If I ever reach the point where I start caring about shit, I want one of you guys to line up against the wall with the rest of the degenerates. This is my informed consent.
Politics are for people who don't have anything else in life to worry about. In the last few years I've become, let's say, very financially secure and shit like politics have become more of an issue. Id like to keep my money so I'm leaning farther and farther right the older I get
you lean farther and farther right the older you get because your circle of caring gets smaller and smaller, which is fair to some degree
I've gone the opposite way. I started out as a conservative young boye, even going to seminary for a while, and as I've gotten older (partially due to the wealth of information available on the Internet), I've become more and more left-leaning
When I hit a rough patch in my 20s, I didn't see it that way. I didn't expect the government or the next person to have to take care of me. Having been in a really good financial situation a few years prior to that, I knew that it was my fault that I was broke and poor. So many people on welfare have this problem of being lazy and entitled, which is a horrible combination. There are a million manual labor jobs out there will pay enough to live very comfortably. Very very few people on welfare are physically unable to do manual labor. Hard work is all it takes. I ended my rough stint by doing a 5 year prison sentence. When I got out I had absolutely nothing to my name. I put my head down and broke my back at my job (which took forever to find with a robbery on my record). They took notice, as anyone would when someone is willing to go the extra mile, and made me supervisor. Now I make a ridiculous amount of money and have a nice ritzy house. 3 years ago I was sitting in a prison cell. So I'm not impressed with anyone's excuses. I did it.
For real, why would I listen to super srs opinions from the same groups of people who run articles like "we drank our own jizzim in cocktails and you should too."
Hi, I didn't quite make that dream NYT investigative journalist position I wanted, but I am just as happy writing Top Ten Reasons You're A Misoginyst if You Hated Ghostbusters.
No no no, the teachers are the only part thats never a problem in any way shape or form under any circumstance. Its the school system and admins fault.
Is r/drama actually centrist? I've heard this meme three times a day on this sub, but can't think of any centrist political position that you guys would actually support.
The people on here tend to be either reddit-flavor libertarians ("I just want to shoot my rifle at my gay cousin's wedding while smoking weed, man") or belong to the same demographic as the average Redditor - a white programmer living in Seattle / Bay Area / New York.
None of which are anything close to actual centrist demographics on the U.S. spectrum.
What is a centrist political position? Centrism is a sum of some liberal and some conservative positions.
Or do you think that Nazis want to kill all Jews, and communists want to kill all farmers, so a centrist should logically kill half the Jews and starve everyone else?
The term has way too much baggage now, due to the left believing that centrists are right-wingers in disguise or that they really do think that centrism is a lack of conviction, and due to the fact that some actually right-wingers do go undercover as 'centrists' to make people take them more seriously when they say things that only a Daddylover would say. imo the label should be abandoned at this point; it doesn't even convey what centrism really is very well.
It really do be like the sometimes, Snally. But personally if some of the retards on the right want to masquerade as politically neutral , that isn't gonna drive me to be a window-licking /r/politics poster.
I always assume everyone I'm talking to online is a normal looking and normally adjusted 27 year old. Then you see a pic of pizzashill and MasterLawlz and wonder if everyone looks that way.
I've talked to literal, unironical national socialists who said pretty much exactly this when South Park had some episode make fun of racists, the horseshoe strikes again
But the research that was funded by Exxonmobil and repeated on poor made youtube videos said was evil libral trannies that made it up, and if it was real it was "Hitlaries" fault anyway. So who knows...
hey how come I can't find a proper swastika flair like yours? I'm stuck with this Hindu one. which is more peaceful sure. but dots creep me out a little.
I dunno about this episode on climate change, I stopped watching after the first few episodes this season (same with last season I was drawn back in by people assuring me it had got 'good' again)
I'm not hating on South Park because it does not agree with me, I'm hating on it because it stopped being funny.
Hell they had an episode where they said that smoking was ok. and I didn't agree but at least it made me laugh.
Now it seems to have been distilled down to one or two jokes told incessantly throughout the episode and with non of the clever humor or wit they used to have.
First time they tackled child abuse in the catholic church you had "The Gelgamek vagina is three feet wide and filled with razor sharp teeth! do you really expect us to have sex with that" the giant queen spider running the Vatican.
Now it's just priests with cleaning gear. I mean they could have done something inventive like have all the cleaning gear spring forth from papal garb (e.g. have a Thurible convert into a cleaning contraption or for decanting cleaning fluid) but no, it's just standard cleaning gear with 'cum' attached to the start of the name.
They've become the equivalent of a political satire cartoon where everything is labeled less you miss the joke.
The show got bad around 2008 when it became less about a bunch of kids doing weird shit with occasional pop culture themes and more about Matt and Trey using the show as a way to parody and express their beliefs about pop culture. Since then it's been boring and kind of embarrassing to watch. The show is now just a vehicle messages that the audience already believes, portrayed in a 'smarter' way. Sad!
Yeah, but unfortunately Jon Stewart fucked that all up by convincing us that we can be the next arbiters of change if we jst act smug enough and bravely condescend to anyone we disagree with. Imagine how much better the world would be today if we had just listened to South Park instead of treating the news cycle like our own personal bat signal.
Fact: All the worst atrocities in human history were committed by people who cared too much about politics.
Right, Jon Stewart and, to be fair, Bill O'reilly were the forerunners of the 'find a niche audience and tell them what they already think' pandermonium that has actually changed the media landscape. South Park's apathy could be more charitably described as humility and if there's a problem with South Park's legacy it's how little influence its been able to have on these larger social trends.
Bill O'reilly was a good talk show host, so fuckin what?
As far as the Iraq War nonsense is concerned - a. Many people in the media were opposed to the invasion of Iraq. b. I'm not sure Stewart was actually one of them, can you provide a source showing Stewart's opposition prior to the invasion?
See, I don't trawl through your history, because I disagree and anyone who does is usually a bootyblasted fool whose arguments can't survive on their own.
You're not a Bill Oreilly fan? Shocking. Once again, who fuckin cares? The point is that they were the most influential TV hosts of the 2000s, whether you personally like them or not is completely irrelevant.
Don't get me wrong, I thought Jon Stewart was hilarious, but he also ruined mainstream comedy. He walked a fine line between comedy and punditry, and now everyone who follows in his footsteps blow right past that line to become sarcastic versions of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.
I dont understand how you are making Jon Stewart accountable for the fall of american journalism and late night tv. He is literally just a late night guy.
Holding someone accountable for how they fit into a cascade of random shit is weird dude.
Holding someone accountable for how they fit into a cascade of random shit is weird dude.
Does that mean acknowledging that they fit into said “cascade of random shit” weird too? Because that’s all I’m doing. I’m not disparaging him personally; I’m just pointing out that the current trend of talk show host coming off more like activists than comedians is a direct result of his influence. They all want to be like him, but don’t understand that his political persuasiveness was a byproduct of his observational humor, not the purpose of it.
I think Jon Stewart is kind of like the Tolkein of political comedy. Yeah the original thing is great, but was it really worth all the trash imitators it produced?
We could start by using Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz' real name. It's weird, but sometimes it seems you can tell a lot about a person's motives by just their name.
Like someone named Bill O'reilly is statistically most likely an Irish Catholic and is against abortion or whatever.
I womder what Mr. Leibowtz' motives were for changing his name. Idk maybe he just thought he'd have a hard time making it in show business
I hear what you’re saying, but actors (and TV personalities, musicians, performers, etc) change their names to simpler, easier-to-spell names (or versions of their names) all the time. It’s often a tool to market themselves, and in this day and age where we use google 57 times a day to look up literally anything and being able to spell is practically going out of fucking style, I would definitely say that changing your name in the public eye to “Stewart” (which is more last-namey than “Stuart”) from “Leibowitz” was a solid self-marketing decision.
FWIW I don’t think he was balanced at all. My point is that he was still funny because him constantly shitting on one side was just a natural consequence of combining his style of observational comedy with his own personal biases. Whereas his successors have made “shit on one side of the spectrum” the foundation of their programs and hope their writers can milk some jokes out of it after the fact.
He kind of was because Bush was more balanced than Trump. He also made fun of Obama whenever Obama made a gaff but it was so rare because Obama was so damn cool 😎.
Like I said in a different comment, my problem isn’t really with Jon Stewart himself. I always liked TDS, but it ruined late night comedy. He was definitely biased, but that just meant he was more likely to notice the absurdity of one side while overlooking the ridiculousness of his own. The end result might have been that he effectively undermined his political opposition, but humor was still his top priority.
The problem is that all the talk show hosts who were inspired by him are trying to recreate his success by taking topics they’re personally passionate about and turning it into a “funny segment”. You can’t pull off Stewart’s style of observational humor when it’s obvious you care way too much to be considered a passive observer.
Yeah, you say that, but I grew up with plenty of Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. In fact, the Republican news was usually what I'd see, because quite frankly, it was absolutely fucking insane.
