[quote]pushharder wrote:
The main problem with your argument, Yorik, is it directly conflicts with the view of the Founding Fathers that you cite in your post. You can’t be intellectually honest when you mention, “The Founding Fathers interpreted our obligations…” in an effort to bolster your case and neglect to mention the overwhelming evidence that practically every one of the Fathers that wrote on this subject expressed a belief in God-given rights.
Now you have every right to disagree with them but don’t do so by being an implicit historical revisionist.[/quote]
regardless… Many of them were deists, many of the atheists…
[quote]pushharder wrote:
The main problem with your argument, Yorik, is it directly conflicts with the view of the Founding Fathers that you cite in your post. You can’t be intellectually honest when you mention, “The Founding Fathers interpreted our obligations…” in an effort to bolster your case and neglect to mention the overwhelming evidence that practically every one of the Fathers that wrote on this subject expressed a belief in God-given rights.
Now you have every right to disagree with them but don’t do so by being an implicit historical revisionist.[/quote]
regardless… Many of them were deists, many of the atheists…[/quote]
Actually every one of them believed in God and many were Christians. The exception was Thomas Paine who was an admitted atheist. However, later in his life he recanted and claimed that there was a God.
Why can’t people just break down and say that they do not like this country the way it was founded?
I’ve been going round and round about this ever since I made the mistake of letting myself get lured into this forum.
This nation was built upon the declared assumption of Christian principles and morality. To assert otherwise is tantamount to denying the Earth is round. That is not the same as saying we were a Christian nation as such. No religion was sanctioned or suppressed. However, even the writings of the likes of Franklin and Jefferson, to say nothing of others like Adams and Washington, are replete with the acknowledgment that religion, and Christianity in particular, in the hearts of the public were essential for the survival of their fledgling experiment.
They believed such a state of affairs was indispensable to the notion of self government. A citizenry privately restrained by religious conviction was the one and only foundation possible for limited public intervention. De Tocqueville noted this himself in the 1830’s observing that a government precariously perched upon the private convictions of the governed would last only so long as those convictions did, to paraphrase.
2 Corinthians 3:17 - Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
The Spirit of the Lord was here, it has faded drastically, any idea why we are losing our freedom? You may say that The Bible is just a book, but that argument would only add merit to what it says.
Also, in governments and with people who do not acknowledge God, God will not acknowledge them, there is wholesale slaughter. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
[quote]humanjhawkins wrote:
…I’ll try to watch him soon ad tell you some current things I think are just good effective bullshit.[/quote]
Ahhhhhh…I see…you have no evidence of him doing this in the past.[quote]
But one I remember recently is his big red phone thing. [/quote]
You don’t pay attention, do you? The red phone was not for the President. It was for the White House communications director, Anita Dunn.
Besides, the red phone made for great shtick.[quote]
There is also the fact that Beck takes a ton of money from companies that profit from trading in gold. This is fine by itself, but he also promotes gold from his commentator role without mentioning the conflict of interest… [/quote]
Cite sources.
[/quote]
Ok… In order:
Way to quote me out of context. Especially when I gave you an example in the following paragraph. I’ve watched Beck about 3 times. He made good and fair points in all 3 of these shows (just like the far left people do in each of their shows). He also did a lot of “great shtick” in all of his shows that it would have been nice to hear an honest debate about. But that wasn’t the goal.
The red phone. Yeah. It has been a few months. It doesn’t exactly change the result of my point though. Let’s say you were the white house press secretary. You have hundreds of requests for interviews coming in through regular channels. Are you going to let someone extort you into doing an interview by someone who clearly intends to discredit you, when that person will have complete control of the format and can cut you off the minute you start to make sense? Or, are you going to choose to take interviews from people who are not extorting you in an environment where both sides have relatively equal control?
Yes, it is great shtick. That is the whole point of my post. It is silly to analyze a show that is basically “great shtick” as though it were supposed to be something else.
The “gold is great” stuff I was thinking of was from an O’Reilly episode where he was a guest commentator about 2 months ago. I’d love to cite it for you, but I have no way of identifying exactly what show this was (nor is it worth either of our time). So by all means feel free to assume I’m lying if this doesn’t sound credible to you.
