This is my new favorite thing. Freddie Hayek in da house...
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
The 'Hammer
Charles Krauthammer has a withering take on the Obama administration's glaring missteps in fighting terrorism.
Here are some highlights:
The real scandal surrounding the failed Christmas Day airline bombing was not the fact that a terrorist got on a plane — that can happen to any administration, as it surely did to the Bush administration — but what happened afterward when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was captured and came under the full control of the U.S. government.
...
[I]n the very first week of his presidency, Obama abolished by executive order the Bush-Cheney interrogation procedures and pledged to study a substitute mechanism. In August, the administration announced the establishment of the HIG [High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group], housed in the FBI but overseen by the National Security Council.
Where was it during the Abdulmutallab case? Not available, admitted National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, because it had only been conceived for use abroad. Had not one person in this vast administration of highly nuanced sophisticates considered the possibility of a terror attack on American soil?
It gets worse. Blair later had to explain that the HIG was not deployed because it does not yet exist. After a year! I suppose this administration was so busy deploying scores of the country’s best lawyerly minds on finding the most rapid way to release Gitmo miscreants that it could not be bothered to establish a single operational HIG team to interrogate at-large miscreants with actionable intelligence that might save American lives.
Travesties of this magnitude are not lost on the American people.
Here are some highlights:
The real scandal surrounding the failed Christmas Day airline bombing was not the fact that a terrorist got on a plane — that can happen to any administration, as it surely did to the Bush administration — but what happened afterward when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was captured and came under the full control of the U.S. government.
...
[I]n the very first week of his presidency, Obama abolished by executive order the Bush-Cheney interrogation procedures and pledged to study a substitute mechanism. In August, the administration announced the establishment of the HIG [High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group], housed in the FBI but overseen by the National Security Council.
Where was it during the Abdulmutallab case? Not available, admitted National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, because it had only been conceived for use abroad. Had not one person in this vast administration of highly nuanced sophisticates considered the possibility of a terror attack on American soil?
It gets worse. Blair later had to explain that the HIG was not deployed because it does not yet exist. After a year! I suppose this administration was so busy deploying scores of the country’s best lawyerly minds on finding the most rapid way to release Gitmo miscreants that it could not be bothered to establish a single operational HIG team to interrogate at-large miscreants with actionable intelligence that might save American lives.
Travesties of this magnitude are not lost on the American people.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
"With All Due Deference to Separation of Powers..."
This moment from the State of the Union was a bit unsettling. I suppose it isn't technically prohibited for a sitting President (or in this case, a standing one...zing!) to put enormous political pressure on the Supreme Court in front of the entire nation. But the whole thing just seems profoundly at odds with the American reverence for the separation of powers. Y'know...checks and balances and all that.
I know this goes without saying, but if Bush had done this...oh my goodness. All over the country the dreadlocked, Che-wearing college sophomores would be apoplectic. The cries of "Fascism!" would be deafening.
And it was also just in poor taste. Ungraceful. I'm surprised Obama didn't immediately turn to the Joint Chiefs and say, "And these guys over here are incompetent too! They have no idea how to win a war."
The video is below.
*****
Update:
A lot of conservative commentators are pulling back from criticizing the president too harshly on this. They argue that it's perfectly acceptable for certain branches of our government to take shots at the other branches. After all, they say, presidents constantly criticize the legislature - so why not also the Supreme Court? If the branches of our government are truly separate, such tensions are to be expected, right?
I agree. I have no problem with the President's remarks per se, I just have a problem with the setting. I'm a huge fan of free speech, but I'm also a fan of tactfulness. Obama's remarks put the Court in a very uncomfortable position. The Justices' dignity forced them to sit calmly and take the President's undignified (and provably false) attack. And not all of them succeeded in restraining themselves.
Here's what made the situation so uncomfortable: Presidents and lawmakers - unlike the judiciary - are political creatures. The nature of their position makes toe-to-toe criticism of the other branches a healthy expression of independence. But the Court, unlike the Congress and the President, is not a democratic entity.
