Quick Roundup 316

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

Hillary Rodham Clinton Costanza

One of Seinfeld character George Costanza's more memorable quotes was, "Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it." Apparently, this is advice to live by for the distaff member of our field of presidential candidates:

When a politician accepts the premise that in politics appearance is reality, it can be dangerous to his mind. The words he says do not necessarily have to stay connected to reality. Just think of how this false premise could wreak havoc with a person's epistemology. Over time a person would become less sharp and more vague in his thinking. He would not examine his words against reality but against the standard of political pragmatism. Do his words help his poll numbers that afternoon? Then they become reality.

And be sure to read the comments.

Myrhaf also seems to be working on a series of "problem" posts. First, there was "Obama's Problem", then "Hillary's Problem". I hope he concludes with "McCain's Problem" before the election or we'll be living with "America's Problem" when all is said and done.

On second thought, that's what we'll get no matter what in this election.

Objectivist Carnival

I've been too swamped to notice the submission deadlines lately, but the weekly Objectivist roundups are going strong. Kendall's hosting this week. I read Dan Edge's entry yesterday and found it very insightful -- but you'll have to stop by the roundup to see what I'm talking about.

Limping for a Few Days

If you had any idea how busy I've been lately, you'd see the humor in this....

I was online checking my email at home Tuesday night when my screen suddenly went blank. After testing my monitor on an obsolete computer we still have around and swapping out video cards, I have to conclude that the motherboard went bad. This means that the time frame for upgrading my desktop just got moved from "some time in the next few months" to "within days".

In any event, I'm getting by on our laptop, but I am now frantically looking for a decent, cheap desktop. I've had too many problems with Dells at home and at work, so I'm avoiding them. I am comfortable swapping out components, but don't have the time or patience to build something entirely from scratch. I know that there are decent, new, fairly stripped-down models out there for a few hundred smackers.

With the laptop, I can wait a short time for delivery.

Has anybody out there an online computer merchant he can recommend, or any other advice for someone in my situation?

More on McCain's Authoritarianism

Yesterday, I linked to an article by Matt Welch on McCain's war against the individual and criticized its author for not being more explicit about the danger McCain represents to freedom.

I have since learned of a lengthier and more alarming piece by the same author. Here's a sample, with a disclaimer and link following:

If you're beginning to detect a rigid sense of citizenship and a skeptical attitude toward individual choice, you are beginning to understand what kind of president John McCain actually would make, in contrast with the straight-talking maverick that journalists love to quote but rarely examine in depth. For years McCain has warned that a draft will be necessary if we don't boost military pay, and he has long agitated for mandatory national service. "Those who claim their liberty but not their duty to the civilization that ensures it live a half-life, indulging their self-interest at the cost of their self-respect," he wrote in The Washington Monthly in 2001. "Sacrifice for a cause greater than self-interest, however, and you invest your life with the eminence of that cause. Americans did not fight and win World War II as discrete individuals." [bold added]

Although I stand by my fundamental criticism of Welch for subscribing to libertarianism, an anti-intellectual political movement that poses a grave threat to the cause of individual rights, I must now concede that he does understand the danger McCain represents better than I'd given him credit for -- although still not enough to quit aiding and abetting the Libertarian Party.

I wince and hold my nose as I link to Reason Magazine, but the facts regarding McCain contained in this article want very wide dissemination.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a typo.

Long Distance Wi-Fi

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This is just friggin' awesome:

Long-Distance Wi-Fi

Intel has found a way to stretch a Wi-Fi signal from one antenna to another located more than 60 miles away.

Intel has announced plans to sell a specialized Wi-Fi platform later this year that can send data from a city to outlying rural areas tens of miles away, connecting sparsely populated villages to the Internet. The wireless technology, called the rural connectivity platform (RCP), will be helpful to computer-equipped students in poor countries, says Jeff Galinovsky, a senior platform manager at Intel. And the data rates are high enough--up to about 6.5 megabits per second--that the connection could be used for video conferencing and telemedicine, he says.

The RCP, which essentially consists of a processor, radios, specialized software, and an antenna, is an appealing way to connect remote areas that otherwise would go without the Internet, says Galinovsky. Wireless satellite connections are expensive, he points out. And it's impractical to wire up some villages in Asian and African countries. "You can't lay cable," he says. "It's difficult, expensive, and someone is going to pull it up out of the ground to sell it."

...Importantly, the devices require relatively little power. Running two or three radios in a link, Galinvosky says, requires about five to six watts. This makes it possible to power the radios using solar energy.

Parents pick prayer over docs; girl dies

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

It is stories like this one that highlight the absolute horrors of mysticism in American life:

Police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.

An autopsy showed Madeline Neumann died Sunday of diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that left too little insulin in her body, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said.

She had probably been ill for about a month, suffering symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness, the chief said Wednesday, noting that he expects to complete the investigation by Friday and forward the results to the district attorney.

The girl's mother, Leilani Neumann, said that she and her family believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but that they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors. [Robert Imrie, Associated Press Writer]

That is, Ms. Neumann has nothing against doctors except when it came to calling upon one to treat her daughter's plainly obvious and easily manageable condition. Yet consider for a moment just what evidence Neumann had to conclude that "healing comes from God." This claim is nothing more than unfounded faith, utterly devoid of any reason or proof. In contrast, modern medicine is nothing more than the scientific method applied to physical health—the process of systematically identifying and obeying nature so as to be able to properly command it. And here we have abundant proof that science makes human life better; after all, our entire modern civilization, from CAT Scans to iPhones, is built upon the practical benefits of this truth.

So how on earth could Madeline Neumann's parents conclude that God alone would save their daughter and that medical science was unneeded? Just how much evidence did they (and let's be honest, their daughter too) willfully choose to ignore in order to engage in their deadly flight of mystic fancy? And most importantly, what cultural forces led them to such a horrific conclusion, and why were they unwilling to act upon the proper (and seemingly obvious) alternative?

As this story develops, it will be interesting to learn just how Neumann's parents were able to internally rationalize such an outrage. In the mean time, we are faced with a very troubling truth: in a nation where the practical benefits of reason, science and technology surround us, seemingly everyday Americans are nevertheless willing to engage in Stone-age mysticism and irrationality—and do so at the price of precious human life. Even if there is tremendous outcry against these parents, I can't help but take the fact that this girl died in the first pace as a troubling sign.

Democrats Praise McCain By Damning Him

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

It happens every election. My thinking is the polar opposite of liberal thinking on the economy. What I think is good, liberals think is bad. What I see as white, liberals see as black.

So when Democrats make commercials criticizing Republicans, those commercials sound to me like the most persuasive argument for voting for the Republican. The spots come down to something like, "Candidate X won't use the government to fix things!" Well, hallelujah, I cry.

I must remind myself that Democrats are so out of touch with reality that when they attempt to smear a Republican they end up exaggerating his free market bona fides.

