Patrick Buchanan (Wikipedia)"American conservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior advisor to American presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. He ran on the Reform Party ticket in the 2000 presidential election.
He co-founded The American Conservative magazine and launched a foundation named The American Cause.[1] He has been published in Human Events, National Review, The Nation and Rolling Stone. He is currently a political commentator on the MSNBC cable network including the show Morning Joe and a regular on The McLaughlin Group."
The Conservative rigidity has oft been analyzed so I won't bother to repeat all the findings on that subject. However, it is one thing to believe things firmly that have not been clearly proven otherwise, and another to fly in the face of all the proof that is needed for most intelligent individuals to be comfortable in taking a supportive position. For this reason, why Pat Buchanan has been snookered into believing that Darwin did not make astonishingly, accurate discoveries about evolution, is most difficult to understand. If we do understand the reason, then we must shudder at the minds that permeate politics and running the country. Buchanan is certainly not the only politician/presidential-advisor/speech writer or any number of other tasks influential to Presidents, who can be ridiculed for blindness to reality, easily taken in by those who untruthfully think they can prove facts by simply making up lies and having them published as facts.
In an article by PZ Myers (Pharyngula) an article was written titled "Old Fossil Takes on Darwin, He is apparently inspired by a "splendid little book," The End of Darwinism: And How a Flawed and Disastrous Theory Was Stolen and Sold, by a creationist crank named Eugene G. Windchy. You can read the full article here.
Showing posts with label Pat Buchanan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pat Buchanan. Show all posts
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
SOME PUNDITS DON'T LEARN OR BEND
The other night I watched MSNBC. Mike Barnicle was subbing for Chris Matthews on Hardball. He asked a question of Pat Buchanan and Lawrence O'Donnell, both of whom were raised as Catholics and are products of parochial school education. The question was, "Should Notre Dame have asked Obama, who supports abortion rights and stem cell research, to speak at this year's commencement?", which they have apparently done.
Buchanan was against it and said that, though he is a friend of the man who made the decision, he thinks the decision was a violation of that for principles for which the religious school. He kept raising the opinions of the Pope as the deciding and acceptable factor in determining the values and opinions of the speakers. Boston College is a Catholic school but I have never heard that sort of discrimination about its students or speakers. Brandeis, primarily of Jewish faith, also shows no discrimination in accepting students or choosing speakers and professors. Years ago, when I attended graduate school at Boston University, some of my classes were assigned to be held in the School of Theology. I recall a sign on a wall that said "If God had wanted you to smoke, he would have provided you with a chimney." It amused me because one could have written "God must have wanted you to smoke because he provided you with cigarettes and a nose." To this day I cannot tell you what denomination the School of Theology is at BU, though I seem to recall it to have been some Protestant denomination.
I've never been a fan of Pat Buchanan because I have found him to be too tied to his past, with rigidity. In fact, he seems totally out of touch with all the Catholics I know, most of whom believe in the right of others to abortion, believe in and practice birth control, and most believe that science should be outside church regulations.
The argument against Obama was raised and O'Donnell countered that the Pope was equally against capital punishment but GW Bush, the governor with the most executions. had been a speaker at Notre Dame. While O'Donnell was recognizing and accusing Buchanan of hypocrisy, Buchanan could not admit to it. He kept insisting that all who were put to death were GUILTY of murder. He completed misses one of the main arguments that many against capital punishment make...that too many innocent people are put to death and only later found they are victims of the judicial system, political pressure and greed, inaccuracy of witnesses, sloppy lab work or other reasons.
It seems evident that the managers of news stations do not care what positions their staff and honored guests take, just as long as it pretends to offer a fair and balanced presentation by the channel. If intelligence, knowledge and truth were important to them, they would present those rather than the rigid, bizarre, distorted thinking that many of the ones on staff and as guests present the viewers.
Buchanan was against it and said that, though he is a friend of the man who made the decision, he thinks the decision was a violation of that for principles for which the religious school. He kept raising the opinions of the Pope as the deciding and acceptable factor in determining the values and opinions of the speakers. Boston College is a Catholic school but I have never heard that sort of discrimination about its students or speakers. Brandeis, primarily of Jewish faith, also shows no discrimination in accepting students or choosing speakers and professors. Years ago, when I attended graduate school at Boston University, some of my classes were assigned to be held in the School of Theology. I recall a sign on a wall that said "If God had wanted you to smoke, he would have provided you with a chimney." It amused me because one could have written "God must have wanted you to smoke because he provided you with cigarettes and a nose." To this day I cannot tell you what denomination the School of Theology is at BU, though I seem to recall it to have been some Protestant denomination.
I've never been a fan of Pat Buchanan because I have found him to be too tied to his past, with rigidity. In fact, he seems totally out of touch with all the Catholics I know, most of whom believe in the right of others to abortion, believe in and practice birth control, and most believe that science should be outside church regulations.
The argument against Obama was raised and O'Donnell countered that the Pope was equally against capital punishment but GW Bush, the governor with the most executions. had been a speaker at Notre Dame. While O'Donnell was recognizing and accusing Buchanan of hypocrisy, Buchanan could not admit to it. He kept insisting that all who were put to death were GUILTY of murder. He completed misses one of the main arguments that many against capital punishment make...that too many innocent people are put to death and only later found they are victims of the judicial system, political pressure and greed, inaccuracy of witnesses, sloppy lab work or other reasons.
