Moments when a piece of entertainment completely rocked you.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Sun Oct 31, 2010 8:29 am

The purpose of the rally wasn't to tell Fox news to shut up. It was to demonstrate that the United States isn't made up of the extremists that get air time.

Except that it kind of is. How are you supposed to rationally deal with people who refuse to even acknowledge that our president in American?

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Oct 31, 2010 8:50 am

When people like PZ say stuff like "But who, exactly, do Stewart and Colbert regard as the equivalent of Beck and Limbaugh on the left? Is it Rachel Maddow? Amy Goodman? Keith Olbermann?" they're interpreting the rally's purpose to be specifically anti-Fox.

But that wasn't what Stewart was going for (and you could tell by paying attention to the video clips during Formidable Opponent). Fox News is guilty of many of the grievances Stewart aired, so yeah - his message applies. But his message included others.

Moreover, his point wasn't just about the talking heads. It was also about airing extreme programing - giving airtime to the latest fundamentalist, or devoting time to the poison in your bottled water. I can't think of a media outlet that isn't guilty of that sort of constant sensationalism.

I'm not saying Fox wasn't a target - I'm saying Fox wasn't the target - and people who think that's what the rally was supposed to be about just completely and utterly missed the point.

Edit: The clips up on Comedy Central cover a little more than half of the rally. I really hope that the whole thing goes up somewhere.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Sun Oct 31, 2010 9:01 am

I have to agree with Maj. Fox wasn't the target at all.

Instead, Stewart is mocking people who keep trying to shut down civil discourse, in favor of simply demonizing your political opponents (i.e. Accusing everyone in Fox News of refusing to acknowledge Obama is American.)

Stewart even specifically said that one should distinguish between Tea Party people and real racists. That's a pretty clear dig at the extreme left-wing elements who do nothing but accuse the Tea Party of being a bunch of racist loons.

And really, Jon's entire career was built around this principle. When he went on Crossfire, he didn't go there to say "The right wing sucks!". He went there to say "Stop hurting America by allowing only the most sensationalist and extreme people from both sides of the political spectrum to dominate the discussion through stupid flame wars broadcast on national TV".

It's pretty clear that the reason why PZ is criticizing the rally isn't because what Stewart was doing was wrong. It's because PZ is one of the extreme voices that are trying to shut down civil political discourse in favor of mud-slinging.

And really, that's the nice thing about Stewart. It makes it easy for people to find out who are actual voices of moderation and sanity, and who are partisan hacks disguising themselves under the smoke screen of "being rational" and "just telling the truth".

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Oct 31, 2010 11:55 am

Maj wrote:When people like PZ say stuff like "But who, exactly, do Stewart and Colbert regard as the equivalent of Beck and Limbaugh on the left? Is it Rachel Maddow? Amy Goodman? Keith Olbermann?" they're interpreting the rally's purpose to be specifically anti-Fox.

No, I think that's exactly the point.

He can see it's not specifically anti Fox, but it's seriously like getting up on stage and saying "Hey all you child raping priests, and also all you assholes who keep being mean to the poor Catholics, both of you need to calm down."

It's not anti fox, and if it was anti fox, then it would be a needed thing that addresses one of the biggest problems.

Since instead it is criticizing fox for excessively lying to mislead the american public in ways that are incredibly divisive, and in the same breath criticizes CNN for running a story about how your water isn't very pure in sensationalist terms, it's creating a false equivalence between the shit that is really really terrible, and the stuff that is four thousandth on my list of things that are mildly annoying and aren't a big deal.

Glenn Beck is billions of times a bigger problem than anyone on CNN. And to criticize both in the same breath is, whether intentional or not, creating a false impression of equivalence that is just as bad as every time a CNN anchor hears from both sides of the Earth is flat vs Round wars and treats both people as equally sane.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Oct 31, 2010 12:44 pm

Who cares if it's falsely equivalent? Everyone should know that in the nation of the U.S. there is a significant proportion of people who will get all crybaby and defensive if you rightly point out that, no, there isn't a direct analog to Glenn Beck / Sean Hannity / Rush Limbaugh / Bill O' Reilly / Michelle Malkin / etc. on the left. Pointing this out instead of pretending that, well, maybe there's someone on the left as bad as someone who invented a violent lesbian rapist epidemic or told people not to go to churches that supported charity will just cause them to shut down and get a 'durka jobs!' response.

You all KNOW this, why are you hatin' on Stewart?

