I don’t know if any of you happened to watch Alex Jones on Piers Morgan, but IMHO, it was embarrassing. I think he did great up until 2:15, when he turned the heat up after Morgan responded to one of his claims. Granted Jones had decent points and statistics, his entire demeanor screamed “hand-selected to make gun rights defenders look crazy” and guess what…I’m certain that after this national exposure, this guy Alex Jones has almost single handedly tarnished the Liberty Movement in at least some small way.
Even Jesse Ventura can talk over people without appearing to be a lunatic. This guy, frankly, was like a baboon, and he refused to answer one of Morgan’s questions, throwing every red herring he could until he finally contested to not knowing the answer. He was doing his radio shtick on t.v., and it appears that the Left got exactly what it sought out: a man that believes in gun rights while simultaneously appearing to be out of control, hence “perceived justification for eliminating gun rights because these people are nuts!” or something to that effect.
I’ve heard a fair amount of Jones’ radio show, and while I think he goes way off the deep end on a lot of issues, I don’t have a problem with that or him in general; I think he’s probably a nice guy and his heart’s certainly in the right place. I just think he should have been a lot more civil and intelligible. He really could have brought up significant issues to the public eye. Instead he left looking like a fool, and unfortunately this is the perspective people have of Libertarians, so it seems, especially with this kind of national exposure.
Ok I watched the last couple of minutes I missed. He did a fake British accent and looked even more like a fool than I’d previously seen. That’s my take anyway. Yes, he made a good point at the end: if he doesn’t like America he should leave and go home where the guns are banned. But jeez, the in-between…my God he looked like a raging fool!
Sadly, this is probably the only exposure people will have had to the Liberty Movement beyond Ron Paul in the presidential debates. Can you imagine anybody else in the Liberty Movement behaving like this guy? None I can think of would ever have acted like that. Why not have Walter Block on? He’d effectively challenge Morgan on everything and make very valid points. Instead, Morgan invites Jones on, and Jones goes. Then Morgan follows one of Jones’ red herrings on the WTC, sealing the envelope on making him look like a fool because the vast majority of the public maintain that anybody doubting the WTC event is a loon. People equate this to the Liberty Movement and, imo, it strongly derails it.
I will never listen to this guy Jones again (not that I made a habit of doing it before). Morgan’s a fool, but at least he’s an eloquent one.
That’s precisely the point, isn’t it? Primetime bobble-heads would never invite a person like Walter Block on who could effectively and intelligently challenge the tyrannical proposition of gun control. So instead, they invite Billy Mays’ crazed cousin on, and create the illusion to those who have not taken the “red pill” that this is the way that all libertarians/libertarian conservatives are, or anyone who advocates gun rights for that matter. It’s just them making sure that there is an obvious clear-cut line between the intelligence of the gun control advocates (broadcasted by the mainstream media as being high) and the intelligence of the gun rights advocates. And I don’t need to tell you that it has been organized to where freedom-lovers have been portrayed as idiots because of a handful of individuals “speaking out” for the movement.
If you think people are swayed by better arguments, you haven’t been arguing enough.
I’ve come to the conclusion that political convictions follow aesthetic preferences. Alex Jones, with his brute, loud-voiced paranoia, services a substantial minority subset of the conservative population whose only likely reactions to politics are anger or lethargic despair.
Getting this clientele riled up comes with some risk at the fringes (think McVeigh), but it’s the only way for a population otherized by academia, the media and big city politics to be heard. AJ is the perfect representative for this purpose.
Aha! So what you are really saying is it is not a question of whether there will be an interview with Block or an interview with Jones, but instead it is a question whether there will be an interview with Jones, or else with no one at all. In other words, you are pointing out the fact that Jones is doing us a service because this way at least this message gets some exposure in regime media rather than none at all. Thank you for your great points SkepticalMetal, you have really convinced me AJ is a net benefit to the cause and a good fellow traveler to have.
Excellent point. AJ will leave 80% of the population bamboozeled with him and worse. However, 80% of the population are not ready to become libertarian at this stage anyway. It is a fact he has an audience of his own and a large one at that, because it turns out he is very good at reaching a certain demographic, which it so happens is far more receptive to the libertarian message than the median person out there.
Piers Morgan brought on Larry Pratt who was cool and collected. Piers resorted to name-calling and made a fool of himself. Now he’s thinking “Shit, what can I do to restore my credibility… !!! I’ll bring on Alex Jones!” Que AJ, the screaming bowling ball. Piers looks calm, collected, sophisticated, english. Gun nuts look retarded. Two birds with one stone.
I’m serious when I say that a libertarian anarcho-capitalist cable channel should be created. Like our own “Current TV” type thing. Internet is good, but anarcho-capitalism should expand.
a) It’s certain to my mind that Alex Jones does not operate solo… he’s part of something else, serving an agenda
b) It’s also certain to my mind that this debate was meant to be “staged” but I think that Morgan is genuinely taken by surprise and displeased with Jones’s behavior
c) I don’t think Jones is as simple as managed dissent, at least not managed by the same people that manage Morgan (the CFR). His information is too pointed, relevant and largely accessible to be managed dissent. I think he’s actually part of some kind of anti-CFR opposition, a genuine opposition.
d) His antics on Piers Morgan were calculated to generate listeners to his show. They were going to take the last word and make him out to be a kook no matter what he said or did or how he acted, so I think he had already “run the numbers” and decided it was best to simply take a passionate stance and let people tune in out of curiosity or whatever.
e) Morgan and Dershowitz both said it was “important” to expose Alex Jones and those like him in the post-interview. But if this interview is going to help them win the gun control debate, how come they’re having so many difficulties getting traction? They blame the NRA for buying lobbyists but that’s laughable since that PoliSci 101… lobbying and influencing is supposed to be the whole purpose of “democratic” government.
Dershowitz explains the problem as clearly as it can be explained: gun control should be the Establishment’s #1 agenda item and it hasn’t been. Even with Sandy Hook, they’re not going to get gun-control.
I’ve predicted the outbreak of major war before the end of 2013. This could be the catalyst for a real gun seize but this would only be Phase 1. What they’re trying to do right now is require “private-party sale background checks” so they can track an extremely large percentage of the guns out there. This will then enable Phase 2, which will be a follow-up gun grab based on some massacre or attempted armed attack on the President or whatever.