San Francisco man faces fallout from `Wife Swap' - loathed as a stereotype of 'liberal elitist'

He does behave like a jerk. Some friends are reporting that he was told by the producers to ham it up for the cameras but if he's so intelligent, with his advanced degrees and all, he should have been aware there would be a backlash.

you can watch the highlights here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Eh4jpSNn-Q&feature=related

ABC News national repory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhykAAg86bs&feature=related

San Francisco man faces fallout from `Wife Swap'
By EVELYN NIEVES, Associated Press Writer Evelyn Nieves, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 30 mins agoSAN FRANCISCO –

It's safe to say Stephen Fowler probably wishes he never appeared on "Wife Swap."

Fowler's stint on the ABC reality show last month, in which he called a rural Missouri woman spending two weeks in his San Francisco home stupid and simple, has made him famous in the worst way.

His performance has inspired a Web site, StephenFowlerSucks.com, a Facebook group, "I Can not Stand Stephen Fowler from `Wife Swap,'" and public condemnation by his own wife, who on her blog urged him to get professional help.

What has generated such wrath is Fowler's condescending treatment of Gayla Long, a mother of four from rural Missouri whose family likes fast food and paintball. In wince-producing remarks, Fowler, who is British, wrote off middle America with such pronouncements as "Your two languages seem to be bad English and redneck."

-----------------------

Fowler, an environmental entrepreneur who develops biofuels, apologized in a statement posted on his wife's blog for behaving "like a complete jerk" and said he has resigned from the boards of two nonprofit corporations for reflecting badly on the organizations.

Some news outlets have reported that Fowler says he has received death threats. Neither Fowler nor his wife, Renee Stephens, could be reached to confirm the reports.

to do with it--the guy is just a pompous ass.

Plenty of conservatives out there just like him--they're just snobby about different things.

The question that occurs to me is...Why the Hell did he ever get involved in this show??? :shrug: :silly:

why go on a trashy show for 10K?

...drumroll...

I accidently watched that show the night he was on. I never watch that trash but it was on right after the "wheel of fortune" & he was so rude I had to watch.

Just like they replayed the 'god warrior' on Trading spaces. He'll never live that episode down.

He can call her fat and she can call him darksided.

nt

Unfair but people don't like foreigners trashing America.

It's not his accent that has pissed off people. It's not even his shitty comments about the US, or how the woman's "stupid" family (and everyone from her neck of the woods) are only suited to serve in the military. If anyone's undereducated (despite his degrees) and overopinionated, it's Stephen "Foul"-er.

Watch the provided clips. The guy epitomizes the phrase 'pompous fucking asshole.' And you need that middle word in there to fully convey what an absolute jerk/asswipe the guy is. He was contemplatively, deliberately cruel to that woman, and brutal to his children.

Total ass. I hope he feels the Karma for some time. He deserves it.

I assume.

I know a lot more arrogant in-your-face Americans than Brits (most of whom are really embarrassed to talk about how much money they make, how many degrees they have, how great they are, etc.) I haven't seen the episode but this guy sounds really atypical to me.

government teat getting fat when there aren't out mugging grandmothers or stabbing each other...

Just saying,. :evilgrin:

I was brought up to be polite to everyone, even people you couldn't stand. In Britain, Americans are considered arrogant.

Do you have any idea how arrogant that broad brushed statement makes you look?

You should think before you type.

Real liberals are kind, tolerant and inclusive. They don't denigrate people. They embrace differences, they don't scorn them.

This guy even gives limo libs a bad name!!!

As for his being British, it's no wonder that Newt Gingrich's former right hand press man, Tony The Gangster Blankley, worked real hard to lose his accent completely. The GOP doesn't want to identify with "furriners" even if they're US citizens.

USA.

He has ditched the accent, pretty completely, in fact, changed his hairstyle, and gotten rid of the 'bespoke' black with white stripes gangster suits in favor of more "American looking" ones that look like Donna Brazille chose them for him.

He's also packed on the "stone" as it were!



That's him on the right with Fran Coombs, editor of the Moonie Times.

I thought he might be Latino.

He's a rosy cheeked Brit under that salon spray treatment!!!

Being a jerk is an issue of personality.

Being a liberal is an issue of ideology. I see no correlate.

IME, and just based on logic, I don't see why a real liberal can't be a raging jerk? Why not?

Sounds to me like you are engaging in a no true Scotsman type fallacy.

I've met people of disparate ideologies, and some are jerks, and some aren't. Various people have various degrees of assholery. I don't see any correlate with ideology.

