Low Rez

New at Reason: Nick Gillespie considers how Lucy, Gilligan, Joe McCarthy and other antagonists of the high cold war era all became equal in the eyes of television.

Comments

[Critic]

Note to Tim:

Mention "Gilligan" and you end up with a partial-birth thread.

[Citizen]

If he?s right that "during the Cold War, through television, America became a more open and tolerant place," something similar is surely going on as we fight the War on Terror.

Aw yeah! And it's all gonna start with that wacky Arab-American guy on Whoopi Goldberg's show. That's still on, ain't it?

[Jean Bart]

Nick,

Great article; best that I have seen of yours.

[Ruthless]

"Hot" government types hate "cool" tv so they try to saboutage it by taking away dirty words and Janet Jackson's boob.
As usual, closing the barn door after the horses have already fled. We have cable and Hit and Run already.
Hot government responds to terrorism with massive emergency spending on "Homeland Security." Cool tv will eventually convince the hoi polloi that the cool response to terrorism--which is to say NO government response--works better.

Tom Ridge, you got some 'splain'n to do.

[M. Simon]

Ruthless,

No government response. Does that mean no response or vigalante response?

Let me see if I can paint a picture made of high lights - 9/11/01 - Bali - 3/11/04.

Do you suppose there is a fookin war on?

Probably caused by government meddling. Probably had we left the fascists and totolitarians to their own devices they would have been content to oppress, enslave, and murder their own citizens and leave Americans alone.

Can I interest you in some nice warm beach front property at the South Pole to which I hold exclusive title?

[Ruthless]

M. Simon,
Being extremely optimistic, it would take a generation to get governments to loosen their grips on the balls of the people.
Only then could the vigilantes start to be released.
Their cleaning up government messes would take another generation.
I only have about one generation left in me, but it doesn't prevent me from seeing the direction we ought to be taking. Not that we will, but the direction is away from government.
And I guess, first, we should define "we," seeing as how it's not my government and me personally.