Joseph Dobrian's Blog

In my last blog post, I asserted that in this country at least, the Left has a near-monopoly on the use of force to break up meetings or prevent certain viewpoints from being expressed publicly. I stand by that, but that is not to say that the Right is much more respectful of the concept of “freedom of speech.” Contempt for that concept is common among Americans, and expression of that contempt is usually preceded by, “I’m all for free speech, but…”

It’s useless to pretend that we really have free speech or a free press in the U.S. Our Federal government allows greater freedom of expression than do most other national governments, but that freedom is steadily being chipped away, usually to the applause of a large percentage of the populace. Just about everybody opposes free speech somehow, whether they want to censor anything to do with sex or scatology, or ban “hate speech,” or forbid criticism of a certain political party. Only a very few of us are free speech absolutists.

On the other hand, almost nobody who opposes freedom of speech is willing to say, “I oppose freedom of speech.” To say so, in the minds of many who do in fact oppose free speech, would be as dangerous as saying, “I see nothing wrong with having sex with children.”

I can understand why anyone would be afraid to make the latter assertion, even if he sincerely believed it. That position is so unpopular that if he said it, he would risk social ostracism, criminal investigation, and perhaps prosecution. But why are so many Americans afraid to say, “I oppose free speech,” when that position is manifestly popular, and when many Canadians and Europeans make that very statement with impunity?

This question presented itself to me yesterday, when I got into a conversation with someone who said, in all seriousness, that criminal charges should be lodged against right-wing propagandists Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, and perhaps others, for “incitement to violence.”

“Can you show me,” I asked him, “where any of those people ever exhorted people to commit violent crimes? Much less, can you show me where someone, because he heard such an exhortation, went and committed a violent crime? Or are you in fact urging criminal prosecution for speech that you find offensive?”

“Like proving the existence of death panels and the lack of Obama’s birth certificate, I don’t need to prove anything,” he said. “I just need to ask those questions. Like why do some of those callers into Beck’s and Limbaugh’s show feed off each other, to the point where a man infuriated by an Obama sticker rams repeatedly into an SUV with a little girl in it? Freedom of speech is one thing, but people advocating violence need to re-assess their roles in the current situation.”

To this response, I had to point out that he was still evading my questions, and that he hadn’t actually asked any of his own. Instead, he’d stated affirmatively that Beck, et al., should be prosecuted for their speech. I’d asked him to show me where they’d incited violence, and he would not.

“You’re actually advocating prosecution of speech that you think is offensive or that might influence opinions in a direction that you don’t like,” I told him. “It’s a simple question, and I’ll ask it again: Did any of those people you list ever exhort people to commit violent crimes?”

“You never change a man’s mind by arguing with him,” he replied, and I had to force back the urge to suggest that somebody wasn’t acting much like a man.

Instead, I said, “I’m not arguing: just stating your position a little more honestly than you’re willing to, yourself.”

At this point my interlocutor just said, “Done with ya, bro,” and walked away from the conversation.

Now, here’s what I found remarkable: He could have answered me. He could have said, “No, not in so many words, they didn’t — and maybe I spoke hastily when I said they should be prosecuted; I didn’t really mean that.” In that case, I’d not have thought the less of him; in fact I’d have respected him more. Or he could have said, “No, not in so many words, they didn’t — but, yes: I favor criminalization of speech that might tend to inflame.” In that case, I’d have had fun trying to get him to define his terms and propose his limits.

Instead, he kicked over the chessboard and ran away. It was his perception, correct or not, that he was going to lose face no matter how he answered my question.

We all hate to admit that we’ve said something wrong or stupid; I know I do. Even though we know deep down that admitting a mistake tends to minimize or prevent damage, we won’t do it, because our pride’s at stake. But I don’t think that’s what was going on here. I think this fellow really does oppose freedom of speech, really does think there should be prior restraint against certain types of speech, really does think that certain political speech should be criminalized.

So why wouldn’t he say so? He wouldn’t have faced social ostracism; plenty of people agree with him. What was he afraid of?

