Judge in Paris Hilton Case

[Aggrad02]

Micheal,

Very well put.

--Dustan

[Richard Uhler]

Not only does she act stupidly without consequence.

Examples?

OK, I'm making a value judgement - I tend to view pretty much anything she does as stupid, from letting her sex video get leaked to drunk driving to her public "sorry, I forgot to put underwear on, check me out anyway" appearances to repeatedly violating her probation. And sometimes she speaks. I've read that she never graduated from high school - obviously this hasn't affected her livelihood. If anyone I knew in actual life had dropped out of high school, they'd have spent the past however-many-years working at MacDonald's.

IMO she has a choice to be educated and responsible and mature and she has chosen not to do so because *it just doesn't matter* - she's still secure for life no matter what she does. Most people I know...well, we don't have that kind of elbow-room; misadventures that do not affect this woman's security in the long run would affect our lives and livelihoods for a long time to come. We just don't have the option to screw up.

Maybe it just irritates me that someone can be so famous and so rewarded for doing nothing of real productive value. As I said before, I know that she's managed to shift a lot of product, but...so what? It's crappy product.

To hell with the Hiltons; I'm going to go work on my symphony.

Edited June 10, 2007 by Richard Uhler

[John Dailey]

~ I've little sympathy for Paris...ntl...I've lately acquired some.

~ She was raised, as the saying goes, 'with a silver spoon in her mouth', and was clearly surrounded with 'yes'-people, with her whole environment controlled by her mommy (my impression, so far, anyways.) In effect, she practically fits Rand's ideas re THE COMPRACHICOS, but, with the 'silver spoon'-taught attitude-to-life: a celebrity-cum-princess/monarch. She's clearly been given NO reason in her upbringing to learn about REAL 'life.'

~ NOW she's become a locally-politicized ping-pong ball and really doesn't deserve the total crap she's now getting, media-wise and judge-vs-sheriff-wise.

~ She deserves some 'punishment' to hopefully 'teach' her to learn to 'think twice' next time she allows herself to become careless (about driving, drinking, showing up at court, whatever.) --- But, not THIS crap they're all putting her through. She's an over-aged spoiled 'little girl.' Let's not hang her for how she's been brought up.

LLAP

J:D

[Chris Grieb]

We have had a large number of post about Paris Hilton yet when I first posted about Richard Paey with the exception of Michael Kelley the rest of you said and wrote nothing. Where's the outrage!

I really find your interests more than a little disgusting.

[Aggrad02]

We have had a large number of post about Paris Hilton yet when I first posted about Richard Paey with the exception of Michael Kelley the rest of you said and wrote nothing. Where's the outrage!

I really find your interests more than a little disgusting.

I went an googled Richard Paey and his case is truely outrageous. How did the prosecutors get re-elected after this fiasco. How has he not gotten another trial/or appeal.

Thanks,

Dustan

[Chris Grieb]

The state of Florida believes they have Al Capone in custody. I'm glad to see some interest about the case on Objectivist Living. Letters to the governor would help.

Edited June 10, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Jonathan]

We have had a large number of post about Paris Hilton yet when I first posted about Richard Paey with the exception of Michael Kelley the rest of you said and wrote nothing. Where's the outrage!

I really find your interests more than a little disgusting.

I'm outraged. There. Am I less disgusting now?

The state of Florida believes they have Al Capone in custody. I'm glad to see some interest about the case on Objectivist Living. Letters to the governor would help.

That's not a bad idea, as long as they're not like most letters that I've seen Objectivists share online after writing to people in power:

Dear Governor,

A is A, and Ayn Rand was a genius for having recognized the importance of this. You need to learn to understand it too, since grasping it and fully integrating it is important in how you should act in the Richard Paey case. In order to survive, man must....

J

[Aggrad02]

The state of Florida believes they have Al Capone in custody. I'm glad to see some interest about the case on Objectivist Living. Letters to the governor would help.

