It is called, I think, growing up.

I would call that becoming complacent with age.

Cry me a river, neckbeard.

I’m with Antinous.

That his actions were often better than his talk, that he attacked one shockingly treated minority by trying to champion another does not excuse his words, these or others; but Moore only let slip his prejudices in a couple of interviews and an autobiography he put out at eighty. That’s a damn sight better than most hatemongers.

As a context to the statement by the spokesman, it was in response to Moore’s comments about the way the BBC was changing to appeal to more popular tastes. It’s got to be pretty frustrating to see the budget for educational programs being cut or science programs being moved to after midnight while other programs of very little educational merit fill the schedule.

Although he said “”if I saw the entire German nation sinking into the sea, I could be relied upon to help push it down”, he also met Wernher von Braun and got on well with him. He no doubt gives von Braun an easy ride in his piece (though of course in the 1940s as an RAF Bomber Command navigator he might well have been sent on a mission to Peenemunde to try and destroy his work and kill him) but on the other hand Moore wasn’t someone who knew all the background details and yet still gave him an actual powerful position in the US rocket programmes.

Moore was anti-immigration and Little Englander but not exactly a xeonophobe – he appreciated various foreigners, from Albert Einstein to Alexei Leonov and Buzz Aldrin to Fritz Kreisler and Sergei Rachmaninov. Their foreignness and indeed ideological framework (it won’t have escaped his notice that Yuri Gagarin was used in part as a  Soviet propaganda tool) was broadly immaterial in him appreciating the things they did.

I remember on TV he was shown a photo of some long-haired rock band and shivered with distaste, until someone pointed out that one of them was his good friend Brian May.

On Moore’s very last Sky At Night on Monday one of the guests was Katherine Joy talking about Apollo moon rocks. She’s one of those people who looks like an enthusiastic 14-yo school student herself, but turns out to be a postdoctoral research fellow with the Isotope Chemistry and Cosmochemistry research group at Manchester University.

FWIW, he’s married and has three kids from a previous marriage.

I’m just saying…

Moore was a man of his age. We should all remember that before those of
us who grew up in more enlightened times seek to judge him.

That is privileged, self-serving bullshit and you should be ashamed of yourself for puking it out.  Change happened because not everyone was a worthless piece of hateful shit like Mr. Moore.  Apologists like you are the reason that garbage like him think that it’s acceptable to be hatemongers.

A BBC spokesman described Sir Patrick as being one of TV’s best-loved figures and said his “forthright” views were “what we all love about him”.

I wonder if that spokesman is currently under investigation for fucking children.

And surely, it’s important to consider what’s supposed to be wrong with “PC”. After all, much of what’s called “PC” is simply the idea that you’re really not supposed to be a dick to and about other people. Where the criticism of “PC” becomes more-or-less valid is that sometimes people imagine bias where none exists, or they get so awfully enthusiastic in denouncing the thoroughly denounceable that they insist anyone who ventures into displays of bias must be treated as a worthless nonperson for their offense. And yet, take a look at this post: Patrick Moore was unquestionably and vociferously terrible on the value of women, ethnic and sexual minorities, etcetera – but this post takes great care to remind us of the tremendous contributions he nonetheless made to our society.

Or, in a lot fewer words: you are full of it.