If we say "real liberals" (see above fallacy) aren't jerks, then there are a LOT less liberals in this world than there actually are.

I think you are also going to sorely dissapointed in your personal interactions if you assume ideology = manners.

Real liberals don't insult people for things like their weight or their education level. Real liberals are compassionate, they're more like Jesus than the people who claim to be Jesus freaks. The feed the hungry, shelter the poor, care for the sick--that's the 'liberal agenda.' Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, and all that.

See, the ideology is wrapped up in the DEEDS. And the deeds proscribe insults or stereotyping, which is what this nitwit was doing.

If you're a rude fucking jerk, tossing insults like that FOUL fellow, you're not a real liberal--you're just playing at it, because you like hanging around that crowd--they're more agreeable than the other team, certainly.

There are not a lot of real liberals in the world. Ghandi comes to mind. Mother Theresa wasn't one--she was rude as hell. Did a lot of good works, but could be incredibly unkind.

Way too many people ARE nasty, selfish, rude and greedy. Some of the ones who call themselves liberals, even though they aren't, are aspiring to do better. Others, like this jerk, just like the 'liberal lifestyle.' I wouldn't be surprised if he took a payment under the table from the GOP, just to give liberals a bad name!

and are still doing the true scotsman fallacy thang.

Sorry, a million points of data don't lie.

Assholery, Jerkiness, etc. are not correlated with ideology.

If you want to define "real liberals" as those that don't act in the ways you describe, then you are discounting metric assloads of liberals.

Your last sentence seals it for me. He's actually an agent provacateur PAID to make liberals look bad?

geez.

Anyone with that nasty, vicious, cruel streak is not a liberal. If I had to "diagnose" Stephen Fowler, I'd say he's a stage three alcoholic with self-esteem issues, and he's also selfish--again, not the trait of a genuine, as opposed to faux, liberal.

Where are these "million points of data" you say don't lie, pray tell? You just keep repeating the "Scotsman Fallacy" over and over again, when the construct doesn't even apply. The "no true Scotsman" analogy referred to bad behavior and nationality. "No true Scotsman would behave in X fashion." Nationality, in your Scotsman example, though, isn't a choice, because it refers to "true" Scotsmen, not ones who acquire citizenship. The liberal ideology IS a choice, though, no one is "forced" to be a true liberal, they make a decision to be one--and it is intimately tied up with ideology, as well as personal attitude and behavior TOWARDS OTHERS, which is compassionate, not jerky or "assholish," you see.

Your example doesn't cut it, sorry.

You also have a hard time recognizing irony, I see. I guess I'll have to pull out the :sarcasm: tag for that last sentence in my previous post, which to me was plainly tongue in cheek, because you apparently are a very concrete thinker.

"Anyone with that nasty, vicious, cruel streak is not a liberal. "

again, that's ridiculous.

all you are doing is redefining the term liberal. that's pretty transparent.

some people are (to various extents and at various times) - nasty, vicious, and cruel. many are frequently so.

that has exactly ZERO to do with ideology.

liberal =/= a special club that only (non-jerks) belong to.

again, with the true scotsman fallacy, and your invented definition of "true liberal".

you are correct that calling oneself a liberal does not make one a liberal.

you are incorrect in that jerky behavior (to whatever extent) is somehow not present in those that are liberals.

but again, you can just redefine liberals to mean what you say, but that's not making any sort of valid point. it's simply changing a definition to suit you.

A favorite signature line of mine:



I think that some people interpret that "generosity" to include a generosity of spirit. And see the fact that the antonym of liberal includes "bigoted" and "mean" to kind of prove that embedded in the definition of liberal is a sense of generosity and tolerance.

So perhaps we should just agree to stick with the dictionary definition?

What's ridiculous is you trying to separate an ideology whose hallmark is compassion from the very hallmark that makes it what it is.

It's like saying, "I'm a vegetarian, because I eat vegetables--pay no attention to the hamburger on my plate."

I'm not "redefining." I'm using the definition that everyone save a faux/status lib would use.

The specific "jerky" behavior that this fellow used involved cruelty, intolerance, bigotry and lack of compassion. We're not talking about jerky behavior like chewing with one's mouth open or farting loudly. We're talking about traits that are diametrically opposed to "the liberal agenda," as it were.

