How Stephen Colbert Saved America

[Darth_Payn]

I loved the all-out geeking on The Colbert Report. Proudly mounting Captain America's shield on his wall, redecorating his set to look like Middle Earth, and dropping hints that he's really Superman were all icing on the cake. Bob could have gone further on the real/fake Stephen angle with how he put on a USO show for the troops in Iraq, in one of Saddam's former palaces no less, and all his work for them looked way too genuine to be a parody of anything.

Well, good luck to Larry Wilmore and his new show.

EDIT: And if Stephen could just once compare ISIS to HYDRA, complete with some clips from the Captain America movies and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I would be soooooooo happy.

 

[JarinArenos]

Conservatism in the United States is strongly associated with the small-government movement. This is still endorsed by the politicians and the base but only in talking points. The tea-party started out as a reaction to this problem but became waylaid by the very same disease infecting the rest of the "right" in the U.S.

I often like to say that conservatism was once about keeping the government out of the private lives of the citizens but it is now about keeping the government out of your life while making sure they have the power to be in your neighbor's. This is overly simplistic of me but basically holds true. I don't like the "No true scotsman" game, but to me you aren't conservative if you don't actually adhere to the ideology. With rampant spending in every Republican administration, expansion of federal police and military powers and whole "conservative" movements based around denying or stripping people (mostly homosexuals) of their rights, I don't see how anyone could claim these people/groups are in any way "conservative."

I do not hold a degree in political science so I may very well get eviscerated for this (I'd be happy to) but I see conservatism in the U.S. as being properly characterized by the belief that government should only be as big as is necessary to perform basic functions, that government power should be bottom up (by this I mean all government power should be executed at the lowest level of government possible) and that the federal government should be primarily focused on inter-state issues and foreign affairs, not screwing with bridges in Alaska.

This is why I no longer consider myself Republican but do still consider myself conservative; the party has tossed out these ideals in favor of being only slightly less spend happy (and in some cases, even MORE spend happy) than the Democrats. It's six of one, half a dozen of the other with the only real distinction coming from how badly they want to get rid of the notion of separation of church and state. Anywho, sorry to ramble, though I am happy to talk.

Edit: Incidentally, since we are talking about the Daily Show in some respect, John Stewart collected a bunch of Fox News clips that showed various members of their news team wanting to toss out every one of the first ten amendments to the constitution except the second. No one who claims to be conservative should be saying things like "Burkas should be illegal."; it's so antithetical to conservative theory it's jaw-dropping.

It seems to seem that you adhere to something akin to Libertarianism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism], mixed with a healthy dose of State's Rights [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States'_rights]. Sound something resembling accurate? (I have some comments, but I want to make sure I'm not barking up a very wrong tree first)

 

[default]

I tried to watch the Colbert Report when some episodes were trickling through to Australia. It was not funny to me at all. I just hate his sort of humour. He did play an important role of taking the news of the week and poking fun at it, but I've known others to do it better. He's so fucking smarmy and arrogant.

 

[hentropy]

I do not hold a degree in political science so I may very well get eviscerated for this (I'd be happy to) but I see conservatism in the U.S. as being properly characterized by the belief that government should only be as big as is necessary to perform basic functions, that government power should be bottom up (by this I mean all government power should be executed at the lowest level of government possible) and that the federal government should be primarily focused on inter-state issues and foreign affairs, not screwing with bridges in Alaska.

Your definition isn't too crazy, really. At its heart, conservatism is what is says on the tin: an ideology that exists in opposition to great or rapid societal or economic change. Conservatism by itself is not a movement meant to make government smaller, however it is a side-effect, as conservatives by definition don't want to expand the government. It's wrapped up nicely by Warren G. Harding's 1920 election motto: "a return to normalcy" after Wilson's tenure filled with war and fairly rapid social changes and difficulty.

Conservative feelings can extend to going back to the way things were in fairly recent history, but going far back (like those wanting to return to the social order of the 50s) would be called reactionaries. Those that work to make government as small as possible would be minarchists, while Americans who wish to return to strictly "original intent" Constitutional boundaries when it comes to both economic and social issues would be more akin to libertarians.

The current stream of conservatism in the US was one set forth by Reagan, known as neoconservatism, and stresses supply-side economics and economic non-intervention, a strong commitment to traditional social values, a strong military and foreign presence for the US.

