Comedy is supposed to bring us together by showing us there's nobody completely above mockery. But even this most basic of First Amendment expressions is under attack by the progressive leftwing ideology.
Covering for Glenn on his radio show this morning, Buck Sexton talked about how left-leaning comedians seem to be let off the hook of political correctness while their conservative counterparts are forced to apologize for being "offensive."
To demonstrate the extent our PC culture has gone, Buck pointed out some have deemed tribute videos of the late actor, Robin Williams, offensive.
Perhaps one of the best examples of this is after the very tragic and untimely death of Robin Williams, as they created some tribute videos of his comedy, people realized that even but a few years ago, maybe a decade or so ago, there were things that Robin Williams would say, and there were voices he would do. And there were jokes he made. Ooh. That's kind of racist. Oh, I don't know if we can show that on TV.
He continued.
"What is happening to us? How can we allow this to be?" Buck asked. "We're supposed to be the beacon of freedom to the entire world, and our first freedom is of speech, of thought, of ideas. And yet, we're giving that away without too much of a fight."
Listen to the segment or read the transcript below.
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.
BUCK: There are some who will get away with more minor violations of the code of PC, of political correctness. There are some who have to have a temporary, little minor moment of apology and they can just skate on by. Because if you're on the left -- if you're a leftist in good standing, you get a little more leeway on this.
Tina Fey, who is a talented comedy writer. I actually enjoyed 30 Rock very much, and I think Jack Donaghy is one of the great TV characters of all time. But Tina Fey has also written a show. She was the head writer at SNL for a while, for those of you who are not familiar with her work. She's the creator of a show called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. And on TheBlaze.com, we have this story now, where she's just saying she doesn't really care that there's some sort of -- there's some outrage that people have over her -- over her show. She's not going to apologize.
Now, what's interesting here as a member in good standing with the left, she'll be okay. She can do this. Right? But it's instructive, I think, nonetheless to show that even somebody like her, who has been burnishing -- remember, this is the woman who made a mockery of Sarah Palin -- perhaps her most famous stint on SNL. You could say, well, they make fun of everybody. But it felt -- there was a particular sting, I think, in the Palin jokes. And she's somebody who also created this show.
And in this show, there's a white actress who as part of the story line comes from a Native American family. It's obviously supposed to be farcical. It's really sort of surrealist. It's not in any way a commentary on Native Americans and everything else. And people, of course, because of the culture we live in now begin to freak out about it. They demand apologies. And they just want everybody to walk around constantly in fear of saying the wrong thing. Because there's power in that. For people -- and, of course, this is the mind-set of the modern leftist, is that they want to be able to tell you what to do all the time in every facet of your life. I think this is one of the main characteristics or one of the main distinguishing factors between left and right in this country.
The right wants some rules, but other than that, go for it. The left wants everything to be dictated. Notice the usage of that term. It should remind you of something else.
They have a sense that is dictatorial. Comedy is supposed to be a chance to be brave, to afflict the powerful, to actually bring us all together by showing us that there's nobody that is above mockery. Whether it's our political leaders or religious leaders or anybody, closely held beliefs, all of it should be subject to some degree of humor, right? There's some humor that's in bad taste. There's some humor that's not nice or fair. But you should be able to take a joke about basically anything. And this is one of the casualties of the culture in which we now live. That you can't even make a show that's just trying to entertain and be funny without everyone coming out and saying, "Oh, how could you? It's so racist."
Perhaps one of the best examples of this is after the very tragic and untimely death of Robin Williams, as they created some tribute videos of his comedy, people realized that even but a few years ago, maybe a decade or so ago, there were things that Robin Williams would say, and there were voices he would do. And there were jokes he made. Ooh. That's kind of racist. Oh, I don't know if we can show that on TV.
What is happening to us? How can we allow this to be? We're supposed to be the beacon of freedom to the entire world. And our first freedom is of speech, of thought, of ideas. And yet, we're giving that away without too much of a fight. I say we change that.
Featured Image: A protestor shouts through a rolled up poster outside of the Wisconsin assembly chamber at the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 10, 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin. Thousands of demonstrators continue to protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol as the Wisconsin House voted to pass the state's controversial budget bill one day after Wisconsin Republican Senators voted to curb collective bargaining rights for public union workers in a surprise vote with no Democrats present. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
