Bill O'Reilly and Freedom of Speech

[The Ghost of Bondo]

Ok, I respect O'Reilly somewhat because he does some honest investigation, but he has in the past and again today has irritated me in that he seems to constantly demand freedom of speech to be limited.

To start, I'll go with tonight's issue.  He was criticizing the LA Times for printing an editorial that basically compared the irregular Iraqi troops to the patriots of the Revolutionary War.  The article doesn't state that they have equally just causes...just that they both fight in untraditional manners, both are looked at by the opposing country as terrorists.  The similarities are in composition and in the perception by the opposition.  They do not however say the causes are similar and that they are just as noble as seemingly the patriots were.  Yet O'Reilly just lashed out at them for this, acting as if printing what I think is quite a reasonable opinion, was treason.  He basically asked his audience to pressure the owners of the paper (the Tribune group in Chicago) to not allow it, in essance he is advocating censorship.

He has done this before in the case of music, advertising, etc.  One of his notible cries for censorship was about NAMBLA, saying they don't have a right to SAY what they do (though doing it is indeed illegal...right or wrong)

This is a very questionable thing, and this incident was the boiling point for me, it just irritates me that someone who claims to be a supporter of the freedom of speech so often seeks to censor that freedom.

[alaric]

O'Reilly's a bastard, what else is new? He has a right to free speech and everything, but I certainly wouldn't shed a tear if he were discovered some morning with a bullet in his head.

I don't know about anybody else, but I consider this guy to be a source of entertainment - not news. That goes for the whole Fox News network, actually.

[tasty]

Watching Bill O'Reilly's show makes me want to take tequila shots. No Spin Zone my ass, he's a registered republican. The sad part is he's the most watched pundit on television. Other calls for censorship I remember him advocating included boycotting VH1 for having a show where prisoners could share music they created.

I also read a scary statistic today - that 82% of Americans use the ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX television networks as their only source of news.

[Cossack]

Bill O'Reilly is a jackass. Did you know he threatened to decapitate someone who was a spokesman for the "Not in our names" orginization? He cut his mic and took him off the air, apparently Bill O'Reilly threatned to decapitate him. This is not responsible news, and it is one of the reasons why I am boycotting Fox News.

[The Ghost of Bondo]

Well, the no spin is horseshit, bias is inevitable...I watch Fox News as my right leaning news source to balance my Newsweek reading.

[Supernatural Pie]

Yes, i was watching Bill's intro with my mom, and we both applauded his monologue at the end. America is a terrorist nation... what kind of bull shit is that!?

Entertainment, or biased news source, I enjoy watching him and hearing his opinion. I think that he is very good at debating with people and their comments. You can choose to watch him or not. He won't care.

Next, about that decapitation thing.. I don't know where you heard that. Might have happened, might not have. But knowing Bill, I wouldn't be surprised either way.

By saying that he should not be asking people to censor newspapers because of freedom of speech is essentially taking away HIS freedom of speech. Yes, it is a heavily opinioned show, but if you want the facts, don't watch Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, or any other news show. Take a chopper out to Iraq and experience it first hand.

[Cossack]

Heh, I helped contact him for my freind Alex Jones. Bill O'Reilley is good at debating, because he cuts the cameras off when the other guy starts to win. It happened with the German Ambassador and once to Igor Ivanov.

[alaric]

Oh yeah cossack! That's what passes for debates on his show: carefully prepared ambushes. And when his prey fights back, he cuts them off or goes to commercial.

I remember this one time he had some porn star on (I don't remember who) and he was hitting her with all the garbage he could think up. The "you're encouraging the exploitation of women" yadda yadda yadda bullshit.

She practically blew him off his chair by saying: "I don't think women are being exploited by the porn industry. I think it's MEN that are being exploited." For the first time ever, I saw O'Reilly speechless. It was beautiful, outdebated by a porn star on his own program!

[The Ghost of Bondo]

By saying that he should not be asking people to censor newspapers because of freedom of speech is essentially taking away HIS freedom of speech. Yes, it is a heavily opinioned show, but if you want the facts, don't watch Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, or any other news show. Take a chopper out to Iraq and experience it first hand.

