Jim Carrey-typical Hollywood dope
You know, I always thought that based on what I had seen of actor Jim Carrey on the screen, I considered him to be a jerk. What could be more annoying than watching that Ace Ventura portrayal? Well, what is more annoying is hearing the latest pearls of wisdom coming from this fool who came here from Canada and made his fortune in Hollywood.
“I was thinking about it this morning, how this story ties into everything we’re going through. Every construct we’ve built in American life is falling apart. Why? Because of personal greed and ambition. Capitalism without regulation can’t protect us against personal greed."
What do you mean, "every construct we've built in American life..."?
All I can say to Mr Carrey is that if he has a problem with our American way of life, he can take all the millions he has made here and haul his goofy ass back to Canada and live in a more socialistic way of life that suits him. (How's that for jingoism?)
Is there a country on earth that has accepted more people to its shores who have come here, prospered and spit on us than America?
No wonder Carrey portrayed Ace Ventura to a T.
How dare you slander the acting abilities of the great Jim Carrey!
ReplyDeleteBryan,
ReplyDeleteHe's a dope.
He is not a dope, he is a great actor. Nothing ever boring about his performances, he is a genius.
ReplyDeleteGary, you need to go to the movies more often.
His political views are something different. Thank God it's still a free country where everyone is allowed to say stupid things.
Ingrid,
ReplyDeleteYes, it is a free country and Carrey is free to say whatever he wants. He has not been arrested nor has he been deported, but I am also free to respond to him.
The fact that Jim Carrey believes in interventionist economic policy puts him in a category with some of the world's greatest thinkers throughout history (for example John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx). whether or not you agree with this opinion, it is not an intelligent analysis to suggest that simply because he takes a different opinion to you he is "a dope". In terms of your response to his argument, whether or not he is a good/funny actor has nothing to do with the validity of his economic theory, nor does his Canadian origins. The fact is that, whilst Jim Carrey has benefited from the sponsorship of the American film industry, he has also been one of their greatest assets, and makes a lot less money for himself than he does for the American film corporations that hire him and market his movies to an international audience that extends far beyond america itself. In addition to this, the revenue that he has acquired personally and that which he has made for his sponsors has all been taxed in America,and used by the government in public schemes, and the sum total of the tax revenue generated for America by his economic activity is far beyond anything that you will contribute in the entire of your life, therefore he has a much more legitimate claim to have been a part of the building of modern day america than you, despite his foreign nationality. you of course have the right to criticise him but if your original premise was that you wished to write a blog entry proving Carrey to be a dope, then I am afraid that you have only succeeded in proving that to be true of yourself.
ReplyDeleteYour friend from across the pond (England)
Better late than never I always say. I was beginning to suspect that Jim wrote this himself.
ReplyDeleteActually america was built upon the idea that we wouldn't allow greed and a government run by the greedy business men. Its a government for the people and the small shop owners. So Carrey is just re stating what the founding fathers had intended really.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteWe do have laws against dishonest business practices and embezzlement, etc. Greed is not a crime in of itself.
Say, are you the same anonymous who called Marx one of the great thinkers?
No the second anonymous is not the one who called marx a great thinker, I am. Greed may not be a crime in and of itself but it leads to practices that, whilst technically legal, are morally repulsive. For instance, many employers are known to have taken out insurance policies on their young employees so that if they die they receive a large pay-out. Rather than providing any of the money to the bereaved families to assist them with payments for the schooling of their children, or hospital care, the companies keep the money for their own purposes, literally generating profit from untimely death. This as a practice is perfectly legal, but is morally abhorrent, something that I trust you will not deny, and it is the direct result of the operation of the ill-restricted profit motive. Similarly, the innumerable cases in which insurance companies have exploited loop-holes in the legal framework in order to use a flimsy subtext such as an undisclosed pre-existing condition in order to invalidate a legitimate insurance claim- for example claiming that not having disclosed the fact that you had a bout of influenza as a small child invalidates your claim to insurance money to help you to pay for chemotherapy, serves to demonstrate the morally pernicious effect of maintaining growth-centric economies. If Carey claims that "unrestricted capitalism can't protect us against personal greed" then perhaps he is suggesting that the above mentioned practices and others which similarly originate from the indulgence of personal greed, ought to be eliminated from society through more restrictive governmental control. Would you deny that slightly more restrictive legislation that would serve to protect the consumer and employees would be beneficial to the operation of society? Or do you seriously posit that it's morally permissible to allow insurance companies to defraud cancer sufferers? Either way, i think none of these suggestions amount to "spitting" on America as you call it, nor are we suggesting that communism, marxism or socialism are better social models for the running of society- we simply suggest that being as the top 1% of Americans currently own roughly 35% of the entire wealth of the nation, at a time when 15% of Americans live in poverty (that's 46.2 million people) it may be time to consider whether a little interventionism could be of benefit to the population as a whole, as opposed to allowing a small minority to acquire inordinate levels of personal wealth, superfluous to any realistic living requirements, whilst 44 million people in the United States have no health insurance and a further 38 million have inadequate health insurance. And for the record, whether or not you agree with Marxist principles, his genius is something that is recognised by all serious scholars, as is that of Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Keynes, Voltaire, Fourier and a whole tradition of liberal thinkers, devoted to the common good, in support of a more interventionist political approach. I am afraid that I have yet to hear from you a single persuasive argument in favour of the free-market policy that you purport to defend, only some partisan rhetoric and derogatory phrases. In order to lend any validity to your position you must actually engage with the arguments presented. I would actually love to debate seriously the merits of different economic and political policies but really you have provided nothing for me to argue against but a lot of ad hominem criticisms. I am not posting anonymously to protect my identity, I just don't want to set up a blogger account.
ReplyDeleteYour friend from across the pond