June 19, 2020 at 8:19 a.m.
Standing up to the leader of the mob
Standing up to the leader of the mob
By mob rule we don't necessarily mean a mob that is physically violent, though it can be when mass protests turn from a peaceful demonstration of grievances to looting and assault. More often these days, the mob is a group of propagandists who use defamation, dishonesty, and feigned moral righteousness to win political points, rather than any honest disagreements over public policy.
Mob rule is political action whereby the mob presumes everyone who disagrees with them is evil or corrupt, and finds them guilty. Evidence is irrelevant, and so is the truth.
On the national scale, mob rule has less to do with George Floyd protests - let's face it, institutional racism is a problem - than with the liberal mob that so unjustly tried to take down Brett Kavanaugh just a few years ago. It was outright defamation and character assassination aimed at destroying a life and lives, and that is what leftist mob rule is all about.
If it goes unchecked, such behavior will destroy democracy.
Now, in the Northwoods, along comes Kirk Bangstad, who has decided to run for office by leading his own mob. For starters, he cranks up the libel machine by calling Lakeland Times publisher Gregg Walker a "crook" and calling for readers of his Facebook page to subscribe to the competition.
Calling Mr. Walker a "crook" - by legal definition a criminal - and doubling down by doing it again is not only false but malicious. Sure, in a later post Mr Bangstad "readily admits" Mr. Walker is not a criminal. He thus admits his defamation.
What's more, he never took down the post saying he was, so the defamation stands. Not only that, he labels Mr. Walker a misogynist - more defamation.
All this is designed to harm. It is, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) defines it, online defamation. That the statement is being circulated far and wide makes it more defamatory, and that Mr. Bangstad seeks to harm or destroy the newspaper makes it even more so.
From the EFF, a defamatory statement is one that "tends directly to injure him in respect to his office, profession, trade or business, either by imputing to him general disqualification in those respects that the office or other occupation peculiarly requires, or by imputing something with reference to his office, profession, trade, or business that has a natural tendency to lessen its profits; ..."
That is exactly the behavior Mr. Bangstad has engaged in. For several years now, Mr. Bangstad has unjustly criticized members of the newspaper staff, including those who have no connection to the editorial department. He has also previously called for boycotts of the newspaper.
Now, when those didn't work, he has taken a huge and unacceptable step, attempting to use a false allegation that Mr. Walker is a "crook" to harm the newspaper. Specifically, as our attorney James Friedman stated to Mr. Bangstad in a letter, Mr. Bangstad has expressly asked local citizens and businesses to stop reading the Northwoods River News and The Lakeland Times and to stop advertising in those papers based on his false and defamatory statements.
Here is a quote from Mr. Bangstad: "There is an alternative at the ballot box, AND where you spend your advertising dollars, to the crooks who have thrown our country, our state, and our towns into such turmoil."
In this context, calling Mr. Walker a crook is no different that falsely accusing a small business owner of being a sexual predator, or a bookkeeper an embezzler. Defamation is defamation, and today is the day we act to put an end to it.
A couple of points need to be made. First, this newspaper has never tried to blunt or block vigorous criticism of Gregg Walker or Richard Moore. We publish critical opinion of them all the time, as readers know. We dish it out; we can take it.
Someone might call Richard Moore a hack and we would publish it. Another might disagree and point to his awards: Five WNA first place awards just in the past four years for enterprise reporting, investigative reporting, editorial writing, and open government reporting. This past year, his first-place award for investigative journalism - as judged by the New York Press Association - was for investigating and reporting on the actions of a Republican attorney general.
Others might say The Lakeland Times is editorially biased. It's true that we are editorially conservative - very proud of that - but it's also true we apply the same public policy standards to conservatives that we do to liberals. Anyone who has taken the time to read our withering judgements of Republicans who are hostile to open government or various Republicans who are beholden to downstate special interests knows that, and anyone who says it isn't so isn't being honest.
The difference is, we write strong opinions, we do not defame. The same with our critical readers who express themselves in our pages. They have a right to their opinions, and we think it important that their voices be heard.
But writing opinion is one thing; asserting as fact something that is false is another. That is not free speech, which we cherish; that is libel. Moreover, it undermines the First Amendment by allowing malicious falsehoods to poison the pool of free opinion and debate.
Every instance must be called out and confronted.
What's more, in this instance the attack is more than an attack on a newspaper and a person; it is an attack on the entire industry. Mr. Walker serves as president of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association; The Lakeland Times has won best weekly newspaper in the state for three of the past four years. The Times and Mr. Walker are industry leaders, so what does Mr. Bangstad's false allegations say about the industry? The implications of the defamation are profound.
The other attributes of the leftist mob are its moral righteousness and its claims of infallibility. In their view, nothing should be honestly debated; anyone who disagrees with them is "dishonest."
The latest example is Mr. Bangstad's take that our criticism of climate science modeling is dishonest. Citing "a report" and a few government agencies and cronies, he believes there's no room for questioning the doom and gloom; no room for debate. It is all settled science.
But here's what Judith Curry says about one aspect of climate models: "The 21st century CMIP5 climate model simulations did not include any radiative forcing from future volcanic eruptions. While volcanic eruptions are not predictable, a scenario of zero radiative forcing from volcanoes in the 21st century is a poor assumption. Further, assuming a repeat of the 20th century volcanic radiative forcing is not a very good assumption, either."
Ms. Curry, a climate "neo-skeptic," is a former chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a former member of the NOAA Climate Working Group.
Then there's this piece from Jiaj Zhu (who is not a climate skeptic) and other University of Michigan climate researchers: "High climate sensitivity in CMIP6 model not supported by paleoclimate."
"In a letter scheduled for publication April 30 in the journal Nature Climate Change, the researchers say that projections from one of the leading models, known as CESM2, are not supported by geological evidence from a previous warming period roughly 50 million years ago," a UM release states.
Our point is there are a lot of questions about models, and we stick to our claim that most of the models have been wrong, at least so far. That's a position that can be debated, but it is not a dishonest position, and that's the crucial point. In fact, it is one that is vigorously debated within the scientific community.
Not according to Mr. Bangstad. Only the models that agree with his view represent real science, and only the scientists who agree with his view are real scientists. Everything else is dishonest. No questions can be asked, no dissenting viewpoints can be tolerated.
We can't imagine a more dishonest, narrow-minded, or totalitarian approach to public policy. But that's where we are with the far left today.
There is plenty of room for vigorous disagreements over policy in the Northwoods, and within the pages of The Lakeland Times and The Northwoods River News. We promote policy debate as a sign of a healthy community.
But there should be no room for someone to come into a community and defame people to try and score cheap political points. There should be no room for people to falsely call citizens crooks. That's a malignancy that will eat away at the core of our communities and, frankly, will devour the Democratic Party with it.
The Northwoods has always been better than that. The Northwoods is still better than that, and so is the Democratic Party.
So let's confront the mob. We cannot let them get way with their bullying, their labeling, and their cancel culture. We must let them know that their moral righteousness does not equate with moral authority.
Until they respect democracy and the rights of their fellow citizens, they have none.
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