Old, decidedly senile, blatantly racist, and as is typical with most of the Fox crew, takes liberty with his positions whenever deemed necessary. That's what he did in last night's Factor, mostly through his Talking Points Memo segment. It was sad to watch him cover his ass in a frenetic way as he admitted some of his most ridiculous opinions about the election.
Billy Boy fancies himself to be a traditional American, a champion of his cause, and a good Catholic church-going folk with a politically-Conservative bent (although he'll lead you to believe that he's a "non-partisan" Independent, though it's crystal clear to the smarter viewer just where his views lie). However, to Bill, traditional America is eroding, especially with the re-election of Obama. It's a terrible thing that is such a threat to the "white Christian power structure" he described in his interview with Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) years ago on his show. Just check out his arguments on just how much damage "traditional America" has incurred just recently, starting with who voted for who last week:
"So it's more about Romney's failure to build on McCain's vote than Obama doing anything. A stronger candidate would have defeated the President. Mr. Obama won the woman vote, blacks and Asians. But it was the Hispanic vote that really nailed Romney; 71 percent of Latinos voted for the President. And that was the difference in Florida, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. Other states were impacted as well.
Romney took white males and Independents by significant margins. But when you bunch it all up together, when you bunch it up, it was an entitlement vote this year. American families earning less than $30,000 a year broke big for the President; 62 percent to 35 percent. So it's clear that left-wing ideology did not win the day for Barack Obama, big spending on federal programs did.
That's the key. Because many in the media would have us believe that liberal ideology was confirmed by this election. It was not. However... however, secularism is certainly eroding traditional power. No question about it. Those Americans who attend religious services at least once a week voted for Romney 59-39, the problem is church going is on the decline in this country.
Here's an example. Despite the President's controversial insistence that some Catholic entities provide birth control and after pills, Catholics supported Obama 50 percent to 48 percent down from 2008 but still a surprise to some."
If traditional America, as described by Bill, were to be considered, then he effectively destroyed that argument with his example. Catholic voters voted in favor of Obama with a two-percent advantage over Romney. That's a small touch down from the trend in 2008, as O'Reilly himself noted, but why would he use this argument, given how it contradicts his claims by a slight margin at least, in order to try and push his rhetoric? It fell flat on his face! Could there be any clearer sign that he's losing his mind with age and the adversity that he sows every day? It could be dementia at work here, but I digress. Let's move on with the next argument:
"By the way, Mitt Romney didn't even try to marginalize secularism. He basically ignored it. A mistake because President Obama is the poster guy for the secular progressive movement. The key question going forward is the SP Movement good for Americans no matter what their ethnicity or economic condition and the answer is no
Three vivid examples. Secular progressives champion a do-your-own-thing philosophy. No judgments about personal behavior are allowed in that arena. The public school system has adopted that philosophy. And that's now wreaking havoc on American society." .
Why should marginalization even occur in the political arena? Since when is such a tactic to be encouraged? Bill, you should know that if you attack a group of people while running for Presidential office, you likely lose a lot of votes from that group and make it harder to succeed. I'll supply a quote from Romney himself where he describes just how much disdain he has for Secular Progressives, but just a little later. For now, let's talk about his points in attacking Progressives. First, whatever happened to his "Conservative" ideology where it's supposed to champion personal freedom from the Government? Shouldn't he be agreeing with Secular Progressives instead (since they apparently espouse a "do-your-own-thing" philosophy as he claims), at least if he is at all consistent in his views? If Progressives favor personal freedom (with your body especially) more than Bill, himself admitting off-show that he is a Conservative, then you know the old man is losing it and is probably a pathological liar at that. Since O'Reilly didn't care to expand on his line, "The public school system has adopted that philosophy", I won't get into it any further than necessary. After all, what does he mean by that? Ugh, senile pundits just don't cut it sometimes. At least this kind of material makes for great comedy fodder.
