Category Archives: Morality

Update 3: Nitwork Solutions Suspends Wilders Site

Free Speech, Islam, libertarianism, Media, Morality, The West

A hosting service has suspended the site erected by the heroic Geert Wilders to popularize his film about the Quran. Wilders is the only politician I know of, aside Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to speak truth to power about Islam.

We all recall the tragic fate another brave Dutch film maker met. Vincent van Gogh’s great-great-grandson—more authentically Dutch you cannot get—was “stuck like a pig” on an Amsterdam street by a Muslim immigrant.

So who has curtailed Wilders in his heroic efforts? An American company, of course:

“Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation … The company could not immediately be reached for comment. Its terms of service contain a sweeping prohibition against ‘objectionable material of any kind or nature.’”

(I’ve just asked the designer of our new fabulous website under construction to check up that the server to which we will be migrating tolerates speech. American companies are becoming oppressive.)

The Herald Tribune has characterized Wilders as heading “a reactionary party with 9 seats in the 150-member Dutch Parliament, which was elected on an anti-immigration platform. He lives under police protection because of death threats.”

If by reactionary the Tribune means that Wilders would dearly like to prevent Sharia from becoming the law of the land in his beloved homeland, and that he doesn’t rah-rah for Muslim rioters, then yes, I guess he could be called a “reactionary.”

The fact that a man who voices unpopular opinion is required to “live under police protection” in a western, liberal society—this, the Herald Tribune doesn’t find the least bit “reactionary.”

Update (March 25): Posted over at Jihad Watch is an interview with “Nitworks Solutions.” That is if long pauses and pregnant silences from the company’s representative constitute an exchange.

My contact for all things webular tells me that “Network Solutions has a long history of screwing people. They were the first—and for a long time the only—people who registered domain names for the Internet in the early years.” They had a government granted franchise or monopoly [like Comcast in certain regions] and, consequently, charged very high fees. “Down the road, when people became savvier and other high-tech companies wanted the ability to sell domains as well, the latter had to go to court to get the ability but they won. Today Network Solutions still sells domain names and they are about a tenth of what they used to charge but they still cost more than most everywhere else. The markup is ridiculous.”

In any event, if Mr. Wilders contacts us, we’ll put him in touch with someone who’ll fix him up in no time with a reliable, willing host.

Libertarians who fail to protest such intimidation are a sad joke. Sure, a host is a private company and ought to be able to host or not host at will. However, this is an example of intimidation at the threat of death. (By the same token, neither did the ousting of Imus have anything to do with private property or market forces. Rather, mob forces shaped that event.)

In “Those Cartoons: A Reply To Walter Block,” I addressed the moral confusion that led some libertarians to shirk the responsibility to defend the great Danes in what I termed “one of the defining libertarian issues of our times,” and that is:

“Speaking and publishing under the threat of injury or death … what is becoming a matter of life and death for writers, filmmakers, comics, and caricaturists in the West.”

Update 2 (March 27): I am disappointed that some libertarians construed the protest on this post as a call for censorship. You really have to develop the ability to distinguish between a debate about libertarian law vs. one about morality and ethics. Or values, as an Objectivist would put it. Objectivists often complain that libertarians are incapable of bridging this void. I can see the merits of their complaint.

I believe I’ve done this exercise once before, but here goes again: It has to be manifestly clear that no one on this blog has called on the state to intervene with Nitwork Solutions, which, by the way, was operating by grant of a government privilege when it monopolized domain licensing; that’s another problem some correspondents clearly struggle with: telling the free from the fettered market.

In any event, the debate here is about this new phenomenon we in the West are subjected to, and that is publishing under the threat of death. What Nitwork did to the heroic Wilders is perfectly licit in libertarian law. Some libertarians, however, go so far and say it is moral; they even lend their imprimatur to Muslims in terrorizing writers for doing no more than “hoisting their epistolary pitchforks.” For this perspective, I have nothing but contempt.

That said, let’s move on to a letter from my mother, our correspondent in The Netherlands:

Wilders: A Principled Man

Holland has a hero. Geert Wilders represents many Dutch people who are anxious about the growing power of Islam in Holland. He is a member of the Dutch Parliament and has won 9 seats in the parliament.

The parliament members have done everything to stop Wilders legitimate objection to the growing power of Muslims in all spheres in this country. The government is terrified that the Arab states will object and will take measures to decrease monetary gains. This terrifies all Dutch parliamentarians and, as a result, they have done everything to stop Wilders from speaking out about this Islamization, have tried to stop him from releasing the film he has made about Islam; and have done all in their power to intimidate him into silence and threaten him to keep his mouth shut.

And this in the “Great democratic Holland,” where, supposedly, “Freedom of Speech” is a holy right of all. It is clear to all of us who support this brave man that freedom of speech in Holland is only allowed to those who agree with government policy—their fear of reprisal from Arabs, in the manner used against Denmark, is the only thing they can think about.

