Summer Conference on the Moral Foundations of Capitalism

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

As some of you might know, the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism in South Carolina sponsors a three-day summer conference for undergraduates on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and the Moral Foundations of Capitalism. This summer's conference will run from June 5th to 9th at Clemson University.

It is an excellent conference, so I highly recommend it. (I was the graduate assistant last year.) The description on the web site is exactly accurate:

[The conference] brings together students from around the country and around the world to learn about capitalism with top professors in the field. Students attend lectures, participate in small group discussions, and have free time to discuss and debate the ideas presented in the formal sessions. Throughout the three days of sessions, students have ample opportunity to speak one-on-one with faculty and ask them questions in a more informal setting.

The faculty this year will be Drs. Yaron Brook, Onkar Ghate, Eric Daniels, C. Bradley Thompson, and Andrew Bernstein. Full scholarships will be granted to qualified undergraduate students. Send completed applications to edan@clemson.edu. (Please e-mail that address with any questions too.) More details including the application form, a full description of the event, a video from last year, and a FAQ are available on the web site.

Here's the most critical bit of information: The deadline for applications is March 5. So if you're thinking that you might like to attend, don't delay!

Iranian students riot: “We do not want the Islamic regime”

By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

It happens every day on the streets of Tehran: a police squad grabbed a young woman for dressing immodestly. But this time, the young woman fought back, and a crowd defended her and attacked the police. Thanks to cell phone video, the Internet, and brave Iranian citizen reporters, Ardeshir Arian is able to tell the story.

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This is your world in gold

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Since inflation is hot on many people's minds these days, I've been looking for data that tracks prices in gold as compared to our ever-inflated US dollar. I didn't need to look far. Priced in Gold is an excellent website that charts the cost of various commodities and currencies in gold bullion. For example, the website tracks the (eroded) US dollar, crude oil, US retail gasoline and US Median Home Prices, just to name a few.

This is data every American needs to see, for you can't look at the plunging dollar and escape the conclusion that something is deeply wrong with U.S. monetary policy.

Quick Roundup 307

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Having it Both Ways with the Marketplace of Ideas

"Buying a Spot on the Syllabus" (HT: OActivists), which smears the philanthropic efforts of BB&T to foster a better understanding of capitalism on American college campuses, is an article begging for even more reader criticism than it has already received.

The leftist drumbeat of the article, to which more than a few commenters dutifully march, is that it is morally wrong to pay for the spread of ideas with which one agrees and worse, that it is inherently non-objective.

After all, to use the gist of one comment I noticed, if Ayn Rand's ideas are so compelling, why aren't they being taught all over the place anyway? Why does Objectivism have so little market share in the "marketplace of ideas"?

(On re-reading this, my immediate reaction to this is to wonder why their panties are in a wad over this. Why not let the evil corporation bleed itself dry on its futile crusade? They have nothing to fear from an obscure philosophy, anyway. Their reaction to Ayn Rand's ideas is like their reaction to President Bush. Not that I care for Bush, but they see him as nearly retarded one moment and diabolically clever the next.)

I just love the outlandish combination of skepticism and determinism my conformist fellow academics nearly all display! It's as if Rand, being human, can't possibly be correct, and if she were, her ideas would automatically compel anyone who collided with one of her books to agree with them anyway. So Objectivists, being in the minority, are not even worth serious consideration. QED.

In fact, quite the opposite is true. First of all, the fact that highly successful businessmen are putting their money where their mouths are more than suggests that they honestly believe that getting Ayn Rand's ideas heard will benefit them as capitalists. These are men of proven ability who have thought about Objectivism. Second, the objection that Objectivism isn't a majority view already ignores the obvious question of how it would achieve this status in the first place. The actions of BB&T are demonstrating one way this can occur.

And don't even get me started on the whole implicit equivocation of economic "power" with political power. So one company asks that Atlas Shrugged be taught -- in a non-required course -- as a condition for an educational institution receiving its financial gift. This forces nobody to do anything!

To see what real force can do to academia, just consider California's recent moves towards requiring the teaching of global warming hysteria throughout its entire education system or attempts by religious conservatives to use public schools to have Creationism taught at taxpayer expense. So why do leftists insist -- in the name of "academic freedom" -- on snuffing out what little freedom still exists in academia? That question just about answers itself.

This article and all its leftist supporters demonstrate only one thing: The left is intellectually and morally bankrupt. They demonstrate this by their opposition to the smooth operation of the marketplace of ideas.

Qwertz on Gay Marriage

I haven't finished this lengthy, but interesting post yet, but Qwertz considers the question of gay marriage from an angle I haven't seen before:

Marriage [as it exists today in the welfare state] is a package deal. ... Marriage combines a constellation of legal obligations in contract (concerning property, intestacy, finances, parenting, medical decision-making, etc.) with a set of privileges conferred by the state under various mandates and entitlement schemes.

If we get rid of all the illegitimate, welfare-state junk associated with marriage, all we are left with is a complex, legitimate two-party contract. [minor edits]

I have already noted that the welfare state makes choosing candidates in elections more difficult than it has to be even for people who understand the concept of individual rights and know the proper purpose of government. Here, we see that it also makes many political discussions even more difficult than they should be by effectively altering the definitions of common words!

Incidentally, Qwertz, who jokes that he is "also opposed to straight marriage", may be interested in knowing that Texas has such a badly-worded -- and accidentally (?) passed -- anti-gay marriage statute that it arguably bans all marriage. The fact that the poor wording is circumvented here by a non-literal interpretation of the law does not comfort me in the least.

Note to Self

Via HBL is a link to an article against so-called "Fair Trade", which Harry Binswanger calls an anti-concept. It looks to be very good, and I plan to read it later on today.

Gosh. I might even print it out, take it to a coffee house to read, and then "forget" to leave with it.

Someone is Wrong on the Internet!

Andrew Dalton adds quite a bit to a point of Ayn Rand's I commented on awhile back about how an implicit premise of determinism can lead one to waste valuable time arguing with evasive individuals. (HT: Noumenal Self)

-- CAV

BB&T under attack for supporting Atlas Shrugged in the classroom

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

According to Inside Higher Ed, some professors at Marshall University believe that a donation to the university that requires that Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged be taught in a course supported by the donation is an assault on academic freedom (Hat tip: OActivists).

"Atlas Shrugged can be taught. It's the required part that is problematic," said Jamie Warner, director of undergraduate studies in political science. Under this precedent, she said, "you could see neo-Nazis giving money and saying that you have to teach Mein Kampf."

The gift in question was $1 million to Marshall’s business school, from the BB&T Foundation, the charitable arm of the BB&T Corporation, a financial holdings company. The press release announcing the gift last month said that the funds would support a lecture series and an upper level course that would focus on the principles of Atlas Shrugged and also Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Much of the discussion has focused on Atlas Shrugged because that was the key requirement of the gift.

The BB&T Foundation has given a series of large gifts to universities generally to support programs involving business, ethics and philosophy.

So here we have a successful and respected private company offering a charitable gift to a university with the caveat that the university includes a specific text in a class funded by the gift. The book is a long-time bestseller that directly relates to the gift-giver's corporate mission in support of American free enterprise—the very raison d'etre behind why the university has been offered its gift in the first place.

The university freely accepts the gift, plainly implying that it had no problem with the terms and that they had a faculty member willing to fulfill them, yet once other members of the faculty learn of it, they nevertheless equate the terms of the gift with an assault on academic freedom and Neo-Nazis pushing Mein Kampf.

While I have my own issues with BB&T's choices in gift giving (primarily that they have bankrolled libertarians at my alma matter who write garbage like this while simultaneously failing to support the faculty on campus who do expose students to Ayn Rand's ideas in the classroom), this attack at Marshall University is beyond the pale. BB&T is being condemned because it chooses to attach specific conditions to its gift to Marshall. Why shouldn't it? Why should it be expected to meekly write blank checks with no say or interest with what is taught in the classrooms made possible by its largess?

I am reminded of when I was an undergraduate student publishing an Objectivist campus newspaper at George Washington University. The experience was excruciatingly bitter and disheartening, primarily because I had to work ten times as hard as my non-Objectivist peers in order to secure even a modicum of student funding, and this despite a product that competed head to head with the larger and more heavily supported campus newspaper. I was condemned to the ends of the Earth for being an Objectivist by my professors and it was made abundantly clear that there was no place in the university for me and the kind of study that I was interested in. All the while, students who supported environmentalism, multiculturalism, or "mandatory volunteering" were showered with money in support of their programs and full-ride scholarships in support of their educations.

I vowed then that it would be a cold day in hell before I gave any university one red cent of my money for any endeavor that I didn't have direct oversight. BB&T's experience at Marshall bears me out. A bank has the audacity to encourage the study of capitalism and the works of one of capitalism's premiere defenders and it gets slimed by the vermin who can't even stand the mere thought of it.

If Marshall University's faculty doesn't want BB&T's support, BB&T should take its money elsewhere. I can think of a hundred better places to spend that money than at Marshall.

Google on the Mountaintop

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

ROR reader Cedar Bristol sent me this article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. from the official Google blog as an all-too-common example of businessmen using their wealth and influence to tighten the noose of statism around the rest of us. According to Kennedy (and apparently Google's leadership), we are guilty of the desecration our mountaintops and Google's technology can help us see it. Kennedy writes:

[G]oogle provides us all with unprecedented access to the world’s information. In Appalachia, nonprofit organizations are using that information in innovative new ways to reveal the destruction caused by mountaintop removal coal mining, and to demand for the people of Appalachia the "free and good government" that [Thomas] Jefferson envisioned.

If the American people could see what I have seen from the air and ground during my many trips to the coalfields of Kentucky and West Virginia: leveled mountains, devastated communities, wrecked economies and ruined lives, there would be a revolution in this country. Thanks to Google Earth, you can now visit coal country without ever having to leave your home.

I am reminded of the campaign a few years back that noted that since even a technological achievement such as Internet runs mostly on energy from coal, we should not be so quick to condemn it as a power source. That point seems utterly lost on Kennedy. Instead we see this:

Each day coal companies detonate 2500 tons of explosives – the power of a Hiroshima bomb every week – to blow away Appalachian mountaintops to reach the coal seams beneath. Colossal machines then plow the rock and debris into the adjacent river valleys and hollows, destroying forests and burying free-flowing mountain streams, flattening North America's most ancient mountain range. According to the EPA, 1,200 miles of American rivers and streams have already been permanently interred, leaving behind giant pits and barren moonscapes, some as large as Manhattan Island. I recently flew over one 18 square-mile pit – Hobet 21 – which you can now tour in Google Earth.

It gets even better.

We are literally cutting down the historic landscapes where Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett roamed and that are so much the source of American's values, character and culture.

So we are presented with two basic choices: civilization (complete with computers, central air conditioning, heart monitors and CAT scans) or an untrammeled historic landscape. And people have the audacity to claim that the environmentalists aren't anti-man.

In his message to me, Mr. Bristol says we should resurrect our James Taggert Award for Loathsome Self-Damning Anti-Bussness Pandering. If we do, I'd put Google right up top of the list, for when they give their platform to greens like Kennedy and his ilk, they fully earn all the bile we can give them.

Some News from ARI

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Some news from ARI:

Mary Ann and Charles Sures' memoir of Ayn Rand, The Facets of Ayn Rand is now available on the web at http://www.facetsofaynrand.com.

On Thursday, March 13, 2008, at 7:30 PM, Dr. Keith Lockitch will be speaking on "Darwin and the Discovery of Evolution" at the Hilton Costa Mesa (3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA 92626). The lecture is free. More information is here.

I'm delighted by the topic, because in the process of grading student papers on the argument from design, I've realized that gross misunderstandings of evolutionary theory are quite common. It's definitely a topic that I'd like to study more, not just because it's relevant to the refutation of William Paley's argument for design, but also because I find it intrinsically interesting. Biology has always been -- by a long shot -- the most interesting of the sciences to me.

Brad Thompson published a great op-ed a while back entitled "An Open Letter to America's Students--Will Atlas Shrugged Change Your Life Forever?" If you haven't read it yet, you'll find it here.

A Quick Letter on Abortion

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Here's a quick letter to my state representatives that I wrote in early February on a proposed bill to restrict abortion by requiring ultrasounds:

From: Diana Hsieh <Diana.Hsieh(at)Colorado.edu>
Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:59:56 -0700
Subject: SB 95

Dear Senators,

It is my understanding that SB 95 will be heard in the Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee on Monday. The bill would require "a physician to provide information regarding an ultrasound to a woman prior to the woman's decision whether to have an abortion."

I urge you to oppose this bill. Colorado ought not impose any such restrictions on abortion.

The purpose of the bill is not to require genuine informed consent. Every woman who chooses to have an abortion knows that she is destroying a potential (but not actual) human being -- not a shoe, plant, or a hippo. She violates no rights in doing so. She ought not be forced to look at pictures.

So the sole purpose of the bill is be to make abortion more costly. It is part of an attempt by foes of abortion to regulate it out of existence, since they cannot ban it out right. All such attempts [are] morally wrong. They ought to be opposed.

Diana Hsieh
Ph.D Candidate, Philosophy
University of Colorado, Boulder
Diana.Hsieh(at)Colorado.edu

Ari Armstrong has more details in this blog post.

Recycling Complexity-Worship

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Via Arts and Letters Daily is an article poking bemused fun of the latest fads in academia even as its author refuses to completely reject them. The following passage will sound eerily familiar to anyone with a solid familiarity with the works of Ayn Rand:

To defend binary thinking is to invite opprobrium. It is true that fixed oppositions between good and evil or male and female and a host of other contraries cannot be upheld [Really? --ed], but this hardly means that binary logic is itself idiotic. Binary logic structures the very computers on which most attacks on binary logic are composed. Some binary distinctions are worth recognizing, if not celebrating: the distinction, let us say, between pregnant and not pregnant, or between life and death. Others are at least worth noticing -- for example, that between a red and a green light. You either have $3.75 for a latte or you do not. Can that be "complicated"? [bold added]

The phrase "complexity-worship" immediately popped into my mind, along with that old ivy-covered hex, "simplistic". A search of the latter term yielded the following, from "How to Read (And Not to Write)", an essay penned by Rand in 1972!

By "clear, simple extremes," modern intellectuals mean any rational theory, any consistent system, any conceptual integration, any precise definition, any firm principle. Pragmatists do not mean that no such theory, system or principle has yet been discovered (and that we should look for one), but that none is possible. Epistemologically, their dogmatic agnosticism holds, as an absolute, that a principle is false because it is a principle -- that conceptual integration (i.e., thinking) is impractical or "simplistic" -- that an idea which is clear and simple is necessarily "extreme and unworkable."Along with Kant, their philosophic forefather, the pragmatists claim, in effect: "If you perceive it, it cannot be real," and: "If you conceive of it, it cannot be true." [The Ayn Rand Letter, vol. 1, no. 26; bold added]

Thirty-five years after that essay, the academic left is still using deductive logic unmoored to reality as a straw man for reason so that some fuzzy alternative to whatever rational conclusions its adherents don't like can get a pass.

It should come as no surprise that those who would sell this old snake oil in new bottles would speak of multiple "alternatives to academic dishonesty" or that their political standard-bearer, Barack Obama, would shout "change" while advocating the same old statist chicanery (minus troublesome specifics) as before.

Or that he would so easily deflect charges of plagiarism with his own alternative to unoriginality. Or that his grand ideological larceny would go unnoticed while he stood accused of the petty theft of Deval Patrick's words. His speeches, apparently accepted as other than plagiarized, sound familiar only to people who fail to notice that this time, collectivism isn't being pushed by an old white man.

Russell Jacoby would, I imagine, say that he is merely pointing out the "excesses" in modern academia. But one cannot concede a premise so monstrous that one cannot uphold a "fixed opposition" "between good and evil" while pointing out the obvious usefulness of logic -- which still isn't the equivalent of reason -- in computers, without having something up his sleeve. Jacoby is in fact merely making fuzziness -- that is to say, irrationality -- look respectable by keeping the kids from running with it to its logical conclusions while the adults are looking. (Alternatively, Jacoby has a perfectly valid point in mind, but due to philosophical error, he achieves the same end result.)

-- CAV

PS: On linking to the web site that sells the Ayn Rand Research CD-ROM, I noticed that sales will end at the end of this month!

Updates

Today: (1) One minor edit. (2) Added parenthetical note at end of post.

Europism: Collectivism’s Failure and the Resentment of America (Part 1)

By Scott Powell from Powell History Recommends,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Antitrust du-jour

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

More European antitrust fines for Microsoft:

The European Union fined Microsoft Corp. a record $1.3 billion Wednesday for the amount it charges rivals for software information.

EU regulators said the company charged "unreasonable prices" until last October to software developers who wanted to make products compatible with the Windows desktop operating system.

The fine is the largest ever for a single company and brings to just under $2.5 billion the amount the EU has demanded Microsoft pay in a long-running antitrust dispute.

Microsoft immediately said the issues for which it was fined have been resolved and the company was making its products more open.

The fine comes less that a week after Microsoft said it would share more information about its products and technology in an effort to make it work better with rivals' software and meet the demands of antitrust regulators in Europe.

But EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes remained skeptical and said Microsoft was under investigation in two additional cases.

"Talk is cheap," Kroes said. "Flouting the rules is expensive."

Microsoft's actions have stifled innovation and affected millions of people around the world, Kroes said. She called the record 899 million euro fine "a reasonable response to a series of quite unreasonable actions." [Aoife White, AP Business Writer]

When I read about Microsoft's continuing antitrust woes, the one thing I feel is absolutely no sympathy for the firm. Microsoft has shelled out billions upon billions of dollars in antitrust fines and its every move is scrutinized by government regulators (and competitors that seek to use antitrust as a competitive club), yet Microsoft has never publicly condemned antitrust as such. Just how many billions will Microsoft have to pay before its management discovers the moral backbone to say enough is enough?

And while some may argue that to take a public stand against antitrust would only invite more antitrust scrutiny, I take a different view. Not to attack the moral and economic claims behind antitrust grants the regulators a legitimacy they simply do not deserve. The claim that a business in the free market wields coercive power over the market is patently absurd, yet this lie remains utterly unchallenged by American business—and it is for that reason that I say Microsoft and other firms shackled by antitrust get exactly what they deserve. Antitrust may be foul, but the continued sanction of its victims is far worse the crime.

Is It Fair to Charge More for Better Service? (Wall Street Journal)

By David Holcberg from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Is It Fair to Charge More for Better Service?
By David Holcberg (Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2008)

Regarding Andy Kessler's "Internet Wrecking Ball" (op-ed, Feb. 25): Internet service providers have no obligation to treat all Internet traffic equally. If these providers decide that it is in their self-interest to charge Web sites for faster delivery, they should be free to do so.

Forbidding ISPs to offer superior services to some of their customers is a violation of their rights. As owners of their networks, they have the moral right -- and should have the legal right -- to run their businesses as they see fit.

Just as we respect the right of FedEx and UPS to charge their customers for faster delivery, so we should for Internet service providers.

 

Exxon Vs. Venezuela (Investor's Business Daily)

By David Holcberg from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Exxon vs. Venezuela
By David Holcberg (Investor's Business Daily, February 25, 2008)

Re "Big Oil Strikes Back At Petrotyrants" (Editorial, Feb. 8), Exxon is to be congratulated for standing up for its property rights against Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. And Western courts are to be applauded -- so far -- for protecting Exxon's rights and enforcing the terms of its contract with the Venezuelan government.

Had Western governments and courts defended the property rights of Western oil companies half a century ago, when their oil fields and rigs were nationalized by Arab and Muslim countries, they might have prevented the flow of trillions of dollars into the hands of despots who financed -- and continue to finance -- jihadist ideology and Islamic terrorism against the West.

Reject the Latest Push for "Net Neutrality"

By Alex Epstein from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Reject the Latest Push for "Net Neutrality"

By Alex Epstein 

America's leading Internet service providers (ISPs) have spent many years and billions of dollars upgrading their transcontinental networks, which constitute the backbone of the Internet. Now they are eager to profit by offering new, compelling services. One plan is to give certain websites high priority on their data, so as to guarantee "quality of service"--the speed, frequency, and reliability with which data is delivered. This would enable content providers to offer high-quality live TV and videoconferencing or advanced remote medical monitoring, without the delays and unreliability that plague the Internet today.

Unfortunately, data prioritization is fiercely opposed by advocates of "Net Neutrality"--an idea that politicians and activists unsuccessfully attempted to make into law last year, but which is now being resuscitated. U.S. senator Byron Dorgan, a leading advocate of "net neutrality" legislation--which is supported by Microsoft, Google, and many other software companies--promised last week at the Future of Music Policy Summit that the push for this legislation would continue. Americans, he said, to a standing ovation, must "fight back and say this is something that's important for our country's interests."

What exactly is net neutrality? It is the idea that ISPs should not be able to favor some types of data over others; their networks must be "neutral" among all the data they carry. Net-neutrality supporters claim that if ISPs are free to give preferential treatment to certain websites' data, they might drastically slow down un-favored or less-wealthy websites, diminishing their ability to offer content and make innovations. A prominent net neutrality coalition cautions: "If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you may be impeded from providing the 'next big thing' on the Internet."

But such scenarios make no economic sense. For any of the nation's competing ISPs to offer customers slow, patchy, let alone nonexistent access to the websites they seek to visit, would be commercial suicide. As for innovation, websites are free to continue using standard, non-prioritized Internet service--which ISPs would have every incentive to preserve at appealing speeds by expanding their overall bandwidth (as they continuously do). The fact that this would be slower than premium service does not mean that it would be slow, just as UPS's decision to offer overnight delivery did not lead them to suddenly degrade their Ground shipping. Premium Internet services would enable, not stifle, innovation, by giving websites creative options they did not have before.

The specter of ISPs offering glacial access to certain websites is a smokescreen, designed to obscure the net-neutrality movement's goal: preventing anyone from having superior, unequal access to customers. In the minds of net neutrality advocates, the Internet is a collectively owned entity, to which all websites have an equal claim and are entitled "equal access." As the title of a leading net-neutrality group proclaims: "It's our Net."

But it isn't.

The Internet is not a collectivist commune; it is a free, voluntary, and private association of individuals and corporations harmoniously pursuing their individual goals. (While it began as a government-funded project, the Internet's ultra-advanced state today is the achievement of private network builders, hardware companies, content providers, and customers.) Because the Internet is based on voluntary association, no one can properly compel others for their ad space, bandwidth, publicity--or network priority. Those who create these values have the right to use and profit from them as they see fit. Google has no more right to demand that Verizon be "neutral" with its network than Verizon has a right to demand that Google be "neutral" with its coveted advertising space.

The only thing equal about the participants on the Internet is that all have equal freedom to deal with others voluntarily. This means they are equally free to compete for the bandwidth, dollars, and talents of others--but not entitled to an unearned, equal portion of them.

It is the freedom of participants on the Internet to offer and profit from whatever products, services, or content they choose that has made it such a phenomenal source of content and innovation. Net neutrality would deny ISPs that freedom. It would deny their right to engage in creative, innovative, and profitable activity with those networks--in the name of those who demand their bandwidth, but are unable or unwilling to earn it in a free market.

The widespread support for net neutrality among successful Internet companies--including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon--is short-sighted and contemptible. These companies, which have benefited greatly from the unimpeded freedom of the Internet, are now trying to deny the same freedom to innovative ISPs and ambitious competitors under the egalitarian banner of "equal access." This is an invitation for any clever moocher to demand "equal access" to their hard-earned resources; indeed, Google last year was sued because its proprietary search engine allegedly gives "unfair" rankings to certain companies.

The Internet is one of the great bastions of freedom and innovation in our civilization. Let us keep it that way by rejecting the latest push for "net neutrality."

 

Causality and inflation

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This AP article reports a large spike in inflation:

The Labor Department said Tuesday that wholesale prices rose 1 percent last month, more than double the 0.4 percent increase that economists had been expecting.

The January surge left wholesale prices rising by 7.5 percent over the past 12 months, the fastest pace in more than 26 years, since prices had risen at a 7.5 percent pace in the 12 months ending in October 1981.

The worse-than-expected performance was certain to capture attention at the Federal Reserve, which has chosen to combat a threatened recession by aggressively cutting interest rates in the belief that weaker economic growth will keep a lid on prices.

But the combination of rising inflation and weaker growth raises the threat of "stagflation," the economic malady that plagued the country through the 1970s, when a series of oil shocks left households battered by the twin problems of stagnant growth and rising inflation. [Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer]

So let's get this right: the cause of inflation is alleged to be too much growth and "shocking" increases in the price of oil. In response, the government has taken a policy that retards growth in order to reduce inflation, yet now we risk weak growth and inflation.

Why is the government let off the hook so easily? Why aren't its policies indicted for causing inflation? This Reuters article chronicles the recent actions of the Federal Reserve:

The Fed has cut interest rates aggressively to counter a deep housing slump and a credit crunch linked to worries about delinquent mortgage payments. The Fed's benchmark fed funds rate stands at 3 percent, down from 5.25 percent in September, and the central bank is widely expected to cut short-term U.S. interest rates again at its March 18 meeting.

And yet again, government policy is let completely off the hook:

In the meantime, inflation has climbed on the back of record oil and commodity prices, pushing the Consumer Price Index up 4.3 percent in the 12 months through January.

In a free market, interest rates are set by supply and demand and adjust accordingly. Today however we do not enjoy the benefits of a free market; today we have a government agency that has the power to artificially lower interest rates (and at the same time the rest of the government engages in an unbridled spending orgy). Nevertheless, it is uncritically reported that an increase in oil prices is one of the primary causes of the current inflationary spike.

Doesn't due diligence demand that a reporter test the premise that oil prices are the cause of today's inflation (rather than just a sign)? For example, I've read several reports in the past few months that state that the price of oil has remained relatively flat when measured in gold. Isn't that information deeply relevant? One could also measure the cost of oil against other currencies to see if there is something unique about the purchasing power of American dollars when compared to other currencies. If an increase in oil prices causes inflation, shouldn't we see it reflected in all the currencies of the world?

One would expect a certain degree of curiosity on the part of a reporter and a willingness to test the various economic claims that pass for conventional wisdom (and government policy). Yet here (and in just about every other mainstream news source that I have observed) we see no interest in evidencing the causal chain that leads to inflation. The facts are merely asserted; the reporters don't even attempt to offer any empirical evidence for the various claims presented.

In short, the reporters have no interest in establishing causality as part of their reporting; their articles are little more than a repetition of the bald-faced claims of others. And I can't help but think that this is one of the root causes of inflation.

Quick Roundup 306

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Conception Advice

Over at the addictive group medical blog, MDOD, 911Doc, who plies his trade in an emergency department, offers the following advice for couples trying to conceive: "[D]rop out of school, drink a lot, lose your job, shoot heroin, and smoke crack. Works every time."

If you find the field of medicine interesting or want to see how government intervention in medicine interferes with the vital work of physicians, this is the blog for you. And did I mention that -- despite this and partly because of this -- it's often hilarious?

I was thinking of adding it to the sidebar already when I mentioned it the other day to my wife, who is going to start her residency this summer. Now, I have to add it!

So it's there! Enjoy!

Laura Mazer on "The Business of Healthcare"

One subject that frequently comes up at MDOD is the high financial cost imposed on hospital emergency departments by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which forbids hospitals to deny care to patients in an emergency setting regardless of ability to pay. Regarding EMTALA, I recommend Laura Mazer's recent article in The Undercurrent, which I read Saturday at my favorite pub.

In other industries, services provided for free are considered voluntary charity. They are provided only as far as they can be supported by the business's other income, and they are neither legally nor morally required. But in healthcare, any suggestion that a hospital accept only the patients it can afford to treat is greeted with moral outrage.

The article does a good job of showing the reader that medicine is just like any other life-sustaining enterprise, and that as a moral and practical matter, it should be left free from such government interference.

Wrong Reason to Oppose McCain-Feingold

An article at National Review Online considers the dilemma John McCain faces with his impending selection of a running mate and takes a look at the opposition to campaign finance "reform" of two strong contenders for the role.

On campaign-finance reform, McCaim's signature accomplishment in the Senate, both men described policy preferences that are greatly at odds with McCain's. "I've come to the point in my career, watching campaign finance reform, having been involved in it somewhat at a state level, that the premise that government can control this stuff, or should control this stuff, is flawed," [Minnesota Governor Tim] Pawlenty told me. "No matter what they do to regulate it, it always seeps out somewhere else, so I think a better system would probably have to have full disclosure, real time, online, instant disclosure -- but quit pretending, both as a constitutional principle, or as a matter of politics, that government can contain this." [bold added]

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford unfortunately also agrees that "money" (meaning one person having the ability to help a candidate of his choosing when another does not) in political campaigns is morally wrong, but also impossible to stamp out.

This is exactly the wrong reason to oppose McCain-Feingold. Freedom of speech does not equal an entitlement to the means necessary to broadcast what one is saying or the "right" to deprive someone else of such means. Furthermore, preventing someone from donating to the candidate of his choice violates his property rights.

Freedom of speech and property rights are not necessary vices "everyone does" to get by under government supervision. They are inalienable individual rights. The great shame of the Republicans is that they seem to have forgotten these facts, if they ever knew them in the first place.

Worth Seventy-Two in the Bush

Anyone who doubts the power of philosophical ideas need look only to what Isaac Schrodinger often calls the "magic kingdom" for examples thereof:

Saudi Arabia began interrogating 57 men Saturday who were arrested after allegedly flirting with women in front of a shopping mall in the holy city of Mecca, a local newspaper reported. [links dropped]

How much more obvious can it be that adherence to Islam means a denial of earthly happiness? This religion urges its followers to murder themselves and infidels by bribing them with sex in the afterlife, and yet treats young men like criminals for attempting to become acquainted with young women.

And yet you don't see young men standing up for themselves and rejecting Islam all over the world. This is despite the fact that they know they are alive now and the women they flirted with are real, but that they have not one jot of evidence confirming the existence of the deity that allegedly insists that they be miserable during life in exchange for eternal happiness.

Epistemology, the branch of philosophy dealing with the question "How does man acquire knowledge?", is not just some drawing-room topic that has no effect on the real world. Every man who morally accepts the authority of the Saudi religious police ultimately accepts "faith" as a correct answer to that question.

In a more rational world, our government would concern itself with Saudi Arabia only to the extent that it needed to to protect our property and lives from such people, and their mistake would destroy only their own lives.

(Scott Powell offers some further thoughts on this incident.)

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Added links to articles by Laura Mazer and Byron York.

Nokia nanotech phone concept

By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

According to a University of Wisconsin-Madison study, 71% of Americans believe that nanotechnology is immoral.

Here is a video and photos from Nokia portraying some of the features of a nanotechnology-enabled concept phone. In terms of its scope, the design is very anachronistic, but it does demonstrate some current and near-term applications. Here is a list of more practical applications of nanotech.

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Thanks a Heap, Ralph!

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

If you haven't heard it already, you could have guessed it: Ralph Nader will run for President again in 2008. His impact, if any, will unfortunately be to tip the election towards John McCain:

Tim Russert, the host of [Meet the Press], did point out to Mr. Nader that George W. Bush won in Florida with a little more than 500 votes, as Mr. Nader siphoned more than 97,000 away from Mr. Gore, a numerical factor that left many Democrats embittered.

In 2004, Nader received only about 14% of the 2.74 percent he polled in 2000. He is surely not so obtuse as to realize that he stands no chance of winning. Indeed, he is even aware of his role as a "spoiler" for Democrats. ("If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form.") And yet he runs. His premise is that the candidates are too much alike.

Nader, 73, said most people are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties due to a prolonged Iraq war and a shaky economy. The consumer advocate also blamed tax and other corporate-friendly policies under the Bush administration that he said have left many lower- and middle-class people in debt.

"You take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized and disrespected," he said. "You go from Iraq, to Palestine to Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bumbling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts." [bold added]

With Nader's expressed concern for voters feeling "locked out", one might wonder why he is so blithely flirting with tipping yet another election the Republicans' way, especially given that John McCain's opposition to freedom of speech threatens to "lock out" anyone with a political mind of his own and endanger open political debate in the future.