Last Point: Ok. My bad. I forgot how conservative many of the people here are. I threw some things out that seem obvious to me, but that clearly need justification and examples for those leaning to the right. I could have mentioned several things that Beck’s critics have pointed out, but I thought that would be a bit stale. Thus my offer to come back with better details. If you think that makes me dumber than a sack of rocks, so be it. I won’t lose any sleep over it.
[quote]humanjhawkins wrote:
<<< 2. The red phone. Yeah. It has been a few months. It doesn’t exactly change the result of my point though. Let’s say you were the white house press secretary. You have hundreds of requests for interviews coming in through regular channels. Are you going to let someone extort you into doing an interview by someone who clearly intends to discredit you, when that person will have complete control of the format and can cut you off the minute you start to make sense? Or, are you going to choose to take interviews from people who are not extorting you in an environment where both sides have relatively equal control? >>>[/quote]
Maybe you didn’t see my post, by which I mean no sarcasm BTW. He has publicly and repeatedly offered an entire show to Whitehouse personnel and has gone on record just as many times promising them every opportunity to offer alternative explanations to his criticisms. Hannity would cut them off and sneer. I do not believe Beck would do that. He has left himself way too open to devastating critique by the way in which he has made the invitations.
[quote]humanjhawkins wrote:
<<< 2. The red phone. Yeah. It has been a few months. It doesn’t exactly change the result of my point though. Let’s say you were the white house press secretary. You have hundreds of requests for interviews coming in through regular channels. Are you going to let someone extort you into doing an interview by someone who clearly intends to discredit you, when that person will have complete control of the format and can cut you off the minute you start to make sense? Or, are you going to choose to take interviews from people who are not extorting you in an environment where both sides have relatively equal control? >>>[/quote]
Maybe you didn’t see my post, by which I mean no sarcasm BTW. He has publicly and repeatedly offered an entire show to Whitehouse personnel and has gone on record just as many times promising them every opportunity to offer alternative explanations to his criticisms. Hannity would cut them off and sneer. I do not believe Beck would do that. He has left himself way too open to devastating critique by the way in which he has made the invitations.[/quote]
I’ll grant that he does have that level of humility. But the guy spent years as a radio host being paid to do crazy things. With his very long history of pranking people, you can’t blame people for not trusting him.
Plus, even if he has repented for the truly evil stuff in his distant past (like calling a woman on the air to basically tease her about a miscarriage), and even if you believe he would do a totally fair interview, it is still extortion. If that kind of behavior is rewarded with a response, it would just mean that red phones would start showing up in every program that needed to score a big interview for a ratings kick.
[quote]humanjhawkins wrote:
…I’ll try to watch him soon ad tell you some current things I think are just good effective bullshit.[/quote]
Ahhhhhh…I see…you have no evidence of him doing this in the past.[quote]
But one I remember recently is his big red phone thing. [/quote]
You don’t pay attention, do you? The red phone was not for the President. It was for the White House communications director, Anita Dunn.
Besides, the red phone made for great shtick.[quote]
There is also the fact that Beck takes a ton of money from companies that profit from trading in gold. This is fine by itself, but he also promotes gold from his commentator role without mentioning the conflict of interest… [/quote]
Cite sources.
[/quote]
Ok… In order:
Way to quote me out of context. Especially when I gave you an example in the following paragraph. I’ve watched Beck about 3 times. He made good and fair points in all 3 of these shows (just like the far left people do in each of their shows). He also did a lot of “great shtick” in all of his shows that it would have been nice to hear an honest debate about. But that wasn’t the goal.
The red phone. Yeah. It has been a few months. It doesn’t exactly change the result of my point though. Let’s say you were the white house press secretary. You have hundreds of requests for interviews coming in through regular channels. Are you going to let someone extort you into doing an interview by someone who clearly intends to discredit you, when that person will have complete control of the format and can cut you off the minute you start to make sense? Or, are you going to choose to take interviews from people who are not extorting you in an environment where both sides have relatively equal control?
Yes, it is great shtick. That is the whole point of my post. It is silly to analyze a show that is basically “great shtick” as though it were supposed to be something else.