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Sun Oct 31, 2010 1:02 pm

Because by Stewart's logic, it doesn't matter what position you take. As long as you engage in retarded name-calling on national TV instead of civil discourse, you're a bad person.

And that's a totally cool position to take. That's why Stewart was hating on the left as much on the right. Because he knows that the problem isn't just Glenn Beck. It's the idiots on both sides who like starting flame wars for the sake of ratings.

Really, the only people whining over this rally are from the left, who want Stewart to be another liberal shill instead of the voice of reason on TV. Fox's coverage of the whole deal was pretty benign by comparison - they seem more interested in the upcoming elections.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 1:03 am

Kaelik wrote:Hey all you child raping priests, and also all you assholes who keep being mean to the poor Catholics, both of you need to calm down.

You didn't watch it, did you?

Stewart specifically mentioned this attitude. Specifically.

Jon Stewart in His Closing Speech wrote:The country's 24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the dangerous, unexpected flaming ants epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

There are terrorists, and racists, and Stalinists, and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned! You must have the resume! Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Party-ers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult--not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more.

The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker--and, perhaps, eczema. And yet... I feel good. Strangely, calmly, good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us, through a funhouse mirror--and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist, and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead, and an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin, and one eyeball.

So why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle, to a pumpkin-assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable--why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution, and homophobes who see no one's humanity but their own?

We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done. The truth is, we do! We work together to get things done every damned day! The only place we don't is here [in Washington DC] or on cable TV!

But Americans don't live here, or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done--not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done.

Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often something they do not want to do! But they do it. Impossible things, every day, that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make.

The more I reread PZ's article, and the more I read your defense of what the guy wrote, the more certain I am that he did not, in fact, watch the rally. He responded to other people's criticism and posted his blog article to get Google rankings before the real news came in.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 1:35 am

1) I can't speak to whether PZ watched the rally, but if you think he posted for the google rankings, you might want to stop smoking the Zinegata crack.

2) I'm confused, do you mean that Stewart is addressing that attitude in the sense that he is criticizing the attitude I was referring to? Or in that he is criticizing my attitude?

I honestly see neither of those two things in the speech you quoted, but if I had to pick one, it would be that he is criticizing my attitude by talking about how we can really all get along, and it's just those meanies who aren't willing to put aside their differences and work with child rapist defenders who are the problem as much as the child rapists.

I'm really not sure what you are saying here. He is clearly criticizing extremists and people who can't get together, and he does it in a way that leaves no room whatsoever for the people who can't get along with homophobes, child rapists, and other things that shouldn't be tolerated or got along with.

I'm not saying Stewart is a horrible person, just that it may be that he is ignorant of the types of people who cast any criticism of bad ideas as being extremist and needing to calm down and just let it go and try to make the homophobes so content that they'll voluntarily give up on shaming people into suicide then citing the suicide as grounds for continued shaming.

Whether or not Stewart's message is useful and helpful, or actually harmful depends on what sort of circles you usually have to deal with, and it just so happens that PZ deals every day with team "It's so divisive and badmeanwrong of you to say that the Pope should stop hiding child rapists."

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:04 am

I said he was posting for Google ranking? Really Kaelik, stop being a lying dick and a troll.

PZ and you are both morons. Because you both wanted Stewart to come down hard against the people you didn't like. Instead Stewart said "Let's all get along", which is basically the complete opposite of your dickwad behavior, and as far as I can tell, PZ's.

So really, stop being a hateful troll. You don't contribute anything society. You just bash people you don't like. Period. That makes you nothing more than an ass.

Which is why I'll just give you the finger and stop wasting my time with you in this issue. You're just trolling now because you're so pathetically anti-social this is apparently your only outlet for socialization.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:11 am

Maj wrote:You didn't watch it, did you?

Yeah, it's pretty clear that Kaelik's projecting what he wants, as opposed to what Stewart actually said.

And really, it seems the left is more pissed about the rally than the right (where the only person pissed off seems to Glenn Beck... because his rally had a mere 90K attendees, compared to an estimated 250K for Stewart.

).

See here for an interesting take on the whole thing:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44432.html

-----

Moreover, about Kaelik's insane equivalency of "Call for reason" with "Defending child molesting priests"...

Stewart's not defending "child-molesting priests". Like, at all. But since Kaelik is a bigot against Catholics he's just taking this opportunity to bash religious people again.

