Eric's post is oh so true. Some of the stuff these conservative talk show hosts say is out of control. They often take half truths instead of whole truths in order to make their point. Being a republican/social conservative, this drives me nuts. It does more harm than good for "the cause". "The cause" being to show the democrats why we believe what we believe, based on facts, not inflammatory half stories. An example of this is the "no presents on Christmas or birthdays from mom and dad" story the talking heads were running with yesterday. This is a paraphrased quote (is there such a thing?) from the Schnitt Show (syndicated talk radio based in Tampa) yesterday: "...we still don't know this guy, I mean look at this latest story about the Obama's not giving gifts to their children on Christmas or their birthdays, that's just weird, we juuuussst don't know this guy..." and he left it at that, completely leaving out half the story. The story came from a People Magazine article which listed the "7 Obama House Rules". This is the actual piece that caused the stir:
"...6) No birthday or Christmas presents from Mom and Dad, who spend “hundreds” on birthday slumber parties and, as Barack puts it, “want to teach some limits.” Says Michelle: “Malia says, ‘I know there is a Santa because there’s no way you’d buy me all that stuff.’... ”
Basically, the Christmas presents come from Santa, not mom and dad. The same thing my wife and I do for our kids and my parents did for me. So after further investigation, it's not as "weird" as they make it out to be.
OK, I digress, I'm not turning into a liberal here, I just want to be right (no pun intended) based on facts, not trickery.
Back to the rest of Eric's post...
I agree with Eric, as is often the case, but the irony here is just plastered across the blog. What Eric did in his post was turn into a conservative. Replace "radio talk show hosts" with "Video Games" or "Violent Movies" and you have one of the major conservative issues in America. Saying that what this wacko did was because of what he heard on the radio is like saying kids who commit crimes do so because of video games like Grand Theft Auto. I think both are true.
What's funny to the point it is sad is that one of the staples of the left wing diet is "freedom of speech". Just ask the ACLU (Anti Christian Liberation Union). Republicans have, for years, been fighting to stop the sale of violent games like Grand Theft Auto, which shows carjacking, prostitution, murder, police killing. They have been arguing against violent music, not just rap music, but any music with lyrics that suggest murder, drug use, women degradation, etc.... Yes, there are songs in other genres than rap that depict the same stuff. Conservatives don't think there is a place in America for movies like SAW or The Devils Rejects which glamorize sadistic horror. But the ACLU and many other liberal groups fight tooth and nail to stop this from happening. The main argument is that these games/movies/music don't cause kids to commit crimes, they're just games/movies/music. In my opinion, this is nuts. If someone is constantly exposed to something, it's going to shape their opinion/thought process in some way, it has too. Look at your own personality, pieces of it are shaped by things from your childhood.
It's quite the conundrum for a conservative like me who believes in personal responsibility. You may ask me, how can you say home foreclosure is personal responsibility, but think the government should stop the sale of violent video games because they make kids kill. It's really pretty simple. I believe in personal responsibility when it comes to something that affects the individual only. When those actions will affect others, that's when law is needed.
So, in closing, I agree with Eric, if the antagonistic actions of these talk show hosts are PROVEN to be a catalyst for crazy people, maybe they need to be held to be more accountable, just like video game manufacturers and movie producers.......It's good to see that Eric starting to see things rationally.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
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See, this is one of those things where even when we agree, we argue.
I'm totally against violent video games, and I can barely tolerate, if at all, rap music anymore. I see what it's doing to our kids.
When discussing rap with my friends, who don't seem to think there's anything wrong with the message in the music, I often ask them if they let their kids watch porn, or show them how to cook crack, or run a dope spot. The reason I ask that question is because the lyrics are just as sexually explicit, just as suggestive, in my opinion, and the mental and video imagery is a kin to soft porn. Why would I let my son or daughter watch that crap they put on TV now?
So, I'm not giving anyone a pass, especially TV and the movie industry. It all needs to be cleaned up. I was in the barbershop, and someone asked a little boy what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he said a drug dealer. He couldn't have been more that 9 or 10, and it blew my mind.
So, I didn't post what I posted to discuss Hollywood, or music, or anything else. Really, those industries aren't "fanning the flames" of the political issue I was writing about. These people are constantly being fed a message everyday, stop Obama, stop Obama, stop the democrats, they're going to ruin this country, and we should all be afraid. As the tone, and language is beginning to intensify, it seems to be somewhat encouraged, by saying stuff like, "you're a great American, and thank you for your call."
I'm not hearing that in the other forms of the media right now. That's what my post was about.
