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From: eroosters
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  • He didn't mention the Germans! Or did he just get away with it without me noticing?

  • you are killing the punchline with "vs". Should be better with John Cleese's guide to extremism.

  • This is not a moderate view, this is only a liberal view. I am a moderate socialist as he can be a moderate liberal.

    Feudatarians considered capitalism and bourgeouis extremist before they lost their power (the control of means of productions).

  • 2,547 moderates like this video...21 extremists do not.

  • Don't mean to bring cliches into the mix, but I seriously think this video may have changed my outlook on life.

  • All the "Lukewarm" people on this page that agrees with this guy have never had anything that they feel passionate about. I'm glad Jesus wasn't like him or you.

  • @FASBLAQUE Actually, Jesus taught us to love our enemies, not hate them. He even dined with the publicans (which angered the religious busy-bodies of the day) out of his love for them, and taught at their houses. Watch this video again with that in mind.

  • Which ever extreme side of governing that has a Ministry of Silly Walks will get my vote!

  • For the 21 people who "dislike" this video, you are our enemies. thank you for your participation

  • Most politicians should be forced to see this clip at least once a day

  • sounds cool, I think I'll become a hard left extremist!

  • If everyone was the same we wouldn't have great men and women- their societies labeled them as extremist- when- it has produced the greatest minds and societies the world has ever seen!

  • Actors and comedians should never talk about politics, at least not after say....

    1965.

    It always comes off that the actor is "acting" pretending to believe the politically corrent nonsense that dominates Hollywood, Western media/theatrical circles.

  • Well, I did want to be a moderate, but I am starting to rethink that stance.

  • What about Capitalist extremists???

  • Extremism in the defense of liberty is like a bull in defense of a china shop.

  • Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens need to see this (and a whole bunch of American Christian Fundamentalists).

  • I am a moderate and think that all EXTREMISTS SHOULD BE SHOT!

  • @miraclealma Right! It is all their fault! They shall pay the price for their evil deeds and stuff...

  • Right or left?

    hmmm, maybe I shouldn't comment here.

  • Hail to the King!

  • fuck Islam.

  • Thank you John. Once again, intelligence trumps dogma.

  • this is very relevant.

  • Reminds me of C.S. Lewis' observation:

    "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

  • @ZachDC Hear hear, an excellently astute observation, and isn't it interesting to think that all the most infamous dictators in history have always been of the sort to stick their noses and fingers into places and areas of its citizens lives without even the faintest clue of their own bumbling ignorance... as an American, it kind of saddens me today because this is our government: Elitist, idealist lawyer twerps trying to brainwash us with media, tell us what to say and what cars to drive.

  • @ZachDC Ironically John Cleese reads The Screwtape Letters on audiobooks. This video sounds exactly like a chapter from it.

  • @ZachDC This reminds me of a quote by Alan Watts "Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture." both quotes are based off of the Eastern Confucian idea that it is man that makes truth great and not truth that makes man great.

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  • I like!

  • John Cleese INFURIATES me. He is cleary EVIL and in league with GODLESS SATANISTS.  May all of the WRATH of the RIGHTEOUS scourge him until he weeps the bloody tears of the DAMNED! Now that I've gotten that off my chest I'm going to have another scone.

  • @Himaryous a completely ass-hat response. 

  • @ThePhilClark Did you know that ass-hat is an anagram for Shasta? It's true!

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  • sometime the truth is in the middle,sometime is in the extreme

    A lot of thing we accept today like slavery abolition,women's rights,freedom of religion etc were considered "radical" or "extremist" in the past

    Some idea that we would ridiculize as "extreme" now will be status quo in the future

  • @Shenlong86 Yes, but the point is that none of these things should be that way. Extremism only exists because of human stupidity in the first place.

  • @Shenlong86 While I understand what you are trying to say, the fact is, even though those things you named were indeed "considered 'radical'or 'extremist' in the past", they never really were. It's just that the extremists were in control. Those OPPOSED to the examples you gave were ALWAYS extremist. The truth was NEVER in the extreme.

  • @emmettk And what if extremists were in charge today as well...? Oh right, no, that cannot be.

  • @stfunooobzmopfgz If you were sayingthe extremists are taking control again, no argument here.

  • John Cleese just summed up the entire French Revolution. The idea that all the evil in society comes from certain institutions (nobility, church, bourgeoisie, academia, religion etc) and that by simply eliminating these institutions, eg by beheading the right number of people, you can establish utopia where everyone will be equal. The problem is that evil actually comes from humanity itself and it will just show up again in new institutions. Cleese is smarter than he lets on.

  • @xglewiss The French Revolution? Heck, he just summed up the basis of all politics.

