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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Comedy</title>
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		<title>Conservative Comedian Michael Loftus Goes Gunning for Big Government</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mark-tapson/conservative-comedian-michael-loftus-goes-gunning-for-big-government/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=conservative-comedian-michael-loftus-goes-gunning-for-big-government</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mark-tapson/conservative-comedian-michael-loftus-goes-gunning-for-big-government/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 04:42:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Tapson]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservative]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Loftus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Flipside]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[writer/​producer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242042</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A refreshing antidote to Jon Stewart.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/flipsidetvshow.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-242304" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/flipsidetvshow.jpg" alt="flipsidetvshow" width="336" height="185" /></a>Mixing news with a dose of comic commentary has paid off for <em>The Daily Show</em>’s Jon Stewart. A Brookings Institute survey recently noted that he is a news source more trusted by liberals and independents than MSNBC is. “The real power to influence the left resides on <em>Comedy Central</em> not MSNBC,” <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/06/10/jon-stewart-daily-show-trusted-msnbc-news.html">says</a> Politics USA. But if you’re searching your television lineup for a conservative antidote to Stewart, the field is rather limited. There is late night <em>Red Eye</em>’s Greg Gutfeld, there is… actually, there’s just Gutfeld. Or there was until this month, when <a href="http://theflipsideshow.com/"><em>The Flipside with Michael Loftus</em></a> debuted on <a href="http://theflipsideshow.com/stations/">television stations</a> across the country.</p>
<p>A writer/​producer on the successful sitcom <em>Anger Management</em>, comedian Michael Loftus was also a co-​producer and executive story editor on the underappreciated NBC comedy <em>Outsourced</em> and a writer on <em>The George Lopez Show</em>. He has also been a regular on TruTV’s <em>The Smoking Gun Presents</em>…, and he created and starred in History Channel’s half-hour comedy<a href="http://www.mikeloftuscomedy.com/#watch-american-wiseass"><em>American Wiseass</em></a>, in which he presented a comic take on episodes from American history to a live studio audience. He also has his own comedy album and a one-hour Comedy Central special <em>You’ve Changed</em>.</p>
<p>Featuring some standup by Loftus, satirical segments, and interviews with lively, interesting personalities such as talk show host Larry Elder, openly conservative actress Janine Turner, and Michael Ramirez, Investor’s Business Daily political cartoonist (Loftus’ <a href="http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars-and-provocateurs/comedian-michael-loftus-loves-targeting-the-left-wing/30546.article">dream interview subjects</a> include Al Franken, Nancy Pelosi and the Clintons), <em>The Flipside with Michael Loftus</em> takes a right-leaning perspective on the news, commentary, and pop culture. Loftus hopes to <a href="http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars-and-provocateurs/comedian-michael-loftus-loves-targeting-the-left-wing/30546.article">turn</a> the weekly half-hour (there are <a href="http://theflipsideshow.com/video/flipside-92714-featuring-michael-ramirez-of-investors-business-daily/">four episodes</a> so far) into a nightly political satire event along the lines of Stewart’s massively successful <em>The Daily Show</em>. “My producers are going to get mad at me for saying this,” he <a href="http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars-and-provocateurs/comedian-michael-loftus-loves-targeting-the-left-wing/30546.article">says</a>, “but nobody is making fun of the insane liberals.”</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars-and-provocateurs/comedian-michael-loftus-loves-targeting-the-left-wing/30546.article">youngest of five</a> from an Irish Catholic family in Columbus, Ohio, Loftus’ conservatism has been reinforced by his own parenthood. “It’s weird how when you have kids you start to think about bigger things. It’s definitely changed my comedy.” Now, Loftus <a href="http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars-and-provocateurs/comedian-michael-loftus-loves-targeting-the-left-wing/30546.article">say</a>s, “I’m living the American dream. I had a great-grandfather who came over to this country because he was starving to death in Ireland, and now I can be onstage talking about politics.”</p>
<p>Last week Loftus was game to answer a few questions for FrontPage:</p>
<p><strong>Mark Tapson</strong>: <em>Michael, it’s great to have you on FrontPage Mag, and great to have something like </em>The Flipside<em> out there for those of us hungry for an alternative to Jon Stewart. What are you trying to accomplish with the show, apart from fame and fortune?</em></p>
<p><strong>Michael Loftus:</strong> Great question. I think there are millions of people who&#8217;ve been waiting for a show like this; so I guess that is what I&#8217;m really trying to do, provide an alternative. Most times when you turn on the TV and a conservative is talking, he&#8217;s shaking his fist and freaking out. I thought it’d be a nice change if somebody would come on TV, talk about these issues and be funny.</p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> The Flipside <em>isn’t so much about hammering progressives as it is poking fun at big government, which is pretty much a nonpartisan thing these days. You don’t shy away from sticking it to Republicans as well as Democrats. Would you call yourself a libertarian? Tea Partier? </em></p>
<p><strong>ML:</strong> Great question. I shy away from any of those labels. I used to think of myself as an Independent until they started an actual Party. I would have a hard time keeping a straight face at any “Independent” meeting; it’s like when that elf dentist meets Rudolf for the first time in that Christmas special: “Let&#8217;s be Independent together.”</p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> <em>Have you always leaned right, or did you have a “Paul on the road to Damascus” moment? </em></p>
