OMFG: O'Reilly Blames Parents For Childs Death At Batman Movie.

[Grassy Knoll]

[freshwest]

1. Thanks, we can always count on the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

[McCamy Taylor]

2. This is an NRA talking point and anyone who spouts it is in the pay of the NRA.

So, I hope we do not have any posters at DU claiming it is the parents' fault.

[uppityperson]

3. There was at least 1 person on Du saying this same sort of thing.

not going to pull out the link but in GD thread about the infant.

[2pooped2pop]

50. more than one

That something about DU. Some of the posters don't seem to get what is important and always use some minor issue to bitch about. It's similar to the grammar police in my opinion. I could see someone write about rape and you might see someone chiming in about which form of to,two, or too should have been used. Yep that's getting the point all right.

so we have 12 dead and many seriously wounded and we get bullshit like "who takes a 3 month old to a midnight movie?"

yep, that's what is important in this story all right.

[Epiphany4z]

4. what a sick freak....

I will bet he lost that other reporter because she is off cam puking...jesus..its summer I let my kids stay up late and do special things with us all the time...gawd he is disgusting...freak,,,ass...pig...he makes me wanna hurl

[Politicalboi]

5. "And um there ya go"

Babysitters get $15.00 an hour and the parents don't want to pay that. Just simple logic from a sexual predator.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. He should be fired for that!

[Pharaoh]

8. he should be!

[Pharaoh]

7. You lost the sattelite feed

cause you are an asshole and the woman reporter on the other end was absolutely horrified at your callous questioning!!!

[targetpractice]

10. She was literally wincing as O'Reilly spoke...

...I'm sure you are right... Someone made the wise choice to cut Bill off.

[Jack Rabbit]

22. I would like to think she took off her mike and stormed away

Saying she couldn't talk to any one as callous and stupid (oh, yes, and harsh) as O'Reilly.

If so, I'd to send her a dozen roses.

I wonder if she has children of her own. That's a perspective O'Reilly wouldn't understand.

[AsahinaKimi]

9. meh...

Sonna bakana. Totemo! Bill you and the rest of your right wing chums, have no heart. You and the right wing are the WALKING STUPID!

[ancianita]

11. All of you are right about O'Reilly. BUT

if two larger issues were even dealt with by these parents, they would not have even been at the movies.

The first is that, even if the movie were made for babies, parents shouldn't be hauling babies and young children to see a movie at midnight. That alone is a sign of stupid selfish carelessness for an innocent, dependent human being. Don't go making apologies for their poverty, either. Babysitters are just as crucial for a child's safety as anything else parents do for that child. As with tipping, if they can't afford babysitters, they should stay home.

Second, the sounds of Batman and all adult movies are scary for young children and not age appropriate for their emotions, which can be damaged by such high volume and violent content. Little children don't know what's going on. They don't know that this movie isn't real and their parents don't bother to teach them. As a teacher, I've seen teens desensitized to such movie violence by watching at an early age how parents react to movies, and I've witnessed their later inability to respond to real life violence -- much of that stemming from these too-early exposures to things of the adult world. Violent movies create PTSD in children. Once they've gotten used to that, watching mom and dad have sex or do drugs isn't a stretch.

Of COURSE no one should have died over their stupidity, but such stupidity does put children unwittingly in harm's way.

[Grassy Knoll]

13. A Quote From Billy Madison....

" what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul ".

[ancianita]

17. Your quote indicts yourself. As if the emo pile on here does the victim any more good than O'Reilly.

From Raising Arizona: "There's what's right and there's what's right and never the twain shall meet."

[Grassy Knoll]

24. Actually it indicted you trying to indite innocent children, SHAME ON YOU !!!!!!

[ancianita]

40. Okay, dad.

[Bjorn Against]

15. Going to a movie always used to be a safe activity

Prior to last night going to a movie was always a safe family activity, it is absolutely absurd, idiotic and heartless to suggest these parents who are extremely traumatized by an act of violence that no one expected were putting their kids in harms way.