I think he was afraid of what he’d think of himself. If you come right out and say “I oppose free speech,” you’ll have to admit certain things about yourself, to yourself — and those admissions are not pleasant for most people.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

Ann Coulter is an evil clown, not a serious political commentator. She’s willfully ignorant and deliberately offensive. If I were a Republican, I’d be dying of embarrassment at the thought that anyone could take her seriously. As I’m a Libertarian, I can look upon her with amused toleration most of the time, and with disgust the rest of the time. But no matter how deeply her pronunciations and her demeanor might sometimes disgust me, it’s not a patch on how I feel about the people who succeeded, last night, in preventing her from speaking at the University of Ottawa.

I’m a free-speech absolutist. I’m not one of these people who says, “I believe in free speech, but…” But NOTHING. We have laws to punish libel and slander; we have criminal penalties if it can be proven that the speech in question caused a crime, or contributed to it. But prior restraint? Never.

That goes for extra-legal attempts to suppress speech, too — such as using the threat of force or violence to prevent Ms. Coulter from speaking. To my mind, that’s impermissible behavior, and conceivably criminal. It certainly constitutes the initiation of force, the opposition to which is the single most important principle of Libertarianism. It is sickening to me — literally, it slightly nauseates me — to see a scheduled lecture or mass meeting prevented by a mob, or to see a speaker disrupted by demonstrators whose only objective is to disrupt and suppress, rather than debate. The fact that in this case the demonstrators were egged on by the university’s provost, François Houle, makes him and them even more despicable.

(Yes, I’m aware that M. Houle wrote privately to Ms. Coulter, threatening her with prosecution for politically incorrect speech, but I can’t for an instant believe that he didn’t expect her to publish the letter.)

I’m not going to get into a discussion of whether there should be limits to legally permissible speech, nor am I going to make a case defending what I’ve just said about these demonstrators. If I could work my will, people who use force or the threat of it to prevent someone from making a presentation of the type that was suppressed last night should flogged so that they’d never sit down or lie on their backs comfortably again, and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

What I am going to do, though, is posit that demonstrators of this type are almost invariably of the Left — or at any rate they are people who would classify themselves as “liberal” or “progressive” or “enlightened” or “interested in social justice.” And almost invariably, these people mob up in order to suppress any message that they consider “intolerant” or “bigoted.” Now, that’s funny, isn’t it?

Cast your mind back over the years, and you’ll find I’m right. Excepting the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, how often, in the past 50 years or so, have you heard of a left-wing speaker being forced by mob action to cancel her presentation? Almost never. How often, on the other hand, have you heard of incidents similar to what befell la Coulter, perpetrated on other righties? How often have you heard of conservative campus newspapers being stolen and destroyed? How often have you heard of meetings interrupted, speakers shouted down, if the meeting’s agenda or the speaker’s message is deemed politically incorrect by enlightened liberals? Pretty often, right?

Right-wingers might picket. They might demonstrate. They might heckle a bit. They might protest an opinion by turning their backs or walking out. But no matter how mean-minded or pig-ignorant they are, they generally protest without the threat of force or violence. They don’t seek to stop a speaker from going on. We can argue all we like about which political positions are the more virtuous, but that’s not the point of this post. My point is that the kind of behavior we saw last night is almost exclusively the property of the Left — and it’s shameful that we hear so few on the Left condemning it.

Why can’t these “progressive” and “tolerant” people confine themselves to silent protest? Why can’t they express their contempt for a jerk like Ms. Coulter by simply shunning her? Why can’t they, at least, confine themselves to the occasional wisecrack from the galleries, if they feel compelled to sit through her speech?

Because their objective is CONTROL. Their objective is to make others live the way they think people ought to live. And that means forcibly preventing people from hearing anything that ought not to be heard. They know better than we do. I suppose we ought to thank them.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

The first time I looked at a map of the world, at the age of six, I was astonished to observe that there were, apparently, two Indias, two Chinas, and so on. Just as amazing to me was to see that Greenland was considerably bigger than the United States — almost twice as big — and that the United States could fit several times into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (which in those days we simply called “Russia”), and that Antarctica was bigger than all the other land masses in the world, all put together.

