I guess it’s because I’m back in Berkeley, but certain blog posts — like this one from Confederate Yankee — are triggering intermittent outbursts of Berkeley nostalgia:
I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning, it smells like… bacon.
Yes, the fat frying this morning belongs to none other than Michael Moore.
Moore, who disingenuously challenged America’s gun culture and history with his now customary use of inaccurate, contradictory and confused information in Bowling for Columbine, just had his bodyguard arrested for attempting to illegally carry a handgun onto a flight at JFK Airport in New York.
Moore now joins gun-grabbers Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy,Dianne Feinstien, Barbara Boxer, and many more that belong to the liberal culture that tells us, “do as I say, not as I do.”
(Via Glenn Reynolds, who also notes that Moorewatch is now claiming that Moore is innocent.)
I think Berkeley certainly counts as “do as I say, not as I do” country, and the whole Moore flap reminded me of a true Berkeley story about peacenik Sean Penn — whose firearms were stolen from his car here. This, of course, offered no ethical challenges for the anti-gun Brady Bunch:
“The silence from liberal gun control extremists is deafening,” said Citizens Committee Chairman Alan Gottlieb in a statement. “Where are the traditional whines about irresponsibility in the Penn case? Why aren’t the elitists demanding Penn’s hide for not keeping better track of his guns?”
Berkeley police said a loaded Glock 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol and an unloaded Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver owned by Penn were missing after the actor’s car was stolen April 8. Police recovered the car, but the guns Penn had in it were stolen.
Characterizing the lack of response as a “double standard,” Citizens Committee Communications Director Dave Workman said he believes Penn has “gotten the nod and a wink,” from Hollywood, “even though he’s got a couple of guns in his car. I don’t know too many peaceniks who drive around fully armed like that.”
Or am I being too hard on Penn by insinuating he’s in with the gun grabbers?
Roger Friedman speculated that Penn actually might have hidden, um, gun-friendly feelings:
Penn has made his share of enemies over the years. He turned off a lot of people last winter, when he made a visit to Iraq as a self-appointed weapons inspector. But he must really be nervous if he’s got that much artillery at hand.
Of course, carrying guns may actually endear Penn to the exact same people he ticked off with the Iraq trip. Maybe he’s an anti-gun control liberal. Now that would be a first.
Is Penn in fact an anti-gun control liberal? I don’t know, but I think he should be free to do his own thing, and I certainly don’t believe in outing people.
But why would Hollywood keep him in the closet?
Hypocrisy?
Or hoplophobia?
Comments
3 responses to “Moore from Hollywood’s closet?”
Are you certain that the “anti-gun control liberal” species still exist? I think they died out in the 50’s and 60’s. Gone the way of the Illuminati and the Whig party.
Hoplophobia… that is a keeper. I love the root of the word!
Regarding Penn… the guy is TOO good at acting. I won’t boycott his films.
Anti-gun control liberals and even Leftists do indeed exist, though you may have to look for them. Some of my best friends, e.g., Robin Georg Olsen, are such. In fact, I’ve always wondered just when gun control became identified with liberalism, and just what does it have to do with any of the historic ideas of liberalism or even Leftism? From a Marxist point of view, it could be seen as a plot by the ruling class to disarm the working class. It has historically been used by racists to disarm Negroes. Women, homosexuals, and Jews are increasingly arming themselves. It certainly violates the quintessential liberal value of individual freedom as articulated by John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Justice William O. Douglas, and other liberals, and as enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and not only in the Second Amendment. It was not even part of the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, or even the Great Society. It is authoritarian, elitist, and fascistic, paving the way to Nazism. It is totally illiberal.
Gun-owning (or gun-rights-defending) liberals and homosexual (or homosexual-admiring) conservatives: I like them both.