A political show sold as comedy, hiring Stephen Colbert to replace Letterman is media's latest attempt to marginalize average Americans-Rush Limbaugh

4/10/14, "CBS Declares War on Heartland of America," Rush Limbaugh transcript

"Rush: Do you care what I think of Colbert getting Letterman's gig? You really care about what I think about that? Well, I'll give you the short version. CBS has just declared war on the Heartland of America. No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values, conservatives. 

Now it's just wide out in the open. What this hire means is a redefinition of what is "funny" and a redefinition of what is comedy, and they're blowing up the 11:30 format under the guise that the world's changing and people don't want the kind of comedy that Carson gave us or even Letterman.
 
They don't want that anymore. It's the media planting a flag here.  I think it's maybe the media's last stand, but it's a declaration.  There's no unity in this hire. They've hired a partisan, so-called comedian to run a comedy show. So that's what I think. Cool.  Fine...."

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"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." Saul Alinsky

12/27/13, "Comedy as a weapon of the left," Susan D. Harris, American Thinker

"How is it that leftist mockery of conservatives became a staple of popular culture? One of the major sources of the attitude that now pervades the dominant media of our time is a man named Herbert Lawrence Block, aka Herb Block.

As a political cartoonist, Herb Block used comedy and mockery with cunning skill. Throughout his seventy-two year career, he helped influence the political landscape through thirteen presidential administrations....

In retrospect, Block's greatest nationally inflicted harm was mocking America's response to Communism.  Only six weeks after Joseph McCarthy announced he had a list of known Communists, Block began a propaganda campaign that would change American history forever....

Thanks to people like Herb Block and his ilk, McCarthy became an American laughingstock, allowing communism and socialism to become "cool" in Hollywood, while Conservatives became unofficially "blacklisted."  Sixty years later his methods of using humor and sarcasm for social influence are a template for those still seeking to destroy conservative values.

Block's unyielding support of gun control and unquestioning belief in climate change also succeeded in influencing public opinion. According to the Herb Block Foundation, he won a total of four Pulitzer Prizes.  

To help further his ideological legacy, the foundation awards its own 'Herblock Prize.'  Among recent winners are editorial cartoonists for The Washington Post, Politico, and a weekly cartoonist for the Daily Kos political blog.... And while most of us hadn't heard of freshman Senator Barack Obama in 2005, he was the guest speaker that year at the Herb Block Prize & Lecture Awards Ceremony.

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It's an art all liberal ideologies have been perfecting since Herb Block drew his first cartoon. From Bill Maher to Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart, the left presses the grapes of comedy into a fine wine of vintage derision and acrimonious scorn for those they disagree with.... 
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How did the Socialists and the Communists and the Progressives and the liberals, and every name they go by, succeed in brainwashing Americans? One little joke at a time. Jokes filled with bitterness and lies that spread through universities, office cubicles and bars across the country and permeated the minds of low information voters....
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In this way, the greatest country in the world has been eaten from within by agitators that have the emotional maturity of second graders. The worst part is that we capitulated to these juveniles as we failed in what should have been our parental-like roles as defenders of our founding principles. We say, "Why take them too seriously, after all they're only kids, right?" or "What harm can they do?" 
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We invoked no authority nor enforced any discipline. We made the grave mistake of deciding to be their friends instead of their teachers. Unfortunately when we walked into the classroom, we found a chaotic revelry straight out of Lord of the Flies. The children took control by ganging up on everything that was right and decent and good and giving it the Bronx cheer -- An infantile, but historically efficacious strategy that began, at least in part, at the end of Herb Block's pen."
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Among comments at AT:

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"liljenborg, a day ago: It's very simple really. When you don't have logic, facts, or truth on your side, when you don't have and actual argument, one of the easiest ways to make your argument is to mock. You get multiple logical fallacies in one blow! Make your opponent out to be an unthinking moron only an imbecile would listen to and it doesn't matter how substantial his arguments might be. Distort his position into a straw men more comical than Ray Bolger's portrayal of the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz and your audience will cheer when you knock it down instead of noting the insubstantial reasoning of your actual position. 

Humor, like music, cuts past one's rationality filters and strikes directly at an emotional level. (I'm afraid of the naked emperor thinking me a fool, so I will certainly compliment the cut of his new clothes!) And since most people make decisions at an emotional level, and then later rationalize their emotional conclusions, humor makes a great tool for attacking one's opponent.


It's one of the reasons Rush Limbaugh is so reviled by the Left, he has mastered their own technique of using humor to strike back, except he does have logic, facts, and truth to back up his attacks, and that only makes his humor more effective in eviscerating them."

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Colbert and one of his many young fans

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Colbert influences elected officials: By ridiculing scientific fact that excess CO2 only exists in China, the Colbert comedy show advances interests of the billion dollar a day global warming industry. In 2012 a North Carolina democrat cited ridicule by the Colbert comedy show as scientific proof the legislature should vote a particular way:

""This bill has made us the laughingstock of the country," said Senate Minority Leader Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe. "We've been on Stephen Colbert's comedy show.""

6/13/12, "North Carolina Senate Passes Anti-Nutcase Bill – AP Immediately Lies About It," Steven Goddard

6/12/12, "N.C. Senate approves sea level calculation bill," AP. Allen Reed

(Leaving aside that CO2 doesn't cause temperature increase to begin with.)

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Ridicule passed off as "comedy" clears a path for terrorist beheaders and honor killers:

Comedians Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart of the Daily Show are praised by Islamists for mocking people who fear those whose "religion" allows stoning to death, chopping off hands, honor killing, beheadings, and the like: (pages 13 and 14 of report):


"Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report: Colbert has made significant contributions to highlighting and satirizing Islamophobic incidents....Colbert exposes the ridiculous tactics employed by those preaching anti-Muslim hate."..

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image from CAIR report, 2009-2010
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