Do you guys not remember the fearmongering about the internet? The shit George Bush used to come out with? The Birthers? Obama literally being attacked for anything and everything? It's absolutely mental.
Hell, I only loosely follow American politics because it's such a shit show. The circus of a campaign you guys run when it's president time... What the hell is that? From what I've seen, that just doesn't happen anywhere else.
Let's put it this way: Maybe American reporters tend to vote Democrat, because they're paid to actually pay attention to the insanity, and because of that have come to the conclusion (like almost everyone outside the US, and plenty within) that the Republicans are deranged and that the Democrats are actually the reasonable choice 9 times out of 10?
Not really. American media is retarded, and plenty of prominent people on both the right and left in America suck balls, but when it comes to policy (the stuff that actually matters), from outside looking in Republicans are completely out to lunch while the Democrats are bog standard centrists that care a bit too much about Idpol.
Denying climate change, wanting to build a giant wall on the southern border, putting the ten commandments on public property, believing that cutting taxes on the rich generates revenue, denying evolution.... all this stuff is batshit insane and has no real equal in the developed Western world. Meanwhile the Democrats could fit easily into any other Western countries political sphere without looking out of place
Also, don't Mounties routinely leave refugees to freeze to death on the Canadian border?
Uh, no. Don't know where you heard that. Anyone who crosses the border and claims asylum gets taken care of while their claim is processed. The lib goverment has actually taken a lot of shit for that policy
The Ten Commandments were already on public property.
Bible thumper boomer/incel detected
Also, don't Mounties routinely leave refugees to freeze to death on the Canadian border? I'd think a wall would be more humane than that, unless you're assuming the Border Patrol is just as sadistic as the Queen's Red-coated killers.
lol this is more retarded then the average mdREEEE
Yeah for real, I'm all for radical centrism, but CNN and the like were not nearly as bad back then. It was Fox and Fox alone that shitted up the networks.
Agreed, the best parts of Stewart back in the day, was the righteousness of it all. He called them on their bullshit, and in a way where he was absolutely incontestable. I worry we've forgotten about the Bush years.
That's because everything you hear about our country basically comes out of LA and New York (even Fox News). Just keep in mind that you have almost no exposure to the actual rationale of anyone living outside of the major metropolitan areas. I work in rural medicine, and nothing is more frustrating than seeing journalists try to pontificate on the mindset of fentanyl americans when it's obvious that they aren't even within six degrees of anybody who lives more than 10 miles from an international airport.
As for Fox News, you have to realize that their only purpose for existing is to fill a hole in the market left open by the mainstream media. While MSM has always slanted left, up until recently it was restrained enough that the the average Republican was willing to overlook it. Many would watch Fox News as well, but no one was under the delusion that Fox was anything other than a sensationalized right-wing alternative to the mainstream. Holding up the most egregious examples of Fox News as indicative of the American right would be like using the worst articles produced by Vox or Buzzfeed to form your entire opinion of the left. Only worse, because at least the people writing those articles have stepped foot inside a county that voted blue.
Well, for one, Trump is from New York. But regardless, the speculation over why people supported Trump is a perfect example of mass media being out of touch. Everyone wants to focus on the culture war aspect of the election, and the consensus is that his victory was driven by backlash against "PC culture" (which is what right-wing media like Fox tends to focus on). But his actual campaign revolved much more around his stance on protecting American industries. Just watch the first debate between Hilary and him. Her entire performance mostly consisted of redirecting the question back to how problematic she thought Trump was, while Trump seemed like he was trying to break the world record for how many times he could fit the words "American" and "jobs" into a single sentence.
There's a very consistent pattern that underlined his platform (illegal immigration, outsourcing, overregulation, etc.). A huge portion of his support came from a coalition of American workers and small business owners struggling to compete against competitors who use cheap foreign labor.
See, I watched that same debate, and Trump just came across as an ignorant, manipulative ass, while Clinton was more nuanced when asked a question and came across as the better statesman. It seems to me, more than anything, that outside of the cities, people in America just aren't educated enough to properly understand politics and just vote for the asshole that makes the most promises, and then forgets all about it when they're unfulfilled (not that that's an exclusively American problem).
See, I watched that same debate, and Trump just came across as an ignorant, manipulative ass, while Clinton was more nuanced when asked a question and came across as the better statesman.
That might be, but my point was that it was never about culture or "likability" for his supporters, it was about what he was saying he would do as president.
the fact of the matter is that republican economic policy hurts those workers and small business that tend to vote for them in the first place
Based on what? This goes back to my point about seeing arguments put forth on reddit or by journalists about what matters to rural America despite having had zero actual interactions with it. One of the biggest giveaways is the reliance on vague generalizations like "deregulation" and "reduced business taxes". The people who care enough about those issues to vote for Trump can be a whole lot more specific about what it is they want him to do.
Business owners will point to the specific tax or regulation causing them grief, and workers can talk about a particular factory closing down and explain exactly why. Meanwhile mass media is so completely disconnected from the reality of their day to day life that the only way for them to even discuss these issues is through the use of abstracts and overly broad statistics. Telling a community whose local economy is being devastated by outsourcing not to vote Republican because, statistically speaking, they probably lost their jobs to automation is like telling black people in the inner cities that they shouldn't vote democrat because, statistically speaking, the average American is white, so their problems aren't actually problems.
It's funny you are framing it as fox News filling a void by everyone going off some leftist deep end... When really it's the GOP that has pulled the argument so far right. Trump voters think anyone left of Hannity is a communist, it's just retarded
It's funny you are framing it as fox News filling a void by everyone going off some leftist deep end
That's not what I said at all. I specifically said that fox was filled a void on the right left by a mainstream media who captured the market of center-right to left. Literally the opposite of what you're saying.
When really it's the GOP that has pulled the argument so far right
Lol, ok. What issues, specifically, do you think Republicans have suddenly moved far-right on?
You did see the pew report I linked showing that since 1994 republicans have moved 20 points left on their attitude towards immigration, right?
Saying that republicans having taken some hard right turn on immigration is questionable when you consider that their current position basically mirrors Bill Clinton's platform 20 years prior. There's also quite a few prominent republicans who advocate for some measure of amnesty still around.
That's quite a spin on "Autocratic governments don't care about human life". See, all our worst atrocities weren't done during election years, so your assessment is as glib and stupid as a South Park take.
The Holocaust, Holodomor, Rwandan, Armenian, Cambodian genocides, and plenty of others literally only could happen because there was an environment where the leadership didn't need to consider political costs. Unless you think Mass Extermination isn't one of humanity's worst atrocities, it sounds like the opposite of what you said is needed to be really bad some times.
The Holocaust, Holodomor, Rwandan, Armenian, and Cambodian genocides are exactly what I was referencing when I said "All the worst atrocities in human history were committed by people who cared too much about politics". Unless you're trying to argue that the people who perpetuated those atrocities lacked a strong opinion on politics, I'm not sure what your point is.
And I'm very clearly saying that the leaders who chose to enact those atrocities did so precisely because they were in positions where they didn't have to be concerned about political optics.
So unless you've got a very convincing through-line for how smugness as a media member led to Autocratic abuse of power, Jon Stewart-brand "caring too much about politics" has NOTHING to do with humanity at its worst.
Politicians who care too much about politics are ineffective and don't get large projects accomplished. Extermination of an ethnic group is a big project, you really have to be results oriented to make headway.
I think your first mistake is taking my original comment as 100% serious and interpreting it as me unironically accusing Jon Stewart of being literally Hitler.
Extermination of an ethnic group is a big project, you really have to be results oriented to make headway.
Yes, most atrocities were driven by an "ends justify the means" approach to politics. That's, like, my entire point.
There's only two ways to parse your original "fact". Both aren't good takes.
Either any politician "takes politics too seriously" which is why political leaders making decisions for non-political reasons counts as "taking politics too seriously" but ignores that things like "Educational systems", "Going to the Moon", and "Social Security" were all pushed for by "people who care too much about politics". And those were all GOOD THINGS.
Or you meant it was related to the Jon Stewart stuff, and you mean punditry-as-politics. Which is even dumber because punditry has never been the driving force behind a genocide.
So if your point was that Utilitarianism is a flawed ethical concept, you spent a ton of time talking about not that. And you probably should have because it turns out politics, like ethics, has many schools of thought, and you're just calling them all bad because of a subset.
Have you considered the possibility that when I compared anyone who cares too much about politics with actual genocide, I wasn't being completely serious? Don't get me wrong, I do think people being unable to disengage from politics and ground themselves in their personal lives is an actual problem. But no, it's not quite on the same scale as the holocaust. You got me there.
Again, I'm not trying to one-up you, I'm following YOUR logic. You said all of our worst actions were driven by caring about politics too much. I just started at the top of the worst list and surprise! It doesn't fit with what you said.
