# Michael Moore tears CNN a new one **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 10, 2007, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143 "2007-07-10T01:25:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/141 "2007-07-12T01:18:40Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Question: where would you rather fall ill if uninsured, France or the mighty US of A? Is this question directed to me? If so, it would depend on what the medical problem was. If it was something where I could easily pay for treatment myself, I’d probably rather be dealing with an American doctor in my native language and near my home. If it was anything expensive—which, with the way US health-care costs are these days, means pretty much anything at all—you can bet your booties I’d rather be over there talking to _le medecin_ in French! ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/142 "2007-07-12T01:32:48Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] I went to see _Sicko_ last night, and I think it’s a work of genius, and funny as hell to boot. I can see why the American health-care industry would be upset about it, though. The film’s message is simple and blatant: “The American for-profit health-care insurance system is catastrophically fucked up, and the socialized insurance systems of Canada, Britain and France are great. Even Cuba’s system is better than ours.” [/quote] A work of genius? It actually convinced me that we, should in fact, never go to universal health care coverage. The key moment for me? The guy who lost his ring and middle finger tips. Under Moore’s utopian ideal that guy’s finger tip reattachment would have been paid for to the tune of $72,000 by the government. Let that sink in, _finger tips_, a completely non-essential, unimportant surgery and tax payers should be fronting three-quarters of a hundred grand for this? My god, I can think of some dumb uses of taxpayer money, some would be worse than that, but that would definitely rank up there. What’s next, $100,000 on experimental medication to cure a stay at home mom’s common cold? > [@](#): > > But it’s all irrelevant. Mitigating circumstances and gray areas and both-sides-of-the-story considerations are not Moore’s concern. In the words of another well-known public figure, he doesn’t do nuance. Moore’s great gift and mission as a filmmaker is merely to call attention to “the elephant in the room” in various issues of American culture and politics. He does this by pointing out simple, naive and pervasive errors in popular perception and opposing to them simple and naive counterexamples. He uses his bumbling baseball-capped Everyschlub persona to spell out explicitly the conventional wisdom that we automatically accept, and to give a voice to our surprise when we find it contradicted by reality. Precisely, he’s a despicable propagandist, and I’m personally amazed that anyone can call him a genius without being a little bit ashamed. Propaganda is a pretty disgusting art form. > [@](#): > > In _Sicko_, the elephant in the room is the simple fact that _ **For-profit health insurance companies can often increase their profits by denying coverage and/or denying care to people who need them. This tends to subvert the ostensible goal of the health-care industry to supply sick people with the medical services they need.** _ Leftists hate profit, news at 11. I think you need to take a step back from your Moore-worshipping. It isn’t exactly revolutionary that, _gasp_, insurance companies are out to make a buck! I think most people realize that. Insurance companies are one of the single most bitched about entities in the United States, the idea that Moore has somehow drawn attention to it, and that no one else has done so, is ludicrous. The simple fact of the matter is, we’ve never moved to the sort of system that France or the UK have because of _people like me_, people who have great health coverage and don’t want to have watered down, lowest common denominator crap. Year-long waiting lists for treatment and et cetera. If the poor people don’t like it, they should make more money, or just recognize that sometimes life isn’t fair. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/143 "2007-07-12T01:41:11Z")
I must have missed the part in the Gospels were Christ told the parable about class conflict leading inevitably to the a revolt of workers seizing the means of industrial production, resulting in a transitionary period of dictatorship of the proletariat that leads into a classless society. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/144 "2007-07-12T01:42:57Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] If the poor people don’t like it, they should make more money, or just recognize that sometimes life isn’t fair. [/QUOTE] Or vote. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/145 "2007-07-12T02:12:30Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] I must have missed the part in the Gospels were Christ told the parable about class conflict leading inevitably to the a revolt of workers seizing the means of industrial production, resulting in a transitionary period of dictatorship of the proletariat that leads into a classless society. [/QUOTE] The above mentioned JD Crossan has suggested that the original iteration of the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (more or less as it appears in Thomas) was essentially an expression of that very sentiment (that the workers should seize the vinyard from their oppressive landlords). ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/146 "2007-07-12T02:18:36Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] BTW, Dio, it’s very convenient that you adopt the mainstream teachings of Christianity in order to marginalize anyone who doesn’t accept them, claiming they aren’t really a Christian [/quote] I haven’t adopted anything. I think Jersus was a hopeless idealist. His heart was in the right place but he was an irretrievable optimist and a naive utopian. I’m also not saying that Christians aren’t really Christians. It would be a more accurate representaion of my view to say that Christianity isn’t really what Jesus taught. > [@](#): > > All that to support some silly claim you made that Jesus advocated communism (as in the Marxian type)? Wow. Just wow. Nothing silly about it. The core of Jesus’ teaching was a utopian “Kingdom of Heaven” with no class divisions and no private wealth. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/147 "2007-07-12T02:19:28Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > Under Moore’s utopian ideal that guy’s finger tip reattachment would have been paid for to the tune of $72,000 by the government. Actually, as I noted in the [“Pitting Dr. Hyde” Pit thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=428189&page=3) where we’re discussing the same incident, in a socialized-medicine system such a procedure would probably be a lot less expensive, because we wouldn’t be paying the hugely inflated prices we do now for administrative overhead and profits for insurance companies. > [@Martin Hyde](#): > > Propaganda is a pretty disgusting art form. Really? You didn’t enjoy the WWII-era Frank Capra _Why We Fight_ films, for instance? Eh, me, I think there’s stuff to appreciate in them. As I said back in post #2 of this thread, “I see no harm in making forthright political propaganda deliberately designed to advertise a cause, as long as we all recognize it for what it is and don’t mistake it for objective journalism”. > [@Martin Hyde](#): > > It isn’t exactly revolutionary that, gasp, insurance companies are out to make a buck! No indeed. What a lot of people fail to notice, though, is that insurance companies making a buck frequently conflicts with their ostensible goal of providing medical care to people who need it. This is kind of an oddball situation in the business world. Usually, companies make more money the more customers they serve. Insurance companies, on the other hand, frequently make the most money out of **failing** to serve their customers, if they can find a way to get out of providing service. I’ll repeat some of my musings from my most recent post in the concurrent Pit thread, as they seem relevant here: > [@Kimstu](#): > > [O]ne of the chief things that makes markets more efficient is their ability to provide a wide range of products in a wide range of prices for a wide range of budgets. But that ability is much less important to most people when it comes to health care than in other goods and services. > > For instance, in the market for restaurant meals, multimillionaire Seth Upscale can spend $150 per entree at Le Pavilion while blue-collar Joe Blow and family go out to the local pasta restaurant or even McDonalds. Seth can drive an expensive new Jaguar while Joe nurses along his old beater for another year, and so forth. Nobody (except out-and-out socialists) really objects to this inequality in consumption. Let the market do what it does best in providing its incredible variety of consumer goods and services to suit all tastes and budgets. > > But most people, whether rich or poor, are much less willing to accept such steep inequalities in medical treatment. Our democratic societies simply do not agree that if Seth and Joe both lose fingers in an accident, say, then Seth is entitled to get more of his fingers reattached than Joe is, because he can pay more. Most people would find such an attitude disgusting and immoral. > > Similarly, nobody wants the fire department to put out fires only or mostly for rich taxpayers, or the military to protect only rich neighborhoods, or the police to catch only criminals preying on the rich. It’s our conviction that these services are there to serve everybody, irrespective of how much different individuals can afford to contribute to pay for them. > > Commercial markets are fundamentally about providing a huge range of different goods to consumers based on what they can afford to pay. Health care, on the other hand, is more like police or fire or postal service than like a commercial market. Its chief objective is to provide the same services to all who have the same need for them. > > That is an objective that markets frequently have a hard time meeting—which is why we don’t have for-profit fire or police departments. It’s intrinsically very difficult to make money off the task of providing universal and equal services to everybody regardless of ability to pay. So in fact, a government-run system to meet such needs is generally more efficient and successful than a for-profit private system. > [@Martin Hyde](#): > > The simple fact of the matter is, we’ve never moved to the sort of system that France or the UK have because of people like me, people who have great health coverage That’s partly true; another reason is that a lot of people are simply afraid of the word “socialized”. But as people like you, the ones with great health coverage, become fewer and fewer in our society (currently at nearly 17% uninsured and counting), the movement for universal health care will become stronger and stronger. Eventually, we’ll get there. It won’t be because we’ll have suddenly turned into a nation of France-loving socialists; it will be simply because our existing health-care system has failed us as a society. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/148 "2007-07-12T02:20:04Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] The early Christians tended to follow the ethics of the Essene sect, which was avowedly communistic (small “c”). Naturally, as I am sure you know, they were not atheists, nor is there any mention in the synoptic Gospels of “dialectical materialism”. But the social structure of the earliest Christians was thoroughly communal, you could read any of the scholarly works of J.D. Crossan if you would like to see that point thoroughly…nay, _exhaustingly_…discussed. So, it can be reliably demonstrated the the _originial_ Christianity was communistic in a manner than precedes the deranged fantasies of Karl Marx by nealy two thousand years. Which is to say, I think friend **Dio’s** meaning has eluded you. [/QUOTE] Exactly so, and thank you and I’m impressed you’ve read Crossan. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/149 "2007-07-12T02:32:01Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > If the poor people don’t like it, they should make more money, or just recognize that sometimes life isn’t fair. The first part of your suggestion is kind of absurd. “Make more money” might be useful advice for an **individual** poor person, but it’s meaningless when applied to the entire population of poor people. Our society is **always** going to have a substantial percentage of people who can’t afford to pay large sums for health care. In fact, our economy depends on having a substantial number of relatively low-income workers; if they were all high-paid enough to buy good health insurance, the rest of us couldn’t afford their services. So just barking “Make more money” isn’t going to solve the problem of inadequate health-care coverage for the poor in general. Your second alternative, “just recognize that sometimes life isn’t fair”, as I said above, doesn’t really resonate with most people when it comes to medical care. You personally may be satisfied with the idea that a rich person should be promptly and effectively treated for a condition that a poor person has to suffer and/or die from, but the vast majority of people in a democratic society are disgusted and appalled by it. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/150 "2007-07-12T10:23:53Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] What are you supposed to do, if a coin with Caesar’s picture on it is the only form of money you can spend?! [/QUOTE] Well, if you’ve pledged yourself to serve God, as the Pharisees who sent the spy with the coin had done, then you obey His commandments. If that means your only choice is between carrying images of Ceasar or being poor, you choose the latter. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/151 "2007-07-12T12:00:50Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] The early Christians tended to follow the ethics of the Essene sect, which was avowedly communistic (small “c”). Naturally, as I am sure you know, they were not atheists, nor is there any mention in the synoptic Gospels of “dialectical materialism”. But the social structure of the earliest Christians was thoroughly communal, you could read any of the scholarly works of J.D. Crossan if you would like to see that point thoroughly…nay, _exhaustingly_…discussed. So, it can be reliably demonstrated the the _originial_ Christianity was communistic in a manner than precedes the deranged fantasies of Karl Marx by nealy two thousand years. Which is to say, I think friend **Dio’s** meaning has eluded you. [/QUOTE] No, I think what has eluded you is that I said from the very beginning that \*\*Dio \*\*was right, up to a point. Little “c” communist, yes. So why is he getting on after Liberal and claiming he should espouse governmental action wrt healthcare since he ( **Liberal** )claims to be a Christian? Go back and read the post (#91) that got this digression started. Liberal posted something about Socialism, and Dio came back with something about Communism (big “C”). Note the reference to Marx in that post. Jesus wasn’t much interested in governments. He was all about the Kingdom of Heaven, always reminding us about the difference between that and earthly kingdoms. Jesus talked a lot about what we should do in our personal lives, but I don’t recall much, if anything, he said about what governments should do. So, no, the early Christians didn’t set up a Socialist state. They lived on the margins of society, outside the reach of the state. And for good reason. The state was as likely to feed them to lions as to do anything nice for them. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/152 "2007-07-12T12:55:20Z")