Part of the answer doubtless lies in the fact that Nader also supports campaign finance "reform". Despite the fact that all the "corporate" money in the world cannot force a man to act against his judgement like a government gun can, Nader so thoroughly confuses economic "power" with political power that he posits government as the only way to rationally distribute the means of communicating ideas.

To someone who believes this, preventing a company from using its own property to support a candidate looks like a stand for freedom, while placing the means of communicating ideas into the hands of government officials (who may be biased) does not look like it could prevent the open exchange of ideas. As to whether Nader himself really believes this, your guess is as good as mine, but the end result is that his support of the government violating property rights endangers freedom of speech.

So Nader's support for campaign finance "reform" is likely part of the answer to the question of why he wants to run. Why else might he want to run? He doubtless intends to penalize the Democrats for not toeing the line to his statist agenda, but I think that on one score, Nader's words and deeds more obviously match. McCain-Feingold aside, if there really is no substantive difference between the candidates, perhaps Nader gets part of what he wants anyway.

Whatever you may think of leftist commentator Froma Harrop, she is not one to shy away from the implications of her own mistaken principles:

Why might [Clinton backers unhappy with Obama] like McCain? Count the ways. He had the fiscal discipline to vote against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, and the decency to complain that they unfairly favored the rich. He's OK on the environment, concerned over global warming and against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He supported tighter fuel-economy standards and opposes torture. John McCain is not an embarrassment.

In other words, McCain will work just about as hard to destroy capitalism as either Democrat, and Nader gets to press for more by running at the same time.

Ralph Nader, it would seem, is just taking Froma Harrop's advice and -- erm -- running with it.

-- CAV

The New York Philharmonic arrives in North Korea

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The government of North Korea is one of the most brutal and murderous dictatorships on Earth. The North Korean people suffer and die needlessly as a result of its depredations and its continued attempts at nuclear blackmail are an affront to all the peaceable people of the world, yet the Bush Administration and the New York Philharmonic seem to think that the North Korean heart can be warmed with a musical numbers.

The New York Philharmonic became the most prominent U.S. cultural institution to visit isolated, nuclear-armed North Korea on Monday, and orchestra members said they hoped their musical diplomacy could bring the two nations closer together.

North Korea made unprecedented accommodations for the orchestra, allowing a delegation of nearly 300 people, including musicians, staff and journalists to fly into Pyongyang on a chartered plane for 48 hours.

The Philharmonic's concert Tuesday will be broadcast live on North Korea's state-run TV and radio, unheard of in a country where events are carefully choreographed to bolster the personality cult of leader Kim Jong Il. [Burt Herman, Associated Press Writer]

I fail to see how the Philharmonic's performance would differ from any other "carefully choreographed" event designed to bolster the standing of the Dear Leader and his henchmen, yet according to New York Philharmonic director Lorin Maazel, it would be a mistake not to visit Pyongyang.

Music director Lorin Maazel said despite the political overtones of the trip, it was the right decision to go to North Korea.

"I think it would have been a great mistake not to accept their invitation," he said after arriving at the Pyongyang airport.

"I am a musician and not a politician. Music has always traditionally been an arena, an area where people make contact. It's neutral, it's entertainment, it's person to person," Maazel said.

I suspect that Maazel would present a different take on the political neutrality and entertainment value of music if the Philharmonic was invited to perform a rousing rendition of the Horst-Wessel-Lied, yet the irony of politically free westerners performing music for the benefit of a totalitarian dictatorship is apparently lost upon Maazel.

Nevertheless, I wish the best for Maazel and his orchestra. With any luck, they will get to sample the accommodations at the (in)famous Ryugyong Hotel. Maybe there they can finally come to grips with the reality that something is not quite right in North Korea.

Drew Carey on Private Highways

By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

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Hillary Clinton's Incompetence

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Frank Rich's examination of Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Democrat nomination has some interesting facts on the campaign's incompetence:

The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama’s organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.

In the last battleground, Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign was six days behind Mr. Obama in putting up ads and had only four campaign offices to his 11. Even as Mrs. Clinton clings to her latest firewall — the March 4 contests — she is still being outhustled. Last week she told reporters that she “had no idea” that the Texas primary system was “so bizarre” (it’s a primary-caucus hybrid), adding that she had “people trying to understand it as we speak.” Perhaps her people can borrow the road map from Obama’s people. In Vermont, another March 4 contest, The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five days ago. For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn’t file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.

(The Frank Rich piece is worth reading in its entirety because it is such a scathing, relentless attack on Clinton. When the MSM finally turns on one it has been protecting for years, the result is just brutal.)

Who would have thought Hillary Clinton would run an incompetent campaign? Could it be that she was so overconfident that she became complacent and lazy?

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. Look what happened to the health care plan she was in charge of in the first two years of the Clinton Presidency. Remember what a disaster that was? It led to the Republicans taking over the House of Representatives in 1994, after which the Clinton Presidency was never the same. Bill Clinton was reduced to declaring that the era of big government was over and talking about uniforms for school children.

Imagine what a botch of things this woman would have made in the Oval Office. Jimmy Carter must be cursing his bad luck. Hillary Clinton might have set a new standard for presidential incompetence that made Carter look good by comparison.

UPDATE: Patterico notes that the MSM are now treating Hillary Clinton they way they usually treat Republicans. This must be the most devastating blow to the Clintons, who have relied on the media being with them.

UPDATE II: Andrew Sullivan on Hillary Clinton:

Clinton is a terrible manager of people. Coming into a campaign she had been planning for, what, two decades, she was so not ready on Day One, or even Day 300. Her White House, if we can glean anything from the campaign, would be a secretive nest of well-fed yes-people, an uncontrollable egomaniac spouse able and willing to bigfoot anyone if he wants to, a phalanx of flunkies who cannot tell the boss when things are wrong, and a drizzle of dreary hacks like Mark Penn. Her only genuine skill is pivoting off the Limbaugh machine (which is now as played out as its enemies). Her new weapon is apparently bursting into tears. I mean: really.

No Right to Flirt in Saudi Arabia

By Scott Powell from Powell History Recommends,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Undercurrent

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Undercurrent now has a regularly updated blog. I've added it to my blogroll; it looks like it will be worth checking regularly. (Unfortunately, it doesn't show the full post on the main page. I find that annoying, as it's almost always easier to scroll past a long post that's not of interest than to click through to posts that are of interest. But oh well.)

For those of you unfamiliar with The Undercurrent, here's how they describe themselves:

The Undercurrent is a student-run newsletter. Its content is written primarily by (and for) college students across the country, with additional articles from the Ayn Rand Institute op-ed program and other writers.

We aim to release a print edition once a semester. The Undercurrent is distributed to college campuses nationally. If you're interested in distributing on your campus (or anywhere else), more information can be found here.

The Undercurrent's cultural commentary is based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, a philosophy she named "Objectivism." Objectivism animates Ayn Rand's fiction, but it is first and foremost a systematic and comprehensive philosophy of life.

It holds that the universe is orderly, comprehensible, and conducive to human flourishing. It affirms that human beings are not only capable, but worthy of living on earth. The individual's own life and happiness comprise his own highest moral purpose. Man flourishes only in a society that values science, technology, freedom and capitalism. And beauty, too.

In these pages we hope to defend these values where they are under attack in our culture. To learn more about the ideas behind these values, you can begin by reading Ayn Rand's books, such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, or by visiting the web site of the Ayn Rand Institute.

Just FYI, any regular blogger for The Undercurrent is more than welcome to join my OBloggers mailing list.

Fauxography - how the media buys Hamas’ lies

By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

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NY Times on British Health System

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The February 21, 2008 New York Times has published an article suprisingly critical of the British socialized National Health Service (or NHS). Here are some excerpts:

Paying Patients Test British Health Care System

...One such case was Debbie Hirst's. Her breast cancer had metastasized, and the health service would not provide her with Avastin, a drug that is widely used in the United States and Europe to keep such cancers at bay. So, with her oncologist's support, she decided last year to try to pay the $120,000 cost herself, while continuing with the rest of her publicly financed treatment.

By December, she had raised $20,000 and was preparing to sell her house to raise more. But then the government, which had tacitly allowed such arrangements before, put its foot down. Mrs. Hirst heard the news from her doctor.

"He looked at me and said: 'I'm so sorry, Debbie. I've had my wrists slapped from the people upstairs, and I can no longer offer you that service,' " Mrs. Hirst said in an interview.

"I said, 'Where does that leave me?' He said, 'If you pay for Avastin, you'll have to pay for everything'" -- in other words, for all her cancer treatment, far more than she could afford.

Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.

...But in a final irony, Mrs. Hirst was told early this month that her cancer had spread and that her condition had deteriorated so much that she could have the Avastin after all -- paid for by the health service. In other words, a system that forbade her to buy the medicine earlier was now saying that she was so sick she could have it at public expense.

I blogged about this issue last month ("Better Equal Than Good"). Now that this issue has gotten the attention of the New York Times, perhaps patients like Debbie Hirst and Collette Mills will finally get some justice (and medical care) from the NHS.

Note the central moral issue: Being allowed to spend one's own honestly-earned money on something that will benefit one's own life is considered "unfair" by the British government.

When a government uses force to stop people from acting in their rational self-interest, it is no surprise that the results are misery and death.

(Via Amit Ghate, who has a good post on this topic as well.)

Hillary Clinton: A Postmortem

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

(Note: I was going to save this post until Hillary Clinton formally concedes to Obama, but since I have nothing else, I'll post it now. Things could change, however, if Senator Clinton pulls out a miracle in Texas and Ohio or the Clinton machine pulls some chicanery with the super delegates or something of the sort.)

Like Hillary Clinton, I thought she had a lock on the Democrat nomination. I thought that with her money and the Clinton organization's ties in the Democrat Party that nothing could possibly stop her. She and I and the CW did not take two factors into consideration: Barack Obama and Democrat voters.

Because she thought she was inevitable to win among Democrats, Hillary Clinton forgot about them. From the beginning of her Senate career she followed her husband's successful strategy and triangulated with an eye to the national election in November of 2008. She voted for the war in Iraq, thinking that it would be suicidal among independents to be seen as weak on defense -- and thinking that she could alienate some Democrats and still win the nomination easily. This turned out to be a fatal misjudgment.

I noticed at Daily Kos and Democratic Underground in the last year a great deal of animosity toward Senator Clinton because of her support of the war. I thought this was just the vocal far left of the party, but the anger of the anti-war vote seems to be widespread through the Democrat base. Perhaps this is another indication of how far left the entire party has moved.

Then along came Obama, representing New Leftist ideals in pure form, unadulterated by any triangulation. Obama had no connection to the hated DLC, with its machiavellian positioning to get independent and moderate Republican votes. Obama is the old time religion, so to speak, and it still intoxicates Democrats as much as it did in 1972. There have even been reports of young people swooning as Obama speaks; apparently, gaseous rhetoric unconnected to reality does something for young Democrats these days.

I'm reminded of a passage from Ayn Rand's essay on how progressive education destroys young minds, "The Comprachicos":

The conditioning phase of the comprachicos' task is completed. The students' development is arrested, their minds are set to respond to slogans, as animals respond to a trainer's whistle, their brains are embalmed in the syrup of altruism as an automatic substitute for self-esteem -- they have nothing left but the terror of chronic anxiety, the blind urge to act, to strike out at whoever caused it, and a boiling hostility against the whole of the universe. They would obey anyone, they need a master, they need to be told what to do. They are ready now to be used as cannon fodder -- to attack, to bomb, to burn, to murder, to fight in the streets and die in the gutters. They are a trained pack of miserably impotent freaks, ready to be unleashed against anyone. The comprachicos unleash them against the "System."

Government schools have not taught America's youth to think independently, but to follow the group. They respond to Obama's slogans "as animals respond to a trainer's whistle." If any crises create the opportunity for mob violence, America's youth are now a mob waiting to happen. The Obama worship is more ominous than most commentators think. Has the mob found its master?

I have to credit the Democrats for sticking with their principles in the primaries. The Republicans did the opposite, pragmatically going with John McCain, a big government conservative who polls the best against Democrats. Of course, Democrat principles, such as they are, are the principles of collectivism and state control -- but, by golly, they stuck with them! They will righteously march America down the road to serfdom! Those principles led McGovern to a landslide defeat against another pragmatist Republican, Richard Nixon, in 1972. If Obama does not suffer a similar defeat, does it reflect the decline of the American electorate and the death of our individualist heritage? Or does McCain's fervor for big government confuse the message?

I thought I would gloat at Hillary Clinton's downfall, but I feel nothing but suspicion and fear of the man who defeated her. His wife Michelle got a lot of attention for saying, “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.” Only an anti-American New Leftist would make this statement. I suspect that Barack Obama is as far left as his wife. With the help of the MSM, he will try to hide his radicalism (and his wife) until November 5, 2008. Any attempt by the right to reveal the real Obama will be denounced as "swiftboating."

Maybe I'm just accustomed to see the worst, but between McCain and Obama I really don't see any good coming out of this next election. I think we're at the beginning of a new era, an era of crisis and deepening statism, which will feature a quicker erosion of individual rights and the spread of force in America. In other words, we're heading for some deep shit.

OActivists: An Easy Deal

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The new OActivists list -- my informal private mailing list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural change by effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas -- will open for business on Tuesday. It already has over 80 subscribers, but I want to offer an easy deal for anyone interested in subscribing yet hesitant to make a commitment to engage in activism.

As you might recall from my original post, the list requires that subscribers meet two conditions.

First, subscribers must be Objectivists, meaning that they agree with and live by the principles of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. Subscribers should also support the mission and activities of the Ayn Rand Institute.

Second, subscribers must be committed to engaging in intellectual activism to promote Objectivist ideas in online or print forums on a semi-regular basis.

The first criterion is pretty straightforward. But what does satisfying the second require? I'm willing make that very, very easy. Basically, at least once every six months while you're on the list, you must post at least one comment advocating the Objectivist view on some news article, op-ed, or non-Objectivist blog. That comment doesn't have to be long: just a few sentences will do. You could even just link to or quote from an essay by Ayn Rand or an op-ed from ARI. You'll be alerted to plenty of opportunities to engage in that kind of minimal activism via the OActivists list itself.

In fact, you could even get started by posting a friendly comment on this positive review of The Fountainhead by a blogger.

Of course, I will encourage subscribers to do more than just the minimum: they can write letters to the editor, publish op-eds, speak to local groups, write to their representatives, and so on. In fact, I hope that a person's experience with a wee bit of activism will embolden more. However, that wee bit -- just one comment in a public forum every six months -- is all that's required to subscribe to the OActivists list. Basically, that's five minutes of time every six months. That's not asking much in exchange for the value of subscribing to the list, I don't think.

If that sounds like a fair deal to you, you are more than welcome to subscribe to OActivists via its web interface.

Blogging as Intellectual Activism

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Editor's Note: This is cross-posted at Intellectual Activism, a blog about how advocates of Objectivism can help the philosophy of Ayn Rand gain greater currency in the culture. I ask that comments be posted at that site when possible, and that Objectivist bloggers link to the post there as a means of promoting that blog.

Introduction

Before I begin, I wish to thank the proprietor of Intellectual Activism for asking me to post about blogging. I hope to live up to the compliment by providing useful advice to his readers and to profit from the opportunity to improve my own blogging further through your constructive criticisms and suggestions.

The focus on this article will be on blogging as a means of engaging in intellectual activism. This may or may not be the primary purpose of your blogging activities, so bear that in mind during this discussion. Also bear in mind that despite my successes in blogging that intellectual activism has not been my primary focus as a blogger.

Blogging for me has been mainly a way to explore my strong interest in writing. This purpose and intellectual activism often do intersect since I enjoy writing about cultural and political issues, and I consider myself an Objectivist, meaning that as far as I grasp the philosophy of Ayn Rand, I have reached considered agreement with it.

Be an Advocate for Objectivism

This leads straightaway to some fundamental points regarding intellectual activism. I first encountered Ayn Rand over two decades ago -- about eighteen years before I started blogging in 2004. Eighteen years is a long time, and yet, despite having thought carefully about many philosophical issues during that time, I have discovered that during my blogging -- a more intense phase of such thinking -- I have changed my thinking about several applications of Rand's philosophy to the kinds of issues I write about.

As Objectivists, we appreciate the importance of philosophical ideas in shaping the cultural and political trends of the world we live in, thereby possibly also affecting our own lives. And so it is that we all want better ideas -- particularly those of Ayn Rand -- to attain a greater influence in the culture. Certainly, if this is to occur, we should do what we can to ensure that those ideas get a hearing, including when we make our own contributions to the public debate.

This means two things. First, acknowledge Objectivism when appropriate. Second, likewise indicate in your postings that these are your attempts to apply Ayn Rand's ideas to the issues at hand based on your understanding of them. You should also include some kind of disclaimer in an "about", FAQ, or other informational page (accessible via hyperlink from anywhere on your blog) to the effect that you do not claim to be an authority on Objectivism. The first will help your audience discover Ayn Rand, and the second will alert your reader, particularly if you have made an error in applying her philosophy, that what you wrote isn't necessarily consistent with Objectivism.

On a deeper level, consider again the motivation for intellectual activism, i.e., an appreciation of "the importance of philosophical ideas in shaping the cultural and political trends of the world we live in, thereby possibly also affecting our own lives". One mistake many new to Objectivism make, partly from genuine enthusiasm and partly due to the influence of altruism, is to focus too much on convincing others of Ayn Rand's ideas, and too little on understanding them thoroughly enough to profit from them in one's own life.

Objectivism is, as Ayn Rand put it, "a philosophy for living on this earth". As important as intellectual activism is, one must never lose sight of the fact that one's happiness -- not convincing others that Ayn Rand was right -- is the purpose of one's own life. In doing so, one will remain focused on understanding her ideas for oneself, in personally understanding how valuable they are, and, incidentally, also being better at intellectual activism. It is not enough to wail that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, if one does not offer a positive alternative. To make such a case convincingly, one must argue his point well, and one must convey the sincerity that can come only from having lived according to Objectivism.

In case you were wondering, this is why I italicized the phrase "for Objectivism". To win the battle for the mind, we must appeal to the best within our audience. The best arguments in the world will mean nothing if people do not see that gaining and keeping their rational values depend in some way on a proper philosophy.

A Word about Blogging

A weblog (often simply "blog") is a "website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings." This leaves an enormous amount of latitude to a blogger, even if he restricts his purpose in blogging to intellectual activism. At the same time, the medium presents certain limitations. Here, we will look at the suitability of blogging for intellectual activism.

Perhaps the most obvious feature of this medium is how easily one can start a blog, what with the wide availability of web sites that offer free blog hosting. To the individual and for the purpose of intellectual activism, this is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, you are suddenly empowered to say something (and perhaps even be heard by someone) the next time you hear about some issue on which to your knowledge, no rational perspective has been offered. On the other, if you are unsure of your grasp of Objectivism or your writing ability, be aware that you will have no editorial backup unless you arrange it for yourself.

The fact that just anybody can blog is reflected by the fact that a very few big-name bloggers get thousands of page views a day while the vast majority get fewer than one. The numbers reflect the fact that there is lots of junk out there to sift through. Of course, a low hit total does not in and of itself imply that a blog has lousy content. It can also mean that few people have heard of it yet, or that it rarely has new content.

Over the time I have been blogging, I have written several times about the many personal benefits I have realized through the hobby. Here is a short, non-exhaustive list: a chance to clarify my own thinking, a place to blow steam (in a constructive manner, of course!), new friends, contacts for more serious writing, exposure to other thinkers, improved self-discipline, practice writing, and a place for occasional diary entries. Blogging has been very rewarding to me.

One thing I have not discussed until now is the price I have paid for blogging. Although writing comes very easily to me, it still takes time -- and sometimes, finding material takes a comparable amount of time. To compare this time investment to holding a second job is not much of an exaggeration. I am talking about several hours a day, every day. I am very lucky that my wife has been supportive of my efforts, and that she is often busy anyway. Until recently, I posted twice a day during the week, but greater time demands at work and other writing activities have caused me to recently decide to normally post only once a day.

When you decide to start blogging, then, you will be one of many voices in a huge, noisy crowd. It is difficult, but not impossible, to be heard. At the risk of sounding negative, my general advice is to consider other forms of intellectual activism, including donations to the Ayn Rand Institute, letters to the editor, helping organize Objectivist clubs or events in your area, or commenting on established, popular blogs and forums -- unless you can gain other benefits from blogging until your efforts begin to bear fruit.

Nuts and Bolts

From here on out, I will focus on some concrete blogging advice. Recall that this is coming from someone who has not focused on intellectual activism or spent that much effort on publicizing his blog. Some of you may have some valuable insights to offer in those areas that I have not brought up.

I have linked to advice about blogging before. Below is a list of posts about blogging in chronological order:

• What Makes a Good Blog? -- Includes an annotated list of links to advice from other bloggers.
• Notes about Blogging II -- Two links include blogging advice. And no, I don't know what happened to "Notes about (or on?) Blogging (I)"!
• Notes on Blogging III -- More blogging advice.
• Advice on Blogging -- Diana Hsieh gives some excellent advice here in list form.
• Good Advice for Bloggers -- This is more applicable to journalists than bloggers, but it's still worthwhile.
• Here's some good blogging advice. -- Executive summary: Avoid social metaphysics in blogging.
• Notes on Blogging IV -- Some discussion of the nuts and blots of blogging.
• Notes on Blogging V -- Discusses and links to some good blogging advice.

Of course, if you are observant, you will note that I stopped blogging about blogging nearly three years ago! That was about the time I started feeling comfortable as a blogger and, perhaps felt less of a need to think as much about it.

So, now that I have enjoyed some success, what have I found to be effective?

As I have already mentioned, my main focus as a blogger has been on exploring my interest in writing as well as mentally "chewing" various issues that have captured my interest over the years. I have made no extraordinary efforts to achieve publicity for my blog other than to force myself to write daily during the week whether I feel like it or not.

For the purposes of intellectual activism, then, it would seem that aside from being sure that you understand and apply Objectivism as well as possible, you should concentrate on what you can do to overcome the "noisy crowd" problem.

The below list discusses in no particular order what I have done on both scores and a few things I have observed others doing on the latter score. (And my observations of others are not confined to Objectivist bloggers.) Generally, four categories of advice follow: (1) making your content readily accessible, (2) helping others locate your content, (3) improving your content, and (4) building readership. Any one piece of advice may apply to more than one of these at the same time.

• Write. Write. Write. But I repeat myself.
• Always go the extra mile to credit people who show you the good stories first. Not only is this good blogging etiquette, it will encourage more of the same in the future since people generally do like recognition. Fellow bloggers especially like you to link to their blogs!
• Blog on a regular basis, preferably at least once a day on weekdays. Think of this from the point of view of a potential "regular". Why do you visit a blog repeatedly? Because you know you can expect new content there. When does it become habitual? When it becomes part of your daily routine. The more regular readers you have, the more eyes you will have out for interesting material (See above.) and the more potential referrals of new readers to you blog. If you can't (or don't want to) blog regularly, consider joining or forming a team blog.
• Connect with other Objectivists. Since I began blogging, a strong community of Objectivist bloggers has begun to take shape. Many of us communicate by such means as the Olist mailing list, and the brand new OActivist list will be especially helpful for those more focused on activism.
  
• Edit for spelling and grammar. Poor spelling, like poor grammar, is very distracting, and will make many people leave your post for the sake of sanity before they even know what you're trying to say. Those who do slog through anyway will, if they have any doubts about your point, understandably have them magnified by large numbers of errors. ("What else is he being sloppy about?") And any opponent who comments on what you said will delight (as I often do) in peppering your quotes with "[sic]" just because he can. Don't discredit yourself or help your opponents do so by being sloppy.
• Make your content as easy to read as humanly possible. Let me repeat myself here, because this is a more common problem than you might think: Make your content as easy to read as humanly possible. A good way to do this is to make it easy for people to find the web address of your blog's RSS feed. I don't actually visit that many of the blogs I follow because I don't have time to do so. I use RSS feeds in the Netvibes feed reader. This way, I can scan for interesting headlines, mouse over them for the first few lines, and read the whole post if that piques my interest. If I decide to comment on a post at my blog, I can click through to the actual site to get the web address. People who truncate their feeds (in order to force readers to visit their site for whole posts) cost me time. If I'm in a real hurry, I skip their blogs entirely. (Time is money, and not just for me.) But wait! There's more ....
• Use scripts and off-site content sparingly. These not only make your page load more slowly, but each one is a potential failure point that can make part or all of it not load at all. A couple of blogs I otherwise like take minutes at a time to load over a cable modem. Do you want to wait three minutes to see whether there might be a new post somewhere that takes (maybe) thirty seconds to read? Then don't ask your readers to do this, either.
• Use standards-compliant HTML. If faulty code -- like substandard HTML "extensions" that work only with Microsoft products -- at your site crashes my browser every time I visit (with 15 other tabs open) or I can't read it easily for some reason, I'll stop visiting out of frustration. And so will anyone else in your potential audience who has a similar difficulty. Never make someone fire up a browser (or worse, recover from a browser crash) just to view your blog. Substandard HTML is the virtual gag of the blogging world.
• Seriously consider blogging under a pseudonym if you are in academia. (HT: Diana Hsieh) Although I am openly an Objectivist at work, using a pen name allows me to control when and to whom I disclose my full views on, say, Islam, abortion, or the current war. There are many reasons besides the very compelling ones mentioned in the linked article to consider this.
  
• Consider moderating comments. I have heard this called the "nuclear option", probably because of the amount of work involved or the fear of inhibiting discussion. However, I have done this for over a year myself with no noticeable drop-off in comments. If checking your email counts as "work" then it does entail more work (and it could easily be quite impractical for a larger blog), but you will always know when someone attempts to leave a comment. This has made comment spam and drive-by flames nearly non-existent and totally preventable, and has allowed me to respond to the occasional question posted to some old, half-forgotten post.
• Join Technorati. My blog, Gus Van Horn, has been listed as relevant blog commentary several times by RealClear Politics and at least once by each of The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and The New York Times. It has been quoted twice by Slate and linked several times on the front page of City Journal. I have been asked to comment at a forum by The Chronicle of Higher Education. (I had to decline. Science is a beast of a day job!) Objectivist ideas have been heard each time, and yet this blog has never averaged more than a modest, but respectable 300 readers a day. Most of these high-impact posts were discovered by these media outlets though Technorati, which tracks blogs that link to news stories, among other things. In addition, Technorati (along with referral tracking via Sitemeter) is a good way to detect when other bloggers choose to comment on something you have said. Other, similar services may also be useful but remember that every tracking script you include in your blog template risks turning it instead into a "bog template", as we have already alluded to. This will more than negate any advantage of being tracked by more people.
• Advertise. I have noticed Google ads placed by both Diana Hsieh and Leonard Peikoff in my Gmail reader upon logging on. I haven't done this myself, but if you want more readers, Google Ads does target your ads according to web page context. I would imagine that any Objectivist blogger or Objectivist email list subscriber who used Gmail would become a potential reader of yours.
• Leave comments and trackbacks to higher-profile blogs. Your comments should be on-topic, say something intelligent, and link back to your blog only if your post adds to what you have just said. Ditto for trackbacks, which should always, as a matter of blog etiquette, link back to the post. Remember: You are more likely to get favorable notice for your blog and win minds if you actually participate in the conversation at hand, rather than just spamming someone else's blog for attention -- which everyone will see through, to the detriment of your reputation in the blogosphere. You can make an ass of yourself with one posted comment, but to develop a reputation as someone with intelligent things to say will likely take persistence.
• Be a link Santa. (I thank Joe for that term!) If you can blog regularly and you follow a few good bloggers who don't, you can send them traffic (which they will appreciate) by linking to them from time to time. On days you don't have as much time to post, if you link to several such posts at once, these bloggers will have already returned the favor by saving you time. Incidentally, my roundup posts are among my more popular features, probably because I save my readers time tracking down these other good bloggers.
• Add value to your blog with a good blogroll. Sure. Everyone already knows about NoodleFood, but aside from the fact that I like Paul, Diana, and Greg, why should I link to a blog everyone knows about anyway? To make it easy for them to visit there after they pay me a visit. If other good blogs are easy to visit from yours, your blog is a more useful place to visit than it would be if you made them bookmark those other sites themselves or -- shudder -- visit some other blog that does do this. If you want Objectivists and those receptive to our arguments to visit your blog, make it easy for them to get more. Other bloggers usually return the favor, which will sometimes send you more readers. You should include a note to the effect that links do not imply an endorsement of the other sites, whether you choose to link only to other Objectivists or, as I do, will link to almost anyone. Note that part of having a good blogroll is to update it by adding new links and removing defunct links periodically.
• Accept only unobtrusive ads. If you choose to accept advertisements, avoid irritating your readers with pop-up ads, roll-over ads, or anything else that obscures your content.
  
• Help your readers visit you from work. Basically, this means avoid posting images to your blog that you would not want your boss to observe you viewing from your computer at work. Never post anything that automatically makes noise when your page loads. Provide a warning with any material (e.g., a risque YouTube embed) that is not prudent to view from an employer's computer.
  
• Take advantage of social bookmarking sites. I don't use Digg, DelIcioUs, Stumble, or the like, but I do make it easy for those who do to bookmark me with appropriate links at the end of each post. I do not normally get a large amount of traffic from these sources, but the next time I get an Instalanche, I will probably get multiple Diggs and thus leverage such publicity by getting a high rank at such sites.
• Link to some favorite posts. Every blogger gets noticed by an A-list blogger from time to time, and every blogger experiences disruptions to his normal posting schedule. Whether it be to give potential new readers a chance to see your (other) best stuff or to tide over your regulars, a list of favorite posts will do the job.
  
• Benefit from the comments. When I can, I answer every comment. This always keeps my mind engaged, and I suspect that it encourages discussion. I strive to provide a comfortable, civilized place to hold a discussion. People from all walks of life have participated in discussions at my blog, and have often contributed valuable leads, insights, or elaborations of their own. Regular commenters include military personnel, a linguist, the proprietor of an Internet radio station, and numerous professionals. In addition, I have heard from school teachers, a historian, a used car salesman, and even a professional gambler! I like the fact that blogging puts me in touch with people who can answer my questions when I don't know about some issue or set me straight when I merely think I do! I enjoy hearing from my commenters, and I have learned a lot from them. Aside from maintaining a cordial atmosphere, I have found the next tip most helpful in gaining the ear of such an impressive array of commenters.
• Always be honest. Don't be afraid to divulge the limits of your expertise on a topic if doing so is appropriate. Always thank the people who take the time to correct you, even if having to deal with such a comment is inconvenient and ruins your mood. If your character is challenged, address the challenge, if it is appropriate, at once and thank whoever brought up the issue. A commenter once indirectly implied that I had plagiarized a comment he had left, but which I hadn't seen, to an item I blogged. Had he not done so, I would not have had the chance to defend myself as soon as I did. I thanked him, too, and I meant it.
• Take advantage of flames. Even some dishonest comments and outright flames can be turned on their head to make a useful point. As a rule, I direct whatever I say about such comments to other readers, thereby making it clear that any intended insult was wasted on me, and that the intelligent discussion of ideas at my blog will end when Hell freezes over. I almost never insult a commenter, but a racist once just about did the work for me. If an insult can be used to convey that stupidity will not be tolerated, then it may be worthwhile. Only occasionally will I simply reject even a bad comment.
• Unless you write 24 hours a day, use a single blogging web address. Two mistakes I see all the time are (1) going through new web addresses like toilet paper and (2) needlessly spreading one blog's worth of content across three or more blogs. Both practices make it hard to build an audience for different reasons. In the first case, changing to a new URL in order to use a better blogging platform is fine, but your last post at your old address should redirect your readers to your new blog. But start hopping around enough, and all but your most loyal readers become more likely to get tired of hunting you down. Yes. That might seem lazy or stupid to you, but every degree of added effort you impose on a potential reader is less effort he can spend reading your blog. In the second case, most blogging platforms allow you to categorize posts anyway, and usually, readers will find more than one of your interests worthwhile. Why send them on an Easter egg hunt for what you decided to post about on a given day? Unless you're about ten times more prolific than I am, just don't do that.
• Have fun! Objectivism and your life are great values. How much time and effort you devote to intellectual activism will depend on your evolving hierarchy of values. If you find that blogging causes you to focus too much on unpleasant things, then cut down or stop entirely. If you enjoy it, then don't be afraid to have fun with it. The misconception, common in our modern culture, that serious equals boring is just another manifestation of the mind-body dichotomy. It's a benevolent universe. Stand up for what is right. Laugh at the evil. Enjoy the many creative ways -- which I have barely begun to cover here -- that blogging and the Internet place at your disposal to begin living in the future of your choice today!
  