I said I agreed with you. They are fanning the flames, but what's different with them than Keith Oberman (sp?) doing a "Bush is an idiot" countdown? Getting all the libs fired up to burn Bush effigies on college campuses?
I didn't see the Olbermann countdown you're talking about, but I did see the "Shut The Hell Up!" one. Where's the Olbermann one where he suggests that.
The difference being, this was him talking to the President/Administration. I don't see the effect of him trying to get a group of people to follow him down this path. I don't see, in this piece, him "coercing" anyone to side with his thoughts. He's just speaking on his own. He's not taking callers, and not encouraging this nonsense. There's a major difference.
There's a difference in simply rallying support, and inciting a riot.
Also, if ANYONE is inciting those types of behaviors, they should be taken to task on it.
Here's the transcript from the "Shut The Hell Up!" one:
Full transcripts below the fold:
Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on two topics a lot of us had foolishly thought, had naively hoped, we would not again have to address… and a third topic nobody thought a president would ever seriously mention in public unless perhaps he’d just been hit in the head with something and was not in full possession of his faculties — how he expressed his “empathy” to the families of the dead in Iraq — by giving up golf.
The President has resorted anew to the sleaziest fear-mongering and mass manipulation of an administration — of a public life — dedicated to realizing the lowest of our expectations.
And he has now applied these poisons to the 2008 presidential election, on behalf of the party at whose center he and Mr. McCain lurk.
Mr. Bush has predicted that the election of a Democratic president could, “eventually lead to another attack on the United States.”
This ludicrous, infuriating, holier-than-thou and most importantly bone-headedly wrong statement came yesterday during an interview with Politico-dot-com and on-line users of Yahoo.
The question was phrased as follows: “If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what’s the worst that could happen, what’s the doomsday scenario?”
The President replied: “Doomsday scenario, of course, is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States.
The biggest issue we face is — it’s bigger than Iraq — it’s this ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives.”
Mr. Bush, at long last, has it not dawned on you that the America you have now created, includes ‘cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives’?’
They are those in, or formerly in, your employ, who may yet be charged some day with war crimes.
Through your haze of self-congratulation and self-pity, do you still have no earthly clue that this nation has laid waste to Iraq to achieve your political objectives?
‘This ideological struggle,’ Mr. Bush, is taking place within this country.
It is a struggle between Americans who cherish freedom — ours and everybody else’s — and Americans like you, sir, to whom freedom is just a brand name, just like “Patriot Act” is a brand name or “Protect America” is a brand name.
But wait, there’s more.
You also said “Iraq is the place where al Qaeda and other extremists have made their stand — and they will be defeated.”
They made no “stand” in Iraq, sir. You allowed them to assemble there!
As certainly as if that were the plan, the borders were left wide open by your government’s farcical post-invasion strategy of ‘they’ll greet us as liberators.’
And as certainly as if that were the plan, the inspiration for another generation of terrorists in another country was provided by your government’s farcical post-invasion strategy of letting the societal infra-structure of Iraq dissolve, to be replaced by an American Vice-Royalty enforced by merciless mercenaries who shoot unarmed Iraqis and then evade prosecution in any country, by hiding behind your skirts, sir.
Terrorism inside Iraq is your creation, Mr. Bush!
It was a Yahoo user who brought up the second topic upon whose introduction Mr. Bush should have passed, or punted, or gotten up and left the room claiming he heard Dick Cheney calling him.
“Do you feel,” asked an ordinary American, “that you were mis-led on Iraq?”
“I feel like — I felt like, there were weapons of mass destruction. You know, “mislead” is a strong word, it almost connotes some kind of intentional — I don’t think so, I think there was a — not only our intelligence community, but intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment. And so I was disappointed to see how flawed our intelligence was.”
Flawed.
You, Mr. Bush, and your tragically know-it-all minions, threw out every piece of intelligence that suggested there were no such weapons.
You, Mr. Bush, threw out every person who suggested that the sober, contradictory, reality-based intelligence needed to be listened to, fast.
You, Mr. Bush, are responsible for how “intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment.”
You and the sycophants you dredged up and put behind the most important steering wheel in the world propagated palpable nonsense and shoved it down the throat of every intelligence community across the world and punished anybody who didn’t agree it was really chicken salad.
And you, Mr. Bush, threw under the bus all of the subsequent critics who bravely stepped forward later to point out just how much of a self-fulfilling prophecy you had embraced, and adopted as this country’s policy — in lieu of, say, common sense.
The fiasco of pre-war intelligence, sir, is your fiasco.