Jesus never called upon government to make any law. And the only political philosophy He espoused was noncoercion. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/153 "2007-07-12T15:45:58Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Jesus never called upon government to make any law. And the only political philosophy He espoused was noncoercion. [/QUOTE] And if “early Christians” lived in voluntary, communal societies\*, then I don’t see any contradiction between what you’ve been saying in this thread (especially about Socialism) and Christian beliefs as they relate to those communities. If, however, they lived in communal societies where you got yourself killed if you didn’t comply, then I don’t see their connection to the teachings of Jesus, and they seem more like big “C” communists in the Lenin/Stalin/Mao tradition. \*I assume this is what is meant by small “c” communism ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/154 "2007-07-12T15:46:24Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] No, I think what has eluded you is that I said from the very beginning that \*\*Dio \*\*was right, up to a point. Little “c” communist, yes. So why is he getting on after Liberal and claiming he should espouse governmental action wrt healthcare since he ( **Liberal** )claims to be a Christian? Go back and read the post (#91) that got this digression started. Liberal posted something about Socialism, and Dio came back with something about Communism (big “C”). Note the reference to Marx in that post. Jesus wasn’t much interested in governments. He was all about the Kingdom of Heaven, always reminding us about the difference between that and earthly kingdoms. Jesus talked a lot about what we should do in our personal lives, but I don’t recall much, if anything, he said about what governments should do. So, no, the early Christians didn’t set up a Socialist state. They lived on the margins of society, outside the reach of the state. And for good reason. The state was as likely to feed them to lions as to do anything nice for them. [/QUOTE] I didn’t say they were socialists, I said they were communists. My point was that while religious conservatives always clutch their pearls about any hint of socialism, I also never see them practicing the communism that Jesus ordered them to live by. ETA, those early Christians were hardly outside the reach of the state and they weren’t fed to lions. That’s a myth. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/155 "2007-07-12T15:47:20Z")
As I’ve always said, a libertarian community can be communist — so long as all are volunteers. Libertarianism and volunteerism are synonyms. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/156 "2007-07-12T15:53:48Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] As I’ve always said, a libertarian community can be communist — so long as all are volunteers. Libertarianism and volunteerism are synonyms. [/QUOTE] Social democracies are voluntary too. ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/157 "2007-07-12T15:54:11Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] My point was that while religious conservatives always clutch their pearls about any hint of socialism, I also never see them practicing the communism that Jesus ordered them to live by. [/QUOTE] Jesus ordered them to live by socialist methods? Where? As I pointed out, the early Christians agreed among themselves to live in such an arrangement. It does not appear to have been ordered by anyone that they do so. And it certainly is not binding on future Christians to live like early Christians did. ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/158 "2007-07-12T15:55:19Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Social democracies are voluntary too. [/QUOTE] No, they are not. A segment of the population may vote for leaders who impose socialism, but this socialism is not limited to those who voted for it. All people, regardless of their desire to live in such a system, must obey or be arrested or killed. How is that voluntary? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/159 "2007-07-12T16:00:04Z")
[QUOTE=Renob] Jesus ordered them to live by socialist methods? [/quote] No. Please try to read for comprehension. Jesus ordered them to live _communistically_. > [@](#): > > Where? As I pointed out, the early Christians agreed among themselves to live in such an arrangement. It does not appear to have been ordered by anyone that they do so. And it certainly is not binding on future Christians to live like early Christians did. The early Christian communities were set up by the apostles, including Simon the Rock, Jesus’ own personally appointed representative on earth. Also, Jesus definitely said you have to give everything you own to the poor, that you can’t serve both God and Mammon, that rich people can’t go to Heaven, that you should carry only the clothes on your back and “have no thought for the morrow,” etc. ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/160 "2007-07-12T16:03:35Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] No. Please try to read for comprehension. Jesus ordered them to live _communistically_. [/quote] Fine. Where? > [@](#): > > The early Christian communities were set up by the apostles, including Simon the Rock, Jesus’ own personally appointed representative on earth. So? I don’t see anywhere in the New Testament where Peter or anyone commands Christians to live under any sort of communist system. Just because some early believers did so does not make it mandatory that future believers do so. > [@](#): > > Also, Jesus definitely said you have to give everything you own to the poor, that you can’t serve both God and Mammon, that rich people can’t go to Heaven, that you should carry only the clothes on your back and “have no thought for the morrow,” etc. True, although this sounds more like being a homeless person than living in a communist system. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143.md?page=9)