Posted on 01/08/2003 11:57:05 AM PST by MrLeRoy
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 — Ratcheting up the debate over sport utility vehicles, new television commercials suggest that people who buy the vehicles are supporting terrorists. The commercials are so provocative that some television stations are refusing to run them.
Patterned after the commercials that try to discourage drug use by suggesting that profits from illegal drugs go to terrorists, the new commercials say that money for gas needed for S.U.V.'s goes to terrorists.
"This is George," a girl's voice says of an oblivious man at a gas station. "This is the gas that George bought for his S.U.V." The screen then shows a map of the Middle East. "These are the countries where the executives bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his S.U.V." The picture switches to a scene of armed terrorists in a desert. "And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his S.U.V."
A second commercial depicts a series of ordinary Americans saying things like: "I helped hijack an airplane"; "I gave money to a terrorist training camp in a foreign country"; "What if I need to go off-road?"
At the close, the screen is filled with the words: "What is your S.U.V. doing to our national security?"
The two 30-second commercials are the brainchild of the author and columnist Arianna Huffington. Her target audience, she said, is Detroit and Congress, especially the Republicans and Democrats who last year voted against a bill, sponsored by Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, that would have raised fuel-efficiency standards.
Spokesmen for the automakers dismissed the commercials.
Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said of Ms. Huffington, "Her opinion is out-voted every year by Americans who buy S.U.V.'s for their safety, comfort and versatility." He said that S.U.V.'s now account for 21 percent of the market.
In an interview, Senator Kerry distanced himself from the commercials. He said that rather than oppose S.U.V.'s outright, he believed they should be more efficient.
"I haven't seen these commercials," he said, "but anybody can drive as large an S.U.V. as they want, though it can be more efficient than it is today."
Ms. Huffington's group, which calls itself the Detroit Project, has bought almost $200,000 of air time for the commercials, to run from Sunday to Thursday. While the group may lose some viewers if stations refuse to run the advertisements, the message is attracting attention through news coverage.
The advertisements are to be broadcast on "Meet The Press," "Face the Nation" and "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and Washington.
But some local affiliates say they will not run them. At the ABC affiliate in New York, Art Moore, director of programming, said, "There were a lot of statements being made that were not backed up, and they're talking about hot-button issues."
Ms. Huffington said she got the idea for the commercials while watching the antidrug commercials, sponsored by the Bush administration. In her syndicated column, she asked readers if they would be willing to pay for "a people's ad campaign to jolt our leaders into reality."
She said she received 5,000 e-mail messages and eventually raised $50,000 from the public. Bigger contributors included Steve Bing, the film producer; Larry David, the comedian and "Seinfeld" co-creator; and Norman Lear, the television producer.
No.
Must be---you know nothing else about me.
No.
I was, and am, making fun of the "I can do whatever I want with my body" crowd because they are narcissistic to the point of idiocy. If you have no contact with anyone, of course you can do whatever you want to yourself, but as soon as you are part of society, you need to be responsible and take into account what your actions may do to others. It doesn't matter if we are talking about legal or illegal drugs. I may have a few drinks at a party, but I would take into consideration, if my children were around, the example I was setting. I would take into consideration if I were planning on operating a motor vehicle. I would take into consideration if I had to go to work the next day.
For nearly everyone there is a responsibility that extends beyond one's self. While I was in parody mode in my previous post, I believe my point is sound.
There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed.
But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the right owner to keep it. And a person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine an ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only requires them to abstain from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned.
But where has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its censorship? or when does the public trouble itself about universal experience. In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently from itself; and this standard of judgment, thinly disguised, is held up to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy, by nine tenths of all moralists and speculative writers.
These teach that things are right because they are right; because we feel them to be so. They tell us to search in our own minds and hearts for laws of conduct binding on ourselves and on all others. What can the poor public do but apply these instructions, and make their own personal feelings of good and evil, if they are tolerably unanimous in them, obligatory on all the world?
No person ought to be punished simply for being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being drunk on duty
Mill
Read all of it.
Nobody here supports taking drugs in front of children or to the detriment of their job performance, so I don't know why you bothered to post this. The issue at hand is whether government has the authority to ban drug use; do you have a position on that?
Huh? Don't people own their body? How can you tell them not to take drugs in front of children?
I have already explained why I post almost exclusively on this topic.
and hold irrational views about it.
Like I said, based on my position on legalization.
How can you tell them not to take drugs in front of children?
My not supporting it doesn't mean I'm enlisting the power of Leviathan to prevent anyone else from doing it.
My belief is based on your behavior and presentation of argument, not views. It also does not exist in a vacuum. Perhaps you are an exception. There probably are people who hang out in bars and don't drink or hang out at ski lodges and don't ski, but they'd be exceptions.
So, we all support terrorism. Well, everybody except the Unibomber before he got caught.
My belief is based on your behavior and presentation of argument
Yet you keep evading my explanation of my "behavior and presentation of argument." Why is that?
It also does not exist in a vacuum. [...] There probably are people who hang out in bars and don't drink
What does this mean? Do you know people who post almost exclusively on legalization whom you know for a fact are drug users?
[MrLeRoy:] God, I suppose. And if His ownership of our bodies were a legal as well as a moral fact, it would be relevant---but it ain't.
So have you completely abandoned substantive discussion in favor of defending your beliefs about my alleged drug use?
You keep asking me about it.
I don't follow your comment about God and legality etc...
We are not refering to boorish or rude behavior, for however distasteful, rarely interfers with another's "rights".
What we are discussing, beyond SUV's, is a person's right to be inebriated. Not being clearly Constitutionally protected, it is open to some debate.
I would not for the life of me deny someone a drink, tote, shot, or snort, if said action effected no one but the drinker, toter, shooter, or snorter. Unfortunately, many drinkers, toters, shooters, and snorters do it in front of their kids, or before they get behind the wheel, or in other ways that do impinge upon life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of others.
Since one who is impared is a poor judge of his own actions, society has but laws into effect that restrict the use of certain substances under certain conditions. These circustances often seem arbitrary, especially to those predisposed to favor the substances most restricted, but they are derived from society's historical norms and expectations. They are also drawn from the substances potency, effect, method of ingestion, and other considerations. Sometimes they are silly, often they are valid. Their whimsey or seriousness notwithstanding, they are the law and we are not allowed to pick and choose which laws we will and won't obey without consequence.
Fortunately our Government is set up in such a way as to allow the amendment or abolishment of laws, when enough of society has agreed that the law is unjust or misguided. That day may come when some or all of these laws will be so judged, but I would not hold my breath waiting.
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