Sarah Palin joins Fox News

[taks]

you guys really need to work on your ability to formulate proper analogies. it's a crying shame, actually, but a product of the modern education system i suppose so hardly a surprise.

 

taks

[Calax]

you guys really need to work on your ability to formulate proper analogies. it's a crying shame, actually, but a product of the modern education system i suppose so hardly a surprise.

 

taks

What?

Dunn is to Mao what Beck is to the founding fathers (at least from the evidence available) Thus, using Dagons reasoning, we get that Beck is a supporter of slavery, a distaste for womens rights, a love of war (Liberty tree should be washed in the blood of patriots and tyrants every so often you know), and an overall love of everything tobacco.

 

That's no different than saying Dunn is a communist who wants to wipe out specific portions of the population who are dissenting against her party (which is more on Fox's list of things to do).

 

It'd be nice if you would actually say something of substance than charge around and insult people because you're OMG SMRT!

[Walsingham]

Yes, saying someone admires Mao is completely the same as saying he admires the founding fathers. And someone saying they admire hitler is the same as someone admiring Churchill, because after all Churchill was a drunk and hitler was a vegetarian. Elementary logic fail once again.

 

Um... you really didn't follow his point, did you? The good founding fathers were also the bad ones. He's not conflating different people.

 

 

I'll keep my eyes peeled for that version of Sun Tzu, and reserve judgement.

 

Oh, and before I forget I meant to ask my RSM about the balkans last night, but we were too busy.

[Wrath of Dagon]

You mean Hitler is on the 'bad person' list so if you can't quote him in a positive way? The horror!

We're not talking about quoting, we're talking about favorite philosophers and turning to someone time and again.

 

Um... you really didn't follow his point, did you? The good founding fathers were also the bad ones. He's not conflating different people.

Then explain to me what his point has to do with Dunn's case. If you can't admire Mao, you also can't admire the founding fathers? Or there was something good in Mao's philosophy worth admiring? What is it? Edited January 28, 2010 by Wrath of Dagon

[Hurlshort]

A bunch of us are saying the same thing and Wrath isn't getting it, so I'm going to let it rest. It's probably a language barrier issue, I remember that English is not Wrath's first language.

[taks]

A bunch of us are saying the same thing and Wrath isn't getting it, so I'm going to let it rest. It's probably a language barrier issue, I remember that English is not Wrath's first language.

so, what, because a bunch of you are saying the same thing you're right?

 

sorry hurlshot, but you're all wrong on this one rather badly. wrath understands perfectly, and is correct.

 

^calax: a proper analogy requires two things, first, the comparisons must be of a similar type, and second, the magnitudes of what you are comparing must be similar. sorry, but saying someone is your favorite philosopher (or one of your favorites, same stinking thing that you apologists refuse to understand) is not the same as saying you admire someone (particularly when you single out certain traits you like). even if we forgive a little on that part, the magnitude of mao's problems are in the 10s of millions of deaths due to his rule. slavery, the "bad" thing on the founding fathers' shoulders (sorry, they did not desire war, they simply recognized that it was required), was an acceptable practice at the time of the founding fathers, willful extermination of millions of people never is. to put the two in the same analogy is pretty bad, even for you.

 

the quip about hitler, too, is a ridiculous strawman. it is certainly possible to find a trait in someone that is good, even if they are on the whole, and in no way compares to claiming mao as one of your favorite philosophers.

 

the depth of ignorance in this thread is stunning.

 

taks

[Wrath of Dagon]

Not only the depth of ignorance, but the ability to distort and willfully misunderstand a simple and obvious statement. This is indeed like arguing with Bill Clinton over the definition of "is". And Hurlshot, my English is much better than most native speakers, believe me.

[Hurlshort]

I'm just surprised how willing people are to throw someone under the bus. I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt and ask her to explain further (granted her explanation of it being ironic was weak, but supposedly she borrowed the quote from Republican strategist Lee Atwater.)

 

Don't you see what a witch hunt this is? She says something negatively about Fox News and suddenly this quote pops up and every conservative news site is calling her a Maoist.