While I can agree parents should not bring babies to movie theaters the reason I believe that has nothing to do with keeping kids safe because prior to this movie theaters have almost always been safe places for the family to go. When there is a national tragedy like this it is just plain wrong to pile on the victims for something as trivial as bringing their kids to a movie, those parents had absolutely no reason to even suspect something like this would happen.

[ancianita]

18. Adult movies are themselves NOT safe for children, no matter how safe the theater.

You misinterpret me, then conveniently react to that.

If you don't "get" the emotional harm that parents expose their children by taking them to adult movies in movie theaters, then you shouldn't be a parent. My point was about the necessity of keeping kids away from the adult world at that age for the sake their emotional well being, not just their physical safety.

[Bjorn Against]

21. I did not misinterpret, in this situation your point is extremely trivial

In most cases I would agree, babies should not be brought to movies like this but making such an argument in the context of the worst shooting in American history is absurd. In most other cases I would have no problem with people complaining about parents bringing kids to movies, I myself was upset when I went to see The Hunger Games and some parents brought their two year old, but no one was shot at that movie so my complaints did not seem quite so trivial. When parents are suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into a traumatic situation beyond their control they deserve our sympathy NOT our nitpicking over minor flaws in their parenting skills. How would you like it if you went through the most traumatic experience of your life and people looked away from the tragedy and decided to use the most painful event of your life as an excuse to nitpick at your parenting skills in the national media?

[ancianita]

23. If overexposure to the adult world is just a minor flaw and a trivial issue to you

then you're the one who doesn't understand the long term importance of parental judgment. Of course I feel sorry for these people who didn't deserve to die and who were in no way responsible for their own deaths. But the standard is a bit higher when you're ALSO responsible for ANOTHER dependent, innocent life. I guess for many it's just easier to bemoan stupid evil murder and to feel sorry for unthinking parents than to examine how prevention can be structured.

Minor flaws are not nitpicking about skills. Minor flaws create major problems over the course of eighteen to twenty years. If you don't know that, you haven't thought though the business of parenting very much. If these parents had realized the emotional harm they were doing to their kid by taking him/her to the movies, and had therefore not taken the child, THEIR CHILD WOULD NOT BE DEAD. Every decision exacts a cost, sooner or later, fair or unfair.

O'Reilly was cruel. But I'm not nitpicking. If everyone here wants to just chorus in hatred of O'Reilly, then this thread's purpose is as narrow and emo as O'Reilly. O'Reilly brought up larger issues that his cruelty obliterated, but those issues are not objectively unimportant or nitpicky, thereby.

[Bjorn Against]

27. Millions of kids have seen Batman, he is one of the most popular figures among kids

I actually agree that kids should not be shown Batman, but at the same time I can acknowledge that kids are not emotionally traumatized by seeing Batman. Practically every little boy I have known loves Batman, that does not mean I think they should be watching Batman, but it does mean I think your claim that kids are emotionally traumatized by Batman is absurd.

And please don't lecture me about how to raise kids, I take care of a two year old special needs child, I don't show him Batman but I don't try to claim the millions of parents who do show their kids Batman have poor parenting skills either.

[ancianita]

32. This isn't about 'Me superior/They inferior' as you imply. Don't misinterpret me.

You agree that kids should not be shown Batman, that you don't take your kids to see Batman or any other adult film for reasons you won't share. Yet you think that your saying "I can acknowledge that kids are not emotionally traumatized by seeing Batman" is logical. Don't conflate little boys' exposures to Batman comics to be the same as any toddler's or baby's exposure to Batman. That's what's absurd. Superheroes are the stuff of kindergarten and primary grades, sure. That's not the context of my claims about parents careless overexposing of the adult world to children. This Batman movie is based on the character only, not on a comic that children could buy.

