Today is the first day of summer, marking the summer solstice for some New Agers and neo-pagans. From comments I’ve read today about the solstice, it appears to be a good day to poke fun at those beliefs systems.
In their defense (and in the defense of belief systems in general), it needs to be pointed out that everyone operates under some degree of belief. The less popular a belief, the more likely it will be ridiculed. Popular beliefs such as love and the certainty of tomorrow are rarely ridiculed–and they are less likely to be pointed out as being belief systems.
The majority of people believe in love and consider it an important part of their daily lives–atheists love their family and friends, too. There is no empirical evidence proving the existence of love; while physiological reactions to love can be measured, there are no instruments which can detect and measure “love rays.”
It would be next to impossible to function day-to-day without some trust or confidence in areas that are unknown. Tomorrow is a belief, too. I plan for tomorrow under the belief that I will be around tomorrow. Statistically speaking, I probably will be here tomorrow, but there is no absolute certainty and it is guaranteed some of us will not be here tomorrow.
I find no reason to fear or ridicule others’ beliefs. Beliefs in and of themselves poise no danger; many beliefs like love are important and beneficial. The fear of beliefs we don’t hold exists in part because once a belief becomes popular, it has the potential to become law.
The danger doesn’t reside with the belief; the problem is the ability to force beliefs on others.
Putting aside the subject matter and focusing on how an interview is conducted needs to be addressed. The aggressive style of interview towards people that represent unpopular views and brings higher ratings to the networks is annoying.
This is a difficult subject to write about because the people hardest to defend are the same ones most likely to get an on-air grilling. Pointing out the flaws in interviews often is misconstrued as endorsing the person or group being slammed.
There is an audience for giving those with unpopular beliefs an on-air grilling. The blogs show their support for this type of interview with comments along the lines of “Interviewer X slams the group I hate, so good job interviewer X! I’m surprised interviewer X did such a good job, because usually it’s just sucking up to that group.”
Included below are several other interviews which turn into debates and grilling of the guest. The last video on this list is an example of an interviewer keeping their cool while the person being interviewed is trying to stir a debate.
Regardless of the subject matter, I expect to be able to hear someone interviewed without interruptions, and not to hear a second question asked before the interviewee has finished answering. The point of doing an interview should be to gain insight into how the person being interviewed thinks, not solely how the interviewer thinks.
A test for any news journalist/television personality is doing an interview with someone who supports a view they personal find offensive. The test is to keep their cool, allow the person to answer and bring out the relevant facts.
Anderson Cooper failed the test and reminds me of a host of other bad interviews I’ve seen on cable news. Anderson Cooper has been added the list below in my mind.
Jeremy Glick vs Bill O’Reilly
Peter Schiff On The Ed Show
Shirley Phelps-Roper of Westboro Baptist Church on Fox News
Wolf Blitzer keeps his cool and focus while interviewing David Duke. While no journalist/television personality is capable of doing an interview as well as Mr. Spock, Blitzer comes fairly close to that level and may just have some Vulcan blood in him.
Since May is the official Zombie Awareness Month of the Zombie Research Society, I’d like to draw attention to political zombies. Political zombie is a description applied to quickly dismiss all opposing views.
The Zombie label is where the name of this website originates. I found it ironic that both Democrats and Republicans dismiss each other with the zombie label without any awareness they were each others’ mindless zombie.
Republicans accuse Democrats of being Obama Zombies-infected with the Obama Zombie Virus, while Democrats refer to Republicans as Zombie-Con’s who caught their infection from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, as with these examples.
Now, f-off and leave us alone with your faux-news propaganda. there are critical thinking people here, not mindless zombies like your faux news viewers and Rush Limbaugh listeners.
I don’t even think the mindless zombies who watch Olbermann’s show are dumb enough to believe that Olbermann and Snow were pen pals.
Each of these statements implies they would not watch the network or shows in question. If only mindless zombies watch network X, then the person making that statement either does not watch that network or is calling themselves a mindless zombie.
The irony is that people that feel the most comfortable labeling others as mindless, uneducated, ignorant, robots, brainwashed, and indoctrinated, are the most likely to boycott opposing views and opinions. They are completely unaware of the self imposed ignorance caused by only listening to views they agree with.
The true mindlessness is believing other people have been brainwashed and that makes their views irrelevant. Being able to vote in the political process makes all views relevant. Even if you think your neighbor is a complete idiot, they still get to vote and that makes even an idiot’s view relevant.
