Bill O'Reilly: OK for terrorists to attack San Francisco

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by DesElms, Nov 12, 2005.

Loading...
  1. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    Criticizing a ballot measure passed by 60 percent of San Francisco voters urging public high schools and colleges to prohibit on-campus military recruiting, Fox News TV and radio host Bill O'Reilly said on the November 8 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
    • Hey, you know, if you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I'm not going to give you another nickel of federal money. You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, "Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead."

      And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.
    Dedicated in 1933, the 210-foot Coit Tower contains a museum and murals depicting 1930s California working life.

    Even O'Reilly can't get away with saying why he really hates San Francisco. Now, I guess, he has this.


    See also: Talk host's towering rant: SF not worth saving
     
  2. Tom57

    Tom57 Member

    Bill O'Reilly is a horse's ass. He's both a bully and idiotic. He deserves whatever negative fallout he receives. San Francisco voted via the democratic process which he presumably defends vigorously. Uh, so they didn't vote the way HE would like, so bomb the hell out of them. Typical right wing democratic philosophy. Freedom our way or no way. Next, I suppose, he will declare that GOD is in favor of bombing SF. Perhaps the WMD are in the Castro district - better start the invasion there.
     
  3. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Does anyone really believe that O'Reilly wouldn't care if San Francisco were the target of a terrorist attack?
     
  4. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    No... and that's an excellent point. I know some FOX NEWS CHANNEL producers, and they tell me that O'Reilly is well known for his love of San Francisco; and that he comes out here all the time, in fact.

    He really stirred-up the pot out there, though. Wow! You should see it. In addition to it being on CNN and MS-NBC for folks in your neck of the woods, it's also all over every local TV and radio station, and every newspaper, out here. So it's much higher profile.

    Everyone's up in arms. They interviewed a fireman and a cop, for example, who invited O'Reilly to come to San Francisco and then suddenly find himself needing police or fire department help; and restaurant owners who said he wasn't welcome in their establishment anymore, and people on the street who said they want to punch him in the nose, etc., etc. It's funny, actually. Now everyone's calling for his firing from FOX... like that would ever happen!

    It's a spectacle, to be sure.

    Oy. :rolleyes: O'Reilly: Can't live with him, can't kill him! ;)


    Oh... yeah... and what Tom57 said!
     
  5. Guest

    Guest Guest

    People who watch O'Reilly know he is "tongue in cheek" most of the time and does have an acerbic wit.

    Bill O' Reilly donates millions to charity--all races and religious traditions and nationalities.
     
  6. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member




    Yes, what Tom57 and DesElms said!



    Abner :)
     
  7. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I think that O'Reilley probably does have a point.

    If cities refuse to support the military, then it's kind of hypocritical for them to expect the military to lay down their lives to protect them.

    I'm not talking about agreeing with how particular political leaders may choose to employ the military. I'm talking about supporting the military institution itself.

    Obviously San Franciscans are Americans and obviously they pay taxes. The city is important and no government is going to write it off. So in that sense O'Reilly's remarks were just hyperbole.

    But one does occasionally get the impression that San Francisco voters really do want to opt out of the United States.

    Part of that is due to the fact that there are very few native San Franciscans left in San Francisco these days. Most of the city's residents were born somewhere else. Many of them are people who were dissatisfied wherever they originated, people who wanted to leave and go someplace different, and SF sounded so cool. So they followed the yellow brick road hoping to escape into a counter-cultural fantasy. (One that ironically was invented by the media as much as anything, but since people all around the world believed it, it kind of came true.) So San Francisco grows more extreme and atypical with every passing year.

