Posted on 02/07/2013 9:05:42 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Singer Tony Bennett Says Other Countries Will Invade U.S. to Stop Gun Violence By Matthew Sheffield Created 02/07/2013 - 11:44am
Tony Bennett is one of America's most popular singers but he has proven once again that talent in the arts is no predictor of intelligence.
At a Wednesday press conference, the outspoken “pacifist” Bennett compared gun rights activists to Nazis and said that if the United States did not do something to curtail violence in this country, the rest of the world would “take care of us in a really bad way,” just like they did in World War II to Germany.
In a subsequent interview with CNN, Bennett declined to defend his comments but he did not distance himself from them either. Here’s what he said in full at the conference:
It’s the kind of turn that happened to the great country of Germany where Nazis came over and created tragic things and they had to be told off. And if we continue this kind of violence and accept it in our country, the rest of the world is really going to take care of us in a really bad way.
We should learn that we’re the greatest country because we’re all different nationalities, we’re all different religions, and we should show the rest of the world how to behave.
Later in the day on the CNN show “The Situation Room,” Bennett was asked about his remarks and how he was potentially alienating many of his fans by being so anti-gun. Asked what message he had to people who like his music but who disagree with his position, he responded: “Well, that’s their ignorance.”
Toward the end of the discussion, host Wolf Blitzer meekly asked the singer about his offensive comparison of gun-rights advocates to Nazis:
“You served our country admirably, heroically in World War II and we’re grateful to you for that and I just want to play another clip from what you said up on Capitol Hill today because it brings back memories of World War II,” Blitzer said, firmly placing the softball on the tee.
Bennett’s son and manager, Danny, immediately interjected before his father could answer, doubling down on the service angle:
“Well, he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He’s a war hero so that’s the reference.”
The singer could have left that remark well enough alone but he decided to continue the discussion, much to the apparent chagrin of his son who cleared his throat loudly before Bennett could speak.
“War is the lowest form of human behavior. Killing is the worst form of—” Bennett began before veering off into touchy-feely land as he referenced his recently published book, Life Is a Gift. “Life is a gift. We are blessed with being alive. We should enjoy it and enjoy our neighbors and help our cousins and relatives, our friends. One another, we should all help one another. It’s a gift. We have a gift with our life.”
One wonders what other offensive statement Bennett had in mind before he caught his son’s signal to pipe down.
danny-bennett-tony-bennett.jpgBe that as it may, though, Bennett’s reference to other countries having to defeat Nazi Germany is an interesting one since he has previously questioned whether or not it was even worth attacking Hitler. In a October 11, 2011 interview also on CNN, Bennett was decidedly noncommittal when asked whether the world was morally just in defending itself from Adolph Hitler’s regime:
That’s a very difficult question because I think we should have a society of highly educated, intelligent people that will think realistically about how to do things. When I said to you earlier that the lowest form of nature is to kill someone, it's the lowest form of humanity, that's the bottom of the line. So we’re actually intellectual cavemen at this point. No matter how much technical things we work out, we're still fighting. And it's my dream that some day we'll find out, everybody will learn that what a gift it is to be alive and how we should cherish one another and appreciate one another.
Bennett also feels the same way about the current American struggle against radical Islamic terrorist groups. In a September 2011 interview with radio host Howard Stern Bennett actually wondered “Who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists or are they the terrorists?”
The illogic is enough to make one’s head spin: The rest of the world will invade America if it doesn’t pass gun control because we will be like the Nazis in creating violence. But such an action would be wrong because attacking Germany in World War II was not morally justified nor is attacking Islamic terrorist groups.
On what basis then are gun control laws, which must be enforced by armed government agents, morally correct?
A transcript of the conversation from the February 6 edition of The Situation Room follows:
WOLF BLITZER: All right. So you want to get involved in this fight. What do you exactly want to achieve?
TONY BENNETT: The assault weapons should be illegal in the United States. They should be—they were made for war and they should—and they don’t belong in our, in the citizens’ hands of our great country.
BLITZER: The hardest part of this whole fight—getting these assault-type weapons banned—might be a little bit easier expanding background checks or magazines, or if you will, the amount of bullets in a magazine. But the assault weapons, that’s an uphill struggle.
BENNETT: Yeah, well, it’s dangerous though. It’s very dangerous.
KATE BOLDUAN (CNN correspondent): A lot of people talk about wanting -- a lot of people may talk about wanting to get involved in an issue, but why -- what brings you and your father to Washington? Why did you want to get out so front and center on this issue?
DANNY BENNETT: Well, I was raised a pacifist. You know, Tony fought in World War II, at the Battle of the Bulge, liberated concentration camps, came back a pacifist, marched with Martin Luther King and Ed Solomon in 1965. A lot of people don’t know this. He doesn’t wear it on his sleeve. Feels that that’s the citizen’s responsibility. And we grew up with that dear to our heart.
