Backwoods Hillbilly Removed From Show About Backwoods Hillbillies For Being A Backwoods Hillbilly.

[Guynemer]

I hate the East Coast. If one more person tells me Happy Holidays I'm punching them in the face.

Well then, how about a hearty "go **** yourself, you misogynist piece of ****"?

Is that better?

[Hauldren Collider]

[snrjefe]

Happy holidays, Kidicious.

[Kidlicious]

Are you still going to punch them in the face if they're Jewish and don't celebrate Christmas?

I'm not Jewish

[Dr Strangelove]

Worry not, you can still use racist and classist names like "redneck" "white trash" and "hillbilly" with total immunity.

Poor people are worthy to either only pity or scorn depending on whether they obey and stay on message or not, but never respect.

Phil Robertson is definitely not poor.

[Boris Godunov]

I"m voting for phony controversy here. A&E didn't seem to utter a peep when Phil said far worse things three years ago:

First they say, 'There is no God. Get him out of your mind,'" he said in a rambling speech. "Then they bow down to birds, animals and reptiles, and each other. And the first thing you see coming out of them is gross sexual immorality. They will dishonor their bodies with one another, degrade each other. Uh, is that going on in the United States of America? Look around. God's not there... And boy is there some immorality going on around here. Does it get worse?"

Women with women, men with men, they committed indecent acts with one another, and they received in themselves the due penalty for their perversions. They're full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant, God-haters. They are heartless, they are faithless, they are senseless, they are ruthless. They invent ways of doing evil. That's what you have 235 years, roughly, after your forefathers founded the country. So what are you gonna do Pennsylvania? Just run with them? You're going to die. Don't forget that.

While I've sometimes felt a bit of road rage at the goddamned minivan drivers who don't know how to ****ing merge, I can't say I've ever been full of murder for anyone. And I can't seem to think of any ways I've "invented" doing evil. I must be lacking in the creativity department on that one...

Frankly, the GQ comments about homosexuality were ho-hum. His comments on race were worse, and show either a massive ignorance of how black people were being treated in his own back yard or some creative white-washing of it. I'd guess the latter: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/op...kery.html?_r=0



Anyway, like all "reality" shows, DD is fake. Not totally, but a good deal of it. And I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn A&E let this happen for publicity reasons. Get a controversy, rile up a bunch of the conservatwits who are fans of the show because they think it's the way America should be and then they'll bring the guy back after a few weeks to smashing ratings.

Oh look!

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/12/20/A-E-Likely-Knew-What-Robertson-Was-Saying-in-Fateful-Interview

Now I have to go rinse my eyes out for having visited breitbart.com... excuse me...

[Lorizael]

Sad part is, half that video is a homophobic rant, and the other half is him being a funny, charming guy.

[Boris Godunov]

If A&E had been damaged by his remarks, then I would be okay with suspending or canning him. The point is that they took action simply because he was not "politically correct".

So if an employer tolerates someone saying outrageously offensive things in public but then fires them at the first sign that it's going to hurt their business, you'd consider that the morally superior action? Isn't that, I dunno, the very definition of moral cowardice?

First off, I can guarantee you that everybody on any television show has signed a contract wherein the show/network explicitly states that it reserves the right to fire the employee if he says stupid/offensive things out in public that may (or may not) reflect poorly on the show/network. Hell, you don't even have to be on TV to have such employment terms explicitly stated. It's pretty much standard company policy in this day and age.

Second, if we put aside the highly-likely idea that this was all contrived and accept that A&E was genuinely shocked and upset at Phil's comments, why should they be expected to continue broadcasting him on their network? It's their ****ing property, and if they decide they don't want to give airtime to someone whom they feel holds bigoted views incompatible with their own values, then they have no obligation to keep him on their property. If some preacher on TBN had an offsite interview wherein he proclaimed his support for gay marriage, then TBN can sure as hell boot him from their network. I wouldn't have any problem with that.

[Ban Kenobi]

I'm not Jewish

Are they supposed to telepathically determine that you're a Christian and based on this knowledge infer that you would rather hear "merry Christmas" instead of "happy holidays"?

[Ben Kenobi]

Good to see you know as little about media contracts as you do about everything else.

You say their contract has a clause for this. So, then. Provide the proof of it.

[Ben Kenobi]

First off, I can guarantee you that everybody on any television show has signed a contract wherein the show/network explicitly states that it reserves the right to fire the employee if he says stupid/offensive things out in public that may (or may not) reflect poorly on the show/network.

First of all, does Phil's contract actually state this? I see no evidence for it. Two, can it be used to fire an employee for doing what he was hired to do? Phil was hired to be himself. That includes his faith. Three, I think it would be a rather novel interpretation to apply this to quoting the Bible. Is this really the battle A+E wants to fight? Others have fought this battle up in Canada, and everytime, eventually the other side lost. Sure it took years, but speech codes have been ruled up in Canada that they cannot bar biblical speech. Four, how is it damaging to A+E when most of their audience for this show (which is their most popular show), is in agreement? I would think from the shareholders perspective that A+E is doing far more damage to their own brand than the Robertsons ever did.

[Berzerker]

People all over the world were celebrating the solstice long before Jesus walked the Earth, then Christians show up and steal the celebration and demand everyone else call it Christmas?

and they're oblivious to the arrogance

[Ben Kenobi]

His comments on race were worse

He said that the black people he worked with were happy and godly. This is, as I might explain to you, from before he was a Christian. He also stated that he believed that white folks and black folks should stick together for a common cause. And you want to lynch him? Might as well get to lynching all of us Christians, Boris.

[Felch]

Jews ? Christians seem to care about what supposedly happened 2000 years ago. Sister Bendy gets all hot and bothered over the number of Roman Catholics allegedly killed by Henry VIII- that's almost 500 years ago.

All I'm taking away from this is that you're a British Ben Kenobi. You'd rather talk about the past than acknowledge that the present is any different.

That's so deep- is it Hallmark or Ann Coulter ?

I learned it from smoking weed.

[Ben Kenobi]

oblivious to the arrogance

Yes, Christians are so arrogant as to celebrate the nativity of their Lord and Saviour. You see, Christians actually believe that God came to the Earth, that he was made flesh and that he was born of the Virgin Mary.