The 21st Century Comprachicos

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Those of have read Ayn Rand's essay, "The Comprachicos" know that the title refers to a barbaric group of nomads in the 17th century that used to specialize in the deliberate mutilation of children's bodies. Rand goes on to argue that the crippling of a child's mind via progressive education is the 20th century version of this practice.

Well, in the 21st century, the comprachicos have returned to crippling the body. According to this recent report on the genetic testing practices in US IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics,

Some prospective parents have sought [preimplantation genetic diagnosis] to select an embryo for the presence of a particular disease or disability, such as deafness, in order that the child would share that characteristic with the parents. Three percent of IVF-PGD clinics report having provided PGD to couples who seek to use PGD in this manner. (Page 5 of the report, page 7 of the PDF file.)

Now I can understand why prospective parents might choose to screen their embryos so that their future child won't have a certain crippling disease. But to deliberately select an embryo so that it will seems incomprehensibly monstrous.

Or as this Slate article puts it, "Old fear: designer babies. New fear: deformer babies."

The Great Evacuation of '05 -- Part III

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

PRIVATIZATION OF COMPANIES IN SWEDEN

By Martin Lindeskog from EGO,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I really hope that we are "at the crossroads" in Sweden and we are ready start to privatize state owned businesses in the near future. Will the Alliance learn from the history and other countries? We could look at Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe as how to get the business climate "flying high"... So, which companies are on the list? Here is an excerpt from the article, Sweden's shift to right points to privatisation.

There won'Â’t be definitive list of privatisations until long after the party's officials have taken their places in the ministries at the start of next month. But local bankers see the mortgage provider SBAB, real estate firm Vasakronan, and drinks manufacturer Vin & Spirit (which makes Absolut Vodka) as first in line. (TheBusinessOnline.com, 09/24/06.)

Could we have an Absolut vodka with Pernod / licorice flavor in the near future? Maybe it is time to celebrate with a HOT AND SPICY PICK ME UP DRINK?

Related: My post, REFLECTIONS ON THE SWEDISH ELECTION.

Christianity

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I recently received the following e-mail. I don't have time to answer it in any kind of detail. However, I thought some NoodleFoodleDoodlers (i.e. commenters) might be interested in doing so. As for my sketchy reply, suffice it to say that I certainly don't reject Christianity on the basis of anything so specific as Calvinism. I find the ideas in the New Testament utterly repugnant all by themselves. More generally, the demand for faith in the supernatural found in all religions is not just unnecessary to understand the world, but outright antithetical to reason.

Here's the letter. I've told its author to check the comments.

Dear Diana,

You have my apologies in advance if any part of this letter offends you in any way as such would never be my intention. You must forgive me if I have overstepped any boundaries in this, but I recently came across a web page about original sin, specifically referring to John Calvin, and it seemed that this particular doctrine solidified your resolve in that you do not think that Christianity is a religion that loves humanity.

Strangely enough, I have been doing much research on the concept of election and this is the reason I came across that particular page. If you are not familiar with the doctrine of election, it is a doctrine referring to the manner by which one is saved, or chosen, and so forth, and this definition is by no means conclusively definitive.

The first I feel it is imperative to alert you of is this. John Calvin's view of election does not represent Christianity as a whole. While it is true that there are some staunch reformed theologians that hold to this no matter what, not very many people take this view of election. I am one of them and I am particularly saddened to see that it seems to have to done to you what most of its opponents are afraid it would do.

This concept of election, by which you have judged all of Christendom, I find to be biblically inaccurate, as do many theologians across the globe. I won't bore you with the details and alternative viewpoints on this, but I do have a request of you. This same page mentioned that you were raised an atheist. I wasn't raised much of anything and only became a Christian later in life, of my own accord, and always find it strange to see Christians that seem to forget who they are. My point is, if you were raised an atheist, I would like to know why you held to this belief, why you rejected any of the major religions, and so forth. In other words, why do you believe you are right? I should inform you that I would expect an answer far more elaborate that just John Calvin's veritable infanticide. I ask completely unbiased, so please, if you see fit to answer, please respond in like manner.

The reason I ask is because I have never found an atheist that has been able to defend such a position logically, and I would venture to say that I have done a great deal of looking. Ninety percent of all of them eventually just storm off and get mad when philosophically cornered and eventually just fall back on an 'I just can't believe' attitude. The rest fail to understand the flaws in their own argument. If one can't believe, then it logically follows that there is a reason; a quantitative as well as qualitative reason. I am merely looking for these, what have been to me, very elusive antecedents. If you can, please heed my request or feel free to forward this request to a friend or colleague, or anyone at all, that wishes to voice their opinion on this matter and can defend this position logically.

Furthermore, I did notice that this page was made quite a number of years ago. If such a late response proves inconvenient, you have my apologies for this as well.

-Daniel Marcus Manifestation

Comments?

Some Assembly Required

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The release party for the new CD on which Greg Perkins plays sax is tomorrow! Here's the relevant bits of the e-mail announcement he sent out a few days ago.

Hey, guys -- Kevin Kirk & Onomatopoeia are delighted to finally announce that our new Some Assembly Required CD is available! You can listen to a CD "trailer" I put together (4M MP3), check out the full CD artwork, and order the CD online.

To celebrate its arrival, we are throwing a free CD Release Party! September 24, Starting at 3:00pm at the Esther Simplot Performing Arts Academy, the band will be hosting a mixer for sponsors, supporters, and fans -- and we will be performing material from the CD there in a more intimate, acoustic setting.

What: FREE "Some Assembly Required" CD Release Party
When: September 24, 3:00-4:30pm
Where: Esther Simplot Performing Arts Academy, 516 S. 9th, Boise
Details: Drinks and appetizers available, more info at www.kevinkirk.net

I'm hoping that I can buy a CD from Greg at the upcoming conference on the Middle East in Boston in October. That's a good bet, since Greg is an accomodating guy who will be attending the conference.

I Laughed, I Cried, It Changed My Life!

By Greg from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Craig Biddle, editor of The Objective Standard, sent out this announcement:

The print version of the Fall issue of TOS has been mailed, and the online version has been posted to our website. The contents are:

From the Editor

Letters and RepliesThe Decline and Fall of American Conservatism by C. Bradley Thompson

19th-Century French Painting and Philosophy by Dianne Durante

The Jihad on America by Elan Journo

For promotional purposes, the online version of "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism" is accessible to all.

If you've not yet subscribed to TOS, now is the time to act. While supplies last, you can still begin your subscription with the inaugural issue. Subscribe today and we'll mail the first three issues to you right away.

Remembering rave reviews of C. Bradley Thompson's lecture at the last OCON, I was eager to see what he would say in his TOS article, "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism." I read it just now. Wow.

Wait, let me try that again: freakin' wow!

It is eye-opening and jaw-dropping, a stunning analysis that gathers up the oddities we have been seeing in the rise of the Republicans, explains them with some wonderful philosophical detective work, and frames it all in terms of fundamental principles having life and death importance to us all. C. Bradley Thompson brings the goods, and I now understand the cryptic, stammered, rave reviews of his lecture -- along the lines of, "It was amazing: I kept thinking it couldn't get any worse, and then he would reveal a whole new level of badness!" But don't take my word for it: go see for yourself.

If this doesn't cement TOS's place on the map, I don't know what will. Thanks and kudos, guys!

Update from Diana: Brad Thompson will be speaking in Boulder on October 5th and in Denver (Arvada) on October 7th. Both talks will be on education. For more information, see this page and/or e-mail Lin Zinser.

Katrina Update

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

Via Glenn Reynolds is an LA Times article that does a pretty good job, for the most part, of summarizing the current status of the looting and shooting pursuant to Hurricane Katrina -- which has been with us here in the months since the refugees were sent to live in apartment complexes across town. The article takes as its point of departure a gun shop commercial I was unaware of since I rarely listen to the radio.

"When the 'Katricians' themselves are quoted as saying the crime rate is gonna go up if they don't get more free rent, then it's time to get your concealed-handgun license," warns the radio ad by Jim Pruett, who co-hosts a bombastic talk-radio show and owns Jim Pruett's Guns & Ammo, a self-styled "anti-terrorist headquarters" that sells knives, shotguns, semi-automatic rifles and other weapons. As Pruett describes the dangers posed by "Katricians," glass can be heard shattering, and a bell tolling ominously.

The radio spot highlights what many gun-store owners say is a hot trend in Houston: trade in weapons amid a surge in the homicide rate that police attribute to the more than 100,000 hurricane evacuees still in the city. Though the gun sale reports are largely anecdotal, Texas officials said applications for concealed-weapons permits were up statewide: 60,328 from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1 this year, compared with 46,298 for the same period last year.

The Houston Police Department estimates that one in five homicides in the city now involves Katrina evacuees -- as suspect, victim or both. Many Houston residents, including some evacuees, are worried that crime will only get worse once housing and other public assistance end.

My regular readers will, of course, have already read about this crime problem (roundup at end of "crime" link). On that score, little has changed since January.

But the LA Times fails in attempting to sensationalize this genuine problem, by making residents of Houston -- the city with the best race relations I have ever lived in -- sound like a bunch of rednecks gittin' likkered-up fer a lynchin':

Hurricane evacuees and the nonprofit groups that have been helping them rebuild their lives are saddened by what they see as a growing tendency in Texas to stereotype the predominantly African American newcomers as hoodlums, based on the crimes of a few.

This insinuation of racism is preposterous. For one thing, the snooty left-coasters at the LA Times know not that they speak of a city that survived desegregation in the sixties without race riots! If they want to examine a city with a history of dysfunctional race relations, they could check their own back yard.

On top of that, the black New Orleanians stand out from the local black populace in their manner of speech, dress, and grooming. We could just about have dispensed with the wristbands when the refugees showed up at the Astrodome here in Houston. If black New Orleanians are in fact being stereotyped, it needn't be racial and, in this cosmopolitan city, it isn't. It is cultural. And apparently, one of the aspects of this culture is that it breeds crime.

I recently overheard two black women in Wal-Mart discussing a man one of them went out with recently. She was not impressed. In fact she underscored her disappointment by using the word "refugee" disparagingly to describe him. And if that isn't enough of an indication that Houstonians have other problems than race with some of the Katrina evacuees, perhaps the LA Times would instead prefer to listen to what our native criminal element thinks of Katrina refugees. (After all, the women in Wal-Mart had to have been selling out to say anything bad about another black person.) In our local prisons, the question, "Are you from New Orleans?" is considered an insult since the criminal element from the Big Easy has a reputation for being senselessly violent -- even among criminals!

I grew up in Mississippi, a race-conscious place if ever there was one. I also moved around the country quite a bit when I served in the Navy. I have never lived in a place so color-blind as Houston. I love it here. Everyone out here is just a human being trying to make his way through life. In fact, when the Katrina refugees first arrived in Houston and flooded the grocery store where I normally shop, I realized two things: (1) They were black (and had huge chips on their shoulders). (2) It was the first time in years that I really gave any thought to anyone's race. (I've lived here over a decade.) I have since come to appreciate something I used to take for granted about Houston: I don't have to think about race all the time like I used to when I was a kid. It's easy to take that for granted because it's natural and it is the way things should be.

