Roger Ebert
is shooting off his mouth again about guns, a subject about which he is as devoid of actual knowledge as fish are of double zero bifurcation.
The constant and ongoing issue with the first and second amendments is that everyone assumes “freedom” means “I can do whatever I want”. As I have explained before, ‘Freedom” does not mean you can do what you want; it means that your worst enemy can do the thing you hate most, directly in front of you, and you can’t do a thing to stop him.
You cannot, however, legislate the consequences out of actions. If someone were to disparage my family or my child within my earshot, they would have to accept the consequences of their freedom to speak. I would probably have to go to court, and hire a lawyer, and maybe I’d even do some time for assault; but that person would have learned a valuable lesson about what is appropriate to say and to whom. Because I would not stop teaching until the lesson was learned- though personal experience has shown me that the lesson is learned quickly.
This is how it’s supposed to be done. In 82, Bob McKeown, that leftist hustler from “The Fifth Estate” was “Exposing” the bad filming on many popular nature shows- he had done a hit piece on how Disney had massaged things for the camera, including pushing lemmings off a cliff for one of their specials. McKeown approached Marlin Perkins- on the record- with a question as to whether Perkins had ever done anything of the sort.
Perkins, a preeminent Zoologist and herpetologist who had already had a long career at the Lincoln Park Zoo and the St Lous Zoo prior to his term at Wild Kingdom, did what every man does when a sniveling rat turd questions his integrity. He asked for the cameras to be turned off, and punched McKeown right in the face. Perkins was 76 or 78 at the time, if memory serves, but he still did some good punching.
McKeown is still around these days, and still shooting off his mouth- but only because the last man with the balls to demonstrate to him the consequences of his actions is dead and gone.
Footnote: The Original “Wild Kingdom” was all about conservation and proper management of resources, just like NatGeo was years ago. Now both still have TV shows, but they’re about envirowhacko bullshit, and they ought all to be shot in the face. It makes me sick to watch, I swear to God.
12 comments Og | Uncategorized
Ever since Ebert’s cancerous jaw was removed he hasn’t got much of a mouth to shoot off.
Not that that stops him.
That lumpen communist is one of those people who really tests my resolve as a Christian. I do my best not to hate anyone, but damn do some people make that difficult!
Your anger at Nat Geo and Wild Kingdon is appreciated. On the one hand, I’m very happy that my daughters both watch ‘educational’ TV shows for entertainment…science documentaries and stuff. The negative is that I need to pay enough attention to be able to debunk of the more ‘blissninny’ type stuff that is put out in them.
Ed: Remember as a Christian you are called upon at times to do difficult things. And that includes ridding the planet of things poisonous to Humanity. The fifth commandment in it’s original says “Thou shalt not commit murder”. Killing is another thing altogether.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin did the same thing to a much younger man who accused him of something similar.
There is very strong evidence that Marlin Perkins used to do some deer and bird hunting up in northern Wisconsin at a private club.
I’m surprised Jim didn’t punch McKeown while Marlin stayed in the Land Rover.
(I kid, that’s a great story.)
Ebert is an asshat of the first order! Though I used to like watching him and Siskel … after he passed, not so much (as in “not at all”)
Og, you are the first person (at least that I can recall) who has the “Thou shall not murder” given as the correct version of said commandment. It has been so long since I found that out, that I was beginning to wonder if perhaps I was mistaken all these years. Words do matter, and apparently even the ancients knew there was a profound distinction between killing and murder.
Oh, on a related, but useless bit of information regarding Mr. Perkins…mom always thought he as a very dapper and extremely good looking gent. (She felt the same about Caesar Romero as well).
John: If Jim had punched McKeown, he’d have probably preceeded Marlin in death.
Good point Ebert has gone down the rat hole of self aggrandizement and ‘believes’ that people care about what he says… Not over here… Don’t give a rats ass about him OR his comments.
I understand that some gutterwash approached Mr. Aldrin “for an autograph”, and after he graciously gave him one, Mr. Aldrin was told he had just signed a declaration saying he had never been to the moon.
Personally I think a quick left would have been in order as well.
As for Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, I remember a blurb at the end, about how “all incidents, whether actual or created, depict authenticated facts.”
There’s a BIG difference between “Wild Kingdom” and “Sammy the Lonesome Cougar” or “Sammy the Way-out Seal”. Or there should be.
Guy,
Many of us of a Hebrew bent learnt it as “you shall not murder” at a young age :) Since that’s what “lo tirtsach” means, after all. The ancient Hebrews were very careful to avoid hypocrisy in this matter, given that they made war on their enemies fairly often, and killed bunches of them ditto. :)
The various “approved” versions of the Bible have made it very hard for me, personally, to make sense of scripture.
When I found out the original correct phrasing of the commandment regarding murder vs killing, my mind was eased considerably.
Interesting that changing one word in a commandment can warp the scriptures so much.
We have people in our church afraid to defend themselves because “God says don’t kill.”
In reality God just doesn’t want us to murder each other.
Since we’re free to make our choices,
some people choose to do bad things to their fellow souls. Some of us choose to resist those bad choices, and I’m pretty sure God likes that.
I guess I need to learn Aramaic to learn what other “corrections” various councils have made to scripture to fit their own agendas over the years.
I sure hate being lied to, especially about important matters like eternal damnation.