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U.S. out of my underwear
May. 29th, 2006 03:09 pmSo, today is Memorial Day here in the States. I'd wish everyone a happy Memorial Day, except I'm not sure it's supposed to be happy. Isn't a solemn day of remembrance? But people also have cookouts and such, which I'm sure are intended to be fun. So I guess I'll just wish everyone whatever kind of Memorial Day they think they should have.
The main point of this post is to comment on the several episodes of Bullshit! that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bethje and I watched last night. Let's take them one at a time.
Prostitution: Penn and Teller made the same basic argument that I made last month. Keeping prostitution illegal makes it more dangerous and impossible to regulate. Makes sense to me. They brought up how the Supreme Court has been finding most laws regarding what consenting adults do in private to be unconstitutional, and that prostitution should also be protected in the same way.
Death Penalty: They came out firmly against the death penalty, but they didn't dismiss the arguments on the other side as readily as they usually do, which was good. I tend to waffle somewhat on the death penalty, but I'm generally in favor of it IF the crime is bad enough, and you're as sure as humanly possible that the person is guilty. Life in prison would also keep these people off the streets, but is it really a good idea to have to pay for them? Since Penn and Teller are usually against government spending, I'm surprised they didn't really address this. They did say towards the end that buying cheaper food might be a good idea, which does make some sense. Really, even if I disagree with them, it's admirable that their respect for human life trumps their anti-taxation beliefs. They pointed out that a lot of people on Death Row have turned out to be innocent after all, and have been screwed over by prosecutors who have withheld evidence in order to win the case, and other facets of our imperfect justice system. To me, this is one of the best arguments against execution, although I'm sure there are SOME more or less open-and-shut cases, right? They also did a good job at debunking the idea of the death penalty as a deterrent, but I've always thought that idea was ridiculous. It seems to be part of the idea that fear is the best method of law enforcement (more on this in a future post), which I'm not down with. That's not to say it doesn't have its place, but it really doesn't work with murder.
Cryptozoology: This one was pretty good, and more along the lines of the earlier episodes of the show. I liked how their incredibly fake footage of Bigfoot (Bigfootage? {g}) actually fooled some people, and got spread around the Internet. One thing about how crytozoology differs from many other topics they've covered is that, while it IS bullshit, it doesn't really seem to be hurting anyone. If someone wants to go out and look for Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, isn't that basically just a grown-up version of "let's pretend"? It's definitely not science, though, so I can certainly buy that part of Penn and Teller's argument. I do think it might be interesting to study monster legends AS legends, though. There was a mention of how dragons were depicted in art and stories in both Europe and Asia, and the magicians' conclusion was that people aren't that creative. Maybe not, but could there be something else to it? And what about the similarity between Bigfoot and the Tibetan Yeti? But then, nobody pretends that the study of folklore and mythology is a branch of zoology.
September 11 Memorial: This was about how red tape has been holding up the construction of ANYTHING at the World Trade Center site. It seemed to be reasonably argued and done with more respect than you might expect, but I thought it was a really weird topic for a Bullshit! episode. Also weird was that it included an appearance by Gilbert Gottfried.
Pets: I get the impression that Penn and Teller aren't really animal people, and this was reflected somewhat in the episode. Still, most of what they covered was pretty ridiculous, especially the guy who made fake testicles for dogs. Personally, I would say that not having to look at a dog's nuts is a nice bonus to having it neutered, but there's no accounting for taste. They also visited a cat show, and pointed out how it probably isn't very fun for the cats.
Reparations: They acknowledged that this episode would almost definitely result in their taking some flak for their being white guys addressing a topic centered around race, as well as how the whole thing is a complicated issue. I tend to think that paying reparations to the descendants of slaves is a bad idea, because it's hardly fair for someone to be punished for or reap the benefits of the deeds of their ancestors. On the other hand, I'm sure some people really ARE still living off the profits of their slave-holding ancestors, so should that enter into it? I'm not sure, but I basically agree with the episode that simply having white people pay money to black people isn't going to solve anything. The show also brought up the reparations paid by the government to survivors of Japanese-American internment camps, and Penn and Teller admitted that this made a lot more sense. There was also a bit on Indian casinos, and how they benefit only a very tiny percentage of the Native American population.
Manners: Possibly my favorite of the seven we watched, even though I thought I could BE that annoying guy who was complaining about everything. In terms of the bitching, anyway. I don't support the idea of policing manners. I found the segment where the couple was explaining the reasons behind Victorian etiquette to be particularly interesting and amusing. The gist of the episode is how the idea that Americans are ruder now than ever before is, well, bullshit. I generally think that any statement that people exhibit more or less of any one particular trait nowadays than they did in the past is likely to be bunk. There are some exceptions, but usually these ideas are put forth by people who view the past through rose-tinted glasses, and I've ranted before about how ridiculous that is.
