OReilly v Rivera

Letter to Joanne Ostrow regarding her column, reproduced in the previous blog below.

I've read your poor critique of the O'Reilly v. Rivera dust up from 'The Factor' and watched the video footage of the event.

Your characterization of it is completely wrong and driven by your craven hatred of conservative perspectives on what are rational and sensible principles of justice.

You claim that the debate had little substance and shed more heat than light, but this is shallow and partisan. 

Comparing postures such as "spewing bile" to "forceful objection" is pure sophistry. Both men were equally vehement. Of course, we all know that males engaged in passionate argumentation can only be, if not simply scary, dangerous from a radical feminist position.

It is unfortunate for the left, who battle to stifle debate, that the debate medium is so popular with the right and becomes more so with the general population every day. It flourishes while established media dries and dies on the vine of tacit acquiescence. The value of what you consider unrefined "modern political discourse", "today's cable chat", and "overwrought exchange" is precisely what  perturbs propaganda proprietors such as yourself. As opposed to somber studio diatribes with edited positions, debate shines light on conflicting views, giving consumers clear alternatives from which to refine and enhance their values. Yet you deride that.

Pity you have so little desire to discern truth.

The truth is Bill remained calm throughout the interview. Commendable, having been subjected as he was to Rivera's defensive badgering and filibustering. (It's typical of the left to belittle with incessant meaningless chatter and then cry when someone dares speak over them.) Rivera's defense of this criminal's behavior was devoid of logic, reason and force of law. Only insanity defends such repetitiously illicit behavior without applying appropriate and serious consequence.

I might have had some sympathy for the guy and could understand, perhaps, the leniency he received after an initial offense of public intoxication, but to allow such an infraction as driving intoxicated to happen more than once is irresponsible and falls at the feet of the mayor as O'Reilly suggested.

Rivera brought up an interesting point, "had the perpetrator been Ramoski [sic]", would anyone have cared? The pertinent detail would be whether or not Jaime Ramoski - in my scenario, a Jewish immigrant - were here illegally. If so, I guarantee O'Reilly would still line up on the side of deportation and justice. You and Heraldo probably would also, revealing your bias to make this issue about pc Hispanic sympathy and not immigration or law.

Scott Cogswell

 

O'Reilly meltdown a new low

Fox News talker comes unglued

By Joanne Ostrow
Denver Post Television Critic
The Denver Post

When Bill O'Reilly nearly came out of his chair and across the desk at Geraldo Rivera on his Fox News show this week, he marked a new low in what passes for modern political discourse. Even by the shallow standards of cable news--and "The O'Reilly Factor" in particular--it was a stunningly foul performance. The clip quickly became the talk of YouTube (click here to see the video).
When a girl was killed by a drunk driver in Virginia, a driver who happened to be an undocumented immigrant, O'Reilly seized the moment to turn the issue into a tirade against illegal aliens. O'Reilly spewed racist bile; Rivera objected forcefully. When Geraldo is the voice of reason driving home solid points, you know things are out of hand.
Today's cable chat shows encourage this kind of overwrought exchange, shedding more heat than light and putting the star opinion-meisters front and center. The fact that the clip drew traffic on the internet only enhances its value. You don't see thoughtful analyses from BBC World News or the PBS NewsHour attracting clicks on YouTube.
As the election cycle ratchets up, the provocateurs of cable will be angling for more attention. But they shouldn't be allowed to steer the conversation. Let's take it as an encouraging sign that the O'Reilly outburst is being laughed at in cyberspace more than it's being seriously considered.

When Joanne Ostrow writes about the incident on the O’Reilly Factor where Bill O’Reilly and Heraldo Rivera both nearly come out of their chairs and across the table at each other over the issue of the recent arrest of an illegal immigrant who, with prior convictions for drunken driving, killed a girl with his car while intoxicated (Bill taking the conservative line that this menace should be deported), she marks a new low in what passes for analysis of open and free debate.

Even by her shallow, left-bent standards, it was a stunningly foul and agenda driven investigation.

Who wants to be the star opinion-meister now?

The fact that analyses from the BBC and PBS aren’t highlighted by YouTube, should be a clear sign that you are not getting anything valuable in the way of a cross-section of societal values and perspectives. Opposing positions fuel debate and debate clarifies and unifies understanding.

What should be clear to sensible consumers now living in the 21st century, having access to all manner of opinion, conjecture and sentiment, not to mention good hard data, is the fact that the format of televised debate, which Ms.Ostrow decries as unrefined modern political discourse, today’s cable chat, and overwrought exchange, actually gives consumers a fuller spectrum of ideas and views; a more colorful palette with which to hue the depths of the socio-political canvas.

Thanks to Fox News, and this debate format, intelligent consumers of news no longer need rely on somber studio diatribes with edited positions.

The fact that this ‘critic’ feels it necessary to comment on this ‘laughable’ episode, shows that she is not beyond her own shallow standards, and is no better than her counter parts at avoiding debate.

Joanne Ostrow is clearly partisan and her comments reflect the need to tear down conservative perspective. She has no intention of shining any light of her own, but prefers, or rather, her intellect will not allow, further inspection of the issue at a level beyond her craven hatred of what are rational and sensible principles of justice.

Apparently, male passion, exhibited in the heated exchange of ideas and opinions, is valuable for entertainment, but worthless, perhaps even frightening, at the level of what this female perceives as thoughtful analysis. Of course, the progressive opinion of Heraldo was only “forceful objection” to Bill’s “spewed racist bile.”

From the dissection of this last sentence alone, I see clearly the attitude and poorly guarded ideology of this hateful leftist.

Typical of Democracy

"I will put my family's safety above sensitivity."

