Some Libertarian Analogies

Stephen Colbert, on 'The Colbert Report," sarted a campaign to 'Save the Elephants.' The campaign consisted entirely of changing the Wikipedia entry for elephants by increasing the population figure by several hundred thousand. Thus, as it was published, it MUST be true. Wikipedia is knowledge by consensus, which, like science by consensus (see: Global Warming), is not really a good way to get at the truth. A consensus of scientists once believed the Earth was flat, and we all know how that turned out.

If you follow the links, you can see how much criticism I have posted about Wikipedia. The whole thing is troubling, mainly because so many sites reproduce the contents of wikipedia as if it were gospel, spreading misinformation far and wide, until it s accepted as true.

Wikipedia is the best lying engine ever developed.

Though what are you doing watching Colbert? Next you'll be reading Al Franken books.

I actually read an Al Franken book. Not my finest moment. I won't make that mistake again.

I actually like the Comedy Central 'news' shows. Sadly, they are far more balanced than the typical network news. I think conservatives are far more likely to laugh at themselves than are liberals, and there are often a lot of interesting guests on those shows (I suspect a lot of the Mike Huckabee support was due to his appearances on these shows. He made a really good impression, at least to me.)

Actually, the theory that I heard as to why liberals have so much trouble laughing at themselves is that for conservatives, politics is a passion, but for liberals, it has replaced religion as a belief system. True? I don't know, but it sounds plausible.

If you dig through my old posts, I posted a similar theory. Liberals get so personally offended when you question their politics because they derive so much self-worth from their politics. They are good because of political beliefs, so to challenge those beliefs is to challenge their self-worth.

I have watched bits of the Daily Show, and it just didn't do it for me. I can laugh at mockery of everything I believe, I just wasn't particularly amused at how they did it.