This has been cross posted to the Western Standard Blog, The Shotgun
I used to be a fan of Michael Moore. I saw his film
Roger and Me soon after it was released and liked his style of confronting people that were scuz-balls and putting them on the spot.
Bowling for Columbine was a great movie that took an interesting look at the culture of violence.
The Awful Truth was a fun series that exposed corporate entanglement with government and corruption.
Fahrenheit 9/11 was a disappointment, it seemed like a feature-length personal attack on George Bush, who likely deserved it, but I never saw the film more than once.
Sicko was a decent film, fun, interesting, though his conclusions about the government taking over health care (after he talked about how terrible government was in Fahrenheit 9/11) I think are faulty. Many Canadians who saw it noticed that the negative aspects of socialized medicine were not talked about.
Capitalism: A Love Story I haven't seen yet, though I can guess what the content will be like; moving Moore's editorial content further and further along the path of socialism.
That brings me to a recent blog post that Mr. Moore recently made.
"
Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now"
I'm going to focus on the first 5 things in this list, which would more accurately be called
"5 Things We Can Do to Control Other People and Businesses Against Their Will"
1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.
Mr. Moore doesn't believe in personal responsibility it seems, of course it the fault of the evil banks that people took out mortgages they couldn't afford. If your home is worth $200,000, but you can only afford to pay $300 a month, perhaps you should move into a less expensive home. If you lose your job, live within your means.
2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery.
The civilized world is realizing that "free" health care is a laborious, bureaucratic system that is heavy on top end management and low on getting results, like any other government program. 50% of all health dollars in the U.S. is spent by the government already, increasing that closer to 100% won't make it better. The answer is to get government out of health care completely and let the free market handle it.
3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.
So he wants to tell people what they can and can't do for work. Hey Michael, butt out and let people make their own decisions! He also wants the public to pay for the campaigns of the various parties. Ummm, no thanks, I have no interest in paying for the campaign of some politician who wants to run my life. If you want to remove the influence of lobbyists on government, reduce the power of the government and the lobbyists have less incentive to lobby.
4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?"
Message for Mr. Moore, SOCIALISM DOESN'T WORK! Eventually you run out of other people’s money! If the rule if "do no harm", then how about the government quit forcing the people of North Dakota to fund a bank that they may or may not have any interest in funding! Forcing people to fund your pet projects IS harming them. As for the common good, it is a meaningless statement. EVERYBODY is part of the common, some things that iare good for some may not be good for others.
5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!
More socialism. How far above the ground do we own all of it? How far beneath the ground? Who decides what that number is? Do you own the sunlight above my house that I collect with solar panels? If so, do I need to cut you a check for having harnessed that power. This idea of "collectively" owning resources is silly. It is a matter of private property.
So Michael Moore's answer is "let the government take it over and run it", because of course the government has such a great history of running things smoothly, and on budget, and on time, without being influenced by lobbyists and special interests, etc. That was sarcasm BTW.
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