And that's all of them, at least so far.
The main point of this post is to comment on the several episodes of Bullshit! that
bethje and I watched last night. Let's take them one at a time.Prostitution: Penn and Teller made the same basic argument that I made last month. Keeping prostitution illegal makes it more dangerous and impossible to regulate. Makes sense to me. They brought up how the Supreme Court has been finding most laws regarding what consenting adults do in private to be unconstitutional, and that prostitution should also be protected in the same way.
Death Penalty: They came out firmly against the death penalty, but they didn't dismiss the arguments on the other side as readily as they usually do, which was good. I tend to waffle somewhat on the death penalty, but I'm generally in favor of it IF the crime is bad enough, and you're as sure as humanly possible that the person is guilty. Life in prison would also keep these people off the streets, but is it really a good idea to have to pay for them? Since Penn and Teller are usually against government spending, I'm surprised they didn't really address this. They did say towards the end that buying cheaper food might be a good idea, which does make some sense. Really, even if I disagree with them, it's admirable that their respect for human life trumps their anti-taxation beliefs. They pointed out that a lot of people on Death Row have turned out to be innocent after all, and have been screwed over by prosecutors who have withheld evidence in order to win the case, and other facets of our imperfect justice system. To me, this is one of the best arguments against execution, although I'm sure there are SOME more or less open-and-shut cases, right? They also did a good job at debunking the idea of the death penalty as a deterrent, but I've always thought that idea was ridiculous. It seems to be part of the idea that fear is the best method of law enforcement (more on this in a future post), which I'm not down with. That's not to say it doesn't have its place, but it really doesn't work with murder.
Cryptozoology: This one was pretty good, and more along the lines of the earlier episodes of the show. I liked how their incredibly fake footage of Bigfoot (Bigfootage? {g}) actually fooled some people, and got spread around the Internet. One thing about how crytozoology differs from many other topics they've covered is that, while it IS bullshit, it doesn't really seem to be hurting anyone. If someone wants to go out and look for Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, isn't that basically just a grown-up version of "let's pretend"? It's definitely not science, though, so I can certainly buy that part of Penn and Teller's argument. I do think it might be interesting to study monster legends AS legends, though. There was a mention of how dragons were depicted in art and stories in both Europe and Asia, and the magicians' conclusion was that people aren't that creative. Maybe not, but could there be something else to it? And what about the similarity between Bigfoot and the Tibetan Yeti? But then, nobody pretends that the study of folklore and mythology is a branch of zoology.
September 11 Memorial: This was about how red tape has been holding up the construction of ANYTHING at the World Trade Center site. It seemed to be reasonably argued and done with more respect than you might expect, but I thought it was a really weird topic for a Bullshit! episode. Also weird was that it included an appearance by Gilbert Gottfried.
Pets: I get the impression that Penn and Teller aren't really animal people, and this was reflected somewhat in the episode. Still, most of what they covered was pretty ridiculous, especially the guy who made fake testicles for dogs. Personally, I would say that not having to look at a dog's nuts is a nice bonus to having it neutered, but there's no accounting for taste. They also visited a cat show, and pointed out how it probably isn't very fun for the cats.
Reparations: They acknowledged that this episode would almost definitely result in their taking some flak for their being white guys addressing a topic centered around race, as well as how the whole thing is a complicated issue. I tend to think that paying reparations to the descendants of slaves is a bad idea, because it's hardly fair for someone to be punished for or reap the benefits of the deeds of their ancestors. On the other hand, I'm sure some people really ARE still living off the profits of their slave-holding ancestors, so should that enter into it? I'm not sure, but I basically agree with the episode that simply having white people pay money to black people isn't going to solve anything. The show also brought up the reparations paid by the government to survivors of Japanese-American internment camps, and Penn and Teller admitted that this made a lot more sense. There was also a bit on Indian casinos, and how they benefit only a very tiny percentage of the Native American population.
Manners: Possibly my favorite of the seven we watched, even though I thought I could BE that annoying guy who was complaining about everything. In terms of the bitching, anyway. I don't support the idea of policing manners. I found the segment where the couple was explaining the reasons behind Victorian etiquette to be particularly interesting and amusing. The gist of the episode is how the idea that Americans are ruder now than ever before is, well, bullshit. I generally think that any statement that people exhibit more or less of any one particular trait nowadays than they did in the past is likely to be bunk. There are some exceptions, but usually these ideas are put forth by people who view the past through rose-tinted glasses, and I've ranted before about how ridiculous that is.
And that's all of them, at least so far.
