Flight Plan a volley in the Culture Wars?
Quiz time: What do the following have in common:
- The proposed WTC Freedom Center
- The order by a federal judge to grant the ACLU's motion to release most of the remaining photos and video from Abu Ghraib
- Jodie Foster's latest blockbuster
Hoover Institute senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson says these seemingly unrelated items are evidence of liberal elitism inflicting "consequences" on others.
More from Hanson, and a look at Marcia Angell's commentary on the Oregon case before the USSC, after the jump...
PLOT ALERT: If you haven't seen Flight Plan yet and intend to, skip this section and Hanson's link; key plot points are revealed.
What is Pundit Parade? A semiweekly posting of whatever punditry I can dig up that seems worth it. There's more explanation at the end, if you care. Otherwise, let's get back to the pundits!
Hanson, in his own words:
On one side of all these controversies seem to be architects, curators, academics, chief executive officers, journalists, scriptwriters, actors, lawyers and judges. Their utopian views of what their fellow Americans should see, think and feel are at odds with those of grieving families, police, firefighters, flight attendants and soldiers.
Those on museum boards, in Hollywood studios and in the courtroom seek to fashion the intellectual landscape in which those who put out fires, arrest criminals, serve food and shoot terrorists are to operate. The latter fight back. They try to match elite influence with public outrage, and so appeal to their elected officials and unions, and to talk shows, the blogosphere and cable news.
The issue is not just one of class division, but also concerns theory when it translates into practice. A privileged group speculates about abstract issues, and then others must concretely bear the consequences of this contemplation.
Now isn't this conservative think tank fellow infringing on the liberal elitist trademark when he claims victimization when a film depicts evil characters who might be seen as representative of some real life demographic? And oddly, Hanson implies offense that the Arab passengers on Flight Plan turn out to be innocent.
The film is a great story; in fact it plays on our instinctive trust of aviation professionals to deliver a bang-up surprise, but the notion that it will incite mistrust against such real world professionals is absurd.
Setting aside the dubious notion that there is a link of cultural elitism between this Hollywood fare and the ACLU's motion to release Abu Ghraib pictures, Hanson echoes the right-wing protest that publicizing images from the abuse will enflame more anti-Americanism and hinder the "fight for the hearts and minds".
We are just as likely to incite greater opposition by trying to stifle the images. By openly and honestly resolving the prisoner abuse, we will do more to advance our image in the Mideast than censorship.
And the charge of media imbalance between abuses by U.S. military and intelligence staff versus the atrocities wreaked by al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency is baseless. How can anyone claim the violence inflicted by the Islamofascists has not regularly made headlines every time it occurs?
Rooting for Oregon
Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief for the New England Journal of Medicine, visits the Miami Herald and defends the Oregon side on the first major issue before the "Roberts Court":
The Oregon law is very much about individual freedom. No patient is required to use it, nor must doctors be involved if they don't wish to be. It is an individual choice. At the beginning, there were concerns that dying patients, particularly the poor and vulnerable, might feel pressured to end their lives. But the number of patients who request prescriptions under the law remains small, and they tend to be more affluent and better educated -- that is, less vulnerable -- than average.
Pain is not the usual reason patients give for wanting to end their lives; more common are symptoms that are harder to relieve, such as weakness and loss of control over bodily functions. In states that have no right-to-die law, such patients are sometimes sedated to the point of unconsciousness, then allowed to die of dehydration, or encouraged to stop eating and drinking to hasten death. But there is something disturbing, even bullying, about forcing people to bring about their deaths in slow motion instead of giving them the means to do so quickly. One would be hard put to find a moral distinction.
Opponents argue that it could be a distraction from good palliative or hospice care, which, they believe, can almost always provide adequate relief. But far from being a distraction, the availability of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon has led to better palliative care. In what can only be considered a win-win competition, both proponents and opponents of the law are working to make assisted suicide rare by promoting the aggressive treatment of the symptoms of dying. The state now is widely regarded as having the best end-of-life care in the country. Still, there will always be some whose suffering can't be relieved and who desperately want a quicker, more humane death.
Both sides on this issue can draw compelling hypothetical arguments, but Angell demonstrates the effectiveness of looking at the facts, at the results in the reality-based world, rather than ideologically clouded visions.
More about Pundit Parade
I don't have the space in my schedule to make this a daily contribution, but I am going to aim for at least two Pundit Parade posts each week.
My goal is not to be just another diarist racing to be the first to cheer on Krugman or skewer Brooks, but to find other voices not so familiar in the national media. I might still highlight one of these familiar pundits, but not predominantly and certainly not exclusively.
That goal is not as easy as you might imagine. Many of the local and regional newspapers online carry no regular commentators, relying instead on syndicated national columnists and their own staff editorials. Most of those that do publish local commentators stick to local issues.
But one of the best sources I have found hiding in various online Opinion pages are the "guest commentators"--folks who don't necessarily make a living as opinion makers, but have the experience or expertise to deliver an insightful opinion. You will hear a lot from these folks, even if I don't agree with them.
