Talk:Deterrence (film)

Off topic discussion
I am absolutely stunned that there has been no discussion on this film yet. Was it meant as an endorsement of the Strong Unitary Executive Theory? At the risk of oversimplification, does it endorse the political philosophy that "the President knows best," and that we should simply trust his or her judgment, no matter what the apparent consequences? Strong UET is a philosophy endorsed by neo-conservatives. Therefore, if it was meant as the guiding principle of this film, this ought to be brought to light. Does anyone have inside knowledge to bear on this?

The concept of the Unitary Executive Theory has arguable roots in Plato's Republic. Its most-extreme pole (i.e., Strong UET) might be argued to border on benevolent dictatorship. Of course, there are many opinions about the UET, and various interpretations thereof. Opponents of the strong interpretation reference the historical observation that, for every arguably benevolent, wise dictator, there have been many, many self-serving tyrants. Hence, any given dictator is statistically unlikely to be truly benevolent and wise. Now, we certainly don't want to simplistically conflate the intellectual ideas of Strong UET and benevolent dictatorship. We would merely be wise to acknowledge that a slippery slope exists between the two, given what history teaches us about human nature.

This film comes down firmly on the side of "the President knows best," implying that he a) knows more than we know, b) is wiser than we are. He could have chosen to share the information that he knew the Iraqi missles were inert, yet he did not. Of course, that would have castrated the suspense. So, was this merely an unwitting endorsement of benevolent dictatorship, where sanity was sacrificed upon the altar of suspense? Or, was the film truly meant to promote the Strong UET and/or benevolent dictatorship? That is the intellectual question we could address as an encyclopediaPrairieOjibway (talk) 15:16, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The "president knows best" - but is also happy to kill several million people and destroy a country for political gain. Interesting.....203.184.41.226 (talk) 05:51, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

This entire section is off topic. Article talk pages are for discussion of ways to improve the article, not general discussion of the topic. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 13:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC) ==