Not Too 'Hip' and 'Edgy' for Censorship (or, "Please. Behead me last.")

National Review ^ | 04-24-10 | Mark Steyn

[thouworm]

....in terms of the electoral map this November, you’ve only got to scare a relatively small percentage of squishy, suburban moderate centrists back into the Democratic fold, and how difficult can that be?

Hence, Bill Clinton energetically on the stump, summoning all his elder statesman’s dignity (please, no giggling) in the cause of comparing tea partiers to Timothy McVeigh. Oh, c’mon, they’ve got everything in common. They both want to reduce the size of government, the late Mr. McVeigh through the use of fertilizer bombs, the tea partiers through control of federal spending, but these are mere nuanced differences of means, not ends.

(snip)

For a long time, tea partiers were racists. Everybody knows that when you say “I’m becoming very concerned about unsustainable levels of federal spending,” that’s old Jim Crow code for “Let’s get up a lynching party and teach that uppity Negro a lesson.”

(snip)

Meanwhile, Comedy Central — you know, the “hip,” “edgy” network with Jon Stewart, from whom “young” Americans under 53 supposedly get most of their news — just caved in to death threats. From a hateful 83-year-old widow who doesn’t like Obamacare? Why, no! It was a chap called Abu Talhah al Amrikee, who put up a video on the Internet explaining why a South Park episode with a rather tame Mohammed joke was likely to lead to the deaths of the show’s creators.

(snip)

Yet in the end, in a craven culture, even big Hollywood A-listers can’t get their message over. So the brave, transgressive comedy network was intimidated into caving in and censoring a speech about not being intimidated into caving in. That’s what I call “hip,” “edgy,” “cutting-edge” comedy: They’re so edgy they’re curled up in the fetal position, whimpering at the guy with the cutting edge, “Please. Behead me last. And don’t use the rusty scimitar where you have to saw away for 20 minutes to find the spinal column . . . ”

Terrific. You can see why young, urban, postmodern Americans under 57 get most of their news from Comedy Central. What a shame 1930s Fascist Europe was so lacking in cable.

[ForGod'sSake]

Interesting thoughts! The major media, bowing to and contributing to the decay of our culture has become nothing more than purveyors of superficial flapdoodlery. Carnival barkers for the sideshow of “bread and circuses”(the cardboard) until a real but easy story comes along. They are just doing what any scurrilous louts would do when it makes the going easier; appealing to the baser instincts of their audience. Playing the room. The room is full of sheep who have lost their way. Who and where are the sheepdogs? Question is, is it temporary, and will the pendulum swing back the other way before we've lost all our freedoms?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

You are on to something. But before we go further, have you read Marvin Olasky’s book on religion and journalism? I forget the title, but you can find it on Amazon. See what you think about his arguments.

Prodigal Press? No, I haven't read it - but it sounds good.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Ping to my #62.

[Still Thinking]

The leftists are beginning to expose themselves...

Hopefully not including....Lovely Helen:

[ForGod'sSake]

Prodigal Press??? I can't recall hearing of it before; thanks for the heads up. I've begun reading it on line. For anyone not wanting to wait on a hard copy, it looks like World Magazine has put what appears to be a complete version of it on the web: PRODIGAL PRESS The Anti-Christian Bias of The American News Media