Dear American liberals, why do you so rarely actually ask questions?

His show is journalism with comedic elements.
Yeah, just no. His show is a comedy show that draws on material provided by journalists covering current events.
 
Why do I care? Can your elections have any impact on me? Not really. If John Oliver wants to use country X as a foil for humor, I'm all in for a laugh. But until the rest of the world starts showing some signs they will be willing to suffer the pain involved in forming a coalition to rein in the obviously rogue state US they really aren't going to matter, and some citizen that wants to pontificate about their podunk country is going to matter even less.
I'll ignore your EU dis.^^
Anyway, elections in other countries do affect you. You may argue that the effect is small but still.
Anyway, that's not the point. The point is letting foreigners talk when you actually can be bothered to care about something they do. You know instead of having outsider (and be they Canadians or Brits) talk about them.

Let me give another simple example:
People had a lot to say about the Finnish school system. And most of the time when Americans investigated the matter they overemphasized factors relevant to their own politics. I.e. liberals claimed it was the socialism and conservatives claimed Finnish teachers were better.
In reality it's both and it's many more things, many of which are not partisan in US terms one way or the other.
I'd listen to that rant.
Oh i have some sundry paragraphs written as to-be-parts of that and i intend to do it at some point.
It's very slightly better among liberals than conservatives, but of course liberals are the ones that posture about knowing so much more about the rest of the world and being open-minded. So yeah, that is kind of irritating.
Exactly my point. I would even grant that the difference between US liberals and conservatives is still substancial. But it's collapsing rapidly since 2014.
I have a whole, largely undefined, theory about US liberalism taking a turn towards ballistic injury of the pedes in 2014. But that's neither here not there.
However, I don't think John Oliver is the best example here: he's doing a comedy show, and interviewing people about their opinions isn't particularly funny unless they share a bunch of stupid or off-the-wall thoughts.
John Oliver and Trevor Noah are foreigners.

And liberals... so ...
My life is mess right now and my points don't come out as clear. Sorry.
I suppose my thinking there is... it's kind of comedy and it's also not.
Oliver has such an air of intellectual seriousness and docutainment and smug preachy knowingness.
He's approaching John Green levels of disgusting without the actual charm of John Green.
That should count for something.
I don't know if it counts for my point here. Fair enough.

(I already addressed, implicitly, John Oliver technically being a foreigner - it doesn't matter in my view).
I got the following answers, all of them among the most informative in the thread:
I missed that. 3000 posts. These are wonderful answers.
Two things:
1. I don't want to selectively and ommisively (i know something about some of these courts and nothing about others) comment on these, but be advised:
The US has an extraordinarily strong court. Many countries have weaker courts which sometimes can't overturn law at all. Usually this is based on a notion of a strong parliament. The UK for example is reknowned for having a weak court (and the things they had before - it's complicated).
The Federal Republic is a wholesome example because it has a similarly strong court by orginal design. And Canada is a wholesome example because they not only changed all manner of things, but also deliberately strengthened their court.
2. @Wastl gave you a very correct and very German (no offense) answer.
My point about this is: We require stupid level supermajorities that are just unworkable, so there's a gentleman's agreement where parties take turns.
This leads to judges with eccentric ideological courage yet decent behavior who cancel each other out quite nicely and the court having an approval rating of about 107'%.
I.e. It's like West Wing's "The Supremes".
(@Gori the Grey , it's not history but we shall note that the above is written by a woman and directed by a woman).
I don't think this is unique to American liberals. Most of us don't ask questions.
Of course.
But being more specific about this involves being slightly tough on Canada. And i wanted to not do that for once, in general, and i really like the supreme court reforms in Canada as well as Justice McLachlin.
[...]

Edit: And because i want to stick to that i just deleted most of my reply to you.
I am sure you understand that i could qualify my point to the effect of implicating portions of the Anglosphere as well as places outside of it in all manner of comparisons or rankings.
Never mind the arguably univeral tendency at play here. /edit
I think the point is that he wants John Oliver to be held to the standards of a serious professional journalist because stupid liberals watch his show and are too stupid to realize that its comedy/political satire and for entertainment... unlike FOX News which of course lives up to the highest standards of journalism, accuracy, verification, ethics, and overall truthiness... and/or shouldn't be held to any such standards because reasons.
SNL's Weekend Update has never been taken as anything other that a snarky poke at current events, whereas at his finest (Yes, I was a fan) Stewart was sharp as a rapier when The Daily Show exposed the hypocrisy and moral corruption of modern politics. SNL, as far as I know, never did things that bordered on investigative journalism or extended multi-episode serieseses.
Yes. No.
Political comedy matters. By default.
And there is a trend where bad news and good comedy arguably pass each other.
 
