Disclaimer: I posted this before in a previous letter, where it was only tangentially relevant. This is a slightly refined version of the previous post.

Unlike the usual South Park-haters (and probably many posters here), I fall exactly in its intended demographic (it started when I was finishing junior high), so I have no problem with how vulgar/juvenile/etc it is. The problem is that, at least as far as its social critique is concerned, it's just neither clever nor original; rather, its tone reminds me of the guy who comes to every class wearing a suit and tie, self-identifies as a libertarian, and thinks he's the smartest person in the world because he just read The Fountainhead. If you watch enough episodes, you realize that its whole angle is the typical uninformed mindset according to which:

1. Our culture is completely overrun with P.C. fascism and this is a bigger problem than racism or sexism.

2. "Atheism is a religion" and just as dogmatic as Christianity (repeated in just about every other episode as if they are the first ones to come up with this brilliant idea).

3. Conservatives may be wrong about some things like censorship and getting us into poorly thought out wars, but liberals are all crazy effeminate hippies, I mean just look at them.

4. People who care about the environment are just so silly (see above).

To me, South Park falls into the same pandering-to-both sides category as Jay Leno, except they put it under the guise of "we offend everyone". It's the same kind of Fox News idea of objectivity defined as "balance," where it's a virtue to make fun of both sides equally, even if you can't really find something substantive to disagree about with one of them (because they're actually right). For an example, see the Iraq War episode, where the conclusion was that we need pro-war people to defend the country from terrorists AND anti-war people to make us look like a caring democracy. What a brilliant analysis.

Other times, they can't actually find anything about one side of a 'controversy' to critique so they just make something up and run with it for a whole episode (example: Hybrid cars cause a build-up of 'smug' in the atmosphere!) Not to mention that the way in which this is done is usually nothing more than to render all the liberal opinions in an exaggerated voice like a third grader repeating everything you say after you. Having found one of these angles of attack, they proceed to bluntly beat you over the head with it for the whole episode; 90% of the time this is done by taking some classic action movie plot, plugging whatever the current topic is into the blanks, and running on autopilot for the next 20 minutes.

Obviously, I've watched a lot of South Park, and I've learned to just tune out their pathetic attempts at political commentary. They are at their best with ridiculous episodes like "Chinpokomon". About the only time they made a semi-coherent point that I agreed with was the hate crime episode, but then again, this is the type of simplistic thinking that assumes all liberals just LOVE affirmative action and hate crime laws (spoiler: many of us don't, but think it's a pretty trivial point to switch sides over). Basically, South Park is only good when they take on easy targets like reality TV and Paris Hilton.

You both sound like the type of people who are convinced that anything made since the "Golden Age" of Hollywood is utter rubbish. It is understandable to be bitter when you realize that the world has passed you by, but to the rest of us it seems kind of pathetic.

It always baffles me that, given the plethora and variety of programming these days, anyone can make blanket statements like "TV is garbage" when it is impossible to be knowledgeable about even half the stuff that's on. But I'll give you some counterexamples. At least half of the stuff on Adult Swim is brilliant (especially Aqua Teen, Metalocalypse, and Harvey Birdman), though I'm sure the pre-irony generation will dismiss it as trash because it flies way over their heads. Family Guy and Futurama are probably the most clever shows on TV - instead of dwelling on a single point like South Park does, they rattle off references and brutally incisive humor without even pausing long enough to care if the audience 'gets it' or not (Drawn Together would also have gone into this category before its recent cancellation). I have not seen The Wire, but from what I've heard it's absolutely amazing. HBO series like Rome have also received praise, and they recently optioned George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" for a series as well. And of course no list would be complete without Stewart and Colbert.

I don't know how much spare time you have if this isn't enough for you. It's certainly more than I can keep up with.

I'm not a Libertarian, any more than I'm a Democrat or Republican or Marxist. Candidates should be chosen on what they believe, not whose collective ass they kiss.

If you can't see the contradiction inherent in that statement, perhaps America is getting dumber. What good are a candidate's 'beliefs' if all their actions in office are going to depend on pleasing the party/base that elected them? And don't think that there is any other possibility - given the structure of our electoral politics, the best you could hope for is that if they get re-elected they MIGHT defy party orthodoxy in the last couple of years of their second term (this is what Bush did with immigration, for all the good that did). But hey, if you want to keep posturing and patting yourself on the back for being so cool and above it all, be my guest. The rest of us have actually, you know, given the matter some thought and grudgingly picked a side.