Kirth Gersen |
George Washington would be proud.
The guy who stood quietly and stoically by while Jefferson and Hamilton splintered the nation's politics into clashing parties forever after... Don't get me wrong; I love these guys. But there have been warring partisans since before there was a U.S. (I'd've paid good money to see Tom Paine and John Jay stage a celebrity boxing match...)
The Eldritch Mr. Shiny |
The Eldritch Mr. Shiny wrote:George Washington would be proud.The guy who stood quietly and stoically by while Jefferson and Hamilton splintered the nation's politics into clashing parties forever after... Don't get me wrong; I love these guys. But there have been warring partisans since before there was a U.S. (I'd've paid good money to see Tom Paine and John Jay stage a celebrity boxing match...)
I know, but still...
Adam Daigle Director of Game Development |
Adam Daigle Director of Game Development |
Shadowborn |
I can't tell whether all the people in this thread comparing Jon Stewart to the likes of Olberman, Limbaugh, and Beck are simply misinformed...or simply inspired. You do realize that Stewart is a comedian, yes? Does that mean the others are as well? That would explain a lot. If I had realized I was supposed to be laughing at everything the the other three said, they would have caused me a lot less stress.
stardust |
I can't tell whether all the people in this thread comparing Jon Stewart to the likes of Olberman, Limbaugh, and Beck are simply misinformed...or simply inspired. You do realize that Stewart is a comedian, yes? Does that mean the others are as well? That would explain a lot. If I had realized I was supposed to be laughing at everything the the other three said, they would have caused me a lot less stress.
Mr. Beck can be very humorous at times. He has a humorous sense of irony, satire, and sarcasm that some of the anti-Beck bloggers usually take out of context.
Guy Humual |
I can't tell whether all the people in this thread comparing Jon Stewart to the likes of Olberman, Limbaugh, and Beck are simply misinformed...or simply inspired. You do realize that Stewart is a comedian, yes? Does that mean the others are as well? That would explain a lot. If I had realized I was supposed to be laughing at everything the the other three said, they would have caused me a lot less stress.
Not only is a Comedian he's a satirist. Putting Stewart on the same platform as a news caster would either shows how much credibility the US news profession has lost or how much credibility Stewart has gain. Perhaps both.
kyrt-ryder |
stardust wrote:What do you mean? You don't find Ahmadinejad scary? Strange.
Care to explain your rationale?
What he was asking, is for you to explain the logic that lead you to consider Glen Beck to be scary.
And the sad thing, is about 30 posts up the thread he asked the Beck Bashers to present him with an intellectual discourse concerning their perspectives on the guy, and nobody stepped up.
I'll be the first to admit I enjoy the guy's show. It's funny, interesting, and in all honesty? Tends closer to the truth on political issues than several news stations I'm familiar with. (NBC I'm looking at you.)
Guy Humual |
stardust has already explained why:
It's a very common thing for him to say that he's not presenting news but his opinion.
That is bone chillingly frightening to me. I hope I don't have to explain why a newscaster that makes stuff up is scary. I'm sure he says stuff like "this is just an opinion," "or please look this stuff up because I can't be bothered too," just like Jack&ss tells kids not to try this stuff at home, but in my opinion that's just not good enough.
If you're calling yourself a news person the first thing you need to be able to do is tell what is 'fact' and what is 'opinion' . . . then you need to leave your opinions at home.
Adam Daigle Director of Game Development |
Leadjunkie |
The second one is trickier. He seems to be talking about the bailout money not being enough to buy up all the troubled assets. Which is what the bailout was originally intended to be. But the bailout we got instead was used to buy banks (the problem with congress hurrying to pass a bill they didn't bother to read). So it looks like Beck was for the bailout plan to buy up the troubled assets, but against the bailout that resulted in buying banks. But I could be wrong.
