S12.E34: Rand Paul, Martin Short, Andrew Sullivan, Margaret Hoover, Jeremy Scahill

[maraleia]

 

Rep. Rand Paul (R-KY), Comedy Legend Martin Short, Founding Editor of "The Dish" Andrew Sullivan, CNN Political Contributor Margaret Hoover, and Investigative Journalist Jeremy Scahill.

 

[HelenBaby]

OMG we're going to have a President Rand Paul, aren't we? Can't stand that douchebag. Margaret wasn't making any sense. Thank goodness Scahill kept a lid on it and Andrew is usually sensible. Love Marty Short so much. I want to read his book.

[Victor the Crab]

OMG we're going to have a President Rand Paul, aren't we?

 

Not when he shows the public how stupid he is. Hillary Clinton will eat him for breakfast.

 

Nice New Rules sermon, Bill. Would have been nice if you had given it before the midterms.

 

Martin Short is awesome. No surprise seeing as he's Canadian.

[NextIteration]

I wish Bill would have Jeremy Scahill on as a single interview, he hasn't done that for a few years, actually there are a few people I wish he'd do that with.

 

I'm exhausted with the hard-on that Bill has for the Pauls, they are both bat-shit crazy in a lot of their beliefs, they just moderate that shit when they try to appeal to progressives.

Edited November 15, 2014 by NextIteration

[arachne]

I enjoyed watching Bill get schooled on spirituality by Martin Short and Andrew Sullivan (of all people!) Of course Bill just shrugged it off as what-the-human-mind-is-capable-of, but still ...

[iMonrey]

I think Rand Paul is at least a somewhat saner alternative to right wing nutters like Ted Cruz, Rick Perry or Sam Brownback. The problem is that he still tows the Republican line and it makes him seem so damn disingenuous. When they were talking about climate change and clean energy he had to pull out that strawman argument about people losing jobs - which is fundamentally just a really dumb argument. So, all those coal miners will still have their jobs, but the downside is that they'll die. Not really an even trade-off if you ask me. Also, "letting the market take care of it" is a Republican answer that's fundamentally flawed.

 

Pretty even keeled panel despite the dread I felt seeing their names scroll across the screen. Even the usual idiocy of Margaret Hoover was dialed down a notch.

 

 

I enjoyed watching Bill get schooled on spirituality by Martin Short and Andrew Sullivan (of all people!) Of course Bill just shrugged it off as what-the-human-mind-is-capable-of, but still ...

 

I disagree either "schooled" Bill on anything, especially since Short and Sullivan were at odds with each other over whether it even mattered whether or not God was real. Short's position was that so long as it gives people comfort, who cares whether it's true, while Sullivan argued it did make a difference. Unfortunately for Sullivan, when you start playing fast and loose with the definition of the word "evidence," it's a slippery slope to arguing in favor of creationism and a young earth. In fact I thought Bill was overly generous in basically letting that slide, more or less. And I liked Short's comment that we can't even agree on who killed Kennedy, and we have that on film.

 

John Cleese next week! Sounds like a good season finale.

[oceanblue]

I understood the disagreement as not whether God exists or not but whether the story of Jesus was literal or a story written by people to help us understand God as they knew him.  Andrew believes that Jesus was the son of God and that this part of the bible is historical.  He doesn't believe in creationism.  

[alias1]

I an so tired of Bill kissing up to the likes of Rand Paul and suggesting he might vote for him for President if Paul just had a better stance on green energy.  Rand Paul gave one of his stock nonsense answers that didn't say anything (as usual) . And as for him voting against the Iraq war if he had been a senator then, I don't even believe that.  It's nice to say now, but then he would have found a way to justify it just like he's justifying fighting ISIS now.  I can't stand the hypocrite.  Why does Bill even have people like that on?  Oh just to show how unbiased he is (Ha) and that he might vote for this scumbag.  Please! 

[ruby24]

Didn't Rand Paul say that the Civil Rights acts never should have been passed? If he's that kind of libertarian like his dad then he doesn't even believe that whole departments of the federal government should exist. I can't believe Bill would seriously consider voting for someone like that.

 

What would he do to the ACA with a Republican Congress behind him? He's not the type to consider the real world impact of stripping millions of people of healthcare- I can totally see him doing that wihout a second thought. Libertarians like him truly don't believe in the existence of government, practically at all, and that's a dangerous prospect, in my opinion.

[ganesh]

Of course Bill just shrugged it off as what-the-human-mind-is-capable-of, but still ...