The choices are taking other views seriously and debating them vs. dismissing them as mindless zombies. Dismissing through name-calling does not change anyone’s mind; it makes those with opposing views angry and reinforces opposition to your views.
Roland Martin on AC360: Birther Backers are Stupid
COOPER: Roland, let me just play devil’s advocate — advocate here. What’s wrong with the state of Arizona saying, you know what? A presidential candidate should produce a birth certificate, and — and we have the right to demand that?
ROLAND MARTIN: Because they’re stupid. They’re stupid. OK?
Anderson Cooper started out playing the devil’s advocate, but did not pursue it very far, and I can see why. This is one of those polarizing issues that tends to be loaded with emotional responses, a “you are either with us, or against us” controversy.
Pointing out facts supporting either side’s arguments is asking simply asking for an unsavory label. Since I’ve yet to hear or read devil’s advocate points aimed at both sides in this debate, I’ll give it a shot.
COOPER: No person — no person, except a naturalized born citizen shall be eligible to the office of president. That’s from Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution. Now, flash forward — forward to today, only 58 percent of Americans — 58 percent of Americans in a recent poll said they believe President Obama was born in America.
It does not matter what anyone believes or disbelieves as to where Obama was born. The birth certificate that has been shown would be considered proof of citizenship in any court in the land. The legal fact is, Obama is a natural born citizen of the US.
COOPER: John, do you agree this is all about politics?
JOHN AVLON: Yes. It has become all about politics.
ROLAND MARTIN: Then he kept talking about, to demonstrate that he’s qualified. Well, what does that mean? As you so put it, did any of the 43 previous white guys have to demonstrate that they were qualified to be president? These are the games they’re playing. And, so, this simply feeds into this continuing notion that he’s not legitimate.
Chester A. Arthur -21st president of the United States- had to defend himself from the same type of accusations of being born in a foreign country. Barry Goldwater faced the issue when he ran for President, he was born in the Arizona territory three years before it became a state.
COOPER: It’s one thing for — for people to understandably be confused about it or have — formed some opinion. But it’s another thing for legislators to actually act on it and — and use taxpayer time and money to — to focus on this kind of stuff.
MARTIN: Right. And that’s why — I know, John, I know we want to be nice about it, but I’m sorry. If we keep putting out fact after fact after fact, and people don’t believe the facts, they’re stupid, John. That’s what we call them in the real world. Maybe it’s not nice or P.C. to call them that on television, but this is ridiculous.
AVLON: It is.
MARTIN: Think about it. This is a state — a house of representatives in a state saying, forget another state. Forget a Republican governor. Forget the — the head of the health department. Forget all of them. They’re all wrong. We want to see it ourselves. This is crazy.
It might save time and money to have this law on the books. With a dozen or so lawsuits, the courts have already spent plenty of taxpayer time and money on this issue. The polling mentioned only 58 percent of Americans believe President Obama was born in America, so the trend of court cases is likely to continue.
The motivations are political, but that doesn’t invalidate legal questions over checking eligibility prior to being put on the ballot. One of the birth lawsuits had some merit in that it did not challenge Obama specifically, and instead challenged all the candidates because none had their eligibility to hold the office checked.
One of the candidates on the same ballot with McCain and Obama, was Socialist Workers Party candidate Roger Calero. Roger Calero has never hidden that he was born in Nicaragua.
The Arizona law won’t be a problem for President Obama, because the same birth certificate that was shown before will be shown again. What the law will prevent is someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger
Megyn Kelly discusses Westboro Baptist Church with Bill O’Reilly
Kelly argues areas where O’Reilly has misrepresented the facts surrounding this case. O’Reilly accused Kelly of saying the case had no merit, while Kelly’s position was that it was going to be a closed case.
O’Reilly accused the other two judges in the case with concurring with Judge Shedd’s view that “reasonable people can debate the worthiness the appropriateness of Westboro position.” Kelly points out the other judges threw the case out for other reasons, and did not need to concur with Judge Shedd.
Kelly goes on to explain to O’Reilly that Judge Shedd has a point. “It may not have been intentional infliction of emotional distress, for this Westboro Baptist Church people to go outside of that funeral and protest, because to make that claim under the law you have to prove conduct that is extreme and outrageous, but extreme and outrageous don’t have the meaning that you and I understand them to have; legally it means something else.”
