Pajiba

Since I'm one of the people who signed those petitions, let me clarify what I believe is a very important issue. I did not sign any petition against what Beck was saying: I believe very strongly in the right to free speech. I signed petitions to let advertisers know that I did not appreciate their aligning themselves with his messaging by advertising during his air time and therefore would boycott their products. This is important because it's essential to allow people have their say, but it's also essential to allow people/advertisers know that if they support such a position there will be consequences.

He's neither evil nor a genius. He's just a half-bright former shock radio DJ and former cocaine user who discovered that you can get fame and fortune by acting like Howard Beale. By shamelessly playing to the lowest common denominator and the worst impulses therein, he's made piles of money.

I recall one bit on Fox where he brandished a chain saw over a box containing a rabbit, and another where he "jokingly" faked dousing an intern with gasoline and threatening to set him alight.

P.T. Barnum would have hired him in a second.

I understand, PaddyDog. You support free speech but in enrages you when someone you disagree with exercises free speech. You signed one of the petitions that got Beck off Fox, not because of the things he was saying, but because of his "messaging," which is very different from the things he was saying. It's important to let people have their say, but it's also important that opinions you disagree with not be aired on network television.

Yes God forbid we listen to Beck and start living within our means and being prepared for tough times. We definitely never should have listened to him when he suggested we buy gold (back when it was $700 to $800 an ounce) and it was just silly for him to suggest that revolution would start to sweep through the Middle East, that Europe would collapse and take our economy with it.

Much better we listen to libtard clowns, whose sole purpose in life is to collect some free government cheese.

Im still with u Glen,This article is the bigest piece o crap i have ever read. This writer (should) be writing for a much much younger audience, like preschool kids, oh wait, sorry i forgot u liberals arent as smart as preschoolers or as mature

At first I thought "Huh, a cartoon," like a political cartoon to run in newspapers, like Doonesbury, only with infinitely more DOUCHE, Then I remembered, the Right won't read. Silly me.

Unbiased journalism. What a concept

u liberals arent as smart

Orly?

listened to him when he suggested we buy gold

OF course he said to buy gold. He was sponsored by Goldline. Go ahead and Google Glenn Beck and Goldline and tell me what was great advice about that. Yes, gold was a smart thing to invest in but your little buddy was shilling for a scam operation that didn't actually involve investing in gold stock.

Personally I could take or leave Glenn Beck, but what I would like to see more of is quality independently produced animation. If projects like this and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog (I know it isn't animated but it was independent) become more successful we could get more like the latter which would be good.

OF course he said to buy gold. He was sponsored by Goldline. Go ahead and Google Glenn Beck and Goldline and tell me what was great advice about that. Yes, gold was a smart thing to invest in but your little buddy was shilling for a scam operation that didn't actually involve investing in gold stock.

Posted by: Paultera at November 16, 2011 1:37 PM

You do realize that Daniel was a troll, right? I'm not saying that there aren't people that stupid out there, but usually people that stupid have a handle like d-dawg88, or killdatpinko91.

Joe, however, was a real person, you can bury that motherfucker as much as you like.

There is no such thing as unbiased journalism. All people have bias. Straight reporting of facts is the closest you can get, and no one wants to hear that since it is boring, and requires people to think and draw conclusions for themselves. There is also no requirement for journalism to be unbiased, only to be TRUTHFUL, which is constantly violated, partially because there is no real quality control or accountability on the live endless broadcasting, and partly because the first reports are usually wrong, but since the cameras are rolling, you may as well just run with it. The real problem isn't' BECK or his ilk, they are just just fulfilling a demand. The real problem are the insatiable 24 hour news channels which spew an endless fount of bilious mind vomit to fill the space between commercials, and soothe the anxiety disorder of millions of people who are addicted to the false sense of control in their otherwise out of control lives they get from being constantly INFORMED.

NOOOO, don't block text speak. It is the quickest way I can determine if what I am looking at is worth reading.

I love how Glenn Beck is a visionary because he said 'buy gold!'

Isn't one of the basic tenets of the society that was constructed over centuries, that Gold is ALWAYS valuable?

Like, how does it make him so clever that he remembers Gold is always valuable?
Up until recently it was a requirement for banks to have as much actual physical gold on the property as they did money, because the money is based on the worth of the gold.

I mean honestly, he might as well 'advise' you to FUCKING BREATH.

He's an ass, a big ass, a stupid, ass faced ass.

I proudly support Glen Beck and his endeavor to attempt to bring free thought and unbiased speech to the american people. He resigned to start GBTV. The moron posing as a journalist should be shitcanned for general stupidity. Don't Tread on Me! Cain 2012

jpfloyd said: things

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

If you see no contradiction between claiming that it's important for people to have their say and campaigning to get opinions you don't like off the air, I can't help you.

*Most* people who take to the internet to complain about speech they disagree with (or, alternately, to defend speech they believe is being unfairly persecuted) have a lot of trouble distinguishing between the right to have an opinion and the right to have a stage from which to shout that opinion. PaddyDog, in the very fist comment on the page, stated the difference simply and elegantly and somehow you completely missed it.

