Every single thing about this pissed me off

[Derived Absurdity]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=357&v=_Cq0J_LSoIo[/youtube]

oh my god. I can't even handle these people anymore. I dare you people to watch fifteen seconds of this - any random snippet of fifteen seconds - and not want to punch your screen. I can't even comprehend how stupid these people are. This video is everything wrong in the world.

Billo spends the entire time screaming about how there's no racism in this country. Meanwhile, I literally just got done reading this report which came out YESTERDAY.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... prime-loan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Can someone blow up Fox News already please? Please? If there was a God there would be some natural biological limit on how stupid humans can get. There is clearly not.

[thesalmonofdoubt]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=357&v=_Cq0J_LSoIo[/youtube]

oh my god. I can't even handle these people anymore. I dare you people to watch fifteen seconds of this - any random snippet of fifteen seconds - and not want to punch your screen. I can't even comprehend how stupid these people are. This video is everything wrong in the world.

Billo spends the entire time screaming about how there's no racism in this country. Meanwhile, I literally just got done reading this report which came out YESTERDAY.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... prime-loan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Can someone blow up Fox News already please? Please? If there was a God there would be some natural biological limit on how stupid humans can get. There is clearly not.

Urgh - Bill is the absolute worst - it's not even so much that he holds these ridiculous views but that he absolutely shuts down every single opposing conversation that disagrees with him under the context of a discussion panel.. We have our own version of Bill here in the form of Andrew Bolt but even Bolt actually allows his opposition a voice on his show.

[Derived Absurdity]

yeah he sucks. But his views are far worse than his behavior.

[CashRules]

The only good thing Bill O'Reilly has done is produce a tv series about infamous outlaws and other "legendary" figures of the Old West and how Americans have the bad habit of idolizing people who were murdering psychopaths. I was actually surprised to see just how honest Bill was about several of his subjects, particularly George Armstrong Custer. I expected Bill's judgment to be clouded but he took a no nonsense approach in exposing Custer as a scoundrel and one of the most incompetent and evil military leaders in American history.

[thesalmonofdoubt]

yeah he sucks. But his views are far worse than his behavior.

Well - no argument there. My point tho was, his views are views held by, what I would imagine would be the large majority of the people that tune in to hear him .. if he actually gave his guests the opportunity to counter this without him just talking over the top or cutting them off completely, there would be at least one vector targeted at this audience where a rebuttal could be voiced and minds could be - if not changed, at the very least, educated.

But given he just uses his power as moderator to shut people down - his opinions go uncontested and that's a whole other level of wrong

[Dr_Liszt]

2 Minutes!

I'm ready to kill myself now. Or bomb Fox News. My cousin works for the Fox network.

[Derived Absurdity]

yeah he sucks. But his views are far worse than his behavior.

Well - no argument there. My point tho was, his views are views held by, what I would imagine would be the large majority of the people that tune in to hear him .. if he actually gave his guests the opportunity to counter this without him just talking over the top or cutting them off completely, there would be at least one vector targeted at this audience where a rebuttal could be voiced and minds could be - if not changed, at the very least, educated.

But given he just uses his power as moderator to shut people down - his opinions go uncontested and that's a whole other level of wrong

Yeah. But then he's just serving his audience. No one tunes in to these cable teevee opinion people to be educated. They tune in to hear their own opinions and prejudices magnified and reflected back at them by someone famous. So if Billo actually let other opinions in his audience would stop watching him.

[Derived Absurdity]

2 Minutes!

I'm ready to kill myself now. Or bomb Fox News. My cousin works for the Fox network.

Really? Tell him to punch Bill O'Reilly in the face.

[thesalmonofdoubt]

yeah he sucks. But his views are far worse than his behavior.

Well - no argument there. My point tho was, his views are views held by, what I would imagine would be the large majority of the people that tune in to hear him .. if he actually gave his guests the opportunity to counter this without him just talking over the top or cutting them off completely, there would be at least one vector targeted at this audience where a rebuttal could be voiced and minds could be - if not changed, at the very least, educated.

But given he just uses his power as moderator to shut people down - his opinions go uncontested and that's a whole other level of wrong

Yeah. But then he's just serving his audience. No one tunes in to these cable teevee opinion people to be educated. They tune in to hear their own opinions and prejudices magnified and reflected back at them by someone famous. So if Billo actually let other opinions in his audience would stop watching him.

Maybe - but it sounds a bit defeatist. The chap I mentioned here, Andrew Bolt is as right wing as we really get in the public space and so, draws in a majority right wing crowd to hear his opinions, but he still manages to hold actual debates that give voice to counter opinions - so you get people like me who tune in so I can hear the right wing argument and its counter so, if presented with that argument in real life I've got a better understanding of why its wrong or whatever, and I know a great many people who do the same sort of thing so - makes for better, more intelligent debates in the public space.. either way, I guess my point wasn't so much what the expectation is around his debating technique (such as it is) but that this shits me more than someone just being wrong minded given - people being wrong minded is common as bums and expected but active discourse is the best way to remedy that situation.

[Derived Absurdity]

True. There might be shows that allow fair debate between two political sides here. I don't really know. I can only think of Bill Maher, and I don't watch him because he's a scab. His audience doesn't tune in to watch debate anyway, they tune in to watch him pwn some Republicans. So I'm not sure he counts.

Jon Stewart is often credited here with allowing intelligent debate with an opposing side. I would argue that, but sure. But it's still true that most people don't tune in to these television opinion bloviators to hear nuanced discussion, they largely do it to hear their own biases affirmed.

[Gendo]

The very first 15 seconds contain nothing upsetting at all. Unless you count the simple realization that you're watching Bill O'Reilly upsetting.

[Derived Absurdity]

I do.

[phe_de]

Video is not working. Account was apparently deleted.

[BruceSmith78]

I'm not sure this lady could have provided intelligent counter points anyway. She was only slightly less wrong than Bill when Bill gave her a few seconds to stammer out a reply.

Asking him how many black friends he has, like that matters, and not jumping at the opportunity to say fuck yes, most Americans are racist, and fuck yes we still have institutionalized racism, reinforced by our government.

[Derived Absurdity]

Yes, she was sort of an idiot too. That's why this video is so infuriating, there were no good sides anywhere.

[phe_de]

I watched the whole video and did not punch my screen.
What pissed me off most was that people were constantly interrupting each other.

Most ironic was when Bill said to Kirsten that she was making rude noises during Monica's speech; and then he did just that (make noises when Kirsten talked).
And I am still not convinced that there was a point to this video. Racism exists, and people have a different perception of it? That's hardly news.

[Derived Absurdity]

I watched the whole video and did not punch my screen.

Wow, what a shock.