George Carlin: The American Public: Dennis Miller Live (2001)

Source:Official George Carlin on Dennis Miller Live in 2001.

"In 2001, comedian and author George Carlin sat down with Dennis Miller to discuss observations and topics from his NY Times Bestselling book "Napalm and Silly Putty," including how easily the American public can be manipulated, who they trust and how he copes.

George Carlin described his comedy as focusing on 3 things: love of language and how we use it; the small things, moments we all share as humans; and the big topics of our culture—war, death, children, religion, etc. A social commentator, he challenged conventional wisdom and brought us face-to-face with our ingrained hypocrisies. There was no topic off limits to his keen observation, wordplay, goofy jabs and rants, whether it was drugs, war, politics, the accumulation of stuff or the way in which we use words." 

From Official George Carlin

I take George Carlin's basic point that Americans are easily manipulated. How else does 80-90% of the U.S. House of Representatives get reelected every two years? And of course gerrymandering is part of that as well. But you can't complain about bad politicians when you keep reelecting the same people every two years. 

Complaining about your own faults,  would be like going to the same restaurant for lunch everyday, ordering the same thing to eat everyday, and then complaining that you are bored with the food. The manager might say something like:"

Well, sir, maybe you should read the menu before you made your order? How about ordering something else to eat and mixing up your orders?" With your response to that being something like: "I don't like to read". Who's fault is that? 

I'm not sure it's that Americans are so much stupid, as much as a lot of them tend to be lazy and believe that thinking and acting for themselves is risky. How else to you explain electronics stores being staked out by people who think it would be some life accomplishment for them if they can be 1 of the 1st 5 people to buy the latest I-phone and be able to post that on Facebook, or Instagram. Whatever their favorite social network is. 

When people are fearful to think and act for themselves, they become easily manipulated. And when life is tough and has been tough for a while, they become even easier to be manipulated. That explains how people fall into cults, because you have someone claiming to be a spiritual guru, like a hipster spiritual guru, someone like a Charlie Manson or Jim Jones from the 1960s and 70s, claiming they're basically acting on behalf of God and they have all the answers to their problems. I don't want to sound partisan here, but we're seeing that in our politics today. I think you can figure out the rest for yourself exactly who I'm talking about what and movement I'm talking about. 

Ayn Rand was a big individualist and so was George Carlin. The cures for mental laziness and social collectivism, are intelligence, self-awareness, individualism, and personal freedom. The more intelligent people think and act for themselves, even if someone else who they think is cool doesn't agree with what they're doing and think they're being uncool, (to sound like a teenager) the more free they'll be and a lot more difficult they'll be to manipulate.

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