Pat Robertson: A Little Nudity on TV Can Be OK

"The human body is not essentially nasty."

Pat Robertson, who has surprised some people by being more broad-minded about marijuana and the transgendered than you might have expected, isn't necessarily offended by a little nudity on TV:

If you're not able to watch the clip, it consists of Robertson responding to this question from a 700 Club viewer:

I have recently discovered that my pastor and his wife watch a show on cable TV that contains nudity. Even secular critics have called it pornographic. I have been unable to return to their Bible study since hearing this. Am I overeacting?

Robertson's reaction:

Yes, I think you are. You know, listen: The human body is not essentially nasty. I mean, God made us without clothes. And you look at that famous statue of David that's considered one of the masterpieces of the Renaissance, and here's David, and he doesn't have any clothes on at all. You've got the Venus de Milo and some of those others…the Sistine Chapel, Adam has got no clothes on, and that's the famous artwork of God touching Adam….

The body is not essentially pornographic, and I think to make it so is a mistake. It's what's in your mind. I don't know what your pastor's watching, what show it is. Maybe it's got some redeeming qualities. But I sure wouldn't turn him off just because he's watching a few clips of nudity on TV. I don't know what show you're talking about, some of them are real nasty…

CO-HOST: It depends on how pornographic it is.

ROBERTSON: Exactly. It's just: The human form per se isn't necessarily dirty. It's what our minds make it.

In 1985, by contrast, Robertson warned that "We're not too far away from full frontal nudity and sex acts on television." I suspect he still objects to televised "sex acts," but he seems to have come around on the nudity question.

[Via Pat Roberton's Vault, which notes that Robertson also intro'd a recent story with the line "You probably saw the blockbuster cable series Breaking Bad."]

Comments

[Steve G]

"I have been unable to return to their Bible study since hearing this"

god would be so proud to hear your dedication to him is this fuckin fragile.

[Aresen]

Maybe they just realized how pornographic the bible really is.

[SQRLSY One]

Bible, porn, Mah Holy BUTT!!! Bible ain't about fuckin', it's all about KILLIN'!!!
Our that them thar VALUES of society outta come from that them thar HOLY BIBLE, and if ya read it right, it actually says that God wants us to KILL EVERYBODY!!! Follow me through now: No one is righteous, NONE (Romans 3:10). Therefore, ALL must have done at least one thing bad, since they'd be righteous, had they never done anything bad. Well, maybe they haven't actually DONE evil, maybe they THOUGHT something bad (Matt. 5:28, thoughts can be sins). In any case, they must've broken SOME commandment, in thinking or acting, or else they'd be righteous. James 2:10 tells us that if we've broken ANY commandment, we broke them ALL. Now we can't weasel out of this by saying that the New Testament has replaced the Old Testament, because Christ said that he's come to fulfill the old law, not to destroy it (Matt. 5:17). So we MUST conclude that all are guilty of everything. And the Old Testament lists many capital offenses! There's working on Sunday. There's also making sacrifices to, or worshipping, the wrong God (Exodus 22:20, Deut. 17:2-5), or even showing contempt for the Lord's priests or judges (Deut. 17:12). All are guilty of everything, including the capital offenses. OK, so now we're finally there... God's Word COMMANDS us such that we've got to kill EVERYBODY!!!

[Dead or In Jail]

I like this new, hip Pat Robertson.

[GILMORE]

He also says this new Jazz music isn't just for reefer-fiends and negroes anymore. He's Keen!

[Francisco d Anconia]

+1 swell

[Death Rock and Skull]

http://reason.com/blog/2014/02.....nt_4297122

"by the way, DR&S = your quote of me makes a lot more sense when you include the second part, "Which is simply another way of saying, 'we [should] have no issues with Russian meddling in Ukranian affairs'."

If you feel that way, take that position and say why."

