I just finished watching the Season 17 premiere of South Park, and came away both impressed and confused. Now is it just me, or this show really socially and politically relevant? Half the time I think its an example of how far we’ve declined as a culture. Other times I think it’s modern day satire at its best. Well, not exactly finest, but you get the idea…

Basically, in this episode Cartman joins the NSA hoping to blow the whistle on their government surveillance program from the inside. And despite exposing the truth – the weird, whacky truth which I shall I not mention for fear of spoilers – no one seems to care. Cartman goes home thinking he needs to move to Russia since he’s now a whistle blower and this is what they do.

Here are the highlights, as obtained from Youtube:

And interestingly enough, in a separate thread, the naive but loveable doormat Butters hears from Cartman that the government is watching them all the time and interprets it in rather… religious terms. That night, he chooses to pray to the government, thanking it for watching over him and letting it know what he wants for Christmas.

As if that wasn’t enough, when he sins, he goes to the DMV to confess and says the Pledge of Allegiance as if it is a Hail Mary. He also recruits a bunch of Jehova’s Witnesses come to his door and begins going door to door, telling others about how the Government wants to forgive them and be let into their hearts. Thanks to Butters and his followers, the DMV becomes a church in its own right, with prayer services and sing-alongs.

The DMV is then inspired by this and decides to become an actual church, and is then promtply shut down for having sex with little boys(!) Apparently, they seemed to think this “came with the territory”. Those looking to confess were told to go to the Post Office, which shortly thereafter was also closed down for having sex with little boys! Here’s the highlights from that thread:

Terrible no? And yet, somehow very spot on!