Now be careful. The merging of the speeches is only one point. And the "strawman argument" argument needs to be defended. It looks like the actual text of both F911 and Heston's full speech are there in full. Please elaborate.
Here's the best I can do on why Heston did what he did and why he's not talking about it. Not very good, but it's something. I got it from this website.
Now, you're probably thinking what I'm thinking. Why in the world would Charlton Heston let an idiot like Michael Moore inside of his house to interview him and film part of the layout of his home? When asked this question, Bill Powers, a spokesman for Heston would say only: "I won't spend 30 seconds talking about Michael Moore."
I don't know about Heston being old. I don't know how old he was at the time. From what little I have read about Heston's response to Moore, he is not going to waste any more of his life on responding to jerks, or something like that. I'll try to look it up later.
As for the speech, here is a comparison someone transcribed from F911 and from Heston's actual speech.
Here is a link to Moore's website where he responds to attacks on his movie. The page is long and there is a lot there, so I'll copy the text where Moore responds to this specific charge. I'm going to leave it as is, without correcting the paragraph/formatting errors.
The oddest of all the smears thrown at "Bowling for Columbine" is this one:
"The film depicts NRA president Charlton Heston giving a speech near Columbine; he actually gave it a year later and 900 miles away. The speech he did give is edited to make conciliatory statements sound like rudeness."
Um, yeah, that's right! I made it up! Heston never went there! He never said those things!
Or....
The Truth: Heston took his NRA show to Denver and did and said exactly what we recounted. From the end of my narration setting up Heston's speech in Denver, with my words, "a big pro-gun rally," every word out of Charlton Heston's mouth was uttered right there in Denver, just 10 days after the Columbine tragedy. But don't take my word - read the transcript of his whole speech. Heston devotes the entire speech to challenging the Denver mayor and mocking the mayor's pleas that the NRA "don't come here." Far from deliberately editing the film to make Heston look worse, I chose to leave most of this out and not make Heston look as evil as he actually was.
Why are these gun nuts upset that their brave NRA leader's words are in my film? You'd think they would be proud of the things he said. Except, when intercut with the words of a grieving father (whose son died at Columbine and happened to be speaking in a protest that same weekend Heston was at the convention center), suddenly Charlton Heston doesn't look so good does he? Especially to the people of Denver (and, the following year, to the people of Flint) who were still in shock over the tragedies when Heston showed up.
As for the clip preceding the Denver speech, when Heston proclaims "from my cold dead hands," this appears as Heston is being introduced in narration. It is Heston's most well-recognized NRA image - hoisting the rifle overhead as he makes his proclamation, as he has done at virtually every political appearance on behalf of the NRA (before and since Columbine). I have merely re-broadcast an image supplied to us by a Denver TV station, an image which the NRA has itself crafted for the media, or, as one article put it, "the mantra of dedicated gun owners" which they "wear on T-shirts, stamp it on the outside of envelopes, e-mail it on the Internet and sometimes shout it over the phone.". Are they now embarrassed by this sick, repulsive image and the words that accompany it?
At this point, there's nothing more to say, really. Judge for yourselves if Moore is being honest or dishonest.
Michael Moore's works are full of falsehoods. Consider for example his butchery of Charleton Heston's speech in Denver after the Columbine shootings. He edited the speech, putting together Heston's actual words to make his speech sound quite the opposite of its original intent. It reminds me of Homer Simpson's interview when he's accused of grabbing the babysitter's butt. (I wanted... her... sweet, sweet can....)
You can't chalk that one up to poor presentation. Changing a man's words to mean the opposite of his intent is a falsehood. Either he got it wrong because he's incompetent or he got it wrong because he's deceptive.
It's hard for me to believe that you've really looked into this if you believe that Michael Moore has no intent to deceive his viewers.
I just looked at a polar projection map of the northern hemisphere, and it appears to me that the most direct path from the Middle East to the USA lies very near Poland. In fact, from what I can tell, to get any closer you'd have to put the missile defense system in Russia itself. Of course, it depends on which part of North America is your target.
Also, (and my measurements aren't exact here, I just used a Goldfish cracker to compare distances on the map) a missile base in Poland is about the same distance from North Korea as a missile base in central Alaska.
Similarly, a missile base in Poland is about the same distance from China as a missile base in central Alaska.