Obama and Clinton, talking about the economy, are now doing it. They are making a better case for McCain than McCain will probably ever make.

Both Obama and Clinton argued that Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain isn't ready or willing to handle an economic emergency.

"The phone is ringing, and he would just let it ring and ring," Clinton said, echoing the "3 a.m. phone call" TV ad she used earlier to suggest she was more qualified than Obama to handle a national security crisis. Speaking in Raleigh, N.C., she chastised McCain for opposing government intervention in the nation's credit and mortgage crisis.

...

Bemoaning the nation's economic woes, Obama, like Clinton, dismissed McCain's approach as pure hands-off. On Tuesday, McCain derided government intervention to save and reward banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly though he offered few immediate alternatives for fixing the country's growing housing crisis. Obama said McCain's plan "amounts to little more than watching this crisis happen."

Obama is so sure that big government is the way to win votes that he goes on to criticize his fellow Democrat Bill Clinton for deregulation policies.

I imagine John McCain in a secret meeting with Karl Rove.

"Karl," the Senator says, "I have these paleolithic conservative jackoffs on my ass for being too much 'big government.' What should I do?"

"Don't worry," Rove says with a twinkle in his eye. "I'll use my mind control machine to make the Democrats hit you for not being socialist enough! Nothing else could work better to unite Republicans around you."

Now, McCain defenders will surely object at this point that their man should get credit for opposing government intervention.

Yes, he gets credit for that. I haven't looked at his ideas in detail, where the devil often lies, but if he opposes government intervention, then he is right.

As a long-suffering observer of Republicans in action, however, I have learned that what they mean by "smaller government" is actually "bigger government, just not as big as what the Democrats want."

Call them 50% Me-Too Republicans. It is true that they don't take us 100% as far as the Democrats want, but at the end of the day we're 50% of that distance down the road to serfdom. The Republicans erode freedom and expand the government -- and then they congratulate themselves for not going as far as the Democrats.

The worst thing about 50% Me-Tooers is that, in their pragmatism, they concede the principle of big government to the Democrats. Once the principle of laissez-faire capitalism is thrown out, then the battle is lost. The Republicans have no principled arguments to stop the next Democrat assault on liberty.

John McCain's name is on some of the worst violations of freedom in our time, such as McCain-Feingold and McCain-Leiberman. If he got it right on the credit and mortgage crisis, such lucidity is rare and out of character for him.

Like Bush he is ignorant of economics and like Bush he will expand the government. McCain is more dangerous than a mediocre cypher such as Bush because he has explicitly rejected the Goldwater ideal and replaced it with Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting, big government progressivism.

Another thing to remember is that, for the last 40 years at least, Republican presidents have been more effective at expanding government than Democrats. Look at Nixon's record. One could make the case that the most free market president of our time has been Bill Clinton, he who (cornered by a Republican Congress) reformed welfare, balanced the budget, passed NAFTA and, as Obama complains, repealed the Glass-Steagall Act on bank regulations. Bush 41, by comparison, passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. Bush 43 passed the biggest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ with the prescription drugs bill.

Republicans in Congress grow a spine only when we elect a Democrat president. They harry and attack Democrat presidents like terriers going after a rat. Any expansion of government proposed by a Democrat president brings forth howls from the Republicans.

Democrats in Congress, on the other hand, criticize Republican presidents for not expanding government. Thus a Republican president can be a 50% Me-Tooer and look like Goldwater against a backdrop of leftist moonbats in the Congress.

Let us not fool ourselves by thinking John McCain is in any substantial, principled way for less government. Getting it right every other Tuesday is not enough.

Bin Laden Wants My Blood

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Paul recently sent the following to the OActivsts list, and I thought it worth reposting here:

Flemming Rose, the courageous newspaper editor made world-famous for publishing the "Danish Cartoons" depicting Mohammed, has just written another good column on free speech: "Bin Laden Wants My Blood"

(Those of you who attended the special ARI conference on the "Jihad Against the West" may recall his fantastic talk entitled, "Islam and Europe after the Cartoon-Crisis.")

As Rose asks, "What kind of civilization are we, after all, if we refrain from mocking and ridiculing bin Laden and his followers?"

If only we had more news editors like him in the United States...

Indeed!

Comments on my Washington Post letter on Rent Control

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

I learned yesterday that the Washington Post allows reader comments on the letters to the editor that it prints, so I was interested to see what kind of response my recent letter defending landlords from rent control received. Most of the comments were favorable, but this unfavorable comment (from a landlord nonetheless) stuck out:

I own rental property in DC, though not enough to be covered by rent control laws. Frankly, if I were in a position to buy more rental property, I would do so. The article only hints at how active the rental property market is. No one buys rental property out of desperation, so I think those who advocate for totally unregulated a market need to explain why so many would "volunteer" for odious regulation.

I think that the author's use of scare quotes around the world "volunteer" is quite telling; the author knows that there nothing voluntary about the government's regulation of rents under the penalty of the law. And the reason why landlords stay or enter the rental business despite government regulation is easily explained simply by looking at a supply and demand graph. Price controls punish those whose costs are greater than the legally mandated price; they put some people out of business, but they don't put everyone out of business.

In the case of rent control, it's those landlords with the thinnest margins (perhaps by owning an older, more maintenance-heavy building) that are the most impacted. Other landlords, with more efficient buildings, may be able to operate under the regulatory caps with no ill effect, but this is hardly uniform and proof of the negative fallout that I claim is evidenced by the blight one sees in the typically older, less affluent neighborhoods.

Rather than serve the poor as the proponents of rent control assert, these regulations do little more than attack businessmen and women who absent rent control would be more than willing and able to provide housing to the poor—but at free market rates. Again, at root, you cannot build a house of cards where is possible to get something for nothing and not expect that house to come down.

And when they invariably find them, who are they gonna call?

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

As a follow-up to my earlier post on the faith-based death of 11-year-old Madeline Neumann, there's now this absurdity out of the great state of Iowa:

[Johnson] County officials have given their informal OK for ghost hunters to check out a one-time insane asylum to see if any spirits are lurking about.

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors took the initial action on the request from the Johnson County Historical Society, which gives tours of the 153-year-old building.

Brandon Cochran, museum operations assistant for the historical society, said there have never been reports of ghosts or bizarre happenings at the building and that bringing in a paranormal team is "kind of taking the pre-emptive approach.

He wants an Iowa-based paranormal investigative team to come in for one night. Cochran said he hopes they don't find any paranormal activity and the investigation can put to rest any speculation.

A four-person Carroll Area Paranormal Team will use thermal imaging equipment and voice recording systems, Cochran said. [AP]

Perhaps while they are at it, they could also secure footage of a man actually tipping over a sleeping cow, because that would be just as plausible. And notice that they don't even have a "ghost" problem; they just want to make sure that they don't have any ghosts, because, you know, you can't be too careful when it comes to ethereal beings from another dimension. I just hope they don't cross their energy streams, because as everyone knows, that would be "bad."

