Well, I didn’t anticipate a filibuster, and such a pedantic and looong one!

We don’t need to go into the endless, centuries-old debate about what is “wrong,” because “Everybody be Uncivil to No Good End Day” is an easy, easy  call.  We’ll assume that the only ethical argument for the rightness of the stunt is based on utilitarianism…the  ethical system, championed by John Stuart Mill, that allows a balancing process: if the good results outweigh the bad, if more people benefit than are harmed, then a particular act may be ethical. Usually you need to add a little Absolutism to the mix: using human beings as a means to an end is still wrong, even if the results are beneficial to more people than not. Then you apply your basic values. Non-ethical considerations—greed, anger, vengeance, self-glorification—are not ethical reasons or objectives. Ethical values, like fairness, respect, citizenship, caring, are good motives and objectives. Good results will not justify an unethical act, but the goal of virtuous results is necessary in judging whether a utilitarian-based action can be justified.

I mention the lack of positive results only because it was completely predictable, and EDMD (if I may abbreviate) always was a formula to do more harm than good. Some of the organizers undoubtedly believed, naively, that this was not the case. They were not necessarily, in that case, being unethical. Perhaps they were just wrong, as in “incorrect.” Still, setting out to be intentionally insulting to millions of people should require a high level of certainty that the results outbalance the harm. They don’t, they can’t and they didn’t.

Baron’s argument goes far afield from First Amendment grand-standing: now he questions the legitimacy of the Islam religion. That apparently justifies gratuitously insulting an entire faith. I don’t see the logic. Civility is one of the foundations of ethics: it demonstrates mutual respect. Defying civility—and resorting to offensive imagery is just that—makes dialogue impossible, feeds resentment, and abandons rational discourse. (Although if “rational discourse” is going to be pedantic double-talk like the Baron’s last post, I’ll take the pictures, thanks.) I think my favorite piece of sophistry is this sentence:

“We have chosen to engage in a behavior which we realize may insult Muslims. But being insulted by a cartoon is their choice, not ours.”

You know the cartoons of their Prophet is painful and upsetting to Muslims, and you draw them precisely for this purpose, yet you argue that it’s their fault if they are insulted. This trick works with all offensive images, from child porn to animal torture films. No wonder you express confusion about the meaning of words like right, wrong, and ethics.

Baron’s rebuttal is nothing but a stream of footnotes and lazy qualifications lacking any central argument. Nobody’s “begging the question”:

“Does EDMD in any way address the issue of radical jihadists trying to control free expression in the U.S?

No.

“Is there any special risk involved in drawing Muhammad under these circumstances?”

No.

“Is the exercise likely to change the conduct of either those threatened or or those threatening?”

No.

“Does it insult Muslims who had no part in this controversy?”

Yes.

“In the absence of any tangible benefits fro EDMD, can this be justified?”

No.

“Does that make the exercise gratuitously hurtful and uncivil and thus violative of the basic ethical values of caring, fairness, respect, civility, responsibility, prudence, proportion, empathy, and conscienciousness?”

Of course.

CAN everyone draw Muhammad?

Sure. And we all knew that.

EDMD isn’t an argument, it’s a scream.

Meanwhile, this kind of game-playing….

Explain to our readers why the logic behind EDMD is more “dubious” than that of “pressur[ing] Comedy Central to show the entire, uncut, South Park episode”. Why, precisely, is the logic of one more “dubious” than the other?

“Dubious” is another one of those pesky undefined terms. Please define “dubious” in this context.

One definition of dubious is “of doubtful provenance or veracity.” Who doubted the provenance or veracity of the logic of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day? Under what premises? Are you able to give citations?

…is familiar to me as the language of obfuscation and intentional obtuseness. What are the scare quotes doing around “dubious”? It’s not undefined in the least. It means “doubtful,” and I was being kind. Getting Comedy Central to do what it should have done in the first place rectifies the initial harm. A threatening e-mail or blog post that has no effect is nothing. The logic behind EDMD, on the other hand, is no logic at all. “South Park” was intended as humor to non-Muslim audiences, not as an insult to Muslims. EDMD, in contrast, is an intentional insult, which validates the jihadist’s complaint, and sets up a false stand of defiance—a manufactured defiance in a situation created  just to be defiant.

It is wrong—mean, cruel, rude, uncivil, disrespectful—to organize a large group of people to run through the nation’s public squares screaming “sh–” because some jerk got in trouble doing it in Toledo. It is wrong–do I really have to explain that?—to organize women in a mass breast-baring in elementary schools and libraries to protest Janet Jackson and CBS getting in trouble with the FCC at the Superbowl. It is wrong to burn flags in front of thousands of veterans’ houses to make the point that it’s protected speech. If those anti-gay wackos who disrupt the funerals of Iraq War casualties get shut down, it would be wrong—unjust, unfair, cruel—to organize disruptions of thousands of funerals to show that it’s protected speech.

This isn’t rocket science.  When an act hurts people out of all proportion to any tangible good it can or will accomplish, it’s unethical. Cultural sensitivity simply means mutual respect and civility. Opposing that is indefensible. Exercising First Amendment rights without any concern for others, or decorum, or consequences to third parties, is irresponsible, and an invitation to censor to try to limit speech. The government shouldn’t exercise discretion—speakers should. Everything that can be expressed doesn’t have to be expressed, and using speech wisely is essential to civilization.

I repeat: this conduct doesn’t protect free speech; it defiles it.

Mr. Marshall has responded to my previous post, and I will address the issues he raises in his new polemic:

“Everyone Annoy Muslims Day” is almost over, and what has been accomplished?

Well, Pakistan has shut down much of the internet, including Facebook and YouTube, costing those two American corporations thousands of dollars.

This is an argument from utility, and depends for its implied moral force on financial losses suffered by private corporations.

Is it unethical to engage in legally and morally acceptable public behavior if it causes a corporation to experience a reduction in profitability?

Am I ethically required to surrender my First Amendment rights to make sure that Facebook and YouTube are able to maintain the level of dividends they pay out to shareholders?

Wasn’t this to be about the ethics of drawing pictures of Mohammad? We seem to have veered off into utilitarian arguments here. Okay, let’s follow the path you’ve chosen to Facebook and YouTube costs.

Social network sites thrive on controversy. Anything that increases traffic increases page impressions and boosts ad rates. Thus, it is more likely that the EDMD event was a profitable venture for both companies.

Traffic is up, that is, except in Pakistan. The government’s decision to block its citizens from access to the those two portals is simply part and parcel of shari’ah law. Fortunately, we don’t live under those strictures, so the two named social networks are very busy. So is Twitter.

There is good reason to doubt the facts as you present them.

The 100,000 or so members of the Facebook pages devoted to the event have been able to chuckle at the clever drawings by other members. Molly Norris, who learned the hard way that in the era of the World Wide Web, sophomoric humor can be dangerous because the sophomores will take it seriously and viral, is huddling somewhere, wondering if she is the logical identifiable target of whatever fury the event generates among jihadists.

This is an attempt to place blame for Ms. Norris’ possible execution on the heads of those who chose this experiment. The supporters of EDMD have once again provided Muslims with an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to live in modern culture. To assign the protesters responsibility for any threats against Ms. Norris is an example of displacement: the responsibility for their behavior lies with the jihadists, not with the cartoonists. To transfer that blame is itself “sophomoric”.

It is also dangerous in the extreme, indirectly encouraging the jihadists to act while excusing their behavior before the fact.

When she’s assassinated, I’m sure the “Deal with it!” crowd will all crow, “See? We weren’t intimidated! The First Amedment [sic] lives!”

One more example of mind-reading and loaded language. There is no way to know what the cartoonists will say or how they will react to the death of yet another innocent.

Sarcasm is the refuge of those who have no further points to make.

Jihadists are intimidating; that’s how they take control. But some principles are worth standing up for.

Of course, the vast majority of Muslims who revere their Prophet won’t see any of the drawings;…

This is arguably untrue, based on the Danish cartoons. A far higher proportion of Muslims in the Middle East saw the Danish cartoons than did American TV viewers and newspaper readers.

… those who do will simply conclude that Americans are crude and unfeeling scum,…

They concluded that a long time ago. The egregious violation of America’s diplomatic space in Tehran and the kidnapping of American citizens wasn’t done because they respect us. Islam has repeatedly made its mission clear: we will submit to it or we will die. We take Islam seriously.

And did you notice that Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is not confined to the United States? Have you seen the images or watched the videos made by Europeans, Canadians, and Australians?

The Counterjihad movement is broadly international.

… and a small percentage—the same percentage that threatened the “South Park” creators, will see who they can intimidate next. And they will be intimidated, “Everybody Disrespect Islam Day” notwithstanding.

Mind-reading again, this time of Muslims.

Oh—I forgot the most important thing. A lot of people who would never have the guts to stand their ground in a real showdown over Free Speech get to believe that they have done something heroic, though the message of their speech is little more than a playground taunt to that strange kid you don’t understand.

Does referring to those with whom you disagree as cowards serve the goal of meaningful dialogue?

Is it even ethical?

These aren’t “strange kids”. They are mujahideen, and they kill non-Muslims. They also kill fellow Muslims quite frequently. They use their children for weapons. They put bombs in their wives’ burqas and send them out to die.

The ethicist Dr. Gary Hull has researched this issue in far more depth than you appear to have done, at least based on your arguments.

In an appeal to authority, I cite Dr. Hull’s thorough research and his conclusion that free speech is at risk when Islam is involved.

On the page “Murder, Mayhem and Self-Censorship”, Dr. Hull cites incidents from 1955 to the present day in which individuals, institutions, and businesses were injured, killed, intimidated, or shut down by the terrorists simply because of images or words.

An example: in 1988, Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses. For the next five years, people who translated the book (in countries ranging from Japan to Norway) were attacked and either killed or severely injured. Bookstores were threatened with destruction if they carried the book. In Turkey, 37 Muslims were slaughtered in an attempt to kill one of the translators.

Ridicule is a time-honored tradition in Western culture. Muslims who have assimilated here understand that. So do Christians who see their own icons mocked all the time. Radical Islam doesn’t do irony, but if it is to survive, it will have to learn.

Who won? Nobody, of course. If ever Shakespeare’s words—”sound and fury; signifying nothing”—applied, this is it.

This is a matter of judgment, but that’s fine with me. Everybody’s entitled to his opinion.

And lost? Civility. Fairness. Consideration.

Let’s tackle these three terms seriatim:

Civility

I define “civility” to mean “polite public behavior which avoids violence, insults, and the unwarranted giving of offense.”

Leaving aside the offense felt by Muslims — the giving of which I have argued elsewhere is more than warranted — who else engages in uncivil behavior in this discourse? What is civil about describing your debating opponent and those who agree with him as a “mob”?

Who is being civil (or ethical, for that matter) when he describes the speech of someone with whom he disagrees as “little more than a playground taunt”?

What civility is fostered by calling the behavior of your ideological opponents “self-important grandstanding”?

Whose civility is in question when the spontaneous and peaceful heartfelt protests of thousands of concerned citizens are dismissed as “manufacturing a fake demonstration”?

How civil is it to call your opponent a coward?

Who’s civil now?

Fairness

To tackle fairness, let’s consider a single incident of staggering unfairness which just happened to land on my desk this morning during Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. It concerns a Swedish citizen who is being prosecuted for publicly reporting, in carefully correct detail, the events surrounding the consummation of the marriage of Mohammed to his child bride Aisha when the former was fifty-three and the latter was nine years old.

For this “incitement against an ethnic group” — that is, for telling the exact truth about what is recorded in Islamic scripture and believed by more than a billion observant Muslims — the accused may have to pay a large fine and spend time in jail. For quoting the hadith.

A non-Muslim quoting accepted Islamic scripture offends Muslims, and is therefore a criminal in Sweden.

Tell me, what’s fair about that?

This is not an isolated incident. Our blog and all the other Counterjihad blogs have archives crammed with stories like this, abominations of justice which occur virtually every day.

This is why we draw Mohammed: to protest the grotesque unfairness that is being forcibly imposed upon us by our treacherous governments across the length and breadth of the Western world.

Don’t talk to me about “fairness”.

Consideration

I assume by “consideration” that you mean “consideration for the feelings of Muslims”.

My response consists of two words: “reciprocity” and “hypocrisy”.

Where is the reciprocity? There is no consideration whatsoever in the Muslim world for the feelings of Christians, Jews, or Hindus. Just take a look in the pages of any Arabic-language newspaper in the Middle East, and see how Jews are depicted in the editorial cartoons, every single day. When Palestinian terrorists occupied the Church of the Nativity in 2002, they stole everything of value and ripped up the Bibles to use the pages as toilet paper.

And their feelings are hurt by a few cartoons?

Considering that for the last thirty years or so progressives have watched without complaint — and even applauded — “transgressive” art that immerses crucifixes in urine or smears statues of the Virgin with dung, this is rank hypocrisy. Plays and movies that depict Jesus as a transvestite or a homosexual or even a vampire are not only tolerated, they receive favorable reviews in mainstream periodicals.

And now, out of consideration for the feelings of Muslims, we are being asked to refrain from drawing Mohammed as a Roundabout Dog?

This sort of inconsistency gives new meaning to the word “hypocrisy”.

“Everyone Annoy Muslims Day” is almost over, and what has been accomplished?

Well, Pakistan has shut down much of the internet, including Facebook and YouTube, costing those two American corporations thousands of dollars. The 100,000 or so members of the Facebook pages devoted to the event have been able to chuckle at the clever drawings by other members. Molly Norris, who learned the hard way that in the era of the World Wide Web, sophomoric humor can be dangerous because the sophomores will take it seriously and viral, is huddling somewhere, wondering if she is the logical identifiable target of whatever fury the event generates among jihadists. When she’s assassinated, I’m sure the “Deal with it!” crowd will all crow, “See? We weren’t intimidated! The First Amedment lives!”

Of course, the vast majority of Muslims who revere their Prophet won’t see any of the drawings; those who do will simply conclude that Americans are crude and unfeeling scum, and a small percentage—the same percentage that threatened the “South Park” creators, will see who they can intimidate next. And they will be intimidated, “Everybody Disrespect Islam Day” notwithstanding.

Oh–I forgot the most important thing. A lot of people who would never have the guts to stand their ground in a real showdown over Free Speech get to believe that they have done something heroic, though the message of their speech is little more than a playground taunt to that strange kid you don’t understand.

Who won? Nobody, of course. If ever Shakespeare’s words—”sound and fury; signifying nothing”—applied, this is it.  And lost? Civility. Fairness. Consideration. And in places that don’t understand America (many of which are IN America), respect for the First Amendment, which was misused and trivialized today.

I’ll tackle some of Mr. Marshall’s assertions in detail, but first we need to define our terms.

I’m totally ignorant concerning the discipline of the ethicist, but I have extensive experience in logic and mathematics. In those two disciplines one must clearly state one’s premises — which may be postulates that are considered true without the necessity of proof, or theorems that are logically derived from postulates and previous theorems (which can be cited as required). A process of syllogism or symbolic demonstration is applied to these premises to produce a new result, which may then be used as the premise of a future argument.

A number of undefined words in Mr. Marshall’s response carry emotionally charged meanings. I won’t tackle all of them here, but the most prominent example needs to be addressed.

Wrong. Something unethical is undoubtedly wrong. But what does “wrong” mean?

Everybody knows what it means — “doing something bad or immoral or unethical.” Whoops: circular logic here. But circular logic is virtually unavoidable in this case. A definition of the word is merely a list of synonyms.

Even so, everybody knows what “wrong” means, in the same way they know what “love” and “duty” mean.

But how does an ethicist prove that any given behavior is “wrong”?

1.		Does he cite the words of the Bible or other scripture?
2.		Does he refer the reader to the Constitution ? Or the Magna Carta? Or maybe Danmarks Riges Grundlov?
3.		Does he put the matter to a federal judge?
4.		How about a majority vote? If more than fifty percent of the population considers an act “wrong”, is it in fact wrong?

