Imus' Firing

So Imus got fired. I'm actually quite surprised. I'm surprised how much charity and good stuff the guy does, too. Never paid any attention to him before this "crisis". Seems like nobody is fully angel or fully villain when you learn about them.

On the Imus crisis: some people say, hey, he's just exercising his free speech! This political correctness has run amok!

Tell that to the Dixie Chicks after their careers were torpedoed for criticizing Bush, they even got death threats.

Tell that to John Kerry after he said that if you don't go to school and pay attention, you get stuck in Iraq. His later claim that he was bashing Bush directly didn't do anything to lessen the maelstrom.

Tell that to Bill Maher after he was canned for saying that the 911 terrorists were courageous, although who could argue that from their point of view, what they did took a lot of balls.

And yet there's a whole bunch of people out there that make outrageous comments and never have any consequences.

Rush Limbaugh says that it's disgusting that Michael J. Fox fakes his disease for political reasons. Yet he still has all the dittoheads out there lapping up his every word and parroting his bogus arguments.

Ann Coulter says that the 911 widows love their status and are glad their husbands are dead. She later calls John Edwards a faggot a couple of days before his wife finds out her cancer came back. Yet she still gets asked to go to all the GOP fundraisers.
Sharpton and others call for the punishment of the Duke Lacrosse players before any evidence comes out and they find that the accusation was without merit.

The same people out there that think that doing a cross burning should be protected speech probably don't feel the same way about the "ragheads" chanting "Death to America" in front of an embassy.

Freedom of speech means you get to say any damned foolish shit you want. But it's society's duty to point out what a load of crap they are dishing out and to stop buying their books, listening to their shows, and electing them to office. But some people's crap is other people's gospel.

It's sad when someone with a mouthpiece spews out a wacky conspiracy theory, like O'Reilly's "war on Christmas" and Rosie's "the government blew up WTC building number 7". It's also sad when someone provides legitimate evidence and tells the truth and they are instantly ignored, vilified, or attacked (see scientists on global warming and evolution). Why do we get it wrong so often?

It's the Wikipedia effect. You can say or publish any damned fool thing you want and you don't have to prove it. Sites like snopes are great for debunking chain email urban legends, but we need the equivalent for people in the spotlight. They started doing it with politicians, but those sites quickly became politicized, and you tend to only visit the site that already supports your way of thinking. The news can no longer be relied on, with major networks no longer even trying to hide their bias and emotional ranting replacing straight facts reporting and reasoned and researched methods are a thing of the past.