I think the main schism in the party right now is that certain conservatives are starting slip into reactionism due to an almost religious devotion to Reaganesque principles, in addition to younger people being more likely to back more libertarian stances on social issues.

 

[Kingjackl]

Knowing Bob, I was half expecting the byline for this post to be "...after South Park destroyed it". Thankfully, that didn't happen and we got a nice little tribute article instead.

I enjoy watching the Colbert Report when I can, though living in Australia means my consumption is limited to Youtube clips because none of Comedy Central's shit is available online here. Our closest equivalent would probably be Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell, but it doesn't have the legacy of The Colbert Report yet. Regardless, will definitely miss the show when it's gone.

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

[Suey Park's] original outrage was over the comedy central Twitter post, not the show segment itself, it was only after the thing blew up that she started trying to walk it back to being about the actual segment and brought up additional points. Even then, she didn't really start talking about those new points until after the Native American community that was campaigning against the Redskins team name started telling her to stop drawing attention away from their cause.

She may have meant those additional points from the beginning, but if she did, she did an extraordinarily bad job explaining her reasoning

You are forgetting (or conveniently leaving out) the part where Park got a ton of harrassment on social media - misguided as her outrage may have been - to the point that Colbert himself had to talk about it on his show and tell the people doing it to knock it off.

 

[Dinosorcerer]

for all the talk of Colbert "destroying" fox news, I still know an unsettling number of people who solely rely on fox for news. I wish Stephen Colbert could destroy fox news by holding a mirror up to it and watching it turn to stone like a proverbial medusa with O'Reilly's face. but that just isn't the case. and in an election that's going to potentially go down in history books for the most sexist comments ever said nonchalantly on a news program, I think we need Stephen more than ever. I guess what I'm trying to say is that fox indeed has done pretty well as a self-parody, it's just that people aren't getting the joke. people eat that shit up, and its more people than you'd be comfortable thinking about, I'm sure.

 

[LysanderNemoinis]

Ah yes, the Colbert Report - your number one source for "news" and easy, unedgy humor for self-righteous, holier-than-thou, smug, left-wing pansyass hipster douchebags all over America.


Oh, I'm sorry, did that happen to offend anyone? It did? Oh well. Besides, I figured I'd keep it short and sweet rather than say repeat myself for three straight pages like Bob.

 

[EternallyBored]

[Suey Park's] original outrage was over the comedy central Twitter post, not the show segment itself, it was only after the thing blew up that she started trying to walk it back to being about the actual segment and brought up additional points. Even then, she didn't really start talking about those new points until after the Native American community that was campaigning against the Redskins team name started telling her to stop drawing attention away from their cause.

She may have meant those additional points from the beginning, but if she did, she did an extraordinarily bad job explaining her reasoning

You are forgetting (or conveniently leaving out) the part where Park got a ton of harrassment on social media - misguided as her outrage may have been - to the point that Colbert himself had to talk about it on his show and tell the people doing it to knock it off.

I did not forget, but her harassment has nothing to do with my post, which was agreeing with the previous poster that her initial outrage was fueled by the twitter post rather than the show skit, and that she failed to present her argument in the manner pseudonym2 was suggesting. How much or how little harassment she received is irrelevant when we are talking about the content of her original hashtag campaign.

She did not deserve to be harassed, she deserved to be criticized for the flaws in her arguments, but she did not deserve to be harassed. This does not change my previous post, and mentioning her harassment would have been entirely irrelevant to my argument, I'm not sure why you brought it up, she did not start walking back to Pseudonym2's explanation until she directly responded to the criticism that the Native American organization against the Redskins was giving her, that response was the first time (to my memory) that she started talking about how she got the satire and that it was specifically the issue with white people using racism to make political statements that she had problems with.

 

[Vivi22]

I used to be a fan of both daily show and Colbert report. Back when they would comment on both the left and the right. Now it just seems like a watered down msnbc.

They comment on both the left and right all the time. But it's not their fault that one side is being orders of magnitude more retarded than the other on a much more frequent basis. But when the left fucks up just as badly they don't pull any punches.

The problem with people who say the shows are biased against one side is that they're usually a member of that side in my experience.

