I just considered this: What if Will Smith's gesture means, "I would rather do this--throw away my career and humiliate myself with a bad deed--than talk to Philip White. Philip White is that despicable."

Is that the assertion?? It is not supported by evidence, if so. Let's play with that absurd scenario for the sake of argument.

A lot of people these days who feel "blessed" also feel "politically entitled"...they think that other people and their lives are theirs to manipulate, like playing with voodoo dolls. Many people from Christian or other sacrifice-focused backgrounds might go in for the idea of, "throw a part of yourself on the bayonet, make a sacrifice like Christ made a sacrifice, plead with God and all His friends in the world for something a little unorthodox that you *really* want, make the sacrifice particularly dramatic because you *really really* mean that you want it, embellish it, publicize it, and then, just maybe, God will let you get your way even though you've asked for something that is a violation of the 10 Commandments."

Could this be Smith's action? A passionate plea to Christians to abandon reason, common sense, virtue, morality, and even Christianity itself, to *please* keep supporting the trafficking of Philip White, even though Jesus Christ would condemn that action as slavery and stealing, because gosh, Will Smith has acted and done art for a long time, and he is A CHRISTIAN, so please, please, just do it his way even though it would be counter-productive to you, evil, and it doesn't make sense. Please.

That is what I would make of the gesture if that's what it meant...maybe that is not it and Will Smith is a fine person who means me no harm. The post is conditional, based on an assumption that could be false.

By the way, readers...you do realize that I'm 100% correct that you can't win a debate with lies, right? You simply cannot persevere in a debate about facts with popularity and artsy tricks and "over-so-and-so's-head comments" and appeals to just relax, right? If you have ever thought about debating or argumentation quite seriously, you know that the logical, reasonable, stick-to-the-facts, consistent people always defeat "popular liars who want things" In the end, no matter what absurd desperate pleading gestures to embrace lies is made by whom.

-Philip White (philipjwhite@yahoo.com)