Many bloodsucking insects
 

Yes this is a politics thread.

Currently we have someone making a really big stink over the fact that we have a disclaimer on the Redacted page.

Now redacted is a film that has caused multiple terrorist attacks and a surge in anit American sentiments in the middle east. The disclaimer is because the majority of contributors to the IMFDB do not agree with the premise of the movie ie that American Soldiers are animals.

I'm all for the disclaimer and am wondering if we should put other disclaimers on such biased films as I know that there are other disclaimers posted on Anti-gun films.

Well let's also look at it practically....

(a) IMFDB is an American site. We've had several foreign members berate us for maintaining American standards when it comes to name formatting, descriptions, etc. But reality dictates that you have to have SOME consistent standard, or every member from every country in the world could re-configure minute details to their cultural style and the site would be a mess. That being the case, we probably won't trash our own country. If someone wants to make a wiki just like IMFDB that insults or trashes America, they can make their own site offshore.

(b) Many of our valued contributors are 'patriotic' (that is NOT a nasty word and it does not mean blind acceptance of everything any administration does, but it means that the person still loves and supports their country). I know the word "patriotic" in 'some quarters' means a flag waving 'redneck' hawk, but I use the term as far as showing respect to one's country and institutions (regardless of whether any current or former people in positions of power were effective or good at their jobs, or not). Also many of our valued contributors are either veterans of military service OR supporters of our military. It does not mean blind promotion of any or all military actions, but most Americans (and I hope most people of all nations) can separate the decisions made by those in power, and the brave men and women who serve in uniform and protect their respective countries. That being the case, we don't want to INSULT either former members or current members of our armed forces. We must be sensitive to anything which may HURT them. I for one don't have any problem insulting our enemies. Why should I?

(c) Only academics who live in a 'hypothetical world' can believe that a one can promote an anti-American film that promotes hatred of Americans abroad with, say, a film like "We Were Soldiers" or "Saving Private Ryan" as cinematic equals, and think nothing of it. Amazingly enough, persons who actually think like that, don't comprehend why anyone would be insulted or upset by that action. IMFDB needs the contributions of people, believe it or not, who DO NOT adhere to those tenets.

(d) Case in point: No one has done it yet, but say if a film came out about the Rape of Nanking, where the story portrayed the Chinese victims as the bad guys and the Japanese Invaders as innocent bystanders, I'm sorry to say we would probably be forced to write a disclaimer at least pointing out that such a film does not reflect the opinions in any way of IMFDB or it's members. The same as a film which would SUPPORT the Third Reich's Final Solution (if a film were to be made). As a purely academic exercise we would list the film, but we should make a statement that we in no way condone the film. That's just common sense. The world is NOT devoid of emotion or strong feelings. IMFDB walks the line just fine, IMHO.


--EDIT---
Here is a quote from Wikipedia, there are others from overseas press of Muslims expressing their intent to 'kill Americans' because of the film "Redacted"

Frankfurt killing of U.S. airmen

On March 2, 2011 a man killed two U.S. airmen at Frankfurt Airport in Germany. The suspect was identified as 21-year-old Arid Uka, a German citizen of Albanian descent, who had worked at the airport. Uka claimed that he shot the soldiers because of a video he had watched on YouTube the day before, which supposedly showed U.S. soldiers raping a Muslim girl.[30] The March 6th 2011 edition of the German TV show Spiegel TV Magazin identified the video as a clip from the movie Redacted.[31]

Preach it Reverand MPM, Preach it!

Your points are exactly why we have the disclaimer and as i said there are other disclaimers about anti-gun films. Tec-9 seems to want to push his own biased political agenda on the rest of us and I'll admit that I shouldn't have called him a son of a donkey but his behavior is borderline trolling. Basically what he has done is to go onto a website and start spouting opinions that are opposed to that of the majority of the users of the webpage. It would be like me going onto a Christian website and start posting Athiest propoganda.

I think the most obvious example of a film from the other end of the political spectrum that needed a disclaimer would be The Birth of a Nation, since, as with Redacted, real people were killed because of it.

