What's your problem with Glenn Beck?

I don't hate Glenn Beck simply because he's a crackpot ... the world is littered with crackpots. Rather, I hate Glenn Beck because he is such a gifted communicator.
 
Penn Jillette thinks Glenn Beck is swell:


ANother reason why I am no longer a Penn fan. As long as you spout Libertarian dogma, Jillete will support you. Jillete is wrecking his creditbility as a skeptic with his support of Beck and other right wing wackos simply because he shares some of their anti Government sentiments.
 
Since I believe Beck is mostly a construct of his media company, imho there must be one or more large discrepancies between the real Beck, and the media Beck.

So? He has allowed himself to become a focal point for evil, which makes him evil.
 
Penn Jillette thinks Glenn Beck is swell:


He misses the point here entirely. The Beck letter-writing campaign wasn't about Beck, it was about Verizon. When you try to get an advertiser to pull out of a program because of something wrong that the host of said program said, you're doing it because you don't want to support a company that supports something you find offensive. And it's pretty clear that a lot more people use Verizon products and services in some way than watch Glenn Beck.
 
Jillete is wrecking his creditbility as a skeptic with his support of Beck and other right wing wackos simply because he shares some of their anti Government sentiments.


I don't like litmus tests for skeptics. Besides, politics and skepticism aren't the best bedfellows anyway, as personal value assessments are beyond the limits of skepticism.

It also doesn't surprise me to hear a skeptic who is critical of a government that often cannot backup its own claims ... that often chooses obfuscation over truth telling ... that often operates inefficiently ... with disproportionate outcomes in terms of representation and resources, etc.

I also think you are wrecking your own credibility by misspelling the word "credibility," especially when you had to blatantly disregard red-squiggly lines in the process :)
 
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I don't like litmus tests for skeptics. Besides, politics and skepticism aren't the best bedfellows anyway, as personal value assessments are beyond the limits of skepticism.

It also doesn't surprise me to hear a skeptic who is critical of a government that often cannot backup its own claims ... that often chooses obfuscation over truth telling ... that often operates inefficiently ... with disproportionate outcomes in terms of representation and resources, etc.

I also think you are wrecking your own credibility by misspelling the word "credibility," especially when you had to blatantly disregard red-squiggly lines in the process :)

With Penn it´s more of a case of somebody being so disgusted of the shortcomings of astrologers that he throws his lot with palmistry instead. In other words, yes, the government has its shortcomings, but blindly trusting a different system with its own, at least as severe, shortcoming is not the solution, and it is not skepticism either.
 
Same for Keith Olberman too. Equal time, ya know.

I disagree that Olbermann should be lumped in with Beck. Yes, he criticizes Beck on a nightly basis but that's because Beck only leaves himself open to be criticized by Olbermann and the rest of the real world!
 
I disagree that Olbermann should be lumped in with Beck. Yes, he criticizes Beck on a nightly basis but that's because Beck only leaves himself open to be criticized by Olbermann and the rest of the real world!

That and Olbermann doesn't make stuff up and present it as fact.
 

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