Piers Morgan and The American Revolution

The Header for the show for host Piers Morgan.

To hear some of the television critics of Piers Morgan, his only flaw as an interviewer was being a bad interviewer.  It wasn't that he was a flawed human, just not good at these sort of jobs.  He seemed to not listen to guests, and the guests when able to speak, didn't seem to be making an impact on Morgan who seemed to be simply waiting for them to stop talking, before making a new, unrelated comment, or a political statement that was neither for nor against the guest, but Morgan's own views.  The standard for the time slot on CNN when it was occupied by Larry King, was perhaps not hard hitting interviews, but a chat between friends.  Perhaps Larry King grew forgetful or lacked the interest in making a guest uncomfortable, but he was always interested in the conversation.  Morgan never seemed interested in the guest outside how he might use them for further points on his political chalk board.

The Announcement of the Stamp Act

Obviously with the title of this article I believe that Morgan was more than a bad interviewer, but rather, a person who had no connection with the audience who the show was primarily aimed at, the US audience.  The Americans watching grew less enchanted with Morgan with every utterance against the American ways of doing things, right or wrong.  And it is in that that I believe you see that he was not even, perhaps interested in winning the argument he made, so much as using his podium for however long it was offered, to show is disgust and disdain for the US.

Particularly for Morgan was his out spoken and strident conversation on the show about guns in America.  Now, FYI I am not an American who likes guns.  I don't claim never to have fired a gun, but I am not interested in doing so again, and I believe the gun debate on both sides of the battle lines is generally feeding upon the frenzy and not reality.  However, most Americans accept that there will be guns in the United States.  So both sides are arguing the limits therein rather than the legality of ownership or sale.  Citizens in the United States have long debated the issues of gun rights, with advocacy groups on both sides trying to score protections or limits on the use and ownership of types of guns rather than all of them.

All pics taken from Public domain or Fair use sources

However, Piers Morgan doesn't agree with ownership of guns, and believes Americans are wrong for allowing it.  As such he is massively out of step with common thought in the United States.  But we tolerate people with different ideas, even accept that they are part of free speech.  The problem isn't that Americans disagree with Morgan on the subject, it is that he seemed to refuse to see any truth in any view, outside of his own experience.

Valley Forge was to test the American will.

When I get into disagreements with people over issues that I am moved by, such as Abortion, I do not get angry, I simply move on.   You cannot change a person by yelling at them.  Nor do you make your point better by going on for hours saying the same thing.  Morgan could have gained by doing so regarding guns. Piers Morgan didn't make every episode of his show about guns, but every time he espoused a view that was out of step, people were reminded of the times he did make it about that.

Washington crossing the Delaware River while standing in a boat which might be dangerous, you know.

Beyond that, there is one great issue with his views for the show he was hosting.  Americans know that guns and the fear of the overarching state are part of the freedoms found in the Bill of Rights.  Rightly or wrongly, Americans believe, commonly, that the gun, whether pistol, rifle or otherwise, saved them from incursions from foreign powers, and from domestic invasions of privacy.   The United Kingdom last fought a battle against a foreign opponent on its soil centuries ago.   As such they might have a disconnect between their homeland being threatened and the weapons used to do that.  The state, the all powerful state that monopolizes violence in the UK does so from the top down.  Rights and freedoms were granted from the Crown and the governmental state, not from the citizens fighting to achieve it. 

The United States was born in revolution, and it is upon that backdrop that Piers Morgan fails.  He comes from a different culture, where freedoms are not an expectation but a grant.  The Americans who hold guns dear do not love the state, they do not love the idea of big governments and powerful armies.  The believe themselves to be the backbone of the American people.  And the freedoms they believe in, to them, flow from the gun.  Do I agree?  It doesn't matter.  Piers Morgan was telling a country that is fully armed that they were wrong and foolish to own guns.   The American people, however flawed, saw the debate as being our former master telling us we shouldn't be arming ourselves, it might lead to independent thinking.

I'll be called a Libertarian for this, by some, but they should know, my political voting record has seen more votes for Democrats than Republicans, and more third party than either of those, and almost none were cast in a one party ballot.   My point here is to say CNN's audience was rubbed wrong, repeatedly.  I didn't care for his imperious nature, but didn't, honestly, have an issue with his anti-gun fetish.  I knew, however, that he would hang himself with his own noose by saying what he did.