From what I've heard about Alaska, it would be far easier to construct and man a missile base in Poland than in Alaska.
If there is someone with more time on their hands and more appropriate measuring tools than a quick google images search and a Goldfish cracker, I'd be very interested in seeing actual measurements.
I guess I'm still not sure where you draw the line. I mean what would constitute a violation of someone else's rights? If I think Ernie and Bert are gay and decide to block PBS at my home, am I violating PBS's rights? Does it matter why I decide to block PBS?
The fact that the students are minors only serves to strenghten my analogy because the schools are acting in loco parentis,
Dude, I've been wanting to use the in loco parentis phrase for days now.
...the school is violated wikipedia author's freedom of expression. They also violate the same rights of hate groups and adult entertainment.
My post here is a serious effort to understand your reasoning. So, am I violating HBO's rights because I refuse to order it? Am I violating Dish Network's freedom of expression because I block out all the PPV channels?
I ask because I don't understand where you would draw the line. At what point would my refusal to listen to someone else's expression, or indeed to facilitate someone else's desire to listen, constitute a violation of someone else's freedom of expression.
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing that you have thought this through all the way. I will be happy to hear your explanations, as I have been wrong before.
That should be true. But it definitely isn't. Theoretically they are funded by states, but in reality the states will do anything and everything Congress wants them to do becuase if they don't they don't get the federal funds. It isn't right, but there it is. IIRC the Supreme Court even said it was OK.
In controlled research, class size reduction shows academic improvement. Period.
It's not quite that simple (but maybe you're including that in your definition of 'controlled research.')
Class size reduction works when you are able to hire good teachers. If you hire crappy teachers to fill the vacancies you create by reducing class size, then you see no net improvement. The instructional quality is less in the crap-teacher classrooms, and much better in the good teacher classrooms. Apparently this has been found to be most effective in grades 1-3, and the effects last through the 12th grade.
My guess is that the real reason the senator cares is because this allows him to use Katrina to bolster his political career in a new way. I have a hard time seeing how this is any of his business at all.
I think the reason that public executions were considered moral then and not now has little to do with morality, and more to do with ignorance and enlightenment. If you believe that public executions are an effective deterrent to crime, you may well be immoral if you don't do it. I think that the fact that public executions are no longer performed in the USA (at least not like it was in Rome, apparently) is not evidence of evolving morality, but of evolving ideas of HOW to produce the ideal society. We still execute, and we still are willing to kill, and we are still willing to punish, but we do so in ways that we think will further our ideas of how to achieve a better society. I think that if we still believed that public executions were effective, we'd still be doing them.
I think the abolition of slavery is a real moral advance. However, I think it comes from the idea that Confucius recognized when he said, "Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you."
As for rape, I am surprised that you included it in your list. I'm not calling you a liar when I question your inclusion of rape, I just find it hard to believe that rape was wholly accepted in ancient Rome, and would be interested to learn more about this. I get everything I know about the criminality of rape in Rome from The Rape of Lucrece, so I'm not an expert.
Anyway, I don't think your case is as strong as you make it to be. I think public execution is explained by a change in ideas about what works, and the abolition of slavery was an advance on pre-existing morality.
So why should I not help myself to an odd million dollars in federally insured money by, say, robbing a bank? Because some molecules happened to collide 10,000 years ago in the developing brain of an animal leading to (DNA encoding of)endorphins being released when members of the same species were hurt? Because that is what it is. Add in the bit of cognitive magic in the human brain and you get explanations for everything.
I don't know. It's too complex. We have the instinct to help ourselves to a lot of money. Then we have the instinct to keep our hands to ourselves (for the good of society).
So when I am choosing between the instinct to rob the bank and the instinct to NOT rob the bank, what is it that tells me that I should not rob the bank?
You make it sound as though you believe that it's some sort of instinct that tells us not to rob the bank, based on some sort of programming in the brain. But you imply in the same paragraph that we have a competing instinct to help ourselves to some cash. This give us 2 instincts, but there is a 3rd instinct that tells us which we ought to choose.
