Stupid is as stupid does - Sean Hannity

As much as I try to avoid Faux News, I was channel surfing last PM and caught about 3 minutes of Hannity & Coombs. The segment featured a guy who is the head of some atheist organization. His rather cogent arguments were met with the abject stupidity of Sean Hannity's remarks.

Hannity tried to press the point that "the Declaration of Independence is our founding document." The atheist guy pointed out that SH was wrong - our founding doc is the Constitution. Not so, sez the idiot SH. SH was dragging the DoI thru his muck to make the point that our founding fathers endorsed religion. Mr Atheist pointed out that most of them were Deists, and that if you examine the DoI it certain doesn't endorse A religion - and certainly not Xtianity. He further pointed out that our Constitution is - indisputably - religion-free.

I really couldn't believe it. Just how stupid is SH? The answer - really, really REALLY stupid. I found myself wishing the atheist guy had just come out and said "Sean, you really are an ignorant SOB. If you actually believe what you just stated, then you are stupid, plain and simple."

I know we left-wingers don't normally take the low road in debates, but isn't it maybe time that we just arm ourselves with the facts and tell these idiots to their faces (and those of their TV audiences) that they're stupid? Why mince words with euphemisms like "not informed, you maybe mis-spoke, you're possibly not aware of" and all the other semi-free rides we give these a-holes? The fact is, stupid people don't/can't believe the truth even when the facts are presented to them systematically and in their totallity. If they can't understand it, they must be, er, stupid.

Do I have a point, or am I just letting my frustrations show?

This directly relates to this post here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=218022

and you are so right, we need to arm ouselves with the facts and be able to give a forthright and true answer to their comments about their beliefs that the constitution was founded on christian doctrine.

Of course, sometimes it is like talking to a brick wall, stubborn stupid conservative right.

That is basically the gist of what Al Franken said in his speech at the LA book convention, while he was promoting his own book "Lies and the Lying Liars that tell them (a fair and balanced look at the right)".

He didn't speak very well on the subject in my opinion, but he was dead on correct as are you! :)

...religion, homosexuality and late term abortion.

They do not want to talk about our failed foreign policy, GI's dying in Iraq, unemployment, the looting of the federal reserve and employee pension funds, gutting environmental regs or anything else that really matters.

Do not feed the monkey. Ignore them.

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He's not really stupid. Hannity acts like he thinks the people who are listening to him are stupid. That's what his expression conveys to me. It's a big put-on. He shares that expression with Bush to some degree.

Both men look like they are just doing a sales job. When they are saying angry lines, they look like they might be about to smile. It's like WWF wrestling, kind of.

That's the difference between Hannity and O'Reilly by the way. O'Reilly, for all of his errors and despite his occasional ethical lapses still towers above Hannity. Hannity is just a hack.

REALLY tired of the nutball fundie wingnuts continually, endlessly squawking and promoting the myth that the nation was founded by Christians who intended the country to be a Christian-only nation, that's total bullshit. Most of the founders were, indeed, Deists, and even the few religious ones recognized, for the most part (some of them didn't, admittedly) the importance of granting freedom of religion to the new nation's citizens.

:shrug:

while we at DU stand for neither.

just thought I'd mention that.

...that it points out that there are people who think the Declaration of Independence is our founding document.

The DOI was merely a letter outlining our intent to rebel and the reasons for doing so.

Only a fundy idiot would believe it has more importance than the constitution.

The founding fathers used some obscure references to a higher power in order to convey they rights that all men possessed. It was their manner of calling them birthrights.

Moreover, religion was used because it was the best tool to form a context for the uneducated population.

Funny that religion is still a proven method of reaching the uneducated, even today.

I look at it as the DoI is our founding document. See links below:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/charters_of_freedom/declaration/declaration.html

http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/charters_of_freedom/constitution/constitution.html

It seems to me that the DoI was the announcement that the colonies were declaring themselves as a country independent from England and the Constitution was the framework by which the country would govern itself.

