I get the feeling he's being facetious.

I know, it's Stephen Fry, WHY would I think he could be facetious? Even the concept is absurd.

He's not actually serious in this monologue, is he? He just comes across as an old man screaming "Get a haircut, you hippie!" before throwing some teenagers off his front lawn.

Dude, it's the 21st century. Social dancing in public has been a thing since my grandmother was a teenager back in the "roaring 20s." Only an idiot can't understand the idea of expressing your emotions with your body (rather than say a pen, paintbrush, or your voice). And Stephen Fry has never struck me as an idiot, so I'm not sure where this monologue is coming from.

I think I just found my wife her magic food.

You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. mushroom-kabobs, mushroom creole, mushroom gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple mushroom, lemon mushroom, coconut mushroom, pepper mushroom , mushroom soup, mushroom stew, mushroom salad, mushroom and potatoes, mushroom burger, mushroom sandwich. That- that's about it.

Money grubber trophy winner goes to Clinton.

Trump University a scam? Are not are real estae get rich with other money programs that?

I went to one of these Rich Dad , flipping houses for high profits meetings at the local hotel once. All they wanted to to sign you up for their 10 20 30 thousand courses in Florida. Their all scams. My wife wanted to do it and I said no. She later agreed a week or two later after the hype was out of her head.

The bigger scam is the Clinton foundation. Heck Just what is she promising other countries once she is President?

Yep Trump has a lot of failures, shit loads. But seems he never gives up pushing forward. He is not a failure but a success. I don't see any building or gulf course with the Warren or Clinton name on it.,

Trump victims are tens and thousands in debt. Well Under the leadership of Obama, Americans are 20 Trillion in debt. (Agreed Republicans were right there sucking on the government tit. ) Trump is a small fry in comparison to Obama shenanigans.

Climate change fraud -- what a sack of crap. no one really believes this shit, only stupid leftest.

The minimum wage should be repealed. It is a state issue and the laws of economics will dictate the amount.

Union Jobs - really -- What companies who are finical healthy have union jobs? Auto industry? Air line industry? Steel industry?


Why isn't this bitch running? She is clearly better at attacking that Hillary?

Vocal fry. It drives me nuts. I had to stop listening to [[a popular language podcast]] when it occurred to me that the host does it constantly.

@enoch, words are important. You should know as you seem to be unable to edit any of them out.

Briefly (because responding to your entire post would put us considerably closer to the entropic death of the universe) yes, I used to respect Frys opinions, now I don't. This is called changing your mind in light of new evidence.

Previously he was eloquent and compassionate, saving his ire for those deserving of it. Here he's just spiteful and grouchy, and his target is abuse victims??

As I said, even he realised how completely wrong he was.

But more importantly, you (and everyone else on this particular"anti-PC" bandwagon) seem to have confused criticism with censorship.

Go back and read my posts. Did I ever call for him to be censored? No, I responded to what he said and called it stupid. That is the essence of free speech.

I don't even fully disagree with him on a lot of his points. I don't really believe in "safe spaces" (I can understand the desire for them, but university is not an appropriate venue for them. I'm not keen on trigger warnings either, but OTOH, I haven't suffered that kind of trauma, so ultimately, I really don't think they do any harm, (although I would argue that a few seconds research should render many of them unnecessary). I would certainly never say that you can't study Titus Andronicus in class, but I don't see the harm in warning a rape survivor of the content either.

Basically, you and he are inventing boogeymen. There are a few instances of stupidity out there, but they are always there.

As I've said before, the "dangers of PC" are vastly outweighed by the dangers of people using the so-called dangers of PC as an excuse for racist, sexist bullshit. This is how it works. They get to say their shit and we get to call them on it.

