John Stossel, pathetic little man.....

[marmar]

from Media Matters, via AlterNet:



On the Thursday edition Fox News' America Live, Fox analyst John Stossel discussed the 1964 Civil Rights Act with host Megyn Kelly. Kelly asked, "How do you know that these private business owners, who owned restaurants and so on, would have said, 'You know what? We will take blacks. We'll take gays. We'll take lesbians,' if they hadn't been forced to do it?"

Stossel replied, "Because eventually they would have lost business. The free market competition would have cleaned the clocks of the people who didn't serve most customers."

Stossel went on to say, "It's time now to repeal" the Public Accommodation section, "because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won't won't ever go to a place that's racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist."

The Public Accommodation section of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination "on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin" by businesses open to the general public, such as restaurants, hotels, and theaters. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/media/146968/fox_news%27_john_stossel_calls_for_repeal_of_part_of_civil_rights_act/

[Jamastiene]

1. I can't stand him.

I turn the channel if he comes on, anywhere, anytime.

[NightHawk63]

3. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that does that.

I've hated his sorry ass for a LONG time. He's the main reason I stopped watching 20/20 years ago.

[SpiralHawk]

4. He is such a pathetic, weasly republicon propaganda pimp

bought and sold, on bent knees. He deserves himself.

[blondeatlast]

7. Sums him up nicely. nt

[Mike Daniels]

2. I hope the Republicans run with that position....

It's the quickest road to becoming a regional party and national irrelevance.

[WhiteTara]

5. if white men were denied service

what do you think he would say? What a disgusting pig of a man.

[NI4NI]

6. That's a BIGGGG freakin' IF!

How about IF I open up a pizza parlor and reserve my "right" to not serve republicans.
The CRA would not prohibit me from discriminating against assholes.

[deutsey]

8. Stossel had one great moment in his TV career

When he got bitch-slapped by a professional wrestler after asking if pro wrestling is fake.

:rofl:

[Submariner]

9. That was a career highlight if I ever saw one - Video at link

http://www.spike.com/video/john-stossel-slapped/2757542

[naaman fletcher]

11. that was great, thanks...

The wrestler was actually trying to make a decent point, that even if wrestling is fake it still hurts and is physically demanding.

[merh]

18. Thank you for the link to the video

That is the greatest slap down (open handed) in history.

[blondeatlast]

14. I"m so ashamed. I've never enjoyed Mr. stossel more than that moment.

Fake or not, it's still physically demanding as hell--and I'm not at all a wrestling fan.

[peekaloo]

10. that little push broom over his top lip just can't sweep up all the shit

coming out of his mouth fast enough.

[rurallib]

12. sounds like something Pat Paulson might have said on a

Smothers Brothers editorial - to an absolute roar of laughter.
Uh, gee John, if that were true, why hadn't that happened by 1964? Maybe no one thought of it, right?
I am surprised they let Michael Steele eat at their table.

[Kievan Rus]

13. Conservatism is simply hetero-white-male supremacy

John Stossel and Rand Paul are merely making clear the sentiments of most in that movement.

[raccoon]

17. +1000. nt

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[blondeatlast]

29. Very well put.--and they can't seem to show it fast enough lately, can they? nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. My family traveled through the Southeast I was a kid

just before the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed. (It was being debated when we visited the Capitol in DC.)

Everywhere we went there were signs that indicated segregated hotels and restaurants. Even at my young age, I noticed the ridiculousness of restaurants that allowed only white customers but had black kitchen help and waiters.

It seemed that all accommodations and restaurants were "whites only" unless they were specifically labeled "colored," although some small restaurants had a take-out window where African-Americans were allowed to to order food to go.

This was about SEVENTY YEARS after the Jim Crow laws were enacted, so obviously, "evolution" was moving pretty slowly.

[samsingh]

16. stossel is disgusting

[SOS]

19. "eventually" the "free market" would work.....

From 1654 to 1964 it didn't.
But what's 310 years?

[area51]

24. Great post. (n/t)

[Zenlitened]

27. Exactly!

Stossell and those who share his views are either:

a) Just Plain Dumb, because they clearly have been unable to learn a thing about history and draw sensible conclusions from it;

or b) Flat-Out Liars, because they know the facts yet will look you right in the eye and ignore obvious facts or deny they exist at all.

That's it, there are no other options to describe these people. They are not idealists, they are not bravely principled, they are not "true" to the U.S. Constitution or anything else.

They are small-minded, mean-spirited people who, frankly, want to enjoy all the benefits of community and society without pitching in anything themselves.

Left to themselves, these people who call themselves Libertarians would be lucky to exist as small, ragged bands of foragers and scavengers, like pre-historic people of long ago.

I doubt they'd ever manage to establish agriculture, let alone the sort of technological, globe-spanning society that arose from it.

Why? Because they don't seem to believe in the very concept of Society. And that's the shocking flaw at the rotten heart of their so-called philosophy.

They truly seem to believe that core, evolutionarily-tested human behaviors such as altruism and cooperation don't matter or don't even exist at all.

Again, that's either a dim-witted notion based on incomplete knowledge... or a lie they like to tell themselves.

The fact is, "Libertarianism" is a fantasy one can indulge in only from the comfort and stability of a robust, prosperous and, I would argue, progressive society.

[whatchamacallit]

20. Ignorant asshole's answer to everything: "The Free Market"

Smarmy little weasel :grr:

[kirby]

21. So illogical...

How will the business hurt when you are dealing with discrimination of a minority? By definition, they are a minority, so their economic impact would not be very great. In fact with institutionalized racism, the 'we proudly only serve whites' locations may have used it as a selling point and been better off.

[Zenlitened]

28. Yep. Their whole "philosophy" is a house of cards.

It just collapses under the slightest bit of examination.

[Berry Cool]

23. Libertarians are nuts if they think "the free market" would automatically end segregation

of private but public-serving business institutions. It never would have in the South in a million years. There will always be racist patrons more than happy to frequent a public-serving private business precisely BECAUSE it has policies that exclude people they don't want to be around. Those kinds of policies will actually HELP those businesses, not hurt them, in terms of building their clientele amongst bigots and racists.

There's simply no way to ensure that private businesses serving the public are open to ALL of the public other than to make it the law that they be so.

[LiberalArkie]

25. If we lived in a perfect world, I agree with him, and maybe in another

50 years it might be possable. I would have thought that maybe it would have been possable now, if the racism surrounding Obama being black had not come up.

I think that Americans can at some point grow up enough to treat everyone as they would want to be treated with out some law telling them they have to.

[pinboy3niner]

26. And oil companies would NEVER risk monumental environmental catastrophe

because they know the free market competition would clean the clocks of an irresponsible operator if anything happened. :sarcasm: