My critique of criticism

One thing these United States aren't short on is criticism. I criticize, other bloggers criticize, the media reports only bad news. No one can say anything without being criticized. Anytime someone writes a successful book, there are 5 books written about how wrong that book is.
And you know what? Most of it blows. I don't read many criticisms that are actually good. They criticize stupid shit they don't even understand. Let me give you a list of the following depth-lacking criticisms- (mostly leftist stuff, they are the King's of anti-perspective criticism)


There are only two parties in the US, how can every idea be represented in this system

Christopher Columbus killed all the Indians, he didn't discover a place that is ALREADY there.

Bottled water.

People watch too much TV.

Americans are too fat. See also "Too much fast food in America"

America thinks they are the greatest country in the world.

There is too much sex/violence/profanity on tv/radio.

The masses are dumb.

When countering religion, it is the "I'm sorry I like to use logic" argument.

Men are pigs.

White people are racist.

I am about to watch Weekend Update and they usually have idiotic social criticisms so I will list those here:

GWB's approval rating went up to 57% or as HS teachers call it, an F.

Condi Rice wants to start a bunch of wars.

Hillary Clinton is looking forward to the presidential candidacy in 2008 where the DNC can figure out new and exciting ways to get their asses handed to them. (Done with SNL now)

America tortures people.

Too much advertising.

Why can't celebrities speak out, they are people too and have a right to their opinion.

Alright there is so much more but because perception is reality and we perceive time, I think that it is in the best interest of all the readers (Just you Kay) to continue on.

There are only two parties in the US, how can every idea be represented in this system?- Well for one, Americans are moderate compared to the rest of the world. We really don't have that many different ideas, and usually the people making this accusation have crazy ass ideas no one wants to listen to. Even Democrats are wary of anything "socialist" or even "liberal". Republicans tread carefully around immigration and also use flowery politically correct speech God knows they hate to do. If there ever is a good idea, one or both of the parties adopts it right away to prevent competition. When Ross Perot got 15% of the vote for President based on budget deficit reduction, Republicans in Congress and Bill Clinton worked quickly to reduce the deficit and thus squash the Reform party. Our ideas just aren't that diverse in this country. Politicians look at enough opinion polls to just campaign on what people want and if someone gets too crazy, people don't vote for him. Our candidates and system reflect our politically conservative culture.

Christopher Columbus killed all the Indians, he didn't discover a place that is ALREADY there.- Well let's see. If the Indians could build a ship and go to Europe they would have. And if the peoples were as dense and thus had already a lot of diseases and immunities built in to their gene pools as the Europeans, they would have went to Europe and killed a lot of the sparsely populated Europeans just because of contact. They would have then took what they wanted and did what they wanted because that is carnal human nature. Many Indian tribes preyed on other ones. If they were advanced enough they would have done the same thing, just like every other civilization. Like Europeans have this special "racist" gene. All humans have Xenophobia and all of them wish to inflict power on others, it just happens that the people who got the power first, we condemn them as these horrible people as if any other civilization would have done anything different. Apaches did it to Navajos, Chinese did it to Vietnamese, some African tribes did it to others and so on. The thing we celebrate Columbus for is what he did different. He took an idea that was scary to common people and then he went out and implemented it and changed the world. No one at the time was morally better than him and the world then was as morally unsound as they were technologically.

Bottled water- People buy what they want. If their is a market for it they will buy it. Tap water has been the same forever. We're not forced to buy bottled water. It is much more convenient and when you have the money, your time is worth more so filling up a thermos and washing it out and dealing with all of that shit has become relatively more expensive to people. It is simple economics, get over it.

Americans are too fat. See also "Too much fast food in America"- America is so fat; we hear it every god damn day. Again it is simple economics. Time is money. Food is cheap, fatty food is more easily prepared and tastes good. We save that time by buying that food. We don't exercise because our society's everyday tasks don't call for it, and to do it would be to do it unpaid and is costly. We are living longer than ever before because when we get old, we just pump ourselves full of medications. It works out for us. Lots of cultures would love to be as fat as we are.