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I'll ignore your EU dis.^^
Anyway, elections in other countries do affect you. You may argue that the effect is small but still.
Anyway, that's not the point. The point is letting foreigners talk when you actually can be bothered to care about something they do. You know instead of having outsider (and be they Canadians or Brits) talk about them.

There was no dis, just a statement of fact. When the EU looked like a viable entity representing a unified economic unit larger than China it was important. Breaking down into the old petty sized economic units and squabbling like children makes them irrelevant. So the result is that no, we just don't care what they do. That means that your point about how we behave when we care is irrelevant, because "when we care" is never.

European states and politics are appropriate material for comedians, not serious discussion.

What would matter, from an international politics standpoint, is the formation of a large enough and committed enough coalition to place any sort of restraints on US behavior. That would require, at a minimum, China and a united Europe. Russia and India might also be critical, and at the very least would be highly useful, but the most obviously insurmountable obstacle is that the petty states in Europe can't even cooperate with each other to rise out of complete irrelevance so the chances of forming a larger coalition are ZERO.

When there is the slightest sign of that changing send up a flare.
 
Oliver has such an air of intellectual seriousness and docutainment and smug preachy knowingness.
Dude, that's just the British accent.

In Murican films/TV they use a British accent as a way to shortcut-establish intellectual credibility and overall educated, erudite, smartypantsness. It works. I don't know if its the same in Allemagne... but I'm thinking it might be.

I will also quickly acknowledge that there are multitude of different British accents and there is one type of accent in particular that I'm referring to. I don't know enough about the accents to make a more comprehensive differentiation... I am Murican afterall ;)
 
Lol, hehe. Yes!

Since we're in the mood birthday boy, that leads back into about my favorite scene in that movie.

Spoiler :
 
I don't know if its the same in Allemagne... but I'm thinking it might be.

If so, it would be ironic since what is thought of today as a "British Accent" is actually thought to be an affectation by 18th century British elites to sound more...German.
 
birthday boy,
It's Sommer's birthday? Do we have a thread? I don't see a thread. Don't we usually have a thread?

Happy birthday Sommer!
 
MeToo is about protecting women by helping them speak up against abuse, and only an incredibly myopic male-centric attitude could see it like you describe. My feeling is far too many people view protecting men's reputations as more important than women's safety. Women should just put up with whatever men want to do to us because some poor helpless man might lose his job if his victims speak up about what he's done to oppress them.

If you think you are a victim of anything, prove it. Or shut up with the victim talk. Your sex is absolutely irrelevant to that standard of proof.

Moderator Action: Do not flame other users, please. Infracted for flaming. --LM
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
 
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If you think you are a victim of anything, prove it. Or shut up with the victim talk.

Buddy boy, care to explain to us inferiors how one can realistically and consistently prove sexual harassment, assault, or rape?
 
Buddy boy, care to explain to us inferiors how one can realistically and consistently prove sexual harassment, assault, or rape?

Puppy boy, care to explain to this ignorant one what becomes of presumption of innocence if a mere claim without proof can be used to bring someone down?

Funny how the very same people who claim to be very worried about Trump abusing power are also so willing to throw away one of the most fundamental legal protections.
 
Oh, you're going the "COURT OF LAW" path again. I'll put up the "Wet Floor" sign so you're not disturbed.
 
THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES V BEERT KAVHGHGANF, IN THE
COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION

THE HON. JUDGE LEXICUS PRESIDING
 
Dude, that's just the British accent.
Well, obviously that wouldn't aplly to me.
His English accent is informed by the English equivalent of the more cliched portions of West Virginia.
I am genuinely surprised here that Americans have this reaction not just to any, but - if you say so - all English accents.
I allways thought it was only... well accents we would consider to have that effect, or for that matter the English would (and my idea would have been that with Americans the effect is just stronger).
 
Well, obviously that wouldn't aplly to me.
His English accent is informed by the English equivalent of the more cliched portions of West Virginia.
I am genuinely surprised here that Americans have this reaction not just to any, but - if you say so - all English accents.
It wasn't obvious at all, that's why I asked you.

Also, I did not say "all English accents". In fact I'm pretty sure I said the opposite... but whatevs
I allways thought it was only... well accents we would consider to have that effect, or for that matter the English would (and my idea would have been that with Americans the effect is just stronger).
So you do have the same thing going on with certain British accents... You just said "Well, obviously that wouldn't aplly to me." But then in the next sentence you admit that it does in fact apply to you.

