Do What Thou Will...

Tim Cavanaugh | August 30, 2005

Ted Rall, leftwing racist, mocker of our fallen troops, surprise Cindy Sheehan antagonist, generally offensive asshole, and—the proudest title of all—moron, has taken abuse from most of the Reason staff (including this Reason staffer). So I have to admit I actually found this burlesque of Adam Smith pretty funny. Probably because the concept, which Rall clearly intends as a Swiftian Modest Proposal, strikes me as a pretty good idea.

Comments

|8.30.05 @ 7:03PM|#

Yeah, what a jerk-off. Yes, most laws and regulations are pesky. And I do believe people generally do the right thing.

And I always argue to my friends who don't agree: "If we end up blowing ourselves up or wiping out our species in some other horrible way, at least we did it without coersion." In other words, if people are left to be free and fuck it up, then I suppose our little tribe of bald monkeys just wasn't meant to make it.

|8.30.05 @ 7:18PM|#

I'm thinking cartoonists should be regulated.

jamal|8.30.05 @ 7:27PM|#

This woman shouldnt be mocked. Shes doing a great job by making the anti-war message be heard.

jamal|8.30.05 @ 7:28PM|#

Furthermore, she doesnt mince her words either. I comend her for going straight for Bush's throat. Thats what the cartoons should show!

Opinionated Voice

|8.30.05 @ 7:43PM|#

Burlesque of Adam Smith? Have you read his work, Tim?

This mocks corporatists and Bushites, but Smith understood well the threat of big business wielding political power.

The Wine Commonsewer|8.30.05 @ 7:45PM|#

Ted Rall is still, well, Ted Rall.

|8.30.05 @ 7:52PM|#

jamal:

I can't figure out from the blog you've linked to if you are serious or just a liberal "Jane". Your posts leave room for doubt as well.

|8.30.05 @ 8:00PM|#

Parody and Satire should not be left unregulated in the hands of a hack.

|8.30.05 @ 8:01PM|#

Someone could get hurt. I mean, think of the children.

|8.30.05 @ 8:06PM|#

Rall's mocking of Cindy Sheehan is precious. Utter insensitivity is sometimes useful in the pursuit of truth, and its cousin, humor.

|8.30.05 @ 8:07PM|#

Parody and satire are just great. Especially when they offend people. As long as the parodist/satirist are willing to accept the hatred of those offended without screaming "censorship". Rall qualifies, although he sure has bitched on that topic plenty.

|8.30.05 @ 8:26PM|#

I like how he doesn't even both to source "Most Fortune 500 companies have been charged with crimes." And I suspect that most of whatever "crimes" he could source are the SEC equivalent of jaywalking.

TallDave|8.30.05 @ 8:42PM|#

I find his whole drawing style disturbing. It's like it's done by a crack addict whose hands are shaking so badly he can't draw a straight line.

|8.30.05 @ 9:13PM|#

Program on the emergence of civilization.

"14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa."
Favor.
And disfavor.

They point out Africans� attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it's applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.

The roots of racism are not of this earth.

Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals.


The North American continent had none. Now 99% of that population is gone.






Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:

1. MUCK - perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as "god"
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management �
3. Mafia (evil) aliens - runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere ("On planets where they approved evil.")

Then we come to terrestrial management:

4. Chinese/egyptians - this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans - they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia - the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician - Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.



Survival of the favored.




Movies foreshadowing catastrophy
1986 James Bond View to a Kill � 1989 San Fransisco Loma Prieta earthquake.




Journal: 10 composition books + 39 megs of text files

|8.30.05 @ 9:44PM|#

What a strange post.
It started out with Jared Diamond talking points and then twisted into a curious mix of The Sopranos and the X-Files.

|8.30.05 @ 10:14PM|#

I figured maybe the web address listed in roots of racism's email address would be about that stuff he is talking about, but 'exploited.com' is actually a pr0n site, about exploited teens, but I suppose as a reason reader I should have already known that...or do we libertarians not like pr0n in which people are exploited? or is that just coerced?

Scott Scheule|8.30.05 @ 10:42PM|#

Ridiculous. Assume that yes, people are evil. Well, what's the alternative? Lacking angels and aliens, the only way to regulate evil people is with other people, assumedly also evil. What that solves is beyond me.

|8.30.05 @ 11:18PM|#

Scott -- it gives everybody an equal opportunity to fuck up.

It's that lack of opportunity that gets everybody riled up you know.

|8.31.05 @ 12:32AM|#

"Roots of Racism" posted exactly the same thing on one of the other threads tonight...the one dealing with computer operating systems and copyrights. Weird little beard.

|8.31.05 @ 2:03AM|#

That same weird post appears regularly on various Craigslist forums.

