Free Speech?

Michael Richards vs. Danny DeVito.

Two celebrities are in the news recently for poor behavior and outrageous statements in public. Both incidents occurred before mostly liberal audiences; both were equally outrageous and both have had very different results. The only difference was the persons or groups being verbally attacked.

In the case of Michael Richards, he was at a comedy club in L.A. when he began being heckled by some black people in the audience. He used the normal tips and tricks to quiet them down, but nothing worked. They kept it up and Richards lost his temper and began heckling back and used the word "nigger" several times.

In the case of Danny DeVito, he was out drinking with George Clooney all night before reporting for an interview on The View. DeVito was still drunk, was making no sense and went on an extended tirade about President Bush and his policies in a totally disrespectful manner, using various epithets to describe the president.

In the case of Michael Richards, his life has turned into a three ring circus from hell. He has publicly apologized numerous times, there is talk of law suits and his career is possibly ruined.

In the case of Danny DeVito, the hostesses of The View are downplaying the incident; after the initial reports, the media have dropped any mention of DeVito's political tirade; everyone is trying to laugh it off and DeVito has said any apologies needed to be made would be in the form of a private phone call to Barbara Walters.

As to free speech, we either have it or we don't. There should not be lists of words or concepts too sensitive to broach. This does not mean that there are not inappropriate times or places that would cause that free speech to be poorly received. In fact, part of the concept of free speech is the right to freely disagree with the speaker. If a person is a boor, he should be shunned -- personally and professionally.

In the cases of Richards and DeVito, they were both wrong. Michael Richards was provoked beyond a reasonable measure of patience by out of control, black audience members and he lashed out. Danny DeVito was up all night, drunk, and was provoked by an out of control liberal (George Clooney) and he acted out. They both deserve condemnation for their actions and some sort of consequence to their public careers.

But liberals have a slip-slidey scale for free speech and political correctness. If it had been a black comedian on stage being heckled by out of control whites in the audience, "honkey" and "cracker" and any other epithet would have been acceptable and probably applauded by the rest of the audience. If a conservative celebrity were the guest of The View, exhibiting the same boorish behavior and ranting about how bad a liberal president was, he would have been roundly booed, thrown off of the show, made to apologize and the political aspect would have played up -- not down.

So, do we have free speech in America? Probably more so than in some other countries. I fear its execution will never be as pure as its concept. But as long as we have to toe an arbitrary line of political correctness, controlled by people who consider some races or people "fair game" while others are "off limits" it will never be reasonable.

I guess that's just liberals being liberals.

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