You're being deliberately obtuse.

liberals in their personal behavior can be intolerant, cruel, bigoted, and lack compassion.

being a liberal does NOT instantly turn one into a kind, moral, or well mannered person.

being a liberal means having a certain ideology, a core set of beliefs about the nature of the world, man's place in it, the role of govt., how one weighs various tradeoffs, etc.

it does not mean one will be a nice person, be kind in interpersonal affairs, be honest, etc.

just as there is (and has been) plenty of corruption in both dems AND repubs, there is plenty of jerkiness from people of all ideological stripes.

as a liberal, you should realize that people are people. regardless of ideology, there is VAST variation amongst individuals. it does not mean that being liberal (or conservative or libertarian or whatever) is the same as being kind, moral, honest, etc.

those are just very different things.

some liberals are jerks. but they are still liberals. just like some conservatives are jerks.

You're still not taking my essential point.

Those jerks can CALL themselves liberals, but saying so doesn't make them "liberal" no matter how often they repeat it or claim it. Being a mean bigot, being cruel, being unkind, is INCOMPATIBLE with the state of being a genuine, as opposed to faux or social (joining the club because they like the company), liberal. Ghandi was a genuine liberal. Not too many people have his attitude.

I can call myself the President of the United States, but the Marine Band doesn't break into "Hail to the Chief" every time I enter the room. I don't "know the code" and an 0-4 doesn't follow me around with the "football" either. The act of my insisting that I am the President doesn't make it a reality!

And, FWIW, not all Democrats are liberals. In fact, most are NOT. Most are moderates, but we've got plenty of conservative Dems as well.

your saying they aren't liberals doesn't make it (notso)

again, alec baldwin seems like a complete jerk. (hear the audio tape). is he NOT a liberal?

ditto michael moore.

and their jerkiness is specifically in re: personal relationships and calling people names, being derisive, etc. which is similar to what was mentioned in the OP.

liberal ideas, but they aren't genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, true-blue, really-mean-it, liberals. If they were, they'd be more like Ghandi, and less like themselves.

i see that your definition of liberal is extremely narrow.

that's fine, but imo it's still a reinvention, and is not how people (liberals and non-liberals) think of what it means to be "liberal".

liberalism isn't a priesthood, it's a belief system. with you, it's a priesthood, where one's personal behavior, self-restraint, etc. ousts you from the membership if you happen to have anger control problems, interpersonal problems (a la moore and baldwin) etc. regardless of your beliefs.

i also think it's a classic "no true scotsman" fallacy.

however, we are arguing past each other, since we are using entirely different definitions of the word.

i am confident that my definition is in line with how we define political ideologies, which is what liberal defines.

if somebody says "johnny is a liberal" we can make certain general assumptions (he tends to vote for democrats, greens, etc. he is pro-choice, he believes in a stronger social safety net than most conservatives, he believes in progressive taxation, he believes govt. can be a positive force, etc.) it doesn't mean he's a nice person, he doesn't say mean things to people, etc.

it is similar to the terms conservative, libertarian, etc. in that regards.

but since we are arguing past each other with different definitions, never shall we meet. so we can agree to disagree if that's cool with you.

rude, condescending, cruel, insulting, vicious, mean, and most importantly, both sexist AND bigoted.

There's no way anyone with that smorgasbord of hatefest issues can be regarded by anyone who is even halfway intelligent as a liberal, even if he claims to be an environmentalist and wears black shirts with "college kid cool" environmental sayings on them. He's an asshole who wears environmental shirts.

Even if you want to argue that there's a continuum of "liberalness" (or liberaldom, if you prefer) this guy's basic behavior makes even "imperfect" liberals want to disown him.

But agreeing to disagree works with me, too...!

that liberals want to disown jerks who are liberals, just like conservatives, libertarians, etc. want to disown jerks.

or how a family wants to disown cousin ned, who smells like elderberries, wears a chicken outfit while mowing the lawn, and spends all his free time looking at scat pr0n on the internet.

however, regardless of what we WANT to do, the word "liberal" has a meaning, and the meaning has to do with beliefs/ideologies.

jerks can be liberals too.

that's what I'm saying.

we are ALL imperfect, and furthermore, just because one is liberal, one does not have to (and usually doesn't) subscribe to ALL the trappings. for example, i disagree with most liberals on school choice. it doesn't make me a not-a-liberal, but it's a difference i have with the orthodoxy, so to speak.

just like some conservatives can be pro-choice, or whatever.

if i accept your definition of liberal, then there are FAR FAR FAR FAR less liberals in this country than conservatives, moderates, etc. because many many many people, especially when put in stressful situations and put in a fishbowl (a la the op) can be jerks, insensitive, cruel, mean, etc.

i have found , in my extensive travels :), that people are people. regardless of ideology, people have weaknesses, strengths, a breaking point, a mean streak, etc.

but agreeing to disagree works with me too!

This asshole has no "fellows" and the ones he thinks he has are an ocean away... where he should be.

He is more than a raging jerk, he's an aristocrat.

alec baldwin and michael moore.

both liberals.

both also (by numerous accounts) are jerks.

recall the famous answering machine message baldwin left where he called his daughter a "pig" in a frothing tirade.

or the fact that any # of people who have worked with michael moore have all sorts of anecdotes about what an assmunch he is as an employer.

regardless of what liberalism "implies", ideology =/= personality.

period.

i'm not going to create this false idea that a "true" or "real" liberal is a nice person, not a jerk, etc. it is simply not empirically true, nor does it make any logical sense.

whether or not a person is a jerk is not correlated with their political ideology.

Paul Watson of the Sea Sheperd is a jerk. Bernard Madoff is a jerk.

Paul Watson is risking peoples safety for what he considers to be a noble purpose. Madoff is simply a crook who is willing to defraud people out of their life savings. The ideological basis behind one's lack of manners is fundamentally germane.

The guy on the tv show believes that the midwest lady and others of her substandard breeding (pretty much all americans) should be silent around their betters, and that their kids will be intrinsically suited for only cannon fodder. That is fundamentally illiberal.

He's a complete bigot and not a liberal. It's a big tent, but not that big. Fuck 'im and his 150+ IQ.

I look askance at that IQ claim, or even his "GRE score" claim. If he's so fucking smart, he'd take that ACT or SAT without batting an eye...but I'm guessing he was probably shitting and sweating the "math portion!!!"

You take on the guy is right on the mark, IMO.

are alec baldwin and michael moore NOT liberals?

again, i find this idea RIDICULOUS, that being a jerk is inconsistent with being a liberal.

some people are jerks. they are not excluded from the class of liberals, and we have plenty of them.

It's easy to be a liberal when you're stinking rich and benefitting from Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

It's harder to be one when you're taxed at sixty to seventy percent in the upper brackets.

"Fowler, who is British, wrote off middle America with such pronouncements as "Your two languages seem to be bad English and redneck."

Somebody tell this pretentious ass that he take his snobbery and shove it. I find the bashing of American English by Brits ironic, since American English retains things that the Brits consider formal or archaic.

that Shakespere's English sounded a lot more like Appalachia than the BBC.

haven't evolved since their families emigrated from Ireland in the late 17th century. There was a PBS documentary in the mid '80s about it -- they had to subtitle the people they interviewed because they were almost incomprehensible by contemporary standards.

They're not talking about the twang people associate with contemporary Appalachia -- it's not that far removed from a contemporary Texan accent. They're talking about families that have lived in the middle of nowhere for three hundred years, intermarried with each other, and haven't been exposed to the "outside." IIRC most of the people with these speech patterns have passed.

What is true, however, is that elements of Southern speech harken back to the Early Modern English dialects of East Anglia. R-dropping in various dialects developed only in the 1700s. The dialects of Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, and Western New England, which didn't drop their Rs, were the basis of standard Midwestern American English.

that there's a lot of lines in Shakespeare that rhyme with an American accent and don't rhyme with a British one.

At best, the languages are equally removed.

Though IIRC in Shakespeare's time the initial K in "knee", "know", etc. was still pronounced, as was "gh", which was the same sound as the German "ch".

Hwæt! We gar-dena in geardagum,
Þeodcyninga þrym<Ø> gefrunon,
hu ða æþlingas ellen<Ø> fremedon!
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
Monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah . . .

Beowulf and Hrothgar.

(Nice!)

nt

nt

kill ugly television.

i watch Law & Order all the time, i've seen all of them but i keep on watching and if there was a dedicated l & O channel i would subscribe in an instant, yes i would.

You look at some of these astoundingly screwed up people, and you say 'Gee, even on my worst day, I've got my shit together!'

A lot of my family members enjoy paintball, mud-bogging, and deer hunting. They're not stupid by any stretch, although they have no more than a high school education. I'm sure that urbanites would find them "simple" because their personal interests don't range much past singing country songs on the karaoke machine with their friends and making sure their kids grow up and hopefully go to college, since they personally didn't have the opportunity to do so.

Lynrd Skynrd said it best "Be a simple kind of man".

