First, I am not Jewish. I was basically raised an indifferent agnostic. Today I consider myself a devoted agnostic. And as you can see above, I was dinged by Ben for caring more about anti-semitic incitement than the drunk driving, and I copped to it. It is a horrible thing that he did driving like that, an immediate threat to public safety of anybody in his vicinity. I by no means want to diminish that. He should do jail time for it and have his license revoked. They should confiscate his car and auction it to pay for anti-drunk driving education.

But let’s put Mel’s “free speech” in context. (And let me point out that I am only interested commenting on Mel’s constitutionally-protected speech, not limiting it—though you are surely aware that there are limits to this.)

First, the context of his history and the fact that there is currently an overtly religious “war” raging in which hundreds of children, many times the number of soldiers, are being slaughtered. Of course, you can make the argument that “Jews” are responsible for this war, as perhaps Gibson is thinking. But you could also argue that this is in fact a proxy war of the Christian U.S. vs. Iran and Syria, or you could even argue that this is part of the war on Islamic Terrorism (a new “faith” invented in the US), or you could argue that it’s the neocon Jews in the U.S. goverment influencing Bush on behalf of Israel.

My personal opinion (as you can glean from this blog) is that people who happen to be Jewish and people who happen to be Muslim are committing war crimes. And people who happen to be Christian are paying for it and supporting it. But many, many Jews are opposed to Israel’s brutality, just as many Muslims are opposed to Hezbollah’s targeting of civilians.

In fact, in general, Jews in the US are far more liberal than the general population, and opposed the Iraq war by far greater margins. So the idea of “Jews” as a people being responsible for all wars is not only dangerous, it is patently, demonstrably false.

People in culturally influential positions must be held to a higher standard. They have the power to incite, perhaps even more than politicians. Gibson’s speech must be viewed also in the context of his work, much of it violent, apocalyptic, and recently anti-semitic. Add to this his own extremist religious views, I believe he is fair game for criticism.

Look, the First Amendment protects Mel and his free speech, no matter how appauling it sounds. But, I’d rather have him say what and how he feels to my face, rather then him coming out of nowhere and taking my life without saying a word. Just ask James Byrd’s family and all of the African American families who have lost loved ones to the KKK. (Hating in secret or hating in the open, pick your poison.)

My feelings are people shouldn’t worry too much about what someone says against another, it’s the actions they take on those chosen words. So, I can’t judge Mel on his words, only on his actions. Had he killed someone driving like that, I would support the harshess punishment the judicial system has.

We need to keep these things in perspective.

On the other hand, drunk drivers kill tens of thousands every year, and it’s hard to argue that hate speech by the rich and idle is that deadly.

And it’s not just his actions, it’s that he’s immensely influential by virtue of his celebrity. This may not directly impact your life, but perpetuating this type of stereotype is very dangerous.

Violence against Jews is a real threat. Just last Friday in Seattle, Naveed Haq shot six women at a Jewish center, killing one, all to make the point about “the Jews and what they are doing”. Obviously this was before Gibson went off about “fucking Jews” being responsible for all wars. But this is a very dangerous time for influential people to be espousing religious hatred (even if they are drunk).

Live and let live? Tell that to Pamela Waechter, killed in Haq’s murderous anti-semitic rampage. Some forms of speech are very dangerous, and can incite unstable people to commit horrible crimes.

Mel Gibson is a member of a fundamentalist religious sect, and he espouses (both in drunken speech and in his art) a form of sweeping anti-semitism that can only be described as hateful. That is extremely dangerous and should not be tolerated by a reasonable civilization. He absolutely deserves to be kicked to the curb.

People are people, and people say and think stupid stuff all the time - even moreso under the influence. I’m one of those who believes in the whole ‘live & let live’ thing, I don’t care what he believes, because it doesn’t directly impact my life or beliefs in any way. He’s as free to be anti-semitic as much I’m free to not care what he is or isn’t. ;)