hoo, boy

Kanye West seems to be having a massive meltdown. In case you missed the recent alt-media news, Kanye—who goes by "Ye" for the moment (pronounce it "yay")—had been invited to the Tim Pool podcast, and he wasn't on for more than 20 minutes before he got up and stalked out of the studio. Pool had apparently tried to pick Ye's brain about some recent antisemitic statements Ye had made, and Ye apparently lost all articulateness and retreated into a sort of regressed-into-childhood petulance: he couldn't use his words, so he left.

What happened next, though, was that Ye got invited to the Alex Jones show. Now, I should state for the record that Alex Jones is a known quantity to me, but I do not listen to a thing he says. Still, I know enough about Jones to know that he's a nut who happens to have a large following, so for Ye to appear on Jones's show was a huge coup for Ye. Tim Pool's show could've been a nice platform, but Ye squandered that with his petty tantrum. 

Jones, it turns out, was better able than Tim Pool to handle his guest when Ye appeared on the show, but Ye showed every sign that he had either gone totally off the deep end or had decided to troll everyone. Ye published on Twitter a paradoxical image of a swastika nestled inside a Star of David, and on Jones's show, he called himself a Nazi (would real Nazis have accepted a black man among them?) and claimed that Hitler had redeeming qualities. 

Some people have called this "praising Hitler," but I have, in fact, heard certain compassionate liberals say much the same thing: that Hitler had been a child once, that Hitler was human and thus deserving of our compassion, etc. Tons of comedians have evoked the "Hitler was a vegetarian artist" idea for ironic laughs, and not to whip audiences into a furious frenzy. Plenty of people other than Ye have, seriously or not, attempted to "find the good" in Hitler. And as a matter of abstract principle, I can understand where that urge comes from even if I don't agree with it. The compassionate liberals, in evoking Hitler's humanity, aren't praising Hitler at all, nor are they condoning his atrocities: they're merely pointing out that, as much of a monster as the man may have become, he was still a member of the human race.

Ye wasn't done, though: dressed in black clothing, and with a head-covering mask completely obscuring his facial features, Ye brought out a weird little fish-tank net that he then employed as a puppet for a few seconds, using a screeching, high-pitched voice as the puppet's voice.

Ye's publishing of the swastika-star image on Twitter earned him a permaban from Elon Musk himself, who tweeted "FAFO," i.e., "Fuck around and find out." Over at Instapundit, there's a furious debate going on about whether Musk was being ironically anti-free-speech by banning Kanye, especially after Musk had called himself a "free-speech absolutist." As much as I find the Nazi swastika offensive, I personally think Ye should have been allowed to post the image; he was within his free-speech rights to do so. Others are arguing—as the left so recently argued before Musk took over Twitter—that Twitter is a private company, and Musk can do whatever he wants. I think Musk ought to un-ban Ye, even if Ye is batshit crazy (which I think is possible). Let his craziness be seen in the marketplace of ideas, and if he publishes a swastika, then let the outraged mob dogpile him, ratio him, and make him think twice about ever doing such a thing again.

I've said it before, but I think Kanye West is, at heart, a shit-stirrer, not someone with firm, well-reasoned political or ethical principles. He's a bit like the Joker: antistructural, given to kicking down doors, and very anti-plan. It's for this reason that no one in his/her right mind should take Ye seriously when he says—yet again—that he wants to run for president. Conservatives are kissing Ye's ass right now, but I still remember when, in 2005, Kanye went off script during a fundraiser—while standing next to comedian Michael Myers—and said directly to the camera, "George Bush does not care about black people." Myers, startled, did his fumbling best to recover from that outburst, but the damage was done, and Kanye's shit-stirrer reputation was established. Back then, conservatives hated Kanye. Now, with Ye having been seen wearing a MAGA hat, praising Trump, and chatting up big-time rightie Candace Owens, conservatives seem to think Ye is one of them. I don't buy that for a second. Ye is doing what he's doing to rile the leftie base, and that's all. The man is a narcissist who glories in attention, good or bad. but politically, he's a lightweight who's not worth listening to.

The video below argues that Ye is a broken man, and we're all watching that play out on a national scale. The video host, Brandon Morse, even argues for a compassionate view of what Ye is going through: the man needs to take a break, enjoy some quiet, go through therapy, etc. Morse doesn't condone anything Ye has said or done, but he thinks compassion is in order. Do you agree? Well, watch the video, form your own opinions, and let me know what you think.

I wrote the following over at Instapundit:

Ye is on my personal suicide watch now. Anyone who thinks that choosing him for president might be "cool" is seriously fucked in the head.

That said, if free speech is about being able to post offensive things like symbols of a certain color and shape, then Ye's posting of the swastika would have been a good test of real free speech. I would've found it offensive (I do find it offensive), but I would also have allowed it to participate in the free market of ideas, where it would inevitably be dogpiled and ratio'ed, probably by people on both sides of the aisle who can at least agree on that one thing.

Someone asked what I thought of a resident troll who liked posting anti-Jewish images. I said:

I don't know who that is, but I vehemently disagree with anti-Jewish sentiment. Still, does that person have a right to make an ass of himself in public? I'd say yes. And let the people respond to his hatred. What I think is more dangerous is turning into a censorious leftie. I think there's been enough of that.

I think I'm being consistent, here. I'm already on record defending Kathy Griffin's offensive Trump-beheaded-in-effigy moment. I don't like the gesture itself, but I think Griffin was well within her free-speech rights to express her distaste for Trump in a darkly comedic way. As I said at the time, no one seriously believes Griffin intends to kill Trump. If Ye tweets a swastika-star, well, he should be free to, even if the image offends on multiple levels. The right is constantly saying that free speech means the freedom to be offensive, so right here is a chance to live up to that principle. Meanwhile, whether Twitter under Musk has become a free-speech paradise is, I think, debatable.

It might be good to note that some people are pointing out that Ye's being banned for posting one of history's most offensive symbols is not the same as merely tweeting while Republican. A conservative who innocently asserts a biological truth like "trans women are still chromosomally male" is doing nothing on the order of displaying a swastika. I agree with that argument, but that doesn't move me to believe it's somehow okay to ban Ye. If you say free speech means having to put up with offensive language and images, then you'd better mean it.