It's trickier because it is a distinction whith out a difference.
stardust |
stardust has already explained why:
stardust wrote:
It's a very common thing for him to say that he's not presenting news but his opinion.That is bone chillingly frightening to me. I hope I don't have to explain why a newscaster that makes stuff up is scary. I'm sure he says stuff like "this is just an opinion," "or please look this stuff up because I can't be bothered too," just like Jack&ss tells kids not to try this stuff at home, but in my opinion that's just not good enough.
If you're calling yourself a news person the first thing you need to be able to do is tell what is 'fact' and what is 'opinion' . . . then you need to leave your opinions at home.
I think there is a little bit of a difference between a news reporter and an opinion columnist, but there are room for both in newspapers and I would hope on television also. Mr. Beck's show has never been a news program, as far as I can recall. Just one person presenting his opinion and the opinions of experts in their fields, and the news that was reported on by other news reporters or provided by other sources such as government or government-affiliated websites. While on the Fox News Channel, this opinion show is interrupted around the half-hour mark by a five minute News program.
Glenn Beck's show is as much a News program as Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. It's opinion, based on News, unless he's misquoting the people he's concerned about. While we're on the subject, most of the evening programs on the cable news channels are opinionated. And I certainly don't agree with a lot of the opinions on those programs. I am somewhat disturbed by Hannity, O'Really?, and other people on the Fox News Channel whom I can clearly see as hate-mongering, and too agitated to present a lucid argument for many of their beliefs, let alone communicate them to me in a way that might make me feel sympathetic to their cause.
Mr. Beck's not infallible. No human is. But its alarming to me when so many people argue against him without being able to provide an intelligent reason or argument for disliking or disbelieving him.
Patrick Curtin |
If you're calling yourself a news person the first thing you need to be able to do is tell what is 'fact' and what is 'opinion' . . . then you need to leave your opinions at home.
I don't think there is a talking head on either side of the political divide who does this any longer Guy, just a sign of the times. 'Straight' news is very hard to come by these days, and the ideologues have won out over the journalists.
Ranting about the 'other side' gains more market share than reporting facts. Another reason the tone of political debate has gone down the toilet IMO.
David Fryer |
stardust has already explained why:
stardust wrote:That is bone chillingly frightening to me. I hope I don't have to explain why a newscaster that makes stuff up is scary.
It's a very common thing for him to say that he's not presenting news but his opinion.
But does it really rise to the same level of scary as a madman who has denied that genocide occured in the past, has advocated the destruction of an entire nation-state, and who is currently trying to aquire nuclear weapons for the stated purpose of using them? If a person expressing his opinion, even an opinion tht is contrary to yours, is that scary, then to quote Lucy from Peanuts, "kid, you've got problems."
David Fryer |
I am a conservative and find Glenn Beck to be over the top and over the edge. I stopped listening to him after he made statements like "if we had let Bear Serns collapse it would have made the openning scenes from the Terminator movies look like a church lunch, but we should have let it happen anyway," and when he made a bunch of apocolyptic predictions about food riots and such that did not come true. He is a very alarmist individual and plays to peoples emotions, which is exactly what I don't want in a conservative spokesperson.
Sothmektri |
I am a conservative and find Glenn Beck to be over the top and over the edge. I stopped listening to him after he made statements like "if we had let Bear Serns collapse it would have made the openning scenes from the Terminator movies look like a church lunch, but we should have let it happen anyway," and when he made a bunch of apocolyptic predictions about food riots and such that did not come true. He is a very alarmist individual and plays to peoples emotions, which is exactly what I don't want in a conservative spokesperson.
That's the exact same view the more sober conservatives I'm related to have of Beck. It's milder than the view I have, but I certainly agree with you.
... and now he's a budding symbologist. I'm imagining his bedside table, with a copy of Dan Brown's latest act of hackery sitting on top of that Bircher nonsense/LDS propaganda piece '5k Year Leap' he touts on his show. The half-baked ideas begin to blur as his brain goes thru the last withdrawal from the psych meds they used to make him take on CNN, and the next thing you know he's deciphering Rockefeller Center like a bipolar cross between Indiana Jones and Roy Cohn.