Note that I have left many areas unexplored here, such as the value of having rational commentary "out there", just waiting to be Googled long after the initial media frenzy has died down, or the concept of "premise checking" which we Objectivists offer above the mere (concrete) "fact checking" you hear touted as the great virtue of blogging.

Feel free to comment on any of these things in addition to raising questions. I do note, however, that as this topic will be intensely interesting to Objectivists, I probably will not have the luxury or time to answer every comment! Thank you for your time and consideration and, now, for your questions and constructive criticism!

-- CAV

P.S. Readers who are registered to comment at Intellectual Activism should comment there, and I ask Objectivist bloggers to link there when referring to this post.

Quick Roundup 304

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Intellectual Activism

Jim May left a comment on the Obama plagiarism kerfuffle that made me laugh this morning:

What a comment it is on our times that people should notice the re-use of some words, while failing to notice his ongoing re-use of the same old ideas.

I imagined this coming up in a debate and Obama shooting back, "It's called 'recycling'!" If the Democrats actually had problems with stealing anymore, I'd worry that this would carry the day....

But for those of us who, unlike The Houston Chronicle, are less concerned with pretending that the youth vote can make a difference in this election than with seeing to it that we all get some real choices in the future, the activity of intellectual activism -- of getting a hearing in the public debate for good ideas -- is vital.


Along those lines, there is some good news on the blogging front. First, Diana Hsieh is starting a new mailing list devoted entirely to intellectual activism. Second, The Undercurrent now has an active blog. (The sidebar link here now takes you there, rather than to its main page.) Third, since the webmaster of the new Intellectual Activism blog has asked for my thoughts on blogging, I'll be cross-posting those here and there tomorrow morning. I am not primarily focused, as a blogger, on intellectual activism, but I hope that what I have learned in my three-plus years of experience can be useful. Failing that, I hope to learn something from the feedback I get!

News Flash: Threat from a New Technology Sensationalized

To read this article, one would believe that parents who left their children at the mall for several hours were putting their children at greater risk for sexual predation than those who let them roam the Internet for a similar amount of time!

"There's been some overreaction to the new technology, especially when it comes to the danger that strangers represent," said Janis Wolak, a sociologist at the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

"Actually, Internet-related sex crimes are a pretty small proportion of sex crimes that adolescents suffer," Wolak added, based on three nationwide surveys conducted by the center.

Having said that, I note that the article does offer some useful advice that parents might want to heed regarding how their children interact with strangers on the Internet.

Why Tamper with Just Election Results?

The Democrats, not content with making the United States look like a banana republic in 2000, are set to have a particularly ugly national convention this time around:

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. ...

Pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, not even on the first ballot. This has been an open secret in the party for years, but it has never really mattered because there has almost always been a clear victor by the time the convention convened.

But not this time. This time, one candidate may enter the convention leading by just a few pledged delegates, and those delegates may find themselves being promised the sun, moon and stars to switch sides. [Just like the Democrats promise these things to voters every election cycle. --ed]

...

On Sunday, Doug Wilder, the mayor of Richmond and a former governor of Virginia, went even further, predicting riots in the streets if the Clinton campaign were to overturn an Obama lead through the use of superdelegates.

"There will be chaos at the convention," Wilder told Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation."

"If you think 1968 was bad, you watch: In 2008, it will be worse." [bold added]

John McCain's chances, I am sad to say, have never looked better.

Left-Wing Creationism

A California lawmaker wants to force the "science" of "climate change" down your child's throat via the state-run education monopoly:

The measure, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would mandate that future science textbooks approved for California public schools include climate change.

"You can't have a science curriculum that is relevant and current if it doesn't deal with the science behind climate change," Simitian said. "This is a phenomenon of global importance and our kids ought to understand the science behind that phenomenon."

The state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, Jan. 30 by a 26-13 vote. It heads now to the state Assembly. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken numerous actions to reduce global warming, but he has yet to weigh in on Simitian's bill. Other Republicans in the Capitol, however, are not happy about the proposal.

Some say the science on global warming isn't clear, while others worry the bill would inject environmental propaganda into classrooms. [bold added]

Global warming hysterics package-deal the scientific questions of whether there is global warming and whether it is caused by human activity with the political question of whether the government should do anything about it. Since they do this and treat the answer to the first question as a foregone "Yes!" and take that to logically mean the answer to the second is also "Yes!", the fears of "some" and "others" will be realized if this foolishness comes to pass.

Heh!

Reader Adrian Hester informs me of a curious CD available at Amazon: Black Sabbath songs translated into Latin and re-cast into medieval arrangements. Sez he: "The most unusual thing about it though is that the damn thing actually works."

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 305

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Anti-Life Premise of Government Rationing

Paul Hsieh and Amit Ghate point to a New York Times story about government rationing of medical care which so perfectly illustrates the thoroughly anti-life premise behind socialized medicine that there is no such thing as bringing it up too often:

Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.

In other words, the animating philosophy behind socialized medicine is not seeing to it that as many lives as possible are improved or saved, but that nobody gets more of anything good (i.e., life-sustaining) than anyone else.

Coincidentally, I learned from Dismuke (who is blogging actively again) of an even more intrusive and blatant application of this premise. Hugo Chavez, the socialist dictator of Venezuela, is seeing to it that families can't purchase "too many" daily necessities:

[I]n the planned network of large (PDVAL) and smaller markets (PDVALitos) run by the PDVSA subsidiary, they will keep a register of all purchases, limiting purchases to once a day. Moreover, they have done the studies of how much food a family may need and purchases will be limited to those amounts. They will have a "file card" (read rationing card) to register purchases so as to avoid repeats and people exceeding the limits. [bold added]

I guess if you starve the peasants, they won't "need" as much medical care, either. The death premise of central planning does have a way, I must admit, of simplifying things.

I will take the complexity and joy of life as a free man any day.

Early Greek Lawgivers Reviewed

There is a short, positive book review of Early Greek Lawgivers by John Lewis over at the Bryn Mawr Classical review:

The book has some good suggestions for further reading, divided into a general section on sources, histories, and modern discussions of Greek law (pp. 85-88) followed by a chapter-by-chapter list (pp. 88-92). Some useful questions for further study are given on pp. 93-94, followed by a glossary of technical terms (pp. 95-96) and a short index (pp. 97-100).

There is a lot in this short book, which is succinctly written, stimulating, and introduces to students earlier lawgivers as well as the better known figures of Draco, Solon, and Lycurgus, who all too often are the only ones studied in courses.

The review calls it an "excellent introduction" to its material and it strikes me as good for a general reader. Although I could not find it at the Ayn Rand bookstore (which does stock Solon the Thinker), it is available through Amazon for $20.00 new.

Holland -- or Bangladesh?

Galileo Blogs draws the following excellent analogy pursuant to a recent Ayn Rand Institute press release on calls by global warming panic-mongers for global dictatorship:

The proper image of our future, should the global warming dictators be successful, is Bangladesh, a poor and authoritarian country where thousands of people die every few years from floods. Contrast Bangladesh with Holland. Thousands of Dutch have lived below sea level for hundreds of years, yet they are safe from floods, protected today by a multi-billion dollar system of dikes, high-tech sensors and dams. However, the real protection of the Dutch against floods is their wealth. The Dutch can afford to protect themselves from floods.

And this would be if they are right that the earth is warming. Otherwise, our lives will still be nasty, brutish, and short, but other methods than flooding will have to put us out of our misery. See the first section of this post for details and note that the global warming hysterics want human beings to have no "unfair advantages" over the inanimate environment.

Comedy on Both Sides of the Pond

When I was young, I was introduced to British comedy, which I really enjoy, by my mother, who watched Fawlty Towers on PBS and would later introduce me to Mr. Bean and the ingenious Keeping up Appearances. (Come to think of it, between my Mom's comedy and my Dad's Soccer Made in Germany, we could have just about gotten by on one channel!)

In any event, I found the thoughts of Briton Valda Redfern on the difference between American and British humor interesting, and feel somewhat vindicated by her take on Seinfeld.

It will be interesting to see what I think of the British Office. I am planning on renting it at some point having exhausted the American series DVDs some time ago.

-- CAV

Deliver Us From Evil

By Greg from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog


We just finished watching Deliver Us From Evil, an excellent 2006 documentary. Ugh, I haven't felt so nauseated in quite some time. I need a shower.

You need to rent it.

I didn't really know what it was about, other than that it was a documentary having to do with religion that Tammy had put in our Netflix queue. It started simply enough, circling around the mid-70's activities of one Oliver O'Grady, a Catholic priest in California. "I want to promise myself this is going to be the most honest confession of my life." Confession? The interwoven interview snippets began turning south as the potential for some "inappropriate contact" with a child was turning up in the discussions. With every chapter of the film, it only got worse.

Not one, or even a few, but dozens and dozens and perhaps hundreds of children. Both females and males. Sex with parents to get to kids. And he didn't have sex with just young teens, but adolescents, and children... down to five years old, two years old, nine months old! Chapter after chapter showing his eluding prosecution by way of upper-management promises to victims and government officials to get this dirtbag out of the priesthood and away from kids -- only to be quietly moved to another priesthood with more victims another city or two over. Decades of honing and using his predatory skills with the knowledge of the Church. More chapters with the focus shifting out to the patterns of buck-passing, indifference and coverup in the Church leadership as it struggles to deal with similar "issues" across the US, with culpability all the way up to the current Pope who (just prior to becoming Pope) was accused of conspiracy to cover up rampant sexual abuse in the US. He was granted immunity against prosecution for that by President Bush.

The film closes with where-are-they-now summary screens and various factoids: "Since 1950, sexual abuse has cost the Church over one billion dollars in legal settlements & expenses." "Over 100,000 victims of clergy sexual abuse have come forward in the United States alone." "Experts say more than 80% of sexual abuse victims never report their abuse."

I was struck by how O'Grady's "most honest confession" was nonetheless incredibly evasive; how his ongoing efforts at (ostensively) trying to make himself and his victims better were manipulative and oriented toward excusing and limiting the mind-bending scale of his atrocities. It was particularly chilling to watch him deploy some of the same disgusting manipulations he used on his young victims right before our eyes -- and sadly, we get to watch some of them continue to let him manipulate them.

Many of these victims still see the Church in a good light. Just one fellow, the father of a girl of five who was being raped by this monster, was shown feeling such outrage and betrayal that he wouldn't step foot in another church and had dropped his faith. Meanwhile, his daughter is shown smiling toward the Vatican buildings on a present-day trip by victims to address the Church (rebuffed). Near the end of the film we see her kneeling in prayer in some cathedral.

This is what faith and submission to authority wreak.

Public Intellectuals

By Edward Cline from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

If one assumed that American intellectuals have little or no influence in our culture, and searched for evidence of it, one need not look further than Jeffrey R. Di Leo’s February 4th essay, “Public Intellectuals, Inc.” on the InsideHigherEd website. In an obvious effort to boost the “prestige” of intellectuals in the public eye, he proposes that intellectuals – in academe and in what Di Leo terms the “public-private sector,” for many of them have feet in both realms – should do a better job of ingratiating themselves to both camps. Little known academic intellectuals – that is, in the academic establishment – commonly have scant respect for well known “public intellectuals,” because the latter are not beholden to what Di Leo claims are the strict, “qualitative” standards of academia and who focus on “quantity.” (A quantity of what, Di Leo never says.)

Di Leo, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Houston-Victoria, does not say what ideas these relabeled “corporate” intellectuals should draw from academe and publicly propagate, but his models of successful “public” intellectuals are a dead give-away: transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, arch-pragmatists John Dewey and William James, and a founder of sociology, Max Weber – “figures,” he writes, “who still have a powerful presence in the world of ideas.” Di Leo claims that contemporary public intellectuals have not attained the respect these intellectuals enjoyed in their time, nor nearly their influence on the course of American politics and culture.

“Currently, it almost seems that the more public the intellectual, the less seriously he is taken by other intellectuals. Nevertheless, public intellectuals today have more media outlets and markets available to them than ever before. Due primarily to the rise of new technologies, the circulation and recicrulation of their ideas are reaching wider and wider audiences. Consequently, as the intellectual influence of public intellectuals over other intellectuals (viz., non-public intellectuals) wanes, the market for their ideas and their entertainment value skyrockets.”

Di Leo’s complaint reads suspiciously like long repressed but disguised envy. Does he dream of being a wined-and-dined “public intellectual” with a huge “market” for his ideas (whatever they may be) which would net him the attention, “respect,” and deference accorded “public intellectuals”? One can only guess. He does not define what he means by a “market,” and he himself disparages most “public intellectuals” by indicating that their ideas have mere “entertainment” value. Nor does he define or even identify contemporary “public intellectuals.”

Instances of “public intellectuals,” to me, at least, are, say, George Will, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Jonah Goldberg on one hand, and Maureen Dowd, Leonard Pitts and Paul Krugman on the other, most of whom have syndicated columns that appear in major and minor newspapers and even on internet publications, and who are certainly more widely known than is Di Leo. They are “public intellectuals,” and I am not aware that they are losing or lack public “respect.”

And perhaps the best known “public intellectual,” influential even twenty-six years after her death, is Ayn Rand, who was more than an intellectual. She was a philosopher.

A better and shorter term for “public intellectual,” moreover, might be the wholly respectable but nevertheless slightly derogatory pundit, whose Hindi-rooted secondary meaning in various dictionaries simply is “learned teacher,” “authority,” or “critic.” A pundit may or may not have a strong academic affiliation or any academic affiliation at all. Perhaps it is respect that Di Leo pines for, but he is averse to being a mere pundit. So he has coined the cumbersome term “corporate intellectual,” corporate subsuming all intellectuals, academic and non-academic. But even this term is redundant and pointless. An intellectual is an intellectual, whether he writes for an academic journal or is a newspaper columnist or is a teacher in one of the humanities.

Here is another odd statement:

“The reduction of the discourse of public intellectuals to mere polarized positions is the most observable sign of a lack of respect….Respect is afforded public intellectuals not by the mere ‘declaration’ or ‘assertion’ of a position….Rather, respect is granted to them through the opportunity to articulate and defend their positions in some detail or depth to a wide audience. It is further confirmed when their defense is thoughtfully received by an attentive audience. Public intellectuals are respected for the depth of their knowledge, and efforts to suppress it, such as the reduction of their knowledge to a mere position, is ultimately a sign of disrespect for them as intellectuals.” (Italics mine)

It takes some pondering to unravel this contradiction. But, here is more of Di Leo’s complaint:

“From the general public’s point of view, they are either Republican or Democrat; liberal or conservative; left-wing or right-wing; pro-choice or pro-life; and so on.” (It is significant that he omits intellectuals who are pro-reason or anti-reason.) These, presumably, are what Di Leo means by mere polarized positions. That is, they identify specific political or moral positions with which one may or may not disagree. It seems that he resents identity as such.

Overall, it is difficult to determine what exactly Di Leo wishes academics and “public intellectuals” to do, other than what they have been doing, which is either acting as transmitters of a culture’s values (as Rand would put it) especially in higher education, or propounding, explicating, defending, or attacking them before a large public audience.

Di Leo’s perfect model of a “public intellectual” and academic intellectual is Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom he says came nearest to what he represents as the best kind of “corporate intellectual.”

“In his 1837 address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, ‘The American Scholar,’ Emerson envisioned the American scholar as a person who would do whatever possible to communicate ideas to the world, not just to fellow intellectuals. Emerson regarded the American scholar to be a whole person while thinking. As a whole person, the American scholar would speak and think from the position of the ‘One Man,’ which ‘is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier.’”

Later Di Leo endorses Emerson’s purpose as a “public intellectual.”

“’The office of the scholar,’ writes Emerson, ‘is to cheer, to raise, and the guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of observation…He is one who raises himself from private considerations and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world’s eye. He is the world’s heart.’”

Thus, concludes Di Leo, “Emerson provides us with a very clear response to the relationship of intellectuals to the public-private and academic spheres.”

An antidote to Emerson’s freewheeling, inebriate concept of an intellectual’s purpose and role is Ayn Rand’s description:

“The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher. The intellectual carries the application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor….The intellectual is the eyes, ears and voice of a free society: it is his job to observe the events of the world, to evaluate their meaning and to inform the men in all the other fields.” (“For the New Intellectual,” in For the New Intellectual, excerpted in The Ayn Rand Lexicon.)

As evidence that Di Leo does not grasp that the academic “life of the mind” sooner or later is transmitted by “public intellectuals” into the culture, later in his essay he writes:

“The public-private sector…is associated with a different set of activities and values….[I]f academe is dedicated to the life of the mind, then the public-private sector is not; if academe disseminates, discovers, and debates knowledge and ideas, then the public-private sector does not; if academe is not motivated by market values, then the public-private sector is. In sum, the public-private sector is a site where ends are pursued relative to their potential either to appease public and private sentiment or produce ‘cash value,’ whereas the academy is not.”

In short, Di Leo claims that academe pursues knowledge for the sake of knowledge, without regard to its practical application to reality and to man’s life – that is, without regard to its “cash” or “market” value. This is somehow a “nobler” or “purer” pursuit of knowledge than what motivates “public intellectuals,” who are too preoccupied with applying their knowledge to real or imagined problems in politics, the arts, and science.

Furthermore, Di Leo is wrong that academe’s dedication to the dissemination of knowledge is conducted in an insular, scholarly ambience alien and hostile to the “outside world.” All the disastrous ideas that have plagued man since the 18th century have emanated from the universities, in philosophy, in politics, in the arts, and in the sciences. It may have taken a generation or longer, but they have as a rule originated in academe and were eventually absorbed by intellectuals who in turn transmitted them to the public and to the various “humanities” and sciences, where they were applied, for better or for worse.

More recently, the philosophy and pedagogical ideas of John Dewey are prime examples. Another example of a “whole person” is Woodrow Wilson, a cloistered intellectual who moved from the “groves of academe” to the White House, where he translated his anti-liberty ideas to political policy.

But perhaps the best example of an Emersonian “One Man” – that perfect symbiosis of academic and “public intellectual” admired by Di Leo – who influenced the course of philosophy and consequently the character and content of our civilization, is Immanuel Kant. Most the ideas that have set the course of politics in America for statism and totalitarianism (if the trend isn’t arrested and reversed); most the ideas that sabotaged and eventually destroyed the arts; and most the ideas that are converting science into the craps shoot of consensus, originated in academe, courtesy of that Prussian thinker. (Hegel, Comte, Schopenhauer and their philosophical ilk and successors were all heirs to Kant’s deliberate attack on reason; they were the branches of the tree that was Kant, without whom it is doubtful they would have concocted their own malignant systems.)

It took less than a generation for academe and its “public intellectual” spokesmen to convert the anti-science, anti-technology, non-intellectual, and anti-man fringe cult of ecology or environmentalism into a political force, culminating, first, in warnings of global cooling, and then of global warming, then turned into national and international legislation, sentencing those who place a “cash” or “market” value on the truth to fight a rear-guard action, to be ignored or marginalized by a news media whose spokesmen were taught – in colleges and universities – that truth is relative, or subjective, or irrelevant, and that man is guilty of everything by virtue of his mere existence. (And three of most prominent exponents of that position today are those “public intellectuals” Al Gore and the Clintons.)

Di Leo’s envy of successful “public intellectuals” shows when he cites the findings of Richard Posner in his 2002 book Public Intellectuals (which I am not recommending, because I have not read it), which apparently tabulated 546 major “public intellectuals” known in the news media.

“Work like Posner’s continues to promote the unfortunate notion that public intellectuals are identifiable and worthy of merit based solely on the size of the market for their ideas, with no methodological allowances made for the quality of their contribution to public discourse….Posner treats public intellectualism in America as though it were merely part of the entertainment industry….”

This reads much like a person who would also like to be interviewed by Tim Russert, or Matt Lauer, or Charley Rose, but never will be. Falling back on Emerson’s “whole person” argument, Di Leo remarks:

“In the act of thinking, the intellectual becomes this whole person. Emerson writes: ‘In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.’ Isn’t this true today? Doesn’t public intellectualism suffer from the exact form of degeneracy noted by Emerson? Are there not too many public intellectuals who are parrots in the public arena, speaking merely from the parameters laid out for them by others….?”

There is an element of truth in these observations. But, barring a compulsive vanity to be pawed by the news media, academic intellectuals need not become “super star” intellectuals to effect “change” in politics or any other realm of human endeavor. When I listen to the rhetoric of the current presidential candidates (or even of the current occupant of the White House), I am not “entertained”; what I feel is dread, anger or revulsion. Every one of them is proposing to expand government power over Americans’ lives, increase the national debt in expenditures here and abroad to “fight” poverty, AIDS, global warming, and so on, in the “nobler” pursuit of selflessness and sacrifice. And every one of their proposals is rooted in what was taught the candidates in universities, and all of it is the thoughtless, unimaginative parroting of ideas uncritically absorbed in academe.

What Di Leo’s essay demonstrates is the gulf that exists not only between academe and the American public, but also between academe’s general grasp of its actual influence in the culture and its alleged sidelining and neglect in “public discourse.” Di Leo is likely not the only academic intellectual who pines for prominence in the “public discourse,” although had he a better understanding of academe’s role in today’s politics and culture, he might be reluctant to take credit for it.

Ideas, after all, have consequences, and the respect they earn is in direct proportion to how they promote, abridge, poison or destroy one’s life.

The Undercurrent Blog is Online!

By Dan Edge from The Edge of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Undercurrent blog is now going full steam. There have been three excellent posts in the past week and a half.

The first was my article about the Super Bowl, and why it is so popular in America. Next, The Undercurrent editorial staff published an article on the silly Saudis outlawing the color red for Valentine's day. Finally, Eric Brunner just posted an article on the inane beliefs of some religious people. Eric notes that some people are crazy enough to believe in "a Jewish zombie who can walk on water." :D

So check out The Undercurrent blog! Comments on the blogs are welcome, and are an excellent form of spiritual support. Also, if you are interested in writing for The Undercurrent (or helping out in some other capacity), you can reach the staff at contact@the-undercurrent.com.

--Dan Edge

"Retaliation": Another Job Security Weapon

By Thomas Bowden from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

"Retaliation": Another Job Security Weapon
February 19, 2008

Irvine, CA--The Supreme Court hears oral argument this week in two cases that will determine whether blacks and over-40 workers may sue for "retaliation" under federal employment discrimination laws.

In the case of CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries, a Cracker Barrel restaurant manager was fired for leaving the store safe open overnight. He sued for retaliation, alleging he was really being punished for having previously complained about racial discrimination against a fellow employee. The Supreme Court will decide whether the Civil Rights Act of 1866 allows such a retaliation claim. In another case, Gomez-Perez v. Potter, the issue is whether the Age Discrimination in Employment Act grants older workers a similar right to sue.

"Most Americans think discrimination laws simply stop irrational employers from making decisions based on race, age, or sex when those factors are irrelevant to performance," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "In fact, however, such laws burden all employers by jacking up the costs and risks of employing the so-called protected classes, such as minorities, women, and disabled or older workers.

"Any employer who disciplines, demotes, or fires a 'protected' worker must be prepared to prove, to the government's satisfaction, in a court of law, that the decision stemmed entirely from legitimate business reasons. Given the huge number of employment decisions made every day, the cost associated with maintaining evidence of those decisions' validity is staggering. A 'protected' employee can file a charge of discrimination with little or no evidence. Then the burden of proof--along with attorneys' fees, lost employee work time, and the risk of large monetary awards, including punitive damagesfalls on the employer. Predictably, employers end up giving preferential treatment to members of the 'protected' classes.

"Outlawing retaliation clothes the 'protected classes' in yet another layer of legal insulation. An employee whose bad performance puts him in danger of discipline or discharge need only make a complaint of discrimination as a 'pre-emptive strike.' Now if his employer fires him, he can cry 'retaliation' and drag his boss into court, without further evidence of wrongdoing.

"The ever-present threat of discrimination and retaliation suits prevents rational employers from acting on their own best thinking about who is most fit for a job. Whatever the Supreme Court's decisions in the two pending cases, Congress should address the continuing injustice of laws that encourage irrational discrimination in the name of preventing irrational discrimination. The best weapon against irrational discrimination is a free market, in which those who act on their stupid prejudices are shunned and lose out on talented minority, female, or older employees. The solution is not to make hiring such employees a nightmare."

###  ### ###

 

Religious Constitution Invites Blasphemy Death Sentence

By Thomas Bowden from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Religious Constitution Invites Blasphemy Death Sentence
February 21, 2008

Irvine, CA--"Death sentences for blasphemy, such as the one handed down to Sayad Kambakhsh in Afghanistan recently, are to be expected under any constitution that enshrines Islam as the state religion and the Koran as the supreme law of the land," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute.

A council of mullahs acting under court authority has decreed capital punishment for Kambakhsh, a 23-year-old journalism student charged with possessing anti-Islamic books, starting un-Islamic debates in class, and downloading and distributing Internet articles saying that Muhammad ignored women's rights. The sentence, which has been endorsed by Afghanistan's upper house of parliament, is on appeal. Afghanistan's president has hinted at clemency, but only after appeals are finished.

"In 2006, mobs of clerics were clamoring for the death of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan whose 'crime' was converting to Christianity," Bowden said. "And now, Sayad Kambakhsh faces death unless a growing international outcry embarrasses Afghanistan's government into lifting the sentence.

"Criminal punishment of blasphemy is certainly unjust and outrageous, but ad hoc protests offer no long-term solution. If Islam's stranglehold on Afghanistan's government is to end, that nation must adopt an American-style constitution protecting individual rights, including freedom of speech and religion. The strict separation of church and state erects an institutional barrier to religious persecution, as American history shows.

"But a nation that exalts mystical dogma and tribal allegiances cannot be expected to think in such terms. 'The guy should be hanged,' said an 18-year-old student at the American University in Kabul, calling for Kambakhsh's swift execution. Said a Muslim cleric: 'He should be punished so that others can learn from him.' For such people, freedom is an intolerable obstacle to the overriding goal of enforcing Islam.

"When the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan, its stated policy was to promote 'democracy.' That policy has now achieved its exact aim. The Afghan government reflects the democratic will of the people. The people want to kill blasphemers, and their constitution allows them to do so lawfully.

"Bush's policy was based on his delusional belief that Afghans are as freedom-loving as Americans. But what they truly value is religion. Sayad Kambakhsh is living--perhaps dying--proof that religion injected into government is hostile to freedom.

###  ### ###

 

Global-Warming Authoritarianism

By Keith Lockitch from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Global-Warming Authoritarianism
February 20, 2008
 
Irvine, CA--Many people are calling for drastic political action to cope with climate change. But the authors of a new book, The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy, go much further, claiming that global warming can be effectively dealt with only by "an authoritarian form of government."

In an article promoting the book, co-author David Shearman praises China's recent ban on plastic shopping bags, expressing special admiration for its authoritarian quality. "The importance of the decision," he writes, "lies in the fact that China can do it by edict and close the factories."

"Views like this reveal an ugly and ominous aspect of the political frenzy surrounding global warming," said Dr. Keith Lockitch, a resident fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Though easy to dismiss as overwrought and atypical, such views expose a very real authoritarianism underlying the calls for action on climate change.

"While few global-warming activists are willing--as Shearman is--to come out in favor of openly dictatorial policies, the kinds of laws and regulations that activists do call for will hand a comparably frightening degree of control over our lives to politicians and environmentalist bureaucrats.

"In one form or another, every minute of our every day involves the emission of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas claimed to be the cause of climate change. Every moment we spend running our computers, lighting our homes, powering countless labor-saving appliances, driving to work or school or anywhere else--we are using industrial-scale energy to make our lives better.

"But global-warming activists want our use of the fossil fuels that provide the major source of that energy to be strictly controlled by the government and severely curtailed, no matter the harm that causes.

"Despite the constant assertion that global-warming science is 'settled,'" Lockitch said, "it is far from certain that we face any sort of catastrophic global emergency. But in the name of 'saving the world' from unproven threats, such activists want to impose a draconian regimen of taxes, laws, regulations and controls that would affect the minutest details of our existence. Their solution to their projected 'environmental disaster' is to impose an actual economic disaster by restricting the energy that powers our civilization and subjecting its use to severe political control.

"Let us not allow panic over the exaggerated claims of climate alarmists to deliver us into the hands of would-be carbon dictators."

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History At Our House Update

By Scott Powell from Powell History Recommends,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Exxon vs. Chavez (Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times)

By David Holcberg from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Exxon vs. Chavez
By David Holcberg (Houston Chronicle, February 15, 2008; Los Angeles Times, February 17, 2008)

Exxon is to be congratulated for standing up for its property rights against Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

When Chavez broke Venezuela's contract with foreign oil companies last year and demanded they cede control over their facilities to his government, Exxon abandoned its projects in Venezuela and sought arbitration in international courts, rather than accept the expropriation of its assets.

Exxon's legal victory in British and Dutch courts, which froze $12 billion in assets of Venezuela's state-run oil company, should serve as a warning to any government around the world that might consider nationalizing the property and looting the wealth of multinational companies. Exxon's fight for its rights will hopefully embolden all other companies that have been--or might be--looted by dictatorships to take appropriate legal action.

Exxon vs. Chavez (Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times)

By David Holcberg from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Exxon vs. Chavez
By David Holcberg (Houston Chronicle, February 15, 2008; Los Angeles Times, February 17, 2008)

Exxon is to be congratulated for standing up for its property rights against Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

When Chavez broke Venezuela's contract with foreign oil companies last year and demanded they cede control over their facilities to his government, Exxon abandoned its projects in Venezuela and sought arbitration in international courts, rather than accept the expropriation of its assets.

Exxon's legal victory in British and Dutch courts, which froze $12 billion in assets of Venezuela's state-run oil company, should serve as a warning to any government around the world that might consider nationalizing the property and looting the wealth of multinational companies. Exxon's fight for its rights will hopefully embolden all other companies that have been--or might be--looted by dictatorships to take appropriate legal action.

"Retaliation": Another Job Security Weapon

By Thomas Bowden from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

"Retaliation": Another Job Security Weapon
February 19, 2008

Irvine, CA--The Supreme Court hears oral argument this week in two cases that will determine whether blacks and over-40 workers may sue for "retaliation" under federal employment discrimination laws.

In the case of CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries, a Cracker Barrel restaurant manager was fired for leaving the store safe open overnight. He sued for retaliation, alleging he was really being punished for having previously complained about racial discrimination against a fellow employee. The Supreme Court will decide whether the Civil Rights Act of 1866 allows such a retaliation claim. In another case, Gomez-Perez v. Potter, the issue is whether the Age Discrimination in Employment Act grants older workers a similar right to sue.

"Most Americans think discrimination laws simply stop irrational employers from making decisions based on race, age, or sex when those factors are irrelevant to performance," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "In fact, however, such laws burden all employers by jacking up the costs and risks of employing the so-called protected classes, such as minorities, women, and disabled or older workers.

"Any employer who disciplines, demotes, or fires a 'protected' worker must be prepared to prove, to the government's satisfaction, in a court of law, that the decision stemmed entirely from legitimate business reasons. Given the huge number of employment decisions made every day, the cost associated with maintaining evidence of those decisions' validity is staggering. A 'protected' employee can file a charge of discrimination with little or no evidence. Then the burden of proof--along with attorneys' fees, lost employee work time, and the risk of large monetary awards, including punitive damagesfalls on the employer. Predictably, employers end up giving preferential treatment to members of the 'protected' classes.

"Outlawing retaliation clothes the 'protected classes' in yet another layer of legal insulation. An employee whose bad performance puts him in danger of discipline or discharge need only make a complaint of discrimination as a 'pre-emptive strike.' Now if his employer fires him, he can cry 'retaliation' and drag his boss into court, without further evidence of wrongdoing.

"The ever-present threat of discrimination and retaliation suits prevents rational employers from acting on their own best thinking about who is most fit for a job. Whatever the Supreme Court's decisions in the two pending cases, Congress should address the continuing injustice of laws that encourage irrational discrimination in the name of preventing irrational discrimination. The best weapon against irrational discrimination is a free market, in which those who act on their stupid prejudices are shunned and lose out on talented minority, female, or older employees. The solution is not to make hiring such employees a nightmare."

###  ### ###

The Obesity Police Are Coming

By Thomas Bowden from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Obesity Police Are Coming
February 19, 2008

Irvine, CA--Lawmakers in Mississippi have proposed a bill that would revoke the business license of any restaurant that serves food to fat people, as measured by state health standards.

"Proponents of the paternalistic nanny-state are intent on transforming obesity into a public health issue," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "But obesity is a private health matter, of no legitimate concern to government.

"Each individual has a right to life, which includes the right to eat as one sees fit. A rational judgment about what to eat takes into account many individual factors--nutritional needs, metabolism, genetics, medical history, and a doctor's advice--as well as the pleasure of eating and one's personal views on body shape. The fact that some people may irrationally maintain an unhealthy weight by overeating cannot justify government control over food intake.

"Legitimate public health measures, such as quarantining persons with infectious diseases or outlawing disease-spreading cesspools, involve shielding innocent victims from physical force. But fat people do not emit physical forces that impede other people's freedom of action. Hence, government has no right to prevent or punish obesity.

"Some say body weight is a proper subject of legislation because taxpayers bear the burden of treating obesity-related maladies. But the solution to escalating health-care costs is not to surrender control of our bodies but to question the prevailing view that government should be involved in paying for health care.

"Obese individuals have the same right as anyone else to decide what to eat, and restaurant owners have a right to choose whom they will serve. The Mississippi legislative proposal is a particularly ugly, arrogant attempt to decree public ownership of human bodies. As such, it is an attack on everyone's freedom, and it should be denounced as such."

 

Darwin and the Discovery of Evolution

By Keith Lockitch from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Darwin and the Discovery of Evolution
February 19, 2008

Who: Dr. Keith Lockitch, resident fellow focusing on science and environmentalism at the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk and Q & A exploring Darwin's life and work, and describing the steps by which he came to discover and prove the theory of evolution by natural selection

Where: Hilton Costa Mesa, 3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA  92626

When: Thursday, March 13, 2008, at 7:30 PM

Admission is FREE.

Description: The theory of evolution is often disparaged by its opponents as being "just a theory"--i.e., a speculative hypothesis with little basis in hard, scientific facts. But this claim carries with it the implied accusation that Charles Darwin was "just a theorist"--i.e., that he was merely an armchair scientist and that his life's work was nothing more than an exercise in arbitrary speculation. A look at Darwin's pioneering discoveries, however, reveals the grave injustice of this accusation. Darwin was not "just a theorist" and evolution is not "just a theory." In this talk, Dr. Lockitch explores Darwin's life and work, focusing on the steps by which he came to discover and prove the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Bio: Dr. Keith Lockitch is a resident fellow focusing on science and environmentalism at ARI. He teaches writing courses for the Objectivist Academic Center's undergraduate program and a history of physics course for the graduate program. His writings have appeared in publications such as the Orange County Register, San Francisco Chronicle, Australia's Herald Sun, Canberra Times, and USA Today magazine. Dr. Lockitch has been a frequent guest on radio shows such as The Thom Hartmann Program on Air America Radio. Prior to joining ARI in 2003, Dr. Lockitch was a postdoctoral researcher in physics at the University of Illinois and at Pennsylvania State University.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail events@aynrand.org.

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McCain-Feingold Violates Right to Free Speech (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

By David Holcberg from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

McCain-Feingold Violates Right to Free Speech
By David Holcberg (Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 18, 2008)

The McCain-Feingold campaign finance law is a blatant violation of the right to free speech.

The right to free speech means the right to express one's ideas. This necessarily includes the right to financially support and publicly endorse--or oppose--candidates for political office. Political advertisements--like campaign contributions--are a means of disseminating one's ideas and values. Prohibitions limiting the content or timing of political ads, like prohibitions on campaign funding, are an assault on free speech.

The Endangered Species I'd Like to Save

By Kendall J from The Crucible & Column,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I was surfing today for pictures of chemical plants (I'm a geek. It's what I do, ok.), and happened across Haiko Hebig's Endangered Machinery blog. He writes,

What started as a journey to forgotten places of closed down heavy industries in Germany's former economic heartland, now is a photographic coverage of both closed down and operating sites throughout Europe. Focus is on iron and steel, coke and coal, energy and transportation.

These are wonderful photos, and the ones showing shuttered industrial plants are poignant, and wistful. This is the one endangered species that I vote to save. Check out a listing of all his photos on one webpage.

Some of my favorites:

Neither does the Mixed Economy, Flibbert.

By Kendall J from The Crucible & Column,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Today's post was inspired by Flibbertigibbet's "Socialism Doesn't Work" series. From the Randex blog today I spotted a mention of Ayn Rand by New York Governor Elliot Spitzer. In an interview given to CNBC before Spitzer testified before the House Capital Markets subcommittee on the bond insurer financial crisis, Spitzer blames the breakdown on the fact that we were "bowing down to the ideology of Ayn Rand" in decrying regulatory interference in the financial markets. His thesis is that if regulatory agencies had been allowed to act that they could have headed off the crisis that began in the sub-prime mortgage market and reflected the free market gone amok.

If someone was telling me his position in chat, this would be the place to respond with a "wtf?" Government central control or regulation of the economy does not work. It does not work in a socialist centrally planned economy as Flibbert points out and it also does not work in a Mixed Economy such as ours where there are both elements of the free market and centralized planning and regulation. What is especially pernicious in the Mixed Economy such as ours is that the free market gets the blame for economic failures when usually the culprit is government. Witness Mr. Spitzer's analysis of the financial crisis facing us today.

At a sequence of decision points, this [subprime mortgage] crisis could have been averted but the regulatory system broke down because we were bowing down to the ideology of Ayn Rand and, with all deference to Chairman Greenspan, when regulators say 'We believe in Ayn Rand; we don't want any regulatory impact,' you will have breakdowns and crises like this.

As I and others like Steve Forbes and most recently Ayn Rand Institute Director Yaron Brook in a Forbes Op-Ed have argued, the financial crisis was caused by Fed monetary policy. As Brook writes,

Now it is of course popular practice to blame economic problems, not on government intervention but on the free market. But observe that all of the most prominent problems today--problems with housing, financial markets, health care, oil--involve some of the least-free sectors of our economy, those with the most government intervention.

Consider the extent of government culpability in the current subprime meltdown. There is the Federal Reserve, which wrought havoc with the markets by manipulating interest rates, first setting them below the rate of inflation and then quintupling them.

The Fed's initial policy convinced subprime borrowers that if they took out mortgages tied to Fed rates, they could afford homes that they ordinarily couldn't. The Fed's artificially low rates fueled a borrowing spree and housing bubble that were instrumental in the subprime meltdown. Then there is the network of entities backed by the government, like Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ), which were big champions of subprime lending and big propagandists for the idea that everyone needs to own a home to live the American Dream. Finally, there is the government's long-standing policy of assuring large financial institutions that they are "too big to fail," which encourages short-range, high-risk investments.

When central planning and regulation replace even portions of the free market, market forces break down, even if portions of the economy are still relatively free. In the case of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, it is the profit motive's reward of sound decision making that was subverted by the Fed's monetary policy. As Flibbert explains in the 2nd part of his Socialism Series

But the more fundamental problem is the fact that socialistic systems cannot meet even the most basic needs of its participants because failure is a critical aspect of progress.

By "failure," I mean that the old must give way to the new, the inefficient is driven to extinction by the more efficient.  When light bulbs were invented, candle makers were steadily driven out of business.

Failure, and it's brother Success are a key to a functioning free market. The market rewards Success and punishes Failure via the profit motive. Profits accrue to those who make better decisions and they flee those who make poorer decisions, and in that way the market regulates itself. Those who make poor decisions don't get to do so for long because their profits dry up. The Fed's recent weak dollar policy effectively removed the differentiation provided by the profit motive by essentially injecting liquidity into the markets, without regard for who was making better decisions than others. With all this extra liquidity, bankers went looking for ways to use it. They experimented by offering loans to riskier prospects. They experimented by monetizing those loans in the form of new bond instruments, which insurers had to then rate, but never having worked with these new instruments, the knowledge to appropriately quantify the risk they posed was absent. In a truly free market this all would have been done in successive stages by the few who proved successful at it (via the profit motive) and the risks of such new instruments would have become known over time. But in our mixed economy, the free money provided by the Fed was provided to everyone at once, and the result was an awful lot of poor decisions made.

Spitzer argues that there should have been more "cops" watching the candy store when all the "kids" were foolishly spending their money, but the reality is what does one expect when the "parent" gave everyone extra allowance without respect for who had earned it and who hadn't? When one decries the free market run amok, it must be a completely free laissez free market one is talking about, otherwise, you can bet that it's government involvement in the economy that is to blame.

The Islamist Entanglement Now Available as Individual Lectures!

By Scott Powell from Powell History Recommends,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Religion vs. Nanotechnology

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

According to a report I found through Instapundit, the American public, increasingly influenced by the anti-reason, life-hating outlook of religion, is having moral qualms about nanotechnology:

In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable. In European surveys that posed identical questions about nanotechnology to people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, significantly higher percentages of people accepted the moral validity of the technology. ...

The [reason for the big difference, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Dietram] Scheufele believes, is religion: "The United States is a country where religion plays an important role in peoples' lives. The importance of religion in these different countries that shows up in data set after data set parallels exactly the differences we're seeing in terms of moral views. European countries have a much more secular perspective."

The catch for Americans with strong religious convictions, Scheufele believes, is that nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together as means to enhance human qualities. In short, researchers are viewed as "playing God" when they create materials that do not occur in nature, especially where nanotechnology and biotechnology intertwine, says Scheufele. [bold added]

Interestingly, on the heels of observing that so many Americans oppose nanotechnology on moral grounds, Scheufele attempts to suggest a remedy -- but succeeds only in exemplifying the real underlying problem:

The new study has critical implications for how experts explain the technology and its applications, Scheufele says. It means the scientific community needs to do a far better job of placing the technology in context and in understanding the attitudes of the American public.

I submit that the problem doesn't lie in better explaining how beneficial the technology can be or in somehow trying to "sell it" to religious zealots. One need only consider a more widely-appreciated example of applied science, modern medicine, and its willful rejection by one well-known, "mainline" Christian sect (among others) to see the flaw in this reasoning.

Science, as I have noted numerous times in the past, is not a worldview and cannot, dependent as it is on certain underlying philosophical principles, provide a philosophical alternative to religion. That is the job of another discipline, philosophy, as I have also mentioned before. (And fortunately, one philosopher, Ayn Rand, has single-handedly, and in the nick of time, addressed many of the issues that have discredited this discipline and made religion a powerful cultural force again in the West.)

More scientists must educate themselves on the proper philosophical underpinnings of their discipline and either advocate rational philosophy or support those who do. Until then, they will find that they can explain until they are blue in the face the wonders they have discovered and the grand vistas they have opened for all mankind -- and still be damned by evil, Bible-thumping men and their witless followers for "doing the Devil's work".

What needs to be explained isn't that science, technology, and the freedom that makes them possible here in America are beneficial to human life. Even those points aren't lost on most followers of religion in America. What desperately needs to be explained, while most Americans still value their own lives, is that religion poses a mortal threat to their lives and to any rational values they may hold.

Scientists can help with that, but science -- as many Christian apologists well know -- is not and never can be up to the job of philosophy.

-- CAV

A New List: OActivists

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

A message for Objectivists:

We Objectivists often lament the sorry state of the culture. Too often, faith and emotion are lauded as superior to reason, the individual is merely a means to some collective, service to others is deemed more noble than personal happiness, and rights are nearly forgotten in politics. Yet we're also inspired by the unexpected inroads forged by the Ayn Rand Institute over the past few years, particularly by the wild success of their program offering "Free Books for Teachers."

However, the Ayn Rand Institute cannot change the culture on its own, not even with our financial and moral support. It's just too big a task for a few dozen professional intellectuals. Objectivists must effectively advocate their values in the the forums open to them, if they want to see substantial and enduring change in the values of the culture.

Thanks to Lin Zinser's FIRM (Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine), I'm now convinced that so much more is possible than most people imagine when like-minded people join forces in a loose, ad hoc way. In those ongoing efforts, FIRM's "Activists" mailing list for people committed to promoting freedom and individual rights in medicine in Colorado has been of surprising value. It enables us to quickly and easily alert each other to opportunities to advocate good ideas, to discuss effective methods of argument, to praise and encourage the work well done, to report on our own accomplishments, to marvel at our impact on the debate, to inform others of useful sources of information, to brainstorm about venues for advocacy, to announce upcoming events, and more.

I've realized that a mailing list modeled on similar lines -- but specifically for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural change -- could be of similar value. So I've created OActivists @ OList.com. Here's the basic list description, including the requirements that all subscribers must satisfy:

OActivists is an informal private mailing list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural change by effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas. Its basic purpose is to facilitate communication about matters of mutual interest to Objectivist activists, such as opportunities for advocacy, methods of persuasive argumentation, announcements of upcoming events, useful sources of information on issues, examples of advocacy, and the like.

To join the list, you must be an Objectivist, meaning that you agree with and live by the principles of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. You should support the mission and activities of the Ayn Rand Institute. You must also be committed to engaging in intellectual activism to promote Objectivist ideas in online or print forums on a semi-regular basis. (Notably, arguing with other Objectivists does not qualify as intellectual activism!)

If you meet those criteria, please subscribe via the web interface. If you have any questions about the list -- including whether you qualify -- please e-mail me, the list's owner and administrator, at diana@dianahsieh.com. Subscribers will be expected to respect the purpose of the list. Those who prove themselves disruptive to its basic aims will be removed.

To give people time to subscribe, the list will not open for discussion until Tuesday, February 26th.

Finally: OActivists is not an Objectivist discussion list. Objectivists (including myself) have wasted far too much time and energy arguing amongst themselves about minutia in far-off corners of the internet. We can do better. We can defend our values from attack in debates that matter. We can refute the standard strawmen of our philosophy. We can introduce people to rational, principled philosophic ideas. We can do all that more effectively if we communicate. That's what OActivists aims to make easy.

Update on the American Dream

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In response to my earlier post, "Testing the American Dream", a lengthy comment thread has erupted here on QandO.net, some supporting the overall conclusion and others attacking it for a variety of reasons.

Of the supportive comments, this one by "Minh-Duc" struck me the most:

Why bother with the experiment. Just go talk to immigrants. I arrived to the U.S. with a shirt on my back and spoke no English. I consider myself in the upper middle class now. This is the story that repeated itself a million time in the history of this great nation.

Speaking of family obligations; both of my parents were janitors, my uncle and aunts were (and still are) janitors. My uncle and aunt is even more successful. They put three kids through medical school.

"The American Dream" is a misnomer. It is not a dream. It is a reality.

Q&A with Scott Powell on 'The Islamist Entanglement'

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Historian Scott Powell, the creator of "A First History for Adults" is about to kick off his newest learning program, "The Islamist Entanglement." Below is my recent interview with Powell about the aims of his new course and his unique method for teaching history. —Nicholas Provenzo

Rule of Reason: The title for your course on the history of Islam and the West is "The Islamic Entanglement." Why not "relationship" or some other word? How is the West "entangled" with the East, and how can the study of this history help us today?

Scott Powell: Thanks for asking! I chose the course title very carefully.

There are two facets to it. First, the title "Islamist Entanglement" captures the fact that over the past sixty years the United States has developed an enormous stake in the Middle East, to the point where, as a nation, it is now not only invested in the economic development of the region, but also actively engaged in manipulating its political system as well. The use of the word "entanglement" is also, however, my subtle way of alluding to the fact that this recent trend in American foreign policy is a tragic deviation from a different approach to foreign relations once advocated by the Founding Fathers.

This policy, first put forward by George Washington in his farewell address of 1796, and later incorporated into the Monroe Doctrine, was that "the great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible." It is, he continued, our "true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world" rather than "entangle" our peace and prosperity" in their political fortunes.

That's where I got the word "entanglement." I've long been an admirer of the foreign policy of the Founders, so I thought it was especially fitting to use that term.

RoR: Whether we wanted to or not, many of us have received quite a schooling in Islam over the past few years as Islam's adherents have captured the world's headlines. Nevertheless, given the nature the West's entanglements, do you think that Westerners truly understand Islam, and if they don not, how does your course help correct this deficiency?

SP: I would agree that Americans have indeed become more aware of America's links to the Middle East and of the nature of Islamic culture in general, especially since 9-11, and I would agree that in many regards it is an awareness that has not actively been pursued, but rather one thrust upon us. This last point is, I think, a significant problem, which I would like to address through this course.

America has been impressing itself on the Middle East ever since WWII. That it has done so without any idea of how the culture there would react is evident. In 1979, for instance, Jimmy Carter praised Iran for being an "island of stability." Then, which came as a complete shock of course, an Islamic Revolution occurred, and the US embassy was stormed by people shouting "Death to America!"

In situations like this one and 9-11 most Americans have reacted by calling for military action against Muslim nations. What they haven't done is proactively pursued the knowledge that would underpin a far more productive and secure relationship with the people of the Middle East. The knowledge I'm referring to is knowledge specifically of the story of the Islamic world's shifting response to being subordinated by Western civilization.

What I want to do with The Islamist Entanglement is offer an essentialized orientation to this instructive story--to show what has happened in the modern history of the Middle East and why--and thereby, provide a factual or historical springboard into a more proactive mode of thinking about our relationship with the Islamic world.

RoR: If the West is entangled in the Islamic world, the reverse can be said just as easily. Yet why haven't the Islamists embraced the better ideas of the West? For example, several of the 9-11 hijackers studied in Western countries before destroying themselves and others in their violent jihad. Rather than knock down our skyscrapers, why didn't they point to them and say to the Islamic world, "this is how we must be." To what degree is the West indicted in sowing the deeds of its own destruction here?

SP: Tragically, just as the West was achieving supremacy over Islam politically and militarily, after about 1700, its own culture was in many regards abandoning the root of its relative advance--namely the "Renaissance" or rebirth of reason. This is especially the case in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when Western thinkers turned against the Enlightenment, and the brief political flowering of individual rights in the latter eighteenth century was smothered in Europe. The process of the political subordination of the East was then accelerating, but the cultural conduit carrying ideas Eastward was now transmitting the ideologies then in vogue, such as nationalism and socialism, which were contrary to those that had actually spurred Europe's progress. Consequently, when those Muslims who were interested in improving their lives turned West, they failed to find anyone who could articulate the reasons why the West was better. That life in the West was and is better than in the Middle East is manifest, but to identify why is not a simple matter. And if one does not understand the causes then one cannot properly transpose what has happened in Western civilization into the Islamic setting.

The West is thus, as you say, to be indicted--for failing to know, embrace, and defend the values that have nourished its own greatness. Part and parcel to this had been the adoption of counterproductive foreign policies, which have only served to exacerbate the antagonism between the two cultures.

RoR: Your method for teaching history differs greatly from the way most people have come to know the field, and it's fair to say that many of your students feel as if they are learning history for the first time. Can you describe your method for teaching history and the process by which you came to develop it?

SP: The Islamist Entanglement is part of a history program I call "A First History for Adults." I developed this program because I realized there were many adults out there who want to learn history but have no place to start. Time and time again I've seen adult students who are committed to learning about the past ask historians in frustration, "Where can I get started?" It's one thing to enjoy a book or lecture by a great historian; it's another thing to actually gain knowledge for yourself. It doesn't just happen by being exposed to someone else's expertise.

Based on my understanding of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, and specifically her theory of knowledge, I began to examine the issue of knowledge acquisition, as it pertains to history. I came to realize that as in every other area of cognition, there is what Rand called a "hierarchy" of knowledge in history, which determines the most profitable order of acquiring and organizing historical information into an integrated body of knowledge. When that hierarchy is respected, history becomes more manageable and intelligible.

Although my work in this theoretical area is just getting started, I think that students have responded so well to my classes because my presentation of history is organized in a way that optimizes what they get to take away from it. This is especially the case for my keenest students, who continue to interrogate the material in between and after classes using the methods I advocate, but also for anyone who just pays attention!

RoR: You state that knowledge of history doesn't come simply from being exposed to someone else's research or expertise. Where do you think it comes from and how do you assist your students in getting it?

SP: Let me clarify.

Most historians amass a huge constellation of facts in relation to some subject, and then present it--either chronologically, or according to some thesis. Rarely do they stop to consider whether or not their audience can actually relate to that material by fitting into their own personal context, and just how the new information might expand and help solidify that context. (If they took that issue seriously, the whole focus of the profession at this moment would be on rebuilding general historical awareness in the culture, because most people have little, if any knowledge of general history and have abandoned it as irrelevant to day-to-day life.) It's basically historians' aim to present what they know or what they have concluded about something. But that doesn't necessarily help someone who doesn't yet know history themselves.

In relation to this, I identified some time ago a basic cognitive measuring stick that can help you determine whether or not you are actually learning when you read a history book. I identified that when your personal context is insufficient to actually integrate new historical information, you end up suffering from an acute case of what I call "sinking concretes." As the new facts to which you are exposed pile up on one another, your mind simply can't retain them. They "sink" into the recesses of your mind, and eventually become irretrievable. This may sound like just a fancy way of saying you forget them, but to see the question as a cognitive one helps to identify that the reason you can't remember is that the facts you encounter are not buoyed by a context that would allow you to retain them. Try reading your top favorite history article or listening to an inspiring history lecture, and then take the "sinking concretes test" afterwards, a day later, and a week later, to see how many facts you have retained. Then you'll know if you actually obtained any knowledge from the time you invested.

And when you're done being frustrated by conventional history, come try A First History for Adults! My aim is to create a presentation of history that specifically builds upon the context of knowledge of the average educated adult, and allows you to create a real foundation of knowledge. I help students create a "skeleton" or framework upon which more elaborate research and abstract thinking can be profitably pursued. Probably the most important thing that I do is eradicate as many non-essential facts as possible, and then show how the really pivotal ones can be grouped into useful historical abstractions, called "periods." It's not a magic serum, but it is the most productive way to build general historical knowledge.

A Rude, but Necessary Awakening

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Editor's Note: This far ahead of the election, it is a little early to discuss voting strategies, but given what I know now of the candidates and current trends, I suspect that I will be voting for a Democrat for President for the first time in my life.

There is a slew of articles about Barack Obama heading today's link list over at RealClear Politics, the first -- which read in this morning's Houston Chronicle -- being by Charles Krauthammer.

Krauthammer concerns himself with the cult of personality that seems to surround the freshman senator and his youthful, trendy following, and whether his spell will survive the closer examination he is now (finally) receiving as a front-runner. He ends with the following prediction, with which I agree.

Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After which will come the awakening. It will be rude.

The fact that the Democrats are worried that the spell will break before the election is troublesome -- and symptomatic of the fundamental problem both parties pose for America.

A real concern for what is best for America would have been manifested by the Democrats examining Obama very closely themselves long before he built up such momentum. But then this would have further entailed them questioning many of their most fundamental premises long before even that. (Some more deliberate Democrats have begun looking at him in more depth, but it may already be too late for them to stop him if they are dissatisfied.)

Like the Republicans, the Democrats adhere to the morality of altruism, although they still (slightly) more consistently accept its political consequence of collectivism, which ultimately requires government force to be directed against those individuals who must be immolated for "the greater good". And if one's political ends require forcing others to do one's bidding, one will become primarily concerned with obtaining and wielding political power.

And so we see the Democrats blindly jumping onto the "Obamnibus to Victory" (If I may join the neologism game.) without regard for whether all this talk of "change" really represents anything new or good, while the Republicans have found themselves with a candidate many openly despise, but for whom they will ultimately circle the wagons since he's "one of our guys".

What to do?

I have expressed the opinion here before that the Republicans, hardly standard-bearers for a proper government that protects individual rights when they are in power, are more useful to the cause of freedom as an opposition party, as we saw in the early years of the Clinton Presidency when they stopped socialized medicine. I have also noted that when in power, as the early years of the (second) Bush Presidency have shown, the GOP is now a party of big government. (And perhaps being out of power might cause them to re-think that position.)

Obama promises to attempt to unleash a body blow against the economy if elected:

Obama unveiled much of his economic strategy in Wisconsin this week: He wants to spend $150 billion on a green-energy plan. He wants to establish an infrastructure investment bank to the tune of $60 billion. He wants to expand health insurance by roughly $65 billion. He wants to "reopen" trade deals, which is another way of saying he wants to raise the barriers to free trade. He intends to regulate the profits for drug companies, health insurers, and energy firms. He wants to establish a mortgage-interest tax credit. He wants to double the number of workers receiving the earned-income tax credit (EITC) and triple the EITC benefit for minimum-wage workers.

...

The Wall Street Journal's Steve Moore has done the math on Obama's tax plan. He says it will add up to a 39.6 percent personal income tax, a 52.2 percent combined income and payroll tax, a 28 percent capital-gains tax, a 39.6 percent dividends tax, and a 55 percent estate tax.

And our "alternative" is the green, national servitude-supporting (Why coin terms with just Obama's name?), anti-free speech McCain!

Ignoring, for the sake of argument, how much McCain will enable religious conservatives to continue building strength within his party (which may make him worse than Obama), there is no substantive difference between these candidates, except that we know McCain to be against freedom of speech (which makes him worse if Obama does not also oppose freedom of speech).

Now, with Obama openly stating that he favors big government and perhaps also having questionable patriotism (But see the comments.), while McCain, hiding behind the flag as a war hero, smuggles in big government when he isn't openly moving his party in that direction, who will do less harm as President? The one more likely to be thwarted by stiff opposition and, when successful, to not easily direct the blame onto what is capitalism in our political-economic system.

That man, I am sad to say, is Barack Obama. It is sad that with the prospect of John McCain being President that we have to hope for an accident in the form of a cult of personality -- or a Michael Bloomberg run -- to come to the rescue.

This election is shaping up to be an Obamination, pure and simple. Let's just hope that we do wake up come Inauguration Day.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Added parenthetical comment regarding Obama's patriotism.

The Science of Deception

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Via Arts and Letters Daily is a fascinating article about lying, which reminds me a little about a study of ravens I once encountered there in that it considers the issue from the perspective of what it says about cognitive development.

Although we think of truthfulness as a young child's paramount virtue, it turns out that lying is the more advanced skill. A child who is going to lie must recognize the truth, intellectually conceive of an alternate reality, and be able to convincingly sell that new reality to someone else. Therefore, lying demands both advanced cognitive development and social skills that honesty simply doesn't require. "It's a developmental milestone," Talwar has concluded. [bold added]

As with the cunning avian scavengers, we see that lying requires a child to have a conception of another's mind distinct from his own, a significant cognitive milestone that is easy for adults to take for granted.

The article gets even more interesting later on, in part because the findings it reports -- and how the scientists interpret them (up to a point) -- are interesting, and in part because of how seriously the usefulness of the results stands to be compromised by the conventional wisdom regarding certain philosophical issues.

As an example of the latter, the article speaks at one point of indiscriminate lying being more or less "socialized out of" children by a certain age, and speaks of the following "demonstration" that social pressure is more important than objective reality in curtailing it:

[S]ometimes the researcher will read the child a short storybook before she asks about the peeking. One story read aloud is The Boy Who Cried Wolf -- the version in which both the boy and the sheep get eaten because of his repeated lies. Alternatively, they read George Washington and the Cherry Tree, in which young George confesses to his father that he chopped down the prized tree with his new hatchet. The story ends with his father's reply: "George, I'm glad that you cut down the tree after all. Hearing you tell the truth instead of a lie is better than if I had a thousand cherry trees."

Now, which story do you think reduced lying more? When we surveyed 1,300 people, 75 percent thought The Boy Who Cried Wolf would work better. However, this famous fable actually did not cut down lying at all in Talwar's experiments. In fact, after hearing the story, kids lied even a little more than normal. Meanwhile, hearing George Washington and the Cherry Tree -- even when Washington was replaced with a nondescript character, eliminating the potential that his iconic celebrity might influence older kids -- reduced lying a sizable 43 percent in kids. Although most kids lied in the control situation, the majority hearing George Washington told the truth.

The shepherd boy ends up suffering the ultimate punishment, but the fact that lies get punished is not news to children. Increasing the threat of punishment for lying only makes children hyperaware of the potential personal cost. It distracts children from learning how their lies affect others. In studies, scholars find that kids who live in threat of consistent punishment don't lie less. Instead, they become better liars, at an earlier age -- learning to get caught less often.

Ultimately, it's not fairy tales that stop kids from lying -- it's the process of socialization. But the wisdom in The Cherry Tree applies: According to Talwar, parents need to teach kids the worth of honesty, just like George Washington's father did, as much as they need to say that lying is wrong. [bold and link added]

Rereading the fable of the Cherry Tree indicates that the full extent of George Washington's father's teaching "the worth of honesty" was in expressing approval for the truth. Showing a respect for the truth is important, but not simply because lying "affects others".

Ultimately -- as most adults grasp on some level as shown by which fable they thought would be effective -- lying is wrong because, as Ayn Rand once put it, the need to concoct new lies to cover old ones results in an all-out war against the very thing one must apprehend in order to live and flourish: reality. In short, lying ultimately harms the liar himself.

The counterintuitive results here tell me not that there isn't enough "socialization" (whatever that is) of children, but that while deception might be a cognitive landmark, an even higher level of development is an understanding of why honesty is moral and practical. Popularly, the moral and the practical are, thanks to altruism, regarded as unrelated and even antithetical. Furthermore, anyone who still has a conscience in such a milieu will act often on what he thinks is moral when there is a conflict. The kids learned only a little about the value of honesty and were mainly shamed into being more honest by the fable of the tree.

I think that the odd results here are due to the fact that the connection between the apparently inconsequential lying called for by these studies and the whoppers seen in "The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf'" is too abstract for most children to grasp, and so they continue to lie in unimportant circumstances. On the other hand, many children have not fully grasped altruism (or how anti-life it is), still want to be good, and want their parents' approval, hence the fable of the cherry tree is more effective.

Reared by parents whose professed moral code conflicts with the requirements for their own survival, most children will end up rejecting lying -- including self-deception -- sometimes when its consequences are obviously impractical and adopting it at other times as a survival strategy when "morality" is "too impractical".

And thus it is that so many children are prevented by their parents and teachers however well-meaning, from reaching an important further milestone in their development: a grasp of the highly abstract moral and practical case for honesty.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a typo.

The Super Bowl -- "Giants" Among Men

By Dan Edge from The Edge of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This article was published on The Undercurrent student newspaper blog. I encourage readers to navigate to The Undercurrent website and check out the other excellent articles.
-----------------

Almost everyone loves the Super Bowl. Super Bowl Sunday has been an unofficial holiday in the United States for decades, and the Monday following the Super Bowl is the one day of the year employees are most likely to call in sick. On the list of the top 30 most watched television broadcasts of all time, 16 are Super Bowls. What is it about sporting events in general, and the Super Bowl in particular, that captures the heart of so many Americans?

The love of competitive sports has been around in the Western world for milennia. The first Olympics in Ancient Greece was held in 776 B.C. For over 1000 years (until Dark Age Christian rulers outlawed the event), the Olympics captivated tens of thousands in the City-States of Greece every four years — it was their Super Bowl. The Greeks revered the Olympic competitors as shining examples of man’s physical potential. Athletes competed in the nude because the spectators found their muscular figures to be beautiful and heroic. They were giants among men, as close to the gods as humans could come.

