Mel Gibson has apologized directly for his drunken anti-Semitic comments, even going so far as to ask to "meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom [he] can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing." Well, he screwed up major big-time, that's a fact. That was just plain nasty bullshit he was spewing. And it's perfectly fair to nail his ass when he's being an asshole.
I’m watching to see how folks react to his apology.
The standard line, of course, is that we all say folks should apologize when they are wrong, when they hurt people around them, and that they should do what they can to make things right. Well, Mel is at least starting on his way down that path. The other side of the coin is that the injured—and those as well who are offended by the behavior—are supposed to forgive and maybe even work to assist the erring person to reclaim the benefits of correct behavior. Heck, we’ve been taught that since we were all kids.
Are you going to have some fun bad-mouthing him, calling him names, making jokes, laughing at his misfortune, taking delight at the damage he’s caused himself? Are you going to wallow in nastiness, joining your friends in putting him down? Are you going to see how clever you can be while doing everything I just listed? Are you going to dismiss his apology as self-serving and insincere? Are you going to write him off? Are you going to feel morally superior when you do all this? Well, bottom line: you can be as cynical and mean-spirited as you wish and my bet is hardly anyone will even think to ask you to examine your motives if that's what you choose.
When you’re figuring out what you’ll do, it might help to think about how a lynch mob acts. They don’t just do the wrong thing. They wallow in the togetherness, the group-think mutual approval, and sheer raw power of the mob, and they enjoy looking forward to the hopefully upcoming misfortune of others; they enjoy the punishing and the hating. Take a look around the world. You might see a few mobs in action right now.
You gonna join the mob?
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Points:
"In your efforts to reduce government, aim for zero. If you ever get there and don't like what you see, I guarantee that it will be the easiest thing in the world to pick up the nearest telephone and have another one established on the very next day." Robert LeFevre (1970) quoted by Billy Beck
"Blaming the current financial crisis on the failure of markets is like blaming an airplane crash on the failure of gravity." Kyle Bennett
"Be you. Be kind. Give a shit. Mean it." Kawehi
"Wars are seldom caused by spontaneous hatreds between peoples, for peoples in general are too ignorant of one another to have grievances and too indifferent to what goes on beyond their borders to plan conquests. They must be urged to slaughter by politicians who know how to alarm them." H.L. Mencken
"The almost erotic pleasure of spending money that others have earned and saved is one reason people put up with the tiresome aspects of political life." - George Will
"We should all be thankful to the Soviets because they have proved conclusively that socialism doesn't work. No one can say they didn't have enough power or enough bureaucracy or enough planners or they didn't go far enough." Paul Craig Roberts
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." H.L. Mencken.
"Taking care of business is cool where we live." Bono.
"Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than any other ‘ism’." - Bono
"We didn't speak to each other. That's how everything falls apart, isn't it." Nick Heyward, commenting on Haircut 100’s breakup.
"[F]or all he's really worth to Objectivism today, That Woman might as well never have devoted a single line to Ragnar Danneskjold" - Billy Beck
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy. However, four out of five US murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who's crazy?" -- Andrew Ford
"Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from." Thomas Sowell
"People shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people." V for Vendetta (Movie)
"That stone buddha deserves all the birdshit it gets. I wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind." Ikkyu
"I left Earth three times. I found no place else to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth." Walter Schirra
"I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion; I’ve watched C-Beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die." Roy Batty - Blade Runner
"All social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering." Rita Marker
"Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good." John Stuart Mill
"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." from The Law - Frédéric Bastiat
"Well, you have to know. Or you can't sing it." Richard Dreyfuss (Mr. Holland's Opus)
"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." (who knows who said it first...but it's true).
"We didn't leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stones" - Thomas Barnett
"Pete Best was a good drummer, but Ringo was a good Beatle." John Lennon
"I guarantee that people will steal things in market anarchy. They just won't be able to credibly claim a public mandate to do so." Kyle Bennett
"For if power without law [meaning 'just the will of the prevailing dominant mob'] can make laws, may alter the fundamental laws of the kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life, or any thing that he calls his own." Charles I (pdf)
"If more government control and less civil liberties mean increased safety, why aren’t our prisons the safest places in the country?" Munchkin Wrangler
"They're called missles, not hittles.
Fire two. "Unknown Pilot
"Your third party vote is not wasted. It serves to enslave your mind just as well as a major party vote does." - Brad Spangler.
"Remember, government jobs are *hard* and confusing; irrational decisions appearing to be insane are the case only because we can’t appreciate how immensely difficult redistributionist social relativism really is." - Hatless Hessian
"Tradition holds that even the most senior officer will salute a Victoria Cross recipient as a mark of the utmost respect for their act of valour." - Angus Houston
"Though my heart may be left of center, I have always known that the only economic system that works is a market economy. This is the only natural economy, the only kind that makes sense, the only one that leads to prosperity, because it is the only one that reflects the nature of life itself. The essence of life is infinitely and mysteriously multiform, and therefore it cannot be contained or planned for, in its fullness and variability, by any central intelligence."--Vaclav Havel
"Blaming the current financial crisis on the failure of markets is like blaming an airplane crash on the failure of gravity." Kyle Bennett
"Be you. Be kind. Give a shit. Mean it." Kawehi
"Wars are seldom caused by spontaneous hatreds between peoples, for peoples in general are too ignorant of one another to have grievances and too indifferent to what goes on beyond their borders to plan conquests. They must be urged to slaughter by politicians who know how to alarm them." H.L. Mencken
"The almost erotic pleasure of spending money that others have earned and saved is one reason people put up with the tiresome aspects of political life." - George Will
"We should all be thankful to the Soviets because they have proved conclusively that socialism doesn't work. No one can say they didn't have enough power or enough bureaucracy or enough planners or they didn't go far enough." Paul Craig Roberts
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." H.L. Mencken.
"Taking care of business is cool where we live." Bono.
"Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than any other ‘ism’." - Bono
"We didn't speak to each other. That's how everything falls apart, isn't it." Nick Heyward, commenting on Haircut 100’s breakup.
"[F]or all he's really worth to Objectivism today, That Woman might as well never have devoted a single line to Ragnar Danneskjold" - Billy Beck
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy. However, four out of five US murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who's crazy?" -- Andrew Ford
"Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from." Thomas Sowell
"People shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people." V for Vendetta (Movie)
"That stone buddha deserves all the birdshit it gets. I wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind." Ikkyu
"I left Earth three times. I found no place else to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth." Walter Schirra
"I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion; I’ve watched C-Beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die." Roy Batty - Blade Runner
"All social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering." Rita Marker
"Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good." John Stuart Mill
"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." from The Law - Frédéric Bastiat
"Well, you have to know. Or you can't sing it." Richard Dreyfuss (Mr. Holland's Opus)
"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." (who knows who said it first...but it's true).
"We didn't leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stones" - Thomas Barnett
"Pete Best was a good drummer, but Ringo was a good Beatle." John Lennon
"I guarantee that people will steal things in market anarchy. They just won't be able to credibly claim a public mandate to do so." Kyle Bennett
"For if power without law [meaning 'just the will of the prevailing dominant mob'] can make laws, may alter the fundamental laws of the kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life, or any thing that he calls his own." Charles I (pdf)
"If more government control and less civil liberties mean increased safety, why aren’t our prisons the safest places in the country?" Munchkin Wrangler
"They're called missles, not hittles.
Fire two. "Unknown Pilot
"Your third party vote is not wasted. It serves to enslave your mind just as well as a major party vote does." - Brad Spangler.
"Remember, government jobs are *hard* and confusing; irrational decisions appearing to be insane are the case only because we can’t appreciate how immensely difficult redistributionist social relativism really is." - Hatless Hessian
"Tradition holds that even the most senior officer will salute a Victoria Cross recipient as a mark of the utmost respect for their act of valour." - Angus Houston
"Though my heart may be left of center, I have always known that the only economic system that works is a market economy. This is the only natural economy, the only kind that makes sense, the only one that leads to prosperity, because it is the only one that reflects the nature of life itself. The essence of life is infinitely and mysteriously multiform, and therefore it cannot be contained or planned for, in its fullness and variability, by any central intelligence."--Vaclav Havel
"Whenever someone from the government asks you 'where would you be without us' the first and most essential answer is 'free'. - Me.
"If I have a right to be free at all, I have a right to be free right here where I am, and right now." - Me.
"I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces." - Etienne de La Boétie
"You might think that we can find an alternative to markets, that markets are a political tool that can be chosen or rejected. They're not. They operate at all times and in all places, and always by the same laws. They are the given that your political positions are tested against." - Kyle Bennett
"If I have a right to be free at all, I have a right to be free right here where I am, and right now." - Me.
"I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces." - Etienne de La Boétie
"You might think that we can find an alternative to markets, that markets are a political tool that can be chosen or rejected. They're not. They operate at all times and in all places, and always by the same laws. They are the given that your political positions are tested against." - Kyle Bennett
2 comments:
This is what gets me about the whole thing - that people are oh -so - shocked about what he said. It seems as though because he's well known that he's not meant to have an opinion (right or wrong). Obviously he was drunk or it wouldn't have been said and no-one would have been any the wiser. Everyone has their own thoughts about certain things in life and we'd probably be strung up if people were aware of them :).
I received a comment on this but acidentally erased it before it could be posted. My apologies, but I'd sure like a re-send from whoever left it, so I _can_ post it :-)
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