@ChaosEngine

i do not see anyone here defending anything.

now maybe we can view stephen's commentary "dismissive and belittling" as @entr0py pointed out,but i think the deeper issue was prefaced quite succinctly by stephen in his characterization of american,and western societies,as being "infantilized".

where words have become the final bastion of totality in communication and are judged strictly on a word by word basis.so much so that some on the left have been pushing harder and harder to have certain words removed from our lexicon,because they represent negative thoughts/feelings/actions or they may represent a trauma,or horrific violent memory for some people.

but this is the wrong approach.
excising words will not erase those feelings/thoughts/emotions.this will just force people to come up or use different terminology to express those feelings/thoughts.actions that once had words to at least to attempt to express those horrors and/or offenses.

which will just equate to a whole new slew of verbiage being found offensive and in dire need of being castrated from our collective vocabulary.

yet the left (extreme left i grant) appears hell bent on not only attempting to control speech but to also judge those who DO use speech that they find offensive.

this is censorship with prejudice and to claim otherwise is the lie.

just look at your first comment.
you "used" to like stephen fry's opinion,until he became callous and dismissive with what?

words.

but do you REALLY think his attitude and compassion towards those who have suffered emotional trauma is truly dismissive?

well..i do not think so.i have spoken to you enough times to have a modicum of understandings in regards to you,as a person,that you have far more depth of character.

yet it is the WORDS that have hung you up.

look man,words are inert.they are things that are only given life,meaning and context when we add our own subjectivity to them.

words are inadequate.they will ALWAYS be inadequate.
which is why we admire and praise those of us who have a command of words that can reach into our own understandings and extract meaning in a way that blossoms like a spring flower and can create worlds in which we can play,and even share with other people.

i am intimately aware of this deficiency.i do not have an economy of words,and only on rare occasions can i relay,convey and express with ANY form of reductionism.

i struggle to express not only my opinion,but the intent,humanity and compassion of my opinion.

if the extreme left gets their way,the tools we have to express ourselves becomes lesser.

and in the process,WE become lesser.because the tools for dissent,debate,discussion and even..ironically..to expose the more venal and bigoted of our society,will have been reduced to words that offend nobody.

there is danger here,and no good will come from it.no matter if the intent sounds just and the goal compassionate.

freedom of speech is the right to speak freely.
to espouse our opinions,philosophy and yes,our bigotry and prejudice,with legal immunity,but NOT social impunity.

so while we have a right to free speech.
we do not have a right to not be offended,and maybe we need to be offended sometimes.to shake us from our own self-induced apathy and our adoration of digital hallucinations.

so when the westboro baptist church says the most hateful,vitriolic and disgusting admonishments,all in the name of god.
we can be offended by them,and then ridicule them relentlessly.

would stripping words from the english language prevent this group from espousing their own brand of hate?

of course not.they would just find new words.

so what do we do then?
make words illegal?
criminally libel?

so don't judge mr fry too harshly.
he is just pointing to the dangers of controlling speech and the new trend of the perpetually offended.

the extreme right attempts to control morality,and there is serious danger in that practice.
the extreme left attempts to control how we communicate,and hence how we interact,and there is great danger in that as well.

Ok Fry has at least had the decency to apologise for that stupid comment.

But keep defending it, the rest of you....

Oh no, really? I'm shattered...

Actually, the sad thing is that Frys opinion used to mean something, but this is just so fucking stupid.

Baseball caps?
Superhero movies?

Tell you what, Steve. I'll wear whatever the fuck I want and I'll take my movie going advice from someone who wasn't one of the worst parts of the awful Hobbit movies.

So if that means I (shock, horror) actually have sympathy for sexual abuse survivors, well, I guess I'll just have to learn to live with myself somehow.

Wow, that was awful. Fry has really gone down in my estimation after this.

The whole thing smacks of old man ranting... and as for the last comment about sexual abuse survivors? jesus, that was just unbelievably stupid

"Doing these things as a prelude to proselytizing means they aren't altruistic..."

Altruism isn't the right word. When people help others to their hurt, that is called agape love, a word the Christian community has owned for 2000 years. You're right of course, that more than a few churches out there are always trying to figure out how to get more members, more money etc. But that isn't all the churches, or even nearly so. For instance the churches in this community dont care who goes where; they all work together and no one is taking the credit for it. This is just one counter example to the broad brush strokes you're painting here.

I think you need a little more nuance here too, newtboy; for instance, would you say it is wrong for atheists to do good deeds in the name of atheism? Or, for the red cross to air commercials showing their accomplishments so they could raise more money to expand their mission in the world?

