Archive
of The Andy Finn Show - June 15, 2006
Special Topic: Ann Coulter, the 'Writer'
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14:11
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Part 1 - Politics & Social Issues: James Webb wins Democratic senatorial primary in Virginia, will face George Allen; Karl Rove will not be indicted; Over $1 billion misused by Katrina victims; 3 suicides in Gitmo; Bush visits Iraq; Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism - Poorly developed arguments, non-sequiturs, and diatribes passing as commentary |
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15:49
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Part 2 - Politics & Social Issues: Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism - Media Coverage of Coulter's inflammatory comments about the 9/11 widows is a distraction; Coulter plays fast and loose with the facts; Her book is not that well written; Coulter is a complainer - which is a weak form of communication; Complaining is often blaming others for your situation; Take the old conservative saw that 'the media is liberal;' Not only is that a dubious proposition, even if it were true harping on it is essentially a way to avoid responsibility; Coulter's high books sales simply reflects "the Howard Stern effect" - just because you're popular doesn't mean your the best, or even respectable, it simply means a lot of people are willing to have you confirm their prejudices; Coulter argues that liberals believe in "pseudo-science," including Darwinism; She might as well argue that gravity is pseudo-science - that's how overwhelming the evidence is for evolution; Coulter makes additional claims about liberals and the U.S. that are simply not true ("Christianity and Judaism are prohibited by law") - and her defenders call this 'satire.' | |
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16:58
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Part 3 - Politics & Social Issues: Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism - Coulter's understanding of religion and spirituality is apparently shallow; She claims liberals worship 'Mother Earth,' ignoring the fact that the majority of liberals are Christians; Coulter claims that liberals "hate science and react badly to it" - citing evidence for innate gender differences, that AIDS is mostly a homosexual disease, the 'reality' of IQ, and the safety of nuclear power (besides there being a rebuttal to each of her examples, no one reacts more poorly to science than conservatives - note the overwhelming scientific evidence for: age of the earth, the evolution of the species, the evolution of the stars and the galaxies, human-caused global warming, and the fact that Terri Schiavo was brain dead before conservatives and the Congress tried to derail the normal judicial process for family decisions about end of life issues); Coulter argues that liberals use pseudo-science to claim people are an insignificant part of nature, while she believes the biblical admonition that man has been given dominion over the earth; Coulter seems unaware of the basic stages of ethical and moral development; Darwinism shakes the foundation of a lot of religious people because they have an unsophisticated understanding of both religion and science. | |
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19:10
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Part 4 - Politics & Social Issues: Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism - Coulter thinks liberals believe in 'pseudo-science' and that humans are no different from the apes, leading me to believe that 1) Ann Coulter doesn't believe in evolution, and 2) Ann Coulter doesn't understand evolution; Andy provides Ann with a brief overview of: 1) the Enlightenment and the nature of science, 2) how science replaced the Church as the source of knowledge about the physical world, and 3) how consciousness makes humans different from all other animals on the earth; Ann misunderstands the rationale for vegetarianism; Ann says liberals believe that "humans are a blight on earth" (of course, they don't, but 20%ers prefer stating what they imagine is the position of their opponents to actually stating and defending their own positions). | |
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14:24
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Part 5 - Politics & Social Issues: Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism - Coulter says the "reigning attribute" of college professors is that they are "ignorant, boring, and narrow minded," and that "these zealous pagans teach the official state religion of liberalism as axiomatic truth;" Andy explains to Ann the purpose of college, the nature of intellectual development, and the general principle "liberalism" (as in liberal arts education); Andy also explains that Ann Coulter and other 20%ers can't deal with the contextual nature of knowledge because they never really learned how to think. |
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