Also, please don't lecture me about how ANY old way that parents expose their kids to media is just as good as any other. I'm not "trying" to claim. There really are studies out there that prove PTSD symptoms in young children overexposed to adult content. There are, objectively, better ways than others to parent kids. Exposing children to age-inappropriate adult content is stupid and bad parenting. Period.

[Bjorn Against]

35. People are dead. We have seen real violence, the violence in Batman is irrelevant right now

Your argument would be perfectly appropriate at most other times, but right now when we are in the aftermath of a major national tragedy to be focusing on the parenting skills of the victims comes across as extremely cold.

[Pharaoh]

59. O'rielly was callous and cruel

That "IS" THE POINT!!

This is a horrible event and people are grieving, to start throwing around blame at victims instead of the assassin is ridiculous!

[Epiphany4z]

30. I took my babies to the movies

at night. It seemed stupid to leave them with a sitter they where not bottle fed and would not take a bottle if it was offered I could nurse them in dark theater and they usually slept or ate. The dark of the theater made it a very nice night out even with baby. We were never the only ones there with a small baby either.

They are grown now and graduated from a very good college living on there own and doing very well. They seem very well rounded and not at all traumatized.

[KansDem]

52. Cry rooms...

I suspect parents taking babies to the movies was standard practice at one time.

There was an old movie theater near my apartment in San Diego that had a "cry room." It was in the very back and offered seats and a large plate glass window for parents to take fussy babies. The parents could sit there and tend to their babies without missing any of the movie.

I'm not sure how sound proof it was since I don't recall it ever being used when I saw movies there (this was the mid-1970s), but I'm sure the rest of the audience appreciated parents excusing themselves to watch the movie from the cry room when their babies began fussing.

[DonCoquixote]

45. Ok, I'll raise you

Suppose it was a G rated movie...would THAT have been better?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

29. I don't go to violent movies because they give me nightmares.

I refuse to see anything that is disturbing. And I am no Pollyanna. I know that movies need to deal with the lives of adults. But I would not take a baby or child to a violent movie anyway. It's traumatic for them, as is stated above.

I can't watch crap like the Alien movies, for instance. Or horror movies.

Batman was fun and campy when I was a kid in the 60s. Now he's violent and justifies violence to kill the bad guys. Dead bystanders are just collateral damage. Human life is meaningless in these movies. Threats and unnecessary violent death are normal in those movies.

[Ednahilda]

53. Thank you.

I absolutely agree with you. I rarely go to the movies or watch them on DVD and when I do, I always watch comedies. I get enough sadness and real life by living. For me, the treat of a movie (or most commonly, British comedies on PBS) is a little vacation from the aggravations of life.

Recently, the Civic Theater, a gorgeous Art Deco theater in Allentown, PA, offered a silent movie night by running Buster Keaton's 1928 masterpiece, "The General". The icing on the cake was that the music and sound effects were live, performed by an amazingly talented organist playing the theater's original - and lovingly restored - organ. My husband and I were lucky enough to be in the area to attend and virtually every single seat was filled by people from young children through senior citizens, all fully involved in the plot. The young teens sitting next to me were absolutely enraptured by the film. Genuinely good movies are timeless and they certainly don't need violence. Oh, and comedies can be clever - they don't have to be stupid or revolting to be funny. Fat chance Hollywood will listen to me.

[The Wielding Truth]

25. The most you can blame them for is the noise. No one would ever dream that a killer would be there.

[ancianita]

28. You oversimplify out of sympathy.

[Grassy Knoll]

33. Obviously you don't have children.....

Lose one in an unforeseen accident and let us know of your grief.

[ancianita]

34. Obviously?

You don't know what's obvious about me. You're the one who probably doesn't have children or you'd get the larger issues about having them at a midnight theater. Grief should be converted to thought, Grassy.

[Grassy Knoll]

37. Well now, I have 2 children, I'm not dead.......

and my family did not elect YOU to be their father.
Obviously.

