Number_6 said:
TrekBBS is a wankfest. Just went over there today, and it's just a bunch of people agreeing with one another and patting one another on the back for poorly constructed arguments and rants.
Well, tra la la. What that had to do with anything here is beyond me, but hey, thanks for bringing it up.
See, the problem is that George Clooney thinks that if he is denied a public platform from which to pontificate, that his right to free speech is being denied. He thinks that if we say that Syriana is a piece of paranoid bullshit, that we are infringing upon his rights to free speech.
I know people who think being denied access to BBSes mean they're being denied free speech. I know people who think it's a restraint on their freedom to obey stop signs or wait in line. How is Clooney's own brand of entitlement a "problem", other than his being just one more dumbass a-hole in the world?
In short, Clooney and his ilk think that they are entitled to a public forum in which to express their ill-informed ideas.
Unfortunately, public fora
are open to ideas, ill-informed or otherwise. Clooney is entitled to make movies that express his views as long as the market supports him; the moment his movies don't make money he's done having any public forum on that scale. In the meantime, I can ignore him (I usually do) or I can hang on his every word. This is one price of having a free society.
So we live in a world where assholes think they're entitled to shit just because they think they are. Whoopty-friggin'-do. My own life is more likely to be disrupted by someone who thinks he can cut me off at a red light or something than it is by the yammerings of a pretty boy movie star, but perhaps you and I have different kinds of problems.
As for the average education of the Hollywood movie star, BDM is closer to the mark than you are, particularly for those who started acting at a young age. I taught in SoCal for a number of years, and I've had more than a couple of actors and actresses in my classes. Special treatment was the order of the day. The schools were courting the prestige of having an actor or actress on campus, and we were not to interfere with their getting a diploma or a degree.
Even if BDM was closer to the mark than me - and I don't recall even setting a "mark", just questioning his - high school and college educations don't necessarily equal "smart". And if you wanna see young people who think they deserve "special treatment", I point thee to your average MBA or law school grad, especially the ones here in DC. I'm a musician and an artist and know more than my share of pretentious dicks (sure, including me if you want), but no more than in any other demographic.