Anyway, Mitt Romney's famous "47 Percent" quote below also causes O'Reilly's arguments to collapse, unfortunately for him:
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
With that said and done by his go-to guy for reclaiming the White House, Bill, probably quite desperate at this point, went on to talk about children being born out of wedlock or raised by single parents, with minorities having most cases of both. It's a part of his take on how "traditional America" is going out the wayside, thanks to the Obama administration. Again throwing out any notion of objectivity and slyly embracing subjectivity, he said:
"In 2010, about 41 percent of American babies were born out of wedlock. That's up eight percentage points since 2000 and up an astounding 23 percentage points since 1980. Babies born to unmarried women drive poverty, every study shows that and American minority groups are the most affected.
In 2010, 73 percent of black babies were born outside of marriage; 53 of Hispanic babies were. The number was 29 percent for white babies. So the cycle continues. Minorities are more affected by poverty because the traditional family unit has broken down in those precincts. And rather than trying to reverse that, secular progressives want more entitlement spending. Nothing about changing libertine attitudes."
One of the common talking points of Bill O'Reilly and his ilk lately has been that Obama somehow promotes this sort of "libertine" attitude. If one takes the methodology seriously, they'll think that sexual promiscuity, entitlement to have sex with no responsibility, and single parenting are all strongly encouraged by the "leftwing administration" that Obama is the face of. Divorce and wedlock occur for various reasons, too numerous to mention. Also, it doesn't help that minorities get shafted by the government often, such as Black merchants receiving less trust from potential buyers, prison-incarceration rates for Black citizens and un-educated & poor people being high, and law enforcement mistreating minority communities while searching for illegal immigrants or possible law-breakers.
Then he shifted to the topic of abortion. He's always wrong on the issue, at least when you consider what he's trying to push onto his viewers, but he said of abortion:
"On the abortion front, same thing; rather than trying to discourage taking the lives of millions of fetuses, the SPs have created a mythical "war on women" screaming that so-called reproductive rights are under assault. The abortion zealots want the procedure on demand, no matter how late term. And are stridently opposed to even counseling before this life- ending procedure is undertaken.
Abortion is settled law in the USA but it should be discouraged because human DNA is present upon conception. Thus, the situation becomes a human rights issue. Ask yourself this question, should America be a country where potential human life, an undeniable fact after conception, is terminated for convenience... for convenience? Is that the kind of country we want?
And the federal government is going to demand that citizens who oppose abortion pay for it? What say you Planned Parenthood?"
As for "so-called" reproductive rights being under assault, they really are under assault by adamantly pro-life governments, Billy! When you tell a woman that they do not have the freedom to make the choice, as hard as it usually is for them to do so, that they can't get an abortion, then you're taking away their right to make that choice. As a pro-choice citizen, I'm not an abortion pusher and neither is the overwhelming majority of pro-choice, so to call us all "abortion zealots" is bigotry in every sense of the term. Your argument as to why abortion should not be allowed is that "human DNA is present upon conception." Talk about appealing to emotions, which muddies the argument by discarding rationality from the debate. Also, since when do women get abortions "for convenience"? Not all women are healthy of mind, and you certainly aren’t sound in your noggin either Bill, but aside from a few nut-jobs who get abortion simply because they want to have fun with their lives instead, it's a piss-poor argument against the right to choose. You undermine the issue by painting it as such a common and cold happenstance with regards to the women who get abortions.
There's nothing wrong with the government allowing a free choice to be made on a federal level, because it fits the "America, Land of the Free" motto after all. If the government were to tell you that you can't, then how could you say that it isn't an authoritarian government being that it is a matter of dominion over your right to autonomy? No government body should be allowed to tell you what you can or cannot do with the only thing in life you truly own.
To say that Planned Parenthood carries out abortion almost exclusively is, by most accounts of what really happens through Planned Parenthood services, a lie and it is intended to antagonize the organization. In fact, a consistent number for just how many are carried out each year, give or take, is 3%. That's 3% of their services, performing abortion specifically, and it is rather small in comparison to their other services. For example, contraception services rated at 36%, prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infections at 31%, cancer screening & prevention was at 17%, and as many as 621,000 unwanted pregnancies through counseling and teaching were prevented by Planned Parenthood. The whole reason behind these services is that poor or unprepared families and individuals can cause economic and even social discrepancies for said citizens, and PP is intended to help prevent such instances. To defund them is to throw millions of people under the bus effectively.
