The Martyrdom of Bill O'Reilly

When will Bill join the ranks of the other saints?

Around my fourteenth birthday I purchased a book, I think it was called "Everything Women Know". The book cost $4.95 plus tax and it was filled with empty pages. My fourteen year old self, and my group of friends that was a typical boys only crew, had quite the laugh. My mother was not quite as amused as I was with the great joke book. She was first disappointed that I spent money on an idiotic thing with no lasting value, and she also did not want her fourteen year old to think sexism and misogyny were a good thing. I told her it was only a joke, there was no harm intended. She still took the book away, and to this day I have no idea when or where she disposed of my prized joke book.

Bill O'Reilly's career was a lot like the empty "Everything Women Know". He built a career on appealing to the lowest impulses in the white male mind. His ideas were empty, his contribution to America was non-existent, and his career will be remembered as a waste of time and money. He was  popular, to an extant, because of the backwards thinking he popularized. The only thing that motivated O'Reilly was money and a false sense of popularity. His absence from the airwaves will not cause any major changes. Years from now we will not even remember when or how Bill O'Reilly left the public conscious. His lack of substance makes his disposal not worth noting.

The end of Bill O"Reilly's career will be part of the ash heap of history, but his actual career paved the way for white christian male victimhood. People like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, the resurgent Tucker Carlson, whoever the half wits on Fox Friends are, and the current occupant of the White House owe Bill O'Reilly a debt for the fact that he made white christian male victimhood acceptable in our culture. The fact that in 2017 we still have a discussion on racism towards whites only exists because of Bill O'Reilly. Rush Limbaugh became a force because he turned politics into an us versus them struggle. Bill O'Reilly made the us white christian men, and the them were everyone else. The them wanted to make scary changes that would cause white men to lose power, O'Reilly was the self annointed "culture warrior" who would stand against those scary changes. The modern day men's rights movement, the social ideas of the GOP, and the acceptance of bullying minorities found it's genesis with Bill O'Reilly and his Fox News show. 

Bill O'Reilly spent over two decades at Fox News. His time at Rupert Murdoch's Republican State media channel mirrors the rise of the 21st Century GOP. Everything bad against the Republicans was made into a struggle that Bill O'Reilly would bravely fight. The idea of not allowing your opponent a voice was perfected by O'Reilly. When Al Franken correctly called out Bill O'Reilly on lying about a journalistic award, O'Reilly's response was to yell "shut up". By the way, Al Franken is an influential United States Senator and Bill O'Reilly is now unemployed. There was the time O'Reilly told the son of a 9-11 victim to "shut up", then cut his mic. There were the many times that O'Reilly cowardly sent out his producer to stalk and harass journalist that O'Reilly did not agree with. O'Reilly never apologized for falsely accusing the Americans for slaughtering surrendering German troops during World War II (it was the other way around, but O'Reilly was trying to justify the US for slaughtering innocents in Iraq). There are many other instances, but my favorite is the time he tried to prove the existence of God by claiming the ocean tides were some magical unexplained phenomena. His defense against the "pinheads" that corrected him is the best example of white christian victimhood ever. 

The last clip is everything that Bill O'Reilly represents distilled down to one and a half minutes. O'Reilly is never wrong, and when he is wrong it is some grand conspiracy against him and all white male christians. Bill O'Reilly does not just claim to be the victim, he urges all like minded people to ignore facts, and fight against the progress of society. His antics on Fox News led to the demise of intelligent debate in our government and society at large. 

The saddest part of all of this is that Bill O'Reilly got rich off of this garbage. Fox News saw the dollar signs that a useful idiot like O'Reilly could bring in, and they ignored everything bad about their main talent. No matter what O'Reilly did, be it sexual harassment or any other despicable act, Fox News did not care and neither did Bill O'Reilly. The only thing that mattered was money. Fox News and Bill O'Reilly sold out American credibility for a few extra dollars. America be damned.