No, he's not scary. He's a clown, and you can find one like him at every party, getting more and more angry (and drunk) in a corner because girls don't want to listen to his ranting. He's a dime a dozen. What's scary is that he can scrape up more than 100 people to listen to him and take him seriously as some kind of leader, that want to be taken back to the ugliest periods in the history of 'conservatism' by this guy.
David Fryer |
... and now he's a budding symbologist. I'm imagining his bedside table, with a copy of Dan Brown's latest act of hackery sitting on top of that Bircher nonsense/LDS propaganda piece '5k Year Leap' he touts on his show.
Well I happen to be a fan of Dan Brown's work, and LDS, so I have to part ways here. Of course I have never heard of or read 5K Year Leap, so I don't know anything about it. I agree with the rest of what you said though. My mother-in-law is a devout Beck follower. Everytime sh tells me how depressed she is I tell that if she stopped listening to Glenn Beck she would feel hundreds of times better.
Guy Humual |
Guy Humual wrote:If you're calling yourself a news person the first thing you need to be able to do is tell what is 'fact' and what is 'opinion' . . . then you need to leave your opinions at home.I don't think there is a talking head on either side of the political divide who does this any longer Guy, just a sign of the times. 'Straight' news is very hard to come by these days, and the ideologues have won out over the journalists.
Ranting about the 'other side' gains more market share than reporting facts. Another reason the tone of political debate has gone down the toilet IMO.
I guess that's the problem with American news then.
Xabulba |
Sothmektri wrote:Well I happen to be a fan of Dan Brown's work, and LDS, so I have to part ways here. Of course I have never heard of or read 5K Year Leap, so I don't know anything about it. I agree with the rest of what you said though. My mother-in-law is a devout Beck follower. Everytime sh tells me how depressed she is I tell that if she stopped listening to Glenn Beck she would feel hundreds of times better.
... and now he's a budding symbologist. I'm imagining his bedside table, with a copy of Dan Brown's latest act of hackery sitting on top of that Bircher nonsense/LDS propaganda piece '5k Year Leap' he touts on his show.
Haven't read the 5k year leap but I do know the author, W. Cleon Skousen, was thrown out of the LDS because of his extreme views. His book was disavowed by the LDS also.
Sothmektri |
Well I happen to be a fan of Dan Brown's work, and LDS, so I have to part ways here. Of course I have never heard of or read 5K Year Leap, so I don't know anything about it. I agree with the rest of what you said though. My mother-in-law is a devout Beck follower. Everytime sh tells me how depressed she is I tell that if she stopped listening to Glenn Beck she would feel hundreds of times better.
Well, to be clear, Skousen (who wrote 5k Yr Leap) was eventually shown the door by the LDS (after having worked and taught for them for quite awhile, but still...), as their views had evolved a bit from their earlier intense interest in H.U.A.C., etc. So, I wouldn't call it an LDS propaganda piece of the modern age, but of the 50s-early 60s.
Skousen is the guy who gave us the 'New World Order' conspiracy to cvreate a 'One World Govt', when he wasn't busy completely rewriting American history and trying to get his nonsense into classrooms. Beck is apparently a huge fan, down to taking Skousen's ancient beef with John D Rockefeller on. That manifested as Beck's recent nutty 'interpretation' of the murals around Rockefeller Center... apparently it's all communist symbology.
The Rockefellers. Communists. Seriously. That was one of Skousen's big theories, that all of the big capitalists were secretly big communists.
On a lighter note, Dan Brown: I'd read 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' when I was about 18, and so when 'Da Vinci Code' came out I was already familiar with the 'gotcha' parts. The rest of it just felt like 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail as airplane novel'. His other stuff might be better and less nakedly derivative, in all fairness.
Sothmektri |
I guess that's the problem with American news then.
Oh, the other problem is that, were you to find something you thought was actually a straight news source, you'd only have to wait five minutes for someone to see bias in a straight-out fact and declare it a partisan source. A media source, even a foreign one, is only impartial until someone notices it.
