Jerry Falwell Dead

[Kuciwalker]

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

[Drake Tungsten]

Drake: the essence of democracy and liberalism is tolerating the existance of people like Falwell, not refusing to call them evil.

I've yet to see anyone give evidence of something "evil" Falwell did. You may believe he was misguided (as I do), but to call him evil is ludicrous. You all need to gain some perspective.

[SlowwHand]

I second that nomination.
If everyone is evil, no one is evil.

[Drake Tungsten]

The problem with America is that a good portion of the population believes that anyone who doesn't think like they do is "evil". That's the type of attitude that leads to fascism, not the ramblings of old fools like Falwell.

[Berzerker]

[SlowwHand]

Now, Berz is evil. This is a baseline with which we could use to judge.

[Nostromo]

I've yet to see anyone give evidence of something "evil" Falwell did. You may believe he was misguided (as I do), but to call him evil is ludicrous. You all need to gain some perspective.

Well, he was a mean little bigot who hated a lot of people and promised eternal damnation to even more people. He was at least evil in that sense. I mean, where was the love, where was the forgiveness?

And he had some influence, some power. I have a hard time believing that his thoughts didn't translate in any evil deed. Maybe not from Falwell himself, but from some of his followers. Doctor Strangelove gave you one example. I'm sure we could dish out other examples. Even if its not Hitler-grade or Stalin-grade evil, its evil nonetheless.

[Drake Tungsten]

I have a hard time believing that his thoughts didn't translate in evil deeds.

Truthiness...

[Nostromo]

Ok, poor choice of words. I reformulated it. Its more nuanced now.

[Drake Tungsten]

You haven't eliminated the truthiness. You still think that Falwell must've been responsible for some evil because you think he was evil. It must be true because you feel like it should be; that's textbook truthiness.

[Nostromo]

Its just common sense. Listen, the guy was a ****ing bigot who was preaching hatred. And he had some (or a good deal, of) influence on the people around him. He was not powerless, like some crazy dude in an insane asylum. I'm just saying that, based on all this, its reasonable to think that his thoughts and ideas may have had a negative influence on American society. At this point, I'm not saying that he effectively had a negative influence. I'm just saying that its likely that he had. My hypothesis may be true or false, I don't know at the moment. But Dr Strangelove's example supports my hypothesis. Of course, we would need a little more cases like these before concluding that: "OMG! Falwell is teh evil!" So bring it on, people!

[BeBMan]

But preaching hate is ok in a democracy!

Otoh calling people evil for it is the real evil!

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Drake: the essence of democracy and liberalism is tolerating the existance of people like Falwell, not refusing to call them evil.

I've yet to see anyone give evidence of something "evil" Falwell did. You may believe he was misguided (as I do), but to call him evil is ludicrous. You all need to gain some perspective.

Bigotry can be a source of evil, and Falwell was most certainly bigoted.

[Drake Tungsten]

But preaching hate is ok in a democracy!

Damn straight. It's too bad you Germans don't understand that, but you've never really grasped the concept of democracy...