The “gold is great” stuff I was thinking of was from an O’Reilly episode where he was a guest commentator about 2 months ago. I’d love to cite it for you, but I have no way of identifying exactly what show this was (nor is it worth either of our time). So by all means feel free to assume I’m lying if this doesn’t sound credible to you.
Last Point: Ok. My bad. I forgot how conservative many of the people here are. I threw some things out that seem obvious to me, but that clearly need justification and examples for those leaning to the right. I could have mentioned several things that Beck’s critics have pointed out, but I thought that would be a bit stale. Thus my offer to come back with better details. If you think that makes me dumber than a sack of rocks, so be it. I won’t lose any sleep over it.
[/quote]
No, you just proved yourself as another Beck critic who is nothing more than a bonehead who hasn’t really watched Beck much (by your own admission) but yet somehow you feel you’re an authority on him. You, the (pseudo) expositor!
But just like the other boneheads who have criticized Beck on this forum you have no credible evidence to put up when you’re pressed for it. All you’re doing is repeating hearsay from critics. It’s pathetic. Put up or shut up.
I don’t care whether you like him or not but you and your type shrilly squeal, “HE LIES,” but when pressed for proof you slink off like a three-legged coyote with the mange.[/quote]
[quote]humanjhawkins wrote:
<<< 2. The red phone. Yeah. It has been a few months. It doesn’t exactly change the result of my point though. Let’s say you were the white house press secretary. You have hundreds of requests for interviews coming in through regular channels. Are you going to let someone extort you into doing an interview by someone who clearly intends to discredit you, when that person will have complete control of the format and can cut you off the minute you start to make sense? Or, are you going to choose to take interviews from people who are not extorting you in an environment where both sides have relatively equal control? >>>[/quote]
Maybe you didn’t see my post, by which I mean no sarcasm BTW. He has publicly and repeatedly offered an entire show to Whitehouse personnel and has gone on record just as many times promising them every opportunity to offer alternative explanations to his criticisms. Hannity would cut them off and sneer. I do not believe Beck would do that. He has left himself way too open to devastating critique by the way in which he has made the invitations.[/quote]
I’ll grant that he does have that level of humility. But the guy spent years as a radio host being paid to do crazy things. With his very long history of pranking people, you can’t blame people for not trusting him.
Plus, even if he has repented for the truly evil stuff in his distant past (like calling a woman on the air to basically tease her about a miscarriage), and even if you believe he would do a totally fair interview, it is still extortion. If that kind of behavior is rewarded with a response, it would just mean that red phones would start showing up in every program that needed to score a big interview for a ratings kick.[/quote]
I promise you nothing that happened in his radio past has any bearing on this whatsoever. We’re not talking even about whether they should respond or not. We’re talking about a claim of consistent “demonstrably false” assertions on his part for the sake of ratings. This accusation is made about him every four minutes everywhere in the liberal media. We are still waiting for this to be documented the same way Beck documents 95% of everything he says and then begs the subjects of his “hysteria” to take an entire show during which they will be afforded limitless opportunity to demonstrate where he’s wrong.
The red Phone thing is brilliant on every level from marketing to effect. The only thing more brilliant would be to find a way to get them to use it even once. Something like an intentionally outrageous and actually “demonstrably false” on air claim. If he could cudgel them into using that phone one time he could then ask whether their lack of response on anything else is a passive admission of accuracy. I don’t know if you noticed, but this is, though barely, still the United States for the time being. When did in your face challenges to politicians become unacceptable? Extortion? To demand that elected officials who are spending the next couple generation’s money and pissing all over the constitution explain themselves? I hope we haven’t fallen that far yet.
Personally I would welcome red phones on every show on every network regardless of who was in office or who’s show it was.
OK. Here’s one. These are going to trickle in because if I have to listen to him for too much at once my head will explode. Not because I don’t like him personally, and not because I think what he is saying is false all the time, but because mostly he is just fucking crazy (Citation: Jan 12, he is trying to argue that the government is going to ban table salt because it might be unhealthy, and with government health care there will be an incentive to do this to save money.
But instead of just saying this, he brings Woodrow Wilson and all kinds of other shit into it. The premise is crazy. His argument is crazy. He’s fucking crazy.)
