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Comment count is 22
kingarthur - 2012-02-19

Why are American conservatives wallowing in their own special brand of stupid all the time? My head has gone wobbly from trying to follow his "reasoning" and I only made it to 2:29.


Cena_mark - 2012-02-19

"It was only until I read Mark Twain's account of the rough and tumble life on the Nevada gold frontier in Roughing It that I fully grasped what it means to have someone level a gun at you."
I can relate. After listening to Straight Outta Compton I can fully grasp what its like to be a disenfranchised black youth living with the pressures of gang violence and police brutality. Bill Whittle and I are salty, stone cold, bad asses due to our rough and tumble experiences.


CrimsonHyperSloth - 2012-02-19

Cena, you made me smile. The thought of a slow pan across some gang in a ghetto and some where in the middle you in service uniform and the face paint.


Louis Armstrong - 2012-02-19

Stars for Cena. It's small pyschological validation, but I'm mopping what your spilling and I hope to see more.


YakooMarkTwo - 2012-02-19

"it's not just lucas, it's the entire liberal hollywood media nancy boy frilly weinie class who got now run this country..." I'm giving 4 stars just for that sentence. I stopped watching immediately


Cena_mark - 2012-02-19

Haven't seen you here in a while Armstrong. To fill you in, I've made a face turn.


bopeton - 2012-02-19

Han Shot first and if he didn't he should have; I think most people are fine with this.

What does this have to do with America, Navy SEALS, gun control, or bad haircuts?


erratic - 2012-02-19

"Han Solo, outlaw smuggler is justified in killing to save his own life....Now watch this clip of Navy Seals gunning down outlaw smugglers. Doesn't it feel great to be ignorant of how movies can influence who you perceive as being the good guy?"


MongoMcMichael - 2012-02-19

Around 7:00 in, it becomes naked nostalgia for fascist propaganda.


takewithfood - 2012-02-19

He's right that audiences generally need to identify with the protagonist, or "the good guys" in his words, in order to enjoy a story.

But his real point here is is that he only identifies with the image of America, rather than, say, actual values. The good guys in the clip he showed were good guys because they were American; what they were doing and why is irrelevant. American = good guy = identification, and that's as far as he's going to think it through.

Likewise, he doesn't like anything that looks like criticism of America because, to him, "America = good" is a more important message than "greed = bad" or "wrath = bad" or "hubris = bad". It doesn't matter if the protagonist is virtuous or human - as long as he's from the good ol' US of A. An American character who is greedy, wrathful, or arrogant would conflict with his belief system, and so he has to write it off as nothing more than evil propaganda in order to quiet the cognitive dissonance.

It's this loyalty to image and identity over actual morality or virtue that is at the heart of my disagreement with the right. Guys like this would rather salute the flag than ensure the flag actually stands for anything worth saluting.


Xenocide - 2012-02-19

These stars are for you.


Bort - 2012-02-19

I still think modern conservatism is literally every bit as tribal as packs of chimpanzees: support your tribe at all costs because failing to do so is death. It doesn't even matter that, say, Obama has good ideas for keeping us safer; if he's not of the tribe, he's an outsider and is therefore against the tribe. Likewise, it doesn't matter if Newt Gingrich is clearly unfit for the Presidency; at least he belongs to the tribe.

By the way, this also explains Log Cabin Republicans: sure, gay conservatives are second class citizens, but what is the alternative? Walk away from the tribe? Millions of years of evolution say that's not even an option because it's certain death.


takewithfood - 2012-02-19

That's well put, Bort. I think you're right on the money.


Bort - 2012-02-19

It's a conclusion of last resort, but one that seems to explain quite a lot. I've also run it past a couple recovering conservatives, and they tell me it sounds about right.

So assuming it's true, what to do with it?

The OWS protesters are uncannily on the right track: they've reframed a lot of the debate to the 1% / 99% model, where "our tribe" is the 99%, and the 1% are leeches stealing from the rest of us. To a certain extent it's a hard sell, though, because age-old instincts also inform us that the strongest members of the tribe are also the ones you depend upon the most for keeping the tribe strong. But keep returning to the observation that the 1% are getting stronger at the expense of the tribe, and you might make progress.

I think there's value in calling the other person a sucker. Nobody likes to be called a sucker, but more importantly, nobody likes to BE a sucker, so planting a seed of doubt is probably a good idea. Don't be all Walter Mondaley about it, though; don't say "my friend, I fear you have been misled by the Republicans". Just say, "Congratulations, you're a sucker: you keep voting for guys like Romney who will buy out your company and fire you, and make a million dollars in the process."


Oscar Wildcat - 2012-02-19

This dude fairly reeks of opiates. Trust me, I know these things.


Kieran27 - 2012-02-19

I absolutely love his take on Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman. Cut to scene of Indy shooting the swordsman, then a quick rant about how bold, powerful, not lazy or weak Indy is.

Obviously not realizing that in that scene, Indy was supposed to fight him in a long sword/bullwhip scene, but Harrison had a bad cold that day, so he improvised the pulling the gun and shooting him. And thus one of the more memorable scenes in the Indy series was made.

But I guess actual research isn't his thing. What's important is a gun was fired. And righteously so!


Hooker - 2012-02-19

I thought this was going to be a light analogy to something, but it really is a Han Shot First rant with some "wider implications" thrown in. Unbelievable.


dairyqueenlatifah - 2012-02-19

This is almost as great as the video where he says there are no poor people in the United States, because if you own a toaster and a pair of shoes, you are not poor, and everyone owns those things in the US, and therefore poor people are liberals who hate America and love the Taliban.


Riskbreaker - 2012-02-19

I guess his point, the initial one if there ever was one is that there is a silly agenda of political correctness these days, and i could agree if he brought actual valid examples, like say, people flipping out over Resident Evil 5 being racist because the enemies are black africans. Problem is, he went on to pick the most idiotic and senseless analogy he could choose. Then of course you see that his real point is "WE NEED MORE MOVIES OF AMERICANS CHASING EVIL TALIBANS" and everything else is just, as usual, than being a simple minded one dimensional doofus that eats and shits america is all you need in life.

The irony of course is, once more, the whole KEEP THE GOVERMENT OUT OF MY LAWN, I WON'T PAY ANY TAXES..........as long as the guvmunt is chasing evil people in other countries, and using that money i cry about to fight more senseless wars.


Nikon - 2012-02-20

In a 2012 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Lucas altered his previous statements by announcing that Greedo had always shot first - stating that a combination of bad close-up shots and the audiences' inaccurate perception of the Han Solo character was what actually caused all the confusion: "The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down."


Bort - 2012-02-20

For God's sake, George, it's a kids' movie. Find an eight-year-old to explain it to you.


exar_kun - 2012-02-20

I refuse to believe this is not satire at it's finest.
The reshoot does look unbelievable and horrible, Helen Keller could have hit Han from where Greedo is sitting.


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