Another Sunday, Another Chris Column

I suppose we should be happy that the Commercial Appeal's Editor in Chief Chris Peck regularly writes a column. Not because he says anything particularly noteworthy or necessary but more for the look into the mind that shapes the paper that wants to shape the debates in Memphis.

Excuse me... Greater Memphis. As opposed to the old, regular-sized Memphis, I suppose.

Today's installment is a look at the First Amendment, through the lens of debate on Hustle & Flow and renaming several Memphis parks. Well, through the lens of Peck, seen through the lens of the Commercial Appeal, seeing the city. Or something.

Freedom of expression can be so hot and bothersome.

In Greater Memphis, we're getting red-faced and sweaty this summer over two fascinating exercises in free expression.

One involves a movie about a pimp and his whores.

The other involves a long-dead general from the Civil War and whether a park should be named after him.

You know what I'm talking about.

Not really, no. Renaming the parks isn't that big of an issue with most folks I know. It only comes up if we start talking politics. Otherwise, we talk about the nice weather this summer, our families and friends, work, etc. The people I talk to from and in Memphis who have seen Hustle & Flow -- which, by the way, is far from a majority of the population; many couldn't care less -- uniformly like it. They're confused that a pretty accurate and sympathetic (which is the real source of the debate, by the way) view of a huge slice of Memphis life is causing upset.

But this is what the crew of the Commercial Appeal and the folks they hang out with perceive is what "Memphis is talking about." What they believe is what you should believe. The sniffy set disdains H&F, so you should too, while still being a booster of the Memphis film industry, which just needs to attract better, family, films. And reflect positively on the city.

At the opening of the movie in Memphis this month, Mayor Willie Herenton and other African-American leaders were trying to say nice things about growing the movie industry in the Mid-South, even as they gritted their teeth over the portrayal of Memphis as a seedy haven of down-and-out, dope-smoking guys who run girls out of rusty cars.

But we are! At least for a big part of the city. You know, the "not the downtown" parts. I've got hoes working my street right now. Just saw one this forming and she'll be back tonight. The number of people on my street who "smoke dope" approaches a majority; the number of crack smokers is a problem. That's the reality; my reality; Memphis' reality. Doing glowy stories about tourists being awed by an over-large ranch house that a pop star once lived in doesn't change that, though it disempowers and suppresses a lot of Memphians.

Note where the Commercial Appeal went in this comparison, a Mayor and "leaders." Because we should follow our leaders, who are smarter, better informed, and more virtuous than the masses. That's how Peck sees the proper flow of things.

That's free expression for you. Craig Brewer doesn't have to look at Memphis in the same way as a politician.

"...but he ought to." Can't you just hear that coming next? Brewer made his film because he wanted to show the Memphis he doesn't see anywhere else. What should that be saying to Peck?

Then there is the snarl of competing ideas around the proper resting place for Nathan Bedford Forrest.

He's the Confederate general from Memphis whom historians recall as a brilliant cavalry figure in the Civil War, as well as someone who made a fortune as a slave trader and became an early supporter of the Ku Klux Klan.

As I've said before, the Commercial Appeal could go a very long way in informing the community -- isn't that their mission? -- by simply giving us a history of Forrest's life, a history of the early Klan and its successor that had the same name but a more insidious purpose, a history of Forrest's graves and burial places, even digging into their own archives for the reporting from the time, bigoted and biased though it will be. They could do that, report dry facts undisputed by nearly everyone, but choose not to. Instead the paper chooses to set everything talked about throught he lens of conflict and comparison. Guest columnists must come in pairs, or sometimes threes with two supporting the Commercial Appeal's viewpoint. Reporting must be about the conflict between opposing forces. Rarely, exceedingly rarely, does the paper simply report facts on long-running issues and let the readers reach their own conclusions through them.

The Memphis City Council has been asked to decide whether Forrest's remains should stay buried beneath his statue in a Downtown Memphis park called -- you guessed it -- Forrest Park. Or, alternatively, whether the park's name should be changed and Forrest's remains moved to a less visible location.

Some say he's a historic figure who should be remembered as a war hero. Others say he's a symbol of what was wrong with the Old South and therefore should be packed away to a less prominent locale.

See what I mean. "Some" vs. "others."

And the Council wasn't "asked to decide." Walter Bailey's subcommittee of the Parks Commission sent up that request, but the Commission itself watered that down to a less confrontational "request to consider and discuss." The Commercial Appeal has been sort of glossing this over.

At an elementary level, we all endorse the idea of free speech.

Most of us played the "free speech" card early, beginning around the seventh grade.

The declaration, ''I'll say what I want and you can't stop me," sings loudly in the memories of adults who recall a first encounter with a truculent teen speaking up for the artistic value of a bad band, a ridiculous fashion statement or a loud hair color.

Hahahahahaha! "Elementary," get it? "Truculent teens" who just spout off anything they want, without responsibility. Like bloggers and talk radio! They need parents in control don't they? They need a Commercial Appeal to tell them how to behave, don't they?

The complexities of free expression, however, soon overwhelm the simplistic notions of just being able to say what you want.

Free expression, finally, isn't about the right to say what you want.

What complexities? "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. Profoundly simple. Remember this, as we'll be coming back to it.

What journalists want the people to believe is that "free speech" is something complex that requires training, mental rigors, and editors to achieve. It requries some things to be deprecated and others brought forward. That requires experience and judgment. That requires journalists.

Feh! That's guild thinking. Guilds controlled a great many professions once upon a time, deciding who got in and protecting members from outsiders, exacting high prices for membership, demanding great sacrifice for its benefits. They still exist today. Look at doctors and lawyers. Journalists want the same thing, to protect their industry and livelihoods from the rabble outside the barred doors. Feh.

That's part of what Peck's peddling here. "Free speech requires careful, considered, skilled practitioners. Like us. And the people we vet."

Put another way: Free speech for me, but not for thee.

It's about the other person's right to say what he or she wants, even if it doesn't agree with your own faith or politics.

Which is the right to say what you want. The First Amendment entails no obligation to listen or to respect another viewpoint, much less agree with it. I can say anything I want. You can listen, disagree, debate, scream in my face, walk away, find others to agree with you and come back, whatever. It's not rocket science.

Freedom of expression, free speech, freedom of religion, all are core ideas wrapped up and guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They are notions on which we have built a nation of free churches, opposing political parties and the most vibrant culture of books, music and motion pictures anywhere in the world.

And those freedoms in the First Amendment, while there for us, are more important as a shield to protect those who don't agree with us.

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. The first Amendment exists to prevent the Federal government from interfering in dissenting political speech, which was often religious, too.

More importantly, Peck displays a common and pernicious misundersanding of the First Amendment (1A), one common with those on the Left. The 1A isn't a guarantee coming from the government to the people. It was put in place precisely because folks like Peck and his ilk misunderstand what the Constitution is.

The Constitution is not a source of power and rights which then flow from it, managed by the Federal government and its bureaucracies. As the Declaration of Independence says, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...." All political power resides in and flows from the people. Governments are created when the people cede some of those powers in order to achieve greater and necessary goals. Governments only have those powers specifically given to them. No more.

But James Madison and others clearly saw, as was evident in the debate of the time, that many people saw in the Constitution -- despite limiting language in Article 2, Section 9, and then in the Tenth Amendment which was intended to reinforce it -- if the document didn't prohibit it explicitly prohibit it, then it was allowed.

Which is precisely how understanding of the Constitution evolved. Many began to think the Federal Government could do whatever it wanted to if the Constitution didn't clearly say no. It went from being a specific and limiting document, to an open-ended and limitless one. The sprawling mess that is our Federal government, and the massive books of arcane law, are the result.

Expressed another away: the Constitution isn't a shield protecting the American people, as Peck sees it, but is a narrowly constructed framework giving the Federal government very specific duties to perform. To perform those duties, the people hand over some of their freedoms (like negotiating with other nations or taking up arms against France) in order for the Federal government to get those jobs done. Nothing more. Everything else you can think of is a freedom I retain.

Power flows from the people to the government. Not the other way around. Way too many on the Left, and now in the mainstream media thanks to blogging, see it the other way around. It's a fear of the masses and a desire for control.

As Memphis fumes over the portrayal of the city and its residents in "Hustle & Flow," as we argue over Nathan Bedford Forrest's right place, let's honor the rights of free expression in the First Amendment.

"Memphis" isn't fuming. But it serves the needs of the paper to sell copies to promote the idea of conflict.

Notice Peck's language. "Rights" are things granted by government. What has been given can be taken away, or the threat of taking away can be used to coerce the people into agreeing to something they wouldn't otherwise agree to. "Freedom" is inherent in all people at all times in all ways. The only person who can give them away is you.

Both sides in the debate over Forrest are protected by this same constitutional shield. That makes our national model so different from places where the constitution spells out one true religion, one way of looking at history or one way that citizens must all try to think.

Ooooh, like "tax reform?" Remember how, in 2001 and 2002 and 2003, every single newspaper in the state of Tennessee agreed that an income tax was a necessity for Tennessee to meet its budget requirements? There was no dissenting voice whatsoever, except in that truculent rabble on the Internet. How's that for newspapers being a defender of the "people's rights?"

Notice too the invariable rule that all issues can be reduced to two sides. It's been pervasive in this editorial, in the Commercial Appeal and is found without exception all across the mainstream media. Real life is infinitely more complex, but the papers never see more than two sides in anything. "Us" vs. "Them." "Some" vs. "Others." Conflict. Selling papers.

We say ''it's a free country." This means that we have to put up with the other guy's blather and recognize that differences of opinion make us the nation that we strive to be.

Finally, some wise words. Peck should practice what he preaches.

Show your readers "pimp Memphis." When the "real" Memphis wants to gather downtown to meet and hang out and find someone of the opposite sex, don't automatically and completely come down on the side of downtown residents, businessmen, business owners and the "leaders" in City and County Hall. Think about those people and how the "anti-cruising" law will restrict their freedom of assembly. Don't turn up your nose and sniff at the rabble. Think of them and give them a voice, too.

After all, they are part of "Greater Memphis" too.