And, from a friend in Las Vegas:
More people have supported Phil Robertson in the last 18 hours than have signed up for ObamaCare.
And, from a friend in Las Vegas:
More people have supported Phil Robertson in the last 18 hours than have signed up for ObamaCare.
Louisiana Tech University
Flagship of the University of Louisiana System
I altered your post slightly with numbers so I could respond to each point:
1) A "would have" statement can't be a fact. Yes, it may be likely MSNBC would have fired someone immediately, and I agree it is very likely, but it isn't a fact; it's speculation.
2) You had not, prior to this post, answered my question. You stated that Baldwin was a political commentator and Robertson is an entertainer, but I asked why that mattered. Now, I see where you're coming from, although I don't agree that there is no parallel. Both were suspended/fired because the expression of their views did not fit with their networks' philosophies.
3) I don't expect that either. I think it's both hypocritical and smart business to run the marathon. Certainly, it weakens their stance.
It's ironic that when a reality TV star finally says something real, he gets suspended from his show.
Phil Robertson is free to express his personal opinions and beliefs as he wishes. However, A&E suspending Phil is not a violation of his First Amendment rights. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution says that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech." A&E is not the United States Congress, though A&E is probably as popular as they are right now. The network can suspend one of their employees over their comments if they wish just like any other network can suspend or fire their employees over their comments (like MSNBC fired Alec Baldwin, Martin Bashar, and Michael Savage years ago).
That all being said, I think it was a stupid decision by A&E to suspend Phil. This is the same network that airs shows featuring drug addicts, hoarders, and convicted felon Governor Edwin Edwards. One lesson from A&E's decision is that you can be shown on their network if you keep 20 tons of crap in your house and shoots up drugs on camera as long as you don't say anything negative about gay people. If the family sticks together and stops doing Duck dynasty on A&E, then that network will have lost the highest-rated show in cable TV history because some people got pissy over Phil's comments.
For the politically correct crowd in 2013, gay is the new black. Homophobe is the new racist. If you say anything about the gay community and their lifestyle that isn't totally supportive and complementary today, you're a bigot and a homophobe. You knew the long knives would come after Phil when he said homosexuals in the same breath as drunkards, adulterers, and terrorists.
I hate that the default reaction of some people when they hear something they find objective or disagreeable is to completely eliminate that individual from society. Be it Rush Limbaugh from ESPN after the Donovan McNabb stuff, Paula Deen, Phil Robertson, Martin Bashar, and Alec Baldwin. The very groups (like GLAAD) who want everyone to be accepting and supportive and tolerant of the homosexual lifestyle are some of the same groups who express intolerance toward those who disagree with them and label their opponents as homophobes. You can't have a free country if some opinions can't be said because they are deemed by a group of people as objectionable or offensive. You can't have a free country if one group of people can decide for the entire country what opinions and beliefs can or can't be publicly stated.
I've never seen Duck Dynasty, but I'd probably enjoy it if I watched the show. I hope the Robertson family moves to another network that is more supportive of their lifestyle like the Outdoor Channel or maybe Glenn Beck's network (that would be a real coup if Glenn landed the show).
I was a rabid duck hunter while at Tech but never tried to build my own duck call. But I made a modest living for many years as an outdoor writer, featuring my own duck-hunting experiences and reports from others about 3 months of most years! Phil did a great job making duck calls, although I never personally owned one, and I always remembered him as a competent quarterback who was at Tech only a few years after I got my master's degree at Tech. I liked the Duck Commander show when it got on TV and admired his success. But, as a reality show, it became a bit difficult to appreciate. Just too over the top trying to make southerners appear to be a flock of fools. But, of course, the publication provoked him into saying what he did INTENTIONALLY, maybe to denigrate southerners. Tonight, when I checked this thread I got an idea of what actually was said, and I agree that Phil has a right to say what he believes. Just sorry his teachers let him down. I hope it wasn't Tech professors to blame. I never heard any sexual or religious or even political opinions spewing from professors. Mostly I heard facts! And two of my most 'liberal' Tech professors went duck hunting with me and floated rivers and streams with me. Outdoor sports were never the soul province of poorly educated people. Most major donors to DU and conservation groups and people I guided hunting and fishing over the years were well educated or at least had enough common sense not to express mindless judgments of fellow human beings.
