Woody Harrelson: I'm an American tired of American lies

I think you're making that assumption. He's a celebrity, they're in the news, they have opinions. No one is saying their opinions mean more than ours do.

 

I see lengthy letters to the editor many times

No, by printing it they know that Joe Schmo cares more about Woody Harrelson's opinions than your's. That's not right either, but it doesn't mean someone's views should be ignored because of their celebrity status.

 

the very fact they print his opinion leads to that assumption, rm95...i don't think i'm reaching here.

 

No, they print it because it's Woody Harrelson and not MadMax. Like it or not, right or not, letting some regular guy write a piece like that wouldn't sell papers. They're not saying "We think Woody's smarter than all of you, hence we'll let him write this article". Nope. They're actually saying, "No one will read what the majority of you write, but they may read what this actor has to say".

That's the reader's fault and the celebrity's opinions shouldn't be discounted for that.

 

do you honestly think that celebrity's opinions on matters like these are not given more value than they deserve?

if not i think we'll just agree to disagree...

 

I think this sums it up clearly & concisely. Of course, I'm sure Woody would be welcome in Baghdad, where they never have any problems with their elections, and no innocent people are ever killed.

100% voter turnout and 100% agreement of an elected leader, with the paper ballots of 11.5 million voters efficiently tabulated overnight. That sounds like an ideal government for Woody.

 

Where did I say that? In fact, I don't think it's right. However, that doesn't mean that the opinions should be dismissed because it was a celebrity who gave them.

 

I can't believe that you really think that newspapers or television shows think that celebrity opinions are more important than the average Joe's.

They don't publish our commentaries because no one would care to read them. Simple as that.

 

Sounds like a pretty sound plan to me.

Note Woody left half of the defense budget. Tht would make it merely more than the next 5-10 largest countries together. I guess that is just pure ignorant idealistic pacifism for you guys.

 

fair enough...i agree...i just misread what you were saying.

 

ok...then who goes and cleans up the next milosevic, glynch? i'm not comfortable sending american troops out there to be exposed to war without giving them every advantage i possibly can to make it home alive with their mission accomplished...at some point, you have to defend yourself...at some point you have to defend your allies...hell, a good chunk of the world calls on our military help (ironically, including kuwait and others back in the early 90's).

 

Celebrities give interviews on a wide range of topics all the time, and a lot of these are about topics which they are not "qualified" to talk about.

It seems to me that most of the people in here object to this piece because he doesn't agree with you. He's just a person expressing an opinion, like anybody writing a piece of this nature in a national newspaper. I've seen plenty of poorly-argued, badly-researched articles written by professionals.

Woody thinks differently from a lot of Americans... so? As a celebrity, any opinion that he expresses that is out of the ordinary will attract publicity and coverage. That's the nature of our media-driven society these days. I don't see it as anything to specifically get angry about.

 

This whole thing started when RM95 misunderstood this post. He asked "what makes you qualified?" But t4651965 never suggested that he WAS qualified to do anything, nor does he have a 'forum' to spout his views.

I still think Harrelson should go room with Alec Baldwin in whatever country he's living in now. They can live it up and get stoned while they laugh about stoning the families of those they disagree with.

 

I didn't misunderstand anything. Last I checked, this is a forum. I think we should just disregard his opinion because I don't agree with him though.

Why should people you disagree with move? You misunderstand the first amendment.

 

Not people I disagree with, just Americans who talk **** about the US to another country's newspaper.

 

So you'd be in favor of amending the Constitution to that fact? People have freedom of speech, only if they do it to publications within the United States?

 

Yeah, that's what I think. You nailed it.

 

Thanks...wasn't that hard.