antinomian.com

So the guy (Charlie Brooker) who wrote TV Go Home has a column in The Guardian now, which apparently caused a big stink last week by posing the rhetoricalL question: “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?” They’ve since pulled the piece, but thanks to the internet I can present you with the full text here. (And yes, it is very funny!) In the course of trying to track down the complete, unedited version of the article, I had to endure untold dozens of hysterical, right-wing blogs quoting the “offending” final sentence, and calling for Brooker’s firing, disembowelment, whatever… In the comments for one of these posts, I found a fantastic response by an amused British reader that I’ll share with you here:

The average American’s patriotism is rather inspiring on a personal level, an optimistic belief that they live in the best damn place on earth. It certainly stands in stark contrast to the average Brit, probably just as patriotic deep down, but the darker ironic sense of humour that prevails means it’s more likely expressed as a sarcastic comment - maybe it’s all the rain that does it.

To British eyes, even if they belong to a political party member (of any bias) cheering a politician seems weird, even a little disturbing (shades of Nuremburg?). Politicians are regarded like sewage farms - necessary yes, but you wouldn’t actually want to get near one, ugh.

If there’s been a better summing up of the the dismal, 4th-grade-popularity-contest state of American politics, I’ve yet to read it.