Bill Oreilly's Ridiculous

[username]

Re: Re: Re: Bill Oreilly's Ridiculous

That line of reasoning goes back a couple hundred years; it's called Pascal's Wager.

Well shucks, both you and aerocontrols had to point this out. Now I get to go run away embarrassed by my ignorance. LOL. For some reason I confuse/conflate Occam's razor with Pascal's Wager and the end result is I don't normally recall that the argument under discussion is, in fact, Pascal's Wager.

shucks.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Oreilly's Ridiculous

For some reason I confuse/conflate Occam's razor with Pascal's Wager and the end result is I don't normally recall that the argument under discussion is, in fact, Pascal's Wager.

The fun fact is that William of Occam, hearing of Pascal's Wager, accused Pascal of being intellectually dishonest, and threatened to cut him with his Razor. Fortunately for Pascal, old William tripped over Schroedinger's cat during his murderous rush, and Pascal was able to escape using Kant's Categorical Bicycle.




Things are more interesting in the monkey version of the history of philosophy.

 

[username]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Oreilly's Ridiculous

The fun fact is that William of Occam, hearing of Pascal's Wager, accused Pascal of being intellectually dishonest, and threatened to cut him with his Razor. Fortunately for Pascal, old William tripped over Schroedinger's cat during his murderous rush, and Pascal was able to escape using Kant's Categorical Bicycle.

LOL, now that's darn near brilliant!

 

[Bruce]

The really sad part is that of all the conservative radio hosts played here in St. Louis (i.e. Hannity, Dr. Laura, Savage, Beck, and Snow), O'Reilly is fairest of the bunch. For whatever that is worth.

That's precisely what I was going to say. He's usually pretty objective, except when he gets on his "Secularists are taking over the country and ruining it" tirade.

Beck has completely flipped. I can't stand him anymore. I flipped on the Eagle this morning just long enough to hear him make death threats to anyone who would date his daughter and do naughty things to her. I believe he then said something about how "truck drivers love this program and would drag you to Mexico and leave you in a prison with a cell mate that will do the same to you."

Nice, Glenn. I wonder why your wife left you.

Roadtoad, if you are listening, would you mind doing this to Glenn Beck?

 

[pgwenthold]

John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever pretends to believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life

This is very good. You should send it to OReilly.

 

[Upchurch]

One hour of O'Reilly, Hannity, Savage and (i wish i were a real doctor)Laura. It would be great because no one would get a word in edge-wise! It'd be like one hour of pure static....

I'd prefer only one hour of pure static rather than the 12-18 hours of near-pure static they play now.

 

[LW]

Re: Re: Re: Bill Oreilly's Ridiculous

Pascal, I believe, was living in a world where the choices he was aware of were primarily "Believe in the God of the Catholic Church" and "Disbelieve in the God of the Catholic Church".

There was the third option: "Believe in God of the Protestant Denominations and Emigrate to Some Country Where Protestants are not Persecuted."

 

[TragicMonkey]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill Oreilly's Ridiculous

There was the third option: "Believe in God of the Protestant Denominations and Emigrate to Some Country Where Protestants are not Persecuted."

To be fair, it should be pointed out that the countries that weren't persecuting Protestants were busy persecuting Catholics.

 

[New Ager]

Has conservative talk radio/television always been this bad?

It's only bad for liberals. For us conservatives, it's very good.

 

[Upchurch]

It's only bad for liberals. For us conservatives, it's very good.

Good in what way? The conservative shows we're referring to (Hannity, O'Reilly, et al) show a near-complete disregard for critical thought and a dependancy for argumentative fallacies. Not to mention, imho, pandering to the Religious Right.

Between the close ties to the RR and these guys, this is why I wouldn't count myself as modern Republican.

 

[Bruce]

Good in what way? The conservative shows we're referring to (Hannity, O'Reilly, et al) show a near-complete disregard for critical thought and a dependancy for argumentative fallacies.

But if they engaged in intelligent debate, they would lose 99% of their audience. I listen for entertainment purposes only. Most of the entertainment comes from the callers. You never know when one of them is going to flip out and how the host is going to react.

One of the most memorable was on Glen Beck during one of the Schiavo-capades.

Caller: Well, I can tell by her early photos that this was a vain woman. She was very pretty and I know that she wouldn't want to be seen the way she looks now. I mean look at her! She's hideous! We should pull the feeding tube to spare her the shame.
Glenn: ...................................................................I want you to promise me something........................I want you hang up the phone and promise me that you will NEVER CALL AGAIN!!!!!

