Complete and utter delusion.. quite entertaining to listen to Huckabee spew on and on about fairy tales.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'mike, huckabee, bill, maher, faith, church, god, religion, christian, muslim' to 'mike huckabee, bill maher, faith, church, god, religulous, christian, muslim' - edited by xxovercastxx

@Fade: Actually, most fundie nutjobs won't calmly listen, or if they do, they'll then proceed to tell you that you're absolutely wrong. Huckabee at least appears to respect Maher's stance, even though his faith appears to be a rather blind one (as with the, "I think it's good for people to question," followed by, "Of course I don't question!").

If what we've seen here is your definition of a fundie nutjob, you have been living a blissfully sheltered life. He may be fundamentalist, but he's a rationalist compared to quite a few people I know personally.

It's so weird when people defend religion by arguing the usefulness of it. How is that a coherent argument at all?

This is what I heard:

Maher: "There is no reason to believe Santa Claus exists."

Huckabee: "But he brings joy to many people's hearts, and causes people to strive to be on his good list!"

AKA, appealing to the consequence:
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/appealtoconsequences.html

Genuinely interested in dialogue? Rubbish. He's about as interested in dialogue as any fundie nutjob. They'll calmly listen to what you have to say and then blithely ignore it and continue to delude themselves.
There's a beautiful moment that starts about 8 minutes into this where Maher realises just how badly deluded Huckabee is and just has to laugh and say "wow"

I quite like that Huckabee was genuinely interested in dialogue, and he didn't seem to have the pride in ignorance that Palin seems to have sometimes.

See, right there...that's delusion in action.

Mike Huckabee, you sir, are delusional. Somebody stick him in a straight jacket and drag him off the tele-box.

>> ^blankfist:
You tire me out, NetRunner. I cannot imagine even trying to honor your ridiulous claims. Obama and McCain are terrible choices, so I refuse to argue that one should act one way or another because it's befitting of their party to gain a win. That's what you do. Not me.


>> ^blankfist:
Actually, rereading that comment it sounds harsh. When I say you tire me out, I don't mean I tire of our debates. I actually do enjoy debating you, NR. In fact, our PM debates have been some of the most fun I've had on here. You're a great debater and passionate about your party's politics. So, there. I said something nice. Don't tell anyone.


Schizophrenia gets you everywhere. A big Fuck You and a big kiss for you.

My evil plans to help protect voter's rights are too late: the Ohio SCOTUS just did that for me.

To try to pander to your lunatic 3rd party aspirations, I'll repeat some advice I've given previously: if another 3rd party or party outcast (like Paul or Kucinich) gets a money bomb like Paul did, they need to take that money and try to run a campaign that includes TV ads, on-the-ground organization, and a TV-media-interview strategy for having them legitimize you.

Part of why Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004 is because they were up against people who knew how to manipulate the media narrative to their benefit, and the Democrats didn't think that was something they either could or should do (I'm not sure which).

Times have changed. I think the Campaign for Liberty is a possible sign that Paul is realizing that too, I'll be sure if he starts working on getting a libertarian AM radio talk show running.

I also think 3rd parties should try to win some seats in the House, rather than taking futile cracks at the Presidency.

I guess the cynical lesson that's finally been driven into me through this process is that too few people care enough, or are educated enough to even have a glimpse of what policies might be beneficial or harmful -- they mostly go based on the beliefs reinforced by the media they consume.

I know you're a true believer in conservative/libertarian philosophy, but how many people out there voting for Republicans really know what that even is? Joe the Plumber^TM sure as shit doesn't. I don't even think Caribou Barbie Sarah Palin does either, and if she does she probably learned it at an Alaska Independence Party meeting.

You guys need another William F. Buckley, who's smart, and charming, and entertaining, who gets on TV and puts the right face on your philosophy. Until that happens, 3rd parties are just going to be a curiosity.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the Republican party as we've known it is about to get shattered. Lots of people are going to be looking at how to reassemble it for 2012. Now might be a good time to get organized to be ready, and get that party back to its roots. I hope Ron Paul wins, but if I had to guess right now we'll be seeing the Mike Huckabee party rise in 2012, and that won't bear any resemblance to a paleo-conservative party at all.