You want to scale down? Rape and/or murder are pretty bad. Also neither is driven by political motivation primarily. As far as murder goes, if it IS political, we have a name for that. Assassination! And it's a very uncommon type of murder! Almost like other drivers play a bigger role!
You know what else? Larceny, fraud, arson, kidnapping, they're all driven by personal interests over everything else too. It's probably MUCH easier for you to just elucidate on what problems "being too into politics" is causing, because none of the common "ethical no-nos" seem to line up with a primarily political motivation.
(In b4 "I wasn't being serious, please stop highlighting how even my joke premise doesnt stand upon its own")
I mean, almost all the things you listed were driven by ideological fervor. Holocaust - Nazism, Holodomor - Communism, Cambodian - Communism. The Rwandan and Armenian genocides were straightn ethnic cleansing, but I would argue that most ethnic conflicts are absolutely political in nature.
My original claim is more or less a self-fulfilling observation because any atrocities horrific enough to make the list are going to require a large amount of cooperation on a societal level, and any undertaking at that level is, almost by definition, political. The part I'm not attempting to defend as anything but a joke was the implication that caring too much about politics because of Jon Stewart is in any way equivalent to genocide.
So earlier when I started with Genocide, you called me out for using an extreme example. I gave you some lesser evils to tackle, and now ALL you want to talk about is the genocide?
I get it. It's harder to paint rape as a political action.
And like I pointed out, you only fulfill that prophecy by ignoring the positive improvements that same collective action enables.
Look, if I were to say something much more basic, like "All of Humanity's Worst Problems were caused by Greed", do you think I'd have an easier time arguing in favor that point, or yours?
The problem is that we're arguing over two very different points, but you keep conflating them together. The first is that you used a list of historical genocides as counter-examples to the idea that all the worse atrocities were committed by people who care too much about politics. I defended that point because the genocides you mentioned were pretty much the exact examples I was thinking of when I was typing it to begin with.
However, you brought up an entirely new point when you said this:
So unless you've got a very convincing through-line for how smugness as a media member led to Autocratic abuse of power, Jon Stewart-brand "caring too much about politics" has NOTHING to do with humanity at its worst.
To be fair, I did imply an equivalence between people getting woke by watching the daily show and the most horrific crimes against humanity ever committed, but I wasn't being serious.
I'd say you're conflating Ideological Zealotry and "caring too much", which is the Lion's Share of the confusion here.
Unless you're having difficulty following two conversational threads caused by me asking you which flavour of wrong your "fact" was, I don't quite see how I'm responsible for any struggle you're having.
If that Is the case, please, disregard any of the Jon Stewart chat. That's all based on an interpretation of your initial post that you said wasn't grounded in intent. That door, conversationally speaking, is closed forever.
No, our conversation is now entirely about the fact that "caring too much about politics" is an accurate euphemism for Ideological Zealotry, and to a lesser extent whether caring too much for a system that enables such atrocities counts as either the catalyst for one, or the most major factor. (If you ain't the gunpowder nor the spark, thanks for your help, barrel, but this isn't really YOUR show.)
Hopefully that's cleared things up, but to recap:
For your claim to be true, we need to stick to geopolitical atrocities, we need to accept "care too much about politics" to be interpreted strictly as "is too invested in political systems that have been shown to enable such atrocities" and we need to prove that specifically the Holocaust and the Holodomor were driven primarily by ideological fervor, not opportunism, racism that predates the ideology, or "Greed"/material need depending on your views...
In order for us to have come up with TWO examples that meet your statement. Because the other 3 were too marginal.*
Just sayin', Liebensraum makes Greed really easy to argue for Nazis, if you wanted to change positions.
*This section entirely based on YOUR evaluations of the examples given.
A euphemism is by definition an understatement. So yes, I do believe "caring too much about politics" is an accurate euphemism for "ideological fervor". Ideologies are political belief systems, and fervor means a passionate feeling. Obviously "caring about politics too much" is a huge understatement, but that was intentional. I don't actually think modern American politics to is anywhere close to the level of "ideological fervor" which characterized the worst parts of the 20th century.
we need to accept "care too much about politics" to be interpreted strictly as "is too invested in political systems that have been shown to enable such atrocities"
What? That's the opposite of what I've been saying. It doesn't matter what the specific political system is. It's that people can become so passionate about their beliefs regarding what is best for society that they convince themselves they're justified in using extreme methods to achieve the societal changes they desired.
we need to prove that specifically the Holocaust and the Holodomor were driven primarily by ideological fervor, not etc.
That's not mutually exclusive to the motivations you listed. The Rwandan genocide was obviously a case of ethnic hatred, but it was just as clearly a struggle for political power.
It's not the opposite. It's a belief agnostic description of the specific requirements. You need the overenthusiasm for a political system, but overenthusiasm for parliamentarianism hasn't resulted in a genocide to my knowledge, so it does, in fact, need to be specific brands of political fervor. Especially not in the case of the two specific examples under examination. Which we know were conducted by Authoritarian Ultranationalists and however you want to categorize Stalinism. So political overenthusiasm for Theocracy, Feudalism, or Socialist-Capitalist hybrid states had very little impact.
Not every belief system results in the same outcome given the same energy. Not every political path leads to genocide if you're just intense enough about it. So yes, its a requirement that you be ideologically invested in a system that has been shown to lead to genocide. At least once. Because otherwise we can make all sorts of outrageous claims on the basis that it could theoretically happen.
Maybe. Apathetic people still clear cut forests. It didn't matter if you were pro-nazis, anti-nazis, or completely didn't give a shit in Nazi Germany, you were probs still drove some oil guzzling vehicle down the autobahn. What are going to be the long term consequences from releasing all that CO2 into the atmosphere? When we start having more climate refugees? When once arable land stops producing decent crops and locals starve if they can't get out. What wars are going to be caused by the crisis?
How many people have died from others not giving a shit about regulations? With cigarettes, with alcohol, with cars without seatbelts? How many babies starved or died from drinking bad water when Nestle weaned babies off of breastmilk until the mother stopped producing just to get them hooked on product to increase sales? Which they were allowed to do, because people didn't care?
Apathy can be dangerous too. That's why it's so important that if you are going to be center, you have to be radical center. Not giving a shit is for the sort of failures who try to choke back tears to move the goal posts and say, "psh, like that even matters." Apathy is for goth fags.
Maybe. Apathetic people still clear cut forests. It didn't matter if you were pro-nazis, anti-nazis, or completely didn't give a shit in Nazi Germany, you were probs still drove some oil guzzling vehicle down the autobahn.
I have no idea what point you're making, but I disagree
No one has any obligation to do anything. Great inventions were made by people with extraordinary dignity for life, but if it was that easy everyone would be a genius.
And when we say “engage with it politically” we mean “join a 24/7 hysterical partisan circle jerk where we scurry to pick the ‘right’ opinions and then villanize anyone with the slightest difference of views”
They had an episode where manbearpig went around terrorizing the town, and the kids went to Al Gore for help, and he wouldn’t help until they took him to Olive Garden for a “You were right” Party.
South Park's main sin is preaching to the audience instead of trying to make them laugh which is the same reason every "comedy" political show sucks most of the time. And they have an inability to ridicule themselves as hard as they ridicule everyone else. Once they got to the point where they could churn an episode out in a day they got lazy as fuck and they've ironically embraced the Family Guy manatees form of writing at this point.
Watch classic Simpsons to see true enlightened centrism, and not just two dudes smelling their own farts. An episode like where Lisa finds an angel gives equal support to characters the writers obviously don't agree with as it does to the scientists and skeptics. It doesn't just say "Look at these morons!" it cleverly mocks both sides while at the same time giving humanity to both sides without becoming a detached circlejerk of superiority watching and judging from above.
That's what has been lost in basically every form of humor these days, the ability to write from another's perspective and to give them humanity no matter how much you disagree. The Onion is one of the few comedy institutions to survive this wave of "I understand the issues, you idiots are wrong and can't see the big picture, let me preach at you about why as if everyone in my audience is a dunce for 30+ minutes" comedy.
I remember when some left-wing publication got the (very obvious) message of one episode completely backward and screeched about it. That's what happens if shitty remakes and capeshit is the epitome of culture for you, even an edgy cartoon will be too complex to interpret.
Yeah right. South Park has also made some incredibly impactful sentiments about LGBT rights as well (to name ONE). Don’t cherry pick your way to sounding like a decent news source. Btw South Park has been respected by many generations alike unlike the shithole of yellow journalism you crawl out of in the morning. Vox shut the hell up.
South Park broke the cardinal rules of Comedy, especially Dark Comedy and Satire.
You never apologize.
You never change stances. ( Start off saying you're serious, but
then when real critics appear you say it's satire and vice versa.)
You never change the joke to avoid offending someone, just know enough about your audience not to tell the joke to begin with.
The moment you apologize, it stops being a joke and South Park picked the hill they wanted to die on years ago when they started being "serious" only to attempt to go back to being "satire" and now they're being "serious" again.
tl;dr South Park can't into negative continuity anymore.
