Wow, I’m so surprised to read that there are those who want to saddle Beck with some blame for the Popblowski shootings.
Does Beck hate cops ?
Are there no murderers who like Obama ?
Brings to mind all those non violent civil rights leaders leading protests that weren’t always non violent .
As far as the “incendiary rhetoric” goes, I believe that it is only a very few conservative nutballs that are affected, but there are many lefties who become emotionally traumatized .
Get over it .
If Beck rants about how we should be fearful of the Obama administration, is he responsible for an increase in his audience’s fear of the Obama administration?
What does it mean to hold someone morally accountable for the actions of someone else? I think it means absolutely nothing. Therefore, the debate about whether he should be held morally accountable means absolutely nothing. It is like the proverbial debate over how many angels fit on the head of a pin. Flipping a coin to decide the outcome has as much content and as much consequence as a debate on the subject.
I fully concede that this post may be a threadshit, but I want people to start thinking about what terms like “morally accountable” really mean, and I think it’s better to discuss it in context instead of in a separate thread in the abstract.
fromPanache45
That is a pretty good summary of my feelings as well.
People are hired to be on TV because the sponsors believe that other people listen to them and pay attention. They would not put Glen Beck on the tube if he did not have people who listen to him and respect his opinions. The fact that some of those persons are a few sandwiches short of a full picnic probably comes with the territory. And the network who employs him is well aware of that.
Is there some unwritten rule that male gasbags on the Right must be over bloated Pillsbury doughboy types who make you want to bitchslap them when they fail so miserably at being sarcastic? Glen is probably worse at attempting to being sarcastically funny than even Limbaugh is. He is the typical dorky kid in class who weighed more than most other boys but still got his ass kicked by everyone just because he was a dork.
I think it’s a fair point, actually; this idea gets tossed around a lot and usually isn’t defined. For my part, I think Beck is a lunatic, and if he’s not, he’s a jackass doing a very good impression of one in order to scare up ratings. But blaming him and his ilk for this is not much different than the prudes who have blamed earlier school shootings on Marilyn Manson and violent video games.
If Poplawski is the lunatic that he seems to be, then it seems hard to hold anyone liable for the unpredictable consequences of his mental disorder. We don’t blame the Beatles for Charles Manson, after all.
Well, lots of people did criticize Obama for his rather strident anti-gun record - myself included. And this record is pretty well documented.
I wonder whether, by this reasoning (which I don’t find reasonable) President Obama shares some liability.
By what Sullivan and others are saying, they ought to include Obama in their criticisms - at least according to the notions set forth in the OP. I don’t know whether Sampiro would agree, but it seems to me we can either blame both sides for a hot argument causing some people to get squirrely, or we can note that some people will get squirrely no matter what is being said.
Since most things won’t be solved without these arguments, I say we have them and deal with such nuts as reveal themselves.
What mental disorder have you seen evidence of him having? All I’ve seen evidence of is beliefs in hard-right ideology. Is that a mental disorder?
I’ll refine my question and ask it again: If Glenn Beck rants with the intention of making his audience more fearful of the Obama administration, is he responsible for an increase in the level of fear in his audience regarding the Obama administration?
I am a big fan of accountability, but that let’s not forget the accounting part of accountability. We also need to find out what kind of music Richard Poplawski listened to and what games he played.
So, if Rush or Beck rants and raves and can get people to go to the polls he should be lauded by his other followers. But if they rant and rave and something bad happens they bear no responsibility whatsoever?
How’s that work, exactly?
-Joe
News I’ve read (and remember I have roots in the area and was in Pittsburgh over the weekend) say he was often depressed and withdrawn, frequently beat his girlfriend to the point that she couldn’t take it any more, and washed out of Marine boot camp because he decided to fight the drill instructor.
Now, all of this isn’t exactly proof of a legal definition of insanity, but it is an indication that there was a lot more going on in his head than mere ideology.
I’m sure you would agree, right?
Well, I don’t buy it when people blame Beavis and Butthead when they burned something down. I don’t buy it when people blame video games for violent behavior. As much as I loathe Mr. Beck, I don’t blame him for something a different nutjob actually did.
Being violent isn’t a symptom of schizophrenia or psychotic disorder more generally, nor is it remotely close to the legal definition of insanity.
I haven’t seen much discussion of him being depressed, and remember, I do have roots in the area.
That’s the thing, though: allow people to call the President a tyrant on air and chance people coming to think he’s a tyrant, despite the fact that such dissent would never be allowed under a true dictator (which nobody ever seems to realize), or quash the slander and have that used as “proof” of tyranny.
Truthfully, Obama, or whoever the regulatory agency is that would crack down on the stations, would hurt his image far worse by doing something about it than if they allow it to continue.
Here’s a discussion of his web postings. Seems like a guy very much enmeshed in the message that the right would like people to believe. Perhaps it’s more far right, but look at what Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann and the we surround them nonsense would like people to believe, and it really isn’t that far of a stretch.
We also need to see if he ate a lot of refined sugar.
Don’t people generally assign some responsibility to Al Sharpton for the Freddie’s Fashion Mart fire? Seems like a similar situation to me.
“Get out and vote” is a long way from “The .gov is after you, kill the first cop you see…” I don’t believe either Rush or Beck are preaching any cop killing sermons.
Sharpton was addressing an angry mob, not broadcasting a TV show.
From a Constitutional standpoint, the government actually is allowed to prevent speech if it’s likely to lead to imminent violence. It’s not likely this would ever apply to a TV show.
Now, who was president in 2005? Where was Glenn Beck? He was on the radio but hadn’t made the jump to TV yet.
Had this character actually shot his girlfriend four years ago, not only wouldn’t this be a national story but this notion of blaming radio hosts wouldn’t be on the radar screen. Yet it is clear that he had issues then, right?