I believe that this same spirit — this reverence of man’s potential — is part of what makes the Super Bowl so infectious. The Wide Receivers and Defensive Backs are some of the fastest sprinters alive; the Quarterbacks have to be amazing all-around athletes; and the Linemen are literally giants, even when compared to the other players. Each position requires its own combination of strength, speed, agility, and intelligence. Consequently, the men on the field during the Super Bowl are some of fastest and strongest men on the planet.

The reverence for man’s potential is especially relevant in America, a nation founded on individualism. The Founding Fathers believed that man could only reach his full potential if left free to pursue his dreams. The result: even an immigrant with no education — an “underdog” — can come to America and make a fortune.

Sporting events like the Super Bowl inspire us because they symbolize the pursuit of human excellence. In showing us the great potential of the human body, these spectacles represent the even greater potential of the human spirit. As these giants among men take the field to display their physical skill, they inspire others to charge into life with all the vigor of a professional athlete.

--Dan Edge

Why Conservatives Will Vote for McCain

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I have maintained that conservatives will vote for McCain in the end, despite all their grousing now. My argument has been on a superficial political level: Democrat smears and October Surprises will anger Republicans so much that they will be driven to the ballot box to punish the Dems for their injustice. I came to this from introspecting over the last four or five elections and noticing what most motivated me to vote against the Democrats.

There is a deeper philosophical reason.

Have you noticed that only Objectivists are bothered by McCain's often repeated statement about sacrificing for something greater than self-interest? In their lists of grievances against McCain -- which include McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Feingold, McCain-Lieberman, opposition to tax cuts and his love of being a "maverick" -- conservatives never mention McCain's explicit altruism.

Obviously, they don't object because they share McCain's morality. Only Objectivists hold that rational self-interest is a virtue. Only Ayn Rand's radical philosophy challenges the traditional morality of altruism. Only Objectivists see a red flag when a politician exhorts people to sacrifice to the collective, for that way lies statism and dictatorship. Thomas Jefferson was remarkably astute when he included the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence; writing before Kant, Hegel and their long tradition, he included nothing about sacrificing to the state or the collective.

Whenever there is a conflict between ethics and politics, people go with their morality. Ethics is more fundamental than politics. A man's politics depend on his ethics. If he believes in the morality of self-interest, then he will want freedom and capitalism. If he believes in altruism, then he will want state intervention in the economy. If he is consistent enough, he might even share John McCain's dream of using the state to orchestrate an orgy of collective sacrifice for something greater than self-interest.

In the end, conservative lip service to capitalism and freedom will be undermined, as it always is, by the conservatives' altruist ethics. They might disagree with McCain's politics, but they have no answer to his ideals. The tragedy is that McCain's ideals are pure poison.

Memo to U.S. Editors: Reprint Muhammad Cartoons

By Elan Journo from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Memo to U.S. Editors: Reprint Muhammad Cartoons
February 13, 2008

Irvine, CA--Taking a defiant stand in defense of freedom of speech, on Wednesday newspapers in Denmark reprinted one of the notorious satirical cartoons of Muhammad. "Now it is the turn of American newspapers and media outlets to show their solidarity with that ideal, and reprint all 12 of the original cartoons," said Elan Journo, a resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.

On Feb. 13, fifteen newspapers in Denmark and one in Sweden reprinted the cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, drawn by Kurt Westergaard. The papers' admirable editorial decision was a response to news that Danish police had just arrested three men suspected of plotting to murder Westergaard for drawing that cartoon. Berlingske Tidende, a Danish paper, explained: "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech we as a newspaper will always defend."

"Freedom of speech is the right to express one's ideas--in books, newspapers, drawings, speeches, films--without fear of retribution, even if others disagree with you, even if they are repulsed. This right leaves people free to dissent and free to advocate for their own ideas. This includes the freedom to challenge, criticize, satirize, denounce all religions and all political viewpoints," said Mr. Journo.

"Newspapers in Denmark grasp that nothing should be allowed to override freedom of speech. Their refusal to bow down in the face of murder plots should be a wake-up call to editors in 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.' Few U.S. newspapers--and none of the leading ones--dared to stick their necks out, let alone raise their heads, during the cartoons crisis two years ago. U.S. media outlets, who claim to cherish freedom of speech, should realize the need to uphold it as a principle without exceptions."

* * *

In 2006 the Ayn Rand Institute helped organize public "unveilings" of the cartoons and panel discussions on the significance of the controversy at NYU, USC and UCLA, among other campuses.

 

Exxon's Lonely Battle

By Thomas Bowden from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Exxon's Lonely Battle
February 14, 2008

Irvine, CA--Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is angrily threatening to halt oil exports to the United States, in retaliation against Exxon Mobil. Exxon has used court proceedings to freeze Venezuelan assets in America, in an attempt to recoup some of the billions of dollars it lost when Venezuela nationalized Exxon's oil operations there last summer.

"Venezuela's nationalization of oil assets was pure theft, not a private contract dispute," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "The Bush administration last year should have denounced Chavez's oil grab as a form of robbery and cut off diplomatic relationships with Venezuela. But Bush did nothing and said nothing.

"Now Exxon is fighting a lonely battle in the courts, facing down an armed dictatorship that sneers at private property rights and dares anyone to defy its might. Yet a Bush spokesperson recently dismissed the matter as 'private civil litigation, which we won't comment on.'

"If there is anything the President of the United States should 'comment on,' it is the brazen theft of American property by a thuggish, petulant dictator. This is not 'private civil litigation' but a public outrage. Venezuela is joining the already-numerous ranks of hostile states funded by stolen Western oil assets."

###  ### ###

 

A significant victory

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Berkeley City Council's late-night vote yesterday to retract its effort to remove the Marine Corps Recruiting station from city limits is a clear victory for our petition effort and the efforts of all the pro-Marine supporters. The goal of our petition was to ensure that the City Council respected the Constitution; on the primary issue of attempting to interfere with the Marines' recruiting mission, it has abandoned its most egregious action. While we still have some work to do, that's excellent news.

I'll have more to say when I get back to DC, including a report on my visit to the Marine Recruiting station yesterday, but all in all, I am very pleased, and deeply grateful for all the support that has been given to this effort.

Berkeley Postscript

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog


When I went to Berkeley the day after the City Council meeting to visit the Marine Recruiting station, I also stopped by the site of the protest the night before. There I found the ashes of the American flag that had been burned by the leftist radicals in protest. As I sifted through the dirt to properly dispose of the melted bits that remained, I found four stars, singed, yes, but still stars nonetheless. I think these stars serve as a poignant reminder of our efforts to defend the Constitution and our republic against the mindless.

One star will go to Joe Smet, a Marine veteran who worked tirelessly to promote the petition far and wide.

One star will go to Gerald Humphrey, another fellow Marine veteran who stood alongside me when I was at Berkeley.

One star will go to the Marine Recruiting Station, where today's Marines stand in defense of our Constitution and the American way of life. When I visited with them, they were unequivocal: "We are open for business and we will continue to be."

And the last star will go to me, as a memento of my efforts and as symbol of the special trust that so many people chose to put in me as I worked to represent their views.

While there is still work to do, the Berkeley City Council has retreated from its most egregious folly. It still offends, yet it no longer offends the Constitution. Had we not come together to speak in protest, I doubt that we would have seen this result.

We kept the trust. Semper Fi.

Testing the American Dream

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Having been told that it was extremely difficult for poor people to advance up the economic ladder in America, college graduate Adam Shepard conducted an interesting experiment.

He decided to start from the very bottom of the economic ladder, with "a gym bag, $25, and little else". He moved into a homeless shelter "on the wrong side of the tracks in Charleston, S.C." He set as his goal "to have a furnished apartment, a car, and $2,500 in savings within a year", without relying on his education or his former contacts.

He worked his way out of poverty, found work as a day laborer, made new friends, and landed a steady job at a moving company. He had to quit his experiment after 10 months because of learning of an illness in his family, "[b]ut by then he had moved into an apartment, bought a pickup truck, and had saved close to $5,000."

According to the article:

The effort, he says, was inspired after reading "Nickel and Dimed," in which author Barbara Ehrenreich takes on a series of low-paying jobs. Unlike Ms. Ehrenreich, who chronicled the difficulty of advancing beyond the ranks of the working poor, Shepard found he was able to successfully climb out of his self-imposed poverty.

Clearly, this shows the crucial role that a person's character, attitude, and work ethic play in whether he is successful or not, as opposed to the exact magnitude of material resources he starts with.

The full article tells more Adam Shepard's fascinating story: "Homeless: Can You Build a Life from $25?"

He has also written a book about his experience, entitled, Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream. It looks like his book has gotten consistently high reviews on Amazon. (We've ordered a copy already, but it's currently out of stock and on back order.)

Objectivist Round Up - February 14, 2008

By Kendall J from The Crucible & Column,cross-posted by MetaBlog

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Change

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I had to laugh when I turned on the TV to see Obama giving his victory speech. People waved signs that read, "Stand for Change" as Obama said something to the effect that they need to ensure that people get their social security today, tomorrow and forever. Obama was saying the opposite of what his signs read; he stands for the welfare state status quo, which must not be changed, not today, tomorrow or ever.

The liberals have spent over a century, going back to the Progressive Era, erecting the welfare state, law by law, regulation by regulation. When is the last time they had a new idea? They are, to use Mises' word, interventionists; they always have been, always will be. Their overriding task now is to preserve their creation, big government. They will fight to the death to keep every plank, every brick of the state they have built over the last century intact. The core of liberal judicial philosophy is now stare decisis. Let the decision stand. And don't let those Republican bastards touch a hair of it.

If our political parties had names that meant anything, the liberals would be the Conservative Party. Their task to is conserve the way things are, to protect big government and to expand it if possible.

What we call conservatives today should be called the Christian Welfare State Party. They want the welfare state of the liberals, but they want to add religion. Religion is growing in America. The liberals are fighting a rearguard battle, hoping to conserve the secular welfare state against the conservatives.

There is no Capitalist Party -- it's too early yet. The Libertarian Party should be called the Anarchist Party or the Subjectivist/Moral Relativist Party. Their attempt to take Ayn Rand's politics without the underlying metaphysics, epistemology and ethics dooms them to be Anarchists by the logic of their premises.

As Mises teaches us, the liberal project of preserving the status quo must eventually fail. The welfare state is unstable. Interventions will create crises that lead to further interventions until finally we will have "socialism on the German plan."

So when Obama says "change," he cannot mean it in anything but the most superficial sense. We will have change from a Republican to a Democrat President -- and the welfare state will muddle along from one crisis to another.

The biggest change Obama might effect is withdrawing our troops from Iraq. I don't think he has the courage to do it, regardless of what his moonbat base wants. I don't think Clinton or Obama want to be blamed for the chaos and violence that would happen in the power vacuum if we left. They might do something cosmetic to appease their base, but that's it. Once the war becomes a Democrat war, the base will shut up anyway. Right now the fervor among Democrats is partisan politics and hatred of Republicans more than anything.

We've been in Germany and Korea and other places since WWII, longer than I've been alive. I expect that 50 years from now we'll still be in Iraq, unless the world order changes greatly through catastrophe and war. Remember, the military in our mixed economy is now a pressure group, one that neither party wants to alienate. Base closings are resisted by the military. And I don't want to sound like a leftist wacko or President Eisenhower warning of the "military-industrial complex," but a little war now and then is good for this pressure group. It increases the budget, and what bureaucrat doesn't want that?

When significant change comes to America, it won't have anything to do with happy partisans waving signs at political rallies. It will come in a time of crisis and catastrophe, with terrified citizens screaming, "Won't somebody take over and stop the madness?! Someone give us order!" Yes, then we'll see what change can bring. Change can be a bitch.

One Million Ayn Rand Novels in Classrooms This Year

By David Holcberg from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

One Million Ayn Rand Novels in Classrooms This Year
February 4, 2008

IRVINE, CA--With a shipment of 80,000 books in January, the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) has placed more than 1 million copies of Ayn Rand's novels in the hands of high school teachers and their students across North America.

This astounding number of books has been provided for free by ARI, over the last six years, to high school teachers in the United States and Canada, as part of its mission to promote Ayn Rand's ideas in today's culture.

According to Marilee Dragsdahl, ARI's education manager, "Since we began this program in 2002, we sent teachers about 600,000 copies of Anthem, 400,000 copies of The Fountainhead and 50,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged. To date, 20,000 teachers have received and are using in their classrooms the Ayn Rand novels we sent them."

Each school year ARI distributes promotional flyers that offer free classroom sets of Ayn Rand's novels to English and language arts teachers, department heads and principals, as well as selected counselors and high school administrators. "This offer," said Mrs. Dragsdahl, "is available to both public and private high schools throughout the United States. Through this program, which I have been running since its inception, we estimate that almost 2 million students have read and studied Ayn Rand's novels."

"Each teacher who requests these books," explained Mrs. Dragsdahl, "receives a classroom set of the novels, along with a teacher's guide, lesson plans and information about ARI's annual Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged essay contests, which may well be the largest in the United States. We also offer phone and e-mail support to teachers to facilitate their teaching of the books in their classes. The response has been excellent."

Here is what some of the teachers who received free books from ARI and taught them in their classrooms had to say:
 
"Students were excited about the novels. They appreciated having their own copy and not having to share with other students. Overall positive experience for everyone involved. . . . Your providing a complimentary classroom set of books was a great offer, as budget constraints are a real issue in our district." (San Diego, CA)

"Our school could not have been more thrilled to receive all those free texts, and our students are gaining so much from them!" (Esparto, CA)
 
"In an age when we battle a multitude of distractions and apathy, these books have helped ignite a new spark in the classroom."  (Victoria, TX)

"[My students] absolutely LOVED The Fountainhead. Over half of the students who read the novel cite major changes in the way they perceive their roles in their own lives. Many students feel that the novel has a life-changing impact, and several students convince friends in other classes to read the novel, as well.” (Carlsbad, CA)

"Students responded [to Anthem] with thoughtful reflection. They were honors 9th graders, and it was the first time they really had a book that presented them with so much to think about." (Covina, CA)

"I love Anthem and The Fountainhead. I have been recommending them to other teachers and students throughout my 20-year career." (Sierra Vista, AZ)

More information on the Free Books to Teachers program is available at the Ayn Rand Institute's Web site, www.aynrand.org/freebooks.

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Letting Drug Reps Do Their Thing

By Kendall J from The Crucible & Column,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This is why I love Forbes. The February 25th edition has a great guest editorial by Paul Rubin, Professor of Economics and Law and Emory and former economist at the FTC. It's entitled "A Free Lunch: There's nothing wrong with letting drug reps schmooze with doctors." With that subtitle you just know it's going to be good.

And what I found was a fairly principled defense of drug sales. In today's world where "marketing" seems to be synonymous with lying, and the pharmaceutical industry especially is excoriated for its supposedly over-the-top sales practices, it's nice to hear someone defend the practice on a rational basis.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, marketing is about getting the right products to the right people, and when done effectively it has positive results for the patient, and in turn generates additional profit for drug companies part of which they reinvest for new product development. Sales reps perform a valuable service to doctors by providing them direct information on drug performance and value, saving them time and effort. Competing sales reps balance out the claims made.

But here was the item I found astonishing. While many think doctors forego less expensive generics, in favor of newer drugs that are incremental improvements over them, the reality is that newer drugs are more cost effective!

...new drugs lead to better health outcomes. They keep people out of the hospital. A 2007 study by business professor Frank Lichtenberg of Columbia University estimated that a prescription for a new drug (5 years from FDA approval) costs an average $18 more than an older one (15 years on the market) but reduces other medical costs, including hospital and office visits, by $129.

That's right. New drugs are innovative, and they create more than enough value to justify their higher prices. Best kept secret? Only if you're out to smear drug companies. Marketers know that in industries like health care, value is about actual dollars and cents saved, and while many would have you believe sales and marketing types are simply charlatans, it simply is not true.

Thank you Mr. Rubin for defending an honorable profession!

Berkeley's Shame

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

As I was chatting away with a freelance journalist from New Zealand, less than ten feet away from us someone set fire to an American flag that was hung by one of the pro-Marine demonstrators on a sign-post for Berkeley's "Peace Wall." It burned so hot we actually felt the heat in the night air, and it destroyed several bikes that had been chained to the post. Despite an overwhelming police presence, to my knowledge, no one was arrested for the act, the danger that they caused to others or the destruction of private property.

Like many of us, I have debated flag burning in the abstract for years (I respect the freedom to burn one's own flag as much as I deeply detest the act). Never would I imgaine that I'd be right in the glow of such a despicable act.

Why despicable? Because the flag burner choses to heap his bile upon a country that protects his freedom to destroy even a most cherished symbol.

Your voices have been heard

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

At around 11:00 PM PT tonight, I got my 60 seconds in front of the Berkeley City Council to deliver our petition. Many eloquent voices spoke before me, including the mother on a Navy SEAL killed in Iraq who shared the story of her son's dedication to individual freedom and the rule of law. It was a deeply profound honor to stand alongside her and give my testimony.

As promised, I focused on the Constitutional question, reminding the Council that Congress has the specifically enumerated right to raise an army, while in contrast, the City has no right to stand against that mission. I said that the Council was doing injustice to their own oath of office and has put themselves at odds with the entire nation. It's been a very long day and I'm sure one could tell I was running on autopilot, but I think I got our essential message out.

That said, I am in no way convinced that this Council is going to retract its insult to our Constitution and our Marines. I got the sense that they are deeply proud of their stance, even as many of their own constituents condemn them for it. I am loath to say it, but I think that this battle has only just begun.

Tomorrow I will visit the Marine recruiting station to survey the situation there. If I find that protesters are permitted to physically barricade the office with no response from local law enforcement, we will have to search for a federal solution to this escalating problem.

The Journals of Ayn Rand: Sucking out all the Goodness

By Kendall J from The Crucible & Column,cross-posted by MetaBlog

When I was a little boy sitting with my family after Sunday dinner, my grandfather, then in his seventies, would sit at the end of the table while everyone talked, and pick apart the roast, chicken or whatever was the main course of that meal. And I do mean he picked it apart. He'd dismantle a chicken bone by bone picking and chewing each one clean. To most of us today in our processed, boneless, nuggetized world of cheap and plentiful meat this might seem a bit off-putting, but to a man who supported a family of five through The Great Depression on a postman's salary, it is simply basic survival tactics. By the time I knew him, although he no longer needed to do it, it was an ingrained habit and I always got the sense he actually relished it. He used to needle me about how much "good stuff" I was "leaving behind" on my drumstick.

And as someone who has read Atlas, and The Fountainhead numerous times, along with all of Rand's non-fiction, I feel somewhat like him as I make my way through The Journals of Ayn Rand. It's the same sort of messy, picking through the scraps of Rand's thoughts, but oh the flavor! There's no plot or drama to hold your attention, but if you're willing to sort through it, what you'll find is amazing.

I was always in awe of Rand's writing as finished work, thinking it so perfectly composed and flawless, but a bit intimidating, as though it came from some superhuman being, springing perfectly formed from her mind. The Journals humanize Rand, not to bring her "down a notch" but to show how superlatively rational and tenacious she is, how brilliance does not spring forth fully formed, but rather manifests itself in the tenacious drive to think, connect, integrate, edit, chew and refine until it is perfectly formed.

At the same time even when constructions are still developing you can see the gems of her thought already present. Her own conviction to core ideas already more mature. Although I'm not half through it yet, I had to share with you some examples of my favorite little nuggets of juicy goodness.

I. in 1928 at age 23 (23!), only two years after coming to America, Rand made her first notes in English for a novel. It was a malevolent universe premised novel called The Little Street. It's hero was a criminal, but with Howard Roark's sense of life. Already her in her notes you can see the themes of The Fountainhead, and her early ideas for the concept of a "sense of life."

He has a wonderful "sense of living." He realizes that he is living, he appreciates every minute of it, he wants to live every second, he is unable to exists as other men do. He doesn't take life for granted and live as he happens to be living - just calm, satisfied, normal. For him, life [must be] strong, high emotion: he has to live "on top," "breathing" life, tense, exalted, active...

Most people lack [the capacity for] reverence and "taking things seriously." The do not hold anything to be very serious or profound. There is nothing that is sacred or immensely important to them. There is nothing - no idea, object, work, or person - that can inspire them with a profound, intense, and all-absorbing passion that reaches to the roots of their souls. They do not know how to value or desire...

The boy is just their opposite. He is all passion, will and uncompromised absolutes. He takes everything seriously. Life is very serious and sacred to him. And, as Nietzsche said: "The noble soul has reverence for itself."

II. Her beginning notes about The Fountainhead were about it's fundamental ideas. You can see how thorough she was and how grounded she was in the ideas that would ultimately drive her stories, even as she's still trying to form them properly.

If the higher values of life (such as all ethics, philosophy, esthetics, everything that results from a sense of valuation in the mental life of man) come from within, from man's own spirit, then they are a  right, a privilege and a necessity - not a duty.

III. Her character notes are just delicious. We get to see her talking about her characters, from outside of them. Discussing the key aspects both spiritual and physical of them. Some of this stuff made it into the novel of course but some of it, written in the "he should be like this" form is new or complimentary material.

An important thing to remember and bring out in the book: while Howard Roark, at first glance, is monstrously selfish and inconsiderate of others - one sees, in the end, his great consideration for the rights of others (when they warrant it) and his ruthlessness only in major issues; while Peter Keating, at first glance, is unusually kink, thoughtful, considerate of others and unselfish - in the end, it is clear that he will sacrifice anyone and everyone to his own small ends, whether he has to or not. In other words those who show too much concern for others and not for themselves, have no true respect for either....

[Howard Roark:] Tall, slender,. Somewhat angular - straight lines, straight angles, hard muscles. Walks swiftly, easily, too easily, slouching a little, a loose kind of ease in motion as if movement requires no effort whatever, a body to which movement is as natural as immobility, without definite line to divide them, a light, flowing, lazy ease of motion, an energy so complete that i assumes the ease of laziness.... His clothes always disheveled, disarranged, loose and suggesting an unknown. No awkwardness but a certain savage unfitness for closthes. Definitly red, lose, straight hair, always disheveled...

A quick sharp mind, courageous and not afraid to be hurt, has long since grasped and understood completely that the world is not what he is. Consequently he can no longer be hurt. The world has no painful surprise for him, since he has accepted long ago just what he can expect from it. Indifference and an infinite, calm contempt is all he feels for the world and for other men who are not like him. He understand men thoroughly. And, understanding them he dismisses the whole subject. He knows what he wants and he knows the work he wants. That is all he expects of life. Being thoroughly a "reasons unto himself," he doe snot long for others of his kind for companionship and understanding...

Sex - sensuous in the manner of a healthy animal. But not greatly interested in the subject. Can never lose himself in love. Even his great and only love - Dominique Wynand - is not an all-absorbing, selfless passion. IT is merely the pride of a possessor.If he could not have her, it would not break him or affect him very deeply... His attitude toward Dominique is not: "I love you and I am yours." It's: "I love you and you are mine." It is primarily a feeling of wanting her and getting her, without great concern for the question of whether she wants it.

Nothing can really touch him. He is concerned only with what he does. Not how he feels. How he feels entirely a matter of his own, which cannot be influenced by anything and anyone on the outside. His feeling is a steady, unruffled flame, deep and hidden, a profound joy of living and of knowing his power, a joy that is not even conscious of being joy, because it is so steady, natural and unchangeable...

That last paragraph (bold mine) should have somehow made it into the novel, and I don't remember it. But it is stunningly great already.

IV. Her ruthless editing style is evident. Her desire to make sure everything integrates with her main ideas, that all character details contribute. After she finished a draft of Part I of The Fountainhead, in one of her editing steps she pulled out in outline form, each of the major details of each character in order so that she could examine them and see if what she had written developed each character consistently.

V. Finally for anyone who has ever been troubled by the rape scene in TF, I found this tidbit. There is not much commentary written by Rand on it, and many people I've known have had trouble with the scene. Over the course of reading and re-reading the scene I developed a sense of how I personally interpreted it, that the only reason Roark could be justified in committing such an act is that Dominique wants it to occur as a form of debasement, and he knows it. It's tough to tell from the actual prose since it is all so subtly suggested.

[For the scene by the granite quarry, when Roark and Dominique speak for the first time.]

His mockery in his quiet acceptance of the position she is imposing upon him - and when she attempts (faintly) to bring in the personal, it is he who refuses, sticking to the "Yes, Miss Francon" attitude of a respectful worker.

[Roark:] "You want me and I know it and I'll make it vile, to show you the enormity of your desire, because you'll want me still. I'm obedient to you now, I'm nothing before you - and it won't change things. I'll crush you in spite of it, because of it, when the time comes."

[Dominique:] "I have you in my power. I'll torture you. I enjoy it. I want you to know that. I enjoy debasing you, because I'm debasing myself through it, because you'll conquer me some day - I want it - I hate you and I'll punish you for it."

All this on what appears as a discussion of his living conditions and her interest in the workers.

Ha! I knew it! :)

If you're a fan of Rand, and you enjoy getting every little last drop of goodness out of her work, then The Journals of Ayn Rand will not disappoint.

Brimming with Insight

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Some years ago -- I think it was part of my reading material for a trip to Australia -- I read most of Ayn Rand's The Art of Nonfiction. I remember it being quite good, but if I was stunned by its brilliance at any point then, I don't remember feeling that way.

Well, then. It's time to chalk another one up to the spiral theory of learning!

I'll illustrate by example.

Near the beginning of the second chapter ("Choosing a Subject and Theme"), Rand makes the following ingenious integration:

Some people commit the error of trying to present all they know by writing an unanswerable article. This is a mistake on at least two counts. First, it is impossible, because if the theme is important, it would take a book to prove it. In an article, you do not prove your theme, you demonstrate it. These are almost synonymous, but here is the distinction. "Proof" applies mainly to theoretical subjects. But when you write about merely an aspect of a subject, such as a cultural or philosophical issue that is part of a cluster of issues, you do not try to prove some point. That would require a much broader and longer piece. Instead, you demonstrate your point, i.e., present it and indicate its proof (which is not the same as giving the proof). ...

The second reason why trying to write an unanswerable article is a mistake is that the author is assuming his readers do not possess free will. He is assuming he must present, by some undefined means, a case no one could resist. But clearly such an assumption is false. People can evade the most obvious logical connections. Therefore, if you try to write such an article, you are defeated at the outset, because you are asking the impossible of yourself. As a result, either you will be unable to write (and will not know why), or you will write endlessly, following sidelines, each of which leads to further sidelines. Instead of being unanswerable, you will raise more questions than you answer. (This is an eloquent illustration of the fact that acting on a wrong premise achieves the opposite of your intention.) (8-9) [bold added]

The whole passage is worthwhile, but let's focus on just the parts in bold. Were I to reformulate the rationale for writing The Unanswerable Article, it would be, "If I only get out all the facts and make all the right arguments, anyone who reads this will have to agree with it."

I think that this type of error is very, very common in our culture, as manifested by the common practice of dismissing opponents as merely unintelligent (else they'd understand and admit the truth), and by the common acceptance by libertarians and many neoconservatives of the notion that everyone wants to be free (regardless of whether they even know what freedom is or what its existence requires). Indeed, this error reaches its full, anti-ideological fruition in Glenn Reynolds' An Army of Davids, which wrongly portrays mere technology and "fact-checking" as the saviors of the free world.

Not only does Ayn Rand manage to see an implicit misconception of the nature of man's consciousness in a common writer's error, but she pops it like the business end of a pin directly and forcefully hitting an overinflated balloon: "People can evade the most obvious logical connections." Or, in practical terms, "Don't beat yourself up trying to get a dishonest man to express agreement."

How many writers cripple themselves with self-doubt because they wrongly think they can "make" someone agree with them? How many dishonest commentators and interlocutors out there prey on such a misconception? And how many aspiring writers have been choked off prematurely by the practical consequences of a popular misconception about a highly abstract issue?

Who else but Ayn Rand could even conceive of some abstract issue like determinism (which has no obvious connection to writing) having anything to do with self-confidence in general and writing block in particular? That is an ingenious connection, and I am very grateful to the person who got me to crack that book open again. I highly recommend this book to anyone serious about writing any type of non-fiction.

To end on a somewhat amusing and instructive note, I ran across these comments (HT: Randex) by one Larry Wilson on a list of books favored by college students across the country. With no justification, he slams Atlas Shrugged, one of the greatest novels ever written, as "just awful" as he gratuitously insults the young part of its audience for the virtue of thinking:

[T]he more you recall that doing well on standardized tests doesn't mean you're intelligent - it means you test well. And that books liked by kids who test well at 17 can be just awful - case in point being No. 6 on the smart side, Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." (Objectivism, like its opposite, communism, is most embraced by those entirely new to thinking.)

As someone not "entirely new to thinking" and who has admired Ayn Rand for over twenty years now, all I can say to that is that if you want an example of the kind of dishonest person you shouldn't waste your energy trying to convince, here's your man.

Many intelligent youths lack social graces and good taste, to be sure, but that does not make a love of Atlas Shrugged into a personality flaw or an aesthetic lapse. And as for the fact that "newness to thinking" can make one vulnerable to the errors of Marxism, that does not somehow make embracing "its opposite" automatically wrong. (Logically, one would suspect the opposite.) Indeed, I will even stretch my neck out and defend a few youthful communists: At least the ones who, as Mr. Wilson condescends, are "new to thinking", are giving "thinking" a try.

In the game of achieving happiness in life, I'll place my bets on a youthful, mistaken, but idealistic communist over a sneering, cynical hack any day. (Wasn't there a commercial some time back about people like this guy? I recall the phrase, "Don't be like me!") Happy reading and happy thinking, fellow Ayn Rand fans!

-- CAV

A statement of fact on the Berkeley City Council's anti-Marine debacle

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The following is a short background statement that I have prepared for the press as part of our intended delivery of the "Boycott Berkeley" petition this Tuesday. I may tweak it as needed, but I think it generally stands as is.

On January 31, 2008, an ad hoc group of US Marine Corps veterans created an online petition in opposition to the January 29th resolutions of the Berkeley City Council that seek to eject a US Marine Corps recruiting station from within Berkeley city limits and grant preferential treatment to a protest group that works to physically impede the Marine Corps in its recruiting mission. As of February 11th, over 5,000 military veterans and citizens from all 50 states have signed this petition supporting an economic boycott against the City of Berkeley and calling upon the U.S. Congress and the California State Legislature to suspend all federal and state payments that go to support any activity conducted by the Berkeley City Council. This call shall remain in force until such time as the Council chooses to rescind its anti-Marine resolutions.

Support for this petition includes both individuals who support the war as well as those who oppose it on the grounds that the City Council's actions are an assault on the Federal Constitution. Article I, Section VII of the Constitution empowers the Congress with the responsibility to raise and support an army, while Article II, Section II empowers the president with the role of commander in chief. The petitioners hold that no local government can claim for itself the power to prevent the national government from exercising these constitutionally enumerated powers. To attack the Constitution the way the Berkeley City Council has is unacceptable, regardless of where one stands on the war. The petitioners hold that when the different levels of our government disagree, it is a matter to take to our courts, not to the streets.

Furthermore, the petitioners hold that the Berkeley City Council's actions are unfair because they attack the Marines for policy decisions they do not make. The armed forces must remain strictly non-political and obey the Constitution and the laws passed by the Congress. The petitioners hold that anything less than complete fidelity on the part of the armed forces is license for disaster.

Contrary to the opinions put forth by the apologists for the Berkeley City Council's actions, the petitioners hold that this conflict is not over a differing interpretation of the freedom of speech or the right to peaceful assembly. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section II & Section II of the California Constitution each protect the right to peaceful speech and assembly and the petitioners wholeheartedly support these fundamental individual rights. Instead, the petitioners hold that this conflict is over the deliberate and unconscionable actions of a local government that condones lawlessness and seeks to subvert the national government in the name of its own, independent foreign policy.