You should build a great statue of yourself turning a deaf ear to the warnings of realists, while you are shown embracing the three-card monte dealers like Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.
That would be a far more fitting tribute to your legacy, Mr. Bush, than this presidential library you are constructing as a giant fable about your presidency, an edifice you might as claim was built from Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction because there will be just as many of those inside your presidential library as there were inside Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Of course if there is one over-riding theme to this president’s administration it is the utter, always-failing, inability to know when to quit when it is behind.
And so Mr. Bush answered yet another question about this layered, nuanced, wheels-within-wheels garbage heap that constituted his excuse for war.
“And so you feel that you didn’t have all the information you should have or the right spin on that information?”
“No, no,” replied the President. “I was told by people, that they had weapons of mass destruction…”
People?
What people?
The insane informant “Curveball?”
The Iraqi snake-oil salesman Ahmed Chalabi?
The American snake-oil salesman Dick Cheney?
“I was told by people that they had weapons of mass destruction, as were members of Congress, who voted for the resolution to get rid of Saddam Hussein. And of course, the political heat gets on and they start to run and try to hide from their votes.”
Mr. Bush — you destroyed the evidence that contradicted the resolution you jammed down the Congress’s throat, the way you jammed it down the nation’s throat.
When required by law to verify that your evidence was accurate, you simply re-submitted it, with phrases amounting to “See, I done proved it,” virtually written in the margins in crayon.
You defied patriotic Americans to say “The Emperor has no clothes” — only with the stakes (as you and the mental dwarves in your employ put it) being a “mushroom cloud over an American city.”
And as a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit has even begun to cost your political party seemingly perpetual congressional seats in places like North Carolina and — last night — Mississippi, you can actually say with a straight face, sir, that for members of Congress “the political heat gets on and they start to run and try to hide from their votes” - while you greet the political heat and try to run and hide from your presidency — and your legacy — 4,000 of the Americans you were supposed to protect, dead in Iraq, with your only feeble, pathetic answer being, “I was told by people that they had weapons of mass destruction.”
Then came Mr. Bush’s final blow to our nation’s solar plexus, his last re-opening of our common wounds, his last remark that makes the rest of us question not merely his leadership or his judgment but his very suitably to remain in office.
“Mr. President,” he was asked, “you haven’t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?
“Yes,” began perhaps the most startling reply of this nightmarish blight on our lives as Americans — on our history.
“It really is. I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died, to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”
Golf, sir?
Golf sends the wrong signal to the grieving families of our men and women butchered in Iraq?
Do you think these families, Mr. Bush — their lives blighted forever — care about you playing golf?
Do you think, sir, they care about you?
You, Mr. Bush, let their sons and daughters be killed.
Sir, to show your solidarity with them - you gave up golf?
Sir, to show your solidarity with them — you didn’t give up your pursuit of this insurance-scam, profiteering, morally and financially bankrupting war.
Sir, to show your solidarity with them — you didn’t even give up talking about Iraq — a subject about which you have incessantly proved without pause or backwards glance, that you may literally be the least informed person in the world?
Sir, to show your solidarity with them, you didn’t give up your presidency?
In your own words — “solidarity as best as I can” — is to stop a game? That is the “best” you can?
4,000 Americans give up their lives and your sacrifice was to give up golf!
Golf.
Not “gulf” — golf.
And still it gets worse.
Because it proves that the President’s unendurable sacrifice, his unbearable pain, the suspension of getting to hit a stick with a ball, was not even his own damned idea.
“Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?”
“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life. And I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it’s just not worth it any more to do.”
Your one, tone-deaf, arrogant, pathetic, embarrassing gesture, and you didn’t even think of it yourself?
The great Bushian sacrifice — an Army private loses a leg, a Marine loses half his skull, four thousand of their brothers and sisters lose their lives, you lose golf… and they have to pull you off the golf course to get you to just do that?
If it’s even true…
Apart from your medical files, which dutifully record your torn calf muscle and the knee pain which forced you to give up running at the same time — coincidence, no doubt — the bombing in Baghdad which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello of the U-N… and interrupted your round of golf, was on August 19th, 2003.
Yet there is an Associated Press account of you playing golf as late as Columbus Day of that year — October 13th — nearly two months later.
Mr. Bush, I hate to break it to you, six-and-a-half years after you yoked this nation and your place in history to the wrong war, in the wrong place, against the wrong people but the war in Iraq is Not. About. You.
It is not, Mr. Bush, about your grief when American after American comes home in a box.