I remember arguing with a retard. It was on a vox video that was posted to Reddit. Anyway some guy mentioned FOX and how much they suck, blah blah blah. To which I agreed with but then I turned qround and said that Vox is sooo much worae. Not on the particular video, mind you but in general.
Just want to say, seeing this, that guy was delusional. Vox is nothing full of bullshit and bias.
240 comments
1 SnapshillBot 2018-11-18
Being a racist loser that makes fun of racist losers doesn't make you any less of a racist loser.
Pretending you're too stupid to understand how you spend your free time doesn't make it any less pathetic to spend your free time that way.
Snapshots:
I am a bot. (Info / Contact)
1 DrecksVerwaltung 2018-11-18
Politics is for nerds
1 UrMumsMyPassword 2018-11-18
If I ever reach the point where I start caring about shit, I want one of you guys to line up against the wall with the rest of the degenerates. This is my informed consent.
1 102938475601 2018-11-18
Noted.
1 Fletch71011 2018-11-18
LiberalsAnyone who cares gets the bullet too.1 Blackops_21 2018-11-18
Politics are for people who don't have anything else in life to worry about. In the last few years I've become, let's say, very financially secure and shit like politics have become more of an issue. Id like to keep my money so I'm leaning farther and farther right the older I get
1 lickedTators 2018-11-18
What's the point of having money when traps get banned by the right?
1 Val_P 2018-11-18
Daddy loves the bussy, tho
1 R3troville 2018-11-18
Ugh please don't post dumb shit nobody cares about
1 Val_P 2018-11-18
Then what will I do on the internet?
1 EmeraldFlight 2018-11-18
you lean farther and farther right the older you get because your circle of caring gets smaller and smaller, which is fair to some degree
I've gone the opposite way. I started out as a conservative young boye, even going to seminary for a while, and as I've gotten older (partially due to the wealth of information available on the Internet), I've become more and more left-leaning
1 Momruepari 2018-11-18
I started out as a radical centrist and as I get older I get even more radical centrist
1 EmeraldFlight 2018-11-18
that's fucking radical dude
1 jewdanksdad 2018-11-18
Same here, but I blame my daughter
1 TheBlightStar 2018-11-18
I want to to have a talk with your daughter
1 Tobans 2018-11-18
Someone's getting a spanking OwO
1 Watermark03 2018-11-18
I was actually a fairly hardcore libertarian in high school. It's weird to think that me and Ben Garrison supported the same candidate in 2008.
1 thejor 2018-11-18
It's okay to be a libertarian in high school. It's only not okay after high school.
1 TheBlightStar 2018-11-18
The Wizard's First Rule is actually an okay book, regardless of what comes after.
1 snallygaster 2018-11-18
Thanks for making me feel better about myself.
1 911roofer 2018-11-18
So you're still retarded?
1 Watermark03 2018-11-18
ys
1 Potatoe_away 2018-11-18
It was gay porn wasn’t it?
1 EmeraldFlight 2018-11-18
dude bussy lmao
1 flameoguy 2018-11-18
Wouldn't politics matter a lot if you weren't financially stable?
1 Blackops_21 2018-11-18
When I hit a rough patch in my 20s, I didn't see it that way. I didn't expect the government or the next person to have to take care of me. Having been in a really good financial situation a few years prior to that, I knew that it was my fault that I was broke and poor. So many people on welfare have this problem of being lazy and entitled, which is a horrible combination. There are a million manual labor jobs out there will pay enough to live very comfortably. Very very few people on welfare are physically unable to do manual labor. Hard work is all it takes. I ended my rough stint by doing a 5 year prison sentence. When I got out I had absolutely nothing to my name. I put my head down and broke my back at my job (which took forever to find with a robbery on my record). They took notice, as anyone would when someone is willing to go the extra mile, and made me supervisor. Now I make a ridiculous amount of money and have a nice ritzy house. 3 years ago I was sitting in a prison cell. So I'm not impressed with anyone's excuses. I did it.
1 mrv3 2018-11-18
Vox, Vice, and other new age news sites have done more towards that goal than all the episodes of South Park put together.
1 TheSubredditPolice 2018-11-18
For real, why would I listen to super srs opinions from the same groups of people who run articles like "we drank our own jizzim in cocktails and you should too."
1 Troppin 2018-11-18
"Here is everything you need to know about this complex topic in a four minute video."
1 FTFallen 2018-11-18
"We fit it into 4 minutes because we neglected to include the point of view of the side we don't agree with."
1 minepose98 2018-11-18
"And here's why that's a good thing"
1 ineed750bucks 2018-11-18
<Dramatic pause> . . . "Nazis."
1 DistortedLines 2018-11-18
They don't even manage to explain their own side properly, that's how much they care about actually informing people.
1 Anarcho_Autism 2018-11-18
"We need to talk about that problematic scene from [insert blockbuster movie still in theaters]"
"Sorry, [insert woke celebrity], but advocating for women in [Current_Year] isn't enough to eliminate sexism."
"Trump just farted in an elevator. Here's what this means for minorities."
1 Garrand 2018-11-18
You just ruined their editor's entire day. It was almost ready for publishing.
1 MozzerDozzer 2018-11-18
With how much shit they produce, I'm pretty sure he quickly found a workaround it, making it, say:
"Trump's flatulence in the elevator has serious consequences for minorities".
Trust me, copywriters live for these kinds of gigs.
1 Watermark03 2018-11-18
Hm, but you do? So clearly the strategy worked.
1 BuyMeAnNSX 2018-11-18
"Why not believing in Astrology perpetuates toxic masculinity"
1 chumthescrubber 2018-11-18
my horoscope said vox is sexist
1 bobafreak 2018-11-18
So much this, honestly. How is suspending your body on hooks for entertainment a serious topic, VICE?
1 myjukeboxisnotfine 2018-11-18
Oh man Vice just posted an article about what 100% cocaine does to you.
1 SeattleFingers 2018-11-18
1 Wegwerf540 2018-11-18
Its the teachers fault that I didnt learn anything!
1 degorius 2018-11-18
No no no, the teachers are the only part thats never a problem in any way shape or form under any circumstance. Its the school system and admins fault.
1 Wegwerf540 2018-11-18
Exactly. Teachers don't run around the forest hunting kids on their own. They are the product of their system
1 yunghastati 2018-11-18
as opposed to old age news sites?
1 King_Drumpf 2018-11-18
Centrists rise up
1 rileykard 2018-11-18
Do we reeeealy have to? I'm so tired...
1 Feedbackplz 2018-11-18
Is r/drama actually centrist? I've heard this meme three times a day on this sub, but can't think of any centrist political position that you guys would actually support.
The people on here tend to be either reddit-flavor libertarians ("I just want to shoot my rifle at my gay cousin's wedding while smoking weed, man") or belong to the same demographic as the average Redditor - a white programmer living in Seattle / Bay Area / New York.
None of which are anything close to actual centrist demographics on the U.S. spectrum.
1 skivian 2018-11-18
Have you considered joining the later day church of bussy?
1 HarryD52 2018-11-18
It's a meme you dip
1 TheBlightStar 2018-11-18
Real centrists get cucked here hard. But we are here and we will be heared.
1 Infidel6 2018-11-18
What is a centrist political position? Centrism is a sum of some liberal and some conservative positions.
Or do you think that Nazis want to kill all Jews, and communists want to kill all farmers, so a centrist should logically kill half the Jews and starve everyone else?
1 snallygaster 2018-11-18
The term has way too much baggage now, due to the left believing that centrists are right-wingers in disguise or that they really do think that centrism is a lack of conviction, and due to the fact that some actually right-wingers do go undercover as 'centrists' to make people take them more seriously when they say things that only a Daddylover would say. imo the label should be abandoned at this point; it doesn't even convey what centrism really is very well.
1 Infidel6 2018-11-18
It really do be like the sometimes, Snally. But personally if some of the retards on the right want to masquerade as politically neutral , that isn't gonna drive me to be a window-licking /r/politics poster.
1 bobafreak 2018-11-18
Can I get a source besides your poor, poor assumption?
1 omarcoming 2018-11-18
It's some new incel/4chan bs where 'centrist' means right-wing. Everton window and all that.
1 sevgee 2018-11-18
Post the actual link you degenerate
1 FTFallen 2018-11-18
Go get it yourself you lazy ass. I just reposted this from CA.
1 sevgee 2018-11-18
That makes it even worse. Gtfo.
1 pepperouchau 2018-11-18
OUT
1 Redactor0 2018-11-18
Please contact OSHA as soon as possible to ask for advice about how to maintain your safety.
1 EmeraldFlight 2018-11-18
clean my balls for me on your way back, filth
1 MrGoodieMob 2018-11-18
get out of this sub you fucking retard
1 Tobans 2018-11-18
Find another plain of existence, fentanese man.
