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The Assault on Honest Debate
Broadway
July 2012
On Sale: July 10, 2012
ISBN: 0307952029
EAN: 9780307952028
Kindle: B004JN1CU6
Paperback / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
“You can’t say that. You’re fired.”
Prize-winning Washington journalist Juan Williams was
unceremoniously dismissed by NPR for speaking his mind and
saying what many Americans feel—that he gets nervous when
boarding airplanes with passengers dressed in Muslim garb.
NPR banished the veteran journalist in an act of political
correctness that ultimately sparked nationwide outrage and
led to calls for Congress to end its public funding of the
media organization.
In Muzzled, Williams uses his very public firing as a
launching pad to discuss the countless ways in which honest
debate in America—from the halls of Congress and the health
care town halls to the talk shows and print media—is
stifled. In today’s partisan world, where media provocateurs
rule the airwaves and political correctness dictates what
can and cannot be said with impunity, Williams shows how the
honest exchange of ideas and the search for solutions and
reasonable compromise is deliberately muzzled. Only those
toeing the party’s line—the screaming voices of the
extremist—get airtime and dominate the discussion in
politics and the media. Each side, liberal and conservative,
preaches to a choir that revels in expressions of anger,
ideology, conspiracies, and demonized opponents. The result
is an absence of truth-telling and honest debate about the
facts. Among the issues denied a full-throated discussion
are racial profiling; the increased reliance on religious
beliefs in debating American values and legislation; the
nuances of an immigration policym gone awry; why abortion is
promoted as a hot button wedge issue to incite the pary
faithful and drive donations; the uneasy balance between
individual freedom and our desire for security of against
terrorism; and much more.
A fierce, fresh look at the critical importance of an open
airing of controversial issues, Muzzled is a hard hitting
critique of the topics and concerns we can’t talk about
without suffering retaliation at the hands of the
politically correct police. Only by bringing such hot button
issues into the light of day can we hope to grapple with
them, and exercise our cherished, hard-won right of free speech.
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