 

If your faith helped you get through unfathomable trauma, that's totally fine, but I'd say that it's a testament to your mental toughness than it is evidence that there's a deity. That's what Bill was getting at. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with what MS was saying either about spirituality. But it's kind of not the point. There's people who are in a position to formulate policy to deal with climate change who deliberate aren't because of religion. There's people passing laws that dictate what women can and can't do with their own bodies and their position is based on religion.

 

I've said before, these people who go to church every week and go about their lives and are nice to people probably would be the same without going to church.

 

When they were talking about climate change and clean energy he had to pull out that strawman argument about people losing jobs - which is fundamentally just a really dumb argument.

 

It's ridiculous and flat out stupid because new technologies will create new jobs. There just needs to be more investment. ffs, I could literally train all of the coal miners to work at a nuclear power plant. 

 

I understood the disagreement as not whether God exists or not but whether the story of Jesus was literal or a story written by people to help us understand God as they knew him.  Andrew believes that Jesus was the son of God and that this part of the bible is historical.

 

Bill was also saying that every religion has some pretty ridiculous beliefs. Like the virgin birth, for example. Or the fact that Jesus was most likely more in like March or April. And not in Bethlehem. They jammed that in there to line up with their old prophesies. 

 

Jesus was an historical figure, and that's fine, but if Andrew wants to get into historical facts, it is far far far more likely Jesus was married with kids and later on after his death, this information was suppressed or expunged. Additionally, the collection of books we know as the bible were decided upon over a thousand years later because there's lot of literature that they didn't want people knowing about. 

 

Anyone claiming the bible as an historical record is just way way off. 

 

I do agree with the guy in the middle that people don't like the two party system. I've been saying that there needs to be a credible third party.

 

But yeah, Bill should have said the voting monologue before the election. 

 

I still don't get what in the fuck the democrats were thinking for this election either. 

Edited November 15, 2014 by ganesh

[amsel]

Sullivan's definition of "evidence" was laughable, particularly coming from someone educated at Oxford and Harvard. Subjective personal experience is not "evidence" for a deity, but for the capabilities of the human mind (as Bill said, but could have elaborated on a bit). Sullivan, being a Catholic, of course has to argue that the Gospels are written accounts based on oral traditions going back all the way to Jesus. There's really no evidence for that. Much of the material in the Gospels (Mark being the oldest) is based on re-writes of Old Testament stories in the context of Jesus' time, sold by Christians as "prophecies." Matthew and Luke are simply redactions of Mark. Sullivan is wrong, there's plenty of internal and external evidence that the virgin birth narrative is nonsense. And Mark and John don't even talk about it. He either doesn't care or doesn't know. Heck, we don't really know who wrote the Gospels (the names attributed to them were given about a century later for convenience). We don't know exactly when they were written (we do know Mark wasn't written earlier than 70 AD, but that's all we know). We don't know anything about their sources, other than Luke and Matthew used Mark, John probably knew Luke). They're not eyewitness accounts. They're not based on eyewitness accounts. And even if they were, 40 years is a long time for embellishments to be introduced to oral stories. If you read Paul's letters (and keep in mind, some of the letters attributed to Paul in the NT are forgeries, but there are seven authentic ones), he doesn't know anything about the virgin birth, about Jesus' miracles, about Jesus' ministry, about Pontius Pilate, about Jesus' parents, and other stuff. All he knows is the resurrection. And he's the earliest Christian source. The Gospels came later and added all the other stuff we now attribute to Jesus life. So the Gospels are mostly fiction, not historical accounts. In other words, Sullivan doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

Margaret Hoover, as always, is mostly useless, as is her husband who also appears on the show. 

 

Scahill is great. 

 

Martin Short was fantastic, though his comment on spirituality was stupid.

Edited November 15, 2014 by amsel

[ganesh]

I've said it a million times, these religious people just don't know about their religion. 

[lawless]

Didn't Rand Paul say that the Civil Rights acts never should have been passed? If he's that kind of libertarian like his dad then he doesn't even believe that whole departments of the federal government should exist. I can't believe Bill would seriously consider voting for someone like that.

