George Carlin: A Real Christian Man Dead At 71

The older he got, the smarter he got.

He also became more and more radical in his thinking according to many commentators.

But my question is this: did he become more radical – or did he just become more realistic.

Carlin had American politics figured out and at the core of his analysis, there’s a lesson for Canadians when it comes to assessing our own political system. George said he gave up on the process, because no matter who you voted for in America…people with the same mentality got into power anyway.

 He said the last vote he cast in a presidential race was for
George McGovern in 1972 and went on to point out that he stopped criticising politicians…and then gave his reasons.

"Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about:
politicians…everybody complains about politicians. Everybody
says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They
don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another
reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes,
American schools, American churches, American businesses and American
universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can
do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage
in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get
selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just
going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So,
maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else
sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There’s a nice
campaign slogan for somebody: ‘The Public Sucks."

So the lesson is – Canadians need to think even more carefully than usual about who we are going to vote for.

Why do I say that George Carlin was a real Christian guy? Even though he hated organized religion? Well a quote from one of his last interviews explains why I say that.

"…government is supposed to be here to redress the inequities of the marketplace…that’s one of its functions. Not just to protect the nation, secure our security and all that shit. And not
just to take care of great problems that are trans-state problems, that are
national, but also to make sure that the inequalities of the marketplace are
redressed by the acts of government. That’s what welfare was about. There are
people who really just don’t have the tools, for whatever reason. Yes, there are
lazy people. Yes, there are slackers. Yes, there’s all of that. But there are
also people who can’t cut it, for any given reason, whether it’s racism, or an
educational opportunity, or poverty, or a fuckin’ horrible home life, or a
history of a horrible family life going back three generations, or whatever it
is. They’re crippled and they can’t make it, and they deserve to rest at the
commonweal. That’s where my fuckin’ passion lies."

It may not be the kind of language Jesus would have used, but it’s the identical philosophy.

The U.S. magazine Nation has a thoughtful piece about Carlin by John Nichols, who has done several interviews with the comedian. You can read the article here.