Because we live in such a polarized, divisive, and partisan atmosphere, if you want to avoid being labeled a hack who will say anything to defend your own tribe, you have to defend the other side. You have to find someone who did something you disagree with and, on principle, stand with them. And so I give you Charlie Sheen asking God to kill President-elect Donald Trump.
In the wake of the tragic deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds, on Wednesday, Sheen tweeted the following:
The next day, Sheen belligerently followed this up with a poetic and somewhat incoherent response to his critics:
The fact that a crackhead knows what “timorousness” means while I had to go and look it up, is beside the point.
The point is that Sheen did not back down. His despicable plea to God stands. He stood his ground and then doubled down, and I say good for him.
If you are horrified by this, let me ask you…
Do you want to live in an America full of cowardly Steve Martins who run away and hide, who can be intimidated into deleting tweets after being bullied over something as stupid as using the word “beautiful” to describe Carrie Fisher?
Or do you want to live in a country full of Charlie Sheens who are unafraid to express their opinion, even if it is a reprehensible opinion?
Now one must wonder how Sheen would have held up had he expressed the same opinion about Barack Obama, an opinion that would have been met with a completely different response both within his own Hollywood community and from our so-called objective mainstream media. Yesterday, I put it like this…
Nevertheless, Sheen is facing some serious blowback and still standing his ground. I say this is good for America. We need more of this. We need more people willing to express themselves in ways that make others uncomfortable. And we need fewer spineless cowards like Steve Martin who assume the fetal position as soon as Disapproval rears its fascist head.
At the age of 35, after he was already well-established and earning a healthy living, in order to be true to himself, comedian George Carlin dumped the suit and tie and let his hair grow long. Then, after he had been repeatedly warned it would happen, he still chose to get himself arrested in Milwaukee for performing his classic “Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say On Television.”
Carlin laid it all on the line, lost years of a decent income due to his new look and style, and did so because he believed that in America you should be able to say whatever the hell you want. As long as you are not causing a panic by screaming fire or interfering with someone else’s rights, what gives our government the right to silence and oppress speech they don’t like? Carlin was willing to die on that hill, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude.
Carlin won his battle, but today instead of the government silencing and oppressing speech, we have social media mobs and the national media. Granted, the media only attempts to destroy those who say things that offend Leftists, still, on the political right, there is a similar infrastructure in place. And none of it is okay.
Now, to answer your question. Yes, I am totally fine with criticizing someone’s else’s speech and recognize that is also free speech. But we all know when that criticism crosses a line and twists itself into an attempt to intimidate, bully and threaten, and that is when it stops being okay.
I probably despise Obama even more than Sheen despises Trump. Regardless, never in a million years, even in the darkest part of my soul, would I wish any harm on the man, much less death. Charlie Sheen doing so, and using the deaths of Fisher and Reynolds to do so, is objectively awful.
Worse, though, is this Brave New World where you can’t say something or are afraid to say something objectively awful, and that is the world I am seeing built up around us.
This is why, among other things, I use the word “gay,” and mock Kwanzaa and people for being fat and Sarah Silverman’s advancing age. I do these things because I have been warned not to do these things. I do these things because I have been told not to. I do these things because I am an American.
This country needs more Charlie Sheens, more people who refuse to run from free speech bullies.
Because that is the only way we can defeat these fascist, un-American, online mobs.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC