h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm a Libertarian, and I view societal control as an inherently flawed concept. The very notion is based on principles so skewed based on spoon-fed ideology from a pre-existing society. Banning guns won't save people. It will render the good and law abiding unarmed. That's all it will do. Criminals by definition don't obey the law. You think the subway shooter among others would have done so well if even half the people in that car were carrying pistols? I feel it's our right to defend ourselves. Some say, well if you don't like gun control, then you must think that we should be able to have biological, chemical and nuclear weapons on hand as well! That's taking it too far. Some ordinance (NBC Warfare ordinance) have no strategic value, cannot be used in revolution, or defense, and thusly, not even our military has any real use for it.

Gun control won't save us, despite what Bowling may have hinted at, inadvertantly or blatantly. Honestly, you know what tools are used to make firearms? Machinery very little or no different from common industrial machinery. Plastics molds, sheet stampers, millers, and lathes. These things are used for making all kinds of precision parts, and a firearm is a machine of precision parts. Organized criminal conspiracies and connected individuals will still have access to firearms, long after law-abiding civilians have surrendered their means to self defense, and we will be unarmed, or at least, less well armed as three bodies: The Criminals, the military, and the government. Let's face it, our founding fathers didn't want us to be directly dependant on the government for something so critical as safety. If you live in an urban area, the police take half an hour or longer to respond to a burglary call, they won't be there to bust the burglar, they'll be there to pack up your corpse. I'll be damned if I'd surrender the concept of basic safety and safeguarding of my children to individuals I don't know, trust or have any reason to trust. If I told you to leave your kids in the absolute care of a complete stranger for a day, and dismissed any concerns you had as paranoid, especially concerns for their safety, and that you needed your head examined, what would you say? If you're the sort of person who should be raising children, I hope you'd promptly tell me to go fornicate myself or to follow my own advice and get my head examined for merely suggesting that you do such a thing. Why then, should you trust others, others you don't know, haven't met, whose group record doesn't stand for them, over a period of 30 minutes or more, when death could be little more than 30 seconds away? Remember, if you're ever going to be a burglar, dead people tell a hell of a lot less to the court about you than live people.

Dude_Bob, it's a pity Mr Moore didn't get to talk to you before he made 'Bowling'. The above rant would have fitted into the film perfectly. I have this bizarre mental picture of you sitting in a classroom, shotgun at the ready, in the row behind your embarrassed kids. After all, you couldn't possibly entrust their safety to some stranger, like a 'teacher', could you? Why, the 'teacher' might even be a government employee, and thus obviously deeply sinister!

Of course guns can't be legislated out of existence. 'Bowling' doesn't suggest that. Indeed, one of its best sequences is the one in which MM vists a Canadian gun club, and then goes on to point out that gun ownership is very widespread in Canada - but that deaths from shooting in that nation are way, way less common than in the USA. The film then explores what it might be in the American national psyche that causes the (to European eyes) horrifying death toll from guns in the States. 'Bowling' suggests that a kind of conservative paranoia might be to blame.

I think you've just illustrated that mind-set superbly, Dude_Bob. Your opening two sentences: 'I'm a Libertarian, and I view societal control as an inherently flawed concept. The very notion is based on principles so skewed based on spoon-fed ideology from a pre-existing society' make no sense at all. If you believe in no 'societal control' surely that makes you an anarchist, not a libertarian? Isn't all our knowledge in some way derived from a 'pre-existing society?' As for what 'our founding fathers' might have intended, I have some shocking news for you: there are lots of people on , and on h2g2, who AREN'T AMERICAN!!! Many of us live in countries like the UK, where gun ownership is very tightly controlled. And yes, guns still exist here, and there are criminals who have them - but the average citizen of the UK (or Germany, or France, or Australia) is still far less likely to get shot than the average American.

Oh, and stop being so mean about Mr Moore's weight. In his latest book 'Dude, Where's My Country?', he mentions that he's lost 50 pounds, and he's working on the next 50. Way to go, Mike!

I agree. BFC seemed to me to be only slightly about gun control, and very much about getting people to question the purposes of the media who influence them.

Great entry, BTW.

