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Bill Maher Punks Jon Stewart Rally

cienaños

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This one, is a good one.

"There are no moderates, on the other side." - Bill Maher

If you have watched the Nov. 5th episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher," and you have a modicum of intelligence, your reply post will be taken seriously. Otherwise, you are wasting your time and more importantly, everyone else will be making fun of your dumb ass.

The question is,

"Had the Stewart/Colbert Hydra-Machine gone after and (justifiably and with evidence) demolished the glaringly retarded republican megaphone, might that have proven to be a better use of democratic energy?"
 
cienaños said:
This one, is a good one.

"There are no moderates, on the other side." - Bill Maher
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I don't agree with that, just more demonizing the other side

cienaños said:
If you have watched the Nov. 5th episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher," and you have a modicum of intelligence, your reply post will be taken seriously. Otherwise, you are wasting your time and more importantly, everyone else will be making fun of your dumb ass.
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Why, would everyone else be making fun of my dumb ass? I live in Australia and well we used to have Real Time with Bill Maher on the 'comedy' channel. Anywho you have a question just under this statement I can answer it, without watching the show.

cienaños said:
"Had the Stewart/Colbert Hydra-Machine gone after and (justifiably and with evidence) demolished the glaringly retarded republican megaphone, might that have proven to be a better use of democratic energy?"
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They should of since Rightwing media would of just made out that is what they were doing.
 
cienaños said:
"There are no moderates, on the other side." - Bill Maher
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Well, duh. The moderates are kind of between sides. He might as well have complained that seen from the side of blue there is no purple on the side of red.

If one understands things only in terms of "this side" and "the other side", one is of course not likely to notice the moderate opinions in between. That's only because to do so one must be at one of the extremes so that one sees everyone else as "the other side".
 
tyr_13 said:
Are you suggesting we take those people seriously? :confused:
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Of course not. Just suggesting that both sides a prone to ridiculous hyperbole in characterizing the other side, and then turning right around and saying "But we're not crazy, unlike them."
 
Brainster said:
And nobody ever accused Bush of being Hitler?
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I did not, I directly stated that I disapproved of the extraordinary renditions and enhanced interrogations, the black holes and shipping people to countries to be tortured.

I object to the Obama administration continuing many of these policies and not renouncing them.
 
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Brainster said:
Of course not. Just suggesting that both sides a prone to ridiculous hyperbole in characterizing the other side, and then turning right around and saying "But we're not crazy, unlike them."
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Maybe the solution is to look at the suggested policies rather than the hyperbole. One can object to hyperbole, and place it in context. Like Beck and the whole 'take back America' stuff, what is more important is the policy that is passed into law and adminstrative law.

The policy of the Bush tax cuts was passed with a twilight and that was how they pretended that the deficit was going to be better by 2015, but now all of a sudden it is not 'the policy as put in place by the Republican President and Congress' but the 'Obama administration raising taxes' that is touted by many opposing the twilight ( and not extremists).
 
The whole notion of "sides" on some one-dimensional left/right axis is a big part of what causes people to exhibit such in-group/out-group bias, demonization of the "opposing side" and gravitation toward meaningless rhetorical quibbles and personality attacks rather than a constructive practical attitude toward solving problems and recognizing our own mistakes.
 
varwoche said:
Maher's spot-on point is that left wing extremists exist on the fringe whereas right wing extremists populate the halls of power.
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Uhhh.... Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut have all enacted laws to protect doctors that treat a disease that doesn't exist. The attorney general of Connecticut was engaged in a which hunt not unlike the one that the attorney general of W. Va is engaging in.
 
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cienaños said:
No. This guy accuses Bush of War Crimes...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Taguba

This guy accuses Obama of being Hitler...

NO PICTURE NEEDED. Because you've seen it. Wake the funk up for the love. Please already.
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The difference being that Bush not only committed war crimes but gleefully confessed to doing so in writing and in his recent interview regarding his *cough* memoirs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/03/AR2010110308082.html

After WW II Japanese were executed for water-boarding.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/yes-inational-reviewi-we_b_191153.html

"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."

The folks at Politifact interviewed R. John Pritchard, the author of The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Complete Transcripts of the Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. They also interviewed Yuma Totani, history professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and consulted the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, which published a law review article entitled, "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts." Bottom line: Sen. McCain was right in 2007 and National Review Online is wrong today. America did execute Japanese war criminals for waterboarding.
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So accusing Bush of War Crimes is NOT the equivalent of calling Obama Hitler. One is factual, the other is not.

Q: Now that he's confessed to ordering War-Crimes, when do you think Bush will be tried, convicted, and executed? ;)

GB

EDIT: By the way, I do agree with general thrust of Maher's statement, hyperbole notwithstanding. And Varwoche and Skeptic Ginger make good points regarding False Equivalence.
 
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