But other than that cheap shot, the LA Times got the two main points right: (1) Many Katrina evacuees have distinguished themselves as ingrates. (2) We will not take criminal behavior sitting down here in Houston. I have a crazy feeling that the only refugees who have the time to be "offended" by the stereotype of laziness and criminality are the ones who deserve it. And to them, all I can say is, "If the shoe fits, wear it." To the rest, I agree with the man quoted in the article who said, "The people who are here and have gotten jobs, that's a wonderful thing. They're Houstonians now."

And, uh -- oh yeah. Whatever you do, please don't take Kinky Friedman as representative of this city or this state. He's a counterfeit cowboy that the broad-minded liberals think will get elected because he acts like their notion of a stereotypical Texan.

-- CAV

Another (not so) great moment in democracy

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

Dutch justice minister Piet Hein Donner is what one can call a slavish democrat. He believes in the will of the majority—so deeply in fact that he concedes the majority's right to force you to live under a wholly irrational, totalitarian code.

Donner strongly disagrees with a recent plea by CDA parliamentary leader Maxime Verhagen for a ban on parties seeking to launch Sharia (Islamic law) in the Netherlands. "For me it is clear: if two-thirds of the Dutch population should want to introduce the Sharia tomorrow, then the possibility should exist," according to Donner. "It would be a disgrace to say: 'That is not allowed!'."

What Donner doesn't allow is the principle of individual rights, yet despite the outrage over this story, his position is hardly shocking. Lots of people ascribe omniscience to the majority. Hey, it's a group—they voted. Time to meet your new overlords. After all, 50 million Sharia advocates couldn't possibly be wrong.

Opposition to birth control is an assault on the pursuit of happiness

The Conservatives' War on Birth Control
By Keith Lockitch

Religious conservatives are increasingly opposing birth control. The Bush administration has shifted funding from sex education endorsing condoms to programs preaching "abstinence only." And Bush F.D.A. appointees spent three years blocking nonprescription use of the "morning after" pill, despite overwhelming evidence of its safety. Shockingly, there has been an increasing number of Christian pharmacists refusing to fill contraceptive prescriptions--in some cases even for ordinary birth control pills for married women. What is behind this disturbing hostility to reproductive freedom?

Religious conservatives insist that their growing opposition to contraception is not the product of some sort of puritan, anti-sex agenda. What they are concerned about, they claim, is irresponsible sexual indulgence. They decry what they see as a culture of mindless promiscuity spawned by the advent of effective and easily available birth control.

But blaming birth control for the irresponsible actions of those who misuse it is like blaming Sudafed for crystal meth addiction. Like any other technology, contraception is a tool that can be used rationally or abused--and used properly it enables people to be more responsible about sex. It is bizarre to crusade against irresponsible sexuality by crusading for the renunciation of responsibility: the conscious, deliberate rejection of rational family planning in favor of reproductive roulette. Clearly, there is something deeper underlying the growing antagonism to birth control.

It is significant that in opposing contraception, conservatives declare that sex must be inextricably tied to reproduction--that it is morally wrong to pursue sexual pleasure while deliberately preventing pregnancy. "To demand sexual pleasure without openness to children is to violate a sacred trust," writes Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. But this implies a certain hostility to sexual pleasure, as such: not its irrational, promiscuous pursuit, but the very act of enjoying sex as something separate from reproduction. What explains such hostility?

Consider that sexual desire is a response to personal values. For a rational person, it is not a desire for mindless, indiscriminate indulgence, but a feeling that results from the embodiment in one's lover of one's highest, most important values. For a couple in a serious, committed, romantic relationship, sex is a celebration of their love--an expression, in the form of intense physical pleasure, of the joy that each partner derives from the other.

But such joy is a selfish pleasure--a rationally selfish pleasure. It is a pleasure that people pursue for the sake of their own enjoyment and happiness, whether they choose to have children or not. And this, fundamentally, is what religious conservatives have against it.

Virtue, according to Christianity, consists of sacrificing one's desires and goals in the name of fulfilling one's duties to God. Sex, on this premise, is at best a necessary evil--a sinful act, justifiable only by the duty to procreate. To deliberately prevent pregnancy by using birth control is to assert one's right to enjoy sex purely for its own sake--not as a means to procreation, but purely as an end in itself. And this is what conservatives find unacceptable. What they object to is that a couple using birth control is placing their own, personal happiness above obedience to religion. They object to contraception not despite the fact that it removes the fear of unwanted pregnancy, but precisely because it removes that fear.

To proclaim categorically, as Mohler does, that "every marriage must be open to the gift of children" is to demand that a couple sacrifice their own dreams and long-range goals to an alleged duty to "be fruitful and multiply." Even a couple who wants to have children must, on this premise, do so out of submission to divine will--not because they value children as a source of personal joy. The rejection of birth control is the demand that couples surrender the power--crucial to their own happiness in life--of choosing when, or whether, to have children, and instead allow themselves to be reduced, by means of their healthy sexual desires, to the role of stock farm animals, breeding uncontrollably.

Though they claim their intention is not to condemn sexuality as such, but merely its indiscriminate pursuit, religious conservatives are in fact opposed to sexual happiness. They are opposed to the fact that sex is an exalted pleasure that people pursue as an end in itself. Their war on contraception is not a war against the alleged excesses of the "birth control revolution"--it is a declaration of war against the pursuit of happiness.

Keith Lockitch is a resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.

The Pathetic "Path to 9/11"

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

Watching ABC's "The Path to 9/11" on September 10th and 11th was a tortuous, grueling exercise in journalistic duty. I viewed it simply because former President Bill Clinton and many from his administration objected to it and raised the specter of censorship. ABC promoted it as a "dramatization" of the events leading up to the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon.

True, there is a difference between a "dramatization" and a "documentary." Many of Shakespeare's plays are imaginary "dramatizations" of the lives and actions of English kings. Doubtless, if Kings Richard, John, and the various Henrys had been alive to audit Shakespeare's plays, every one of them might have protested, "Hey! I never said that! I never did that! That's not how it happened!"