I just hope that 'Fahrenheit 9/11' escapes the clutches of Disney. I'll be one of the first in the queue when it comes round my way!

i havn't seen the film
and i don't really have a strong opinion about gun laws
but i strongly agree Michael Moore is lame.
i read some of Stupid White Men and the basic anecdotal cynic bating huge generalisation making style of the book made me nautious. Its not so much that he's wrong, more that he has to make such a smug issue of it. i bet every time someone tries to ban something he made he feels so good inside.

Well, I'm sorry that you don't like Mike's literary style, but his book sales confirm that he communicates with an awful lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic.

Anyway, his English is certainly better than yours. 'Nautious'? I have no idea what you mean by 'basic anecdotal cynic bating', but it sounds like a rather nasty blood sport.

of course they do, there's a lot of cynics and they're easily bated





spelling is irrelivant

No, unlikely, spelling *is* relevant when the lack of it makes your meaning incomprehensible. What on do you mean by 'bated'? 'Baited' actually means 'teased' or 'insulted'. 'Bated' could be a rather quaint, old-fashioned way of saying 'angered'. Neither of these things would be likely to make someone buy a . I think the next book *you* buy should probably be a dictionary.

However, if what you mean is that the attitude in Moore's books/films etc. *appeals* to cynics, I disagree. A cynic is someone who thinks that people are always selfish and doesn't believe in any ideals or causes. Being angry about the way things are and trying to show how things could be better, as Moore does, is anything but cynical.

I agree 100% with Ormondroyd.

By the way, Dude_Bob, I'm assuming that you're American. If that's wrong, I apologise, but it seems that way because of your defense for lack of gun control.

I hope you can understand how allowing pretty much anyone who wants one to walk around with a gun seems crazy to those of us who inhabit countries with much stricter gun control.

Are you aware that gun owners are far more likely to accidently shoot a member of their family than an intruder or criminal? As you point out, sometimes this can be used in desperate situations, but surely that's the job of the police?

Actually, here in Britain, the police don't generally carry guns, unlike in the US, because there is NO NEED FOR IT. People here just don't have guns, unless they're hunters or criminals. (Big generalisation I know, but in the main, I think, true.) The same is generally true accross most of the other civilsed countries in the world, with the exception of America.

Personally, I think that allowing people to carry guns becuse of whatever amaendment it was to the Constitution is insane, because that amendment is no doubt hundreds of years old, based on a need which shouldn't exixst anymore. If people weren't allowed to carry guns, there would be no need to carry one to defend orelves from all the other people who have them.


Sorry, rant over.

hmm, sorry perhaps i should express myself more clearly. let me think.

it seems like there is a thing in society, where people spend alot of time making negative statements about issues they don't know the full facts about, pop politics maybe? its so easy to make jokes about politicians and issues and get a big laugh, not that i'm saying Moore is wrong, or even that he hasn't looked into the issues thoughrally, i'm sure he has, but the way he presents his work feeds these same tendencies. His arguments are full of little self affirming bits of humour, which inflame automatic reactions in people who already agree with him. he doesn't seem to be out to convert the people he's against, just make jokes at they're expense.

again this is just my impression, and i havn't looked into it deeply.

I agree - and please excuse me if I've just confused anyone by now having agreed to both sides of the debate... let me explain.

I agree that "the way he presents his work feeds these same tendencies," and he tends to "inflame automatic reactions in people who already agree with him". The problem is that he does it so subtly that it's hard to catch unless you're specifically trying to be objective despite any preceeding subjective ploys.
For example, the interview with Charlton Heston really annoyed me, because although Moore had already shown that media representation has a large effect on gun use, he didn't throw Heston that rope in the interview; he simply got him to contradict himself by explaining his point of view, which Heston hadn't fully contemplated.
Once he was trapped in a corner Moore just kept attacking his position without asking for Heston's thoughts on Moore's findings about the media. The only purpose it served was to make Heston look stupid, but didn't change his (Heston's) position on anything - which would have aided Moore's agenda of safer gun regulation, so essentially Moore shot himself in the foot (excuse the pun) in order to make himself seem smarter to the average viewer.
Of course, it's possible that Moore genuinely didn't realise that the 'media representation' thing was going to happen until /after/ the Heston interview (and so didn't have that rope to throw to Heston), but since he cut the movie to show in that order it doesn't seem likely.

