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Dave Chappelle and the Death of Free Speech
With apologies for my prolonged absence from Ricochet, I wanted to call the members’ attention to my most recent contribution at The Pipeline, in which I address the Dave Chappelle incident at the Hollywood Bowl and the death of free speech. An excerpt:
In comedy’s long history, practitioners of the trade have been cloaked with what was once known as the “jester’s privilege,” a certain license that protected them from consequences when they made an observation that, from another’s lips, would have been viewed as transgressive. As should now be obvious to all, the jester’s privilege is dead.
I also address the issue of the appropriate charges against Chappelle’s alleged attacker, Isaiah Lee. There has been much criticism of Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascón for his refusal to file felony charges against Lee, and loath as I am to defend Gascón, in this case he is an example of the proverbial stopped clock. Under California law, the attack did not amount to a felony.
If anyone has further questions about the charges against Lee, I’ll be happy to engage in the comments.
Published in General
Well you are right that I have no problem with life for theft.
It is pretty simple: Don’t go into someone’s car and take their stuff. Again, 12 year old knows not to do this.
If we lock up the actual criminals, then there will be less crime, because they won’t be on the streets. Criminals don’t just do it once, they do it over and over. I want my car to be safe from being looted. Ergo, I want looters removed from society.
I’d also be open to allowing me to use deadly force to protect my property. I catch the thief, I can shoot him in the head. Stealing from me takes away not only my stuff, but the time I took to buy it, and my sense of security and safety. People doing that to others are not fit to be among us.
All a lack of prosecution this man does is send the signal that it is OK to attack people. In LA, I can walk up to someone and hit them, but I guess as long as they are successful in fending me off, no harm, no foul.
Statutes contain a definition of the crime. Elements of that crime are contained in the statutes as are allowable defenses to that crime. On January 1 statutes may change due to legislative actions.
When I was on the streets, we were issued a new copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes on January 1. When I made an arrest for an offense, I would list the applicable statute or statutes in the case of multiple offenses in my Incident Report. There was a copy of the ORS in my “war bag”.
A copy of the Incident Report is sent to the DA’s office. Any property that I seized would include a Property Receipt. The DA’s office and the suspect receive a copy of the Property Receipt. Property Receipts are part of the Chain of Custody process.
The DA’s office can add charges or subtract charges based upon the Incident Report. Plea deals can and do come into play. A judge has to approve a plea deal.
Based upon my experiences on the street’s laws do not prevent crimes. Laws provide a consistent process to prosecute crimes.
The problem with the Soros prosecutors is in many cases they are inconsistent in their duties. They act as advocates for the criminal rather than the victim. The criminal has an advocate, a defense attorney. This has led to rising crime rates, public mistrust and anger, as well as alienating relations between officers and the DA’s office in cities across the US.
There are many reasons to desire the removal of Gascon but the Dave Chappelle incident is not one that should be on that list for removal.
It is mind boggling to me that someone can charge a stage, with a deadly weapon on their person, and that is not a felony. The only reason he did not end up with a felony, is that private security pounced. What this says that in LA, if someone attacks me on the street and I am lucky enough not to get hurt, nothing will really happen to the guy. We will wait until he actually does a lot of damage to someone and then we might take action.
Those are sick laws.
Ahhhh . . . that makes sense!
It still seems like commiting a crime while in possession of a weapon makes it worse, brandish or not . . .
But grapefruit can sting the eyes and cause long-lasting discomfort.
But you can accidentally kill someone with a single blow, even in friendly combat. It happens. Unfriendly combat is deliberately endangering a person’s life even if you haven’t thought about it.
Or we could chop their hands off like the Islamic extremists do.
Once again, the problem is not the laws but the people enforcing the laws. America got along very well for generations with the fine distinctions that you seem to deplore and wish to dispense with–felony vs. misdemeanor, assault vs. assault and battery, varying degrees of seriousness of the preceding, and distinctions between use of a weapon, possession of a weapon, and so on.
And speaking of the people enforcing (or not enforcing) the laws, have you noticed the sharp increase in people arrested for serious felonies who were out on bail for other serious felonies? And the increasingly brazen criminals who admit that they are now unafraid of arrest and prosecution? We have plenty of laws. We lack politicians and officials willing to enforce those laws.