It is not, Mr. Bush, about what your addled brain has produced in the way of paranoid delusions of risks that do not exist, ready to be activated if some Democrat, and not your twin Mr. McCain succeeds you.
The war in Iraq — your war, Mr. Bush — is about how you accomplished the derangement of two nations, and how you helped funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to lascivious and perennially thirsty corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater, and how you sent 4,000 Americans to their deaths — for nothing.
It is not, Mr. Bush, about your golf game!
And, sir, if you have any hopes that next January 20th will not be celebrated as a day of soul-wrenching, heart-felt Thanksgiving, because your faithless stewardship of this presidency will have finally come to a merciful end, this last piece of advice:
When somebody asks you, sir, about Democrats who must now pull this country back from the abyss you have placed us at…
When somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation…
When somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead…
This advice, Mr. Bush…
Shut the hell up!
Hypocrisy, wow what a word.
As i have read and re-read the blog and these comments from it i find myself getting more incensed at the simple fact that so many people, on both sides of the political spectrum, are really so incredibly selfish and self centered that they will throw all reason, common sense, respect and responsibility right out with the bath water. Lets take a for instance from the comments above by Eric and then Mr. Olbermann's. First notice in Eric's reply to Tony's comment the immediate defense of "the difference is". That almost always makes my BS detector go off the chart because what that really means is "Now listen up gullible reader because i am about to go on a fishing exedition to try and find any minor or inconsequential difference in the previous scenario or position to defend my position despit all logic and common sense and i am going to make you buy into it in the process you peasant fool". The fact is the position of Tony and Eric and the effect of that position is the same. But for politics sake one of them must be right and one must be wrong. Notice what Eric writes after "the difference is", he states the "difference" in their positions. That difference is Olbermann was talking to George and the Administration and conservative talk show hosts are inciting violence and riots by talking to the public at large. That right there is where we, the readers, are being told that "you are a fool and you just need to listen to me". The truth is if Mr. Olbermann was just talking to George and the administration he could have sent a letter or an email, or better yet, with his pull, maybe even a direct phone call. But he didnt. He happened to use the platform of a national televison show, ensuring his "message to the President" was really meant for everyone but the President. This is EXACTLY the same as the conservative talk show host making statements and taking calls. No difference whatsoever. And it just so happens the intent is the same for both as well, to get people fired up and "on their side". If truth be told, a quick trip away from the mindset of "defend my party, defend, defend, defend" and the application of common sense and a fresh perspective and what is realized is that both people here hold the same position. No defense is necessary. Is it that hard to agree with the other side now and then? This is what i mean by selfish and self centered. It seems that pride trumps truth at almost any cost. Although this tends to be a natural response when one's position is challanged it is rarely the correct one. This is where responsibilty comes in. One must (should?)be responsible to ones intended audience above their own pride. That means facts and truth should be paramount. This is not an attack on Eric, solely, but as Tony pointed out it is the fault of many talk show hosts (Schnitt is a prime example) political pundants, etc. on all sides of politics. It does a huge disservice to all of us. Now onto Mr. Olbermanns "shut the hell up" tantrum. Without getting into his political position, his tone and verbiage is totally not needed and, in my opinion, disrespectful to the Office of President. It has nothing to do with the point being made but has everthing to do with theatrics and making for good television. This may make for good ratings (well actually not in Olbermann's case) but does nothing for attempting to really have others consider and relate to your point of view. It is meant to be decisive and polarizing and the exact opposite of what we are lead to believe it is supposed to do. Now i understand that Mr. Olbermann is in the television business and so maybe he is just doing his job as a good employee but then it becomes irresponsible for others who are supposed to be serious and really trying to express their position to others to use his "entertainment show" as support for their argument. To really have others take you seriously and persuade them to your position you need to do two things; 1. Be open minded yourself to the positions held by the other side. 2. Admit when your side is wrong and or the other side is right. No party is 100% perfect nor 100% imperfect. Be open minded, be respectful, be responsible, be right(i.e.correct also)
I've been called a lot of things before, but never selfish or self-centered. Maybe sexy, but never selfish, never self-centered.
You know what? Admittedly, I did make a mistake in my response to Tony's post. My apologies Mr. Notwell. You're alright sometimes.
You know, I read these things on my blackberry sometimes. Didn't even dawn on me that Tony and I agreed, but hey, that's what the site is all about. Both sides coming together, so that's a good thing.
Thanks Matthew for pointing that out. I think anyone that knows me, knows the other descriptions of me are pretty inaccurate. I'm not at all an argumentative guy, for the sake of argument. I read this thing too fast on a small device!
