After I made “Michael Moore Hates America,” I spent several years (and still occasionally) doing interviews for the press on movie stuff. They’d always call me, because, you know, I’m a crazy, angry right-wing nut job and I’d made the only “conservative” documentary any of them had ever heard of. Something controversial would happen in the world of cinema, my phone would ring for a few days and then I’d go back to my life. In one episode, I received a call from the CBC. They wanted to know if I could do a satellite interview with them on an evening news talk show. The topic was the about-to-be-released film “Death of a President” where President George W. Bush was digitally assassinated.

The producer asked me if I could go on and talk about how outrageous it was that the filmmakers would do this. I said, “Well, I’ll go on if you like, but you should know that I don’t find it at all outrageous.” There was a long pause. “You don’t?” she asked. “Nope,” I responded. “I’m a filmmaker. I’m an artist. I would never, ever tell another artist what they should or shouldn’t create. I mean, look, President Bush is still in office and it’s probably not a great idea to do it with a sitting president. But more importantly, he’s married and he has kids. And regardless of whether he’s loved or reviled, he’s still a human being and not a fictional character. So from that perspective, I think it’s kind of mean. But I’d never tell an artist to not create something for any reason.”

“Well,” said the producer, clearly disappointed, “we’re really looking for someone who’s outraged.”

“Good luck finding your outrage,” I said, before exchanging pleasantries and hanging up.

And that, dear readers is almost everything that’s wrong with the world.

Rather than inviting intelligent people to simply talk about stuff they know about and who have expertise they might be able to share with the audience, we live in a world where feigned outrage and an inability to say “I might be wrong and you might be right” has resulted in our loss of focus on what this, the greatest nation the world has ever known, was supposed to be… an arena of ideas.

I’m a hardcore libertarian. I read the Founders and feel like they’d be utterly stunned at the power the federal government has slowly and surely obtained. Some of my very close friends think that’s pure silliness, and we talk about it and hash it out and yell at each other. And after I win the debate, we all feel like we’ve learned something. But they’re right too. They just picked the wrong nation to want socialism in.

I also happen to have a deep respect for Glenn Beck, both for his talent and skill in fusing entertainment and enlightenment, for his deep concern for our nation and where we’re headed, but also because of something deeply personal that our mutual friend was nice enough to convey my thanks for. Not to be opaque, but suffice it to say that Glenn has talked about something that has had a profound impact on my life, beyond politics.

Should The Onion have wished death on Glenn Beck? Probably not, because no matter how much you might hate him, he’s still a guy with a family and feelings. By most accounts, Glenn’s a nice guy (though he admits to having been an asshole in the past, but so do I). I’ve never heard him trash an individual outside of discussing what they’ve said publicly (Van Jones comes to mind), which is certainly fair game in the business of politics. I’ve never heard him step outside of the political and attack a person’s family or religion (unless the context directly informs the politics… i.e. Jeremiah Wright). Yet people hate him with a white-hot passion for speaking truth to power, so much so that he has private security and receives real, honest-to-goodness death threats on a daily basis. That’s a terrible thing, whether the threats are against Glenn or Michael Moore.

But more important than whether the Onion was mean to Glenn is why Nolte asked me to write this piece in the first place, which is that he’s a smart enough guy to know I’m not outraged and that I look at things a little differently, especially when it comes to entertainment. He knew that rather than the sniping that might come from our side, it might be more fun to have a conversation. Glenn Beck probably isn’t outraged (as an entertainer, I bet he might even think it funny). And maybe you shouldn’t be either. We probably shouldn’t get fired up and angry over little things that have no real impact on our world. The Onion doesn’t matter because they can’t tax or enslave me, and if I don’t like their work, I can always choose to not click in their direction. We could also simply counter it with really funny shit that hammers their guys. But mostly, I think we should save our energy for the big fights that mean something, like our struggle to remain free in an increasingly oppressive and parental America.

Tomorrow, if he chooses, Glenn will climb behind that microphone and speak truth to power again. Because, after all, the answer to bad speech is more speech.

As many of you who frequent this blog know (and often condemn me for), I believe there is no god. That’s quite different from saying “I don’t believe in God.” When I say I believe there is no god, I mean that in this vast universe (or maybe multiverse) I don’t choose to not believe in a god, but that there is no god to not believe in. There’s a distinction, and I’m very certain where I stand. It’s deeply personal to me, and I don’t really begrudge those who choose to believe that an invisible man lives in the sky. Sometimes people need to believe in something more, I suppose, even if it’s not real. And while I recognize I’m in the minority, and I’m happy to argue religion and god with you, I won’t push my thoughts on you unless you ask. But I wish that Russell Simmons could put aside the idea of God or Allah for a while. It would be more honest and it would certainly help a lot more people.

Simmons, who has said that Allah, working through the Nation of Islam has helped young criminals change their lives for the better, implied last week that God was going to punish America if we didn’t do what President Obama wants us to do. He said that we were under indictment, apparently by an invisible father figure who really likes socialism and doesn’t want anyone to achieve Simmons’ level of success. God, according to Simmons’ ideology, apparently wants us all to be equally miserable. (God actually wants us all dead, given that until we invented science and started figuring out how to extend our lives, we died in our twenties. But that’s another article.) Simmons actually believes that his god, who created all of existence and (as most believers tell me when we discuss the matter) created the whole of the good in the universe, will hurt us if we don’t do what one man in one tiny little whisper of time (cosmically speaking) tells us to do. As someone who thinks religion is mostly primitive superstition and performance theater, I can’t help but be afraid.

