Idaho legislator wants us to fire someone who’s not an employee | Opinion
Shiva Rajbhandari wrote a guest opinion piece published over the weekend calling for the resignation of a group of Idaho legislators who went to a conference paid for by the Israeli government. Rajbhandari made a compelling argument that Idaho legislators should not be accepting the gift from a government that, by several accounts, is committing genocide in Gaza.
One of those legislators, Rep. Josh Tanner, R-Eagle, took to social media:
“Nah… But the Idaho Stateman (sic) should fire left-wing propaganda columnists like Shiva Rajbhandari”.
The first problem here is that Rajbhandari is not an employee of the Idaho Statesman. He’s a college student and human rights and climate change activist. He’s from Boise, attended Boise schools and even became a Boise school board member. But he’s not an employee of the Idaho Statesman.
Rajbhandari’s piece was a guest opinion, and was labeled as such. We run many guest opinions written by people who are not employed by the Idaho Statesman to provide a platform for many diverse voices and opinions from across the political spectrum. U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, for example, has written many guest opinions that have appeared in the Statesman. He is not an employee. Chris Cargill and Jason Mercier of the Mountain States Policy Center are not employees.
But perhaps the more troubling problem here is Tanner’s knee-jerk reaction, calling for someone to be fired for their opinion.
I’m sure Tanner must feel emboldened to call on a media company to fire someone for writing something he doesn’t like, since President Donald Trump successfully got Stephen Colbert canceled and Jimmy Kimmel suspended, and Trump’s henchman at the FCC, Brendan Carr, once a champion of the First Amendment, is now threatening people: Don’t criticize the president, or else.
Notice, too, how Tanner throws in “left-wing propaganda columnist” into his description.
First, there is a growing chorus of conservatives who are recognizing that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, including U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Georgia.
Second, Rajbhandari used facts to back up his opinions, pointing out, for example, the several organizations that have recognized the situation in Gaza as a genocide.
Instead of providing a detailed explanation of his position, why he thinks it’s important for Idaho legislators to accept a state-sponsored trip to Israel or even attempt to refute any one of the cogent points made by Rajbhandari, Tanner lazily called for a “left-wing propaganda columnist” to be fired.
I’ve seen it too often: The response to an editorial or column or guest opinion is not a refutation of the points made in the opinion but rather simply a complaint that the piece was written at all or that the piece is merely “BS” or the writer is “a libtard.” No reasoned or reasonable counterargument to the points made in the piece.
Which brings me to my final point: We need more speech, not less.
The 180-degree turn by the right on free speech and cancel culture has been stunning. The right has been decrying — in some cases rightly so — censorship and cancel culture by the left, yet here they are doing the very same thing they claim to abhor.
What makes this even worse is government-sponsored and government-coerced censorship. It is the antithesis of what this country is supposed to stand for, and it’s particularly frightening when it’s the use of government force to shut down dissenting voices.
That’s why, rather than fire a nonexistent employee, I invite Tanner to submit his own guest opinion to explain why he thinks it’s important for this group of state legislators to attend the conference and to refute any points that Rajbhandari made in his piece.
I’m sure many people — on the left and right, and especially his constituents — would love to hear a reasoned argument from Tanner.
And I promise that if someone disagrees with Tanner’s guest opinion, I won’t fire Tanner from the Statesman.
Scott McIntosh is the opinion editor of the Idaho Statesman. You can email him at smcintosh@idahostatesman.com or call him at 208-377-6202. Sign up for the free weekly email newsletter The Idaho Way.
