It fills me with despair to see clowns like this still able to peddle their bronze age nonsense whilst the great Christopher Hitchens has gone.

Ps; He doesn't even realise that he is a product of the "sick society" he hates so much. The same society that allows him to spout his evangelical style gibberish. He should try doing it in North Korea or some such place. Christopher Hitchens is gone, but i can imagine him debating this clown (actually, he wouldn't bother), and tearing him a new one.

>> ^obscenesimian:

Appeal to authority, ad hominem.


So, pointing out Hitchens extensive amount of time spent researching, traveling, speaking with key players, and studying major events in our world is an 'appeal to authority?

And ad hominem is comparing the experience and knowledge levels of a lifetime academic and polemicist to comedians and pointing out an inequality?

Kudos to you on knowing the two concepts are important logical fallacies, the next step is to study their meanings and applications so you can recognize them correctly.

Thanks for the promote, Hitchens is missed already

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
*promote

>> ^bcglorf:
in an argument between Chomsky and Hitchens any intellectual across the world would know who the fuck to side with.
It's a little unclear from where I'm sitting why you think you'd know what the intellectuals of the world think.

HA! Thats great, you just Hitch-slapped Yogi, very fitting.

>> ^bcglorf:
Well said.


SHUT UP! You know very well it wasn't well said. I addressed nothing about the argument at hand and I provided nothing with which to substantiate the claims I have put forward. I don't even know if I remember the clip right but in an argument between Chomsky and Hitchens any intellectual across the world would know who the fuck to side with. I'm siding with what I THINK Chomsky argued without having any proof.

So FUCK You with your "Well Said" you stupid fucking cunt. I hope you DIE!

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Yogi:
I like Hitchens and he's probably correct in this video. However I remember him on Bill Maher once talking about North Korea and sounding like a complete moron. So much so that Noam Chomsky indirectly had to correct people on Hitchens quoting of an article in the New York Times.
The story was that basically North Korea wasn't going to fulfill their contractual agreements with the United States because the United States wasn't going to fulfill theirs. It was North Koreas natural reaction to a breach of contract by the States. Hitchens glossed over that and condemned North Korea, like an idiot not even bothering with the rest of the article which stated WHY they were acting this way.
In summery Noam Chomsky > Hitchens in my mind because he's too fucking lazy to read an ENTIRE Article.

No, Hitchens was refusing to be a fool and base his entire opinion on a New York Times article. He actually went over and spent time in North Korea to put his view of the country to the test.
And Yogi, what is with you acting like America is the big evil baddie in the relationship between it and North Korea? America agrees to pay North Korea an enormous amount of aid, including the construction of a pair of nuclear reactors, and all that North Korea was asked to do in return was to stop making nuclear weapons.
Hitchens also destroyed Noam's argument by noting how rapidly North Korea was able to get it's nuclear weapons program back up and running at 100%. It was almost as if they'd never stopped it in the first place, because THEY HADN'T!

Sorry after you said Noam Chomskys argument was destroyed I stopped considering you as someone who knows anything about anything. Fuck off.


Well said.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^Yogi:
I like Hitchens and he's probably correct in this video. However I remember him on Bill Maher once talking about North Korea and sounding like a complete moron. So much so that Noam Chomsky indirectly had to correct people on Hitchens quoting of an article in the New York Times.
The story was that basically North Korea wasn't going to fulfill their contractual agreements with the United States because the United States wasn't going to fulfill theirs. It was North Koreas natural reaction to a breach of contract by the States. Hitchens glossed over that and condemned North Korea, like an idiot not even bothering with the rest of the article which stated WHY they were acting this way.
In summery Noam Chomsky > Hitchens in my mind because he's too fucking lazy to read an ENTIRE Article.

No, Hitchens was refusing to be a fool and base his entire opinion on a New York Times article. He actually went over and spent time in North Korea to put his view of the country to the test.
And Yogi, what is with you acting like America is the big evil baddie in the relationship between it and North Korea? America agrees to pay North Korea an enormous amount of aid, including the construction of a pair of nuclear reactors, and all that North Korea was asked to do in return was to stop making nuclear weapons.
Hitchens also destroyed Noam's argument by noting how rapidly North Korea was able to get it's nuclear weapons program back up and running at 100%. It was almost as if they'd never stopped it in the first place, because THEY HADN'T!


Sorry after you said Noam Chomskys argument was destroyed I stopped considering you as someone who knows anything about anything. Fuck off.

>> ^entr0py:

Here's another response by Sam Harris. This time on Chris Hedges equating Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens to the Christian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik


Dear Angry Lunatic: A Response to Chris Hedges


THIS! Thank you for reminding me of this, Harris expresses what I think of Hedges much better than I can.

how could i not promote Hitch, I miss him already

In reply to this comment by Zifnab:
Thanks for the promote.