If Russell Simmons could put aside what he learned from his “second father” Louis Farrakhan and his nutty superstitions, including a 6 a.m. prayer and meditating in the “zen room” he showed off on “MTV Cribs,” he could really transform peoples’ lives. If he could stop believing that Allah or God or Jesus (Simmons doesn’t publicly define himself by any religion) handed him his beautiful life and recognize that it came from his own hard work, understanding of and ability to cross cultural barriers, tremendous foresight, and perfecting the hustle he developed as a street kid before transforming it into slick, successful and legitimate business practices, he might be able to inspire others to aspire to create the same for themselves. He might also recognize that Allah hasn’t ever helped a single young criminals turn his life around, but rather it was the desire within those young men to aspire to more, to clean up and work hard.

It is only the will of people to make the world better that ever actually makes the world better. It’s not Jesus who sends those checks to the kids Sally Struthers used to parade around on late night TV, it’s you. Moses hasn’t fed anyone in Bangladesh in a long, long time. The Buddha never helped anyone with AIDS, but Penn and Teller have. And it’s not Allah who gives clean water and sanitation to third-world nations, it’s Matt Damon. Batman and Superman aren’t going to save the world and God isn’t going to destroy it. We’ll have to do all of that. And for the most part, we try to do good things for people we love, and sometimes for people we don’t even know, as someone did for me this past week.

Simmons’ apocalyptic statement last week really scares me. It scares me because it discounts mankind as a whole, and places our collective destiny in the non-existent hands of an invisible man who lives in the sky. It scares me even more, however, because it uses and abuses the irrational fear many people have of punishment at the hands of whatever god to push a political agenda that directly contradicts Simmons own life experience and the foundation of a country that gave him the chance to achieve success most of us can’t even imagine. But try to imagine it for a moment: Imagine being able to buy anything in the world you want. Or give as much money as you want to any cause or charity or individual you want. Or to be able to take your children anywhere in the world you want at a moment’s notice. That’s Russell Simmons’ life.

Now imagine you have created all of that through your own hard work and intelligence and you tell people they must believe in an invisible man or face destruction. And then you use the power you have built from less-than-nothing to encourage people to follow a man whose policies would have kept you from achieving what you have worked so hard for and that would condemn those people who you could otherwise inspire to a life where hard work no longer means anything and excellence is a distant memory. Like I said, Russell Simmons confuses me.

We’ve gone back and forth this week, with me writing here at Big Hollywood and you Tweeting responses. The lastest from @GhostPanther came directly to @Wilson_Michael and you asked me a question. I have an answer, but I think there’s a better way to have this conversation. And that’s what this should be… a conversation that takes place within the arena of ideas.

Adam McKay

This is important stuff and I’m fascinated by how two fellow Americans can see the world so differently. We probably both think we believe in freedom and liberty. We likely both think that we should take care of the poor. I know we both believe everyone should get the very best health care possible. How we get there while keeping our nation free is up for debate.

So let’s do it. Let’s have the debate. I challenge you to debate me on health care reform.

You have access to any number of websites, I have Big Hollywood. I suggest we go two rounds. And I’ll even give you the last word. Let’s show everyone that two guys can have a civil, respectful debate. In the end, no one will win and I’m okay with that. But let’s lay out our arguments about how health care should work. Feel free to explore any political or economic areas you wish. Maybe people will learn something.

And just as an aside to my conservative Big Hollywood friends who’ve criticized Adam on this issue, I’d like to point out that he and his colleagues are not entirely unreasonable. As evidence, I’d ask you to just take a peek at this bit about environmental hysteria.

I know that you’re currently directing a film and life must be a little crazy at the moment. I’m respectful of that. So just tweet. Let me know whether or not you accept the challenge and when you can do it. If you can’t do it until January, I’ll wait.  It’ll be just like trying to see a doctor in Canada.

I look forward to the chance to step into the arena of ideas with you.

Take care,

Michael Wilson
@Wilson_Michael

Adam McKay

While Adam McKay has been so good at his job at times that he’s left me rolling on the floor unable to breathe, and I think Ferrell is funny as hell, I am astonished that a self-righteous multimillionaire like McKay would tell you that you have to do something by force that he won’t do by choice.

That is cynicism in its purest form. McKay presumes that people are inherently bad and that they must be forced to do what is “good” or “noble” or “decent.” He presumes that human beings are hardwired to be un-compassionate and uncaring. Cynicism is a lie and it’s easy to convince others to be cynics right along with you. You can go on hating your fellow humans and you can all be miserable together, searching for a villain to direct your hate toward (like a CEO).

In his Tweet, McKay says that my “argument” was “sub-moronic.” What a profound retort. Instead of addressing the issue I raised – which is basically, “Why don’t guys like McKay and Ferrell actually DO something meaningful like buy tens of thousands of uninsured Americans an insurance plan for a year or so, rather than simply bitching about evil insurance executives?” – McKay dismisses me as stupid.

I believe that people are good for the most part – even those nasty CEOs . But I’m so tired of people telling me they’re “fighting” for something they already have the power to change. Adam McKay doesn’t care about poor people needing insurance. If he did, he’d buy them insurance. He’s rich and he could actually do it if he wanted to. What Adam McKay clearly cares about is that people in his social circles THINK he cares about poor people who need insurance.

If he genuinely cares, there is NO EXCUSE for Adam McKay to not go out right now and buy people some health coverage.  I wonder how much he will contribute to the soon-to-be-formed Will Ferrell Health Insurance Trust. I would be so, so proud if my “sub-moronic” argument resulted in guilting a few very rich cynics into buying health insurance for a lot of people who could use it, but I’m guessing he’ll do nothing but Tweet about the crazy libertarian who trashed him in that right-wing Hollywood blog.

Adam McKay, I know you’re reading this, so this is a direct appeal to you. DO SOMETHING THAT HELPS PEOPLE! BUY THEM SOME INSURANCE! Take a measly $500,000 and start with one hundred families in Detroit or LA or Topeka. Buy them a quality plan that pays their medical bills for a year. Then get a few of your friends to do the same thing. If you want to truly help people pay for services, lead by example and change things. And if you’ve already done so, let us know you’re leading by example.

After calling me “sub-moronic,” McKay says that 20,000 people die every year because insurance companies deny their claims. That’s just bullshit. Maybe he is citing the Harvard study that showed a correlation to a higher early death rate among those with no insurance, but I read that study and the authors were very careful to say that it was a matter of people choosing to not go to the doctor because they didn’t want to pay for the services and that there was no causation and it had nothing to do with evil insurance executives denying claims. Adam McKay just pulled that statistic out of nowhere. Why not say insurance executives kill 50 million people every day?

If you want to claim that something is killing people, as you did in your tweet, look no further than government-run health care. Here’s a story that illustrates the point.

Vera Wescott was a single-mother who worked in a factory and sprinted home during her half-hour lunch break to check on her kids during the summers. She had no high-school diploma and late at night after making dinner, cleaning the house and putting the kids to bed, she worked and worked, until she’d earned it. She went on to have a nice quiet life, remarrying a man named John, and the two traveled together, eventually retiring. But as they aged, the two decided to return to Canada so that their health care would be provided for. In the summer of 2004, Vera slipped in her apartment and was taken to a Canadian hospital. While there, they discovered that she had mid-stage, but treatable colon cancer. But because the government of Canada has to “cut waste” (sound familiar?) to have enough money to treat people, Vera was told she would need to wait 6 months for treatment. She was sent to a Convalescent Home near Toronto where she died in September.

I was a pallbearer at Vera’s funeral. She was my grandmother.

In the United States of America, her cancer would have been treated, and the treatment would’ve begun on the day they discovered it regardless of her insurance or ability to pay.

Adam McKay has never had to lower his grandmother’s casket into the earth because the government, acting as the final arbiter of life and death, decided it was time for her to die so that they could worry about someone a little younger or a little more healthy. I don’t expect him to understand.

I’m a big fan of comedy. I’m a stand-up junkie, growing up on late-night HBO comedy specials (I’d seen everything Carlin had done by age 11). I got into film making because Kevin Smith made it accessible through foul, filthy and hilarious dialogue that has always hit me where I live. And I don’t believe anything is off limits. It just strikes me as strange that people with extraordinary talent like Ferrell and company would be so off-the-mark with a piece that dives into the political world so deeply.

The irony of the piece is so clear to EVERYONE who sees it. Aside from the unsupported and false claim that 80% of Americans support government-run health care, Ferrell and company decide to pick on the rich executives who clearly make their money preying on innocent victims and drinking the blood of babies without offering the world anything in return… except, of course, for a service that, when paid for (as all services should be) saves lives and keeps you from losing everything you own when you get sick. The irony here is that Will Ferrell earns $20 million a picture (yup, even for “Land of the Lost”). Donald Faison (”Scrubs”), Jon Hamm (”Mad Men”) and others join in the fun as well.

We’re talking about net earnings in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The actors and comedians in the PSA could literally buy health insurance for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of uninsured Americans. And they don’t even have to wait for the government to take their money at gunpoint. They can just do it. And they should. It’s clearly being positioned as a moral issue, so is it immoral for these folks to hoard money while children are suffering?

Well, the answer is “no.” It’s their money. And I think Will Ferrell should be able to keep as much of his dough as possible, even if he uses it to buy a mini-zoo in his back yard for exotic animals like a white tiger or Pygmy horses. If he chooses to buy me and a hundred thousand or so of my fellow uninsured Americans some insurance, it would go a long way toward establishing credibility. It would also prove that we don’t need government to force Americans to help each other.

Which, putting the bullshit statistics, hypocrisy, and not-so-funny execution of the piece aside, is what bothers me the most.

The President keeps talking about “service” when he really means “government forcing you to do things.” I have debated health care with every one of my liberal friends who is willing to engage. And I always ask them the same question when they support the government-run plan. It goes like this: “I don’t have health insurance. Will you buy it for me for just one year?” I ask the question seriously. I mean it. I’d happily accept the gift from someone who wants to help. But they always backpedal. They always refuse.

Why? Because they have mistaken compassion for force. They believe that government will force someone else to pay, that they will not be affected, and that it’s okay because “they” or “the rich” have more than “they” need. But “they” have earned what “they” have, and so have Ferrell and his FOD pals.

The question is whether the folks who preach the message of forcing you to “give” to others are actually willing to do it on their own. Do they really care about those with less or only about appearing to care? I’ll wait with baited breath for the Will Ferrell Insurance Foundation to send a check. But I’ll probably be waiting a while.

In the 1980s, Michael Moore was broke. He saw things he believed to be wrong in the world and set out to tell a story about them. His first movie “Roger and Me” was a success. He followed it with a bomb called “Canadian Bacon” and then rebounded by winning Oscars and smashing box office records. He built a better life for his family and put his daughter through private schools by creating and marketing a product a lot of people bought. He became a multimillionaire because of the power of the unrestrained liberties we know in America as Capitalism and Freedom of Speech.

Having visited many countries around the world, like China, as an example, I can tell you that those two liberties don’t always mutually exist. I’ve seen along the way that you can have economic liberty without political freedom (the factories in China are going gangbusters, but you can’t say whatever you want).  But you can’t have political freedom without economic liberty. If it is required of you to receive equally from the state, the state WILL curtail your ability to express yourself.

Moore has marketed the hell out of himself as a rabble-rousing champion of the Little Guy and the Little Guy has bought so many books and movie tickets and to Moore’s $30,000-a-pop speeches that he must not know what to do with all of that green. Now, one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time is about to release a new product in the marketplace, hoping it will make him even richer (because every filmmaker wants people to see his movie, money is a byproduct of successful box-office). But this product reportedly decries the very system that has brought Moore unimaginable riches and a better life for his daughter, and anyone he chooses to share the wealth with.

In his upcoming film “Capitalism: A Love Story” Moore reportedly says, “Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil.”

I cannot express how these words break my heart. I’ve always held out hope that Moore is not a bad person, despite a lot of evidence I’ve seen first-hand and heard second-hand. I’ve always just hoped that we disagree on a lot and that his heart was in the right place… a place of compassion for the downtrodden. But this changed when I read that line today.

Michael Moore is actively working to deny people the same opportunities that he has had, the same successes he has experienced, the same chance to make your own life better through hard work, sheer determination and rugged individualism. These are principles that our Founders understood well as they forged a new nation where the individual would triumph over the collective and where a shot at the brass ring would come with the risk of failure. They understood these ideas so well that they pledged their Lives, their Fortunes and their Sacred Honour to defend them against an oppressive government that was trying to prevent them from carving out their own destinies.

In the last few years, I’ve experienced Capitalism first-hand as a small business owner. There have been some ups, where we have had a little extra in the bank account, and were able to grab a few extra clothes for the kids, or a few rides at Nickelodeon Universe (at the Mall of America here in Minnesota) and a lot of downs, where we have had to scrape and skimp and choose to cut things that Socialism certainly might provide, like health insurance for me, a luxury that I’ve gladly skipped out on so that we can afford to cover my two children. But in a capitalist system, my destiny is mine, and mine alone. And the sacrifices we make as we try to get a new business rolling will almost certainly pay off, if we work hard enough, long enough and outlast the punches that life throws at us.

Rocky Balboa said, “The world ain’t all butterflies and rainbows. It’s a mean and nasty place and it’ll beat you to your knees if you let it.” But my 18 month-old son is running around the house behind me as I type these words and I don’t intend to be beaten. I intend to show my son that he can count on himself and his character and his determination and smarts because Capitalism allows you to fight through the punches and take the hits and push through the pain to a better life. I will teach him that an extraordinary life is possible.

America is a shining city on a hill, a beacon for all those in the world who yearn for liberty and freedom. She remains the greatest example of how an individual can take an idea and turn it into a life of beauty and success. And while she is not perfect and never has been, I believe in her.

Michael Moore will undoubtedly make a brilliant case for why this nation of individuals should be broken apart brick-by-brick and remade into a nation of the collective where outcomes are largely equal, but where the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life is extinguished forever. The folks in Washington right now are doing their best to bring Moore’s vision of a great nation of the equal to life by shutting down the engine of liberty and forever transforming how we all live our lives.

Part of me hopes that Michael Moore’s movie makes hundreds of millions of dollars and that he suddenly wakes up from the slumber of logic he has been in for many years while the opportunity to choose to help the downtrodden and poor has passed him by. But I now see what Moore truly is in a different light, and success will only encourage him to lie to more people and mislead them about the opportunities that await them, should they only dream. After all, he’s a rich and powerful capitalist. The same thing he’s teaching his audience to hate. Irony, in a word.

President Obama’s righteousness about fatherhood comes from the recognition that his own dad was, indeed, a douchebag. He knocked up Obama’s mom and quickly fled the country, only meeting his son once, and bringing him a basketball. There are fathers like that out there, but they’re few and far between. And they deserve our scorn. And I understand the President’s desire to talk about his own experience as a fatherless child. I get it. It must have been terrible and I’d probably talk about it too if my dad Bruce Wilson hadn’t been the incredible dad he is to this day (see my movie “Michael Moore Hates America” for an interview with Pops).

But on Father’s Day, I’d like to remind the President that his dad is an aberration. The vast majority of dads out there would kill and die for their kids. I certainly would. And the vast majority of divorced dads out there, like me, would never abandon their children. Instead, a government system has preyed upon loving, caring dads and made them nothing more than ATMs with limited, government-determined access to the people they love the most in the world–their children.

Fathers are systematically discriminated against in an unnecessary and perhaps unconstitutional family court system. The judge in a family court frequently decides who should have primary custody of a child with limited testimony, evidence and understanding of a given family. These judges are essentially determining which parent might be a better parent within a matter of moments, and in the process, changing the very foundation of relationships the “losing” parent has with the child. In the vast majority of cases, the mother wins custody and the father is required to pay for the honor of not being able to see his children. That fact should frighten you. Deeply.

Another fact that should scare you is that a steep majority of the Child “Welfare” workers, who make determinations about whether or not you’re a good parent, are women. There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. I mean, after all, the good and caring government, while it sticks its nose into the intimate workings of your family dynamic must be entirely un-flawed, unbiased and fair. They’d NEVER side with someone of their own gender for completely biased reasons. And since everyone who works for the government is a deeply compassionate and caring person who would never work at that job for the incredible pay and Cadillac benefits, we can rest assured.

But the fact remains, these glorified DMV workers are mostly women and they decide the future of your family. Shouldn’t there be some gender balance?

The other fact that should frighten you even more is that the Child Support System is rigged. There is actually a financial incentive for government to intrude on your personal business. When I got divorced, I was making some decent dough, and though my custody arrangement regarding my daughter was a shared arrangement, I agreed to pay my ex-wife a little child support to help her out. To this day we have the same bills and expenses, so there wasn’t a big reason to do that, other than that I wanted everything to be as amicable as possible.

I simply wrote my ex-wife a check every month and that was that. Until something or other came up and she got angry with me. She called the county to have them collect the payments to teach me a lesson (no, I was certainly NOT behind on my payments, but here in Minnesota, every recipient can CHOOSE to have the government collect the payments). And thus, the System got involved. YOUR tax dollars are now paying someone to collect and process a check I was writing for free.

Being someone with a disdain for government intrusion into my life, especially in the most sensitive, important part of my life, I had no choice but to find out how this could happen. It turns out that the more enforcement cases there are at the county level, the more money the states give the counties. The more cases the states are accounting for, the more money they get from the federal government. So the bigger and more “involved” in your life government can become, the more security there is for the long-term established government employees. And judges. And case workers. And social workers. And it’s enough to make a person insane, when you think about it. A malicious government machine can feed itself and make itself bigger, nastier, and more entrenched in your personal life. And there is NOTHING you can do to stop it. Try, and they’ll throw you in jail or prison WITHOUT CHARGE, where you’ll be BEATEN TO DEATH, like happened to Brian Armstrong, a father in New Hampshire who lost his job and couldn’t pay up.

The Family Court system should be abolished. There is no reason for its existence other than to feed itself and to destroy families–especially fathers. Every aspect the system handles could be handled by district, state and federal courts. You want a divorce settlement and custody arrangement? Come up with a mutually agreed upon contract or sue in district or state court. What if there’s abuse? Call 911 and the offending party is arrested and tried under criminal statutes. There’s a custody dispute? File a suit over your contract at the time of the divorce.

If the President wants men to be good fathers, then he ought to think about doing what he can to get government out of the way. Eliminate Family Courts and sexist judges. Put people on the bench who understand that most fathers would choose to be with their children every day, every moment if they could.

Maybe the President should let us act like the men we are and get government the hell out of the way. And if he refuses to let us be good fathers without Big Daddy Government poking its stupid, overbearing nose into our lives, the least he could do is quit making speeches about how we need to do a better job.

Happy Father’s Day, dads.

But then the multimillionaire and self-proclaimed champion of the little guy opens his foul, uneducated, lying mouth and I’m reminded why I made that movie and continue to write and talk about Moore. Someone somewhere has to tell the truth about this country and I guess it might as well be me. I guess fate has appointed me his much less wealthy, way less well-known, and much thinner (even though I’m fat) counterpart. I just read Moore’s latest diatribe and got Hulk-angry. HULK SMAAASHHH!

I am now thoroughly convinced that even though millions look to him as thought-leader, there’s really not much going on upstairs. Moore is quite simply an uneducated populist. He’s Mos Def with a bigger vocabulary. He has no interest in studying history, because if he did, he’d find his whole worldview to be antithetical to what this nation is defined as by the documents that do the defining. Michael Moore hates what America is.

It’s certainly clear that Michael Moore loves power. He loves crushing people. He loves destroying the lives of others. He’s done it over and over for his own benefit. So it’s probably no surprise that Moore thinks the firing of the CEO of a private company by a federal bureaucrat is a good thing. Especially when Moore can make hay and horde millions of dollars because of it (his next populist rant is about the evil Wall Street puppetmasters). If there were ever more of a mind-blowingly hypocritical person in the history of the world, I can’t think of it.

Moore actually wrote in his latest insane and unbalanced screed that Obama “has the massive will of the American people behind him — and he has been granted permission by us to do what he sees fit.”

No, you stupid motherfucker, he hasn’t. You see, the Constitution of the United States of America determines the power of the President, not the people. Specifically, it LIMITS that power. And the guys who wrote that document were scared shitless of guys like Obama. George Washington referred to the President as the “Chief Magistrate” and the Founders saw government as something that had to be limited to prevent it from committing the sorts of atrocities we’ve seen in the last couple of months. Government has no business firing anyone in the private sector. None. Zip. Nada.

But Moore cheers for Obama’s overturning of centuries of Constitutional and common law like a high school girl whose panties are a little moist at the site of the big, strong quarterback. He cheers him on because he loves the sight of OTHER rich guys squirming (DO NOT FORGET THAT MOORE IS A MULTIMILLIONAIRE WHO HAS A TRACK RECORD OF AVOIDING UNION FILM WORKERS BECAUSE THEY COST TOO MUCH!!!) because the almighty government is inflicting pain on them.

