Freedom of Speech – Duck Dynasty and what it Doesn’t Mean

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Tom Liberman

There’s an interesting story making the rounds about the star of a television show called Duck Dynasty. The story seems to engender a great deal of confusion about the First Amendment to the Constitution and the idea of Freedom of Speech.

The confusion runs so deep that even the governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, apparently has no idea what the Constitution means, and that’s a scary thought. A governor who is totally misguided about the Constitution of the United States!

What happened is that Phil Robertson said some things about homosexuals and blacks that people found offensive. The network where he worked, A&E, suspended him for these remarks. Immediately following the suspension people began to talk about the First Amendment to the Constitution and the concept of Freedom of Speech. They seem to be under the bizarre illusion that you can say anything you want and face absolutely no repercussions. This is in no way, shape, manner, or form the idea of Freedom of Speech.

Depending on what state you work in you can be fired without cause at any time. What do you expect would happen to you if you went up to your boss and told them you paid their spouse five dollars for a sexual liaison down in the alley? Fired! You betcha.

Could you be thrown in jail? No.

That’s the point of the First Amendment and I absolutely shudder in disbelief when someone who is the governor of one of our states apparently doesn’t understand this. When I see comment sections filled by inaccurate statements about the First Amendment it doesn’t bother me too much, it bothers me, just not to the point of writing a blog. A lot of people just aren’t that smart. They have no idea what the Constitution is about nor what Freedom of Speech means.

The pertinent part of the First Amendment reads: Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.

What part of that could possibly be unclear? There shall be no laws written to prevent people from speaking freely. Generally this means political speech but it can cover other things. Over the years certain types of speech have been ruled not to be subject to the Amendment. Yelling fire in a crowded theater being the primary example often used.

How on earth can anyone think that A&E is passing a law by suspending Robertson?

Robertson has every right to express his opinion. Those who support him have every right to support him as loudly as they want. Those who oppose him have the same right. However, Robertson is not free from repercussions. This has nothing to do with the First Amendment.

Go on, tell your spouse how fat they are, see how much the Constitution protects you from the wrath that follows.

I absolutely support Robertson’s right to say whatever he believes. I support A&E’s right to suspend whoever they want, it’s their network. I applaud Robertson for stating his mind. Now he has to live with the consequences of that decision, good or bad. It has nothing to do with Freedom of Speech.

My advice to Governor Jindal and everyone else who is foggy on the First Amendment? Read the Constitution, good stuff there.

Tom Liberman

Kill all the Chinese and Fire Jimmy Kimmel

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Tom Liberman

I’m not exactly certain how I missed this earth shattering story but apparently a segment of the Chinese-American community is incensed about what a kid said during a Jimmy Kimmel show.

Kimmel has a Kids’ Table segment where he asks young children questions about serious issues the nation and world face. In this case he asked what the country should do about the $1.3 trillion we owe to China.

One young fellow decided that killing all the Chinese was a reasonable solution. Kimmel tried to suggest that perhaps this wasn’t the best idea but quickly moved on to other suggestions. One young girl argued rather persuasively that if we tried to kill all the Chinese they would try to kill us back and that might not be good. The boy countered with the idea that the Chinese would all be dead by that time so we had nothing to fear. In other words, children lobbing childish ideas. It was all rather humorous, if a bit dark.

In the ensuing outrage Kimmel offered an apology for offending anyone of Asian or Chinese heritage. He expressed the idea that the show merely meant to entertain. That they don’t control or condone what the children say.

This apology apparently did not go over well with as many as 1,500 people protesting outside the ABC studio where his show is produced. Jimmy is accused of teaching kids hatred, promoting genocide, and being a general Hitler like figure in the world. A petition to fire Kimmel was posted on the White House website and has generated a significant number of signatures.

I suppose the idea is that Kimmel should have stopped the segment and gotten into a serious discussion about how genocide against the largest population on earth was not a good idea. He laughed, he told them it was a bad idea, they’re kids. End of story.

A large part of me wants to think the entire protest is actually just an attempt at humor but apparently it is not.

I don’t even know how to respond. Should I try logical arguments about how kids say silly things they don’t mean all the time? That kids often say illogical and ridiculous things. Should I point out that Kimmel laughed it off and tried to explain why the idea was bad? Should I tell people being overly sensitive does their various causes no good? Should I try to write a dissertation about humor?

I’m stumped.