He's basically the extreme left-wing version of PR, except PR at least doesn't swear as much or resort to personal attacks. He just trolls very obviously.

So really, just ignore Kaelik's trolling. It's pretty obvious that he's starving for attention.

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:37 am

Jon Stewart in His Closing Speech wrote:We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done. The truth is, we do! We work together to get things done every damned day! The only place we don't is here [in Washington DC] or on cable TV!

The bolded part is why the whole Rally was basically wrong: PEOPLE VOTED THOSE POLITICIANS INTO WASHINGTON DC! You can make arguments as to why there are assholes in DC (the best one probably being that it takes a certain amount of sociopathy and narcissism to want to run for office), but at the end of the day there is no compromise between "I don't want civilians to own fully automatic firearms." and "I don't want government to interfere in the purchase of any firearm whatsoever." "Let's just ban assault rifles" is already the middle ground between "no guns" and "all guns" and saying "stop shouting and just compromise" is what got us in this mess in the first place because compromise to the "middle" favors whoever takes the most extreme position.

Bryan Lambert of YouAreDumb.net wrote:It sounds good, but it's based on a common fallacy - that the problem is the small number of ideologues on the fringes of either side, and that there's a vast middle ground of reasonable people with complex, nuanced political views who simply don't have the free time to have their voices heard. This is, frankly, bullshit.

I will not apologize for being ideological. I have certain ideas I think are logical enough to form a basis for public policy. I think ideas that are the opposite of mine are illogical and shouldn't be followed. And I'm not going to be happier by moving halfway to illogical, especially when that halfway point keeps moving farther and farther away from me and towards dangerously insane people.

I will not apologize for yelling. Or name-calling. Or being uncivil towards those with whom I strongly disagree. You know why? Because as nice as calm reason is, it doesn't work. We've tried calm reason for decades, and we still have a Delaware Senate candidate who doesn't believe in evolution, and IT'S NO BIG DEAL.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:43 am

Sashi wrote:Bryan Lambert:

I will not apologize for yelling. Or name-calling. Or being uncivil towards those with whom I strongly disagree. You know why? Because as nice as calm reason is, it doesn't work. We've tried calm reason for decades, and we still have a Delaware Senate candidate who doesn't believe in evolution, and IT'S NO BIG DEAL.

That's because Bryan Lambert is also an idiot who doesn't realize that while civil discourse doesn't work some of the time, name-calling never works at all.

So again, really, people aren't whining because Stewart is wrong. People are whining because Stewart had the temerity to say "Stop being a dick, even to the right-wingers".

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 3:01 am

Name calling totally works all the time. It doesn't work in debate club, where you're being judged on the soundness of your logic. But as long as your name calling isn't actually profane (e.g. "marxist" or "racist" instead of "asshole") you can push the proper emotional buttons, make irrational arguments, and totally get away with it to sway people who are doing things like voting.

Want to ruin a 10 year old's life? Start calling him "poophead" until every other 10 year old in his social group does too. He'll turn into a social outcast overnight.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 3:13 am

1) As point of fact, Jon Stewart gets along just fine with people who think that Salman Rushdie needs to be murdered.

But I'm sure Rushdie himself would be too extreme and polarizing and mean to be a guest.

Though this is almost certainly a simple mistake, it's the kind of thing I'm talking about, where defending the right oh Koumeni to call for someone's death is all nice and moderate and okay, but being someone called to death is all extremist. Being the subject of other peoples crazy rants doesn't make you a polarizing figure. It means you are in the right, and that other person, and anyone who supports them, should not be compromised with.

2) Name calling: [When I'm arguing with a creationist, I'm not trying to convince them it's true, they've already made it abundantly clear that evidence won't convince them. I am attempting to convince others who will hear the conversation. Being called an idiot is unlikely to change your mind. But pointing out that your opponent is an idiot can do a lot to make people understand what is really at issue here.]

EDIT: Going to take a brief moment out of ignoring Zinegata to demonstrate a point on his back.

Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a Catholic Priest raping a child. Right now, somewhere in the world, a Bishop is covering up a case of child rape, and encouraging people to not press charges on orders of the current Pope.

But when someone points that out, they are a Catholic bigot, and just have it out for the Catholic church.

There is a lot of shit wrong about that situation.

