@WKB

True, but when the Columbine school shooting was perpetrated, conservatives were quick to point the finger at Marilyn Manson's lyrics. I'm not saying they were right, and I'm not saying that Fox deserves all of the blame here either.

I do think though, that the people pumping that kind of rhetoric onto the airwaves deserve SOME responsibility for atrocities like this. Allow me to compare the Woodstock of 1970 to the Woodstock of '99 for an example.

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>>>>>>The 1970 Woodstock (billed as "3 days of Peace and Music") resulted in reports like this:

"The New York Times covered the prelude to the festival and the move from Wallkill to Bethel.[13] Barnard Collier, who reported from the event for the Times, asserts that he was pressured by on-duty editors at the paper to write a misleadingly negative article about the event. According to Collier, this led to acrimonious discussions and his threat to refuse to write the article until the paper's executive editor, James Reston, agreed to let him write the article as he saw fit. The eventual article dealt with issues of traffic jams and minor lawbreaking, but went on to emphasize cooperation, generosity, and the good nature of the festival goers.

When the festival was over, Collier wrote another article about the exodus of fans from the festival site and the lack of violence at the event. The chief medical officer for the event and several local residents were quoted as praising the festival goers."

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>>>>>>The 1999 version of the event (featuring bands like Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock and the Red Hot Chili Peppers who are all, dare I say, a bit angrier [lyrically speaking] than the likes of Arlo Guthrie or Joan Baez) is painted in a much different color:

"Some crowd violence and looting was reported during the Saturday night performance by Limp Bizkit, including a rendition of the song "Break Stuff". Reviewers of the concert criticized Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst as "irresponsible" for encouraging the crowd to destructive behavior.

Violence escalated the next night during the final hours of the concert as Red Hot Chili Peppers performed. A group of peace promoters led by an independent group called Pax had distributed candles to those stopping at their booth during the day, intending them for a candlelight vigil to be held during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' performance of the song "Under the Bridge". During the band's set, the crowd began to light the candles, some also using them to start bonfires. The hundreds of empty plastic water bottles that littered the lawn/dance area were used as fuel for the fire.

After the Red Hot Chili Peppers were finished with their main set, the audience was informed about "a bit of a problem." An audio tower caught fire, and the fire department was called in to extinguish it.

Back onstage for an encore, the Chili Peppers' lead singer Anthony Kiedis remarked how amazing the fires looked from the stage, comparing them to a scene in the film Apocalypse Now.[12] The band proceeded to play "Sir Psycho Sexy", followed by their rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire". Kiedis later stated in his autobiography, Scar Tissue that Jimi Hendrix's sister had asked the Chili Peppers to play "Fire" in honor of Jimi and his performance at the original Woodstock festival, and that they were not playing it to encourage the crowd.

Many large bonfires were burning high before the band left the stage for the last time. Participants danced in circles around the fires. Looking for more fuel, some tore off panels of plywood from the supposedly inviolable security perimeter fence. ATMs were tipped over and broken into, trailers full of merchandise and equipment were forced open and burglarized, and abandoned vendor booths were turned over, and set afire.[13]

MTV, which had been providing live coverage, removed its entire crew. MTV host Kurt Loder described the scene in the July 27, 1999 issue of USA Today:

"It was dangerous to be around. The whole scene was scary. There were just waves of hatred bouncing around the place, (...) It was clear we had to get out of there.... It was like a concentration camp. To get in, you get frisked to make sure you're not bringing in any water or food that would prevent you from buying from their outrageously priced booths. You wallow around in garbage and human waste. There was a palpable mood of anger."

After some time, a large force of New York State Troopers, local police, and various other law enforcement arrived. Most had crowd control gear and proceeded to form a riot-line that flushed the crowd to the northwest, away from the stage located at the eastern end of the airfield. Few of the crowd offered strong resistance and they dispersed quickly back toward the campground and out the main entrance."