I'm wondering if you believe there are 3 instincts at work here: the one that makes us want money, the one that makes me want to go without for the good of society, and the one that makes me decide that it's wrong to steal. Or do you believe that there is only one instinct, and that is the one that makes us want to NOT rob the bank? It just seems to me that your idea of why people don't rob banks (yet banks employ a remarkable amount of security to ensure that they aren't robbed (and people do it anyway)) is too simple.
I'm using the word 'instinct' in my post even though I don't think you used it in yours. If you were thinking of a different word or concept, let me know.
I agree. When I read the topic, I thought, "What kind of backpacking trip is this where one would even consider bringing along a laptop?" Clearly this guy is doing something completely alien to what I do when I backpack.
I say if you're gonna be packing everything with you on your back everywhere, you've got to keep light. I read that even mp3 players are a bad idea, because every ounce (or kilohectare, for you metric lovers) counts when you're going any real distance with a pack on your back. I combine the mp3 player with the phone (but it doesn't do me any good, because my wife wants me to leave the phone at home with her).
I went on a 15-mile hike with the Scouts a few weeks ago, and I felt every pound I had on me. One of the leaders even told about how he dumps excess water if he knows there's a stream a mile ahead.
So I guess it's up to you. If you feel like you can take it, go on a 15-mile hike with everything you think you want to take. After 15 miles, you'll know what is worth hauling around and what's worth leaving. That's what worked for me. After that 15 miler I got a different pack, changed what I ate, changed how much water I carried (and how I carried it), and bought some new boots.
That may be true, but the idea that they haven't done anything more than knock over a building is crazy talk. It makes it very difficult to have an intelligent discussion about it.
I think it's clear that if these guys had a nuclear weapon, they would use it. That fact alone makes them a vastly more dangerous threat than the muggers.
Now whether or not even the threat of a nuclear attack is worth changing our laws is a valid question. If we change them too much, if we give up too many freedoms, what do we really have that's worth defending? If we give up no freedoms at all and the terrorists can walk roughshod over us, then all our freedoms do us no good. If we take the wrong freedoms away then we pay the price but still get beat up.
It's a fine line to walk, and I both admire and pity those who take it upon themselves to try to make these hard calls. (I'm talking here about the people in power, not the slashdotters like you and me who are making armchair calls on it.)
Slashdot Mirror
Now be careful. The merging of the speeches is only one point. And the "strawman argument" argument needs to be defended. It looks like the actual text of both F911 and Heston's full speech are there in full. Please elaborate.
As for the speech, here is a comparison someone transcribed from F911 and from Heston's actual speech.
Here is a link to Moore's website where he responds to attacks on his movie. The page is long and there is a lot there, so I'll copy the text where Moore responds to this specific charge. I'm going to leave it as is, without correcting the paragraph/formatting errors.
At this point, there's nothing more to say, really. Judge for yourselves if Moore is being honest or dishonest.
You can't chalk that one up to poor presentation. Changing a man's words to mean the opposite of his intent is a falsehood. Either he got it wrong because he's incompetent or he got it wrong because he's deceptive.
It's hard for me to believe that you've really looked into this if you believe that Michael Moore has no intent to deceive his viewers.
So your buddy was the server admin for the first little pig?
Are you saying that the Bill of Rights and a working republic are what makes the modern USA similar to 1934 Germany? I don't get it.
Western values like a working republic.
Western values like a Bill of Rights.
Western values like ...
Oh, never mind. What's the point.
Also, (and my measurements aren't exact here, I just used a Goldfish cracker to compare distances on the map) a missile base in Poland is about the same distance from North Korea as a missile base in central Alaska.
Similarly, a missile base in Poland is about the same distance from China as a missile base in central Alaska.
From what I've heard about Alaska, it would be far easier to construct and man a missile base in Poland than in Alaska.
If there is someone with more time on their hands and more appropriate measuring tools than a quick google images search and a Goldfish cracker, I'd be very interested in seeing actual measurements.
Would the Indian workers be better off in their old jobs? If not, then how are they being exploited?
The fact that the students are minors only serves to strenghten my analogy because the schools are acting in loco parentis,
Dude, I've been wanting to use the in loco parentis phrase for days now.
My post here is a serious effort to understand your reasoning. So, am I violating HBO's rights because I refuse to order it? Am I violating Dish Network's freedom of expression because I block out all the PPV channels?
