Ten Questions:
- Do you think any comedy writers before 2016 would confidently announce in public that they were glad they ruined someone’s life?
2. Is it possible this was intended to be funny, as in mocking the seriousness of having kamikaze sexual assault accusers emerge with unprovavable stories from high school and college to impugn your character on the national stage? If so, that is only slightly less vicious than if the tweet means what it says.
3. If you are a Colbert fan, do you think this suggests a less than kind, fair and ethical orientation in that show’s culture?
4. Should the purpose of comedy ever be to hurt people?
5. If Colbert, his producers, or CBS thought they had an audience that cared about decency and fairness, wouldn’t they discipline Dumas?
6. How many businesses would continue to employ someone who announced to the public that they (‘we”) ruined someone’s life?
7. Or does “we” mean the “resistance,” Democrats, et al.? If you’re a progressive, does this bother you? Is that what the left takes pride in now—ruining lives?
8. Could the left end of the political spectrum possibly be more repulsive or less sympathetic than they have been in the last few weeks?
9.When I conclude that, do you think that shows me to be partisan? If so, doesn’t that indicate that Democratic and progressive partisans see nothing wrong with a tweet celebrating “ruining someone’s life”? It’s an important question, because if that’s the kind of value the Left now considers acceptable, decent and fair citizens have no choice but to be come partisan—against that.
10. Are you repulsed by the tweet?
Bonus Question: If you are not, what’s the matter with you?
Ethics Alarms 
I need to go no further than the Tweet to reaffirm why I will never vote for a Democrat again. The Tweet is just so in tune with the constant anti-Trump harping the party and the mob serenades us with since the day after. I may not vote for a Republican, but a Democrat? Never! “Not my party” and I will “Resist.”
I agree with everything you said in this post. The (D) behind one’s name is signature significance of being either an ignorant or an evil person.
You cannot in good faith support their actions.
Note the GOP is only slightly better. The Swamp is the real enemy
No campaign signs in my town announce a candidate as a Democrat. They say Republican, Libertarian, or nothing. If there is no party affiliation, you know they are a Democrat.
The ‘BETO’ signs here are the same.
I am always grateful when I see a Democrat sign or bumper sticker. They have outed themselves as partisan hacks before I need deal with them.
All good questions and, no, it was not a joke. They, meaning her, Stephen Colbert, the network, the Democratic Party and the so-called resistance with its cohorts in news, entertainment, academia and the deluded non-elites who’ve had their thinking corrupted by thought processes like this for too long, see no problem with personal destruction of the type. Because the end justifies the means.
Now for added hilarity, someone on right wing Twitter should take that tweet, change the name to James Gunn and set the timer to see how fast they get suspended. Then we can have a “dialogue” about Twitter’s impartial enforcement of their rules and “Bias? There’s no stinkin’ bias.”
You should never tweet something so vile when your last name is dum as
This is how authoritarians think.
Do they understand we can see they are just projecting their authoritarian beliefs when they accuse the right of wanting an imperial presidency?
My entire life, if democrats accused the GOP of doing something, you can bet they already did it. (Russia collusion?? WHO did it?)
If they say the GOP wants to push Granny off the cliff, it is because they think that way. (WHO supports euthanasia?)
If they say the GOP ‘wants to starve children’ you can take it to the bank that socialists have already done so (insert-your-favorite-genocide-by-leftists-here)
If the GOP is about racism, who aborts minority babies?
I think you are mostly correct. The Democrats feel they are the champions of morality and decency, and their opponents are vile scum. However, the Democrats are aware of the evil they have done. They justify this by imagining that their opponents have done much worse. That is how you can have Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein as champions of women. Sure, they have treated women badly, but they imagined Republicans are much worse! That is why they are so frantic to eliminate Republicans from public life. They know how racist they are themselves, so image how racist Republicans must be! They know how they treat women, so imagine how horrible Republicans must be!
Well said
I don’t watch much TV aside from sports, so I’m not familiar with Colbert nor with what is considered acceptable comedy on that kind of show. But, I do not see the tweet as an attempt at humor, I see it as a reflection of the hatred that characterizes much of the left.