And of all the people, Child, Rapist, Bishop, Pope, Critic, and anti-Critic, there are only two people who aren't doing anything wrong. The Child and the Critic. The anti-Critic getting all butt hurt that someone would dare criticize the church and attacking anyone would even dare bring up the fact that the Pope is not blameless is not helping, he's not sane, and he's not moderate. He's an apologetic for rapists and rapists protectors.

We get it Zinegata, you are half Catholic, and so you want to whine and bitch about anyone attacking the Catholic Church, because it's mean.

People need to be mean to rapists. So shut the fuck up. Just shut up, crawl into a whole, and you can come out once every rapist and rape cover up and protector has been exposed and arrested. Until then, your "please don't criticize the church or point out any facts that make us look bad" attitude is a waste of everyone's time, and makes you an accomplice too.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 4:24 am

Kaelik wrote:I can't speak to whether PZ watched the rally, but if you think he posted for the google rankings, you might want to stop smoking the Zinegata crack.

What on earth does Zinegata have to do with anything?

What I said came from the fact that my husband gets paid to write blogs and articles using certain key words based on what's currently popular and searched for on Google, in order to bring up the rankings of whatever page he's writing for. PZ's column reads to me like some guy read a few pages about the rally, wrote about what he read, and posted it as fast as possible in order to get his page bumped by Google.

This feeling is especially reinforced by the claim to have had the rally on for most of the day in the background - when the rally only lasted a whopping three hours, one of which was devoted to music and crowd counting. Unless his day is less than six hours, or he DVRed it and replayed it over and over again in the background (which would be a point of legitimacy in his favor, so not mentioning it is weird), he's making stuff up.

Kaelik wrote:I honestly see neither of those two things in the speech you quoted, but if I had to pick one, it would be that he is criticizing my attitude by talking about how we can really all get along, and it's just those meanies who aren't willing to put aside their differences and work with child rapist defenders who are the problem as much as the child rapists.

He's saying that there are real problems out there that are getting lost in the constant barrage of bullshit. By calling attention to every little Rick Sanchez and Juan Williams, we fail to recognize the racists with the resume. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. And because there is so much polarization against everything, people are afraid of working together.

Essentially (to use your analogy)... Because some Catholic priests have raped little boys, you should have nothing to do with ALL Catholic priests - they're all rapists.

Sashi wrote:The bolded part is why the whole Rally was basically wrong: PEOPLE VOTED THOSE POLITICIANS INTO WASHINGTON DC!

What?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 4:55 am

Maj wrote:He's saying that there are real problems out there that are getting lost in the constant barrage of bullshit. By calling attention to every little Rick Sanchez and Juan Williams, we fail to recognize the racists with the resume. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. And because there is so much polarization against everything, people are afraid of working together.

Essentially (to use your analogy)... Because some Catholic priests have raped little boys, you should have nothing to do with ALL Catholic priests - they're all rapists.

Except that nobody is amplifying the things that actually matter, instead they concern troll people who do talk about it.

I would be happy to work with any Catholic Priest on finding and arresting child rapists. But see, they don't do that, instead they all lock arms and hide each other. Now, not all of them know about Rapes, but so far, 100% of Catholic Priests who have known about a rape have protected the rapist. They do this because it's the orders from on high.

So right as soon as Catholic Priests stop blaming Catholic Priests raping children on atheists and hiding the perpetrators, I'll start working with them.

This is my point. I criticize the Catholic Church for having a policy of protecting child rapists, and the response is "you are being unfair to the poor catholics." And this happens every single time anyone criticizes the church on this issue and points out it might be a bigger problem then a few strays, since the current pope officially ordered church bishops to keep quiet and slip everything under the rug under his official authority as a Cardinal (and head of church internal affairs, or whatever it's called).

But instead, I'm wrong to criticize the whole church, because we should compromise with rapist protectors on who we do and don't arrest for rape and obstruction of justice.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 5:25 am

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (again): Gurren Lagann integrating an enemy flying gunman out of nowhere.

EDIT: really, the linking abilities of the gunmen is just awesome.

And I just found out that Fire Lord Ozai was voiced by Mark Hamill, this is fucking awesome.

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 6:04 am

Maj wrote:
Sashi wrote:The bolded part is why the whole Rally was basically wrong: PEOPLE VOTED THOSE POLITICIANS INTO WASHINGTON DC!
What?

The politicians who Jon says are shouting assholes are also the people who US citizens vote to reinstate every 2/6 years.

This year, it's predicted that Republicans will pick up 8 senate seats. This is being spun as a massive win and an enormous showing of lack of voter satisfaction with the status guo.

