Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush

[Timber Loftis]

Well, if that's all you want -- of course a gun's purpose is to injure.

Now, that's not as simple as it sounds. When you shoot a home intruder with a gun, you are not so concerned with killing them as you are with making them sit their ass on the ground, for instance. The point isn't to hurt them, but to stop them.

Nevertheless, weapons are weapons.

[Stratos]

Sorry Cerek, but a gun is a weapon and is as such designed to kill people or animals. Even if you haven't fired a single bullet against someone, it doesn't change the nature of it. Just because you just having fun with a gun, doesn't make it less of a weapon.

Target practice is fun, I agree, but you're still using an item designed to kill while doing it.

[Faceman]

Thank you guys, but you know I want one more thing from you (EVIL )
I want you to stop comparing guns to cars in the future and get to the bottom of the argument.
"I own a gun because I want to and because I live in a free country"
I have seen in many a discussion that the comparing of guns with hammers has seriously hampered the point of the pro-gun side. It worked on me for a long time.
I was all for banning guns and the abovementioned gun-car analogy just made the gun lobby sound more ridiculous to me.
Just recently I started to understand that this was about freedom of choice and about the fact that prohibition has never worked. Sadly I had to find out myself and was not handed this simple but convincing argument by someone else.

[ 05-14-2004, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Faceman ]

[Timber Loftis]

The "simple convincing" argument is the one that you buy, not necessarily the one that's simple or convincing, right?

There are arguments that prohibition works -- look to homicide rates, and gun homicide rates. However, this wraps back around to the gun/car analogy. It's not a good analogy based on the fact that you can use a car to kill someone -- as you say, that's an inconvincing argument. However, where the analogy applies is that both guns and cars are useful tools, but carry a social cost (lives lost). In each instance, I feel the tool is worth the social cost -- the utility outweighs the "collateral damage." So, there are fair comparrisons of guns and cars, just not the ones you often see. IMO.

[Night Stalker]

Originally posted by Faceman: Thank you guys, but you know I want one more thing from you (EVIL ) I want you to stop comparing guns to cars in the future and get to the bottom of the argument. "I own a gun because I want to and because I live in a free country" I have seen in many a discussion that the comparing of guns with hammers has seriously hampered the point of the pro-gun side. It worked on me for a long time. I was all for banning guns and the abovementioned gun-car analogy just made the gun lobby sound more ridiculous to me. Just recently I started to understand that this was about freedom of choice and about the fact that prohibition has never worked. Sadly I had to find out myself and was not handed this simple but convincing argument by someone else.

No prob Faceman. I am glad that you came to a new understanding of the issue and came to your own oppinion based on that new understanding.

I would like to add to your point though:
"I believe in the Right to bear Arms because I live in a free country ..... and wish to continue doing so. I understand that those that protect me may not always have benevolent intrests in me, and weapons are one of the tools available to me to help me protect myself."

You may think the comparison of firearms to cars or chainsaws or fertilizer silly, but I find arguements rooted in fear and emotion just as silly. And you are right, the comarison is silly, but it makes a point that there are many things that cause death and injury (reguardless of intent of purpose) and to outlaw one thing that has a useful purpose (firearms) just because it causes death and destruction is as silly as outlawing any other thing. It brings you back to the point that a tool is a tool and only the hand that holds it has any malice in it.

It also leads to the point that bad things can accidentally happen to good people sometimes, and there is nothing to blame for it either.

[Faceman]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: The "simple convincing" argument is the one that you buy, not necessarily the one that's simple or convincing, right?

Actually it was so simple that I didn't have to buy it, but made it myself

Originally posted by Night Stalker: I would like to add to your point though: "I believe in the Right to bear Arms because I live in a free country ..... and wish to continue doing so. I understand that those that protect me may not always have benevolent intrests in me, and weapons are one of the tools available to me to help me protect myself."

This is less simple but more true [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]
Again, this is an honest (and thus convincing) argument instead of the evasive "You're kinda right, but guns aren't that bad". This is exactly what I was getting at. State your opinion and don't budge. Discuss the facts and acknowledge the difference of opinions, but don't discuss the validity of opinions.

[John D Harris]

I own guns cause I can, the founders of my Nation said it was a right to keep and bear arms, so I decide to exercise my right. I shoot my guns cause I like it, and I want to remain good at hitting what I aim at, you're danm right it's a weapon designed to kill or injure(as if there is any other kind of WEAPON). If I ever have to use it as such, I want to do so the best I can, and put down what I am aiming at as quickly as I can.

[shamrock_uk]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...lm/3722769.stm

The first review of this new film I've seen. Seems to take a fairly sceptical approach. Having just watched a feature on the premiere, it looks like it went down extremely well with all the critics.

And just stumbled across a summary of his speech at Cannes:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...lm/3720569.stm

[ 05-17-2004, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Faceman: Discuss the facts and acknowledge the difference of opinions, but don't discuss the validity of opinions.

LORDY LORDY LORDY Faceman Don't discuss the validity of opinions here on good Ole IWCE, Where the "Hale" have you been?

That's damn near all that is discussed, not the facts, but the opinion of the facts. As if fact needs/requires/demands the exceptance/approval/acknowledgment of anyone's opinion to exist.

[Memnoch]

Anyway. Let's bring this back on topic - Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore looks like he's loaded for bear.



Moore turns up heat on White House
By Charlotte Higgins in Cannes
May 18, 2004


Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is without doubt the film the Cannes film festival crowds all want to see. And with good reason, because Moore hopes it will bring down the US Government.

The American film-maker has hitherto kept a tight lid on the contents of the documentary, and said only that it includes evidence of links between the Bush and bin Laden families.

However, in two appearances in Cannes at the weekend before its premiere yesterday, he revealed that the movie contains shocking footage from Iraq.

He said: "When you see the movie you will see things you have never seen before. You will learn things you have never known before.

"Half the movie is about Iraq. We were able to get film crews embedded with American troops without them knowing that it was Michael Moore. They are totally f---ed.

"The film is only partly to do with the bin Ladens and Bush. I was able to send three different freelance film crews to Iraq. Soldiers had written to me to express their disillusionment with the war. It's a case of our own troops not being in support of their commander-in-chief," Moore said on Saturday.

Reactions at the few low-key preview screenings that have already taken place in the midwest were "overwhelming".

He added: "People who were on the fence - undecided voters - suddenly weren't on the fence any more."

Moore was enthusiastic about doing everything in his power to help defeat President George Bush in the election in November.

"We thought, 'We cannot leave this to the Democrats this time to f--k it up and lose'." He wanted to "inspire people to get up and vote in November".

Moore said the film was also a tool that would inspire US voters to remove "the dumbest man who ever ran for the presidency" and overturn foreign policies that had created "a lot of havoc in the world".

He alleged that the White House was behind a campaign to stop the film from being distributed in the US before the election. An unnamed senior Republican politician, "someone connected to the White House", telephoned companies that bankrolled the film to get them to drop their commitments to it, he said.

The Disney corporation has reneged on a distribution deal for the film.

He vowed that Americans would see the documentary soon.

"I want this film out and I want it out this summer. After, I'll have things to say," he said.

Moore's position has not met with universal sympathy. A piece in the Los Angeles Times last week accused his last film, Bowling for Columbine, of being "a torrent of partial truths, pointed omissions and deliberate misimpressions".

He said he was prepared for a backlash by some Americans, but claimed he was "the most patriotic American" because he believes in the US's founding principles.

"One of those principles is that you do not invade another country that is not invading you.

"Only people who are un-American would cover up the torture and abuse in Iraq."

Moore is planning films "on the Israelis and Palestinians, and the oil industry and lack of oil we are going to be faced with".

Agence France Presse, The Guardian

Source: www.smh.com.au


[ 05-18-2004, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]