I believe I saw him say that (could have been his father Ron Paul, but I am pretty sure it was Rand) on camera.  Ron Paul and Rand Paul are often touted as libertarians, but I have noticed that when you look at their positions, they tend to actually just be against the federal government, and take positions in favor of state laws that would do things like limit or outlaw abortions.  This would not seem to be consistent with Libertarian beliefs -- but it is consistent with old school Southern state's rights arguments.  In other words, the federal government became the source of all of society's ills when it forced the South to accept Civil Rights legislation and when it attacked Jim Crow laws, and when it provides welfare or other assistance to the poor that conservative Southerners interpret as offensive assistance to people of color and single women.  But state laws that infringe on people's liberties (so long as it's not straight white men's liberties) are fine.  When you consider that there have been scandals with at least Ron Paul, if not both Pauls, having associated with unabashed white racists, it's also fair to look at their isolationist foreign policy tendencies as maybe not so much about principle, and more as just not giving a fuck about what happens to brown people in the world.  Unless, as with ISIS, they feel it somehow threatens Christiandom. Maybe not, but both Ron and Rand Paul concern me very much, and I think they get a lot of positive press and little scrutiny about some fairly concerning things.  

Edited November 16, 2014 by lawless

[ruby24]

Yeah, I totally agree. Just because you like their foreign policy views doesn't mean that their libertarian ideology is at all a good thing. As I understand it, libertarianism really is against the very notion of a federal government altogether. I'm terrified at the idea of what a genuine libertarian (with a Republican Congress behind him, don't forget) would actually do to this country if he got the chance.

 

Frankly, I don't think it's very responsible of Bill to promote this person's ideas as legitimate. People could end up wanting to vote for him without ever realizing what kind of radical ideology Rand Paul actually subscribes to.

[ApocalypseThen]

I was disappointed that Bill didn't call Rand Paul on any of his bullshit answers, especially when discussing climate change. Whereas Paul is not as bad as some right wing nutjobs who are climate change deniers, he does constantly question the science behind climate change and uses straw men like "just because there's been a few hurricanes lately it doesn't mean the world is about to end due to climate change". He did that again to some extent by referring to "alarmists" who are pushing to get rid of millions of jobs based on unsubstantiated theories. Bill did confront him about some of his recent flip-flopping on issues such as ISIS, but then let him off way too easy again after Paul's lame excuse.

 

 But overall I thought this was one of the best shows in the last several weeks. Always great to see Scahill and Sullivan, which more than made up for that idiot Hoover. Then Martin Short was entertaining and he managed to participate in the conversations with the panel, which often isn't the case with celebrity appearances. 

 

 

 

[ktwo]

I think this is what you all are remembering regarding Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/rand_paul_the_civil_rights_act_and_private_discrimination/

He supports most of it, but hates the part that forced businesses to stop discriminating.

Way to totally miss the point, Rand.

[lawless]

The part about prohibiting private businesses from discriminating on the basis of race was pretty freaking important to undoing the exploitative and grotesque treatment of African Americans in the South at the time of the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and historically.  If you can favor the esoteric rights of private enterprise to discriminate against minorities as they were discriminated against in the 1960s and before over basic human dignity and equality in society, I have a serious problem with your values and priorities.  Rand Paul then saying that it's ok though, because he hates racial discrimination, sounds pretty hollow, given the significance that not voting for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have had, which is what Rand Paul is saying he would have done.  I just don't trust him or his father, and I think they are both gifted with the ability to sound a lot more innocuous and sensible than they truly are.  Just my opinion of course, but I am surprised how easily Bill seems to swallow what they're selling.  I don't think Bill looks very deeply into the views or backgrounds of some of his guests sometimes.

[ruby24]

Well, those extreme views match up completely with libertarian ideology- I think they sound more sensible because the Pauls honestly believe what they're preaching, and therefore project an authenticity that's appealing. But when you look at what it is they're so authentic about you see that it's a truly radical belief system.

[shok]

Rand didn't come by his name for nothing.

[ktwo]

Rand didn't come by his name for nothing.

I had that thought for the first time only a couple of weeks ago - that he was named for Ayn Rand. FWIW, his Wikipedia entry says that is not the case and that his name is Randal.

[Hanahope]

Yeah, if you listen closely to what Rand Paul said during the interviews, its mostly a lot of the same Republican schtick.  For example, he's only interested in letting non-violent (i.e. drug possession convictions) criminals get the vote back and that's because he's for legalization of pot, and it affected a friend's brother.  He totally side-stepped Bill's question about cozying up to corporations and corporations running prisons for profit, by again saying to get out the non-violent/drug possession criminals.  He also never said he acknowledged climate change, only that carbons have increased since the industrial age.  Really the only thing he and Bill have in common is de-criminalizing pot.  But that's such a huge issue for Bill, it starts to lord over everything else Paul would do for the worse.  Bill needs to realize that his Mitt McCain is also a Randmitt McCain.