Gushers Come from Somewhere

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

Via Arts and Letters Daily, I have come across a book review that any commentator on environmentalism will want to consider, "Heard the One about the Farmer's Ethanol", by William Grimes, who reviews Robert Bryce's Gusher of Lies.

The book's subtitle, "The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence", seems to speak to one of my biggest annoyances with environmentalism: How it is now being sold as good for our economy and self-defense. (It is neither.)

But, as I said, it seems to. (More on that in a moment.) The book nevertheless might be worthwhile, as Grimes indicates, for its close examination of the specific types of arguments used to advance the causes of the various specific "alternative" fuels, as well as its bringing to light facts that their various advocates happily sweep under the rug. Take ethanol:

... Ethanol, in particular, drives [Bryce] wild. Fuel derived from corn has channeled billions in subsidies to Midwestern farmers and agribusiness, he writes, despite glaring shortcomings. It is expensive to produce and requires enormous amounts of water when irrigation comes into play. It produces much less energy than gasoline while emitting more pollutants into the air.

Detroit loves ethanol because it can use it to inflate fuel-efficiency ratings on their cars artificially. The mammoth Chevy Suburban, produced as a flex-fuel vehicle capable of burning both ethanol and gasoline, magically boosted its fuel efficiency to 29 miles per gallon from 15, since under federal rules only a vehicle's gasoline consumption need be factored into the equation. Ethanol, in other words, has allowed American car manufacturers to produce more gas guzzlers and contribute to increased imports of foreign oil.

The problem with corn and other alternative fuel sources boils down to cost and output. Fuel made from switch grass, another potential solution to the energy problem, costs a lot to produce, delivers a lot less energy than petroleum and would require, like corn, vast areas of farmland to meet a meaningful percentage of current energy needs. [bold added]

Yes. The problem with many fuels is their high cost, and this is why oil remains the best of the alternatives. (I'd love it if the petroleum industry had enough moral backbone to begin a huge PR campaign against ethanol and called oil something like "the alternative of choice".... Please, oil executives, use this idea! It's free.)

But that's the problem with most of these fuels, except nuclear power (which the Greens are using to go after coal). I fear, based on Bryce's reported advocacy of the federal government steering scientific research towards building a "superbattery" for solar power, that he may remain blind to the source of all this lying: Government interference in the economy.

Would Detroit be so eager to build cars that burn ethanol were it not for the government's silly rules on how to report fuel efficiency? Would so many farmers devote so much acreage to corn for ethanol without government "incentives"? Would promoters of ethanol get caught in such transparent lies even as their industry mushrooms if they didn't get so much help from the government in their pursuit of money? (I was about to say "energy profits", but that would have been at least two mistakes.)

No. One further question indicates why: Did oil become so big in the first place because the government, in its infinite wisdom, finally jawboned enough people into giving up their "addiction" to other fuels? Of course not.

I suspect that Bryce's book might be an invaluable resource concerning the relative merits of the various fuels touted as "alternatives" to the so-called fossil fuels, but that it suffers from a similar malady that many books focused on economics do -- a failure to consider the proper purpose of government.

A proper government does no more and no less than protect the individual rights of its citizens, which means that it allows each one of them to exercise his own judgement regarding the various choices -- including the economic ones -- he is confronted with throughout his life.

Such a government would do nothing to promote or retard any industry, allowing each to rise (as oil did) or fall (as fuel ethanol should) on its own merits as measured by how well it serves the needs of its customers. Individual customers would judge service by price, which ultimately reflects "cost and output", and thus saves every Tom, Dick, and Harry from having to become an energy expert.

But our government has taken up the immoral and quixotic crusade of setting the world's thermostat (HT: HBL) by artificially influencing or dictating how we judge the sources of the energy that we need to live our daily lives. On top of interfering with our ordinary method of making decisions by cost, this crusade demands of us, as voters, levels of expertise we don't and can't have about energy. This is where all the lies are ultimately coming from. Any con man worth his salt preys on ignorance.

In the short run, knowing that many overhyped fuels are actually lousy alternatives to oil and coal will be valuable in stalling the progress of government controls over our economic lives. But in the long run, plugging up gushing holes in the dike will not solve the real problem, which is that we face drowning in a flood of government regulation. To save ourselves, we must reinforce that dike in the only way possible -- by insisting that our government protect individual rights consistently.

-- CAV

The Collectivism of John McCain

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Matt Welch reminds us why John McCain is one of the most frightening politicians in America (if not the most frightening).

Mr. McCain’s stump speeches, as well as his five books, are chockablock with calls to elevate national greatness, collective duty and Washington rejuvenation over whatever individual roads we might be pursuing. In “Worth the Fighting For,” he wrote that “our greatness depends upon our patriotism, and our patriotism is hardly encouraged when we cannot take pride in the highest public institutions.” These institutions, Mr. McCain wrote, should “fortify the public’s allegiance to the national community.”

John McCain repudiates the ideas of our Founding Fathers. He throws out the individualism of the Declaration of Independence and admires collectivism and "national greatness" instead.

The presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party has seduced the press and the public with frank confessions of his failings, from his hard-living flyboy days to his adulterous first marriage to the Keating Five scandal. But in both legislation and rhetoric, Mr. McCain has consistently sought to restrict the very freedoms he once exercised, in the common national enterprise of “serving a cause greater than self-interest.”

Such sentiment can sound stirring coming from a lone citizen freely choosing public service. But from a potential president, Mr. McCain’s exaltation of sacrifice over the private pursuit of happiness — “I did it out of patriotism, not for profit,” he snarled to Mitt Romney during the final Republican presidential debate — reflects a worryingly militaristic view of citizenship.

“We are fast becoming a nation of alienating individualists, unwilling to put the unifying values of patriotism ahead of our narrow self-interests,” Mr. McCain warned in a speech during his 2000 presidential campaign. He added that “cynicism threatens to become a ceiling on our greatness.”

When you throw out individual rights as a standard, then you can use collectivism and "national greatness" to justify any intrusion of the state into our rights. He made the template in his assault on the First Amendment:

When people raised First Amendment objections to the law, which prohibits citizen advertisements that so much as mention a federal candidate’s name within 60 days of an election, Mr. McCain responded, “I would rather have a clean government than one where quote ‘First Amendment rights’ are being respected that has become corrupt.” When the Supreme Court questioned the law’s constitutionality, he complained in a legal brief that ads were targeting “candidates in close contests — and almost invariably in a partisan manner.”

With this reasoning McCain could find justification for any expansion of the state; the only limits to his power lust will lie in two things I can think of. First, what Americans will still resist from a fading culture of individualism that is the last glow of our Enlightenment heritage. But as public education dumbs down America, and the welfare state saps our self-reliance, our tattered, disintegrating traditions and sense of life can't be much of a defense against a committed statist like McCain.

