He had a segment way back when where he read off names of men who died of aids and laughing.
Yeah, that alone is enough to exempt him from the whole "don't speak ill of the dead" thing. But even beyond that, he was a shitty human being who used his platform and influence both to harm individuals and to affect public policy in ways which harmed multitudes. The general rule in comedy is "don't punch down," and you're not punching down by taking a swing at someone who applauded mass incarceration of POC for nonviolent cannabis infractions while himself being a huge fuck-off pillhead. It's safe to say that hell gained a new public toilet.
Ladies and gentlemen....the tolerant left!
sO mUcH fOr tHe tOlErAnT lEfT!
MEM's a centrist - albeit a particularly excitable one - acting in good faith. I guess I'd come closer to being considered an actual leftist, though definitely of the anarchist and not the authoritarian variety (I've tried to distance myself from traditional models and learn from less Eurocentric paradigms in recent years). Since G-Man probably already knows this and is read up on a chunk of the relevant theory, I'll just mention for anyone else's benefit that liberals are
centrists and not
leftists; they ping as center-right damn near everywhere else in the world, it's just that the Cold War and the New Right have steadily dragged the US so far to the right that centrists look like Trotskyists here. I
will say, from experience, that
actual leftists aren't wringing their hands over whether they're being sufficiently tolerant - at least not when it comes to aspiring fascists and their apologists. The in-joke is that the "tolerant" leftists will at least send you to the gulag instead of straight to the wall. I used to be on that "we all need to meet in the middle" bullshit until I realized how that well-intentioned liberal/centrist aspiration has allowed conservatives to steadily drag the Overton window in their direction for decades. But given what a small (though vocal) ideological minority the far right actually is, I think it's safe to say you can both plan and strive for their elimination as an effective societal influence and still have the best interests of the majority in mind.
