The Mel Gibson "Debacle"

[The Question]

The big deal is Munich 1938. If we don't learn from our mistakes we are bound to repeat them. And I sure as heck don't want to see a repeat of the events of that era.

Please. If some drunk spouting anti-Semitism was going to lead to the Holocaust, it would have been happening every weekend since 1945.

 

[The Question]

Well, you all know my views on the ill-conceived indiscriminate bombings by the IDF of civilian targets in Lebanon. It is one thing to criticize the policies of the State of Israel and a whole other thing to make anti-semitic remarks motivated by racial or religious hatred. The latter has caused enough problems in the world, including a near genocide complete with the most heinous atrocities and crimes against humanity the world has ever seen.

Ummm... hello? Stalin and Mao disagree!

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

But doesn't it strike you as a tad bizarre that the anti-Jew rants are coming from a man who has spent the better part of the last decade immersed in their history and culture, and who made a movie about one of the most pivotal times in their history?

Why would such an informed and spiritual man choose to single out Jews over anyone else? I find that part of the puzzle significant.

BTW, hate speech doesn't just happen to Jews, and as you pointed out TQ, atrocities didn't just happen to them. Hate speech leads to hate crime, and both unchecked lead to institutionalized oppression and eventually ethnic cleansing.

Kill one now with a car, or kill a million later with the blessing of your countrymen. Any man's death diminishes me, but let's not put blinders on when we can see down the long road...

 

[Grammour Boy]

Wasn't Gibson working on a Holocaust project for television which the network scrapped after the drunken incident?

 

[Mentalist]

I wonder if the reaction would of been the same if he'd said something about black people. Food for thought. Surely it would of been denounced as well but it's this white wall of shock that arises when it's Jewish based.

For instance here at TK how many people spout off about "niggers" this and "niggers" that. Yet TQ often makes points about Jewish based discussion and I haven't heard him start shouting about it calling them Yids and the like; he just questions as is his name-sake about things that for him do not add up. Yet he is the one that gets labeled a Nazi by so many.

I think all forms of racism are dispicable. But It's this disproportonate reaction to anything to do with Jewish run states and institutions not being the perfect and downtrodden victims the are shown to be that illicits such a stong reaction of shock and disgust. When discussion about a historical event for instance and questioning elements of that historical event become a taboo in society that you have to wake up and ask whats going on here.

All men are created equal unless you're Jewish then any criticism is the work of the most evil people you could ever wish to meet.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

We'll never know if the reaction would have been different if he had singled out another group, so we can't presume. Personally I think the fallout would have been just as bad if it were blacks.

Perhaps it's more newsworthy and the reactions are more heated because...EUREKA!...Israelis are currently in the middle of a powderkeg war that has its allies divided. There's a thought...

 

[The Question]

But doesn't it strike you as a tad bizarre that the anti-Jew rants are coming from a man who has spent the better part of the last decade immersed in their history and culture, and who made a movie about one of the most pivotal times in their history?

Why would such an informed and spiritual man choose to single out Jews over anyone else? I find that part of the puzzle significant.

Probably the same thing that leads to anti-Semitism in a lot of people: He saw a lot of shit he didn't like.

BTW, hate speech doesn't just happen to Jews, and as you pointed out TQ, atrocities didn't just happen to them. Hate speech leads to hate crime, and both unchecked lead to institutionalized oppression and eventually ethnic cleansing.

Kill one now with a car, or kill a million later with the blessing of your countrymen. Any man's death diminishes me, but let's not put blinders on when we can see down the long road...

But let's also not get too far-sighted and end up blind to more immediate, though far less sensational, dangers. Hate speech -- and I agree that the exact words he used, and in the context he used them, connotes hate, not just criticism -- is still the far, far lesser of the two evils he put on display. Get the man off the road (well shit, he's fucking loaded, he doesn't even NEED to drive anymore, does he?) get him into AA or whatever-damn-thing. That might take care of the whole hate speech bit all by itself. In fact, it's doubtful anything else will.