A documentary, on the other hand, should clearly recount the details and circumstances of a historical event, based on available evidence. The only value judgments the director of a documentary may make is whether or not a fact is true and contributes to an understanding of the event.

In her essay, "What is Romanticism?" from The Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand observed:

"...[H]aving rejected the element of plot and even of story, the Naturalists concentrated on the element of characterization - and psychological perceptiveness was the chief value that the best of them had to offer....[However], that value shrank and vanished; characterization was replaced with indiscriminate recording and buried under a catalogue of trivia, such as minute inventories of a character's apartment, clothing and meals. Naturalism lost the attempted universality of Shakespeare or Tolstoy, descending from metaphysics to photography with a rapidly shrinking lens directed at the range of the immediate moment - until the final remnants of Naturalism became a superficial, meaningless, "unserious" school that had nothing to say about human existence."

That essentially describes "The Path to 9/11": a shrunken, myopic lens focused on moment-by-moment actions and incidents, examining endless minutiae adding up to non-judgmental conclusions.

The protestations of Clinton, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke and others from that disgraceful regime are as irrelevant as the hypothetical objections of the English kings. They ought to feel flattered that they were even "dramatized." Absent any moral judgment of their actions in the ABC movie, they got off easy with a mere implication of improper behavior. If "Path" had any purpose or point at all, qua "dramatization" it should have been to illustrate the impeachability of their policies and actions.

On a literary level, "The Path to 9/11" is hardly Shakespearean. A good director and cast can bring alive the dullest of Shakespeare's plays. But director Cyrus Nowrasten's fudged, "non-partisan" recounting of the events leading up to 9/11 is a passionless yawner. In response to the Clinton gang's objections and reported threats of legal action for defamation of character, ABC apparently snipped and cut the original version here and there before the national broadcast of the movie. I suspect, however, that the original was just as jumbled and cobbled together as the end product, which was as flat, colorless and undramatic as "Survivor" or "This Old House" or any other "reality" program.

The Clinton gang, blinkered by their pragmatist outlook and policies, should not protest too much, for the altruist-pragmatist policies "dramatized" in "Path" also reflect those same policies as practiced by President George Bush's administration in his failing "war on terrorism." One could also cite Ronald Reagan's failure to properly respond to the murder of hundreds of American Marines in Lebanon by Hezbollah, and Jimmy Carter's failure to properly respond to the taking of American hostages from our embassy in Tehran. There is more than enough blame to go around when it comes to the politics of lying, betrayal and verisimilitude in our foreign policy.

The sequence of events in "Path" was strung tenuously and haphazardly along the thread of a story line about the actions of FBI agent John P. O'Neill, who, later as director of security for the World Trade Center, died in the South Tower when it collapsed. O'Neill was portrayed by Harvey Keitel; his was the only credible, non-anemic performance in the whole production.

One aspect of "Path" that I found distracting and annoying was the number of long scenes set in Afghanistan and other foreign locales. Most of the dialogue in them was in what I suppose was Urdu, or whatever language Afghans speak, with subtitles. Why the actors couldn't have delivered their lines in English, I cannot fathom. It was difficult enough to focus on the actors' expressions and actions without having to also quickly read the subtitles at the same time.

To compensate for the lack of coherence and drama, too many of those Afghanistan scenes were injected with the requisite "shoot 'em up" battles between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. This is the usual resort of a director who makes a movie in which nothing significant happens.

And then a question occurred to me: Why does the U.S. government find it so hard to find and recruit Arabic speakers to serve as translators and decoders of the various dialects for its military and civilian programs, but Hollywood doesn't?

Much worse - in fact, revolting -- was how the 9/11 hijackers and their handlers were portrayed in a neutral light. One would think that when proposing to spend $40 million on a movie, one would want to make a moral point about the villains. No such point was made. A writer or director of a "fictionalized" story must reveal his moral compass; he must express a conclusion about his subject.

Even Shakespeare communicated moral judgments of his kings in his dramatized "chronicles." Nowrasten's singular achievement is that he did not reveal a moral compass. Given the bland projection of the villains and the noncommittal portrayal of the "good guys," it is doubtful he had a moral point to express, or, if he had one, it was repressed. Personally, the actors who portrayed the hijackers and their mentors elicited no emotional response in me. I could just as well have been watching a dramatized exposé of a gang's plot to rob a series of 7/11 convenience stores.

Given the Naturalist character of "Path," that was to be expected. There was no point to its production or broadcast, moral or otherwise.

Watching "Path," I could not help but compare it with other historically based cinematic epics whose subjects were Arabs or jihadists, such as David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" and Basil Dearden's "Khartoum." Lean and Dearden's moral points are clear as a bell, making their films compelling and memorable, whether or not one agrees or disagrees with their points.

The worst thing about "Path," then, is that it deliberately failed to project the evil of our enemies. The only good thing one could say about the film is that it was an indirect, unintended indictment of the pragmatism and moral relativism that have governed this country's foreign policy for more than half a century.

One of the most memorable lines from Lean's "Lawrence" is an implicit rebuttal of the idea of predestination: "Nothing is written." Nowrasten's non-judgmental, non-evaluative signature line for "The Path to 9/11" is: "It just happened."

Who put the cowards in charge?

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

Unless you live under a rock, you know that the Taliban was directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks, for it deliberately gave Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda sanctuary for their Afghanistan terror training camps. It is in this light that this AP story indicates an appalling symbol of America's craven cowardice before its enemies.

The U.S. military acknowledged Wednesday that it considered bombing a group of more than 100 Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan but decided not to after determining they were on the grounds of a cemetery.

