for combining the words “deportation” and “shove it up your behind” in the same message.
- end of initial entry -
Harry Horse writes:
Please be careful not to ascend the steps of the Ivory Tower: “It confirms in people’s minds the reigning liberal assumption that anyone who says that a culturally different or hostile group is incompatible with our society is motivated by raw hatred, rather than by a rational concern for the common good. ”
Michael Savage has 12 million listeners per week, few of which (if you listen to the calls) are as erudite as are you and your readers. Most of these folks use coarse language to express their outrage and anger (and are accustomed to hearing it). It is often the only way they know how to vocalize their rejection of leftism. They do not (nor do I) equate such discourse with “hate,” and I doubt you were intimating that it is your own belief.
Ultimately, these people will be the foot soldiers that will restore traditional values to America.
Your statement above appears to accept passively the terms of the debate as it is given by the leftists. As you know, these premises need to be rejected from the start. Savage’s value as a rejectionist is much greater than the deleterious effects of his coarseness—leftists hate the truth, regardless of how the message is delivered.
LA replies:
The fact that liberals use the charge of hatred to silence conservatives doesn’t mean there’s no such a thing as hatred which ought to be avoided. The language Savage used was indefensible. If you want to ensure that any anti-Islam movement remains marginal and impotent, then go ahead, keep encouraging Savage to talk this way.
Now, if Savage had a real position on Islam, but also used coarse language, that would be one thing. But in fact he has no real position on Islam. On one hand, he speaks as if Islam itself is this bad, terrible thing that must be rejected. On the other hand he frequently speaks of the “noble religion of Islam” and says that only “radical” Islam is the problem. So pours out this intense emotion about the subject (which sweeps up his listeners in the feeling that he’s really opposing Islam and that by listening to him they are participating in some meaningful anti-Islam politics), but lacks a minimally consistent position on it.
We end up with the worst of both worlds: a guy who uses this objectionable language about Islam, but in fact is not opposing Islam. So Savage is an angry empty suit. There are many such “conservatives” out there today.
It’s the same with Savage’s diatribes on immigration. He raves and rants on the subject, then it turns out that it’s only illegal immigration that he opposes. All that energy, directed at the no-brainer, easy-target issue of illegal immigration which costs a person NOTHING to criticize. It turns out that he actually supports our legal immigration policies! He regularly plays the violin strings of his Russian Jewish immigrant parents! In fact he supports our legal immigration policies, which, even if there were no illegal immigration, would still be turning America into a Hispanified, Islamized country. Yet he is so passionate about illegal immigration that he fools his listeners into thinking that he’s opposing immigration as such. Similarly, he denounces Hispanics, giving the impression he’s against Hispanic immigration, then it turns out that he’s only against illegal aliens.
I don’t think any useful politics can come from a lot of incoherent emotionalism, no matter how many listeners Savage has.
I’m not telling people they shouldn’t listen to Savage if they get something out of it. Maybe he helps introduce people to conservative ideas and attitudes, and they then can go on to something better. But I personally have no use for someone who contradicts himself the way Savage does.
Charles G. writes:
I agree with you that Savage does not have a coherent message. However, his audience is so browbeaten by leftist culture, they are very much emboldened by Savage, and that is definitely a positive. What I mean by this is that many erstwhile quiescent persons who would ordinarily not defend traditional American values in a liberal setting, are now beginning to do so by the very fact that Savage is on the air saying non-PC things. I have on rare occasions listened to Dr. Savage and chuckled at his crude rantings. They seem to me to do more good than harm because THAT audience is not going to read VFR and go out there to slay liberal dragons with subtle, well reasoned arguments. But they will stand up to their liberal tormentors and fling back the vitriol with an assuredness lacking 20 years ago. Same with El Slowbo. Think of them as running interference that annoys the rank and file leftists while websites like VFR eat at the guts of their core ideology. Another way to look at it is to imagine the absence of Limbaugh and Savage. Would that be better or worse for traditionalists? Worse, I think.
Daniel P. (obviously not Daniel Pipes!) writes:
I think the best reason to support Mr. Savage is that CAIR is attacking him, not so much to protect him as to deny them a victory. He is simply the first because he is an easy target.
