You think you have a thesis, but you don't know what it is...
...do you, Mr. Jones?
I mentioned Terry Jones's silly anti-war Observer piece in passing as an example of British "isolationist" tendencies, intending to come back to it later for more comment. Fortunately, Damian Penny and Tim Blair have saved me the trouble. Both have sliced, diced, skewered, roasted, creamed, pulverized and finally reduced Mr. Jones to a fine powder, blowing twin puffs of Python dust into the blogosphere. Tim Blair's treatment is, as usual, hilarious, especially since he includes links to illustrations of the man himself in the course of making his points. Damian Penny concludes thus:
I will, however, say that if Terry Jones can't think of a single good reason for Britain to be involved in the war on terror (the stability of the fucking world has a lot to do with it, not to mention the dozens of his countrymen who died on September 11), his involvement in the writing of Python sketches must have been minimal at best, since he's way too stupid to have had anything to do with such comic brilliance.
The truth is, guys like Jones (e.g., Ted Rall, Michael Moore) are only able to propound such views because they know quite well that there's no chance whatsoever that their silly proposals (such as they are) will ever be put into practice. They have the luxury of making their jokes, casting their aspersions, rolling their eyes and wallowing in their precious irony, safe in the knowledge that they will never have to answer for the consequences. Terry Jones suggesting that Britain pull out of the war on terror is like Ralph Nader proposing that "if" elected he would decimate the military, eliminate free trade and triple the minimum wage: everybody knows that (a) it would be a disaster that (b) will never ever befall us. So everyone who is so inclined can have a great time. Yeah, it's irresponsible. But that's entertainment.
Posted by Dr. Frank at January 2, 2002 02:09 AM | TrackBack