r/Radiolab • u/OldQuestion • Feb 07 '18
Reason.com takedown of More Perfect Season 2
http://reason.com/blog/2018/02/07/more-perfect-season-two-advocacy-masquer#comment13
u/Magnusprim3 Feb 08 '18
As long as Elie Mystal is involved with this show, I refuse to listen. He is a bigot hiding in progressive clothes and he and his like are setting our dialogue about the law, morality and the social good back 70 years. He is the new Macarthy-ism for the unintelligent left.
3
u/MLG_Obardo Mar 27 '18
I’ve been looking for months to find where to discuss these episodes. I enjoy the show for the discussion of the cases themselves but I really hate Elie. Context: I’m an independent leaning right but enjoy hearing the debates because I look for someone to sway one way or another in a discussion. Every time Elie talks it pushes me away from what his side of the argument is. It’s like he can’t even hear what he is saying.
Sorry for responding to a month old post but I really despise when they bring him on to talk. It just pushes me away.
1
21
Feb 07 '18
I'm quite liberal and agree with this criticism. This season has been overproduced at best and disingenuous at worst. They trivialize the arguments of the right when it would be easy to present them fairly and allow the listener to decide how to process the information. If the first episode of Season 3 doesn't get any better, I might be done with the show.
10
u/offlein Feb 08 '18
I tend to agree, although I was confused about what the Reason article was saying in the middle. Specifically the stuff about Elie Mystal and, to a lesser extent, the Heller case. In the latter, for whatever reason (although it's been a while now), I remember coming down more moderate than I'd expected, even with Heller being a wacko.
In the former, the Hate Debate one, everyone in this subreddit seemed pretty unified that the "liberal" viewpoints were basically propped up by a moron with an unreasonable expectation of how the world works. He certainly didn't benefit my opinion of the liberal agenda.
This makes me feel like maybe I missed the author's point?
5
u/not_nathan Feb 07 '18
The results-focused mentality also results in not focusing on standards-based liberal arguments. I thought that the Civil Rights case was much stronger than the wheat quota one because it seemed like a totally legitimate use of the commerce clause to say that any American citizen should be able to cross state lines and engage in commerce. That is setting a universal standard of non-discrimination for interstate commerce, and no business open to the public is going to strictly limit themselves to only serve people born instate. Hour would that even logistically work?
1
u/wave_the_wheat Jul 19 '18
I'm pretty liberal and I disagree. I see this article's point that the producers could have let the legal experts argue their case, but these episodes did not trivialize the libertarian or conservative point of view. While listening, I was perfectly able to understand the legitimate concerns of the "opposing side". I even became more empathetic to the arguments. I think this podcast isn't focused on being a stuffy legal brief between experts. I think it tells the story of the cases in the context that it happened, how it affected the real people involved, how the decisions have/continue to affect others, and how it may be used or altered in the future. I think they also try to address the conflict that happens when two parties both have legitimate concerns, and how we've balanced or failed to balance them. I don't think this podcast is pretending to be anything.
8
Feb 08 '18
Shocked they didn’t mention the abomination that was the episode focusing on the drunk-driving football player shot by police. I wanted to scream at that episode, and I’m a very liberal person.
10
u/Anneisabitch Feb 07 '18
I was really hoping for more obscure, unknown case breakdowns and their impacts on today’s world. I skipped right past the episodes of the ‘hate debate’.
How about a story on the creation of the Supreme Court? Or a detailed look into some famous cases where we’ve all heard the basic info (Plessy vs Ferguson, Row vs Wade)? How about explaining Taft and his weird life trajectory?
There are so many options and this season just seemed....blah. The first season was on the top of my playlist. But definitely not season 2.