Latter on Kelly also points out that the Westboro protest was a thousand feet away from the funeral. For a moment, I thought Kelly was going to point out another area where O’Reilly has misrepresented this case, as the protesters didn’t disrupt the funeral.
O’Reilly states at the start of the clip:
As you may remember, these fanatics disrupted the funeral Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, twenty years old, killed in Iraq.
Evidently the Westboro group wasn’t very successful in disrupting the funeral in question. The father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder did not see t signs of the protesters until he saw them on television later that day.
Kelly points out this case has serious implications on free speech, which it has; but this case has also been a serious misrepresentation of the facts by O’Reilly.
Megyn Kelly discusses Westboro Baptist Church with Bill O’Reilly
Kelly argues areas where O’Reilly has misrepresented the facts surrounding this case. O’Reilly accused Kelly of saying the case had no merit, while Kelly’s position was that it was going to be a closed case.
O’Reilly accused the other two judges in the case with concurring with Judge Shedd’s view that “reasonable people can debate the worthiness the appropriateness of Westboro position.” Kelly points out the other judges threw the case out for other reasons, and did not need to concur with Judge Shedd.
Kelly goes on to explain to O’Reilly that Judge Shedd has a point. “It may not have been intentional infliction of emotional distress, for this Westboro Baptist Church people to go outside of that funeral and protest, because to make that claim under the law you have to prove conduct that is extreme and outrageous, but extreme and outrageous don’t have the meaning that you and I understand them to have; legally it means something else.”
Latter on Kelly also points out that the Westboro protest was a thousand feet away from the funeral. For a moment, I thought Kelly was going to point out another area where O’Reilly has misrepresented this case, as the protesters didn’t disrupt the funeral.
O’Reilly states at the start of the clip:
As you may remember, these fanatics disrupted the funeral Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, twenty years old, killed in Iraq.
Evidently the Westboro group wasn’t very successful in disrupting the funeral in question. The father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder did not see t signs of the protesters until he saw them on television later that day.
Kelly points out this case has serious implications on free speech, which it has; but this case has also been a serious misrepresentation of the facts by O’Reilly.
This is what happens when you show up at a tea party with a “no medicare” pledge?
This pledge to stop using governmental programs is very popular with big government advocates. Underneath, the argument is quite simple: if you don’t like governmental control in one area, you should forgo governmental control in all areas.
The main purpose behind the pledge is to label as “hypocrites” those who would halt the expansion or call for reducing the role of government. The implied argument is that if you think its wrong for the government to be in control of the items listed but do not abstain from using them, you can’t be taken seriously.
In essence, it’s asking people to act as though they live in a world that doesn’t exist. Government is involved with almost every aspect of our lives; it’s impossible to live government-free. The argument is tantamount to telling an environmentalist who complains about air quality to stop breathing.
Those calling for government to stop farm subsidies are not hypocrites for eating. An environmentalist calling for the elimination of fossil fuels isn’t a hypocrite each time they use a fossil fuel, because the fossil fuel free world does not exist. Calling for the reduction of government in a life dominated by government isn’t hypocritical, either.
The hypocrisy here is in ignoring how government has slowly taken away from people the ability to be self-reliant. The money for all the services government supplies comes from the people. A natural consequence of taking wealth from people is that they become dependent on the entity that now has control of their wealth.
The cruel nature of these attacks is especially clear when asking people to abstain from Social Security. Money taken from paychecks for Social Security throughout the years hinders individuals’ ability to save for their own retirement. These activists then have the nerve to call people hypocrites to accept some of their own money back from the Social Security system in order to survive.
These listed items in this pledge makes a very different point than intended: Government is too big–so big it’s clearly impossible to live without direct involvement in each of our lives.
Its obvious they were disturbing the peace by disrupting the funeral. They should have been arrested.
There is a problem with accusing the Westboro Baptist Church of disrupting the funeral. They didn’t disrupt the funeral, as 4th District which reversed the judgment pointed out.
The protest was confined to a public area under supervision and regulation of local law enforcement and did not disrupt the church service.
If the intent of the Westboro Baptist Church was to disrupt the funeral, they failed badly. Albert Snyder, the father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder who died in Iraq, did not see the signs of the protesters until he saw them on television later that day.
Reporting the church members disrupted the funeral is inaccurate. The lawsuit isn’t even about disrupting the funeral; the lawsuit alleges privacy invasion, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy. If the Westboro Baptist Church had disrupted the funeral, they probably would have been arrested.