This is a public safety issue for us. It’s not about taking away guns. It’s not a Second Amendment. It’s controlling the kind of guns that, again, an uphill battle, but what isn’t an uphill battle? Martin Luther King was an uphill battle. You have to -- you have to stand up.
Now is a time to act and the president’s stepping up, and we’re very proud of that. Mayor Bloomberg and those efforts. And we’re here to support that, however we can.
BOLDUAN: Mr. Bennett, you’ve seen music and Hollywood evolve over the time of your career. Do you think the music industry, Hollywood, is partially to blame for the gun violence we're seeing in this country? Glorifying gun violence?
BENNETT: You know, I really don’t because it’s interesting that Canada is a great neighbor to us and they really watch all of the television that we have in America. They watch all of it. So they see all of it and they don’t get into that—all these violent tragedies have happened in the United States. They watch it and they just realize ‘Well that’s films and magazines and all that kind of thing.’ But they don’t fly out of control like what’s happening in the United States.
BOLDUAN: What do you say to your fans then who say they love you, they love your music, they love your career but they really, they just don’t agree with you on this issue?
BENNETT: Well, that’s their ignorance.
DANNY BENNETT: Well it’s also their right.
BENNETT: Right.
DANNY BENNETT: And I think that’s something that’s important to say here that it’s their right to have their opinion and again, a lot of people step up about Hollywood and saying ‘mind your own business,’ well the highest office that somebody can attain under a republic is that of the citizen. It’s not, we forget this. And entertainers are people, too. We’re all citizens and I think it’s a responsibility of each citizen to raise their voice.
BLITZER: You served our country admirably, heroically in World War II and we’re grateful to you for that and I just want to play another clip from what you said up on Capitol Hill today because it brings back memories of World War II. I’ll play the clip and I’ll let you elaborate, explain what you meant.
BENNETT: OK.
BENNETT (earlier video): It’s the kind of turn that happened to the great country of Germany where Nazis came over and created tragic things and they had to be told off. And if we continue this kind of violence and accept it in our country, the rest of the world is really going to take care of us in a really bad way.
We should learn that we’re the greatest country because we’re all different nationalities, we’re all different religions, and we should show the rest of the world how to behave.
BLITZER: But the reference to the Nazis. What was that?
DANNY BENNETT: Well, he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He’s a war hero so that’s the reference.
BLITZER: So the fact that he was obviously, dramatically influenced by World War II—
DANNY BENNETT: Exactly.
BLITZER: —and that’s still part of your life right now and you see some connection with your experience.
DANNY BENNETT: Violence, it has to be stopped.
BENNETT: War is—
(Danny Bennett clears throat prominently)
BENNETT: —the lowest form of human behavior. Killing is the worst form of—you know, I just finished writing a book, I’m not plugging it right now.
BLITZER: Life Is a Gift.
BENNETT: Life is a gift. We are blessed with being alive. We should enjoy it and enjoy our neighbors and help our cousins and relatives, our friends. One another, we should all help one another. It’s a gift. We have a gift with our life.
You want to forgive a lot, like Vonnegut, who was captured at the Bulge and subsequently survived the firebombing of Dresden as a POW... Marked him bitterly, though I doubt we'd have his later work without his having been so marked by that experience.
And Vonnegut clearly wasn't an idiot, but "deliberately ignorant," the very definition of stupidity. He was spiritually blind, at least in one eye, so to speak.
Bennett is probably not as smart as Vonnegut was, but he's marked. He may just be dumber than a bag of hammers. And he's not helping the statist kleptocrat gun-grabbers with this kind of dubious reasoning. Even CNN can see that. So, we choose our fights, and his isn't "the ground." This is distraction of the sort we already have enough.
Wrong guy died (Reg Presley of the Troggs.)
It is a tragic fact that in our society entertainers as mere entertainers are given credence. In saner times all societies controlled the words and deeds of performers.
It sounds like Tony threw a clot.
Celebrities are wrong about the ethics of using their celebrity status to spout and preach their politics to everyone; especially when they tie it to the “right of the citizen to speak up”.
If the average citizen wants to “speak up” they have to buy, or become part of a group that buys, the means to speak in public with a voice that can get heard.
The jerk celebrity is a deluded hypocrite when they use the free attention they get in the media to “speak up”, to spout their own politics.
There are conservatives in the film and television and entertainment industry. You most often don’t hear from them in the political arena because unlike Liberals they usually find it unseemly. Most often when Conservatives in the entertainment industry do “speak up”, they don’t make their voice be heard in they public, they do it in quiet support for the causes they support. They most often chose NOT to trade in public on their celebrity status, when it comes to their political opinions.
