By Daiman Teer for The Simpleton Star
There is a specific, nasal brand of condescension that has become the hallmark of the modern liberal—a sort of intellectual “comfort food” they chew on when the world refuses to align with their curated reality. You’ve heard it at the cocktail parties, in the grocery store aisles of the “highly educated” ZIP codes, and certainly in the screeching echoes of the social media swamp.
It’s the smug, self-satisfied claim that “Fox News isn’t even a news station; it’s legally listed as entertainment.” They say it with a smug head bob, as if they’ve just revealed a secret code that renders half of the American electorate’s information source a literal cartoon. The problem, of course, is that the people who say this are broadcasting their own profound and nauseating ignorance with every syllable….and they’ve been saying it for 20 years. You’d think by now they’d have figured out their own stupidity.
To put it plainly: if you believe there is a government ledger in Washington D.C. where a bureaucrat has stamped “NON-NEWS” on a cable network’s file, you aren’t just wrong – you are a victim of a low-grade urban legend designed for people who find actual law too boring to read. It is the definitive IQ test of the “Russia, Russia, Russia” realm, and those who repeat it are failing with flying colors.
The Myth of the Master List
The foundational lie of the “entertainment” simp is the belief that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) acts as some sort of High Priest of Categorization. They imagine the FCC sits atop a mountain, handing out “News Licenses” like holy relics. Here is the cold, hard reality: the FCC has zero authority to categorize, license, or “list” cable networks. Zero. None. The FCC’s mandate is limited to the public airwaves—the “broadcast” channels like ABC, CBS, and NBC—because those signals travel through the public’s air.
Cable networks like Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC are private entities delivered through a physical wire that you pay for. They are not beholden to the same “public interest” standards as broadcast stations, and they certainly don’t have to register as “news” to exist. The government doesn’t categorize them as “entertainment” any more than it categorizes the Home Shopping Network as “literature.” When you repeat this “listed as entertainment” line, you are essentially telling the world you don’t understand how a television works in the 21st century.
The “Reasonable Viewer” Trap
The myth usually finds its “proof” in a 2020 court case involving Tucker Carlson, where a judge dismissed a defamation suit by noting that Carlson’s show consists of “opinion and commentary.” The judge noted that a “reasonable viewer” would understand that Carlson uses hyperbole and non-literal rhetoric to make a point. The “entertainment” simps grabbed this like a life raft, claiming it was a legal ruling that the entire network was a work of fiction.
TYPICAL STUPID WHITE LIBERAL WOMAN
What they conveniently forget—or are too intellectually lazy to discover—is that MSNBC used the exact same legal defense to save Rachel Maddow from a $10 million defamation suit. Maddow’s lawyers argued, and a judge agreed, that she is an “opinion” host whose statements are “not facts” but “rhetorical hyperbole.” If the legal standard for being “entertainment” is that your primetime stars use exaggeration to excite their audience, then MSNBC is the biggest comedy club in Manhattan. The “elite” who look down their noses at Fox viewers while nodding along to Maddow are essentially mocking a man for eating a burger while they shove a hot dog into their own mouths. It is the same product; only the packaging is different.
The Op-Ed Reality
The inability to distinguish between a news division and an opinion division is perhaps the most embarrassing trait of the modern liberal. Every major network has daytime reporters who read the wires and primetime hosts who read their manifestos. To say Fox is “entertainment” because it has opinion shows is to say a newspaper isn’t a newspaper because it has an “Editorial” page.
When you hear someone spew this nonsense, you are looking at someone who has traded their critical thinking skills for a “gotcha” talking point that isn’t even true. They sound like children arguing that a tomato is a fruit—technically true in a botanical sense, but functionally irrelevant when you’re making a salad. Except in this case, they aren’t even technically true. They are just repeating a lie that makes them feel superior to the “deplorables” they despise. It’s time to retire the “entertainment” canard. It doesn’t make you look smart; it makes you look like a rube who believes in ghosts.
The Final Reckoning
The Verse:
“The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going. A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.” — Proverbs 14:15-16
The Reason: This verse perfectly identifies the “simp” who believes every whispered lie on social media without checking the facts. The “fool” is the one who is “confident” in his rage, shouting about entertainment licenses and FCC listings, while the prudent man actually looks at the law and sees the truth.
The Prayer: Lord, give us the clarity to see through the smug deceptions of those who think they are wiser than they are. We pray for a return to truth in our public discourse and for the humility of those who have been led astray by their own pride. Protect our minds from the infections of easy lies and help us to stand firm on the solid ground of reality, rather than the shifting sands of partisan myth. Amen.