 

[Vivi22]

Ah yes, the Colbert Report - your number one source for "news" and easy, unedgy humor for self-righteous, holier-than-thou, smug, left-wing pansyass hipster douchebags all over America.


Oh, I'm sorry, did that happen to offend anyone? It did? Oh well.

I don't think anyone could actually be offended by this when it makes you sound like you think the Colbert Report touched you in your special place as a child. Your post is fucking hilarious.

 

[BrotherRool]

Yuck, I'm a fairly extreme left-wing liberally type and

(but then again, I am one of those sheltered, ivory-tower, latte-sipping, tree-hugging, Church-skipping, book-reading, science-trusting, empathy-having East Coast Lib'rul Elites...)

Still made me cringe. If you think you're the best thing in the world, you're probably not. Doubt yourself more, or you're just yet another one of the millions of people thinking "Hey isn't weird how my people group are the only one who form their opinions rationally."

 

[LysanderNemoinis]

Ah yes, the Colbert Report - your number one source for "news" and easy, unedgy humor for self-righteous, holier-than-thou, smug, left-wing pansyass hipster douchebags all over America.


Oh, I'm sorry, did that happen to offend anyone? It did? Oh well.

I don't think anyone could actually be offended by this when it makes you sound like you think the Colbert Report touched you in your special place as a child. Your post is fucking hilarious.

Just illustrating absurdity by being absurd. And while there's a nugget of truth in my dislike of Colbert and his simple-minded comedy, just wanted to throw out there what I essentially got from reading Bob's article. Just replace "Colbert" with "Fox News" and my over the top "whining" with Bob's hatred of anyone slightly to the right of your average MSNBC host. But then again, it might be hard to seperate any of them from John Stewart.

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

How much or how little harassment she received is irrelevant when we are talking about the content of her original hashtag campaign.

It's not irrelevant when it could easily be a (if not the) reason for why she backpedaled by claiming #CancelColber was meant to be satirical. If overzealous fans of a TV-personality were harrassing me for taking issue with something their idol said I could imagine myself resorting to it as well, actually.

The harassment Park received was mean-spirited and wrong. It also served as yet another good reminder that many left-wingers are no strangers to misogyny, despite insistence to the contrary.

in an election that's going to potentially go down in history books for the most sexist comments ever said nonchalantly on a news program, I think we need Stephen more than ever.

Sarah Palin also received her fair share of gendered/misogynistic/awful insults back in the day. Hell, back when word got out that her daughter got pregnant out of wedlock lefties were lining up to take potshots at the both of them. Funny how people are trying to pretend like that never happened.

 

[EternallyBored]

How much or how little harassment she received is irrelevant when we are talking about the content of her original hashtag campaign.

It's not irrelevant when it could easily be a (if not the) reason for why she backpedaled by claiming #CancelColber was meant to be satirical. If overzealous fans of a TV-personality were harrassing me for taking issue with something their idol said I could imagine myself resorting to it as well, actually.

The harassment Park received was mean-spirited and wrong. It also served as yet another good reminder that many left-wingers are no strangers to misogyny, despite insistence to the contrary.

No, it's still irrelevant, because the conversation was not about Why she changed her stance, bringing up her harassment was not part of or required for the line of conversation that lead to my post.

As it goes:

Pseudonym2 posted that Ms. Park and her hashtag followers got that the Colbert segment was satire, but they were actually taking issue with white people throwing Asian people under the bus as part of the joke was still a bad thing.

Hentropy countered this by saying that the original hashtag campaign did not call out the skit, and seemed to actually be taking it at face value.

I then followed up by agreeing with Hentropy, that to the best of my recollection, her hashtag was not about what Pseudonym2 claimed at first, and that she originally seemed to be taking issue with just the comedy central tweet, and only changed explanations and targets much later on.

At no point in this chain is the why of her changing reasons ever relevant to the discussion, it is hentropy and I taking issue with the whats of the original claim that pseudonym2 made. Why she changed her information and argument is entirely pointless to mention because the issue was with the misrepresentation that the later argument was actually her original argument all along.

Did she change her argument in part or totally due to harassment? That is speculation since as far as I am aware, she has never given a reason for why her points changed. I would agree that the harassment she received likely played a role in it, and I would argue that part of it was also trying to cover the flaws in her initial jumping the gun at the original tweet. None of this needed to be mentioned at all in my original post that you took issue with however.

