After weeks and weeks of rioters demanding death sentences for the Danish cartoonists who dared criticize Islam, after the Ayn Rand Institute published three op-eds and eight letters to the editor on the topic and launched a campaign for freedom of speech, The Not-Even-Objectivish Center has finally managed to publish a single meandering op-ed under the ever-so-bold title “It Takes a Moral Mess to Know a Moral Mess.” (After reading the op-ed, I still have no idea what that means, unless it’s referring to TOC’s very own “moral mess”!) Overall, the op-ed lacks any clear or significant thesis, but merely argues that already well-known fact that Middle Eastern governments do not respect rights. (That’s well-known to the general public, not just to Objectivists.) It also treats the evil of the initiation of force as an axiom, in good libertarian style.

I think TOC needs a new slogan, something along the lines of “Just when you thought we couldn’t do any worse, we do!”