Because I am not entitled to any particular economic outcome as a result of some other people somewhere else doing specific things that I want them to do. Because interventionist "diplomatic" douchebaggery that isn't likely to be conducted with individual liberty in mind shouldn't be conducted at my expense. Because the only "best interest" regarding security is that domestic soil is protected, not whether foreign dickheads want to fight each other.

Ukrainian individuals may be entitled to control over their own lives according to libertarian principles, but that's their journey, not mine, and I shouldn't have to subsidize it.

"'non-interventionism' is something of a canard unless you also control the 'non-intervention' of all interested parties."

Non-intervention means that the government that purports to represent me doesn't intervene in foreign issues and doesn't interfere with my personal autonomy, even if other countries are interfering in their own trade and shit like that. "Best interests" is collectivist thinking.

[GILMORE]

Yes, Pat Robertson *is* more interesting now than in the 1980s.

If this post is also back where it belongs, i'll respond there...

[GILMORE]

Ok - its not.

Short, quick reply:

Believing in free trade with self-determined partners isn't precisely 'collectivist'. I fail to see how your non-interventionist view adds up to any practical 'foreign policy' at all. you'd have no criteria for discriminating between nations *at all*. I find it hard to imagine exactly how your ideas would have applied in a cold war environment where there were fairly stark lines between a 'free world' and a less appealing alternative. By your token, any behavior by the state in opposition to Soviet expansionism would have been completely verboten. Just an observation. I don't see how your 'principle' has any real practical application.

[Death Rock and Skull]

"I fail to see how your non-interventionist view adds up to any practical 'foreign policy' at all."

That's the point. Let individuals do as they please if they wish to engage in positive international interactions such as trade. Don't fucking tax me to support intervention in shit I may not give a fuck about.

"you'd have no criteria for discriminating between nations *at all*"

What for? If they haven't actually aggressed against America, then why should individual voluntary interaction with other places be restricted just because they are unpopular?

In conclusion, fuck "foreign policy" for purposes of "national interests" other than national defense.

[GILMORE]

"fuck "foreign policy" for purposes of "national interests" other than national defense"

I think you fail to appreciate that just as diplomacy is 'continuation of war by other means' (or perhaps 'war = diplomacy by *any* means necessary'), broader 'national interests' are by no means exclusive of 'national defense'. Meaning, I don't see how you arbitrarily assume you can disregard one and not the other.

The question asked was how your 'ideal' would have functioned in a cold-war environment, and what criteria you'd have had to allow for any discrimination between 'allies' and 'non-allied' nation states.

Or, put another way = how do you assume to maintain 'positive relations' with any trading partner while you are also trading with nations *actively attempting to overthrow them*?

This idea of being 'neutral' in a world of offsetting powers is as far as I can see an a-historical fantasy which has never existed in any practical sense. If you plan to trade 'with all', you are certainly going to be at war with at least 'some' on a constant basis. which is probably NOT in the best interests of anyone.

I don't want to belabor this - but as I've mentioned repeatedly in the past, I've never heard anyone articulate the 'libertarian foreign policy' which didn't ultimately require at least some minimal compromises to stated 'ideal principles'. Realpolitik and 'ideals' don't tend to make good dance-partners.

[Death Rock and Skull]

"how your 'ideal' would have functioned in a cold-war environment"

However it turned out would have been fine.

"what criteria you'd have had to allow for any discrimination between 'allies' and 'non-allied' nation states"

None.

"how do you assume to maintain 'positive relations' with any trading partner while you are also trading with nations *actively attempting to overthrow them*"

That's for the individuals conducting the trade to worry about. As I said, nobody is entitled to an outcome.

"If you plan to trade 'with all'"

No, individuals can try to trade if they wish. They are not entitled to it happening at whatever the cost of government handled "diplomacy" is.

"I've never heard anyone articulate the 'libertarian foreign policy' which didn't ultimately require at least some minimal compromises to stated 'ideal principles'"

The compromise is that if other governments restrict interactions of the people they purport to represent with the people of another place that doesn't intervene in shit, that is too bad. Tough shit. Get it?

