NBC wanted Jon Stewart for Meet The Press

I've heard he's more into hammers now.

What is it you think you're doing here? Do you think I'm not aware of the man's politics? And if I am, that I can't be a fan of him? I mean, I've seen him speak live, twice, read most every book he's ever written, and am well aware of his points of view. If you did watch his show, you'd know he talks as much about politics as much as he does food, and not that he's on CNN he's become the face of that network, and the only bright spot on an otherwise failing lineup.

But what kind of person would assume that someone can only be a fan of an artist whose politics align with theirs?

Oh.

That's all fine and good, and not too different from what many non gun owning coastal liberals would say. But I have a problem with this part:

Not that it's inaccurate, but that it's one sided. I see a lot of contempt, mockery, and total lack of understanding from gun owners. We see it right here all the time, when people call us liars, tell us what we really mean, etc. Takes two sides to participate in a meaningful, respectful conversation. Bourdain takes a good, earnest step here, but when will Nugent or La Pierre step up to do the same?

I would liken it to conservatives who seek to regulate lives of gay people. The burden is on them to be more understanding, compassionate and open minded.

If stereotypical east coast liberals seek to regulate, if not outright ban the lifestyles of gun owners, they're the ones being narrow minded.

Now, crucify the analogy, because I know it's not perfect.

That analogy, it's not perfect. But going with it, which is a better approach by those of us who favor gay rights?

1. Looking for opportunities to educate/demonstrate that gay people are and always have been valuable contributors to society.
2. Finding ways to ostracize social conservatives.

There are groups such as Queer Nation who go with option 2, but don't you think option 1 is better? There is a third option, ignoring social conservatives, but that's just a benign version of option 2.

Yes, it's more important to change the person who is wrong, but how do we know which person that is? Only through respectful dialog do we have any chance of establishing that or figuring out that the answer might be nobody. Which then calls for us to find some common ground.

Butt sex never killed anyone though.


Well, except that one time.

You mean this time?

Expecting you to explain what you meant by "bias."

ok. That's weird.

But, aside from the butt sex thing ...

I have sat in a bar full of camo-wearing duck hunters and they can be as dumb as a box of rocks. But even the ones who are not, are just like wordforge in that even tho they know an argument is delusional at best, they will defend it to the extreme against any liberal - even moreso against a yankee liberal.

The difference is, you can usually end up agreeing to disagree without them telling you to die in a fire. That's the bailiwick of the Anonymous Internet Coward.

Now, this is the part where evenflow tells me I don't know anything about the Real World because I've never been to Oklahoma...

Yea, I generally skip over those posts.

Given your rigorous levels of posting that's apparent.......

So ... I'm an internet coward because I ignore intellectual one-liners like "die in a fire" and I accept that others have opinions different from mine?

Die in a fire.

You need to sit in a bar full of gay camo-wearing duck hunters to get any decent conversation. Oh and yes there are those bars.

Just from an outsider's point of view, one of the things that I find with American political shows it's just the bipartisan nature of the topics under discussion, it's often the rather shallow nature in which they are discussed, often with lots of bombast, rhetoric and hysteria from both sides of the political spectrum. It may be that certain parts of the American electorate are getting tired of that and would rather see their journalists and politicians have some constructive and intelligent debates about things without all the buster and guff, and they latter arguably fills up valuable time during which the public could be better exposed to key political issues that impact them. We have a number of political shows over here and none of them have that sort of bombast about them, nor are any of the hosts overtly comical or partisan. For me, that makes for less frustrating viewing and allows for a more direct assessment of what politicians claim to be advocating.

Well, yes, but ... I don't think corporations are looking to take over the UK government. They are here. Have you seen Continuum? That's what they plan to do here in the US. And, they are well on their way to making it happen.

Ah, but you've got your tabloids. Brits prefer to read their sensationalism; Americans need to have it shouted at them.

This Brit doesn't read tabloids. At least we have the choice between something with a bit of quality and the garbage.

And this American doesn't watch or listen to sound bites and hysteria pretending to be news.

Americans do have a choice. It's called "reading."

A very uniformed comment.

Corporations have just as much impact in all free market economies the world over. The direct the course of economies and politicians have little choice but to co-operate with them. Why do you think that China and India are becoming so powerful? Corporate power.

It wasn't uninformed. It was tongue in cheek. The storyline for Continuum is that the corporations, through the media and propaganda destabilized the government until the people begged the corporations to take over.

I've always thought "Continuum" to be the most likely future scenario ever depicted.

I'm not following. Spell it out for me.

Sticking with the analogy, bearded bears marching down Main StreetStreet dressed as Dorothy are essentially chubby open carry dorks walking through Target with their AR's out. Neither is helping their cause.

No disagreement on that.

Already did:

http://wordforge.net/index.php?posts/2654848/

So did gul:

http://wordforge.net/index.php?posts/2654849/

If you haven't noticed the politics in any of Bourdain's programs I can't help you. The man has points of view, his stuff is overflowing with them.

The broader point, and the reason I mentioned him, is that it's an example of a network handing the reigns to someone who doesn't come with the baggage of a traditional "journalist", and having it work.

Read about it, right here.

That's it, that's all it was, I honestly don't get why bringing him up was such a big deal, and it's laughable to me that it initiated the gotcha game.

O think not having your second paragraph in the initial post about Bourdain is why we didn't know that's what you meant.