This week actor and singer Robert Davi of Licence to Kill, The Goonies and Die Hard fame appeared on Fox & Friends to talk about political correctness and his new movie, The Iceman.
The topic of political correctness came up when Davi said he was thinking about the interrogation in Boston being stopped when he tweeted, “Political Correctness has crippled those accused of doing it and those who it supposedly is being sensitive to–a lose-lose situation.”
Davi told the Fox News audience: “I started to think about when I was a kid growing up how political correctness, there wasn’t any. There was no filter. The Rat Pack could make fun of each other, the racial slurs and everything else. Everybody laughed and they had a good time doing it. I tweeted that political correctness is lose-lose. It’s absolutely crushing our freedom of ideas and speech. Once you start controlling society and you have to watch–I’m even aware of it–I have to watch what I say because I work in Hollywood and if I say the wrong thing I’ll be ostracized and you won’t work.”
As quickly as the common sense slipped out of his mouth, those on the Left either purposely misrepresented his word or are too stupid to get the point he made. It’s the age old question: Are they evil or just stupid?
NewsHounds, a website that says “We watch Fox so you don’t have to!” smeared Davi by writing that he “endorses Racial Slurs, Sexism, Amos & Andy!” NewsHounds wrote [emphasis in original]:
This morning, [Fox & Friends] brought on the right wing, Republican actor Robert Davi who proffered his view that political correctness is squelching our free speech and that things were so much better in the good old days of racial slurs, ethnic jokes, and fine family entertainment like “Amos & Andy,” a show with African-American actors who played to black stereotypes….
Davi, sporting a Frank Sinatra fidora [sic], discussed his his recent tweet about how “political correctness is a lose, lose situation,” he said that when the questioning of the Boston bombing stopped he realized that when he was a kid there was no political correctness. Doocy shouted “there wasn’t any.” (Ah, yes, the halcyon days of the 50’s when you could say the “N word” and tell ethnic jokes with impunity).
NewsHounds takes Davi’s words about free speech and ideas and suggests he’s talking about the freedom to use the N word.
Pure stupidity.
It’s clear that Davi mentioned the Rat Pack because they teased and entertained each other without abandon or malice. As physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. said, “Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over.” Apparently, the dogs at NewsHounds do not.
Davi was referring to those who seek to control other people’s behavior in the name of political correctness. They become fixated on certain words simply because they are being used not because the user means any malice. They prevent interrogators from asking if Islamo-fascist views contributed to their crimes. They punish conservative entertainers who speak their mind. They punish people who use certain words even if used in a non-malicious way when joking with friends.
Of course, their outrage is always selective and meant to punish someone for their political beliefs. For example, NewsHounds recently went after Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly for criticizing the rampant use of the N word and violence in the movie Django Unchained. They claimed that Fox News was criticizing the movie because they were trying to start a “race war.” NewsHounds smeared Davi when they wrote that he was defending the use of the N word.
In his interview on Fox and Friends Davi simply said “racial slurs” which could have meant the use of “wop” by fellow Italian-Americans Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.
One thing is for sure–Davi was and would never defend using racial slurs in a malicious or hurtful way. In his “Davi Sings Sinatra” shows he talks about how Sinatra was at the forefront of defending racial equality. In the Fox News interview Davi even went on to talk about how as a father of five he’s concerned about bullying.
Here in Washington D.C., another Robert recently took to Twitter to voice his displeasure with political correctness. The D.C. City Council announced it is considering a proposal to rename the Washington Redskins the “Redtails” because some find the name “Redskins” offensive. Nevermind that there is zero malice or offense meant in using “Redskins” or the likeness of a Native American. The PC word police only care about controlling the use, not the actual intent.
Yesterday, the Redskins’ star quarterback Robert Griffin III tweeted, “In a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness.” He later added, “Tyranny has not just 1 meaning.” Then he tweeted “Tyranny – ‘a condition imposed by some outside agency or force, living under the tyranny of the clock’ or political correctness…”
Davi told me he was influenced and inspired to talk about political correctness after reading the works of Philip Atkinson. Atkinson wrote:
By using the excuse of not upsetting anyone, the politically correct are demanding that people behave like the fool who would please everyone; that everyone must become such a fool! All must accept the notions of the Politically Correct as truth, or else! This is the same mentality that inspired the Inquisition and forced Galileo to recant; the same mentality that inspired the Nazis and obtained the Holocaust. Once expression gets placed in a straitjacket of official truth, then the madness that occurs in all totalitarian states is obtained. Life, in private and public, becomes a meaningless charade where delusion thrives and terror rules.
Both Davi and Griffin understand that political correctness affects people’s freedom and livelihood. As NewsHounds demontrated, those on the Left will misrepresent a person’s words to suggest malice. They are so blinded by their ideology that they are ignorant to the real threats of political correctness. Once again, the NewsHounds are following a cold trail to nowhere.