I thought he did a great job of keeping people calm and explaining his perspective.
It’s hard — sometimes impossible — to argue with unreasonable people. What have you found effective when arguing with angry people of opposing viewpoints?
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Interesting how that first woman associates her views with “The People.”
She goes on to say “The people who elected you,” which in a sane world would indicate that she was one of the people who voted for him, but given her T-shirt and her attitude, you know that is unlikely.
I was thinking the same thing. The people that elected him oppose T-shirt lady. Now granted, Minnesota was as tight an election as you can get, but still, that lady was a bit much.
Well, this is in MN and we are usually pretty calm about stuff. You can see that the TEA party lady is pretty upset through most of the video but being a Minnesotan can’t bring herself to express that anger until she gets home and writes a passive-aggressive letter to Al.
I have been pleasantly surprised by Al Franklin I saw this video about a week ago and I really enjoyed the way he calmly answered the peoples questions. Barney Frank is still probably my favorite senator though. He appeared on the O’reily factor, when Bill got out of control Barney Frank handled his ass without even raising his voice. It was a classic intellectual beat down.
I maintain that Bill O’Reilly would be much better if he just smoked a bowl before interviews. I mean, I rarely agree with him, but he has more of a brain than Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck put together. He just needs to handle that high blood pressure issue he has when people disagree with him.
You philosophy students and your marijuana. Are you guys ever NOT stoned?
LOL. Actually, my use is extremely limited and strictly recreational. I’m just saying that O’Reilly looks like a guy who could use some. You know, medicinally.
And you can totally quit any time you like, right? Sure, sure, back to your crack pipe, Leary.
Seriously though, O’Reilly just looks to me like someone who desperately needs a severe ass kicking to teach him some valuable life lessons. Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned in life came at the hands of a beatdown. He seems like someone who never learned those things.
Economics dictates my habit. I am currently poor, hence no weed for me.
———
Since the guy is 6’4″ and fairly built for his height, I think a major problem may have been he never had to fear a beat-down. I can’t otherwise imagine someone maintaining a temper like his for long without crossing someone with no tolerance and strong Kung Fu.
I hope that my comments are seen as joking, since I am the least moralistic person about weed. Most of my friends have/do partake from time to time. I also admit that the only reason I don’t is that THC seems to have no affect on me other than a vague sleepiness. For whatever reason, I’m pretty much immune to drugs other than opiates, and the opiates make me violently ill, thus quashing my potential drug habits before they are even born.
I do, however, drink like an Irishman. If Irishmen preferred tequila.
O’Reilly has 5 inches and about 50 pounds on me, and I’d happily climb into a ring with him any time. Size does matter, but in a fight I am the living avatar of mean and dirty. I’ll put that up against his bulk any day.
Hey Bill, fancy a go?
I hope that my comments are seen as joking, since I am the least moralistic person about weed.
Of course. :)
I also admit that the only reason I don’t is that THC seems to have no affect on me other than a vague sleepiness.
Bummer. It could have been just low-quality weed, or an Indica strain (which tends to have higher ratios of CBD-to-THC, which leads to a physical, somewhat drowsy high; what people prefer when they’re talking about “medical marijuana” because its effects are primarily physiological). Some people, on the other hand, just can’t get high.
I’m that way with alcohol, of all things. I can drink like a fish, and while it will affect my motor control eventually, pretty much everything else stays the same. It’s really annoying being an expensive drunk, unless you can leverage it into a drinking game where the loser pays.
Oh, I’m a very expensive drunk. Fortunately, I have little interest in actually getting drunk. I enjoy booze, and I like that I can drink a lot of it without the unpleasant effects that come from intoxication.
“It could have been just low-quality weed”
Ha, no. The time I tried it it was supplied by a lifelong user with tons of connections who also happens to be very very rich. Everyone else was raving about how good the stuff was. I was like, “Is this supposed to be doing something?”
But this is a problem I’ve had all my life. I can also pop vicodin like tic tacs with no affect. I learned this after a particularly painful injury. The doctor was finally forced to give me morphine to cut the pain. And that did work, but it made me vomit. I finally wound up just having to suck it up and wait out the multiple fracture.
Having a high drug tolerance seems like a superpower up until you break something.
Having a high drug tolerance seems like a superpower up until you break something.
So very incredibly true.
There’s a very rare condition in which you can’t feel pain — sounds great until you think about the reality of that …
Oh, fsck. I think I just bit off my tongue…
Did it hurt?
” I maintain that Bill O’Reilly would be much better if he just smoked a bowl before interviews. ”
mark: He prolly does.
If that’s the case, I’d be terrified to meet him when he’s sober!
Great line.
Personally, I didn’t notice any unreasonable people there. Obviously, people were agitated, but they were civil, and they seemed to ask genuine questions (as opposed to condescending and/or rhetorical questions).
True. Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to control a situation with people yelling and chanting like at some of the town halls.
Hey, those are Minnesotans. You know how you can tell an agressive Minnesotan? He looks at your feet instead of his own when talking to you! (okay, actually that joke was originally about Swedes, but you get the point.)