[ancianita]

38. Ya GOT me. Stay outraged.

[The Wielding Truth]

61. This was not a dangerous place to take a child.

The thing is that I do not pass judgement on others and how they raise theirs.

How many times have people been killed in a movie theater? Reasonably this child would have been more safe with it's parents than with a stranger. You don't know the situation of having that infant there. Really, shortsighted judgement is not fair to anyone who has lost someone they love to an unseen tragedy.

All of those attending the movie were innocent and not under suspect for putting anyone in harms way. What happened to them was a truly unforeseen incident.

[2ndAmForComputers]

41. Have you figured out how tides work, Bill?

[gadjitfreek]

46. The GUNMAN caused the deaths of these children

But I completely agree with you about the selfishness and immaturity of the parents in bringing their kids to see a movie like this at midnight. That is not responsible parenting, at least not in my book. If you can't afford the babysitter, then go see the movie when you can leave the child with family friends or another family member. It's not like that was going to be the only showing of it. When you become a parent, you need to leave most of your selfishness at the door for the sake of the life you brought into the world. If you can't do that, maybe you have no business having children. That being said, it was the gunman who caused the deaths of the child, not their parents. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a lunatic decided to live out a fantasy.

[bowens43]

60. OMG!! You have got to be kidding!!

Amazing. Lets put the blame right where it belongs on the shooter and the easy available of guns and ammunition.

It's not the children's parents who are stupid, it's those who support allowing ownership of handguns and assault weapons .

Stupid is believing that these weapons have any place in a civilized society. Stupid is being able to walk into walmart and buy guns and ammunition. Stupid is allowing the NRA to exist. Stupid is thinking that the 2nd amendment is about individual rights...

[SheilaT]

12. Personally I don't think people should be taking little kids

to movies like that, BUT NOT A SINGLE PERSON WHO ATTENDED THE MOVIE IS IN ANY WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATHS AND INJURIES THAT OCCURRED.

There. I think I may have gotten my message across.

[ancianita]

19. Responsible or not, every decision to keep children unnecessarily in the world of adults

will cost. We don't always know the cost, but there is one.

Responsible or not, living in a state with unrestrictive gun laws also has its costs. Apparently, after Columbine, the people of Colorado kept their gun laws loose. That decision has its cost.

[Grassy Knoll]

36. Boy, Talk about see it my way or the highway.....

Would you rather be right, or happy ?

[ancianita]

39. It's not that simple. "My way" is not where I'm coming from...

[Grassy Knoll]

42. au contraire, but, but, there's more.......

If your College thesis was published, I doubt anyone in their right mind
or left mind thought it was credible enough to make it to Barns and Noble bargain
bin, But nietzsche was a man of great thought.

[SheilaT]

43. I feel very strongly that far too many people think

it is just fine if their little kid sees a PG-13 movie, or even an R rated one.

When my sons were little I was absolutely rigid about not taking them to the former until they were 13 and the latter maybe a couple of times before they were 16 or 17. And you know what? I never had the disrespectful behavior from them that most people think is simply normal for teens. Even during what we came to call The Year From Hell, when younger son was picked up on possession of marijuana, cheated his way through the diversion program, had his grades drop to the point where I wasn't sure he'd graduate high school, and he moved out for six weeks and we weren't entirely certain where he was (although he was, as we correctly guessed, staying at the home of a classmate of his older brother's) he never once said "I hate you", never stopped saying "please" and "thank you" and more or less followed our rules.

Once he returned home, things turned around, his grades came up, he finished high school, went off to college and graduated in four years cum laude. I think in the end what mattered was that we didn't let him participate inappropriately in the adult world (going to movies too old for him) and held to our standards.

You don't even want to hear my rant about guns.

I keep on wondering, if the only people that got hurt and killed in these kinds of things were the children of those who defended our ludicrous gun laws, would that make them change their mind? Or would they say, "Oh, it's okay if my daughter is slaughtered."

[RedStateLiberal]

14. "I don't want this to sound harsh..."

= douchebag code for "I'm about to say something that only an asshole would say."

[Canuckistanian]

16. WTF?

Wow, this is a new low for Billo. Seriously? Blaming parents for not wanting to pay babysitters????

[Quixote1818]

20. Please be sure to post your opinion on the actual youtube video and rate it down

Here is what the ass hole who posted it wrote: Bill O'Reilly respectfully touched on the controversy over the parents bringing children and babies to a movie theater at midnight to watch a Batman movie.

Respectfully? What a fucking idiot!

Go to the direct video by double clicking on the video or clicking where it says youtube in the bottom right corner and make a comment:

&feature=share

[MichiganVote]

26. Who gives a shit what these TV rotheads think? This guy and all the rest are worthless.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

31. I swear,...this is a classic example of diarrhoea of the mouth.

[CoffeeCat]

44. How in the hell does Bill O Reilly know for sure...

...that these parents took their children to the movie because they didn't want to pay
for a babysitter?

First off, we used to take our babies to movies. One of the children psychic Bill spoke about
was the three-month-old infant. I used to love going to movies with our kids when they were
babies. They would sleep and it was easy to breastfeed, because it was dark! It was easy
and we loved being with our kids. It had nothing to do with not being able to afford a babysitter.

You know what this is...it's elitism. Bill is part of the "one percent" who looks down on the
rest of us. He thinks we're all desperate idiots making bad decisions. Yep. If we're in a movie
theater with our kids--it must be due to laziness, or lack of funds or just sheer stupidity. Because
in Bill's world--you're either ultra wealthy--with three full-time nannies--or you're just an idiot
who has to lug their kids everywhere because you're just too cheap to shell out the $20 you'd have
to pay a babysitter.

What an arrogant, ill-informed prick! Especially at a somber, tragic time like this. Bill O can't even
set aside his pseudo-elitist, one-percenter nonsense at a time like this.

Disgusting.

[Shankapotomus]

47. Yea because who doesn't expect

a shooting at a Batman premier?

[Comrade_McKenzie]

48. I actually saw a couple of people do that on DU yesterday...

Alerted one and jury chose 3-3 to leave it alone.

[SJohnson]

49. So out of touch & so heartless

What if this happened at a baseball game during the day or at the local pool then it would be the same thing O'Reilly? Cause at the end of the day this shit can and will happen anywhere at anytime

[madashelltoo]

51. FUCK BILL O'RIELLY AND FOX NEWS

That was the coldest, most emotionless reporting I have ever witnessed. People DIED. People are critically injured. Children were there because their mother's didn't want to pay a fucking babysitter. O'Reilly is going to take a terrible fall for some of the horrific things he's said. This one does it for me. I could not stand the sight of him before and I really can't now. Fucker.

[mountain grammy]

54. The reporter was obviously perplexed by what o'really was saying and cut him off.

So that also means the 9 year old murdered in Tucson should not have been in a shopping center parking lot in broad daylight. What a heartless, mean, and dangerous bastard this man is.

[LoisB]

55. I didn't hear the father say anything about "not wanting to pay a babysitter". Even so, to

blame the parents for their children being in the theater is heartless. The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the jackass who did the shooting and our stupid NRA gun laws that allow a citizen to purchase these type of guns.

[Zarnockf]

56. Parents Rights and Faults

Faulty parents are everywhere these days..Violence is part of our world and parents should protect children from it, and should not be exposing them to it by bringing a child to a violent movie. And since parents do not make right decisions regarding violence, we, as the public, should boycott Hollywood when they continuously make more violent movies. Don't go to see them, period.

[Bicoastal]

58. No.

[HopeHoops]

57. I'm not going to watch that. Just the premise is beyond sick. Fuck you BillO!

[Initech]

62. The good old Fox Ministry Of Propaganda shows their fine brand of compassionate conservatism.