O'Reilly loves to rail against the use of marijuana, and views the legalization of the drug as a bad omen. That's when he said:
"Finally, two states, Washington and Colorado, voted to legalize pot. Here are the grim stats on this idiocy. Since 2008, teenage pot use up 40 percent and heavy use for teens has increased 80 percent. States that have lenient medical marijuana laws driving those stats, why? Because legalizing pot sends a message that it's fine to use it and getting the drug at the corner pot shop makes it readily available to anyone. Ask any drug counselor. And he or she will tell you once a child is introduced to intoxicants that child's life changes for the worse.
Some may not become substance-involved but millions will. Do we want to encourage that? The SPs, they don't care about addiction. They don't want limitations on so-called private behavior. No judgments. If you want to smoke drugs? Fine. If you want to abort a fetus? We'll drive you to the clinic. You want to have a kid when you're 16, no problem at all, we'll support you."
Talk about speculating, which Bill says once in a while is not done on the show. That's fine and all, and since he always says, "Caution! You're about to enter the no spin zone" at the beginning of every episode, he's definitely safe from criticism. Well, that's sarcasm for you; speculation without proof is a form of spin. He does this all the time. But let's dispute his claims.
The first argument is completely pointless to make. He didn't describe any negative consequences of legalizing the drug for recreational use in the states of Colorado and Washington. He relied on a figure from 2008 alleging that teenage pot use (perhaps he means casually, though he doesn't make that clear) went up 40 percent, whilst heavy use for teenagers went up 80 percent. Somehow, this is proof of how the legalization pot, which is 95% harmless (once in a blue moon, deaths occur in relation to the drug, but nobody has died just from using it yet), is idiotic on behalf of the two states in question. It isn't, but in O'Reilly's world, there can be nothing but bad things to come out of this trend.
He dropped the ball when he speculated, which is all it is because he couldn't prove the point at all, that "millions will" become substance involved. Honestly, who gives a rat's ass if more people use it because the substance can be used freely? That's the choice of the people to make, not the government and their paid mercenaries in law enforcement. Addiction is an individual's issue to handle, and to expand further, how come he didn't make the point that cigarette and alcohol use, being legal, are even worse on the issue of addiction? Even so, it isn't fair to the issue to invoke substance abuse, since such a thing doesn't happen with all users of even legal substances. Self-control cannot be manipulated by law anyway, so it's a stupid point to make. However, while Bill doesn't want to admit it, drug use is a private matter.
Every argument he's made on abortion, child-birth out of wedlock, and drug use have denied the fact that they are personal matters. People do drugs, Billy, and there's nothing the law can do to prevent it. If people want something bad enough, they'll circumvent the law to get it even if they get branded a criminal to do it. If a woman or a girl becomes pregnant which they're not ready for, and they overcome the emotional anguish such a choice can cause, then they should have the freedom to get an abortion (and there is no guarantee of the baby being born alive, but I digress). If a 16 year old girl gets knocked up, and those who can help them deny them help in their time of need would, to me at least, be nothing short of immoral.
All of this moronic slandering, playing loose with facts, posing as a false moral guardian, and generally abrasive blind rage is because Mitt Romney had lost the election by a landslide. Did you see his appearance on his mother channel, where he was
belly-aching on election night that “traditional America” is gone by bringing up how Obama got a majority vote by minorities? Given the policies of the current monster that is the Republican Party, who could be surprised that many people wouldn’t agree with the stances of Obama’s opposition party? Times change, Bill, and it’s time that you realize it. Sure, there are valid points in what he said, such as people actually enslaving themselves to welfare programs without empowering themselves to employment, but given his past excursions of blatant racism, he lamented that the white majority is losing power. It’s transparent that this is another form of ‘butt hurt’ over his party yet again failing to impress voters enough to get Obama out of the oval office.
But please, Bill, get those meds going and stop acting like an idiot with arguments like these. The only people you’re convincing are the cretins in your audience who don’t recognize nuance in any issue you bring up, and take your poisonous words at face value without question.
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