Does the "average American" agree with Michael Moore?

[MikeH]

Far right and far left are both scary if they involve massive limitation of personal freedoms.

[Mr. Harley]

Both groups, left and right, want to ram their concept of "unacceptable" behavior down everbody else's throat. Whether it's outlawing marijuana, abortion, homosexual relations, and sexuality outside marraige on the right, or "gun control", anti-hunting (excuse me, blood sports), or cigarette smoking on the left they all want to coerce my private behavior - please understand smoking tobacco or cannabis in places without good air circulation is the ONE exception, and at that point it's not PRIVATE, is it?!

I strongly suspect most Americans simply want to be left along, and a pox on both extremes with their agendas. The problem is that the extremes vote in disproportionately high numbers, and until the great central mass of Americans do that, especially in primaries, than we will continue to have lousy representations. Who here (in the USA) voted in the last primary?

[Solly]

Far right and far left are both scary if they involve massive limitation of personal freedoms.

I agree. That's why we shouldn't confuse the issue by calling mere right-wing and left-wing groups scary.

You don't seem to have a clue what far-right actually is. Remember the boy who cried wolf Mike.

[MikeH]

OK then. I'll refine my statement.

I find the idea that the next president might restricted personal freedoms or increased militarism more than Bush very scary.

[Solly]

1) Why do you care about the decisions made by Americans over the apparent amount of freedoms given up? (and such as?)

2) I wish Bush would sort out a few more countries, militaristically or not. How about Zimbabwe.

[Mr. Harley]

Park Avenue, why don't you go read the so called "Patriot Act." It is the biggest assault on personal freedom since WW2. This is not just my own opinion, but muliple commentators. Go ahead and read it - the sharing of info between intelligence and the police communities for criminal investigations, using warrants through a secret court that is largely unaccountable, the ability to not only go through your library records but to put in prison a librarian who shares that piece of info, charging US citizens outside of war zones (in the domestic US, the war zone bit is germane to previous Supreme Court rulings) in military tribunals that do not even follow the Unified Code of Military Conduct, etc.

The basis on whether you are placed in this shadow justice system - presidential fiat. I'm not willing to trust ANY president with that kind of power. By the way, I'm one of those who like John McCain, that communist hippy pinko . You know, the man who had the pulp beaten out of him so many times that they had to rebreak his limbs after he got out of the POW camp to restraighten them, while Mr. Chickenhawk, who scored exactly the lowest passing score (statistically very unlikely, though I'll grant it's possible) vaulted ahead of over 2000 other candidates and avoided the war. The man who ran against nation building, who f****d up the occupation of Iraq because he permitted an advisor (Rumsfeld) to make a tame intelligence group who blew off the military and CIA experts, who predicted EVERY problem we are now having, and then tried to find and muzzle the whistle blowers (that they had ignored all the advice) using, yes, you guessed it, The Patriot Act - give the man a free lobotomy. Yeah, right, I'd want him to fix my country to (I'll be just happy if the Democrats can nominate someone good enough that Bush stops sorting out OUR country).

[Solly]

I want Bush to get re-elected as his effects on me have only been positive, and it'd be good seeing all the noncy Libs get their knickers in a twist yet again.

[MikeH]

That's because you don't know that secretly he's a black woman and occasionally likes a bit of bumming.

[DinoDoc]

He's really Condi Rice!

[MikeH]

She likes bumming?

[Elok]

Well, the abortion jack seems to have faded. Doesn't matter, I suppose; I realized a while back that I oppose abortion on the grounds that I consider the personhood of a fetus self-evident, and therefore can't really effectively convince anyone who thinks otherwise. Ah well.

On to the Dubya-bashing we can all agree on!

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MikeH
She likes bumming?

Probably.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
No I don't impose my values on you. YOU are free not to practice abortion. If the anti-abortion movement has it's choice, and my wife and I discover our next child is hideously deformed, then we are the individuals who will not have a choice. A red herring, and also the argument of a fanatic - someone is imposing their values on you by refusing to subscribe to your beliefs.

Societal values determine our laws i.e. as a group we decide what behaviours we will and will not accept. Some of those laws will clearly restrict some individual choices.

For me the question is whether the benefit to society, as a whole, justifys the restriction of choice. I am not free to kill the moron who is driving at 30mph in a 50 zone. As a group, we have decided that the benefits to society by restricting murder is more important than the loss of individual choice. On the other hand, we have the right to free speech which allows the Nazi's to have parades etc. In that case the individual choice is deemed more important than any presumed benefits to the society.


For now, the abortion question favors the choice of (one of) the individual(s) over society. Personally, I think that's a mistake. There are undervalued societal costs to abortion, as it is abused now, that go beyond the personal benefits to any individuals.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Elok
Well, the abortion jack seems to have faded. Doesn't matter, I suppose; I realized a while back that I oppose abortion on the grounds that I consider the personhood of a fetus self-evident, and therefore can't really effectively convince anyone who thinks otherwise. Ah well.

On to the Dubya-bashing we can all agree on!

You spoke too soon

Although my post can be modified to include the cost/benefit to society of the governments actions.

[SpencerH]

Back on topic

I would guess that the most american's agree with some of his crap and most disagree some of his crap. I havent seen much I agree with, but I havent seen it all, and I have agreed with a bit (but I'm not american).