Most of the time, I have no problem with MSNBC. Why shouldn’t Communist fatheads have something to watch on TV? Conversely, the well-dressed, well-spoken, sophisticated anchors who front the network news and lie by omission and distortion every night while pretending to report objectively — they seem corrupt and wicked to me. They need to be exposed, ridiculed, undermined, defeated and ultimately replaced by people who understand the importance of fair and balanced reporting in a free nation. But MSNBC leftists speaking as leftists — that seems honest enough, no matter what I may think of their philosophy… which is that it’s a recipe for disaster papered over with a facade of false virtue.
But during yesterday’s Republican convention coverage, The Daily Caller reports (h/t Instapundit), the MSNBC goofs cut away during every speech made by a minority. They didn’t want anyone to see that men and women of color were a cherished and honored part of the Republican party. That’s not their narrative so, by gum, they weren’t going to show it. Which raises — not a complaint — but a question: What good is a philosophy that can’t withstand even the sight of the simple facts? If, for instance, you are pro-abortion, why protest when pro-lifers show films of an abortion taking place? If you’re afraid reality will prejudice people against your point of view, shouldn’t you consider changing your point of view? Am I missing something?
Taking another, more honest tack on the issue of minorities speaking at the convention, David Horsey wrote at The Los Angeles Times that this put “a brown face on a white party.” Hey, fair enough. I would have said the GOP was using brown faces to show minorities they’re welcome and to overcome the ceaseless media portrayal of the party as racist. Black conservative speakers demonstrate that there’s another, better, prouder way to live than being dependent on the federal dime. But Horsey has the right to note the facts and speak his left-wing mind about them. Why not
But not to note the facts at all? Even MSNBC should be ashamed of itself — or perhaps they should be converted to conservatism by recognizing leftism’s need to hide reality from itself!
The left wing complaint against Fox News has always been that Fox is biased toward the right. In practical fact, this means Fox runs popular shows by Sean Hannity and the libertarian Bill O’Reilly, and sometimes overweights the All Stars panel with conservative voices. But no one ever accuses news anchor Bret Baer of failing to show the world more or less as it is. Why would right wingers watch him if he did that? All of us sometimes explain away facts that challenge our opinions — but just pretending the facts aren’t there? How can that be of service to anyone?
MSNBC’s convention coverage would be hilarious if it weren’t pathetic. Oh, hell, it’s hilarious anyway.
Does anyone else sense panic in the air on the left?
The problem is that you PAY FOR MSNBC whether you watch it or not.
I wouldn’t have a problem with it if I could pick and choose which channels I paid for from my cable provider and could exclude MSNBC and also NBC (which gets free spectrum, along with the other broadcast nets). But – you can’t.
So, yes, considering that they spew communist propaganda 24/7 and that it is paid for by virtually everyone in the country, whether they want to or not, then yes I have a problem with MSNBC.
I tuned the RNC in on MSNBC just moments before Rick Santorum’s speech, only to hear Mathews and Maddow tell their audience in advance that Santorum was going to LIE about welfare reform, “and when he does we’re going to call him on it.” I knew I couldn’t stomach their rude commentary talking over a Speaker so I switched to CSPAN, great choice, no blather no spin, just the main course.
Bill O’Reilly is not a libertarian.
Yeah, I would not describe O’Reilly as a libertarian. A pedantic ogre, perhaps.
The great advantage of the Right over the Left is that, as Margaret Thatcher put it, “the facts of life are conservative:”
“Facts are stubborn things.” — John Adams
“Justice is not postponed.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You cannot consume what no one has produced.” — Ayn Rand
“If you destroy a free market, you create a black market.” — Winston Churchill
“You cannot build up the weak by pulling down the strong.” — Abraham Lincoln (apocryphal)
“I was never molested by any man save those that represented the State.” — Henry David Thoreau
“The envious man thinks that if he breaks his neighbor’s leg, he will be able to walk better.” — Author unknown
…and perhaps the most ominous of all:
“Freedom is that which you demand for yourself but would deny to others.” — Thomas Szasz
It’s high time Americans abandoned the pursuit of entitlements at the expense of anonymous others, and returned to the pursuit of happiness by individual effort. That can only come about when facts are once again supreme over vaporous notions about prosperity through government regulation and redistribution. When that day comes, we’ll finally be willing to do as Thomas Paine has told us:
“Give to all others every right that you claim for yourself — that is my doctrine.”
and the libertarian Bill O’Reilly
WTF?
O’Reilly is a big government douche, a conservative democrat chased out of that party by the socialists.