I hadn’t been told, of course, that a Mercator projection map distorts the size of land masses, making them smaller at the equator and much, much larger at the poles. This fact was made clear to me not long after, when I was shown the world on a globe. But what really blew my mind was the idea that there were two Asias in the world.

This map that I was looking at was clearly produced for an American audience, for it placed the United States in the dead center, longitudinally speaking, with Europe to the right and Asia — or one of the two Asias, anyway — to the left. Because of this placement, there was some overlap. That is to say, parts of Asia showed up both on the extreme left side of the map, and the extreme right. But that idea was too much for my infantile mind to grasp — or perhaps it just pleased me to come up with a bizarre explanation. At any rate, I got the idea that there were in fact two Asias, two cities called Shanghai, two cities called Dacca, etc., and that they were existing in parallel. For all I knew, those double cities each had the same people living in them, in duplicate.

I also noticed that the country of India, in outline, looked like a very fat woman dressed in veils, dancing on her toes.

The names of the countries, some of them, presented problems to me, because like a lot of children of that age I could read well enough, but pronunciation was sometimes beyond me. Thus, at one point, I looked up from the map and called to my mother, “Mom, if ‘nigger’ is such a bad word, how come there’s a country called Nigger [Niger]?” It’s a good thing my mother explained the difference in spelling and pronunciation before I looked at Niger’s immediate neighbor, Nigeria. If I hadn’t known better, I’d surely have pronounced it with a hard G, and the stress on the third syllable, as though Nigeria were a physical disorder that involved the copious and uncontrolled discharge of…never mind.

Once those various confusions were cleared up, it became wonderful to me how dramatically my interest in the world was changed just by looking at a picture of it. Once I’d spent a couple of hours poring over the map, I had a good general idea of where everything was in the world, and I started reading more than just the funny pages in the daily paper. I started reading the articles, and their datelines, and obtained a pretty good grasp of world politics and current events even before I’d finished the first grade.

One confusion that took a little time to clear up was the comparison of this map to other maps that I subsequently encountered in school. These maps were somewhat older, so instead of north-central Africa being divided up into various countries, on these maps that part of Africa was represented as just one huge blob of green, called “French West Africa.” It took a little research to find out why that was.

Not long after that, I was exposed to maps of Europe, as they appeared pre-World War II, and pre-World War I. It started to sink in that the world was not, after all, a very stable place. It occurred to me also that if only the Habsburg Empire had managed to hold together, I would not have had to learn to spell Czechoslovakia.

And in any case I could not understand why any country that had the good luck to be ruled by an Emperor, in all his finery (such as Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany) would deliberately choose some other form of government. As far as I was concerned, if you didn’t have a monarch wonderfully attired, and opulent coaches for him to ride in, and brightly uniformed troops to march alongside, you were a second-rate country indeed.

That’s by the way. My point is that just a few minutes of looking at a map of the world, and asking a few questions, turned out to be more educational than anything I ever did in a classroom. That’s a lesson that gets reinforced over and over, in childhood.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

In commemoration of Hungary’s uprising against the Habsburg Empire in 1848, I’m going to talk about one of my favorite royals of all time: Ferdinand I Karl Leopold Joseph Franz Marchlin, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and other titles and styles.

So far as I know, nobody has ever written a biography of him — not even a scholarly article on his life and reign, let alone a book — although he was the Habsburg Emperor for 13 years, and lived through some of the most interesting and turbulent years of Central European history. I would love to tackle that job myself, and as soon as I can get a commission to write it, I will.

Ferdinand was the Yogi Berra of monarchs, only without the talent: a man known for his unwitting wit, although some observers insisted that he was just intelligent enough to sometimes be clever on purpose. He was one of those Habsburgs who was the unfortunate product of consanguinity: in other words, physically malformed and mentally retarded. He did keep a coherent diary for most of his life (he lived from 1793 to 1875), but apparently he wasn’t bright enough to do much more than that. He once remarked, “Ruling is easy; it’s signing my name that’s difficult.”