I'll also suggest that the people who are all outraged and righteously-indignated and such by Gibson's remarks need to fucking toughen up.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

Didja notice that he was charged for the DUI, but not for the hate speech? In fact, the police were ready to sweep his anti-Jew rants under the rug.

That's how our laws (and their enforcement) are positioned at the present time. So to some degree, I reject the premise that the hate speech is being perceived as the greater crime, at least where it counts.

 

[Mentalist]

So to some degree, I reject the premise that the hate speech is being perceived as the greater crime, at least where it counts.

As it shouldnt. Though if you're inciting violent hate speech that should be punishable as well.

My mothers Ex-Boyfriend was killed by a Drink Driver two days after my 18th birthday. Nobody is going to tell me that spouting crap to police officers is the worst he did that night.

 

[whisky]

Well he was drinking and driving, so therefor he must have recently bought petrol, petrol prices have increased since the isreal lebenon thing, so while he cant blame blacks for increased petrol prices, he can in theory blame jews.

Although why a man with tens of millions in the bank cares about a few cents on the price of gas is more of a mistery



ps

the batteries in my keyboard died making this post, for the first time in years, I blame the jews

 

[The Question]

ps

the batteries in my keyboard died making this post, for the first time in years, I blame the jews

That caused me to LOL somewhat.

 

[The Question]

As it shouldnt. Though if you're inciting violent hate speech that should be punishable as well.

Of course. There's a big difference between an opinion and an order. Someone yelling, "GAWDDAMN DERTEH JOOOOZ!" and so on and so forth is (and ought to be seen as) vulgar and stupid, but not criminal. Suggesting, calling for or condoning violence or crime against anyone at all, whether they're a member of a particular group or not, should be taken way more seriously.

On the other hand, the right to point out misbehavior from an individual or an organization ought to be defended regardless of the "special" group affiliated with those who are misbehaving. Being Jewish shouldn't serve as a shield people can hide shady shit under.

 

[headvoid]

I nearly neg repped Eggs in this thread, but I stopped myself just in time.

I'm struggling to see that getting behind the wheel of car with an open bottle of Tequila, swiggin away is in any way compatible to a drunken anti semetic statement.

Wolfowitz? Iraq? There is at least some flimsy and shitty logic behind the statement. There is no logic behind driving that drunk when you have enough cash to buy a new chauffeur every night.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

I'm not minimizing the drunken driving, he should be locked up for that, and not allowed some half-assed outpatient AA meetings like he's doing. The least he could do is make a show of it and lock himself up somewhere for a month...

I just don't want the hate speech minimized, either. And it's not some pro-Jewish bias in me saying that, it's merely anti-hate.

 

[The Question]

I nearly neg repped Eggs in this thread, but I stopped myself just in time.

I'm struggling to see that getting behind the wheel of car with an open bottle of Tequila, swiggin away is in any way compatible to a drunken anti semetic statement.

The point exactly.

Wolfowitz? Iraq? There is at least some flimsy and shitty logic behind the statement.

Also true. It may have been a shitty thing to say, and the dumbest possible means and circumstances in which to say it, but it's not entirely unfounded, either.

There is no logic behind driving that drunk when you have enough cash to buy a new chauffeur every night.

No shit. The guy can have himself driven wherever the hell he wants to go, why not just pay some jackass driver and get as plowed as he wants legally in the back of a Maybach? Dude's a dumbass.

 

[The Question]

I just don't want the hate speech minimized, either. And it's not some pro-Jewish bias in me saying that, it's merely anti-hate.

Sorry, but the whole concept of 'hate speech' in this context is ridiculous. He wasn't advocating or condoning harm against Jews or anyone else. Unless or until he does that, then his opinions may be mean-spirited, vulgar, or what-have-you... but punishing him because of them is the worse form of discrimination -- and again, if you punish someone for claiming the Jews have too much power, then you prove that he's right, which I would assume isn't something one would want to do.