Kick Piers Off the Pier?

CNN host Piers Morgan is a foppish pseudo-intellectual twit. There is no doubt about that. Morgan is the host of CNN’s highest rated show “Piers Morgan Tonight,” having replaced CNN mainstay Larry King in January of 2011. Morgan was a writer and editor with several British tabloids including The Sun, The News of the World, and Daily Mirror and has also been a judge on “Britain’s Got Talent” and “America’s Got Talent,” and the winner of Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2008.

Despite being the host of CNN’s highest rated show, not that many Americans followed him very closely because ratings on a television network are a relative thing. Morgan’s show pulls in less than 1 million viewers a night on the average and finishes a distant third in the Nielsen ratings well behind Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News and Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC.

On December 21, a petition appeared on the White House’s website demanding that Piers Morgan be deported.

British Citizen and CNN television host Piers Morgan is engaged in a hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment. We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.

As of December 24, 2012, more than 48,000 people had signed this document. The policy of the White House is that if a petition receives 25,000 signatures within 30 days, the White House is obliged to respond.

Why do Americans want the federal government to give this tabloid journalist fop the heave ho? The furor began in the wake of comments that Morgan has made on his show and on Twitter following the tragic school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14. Morgan has consistently attacked the Second Amendment on his show, culminating in an embarrassing performance on December 19, 2012 when unable to engage in a rational debate with gun rights advocate Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, Morgan resorted to childish name calling. During this broadcast, Morgan called Pratt “an unbelievably stupid man,” an “idiot,” and “a dangerous man espousing dangerous nonsense.”  

Morgan continued his gun control crusade on Twitter, tweeting several suggestions for new gun control regulations that he would like to see enacted. These suggestions include a ban on “assault weapons,” more stringent background checks, a ban on guns for any felons or people with a “mental health history,” and a ban on guns for any person less than 25 years of age. In addition, Morgan suggested “a huge incentivized gun amnesty,” noting that he does not believe anyone needs more than one gun. 

The idea that Piers Morgan should be deported has been energetically expressed by Wall Street Journal writer James Taranto and by popular talk show host Alex Jones. Morgan had argued that he was protected by the First Amendment, but Taranto replied that Morgan’s opinion was protected but his presence in the United States was not, citing Kleindienst v. Mandel (1972) – a case involving the denial of an immigration visa by the Attorney General to a Belgian Marxist journalist – in support of his opinion. 

Jones argues that Morgan should be deported because he is a foreign agent attempting to subvert the Constitution.

It’s one thing for an American citizen to ideologically assault and trash the Constitution, although odious such activity would be protected under the First Amendment, but Piers Morgan is a foreigner in a position of influence on prime time television. He is a foreign agent using his power to lobby for the constitutional rights of American citizens to be overturned. If I was on British television every night calling for the Queen to be dethroned and kicked out on the streets, many British people would also call for me to be deported. Morgan is subverting the very foundation of American freedom, the second amendment. 

 
Morgan is clearly correct in stating that stating opinions in favor of gun control is protected by the First Amendment. The real question concerns whether Taranto and Jones are correct in there being grounds for the federal government to deport the chat show host.

In Kleindienst v. Mandel, Belgian journalist Ernest E. Mandel – who was editor-in-chief of the Belgian Left Socialist weekly La Gauche – was appealing being denied a nonimmigrant visa to visit the United States in the fall of 1969 to speak at a conference. The Court upheld the denial of the visa on the grounds that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 provided that avowed Communists such as Mandel were to be denied visas unless the Attorney General approved it at his or her discretion. At the time, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 stated that aliens were ineligible for visas if they fell into certain categories.  Aliens to be excluded from receiving visas included:

Aliens … who advocate the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism or the establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship ….

Aliens who write or publish . . . (v) the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism or the establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship ….

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 has since been amended. It now states “any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party … is inadmissible.”

The first thing to note is that Piers Morgan is already in the country, and his visa would have to be revoked for him to be deported. The second more important point is that there are simply no grounds on which to deport Morgan. There is no evidence that he is or ever has been the member of any totalitarian party. In fact, it is rather unlikely that he ever has. One would guess that Morgan is most likely a member of the UK’s Labour Party, which is equivalent to the Democratic Party of the United States. Therefore, Kleindienst v. Mandel simply is not relevant to Morgan.

Morgan is expressing a fairly mainstream opinion today. Stricter gun control laws are advocated by many Americans. While such an argument is dubious, dubious opinions are not forbidden in the United States. The attitude expressed by Taranto, Jones, and the signers of the petition to deport Morgan is a symptom of the disease of attacking one inalienable natural right to defend another one. The remedy to bad speech is not to censor it. The remedy is good speech. The case in defense of the Second Amendment is far stronger than the case against it, and Morgan is not exactly a skilled orator. The answer is not to kick Morgan out of the country but to ridicule him and to make loud and strong arguments in defense of the Second Amendment.