Posted on 03/31/2014 7:58:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
You’d think every American would love free speech. Wrong. Some ultra sensitive liberals oppose free speech even when applied to their favorite TV hosts—as illustrated by the recent Twitter protest of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.
Last Thursday night, Twitter began blowing up with the hashtag #CancelColbert. The online protest started when the Twitter account attached to The Colbert Report posted a tweet that at first glance seemed insensitive to Asians.
In less than five minutes of research—more time than fragile protesters were willing to invest—I was able to learn three vital points: First, unsurprisingly, the quote was never meant to offend Asians. Second, the quote was not posted by The Colbert Report’s host, comedian Stephen Colbert, or anyone on his staff. Third, the quote was pulled from a show bit that Colbert performed while satirizing the Washington Redskins’ name controversy and the bit itself did not seem to offend anyone. It was not until Comedy Central’s social media generalists posted the quote on Twitter, without context, that it came off as insensitive rather than funny.
Twitter limits every post or “tweet” to 140 characters. If you post a photo or a hyperlink in addition to text, it takes up characters. So, it can be challenging to make a point on Twitter that’s more complex than: “Check out this new selfie of me eating Lucky Charms for breakfast!! #sssoooocuttttee I can't believe how amazing these #marshmallows taste!”—given Twitter’s rules of engagement.
Try writing a joke in 140 characters and you’ll quickly see how easy it is to be taken out of context. Just to make that challenge crystal clear, here are 140 characters:
12345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345
Stephen Colbert has branded himself as a comedian and has never pretended to be a serious news reporter. Unfortunately, we have a cultural dilemma where many Americans rely on late night television as their primary “news” source and thus take Colbert’s satires far too seriously.
As I’ve said, Stephen Colbert himself did not post the tweet. In fact, no one on Colbert’s staff posted the tweet. But, these facts did not seem to matter to anti-free speech Twitter Trolls looking to pick a fight.
It seems like Americans are becoming a bit too quick to take offense. Our founding fathers knew that the only way to protect free speech for minorities is to protect and defend it for everyone. Certainly, it’s not okay to libel or slander. But we should not be so swift to call for a show’s cancellation or the firing of a talk show host simply because we disagree with them or they have a slip of the tongue.
As founder James Madison writes in “The Federalist No. 51,”
“In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects.”
In other words, to protect the civil rights and free speech of all Americans, including minorities, it’s best to tolerate the speech of a plethora of groups and ideologies. When a society limits free speech by categorizing certain types of speech as “offensive” or jumps the gun to firing comedians for posting a joke without full context, the minority is actually at the greatest risk of losing its free speech because the majority will inevitably rule and might will make right.
If hypersensitive liberals actually want to defend free speech for minorities, they should begin by becoming more tolerant of all free speech. #CancelColbert is not the only example of this trend where thin-skinned Americans have rallied against free speech.
Last December, the easily upset crowd began saber rattling for the head of A&E’s Duck Dynasty star, Phil Robertson simply because they disliked the tone of his comments about marriage. (This was quite ironic because Bill Maher makes continual comments that could be taken offensively and no one has been tweeting #CancelRealTimeWithBillMaher.) Firing loud-mouths will not help anyone. What will help everyone—especially minorities—is to champion free speech for all.
Good grief can no one on the planet take a joke anymore?
Live by PC , die by PC.
12345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345678912345
counting FAIL...
16 x 9 = 144 + 5 = 149
On the old “Laugh-In” show, Jo Anne Worley got the Professional Victim crowd all in a dither when, at the end of the show, she said that before she went to bed each night, “She had a little nip” - and a little Japanese guy walks out.
The audience roared.
Then came the “racist” whining from the white liberals.
The Japanese community, as with most minorities, could laugh at themselves and thought it was funny - and the angst quickly faded.
Hopefully, Colbert, et al, will tell the belly-achers to take a hike and not assume the fetal position, as so often happens.
You actually bothered to count that? Dayum!
Liberals aren’t joking right nowbecause they’re unemployed, living at home with parents, realizing what idiots they were to follow Obama over cliff not realizing he was going to make them oay for all these “great” utopian programs too, and they’ve got way too much time on their hands to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblrize themselves to death while living off the backs of conservative parents they abhor.
I was puzzled by the fact that somebody tried to count in base-9.
If you're going to condescend to "teach" somebody how many 140 is, then do it in base-10, like the rest of us.
And do it RIGHT, regardless.
Colbert starred and wrote for a show named, “Strangers With Candy.”
He produced 3 seasons of racist, sexist, hate-filled comedy.
Funny that the Left hasn’t seen those episodes because then they would REALLY have something to crow about.
let them take him down.
He is one of them.
Good grief can no one on the planet take a joke anymore?
The dirt bag is parodying conservatives for political gain. It’s textbook leftist dogma conservative sterotypes. The joke is supposed to be at on us and not the asians. Har har. No thanks.
Taking offense is only the first step in lawyering up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.