So Matthew, I won't get into the rest of your post, because I could see how it looks not knowing I responded to Tony's post incorrectly.
I've been called a lot of things before, but never selfish or self-centered. Maybe sexy, but never selfish, never self-centered.
You know what? Admittedly, I did make a mistake in my response to Tony's post. My apologies Mr. Notwell. You're alright sometimes.
You know, I read these things on my blackberry sometimes. Didn't even dawn on me that Tony and I agreed, but hey, that's what the site is all about. Both sides coming together, so that's a good thing.
Thanks Matthew for pointing that out. I think anyone that knows me, knows the other descriptions of me are pretty inaccurate. I'm not at all an argumentative guy, for the sake of argument. I read this thing too fast on a small device!
So Matthew, I won't get into the rest of your post, because I could see how it looks not knowing I responded to Tony's post incorrectly.
I've been called a lot of things before, but never selfish or self-centered. Maybe sexy, but never selfish, never self-centered.
You know what? Admittedly, I did make a mistake in my response to Tony's post. My apologies Mr. Notwell. You're alright sometimes.
You know, I read these things on my blackberry sometimes. Didn't even dawn on me that Tony and I agreed, but hey, that's what the site is all about. Both sides coming together, so that's a good thing.
Thanks Matthew for pointing that out. I think anyone that knows me, knows the other descriptions of me are pretty inaccurate. I'm not at all an argumentative guy, for the sake of argument. I read this thing too fast on a small device!
So Matthew, I won't get into the rest of your post, because I could see how it looks not knowing I responded to Tony's post incorrectly.
I actually find it scary that both points of view in this blog are advocating censorship. While I agree with Tony on the influence of TV and video games on children (even though, psychologically, that debate has yet to be settled after more than 80 years of study) the ratings system is big boon for us parents. I also think I wouldn't go beyond that system.
Informing a consumer about a product before you buy is good. Censoring a product due to content is bad.
Sorry for the simplistic sentences above, but considering the response to some of my other comments, I felt I had to make my position as easily understood as possible.
i do not know Eric personally and it was not my intention to call your character or personality into question. What i meant, but probably did not articulate well, is that most people, irregardless of political affiliation tend to put blinders on or go deaf, when the other side speaks. That is unfortunate especially when the other side has a good and valid point. One of the biggest offenders of this , from my opinion,from the right is Sean Hannity. I dont think it is physically possible for him to agree with a liberal on anything. On the left Alan Combs and Keith Olbermann are the same way. Truth is George and the Republicans have done some really good things in his tenure, it shouldn't cause convulsions for a liberal pundant to admit that. Now they have also done some less than good things (not morally speaking in this case) as well and conservative pundants should acknowledge that without needing CPR. Same goes for the Clinton Administration and so on down the line. One of the great things about this blog is that i have seen this actually happen, on both sides and that is good. My issue is that the defense of obviously less than good decisions by one party are are still argued for when common sense makes it plain that their side is wrong. That was evident to me in the Olbermann example used above. Pride shouldn't have a place in politics because the whole purpose of politics is to benefit all the people, not for one to be correct. Is that idealistic?? (rhetorical question) I am sure Eric is a stand up great guy who believes strongly in his position. Thats great. And based on his picture on the top of the blog, he's pretty sexy too.
i do not know Eric personally and it was not my intention to call your character or personality into question. What i meant, but probably did not articulate well, is that most people, irregardless of political affiliation tend to put blinders on or go deaf, when the other side speaks. That is unfortunate especially when the other side has a good and valid point. One of the biggest offenders of this , from my opinion,from the right is Sean Hannity. I dont think it is physically possible for him to agree with a liberal on anything. On the left Alan Combs and Keith Olbermann are the same way. Truth is George and the Republicans have done some really good things in his tenure, it shouldn't cause convulsions for a liberal pundant to admit that. Now they have also done some less than good things (not morally speaking in this case) as well and conservative pundants should acknowledge that without needing CPR. Same goes for the Clinton Administration and so on down the line. One of the great things about this blog is that i have seen this actually happen, on both sides and that is good. My issue is that the defense of obviously less than good decisions by one party are are still argued for when common sense makes it plain that their side is wrong. That was evident to me in the Olbermann example used above. Pride shouldn't have a place in politics because the whole purpose of politics is to benefit all the people, not for one to be correct. Is that idealistic?? (rhetorical question) I am sure Eric is a stand up great guy who believes strongly in his position. Thats great. And based on his picture on the top of the blog, he's pretty sexy too.
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