I happen to believe that state-sanctioned marriage of persons of the same sex is wrong. Of the above criteria, #1 supports my judgment. The latest opinion polls, at least in the United States, show that #4 also makes my case. #2 is generally silent on the issue, and in most cases #3 seems to go against me.

So who is “wrong” in this case?

Thus the word is incoherent in context, even when used here by a professional ethicist to discredit my statements:

Baron’s explanation of the rationale behind the event is eloquent, logical, historically correct — and still dead wrong in its conclusions. [emphasis added]

Mr. Marshall: don’t just tell our readers that I am wrong. Demonstrate it.

And so he does, going on to make further assertions. But how well-supported are these? How many emotionally charged terms are defined? And are his arguments free of logical fallacy?

Let’s take a look.

“Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” is self-important grandstanding, and nothing else.

Begging the Question is a common fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. This sort of “reasoning” typically has the following form:

• Premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or the truth of the conclusion is assumed (either directly or indirectly).
• Claim C (the conclusion) is true.
• This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because simply assuming that the conclusion is true (directly or indirectly) in the premises does not constitute evidence for that conclusion. Obviously, simply assuming a claim is true does not serve as evidence for that claim. This is especially clear in particularly blatant cases: “X is true. The evidence for this claim is that X is true.”

I’m sure many of its supporters think otherwise, but it is an exercise that does harm without doing anything productive to counterbalance the harm, a good definition of unethical conduct.

The first assertion includes the fallacy of mind-reading: it presumes to know the motivations of others without offering any evidence. But we’ll put that aside for the moment.

What is the proof for the second assertion?

Here are some contrary assertions, which are at least as plausible, and easier to demonstrate:

• It does good if it alerts people to the shutting down of free speech.
• It does good if it permits people to respond to the attacks on free speech by the well-known and useful device of ridicule.

Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” worked its “good” by bringing to public awareness the plight of those starving in the Irish famine.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day serves the common good in the same way.

Free speech will not disappear suddenly by edict; it will be eroded when good people say nothing.

Ridicule and satire are time-honored devices for pointing out knotty problems.

I was shocked at the cowardice of Comedy Central, as well as its hypocrisy. Here was the edgy, fearless, speak-truth-to-power-with-a smile cable channel refusing to defend the Constitutional principles that make its existence possible. It was afraid. Well, tough. That’s part of your job if you are going to operate on the edge of convention. Comedy Central was following in the chicken-footsteps of most American newspapers, which similarly refused to show the Danish cartoons, falsely claiming that it wasn’t necessary to do so to report the story. Our beef is with them, not the Nation of Islam. A useful demonstration would have been to pressure Comedy Central to show the entire, uncut, South Park episode. I believe that still should be done.

Instead, “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” is occurring under the dubious logic that it bolsters the First Amendment and shows that American won’t be intimidated.

Explain to our readers why the logic behind EDMD is more “dubious” than that of “pressur[ing] Comedy Central to show the entire, uncut, South Park episode”. Why, precisely, is the logic of one more “dubious” than the other?

“Dubious” is another one of those pesky undefined terms. Please define “dubious” in this context.

One definition of dubious is “of doubtful provenance or veracity.” Who doubted the provenance or veracity of the logic of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day? Under what premises? Are you able to give citations?

There are many thousands of people who disagree with your assertion, and many of those employ lucid and cogent logical arguments to support their case. Which of those are “dubious”? Can you cite any specific examples, and outline your logical case against them?

Referring to my assertion of what EDMD means to its supporters as an expression of the unalienable right to free speech, Mr. Marshall says:

It doesn’t say that [“This is our right, and it cannot be taken away from us!”] at all. It says: “We are really brave in exercising our rights when we have hundreds of allies around us doing the same thing. Our mobs are not afraid of your mobs.” Big deal.

That’s what it says to you, Mr. Marshall. But other people experience it differently.

And not all of the “Draw Mohammed” people are protected by a “mob”. Lars Vilks has no “mob”; he stands all but unprotected against whatever his enemies choose to throw at him. Kurt Westergaard is protected by an expensive security detail provided by the Danish government. Do you consider that a “mob”?

I consider the word “mob” to be a loaded term. It is applied indiscriminately to those with whom the writer disagrees. Progressives regularly use the word “mob” to denigrate and demonize conservatives and tea party attendees. It serves to wrap their opponents in a blanket of disapproval which smothers what they have to say and discounts all the valid points they raise.

The use of the word “mob” by a New York Times editorialist is understandable — but by an ethicist? How does the use of such loaded terminology enhance the discourse or promote understanding between conflicting groups?

“Let’s Gratuitously Insult All Muslims Day” won’t change a thing when corporate suits and newspaper publishers get cold feet in the face of some jihadist threat.

This is almost certainly true. But why does that make it unethical?

Are the ethics of an action decided by its predicted utility or its success in practice?

Does this mean that the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was ethically valid, whereas the 1989 protest in Tiananmen Square was not?

Manufacturing a fake demonstration of First Amendment boldness won’t make the real guardians of our rights do their jobs.

Who decides the identity of the “real guardians of our rights” where free speech is concerned?

Who decides that the job done by these “real guardians of our rights” is adequate to the occasion?

If the various portals of public discourse are ignoring “their jobs,” then it is up to individuals to guard their rights.

The genesis of EDMD wasn’t “manufactured”. That’s old thinking. It was an off-hand (and now regretted) post by a woman who was disgusted by the cave-in by Comedy Central. Her idea to “Draw Mohammed” went viral, despite her misgivings.

And that is the new thinking — that is, ideas go viral because of technological advances in communication. Thus, these “real guardians” have less say about what is permitted to be voiced. Unless, of course, you live in Pakistan, where the “real guardians” will simply close Facebook and YouTube.

The page objecting to the EDMD had more “friending” than did the Drawing page. So both sides of the argument are being aired.

What was in fact “manufactured” was the original Danish Mohammed cartoon crisis. A Danish imam named Abu Laban took the cartoons to the Middle East with the express purpose of rousing fellow Muslims to righteous fury. To make sure he achieved his objective, he added three extra cartoons that were much more incendiary than the original twelve. To make matters worse, some of them weren’t even intended to be images of Mohammed.

Now that’s a “manufactured” crisis.

And it won’t discourage the Muslim extremists from making the threats. The Danish cartoonist was challenging censorship in the Danish government… a brave, important and valuable act. Nobody’s trying to censor the U.S. cartoonists — unless a threat from a Muslim group makes them lose their nerve, as well as their dedication to free speech.

Nothing appears to discourage Muslim extremists. But that’s not sufficient argument to stay silent in the face of their insults and depredations. Western culture is worth fighting for.

The American cartoonists are as censored as reality can make them. A threat from a Muslim group should be taken seriously; we have many examples of murder and mayhem against Americans beginning in the 1980s and continuing today.

A threat from a Muslim group should be taken seriously by people in the public eye. Salman Rushdie, Theo Van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders, etc., can all testify to the expense of having to protect oneself against Islamic radicals.

Dr. Gary Hull is an ethicist at Duke University. When Yale University Press pulled the Mohammed images from a book about the Mohammed images, Dr. Hull courageously had them printed in a volume entitled Muhammad: The Banned Images.

Did you sign “The Statement of Principle, On Free Speech vs. Violence” which many others signed?

Is Yale University Press one of the “guardians”? What price did they pay for their sudden decision to pull the images?

Meanwhile, “Let’s Make Muslims Hate Americans More Than They Do Already Day” sticks a collective finger in the eye of peaceful, respectful Muslims who just want their religion to be respected on their terms and left alone.

This assertion contains several dubious premises.

The “collective finger in the eye” of Islam I will stipulate to. Yes, this is true, and that’s what EDMD was intended to do.

But where is your evidence that most adherents of Islam are “peaceful, respectful Muslims who just want their religion to be respected on their terms and left alone”?

