Free Dominion bump!
Posted on 10/14/2002 1:13:36 PM PDT by G. Stolyarov II
In December of 1999, U.S. authorities had apprehended Ahmed Ressam, an al-Qaida affiliate who had attempted to enter the country across the Canadian border in Port Angeles, Washington. This man's equipment, 200 pounds of fertilizer, four timing devices, and two jars of liquid, suggested that he had been plotting to assail the Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Day of 2000. Thanks to the expediency and foresight manifested by the U.S. border guards, a horrendous act of murder had been averted.
That is the proper function of border guards, to exhibit discrimination in granting admittance based on objectively identifiable threats. Terrorism is not a perceived offense, nor is it merely in the eye of the beholder. It is a genuine harm resulting in massive death and devastation. It possesses objective indicators as well. A man carrying materials for the manufacture of a bomb may rightly be interpreted as a menace. Judging by his actions, he is one.
What must not be deemed a threat, however, and what Canadian border guards on October 3, 2002, had misconstrued as one, are expressions of free speech. A right to free speech is a necessary extrapolation upon man's identity as a rational being. Because man's individual thoughts can yield survival and prosperity for him in his life, he ought to be permitted to exercise them. A manifestation of free speech is a declaration of value, which is a consideration of facts of reality as they relate to the well being of the individual agent. So had the Ayn Rand Institute in its series of informative commentaries, "In Moral Defense of Israel" (PDF format), expressed values that it recommends for the entire country to adopt as ones that are conductive to its utmost rational self-interests. This proud author has read the articles and finds them thoroughly compelling advice for the granting of unequivocal moral and military support for the bastion of the West in a region of repressive theocracies.
Here is a quote from "Israel Has a Moral Right to Its Life" by Yaron Brook and Peter Schwartz. "We should be supporting Israel's right to take whatever military action is needed to defend itself against its nihilistic enemies. Morally and militarily, Israel is America's frontline in the war on terrorism. If America is swayed by Arafat's latest empty rhetoric, and allows him to continue threatening Israel, our own campaign against terrorism becomes sheer hypocrisy and will, ultimately, fail." Ultimately, this statement recognizes that the survival of this nation's freedoms against the menace of terror and our continuation of leading the life proper to man (i.e. one which does not impose totalitarian shackles upon the autonomous entity that is the individual) depend upon an unwavering display of fortitude in support of our crucial ally and trade partner, instead of granting moral sanction and deceiving labels to a tyrant, Yasser Arafat, who systematically lures his people into the quagmire of antagonism, martyrdom, and suffering.
To think that this expression of solidarity with America, Israel, and Individuality was interpreted as "hate propaganda" by the politically correct bureaucrats of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency! The profound articles were en route to an Objectivist club in the University of Toronto as part of a campaign to enhance their publicity and availability to thinking men whose self-interests such materials are bound to serve. Instead of receiving the intellectual resources, Mr. Ray Girn, the president of the club, obtained a letter from the CCRA, stating, "The following goods have been detained for a determination of tariff classification as they may constitute obscenity or hate propaganda." What sacrilegious expressions are contained in the assertion that one's freedoms have a right to exist? What hatred is displayed in works that stir just retaliation against depraved aggressors for the purpose of ensuring peace in our time? Must men keep silent while Arafat warps the Palestinian mass media to portray Jews in the same light of wickedness unheard of since the days of the Third Reich? Must politically correct knuckleheads jam their teeth together in terrorized angst, not because suicide bombers are weekly detonating innocent civilians but because a rowdy Palestinian street ruffian, a prime candidate for a suicide bomber, had been shot by Israeli soldiers asserting their moral right to self-defense and life?
