| So are celebrities not entitled to opinions? I would say of course they are. Surely the point is that their opinions should not be assumed to be inherently any more valuable than those offered by anybody else. |
Celebrities *are* entitled to their opinions. But I distinctly remember an incident where Natalie Maines felt that since she had an audience, she should get up and voice her displeasure to the war in Iraq and with Bush being from her home state. Nobody in that audience wanted to hear about her political views; they came to hear
the Dixie Chicks
| Ah, so now it's people without doctorates who should not be entitled to opinions? |
Who would you rather have performing your heart surgery? A doctor who has had years of medical training in cardiology, or someone who feels they live a healthy lifestyle and sits in moral judgement of the medical profession? Because that is what they are doing, baby. They sit to the sidelines and bitch about why this country is so messed up, yet they don't have the brains to back them up. Do they understand public planning, waste management, or fiscal policy? If they are so smart, where are their higher degrees of scholarship?
| What, no Arnold Schwarzenegger? No Charlton Heston? No Ted Nugent? No Dennis Hopper? No Bruce Willis? |
How many people do you think are enrolled in the Ted Nugent Fan Club? (I was about to insert Heston's name, but then someone could counter the NRA *IS* Heston's fan club.) I haven't seen Bruce Willis or Adam Baldwin on TRL lately.
| Methinks your political colours are showing ... |
Maybe so, Canary, maybe so. Those were the people that leapt quickly to mind. But as you pointed out, there are rabid anti-intellectual celebs on both sides of the aisle. It seems, though, that the liberal ones can't keep their mouths shut. At least Arnold put his money where his mouth was and ran for public office. Let the electorate decide if they like his opinions, rather than foisting them on an unsuspecting public.
Arnold ain't a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, not by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, he ran as a Republican, but that was politically expedient: Gray Davis was a Democrat, and his Lt.,
Cruz Bustamante, was running in the recall election for the Democrats. Arnold has taken a lot of flak from the conservatives for running a very loose ship in California, and praise from liberals for the same reasons. I quote from talkleft.com
Link:
We didn't want the recall to succeed, but now that it has, we have no problem with Arnold as Governor. He's liberal on social justice issues and those are the ones that matter most to us. McClintock is far to the right and Bustamante just never moved us. We'll be as curious as everyone else to see how Arnold does in the job.
Warren Beatty and Ben Affleck have both toyed with the idea of running for office. I have no problem with either of them running for office. I encourage them to run for office! Then they would be put up for public humiliation by their utter lack of knowledge about how this country really works.
I don't have a problem when an elected official (who I also do not trust) voices his or her opinion, because they have a legitimate claim on representing the people. They defeasted other less-whatever-ed people for the responsibility of representing that constituency. I also do not have a problem when a celebrity forms a well thought out political opinion. What I think is downright dirty pool is when celebrities, with no political, social, or academic experience, decide they want to shape the world towards their self-absorbed goals of boosting their own career by voicing that (most times wildly inaccurate) opinion on the hordes of rabid fans, sycophantic yes-men, and the tabloid press in order to further their own ends.