1 dudeWares 2018-11-18
Vox is Fox for the VLeft
1 Ranilen 2018-11-18
I love Vox on my Vagels.
1 wewladin 2018-11-18
Oh vey!
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
They're just neoliberals dude; centrist democrat shit mixed with SJW virtue signalling
1 dudeWares 2018-11-18
They're just neoconservatives dude; centrist Republican shit mixed with evangelical virtue signalling
1 xXsnip_ur_ballsXx 2018-11-18
At least evangelicalism is a consistent ethos. The SJWs are too preoccupied with infighting to get anything done.
1 MilerMilty 2018-11-18
this is a centrist sub, no marxists allowed
1 Tobans 2018-11-18
No room for proper terms here. We have a hard enough time learning basic English.
1 madvillainer 2018-11-18
we will not be erased
1 lawlscape 2018-11-18
Wait, you guys haven’t been going to the r/drama meet ups?
1 ArlenBilldozer 2018-11-18
Have you seen pics from Reddit meetups? Crank that shit to 11 and there ya go.
1 k0bra3eak 2018-11-18
Dude bussy
1 MozzerDozzer 2018-11-18
you forgot lmao.
1 k0bra3eak 2018-11-18
lmao
1 jaredschaffer27 2018-11-18
I always assume everyone I'm talking to online is a normal looking and normally adjusted 27 year old. Then you see a pic of pizzashill and MasterLawlz and wonder if everyone looks that way.
1 DistortedLines 2018-11-18
Pizzashill is actually really hot
1 acctforbrowsing 2018-11-18
yeah, if you're into 16y/o school shooters.
1 antifrancaisguarno 2018-11-18
>it's stupid to care about anything, let alone engage with it politically
​
They are right tho, it is over for existencialistcels
1 MargarineIsEvil 2018-11-18
I love you
1 SkipperPauline 2018-11-18
"its good when it says the things I agree with, but now it doesnt so its bad"
1 Puokki 2018-11-18
I've talked to literal, unironical national socialists who said pretty much exactly this when South Park had some episode make fun of racists, the horseshoe strikes again
1 definibusmalorum 2018-11-18
Climate change is not an opinion.
1 SkipperPauline 2018-11-18
But the research that was funded by Exxonmobil and repeated on poor made youtube videos said was evil libral trannies that made it up, and if it was real it was "Hitlaries" fault anyway. So who knows...
1 radioactive2321 2018-11-18
Wrong sub
1 flameoguy 2018-11-18
MDE is banned tho
1 Tobans 2018-11-18
Good. They should ban themselves from reproduction.
1 gracchusBaby 2018-11-18
But check this out: you can still make fun of things that are true, and you can still mock of someone's behavior and seriousness even if they're right
1 CanadianCartman 2018-11-18
No, but caring about it is.
1 definibusmalorum 2018-11-18
Well, fuck you too.
1 CanadianCartman 2018-11-18
Ok bby I'll top~~
1 TheVeneficus 2018-11-18
hey how come I can't find a proper swastika flair like yours? I'm stuck with this Hindu one. which is more peaceful sure. but dots creep me out a little.
1 CanadianCartman 2018-11-18
Maybe they removed it from the list or something. My flair has been this way for almost a year now.
1 TheVeneficus 2018-11-18
damn that sucks. guess I'll throw Mein Kampf in the bin. oh well thanks anyway.
1 Nanaki__ 2018-11-18
I dunno about this episode on climate change, I stopped watching after the first few episodes this season (same with last season I was drawn back in by people assuring me it had got 'good' again)
I'm not hating on South Park because it does not agree with me, I'm hating on it because it stopped being funny.
Hell they had an episode where they said that smoking was ok. and I didn't agree but at least it made me laugh.
Now it seems to have been distilled down to one or two jokes told incessantly throughout the episode and with non of the clever humor or wit they used to have.
First time they tackled child abuse in the catholic church you had "The Gelgamek vagina is three feet wide and filled with razor sharp teeth! do you really expect us to have sex with that" the giant queen spider running the Vatican.
Now it's just priests with cleaning gear. I mean they could have done something inventive like have all the cleaning gear spring forth from papal garb (e.g. have a Thurible convert into a cleaning contraption or for decanting cleaning fluid) but no, it's just standard cleaning gear with 'cum' attached to the start of the name.
They've become the equivalent of a political satire cartoon where everything is labeled less you miss the joke.
1 LongPostBot 2018-11-18
I've known more coherent downies.
I am a bot. Contact for questions
1 Nanaki__ 2018-11-18
good bot
1 snallygaster 2018-11-18
The show got bad around 2008 when it became less about a bunch of kids doing weird shit with occasional pop culture themes and more about Matt and Trey using the show as a way to parody and express their beliefs about pop culture. Since then it's been boring and kind of embarrassing to watch. The show is now just a vehicle messages that the audience already believes, portrayed in a 'smarter' way. Sad!
1 911roofer 2018-11-18
The only good episode of South Park was Happy Tree Friends.
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
Yeah, but unfortunately Jon Stewart fucked that all up by convincing us that we can be the next arbiters of change if we jst act smug enough and bravely condescend to anyone we disagree with. Imagine how much better the world would be today if we had just listened to South Park instead of treating the news cycle like our own personal bat signal.
Fact: All the worst atrocities in human history were committed by people who cared too much about politics.
1 jorio 2018-11-18
Right, Jon Stewart and, to be fair, Bill O'reilly were the forerunners of the 'find a niche audience and tell them what they already think' pandermonium that has actually changed the media landscape. South Park's apathy could be more charitably described as humility and if there's a problem with South Park's legacy it's how little influence its been able to have on these larger social trends.
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
Yeah, I dunno dude, Jon Stewart was basically the only guy on TV critical of the Iraq War and he redefined political Comedy.
He took the daily show, a shit tier Craig Kilborn show and made it a genre, what a hack am I right?
I don't think any of that is going to get much traction with you since you probably think the Iraq war was good in 2018 but whatevs
1 Fall_Of_Arcadia 2018-11-18
That's a god damn oxymoron and you know it.
1 Lateraltwo 2018-11-18
More like redundancy
1 froibo 2018-11-18
https://youtu.be/IC3W1BiUjp0
1 jorio 2018-11-18
Bill O'reilly was a good talk show host, so fuckin what?
As far as the Iraq War nonsense is concerned - a. Many people in the media were opposed to the invasion of Iraq. b. I'm not sure Stewart was actually one of them, can you provide a source showing Stewart's opposition prior to the invasion?
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
lmao
His entire demographic was people who needed dick pills and pissed in bedpans
1 MozzerDozzer 2018-11-18
Not really. Not until a certain point, probably with Obama becoming president.
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
What are you basing that on?
Did the viewer base rapidly age over 4 years? Becsuse if you believe that you might be a retard, an mde or both.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/05/most-people-who-watch-bill-oreilly-are-over-70.html
The median was 72.1 in 2014.
1 MozzerDozzer 2018-11-18
Nielsen Ratings stop at 65+. Nice try though.
By that metric, Family Guy and Simpsons are watched by slightly more younger people, since median age reported for Fox Broadcasting is 50.
Some of those people already need their dick pills. Does this mean the entirety of the of the target audience of those shows is old people too?
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
Dude, this is why you're a braincels poster.
1 MozzerDozzer 2018-11-18
Pathetic. Try again.
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
1 MozzerDozzer 2018-11-18
See, I don't trawl through your history, because I disagree and anyone who does is usually a bootyblasted fool whose arguments can't survive on their own.
Now say it with me: dude bussy lmao.
1 froibo 2018-11-18
Then why are you even here lol
1 MozzerDozzer 2018-11-18
I like to argue at a disadvantage.
1 jorio 2018-11-18
You're not a Bill Oreilly fan? Shocking. Once again, who fuckin cares? The point is that they were the most influential TV hosts of the 2000s, whether you personally like them or not is completely irrelevant.
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
The median age was 72.1 in 2014.
1 jorio 2018-11-18
Fascinating stuff...dumbass
1 PowerImbalanceIsHot 2018-11-18
Easy there, grandpa.
1 Tobans 2018-11-18
Boomer btfo
1 froibo 2018-11-18
Wut
1 Tobans 2018-11-18
They lurk under the surface until someone makes fun of their daddies.
1 Suudsu 2018-11-18
/r/neoconOwO
1 AnnoysTheGoys 2018-11-18
I stole it, but I modded you
1 killinrin 2018-11-18
Holy shit the potential of autism this sub could wield is boner inducing
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
Don't get me wrong, I thought Jon Stewart was hilarious, but he also ruined mainstream comedy. He walked a fine line between comedy and punditry, and now everyone who follows in his footsteps blow right past that line to become sarcastic versions of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
I dont understand how you are making Jon Stewart accountable for the fall of american journalism and late night tv. He is literally just a late night guy.
Holding someone accountable for how they fit into a cascade of random shit is weird dude.