It isn't about how many 'gay' people watch the show. It is about the fact that the majority of Americans recognize that sexual preference has nothing to do with morality or even choice. Just a fact of life LONG before the Old Testament was written or even before Greek and Chinese literature was written. Most couples that have five or more children are likely to have a variety of personalities in the group, whether they ever realize it or not. People may cover up for their kids to the extent of NEVER talking about the differences among their kids. But the CHRISTIAN ones love and respect their children regardless of their sexual preferences, overt or not. Only a few weeks ago, when I saw people wearing duck-dynasty Tee shirts, I took the opportunity to talk with them about the fact that Phil was a Louisiana Tech quarterback before Bradshaw played. Should have expected something like this after NEVER seeing Phil smile on the show. The stern look suggests a man with a poor education and an extremely suspicious, if not fearful, attitude that I associate with Tea Party Republicans when they are asserting how taxes should be cut at the expense of poor people but not at the expense of the most wealthy 1-percent of people in our nation. Got to wonder what Phil majored in. I hope it wasn't history or English or psychology or one of the sciences or EDUCATION or anything that requires an understanding of human reality. Guess I'll now get even MORE red marks!
Over 100,000 people have now signed the online petition at http://istandwithphil.com
I was a rabid duck hunter while at Tech but never tried to build my own duck call. But I made a modest living for many years as an outdoor writer, featuring my own duck-hunting experiences and reports from others about 3 months of most years! Phil did a great job making duck calls, although I never personally owned one, and I always remembered him as a competent quarterback who was at Tech only a few years after I got my master's degree at Tech. I liked the Duck Commander show when it got on TV and admired his success. But, as a reality show, it became a bit difficult to appreciate. Just too over the top trying to make southerners appear to be a flock of fools. But, of course, the publication provoked him into saying what he did INTENTIONALLY, maybe to denigrate southerners. Tonight, when I checked this thread I got an idea of what actually was said, and I agree that Phil has a right to say what he believes. Just sorry his teachers let him down. I hope it wasn't Tech professors to blame. I never heard any sexual or religious or even political opinions spewing from professors. Mostly I heard facts! And two of my most 'liberal' Tech professors went duck hunting with me and floated rivers and streams with me. Outdoor sports were never the soul province of poorly educated people. Most major donors to DU and conservation groups and people I guided hunting and fishing over the years were well educated or at least had enough common sense not to express mindless judgments of fellow human beings.
It isn't about how many 'gay' people watch the show. It is about the fact that the majority of Americans recognize that sexual preference has nothing to do with morality or even choice. Just a fact of life LONG before the Old Testament was written or even before Greek and Chinese literature was written. Most couples that have five or more children are likely to have a variety of personalities in the group, whether they ever realize it or not. People may cover up for their kids to the extent of NEVER talking about the differences among their kids. But the CHRISTIAN ones love and respect their children regardless of their sexual preferences, overt or not. Only a few weeks ago, when I saw people wearing duck-dynasty Tee shirts, I took the opportunity to talk with them about the fact that Phil was a Louisiana Tech quarterback before Bradshaw played. Should have expected something like this after NEVER seeing Phil smile on the show. The stern look suggests a man with a poor education and an extremely suspicious, if not fearful, attitude that I associate with Tea Party Republicans when they are asserting how taxes should be cut at the expense of poor people but not at the expense of the most wealthy 1-percent of people in our nation. Got to wonder what Phil majored in. I hope it wasn't history or English or psychology or one of the sciences or EDUCATION or anything that requires an understanding of human reality. Guess I'll now get even MORE red marks!
Aubunique, glad to hear your opinion. Phil has a Masters Degree, so he does not have a poor education.
