>If you do something and you know that it will have a given
>effect, even if that given effect was not your *main* purpose
>in doing the thing, you can't be said to be entirely innocence
>of the second effect.

First of all, you're assuming that World Trade Center is going to effect US foreign policy. Which is kinda silly. Second, you're assuming that Oliver Stone made the movie with that in mind. You're making two huge leaps and then beginning your whole argument there.


>My downstairs neighbor played her music at top volume at times
>ranging from 1 to 3 AM on weeknights. I *finally* got her to
>turn it down some, and at one point she said to me very
>haughtily, "I never intended to disturb you."
>
>Well, obviously, she wasn't playing the music so loudly that
>it would wake me up and vibrate my floors ONLY in order to
>wake me up and vibrate my floors. Obviously she was doing it
>in order to have a more thorough experience of the music
>herself. But since she knew that it would wake me up and
>vibrate my floors, didn't she have a responsibility to
>moderate the volume?

That's a great story and all, but it has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about.

>That's what I mean about the double effect.
>
>If Stone knows that jingoistic emotions will be roused by his
>film, and if he knows that the result of those emotions has in
>the past been a war of aggression on people not involved in
>the events of September 2001, how much responsibility does he
>bear if his film has the effect that I (and doubtless others)
>expect?

My point is that he doesn't KNOW any of that. I'm not going to judge any one--nor should a reasonably intelligent human being--based on what some misguided morons MIGHT do as a result of their art.
Period.