 

[New Ager]

(Bruce)

Good in what way?

(New Ager)

Good that we get our conservative viewpoint out there.

(Bruce)

The conservative shows we're referring to (Hannity, O'Reilly, et al) show a near-complete disregard for critical thought and a dependancy for argumentative fallacies.

(New Ager)

First, O"Reilly isn't a conservative. He's an independent. I like him, but don't agree some of the time. It is interesting that liberals can't seem to stand him. For me, this just proves that liberals don't want fairness on the airwaves, they just basically want the media to cheat for them.

I never heard a peep out of liberals about fairness when it was only ABC, CBS, and NBC running all the news.

(Bruce)

Not to mention, imho, pandering to the Religious Right.

(New Ager)

Hannity agrees with religious values. So, what's wrong with that.

(Bruce)

Between the close ties to the RR and these guys, this is why I wouldn't count myself as modern Republican.

(New Ager)

So, what are you?

And please tell us a fairminded person to listen to on the radio or TV.

I'm guessing you're going to name a liberal.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

(New Ager)

First, O"Reilly isn't a conservative. He's an independent. I like him, but don't agree some of the time. It is interesting that liberals can't seem to stand him. For me, this just proves that liberals don't want fairness on the airwaves, they just basically want the media to cheat for them.

...snip...

Perhaps this is something to do with my lack of understanding some subtle points of USA politics but you said "Good that we get our conservative viewpoint out there." Now if he isn't a conservative why is his viewpoint a conservative viewpoint? Do you mean he is paid to express a conservative viewpoint but his owns views are quite different?

 

[Lurker]

First, O"Reilly isn't a conservative. He's an independent. I like him, but don't agree some of the time. It is interesting that liberals can't seem to stand him. For me, this just proves that liberals don't want fairness on the airwaves, they just basically want the media to cheat for them.

Hmm, he was a registered Republican until someone publicized it *then* he switched to Independent. I have made this offer before, but I would be willing to track his transcripts for a period of time, say two weeks. They are on FoxNews.com. And we could determine for each issue discussed whether he is taking the liberal or conservative side of things. If he is Independent we would expect to see a 50/50 split on the issues, roughly.

As mentioned, I made this offer before but thus far nor people who allege O'Reilly is Independent actually took me up on it. Hell, I'd put money on O'Reilly taking the conservative side 90% of the time.

I know O'Reilly takes a couple of liberal positions but they are few and far between. And even then, he waters them down. For example, he says he is against the death penalty. Just a few weeks ago he was ragging on a prosecutor down in Florida who was considering NOT pursuing the death penalty. I mean, it was a bit surreal that O'Reilly, an alleged death penalty opponent, was on a prosecutor's case cause he was considering a life sentence instead of death.

Lurker

 

[Cleon]

First, O"Reilly isn't a conservative. He's an independent.

You're kidding, right?

 

[Bruce]

(Bruce)

Good in what way?

(New Ager)

Good that we get our conservative viewpoint out there.

(Bruce)

The conservative shows we're referring to (Hannity, O'Reilly, et al) show a near-complete disregard for critical thought and a dependancy for argumentative fallacies.

(New Ager)

First, O"Reilly isn't a conservative. He's an independent. I like him, but don't agree some of the time. It is interesting that liberals can't seem to stand him. For me, this just proves that liberals don't want fairness on the airwaves, they just basically want the media to cheat for them.

I never heard a peep out of liberals about fairness when it was only ABC, CBS, and NBC running all the news.

(Bruce)

Not to mention, imho, pandering to the Religious Right.

(New Ager)

Hannity agrees with religious values. So, what's wrong with that.

(Bruce)

Between the close ties to the RR and these guys, this is why I wouldn't count myself as modern Republican.

(New Ager)

So, what are you?

And please tell us a fairminded person to listen to on the radio or TV.

I'm guessing you're going to name a liberal.

Hmmm. Replace all those Bruce's with Upchurch's and maybe he'll answer your questions.

 

[aerocontrols]

Perhaps this is something to do with my lack of understanding some subtle points of USA politics but you said "Good that we get our conservative viewpoint out there." Now if he isn't a conservative why is his viewpoint a conservative viewpoint? Do you mean he is paid to express a conservative viewpoint but his owns views are quite different?

