The Objectivism Online Meta-Blog

The Fear to Speak Comes to America's Shores

If the government does not protect our freedom of speech by force, America will join Europe's climate of self-censorship.

To cite just a few of depressingly many examples: a painter, Rashid Ben Ali, is forced into hiding after one of his shows "featured satirical work critical of Islamic militant's violence"; a politician, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, must go underground after it becomes known that she has renounced her Islamic faith; and a film director, Theo van Gogh, is savagely stabbed to death for making a film critical of Islamic oppression of women. And most recently, of course, there were the Danish cartoons. When the Jyllands-Posten, in order to expose and challenge this climate of intimidation, printed an article and accompanying cartoons, some of which portrayed Mohammed in a negative light, the response was torched embassies, cries for government censorship, and death threats.

It appears that we should now begin to get used to a similar climate in America.

Borders and Waldenbooks stores have just announced that they will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because the issue reprints some of the cartoons. Is the decision based on disagreement with the content of the magazine? No, not according to Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham. "For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority."

Borders Group's capitulation to Islamic thugs is understandable given the pathetic response of our and other Western governments.

Has any Western government declared that an individual's freedom of speech is sacrosanct, no matter who screams offense at his ideas? No. Has any Western government proclaimed each individual's right to life and pledged to hunt down anyone, anywhere, who abets the murder of one of its citizens for having had the effrontery to speak? No--as they did not when the fatwa against Rushdie was issued, American bookstores were firebombed, and Rushdie's translators were attacked and murdered.

On the contrary, our government went out of its way to say that it shares "the offence that Muslims have taken at these images," and even hinted that they should not be published. The British police, Douglas Murray reports, told the editor of a London magazine that they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack--so the magazine removed the cartoons from its website. (A few days later, Murray notes, "the police provided 500 officers to protect a 'peaceful' Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square.")

In the face of such outrages, we must demand that the U.S. government reverse its disgraceful stand and fulfill is obligation to protect our right to free speech.

Freedom of speech means the right to express one's ideas without danger of physical coercion from anyone. This freedom includes the right to make movies, write books, draw pictures, voice political opinions--and satirize religion. This right flows from the right to think: the right to observe, to follow the evidence, to reach the conclusions you judge the facts warrant--and then to convey your thoughts to others.

In a free society, anyone angered by someone else's ideas has a simple and powerful recourse: don't buy his books, watch his movies, or read his newspapers. If one judges his ideas dangerous, argue against them. The purveyor of evil ideas is no threat to those who remain free to counter them with rational ones.

But the moment someone decides to answer those he finds offensive with a knife or a homemade explosive, not an argument, he removes himself from civilized society.

Against such a threat to our rights, our government must respond with force. If it fails to do so, it fails to fulfill its reason for being: "to secure these rights," Jefferson wrote, "Governments are instituted among Men." And if it fails to do so, we the people must hold it to account.

We must vociferously demand that our government declare publicly that, from this day forward, it will defend by force any American who receives death threats for criticizing Islam--or religion--or any other idea. We must demand that the government protect the stores and employees of Borders, of Waldenbooks, and of any other organization that reprints the cartoons.

We must demand this, because nothing less will prevent America's climate of freedom from disintegrating into Europe's climate of fear.

Dr. Onkar Ghate is a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute has reprinted the 12 Danish cartoons on its Web site as part of its ongoing campaign to bring the Danish cartoons to the widest possible audience--and to arrange a series of panel discussions to discuss the vital need to defend free speech.

To see the Danish cartoons visit: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Danish_Cartoons_01

Second Carnival of the Objectivists tomorrow!

Just a quick reminder--tomorrow, April 1st, the Rule of Reason hosts the second Carnival of the Objectivists. And you know after a week like this one, there's going to be a ton of blogs to cover.

The Ruses of Domestic Islamic 'Rage' Against Freedom of Speech

"We can look as far back as the 1930's in the years prior to the Holocaust when Nazi Germany circulated hate-filled images of our Jewish brothers and sisters throughout society...It is necessary for all of us to stand together and speak out against this, as hatred does not discriminate against any color, race, creed, or religion; all it does is hate."

No, this was not an appeal written by a Jewish person to protest the abominable depiction of Jews in Arab newspapers and on Arab news media. It was written by Maheen H. Farooqi, President of the Islamic Center at New York University in a broadcast email alert to the school's Muslims about the display of the Danish Mohammed cartoons during a panel discussion on them at the university on March 29th, and to organize a demonstration against the event.

NYU President John Sexton caved in to pressure from this group and announced that if the cartoons were displayed, the event must be closed to the public, and only "members of the NYU community" would be allowed to hear the panel discussion. Subsequently, not only was there a demonstration by Muslim students, but many of them bought tickets to the event and destroyed them in an effort to limit attendance.

Meanwhile, in the real world of book retailing, Borders and its affiliate Waldenbooks have banned a forthcoming issue of "Free Inquiry" from their magazine racks because that number of the periodical will feature inside it some of the Danish cartoons. Cited were a fear of violence from radical Muslims and a desire to ensure the safety of the chain's employees and customers.

Creeping socialism. Stealthy statism. The slippery slope of censorship and "responsible" public policy, also known as self-censorship. Someone please correct me, but I believe that Ayn Rand once remarked that at the rate the West is deteriorating, it will not end with a bang, but with a burp. The foregoing instances of submission to Islamic threats and pressure are warnings and guarantees of more to come.

If you have not already noticed it, endorsement of the display of the Danish cartoons -- indeed, any expression of criticism about Islam -- is steadily being equated with racism, hatred, and discrimination. And not only that, but Mr. Farooqi has the unmitigated but apparently effective gall to assert a "bond" with "our Jewish brothers and sisters." His email "call to arms" is too long to reprint here, but it is chock full of gems.

The Holocaust? Does not Mr. Farooqi know that the president of Iran, Adolf Ahmadinejad, has denied that it ever occurred?

"We, however, would not encourage racism is (sic) any shape or form, and to us and many others, these cartoons are racist and we adamantly oppose their display."

So, don't look at them. No, that's too easy advice to follow. It's almost as though he and his protest organizers want to see them in order to whip the Muslim masses into a window and skull breaking lather. In order to frighten cowards like John Sexton into capitulating to their "demands." In order to impose censorship.

Oh, no, we don't want to impose censorship! Allah forbid!

"The event itself and the topic that the students would like to discuss is not problematic in any way, but the pictures themselves are just hatred and there is (sic) no justification in preaching something breeds that kind of hate."

So, Mr. Farooqi and his "brothers and sisters" won't mind a panel discussion of the cartoons, so long as the subject is not present, if it is unseen, invisible. Excuse me, but that ultimatum is problematic. If the subject of the discussion cannot be shown or displayed, what is it, then, that would be discussed? An abstraction that had no anchor in reality. It would be tantamount to a court trying a murder case but declaring all evidence of it inadmissible. And if the subject has already been deemed "hateful," why discuss it at all?

What a formula for shutting down men's minds for fear of provoking irrational emotional outbursts and threats to one's life! What an appeal to submit to unreason!

And what an excuse for Mr. Sexton, Borders, the Wall Street Journal and others to turn tail and betray the First Amendment! With allies like them, who needs Islam to imperil the Bill of Rights?

But the chief interest here is the stress Mr. Farooqi and his colleagues at CAIR and other Islamic organizations are beginning to put on race, hatred and discrimination. Now, Islam is a set of ideas (if a random set of injunctions to kill or enslave infidels, together with contextless homilies, can be said to be a set of "ideas"), and to oppose it or criticize it is not synonymous with "racism." Aside from the fact that numerous Caucasians, blacks and Asians have converted to Islam, it is beyond anyone's power to deny that most Muslims are of Mideastern Semitic or of other large racial stocks. All intelligent, rational criticism of Islam has been targeted at the nature of the creed and its agenda of conquest, together with the fact that most jihadists and suicide bombers have been and will continue to be Muslim.

Consider also the near conversion to a saccharine Islam of the Canadian "peace worker" hostages who, upon release, did not thank the American, British and Canadian soldiers who freed them, and whose statements lead one to believe that they would have been perfectly willing to remain hostages until they rotted. Their selflessness was in the same league as any suicide bomber's. Or consider the statements and behavior of American journalist Jill Carroll, who upon her release by her captors began spouting sympathy for the mahujadeen (Islamic warriors) who were only "defending their country against occupation" and who flaunted Muslim female dress.

It is those mahujadeen, otherwise known as "insurgents," who are killing her fellow countrymen and thousands of the Iraqis she purported loves.

Were these former Western hostages brainwashed in captivity? No. To judge by their portrayals in Western news media before they were taken hostage, they were already selfless airheads, susceptible to conversion to Islam.

Mr. Farooqi wrote:

"These same cartoons unfortunately have lead to riots, protests, beatings, and deaths all round the world."

And all that carnage, together with the burning of Western embassies and the fatwahs against the Danish cartoonists, who have gone into hiding, has been the handiwork of whom? Whose violence was being committed?

That of Muslims -- Sunnis, Shi'ites, and other sects of that mind-suffocating, tongue-severing creed were the ones on the rampage.

Most Americans -- indeed, most Caucasian Westerners -- wouldn't know a Muslim unless he announced the fact.

Do the cartoons foster hatred? It is healthy and life-preserving to hate something that is inimical to one's freedom of speech and thought. But the cartoons do not foster hatred. They are mildly amusing; some are incomprehensible.

Islam, however, doesn't want anyone to be amused by Mohammed. It wants men to fear him and obey his Allah, just as Winston Smith in Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was expected to fear, revere, and love Big Brother. Otherwise, how could anyone submit to his will? In that great film comedy, "His Girl Friday," Cary Grant as Walter Burns shouts to his page editor over the phone: "Take Hitler and stick him on the funny pages!" That's where Mohammed truly belongs, in the comics, in the company of Hagar the Horrible and the Wizard of Id. Or in a Monty Python movie. When was the last time a Scandinavian suicide bomber blew up a Christian church because Leif Erickson and the Vikings were the subject of humor?

Is dislike or fear of Islam discriminatory? Discrimination is anyone's right, especially when it entails discriminating against mysticism and anyone who threatens physical force or terror in its name. Discrimination in this instance is not a matter of race or hatred, but of reason-based revulsion for a degrading, freedom-crushing creed.

No, the accusations of racism, hatred and discrimination are merely ruses, or strawmen, employed to deflect attention away from Islam's goal of suppressing any and all criticism of it, to frighten men from any thought of opposing it lest they be accused of those things.

In the case of NYU and Borders, it worked. As a reward, alumni and corporations should refuse to donate money to NYU, and the school's trustees should fire Sexton. And Borders and Waldenbooks should be subjected to a national boycott until its finds the courage to exercise its right of freedom of speech.

And the cartoons should be proudly and fearlessly displayed.

Package Deal du Jour: Biopiracy

I found this TCS Daily article on an environmentalist conference recently held in Brazil notable for bringing to my attention an interesting example of a package deal called "biopiracy".

Let us first review just what, exactly, a package deal is. From a footnote by Leonard Peikoff to Ayn Rand's essay "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made", in Philosophy: Who Needs It:

"Package-dealing" is the fallacy of failing to discriminate crucial differences. It consists of treating together, as parts of a single conceptual whole or "package," elements which differ essentially in nature, truth-status, importance, or value.

Ayn Rand elaborates further in "How to Read (and Not to Write)" in The Ayn Rand Letter (I,26,3). "[Package-dealing employs] the shabby old gimmick of equating opposites by substituting nonessentials for their essential characteristics."

The article does not itself attempt to give a concise definition of "biopiracy", so I use this one, from Word Spy:

The patenting of plants, genes, and other biological products that are indigenous to a foreign country.

Uh. But isn't every country "foreign" to some other country? And while the "bio-" makes sense, why is technological innovation -- even if it consists only of discovering a hitherto unknown, naturally-occurring value "piracy"? Why not "biodiscovery"? Or "bioinnovation"? Or "biodevelopment"?

The article provides our answer, by using the term in its full intellectual context:

Today's version is the cargo cult is that forests and jungles of the developing world hold bounteous lodes of "Green Gold" - the genetic resources of the Earth: wondrous plants, insects, snakes and barks that traditional peoples for thousands of years have used to cure illness and fend off starvation.

Their right [sic] to this cargo is threatened by "biopiracy". This is a political term which means that foreigners (mainly multinational companies, of course) obtain these products (even buy them in the local market), take them away and create blockbuster drugs that earn billions.

To stop this "biopiracy" governments in Africa and Latin America, including Brazil, and India propose an international treaty which will "improve access" (i.e. stop foreigners) to these genetic resource and increase benefits (by holding up patents and other intellectual property if any shard of a genetic resource is used in any product patented), until they get their fair share. [bold added]

In other words, the natural biological resources of countries "foreign" to developed nations (i.e., the nations having the wherewithal to unlock the potential of these resources) are "pirated" if some innovator from the developed world has the temerity to develop said resources without cutting some local cheiftain or junta part of the profit.

This is a classic example of a package deal. Here, a particular type of innovation (bioscientific discovery) and a particular type of crime (piracy) are treated as if they are part of a coherent whole. The opposite notions of (1) the intellectual property of the scientists and (2) the stolen loot of a third world kleptocracy are treated as if they are the same thing. This is done by causing the reader to focus on nonessentials: where the scientist and his subject matter came from, the value of his discovery, and the poverty of the people who sat around the very same tropical plant for years without taking any interest in it whatsoever, for example.

As with any fallacy, the goal is to avoid having to make an argument. The goal here is clearly to use multiculturalism as a means of getting Western countries to simply hand over the values produced by their scientists to the governments of the third world. This means: to violate the property rights of their scientists. This is why, as the article rightly points out, if this idea is allowed to wreck intellectual property law, innovation in this area will grind to a halt and the natural biological resources of the third world will remain underutilized.

-- CAV

NYU Caves in To Muslims' Pressure

IRVINE, CA--Yesterday, in a shameful act, NYU broke its own official policy and denied free speech to its students.

After having approved the display of the Danish cartoons for a panel discussion on free speech, NYU's administration reversed its decision in the face of Muslim protests.

A day before the panel discussion was to take place, NYU gave the student event organizers a non-negotiable ultimatum: if you display the cartoons we will close the event to non-NYU guests. This was in spite of the fact that NYU's own rules leave this decision to the student sponsoring organization.

And even though the students opted for not showing the cartoons, NYU barred entry to at least two journalists and more than 30 registered guests. Even after learning that Muslim students had sabotaged the event by acquiring and destroying two hundred tickets to leave as many seats empty, NYU officials still refused to allow non-NYU guests to enter.

In caving in to fear, in restricting and obstructing attendance, in forbidding the display of the Danish cartoons, NYU handed a victory to the Islamic totalitarians and their facilitators. In standing up to the destroyers of free speech, the NYU student sponsors of the free speech panel showed the courage that the NYU officials lack.

Dr. Yaron Brook is available for interviews on the Ayn Rand Institute's ongoing campaign to bring the Danish cartoons to the widest possible audience--and to arrange a series of panel discussions to discuss the vital need to defend free speech.

See the 12 Danish cartoons at ARI's Web site

More information on ARI's Campaign in Defense of Free Speech

NYU Objectivism Club

Enshrining "need" as a virtue

You have to love the ability of antitrust regulators to find the "abuse of market power" almost anywhere. This report is from Europe:

The European Union closed a long-standing antitrust dispute with England's Premier League on Wednesday, forcing one the of richest leagues in the world to stop selling the rights to its live soccer matches exclusively to one TV channel.

"The solution we have reached will benefit football fans while allowing the Premier League to maintain its timetable for the sale of its rights," said EU Antitrust Commissioner Neelie Kroes, after the EU executive finalized the deal between both sides.

Under the agreement, live TV rights will be sold in six balanced packages with no one bidder being allowed to buy them all.

But why do this? The answer rests below.

British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC -- a pay channel owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch -- has held the exclusive rights to the richest broadcast contract in European sport for the past 13 years. The satellite broadcaster dominates Britain's pay-TV market with close to 8 million subscribers.

Kroes's office said the new commitments made until the end of the 2012-2013 season "will increase the availability of media rights, and improve the prospect of competition in providing services to consumers."

Packages will be sold to the highest standalone bidder for each package.
The agreement will allow the Premier League to prepare its bidding process for rights as of 2007. It will be monitored by a trustee named by the Commission.

"The Commission could impose a fine amounting to 10 percent of FA Premier League's total worldwide turnover if it breaks its commitments," the statement from Kroes's office said.