And, yes, you will be seen as partisan because you are calling out someone on the left. The fact that the tweet is despicable will not be considered relevant unless you can prove you have found and condemned every tweet, comment, utterance, et. al. from the right that could possibly be construed as being untoward. Such is the nature of the fringe, both left and right, where belief trumps reason, and the fringe on the left has widened considerably in the last couple of years so that it reaches well toward the center.
You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
Brett Kavanaugh deserved to have his privileged life destroyed. He’s the patriarchy incarnate. He didn’t check his privilege, he flaunted it. Victims have to be believed. He’s an oppressor, a serial rapist. He’s a judge in a corrupt, oppressive criminal system that preys upon black men. Of course he and all his kind need to be destroyed.
And screw your ethics. They’re nothing but a means to oppress women and people of color.
Thanks, OB. I needed a chuckle this morning.
HA! Imagine: A female ethicist as competent, articulate, prolific, ethically consistent, non-ideological, exemplary of personal integrity, and dedicated to public service as Jack! THAT will never happen…DWAT those wascally old PWEGNANCIES!
This must be the “Tolerance” the left constantly preaches about. So caring and enlightening in its views of how Modern Society should behave.
I think it was intended to be sarcastic, because of course Kavanaugh will now sit on the Supreme Court, and his career has not been derailed. He can expect a constant flow of harassment against him and his family for the next few years, but largely the mob has failed in its objective. I’m sure some on the left want us to take that to mean it was absurd to suggest they were ever trying to do so, which is kind of like suggesting that ice isn’t cold as long as don’t hold it.
I think you’re dreaming, Dave.
Thanks for this: that was a late addition to the list, and I was thinking that I was imagining that anyone could read it that way.
There goes another show permanently off my list. Too bad, I found their Comicon coverage amusingly clueless about some things. There is absolutely no filter on these people, they seem addicted to the instant warm-‘something’ feedback loop of the echo chamber.
I personally believe some polls were starting to show some candidates they were alienating the middle of the road and many up for reelection wanted to get it over with before it hurt their vote completely. Pragmatism beginning to make headway. One of my newsfeeds said uber and another service were offering free lifts to the polls… My elderly parent might want that just to see the fuss.
Hate is a powerful motivator, and bias really does make you stupid.
But where is the LGTB community in this? Why was it all right for these ‘comedians’ to ridicule Lindsay Graham as gay because he’s unmarried and if he is gay is not ‘out.’ Why would the LGTB community allow these ‘comics’ to use them for character assassination when they presumably support that entire community? So it’s okay to be gay and liberal, but if you’re gay and conservative you should be ridiculed — not for your politics but for your presumed sexual orientation.
This scattershot approach is more than ridiculous. It’s frightening. Everyone — even those in your own camp — are targets if it’s convenient.
10. I am repulsed by the tweet – but only momentarily. To use a term a Facebook friend used: That tweet just reflects a lot of “butthurt.”
4. Actually, and I guess this is unethical, I DO think comedy should be used to hurt people – SPARINGLY and RARELY – you know, in the same manner that abortion-on-demand radicals say they think abortion should be. Good luck with reining-in our society’s nascent weaponization of comedy (motivated by bias and ideological fanaticism) for purposes of not just hurting, but DESTROYING people. The comics are only getting started.
If anyone in hollywood made a similar tweet about a Liberal supreme court nominee, they would be fired. The double standard has to stop. Perhaps the left needs to receive the boomerang of their own violence.
They will say the right started any violence anyway… go ahead and start shooting?
Dangerous impulse, there, HM. Understandable, but dangerous.
1) a comics job is to find what to ridicule, but there was the too soon rule in some cases. Many. Of Joan Rivers Jokes were cruel. But we did not notice because her Targets, did not acknowledge her.
2) it was probably intended to be Funny, Steve Allen once said that. You. We’re lucky. If half your jokes worked, this is why Twitter is a dumb place to try out material.