    In some ways that's a good thing, I guess, and in other ways it's very unfortunate. It explains the city's edgyness, excitement, diversity and fascinating cultural creativity. But it also explains the high incidence of psychiatric problems, substance abuse and a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction, alienation and angst. (You can escape from your home town, but you can never escape from yourself.)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 13, 2005
  8. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    But that's precisely how this country is structured... and what the founding fathers had in mind. Without that construct, there could be no dissent because to do so would put one's right to equal protection at risk. If O'Reilly's (and, apparently, your) way of thinking were how things worked, then people who don't pay their taxes, in addition to whatever punishment they get for that in a court of law, would not be allowed to walk on sideways or use highways built with taxpayer money. We simply don't do things that way... which is as it should be.

    Oh, good... then you do get it. Whew! ;)

    No. San Francisco voters want the promise of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to be truly realized in their lifetimes. They don't want out of the United States; they want to work within it to change it, as it should be. The kind of sentiment you've expressed has an "America: Love it or Leave it!" sort of feel to it. Dissenters are patriots.

    Well... it's hard to argue with that.

    You're probably right... but it's no worse in San Francisco than it is in most any large -- or even not-so-large -- American city. You think San Francisco has angst? Try living in New York for a while... or even Chicago, to some degree. Urban living will chip away at anyone if given sufficient time.
     
  9. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    They want limited government? Sho don't seem so.

    A New York while.
     
  10. Rivers

    Rivers New Member

    I think Gregg makes a Very good point! Why is it anyone who criticizes the government is unamerican? Hell, for that matter why is it wrong to debate the Iraq war? There is a major difference between debating the war and supporting our troops! It is not an oxymoron to think the war is wrong yet support the soldiers,airman and marines over in Iraq.

    To me it seems like anyone who dares to dissent against the right is seen as evil,wrong and misled. It is by far more Patriotic to voice your opposition then it is to follow an ideologue off a cliff like a lemming. In the United States peoples idea,speech and expression are suppose to be protected and the minority has as much right has the majority regardless of what they have to say.
     
  11. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    Canard, meet strawman.

    Who doesn't criticize the government and who calls those who do un-American.
     
  12. Ryan IV

    Ryan IV New Member

    Support for the military

    I personally have a lot of issues with the philosophy of "I'm against the war, but I support the troops”. These are incompatible. How can you tell a soldier you support him, yet what he is doing is wrong? If the people fighting the war are constantly being told that they are fighting an evil war, what do you expect the moral of those soldiers to be? I do appreciate the fact that my brothers in arms aren't being spit on when they come home, but supporting the troops goes further than that. They need to believe that they are doing the right thing. Why do you think Fox News is so popular amongst the military? It’s because they support our efforts (in general), unlike so many other news channels.

    I don't agree with O'Reilly's statement, but I understand the feeling. The impression I get from San Francisco's vote is that they don't want their children going in the military. So who defends the nation? Who assists when another Katrina hits?

    I think I'm too close to the subject to be impartial.

    Respectfully,
    Ryan
     
  13. Rivers

    Rivers New Member

    Look no further than the White House, my good man.
     
  14. Rivers

    Rivers New Member

    Re: Support for the military

    Since I said it I will respond.

    It really is too late to debate if The US should or should not be in Iraq. The US is involved, American forces landed in Iraq and there is no taking it back. So what a soldier is doing in Iraq is indeed the right thing, IMHO. As a solider you don't make policy you just follow orders, the order came to invade and the soldiers did. There is no debate about that the debate is should we have gone in the first place and what the hell are we doing there. First many Americans believe and rightfully so that they were lied to( It was Condy Rice who said" we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"). Remember the Al-Qaeda/Iraq link, which turned out to be completley false and merely spin. Of course congress hadMOST of the same intelligence as the President but it was the administration that was putting these big presentations together about why we should go to war and spinning faster than the turbine. People were criticized for their opposition(see Valerie Plame incident). That being said The US at the time of the invasion had recently suffered it's first major attack since Pearl Harbor. People were very receptive to the idea that WMD's were in Iraq(remember went from bomb making facilities to mobile-bomb making facilities to..um what WMD's).

    So, Yes Soldiers are doing the right thing. Yet the elephant in the closet is, should any soldiers have been sent there at all.
     