Moore has talked in the past about the “free” health care and dentistry provided to him by GM when he was a kid. He talks about how the “common man” could make a “living wage” when times were good for GM. He talks about how it was the line workers that made the company one of the greatest on earth and how the rich elite have always been bald, cat-stroking evil geniuses bent on pouring liquid waste on everyone they can before anally raping their mothers and firing them and burning their houses down and pissing on the ashes. In fact, his NEW MOVIE is about just that! Of course if you’ve seen one Michael Moore movie, you’ve seen them all.

Despite all that GM provided for Moore and his family (it wasn’t “free,” GM paid for it), Moore can’t help but demonize the company, writing about the “hundreds of thousands of workers over the past 25+ years who have been tossed into the trash heap by General Motors.” Despite the fact that the primary reason the company is failing is because it overpaid its workers and now pays retirees more in salary than when they actually worked there, Moore is happy that it’s time for a little revenge.

Moore thinks its good that government is now telling private companies who will run them, what products they will make, and how they will operate (regardless of whether it’s profitable). He thinks it’s great that government is using the IRS to target specific individuals Ex Post Facto to take away money they rightly earned. He loves that big daddy government is there to take care of us.

I can’t imagine how that must feel. It must be awful to be so weak and unable to care for yourself that you need a bureaucrat to do it for you. But then, Michael Moore knows that he’ll be okay. He knows that the ultra-wealthy like him don’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else. He’ll be able to go to a private doctor when we’re in line at the government hospital. He won’t have to beg the IRS to honor the warranty on his GM (yes, Obama’s promise to honor GMs warranties falls under Treasury) because he can just buy another car. He won’t have to worry about government seizure of his property (they own most of the mortgages now) because his multimillion-dollar penthouse in New York and giant vacation home in Michigan are paid for.

What I don’t understand about Moore is how just a few months ago he abhorred the power-grabbing Bush “regime” but now he’s cheering on the most overreaching President in the history of the United States. I guess as long as his guy is in charge, it’s okay for one man to have way too much power. If you want an almighty government, Mike, you’ve gotta be okay when it’s your liberty that’s under attack. Based on your sycophantic slobbering over Obama’s action, you’d better be happy when the next President tells you what your next project is going to be about.

They’ve already come for the capitalists. They’ll eventually get to the lying, scumbag communist propagandists and Moore will be fucked.

Ben Shapiro is a brilliant kid. I say kid, not in the pejorative, not to denigrate him for his age. But he’s 8 years younger than I and he’s achieved stuff that, when we parents look at our children for the first time, hope for them. Smart, good-looking, already a family man and a lawyer, a published author and commentator, Ben is staring down a world in the shape of an oyster. Good on him.

Slagle is a stand up comic who hasn’t had a day job in over 20 years. But that doesn’t mean that he lacks the understanding of the world around him. In fact, he might have more insight into what words mean in the world of entertainment than anyone here. Tim once cleared a room entirely in Minneapolis when he made a VERY funny (albeit poorly timed) joke shortly after the death of Paul Wellstone. People were revolted. They found it disgusting and then they turned on him, as many audiences do (sorry, Tim, I couldn’t resist).

The reason Tim’s insight into the world of rap is correct, despite being in his 40s with very gray hair and ever-increasing liver spots, is that Tim understands the difference between artist and art. Ben’s articles have not only ignored this very important detail, but intentionally blurred the line. It’s true that some rappers begin to believe their own hype and try to live the thug life. But it’s untrue that their art (whether you like it or not) has much basis in reality, or even that it inspires bad actions by the audience.

To wit, if Shapiro’s logic were true, Republicans like Arnold “The Terminator” Schwarzenegger, Sylvester “Rambo” Stallone and Clint “Dirty Harry” Eastwood would have all been indicted for inspiring the murderous rampages of their fans. Maybe you could argue that Stallone and The Governator have inspired a lot of weight lifting and maybe even a little performance-enhancing drug use, but you’d be hard-pressed to uncover any real damage from artists who portray people who have literally murdered thousands of people in cold blood over the course of their cinematic careers.

And I’m pretty sure that Eminem never raped or murdered his now-wife Kim (or his mom, as Shapiro noted). Not in real life. And that’s the difference. Art is often an outlet for anger and rage. Deep, dark secrets and uncontrollable internal pain and anguish are artistic expressions that go back to Shakespeare and beyond. Hell, Sophocles wrote about a dude who kills his father so he can fuck his mom… And then Jim Morrison retold it… sort of.

Sometimes those emotions, including anger can be inspiring. In his Oscar-winning song, “Lose Yourself“ Eminem’s anger about constant failure and being “chewed up and spit out and booed off stage” leads him “back to the lab again” in an effort to “write the next cipher” that will help him to “tear the motherfucking roof off like two dogs caged.” To me, those are words that speak to the raw determination that makes this country great. It’s what’s in the heart of every entrepreneur struggling to make it, even if they wouldn’t express it with such fabulous vulgarity and poetic meter.

Rappers are usually fairly harmless. They’re typically short, often ignorant and uneducated (Mos Def proved that the other night on Maher’s lib-fest) and in need of affection, which is why they have big posses to shower love on them. Sometimes, like in the case of TI, they get very, very stupid and try to become the character they created. That’s what the criminal justice system is for.

Sometimes, rap becomes a life-saving endeavor. 50 Cent was a real drug dealer who’d really been shot with real bullets. I guess I’d rather have him making records than drug deals and firing off lyrics than 9mm shells. He’s rich and famous and has diversified his businesses. And that’s something to hold up as the great opportunity this country affords us. You too can achieve greatness no matter how pitiful and lowly you are now.

