TOS Blog: Daily Commentary from an Objectivist Perspective

I like the analogy with the lynch mob. I would go a little further and say Sarah Chayes’ position is not merely shameful but evil. Without the First Amendment, the spread of Objectivism doesn’t have a chance.

Killing the First Amendment is not a good idea, whether it is done by foreign powers, or by suicidal U.S. government action.

I believe that elements of this post comes from a skewed reading of Chayes’ article.

While imminence and expected-result (or likelihood) are tests discussed by Chayes, she isn’t resting her case solely on these; she’s also resting her case on intentionality. Lewis, as quoted here by Chayes, didn’t use “expected.” He used only “intended.” Chayes’ Lewis quote is: “If the result is violence, and that violence was intended, then it meets the standard.” In this post, the seeming-quote, as morphed, is partly accurate, partly paraphrased, and had “(expected)” gratuitously inserted. The rest of the post depends completely on the insertion of “(expected).” Obviously, if “intended” and “expected” are conflated, the result would be disastrous: the offended party would only have to riot in order to shut down their critics from that point forward. (BTW, this already happens.)

Chayes attempts to indict the movie makers by the claim that another Coptic Christian sent a link to the movie to reporters in the U.S. and Egypt (which reporters?). Even if this publicity effort was intended to incite violence (which Chayes doesn’t attempt to prove), it still wouldn’t prove anything about the makers of the movie, who’s speech Chayes clearly wants to restrict — this, I believe, is the intent of the article. She’s making an unsupported accusation. Also, intending to be provocative doesn’t equate to intending to incite violence. In any case, I don’t see that she’s attempting to advocate for the legal substitution of “expected-result” for “intended-result.” What Chayes really did though, is an unsupported attempt to put blame on the movie makers.

Incitement is a critical issue and needs to be clearly defined — as does the concept of threats of violence. IMO, both the intent to create violence and the intent to control behavior via threats of violence are both uses of the initiation of force. Also, there’s a real question in my mind about just how relevant the tests of imminence and likelihood really are. If someone is calling for violence, does it fundamentally make a difference about how imminent and likely the violence now is? If any Objectivist legal expert(s) has taken up these matters, I’ve not seen the results.

No matter how incitement is defined, I think it’s important to remember that there’s always the chance that someone could get hurt because of the irrationality of some crazy person or fool. In general, if the behavior of irrational people is used as an excuse to curtail rights, we won’t have any rights at all; unfortunately, this is what’s happening in the U.S.

Anyway, what pisses me off the most about this affair is that the movie has been made the issue instead of the violation of our freedom of speech perpetrated by Islamic thugs.

One final point in this already overly long comment. There are reports that Egypt has ordered the arrest of 8 people, including one American citizen and, I presume, others in the U.S. legally and that convictions could mean the death penalty. If this is true, Egypt has left no doubt that it’s an Islamist nation. This leaves the U.S. no option but to retaliate in some way. I suggest starting with pulling all diplomatic personnel out of the country, throwing out all Egyptian diplomatic personnel in the U.S., and cutting off all aid.

I think it’s time that we take control of the 4th Estate! NO LONGER can any STUPID BOOB call him/her self a journalist w/o passing strigent tests as to their qualifications for such title! Proper credentialing should be displayed w/any articles/stories/books/and or other forms of publications, for which monetary compensation is given, so that people can have something to judge the information on before they waste their time reading something that is just not worth reading and giving credence to!

“In general, if the behavior of irrational people is used as an excuse to curtail rights, we won’t have any rights at all…”
I think this is the essential point here.

Credentials are useless, and should never be relied upon when judging someone. One only has to read what she writes to come to definite conclusions in that regard.

Ms. Chaye likely wrote this piece in the hopes of attracting a phone call or Tweet from B.O. himself. It’s ironic that after decades of fighting for civil liberties, the Left is now ready to shut them down.