To be honest, this guy is a troll, plain and simple. He's made less than 100 edits in two years with his last one before this in March (and a grand total of three edits during the whole of 2010). If you want to know his angle on this, here he tells us he's an Iraqi. And with this:

...We find out he's yet to find out what the outside of a university looks like. I'd guess from the general attitude we have a modern Film Studies student, ladies and gentlemen, which also brings in the attitude that all movies are propaganda of one stripe of another (a concept so patently stupid I didn't feel like explaining why it was wrong to him).

Let's have fun with quotes!

He's talking about a disclaimer undermining us as a source which has been where it is for two years and longer than he has been registered, so I guess we must have lost all credibility ages ago anyway. So, no point changing it now.

As MPM said, no, it's not the same at all. Nobody has ever murdered Germans because of Saving Private Ryan or Vietnamese because of We Were Soldiers or aliens because of Independence Day or robots because of Transformers. The Patriot, much as I personally find a particular scene in it obnoxious (the church-burning never happened in the War of Independence, Das Reich Panzer Division did it in occupied France, so the movie is charmingly accusing the Redcoats of an atrocity carried out by the Waffen SS), hasn't resulted in any English being lynched in the states.

Now if, as above, we had The Birth of a Nation (or Triumph of the Will, The Eternal Jew (the 1940 one), or whatever) up here with no disclaimer, he might be in a position to claim bias. But there's otherwise no equivalency, and I only suggested he might be allowed a disclaimer because I was tired and not really thinking straight. Movies like Redacted are propaganda by design (another such example would be The Trial of Billy Jack, which seriously suggested Washington ordered My Lai and showed a National Guardsman being ordered to open fire on an unarmed kid during a campus riot by a superior holding his sidearm to the guy's head) and should be treated as such, and it's ridiculous to go onto an American-run site and expect any signs of American-ness to be carefully hidden so as not to offend him with their horrible patriotism.

Ah, so he's one of those pro-lynching liberals I keep hearing about. Charming. This is the thing; he's trying not to say it, but you can tell from his words that he wants the disclaimer down because he believes any positive word about the US military is a lie and all American soldiers really are bloodthirsty psychotics. This backs that up:

...Since in his view, anyone who is "moderate" and "open minded" will apparently agree with him that the US military is evil. Like all extremists, he honestly can't comprehend how anyone could have any view but his own, so anyone who disagrees with him is either a liar or too stupid to see the truth (hence his constantly insulting the intelligence of the people he's replying to). He's tried to backpedal on that by saying he only meant that if we banned him, but he said that if anyone felt he was wrong to remove the disclaimer or banned him then it would prove we were redneck etc etc.

Now, with that right there, there's this:

This is his idea of an apology; like a little kid, he apologises for using the word, but not for the sentiment behind it. He doesn't apologise for saying we're ignorant. He doesn't apologise for saying we're closed-minded extremists. He clearly, as I said, judged each and every member of this site as a hairy sister-fucking troglodyte before he even started this exchange, and his words show he isn't the slightest bit sorry for thinking we're rednecks, just for the fact that he actually said so. From just his last reply:

Yeah, this kiddie isn't talking down to us like because he's decided he's better than us, no siree. He's clearly convinced himself that we have to justify ourselves to him, apparently unaware that he's nobody on this wiki and has barely contributed a thing, certainly not enough to justify his absurdly smug attitude.

Ban him. He clearly has no desire to work with anyone else on this site, so let's let him take his awesome brain somewhere us fumbling apemen won't bother it.

Can we just explain our objections in the intro, including the two deaths that this film has directly contributed to? I'd be happy to whip one up.

Don't change anything until others have had a chance to think about the matter. And it's not only 2 deaths. It's much more. But I don't think we need to start chronicling all the death and mayhem 'inspired' by the film since some of that is 'arguable' and we don't need to go down that road either.

