In Praise of Mel Gibson

The Autonomist ^ | 3/5/04 | Reginald Firehammer

[tpaine]

narses wrote:

Regards porn sales:
Porn harms the actors -- it can harm uninvolved victims -- and it degrades the neighbors of the sleaze businesses that sell porn.

But the unconstitutional measures we must endure to absolutely prohibit porn are far worse than the reasonable regulations we can make to prevent harming the actors -- the uninvolved victims -- and degrading the neighbors of the sleaze businesses.
Face up to your zealotry fella. You want to control society, not just porn.

That is what laws do TP, they act to control and influence society.

That is not their constitutional purpose, narse.. -- Our laws are based on protecting our individual freedoms to life, liberty & property.

If you want to have NO controls, create a libertine distopia, but a country of laws exists because people want order and control.

Check out our founding documents, my boy, and feel ashamed at your misconceptions about them.

Porn is illegal, those laws have been UPHELD as constitutional, just as the laws against drugs and prostitution have been.

Babble on. - Nevada has perfectly constitutional prostitution. Various types of 'porn' are constitutional according to local standards, and the fed drug 'war' is an obvious unconstitutional farce.

Read some books on liberty.

[Hank Kerchief]

I dont think Mel Gibson is nearly so self-involved and superior.

You think Mel Gibson is self-effacing and inferior?

Are we talking about the same Mel Gibson? I'm sure his wife doesn't think that.

Hank

[King Prout]

well put.

[Hank Kerchief]

Have you seen the movie?

My wife and I seldom watch movies, except some we like that were made before 1960. We also do not watch TV. We have nothing against TV, we're both readers, and TV frankly bores us. I won't be seeing the movie. It's just a movie, and I read the book.

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

GOOD JOB MEL.
Thanks for the effort.

Well, somebody got it.

Thanks!

Hank

[ALOHA RONNIE]

.




~FREEDOM: The RIGHT to say "NO" to Communism~


...was the outstanding sign given me to hold by members of the ANN RYND Institute outside the OSCARS a couple of years ago in support of Anti-Communist Director ELIA KAZAN's Lifetime Acheivement OSCAR.

...Since then the Freedom-Loving Vietnamese-American Community has fully embraced that same sign I'm holding at their Freedom for Vietnam Rallies.

GOD does indeed seem to work His Miracles in some very Loving Ways..?


http://www.rfvn.com

.

[tpaine]

You want to control society, not just porn.

And all the time I thought libertarians believed in self-defense.

I do. Your specious comment is just a silly wisecrack.

A culture that embraces pornography makes itself the enemy of the family --

Typical meaningless straw man lead in.
ALL cultures ever known have a certain amount of 'porno' circulating. Men are men, and the ladies like it that way..

an institution older than culture, older than family, the heart and soul of your vaunted privacy, with rights that pre-date all law, even God's.

Kumbya, hillary, -- it takes a community, yada yada.

More than this, in peddling the idea that human beings can be reduced to a single dimension and made available for consumption like a junk food snack, porn-loving culture makes itself the enemy of the individual.

More communitarian pap. Get serious.

If you want to be taken seriously as an advocate for the individual, you must recover some integrity for your argument.

Whatever.

[King Prout]

"Kumbya, hillary, -- it takes a community, yada yada."

fortunately, I had put my beer down before I reached that line

[Hank Kerchief]

I won't get into what I thought of Howard and Dominique...that's the sick part!

I agree with you, but only because I know what you mean, and that Ayn Rand did not make clear what she meant. If you take the descriptions at face value, they are sick, but Ayn Rand was a romantic, and her descriptions were sometimes so metaphorical that they escape everyone, unless clearly explained.

It was a mistake on Ayn Rand's part not to make clear to her readers what she intended to be understood by her descriptions. She gave her readers to much credit. She assumed everyone knew her essential principle that the initiation of force by anyone against anyone was always morally wrong. One who does know that, will not understand that what appears as "rape," could never have been intended as that in the mind of Ayn Rand.

Hank

[Romulus]

That all you got? It must've been a long week for both of you.

Being concerned with rights, why are you not interested in the rights of the family as ancestor and fundamental unit of society, to insist on societal norms that do not undermine it? Being concerned with the individual, why do you show no interest in cultural movements that depersonalise human beings? I wouldn't like to think that you're personally invested in this culture and just reflexively defending an addiction. Surely you have something better than defiance and ridicule to offer.

[tpaine]

Many of FR's self described conservatives have swallowed the communitarian line, -- hook & sinker, without even realizing it..

That line sounds so rational.. Communities should be able to control morals, correct? -- Wrong.. -- Soon, that same moral majority is controlling every aspect of 'social' life.. -- And liberty disappears..

[King Prout]

what I have to offer:
1. I like some few kinds of erotica which many would call "porn": well drawn, rendered, or photographed nudes, usually not explicitly sexual.
2. This liking for these erotica has not harmed me in any measurable way
3. I have never harmed anyone as a result of my liking for these erotica
4. The contention that these types of erotica are linked CAUSALLY with any form of harm does not appear to be supported by any statistical data, IIRC
5. The contention that prudish sexual repression is CAUSALLY linked with various forms of domestic abuse and sexual predation is supported by statistical data, IIRC
6. The history of smut of one form or another being common in human societies is arguably as old as that of the family - it certainly goes just as far back as families in the written records... yet, somehow, the family manages to flourish
7. when someone purchases photographic smut, one purchases photographs - not the model.
8. when some jackbooted prude decides to interfere with my pursuit of my private and HARMLESS amusements, the aggressor is the jackbooted prude - the defender is ME.

and, yes, it was a VERY long week.
If someone had taken the entire week out back behind the shed and beaten it to death with a sledgehammer, I don't think I could muster a tear.

[King Prout]

again, well put.
see #52, if you care to do so.

[TradicalRC]

Hey, I am a Traditional Roman Catholic and I have two of Ayn Rand's book titles on my about page.

[He Rides A White Horse]

and industry experts anticipate that the international box office sales could hit $650 million by the end of its run."

....this movie was not designed to make money. This wasn't some cynical Randian calculation as to how much cash Mel could make on Jesus.

[He Rides A White Horse]

I think Mel Gibson would have produced this film even if he had thought it would be a financial turkey. I think he would have considered it a success if one person looked around and saw the true "Passion of the Christ".....this movie goes beyond dollars and cents for Mr Gibson......

[He Rides A White Horse]

Gibson is a true Hollywood hero, and saying that I don't mean in the vein of Michael Moore.

This is a true film of courage; I have no doubt that Mel put his convictions on the line knowing full well that he would be blacklisted by Hollywood leftists.

He fully knew what type of reaction he was going to get from folks that celebrate the likes of Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore, yet plunged into that darkness.

This was a labor of true love, a casting to the winds, a statement..........no wonder they have reacted as they have, Mel's film shouts revolution at the core of Hollywoods elite.

I'll go see this film again. To send a message to Hollywood.....and also to weep a few more tears and sit in stunned silence as the film closes. To go home and stay up well beyond my normal hours contemplating the lessons this film teaches.

[Dajjal]

Mad Max bump

[tame]

Ayn Rand was no hero. She had a convoluted worldview which did no serve as a good basis for some of her economic ideas. Which is to say, her free market beliefs had some truth in spite of her poorly reasoned worldview, not because of it. When

[Hank Kerchief]

Hey, I am a Traditional Roman Catholic and I have two of Ayn Rand's book titles on my about page.

If you have a diamond in your hand, the religion or philosophy of the person who dug it out of the ground does not change the value of the diamond.

Thanks for the comment.

Hank