We’d forgotten that Jon Stewart has a show on AppleTV+, “The Problem with Jon Stewart.” He’ll surprise us now and then with a common-sense conservative take, but on AppleTV+, he seems to have fully regressed into the liberal he is at heart.
This week his guest was Oklahoma Sen. Nathan Dahm. There’s a good-sized clip from the show’s official Twitter account, but getting more traction is an edit sent out cheering Stewart for calling Dahm out on his “blatant, shameless hypocricy.”
State Sen. Nathan Dahm (R-OK) has penned several bills loosening gun restrictions, including the nation’s first anti-red flag law. He thinks these bills protect the Second Amendment – and that they make us safer. We think it's probably one or the other. Watch it on @AppleTVPlus. pic.twitter.com/T7fLFLjTQ5
— The Problem With Jon Stewart (@TheProblem) March 3, 2023
One of the most basic rhetorical tactics is just to pivot and reframe relentlessly
If you aren’t interested in convincing your interlocutor and only in winning the crowd just never talk about the topic they are addressing, always pivot https://t.co/f0J5Yfa5VP
— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) March 4, 2023
Stewart has no interest in defending the sexualization of children because it’s a losing issue so he just take a the theme of protecting children and uses it to reframe
— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) March 4, 2023
This is a good example of our different worlds
Stewart fans are like "lol, he owned that dude by changing the subject"
I look at this and say "Um… Stewart completely bailed on the topic of protecting kids from sexual performances. He was losing, so he fled to another topic" https://t.co/LY244KhafG
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) March 4, 2023
Recommended
A way to deal with this is to say "Good question John. We should protect kids from violence, but taking guns away doesn't do that. Now, you answer my question: Why are you so afraid to protect children from sexual performances"
But that would get edited out
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) March 4, 2023
It’s a question we’re always asking … why aren’t the liberals the ones explaining why drag shows for kids are essential to their education and development? Why is it so imperative to teach gender ideology and sexual orientation in kindergarten?
The real solution of talking to John Stewart is to not talk to him. He has a long history of editing his opponents' answers to make them look like fools and snipping out the parts where he gets flustered.
It's only entertainment and his audience isn't entertained when he loses.
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) March 4, 2023
He’s just like Maher. Fence sitters who fan the flames of division and then back down so they don’t get eaten.
— CageyBee (@CageyBee33) March 4, 2023
Democrats honestly think false equivalency is going to keep them in power.
— Mad Bomber Hat (@MadBomberHat) March 4, 2023
https://twitter.com/willmurphy/status/1632112343177117697
How do these dudes lose these arguments? Just ask “do you think parents should be allowed to take their children into pornographic movie theaters?” And the argument would be over. Innocence is something that always and everywhere should be preserved. Guns don’t change that.
— dirk (@Lifeblood_6) March 4, 2023
It’s unequal footing from the get-go but still the argument falls short. A no-name appearing on Stewart’s show where @jonstewart had a team prepare him for weeks while the other guy is just trying to ensure he gets another interview somewhere else. Jon Stewart is a bully.
— DefendAmericanBorders (@supermonkeycar7) March 4, 2023
Stewart's argument is also disingenuous. We have laws governing the safe handling of firearms. The analogy he's making would be if we banned the sale of women's clothing to protect children from drag shows.
— Izengabe (@Izengabe_) March 4, 2023
So….because kids aren’t killed at drag shows…this makes them ok? That’s a pretty low bar for what’s acceptable.
— little dog (@sean_polish) March 4, 2023
He also only does interviews with losers who are incapable of correctly arguing. He would have been completely wiped out by a competent debater.
— Christian Beyzad (@marginletter) March 4, 2023
Reminds me of the Bill Burr rant. “If they’re right, they’ll stick to the issue. If they’re wrong, they go rogue.”
— K245 (@AJHodgeIV) March 4, 2023
Someone tell Jon that killing children is already illegal. He seems pretty worked up about it.