BSkyB's nearest rival, cable operator NTL Inc., has already said the deal does not go far enough to deliver a level playing field and said the EU head office had ignored the "pubs and clubs" market which it said needed a critical mass of at least half of all matches to be economically viable.

Ah, NTL "needed" it-in fact, it "needs" even more.

So here we have a corporation enshrining its need as a moral claim upon all its competitors, yet how much do you want to bet that Rupert Murdoch and his British Sky Broadcasting Group oppose antitrust as such? I doubt I could even get one taker.

Let's face it, egoism is a radical position, even among billionaires.

Green in the head

Another environmentalist is warning us that the world may soon end.

Kenneth Deffeyes believes the world passed a very important landmark, with very little notice, on Dec. 16, 2005.

On that day, he said, the world's residents finished off the first half of the world's oil and started in on the second. Price volatility will be the norm, and if some big changes aren't made, famine, pestilence, war and death are on the way.

Deffeyes, who presented his ideas during a talk Tuesday night at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is a Princeton University professor emeritus and author of "Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak" and "Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage."

The idea comes from the work of M. King Hubbert, who predicted in 1956 that the amount of oil produced in the United States would peak in 1970, when half of the country's oil had been recovered, then start its decline. [Stefan Milkowski, Daily News Miner]

The article goes on to describe the Deffeyes' "peak oil" thesis, claiming that civilization has "driven off the cliff," and that "we're in for a hard landing." Yeah, the same way we drove off the cliff and landed hard with whale oil.

It's amazing how environmentalists exploit ignorance of the basic laws of economics in order to sell their tales of gloom and doom. For example, it's utterly impossible for the world to run out of oil. Let me explain.

When you have a good like oil, price signals its value. If oil is truly becoming scare, speculators can forecast a rise in future prices. These speculators start to store oil for that future day when they can sell it for more than what they bought it for.

That speculation causes oil prices to rise and any rise in price is met with rationing (that is, one finds ways to get by with less), and the search for alternatives (that is, one tries to find alternatives to oil itself). Man will not sit by and starve when it can build nuclear or hydro plants to serve its energy needs--that is if man still believes he has a right to exist in the face of the environmentalist's claims that he is a despoiler nature.

Notice though that the environmentalists never talk about the market's ability to ration goods though price or the power of price to produce substitutes. The market is freedom and it allows for people to provide for their material needs, yet according the environmentalist, it is the market itself that exploits the earth and savages the intrinsic value of nature.

That's why in my book, there's no such thing as a pro-human environmentalist. If there was, they would immediately become capitalists, fight for property rights and support man's right to life his life for his own stake.

Yes, it is that simple, but as we all know, its not going to happen anytime soon. The egoism question strikes again.

Electronic Machine Politics

Edward Cline to appear on KOA 850 radio in Denver

Edward Cline's essay "Reality catches up with art" caught the attention of the Mike Rosen Show, KOA 850 in Denver, and Cline has subsequently been invited to appear on it this coming Wednesday the 29th, from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern Time.

The show can be listened to over the internet (go to 850KOA.com for details).

Eric Barnhill's Improvisations

My long-time friend Eric Barnhill is an amazing concert pianist doing all kinds of interesting work in music theory and education. He recently e-mailed me about his new music improvisation blog. He said:

You being the blogger you are, I thought you might like to know I started my own blog -- but it's a blog of actual music! I improvise a new piece and put it up every day, or close to it. I'm also telling you because I think you'll like the music. I explain why I'm doing it, and the central role I think improvisation needs to play in musical creativity, over at the site. Let me know if you ever check it out. http://ericbarnhill.wordpress.com. Keep up your good work!

I finally had a chance to check out some of Eric's improvisations late last week. My first, second, and third thought upon hearing the most recent recording was basically: Holy *@!&@^#, that's improvisation?!?" I had the same thought about the next one I heard. And the one after that. Eric was right: I do like them. And I look forward to listening to the rest of them!

Regarding the pro-Immigration Protests

Finally, a public protest I can get behind.

My stance is more radical the the protesters though: as I wrote on the ObjectivismOnline forum, I am against the very idea of citizenship:

[The] question is: “is there justification for a class of privileges and protections that should be granted to a certain class of inhabitants of a country?” I don’t believe there is any such basis outside of a welfare state and anti-immigration policies.

Ragnar Danneskjold Project?

I recently received this interesting announcement from Objectivist Ed Thompson:

This is to report yet another outrage perpetrated against Microsoft.

As an investor, I regularly receive complex legal notices petitioning me to join a class action lawsuit against some company. I trash them. Shorn of the typical incomprehensible legalese, this is the first notice I've ever seen that I can comprehend. It's in English. And all I have to do is collect my loot.

The heading reads, "Consumers and Businessmen May Claim Microsoft Settlement Benefits."

The proposed settlement arises from allegations that Microsoft violated New York antitrust and unfair competition laws. Consumers who acquired certain Microsoft products for use in New York over the past TWELVE years are eligible to collect an estimated $350 million. No proof of purchase required.

http://microsoftnysettlement.com

Googling produced a list of seventeen states with like settlements:

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/legal/class

Legal History:

http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/microsoft-2001.html

We can fight this. Class Members can write to the court if they do not like the settlement. Of course, the court anticipates exactly the opposite of what we will write, as to what is fair.

One can also ask the Court for permission to speak at a "Fairness Hearing." I intend to ask.

This is an opportunity for Objectivists to affect favorably an outcome of the continued unjust persecution of Microsoft. Since there are seventeen states involved, there are many venues for us to participate. Even those living elsewhere might participate through a proxy, if you have a willing friend or relative who qualifies for an award.

Note: vouchers may be donated to a charity. If enough of us put in claims worth up to $60 and donate our vouchers to ARI, then ARI can take the accumulated vouchers--blood money, actually--up to a total of $10,000, and donate them to Microsoft--publicly. Call it the Ragnar Danneskjold project. It may make for a good public relations campaign, similar to BB&T's principled stand regarding eminent domain. (I presume that's $10,000 per state, which could yield up to a total of $170,000.)

Feel free to contact me off-line, if you intend to participate.

I have no idea whether ARI is interested in any such "Ragnar Danneskjold Project," but an individual certainly could claim his voucher, then donate it to Microsoft. And people can request to speak out in whatever way permitted by the court settlement. (I can't do anything, at least not yet, since Colorado isn't one of the states involved in the settlement.)

A final thought: In the time since Microsoft lost its antitrust case, the company has seemed stopped in its tracks, stagnating rather than innovating. Maybe that's just a fluke, or maybe I haven't paid adequate attention to the news. However, I've heard that IBM suffered exactly that effect as a result of its major antitrust woes of the 1980s. And stagnation would seem to be the natural result of the government breathing down your neck to ensure that your great creativity is not harming your weaker, slower competitors.

Abdul Rahman

Eugene Volokh has done some good blogging on the horrifying case of Abdul Rahman, the man in grave danger of losing his head in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity. (Did we really fight a war to "liberate" that country from the Islamic radicals?!?)

Oh, and Mark Steyn recounts this great story in an op-ed of multiculturalism in action:

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

If the United States fails to protect Abdul Rahman from these Muslim barbarians, if we permit the government we put in power and now maintain in power to murder a man for rejecting Islam, then we may as well just slit out own throats -- before the Muslims do it for us.

"Please Help Me Lie!"

In her otherwise awful book How Could You Do That?!, Dr. Laura rightly observes that the most common kind of question asked on her radio show is "Now that I've done all these things I shouldn't have done, how can I avoid the consequences I knew, but denied, and just hoped would not happen?" In my capacity as a moral philosopher, I've certainly seen my share of that plea for help with irresponsibility, including from some supposed Objectivists. Yet this "Dear Abby" column is perhaps the most strikingly blatant example ever:

DEAR ABBY: My heart is pounding and I'm at my wit's end. This situation is difficult to explain. I'm afraid that other readers may be facing the same horror that I'm dealing with, so please advise us on how to handle an extremely delicate situation.

My husband has it in his head to do genetic testing for "genealogy" purposes. It isn't cheap. One of the places he wants testing from charges a couple of hundred dollars. He has asked me to have it done, too. I told him I wasn't interested and I thought it was too expensive.

Now he wants to have our 17-year-old son tested. I have argued that our son should not have his DNA on record anywhere, that he really needs both parents to give consent for testing, and it costs too much.

The horror I really have is that, 18 years ago, I made an awful mistake. I don't know if my husband is the father of our son. I'm having panic attacks about his finding out how awful I was 18 years ago.

Can you issue advice that these DNA tests should not be used on minor children, and that there are powerful reasons why not? Can you think of any other reasons I can give for not having him tested so I can convince my husband to drop the idea? Please don't reveal where we live. You can say it's Minnesota. -- IN A PANIC!

DEAR IN A PANIC!: Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. (And no, I didn't coin the phrase.)

Although you have my sympathy, I think it takes a lot of gall to ask me to lie in my column. I cannot come up with a reason why your son should not be tested because there are reasons why everyone should be -- particularly before having children. (Two of them are Tay-Sachs and sickle-cell anemia.) I have news for you. Your husband already has his suspicions about whether he fathered the boy. That's why he's determined to have him tested. If I were you, I'd take a few deep breaths and come clean before the guano hits the fan -- and that's the best advice I can offer. Confession is good for the soul.

Contrary to Abby, I regard genetic testing as a pointless waste of money without some significant familial or racial history of testable genetic disease. (If Paul and I were to have children, we certainly wouldn't need to be tested for Tay-Sachs and sickle-cell anemia! Our offspring would have hybrid vigor!) And I don't think Abby has reason to so definitely conclude that the father wishes the boy to the tested because of doubts about his paternity. It's a plausible hypothesis though, since the offered justification of "genealogy purposes" seems weak. That being said, I'm delighted to see Abby call this woman to the carpet for the "gall" of asking for help in more lying to conceal her misdeeds.

At this point, I suppose I should mention that my paper on such false excuses, "False Excuses: Honesty, Wrongdoing, and Moral Growth," published in 2004 in the Journal of Value Inquiry (Volume 38, Number 2, pages 171-185), is available here. (I didn't write this post intending to plug that paper, but I suppose the topic caught my attention for good reason!)

Marxist Dictators Versus Marxist Intellectuals

In the comments, Ergo raised a good question about the moral judgment of Marxist dictators versus Marxist intellectuals. So I'd like to sketch an answer to the question: Why and how is the Marxist intellectual morally worse than the Marxist dictator?

The key point is that the Marxist intellectual willfully makes possible all the brutal rights-violations of the Marxist dictator. That's no accident, it's the explicit end of his intellectual work. How so?

The intellectual offers a moral defense of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He uses people's existing bad ideas (e.g. altruism, mysticism) as a weapon against them in order to push them into far worse ideas. As a professional intellectual, he has the upper hand against ordinary people not trained in the art of philosophic detection. In part, that means that he must evade on a massive scale to make his arguments, whereas ordinary people may accept them due to confusion, passivity, or minor evasions. By his arguments, the intellectual disarms the actual and potential victims of the dictator of any moral objection to the means and/or ends of the dictator. Without that, the people would immediately rise up in rebellion against the unjustified brute force threatening to crush them.

The intellectual's moral defense of the dictatorship of the proletariat also emboldens the petty power lusters of the world to seize power. In a free society, such a person could aspire to no more than the leadership of a criminal gang. The intellectual presents that seizure of power as morally right and historically inevitable -- and thereby fosters and rationalizes the power lust of the future dictator.

Once the dictator is in power, the Marxist intellectual conceals and excuses his inevitable brutality and mass slaughter. He is thereby sanctions those crimes. (In this respect, he's like an uncle who approvingly nods and even offers helpful tips as his nephew rapes a young girl. Even if the nephew would have raped her anyway, the uncle is still morally guilty.) In so doing, the intellectual preserves the power of the dictator, often for decades upon decades beyond its natural life. If his arguments are even partially accepted in free countries, thanks to the bad premises people already accept, then he morally disarms the potential outside opponents of the Marxist dictatorship. Consequently, they will not exert any kind of pressure upon the dictatorship to reform, nor treat its espionage seriously, nor punish it with economic sanctions, nor invade to cut off the head of the expanding empire. Instead, his own country will prop up the Marxist dictatorship with aid of various kinds.

At least in the case of Soviet Russia, the Marxist intellectuals did all that -- with exactly the consequences I've outlined. Without their help, Soviet Russia would not have lasted for all those decades. In fact, it never would have even come into existence.

While I do think that the Marxist intellectual must evade more than the dictator -- if only for the simple reason that he's called upon to think more in the course of his work -- I don't think the magnitude of his evil is a solely function of the magnitude of his evasion. (A hermit in the woods may evade all day long, but I wouldn't call him evil, for the simple reason that the scale of his destruction is so small. He's just immoral.)

To be valid, the moral judgment should integrate mind and body by asking: What does the evasion accomplish in reality? So we need to pay attention to the scale of the destruction of values involved. In the case of the Marxist intellectual, he did not just make the mass murder of Stalin possible, he also made that of Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot possible. He also promoted socialism in Europe and America -- with substantial success.

However, and this is critical, the fact that the Marxist intellectual is more evil than the Marxist dictator does not mean that the dictator is not fully evil. The dictator is absolutely 100% morally black, without the slightest shred of good in him. My point is rather that the evil of the Marxist intellectual is of broader scope. Despite his veneer of civility, he is a danger to every living creature on the planet. By leveraging people's ordinary altruism into even just some sympathy for socialism, he is teaching them to submit to the yoke of whatever dictator might arise, while also encouraging the rise of that dictator. (And yes, that does require more evasion than just driving the yoke.) Without that intellectual legwork, the dictators wouldn't stand a chance.

I haven't covered all the possible angles on this topic, not even all those raised by David Kelley in Truth and Toleration. In particular, I haven't touched upon the argument that any given Marxist intellectual is just one voice in a loud chorus, nor upon the point that the intellectual persuades others while the dictator forces them. Still, I hope that the above comments constitute at least a clarifying start.

Wal-Mart Should Not Be Barred from the Banking Business

From David Holcberg:

No one has a right to prevent Wal-Mart from opening a bank. Wal-Mart runs its business and earns its profits by the voluntary decisions of its customers to shop there. A Wal-Mart bank would operate in the same legitimate way. No one would be forced to buy their products or use their banking services.

That Wal-Mart might emerge as a formidable rival to established banks and possibly take away some of their business would be consistent with a free capitalist economy. It might actually bring to banking the same cost-cutting strategy that made Wal-Mart prevail over less-efficient competitors and become the preferred retail outlet of millions of American consumers.

Neither Wal-Mart's competitors, nor consumer groups, nor the government have any right to have a say in what line of business Wal-Mart can or cannot go into. Wal-Mart's rights are not up for a vote.

Objectivist Academic Center (OAC) deadline April 16, 2006

From Debi Ghate, Ayn Rand Institute:

This is a reminder that the deadline for submitting an application to the Objectivist Academic Center (OAC) is April 16, 2006.

The undergraduate program is designed for high school and college students who want to systematically study philosophy and Objectivism while developing their thinking and communication skills. The program offers students an unique opportunity to study one-on-one with leading Objectivist intellectuals and to get individualized feedback. OAC students are also eligible for other specialized ARI programs such as conference scholarships, graduate advisors and teaching skills workshops. We have also just entered a pilot program whereby students can get college credit for OAC courses, which will lighten the courseload students will have to take at their universities or colleges.

For more information about the OAC, as well as for a link to the online application, please visit www.aynrand.org/academic

Quick Roundup 37

$50K to Fight for Freedom

Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism has the power to change the world. From her groundbreaking explanation of the power of the human mind to discern reality, to her moral justification for individualism and capitalism, to her defiant exultation of heroes, Ayn Rand presented mankind with a proud new vision of himself. This vision has inspired millions across the world, yet for Objectivism to truly change the course of history, those who are animated by Ayn Rand's vision must choose to carry on with the fight she first stated.

And to help carry on the Objectivist fight is precisely why I founded the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism. When first launched in 1998, it was because I believed that the advance of Objectivism required a group that was both intellectual and activist and that was uniquely dedicated to defending Ayn Rand's trader principle as the only legitimate basis for our social relationships. The Center's mission was thus defined as using Objectivism to present policymakers, the judiciary and the public analyses to assist in the identification and protection of the individual rights of the American people.

