Dr. Laura Schlessinger (conservative talk radio host) your thoughts on her?

gue_barium

EastofEden wrote:

I didnt mean politically, its not a political show.

Morally speaking people are very afraid to rock the boat currently, for fear *gasp* someone may actually deem you "judgemental".

Its as if people cant have strong moral viewpoints and also maintain the ability to respect others opinions anymore.

Its pacifism and its spineless and you see it everywhere, especially the media.

A perfect example is what happened to Isaiah Washington and the whole Greys anatomy thing, unreal.
And Im actually being objective.

I just don't follow your reasoning. I'm not much of a TV viewer.

moeaholic

she's an idiot, and i wish i never saw her naked.

EastofEden

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

I view it as being considerate and using some understanding. I don't see it as being afraid to rock the boat or being spineless at all. Let's face it we live in a world filled with millions of different views. It seems to me, we get along better when we embrace our differences and learn to exist in harmony together than when we look down at each other condescendingly and condemn those who choose a different path as being wrong or ignorant. Expecting others to live the way you choose to and pointing the finger at everyone is so counter-productive and never solves anything. All it does it is add some more self-righteous stench to the air.

Ive seen people who ARE afraid to sway the boat of popular opinion.
And they are just as bad as the oppressors. Ive seen it in my personal life and on a larger scale.
Nazi Germany is a good example.
An entire Nation looked the other way when they knew inncocents were being murdered because the economy was going well for them.

Self-righteousness is intolerable.
Yet pacifism is just as dangerous.

Remember, Im not talking politically regarding her.
Germany was an example.

EastofEden

gue_barium wrote:

I just don't follow your reasoning. I'm not much of a TV viewer.

Thats ok.

Its a radio show though.

gue_barium

EastofEden wrote:

Thats ok.

Its a radio show though.

I don't listen to radio at all.

I guess the difference here is that I don't think that television and radio are the best places to find examples of somebody "rocking the boat". And I certainly don't find any reason, as HHKC suggested, to find another mother in these places.

Abookamongstthemany

EastofEden wrote:

Ive seen people who ARE afraid to sway the boat of popular opinion.
And they are just as bad as the oppressors. Ive seen it in my personal life and on a larger scale.
Nazi Germany is a good example.
An entire Nation looked the other way when they knew inncocents were being murdered because the economy was going well for them.

Self-righteousness is intolerable.
Yet pacifism is just as dangerous.

Remember, Im not talking politically regarding her.
Germany was an example.

Yep, Nazi Germany was all about trampling over people who were different.

EastofEden

gue_barium wrote:

I don't listen to radio at all.

I guess the difference here is that I don't think that television and radio are the best places to find examples of somebody "rocking the boat". And I certainly don't find any reason, as HHKC suggested, to find another mother in these places.

The media controls the world.
I cant imagine a better example.

And whose looking for a Mom?
I can admire a quality in a woman without wanting her to nurse me.

gue_barium

EastofEden wrote:

The media controls the world.
I cant imagine a better example.

what if nobody watches?

And whose looking for a Mom?
I can admire a quality in a woman without wanting her to nurse me.

You'll have to take that up with HHKC.

EastofEden

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

Yep, Nazi Germany was all about trampling over people who were different.

I cant argue with you very well either, youre too sweet.... :)

Abookamongstthemany

EastofEden wrote:

youre too sweet.... :)

I do try. I think it's the only way to really make a difference. If not, people will simply close their ears to all you have to say...and rightfully so.

_Crazy_Mary_

I liked Dr. Laura's book, The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, and I agree with most of what she says, but not everything. For example, she's anti-living-together-before-you-get-married and I've been doing just that for the last 9 years...

gue_barium

EastofEden wrote:

The media controls the world.
I cant imagine a better example.

There isn't anything you can name that "controls" the world, with the exception of what you may know about science. You know, gravity, light, oxygen, water, and all that crap.

EastofEden

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

I do try. I think it's the only way to really make a difference. If not, people will simply close their ears to all you have to say...and rightfully so.

Word.
At the end of the day its all about the love you gave and received with gratitude.

Abookamongstthemany

EastofEden wrote:

Word.
At the end of the day its all about the love you gave and received with gratitude.

yep yep

Abuskedti

hailhailkc wrote:

She's cold at times, but she has to be. It's a radio show. There's no time to hear everyone's long, drawn out story. She has to keep it short. Also, many of the people on the program lack the ability, and confidence / self esteem to get the story out quickly anyway. That bumbling, stuttering crap is what allowed most of these morons to get into these bad situations to begin with.

Lazy.
Whining.
Woe is me attitude.

It gets old. I like her. She doesn't take shit and she tells these weak minded people what they need to hear. I can think of quite a few people on this board who could have used her as their mom. They blame all their past crap on the fact that they didn't have a loving family, a mom that cared, blah, blah, blah.

Grow up. Get over it. Move on with your life. Grow a set and do something with yourself. You can't ride your skateboard forever.

She makes people take ownership of their actions, which I'm sure drives a lot of people on this message board crazy. How dare we not blame our problems on a past alcoholic dad who was never there! Or an abusive uncle! Or whatever...

Give me a break.

singing the same old song - opposing what isn't there. You worked to sqeeze and extra term for Bush.. Yeah it sucked overall for the world.. didn't hurt you any though. You can pretend that didn't happen.. sing the same song and sqeeze in the next.

cornnifer

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

She's closed minded and shuts out any possibility of alternate perceptions.

