Archive: Opinions

'The road to Hell is paved with good intentions'.  That's what the Lansing Town Board is facing with a flag policy it will consider next week.  Whose flags should join the American flag on the Town hall flag pole?  And what statements should be allowed on town property?  And what philosophies should be shunned.

Town Board members seemed genuinely perplexed at their last meeting as they struggled with supporting all Lansing residents and wanting to show tangible support (such as flying the LGBTQ flag) to groups espousing a positive message (such as pride).  But the specter of quashing free speech, or showing municipal favoritism made what seemed like such an obvious decision problematic.  A few proclaimed they would never approve a Nazi flag.  But on the advice of the Town's attorney they may need to worry about the consequences of that stance, even though it seems like an obvious position to take.

Between litigation and political correctness, both of which have become tyrannies in our modern world, you can't really say anything any more without getting into trouble.  Demanding apologies has become a thing in our society to the point where it makes the difference between continuing a successful career and losing everything.  That is not to say that truly awful utterances should be acceptable.  But it does seem that we have gone overboard in defining the line between earnest mistakes, ironic humor and heinous racism or criminal behavior.

I was bothered by an article I saw about some celebrities avoiding Ryan Seacrest on the Oscars red carpet on the grounds that he might be guilty of sexual misconduct.  It read like a cosmic hedging your bets -- if you allowed him to interview you and he turned out to be guilty you would be retroactively tainted for endorsing him.  This is, at the moment, a 'he said, she said' case.  Hard to prove, but if it goes to court there will be some kind of determination.  Nobody likes sexual harassment... well I suppose harassers do, but especially in the spotlight of celebrity 'Innocent until proven guilty' is not a concept in America any more.  However it turns out, I think the E! network should be lauded for not pulling him from the red carpet show simply on the basis of an accusation.

That seems different from the Rosanne Barr incident in which she posted a racist comment on twitter, and then blamed it on Ambien.  That led to my favorite quote from the whole incident.  Sanofi, the company that makes Ambien, tweeted: "While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication."

Her show was unceremoniously cancelled, making ABC seem heroic for putting morals before profits.  Several news outlets reported that Barr had a history making racist comments, and on social media Barr haters diminished ABC's heroism by saying they should have considered her past comments before launching the reboot of her show in the first place.  That seems to make a case of 'guilty after proven guilty'.  E! and ABC seem to have done the right thing.

Nevertheless the Barr incident is a good example of the consequences of being a stinker.  If you search for 'Roseanne Barr net worth' Google returns $80 million.  So, while there are certainly consequences to her reputation, she's not hurting.  She can quietly disappear and life the life fantastic (not that 'quietly' is a word I would associate with her, but she can afford to do pretty much whatever she wants to do).  The hundreds of people who were suddenly unemployed when the show was cancelled are a different story.  Being a jerk hurts people - real hard-working people who need their jobs.

I frequently think about all the really successful people who throw it all away when they really didn't have to.  The prime example of this is OJ Simpson.  But there are so many of these you have to wonder whether it is a built in element of extreme success -- that somehow the universe thinks attaining the American Dream is too much success and the people who live the dream must somehow be yanked back into the swamp the rest of us inhabit.  I don't want to believe that's true.  But so many of these people have so unnecessarily torpedoed themselves that it makes you think.

So the Lansing board is right to worry about liability.  If Nazis sue the Town for allowing a gay pride flag to fly but refusing a swastika flag... well the Town Council is putting taxpayers' money at risk, not their own.  It's part of their job to protect their citizens.  Banning all flags may be better than allowing all of them.  If it seems obvious to you that the Town should not fly a Nazi flag, it probably isn't as clear to Nazis.  And especially not to their lawyers.

One final thought -- why does a municipality have to do anything about this at all?  There are plenty of outlets for supporting positive causes, but do all entities need to?  There is something to be said for 'There's a time and place for everything'.  Maybe the town flagpole isn't the right place.

While a general atmosphere of support for the cultures and beliefs of its citizens is a very good thing for a town to create, maybe leaving specific expressions of that  expressions of support to the private or religious sector makes sense.  And celebrities -- they seem to feel we all want to know what they think even if it gets their shows cancelled.

v14i23