Look out the Slackers are coming!

Last night I attended one of those infamous "Ann Arbor" events that make this liberal college town so great. Michael Moore showed up to the Michigan Theater with his new documentary in tow, titled "Slacker Uprising," a world premiere in fact (isn't A2 special?). I appreciate that he tried to be cute and wear a Michigan hat while talking, but that only made me less willing to listen to anything he said. Mr. Moore, why are you at times actually capable of making reasonable points about the world we live in and other times completely ignorant? If only you were as committed to being one type of activist as you were to being a Democrat, I might take you more seriously.

I get it that you are pissed that Kerry lost in the election in 2004. But let it go man. You yourself admitted during your speech last night that for the last 8 years the Democrats have not put out good candidates for elected office. Then why were you so stunned when Kerry lost if you didn't think he was qualified in the first place, and also why were you shocked if you knew that historical precedent is that sitting presidents do not lose elections? This is the one major problem I had with your film. I enjoyed most of it, but I am confused at its purpose. You said that you just wanted to make a scrapbook of your slacker tour in which you tried to get young people registered to vote...but I want to know: Why were you only trying to get young people registered as Democrats?? If you believed in our Democracy, why not just get people registered to vote period? It's kind of a distortion to only want people to register for one party isn't it? I see through your claim that you weren't after anything with this movie, and in reality I see an agenda to make people so angry that Kerry didn't win in 2004, that they will go out in even greater numbers to get Senator Obama elected. I am with you in the sense that it's deplorable how low young voter participation is, but please, let them decide who to vote for on their own! It's naive of you to think that the 18-29 age group can single-handedly win the election for Obama, when he's up by 30 points in that demographic regardless of how many people vote for him. It's more stupid for you to think that this country is at heart a liberal nation. The historical pattern is that this country, for the last 40 years, has been a conservative nation, and will continue to swing in that direction. Which president caused that flip? Your hailed Democrat duo of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

I desperately want to take you seriously, because half of the time, you are in the right to ask some of the questions that you do. But I can't justify that when you ignore the other side completely. I was taken aback that you actually admitted Obama has a few shortcomings with his policies such as health care and a few other things, and I approve of your proposals for him, 100%. I just hate that you are as close-minded as you are when it comes to some of the things that have happened over the last 4 years (Iraq war failure aside).

I close by asking that you do one thing and one thing only: apologize to Senator McCain for your remarks about his terrible experience in Vietnam. It's wrong to look back in hindsight and claim that he is somehow at fault for everything that happened there, and it's more wrong to belittle his arrest and imprisonment as being justified. It doesn't matter how you do it -- a phone call, a telegram, an email (but wait, you all claim he can't use a computer before realizing that he's physically unable to type on one due to his 5 years of torture and having his hands and arms broken repeatedly) -- if you really want the democratic elections and therefore society that you claim have been taken away, don't become the very antithesis of what you want to preach to young people. To believe in America is to respect those that disagree with you, and I hope your Michigan State education at least taught you that much.