Glenn Beck can say whatever he wants to say. And Fox News can air whatever Glenn Beck says if they want to. But they aren't going to unless they can make some money on it, and they can't make some money on it without advertisers. Even if he is widely popular and more people watch his rant than watch Community, it still doesn't matter without advertisers paying the bills.

Now, in most cases advertising is a pretty behind-the-scenes thing and we all just accept that there are commercials for cars and beer on football games, fast food and wonder drugs on prime time programs, cereal and toys on kid's shows and it isn't very controversial and we don't question it. But it can be a little different when companies are sponsoring overtly political speech. There is an implicit message that "this program is made possible by the support of Kraft and Toyota" which means that the speech of Glenn Beck reflects on the companies that pay him and his network to be on the air. Beck fans don't mind, but people who find his message harmful, destructive, irresponsible, or just plain ignorant might not want to support companies that support Glenn Beck.

Now the shady investment schemes, ambulance chasing lawyers, and (ironically) medicare scamming scooter salesmen don't have much of a reputation to lose, and they want to prey on the ignorance and irrational fears of the audience that Glenn Beck's programming gives them access to, so they don't mind the blowback. But other companies that want to sell their products to as broad a market as possible might worry about alienating half their customer base by supporting a wing nut like Beck.

And just in case they thought they could pick up the Glenn Beck watchers without their left-leaning customers bothering to care, Paddy & co just wanted to exercise their own ability to speak and say "yes, we notice, and no, we don't like it."

It's not hypocritical. It's a perfectly reasonable. Free speech and free flow of information is what allows Beck to spread irrational fear, it's what allows critics to discredit his lunacy, and it's what allows Paddy and others to share their feelings with potential corporate sponsors. Those companies will freely make their own decision and they will do so with access to as much information regarding the cost/ benefit of supporting the Glenn Beck show as they can get, which includes both your opinion, and Paddydog's.

Democracy!

So... do people just do constant google searches of "Glen Beck" to see when someone writes something unkind about him, and then storm the gates of the comment section like illiterate barbarians? That's... fascinating.

Also, John's gift for selective understanding is amazing. That's absolutely NOT what PaddyDog said, but it is yet another example of people who don't understand what freedom of speech actually means.

I want to move to a commune with Paddydog and Yossarian, but instead of free range chickens and misogyny we'll grow 100% organic whoopass. I'm getting my canning supplies ready as I type...

One of the many reasons I watch the BBC and AL JAZEERA english.

I agree that that there's not necessarily hypocrisy in supporting free speech and supporting advertiser boycotts. The hypocrisy comes in pretending that you aren't trying to curb speech you don't agree with, when that's the obvious purpose of threatening advertisers. The whole point is to reduce the number of people who can hear Beck's message, isn't it?

He's already a clown, why not a cartoon.

MM - Great! Can you start retrofitting the Murdertank with a backhoe? I think I can get Figgy and Joanna to pull the plow by attaching cardboard cutouts of Hamm and Fessbender to the end of a long stick, but eventually they're going to catch those suckers, and then we won't be able to get anything done.

most of the denigrating comments about beck are coming from the same miscreants who put howard stern on a pedestal and anything that the "throw mud against the wall and see what sticks" entertainer spews on a daily basis. sad!

Yes, fine, let's pretend that's what PaddyDog meant (even though it's not). Even if it WAS...

THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FREEDOM OF SPEECH, NOR THE SUPPRESSION THEREOF.

So... do people just do constant google searches of "Glen Beck" to see when someone writes something unkind about him, and then storm the gates of the comment section like illiterate barbarians? That's... fascinating.

It is... fascinating. I disagree with you pinko bleeding heart types on the proper role of government in a free and just society, but it is disconcerting (unsettling? depressing?) to see these guys taking time off from trolling at HuffPo to come over here just because Glenn "hoard your seeds and gold" Beck's name is being besmirched.

Posted by: Eddie at November 16, 2011 3:02 PM

omg OMFG

can we get that on a tee?

GBTV does not stand for Glenn Beck TV. It stands for Glenn Beck Trans-Vestite.

The man already has crazy pants children's book about how the govt is going to take all of mommy and daddy's money and give it to the nazis or something, leaving you without a Christmas present. They have illustrations of nice rosey cheeked aryan kids fresh from a Norman Rockwell nightmare. So why not give him a cartoon show. It's not as if he's attempting to indoctrinate our youth.

How can so many in this country believe in what that lunatic says? He is a former coke addict who has an obsession with Nazi's. He IS a cartoon.
Him, O'Reilly and Limbaugh are an embarrassment to America.

I told my one friend who likes to listen to and watch conservative talk radio and TV that it would be better if he spent that time watching porn. At least then it is obvious who is getting screwed.

Signing a petition like that is obviously an effort to get Beck off the air. You can color it however you like, the end-game in a petition like that is to silence Beck.