Well, okay, a foreign one is automatically suspect;)
Polevoi |
Mr. Beck's not infallible. No human is. But its alarming to me when so many people argue against him without being able to provide an intelligent reason or argument for disliking or disbelieving him.
Oh c'mon, I gave you a few reasons for my disliking him.
Some quotes from Exhibit A:
“Your about to lose the BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD.”
“…the nightmare that is our health care system.”
“…a health care system that is just trying to shove the patient out that door as fast as they can.” “Getting well in this country can almost kill you.”
Now if you didn’t know he was talking about the US’s healthcare system in advance you would probably think the first quote and the following three are about different countries.
Taking Glenn Beck’s words in earnest I’m left with the impression that the BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD is a nightmare system and when it’s not trying to kill you it’s trying to shove you out the door as fast as it can; which implies that Canada, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, etc. all have healthcare that is EVEN worse than that!
If that’s not hypocritical it’s at least ignorant (which isn’t much better).
Now with regard to
I guess you get more ratings if you just bash and snarl insted of saying "This doesn't make sense. Let's see if we can put it together in a way that does make sense."
Jon Stewart didn’t “bash and snarl.” What he did was call Beck out, and he did it with panache.
This is what I would call a snarl (to give Glenn credit the caller sounds like pretty uninformed)stardust |
Ah yes, the "Get off my phone" incident. Fortunately, Mr. Beck has the full video available in his internet resources and the incident is not taken out of context. Mr. Beck was imitating another radio personality as a joke, and the caller was in on it.
As for our health care system, it is broken, mostly by the insurance companies and all the laws they've managed to push through congress. However, as broken as it is, it is still based on capitalistic principles (i.e. you pay a doctor for his or her services; better services have higher demand because there is a lower supply, and as a result higher prices), which does make it the best health care system in the world.
thefishcometh |
Well, I find Glen Beck to be an idiot, but I am happy to live in a country where someone like him can publicly disagree with the current president and government (even disrespectfully) and not have to worry about getting shot. When you think about it, that's pretty cool. We've had relatively peaceful transitions of power from one party or individual to another since the Civil War, even in times of great crisis, and we still have remarkable freedom of expression. That's kind of awesome. As much as is wrong with this country, it's still a damn fine place to live.
Polevoi |
Ah yes, the "Get off my phone" incident. Fortunately, Mr. Beck has the full video available in his internet resources and the incident is not taken out of context. Mr. Beck was imitating another radio personality as a joke, and the caller was in on it.
I was not aware of that. That actually sounds pretty funny.
As for our health care system, it is broken, mostly by the insurance companies and all the laws they've managed to push through congress.
I agree wholeheartedly with you on that. We will never get any meaningful reform in this country as long as lobbyists continue to enjoy the symbiotic relationship they currently have with govt. and that includes Obama whose single biggest contributor was Goldman Sachs.
However, as broken as it is, it is still based on capitalistic principles (i.e. you pay a doctor for his or her services; better services have higher demand because there is a lower supply, and as a result higher prices), which does make it the best health care system in the world.
I've never experienced any other healthcare so I cant comment on this, however, if there is anyone reading this thread that can i would be interested in hearing their opinion.
Callous Jack |
And the sad thing, is about 30 posts up the thread he asked the Beck Bashers to present him with an intellectual discourse concerning their perspectives on the guy, and nobody stepped up.
What's the point? It's not as if anyone will change their mind. People are set in their political ways and no matter what facts are given them, they will spin it to suit their needs. It's why guys like Beck do so well as he preaches to a choir that love to see their anger/fear get some air time.
Aubrey the Malformed |
stardust wrote:However, as broken as it is, it is still based on capitalistic principles (i.e. you pay a doctor for his or her services; better services have higher demand because there is a lower supply, and as a result higher prices), which does make it the best health care system in the world.I've never experienced any other healthcare so I cant comment on this, however, if there is anyone reading this thread that can i would be interested in hearing their opinion.
There is a whole thread about this elsewhere. And apparently the Swiss healthcare system is the best in the world.