What data can you cite?

Most Muslims are indeed “peaceful”, in the sense that they refrain from habitual violence and don’t become suicide bombers or jihad warriors. But if they are faithful Muslims, they must pay a specified portion of their wealth in zakat (Islamic alms) which is explicitly required to fund jihad as stipulated by Islamic law, backed up by the Koran and the hadith and corroborated by the highest religious authorities in Saudi Arabia and Al-Azhar University.

This means that faithful Muslims are “peaceful” in the same way Krupp’s investors were “peaceful” during World War Two: most of them never fired a shot against the enemy.

Furthermore, public opinion polls, including several carried out in Britain, indicate that a plurality of Muslims support the methods of Salafist terrorists, and a substantial majority support their stated goals.

The problem is much larger than who is “peaceful” and who isn’t. And huge threatening demonstrations against people who draw cartoons help focus the minds of Westerners against the growing danger to their freedoms and their well-being.

For those who resist the Jihad, whether or not most Muslims are “peaceful” is irrelevant. It’s a diversion from what should be our primary concern.

It’s too much to demand, but it is not too much to ask. Because we are indignant about Muslim thugs threatening our comedy shows, we choose to set out to insult all Muslims, saying “Deal with it!” Is this vengeance? That’s not ethical. Is it hurting people because we can? That’s not ethical either.

This is framed incorrectly. It’s another example of Begging the Question (see above). It asserts as a premise that we “choose to insult all Muslims”, from which the conclusion is derived in advance.

We have chosen to engage in a behavior which we realize may insult Muslims. But being insulted by a cartoon is their choice, not ours.

I submit that we are offering them a chance not to be insulted. We are giving them the opportunity to respect the freedom of non-Muslims, and thereby demonstrate that they are willing to conform to the norms of a civilized society.

If they choose not to practice such restraint and respect, then that is their choice, and we all lose something by their actions.

But we lose even more if we continue to demonstrate a cowardly submission in the face of threats, bullying, and intimidation.

If Comedy Central had shown a spine and followed through on its duty of citizenship, we wouldn’t be having “Let’s Spit On One of The World’s Great Religions Day,” would we? So every Muslim in the world has to put up with random Americans insulting their sacred icons because Comedy Central is gutless.

This is plainly incorrect. Comedy Central’s newfound spine would have had zero effect on Lars Vilks, or Kurt Westergaard, or Jussi Halla-aho, or Lionheart… Need I go on?

Non-Muslims in Western countries are being beaten, harassed, bullied, threatened, ostracized, and arrested every day for committing various offenses against the tender feelings of Muslims.

A sudden show of courage by Comedy Central will have no effect whatsoever on the plight of those who are currently being victimized by Islam.

What will have an effect is a mass grassroots initiative to reclaim the freedoms that are being trampled underfoot in the name of “cultural sensitivity”.

Which is exactly what is happening today. Today we take back our rights.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. We have renewed the vigil.

That’s not fair. That’s not ethical. That’s wrong.

Three undefined terms. This is too incoherent for me to address.

I stand with Lars Vilks, so I’ll just say this: “Draw the dog again!”

Public Square has been kind enough to ask me to counter Baron in the matter of “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.”  My name is Jack Marshall, and I’m a professional ethicist, which means that I think about, write and teach how we determine what is right and wrong for a living.  I apply ethical analysis to everything under the sun on my own blog, Ethics Alarms.

Baron’s explanation of the rationale behind the event is eloquent, logical, historically correct—-and still dead wrong in its conclusions. “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” is self-important grandstanding, and nothing else. I’m sure many of its supporters think otherwise, but it is an exercise that does harm without doing anything productive to counterbalance the harm, a good definition of unethical conduct. And it is aimed in the wrong direction.

I was shocked at the cowardice of Comedy Central, as well as its hypocrisy. Here was the edgy, fearless, speak-truth-to-power-with-a smile cable channel refusing to defend the Constitutional principles that make its existence possible. It was afraid. Well, tough. That’s part of your job if you are going to operate on the edge of convention. Comedy Central was following in the chicken-footsteps of most American newspapers, which similarly refused to show the Danish cartoons, falsely claiming that it wasn’t necessary to do so to report the story. Our beef is with them, not the Nation of Islam. A useful demonstration would have been to pressure Comedy Central to show the entire, uncut, South Park episode. I believe that still should be done.

Instead, “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” is occurring under the dubious logic that it  bolsters the First  Amendment and shows that American won’t be intimidated.  Baron writes:

To draw Muhammed is to assert that one’s right to free speech is God-given and unalienable. It is not granted by the State nor permitted by law, but is inherent, and its suppression constitutes tyranny. Today is the day when everybody draws Muhammed. And when they do, they are saying, “This is our right, and it cannot be taken away from us!”

It doesn’t say that at all. It says: “We are really brave in exercising our rights when we have hundreds of allies around us doing the same thing. Our mobs are not afraid of your mobs.” Big deal.  “Let’s Gratuitously Insult All Muslims Day” won’t change a thing when corporate suits and newspaper publishers get cold feet in the face of some jihadist threat. Manufacturing a fake demonstration of First Amendment boldness won’t make the real guardians of our rights do their jobs.

And it won’t discourage the Muslim extremists from  making the threats. The Danish cartoonist was challenging censorship in the Danish government…a brave, important and valuable act. Nobody’s trying to censor the U.S. cartoonists—unless a threat from a Muslim group makes them lose their nerve, as well as their dedication to free speech.

Meanwhile, “Let’s Make Muslims Hate Americans More Than They Do Already Day” sticks a collective finger in the eye of peaceful, respectful Muslims who just want their religion to be respected on their terms and left alone. It’s too much to demand, but it is not too much to ask. Because we are indignant about Muslim thugs threatening our comedy shows, we choose to set out to insult all Muslims, saying “Deal with it!”  Is this vengeance? That’s not ethical. Is it hurting people because we can?  That’s not ethical either.

If Comedy Central had shown a spine and followed through on its duty of citizenship, we wouldn’t be having “Let’s Spit On One of The World’s Great Religions Day,” would we? So every Muslim in the world has to put up with random Americans insulting their sacred icons because Comedy Central is gutless. That’s not fair. That’s not ethical. That’s wrong.

Greetings to all the readers of Bloggerheads at Public Square.

The owners of this site have invited me to debate the ethical implications of what so many people will be doing today: drawing Mohammed.

Some of these drawings may be respectful of Allah’s messenger. Some will be neutral in content. Others will insult or mock Mohammed. But all are likely to offend Muslims.

As the Danish Mohammed cartoon crisis of 2005-2006 demonstrated, “insulting” images of Mohammed are used as an excuse for mass rioting and violence. Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who created the iconic “Turban Bomb” cartoon, was later the subject of at least two plots on his life.

Comedy Central’s recent suppression of South Park over material that mentioned Mohammed — which is what inspired the woman who initiated Everybody Draw Mohammed Day — brought the issue to the attention of the general public. In the weeks since the South Park kerfuffle, more incidents of “Muslim Cartoon Rage” have been featured in the news. Last week the Swedish artist Lars Vilks was physically attacked in Uppsala while giving a seminar on freedom of speech — illustrating his lecture with a video containing sexually provocative images involving Mohammed. A few days later his home in Skåne was vandalized and firebombed by two young Muslim men.

The case of Lars Vilks is an interesting one, because the Danish cartoon crisis prompted Mr. Vilks to find out how far he could go before Sweden’s regime of political correctness stifled him. He knew that he could be as “transgressive” as he liked with the sacred symbols of Christianity, or even Judaism. But it was obvious that the same tolerant rules would not extend to the mocking of Islam.

In the summer of 2007 he created a little test of the system: when invited to contribute images of animals for display in an art exhibit, he drew several free-form line drawings of a dog shape with a human-looking head that sported a beard and a turban. He titled his works, “Profeten som rondellhund” — “The Prophet as a Roundabout Dog”. A rondellhund is a Swedish folk custom, a statue of a dog made of wood or metal that is placed in the center of a roundabout or traffic circle.

