A free-lance photographer, who takes portraits of couples outside of the marriage bureau, said he witnessed Mr. Baldwin push the photographer in the face and didn’t believe there was anything done to provoke the  actor. “They were very good with him. I don’t see any reason,” the photographer said. “It was really unusual. I don’t understand what this guy was doing.” And therein lies the problem. He was defending his right to privacy, Mr. Freedom of the Press Photographer.

Naturally, Mr. Baldwin took to Twitter (probably following a call to his lawyer) and rendered the Solomonic verdict “A ‘photographer’ almost hit me in the face with his camera this morning. #allpaparazzishouldbewaterboarded.”

Mr. Baldwin has a long, rich history of losing his cookies including a recent incident on an American Airlines flight that was delayed in December when Mr. Baldwin refused to stop playing the game Words With Friends on his iPad before takeoff. He was removed from the plane. There was also a February 2010 altercation with a photographer outside his Central Park West home where  Mr. Baldwin allegedly grabbed a New York Post journalist by the collar. Thus, Mssr. Baldwin is hardly a sympathetic figure to those who have heard of his antics. And, admittedly, I am not overly fond of his political views as he is the typical Liberal who promotes endless understanding and lenience to be exercised by society, even if he cannot muster such himself.

But the fact is that the paparazzi, fully robed in the Bill of Rights that is colored in red, white and blue, breach a decorum that all should be expected to follow, even in this Age of Kardashian where courtesy and discretion are dead in certain quarters of society. To wit, all people are entitled, even if not legally, to a “zone of privacy” that should be respected not just by the naked eye but also by all of the gadgets available to us nowadays, from camera to microphone to any other intrusive devices. If Mr. Baldwin or anyone else in the public eye is “off the set” and just going to the coffee shop in their off-time, they should be allowed to do such without the meddling of shutter-bugs who feed off of others and bring nothing themselves to the public discourse.

But a great irony to this that Mssr. Baldwin would not like to ponder is that he would also do well to consider some restraint when infringing in other people’s lives. Specifically, he has been a very vocal (is there any other mode for him?) opponent of the horse-drawn carriage industry in New York City (Central Park), claiming that the horses are maltreated. Putting aside the fact that it is a lousy business model to maltreat the revenue drivers of your business (in this case, horses), Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Quinn, no wilting Liberals, support such industry and have defended it against such attacks of maltreatment. Thus, it must be relatively humane for the steeds pulling the Gotham chariots. Still, Mr. Baldwin continues his attack against people making an honorable living.

So while it is distressing to see the paparazzi harass people such as Alec Baldwin, there is almost a sense of what’s good for the goose is good for the [protesting] gander.

-I.M. Windee