I wasn't trying to censor his calls for censorship, I was just saying that his doing so is outrageous hypocricy given what he claims he stands for.  As for America being a terrorist nation...in the minds of the UK circa 1776-1784, we were...only it was a terrorist colony.

[kami]

I don't think anyone should watch FOX, it's just propaganda in it's most pure form, not healthy. I guess it's "good" that they don't try to hide it though but isn't it every news service's duty to try to relay news as objective as it can be?
I know what I'm talking about since I have FOX here in Sweden from 12 am to 6 pm relayed through an informative channel which also sends Al-Jazeera translated to english an hour a day from 11 pm to 12 am. Gives you all the propaganda you can take (with or without puking) from all sides of the Middle-East conflicts.

[The Ghost of Bondo]

I'm trying to find some worthwhile news channel on the normal cable here...there is CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, CNN...all shit pretty much and boring and repetitive.  Then there are the CBS, NBC, ABC news...less boring and repetitive but still shit.  Outside of that perhaps the only other thing is the PBS news hour thing.  That is at least a show where they bring opinions in and it isn't crazy like O'Reilly.  But what I'd really want is a BBC or something, but it isn't available (probably would be through satelite or digital cable but we don't feel like paying for those at the moment.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Tasty, you just went down a notch, a big one.

Bondo just failed to respond to your previous post in this arena, so he isn't quite the hypocrite here, but you are Tasty.

I'll remind you of:

the good folks at Take Back the Media! have gone to the trouble to organize a boycott against companies that sponsor his show. If you don't like Rush, go there and help them out in the boycott.

You were advocating a boycott against Rush, while coming off as bashing O'reilly here for it.

You are really comming off as a bigot lately Tasty.  Calling Bush a racist based on some pretty flimsy circumstantial (and some totally irrelivant) issues.  Now, advocating boycotts against Rush while blasting another conservative for the same thing.  You are holding Liberals and Conservatives to different standards it seems.  

As for the whole Boycott issue.  I'm all for people speaking with their wallets.  I don't think it has anything to do with freedom of speech.  If the paper fires the guy, he still has his voice.  Freedom of speech doesn't mean the same thing as the right to be paid for it.  If enough people hate the view of someone, and do boycott enough that they lose advertisers, that's not a bad thing.  It's not like a handful could do it.  

The only reason I didn't like that site of Tasty's is because they wanted them pulled off the air (not just boycotted), and I didn't find their arguments any more solid than those of whom they were bitching.

[The Ghost of Bondo]

Bucc (I know you weren't accusing me of anything but), I think I made it clear about the boycotting french goods that I find oraganized boycotts of any kind to be absurd.  I think you should choose to buy a product or watch a show based on if it is good, not on any political beliefs held by those involved.  Mind you a show of opposing political beliefs may not seem good so it can in its way come into watching it.

But still, just choose not to consume, but I don't support trying to tell everyone else not to consume.  I didn't say lets all stop listening to Rush or O'Reilly, or that we should force them to stop by not buying from their sponsors...I merely stated that I don't like their shows, and so I personally would make the choice not to listen to them unless for entertainment because they are good sources of humor (inadvertently).

So this is my view of boycotts...and it isn't reserved just for boycotts backed by conservatives.

[tasty]

Bucc, wtf. Talk about blowing something out of proportion. I never said it wasn't within Bill O'Reilly's rights to boycott or support a boycott against anything. I happen to think he boycotts outrageous things for outrageous reasons, and for that reason I don't agree with his boycotts  and wouldn't participate in them. If you haven't noticed, I am liberal. Almost as liberal as they come. Therefore, of course I am going to support a boycott against Rush Limbaugh who I consider to be a disgusting person. Why would I support a Bill O'Reilly boycott, someone who is just a step above Rush IMO? I disagree with his opinion on almost everything! I'm not against the concept of boycotting, I'm just against his conservative boycotts.

And if you want to talk about bigoted, you can be just as bigoted as any liberal or conservative. You seem to think that anyone too far from your centrist beliefs is a fool. I'm not biased against hearing arguments from conservatives, I've just never found them to be very convincing.

Another thing I don't get: What does "going down a notch" mean? There must be some sort of forum ranking system I don't know about that buccaneer is in charge of.