Al-Jazeera, the television network that serves as the propaganda wing of the radical Islamist movement, is scheduled to launch their network in English aimed at Americans with their new studios being in Washington DC.
The United American Committee is organizing a protest against Al-Jazeera Network’s planned American station. “It’s as if Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Minster for Hitler, were to have set up a station in America during WWII,” says UAC member Lee Kaplan.
What: Protest against Al-Jazeera’s planned English language U.S. station. Rally in front of Al-Jazeera’s DC Headquarters.
When: Sunday, April 30th at 12:00 Noon
Location: 11627 K St. NW, Washington, DC 20006
More information is available on the United American Committee’s web site.
Category: Politics
Video of USC Event on Free Speech Available Online
On April 11, the Ayn Rand Institute held a panel discussion on free speech and the Danish cartoons at the University of South California. The video of this event is now available online for free. This panel discussion was a part of the Ayn Rand Institute’s intensive free speech campaign. The panelists were Dr. Yaron Brooks and Dr. Daniel Pipes. The video includes the extended Q&A session, where numerous questions were asked by Moslems in the audience.
Univ Montana Objectivist Club Defends Free Speech
The Daily Missoulian provides a reasonably balanced account — “Secular, pro-individualist group holds solidarity event for magazine sued over publishing Muhammad cartoons” — of an event sponsored by the University of Montana Objectivist Club.
Atlasphere member Andrew Bissell is president of this club.
From the article:
The University of Montana Objectivist Club on Friday stood behind — literally — the right to publish a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban.
As a show of solidarity with a Calgary news magazine that’s been sued over the matter, members of the student club pasted the cartoon and others — which are offensive to most Muslims — on a tri-folded placard in the University Center, then stood ready to defend it.
â??If no one has the guts to show these cartoons, it’s allowing the violence and the worst common denominator to dictate their terms to us,â? insisted Andrew Bissell, president of the Objectivist Club, which promotes the secular, pro-individualist philosophy of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand.
And:
â??Even the moderate factions of Islam take this very seriously,â? said ASUM presidential candidate Andrea Helling, challenging Bissell and the club’s judgment. â??I don’t think the fear of Muslim violence should stop you from doing this, but there are other ways around it, like describing the cartoons. … It’s a respect thing.â?
Bissell said that respect has nothing to do with it. The West has been â??cowingâ? to the violent fringe of Islam and to multicultural sensitivities, he said, offering as proof Comedy Central’s stopping the irreverent â??South Parkâ? television show from showing an image of Muhammad in a spoof of the cartoon issue. It’s the policy of most U.S. newspapers (including the Missoulian), he noted, to refrain from publishing them.
Showing the cartoons is not only a defiant and bold defense of free speech, it’s the most effective way to get the point across, Bissell said.
â??We’re challenging the assumption that there’s a right not to be offended,â? he said. â??You can’t do that with gumdrop smiles and rainbows. I believe we have the right to criticize religion, and that extends to all religions.â?
At least one person was offended enough to tear off one of the cartoons and throw it away, Bissell said.
Our congratulations to Andrew and the rest of his club on their commendable efforts, and on the publicity they have succeeded in generating on behalf of free speech.
See the full article for more.
Intellectuals Confront the New Totalitarianism
Signed by a dozen writers, journalists, and professors — including Salman Rushdie:
MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism
After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.
We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.
The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.
FrontPage Mag Interviews Henry Mark Holzer
FrontPage Magazine has just published an interview with Henry Mark Holzer, discussing his new book The Keeper of the Flame: The Supreme Court Jurisprudence of Justice Clarence Thomas.
The Atlasphere published an excerpt from this book in our recent article “Clarence Thomas: The Keeper of the Faith.”
Academics Find a New Target: "Workaholism"
A new article from Ed Hudgins begins:
Governments often get their wealth-destroying, morally depraved ideas from our often misnamed institutes of “higher learning.” The latest that’s popping up in bulletins, newsletters, and probably soon in legislation is from a 2005 study on “The Economics of Workaholism,” co-authored by Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan and Daniel Hammermesh of the University of Texas in Austin.
The study starts by stating that “Economists have recently re-considered whether a range of individual behaviors are self-destructive, and possibly addictive, and have proposed that it may be Pareto-superior to tax them in order to induce people to abandon or cut back on them.”
“Pareto superior” is an economic term that refers to some alternative distribution of wealth or resources that makes some individuals better off and no one else worse off. In this context the term means that would-be philosopher-kings pretend to know what’s good for us and what is not and are probably poised to grab our freedom or our wallets and have their way with us.
Sure enough the authors go on to say, “The focus of this ‘new paternalism,’ associated with the burgeoning field of behavioral economics, has been on a set of activities (smoking, drinking, overeating, and gambling, in particular) â?¦ and on public policy responses in the form of ‘sin taxes’ that are highly regressive.” The authors go on to state, “Here we begin to explore the economic implications of a self-destructive behavior that is likely to be more prevalent among affluent people — workaholism.”
See the full article for more.
