Real Talk: I don't think putting all of one's faith in John Oliver is particularly wise either, though for entirely different reasons than Windsong. So let me try to recover this thread as a moderate middle man, if that's acceptable. Okay? Okay.
On the one hand? I'm impressed with stuff like
this (did a good job pointing out
specific places and
specific bills that you can look up yourself), or
this (where the complete lunacy of tax exemption and lack of investigation for all religious causes rears its ugly head). Then again, I don't really agree with him on stuff like
this (where he's just being plainly disingenuous about Canadian politics) or
this (where he cites one case of discrimination as though it can disprove tens of thousands of living examples defying it).
You know John Oliver's gun free paradise, Australia? The report that really kicked his career into high gear? Well,
erm...
- Australia has 50% more acts of bribery.
- Has three times the rape rate of the US.
- Has twice as many burglaries as the US.
- Has twice as many robbery victims as the US.
It also has more car thefts (63%), has a 3-7% higher suicide rate between the ages of 15-64, has 39% more property crime...
Hell, let's dismiss this source entirely and only use strictly government stats from the government site itself. When were firearms mostly banned? 1996. What happened to the crime rate?
It spiked, according to Australia's crime statistics bureau itself. Assault?
Has kept climbing until 2007. Robbery?
Climbed after 1996 and didn't start dropping until 2002.
When people had their guns taken away, they resorted to using other tools to get the job done, or simply purchased firearms in the black market. I mean, after all, they have at least
260,000 guns you can casually buy from the black market. This flies completely in the face of what John Oliver reported.
Whoop de fucking doo, indeed.
Hell, John Oliver says it himself:
"I'm not a journalist, I'm a comedian."
He's a human being with human flaws. He's perfectly fallible and his first objective is to entertain you, one way or another. He's not under any kind of oath to distribute the
truth to you, or
facts. He's merely employed to make you laugh. Which is fine, because, hey: I like John Oliver too. I think he's a hilarious comedian. I think he's got some serious fucking balls to do some of the things he does. (Flying to Russia to interview a guy wanted by the FBI is pretty fucking radical.) But he's
blatantly politically biased. Has he run any piece making fun of Caitlyn Jenner for running people down in her car? No.
That took South Park doing it. Has he mocked Bernie Sanders for his 15 dollar federal minimum wage that would tank the value of the American dollar to something more akin to the fucking Zimbabwe dollar? No. Because he's politically aligned to Bernie Sanders. Has he made fun of Hillary Clinton for lying through her teeth about landing under gunfire? No. He's politically aligned to her too. Has he made fun of Justin Trudaeu for talking repeatedly about the bravery and strength of Canadian women facing adversity whilst completely ignoring the plight of thousands of women being raped in the middle east every day, and abandoning them to their fate via deciding to pull out as much of Canada's military as he reasonably could?
No.
Has he made fun of the NDP for supporting the
LEAP Manifesto, which calls for the democratization of energy whilst somehow magically also having it not be owned by either the state or private interests?
No.
And he doesn't have to.
He's a hilarious comedian, but if you seriously only get your news from him, you're doing yourself a massive disservice. Your life can only be enriched by taking in more world views than that of a single comedian, no matter how hilarious. As much as I love John Oliver, there is a lot more to the world than just his jokes about it. Have you ever noticed that the smartest people will
decry how we fight among each other and segregate into camps based on a variety of qualities? What did we just do here? Did we seriously just start attacking each other based on who we're voting for? Have we gone so far beyond the pale that if someone, so much as
supports a political candidate we disdain, that we'll turn rabid on them and attack them on a personal level? As though a person's political preferences somehow render all of their other opinions on all other subject matters as irrelevant, and morally wrong? Should we start setting up camps for the people we disagree with, to ensure they can't bother us with their
inferior minds?
Stop. Take a step back. Let's reevaluate what we're doing. We should all work together and use our variety of mindsets to further enrich each other's views of the world. I don't have to agree with Windsong about his political choices--I would not vote for Trump, he's pretty much the polar opposite of what I want out of a leader of a country. That does not, however, justify me attacking Windsong at a personal level. Nor would it justify him attacking me at a personal level if I were to mention that I would probably support Bernie Sanders. (Yes, the guy I just criticized.)
Let's not let the establishment turn us on each other. John Oliver didn't cure cancer: He makes jokes about politics, and occasionally makes statements from his politically biased position. I do the same: I'm a socialist. So whenever I criticize capitalism, I will always have that lingering political bias, no matter how smart I am. I'm an atheist, I'll have a lingering bias when talking about Christianity. Which is why when I have questions, I sometimes ask my dad (who is an ardent capitalist) or Christian friends I have about what they think. Because I don't
have the Christian mindset: It might have ideas I never thought of trying or using before. (Faith.) Capitalism might have a solution to a problem my socialist theories didn't account for. (Free marketplace of ideas.)
We're all decent people here. Let's all agree to a cease fire. Does that sound okay?