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
Does that mean acknowledging that they fit into said “cascade of random shit” weird too? Because that’s all I’m doing. I’m not disparaging him personally; I’m just pointing out that the current trend of talk show host coming off more like activists than comedians is a direct result of his influence. They all want to be like him, but don’t understand that his political persuasiveness was a byproduct of his observational humor, not the purpose of it.
1 CrosbyStillzandSwag 2018-11-18
I think Jon Stewart is kind of like the Tolkein of political comedy. Yeah the original thing is great, but was it really worth all the trash imitators it produced?
1 TheRealJayOakerson 2018-11-18
We could start by using Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz' real name. It's weird, but sometimes it seems you can tell a lot about a person's motives by just their name.
Like someone named Bill O'reilly is statistically most likely an Irish Catholic and is against abortion or whatever.
I womder what Mr. Leibowtz' motives were for changing his name. Idk maybe he just thought he'd have a hard time making it in show business
1 TigOleBittiesDotYum 2018-11-18
I hear what you’re saying, but actors (and TV personalities, musicians, performers, etc) change their names to simpler, easier-to-spell names (or versions of their names) all the time. It’s often a tool to market themselves, and in this day and age where we use google 57 times a day to look up literally anything and being able to spell is practically going out of fucking style, I would definitely say that changing your name in the public eye to “Stewart” (which is more last-namey than “Stuart”) from “Leibowitz” was a solid self-marketing decision.
1 Zozbot 2018-11-18
zoz
1 Zozbot 2018-11-18
zle
1 Zozbot 2018-11-18
zozzle
1 TheRealJayOakerson 2018-11-18
This explains it very well. Thanks!
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
lmao
1 TheRealJayOakerson 2018-11-18
Your original comment certainly made me think of it.
Shalom!
1 Watermark03 2018-11-18
I really like how everyone these days seems to be nostalgic for how balanced Jon Stewart apparently was compared to Trevor Noah and the like.
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
FWIW I don’t think he was balanced at all. My point is that he was still funny because him constantly shitting on one side was just a natural consequence of combining his style of observational comedy with his own personal biases. Whereas his successors have made “shit on one side of the spectrum” the foundation of their programs and hope their writers can milk some jokes out of it after the fact.
1 HodorTheDoorHolder 2018-11-18
He kind of was because Bush was more balanced than Trump. He also made fun of Obama whenever Obama made a gaff but it was so rare because Obama was so damn cool 😎.
1 MargarineIsEvil 2018-11-18
I thought Obama was cool until I saw him do the Mandela dance and realised he's a mayo at core
1 -Kite-Man- 2018-11-18
Drone stries.
1 HodorTheDoorHolder 2018-11-18
Are dope
1 -Kite-Man- 2018-11-18
True.
1 Watermark03 2018-11-18
I gotta admit, I had my reservations at first, but drone strikes eventually won me over. They're just irresistible.
1 HodorTheDoorHolder 2018-11-18
They're cute but also really sexy.
1 PowerImbalanceIsHot 2018-11-18
That's because they're doing it shittily. Colbert was good enough for his own show(s). The others weren't.
1 MilerMilty 2018-11-18
why do you hate democracy?
1 Whaddaulookinat 2018-11-18
NeoconNWO was ok but Wolf pack still stood alone
1 UnexpectedLizard 2018-11-18
Rush Limbaugh had that shit on lockdown 10 years before either of them.
1 high_side 2018-11-18
Huh? TDS's shtick was a bunch of videos of politicians contradicting themselves and self-deprecation.
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
Like I said in a different comment, my problem isn’t really with Jon Stewart himself. I always liked TDS, but it ruined late night comedy. He was definitely biased, but that just meant he was more likely to notice the absurdity of one side while overlooking the ridiculousness of his own. The end result might have been that he effectively undermined his political opposition, but humor was still his top priority.
The problem is that all the talk show hosts who were inspired by him are trying to recreate his success by taking topics they’re personally passionate about and turning it into a “funny segment”. You can’t pull off Stewart’s style of observational humor when it’s obvious you care way too much to be considered a passive observer.
1 thejor 2018-11-18
I mean, from outsider looking in, one side of American politics seems to me to be a hell of a lot crazier than the other.
1 911roofer 2018-11-18
That's because the media is entirely run by one side. American reporters vote Democrat more than registered Democrats.
1 thejor 2018-11-18
Yeah, you say that, but I grew up with plenty of Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. In fact, the Republican news was usually what I'd see, because quite frankly, it was absolutely fucking insane.
Do you guys not remember the fearmongering about the internet? The shit George Bush used to come out with? The Birthers? Obama literally being attacked for anything and everything? It's absolutely mental.
Hell, I only loosely follow American politics because it's such a shit show. The circus of a campaign you guys run when it's president time... What the hell is that? From what I've seen, that just doesn't happen anywhere else.
Let's put it this way: Maybe American reporters tend to vote Democrat, because they're paid to actually pay attention to the insanity, and because of that have come to the conclusion (like almost everyone outside the US, and plenty within) that the Republicans are deranged and that the Democrats are actually the reasonable choice 9 times out of 10?
1 Lindseyisagirlsname 2018-11-18
Lol right.
1 canad1anbacon 2018-11-18
Not really. American media is retarded, and plenty of prominent people on both the right and left in America suck balls, but when it comes to policy (the stuff that actually matters), from outside looking in Republicans are completely out to lunch while the Democrats are bog standard centrists that care a bit too much about Idpol.
Denying climate change, wanting to build a giant wall on the southern border, putting the ten commandments on public property, believing that cutting taxes on the rich generates revenue, denying evolution.... all this stuff is batshit insane and has no real equal in the developed Western world. Meanwhile the Democrats could fit easily into any other Western countries political sphere without looking out of place
1 911roofer 2018-11-18
The Ten Commandments were already on public property. No one is suggesting that they be put up, but the faggots at the ACLU wanted them taken down.
1 canad1anbacon 2018-11-18
Uh, no. Don't know where you heard that. Anyone who crosses the border and claims asylum gets taken care of while their claim is processed. The lib goverment has actually taken a lot of shit for that policy
1 911roofer 2018-11-18
Why must you turn this forum into a house of lies?
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
Bible thumper boomer/incel detected
lol this is more retarded then the average mdREEEE
1 911roofer 2018-11-18
Lies fall from a Canadian's lips like water from a whore's faucet.
1 Kaladin_MemeBlessed 2018-11-18
Yeah for real, I'm all for radical centrism, but CNN and the like were not nearly as bad back then. It was Fox and Fox alone that shitted up the networks.
1 thejor 2018-11-18
I mean, the Dems are Right Wing as fuck, but the Reps are in a league of their own.
1 Kaladin_MemeBlessed 2018-11-18
Agreed, the best parts of Stewart back in the day, was the righteousness of it all. He called them on their bullshit, and in a way where he was absolutely incontestable. I worry we've forgotten about the Bush years.
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
1 Kaladin_MemeBlessed 2018-11-18
lmao tru dat
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
That's because everything you hear about our country basically comes out of LA and New York (even Fox News). Just keep in mind that you have almost no exposure to the actual rationale of anyone living outside of the major metropolitan areas. I work in rural medicine, and nothing is more frustrating than seeing journalists try to pontificate on the mindset of fentanyl americans when it's obvious that they aren't even within six degrees of anybody who lives more than 10 miles from an international airport.
As for Fox News, you have to realize that their only purpose for existing is to fill a hole in the market left open by the mainstream media. While MSM has always slanted left, up until recently it was restrained enough that the the average Republican was willing to overlook it. Many would watch Fox News as well, but no one was under the delusion that Fox was anything other than a sensationalized right-wing alternative to the mainstream. Holding up the most egregious examples of Fox News as indicative of the American right would be like using the worst articles produced by Vox or Buzzfeed to form your entire opinion of the left. Only worse, because at least the people writing those articles have stepped foot inside a county that voted blue.
1 LongPostBot 2018-11-18
That degree finally paying off
I am a bot. Contact for questions
1 thejor 2018-11-18
See, that's blatantly untrue. Your President watches it as if it's gospel for crying out loud.
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
Well, for one, Trump is from New York. But regardless, the speculation over why people supported Trump is a perfect example of mass media being out of touch. Everyone wants to focus on the culture war aspect of the election, and the consensus is that his victory was driven by backlash against "PC culture" (which is what right-wing media like Fox tends to focus on). But his actual campaign revolved much more around his stance on protecting American industries. Just watch the first debate between Hilary and him. Her entire performance mostly consisted of redirecting the question back to how problematic she thought Trump was, while Trump seemed like he was trying to break the world record for how many times he could fit the words "American" and "jobs" into a single sentence.
There's a very consistent pattern that underlined his platform (illegal immigration, outsourcing, overregulation, etc.). A huge portion of his support came from a coalition of American workers and small business owners struggling to compete against competitors who use cheap foreign labor.