  15. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I wrote:

    If cities refuse to support the military, then it's kind of hypocritical for them to expect the military to lay down their lives to protect them.

    It's interesting that you quoted all of my post except that you snipped out the section that addressed that point:

    I'm not talking about agreeing with how particular political leaders may choose to employ the military. I'm talking about supporting the military institution itself.

    The issue here isn't dissent against the Iraq war or whatever bug was up San Francisco's butt. It's the city's attempt to prevent the military from recruiting among the city's youth. It's the attempt to distance the city and its youth from the military institution itself.

    So I think that O'Reilley is probably right in drawing attention to the hypocrisy implicit in San Francisco's assumption that the military that they refuse to allow over their city borders will nevertheless be there protecting them from terrorist and other threats.

    I'm confident that they will be, but that's more a testament to the military's maturity and realism than San Francisco's.
     
  16. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    And what will I see? Who in the White House has said these things, my man?
     
  17. Tom57

    Tom57 Member

    There's only hypocrisy if you believe that preventing the military from coming onto campuses is tantamount to no support. This doesn't necessarily follow. SF is not talking about closing down military recruitment offices, nor is it preventing its youth from seeking out the military. They just don't want them on campuses spilling their propaganda. Same idea as the Right's paroxysm at Planned Parenthood spreading its wings within high school campuses.

    The very young are the most susceptible to propaganda. Chances are always better for a good result when it's the customer that seeks the seller, rather than the other way around. That's why most of us don't buy the discount carpet cleaning coupons from the guys who come to your front door at dinner time.
     
  18. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Door-to-door salesmen don't offer you a potential lifetime career, job training, education assistance, or the chance to do something that really matters with your life.

    I served in the Army with a guy who grew-up in Chicago's infamous Cabrini-Green housing project. He enlisted right after HS graduation (after a recruiter visited his HS), and never went back. When I asked him why he joined, he simply said "I knew I'd either be dead or in prison if I didn't get out of there". Last I heard, he had made the Army his career, and was a First Sergeant.
     
  19. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    There's no question that the military can either save a life, or turn one around. I like the commercial for the Army that's been on TV lately. A familiar-faced character actor plays the father. He's sitting on the front porch in the evening with his son, who's obviously back home for the first time since boot camp... but they don't show us the kid yet (i.e., the following dialog begins before we realize that the kid's in a uniform).

    The father says, with quiet pride: "When you got off that train, you did two things you've never done before... at least not at the same time."

    The son says: "What's that, dad?" (We only hear his voice saying this as the camera stays tight on the quietly prideful father's face)

    The father says: "You shook my hand, and you looked me straight in the eye. Where'd that come from?" (Immediately after which, the camera switches to the kid looking at his dad, head nearly shaved, and in an army uniform)

    The son just smiles in acknowledgement. (Fade to Army logo)

    That's pretty potent stuff... an extremely well-done commercial... and effective, I'd guess... at least for parents. During the run-up to election day, the Army was literally saturating local programming with that commercial.

    I think San Franciscans have decided that with all the kids who'll be likely to see military recruiting commercials on TV (and who will, therefore, get the message); and with all the parents who are likely to be moved by the likes of the TV commercial I just described (and who might, therefore, make sure that the Army is something their kids consider)...

    ...that should be enough.
     
  20. Tom57

    Tom57 Member

    The military is a great choice for many and a lousy choice for many. SF's point is to let potential recruits make their own choices without being pressured by military recruiters on campus.

    Yes, some will join the military and have a rewarding career with all the perks that Bruce mentions. Others will spend 4 years painting batteries. I see no problem with keeping recruiters off campuses, whether they're military or Jehovah's Witness. It has nothing to do with withdrawing support from the military, and it certainly doesn't justify advocating making SF the target of terrorist attacks. O'Reilly's comments are about the most un-American I've heard in a long time.
     

Share This Page