while i agree that it is the extreme factions of the political spectrum that are almost fanatical in their self-righteousness.thinly veiled arguments like this video does not promote a healthy discourse.

i employ his tactic of "shut up" often.not due to a political disagreement but for the use of mis/disinformation.
i agree that limbaugh and hannity have a right to speak,as do ed schutlz among others, but they dont have a right to lie,smear or otherwise confound the truth to propagate an agenda paid for by their superiors.
this is the area where i become extremely incensed.
because they dont have to WIN the argument or debate by sticking to the facts.all they have to do is muddy the waters and make ordinary people say "well..maybe" and thats exactly what they do.
who can forget..
"if your not with us,you're with the terrorists"
"if you think abortion should be legal,you're a murderer of children"
it's called "rhetoric" and according to mr klavan its an exclusive tactic employed by the democrats.
they ALL use that tactic,and if you are not that versed in history,jingoism and political catch'phrases,you can easily get caught up in the manufactured hype.
they are not newsmen,journalists nor reporters.
they are shock jock entertainers and they bring nothing to the table of any substance besides divisiveness and false outrage.
they should all take a big helping of STFU.

*side note* andrew Klavan is a former jew turned born-again christian.he is an author(fantastic one btw) and not a political science teacher,nor a journalist(he failed at that job).
maybe he should?????

PUH - LEAZ.

His so-called 'conservative opposition' has nowadays reduced itself to endless nonsensical, openly unpatriotic hateful drivel - just look at all the Glenn Beck and Fox&Friends clips in recent months. And the ironic part in this (which this guy seems oblivious to) is that it was enabled by one of his culprits - the 'leftist' media, who unlike Fox News in their efforts at actually being "fair and balanced" started giving airtime to stupid, ignorant hacks for the sake of having a "balanced debate". You wouldn't entertain the idea of a moon-landing-hoaxer debating NASA in front of a televised audience, would you (3:13)? You wouldn't invite the KKK to a debate on racism, would you? Same principle applies to why Bill O'Reilly shouldn't have a show.

Also, can somebody please explain to me how in the world would net neutrality be used to shut someone up? This claim is beyond ridiculous, the whole concept is that of no censorship. Seems to me logic and common sense just joined journalism and political science on the list of things this guy fails at.

But then again, this is a guy who says there could (and should) be a movie that supports 'war on terror' and that Bush is Batman, among other things. Yyyeeeeeaaaaaaaaah.

I like your comment, enoch.

What I DO like about this video is his explanation of how political rhetoric works, but of course it's ridiculous for him to suggest that this is only a tactic of the left.

I have to say that nothing annoys me more than hearing my mother, after listening to Glen Back or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, regurgitating the one-sided half-truths of the extreme right media (I hate left media just as much). Like when I talked to her last week and she said that Barack Obama created a website that asked for the names and addresses of people who are spreading "lies" about the healthcare bill. I told her that this was very unlikely. She vehemently argued that she had been hearing about it on the news and that an expert was talking about it and that they gave the address over the radio so that you could check it out for yourself and so on and so forth. I asked her if she had gone to the website herself. Nope, of course not.

I don't like Obama. I think that he is going to be very bad for this country, but I don't think that he's an evil socialist bent on tyranny. That is what these guys are trying to tell my mother. They are trying to convince her that Obama is planning to silence anyone who opposes him. Yikes. My mom is a very cool, very smart lady, but too much of these idiots isn't good for the whole reasonable part of the brain that tells you to check the facts and take everything with a grain of salt. You CAN be conservative without liking Limbaugh and Hannity.

^ I'm glad to see that you realize the right uses this all the time. It's not the only rhetorical trick, either by the way. In this case the trick is to encourage the viewer to be dismissive of all arguments from the left, because supposedly all they ever say is intended to get you to "shut up" about "the truth", which is defined as being your preexisting conservative ideas.

He then tries to cover it by saying "listen only to who they don't want you to listen to" -- which sounds very open minded until you realize he's really saying "only listen to people on my side". If he wanted to try to explain the liberal point of view, he would've actually done so, and then encouraged you to listen more to people who you disagree with in order to get a more complete view of the world.

He also brings up the "Fairness Doctrine", and "Net Neutrality" as being intended to suppress dissent, which is a bald-faced lie. The Fairness Doctrine was originally intended to require radio stations dedicate a portion of their broadcast to discussion of controversial issues of public interest, and that they would air the contrasting views on that issue. Most liberals don't want it back, though we would like limits on how much of the media market is permitted to come under single-company ownership.

Net Neutrality on the other hand is entirely about avoiding censorship. As Larry Lessig puts it:

Net neutrality means simply that all like Internet content must be treated alike and move at the same speed over the network. The owners of the Internet's wires cannot discriminate. This is the simple but brilliant "end-to-end" design of the Internet that has made it such a powerful force for economic and social good.

Moving this video to thepinky's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

If you approve of universal health care, you're a "Socialist." Shut up!
If you don't agree with the War on Terror, you're "Unpatriotic." Shut up!

This is a witty take on what can now only thinly be thought of as political debate, and I'm relieved to see you're posting this knowing that it's a take that can be used both ways.
*upvote for critiquing unproductive political rhetoric and sparking actual thought.

this guy should really shut up

I have it at least a minute, and this video doesn't have anything interesting to say.