Mr. Vilks was very careful in what he drew. The dog in the drawing did not represent a real dog, but a statue made of wood or metal. And as, he stated in the early interviews, the prophet whose visage adorned the rondellhund was non-specific: it was some prophet or other, but he declined to say which one.

As he expected, the committee in charge of the gallery hastily took down his drawings when they realized the potential problem. Mr. Vilks responded indignantly that there no longer seemed to be any right to free speech in Sweden. He proceeded to draw more roundabout dogs in various styles, and added a few other variations such as “The Prophet Visits a Gay Bar.” He took a picture of two lawn chairs and titled it “Two Prophets”. He drew a crude face on a shoe and labeled it a “prophet”.

His doings caused only a minor stir until a month later, when the editor of the local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published the first mainstream media depiction of the Prophet as a Roundabout Dog. Then the trouble started in earnest: death threats, directed both at him and at the newspaper editor; condemnation by prominent political figures; outrage and demands for apologies from Muslim organizations. The brouhaha continued for months, and through it all the artist continued to draw more dogs.

The fuss gradually died down, and the issue lay dormant until early this year, when several Muslim terrorists — including the notorious American “Jihad Jane” — were arrested for plotting to kill Lars Vilks. His name returned to the newspaper headlines, and not just in Scandinavia, but all over the world. From the Muslim world came a rising drumbeat of calls for his death, matching in intensity the fatwas and threats against Kurt Westergaard. Unlike Mr. Westergaard, however, Mr. Vilks lacks any bodyguards or state protection at his home. His only defense against murderous intruders is an axe.

The case of Lars Vilks has demonstrated — as he fully intended from the very beginning — that there is no such thing as free speech in Sweden, if that speech offends Muslims. His drawings depicted neither Mohammed nor a dog, but the perception that they did assigned him a permanent descriptive label as “the Swedish artist who drew a cartoon of Mohammed as a dog”.

Reality played no part in what happened to Lars Vilks. Only perception mattered, especially what was perceived by Muslims.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Lars Vilks and the creators of South Park share something in common: they all set out deliberately to demonstrate that free speech does not apply to anything that might offend Muslims. They also proved that actual government censorship is not necessary: private foundations and media companies are eager to suppress anything that carries the possibility of causing offense to Muslims. When editors and publishers and producers and gallery owners see any work that involves Mohammed or Islam, they smell the burning cars in the street and hear the glass breaking their building lobbies. Nobody wants to lose his life or his career for the sake of creative principle, so almost everyone caves in and self-censors.

In the United States we have the First Amendment, which assures of us the right to create controversial and unpleasant material, even if it offends someone else. Most European countries don’t afford their citizens the same protections; many have laws against blasphemy and incitement to racial hatred that limit speech. The latter principle — in Sweden the crime is known as hets mot folkgrupp, “incitement against an ethnic group” — has been extended to cover religious belief, so that laws against racism are used to crack down on anyone who defames a religious group. Needless to say, the religion in question is invariably Islam — no one gets arrested in Europe or the United States for defecating on a crucifix or depicting the Virgin Mary as a bondage queen.

The remarkable thing, however, is that the force of law rarely needs to be applied in cases that cause offense to Islam. Internalized social controls do the job better than the police ever could. Schoolteachers, pastors, office managers, business owners, minor municipal bureaucrats, editors, bookshop managers — all play a part in making sure that Muslims are never, ever offended.

Theo Van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam in 2004 for making a movie that insulted Muslims. He was the first martyr for the right to offend Islam, and there will undoubtedly be more. The list of artists and writers who have been harassed, threatened, intimidated, attacked, and prosecuted for offending Islam includes Lars Vilks, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Gregorius Nekschot, Kurt Westergaard, Salman Rushdie, Jussi Halla-aho, Paul Ray, and others too numerous to mention.

Freedom of speech in is being eroded in Western countries, and it is being eroded selectively. Causing offense to Islam —  or even behavior that might lead to situations that offend Islam — is stamped out by social, political, and legal means. This is a result of creeping Islamization, and in Western Europe Islamization is no longer creeping, but has stood up and is starting to gallop.

This is why Everybody Draw Mohammed Day took off and spread virally at such an astonishing rate — it was an idea whose time had come. It was spread from computer to computer, from blog to blog, by ordinary people who were willing to do what famous and powerful people are unwilling to do: shake a fist at Muslim bullies and say, “Enough is enough!”

To draw Mohammed is to assert that one’s right to free speech is God-given and unalienable. It is not granted by the State nor permitted by law, but is inherent, and its suppression constitutes tyranny.

Today is the day when everybody draws Mohammed. And when they do, they are saying, “This is our right, and it cannot be taken away from us!”

Does this offend you? Very well, then — it offends you!

Deal with it.

By Alex Giannattasio; his original piece on H.R. 1256 can be read here, at www.JohnsonillePress.com.

This constitutes my second response to Mr. Godshall.

I. Consequences of the FSPTCA for Small Businesses

In his last statement, Mr. Godshall purported that the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act would, “almost certainly will result in most of the smaller manufacturers going out of business, with just several large ones remaining”. This, he supposes, would result from the relatively high cost-per-pack to small tobacco manufacturers for abiding by new FDA regulations. He claims the cost to small manufacturers would run about .50 a pack, as opposed to .02 per pack for the big three (Altria, Reynolds, Lorillard).

I take issue with this claim for three reasons:

1. First, Mr. Godshall should provide citations alongside such strong statistics as these if we are to believe them. Would it really cost small companies 2500% more than large ones? Considering that the primary actions of the Act are the regulation of additive materials to manufactured cigarettes, and the addition of more warning signs to some of the packaging, this seems a suspiciously high cost estimate.

2. But even accepting these widely disparate costs, I see no reason to assume that they would result in “most smaller manufacturers going out of business”. If anything, wildly increasing taxation has jeopardized such companies to an exponentially greater degree (cigarettes in New Jersey now cost upwards of $8.00 a pack). What is more, considering that consumers are still willing to purchase cigarettes from such small manufacturers after nearly two decades of steadily increasing taxations, I wonder at Mr. Godshall’s confidence that a mere .50 cost increase would spell their doom.

3. Further, the bill has made provisions to deal with such a possibility:

The Act “requires the Secretary to: (1) provide a reasonable period for manufacturers to conform to good manufacturing practices; and (2) not require any small tobacco product manufacturer to comply with such regulations for at least four years. Allows the Secretary to grant exemptions and variances from such regulations under certain circumstances.”

Small tobacco is defined by the bill as a manufacturer of 350 employees or less. I contest that the act provides fairly for these businesses by granting them the time they need to adjust to the new standards. In other words, I suspect that this bill will not be devastating to small tobacco companies, as Mr. Godshall contests.

Mr. Godshall also states that the Act will “will also affect growers, leaf processors, wholesalers, distributors, retailers and advertisers”. Surely it will, as markets will have to adjust to new standards. But in all likelihood, that effect will be negligible, compared to the effects of steadily declining sales—the result of twenty years of moral war waged against tobacco companies. If this bill affects the aforementioned industries, it will only be as a result of even fewer sales (to children) which this bill will hopefully produce. We can at least rest assured that the United States government is not moving to take action against the freedom of these business to operate as they do today, as in the case of growers here:

Sec. 4 (b) Agricultural Activities- The provisions of this division (or an amendment made by this division) which authorize the Secretary to take certain actions with regard to tobacco and tobacco products shall not be construed to affect any authority of the Secretary of Agriculture under existing law regarding the growing, cultivation, or curing of raw tobacco.

And in the case of advertisers here:

Sec. 2 (32) The regulations described in paragraph (30) impose no more extensive restrictions on communication by tobacco manufacturers and sellers than are necessary to reduce the number of children and adolescents who use cigarettes and smokeless tobacco and to prevent the life-threatening health consequences associated with tobacco use. Such regulations are narrowly tailored to restrict those advertising and promotional practices which are most likely to be seen or heard by youth and most likely to entice them into tobacco use, while affording tobacco manufacturers and sellers ample opportunity to convey information about their products to adult consumers.

For these reasons, I believe Mr. Godshall’s claims are vastly overblown when he states that, “As applied to cigarette manufacturers, the new FDA tobacco law would be more appropriately called the Altria Monopoly Act, as Altria’s 52% cigarette market share is likely to continue expanding at the expense of hundreds of small cigarette companies.” The bill provides for small business adequately; and besides…what is it to Mr. Godshall which companies succeed, if some teens are prevented from smoking; what does Altria’s market share matter, if the overall market base is drastically reduced; most of all, what does this matter to an individual or organization that would prefer to see cigarettes banned? Perhaps my last question is overstated?

II. Additives and Regulation

Mr. Godshall goes on to decry my hypothesis that added chemicals to cigarette tobacco increase the incidence of disease in smokers, claiming there is no evidence to support the idea. I must admit, I have a hard time not believing it; not because I’m a smoker somehow deluding himself into thinking that additive free tobacco is going to allow me to bypass the health hazards of smoking, but because, as an experienced smoker, I can taste and feel the difference between chemically treated tobacco and additive free tobacco. I base my claims on pure experience of the physical and chemical effects of the two. But if further evidence need be provided, I have already cited this article, which granted is ten years old, but which I believe relates the common sense point that smoking chemicals is necessarily going to devastate the body to a greater degree than simple tobacco: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/background_briefings/smoking/281167.stm. I admit that the act of smoking itself is a health hazard and risky business; but I must say, and you should admit, that if one is to smoke, one should smoke additive free tobacco over chemically treated. I don’t believe I could be convinced otherwise…

Regarding my previous statement that “It is NOT the federal government’s role to dictate nation-wide standards on what we can and cannot consume,” I must hold to it. In fact, this is NOT the primary role of the FDA to regulate CONSUMPTION, but rather only the MANUFACTURE AND PRODUCTION of foods, drugs and cosmetics, which is not the same thing. An outright ban on the production or manufacture of cigarettes is unjustifiable, as this is tantamount to regulating what individuals may and may not consume. But regulation of manufactures means that corporations can’t lie about their products, or sell someone something they don’t know they’re buying, as was the case with cigarettes prior to this bill.

Regarding Mr. Godshall’s claim that:

“And in fact, the additives banned by the new FDA tobacco law affects fewer than 1% of cigarettes in the US market share, with clove cigarettes from Indonesia most affected. In sharp contrast, menthol, which was exempted from the FDA laws’ cigarette additive ban, accounts for 28% of the US market share. The claim that the new FDA tobacco law would eliminate cigarette additives was yet another gross misrepresentation of fact made by proponents of the legislation to demonize cigarette manufacturers in order to gain votes of naïve members of Congress.”

The Act grants the FDA the authority to regulate ANY AND ALL ADDITIVES, excepting tobacco itself, and menthol. This stipulation is broad enough, I believe, to empower the FDA to regulate any and all additive components as it decides to. As my cited article states, that list of potential legal additives might be 600 or more components long. Further, the Act requires the FDA to put out, on a yearly and bi-yearly basis, information outlining all additive components of cigarettes of each and every kind and brand; to conduct studies of its own concerning the negative or negligible effects of each ingredient; and to make all of this information available to the public. One might consider the Act a “Tobacco Manufacturer Transparency Act”. With regards to Menthol, I suppose simply too many people smoke it to ban out right. And there are explicit stipulations in the bill for the FDA to immediately begin studying the effects of menthol in cigarettes (even down to the effects it has on minorities and the underprivileged). It’s not such a bad compromise really. The cigarette companies are allowed to stay in business, on the condition that they not hide information from the public, and that they operate in complete transparency. Clearly, this speaks doom for tobacco use in this country, for all but the hard-core smokers, and additionally provides anti-smoking activists with honest information about smoking for the use of educating the public.

I also want to add that Mr. Godshall would do well to remember that the binding stipulations in this Act are aimed at producing a lasting long-term change. Over the course of the years, more and more will become known about tobacco, and more and more changes in the way it is consumed will be implemented. FDA regulation moves us a huge step along that path. And we should also keep in mind that this bill has been ten years in the works. All things considered, it comes as little surprise that it took so long to be passed through, but that is how the legislative process works (sometimes), and if that’s what it takes to implement the right changes and controls, so be it. Given time, this legislation will prove immensely effective. If it is slightly behind the cutting-edge of the anti-smoking movement, upon which Mr. Godshall sits, it is no less beneficial for that.

III. Mr. Godshall’s Alternative Plan

In truth, Mr. Godshall’s alternative to the Act, as advanced and advocated for by Smokefree Pennsylvania (cited below), is an admirable one: it seeks to make perfectly clear the true and widely accepted science behind tobacco use; we can at least agree that smokefree tobacco products are in fact less dangerous than cigarette smoke. Mr. Godshall advocates for a more pragmatic approach to legislation; tobacco products would be classified according to type, and then addressed individually on the basis of danger to human health. Some alternative nicotine or tobacco delivery methods which can be shown as an effective aid in quitting the most deadly habit of smoking cigarettes would be encouraged, so as to wean the American public onto a lesser of two evils. One can’t help but be reminded of methadone treatment for heroin addicts…though they say quitting cigarettes is harder than heroin.

Although Mr. Godshall’s plan does, I believe, come from a good, more compassionate and pragmatic place, I would suggest that there are two sides to the story. Many antismoking advocates purport a view which holds smoke-free tobacco to be a gateway to the further use of other tobacco products, including cigarettes. It’s a form of the “gateway” theory: much as marijuana is sometimes taken to provide a gateway to other, harder drugs, so smokeless tobacco could acclimate an individual, especially a young individual, to be comfortable with tobacco use, and addicted to nicotine. This behavior, quite obviously could lead to cigarette use. This is the position that the Act takes, and to which Mr. Godshall objects, when it states that smokeless tobacco is not a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes. The provision is NOT inserted as a compromise with Altria and Big Tobacco; rather, it’s a pragmatic attempt at avoiding further teen smoking. At the very least I should make clear that in my last response, while I did proclaim my “selfish bias (for [my] tobacco product of choice)”, my main point regarding smoke-free tobacco was that the issue is two sided, and if we are willing to accept that smoke-free products can and do lead to cigarette smoking or other, more harmful behavior, there is reason to accept strong regulation of it.

As I’ve said, I DO believe Mr. Godshall’s plan is a good one, aimed as it is at educating the public with truth and honest. But at the same time, I do not find the action taken in the Act to be unjust or nefarious. I would suggest that Mr. Godshall’s plan would complement the FSPTCA quite well, so long as he would not completely ban tobacco products outright, nor tax them to an unreasonable degree. But for the most part, it deals with a different realm of concern, one of public education, and so does necessarily overlap with this one, which is regulatory in content and spirit. In other words, there is no reason Mr. Godshall’s ideas about educating the public should interfere with the philosophy behind the smoke-free tobacco stipulations in the FSPTCA (perhaps better, more explicit and mutually acceptable phrases should be applied to such products).

In sum, I maintain that the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, while not perfect, will produce far more beneficial consequences than negative ones; that it does seek to accomplish admirable goals; that in conjunction with other legislation and the work of nonprofit advocates like Mr. Godshall, it will accomplish these goals; that it is not an unholy, unjustifiable concession to cigarette companies, but a pragmatic and unabashedly forceful compromise. I do believe that Mr. Godshall’s “alternative” ideas are worth considering, but I do not think them a real alternative to this legislation, nor one in conflict with or contrast to it. Mr. Godshall’s solutions are perfect for short-term activity and results—we can agree that his view is superior to the extremist viewpoint he speaks of. But, mark my words, this Act will prove invaluable to organizations like Smokefree Pennsylvania 10 years down the road. I applaud his enthusiasm for the cause, and wish him all the luck in the world in the future. Just don’t take away my smokes!