America thinks they are the greatest country in the world- Every country thinks this. People are pissed about it because ours is the easiest to argue. We contribute the most in terms of inventions, we are the strongest militarily, we have by the far the highest GDP and economic power, and more people watch our movies and television shows and listen to our music than any other country. People usually judge a country's worth by their economic and military prowess, and their contributions to culture(Also Olympics stuff, which we win the most). We do those three things better than any country in the world so our assertions have the most weight and everyone else is jealous and resents us. Other countries think they are the best. Canada's football league gives not an MVP in the Grey Cup, but an award called, The Greatest Canadian (which was won by an American, Marcus Allen's little brother). Go to any country and they automatically argue why their country is better than the US. My German teacher talked about how when she was in Germany, people would start this argument with her all the time. Every country has pride in itself, and people are just exposed to ours more often and ours is quite a legitimate claim(in a traditional sense).

There is too much sex/violence/profanity on tv/radio- Don't watch TV or listen to the radio then. Don't babysit your kids using the TV. Simple economics. They are just putting on TV what people want to watch. The TV networks are in the money making business, and they make the most by putting the products on that they do. Let's eliminate most of the FCC. Some parts are necessary like rationing out licences so people don't broadcast on top of each other.

The masses are dumb- People always say this because the masses do things like change their minds in polls when you word it differently, or they don't vote, they don't care about whoever is criticizing's particular passion or a bunch of other things that makes the masses look like sheep. There is something weird about the masses. They usually make the right decision which is the slow safe decision. Obviously they make wrong decisions like slavery and lots of stuff like that, but for every gaff there is some crazy idea they shot down or won't put up with. People who watch the NFL always wonder why the coaches don't take more risks and the thing is because risks make you lose. When you go for it on fourth down, you might make it but in the long run you will be worse off and you will lose. The masses are smart because humans are smart but they are also not smart enough to think they know everything so the only ideas that get implemented are safe ones which is good. America is the most conservative and one of the most democratic (most elections) so politicians rarely get the chance to fuck everything up.

When countering religion, it is the "I'm sorry I like to use logic" argument- I was in psych class one time and we were doing a free association thing and the professor says, "Religion" and some hippie near me goes, "Stupid". Bill Maher also argued with Andrew Sullivan on last season's last show about Maher's criticism of the religious right. He told Sullivan he was sorry he believes in rationality and such argument. This is a common theme on the right that religious people don't use and rationale at all and they are smarter and better than them. Morals are for the most part subjective. Everyone agrees that society should implement some sort of moral standard, even if it is the "you can't kill anybody." Where you get your ideas for your morals matters not, whether you get them from just what you feel in your heart or from the Bible or Qu'ran. Then once you establish your own morals you are allowed to argue them in the "Passion vs. Reason" debate. We all agree that passion should take some precedence over reason in a lot of places. We don't torture animals or do gross experiments with them because we choose passion (Right PETA?). We don't say retard to retards because it hurts their feelings even if it is the appropriate and easiest word to use. I mean political correctness and the whole left chooses passion over reason consistently (Adam Corolla, the best social critic of our time noted this one night on loveline when he said that leftists are the first one to use science when you bring up creationism, but abandon it everywhere else like the secondhand smoke "debate"). People choose religion in this country, it doesn't choose them. It is a logical choice that they make to pick their moral guide. It is an open and public debate and vote for what you think. We give minorities (numerical, not racial) certain rights and then everything else is fair game.

Men are pigs- All the "piggiest" men in high school I knew got the most chicks. Women reward this behavior and always have. Listen to Tom Leykis and he will let you know that women say one thing yet are attracted to dudes that treat them like dirt. Obviously these are generalizations but women don't think about finding a decent man until 28 and then complain why men are pigs and never realize they've been conditioned to be that way. We are aggressive by nature and you accept it, and in some cases condone it, and so we continue the behavior. Think about the biggest jerk you know and then thing about the nicest guy you know. Then compare how many women each guy has had in his life. If the jerk doesn't at least double up the nice guy, I would be skeptical and you are a minority.

