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I think this will probably be the last thing I'll say on this, but I have to get this off my chest. Like many people across the ideological spectrum I have some real wariness about and ambivalence towards the phenomenon of finding statements from someone's past to get them fired
This is something that's been done to extremely prominent figures but also to relatively anonymous ones, and it's been done across the ideological spectrum. Sometimes the outrage is real, sometimes (often) totally in bad faith.
Obviously how one feels about a particular instance turns on what exactly was said. But my general feeling is: people are often careless with words, sometimes people try to be edgy or funny and fail, and views change.
We should be allowed to acknowledge harm and move on, or give greater context to statements that are taken out of context, or explain why our minds have changed, or simply say "I was reckless with those words and I'm sorry for them."
Some may dismiss that as "ritual acts of contritition" but I actually think it's a perfectly reasonable part of public discourse and progress. And if people don't want to apologize, then they should defend their views and statements.
Most of what Tucker said that has caused controversy are lame attempts at provocation, embedded in the fratty/gross context of the shock-jock genre.
But I honestly just can't quite get over the statements about Iraqis. He said Iraq is "“a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semiliterate primitive monkeys.”
He also says of Iraqis “They’re also so just awful. Just awful...I just have zero sympathy for them or their culture. A culture where people just don’t use toilet paper or forks.”
It's not an exaggeration to say this is literally the worst way to think and talk about a group of people. It's the way that Nazis and Klansmen think and talk.
And while I understand why it's tactically advantageous for those defending the man who said those words to focus on the "mob," I would like someone, most of all the man who said them, to offer some defense or apology or...something