The second factor is the way our federal government works. With the balance of powers, it seems to have been designed to resist revolutionary change. Big changes come slow in America. For a century the liberals have, except for moments such as FDR's first 100 days, had to resort to gradualism in erecting the welfare state. This can be frustrating for those of us who want to roll back the welfare state yesterday, but it also provides the sturdiest bulwark against tyranny coming tomorrow.

But how fast might statists destroy freedom in a great crisis? Federalism should buy us some time, but maybe not.

As the Democrat candidates destroy themselves with their multiculti/politics of identity squabbling, leftist ideology and hopeless inadequacies, it looks more likely that McCain will be the next President of the United States of America. The blood chills.

John Lewis Versus Islamic Totalitarians

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

John Lewis recently e-mailed me the following about his recent speech at Georgia Tech:

I spoke at Georgia Tech last week on "No Substitute for Victory: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism." A pro-Islamic group in the audience (some at least were students) tried to filibuster the Q&A. Their attacks openly called for Islamic law (a "good thing"), praised jihad as a "wonderful" concept, and proclaimed that subjugated peoples forced to pay the Islamic tax should be "grateful" for the "protection" they receive. They whitewashed history as well as the present situation, demanded that we stop "offending" them, said that the Iranians had no reason to trust the United States, and called me a "criminal mind." This was all-out support for a category of thoughtcrimes in American universities.

You can find the full report on Principles in Practice. It's pretty stunning -- and I can only admire John for keeping his cool in the face of such dishonest yet explicit Islamic totalitarians. Also, here's an update on a conference of Muslims reported by an audience member to have condemned terrorism.

Major Truths vs. “Minor Blips”

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

The latest laughable episode in Senator Hillary Clinton’s efforts to pad her “foreign policy experience” résumé as a qualification to be president is her outright lie about being “under fire” during a junket to Bosnia in March of 1996. Even the TV journalists who were with her at the time had to acknowledge it was a lie – or what she called a “misstatement.”

MSNBC quoted an Associated Press article of March 25, “Clinton ‘misspoke’ over sniper claims,” which reported her telling the Philadelphia Daily News:

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

Then,

“I went to eighty countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things – millions of words a day – so if I misspoke, it was a misstatement.”

I mean, you know, after all, what is the meaning of is? You know? I mean, I’m really inarticulate in this kind of bind, and I have a foggy memory of when exactly I was under sniper fire, or where. I traveled so much when First Lady as part of my experience. So when you catch me in a lie – I mean, a minor blip, a misstatement – it really rattles me, you know. But I’m sure I could think clearly if I got a call at 3 o’clock in the morning about an Iranian nuclear missile that incinerated Philadelphia, it wouldn’t rattle me at all, I mean, I have all that foreign policy experience. I actually touched the red phone in Bill’s office, and that counts as experience, doesn’t it?

All three major networks have run the clips of her pseudo-hazardous landing and reception in Bosnia. The videos could just as well have been made during a tour of Disney Land.

Watching the clip of her committing her latest gaffe about “snipers” in Bosnia, and with the knowledge of her actual record – Vince Foster, Ron Brown, TrooperGate, TravelGate, White Water, the commodities profits, and so on – one can see how comfortable she is in a state of congenital dissimilitude and how effortlessly “misstatements” come to her. It is one of many vices she has in common with her husband.

Still, why would anyone think that coming under “sniper attack” in any circumstances, even if there were a grain of truth to the assertion, qualifies one to be president? How does that constitute foreign policy “experience”? (For that matter, Senator John McCain’s experience as a POW hardly qualifies him for the presidency.)

What experience can she truthfully claim? As “co-president,” she was a tyrannical, unelected, foul-mouthed harridan browbeating, arm-twisting, favor-calling, and pressuring Congressmen to push through her socialist health care plan on the country. Aside from that, she went on numerous taxpayer-funded “good will” junkets around the world.

The Daily Telegraph of March 20, in an article, “Hillary Clinton papers sink experience claims,” reported,

“Hillary Clinton’s boasts that she gained major foreign policy experience as First Lady have been undermined after 11,046 pages of her White House schedules provided scant evidence to back up her claims….The documents were made public by the U.S. National Archives [and also by Bill Clinton’s presidential library in Arkansas] after pressure from her rival Barack Obama and freedom-of-information groups.

“Many details were redacted [edited] at the request of lawyers acting for former president Bill Clinton, citing privacy and national security concerns.”

So much for full disclosure. If the papers were edited, abridged or simply censored, can they be treated as the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

The Associated Press, in “Clinton releases first lady papers” on March 19, reported that,

“In all, 11,046 pages have been made available. Nearly 4,800 pages have parts blacked out. Archivists said that’s to protect the privacy of third parties….Her Democratic presidential campaign released a statement Wednesday saying the schedules spanning her two terms as first lady ‘illustrate the array of substantive issues she worked on’ and her travel to more than eighty countries ‘in pursuit of the administration’s domestic and foreign policy goals.’”

Who are those “third parties” whose identities and privacy must be protected? Parties to other scandals, crimes and misdemeanors?

And what were those “substantive” issues Hillary claims as “foreign policy experience”? Glad-handing prime ministers and their wives. Having countless pictures taken with them and groups of children. Attending state dinners. Making speeches to charity and public interest groups. Baby-kissing. Making courtesy calls. Autographing books and other mementoes.

In 1998, for example, during a visit to Belfast, Northern Ireland, according to the Daily Telegraph,

“…[S]he and Cherie Blair, then the prime minister’s wife, were to ‘proceed to the children’s play area, where children were creating playground models.’ They were then to ‘proceed down the path where they are joined by 25 children with balloons’ and go ‘to the top of the hill and release the balloons.’”

The Associated Press article reports that,

“…[I]n her January 1994 visit to Russia with her husband, her schedule is focused on events with political wives. She sat in on a birthing class at a hospital, toured a cathedral and joined prominent women in a lunch of blinis with caviar and salmon….The Clinton campaign said the schedules are merely a guide and don’t reflect all of her activities.”

You can bet they don’t. Very likely they have been “redacted” to protect the guilty and the complicit.

All three major news networks are now concerned that the “sniping” between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is damaging the Democrats’ chances of winning the White House in November.

And there we have it: Running for president is a habitual liar and a youngish, charismatic man whose “spiritual mentor and guide” is a ranting witch doctor and who is sounding more and more like Hitler. And we all thought that it could not get any worse than President George Bush, whose favorite philosopher is Jesus Christ and who formulates his own foreign policy on advice from God.

Speaking of Senator McCain, the Associated Press on March 24 reported, in “High Court rejects anti-Clinton movie appeal,” that the Supreme Court is not unfriendly to censorship and the strictures of McCain-Feingold.

