... and the sad thing is, some responses to this thread will prove the point.
It is clear that (as is quite typical) the majority of commentators haven't actually read what Clarkson said, but choose to summon up the Lynch mob anyway. As a result, the BBC had so far had over 20,000 complaints, there are calls for Clarkson's sacking etc. All from people who either do not know what Clarkson said or, if they do know what he said, do not actually get it.
The BBC have now published his actual words. He said:
Quote:"I think they (the strikes) have been fantastic. Absolutely. London today has just been empty. Everybody stayed at home, you can whizz about, restaurants are empty,"
"It's also like being back in the 70s. It makes me feel at home somehow,"
Even discounting the tone and context of the remarks, he is clearly joking, using hyperbole and sarcasm, to represent a caricature of what would be an extreme and dotty point of view.
He then went on to continue the joke, by providing mock balance, advancing an extreme and diametrically opposite "view". He actually pointed this out, underlining it with a preamble that should make the device obvious to the thickest of brains:
Quote:"But we have to balance this though, because this is the BBC"
And then came out with these words:
Quote:Frankly, I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean, how dare they go on strike when they have these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?"
It is crystal clear to anyone to whom the English language is not a mystery that the words are not Clarkson's, but those of a reactionary monster he has created "for balance" in his joke.
Sadly, the English language is seemingly a mystery to the presenters, as the above had clearly gone whooshing way above their heads, and one of the buffoons astonishingly (but entirely predictably) made a knee jerk PC disclaimer that "these were Clarkson's personal views".
NO THEY ARE NOT, you cretin, he has made a joke, exemplifying two equally extreme and ridiculous mock views of the strike, he HAS NOT expressed his own view.
A presenter with half a brain who wanted to know what Clarkson did actually think about the strikes would have got past the joke, and asked him what he really thought.
Nevertheless, despite the terminal incomprehension of the presenters, anyone listening would surely get the fact it was a 2 part joke, even if the presenters didn't. But, presumably bemused by their reaction, Clarkson spelled it out, by specifically denying, live on air, at the time, that either of these was actually his view:
He said:
Quote:"They're not. I've just given two views for you."
How has it come to this, that so many people with presumably a decent level of education, can completely miss the fact that Clarkson so plainly was not stating his point of view, but sending up an imaginary ultra-right extremist, in stark contrast to the laid-back 70s hippy peacenik in the first half of the parody?
By satirising such extreme views in this way, Clarkson was implicitly criticising them, not approving them. It does not matter whether either actually represents his personal views, as we do not know, from his remarks, what his personal views were. Yet a mini-industry has immediately sprung up around the barking analysis that these words came out of his mouth ergo that must be what he thinks. Presumably disregarding that seconds earlier he had from the same mouth used the words: "I think they (the strikes) have been fantastic." As these words don't suit the argument, they are expunged from the mental record, they become non-words, they never happened.
How have levels of dumbness descended so far?
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