NewU: Eric Brunner: Protesters Deserved What They Got

Hopefully the last NewU article/op-ed/letter on the Yaron Brook event from a few weeks ago.

Link to article

Protesters Deserved What They Got

Paul Backus states that the police overreacted in his article, “UCIPD Went Overboard at Ayn Rand Event,” Nov. 20. I can understand his position, but he doesn’t know all the facts.

The La Rouche Youth Movement has a history of unlawful disruptions in addition to the ones at my event on our campus: At a lecture at USC on Oct. 27, they threw raw meat at the speaker’s notes, at UCLA on Oct. 26 they caused a 30 minute delay and at a three-day Objectivist conference in Boston on Oct. 20-22, 20 state troopers had to be called in. The list goes on and on. They have several crazy articles glorifying their disruptions and insane and completely unfounded conspiracy theories about the Ayn Rand Institute on the Internet. Yaron Brook has been harassed and almost threatened with violence more than once. I have been slightly harassed on campus.

People who routinely plan and act to violate property rights should be punished. Should Objectivists waste money on security for their events forever? Or should criminals be restrained?

Police officers have a high-stress job and need to be given the benefit of the doubt in most cases. The disruptors at my event have a record of disruptions. They have invited others to disrupt my event, almost threatened Brook and resisted arrest. They definitely deserved what they got.

I do not think that Iranians should be murdered or that they should commit suicide, as Shaun Cunningham suggested in his letter to the editor, “Ayn Rand Speaker Hypocritical,” Nov. 20. I also don’t literally mean that some Iranians are slaves to their state, obviously. Within the context of my statement, I meant that only people who are living in Iran and value freedom and human life are being violated by Iran.

One cannot compare Iran to the United States. Iran is a theocracy based on following the will of Allah and the United States is a country based on protecting the rights of man. In Iran, the media is controlled by the state, adulteresses are beaten and hanged and Islam is shoved down everyone’s throat. In the United States, there is freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

Ayn Rand and Objectivists, including myself, are against the initiation of force and believe only in retaliatory force, as Brook stated during his lecture.

The Ayn Rand Club’s primary function is to offer a way to study Ayn Rand’s ideas to guide and benefit one’s life. To be completely clear and specific, it is I who advocates Objectivism; I don’t necessarily represent the entirety of my members.

Shaun Cunningham obviously hasn’t read Ayn Rand and also didn’t attend my event, because he has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. If he honestly wishes to know what Ayn Rand actually advocates, I invite him to read her writings or attend one of my club’s meetings.

Eric Brunner
President
Ayn Rand Club

NewU Commentary: UCIPD Went Overboard at Ayn Rand Event

And yet another piece from this week's NewU, this one from the author of last week's article, giving more insight into his experience at the controversial event:

Link to article

Opinion
UCIPD Went Overboard at Ayn Rand Event
Commentary
By Paul Backus

Here in the United States, we like to think that our laws and law enforcement help to protect the innocent. People should have the peace of mind of knowing that before they can be arrested, they must commit a crime of some kind.

On Monday, Nov. 6, however, the UC Irvine Police Department arrested 15 people after they began singing to protest a guest speaker, an action which, according to Chief Paul Henisey, would not usually warrant arrest. But the singers were members of the LaRouche Youth Movement, which had previously heckled a guest speaker at the University of Southern California by throwing condoms and raw meat.

And there was one little detail omitted from the article I wrote last week (“Fifteen Arrested at Ayn Rand Club Event,” Nov. 13). UCIPD also threatened to arrest me for trying to get interviews at the scene.

When the arrests began, I was interviewing LYM members, but was asked to step aside for “right now.” I complied and, once the detainees were sitting down and everything was calm, I tried to find a UCI student among the LaRouche members to interview. Here’s what happened, transcribed word for word off of my digital recorder:

Me: Hey, are any of you guys students here by any chance?

UCIPD: We need you to leave! You’re interfering.

Me: OK, sorry. Sorry sir.

UCIPD: And if you interrupt again, you’re going to be arrested. Do you understand?

Me: OK.

UCIPD: You’ve been warned two times now!

Me: OK, I’m sorry. Could any of you guys go on record after, after whatever you’re…

UCIPD: Two times you’re warned. You’re gonna go to jail next time!

Me: OK.

UCIPD: Step away farther!

Me: All right.

Just to make sure I’m crystal clear, this happened while the LaRouche members were seated on the ground, under arrest. There was no plausible way that communicating with the protestors could have hindered the officers’ ability to control the situation.

The fact that this whole incident went unmentioned in last week’s front-page story demonstrates a rule of “objective journalism” that sometimes drives me crazy. Since it happened to me, it couldn’t be included in the article because I’m not supposed to mention myself.

If there had been another reporter being bullied by the campus cops, I could have reported his story as news, and readers of the article could have had a better grasp of the level of criminal activity for which our local authorities are willing to send someone to jail. Unfortunately, it happened to the only writer at the scene.