Also I agree that in general, Moore is a force of positive change - I agree with his agenda, for the most part, but sometimes his methods undermine them. I was quite pleased by the K-mart result, too.

Moore certainly makes extensive use of scathing satire, and I appreciate that his very dry humour isn't to everyone's taste. But the phenomenal success of his books and films surely shows that his withering wit attracts a lot more people than it repels. He deals with some pretty grim subject matter, and I'm sure that it's the humour that makes it palatable to a lot of people. A deadly serious, humourless book about American politics would be unlikely to top the British best-sellers list, as both of Mr Moore's most recent books have.

I think the reason he uses humour is that he *does* want to speak to the unconverted. He definitely wants to win people over who don't yet agree with him - that's made very explicit in his books. One of the best chapters in 'Dude, Where's My Country?' is called 'How To Talk To Your Conservative Brother-in-Law'. In it, MM discusses what he considers to be the positive qualities of the typical conservative, and admits that sometimes they're right, pointing out areas where he feels the Left has gone wrong. He then talks about how to win over conservative voters to liberal policies by showing how those policies can save money and suit the conservatives' own self-interest.

...though that makes the assumption that no censervative would be reading the book doesn't it?

That's true, actually: that particular chapter does start with the assumption that the reader is probably a liberal who may have a right-wing relative they argue with. Ironically, any conservatives who *do* read it will almost certainly agree with some of it!

Yea you should definately fornicate yourself because you are a complete and utter idiot with the brains of a bath tub. MM is the greatest gift we have had in the last 50 years - putting America on trial and all those yanki wannabies on trial. Look where America has got us today - running around like headless chicken trying to avoid being bombed into oblivion and being held to ransom by Mr INVISIBLE and his cronies hiding in the mountains of god knows where. Mr MM tells it all as it is - while the rest of the movie world gives us mindless crap like Harry Potter so we can pretend to ourselves and worse our children that everything is honky dory.

Way to go Michael!.... do it again for the world.


Deltazami

on michael moore's style of writing:
i think that it is important to consider the audience for which his books are primarily intended - americans who are dissillusioned to the point of apathy about the state of their country, and who feel unable to affect any kind of change.

his approach is designed to make it easy for the man/woman in the street to relate to him and to underline the fact that the causes that he champions are not that contraversial - this is a regular guy who wants the same things as everybody - social equality, peace and a government that works for its people. i think that the injection of humour into political discussion is something that the left has just been aching for - a chance to shed the image of all liberals as being maniacal anarchists or humourless academics in ivory towers.

for those that call michael moore a 'limousine liberal', i'd like to refer you to this site:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/dudewheresmycountry/taxcut/index.php


and on the right to bear arms, so often cited as a constitutional freedom, i believe henry rollins said it best:

...you'll always know the mark of a coward - a coward hides behind freedom. a brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others.

if you are anti-gun control on the grounds that the world that you and your children live in is unsafe, then do something to fix the world you live in - as michael moore (and countless others) are currently doing

I agree completely.

replying to a post from 2004... (I know. Zombie thread resurrected...)

"Actually, here in Britain, the police don't generally carry guns, unlike in the US, because there is NO NEED FOR IT."

In 2014.... passing through St Pancras station on our way from Manchester to Canterbury. A brief stopover in London has to be endured sometimes... first sight on the concourse: a patrol of two British policemen. With bloody great assault rifles. you never thought you'd see it. (I know: there are armed police patrols in Manchester too: but they tend to be in cars and keep their weapons undercover until there's a need. They don't routinely patrol armed on the street beat, not even in Longsight or Moss Side.)

That was... food for thought. They say what happens in London gets to the rest of the nation a year or two later. (I really hope Stagecoach Manchester gets to upgrade to the standard of Stagecoach Kent - their buses were YEARS ahead and put our clanking rattletraps to shame. And Southern Rail may be derided by those who use it most often - but by comparison, Northern Rail and Trans-Pennine are third world with regard to passenger comfort and decent trains).

Armed police are now here.