"Reader's Digest Reasoning" Plus an Urban Myth?

In "Censorship across the divide: 'Epithet' that!", Diana West displays what I call "Reader's Digest reasoning" - the repeated use of the biased sample to try to convey a political message that has little to no basis in reality. Many people who are predisposed either to the politics behind such a writing, or who are inclined to believe anything they read, will accept such "arguments" without recognizing how little support is actually extended for the conclusions asserted by the author.

After whining about how one of her friends joked about the ACLU coercing him to say "Happy Holiday" (singluar) instead of "Merry Christmas", she complains,

Everyone has a war story from the Yuletide front, where Christmas comes under such heavy fire that Americans wave the pre-emptive white flag of "Happy Holidays" to avoid giving what is known as "offense" and receiving what feels like censure. Not that "Christmas" is the ultimate unmentionable. A story recently made the rounds about a Virginia teacher who spoke the utterly non-denominational (in fact, traditionally superstitious) injunction "God bless you" over a sneezy student. Said student, sniveling wretch, proceeded to inform on the teacher for this act of New Blasphemy, for which the teacher was, incredibly, reprimanded.

Somehow I managed to get through the entire season without taking or giving offense at the expression, "Merry Christmas" - and, for that matter, "Happy Christmas" with my British friends and family. How peculiar.

But that Virginia story really caught my eye - as a probable urban myth. It does not yet appear to be in Snopes, but I felt confident that such an incident would be covered by the Virginia press if it were real. So I checked a dozen Virginia newspapers, including the leading papers of all major cities, and scoured their archives - nothing. Searches of Yahoo! news and Google news turned up Diana's article, but otherwise no confirmation was found. (And, as with a typical urban myth, the proponent can't cite a reliable source and doesn't provide any details which would be helpful in tracking down the roots of the story.) Go figure.

The rest of Diana's article meanders from whinging that Lenny Bruce was given a posthumus pardon for an obscenity conviction that could not occur under modern First Amendment law to how unfair comedians are to Republicans. As a proponent of free speech, Diana has a real problem with... free speech? Okay - so I was wrong in assuming she supported free speech - I guess she opposes it. She then complains that the Supreme Court "effectively censored G-rated political speech by upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act" - and as an opponent of free speech she has a real problem with this restriction on free speech? Um.... Perhaps the primary problem is that she's not big on internal consistency?

She next complains that the Democrats told mean jokes about George Bush, his policies and cabinet, at a comedy fund raiser, and how such insolence would result in harsh media reaction had "anything like this" occurred at a Republcan event. Mind you, as with her apparent urban myth, Diana offers nothing to support this bare claim, beyond attributing it to "the New York Post's Deborah Orin". Apparently when Diana and Deborah agree, no proof or evidence is necessary.

Her conclusion is that comics can swear and insult Republicans without social sanction, but "when it comes to holiday greetings, you're on your own. H---- N-- Y---.

Well, gosh - now I'm intimidated. I think I said "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year" several times in recent weeks - right here in this blog. (As Britney might say, "Oops, I did it again.") And I obviously haven't met my quota of "socially safe" blasphemy and obscenity. The PC police will no doubt be along for me any second now....

I think I'll link this to the discussion thread for idiotorials:

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