People who have heard of him at all, probably know the most famous story about him: Once, when he’d been expecting dumplings for dinner and none had been prepared, he sternly commanded, “I am the Emperor, and I want dumplings!” (“Ich bin Kaiser, und ich will Knödel!”)

Some reports have it that he was referring to apricot dumplings, which weren’t served because apricots were out of season, in which case presumably the Imperial edict would have gone temporarily unfulfilled, but it’s likely that he’d have dealt with the situation philosophically. By all accounts Ferdinand was a nice man, if dim. His attendants learned not to let him carry cash when he went out, because he’d give it away to anyone who looked like he needed it. His defenders called him “Ferdinand der Gütige” (Ferdinand the Good), but others — especially when he was forced to abdicate in 1848 — called him “Gutinand der Fertige” (Goodinand the Finished).

Because of his low intelligence, Ferdinand didn’t originate policy as Emperor, and he left almost all of the governing to his foreign minister, Prince Metternich. When Europe was wracked by various revolutions in 1848, and he was told that the peasants were marching on the palace to demand reform, Ferdinand asked in astonishment, “Are they allowed to do that?” For once, he overruled Metternich, and decreed that popular demands should be met as much as possible — but unfortunately for him, one of their demands was that a more competent monarch be installed. So, Ferdinand turned the throne over to his nephew, Franz Josef, who proceeded to rule for 68 years, and not very competently.

In his diary, Ferdinand described the abdication thus: “The affair ended with the new Emperor kneeling before his old Emperor and Lord, that is to say, me, and asking for a blessing, which I gave him, laying both hands on his head and making the sign of the Holy Cross … then I embraced him and kissed our new master, and then we went to our room. Afterward I and my dear wife heard Holy Mass … After that I and my dear wife packed our bags.”

Ferdinand was exiled to a castle in Prague, where he lived comfortably for many years, building his personal fortune: It’s said that he was surprisingly talented when it came to playing the stock market. After the Habsburg Empire had lost some territory in its war with Prussia in 1866, Ferdinand is said to have asked, “Is that what I abdicated for? I could have lost those provinces myself!”

“Decent” and “harmless” may be two adjectives loaded with faint praise, but they’re not bad attributes for a monarch, and Lord knows the world has seen worse ones than Ferdinand.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

We still see headline after headline, in the newspapers and on the Web, about golfer Tiger Woods’ infidelities, his apologies therefor, and his wife’s disgruntlement and the degree thereof. It’s been going on far longer than is usual for press coverage of a mere marital infidelity: longer than just about any analogous story that I can recall save for that of the affair between Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. From the scandalized noises people have been making, one might think that Mr. Woods had invented marital infidelity, that this was the first time most of us had ever heard of the subject, and that the idea was so alien and revolting that it ought to be treated as a matter of psychopathology rather than ordinary human behavior.

Why?

Why, for example, was Mr. Woods obliged to enter some sort of inpatient treatment program for “sex addiction”? Ordinarily, if a man cheats on his wife, and she catches him, she either shrugs it off, or forgives him after some shouting and tears, or begins divorce proceedings. Whatever her choice, it’s usually not accompanied by such an absurd amount of hand-wringing and boohooing by the media and the public as we’ve seen in this case — not even if the transgressor is a celebrity. And his infidelity is not branded a disease on the same order as alcoholism or compulsive overeating. Last time I looked, most men — straight or gay — would gladly have multiple partners if they could get away with it, and this is regarded by most sensible people as merely a normal manly desire. How did common horniness get to be pathologized to this degree, and why?