Also in an out and out brawl reason and nuance are less likely to win than raw passion.
LA replies:
The only way we can prevail against the hostile liberal environment in which we live is to make statements we can stand by 100 percent against all attacks. If I made a statement that I realized was wrong or indefensible, I would retract it , while continuing to stand by the rest of my position.
Someone who says on radio that that Muslims should shove their religion up their rear end is making an indefensible statement. Do we want to commit ourselves to low-life garbage comments like that, or do we want to commit ourselves to the serious positions on the Islam problem that are needed to save the West?
Steven Warshawsky writes:
You write: “Do we want to commit ourselves to low-life garbage comments like that, or do we want to commit ourselves to the serious positions on the Islam problem that are needed to save the West?”
With all due respect—and very much is due, this is not meant facetiously—I do not agree that the situation we face regarding Islam or liberalism or any of the other major ideological-cultural challenges facing us today, is represented by the either-or choice that you pose.
The percentage of people who are interested in, let alone capable of, the kind of serious, refined, intellectual analysis and debate that you offer is exceedingly small. Emotions play a much larger role in most people’s lives. The strongest patriots—people with the deepest veneration of our constitutional order and love of country—rarely can articulate why they feel the way they feel. Heck, most people couldn’t even tell you what’s actually in the Constitution. Yet these people are not to be dismissed because they lack a scholar’s understanding of our history and laws and economy.
I am quite confident that the vast majority of American troops who hit the beaches at Normandy and Iwo Jima could not have given a lecture on why our way of life was superior to that of the Nazis or the Japanese, yet they fought for our country nevertheless. What’s more, I’m sure that many, if not most, of these brave, noble warriors uttered all sorts of “low-life garbage” as they went about their deadly business. As I am sure our troops in Iraq are doing as well. It’s human nature to “dehumanize” the enemy. It makes killing them easier.
In your view, does it diminish our troops’ stature, in any way, that they utter racial and ethnic epithets against the enemy? The Left certainly thinks so. If you agree, why? If you do not agree, then why are you so hard on Michael Savage?
Frankly, I don’t consider Michael Savage using crude and “hateful” speech about Islam as any different. Yes, we can disagree about whether using such rhetoric helps or hurts the conservative cause. This is the debate the people on the right have been having about Ann Coulter since her infamous post-9/11 column. Personally, I side with those who think that Coulter and others who are similarly outspoken are a beneficial force.
The Left recognizes that emotional connections, gut reactions, and the like, determine how most people think and act and vote. So the Left has pursued a campaign of vilification against traditional American culture, and have re-wired many (most?) Americans’ brains to associate patriotism with racism, capitalism with exploitation, freedom with insecurity, and so on. Can most people who vote “liberal” explain in any coherent fashion why they believe what they believe and why they vote for the policies they support? Of course not. But they feel it is the right and decent and moral thing to do.
A conservative approach to politics that ignores the emotional side of life—as Republicans tend to do—is an approach that will continue to lose. We need people to be fired up in support of our positions. This means using language that is laden with emotion, symbolism, and good-bad rhetoric.
LA replies:
“In your view, does it diminish our troops’ stature, in any way, that they utter racial and ethnic epithets against the enemy? The Left certainly thinks so. If you agree, why? If you do not agree, then why are you so hard on Michael Savage?”
That’s an absurd comparison.
Maureen C. writes:
It takes all kinds of allies to defeat Sauron: the Ents, Dwarfs, Elves, Hobbits. We need not only those carrying fine pointed daggerlike pens but also those carrying blunt swords. A crude bracing smack on the snout in the fearless, non-cliched language of Savage does the trick—and is no more outrageous than the childish but lethal barbarism of Liberals who attribute 9-11 to the Bush administration or fail to understand that Sharia Law undermines the US Constitution. For all those who think in poisonous Liberal slogans, a dose of Savage’s blunt language is the antidote.
Spencer Warren writes:
Savage is a ranting lunatic. He once hung up on me. He is poorly informed and makes many errors in his rants. He represents the worst of talk radio. He also is very abusive and insulting to anyone who tries to criticize him.
Harry Horse writes:
I read the whole dialog and others (as is usual) made the case more eloquently than me.