During the President's address, why does the Court sit silently while the Congress raucously approves or disapproves of presidential statements? Because it's important for the Court to be not only independent, but also impartial. If the Court were to applaud it would, in the eyes of the public, undermine their impartiality.
This sort of in-your-face criticism of the Court from the President has the same detrimental effect. It subjects the court to political pressure - right in front of the entire country. And look what it caused: By not respecting the impartiality of the Court, Obama struck a nerve with Alito, who then showed his own disapproval with Obama. The result for most Americans is a diminished view of the impartiality of the Court.
Now, I tend to think the Court is far too insulated from the political process anyway. But I think as long as our system claims to except judges from overt political pressure, the President should follow suit. Obama is, of course, free to criticize the Court, but it would be more tasteful and more consistent with our national character for him to do so in a non-confrontational setting (and ideally, with a measure of honesty).
I know this goes without saying, but if Bush had done this...oh my goodness. All over the country the dreadlocked, Che-wearing college sophomores would be apoplectic. The cries of "Fascism!" would be deafening.
And it was also just in poor taste. Ungraceful. I'm surprised Obama didn't immediately turn to the Joint Chiefs and say, "And these guys over here are incompetent too! They have no idea how to win a war."
The video is below.
*****
Update:
A lot of conservative commentators are pulling back from criticizing the president too harshly on this. They argue that it's perfectly acceptable for certain branches of our government to take shots at the other branches. After all, they say, presidents constantly criticize the legislature - so why not also the Supreme Court? If the branches of our government are truly separate, such tensions are to be expected, right?
I agree. I have no problem with the President's remarks per se, I just have a problem with the setting. I'm a huge fan of free speech, but I'm also a fan of tactfulness. Obama's remarks put the Court in a very uncomfortable position. The Justices' dignity forced them to sit calmly and take the President's undignified (and provably false) attack. And not all of them succeeded in restraining themselves.
Here's what made the situation so uncomfortable: Presidents and lawmakers - unlike the judiciary - are political creatures. The nature of their position makes toe-to-toe criticism of the other branches a healthy expression of independence. But the Court, unlike the Congress and the President, is not a democratic entity.
During the President's address, why does the Court sit silently while the Congress raucously approves or disapproves of presidential statements? Because it's important for the Court to be not only independent, but also impartial. If the Court were to applaud it would, in the eyes of the public, undermine their impartiality.
This sort of in-your-face criticism of the Court from the President has the same detrimental effect. It subjects the court to political pressure - right in front of the entire country. And look what it caused: By not respecting the impartiality of the Court, Obama struck a nerve with Alito, who then showed his own disapproval with Obama. The result for most Americans is a diminished view of the impartiality of the Court.
Now, I tend to think the Court is far too insulated from the political process anyway. But I think as long as our system claims to except judges from overt political pressure, the President should follow suit. Obama is, of course, free to criticize the Court, but it would be more tasteful and more consistent with our national character for him to do so in a non-confrontational setting (and ideally, with a measure of honesty).
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Citizens United v. FEC
A friend asked for my opinion of the recent Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v. FEC. I thought I might as well post my response here.
*****
The Supreme Court decision - whether I think it's good or bad - is correct. You'll notice that most criticism of it from the Left focuses on the effect of the decision (Corporations will eat our babies!!!), rather than the constitutional arguments involved. That's because the bill clearly violates the First Amendment by making political speech illegal.
The only argument to the contrary is that freedom of speech is a fundamental right of individuals, but not of corporations. And that's what the dissent tries to argue. But Scalia takes the argument apart in his concurring opinion. You really should read it here, starting at about page 79.
For one thing, he makes the point that if freedom of speech doesn't extend to groups, then neither would freedom of the press - mentioned three words later in the same Amendment. By the dissent's logic, people individually could write and publish whatever they want, but if they join together with others to form a newspaper or magazine - then the Congress can censor them at will. That's clearly wrong. Fundamental rights, if they're worth anything, must exist in both individual and corporate contexts.
