Bill O'Reilly is an idiot. This conclusion is hardly new. I am sure that most of us are aware of his
crazy rant about San Francisco. After hearing it and reading a little about it I sort of dismissed the whole thing as Bill being idiotic Bill...until this morning.
This morning I got
REALLY angry not so much at Bill but really at the rest of country. I think any person in a leadership position in Congress, the President, and the heads of both parties should have demanded that O'Reilly apologize for his nonsensical comment. I do not want O'Reilly's apology because I believe in any sort of censorship for stupidity, I am generally "ok" with people spewing nonsense, it is their Constitutional right. What rubbed me the wrong way with O'Reilly and what ultimately lead me to wanting a demand for an apology from the leadership of this country, was that O'Reilly took intolerance for another's view to another level.
I think the leadership of this country needs to say enough is enough, we have made politics entirely too personal, it isn't about debate anymore, it isn't about ideas anymore, it isn't even about disagreement anymore. Politics is now about how thoroughly you can make the other side look ignorant, unpatriotic, and inhuman. O'Reilly actually believes (he admitted it himself when he stood by is statement) that San Fran deserves to be attacked by terrorists; he finds the death of those who do not agree with him an acceptable price to pay for disagreement. The leadership should be demanding apology because it is difficult enough for them to all work together with O'Reilly inciting such hatred. Those in positions of power of this country need to reign in any person from whichever side who helps fuel this disgusting race to the bottom.
Politics is out of hand. The enormous devastation that is left after political campaigns in this country is too much to bear. We are not just left with a candidate who did not win but rather what is left is a dumbfounded electorate that is hard pressed to figure out what the other person is substantively for because the campaign could never get to that point. When a point is raised in today's political campaigns it is not met with fact, figures, and analysis but rather spin and television commercials about how candidate A is really for terrorism because she doesn't want our federal government to look at library records. Then the debate becomes about whether candidate A is a terrorist instead of really looking at the policy. O'Reilly did the same thing. Instead of starting a meaningful discussion on whether it is wise to have school districts ban military recruiting we are all talking about whether San Fran should suffer an attack 9/11 style. Ridiculous. Why are we, members of the voting public, not demanding more? I am too disgusted to go farther. Sorry this was more of a rant perhaps than a substantive post.
Cross posted at Mass Revolution Now!