I will make one suggestion and I’ve made it before. I’m of Jewish heritage and history is my favorite subject. I know a thing or two about Hitler and the Nazi party. How in the early 1930’s young German women were paraded around town tied to polls and physically assaulted because they refused to call off engagements to young German Jews. How citizens were beaten and even killed for not giving the Hitler salute during parades. How they rounded up disabled children telling parents the children were being taken to schools where they would be treated with the latest medicine, and then killed them.

My advice, don’t compare Jimmy Kimmel to a Nazi, to Hitler. You don’t win me over.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Spear of the Hunt
Next Release: The Broken Throne

Django Unchained and Samuel L. Jackson

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Tom Liberman

Samuel L. Jackson I haven’t done a movie review in a long time so I thought I’d break the drought, sort of. My good friend Jeff invited me over watch the Rams game (darn you, Falcons) and we put on Django Unchained afterward.

Let me warn you that this isn’t really going to be a movie review. It’s going be about the actor Samuel L. Jackson. He played a role in the movie that showed what I thought displayed a tremendous amount of courage. It’s not a role a man lacking self-confidence can play and Jackson played it fantastically.

Jackson is, as I’m sure most of you know, a black man. The role he played was essentially a House Negro. This is a black person who worked with white owners to help keep the field, or working, blacks oppressed in exchange for a better position. In the movie there are a lot of unpalatable characters but Stephen, Jackson’s character, seems to me to be the most despicable.

The movie itself engendered a large amount of anger in the black community from Spike Lee and many others. Jackson had to know that his character would be perceived as vile, particularly among blacks. That’s why I think Jackson was both incredibly confident and quite brave to take on the role.

He didn’t just take on the role, he owned it. He gave us a look at what a house negro was. History gives us example after example of people willing to help those in power oppress their own kind. Collaborationism is one name for it and the term was used extensively during World War II to indicate someone willing to betray their country for favoritism from the new regime. It is not a new idea. In ancient Greece helping the Persians was considered Medism.

Jackson’s character in the movie is vile. Jackson read the script and accepted the role knowing what he was going to have to do and then went out and did it with incredible skill. He is absolutely convincing as Stephen the collaborator. He gives us insight into the times and into the type of person who behaves in this fashion.

I’m not really going anywhere political with this blog post. I’m just here to say that I admire Jackson tremendously for his courage in taking on this role and his acting skill in bringing it to life. He’s an actor and it’s his job, but not everyone does their job so well, particularly when doing so might have long-term repercussions. It’s not far-fetched to imagine him being “punished” by those upset with his portrayal. Future roles might be denied. Who knows?

A tip of the hat to Samuel L. Jackson, a man of courage.

As for the entire movie? Typical Quentin Tarantino, entertaining, over-the-top, ridiculous at times, plot holes galore, but stylish and made with passion. I’d recommend it.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for a full length eBook)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Lindsay Lohan and the Art of the Decision

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Tom Liberman

One of my Facebook friends mentioned the Lindsay Lohan appearance on the David Letterman show and I paid only passing attention to the event. I’ve been thinking more about it over the last day or so and thought I’d write a post on the subject.

Lohan has made a series of bad decisions in her life that have led her to the trouble she currently faces. In the end we are responsible for our own decisions and to that point my thinking would be that if she doesn’t like where she finds herself in life that she has no one to blame but herself. This is, I’m fairly certain, true … to a point. Certainly her parents and peers deserve some blame but what I want to examine today is the culpability of those of us who drive the story, who click the links, who watch the show, who direct the flow of money.

Many people made money from Lohan’s appearance on the Letterman show. Certainly the network directly through advertisement. Letterman benefits when ratings are high and his earning potential rises. People who enjoy watching other people destroy their lives benefit because they watch a high-profile actor lurch from one disaster to the next. Lohan herself gains some benefit from the publicity that continues to generate acting opportunities for her; although there are certainly many negative results to her behavior as well.

I want to examine that last point in greater detail. When a person smokes a cigarette, has a few drinks, procrastinates writing their fifth book, or otherwise behaves in a way that is not immediately detrimental but in the long-term effects the success in their life they have made a decision. Smoking a cigarette will not kill anyone. Taking another six months to write my book will not change my career path all that much. Eating a piece of cake, not asking that saucy girl out, saying something grumpy at work rather than smiling and being cheerful; these are all decisions. Our lives are nothing if not a series of decisions. These decisions add up to determine the course of our life.

Lohan has been making bad decisions for a long time now and each one contributes to the condition she finds herself in now. I don’t want to devolve into a debate about determinism and I certainly attribute a large part of the blame to Lohan herself.

