Tweet of the Day

This is another one of those subjects that it would be a waste for me to pontificate on in too much detail because I've done it so many times before. Yeah, Daniel Tosh made a joke about rape at a comedy club then made another rape crack at a woman in the audience who took offense and heckled him for it -- so what? Love him or hate him, Tosh is a comic whose material is readily available to anyone going to see him live, given that his show is the most popular thing on Comedy Central at the moment, five times over. You know what you're getting yourself into by sitting in the crowd at one of his shows; you know the kind of humor you'll be subjected to, and in the end that's all it is: humor. He's a fucking comic. Don't think he's funny? His kind of comedy not your particular brand of vodka? Leave. Don't watch, don't listen.

Enough with the fucking offense at anything anyone says that you don't like. Enough with the horseshit indignation spread like wildfire through social networking to millions who weren't privy to the actual comment -- its extended context and the setting in which it was offered -- so that everyone can join in your personal pissy-party pile-on. Comedy is entirely subjective and I don't want to live in a country where someone, anyone tells me what I should and shouldn't think is funny.

I've said it before but it bears repeating: Comics stand as the vanguard of our right to free speech -- the canary in the coal mine, so to speak. They're the ones we count on to be able to push the envelope, challenge our sensibilities, even offend us occasionally because it's necessary for us as a culture. The world would be a much more tedious place without comedians willing to truly put themselves out there and take risks -- to make fun of the sacrosanct and vilify the revered if necessary -- and their ability to do that should be protected at all costs. Making them grovel before the altar of political correctness, in the end, damages all of us.

It doesn't matter whether you think what Tosh said was funny or not; he should be able to say it and not have to worry about the effects of a nationwide public backlash.

To everyone who's pissed about Tosh's rape crack: You got an apology from him -- and it's quite frankly more than you deserved.