It seems to me that what he's trying to say is that he likes the fact that the conservative viewpoint is broadcast (he said that in response to a post that wasn't specifically about O'Reilly, but was about talk radio in general) but that O'Reilly isn't a conservative. (In other words, with respect to Hannity, et. al., his position may be 'yay for the airing of the conservative viewpoint', but with respect to O'Reilly, his position seems to be 'I can't believe that liberals label everyone on the radio that they disagree with as a conservative, even this guy who clearly isn't.')

My apologies, New Ager, if I'm misrepresenting your view...

I think that O'Reilly is a conservative, but I suppose that's a subjective question. Plus, I used to watch him, but haven't done so in several years because I didn't like his style. From what I hear on this board, he may be a conservative, but what I hear on this board may suffer from selection bias. Perhaps he's a hyper-moderate like my roomate, having some extreme Right positions and some extreme Left positions that average out to a mushy "pox on everyone's house" ticked-off moderate.

First, O"Reilly isn't a conservative. He's an independent.

Either you mean to say that he's a moderate, in which case I would disagree but it's just a subjective judgement call, or you actually mean to say that he's an independent, in which case I would wonder why you think being an independent shows one isn't a conservative.

I'm conservative, and I'm registered independent. There are leftists registered as independents, too. Independent is a party registration, not an ideology and I don't think it correlates well with ideology except as a place mostly filled by the extreme Left and Right. I would wager that most moderates register with one or the other parties, rather than registering independent, which really has little elective value for most people. I suppose I could be wrong about that, though.

For the record, I'm registered independent because Republicans don't run in my district except nationally, and if I want to show my support for the more conservative candidate in a primary, I have to vote for the independent that's to the right of the Democratic candidate rather than the independent that's to the left of the Democratic candidate. It turns out, this was a dumb thing to do because I missed out on being able to vote in the Senate primary, and the independent slate in my district in 2004 was lame.

 

[Upchurch]

AT LAST!! My plan to be indiscernible from Bruce is finally starting to pay off!

First, O"Reilly isn't a conservative. He's an independent.

First, O'Reilly is a conservative. What he claims Independence from is being either a Republican or a Democrat. Whether or not he truly is independent is a matter of debate.

Hannity agrees with religious values. So, what's wrong with that.

There is no problem with Hannity (or anyone) having a religious point of view. What is a problem is passing off ideals that are antithetical to the original American philosophy as the original American philosophy. America is not a Christian nation. It was not based on Christian principles. It was a product of the Enlightenment. For Hannity or O'Reilly to claim otherwise is un-American (in the sense that it is not what America stands (stood?) for). It certainly isn't conservative in the sense of maintaining the core values of the past, but rather they are very selective in which values they want to "preserve".

So, what are you?

I honestly don't know. What is being passed off as "conservative" doesn't seem very conservative to me at all and everything else seems to be labeled "liberal" simply for not fitting the definition of "conservative", or not wanting to.

And please tell us a fairminded person to listen to on the radio or TV.

There aren't any, that I am aware. Humans being humans. If I had to choose one, it would be The Daily Show since they are honest about (read: "mock") everyone fairly equally. When was the last time you heard Hannity support an opponent of the President or his administration?

I'm guessing you're going to name a liberal.

Yeah, Jon Stewart is liberal, but it doesn't stop him (or rather, his writers) from being fair.


edited because I had inadvertently missed some comments:

It is interesting that liberals can't seem to stand him.

I don't know if I'm liberal or not, but my problem with him is not his political views but his inability to defend without the use of argumentative fallacies like strawmen and hasty generalizations.

For me, this just proves that liberals don't want fairness on the airwaves, they just basically want the media to cheat for them.

Speaking of hasty generalizations... The same could be said for anyone with a political position or axe to grind. Do you think this is a trait unique to liberals?

I never heard a peep out of liberals about fairness when it was only ABC, CBS, and NBC running all the news.

To be honest, I think media coverage has changed considerably since ABC, CBS, and NBC were the only news groups in town. The MTV-short-attention-span approach to news that was heralded by CNN was probably the beginning of the downfall of television journalism integrety. But that's just a guess.

 

[Bruce]

AT LAST!! My plan to be indiscernible from Bruce is finally starting to pay off!

Upchurch? That's apt to cause a bit of confusion around here. Mind if I call ya Bruce?

 

[thaiboxerken]

O'Reilly isn't conservative, and neither is Billy Graham.

My problem with O'Reilly is his absurd claims that secularization is evil and is the anti-thesis to freedom of religion. He couldn't be any more wrong. Secularization is the only way to garauntee freedom of religion. The ongoing struggle of the RR to make christianity the official religion of the USA is what would destroy freedom of religion.