But let’s get back to the LaRouche arrests. USC’s student paper, the “Daily Trojan,” quotes their Department of Public Safety chief, Carey Drayton, as describing the condom-throwing incident as “very peaceful.”

The authorities present in Los Angeles when the situation occurred did not see a need to take any action beyond ejecting the protestors, because they left when asked.

But Henisey said last week that UCIPD considered that event, plus the singers’ apparent plans to keep on singing, sufficient grounds to arrest everybody involved.

In my mind, there’s no doubt that the LaRouche folks are kind of crazy. While discussing these shenanigans with some buddies last weekend, one of my friend’s new roommates told me that she knew someone who had joined the LYM and had virtually disappeared off the face of the earth shortly thereafter. This type of cult-like behavior on the part of LYM members is a common accusation. But I’m far from convinced that they did anything that warranted their arrest on that historic Monday night.

We may never get a satisfactory answer as to what exactly triggered the handcuffing spree on Nov. 6. A review of the weekly police logs this year reveals that even activities like loud indoor jogging can be considered reportable offenses here in Irvine, and since Los Angeles has a lot more actual crime, this could be a factor in the drastically different action taken by USC’s campus police in response to protesting.

I wonder what else you can get arrested for around here. Maybe the next time some abandoned papers are littering the campus grounds, tree-huggers can at least hope that the delinquents who recklessly committed this offense against our Mother Earth were caught in the act by the proper authorities and are now serving some serious time.

Then again, pollution is more of a liberal concern. The tree-huggers should make sure they criticize the litterer very respectfully, or they could wind up in jail, especially if they’ve ever been in a protest before.

Paul Backus is a third-year literary journalism major.

NewU Opinion: Political Cult Invades UCI: Don’t Be Deceived

Related to this opinion is this letter to the editor in the same issue of the NewU:

Link to article

Opinion
Political Cult Invades UCI: Don’t Be Deceived
By David Syatt

You see them on campus with signs proclaiming the evils of the Bush Administration. You listen to their words and believe that they’re preaching freedom and liberty. And now, after being arrested during a protest at UC Irvine, you think that they’re martyrs for the First Amendment. However, do not be tricked by the LaRouche Youth Movement, a radical political cult fueled by conspiracy theories.

It is easy to look at the pictures of President George W. Bush as a monkey on their booths and think to yourself, “That’s funny. These people must be pretty cool.” But these little displays are just attempts to lasso in ignorant college students who think of themselves as liberals.

If you go up to one of these recruiters and tell them that you’ve heard of their leader, Lyndon LaRouche, a look of surprise and hostility will appear on their faces, because they know that if you’ve heard of him and are not waving one of his pamphlets around with ecstatic glee, then you are against him.

Lyndon LaRouche has run for president in every election since 1976, but he has never been nominated as a candidate for any party. This is because of the disturbing beliefs he insists are true.

First of all, LaRouche scoffs at “the mythical ‘six million Jewish victims’ of the Nazi ‘Holocaust’” in his 1978 article, “New Pamphlet to Document Cult Origins of Zionism.” In the same article, he says that only about 1.5 million Jews died in Nazi Germany and holds that “what the Nazis did to Jewish victims was mild compared with the virtual extermination of gypsies and the butchery of Communists.”

Recruiters will tell you that LaRouche has never been an anti-Semite and has, in fact, written many pro-Jewish articles (which is true). However, if you look at the cover of the booklet that is now being handed out on the UCI campus (“Is Joseph Goebbels on Your Campus?”) you’ll see pictures of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and… Lynne Cheney. Now, I’m liberal. I did my part to give the Democrats the majority in Congress, but do I believe that Dick Cheney – let alone his wife – can be compared to Hitler and Goebbels, two of the most evil people in history? Of course not, and neither should any rational person. This just shows how LaRouche and his followers trivialize the Holocaust.

Yet, LaRouche’s views on the Holocaust show his more tender, cuddlier side when compared to his views on AIDS and homosexuality. LaRouche presents his solution to the AIDS epidemic in his 1986 article, “The End of the Age of Aquarius?”:

“Yes, we must destroy AIDS. It’s going to destroy everybody, … which means we’re going to have to put away every carrier until they can no longer carry.”

Later, LaRouche writes, “Children are going to playgrounds, they go in with baseball bats, and they find one of these gays there, pederasts, trying to recruit children, and they take their baseball bats and they beat them up pretty bad. They’ll kill one sooner or later. … Children go out with baseball bats and beat them up—which is perfectly moral; they have the civil right to do that! It’s a matter of children’s civil rights!”

To end AIDS, people should attack gays with baseball bats? Followers of LaRouche may say that he has changed his views since 1986, which makes perfect sense. After all, he wrote this when he was 64, so I am sure that he’s matured since that young age.

