Michael Moore Trashed My Movie… My Response

by Michael Wilson

Michael Moore wrote a piece for the Huffington Post last week. I didn’t find out about it until today because I was doing more important things like volunteering and watching my 6 year-old daughter’s all-girl hockey team beat up on the boy teams here in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. While I was busy watching Kylie score 6 goals in 5 games, including the only 2 in a 2-0 victory, Michael Moore was once again telling us how we should be like Europe, and how most Americans agree with him and blah, blah, fuckity blah. He also mentioned my movie by name. It’s enough to make a guy go bugnutty.

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.


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Posted Mar 9th 2009 at 8:37 am in Celebrity News, Politics | 137 Comments