Originally Posted by jayeff

Put rather more acceptably than a couple of remarks in today's two threads, but still basically saying the same both wrong and irrelevant thing.

Dave Kopel's site claims to debunk some of Moore's facts. Other sites debunk Dave Kopel and are in turn debunked, etc. Around and around we go. Somewhere in all that lot are the real facts, but if we had a way to be sure we had identified the real facts correctly, there would still be as many shades of opinion as now. Opinion may be influenced by facts, but it is not determined by them.

Perspective is the primary determinant of opinion. Mine relating to foreign policy is that if you stomp on someone enough to hurt, but not enough to destroy, one day that action will come back to haunt you. You likely cannot destroy a nation, tribe or whatever, along with everyone who is vested in them, so from my perspective any interventionist foreign policy is going to bite back one day.

Thus I read about the past 80 years of US foreign policy in the Middle East and see 9-11 as an inevitable result. I see what we have done since as almost the exact opposite of what was needed and therefore anticipate further acts of violence. But someone else, reading from the perspective that economic growth for the US must be protected at all costs, will read the exact same history and believe the policy was sound. Even if such a person agrees that 9-11 was a result of that policy (and in order to defend it, he/she is unlikely to make such an admission), he is likely to argue for an aggressive response, much like what was offered. Same facts, two polar opinions.

The nature of debate is that disagreeing sides use convenient and partial facts to present their own points of view. Distorted surely, but it is not the job of either side to present the other side's argument and in the end, those following the debate will not be persuaded by the facts anyway. Most will accept the argument which sits most comfortably with their own preconceptions. Just a few might be swayed if one argument is made with particular passion or if they especially like or dislike the personality of one of the debaters.

I don't know if Moore's movies have any value. Heaven knows that if democracy is to mean anything, something needs to jolt a lot of people out of their ignorance and lethargy. But I doubt many of them were in his audiences. Most who were likely went to validate their existing point of view, or so they could put Michael Moore down after. I seriously doubt that many have switched sides.