“The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from a conservative group that wants to promote its anti-Hillary Clinton movie without complying with campaign finance laws….The court’s decision leaves in place a lower court ruling that says the group, Citizens United, must attach a disclaimer and disclose its donors in order to run the ads….Campaign regulations prohibit corporations and unions from paying for ads that run close to elections and identify candidates….The case is Citizens United v. FEC 07-953 (Federal Election Committee).”

While Hillary got help from an unlikely source, a judiciary that does not hold the First Amendment as inviolate, it is doubtful that the Citizens United ads or the movie itself would discredit her any more than she and her husband are doing themselves.

Maverick -- or Mad Cow?

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

It is by a libertarian, but this New York Times article on John McCain's "decade-long attack on the individual" is worth reading both as a short introduction to the topic of "What's wrong with John McCain?" and as an example of "What's wrong with libertarianism?"

Regarding McCain, the article briefly touches on the following quote, which Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute also cited in his recent piece on McCain's threat to freedom of speech.

I would rather have a clean government than one where quote "First Amendment rights" are being respected that has become corrupt.

But whereas Brook immediately notes that, "a government which strips us of our right to free speech is by that very fact corrupt," Matt Welch continues on with McCain's lame (and completely irrelevant) excuse for restricting freedom of speech, and without any real sense of alarm.

Be aware that McCain does not even regard freedom of speech as a right! I, for one am damn worried.

One might protest that I am nitpicking, and that this article is not focused on McCain's attack on freedom of speech. However, its whole tone is off because it never raises a serious moral or practical objection to McCain's anti-individualistic policies.

Why is a prohibition of any kind on speech that does not violate the rights of another individual bad? On what basis is freedom of speech a right? How might curtailing freedom of speech be at odds with the whole purpose of government? These issues never even come up.

Instead, McCain -- for his plain antagonism to individual rights and the grave danger this might pose to the Republic (and therefore, our lives) -- merely comes off sounding like an authoritarian prospective stepfather and the individual a flowering, sensitive adolescent whose whims might get hemmed in enough to cramp his style should Mommy decide to marry him.

It can be a bracing approach when his issues line up with yours -- I, for one, would welcome President McCain's unilateral wars on pork-barrel spending and waterboarding -- but it's treacherous territory for those of us who consider "the pursuit of happiness" as something best defined by individuals, not crusading presidents-to-be. [bold added]

(For the record, McCain's stand on waterboarding (also) endangers individual rights and his preoccupation with pork-barrel spending is a distraction from protecting them at best.)

Never mind that the moral purpose of man's life is "the pursuit of happiness", that the government's whole purpose is to protect our inalienable right to do so, or that both of these things can be objectively demonstrated.

Never mind that a candidate's core principles (as illustrated by a long track record like McCain's) imply that he is implacably opposed to individual rights.

Never mind that in such a case, one ought to suspect his motives any time he "lines up with" some cause or another, even if his stand looks good, taken out of that context.

Nothing McCain wants to do can be "bracing" -- unless one is oblivious to the life-and-death importance of the principles held by an individual as guides to his actions.

McCain does indeed have a record of antagonism towards the individual and he will have greater means to put that antagonism into practice if he is elected. But this is a much bigger problem than a reader of Welch's column will come away with -- if he doesn't leave thinking something like, "pursuit of happiness is too important to be left up to flaky individuals to define".

McCain represents a grave threat to individual freedom. Now is not the time for moral relativism. Not in the face of evil.

-- CAV

DC Police Go Door-to-Door, Looking for Guns and Drugs

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

So much for the Fourth Amendment:

D.C. police are going door-to-door Monday in one of the city's crime-plagued neighborhoods, asking residents for permission to search their homes for guns and other illegal contraband.

The program, called the Safe Homes Initiative, will offer homeowners and renters limited amnesty for possessing any contraband found by police.

The program is aimed at removing guns and drugs kept by children and young adults in their parents' homes. The homeowners will be asked to sign a form, consenting to the search.

"I think that's good," said parent Brenda Freeman Jones, who worries that many parents aren't aware of what their kids are up to. "Look for the gun and drugs, sign the papers. Get stuff off the street."

Police plan to test any firearm that is recovered to see if it used in a crime. Weapons linked to shootings or murders will require an investigation, according to police, and could lead to charges. [WJLA News]

In reality, there is no such thing as a "courtesy" police search; this program is little more than naked coercion disguised as crime-fighting; after all, it seems pretty clear that it is designed so that the mere act of refusing to submit to the government's search casts you in a cloud of suspicion. This program is little more a disgusting assault on the individual's right to be free of government interference in his life absent probable cause.

The irony is that the District government has mandated that all motor vehicle license plates carry the quote "TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION," a plain dig at the fact that the District is not treated like a state by the federal government. I say that this claim is utterly disingenuous; in the realms of government that the District does control, it routinely and wantonly violates the rights of its citizens, be it the right to own a firearm for self-defense, the right to rent your property on the open market without the government setting the rate, or now the right to be secure in one's property without unreasonable search. In my view, "taxation without representation" is the least of the District's worries--a view evidenced all the more by this latest outrage.

Hillary Clinton's Problem

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Hillary Clinton has been getting ripped because she admits she "misspoke" about a trip to the Balkans. She said there was no greeting ceremony at the airport, and that they ran for fear of sniper fire. The tape, however, shows a greeting ceremony at the airport.

You know what's scary? I think she believed what she said. I don't think she was lying.

Now, you might think that you would never make such a mistake. I know I wouldn't. But Hillary Clinton did. She must have been lying, right?

I don't think so. I have a hypothesis as to why she believed what she said when she said it.

Hillary Clinton accepts the premise that in politics appearance is reality. She watched her husband operate successfully under that premise for eight long years. Bill Clinton is a man who can say with a straight face that it depends on what the meaning of is is. White House operatives would hit the media with their spin, and come the next polls, if 51% of the American people bought the spin, then it became reality to the Clintons' enablers in the MSM.

When a politician accepts the premise that in politics appearance is reality, it can be dangerous to his mind. The words he says do not necessarily have to stay connected to reality. Just think of how this false premise could wreak havoc with a person's epistemology. Over time a person would become less sharp and more vague in his thinking. He would not examine his words against reality but against the standard of political pragmatism. Do his words help his poll numbers that afternoon? Then they become reality.

So, as in the time she said she was named after Edmund Hillary (although it turns out she was born before Mt. Everest was conquered), I think Clinton believed what she said about her trip to Bosnia when she said it because she did not think it necessary to examine her words against reality.

Remember this the next time you hear Democrats praise Senator Clinton's intelligence. Clinton's epistemological premises have, I believe, made her stupid and inept. Only a reality-based epistemology helps one function in reality.

No, I don't trust Hillary Clinton to handle any 3am phone calls well at all.

