@airshocker said:
@GazaAli said:
What an odd point of view. I think its pretty straightforward for most people why it would be embarrassing to witness a public figure who is widely viewed and listened to speaking in public in this manner. It violates civility, classiness and promotes savagery and indecency. You're certainly not forced to either believe in, agree with or care about what he says. But that is not to say that you can't have a feeling towards the whole thing. In fact you cannot not have a feeling if you're a healthy and elevated individual with properly cultivated faculties. I have to say I'm highly contemptuous and disdainful of this kind of mind numbing apathy. Its conducive to nothing but mental degradation and inevitable demoralization. If you do not train your consciousness and your faculties to distinguish between what is right and wrong, what is advantageous and disadvantageous, what is virtuous and depraved...etc it will eventually lose its ability to discern such distinctions and the individual will be forced into perpetual descent and decay, lacking the ability of seeing things for what they truly are and condemning himself to mediocrity and inferiority.
You always call any point of view that isn't your own odd. I think Alex Jones is an idiot, but I'm not embarrassed by him. To be embarrassed by somebody you would have to have a vested interest in that somebody, or what that somebody represents. Perfect example: I'm embarrassed by GOP politicians saying stupid things because I'm a Republican and like it or not, when they're elected they represent me. Alex Jones isn't elected. He's a fringe looney. He can say whatever he wants to and I can ignore him.
Better to have lunatics being able to spout what they will then having people murdered and silenced by an authoritarian government, or theocracy, over what they say.
There exist several gradations in what you might call "having a vested interest in somebody". Likewise, you can be embarrassed with someone on different levels. In the case of Alex Jones, he's an American citizen so you share that with him for a starter. He gets enough public exposure to make him a public figure so in a sense he represents at least a portion of the American population. He gets enough time on TV and radio to make him enough of a relevant individual and an authority for some members of your society. He has all of that going on alongside his lunacy, incivility and borderline dementia. If I were American I'd be embarrassed by him. I won't kill myself over it obviously but I will feel remorse and shame for a second that this man is a fellow American and that he's that much relevant and listened to despite everything that is wrong with him. I expected you to feel embarrassed by him in that sense. I wasn't expecting you to curl up in the corner and weep. Taking your own words to the letter, I might use your line of reasoning against you and wonder how you can be embarrassed by GOP politicians:
Why would I be embarrassed with somebody speaking freely? I'm not forced to believe in what he says. I'm not forced to agree with it. I'm not even forced to care about what he says. So what exactly is supposed to be embarrassing for me?
Unless you're GOP personified, you shouldn't feel embarrassed by them. I think you might be starting to see the flaw in your logic.
You're strangely fixated on coming at me from a liberty point of view, whenever it is or is not appropriate. For instance, I don't recall investigating civil liberties in this topic and I didn't contend Alex Jones' freedom of expression either. I think the stereotype that you and some others might have given me that I'm an enemy of freedom is funny.
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