"And yet, here you are calling attention to yourself (and them), so you proved your statement wrong by stating it publicly. Oops! ;-)"

I didn't mention what I do newtboy, but I have no problem calling attention to the righteous who glorify God through their lives.

"Churches are for profit institutions.."

The church according to the bible is a non-profit organization. Whether churches in America reflect that or not is another question entirely. I know for my church, and almost any other church, you can request to see how the church spends its money year by year. None of the churches I have dealings with are making "profits"

"Once again I would ask, why do you question your god's clear wish that I (and others) not believe in him..."

Jesus Christ died for our sins, yours and mine. God already demonstrated His love for us while we were sinners, now the only question is, will you reciprocate? The insanity of the question posed to Stephan Fry, ie what would you say to God, is exposed by the answer "How dare you!" by Stephan. It seems that people believe God is a man who needs to explain Himself, who has something to hide. Yet, Stephan and every other human being have a lot to hide; the brutal and ugly truth of how we have all lived our lives here.

It's easy for a man to say to people who know nothing about him that he will shake his fist at God when they meet. Yet, what will he do when all of his lawless deeds are exposed and the secrets he has kept from everyone are brought to light? All the fight will go out of him immediately, this I guarantee you. Yet, this in itself is still ridiculous, considering that even merely being in Gods presence is enough to make the most hardened sinner fall to his knees and weep uncontrollably. But people won't be weeping because God loves them on that day, they will be weeping and gnashing their teeth after being confronted by the fact that they have missed the boat for eternity.

"Shirley.."

My name isn't Sherlock..

"Doing 100 good deeds and one incredibly evil deed makes one evil. No church in history has ever reached that level of goodness. Churches are evil. I hope that clears things up."

I'm glad you understand what I have been trying to explain to the sift for years; a relative goodness is no goodness at all. If you set fire to someones home, and then built 27 orphanages, would people call you good? Why is it then that people think that all of our good deeds should cause God to forgive us for a single sin? This is the reason Jesus died for us, because we can't earn Gods forgiveness and our good deeds can't erase our bad ones. Could you ever go to court and say "your honor, although I commited this crime I have done over 1000 hours of community service in my lifetime, so please dismiss the case; will that ever happen? That wouldn't be justice, and if God threw out our case without true justice, He wouldn't be a just judge.

What would I say about churches who have done evil? These are institutions; the true church is the body of Christ, of which every born again believer is a member of. That is what is happening in my community, is that no one cares about the institution of the church; they are just being the church. The reward is simply this, to serve God honorably by living a sacrificial life predicated on sacrificial love.

Even if the lamb has the best treatment in the world, to eat it, it has to be killed as an infant, it's only months old.

I'm not blaming anyone, I was just as oblivious as anyone else to all of this for most of my life, and that's why I like to point it out these days, and perhaps help someone just like the younger me to identify the inconsistencies in the thought (or lack of thought) process. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to see the beauty of a young deer and feel obligated to save her life one minute, and next minute eat something just as young and precious without even a single neuron firing about what had to happen to the lamb in order for it to end up on a plate.

People will stop for ducks crossing a round, and then go through a fried chicken drive through. People will spend 1/2 their lunch break admiring pictures of kittens, but eat a lamb or veal (and when you compare a lamb to a kitten they look very similar and just as cute).

If that younger me was reading this, I know I'd be getting angry and frustrated at this comment, ready to throw a barrage of counter arguments such as "lions eat animals". But that is only a good thing, that frustration, anger and annoyance is the logical side your brain fighting tradition and habit side. It's a good thing if it's causing you frustration, because it means you do have a logical side at least and even perhaps on a subconscious level the brain is trying to work out the inconsistencies


And of course sheep are very much victims of factory farming these day : http://www.animalsaustralia.org/media/press_releases.php?release=150

Those are really more like French Baked Potatoes. Fries are fried.

Mayo and mustard, mixed, on fries?!? BOOOOO.
If catsup or ketchup aren't your thing, try sour cream. Once you go creamy, potatoes are dreamy.

Awww poor kid. Too bad it's the circus and not the State Fair where they could probably get some deep fried breaded broccoli dipped in chocolate to ease the sting of lifelong disappointment for this tearful lad. *promote