The White Rose and Living by Principle

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

For all of those folks who have been checking The Crucible faithfully for the last 4 weeks, I have to extend an apology. I've been in the process of finalizing the sale of my house, buying a new one, moving my entire life over and getting settled. Along with a busy work month, it didn't leave a whole lot of time for blogging. I know some of my fellow Obloggers use their blogs like diaries, but I can't seem to do that. I seem to always want to try to make the posts novel and substantial and that means I have to have the time to use my brain. That's what I want The Crucible to be known for, and that's what I want you to be able to expect. So if it means that I don't post when I don't have the time, I hope you'll understand.

Today's post requires that I tell you a short story.

Back around Christmas time while visiting family in Washington D.C. I spent one day at the Holocaust Memorial Museum with my sister. The experience was nothing short of an emotional wringer. It was hard to keep it together for most of the day. I recommend that anyone who spends time in D.C. devote at least an afternoon to this memorial. For me, it concretized and made real the horror and fiendishness of the Holocaust, especially when you come so close to the actual physical remnants of those acts.

I saw a synagogue ark (where the torah scrolls are kept) defaced on Kristallnacht night, the violent gashes of Nazi axes across the face of it making the violence palpable. I entered a room completely bare but for a floor filled with tens of thousands of shoes, discarded from a concentration camp "selektion", and read a poem which is only a few lines long, but in that room carries the weight of millions of the dead. I stood in a boxcar not much bigger than the 12x14 room I'm in right now, which held hundreds of people for days without food, heat, water, or sanitation as they traveled to their deaths. And I stood in a three story atrium covered in black and white photos of the daily life in one eastern European shtetl, or Jewish community. You pass through the atrium three different times in a chronological journey, first getting to know the families, and learning of their lives. At the final pass, you learn that the entire town of 3,500 was wiped from existence by Nazi death squads. I knew this would be the end when I passed through the first time, but it never prepares you for how you'll feel once you've come to know them in the vibrant midst of their lives.

I bought three books from the memorial bookstore, and it is one of those books, which I just finished that I wish to highlight for you. The book is Newborn and Dumbach's Sophie Scholl and The White Rose. The book tells the true story of a group of student activists in Munich who covertly published and distributed anti-Nazi tracts in late 1942 and early 1943. Members of the group were caught in the act of distributing one of the pamphlets, were arrested, tried and summarily executed. Eventually the Gestapo tracked down the remaining members of the group and all were executed.

I found this story inspirational, as opposed to the other books I bought which focused on the tragedy of the Holocaust. While the narrative is straight forward, the book did an excellent job of taking you into the motivations and growth in the members of the group, the events which inspired them, and the reasons behind their decision to act. Unlike the millions of Germans who witnessed the events unfolding in Nazi Germany and rationalized them, finding reasons not to act, this group of young men and one women held onto their independent judgement, formed their own conclusions, and once convinced of the immorality of the regime decided that they must do something to try to counter it.

Educated children of a liberal father who detested the Nazi's, Sophie's brother Hans, the key leader of The White Rose, served in the Hitler Youth as a boy until becoming disillusioned with its focus on propaganda, hypocrisy and rejection of even rational discourse. Strong-headed Sophie spoke up when she disagreed with the party line and quickly rejected its tenets. Both witnessed Nazi book burnings of the literature they so loved. Though she became a member of the group late in its development it is through Sophie's sensibilities and early writings that one begins to understand the mind of The White Rose. Her words are incredible, and inspirational, rivaling the sense of life of Rand. From a high school journal entry,

I could shout for joy that I am so alone, with the wild, rough wind drenching my body. I'd like to be on a raft, standing upright above the gray river, whose hurrying water the wind cannot disturb... The sun comes out and kisses me tenderly. I'd like to kiss it back, but I forget that immediately because now the wind has leaped on me. I sense the wonderful firmness of my body; I laugh out loud for joy because I can offer the wind such resistance. I feel such strength in me.

The members of the White Rose are models of integrity, independent thought, and the belief that one must act upon ones values in order to be happy. As Sophie wrote in her diary,

After all, one should have the courage to believe only in what is good. By that I do not mean one should believe in illusions. I mean one should do only what is true and good an take it for granted that others will do the same.

The White Rose published only 6 pamphlets in two phases, the first four in the summer of 1942, and the last two after the male members returned from a tour of duty as medics on the Eastern Front, in Winter of 1943. The wrote the tracts themselves and published them on a hidden, hand-cranked mimeograph. The first phase of pamphlets were published each in the hundreds and mailed randomly to people selected from the phone book within Munich. After their return from the front, the members linked up with like-minded groups in other cities, and the last two pamphlets were published in the thousands and the members couriered stashes of pamphlets to other cities for distribution. Hans and Sophie were spotted by a Nazi sympathizer dropping leaflets of the 6th tract from a university window, and they were turned into the Gestapo. They were interrogated, tried and summarily beheaded before their families could even mount a defense.

I was inspired to write of this group because I so often encounter Pragmatists among the ranks of Objectivists. People who believe in the concept that ethics and morality are some sort of survival cost-benefit analysis. That when faced with a mortal threat, life, any sort of life will be preferable to death, and one should act accordingly. To me it's an indication that to value life is to value a certain kind of life and if one dies in the careful attempt to create or preserve that life, that that is preferable to life as a slave. I also loved this story because it highlights the incredible importance of the thing in which The White Rose was dealing, of the importance of ideas. They were not pursued because they were caching arms, or mounting a physical resistance, but because the spread around pieces of paper with ideas on them.

One might look at the fact that the tracts were only published in small numbers and resulted in little immediate outcome and conclude that the acts of The White Rose were merely the futile acts of a suicidal band of idealistic students. But then one reads the following,

News of the White Rose, and the spirit of their resistance, reached the American public as well, despite the blanket of silence and Gestapo intention. On August 2, 1943 -- three weeks after Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber had gone under the executioner's blade, an editorial appeared in the New York Times under the title "Young German Martyrs." It concluded with the following words: "... these Munich students, few or many, representative or otherwise, rose gloriously... protesting in the name of principles which Hitler thought he had killed forever. In years to come we, too, may honor [them]."

Once they reached the West, the leaflets of the White Rose were reprinted -- now in the tens of thousands -- and dropped from Allied aircraft over the cities of Germany.

...

The leaflets made people like Thomas Mann, in exile, weep with happiness. For those who read them or heard about them, inside or outside of Germany, they brought a sense of joy that is hard to express. They were testimony to the fact that there were Germans, locked inside the Third Reich's fortress of death, who still cared, who did not look away, who stood up, who fought back.

and can't help but conclude that even small acts, and simple ideas can have a meaningful impact.

Turkey Shows the Middle East’s Potential–and it Doesn’t Look Good

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

Opposite-Sex Friendships

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

I have an unwritten policy about opposite-sex friendships. This issue came up recently in a discussion with friends, and it got me to thinking about why I conduct my friendships the way that I do.

