Donald #Sterling, Racism and Privacy

One of my students mentioned last week that he didn't mind Donald Sterling's "private" thoughts. It's when they become public that's a problem. I responded by saying that I think the distinction between public and private has been pretty much erased these days, and that folks should consider themselves always "in public" when they're speaking, since you never know when you're going to be taped. What about private comments in your own home, folks might protest? Perhaps that's the last bastion for the expression of politically incorrect views, but even that bastion is embattled.

It's taking it to another level to use that "personal" privacy argument to defend Sterling's racism. I think Ben Shapiro, for example, made a lousy defense of Sterling this week, mostly because it sounds as if it's an endorsement, which is how depraved leftists exploited it. See, "Shapiro: Of Donald Sterling's Racism and the Rise of Thoughtcrime."

That said, controlling for disgusting leftist hypocrisy, the issue of thought crimes will be with us as long as the left's regime of acceptable discourse remains the order of the day.

More from the letters at LAT, "The Donald Sterling Case":

Though I wholeheartedly agree that Sterling's remarks are abhorrent, this knee-jerk reaction and bitter reprimand set a dangerous precedent for us all.

I am not defending Sterling's words, but they are his words and his alone. They do not reflect a company policy, nor do they ask that we adhere to their ideals.

Where do we draw the line? How is it our right to tell someone that his comments made in private are cause for a fine of more than $2 million? How do we justify our demands that he forfeit a lucrative business simply because some of us have been gravely insulted?

This is a very slippery slope we have embarked on. When someone is denied the right to express a thought unacceptable in polite society, then we are all denied the right to think for ourselves, regardless of the unpopular nature of those thoughts.

Are we now entering the realm of "thought police"?

Tom DeSimone
Palm Springs

And see Mitch Albom, at USA Today, "Donald Sterling and what we're learning about privacy."

Albom suggests "there oughta be a law" against this kinda posting of private thoughts in the Internet age, but there are some laws already. People can think what they want. Situations will come up where they'll have to defend those views. Sterling's are pretty indefensible, even in the privacy of his own home. He's a small, bitter, hateful man, despite claims by V. Stiviano to the contrary. And for that he's being shunned. Not many NBA stars wanna play for him. The market works that way.

But again, politically it's best to hold the left to its own standards. Progs refuse to accept that fact that Sterling's one of their own, a dyed-in-the-wool Beverly Hills leftist. That's the part I will never stop hammering. Leftists --- and Democrats --- are racist hypocrites now destroying the very fabric of American life. The Sterling case is just the latest in what's going to be a long-running debate on the role of the individual in a PC-drenched and perpetually wired political space. Folks should gear up for the battle. Don't excuse the racism. Instead, pin the responsibility for it precisely where it belongs.