In order to prevent abuse of readers who suspect they are reading legitimate and honest opinion, editors who publish anything by Miranda Massie, such as this recent OpEd, should be encouraged to publish along with it a new Miranda Warning:
You have the right not to read this article. If you give up that right, anything in it you read can and will be used to suborn perjury from you in the court of public opinion. You have the right to receive opinions from others about the content of this article. If you don’t know where to find these informed opinions, advice will given to you on the Internet and through email at no cost. At any time during the reading of this article you may decide to throw it down in disgust, or wrap a fish in it, with no consequence to you other than improved mental health.
For those of you who don’t know, Miranda Massie, along with her brother Luke Massie, is a leader of the notorious BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) pro-preferences group. I have written about BAMN too many times to cite, noting among other things that it is an offshoot of the Trotskyite Revolutionary Workers League, that it lies, violates student rights, and even steals from the blind., etc., etc. But don’t take my word for it (well, do, but if you want more…), take a look here and here for criticism of BAMN, with chapter and verse, from a liberal supporter of affirmative action and critic of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.
For a typical example of why readers of anything by Miranda Massie need to be Mirandized, take a look at this OpEd from the Detroit Free Press. It begins:
Michigan voters should be aware that the Michigan Court of Appeals recently issued a ruling that allows black voters to be targeted for fraud in an electoral campaign attacking civil rights gains. This plainly unacceptable decision threatens both progress toward racial equality and the integrity of state electoral processes.
Now, I believe in free speech as much, or more, than the next person, and I wouldn’t censor even people like the Massies, but I do think there is at least a bit of tension between Miranda Massie being a licensed lawyer in the state of Michigan and being able to describe, in public, this Michigan Court of Appeals opinion as “a ruling that allows black voters to be targeted for fraud,” even aside from her charge that a proposal to bar discrimination based on race is an attack on civil rights.
The opinion, of course, does no such thing. Despite insisting, with no evidence, that racial preferences enjoy “deep and broad” support in Michigan, BAMN has been desperately trying to do “anything necessary” for years to prevent the people of Michigan from being able to vote on the issue. The Court of Appeals decision that so riled Ms. Massie was nothing more than a simple, straightforward application of black letter Michigan law that barred the state Board of Canvassers from looking beneath the form and language of petitions and directed them to certify the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative for the ballot since its organizers had raised well over the minimum number of required signatures.
There has indeed been a great deal of fraud in the campaign to put MCRI on the ballot, but it has not come from the supporters of MCRI.