  • I'm a schizophrenic moderate extremist. I hate myself yet feel strangely satisfied in doing so. Thankfully I'm not a paranoid schizophrenic moderate extremist because then I'd have to worry that someone besides myself is pretending to be me and is trying to fool me into thinking that no one else is the root cause of my hardships besides myself and I, unlike the rest of the world, take personal responsibility for my own insanity.

  • @roschler Actually Mr. C. referred to schizoids, not schizophrenics. Schizoids suffer from schizoid personality disorder, which causes people to isolate themselves excessively. The fact that I am even bothering to post this shows what a geek I am. ;p

  • I will be the dictator of Japan!!!

  • I don't think there's anything extremist about hating castraters.

  • @kozmon0t I think he said "Class Traitors".

  • @jergorn93 I've never heard of class traitors, but I hate castraters. Won't let the scum near me. 

  • @kozmon0t Fair enough.

  • @MomoTheLapDancers You must be surrounded by the the wrong extrimists

  • I make enemies merely by existing.

  • @ecologicalguy I rate you 3/10

  • @ecologicalguy Read a history book about free thinkers in the times of the last 1000 years. It was only in last 300 years that some free thinking were allowed.

  • @ecologicalguy No, without extremism we wouldnt have had the suppression of technological advances in the last 1000 years.

  • This describes psychiatrists to a T.

  • 17 people are moderates.

  • lol im a communist.,...

  • So very brilliant.

  • This is just briliant.

  • funny!...but not true, funny!...yet filled with lies, funny!...but satanic...and that' not funny at all...you see,..the truth is ..we do have an enemy...the funny thing is...satan has most of you convinced he's not real...now that's FUNNY !!!

  • @raw5069 your a fucking idiot, just listen to yourself. religion is the opiate of the masses, so knock yourself out mate

  • @skyhigharse James chapter 5 read it then ask yourself how could this book be right, your still asleep, its time to wake up...mate

  • @raw5069 cool story bro. because thats all it is, and ever will be. a story.

  • @raw5069 Oh shit. A God squaddie...

  • 2000 or so people can agree with this message, and that we all still hate Belgians.

  • Sooo....all extremists hate moderates?

    Makes sense to me!

  • @Isrieri No one likes a fence sitter...

  • I HATE extremists! I say we should gather them all up, and gas them in germicidal chambers. Death to extremists!

  • @chimmychainsaw Now that's a bit... Extreme?

  • @chimmychainsaw Yeah good work chimmy - an incredibly extremist response.  DUH!

  • @chimmychainsaw I'm a Ford Extremist got a problem kiss the tip of my dick

  • @chimmychainsaw ... I see what you did there ._.

  • @chimmychainsaw Sounds extreme.

  • @chimmychainsaw

    Nice moderate views ;)

  • @chimmychainsaw So, basically you want to punish extremists using extreme measures.

  • @SMAXZO There's this thing, I don't know if you've heard of it, called Irony.

  • Wow. A video about extremists attracting. . .extremists.  Shocking.

  • Unfortunately the kind of attitude this vid describes seems to be present (in a a much milder form) in the modern British Labour party. The constant demonising of all things conservative only seems to have increased following the latest election, which just makes the whole liberal-left sound childish and petty.

  • Ironic, considering Cleese has his own list of imaginary enemies that he likes to criticize.

  • @samantha34ize I understood almost none of what you said.

  • look leftist in usa like public school shitty teacher do shitty work never get fire and get paid and benefit (sociallist)

  • I hate both the left and the rights enimies

  • I had a feeling most of the comments on this video would be people spouting various degrees of extremist nonsense.

    yep.

  • wow, this is pure wisdom, and also funny. I am really impressed.

  • What do you do when someone is lying? Is going against there position extremism? Oh no lets just be "moderates", what ever that means, and all agree. Yes lets stop agruing and be "moderates".

  • Yes don't have views, just be "moderate" and conform to the views of others. I love monty python but the fact that they push marxism disturbs me, especially when they tell people to be "moderates". What the fuck does that even mean in this context? In USA they call libertarians "extremists" when all libertarianism is is the belief that the government should follow the constitution, which means protecting peoples rights, not taking away peoples rights because they MIGHT abuse them.

  • @sk8sk8sk8666 They Push Marxism? Riiight.. seems like you are in the Far Right group of Extremism hating upstart actors. It is fine.. as he said ... and there are some great benefits to it :).

    PS: They took on Socialism and Marxism in quite a few sketches, take the one in the Hollywood Bowl, where Marx doesn't win that lovely non materialistic couch :).

  • @sk8sk8sk8666 LIbertarians are usually Objectivists. if you don't know what's extreme about that, then there's no hope for you, and you probably think that the BNP are midde-of-the-road.