^ Easy to fix if more people paid attention. It's not as if they disinvited Paul from every debate (though they did once he flopped in the Iowa caucus).

I think Paul also failed to use his campaign funds properly. Did he hire a campaign strategist? Did he flood the airwaves in Iowa? Had he been making appearances there nonstop for the 6 months beforehand?

If he'd won the Iowa caucus, he'd have been taken seriously by the media -- no laughing him off would be possible then. Heck, even a 2nd place finish would've kept him in the media spotlight.

I think the traditional right-wing noise machine would've ripped him apart because he's not part of their pro-corporation, anti-citizen agenda, like they did with Huckabee and McCain. Doesn't seem to have worked on McCain, unfortunately.

I also think you're overestimating the Republican base's committment to real conservative philosophy. I think most of the base thinks it's all about babies, guns, and jesus, and talking in simple, absolute terms. Small government just means tax cuts -- domestic wiretapping is okay. Refusing to testify before Congress is a sign of strength, and they want a strong leader.

In short, I think there's a better case for the CFR theory if you follow the campaign of John Edwards, rather than Ron Paul.

He beat Hillary for 2nd spot in Iowa, but the media completely ignored him, and his numbers fell sharply after that.

Back to the economics, I'm in agreement with Paul about the need for the losers in charge of these companies, and their shareholders to pay a price for the failures they've wrought. I'm thinking he's painting too rosy a picture about what would happen if the companies outright failed, though. I'm pretty sure in the short term that would be seriously ugly, though in the long term (decade-scale) it'd probably make the recovery faster.

Question is, do you want a sharp, short downturn that makes people lose their homes, or a longer, wider one where people can keep them, but are just moderately worse off for a longer period of time?

There's probably more area under the 2nd curve, but isn't there a case to be made that it's better for people to have the shallower, broader downturn?

"Tell me again why he isn't the Republican presidential candidate?"

Because the media is pwnd by the CFR and they were told to suppress positive coverage of Mr. Paul and lie about the polling stats. If you look at the Fox news front page (the most blatant of the violators) you'll see they have a poll listing that has not changed in many months that shows Ron Paul at 6.5% with Huckabee and McCain leading with much higher percentage points. However whenever they would run polls that they couldn't falsify so quickly they would show Ron Paul in the lead EVERY time.

MSNBC would suppress any talk about Ron Paul. Olbermann would rarely ever mention him (often choosing to cover Paris Hilton instead (at the time)). In fact I would watch him each day hoping he'd talk about Ron Paul, Kucinich and Gravel but he never did. CNN rarely would speak of him at the time choosing instead to focus on Hillary/Obama/Edwards and Giuliani/McCain/Huckabee.

Basically.. they would only focus on the candidates that are in the pocket of the CFR. There are vids out there that will show statistics of the media coverage of the debates on the Republican and on the Democratic sides.

They did the same thing to Kucinich and Gravel too. We've been once again force-fed CFR candidates with catchy slogans and bad policies because my friend.. the game is rigged.

Fun fact for Mr. Huckabee: wars are a last resort because they're inherently destructive.

Those looking for the source of prosperity (desks) might do better to consider that "Science and technology have been responsible for half of the growth of the American economy since WWII." (Source: Obama's science policy (see heading "innovation"))

>> ^HadouKen24:
>> ^fizziks:
I agree that the joke was poorly crafted and could have been phrased in a way that didn't open Maher to misinterpretation, but the truth behind his message is more important in my view: Palin is a gimmick VP pick.

Not actually true. It might seem like it from a quick survey of her biographical details on paper, but she's actually been under serious consideration for the VP spot for months.

I appreciate your thoughtful reply however I still disagree. You bring up valid points as to why Palin may bring McCain some votes, but by 'gimmick' I didn't mean ineffective at bringing votes. She may have been McCain's best option, but that doesn't mean she's not a gimmick either. In fact, she could have been the best choice BECAUSE she was a gimmick. He had many qualified candidates (including another women) who had more experience, yet he went with the new kid on the block. Why? Gimmick power!