Here's how he sums up his argument, and the court's holding:
The dissent says that when the Framers "constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind." That is no doubt true. ... But the individual person’s right to speak includes the right to speak in association with other individual persons. Surely the dissent does not believe that speech by the Republican Party or the Democratic Party can be censored because it is not the speech of “an individual American.” It is the speech of many individual Americans, who have associated in a common cause, giving the leadership of the party the right to speak on their behalf. The association of individuals in a business corporation is no different—or at least it cannot be denied the right to speak on the simplistic ground that it is not “an individual American.”
...
The Amendment is written in terms of “speech,” not speakers. Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker, from single individuals to partnerships of individuals, to unincorporated associations of individuals, to incorporated associations of individuals—and the dissent offers no evidence about the original meaning of the text to support any such exclusion.
So basically, the court rightly overturned a recent precedent to make the law conform to the First Amendment again. And liberals are in the unfortunate position of supporting government censorship of political speech because it would solidify their power. Ouch.
*****
The Supreme Court decision - whether I think it's good or bad - is correct. You'll notice that most criticism of it from the Left focuses on the effect of the decision (Corporations will eat our babies!!!), rather than the constitutional arguments involved. That's because the bill clearly violates the First Amendment by making political speech illegal.
The only argument to the contrary is that freedom of speech is a fundamental right of individuals, but not of corporations. And that's what the dissent tries to argue. But Scalia takes the argument apart in his concurring opinion. You really should read it here, starting at about page 79.
For one thing, he makes the point that if freedom of speech doesn't extend to groups, then neither would freedom of the press - mentioned three words later in the same Amendment. By the dissent's logic, people individually could write and publish whatever they want, but if they join together with others to form a newspaper or magazine - then the Congress can censor them at will. That's clearly wrong. Fundamental rights, if they're worth anything, must exist in both individual and corporate contexts.
Here's how he sums up his argument, and the court's holding:
The dissent says that when the Framers "constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind." That is no doubt true. ... But the individual person’s right to speak includes the right to speak in association with other individual persons. Surely the dissent does not believe that speech by the Republican Party or the Democratic Party can be censored because it is not the speech of “an individual American.” It is the speech of many individual Americans, who have associated in a common cause, giving the leadership of the party the right to speak on their behalf. The association of individuals in a business corporation is no different—or at least it cannot be denied the right to speak on the simplistic ground that it is not “an individual American.”
...
The Amendment is written in terms of “speech,” not speakers. Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker, from single individuals to partnerships of individuals, to unincorporated associations of individuals, to incorporated associations of individuals—and the dissent offers no evidence about the original meaning of the text to support any such exclusion.
So basically, the court rightly overturned a recent precedent to make the law conform to the First Amendment again. And liberals are in the unfortunate position of supporting government censorship of political speech because it would solidify their power. Ouch.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Quote of the Day
"Keep Hope alive, particularly if Hope is the name of a very cute puppy and not some ill-defined abstraction that is in fact code for big government."
Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Thursday, January 21, 2010
"Failed Policies of the Past"
I love it when people point to the current state of the American economy as evidence that Capitalism has somehow failed. This, of course, wrongly assumes that the United States is a purely capitalist society. But if that's the case, why are we currently ranked 9th in the world in economic freedom?
According to the Heritage Foundation, our economy is "mostly free." I think our current economic crisis is primarily attributable to the "mostly" part, while our historically unprecedented prosperity is a direct result of the "free" part.
According to the Heritage Foundation, our economy is "mostly free." I think our current economic crisis is primarily attributable to the "mostly" part, while our historically unprecedented prosperity is a direct result of the "free" part.
Not so Fast, Himalayan Glaciers
The surprising thing about this article isn't that the global warming doomsday alarmists were completely unscientific and wrong - it's that they won the freaking Nobel Prize for this nonsense.
Seriously, between Obama and these jokers, does the Nobel Peace Prize panel have any more objective value than the average MSNBC opinion host?
This is my favorite part:
Despite the controversy, the IPCC said that it stood by its overall conclusions about glacier loss this century in big mountain ranges including the Himalayas. “This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment,” it said.
Oh, why would anyone ever doubt the "underlying science"?
