Oh, Glenn...

RightinNYC said:

Once you guys have decided whether the people who watch Glenn Beck are primarily highly educated liberal sophisticates such as yourselves or just troglodyte regressive sheeple, be sure to let us know, eh?

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RightinNYC said:

Once you guys have decided whether the people who watch Glenn Beck are primarily highly educated liberal sophisticates such as yourselves or just troglodyte regressive sheeple, be sure to let us know, eh?

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JohnWOlin said:

Rightin are you suggesting that Glenn Beck is a man that sticks to his word, and would never bend reasoning to fit the logic he has atm? Also no, I totally agree the guy is incredibly smart. He feeds people what makes them feel secure with themselves, what makes them feel like they are "in on the secret" and he is their best bud.

Also I wouldn't suggest I'm super smart or above anyone one bit, after all I watch Tosh.O and World's Dumbest. However it doesn't take a PhD for most people to realize how full of **** the guy is. Here is a guy that at one point was suggesting that 9/11 was an inside job (on CNN) and now is trying to blame it on a guy building a muslim Y center, that FOX News had on their show not even 3 months ago as a guest and telling him "best of luck with your center".

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WilliamJB said:

My favorite 21st century McCarthyite seems fond of playing a news reel of President Obama referring to the Constitution as a collection of "negative rights."

Does anyone believe that Mr. Beck has the slightest idea what "negative rights" means? Particularly given the fact that his own view of the document is essentially the same?

OK, this thread is clearly a rant, but I, at least, find Glenn's incessant use of the quote infinitely funny.

Keep it up, Lonely Roads :lol:

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WilliamJB said:

Oh, we already know the answer to that:

Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions: Summary of Findings - Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

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RightinNYC said:

I'm not suggesting anything about Glenn Beck, as I don't know all that much about him because I don't care to. I'm inclined to say he's a fairly intelligent guy with a knack for showmanship, which describes pretty much every single dbag on cable.

I've never understood why people feel the need to watch things that they find dumb and then complain about them. If you don't like it, turn it off. I like to expose myself to contrasting views as well, but I make an effort to limit it to the moderately intelligent ones.

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MrVicchio said:

Could you, oh ever wise and super smart guy, tell us what the US Constitution IS in terms of what Positive and Negative Rights are? Or are you going to pontificate as to the lack of "college" Beck has, or how smart or dumb his audience maybe.

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RightinNYC said:

That study shows that people who get their news from basic Fox news programming are statistically indistinguishable from those who get their news from basic ABC, CBS, or NBC news programming. It also shows that people who get their news specifically from O'Reilly are the least likely to be "dumb." Not sure what you're getting at.

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WilliamJB said:

"Fox News Channel: 35% High Knowledge."
"National Public Radio: 51% High Knowledge."

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He's also the only regular Fox News host with more than a high school diploma.

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RightinNYC said:

Why is it that you're comparing a television news audience to a radio audience? Is it because the far more logical comparison of television news to television news doesn't give you the results you're hoping for?



This is a pretty egregious lie. Just going off a list of the most prominent names, Van Sustern, Huckabee, Cavuto, Wallace, and Baier all have college degrees.

Not sure where you're getting your information from.

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WilliamJB said:

Be happy to! Negative rights means things the government can't do to you, positive rights mean things the government must do for you.

As for my arrogance, yes, regarding politics generally and the Constitution specifically, I freely admit I feel like I know more about those topics than Glenn Beck and most of his viewers. I've devoted the last 10 years of my life to studying these issues in depth. By the same token, I know next to nothing about fixing a car or running a particle accelerator. You'll notice I don't have a TV show or website about auto repair and atom splitting.

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OBAMA: As radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted -- and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted, and one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And, uh, in some ways we still suffer from that.

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The "Second Bill of Rights", as articulated by FDR, consists of a set of positive rights, or as Barack Obama might say, rights concerning what the government must do for its citizens. These include, according to FDR:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

"The right of every family to a decent home;

"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

"The right to a good education."

The need for a "Second Bill of Rights" hjas been championed by Obama ally and advisor Cass Sunstein, Law Professor at the University of Chicago, in a book entitled "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need it More than Ever." Obama surrogate Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D) Ohio recently demanded the implementation of a "Second Bill of Rights" at an Obama campaign rally.

The revival of the concept of a "Second Bill of Rights" puts a new face on Barack Obama's seven-year-old musings about the Constitution

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RightinNYC said:

Why is it that you're comparing a television news audience to a radio audience? Is it because the far more logical comparison of television news to television news doesn't give you the results you're hoping for?



This is a pretty egregious lie. Just going off a list of the most prominent names, Van Sustern, Huckabee, Cavuto, Wallace, and Baier all have college degrees.

Not sure where you're getting your information from.

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WilliamJB said:

I'm comparing primary news sources to primary news sources. I see nothing wrong with that.

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But if you don't like that survey there are plenty of others:

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/714.html

Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War - World Public Opinion

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You are correct about Van Sustren, Huckabee, Cavuto, Wallace and Baier, though. I should have been more precise, I meant the only editorialist with a college education.

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JohnWOlin said:

I was watching Daily Show and they were showing how he said something about the Muslim center in NYC about how it was not Americas fault at all that we got attacked in the first place, but apparently a few months ago he said we had it coming completely contradicting himself. The only people that take Beck seriously are the fools that watch him day in and day out, but I'm convinced it's mostly liberals and the like that watch him more giving him more power, or at least viewers and ratings.

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JohnWOlin said:

You basically just said Hicup lol, "is he full of ****? sure. but I don't care he is telling me what I like to hear."

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WilliamJB said:

My favorite 21st century McCarthyite seems fond of playing a news reel of President Obama referring to the Constitution as a collection of "negative rights."

Does anyone believe that Mr. Beck has the slightest idea what "negative rights" means? Particularly given the fact that his own view of the document is essentially the same?

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WilliamJB said:

"Fox News Channel: 35% High Knowledge."
"National Public Radio: 51% High Knowledge."

As for O'Reilly, you'll get no argument from me. I disagree with him on most issues as well, but he's by no means dumb, and does present cogent and reasonable arguments for his positions.

He's also the only regular Fox News host with more than a high school diploma.

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