I don’t know which category this misreporting falls under: defamation, libel or slander. I see a potential for news outlets to be sued by Westboro Baptist Church, for the very similar reasons they were being sued by Albert Snyder–intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The church could claim their image has been harmed, by news outlets falsely reporting they were engaged in an illegal activity. Westboro has ammunition to backup the claim because the court has stated they were not disrupting the funeral.
Bill O’Reilly has offered to pay the $16,000 court costs for Albert Snyder to the Westboro Baptist Church. This sad story has the potential to become even more shocking and depressing. If O’Reilly continues to misrepresent the facts, he might end up handing over even more money to the church.
This discussion of Glenn Beck from the Young Turks sums up so neatly the political divide between the left and right in America. It shows how the left and right have very different definitions of the following:
Rights
Where the middle ground is in America
History
Communism
Health Care
Facts
Oppression
Just as Americans and the British are separated by a common language, so are the left and right in America. If someone from the UK said “I like a fag when I’m pissed,” (i.e. “I like a cigarette when I’m drunk”), I wouldn’t assume they are crazy, because I know they have different meanings for the same words.
I’ve heard countless discussions just like this one, where one side refers to opposing views as making “no sense at all.” When people start with completely different definitions and make no attempt to understand other side’s definitions, it should come as no surprise that the other side sounds crazy.
I wonder if the universal translator on Star Trek would work for political speech?
In the Ad Agencinem fallacy – If an actor or model is used in a political ad, the political message itself is false by association. The underlying argument is if the everyday people in the photos aren’t people who’ve actually said they are against an issue, then there aren’t any everyday people opposed the issue.
If there was a disclosure requirement every time an actor or stock photo is used in advertising, then virtually every advertisement would require a disclaimer. As-seen-on-TV commercials would need an explanation that the anguished looks on the actors’ faces were put-on, just to make sure no one thought the people weren’t acting.
It is a given people in advertisements have been paid for the use of their likeness. Not pointing out that a person was paid to have their picture used in an ad is not a political deception.
Big Oil is using fake “Americans” to defend billions in tax subsidies. The American Petroleum Institute is running full-page ads in Politico and Roll Call that attack Congress for “new energy taxes”:
The target of this ad is the Obama administration’s effort to remove $36 billion in loopholes and subsidies for the oil industry. As it turns out, the “Americans” presented in the ad are stock photos from Getty Images:
As one commenter on ThinkProgress put it:
pakaal says: API used an ad agency to make an ad for them. The ad agency used stock photos, as all ad agencies do. There is nothing newsworthy in that, and anyone who has worked in an ad agency would agree.
The use of stock images is not anything new. Here is an article about the same stock photos being used multiple times for different companies. Washington Street Journal – When Marketers See Double
The ad from Key Bank portrayed a heart-warming family moment: a dad pointing out something on his laptop to his smiling young daughter as she leans over his shoulder. In fact, the scene may have been a little too charming. The same image appears in a recent marketing brochure — from Bank of America.
Both banks say they bought the image from a photo agency that deals in stock pictures, not realizing the other was making the same selection. “We try not to use the same images as other competitors … if it happened, it happened,” says Joan Peloso, marketing services director for Cleveland-based KeyCorp, the bank-based financial services company
No one can tell from a photo if the people are Americans. You can tell they represent what Americans look like. If the ad agency had drawn pictures of typical Americans, there wouldn’t be an issue. There is no misrepresentation in the ad, because those photos are what Americans look like.
For a real example of misrepresentation in advertising, all you need to do is look at this ad right next to the article on ThinkProgress.
Clicking on the I lost my stomach in 4 weeks ad takes you to an Acai Berry Diet page. The ad has “Julia from News 6” volunteering to go on the diet.
To get started, I volunteered to be the guinea pig. I applied for a bottle of the Acai Optimum. While there are ton’s of Acai berry ads online, Acai Optimum is one of the most credible and trustworthy suppliers on the market. It included the free* trial of the product and it did not try to fool me into agreeing to additional hidden offers.
The person pictured as “Julia from News 6”–as everyone on Fark knows–is actually Mélissa Theuriau, French journalist and news anchor.
In their defense (and in the defense of belief systems in general), it needs to be pointed out that everyone operates under some degree of belief. The less popular a belief, the more likely it will be ridiculed. Popular beliefs such as love and the certainty of tomorrow are rarely ridiculed–and they are less likely to be pointed out as being belief systems. 