You might suggest that it’s because of the sheer volume of Mr. Woods’ transgressions, but I don’t buy that. Here’s a guy with more money than he could possibly spend in a lifetime, fairly physically attractive, with a likable personality. Add it up, and he’s a guy who can have all the broads he wants. Well, apparently he wants a lot of them. Most men only wish they were so attractive to women — and if they were, most would take full advantage and not be tarred with the epithet “addict.” Seems to me that Mr. Woods is behaving pretty normally; it’s just his opportunities that are abnormal.

Could it be that those who most vehemently condemn Mr. Woods are objecting not so much to his infidelities, as to the people with whom he commits adultery? I’ve seen the pictures. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an assembly of fake breasts, doctored faces, and slutty attire. (But perhaps I lead a sheltered life. In fact I know I do.) These are just not, to my mind, women with whom a sensible man would want to spend five minutes — even if those minutes were spent naked and horizontal. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks, “It’s not his fooling around that bothers me — but fooling around with THAT sort?”

Rather meanly, I suspect that part of the outrage has also to do with the attractiveness of Mrs. Woods. She is, beyond dispute, a beauty — and a blonde one besides. A nymph-like golden-headed innocent betrayed by a wealthy and powerful man will inevitably attract more sympathy than would a fat, frumpy, older woman, about whom most people would say (or at least think), “If I were married to her, I’d play around too — every chance I got!”

I find it impossible to believe that Elin Woods didn’t know what she was getting into when she married her husband. She was, and is, a woman of some sophistication; she knows the world. No doubt she was aware of Mr. Woods’ appetites, at least to some extent, before they got married; no doubt she was aware that he was very likely to be unfaithful to her. Perhaps the extent of his infidelities were a surprise to her, but the plain fact of adultery — unless I drastically misjudge her — could not have been.

Moreover, I find it impossible to believe that the Woods’ union was not based more on pragmatism than romance. That’s fine. I believe that in some ways a marriage should be considered a business proposition. But let’s not pretend that that wasn’t what was going on. Did Mr. and Mrs. Woods ever love each other? Do they now? I can’t say. But at least in great part, she married him for financial reasons and he married her for the sake of his image. I can’t prove that, but I believe it; I can’t not believe it.

Furthermore, I doubt that any but the most deliberately naïve or obtuse observers could fail to believe it. And now that I think about it — having observed over many years the behavior of the most dedicated fans of professional golf — I have to say to myself, “Okay: that explains the outcry.” Probably if Mr. Woods were a baseball or football player, hardly anyone would care.

- Joseph Dobrian

I’m one of the best-dressed people I know. No false modesty here. I’m not the best-dressed, partly because I can’t afford a really top-of-the-line tailor, and partly because I inevitably wear a little cat-hair, which some people believe is not in good taste if you’re a serious man of business. And some people would assert that I’m not well-dressed at all, because if I were, my clothes would not attract attention.

I would not advise most men to dress like me. If your profession calls for emphatically plain, ultra-conservative business attire, my look is not for you. If you don’t like it when strangers remark on your attire, ditto. Still, a lot of people have told me, over the years, that they wish they could dress like me (or wished they had the nerve to dress like me), and quite a few women have told me they wished more men would do so. As a public service, therefore, I’ll list just a few choices I make in putting myself together that I consider crucial. Some of these choices definitely break the rules-but it’s usually okay to break rules if you know you’re doing so, and why.

I consider cowboy boots perfectly acceptable for business. Most men look great in cowboy boots-more macho, more domineering-because of the pointed toe and the slight heel. No laces, so you get a cleaner look. And you never have to worry about the color or the condition of your socks!

President George H.W. Bush (“Bush 41″) favored cowboy boots with a business suit. He didn’t wear a bowler hat, as I do, but “Doc” Holliday and “Bat” Masterson did.

I always wear a hat-and for business, it’s almost always a bowler. It’s the first thing people notice about me, and it’s how they remember me: “The guy with the hat.” Many fashion experts say men should not wear hats with business attire, because they’re outdated and look silly. That’s nonsense. Certainly most men would feel uncomfortable wearing a bowler to work, but a good-quality fur felt fedora (not cheap wool felt) will lend authority to any man.