As for your second paragraph, excuse my bluntness here, but, no shit sherlock. Anyone with more than an ounce of intellectual honesty can admit that simply holding to a specific belief system does not automatically make you immune from being a jerk, a bigot, or a hypocrite.

Why you felt the need to bring this up in response to me though is baffling, I can assure you at no point did I ever mean to give the impression that somehow the people attacking her must have been all right-wingers, or that she was the only one who made mistakes in that whole fiasco. Do you want me to include warnings in all my future posts that let people know that holding to a specific political belief structure won't automatically make you a better person morally?

 

[Dinosorcerer]

How much or how little harassment she received is irrelevant when we are talking about the content of her original hashtag campaign.

It's not irrelevant when it could easily be a (if not the) reason for why she backpedaled by claiming #CancelColber was meant to be satirical. If overzealous fans of a TV-personality were harrassing me for taking issue with something their idol said I could imagine myself resorting to it as well, actually.

The harassment Park received was mean-spirited and wrong. It also served as yet another good reminder that many left-wingers are no strangers to misogyny, despite insistence to the contrary.

in an election that's going to potentially go down in history books for the most sexist comments ever said nonchalantly on a news program, I think we need Stephen more than ever.

Sarah Palin also received her fair share of gendered/misogynistic/awful insults back in the day. Hell, back when word got out that her daughter got pregnant out of wedlock lefties were lining up to take potshots at the both of them. Funny how people are trying to pretend like that never happened.

but the media's treatment of her was also satirized by the likes of Stewart and Colbert. to my knowlege, the more that rational people found out about her, the less they liked her. one of the main reasons behind why McCain lost was due to the fact that if his health were to fail (very likely considering his age), she would become president. I think what people latched onto in that situation was that a very outwardly christian family suddenly had a member who had a child out of wedlock. it in no way excuses the members of the mass media that started attacking Sarah's daughter though. but here's the important part, Bristol wasn't running for president. Hillary will be and no matter how you feel about her policies, I think we can all agree that nobody deserves the kind of things she's going to go through as a direct result of her gender.

 

[nathan-dts]

Still got Last Week Tonight and the Daily Show.

 

[KazeAizen]

Soon they will have to call this site "The MovieBob Show". Dont know how he finds the time to write all these different articles and shows each week.

No freaking kidding. A Marvel/SHIELD article every week. His TV show article every week. His intermission article every week. Escape to the movies. The Big Picture and then add on all the brief news articles on movie news he writes. Whatever The Escapist is paying him its not nearly enough.

 

[KazeAizen]

I loved the all-out geeking on The Colbert Report. Proudly mounting Captain America's shield on his wall, redecorating his set to look like Middle Earth, and dropping hints that he's really Superman were all icing on the cake. Bob could have gone further on the real/fake Stephen angle with how he put on a USO show for the troops in Iraq, in one of Saddam's former palaces no less, and all his work for them looked way too genuine to be a parody of anything.

Well, good luck to Larry Wilmore and his new show.

EDIT: And if Stephen could just once compare ISIS to HYDRA, complete with some clips from the Captain America movies and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I would be soooooooo happy.

Hot damn. Actually kind of surprised he hasn't actually done that yet and probably won't. Now I really want to see that. I hate you now for putting a thought in my brain I know will never become real.

 

[KazeAizen]

*Starts the article*
Huh, is this new Gamergate-proofing, adding the "this is an opinion"-disclaimer in front of an article? Why is it mentioned so explicitly?
*Halfway through the first page*
Oh, that's why.

Not American here, so I have mostly second-hand accounts of Fox News and the Colbert Report. I think the only O Reilly clip I saw was when he and his guests were trying to paint my hometown, Amsterdam, as an anarchic distopia thanks to our lax soft-drugs laws, and locals made a clip of smiling families traveling through Amsterdam, while overlaying statistics showing that our rate of drug crimes and drug addiction is considerably lower than in American cities.

But I'll leave the discussion to those that have seen either of these shows. Wonder if we'll get fireworks from the conservative posters

Not here it looks like. The comments on the Facebook article linking to this page. That's where you will find your fireworks. Enjoy.