Criminals should be locked up.
Right and wrong is easy in most cases. People should pay.
Exactly.
In California, there are sentence enhancements for various scenarios involving weapons. Additional time can be added to a sentence upon conviction of certain crimes if the defendant is found to have possessed or used a deadly weapon, or if a co-principal possessed or used one. See here, for example.
The distric attorney, who doesn’t care about them.
Yes that seems to be the case. Twice I was manhandled by not wearing a mask in a store. I had already mentally rehearsed that no matter what was done to me, I would not touch any store mgr or store employee. Because my grabbing them back would be seen as assault. Their grabbing me, which involved their being six inches away, not six feet, seemed ridiculous since if they really thought an unmasked human was a plague carrier, wouldn’t they obey the 6 feet rule?
But then, none of it made sense.
Basically, “touching equalss assault, if the person being touched has some shield of authority, like store mgr. Or being a police officer.
We as mere civilians aren’t allowed the same provisions.
I appreciate the info about the law and why Isaiah Lee wasn’t charged with a felony.
It’s funny that no one has mentioned Lee was a rapper who wrote a pro-Trump song, “Maga my n**ga” (sic). According to Chappelle himself, Lee said the attack was to bring attention to his grandmother who lost her home to “gentrification.” This seems like some mentally ill guy trying to get attention.
Lee was beaten to a pulp and has been charged with a crime. Will Smith tanked his career with that slap. Assaulting comedians is not being incentivized.
It remains to be seen what will become of Will Smith’s career, but I’d be surprised to see that it has tanked. I’m sure that even now the rehabilitation campaign is being orchestrated, which of course will feature the tearful interview with some hand-picked interviewer. If Hollywood thinks he can put fannies in the seats, his career will be just fine.
Nah–simply locking people up can be unjust. For theft crimes, I’m much more in favor of requiring restitution on the biblical model (seriously). A repentant thief should be required to repay to the offended party in full, plus 20% (Lev. 6:4-5), and an unrepentant one should be required to repay up to 5x the cost of the theft. If he cannot pay, then his wages should be garnished as long as it takes to make the offended whole. If he will not work, then other more drastic measures should be taken, but all those measures should be geared to restoring the offended party. Chuck Colson has written beautifully on this topic: https://www.regent.edu/acad/schlaw/student_life/studentorgs/lawreview/docs/issues/v10/10RegentULRev1.pdf
It has been reported that Dave Chappelle is paid about US$20 million per Netflix special.
In other words, the jester privilege ain’t quite dead yet.
Furthermore, everything I’ve read about the attacker (Isaiah Lee) suggests his cerebral wiring ain’t installed properly and the attack was no more politically-significant than the murder of John Lennon.
i.e. Just another crazy person obsessed with a celebrity.
Smith has spent decades crafting his public image. His career is built on it. He’s not a Daniel Day Lewis who can get by just on his acting skills. He’s a capital-c Celebrity. Keeping in the public’s eye by say appearing at awards shows is a big part of his branding. He’s made Tik Toks and/or Instagram posts from the Oscars. He also likes to make the occasional prestige movie and that’s going to be less appealing without the possibility of an Academy Award.
He’s fashioned himself an affable, upstanding good guy with broad appeal and that image is in jeopardy probably for the first time in his career. This incident has brought newfound attention to his marriage woes, which weren’t hidden before but are now under a microscope. The opportunity costs are what will probably haunt him since he’s unlikely to know all the projects he’ll get passed on.
Is this the last time Will Smith will star in a movie? Of course not. Can his career recover from this? Yes, he’s shown plenty of savvy up to this point, but it’s going to be work. That stupid outburst cost him a lot.
As I recall, only about one in a hundred burglaries is solved, so under restitution the burglar gets to keep 99% of the loot, and has to pay back 1%.
Not much of a deterrent, I think!
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/man-who-attacked-dave-chappelle-charged-with-attempted-murder-for-unrelated-stabbing-of-roommate/?fbclid=IwAR0QUJpLNdI7gTsuI6b2qRSBJCNpfJXNYwSKDSXnz6pdpekwk__SI_Z9Dh8