<p><strong>ML:</strong> Great question – wow, three in a row, dude, you’re on a roll! At the very least I’ve always considered myself financially conservative. I started working at a very young age and for the longest time I wanted to know who FICA was and why they were taking all my money. Now that I’m older, I know who FICA is, but I’m still wondering why they’re taking all my money.</p>
<p><strong>MT</strong>: <em>What’s it like in the comedy circuit and working in television as a right-leaning comedian, in terms of the reaction from both audiences and other comedians</em><em>?</em></p>
<p><strong>ML</strong>: The beauty of working in comedy clubs and television is that funny always wins. Whether you personally agree or disagree with what someone’s saying, it’s hard to argue when everyone is laughing. Because in the end, funny is funny. I can have serious discussions with other comics over a cup of coffee after the show, but during the show all I wanna do is make people laugh. And that&#8217;s the great balancing act of <em>The Flipside</em>, so it’s my hope that funny always wins the day.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
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		<title>Joan Rivers and the Humorless Generation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jack-kerwick/joan-rivers-and-the-humorless-generation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=joan-rivers-and-the-humorless-generation</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jack-kerwick/joan-rivers-and-the-humorless-generation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jul 2014 04:40:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jack Kerwick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CNN]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fredericka Whitfield]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[humor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joan Rivers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[politically correct]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[walk off]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=236192</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the politically correct culture is killing comedy. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ddec5eecb389a90215687b9ef2d7017e.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-236193" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ddec5eecb389a90215687b9ef2d7017e.jpg" alt="ddec5eecb389a90215687b9ef2d7017e" width="294" height="228" /></a>Joan Rivers made news recently when she walked off of a CNN set during an interview with Fredericka Whitfield.</p>
<p>When Whitfield suggested that Rivers could be “mean,” the latter informed the former that under no circumstances should she be interviewing someone, like Rivers, for whom comedy is a calling.</p>
<p>Whatever else may be said of Joan Rivers—I, for one, have never had much to say about her at all—this much seems certain: The woman knows that of which she speaks when it comes to her craft.</p>
<p>That is to say, she is acutely aware of the purpose, the <i>invaluable </i>purpose, served by humor. Far from being “mean,” the value of the joke lay precisely in its ability to <i>neutralize </i>life’s sting, to siphon off some of the tragedy of the circumstances into which Earthly existence seems hell-bent upon thrusting us.</p>
<p>Maybe, just maybe, this is the point.</p>
<p>As Jesus said of Hell, in it there will be constant “wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Hell is a laugh-free zone, a boiling cauldron of tears.  Heaven, on the other hand, may also admit of tears.  But the tears of Heaven are the fruits of joy, and the laughter that it calls forth promises to be as hearty as it is irresistible, for the inhabitants of Heaven will at long last recognize the seriousness with which we treated our lives on Earth for the folly—<i>the joke</i>—that is has always been.</p>
<p>And here we may be getting to the heart of comedy’s import.</p>
<p><i>This</i> world of ours is an uneasy mix of dust and divinity, evil and good, suffering and delighting.  In short, it is an endless supply of intimations of both <i>Hell</i> and <i>Heaven</i>.  Humor, I believe, is a hint of Heaven, an <i>emblem </i>of <i>eternity.</i></p>
<p>Humor is every bit as much of a divine gift as any other, and an even greater gift than some. <i>The Joke</i> permits us to come as close as possible, in this life, to arresting the relentless flow of time by transforming a situation that would otherwise paralyze those who are at its mercy into an object of ridicule.  It permits us, in other words, to defang and declaw the demons that haunt us, and to do so effortlessly, with a laugh.</p>
<p>The Joke makes the humorous into <i>caricaturists</i>.  But while caricaturists select for their portraits specific <i>individuals, </i>the humorous, in contrast, focus their attention not just on individuals, but upon whole sets of circumstances—including and especially that most peculiar set of circumstances that we know as the human condition itself.</p>
<p>However, as Fredericka Whitfield revealed in her exchange with Joan Rivers, all of this has been lost upon this most humor<i>less</i> generation.  For certain, much of life demands seriousness, but our culture’s prevailing <i>zeitgeist</i>—what we commonly refer to as “Political Correctness” (PC)—demands not seriousness, but <i>deadly </i>seriousness.</p>
<p>In no place and at no time has the Joke been more needed than it is needed in a culturally, ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse society like the United States.  Yet it is just such places—contemporary, incorrigibly PC, Western societies—that have essentially banned it.</p>
<p>The Joke diffuses intergroup tensions.  Whitfield couldn’t have been further of the mark in suggesting that Rivers’ jokes foster mean-spiritedness.  Just the opposite is the case: it is precisely in the Joke’s almost unique power to <i>deflate </i>mean-spiritedness that its value is to be found.</p>
<p>Contrary to the conventional wisdom, racial, ethnic, and religious “stereotypes” are most decidedly <i>not </i>fictions sprung from thin air.  They reflect enduring patterns among a significant number of a group’s members—even if (as is almost always the case) it is only a significant <i>minority.  </i>When these stereotypes reflect positively on a group, all is good.  When they are negative, though, there is no end to the inter-group conflict that they can so easily fuel.</p>
<p>The Joke extinguishes the match before it reaches the fuse.  It fumigates the air, so to speak, by allowing us to laugh at, rather than hate, one other. There was a time, not all that long ago, when people, particularly Americans, took this fact for granted.</p>
<p>Times, sadly, have changed.  Still, what has <i>not</i> changed is that peaceful inter-group co-existence is much better served by the Joan Rivers than the Fredericka Whitfields of our world.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Jerry Seinfeld, the Racist?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-bawer/jerry-seinfeld-the-racist/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jerry-seinfeld-the-racist</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2014 05:29:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Bawer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diversity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jerry Seinfeld]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Male]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=218376</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An anti-PC thought-criminal is on the loose! ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/121003074150-jerry-seinfeld-2011-story-top.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-218377" alt="121003074150-jerry-seinfeld-2011-story-top" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/121003074150-jerry-seinfeld-2011-story-top-450x336.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a>How refreshing the sound of a top-flight celebrity fearlessly shrugging off the idiocy of political correctness! The other day, on </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">CBS This Morning, </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">an interviewer</span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">pointed out to Jerry Seinfeld that most of the guests he&#8217;s had on </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">his online series on which he has automotive tête-à-têtes with fellow practitioners of the stand-up art (and the occasional just-plain-funny person), have been white males. “Oh, this really pisses me off,” replied a bracingly honest Seinfeld, who plainly saw where his fatuous interlocutor was headed. After a bit of back and forth, the comic spelled out just how he feels about the application of this kind of absurd bean-counting to matters of entertainment: “People think it&#8217;s the census or something. Its got to represent the actual pie chart of America. Who cares?&#8230;I have no interest in gender or race&#8230;.It&#8217;s anti-comedy&#8230;It&#8217;s PC nonsense.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The attacks on Seinfeld for these purportedly insensitive remarks began materializing almost at once. A contributor to the Gawker website, who </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://gawker.com/who-cares-about-diversity-in-comedy-says-jerry-seinf-1515412052">sneeringly</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> called Seinfeld a “maker of comedy for and about white people,” represented him as having indicated that he “isn&#8217;t interested in trying to include non-white anything in his work” and that in his view “any comedian who is not a white male is also not funny.” Having read the entire Gawker article, I strongly suspect that this characterization of Seinfeld, far from being deliberately deceitful, was in fact an honest reflection of the author&#8217;s utter inability to grasp the concept of colorblindedness. Charging Seinfeld with “downplaying the work” of all nonwhite comics, the man from Gawker made a point of demonstrating his own PC purity: comedy, he proclaimed, “should represent the entire pie chart of America, and the glorious, multicolored diversity pie should be thrown directly at Jerry Seinfeld&#8217;s face.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The funnyman also came under fire for a Canadian woman named Maya Roy, who, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/maya-roy/seinfeld-diversity-comments_b_4733365.html">writing</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> in the Huffington Post under the headline “Seinfeld&#8217;s Racist Comments Make Him the Joke,” accused him of “whitewashing New York” in his 1990s sitcom – only to chide him, in her next breath, for featuring on various episodes of that show “heavily accented Chinese food delivery boys” and an “inept Pakistani entrepreneur, Babu Bhatt,” among others. To nonwhite viewers like herself, railed Roy, these nonwhite characters “only existed to make &#8216;whitey&#8217; feel superior.” She contrasted the nonwhites on </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Seinfeld </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">with Indian-Canadian comic Russell Peters and Korean-American comic Margaret Cho, both of whom, exulted Roy, “use humour to mock racists and homophobes, and make life just a little more bearable for the rest of us.” (Yes, indeed, they are moral scolds, which is surely part of the reason why I, for one, find both of them excruciatingly unfunny.)</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Half a century ago, an America in which people don&#8217;t have an interest in gender or race was Martin Luther King&#8217;s dream – the vision around which Americans of every color, eager to see their country live out the meaning of its creed, rallied enthusiastically. Today that kind of thinking is condemned as bigotry. Today a sitcom that doesn&#8217;t seek to mirror the population pie chart risks being called out for racism or sexism. Today a show that permits itself to include black or Chinese or Pakistani characters who, far from being role models and pillars of virtue prove to be every bit as hapless, goofy, mendacious, and/or self-absorbed as the white characters is by definition guilty of hate speech. Today, according to the PC sentries at the gates of American culture, comedy should exist not to amuse us by (among other things) treating received opinions with indifference and even irreverence but, on the contrary, to promote The Proper Values, as determined by, well, people like Maya Roy and the man from Gawker. Its focus should be on chiding the evil souls who harbor prejudice and providing comfort and affirmation to the virtuous innocents who are the objects of that prejudice. In other words, comedy, in this age of victimhood, of group identity, and of ubiquitous therapy, should succor the victims, go out of its way to affirm the unconditionally positive contribution of minority groups (especially those favored by multicultural dogma) to the wonderful mosaic of American society; it should serve, without exception, a psychically healthful, wholesome, and therapeutic purpose, while of course never doing anything that might stand the remotest chance of hurting or offending those who have already (in the PC view) been hurt or offended too mightily.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Even </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Time Magazine – </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">yes, it still exists – piled onto Seinfeld after his comments on CBS, running a piece in which one Lily Rothman (a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.lilyrothman.com/">self-identified</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> playwright and backpacker who studied at Yale and the Columbia School of Journalism) did her share of </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://entertainment.time.com/2014/02/04/jerry-seinfeld-diversity/">tsk-tsking</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> about “the homogeneity of [the] guests” on Jerry&#8217;s webseries – guests, mind you, who have ranged from Jay Leno to Howard Stern, from Carl Reiner to Colin Quinn. Ms. Rothman&#8217;s inability to view these performers as a remarkably diverse crew only serves as a salutary reminder that for some people, melanin would appear to be the only</span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">measure of difference. Color, in short, is all. It&#8217;s this kind of illiberal thinking that once was recognized as a genuinely serious threat to true liberal values, and that today, in the corridors of American cultural power – including those at </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Time – </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">is, perversely, the very essence of what goes by the name of liberalism. Ms. Rothman concluded her harangue by expressing the hope that “public pressure” would force Seinfeld to enhance his show&#8217;s “diversity.” Not so many years ago such a sentiment would have been widely recognized as ignoble, despicable – indeed, totalitarian. No more.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If anything is striking about this incident, it&#8217;s not the attacks on Seinfeld – who only a few months ago, by the way, said on </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">that his “Mount Rushmore” of stand-ups would consist of Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, and Don Rickles (two blacks, two whites). No, the attacks are just the usual multicultural claptrap. What was striking – and gratifying, and heartening – were Seinfeld&#8217;s original remarks about “PC nonsense” – which, considering that they came from a man who is still the top-earning comedian in the U.S., raised expectations that the growing impatience of influential cultural figures with the poisonous influence of political correctness may yet help bring an end to the madness.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Gay Wedding Bells for Modern Family?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ben-shapiro/gay-wedding-bells-for-modern-family/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=gay-wedding-bells-for-modern-family</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ben-shapiro/gay-wedding-bells-for-modern-family/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 May 2013 04:22:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ACLU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gay wedding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[modern family]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=190680</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The politics of primetime.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/modernfamilyseason2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-190744" alt="modernfamilyseason2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/modernfamilyseason2-450x305.jpg" width="315" height="214" /></a>For decades, the television honchos have been pushing America steadily to the left, all the while claiming that they are merely catering to the viewing market. But this week, the mask came off for a moment when the American Civil Liberties Union asked ABC to write a gay wedding into its hit comedy, <i>Modern Family</i>.</p>
<p><i>Modern Family</i> is one of the most popular comedies on television. It’s cleverly written, and obviously quite liberal – the premise of the show is the <i>Mrs. Doubtfire</i> notion that all families are created equal, with similar foibles and similar levels of parenting skill, all united under the rubric of love. The show revolves around three couples: Jay (Ed O’Neill) and Gloria (Sofia Vergara), as a once-divorced older man and his trophy wife who truly love each other, and Gloria’s son from a prior marriage, Manny (Rico Rodriguez); Jay’s son, Mitchell (Jesse Lee Ferguson), who is gay and in a relationship with Cam (Eric Stonestreet), with whom he has adopted a daughter, Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons); and the traditional family, Jay’s daughter Claire (Julie Bowen), her husband Phil (Ty Burrell), and their three children, Haley (Sarah Hyland), Alex (Ariel Winter), and Luke (Nolan Gould).</p>
<p>When it comes to parenting, the show’s take is that all parents are created equal. Claire, the housewife, is the cringe-inducing mother who loves her children but can barely handle them. Phil adores his kids, but is an overgrown kid himself. Overall, their three children run wild.</p>
<p>Jay and Gloria, meanwhile, bring up their young son (and step-son), who is a mature-beyond-his-years prodigy. Manny parents Jay and Gloria as much as they seem to parent him.</p>
<p>Cam is the equivalent of Claire – a stay-at-home dad, overprotective and ubercompetitive, at risk of stereotypically stage-momlike behavior. Mitchell is the more rational parent, who may not be as involved as he should be.</p>
<p>This is a comedy, which means that even the worst parental failings end in laughter rather than tears. Everybody is happy and healthy despite their various family structures. This is liberalism’s vision of the perfect universe, and it is an attractive one.</p>
<p>But it’s not liberal enough for some. ACLU Action has now started a letter-writing campaign designed to get the show to marry Mitchell and Cam. “Mitch and Cam are a couple that America has come to know and love, and seeing them get married, and seeing the characters in the story grapple with their desire to get married, makes it real for a bigger part of America,” James Esseks, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Project at the ACLU said to the Associated Press.</p>
<p>The show is already preparing to embrace the proposal. Steven Levitan, who created the show, tweeted out a link to the campaign. Jesse Lee Ferguson commented via Twitter, “Love this! Thank you ACLU! Maybe once Prop 8 is overturned!”</p>
<p>It is unlikely that <i>Modern Family</i> will wait for that. After all, <i>Friends </i>participated in a lesbian wedding more than a decade ago. And the folks in Hollywood get that warm, fuzzy feeling inside when they’re stumping for social change.</p>
<p>Just as in every other capitalistic enterprise, Hollywood is not solely consumed with profit. Most people who go into business do not do so <i>only</i> to make money, though it is a major consideration. Those in Hollywood wish to go to cocktail parties and tell their friends and family what they’re doing for society and the world. That’s why Christopher Nolan may make blockbuster after blockbuster, but he’s not as hot-ticket a party item as Dustin Lance Black (<i>Milk</i>). And that’s why on television, you’ll find your favorite sitcom overstep its bounds on an irregular basis and smash you in the face with politics.</p>
<p>Thanks to the monopoly in Hollywood from one side of the political spectrum, there’s no risk in doing that. So get ready for it, gang: <i>Modern Family </i>will have a gay wedding soon. How else can the big government liberals who run the show live with their more politically-oriented buddies?</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Leno Fights Back</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ben-shapiro/leno-fights-back/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=leno-fights-back</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ben-shapiro/leno-fights-back/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:32:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fallon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Leno]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NBC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Tonight Show]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=183699</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Old school comedy vs. new school incompetence.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ben-shapiro/leno-fights-back/leno/" rel="attachment wp-att-183872"><img class="size-full wp-image-183872 alignleft" title="leno" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/leno.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="168" /></a>Let’s say you have two choices to host your legendary late night show, <em>The Tonight Show</em>. In one corner stands the top-rated host in the business, and old school entertainer who takes comic shots at everyone and anyone without regard for politics, but who is friendly with his audience. His show has led its time slot for the last two decades. In the other corner stands a former <em>Saturday Night Live </em>performer with a record of spotty work in movies, a brief history of decent ratings on the back of the star performer, and a political axe to grind. He’s younger than his competitor, but if he takes his place, he’ll face a highly popular and well-established competitor in his time slot.</p>
<p>The former performer is, of course, Jay Leno. The latter is Jimmy Fallon.</p>
<p>NBC is choosing Jimmy Fallon.</p>
<p>There are many obvious problems with the choice. First off, NBC tried this experiment once before, when it moved popular host Conan O’Brien into Leno’s slot. Within months, the ratings had collapsed, forcing NBC to restore Leno to his original time-slot.</p>
<p>Second, Fallon simply isn’t funny. He can’t make it through a sketch without smiling at his own jokes, he laces his material with caustic bites at conservatives (including his bandleader, Questlove, playing a rendition of “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann appeared on air, and a ridiculous “slow jam” segment in which Fallon allowed Obama to deliver a campaign speech while singing in the background), and most of all, his monologues read as though they’ve been written by a  thousand monkeys on one of their off-days. Leno, by contrast, is consistently funny, and he’s harmless enough to appeal to all audiences. He even drops an Obama joke once in awhile.</p>
<p>Third, and most importantly, NBC is still attempting to make a play for younger audiences. That’s a bad move. The model of advertising embraced by the agencies for the last forty years is largely wrong. That model values viewers 18-49 over older viewers, which is why <em>Glee</em> (FOX) is a more valuable show than <em>The Good Wife </em>(CBS), despite <em>Glee</em>’s lower ratings. The theory goes like this: younger viewers are worth more because if you grab them young, they will use your brand forever. Older viewers are supposedly more set in their buying habits.</p>
<p>There are three major problems with this theory. First, there are <em>far</em> more older viewers than younger viewers thanks to the demographic shift in the country. That means that older viewers are more fertile ground for advertisers, even if the return rate supposedly isn’t as high.</p>
<p>Second, older viewers have far more disposable income than younger viewers. With the economy suffering, middle-aged people who have been working for the last several decades are much better off than their younger counterparts, who are struggling to find a job. If you have no money, you can’t buy products no matter how much Fallon you watch.</p>
<p>Third, there is little to no evidence suggesting that younger people are more malleable in their product choice than older viewers. In fact, there’s a fair bit of evidence to the counter, especially since younger viewers use Hulu and Tivo and skip right through commercials, whereas older viewers wait them out.</p>
<p>Where did this nonsense about younger viewers come from? In the early 1970s, with ABC struggling against its bigger brothers NBC and CBS, the execs at ABC had to make a pitch to advertisers. So they came up with some flimsy social science that suggested that younger viewers (where ABC did decently) were more valuable than older viewers (where they tanked). This quickly became market gospel, with CBS and NBC jumping aboard in order to head off ABC at the pass. It also just so happened that all the new executives at the networks were young and wanted to see a sea change in content. The new “market dictate” fit their bill quite nicely.</p>
<p>We are still living under that model. That means more and more disenfranchised viewers as duds like Fallon are forced down the throats of Leno crowds. The good news is that it won’t be long before the executives lose the great majority of their power over programming choice. With the rise of cable, the plethora of internet content, and streaming abilities, Jay Leno won’t have to look hard to find another outlet for his talents. And many of his viewers will come with him.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Why Comedy Matters</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/why-comedy-matters/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-comedy-matters</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/why-comedy-matters/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:23:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al Smith Dinner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hollywood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=149460</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Romney has the best jokes because Obama has the worst record.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/why-comedy-matters/barack-obama-and-mitt-romney-address-alfred-e-smith-memorial-foundation-dinner/" rel="attachment wp-att-149490"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-149490" title="Barack Obama And Mitt Romney Address Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/dinner-450x283.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="198" /></a>I recently penned a piece in this space describing how Hollywood comedians refuse to hit President Obama. They claim he’s unmockable – which is itself a mockery. Obama is the most mockable president in American history. And it took Mitt Romney to show it.</p>
<p>Last week, at the annual Al Smith Dinner in New York City, Romney took a good-natured look at the Obama record. And it was knock-down, drag out funny. Here were some of his best lines:</p>
<blockquote><p>I was actually hoping the president would bring Joe Biden along this evening, because he&#8217;ll laugh at anything.</p>
<p>Of course we&#8217;re down to the final months of the president&#8217;s term. As President Obama surveys the Waldorf banquet room with everyone in white tie and refinery, you have to wonder what he&#8217;s thinking. So little time, so much to redistribute.</p>
<p>In the spirit of Sesame Street, the president&#8217;s remarks tonight are brought to you by the letter &#8220;O&#8221; and the number $16 trillion.</p>
<p>Campaigns can be grueling, exhausting. President Obama and I are each very lucky to have one person who is always in our corner, someone who we can lean on, and someone who is a comforting presence. Without whom, we wouldn&#8217;t be able to go another day. I have my beautiful wife Ann, he has Bill Clinton.</p></blockquote>
<p>Ouch.</p>
<p>President Obama’s humor was also funny, but oddly defeatist in the sense that it was at his own expense. Here were some of his best lines:</p>
<blockquote><p> This is the third time that Governor Romney and I have met recently. As some of you may have noticed, I had a lot more energy in our second debate. I felt really well rested after the nice long nap I had in the first debate.</p>
<p>Although it turns out millions of Americans focused in on the second debate who didn&#8217;t focus in on the first debate &#8212; and I happen to be one of them. I particularly want to apologize to Chris Matthews. Four years ago, I gave him a thrill up his leg; this time around, I gave him a stroke.</p>
<p>Monday&#8217;s debate is a little different because the topic is foreign policy. Spoiler alert, we got Bin Laden.</p></blockquote>
<p>There’s something else worth noting about the comparative humor between the candidates. Obama’s humor was largely self-effacing; Mitt Romney’s humor was far more aggressive. That’s because Obama recognizes that he’s seen as mean and nasty at this point in the election cycle, and he wants to walk back that perception. Losers poke fun at themselves when it comes to the Al Smith Dinner; winners poke fun at their opponents.</p>
<p>Back in 2008, John McCain actually admitted that he was the underdog in the election, and proceeded to tell jokes targeting Bill Clinton and himself. Barack Obama aimed his fire squarely at McCain and the wealthy. Guess who won?</p>
<p>Humor is a weapon. And it hasn’t been wielded well by anyone on the Republican side of the political aisle since Ronald Reagan. Humor humanizes. And Mitt Romney went a long way toward humanizing himself at the Al Smith Dinner.</p>
<p>His increasing humanity in the public eye, in fact, is probably why his favorable ratings have been climbing steadily ever since the first presidential debate. According to the Pew Research Center, Romney has actually overcome Obama in the likability ratings – his favorability is 50 percent, compared with Obama’s 49 percent. Gallup agrees: Romney leads 49-48. Just eight months ago, Obama led Romney by a margin of 55 percent to 29 percent.</p>
<p>The greatest obstacle for Romney going into this election cycle was whether, after the dehumanization of hundreds of millions of attack ads, he could be restored as a decent human being in the eyes of the electorate.  And he has gone a long way toward doing it. The more the American public sees of Romney, the more they like him. And the more they see of President Obama, the more they don’t. That’s why the media has made it its mission to stop the public from seeing Romney. As Romney joked at the Dinner:</p>
<blockquote><p>I never suggest that the &#8212; that the press is biased. I recognize that they have their job to do, and I have my job to do. My job is to lay out a positive vision for the future of the country, and their job is to make sure no one else finds out about it.</p></blockquote>
<p>Humor cuts through the nonsense. It’s no coincidence that our most successful presidents have been funny. And it’s no coincidence that our funniest candidates have become president.</p>
<p>All of which bodes well for Mitt Romney.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>When Comedians Aren&#8217;t Funny</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/when-comedians-arent-funny/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=when-comedians-arent-funny</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/when-comedians-arent-funny/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Aug 2012 04:30:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hypocrisy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Brand]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sarah Palin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=140148</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sarah Palin punchlines are getting old.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/russellbrand.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-140185" title="russellbrand" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/russellbrand.jpg" alt="" width="276" height="166" /></a>Last  week, the supposedly-funny comedian Russell Brand, a bizarre mash-up of Twiggy and Marilyn Manson, leveled his rhetorical pop gun at Sarah Palin. Why was Palin popular? “People want to f*** her,” he answered his own question. “That’s why they tolerate the other stuff.”</p>
<p>This sort of politically biased humor has become commonplace amongst the would-be laugh-makers. In fact, this isn’t the first time Brand has publicly bashed Palin. During the 2008 MTV Music Awards, the network actually cut one of his so-called jokes. “I wanted to say she was forcing her teenage daughter to have a baby because she is so anti-abortion,” recalled Brand. “But also, as a Republican she is pro-execution so she is going to give her the electric chair for being a little slut.”</p>
<p>Now, you may recall that when Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut after Fluke suggested that American taxpayers cut her a check for her birth control so she could have sex at whim, the media went insane; President Obama personally delivered a consoling call to Fluke; the Democratic Party ran fundraising campaigns for a month about the “war on women.” When Brand calls Bristol Palin a slut, nothing. When David Letterman suggested that 14-year-old Willow Palin would be knocked up by Alex Rodriguez, there was virtually no serious blowback. When Louis C.K. tweeted, “I want to rub my father’s c**k all over Sarah Palin’s fat t***,” then followed that up with “@SarahPalin kudos to your dirty hole, you f***ing jackoff c**t-face jazzy wondergirl,” and laughed at Palin’s “f*** retard-making c**t,” he got invited to the White House to hang out with Obama speechwriter Jonathan Favreau.</p>
<p>And yet Hollywood now cries about the level of violence in American film. <em>The Dark Knight </em>supposedly causes shootings because isolated insane people watch it, pick up AK-47s and head to the theater. But when comedians spew hate – not comedy, hate – at those of opposing political viewpoints, that’s totally innocuous. We get lectured when Sarah Palin uses crosshairs to target hot-button political districts, and a non-political nutjob like Jared Loughner shoots a Congressperson. But when comics blast away at Sarah Palin’s genitals, no harm no foul.</p>
<p>Free speech rules, of course, but it needs to be pointed out that these comedians simply aren’t funny. They’ve fallen prey to the Jon Stewart Syndrome, where a once-hilarious funnyman gives way to long stretches of political screed punctuated by notes of wistful comedy. These comedians are now more interested in bashing Palin and lifting Obama than they are in saying funny things. That’s why <em>Saturday Night Live</em> has shifted from throwing out punchlines to becoming one: they haven’t done a funny political sketch in years because the best they can do with a perpetually narcissistic and incompetent president is to have Fred Armisen play him whining about Republicans – and the joke’s supposed to be on Republicans. Or they could always trot out psychotic weirdo Sarah Silverman to hump a dog in order to push Sheldon Adelson to give money to her favorite black president.</p>
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		<title>The “South Park” Revolution</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/the-%e2%80%9csouth-park%e2%80%9d-revolution/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-%25e2%2580%259csouth-park%25e2%2580%259d-revolution</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:25:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cartoon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cartoon south park]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[larry king]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lord Nor]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[response]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Seth McFarlane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[South Park]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Trey Parker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trey parker and matt stone]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=58965</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Comedy Central's irreverent show demonstrated the incompatibility of Sharia law and a free society. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/alg_south_park_censor.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-58967" title="alg_south_park_censor" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/alg_south_park_censor-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>When the ever-offensive creators of the popular Comedy Central cartoon “South Park” recently featured the Prophet Mohammed in a bear costume, they provoked a veiled death threat from some Islamist fanatics in New   York and set off a firestorm about free speech in the process. The cable network’s cowardly response to Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s perfidy – namely, censoring the show and bleeping out any reference to the prophet – unintentionally triggered the kind of backlash that radical, fascist, jihadists should have earned a long time ago. It’s ironic that it took a cartoon to spotlight the issue so brightly.</p>
<p>As a Catholic, I have often been offended by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The same can be said by anyone who practices Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism or just about any other “ism” under the sun. The difference is that “South Park” could poke fun at Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Joseph Smith, David Blaine, or practically any other religious or cult figure, without any fear of repercussion. There is, of course, one exception. Muslim fundamentalists can’t abide it when the prophet Mohammed’s teachings are questioned, much less when the prophet himself is mocked. For a religion as certain that it has a direct pipeline to the absolute, unalterable Word of God as Islam is, too many Muslims are awfully – and too often violently – insecure about that point.</p>