My general policy is this: When I am in a committed relationship with a woman (as I will be with Kelly for the rest of my life), I avoid developing intimate friendships with other women. When Kelly and I hang out with another couple, I do make friends with the woman in that couple. But in general I don't develop an intimate friendship with the woman independent of Kelly, or independent of the other woman's man. On the other hand, I am very willing to develop an independent, intimate friendship with the man in the couple. I'd have no problem inviting just the guy to a sports bar to watch football, but I wouldn't do the same with his girlfriend.

Some could (and have) argued that this policy is sexist. After all, a woman can be every bit as good a friend as a man. Continuing the couples example above: If both couples are in a committed, happy relationship, then why would there be any reason to hold back on developing friendships? After all, if I am fully dedicated to Kelly, there's no reason for either one of us to be jealous -- I'm not romantically interested in any other woman besides her. Neither one of us would ever cheat. So, acknowledging that I could have an enriching, totally platonic relationship with another woman, why would I avoid it?

My answer to this question is grounded in two key points: 1) Emotions respond to how one acts in a relationship, not how he labels the relationship, and 2) There can be more than one soulmate for any given person.

1) Most everyone has heard of situations like this: A man meets a girl he really likes, and she feels the same way. They start hanging out a lot, and the relationship quickly becomes intimate, both physically and emotionally. They decide to be exclusive. There's only one problem -- The woman says that she doesn't want to be his "girlfriend," she just wants to be friends without the pressure of that label. Why, she asks, can't they just be very intimate, sexually exclusive friends-with-benefits? He is confused, but reluctantly agrees. When he finally confesses his deep love for her, she is surprised and uncomfortable.

Or: A man and woman who were romantically involved decide to end their relationship due to incompatibility. They both still care about each other very much, but one or both acknowledges that it's not going to work out for the long term. So they decide to be just friends. But starting the day after the break-up, they still hang out with each other every day. Even though they no longer have sex, and even though both have decided that the relationship is over, both continue to harbor romantic and sexual feelings for one another. When one of them finally decides to start dating someone else, the other is surprised at how badly it hurts.

Or: A couple is having a lot of problems, but the man insists that he wants them to stay together. Though he is rude to her, never shows her affection, never buys her flowers any more, and never initiates sex -- he insists that he still loves her and wants them to remain a couple. She is confused because her man's words and actions seem to contradict. Eventually, one or both of them are tempted to look outside the relationship to fulfill their romantic needs.

A common thread in each of these examples is that the label placed on the relationship does not match the actions of those in the relationship. In the first example, the woman wants to be "just friends," but in every practical sense, they are acting like they are in an exclusive, romantic relationship. They are acting like boyfriend and girlfriend, but they don't want to acknowledge that the label applies. Even though the man may agree to withholding the label, and consciously believes that his decision is rational, his emotions disagree with him. Though he tells himself not to fall in love, that it is just a friendship, he falls hard anyway.

The not-quite-broken-up couple also have a label/action dichotomy in their relationship. Both consciously acknowledge that the relationship is over, and that they made the right decision in breaking up, but they are still acting like they are in a romance. Even though they stop having sex, in every other respect their relationship is as intimate as it was when their love was in full bloom. So both remain romantically and emotionally invested. Their emotions respond to their actions, not to the "friendship" label they have loosely pasted on.

In the last example, both the man and woman want to label their relationship a "committed romance," but the man is not treating her like his lover. He's treating her more like an annoying roommate. As a consequence, their love is dying, even though both may honestly want to stay together. Again, their emotions respond to the way they act in the relationship, not their conscious intentions.

2) This is a shorter point, but equally important: I do believe in soulmates, but I think that there is more than one potential soulmate out there for me. Though I hate to even consider the thought -- if Kelly died tomorrow, I believe I could find someone else and live a happy life. There are very few such women out there for me, but they do exist. Saying this takes nothing away from my love for Kelly. I simply acknowledge that there are many exceptional woman out there, and that I could be compatible with at least a few of them.

Kelly and I tend to make friends with people who are compatible with us in a variety of ways. Most of our friends are attractive, fit, intelligent, active, humorous, and fun. And most of them are also Objectivists. What this means is that several of our female friends are the kind of women I would be seeking if I were single, and similarly, some of our male friends are Kelly's type. One of these friends could be a potential soulmate for me. This does not mean that either of us are open to finding someone else. We are perfect for each other, we have a history together, and we have decided to get married and have a family together. Those choices mean everything.

However, consider what might happen if I started hanging out with Kelly's attractive, fun, intelligent friend Kate (a made-up person) on a regular basis. Kate and I develop a friendship independent of Kelly. As time goes on, the friendship becomes more intimate, and we share all of our deepest thoughts and dreams, as one would with any close friend. Neither of us are at all interested in a romance. But the fact is, we are acting as if we were feeling each other out for a potential romance. Think about it -- if you are single and you meet a woman you like, how do you test the waters to see if the relationship can go further? You begin to hang out with the woman independently, on a regular basis, and get to know her more intimately. It's possible that Kate and I could begin to develop romantic feelings for each other, even though it is not our intention.

Emotions are an automatized response to value judgments stored in the subconscious. Love is the emotional response to the integration of many values in another person, along with the reciprocated recognition of those values in oneself. If you throw in frequent intimate (even non-physical) contact -- and mutual physical attraction -- then romantic feelings are often the result. While one's conscious decisions about how he labels a relationship are taken into account by his subconscious, the way he acts in that relationship is also registered. The emotional result can be a confusing mixture, but most often one's actions are weighed more heavily than his conscious labels, especially if they are in stark opposition.

I don't develop independent, exclusive friendships with other women because I am dedicated to Kelly, and I would not want to inadvertently develop romantic feelings for another woman. Even though I would never act on those feelings, I don't want to take any focus off of the woman I love. I choose to funnel 100% of my romantic and sexual energy into one person, into one relationship. I choose to do this because I believe that this kind of monogamous, long-term romance is the greatest possible adventure in life (see my articles on The Morality of Monogamy and The Psycho-Epistemology of Sexuality for more details).

While I stand by the generalizations I have outlined above, I want to stress that I do not treat my opposite-sex friendship policy as a set of Commandments. Commandments are for religion, not for a rational mind. The ideas I have outlined must be considered within a context, and applied contextually to any particular situation. Think of it like a healthy diet. A man can have a healthy diet and eat hot dogs or pizza every now and then. Maybe his body burns up calories very fast and he has more flexibility about what he can eat without gaining unhealthy weight. Or maybe his metabolism is very slow, and he must be more watchful of his diet than others.

