Tag: First Amendment

The Case of the Odious Man

 

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
― attributed to Voltaire by the historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her 1906 book The Friends of Voltaire.

 

Imagine you’re in a public place such as a commercial establishment, a place where others can identify you because you are notorious in the community for your distasteful social and political views. At that particular time, you are going about your business, not annoying anybody as you are known to do elsewhere. Eventually a group of your critics show up and create a loud disturbance to call you out for the odious man you are, annoying bystanders in the process. The situation deteriorates from there, with you reverting to form because you cannot pass on this delicious opportunity to provoke and taunt, portraying yourself as a martyr. The demonstrators have given you a great gift, though they believe they are just and righteous in their public condemnation of you.

Now imagine you are still the odious man, but this time the tables are turned and it is the warriors for social justice who are going about their business in public, and it is you and your accomplices who show up and loudly vilify them, disturbing the peace of innocent bystanders in the process. Who is in the right here, and who in the wrong? Surely the first instance, where the social justice warriors loudly condemn you though you have done nothing at that moment to provoke them, surely that is alright in the eyes of the law because the community at large can see you are odious, knows you are odious, and naturally therefore approves the warriors calling you out so that all shall understand it is prohibited to listen to your odious views, should you open your mouth.

No? Well in that case, the second instance must be correct according to the law, if not the community. But how can that be? The actions are the same, though the actors have switched places. Is the law a dark cloud that follows you around, darkening your every action, while your opponents have sole possession of the silver lining always? No. In both instances the person or persons doing the hounding have crossed over the line into harassment, a crime whether the perpetrator or perpetrators feel righteously justified or not. Harassing someone in public does little for your cause other than enable your target to put on the mantle of martyr and portray you and your group as intolerant hypocrites who are for free speech for themselves but not for some others. Yes, we did just switch places there.


Free speech is not for some and not for others. The First Amendment to the Constitution does not say “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech [except speech we disagree with and find offensive]”. In that exception, who are “we”. You? There is all manner of injustice in the world, such as how justice has always bent to accommodate the rich and powerful. Why give injustice more sway by determining that the repugnant speech of an odious man should be shouted down and he personally should be hounded? Why give him the gift of that kind of power? In a more perfect world, justice would not be administered entirely on a case by case basis, wherein self-appointed guardians trample legal protections meant for everyone, even them, in a misguided belief that such capricious administration of justice would not someday be turned against them, the righteous.
― Vita

Blind Justice (9146668714)
Blind Justice, a statue in the Salt Memorial, Lister Park, Bradford, England; photo by Tim Green. Note that Justice carries a double-edged sword in addition to scales.

 

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Let It Go

 

Following on the heels of the news story about Internet Service Providers (ISPs) astroturfing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to influence its decision on rolling back net neutrality regulations, and in some cases preceding it by several years, is the revelation that Monsanto, makers of Roundup herbicide and a world leader in producing genetically modified seeds, has allegedly been paying shills to post positive comments online about the company and its products, particularly on websites which portray them negatively. Even more disturbing has been the information from internal company memos which reveal its strategy for tilting scientific opinion in its favor by funding biased think tanks, funneling grant money to friendly scientists and academic institutions and even ghost writing papers for them, all of which are meant to appear as impartial efforts, while debunking contrary news articles and impugning the motives of the journalists who write them. Monsanto refers to its policy as “Let Nothing Go”.
Monsanto-siembra-muerte.B.A.2013
Anti-Monsanto stencil “Monsanto – Siembra Muerte” in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2013 reads in English “Monsanto – Seeds of Death”; photo by JanManu. Monsanto’s policies and practices have engendered large scale protests in Argentina, as well as elsewhere around the world. Strangely, in the United States, the land where Freedom of the Press is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, the mainstream media is largely silent about agribusiness misconduct. Test that yourself with an internet search.

