Awsum!
Love Steve, he’s got some class about him ya know!
Can you say: “pandering”?
I knew you could.
entertainers who don’t pander don’t tend to last long professionally. they’ve got to entertain someone besides themselves to get paid.
What panda ? I don’t see no panda?
brrrr - got cold in here…
awesome, couldn’t have done it better (or anywhere near as good) myself
Played a show in Salt Lake City - nine, maybe ten years ago - at a conference in a big hall in a hotel, crowd was at least 2,000. A set of singing sisters (two) was the closing act. They did a medley of patriotic songs culminating in a stylized version of the National Anthem.
Naturally, since the crowd consisted of 98% Americans and 2% (typically polite) Canadians, everyone was on their feet for the close. (When someone starts singing: “Oh say can you see…” you stand up - of course).
The girls walked around after the show asking everyone: "Did you see? We got a Standing Ovation!"
Well, D’uh.
It was almost as blatant pandering as that Steve Harvey performance.
Almost.
sigh… ok - you may think so - I think they related to the bit.
I certainly understand giving the people what they want but the patriotic sister act reminded me of the stunts that Martin Mull used to pull, like announcing that someone had lost their wallet and asking everyone to look for it while applauding so that he could get a ‘Standing O’ - the difference being that he was deliberately doing a bit; the sisters were serious in their claims.
In the case of Steve Harvey, his pandering seems to me another symptom of his bigotry. This is a man who believes that people who don’t believe in God are immoral (at worst) or amoral (at best). He is a bigot.
He’s entitled to believe whatever he wants as are you. What’s your problem anyway?
We are all entitled to believe whatever we wish to believe but certain beliefs mark one as a bigot. Steve Harvey is a case in point; substitute any other identifiable group for “atheist” in his statement from the Tyra Banks Show and his bigotry becomes obvious.
This is what he said:
"You talking to a person who don’t believe in God - where’s his moral barometer? It’s nowhere."
What if he said:
"You talking to a Jewish Person - where’s his moral barometer? It’s nowhere."
Or
"You talking to a Liberal - where’s his moral barometer? It’s nowhere."
Or
"You talking to a Muslim Person - where’s his moral barometer? It’s nowhere."
Or
"You talking to an Asian Person - where’s his moral barometer? It’s nowhere."
Basically any identifiable group placed in that statement marks it as a bigoted statement - including Atheists. So Steve Harvey is a bigot.
Now, think of a set of intermeshing gears. They can have some teeth missing from one of their cogs and they will likely appear to function normally most of the time. But something is seriously wrong with the underlying structure of the gear system and it would be unwise to count upon it to function correctly, even though it appears fine on the outside - inside it is seriously flawed.
Bigotry is like that. The bigot may appear to function correctly from the outside but inside something is seriously wrong and it is unwise to count upon one to function correctly - they are seriously flawed.
So, entitled to his beliefs? Certainly. But everything he says is suspect because you can’t tell from the outside just how flawed his ‘underlying structure’ has become.
Whatever.
You’re entitled yo your opinion. Although I do think your response is a little wordy.
Hey - you asked; I answered.
It took the number of words that it took.
No I asked what your problem was. You danced around it.
Yes, you asked me what my problem was (presumably with Steve Harvey, since that was the topic of the conversation) and I explained it to you (with what I consider an appropriate number of words).
The only dancing taking place is you ‘jigging’ to have the last word, with inanities like: “Whatever” or “He’s entitled to believe whatever he wants…” (Which, although true, is hardly germane).
No Bill - I meant it as a personal question to you - What’s your problem?
I’m a man of few words. With all the great music posted here and the friendships, etc… I seem to only see your posts jump up when… well I don’t want to make that blanket statement.
Go ahead and post something - you can have the last word.
“You talking to a bigoted Person - where’s his moral barometer? It’s nowhere.”
Actually, I think I know what Steve Hardy was trying to say, but it didn’t come out the way it was intended to be taken…unless he’s a bigot.
To have morals there must be some code of ethics to base it on. His mistake is in implying (or even saying outright) that atheists have nothing to base morals on because a true atheist doesn’t believe in any higher power. That’s an ignorant statement, but not necessarily bigoted, or isn’t meant to be. It sure comes across that way though.
Ignorance is powerful thing.
I kept waiting for the punchline. He is a comedian – an entertainer. He’s giving the crowd something they want as most entertainers should attempt to do.
...To have morals there must be some code of ethics to base it on...
I'm not sure that I agree with this. It seems to me that genuine 'morality' would be the product of an actualized consciousness. "Ethics" may be adopted from outside sources but morals (at least, genuine morals, in my view) arise from an innate consciousness within, which an attuned person can access. When one considers a particular behaviour and feels it in dissonance with that consciousness one becomes aware of immorality in the behaviour.
I'm not prepared to back that up with empirical evidence or anything - it just feels right to me. And I can't help but think that it explains why so many different codes of behaviour (from Hammurabi to your state penal code) apparently reach the same conclusions about the morality of certain behaviours.
I certainly would prefer to think that it comes from within rather than being adopted from outside sources because any outside sources are necessarily transitory.