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Comment by Wowfunhappy | Hacker News Reader

authoritarian, adjective

favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom

–New Oxford American Dictionary

In the US, Steven Colbert can use public airwaves to make fun of the president every night, without going to jail.

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Many heavily authoritarian regimes in the past have defended comedians as bastions of free-speech promoting those that do little harm to the system while spurning those that spread truly subversive messages.

I think we also need to acknowledge the fact that the president is hardly the government - America is a gigantic bureaucracy and our government is primarily composed of civil servants who keep the lights on. If Steven Colbert (similar to his better know a district series on the old show) started to tear down agencies within departments, going after Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, National Nuclear Security Administration or Foreign Claims Settlement Commission[1] - then he'd actually be subverting the government. The executive branch is both structurally minor and, IMO, partially exists to be the target of blame and praise so that the rest of the government can get on with their business.

1. Random agencies pulled from agencies under the departments listed here https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/d

> If Steven Colbert (similar to his better know a district series on the old show) started to tear down agencies within departments, going after Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, National Nuclear Security Administration or Foreign Claims Settlement Commission[1] - then he'd actually be subverting the government. The executive branch is both structurally minor and, IMO, partially exists to be the target of blame and praise so that the rest of the government can get on with their business.

Well, if Colbert started running those types of investigations, do you think is show would get pulled off the air? I'm pretty confident it would not. John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, while not a broadcast show, might serve as a better example in that respect. They've run a lot of pieces which are critical of a wide variety of government agencies. And they don't just crack jokes, they get into the weeds.

And then there's outlets explicitly dedicated to investigative journalism, like ProPublica, and many of the major newspapers. None of this could exist in the UEA, or China, or Russia, etc.

Can you give two or three examples of the comedians + authoritarian regimes? I can't think of any.

You should check out Last Week Tonight. It's a comedy show that makes fun of various departments and it is still on air.

That should be a hint that the government he makes fun of does not feel threatened by his comedy, which probably means that the government's position of power is so strong that being mocked and even derided for its negative qualities does not constitute a threat. Whether that's a good thing is, I suppose, a matter of perspective.

Nope, it just means that the US has free speech and there is nothing the government can do about it without massive public backlash.

Is there evidence to suggest that the US government will not suppress speech that they deem to be a threat to their power? There was rampant blatant suppression of supposedly communist-friendly speech in the 1950s and 1960s. Does anyone think this has significantly changed? For a more recent example, see how the US government handled the leaking of its diplomatic cables, something which (unlike late night comedy) actually threatens the reputation of the US government.

OTOH, one party can effectively conspire with the President to subvert the constitutional limits to that power (SCOTUS in Bush v. Gore; McConnell refusing to try an impeached president.)

The US is in very dangerous territory at the moment, I will not argue that point. We should all be very concerned.

But—at least right now—there's a very clear difference between the US and the UAE.

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