But here's the thing: That 8 seats is out of THIRTY FIVE. That's a 78% incumbency rate. If you just look at Democrat seats changing hands it's a predicted 52% incumbency rate. That means the predicted massive dissatisfaction with the current government is kinda the majority, maybe, within the statistical margin of error.

When you get down to it, Democrats can be moderate and compromise with other Democrats, and Republicans can be moderate and compromise with other Republicans. At the end of the day, the way I coexist with coworkers who's politics I disagree with is by not talking about it, not by reaching some magical compromise between "public option" and "no public option" that can't exist. And even if we did reach a compromise, I'm going to vote for a Racist Fascist, and he's going to vote for the Crazy Marxist, because the positions each candidate holds are by design impossible to reconcile.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 6:24 am

Kaelik wrote:Except that nobody is amplifying the things that actually matter

You're starting to get it. It's not that people don't report on that stuff. It's that those stories get lost. Things that actually matter are in the news - but they're hidden by other things that don't matter.

It's essentially a raising of the mediocre at the expense of the true extremes.

And here you go: The story of Mother Mary MacKillop {OK, Australia, Saint, Whistleblower}.

Sashi wrote:The politicians who Jon says are shouting assholes are also the people who US citizens vote to reinstate every 2/6 years.

Yes. Americans so vote the person with the worst behavior into office. Deliberately.

Sashi wrote:This year, it's predicted that Republicans will pick up 8 senate seats. This is being spun as a massive win

It's massive in that the Dems lose their supermajority.

Sashi wrote:When you get down to it, Democrats can be moderate and compromise with other Democrats, and Republicans can be moderate and compromise with other Republicans.

The problem is that if you propose a [liberal] bill that's about welfare, but you put a Republic stamp on it, the Republicans are way more likely to go for it. If you take a bill about [conservative] fiscal responsibility and put a Democrat stamp on it, the Democrats are more likely to vote for it - because of the damned stamp, not the issue being proposed.

That's a problem. And it's not what we vote for.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 7:46 am

Sashi wrote:Name calling totally works all the time. It doesn't work in debate club, where you're being judged on the soundness of your logic. But as long as your name calling isn't actually profane (e.g. "marxist" or "racist" instead of "asshole") you can push the proper emotional buttons, make irrational arguments, and totally get away with it to sway people who are doing things like voting.

Want to ruin a 10 year old's life? Start calling him "poophead" until every other 10 year old in his social group does too. He'll turn into a social outcast overnight.

Yes. It works all the time to mess up people lives instead of helping them.

But Stewart isn't talking about messing up people's lives. At all.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 8:03 am

Again, Kaelik's just using smokescreens and bullshit to push his bigotry. Really, it's a waste of time to argue with him, but he makes such a lovely example of the kind of BS Stewart was railing against.

For instance...

Kaelik wrote:1) As point of fact, Jon Stewart gets along just fine with people who think that Salman Rushdie needs to be murdered.

But I'm sure Rushdie himself would be too extreme and polarizing and mean to be a guest.

A guy who was accused (not proven) to back the fatwah against Salman Rushdie shows up at Stewart's rally - which is open to everyone.

And yet Kaelik's conclusion is that Stewart intentionally hangs out with people who support murder.

So really, Kaelik's lying. Again. Because he doesn't like Stewart saying people should be civil.

2) Name calling: [When I'm arguing with a creationist, I'm not trying to convince them it's true, they've already made it abundantly clear that evidence won't convince them. I am attempting to convince others who will hear the conversation. Being called an idiot is unlikely to change your mind. But pointing out that your opponent is an idiot can do a lot to make people understand what is really at issue here.]

And here goes Kaelik again justifying his own douchebaggery.

Name-calling doesn't convince anyone. The Den has been calling people names for years. And it has just caused the Den to become a smaller community that is generally ignored by the rest of the RPG world as a bunch of angry bad-mouth nerds.

That's the real effect of name-calling: It causes most people to classify you as a dick and ignore you.

Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a Catholic Priest raping a child.

And here Kaelik wants to strike a "conversation" with me. Sorry, Kaelik, but I'm past trying to talk to you.

First of all, just about everybody in the Den is against kids getting raped. Everybody. So Kaelik is a lying shit when he implies people are protecting these evil priests.

The truth is, the only person who wants to see kids raped by Catholic kids is Kaelik.