I am planning on sending a letter. Here is the address:

Mailing Address:

Office of the Governor

The Capitol

Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

--Dustan

[Chris Grieb]

Jon,

Your Objectivist letter to the Governor brought back memories. I would recommend emphasizing that he was not selling any illegal drugs. That Richard Paey was getting the drugs because he had terrible pain.

As I have said before I'm glad to see the response.

[Dragonfly]

The springboard for the story was the collapse of Ivar Kreuger—or, more precisely, the public reaction to that collapse.

On March 12, 1932, Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish "Match King," committed suicide. His death was followed by the crash of the vast financial empire he had created, and by the revelation that that empire was a gigantic fraud. He had been a mysterious figure, a "lone weft," celebrated as a man of genius, of unswerving determination and spectacular audacity. His fall was like an explosion that threw up a storm of dust and muck—a storm of peculiarly virulent denunciations.

It was not his shady methods, his ruthlessness, his dishonesty that were being denounced, but his ambition. His ability, his self-confidence, the glamorous aura of his life and name were featured, exaggerated, overstressed, to serve as fodder for the hordes of envious mediocrities rejoicing at his downfall. It was a spree of gloating malice. Its leitmotif was not: "How did he fall?" but: "How did he dare to rise?" Had there been a world press at the time of Icarus and Phaethon, this was the kind of obituary they would have received.

In fact, Ivar Kreuger was a man of unusual ability who had, at first, made a fortune by legitimate means; it was his venture into politics—mixed, economy politics—that destroyed him. Seeking a world monopoly for his match industry, he began to give large loans to various European governments in exchange for a monopoly status in their countries—loans which were not repaid, which he could not collect and which led him to a fantastic juggling of his assets and bookkeeping in order to conceal his losses. In the final analysis, it was not Kreuger who profiteered on the ruin of the investors he had swindled; the profiteers were sundry European governments. (But when governments pursue such policies, it is not called a swindle: it is called "deficit financing.")

At the time of Kreuger's death, it was not the political aspects of his story that interested me, but the nature of those public denunciations. It was not a crook that they were denouncing, but greatness as such; it was greatness as such that I wanted to defend.

This, then, was my assignment in Night of January 16th: to dramatize the sense of life that was vaguely symbolized by Ivar Kreuger, and set it against the sense of life blatantly revealed by his attackers.

This is eerily reminescent of Rand's admiration for the murderer Hickman. You can read the sordid and revealing story in this article by Michael Prescott. How reliable is Rand's statement that the public didn't denounce the crook but "greatness as such"? She said something very similar about Hickman, and Prescott has convincingly shown how utterly false that was. So why should we believe her about Kreuger? In the light of the Hickman story we should take her statements about the cause of public indignation with a large amount of salt. She was a bit too prone to see greatness in criminals and crooks.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I know I said I was all talked about about Paris Hilton, but Barbara Walters just had a telephone conversation with her. She had to call Walters collect from jail. Here is the article:

EXCLUSIVE: Hilton Calls Barbara Walters From Jail -- 'God Has Released Me'

By BARBARA WALTERS

June 11, 2007

ABC News

There is a temptation to make a few snide remarks about the tragedy of only being able to choose between orange and brown jail garments, not have a cell phone or not be able to use makeup for a month or so, but, as a student of human nature, I just saw a more important thing to look at. Hilton made an uncommonly revealing remark to Barbara Walters (from the article):

"I'm not the same person I was," she said. "I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute. It is not who I am, nor do I want to be that person for the young girls who looked up to me."

She always knew exactly what she was doing in relation to fooling people by her own admission. When I add this to a few other elements, I do see something worth observing over time. As I mentioned above, when the rich grow up as spoiled kids, they think they are better than everyone by right (or by metaphysics), not by merit. This is true even when they plunge to the depths of incarceration.

The article mentioned what changes are happening in Hilton's spiritual and moral outlook. The results are also revealing. I am setting aside the shallowness of what was reported because Hilton is not used to being told "No!" The experience was traumatic (I'm serious, not joking), so the immediate impact can be no other than a search for meaning and promises to do good. She will drift to superficial or well-known spiritual sources and her promises will be sappy simply because she is not of the world of redemption. She is a total beginner. More from the article about this:

"I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance."

