This Apologizing Crap is (Almost) Out of Control

Don Imus, you are one "nappy headed ho." There I said it! I mean Christ, you have got to do something about your hair! It's out of control!

And your latest whoring, this time for RFD-TV mogul Patrick Gottsch is disgusting. Man, the guy can't even manage to sell a single commercial to sponsor your show! If I have to sit through one more slobbering love tribute from you to Mr. Gottsch , I'm gonna be sick. Get a frakking room!

Opps! That was over the line,wasn't it? I guess I better apologize before the Imus fanatics boycott my blog. And death threats can't be far behind. Sorry, Don. I apologize. You really still are the great radio personality you once were. And you do wear a hat, so it's all good. Okay?

In all semi-seriousness, this not offending people thing is simply out of control! Everyone has to be so careful, they almost can't talk, let alone editorialize. And satire.... forget about it.

It's a world wide trend and, tragically, many countries are actually putting it into law. Canada is totally out of control, with many bloggers facing impossible lawsuits for offending someone.

Italy, Spain and virtually all countries with large Islamic populations have strong laws against offending religion, but usually that only means Islam.

Here in the good old U.S. of A. we have one special interest group after another demanding apologies, firing and worse.

So when radio personality Randi Rhodes makes a wild, expletive filled rant about Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro, she is forced to apologize or lose her job. To her credit Rhodes quit rather than apologize (and has since found a new radio home for her far left wing talk fest).

Don Imus, of course lost his job and was exiled from radio for six months or more, before finally bringing back a highly sanitized version of his program, this time with two black co-hosts to keep him out of trouble.

Bill Maher's rant about the Catholic Church and the Pope was terribly funny, but far enough over the line that HBO was forced under pressure from Catholics to demand Maher apologize. And he did, sort of.

Of course you will absolutely never hear Maher take on Islam the way he attacks Christianity. Maher nibbles around the edges, but I don't think he wants to risk a fatwa.

And that is a shame. We've got to fight as hard for our right of "FREE SPEECH" as other special interest groups fight to protect their so-calling image or good name.

When the demand that we "never offend" one group or religion, you can easily end up with the kind of out of control mob violence now going on in India at Ranchi University where riots have closed the University because a history professor offended Islam by wording a final exam essay question in a way that was unflattering to the Prophet Mohammad. Links here, here and here.

So easily offended is the Islamic population that the major newspapers in India won't even reprint the question in question. It was something about the tracing the life of Mohammad from "trader to raider." It was an Islamic history class.

By the way, if you'd like to read an extremely funny rant, I point you the newest Internet blogging sensation, Rachel Lucas and her terrific If I were Temporary Supreme Dictator of America. Then read her massive apology the very next day (yes, it's a real apology after outrage from her readers) Bold new blogging horizons: I deconstruct my very own post.

This is the kind of shit that happens when you get really popular. A problem that, alas, I will never have.

I promise that those two posts will brighten your entire day.