[Hurlshort]

The quote in its entirety:

 

The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Theresa -- not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is: you're going to make choices; you're going to challenge; you're going to say why not; you're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here's the deal: These are your choices, they are no one else's. In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, "How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all of the odds against you?" And Mao Zedong said, you know, "You fight your war, and I'll fight mine." And think about that for a second. You don't have to accept the definition of how to do things and you don't have to follow other peoples choices and paths. Ok? It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war, you lay out your own path, you figure out what's right for you. You don't let external definition define how good you are internally, you fight your war, you let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path.

 

So basically she is quoting Mao to make a point about not giving up no matter the odds. She is clearly promoting communism.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I'm just surprised how willing people are to throw someone under the bus. I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt and ask her to explain further (granted her explanation of it being ironic was weak, but supposedly she borrowed the quote from Republican strategist Lee Atwater.)

 

Don't you see what a witch hunt this is? She says something negatively about Fox News and suddenly this quote pops up and every conservative news site is calling her a Maoist.

It's not a witch hunt. She was thrown under the bus by Obama, but it wasn't just for one dumb quote. She constantly said and did dumb things as the director of communications, the worst being starting a war with Fox News (before that quote was found), which only made it look like Obama was trying to suppress dissent and boosted Fox News tremendously. Edited January 28, 2010 by Wrath of Dagon

[Calax]

I'm just surprised how willing people are to throw someone under the bus. I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt and ask her to explain further (granted her explanation of it being ironic was weak, but supposedly she borrowed the quote from Republican strategist Lee Atwater.)

 

Don't you see what a witch hunt this is? She says something negatively about Fox News and suddenly this quote pops up and every conservative news site is calling her a Maoist.

It's not a witch hunt. She was thrown under the bus by Obama, but it wasn't just for one dumb quote. She constantly said and did dumb things as the director of communications, the worst being starting a war with Fox News (before that quote was found), which only made it look like Obama was trying to suppress dissent and boosted Fox News tremendously.

I suppose then the question is "Would the quote have been found if fox wasn't trying to cover themselves". Funny thing to me is that they're attacking her about this whole thing by taking things that she said one way, twisting them so that they are said the other way, when they don't take somebody who is so obviously ignorant of facts and hire her simply because she's a former candidate and was considered a good possiblity for being a candidate again.

 

By ignorant I mean Palin believes that Dinosaurs are big lizards who walked around the earth and stepped on humans.

 

Also taks, "my favorite" and "One of my favorite" are different things, otherwise the language would be different. I can only assume Dunn has a degree in communications meaning that she has a fairly strong grasp of the english language which leads to her understanding a difference you refuse to grasp because you want to make a point about how liberals are horrible commies.

 

You say that the willful extermination of millions isn't ok, and yet the founding fathers not only enslaved people, but also started to drive others to extinction. We don't know exactly how Terrible they were given that they are held up as heroes by our education and culture, and thus their personal foibles are covered up in favor of the facts that they were able to do "impossible" things to make a country.

 

If you're gonna fight me over the Indians thing, realize that Jefferson basically said that they could stay and hold their tribal lands as long as they adopted the american way of life and became "civilized" rather than stay with the culture they'd been raised and followed. And in 1803 he laid out the plan Jackson carried out that created the "trail of tears". Thus the analogy is sound, even if you feel like screwing around with the english of that statement showing the difference over something minor, but not about the one about "favorites".

 

Thus by Dagon and Fox News logic, Beck and those who hold Jefferson up as a favorite, are advocates of genocide, go figure.

[Wrath of Dagon]

So really your argument comes down to "Jefferson was as bad as Mao", and has nothing to do with whether and to what degree Dunn admires Mao.

[Calax]

So really your argument comes down to "Jefferson was as bad as Mao", and has nothing to do with whether and to what degree Dunn admires Mao.

yes and no. The point about jefferson is that Beck himself is probably a more staunch supporter of Jefferson and his contemporaries than Dunn is of Mao, and thus saying Dunn is a communist for liking some of Mao's philosophy (see the quote hurlshot provided) also, by comparison, makes Beck and others at fox news who are saying that Jefferson is fantastic, as supporters of Genocide. Even more fervent supporters than Dunn.

