Definition of "Excessive force"

There has been a lot of hue and cry over the attacks on Indian students in Australia. There are over 90000 Indian students in Australia and there have been half a dozen attacks recently of varying degrees ranging from beatings to a stabbing. There has been a lot of noise over the racial nature of violence.

What I would like to know is whether the brutal beating of the non-racial nature is any less painful or acceptable? A lot of the acts were robberies gone wrong. In any case racism of all variety is deplorable but to condemn the whole country as racist because of a few nuts is ridiculous. A lot of my relatives have been and some still are in Australia and they can't stop singing it's praises.

The role of media in whipping up of hysteria is verging on unethical. There have been no figures given on the comparisons in attacks on Indian students and other students, number of attacks in past and the current year. The TV channels in their enthusiasm now are going hysterical on the alleged excessive force used by the Melbourne police in removing protesters forcibly who refused to move from one of the busiest streets of Melbourne. Excessive force? You've got to be kidding me? I saw the footage and I saw nothing of that sort. Besides, what were they supposed to do? Let them sit there and inconvenience everybody else?

The students by their mass protest and blocking of the streets have done their cause no good. I'll quote Ayn Rand who said the following:

The forcible occupation of another man’s property or the obstruction of a public thoroughfare is so blatant a violation of rights that an attempt to justify it becomes an abrogation of morality. An individual has no right to do a “sit-in” in the home or office of a person he disagrees with—and he does not acquire such a right by joining a gang. Rights are not a matter of numbers—and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
The Cashing-In: The Student ‘Rebellion,’” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 256.

In India a protest like this would not be handled by Indian police with such civility. There are far more worse things police here do then bodily lift protesters. These include tear gassing, cane charge, hitting with rifle-butts (I was beaten-up during anti-reservation protest in 91, couldn't walk for three days), molestation of women (the whole country saw the groping of doctors on TV), shooting- frequently resulting in seriously wounding and killing of protesters (retaliation against stone throwing).

The hypocrisy of the Indian media is unbelievable. I have not seen such massive collective cry of outrage by the media in recent past over the far more serious violations by the police in India. If the conduct of Aussie police is labeled "excessive force", I wonder if we can ever find the right words to suitably describe the barbaric behavior of the Indian police.

Doggy drama

Some amazing stuff from 1930's. As Isaac says, "You'll never look at dogs the same way again."

(via Isaac Schrödinger)

After Susan Boyle's magnificent performance her winning the competition "Briton got talent" was a foregone conclusion. So it was a complete upset when a dance troupe beat her in the finals.

Judge for yourself if they deserved it. As for me, I think the dance was good but was it better then the song? No way. I admired the skill of the dancers and the imaginative choreography (the transformer move was sheer genius). Still it didn't have the awesome, moving power of the Susan's performance.

(via The Volokh Conspiracy)

Star Trek - Jerry Goldsmith

Announcing ARCTV

The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights is proud to unveil ARCTV, ARC's new multimedia Web site. ARC speakers frequently analyze and comment on current events from the perspective of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of reason, individualism and capitalism, and ARCTV will collect recordings of these events, including lectures, radio and TV interviews, video op-eds and much more. !

Mainstream Press Treachery

Canada Free Press has this article about the treachery of American mainstream press. It raises some important points about the lack of balanced reporting. The press in America totally veers towards the leftist view point with no pretense of fair reporting. It says:

Honest unbiased reporting in the American news room has been so absent for so long that most Americans now seek information elsewhere. Americans no longer trust the free press to be their eyes and ears, to keep them abreast of the facts needed to make intelligent decisions about daily life or politics. Sadly, at this moment in history, even Russia has a more reliable free press than America. If Americans don’t read foreign news sources, they have no clue what is going on in their own country, much less the world.

It also mentions some very important stories like the one where US Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman stated brazenly before the US Congress that she has “no idea” where $9 Trillion of US taxpayer has gone, or who got it (see the video here).

The story is equally applicable to the mainstream world press. Here in India I would not know a thing if I got my news from the press. I get 90% of my news from the Internet. The mainstream media here is completely leftist/anti-capitalist with stories on ever thing from evils of plastic bags to the pollution from industries. The business channels have no interest in questioning the polices of the government. There are no opposing viewpoints presented. At least in U.S. CNBC had the token Peter Schiff (see him predict the recession) to present the other side even though they thought he was a joke.

Is rationality a virtue worth emulating?