White people are racist- All races are racist. People are genetically the same. White people just happened to dominate the globe first. Historians like to revise history to say that China could have done it but chose not to but that is bullshit. Chinese people are just as xenophobic and racist as everyone else. One of the areas of the world (which made people different colors) was going to eventually go and dominate the rest and it was a crap shoot and the people who won are now forever villainized until scholarly culture comes out and makes it clear that it is humanity that is racist, and to say a particular race is more racist, is racist.

Weekend Update criticisms, and comic criticisms in general- They boil everything down to simplistic shitty analogies because it's easy to do. Jon Stewart and Tina Fey will just always make everything that the President does or America does come out like, man they are so dumb why did they do that. Either they are flat out propagandist shitheads, or they really don't understand anything at all. Which is? I think it is a bit of both. On some things, they know the reason and know it is a good reason, yet they make it seem like Hitler is taking over because they want their ideology to reign supreme. They really lack understanding is probably the more of the two. Jon Stewart's book on American government showed his complete lack of understanding for the American government. He makes it all seem like is some crazy whacked out entity that chooses how to do things randomly or for power for elites. His characterization of the government shows how little perspective he has. Tina Fey is the same way. She thinks she is the funniest/most intelligent person in the world when she is actually an idiot. I saw her on Leno and she was talking about how there are three body types (basically, lumpy, dumpy, and hot) and she had to tell everyone she was put in the "curvy hot" category. It's like give me a break you stupid bitch. She is just really insecure I would guess; that is why she acts like a pompous-I'm-too-cool idiot. I also want to note the Hillary Clinton comment was because she must be part of the moveon.org crowd. It allows her to do two things- she can criticize democrats and pretend she criticizes both sides fairly to regular audience, and please all of her moveon.org buddies who famously called the DNC "professional election losers" and blame them for their centrist policies which they say is hurting the party. They want to take over and we can only pray they do.

America tortures people- Andrew Sullivan's biggest kick is so stupid. Let's take a poll of Americans to see if we endorse torture. People are not outraged with Abu Ghraib as much as he is because we realize that that behavior is juvenile and nothing close to Mengele's plucking of eyes, or gassing millions of people. We put things in perspective. People did stupid stuff like Abu Ghraib and those people will be in a military prison. Anyone who does gets solid support from Americans going to prison. Donald Rumsfeld on Meet The Press the other day said that it was completely unacceptable and inhuman and fully condemned those acts and said it was not something America does and said he offered up his resignation twice over it because he was the top man and felt responsibility for it. Hitler had good POW treatment and insisted on it and no one calls Nazi Germany a bastion of human rights. America takes good care of prisoners and believe me you would rather be an American captive rather than an insurgent one and for good reason. I would love to see Andrew Sullivan get to choose between those two.

Too much advertising- Ignore it you panzees. Advertising is grease on the wheels. It lets golf tournaments go on, it makes television possible, it gives money to a lot of things that really aren't products and we wouldn't have without it. Advertising doesn't affect you, unless you let it.

Why can't celebrities speak out, they are people too and have a right to their opinion- Well people think it is an abuse of power. Celebrities get access to media and mass media for a reason and that reason is acting or entertaining. When they use that power to spout about politics, people think it's an abuse and want them to shut-up. People know they are not especially qualified to talk about politics, and yet they do. If a celebrity does have real opinions then run for office, and put your money where your mouth is. Janeane Garafolo is one of the biggest idiots of our generation. I saw her on Conan O'Brien talking about liberal has become a bad word and how it used to mean American revolutionists or the people who freed slaves. Obviously she is an ignorant ass clown because classic liberal and modern liberal do have different meanings and playing semantics is something only idiots do. Yes they are the same word, but news flash words change meanings and have different ones! Most celebrities are just dumb and people recognize how unqualified they are to spout their stupid opinions.