Daily Show & Colbert Report: Forced Rescusitation of America's Ignorant!
Are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert raping the mind of America or are they impregnating them with a chance of rebirthing intelligence?
As a professor of Critical Thinking (Logic and other forms) I often find an unwillingness to replace opinion with facts among students who interestingly enough, have not yet discovered they don't know what they don't know. Such students will tell us that we all have a right to an opinion. I have to remind them that in my class, they don't, unless those opinions are preceded by supported premises.
But who would dare require students to assume a teacher knows more about the subject than they? Who would dream of denying a child to think candy was more nutritious than vegetables? Who would have the nerve to inflict ignorance with knowledge? Especially in a college?
Stephen Colbert and his progenitor, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show consistently demonstrate not only how hip they are and how funny intelligence can be, but they may be teaching us that the world has a chance after all if we just stop being afraid to laugh at village idiots.
Every night, millions of the highest IQ viewers across the US watch with bated breath to hear pearls of wisdom through the parody and satire that Colbert and Stewart deliver. Stewart has become in a short time, the most preferred interviewer of Presidents, scientists, Nobel Laureates of every discipline, and frankly those in the know... outside the US head of state, of course.
In this clip from Colbert we see a very funny twist on the idea that ignorant people are getting very pissed at being wrong. Enjoy!
Colbert-The WORD: Heated Debate 4min
10 comments:
Tell Duly Consider what you think of these two entertainers and their effect on American thinking---
They are the most insiteful hysterical people out there and can only be doing the county of ignorantsus peoples a justis ;)
I am 61 years old and can't figure out why Stewart and Colbert are the only ones on TV who have the guts to say that the Emperor Bush has no goddamn clothes and no brains either.
Ditto for the mentally and morally constipated Republican party. I get MY news from Comedy Central.
I do agree that it is important to have facts to back up an opinion, but it is hard to seperate opinion from fact when so many facts presented are bias.
Its too bad the MSM is not more like Stewart. He reveals the awful truth about the Bush administration: stupid, arrogant, and dangerous.
Colbert is funny, but I think a lot of people don't understand that he is doing a parody of O'reilly; they think he is just another right wing wack job.
I'm a republican and I watch both of these shows. They are fun and witty. If you can't laugh or question your owm party then you need to lighten-up.
Amen to all of you. I worship you and want you to send me straight to hell, now! Oh, Dick.... correct that, I have been informed I am already there.
What is amazing is how the left in this country think that a consensus among some scientist is fact. A fact can be proven over an over again consensus is just getting close with out proof you are right. Remember in Germany there was consensus that Hitler was right mmmmmm what went wrong? No one has been able to prove that man is the cause.
These same people think it is better for kids to have sex than to be abstinent.
Criminals will go away if you just take the police away. Millions of illegal’s flooding the country is a good thing. The shows you talk about think they know it all and everyone else is a fool. To understand this I suggest you go to you tube and look up "How modern liberals think" by Evan Sayet. I could go on, but as we all know liberals don't need fact, if you disagree with them, they call you ignorant and keep what they learned in kindergarten as the only way to think.
In reference to the above, it amazes me that the reader does not see how those of the corporate view only believe that which maximizes their profits. In this case the reader would have schools ignore consensus and teach exceptions instead.
Pollution is a fact. The need to reduce it is essential; that is a fact. Global warming and its cause, has its place in the academic context, and it is certainly NOT to be ignored just because smartass kids and faux-scientists find flaws in it. No, it should not be treated as a religion itself, and admittedly some have. But to ignore it and pretend it is nothing to worry about is outright... well ignorant.
I don't know who this jackass is that posted that last comment, but I'll take a page out of your rant right now....you're ignorant. Now where do I begin proving it, there are so many options. Well, I guess the beginning is a good place to begin....
