Posted on 03/17/2005 3:28:12 PM PST by alan alda
I actually think that's a bad analogy, for the simple reason that pedophilia is a crime, while holocaust denial, so far as I know, is not.
A more apt analogy would be if they had on the wife of a cop killed by some idiot, and then showed a rally of garden variety leftists demonstrating on behalf of the imprisoned cop killer. CSPAN has probably done that, and that's ok with me.
I think we should leave it to grown ups to make up their own minds. This holocaust denier is a featured part of her book. What's wrong with showing him to the audience. What's wrong with We Report, You decide?
C-Span's morning call-in programs used to be a good barometer about what 'Main Street' thought about the day's events. No more. Not since they've 'balanced' the program by insisting on 1 Republican Caller, followed by 1 Democratic Caller, followed by a third Caller who hasn't got a coherent political philosophy. Unless they have a really good guest, these programs are brain-dead.
I agree. I'd rather live in a country where lunatic ideas are allowed to be expressed than one where "certain" people tell us who we can and cannot hear. Frankly I find listening to the leftist nutjobs who appear on C-Span highly entertaining. It is especially funny to have the camera pan around to the ahem assembled throngs...many times just a few of the true believers and some tourists accidentally listening in. But my main point is that screwy or not, it is better to have weird opinions being expressed than having them censored.
You are absolutely right. Lamb and his crew sit there like lumps when everyone knows the caller is lying through his/her teeth. I quit watching during Clintoons impeachment when the Dem crones called in every day though they were limited to once a month. If I could identify their voices, I figured the moderator was choosing to let them break the rules in order to voice their undying devotion to the Sinkmeister. I'll never bother watching again, and it's particularly galling to know that it's subsidized by my cable bill by government fiat.
Why shouldn't CSPAN give us the TV version of a little (s)troll over to DU or libertyforum or whatever? It has its value. Anyway, whatever. This is really so small it's totally ridiculous. I must have nothing better to do.
Not entirely sure what that is supposed to mean.
I agree. I have no problem with the guest list of Washington Journal. Hearing leftwing nutjobs on national TV spout the ridiculous daily talking points that were faxed to them, to me, is a comic tragedy.
Amen to that..
What kind of freeper names himself alan alda? Michael Moore was already taken.
I haven't trusted them since October 31, 1998, when they promised to show the FreeRepublic March for Justice live, but instead put on a re-run of something featuring Madeleine Albright. Fortunately they did switch to the FR rally a little later--maybe they received a lot of complaints.
Verginius Rufus
(lurker March 1998--Nov. 2000)
Interesting point, but I think my analogy fits just fine if you replace add "non-practicing" to "pedophiliac." Advocating pedophilia is no crime, but it does not deserve a place withing the debate either. Similarliy, Holocaust denial doesn't deserve any space in the public forum: we can't silence them, but we don't have to give them a loudspeaker either.
The essential problem here is that by allowing this guy on CSPAN you make the truth of the Holocaust the issue, which really isn't something that is up for debate. It's like following a lecturer on the history of science with a member of the flat-earth society, only a lot more offensive.
The truth should always be the issue. What's wrong with that? At what point do you want people to cede the ability to think for themselves?
Well you lasted longer than I did. After I found FR, and started to enjoy the discussion with real people, I stopped watching C-Span. Brian was so stressed to have to discuss Clinton's numerous folly's.
It's worse that debating a flat-earther (or global warmer). I have debated a holocaust-denying former colleague and found it extremely frustrating even though he was only a script-kiddie repeating stuff from the denial sites. What the deniers have essentially done is built an seemingly complete and coherent alternate reality around their case. Every bit of evidence that you can point to has been analyzed by them to come up with a carefully crafted explanation. The only exception is eyewitnesses who are usually dismissed as unreliable. The final argument, at least for my script-kiddie denier, was that at least the numbers of Jews killed should be open to debate, that's all he was asking for, such a reasonable little request.
Question this morning.....WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YESTERDAY'S HEARING ON BASEBALL.
Agree with President Bush
Agree with Democrats
Agree with Other
Other than using this as another opportunity to bash the President, what could these questions possibly elicit?
"The truth should always be the issue."
That really doesn't mean anything. If the "truth" of the holocaust is the issue (and it is not the issue that the author addresses, since she studies holocaust deniers), then there is no reason to listen to holocaust deniers, since they clearly fall outside the realm of "truth." It's just silly. Yes, I want people to think for themselves, always. But if they think there was no holocaust, they are wrong, plain and simple. Should we be debating the "truth" of gravity? If CSPAN has on a Civil War historian, would it be reasonable to have a Civil War denier come on and debate the "truth" of the Civil War?
Then don't listen.
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