There's this infamous moment from his show, and Maher comes off quite terribly.Maher too? hadn't heard that before
"no one needs semi automatic weapons"
"if that lunatic walked in with a handgun"
wait what?
Why else do you think parents aren't vaccinating their kids? A lot of parents are vocal about it.And that's why people don't get their kids vaccinated? Because of Maher and McCarthy? Penn rightly lambasted the one lady for asserting a causal effect without evidence but he did exactly the same thing. If he's going to play high priest of empirical rigor he should practice what he preaches.
"no one needs semi automatic weapons"
"if that lunatic walked in with a handgun"
wait what?
Why else do you think parents aren't vaccinating their kids? A lot of parents are vocal about it.
Why else do you think parents aren't vaccinating their kids? A lot of parents are vocal about it.
The fuck is he even doing on that show.
I don't want to speak for the guy, but I doubt he's saying it's all Hollywood's fault, seems to me that he's expressing disappointment that people who have the opportunity to spread a message aren't voicing one based on facts or that is helpful. Kind of like when he was explaining that the fact that there are more guns than people doesn't mean that everyone owns a gun and tacked on the "But you already understand this." Also the repeated "Let's not scare our children over a freak circumstance" idea.i dont think many of them do it because minor celebs tell them to. Is this the standard of proof Jilette fans like? Make an unsupported assertion and demand skeptics prove them wrong?
I think what dude is trying to say is, that it's much more complicated than saying "its hollywood's fault". I'm sure that influence from celebrities is there, but things like mysticism, distrust of science and our desire to pin our problems on the unknown all probably have some level of blame in the trend. Really, in the end it's just something that is hard to quantify - but shouldn't be reduced to something as simple as "blame person X".
I don't want to speak for the guy, but I doubt he's saying it's all Hollywood's fault, seems to me that he's expressing disappointment that people who have the opportunity to spread a message aren't voicing one based on facts or that is helpful. Kind of like when he was explaining that the fact that there are more guns than people doesn't mean that everyone owns a gun and tacked on the "But you already understand this." Also the repeated "Let's not scare our children over a freak circumstance" idea.
Like I said, pretty sure he's faulting the media for being exploitative and creating huge, lingering stories about freak events that distort people's concept of how likely they are to occur, not for being the sole cause of the problem.
I love hearing Penn Jillette explain his viewpoint. It's always amazingly well reasoned, even if I don't agree with all of them I still find he has a convincing argument to support his views.
It's nice that Jillette is on the right side here, but as someone who's seen every episode of Bullshit, I find the idea that his viewpoints are "always amazingly well reasoned" to be fucking ludicrous.
Wendy Williams is an ass.
and has a big ass.
The asperger/autism comment was extremely ignorant and I'm glad Penn attacked her on it on air.
What time in the vid does it happen?
I love how just after that, there's the one random woman who just blurts out "We have to stop blaming video games, stop blaming aspberger's and START BLAMING THE POLITICIANS".7:55 is when it starts.
Would be perfectly ok if they banned Call of Duty.
Everything else can stay
I don't want to speak for the guy, but I doubt he's saying it's all Hollywood's fault, seems to me that he's expressing disappointment that people who have the opportunity to spread a message aren't voicing one based on facts or that is helpful. Kind of like when he was explaining that the fact that there are more guns than people doesn't mean that everyone owns a gun and tacked on the "But you already understand this." Also the repeated "Let's not scare our children over a freak circumstance" idea.
You don't have to agree with everything a person says to respect them.I think Penn did his best, and I would MOSTLY agree with him - although I wonder what his opinion is on gun culture in general. I understand he is a libertarian so... probably not in line with my own opinion. He talks about how mass shootings are rare, but I would like to know if a campaign to marginalise gun culture would appeal to him - it's obvious that gun culture and everything that comes with it (idolizing them, owning them and using them) very much DOES have an effect on the rate of violent crime in a city, state or town. He speaks about priorities, but I wonder where that sits on his list.
To be fair it wasn't exactly a great atmosphere to get across a nuanced opinion. But yeah, he could have been more clear on that.Maybe that's what he meant, and he would have clarified if called on it, but it's not what he said. He said kids are getting whooping cough because of show business.
And that's why people don't get their kids vaccinated? Because of Maher and McCarthy? Penn rightly lambasted the one lady for asserting a causal effect without evidence but he did exactly the same thing. If he's going to play high priest of empirical rigor he should practice what he preaches.
While I agree with Penn on a lot of the things he said, I don't agree with him on the "misplaced priorities" bit. He failed to mention why those "responsible" gun owners need assault weapons in the first place. Every argument I've heard on that front is tremendously flawed, but I won't go into them here. He says here it's a waste of time and energy, and mentions other more "pressing" issues. The problem with those issues is that they aren't nearly as easily solved as this one is, and the only reason gun legislation is so difficult is because gun-supporters MAKE it difficult.
The crowd of that show reminds me of the crowd from this Family Guy clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YOh-rpvjYg
As far as Penn's explanation as to why people need to own assault weapons, I think he'd repeat that an enormous percentage of assault weapon owners never murder anyone and that if they want one the government shouldn't be allowed to deny them or even question it.
Kinda just contradicted yourself. If the issue were easy to solve it would have been long ago. Kind of odd to say "This is an easy debate, if only the other side would shit up!", no?
As far as the prioritization thing, the fact of the matter is that there's only so many hours in the day, and so many years in one's life. I'm not trying to call you out to try to embarrass or troll you, but how many different cause are you personally actively contributing to? Some prioritization of issues is necessary, and though it's easy to pull the whole "You can't make humans figures on a spreadsheet!" and draw comparisons to Stalin or whatever, it seems obvious that problems actually killing more people should be resolved, studied, or considered before less deadly or less feasibly solvable ones."
To be fair it wasn't exactly a great atmosphere to get across a nuanced opinion. But yeah, he could have been more clear on that.
Nearly a quarter of parents in this study said that they placed some trust in celebrities like McCarthy in regards to vaccinations and autism.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/...xpert-a-quarter-of-parents-trust-celebrities/
I tried to find a monetary contribution by her but could not find a good source in my quick search.