Or, the Thought Police go after a numinous negro
(Link)
The link is to one of several stories detailing Smith's faux-pas in relation to Hitler. He said, in essence, that Hitler didn't wake up mornings thinking to himself 'What evil can I do today?' but instead woke up and by using "twisted, reverse logic" decided to do what he (Hitler) considered to be good. That included the attempt to exterminate European Jewry - along with homosexuals, the mentally and physically dysfunctional, the Roma, the political opposition, trades unionists, conventionally Christian pastors, and a variety of others.
Smith can't be that bright or he would have realised that any comment containing the word 'Hitler' is bound to be misinterpreted, just as is any comment that can be even remotely interpreted as derogatory towards American Blacks, because no one here is allowed to express a thought which is not approved by the so-called 'left' of America's political and cultural elites. I say so-called because there is no 'left' wing of American politics - merely confused Socialists; just as there is no 'right' wing of American politics - merely confused conservatives who can't tell the difference between a political Liberal and the 'liberal' dementia of Hollywood political activists.
I've no idea what Smith's politics are, and less interest in finding out. How interesting can they be, considering the man is an actor, and therefore a professional liar, and therefore to be distrusted and regarded with suspicion every time he opens his mouth (I'm with Plato on this one: all actors play roles for money, therefore all actors are professional deceivers, and whores for the biggest fee for their latest deceit). Added to which, the man is utterly insulated from the reality of the common man and woman's life by his wealth, and the Hollywood hothouse which breeds nothing but political infantilism.
But, in part at least because of his political ineptitude, he's managed to raise two interesting points. The first is the general ethical and political point (which ought to be understood better in a democracy than anywhere else) that everyone has their own definition of the good life - which, for Hitler, included the subjugation of the rest of the world by the armed might of National Socialism. Because the rest of the world did not agree with that vision, and successfully opposed and defeated it, doesn't mean that it wasn't one particular vision of the good and the right. Which is all that Smith said it was. He didn't say that Hitler was good; he didn't say National Socialism was good; he didn't say that any activity of the NAZIS was good. He said nothing more than that Hitler had his own conception of the good and set out to achieve it.
Naturally, the hysterical demagogues of the 'left', the American Mullahs of the Politically Correct, received Smith's (when properly understood) innocuous comment with frothing-at-the-mouth outrage - no one, not even a Numinous Negro, can be allowed to challenge what these bigots and self-seeking hypocrites have been allowed to establish as the Wisdom of our Age, in case this consensus of fools begins to collapse. Hence we have, in response to Smith, this comment by The Jewish Defense League: that Smith's words "spit on the memory of every person murdered by the Nazis. His disgusting words stick a knife in the backs of every veteran who fought (and sometimes died) to save the world from the intentions of Adolf Hitler."
The JDL (Whining Jewry at its most craven and offensive) reacts to Smith's words with hyperbole that is unintelligible in relation to the original comment. Unintelligible that is until you realise that the response has nothing to do with the original comment and everything to do with a perceived betrayal of the 'left' by one thought to be their own. The JDL wants Obama (another Numinous Negro) to repudiate Smith's comment, a comment he had no part in, for precisely this reason - because Obama is the darling of the political 'left' and must, in order to demonstrate his compliance with its sad conventions, reject anything that can be deemed controversial, anything that can be thought of in any way as a challenge to the sacred cows and shibboleths of their 'socialism for retarded infants'.
And the second interesting thing that's revealed by his comment and the reaction to it is simply the existence of those sacred cows, those shibboleths. I've no doubt that there are some who find Smith's comment offensive, in itself and on its own terms, without reference to the agenda of the 'left'. However, being offended is an insufficient ground for the kind of censorship demanded by the JDL. You don't have a right to not be offended, or to deny liberty of speech to those who do offend you. You have a right to challenge offensive statements. You have a right to criticise and express that criticism. But you have no right to exclude offensive speech from the public sphere. Nor have you any right to punish those who speak offensively other than through the opprobrium of public opinion.
But try telling that to the likes of the JDL, or Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson, and it's you that wil suffer the attentions of the Thought Police.