Not surprising, considering how popular the show has been. But Christian doesn't equate with believing a few passages in Jewish literature (old Testament) mean more than the words of Jesus. Even the new Pope doesn't appear to make that mistake. Christian means believing in the teaching of Jesus (as recorded in the New Testament as it has been accepted for a long time). Take the trouble to become a reader of the history of how the current BIBLE came to be what it was before the time of the King James version (my favorite) and how it has been again distorted by interpretations in later versions (none of which I have had much exposure to). In order to follow the King James version well, a person probably needs to have a background of reading Old English and Middle English and Elizabethan English. And reading Greek and other languages in which early contributors to our current Bibles were originally written is the only way to go back and understand what was written and the credibility of the authors. Plenty of documents written in the first century about the life of Jesus were discarded by scholars who may had a prejudice toward interpretations that may have been partly or significantly flawed. Just study what the existing texts say Jesus said and see the difference between Phil's attitude and that of Jesus. The boy just should have had the good sense not to spout his hatred. His denials and claims of accepting others at the end of the remarks suggest that he realized that after he had been provoked into sounding like a major-league HATER.
Master's degree in what?
Phil may have a La Tech degree, but, every time I've seen him interviewed on TV, I figured he was going to spout out some redneck lingo that didn't make sense. He always looked like he was pissed off at somebody. However, it's hard to read his face with that long hair and beard. I'd bet that the guy that interviewed him didn't have to bait him very much to get him to say what he said. You would think he would have had some coaching before he walked into that.
Last edited by DONW; 12-20-2013 at 11:17 AM.
If that is accurate information, the only explanation was that Dr. Chadbourn, Dr. Sachs and Professor Butler all had retired or maybe it was just the effect of grade-inflation, which began in earnest in the 1970s as the Vietnam War heated up. Professors gave higher grades to young men subject to the draft to keep them out of the war. And that is a widely known fact, although I felt the pressure not at Tech but while teaching at Delta State, then Northeastern State in Tahlequah, Okla., and then at Northeast Louisiana, now known as ULM. And of course the pressure to keep athletes eligible from coaches was long complained about by honest professors in every discipline. Whatever, I repeat that the kid has a right to his opinion and that being asked leading questions and victimized by some magazine writer led him to say things he probably knows are not 'Christian' values was a big part of the problem. What I had been seeing on TV about it hasn't even mentioned he was quoted in a magazine article. Many people likely assume he said these things on his reality show. Apparently, that isn't the case. The writer had a prejudice of his own against religious people, conservative people and particularly conservative, Bible-thumping southerners. That writer's editors obviously suggested or at a least approved of whatever line of questioning the writer followed. As a person who makes his living based on a consumptive use of natural resources, one would expect an educated man to talk about conserving the woods and water on which his favorite sport depends. The men in that family burn, wreck, shoot and otherwise abuse and destroy God's creation in the worst ways. The women, of course, are gentler and appear somehow to have married men obviously beneath their own level of intelligence and level of understanding of the gentle and tolerant and forgiving teaching of Jesus.
I agree with almost everything you said, but there are two big differences between Martin Bashar and Phil Robertson, in my opinion.
1. Bashar's comments were unsolicited. Phil Robertson was in an interview, was asked an opinion question, and gave his opinion. Bashar went on a rant bashing people based solely on his opinion, but Phil was responding to a specific question.
2. Bashar was acting within the scope of his job, while Phil was not. Bashar's "day job" was hosting that show. Granted it was a political talk show on a crybaby network, but he is expected to meet some standards of professionalism while carrying out his job. His comments crossed the line professionally, and he was held accountable professionally. Phil Robertson did not make his comments on an episode of Duck Dynasty. He was in a relaxed atmosphere and responding to an interviewer's question about personal opinion. The left (especially GLAAD) always makes things personal in this way, and it bothers the hell out of me. Going after someone professionally simply because you disagree with him personally is petty and juvenile, but it's how they operate.