Don't get me wrong; I'm totally cool with it. Beck is a loon. But Paddydog's motives weren't as pure as the driven snow. She didn't like what Beck was saying on his show and participated in a clever and organized scheme to shut him up. And it worked. Exceedingly well. Apparently he only exists in some crazy corner of the internet now.

But let's be clear, John. That doesn't mean Paddy or any of the others aren't supportive of free speech in general. Though the petition's sole motive was to silence Beck, it did so by appealing to advertisers worst fears: lost income and offended customers.

Look at it like this: if McDonalds suddenly replaced the Hamburglar with Blackface Joe, who couldn't afford hamburgers and had to steal them to feed his seven bastard children, people would stop going to McDonalds. Sure, McDonalds would be well within their rights to feature a character so blatently racist, that doesn't mean the consuming public would be required to buy Big Macs.

Beck said awful, racist, paranoid things on his show. He alienated a massive portion of the American population, and the advertisers got a very clear look at just how bad things had gotten. So they pulled their money. Bump, set, spike - Beck is off the air. I think it's a resounding victory for free-speech, not an shameful mar.

Beck was not fired. He left of his own will to star this own news company.

I almost didn't recognize Glenn Beck because he wasn't crying great big crocodile tears in the header picture.

Heeee! The trolls think WE are the trolls. That is so cute. Kind of like when a puppy eats its own poo.

this thread has gone unknowingly self-aware.

I choo choo choose you!

Damn it. All this arguing is making my dick soft.

Wait. Where do we go to get the "free government cheese?"

I hope it's manchego!

Thanks, Joe!

So...do you like...stuff?

Did Beck ever offer to do his show for free?
That way, advertising dollars wouldn't be nearly as necessary, and he'd still be able to help save America from the dirty African with the fake birth certificate, right?
Instead, he left to create his own news "network," where (I'm sure) he can keep the lion's share of the profits and save America!
That's what I call a selfless patriot.

I am biased. I freely admit it. I couldn't write a single complimentary thing about Glenn Beck. He's a cancer on the world. But my bias is based on the fact that this piece of slime is a liar and a con artist.

But what I hate more than Glenn Beck are his followers. Glenn Beck is nuts but he makes a living with his nuts (har). His followers are just gullible rubes hanging onto every malignant, hateful word in his campaign of conspiracy theory, propaganda and misinformation. All one need do is read the babble his followers vomit out whenever his Aryan Excellence is spoken of negatively to know that at least this representative slice is bat-shit crazy and dangerously stupid. Look at that picture and tell me he's not trying to look all Master Race.

Even further up on my shit list are those people, and there are oh so many, are those sanctimonious dickheads who scream and rant about free speech and have no clue what it really is.

As has been said a million times, you can say whatever you like about whatever you like, within legal limits (yes, the law limits a lot of free speech), but no law or right protects you from the consequences of that speech. I'll defend his right to say what he likes and I have the right to say, "I hate what you say" and it's my right to try to illustrate to others why exactly I hate what you say and influence them to not support what you say.

If someone went on TV and said "Hey, Hawaiians are really shitty people. We should all try to avoid Minnesotans too because they're evil and terrorists." It would be perfectly okay with everyone if he weren't allowed to spew that nonsense on television anymore. Can't stop the interwebs though, otherwise I'd be signing a billion petitions to have him sent into space in one of those flying glass pane prisons.

Thank you, Jordan. Love and sex are two different things. Just keep it in yer pants and we'll be fine, but hold on a second...

"...all are welcome in the new PaddyYossarianDog anarcho-syndicalist collective in which we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major...

Well, you get the picture!

Posted by: PaddyDog at November 16, 2011 4:39 PM

.....

Will there be spankings?

Also:

"...there is a change going on in this nation, the conservatives in this nation far out number the liberals, but we have never tried to shut anyone up like the left does. I think the time is coming though when we might actually begin to play your game with you, we will all write the sponsors of those we do and don't want to watch, and see who the sponsors listen to.

Posted by: robin fletcher at November 16, 2011 5:59 PM

I can't decide what part of this statement is funnier or stupider. The part where you declare the Right would never try to silence someone or the part where you outnumber liberals. I think Jerry Falwell's greatest legacy, sad to say, was convincing you tools that you really were the majority.

And John? No one is denying that we're trying to stop his message. Denying him the ability to spread his message isn't denying him free speech. He can say it all he wants. We're denying him a platform, we're denying him the ability to spread his speech to others. Maybe you see that as a cop out, maybe you see it as censorship. Don't really care what you think beyond pointing out how dumb your views are. And yeah, I'd cut you off from an audience if I could too, but that's cuz I hate what you say because it's lies and stupid and lies and stupid are contagious.

I didn't say I wanted the government, large or small, to advocate or pass a law that says you can't say what you want or have what audience you want. That would be fascism. I only expressed, with my fucking free speech, that I hate what you say and would stop it if I could. I understand the nuances of higher thinking might be difficult to grasp, and that it's just easy to call someone a socialist of a fascist or a muslim, but ignorance disguised as a political position is still just dumb.

This is all a moot point seeing as how I won Congress in a poker game last week. How do you like them Ontarian apples?