In the years since the Center's founding, it has repeatedly achieved groundbreaking results. Its advocates have appeared in the nation's newspapers, on radio and on TV, including economist Richard Salsman's appearance on NPR's Justice Talking and my own appearance on national broadcast television when I was a guest on ABC's Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. The Center's arguments in defense of Microsoft were included in the Department of Justice's "major comments" list during the Microsoft antitrust trial--the first time the Objectivist argument calling for the abolition of antitrust was given such consideration, and both times the Center held press conferences defending technology and industry and attacking the environmentalists on Earth Day, C-SPAN came to cover the event.

The Center's advocates have also fought for America's right to self-defense against Islamic jihadists. In one of my proudest moments, after I debated the Oxford-trained director of the peace studies program at George Mason University on the right of the US to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein, the university president who was in attendance commented that debates like the one I just participated in were "the reason we have universities." Earning that praise was an incredible victory, for it showed that our best efforts in representing our philosophy will earn us an audience--the first step in changing our culture for the better.

Yet unlike many groups that refuse to touch the controversial, not every principle the Center fights for wins on the first try. The Center stood with students who were refused admission to a public university because of the color of their skin, just as it stood up for the free-speech rights of businessmen as they were sued for "false advertising" because their company bought newspaper advertisements that defended the firm from the unjust smears of critics. When doctors were persecuted by antitrust regulators for attempting to bargain with giant, government-created HMO's, the Center was one of the only voices to stand up in their defense--even when their own medical associations refused to defend a doctor's right to profit form his own hard work.

Why fight for these unpopular causes? Because ideas and their consequences matter. Even if one doesn't secure an immediate victory, the first battle lays down the foundation for the next. And that is why I believe Objectivism's advocates must go to the realms where ideas are discussed and debated and profess objective truths about issues that are important to people's lives. If Objectivism is to have increased currency in our culture, its advocates must confront the enemies of reason and freedom with our answers to the questions of our time, even if Objectivist ideas are first met with skepticism. Remaining silent gains one nothing; only by being outspoken can one hope to gain converts.

And I hold that this organization rests upon a combination of ideas, skill and ambition that ought to be nurtured and supported. The Center fights the long fight--but to continue, we need your help. We need you to stand with the Center and help make it a success. We need you to help financially support our advocacy.

That is why I am launching the "$50K to Fight for Freedom" campaign. Fifty thousand dollars is what I believe it will take to re-energize this group and restore it to a full-fighting stance. Fifty thousand dollars is the amount of money the Center needs to be able to raise even more money for its projects, projects such as the Capitalist's Amicus Curiae program, our writing program, and a student leadership conference where the Center's experts can meet with the next generation of Objectivists and give them the benefit of our knowledge and experience.

And that is where you come it. I need you to give your financial backing to the Center--I cannot do it alone.

And if the Center cannot raise this $50K, it will be time to admit defeat and throw in the towel. This not a threat--it is a recognition of the reality that if we can't raise this small amount of money to conduct our projects, the Center simply does not enjoy the support necessary for it to succeed.

I never have liked fundraising letters that take desperate tones--they always sounded fake to me--but I must confront the fact that this organization has its back up against the wall. I hope you agree with me that it shouldn't--that the contributions the Center makes in the advance of Objectivism are valuable and that with even more support, the Center can achieve even loftier goals. Please, join me and make a contribution to the Center today.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Provenzo
Chairman

PS: The future of your freedom literally rests in your hands. I ask that you act today and make a donation, however the amount, in support of the Center and its fight for a better tomorrow.

America's injustice to Sam Waksal

This op-ed by John Lewis and I goes out to newspapers today:

Remember ImClone? This was the company founded by physician Sam Waksal, an immunologist who worked for years to develop a treatment for cancer. His company had one product: the drug "Erbitrux" which promised to extend the lives of thousands of desperately ill people. While Erbitrux has lived up to its pledge, the government has nevertheless destroyed the life of its creator.

First a recap. In 2001, Waksal was told by a government insider that the FDA was going to reject approval for his drug. The FDA's ruling would prohibit him, along with every doctor and every patient in America, from using Erbitrux-even in a last ditch effort to save a dying life.

The fallout from the FDA's decision would be ruinous, for Waksal, his family, his shareholders and for desperate patients, yet securities law required Waksal say nothing of the "inside knowledge" that the government had leaked to him. In the face of the impending castration of his company by regulatory fiat, Waksal was simply expected to sit silently and do nothing. Unsurprisingly, Waksal was unable to squelch himself.

So in June of 2003, Waksal was convicted of "insider trading" and sentenced to prison for seven years for the crime of telling his family to sell their stock. During his sentencing, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley told Waksal that the harm he caused was "truly incalculable." Since his conviction, Waksal has been forced to pay millions in restitution to his alleged victims.

Yet despite all the attention paid to his case, it is not Waksal, but FDA regulators who have blood on their hands. The FDA was the source of the leak that prompted Waksal to tell his family to sell. The FDA decision to forbid the use of Erbitrux destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars in shareholder wealth and led to Martha Stewart being sent to prison for the ridiculous crime of asserting her own innocence to federal investigators. All the while, the cancer patients who would have benefited from Erbitrux needlessly suffered and died--as many as one hundred people a day according to one estimate.

In the face of thousands of lives needlessly shortened, it still took the FDA over three years to reverse its original decision and permit doctors to use Erbitrux as a treatment for colon cancer, and only this month has the FDA expanded its permission for doctors to use the drug to treat cancer of the head and neck. All the while, the FDA has repeated the regulator's mantra that it has acted only in the "public interest."

But is the FDA's claim true? It is worth comparing the goals of Waksal-a scientist, businessman and creator--to the goals of a government regulator. Waksal's mission was to command nature by bringing life to people suffering from the most intractable disease to ravage the human body. He relied upon the independent judgments of doctors and patients that his product would help them. Success would mean that his cutting-edge drug prolonged the lives of dying patients and profits for Waksal and his investors.

In contrast, the government regulator's goal is not command nature, but to command men--men like Waksal. Why? Because we have vested regulators with the absolute power to substitute their judgment for our own in the name of protecting us from our choices. It matters not to the regulator whether a million people could have been saved during the wait for a new drug to meet their approval--any appraisal other than the regulator's simply does not factor.

In a system that respected freedom in medicine, a doctor and his patient would choose for themselves if the benefits of new medicines outweighed their risks. Yet under the current system of government controls, it is the regulator alone who decides who lives or dies. If one wants to see the naked exercise of power and the horrific price paid by innocent victims, it can be found in the saga of Erbitrux and its creator. It is not Sam Waskal, but government regulators who have caused "truly incalculable" damage to people's lives.

So at root, government regulation--the real cancer metastasizing in the brains of America-remains unexcised. Sam Waksal is confined to prison with over four more years to serve for the crimes of creation and of self-protection. All the while, Waksal's regulators sit comfortable in their government offices, secure in the knowledge that they will never be held to account for any of the lives they destroyed as a result of their deeds.

There is no drug to fight diseases such as the FDA--only better ideas can end the plague of a government that tells the terminally ill and their doctors what is good for them, and jails those who create the means they need to live. To avenge the injustice done to Dr. Waksal and the thousands of faceless victims of the Erbitrux fiasco, Americans must take back the power of the regulators and leave people free to live by their own minds.

This case is one of those monstrosities that makes one want to punch the wall. For years there has been grumbling that the FDA is "risk adverse" and that its posture is to blame for untold deaths, while at the same time, the drugs that it does approve are later recalled. So who are these people to make massive life and death decisions for anyone, let alone a nation of 300 million people? Why do we allow it? It mystifies me.

And it makes me think that another article that deserves to be written would be on the legacy of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle--the novel that led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act. The theme of Sinclair's ponderous tome is that life is a hospice and man in incompetent to cross the street (a character literally drowns in a street puddle) let alone make a decision about his life. According to Sinclair, only the group is omniscient, by virtue of the fact that it is a group.

When I read The Jungle about year ago, I was stunned just how ridiculous its portrayal was, yet I can't count how many times--going all back to grade school--that I have seen this text referenced as the foundation of our modern era. Spare me. The ImClone debacle is the fruit of our era. If we value our lives, it would behoove us to fight against those who think they have the right to control us.

My History with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden

I wrote the substance of this post on my personal history with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden quite some time ago. At the time of writing, my purpose was to more fully explain my strongly negative judgment of the Brandens, as well to use my own case to examine some of the errors commonly committed by honest admirers of Objectivism in the course of judging them. However, the publication of Jim Valliant's The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics (PARC) rendered that whole enterprise thoroughly superfluous. For any honest inquirer, Mr. Valliant presents an overwhelming case against the Brandens. He does not merely prove that they manipulated, deceived, and abused Ayn Rand all those decades ago, but also that they continue to do so to this day. (And, I should add, they do so with the blessing and assistance of The Objectivist Center.)

So at this point, I'm mostly just posting this history for the record. Still, I think that my errors in judging Nathaniel and Barbara Branden indicate the great value of The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, particularly to young people new to Objectivism. Certainly, my own history with the Brandens, and probably even with TOC, would have been radically different if I could have read that book ten years ago. (That's why I'm such an enthusiastic supporter of the book.)

So here is my history with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden...

Early in my freshman year of college in the fall of 1993, I read Ayn Rand's major philosophic anthologies -- The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology -- for the very first time. Just a few short months later, in February 1994, I read Nathaniel Branden's article "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand." At the time, my basic view of the article was very positive. I was too much of a novice to understand the gross inaccuracies in Branden's claims about Objectivism, let alone the fallacies and falsehoods of his criticisms thereof. I wrongly read the article as identifying and criticizing certain common but significant errors of Objectivists in applying the philosophy, rather than as critical of the principles of the philosophy itself. Or at least I regarded his criticisms as valid to that extent. (Unfortunately, my e-mail record is a bit spotty on this point.)

Of course, Nathaniel Branden was clear enough that he blamed Objectivism in that article -- and elsewhere. For example, in response to my "Yet Another Heretic" post to MDOP in February 1994, he wrote:

I AM SORRY TO TELL YOU THAT THESE FOOLISH PEOPLE ARE ONLY DOING WHAT AYN RAND TAUGHT US ALL TO DO. DON'T IMAGINE THAT THEIR POSITION IS A PERVERSION OF OBJECTIVISM AS HELD BY RAND. PEIKOFF IS RAND'S PRODUCT. SHE IS HIS FRANKENSTEIN. I OUGHT TO KNOW. I'M SOMETHING OF AN EX MONSTOR MYSELF.

In my reply, I clearly rejected Branden's criticisms of Objectivism, unfortunately while still accepting his basic portrayal of Ayn Rand (and Leonard Peikoff) as demanding dogmatic agreement from Objectivists. That's not surprising, since at that point, I'd already accepted David Kelley's views about the injustice of the various "purges" in the Objectivist movement.

The next month, I read Nathaniel Branden's memoir, Judgment Day. My reaction to that work was more mixed. I was completely enthralled by the brilliance of Ayn Rand's mind as portrayed in his first meeting with her. Yet as the story progressed, I was deeply dismayed by her seeming irrationality in her dealings with other people. Knowing the ways in which strong emotions can distort memories over time, I did have some reservations about the reliability of Branden's recollections. Yet I never really suspected outright, devious, and wholesale deception from him. I'm not entirely sure why not. I was likely naive, in that I tend to find grand-scale dishonesty utterly bizarre as a strategy in life. I was also likely impressed by his seemingly frank admissions of his own past wrongdoing. Obviously, I should have seriously considered the possibility of ongoing deception, given his admitted willingness to live in a mess of lies for so many years.

In those early years, I also read a few of Nathaniel Branden's other books, namely The Psychology of Self-Esteem, The Psychology of Romantic Love, and The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. I enjoyed them all to varying degrees. I attended a weekend seminar he conducted in Chicago in October 1994. During the seminar itself, I was favorably impressed by Branden's intelligence, insight, and consistency with my (limited) understanding of Objectivism. (Later, once I knew more, I realized that his grasp of Objectivism was superficial at best.) About a year later, in November 1995, I heard him speak at the Cato Institute on "The Philosophical Foundations of a Free Society." In response to a question, he claimed a close affinity for Objectivism:

Questioner: I'm wondering if you see yourself as a spokesperson for Objectivism and also how you'd contrast yourself with others who certainly do, like Leonard Peikoff or David Kelley.

Branden: I have struggled with that question for a long time. I don't technically think of myself as a spokesperson for Objectivism because I'm no longer teaching Objectivism; I'm developing my own work and my own ideas. But if you ask me: In the main, am I in large agreement with the Objectivist philosophy? Yes. Do I have differences with Rand? Yes. Will historians probably say those differences are not that important and that in fundamentals Branden was an Objectivist? I'm sure of it, if anybody cares.

So I don't really care that much about the labels anymore. I think that I certainly know that philosophy very intimately well, and I think it has enormous contribution to make to human well-being, and I have benefited from it in my own thinking enormously.

From my perspective at the time, Nathaniel Branden seemed very Objectivist, regardless of his tumultuous history with Ayn Rand. My doubts about his portrayal of Ayn Rand slowly faded into the background.

After graduating from college in May 1997, I moved to Los Angeles in search of web programming work. As I was job hunting, I approached Nathaniel Branden about the possibility of developing a web site for him, mostly so that I would have some work for my portfolio. (It wasn't because I was a big fan of his work, since I wasn't.) That began my long tenure as his webmaster. For many years, we had a reasonably friendly business relationship, mostly consisting of infrequent e-mails about the web site. While living in southern California, I also attended a few gatherings of people interested in Objectivism held at his house.

During those years, I never bothered to read Barbara Branden's biography The Passion of Ayn Rand, except for a page or two. Predictably enough, I'd totally lost interest in the details of Ayn Rand's life after accepting Nathaniel Branden's basic portrait of her. Reading Passion seemed like an unnecessary and unpleasant chore. In those years, I did frequently hear disparaging stories about Ayn Rand from people in and around David Kelley's then-named Institute for Objectivist Studies (IOS). Unfortunately, I didn't realize that Barbara Branden's biography was often the only source for those stories. I presumed her to be fairly reliable reporter of the early history of the Objectivist movement because Passion seemed to be the widely-confirmed truth. (What a vicious circle!) Also, I thought of her as reliable simply because she was a first-hand observer of events. As with Nathaniel Branden, I did not seriously consider the possibility of grand deception, personal bias, or the like.

So in time, I came to accept the broad strokes of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden's portraits of Ayn Rand's character. Despite my admiration for the philosophy she created, I concluded that Ayn Rand was often deeply irrational in her dealings with other people. It was a harsh disappointment at first, but one which I felt bound to accept in light of the seemingly well-established facts. (I can vividly remember a moment of grappling with that bitter conflict in my freshman dorm room.) I concluded that I would not have liked to have ever met Ayn Rand, since we surely would have been at odds. (Augh!) Obviously, I failed to examine the portraits of Ayn Rand created by Nathaniel and Barbara Branden critically enough, in substantial part because I was too quick to accept the standard view of Ayn Rand found in IOS/TOC circles.

Without a doubt, the Brandens' portrayals of Ayn Rand were widely taken for granted in the intellectual circles of IOS/TOC in which I involved myself (to varying degrees) for ten years. That's hardly surprising, given David Kelley's reliance upon and praise for Barbara Branden's biography in making his allegations of recurring tribalism in the Objectivist movement in Truth and Toleration. Kelley conceded that he did not regard Ayn Rand as "entirely responsible for the tribal character of the [Objectivist] movement," but then wrote:

It is clear to me that Ayn Rand was a woman of remarkable integrity, who largely embodied the virtues she espoused. But it is also clear that she had certain other traits often found in great minds who have waged a lonely battle for their ideas: a tendency to surround herself with acolytes from whom she demanded declarations of agreement and loyalty; a growing sense of bitter isolation from the world; a quickness to anger at criticism; a tendency to judge people harshly and in haste. These faults did not outweigh her virtues; I consider them of minor significance in themselves. But they were real, and I thought [Barbara] Branden's book, whatever its other shortcomings, gave a reasonably fair and perceptive account of them (T&T 75, emphasis added).

