Monthly Archives: February 2011

First, take a look at this cartoon.

Then, watch this commentary on that cartoon. If you have the time, be sure to watch the entire thing, because you won’t believe it.

No matter your political beliefs you will, I think, agree with me that the cartoon (assuming you actually look at the entire thing and not take one panel out of context, as O’Donnell did) is not “racist”. You may disagree with it. You may not find it particularly funny. Whatever. It is not racist.

But O’Donnell’s mischaracterization of the cartoon is not the most offensive thing about his “commentary”; it’s his call to action near the end of the piece. He actually calls for people to perform an “intervention” on the cartoonist and the writer. He calls out the cartoonist’s wife, by name, and pleads for her to make the cartoonist stop creating this weekly cartoon. He then goes on to tell the viewers where they live, and even suggests that his viewers approach the couple if they see them at their local Starbucks and “tell them to stop.” He suggests the mother of the writer, and anyone else with whom he comes into contact, do the same.

When I watched this, I could not believe my eyes and ears. A journalist, presumably making good money on MSNBC, is actually committing what can best be described as incitement to harassment, over a political cartoon? And this was done just weeks after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, the event that resulted in politicians and members of the media calling for “civility.”

Is there a double standard, such that only conservative or tea-party commentators are supposed to be “civil,” while leftist politicians and commentators can do as they please? Or has O’Donnell simply lost contact with reality?

And what about “incitement to harassment”? Is it actionable? Well, “stalking” is both a crime and a tort under the CA code, and “harassment” is part of the definition of these. For example, California Penal Code 646.9 defines “stalker” as “someone who willfully, maliciously and repeatedly follows or harasses another (victim) and who makes a credible threat with the intent to place the victim or victim’s immediate family in fear for their safety.”

“Harassment” is defined as “…a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person that seriously alarms, annoys, torments, or terrorizes the person, and that serves no legitimate purpose. This course of conduct must be such as would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and must actually cause substantial emotional distress to the person.”

Here, O’Donnell is arguably inciting people to harass the writer, the cartoonist, and their families. He doesn’t say the viewers should “stalk” them, technically, because he doesn’t tell the viewers to repeatedly harass them. But, in the segment above, he does repeatedly call for his viewers to harass them. So maybe that could count? Probably not (nor do I think it should, however much I feel that something should be done about this injustice).

Well, Mubarak is out, and for some reason (perhaps because of what they’re being told by the media), many people see this as an opportunity for Egyptians to have “freedom” of some sort. Obama is throwing around words like “justice” and “democracy” and even the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who I assume is a Republican, is encouraging Egypt to form some sort of “democracy” instead of letting the “extremist” elements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, take over.

First of all, why do intelligent people, especially so-called conservatives, even use the word “democracy” anymore? Democracy means rule by the majority — i.e., mob rule. Democracy can result in all sorts of horrible things, such as making Socrates drink hemlock, the majority of poor and middle-class people voting to confiscate the wealth of the 5% most productive people in the country, putting a Hitler or Hamas in power, etc. Any serious freedom-loving person does not speak of creating a democracy, rather, he speaks of creating a constitutional republic, dedicated to the protection of individual rights. (For more on this, I refer you to Ayn Rand’s essays, “Man’s Rights” and “The Nature of Government.”)

I guess the reason people still speak of democracy is because they think it is important that everyone have their “say”, that everyone’s opinion is just as important and worthy of attention as everyone else’s. Said Obama in one of his recent speeches, “Above all, this transition must bring all of Egypt’s voices to the table.” Well, let’s see what we are likely to wind up with if this approach is applied.

In this editorial, you can read a condensed summary of the results of a Pew Research Center poll, conducted of Egyptians last year. Some highlights (or, should I say, lowlights):

• 95% prefer the religion play a “large role in politics.”

• 84% favor the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim faith.

• 82% support stoning adulterers.

• 54% support a law segregating women from men in the workplace.

• 54% believe suicide bombings that kill civilians can be justified.

• Nearly half support the terrorist group Hamas.

• 82% of Egyptians dislike the U.S.

Do these data points make you think that Egyptians want anything that even remotely resembles “freedom”? No, me neither. What would the poll data look like if the sample population was limited to the “extremists”?

But, hey, look on the bright side. Perhaps whatever government is formed in Egypt will adopt the Obama Administration’s trait of selective hearing. The majority of Americans didn’t want Obamacare, it’s probably not even constitutional (see my previous post), and yet Obama insists on moving full-steam ahead with it anyway.

[Update: David Hayes had this to add on Facebook. I reproduce it here by permission:

Ayn Rand wrote:

“… in 1917, the Russian peasants were demanding: ‘Land and Freedom!’ But Lenin and Stalin is what they got.

“In 1933, the Germans were demanding: ‘Room to live!’ But what they got was Hitler.

“In 1793, the French were shouting: ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!’ What they got was Napoleon.

“In 1776, the Americans were proclaiming ‘The Rights of Man’–and, led by political philosophers, they achieved it.”

Quote from “Blind Chaos,” in “The Ayn Rand Column,” pages 45-46, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (this piece is reprinted as the second half of chapter 12), pg. 137-139.

Egyptians have been right to be protesting, but what they’re asking for is vague. We’re right to be concerned that this will come to lead to the worst consequences. (I nonetheless want that the Egyptian people be spared this if they can bring about a proper government.)]