Seriously, between Obama and these jokers, does the Nobel Peace Prize panel have any more objective value than the average MSNBC opinion host?
This is my favorite part:
Despite the controversy, the IPCC said that it stood by its overall conclusions about glacier loss this century in big mountain ranges including the Himalayas. “This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment,” it said.
Oh, why would anyone ever doubt the "underlying science"?
Friday, January 15, 2010
Armed "Services"
This is an interesting take that I had never really considered. Our military, whatever it's other intended uses, is the most organized and quickly-deployable humanitarian force in the world. Without it, chaotic regions (like Haiti) would be too disorganized and dangerous for civilian aid organizations to operate effectively.
Clearly, people who favor reduced spending on our military want impoverished Haitians to die.
Just kidding.
*****
Proud of My Country: Observations on the Cataclysm in Haiti
by Mona Charen
As I write, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and half a dozen other U.S. Navy ships are steaming toward Haiti. They will join some 900 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division in providing emergency aid. Twenty-two hundred Marines will also be on hand.
We don’t maintain the world’s largest military to provide humanitarian relief. But those who disdain our military power may want to say a private prayer of thanksgiving that we make the sacrifices to maintain it — if only because in cases such as this, there is no substitute for a military response. After the 2004 tsunami, when ports and roads were destroyed, the U.S. deployed 15,000 troops, a carrier task force, and a Marine expeditionary force. This flotilla supervised the delivery of tents, water, food, medicine, and other supplies to Indonesia and Thailand before any other aid could arrive. The chief of naval operations at the time, Adm. Mike Mullen, noted with justifiable pride: “We literally built a city at sea for no other purpose than to serve the needs of other people.”
The following year, the U.S. military deployed similar aid to Pakistan after an earthquake, to Bangladesh following a cyclone, and to the Gulf coast after Katrina....
Clearly, people who favor reduced spending on our military want impoverished Haitians to die.
Just kidding.
*****
Proud of My Country: Observations on the Cataclysm in Haiti
by Mona Charen
As I write, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and half a dozen other U.S. Navy ships are steaming toward Haiti. They will join some 900 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division in providing emergency aid. Twenty-two hundred Marines will also be on hand.
We don’t maintain the world’s largest military to provide humanitarian relief. But those who disdain our military power may want to say a private prayer of thanksgiving that we make the sacrifices to maintain it — if only because in cases such as this, there is no substitute for a military response. After the 2004 tsunami, when ports and roads were destroyed, the U.S. deployed 15,000 troops, a carrier task force, and a Marine expeditionary force. This flotilla supervised the delivery of tents, water, food, medicine, and other supplies to Indonesia and Thailand before any other aid could arrive. The chief of naval operations at the time, Adm. Mike Mullen, noted with justifiable pride: “We literally built a city at sea for no other purpose than to serve the needs of other people.”
The following year, the U.S. military deployed similar aid to Pakistan after an earthquake, to Bangladesh following a cyclone, and to the Gulf coast after Katrina....
You're no Pat Robertson, Danny Glover
I'm sure the outcry over this will be equally as intense as the response to Robertson. This sentence from the report is priceless:
His obscene opinion would be bigger news if Glover had – in the manner of others – idiotically blamed a less-fashionable deity.
He's getting too old for this s***.
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
His obscene opinion would be bigger news if Glover had – in the manner of others – idiotically blamed a less-fashionable deity.
He's getting too old for this s***.
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Pat Robertson
I think it's very important for Christians to realize precisely why Pat Robertson's words on Haiti were wrong.
There's a lot of sneering going on in the media, basically implying that his sheer religiosity amounts to insanity. This reaction is as irrational and misguided as Robertson's, if not more so. The problem with Robertson's claim isn't that it asserts the existence of a very real God who is active in the world and in the lives of individuals. Rather, the flaw with his argument is that it reflects a skewed conception of the role of suffering in Christian theology.
This article by Peter Wehner of NRO explains beautifully the danger of Robertson's overly simplistic theological view that righteousness leads to temporal reward while immorality leads to temporal suffering. He points out that the suffering of innocents is central to the claims of Christian theology, and Robertson's view is fundamentally at odds with this reality.