Wilders holds onto his principles, even though his life is threatened—he is indeed a man who is prepared to sacrifice himself for his principles—and for his country.

—Ann

Update 3 (March 29): ACCEPTING THE TERMS OF SURRENDER. As I’ve said, we’ve arrived at a stage in the West’s demise where we are publishing under duress—under the threat of death, to be precise. This state of affairs has arisen due to our welcoming into our midst a culture and faith that doesn’t comport with life and liberty. Philosophical disagreements will henceforth be settled by the kafia-clad hit squad, or their proxies, CAIR and their ilk.

LiveLeak.com has folded. Here you can find a statement of cowardice and capitulation from this outfit as to why they’ll not be honoring the courage of Geert Wilders, and posting his film, Fitna (Fatwa).

Those who threatened LiveLeak.com have rejected the way philosophical battles are fought by westerners (to distinguish from their governments). What they’re doing is laying down the law under Islam. Each capitulation brings us closer to a time when this space, and spaces as outspoken, will cease to exist.

What’s worse; westerners, with few exceptions, are accepting the terms of surrender.

Updated: Putrid Presidential Plagiarism

Democrats, Ethics, Ilana Mercer, Intellectualism, Journalism, Morality

As you know, the plagiarism of ideas is, especially to this writer, a litmus test for bottom-feeding scum, plain and simple. Why is lifting ideas worse than verbatim copying? Because only the latter is legally actionable. “Smart” people know this—they know how easy it is to get away with lifting ideas, since that’s legally kosher, if utterly odious and unethical.
Those familiar with my work know that I cite religiously and faithfully—I cite even when I don’t have to really. That’s because of my ethics. On a personal level, it’s because I’m not threatened by anyone. Maybe I should be, but I’m not. Why borrow what I may be able to best?
My last brush with this contemptible conduct came about because of a brilliant and ethical colleague—if not for him, I would not have known I had been kind of victimized yet again. He was incredulous when he came across what he recognized to be my ideas, and those of a primary source I had quoted diligently in my essay, all appropriated as the offending writer’s own.
I fought back, and got a citation appended to this second-hand text. I believe you must fight back, so that those who imagine they deserve credit for your ideas pay by losing face. They now know you’re on to them.
In my case, oddly enough, people whom I quite respected have nicked my rather idiosyncratic formulations. Sean nailed it (I could credit myself with this insight, but it’s his): “what’s at play in these instances,” he explained, “is someone who believes he has said what you said, and in the event that he hasn’t, he, being so great, thinks he deserved to have said it.” Something along the lines of, “Who the hell is Ilana to write stuff that sounds as though I ought to have written it?”
Ugly, unmanly sentiments indeed.
Prior to this last episode, about which I would not have been the wiser without my ethical colleague, there was the “professor”—they are a dime a dozen—with no paper or pixel trail to his name, who decided he deserved credit for my vindicating of Michael Vick.
If you recall, I was the first to offer a detailed and rather idiosyncratic defense of Vick’s dog fighting. Sean Hannity said he had not found anyone other than me to offer a coherent defense, which is why he criss-crossed me on his show. My piece was later published in the Orange County Register too.
Google “Defense Michael Vick.” Who’s right up there after Whoopi Goldberg (who, for obvious reasons, would come first)?
My arguments continued on the blog and took a very distinguishing tack, to which the good “professor” adhered closely. His editor defended this no-name dog of a writer. Yeah, this from a bunch that never shuts up about values—the Values Vulgarizers. (Not to mention the violators of the injunction against Second-Handerism.)
So what do I think of the allegation that Obama lifted words not his for one of his uninspiring Hear Me Roar speeches? If it’s true, I agree with Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign’s communications director, that, “When an author plagiarizes from another author there is damage done to two different parties. One is to the person he plagiarized from. The other is to the reader.”
While Obama is accused of some lengthy appropriating absent any word of credit to the primary source, his come-back to Hillary is as impoverished as his plagiarism practice. Obama says she borrowed his “signature chant ‘fired up and ready to go’ in Davenport, Iowa, and later her echoing of his rally cry, ‘Yes, we can!’”
Puh-leeze. Next our “intellectual” will be accusing Hillary of stealing the “You Go Girl” bimbo battle cry. The above is clearly Hillary’s mocking paraphrase of Obama’s call to arms. Before he makes his next empty accusation, Imam Obama ought to know that “Ouch”  has also moved into the public domain.
This particular professor is a bit shabby in this department. All not very surprising, considering my own tales of woe with professors.

Update: Obama ought to have said, “To paraphrase my friend, x,” or something along those lines. However you spin it, it’s not very elevated, coming from a man who prides himself on the proper use of words. Sourcing is part of the proper use of words.