3) he is playing to his base Jack. I sometimes find him funny sometime don’t he is a text bookmexample of Not everything works, the ethics of political comedy is everything is a target as long as truth is at its core, if it lacks truth it. Is not an ethical joke.
4) Don Rickles made a career of it! But in person off stage he was so sweet.
5) until Fox came along cbs wasthe conservative network, they are still trying to find their place in this new partisan world. My feel is they probably should want to distance themselves for taking any stance. Other than her political views do. Not express the networks, which is the only proper response and should be. If our comics are afraid to express themselves We then will have no dialogue. I will say it again, trying out. These rants on Twitter is not smart Because it focuses. On. Just the bit you. Just did and if it did not work the way you intended you do not have time to refocus your audience, like Bob Hope, and Johnny Carson use to True masters that were true comics. Attacked both parties and refuse to reveal their own feelings!
6) Here is where she fails, ruining. Someone’s life is a perversion of comedy. A clear violation of the clown code of ethics. And the ethics of any sensible comic.
7) As a comic writer she Should be non partisan in her work , she has revealed. She. Is not is not, This is a problem as if the comedy is sacrificed for the political message then, it ceases to be funny! Political satire is one of the hardest forms of comedy, few do it well. I miss Gore Vidal. and his ilk.
8) I have Found in recent years that Both sides have been less then restrained from political bais, even. Ray Stevens who I respected for years is feeding to far to the right. But this could be as many other comics are too left. I miss when true was told and every politician was the punch line. In the set I use to due in the eighties I use to end with “ being a clown in Washington is hard their is so much competition in the house the senate and the White House” I guess the jokes on us.
9) Jack my advice the left is and right are both being partisan, and our comic are forgetting they should be targeting both. It was when we had The comics we use to cherish attack both sides that the public started to understand. God if I did not have so much to face I would start a bipartisan independent comic caucus! Because we need to laugh to show these idiots that we can not keep this partisan. comedy helps us talk about the issues in a less threatening way. Which means it and it’s coverage should be balanced. It is not, and as such your coverage has not been balanced. But that is because the left is giving you more to work with.
10) no I saw it as a poorly executed attempt, but as you know I have made a life Long study of the comic and as such I tend to only be offended if the attempt has merit, and this type of comedy is suppose to offend, it did not to me because I felt the execution was to week to really warrant my notice! (Some times you need to make someone notice the animatronic cat to get it used.) This girl did not have the skill to warrant my notice!
This is a great exercise in Modern Ethics, but do you seriously believe the left will ever take personal responsibility for their actions?
1. No comic would have done so and survived, unless it was part of the act and done for the shock value laughs. (There would have been repercussions even pre 2016, though)
2. This was vicious butthurt, and shows exactly how progressives feel. Compromise that is all their way when they win; scorched earth politics when they lose. Karma will be painful.
3. Not a fan, but will venture a guess that it is a fair judgement on the show’s fan base: rabid lefty progressives.
4. Many a cut has been delivered in jest, true, but this was not truth disguised as humor. This was evil allowing the mask to slip.
5. They know who their audience is. See #3
6. Depends on if progressives run the business, doesn’t it? When progressives run the show, ‘justice’ really means ‘just us.’
Change my mind.
7. The left has taken cruel pleasure in ruining people my entire life. Even when they take steps to help someone or a group, the result ruins the beneficiary’s life. Welfare. Abortion. Public Housing. Soon: third wave feminism, which will lower opportunities for women based on their power to destroy without cause.
8. Oh, yes. This is just the beginning of what socialist do. History shows how this progresses from verbal hate to unjust prosecution of laws to unjust laws to roving death squads. Genocide based on party rhetoric has been played out too often in other countries to think this episode is anything but a warm up for radical socialist progressives.
9. The only way to stop the slide into totalitarianism is to make it personally painful for the left. In other words, they have to reap what they are sowing, however that happens. The mob is a dangerous ally, who can turn on you without provocation, at a whim.
10. Of course