Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Moore's Flawed Argument About Sacrificing YOUR CHILD for Fallujah 
Drudge Report has a transcript of the Moore – O’ Reilly Debate. The argument that Moore is using, which repeats an argument he made in Fahrenheit 9/11 is that only those who pay the price of something (i.e. sign up or have loved ones sign up for the military) deserve a say in deciding costly actions (the war). It is unlikely Moore would go along with this argument in other circumstances – we are not about to see Michael Moore say that only those who pay taxes, or the cost of government, should have the right to vote. The truth is that as Americans we have a system that costs are not shared evenly, but still allow all Americans a say in how decisions are made. Just as that applies to the economy, so that should apply to the Military.

Then again, if Moore doesn’t think this is a fair situation we can make arrangements to alter it. It would be pretty simple although I think we would need to set up a federal referendum system on all wars/taxes. You or a member of your immediate family serve in the army, then you get to vote on whether to go to war. At the same time, on all issues involving taxation, the votes that a person gets would be dependent on the amount of taxes they paid in the previous year. Thus, in a taxation referendum, my brother would get 10 votes, I would get about 2,000 votes, Eugene Volokh would get about 5,000,000 votes, and Dick Cheney would get about 20,000,000. Anybody honestly believe that Moore would be in favor of such a system?  

Anyway, here is the excerpt (thanks to Drudge Report for the transcript):

M[Moore]: Are you against that? Stopping this war?
O [O’Reily]: No we cannot leave Iraq right now, we have to
M: So you would sacrifice your child to secure Fallujah? I want to hear you say that.
O: I would sacrifice myself—
M: Your child—Its Bush sending the children there.
O: I would sacrifice myself.M: You and I don’t go to war, because we’re too old—
O: Because if we back down, there will be more deaths and you know it.
M: Say ‘I Bill O’Reilly would sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah’
O: I’m not going to say what you say, you’re a, that’s ridiculous
M: You don’t believe that. Why should Bush sacrifice the children of people across America for this?


Update: As an aside, for those of you who dislike O'Reilly, this should be red meat.

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