Kramer vs. EVERYBODY!

So by now I imagine that everyone has seen or heard about Michael Richards going off the deep end at the Laugh Factory in LA. If not, read it here. You can watch it here, but be warned it is rough.

Obviously there is no excuse for something like this, no one can or should get away with it. I am however, curious about his act. Like was it really that bad? What exactly were the hecklers saying to him? Did they say something that would warrant an attempt to shock them into silence? As bad as what he said and did was, there is no context provided.

I don't mean to be insensitive, but I have experienced people trying to bait me into using racial slurs. I have a large vocabulary of insults so it never works, plus I prefer to make it personal at that point and I see that kind of verbal/racial attack as an acknowledgment that you have lost...plus your a racist ass.

The ramblings of the Richards apology allude to rage, kind of on both parts. I kind of think that he has hit on something here. Not that he understands it, nor do I think that it actually applies to him in this case. But there is such a lack of consideration for others in the American public life. Traffic, Movie Theaters, Lines for Playstaion 3's, on the metro, or even people with their i-pods on on that walk in the middle of the bike path...not to one side...in the middle...and they have the thing up so loud they can't hear you when you tell them what side your coming up on to pass and look at you like your the ass hole when they cause you to nearly fall into East West Highway during rush hour!

All of this has played out in the media as well, with shouting matches and "shut up" artists replacing critical thinkers and real debate on our public air waves. It use to be that we would laugh at Dana Carvey's John McLaughlin impersonation because it was so loud an opinionated that it was obvious that it was trash...now it's common place. Darell Hammond has had to tone down his Chris Matthews impersonation, because to parody him you would have to shout things like "I INVENTED THE WAFFLE IRON IN 7 DAYS! WHY DOES THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HATE AMERICA AND WAFFLES SO MUCH?!?!?!?!?!?!"

We can shun Michael Richards all we want, but it is a problem with our society that lies beneath it all. It's gotten George Allen, Rush Limbaugh, and Mel Gibson to name a few. What do they have in common? The people who supported them, stayed with them, allowing them to further advance their backward thinking. Because no one sits down and debates things anymore. Our society has fallen into believing that just because we have an opinion, that opinion is valid. It's just not so, unless were talking about art.