Are There Any Limits To Anything Anymore?

What Do We Need To See, Hear or Read Before We Say “Enough!”?

I had never heard of Kathy Griffin until last week, but something about her posting of a now-published-worldwide mocked-up photo of herself holding a bloody, severed head of President Donald Trump was a “straw that broke the camel’s back” for me. The message in that imagery, whether intended or not, is that in her view, that’s what the President deserves — it could even be interpreted as an invitation to terrorists who have broadcast exactly that image [but with real pictures of real actions, not photoshopped composites]. Even worse, the “apology” video she posted the next day was about as sincere as Brian Williams’ 2015 apology for fabricating a story about his time in Iraq, calling it a “bungled attempt” to honor our service men and women. It was obvious that Ms. Griffin posted that apology only after her dumb post was denounced by everybody — even liberal media outlets — making it glaringly evident to her that she would be fired from CNN for doing such an irresponsible thing. And one would think it couldn’t get worse still, but then she and Gloria Allred [her attorney, the high-profile lawyer who would defend the murderer of her grandmother if it meant getting national attention in the media], had a “press conference” in which Ms. Griffin was painted as the victim. Get this [excerpts from that press conference]:

“I’m not afraid of Donald Trump. He’s a bully. I’ve dealt with old, white guys trying to keep me down my whole life, my whole career. … A sitting president of the United States, and his grown children, and the First Lady are personally, I feel, trying to ruin my life forever,” Ms. Griffith said, as she lamented being under investigation by the Secret Service. Gloria Allred said the actions (presumably the Secret Service investigation) were “unpresidential” and that no other first family has taken issue with humor attacking a sitting president.

Now rewind to the Women’s March on 1/21/17, the day after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, and the extremely vulgar and inflammatory remarks made by Ms.Ciccone [Madonna] and Ms. Judd [see my post Women’s March Speeches]. Get this:

Ms.Ciccone [Madonna] … “It took us this darkness to wake us the f*** up. … Today marks the beginning. … The revolution starts here. … And to our detractors that insist that this March will never add up to anything, f*** you. F*** you. … Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot of blowing up the White House.”

Ms. Judd. … The I Am A Nasty Woman “poem” she read was full of vulgar terminology [and I don’t mean just four-letter words]. I don’t want to quote any of it here.

Now fast forward to 5/2/17, to Stephen Colbert’s extremely vulgar and derogatory remarks about President Trump in his “comedy” monolog. Get this …

“Mr. Trump, your presidency — I love your presidency. I call it ‘Disgrace the Nation.’ You’re not the POTUS — you’re the BLOTUS. You’re the glutton with the button. You’re a regular ‘Gorge’ Washington. You’re the presi-dunce, but you’re turning into a real prick-tator. Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. You have more people marching against you than cancer. You talk like a sign language gorilla who got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c**k holster. Your presidential library is gonna be a kids menu and a couple of ‘Jugs’ magazines. The only thing smaller than your hands is your tax returns. And you can take that any way you want.”

Are There Any Limits To Anything Anymore?

This kind of filth is being plastered across “news”paper headlines and TV screens around the clock, with talking-head “news” anchors as the messengers and panels of “experts” debating whether the First Amendment gives these people the right to say whatever they want without regard to how it might affect others [young children, for example, who might be just walking through a room where their parents are watching the “news”]. I’d be willing to bet that not a single one of our Founding Fathers involved in development of our Constitution and Bill of Rights envisioned anywhere near the level to which civility and decent-mindedness would have degraded 240 years later — or would agree today that this kind of vulgar and disrespectful language would be supported by the First Amendment they wrote. {I enclosed “news” in quotes because that term is used very loosely these days — see these past posts expanding on that issue: News or NNTN?; Fake News Or Just Meaningless News?.}

Enough already! We need a movement, just as Ms. Ciccone said. But the movement we need is not the revolution she described — it’s a revolution focused on returning some degree of sanity to both what is happening and how the “news” of what is happening is reported. If we continue down the path we have been following in recent years, we are doomed.