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

>> ^thumpa28:

I dont follow the argument hes making. Religion is bad, just look at North Korea? Seems a bit of a stretch. For a start its a political system whose strength lies in its status as the sole provider of all welfare in a country where there is no other option but death by bullet or starvation. We'd all be praising Jesus if it meant that or starve. And the North koreans are a lot less afraid of eternal damnation than of termination at the hands of the 1.2 million standing army, in a country of 20 million.
Theres serious comment to be made here, he was right on track with the 1984 comparison, but veered way off with the religion analogy. Seems a waste.


Kim Il-Sung is still the eternal head of the nation. North Korea is structured around hailing the great leader as a deity. Hitchens is dead right to note that is not a non-religious society, but is in fact the most uniform and strictly enforced religious society in the modern world.

>> ^Yogi:

I like Hitchens and he's probably correct in this video. However I remember him on Bill Maher once talking about North Korea and sounding like a complete moron. So much so that Noam Chomsky indirectly had to correct people on Hitchens quoting of an article in the New York Times.
The story was that basically North Korea wasn't going to fulfill their contractual agreements with the United States because the United States wasn't going to fulfill theirs. It was North Koreas natural reaction to a breach of contract by the States. Hitchens glossed over that and condemned North Korea, like an idiot not even bothering with the rest of the article which stated WHY they were acting this way.
In summery Noam Chomsky > Hitchens in my mind because he's too fucking lazy to read an ENTIRE Article.


No, Hitchens was refusing to be a fool and base his entire opinion on a New York Times article. He actually went over and spent time in North Korea to put his view of the country to the test.

And Yogi, what is with you acting like America is the big evil baddie in the relationship between it and North Korea? America agrees to pay North Korea an enormous amount of aid, including the construction of a pair of nuclear reactors, and all that North Korea was asked to do in return was to stop making nuclear weapons.

Hitchens also destroyed Noam's argument by noting how rapidly North Korea was able to get it's nuclear weapons program back up and running at 100%. It was almost as if they'd never stopped it in the first place, because THEY HADN'T!

Thanks for the promote.

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

>> ^obscenesimian:

Just Because I disagree with you does not mean that I need to read up on Christopher Hitchens. I thought he was remarkably wrong very often. But at least he did have the decency to admit when he hadn't thought a position through well enough.
>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^
>>


I think you slightly diminish Hitch's name including Carlin, Hicks and Suzuki. Even Chomsky only bares inclusion for his great heights in the past.
I get your point, but you may want to read up on Hitchen's some more. He stood apart from almost everyone on your list by willingly putting himself in harms way to put his beliefs and understanding to the test, and in many cases surviving the ordeal to come back and declare that what he learned had changed his mind.



Oh be serious.

Carlin and Hicks were good and everything, but how much time did they spend in Cbua, Iraq, North Korea and Iran? How much of their lives did they dedicate to studying global conflicts and loudly debating their merits and demerits? Did they ever accomplish anything akin to "The trials of Henry Kissinger"?

You seriously devalue everything Hitchens was by likening him to a pair of very intelligent and insightful comedians. Their material was after all based on at best reading about the things Hitchens was off witnessing first hand. More over there can be no doubt that Hitchens own reading on any subject of import also badly dwarfed that of Carlin and Hicks put together.

>> ^obscenesimian:

Yes yes. Kurds, hmmmmmm let me think
oh yes they were abused by turks throughout history but most notably during the the 1890's 1920's 1930's and on up to the 70's and 80's. Ironically, Kurds also were one of the primary agents used by the Turks in the deportations and massacre Armenians before and during world war 1.
Those Kurds.
Who were also abused by Saddam. All part of a long chain of ethnic cleansing, genocide and nationalist violence caused in a large part by religion and creed as well as tribal identity throughout the balkans and the ottoman empire and what became the palestinian mandate.
Which Hitchens thought we should wade into because science and atheism will put right through warfare that which religion and warfare could not put right.
Hitchens got so much so wrong so many times, but he sounded soooo good doing it.
>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^spoco2:
>> ^kceaton1:
Goodbye Chris. Some of his most profound moments for me came when he actually screwed up and was wrong! It would often lead to other talks and dialogs between the people he had erred against and himself and in some occasions Christopher would merely present them and allow the other person to put the matter straight. He could be friends with these people and often was.
It showed me that he had within himself the ability to be very humble and that to him the truth WAS paramount! For that and much more I will remember him always.
He had it within himself to be the best of us all.

His about face on waterboarding after being waterboarded was the point that I started paying attention to him.

His about face on Saddam era Iraq stood out more in my mind. After being a champion of the anti-war movement in the first Gulf war he went and spent time with the Iraqi Kurds. He came back vehement in his conviction that America's worst crime in Iraq was in essence listening to him in the first place and not pushing into Baghdad and removing Saddam the first time.



Or more simply, Saddam was so horrific and brutal a monster that Iraqis and the region as a whole are better off for his removal.