Dan

Calabrese

Read Dan's bio and previous columns here

December 27, 2007

Will Smith Crosses the Line, But Why Do We Need a Line?

We have this ritual in America. It is predictable, tiring and bad for our national character, but we don’t seem to know how to stop. It goes like this:

A prominent person says something – inevitably described in the media as “controversial remarks” – that crosses the line into the realm of the things you can never say. The controversial remarks are reported. The applicable aggrieved group declares itself offended. The prominent person starts through some combination of apologizing, defending himself, entering sensitivity training or contributing money to the aggrieved group’s favorite charity.

Will Smith, who is a public figure only because he acts in popular movies, found himself this week with the leading role in “Controversial Remarks in America” by offering the following, stirring commentary on evil and the human condition:

“Even Hitler didn't wake up going, ‘Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was good.”

You know the rest. Outrage. Gnashing of teeth. Demands for an apology. Yawwwwieowfdsad . . . Oh, sorry. I feel asleep on my keyboard.

Adolf Hitler may have been the most evil man who ever lived. And Will Smith didn’t say anything to dispute that notion. He merely questioned whether Hitler himself recognized his own evil as such.

But no sooner had Smith been quoted in The Daily Record than a bunch of celebrity-news bloggers with an average IQ of approximately four began paraphrasing the statement as Smith having called Hitler a “good person,” which brought about the absurd necessity of Smith issuing a statement clarifying that “Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet.”

There are certain things you are not allowed to say. You are not allowed to audibly speculate that Hitler had any redeeming qualities. You are not allowed to voice any sympathy with old-time segregationists. You are not allowed to say anything stereotypical about women, about any racial minority, about homosexuals, about any religious group except Christians, or about any other group that declares itself to be a collection of victims.

About a year ago, my colleague Herman Cain wrote a hilarious column comparing Democrats’ political tactics to the terrorist tactics of Hezbollah, and naming them “Hezbocrats.” We received demands that we discontinue running his column. John Kerry denounced him on the floor of the United States Senate. I guess Herman also crossed the line. Fortunately, his syndicator – me – doesn’t believe the line should exist.

Why should anyone in America not have the freedom to say anything they want about anything at all? If someone wants to entertain the notion that Hitler wasn’t so bad, why should that not be allowed?

Any honest person with a brain in their head can see from Will Smith’s comment that he was not calling Hitler a good person, nor was he defending him in any way. But what if someone did? That person would quickly lose all credibility, but is it really necessary for groups like the Jewish Defense League to vent their outrage so forcefully?

A long time ago, a rather crazy woman named Marge Schott owned the Cincinnati Reds, and for some reason found herself in a position to wax philosophic about Mr. Hitler. For reasons known only to her, she said that Hitler was “good in the beginning.”

Well. You know the drill.

But do the usual groups expressing the usual outrage really do themselves any favors? How is the Jewish Defense League “defending” Jewish people by pronouncing itself offended and dismayed by comments like those of Mr. Smith, which were entirely innocuous, or those of Ms. Schott, which were just plain stupid?

Wouldn’t Jewish people on the whole be stronger and better off if they took the position that anyone can say whatever they want, and that it won’t bother them? Wouldn’t any group? Doesn’t the news media have more important things to cover than the misinterpretation of social commentary by a person unqualified to be making it in the first place?

There is no reason any statement – short of an outright call for violence, rape or murder – should be beyond the pale in the United States of America. No remarks should be controversial. No one needs to be offended or outraged by anyone else’s opinions.

All words can rise or fall on their own merits. I don’t ever want to see an American pressured to apologize for expressing any opinion – no matter how ignorant. And we could start with the media giving no play to those who take offense for the sake of offense – especially at statements like Will Smith’s, which were entirely untroubling to begin with.

This is Column # DC138.  Request permission to publish here.