The radical right just can't debate

[Ishoutandscream2]

Perhaps because facts have a liberal bias (thanks, Mr. Colbert).

Again, I got another one of those emails at work that talked about all of the shootings taking place in schools. A kid asks God in prayer why this is happening, and of course God says something to the effect that Madelyn Murray O'Hare (sp) got the Supreme Court to take him out of the schools, and that started all the chaos which has happened in the past 40 years. And that kind of crap went on and on.

I had to open my big mouth and state the obvious -- you can't make a direct correlation between that and the shootings. I also mentioned the Branch Davidian compound and the World Trade Center. It was, I stated, men who killed innocents in the name of God. I added that invoking the name of God has led to more wars and deaths in the past and oontinue to do so. What happened in the schools were simply sick, angry, and sometimes bullied kids who had easy access to guns and took out their hatred on others.

I was very nice in my response. Nothing that could be considered condescending or mean spirited toward their insane opinion. The response -- I was called a stupid liberal who shouldn't be taken seriously. No rebuttal. No debate of any kind. Just that.

Of course, I sent my last email telling him how Christian he was with his name calling, and how typical it was from someone of the far right to do so. I also told him to turn on Fox, not think, and nod his approval. And finally, I asked him to give me one rational argument. I haven't received anything back, but I'm sure it won't be nice. First, he has to attend church today and denounce the evil liberals that inhabit our nation. Then maybe he'll get back to me.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. I am in trouble on my little right wing board for posting this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3qcrdMeRYs

They can't respond with anything other than insults. To ME. Watch this video. Consider sending it to your co-worker with a subject line: DEFEND THIS!!!

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. When I first saw that video, I thought...

"That guy is baked. Smoked him a big old chunk of surfboard."

Prove me wrong. ;-)

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. One of the righties said that to me too

as if that justifies mistreating kids??

[mediawatch]

10. that was truly a heart breaking video

I wonder what he was like prior to being in this occupation. This just breaks my heart:-(

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. Welcome to DU!!

:hi:

[mediawatch]

13. thanks

Glad to meet you too

[newyawker99]

20. Hi mediawatch!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[rurallib]

2. Being a bit older I can guarantee that school violence is nothing new

The level of violence has increased but so has the level of most everything. That I attribute to much better equipment and models to follow. Let us not forget how nicely segregated black schools were treated prior to the school prayer ruling.
No one has stopped prayer in school. Just state sponsored prayer. Pray all you want. Pray for God to smite the heathens. Please just do it on your own.
I will totally support school prayer on one condition: I get to write it.

[mrcheerful]

5. You know thats what I think of every time I hear one of these dip shits open their

potty holes. For some odd reason everything from child abuse to school violence wasn't going on in pre 1980 era times. No parent beat their kids or wives senseless, there were no child abductors or molesters, drunk driving wasn't a problem, no school bullies,no drug dealing and the world was a perfect place for everyone. The funny thing was no one prayed in class then either nor did anyone suggest that prayer in class would stop these behaviors. But that too has been ignored or forgotten. Schools are just a reflection on the american society of violence, got a problem in school, hurt the person giving you the problem, or was I the only one that remembers that the parents of those kids were like their kids and tried running the neighborhood with the same tactics as the kids displayed in school?

[rurallib]

6. There is a segment of our society that believes 'Father Knows Best'

And "Leave it to Beaver' et alia were documentaries, not fluffy TV shows.

[Odin2005]

8. People like idealizing the era in which they grew up.

And since Boomers are in charge that idealized era is the 50s...

[rurallib]

11. Some of us boomers grew up in the 60s

I remember the 50s as being black & white. But there was an undercurrent that exploded in the 60s. But I do not idealize the 60s. Crappy cars and stinky air, little choices in many things and some real hard divisions in the country. The intellectual boom was wonderful though.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. Oh you are so right

I remember John Kennedy being murdered, Dr. King being murdered, Bobby Kennedy bing murdered, riots in Watts and many other cities, thalidomide, way too much unrest and the Vietnam War.

The 60s weren't all that terrific.

[Warpy]

7. The problem is that they don't think, they "know."

When you have superior "knowledge," being asked to think about things in a new way (or even an old one) is an unconscionable burden on your precious time and magnificent talents.

You can change another person's opinion by presenting him with contradictory facts. There is nothing you can do about a belief system. That's something that has to be crushed to death under the weight of adverse personal experience.