In the mid-1990s, David Kelley invited Nathaniel and Barbara Branden to actively participate in IOS/TOC. For the past decade, both have done so to varying degrees. Nathaniel Branden has spoken at TOC's Summer Seminar almost every year for the past ten years. He has been prominently featured at other TOC conferences, including "Reclaiming Spirituality From Religion" (1999) and "Success: What it Is and What it Takes" (2004). Both Nathaniel and Barbara Branden were invited to speak at "Atlas and the World," although Barbara had to cancel at the last moment due to illness. Barbara Branden was featured as the keynote speaker at the 10th anniversary banquet in 1999. TOC's magazine, Navigator, published two articles by Nathaniel Branden and favorably reviewed The Art of Living Consciously and The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. In 1998, Navigator favorably highlighted the then-forthcoming movie The Passion of Ayn Rand based upon Barbara Branden's biography. In a 2003 book review of by William F. Buckley's Getting It Right, Robert Bidinotto clearly treated Barbara Branden's biography and Nathaniel Branden's memoirs as accurate and reliable accounts of Ayn Rand's life, even referring to "Barbara Branden's excellent biography, The Passion of Ayn Rand." TOC's book service reissued his Basic Principles of Objectivism course, as well as edited versions of his essays from Who is Ayn Rand?, "The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged" and "The Literary Method of Ayn Rand." Both Nathaniel and Barbara were interviewed for the so-called Objectivist History Project in 2003, 2004, and 2005. (Nathaniel was interviewed twice.)

Perhaps most telling of all, despite the publication of Jim Valliant's The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, both Nathaniel and Barbara Branden are slated to speak at the upcoming 2006 Summer Seminar. Barbara Branden will speak on "Rage and Objectivism." Nathaniel Branden will speak on "The Implications of Love." Together, they will be publicly interviewed on the topic of "Galt's Gulch and Objectivist Community." (Uncle! Those three topics are so pathetically ironic as to be beyond my capacity to mock.)

Predictably, once Nathaniel and Barbara Branden became officially involved with IOS/TOC, the general attitude toward them among IOS/TOC supporters shifted in a significantly positive direction. Self-selection was partly at work; most of the few people who strongly objected to their presence, such as Joan and Allan Blumenthal and Jim Lennox, quietly abandoned the organization. Others stayed but tended to keep their objections quiet. Many devout fans of Nathaniel Branden began attending the Summer Seminars largely to hear him speak, to the point that people sometimes joked about him "holding court" in discussions with far too many people gathered in concentric circles around him. Also, more than a few individuals adopted a more positive view of the Brandens at this time. I suspect that many people, particularly those confused or undecided about them, were swayed by their trust in David Kelley's judgment. They were also likely influenced by Nathaniel Branden's charm, large persona, and seeming friendliness to Objectivism. Moreover, given the pre-existing break with ARI, people generally ignored or dismissed the contrary testimony of ARI-affiliated scholars who personally knew Ayn Rand and/or the Brandens as biased hagiography. Many people attempted to erect an untenable wall between the person of Ayn Rand and her fiction and philosophy, disclaiming any interest in the person, even though disdain for person clearly bled over into disdain for the fiction and philosophy. (All that was certainly true in my own case, I'm sorry to report.)

Notably, all those changes happened without any serious discussion about the honesty and objectivity of Barbara Branden's portrayal of Ayn Rand in The Passion of Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden's in Judgment Day. Personally, while I often heard objections to the quality of the Brandens' writings and lectures, moral objections to their involvement in a supposed Objectivist organization were not just rare, but non-existent. Nathaniel Branden was such a regular fixture at TOC that he was widely regarded as the Benevolent Patriarch of Objectivism. Correspondingly, Ayn Rand was generally seen as the Wicked Witch of Objectivism. For so many years, I went along with all that.

Now let me pause here to offer an assessment of all that.

While writing up the bulk of this history in the summer of 2004, I came to a hard judgment about myself: Over the course of far too many years, I defaulted on the task of morally judging Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, particularly Nathaniel. To be clear, the fundamental problem was not that my moral judgment was in error, nor that my method of moral judgment was flawed, but rather that I refrained from moral judgment. Here's what happened -- or rather, did not happen. I did not come to a clear and solid evaluation of the Brandens' actions and character based upon the evidence available to me. When the evidence seemed mixed and confused, I did not set myself the task of answering the critical questions, e.g. "Are the Brandens' trustworthy recorders of Ayn Rand's life?" and "Are their criticisms of Objectivism just?" and "Are the Brandens genuine allies of Objectivism?" Instead, my judgments tended to drift along in confusion, pushed here and there by the evidence close at hand. As a result, I passively absorbed a fairly positive view of both Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, as well as a correspondingly negative view of Ayn Rand, from the culture of IOS/TOC. My negligence in this case resulted in substantial injustice, not just to Ayn Rand but also to all those who saw through the con game of the Brandens years ago.

And yes, it was important for me to come to a clear moral judgment of the Brandens, particularly Nathaniel. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden were not mere distant strangers, but intellectuals actively involved in an organization claiming to represent and promote Objectivism. So by supporting and promoting that organization, I was also indirectly supporting and promoting Nathaniel and Barbara Branden's unjust and dishonest attacks upon Ayn Rand's philosophy and character. I was helping to send the message to the world, including to newbie Objectivists, that Nathaniel and Barbara Branden are basically friends of Objectivism, that their criticisms thereof are honest and reasonable, and that their portraits of Ayn Rand are generally correct. By participating in an self-described "Objectivist" movement which welcomed the Brandens as friends, I implicitly sanctioned -- and even encouraged -- those nasty smear articles on Ayn Rand and Objectivism based upon the "stunning revelations" of the Brandens. From an outside perspective, if even defenders of Ayn Rand's philosophy accept that she lived a sordid life, then that's all fair game, right? (Every single person who still chooses to associate with TOC in any way, shape, or form, is guilty of the same injustice, even if sometimes critical of the Brandens. That's why I think it's so critical for the few honest ones to read The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics -- and then sever their ties with TOC.) Even worse, as Nathaniel's webmaster, I personally and directly promoted his work, including his attacks upon Ayn Rand and Objectivism. So due to my failure to judge the Brandens as I ought to have, I was destroying the very values I wished promote.

All in all, I feel a rather mushy and foul disappointment with myself for this failure to properly judge the Brandens. Even given my limited context of knowledge, I could have and ought to have done better. In contrast, although my ten years with IOS/TOC was predicated on substantial error on my part, at least those errors were mine. I made them, by my own conscious judgment and deliberate choice, because I believed David Kelley to be on the side of the true and the good. In contrast, with the Brandens, my failure to judge meant that I passively allowed others to decide for me. I had no malicious motive: I did not wish to think ill of Ayn Rand, as so many of the nasty folks on "Rebirth of Reason" and "Objectivist Living" clearly do. Still, I allowed my confusions to get the better of me; I passively accepted the standard views at TOC; I defaulted on the responsibility of moral judgment. At least that black cloud has a small silver lining: that failure provided me with an enormously clear lesson in the real-life importance of moral judgment. As with all philosophic issues, if you do not decide for yourself, you allow others to decide for you.

So let me now return to my history.

My turning point with respect to the Brandens began in 2003, as I was editing my introductory course on Objectivism, Objectivism 101, for the 2003 TOC Summer Seminar. I decided to add a brief biographical sketch of Ayn Rand to the first lecture, focusing on her life up through the writing of the novels. For some background, I skimmed the early chapters of Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand, as well as the material covering the same time period in her biographical essay from Who Is Ayn Rand?, both for the first time.

Although I was delighted by some of the childhood stories in The Passion of Ayn Rand, my overwhelming response was disgust at the barrage of disparaging, gratuitous, and arbitrary psychologizing of Ayn Rand. Barbara Branden seemed determined to spin the worst possible interpretations from the most innocuous facts. In order to do so, she routinely interjected herself into the story to draw some unwarranted negative conclusions about Ayn Rand's psychology, usually about her deeply repressed subconscious motives. She refused to allow her readers to form their own judgments based upon the facts presented. It was infuriating. (I'll rip apart some examples in a later post.)

At the time, I recognized that Barbara Branden's basic evaluations of Ayn Rand were less than objective, even malevolent. I suspected that her account of her own years with Ayn Rand was similarly, if not more seriously, poisoned by bias. I wondered whether Nathaniel Branden's memoir was similarly flawed. In addition to these worries about the Brandens' portrayals of Ayn Rand, I also wondered what justice was rightly due the creator of Objectivism, whatever her personal conduct. In particular, I was disturbed by the contrast between my tepidly mixed feelings toward Ayn Rand and my wholehearted reverence for Aristotle. After all, Aristotle advocated slavery! (As it turned out, I didn't need to solve that dilemma, since I soon realized that it was based upon a false premise about Ayn Rand's private conduct.)

My assessment of these matters was substantially hampered by the thought that I faced the Herculean task of having to find out the truth about those long-gone days of the Nathaniel Branden Institute. I thought, for example, that I had to determine who was responsible for the stifling atmosphere around NBI, if such existed at all. That seemed impossible to me, as I couldn't blindly trust the claimed recollections of one side of the conflict while arbitrarily ignoring or discounting the other. Nor was I going to adopt some cowardly middle position. I wanted to judge for myself based upon direct knowledge of the facts, but such knowledge seemed out of my reach. (In fact, I could have largely decided these questions first-hand by listening to Ayn Rand's Ford Hall Forum lectures, as I did in 2005. Her tone in the lectures is serious but not angry -- and her benevolent responses to all sorts of questions were clearly nothing like the dogmatic authoritarianism portrayed by the Brandens.)

For the next few months, I was overwhelmingly busy with work in graduate school, not to mention with my efforts to get to the root of my unhappiness with The Objectivist Center. I pursued my questions about the Brandens only on occasion, mostly by speaking to a few trusted friends who'd attended NBI lectures and seeking out various criticisms of the Brandens.

Finally, in the spring of 2004, I was able to come to firm moral conclusions about both Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. In the course of reading some of their recent writings on Ayn Rand and Objectivism, I realized that I did not need to somehow uncover the hidden truths of decades past. Those writings were revealing enough on their own. As indicated in my "Unnecessary Evidence" post, further consideration of Barbara's arbitrary psychologizing of Ayn Rand in her biography, combined with her too-often-ludicrous posts in NoodleFood's comments, were reason enough for me to judge her guilty of longstanding, malicious injustice toward Ayn Rand. Since then, her behavior has only confirmed that judgment: she arbitrarily accused her then-friend Lindsay Perigo of alcoholism, invented ludicrous fairy tales about Leonard Peikoff, offered fantastically twisted interpretations of Ayn Rand's personal journal entries, and more. As for Nathaniel, re-reading his "Benefits and Hazards" article told me more than I needed to know about his character. For him to promulgate such amorphous, slippery, and context-dropping criticisms of Objectivism, even while asserting his great authority on the subject, was beyond the pale. (I'd like to blog on his particular charges someday, since some are quite cleverly constructed, almost worthy of Ellsworth Toohey.) And so I concluded that Nathaniel and Barbara Branden were and are dishonest, unjust, and generally vile people. I told them so in a private e-mail in June 2004. I announced that judgment in my August 2004 blog post, Unnecessary Evidence, after Nathaniel Branden decided to play a malicious practical joke upon me -- by trespassing upon my property, no less. (My e-mail to the Brandens is reproduced in that blog post.)

Since then, Jim Valliant published The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics. He sealed the case against them, revealing them as dishonest, unjust, and malicious critics of Ayn Rand and Objectivism -- to this very day. Before I read the book, I did not think that I could possibly think worse of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. I was wrong.

In the meantime, the leadership of TOC is steadfastly refusing to consider the issue. In the wake of the revelations about the ongoing immorality of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden in The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, they are suddenly disclaiming all interest in Ayn Rand's life, while simultaneously refusing to even read the book. TOC is too committed to "openness" and "tolerance" to make the requisite moral judgments of the Brandens. As someone said in the NoodleFood comments recently, they're willing to tolerate everything -- except genuine Objectivists.

With the publication of The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, all those who claim some affinity for Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism face a stark choice: EITHER Ayn Rand and Objectivism OR Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. It is simply not logically possible to value both Objectivism and its would-be destroyers. The middle ground is gone forever. For many years, I thought that I could and ought to stand on that middle ground. I'm delighted to have been proven wrong, since that leaves me free to admire Ayn Rand in the way she so richly deserves.

More than anything else, that is the great value of Jim Valliant's The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics.

SOLID VOX

Solid Vox, the podcasting / radio show network by Prodos, is on its way... I look forward to present my first program on the Egoist.

Jim Valliant in Chicago on April 15th

The Chicago Objectivist Society is hosting two lectures by Jim Valliant about The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics on April 15th:

Ayn Rand and the Virtue of Integrity by James Valliant

James Valliant, the author of The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, is presenting two new lectures to the Chicago Objectivist Society. For the last twenty years, Ayn Rand has been the victim of attacks on her behavior and psychology inspired by the biographies of Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden. Finally, a critical response to the Branden's allegations has been published, The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, by James S. Valliant.

In this two-part lecture, Mr. Valliant first examines the problems with the Brandens' accounts. The second part of this lecture is a unique insight into Ayn Rand's character from the only author who has had access to her private journals.

"Jim Valliant... is one of the few people that knows what he's talking about when he says something." -- Leonard Peikoff, author of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

Part I: Ayn Rand and the Virtue of Integrity

This engaging lecture lays to rest the myths about Ayn Rand's life and character that have been promulgated by her detractors. It is highlighted by extensive, never-before-published personal journal entries of Ayn Rand. These passages are immensely valuable, not only in revealing the claims of Rand's critics to be profoundly inaccurate and unjust, but also in showcasing her epochal mind at work resolving complex questions of personal life.

Part II: Working With Ayn Rand's Journals

Mr. Valliant will discuss the process of writing this book, how and why the Estate of Ayn Rand made Rand's private journals available to Mr. Valliant - and his surprise at the dramatic confirmation of his hypotheses. Mr. Valliant will describe his experience working with Rand's Estate, and share his insights about Ayn Rand's personality - her serenity and rationality, her righteous anger, her careful moral judgment of others, and, above all, her remarkable integrity.

About James Valliant

James Valliant is the author of *The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics* and the editor of Ayn Rand's private journals used during his research. His op-eds have appeared in publications such as The San Francisco Chronicle.

He has been a Deputy District Attorney in the San Diego area for over 16 years. Mr. Valliant is a magna cum laude graduate of New York University with a degree in philosophy. He received his JurisDoctorate from the University of San Diego. With his wife, he created the 1995 television interview show, Ideas in Action, the winner of two prestigious Cinema in Industry (CINDY) Awards.

Mr. Valliant is a regular expert commentator on several news programs in San Diego, California, including Fox 6 and KUSI news programs as a religious, legal, and political analyst. His next book is on the origins of the New Testament, and will be titled, Behind the Cross.

Date: Saturday, April 15th

Time:
12:30-1:00 pm: Author Meet and Greet/Reception
1:00-2:40 pm: Part I: Lecture + Author Signing
2:45-4:00 pm: Lunch Break
4:00-6:00 pm: Part II: Lecture + Author Signing

8:00 pm: Dinner with Mr. Valliant
Location: Downtown Chicago at the DePaul University Campus. More specific information will be provided to registrants.

Cost: $44 per person ($34 full time students) before April 3rd
$49 ($39 full time students) after April 3rd

Enrollment: E-mail contact@chicagoobjectivists.org your RSVP.

You can pay with a credit card via the Chicago Objectivist Society's web page.

Two War Updates in One

Oohhh! Aahhh! Chavez no se va!

NASA's dragging their wheel

NASA’s top story is that the Mars Rover Spirit has lost a wheel. The Mars Rover mission has been a phenomental success –lasting 2 years beyond the original 90 day mission goal.

I’m happy for the success of the rovers, but I think it is pathetic that NASA’s resources are so badly managed that a two-year old mission is still their showcase effort. We should be hearing about many new projects, not breakdowns on old ones. If political maneuvering didn’t keep wasting billions on the space shuttle and the ISS (which were created because they were politically appealing) we might have dozens of missions going right now. Better yet, if they let entrepreneurs keep their money instead of taxing us to death, we might all be buying tickets to space.

Filtering technology vs. the DOJ

As you might be aware, the government passed a law in 1998 banning porn on the net on the theory that porn filters don'Â’t work. Despite being overturned by the Supreme Court in 2004, the DOJ is trying to resurrect that law (see recent attempt to spy on Google searches). Of course, the state of the art in filter tech has evolved rapidly along with the rest of the computer industry since 1998.

A new filter called iShield is able to recognize porn images based on the content of the image (other filters look at URLs and text) and according to PC Magazine, is very effective at doing so. The next generation will probably be even better — which highlights the retarding effect regulation has on technological progress – if we relied solely on government to ban “inappropriate” content from the web, weÂ’d never know what solutions the market might come up with. The same principle applies to environmental regulations, which block more efficient and less-polluting technologies by mandating a particular technology.

