I should respect this after seeing this?
I should buy Geico insurance?
Peace,
mangeorge
Yeah, Charlie is a well known righty wingnut. His website has an archive of his… er, editorials… that are quite entertaining in a black-comedy kind of way.
Please feel free not to respect him.
I think it’s a perfectly cromulent idea to contact Geico and let them know that one of their spokesmen is a lunatic.
From my personal experience with Geico, I think it would be even more cromulent (not a real word, BTW*) to keep my mouth shut and let them dig their own grave.
Peace,
mangeorge
*I wish it were. If we all get together and say it a lot, it will be. I’ve got your back on this one, Boyo Jim. 
My sister used to live behind Mr. Daniels for years.
I’ve met him on a few occasions starting when I was 17 or so, and always found him to be polite, considerate, and articulate.
Like many celebrities, he has opinions on political and social issues. As a libertarian, I may not agree with all of his opinions, but I do agree with his stance on illegal immigration.
We have a legal process to enter this country, and many proudly ignore it and flaunt that for their personal agenda. This is just an observation of a fact, and I’m not sure how calling Mr. Daniels names helps anyone.
I consider wingnut a description, not an insult.
Here, read practically anything he writes. He’s nuts.
None of the IAs I know “flaunt” their disobedience of the law. They keep quiet and work their asses off, if they can get the work.
I think anyone who would grab a violin (not a fiddle) from a guy trying to make a living and saw away on it is a buffoon. Polite, considerate, and articulate people don’t ridicule musicians who are just trying to make a living.
I know it’s a commercial. It’s a commercial in which Charlie Daniels plays Charlie Daniels.
I respect you as a poster, but (assuming you are serious) you putting waayyyyy too much emphasis on the content of an ad in deconstructing whether he’s a jerk or not.
Re his little missive, this is an attitude that is widely shared by many reasonable people, who bristle at attitudes toward illegal immigration, where those strongly opposing illegal immigration are cast as morality play villains, trying to stop poor, striving immigrants from progressing. Illegal immigration, for all it’s cheap labor benefits also has huge social costs and negative spillover effects for those in the border areas where the illegal intake occurs. Being antagonistic toward those who are against a hard line on illegal immigration may not be politically correct or particularly progressive, but it’s hardly indicative of assholism.
Didn’t we just have this conversation about Geico and the political views of its spokesmen?
He’s still on MySpace. Definitly nuts.
Charlie Daniels is the only celebrity I ever really met. FWIW, I found him to be a witty and affable guy.
I’ve know Charlie for years. I disagree vehemently with his political views, but he is a very kind and polite man. I guess he has a right, just as I do, to my own opinions. Political disagreement need not lead to name-calling or to labeling of the entire person based on a component of opinion. And I am speaking as a very political person who is probably further left than nearly all of the people here on SDMB.
Personally, I’m calling him a buffoon based on his actions in a commercial. I’m asking if he’a a mean one. What little I’ve heard and read about his attitude doesn’t point to kind and polite at all. Neither does his actions toward that violin player in the commercial. The commercial in which he depicts himself.
BTW; his fiddle playing is, to me, one dimensional.
So, tell ol’ Charlie what I said, and see if he sheds a tear. 
I wasn’t citing your remarks specifically, mangeorge. But, enough derailing your thread…my apologies.
Well, if by “buffoon”, you mean “clown”, then yes, he was being paid to parody himself and be a clown on the commercial. See, the commercial is what we in the biz like to call “fiction”…
Come on, a commercial is not fiction. It’s not really even art. It’s a tool.
And yes, he was being a clown, in the negative sense of the word.
Are you high?
He didn’t write the commercial, but it does depict him as ruining another fiddler’s bow. That he didn’t object seems odd.
What? Nothing about the photo documentation of him stealing bread with witnesses and everything!? Hell, he even taunts the bread theft victim as he escapes from the scene of the crime!
You guys are slacking off.
Now why would you ask that? 