Proving the old adage that instead of sitting quietly letting everyone think you are an idiot one should speak up and prove it, funnyman John Cleese and Kung Fu action star Jackie Chan recently did some talking that they should probably have avoided. Apparently unaware that they’ve left office, Cleese unloaded on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and seemed to say U.S. Marines weren’t very sophisticated at a recent visit to Cornell University. For his part, Jackie Chan announced to the world that Chinese people “needed controlling” because all that darn democracy is just too “chaotic” for them. One wonders where Jackie thinks all his many millions of dollars have come from: communism or democracy?

Chan’s comments were so ridiculous that even the communist Chinese government thought they were foolish enough to denounce in the Chinese press.

“I don’t know whether it is better to have freedom or to have no freedom,” numerous mainland news websites quoted Chan as saying at the Boao Forum for Asia.

“With too much freedom … it can get very chaotic, could end up like in Hong Kong or like in Taiwan… I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled.”

The dim action star handed the Chinese government the perfect opportunity to drum up some pro-Chinese propaganda saying that Chan is obviously not informed about all the great things China has done for the “rule of law” there and that he is ignorant of all the wonderful “democracy” the Chinese have instituted lately. Of course, little of that is true, mind you, but Chan gave them the perfect opportunity to pretend it is.

But the Chinese government did say one thing that seems patently obvious.

“The comments made by Jackie Chan … show that he is ignorant of democracy,” said a commentary on the Huamei Website…

I’d say that is a dead on assessment of Chan’s abstruse comments. This guy has been making millions of dollars a year off western democracy and doesn’t seem to have the first clue what it is that has made him world famous and rich beyond his dreams. Does Chan think any of this could have come without the freedom and liberty of democracy? Apparently he does.

Then there is the Minister of Silly Walks himself, John “I Hate Bush” Cleese. Apparently he is still holding on to his hatred and anger because Cleese erupted in a little BDS in front of an audience of students on a visit to Statler Auditorium at Cornell.

Were I Cleese I’d have been laughing too hard to even begin the talk because the person serving as interviewer was the “Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Management and vice provost for equity and inclusion” for Cornell. Now if THAT isn’t funny, what is?

In any case, Cleese went on his little anti-Bush rant in which he seemed to prove he never met anyone that was a Bush voter. He was flabbergasted that Americans were “much too respectful to the president,” after which he blurted out, “It’s pathetic!”

“Eight years of this rubbish,” he continued. “The Brits were asking, ‘where is the American’s sense of outrage?’”

Could it be, Mr. Cleese, that the “outrage” you so wish were prevalent is missing to some degree because a bit more than half the electorate voted for Mr. Bush? Could it be that real Americans actually supported the man?

Of course, such a thought would never occur to a denizen of the “entertainment” community, after all.

There was one other curious thing about Cleese’s visit to Cornell. He seemed to take a shot at the U.S. Marines, seeming to call them dolts, or somehow not intelligent enough to get humor.

Another audience member also asked Cleese about humor, to which Cleese noted the difference between humor and jokes. He recalled hearing about a group of marines who shared jokes in a long bus trip. Cleese demonstrated how the marines laughed loudly and almost mechanically to every joke: “HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!”

I guess Cleese thinks U.S. Marines are too unsubtle, too gauche, too low-class to “get” his “subtle” sort of humor. You know… like the kind of subtle humor where a guy walks funny or where a guy screams at the top of his lungs all the time? Yeah, that sort of subtle humor.

Once again, we see that the entertainment industry has spawned some of the worst anti-western thinkers of any profession. The galling thing is that these same people have become rich and famous from the very society and system they constantly bash. I guess gratitude isn’t in much supply in that industry?