*****
UPDATE: Here's more great insight from Mike Potemra.
There's a lot of sneering going on in the media, basically implying that his sheer religiosity amounts to insanity. This reaction is as irrational and misguided as Robertson's, if not more so. The problem with Robertson's claim isn't that it asserts the existence of a very real God who is active in the world and in the lives of individuals. Rather, the flaw with his argument is that it reflects a skewed conception of the role of suffering in Christian theology.
This article by Peter Wehner of NRO explains beautifully the danger of Robertson's overly simplistic theological view that righteousness leads to temporal reward while immorality leads to temporal suffering. He points out that the suffering of innocents is central to the claims of Christian theology, and Robertson's view is fundamentally at odds with this reality.
*****
UPDATE: Here's more great insight from Mike Potemra.
Why not?
Why can't someone who is Catholic (or more generally, simply Christian) support abortion rights? Well, this is why.
*****
In a recent interview with Eleanor Clift in Newsweek magazine (Dec. 21, 2009), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked about her disagreements with the United States Catholic bishops concerning Church teaching. Speaker Pelosi replied, in part: “[...]I feel what I was raised to believe is consistent with what I profess, and that we are all endowed with a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And that women should have the opportunity to exercise their free will.”
Embodied in that statement are some fundamental misconceptions about Catholic teaching on human freedom....
Catholic teaching on free will recognizes that God has given men and women the capacity to choose good or evil in their lives....
However, human freedom does not legitimate bad moral choices, nor does it justify a stance that all moral choices are good if they are free....
It is entirely incompatible with Catholic teaching to conclude that our freedom of will justifies choices that are radically contrary to the Gospel.... Freedom of will is the capacity to act with moral responsibility; it is not the ability to determine arbitrarily what constitutes moral right.
While we deeply respect the freedom of our fellow citizens, we nevertheless are profoundly convinced that free will cannot be cited as justification for society to allow moral choices that strike at the most fundamental rights of others. Such a choice is abortion, which constitutes the taking of innocent human life, and cannot be justified by any Catholic notion of freedom.
- Archbishop George H. Niederauer
*****
In a recent interview with Eleanor Clift in Newsweek magazine (Dec. 21, 2009), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked about her disagreements with the United States Catholic bishops concerning Church teaching. Speaker Pelosi replied, in part: “[...]I feel what I was raised to believe is consistent with what I profess, and that we are all endowed with a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And that women should have the opportunity to exercise their free will.”
Embodied in that statement are some fundamental misconceptions about Catholic teaching on human freedom....
Catholic teaching on free will recognizes that God has given men and women the capacity to choose good or evil in their lives....
However, human freedom does not legitimate bad moral choices, nor does it justify a stance that all moral choices are good if they are free....
It is entirely incompatible with Catholic teaching to conclude that our freedom of will justifies choices that are radically contrary to the Gospel.... Freedom of will is the capacity to act with moral responsibility; it is not the ability to determine arbitrarily what constitutes moral right.
While we deeply respect the freedom of our fellow citizens, we nevertheless are profoundly convinced that free will cannot be cited as justification for society to allow moral choices that strike at the most fundamental rights of others. Such a choice is abortion, which constitutes the taking of innocent human life, and cannot be justified by any Catholic notion of freedom.
- Archbishop George H. Niederauer
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
"Osama bin Laden: The Che Guevara of the East"
This is the title of a book written by the wife of the suicide bomber that killed 7 CIA employees in Afghanistan.
I really just can't think of a more fantastic analogy. It isn't really accurate, ideologically speaking, but it will make me snicker every time I walk into a Starbucks and see an upper-middle class, dreadlocked college sophomore reading Nietzsche while proudly sporting his Che shirt as evidence of his open-mindedness and intellectual sophistication. Not that I didn't already have good reason to laugh at that guy, but whatever.