  • @artgoat ah yes instead of explaining in a logical manner what is "extreme" about libertarianism you resort to personal attacks. Good show!

    What is BNP? some sort of British political thing?

  • @sk8sk8sk8666 Social Darwinism, privatization & deregulation of worthy public institutions (such as education), deregulation of polluters, rewards to the criminals who create the greatest wealth (even if they create the greatest suffering), complete abandonment of the most vulnerable of citizens, denial of social obligation.

    The Constitution was not founded on ideals anything resembling Objectivism, which forms the core of modern Libertarianism, so that view of Libertarianism is 100% false.

  • @artgoat

    Not for every Libertarian though, I'll tell you that much...

  • @billhicks8 UK Libertarians are probably a good deal less toxic than the United States variety (in much the same way that UK Conservatives are far, far to the left of USA liberals, and USA conservatives would be considered sociopaths in England.).

  • @artgoat

    I wouldn't say the Tory party are to the left of the US Democrats, if you look at the approach Britain has taken to their economy with the cuts to public services, it's 'Big Society' concept of encouraging volunteer community efforts over local governing and distrust of the EU- this is certainly different to Obama's stimulus packages and debt ceiling lark that have driven the Tea Party comedians wild.

  • @artgoat

    Libertarianism is relevant to the US Constitution in it's abstract concepts regarding personal freedom, perhaps more than any other party. This modern Objectivist approach however that regards all public institutions as theft from the wealthy has nothing to do with the America Paine was hoping to inspire regardless of what anyone else says.

  • Moe plz

  • hello from America!

    it has been said before and i feel compelled to say it again...

    this guy is pretty freaking amazing

  • @eroosters

    dude, I think you meant to say John Cleese shows how pathetic extremism is. Pathology= illness. Pathology = NOT a noun for pathetic.

    Now pathology could also fit if you want to give it the sense of an illness, but you'd need to change your sentence layout.

  • Let's apply this to the American Foreign Policy!!!

    ...oh waiiiit.

  • so if I'm against Extremism, does that makes me an Anti-Extremism extremist?

  • @Guuster00 No

    

  • 15 people are moderates

    

  • i think the bush- clan wached it at tge time and did take the advise literaly ...:-D

  • as moderates show up in both lists, there's no real need to take sides at all. Just be anti-moderate - they're the root cause of all the world's ills, and I know, because I'm good and also right. I hope that's an extreme view as I wouldn't want to be seen as moderate - although I suspect that most people think they're good and right - which makes them ( and me) moderate, being at the top of the bell curve dontchaknow

  • Extremism might have risen out of cultural / human evolution. It's not logical, but useful for one population to dominate another population. Population / cultures who practiced extremism, especially in the past, spread faster than those who were peaceful.

  • @Chnamanjx

    Isnt it because they were so behind the peacufull?

  • @Chnamanjx I think of it as an advanced case of tribalism...

  • "...And upstart actors." Hilarious :D

  • 16 PEOPLE ARE MODERATES :D

  • 15 are extremists

  • 15 people are sad, paranoid schizos

  • Wait a minute, what's wrong with hating communists but loving wierdos? My hottest girlfriends have all been wierdos!

  • Damn, there go my 2 aspirations in life: to be a moderate and an upstart actor! Do you think they're out to get me? I'll have to ask my other self :-)

  • 15 people are extremists

  • Those poor old moderates lose out dont they lol John Cleese is comedy god forever 

  • @J801506

    My late husband used to say, "Fed up with intolerance"

  • @ohyppest1 No wonder you divorced him.

  • Did he say farriers? I've got a slow dial-up and cheap sound on here, but I thought he said, "farriers"! Ya see? Cleese!

  • Did he say farriers? Did he then? Farriers?! How he does!

  • if only life were so simple that the developing crisis of our time was attributable to our mental flaws. the main mental disease affecting the human race is the greed of the top one percent. from this greed stems injustice and from injustice stems resistance in proportional measures. at the present moment the degrees of injustice are increasing alarmingly

  • @larrydelamb its not only greed which plagues this planet, its mainly the ignorance of the willing masses. remember, the top one percent couldn't get done what they wanted without the cooperation of the fodder down below.

  • @jigglesnap Well, you don't *have* to fuck them, y'know.

  • What about Benjamin Franklin who quoted himself as an extreme moderate? "All who are unable to reach compromise should be castrated and their stones sent to parliament, they do seem to be in need of them"

    Which was Ben around about the time he was waning from his pro-british stance to a pro revolution one.

  • It is not so much extremism but 'self-righteousness' that he is talking about. Extremism is merely another form of self-righteousness. And by projecting this self-righteous image on to others (ie pointing out that others are at fault) we can distract ourselves from the truth that we are in actual fact flawed in all manner of ways. People do it everyday and on a macro level governments do it in order to control their civilians behaviour.

  • @adfeatherstone just folk trying to grab stuff they haven't earned, issuing edicts out of their ... well, you know. New thing: Honor! Nurture! It's in a bunch of the Scriptures...knock off yer sinning and come home, silly child!

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  • My ideology is the extreme center-ism! 

  • Pure gold

  • 1:14 Why would the "hard left" hate public schools? Shouldn't it be private schools?

  • @TheManFromOctober Public schools and Private schools are essentially the same thing. The opposite to both of these is a State school. I do however see that the term 'Public school' is incredibly misleading.

  • @TheManFromOctober In the UK the term "public school" refers to non-government schools (same with a "public house," aka a pub). Yeah, difficult for us to wrap our heads around.

  • @TheManFromOctober Maybe it's different in the UK?

  • But I LIKE being a mad paranoid schitzoid... It's all the fault of those damn Conservatives, just remember that... oh and the Lib Dem, it's their fault too. Until next election, then I will hate Labour again... fair, good.

  • He makes a good point. Everyone loves having an enemy; even Cleese does. His enemies in this case are extremists, and it makes him feel better about being a self-professed moderate. Since he sets himself (and other fair-minded comedians) in opposition to extremism, he is now an extremist along another dimensional plane. He is not, as he thinks, in the center of the x-axis graph. He is at a distance along the y-axis or z-axis.

  • In America, the hard-right loves the meddlesome clergy. They manage to completely separate their religion's historical values from their own. That way they can call their god the Prince of Peace and still advocate war at every turn.

  • What if you want to attack and hate and persecute the approved those the hard right and hard left prescribe? Not everyone is satisfied with hating just some people.

  • True. However deep down every "ism" (extremism, capitalism, communism, fascism, etc.) is based upon something that is true however disagreeable it may be.

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  • @valleyshrew -- that is a very extremist view

  • This video is stupid because it means there are no moderates. Everyone has enemies, and if you don't have enemies, then you are friends with people that have enemies therefore you share their enemies or they must be your enemies. Almost everyone agrees nazis are evil for example, is that an extremist position? No, they are a reasonable enemy. It's not having enemies that makes you an extremist it's the justification for the position, which he may have meant but doesn't try to get across.

  • @valleyshrew that is what he meant

  • @valleyshrew He never says that having enemies makes you an extremist. He said being an extremist gives you justification to make enemies and to blame them for everything.

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  • Bingo! Even moderates have enemies, they are called extremists! 

  • @valleyshrew He isn't saying the left or right are wrong. He's targeting partisan/extremist left/right, the loud minority of politics. Which is pretty much no different than facism, taking one side regardless of what that side does.

    Perfect example you mentioned with the Nazi's. The brownshirts (or stormtroopers as they prefered) began beating and killing any vocal non-national socialist and eventually turned the entire country Nazi. Extremist.

  • @tnekkc Reagan was an actor. He knew how to sound like he was telling the truth when he spewed conservative lies. Just keep remembering him all the times he pretended to be president before he actually became one.

  • Wall street journal, "In 20 months, Mr. Obama will add as much debt as Mr. Bush ran up in eight years."

  • The last extreme Pres we had was FDR who spent and spent.

    But that was for WWII 1941-1945 to defend Europe and Hawaii.

    Obama has spent us into ruin with political pay offs to extreme left wing organizations.

    All that money was wasted.

    We could have spent it on infrastructure.

    So now our kids will be hit with extreme debt, extreme freeway congestion, and a second rate economy.

    All because we made the mistake of electing the extremest Obama.

  • Errr, why he's talking about Polish ex-prime minister Jaroslav Kaczynski? 

  • Yet allot of these Right Wing/Left Wing Fuck Nuts will probably laugh at this video and call Cleese a Genius; Which is Ironic.

  • describes america perfectly :).

  • Funny as this is, it's also sad. There so much truth in it, but Monty Python did that so well, as the best humor does. Poor moderates...perhaps they need to form up a radical center to counter militant leftists (points to self) and right-wing fanatics? :)

  • Cleese is an inbred retard! Benny Hill considered the funniest man in the whole UK (over Cleese) in 1983 article in Current Biography on Hill!

  • I think I love this.

  • @tnekkc a flaming conservatist would be more extreme, I think.

  • Kinda reminds me a thought by George Carlin: If you think you know the solution to fix the world, you're actually part of the problem!

  • Not only a funny video, but very important!

  • Righteous indignation. What a seductive addiction. It doesn't matter whether Cleese is a liberal...or a martian. He's right.

  • what about the arabs???? haha

  • @nugget0428 you have got to be kidding me. lol

  • I'm really surprised Obama hasn't offered him a job yet.