1 thejor 2018-11-18
See, I watched that same debate, and Trump just came across as an ignorant, manipulative ass, while Clinton was more nuanced when asked a question and came across as the better statesman. It seems to me, more than anything, that outside of the cities, people in America just aren't educated enough to properly understand politics and just vote for the asshole that makes the most promises, and then forgets all about it when they're unfulfilled (not that that's an exclusively American problem).
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
That might be, but my point was that it was never about culture or "likability" for his supporters, it was about what he was saying he would do as president.
Based on what? This goes back to my point about seeing arguments put forth on reddit or by journalists about what matters to rural America despite having had zero actual interactions with it. One of the biggest giveaways is the reliance on vague generalizations like "deregulation" and "reduced business taxes". The people who care enough about those issues to vote for Trump can be a whole lot more specific about what it is they want him to do.
Business owners will point to the specific tax or regulation causing them grief, and workers can talk about a particular factory closing down and explain exactly why. Meanwhile mass media is so completely disconnected from the reality of their day to day life that the only way for them to even discuss these issues is through the use of abstracts and overly broad statistics. Telling a community whose local economy is being devastated by outsourcing not to vote Republican because, statistically speaking, they probably lost their jobs to automation is like telling black people in the inner cities that they shouldn't vote democrat because, statistically speaking, the average American is white, so their problems aren't actually problems.
1 LongPostBot 2018-11-18
If only you could put that energy into your relationships
I am a bot. Contact for questions
1 Alimentas 2018-11-18
There's too much bait and serious posting in drama now, this needs to fucking stop. I don't come here to read paragraphs of retarded opinions.
1 thejor 2018-11-18
Then don't read it fag
1 Alimentas 2018-11-18
I didn't so jokes on you, straighty.
1 Lindseyisagirlsname 2018-11-18
It's funny you are framing it as fox News filling a void by everyone going off some leftist deep end... When really it's the GOP that has pulled the argument so far right. Trump voters think anyone left of Hannity is a communist, it's just retarded
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
That's not what I said at all. I specifically said that fox was filled a void on the right left by a mainstream media who captured the market of center-right to left. Literally the opposite of what you're saying.
Lol, ok. What issues, specifically, do you think Republicans have suddenly moved far-right on?
1 Lindseyisagirlsname 2018-11-18
Seriously? Immigration for one. Reagan would be thought of as a rino in today's climate
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
You did see the pew report I linked showing that since 1994 republicans have moved 20 points left on their attitude towards immigration, right?
Saying that republicans having taken some hard right turn on immigration is questionable when you consider that their current position basically mirrors Bill Clinton's platform 20 years prior. There's also quite a few prominent republicans who advocate for some measure of amnesty still around.
1 high_side 2018-11-18
He addressed this repeatedly. I won't bother to reiterate what he said.
Or maybe you can.
1 robotronica 2018-11-18
That's quite a spin on "Autocratic governments don't care about human life". See, all our worst atrocities weren't done during election years, so your assessment is as glib and stupid as a South Park take.
The Holocaust, Holodomor, Rwandan, Armenian, Cambodian genocides, and plenty of others literally only could happen because there was an environment where the leadership didn't need to consider political costs. Unless you think Mass Extermination isn't one of humanity's worst atrocities, it sounds like the opposite of what you said is needed to be really bad some times.
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
The Holocaust, Holodomor, Rwandan, Armenian, and Cambodian genocides are exactly what I was referencing when I said "All the worst atrocities in human history were committed by people who cared too much about politics". Unless you're trying to argue that the people who perpetuated those atrocities lacked a strong opinion on politics, I'm not sure what your point is.
1 robotronica 2018-11-18
And I'm very clearly saying that the leaders who chose to enact those atrocities did so precisely because they were in positions where they didn't have to be concerned about political optics.
So unless you've got a very convincing through-line for how smugness as a media member led to Autocratic abuse of power, Jon Stewart-brand "caring too much about politics" has NOTHING to do with humanity at its worst.
Politicians who care too much about politics are ineffective and don't get large projects accomplished. Extermination of an ethnic group is a big project, you really have to be results oriented to make headway.
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
I think your first mistake is taking my original comment as 100% serious and interpreting it as me unironically accusing Jon Stewart of being literally Hitler.
Yes, most atrocities were driven by an "ends justify the means" approach to politics. That's, like, my entire point.
1 robotronica 2018-11-18
There's only two ways to parse your original "fact". Both aren't good takes.
Either any politician "takes politics too seriously" which is why political leaders making decisions for non-political reasons counts as "taking politics too seriously" but ignores that things like "Educational systems", "Going to the Moon", and "Social Security" were all pushed for by "people who care too much about politics". And those were all GOOD THINGS.
Or you meant it was related to the Jon Stewart stuff, and you mean punditry-as-politics. Which is even dumber because punditry has never been the driving force behind a genocide.
So if your point was that Utilitarianism is a flawed ethical concept, you spent a ton of time talking about not that. And you probably should have because it turns out politics, like ethics, has many schools of thought, and you're just calling them all bad because of a subset.
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
Have you considered the possibility that when I compared anyone who cares too much about politics with actual genocide, I wasn't being completely serious? Don't get me wrong, I do think people being unable to disengage from politics and ground themselves in their personal lives is an actual problem. But no, it's not quite on the same scale as the holocaust. You got me there.
1 robotronica 2018-11-18
Again, I'm not trying to one-up you, I'm following YOUR logic. You said all of our worst actions were driven by caring about politics too much. I just started at the top of the worst list and surprise! It doesn't fit with what you said.
You want to scale down? Rape and/or murder are pretty bad. Also neither is driven by political motivation primarily. As far as murder goes, if it IS political, we have a name for that. Assassination! And it's a very uncommon type of murder! Almost like other drivers play a bigger role!
You know what else? Larceny, fraud, arson, kidnapping, they're all driven by personal interests over everything else too. It's probably MUCH easier for you to just elucidate on what problems "being too into politics" is causing, because none of the common "ethical no-nos" seem to line up with a primarily political motivation.
(In b4 "I wasn't being serious, please stop highlighting how even my joke premise doesnt stand upon its own")
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
I mean, almost all the things you listed were driven by ideological fervor. Holocaust - Nazism, Holodomor - Communism, Cambodian - Communism. The Rwandan and Armenian genocides were straightn ethnic cleansing, but I would argue that most ethnic conflicts are absolutely political in nature.
My original claim is more or less a self-fulfilling observation because any atrocities horrific enough to make the list are going to require a large amount of cooperation on a societal level, and any undertaking at that level is, almost by definition, political. The part I'm not attempting to defend as anything but a joke was the implication that caring too much about politics because of Jon Stewart is in any way equivalent to genocide.
1 robotronica 2018-11-18
So earlier when I started with Genocide, you called me out for using an extreme example. I gave you some lesser evils to tackle, and now ALL you want to talk about is the genocide?
I get it. It's harder to paint rape as a political action.
And like I pointed out, you only fulfill that prophecy by ignoring the positive improvements that same collective action enables.
Look, if I were to say something much more basic, like "All of Humanity's Worst Problems were caused by Greed", do you think I'd have an easier time arguing in favor that point, or yours?
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
The problem is that we're arguing over two very different points, but you keep conflating them together. The first is that you used a list of historical genocides as counter-examples to the idea that all the worse atrocities were committed by people who care too much about politics. I defended that point because the genocides you mentioned were pretty much the exact examples I was thinking of when I was typing it to begin with.
However, you brought up an entirely new point when you said this:
To be fair, I did imply an equivalence between people getting woke by watching the daily show and the most horrific crimes against humanity ever committed, but I wasn't being serious.
1 robotronica 2018-11-18
I'd say you're conflating Ideological Zealotry and "caring too much", which is the Lion's Share of the confusion here.
Unless you're having difficulty following two conversational threads caused by me asking you which flavour of wrong your "fact" was, I don't quite see how I'm responsible for any struggle you're having. If that Is the case, please, disregard any of the Jon Stewart chat. That's all based on an interpretation of your initial post that you said wasn't grounded in intent. That door, conversationally speaking, is closed forever.
No, our conversation is now entirely about the fact that "caring too much about politics" is an accurate euphemism for Ideological Zealotry, and to a lesser extent whether caring too much for a system that enables such atrocities counts as either the catalyst for one, or the most major factor. (If you ain't the gunpowder nor the spark, thanks for your help, barrel, but this isn't really YOUR show.)
Hopefully that's cleared things up, but to recap:
For your claim to be true, we need to stick to geopolitical atrocities, we need to accept "care too much about politics" to be interpreted strictly as "is too invested in political systems that have been shown to enable such atrocities" and we need to prove that specifically the Holocaust and the Holodomor were driven primarily by ideological fervor, not opportunism, racism that predates the ideology, or "Greed"/material need depending on your views...
In order for us to have come up with TWO examples that meet your statement. Because the other 3 were too marginal.*
Just sayin', Liebensraum makes Greed really easy to argue for Nazis, if you wanted to change positions.