As for Senator Franken, I am pleasantly surprised by him as well. I also enjoyed the video of him drawing a map of the US from memory. He’s a much better artist than me, but I doubt that there is a very high percentage of people that could do that in any segment of the population (except cartographers I guess).
Also, these “agitators” probably weren’t the hired professional riff raff type that have been making a mockery of civil discourse.
I am not sure in Franken’s case how the map was done (who impressed me as well in this video), but a teacher once showed me how tiny, faint pencil or chalk points (connect-the-dot) invisible to the audience are used – he said it was a great attention-getter for his social studies students the first day. They think you are magic. Franken may have actually done it, though.
Larian LeQuella: Do you have any sources/proof that some of the town hall rabble were paid goons? I am not saying you are wrong, but that just sounds too good to be true.
I really still do not get it why the US still have no general social security plan. It is a civilized thing to do, help the poor and especially help yourself when you or your children get sick and have no work. The rejection against it is so selfish and unreasonable. For us European’s it is so normal that you have this.
Not for nothing but you guys haven’t had to pay for a military for the past fifty years or so, either. (Certainly not enough of one to actually fight a modern war.) Being client-states of US and/or Soviet hegemony for five decades had its downsides, sure, but you got to spend your money on goodies instead of guns.
The US, being the hegemon, was not so lucky.
So let’s bomb the holy shit out of Europe and take all of it’s medicine.
well, we have one, and the US stopped “defending” us in the early 80s (disagreements over nuclear weapons)
Out of curiosity, who’s “we”?
If the UK is included in the ‘we’, its spends about 2.5%-3% of its GDP on the military, the USA spends about 1% – 1.5% more.
The UK maintains a nuclear deterent, a navy, army and airforce and yet still manages to spend between 7% – 8% of its GDP on ‘Goodies’ like free healthcare.
Also remember that the UK is addtionally hampered by its economic size. Just off the top of my head France (Leclerc), Germany (Leopard) and the UK (Challenger) are all MBT compared to the single one (Abrams) that the US has. Not only does Europe spend less (in terms of GDP) it doesn’t have the same economies of scale.
Don’t forget to put “navy”, “army”, and “air force” in quotes. When was the last unassisted victory…the Falkland Islands?
Oh, how I kid. :)
The Falkland Islands unassisted — where do you think we suddenly managed to rustle up some sidewinder missiles from? On a side note just how many countries do you think would have been capable of retaking the Falkland Islands alone …
Seriously though this is half the problem, Europe for political reasons, would prefer to be a bunch of separate but ineffective armies instead of countries supplying one thing and one thing only to the rest of Europe and then having a European capability. It would just be political madness to try a push through the idea of say the French supply the aircraft carriers, the Germans the tanks, the British the infantry weapons, the Swedish the air superiority fighters etc. etc. As I said before economies of scale and being shit scared of the ‘commie’ threat (I’ve seen the documentary Dr. Strange Love) is a big advantage.
p.s. Is it true that the US is trying to make up for being late for the last two world wars by being early this time?
The US is never late. Nor is it early. It arrives precisely when it means to.
“It would just be political madness to try a push through the idea of say the French supply the aircraft carriers”
Who wants an aircraft carrier that’s designed to surrender at the first sign of hostility?
Maybe you should ask the French to cater instead.
erm …
Verdun springs to mind.
@Elemenope
Did you ‘pay’ the Japanese to turn up on time?
Get a much smaller group of tea-baggers, it is possible to have a reasonable debate.
However…
Get a large mob of tea-baggers (as in those townhalls), then there is no reasoning with those irrational people.
Ridicule mixed with emotional manipulation. Turn their beliefs back on them with negative connotations. People like their religion because they associate it with positive feelings. If you get them to associate their religious beliefs with negative feelings, it’s the first step to removing their religion. Reason cannot be used to dissuade people from believing something they don’t believe because of reason. You have to approach a person’s belief from the same perspective that they do.
Won’t they simply just associate you with negative emotions instead?
I would hope so. I want my scorn to cause them actual physical pain. If I could, I’d scorn them to DEATH.
“In Kung Fu, you attack with your eyes! LIKE THIS!!!”
There are days where I wish I could scornfully glare someone into a coma.
Could you please get your right wing morons to stop bashing the NHS in Britain in the cause of trying to keep their poor dying in pain? It’s really starting to grate. Thanks.
Oh, and: Hello again! Been away for a few weeks :-)
But if your NHS is so great, WHY DO YOU ALL HAVE BAD TEETH?!!!?!?!!
Welcome back.
Could you please get your right wing morons to stop bashing the NHS…
No. It is an unfortunate side effect of our freedom of speech.
How to Persuade Skeptics, by Al Franken (an idiots point of view)
Did you just call someone else an idiot?
Irony, you haz it.
Which argument of his was idiotic?
Crossroads what exactly did Franken say that was idiotic?
I assume it’s that spending money on poor people makes baby Jesus cry.
Well, so does a wet nappy, so that’s no way to make policy!
Al Franken is an idiot without speaking a word actually.
It would be nice if you’d be the bigger man and stop speaking.
I like the courageousness of your horribly inadequate assertion. It takes a ballsy guy to make baseless and witless comments without feeling utterly ashamed. No, really……you’re a hero.