The fact remains that despite some good short term work in Alaska, she lacks experience in pretty much EVERY area a VP (and potential President should the worst happen to McCain) requires to be effective.

Furthermore, just because Palin was under consideration for many months doesn't make her selection any less of a gimmick. At best it makes her a well contemplated gimmick.

I understand you're not endorsing her (or McCain, or anyone), but to me, McCain is being a big hypocrite by simultaneously criticizing Obama over "lack of experience" and then turning around and picking a VP who is the least qualified of anyone.

It's a blatant attempt at trying to bring a younger, "change-esk" image to the Frankenstein-Robot-Dance-Party that is the McCain campaign, and hence my belief she is a gimmick. Palin shamelessly went for the Hillary vote which should offend Hillary supporters as Palin is further from Hillary than McCain. She even contradicts some of McCain's viewpoints!!

She is a pretty face that McCain is using as a trojan horse to inject energy and interest in his campaign. And it's working, look at all the attention he has received simply by PICKING her. Obviously McCain is hoping she will help him get into the good books of those studying "the good book" without raising as much of a stink as some of the other choices would have. In many ways, McCain took Huckabee, gave him an awesome sex change operation, a pretty face, erased his job experience, and danced him-her out on stage as the VP.

She ran on a clean government ticket, and she's worked hard to excise corruption from the Alaskan government, even up to firing entire boards and replacing them with new members.

It should be pointed out that many of her decisions to fire government employees have also been criticized as being unfair. There are many sides to these stories.

At the end of the day however, I don't think we actually disagree on that much. You point out good reasons McCain asked her to join the ticket, and I agree with most of them. However, I don't think those reasons contradict the fact that she is a gimmick.

@dft, I did my armchair pundit thing over here.

>> ^hueco_tanks:
The right wing talking heads are suggesting straight-faced that Palin's 21-month governorship in Alaska and 2-terms as mayor of Wasilla (not to mention her time on the PTA) compares favorably to Obama's preparation to lead the free world. She has "more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined."

They need to be careful with that comment, since it applies to McCain himself, too.

By that logic, Palin is the most qualified of the four.

If executive experience was all that mattered to people, Gov. Richardson would've been the Dem nominee, and Gov. Huckabee or Fmr. Gov. Romney would've been the GOP nominee.

The whole "people prefer Governors" thing pretty much refers to Governors of New York, Florida, Texas, and California. Alaska the state has a smaller population than the city I live in. Guiliani, as Mayor of New York, was responsible for over ten times as many people as Palin has been as Governor, and people scoffed at his "executive" experience.

Compare comments in here to comments on Huckabee saying more or less the same thing.

"On this question, "yes" or "no" is all I'll ever need to hear. There is no possible rationale for believing in creationism that will ever assuage my instant judgement of you as a fucking lunatic and likely moron."

Just a reminder that the right wing religious crowd doesn't have a monopoly on hypocrisy and selective criticism.

Holy Moly there are a lot of incredibly dumb people at comiccon. I really thought it would attract a more cerebral lot, you know, the nerdier types... but no, apparently it attracts
* gun nuts, with no further thought past owning weapons
* narrow minded self serving dicks (the whoever will get me cheaper gas girl)
* morons who vote with no clue as to who or why they're voting for who they are (the girl who says McCain, and then, well, Obama yeah)
* people who obviously haven't listened to a word either candidate has said if they believe that McCain will stop the US being a laughing stock (Ghost Busters guy)
* someone who actually, actually thought Huckabee was good... dear god.
* the incredible hulk demonstrating that he's not really a thinker
* and not voting because you were a moron and voted for Bush, not once, but twice, and then decides that well, the best option is to vote for no-one, because it's all too hard.

fuck... this depresses me.

I would love to know what the outcomes of elections would be like in the US if they made voting mandatory like it is here in Australia. I think it's a better system as it makes you take a little bit more notice of who is running, and what they say, and it makes all those fence sitters pay attention a bit. Also, it tends to get people who may actually feel quite strongly one way or the other to make that little bit of effort to get to a polling booth rather than forget about it, or just not get around to it.

I think you get a far more representative result of the entire country rather than just the zealots of both sides.