 

Monsanto is not alone among companies in tasking their public relations people with promoting a positive image online in comments sections, forums, and social media. That’s a very good reason for taking such comments with a large grain of salt. It’s akin to what you may hear around the water cooler at work, only in this case one or more of your fellow gossips makes oddly stilted remarks in favor of the company way, as if speaking from a script. When one of those gossips dons a white laboratory coat and purports to speak with scientific authority on the subject at hand, the discussion moves magically from around the water cooler to around the executive conference table. There the discussion is not so much about influencing public opinion as it is about setting the parameters for debate and ultimately public policy.

Robert Morse learns under the tutelage of mail room boss Sammy Smith as they sing “The Company Way” in the 1967 movie of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

However, just because a shill wears a lab coat and has a list of academic degrees behind his or her name does not make that person any less of a shill than the one who makes a few dollars trolling comments sections on behalf of a corporation. The scientific high priest type of shill is morally worse because he or she exploits the respect and gullibility of the general public when hearing pronouncements from them. Not all of the science shills know what they do, of course, because they may be true believers. The others, who know what they do, but go on anyway because of greed and ambition, deserve no leeway from the public or their peers, and more likely deserve condemnation. Jesus knew as much when He denounced the Pharisees.

A scene from the 1970 movie Little Big Man, with Dustin Hoffman and Martin Balsam. Snake Oil Salesmen and their Shills by no means disappeared with the 19th Century.

For whatever topic you care to name that puts at risk the finances of large corporations – tobacco, climate change, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and the herbicides that accompany them – you can find a corporate funded think tank with outreach to a handful of friendly scientists and institutions who scramble to debunk legitimate research and hold back a growing avalanche of negative public opinion. The agribusiness funded Genetic Literacy Project has nothing good to say about U.S. Right to Know, an organization largely funded by the organic food industry. Similarly, U.S. Right to Know dismisses the science of the Genetic Literacy Project. The organic food industry in the United States has about 5% of the market and is steadily growing year after year. Organic foods are by definition non-GMO. You are free to make up your own mind about who to believe, of course, and it’s a good thing then that to help you decide, many sellers of non-GMO foods have begun labeling their products as such. This was after giant agribusinesses successfully lobbied the government to scuttle labeling of products that do contain GMO foods. The big corporations apparently don’t trust you with the facts and with making decisions for yourself based on those facts.
― Izzy

 

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With a Song in My Heart

President Barack Obama visits Pentagon for Sept. 11 ceremony - Washington, D.C. 2012

Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta, left, President Barack Obama and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, render honors during the playing the National Anthem during a ceremony commemorating the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon.

 

The recent flap over U.S. Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas not placing her hand over her heart during the playing of the “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Rio Summer Olympics medal ceremony prompts this week’s post. Etiquette for citizens during the national anthem is spelled out in U.S. Code, but that’s the extent of it. Civilians should place their hands over their hearts, and military personnel in uniform should salute. Veterans can place their hands over their hearts or salute, as they wish. There are no legal prohibitions for civilians who do not observe etiquette, whether knowingly or out of ignorance. Any deviation from etiquette by civilians is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Military personnel who do not salute may be prosecuted non-judicially by their command under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The upshot of all this is that for most Americans their behavior during the national anthem is guided by custom, though in this case custom has been explicitly codified by Congress, as questionable as that practice may be. As with all matters of custom, those who deviate from the norm open themselves to criticism and opprobrium from the community at large. In the case of Gabby Douglas, public censure goes too far, and certainly legal sanctions are inapplicable, no matter how much people may howl on Twitter about what they perceive as her inappropriate lapse. The rush to judgment is just that, a hasty reaching for the first stone.

– Ed. 

 

 

John Carlos, Tommie Smith, Peter Norman 1968cr

American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, along with Australian Peter Norman, during the award ceremony of the 200 m race at the Mexican Olympic games. During the awards ceremony, Smith (center) and Carlos protested against racial discrimination: they went barefoot on the podium and listened to their anthem bowing their heads and raising a fist with a black glove. Mexico City, Mexico, 1968.

 

 

 

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