The decision came to light after an NBC News correspondent's blog carried a photograph of the insurgents. Defense department officials first tried to block further publication of the photo, then struggled to explain what it depicted.

NBC News claimed U.S. Army officers wanted to attack the ceremony with missiles carried by an unmanned Predator drone but were prevented under rules of battlefield engagement that bar attacks on cemeteries.

In a statement released Wednesday, the U.S. military in Afghanistan said the picture — a grainy black-and-white photo taken in July — was given to a journalist to show that Taliban insurgents were congregating in large groups. The statement said U.S. forces considered attacking.

"During the observation of the group over a significant period of time, it was determined that the group was located on the grounds of (the) cemetery and were likely conducting a funeral for Taliban insurgents killed in a coalition operation nearby earlier in the day," the statement said. "A decision was made not to strike this group of insurgents at that specific location and time."

While not giving a reason for the decision, the military concluded the statement saying that while Taliban forces have killed innocent civilians during a funeral, coalition forces "hold themselves to a higher moral and ethical standard than their enemies." [LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer]

A "higher moral and ethical standard"? By not killing our enemies when they are assembled as an easy target? This story is evidence of the degree that altruism has infected our nation's military and its willingness to wage war. Rather that exploit a prime opportunity to kill over 100 of the enemy in one fell swoop, our commanders would rather let the enemy escape and leave our solders to fight them another day and on less favorable terms. If one American gets so much as a hangnail as a result of this appalling failure to act, the blame for it rests solely upon the heads of American commanders.

War requires killing the enemy until he surrenders, and the best time to kill the enemy is when he least expects it. War requires moral certainty. It is not a "higher ethical standard" that makes our leaders value the lives of America’s enemies more than they value the lives of our men, it is a standard of pure and useless sacrifice. Such a pathetic ethic has no place in our military.

9/11: Do You Need A Pass Or Do You Use Your Mind?

By Andy from The Charlotte Capitalist (TM),cross-posted by MetaBlog

Slithering through the internet is the nasty snake of an idea that everyone gets a pass on not being able to see that something like 9/11 could or would occur. (Here is one from Instapundit. I have seen other other similar.) The pass is extended to all citizens and politicians including the Clinton Administration. The basis of the idea is that nobody could have foreseen that 2 plus 2 = 4. I am

Muslim Jihadist Denounces Leonard Peikoff

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Well, I must admit that I didn't expect Leonard Peikoff to get onto the opinion pages of the New York Times via an "[al] Qaeda intellectual." The opinion essay in question mostly consists of excerpts from Muslim "jihadi" web sites about the anniversary of September 11th. Here's the one relevant to Dr. Peikoff, with the op-ed writers' introduction in italics, then the translated commentary in plain text.

Hamid ibn Abdallah al-Ali is a Kuwaiti ideologue of jihadism -- the only Qaeda intellectual to have posted a text specifically for the Sept. 11 anniversary. The sheik cites an article by Leonard Peikoff, heir and executor to Ayn Rand, that appeared as an advertisement in The New York Times shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

In his article "End States that Sponsor Terrorism," Leonard Peikoff, one of the leading ideologues of American extremism, concluded that America's policy of appeasement toward the Muslim world led to Sept. 11. For 50 years, he writes, American administrations have relinquished their true ownership rights over Muslim oil resources, which they discovered and developed the technology to extract. The solution, according to Mr. Peikoff, is for the United States to eliminate the states that sponsor terrorism with the most lethal weapons at its disposal.

This is exactly the kind of rotten thinking that animates those living in the extreme west of the globe, from where they spread their rot to the rest of the world -- these politicians of underdevelopment, criminality and mass extermination of humanity. This is the arrogance of fascism, of which Bush has accused Muslims recently: in this case it is the fascism of the cross standing on the tribunes of oil. In short, it means that they own our oil that is in our land; they own our blood, which they can shed at will; they own our present and future, and they have the right to change our history and our education!...

Hunger, disease, thirst and regional wars instigated by poverty all stem from the greed of the West, its thirst for plunder and desire to control the world's wealth. These in turn lead to a rate of destruction every year that equals the destruction World War II effected over six years.

The mercenaries who dominate the World Trade Organization ... the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund ...the bloodsuckers of the world's poor, the immiserators of nations and the thieves, murderers, shedders of blood: these are the ones who control the international political system. They are the ones who spread their armies throughout the world, terrorizing and stealing the wealth of nations while enslaving them. They are the ones who are exterminating the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and other places. They are the ones who ally themselves to the despotic rulers in order to suck the blood of the people, using companies that are owned by the leaders of their countries and headed by murderers and criminals.

(Via Ray Niles.)

Update #1: Dr. Peikoff's article was also discussed at some length in this op-ed in an Egyptian weekly newspaper. Here's the key section:

When I was researching for this article, I looked for material that may help me identify any change that may have occurred in recent US foreign policy. I found an article written by Leonard Peikoff, founder of the Ayn Rand Institute. What caught my eye was not just the title of his article, "End States Who Sponsor Terrorism", but that it was published first 2 October 2001, right after 9/11 and immediately before the war on Afghanistan. The article was republished 9 September 2005, on the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. This says volumes about the vision of the US rightwing, and its persistence.

Peikoff believes that the appeasement policies pursued by successive US administrations towards the Islamic world are responsible for the latter's belligerence, which climaxed on 9/11. Fifty years ago, Truman and Eisenhower's abandonment of oil rights tempted the Muslim world to take its first stabs at freedom. The second stab came from Khomeini's Iran, where US diplomats were held hostage. President Carter, Peikoff goes on, wavered in his response, which encouraged the Muslim world to shed American blood. The first killers were Palestinians who hijacked planes in the late-1960s, before being joined by others eager to get in on the game, Peikoff argues.