 

I'm just using the point to show the idiocy of the idea that because somebody likes a philosopher, they will follow everything that philosopher states.

 

And, honestly, to further highlight the obvious spin that fox news throws on things, even if they have a "No spin zone" that's their most spintastic program.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Obviously Beck doesn't believe Jefferson is guilty of any genocide, so your argument doesn't hold water.

[Hurlshort]

Again, when you read the entire quote, it is very apparent that she was only talking about Mao being willing to create his own destiny despite the odds being stacked against him. You are just making stuff up if you take anything else from it.

[Tigranes]

Putting it back to the original quote and the original exchange,

 

The argument is whether Fox news took a particular conversation on their program and put a spin on it, jumping on something and making the most of it to make the person look bad. Wrath's comments about Obama throwing her under a bus, etc. doesn't apply to that.

 

The particular exchange in question is clearly intended to, and above all other things does, what Hurlshot says: "quoting Mao to make a point about not giving up no matter the odds". So the original intent was ignored, the quote's proportions distorted in order to say MAO LOVAH.

 

At this point there is only one point of contention: is having Mao as one of your favourite political philosophers so unacceptable you should be burnt on a stick? (I disagree with Calax here, it doesn't matter if Theresa too is mentioned, if liking Mao is reason enough for condemnation.) Well we could get into an argument about that all day long, taks has opened that up, but it's not relevant and it's ultimately pretty futile. Mao is not generally accepted by society to be an 'unmentionable' person, like Hitler is in many ways. Fox isn't actually jumping on this because they always thought Mao was a horrid person, they are mobilising the most negative significations 'Mao Zedong' can have and using this to manufacture a sensational and negative representation of the speaker.

 

the depth of ignorance in this thread is stunning.

 

You're so smart taks, take me now

[Wrath of Dagon]

Again, when you read the entire quote, it is very apparent that she was only talking about Mao being willing to create his own destiny despite the odds being stacked against him. You are just making stuff up if you take anything else from it.

Why do you keep pretending that her quote doesn't include this: "The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Theresa -- not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most..." the meaning should be perfectly clear whatever other historical references she made. Btw, she never explained (at least in your quote) what was so great about Mother Theresa that made her turn to her most, just Mao.

 

Edit: She could've just made her point about Mao without saying he was one of her favorite philosophers, or turning to him most, or juxtaposing him with Mother Theresa. And yes, you could rationalize that may be she didn't mean it the way it sounds, and so on, but it was still a really dumb thing to say. Especially coming from someone in a high government position who tries to discredit a news organization that's critical of her political goals.

Edited January 29, 2010 by Wrath of Dagon

[Trenitay]

So what you're saying is that I can't say that my two favorite philosophers are, let's say, Machiavelli and Thoreau. I can't tell you that, then go on to explain why I like Machiavelli, without adhering to everything he said?

[Tigranes]

No, he's saying that having Mao as one of your favourite political philosophers alone makes you a moron and/or a bad person.

 

I think.

[Humodour]

If we're talking about Mao the Chinese mass murderer, I can't immediately think of a more disgusting individual, save, Hitler or Stalin.

 

If you want to talk about Chinese heroes you'd be better off admiring people like Deng Xiaoping or Hu Yaobang. You certainly wouldn't be accused of being a horrible person (which, TBH has some justification) that way.

[Calax]

If we're talking about Mao the Chinese mass murderer, I can't immediately think of a more disgusting individual, save, Hitler or Stalin.

 

If you want to talk about Chinese heroes you'd be better off admiring people like Deng Xiaoping or Hu Yaobang. You certainly wouldn't be accused of being a horrible person (which, TBH has some justification) that way.

I don't think anyone is disputing Mao as a mass murderer, more that you aren't inextricably linked to somebody because you call them one of your favorite political philosophers, and thus you OBVIOUSLY have to have the exact same ideals, beliefs, and overall goals as somebody you consider your favorite.

[Walsingham]

Bump

 

HILARIOUS news story

 

 

I'm mostly amused by the content of her crib notes, but also by the idea that anyone in such a high profile position would have notes written on their hand!

[Tigranes]

I can't read it. Lift Aquarium Saints?

[Trenitay]

Lift American Spirits.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

More info.