<p>Parker and Stone believed that it was their duty to call out the hypocrisy inherent within a society that purports to champion freedom of expression, but whose mainstream media outlets simultaneously refuse to criticize – or even gently make fun of – a murderous cult that would extinguish that very freedom. Through the voices of Cartman, Kyle, Stan and (the unintelligible utterances of) Kenny, Parker and Stone place the issue that CNN, MSNBC, Fox and their media brethren and their political supporters are unwilling to face squarely on the table: not one involving the merits of Islam per se, but rather something more basic: freedom of speech.</p>
<p>Parker and Stone didn’t criticize the religion of Islam in any substantive way during their two-episode send up. That was a touch of genius, for what they did – without attacking any Muslims directly – was to mock the countless people of other faiths who refuse to question the tenants of Islam in even the mildest of ways, out of fear of what might become of their own skins should they dare to do so.</p>
<p>The supposedly edgy powers-that-be at Comedy Central dutifully assumed the posture of good, subservient dhimmis when Parker and Stone submitted their part two of their tribute to free speech, censoring any purported image of the prophet and bleeping away every mention of Mohammad’s name. The latter is rather remarkable. There is nothing in Islamic scripture that prohibits mentioning the name of the religion’s founder, but the executives at Comedy Central were so thoroughly cowed that they couldn’t bring themselves to allow cartoon characters to utter that name, which, if I didn’t mention it before, is “Mohammed.”</p>
<p>A subsequent exchange between Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane and comedian Penn Jillette <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/04/23/lkl.south.park.cnn?iref=allsearch">on Larry King Live</a> was sadly representative of the contrast between the mainstream media’s hands-off policy towards Islam and the courage that Parker and Stone displayed. McFarlane is always ready to take a swipe at other religions, but then there’s nothing risky about poking fun at people who aren’t going to do anything more than compose an angry letter in response. But would McFarlane make a joke about Islam? Heavens no. In McFarlane’s world, you don’t take the risk of insulting an enemy sworn to kill and subjugate you because there are plenty of other groups to insult who will do nothing more than write an angry letter or two. Penn Jillette’s response to McFarlane was right on the money:</p>
<blockquote><p>“I think you cheapen Matt and Trey’s morality, strength and courage when you say ‘is the joke worth it?’ Because the question is: what is morally right?”</p></blockquote>
<p>The public’s response to “dhimmigate” has been both swift and heartening. Had Comedy Central been less appeasing of the Islamist bullies, it would have taken even more time for a great many otherwise disinterested people to notice the appalling, violent bigotry that consumes too much of the Islamic world. Who could have imagined that the names Trey Parker and Matt Stone would ever be mentioned alongside that of <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/">Thomas Paine</a>?</p>
<p>Yet, the parallels are there. When Paine penned <em>Common Sense</em> he shone a spotlight on British tyranny so brightly that the colonists found it impossible to ignore and, as a result, discontent with His Majesty’s government reached critical mass. This, in turn, left the British government with two equally unpalatable choices. They could ignore the movement and thus embolden the malcontents across the pond, or they could come down hard on the colonies, a policy which would simply serve as a recruiting tool for the rebellious faction in America. Lord North and George III ultimately chose the latter course, but it really didn’t matter. Once a matter of principle was transformed into a popular cause, courtesy of Thomas Paine (and, it must be admitted, others, but Paine spoke to the common man better than anyone), British colonial rule was doomed, no matter what the government did. William Pitt the Elder, Edmund Burke and other British stalwarts saw that coming, and urged the King to cut his losses, but pride ever goeth before a fall.</p>
<p>Pride is again on the table more than two hundred years later, courtesy of Parker and Stone, but it’s Muslim pride at issue this time around. Among the liberties Americans cherish is the right to make fun of anyone, anything and any system of belief. “South  Park” censorship made it clear that there is one system of belief that believes itself to be off-limits, and this episode has created the critical mass of public opinion that will again prove impossible to ignore.</p>
<p>We’re already seeing the effects. Jon Stewart, bless his liberal heart, <a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/the-daily-show-south-park-death-threats/17vuo5h0j">rose to defend Parker</a> and Stone’s right of freedom of expression. Sunday night’s episode of <em>The Simpsons</em> began with <a href="http://www.threedonia.com/archives/23159">Bart using the chalkboard</a> to write “South Park – we’d stand behind you if we weren’t so scared” however many times Bart has to scribble his punishment of the day. <em>Reason Magazine</em> declared May 20 “<a href="http://reason.com/blog/2010/04/23/first-annual-everybody-draw-mo">Everybody Draw Mohammed Day</a>.” More of the same, we can be sure, will be coming.</p>
<p>That leaves radical jihadists with the same uncomfortable, impossible choice that the British government faced in 1776 when Paine’s pamphlet first hit the streets. They can ignore the “make fun of Mohammed” movement, which will do nothing but embolden more Americans to do the same. Alternately, they can attack the growing number of Americans who dare to crack a joke at the expense of the founder of Islam, but doing so would simply outrage even more citizens who heretofore have stood silently on the sidelines, hoping that radical Islam might somehow fade away. It really doesn’t matter. The intolerance and insecurity that permeates Islam is plainly out there now and it’s impossible to ignore. Whatever those Muslims who would kill untold number of innocents in order to further their aims do going forward, they will lose – at least in America, if nowhere else.</p>
<p>Here’s hoping that the trend continues and that more and more Americans come to realize that there is no way to reconcile the demands of Sharia law with the inalienable rights of free peoples. How ironic that it took two irreverent, blasphemous cartoonists to make that happen.</p>
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