"Savage Nation"

[mousecrazy 2]

I simply can't believe that people do not understand satire. I certainly "get" that Bill Maher is a satirist, if not truly a comedian. Ann Coulter is a satirist as well. Sometimes, I laugh at both. Sometimes, both cross lines. What would good satire be, if it did not cross lines?

People have DIFFERING views. Even I understand that, as unelevated and unsophisticated as, apparently, I am.

[mousecrazy 2]

Also, Jack, you have made cogent and well-placed arguments regarding the inability of the public to engage in true discourse. It seems that looking at many sides of issues is just not encouraged any longer; and the quick, one-sided, superficial response is all that anyone can expect.

I remember your requests for a "good" president...I do recall a few people making some suggestions. But, you are right. Most just want to name-call their boogeymen presidents. Sad.

I don't understand the hatred of Bill O'Reilly, though. His show always includes spokesman of both sides of issues...he fights very hard for laws protecting children, and has even been on Oprah a couple of times. I kinda think that he's been named another boogeyman...and people use his name as one, without ever having watched 4 or 5 of his shows to see for themselves. It is so much easier to be told what to think...

[L8BloomR 1]

Mousecrazy and Jack,

You guys say it so well, I can't think of anything to add!! :clap2: I am always so amazed at how little respect there usually is on the left for any other viewpoints. Thanks for standing up for the "other" side!! You guys are great!!

[BJean 16]

Jack you are obviously guilty of what you are accusing others of. Or does the fact that you watch BBC make you more Enlightened and less biased than most other Americans?

Do you honestly think that Bush has a great plan for improving the United States? He's done nothing but run us into the ground, and that has nothing to do with political bias. It's a fact. We have the dead bodies to prove it.

[L8BloomR 1]

Do you honestly think that Bush has a great plan for improving the United States? He's done nothing but run us into the ground, and that has nothing to do with political bias. It's a fact. We have the dead bodies to prove it.

This is not a "fact".... it is an opinion. You may think this in all honesty, but many of us don't.... what makes it a fact? Yes, there are dead bodies, but there have always been. Clinton had his share in Somalia; in fact, most presidents have sent soldiers off to foreign lands and some have died. You can believe in a cause or not, but for many of us who believed Bill Clinton and others in his administration who said that Saddam had WMD and was a danger to our country.... and who believed it again a few years later when Pres. Bush said it, we believe that this war was started with good intentions. That is my opinion.... and I'm sticking to it!:biggrin1:

[BJean 16]

Jack, listening to Rosie? I don't.

[BJean 16]

L8BloomR: No problem! I don't understand your opinion, but I respect that it's yours and you believe it.

[L8BloomR 1]

L8BloomR: No problem! I don't understand your opinion, but I respect that it's yours and you believe it.

Thanks, BJean; that is all any of us can ask!

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

I also read foreign websites like the BBC and Guardian, based in the UK and some based in other English speaking countries.

And they often have more on the BuSh scandals than the US papers.

There is no comparison between the loss of lives in the humanitarian effort in Somalia that went wrong and the loss of lives in the Iraq invasion that was wrong from the start.

The Clinton White House had one sex scandal which hurt no one and could have waited until after the term was over and a few scandals (many of which were found unprovable), while the BuSh administration has been dissolving our constitutional rights as if they had poured acid on the document itself.

Cheney and Rove, through their lying and plotting of lies have caused more deaths than many would realize. If it was not for those two and the lies they cooked up, the US public never would have been behind the invasion of Iraq and it may have never happened, hence my "Laugh so hard you die comedians" comment.

Yes, the comedians on the left can be harsh, but they are not calling for the execution or jailing of the Republican voters, right wing spokesmen or honest politicians on the right. The same can not be said of the jokes masquerading as journalists on the right.

[mousecrazy 2]

What was that comment directed toward Cheney, when he could have been killed, and some "comedians" speculated that it might have been a good thing if he had?