I hope you understand that you are approaching a “Charles Johnson” moment here, whittling the stake down to a toothpick. I say this only from the aspect that you persist in equating Savage’s emotional rejectionist tirades as “hate speech.”
LA replies:
Oh, an unkind cut!
MG writes:
I have listened to Savage on occasion from the time he first popped up on a local station in SF in 1991.
Most of the commenters are right on the facts about Savage, he is rude and crude, not very well informed, wildly inconsistent, etc. He appears to have difficulties to absorb new information and no amount of new information has any impact on his wildly inconsistent views.
He also could be quite entertaining.
BUT.
From the moment he appeared in 1991, he summarized his political philosophy as “Borders, Language, Culture.” It is still his philosophy and, in a big picture, he thinks he is true to it.
If there is a better sound-bite to describe cultural conservative restrictionists, I have not heard it.
In 1991 El Slowbo did not know how to spell immigration, no one was talking about preservation of the nation and culture. Savage was way ahead of his time and for that deserves recognition.
Jeff in England writes:
Savage has given out mixed signals on Islamic immigration.
Yes, he often goes on about how he is the son of immigrants and how he welcomes limited amounts of decent immigrants into America.
However, he certainly is not for Open Borders and constantly makes that point. But I would agree that being against Open Borders can still mean letting in a fair amount of legal immigrants to America
But recently I heard him say words similar to the following: “We are nuts to let any more Muslims into the country.” So either he is contradicting himself or he has changed his mind in regard about all incoming Muslim immigrants.
Savage’s statements over the desirability of some non-Islamic immigration (and I’m not sure how much he would exactly allow) do NOT make him a liberal. He has repeatedly called liberalism a mental disorder. He has repeatedly said he is a right wing conservative. Like many conservatives (even yourself) he may have liberal sentiments within him but it would be stretching credulity to call him a liberal.
As for his programme’s level of dialogue, yes it partially has a dumbed down shout louder than your opponent name calling aspect which now passes for intellectual debate in America 2007..
But at other times (in his more mellow moments), his dialogue with certain not-heard-too-often elements of American society is very rewarding and even insightful. That includes dialogue with not just members of the remains of the white working class but with many recent immigrants as well (legal and illegal). Plus dialogue with many current and recent students. And even with hippies and ex-hippies. And the dialogue is anything but stupid.
Savage is not a Howard Stern and in fact attacks Stern for his vacuity and say anything for attention attitude. Yes, the quotes you quote him (Savage) as saying are not of the highest order of intellectual dialogue even if they express some home truths so to speak. I too am against his abusive language. But it would be inaccurate to say that Savage always talks like that. He is often calmer, less demagogic and willing to go into a topic in a fairly deep way. You need to listen to several shows completely to see this.
Mark Jaws writes:
I agree with those defending Michael Savage. I listen to him frequently and I enjoy his diatribes because he reaches millions and resonates with those, such as my brother and sister, who lack the intellectual rigor to seek out and appreciate VFR, but who nevertheless have their hearts in the right (wing) place.
A movement to preserve our ethno-culture must consist of noble ideals (such as those of Lawrence Auster) and the eventual rousing of the rabble (by Michael Savage) in order to vector those ideals. Because, whether we like it or not, if we traditionalists are not willing to organize and stand up for our ideals, then we will be trampled upon. My job as a traditionalist cadre organizer is to serve as a conduit between your lofty thoughts and the vitriolic rabble “inspired” by Savage. Savage brings the rabble to me, and I tame them with your words. Not everyone can be a writer, but everyone can do his part.
Mark P. writes:
I’ve been listening to talk radio for the last two years and I have religiously followed Michael Savage’s show as well as other radio hosts like Michael Medved, Dennis Miller, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Prager, and Rush Limbaugh. I’ve found Michael Savage to be the best of the radio talk show hosts precisely because he comes closest to the VFR position. In fact, Savages program is the only program that has survived the “VFR test,” meaning the hosts ideas can be most credibly consistent with what I’ve learned from VFR. For example, Michael Medved’s universal proceduralism is so grating that I find myself arguing with the radio. Medved fails the VFR test and I mostly listen to him to see how low he can sink.