>>>>>>See also, this poignant response from a person in the crowd: http://newsroom.mtv.com/2009/08/17/woodstock-legacy/ (crowdmember comments @ 2:20)

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Now now easy there big fella, before you start telling me about how correlation does not imply causation consider this: an article recently published by the American Journal of Psychiatry concluded that:

"Childhood exposure to parental verbal aggression was associated, by itself, with moderate to large effects on measures of dissociation, limbic irritability, depression, and anger-hostility." Furthermore, "Combined exposure to verbal abuse and witnessing of domestic violence was associated with extraordinarily large adverse effects, particularly on dissociation. This finding is consonant with studies that suggest that emotional abuse may be a more important precursor of dissociation than is sexual abuse."
See: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/163/6/993

Maybe not the best example I could have found but I've already spent WAY too much time on this post. The point is, WORDS carry a lot of power. Even if the pundits (right OR left) never came out and said it, the implication of violence was certainly there at times.

I KNOW Fox has lead the charge of fear mongering in the name of ratings but anyone else who subscribed to that level of attack should share some of the blame as well. Again, not saying that they should take all or even a lot of the blame, but they should be responsible for the violent laced rhetoric they spout.

I say STOP THE AD HOMINEM ATTACKS and we'll see less violence against PEOPLE and (hopefully) more enthralling arguments where the IDEAS are being attacked (which I'm all for) :-)

p.s. sry for the huge post but i was on a roll

^It's that guy that made Apocalypse Now and American Pie.

I hope they were actually playing that music very loudly on board, Apocalypse Now style.

>> ^soulmonarch:
This video perfectly demonstrates my problem with Ms. Maddow. In her opening on the subject she says, with much scorn:
"Global warming doesn't exist. The media is full of liberals! Someboday wants to take away you guns. And, of course, the refrain of the moment... Obama is a socialist!"
As if reading those statements aloud in a mocking tone of voice will somehow make them either more or less true than they were previously? She provides zero backup for 95% of her disparaging opinions. She also seems to automatically correlate, the word 'socialist' with 'communist'. (This really bothers me.)
And it's not that I don't agree with some of the stuff she says either! Perhaps she really has good reasons for feeling the way she does, but she does a terrible job of communicating her reasoning to others. As it is, I can't tell if she just likes to hear herself talk, or if she really has a point there.


...on the other hand, maybe she's just a blithering idiot. It's so hard to tell these days.


I think you're kind of missing the point. She's making fun of conservatives who confuse "socialist" and "communist" and freely throw them around interchangeably. She has a degree in Public Policy and a Doctorate in Political Science. I'm sure she knows the differences between Socialism and Communism, probably better than you. And they don't just hand out Rhodes Scholarships, ya know - she was the first openly gay Rhodes scholar.

There's no point in disputing the other ideas both you and she pointed out (global warming, gun rights, the liberal media myth) because her audience is smart enough to realize those arguments are ridiculous and legitimizing them with debate is beneath her and her audience, aside from being outside the scope of the topic at hand.

I will never understand that "people will abuse the system" argument. Of course they will. There are people who abuse any system. Currently, we have people who are taking untold millions of dollars from the government and pocketing it. I'm a little less concerned about people who manage to game the welfare system. Ultimately, that is about writing the laws intelligently and enforcing them, not the system itself.

I do not believe that government should be the only resource for people to fall back on. Firstly, people should get help from their family and friends. Secondly, charity organizations might be of assistance. But as a last resort, government is the only organization that can make sure nobody slips through the cracks. It's not working very effectively right now, but it has that potential. That can't be done by a charity. If there is a charity that provides food, shelter, health care and job training to everybody nationwide, please let me know because I would like to support them.

>> ^adambomb42x:
I do not believe mob-rule is absolute freedom. If the mob decides to infringe upon an individual freedom, them who is to stop them?

That's kinda my point. Absolute freedom means there is no police to stop you or others from doing whatever you want. If someone wants to take something from you, you would have to defend yourself. If a group wants to take something from you, you would have to form a group for defense. At that point, whoever forms the strongest group would be able to do whatever they want to anybody else. There is no guarantee that the strongest group would be benevolent. That's called Ochlocracy, or mob-rule. That's why most libertarians still want some form of government, if only to maintain the peace and enforce contracts. Just be aware that is not "absolute freedom".

By the way, I looked at voicingopinions.com, and it's one of those message boards where the images in the signatures are ten times larger than the posts themselves. I wouldn't be caught dead on a message board like that.

That's Apocalypse Now! level crazy.

>> ^adambomb42x:
I know what socialism means and I don't like it! Our founding fathers designed our government to be a republic. Do you know what the means? It means the rule of law. Government is inherently evil, if not now, it will be. Government must be limited and kept within boundaries, or else the liberties of the people will be infringed upon. The problem that this country has is that our laws are not being enforced. What ever the government does, it should ask if the Constitution allows this. I don't want a nanny state, I can take care of myself just fine. But, it looks like I will also be taking care of the lazy and undeserving.


