“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” – J. K. Rowling

Lance Baxter, better known as D.C. Douglas but perhaps best known as the voice of certain Geico commercials (primarily as the tag announcer of a 2007-2008 celebrity ad campaign) has been fired by the insurance company after leaving a voicemail for Tea Party group FreedomWorks.

Douglas asked FreedomWorks in his voicemail what “the percentage of people that are mentally retarded who are working for FreedomWorks and who are following it,” or as he has since put it, he “inquired as to their intelligence level.”

In the voicemail, Douglas also questions how FreedomWorks will “spin it when one of your members does actually kill somebody, wondering if you’ve got a PR spinning routine planned for that or are you just gonna take it when it happens.”

In the aftermath, FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe published a post on the conservative website biggovernment.com, providing readers with a recording of the voicemail — which included Douglas’s personal phone number — and encouraging people to call both Douglas and Geico to “[l]let them know that you, in fact, are not a mentally retarded killer.”

According to a press release from Wednesday, Geico held auditions to replace Douglas the next day.

Douglas has since acknowledged such an impulsive move was “STUPID!,” but says he was impassioned by the “slurs the Tea Party crowd angrily yelled at Barney Frank, et al,” during the climax of health care reform.

He also holds no grudge against his former employer, saying in the press release: “I don’t blame GEICO for protecting themselves. They have a business to run and can’t waste time getting caught up in FreedomWorks’ circus. And they’ve been very good to me in the past.” From the Huffington Post 4.21.2010

Here is an example of someone who is telling the world who he is by the choices he makes. How far will someone go to express their feelings? It appears that Lance Baxter, better known as D.C. Douglas has gone too far. If you agree or disagree with the FreedomWorks movement doesn’t matter, here is another example of someone slamming people with disabilities. I have a personal interest in this topic, I have a child who is mentally handicapped and really resent having them thrown under the bus just because they can’t think of any better way to make their point.

This isn’t about being politically correct, it’s about being a better human being. Just as J.K. Rowling’s says, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Our actions speak volumes about who we are and what we believe about ourselves and others. You can talk until you are blue in the face, as my mother used to say, but when you do something that’s what people will remember. Even if you want them to forget. In today’s world people can keep your voicemail, record your actions to be seen by the world on YouTube, post your actions on any number of social media sites and you are recorded for history!  You have just gone viral. And that is what happened to Lance Baxter today, he was one of the top Hot Searches in Google today.

So the next time you get mad take a minute to cool off before you become a viral epidemic.