First off, the evidence is strong, even if it's not perfect. Weighing the costs and benefits is a necessary step in choosing action in situations such as this. Now let's say that a major consensus of scientists says global warming is man made. Based on what they believe the consequences will be, Joseph Stiglitz (former Chief Economist of the World Bank - a reliable source I'd say) makes the prediction that global GDP will drop 1% to impliment the necessary changes in our societies to effectively mitigate against what scientists believe to be catastrophic changes in the biosphere (for the ignorant guy - the biosphere is that bumpy green, brown, and blue area sitting between the crust and the atmosphere, kinda like, you know, where we and everything else live....clear?...good). He also predicts that if we make no changes, the effects of global warming will protentially cause a 5% to 20% decrease in global GDP in as soon as 20 years, which is more than enough to cause a global recession/depresssion. Now, ignorant guy, I'm going to guess you're a Republican so you should be pretty familiar with cost/benefit analysis considering you're all usually more concerned with money than anything else (also I would like to add that my gross generalization about Republicans to mock you, is only aimed at YOU...not every Republican, because I realize, unlike yourself, that people from a particular political party aren't all the same, a point you seem rather IGNORANT of in your post, but I digress). If the costs of properly mitigating (1% GDP) a possible or likely occurance (global warming and our relationship to it) are comperable to the benefits (a cleaner, more efficient human existence, likely with great economic growth after recovering from the minor GDP loss), it is a wise action in the long term (meaning the continuation of life as we know it for the lives of our youngest generation - or sooner - and forward).
Let's try your approach now. 'Global warming isn't proven there's only a vast concensus, blah blah blah"...If you're right and we do something, we have a minor loss we can recover from. If you're wrong and we do nothing, global recession, everything about the environment that has allowed humans to become what we have changes, and we're screwd, big time. You should probably look up the precautionary principle, it might do you some good like when you're sitting infront of your stove with a hot pan on the burner and you ask yourself...well the handle might be hot, but I can't prove it. The concensus in my dumb head is telling me that the fire beneath is making the pan hot, but the handle might not be hot yet itself. Should I use a pot holder, or my bare hand. Right now your logic is leading you to the bare hand conclusion because you're too lazy to walk to the other side of the kitchen to get it. The precautionary principle would tell you, be careful idiot, it might be hot.
Next point...
Your ignorant Hitler analogy is not only offensive, it's just plain stupid. Hitler hated Jews, this was his opinion. If he ever found scientists that could conjure up some sort of scientific evidence to prove that Jews were inferior and deserved to be killed, it would only be because Hilter already made up his mind, and they fixed the evidence for him. Global warming on the other hand has been a point of contention sense the 70's, and it was a discovery by a particualr scientist, which he realized upon analysis of evidence. It was not something he made up, and figured out how to make evidence support him.
Next...
That sex comment. No one thinks it's BETTER that they have sex than be abstinent, you IGNORANT fool. Liberals believe that considering how ineffective abstinence education has been shown to be (more than 50% of all teenagers who sign abstinence pledges break them, and in not too much time), it makes more sense that they be taught how to have sex safely to avoid unwanted pregnancy or the spread of STD's. I wonder, were YOU abstinent until marraige? I'm bettin' on no.
Next...
I don't even know what "Criminals will go away if you just take the police away" means and I'm a liberal that you would suggest believes something like that. Thus, you're not only ignorant, you're incoherent and dumb. Anyway...
Next...
No liberal has said millions of immigrants crossing the border is a good thing. We happen to believe in human rights, thus, we find it necessary and appropraite to find a humane way to handle the problem.
I don't even know why I'm bothering responding to things that you just simply make up, but I am rather entertained at the moment so I guess it's OK.
In conclusion, if you're going to open your ignorant mouth (or type it, whatever), first make sure the shit you spew is true. Then ask yourself why 5% of the scientific community (the global warming deniers) should get half or all the air time, and be the ones to make and influence policy, when a whole 95% would be going 'what the fuck?'. Let me put it this way. You're conservative...if 5% of the country were super far left liberals and they were the ones that everyone was forced to listen to and policy was made around their beliefs, how would you react. Your current logic would lead you to say, well even though I'm (you) are in the vast concensus, we need to listen to, and only to, that 5%. Goes both ways Jack....
chew on that...
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