The problem is my US senators and representatives don't. Daily.
My local senator and representative don't. Daily.
My governor doesn't. Daily
My local mayor doesn't. Daily. (hourly if you live in SLC)

Every city leader decries racial profiling (only because they have to get votes from those races.) But, guess what... racial profiling works. It works better than any system we have now. Yes, it might not have stopped McVeigh, but it would have stopped or hindered 9/11, and scores of other problems.
Start profiling if it protects my family.
Guess what, if the profile says that white males are the number one terrorist, fine, send me through the extra search line. And if you are one of the white male terrorist, look out, because I'll be the first one condemning you and screaming for the death penalty or worse. I will not be the one whining that you had a rough childhood, or that you didn't get any scholarships because the minorities gobbled them up, or that you lost your job to affirmative action.(these are what Jesse Jackson would be promoting if he was white) I'm tired of the whining. I'm tired of the hypocrisy. I'm tired of the corruption.

Here's the problem. I think government is screwed up.
I'm fed up with it, and I want to do something about it.
But, where to begin. Also, if I do begin, I am one voice and still live in a democracy. How do I convince my neighbors to speak up when I can't even convince my wife that the conversation is important?
There is an epidemic of apathy in this country that is going to be the death of it.

Take heart my friend... This is the war that your Gospel teaches you about.

It won't end today nor tomorrow... Your children will have to engage it once they come of age... And your grandchildren as well.

I can sympathize with your frustration... My wife will have none of it... She thinks it is my hobby, and not a popular one.

You'll help your cause when you realize that we do not live in a pure democracy, but in a democratic republic... We must sustain and preach about our country in that way in order to minimize the affects of radical libertinism.

Russell Kirk said, "Of all the terrors of democracy, the worst is its destruction of moral habits." He then goes on to quote Fisher Ames, "A democratic society will soon find its morals the encumbrance of its race, the surly companion of its licentious joys."

Many of the Christian founders saw the dangers in the Democracies of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. Where there is no prescription, no formal moral or orthodox duty to code, where men happen along their own abandon, the adversary will have strong influence. They had a great example in the French revolution. Based on the enlightenment thought of Rousseau and Condorcet, men had abandoned reverence for antiquity and decorum.

Fisher Ames also said, "Our country is too big for union, too sordid for patriotism, too democratic for liberty. Its vice will govern it, by practicing upon its folly. This is ordained for democracies."

Many of the conservative thinkers in the early founding of the country recognized the importance of enlightened leadership and understood that the success of democracy, and federalism, were based on a fallacious premise: "the supposed existence of sufficient political virtue, and on the permanency and authority of the public morals."

"On the contrary however, passion, deluded sentiment, and a destructive yearning for simplicity are characteristics of peoples who have exchanged the leadership of the good, righteous and enlightened, for the intoxication of self-expression and the negation of discipline." "The people, as a body cannot deliberate; therefore their appetites are flattered by demagogues, who satisfy the popular impulse toward action by the exhibition of violence and the spectacle of incessant change."

The way to combat this change as I see it, would be to give up your glamorous life as an IT Administrator and go into teaching. Our schools are woeful, and corrupted by progressive thought which undermines enlightened and reasoned learning. We will not change our generation, but can be hopeful that persistent effort will reward us with future generations of moral and upright citizens.

One more very interesting quote from this man Fisher Ames: "Popular reason does not always know how to act right, nor does it always act right, when it knows. The agents that move politics, are the popular passions; and those are ever, from the very nature of things, under the command of the disturbers of society... Few can reason, all can feel; and such an argument is gained, as soon as it is proposed."

Much ado about nothing

As a fastener salesman, how would your boss like it if you refused to sell his nails?

Would that be grounds for termination? I suppose it would...

You see, in my opinion, and the opinion of those on the right who respect the constitution, it is the right of the owner of the company to do what he wishes with regard to the decisions he makes... Now, they may be poor decisions, but that doesn't give me the right to interfere with those decisions because it is his business... you know,,, mind your own 'business'.

The same applies with the appointment of federal employees in the Justice Department. The Justice Department is an office within the Executive Branch of government, over which the President presides,,, like your boss, He has the right to hire and fire within his branch as he sees fit.

It has always been the case and should always be the case. The President, who is chosen by the people and is representative of the views and values of the population who elected him, has the right to employ and work with the people within his 'company' that he feels most confident with until which time that he is no longer employed by the people as President. This case is no exception...

Now, there is no one with any standing within the Washington DC community that will say that anything illegal has taken place. So why the big stink by the Democrats? Just another deliberate waste of your tax money, all in an attempt to smear the President,,, and Republicans in general.

The appointment to Federal Prosecutor is a political appointment... meaning that you are appointed there by the President and his staff for your qualifications, politics not excluded.

It can be expected then, that if you refuse to pursue the cases that the administration wishes you to pursue, then yeah, you could and should be fired.

You do know that Clinton fired all 93 Federal Prosecutors in 1993 when he took office...

This is a witch hunt buddy... The Clinton's wrote the book on it and have employed it within the Dem party since Gingrich was shamed out of office in 1997.

The Dems are all about changing the rules and get a lot of help fooling the public from the mainstream news outlets.

The only wrong done here is that an incompetent Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, began apologizing for something which he had no obligation to apologize for in the first place. If he would have come out and made a statement like, "The administration has made some changes within the Justice Department that will more readily address the issues that it feels important to address at this time.", and not said a single thing more, this whole thing would be over.

His incompetence on that level should cost him his job, but it won't happen for the reasons the Democrats desire and it certainly won't stop their incessant hunger for Bush's head.

PS - Howard Dean does not reflect the moderation within the Democratic Party which will be required to win a national election.