Jon Stewart is a genius
March 22nd 2005
The Daily Show this evening was, like every other major media outlet for the last week, focused on the political and religious drama surrounding Terri Schiavo — only Jon Stewart did it with wit and style.
The highlight was this: Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.): “The measure of a nation’s commitment to the sanctity of life is reflected in its laws and to the extent those laws honor and defend its most vulnerable citizens.”
Jon Stewart: “What? We’re getting universal health care?? … or, not.”
In every Daily Show I’ve seen, Jon Stewart never fails to bring out the hypocrisy, irony, and fallacy that is our current government in a most intelligent and humanistic manner. He says everything that should be said and everything that really probably shouldn’t be said. I would just like to recognize his genius. Thank you, Jon.
Related articles (yet to be written):
- How the US government spent trillions on the war in Iraq and left behind our schools, healthcare, and our own people.
- How the government pushes Christian morality in tiny, insignificant, yet very public cases instead of truly helping the most people with the most need (examples: Terri Schiavo, abortion, Gay rights, steroids in MLB).
- How the essence of being a “Republican” has changed from believing in moderating federal power into believing in the Christian ethos and the federal power to impose Christian values on all people of the United States, and indeed, the world.
- How every liberal idea or politic in the past has eventually become mainstream, accepted, and undisputable (examples: abolition of slavery, womens’ rights, civil rights, free speech, clean air, environmental protection, recycling… soon to come: Gay marriage and womens’ choice. Learn to love it.)
It all just pisses me off, and that’s a small sublist.
Somehow, he never fails to bring out the “ironies”, as you call them, of conservatives, but rarely does he point out the significantly more numerious ironies of liberals.
Speaking of health care. I believe it was the Republicans who passed the I-don’t-know-how-many-billion-doller, waste-of-money, socialistic health care system.
The current medical industry in this country has more problems than one could shake a stick at…or several sticks, for that matter. We need to start fixing the outragous and rising costs of a medical industry benefiting large drug companies and rich doctors (there’s nothing wrong with being rich, it’s the means by which wealth is achived that is the problem). Not to mention that the goal of the current medical system (in addition digging every last cent out of our pockets (or the government’s pockets…which essential trickle down to our pockets in taxes)) is to not provide a cure but to provide treatment. After all, a cure for practically any disease would put a lot of doctors out of business, costing the economy millions or billions of dollars (depending on the disease).
There is a definite place for welfare in our society, but its purpose is so that the lazy people can live off the rich, who most of the time, work for their money (in addition to getting votes from lazy people). It’s purpose is to provide a stepping stone for people who are out of work, or can’t make ends meet. Granted, not all those who use welfare are lazy; some truely need it, and I have the utmost compassion for them, but this is usually not the case. The welfare system in this country is grossly overused and taken advantage of.
The healthcare system, a form of welfare, needs to be reformed. Pouring more money into the system is NOT the answer. Unfortunatly, republicans, in a clever political move (politicians are all crooked, at least to some extent…how do you think they got there?), passed the bill.
Ok, sorry for the long post. I’m trying to avoid finishing my paper due tomorrow at my 7:40AM class…
How come the US spend more per person on schools, and healthcare?
Throwing money at something doesn’t solve it. Making sure the people who GET the money don’t waste it.
Getting School Districts and public hospitals to spend their money on what is important rather than wasting it. Giving them more money only gives them more money to throw away.
Universal Health Care hasn’t worked in Canada or any country in Europe. What makes people think it will work here? (PS. I have had first hand experience of “universal health care”)
Sorry for the comment delays everyone — I’ve got to work out this moderation thing…
Ryan: I agree completely, for once.
I’m not advocating throwing money at a failing system, but certainly some money and energy that goes into the war could be diverted to fixing that flawed system, and maybe a little more could be used to implement and fund it. My main beef is education, since it directly affects me every day. Classes are being cancelled at public universities all over the nation (California especially, Berkeley as my first-hand experience example) simply because we don’t have the money to have them. Teachers and workers here are going on strike because the University can’t pay them; our student fees have almost tripled in the last three years I’ve been here. It’s pretty bad.
Of course I recognize that blindly throwing money at a problem won’t fix it, but all I’m saying is that it seems like a heck of a lot of money is going into helping people in Iraq (which I don’t disagree with entirely) while we have problems here in the US (irony #1), and instead of dealing with the big problems, it seems like the government is tackling little moral issues that are really the least important things in the world (irony #2). It’s just funny, and our government shouldn’t be “funny.” It should take care of the big issues, and leave moral and personal issues to the people, or at the very most, the states. And I thought that was a republican value (irony #3)!
Irish John: Universal Health Care isn’t the best example. The point was simply that with Schiavo, the government is going to the ends of the earth to take care of one person’s life. Jon Stewart (back on topic) commented that this shows “just how sick you have to be to get Congress involved.”
Doing the right thing is not about making the most people think the right thing was done, it’s about truly helping as many people as possible. Our government is stuck on the bad side of that.
It’s just funny, like I said. It’s pretty darn funny. Oh, look at our government, tackling the big issues… har har har, they’re doing a great job all righty. Oh boy. Hey, at least Jon Stewart gets a job out of it.
Throwing money at fixing it won’t do a whole lot more than throwing money directly at it.
The answer is policy change, and we don’t need any money for that; we need or elected politicians to get of their duffs and fix some of these failing systems…unlike the democrats proposal to “fix” social security….to just leave it alone.
I do agree that the government has a peculiar way of spending way to much time and energy (and money, in some cases) on usless things…though I doub’t we’d agree on very many of those.
As far as the Schiavo case goes, the courts have failed miserably. If they had done their job and looked at the actual evidence, congress wouldn’t have to fix it. The judicial system needs a major overhaul. Extreme judges on both sides of the policital spectrum are dangerous, as well as many in the middle, so when I sad “fix” it, I don’t mean just appoint conservative judges, but rather decrease the illegal power of the judiciary. It does practically whatever it wants and almost nobody even bats an eye.
…I’m digressing. Anyways, I think that in the Shiavo case, one of the purposes is obviously to save her life, but it isn’t just about her, it’s concerning the fact that cases like this will inevitably come up again.
In this case, the florida courts are so out of controll that congress felt the need to step in.
Sounds again like we’re more on the same track than off it. What I meant by spending money to fix it is getting politicians to reform it — that takes at least a little money. Everything takes money in the government.
The judicial system is pretty screwed up. The whole government is pretty screwed up. If we just get some group to make it run smoothly then I’ll be happy; I don’t care exactly how that happens.