A ROSEANNE BY ANY OTHER NAME Would Continue to Smell Sweet

How fitting that the great William Shakespeare was focusing on bigotry when he gave Juliet the immortal line "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

It is true that Kathy Griffin also got fired for inappropriate language, but what she did was far worse -- suggesting a grotesque murder of a duly elected president.

There is a double standard in the way public figures are treated, and not because some may have a double chin.

What Roseanne Barr did was far less offensive than what others have gotten away with, and if anything she should have gotten more leeway than others since her main claim to fame is as a comedienne, not an ethicist, and people who traditionally make fun of everything are generally deemed to be aiming for light laughs rather than mean-spirited insults.

Former President Morsi of Egypt, like many other Egyptians, is quoted to have cited the Muslim Koran as referring to Jews as “apes and pigs.” Analysts who have studied the sources (2:63-65, 5:59-60, and 7:166) claim that they refer only to some Jews, and/or only metaphorically, but clearly many Arabs believe and have stated that all Jews are compared to apes and pigs, yet many of these Arabs continue to be supported and not left or abandoned by many in the media and the “left.” The network that fired Roseanne allowed far worse statements to go unpunished against a white person -- some would say an orange person -- like Donald Trump. Many in the media who seem to rule as if they are running kangaroo courts unfairly compare what Roseanne said about Jarrett to what Trump did not say about immigrants being “animals.” These majority members of the media are hiding, like a baby kangaroo in a pouch, the fact that Roseanne was making a joke (offensive as it may have been) about a single individual, in the middle of the night (with her inhibitions down because of a medication that causes people to say and do things they normally would not) and Trump was dead serious that human beings – specifically members of the MS-13 gang – who intentionally torture innocent fellow human beings have forfeited the right to membership in the human race, and deserve to be treated much worse than pet animals and wiped off the face of this earth, and certainly of the United States. The people who falsely, intentionally, maliciously, and viciously accuse President Trump of dehumanizing all immigrants purely because of the president’s very human reaction to the inhuman behavior of some of the worst terrorists should be deemed “communicating terrorists” themselves, every bit as reprehensible as the physical kind. One also wonders why Samantha Bee, for example, hasn’t been fired, as we go to press, for what she said a couple of days after Roseanne’s tweet, and why whatever career Samantha has hasn’t come to an end (not that their careers are comparable), for what she said, twice, and WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT, which is far worse than a tweet in the middle of the night, when under the influence of a drug known to eliminate inhibitions and causes people to say and do things they generally wouldn’t say and do.

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Should we refuse to drive or walk along the street in Harlem, of New York City, now named after Malcolm X, who was a member of the Nation of Islam and close to Louis Farrakhan, who spoke out against all white people in ways conducive to violence, to put it mildly, which he didn’t, far more offensively put than a joke made in poor taste by Roseanne Barr? (The decision to name the street after Malcolm X is a separate issue, even though he may have modified his views at some point.) 

Worse, Michelle Obama offended all Americans of all races when she famously and most offensively said that she was never proud of her country until her husband was nominated for the presidency, thereby dismissing the principles of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, in favor of a supporter of the notorious Muslim Brotherhood, yet she remains more popular than ever. Michelle's less popular husband sold out not just Israel but all Americans and all fellow members of the planet when he ended the crippling sanctions and in effect gave a fortune of U.S. taxpayers’ money (not his own, of course) to prop up the regime of the Iranians so they could continue to build their nuclear weapons programs, putting the entire world at risk of nuclear annihilation, since there were and remain no realistic means of inspection of Iranian military sites, and Obama even pledged, in a “secret” side agreement, that the United States would come to the aid of the Iranians rather than America’s allies if the Iranians would continue to pose a threat and if another country, like Israel, would attempt a pre-emptive strike such as those that led to victory in the Six Day War and the destruction of the nuclear reactor in Iraq before it could be used to fight Americans who engaged Iraq in warfare a few years later. The main difference between Roseanne Barr, on one hand, and hateful people (in varying degrees) such as Malcolm X, Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, and others, is that Roseanne is now barred from her prior means of gainful employment because of one joke, while these other people had the means and the will to enhance the chance of destruction of members of entire religions, races, and/or our planet. Yet not only were they not fired or disgraced, but in many instances they were or are more popular than ever. Perhaps had Roseanne had any other name, and supported any other president, she would still be free to exercise her first amendment rights without losing her primary sources of income. She is presumably set for life financially. The people who are suffering are the 200 employees, probably mostly liberal, who have now lost their jobs.