Alex Giannattasio is the Managing Editor of the Johnsonville Press. His original article on this legislation can be read here at www.johnsonvillepress.com

I want to thank my esteemed opponent for his comprehensive analysis of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. As I sat reading his opening remarks (coincidentally, as I enjoyed an additive-free cigarette) I found myself perhaps surprisingly in agreement with many of the claims Mr. Godshall promotes. Broadly speaking, cigarette smoking is the leading cause of disability and death in America; children should be protected from the coercive sales tactics of cigarette companies; and smokefree tobacco products seem to provide a healthier alternative for nicotine users than cigarettes and other smoke-producing tobacco products. Further, we can agree that cigarette smoke and advertising should be banned from indoor public places, especially in proximity to children; that over-taxation is the most effective means of reducing tobacco use; and that this legislation protects the industrial production of tobacco. However, I do not believe that any of these claims provide a basis for the rejection of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. On the contrary, the legislation, in conjunction with other measures both past and future, not only provides for the right balance of federal regulation and personal freedom–the very balance that has allowed our country to flourish in the past–but largely stands on constitutionally solid ground.

Tobacco use, as I have said, is an old practice. People have been using and enjoying tobacco for centuries; and why not? For those of us who choose to smoke, even in light of the associated health risks, smoking is a highly enjoyable practice, one for which we are willing to pay exorbitant prices to engage in. And provided we hurt no one else in the process, why should we be prevented from doing so?

Of course, it has been argued that secondhand smoke kills. I am willing to accept this claim, and the resultant conclusion: that our freedom to smoke should be curtailed when it begets harm to non-smokers, who have actively and freely chosen to avoid the practice, in other words, that smoking should be prohibited in indoor public areas, for the benefit and safety of non-smokers. However, smoking out of doors, which has a negligible if any effect on others, does not fall into the bounds of this claim. Even less does smoking in the privacy of one’s own home, where the individual, not the population, not society, is king.

It is NOT the federal government’s role to dictate nation-wide standards on what we can and cannot consume, as individuals. Such practices are paternalistic and reprehensible. However, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act does not, as Mr. Godshall agrees, do this. Rather, it specifically gives the FDA authority to regulate additive products and chemicals used by tobacco companies to increase the addictive nature and aesthetic quality of their smokes. THESE additives, not the tobacco itself, are the most serious culprits of tobacco-related ailments, and further, they bring little to no benefit to the smoker. It is my feeling that, if asked whether they would object to the illegalization of, for instance, rat poison in cigarettes, few smokers would object. Additive-free tobacco will be exponentially healthier than current cigarettes, albeit still a generally unhealthy practice. To reiterate: SMOKING IN GENERAL IS UNHEALTHY. SMOKING ADDITIVE FREE TOBACCO IS HISTORICALLY MORE HEALTHY THAN SMOKING INDUSTRIAL CHEMICALS. As a smoker, I commit my personal experience to this fact.

I see no reason to believe that smokefree tobacco products would be as harmful as smoke producing products. In fact, it seems only common sense to assume that they would be infinitely healthier. If 85% of the population, as Mr. Godshall claims, are under the mistaken impression that smokefree products are as unhealthy as cigarettes, I would be tempted to point the finger of blame at overly-zealous antismoking advocates, who prefer sweeping statements of condemnation for all smoking (and smokers) to reasonable scientific analysis. Let me add that I do not place Mr. Godshall as among these. But in fact, I do doubt very much that Mr. Godshall is correct in this statistic, and would like to see his source.

Further, Mr. Godshall claims that the FSPTCA commits the sin of condemning smokefree tobacco while protecting cigarettes. We can, I believe, agree that the slogan “This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes” is mistaken when applied to smokefree cigarettes. But I can think of some very good reason why such new products need to be thoroughly regulated by the FDA. For one, they provide an extremely efficient drug delivery system to the public, prescription free.  In the foreseeable future, such devises could be modified to include other chemical elements beyond nicotine. If this was done, the chemical regulation problem addressed by the FSPTCA could potentially be circumnavigated by manufacturers. As I have stated, it is my belief that it is the additive chemical constituents in cigarettes that serves to make them so lethal, and if steps are not taken to avert the open consumption of poisonous, toxic chemicals (of which organically produced and manufactured tobacco is not one) health in America will potentially be dramatically damaged, as it has been in the past 70 or so years by inorganically manufactured tobacco.

Further, I will add that I do not see in smokefree tobacco products the end-all solution to the “smoking epidemic” that Mr. Godshall sees. In fact, as a smoker, as a consumer, I can say that such products are widely inferior to the actual experience of smoking. In all likelihood, many Americans will inevitably prefer to consumer a tobacco cigarette than a vaporized hit of nicotine. I would also suggest that it is the smoke itself, and the act of smoking, which is more the source of addiction than nicotine itself, which has been compared to caffeine. As such, consumers are unlikely to make a sweeping switch to smokeless tobacco. In addition, smokefree tobacco products, being less pleasurable for consumption, will more likely act as a gateway into cigarette smoking than an exit from it. If the act of smoking itself is as addictive as the chemicals, then getting an individual used to the process of smoking is likely to open the door to other tobacco products. I feel only a non-smoker could see salvation from cigarettes in these nicotine inhalers. Personally, I find the mechanism too effeminate for my tastes. But that’s just me…

Another mistake Mr. Godshall makes is his comment on the age limit applied to smoking. He seems to believe that cigarettes, like alcohol, should not be sold to 18 year olds, but only to 19, 20 or 21 year olds. The reason he sites is the availability of cigarettes provided to high schoolers of all ages through the senior connection. This claim is completely unsound. To begin with a common and well known argument, American citizens old enough to fight and die in war should be allowed the right of control over their own personal consumption–in this country, what is control over their own lives.Further, alcohol and cigarettes are incomparable substances; how many car accidents are caused by smoking and driving? Drunk driving deaths are the legitimate reason for the alcohol age increase, but the same can not be said of cigarettes, which are far less damaging in the short run. But even further, the policies Mr. Godshall seeks to impose are exceedingly paternalistic. Perhaps it’s the fact that I am closer to that age group (I’m 21) than Mr. Godshall, but I can say definitively that regarding younger people, prohibition only serves to tantalize. The best proven way to avoid teen smoking is not through the legislative process, but rather by truthful, honest education. Adolescents need less protection than we tend to give them credit for; all they really need are the tools to make the right decisions, and often they will. In this case, the tool is truthful information. Legislation above and beyond what is now in place will not serve to prevent teen smoking. However, the FSPCTA does address serious concerns about big tobacco’s ability to advertise to our youth, which is akin to undermining honest educational programs, and appeal to children with candy flavored smokes, which is a reprehensible practice.

Mr. Godshall appears to promote these forms of regulation, which I quote from his article:

- eliminating cigarette sales in retail stores frequented by youth,
- increasing the minimum age for cigarette sales above 18 years,
- requiring prescriptions to buy cigarettes (as FDA requires for other harmful drugs), and
- eventually removing cigarettes from the market.

Such regulations are completely contrary to the American way of government. Tobacco is a recreational and relatively benign drug, in that it takes scores of years to produce serious health impacts on most users. Further, tobacco provides few medical benefits to users, and so prescriptions are simply a ridiculous concept for cigarettes. Further, the removal of cigarettes from shelves in certain stores is discriminatory, and restricts freedom in unacceptable ways. Further, removing cigarettes from the shelves is extremely illegal and unconstitutional, in that it restricts our freedom to grow and consume a naturally occurring plant, as is currently the case with marijuana. These unfortunate, fear mongering prohibitions serve to undermine the American spirit, and would be completely unacceptable to the approximately 50 million smokers in this country. I would remind Mr. Godshall that the purpose of American Democracy is to protect the rights of the minority, rather than to impose the will of the majority. For that reason, it is unacceptable for the federal government to impose paternalistic standards of lifestyle upon any members of its population, be it in the restriction of fatty foods, car use, or cigarettes, all of which, when used in moderation, can have negligible health effects. What we need is more communication, more discussion, more education, more freedom, less prohibition.