I once interviewed a big, imposing drug dealer in Harlem for “Michael Moore Hates America” (it ended up on the cutting room floor). I asked him why he does what he does, and he talked about all the same things I talked about. He had children and wanted them to have good lives. He didn’t want them to struggle. Granted, he was peddling poison and killing other peoples’ children with it, but I’m guessing that 50 is happier to be rapping and performing, rather than dealing nowadays.

To me, Ben’s article is the sort of stereotypical social conservatism that makes people afraid to be identified with conservatism or the Republican party. It’s that same old “I don’t like it and I don’t like what I think it could lead to (even though there’s no evidence), so I’ll demonize it.” It’s the same shit Tipper and Al Gore pulled when they hammered a former Marine named Dee Snider about his lyrics, just before getting their asses handed to them by “country boy” John Denver.

It’s also the same thing liberals do to Global Warming “deniers” by demonizing them for destroying the planet even though there’s no evidence they’re right. It’s a hysterical reaction to things we don’t like (rap or SUVs, take your pick), so we make up stories about what it means and how it’s the end of civilization as we know it.  We turn it into its own “culture” so that we can identify it and stamp it out. It’s wrong and wrongheaded. I thought we judged people as individuals on their own merits.

Art and Artist are not the same thing. And words are almost always just words.

I appreciate the plug Mike gave me, but I need to lay some things out. You see, since that movie came out, I’ve become one of the people that you would think would agree with Moore. I’m about to divulge deeply personal information, but I think it’s relevant to the conversation… and a friend recently reminded me that, as Lenny Bruce said, the purpose of art is to stand on stage naked.  In the last 4 years, I haven’t made a dime from my movie, though it’s grossed a LOT of dough. I’ve been divorced. I’ve been audited by the IRS. I’ve lost my home and have no health care insurance. Life has generally been in the crapper. You’d think that I’d be joining the vast majority of people Moore cites who want to stick it to the rich and who are lining up to get free shit from the government. There’s one problem: I’m an American.

Americans don’t ask for handouts. We don’t hope for the demise of others (even the evil rich) so we can simply feel better about our unfortunate circumstances. We don’t want a charismatic leader to be our father-figure. In fact, when we fall, most of us simply want the liberty to pick ourselves up and try again without “help” from any government bureaucrat. We just want the chance to fight. To rage against the odds. And maybe, just maybe, a chance to become one of the evil rich. If we work really hard, maybe we can be filthy, evil and rich.

It’s been a struggle to put food on the table at times in the last year, and I mean that literally, not in the cliché way. Yet I have no doubt that this nation will afford me the opportunity to stand and fight as long as I can, as hard as I can, so that my two beautiful children can have the opportunities they deserve (and if Kylie gets a full-ride hockey scholarship, I’ll just give her the college fund when she graduates). I’m working as hard as I can to get back on my feet. I believe in myself, in my talent, and my resolve… and not the government.

Michael Moore has a fundamental misunderstanding of what the United States of America is supposed to be. These ideas are uncomplicated and unhidden. They are clearly laid out by the founders in the documents that are the foundation of this country (The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution). They’re written in plain English and make a lot of sense. The founders, like Adams and Jefferson were kind enough to supplement their formal ideas with letters, essays and the Federalist Papers. They envisioned a very different country than does Michael Moore, or indeed, President Obama.

The United States is a Republic… a representative democracy. One that is not governed by mob rule, but by the cool, slow workings of what were supposed to be citizen legislators (i.e. they would take a short break from their REAL jobs and head to Washington, address a few issues and head home). More importantly, the founders envisioned a nation that would provide a very limited government, believing that the more local the control, the better. They would shit themselves if they looked at the federal government today.

In his Huffington Post piece, Moore calls my film an “attack documentary.” Clearly, he hasn’t seen it (though my offer to watch it in the home theater I built in my basement still stands, microwave popcorn and all). It’s been lauded by folks like Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper (Two thumbs up), Robert Koehler of Variety, Chris Hewitt and Jeff Strickler. None of these guys are neo-cons. And you know why they liked the flick? Because it wasn’t an attack-job. It was a film as much about morality and ethics as it was about Moore himself. But Michael Moore is so wrapped up in being right, that he couldn’t stand to see a flick that DARED to question whether it’s okay to admit being wrong. He also says that I was part of the “Republican attack machine.” Which is just crazy, since I’m not a Republican (I’m an independent and a libertarian), and I was never part of any clandestine meetings in any smoke-filled rooms.

Moore goes on to say that the vast majority of Americans believe that (in bold, with my responses below):

The American public believes that health care is a right and not a commodity.
I don’t have healthcare insurance and it’s not my right. It’s my responsibility to provide healthcare to my children, so that’s a priority and they have it. I can’t afford to buy it for myself from the people who sell it, so it’s not mine. An easy way to remember what is a right and what isn’t is this: A right is something you don’t need someone else to give you. Therefore, since healthcare is a service, just like a fine dinner at a fine restaurant, isn’t it sort of wrong to force other people to give you money for it at the point of a gun? Trust me, the IRS doesn’t fuck around. If I needed to go to the doctor, should I demand money from each of my neighbors at gunpoint to pay for it? That’s what Universal Health Care looks like.