Abortion: try this at home

After South Dakota passed a law banning abortions recently, one clever blogger posted detailed instructions for performing an abortion online. Background here.

Why is the Bush Administration sacrificing our Marines?

Here is a story out of Iraq that caught my eye:

About a dozen Marines are being investigated for possible war crimes in connection with the deaths last year of 15 Iraqi civilians who were initially reported killed by a roadside bomb.

The Navy has opened a criminal investigation into the November 2005 bombing and subsequent firefight between Marines and insurgents that led to the deaths of the Iraqi citizens, defense officials said Thursday.

The inquiry will attempt to determine whether the Marines acted appropriately when they fired back at insurgents following a roadside bomb attack in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, said a military official who requested anonymity because the investigation has not been announced yet. The civilians were hit during that battle.

Military officials in Iraq completed a preliminary investigation and have forwarded it to the Navy Criminal Investigative Service there. Several defense officials acknowledged the investigation was taking place, though the details were provided by one official.

According to the official, the initial allegations of possible violations were brought to the attention of the military by a reporter in mid-February.

Fifteen Iraqis, eight insurgents and a Marine were killed during the Nov. 19 firefight, which began when a roadside bomb detonated next to a joint Iraqi-U.S. squad patrolling Haditha. Immediately after the explosion, insurgents attacked the patrol with small arms.

The Marine killed was assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2 of the 2nd Marine Division; two other Marines were wounded. Defense officials would not identify the unit or Marines involved in the investigation. While several Iraqis were part of the patrol, they are not involved in the investigation, the official said.

Military officials will try to determine whether the Marines followed the international law of armed conflict, including whether they positively identified or tried to identify the enemy and whether they determined there was hostile intent, as they are supposed to do.

The law regulates international military operations, and anyone found in violation can be held liable for war crimes and be court-martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

It is not uncommon for insurgents to launch attacks from homes, hospitals and other public buildings, where civilians can get caught in the crossfire. [Lolita C. Baldor, AP]

Let us consider the basic facts. There is no legitimate reason for Iraqis to oppose the US mission in Iraq. The US has toppled a bloody, brutal dictatorship and replaced it with a government whose constitution was written by the Iraqis themselves (and US policy in this regard has been excruciatingly deferential, for the Iraqi constitution is a mess). Despite the magnanimous treatment of the Iraqi people by the US, many in Iraq nevertheless oppose the US mission and have either given material support to the Iraqi insurgency, or have allowed the insurgency to flourish by failing to fight it themselves.

In a direct attack against US forces that resulted in the death of an American, civilians were allegedly killed. Rather then blame the insurgency for creating the conditions where innocents perish, our own government is investigating our Marines for falling to properly identify their targets under the precepts of "international law," i.e. the Geneva Convention.

Forgive me for being brutally blunt, but the only acceptable response by Iraqi civilians to an attack on American forces is for the Iraqis to immediately point out who carried out the assault so our troops can utterly annihilate them, and then hide, lest these civilians come between our men and their mission. Anything less is to side with the insurgency. Anything less makes these civilians the real enemy in Iraq--the real source of the insurgency's power. The insurgency does not exist in a vacuum; it survives only because the Iraqis allow it to survive.

This story goes directly to the heart of Yaron Brook's argument against just war theory and the defects in the Bush administration's prosecution of the war against America's enemies. Our government is sacrificing the lives of our solders in the name of minimizing harm to the enemy. In the name of "international law," it is fighting an altruistic battle when justice to our men demands that they be left free to locate, close with and destroy the enemy without squelching their ability to fight.

And last I checked, the Geneva convention have never been consistently applied to the treatment of our forces in battle. Remember the Bataan death march? Remember Malmédy? Remember the Hanoi Hilton? The Geneva Convention may serve our forces if America ever goes to war with France, but since the chances of that happening are remote, the Bush administration and Congress would be better served by simply acknowledging that warfare is brutal and that the responsibility for the death and suffering that occurs on the battlefield rests solely with the party that initiated force. The just war is the one that ends quickly, because the enemy's forces and their means of support are fair targets to be dispatched with ruthless force and deliberate speed.

So at root, I say the Geneva Convention be damned. The war in Iraq should be brought to Iraqi civilians, who allowed Saddam to flourish, who either actively or tacitly support the insurgency, and who have taken little initiative to restore order to their own brutal mess of a country.

Indecency Fines Against CBS Are an Ominous Attack on Free Speech

From David Holcberg:

The $3.6 million in "indecency" fines proposed by the FCC against CBS are an ominous attack on the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.

Just as the government doesn't fine newspapers that publish cartoons that Muslims deem indecent, it shouldn't fine broadcasters that air shows that viewers deem indecent. Viewers are free to change the channel or turn off their TV set if they do not like what they see. They can't be forced to patronize a station they find indecent.

Moreover, it is the parents--not the government--who should be responsible for determining what their children are allowed to watch on TV.

Reality catches up with art

Readers old enough to remember their high school civics classes might recall an earlier expression of "multiculturalism" and "diversity" before these terms were ever coined, that America was a "mosaic" of races and cultures, not a "melting pot" of reason, freedom, and the rule of law. They may recall, with some distaste, their teachers expounding with sanctimony on the subject and their textbooks describing it in preacherly prose. Neither the teachers nor the textbooks, however, offered any guidance or advice about what would happen or what action to take if the elements of that "mosaic" proved to be inimical or hostile to each other and resulted in violent, destiny-defining clashes.

Move from the classroom to home and television. Fans of the four series of "Star Trek" will recall the "Prime Directive," a world "Federation" rule that forbade Enterprise crews from "interfering" with primitive alien cultures, no matter how barbaric and irrational they were. With very few exceptions in the episodes, this rule was strictly and conscientiously observed. Also stressed in the series was the notion of "toleration" of alien cultures and practices, no matter how impossibly "inhuman" they were portrayed. Those cultures were to remain "pure" and undisturbed, left alone to "evolve" on their own, if ever.

But what was the origin of these ideas? Long before the debut of "Star Trek" in the 1960's, they had filtered down from the modern philosophy taught in our universities to Hollywood, philosophy imported from Europe and tailored for American consumption and promulgation over the course of a century. The relativistic, anti-reason, subjectivist, anti-absolute, reality-denying contents of that philosophy, unopposed by even so much as a fillip of Aristotelian philosophy, helped to indoctrinate not only the writers of those and other television programs, but the culture in general. Then came multiculturalism, "diversity," and "tolerance," all shielded under the mantra of political correctness.

President George W. Bush may or may not have been a "Star Trek" fan, but the "Prime Directive" seems to be the foundation of his foreign policy. Islam, in his view, is a religion of peace "hijacked" by extremists and criminals, against whom we are waging (and losing) an unimaginably costly war. Islam, to him, is itself exempt from criticism or judgment. The true nature of the creed eludes him. The thematic similarities between the Koran and, say, Hitler's Mein Kampf, apparently are beyond his grasp. If Iraqis "democratically" vote themselves a theocratic government as repressive as Iran's, the West should not be judgmental, even though it is sacrificing blood and treasure to make it possible. "Tolerance" means adopting a policy of non-judgmentalism, and is the natural partner of the altruistic policy of "sacrifice."

We can, however, thank the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" for introducing and concretizing a new nemesis long before its real-life counterpart made itself known. This was the "The Borg," a ravenous, nomadic phenomenon bent on conquest through the destruction of civilizations and the absorption and forcible conversion of their inhabitants into ant-like ciphers with no volition of their own. Its collective by-word and warning was "Resistance is futile." The sole alternative to submission to it was death. Its goal was to erase all traces of individuality and values from men so they could better serve "the hive."

Islam (or submission) can be characterized as a real-life "Borg." Islam is a creed that demands unthinking, unreserved submission and obedience to the commands of a ghost, purportedly related by an angel (Gabriel) to a pedophilic barbarian-cum-prophet some fourteen centuries ago, and that encourages the conquest and absorption of secular Western societies under primitive Sharia law. Colonies of Muslims appeared and grew in the midst of those societies, in Europe, Canada, the United States, and other Western countries. They were an alien phenomena that first seemed as anomalously insular as the Amish and Hassidic Jews, but have begun to exhibit a virulence that would not otherwise have been noticed, acknowledged or even tolerated but for the emasculating effects of multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance.

Then-chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Omar Ahmad, told a gathering of California Muslims in July 1998 that "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran...should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." If that ever came to pass, what would happen to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? Presumably they would suffer the fate of the Alexandrian Library in a Muslim campaign to cleanse men's minds.

Islamic spokesmen and activists belligerently demand, first, "toleration" of their irrationalism, and then the cessation of any form of criticism of the creed that could be deemed or defined as blasphemy, offense, or "hate crime." On the premise that Islam cannot be "reformed" into a less hostile, non-aggressive creed without destroying it -- a task that would in fact render it as "benign" as that of the Amish, and no longer "Islam," once its homicidal commandments were expunged from the Koran -- what has been the overall Western response to its demands, which are absolute and non-negotiable? Why is the West retreating from the threat of conquest? Why does resistance to Islam appear to be "futile"?

Let us examine some incidents in which Western values, especially freedom of speech, have been challenged and confronted by Islam, and all but abandoned by the West.

In Britain, during the height of the Danish Mohammed cartoon uproar, the police covertly photographed demonstrators in London who carried placards that promised or advocated death for the cartoonists and anyone who "insulted" Mohammed. These demonstrators, however, if they are arrested, will not be charged with inciting murder or violence against individuals, but with "hate crimes." Conversely, anyone expressing a position on Islam that Muslims could claim to be offensive, may also be charged with a "hate crime."

The notion of "hate" crime subverts the whole idea of criminal responsibility, in addition to making mere thought a crime. On one hand, the concept treats an emotion as a crime and grants it legal, prosecutable legitimacy. Since all emotions are based on conscious or subconscious evaluations, or thought, an emotion can manifest itself in some form of objectionable expression (which could be rational or irrational) in oral or printed form.

On the other hand, the notion of "hate" crime grants legal legitimacy to the purported victim's claim of offense, wounded pride, or other emotion-based response to any criticism of the victim's "beliefs," including a sense of jeopardy caused by the "offending" expression.

How easy it will be to shift the definition of a "hate crime" from an inflammatory placard or a shouted imprecation during a demonstration to include an article, essay or book! Are Western judiciaries ready to strike down hate crime laws? No. They are rapidly endorsing their introduction into Western legal systems.

Most Western newspapers demurred reprinting the Danish cartoons out of "sensitivity" to Muslim religious values (although Muslim-run newspapers and news services feel no such constraint when depicting Jews, President Bush, or Western values). The staffs of several American and European university papers were fired or penalized for printing the cartoons. In Minnesota, a professor of geography at Century College was censored by her school's administration for posting some of the cartoons on the bulletin board of her department, even after she hid them from random sight.

Several Mideast editors ran some of the cartoons, not out of sympathy with freedom of speech, doubt about the veracity of Mohammed, or to defy their governments, but simply to show other Muslims what the uproar was about. They were arrested, or dismissed, and their papers closed. One editor in Yemen (a U.S. "ally") faces the death penalty.

Europe is reaping the perilous harvest of its decades-long experiment in multiculturalism and tolerance of the irrational, and there is no reason to think that the endemic Muslim violence there will not be emulated in the U.S. Many European countries, especially France, are experiencing a spike in gang rapes of "unveiled" European and "apostate" Mideast women by Muslim men and teens as a form of jihad. European politicians, artists and writers who have spoken out against the dangers of Islamofascism or who have been critical of Islam must have police protection. Many Muslim sections of European cities are "no go" areas to the police. A Turkish Muslim proclaimed in 2003 that Paris, Rome and Madrid were now components of the Islamic world because so many mosques have been erected in those capitals.

It can't happen here? American Muslims are not "into" jihadist behavior? Daniel Pipes has on his site logged dozens of instances of "mini-jihadi" in the U.S. committed by resident Muslims, the most recent being the attempted murder on March 3rd of students on the campus of the University of North Carolina by an Iranian immigrant who drove an SUV into a crowded pedestrian zone with the intent of killing as many Americans as he could. Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, age 22, was the quintessential "moderate," Western-educated Muslim and model student (majoring in philosophy and psychology) who before his action displayed no overt signs of hostility towards his adopted country. His statements, after his arrest, comprise the kind of anti-American rant one can find on jihadist websites or in al-Quada videotapes.

Pipes is understandably perplexed by the event, and writes that Taheri-azar was "not some low-life, not homicidal, not psychotic, but a conscientious student and amiable person." He reaches some wrong conclusions and offers an irrelevant solution. Muslims, he writes, should develop "a moderate, modern, and good-neighborly version of Islam that rejects radical Islam, jihad, and the subordination of 'infidels.'" However, the term "radical Islam" is redundant. Remove jihad and the subordination of infidels from Islam, and there is no Islam. The problem is the creed, just as it is with Christians who attack abortion clinics or murder doctors, and with environmentalists who torch car dealerships or attack animal research labs.

The idea of "non-interference" ala Star Trek is evidence of multiculturalism's influence in the general culture. It, diversity and "tolerance" combine to close the door to rational discussion and persuasion in every detail. It renders helpless law enforcement to deal with the irrational, barbaric ethics and practices of Islam. Muslims can get away with their irrationality under the protection of multiculturalist "tolerance." Any proposal or move to dilute Islam's "purity" as practiced by Muslims triggers claims of Islamophobia or apostasy or even racism, not only by Muslim spokesmen, but by many Westerners, as well (such as Hollywood). From the Islamic perspective, "tolerance" is a unilateral policy to be benefited only by Muslims, while "multiculturalism" or "diversity" certainly is not on the Islamic agenda of global or even American or European conquest.

Only two choices are open to the West: submission to Islam by means of a totalitarian repression of free thought and expression imposed by Western and especially by American authorities; or an assertion of the Western values of reason and individual rights and of their superiority over any species of mysticism, and a declaration of true war against Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. The alternative is to experience the degradation of progressive subservience or "tolerated" dhimmitude in deference to the "Borg."

The problem with atheists . . .

Slavoj Zizek argues for atheism in the New York Times:

For centuries, we have been told that without religion we are no more than egotistic animals fighting for our share, our only morality that of a pack of wolves; only religion, it is said, can elevate us to a higher spiritual level. Today, when religion is emerging as the wellspring of murderous violence around the world, assurances that Christian or Muslim or Hindu fundamentalists are only abusing and perverting the noble spiritual messages of their creeds ring increasingly hollow. What about restoring the dignity of atheism, one of Europe's greatest legacies and perhaps our only chance for peace?

The problem with vesting one's hope for humanity in atheism is that atheism only rejects faith in God; beyond declaring what it does not accept, it has nothing else to offer philosophically. That’s unfortunately why so many atheists are moonbats—they may have rejected one form of mysticism, but it does not follow that they have rejected all forms. That’s why I’m not surprised when Zizek says this:

A moral deed is by definition its own reward. David Hume, a believer, made this point in a very poignant way, when he wrote that the only way to show true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God's existence.

Ah, Hume—and a moral code that is still disconnected from the individual’s life. A moral deed is not its own reward—it is recognition of the facts of one’s nature as a living human being and the nature of choices one must make in order to flourish. Every rational moral choice is self-interested—even if given the nature of our times, it doesn’t seem that way to most.

Zizek makes one last observation:

While a true atheist has no need to boost his own stance by provoking believers with blasphemy, he also refuses to reduce the problem of the Muhammad caricatures to one of respect for other's beliefs. Respect for other's beliefs as the highest value can mean only one of two things: either we treat the other in a patronizing way and avoid hurting him in order not to ruin his illusions, or we adopt the relativist stance of multiple "regimes of truth," disqualifying as violent imposition any clear insistence on truth.

What, however, about submitting Islam — together with all other religions — to a respectful, but for that reason no less ruthless, critical analysis? This, and only this, is the way to show a true respect for Muslims: to treat them as serious adults responsible for their beliefs.

But I don’t respect Muslims for their beliefs. I respect the Muslims right to hold their beliefs (and harm no one but themselves in the process) but I have nothing but contempt for any code that damns existence on this earth in the name of the supernatural. Life demands rationality, and that is why, in the end, atheism is not substitute for Objectivism.

Law Conference Report

I'm very pleased to report that Front Range Objectivism's Weekend Conference on Law, Individual Rights and the Judicial System was a thoroughly delightful experience, just as I expected. The lectures were very good, each conveying an unexpected wealth of new ideas and information. The conference was run very smoothly, thanks to Lin Zinser's excellent organizational skills. I also really enjoyed the time spent with Don Watkins, David Rehm, and Greg Perkins.

