I can’t figure right-wingers out. They think the ideal man is John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, but they have no problem admitting to a national audience that they’re terrified to walk around Independence Hall in downtown Philadelphia at six or seven o’clock in the evening. I can hardly think of a less terrifying part of the city. For those of you who don’t know, Independence Hall is a National Park with real Park Rangers. It also has a heavy police presence. It borders Society Hill, which is a very affluent part of town. It is possible to get mugged in the area. A good friend of mine and a regular commenter here was mugged in Queen Village (a neighborhood further south) at 8 o’clock in the morning. It happens. But the area around Independence Hall has almost no gun violence and there are much more dangerous neighborhoods in Philly.
You may remember that back in 2005, one of my neighbors was killed by Mexican gangsters while sitting on her front porch. At the end of that year, I moved to a much rougher neighborhood closer to Rittenhouse Square but still south of South Street. I walked around that neighborhood at all times of night and rarely felt threatened. You had to know the people and use a little common sense (basically avoiding certain situations) but it was a perfectly livable neighborhood near the heart of the city.
I read stuff like this, and I just have contempt for Beck’s lack of testicles.
“You know the killing streets right there in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia?” Beck told his producer. “You know how Philadelphia is not a place you want to be?” he added. “I’ll put you on a hidden cam and put you downtown at 6, 7 o’clock at night.” He could not believe his producer would be brave enough to walk around Center City at night. “Philly sucks,” Beck then said.
These clowns get deferments rather than fight. They act all tough but they’re so scared it’s ridiculous. They’re a bunch of bedwetters who want us to think they’re the party of the military. Anyone who thinks a soldier should favor the Republicans is confused. The Republicans don’t fight; they hire the people they fear to fight for them.
I think its because conservatives see a benefit to promoting fear, mistrust and instability, particularly vis a vis whites and the “other” (minorities, muslims, foreigners). I should clarify – in the case of most, this fear is a tribal badge that allows them to have so much hate and anger in their hearts and still sleep soundly at night. In the case of conservative elite, promoting this stuff is a great way to move the down the field in the larger battle for the zeitgest. United dems win, divided republicans win. Nixonland by Pearlstein is a very long book that makes a simple point about how Nixon rose to power based on manipulating and capitalizing on the fractures of american society in the 60s.
What’s more, on top of what you said, there are muggings and such that happen throughout Europe in the cities, but let’s just say that you don’t have to be particularly worried about walking the streets around 2:00 AM.
I go to Philly all of the time, as my relatives live there (I was just there this past December and most of January), and I’ve never been fearful to walk around some bad neighborhoods. I mean, maybe I’m just naive or something, but I have been robbed at gun point before (not in Philly…it was in New Orleans). I was also with my cousins one night drinking and their cell phones were stolen when we were walking home.
All I know is what you said is correct: they’re nothing but little chickenshits who need to wave around a gun to replace their tiny penises. I feel more safe with a $20 in my wallet to give a mugger than I would with a gun, that’s for sure.
My partner and I regularly come down to Philadelphia for weekends. It’s a pleasure. The people are really nice. I honestly don’t get it. I guess you must be right, BooMan. These Republicans are just wimps.
I was watching Beck today and he was just squirming under the pressure of his own stupidity reflected back upon him. Bouncing from pose to pose; from threatened, to insignificant, to ‘just kidding’, to being on the verge of ‘inventing the light bulb’; he basically said that PC causes people to bottle up and shoot people and that his fact-free, cut-and-paste self-aggrandizing ‘ideas’ is somehow critical to having a ‘real’ debate.
When he said that ‘sometimes I feel like I live in a parallel dimension’, or something to that effect, I thought to myself, “A truer thing he’s never said,” and changed the channel lest Comcast get the wrong idea about me.
Relax. I’m sure Comcast knows all about you…and all of us…
I think we’ve finally got the evidence we need on Glenda Beck.
I was listening to the Mike Malloy Show and Mike played a clip from Glenn Beck that shocked me because of its direct call for extreme violence. I then thought that Beck may have said this years ago but that’s wrong – the clip comes from his TV show on Thursday, June 10, 2010. Beck rambles so it’s a little more difficult than usual to get the context of his remarks but I think this is a fair selection:
Democratic Underground has the video clip:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385×545633
And FAUX News still has the transcript:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,594343,00.html#ixzz1BLaeQ600
A bunch of ‘bed-wetters,’ huh? You may not know that our military-hero, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John of Orange, served in the U.S. Navy. All of seven, that’s right – 7, weeks. He was discharged from Boot Camp because of a bad back.
But Ol’ Suntan Johnny has no difficulty swinging a golf club while on junkets paid for by lobbyists.
At least one study http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/301856 suggests that conservatives have a differently formed brain, The findings indicate conservatives have thicker tissues in a part of the brain called the amygdala, the emotional area associated with fear, and liberals have thicker anterior cingulates, which are associated with emotion, but also associated with learning and courage.
Hmmm.
I find it more interesting that ratings for these clowns is slipping and the solution is seen as more locally oriented shows.
Local shows began being dropped 10-15 years ago because stations started getting bought up by megamedia who promoted these “personalities”. And it was far cheaper than producing their own local shows. Just write a check and pay a kid to flip a switch and run ads at the local stops.
Well, either these shows are now NOT less expensive as the “personalities” demand more coin and/or listeners would rather do something else than listen to a “blowhard from NYC”.
To their credit, even if they think Obama is a crack smoking, Muslim, African Communist, maybe these listeners are starting to feel the need for a shower after listening so long. Nah.
Imagine how scared Beck would be in MY neighborhood.
he’d sleep in your bathtub with a teddy bear and a binkie.
no he wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t let him in.