Thus the message the petitioners seek to convey to the City Council this Tuesday is simple. Whether though ignorance or as part of a willful and deliberate act, the Council's actions are an affront to the fabric of our union and those who protect it. If the Council refuses to correct its errors and fails to refocus its efforts upon insuring impartial and limited government and protecting the rights of free speech and peaceful assembly, it will find itself isolated, defunded and striped of its legislative authority. The petitioners seek to remind the City Council that the choice is theirs.

Updated: 2/11 @ 9:55 ET.

Books, College, and SATs

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This web site correlating the favorite books of college students with the average SAT scores of their schools is quite fascinating. In general, the chart correlating books with SAT scores fits my general impressions of the intellectual depth of the books, at least for those I've read.

(I can't quite recall on which blog I found this link, but please feel free to take credit in the comments if you've blogged it too!)

Update: Hat tip to coreyo.

Liberal Fascism: A Critical Review

By Edward Cline from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The chief value in Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (Doubleday, 2007, 487 pp.) is that it presents a nonpareil history of the origins and ends of American-style statism, a statism many facets of which were admired and emulated by Hitler and Mussolini. This is not a history likely to be required reading in contemporary “social studies” courses in American schools. No member of the NEA or of a teachers union is going to hold up a copy of it to a class, and with a finger tapping the cover with its smiley face and Hitlerian moustache, announce: “We are going to discuss this book all about how the public school system stole you away from your parents, and how it plans to steal your lives, as well, and enlist you into the great organic vitality of society, whether you like it or not, for the greater good.”

Liberal Fascism does not delve as deeply into American political trends as does Leonard Peikoff’s The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America (1982); that is, it does not explicate the philosophical foundations of modern statism. Goldberg covers much the same ground and names the same names as does Peikoff. Peikoff, however, drills far below the surface to the philosophical bedrock of statism; Goldberg probes beneath the tundra but not much further. Goldberg cites the influence of especially German philosophical and political thought brought home by Americans in the period after the Civil War, but not nearly to the extent that Peikoff does.

Nor does Goldberg completely condemn the “good intentions” of American statists. He is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and a contributing editor to National Review. In the latter capacity, he cannot question the alleged underpinnings of America’s Judeo-Christian “heritage.” These are what he vainly struggles to defend against the cascading encroachments of a “secular” altruism in politics. I say “vainly” because, at root, he and the conservatives he defends against the charge of fascism share the same “good intentions” as the statists. It is a circle he cannot square.

In spite of National Review’s notorious hostility to Ayn Rand, Goldberg cites her when he discusses the fascist program and spirit of John F. Kennedy:

“Particularly in response to Kennedy’s crackdown on the steel industry, some observers charged that he was making himself into a strongman. The Wall Street Journal and the Chamber of Commerce likened him to a dictator. Ayn Rand explicitly called him a fascist in a 1962 speech, ‘The Fascist New Frontier.’”

Unfortunately, Goldberg does not dwell on this interesting inclusion of Rand, and surprisingly, it is odd that he would invoke her name to help substantiate his correct charge that Kennedy was a fascist (although she is not listed in the book’s index; some of his National Review colleagues helped him edit the book). The text of Rand’s speech has not been included in any recent anthology of her political writings, nor reissued in its original pamphlet form, although excerpts from it can be found in The Ayn Rand Lexicon, so one wonders where he found it. (Given the nature of today’s political contest, I think the entire speech ought to be reprinted in some form and as widely distributed as possible.) Her inclusion in his book leads one to wonder if he has ever read her other articles, such as “Conservatism: An Obituary,” and “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus.” This is perhaps the first time a prominent conservative writer has called on Ayn Rand, of all thinkers, as a voice of authority. Perhaps this is a measure of her growing influence in the realm of ideas.

I will not reprise my own observations in my commentary “The Left-Wing ‘Conspiracy’ of the Right” (January 22), except to remark that the conservatives have been as leftish as the liberal-left that Goldberg dissects in his book. They have been compelled to partner with the Democrats and statists from default and out of necessity because they have had no credible counter-argument against them. While he masterfully traces the genealogy of American statism, Goldberg soft-pedals, but without excusing it, the “temptation” of conservatives to second the leftists in terms of moral appeal (what he designates “me-too” conservatism). He does not give evidence that he suspects that this is symptomatic of a moral and intellectual bankruptcy as bottomless as that of the left’s. He cannot let go of God and “tradition.” Intellectually, he cannot follow the logic and reach logical conclusions; his faith prevents him and renders him blind to the ominous parallels.

A clue to his inability to follow the path of his thinking to its logical conclusions can be found on page 404, in the chapter “The Tempting of Conservatism”: “Reason alone cannot move men.” In Goldberg, reason stopped when it encountered faith.

Perhaps not so curiously, Goldberg skirts the fundamental religious premises of conservatism, gliding over the subject but never quite alighting on it. Nowhere in his book does he propound that America is a “God-fearing” nation founded on the Ten Commandments. He alludes to it occasionally, but never explicitly expresses it. It is left to the reader to guess what he means. He does not say why the “traditional” values of “hearth, home…and family values” are best. They just are. He does not explain why the alleged conservative “classical liberal” values of private property, free markets, individual liberty, and freedom of conscience are values not to be surrendered to or corrupted by “mommy state” or “God-state” fascism. They just are.

He does not bother to question why indoctrinating American students with a collectivist, multiculturalist perspective on the nature of the U.S., as is being done now, is any worse than indoctrinating them with a religious perspective, which is what most conservatives would prefer. If he had bothered to question it, intellectual honesty would have revealed to him that the non-intellectual nature of both approaches has left Americans defenseless against the self-righteous thuggery and advocacy of force, which is what we are seeing and hearing in virtually every corner of American culture and society. When reason stops moving men, they are fated to succumb to the forces of nature or to the forces of statism. In either case, faith, prayer or earnest wishing will not protect them.

So, this is not an unqualified endorsement of Goldberg’s book. Its chief value is as a guide to just how increasingly statist America has grown for over a century. It does a soldierly job of piecing together the puzzle of today’s political phenomena, such as the rise of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. One can put aside Goldberg’s conservative identity, which is not as intrusive as one might imagine, and focus on what he has to reveal about the ideological parentage of all the presidential candidates and of our economy and politics. There is just too much relevant information and well-reasoned argumentation in Liberal Fascism to dismiss it entirely as a conservative screed.

Goldberg’s central thesis is that right-wing conservatism has been smeared at least since the 1940’s by liberals and the left-wing as a fascist “reactionary” political phenomenon, when, in fact, it has been a semantic shell game to divert criticism from the liberal-progressive-left of being the true fascists, they having consciously and deliberately subjected the nation to censorship, the regimentation of industry and business, the invasion or abrogation of personal liberties, a looting welfare state, and the arbitrary establishment of a command economy governed by a clique of “experts,” all of it directed by the whims and prejudices of a “leader.” Goldberg does not settle for a single definition of fascism, but all the concretes he includes in his description of fascism can be found in the definition of it employed by Rand in her article, “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus” (from The American College Dictionary (1957):

“Fascism – a governmental system with strong centralized power, permitting no opposition or criticism, controlling all affairs of the nation (industrial, commercial, etc.)”

The American Heritage Dictionary (1982) has this more detailed definition:

“Fascism – A philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong centralized government usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism.” The belligerency, I might note, is first directed at a nation’s citizens – to control their diets, their amusements, their work lives, their purposes, and their time – before it is directed outward beyond a nation’s borders.

Goldberg writes in the chapter on Woodrow Wilson’s contribution and application of statism,

“Fascism, at its core, is the view that every nook and cranny of society should work together in spiritual union toward the same goals overseen by the state. ‘Everything in the State, nothing outside the State,’ is how Mussolini defined it. Mussolini coined the word ‘totalitarian’ to describe not a tyrannical society but a humane one in which everyone is taken care of and contributes equally. It was an organic concept where every class, every individual, was part of the larger whole.”

It is the nationalist coloring and content of fascism that is fascinating to see described in Goldberg’s book. “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State” has been the unspoken slogan and goal of ambitious fascists from Woodrow Wilson to Adolf Hitler. Listen to the bland, nattering rhetoric of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. Their details differ but their fundamental means and end remain the same. As Rand and Peikoff pointed out in their books and articles, statists today no longer rant about socialism, but rather about the imperatives of “change” and a “new direction,” without identifying what change is necessary or which direction to take – which, in practical political terms, they mean that everyone must change and take the direction they decide the nation must go.

The anti-intellectual, anti-theoretical nature of their emotion-based proposals is a confession that the statists’ programs of the past have brought nothing but disastrous consequences; if everyone and everything were overseen and controlled, then their collectivist/altruist programs would work. If every individual was treated as just part of an “organic” whole, and more importantly, if every individual regarded himself as just a cell in that whole, then the “caring” collectivism would work. Of course, Americans would need to be taught that as an unquestioned absolute. Which is why Clinton especially wants to get hold of children. Raise enough of them to be selfless, sacrificing, volunteering manqués, and they will do her bidding without much prodding or persuasion. They will become doctors, nurses, technicians; and some will serve the public in other capacities, to come knocking on one’s door, or breaking it down, if one attempts to exist “outside the state” and impede by word or deed the nation’s “destined progress.”

Rand captures the tone and content of today’s political battle between the statists in “The New Fascism” (p. 210, in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal):

“Today, nobody talks of a planned society in the ‘liberal’ camp; long-range programs, theories, principles, abstractions, and ‘noble ends’ are not fashionable any longer. Modern ‘liberals’ deride any political concern with such large-scale matters as an entire society or an economy as a whole; they concern themselves with single, concrete-bound, range-of-the-moment projects and demands, without regard to cost, context, or consequences. ‘Pragmatic’ – not ‘idealistic’ – is the favorite adjective when they are called upon to justify the ‘stance,’ as they call it, not ‘stand.’ They are militantly opposed to political philosophy; they denounce political concepts as ‘tags,’ ‘labels,’ ‘myths,’ ‘illusions’ – and resist an attempt to ‘label’ – i.e. to identify – their own views. They are belligerently anti-theoretical and – with a faded mantle of intellectuality still clinging to their shoulders – they are anti-intellectual. The only remnant of their former ‘idealism’ is a tired, cynical, ritualistic quoting of shopworn ‘humanitarian’ slogans, when the occasion demands it.”

Not much has changed since Rand made that speech in 1965, except that the voices of the statists have grown louder, more insistent, and shriller in tandem with their ever-shrinking visions of the collectivist good. (From where I sit, they are growing more and more Hitlerian in volume and style.) Listen to any one of the current presidential candidates or to anyone who advocates some kind of control, regulation or abolition, and one will see just how concrete-bound and range-of-the-moment they all are.

Whether the subject is the environment, or smoking, or obesity, or trans-fats, or mandatory nutritional guides in food, or universal health care, or immigration, or subsidized education – the list is long and growing longer – they advocate an identity-less “humanitarian,” all-inclusive, “one for all, and all for one” collectivism. In short, the statists want to control everything, because anyone or anything left “outside the state” would not only be a threat, but a reproach to their vision, marked for suffocation in the crushing embrace of a “caring” tyranny.

Rand writes in “The New Fascism” that “a system in which the government does not nationalize the means of production, but assumes total control over the economy is fascism.” Clinton has already outlined her intentions. Obama has yet to specify his, although his endorsement by Senator Ted Kennedy should telegraph what those will be. McCain will name his particular causes when he and his advisors think of which ones to campaign for and against to assuage Republican suspicions that he is “one of them.”

Goldberg’s book presents ample evidence that the precedents have been set – during Wilson’s administration, in Herbert Hoover’s, and FDR’s – and that what today’s presumptive “leaders” are proposing is nothing new. Under Wilson, the U.S. got its first taste of an idealistically imposed command economy. Federal intervention in the economy precipitated the stock market crash of 1929 and perpetuated the Depression throughout the 1930’s, giving the pragmatist Roosevelt a host of options to establish another command economy under the New Deal.

Goldberg barely mentions the administrations of Truman, Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon, calling those presidents “caretakers of the welfare state.” It was JFK who reanimated the liberal fascist spirit of an “idealistic” leader, much to the delight of morose advocates of federal power, who had been treading water in the relatively placid 1950’s. One of the countless pieces of the puzzle that Goldberg mentions is that Harold Laski, the British socialist, and on whom Ayn Rand modeled her Fountainhead villain, Ellsworth Toohey, was JFK’s professor at Harvard.

Lyndon Johnson launched the “Great Society.” Goldberg glosses over Jimmy Carter’s contributions to the growth of federal power with almost dismissive contempt, devoting barely two pages to his actions, crediting Carter with the creation of the Energy Department. Of Ronald Reagan, he has nothing bad to say. The Clintons come in for very damaging scrutiny, especially Hillary Clinton, to whom he devotes a long chapter, “Brave New Village.”

George W. Bush, also, does not escape Goldberg’s critical eye. Writing about Bush’s social and economic policies and his campaign for “compassionate conservatism,” he notes,

“The very adjective ‘compassionate’ echoes progressive and liberal denunciations of limited government as cruel, selfish, or social Darwinist. In other words, as a marketing slogan alone, it represented a repudiation of the classical liberalism at the core of modern American conservatism because it assumed that limited government, free markets, and personal initiative were somehow ‘uncompassionate.’”

This is consonant with Goldberg’s thesis that Bush “has probably been called a fascist more than any other U.S. president” – and by the leftists and liberals, who have ascribed to Bush in their semantic shell game the very totalitarian measures they themselves wish to impose, but who would characterize their own repressive, extortionate and expropriating actions as “humanitarian.” (It could be called a form of power-envy.) Goldberg cites Bush’s record-busting legacy as a liberal progressive:

“In 2003, he proclaimed that ‘when somebody hurts,’ it’s the government’s responsibility to ‘move.’ And under Bush, it has. A new cabinet agency has been created [the Department of Homeland Security], Medicare has increased nearly 52 percent, and spending on education went up some 165 percent. From 2001 to 2006 antipoverty spending increased 41 percent, and overall spending reached a record $23,289 per household. Federal antipoverty spending has surpassed 3 percent of GDP for the first time ever. Total spending…has grown at triple the rate under Clinton. Moreover, Bush created the largest entitlement since the Great Society (Medicare Part D).”

Goldberg continues:

“…Bush really is a different kind of conservative, one who is strongly sympathetic to progressive-style intrusions into civil society. His faith-based initiative was a well-intentioned attempt to blur the lines between state and private philanthropy.”

Since when is a “well-intentioned attempt to blur the lines between state and private philanthropy” not a conscious attempt to destroy the wall separating church and state in a “compassionate” effort to introduce theocracy? This is an instance of Goldberg gliding over conservatism’s religious foundation and hidden agenda but never quite elaborating on conservatism’s progressive, “Social Gospel” sympathies. If he can castigate Woodrow Wilson for seeing himself as an “instrument of God,” why not condemn the two Presidents Bush for their “good intentions,” as well?

In fact, is not the whole panoply of the welfare state, with its entitlements, redistributed wealth, regulations, selective censorship, and taboos but a gargantuan “faith based initiative” subscribed to and enforced by secular liberals and religious conservatives alike? Do not both liberal fascists and religious fascists act on “faith” or “confidence” and ask the electorate to grant them the same “faith” and “confidence”?

A symbolic pairing which Goldberg overlooked in his effort to excoriate the liberal fascists is the partnering of former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in their globetrotting “humanitarian” campaigns. They were never really political adversaries. True adversaries do not play golf together and call each other “chum.”

With the reservations expressed above, however, I highly recommend Goldberg’s book if only as a means to educate oneself in the historic scope of statism, its inception and growth in the U.S., not to mention its relatively unknown influences on Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Remarking on the timeliness of Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, Goldberg writes that the “irony, of course, is that it did happen here.” And continues to, and will continue to until it reaches a point when the smiley face sports a stern, Hitlerian frown – unless Americans rip off those smiley face buttons before it is too late and toss them into the trash, where they belong.

I must credit Goldberg for helping in Liberal Fascism to explode the mystique of statism. But if he is truly concerned about the jeopardy in which free markets, individual liberty, and freedom of speech and thought have been placed, he should subject the conservatives and nascent theocrats to the same merciless examination to which he has subjected the liberal fascists.

Update on FIRM Activities

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Lin Zinser, executive director of FIRM (Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine), has just posted the following summary of our first year of activities to the FIRM blog. I hope this provides a concrete example of (and inspiration for) anyone who is interested in what can and has been accomplished through philosophically principled political activity.

(And thank you, Lin, for driving all around the state giving talks, appearing on radio and TV programs, attending nearly all of the mind-numbing 208 Commission meetings, and talking with our Colorado state legislators.)

-- Paul Hsieh, MD

* * *

FIRM: Year End Results
by Lin Zinser

Today we celebrate the achievements of the FIRM coalition over the past year. FIRM was begun at the end of January 2007, and comprises a group of Colorado citizens with diverse careers, interests and ideas about what medicine and health insurance should (and could) look like in Colorado (and in America, for that matter). They come from different political parties and ideologies.

What these people do agree with is that the government should stop regulating, controlling and intervening in decisions that individuals make about what medical procedures they should have, whether to buy health insurance, and if so, what type of health insurance is appropriate for them and their families, and who should be their provider of services, among the thousand other decisions that people make regarding their health every year.

I am very appreciative for all of you who have supported the efforts of FIRM, and want to provide you the tangible record of your efforts. Briefly, in a summary form, they are as follows. From January 30, 2007, to January 31, 2008, FIRM coalition supporters had the following public results:

Letters to the editor -- 48 (including one in "USA Today")
OpEds/Columns -- 26
Citations in Media -- at least 10, perhaps more
Articles/Essays -- 2
Talks/Panel Discussions -- 9
Media appearances -- 6
Formal Proposal Submissions to 208 Commission -- 1
Public statements to 208 Commission -- 17
Letters to 208 Commission during their request for public comments -- at least 5, undoubtedly more
Letter to Colorado Medical Society -- 1
Public Statements to Medical Organizations -- Total 1
Public Statement to Colorado Joint Legislative Committee on Health and Human Services -- 1
Distribution of "Health Care is Not A Right", by Leonard Peikoff -- over 1,000 copies

These are fabulous results. The war is not yet won, and it will be difficult. Last year, at this time, one of the popular ideas in the public was the individual mandate to purchase insurance. This year, at least, it looks like there will not be a push for the individual mandate to purchase insurance in the State of Colorado, and that is due in no small part to the efforts of FIRM supporters -- of their own, individual efforts. Individual mandates are not dead, but they are no longer thriving.

This year, it appears that the effort will be to expand government health insurance to all of the uninsured children in the state, increasing the number of people on government programs that don't work, giving families the illusion of coverage, at an expensive price tag for all, including taxpayers. We expect to see additional restrictions on insurance policies, including benefit mandates and rating issues as well. So there is work yet to do.

Below are the details that support the summary above. I applaud every name on the list, and I also applaud all of you who have written, sent comments and forwarded any of these efforts to friends, family, co-workers, doctors or other health-care providers. Please remember as you read the list, that not everyone on the list may absolutely be in 100% agreement with all aims of FIRM. FIRM is a coalition, and its ideas are expressed in its Statement of Principles and Goals. These individuals have expressed their adherence to some of these goals in these particular writings or public statements.

A special thanks to Paul Hsieh for blogging so diligently and for co-writing with me an excellent article on the state of medicine and health insurance in America.

I have used smaller type so that this blog post is not so long.

Letters to the editor -- Total 48 (including one in "USA Today")
Diana Hsieh, Rocky Mountain News, 2/5/2007, "Paul Campos: Health Care"
Brian Schwartz, Denver Post, 3/3/2007, "Universal Health Care"
Richard Watts, Rocky Mountain News, 4/16/2007, "End government health-care meddling"
Richard Watts, Craig Daily Press, 4/19/2007, "Health Care"
Paul Hsieh, Denver Post, 4/24/2007, "Health Care is Not a Right"
Russell Shurts, Rocky Mountain News, 4/25/2007, "Health Care in Colorado"
Richard Watts, Rio Blanco Herald Times, 4/26/2007, "Health Care"
Paul Hsieh, Denver Post, 4/30/2007, "Two Arguments Why Health Care is Not a Right"
Brian Schwartz, Denver Post, 4/30/2007, "Fair Health Care"
Brian Schwartz, Rocky Mountain News, 5/3/2007, "Medical insurance restrictions are costly"
Brian Schwartz, Boulder Daily Camera, 5/3/2007, "Health Care: The government would worsen it"
Ralph Shnelvar, Denver Post, 5/6/2007, "Debating health care systems in U.S., Canada"
Hanah Krening, Denver Post, 5/23/2007, "Proposals to reform health care in Colorado"
Paul Hsieh, Pueblo Chieftain, 5/27/2007, "Socialized Medicine"
Richard Watts, Steamboat Pilot, 5/30/2007, "Too Much Control"
Richard Watts, Rocky Mountain News, 5/31/2007, "Health Care"
Richard Watts, Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, 5/31/2007, "Don't Allow the Government to Dictate Your Health Care"
Gina Liggett, Denver Post, 6/6/2007, "Free Market Health Care Reform"
Gina Liggett, Boulder Daily Camera, 6/9/2007, "There is No 'Right' to Any Health Care"
Gina Liggett, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, 6/13/2007, "Need vs. Right"
Gina Liggett, Carbondale Valley Sentinel, 6/14/2007, "Need vs. Right"
Gina Liggett, Pueblo Chieftain, 6/17/2007, "Health Panel Stacked Deck"
Brian Schwartz, Denver Post, 6/19/2007, "'Universal' Health Care"
Richard Watts, Grand Junction Free Press, 6/21/2007, "Health Care is Not a Right"
Richard Watts, Boulder Daily Camera, 6/22/2007, "Health Care is Not a Right"
Martin Buchanan, Denver Post, 6/27/2007, "Health Care For All: Whose Responsibility Is It?"
Gina Liggett, Rocky Mountain News, 6/28/2007, "Health Care is Not a 'Right', It's a Need"
Russell Shurts, Rocky Mountain News, 6/29/2007, "Social Responsibility"
Gina Liggett, USA Today, 6/29/2007, "Moore In Denial"
Brian Schwartz, Rocky Mountain News, 7/2/2007, "Health Insurance"
Diana Hsieh, Colorado Springs Gazette, 7/3/2007, "People, not government, responsible for health"
Gina Liggett, Denver Post, 7/6/2007, "Health Care in the US"
Gina Liggett, Northern Colorado Business Report, 7/6/2007, "Free Health Care?!"
Richard Watts, Rocky Mountain News, 7/7/2007, Health Care"
Paul Hsieh, Rocky Mountain News, 7/12/2007, "In-Store Health Clinics"
Diana Hsieh, Rocky Mountain News, 7/17/2007, "Free Market Medicine is the Answer"
Gina Liggett, Colorado Confidential, 7/21/2007, "Health Care"
Paul Hsieh, Denver Post, 7/31/2007, "Rising Health Care Costs"
Richard Watts, Denver Post, 7/31/2007, "SCHIP Program"
Lin Zinser, Rocky Mountain News, 8/7/2007, "Health Care in Colorado"
Brian Schwartz, Rocky Mountain News, 8/13/2007, "Free Markets Key to Affordable Health Care"
James Schroeder, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, 8/28/2007, "Single Payer Health Plan Would Be Costly and Unfair"
Brian Schwartz, Denver Post, 8/31/2007, "Health Savings Accounts"
Brian Schwartz, Denver Post, 9/7/2007, "Funding Health Care"
Russell Shurts, Grand Junction Free Press, 9/13/2007, "We Shouldn't Be Forced"
Brian Schwartz, Boulder Daily Camera, 9/24/2007, "We Do Not Have Free Market Care"
Brian Schwartz, Boulder Daily Camera, 1/4/2008, "Free Market Health Insurance Needed"
Brian Schwartz, Rocky Mountain News, 1/17/2008, "Politically Controlled Insurance Is a Disease"

OpEds/Columns -- Total 26
Brian Schwartz, Boulder Daily Camera, 2/11/2007, "Government-run auto repair? Yes!"
Ari Armstrong, Boulder Weekly, 2/15/2007, "Colorado Medical Socialism"
Ari Armstrong, "What's Right With Colorado Health Care", 4/8/2007, Independence Institute
Brian Schwartz, Rocky Mountain News, 4/28/2007, "Government controls violate rights, raise costs, cut access"
Paul Hsieh, Rocky Mountain News, 6/2/2007, "Free market holds key to ensuring quality for Coloradans"
Paul Hsieh, Boulder Daily Camera, 6/10/2007, "Socialized Medicine is Wrong for State"
Paul Hsieh, Pueblo Chieftain, 6/10/2007, ""Blue ribbon panel prescribes wrong approach on health care"
Linn and Ari Armstrong, Grand Junction Free Press, 6/11/2007, "Health socializers ignore benefits of liberty, harms of controls"
Brian Schwartz, Denver Post, 8/5/2007, "Don't Model State Reforms on Medicaid: How Should Colorado Lawmakers Fix A Broken System"
Russell Shurts, Rocky Mountain News, 8/7/2007, "Socialized Medicine Just Another Gang Operation"
Ralph Shnelvar, Boulder Daily Camera, 8/14/2007, "Your Government Doesn't Care"
Brian Schwartz, Boulder Daily Camera, 8/26/2007, "Warning: Medicaid is Hazardous to Your Health"
James Schroeder, Grand Junction Free Press, 8/23/2007, "Beware of unintended consequences of health care proposals"
Linn and Ari Armstrong, Grand Junction Free Press, 9/3/2007, "Reformers demand more labor for politically-run medicine"
Paul Hsieh, Ayn Rand Institute, 9/18/2007, "'Single-Payer' Health Care Is Anything but Free"
Brian Schwartz, Rocky Mountain News, 9/26/2007, "Government Control Is Bad For Your Health"
Linn and Ari Armstrong, Grand Junction Free Press, 10/15/2007, "Insurance Mandates Threaten Your Health"
Linda Gorman, Independence Institute, 10/24/2007, "It's Official: Medicaid Managed Care Does Not Save Money"
James Schroeder, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, 11/18/2007, "Expanding Medicaid Eligibility Will Mean Fewer Doctors Accept It"
Brian Schwartz, 11/21/2007, Independence Institute, "Ritter's health care cure would prove more crippling to Coloradans"
Linda Gorman, Independence Institute, 12/3/2007, "Health care "reform" in Colorado: Go home and die; it's cheaper"
James Schroeder, Grand Junction Free Press, 12/26/2007, "Here's Your Prescription"
Brian Schwartz, TCS Daily, 1/14/2008, "Compulsory Medical Insurance as Collective Punishment"
Linn and Ari Armstrong, Grand Junction Free Press, 1/21/2008, "More Political Control of Medicine Comes With Higher Costs"
Linda Gorman and Ari Armstrong, Rocky Mountain News, 1/30/2008, "A Very Costly Health Care Solution"
Brian Schwartz, Colorado Springs Gazette, 1/31/2008, "Compulsory Insurance as Collective Punishment"

Citations in Media -- At least 10, perhaps more
Lin Zinser quoted in Colorado Springs Gazette, 5/22/2007, "State health care commission narrows focus"
Paul Hsieh quoted on Mike Rosen Radio show, 6/7/2007
Brian Schwartz cited in Face the State, 8/27/2007, "Does the Effort to Provide Government Health Care For All Kids Leave Too Many Behind?"
Brian Schwartz quoted in Denver Post, 8/31/2007, "Experts pan health savings accounts"
James Schroeder quoted in Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, 10/12/2007, "Community Discusses Health Care Reform"
Brian Schwartz quoted in Rocky Mountain News, 10/5/2007, "Audience at health care forum backs single-payer proposal"
Ari Armstrong and Brian Schwartz cited in Rocky Mountain News, 10/13/2007, Jason Salzman Column
Brian Schwartz and Paul Hsieh quoted in Colorado Springs Gazette editorial, 1/3/2008, "Health Care, Ho! State Should Avoid Repeat of Massachusetts"
Linda Gorman cited in Rocky Mountain News, 1/10/2008, "Mandatory Health Plan Participation Opposed"
Linda Gorman and Brian Schwartz cited in Face the State, 1/31/2008, "Minority Report Critical of Health Commission Findings"

Articles/Essays -- Total 2
Paul Hsieh, Colorado Medicine (March-April 2007 issue), "An Open Letter to Colorado Physicians"
Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh, The Objective Standard (Winter 2007-2008 issue), "Moral Health Care vs. 'Universal Health Care'"

Guest Speaker/Panel Discussions -- Total - 9
Lin Zinser, "The Crisis in Colorado Health Care", 4/17/2007, Colorado Springs Republican Women
Lin Zinser, Aurora Rotary Club, 6/11/2007
Lin Zinser, Grand Junction, 7/19/2007
Lin Zinser, Castle Rock Republicans, 7/20/2007
Lin Zinser, Jefferson County Town Hall Meeting, 8/18/2007
Lin Zinser, Greeley Centennial Rotary Club, 9/6/2007
Lin Zinser, El Paso County Republican Women, 9/17/2007
Lin Zinser, Mesa County Republicans, 9/21/2007
Lin Zinser, Gateway Rotary Club, 9/26/2007

Media appearances -- Total 6
Lin Zinser, 5/10/2007, Amy Oliver Radio Show
Lin Zinser, 5/18/2007, John Caldera TV Show "Independent Thinking"
Brian Schwartz, 6/17/2007, John Andrews Radio Show
Lin Zinser, 7/26/2007, KNZZ Report Radio Show
Lin Zinser, 7/26/2007, Grand Junction TV 5:00 news
Lin Zinser, 9/6/2007, Amy Oliver Radio Show

Formal Proposal Submissions to 208 Commission -- Total 1
Brian Schwartz, "Free Markets, Affordability & Individual Rights"

Public statements to 208 Commission Meetings -- Total 17
Paul Hsieh (read by Lin Zinser), 1/30/2007
Brian Schwartz, 10/4/2007
James Schroeder, 10/11/2007
Lin Zinser, 1/30/2007, 1/31/2007, 2/21/2007, 3/28/2007, 4/27/2007, 5/17/2007, 5/18/2007, 6/19/2007, 7/18/2007, 8/23/07, 9/24/2007, 11/02/2007, 12/13/2007, 1/10/2008

Letters to 208 Commission during their request for public comments -- Total at least 5, undoubtedly more
Lin Zinser, Diana Hsieh, Paul Hsieh, Betty Evans, Richard Watts, and others

Letter to Colorado Medical Society - Total 1
James Schroeder, November 2007

Public Statements to Medical Organizations - Total 1
Paul Hsieh, Arapahoe-Douglas-Elbert Medical Society, 6/21/2007

Public Statement to Colorado Joint Legislative Committee on Health and Human Services - Total 1
Lin Zinser, January 31, 2008

Shame on Starbucks for Sanctioning Saudi Oppression!

By Scott Powell from Powell History Recommends,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Problem We All Live With

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I didn't have an opportunity to comment in-depth about the video I posted yesterday that featured Code Pink's protest in front of the Marine Recruiting Station at Berkeley. This video underscores just how bad the situation at Berkeley has become. People interested in contacting a Marine recruiter are forcibly bared by anti-government vigilantes, and the local police stand "neutral" with their hands in their pockets.

Viewing this tape reminds me of Norman Rockwell's famous panting "The Problem We All Live With," except that we have yet to see the proper response to this outrage; we have yet to see federal marshals march into Berkeley to protect an individual's right to access the offices of his government.

I'm beginning to wonder if that is precisely what is needed; since the local authorities seem unwilling to enforce proper laws, intervention by the federal government may become inevitable.

A Short Course in Brain Surgery

By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

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Two Excellent Posts

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I have just enough time this morning to direct your attention to two particularly worthwhile posts by my fellow Objectivist bloggers.

First, Galileo comments on the unconscionable response of Google to Microsoft's bid to acquire Yahoo, drawing the perfect parallel in closing.

... Google's actions, in their essence, are no different than a Mafia chieftain who hires a street gang to tear up and destroy businesses that refuse to pay him protection money.

This is not capitalism; this is hooliganism.