In contrast to the sort of sweeping federal regulations Mr. Godshall seems to support, I would suggest that the legislative process at the state, or even local levels, are the fairest places for the legislation of tobacco use. If a specific town or state finds it suitable to prohibit tobacco sale in their area, it is no skin off of my nose. Nearly all regulation should take place at the state and local levels, and I applaud lawmakers for enacting a law which does not overstep its constitutional bounds. In fact, it will be local governments, in tandem with local organizations, such as the one to which Mr. Godshall belongs, which are the most acceptable regulators and educators about tobacco use, not the broad and cold network that is the federal government. If Mr. Godshall’s policies were accepted, I, and many other smokers would take serious issue with our sudden inability to disagree with him.

In conclusion, I would remind Mr. Godshall that death is an inevitable part of life. We are all going to die some day. Some of us will die in car and plane crashes, some of us will die from diabetes. Some of us will die young, and some of us will die old. Some of us will die from smoking, and some of us won’t. But the choice of how we live should be our own. I had dinner with my grandfather the other day, a man of 83 years of age, and a smoker of 30. Clearly, the choices he has made in living have led him this far. What right do you have to say he made the wrong choices?

Alex Giannattasio

The Johnsonville Press

Managing Editior

www.johnsonvillepress.com

Alex’s original article on this legislation can be found here, on the Johnsonville Press: http://johnsonvillepress.com/2009/06/smokin-barrels-congress-aims-shots-at-tobacco-manufacturers-alex-giannattasio/

The American legislative process, I believe, can be better understood as a positive force than a negative one. By that I mean, when we judge a piece of legislation as citizens, we should be as or more concerned with what that bill actually does to change our society than with what it fails to do. With this in mind, I propose to focus on the positive (productive) changes established by HR 1256, or the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, of which there are several.

To begin, the Act deals explicitly with the rights of manufacturers of tobacco products, as opposed to tobacco producers, or farmers, thereby bringing all major cigarette corporations in America under the federal regulation of the FDA. It is important that the regulations only apply to manufacturers; revocation of the freedom to farm a crop, particularly one which has so drastically contributed to the growth of this country, would be an appalling abuse of power by the federal government, thoroughly un-American, and a slap in the face to the 45 million Americans who freely choose to smoke. Prohibition, as we should all know by now, is not the answer—and luckily, this Act does not seek to prohibit tobacco.

The Act’s main goal is to dramatically limit the ability of such manufacturers to add harmful foreign substances to their tobacco products—substances other than tobacco, nicotine and tar, all of which will be found in an organic tobacco product. According to this BBC article, any of at least 600 foreign substances and chemicals may be present in various commercial cigarette brands. The offshoot is that by regulating and prohibiting non-additive-free tobacco products, many of the negative health effects associated with smoking can be avoided altogether. In fact, I would wager, without having any supporting evidence on hand, that the majority of tobacco-related ailments in the non-senior population are caused by foreign additives in manufactured tobacco products. Smoking tobacco has been around for centuries and I guarantee that it provides no real threat to the fabric of society. But the nefarious practice of adding foreign chemicals to tobacco, without so much as labeling the product, is less than a century old. THIS practice does pose a serious threat to society’s health, as the health repercussions of such chemically treated smoking sticks are far worse, far more serious. The chemical additives present in cigarettes are to my mind the main culprit.

As an added bonus, the legislation actively denies tobacco companies old and new the use of misleading marketing tactics directly aimed at the recruitment of young (adolescent) smokers. If used to its maximum potential, HR 1256 will dramatically improve the health of stubborn cigarette smokers, saving billions in healthcare costs in the process, simply by substantially limiting the tobacco industry’s right to lie. That the bill fails to out-rightly prohibit tobacco production, manufacture and use is no failing point; rather, it is a victory for both American freedom and bipartisan compromise. As you can see, I generally support the measures taken in HR 1256…

 

I agree with what you say.  As a woman of color who was in an interracial marriage, I was shocked to find that until the mid 60’s, my marriage was against the law until the 1967 Supreme Court case of Loving vs. Virginia.

Here is a summary of the case and its outcome:

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Loving v Virginia 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
1) Reference Details
Jurisdiction: United States of America, Supreme Court
Date of decision: June 12 1967
Case Status: Concluded
Link to full text:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=388&invol=1
2) Facts
In June 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a
white man, were married in the District of Columbia. Shortly afterwards they returned to
Virginia and were charged with violating Virginia’s ban on interracial marriages. The
Lovings were victims of direct de jure racial discrimination inherent in the Virginia code,
which prohibited marriage between whites and non-whites.
At the time of the case, Virginia was one of 16 states to prohibit and punish interracial
marriages. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to one year in jail; however, the judge
suspended the sentence for 25 years on the condition that the couple should not return to
Virginia together during that time.
In his dicta the judge expressed the opinion:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on
separate continents. And but for the inference with his arrangement there would be no cause
for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the
races to mix.”
Following conviction, the Lovings settled in the District of Columbia. In November 1963 the
couple filed a motion in the state trial court to set aside the judgment on the grounds that
the statutes they had violated were unconstitutional and “repugnant to the Fourteenth
Amendment.”
The motion failed. Further appeals followed to the US District Court for the Eastern District
of Virginia, which also rejected the motion, and later to the Supreme Court of Appeals of
Virginia.
In February 1965 the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the
miscegenation statutes and affirmed the convictions. The court made reference to its
decision in Naim v Naim (1955) 197 Va. 80, 87 S.E. 2d 749, in which it had held the
miscegenation laws to be legitimate for such purposes as “to preserve the racial integrity of
its citizens,” and to prevent “corruption of blood,” “a mongrel breed of citizens,” and “the
obliteration of racial pride.”
The Lovings appealed again to the US Supreme Court. The court addressed the issue of the
constitutionality of the miscegenation statutes in the light of the Fourteenth Amendment,
which forbids “all invidious racial discrimination.”
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3) Law
State legislation
• 20-59 Virginia Code, which forbade marriage between whites and non-whites.
• 20-58 Virginia Code, which extended this prohibition to couples who left the state in
order to marry and subsequently returned in cohabitation.
National legislation
Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, s. 1 (“Equal Protection Clause”)
forbids discrimination between US citizens and affords all citizens the equal protection of
the laws.
4) Legal Arguments
The State of Virginia
The State of Virginia argued that the Equal Protection Clause should require state penal
laws with an interracial element to apply equally to whites and non-whites, so that
respective violations should be punished to the same degree. Therefore, and in reliance on
this, the question of constitutionality became whether any rational basis existed for
different treatment of interracial marriages and other marriages. Given that the “scientific
evidence is substantially in doubt”, the court should defer to the state’s legislative policy.
Finally, Virginia relied on statements present in the Thirty-ninth Congress at the
introduction of the Fourteenth Amendment which indicated that the Framers did not intend
the Amendment to make unconstitutional state miscegenation laws.
5) Decision
Mr Chief Justice Warren delivering the unanimous opinion of the court, stated:
“The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state
sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.”
Subsequently, the “equal application” argument put forward by Virginia was rejected. It did
not exempt the Virginia Code from the prohibition of racial discrimination contained within
the Fourteenth Amendment. In the courts opinion the statutes should not be upheld merely
because of the existence of a rational purpose behind them. Analogous cases involving
discrimination on grounds other than those of race provided no useful guidance in the
present case.
The court declared racial classifications should be subject to the “most rigid scrutiny” and
must be shown to “be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective.”
On the facts there was “patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious
racial discrimination which justifie[d] this classification.”
In regards to the statements made in the Thirty-ninth Congress put forward by the State of
Virginia, the court considered that the statements relied on related to specific statutes and
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not to the broader purpose of the Amendment. Such historical statements were inconclusive
and did not corroborate the state’s “equal application” argument.

It is neither prudent, nor appropriate to treat people differently based on their religion, ethnicity, disability, skin color sexual orientation or any other protected class.

These hundreds and thousands of men and women who wear the uniforms of the respective branches of service, who go to war on behalf of their country, who sacrific their lives in conflict deserve to be treated better than the United States Government presently treats them.