[Death Rock and Skull]

"how do you assume to maintain 'positive relations' with any trading partner while you are also trading with nations *actively attempting to overthrow them*"

"Nations" don't trade. Individual people within them do. If some "nation" has a problem with trade happening, and takes a coercive action against someone who was trading, that is a natural risk of the individual choice to trade with a shithole. If some "nation" takes a military action against another "nation" over trade or any other reason, that is what national defense is for.

[GILMORE]

The LP 'foreign policy' dictum =

"The twin pillars of a sane foreign policy are:

(1) Building positive relationships, with an emphasis on free trade, and

(2) Avoiding negative relationships, with an emphasis on military non-intervention.

The point being made here is that these broad 'positive relationships' are inevitably unsustainable given periodic conflict between other nations.

"Everybody's casual acquaintance" is "nobody's real friend" in times of war, and depending on one's resource-wealth and potential threat if one joins with 'the enemy', one's stated 'neutrality' is an effective meaningless fiction. In those cases you'd be forced to either take NO sides, trade with no one = or suffer the ire of all.

American 'neutrality' prior to the War of 1812, or WWII, provide pretty poor examples of the practical implementation of the idea

(as does the LP lauding of European mid-late 19th Century 'free trade' - ignoring its essentially colonial nature)

And I know we all love Switzerland too, but I note = not every country is homogenous, wealthy, and surrounded by natural defenses.

Just saying. LP 'foreign policy' ideas strike me as a Grand Cake-Having AND Eating intellectual compromise, not something that actually works in a prisoner's dilemma type situation.

[Death Rock and Skull]

So what you're saying is, if America was theoretically completely libertarian and non-interventionist, while the whole rest of the world remained the way it is, then American might become defacto-isolated? I don't care. Really don't. The rest of the world can fuck itself then.

[GILMORE]

'The rest of the world can fuck itself then.'

Yeah, I know - this was your starting point.

I think you haven't quite grokked the following =

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.....overeignty

[Mint Berry Crunch]

I don't know what your pastor's watching, what show it is.

Probably Game of Thrones.

I'm nonreligious, and even I think GoT overdoes the T&A.

[MJGreen]

I want to think it's Looking.

Girls would work too. Though "Cable TV" makes me think of non-subscriber channels, so Sons of Anarchy could fit the bill. A pastor watching any of those would be pretty, pretty, pretty good.

[Mint Berry Crunch]

On second thought, maybe it's True Detective.

I can't be the only person who watched that show after hearing HBO convinced the insanely gorgeous Alexandra Daddario to finally whip them out.

[Lyle]

She whips everything out. All of it is very nice.

[Lyle]

I haven't see cock yet in Looking. Game of Thrones shows cock and balls.

[jesse.in.mb]

I just watched the first episode and I don't remember there even being ass. I was disappointed.

Also the first episode was painfully awkward.

[Agammamon]

'Skins'

[Pro Libertate]

Reading the books, then watching the series, one does notice a whole lot more sex. Like eleventy billion times more. The violence? That's about right.

[Aresen]

I actually just started reading GoT.

It's violent.

But nowhere near as violent as most of real human history.

[Pro Libertate]

That's one of the reasons I don't time travel.

[Francisco d Anconia]

There's books?

[Pro Libertate]

Novelizations, I think.

[GILMORE]

I totally have more sex watching TV

[Francisco d Anconia]

The ONLY thing that could make GoT better would be full penetration.

[Pro Libertate]

I dunno, they have a lot of stabbings. Heck, my favorite character after Tyrion got his head chopped off. Pretty penetrating if you ask me.

[Francisco d Anconia]

You better be fucking with me.

[Pro Libertate]

Yep, Ned Stark dies.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Oh, you meant:

I dunno, they have a lot of stabbings. Heck, my favorite character, after Tyrion, got his head chopped off.

You scared me.

My wife and I were debating, and I claimed Tyrion was the one character they couldn't kill off. She's not so sure.

[Pro Libertate]

Seems unlikely, as good a character as he is. I think Martin would have real trouble killing him off. Though you never know with him.

[Bobarian]

I don't know, but *small spoiler alert* not everyone who dies stays dead. So anyone is fair game.

[Pro Libertate]

Yeah, there's that, too.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Oddly, one of my favorite characters has been Arya. I think shes going to become a little bad-ass assassin this season.

What do we say to the god of death?

[Agammamon]

Ha, improper use (or non-use) of commas got you!

[playa manhattan]

The ONLY thing that could make GoT better would be full penetration.

Careful, that's a double edged sword. It might be the kind that Jesse likes.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Fair is fair, I guess. Still makes me wince.

[Mercutio]

There is no such thing as too much T&A!

[GILMORE]

"This is not your Father's Pat Robertson"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JRHZoyYpOY

[playa manhattan]

It's OK??????
I'll be in my bunk.

[OO=======D]

Hello Pat!

[Bill Dalasio]

So, the lesson from today's Hit & Run is that the girls from Wellesley are more uptight and repressed than Pat Robertson.

[110 Lean]

Pretty much.

[Killaz]

That has always been the case.

[NL_]

Religion is mostly expressive signaling. If you stop going to study, then it signals to yourself and others that you hate permissiveness and modernity because of your overarching moral stringency. If you keep going to study, then it signals to yourself and others that you are friendly, tolerant, committed to interactive religiosity, and able to integrate into modernity even when it makes you uncomfortable. Personally I think being a jerk to people over signaling is often unwarranted and dickish. It's better to go along when all it requires is you not to have an opinion on something (it's not like they're demanding people watch it, or otherwise integrating it into the bible study).

My grandparents, with a few other couples, founded a bible study, which became a congregation, which built a church, which built several expansions, and in which they were deacons (or whatever the word is) and administrators for years. And my grandma reads those trashy romance novels about ripping bodices or whatever. So if it's okay to read about sex, I think it's probably okay to see some boob flashes.

[Hugh Akston]

I'll start watching Robertson's show when he starts hosting it nude.

[jesse.in.mb]

Are you trying to make a run for Nicole's tiara?

It's the only plausible reason for putting that thought into the universe.

[110 Lean]

That's fucked up there, Hugh.

[Francisco d Anconia]

It's not the human body that's nasty.

It's those disgusting sex acts responsible for ensuring the survival of the species that's nasty. Because, God.

/PR

A step in the rights direction, perhaps, but...

...still an idiot.

[Zeb]

I think Pat would say that the sex acts are also good things that God created, but only within marriage and for the purpose of procreation.

Though I will agree that he is still an idiot. I did like to watch his show as a stoned teenager, though.

[RRiver]

Pat Robertson is a Freemason and a Zionist. He has never been into preaching because he believes what he is preaching. He has always been in it for the money, and more money. He is a false prophet, and a false teacher just like the ones that were warned about in the Bible. The money that he has taken from the elderly, the uninformed, and others believing in his false miracles is blasphemy.

As for the nudity and sex in entertainment, and such, I can't tell you the number of programs and movies I have changed the channel on because I didn't want to see it. To me it just isn't good entertainment. That is why we have went to DVR through our cable company so we can just zip right over those scenes.

I am not saying that everyone should do this, this is just my personal tastes, and what everyone else watches is their business. However, when entertainment starts broadcasting nude scenes, and sex whether it be heterosexual or homosexual during prime time, when children can watch it, I believe it is wrong.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Wow, A DVR used to zip PAST the sex/nudity scenes?

I cannot believe that.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I use mine to re-watch (and pause) them.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

Back when videotapes were a novelty we'd run porn in slo-mo reverse for hilarity.

