# Keith Olbermann should kill himself **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 17, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756 "2009-05-17T16:36:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/181 "2009-05-19T20:42:58Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Simply put, I don’t want government control over my life. You’d enjoy living in Somalia, then. Absolutely no government interference in your life there, no sir. News flash, you fucking whiny baby: you don’t always get to have things the way you want them. I guess that idea hasn’t sunk in over the past two elections. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/182 "2009-05-19T20:45:47Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > And you will see an area of sixty or seventy percent where people are living very nice, comfortable lives - lives that would be considered the height of luxury even in most western Europen countries I call bullshit on this ridiculous claim. The lives of the middle 60% or 70% of Americans are not by any means what most western Europeans would consider “the height of luxury”. We have somewhat larger houses and more cars per family on average than middle-class western Europeans, due to our lower population density, but that’s about it. Our middle class isn’t living in any kind of material El Dorado that middle-class western Europeans can only dream about. They have cell phones and iTouches and superfast wireless just like we do. Moreover, most western Europeans **like** having four to six weeks of vacation per year, and good public transportation, and reliable health insurance coverage, and good-quality nursing homes for their elderly relatives that don’t drain all their assets, and substantial unemployment benefits, and fully-funded university education. They do not consider our lack of such amenities to be “luxurious”. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/183 "2009-05-19T21:00:33Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > And that, in a nutshell, is why capitalism is no more fair than any other system, and arguably much less. Bullshit. There is absolutely nothing unfair about passing one’s estate to one’s heirs. It is only people who are of a confiscatory and redistributive turn of mind who think there is. The nation’s economy is not a pie from which everyone deserves an equal slice, regardless of how much liberalism, in it’s continual effort to pound a square peg into a round hole, would like to make it so. There are reasons why communism has found it necessary to murder hundreds of millions of its citizens, and that is because people resent having their property and the results of their produce taken by force and given to people who didn’t earn it. ‘Fairness’ is a fiction. It does not exist. What you propose isn’t fair, it’s a different king of unfairness; one which isn’t fair, isn’t just, and it isn’t logical. It’s the result of ivory-tower rabble-rousing by university-educated malcontents on behalf of the country’s have-nots who have managed, over the decades and with a complicit coterie of Democrat politicians, to convince a sizable portion of the nation’s populace that they are getting taken advantage of by the rich and have no way of getting their ‘fair share’ of the pie, when no ‘pie’ exists to begin with. The fact remains that no one of wealth is keeping anyone down. Everyone has the ability to get ahead if they’re willing to work hard enough to make it happen. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/184 "2009-05-19T21:04:55Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > In that case, it was your erroneous conclusion. Did I say YOU were lying? You said I was promoting the lie, which come to think of it, means you were wrong two ways: One, that I believed the lie; and two, that I was deliberately promoting it. So I guess there are two retractions/apologies due. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/185 "2009-05-19T21:06:07Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > News flash, you fucking whiny baby… BWAHAHAHAHA! You? Calling _me_ a whiny baby? It is to laugh! ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/186 "2009-05-19T21:07:26Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > The fact remains that no one of wealth is keeping anyone down. Everyone has the ability to get ahead if they’re willing to work hard enough to make it happen. Hey, the Tooth Fairy called and says that Santa Claus wants to know if you would be interested in buying a bridge from Ward Cleaver? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/187 "2009-05-19T21:09:58Z")
[**Understanding Mobility in America**](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html)– word highlighted for those who like to speak out their kazoos. > [@](#): > > By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. **Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.** – bolding mine. Lesson continues at source. And here’s a cute little graph if reading is not your thing: [Understanding Mobility in America](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html) > [@](#): > > _ **Income inequality in the United States has been rising since the 1970s**. What is the most effective way to succinctly convey this fact?_ Welcome to the real world. In it, I can safely say that this statement is complete and utter horseshit – that it’s privately owned horseshit does not make it any more true: > [@Starvin'](#): > > **Anyone** who studies hard, works hard, and is willing to take risks based on what they see as opportunities has the ability - **and likelihood** -to become wealthy. – bolding mine. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/188 "2009-05-19T21:16:10Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Moreover, most western Europeans **like** having four to six weeks of vacation per year, and good public transportation, and reliable health insurance coverage, and good-quality nursing homes for their elderly relatives that don’t drain all their assets, and substantial unemployment benefits, and fully-funded university education. They do not consider our lack of such amenities to be “luxurious”. I’m sure that most people in the world would love it if they never had to work a day in their lives and could have their every wish granted by the government. But that doesn’t make it logical and it doesn’t make it right. Sooner or later these governments’ obligations will outstrip their ability to provide them, and, having engendered a lazy and entitled populace, will have little chance of working their way back out again. Countries simply cannot tax and spend themselves into prosperity. That’s all there is to it. And then when you combine that with politicians promising more and more benefits in order to get themselves elected, a breaking point is eventually reached, and when that happens they’ll go down the drain just like those two hotbeds of American liberalism New York and California are doing on a smaller scale now. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/189 "2009-05-19T21:16:46Z")
**RedFury** Income inequality is measured against the highest heights of wealth though. The problem with that is that the rich have been becoming astronomically richer. The question is whether or not that even matters. Are basic goods becoming out of reach? I tend to think not because even poor families have TVs and Computers in many cases. Yes the wealth disparity is increasing in insane ways, but at the same time goods are affordable. Who cares if someone else can buy 1 billion DVD players? I only want one. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/190 "2009-05-19T21:19:51Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > You said I was promoting the lie, which come to think of it, means you were wrong two ways: One, that I believed the lie; and two, that I was deliberately promoting it. > > So I guess there are two retractions/apologies due. Not going to get it then. I didn’t say you believed it, I didn’t say you were promoting it. If I had, I think a forum mod would have taken the beat stick to me. I’m not known for being subtle. I was making a “value judgement” about the right wing noise machine. Is that better? If you really want to take it as some sort of personal attack, be my guest. have a blast. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/191 "2009-05-19T21:21:05Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > The nation’s economy is not a pie from which everyone deserves an equal slice, regardless of how much liberalism, in it’s continual effort to pound a square peg into a round hole, would like to make it so. There are reasons why communism has found it necessary to murder hundreds of millions of its citizens, and that is because people resent having their property and the results of their produce taken by force and given to people who didn’t earn it. ‘Fairness’ is a fiction. It does not exist. What you propose isn’t fair, it’s a different king of unfairness; one which isn’t fair, isn’t just, and it isn’t logical. It’s the result of ivory-tower rabble-rousing by university-educated malcontents on behalf of the country’s have-nots who have managed, over the decades and with a complicit coterie of Democrat politicians, to convince a sizable portion of the nation’s populace that they are getting taken advantage of by the rich and have no way of getting their ‘fair share’ of the pie, when no ‘pie’ exists to begin with. I see a lot of sound and fury here, but nothing really what I would call a proof, primarily because “It’s not fair and it won’t work because I say it’s not fair and won’t work” isn’t a rule of inference in my system of logic. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/192 "2009-05-19T21:22:05Z")
From the _Buffalo Beast’s_ [50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2008:](http://www.buffalobeast.com/134/50mostloathsome2008-p2.html) > [@](#): > > **37. Keith Olbermann** > > Charges: The crazy man’s Howard Beale, Olbermann is an infuriating conundrum—a person who adopts mostly correct positions for mostly erroneous reasons. Olbermann has an uncanny ability to find the obtusest angle on any issue, delivering glancing blows to wide open targets. Perhaps this is why Olbermann only argues with various cameras, reserving interviews for Newsweek sycophants whose main role on “Countdown” is to listen to a series of uncomfortably leading yes or no questions and reply to each, “that’s right, Keith.” He’s been wearing out the impact of his “special comments” like a cheap sex doll for the ratings, rapidly diminishing their credibility by applying the same outraged, spluttering, accusatory tone to his uniquely unbearable all-caps missives, whether directed at White House war criminals or Clinton campaign PR hacks. Largely false accusations of anti-Hillary bias in the media found their mark with Keith, who wildly overreacted to relatively minor Clinton slights, while engaging in freakish logical contortions to justify Obama’s apparent deficiencies, despite sad pretenses to objectivity. Somehow, manages to seem dykier than Rachael Maddow. > > Exhibit A: “I don’t vote…it’s the only thing I can do that suggests even that I don’t have a horse in the race." > > Sentence: Obama loses in 2012 by one vote. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/193 "2009-05-19T21:22:13Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > From each according to his ability to each according to his ability is how I view it. Then you believe in very heavy estate taxes for the extremely wealthy then? Because someone inheriting $30 million from their father _hardly_ has anything to do with ability after all. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/194 "2009-05-19T21:23:09Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] …Who cares if someone else can buy 1 billion DVD players? I only want one… [/QUOTE] First and foremost, because resource is ultimately limited. This is a given, the only argument is about _how_ limited, not whether or no. Luxury items produced to pamper the rich falls under the category of loud, shiny crap: it benefits too few for the resources expended. Once resources are expended to produce loud, shiny crap, it remains forever loud shiny crap, save for that fraction which can be recycled. I’m sure the rich can be rendered down, but a poor substitute for whale oil and unacceptable as shortening for pastry. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/195 "2009-05-19T21:24:38Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > Hey, the Tooth Fairy called and says that Santa Claus wants to know if you would be interested in buying a bridge from Ward Cleaver? So it’s finally come to this, has it? The very idea that people should work to get ahead is antiquated nonsense on a par with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus! No wonder Rush Limbaugh is so cranked up about you people. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/196 "2009-05-19T21:26:36Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And speaking of this, I’m reminded of the saying that government can’t do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you. > > Simply put, I don’t want government control over my life. Except for the wiretaps, you mean…and arbitrary searches, and indefinite arrest and imprisonment without charges or trials, and restrictions on what you can smoke, who you can marry and what decisions you can make about your own reproduction system…oh, and whether your kids have a right to learn science in science classes…aside from all that, you guys don’t want the government anywhere near you. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/197 "2009-05-19T21:28:09Z")
“Cranked up”? Limbaugh on speed. Can’t imagine. Won’t imagine, refuse to imagine… ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/198 "2009-05-19T21:29:43Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I’m sure that most people in the world would love it if they never had to work a day in their lives and could have their every wish granted by the government. > > But that doesn’t make it logical and it doesn’t make it right. > > Sooner or later these governments’ obligations will outstrip their ability to provide them, and, having engendered a lazy and entitled populace, will have little chance of working their way back out again. Like in the case of their health care, I have been waiting for more that 30 years for this prophecy to become a reality. It is more likely that adjustments will be done, but as I remember from past discussions I always find that one can count with the hand fingers the number of articles or important people in Europe that demand that they should consider the American solutions. > [@](#): > > Countries simply cannot tax and spend themselves into prosperity. That’s all there is to it. And then when you combine that with politicians promising more and more benefits in order to get themselves elected, a breaking point is eventually reached, and when that happens they’ll go down the drain just like those two hotbeds of American liberalism New York and California are doing on a smaller scale now. Not sure about New York, but California is saddled with insane rules and laws that conservatives adore (and can only be overturned with super majorities) that typically underfund the local government, even in good times. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/199 "2009-05-19T21:30:08Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > First and foremost, because resource is ultimately limited. This is why _production_, and a populace willing to engage in it, is important. When you are creating and/or producing things, you are creating wealth. When you are using things up (i.e., taxing and spending) you are depleting wealth and slowing or eventually stopping its creation. That is when resources get used up and things go down the drain. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756/200 "2009-05-19T21:31:02Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > So it’s finally come to this, has it? The very idea that people should work to get ahead is antiquated nonsense on a par with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus! > > No wonder Rush Limbaugh is so cranked up about you people. It’s a myth that working will automatically get you ahead, that everyone who is rich has necessarily worked for it, or that everyone even has an _opportunity_ to work. There is not necessarily any correlation between work and wealth. The very richest people seldom lift a finger to do any real labor. Those who do the most backbreaking labor (like all those illegal aliens, for instance) have the least wealth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keith-olbermann-should-kill-himself/496756.md?page=11)