The ironic part of this whole saga is that money was the thing that finally got Bill O'Reilly fired. The loss of valuable advertiser revenue made the lords of Fox News come to the easy decision to let their main guy go. Note to people like Glenn Beck, that is what we call the free market at work. The hate, the bad old school ideals, the lack of journalistic integrity, the lying, the bullying, none of that ended Bill O'Reilly's career. Good old capitalism succeeded where common human decency failed.

The end of Bill O'Reilly does not end the disgusting views he popularized. Tucker Carlson is the current placeholder for O'Reilly on Fox News, and Carlson has had a career resurgence by embracing the white christian male victimhood line popularized by his predecessor. Sean Hannity has skyrocketed to the top of the cable news ratings by blindly toeing the line of white men good, everyone else is bad. Glenn Beck has spent the last few days diminishing the sexual harassment claims that brought Bill O'Reilly down, and whining about the loss of an old school voice. Bill O'Reilly will not be on the airwaves for the foreseeable future, but his poisoned doctrine will live on in the GOP thought leaders who still infect our television and radio programs. Bill O'Reilly's sins will live on with the help of the zealots he created. 

No matter how happy liberals may be today, the firing of Bill O'Reilly will change nothing. The people who continue in his misguided path will be more emboldened by O'Reilly's dismissal. They will see this as another unfair ill brought down on the white christian male. His accusers will be labeled as the real monsters. O'Reilly will live on as a martyr of the white male power movement. He will continue his lies, his bullying, and his destruction of valuable discourse. He will fail again, and he will claim victimhood again. Then one day Bill O'Reilly will disappear, and we will all wonder why they hell we wasted our time and energy on such an empty mind. Like how we question our youthful purchase of a dumb book.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. His favorite jam comes from an epic O'Reilly meltdown (NSFW). Can you do it live?  Come tell us. 

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The Constitutional Conservatives Have No Clothes

I am not interested in looking at naked republicans

Let me be the one millionth and first person to call out the hypocrisy of the "constitutional conservative" crowd. The ones who wrap their rhetoric around the infallibility of the US Constitution are some of the most unpatriotic Americans in our country's two hundred plus year history. They are afraid to call them selves republicans because the constitutional conservatives have built an unmovable, pure, ideology. There is no room for compromise in their feeble minds.

The latest news surrounding a bigot who refuses to grant any marriage licenses because of her hateful views on gay marriage has once again exposed the constitutional conservative charlatans. Kim Davis took an oath as an elected official to follow the law of the land, not the law of a god. She may now be a "born again" christian in fidelity to her fourth husband. In her brain, a god's law may be bigger than the US Constitution. That is ok by me, but it is not ok with the constitutional duties of her elected position. Kim Davis should not be in jail, she should be removed from her job. The details may not yet exist to remover her, yet I believe the means to remove her do exist. She took an oath to follow the law, she has broken this oath. She is unfit to execute the duties as clerk. There I just let Kim Davis be hateful and out of jail, and I used the US Constitution.

So Sean Hannity, Rick Santorum (sorry for the crude language), Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, and any other self professed constitutional conservative, what is your solution to solve the Kentucky clerk problem? I understand you use the term constitutional conservative as  code for your white christian male victimhood. I understand you only care about the constitution when it can justify your misogyny, racism, and greed. I know you want to make sure that power can be consolidated into the hands of a small group of white men who can rule over like monarchs. Just please stop dragging the poor US Constitution in the mud with your ignorance and hate. If you want to live by the word of the King James Bible (a book manipulated by a rich white king), then I suggest you start forming your own theocracy. America does not need your hate and ignorance.

Over one million and one people know these constitutional conservatives are frauds. Unfortunately the national media will still treat their ideas as part of a credible debate. The media is broken, but the constitution is not. Kim Davis is constitutional unfit, and her conservative supports are equally unfit. There is no debate. Look away from the constitutional conservative crowd. They are marching through the streets naked in their white male christian victimhood.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing and host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He keeps his pocket US Constitution handy so he can remember how many amendments exist. Have thoughts on society today? Write for SeedSing.