. . .

She said she would like to help in the fields of breast cancer — her grandmother had breast cancer — or multiple sclerosis. Her father's mother suffers from that disease.

She thought she might get toy companies to build a kind of Paris Hilton playhouse, where sick children might come, and the toy companies could donate toys.

She has had a person whom she described as a spiritual adviser who said, "My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail."

She is reading newspapers — The LA Times and the Wall Street Journal — and books like "The Secret," "The Power of Now" and the Bible.

The article mentioned right after this that she can play ping pong in jail. I would not mention this, but the metaphor is bludgeoning me over the head like a sledge hammer.

Back to the issue. Despite the trauma and the current sappy reactions, Hilton is searching for meaning and I believe she does intend to clean up her act. However, I believe it will be in a manner peculiar to her psychology and will be on the surface, just like everything spiritual about her is.

I believe the mask will return. She will go back to fooling people to satisfy her whims and she will continue to believe she is inherently better than others. Since she is on a spiritual quest of sorts, I am almost certain she will find moral justification for doing both and her public act will become more sophisticated, but not change in the essence. Instead of dumb, I will be looking to see if "innocent" later pops up in her public image with Biblical verses (or quotes from The Secret, etc.) to back it.

This has started already. Notice that Hilton believes that she did not go to jail by the hand of others because she screwed up and violated the law. She believes she put herself in jail—her "spiritual self" was asserting itself for her own betterment and the police and courts were merely the instruments. She cannot admit to herself that others have power over her or a moral/legal standing that she needs to learn.

This is not a very Objectivist issue, nor a particularly Objectivist manner of seeing human nature, but it is refreshing for me to do this after some recent heavy diving in Objectivist literature. Also, this manner of observing human nature is true and valuable for being able to judge people. I will be watching to see how it bears out in Hilton's case. After all, she's out there in public because she wants to be seen. So I look.

Michael

[John Dailey]

~ Did anyone (aka 'they') ever find Jimmy Hoffa yet?

LLAP

J:D

[Chris Grieb]

John; Jimmy Hoffa shares a cottage with Elvis in the Caymans. Satisfied!

[John Dailey]

Chris:

~ Uh, no. That's news to me. I didn't know Elvis 'left the building' where he was frozen. Thought he was chillin' with Disney. Can't even count on mainstream Enquirer news anymore!

LLAP

J:D

[Chris Grieb]

John; I get all my news from News of the World. Me and the baby that just got rescued from the Titanic.

[Barbara Branden]

Also it seems the people who hate/wish her to be humiliated are jealous. Why else would you get pleasure from this. If someone is self-confident then they shouldn't be affected by the Paris Hiltons of the world.

For everyone who is getting pleasure out of this can you please tell me why? Is it because you are jealous of her attractiveness, her wealth, her publicity? Are you transferring you hate of someone like her from your high school days?

Dustan

Dustan, I agree with you. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm almost ready to mount the barricades in defense of Paris Hilton -- but not because of any particular virtues I see in her, but because of vices I see in the incredible malice that is being directed at her. (I am not referring to posters here.) On television news, there is so much gloating, so much venom, so much pleasure being taken in the spectacle of a wealthy and beautiful young woman being humiliated, that it has become stomach-turning. Can you imagine this happening if she were poor and black but were equally irresponsible? Never!

Barbara

[Chris Grieb]

Barbara;

I not ready to mount the barricades by a long shot. However it goes without saying that there is a great deal of envy in the attacks on Miss Hilton.

Judging from things I've heard about the Hilton family I wonder if the family might have a genetic predisposition for alcoholism.

I must also add that I wish the cable news networks would find something else to cover.

Edited June 29, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I must also add that I wish the cable news networks would find something else to cover.

Chris,

Anna Nicole Smith?

Michael

[Mark Hyde]

ok she aint got too much up top, but she looks OK, eh? :baby: