June 4, 2018--Barr & Bee

Of course Samantha Bee has the First Amendment right on her TV show to call Ivanka Trump a "feckless cunt."

And of course Rosanne Barr has the same constitutional right on Twitter to refer to African-American Valerie Jarrett as an "ape."

The First Amendment also protects their right to be stupid, and worse. They both for me are on the "worse" end of the scale.

But freedom of speech and other freedoms can have consequences.

For example, many on the left applauded the ABC network when it moved swiftly to cancel Barr's top-rated show. While many on the right are calling on Bee's network, TBS, to do the same thing. Not firing her they see to be evidence of liberal bias in the media. Minimally, evidence of a double standard.

Clearly what Barr and Bee did was not equivalent. 

Bee made her stupid comments as part of stand-up schtick. In other words what she spewed was an example of a joke gone wrong. Terribly wrong. 

But comedians are given dispensation to push the limits in their acts (think Lenny Bruce and Joan Rivers). In fact, they are encouraged to do so. They are often seen as speaking truth to power under the cover of comedy. Like Shakespeare's fools (think Lear's Fool or Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream).

Barr exposed her racism on Twitter, as a private citizen (who has the same First Amendment rights as Rosanne the actor), expressing her views, not in character, while off the air. Also, she claimed, as an alibi, that what she tweeted was a clumsy joke that misfired.

So an initial issue involves the fact that Barr was fired while Bee wasn't. At least not yet. The double-standards business claimed by Republicans. Though let's see what TBS does when more of her sponsors dump her, as some already have.

TBS may be able to allow Bee to remain on the air until that inevitably happens because her show is broadcast on cable where standards about what is acceptable are more permissive than what traditional networks allow, especially, as in ABC's case, if the network is owned by PG-rated Disney.

Now, let's deal with the politics beyond the hypocrisy on both the right and left.

The right at the moment has the political upper hand--Barr was fired while Bee wasn't. As good as progressives are at explaining things away, rationalizing them (as they have been struggling to do for days now on MSNBC) it is hard to make the case that it's OK, after an apology, to say about Ivanka what Bee said even though it was uttered under the sanction of comedy, where anything goes, and was directed at an employee of the White House (fair game) who also happens to be our reprehensible president's daughter. A president who has contributed immeasurably to the coarsening of discourse that has led to this. A president who has said much worse things than Samantha Bee or, for that matter, Rosanne Barr.

Again politically, progressives occupied the moral high ground while Barr's tweets were the sole subject of outrage. Then Bee stepped in it and changed the focus of the political struggle. Now everyone is talking and agitating about Samantha Bee. Rosanne Barr is relegated to a sidebar.

Here's my take--

I hate what both of them said. But both of them are or should be protected to say almost anything. (Not "Fire!" in a crowded theater.) That's the easy part. It's my view that they are pretty much equally culpable. Many on the left disagree. Fine.

I wouldn't fire either of them. We don't want to intimidate our comedians, our fools. During these times we need them more than ever. We need to hear their versions of the truth. We need them to be funny while subversive. How so many of us can't wait for the latest episode of Saturday Night Live. There is already so much fear that chilling difficult discourse more than it already is is dangerous to our survival as a democracy.

As a partisan, as someone who wants to see Trump weakend, humbled, and thereby rendered less effective, I want those on the left, who are essential to helping to bring this about, to be smarter than they currently are. We can't retreat from the fray and focus on our lifestyles (I have written about this ad nauseam) but must fight back even harder. Though smarter. 

Samantha Bee's rights are constitutionally protected (at least for now), but wasting them by wounding oneself while being stupid, and the rationalizations I am hearing from those I otherwise admire, is helping boost Trump's approval ratings and will interfere with progressives' prospects in November.

I am sorry if this pragmatic focus does not elevate our dialogue but until after the midterms my mantra is going to continue to be obsessively practical. 

I want us to be smart, less self-righteous, and above all win. Then we can go back to being nuanced and subtle. 

April 2, 2015--Religious Freedom Restoration Act

All of a sudden in Indiana they're not talking so much about the Final Four who will square off there this weekend to determine which team will win the NCAA basketball title. This in spite of the fact that institutional prestige is at stake (though why this sort of renown should be for "institutions of higher learning" is beyond me) as are big bucks--win, lose, or draw, all four teams stand to earn up to $10 million dollars each for having clawed their way to Indianapolis. (The unpaid players, by the way, come away with at most a free pair of sneakers.)

What is really at stake Down Home In Indiana is a fight for the soul of the state--whether or not they want to remain a part of the 21st century or begin to impose a theocracy just slightly more tolerant than the Religious Police in Iran would allow.

Of course I am exaggerating. The law recently passed by the state legislature, signed by potential GOP clown car Governor Mike Pence, and almost immediately condemned by various rights organizations and just as quickly endorsed by Ted Cruz, Mark Rubio, and Scott Walker (no surprises there) as well as by Jeb Bush (I guess, sadly, no surprise) would reaffirm that Indiana supports freedom of religion while at the same time wants that freedom to permit Hoosiers by the law to be able to cite religious belief as sufficient reason not to serve, among others, gay people.

Just as one pizzeria did yesterday when it announced that if you're gay there will be no pepperoni pizza for you. Because, as they proudly proclaimed, "We're a Christian establishment."

So in spite of the hemming and hawing that this law in Indiana as well as dozens of others around the country is just a simple assertion of religious liberty, it is more a measure to allow and justify overt forms of discrimination.

Do not most all states' constitutions affirm freedom of religion? Not that they or we really need that--after all, we have a Constitution that in its very First Amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting the establishment of religion or impeding the exercise of religion.

What is interesting is that the establishment of religion was an intense issue during the early years of our Republic because a number of colonies did have state-sanctioned and supported religions--official religions, if you will (as in England), and the Framers wanted to end that practice. Freedom of religious practice, which we focus on today, was in a sense a secondary matter.

Though increasingly politicians pandering to the religious right are not reluctant to assert that, "We are a Christian nation," as if we have an established religion. To me as a Jew/non-beliver this sounds like the beginning of a theocracy or, at the very least, unconstitutional.

Just as we thought the racial and cultural wars were abating (Barack Obama's election and reelection are still the best evidence for that as has been the momentum in support for same-sex marriages), here they are raging again.

In virtually all the states that have been enacting religious freedom restoration acts there has been other legislation to suppress the voting rights of low-income citizens. An unabashed strategy to make it more difficult for people of color to vote. I should say, vote for Democrats.

And just as states such as Indiana have been required by the federal courts to permit same-sex marriages, we have this spate of legislation that allows businesses to refuse service to gays and others Christian pizzerias will refuse to serve. Not that anyone who knows anything about pizza would order one in Indiana.