Just as we can ask what politician can claim to be a good judge of TV shows, music or movies - and would you really care what they thought? But somehow the opposite is supposed to be true; we’re suppose to care what the TV, movie or music celebrity thinks about a political issue.
Guess what Bennett - we don’t care what you think and just because you’re Tony Bennett does not make your opinion more worthy than the millions of publicly silent, every day, average U.S. citizens who disagree with you.
I have mixed feelings over this.
Fighting for those I love, fighting a thug threatening my family is one thing.
But wars are orchestrated to kill off good people and many people die because of inept command and stupid reasons - just read about World War I and the idiotic trench warfare that did nothing but cull the numbers of men down in the name of “honor”.
I will determine what’s worth fighting for. Not somebody else telling me we have to fight wars we then won’t give proper support for the troops in, and they die because of it. Not someone who says it’s the patriotic thing to do, to go over to some godforsaken hole for no clear reason and die. Not in wars we don’t have clear reasons why, clear objectives, clear end goals. We could save tremendous amounts of lives by tactical nukes in certain areas and we don’t do it because we’re pussies and we don’t really care about ending things quickly and with less casualties in the long run. And don’t tell me about radiation worries - we’ve shot so much radioactive depleted uranium shells all over the middle east it isn’t funny. It affects our guys breathing in all that residue and exploded gasses.
These wars we are in now are being fought in a manner to simply draw down our forces in the name of patriotism. The fact that the highest priority of the forces is to get women in combat, and now the support carrier group that was supposed to go assist the region is staying b/c of budget cuts, and the DoD head is looking to cut military salaries. How about cutting welfare benefits to the Holder crowd.
I don’t buy this bs anymore from any politician encouraging me to go fight and die because of “patriotism”. I’ll fight for my state, my community, I will fight criminals that attack me. I’ll be damned if I fight in any way for Obama, big fedgov, or any of the special interests that have used our military the last century to protect their own asses and assets. Some may fall for the patriotic rhetoric that is spouted to them - but not actually believed by those spouting it, they just want naive soldiers thinking they’re dying for a bigger reason, while they continue to exist and reap dividends while the patriotic get mowed down. I say wake up and actually analyze why we’re doing what we’re doing and why.
It’s like Orwell’s 1984 and the war never ends and Winston reads about the real reasons of war. Also look at the fabulous track record we’ve had where we’ve been the last decade. It’s now more anti-west, anti-Christian, pro-sharia pro-islamic-caliphate than ever. What success. We have a president Obama that loves what is going on because he’s a damn muslim practicing Al-taqiyya and I’ll be damned if I fight for him. He wants as many Americans dead as possible. His god is pleased when we die. So is he. He hates America, he’s purposely attritioning our forces down, this is part of the Freeedom From War Publication 5277 occurring in front of us, and so is the rise of the paramilitary swat team, and so is the push to not allow citizens to have the same weaponry as the internal security forces.
So other countries will use violence to stop what they perceive as violence? Sounds like just another reason for us to stay armed anyway.
How old is Tony Bennett? And how armed are his bodyguards? Oh, wait, he’s a tard celeb so that would clearly be a case of “that’s different.”
And I forget, the push to get rid of sheriffs is part of the Freedom From War agenda as well, as they have power over the feds in a county, being THE TOP LAWMAN across their entire county.
She has dementia, just like Tony.
And the 'UN' un-nazied the world forever.
Tony there are no limits on the blue helmets puss boy.
Of course, add to the curiosness of the “Allied” response to the invasion of Poland by the USSR, the conspicuous absence of the history from the public square. It has been virtually wiped clean from history books, curricula, documentaries, entertainment, the press, etc.
Sometimes I wonder if the left, particularly—a human sideshow/carnival—but the rest of the country, as well, has any idea of the contempt we, or at least I, feel for them.
I asked a clerk the other day what she thought of the House of Representin’ sending a sternly worded warning to the president about the budget: “What?” Well, we haven’t had one for several years ... “Really?” To a guy at the home improvement store: “What do you think of Benghazi?” “Huh?”
Sometimes it’s like living in the year 2505, only it’s real and disheartening.
I took a ride on a February morning
Just getting over it and dealing with the mourning
I started thinking out loud
I’m so sick and tired of being sick and tired
Any which way, thanks be to Odin for Free Republic. And FRiends!
As NJ’s Gov. Chris likes to say, “Let’s keep our chins up.”
Crazy old man.
Bennett said, “Life is A gift! Life is A gift!”
I wonder where he stands on the millions of lives that have been aborted. Being A lib he probably never thinks of them.
I would never knock the patriotism of a guy who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, but his judgement certainly sucks.
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