*This section entirely based on YOUR evaluations of the examples given.
1 LongPostBot 2018-11-18
Your pulitzer's in the mail
I am a bot. Contact for questions
1 thebuscompany 2018-11-18
A euphemism is by definition an understatement. So yes, I do believe "caring too much about politics" is an accurate euphemism for "ideological fervor". Ideologies are political belief systems, and fervor means a passionate feeling. Obviously "caring about politics too much" is a huge understatement, but that was intentional. I don't actually think modern American politics to is anywhere close to the level of "ideological fervor" which characterized the worst parts of the 20th century.
What? That's the opposite of what I've been saying. It doesn't matter what the specific political system is. It's that people can become so passionate about their beliefs regarding what is best for society that they convince themselves they're justified in using extreme methods to achieve the societal changes they desired.
That's not mutually exclusive to the motivations you listed. The Rwandan genocide was obviously a case of ethnic hatred, but it was just as clearly a struggle for political power.
1 LongPostBot 2018-11-18
Mommy is soooo proud of you, sweaty. Let's put this sperg out up on the fridge with all your other failures.
I am a bot. Contact for questions
1 robotronica 2018-11-18
It's not the opposite. It's a belief agnostic description of the specific requirements. You need the overenthusiasm for a political system, but overenthusiasm for parliamentarianism hasn't resulted in a genocide to my knowledge, so it does, in fact, need to be specific brands of political fervor. Especially not in the case of the two specific examples under examination. Which we know were conducted by Authoritarian Ultranationalists and however you want to categorize Stalinism. So political overenthusiasm for Theocracy, Feudalism, or Socialist-Capitalist hybrid states had very little impact.
Not every belief system results in the same outcome given the same energy. Not every political path leads to genocide if you're just intense enough about it. So yes, its a requirement that you be ideologically invested in a system that has been shown to lead to genocide. At least once. Because otherwise we can make all sorts of outrageous claims on the basis that it could theoretically happen.
1 Let_you_down 2018-11-18
Maybe. Apathetic people still clear cut forests. It didn't matter if you were pro-nazis, anti-nazis, or completely didn't give a shit in Nazi Germany, you were probs still drove some oil guzzling vehicle down the autobahn. What are going to be the long term consequences from releasing all that CO2 into the atmosphere? When we start having more climate refugees? When once arable land stops producing decent crops and locals starve if they can't get out. What wars are going to be caused by the crisis?
How many people have died from others not giving a shit about regulations? With cigarettes, with alcohol, with cars without seatbelts? How many babies starved or died from drinking bad water when Nestle weaned babies off of breastmilk until the mother stopped producing just to get them hooked on product to increase sales? Which they were allowed to do, because people didn't care?
Apathy can be dangerous too. That's why it's so important that if you are going to be center, you have to be radical center. Not giving a shit is for the sort of failures who try to choke back tears to move the goal posts and say, "psh, like that even matters." Apathy is for goth fags.
1 WHOMSTDVED_DID_THIS 2018-11-18
I have no idea what point you're making, but I disagree
1 CanadianCartman 2018-11-18
The point he's making is that he wants to fuck tree bussy.
1 bobafreak 2018-11-18
No one has any obligation to do anything. Great inventions were made by people with extraordinary dignity for life, but if it was that easy everyone would be a genius.
1 silvertongue93 2018-11-18
Who in their right mind would attack Drama posters.
Drama posters.
Let that sink in.
1 hahhwhat 2018-11-18
imagine actually caring about things lmao
1 Automaticus 2018-11-18
Who even watches southpark in 2018?
1 bubblegod101 2018-11-18
Seriously
1 Ivan_The_Cock 2018-11-18
I do! But I mostly rewatch the older episodes before bed, season 6 is my favourite :)
1 flameoguy 2018-11-18
i know a guy
1 Death_Trolley 2018-11-18
And when we say “engage with it politically” we mean “join a 24/7 hysterical partisan circle jerk where we scurry to pick the ‘right’ opinions and then villanize anyone with the slightest difference of views”
1 PixelatedFractal 2018-11-18
Apathy is a survival mechanism in a cultural climate tethered to the imperative of caring too much.
1 SloppyKissesFromNick 2018-11-18
TAKE THE PURPILE (haha get it)
1 high_side 2018-11-18
Oh shit, eli5 did they apologize for the man bear pig thing?
1 Burnnoticelover 2018-11-18
They had an episode where manbearpig went around terrorizing the town, and the kids went to Al Gore for help, and he wouldn’t help until they took him to Olive Garden for a “You were right” Party.
1 high_side 2018-11-18
Interesting, I wonder if that is based on something that happened.
1 DocMjolnir 2018-11-18
Way to entirely miss the point, vox!
1 thedeevolution 2018-11-18
South Park's main sin is preaching to the audience instead of trying to make them laugh which is the same reason every "comedy" political show sucks most of the time. And they have an inability to ridicule themselves as hard as they ridicule everyone else. Once they got to the point where they could churn an episode out in a day they got lazy as fuck and they've ironically embraced the Family Guy manatees form of writing at this point.
Watch classic Simpsons to see true enlightened centrism, and not just two dudes smelling their own farts. An episode like where Lisa finds an angel gives equal support to characters the writers obviously don't agree with as it does to the scientists and skeptics. It doesn't just say "Look at these morons!" it cleverly mocks both sides while at the same time giving humanity to both sides without becoming a detached circlejerk of superiority watching and judging from above.
That's what has been lost in basically every form of humor these days, the ability to write from another's perspective and to give them humanity no matter how much you disagree. The Onion is one of the few comedy institutions to survive this wave of "I understand the issues, you idiots are wrong and can't see the big picture, let me preach at you about why as if everyone in my audience is a dunce for 30+ minutes" comedy.
1 MozzerDozzer 2018-11-18
It's okay, we all commit a sin of seriousposting from time to time.
1 Tobans 2018-11-18
Forgive me, Daddy, for I have sinned 😫😩☹️☹️😭😭
1 ImJustaBagofHammers 2018-11-18
This is why we need an independent nation. /r/AutistNationalism
1 NormanImmanuel 2018-11-18
>They were good when they agreed with us, now that they don't agree with us they're not good
Political """Comedy""" was a mistake.
1 Luhcifa 2018-11-18
Well... Anything is stupid
1 Snowayne2 2018-11-18
I remember when some left-wing publication got the (very obvious) message of one episode completely backward and screeched about it. That's what happens if shitty remakes and capeshit is the epitome of culture for you, even an edgy cartoon will be too complex to interpret.
1 MrGoodieMob 2018-11-18
vox owns SBnation - a website that profits by not paying the majority of the writers that create the majority of their revenue.
1 AJK64 2018-11-18
'South park has attacked something we like, and we only liked it when it when after our enemies, therefore south park is now the literal devil'.
1 Burnnoticelover 2018-11-18
In the new seasons, the show addresses this and tries to apologize/fix it.
But the left doesn’t want people who are sorry, they want to be smug and never have to change their opinions.
1 chumthescrubber 2018-11-18
They were making fun of those people in the man bear pig episode, with the Al Gore party. The only way he'd help is if they boosted his ego some more
1 SaltySoutie 2018-11-18
of course they are. Vox are professional victims.
1 RetrospectiveHue 2018-11-18
Yeah right. South Park has also made some incredibly impactful sentiments about LGBT rights as well (to name ONE). Don’t cherry pick your way to sounding like a decent news source. Btw South Park has been respected by many generations alike unlike the shithole of yellow journalism you crawl out of in the morning. Vox shut the hell up.
1 Krombopulos-Snake 2018-11-18
South Park broke the cardinal rules of Comedy, especially Dark Comedy and Satire.
You never apologize.
You never change stances. ( Start off saying you're serious, but then when real critics appear you say it's satire and vice versa.)
You never change the joke to avoid offending someone, just know enough about your audience not to tell the joke to begin with.
The moment you apologize, it stops being a joke and South Park picked the hill they wanted to die on years ago when they started being "serious" only to attempt to go back to being "satire" and now they're being "serious" again.
tl;dr South Park can't into negative continuity anymore.
1 chumthescrubber 2018-11-18
I still think they're just making satirizing apologists. Like when they did the Problem with A Poo episode and said to cancel the simpsons
1 PureGold07 2018-11-18
I remember arguing with a retard. It was on a vox video that was posted to Reddit. Anyway some guy mentioned FOX and how much they suck, blah blah blah. To which I agreed with but then I turned qround and said that Vox is sooo much worae. Not on the particular video, mind you but in general.
Just want to say, seeing this, that guy was delusional. Vox is nothing full of bullshit and bias.
1 Environmental_Table 2018-11-18
sOuTh PaRk WaS gOoD uNtIl It MaDe FuN oF mE
1 santyxEorrr 2018-11-18
Oof all the centrist preteens in these comments.