Not only is this wrong, and not only could Google easily demolish this new combination on merit, but the company could probably just sit back and enjoy watching Microsoft destroy its own investment (which, I think is much of its cash reserves). Anybody remember Hotmail?

Yeah. I used to use it, too.

And then Stella unearths a quote from a Dutch government official which succinctly reveals the folly of entrusting one's health to the state:

Nobody, including Pieter van Baal (quoted in the article as saying "We are not recommending that governments stop trying to prevent obesity") wants to say it out loud, but these findings beg the question: Wouldn't it be cheaper if we all died young, before the expense of being old comes on? Wouldn't it be better for government bureaucrats if everyone lived long enough to pay plenty of income taxes, but not long enough to impose the costs of their age-related illnesses? Perhaps instead of banning trans fats and slapping warning labels on cigarettes, the government should be handing out free tobacco and chocolate cake. [bold added]

This almost succeeds in making a recent proposal (via HBL) -- by lawmakers in my home state to force restaurants not to serve the "obese" (which said proposal never defines) -- sound benevolent. Almost.

Except that in the first case, the man pointing the gun to your head is talking about how much "cheaper" things would be if you weren't around, while in the second, he's promising you a long life -- as a slave.

-- CAV

Updates

2-10-08: Corrected nationality of government official.

Quick Roundup 300

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Lordy mercy! It's hard to believe I've done three hundred roundup posts (out of 1,570 total)! I saw this milestone coming a few weeks ago and debated changing the feature name to something else, but ultimately decided against it.

If nothing else, the running total lends an air of venerability to the feature.

On with the show....

Christian Leader Advocates Sharia Law

This morning's paper and a reader alerted me to the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury, citing its "inevitability", has come out in favor (alternate URL) of instituting elements of Islamic law within the British legal system.

Aside from demonstrating that religion is not and cannot be the foundation for a free society, the comments show that the bishop is heavily influenced by multiculturalism.

But equally, he said, "I don't think we should instantly spring to the conclusion that the whole of that world of jurisprudence and practice is somehow monstrously incompatible with human rights simply because it doesn't immediately fit with how we understand it ."

Is the Most Rev. Rowan Williams so befuddled by relativism that he regards Islamic jurisprudence as equally valid as British? Or does he want to use such confusion as multiculturalism generates as a toehold for greater influence of religion in legal matters generally? Your guess is as good as mine, and as irrelevant. There is no place for religious dogma in the jurisprudence of a free society.

Justice for Hugo Chavez?

Reader Dismuke informs me that Exxon Mobil is not taking the seizure of its Venezuelan assets by dictator Hugo Chavez sitting down. The Caracas Chronicles quotes a Bloomberg report on a series of court orders obtained by the petrochemical giant to freeze the overseas assets of Venezuela's state oil company pending arbitration on the seizure:

The U.S. freeze is less than 3 percent the size of the U.K. and Netherlands orders because Exxon Mobil reckoned it would be more difficult to obtain a freeze on PDVSA's U.S. refineries and filling stations without first winning at trial. In the meantime, PDVSA probably would sell the plants, Exxon Mobil's U.K. lawyer said.

The asset freezes will damage PDVSA's ability to raise funds from international investors for drilling and refinery projects, said Asdrubal Oliveros, chief economist at Caracas-based Ecoanalitica. He estimated PDVSA has $13 billion in "liquid'' international assets.

"This is going to put a lot of pressure on country risk, and on the price of the company's bonds in the international market,'' Oliveros said. "Loaning money to a company that's in this kind of dispute, and also is facing this kind of injunction, is going to be very delicate.'' [bold added, minor edits]

This is fun to see on one level, and frustrating on another. This shouldn't be in court at all, and it wouldn't have been if Western nations consistently protected property rights and had foreign policies based on self-interest.

Theft is wrong, regardless of whether the perpetrator is a government and regardless of its official excuse, and the function of the government of a free country is to protect the rights of its citizens. Any nation whose citizens had assets stolen on such a scale by the Chavez government has the right to invade Venezuela. And any nation which judges that such seizures represent significant damages or threats to its citizens has the obligation to take whatever measures it deems feasible and necessary to rectify or remove them.

Hugo Chavez should have been made a historical footnote by George W. Bush long ago.

That would have been justice for Hugo Chavez. This is a really only a chance to win a booby prize.

Wrong Question

The following subject line from a Human Events mass mailing appeared in my email this morning:

Should Illegal Aliens Be Given Tax Rebates?

Forget the illegal aliens. Why not ask the following question: "Should American citizens have income confiscated every year by the federal government?"

When such publications start asking questions like these, we will know that the tide is turning in favor of individual rights.

-- CAV

The New Wave Swells

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Depressed by recent political events, I took Ludwig von Mises' Human Action off the shelf and cracked it open. I read chapter 36, "The Crisis of Interventionism." If you follow either link, you can read the chapter free online. You'll become smarter if you do. Mises is one of the few authors that always leaves you smarter after reading him.

By interventionism, Mises means government interference in the economy. It goes by many other names: mixed economy, welfare state, the third way, liberalism, progressivism, compassionate conservatism, Rockefeller Republicanism, moderation and the middle of the road.

This chapter could have been written yesterday, but it was written 60 years ago and published in 1949. For instance:

The idea underlying all interventionist policies is that the higher income and wealth of the more affluent part of the population is a fund which can be freely used for the improvement of the conditions of the less prosperous. The essence of the interventionist policy is to take from one group to give to another. It is confiscation and distribution. Every measure is ultimately justified by declaring that it is fair to curb the rich for the benefit of the poor.

And this sounds familiar:

The interventionist in advocating additional public expenditure is not aware of the fact that the funds available are limited. He does not realize that increasing expenditure in one department enjoins restricting [p. 857] it in other departments. In his opinion there is plenty of money available. The income and wealth of the rich can be freely tapped. In recommending a greater allowance for the schools he simply stresses the point that it would be a good thing to spend more for education. He does not venture to prove that to raise the budgetary allowance for schools is more expedient than to raise that of another department, e.g., that of health. It never occurs to him that grave arguments could be advanced in favor of restricting public spending and lowering the burden of taxation. The champions of cuts in the budget are in his eyes merely the defenders of the manifestly unfair class interests of the rich.

Mises explains how government interference in the economy always makes things worse. The subsequent economic crisis is then blamed on the elements of freedom left in the economy, prompting the state to intensify intervention until finally there is full socialism.

All varieties of interference with the market phenomena not only fail to achieve the ends aimed at by their authors and supporters, but bring about a state of affairs which -- from the point of view of their authors' and advocates' valuations -- is less desirable than the previous state of affairs which they were designed to alter. If one wants to correct their manifest unsuitableness and preposterousness by supplementing the first acts of intervention with more and more of such acts, one must go farther and farther until the market economy has been entirely destroyed and socialism has been substituted for it.

Mises explains that we are heading for the German style of socialism (also known as fascism). Elsewhere he calls it "socialism on the German plan."

Marching ever further along the path of interventionism, all those countries that have not adopted full socialism of the Russian pattern [p. 859] are more and more approaching what is called a planned economy, i.e., socialism of the German or Hindenburg pattern. In regard to economic policies, there is nowadays little difference among the various nations and, within each nation, among the various political parties and pressure groups. The historical party names have lost their significance. There are, as far as economic policy is concerned, practically only two factions left: the advocates of the Lenin method of all-round nationalization and the interventionists.

And yet, part of Mises's argument doesn't seem right:

Yet the age of interventionism is reaching its end. Interventionism has exhausted all its potentialities and must disappear.

This was written 60 years ago, but we're still muddling along in the interventionist middle of the road. We have not crossed the Rubicon of "all-round nationalization" or dictatorship; we still have economic calculation. Obviously, interventionism was not "reaching its end" in 1949. What happened?

I think the problem is that Mises was basing his ideas on the German model that he lived through. Germany went from Bismarck's welfare state to Hitler's fascist dictatorship in around 50 years, or two and a half generations. America, with its Enlightenment heritage of individualism, was more receptive to better ideas.

And better ideas were being written and publicized just as Mises wrote Human Action. The free market movement was led by Ayn Rand, who created the first moral defense of capitalism. In addition, Leonard Read founded the Foundation for Economic Education.

These good ideas had an impact on the Republican Party, and on one man in particular, Barry Goldwater. He understood that interventionism was bad. In his Presidential campaign of 1964 he stood for small government. Although Goldwater lost in a landslide to LBJ, he changed the Republican Party and America. For awhile the Republican Party stood for smaller government and rolling back the welfare state. (The pragmatist Richard Nixon expanded government egregiously, but never as a moral crusade because he knew he was betraying Goldwater's principles.)

Ronald Reagan, who entered politics as a follower of Goldwater, brought free market, small government ideas into his Presidency starting in 1981 -- albeit in a frustratingly mixed bag that was in many ways a triumph of symbolism over substance. His supply side economics helped stimulate the economy. But his legacy is terribly compromised by his bringing the religious right to prominence in the party, planting the seeds of its own demise.

The Republican Party as a small government party lasted about two generations, 40 years; it is now over.

Senator John McCain, who will be the 2008 Republican Presidential nominee, repudiates the Goldwater paradigm. He admits his ignorance of economics. He pits profits against patriotism. He is a "national greatness" or big government Republican. Unlike any Republican since Teddy Roosevelt, he speaks of big government with the zeal of a moral crusader. He dreams of founding national service programs. He is an explicit statist, collectivist and altruist who believes that morality lies in sacrificing for something greater than self-interest.

If I am right, then the free market or "libertarian" movement in Republican Party forestalled the crises Mises thought were imminent. The forestalling has ended. The next President will be Obama, Clinton or McCain. All three are, to use Mises' terms, "interventionist dilettantes and demagogues." They all speak as if Human Action had never been written; they labor in dangerous ignorance, planning all the ways the state will spend the money it takes from rich capitalists. In their stupidity they will make the same errors interventionists have made throughout history. They will destroy wealth and freedom.

We are about to see a new wave of interventions in the economy, and a new round of crises brought on by those interventions. Will America respond with confusion or clarity? There are good ideas and solutions out there -- but will they find an audience? Will they prosper?

UPDATE: Slight revision.

Biotechnology Marches On

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In headline that would have sounded like science fiction just a few years ago, scientists have announced, "Embryos created with DNA from 3 people".

To borrow a quote from this Onion story, "This has limitless scientific possibilities, which means one thing: We must keep Christians from finding out about it..."

What's Your Six-Word Motto for the USA?

By Greg from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Freakonomics blog over at NYTimes has a little contest asking people to try to write a six-word motto for the US. Browsing the comments, I found an amazing variety of self-deprecating, self-hating, cynical, desperate, overly narrow, pathetic, and downright moronic entries. Oh, and there are even some clever and nice ones, too. Here's some of that variety:

• "The last best hope of mankind."
  
• "When in doubt, whip it out!"
  
• "We came; we saw; we ravaged."
  
• "12 Million Illegals Can't Be Wrong!"
  
• "e plures suffragium, unum claudus rectum" (Translation: out of many votes, one lame decider.)
  
• "Land of free, ex-home of braves."
  
• "Our 'poor' are richer than you."
  
• "One Nation To Rule The Mall"
  
• "All your oil are belong to us."
  
• "Always number one. We insist."
  
• "Dominated the 20th Century -- now what?"
  
• "We Saved The World from Hitler"
  
• "Why can't you be like us?"
  
• "The most gentle empire so far."
  
• "Hold my beer and watch this!"
  
• "Birthplace of the earth's true terrorists."
  
• "We make and break the rules."
  
• "Look, at least we're trying."
  
• "Where too much is never enough."
  
• "Please step away from the oil."
  
• "Our worst critics prefer to stay."
  

Who better than a crowd like ours to name the essence of this land, its promise, its potential. What are your six words? I submitted these:

• "Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness."
  
• "Founded on the concept of freedom."
  
• "Best and last hope of humanity."

Sticking up for the 'Semper Fi' Act

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

A signatory of the "Boycott Berkeley" petition from Ohio sent letters to his congressional delegation expressing his desire that they support the "Semper Fi Act of 2008." This federal legislation introduced by Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) would strip the City of Berkeley and its residents of any hidden congressional earmarks that they currently receive and transfers that money to the Marines. In reply, this signatory received the following e-mail message from the office of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio):

Dear [Edited for Privacy]:

Thank you for expressing your views regarding comments made by the City Council of Berkeley, California. I appreciate your advocacy for our troops. Their brave service must be supported, appreciated, and honored.

Like you, I was disturbed by the City Council's ill-considered comments; however, stripping federal funding from the city would hurt residents who were not party to those comments and set a precedent inconsistent with the constitutional right to free speech.

In case it is useful to you, I have included the contact information for the City Council of Berkeley. Expressing your views on their comments is an act of civic responsibility that affirms the significance of the free speech rights protected by the first amendment, and I appreciated that you took the time to share your thoughts with me.

Thank you again for contacting me.

Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown

Needless to say, I reject the Senator's assessment of the situation in Berkeley and his arguments against the Semper Fi Act. Having a government body give preferential treatment to a private protest group's efforts to barricade a federal office is not free speech. In this case, it is a deliberate act aimed at thwarting a legitimate, non-political government body in performing its well-established mission and it plainly violates the constitution. If different levels of government do not agree, it is an issue for the courts, not the streets.

By Senator Brown's logic (or his staffer's, we all know they don't actually write these things), if the Washington, DC City Council decides that its no longer "business as usual" for the Congress and gives a protest group a free permit to block the city streets leading to the U.S. Capitol, that is allegedly protected speech and it doesn't offend the constitution.

Furthermore, this view that striping Berkeley of its earmarks is somehow cruel to the sea of poor innocents is show's a complete lack of understanding for what is at stake here. This position absolves the people of any responsibility for the actions of their government (a government that I might add is more or less acting in rebellion against the Congressional power to raise an army).

In reality, the Berkeley City Council was elected by the people of Berkeley and this Council has a consistent pattern of engaging in these kinds of shenanigans. If the Council chooses to persist with these acts, the nation has every right to punish the residents of the city for it until such time as their government elects to respect the offices of our federal union. Not only is the "Semper Fi Act" just, the situation is egregious enough to fully demand it.

Amazing!

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

And the Berkeley City police are neutral?!

A Motto for America

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

At the Freakonomics blog, Stephen Dubner challenges readers to compose a six word national motto for the United States [Hat tip: LGF]. Given that this is a New York Times blog, the vast majority of submissions have been resoundingly negative and snide. I say to hell with that. Since I actually love my country and its harvest of virtues, I opt for a resounding affirmative and aspirational motto. Here is my submission:

"In Independence We Find Our Strength"

What would your motto for America be?

How the World was Wired

By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

If you’ve heard about the recent submarine cable outages, you might enjoy reading this fascinating 1996 article by science fiction genius Neal Stephenson on the first world-spanning fiber-optic network.  It includes some background on the brilliant and daring 19th century inventors and entrepreneurs who created the first world-spanning communications networks.  I’ve been reading it for the last nine hours, but I’m still not done because of all the historical and future (for 1996) places, technologies, and events it describes.

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Why Boycotting Berkeley is Important

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Last night, I watched the video of the January 29th meeting of the Berkeley City Council where resolutions were passed telling the Marines that they are "unwanted and uninvited guests" with in city limits and applauding those who work to disrupt the Marines from their mission. As I watched the video, I was struck by the brazen irrationality of a Council where pet ideologies are allowed to take center stage and where the publicity-seeking of a few malcontents is allowed to parade as the informed opinion of an entire community.

For example, according to Berkeley City Councilmember Maxwell Anderson, the Marines are little more than "the President's own gangsters" with a shameful history of "naked aggression." This man, who by his own proud admission was thrown out the Marines in the 1960s, called Marine recruiters "liars" who entice our youth to become racist killers. As judged by the fact that Berkeley City Council's passed his resolutions, the majority of the City Council shares Anderson's opinion.

If Councilmember Anderson and his fellow council-members were private citizens, one would care little what they have to say; their absurd ravings can be easily dismissed on their face. But these are not private citizens; they are members of a legislative body that by duty represents all the citizens of their community. These are individuals who have been given a special moral and legislative mandate; a mandate that they have chosen to hijack for their own benighted purposes.

Now as I point out in the online petition I drafted calling for an economic boycott of Berkeley and the suspension of all federal and state payments to the city, the City Council's wrath is grossly misdirected. Even if one chooses to oppose the current war, one must acknowledge that the Marines are not a policy-making body; their efforts are completely guided by the President and the Congress. To attack the Marines is grossly unfair; it essentially demands that the Marines ignore the very Constitution that they pledged their lives to defend.

In fact, the irony of the City Council's anti-Marine resolutions is that if one were to take their spirit completely to heart, one would have to advocate the mutiny of the Marine Corps; even if various hippies, beatniks and other gray-haired relics of the '60s that reside in Berkeley deny it, their can be no other real conclusion. The City Council has declared that at least in principle, it rejects the federal union.

My question then is just who are these individuals to think that the rest of us need them or are under any obligation to tolerate their ridiculous antics? Why should any part of our lives go to support the representatives of a city who hold that our Marines are racist murderers, and that the federal Constitution should be brazenly usurped, and that a local government has any mandate to involve itself in national affairs?

After all, the anti-Marine resolutions are the product of a Berkeley "Peace and Justice" commission; a commission that exists to deliberately involve the city in ideological issues that are utterly un-germane to the management of the city. Why should the rest of us subsidize it (or the citizens who vote to make it possible) though our tax dollars?

I thought that it was telling when it was reported that one of the recipients of federal spending in Berkeley went apoplectic when it was announced that U.S. Senator Jim DeMint would seek to cut Berkeley's federal earmarks. According to the Oakland Tribune, Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for Berkeley Unified, DeMint's threat to pull $87,000 earmarked for her nutrition education program is "shameful."

"For somebody in the government, an elected official, to take away a program that's not only helping kids in Berkeley but is a model for kids across America, is just a travesty," Cooper said.

I say Cooper's rage is wholly misdirected. She should look no further than her city's leaders for someone to blame for the threat to her pork-money (money that I might add neither she nor anyone else in America has a right to receive). Her leaders feel no reticence in attacking the Marines, so I say it is high time those of us who love, honor and respect the Corps stand up and say that such a position comes a price. If the city of Berkeley will not have the Marines, its people should not expect any of the other accoutrements that come with living within our union.

In the broadest sense, the outcry against Berkeley City Council's actions is not about the war (or even about the Marines). It is about what life in a constitutional republic should be, and which leaders are responsible for what actions. As a local government, the Berkeley City Government has grossly overreached its legitimate mandate and it has done so in an obnoxious and offensive way.

In the name of justice, it's time to expose this for what it is: treason against the Republic itself.

After all, it would be cheaper if you were dead . . .

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

At ReasonPharm, they are drawing out the inevitable conclusion about the Dutch government's recent study that concluded that obese people cost government-funded healthcare schemes less money because they die younger. As ReasonPharm observes:

Nobody, including Pieter van Baal (quoted in the article as saying "We are not recommending that governments stop trying to prevent obesity") wants to say it out loud, but these findings beg the question: Wouldn't it be cheaper if we all died young, before the expense of being old comes on? Wouldn't it be better for government bureaucrats if everyone lived long enough to pay plenty of income taxes, but not long enough to impose the costs of their age-related illnesses? Perhaps instead of banning trans fats and slapping warning labels on cigarettes, the government should be handing out free tobacco and chocolate cake.

Or Soylent Green, perhaps?

Meta-communication

By Dan Edge from The Edge of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

According to Wikipedia, Meta-communication is "communicating about communication." This is a valid concept, albeit perverted by modern linguistic theorists. Meta-communication is an indispensable tool for developing one's interpersonal relationships. It is important because people communicate on different levels, and one may not be aware of all the messages he is sending. The actual content of what one says is the obvious form of communication, but there are others: the context in which one says something, the tone and volume of his voice, the look in his eyes, and other body language, to name a few. Meta-communication can help one ensure that his messages are consistent. It can also help him better understand the messages sent by others.

To illustrate the idea of multiples levels of communication: imagine that, in response to a proposed resolution to a problem, one's lover says, "that's fine." If one considers this response based solely on content, then he will think that his lover his happy with the proposed resolution. But what if the words are said at three times normal speaking volume, interrupting what one is saying, and delivered with a dirty look and a grimace? The message is clearly different. This sort of thing happens all the time.

In the above example, the lover is probably intentionally sending the message that "things are not fine." This is not always the case. One may be intending to send the message that "things are fine," but is unintentionally sending contradictory messages. For instance, using the same example, assume that one's lover is truly amenable to resolving the conflict. She says things are OK, and means it, but the words are still delivered with laser eyes and in a sharp tone. Though she does not intend it, she is communicating that things are both "fine" and "not-fine" at the same time.

When this sort of miscommunication occurs, people often respond to the message opposite of the one intended. If someone is communicating that things are both "OK" and "not-OK", then the net message is that a problem still exists. Couples can continue fighting, ad infinitum, without ever identifying the source of the miscommunication. That's where meta-communication comes in.

If one is confused about contradictory messages sent by his lover, the proper response is not to acknowledge one of those messages and ignore the other. One should ask his lover, "What are you trying to communicate?" (This question is so obvious and so helpful, I have no idea why people fail to use it regularly!) If she responds by identifying her intended message, then one has achieved two victories: 1) he understands what she was actually trying to communicate, and 2) he has identified a possible source of miscommunication, which he can then discuss with her. One can say something like, "when you communicate with me in this way, this is the message I get from you." In this way, two people can hammer out their immediate differences, and also learn to improve the way they communicate with each other in the future.

Meta-communication across the life of a relationship is an inductive process. Lovers must consistently maintain an awareness of how they send messages to one another, always looking out for ways to improve. There is no Form of Communication which one can use to translate his messages into the ideal format. There are many optional value judgments regarding the way two people communicate with each other. A distinctive form of communication can become a beautiful part of one's private world with his lover. But this only happens if one puts effort into communicating about communication.

--Dan Edge

Grim Tidings

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Republican delegate count as of this writing:

McCain 597

Romney 240

Huckabee 178

What does it mean?

The Republican coalition is cracking up. The party has always been a coalition of disparate factions united only in that they are not Democrats. (I think that is why many Republicans hope Hillary Clinton gets the nomination; they need Republican hatred of Clintons to unite the party. This is a sad state for the party to be in.)

I suspect there are many Republicans who look at the three leading contenders left and see no one that remotely represents them.

I'm waiting for the nominees in both parties to be chosen before I make up my mind for November -- but I'm leaning toward the Democrat now. I really believe neither of the Democrats left would do as much harm to America as any of the Republicans.

In the end, I believe most Republicans will vote for the Republican. They will be angered in October when the Democrats, with the help of their propaganda wing in the MSM, bring out their October surprises and fling mud at the Republican. They did it to Bruce Hershenson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bob Dole and George W. Bush, that I can think of. The left's love of character assassination began with Borking in the 1980's. I know that I have been most motivated in the past to vote Republican by my outrage at the injustice and dishonesty of Democrat smear tactics. Wanting to punish the Democrats and the liberal MSM has been a powerful motivating force for the GOP. People like Hugh Hewitt and Rush Limbaugh know this all too well, and they whip up Republican outrage to get angry voters to the ballot box. The attempt to anger voters will be especially intense this year, because, as I noted above, there is nothing to unite Republicans for our candidate; the only chance is to unite the party in fear and loathing of the Democrat. (I intend to ignore the outrage this year.)

Whoever is elected President, I expect things to get worse before they get better.

Incidentally, hatred of the enemy is also the best thing the Democrats have going for them, as shown by the stupidest line uttered last night, by Hillary Clinton:

I won't let anyone swift-boat this country's future.

Maybe it was her way of assuring her moonbat base that she is still as loony as they are.

Beyond Lip-Service

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

An article in the Christian Science Monitor discusses the meaning and possible future ramifications of the Huckabee candidacy and pretty well hits the nail on the head. In fact, except for not explicitly stating that Christianity is more compatible with socialism than with secular, American values, it makes many of the same points Objectivists have for years about the threat posed by the increased influence of religion on our culture:

Huckabee's supporters glimpse in him the archetype of the "new evangelical" -- a truer representative of the "compassionate conservatism" that Bush preached but never practiced. In fact, Huckabee's seemingly novel mix of moral conservatism and economic populism owes more to the 19th century than the 21st.

During the Second Great Awakening, revivalists such as Charles Finney led a national movement to transform the young republic on an expansive set of issues. Some of them -- abolition and women's rights, for instance -- would today be called "progressive"; others -- such as temperance or religious education -- come closer to what we think of as "conservative."

Those who accuse Huckabee of falling prey to "liberal values" betray an ignorance of evangelical history. By transcending the false division between "moral values" and "social justice," Huckabee actually represents a return to a more broad-based and less ideological brand of evangelical politics, one that [predates] the modern split between liberals and fundamentalists that became so pronounced during the later 20th century.

Perhaps the reason that Huckabee has struck fear in the hearts of so many Republicans and old-guard fundamentalists is less ideological than pragmatic. The evangelical groundswell that plucked Huckabee from obscurity during the Iowa caucuses demonstrated the viability of a Republican candidate who represents Evangelicals but who also believes that the state has a positive and necessary role to play in the lives of citizens, especially those whom Jesus called "the least of these." [bold added]

Huckabee's candidacy thus represents both a danger and an opportunity. Obviously, his candidacy (which is hardly unique in adopting leftist positions) represents a "proof of concept" for the Democrats, who had already begun to pander to religious voters long ago. The opportunity it represents will be difficult to capitalize upon, as a recent historical parallel will indicate.

As the threat religion poses to personal freedom becomes more evident over time, it will be opposed by a coalition of interests much like the threat to economic freedom posed by socialists was, particularly after the failed Presidency of Jimmy Carter. In the short run, then, a full-tilt implementation of a religious political agenda will run into stiff opposition. But as anyone who remembers the "stagflation" of the Carter years (and the rise to power of the conservative coalition) can sadly attest, such ideologically inconsistent opposition is ultimately doomed to failure.

For example: What happened to dismantling the welfare state "brick by brick", as I recall one Republican figure saying as recently as 1994? The Republicans did not base their opposition to socialism on anything deeper than a sense-of-life, emotional level and when push came to shove -- that is, when the necessity of cutting social services conflicted with altruistic moral ideals -- socialism won because it was regarded as moral.

Then as now -- and always -- the practical results of bad philosophical ideas put into practice will go only so far in preventing people who still hold said ideas from putting them into practice, thereby eroding our freedom (and therefore endangering our lives). Our only chance is to take full advantage of whatever slowness there is in the destruction of freedom -- by working overtime to challenge on a fundamental level the bad ideas floating around in the culture and giving rise to the problem.

Specifically, until the intimate connection between faith and force and the necessity of the free exercise of reason to one's own life are commonly understood by the man on the street, our society will be especially vulnerable to the threat posed by people like Huckabee -- people who proudly admit that they have no basis whatsoever for the ideals they profess, and yet hope to use the apparatus of the state to implement these ideals.

-- CAV

Morality Play

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Once upon a time D. Party was an idealistic young girl married to her Shining Knight. They ruled Americatown with a benevolent dictatorship that was so good their regime was compared to Camelot.

D. Party's Shining Knight was assassinated and she fell on hard times. She lost the rule of Americatown to the evil Mr. Gop and his Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.

Many years passed and D. Party began to think that she would never have a Shining Knight again, and would never rule Americatown again.

Then a tall, dark, rakish man called Clinton Machine appeared. He was a gambler, a hustler and not the most honest man around. He proposed to D. Party, promising her that if she married him, they would regain their lost power in Americatown.

"All I need you to do is turn a few tricks for me," Clinton Machine promised.

"But then I would be a whore," D. Party responded.

"Better to be a whore in power than an honest woman scraping by here in the slums on the dark edge of town."

Clinton Machine whispered words of love and told D. Party he felt her pain and her heart melted. She could not resist this charming rogue.

D. Party agreed to betray her youthful idealism and married Clinton Machine and they defeated the evil Mr. Gop and his VRWC and ruled for many years.

One day the Shining Knight showed up at D. Party's door and asked her to marry him again.

"But -- you were killed so many years ago!" D. Party exclaimed. "It's not possible that you have returned."

Shining Knight explained that he had been shot and mistaken for dead. He spent decades with amnesia, but now his mind was back and he longed to return to the glory days of their benevolent dictatorship of Americatown.

Clinton Machine burst into the room.

"What the f**k you think you're doin', bitch?" Clinton Machine screamed as he slapped D. Party with the back of his hand to send her sprawling on the floor. Blood trickled down her cheek where Clinton Machine's diamond ring cut her.

"I say," Shining Knight objected, "that's no way to treat a lady."

"Lady!" Clinton Machine laughed, "She's a whore, moron! And she's my whore now and she always will be!"

"But you hit her."

"It depends on what the meaning of hit is. Let's call it a love tap."

Clinton Machine kicked Shining Knight out the door and began to work on regaining D. Party's favor. He whispered the words of love he knew she could never resist. His eyes filled with tears and he talked about how much she meant to him.

"Besides," Clinton Machine purred, "Can't you see that Shining Knight is a... negro?"

"That's racist," D. Party replied.

"It depends on what the meaning of racist is. I'm just pointing out that evil Mr. Gop will use racism against Shining Knight, so you might as well stay with me."

Before Clinton Machine left the room he turned back and said with compassion, "You should put some ice on that."

D. Party lay on her bed sobbing at the predicament she was in. She had always accepted Clinton Machine's brutal tactics against Mr. Gop and his VRWC. Mr. Gop was a bad man who deserved whatever smears and lies Clinton Machine told about him. But now Clinton Machine was smearing her Shining Knight, the great love of her youth. Now she felt dirtied and used. Now she just felt like a two-bit whore.

That night D. Party heard a noise on her balcony. She went out the french doors to discover Shining Knight. He had climbed the balcony to take her away with him.

"I know you're still good," Shining Knight assured her. "You still hold the ideals of your youth. Come with me and let us be pure again."

"I... I don't know," D. Party said, wavering between two options.

"You don't have to stay with Clinton Machine," Shining Knight said. "I offer you change you can believe in."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know, but it sounds like the old magic, doesn't it?"

D. Party thought about it. Then she raised her head and announced, "I will decide on Super Tuesday."

To Be Continued...

New Blog on Activism for Objectivism

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

An up-and-coming Objectivist intellectual from my OBloggers list recently created a blog specifically to discuss methods for effectively advocating Objectivism. It's password protected, so that discussions are private. I can give out the password, but I will do so only for Objectivists I know and trust. You must promise not to distribute the password except on those same terms. (As usual, friends and admirers of Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, David Kelley, Chris Sciabarra, and the like need not apply.)

The blog is Intellectual Activism. E-mail me for the password, if you're interested and if you think you qualify.

McCain vs. Freedom

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

What timing! At precisely the moment Republican voters need to be reminded of why John McCain is not an acceptable Presidential candidate, the reminding comes from McCain himself.

John McCain, sounding more like John Edwards than even Hillary or Obama have, attacked Mitt Romney -- for being a businessman!

The highlights from the debate:

I think that we’ve got to return to the principle that you don’t lend money that can’t pay it back. I think that there’s some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished.

****

HOOK: I want to start with Senator McCain.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the importance of leadership and management experience. What makes you more qualified than Mitt Romney, a successful CEO and businessman, to manage our economy?

MCCAIN: Because I know how to lead. I know how to lead.

I led the largest squadron in the United States Navy. And I did it out of patriotism, not for profit.

****

COOPER: I’m going to ask you all for follow-ups on this, but, Senator McCain, I just want to give you an opportunity to follow up on that. Is Governor Romney ready to be a military commander?

MCCAIN: Oh, I’m sure that, as I say, he’s a fine man. And I think he managed companies, and he bought, and he sold, and sometimes people lost their jobs. That’s the nature of that business.

Thank you, Senator. Neither Lenin nor Marx could have put their hatred of capitalists so succinctly.

This is one of those moments when I have to pause and count to 10. My loathing for John McCain has never been greater. In pitting patriotism against profit, McCain manages to insult both businessmen and patriots. He insults businessmen by implying the pursuit of profit is not noble. He insults patriots by implying they agree with him and are fighting and dying for socialism or something of the sort.