Keep in mind it is a call in show. PEOPLE call HER asking for her perceptions. She gives them. Sometimes the woman with four kids by three men, none of whom she's ever been married to, shacking up with and banging a fourth guy who has no intentions to commit, needs to hear that her behavior is somewhat prostitute like. Might be hard to hear but... she called and asked.

Actually, despite her political conservatism, i kinda like her otherwise. (As someone pointed out before, it isn't a political show).

Abookamongstthemany

cornnifer wrote:

Keep in mind it is a call in show. PEOPLE call HER asking for her perceptions. She gives them. Sometimes the woman with four kids by three men, none of whom she's ever been married to, shacking up with and banging a fourth guy who has no intentions to commit, needs to hear that her behavior is somewhat prostitute like. Might be hard to hear but... she called and asked.

Actually, despite her political conservatism, i kinda like her

I don't care what it is, I don't care for her style.

sponger

I agree with her on some things, and disagree on other things.

One major point of contention that I have with her is her opinion that women who live with men before getting married are "whoring themselves out".

This opinion of hers assumes certain kinds of logic that I don't think reflect reality. First it assumes that those women would rather be living alone if it weren't for the prospect that their boyfriends might eventually propose.

Secondly, it ignores the reality of married couples getting sick of each other after a few years of marriage because they weren't prepared for sharing their personal space with the other person every single day of the week. Wouldn't it be common sense that people should "test the waters" before making a life-long commitment that usually involves having children and sharing assets?

Also, she likes to drop the G word into the mix sometimes as well, and I personally think this contradicts the message of psychology, which in my opinion, is the foundation of secular humanism.

She'll say things like "god created marriage so that two people could share..." and so on and so forth. Basically, when she attempts to explain "why things are" on a very abstract level, she'll just chalk it up to "the way god wanted it." But, as crazy as it may sound, she is able to do it in a way that is not preachy or self-righteous, IMO.

By that I mean that she doesn't instruct people to find jesus or accept his salvatation...etc. She isn't some kind of evangelist. It's as though she is just trying to explain her most personal feelings on the matter, and that dropping the G word is the only way to do it.

It's still intellectual laziness, IMO. It's only a matter of time before someone comes along and encapsulates her point of view within a secular context, but I give her props for at least making an earnest effort to create a balance between the two viewpoints.

At the same time, I think she is also just catering to the largely conservative listerner base that tunes into talk radio. Let's face it: If liberals knew what AM radio was, Air America wouldn't have gone under before anyone even noticed it was there.

I will pay lip service to the fact that Air America was a stupid show that unintentionally highlighted the immature and quasi-delusional state of modern liberalism, but there is no denying that one has to embrace the right-wing agenda to some degree in order to maintain an AM talk show.

For example, she instantly became my personal hero one night when a listener called about feelings of guilt he was having about being in a long-term relationship with a woman that he thought was "unattractive". As he explained his feelings of confusion to her, he would occasionally point out his "devoutly religous" beliefs and his steadfast dedication to the bible and sunday church.

After thoroughly emasculating him for wasting this woman's time by not telling her his true feelings about her, she finished off by accusing him of using religion to protect himself from hearing what he deserved to hear. She is inarguably masterfully articulate, and she was able to make it very clear that a devotion to religion does not necessarily mean being a compassionate human being.

My favorite line of hers is from a call where the listener had a husband who spent more time "hanging with the guys" than with her or his children. The listener talked about how much fun her husband used to be to spend time with, but how he was terrible at being a family man. Dr. Laura goes, "You thought his behavior was 'cute' and 'macho' before you were married, but now you're realizing what crappy father guys like him are." I was like hell the fuck yeah. It just goes to show that women really do date/marry assholes because they have their heads screwed on backwards.

Then there was this night when a husband and wife called because they disagreed on how they should discipline their child. The wife had taken away the child's teddy bear, and the husband didn't see it as necessary. It turned out that the child was enrolled in swimming and ballet lessons at like age 4 or 5 or something, and she started crying during the middle of ballet lessons and then refused to participate from that point on.

The wife said something like, "...and my mom also thinks I was right to take the teddy bear away." Then Dr. Laura said, "If I were you, I would never let your mom anywhere near your child." Then she made an elaborate guestimation on what the wife's childhood was like, and how she was probably absusively pressured, and how her mom's support of the teddy bear removal was probably her way of maintaing control over her and her granddaughter. Again, I like rock on, dr. laura....death to all overbearing parents/grandparents.

So, she's not bad for a religious person.

hippiemom

_Crazy_Mary_ wrote:

I liked Dr. Laura's book, The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, and I agree with most of what she says, but not everything. For example, she's anti-living-together-before-you-get-married and I've been doing just that for the last 9 years...

I wouldn't worry too much about it ... she did it herself for 8 years, after her boyfriend left his wife of 20 years, and got married only after she got "knocked up out of wedlock" as she would say. (I just looked her up on wikipedia ... funny stuff).

I've heard her show. I agree with her probably about half the time. A lot of people have shitty lives because they've made shitty choices time and time and time again, and she points that out to them. Her almost complete lack of compassion bothers me though, particularly given her own life history. And as sponger pointed out, she has a few blind spots ... she seems incapable of understanding the many reasons people live together, and she's convinced that anyone you meet on the internet is bad-bad-bad.

The show can be entertaining for brief periods, but she's too holier-than-thou to listen to for long.

gue_barium

I think I'm going to start writing her love letters.