I really just can't think of a more fantastic analogy. It isn't really accurate, ideologically speaking, but it will make me snicker every time I walk into a Starbucks and see an upper-middle class, dreadlocked college sophomore reading Nietzsche while proudly sporting his Che shirt as evidence of his open-mindedness and intellectual sophistication. Not that I didn't already have good reason to laugh at that guy, but whatever.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Coulter on Christianity
Ann Coulter's column this week is worth reading. I completely agree with her that the response among media elites to Brit Hume's advice for Tiger Woods has been bizarre. I'm constantly amazed that journalists - presumably educated people - can be so brazenly ignorant of Christian theology and completely unequipped to discuss it intelligently. I understand how it happens of course, but it's still just inexcusable.
This also raises a question: Why do elites (intellectuals, journalists, etc.) tend to be irreligious? It's well established that societies become less religious as they become more educated, and people who like to feel smart often assume this happens because education somehow "disproves" religion. They believe that religion is a crutch to be cast away once the mind is strong enough to reject irrationality. But I think this is clearly wrong.
Education is not the enemy of religious conviction. Vanity is. "The smartest people in the room" are less likely to be religious precisely because they enjoy being "the smartest people in the room." Their intelligence doesn't bar the acceptance of religious claims, their self-conceit does. Religious devotion (and particularly Christian devotion) requires a healthy dose of humility - which is wholly inconsistent with feelings of intellectual or moral superiority.
In other words, any correlation between education and non-religiosity exists, in my opinion, only because education and self-conceit fit together so nicely - and self-conceit is the natural enemy of religious devotion. It's impossible for someone to be too smart to believe in God, but very tempting to decide that such a belief is intellectually beneath you. And I think this describes most modern secularists.
This also raises a question: Why do elites (intellectuals, journalists, etc.) tend to be irreligious? It's well established that societies become less religious as they become more educated, and people who like to feel smart often assume this happens because education somehow "disproves" religion. They believe that religion is a crutch to be cast away once the mind is strong enough to reject irrationality. But I think this is clearly wrong.
Education is not the enemy of religious conviction. Vanity is. "The smartest people in the room" are less likely to be religious precisely because they enjoy being "the smartest people in the room." Their intelligence doesn't bar the acceptance of religious claims, their self-conceit does. Religious devotion (and particularly Christian devotion) requires a healthy dose of humility - which is wholly inconsistent with feelings of intellectual or moral superiority.
In other words, any correlation between education and non-religiosity exists, in my opinion, only because education and self-conceit fit together so nicely - and self-conceit is the natural enemy of religious devotion. It's impossible for someone to be too smart to believe in God, but very tempting to decide that such a belief is intellectually beneath you. And I think this describes most modern secularists.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Soft Despotism
Brit Hume Endorses Christianity for Tiger
Does this bother you? If so, why?
I can't imagine how any Christian could do anything other than heartily support the statement. I also can't imagine how any non-Christian dedicated to free and open societies could find anything offensive in the remark. And yet, I see things like this Olbermann interview where it's just arrogantly assumed that "smart people" know this sort of talk is unacceptable.
What country is this?
*****
UPDATE:
Ramesh Ponnuru addresses possible objections to Hume's comments over at The Washington Post and easily dispenses with each of them.
I can't imagine how any Christian could do anything other than heartily support the statement. I also can't imagine how any non-Christian dedicated to free and open societies could find anything offensive in the remark. And yet, I see things like this Olbermann interview where it's just arrogantly assumed that "smart people" know this sort of talk is unacceptable.
What country is this?
*****
UPDATE:
Ramesh Ponnuru addresses possible objections to Hume's comments over at The Washington Post and easily dispenses with each of them.
Goldberg on Avatar
Jonah Goldberg offers a very interesting take on Avatar. I had many of the same thoughts after watching the movie.
As a cinematic experience, it's not bad. Actually, I really enjoyed it. But as a story, it's utterly predictable, condescending, and preachy. If you haven't seen it yet, you can get essentially the same experience by Netflixing Dances With Wolves (great movie) along with some Disney-ish enviro-propaganda (Fern Gully or Pocahontas should suffice) and tapping yourself lightly on the forehead with a ball-peen hammer to simulate the effect of 3-D (I'm just being silly here. The 3-D was wicked cool and didn't make me nauseous at all).