T.O.M., you are totally off-base on this one. The comedians on the left are harsh and treasonous, in my opinion. I recognize that I have an "opinion", and do not try to masquerade my opinion as fact. I hear them call our president a murderer and a liar, and I, for one, do not find it humorous. I find it offensive to the highest level of offense.

Of course, this is only one little person's opinion...unenlightened and unsophisticated as it may be.

As to the "dead bodies" comment. Knock it off. I am trying to think of a president who has NOT sent troops into harm's way, whether or not one of us commoners believed in the purpose of the mission, or not.

Anyone want to get back on the topic of this thread? There is a whole thread for the Bush-haters...can that topic stay there?

[marjon9 6]

What was that comment directed toward Cheney, when he could have been killed, and some "comedians" speculated that it might have been a good thing if he had?

T.O.M., you are totally off-base on this one. The comedians on the left are harsh and treasonous, in my opinion. I recognize that I have an "opinion", and do not try to masquerade my opinion as fact. I hear them call our president a murderer and a liar, and I, for one, do not find it humorous. I find it offensive to the highest level of offense.

Of course, this is only one little person's opinion...unenlightened and unsophisticated as it may be.

As to the "dead bodies" comment. Knock it off. I am trying to think of a president who has NOT sent troops into harm's way, whether or not one of us commoners believed in the purpose of the mission, or not.

Anyone want to get back on the topic of this thread? There is a whole thread for the Bush-haters...can that topic stay there?

It's hard to talk about the political views of extreme commentators like Savage and Maher and Coulter and Franken, and avoid the topic of Bush and the domestic and international policies of our government. As you've pointed out in your own posts, one person's "reasoned objective analysis of the facts" is another person's "Bush bashing."

[anonemouse 1]

I hear them call our president a murderer and a liar, and I, for one, do not find it humorous.

That's because it isn't meant to be humorous. What else would you call him? He sent thousands of US citizens to their deaths, all the while lying to us about the true mission. In my experience, anyone who's actions (which were knowingly misdirected) result in the deaths of other people is a murderer, or at the very least, guilty of manslaughter. And further, anyone who tells a lie is a liar. There are many different levels of "liar", though, but I'd say that someone whose lies result in the deaths of thousands of people is pretty despicable.

The comedians on the left are harsh and treasonous, in my opinion.

See, there's that word again. There's the difference between the left and the right. The right says that people should be sentenced to long prison sentences or even death for using their right to free speech. The left doesn't. I may think that what you say is completely wrong, but I'd never advocate that you be sentenced to prison or death.

I recognize that I have an "opinion", and do not try to masquerade my opinion as fact.

It's funny that you add this, especially since you are implying that this is one reason you disagree with commentators from the left. Don't you listen to your your own side?

[anonemouse 1]

I don't believe he is a racist in the dictionary definition of the term. Certainly he is controversial.

Like someone said in a book I read recently, "You don't have to call someone a nigger to treat him like one."

[mousecrazy 2]

We were talking about comedians.

We were talking about how one point of view would see it as okey-dokey, and one would be offended.

Like you.

[anonemouse 1]

We were talking about comedians.

We were talking about how one point of view would see it as okey-dokey, and one would be offended.

Like you.

And that has bearing how? This is what you said:

The comedians on the left are harsh and treasonous, in my opinion. I recognize that I have an "opinion", and do not try to masquerade my opinion as fact. I hear them call our president a murderer and a liar, and I, for one, do not find it humorous. I find it offensive to the highest level of offense.

My statements still stand. I don't see how anyone can literally advocate that people be put in prison or be executed just for speaking their minds. And that is what you were doing when you accused them of treason. I can see that people might be offended by their comments, but to accuse them of committing treason is going way too far.

In the context of the paragraph, your statement about having opinions and not trying to masquerade them as fact implies that it is a fault of only the left, and that it is one reason that you despise them. That is why I wondered if you listen to the commentators on the right at all, since they do that, too. Shouldn't you be despising them just as much? And I characterize you as someone despising the left, since you have accused them of treason.

Being offended by someone is one thing. Going to the extent of accusing them of treason is another.