I ask because I don't understand where you would draw the line. At what point would my refusal to listen to someone else's expression, or indeed to facilitate someone else's desire to listen, constitute a violation of someone else's freedom of expression.
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing that you have thought this through all the way. I will be happy to hear your explanations, as I have been wrong before.
That should be true. But it definitely isn't. Theoretically they are funded by states, but in reality the states will do anything and everything Congress wants them to do becuase if they don't they don't get the federal funds. It isn't right, but there it is. IIRC the Supreme Court even said it was OK.
It's almost like something from Lemony Snicket.
Class size reduction works when you are able to hire good teachers. If you hire crappy teachers to fill the vacancies you create by reducing class size, then you see no net improvement. The instructional quality is less in the crap-teacher classrooms, and much better in the good teacher classrooms. Apparently this has been found to be most effective in grades 1-3, and the effects last through the 12th grade.
My guess is that the real reason the senator cares is because this allows him to use Katrina to bolster his political career in a new way. I have a hard time seeing how this is any of his business at all.
Thank you for your clarification. Now I have something new to think about.
I think the abolition of slavery is a real moral advance. However, I think it comes from the idea that Confucius recognized when he said, "Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you."
As for rape, I am surprised that you included it in your list. I'm not calling you a liar when I question your inclusion of rape, I just find it hard to believe that rape was wholly accepted in ancient Rome, and would be interested to learn more about this. I get everything I know about the criminality of rape in Rome from The Rape of Lucrece, so I'm not an expert.
Anyway, I don't think your case is as strong as you make it to be. I think public execution is explained by a change in ideas about what works, and the abolition of slavery was an advance on pre-existing morality.
I don't know. It's too complex. We have the instinct to help ourselves to a lot of money. Then we have the instinct to keep our hands to ourselves (for the good of society).
So when I am choosing between the instinct to rob the bank and the instinct to NOT rob the bank, what is it that tells me that I should not rob the bank?
You make it sound as though you believe that it's some sort of instinct that tells us not to rob the bank, based on some sort of programming in the brain. But you imply in the same paragraph that we have a competing instinct to help ourselves to some cash. This give us 2 instincts, but there is a 3rd instinct that tells us which we ought to choose.
I'm wondering if you believe there are 3 instincts at work here: the one that makes us want money, the one that makes me want to go without for the good of society, and the one that makes me decide that it's wrong to steal. Or do you believe that there is only one instinct, and that is the one that makes us want to NOT rob the bank? It just seems to me that your idea of why people don't rob banks (yet banks employ a remarkable amount of security to ensure that they aren't robbed (and people do it anyway)) is too simple.
I'm using the word 'instinct' in my post even though I don't think you used it in yours. If you were thinking of a different word or concept, let me know.
I say if you're gonna be packing everything with you on your back everywhere, you've got to keep light. I read that even mp3 players are a bad idea, because every ounce (or kilohectare, for you metric lovers) counts when you're going any real distance with a pack on your back. I combine the mp3 player with the phone (but it doesn't do me any good, because my wife wants me to leave the phone at home with her).
I went on a 15-mile hike with the Scouts a few weeks ago, and I felt every pound I had on me. One of the leaders even told about how he dumps excess water if he knows there's a stream a mile ahead.
So I guess it's up to you. If you feel like you can take it, go on a 15-mile hike with everything you think you want to take. After 15 miles, you'll know what is worth hauling around and what's worth leaving. That's what worked for me. After that 15 miler I got a different pack, changed what I ate, changed how much water I carried (and how I carried it), and bought some new boots.
Test-drive your pack. It's worth it!
I still get people with that one.
I think it's clear that if these guys had a nuclear weapon, they would use it. That fact alone makes them a vastly more dangerous threat than the muggers.
Now whether or not even the threat of a nuclear attack is worth changing our laws is a valid question. If we change them too much, if we give up too many freedoms, what do we really have that's worth defending? If we give up no freedoms at all and the terrorists can walk roughshod over us, then all our freedoms do us no good. If we take the wrong freedoms away then we pay the price but still get beat up.
It's a fine line to walk, and I both admire and pity those who take it upon themselves to try to make these hard calls. (I'm talking here about the people in power, not the slashdotters like you and me who are making armchair calls on it.)
Check out this site here.
They have done far more than wreck one building.
That is so true!