I agree with Goldberg - the movie's preachiness doesn't bother me per se; it just made the story so much weaker than it had to be. Look, I'm preachy and I like preachy things (at least when I agree with the message). I just think it's strange that popular culture fails to acknowledge that movies written like this are the film equivalent of contemporary Christian music for Whole Foods shoppers that hate Sarah Palin. (To clarify: I like contemporary Christian music, but I'm willing to bet that many who sing the praises of movies like Avatar would find such music cheesy and shallow - too message-driven to be taken seriously as music.) It just proves that most people aren't as offended by public proselytizing as they pretend to be - they're just offended by certain messages.
*****
UPDATE: Goldberg has written another post examining the claim from some on the left that Avatar's popularity proves that Americans really do like left-leaning movies.
Goldberg responds:
Look, I enjoyed the movie. But Goldstein's line how Avatar turns conservative complaints on their head is really bizarre. He recounts a long list of explicitly left-wing movies that bombed, but says all that doesn't matter because people are flocking to see Avatar. Never mind [that] very, very few people are going to see Avatar because of its political content. Meanwhile, conservatives are "prickly" and "partisan sloganeers" for noticing the incredibly lame partisan sloganeering in the movie!
Let me explain something, if I may. I can't speak for every conservative who complained about Avatar, but it seems to me that most of the conservative complaints centered on the laziness of the story (a complaint that is hardly unique to right-wing critics of the film)....
The partisan stuff didn't make me angry because it took shots at Bush or Republicans. It made me angry because it was so incredibly lame.
I couldn't agree more. When we walked out I told Julie, "It was okay. The visuals were amazing, but I thought the story would be better. It was basically just Dances With Wolves with boring, two-dimensional characters."
As a cinematic experience, it's not bad. Actually, I really enjoyed it. But as a story, it's utterly predictable, condescending, and preachy. If you haven't seen it yet, you can get essentially the same experience by Netflixing Dances With Wolves (great movie) along with some Disney-ish enviro-propaganda (Fern Gully or Pocahontas should suffice) and tapping yourself lightly on the forehead with a ball-peen hammer to simulate the effect of 3-D (I'm just being silly here. The 3-D was wicked cool and didn't make me nauseous at all).
I agree with Goldberg - the movie's preachiness doesn't bother me per se; it just made the story so much weaker than it had to be. Look, I'm preachy and I like preachy things (at least when I agree with the message). I just think it's strange that popular culture fails to acknowledge that movies written like this are the film equivalent of contemporary Christian music for Whole Foods shoppers that hate Sarah Palin. (To clarify: I like contemporary Christian music, but I'm willing to bet that many who sing the praises of movies like Avatar would find such music cheesy and shallow - too message-driven to be taken seriously as music.) It just proves that most people aren't as offended by public proselytizing as they pretend to be - they're just offended by certain messages.
*****
UPDATE: Goldberg has written another post examining the claim from some on the left that Avatar's popularity proves that Americans really do like left-leaning movies.
Goldberg responds:
Look, I enjoyed the movie. But Goldstein's line how Avatar turns conservative complaints on their head is really bizarre. He recounts a long list of explicitly left-wing movies that bombed, but says all that doesn't matter because people are flocking to see Avatar. Never mind [that] very, very few people are going to see Avatar because of its political content. Meanwhile, conservatives are "prickly" and "partisan sloganeers" for noticing the incredibly lame partisan sloganeering in the movie!
Let me explain something, if I may. I can't speak for every conservative who complained about Avatar, but it seems to me that most of the conservative complaints centered on the laziness of the story (a complaint that is hardly unique to right-wing critics of the film)....
The partisan stuff didn't make me angry because it took shots at Bush or Republicans. It made me angry because it was so incredibly lame.
I couldn't agree more. When we walked out I told Julie, "It was okay. The visuals were amazing, but I thought the story would be better. It was basically just Dances With Wolves with boring, two-dimensional characters."
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