Why does anyone – especially liberal Southern Californian college students – support LaRouche, given views such as these? The youth who follow this man are victims of deceit and should not be blamed.

Yaron Brook, head of the Ayn Rand Institute and the speaker that the LYM recently protested at UCI, basically wants to see World War III happen in the Middle East and compares Islamic regimes to the Axis powers of the past. So it is no wonder that a liberal-minded young person would want to challenge him. LaRouche targets controversial figures such as Brook in order to attract followers. The Ayn Rand Institute is a petty organization. Even the Muslim Student Union, which disagrees vehemently with Brook’s views, declined to protest the event because they felt that it wasn’t worth their time.

LaRouche wants people to think he’s a liberal saint and to believe his inane theories, which compare members of the Republican Party to Nazis. He is a burned-out, 84-year-old man who has been desperately trying to get noticed by real politicians since 1969. Keep this in mind next time one of his recruiters approach you with an inviting smile and you’ll be safe.

David Syatt is a second-year literary journalism major. He can be reached at dsyatt@uci.edu.

NewU Letter to the Editor: Ayn Rand Speaker Hypocritical

Following up on this previous post (see link for additional references):

Link to article

Ayn Rand Speaker Hypocritical

In the article about Yaron Brook, (“Ayn Rand Institute Director Yaron Brook Speaks to Divided Audience,” Nov. 13) Ayn Rand President and first-year humanities major Eric Brunner states that the people of Iran are better off dead than slaves to a totalitarian state. Does this imply that they should all commit suicide or that they should all be murdered? Either way this is a grotesque and evil thing to say.

One false assumption in this statement is that the Iranian people are slaves to their state. Sure, there are aspects of the Islamic Republic that are repressive, but there are also parts that are not. A slave is someone who has no say in anything that happens to him or her and is kept locked in a closed system. This is simply not the case for many Iranians, as is evident from – among other examples – Iranian students leaving Iran and studying in America on student visas and high numbers of Iranian women being educated in Iran. If the people of Iran are slaves to their state, then the people of the United States are slaves to their republic. In any government, there are parts that people agree with and parts that they don’t.

Furthermore, the people of Iran love their country, whether they live in America, Iran or any other country. To quote Brunner, “If people cannot leave Iran and are against Islamic totalitarianism, they should welcome the destruction of Iran even if it could mean their own death.” To call for the destruction of Iran for the purposes of Western self-interest is disgusting. But that’s how Rand’s ideology works—since countries like Iran are perceived as a threat to international security, we should kill the people in Iran. It is interesting that this group works to support the country of Israel, a bastion of objectivism and self-interest. However, it would be wiser for this group to support the nation of Palestine.

If I may modify a quote from Brunner, “If for some reason some people cannot leave Israel and are against Israeli totalitarianism, they should welcome the destruction of Israel even if it could mean their own death.” It can be seen that Brunner’s ideology can support such atrocious things as suicide bombing and even mass murder—as long as these actions support a “rational self-interest.”

The people of Palestine have a rational self-interest in the destruction of Israel “even if it could mean their own death,” and these people are more like slaves to a totalitarian regime than people in Iran.

The Ayn Rand Club advocates laissez-faire economics and the end of altruism. This is like a neo-Social Darwinist movement. The Social Darwinists advocated laissez-faire economics, which failed in the United States in the 1930s and continues to harm the world wherever it rears its ugly face (consider Africa). Laissez-faire economics also works to oppress an internally colonized people.

Furthermore, without altruism the state of Israel would not exist (consider U.S.-Israeli relations). Rand considers selfishness a virtue and believes that if everyone were to care just about him or herself, we wouldn’t need places like hospitals, health care centers, daycare centers, senior centers or any social institutions, which would lead to bliss and maybe heaven on Earth.

Lastly, if these people truly believed in their ideology, which calls for going to war against Islamic totalitarianism because it’s a threat to the world, they can join the military or become mercenaries. But when it comes to this type of people, they lead by what they say and not by what they do.

Shaun Cunningham
Fourth-year Political Science major

Author of Lonely Soldier coming to UCI this Monday

Flyer (JPG)

A Discussion with Staff Sergeant Adam Harmon, author of "Lonely Soldier - The Memoir of an American in the Israeli Army". The book was "completed as Israel was beginning to disengage from Gaza, [and] is a unique and thrilling glimpse into a revered, yet misunderstood institution that is integral to Middle East peace."

Monday November 6th
12:30 pm lunch
1 pm lecture

HIB (Humanities Instructional Building) Room 135
UC Irvine

Brought to you by UCI's Anteaters for Israel, The Ayn Rand Club, College Republicans, and Young Democrats in conjunction with The Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles

According to the flyer, UCI students and faculty are free; Community members are $8

For more information, contact eshaaya@uci.edu

UPDATE

Per a recent email from AFI, Hillel of Orange County is sponsoring the lunch.