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I'm against racist and homophobic crap on the airwaves and I certainly don't miss Don Cherry, his schtick was well passed it's best before date, but this is a stretch to me...how can we jump to the conclusion that Maclean was making a joke about gays?....could have easily been about testing positive for alcohol, steroids or other drugs?
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Anyone who actually watches hockey knows that Maclean is always making puns & "dad jokes" .. they're not scripted, they're done on the fly .. some hit , some miss & yes, you'll get some groans & grimaces from other panelists on occasion as "dad jokes" often fall flat.
Want milquetoast? .. then we'll be stuck with the likes of a Jim Houghson, competent but boring as paint drying.
What needs to disappear is these folks who need to be outraged about everything.
Last edited by g121 (May 26, 2021 11:34 am)
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g121 wrote:
Anyone who actually watches hockey knows that Maclean is always making puns & "dad jokes" .. they're not scripted, they're done on the fly .. some hit , some miss & yes, you'll get some groans & grimaces from other panelists on occasion as "dad jokes" often fall flat.
Want milquetoast? .. then we'll be stuck with the likes of a Jim Houghson, competent but boring as paint drying.
What needs to disappear is these folks who need to be outraged about everything.
This sounds like the mass outrage about a Jeopardy! contestant a few weeks ago who made a "3" sign with his fingers to signify that he was a 3-day champion. Some interpreted it as a "white power" symbol, which it was not.
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Why do some people take the negative side of an issue when there was no slur intended?
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It's an ambiguous comment and "positive for" could certainly mean positive for a test - but it could just as easily be positive for any garden variety STD and not necessarily HIV (and even with HIV, it's a long time since it's been a "gay disease") so is the joke implying that Kevin Bieksa is gay? Is it implying he's promiscuous regardless of sexual orientation? Is it just implying he's ready for action?
Who knows? I think you have to read into it somewhat to conclude it's a homophobic joke and there is no reason to assume that's what Maclean meant or that he even realized it could be taken that way. (I've certainly made comments that I didn't realize could have a different meaning than I'd intended until it was too late). I think the fair thing to do is to give him the benefit of the doubt. It's a slightly off-colou joke, even if it's just implying "a good time with the ladies" and there's little tolerance for even mild locker room humour these days so I guess the lesson is don't make even mild off-colour jokes on the air.
Last edited by Hansa (May 27, 2021 10:10 am)
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This sounds like just another entry from what I like to call "the outrage brigade," who scour every word ever uttered by anyone to find something to be angry about. I have no idea what the comment meant and I don't honestly care. I do believe MacLean, though, when he says it was taken out of context.
I honestly believe this "overly woke" stuff will eventually have a shelf life and there will inevitably be backlash. And somewhere there's a Joseph Welch who's going to swing the pendulum back towards free speech. Who's Joseph Welch? He became famous for one speech in the 50s that echoes to this day.
It happened during the so-called Army-McCarthy hearings, when a politician named Joseph McCarthy (the Donald Trump of his day in many ways) rose to prominence and power by declaring everyone he didn't like as a Communist or a Communist sympathizer, whether it was true or not, destroying many lives and careers. (This is where the famous Hollywood Blacklist began.)
I wasn't born when all this was going on, but the hearings into these allegations became the Must See TV of their day. And on that fateful morning, during the latest panel investigating whether the Army was filled with Commies, Welch - the armed forces' lawyer - refuted every one of McCarthy's exaggerations and lies live on TV.
As the Senator blustered and became enraged, he accused one of Welch's young legal associates of being a member of a Communist organization. And that's when, with the entire world watching, Welch let him have it.
"Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness," he began, defending his associate. And then later he delivered the body blow, words that are still quoted by many today.
"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
Welch concluded his several minutes long diatribe, all done very calmly, by saying, "If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think I'm a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me."
And with that, McCarthy's power began to fade. He died sometime after, a discredited alcoholic.
So what does this have to do with the people who went after MacLean? At some point, we need a Joseph Welch to come forward and ask them if they have no sense of decency. There's nothing wrong with complaining about a comment you don't like. But to deliberately target someone's job for an offhand and likely innocent remark and have it explode into this, seems a complete overreaction.
We need a Joseph Welch in 2021. As he might say, "at long last."
My two cents (and now you know why they don't make pennies anymore.)
June 9, 1954: “Have you no sense of decency?” Sen. Joseph McCarthy is asked in hearing
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The only thing outrageous about Ron MacLean's comment was the "outrage" that followed.
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Ron MacLean is dead to me. No. Not really. The whole thing was overblown. I'll tell ya', you people. <-- See what I did there?
Last edited by Leslieville Bill (May 27, 2021 1:36 pm)
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The fact that some people considered Ron's "positive" comment to be a "gay slur" points to their own bigotry. HIV/AIDS hasn't been considered a "gay disease" for about three decades. If that's where their brains are automatically going, maybe the angry mobs could do with some self-reflection on their own part.
PJ
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I'm just tired of all these "woke" folks and their cancel culture. It's come to the point where I'm not surprised anymore. The Wendy Mesley incident springs to mind.
RadioActive wrote:
We need a Joseph Welch in 2021. As he might say, "at long last."
I think Jordan Peterson is the closest thing we have at the moment but time will tell.
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I wonder what Jess Allen will have to say about this...
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Bentwater wrote:
When people are out looking for a problem,oh, they'll find it. When they are as sensitive as some people on this board....
Perhaps I missed all the MacLean outrage from posters in this thread. Please point me to it.
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Dial Twister wrote:
Bentwater wrote:
When people are out looking for a problem,oh, they'll find it. When they are as sensitive as some people on this board....
Perhaps I missed all the MacLean outrage from posters in this thread. Please point me to it.
Well, why did Jim Richards feel the need to spend pretty close to an hour on it during his overnight show? While Jim himself appeared to feel it was more awkward phrasing than an intended slight, he did reference social media & had a least one caller who assured us that Maclean was done, never to be seen/heard from again. So was Jim's hour overkill? Was it providing a mega-phone to the "always outraged about everything" folk?
I preferred John Moore's take .. if you need a roadmap & decision tree to come to the determination you're outraged, maybe you're the one with the issue. 30 seconds, it's dealt with, move on to a real topic.
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I'm waiting for the first company to say "We're not going to apologize." It's not happening anytime soon though. They're all gutless, as gutless as the pukes who complain about nonsensical things. Has to stop.