However, is some of what is happening to Lohan my fault? I cannot deny that I feel some sort of superiority as I watch a talented young woman waste her potential. I would never destroy myself that way, I’m better than her. I’ve searched her image and watched her morph from a stunning beauty to something far less and felt a strange satisfaction with myself. I’ve read reviews of her latest projects and newest revelations of self-destructive behavior and it made me feel better about myself for some reason, probably because I’m not nearly as a good a person as I think I am.

Is it in our nature to watch train wrecks? Do we as a species yearn for such things? Is Lohan’s behavior some sort of self-induced Truman Show? Is her real life just a big movie made for me?

I can’t help thinking that our species will be mired in this sort of behavior until we can only want the best for ourselves and for everyone else. When I want every actor to give their best performance every time. When I want every athlete to play their best even if they are playing for an opposing team. Is this sort of thinking even remotely possible? What sort of world would we live in if we only wanted people to do their best? Would Lindsay Lohan have a much different, better life in that world?

What limits would be erased if we all rooted for and helped each other even while competing? I’ll do my best, you do your best, someone wins, but in the long run, we all win.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water (buy it today, it’s inspiring)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt

Bad TV wins – why?

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Tom Liberman

I don’t watch a tremendous amount of television but there are a few shows on Hulu that I watch with regularity and something recently happened that, once again, caused me to question the rationality of television executives. Over the years we’ve all seen great shows get cancelled while shows not as good continue on. Sometimes it’s purely a ratings decision but I’m going to examine the situation a little more closely today.

Why is a good show cancelled and what is it that we call good?

The incident that brought about this examination was the cancellation of the show Don’t Trust the B* in Apt 23 while a somewhat similar sitcom called New Girl continues on. Apt 23 was regularly hilarious, generally funny, and occasionally stupid as cutting edge comedies often are. New Girl is almost always stupid punctuated by moments of funny. Apt 23 is well written and well acted. New Girl is poorly written with nonsensical situations highlighted by overacting and tired jokes. Yet, Apt 23 is gone and New Girl is highly touted by the network. Why?

The network spokespeople will suggest it is all about ratings but I’m not so sure that’s the case. See Firefly or American Gothic and even now Community for examples of a network mishandling a show with time slot changes, episodes shown out-of-order, lack of promotional activity, and other seemingly destructive policies.

As I try to be a rational thinker I want to examine some possibilities on the cancellation that don’t have to do with ratings. Perhaps a rational television executive crunched the numbers, the show production cost, distribution, long-term salaries, and weighed that against revenue, media sales of episodes already finished, and other factors. Is it possible that Apt 23 will make more money in DVD sales than it would have made if it continued in production for four more seasons? I don’t know the answer but it’s possible I suppose. Did the executive try to pick up Krysten Ritter in a bar and was shot down in humiliating fashion? It’s possible. Does the executive’s son hate James Van der beek? I don’t know, maybe?

Next we have to examine the idea of good. Is good a completely relative term? Just because I think Apt 23 hilarious and New Girl painfully bad; is this objectively true? Certainly there are those who think New Girl is hilarious and those who probably didn’t like Apt 23. I like to think there is an objective good. One joke is funny and another is not. Any comedian will tell you that certain jokes get laughs and others don’t.

What are the factors that make a television show good or entertaining? Funny jokes, a plot that is logically accurate to itself even if far-fetched and fantastic, see Big Trouble in Little China. Actors who effectively convince you that they are the character they are portraying. Sometimes called good acting. Good camera work. A thematic structure to each episode and the show in general. Dialog that is crisp. Characters that are consistent. I think all these things objectively define good even if people don’t always come to that conclusion. I think we can define Apt 23 as good and New Girl as bad.

That being my opinion I’m deeply saddened by the cancellation of Apt 23. I think about all the episodes of Firefly that were never made. I’m the loser because of this, I’m less entertained. I would argue that our society is the loser when bad wins out over good. Maybe it’s not a big a deal when it comes to entertainment but maybe it is. Maybe every time bad wins out over good we are all diminished.

Of course, there’s the possibility that New Girl is a great show and I’m just deluding myself.

Wouldn’t it be great if better always won out over worse? What would your world be like if everything that was better succeeded? That’s the ultimate goal of the Randian objectivist. I’m sure it’s not possible but I won’t stop striving. I hope you don’t either. And I hope a young network employee reads this and goes on to become an important executive.

What do you think?

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt