Gov. Rick Perry is the latest example of misrepresenting, at worse, or simply misunderstanding what being a follower of Jesus is about. He ran a pandering ad in Iowa that claims that President Obama was waging a war on religion picking up the Fox opinion noise machine that has suggested that there is a war on Christmas. See the previous post about speech and philosophy to consider what those that create phony “outrage” maybe really doing.
Enter a website called, FunnyorDie. I think of this site as a web version of Saturday Night Live with no censors. Some of the sketch comedy is funny, some questionable, and some just folks seeking their 15 minutes of fame. They created a spoof response ad to Gov. Perry’s Iowa ad that is as offensive, for some, as what Gov. Perry created and entered into homes in Iowa. I cannot imagine how often people have to use the mute button or change the channel in Iowa to escape the Republican ads. At least with FunnyorDie’s ad, you have to choose to visit their site to see it. So, be warned. This ad, “Jesus Responds to Rick Perry’s ‘Strong’ Ad” can offend, but notes how religion is “used” rather than practiced.
Click here to visit the site and watch the short.
I ran across this article while reviewing my RSS feeds. Interesting thoughts in a world where corporations are considered “persons” in the area of speech with an election less than a year away.
Aristotle, Liberalism, and the Enemies of Free Speech
By Hrafnkell Haraldsson
“It is dangerous,” wrote Aristotle to a Macedonian friend near the end of his life, “for an immigrant to stay in Athens.” Ironically, like America of the 21st century, Athens was a stronghold of liberal ideas, the western birthplace of democracy. The Athenian historian Thucydides wrote of the virtues of free speech in the fifth century B.C.E. when the authors of the Jewish Bible were extolling just its opposite: repression born of hate and intolerance. Thucydides records the words of an Athenian, Diodotus, that “Haste usually goes with folly, anger is the mark of primitive and narrow minds.” Diodotus, reminds one modern historian, “went on to outline the dangers of using emotional rhetoric to frighten or manipulate an audience into reacting rashly.”
If you can see the parallels between Athens of the fourth century B.C.E. and our own time, it is because they are there to be seen. Liberalism is not something that can survive without being defended, fought – and sacrificed – for. Greed, selfishness, the baser instincts of humankind, including racism and exceptionalism, crop up again and again throughout the history of democracy, and it is no surprise that time and again democracies and liberal ideas have fallen victim to demagogues and plutocrats stirring the mob for their own gain. We might compare the Athenian haters of the fourth century B.C.E. to the Tea Partiers of today. They certainly served the same function, channeling and expressing hate for politicians trying to build their own base of support, part of a symbiotic relationship between who frighten and stir hate and those who fear and hate. Click here to read more.