I went to Brandeis University. Full disclosure, I despise Louis Dembitz Brandeis and most of what he stands for. The clueless statist Zionism, the totalitarianism, his position on the Supreme Court.
While I was at Brandeis, I was not a libertarian, but I was headed there, even then.
While I was at Brandeis, there was this guy Igor Pedan. I never met him. I think he was my editor in chief at The Hoot where I wrote humor columns.
Here’s the thread we had. Posting here because I assume it will be deleted soon and it’s not bad. In response to this video of another Brandeis guy who thinks its worth his time to get politicians to condemn people who hit Muslims. He’s probably an aspiring politician, as many lawyers are. Though he’s anti war so he’s less dangerous than the average neocon and he’s a good guy generally, just a bit confused. He wants to spend your money giving it to others who didn’t work for it while you did rather than spend it on killing foreigners. That’s less bad. If he runs for anything, vote for him, because he probably won’t kill people.
Context: Cahn argued for some resolution that politicians in New York City should condemn people who say bad things about Muslims. I think anyone should be able to say bad or good things about anybody for any reason. So I objected.
You’ll see that Cahn’s video is pretty much standard politician-speak meant to sound so obviously moralistic and taking advantage so he can run in the future for some office using these lines as an ad. There’s nothing sophisticated or deep about it, just cheap opportunistic talk. But if you’re a New Yorker vote for him anyway because he’s against war. Seriously. Hopefully he’ll stay that way but I doubt it. Politicians who use these opportunities to pedal nonsense rarely stay principled.
Rafi Farber what’s the resolution? that politicians should condemn people who commit violence against other people? Is this more hate crime legislation? Why aren’t current punishments against violence enough? Why do we need more laws? Aren’t there already laws against violence against innocents?Albert Cahn Rafi, as you’ll see if you review the bill, the resolution does nothing of the sort. It’s
A resolution that expresses the sentiment of the council, not a law restricting individual liberty. Your objection seems a bit off pointhttp://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx…|Text|&Search=1230LEGISTAR.COUNCIL.NYC.GOV|BY DARIUS TAJANKORafi Farber Wasn’t objecting. Just asking questions. I’m not sure what this will accomplish, but nothing objectionable in the text.Rafi Farber Actually, now that I read it carefully, it is objectionable. It condemns rhetoric and speech. For those who care about the constitution, that is unconstitutional, but that doesn’t really matter to most people. It is important for people say hateful things without the fear of being punished. Discrimination is also very important. Everyone discriminates. It’s why I married one female instead of 4 men.Igor Pedan Isn’t condemning also speech?Albert Cahn Rafi are you sure you want to use the rhetorical gambit of claiming that you care more about the constitution than I do? I’m a full-time civil rights lawyer, I work every day to defend my clients’ rights, including their rights under the First Amendment. The First Amendment prohibits laws that punish individuals for speaking, it does not restrict the right of our deliberative assemblies to pass a resolution expressing their own opinions. If you think this is censorship, if you think this violates the First Amendment, then there are two centuries of contrary precedent that you need to review. As for the utility of the measure, there’s a power in using civic institutions to reinforce social norms, even if those measures lack the force of our penal law. The reshaping of our political dialogue in recent months has correlated with a significant increase in hate crimes and violence that cannot be readily explained by any other causal factor. If political rhetoric can push the trendline in one direction, what basis do you have for asserting rhetoric can’t push it in the countervailing direction?Rafi Farber I do not care about the constitution at all. Condemning sure is free speech, but politicians should not be allowed to condemn the free speech of others. Their rights should be restricted because they are public officials. They should not be allowed to condemn the speech of others because they live off the money of others.Rafi Farber You use academic legal language a lot. I don’t understand lawyer talk. I’m pretty stupid, as you can see. When I read that congress shall make no law restricting free speech I think that’s what it means. I must be wrong though. I just don’t see the point of getting politicians to say things when it’s already illegal to hit and harass innocent people.Albert Cahn Because ever since a certain Republican politician started saying very inflammatory things a whole lot more people started getting attacked, even though it was just as illegal as before he started talking. Words have impact.Rafi Farber Which politician? I don’t follow politics.Albert Cahn You’re joking right? I’ll give you a hint, he’s brash and orange.Igor Pedan Rafi “politicians should not be allowed to condemn the free speech of others… because they live off the money of others.” First, only elected official actually live of the money of others. Second, pretty much everyone who is employed lives off the money of others. Third, what other things should politicians not be allowed to say? Is there a list somewhere (maybe in the Constitution?) that lists these banned topics for politicians only?Rafi Farber Igor, I said before I don’t care about the constitution. And no, only politicians live off the money of others because they force others to give them money by threatening to kill them if they don’t give the money. Other private people engage in voluntary exchanges, so the money they make becomes theirs on the exchange. Everything politicians do, from their sex lives to going to the bathroom should be recorded 24/7. If you want to be a public official, your life should be 100% public, all of it, everything, no exceptions whatsoever. This way they won’t have any secrets whatsoever. If people want to watch it should be on C-Span.Rafi Farber If it were up to me politicians should not be allowed to say anything at all.Igor Pedan Then how would you know what they stand for?Rafi Farber I wouldn’t. I don’t care what private people stand for as long as they don’t hurt me. If politicians have no power over us what they stand for doesn’t matter.Igor Pedan So you are against voting? Against Democracy? Against government (ala Sumolia)? What you just said make so little sense, it’s comical.Rafi Farber I’m not against voting. I am against democracy, and I am against government. If you want to vote, vote, but there’s no difference. Whoever leads will spend more money and kill more people than the guy before.Igor Pedan That ends this discussion. Hope you never have to call the police, fire department, need to use roads, airports, etc.Rafi Farber Those should all be privatized. Then I wouldn’t have to complain to politicians who don’t care and have no responsibility when more people are killed on their roads than in all US wars combined.Igor Pedan There wouldn’t be any roads.Rafi Farber If there’s a market demand for roads there would be roads.Rafi Farber take a read https://mises.org/library/privatization-roads-and-highways
MISES.ORGIgor Pedan That’s blatantly false.Rafi Farber read the book, get back to me laterRafi Farber and I’d rather have private security directly responsible to me personally than a police force that locks people up for smoking pot and kills black people randomly.Igor Pedan And someone with a bigger private security force will just kill you with no repercussions.Rafi Farber they’d have to answer to my force. And wars between private police forces is much less scary than nuclear war between huge countries.Albert Cahn Rafi and Igor if you’d like to have a separate discussion about the merits of representative democracy versus anarcho-capitalism, i’ll gladly show up and bring the popcorn, but I’d respectfully suggest that this is not the preferred forum for such a debate.Rafi Farber OK signing off. Your wall.Igor Pedan Albert, feel free to delete this thread. I didn’t realize Rafi prefers to live in Sumolia and that this conversation was headed there.Rafi Farber Agree, delete the thread and I should move to Sumalia. Though I’m not sure how. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumalia
Sumalia is a genus of butterflies found in Southeast Asia ranging from the Indian…EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
The Jewish Libertarian 