(1.) This Tec-9 dude is wrong (IMO), but I would appreciate it if you guys would stop using his behavior as an excuse to bash university students and academics. In case you've all forgotten, I am a graduate student, and I'm not a leftist. Also, if Tec-9 thinks his education automatically makes his opinions superior to ours, he'll have to argue his way past me first (and while I don't know for sure, I can almost assure you that the university where I'm doing my M.A. is ranked considerably above his own).

(2.) It is one thing to use the forum for debates (provided they don't degenerate into personal attacks and name-calling, which used to happen with BurtReynoldsMustache), but the site itself is for gun IDs only. The discussion pages should only be used for this purpose, not debating politics. I really wish you guys had just told Tec-9 to shut up and take it to the forum, and deleted his comments, instead of participating.

(3.) While I have zero respect for Tec-9's politics or his opinion of U.S. soldiers, I do think that it is somewhat unnecessary to have a disclaimer on the "Redacted" page. IMFDB exists to document guns in films/TV/video games only; the inclusion of anti-gun or anti-military media on the site should not be mistaken for anything other than completion purposes (as opposed to our political leanings). We can add this (or some equivalent universal disclaimer) in an appropriate heading on the Rules, Standards, and Principles page, but anyone who thinks that our page for "Redacted" indicates our support for Brian De Palma's politics needs their head examined anyway (IMO). Isn't it fairly intuitive that someone who would contribute to a site such as IMFDB would lean to the right on the political spectrum, and therefore find "Redacted" to be abhorrent?

Well, I can't change anything, since the page is still locked.

For your consideration:

"'Redacted' is a 2007 film that is fictionalized account of the Mahmudiyah killings that occurred during the Iraq War, by writer and director Brian De Palma. The film was met with mixed reviews and extremely poor box office sales, with a total worldwide gross of less than a million dollars.

This film has been criticized for it's depiction of American servicemen, with a some going as far as accusing writer/director Brian De Palma and producer Mark Cuban of treason. Some have also criticized the film for not showing any repercussions of the crimes themselves, as the perpetrators of the actual Mahmudiyah killings received harsh sentences, ranging from 27 months for obstruction of justice to life imprisonment without possibly of parole for the ringleader. There was also the fear that the movie could incite violence towards Americans. These fears were realized in March of 2010 when two American airmen were killed and two others wounded in an attack allegedly perpetrated by a Islamic extremist who had watched a clip from this film on Youtube.

The following guns were used in the film Redacted"

Sounds good to me. Let's see what the others think.

Oh, and Evil Tim, I appreciate your refutation of Tec-9's comments, but you do realize you're preaching to the choir, right?

I would disagree with the disclaimer because it sounds unnecessarily partisan - besides the issue that MPM2008 pointed out that it is difficult to claim that the movie directly inspired the terrorist attack when it is probably one of several triggers (which is equivalent to saying DOOM inspired the Columbine shootings), it also begs the question for casual imfdb visitors of why the movie is even posted if it is so clearly offensive to the sensibilities of the mods. I feel that the current disclaimer was sufficient to convey why the page was posted (for reference purposes), whereas this disclaimer just seems vindictive.

Tim's post was actually brilliant. Tec-9's debating style is akin to much of the liberal left I have to deal with. I suppose my mind is not well tuned to "deflect and divert" tactics. I prefer honesty and straight talk and their intellectual dishonesty is astounding at times. I could not have designed a better refutation, and using his own quotes actually helped clarify my own thoughts on the matter. I always ended up more FLUSTERED than not, to I really had trouble engineering an appropriate response that fully outlined his hypocrisy.

On the point of disclaimers, I actually DISAGREE with you. I knew you never thought it necessary, but I feel VERY STRONGLY about it. I understand your point about pure neutrality on the site. But then, an 'academic' would think this way ;) LOL. (just kidding, but you SHOULD know that a lot of academics see everything PURELY as an intellectual exercise, devoid of real world consequences, which is why many people get frustrated with them. There are tons of PhDs who have no clue how the real world works). And i know you understand other peoples' strong feelings otherwise on this one issue.

Okay, here is a digression. This dude, POI, Burt Reynolds Mustache. They create an interesting phenomenon in that they 'push' the envelope but never really far enough to merit banning them when they start. It's like it is an 'intellectual exercise' to see how much prodding it takes to make other members of IMFDB snap. It's like a kid poking you with a stick, gently over and over again.

My view is that we don't need people who feel pleasure in prodding others with provocative postings. But that's just an opinion. But I'm getting the same POI vibe here, albeit his world view is far more offensive to me (the quote alone of supporting the deaths of American troops for "much deserved" revenge by Muslims) crossed a line in my mind.

One important point: Other than pissing off a lot of members, this guy's contribution to this site consists purely of correcting our grammar, misspellings and some formatting changes. No information re guns. No Information re movies, tvs, anime, Videogames. He just walks in an restructures our sentences so that they flow more smoothly (sometimes the changes are irrelevant since the original wording was just fine). Nothing heinous here, but something I just noticed.

Though I like your post, DOOM or violent videogames did not inspire the Columbine shootings. Bullying did. Though some fools tried to demonize violent video games, it did not stick (thankfully). I just listed one actual event with a verifiable body count. I have other quotes from foreign media where they have people quoting that after seeing the film "they wished they could join up to kill Americans". That, to me, indicates a body count that we cannot accurately measure, but believe me, it is there.

Edit: You are RIGHT about not going overboard. I (and probably others) would have been more receptive to some re-wording, but I still believe we need to make it clear that we in no way condone the film due to the immediate negative reaction it has in many quarters. This Tec-9 guys just muddied the waters by pissing everyone off (including me). If we remove it now, this Tec-9 guy wins.

Keep the disclaimer. Ultimately it really doesn't matter what Tec-9 thinks or posts. If we were to go onto a left wing site and start posting inflammatory stuff they woud ban us without a moment hesitation.

In all honesty, I don't feel strongly (not enough to really protest, anyway). But my opinion is that the disclaimer is unnecessary. I think the issue is legitimate even if the same cannot be said about Tec-9's world view.

As for the new disclaimer that was posted by Funkychinaman: If there is going to be a new disclaimer at all, I prefer the older one to this new one. This one is even less neutral than the previous.

First of all, not sure about "academics" in general (that is a very broad term), but in my field, Political Science, I'd say that those "intellectual exercises" are how we come up with ways to explain state/non-state entities' behavior so that policymakers can make the appropriate decisions. For instance, the theory of "democratic peace" underlies the tendency of American policymakers to promote democratization abroad, and also makes a convenient argument against moron leftists who see moral equivalence between democracies and dictatorships.

Minor digression, bullying didn't cause Columbine, either. Read this (yes, it's Slate, but they're right this time).

I tried to move away from merely stating our opinion, which, as many have pointed out, seems a bit out of place, to stating the fact that many disapprove of the film, and the reasons why. I admit I tried to present one side, and let the reader decide which side to fall on. It's like the difference between a campaign ad that states "I don't like Bob Smith," vs "Bob Smith raised taxes and is a convicted sex offender." Again, just an idea.

Thanks for that. VERY INTERESTING STUFF. At least SLATE didn't throw the blame on us stupid Americans and our 'fascination with guns' BS or that idiotic screed "Easy access to guns"...... :D

As well as what's already been mentioned, a key difference would be that Doom doesn't tell you that your school is full of evil, terrible people. There's a world of difference between Doom, which contains violence directed at zombies and demons from hell, and Redacted, which contains a hateful message directed at real people and has inspired people to attack the group it targets.

(Note: the idea that Harris ever made a model of Columbine in Doom has been thoroughly discredited: the Harris WADs are hard to find because most hosts took them down out of respect, but by all accounts the levels are only remarkable because of who made them, not what they are. Journalists then backpedalled to "looks like a school" which is true only insofar as that Harris' maps contain things like rooms and hallways)

If we are including the disclaimer at all, I think that implies our awareness of the film's controversy. People can always read more on Wikipedia or whatever.

Again, my preference is that we still try to stay as neutral as possible.

I agree, IMO any political discussion- left or right -on the imfdb site should be kept at a minimal level (something that can put into the rules in the 'principles' section if necessary).

I know, I was just throwing the DOOM example out as something that was brought up at the time as a cause of violence by the media, but in hindsight was not as relevant as it was portrayed at the time.

I deleted the debate, but Tec-9 is also gone. You can read his post to me on my Talk Page, and my response on his.

To be honest, having modded other sites, I've never seen "I'm not going to ban you because that's what you want" work. They tend to just do things to get banned if you say that.

Oh, if he wants to do something to provoke me into banning him, then I have no problem doing so. But right now, I'm not letting him play the victim he obviously wants to be in this situation.

Also, I doubt he's even going to read my response, anyway.

Oh, he will. Guys like him leave forever and then keep coming back to get the last word in. I remember I once had a guy tell me he was making his last post on the matter four times in a row, then accuse me of trying to get the last word in. :rolleyes:

Well, you were right...he did respond to me, even though I did not expect that he would. But he still wants me to ban him, and I'm still telling him no.

I don't get the guy. He's talking about changing his password something he'll forget? That's easier than simply not coming?

I hate to sound biased, but Liberal trolls are attention whores who play the victim card. Conservative trolls don't play the victim card, if they're gonna be jerks they're gonna be troglodytes plain and simple. I've seen MANY LEFT WING trolls (and many right wing trolls). Perhaps that's why I despise them so much. It's not about having a different opinion. Even their trolls are more annoying. A right wing troll will be boorish, perhaps sexist or racist and definitely low brow. A LEFT WING troll tries to bully people and if they don't have an adoring audience, they cry "quit persecuting me!". Ugh. I think it's that patheticness that irritates me more than the Troglodyte type.

Anyone who REPLIES to my comment to SOMEONE ELSE (on their page) about him, won't give it up. He actually tracked down MY comments about my exchange with him when I was talking to some other members on their OWN talk pages and interjected himself into my conversation.

I dunno, POI was an apolitical troll, and he used to do the exact same thing - when I banned him, he accused me of having a "control complex" and couldn't admit that he had done anything wrong. He pretended that the only reason he got banned is because I didn't like him (as if I didn't have a valid reason for doing so), and that my sentiments weren't shared by almost everyone on the forum who had interacted with him.

I think that regarding themselves as "persecuted" is precisely what allows all trolls - right-wing, left-wing, or apolitical - to justify their behavior. You know..."you guys are just angry at me because you know I'm right!"

I get the impression that this guy's idea of "extremism" is portraying the US armed forces in any positive light.

Well, it depends. Back on the other site I mod (largely political, no obvious site stance on any specific issue) you get the same from both sides; the moderators are always biased towards the opposite kind of politics. If we delete their posts / thread or ban them, we're clearly showing we agree with their opponents rather than that they just broke rules which have nothing to do with political beliefs. This can lead to the fun of being called a Nazi and a Communist on alternate days, or people saying we must be pro-abortion because we don't regard posting disgusting images as a legitimate debating technique.

It's much like, say, Jack Thompson bleating that the courts want to disbar him for his views rather than because he's abusing the court system to carry out his unhinged personal vendetta. To a certain mindset, anything but instant agreement is persecution.

Very well-articulated, both of you. :cool:

That being said, I'm still not banning him unless he does something vindictive to deserve a ban. Given his attitude, it's fun to fuck with him a little.

It's interesting how sometimes trolls sort of turn you into a troll as well. Like it's contagious or something.

Not that I'm saying you're a troll or anything, just something I've noticed happens sometimes, even with myself.

Is that sarcasm or are you serious? I can't tell, even with the cool face smilie. :confused:

I totally agree. I get the same wannabe martyr vibe from this guy as you do.

I wouldn't say trolls make others into trolls, but they definitely make it hard not to act a little bit immature in response. I'd call it sinking to their level, but not exactly embracing troll-dom.

Yes, I am serious. When I am being sarcastic, I tend to use the :D