Successive US administrations saw Muslim crimes as individual crimes that call for legal action against the perpetrators. But Peikoff proposes a more radical solution: the eradication of all countries that sponsor terror. The expression of "ending" countries that sponsor terror is not one that Peikoff invented. He borrowed it from Paul Wolfowitz, currently president of the World Bank. Only reluctantly does Peikoff agree with Donald Rumsfeld that nuclear bombs cannot be used. For Peikoff, Iran is the key source of terror. Not only does he call for the destruction of Iranian military power, but he also advises "the destruction of every branch in its government".

It would be inaccurate to claim that Peikoff's article encapsulates the current US administration. I understand that President Bush, in comparison with Peikoff, may look like Mother Theresa. Furthermore, the failure of US policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon has given rise to opposition within the ranks of the Republican Party. There is just a slim chance the US administration may learn from its mistakes, but I am not optimistic. This administration is so steeped in its own indoctrination, it is likely to remain as intransigent as ever.

The comment that Dr. Peikoff makes President Bush look like Mother Theresa is more accurate than the author realizes, I'm sure.

Update #2: Dr. Peikoff's article "End States that Sponsor Terrorism" can be found here.

History of Capitalism

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

From the Objectivism Academic Center of the Ayn Rand Institute:

OAC IS NOW ACCEPTING REGISTRATIONS TO AUDIT ITS "HISTORY OF CAPITALISM" COURSE

ARI's Objectivist Academic Center is currently accepting registrations from those interested in auditing its graduate-level course, HOC (History of Capitalism). The course, which begins this week, is offered via online recording and can be taken from anywhere in the world.

This two-semester course, taught by Dr. Eric Daniels, will explore political, intellectual, and legal developments that transformed the United States from a mostly capitalist nation to a mixed economy. By understanding these historical developments, students will learn to analyze the essential nature of government policies and assess their overall effect on a free economy.

For more information on auditing HOC, and the Objectivist Academic Center more generally (including a link to the registration form), please visit our auditing page or write to oac@aynrand.org.

I'm taking the course as part of my studies with OAC. Given the teacher, I have every reason to expect it to be excellent.

Wal-Mart: The Latest Salvo

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

"Universal" Health Care Is Immoral

Irvine, CA--"Governor Schwarzenegger should be commended for his commitment to veto the California Health Reliability Act, which seeks to eliminate private medical insurance and establish a state-run health insurance system in California," said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "But the basic issue is not, as the governor indicated, that the system would be too expensive. 'Universal' health care is immoral.

"Health care is not a right. The fact that someone cannot afford the latest medical test or treatment does not entitle him to force others to pay for it--just as he is not entitled to a free gym membership on the grounds it would improve his health.

"There is a crisis in health care, but its cause is government interference in the health care system. The solution is to leave doctors, patients and insurance companies free to deal with each other on whatever terms they choose--not to socialize American medicine."

If You Happen To Be In Wichita In September

By Andy from The Charlotte Capitalist (TM),cross-posted by MetaBlog

Ayn Rand was both a novelist and a screenwriter in 1940s Hollywood, and her work as both will be explored in a series of four Saturday matinees at the Wichita Art Museum. The mini-film festival -- 2 p.m. Saturdays throughout September -- is another in a series of joint projects between the museum and Wichita Film Festivals. Local film and literary experts will speak about the themes and

Sandall on Dereliction

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

Roger Sandall of Spiked writes a very interesting essay on the subject of dereliction in which he examines the role of prosperous elites in the decline of their societies. He builds his case from three examples, the first two of which are drawn from the real world (Cameroon and Malawi), and the third from a novel about a clan of the idle rich who descend upon an estate they have purchased in

AYN RAND IN SPANISH

By Martin Lindeskog from EGO,cross-posted by MetaBlog

You could now buy The Fountainhead (El Manantial) and Atlas Shrugged (La Rebelion de Atlas) in Spanish from the Ayn Rand Bookstore.

The reason for Amtrak's woes

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

The Daily Press (Newport News, VA) printed the following letter of mine on Amtrak today.

I laughed when I read Thomas G. Tingle's "What we can do to save Amtrak" and George Tsirimokos's "Amtrak must do better to thrive," Aug. 31. Tingle argued for more money and more local political activism to keep Amtrak running, while Tsirimokos argued that Amtrak must redouble its efforts in customer service and scheduling. Neither put a finger on one overlooked aspect of our nationalized passenger train system: that virtually the whole private rail system, freight and passenger, was sacrificed to the trucking industry lobby ages ago.

It was gross haulage by the private railroads that underwrote the costs of the passenger service. As that haulage was siphoned off by the trucking industry - whose rigs and semis, by the way, are the culprits that chew up the interstates in need of taxpayer-funded repairs - the revenue that underwrote the passenger lines dwindled. Contributing to the decline of passenger rail service, also, were the growth of airlines and special political treatment for interstate bus lines.

I remember traveling across the country many times in the 1960s on private passenger trains, complete with clean, comfortable coaches, dining cars, faster running trains and on-time arrivals and departures. But labor laws, federal regulation and special interest lobbies killed all that off. The solution was to nationalize the passenger rail system and emulate the heavily subsidized European public railroads. Passenger service declined abysmally, capital equipment depreciated, and tracks deteriorated, as did the rolling stock. Cost, operating and investment economies always go out the window when government takes over an industry.

Pumping more money into a government-made boondoggle isn't going to make it more valuable or efficient, just more costly.

Edward Cline

Harvard's betrayal of America

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

For many years I have argued that America's intellectuals—those learned people with the greatest ability to understand our virtues and articulate a moral defense of our way of life—have long abandoned America. Another piece of evidence of this betrayal can be found in Harvard University's decision to have Iran's former president, Mohammad Khatami, speak before its Kennedy School of Government and give a lecture titled "Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence."

Khatami's supporters claim he is a political moderate, yet Khatami's regime refused to renounce terrorism and Islamic jihad and it slaughtered the leaders of its political opposition. Rather than respect Iranian universities as a forum for the free exchange of ideas, the Khatami regime jailed students who dared to speak out against the theocracy.

David Ellwood, the Harvard dean that invited Khatami has claimed that Khatami's lecture gives Americans the chance to listen to someone they disagree with and "vigorously challenge" his ideas. He claims that not to invite Khatami to speak would be "to close our ears completely," yet that is precisely what Americans should do. We should not sanction any illusion that this leader in the Iranian government has anything valuable to contribute to the realm of ideas or the cause of peace, and we should not grant him a platform to communicate his ideas. If Khatami was unwilling to protect freedom of speech at his own county's universities, why should America grant him a platform to speak at ours?

George Mason University, my alma matter pulled a similar stunt on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. They set up a TV conference with students at an Iraqi university, fully ignoring the fact that these students were either Saddam’s toadies, or in no position to say anything critical of the regime. Thankfully, several of the students invited to participate on our end refused on the grounds that their mere presence would sanction a burial regime and grant our enemies the pretense that we could have an intellectual conversation with them. Hopefully Harvard's students will have the same sense of justice.

Nevertheless, is the Khatami invite a new low for Harvard and America's intellectuals? Appallingly, the answer is "yes."

"Daddy, Why Don't We Recycle?"

By Andy from The Charlotte Capitalist (TM),cross-posted by MetaBlog

While running errands the other day, my daughter asked, "Daddy, why don't we recycle?". Tempting as it was to lunge into a speech on the primacy of existence vs. the primacy of consciousness; faith in and sacrifice to the Gods of Dirt, Bugs, Air, and Trees; and the anti-industrial revolution; I had an inkling (or was it a stinkling?) that I should hold off. My daughter is 8. My son, who was

Will he "terminate" his economy?

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

No sooner do I learn about the precarious state of freedom for the medical sector of California's economy, than I find that its Democrat-dominated legislature is ready to implement a couple more foolish ideas. In all three cases, the legislature that has either passed or is ready to pass legislation that will hold back an already-burdened economy. (Wasn't that why Schwarzenegger was elected in the first place?) And you have a governor who, if he fully understood what these bills meant, would veto them, since he immigrated from Austria in part to escape socialism.

First of all, the bad news. As I have noted before, the Governator buys into the environmentalist agenda. This is why it is all but certain that his state will soon be saddled with the following onerous new laws.

California catapulted to the forefront of U.S. efforts to fight global warming [based on the controversial assumption that it is man-induced --ed] on Wednesday with an accord that will give the state the toughest laws in the nation on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and possibly spur a reluctant Washington to take similar action.

...

"The success of our system will be an example for other states and nations to follow as the fight against climate change continues," [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger said in a statement after weeks of tense negotiations.

California's Global Warming Solutions Act aims to cut emissions to 1990 levels, or around 25 percent, by 2020 with an enforceable cap and mandatory reporting for top polluters like energy companies.

The good news, such as it is, is that Schwarzenegger may yet veto the socialized medicine and anti-Wal-Mart legislation that will also soon find its way to his desk. However, in both of these cases, he has officially taken no position (!) on the legislation.

Some further bad news, at least for the anti-Wal-Mart bill, is that it is being "sold" in the same pseudo-capitalist packaging as the environmentalist legislation that Schwartzenegger plans to sign. Although the Governator seems convinced that (1) global warming is man-induced and (2) it is the government's job to stop it, it is not insignificant that he found a "market-based" version acceptable.

Worried about the impact on business, Schwarzenegger pushed for a market-based system that will eventually give companies tools to meet emissions targets, like carbon credit trading.

"We created a clear path to allow California to enter into that market-based system and we're very proud we were able to reach that agreement with the governor," said bill author and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Los Angeles Democrat.

Yeah, and back in the days of the slave trade, people bought and sold other people in "markets". Just because the government creates a "market" by permitting the wholesale violation of rights (liberty in the case of slavery or property in this case) does not mean that it is promoting capitalism.

It is bad enough that Schwartzenegger falls for environmentalism. It is worse that he thinks this particular implementation of the Green agenda is somehow a pro-capitalist idea.

The Wal-Mart legislation is being pushed in a similar way -- by making it sound good to a pro-business, but economically-ignorant body politic and, perhaps, its muscle-bound leader.

The state has an interest, [the bills' author, Sen. Richard Alarcon,] said, because "Wal-Mart is the most egregious offender when it comes to having employees use public assistance - in fact, training them to apply.

If this sounds familiar, it is because I have pointed out before that the problem is not that Wal-Mart slurps at the public trough, but the fact we have such a trough in the first place.

In the great Wal-Mart debate, I have so far seen no one point out that the costs (in taxation) of Wal-Mart in terms of its employees' reliance on Medicare are not Wal-Mart's fault. Its workers, after all, are free to seek other employers and other medical plans. It is the government, by guaranteeing medical coverage to certain income groups, that is in fact, adding to the "cost" of Wal-Mart to the public. Worse still, it does this not just to customers of Wal-Mart, who would (and should) be the only ones affected were Wal-Mart to offer comparable medical coverage to workers currently accepting Medicaid, but to every non-customer taxed to support Medicaid.

If you were to observe a child touch a hot skillet and withdraw his hand in pain, you might think that he's learned his lesson. But what if he had somehow failed to understand that it was the heat of the skillet that burned him? Only then would it not be surprising to see him reach right back for that very skillet.

The situation in California is very much like watching a child who just winced in pain do again exactly what hurt him the first time. When the consequences of government interference in the economy became obvious, Californians recalled Gray Davis and replaced him with a Republican. They did not, however, reject his policies and ideas.

