Dennis Prager: Jimmy Carter: 'Compassion for Mordor'

Town Hall ^ | January 6, 2004 | Dennis Prager

[quidnunc]

Oslo, Norway (Prager News Service, Jan. 5, 2004) – In a just-published interview with the Norwegian Society for Universal Neutrality (NSUN), former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said that the blockbuster trilogy "Lord of the Rings" is sending dangerous messages to the world's young people.

"For three hours in this latest installment of 'Lord of the Rings,' young people the world over watch my work in the United States and your work here in Europe — to get nations to disarm, not to make moral judgments about any nation other than America or Israel — undone.

"We who love peace," the Nobel Peace Prize laureate continued, "have to initiate a campaign to jolt people back to our view of the world. Let's be clear about the dangers. What if young people start identifying George W. Bush with Aragorn or Gandalf, and Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden with Saruman? Even worse, impressionable moviegoers might identify the American war against Iraq and so-called 'Islamic terror' with the war against the Orcs and Mordor.

"Who knows what might happen if enough young people start thinking that war is an option, or that some people or countries can be labeled 'evil,' or that there is something noble about a soldier who kills for a 'just' cause?"

The former president continued, "I hope that the European community, enlightened Democrats and progressives in America begin to realize the potential consequences of this film. There may even be a demand among American college students to allow the return of ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) recruiters to campuses. People might start regarding war as an option.

"When I saw the audience in the movie theater cheer when Orcs were killed, I shuddered," Mr. Carter said, visibly pained. "The message of 'Lord of the Rings' is just plain bad.

"We must do something to counteract this celebration of violence," Mr. Carter said emphatically. "To see even trees fight and kill is enough to make any right-thinking person sick to his or her stomach.

"You Europeans, and we in America who identify with your beautiful values of moral neutrality and pacifism, must create a major public relations campaign against these films. We have to use our access to people's hearts and minds to counter that of Hollywood, which is almost always on our side, but for the sake of profits has produced this reactionary propaganda.

-snip-

[StoneColdGOP]

Come clean.

You got this from "The Onion", right?

[Maigret]

I guess we have a pretty good idea that not everyone reads an entire article before shooting, LOL

[Sans-Culotte]

The punchline whent over my head anyway. I thought the line about the "story being fiction, but not false", referred to the LOTR trilogy!

[Utah Girl]

How dare Jimmah Carter besmirch LOTR. ;)

[Avoiding_Sulla]

I saw your debate earlier today with q here. Here's one where quiddy left off the most important part of the story -- that it was a parody -- by doing his unnecessary excerpting. And in so doing he ruined part of Prager's intent -- by letting the reader catch on slowly that it was a parody it leaves the reader with the feeling, that even though fictional, nevertheless Carter could have said it.

Worse, Q, you have misled YOUR devotees. You do do a service most cases; but what about the many who don't bother reading past the first part of the excerpt unless it interests them? I guarantee you have caused some of your fans to have made a fool of themselves when telling their friends what Carter most recently said. The honorable thing for you to do was to add the spoiler it by saying in the excerpted link "(BTW -- Prager admits this is a parody)".

I humbly suggest that you ask a moderator to fix the exception line accordingly.

[Sloth]

*Obvious* parody, in spite of what so many are saying.

[quidnunc]

Avoiding_Sulla wrote: I saw your debate earlier today with q here. Here's one where quiddy left off the most important part of the story -- that it was a parody -- by doing his unnecessary excerpting. And in so doing he ruined part of Prager's intent -- by letting the reader catch on slowly that it was a parody it leaves the reader with the feeling, that even though fictional, nevertheless Carter could have said it. Worse, Q, you have misled YOUR devotees. You do do a service most cases; but what about the many who don't bother reading past the first part of the excerpt unless it interests them? I guarantee you have caused some of your fans to have made a fool of themselves when telling their friends what Carter most recently said. The honorable thing for you to do was to add the spoiler it by saying in the excerpted link "(BTW -- Prager admits this is a parody)". I humbly suggest that you ask a moderator to fix the exception line accordingly.

I find an article, I post an excerpt so the reader can get enough of it's flavor to see if he's interested in it and I provide a link.

The rest is up to the prospective reader, who is obligated to expend at least a minimum amount of effort in exchange for my doing most of the work.

Freepers aren't a bunch of toddlers and I'm not a pre-school teacher.

[Avoiding_Sulla]

This is NOT just a flavor q. It's a totally different story. It's the equivalent of you spreading a false rumor. Now that you know it is a rumor, if you fail to correct it, you are spreading false reports intentionally.

Stop trying to say you bear NO responsibility for you actions and inactions. You clearly do.

[quidnunc]

Avoiding_Sulla wrote: This is NOT just a flavor q. It's a totally different story. It's the equivalent of you spreading a false rumor. Now that you know it is a rumor, if you fail to correct it, you are spreading false reports intentionally. Stop trying to say you bear NO responsibility for you actions and inactions. You clearly do.

What part of "This Is An Excerpt" do you not understand?

Excerpt (n.): a passage selected from a larger work; "he presented exerpts from William James' philosophical writings" [syn: extract, selection] v : take out of a literary work in order to cite or copy.

[XHogPilot]

This editorial describes Jimmah to da bone!

[Killborn]

Thank you :)

[risk]

"What if young people start identifying George W. Bush with Aragorn or Gandalf, and Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden with Saruman?"

This is a joke, right? You found this on the Onion, correct? Oh, this is Jimmy Carter, so I have to suspect that he could have actually said this.