Wow. Where do we start?

Do you really know what socialism is? Or do you think you do based on what the right wing bobble-heads say about it? Because, those of us that really do know what socialism is, are not afraid of it, and are working diligently to push this country towards it.

Also, a republic is a system of government, wherein the populace exerts its power on the government via elected representatives. It's because of this that we can choose representatives that will lead us toward a socialist state, if that is the will of the majority, which it seems to be given recent election results.

Government isn't inherently evil, it isn't inherently good either. It is what we make of it, we choose the people that make up our government. Maybe we should be choosing a better class of people to represent us. Don't like your choices? There's nothing stopping you from running for office. I can't guarantee that you'll get elected, but you can still run.

There's nothing in the constitution that says that the government can't tax the citizenry to pay for anything and everything it wants. Point of fact, it would be completely constitutional for the Congress to impose a 100% tax on all earnings, and then turn around and disburse that money to everyone as they see fit.

As for your final two sentences, it never fails to amaze me when people show such selfishness. Where you see "individual responsibility", we see uncaring people. You see socialism as a way for you to have to take care of "lazy and undeserving", we see it as a means to improve the quality of life for everyone. If you look at the costs of living in socialist countries, it's well below the cost for the average American. Yeah they have higher taxes, but we pay a larger share of our incomes to health care, and utility companies than they ever do. And yes, there will be some people that abuse a socialist state, but those same people already abuse our current system, so why fear a better system?

>> ^soulmonarch:
She also seems to automatically correlate, the word 'socialist' with 'communist'. (This really bothers me.)

You really would be surprised just how many people do the same. Socialism is such a dirty word in this country that many people not only don't know what it even means, but basically think it = communism.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^Payback:
>> ^StukaFox:
Unfortunately, you wouldn't get any of that as a military coup would happen long before.

And why would that be?


Indeed, they let the place get pretty far towards fascism an never once threatened to step in .

>> ^Payback:
>> ^StukaFox:
Unfortunately, you wouldn't get any of that as a military coup would happen long before.


And why would that be?

>> ^StukaFox:
I hope Obama DOES lead us to socialism! I'll take the health care system of Canada, the penal system of Finland, the worker's rights of France, the roads and rails of Germany and the elder care system of Sweden.


Unfortunately, you wouldn't get any of that as a military coup would happen long before.

>> ^StukaFox:
I hope Obama DOES lead us to socialism! I'll take the health care system of Canada, the penal system of Finland, the worker's rights of France, the roads and rails of Germany and the elder care system of Sweden.


We wouldn't need any of that stuff if this country wasn't full of so many lazy people busting their ass to make enough to survive on, while they're CEO's spend 11 months on vacation only going in occasionally to deny pay raises and pick up their bonus checks.

>> ^Asmo:
Uh huh, the have's sharing their wealth with the have nots (ie. charity, something strongly encouraged by one Mr. Jesus Christ) is a sure sign of the end times.

For the record, the guy's not slamming charity. He's slamming government taxes being used to help poor people. Social programs are not charity. Charity is a direct donation from an individual or organization to a charity group.

That said, my two rebuttal comments are that a Christian shouldn't object to those less fortunate being helped; and that if he's concerned about the country, he should understand that social programs strengthen countries by giving them a stronger, happier, healthier workforce. By his words I'm not sure what he could mean by "the country" other than the rich and the GNP, but both are helped significantly by social programs. Rich individuals pay higher taxes now so that rich people in the future can get even stinking richer because there's that many more healthy educated workers.

>> ^ObsidianStorm:
What a load of steaming hot crap.
People have been predicting "end times" forever and more specifically, this has been a christian tradition from the beginning. Hell, people at the time of christ thought the end was just around the corner.
Oh and tell that Jerry Jenkins guy to shut the fuck up - can't get a word in edgewise!


I don't think it is a Christian tradition, I think this is a more general phenomenon, it is just that the instances where this happens while Christianity is involved are more noticeable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_times#non_Abrahamic_traditions

It is that need of some people to feel that the times they live are historically important, so they grab onto whatever bullshit gives them an easy anwser. Of course, this just shows how ignorant they are of history.

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