... Hobbit

[Jon Lester]

I used to really love the frame-advance feature.

[Zeb]

Seeing how any kid can get all the nudity they can manage on the internet at any time of day, I don't think restrictions on TV content are very effective or significant anymore.

[PH2050]

However, when entertainment starts broadcasting nude scenes, and sex whether it be heterosexual or homosexual during prime time, when children can watch it, I believe it is wrong.

Because all of society needs to act as if all parents are irresponsible amirite?

[Agammamon]

. . . when entertainment starts broadcasting nude scenes, and sex whether it be heterosexual or homosexual during prime time, when children can watch it, I believe it is wrong.

1. Why are your children up that late?

2. Children can see TV *AT ALL HOURS OF THE DAY AND NIGHT*. Are you saying that nudity should be completely disallowed, 24 hours a day?

3. You can always change the channel, or even turn it off. TV viewing is not a right, so even if *every* channel chooses to be constant porn, suck it up.

4. How much violence do you allow your children to watch? Do you DVR past the rough spots also?

[Art Vandelay]

"As for the nudity and sex in entertainment, and such, I can't tell you the number of programs and movies I have changed the channel on because I didn't want to see it."

So do you strictly masturbate to magazines?

[Bobarian]

Maybe he just finishes really fast, because "Hey, whoever watches a porno flick all the way to the end?"

[Francisco d Anconia]

How do you know how it ends?

[Agammamon]

Sometimes there's a scene that closes the flick out.

[toasted]

No worries Pat. A new religion dominates today.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

SoCon Cat Fight?

Robertson recently criticized Ken Hamm after the Creation-Evolution debate, and Hamm has fired back:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/.....onism-diss

[Francisco d Anconia]

Sometimes it's hard being a libertarian.

[PH2050]

Bo, as much as I appreciate your links about "those crazy socons" from time to time, I can't help but see Robertson as a potential ally.

Disclaimer: I grew up in Virginia Beach, home to Robertson's CBN network, and grew up in a Southern Baptist/Pentacostal environment. Their obvious flaws aside, *just him saying* that marijuana might not be as bad as we've been led to believe got my fanatically religious (no exaggeration, my mother is the mother from Carrie except worse because I wasn't allowed to attend high school prom) parents to reconsider the issue and after looking more into it they now accept that it should be legalized. That led to more personal research into the alleged health benefits of wine consumption and now they drink it after being dead set against both substances for half a century or more.

Or am I a whore who will just take what he can get?

I think that what he states in this video is perfectly in line with Biblical doctrine as my take from the passage in Genesis is that Noah's shame was not due to his nakedness but primarily his level of intoxication.

[PH2050]

Lol, I wrote "penta" instead of "pente"...I blame my love of math!

[Agammamon]

I think it might have more to do with Robertson's having reached that point in a man's life where, ahem, *hand-on* access to primo titties is very limited.

[PH2050]

Funny, but my personal experience has been that there are many humans who "mellow" in their religious stances as they age and approach the expected end of their life. I still hold out hope that my religious mother will change her mind if life extension technologies become available before she dies.

I used to consider putting her body into cryonic suspension after her death but she has made it clear that it would be against her wishes. As someone who professes to hold/practice libertarian ideals I've come to realize that would be a violation of her rights and I will not pursue such a course.

[alan_s]

Has Pat Robertson had his identity stolen by a look-alike or something?

[DWC]

Yeah, well, my question is, has Pat Robertson transformed from an opportunistic, exploitive, self serving, deceitful piece of shit into something like an actual human being? Seems implausible to me, but I guess people can actually change, though I have never seen it.

[RishJoMo]

That dude jsut looks corrupt as the day is long.

http://www.Anon-Works.tk

[cheap kits]

The compromise is that if other governments restrict interactions of the people they purport to represent with the people of another place that doesn't intervene in shit, that is too bad.