La Raza Seeks to Censor the Media

by Roy Beck, NumbersUSA: "If you can't beat them, shut them up" seems to be the new motto of groups that have been continually losing in their attempts to pass an amnesty for illegal aliens. US Today reported:
National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia announced plans to pressure television network executives and candidates seeking their parties' presidential nominations to clamp down on such remarks. . . . "Hate groups and extremists have taken over the immigration debate in an unprecedented wave of hate," Murguia said. Although some comments could be considered free speech, "there is a line that sometimes can be crossed when it comes to free speech," she said. Murguia named as offenders Pat Buchanan, who appears on MSNBC as a commentator, CNN's Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck of Headline News, a CNN network. . . . Murguia accused the television networks of cloaking members of hate groups as anti-immigrant experts on their programs. Among those she singled out was Jim Gilchrist, a co-founder of the Minuteman Project. In response, Gilchrist called the National Council of La Raza a racial supremacist group . . . "My son-in-law is Mexican and two of my three grandchildren are half Mexican. The Minuteman Project is comprised of every race color and creed. ... She has a right to her opinion, but she's wrong."Led by the National Council of La Raza and the Anti-Defamation League, the open-borders groups have started a concerted campaign to persuade Cable TV executives to either bar me and our Director of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks from their shows, or to always introduce us as representing an "extremist" organization with ties to hate and racist groups. Their characterization of NumbersUSA and our members is without any connection to reality, facts or even common decency. But if all of us remain silent in the face of this campaign of character assassination, we might indeed be silenced on TV and beyond. . . . So broad is the attempt at censorship that the open-borders groups suggest that virtually no spokesman or group fighting illegal immigration or asking for less overall immigration should be allowed on TV. And they want Lou Dobbs off CNN, and Pat Buchanan off MSNBC, and Sean Hannity off Fox.

La Raza suggests that no pro-enforcement group has a legitimate right to free speech. The total censorship advocacy of La Raza and its friends can be seen in the fact that their website lists NumbersUSA as "the most reasoned" of all groups on the restriction side of the immigration issue ... but then it says even NumbersUSA should not be allowed on TV, or quoted by the Washington Post. In other words, no group that stands for enforcing immigration laws should be allowed on TV, because all of them are less reasonable than NumbersUSA, which La Raza describes as being an "extremist group targeting Latinos." These comments from La Raza are so desperate and disconnected from reality . . . . NumbersUSA has always cautioned against anti-immigrant expressions.. . .

I can tell you that the majority of text on the La Raza website . . . is simply not factual. The website is called "We Can Stop The Hate dot org." But it might as well be called "We Can Stop The Debate." According to the ADL's Stacy Burnett on the website, anybody who uses words like conquest, invasion, swarms, hordes, crime and disease in connection with illegal immigration -- or who even suggests that immigration is an economic threat to a community -- is guilty of hate speech. La Raza says such talk is "used to justify extreme action, sometimes even genocide, since the people using those labels claim that the 'larger public interest' is at risk." The website also says that more than 40 million Americans are members of hate, racist and extremist groups that apparently are fanning the passions of genocide toward immigrants. Wow! And I thought we were just trying to reduce the numerical level of immigration and to enforce immigration laws that have been on the books for decades.

Don't you find that 40 million figure a little hard to believe? What groups can they possibly be counting? This stuff sounds so nuts that you can see why I dismissed it at first, but the website is rallying its own supporters to a relentless campaign to pressure TV executives to erase nearly all opposition to amnesties from TV. . . . send an email to CNN, Fox and MSNBC executives to urge them to continue to keep their shows open to all sides of the immigration debate. Unlike the open-borders, pro-amnesty groups, our side of the debate does not want to silence our opponents. We believe in freedom of the press, freedom of speech and in allowing American citizens to hear all points of view . . . [Read More]

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Tags: hate speech, Jim Gilchrist, La Raza, Lou Dobbs, NumbersUSA, Roy Beck To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!