The problem is, the lousy economy was not the fault of just Gray Davis, but of the ideas that animated him and the policies he carried out as a result. All California seems to have done is reject the pain (i.e., the consequences of socialism), but not its cause (i.e., the notion that the government should run the economy). So they have kicked out Gray Davis and are seeking to continue his policies under Arnold Schwartzenegger, who apparently doesn't understand what is wrong with socialism, either.

News flash for California: Republicans aren't leprechauns. They can't lead you to a pot of gold at the end of the socialist rainbow any more than Gray Davis could. Time to try capitalism, for a change. Perhaps you could start by looking the term up in a dictionary or reading about it a little. Once again, contrary to the Libertarian notion that one can simply vote freedom in at the ballot box, we see that it is whether a public actually understands what freedom entails that determines whether it is freedom that they will get.

California is showing us in no uncertain terms that the Libertarians are wrong. The people of California are losing their freedom not solely because of politics, but because of the widely-held philosophical ideas that affect politics.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Fixed some bad wording.

The Ayn Rand Archive

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Recently, I had a good opportunity on SoloPassion to dispel the standard myth about the Ayn Rand Archives spread by the Ayn Rand Institute's critics that they only permit ARI-affilited Objectivist scholars to access the archives. Since I thought others might run into the same myth, I thought the following two citations of the Archive by non-Objectivists might be helpful. (For the record, I haven't read either of these papers.)

First: Jennifer Burns, "Godless Capitalism: Ayn Rand and the Conservative Movement," Modern Intellectual History, Vol 1, No 3 (2004). Footnote 17 reads:

"Details on Rand's political awakening are taken from Biographical Interview with Ayn Rand conducted by Barbara Branden, Interview # 14, tape # 8, Side 1, "Activities in Politics: 1926 to 1952, The Conservatives," pp. 351-5. Ayn Rand Papers, Ayn Rand Archives, Irvine, CA."

The Ayn Rand Archives is also cited in footnote 56. That paper is available online to academics.

Second: Merrill Schleier, "Ayn Rand and King Vidor's The Fountainhead: Architectural Modernism, the Gendered Body, and Political Ideology," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol 61, No 3 (Sept. 2002). In the general notes on page 327, the author writes:

I would like to thank Jeff Britting, the archivist at the Ayn Rand Archives in Irvine, California (hereinafter referred to as ARA), for giving me unrestricted access to the Rand materials when they were still being catalogued. His many perceptive observations and his generosity benefited the current project.

That's rather more friendly than the gratuitous swipes found in some other journal. The "ARA" is cited multiple times thereafter, along with Barbara Branden, Chris Sciabarra, and others. This article is also available online to academics.

I've also heard of other cases, but those aren't yet in print. If anyone knows of other examples, they are welcome to post them in the comments.

I've not spoken to anyone official about the policy of the Archives, so I don't know the Ayn Rand Institute's official policy. However, the above citations clearly show the standard (usually belligerent) claim that ARI permits access to only ARI-affiliated Objectivist scholars to be a myth. It wasn't ever a terribly plausible claim, I might add. Given ARI's mission and programs, it makes sense that they would grant access to regular academics. ARI wants such people to be publishing on Ayn Rand. Significantly, they may be safely presumed not to have some kind of personal ax to grind, whatever their disagreements with Ayn Rand.

In contrast, some few people have already sliced and diced Ayn Rand with their dishonest axes. The Ayn Rand Institute has every reason to expect more of the same from them, namely that they would twist information gleaned from the Archives to further misrepresent Ayn Rand's person and philosophy. Such people belligerently demand access to the Archives under the guise of "honest scholarship" -- even while misrepresenting its very policy toward them, loudly proclaiming it to be an insular, cultish refusal to deal with non-Objectivists. That's hardly a sign of fair scholarship on their part.

In my view, the resources of the Ayn Rand Archives ought not be spent assisting the dishonest projects of such disreputable scholars. Just consider the obligation it would impose: since the Archives are still under construction and not yet easily available to the public, some honest scholar would be obliged to dig through the Archives to correct the misrepresentations of these dishonest ax-grinders. Not only would that be a huge waste of time, but the correction would likely not spread as far and wide as the lies. (There's already been enough of that, I think.)

The far more critical point is the moral principle of the sanction of the victim. The basic purpose of the Ayn Rand Archives is to preserve the genuine record of Ayn Rand's life and philosophy. To allow scholars with a well-established track record of dishonesty about Ayn Rand access to the Archives would subvert that goal. Those scholars can only be expected to twist the facts to provide semi-plausible cover for their dishonest claims. And if they could cite the Archives, they'd surely be taken even more seriously than they are now.

Similarly, imagine that a well-known Holocaust denier wanted access to an archive of personal remembrances of Holocaust survivors. Should that archive allow him to comb through their files to find those few bits of information that might be twisted into the illusion of evidence? Absolutely not. Or imagine that an academic was given access to the Thomas Jefferson archive, then blatantly lied about the contents thereof in a fairly popular book. Should that archive allow him access for his next project? Absolutely not. The lies of such scholars would be bad enough, but the impression that those lies are truths supported by the materials contained in the respective archives would be even worse. That kind of damage could take years or decades or even centuries to undo.

Notice that in all these cases, the "scholars" have access to more than enough data to correct their own errors on their own. The archive will not make them more honest; it will not change their minds one iota. They are not merely critics, they are liars. Moreover, the fact that more people believe the smears of Ayn Rand and Objectivism than the claims of Holocaust deniers and Jefferson maligners only makes the need to exclude the dishonest scholars from the Ayn Rand Archive all the more pressing: Ayn Rand's reputation isn't yet robust enough to fend off even more lies. Such "scholars" have already done enough damage with their lies: why help them to do more?