Am I splitting hairs here or what? :shrug:

The DoI is just that - a declaration. A declaration to be free of British rule. There's nothing in the DoI outlining the form of government that would rule the USA, so how can it be considered a "founding document" for that revolutionary form of government known as democracy?

Suppose King George had said, "OK, they're no longer part of the British Empire," had left it at that, and that there had been no Revolutionary War. The Founding Fathers could have simply decided to set up a monarchy as the ruling structure. In this, they would have followed the prevelant structure of their times.

Or, suppose King George had smoked 'em all out and had won the RW (which he would have if we hadn't been saved by the FRENCH!). The signers of the DoI would all have been hung for treason and the USofA would never have existed.

But none of that happened. The FFs didn't set up a monarchy, they set up a constitutional democracy. Let's not forget that the FFs met in Philly over a decade AFTER they issued the DoI to discuss the existing Article of Confederation which were intended to form the basis of this new government. After a few days, they abondoned them and formulated the Constitution. Until that Constitutional democracy was formulated, written down and approved by the FFs, our nation in its present form hadn't been founded.

I think the atheist has it right on this one. The DoI serves as a Letter of Intent while the Constitution enshrines the actual social contract.

to create and ratify the Constitution over the Articles of Confederation, they were already calling themselves states. No monarchy had been set up in the decade they were free to do so. That is why I believe that the DoI establishes the "founding" of an independent country and the Constitution was the fleshing out of the framework for how it would be governed.

The final paragraph of the DoI:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

"our lives, our honor, and our sacred fortunes." I've heard him do it a million times. Either one of the great Freudian slips of all times, or else INTENIONAL. Either way, it speaks volumes about Limpnuts, the dittoheads, and Pukes.

Bake

You just outlined one of my biggest pet peeves with the Christian Right - I don't know where they get this shit about christianity and the founding fathers ... Their deism is well documented, but I have found it's not publically acknowledged or accepted or understood by many. For example - I went to visit Jefferson' Monticello and took the tour. I had to finally propmt the tour guide to acknowledge Jefferson's deist belief, after him 'tippee toeing' around it - quite uncomfortably. They were VERY reluctant to discuss his deism in front of our rather large tour group, even to the point of stating that they do not usually talk about it unless prompted. Which was interesting, in that they discussed with ease his relationship with ol' Sally was it ?

Anyway - you're right - we need to quit 'tippee toeing' and hit the Christian right wingnuts hard with their own ignorance or wishful thinking.

in public generally be very polite and calm but most importantly be all smiles, especially on teeVee.

reduce all your issues to sound bytes, then fire away, and don't forget to SMILE BRIGHTLY.

remember whos watching ;->

when your on the internet or infront of the home crowd, smack'em silly :evilgrin:

peace

I've never heard of it

a movement or system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe.

because they are learning disabled and need remediation. However, dickwad Whiteous Conservative Broadcasters do not deserve such treatment. It would not be rude to lay some violent intellectual verbage upside their snickering mugs on the air.

1. Hannity displays his ignorance by even using the term "founding document" (whatever that means). The Declaration was simply meant to explain why the 2d Continental Congress approved Richard Henry Lee's motion to declare the colonies' freedom and independence from England. While it set forth some popular principles of the time, it was mostly a polemic against King George designed to influence public opinion in support of the revolution both here and abroad; it was never designed to have any legal or binding effect.

2. Not all of the members of the committee charged with drafting the Declaration were deists- though Jefferson clearly was and the Declaration with few revisions was his work. Its first two paragraphs (including the bit about the Creator endowing all men with certain inalienable rights) are based on natural law and drawn directly from John Locke's 17th century Second Treatise on Government. To say that that the Declaration endorses religion (I surmise he meant Judeo/Christian religion) is just plain wrong, especially when you read the document in the context of the enlightenment.

3. Having listened to Hannity a few times, I agree that the man is stupid, in the sense that he appears incapable of ever learning things that seem at odds with his ideology. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people like that in America- and they will NEVER publicly admit they are wrong. Rather than call them names, the best way to deal with them is to stay cool, lay out the case and let them prove their own selves stupid. Usually, they will oblige.