I love Michael Moore’s movies. Anyone who can make a 90 minute film about economic or social issues and manage to make every minute an engaging, fun, and thought-stimulating moment is highly talented. His movies are well-produced and passionate. Not that I agree with all of Moore’s ideas. I don’t. Moore is on the far left, advocating some form of total socialism, while I prefer safety-net capitalism with some socialistic systems.
There are some statements in his movies that you ought to be skeptical of. For instance, in Sicko Moore seems to insinuate that Cubans have better healthcare than Americans. That’s very naive: In 2010 over two dozen patients in a Cuban mental hospital froze to death.* Can you imagine that happening in the United States? Moore cites the average Cuban lifespan (it’s a month longer than the average American) as evidence that their healthcare system works. But lots of other things could easily account for this besides a better healthcare system. For example, Cuba forces women to have abortions if there is any sign that something is wrong during the pregnancy. This means that there are fewer infant deaths than there would be otherwise, simply because Cuba doesn’t allow those infants to be born. Infant mortality partially determines the average lifespan of a country, and if you get rid of a large number of zeros (infant deaths) by not allowing those infants to be born by means of abortion, that could very plausibly account for the discrepancy between Cuban and American lifespans.
And then there are the loony theories Moore spins based on sparse evidence. Example: Moore insinuates that the National Rifle Association was a reincarnation of the Ku Klux Klan. Take a look at the video he included in Bowling for Columbine. Watch closely: the only ‘evidence’ presented for this claim is that the NRA was founded the year after the Klan was banned. That is shitty logic; just because one group is started after another one ends doesn’t mean that the two have anything to do with one another.
My advice on Moore’s movies is to watch them. Watch them for entertainment value. Watch them for intellectual stimulation. But before you believe anything they say, examine the logic of his arguments and check the facts thoroughly. The movies are cheap right now, so load up. Capitalism: A Love Story and Sicko are both under five bucks.
Note:
* This doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with socialized medicine. After all, poor countries that have capitalist health care don’t do as well as the United States. A more fair comparison is to look at countries that have similar amounts of wealth and compare those with capitalist healthcare to those with socialist healthcare and see who does better. When we do that, Socialized Medicine wins by a long shot.