Anyway, like I said... whateves...
 
And people with german accents are either nazis or....

*WARNING BETTER CALL SAUL SPOILER*

Spoiler :
really naive...i mean, amirite?
 
By asking questions i mean asking foreigners, say on this board, about their perspective.

You will be tempted to claim that you - liberal Americans - are attentive of the outside world and curious about the things people in foreign countires do, particularly their politics.
And my point is going to be: Yes, and no.

Yes, in that you spend time on hearing and reading about affairs in foreign countries.
No, in that you are not actually asking people from those countries the relevant questions.

So you, for example, read newspaper articles about elections in country xyz.
And you watch those late night shows with frequent talk about foreign countries.
But you don't truly let these strange people actally speak.
The newspaper articles you read are written by Americans most of the time, or by a British person reluctantly visiting the country in question, often someone who doesn't speak the local language.
Sometimes its a partisan from that country contributing infrequently or even just this one piece and they are little more than a tool of editorial direction.
Effectively it's either about the weird/bad things the people in that foreign land have, or about the good thing they have and you don't, supposedly because Republicans.

I'll demonstrate the difference. We'll do it with late night, because, hey, you may as well be entertained.

Beware John Oliver is cursing:
Spoiler :
I hope you can see (with the possible exception of Le Pen) none of the dozens of French persons cited got to actually speak in any meaningful way.
Considering the educational overtone of the piece and the length of 18 minutes that's odd, isn't it?

For contrast:
Spoiler :
He mocks him with the fake French accent and he obviously disagrees and with him but none the less Noah let's the actual ambassador of France not just speak, but potentially break through your frame.​

You see what i'm saying here:
It's one thing to have Americans (and some imported Brits and Canadians) talk about the things that are relevant to the funny foreigners.
It's a wholly different thing to have the weird foreigners talk about things that are relevant to you or things that are relevant to everybody and listen.


Let's look at the consequence of engaging the outside world in this fashion:
You have just spent over 3000 posts debating this confirmation process with the two-and-a-half conservatives on this board. Last thing i witnessed your attempt to paint some Portuguese socialist on the internet as a Trumpist. Surely a valuable use of your time.
At one point, i suppose somewhere in the first thousand posts, i tried to bait you into letting me tell you about how the surpeme court of my stupid country is literally a sorkinesque phantasy in the real world. You didn't bite and that's fair.
But let's go closer to home...


Spoiler :


This is Beverley McLachlin.
It's her retirement party.
Maybe you've heard her name before.
It probably wasn't here. Her name was used twice on this board in this decade: Once just now, and once in 2013. Also by me.
That's arguably ironic because she has been the Chief Justice of Canada while Trump was elected. She was also Chief Justice of Canada when the old WTC was still up.
Canadians also happen to have undertaken a series of reforms of their Supreme Court and have arguably one of the best ones on the planet.

You could ask them about it.

Or you can go another thousand posts relitigating brewski appointments on that dude's calendar.
No problem. You just say: "Oh none of that applies to us anyway, because we have Republicans and they break the rules..." etc. I deem it possible that you were allready halfway through saying something to that effect this very moment.

Which one will be more useful to you?
Which one will be more fun?

Ah, an honest thread opening post title. Honest, in that the thread starter is admitting, by the title given to the thread, to being a "socio-political Manichaeist," with obviously the shallow, superficial, black-and-white, binary, over-simplistic, highly unrealistic, solidly stereotyped, absolutist, and lacking all REAL understanding of how socio-political issues and paradigms actually work viewpoint, just replacing Manichaeism's "light" and "darkness" with "right-wing" and "left-wing" or "conservative" and "liberal" (an archetype who are growing in number in the world today - a phenomenon that is NOT good at all, but will,, at some point, have catastrophic results for the whole globe), and thus yet another fairy-tale, fantasy epic, space opera world view I can safely dismiss from now on.
 
whateves...
Your post appears to be rather antogonistic.
My point is, in my ears and those of my people in general only certain English accents work that way. Generally there's a lot of overlap with the accents the English themselves deem "worthy" albeit for arguably different reasons.
And then there's also an appreciation of certain American accents (which i suppose we value higher than Americans themselves do).
In contrast to that - that's my growing impression at least - Americans appreciate most English accents that way, even Oliver's.
 
I find it quaint that the denizens of small countries think that there are significant differences in accents from one end to the not very distant other end.
 
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