Nothing wrong with that.

It's classist crap. I say "I ain't got no..." and "Me and Jack talked...", I'm also a well-learned college student.

I naturally switch back and forth between informal and formal speech depending on the formality of the situation. I have no patience for grammar Nazis that think language change is the end of the world and want everyone to talk like books.

The mother was absent, physically and emotionally, and the father was a brutal taskmaster. What a recipe for fucked up kids!

She was certainly "smarter" and more "complex" than the wine-swilling shithead who felt it was important to teach a child how to open a bottle of wine, and who woke his kid up to finish six homework problems that he could have done in the morning.

That man is fucked up. Any decent 'liberal' would disown and deny him.

if you are going to voluntarily place yourself in the public eye, and say things that are assholish, you have nobody but yourself to blame when people react.

:evilgrin:

to make for 'good tv'. What do I know but it seemed contrived and struck a false tone.

I live in NC and I have redneck family members and I love them all.

Anyway, what is reality television? It's just a way to make a spectacle yourself, on national television (AKA make an ass of yourself publicly).

But, hold the phone! These people want attention!!!

I think all of the people on that particular reality show are dumbasses. ALL of them. The San Franciscans are personally embarrassing to me, because I lived in San Franciso for 8+ years, and I have more education than they do! I have a Masters Degree, and I don't act like they do. I sure hope they get a bad reception when they come back to the SF Bay area.

Reality shows are so fake.

Those same middle Americans gave us two terms of Bush.

kind, agreeable, pleasant and mild-mannered has NEVER EVER been good for ratings...rudeness, petty conflict, snarkiness and jackassery have been the order of the day since the first season of "The Real World" (which is the only reality show i can ever admit to watching)...This is the outcome ABC was probably hoping for from the beginning (typecasting cliche from the start: educated, proper, snarky brit enters the world of the backwoods red america hillbillies)...I bet they will work out a way to invite him back with all this publicity...

That would be a fun writing gig. :)

If we accept his self-identity as a liberal, WE have a problem.

and they are usually liberal. just based on what i saw of her in the clip i would think she would be more likely to be a democrat than republican.

the guy sounds more like the rich asshole republicans i have come across who think they are so great in their expensive car and all the money they have.

fuck him even if he is a liberal. but a true liberal does not judge people's worth based on how much money they have.

i feel sorry for his children...

an a-hole is an a-hole, regardless of political beliefs.

You know-- he was trying to do that Simon Cowell thing. Or whatever his name is.

he was an absolute ASS, totally REPULSIVE, there hasn't been anyone that repugnant on reality TV since the "God Warrior". :puke:

"if he's so intelligent, with his advanced degrees and all, he should have been aware there would be a backlash".

What is it about having a college education and/or an advanced degree that we have to assume a person is in any way intelligent or enlightened?

Or that in this case, "he should have known".

There was a similar show to that one on another network. I watched one episode of both. What I saw was that they picked the extremes of every obnoxious stereotype and paired them up to get on each other's nerves. It was an obnoxious show with only the most obnoxious people and made for 2 hours of obnoxious television. That seems to be the plot of the show, actually. If that guy was so smart, why did he ever associate himself with a show set up just to show obnoxious people to begin with?

To clarify...

Yes there are certain things about the differences between "rural" and not that are simply cultural differences, and we probably aren't in a position to judge those - one isn't "superior" to another, just different.

But when it comes to how someone handles themselves with others, we are in a position to judge that, and there is a distinct and clear pattern of behavior emerging from rural America that includes an aggressive anti-intellectualism and the near celebration of rank ignorance.

Having said that - that doesn't mean that blunt, rude, crass, in your face statements make you any less of a dick just because there might possibly be some seed of truth in them.

I have a pretty simple rule, and that is, I don't feel particularly judgmental about someone else's culture or way of life right up until the point where they begin to aggressively condemn others from demonstrative ignorance. At that point, I will make a judgment. But if I was at my best, I still wouldn't spout of with asshole comments because frankly that just never does anyone any good.

Follow anyone around for an extended period of time you'll find their inner asshole.

and I have to say, it really scrapes the bottom of the barrel for entertainment. Anyone who would agree to appear on it has problems from the get go and anyone watching it and getting so upset they create web sites or send death threats needs to consider psychiatric care.

swapped with religious nuts.

makes you a complete and utter idiot.

Okay. Got it.

he cannot be a true liberal.

(Hey, if conservatives can use that logic . . . )