The genuine quest for liberty and security is being stifled, while the racist, anti-Zionist, man-hating rhetoric of Arafat continues to pervade universities, including Canadian ones. Dr. Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, had remarked on this, stating, "It is shameful that an attempt to defend Israel on moral grounds would be considered for censorship while anti-Israel literature can be found in any bookstore and anti-Israel rhetoric can be heard on any college campus." Apparently, the Canadian border guards experience no problem with Palestinian textbooks stating (falsely) that a duty of a loyal Muslim is the hatred of Jews. What more circumstantial tripe can be found that fully fits the definition of hate propaganda, as targeting "a religious, ethnic, or racial group"? And why is it tolerated while the desire to eradicate the armed doctrine of racism using the only functional means, retaliatory force, is silenced and detained?
A hint may arise from the fact that the box had merely been labeled as containing literature from the Ayn Rand Institute, also stating the title of the article series. Dr. Brook suggests an alarming possibility: "Either Canadian Customs chose to detain the brochures because they opened the package and didn't like what they read, or worse, they detained the brochures simply because they disagree with any defense of Israel." Disagree they may, as it is their freedom of speech, but censor they may not. Censorship of intellectual arguments, of expressions of free speech that do not advocate racial hatred nor circumstantially-based violence nor initiation of aggression of any manner, holds an implicit denial of man's rights, stating that man is not rational, that he therefore cannot be permitted to select using the conclusions of his thinking mind and the data of reality as his warrant, that the imposition of brute force and regulatory restrictions is the only means of placing him upon the proper moral path. This was precisely the philosophy of the draconian Taliban in Afghanistan, who had barred all forms of media as a potential source for disagreement with the dominant orthodoxy. This is precisely the mindset behind Yasser Arafat's PLO forces staging mob assaults on harmless Israeli settlers or beating political dissenters who may have committed so little "offense" as to have written the omnipotent chairman a letter of admonition. Censorship lies at the root of the terror states presently endangering America and its right to exist as a nation philosophically founded entirely on voluntary association and value-trading, not master-slave coercion.
Ahmed Ressam, the man who had attempted to orchestrate a calamity during New Year's celebrations two years ago, had been but one agent of a movement whose sole purpose is hatred of the productive and free, of the American materialistic "Satan", whose success is derived from the fact that this country recognizes the fundamental liberties which must be afforded man to ensure his survival at the dignified, rational level prescribed by his identity. United States border guards knew their job and its limits. They knew that their task was to preserve freedoms, not to restrict them due to personal disagreements or subjective perceptions of offense where none was meant nor dealt.
It comes as no surprise, however, that Canadian border guards were not the ones apprehending Ressam, although his incursion into the United States was launched from Canada's soil and Canadian officials therefore possessed ampler access to him. The service, either from governmental mandate or intolerable caprices of individual employees or departments, upholds the same ideological standpoint, censorship, which looms over us at the terrorist threat of present days.
Fortunately, the degree to which the CCRA had pursued censorship was far milder than that exhibited by Chairman Arafat. The articles were released in three days and are presently en route to Toronto, where Dr. Brook will be speaking on their significance. Nevertheless, this incident in its present caliber has seen conduct that must remain off-limits for public officials who must be stewards of our liberties, not inhibitors thereof.
The CCRA, if there remain vestiges of morality within it, must apologize to the Ayn Rand Institute for the outrageously unjust detainment of its materials and provide a comprehensive written guarantee, in the form of a legislative or otherwise procedural document guaranteeing that such transgressions of liberty will never again obstruct the intellectual quest of defenders of human rights.
Free Dominion bump!
And yet ... I admit to this having given me a twinge of what the Germans call Schadenfreude at the ARI's predicament.
The ARI wants to mandate a defense of the State of Israel, to the last dollar extorted from the American taxpayers and the last drop of blood shed by American soldiers -- as you can guess, a position I do not support.
Again, no one deserves to be censored. Yet I had to think: One form of Canadians' utterly statist practice is responding to statements of some Americans' utterly statist beliefs. I find it hard to decide which side I despise more.
(As an aside: The ARI's director, Yaron Brook, is so "fearless" in his position that he wears a bulletproof vest when he lectures about the need for the U.S. taxpayers and military to thus "defend Israel." I haven't decided whether that's hubris about how seriously others take his arguments, or a mere lack of confidence about them.)