Defending Free Speech at Louisiana State
A second-year law student at Louisiana State University has published a searing analysis of the way freedom of speech is being handled in modern academia. He begins:
Higher-education institutions are no longer havens for free intellectual discussion and open debate. Since public universities have lost nearly every court battle over clearly identified speech codes, administrators have developed stealthier ways to regulate unwanted speech. These covert speech codes are hidden in university handbooks under seemingly harmless provisions such as e-mail guidelines, diversity statements and harassment policies. Even though these policies arenâ??t identified as â??speech codes,â? university administrators are still able to use them to repress unpopular opinions, censor parodies, hinder political speech and restrict academic freedom.
Included in his analysis is the treatment the NYU Objectivist club received from administrators during their recent attempts to foster discussion of the Mohammad cartoons.
See the full article for more.
Interview with Whole Foods' John Mackey
We’ve mentioned before that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is a fan of Ayn Rand’s novels. Today I stumbled across an interview with Mackey (actually, because the interviewer had linked to our blog) from last year.
In the interview, Mackey discusses his enjoyment of Ayn Rand’s writings, his experiences with libertarians, and why he no longer considers himself a libertarian, per se.
Here’s one relevant excerpt, regarding his (qualified) appreciation for Rand, and his own philosophy of business:
SUNNI: It sounds to me like you aren’t a libertarian of a Randian persuasion — wholly profit-driven and focused on the self; is that accurate?
JOHN: That is correct. I was very inspired by Ayn Rand’s novels like millions of other people have been. However, I don’t agree with some of her philosophies. For example: I don’t think selfishness is a virtue and I don’t believe that business primarily exists to make a profit. Profit is of course essential to any business to fulfill its mission and to be successful and to flourish and I will defend the goodness and appropriateness of profits for business with great passion. However, profit is not the primary purpose of business. Renee and I didn’t begin Whole Foods Market to maximize profits for our shareholders. We began it for three main reasons: we thought it would be fun to create a business; we needed to earn a living; and we wanted to contribute to the well-being of other people.
As the business grew we created our mission statement back in 1985 and have tried to fulfill it ever since. That mission very clearly articulates that we have collective — there’s that word again — responsibilities to all the various constituencies who are voluntarily cooperating with the company. In order of priority these constituencies or stakeholders are: customers; team members; investors; vendors; community; and environment.
We measure our success on how well we meet the needs and desires of all of these various stakeholders. All must flourish or we aren’t succeeding as a business.
You don’t have to agree with everything he says to see that he’s a colorful example of a businessman who’s willing to at least think for himself. He has a pretty good track record of opposing unions, for example:
JOHN: I’ve written a 17-page pamphlet (a chapter in my upcoming book) called Beyond Unions. In it I outline my philosophy towards unions. I can’t do complete justice to all my ideas briefly. Let me just make a few points.
The right to collective bargaining (unionization) is an important legal right. It is important that employees, when they wish to, should have the legal right to form unions. In countries where unions are outlawed we see massive totalitarian exploitation of workers. Solidarity in Poland was a very important force to liberating that country from communism.
No employee should be forced to join a union against their will. Unfortunately in many states in our country, such as California, once a union is voted in by a majority of the employees, employees no longer have free choice in this matter. This closed shop means they must join the union and pay dues to the union whether they wish to or not. If they don’t join then they are fired. I believe open shops should be legal in all states and no employee should be forced against their will, as a condition of employment, to join a union.
See the full interview for more.
Bidinotto on the Cowardice at Borders Bookstores
Robert Bidinotto has published an article called “High Noon” at Borders which provides an interesting perspective on Borders Bookstores’ recent public relations fiasco.
He is particularly interested in the media’s excuses for not standing up to bullies:
These people proclaim that standing up to Islamists isn’t their responsibility — that it’s the job of the U.S. military or FBI. Yet many of these same media representatives have made careers out of denouncing and opposing the U.S. military and the FBI. They oh-so-bravely expose and denounce military abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo; they very-very-courageously take editorial stands against Bushitler and the CIA, NSA, and Patriot Act, in defense of Our Threatened Civil Liberties; they ever-so-valiantly demand the sacred Constitutional right to publish photos of returning coffins of U.S. troops or degrading images of abused Iraqi prisoners.
And:
Thanks to these traitors to the First Amendment, America is fast becoming Will Kane’s Hadleyville. They more and more resemble the cringing, “civilized” town fathers in that corrupt fictional crossroads: prostrate in spineless supplication before the town bullies, projecting shameful resentment against the Will Kanes whose bravery shows them up for the cowards that they are.
See the full article for more (including an ending that’s fit for Hollywood).
Muslims Call for a Ban of Voltaire Play
While the world’s attention is focused on the Danish Cartoons, Muslims in France have been calling for a ban of a play by Voltaire that satirizes the Prophet Muhammad.
The play, “Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet,” uses the founder of Islam to lampoon all forms of religious frenzy and intolerance.
Voltaire’s historical role in establishing the right for free speech is clear:
Editors in France, Germany and elsewhere have explained their decision to reprint the drawings by pointing to principles enshrined in a statement often attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Read the entire report here.
(Credit goes to TIA Daily for publishing this item.)