And for what it's worth ... I like Ted Rall.

|8.31.05 @ 8:25AM|#

I think the comic is a perfect reflection of what is wrong with die-hard liberals like Rall:

The only thing that is keeping him from becoming a murderous thug ala the Korn t-shirt guy is the fact that the government will punish if he does. There is no such thing as morality. Government is his god.

|8.31.05 @ 8:46AM|#

If the guy is pissing off a lot of people, then he must be doing something right.

I think the Sheehan comic is a bulls-eye.

|8.31.05 @ 9:07AM|#

Hey, "Because he was stupid enough to enlist?" is a good line. I've always like Teddy's cartoons. Alternative point of view and all that, you know.

|8.31.05 @ 9:08AM|#

"You can't punish a few good corporations for the sins of the majority."

LOL!

|8.31.05 @ 9:11AM|#

50% witty.

|8.31.05 @ 9:17AM|#

I think the last few days has seen a torrential downpour of idiotic trolls on H&R. Witness the troll(s) on this thread, not to mention the ones on the vegetarian post from a few days ago (trolls pretending to be H&R regulars).

drf|8.31.05 @ 10:32AM|#

Hi Smacky - yup, i guess the carnival got its internet hookup fixed...

and these damn trolls posing as regulars take away from the regular trolls. dammit.

"If the guy is pissing off a lot of people, then he must be doing something right."

we gotta hold you to that ;)

fyodor|8.31.05 @ 10:57AM|#

What I think is interesting about the comic is the conflation of removing regulations with allowing corporations to do whatever they want, including murder.

|8.31.05 @ 1:35PM|#

drf:

Uh oh...

Okay, let me amend that statement to "piss off people who piss ME off".

Which, being somewhat of a misanthrope, is pretty much everybody. >:)

drf|8.31.05 @ 1:50PM|#

MNG:

cool! a misanthropic anthropoid! OH YEAH!!!!
(cite: Greg Graffin)

love it!

or: Nine Inch Nails, "Wish":
"You know me/ I HATE EVERYONE!"

Time to break out the Wagner and boogie. Now, where's that wesson oil....................*




*clearly written by an addled person.

|8.31.05 @ 2:00PM|#

*clearly written by an addled person.


Man, I wish *I* could drink on the job.

|8.31.05 @ 2:12PM|#

"14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa."

In this case, "capable" means that they were, indeed, domesticated. Just because an animal wasn't domesticated doesn't mean that it is incapable of being domesticated. How many animals have been domesticated during recorded history?

Incidently, there are two types of zebras, and they are as closely related to the horse as they are to each other. Likely they could be domesticated, but this would require breeding over generations, and by the time they were domestic they would no longer be zebras (just as domestic horses are no longer wild horses).

Native Americans had horses, BTW, but they ate them all. They survived "peak horse", but fared worse with respect to immigration policy. They also had bison, which could probably be domesticated into a competator of the common cow.

drf|8.31.05 @ 2:16PM|#

Smacky:

not drink today. but snorting flintstones vitamins. what a rush. :)

Don: why does the phrase "peak horse" strike me as vaguely erotic.....

|8.31.05 @ 3:09PM|#

Eh. Rall's so incoherent it's hard to tell what point he's ever trying to make, or what he actually thinks, beyond that he hates a lot of things, mostly Bush, Republicans, and corporations. This is just typical crap from him - pretty much everything he does is an example of the "Chewbacca Defense" in that it doesn't have to make any sense, it just has to conflate a lot of stuff and press people's buttons, at the end of which he will claim he's argued a point.

FWIW, I've been seeing his stuff since it appeared in the Columbia Spectator when he was a student, and I can tell you that neither his artistic style nor his political views have changed much since he was 18.

Peter K.|8.31.05 @ 3:34PM|#

Hey, "Because he was stupid enough to enlist?" is a good line.

I wish Bush would have told Sheehan that. People would have freaked!

I also like a recent Onion headline along the same lines: "BUSH ANNOUNCES IRAQ EXIT STRATEGY: WE'LL GO THROUGH IRAN"

|8.31.05 @ 3:56PM|#

So the latest Reason CW is that if you believe that society needs rules you therefore believe that all people are evil?

|8.31.05 @ 4:33PM|#

Naw, it's that if you need government cops and courts to enforce all or even most of the rules that people accept as just and live by, you believe that all people are evil (except, somehow, the people who run the government).