(The irony is that John McCain was part of the Keating Five, an exploit motivated by neither patriotism nor profit, but sheer corruption. Money gained by force or fraud is not profit, but stolen goods. Unlike Mitt Romney, John McCain has been on the receiving end of stolen goods.)

We have to remember that McCain is a "national greatness" conservative, like the people at the Weekly Standard. He believes in big, intrusive government, not to protect rights, but to guide the people in virtue. And virtue, in McCain's twisted mind, is bound up with collectivism and statism, with the individual sacrificing for the state.

So we have a man who, with Russ Feingold, used the First Amendment to the Constitution to wipe his ass. Rights, you see, are meaningless next to our noble government overseeing our virtue. The freedom of speech must give way to government control of speech in the name of virtue.

So we have a man who has opposed tax cuts and leads the way for enchaining our economy to fight global warming.

So we have a man who has advocated national service for young people and the need to "sacrifice for something greater than self-interest." (And because McCain is such a caring sort of chap, he'll make sure that every American has the opportunity to sacrifice to the state again and again and again.)

Really, once you throw out the concept of individual rights for state intervention -- for our own good, of course, always for our own good -- then anything goes. There is no sphere of life, no aspect of the economy, that McCain could not find justification to seize and control by the government.

John McCain would do more harm to America than either Clinton or Obama. Republicans in Congress would stifle the Democrat President every step of the way, but would stifle themselves under a McCain presidency. And Democrats in Congress would only complain about a President McCain that he has not gone far enough in destroying our freedoms.

It's up to Republican primary voters to stop this monster. If they fail, he will be the next President of the United States, because no Democrat can stop him in November.

Kemalism and the Future of the Middle East

By Scott Powell from Powell History Recommends,cross-posted by MetaBlog

A Great Background Story to the Modern Middle East

By swooptrooper from Powell History Recommends,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Heartland on VanDamme

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Via HBL, I have learned that the VanDamme Academy has been written up in a very positive article (alternate URL below) in School Reform News, a publication of the Heartland Institute.

The VanDamme Academy, a K-8 school in Laguna Hills, California, has an unusual way of giving students a better foundation of knowledge.

Founder Lisa VanDamme said the students learn incrementally, not moving forward in concepts until they've mastered the one at hand. Moreover, teachers encourage them to make connections within and between the subjects, and between school and life.

"[We're] teaching in a very deliberate, planned, incremental order that provides for real understanding on the part of the child," VanDamme said. "They're starting on the small, simple steps and building on it, so at each new stage, they thoroughly grasp the material."

Using a carefully planned curriculum, teachers help students build core knowledge and hone skills necessary for their future success, VanDamme said.

VanDamme developed her teaching method when she began as a homeschool teacher to an exceptionally gifted child about 11 years ago. She drew on the experience of highly educated friends and the educational philosophy of Ayn Rand to put together her curriculum.

...


VanDamme's curriculum advances students without putting them in the traditional K-8 grade classes, letting them progress in subjects as quickly as they learn them and constantly challenging each student, she said.

"A student's motivation is completely killed if he's not challenged to the level of his capacity," VanDamme said.

Of the 25 students who have graduated from the six-year-old academy since 2005, one-third had made their way partially through calculus before entering ninth grade.

"Nobody's pushing them or requiring them to do that," VanDamme noted. "These were kids who were chomping at the bit to accelerate in math, and we certainly gave them the opportunity to do that."

Other students are just as successful: One seventh-grader recently scored a perfect 800 on the writing portion of the SAT. VanDamme's first student, now in his early 20s, is in his fifth year of graduate studies in physics at Stanford University. [bold added]

Read the whole thing, and since the Heartland Institute's web site seems to be partially down this morning, here's an alternate URL.

It is very good to hear in such concrete terms how successful Lisa VanDamme has been as an educator, and encouraging that her methods are finally getting some major publicity.

-- CAV

Too Green, and not Gold Enough

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Steve Forbes should have called for a gold standard and shouldn't have plugged a green book, but he does at least mention gold and point the finger at the source of the blame for inflation:

The most potent, constructive medicine would be for the Bush Administration to stop its Jimmy Carter-like weakening of the dollar. A feeble dollar means inflation -- witness what's happened to commodity prices over the last four years, the most prominent being oil, which has almost quadrupled in price. This ain't a case of supply and demand. Four years ago an ounce of gold would buy you roughly 12 barrels of oil; an ounce today would get you roughly 10 barrels -- that's hardly a 300% real price increase. A weak dollar also brings about economic distortions, such as the (now disastrous) subprime mortgage orgy. President Bush should announce that we will defend the dollar and make it stronger. The Fed should announce that it will let the federal funds interest rate float, at the same time removing some of the excess money it created in 2004--05.

The bottom line: No strong economy has a weak currency. [bold added]

Read the whole thing.

-- CAV

The City of Berkeley Shuts Itself to the Marines

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In resolutions passed January 29, 2008, the City Council of Berkeley, California has declared that United States Marine Corps recruiters are "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" within city limits and applauds those who choose to "impede" the Marines in their recruiting mission. The justification presented by the Council for these obnoxious and misdirected resolutions is that the council objects to the Marines' role in Iraq, the laws forbidding open homosexuals from serving in the armed forces, and with the entirety of American history on the grounds that the United States has allegedly launched a series of "illegal, immoral and unprovoked wars of aggression."

Article I, Section VII of the Federal Constitution empowers the Congress with the responsibility to raise and support armies, while Article II, Section II empowers the President with the role of Commander-in-Chief. In contrast to these decision-makers, the role of the members of the Marine Corps is to prepare for and wage war as authorized by the Constitutional process. Unlike the President, the Congress, or the Berkeley City Council, the Marines are not a policy-making body.

For the Berkeley City Council to blame the Marines for the laws passed by Congress, or to condemn them because their members fight in a war that some choose to oppose is a grave miscarriage of justice. It implies that the Marines can choose which laws that they follow, or which wars that they fight in. It implies that the Marines are not beholden to the very Constitution that they swore to defend.

Furthermore, the Berkeley City Council's desire to prevent the Marines from speaking to young people about their mission within Berkeley's city limits while simultaneously giving anti-Marine protestors preferential treatment implies that the City Council is comfortable with its youth receiving information from only one side of the debate. This position insults both the Marines, many of whom are veterans of the current war and are able to provide a perspective interested people should be free to hear, and Berkeley's youth, who apparently are judged by the City Council to be too incompetent to form their own intelligent opinion about the armed forces and the responsibilities and risks that go with military service.

As a Marine veteran, I would like to voice my steadfast opposition to the Berkeley City Council's despicable actions. In protest, I simply refuse to conduct any business within Berkeley city limits, or patronize any company that has its headquarters within Berkeley. Furthermore, I call upon other veterans to join with me and demand that the U.S. Congress and the California State Legislature to suspend all federal and state payments that go to support any activity conducted by the Berkeley City Council until such time as the Council chooses to rescind its anti-Marine resolutions.

The Berkeley City Council has taken a position that puts them outside the constitutional union. They have targeted the innocent and have actively worked to keep their citizens ignorant of viewpoints that they have every right to hear. Until such time as the citizens of Berkeley elect to restrain their local leaders to their proper role, I simply choose not to deal with them or support their lives in any way.

Sign the Anti-Berkeley City Council Petition and Defend the Marines!

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I've created an online petition in defense of the Marines against the resolutions of the City Council of Berkeley which declare that United States Marine Corps recruiters are "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" within Berkeley city limits and applauds those who choose to "impede" the Marines in their recruiting mission.

If you support holding the City Council accountable for its resolutions, you pledge not to conduct any business within the Berkeley city limits or patronize any company which has its headquarters within Berkeley. Furthermore, you signal your desire that the U.S. Congress and the California State Legislature suspend all federal and state payments that support any activity conducted by the Berkeley City Council until such time as the Council chooses to rescind its anti-Marine resolutions.

To sign the petition, click here.

Lastly, these things work best when they go viral. If you support the petition enough to add your name, don't hesitate to share it with your friends.

Concern for Whales Should Not Stop Navy from Using Sonar (San Diego Union Tribune, Virginian-Pilot)

By David Holcberg from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Concern for Whales Should Not Stop Navy from Using Sonar
By David Holcberg (San Diego Union Tribune, January 8, 2008; The Virginian-Pilot, January 9, 2008)

Re "Judge bans Navy from using sonar off Southern California":

It's outrageous that our federal laws and judges place the well-being of whales above that of humans.

Even if, as alleged, the use of sonar "severely threatens the lives and health of marine mammals," no law should prevent the Navy from using this crucial military technology. The fundamental purpose of government in a free society is the protection of the individual rights of its citizens. If the Navy judges that sonar experiments off the coast of California might increase its ability to detect such potential military threats as hostile submarines, it should do these experiments. Our national defense and our very lives may depend on it.

This attack on our Navy's ability to defend us from foreign threats is yet another example of environmental laws being used to sacrifice our interests for the alleged "rights" of animals. Once again, environmentalists are showing whose side they are on, and it is not humanity's.

Religion vs. Morality

By Andy Bernstein from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

January 31, 2008

Religion vs. Morality

Who: Dr. Andrew Bernstein, professor of philosophy and speaker for the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk arguing for a secular, rational basis for morality. A Q&A will follow.

Where: Rice University, Sewall Hall, Room 309, Houston, TX

When: Thursday, February 7, 2008, at 7:30 pm

Description: Conventionally, most people believe that morality can only be based in religious faith that in a world without God no principles of right and wrong could exist. Related to this, philosophers have long held that no objective, fact-based, rational code of values is possible. 
Regarding both points, this talk shows that the exact opposite is true. The purpose of morality is to guide human life on earth and religion is utterly incapable of it. Flourishing life requires a code of secularism, rationality, egoism and freedom. Religious faith clashes with every principle of a proper moral code, and, as such, has led, and can only lead to, hell on earth.

Bio: Dr. Bernstein is a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Marist College; he also teaches at SUNY Purchase. Dr. Bernstein lectures regularly at American universities and appears frequently on radio talk shows. His op-eds have been published in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Times, The Los Angeles Daily News, and The Houston Chronicle. Dr. Bernstein is the author of three Ayn Rand titles for CliffsNotes: Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem. He also authored The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrand.org

###  ### ###

Tax Credits for Education (USA Today)

By David Holcberg from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Tax Credits for Education
By David Holcberg (USA Today, January 22, 2008)

If politicians are concerned with raising achievement among children enrolled in government schools, one important thing they could do is to give parents the option to enroll their children in a private school.

This could be done, for example, by giving parents tax credits to be spent on their children's education. The tax credits could be equivalent to what the government spends per student in its schools.

With tax credits in hand, parents would be able to shop around for the best private schools. They would be able to get their kids out of failing government schools and transfer them to schools they believe would give their children a much better education.

This freedom of choice would not guarantee a good education for their children--even private schools can do a poor job--but it would at least give parents control over their children's education and would also put pressure on government schools to improve the quality of the education they provide.

An Open Letter to America's Students--Will "Atlas Shrugged" Change Your Life Forever?

By C. Bradley Thompson from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

An Open Letter to America’s Students--Will "Atlas Shrugged" Change your Life Forever?

By C. Bradley Thompson

This letter is addressed to all young people who've read or are about to read Ayn Rand's epic novel, "Atlas Shrugged."

I've taught "Atlas Shrugged" for fifteen years during which time I've witnessed many remarkable things.  For example, some 95% of my students report that "Atlas Shrugged" is the best book they've ever read.  No book that I've taught comes remotely close to fostering a more robust exchange of ideas in the classroom.  My students typically come to class after pulling an all-nighter debating "Atlas" with their friends, and then they pepper me with dozens of questions.  Whether one agrees or disagrees with Ayn Rand's ideas, few could deny that this is what the college experience is supposed to be like.

During those few weeks each year when I teach "Atlas Shrugged," I've seen hundreds of students become intellectually engaged in ways they weren't before reading this extraordinary book.  The comment I hear most often from students goes something like this:  " 'Atlas Shrugged' sums up everything that I've always admired and believed but could never put into words."  Ayn Rand's novel speaks to many students' deepest values and aspirations:  it appeals to their sense of justice, integrity, honesty, and independence, and it appeals to their desire to live in a world where achievement and heroism are rewarded.

To enter the world of "Atlas Shrugged" is to experience a world radically different from today’s.  Many of you will find this world exhilarating, and it just might change your life forever. 

I know many other professors who teach "Atlas Shrugged," and their experiences with students mirror my own.  Sadly, though, some of your professors may react rather differently when they learn that you're reading "Atlas Shrugged."  They may condescendingly sneer and say something like this:  "Oh yes, "Atlas Shrugged" is for teenagers.  Don't worry, you'll get over it." 

Occasionally the reaction is worse. Over the years, I have personally witnessed both liberal and conservative professors become psychologically unbuttoned when they learned that students were reading Ayn Rand in my classes.  A few professors even attempted to bully my students to prevent them from discussing Rand's ideas.  Amusingly, one conservative colleague sent his students into my class to try and intimidate me, as young communists once did against their professors in Mao's China.

Why do these professors become viscerally angry at the mention of Ayn Rand's name?  Why do they slander and smear her without actually engaging her ideas? Clearly, there is something they fear in Rand's philosophy, something they don't want you to read.  What is it?

That many liberals fear the influence of Ayn Rand's ideas is not surprising.  "Atlas Shrugged" is, arguably, the most powerful critique of socialism ever written.  But why would a conservative professor fear the prospect that Rand might be taught in a college classroom?  Religious conservatives don't like Ayn Rand because she chose Athens over Jerusalem, reason over revelation, and pragmatic conservatives don't like her because she was a moral absolutist.  But there's usually something more that bothers conservatives. 

Ayn Rand believed that the United States was the most moral society in history, but she also believed that its founding principles had never been properly defended.  She therefore set out to secure America's basic values and principles--e.g., rugged individualism, limited government and capitalism. Unlike many conservatives, Rand didn't rely on faith, tradition, or folksy speeches to defend America.  Instead, she thought those principles philosophically demonstrable. 

The reason that some conservatives fear Ayn Rand is that, ultimately, they can't defend America philosophically. Conservatives don’t like the fact that Rand defends reason, objectivity, and certainty--and they won't; they don't like the fact that she defends rational self-interest, moral absolutism, and rationally grounded virtues--and they won't; they don’t like the fact that she defends individual rights and capitalism--and they won't.  Because they won't defend these philosophical principles, they can't defend America.  That is conservatism's dirty little secret.

Finally, these conservative professors hate Ayn Rand precisely because her novels appeal to the ideals of the young.  Like you, Rand took ideas seriously.  She said that it's critically important to live your life according to rationally demonstrable principles and that it's important to be moral not just in theory but also in practice.  Ayn Rand appeals to the young because her novels are full of productive heroes who accomplish great things against great odds.  It's good to be young and to care about ideas and moral principles.

If you are a high school or a college student reading "Atlas Shrugged" for the first time, I hope you will do just one thing:  Don't base your judgment of "Atlas Shrugged" on what your professors or I say or think positively or negatively.  Instead, ask yourself--repeatedly--one question as you read "Atlas Shrugged":  Are Ayn Rand's ideas true or not?  And there is only one person who can answer this question:  YOU!

C. Bradley Thompson is an Adjunct Fellow with the Ayn Rand Institute and Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. The Ayn Rand Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org

 

Scale on "Global Warming" graphs

By softwareNerd from Software Nerd,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Since graphs are visual, we tend to measure them visually at first glance. At first glance, "steep" means visually steep. Consider these two graphs of company profits. Visually, one appears to show stagnating profits, while the other appears to show growth. Yet, the facts depicted are absolutely identical. The only difference is the y-axis scale. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Many company annual reports have stuff like this.

When Al Gore present his "global warming" graph, it looks something like this. the upward slope is visually steep. That's the message Gore wants his audience to take home. However. we aren't illiterate, so we take a second look. What's the scale? Is it appropriate? There appears to be an upward trend, but how do we judge if it is significant?

An expert may have an involved answer, but how do I -- a lay-person -- go from first glance to second-glance?

Here is how I approach the notion of an appropriate scale as a layperson: I try to relate the information to some concrete of the same type, which is familiar. If I have a familiar concrete of the same type, and overlay this information over that, I can better relate the visual to reality. So, here is the lay-person attempt:

1. This is a graph of temperature, so let me consider some familiar climate/weather temperature. Let me choose a city in the middle of the U.S. Let's say, I choose temperature variations in Topeka, Kansas.
1a. Google finds information on Topeka's averages for each month.
1b. I convert to Centigrade (because that's what the "global warming" graph uses)
1c. I express the mean of all months as "0 C", and express others as Centigrade above or below. (This does not change the scale, simply the naming of the Y-axis, to make it similar to Gore-style charts.)


2. That was a single "average" year. Next, I ask myself what Topeka's temperature would look like if it had the same "average-year" type of temperature year after year. So, instead of 12 months on the x-axis, I pack in about 30 years. Since I did this manually, it's not exactly even. Still, I would expect the actual year-after-year variations to be far more uneven. So, this is a pretty good depiction of what Topeka's temperatures would look like over 30 years is it is are basically unchanging.

Eyeing the tops and the bottoms, we can see what an almost zero-trend would look like.




3. Now, use the "zero-trend" as a background and overlay the "global warming" graph onto it, bringing the scale of that graph down to match the scale of this one. Here is what we get:

Are you scared now?

Compared to our flat background, the "global warming" graph does show an upward trend, but imagine Gore presenting this graph to his audience. Would it have the same impact?

It is the same data, after all.

I do concede that I'm presenting this as a lay-person. Maybe an expert will explain why this graph that looks insignificant from a lay-person's viewpoint is really significant. That's fine. However, to present this as if it is obviously a steep and significant slope is to play the charlatan.

Look at this correctly scaled graph and add in the fact that some experts question the data and say that it really isn't even as "steep" as depicted. Pardon me if I'm skeptical!

The Fork in the Road from Political Limbo

By Edward Cline from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson, draft of the Kentucky Resolutions, October 1798

“Confidence” is nearly all we have heard now from the candidates for the presidency of both parties this year, coupled with vapid assertions of “experience,” “vision,” and the need for “change.” And the Constitution has been so adulterated with statist amendments and skewed by non-objective interpretations that its chains have less power to bind men from mischief than Styrofoam. To the statists whose ambitions compel them to “lead” and to mold America into a nation of sacrificing toilers and tax cows, the Constitution is a paper dragon.

The “mischief” Thomas Jefferson unequivocally condemned was the passage by Congress in the summer of that year of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Reading the Kentucky Resolutions in protest of those Acts, together with the more mildly worded Virginia Resolutions, penned by James Madison (and revised by Jefferson) and passed in the same year, one will be struck by intriguingly eerie parallels between their time and ours.

Let us examine these parallels.

In 1798, the United States was on the brink of war with its former ally, France. This was not the same France that had aided the nation in its struggle for independence from Great Britain. Gone was the monarchy whose principal motive for an alliance with the new nation was vengeance against Britain for having evicted France from North America in the French and Indian War. The French Revolution had replaced it with a “republic” that was more dictatorship than republic, sustaining itself in a welter of blood during the Reign of Terror and proving itself to be as belligerent as any Continental monarchy. At war with Britain, France, stung by the admittedly pro-British Jay Treaty of 1794 and treating it as a repudiation of the French-American treaty of 1778, refused to recognize the new American ambassador and began seizing American merchant ships thought to be trading with her enemies.

These seizures so outraged the reigning Federalists and other political elements that President John Adams sent a delegation to France to negotiate a new treaty that would obviate the possibility of war. Instead of being cordially received by the French government, the delegation was accosted by three anonymous agents (X, Y, and Z) who demanded a $240,000 bribe and the guarantee of a $10 million loan to France for the chance to speak with the foreign minister, Charles-Maurice de Tallyrand.

The diplomatic dispatches that detailed the insult were published in the U.S. and ignited popular anger against France. In May of 1797 President John Adams called a special session of Congress, cited the refusal to recognize the American ambassador and the XYZ affair, and not quite asked Congress for a declaration of war with France. Congress voted funds to enlarge the Navy in anticipation of hostilities with France.

In the meantime, anti-French public anger rose to fever pitch, so much so that in 1798, the largely Federalist Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. There were four of them.

• The Alien Enemies Act empowered the government to deport aliens who came from a nation with which the U.S. was at war. At the time, there were approximately 20,000 French immigrants in the country, presumed to be pro-France and perceived by the Federalists as a potential source of armed rebellion. Also, there were thousands of Irish immigrants whom the Federalists presumed to be naturally anti-British and not happy about the Jay Treaty.
• The Alien Friends Act empowered the president, either on evidence or on mere suspicion, to deport any alien he deemed dangerous.
• The Naturalization Act changed the residency requirement for citizenship from five to fourteen years.
• The Sedition Act troubled then vice president Jefferson, Madison and others the most, for it virtually nullified the First Amendment to the Constitution, which established that Congress was prohibited from passing laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably to assemble.” This Act drew the especial attention of Jefferson and Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. In the interests of clarification, Section 2 of the Sedition Act is cited below:

“And be it further enacted, that if any person shall write, print, utter or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.”

“I may not write what I think,” wrote Jefferson. The Sedition Act was chiefly intended to silence the Republicans, whose party head was Jefferson himself, and most of whom had expressed sympathy with the French Revolution. Jefferson applauded the wars of “liberation” initiated by France. (Later in life he expressed reserved regret and disappointment that the French Revolution ended the way it did.) Until the crisis of 1798, Jefferson and Adams were close friends and political allies, but the Alien and Sedition Acts, and Jefferson’s principled opposition to them, worked to drive the men apart. For his part, Adams neither asked for nor encouraged the passage of the Acts, nor even initiated any action under them as the Acts gave him the power to do. But, as president, he signed them. Communication between him and Jefferson virtually ceased, not to be renewed for over a decade when both had retired from politics.

Some twenty-five men, mostly private citizens, editors and journalists, and even a Congressional representative, Matthew Lyon of Vermont, were charged and convicted under the Sedition Act. Lyon, a Republican, publicly excoriated Adams and the Federalists, and in October 1798 was indicted by a federal grand jury for encouraging sedition and bringing “the President and government of the United States into contempt.” He ran for reelection from his jail cell, and won.

All four Acts were allowed to expire in 1801 and 1802 under Jefferson’s first administration. Jefferson granted pardons to all persons convicted under the Acts, while Congress reimbursed them their fines with interest.

The undeclared war with France resulted in a few naval engagements between American and French vessels in 1798 and 1799, and even a rebellion in Pennsylvania against the federal property tax imposed by Congress to help pay for the undeclared war with France. Adams succeeded in ending hostilities with France in September 1800 when his envoys signed the Treaty of Mortontaine.

Jefferson’s draft of the Kentucky Resolutions is a document for freedom second only to his Declaration of Independence. Not as eloquent as the Declaration, its power lies in its hammering logic. It argues against the Alien and Sedition Acts from two distinct perspectives: general Constitutional principles, and states’ rights. Since Congress “being not a party, but merely the creature of the compact,” it had no leave to assume powers not expressly delegated to it by either the Constitution or the states that had ratified it. Therefore, the Acts were null and void. More importantly, Jefferson stressed the moral aspects of his opposition and projected the consequences of allowing the Acts to stand. Anyone, he wrote,

“…who may venture to reclaim the constitutional rights and liberties of the States and people, or who for other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious to the views, or marked by the suspicions of the President, or be thought dangerous to his or their election, or other interests, public or personal; that the friendless alien has indeed been selected as the safest subject of a first experiment, but the citizen will follow, or rather has followed…”

Jefferson urged Americans and state legislatures to make their opposition to the Acts known before the people resorted to violence, claiming that government indifference to the claims of redress would

“…necessarily drive these States into revolution and blood, and will furnish new calumnies against republican government, and new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron: that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism…it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions….”

In all eight Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson adumbrates the relationship between the states and the federal government, and reasons that since the Acts encroach upon the right of the states to self-government. “a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.”

“…Therefore this commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, to submit to undelegated, and consequently unlimited powers in no man, or body of men on earth: that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the General Government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy….”

No other states adopted similar resolutions, as Jefferson and Madison had hoped. But the authorship and publication of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions served to brand the Federalists and so enlighten most Americans that the Federalists (political ancestors of the Democrats), already divided over policy issues, were swept from office in the 1800 general election, resulting in Jefferson’s presidency. (Unfortunately, half a century later the Kentucky Resolutions were employed by secessionists to rationalize their states’ “rights” to perpetuate slavery; Jefferson, who opposed slavery, predicted that this unresolved issue would ultimately result in civil war.)

Now let us examine our own dilemma.

Our embassies and diplomatic personnel have been attacked for decades by Islamic jihadists who do not approve of our treaties or arrangements with Mideast governments. (Whether or not the U.S. ought to have amicable relations with those governments is a separate issue.)

On September 11, 2001, the U.S. was attacked on its own soil by agents of Islamic jihad supported, funded and encouraged by governments demonstrably hostile to the U.S.

President Bush, although identifying the “Axis of Evil” purportedly responsible for the attack, did not ask Congress for a declaration of war. Congress, however, has ever since voted funds to prosecute an undeclared war not against the responsible governments, but instead against their agents (Al Qada, the Taliban). (Can you imagine John Adams asking Congress for funds to retaliate, not against the French Directory, but exclusively against French naval vessels and their officers, and X, Y and Z? No? Then you have there a measure of the gulf between the epistemologies of the Founders and modern political leaders.)

The president and Congress instituted “defensive” measures as a means to prevent further attacks by the enemy in this undeclared war, such as Homeland Security, the Patriot and Protect America Acts, mandatory searches and seizures at airports and cargo ports, calls for national identification cards and a government database of records on all U.S citizens. There are more controls and invasions of rights now, when we are in a state of undeclared war, than when we were actually in a state of declared war in the 1940’s.

The Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold), a creature of Congress, and the Federal Election Commission, a creature of the Executive branch, are empowered to regulate freedom of speech as expressed in federal campaign contributions, and to punish infractions or violations of their own regulations, thus abridging the First Amendment.

Captured enemy combatants from Iraq and Afghanistan during this undeclared war have been incarcerated indefinitely. In times of declared war, such persons, if incarcerated on U.S. soil, have no right to the protection of civil law (such as legal counsel, trial by jury) since it is such law they were making war against. The U.S. did not try and convict every captured rank-and-file Japanese and German soldier in its POW camps here. They were sent home after the war. It was their military and political leaders who found themselves in the dock at the Nuremberg Trials.

José Padilla, an American citizen and convert to Islam, spent six years in civilian and military prisons before recently receiving a seventeen-year prison sentence for a mongrel collection of offenses, both national and civilian. Given the evidence against him (and John Walker Lynd, as well), he ought to have been tried for treason, but was not.

The nature of his conviction and sentencing was lost in the fog of an undeclared war. If we are not at war, after all, how could he be charged with treason, and working to destroy or cripple the government, and for an enemy that does and does not exist?

Immigration policies play as much a role now vis-à-vis national security as they did in 1798, when the Federalists feared the unregulated immigration of people they considered dangerous and susceptible to mob rule, while the Republicans welcomed open immigration and saw no jeopardy in it. Now it is the Democrats who favor unregulated immigration while the Republicans wish to control it.

Race also plays a role in the immigration issue, just as it did in 1798. This time the Democrats favor Mexicans, because as illiterate or semi-literate and unschooled as most of them are, they can be exploited as a massive voting block for politicians who favor the implementation of “free” health care and other “social services.” (The taxpayer-supported public healthcare infrastructure is as burdened with “free” care for uncounted Mexican illegals as Britain’s welfare state is burdened with subsidizing anti-British illegal or semi-legal Muslims.)

Curiously, neither Congress nor the free-immigration advocates have ever said a word about revising immigration policies to allow, for example, the unlimited entry of educated, literate, productive Europeans desperate to escape the spreading, omnivorous tyranny of the European Union. Is this a policy of selective racism?

What does this surreal march of events demonstrate?

That the U.S. is in a state of moral and political limbo.

We are at war, but not at war. At the cost of lives and billions of dollars, our troops are fighting individuals and gangs of armed thugs, not armies of the enemy. Not a finger has been lifted to punish or destroy the governments that sponsor terrorism or that were responsible for 9/11. Iran, Syria, North Korea, and even Pakistan remain intact. In the meantime, and not unrelated to foreign policy issues, our remaining liberties are being whittled away in a costly and futile effort to foil future attacks, forcing searched and frisked traveling Americans to pay the price for a dubious “defense” while the guilty parties overseas are left unmolested to continue their anti-American policies.

Censorship is sneaking in through the back door in the name of national security and multiculturalism. Congress quibbles over the terms of the Protect America Act, which at least would allow the intelligence agencies, providing they are run competently, to gain knowledge from overseas of further plots against the U.S. It is more than hypocritical that Congress postures as guardians of Americans’ privacy, but is always ready to stick it to them in taxes, earmarks, and entitlement programs.

All the candidates for the presidency, Republican and Democrat, repeatedly express their self-confidence to do a “good” job in “managing” the country’s economy and foreign policy, and ask voters to have confidence in them. Most of them, excepting Barack Obama, claim that their political experience is an asset. What experience is it that they are boasting of? Being adept in the behind-the-scenes machinations to turn the country socialist? Of being able to successfully promote the ends of special interests? Of pandering to venal segments of the electorate, such as assuring the baby boomer generation of their government “entitlements”?

9/11, which was Islam’s declaration of war on the U.S., may as well have never happened, to judge by the priorities of the presidential candidates, not to mention the behavior of politicians of both parties over the last seven years. The Democrats don’t wish it to have happened; ergo, it never happened, and we must pull our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and pretend there is no enemy. And the Republicans don’t know how to fight an enemy they acknowledge exists, except to muck up their obligation to defeat him by lowering the standard of victory, which is a working commode in every Iraqi home.

People are falling for Senator Obama, who to date has said absolutely nothing substantive about his White House policies. But his endorsement by Senator Ted Kennedy should be a tip-off about what policies he would adopt. Kennedy wants to establish universal, mandatory, comprehensive health care, and for all Americans to “do something for their country.” If Obama is as fresh and hopeful as he and his supporters claim he is, the last thing he would want is an endorsement from the embodiment of malicious evil, that aging, older generation icon of complacent corruption, Ted Kennedy. That he welcomed the endorsement, revealed that Kennedy has been his Senate mentor, and did not deny that Kennedy’s goals are his own, ought to warn people about Obama’s character and intentions.

His unstated goals are also the goals of power-hungry Hillary Clinton, for whom touchy-feely collectivism “takes a village,” and also a nightstick-happy cop. All she, Obama and their rival candidates are asking for is one’s “confidence.” What all of them deserve is a vote of “no confidence.”

What can explain the unreality of the American political scene is that it is the climax of decades-old pragmatism, ingrained moral relativism that allows a policy of evasion and obfuscation on principle, and the mutual altruist/collectivist ends of the major political parties. What Ayn Rand called the “cult of moral grayness” is the ideal ambience of statists, in which things can be A and non-A, either simultaneously or by switching back and forth, depending on the expediency of the moment.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines limbo as a condition of neglect or oblivion. In a religious sense, it is also a transit point between heaven and hell. A political leadership that adopts such a policy leaves the country in a moral limbo, in which nothing is resolved or can be resolved. But a nation cannot remain in stasis for long. It must move.

Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others of their time refused to allow the nation to inure itself to the limbo of semi-tyranny sired by the Alien and Sedition Acts, and took action. Jefferson wrote what he thought. It made a difference. Ideas matter.

Hard as one might search today, one cannot see a Jefferson towering above the Lilliputians who pass for the nation’s moral and political leadership. But there are only two directions for the nation to take now: to the heaven on earth of freedom, or to the hell on earth of tyranny. Will Americans demand that their political leadership be bound by the Constitution, or will they allow themselves to be bound by collectivism? Will they place their confidence in the efficacy of the principles of freedom on which this country was founded, or in the despot who promises them thoughtless security?