Desperately Seeking Bollywood’s Brangelina

Christianity, Ethics, Hollywood, Morality, Religion, The West

What happens when the pale, patriarchal, penis people, in the words of the inimitable art critic Robert Hughes, are finally dethroned?

Who will fix stuff? Who will man Doctors without Borders? Who will do the world’s charity work? Who do you think does it now? Arabs? Africans? Indians? As much as I despise Brangelina, where is Bollywood’s equivalent of these naïve, giving do-gooders?
I’m afraid those maligned pallid patriarchs and their likeminded women do the world’s good works.

The largest charities by revenue in the US (which means the world) are Mayo Clinic, Salvation Army, YMCAs, United Way, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, American National Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Goodwill Industries International, and The Arc of the United States. By whom were they founded?

Mayo was founded by William Worrall Mayo (hint: he’s not an African). The Salvation Army by William Booth (another Englishman). Ditto the YMCA (George Williams). Two ministers and a rabbi midwived the United Way. Drs. George Crile, Frank Bunts, and William Lower founded the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 1921, and Clara Barton the Red Cross (you don’t need to see their mugs to guess their origins). And so it goes for the rest.

Morality and Illiberal Democracy By Tibor Machan

Barely A Blog, Morality

Tibor R. Machan, a regular contributor to Barely a Blog, is RC Hoiles Professor of business ethics & free enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

MORALITY AND ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY

By Tibor R. Machan

When the term “democracy” is used loosely, as in geopolitical discussions, it is used to mean that kind of political system in which everyone can have input into decisions bearing on public affairs. What is left mostly unspecified is just what counts as public affairs.

In a totalitarian state everything counts as the public realm; in a free country there are strict limits. In most existing countries today it’s somewhere in between. Democratic decisions impact taxation, government regulation, international diplomacy, education and health policies, and whatever else the government is involved in. The idea of limiting the public realm has gone out of fashion and was never taken very seriously except by a few political theorists and even fewer politicians, let alone bureaucrats. Once in power, there is a very strong temptation to expand the reach of the power one has. People who get chummy with government tend not to like it when its powers are limited —they have agendas and such limitations could impede their efforts to carry them out.

And in democracies the politicians’ constituency often urges government to expand its power so as to provide the voters with various benefits —ones, however, that have to be obtained by confiscating other people’s resources, including their labor.

In short, democracy often tilts quite powerfully against morality. No, there is no consensus about what is the right morality for people to practice, but there are some general principles or virtues most of us support at least in the realm of private conduct. Few people champion robbing Peter so as to “help” out Paul —we usually believe that Peter needs to agree to the idea. Instead of confiscation and stealing, most would tend to endorse generosity and charity. The same is true for honesty —on the whole, other than in exceptional cases, most of us value straight talk and have contempt for liars. I think the same can be said about respecting the liberty of others —we hire them if we would like them to work for us and do not coerce them into doing such work. Millions of others do valuable labor but we tend to consider it wrong to conscript this labor for our benefit.

So while there are disagreements about various moral matters —abortion, assisted suicide, child-rearing and so forth —there is a very large sphere of agreement, too. Yet when we look at the way democracy functions in most countries, it is in these areas of basic moral agreement where a serious discord is evident. Democratic decisions do, in fact, lead to robbing Peter so as to “help” out Paul. (I use the scare quotes because one can hardly call forcing people to part with their resources bone fide help given to anyone! This is why government cannot be compassionate!) Democratic decision making routinely endorses conscripting people’s labor, limiting their liberty, making them act as they do not choose to even when they are not violating anyone’s rights, and so forth.

In short, illiberal, unlimited democracy is routinely in conflict with standards of morality or ethics.

In practical terms this means that most countries are replete with public policies that are out-and-out immoral … yet widely accepted, too. Is it so curious, then, that young people in these countries get mixed messages about how they ought to conduct themselves? If it is OK for politicians and bureaucrats to make promises they not only will not but cannot keep, who is to communicate any objections to this in how young people comport themselves toward each other and their elders? Why should they not lie when governments do so all the time? If it is OK for democratically established public policies to violate strictures of ethics —let’s take Peter’s wealth (he has too much, he doesn’t need it so much, she is using it badly, etc., and so forth) and transfer it to Paul (but take a good chunk on the way to pay for our diligent transfer efforts) —why should young people abstain from stealing? What if, especially, they get peer approval —isn’t that like democracy, after all?

Throughout the schools in most Western countries democracy is hailed day in and day out but at the same time some of the worst kind of human conduct is carried out in democracy’s name, with democratic sanction. Does this not tell those students that, well, when there is wide consensus for breaching morality and ethics, it’s just fine to perpetrate the breach? So go ahead and cheat, copy other’s tests, plagiarize, bully some kids, steal from a few, and so on. I would think it does.

It seems clear to me that if one expects the younger generation to grow up to be decent people, illiberal democracy isn’t helping to facilitate this.