It took Europe 2 world wars with a depression between them to shake this kind of rubbish. It will likely take us the same.

Cut your losses. Introduce this poor sap to Mr. Block. Life is too short and precious to waste any of it on the rantings of true believers.

[TahitiNut]

9. What do you have against the Revealed Truth?

:rofl:

[booley]

14. I get that a lot

Whenever I debate the right, 9 out of ten times it becomes an excercise in stupidity..

I had one that's a typical example where a freeper claimed that the left were hyppocrits by comparing some DJ in Milwaukee who he said also made racist comments.

The freeper's words were" But he's a black Democrat so that's ok then, right?"

Well, after pointing out that no one on the left defended this DJ (he had actually been fired soon after his comment), there was nothing to indicate that this even was a Liberal or even a Democrat or even Black and the comment wasnt' even racist (He said he was glad a rival's mother had died..that's mean but not racist)..the freeper tells me and everyybody else arguing with him that we proved his point and that he had "WON" and now he had ot go be with his wife.

?!?!?!

Another recent example was a debate about US support of Saddam (Actually it was about how the opponents of the war, including the French, had been Right but he never addressed that issue..big surprise)

Anyway, here I am saying that the US gave Saddam weapons and money to buy more weapons from other countries to use him for it's foriegn policy, making iraq a client state (dependent on US aid)

So the freeper then proceeds to tell me how I am wrong. And How am I wrong?

Becuase, the freeper says, The US only gave Saddam some equipment and aid. He wasnt' a client (dependent on US aid) and the US only gave him that money becuase iraq was "on the ropes" with iran and the US gov wanted to decide the outcome of that foreign war.

Yeah, I was wrong becuase what I had said was right. If that made sense ot you, you're a con.

These would be just pathetic examples of the bottom feeders if this didnt' happen so often. SOOOO OFTEN that I can count on one hand the conservatives that didn't engage in this kind of stupidity... and these conservatives were labeled "Liberals" by thier fellow conservatives.

And they wonder why we think they are idiots.

[SheilaT]

16. Read the Laura Ingalls Wilder book

Farmer Boy which is a somewhat fictionalized version of her husband Almanzo's childhood. Very early on, Almanzo expresses fear for the safety of the new teacher at school, because the oldest boys at the school brag that a teacher never completes a term, because they always beat him up. The beat the most recent teacher so badly he died.

Yep. School violence is brand new and didn't exist when they had prayer in school.

[mrcheerful]

17. The problem with that is the right wing don't read books, they watch the TV show

and think that is how Ingalls lived back in the good old days. Never mind the little faireies out house ( little house)was just one of the many chapters in Ingalls life and only dealt wih one time period in here life when her father was working for the rail road.

[SheilaT]

18. The rare times I have watched five minutes or so

of that awful TV series I want to do serious damage to whoever allowed them to use the name of her books. It is so completely unlike what the books were about, what life was actually like back then, and it plays extremely fast and loose with what really happened. Sigh. A faithful filming of the books themselves could be so good, and result in some real understanding of how life was lived by people like the Ingalls, what they were truly about. But no, instead we have this dreadful TV show that has all kinds of late twentieth century values and ideas, completely different from the real thing.

It never fails that when I see a movie or TV show that involves something I actually know something about, I wind up at best totally disappointed, but usually pissed off. Two days ago I saw the new Anthony Hopkins movie, Fracture, and kept on sputtering comments to the person I was with. No one goes to trial a week or two after being arrested for a crime. No one. Never. It just doesn't happen. I realistic time-line would have kept the movie's plot moving along, but the screen writers (or director or producer, someone) decided there had to be this phony time pressure, and figured what the heck, who really knows how these things work? Arrgghhh!

[mrcheerful]

19. Or they also don't show how the real court room works today, trials are few and far between as

most of the poor are pushed into plea bargains by their lawyers, DA's and judges. Wonder just how many out there would be willing to plead guilty when it means probation or a short jail term instead of being hit with a harsh sentence for wasting the courts time by taking their case to trial? What people also don't get is the plea bargain is double edged, the person who takes a plea must have taken it because they were guilty of a worse crime. Nor do the TV or movies explain that most criminal cases are decided before the person shows up in court. Innocent until proven guilty my ass, its guilty until or "IF" you prove your innocent, and lets stack the deck so only those with the most money can actually get a fair chance at being found innocent, after all M Jackson couldn't be a child molester with all of that money he "earned".