They want tougher environmental laws and believe that global warming is real, not a myth.
It’s getting dark right now in Minnesota. I am looking at the data from the last 4 minutes, and sure enough, it’s getting darker. At this rate, I won’t be able to see anything in about an hour and it’ll be a black void by tomorrow, continuing forever. That’s the kind of alarmist junk that’s passed for science in the global warming debate. It’s also been warming on Mars and Jupiter, but they don’t drive Ford Explorers there. Recently, sun activity has been slowing down and it’s been cooling for the last 8 years. There might be many explanations and they don’t all involve punishing capitalism. And if we are responsible, that may not be all bad. Have you ever been to my hometown of Minneapolis in the middle of winter? Sometimes I leave my truck running in the driveway all night in hopes that it’ll warm up to -37 degrees. Also, as a Minnesotan, I like the outdoors. Camping, fishing, etc. So I’ll do my part to keep the environment clean. And most other people will too. Without Big Daddy Government fucking with our mojo.

They believe that the rich should be taxed more.
So what? It’s morally wrong. It’s wrong to take money from people at the point of a gun (make no mistake, every tax dollar is collected by force) just because you think they can afford it. Nearly 80% of millionaires are self-made and worked hard to get there. How unfortunate would it be to find that you work really hard, get rich through your hard work and have it all taken away because other people think you should spend it on them? The Founders abhorred income tax and found it morally reprehensible. They also said explicitly that any taxes (if necessary) should be borne equally by all, so after cleaning their pants from seeing the size of government, they’d shit them again when they saw the “progressive” income tax tables.

Plus, Michael Moore is rich and Michael Wilson is poor. I have a feeling Moore doesn’t want to “spread the wealth around” to me. In Moore’s world (whether he realizes it or not), all movie revenues should be shared among filmmakers regardless of success. So since Michael Moore made millions on “Fahrenheit 9/11” and there were “over a half dozen attack documentaries” on him, I (and each of the other filmmakers) should get a check for… I don’t know, how about $3Million? Hell, I’d take $250k. Probably less. It’s a tough economy. But when I run out to the mailbox to get that big stack of bills, I have yet to see a check from Dog Eat Dog Films. And that’s okay. Michael Moore shouldn’t have to give me his money. He worked hard for it.

They want to go after the crooks on Wall Street who got us into this mess and the politicians who enabled them.
Yep. I’m all for going after the crooks on Wall Street and the politicians. But there’s a much better way to do it than dog and pony show Congressional hearings. In America, we allow crappy companies to fail. We also hold elections. Moore is calling for a witch hunt that makes people feel better, and doesn’t do ANYTHING to solve the problem. You want justice? Let the banks and Wall Street firms and Moore’s beloved GM fail. Smarter, better, more efficient, better managed companies will take their place in an effort to meet demand. And those politicians? Like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank? The guys in government mostly responsible for the mortgage crisis? Vote them out of office! Problem solved.

They want more money invested in education, science, technology and infrastructure — not in more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Do they? Well, given that more and more money has been pumped into education without any results, and that there is not ONE study linking per-pupil expenditures to an increase in success, it seems like a pretty stupid investment. Science and technology should be private, unless it’s for a military function. Those things are sold to the public later in the form of wonderful drugs, cell phones with lots of cool functions and myriad other products. Why should we pay for product research for the big companies Moore so reviles? Infrastructure might make sense but I’m a nut and think roads and bridges should be private.

They believe that, whether Democrats or Republicans have been in power, wealthy corporations have been calling the shots for the past few decades and the American people’s voices have not been heard as their country has slowly been driven into the ground. Our politicians and our media have been bought and paid for by the highest bidders and we don’t trust them anymore.
This is just populist crap that really doesn’t mean anything. There are more media outlets and more opportunity for our voices to be heard than ever before. If a guy from Coon Rapids can make a movie that gets seen by hundreds of thousands of people, then mentioned by an Oscar-winner on a blog that’s read by millions of people… well, case in point.

Finally — they want us to get the hell out of Iraq and to investigate the criminals who sent us there for fictitious reasons.
There are a lot of people who think Moore is right, and as a strict constitutionalist, I actually tend to agree with him. I don’t like war. I don’t think anyone really does. But as a former Marine (not a good Marine, but a Marine nonetheless), I can also say that the people who fight believe in the fight, and know what they’re fighting for. It’s what they are trained to do, and they are the finest fighting force in the history of planet Earth. I hate when people like Moore show disdain for them.

Moore loves to stir the pot. And he has as much fun doing it as Rush Limbaugh. The part of me that loves the Big American Conversation respects that part of Moore. This is an arena of ideas. The problem is that Moore doesn’t study the Constitution or the Founders. He doesn’t believe in individuality and rugged determination, but sees individuality as greed. Individuals make this country work. Moore doesn’t believe in what America IS, he believes in how he wants it to be. And that isn’t America.

Moore is right about one thing. Many Americans are so terrified and weak that we’re begging for more government to help us. Don’t do this. Great nations are almost never destroyed from the outside, but decay from within… because they become weak and afraid and beg to become enslaved. We’re on the path.

I’m going to keep fighting. I have a small marketing business, TV stuff in development and a film on the way. I’m not going to ask for help. I don’t want a bailout. I’m going to bail myself out. It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done. Times are tough and we’ve taken some shots. But courage is not defined by those who fought and never fell, but by those who fought, fell, and rose again. It’s time for courage. From you, from me, and from the whole nation.