Kaelik doesn't give a shit about the rape victims. He just wants to bash Catholics. Because he knows it will get people pissed off and so people will talk to him. And having Catholic priests rape kids is great ammo for him.

Kaelik may claim that he's on a crusade to "bring this issue to light". But really, he's whining about it in a gaming board. Who's he reaching? Who's he convincing? Nobody of importance. That's who.

That makes him more than just a douchebag. That makes him an exploitative douchebag who's using rape victims as talking point against anyone who he disagrees with.

So really, it's best to ignore Kaelik's trolling. It's worse than PR's.

And this is precisely what Stewart is talking about. The topic of the day is "Stewart calls on people to stop being dicks to each other". And yet Kaelik somehow made the issue "Catholic priests rape kids!"

So when Stewart said there are people who take an extra effort to hate, you know he's referring to guys like Kaelik. Don't be like him.

Jilocasin · Post by **Jilocasin** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 8:33 am

Ugh, anyway.

Not new, but I just came across it. Johnny Cash singing Hurt.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 8:38 am

Jilocasin wrote:Not new, but I just came across it. Johnny Cash singing Hurt.

I hadn't seen it either. Damn.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 1:08 pm

Maj wrote:You're starting to get it. It's not that people don't report on that stuff. It's that those stories get lost. Things that actually matter are in the news - but they're hidden by other things that don't matter.

No, the problem is not that the real problems are drowned in a see of mediocre bullshit, or at least, that's only one problem.

The problem is that whenever someone uncompromising fights against one of the really bad things, people get together to gang up and whine about how they shouldn't do that.

If you actually care about an important issue, it's not that you can't get air time, it's that every two bit hack who wants to criticize you can get air time, and that's a problem with Jon Stewart as much as it is with anyone else.

Spoilered for being a waste of everyone's time:

Zinegata wrote:A guy who was accused (not proven) to back the fatwah against Salman Rushdie shows up at Stewart's rally - which is open to everyone.

1) Yeah, we only have explicit audio and video of the guy saying it. Maybe he just has a fucking twin.

Or you know, not.

2) He didn't show up at the rally that was open to everyone. He was a musical fucking guest. He was explicitly invited and asked to perform on stage, and may have even been paid.

Zinegata wrote:Name-calling doesn't convince anyone. The Den has been calling people names for years. And it has just caused the Den to become a smaller community that is generally ignored by the rest of the RPG world as a bunch of angry bad-mouth nerds.

Zinegata wrote:The truth is, the only person who wants to see kids raped by Catholic kids is Kaelik.

If it's so ineffective, why do you use nothing but it? Oh right, because your explicit stated goal is to sabotage TGD as much as you can.

Protip: Saying that something is bad because the Den does it isn't actually a good tactic on the Den.

By the way, this place is full of people who actually did have their mind changed precisely by being called names. But don't let mere facts get in the way of you pursuing your personal vendetta against me.

Zinegata wrote:And here Kaelik wants to strike a "conversation" with me. Sorry, Kaelik, but I'm past trying to talk to you.

No, I wanted to make a point at your expense, something you helped me do quite nicely, since you perfectly demonstrated how irrational defense of the Catholic Church involves calling anyone who points out facts you don't like a Rapist supporter actually defends rapists against having to deal with accusations.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Nov 01, 2010 1:32 pm

Sashi wrote:
The bolded part is why the whole Rally was basically wrong: PEOPLE VOTED THOSE POLITICIANS INTO WASHINGTON DC! You can make arguments as to why there are assholes in DC (the best one probably being that it takes a certain amount of sociopathy and narcissism to want to run for office), but at the end of the day there is no compromise between "I don't want civilians to own fully automatic firearms." and "I don't want government to interfere in the purchase of any firearm whatsoever."

The real problems are

A) the entrenched gerrymandering in the US political system

B) Lack of proportional representation in the upper house

C) Lack of preferential voting in the lower house

D) Lack of compulsory voting

Seriously, most people in the US don't vote, and of those that do, most of them will have votes that are completely irrelevant due to gerrymandering and majority voting systems.

Switching to a system where each State got a number of senators equal to it's electoral voters (or whatever the fuck) that where proportionally voted for would get minor parties up in the upper house, and setting the gerrymandering ON FUCKING FIRE and fixing the voting in the lower house would just make things better.

Compulsory voting is important for electoral reforms - it's much easier to have a strong electoral commission when you have compulsory voting.