Most experts on business dress decree that your suit should be either blue or grey. Period. Maybe a tan suit in summer, but that’s it. In general I agree. But I sometimes break that rule and wear black, or white linen in summer. A man can’t carry off a black suit unless he’s distinguished-looking to begin with. To wear white, on the other hand, you have to have a hint of jocularity about your overall attire. (Think of Mark Twain, or James Whistler.)

I dress stylishly, not fashionably, and the key to that policy is to get your suits tailor-made. If you know where to go, you can get custom-tailored suits and shirts for not much more than you’d pay for off-the-rack, and they’re more economical in the long run.

Custom-made suits and shirts will last longer. Off-the-rack suits usually have some styling detail that will make them look dated in a couple of years, so that you have to give them to Goodwill and buy new ones. My standard “Joseph of Iowa” suit consists of a double-breasted jacket with roped shoulders, a waistcoat that buttons higher than usual, and trousers with a very long rise. You could never buy such a suit in a store. It’s emphatically different from modern standards, but it borrows ideas here and there from the past 100 years or so.

Because I have established this retro look, my clothes will always look current-for me-and thus I have suits I’ve worn for 20 years.

If you want to look your best, your clothes have to fit. Got one shoulder slightly higher than the other, as I have? Your tailor can take that into account. Got narrow shoulders and a big belly? An oversized butt? Do you walk with a stoop? Want to make your short neck look longer or your long neck shorter? A good tailor can’t change your build, but he can camouflage it.

Most critical, perhaps, is the fit of your shirt collar. Mortimer Levitt, the late founder of The Custom Shop chain of haberdasheries, once told me that the average man thinks his proper collar size is a full inch smaller than it actually is-so he buys his shirts accordingly, and strangles himself. That’s why men hate to wear ties, and look for any excuse to unbutton the top button of their shirts. If your shirt collar fits, you won’t even notice that you’re wearing a tie.

Probably next most critical are the length of your jacket sleeves and your trouser legs. Your jacket sleeves should show about a quarter-inch of shirt cuff when you’re standing straight with your arms at your sides. Asian men, especially, tend to wear their jacket sleeves half-covering their hands. They’d look more businesslike in a kimono.

To get the right length to your trouser legs-breaking over your shoe-tops but not enveloping them-always, always, wear suspenders. Never a belt. This is elementary, and yet so few men know what a huge difference suspenders make. For one thing, if you wear suspenders, you’ll want to buy your trousers bigger in the waist, and with a longer rise, which makes them more comfortable. That is, you’ll be wearing them higher-the top of the waistband just under your ribcage-and loose enough that they’d slide off if you didn’t have suspenders. Thus, your trousers will hang straight down your legs, and always to the length you want.

(If you wear a belt, your trousers will inch downwards, the bottoms will bunch up and flow over your shoes so you’ll tread on them, your gut will hang over your waistband, and you’ll look like a slob. Got it?)

I avoid dark shirts. Colored shirts are fine, but they should always be of a light color. Wear a dark shirt with a business suit and you’ll look like you haven’t quite grown up yet. And never, ever let your shirt be darker than your tie unless you’re actually trying to pass for a low-ranking Mafioso.

Carry two handkerchiefs: one for show and one for blow. Your for-show handkerchief can be plain white linen, folded to form a line across the breast pocket of your jacket, as President Ronald Reagan did, or you may use a colored silk square-usually of a color that relates to your tie-loosely stuffed into your breast pocket. I often choose a pocket square that relates not to the main color of my tie, but to an accent color. For example, if I’m wearing a blue tie with red and yellow stripes, I might choose either a red or a yellow hankie. Never wear a handkerchief that exactly matches your tie.

Finally, don’t fear to experiment. Sometimes you’ll buy a shirt or tie that doesn’t look as good on you as it did in the store. Those are your “fashion failures,” and you may give them away with a clear conscience. As you gain experience, you’ll have fewer of those-and more compliments, if you’re vain enough to care about such things.

-Joseph Dobrian