On courage

If you have been following the news just a little bit, you must be aware of this new variation of the Goliath vs. David story: George Bush getting roasted by Stephen Colbert at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.
Predictably, people's reaction to this depends greatly on their political persuasion: as Sheldon Alberts wrote in the National Post

While conservatives reacted with can't-take-a-joke outrage, liberal bloggers have spent the week hailing Mr. Colbert as the second coming of Mark Twain. In their eyes, he proved his mettle as a fearless truth teller who refused to tone down his act to please Mr. Bush or the media lapdogs who hired him for the gig.

Furthermore, the latter hailed Colbert as a national hero, for his great feat of valour:

"How refreshing to hear the truth and hear it straight. Colbert deserves a medal for distinguished service and bravery in the face of the 'enemy,' "Carolyn Jacobson wrote in a letter to the online edition of Editor & Publisher.

I don't want to get into an argument whether Colbert did break the rules or whether his act was funny - rules are meant to be skirted and everyone's entitled to his/her tastes. What caught my attention and sparked a protracted thread at the Bloviator was
the idea that what Colbert did was somehow 'brave' and 'corageous'.
No one would deny that it requires a certain type of personality, more outspoken I'd say, and yes, some guts to do what Cobert did. But to me, in order to call one corageous the bar is set much higher than that. Yes, Colbert might've been heckled by some Republicans in the audience but really what else was at stake? He knew perfectly well that nothing would happen to him and to his family. He wouldn't languish in jail or get executed and if anything his speech has only made him more famous and therefore solidified his position in the show-biz.
I, on the other hand, am familiar with examples when people paid dearly for speaking out. In 1968, a handful of young people staged a protest on the Red Square against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. One of them, Larissa Bogoraz "was arrested, tried and sentenced to four years of exile in Siberia, which she spent in a woodworking plant." - that's what I call COURAGE.
The Soviet Union is gone but there are still parts of the world where 'speaking out' can result in similar consequences. Liberals are all committed internationalists but their thinking is often ethnocentric, which is highly ironic, I think.