Not only does Savage support “Borders, language and culture,” he has admitted that Bush is a liberal; that the Iraq War is a failure; that immigration is a disaster; that Islam is dangerous; and that disarming Iran and defending Israel is of critical importance. He has also excoriated liberal Jews for their suicidal liberalism and the Jewish “red-diaper doper babies” that made up the scene at the “poor man’s Harvard” of CUNY where he went to undergrad for weakening and poisoning this country.
Nevertheless, I think Savage’s defenders on your forum miss an essential point, a point that I think you brought up before in the context of Ann Coulter. The essential point is whether Michael Savage is actually convincing people, other than his audience, of the truth of his positions. Has anyone liberal, leftist or even center-right ever said “Gee, I see how Michael Savage clarifies the problems and issues with the current thinking. I am now convinced that Savage is right”? I seriously doubt you have many of those converts among the people who must be converted. In essence, Savage suffers from the same limitations as Ann Coulter: an inability to reach over to the other side.
Now, some readers may argue that the “other side” is incorrigible. They may be right. Nevertheless, an articulate and nuanced defense of the West must still be presented, since it this alternative that must be offered to people when the current liberal dispensation collapses. Savage just doesn’t have enough meat on his ideas to provide this comprehensive alternative.
LA writes:
John Savage at Brave New World Watch is definitely on the anti-Michael Savage side of this discussion. He quotes my reference to the “Michael Savage ‘Take Your Religion and Shove It up Your Behind’ School of Islam Criticism,” and adds:
It’s worth noting, too, that Michael Savage (no connection to me) is also a member of the “Get AIDS and Die” School of Criticism of Homosexuality. Wikipedia reports that he was fired from MSNBC for saying to a caller:
“Oh, so you’re one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig; how’s that? Why don’t you see if you can sue me, you pig? You got nothing better to do than to put me down, you piece of garbage? You got nothing to do today? Go eat a sausage, and choke on it. Get trichinosis.”
The defense of Michael Savage by several commenters at VFR says more about the commenters’ contemptuous views of the American public than it says about Savage.
LA continues:
I don’t see that Michael Savage’s defenders at VFR have been expressing contempt for the American public. It seems to me rather that they feel that we are in a war, that our side is weak and unorganized, and that any strength on our side, including the rude aggression of a Savage, is necessary and to be welcomed.
Mark Jaws writes:
In response to John Savage, I would say that we should not be in the business of converting liberals, but rather fighting them. And that means organizing, coalescing, and acting on our beliefs. We need to remember that back in 1775 there were approximately one million white men of age capable of bearing arms to fight for their independence, yet at most, George Washington never fielded more than 15,000 at any one time (and many of them were black slaves or freedmen). So if we assume that approximately 50,000 white men fought during the entire Revolution, that means that no more than 5% were willing to lay it on the line. But they shared a vision and organized themselves into an army willing to fight their oppressors. Sad but true it is, that during the Revolution most people either opposed the patriots or simply didn’t care, proving the point that we don’t need majorities to prevail today, nor do we need to reach out to liberals, but rather we need to forge ourselves into a confident and orchestrated minority. As I said earlier, Michael Savage raises people’s ire to the point of responding to people like me. His AIDS remark is inexcusable, but he still does more good than harm.
John Savage writes:
Please allow me to clarify what I meant by “contemptuous views of the American public.”
“[Crude language] is often the only way they know how to vocalize their rejection of leftism.”
“Think of them as running interference that annoys the rank and file leftists while websites like VFR eat at the guts of their core ideology.”
“Ents, Dwarfs, Elves, Hobbits … carrying blunt swords”
“vitriolic rabble”
Quite apart from the question of “hate speech”, conservatives are supposed to be for civility, and against the public use of crude and insulting language, correct? We’re supposed to have standards that we don’t water down for those who we might privately view as low-lifes. To use the leftist epithets against traditionalists, we are the “virtue-crats”, the “Victorians”, and the “Puritans”, are we not? Or is that all out the window now, and our only appeal is supposed to be that we’re tough on Islam?
LA replies:
I agree with Mr. Savage as regards crude and insulting language. However, I think there’s a difference between crude and insulting language and tough language. Sometimes we need to be tough. If the rule of civility is taken to mean that we must never be tough, then I would disagree with that.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 13, 2007 09:21 PM | Send