I recently read an article "Mr. Jekyll and Dr. House: The Reason-Emotion Split as Manifested in House, M.D." on the TOS about TV series House, M.D. (first two seasons), a part of which I had read some time back but read the whole thing only now (subscription-based). The article analyses the portrayal of the lead character Dr. House.

I have been a big fan of the TV series House, M.D. and have been intrigued and at times puzzled by the portrayal of the Dr. House (brilliantly played by Hugh Laurie). The series focuses on both his professional and personal life. There are no ambiguities where his medical abilities are concerned; he coolly analyses his cases ignoring emotions of the patients and gets to the root of the problem. He decides on a course of treatment-with inputs from his team- with supreme confidence and expects it to be executed without any ifs or buts.

Just like the author, I have always thought that a good doctor has to be like a good detective. He has to study the case, look for clues in not so obvious places and be knowledgeable in interpreting those clues and solving the case. This reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes case where he says that "I am puzzled by the dogs". When Dr. Watson says that the dogs didn't do anything, he says it's exactly what puzzled him-why didn't they bark if there were intruders around? This comparison is even more apt for the extreme case handled by Dr. House but also holds true for slightly more complex cases routinely handled by most doctors. Dr. House is a master medical investigator and finds clues of mysterious illnesses in unlikeliest of places with ease. The creator has blessed his character with rationality but the problem is that he doesn't seem to think that is is worth emulating.

Creator David Shore describes his brilliant, cynically sarcastic medical Sherlock as “a character who firmly believes in rationality over emotion at all times,” with all that presumably implies. And what, in Shore’s conception, does it imply? That House is “nasty and he’s cold and he’s heartless, and everything he does is to make the patient better.” This indicates Shore’s conception of rationality, or at least the brand of rationality he ascribes to House.
Shore seems split on his own evaluation of House’s character, warning apologetically, “I created this character, and I love him, and you might think I’m saying, yeah, we should all be like that. No! We actually shouldn't be like that.” But, one is tempted to ask, if his rationality saves countless patients’ lives, isn't it in fact a virtue worth emulating? Or is it indeed a lovable sin, deserving of sympathetic scorn, since it dooms him to a life of lonely success?

The creator goes on to show the personal life of Dr.House which is sad, confusing, lonely, and attributes this to his rationality and draws the unwarranted conclusions. Is it so hard to believe that a rational person can be happy? It is this belief which deprives us of a perfect hero.

Episode after episode puts us through the torment of seeing a gloomy, tortured House return to his dark, lonely apartment and pump himself full of Vicodin to numb his own pain, after sending his patients home happy and smiling, holding the hands of loved ones who rejoice with them at a seemingly miraculous recovery...
So it is no wonder that House is unhappy, since happiness is an emotion—and House tries to steer clear of emotions at all cost..
So if, like House, you choose to regard the rational quest for truth as your sacred calling, you (allegedly) must abandon all hopes of emotional fulfillment. But rationality—real rationality—does not lead to any such plight; indeed, it leads to the stark opposite. If House were as rational about emotions as he is about medicine, he would not be miserably successful; he would be successfully happy.

Gena Gorlin goes on to explain the importance of the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness.

Emotions are not impervious to reason; they are responses to what we regard as true (given our prior knowledge and reasoning, or lack thereof). If we change our minds, our hearts eventually follow..
If one grasps the nature of the relationship between rationality and emotion, House’s split personality becomes easy to diagnose: He is rational in his dealings with human illness, but irrational in his dealings with human emotion. If David Shore has set out to portray a man who truly “believes in rationality over emotion at all times,” he has failed—by failing to understand the actual nature of both rationality and emotion...
Such critics once again fail to realize the proper role of emotion in relation to rationality. If House were to allow baseless pangs of doubt, or the emotional appeals of patients and fellow doctors, to interfere with his rational conclusions, he would not be the good doctor that he is...
Just as emotions are consequences of one’s conclusions, so rationality is the means of achieving emotionally gratifying values.

The character of John Galt said in Ayn Rand's epic novel "The Atlas Shrugged" that "happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions".

In spite of all the irritating contradictions of the series, I like to focus on the positives and I like what Hugh Laurie writes, in praise of his own character: “This is a guy in search of truth. Incidentally, that truth one day could save your life or the life of someone you love. That’s a heroic thing.” Millions of people love the witty and heroic Dr.House which according to the author is a positive symptom and that it suggests that people’s admiration for the virtue of reason is still alive and kicking. The thought makes me feel good.
Read the full article here.