For the sake of those who were not present, let me offer from brief comments on each lecturer. (Although I took reasonably good notes, I can't guarantee that I've not made some error in presenting the ideas of the speaker. So take what I've said with a grain of salt.)

Tara Smith gave an excellent lecture on "Why Originalism Won't Die: Common Mistakes in Competing Theories of Judicial Interpretation." A few weeks before the conference, I re-listened to her OCON lecture "How "Activist" Should Judges Be?: Objectivity in Judicial Decisions." Although the two lectures concerned the same basic topic, the OCON lecture offered a more sweeping overview, whereas the FRO lecture offered a much more detailed examination and in-depth critique of the reigning theory of judicial interpretation today, namely originalism. She particularly focused on demolishing its claim to objectivity -- and she did that quite effectively by means of the Objectivist theory of concepts.

So, much to my delight, the FRO lecture was definitely not just a rehash of the OCON lecture. I mention that in the hopes that a recording will be offered for sale, in that both lectures are well-worth buying. In any case, I know that Tara is working on publishing it as a law review article.

Dana Berliner spoke about her fight against arbitrary government seizure of private property for private developers as one of the Institute for Justice's litigators in the Kelo eminent domain case. Since I have some reservations about supporting IJ, I was very impressed by her thoughtful approach to working within the very messy state current legal precedents. In arguing the Kelo case, she (and IJ generally) was careful to avoid endorsing the bad premises of various awful but well-entrenched precedents, even when working within those precedents. She repeatedly emphasized a very important point: that mere parchment cannot protect our rights. Supreme Courts have repeatedly handed down awful decisions time and time again, even when the language in the Constitution is clear and unambiguous. That's why we need a rational culture to preserve our liberty, particularly a deeply entrenched respect for individual rights.

Ms. Berliner was also clearly devastated by the outcome of the Kelo decision, precisely because IJ chose a case that would have such a broad application. However, she was also very heartened and hopeful by the resulting furor over the decision. She reported that 46 states are working on passing more restrictive amendments and/or laws about eminent domain than found in the Kelo decision! Emminent domain is definitely a critically hot issue today -- and defenders of individual rights have a great opportunity to strengthen government protection of property rights by capitalizing on the public fury over Kelo.

Eric Daniels gave two excellent lectures on the history of the unenumerated rights in the 9th and 14th Amendments, almost all of which was unknown to me. In particular, I had no inkling of the conflict between the doctrine of unenumerated rights and that of the police powers of the late 1800s and early 1900s. (The police power is the power of the states to regulate anything for the sake of promoting the health, welfare, safety, and morals of people. Even in the founding period of the US, it was widely assumed to be a legitimate power of the states, albeit not of the federal government.) As usual, Eric's command of that historical material was awe-inspiring.

At the end of his second lecture, Eric offered some interesting suggestions for better protecting currently-unenumerated rights. He said that the relationship between the rights must be made more clear, particularly that rights are an integrated whole, that they do not conflict, that they are all derivatives of the right to life. Physical force must understood to be the only means of violating rights. Government power must be strictly limited -- and that must be recognized as a positive good. The fundamental rights must be more clearly articulated, as opposed to the grab-bag of rights listed in the Bill of Rights. A clear declaration of the nature of rights and purpose of government should be included in the Constitution, perhaps as a preamble. The most fundamental change must be a moral change in the culture, particularly the acceptance of self-interest as the only foundation of ethics, of capitalism as moral, and so on.

Amy Peikoff gave two very interesting lectures on the supposed right to privacy, the subject of her philosophy dissertation. She examined the origin of the claim that privacy is a fundamental right in and of itself worthy of constitutional protection -- and the subsequent and ongoing debates about it. (That part of the lecture was a bit difficult to follow, unfortunately.) Then she examined whether the right to privacy is a legitimate right at all. Amy's view is that it is not. Here's why:

• Privacy is a good--like food, music, or love. So while we have the right to take the actions required to secure our privacy via judicious use of our property and voluntary contracts with others, we have no direct right to privacy per se. (Amy has some interesting ideas about "virtual trespass" upon which Paul might blog.) Also, rights are freedoms to act in pursuit of the values required for life. If privacy were a right, then the mere act of being watched would have to necessarily interfere with those actions, but that's not true. (In fact, the right to privacy is based upon a Kantian appeal to the dignity of the human person, not upon a Lockean theory of rights.)
  
  
• The right to privacy is non-objective. The claim that some information is private (or that some observation is an intrusion) is a value judgment, often substantially dependent upon the individual's personal preferences. In contrast, the law should just concern factual, perceptual judgments about whether force was initiated or not. (That lack of objectivity is also a basic problem with taxing "luxury" goods or banning "obscenity" too.) Consequently, upholding a right to privacy means that people cannot protect their privacy to whatever degree they please, but rather must depend upon the government's idea of a "reasonable expectation of privacy," as set by community standards and limited by community welfare. (Collective subjectivism replaces objectivity, yet again, courtesy of Kant.)
  
  
• Rights don't conflict. Yet laws designed to protect privacy often undermine genuine rights to property and contract. So employers lose their right to contractually set the terms for the use of their computers by their employees when those employees are deemed to have a right to privacy shielding personal e-mail composed at and sent from the workplace from examination by the employers. Also, even the justification of genuine rights (like the right to abort a fetus) by the right to privacy diverts attention away from the genuine liberty rights at stake. And so those genuine rights are not eroded, since they are not paid due attention.

our government doesn't currently protect the our genuine rights to liberty, property, contract, and so on. So we should worry that demolishing the right to privacy in the context of our present legal system would mean giving up some protection of genuine rights, most obviously the right to abortion. However, Amy's purpose was not to claim that we should be advocating the elimination of the right to privacy right now, but rather than a proper political system would not appeal to a false right like the right to privacy. Also, we should advocate particular rights like the right to abortion on proper grounds, i.e. right to liberty, not privacy. Amy is also working on publishing this work on privacy as a law review article.

In the panel discussion, perhaps the most interesting point raised concerned the extent of the danger posed by the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Institute for Justice lawyer Steve Simpson said that such a decision would not merely throw the abortion issue back to the states, but could open the door to a federal statute banning abortion. Also, I should mention that I was very impressed with the integration between all the talks: references to ideas from prior talks were constantly flying about in delightful ways.

Overall, I was dismayed to learn just how much Kantianism has infected American jurisprudence, not just via the appeal to human dignity underlying the right to privacy, but also in the now-standard idea that the government may do almost anything, so long as it claims to intend some good. (That's the current state of the law with respect to eminent domain.) For more on that sordid topic of Kantian jurisprudence, I'm delighted to recommend Amy Peikoff's very good course Louis D. Brandeis: Altruism With Integrity and Its Consequences. (I listened to it just a few days after the law conference.) Although that's not the main topic of the lectures, she discusses Brandeis' Kantian altruism -- and the disastrous effects of his very effective implementation thereof in our legal system.

Overall, my hearty congratulations to Lin Zinser for producing such a fantastic event!

Is Google's Orkut service is being used for recruitment by Al-Qaeda?

I have a profile on Orkut, a social networking website run by Google, but I hadn't visited it for ages. Hearing the story at the USA Today on Al-Qaeda using Orkut to recruit English-speaking supporters, I went to Orkut to look up the online communities in question. I was stunned—here were a group of people viciously denouncing the US and reveling in the murder of its people. Clearly, some of the most vicious elements in the world have hijacked this website in order to disseminate their message of jihad against the west.

Instapundit’s Glen Reynolds has a new book called An Army of David’s where he argues that the rise of the Internet culture has given voice and influence to a who new group of people who without their blogs and social reworking websites would be ignored by traditional media. Reynolds is dead on and I myself depend on this medium to communicate with those who share my values. The double-edged sword is that the same technology that allows me to link with my supporters can be also exploited to link up those who seek to re-constitute the caliphate.

Yet to decry Al-Qaeda’s hijacking the web is ridiculous, akin to decrying its hijacking of airliners on 9/11. Anything Al-Qaeda touches is used for corrupt purposes. The vehicles Al-Qaeda uses were not built in the Arab world, nor the satellite telephones, or the video recorders it uses to film its messages, yet Al-Qaeda has used each in furtherance of its cause. This is an enemy whose material assets are only what he is able to take from us.

So the walk away message from this story can’t be that the Internet has become evil, or that we need a regimen of censorship to police the web, because by extension all everyday technology would become suspect. Technology is a tool, and it is as good or as bad the people who use it.

Instead, we ought simply focus on the ideology of our enemies and work to crush that. Let’s face it: we keep pussy-footing around the enemy. Had Iran’s mullahs been silenced and the Syrian regime had been smashed, Al-Qaeda would not exist. Had the US allowed Israel to destroy the Palestinian terror machine and those who support it, Al-Qaeda would not exist. Had the UK broken the backs of the imans who use London mosques to recruit terrorists, Al-Qaeda would not exist. And had the West declared that anyone who harms a westerner or western property over some cartoons and a printing press will suffer a certain, painful fate, Al-Qaeda would not exist.

It is not the Internet that makes Al-Qaeda possible; it’s the West’s unwillingness to ruthlessly seek out and destroy militant Islam that makes this terror group a continued force. How long Al-Qaeda thumbs its nose as us is not up to it; it’s up to us.

Freedom Of Speech Campaign

From The Front Lines

Well, I made it to California, and after settling into my new place, spending too much money on furnishings, and trying to get used to living in a place where all the clocks run three hours too slow, I decided to jump into the California Objectivist world head first.

I began by spending my morning at the VanDamme Academy, which of course is run by the delightful Lisa VanDamme. I sat in on the elementary school history lesson and the middle school grammar class. All I can say is that I was absolutely amazed by what Lisa and her staff have accomplished. Her students demonstrated more mastery of their subjects than most college students I've met, and just as important, they showed more enthusiasm for learning than any students I have EVER met. There is no question about it: my kids (once they exist) will attend the VanDamme Academy.

After that, whilst still on my cloud, I drove up to UCLA for the free speech event sponsered by the UCLA Objectivist club and the Ayn Rand Institute. It was a round table discussion of the Danish cartoons depicting the "prophet" Mohammed. The round table featured Yaron Brook and three other individuals (Avi Davis and Kevin James, who supported the publishing of the cartoons, and Khaleel Mohammed who...can you guess???...opposed it). Ed Locke moderated.

There was a pretty good turnout (at least 100, maybe 200 people), the majority of whom I suspect were Objectivists (based on the applause). There were no disruptions, and thanks to the VERY heavy security presence, no Muslims blew themselves up, which was nice.

Yaron did a wonderful job, although I wish he had been able to develop some of the points he made as I think some of them could have come across wrong or unclear.

What was most interesting to me was trying to decipher the psycho-epistemologies of the other presenters.

Avi Davis sounded like most modern op-ed writers (which makes sense since he is one): no principles, a thorough empiricist, and therefore difficult to follow, and guilty of the evening's worst statement when he suggested that 'perhaps liberal democracies have progressed enough that it's time to start placing limits on some of our freedoms.' (That's a paraphrase, but pretty accurate...he was advocating throwing Holocaust deniers in prison.)

Khaleel Mohammed was defending the Muslims. His basic argument was that the West is hypocritical in claiming the cartoons fall under free speech, because we allegedly only allow free speech when it offends Muslims, not Christians or Jews. He said some very awful things and some less awful things, and I would classify him as a rationalist (or, if you've listened to DIM, I'd say he was an M1 coming very very close to an M2).

Kevin James was your average conservative radio talk show host. Completely non-intellectual, and more interested in getting laughs than changing minds.

In sum, I had a great time at the event. The UCLA Objectivist club (L.O.G.I.C.) was handing out lots of Objectivist literature (including FREE copies of Atlas Shrugged), and I saw at least a few members of the media there, so I'm hopeful this helped Objectivism reach some people. Events like this are always a mixed -- you can't develop your own position as fully but you reach more people. My hope is that at least a few of them at least found the ideas interesting enough to read Atlas Shrugged. If even a few of them are convinced that Objectivism has something important to say, perhaps they will become ARI contributers...and thereby help pay my bills.

OCON '06

Hooray! I just registered for the 2006 OCON! It'll be in Boston from June 30th to July 8th. Discount pricing lasts for just a few more days -- until March 15th. The schedule looks particularly good this year: I'm particularly displeased that I won't be able to take two very promising optional courses, thanks to an already-way-too-full schedule. (Yes, yes, that's a great problem to have. Still, I grumble.) I'll get those lectures on CD, of course... but they won't arrive until late fall.

Here's my first session of optional courses:

The Rise of Totalitarian Islam, Yaron Brook

Today America faces an enemy that most of our political leaders fear to name. This enemy brought down the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11; it has bombed Madrid and London; and to this day it motivates much of the Iraqi insurgency. Our enemy is more than murderous, suicidal terrorists. It's totalitarian Islam--a lethal ideology calling for holy war against infidels.

In this course, Dr. Brook will analyze the historical development of totalitarian Islam. He will look at its foundation in Koranic teachings; its intellectual development and rise in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; its political realization in Iran; and its spread from the Middle East to portions of Europe and now the United States. Dr. Brook will discuss in detail the nature of this ideological threat, as well as the proper methods for dealing with it.

Savoring Ayn Rand's "Red Pawn" by Dina Schein

Ayn Rand's movie scenario "Red Pawn" is arguably the most dramatic of her early works of fiction. This course aims to raise the reader's enjoyment of "Red Pawn" by analyzing it and to teach the rudiments of literary analysis using this work as the model. Among issues to be discussed: how to determine "Red Pawn's" theme; the essential elements that make this work dramatic; an analysis of the story's characters; how the events, characters and even descriptive details support the theme; how Miss Rand's technique of writing in tiers applies to this work. By contrasting "Red Pawn" with its nearest literary neighbor, We the Living, Dr. Schein will shed more light on both works.

The Greco-Persian Wars by John Lewis

In 490 BC some 50,000 Persians landed on the beach at Marathon, and 10,000 Greeks drove them back. The Persians returned ten years later, and "drank the rivers dry" with the largest army ever seen. Against all odds, the Greeks united, ruined the ambitions of the Persian king along with his army, and then drove onto his soil, smashing the threat permanently. These were the single most important battles in all of Western history. The course will consider why the king attacked, on what terms the Greeks united, how they destroyed the king's ambitions and what lessons this conflict holds for today. We will pay homage to the awesome heroes of the Greeks--the "greatest generation" of their day--who defended their freedom with their lives and made possible all that we are today. (Students should read books 5-8 of the Penguin edition of Herodotus: The Histories.)

Gems of Short Fiction by Lisa VanDamme

One consequence of the decay of American education is that many adults have never been exposed to the classics of world literature. Reading lists from today's high schools and universities consist primarily of contemporary American fiction or obscure multicultural novels. In those rare cases that the classics are taught, they are analyzed either superficially or from an irrational philosophic perspective.

In this course, Ms. VanDamme will discuss of some of the world's great works of short fiction, by authors such as Leo Tolstoy, Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her approach to analyzing these stories will be the one defined by Leonard Peikoff in his brilliant course "Eight Great Plays": she will discuss the plot (or central event), characterization, theme, underlying philosophy and style of each author. In doing so, she hopes to introduce Objectivists to the powerful events, penetrating insights and memorable characters of stories that they ought to have been taught in school, and that are taught at her school.

Here's my second session:

Aristotle's Ethics: Its Critics through History, Marc Baer

Aristotle's is one of the most rational and developed theories in the history of ethical thought. Yet despite its influence, it has never found broad acceptance among intellectuals. Why? This course explains various historically important--and sometimes justified--challenges to his theory. After setting out his main doctrines, we will survey ancient, medieval and modern criticisms of: the function argument, the doctrine of the mean, his account of justice, and more.

In seeing criticisms of Aristotle's views, we can see pivotal points in the history of moral philosophy--points which became trends that helped shape the modern world. The course thus provides an understanding not only of the core of Aristotle's ethical thought, but also of crucial developments in the history of moral philosophy. Both of these are taken as part of the crucial background against which Ayn Rand's moral philosophy can be understood.

Descartes's Meditations, Robert Mayhew

Leonard Peikoff once wrote that "To reclaim the self-confidence of man's mind, the first modern to refute is Immanuel Kant ... ; the second is Descartes." In this course, Dr. Mayhew will conduct a close, critical analysis of Descartes's most important work: Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). Not only will this acquaint the student with a major, influential work from early modern philosophy, it will also provide him with an excellent opportunity to practice philosophical detection. Topics (i.e., errors) to be covered include: skepticism about the senses and reason; the cogito; the primacy of consciousness; Cartesian dualism; the ontological argument for the existence of God.

Understanding 20th-Century Philosophy--the Case of Quine by B. John Bayer

The late W. V. Quine was one of the most influential American philosophers of the 20th century, and the story of his philosophy is in many ways the story of 20th-century "analytic" philosophy. This course will survey and evaluate central points of Quine's philosophy.

Inspired by Bertrand Russell and mentored by Rudolf Carnap, Quine was steeped in the early tradition of logical positivism and linguistic analysis. But, in time, Quine came to reject central tenets of the analytic tradition. His critique of the analytic/synthetic distinction and the empiricist criterion of meaning were instrumental in dethroning the orthodoxy of logical positivism, ushering in a new era of "naturalism" in philosophy that persists to this day.

Although Quine portrayed himself as a defender of science and objectivity, his basic philosophic premises imply a skepticism more like contemporary postmodernism than Quine was willing to admit. Understanding this will help explain why even the best of today's philosophers remain under the sway of ideas that are at odds with science and reason.

Inspiring Heroes: Great Leaders by Debi Ghate, Talbot Manvel and Rob Tarr

Scattered throughout American history are the compelling stories of inspiring men whose leadership resulted in tremendous achievement and progress. Such heroic men can be found in fields as diverse as finance, politics and the military. Yet they have in common their reliance on reason, their unfaltering persistence in the face of adversity, their dedication to excellence and their unerring belief in the integrity and the efficacy of the individual. It is these characteristics that separate the courageous leader from the rest of the crowd. Join us as we tell the compelling stories of three such leaders: Hyman Rickover (presented by Captain Talbot Manvel), Frederick Douglass (presented by Debi Ghate) and Andrew Carnegie (presented by Rob Tarr).

I really wish that I could also take these courses, but at least I'll hear on-the-spot reports from Paul:

Objectivist Epistemology in Outline by Greg Salmieri

Ayn Rand held that "philosophy is primarily epistemology"--the "science devoted to the discovery of the proper methods of acquiring and validating knowledge." Therefore, "it is with a new approach to epistemology that the rebirth of philosophy has to begin." This class is to be a survey of Rand's new approach to epistemology--the most original and least widely understood aspect of her thought.

Rand did not write a systematic presentation of her entire epistemology, but her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology presents "one of its cardinal elements--the Objectivist theory of concepts," and she discusses other elements of the epistemology in numerous other articles. Leonard Peikoff has provided a systematic presentation in his Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Drawing on these works, this class will highlight the structure of the epistemology, helping students to appreciate how Rand's theory of concepts forms the core of a distinctive and powerful theory of knowledge.

The course will be a good introduction to the Objectivist epistemology for beginning students, and it will contain new ideas that should be of interest to advanced students.

The Nature of Probability, Its Valid and Invalid Uses by Evan Picoult

Probability and statistics are mathematical concepts used extensively in the physical and biological sciences, in engineering and in finance. Probability has two related but different meanings. One is the assessment of the evidentiary status of propositions along the continuum from false to possible to probable to certain. This course, in contrast, will focus on probability as the measurement of the frequency of occurrence of potential states of random physical and economic processes. Randomness will be explained as an epistemological, not metaphysical, concept.

This course will explain the proper definition and epistemological status of the concept of probability by reviewing its conceptual development in the 17th-19th centuries and by examining its valid and invalid uses across a range of subjects, from games of chance through physics and finance.

Topics will include: the relation of probability, correlation and causality; statistical mechanics, entropy and Maxwell's Demon; probability and methods for measuring value and risk in finance.

Also, I should mention that I'll definitely buy this course on CD:

The History of America (part 5): 1920-1975 by Eric Daniels

This course tells the story of America's tumultuous confrontation with the biggest challenges of the 20th century. During the half-century from the end of World War I to the end of the Vietnam War, Americans confronted a worldwide depression, the growth of New Deal statism, the menace of fascism and communism, and their own internal intellectual fractures. Throughout this period of wars and domestic conflict, American thinkers embraced purer and more consistent versions of the altruist and collectivist ideas their forebears had planted during the Progressive Era. How did these philosophic changes affect American life? How did Americans reconcile the surging prosperity of postwar America with an emerging radically anticapitalist strain of American thought? What led to American successes and failures in foreign policy? In these five lectures, the final part of his five-part series, Dr. Daniels will explain the major events and intellectual trends of American history from the 1920s to the end of the 1960s. The focus will be on illuminating the broad trends in our history.

As for the general sessions, I'm particularly looking forward to:

Motivation in Education, Lisa VanDamme

Few educators understand that offering students the right motivation is essential to a proper education. Many hold variants of the Platonist view that knowledge is an end in itself, desirable for its own sake. On this view, no motivation is necessary. Others regard education as a means to some subjectively desirable goal. On this view, motivation involves simply tapping into the child's randomly held interests and desires.

On the objective view, education consists of training in the knowledge and skills necessary for one to function as a mature, informed, rational adult, i.e., to efficaciously pursue a fulfilled human life. Knowledge is practical and selfish--to fully grasp something is to understand its power to help one achieve values in the real world.

In this lecture, Ms. VanDamme will discuss why one should offer proper motivation to students and how to do it, illustrating this method and its results with stories from her successful school. She will discuss implications of her view for motivation in adult education.

The Value of Ayn Rand's Philosophy of Art, Mary Ann Sures

Most people have mistaken assumptions about art, such as: art really can't be defined or explained; or, art is a matter of subjective "taste"; or, appreciating and responding to art comes from innate talent; or a combination of the above. Consequently, their experience of art is marred by uncertainty and confusion. What difference would it make in their lives if they accepted and applied Ayn Rand's philosophy of art?

Mrs. Sures will begin with a review of the essence of the Objectivist philosophy of art (the definition of art, and the relation of art to man's conceptual faculty). Then, using examples from painting and sculpture, she will demonstrate what Objectivist esthetics makes possible in the understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of art, and in the understanding of one's deepest philosophical convictions.

Unborrowed Vision: The Virtue of Independence, Tara Smith

Howard Roark's independence has inspired millions. Inspiration without understanding is of limited value, however. The more fully we appreciate the precise meaning and value of independence, the more fully we can practice it--and reap its rewards. This lecture seeks to clarify several dimensions of the virtue of independence.

Dr. Leonard Peikoff has described independence as a primary orientation to reality rather than to other men. Among the questions we will probe: What does this fundamental orientation consist of? What sorts of actions or policies does the exercise of this virtue demand in everyday practice? And why is it important? What elevates independence to the ranks of the moral virtues? In the course of answering, we will also clarify what independence is not by distinguishing it from subjectivist pseudo-independence, by explaining the independent person's proper relationships with others and by dissecting modern man's widely alleged "interdependence," identifying the ways in which man is and is not a "social animal."

I'm rather excited now!

A Personal Touch

This recent letter to the editor from the Ayn Rand Institute on the cartoon jihad has a more personal touch than usual. (And I enjoyed that!)

Dear Editor,

Although I was unable to get into the February 28th University of California, Irvine (UCI) event to watch the unveiling of the Danish cartoons and the panel discussion on terrorism (I was told by security that the hall was filled to capacity), I did have an opportunity to closely observe the mob of protestors demonstrating against the event. Amongst those chanting "Allah Aqubar" and holding signs such as "Mohammed Protector of Women" and "Young Republicans = the new KKK", were a noticeable number of people wearing green arm bands nearly identical to those worn by Hamas suicide bombers in the Middle East. Apparently this is not the first time these armbands have been worn by students on the UCI campus. To learn that there are people right here in my own backyard who openly display support for a terrorist organization like Hamas was a real wake up call.

I'd gone to the event in defense of my right to free speech, and my right to see the Danish cartoonists' message without fear of violence or intimidation. What I came away with was the realization that my right to free speech and my right to life were under a much more immediate threat.

Debi Ghate
Manager, Academic Programs
Ayn Rand Institute

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I only wish I could witness the reaction to the Free Speech Campaign in person! (If I weren't so overwhemed with school, I'd certainly fly to a coast to see either the March 10th lecture at UCLA or the March 13th lecture at Johns Hopkins.)

No, Ms. Noonan, Hollywood really does hate America

Peggy Noonan weighs in on this year's Oscars at the Wall Street Journal:

You don't have to be a genius to figure out that viewership of the Oscars is down because movie attendance itself is down, and that movie attendance is down because Hollywood isn't making the kind of movies that compel people to leave their homes and go to the multiplex.

There are those who think Hollywood hates America, and they have reason to think it. Hollywood does, as host Jon Stewart suggested, seem detached from the country it seeks to entertain. It is politically and culturally to the left of America, and it often seems disdainful of or oblivious to its assumptions and traditions.

I don't think it is true that studio executives and producers hate America. They are too confused, ambivalent and personally anxious to sit around hating their audience. I think they wish they understood America. I think they feel nostalgic for what they remember of it. I think they find it hard to find America, in a way.

I also think that it's not true that they're motivated only by money. Would that they were! They'd be more market-oriented if they cared only about money. What they care about a great deal is status, and in their community status is bestowed by the cultural left. This is an old story. But it seems only to get worse, not better.

Noonan is half correct. Hollywood is dominated by the left because philosophy is dominated by the left and the arts always follow the philosophy of their time. Nor can it be said that the right offers any real challenge to the left in this regard: fundamentalist Christians don't produce groundbreaking artists in the same way they don't produce groundbreaking scientists. Noonan's observation Hollywood is consumed by status also follows as well: when you are in a room with people who each have their fortunes, the only dividing line left is status. (After all, there's a reason they don't let Rob Schnieder in the Academy). But Noonan is wrong to think that Hollywood does not hate America. Hollywood hates America because it hates reason, it hates individualism, and it hates capitalism.

How does Hollywood hate reason? Remember "A Beautiful Mind" about the Nobel-winning mathematician who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia? What did the movie seek to enshrine: a scientist discovering new methods to observe mathematical relationships, or a mentally diseased cripple struggling to survive amidst his visions? Both? OK, how did the scientist save himself? Oh, he didn't: it was love that saved him. So when faced with the challenge of making new discoveries and overcoming mental illness, Hollywood tells us all we need is love. "A Beautiful Mind" won the 2001 Oscar for "Best Picture"

How does Hollywood hate individualism? Remember "American Beauty," the movie about the materialistic advertising executive who leads the perfect life in appearances, yet is confronted with existential angst? What did that movie seek to enshrine: egoists who take thoughtful steps to find their own happiness and fulfillment, or depraved freaks who mindlessly worship upon the alter of their every whim? "American Beauty" won the 1999 Oscar for "Best Picture"

And how does Hollywood hate capitalism? This time, I note the total absence of any critically acclaimed film that represents a businessman plying his craft and treats him like a hero for doing so Businessmen are routinely cast villains to the point of cliché. Yet it impossible for Hollywood to envision a hero of production worth spotlighting if they hate the social system that makes businessmen possible and the moral basis for such a system.

Yes, I know Hollywood is far from consistent; it gives us the occasional "Gladiator" and even Mel Gibson, the director who threw blood on the screen for "The Passion of the Christ" also threw it on the screen for "Braveheart." Yet at root premise, Hollywood does not respect the nation that makes its existence possible; like most intellectuals, it worships a different value over that of western civilization.

If this wasn't so, we'd already have a movie that depicts our victory over the jihad. That's why I disagree with Noonan's estimate of Hollywood, and that's why I think the Hollywood problem is a symptom of a far larger illness that afflicts our nation.

Beware of Greens Bearing Nukes

So 'Crash' wins 'Best Picture'

[spoiler warning]

So Crash, one of the most philosophically objectionable movies that I've seen in a long time, won yesterday's coveted Academy Award for "Best Picture." Crash has two major themes: everyone is a racist, doesn't know it, and no one is a hero, even if they perform heroic acts.

For example, when the Ryan Phillpe policeman character (after redeeming his earlier moral failure to act) kills the gang-banging hijacker-who was pulling out a religious trinket instead of a handgun: that was vicious depiction. When the Don Cheadle defective character is to blame for his brothers death by his strung out mother-that was vicious setup too.

Every part of Crash--every one of its intricate plot threads-was dedicated to portraying that mankind barely survives in the face of his omnipresent flawed perceptions. Yet if life were really like that, day in, day out, no matter what one does or how hard they strive to be just, we'd be paralyzed and forever rioting in the streets.

So what if Crash was stylishly filmed and well acted. All of it was in order to communicate an utterly corrupt Marxist view of how people think. The Marxist theory of racial conflict is that the races are utterly subjugated by the dominant race's power and there's nothing anyone can do about it save for blow things up. Why? Because we are all blinded by of our racial compositions-none of us can never hope to see beyond our myriad of prejudices.

So much for the rational faculty as man's only tool for survival.

From all this you get spectacles like when the cast made a guest appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show and members of the audience asked a Black studies professor if they were racists. If you have to ask someone if your everyday contempt for people of a different race actually makes you a racist, you have just achieved a new low in mental acuity.

The fact is we do have a free choice when dealing with others. We can either choose to judge people by relevant criteria, or by irrelevant criteria. We can either find a common bond with others, or reject any commonality that exists. This is a conscious choice. It may get automatized over time, but somewhere, each of us makes a deliberate choice that will shape our destiny: we either choose to think, or not to think.

Yet in Crash, we are all just victims of unconscious fate--a product of a racial composition we have no control over and utterly paralyzed by the fact we have judge and act.

Wicked. Where Jarhead sought merely to smear the United States Marine Corps, Crash seeks to smear all of the the United States.

God and Missouri

The following bill, introduced by state representative David Sater is being considered by the Missouri House of Representatives

House Concurrent Resolution No. 13
93RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Whereas, our forefathers of this great nation of the United States recognized a Christian God and used the principles afforded to us by Him as the founding principles of our nation; and

Whereas, as citizens of this great nation, we the majority also wish to exercise our constitutional right to acknowledge our Creator and give thanks for the many gifts provided by Him; and

Whereas, as elected officials we should protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs while showing respect for those who object; and

Whereas, we wish to continue the wisdom imparted in the Constitution of the United States of America by the founding fathers; and

Whereas, we as elected officials recognize that a Greater Power exists above and beyond the institutions of mankind:

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the members of the House of Representatives of the Ninety-third General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the Senate concurring therein, that we stand with the majority of our constituents and exercise the common sense that voluntary prayer in public schools and religious displays on public property are not a coalition of church and state, but rather the justified recognition of the positive role that Christianity has played in this great nation of ours, the United States of America.

What is the point of such a resolution? It offers no proof that there is a God. It's claim that God's law somehow led to the Declaration of Independence and the federal Constitution after a millennium of religious tyranny is absurd. There is no threat to voluntary prayer anywhere. The resolution binds no one to anything--this bill is utterly without justification or merit.

Instead, what this bill evidences is the conservatives' continuing lust for democracy and majority values over the principle of individual rights. Wouldn't the really brave resolution be the one that affirms the individual's right to his own life, judgment and property irrespective of what the majority thinks?

I think so--but you'll never see such a bill introduced by the conservatives.

They Could've Called it "Rothbardpuram"

Welcome to the Inaugural Carnival of the Objectivists!

Welcome! I'm Nicholas Provenzo, founder and chairman of the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism, and I'd like to welcome you to the inaugural edition of the Carnival of the Objectivists. For those unfamiliar with Objectivism, it is the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, and an uncompromising advocate for reason, egoism, and capitalism. Today's mission is to highlight just a few of the many Objectivist blogs on the Internet, so without further adieu, let me introduce . . .

::Noodlefood

Noodlefood is a group blog primarily written by Objectivist graduate student Diana Hsieh and includes posts from her husband Paul Hsieh as well as Don Watkins. This has been a bellwether week for Noodlefood, which is helping Denver-based Front Range Objectivism host this weekend's Conference on Law, Individual Rights and the Judicial System. The conference received an excellent op-ed mention by Ari Armstrong in the Boulder Weekly. Other posts of interest include the flood of replies to Diana Hsieh's post asking her readers what originally "hooked" them into studying Objectivism.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Diana Hsieh holds a coveted position on Instapundit's blogroll, which means either her blog is just that good, or she's got dirt on Glenn Reynolds nasty habits. Heh--Indeed!

::Gus Van Horn

Gus Van Horn is the nom de plume of a scientist residing in Houston, Texas and author of a popular pro-reason, pro-individual rights political and cultural blog. This week, Van Horn dipped his toes into editorial waters, writing the following op-ed on the contrast between the American response to the Kelo decision and the Islamic response to the Mohammad cartoons.

Van Horn's key observation:

A man's home is his castle, but only if he is a free man. Yet if we here in America are afraid simply to print some innocuous cartoons, our home is no longer our castle. It has become our prison, and the Moslems have become our jailers. The fight to protect our home was not won after Kelo. It really only began in earnest with the cartoon riots and the threat to freedom of speech they represent.

Our press has been deterred from its duty to report the news -- by printing the cartoons the rioters used as an excuse for murder -- by that very same violence. The threat to our home, America, may be more abstract this time around, but it is no less immediate or important. The time to defend it - by demanding that our politicians stand up for freedom of speech -- is now.

I'm pleased to report that Van Horn allowed CAC to add his article our op-ed collection and I hope this collaboration continues to bear fruit.

::The Objective Standard

The Objective Standard is Craig Biddle's new journal. Biddle sent me an advance copy and he clearly has set a new high-watermark for Objectivist commentary and critical review. Biddle defines the Standard as follows:

It is widely believed today that our cultural and political alternatives are limited either to the ideas of the secular, relativistic left--or to those of the religious, absolutist right--or to some compromised mixture of the two. In other words, one's ideas are supposedly either extremely liberal or extremely conservative or somewhere in-between. We at The Objective Standard reject this false alternative and embrace an entirely different view of the world.

Our view is fully secular and absolutist; it is neither liberal nor conservative nor anywhere in-between. Our philosophy uncompromisingly recognizes and upholds the natural (this-worldly), factual, moral foundations of a fully free, civilized society.

Culturally, we advocate scientific advancement, productive achievement, objective (as opposed to "progressive" or faith-based) education, romantic art--and, above all, reverence for the faculty that makes all such values possible: reason. Politically, we advocate pure, laissez-faire capitalism--the social system of individual rights and strictly limited government--along with the whole moral and philosophical structure on which it depends. In a word, we advocate Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and apply its principles to the cultural and political issues of the day.

Ayn Rand described Objectivism as "a philosophy for living on earth." The reason why it is a philosophy for living on earth is that its every principle is derived from the observable facts of reality and the demonstrable requirements of human life and happiness.

Needless to say, The Objective Standard is going to be an important tool in the advance of Ayn Rand's ideas.

::Cox and Forkum

No Carnival of Objectivists would ever be complete without noting the stupendous achievements of Cox and Forkum, the hands-down most intelligent, most original editorial cartoonists in America today. Here's their latest:

These men are incredible and I wish them continued success.

::Literatrix

Literatrix is the personal blog of Jennifer Snow, who posts include book reviews such as her recent examination of the works of Thomas Paine. According to Snow:

My initial impression is that this man was the absolute nuclear generator of quotes; even more so than Ayn Rand, and she is eminently quotable. The reason that both were very quotable is, in my mind, that both spent their time turning a vast complexity of information into simple, memorable principles. They are different, though, in that when you quote Ayn Rand, you have to remember that you are summoning up a vast context for your quote and be careful not to oversimplify the case. Thomas Paine's quotes generally require little or no context, and he frequently manages to oversimplify the case without the interference of any outside agency.

::Alexander Marriott's Wit and Wisdom

Alexander Marriott is another graduate student blogger and occasional editorialist. Most recently, he is laughing at a Democrat blog promoting a children's book called "Why Mommy is a Democrat." According to Marriott:

This book shows the utter bankruptcy of Democrats in terms of ideas, their conception of keeping people safe it protect them from elephant monsters (Republicans), their conception of economic policy equates to kids sharing their toys (as if this in any way relates to the hard earned fortunes of individuals in the economy at large, not to mention you typically don't pull a gun on a kid to get him to share his "toys").

Marriott goes on to observe that both parties are short of serious ideas, and "Why Mommy is a Democrat" is simply the latest illustration of the general trend.

::The Dougout

The Dougout is a history, politics and current events blog run by Grant Jones and named in honor of General Douglas MacArthur. Jones gets the hat tip for his initial reporting of the University of Washington "Pappy" Boyington outrage that inspired me to write an open letter to the university and get 120 of my Marine buddies to sign along with me. Jones most recently chronicles the Battle of the Bismarck Sea and remarks on Inside Higher Education's review of David Horowitz's 101 Most Dangerous Professors.

::Armchair Intellectual

Armchair Intellectual is the personal blog of Gideon Reich, an old college friend of mine from my George Washington University days. At his blog, Reich reports on some good news for Objectivists:

The first item is Robert Tracinski's article The Lessons of the Cartoon Jihad is featured at the top of the Friday, March 3 edition of RealClearPolitics.com. This is an excellent article which criticizes both right and left for their inadequate response to this controversy.

The second item is a hopeful sign that another important book by a prominent Objectivist may be published by a distinguished publisher. One of my daily pastimes is to check the resume of John Lewis, Assistant Professor of History at Ashland University. I check the resume because he has a section in which he notes the publication status of the books he has written. Specifically, I was very interested in seeing his Nothing Less than Victory published as it includes the details of his argument against the inadequacy of the present war effort with some comparison to a number of historical wars. Over the last few months the listing on the website has mostly been "in progress", which I surmise means that no publisher is looking at it. There was a brief time a while ago when it was listed as "under press review" -- presumably that means that some unidentified publisher was reviewing the book. However, after a week or so of this status, the page was updated back to "in progress." Now however the listing has not only returned to "under press review" but has in fact been updated as follows: "under review, Princeton University Press." This is certainly a very positive and hopeful sign.

I agree. I've seen a draft copy of Lewis' book and he makes many vital arguments. Reich also recently contributed book reviews of The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein and The Abolition of Antitrust by Gary Hull for CAC's Capitalist's Book Club. Eat that for dinner, Oprah.

::The Charlotte Capitalist

Andy Clarkson is the Charlotte Capitalist, and he's posted about my work so many times it's high time I paid him back the favor. Clarkson covers North Carolina and national politics and his most recent posting of note is a parody of the Charlotte Mecklenburg government's management of the public schools.

For decades the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County have run the nutritional system. While a few private grocery stores and restaurants exist, 96% of Charlotte citizens' food is supplied through a number of Charlotte Mecklenburg Food Board distribution centers. Traditionally, most of the distribution centers have been located close to uptown.

As CharMeck growth has exploded, pressure on the food system has created shortages and conflicts. The suburbs are demanding more food distribution centers and better nutrition. The inner city is demanding renovation of aging centers. The food board says there is nothing it can do without more local, state, and national funding. Without that funding, it will need to sell food bonds for the renovation and building of food distribution centers.

Meanwhile, Charlotte national and state nutritional rankings are far below where they should be. People, particularly the children, are not getting the nutrition they should be getting. The food board points to occasionally spotty areas of improvement, while critics point out longer-term problems.

In order to get to the root of the problem, The Charlotte Capitalist sponsored a workshop to drive discussion of the CharMeck nutritional system. It invited both politicians and pundits. While no ideas or action items, or for that matter anything worthwhile was created, there was a lot of revealing discussion.

As Andy says, here are some, ugh, highlights from the workshop.

::Ego

Ego is American-in-spirit Martin Lindeskog's blog. Always plently of good material and lots of cross-posting; in fact, you should just head on over and have a look-see for yourself.

::Daily Dose of Reason

Daily Dose of Reason is Dr. Michael Hurd's blog in support of his private psychotherapy and life coaching practice. Dr. Hurd has the uncanny ability to be published in USA Today, in fact, they have ran his essays more times than I can count, which is quite a remarkable achievement. His most recent "Daily Dose" is on the continued fallout from Hurricane Katrina:

People continue to blame President Bush for the Katrina disaster; but how come nobody blames government itself? The abysmal federal response to the hurricane relief effort was a great opportunity for advocates of limited government (including Republican conservatives, you would think) to point out how government can never do the job that private groups and individuals can. Instead, the media has fixated on Bush and, in the absence of any comments to the contrary, the impression becomes embedded in most Americans' minds that it's all Bush's fault. This is dangerous, because people are now left with the assumption that if only we get the "right" government leader -- not Bush, but somebody else -- then the government will be able to do what no government has ever done or will do: rebuild people's lives after a disaster. Victims of the next natural disaster shouldn't view the Katrina debacle as proof that Bush is bad; they should view it as proof that government is by its nature incompetent, particularly when expected to do what it cannot and should not do.

Exactly.

::Mike's Eyes

Mike is well, Mike, a retired supervisor from the Detroit, Michigan area. He echos Robert W. Tracinski's displeasure with the recent anti-American Turkish movie "Valley of the Wolves" and George Clooney's "Syriana."

Do these actors have the right to smear America? Absolutely. Do they have the right to do it with impunity? Absolutely not. Just as they have a right to condemn America, Americans have the right to condemn them. So, I hereby declare I will not spend a cent to see any movie which casts sirs Zane, Busey or Clooney.

I saw "Syriana" and let us just say that's two hours I'll never get back . . .

::Oak Tree

This blog is by an undergraduate student who often comments on the inanity of some of his classes. Here's his latest:

Summary of today's Business Ethics class: Won't someone please [pretend to] think about the children?

Here's what I learned:

1. Boycotting child labor may hurt the kids even more, but I'm willing to pay the price to feel morally righteous.

Here's how the actual dialog went between me and prof:

Me: I'm assuming that the poor families are having their children work because they need the money. So abstaining from buying child-labor carpets is essentially a kiss of death for those families.

Prof: It's true that if children lose these jobs, they will either have to resort to prostitution or starvation. But isn't this still a rationalization to keep child labor alive?

2. Economic development is an important solution to child labor, but let's ignore that for now and think about these feel-good solutions.

Again, me and prof:

Me: I agree that child labor is terrible, but it won't end until these families become wealthier. So I think the only solution is capitalism and economic development.

Prof: I think we can all agree that economic development is ultimately needed, but right now I want you all to choose one of these five. [points to the slide with five possible solutions, all of them suggesting either abstain from buying child-labor products, donating to charity, or a combination of the two]

3. Alright, if you're going to insist on economic development, can't we at least do it altruistically?

I was confused by this at the time, but now I realize he was actually trying to come up with an altruistic way to bring about economic development:

Prof: Wouldn't a country like Nepal achieve "economic development" by using its lack of child labor as a selling point?

Me: I don't see why. Again, I don't think the solution is to boycott child labor. Ideally, companies will employ poor children and as the economy grows they will
be employed less and less.

It seems old Oaks is the only ethical person in his Business Ethics class. I recall the feeling.

::Quent Cordair Fine Art

Quent Cordair has Dianne Durante looking at film as an art form in anticipation of Sunday's Oscars:

Evaluating a film esthetically means looking at the "how" of the movie. Do all its elements work together to convey the theme? There may be subplots, plot twists, flashbacks and dream sequences, but once you've watched the end of the film, you should be able to analyze how every gesture, every line of dialogue, every costume and every camera angle contributed to the theme. To put it negatively, nothing should be inexplicable or pointless, and nothing should be confusing unless (as in many mysteries or thrillers) confusion is necessary at a certain point in the plot development.

Read the whole article here.

::Lee Sandstead

Lee Sandstead is simply one of the most brilliant art historians and photographers I know. Sandstead's website is the photo journal of his adventures in art history as he travels far and wide to capture the most beautiful and inspiring art, wherever it may be. My fiancée recently purchased one of his fine art prints he has available at his commercial website (Monument Light) and we both wholeheartedly recommend Sanstead's photography to anyone who wants to bring beauty into their lives.

This week, Sanstead highlights this lost gem--lost, that is, to the world of art history, which instead worships in the cult of the ugly. According to Sanstead:

There are so many books that need to be written about nineteenth-century art--thousands actually. While there have been many books documenting the influence of Spanish artists on the French modernists, a more interesting book would concern the Spanish artists that trained, worked and excelled in Academic Paris. This particular artist, Raimundo de Madrazo Y Garreta would be the subject of one such book. (Or maybe several such books.)

Today, little is known about him. For instance, this gorgeous portrait has neither title, date, nor detailed provenance.

But the painting is gorgeous. The sitter, whoever she may be, has the look of intelligence, bearing, and surely commands the attention of whoever looks at her.

I admit, I feel passionately about Sanstead's work because he is so inspiring and passionate himself. What else can I say? Visit his website today.

::The Secular Foxhole

Blair (not sure if he wants his last name public) is using Ayn Rand to get chatty with babes at the bookstore:

I've just returned from the bookstore, where I had a pleasant conversation with a fine looking young woman who, as it happened, was looking in the philosophy section at Rand's books :-) I couldn't let this opportunity slip by so I said, "excuse me, are you interested in Ayn Rand's ideas?" She said a friend had recommended her works to her and what would I recommend to her (!). I said she should read 'The Fountainhead' but then asked if she preferred fiction or non-fiction. She said non-fiction, and had 'Return of The Primitive' and 'Philosophy: Who Needs It?' already in hand, which I praised highly and also recommended to her 'The Virtue of Selfishness,' "which explains her theory of ethics". We then sauntered over to the Literature section, where I pulled out FH for her.

We continued our conversation about Rand and FH in particular briefly. I left before she did, but she had all four books in hand when we parted company.

I love it!

::Thruch

Thruch is Amit Ghate's blog. Ghate is enjoying a surge in traffic from this article on the cartoon jihad.

To stand together means to assert our rights with our government as our agent. To those who threaten us with force, asserting our rights means responding with force, in fact, with overwhelming force. We must say to Iran (which on February 14 just reconfirmed the Rushdie fatwa) "oust and turn over the regime which sees fit to condemn a single citizen of ours to death, or face all out war." And if they refuse, give them the war they started, but be sure to win it decisively, not protecting their mosques and infrastructure, but instead doing everything necessary to ensure they have no capacity to ever threaten us again. To Pakistan and India, which host clerics bold enough to put bounties on the heads of our citizens, demand that they turn over the men and their supporters, and if they refuse, go in and take them by force.

For if we fail to reverse our pattern, men will continue to learn that their rights are a sham, that the government's promise to protect the individual is a hoax, and that only by refraining from thinking and speaking out might they be momentarily safe. Men will then go on to realize that they must seek out true protectors, in the form of some gang; ethnic, religious or otherwise; who may afford them a measure of security, albeit at the cost of complete obedience. Eventually the gangs will fight it out in an effort to wrest absolute power and to subjugate the others.

So will end the great intellectual and political achievement of the West, which began 2,500 years ago in Greece with its discovery and reverence for the individual, and which culminated in the enunciation of the guiding principles of the United States. The end will not come because an over-powering enemy has arisen -- no, to our everlasting shame, the end will come because Western governments, in a display of incredible cowardice and treason, have abandoned and delivered their disarmed individual citizens to a mob of stone-age savages.

Well said.

::Witch Doctor Repellent

Witch Doctor Repellent is Andrew Dalton's cultural commentary blog. He's not sheeding a tear over the recent passing of perennial Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne:

Harry Browne, former presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, has died today. Color me unsad.

Why? This is why. Notice that he was pushing this tripe on September 12, 2001--the day after the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Mr. Browne's brand of triumphalist defeatism might seem unremarkable by the standards of today's "anti-war" Left, but he did have the remarkable dishonor of being first. Take that, Michael Moore! Does anyone needed a clearer concretization of why Objectivism is not "libertarian"?

In a word, No.

::Truth, Justice, and the American Way

TJAY is David Veksler's blog of assorted commentary. Most resently, he writes that the U.A.E ports controversy is overblown:

The U.A.E has some significant freedoms compared to the U.S., especially in some areas that I find personally important. Whether economic or political freedom is more important to you personally is not the issue.

The issue is that the UAE has an economy that is mostly free, and further trade with the West will encourage the growth of productive values instead of the destructive values prevalent in the Arab world. Isolating a progressive country like the U.A.E will be a racist statement that will discourage the rest of the Islamic world from economic liberalization, and instead encourage their anti-Western sentiment--and in this case, with good reason.

This is not about the safety of our ports, as [Harry] Binswanger explained, or the totally irrelevant fact that the UAE is not a democracy. The issue is whether we will recognize the virtue of a society that has chosen civilization, or engage in collectivist thinking and refuse to distinguish a potential ally from our enemies.

* * *

So there we have it, the inaugural edition of the Carnival of the Objectivists. The thing is, I only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Objectivists standing up for their values. So until next time . . .

Good Premises!

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