— Cory Ore (@cory_ore) March 4, 2023
A lot of GOP legislators have good intentions but are painfully bad at dealing with the media/libs and their trap questions and pivots
— David “FIRE MATT CANADA" (@ThedbleoTemp) March 4, 2023
We’d never heard of this guy, but he made it onto Stewart’s show.
Here’s a longish reply to Stewart:
Ok, so let's take a look at Stewart's arguments.
1. As a preliminary note, I hate how Stewart cuts him off constantly. The game he plays is clear here, so I'm not sure why anyone agrees to these. He's good at what he does, but it's not really a fair format.
2. Out of the… https://t.co/6GfNW58p1U
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) March 3, 2023
1. As a preliminary note, I hate how Stewart cuts him off constantly. The game he plays is clear here, so I’m not sure why anyone agrees to these. He’s good at what he does, but it’s not really a fair format.
2. Out of the gates with “well regulated”. First off, that meant something entirely different in the 18th century, and secondly, as Dahm notes, the militia is “well regulated”, not the uninfringeable right of the people.
3. “I don’t want to ban guns”. I’d be shocked if Stewart doesn’t support things like AWBs, which literally are bans of some of the most popular guns.
4. Stewart argues more guns equal more gun deaths, using a common tactic of conflating suicides and homicides. On a state by state level, gun ownership rates are not correlated with homicide rate or even gun homicide rate. He keeps repeating this 50,000 gun death figure without every clarifying more than half are suicides. Wish Dahm pointed this out, but to be fair, Stewart kept cutting him off.
5. Stewart implies that the state got rid of background checks. That’s not true, you still need a background check if you buy from an FFL, as required by federal law. And he also conflates constitutional carry here, but again, that doesn’t make it legal for you to carry if you are prohibited from owning guns.
6. Stewart laughs at the idea that fatherlessness is an issue, when it’s one of the biggest predictors of crime.
7. Again, I’m having trouble squaring Stewart’s criticisms with his opening statement that he isn’t against guns. You sure John? Because your argument that cops would be safer if nobody had guns at places where cops were called to sounds pretty anti-gun. We obviously can’t know ahead of time which house police will be called to. Sometimes guns there may be a problem, other times not.
8. “Police” don’t uniformly say they want registration, a few big city PDs do. The antigun side is happy to cite police when they agree with them, but ignore the many times they don’t. Not that the police are the experts on our rights. Stewart would never defer to cops on other constitutional rights, like protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
9. Wow, he brings up microstamping. Everytown definitely briefed him on what to say. So for those that don’t know, that technology only exists in a lab setting. Even if it were a reality, all it would take for criminals to defeat it is:
– Use a revolver which doesn’t eject casings.
– File down or replace the firing pin to get rid of the stamp identifying you.
– Use a stolen gun, which is what most criminals do.
And he says cops support microstamping, when we just had a declaration in our state signed by PORAC, the biggest police org in the state, opposing it.10. Part of the reason we vehemently oppose registries is because other countries that did them use them as confiscation lists later on. And given that the gun control side loves to cite Australia and Canada, who did exactly that….
11. Everytime they bash southern states for constitutional carry, it’s worth pointing out that these high crime rates existed in the south well before constitutional carry. Of course, Stewart won’t go talk to a pro-gun State Senator from low-crime constitutional carry states like Idaho, Utah, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, etc.
12. He compares voter registration to gun registration, but omits that several of the gun control states make gun ownership WAY harder than registering to vote. If a Republican state made voter registration the exact same process as buying a gun in CA, they’d be screaming bloody murder. So sure, Stewart got his “gotcha” I guess, but he doesn’t actually want a gun registration system as easy as voter registration.
Get this guy on to debate Stewart.
***
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Related:
Jon Stewart asks Arkansas attorney general why she’s ignoring the AMA and banning ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors https://t.co/ZEZPbxPWLt
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 8, 2022
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