That said, also on Jan 12, he is attempting to counter some spin by a White House climate guy. The white house guy is spinning some BS and beck rightly calls him on it. But then he starts his own misleading spin, claiming that the world is currently having record cold temperatures. The facts on this (which many conservatives will agree on) are that the world is actually the warmest it has been in recorded history. And via peer reviewed science that many conservatives also agree on, is warmer than it has been in thousands of years.
The thing that got Beck onto this is some reversals in what scientists have been saying about the temperature of the earth. Instead of the temperature climbing rapidly as was thought a few years ago, the temperature rose dramatically between the 60’s and the year 2000 or so, but has remained about the same over the last 10 years.
If Beck wanted to say that global warming is bullshit, and then cite the fact that temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago as evidence, that would be a fair conservative opinion. Someone could disagree with him, but it would be an opinion based on fact. Instead, he felt the need to go that extra mile and claim that the world is suddenly at a record cold.
OK, here’s another one. He restates a question from Cindi McCain, but then validates it by asking it himself: “Why does Hollywood hate our troops?”
So a movie comes out with a negative portrayals of a U.S. soldier. Never mind that there are plenty of other movies showing our troops as heroes. Never mind that many Hollywood actors and actresses give time and money to causes that support our troops, or fly over to entertain them in person, etc. Never mind that the vast majority of Hollywood people on both sides of the political fence are fierce supporters of the troops in their own different ways (Conservatives typically cheering them on because that is what they think is best, and liberals typically fighting to bring them home safely because that is what they think is best. Both are efforts to support the troops.)
But a movie comes out showing a soldier pushed to the breaking point and doing some bad things, and suddenly it is fair to label the whole of Hollywood as hating our troops? You don’t see the falsehood in that?
I will say that Beck is especially susceptible to out of context butchery due to his personality and style. He is a gold mine of surgical editing zingers. I don’t know if anybody makes it easier to grab a few seconds of themselves that make them look nuts. He can’t help it. It’s who he is. There is just no way to appreciate the thrust his show without watching it.
Again, all he;s doing is filling in some blanks on what millions of Americans have essentially thought for years, including myself. He has changed my view on exactly nothing, but he does give national voice to major views I’ve held for 20 plus years. That is, there has been a sustained attack on the bedrock founding principles of this nation by various enemies within throughout the 20th century with escalating levels of success. The Obama administration is by far the most obvious and successful to date with ideological roots directly traceable to earlier ones.
THAT is the overarching theme of his show. Had I known that I would have started watching him regularly much earlier than I did because Like I say, that’s what I’ve believed pretty much since I became politically aware. He does stretch his conclusions in light of the presented data on occasion, but overall he simply puts on display what to me has been obvious for years. You can find plenty of posts of mine during the 08 campaign where I (and others) were saying what he’s saying… in essence… before I ever heard of the guy.
EDIT: One more thing. He says he’s a Libertarian. H ain’t no Libertarian. I don’t even think he realizes exactly what that means nor do I care that he doesn’t. He does realize that this nation is 60 miles off it’s founding path into the swamp of secular humanistic tyrannical statism. That’s the point.
[quote]humanjhawkins wrote:
OK. Here’s one. These are going to trickle in because if I have to listen to him for too much at once my head will explode. Not because I don’t like him personally, and not because I think what he is saying is false all the time, but because mostly he is just fucking crazy (Citation: Jan 12, he is trying to argue that the government is going to ban table salt because it might be unhealthy, and with government health care there will be an incentive to do this to save money.[/quote]
I actually remember that program and what he was saying is that once we as citizens give government the power to dictate our health care they would also have the power to control what we eat.
Why is it a stretch to think that the government in the name of controlling obesity wouldn’t institute dietary restrictions on its citizens? If they (the government) believe that they are paying the tab for your health care then why not have laws to back it up?
Are you even aware of what Mayor Bloomberg has done in New York City? His health department has already banned trans fats in restaurant meals and forced food chains to post calorie counts on menus. They just recently set guidelines recommending maximum amounts of, are you ready? SALT!
You really have no idea where this absolutely horrible idea of national health care will end. Don’t be too quick to attack Beck as he’s probably right on with his prediction of government manipulation when it comes to foods if the government take over of health care comes to pass.
Beck is letting people know the possibilities are there and I agree with him 100%. Once again he’s spot on.