If you loathe stupidity, you’d have loved Ron Smith. That name might not be too familiar to folks here in the D.C.-Northern Virginia area. For 26 years, Smith was a talk show host on Baltimore’s WBAL radio.
He was either a conservative with a streak of libertarian in him, or a libertarian with a streak of conservative in him. I’m not sure which.
Smith opposed big government. He was a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, you know, the one most liberals would like to repeal.
He abhorred tax-and-spend Democrats, and equally detested cut taxes-and-spend Republicans. When President George W. Bush made the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Smith was one of the few conservative voices who denounced it. He lost a huge part of his audience because of that.
On matters of race, Smith refused to be politically correct. He spoke his mind. If what he said stepped on your overly sensitive toes, he’d just advise you to wear thicker shoes.
Smith died at age 70 Monday night after a two-month struggle with stage four pancreatic cancer. On Tuesday WBAL paid tribute to him, playing clips from his past shows. One quote in particular struck me.
The topic was gun violence in Toronto, Canada. Smith noted how some Canadians — quelle surprise — blamed Americans for the violence.
Smith said that was hogwash. Canada had gun violence, he claimed, because it admitted immigrants from “violent cultures.”
He named neither the cultures, countries nor race of those immigrants. But yes, he was referring to some of the ones from Caribbean countries.
And he was absolutely right.
In March of 2010, I was in Toronto, doing a story about the educational achievement gap between the races. Yes, Toronto does indeed have such a gap. It also has gangs and gun violence.
And many members of those gangs are immigrants — or first-generation children of immigrants — from Caribbean countries.
An uncomfortable fact, but a fact nonetheless. Smith had a passion for speaking uncomfortable facts on the air. And he would have no truck with the stupid or the absurd.
He was so sick of it in America that he adopted a new name for the country — Absurdistan.
There is much afoot in the land to prove that Smith was absolutely correct in his assessment. It’s as if there were one big reality show going on in the country, called “Adventures in Absurdistan.”
1. Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers student who’s been charged with invading the privacy of his gay roommate Tyler Clementi, faces deportation if he’s convicted.
Ravi is a legal immigrant. So he faces deportation, while millions of illegal immigrants get a free pass, courtesy of President Barack Hussein “Give ‘Em Amnesty” Obama.
2. I’ve already written, in a previous column, about the absurdity of 9-year-old Emanyea Lockett being suspended from a North Carolina school for “sexually harassing” a teacher.
The problem here is that little Emanyea never said word one to the actual teacher. But in Absurdistan, you can be accused of sexual harassment even if you never speak to the person you supposedly harassed.
3. Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain had to “suspend” his campaign after allegations of sexual harassment and marital infidelity came to light.
Years ago a guy in the White House — one President Clinton — brazenly womanized, was accused of sexual harassment and subornation of perjury and actually became more popular with members of his party.
That would be Democrats, who control large swaths of Absurdistan and have gone above and beyond the call of duty in making it even more absurd.
I’m praying Smith rests in peace. I’m hoping Absurdistan becomes a little less absurd.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