It seems evident that the managers of news stations do not care what positions their staff and honored guests take, just as long as it pretends to offer a fair and balanced presentation by the channel. If intelligence, knowledge and truth were important to them, they would present those rather than the rigid, bizarre, distorted thinking that many of the ones on staff and as guests present the viewers.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
MEDIA SHOOTS LONG BEFORE THE WHITES OF EYES ARE VISIBLE
Chris Matthews: "He (Obama) has to turn away the public anger.....". Matthews makes no mention that the anger is being roiled up by the media, focused for days on raising that anger by speaking on things about which they know little or nothing. I am constantly shocked at the Babbitts in the Legislature. Legislators wasted our taxpayer money on a hearing, all morning, BEFORE they heard the testimony of the current, newly appointed AIG CEO, who came in to do the best he could after the disaster not of his making was in full catastrophe. It showed when their minds were closed and where they got their information. Those who claim their constituents are demanding bonuses be returned are as clueless as their constituents because the source of information has been the same erroneous guessing.
People in the Congress who spoke today only made me aware of how obtund most of them are. They flame, rant, and talk threateningly, raising promises of what they will do, while all the time never listening to facts.
AIG was the target today. If the employees had been black two generations ago, they'd have been lynched by now, apologized for later. What our politicians fail to recognize is that not everyone employed at AIGFP in London, or the many other sites ordered to be closed had anything to do with policy decisions. The workers in IT, for example, made a minimal salary and the yearly bonus was, if fact, their real income on which they lived. When one of the Congressmen asked if replacements couldn't easily be found for all the employees, I cringed. Just because Legislators require no particular skill for their job and need little by way of a learning curve to do it, they should not assume that is true in all corporations. There are those who have set up offices, know exactly how everything works and where everything is backed up as required by the FBI, the IRS, and all other governmental noses stuffed in to find out what happened.
Death threats for just doing your job (the few top people who were really responsible for the major problems are long gone) are pretty much undeserved. In the States, employees are having their cars vandalized and are fearful of the mob mentality that the media is helping to escalate. It is laughable that only Rush Limbaugh was sympathetic when, (I was told) he said 'let them have their bonuses; after all, they're out of a job soon') CEO compensation has been out of hand for many years now. Non-profit companies have been indulging their CEOs with huge bonuses for many years. It became a way of life but was at its worst when employees were paid a minimum salary for the job they did, but unlike food service people they got no tips from customers. Instead, just as with food service waiters, waitresses, bartenders, etc., their 'tips' came in the form of a bonus...no doubt an tax advantage to the company or some other devious reason.
During the campaign I complained bout Chris Matthews (MSNBC)asking guests for an answer or opinion and talks over them. I'm surprised anyone wants to appear on his show he is so discourteous. Then there is Pat Buchanan who does the same and even talked over Matthews. Someone needs to stop the rabble-rousing before people are really hurt, or worse, killed. Will the media take their responsibility for firing up rage over such a tempest in a teapot? I sincerely doubt it. They haven't done so in the past that I can recall.
People in the Congress who spoke today only made me aware of how obtund most of them are. They flame, rant, and talk threateningly, raising promises of what they will do, while all the time never listening to facts.
AIG was the target today. If the employees had been black two generations ago, they'd have been lynched by now, apologized for later. What our politicians fail to recognize is that not everyone employed at AIGFP in London, or the many other sites ordered to be closed had anything to do with policy decisions. The workers in IT, for example, made a minimal salary and the yearly bonus was, if fact, their real income on which they lived. When one of the Congressmen asked if replacements couldn't easily be found for all the employees, I cringed. Just because Legislators require no particular skill for their job and need little by way of a learning curve to do it, they should not assume that is true in all corporations. There are those who have set up offices, know exactly how everything works and where everything is backed up as required by the FBI, the IRS, and all other governmental noses stuffed in to find out what happened.
Death threats for just doing your job (the few top people who were really responsible for the major problems are long gone) are pretty much undeserved. In the States, employees are having their cars vandalized and are fearful of the mob mentality that the media is helping to escalate. It is laughable that only Rush Limbaugh was sympathetic when, (I was told) he said 'let them have their bonuses; after all, they're out of a job soon') CEO compensation has been out of hand for many years now. Non-profit companies have been indulging their CEOs with huge bonuses for many years. It became a way of life but was at its worst when employees were paid a minimum salary for the job they did, but unlike food service people they got no tips from customers. Instead, just as with food service waiters, waitresses, bartenders, etc., their 'tips' came in the form of a bonus...no doubt an tax advantage to the company or some other devious reason.
During the campaign I complained bout Chris Matthews (MSNBC)asking guests for an answer or opinion and talks over them. I'm surprised anyone wants to appear on his show he is so discourteous. Then there is Pat Buchanan who does the same and even talked over Matthews. Someone needs to stop the rabble-rousing before people are really hurt, or worse, killed. Will the media take their responsibility for firing up rage over such a tempest in a teapot? I sincerely doubt it. They haven't done so in the past that I can recall.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)