This post attacking The Ayn Rand Institute, which the supports the laissez faire capitalist position of Ayn Rand, helps put the socialism in the National Socialist (Nazi) party.
And the riducule of the Objectivist who wisely wears a bullet proof vest suggests that this poster would want things taken a step further than censorship and delay of some Objectivist literature.
(eddie, I figured you might be interested in this article- forgive my presumption ;-))
Please show us where and when the Israelis ever asked U.S. soldiers to fight for them.
You're assuming that my attacking the ARI means that I'm attacking its positions on capitalism (or rational egoism, or objectivity in philosophy), and I am not. I'm criticizing its mixing in several positions that do support statism, including this one on Israel.
The ARI is neither a consistent nor a reasonably behaved advocate for Rand's philosophy. I support several other Objectivist institutions and individuals who are, such as those publishing the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.
Apart from this, you're falsely insinuating that I'm a Nazi, which you don't apparently have the balls to say directly so that I can (verbally) slap you down.
And the ridicule of the Objectivist who wisely wears a bullet proof vest suggests that this poster would want things taken a step further than censorship and delay of some Objectivist literature.
Brook thinks he's important enough to be a shooter's target, and that megalomania is what I was ridiculing. It isn't a sign of striding into the arena of ideas with confidence. ... I leave your other insinuation as it deserves, beneath even contempt.
They haven't. (The U.S. offered troops to patrol the Sinai desert, for 25 years now and counting, on its initiative.)
It's the ARI that's insisting upon it. To be precise, it's being more Zionist than the Zionists.
You presumed correctly.
Thanks....and feel free to ping me to any thread of interest to Objectivists.
As greybird points out, the force in the Sinai wasn't asked for, but a condition of returning the Sinai to our ally and partner in peace, Egypt, the second time.
As an aside, US, British, and French forces were also promised to assure the opening of the Straits of Tiran to enable our ally and partner in peace Egypt to reclaim the Sinai the first time. Israel should have kept the Sinai and moved the refugees there in, they could have developed a vibrant trade with Egypt, though then Egypt might not have wanted it back.
That is untrue! I'm not afraid of you slapping me down; however, I am afraid of the adminstrator slapping me down so I have to be circumspect. :(
Brook thinks he's important enough to be a shooter's target,[this is the Objectivist who speaks while wearing a bulletproof vest] and that megalomania is what I was ridiculing. It isn't a sign of striding into the arena of ideas with confidence. ... I leave your other insinuation as it deserves, beneath even contempt.
Let's see.... Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Franklin Graham have been threatened with death by Muslims for daring to speak the truth about their evil prophet. For this Objectivist to speak in public while wearing a bullet proof vest speaks of both courage and prescience -- not cowardice!
I can just see a fellow like you at the entrance to the gas chambers (if you don't believe they exist, please forgive my presumption here), you would be telling the Jews that they are just showers and they should stop being conceited in believing that they're important enough to be killed en masse.
And in closing to you I just want to say Am Yisrael Chai and A = A. :)
You get real. He wears this when he lectures to groups such as the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles. The man is a frightened mouse when he's not in his offices in Irvine. And, intellectually, even there.
Ah, yes, another bracing splash of "If You Disagree with the Israeli State and Its Leaders, You're an Anti-Semite" brand after-shave. How could anyone wake up and scan the traffic on this site without it?
Ah, a variation on the "We condemn terrorism, BUT...."
As I said originally (post 3), I do not tolerate censorship, under any circumstances. Does that mean I must tolerate what is being said that may be the target of the censors? No.
I don't approve of hard-core pornography -- it degrades the sexual act. I don't approve of the ARI's blind support of the State of Israel -- it uses twisting of Rand's philosophy out of context to endorse a State that practices torture and other outrages, and to degrade Rand's legacy. Neither such activity, however, should be suppressed.
And I don't approve of liars or idiots who don't know Ayn Rand's view on the Middle East. She has supported Israel and rightfully despised the PLO. The ARI people are continuing her legacy on this.
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