TV: Real Time With Bill Maher has fallen off a cliff

[Spring in Fialta]

You just think that because I don't take Cody Johnston seriously or your few examples and say that Shapiro is 100% bad because of them, then I must be saying that his views are valid and just the other side.

I have no idea who Cody Johnston is. And the rest of your post is just sad, I'm sorry. It's passive acceptance/indifference to racism. Full stop. Imagine if you'd just replace African-Americans for Palestinians in those statements. This is also a man who goes out of his way to call other Jewish folks who are liberal as Jews in Name Only.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I have no idea who Cody Johnston is. And the rest of your post is just sad, I'm sorry. It's passive acceptance/indifference to racism. Full stop. Imagine if you'd just replace African-Americans for Palestinians in those statements.

It's the video Beau posted, figured you included that in the examples of Shapiro.

Imagine saying you disagree with views and telling that person they passive accept or indifferent.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Just on a base level, I don't think someone interested in organic exploration of a subject would suddenly wear a "u mad bro?" look on his face the moment he starts gaining the upper hand, which happens way too often with Shapiro to take his sincerity seriously. Exacerbated frustration in the face of stupidity is one thing.

It's less his positions themselves that bother me, but the convenience that all the chips just happen to land that way for him, always, and the way he reacts and responds to dissent (and some of the deceptive ways he rationalizes those positions).

I agree he's not interested in organic exploration of a subject, I'm not even sure he'd say he's interested in that. Not many political commentators want to organically explore a subject, I'd almost argue that none of them do. The ones that do, aren't what I'd consider a political commentator, people like Peterson, Weinstein brothers, Chomsky, etc., and yes I purposely used examples that could be viewed across the political spectrum.

 

[Shareefruck]

I agree he's not interested in organic exploration of a subject, I'm not even sure he'd say he's interested in that.

As in actually getting to the bottom of whether or not something is true, and actually figuring it out. You never see any genuine curiosity in his discussions or arguments. Just absolute certainty about things that just happen to always conveniently land on the same side of the coin, as long as it's plausible enough to get away with, and only deviating when he's absolutely backed into a corner.

 

[Shareefruck]

I agree he's not interested in organic exploration of a subject, I'm not even sure he'd say he's interested in that. Not many political commentators want to organically explore a subject, I'd almost argue that none of them do. The ones that do, aren't what I'd consider a political commentator, people like Peterson, Weinstein brothers, Chomsky, etc., and yes I purposely used examples that could be viewed across the political spectrum.

I don't think it would be fair to confidently say that none of them do, it may be in their best interests not to, but some baseline, responsible degree of open-mindedness can surely come across (and I would argue is necessary to be a responsible/authentic/defensible political commentator, which I agree isn't a priority for most), whether it might turn out to be an act or not, and Ben Shapiro is PAINFULLY bad at passing that act off as anything remotely believable, was my point.

 

[Shareefruck]

That's why I said almost. I couldn't really think of any political commentators that are truly open-minded. I think some are in the scope of very specific topics. There is one discussion that happened at Politicon that was actually pretty good between TC and CU, but now we are definitely off-topic, just using that as an example of people in a limited scope going away from their mainstream partisan points.

They don't need to be truly 100% open-minded or unbiased to be able to mostly argue in good faith, though. With Shapiro, it's almost 100% closed off, which is pretty disqualifying and not at all respectable, IMO. It's just pure sport, indulgence, and cultural war with him.

 

[bleedblue1223]

They don't need to be truly 100% open-minded or unbiased to be able to mostly argue in good faith, though. With Shapiro, it's almost 100% closed off, which is pretty disqualifying and not at all respectable, IMO. It's just pure sport, indulgence, and cultural war with him.

And I don't think he'd argue with that, but how is that different from any other of his peers, whether on right or left. All those newer age, youtube/podcast type people hold their views and try to get people to follow their line of thinking. That's why it's important to try and take a wide range in and determine your own views for yourself.

 

[Shareefruck]

And I don't think he'd argue with that, but how is that different from any other of his peers, whether on right or left. All those newer age, youtube/podcast type people hold their views and try to get people to follow their line of thinking. That's why it's important to try and take a wide range in and determine your own views for yourself.

It's different in that 25-50% open-mindedness is better than 0% open-mindedness? If someone's 0% open-minded, their views aren't even worth considering in that wide range to begin with, IMO-- it's just completely discardable. If you need to re-frame the argument as "Shapiro is aggressively awful at something that 100% of political commentators are also somewhat bad at," so be it. I don't see how that excuses criticism to begin with, though.

An even bigger difference is that he brands himself as some purveyor of facts and logic. If he were merely a transparently shameless spokesperson for an ideology and presented himself that way, I would find him less disingenuous.

Nobody's defending the bloggers who can be every bit as awful. I agree that they can be, but that doesn't make Shapiro any more defensible.

 

[Surrounded By Ahos]

Ben Shapiro is a clueless oaf and should never be taken seriously. Just look at his appearance with Andrew Neil. He's good at talking fast and confusing college kids with his pre-adolescent voice.

 

[bleedblue1223]

It's different in that 25-50% open-mindedness is better than 0% open-mindedness? If someone's 0% open-minded, their views aren't even worth considering in that wide range to begin with, IMO-- it's just completely discardable. If you need to re-frame the argument as "Shapiro is aggressively awful at something that 100% of political commentators are also somewhat bad at," so be it. I don't see how that excuses criticism to begin with, though.

An even bigger difference is that he brands himself as some purveyor of facts and logic. If he were merely a transparently shameless spokesperson for an ideology and presented himself that way, I would find him less disingenuous.

Nobody's defending the bloggers who can be every bit as awful. I agree that they can be, but that doesn't make Shapiro any more defensible.

Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you on that, my point is, I don't see any of his peers being different from him on that, that's why I always think it's weird that he's this lightning rod for some. Cenk, Dore, Seder, Pakman, Kulinski, Crowder, any of the others that do what he does are all the same. They have strong opinions and rarely move from them just how Shapiro is. If he's 0%, who do you consider 25-50%, again just out of curiosity.