My point is that, while I think it's a good tendency not to develop intimate, independent friendships with members of the opposite sex, that doesn't mean that one must draw a line the sand and never deviate from it. For example, I retain close friendships with several of my ex-girlfriends, and I still keep in touch with them on a regular basis. All the women I have loved in my life are very special, else I wouldn't have dated them in the first place (see my article "Demoting" a Relationship). Kelly knows about them, but she isn't close friends with any of them. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong by staying in touch with these women, and I've never had a problem with developing romantic feelings for them.

However, my friendships with these girls are all long-distance. We chat on the phone once every few weeks, and our discussions are very intimate (in the non-sexual sense), but that is the limit of it. If one of them moved to the area, I would probably invite her to have dinner with me and Kelly, and even go out with her alone for coffee every now and then. But I would be much more careful about how much time I spent with her.

There are many different kind of friendships -- everyone is different -- but keeping in mind some rational generalizations about conducting opposite-sex friendships can help one avoid confusion and focus on the one that matters most.

I love you, baby!

--Dan Edge

Quick Roundup 315

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

Yaron Brook on Campaign Finance "Reform"

Yaron Brook's editorials in Forbes Magazine are outstanding not simply on the merits of what he says, but also because he invariably discusses things that ought to be far more prominent in the public debate than they are.

Recently, he took a look at campaign finance reform, explaining how it threatens freedom of speech:

Sen. McCain was once asked whether McCain-Feingold abridges freedom of speech. He implicitly admitted that it does: "I would rather have a clean government than one where quote 'First Amendment rights' are being respected that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government." We should tell Sen. McCain and those who agree with him that a government which strips us of our right to free speech is by that very fact corrupt. [bold added]

Quite true. If we cannot openly discuss the merits of a given policy, political proposal, or candidate, how can we make rational, informed decisions at election time?

Any threat to freedom of speech is a dire danger to the Republic.

Anyone wondering why I will not under any circumstance vote for John McCain need look no further.

Read all of this, and recommend it to anyone you know who may appreciate its significance.

Guidance and Inspiration

Someone I hold in very high regard recently took the time to point out the existence of an abridged video of Professor Randy Pausch's now-famous "Last Lecture" on the off-chance I hadn't heard of it.

I hadn't, and I needed to hear it.

However, when time to watch the video came, I'd forgotten about this being the shortened version, simply googled for it, and ended up finding the full-length lecture. Happy chance. Here's the embed:


It's about eighty minutes long, and it may seem a little on the corny side at first, but make the time to watch this. You will not regret it.

My thanks again for that email.

Open Animosity Would Be Preferable

Over at Principles in Practice, John Lewis discusses yet another Islamist demand for censorship cloaked in the language of victimhood. As a bonus, this is being promoted as part of a "declaration against terrorism".

How should this "grip of fear" by Muslims be ended? The declaration demands that the Indian government shift the fear onto anyone criticizing Islam, by forcibly banning freedom of speech for critics of Islam.

And if you think governments in the West are going to stand up to this on their own, you have another thought coming.

Incidentally, you should stop by Principles in Practice and just start scrolling. Lots of good stuff there lately.

-- CAV

Obama's Problem

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The underlying lesson of the Obama-Wright flap -- which the MSM, now the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party, refuse to address -- is how far left liberals have gone. Only in a far left atmosphere of Democrat politics could Obama have forged a close relationship with a pastor who thinks the US government created the HIV virus and who applauded 9/11. It never occurred to Obama that he might need to create some distance from this wacko in order to avoid controversy when he sought the presidency.

Obama's problem is anti-Americanism. People don't want their Commander In Chief to hate America. But liberals can't think straight about anti-Americanism because they evade the problem. How can they address a problem they refuse to acknowledge? When any right-winger is so gauche as to bring up leftist anti-Americanism, liberals have been trained to leap up, pound the table and shout, "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY PATRIOTISM?" The question is designed not to explore the issue, but to stop all discussion. Leftist anti-Americanism is That Which Must Not Be Named.

This culture-wide evasion did not help Obama. He never even realized he had a problem until it exploded on You Tube. It is a classic case of a Democrat living in the liberal cocoon and then having reality slap him in the face when his ideas leak outside the cocoon.

His reaction was woefully inadequate. In his speech he falls back on more liberal assumptions: America is a racist nation, and so on. Like an alcoholic who just wants one more for the road, Obama continues to avoid That Which Must Not Be Named.

Obama's problem is the problem of the Democrat Party for the last 36 years. They cannot be honest to the voters about who they are and win the presidency. I look for signs that an open liberal can win the presidency forthrightly, the Kossacks' ideal, but it seems the American electorate is still not quite there.

Ironically, the Republicans seem determined to ape the Democrats in their evasion of reality. The Republicans have become a big government, welfare state party, but they won't admit it. They still pretend to hold small government ideals of a past era that recedes further from us every year and begins to look as quaint as Prohibition and the Spanish-American War.

Perhaps we should take heart that both parties still feel they must pretend to be better than they are to succeed with voters. Their hypocrisy is the tribute statists pay to the better ideas that Americans have yet to forget -- ideas such as individual rights, self-reliance and free markets. As long as our politicians twist themselves into pretzels pretending to conform to America's individualist, capitalist history, then there's hope.

The Psychological Effects of Prostitution

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Ari Armstrong recently published a defense of legal (but not moral) prostitution in the Rocky Mountain News: Should prostitution be legal?. It's a good analysis: I recommend reading it.

As a followup on the OBloggers mailing list, Paul posted the following commentary on prostitution from a former booking agent for a high-end escort service describing the destructive effects of prostitution on the women and the clients. It's fascinating, so I thought I'd repost it here:

"I've Seen My Share of Spitzers: The View From an Escort Service"

[About the men:]

.....But why would a rich, powerful and handsome man pay for extra-marital sex? Aren't there tons of women waiting to throw themselves at him for free? Yes, there are. But those women always want something: they want attention, intimacy and romance. They want to enjoy the high of sleeping with a powerful man. Escorts don't want or care about any of those things. At least one of the articles about the 22 year-old escort who slept with Spitzer implied that she didn't even know who he was. Based on my experience, I think it's highly unlikely that she knew or cared. She was in it for the money, and she had as much to hide as he did.

One high-powered New York attorney explained it to me like this: "Of course I love my wife. Escorts have nothing to do with that. She comes to my hotel room and I don't have to know her name, because they all use fake names like Amber and Kimberly. I don't have to worry about how she feels or what she wants. It's a simple exchange: I give her a thousand bucks, we have a good time for a couple of hours, she goes away and we never have to see each other again."

A thousand dollars is nothing for these men. Money has little value; because no matter how hard they try they will never be able to spend their hundreds of millions. And if you are about to say that for a thousand bucks those girls must supply the best sex in history, then you really do not understand this world. Because it is not about sex; it is about power. And the simple act of ordering up an anonymously pretty 22 year-old girl to do your bidding in the salubrious confines of a luxury hotel suite is an act of power.

[About the women:]

.....None of these girls was coerced into selling her body for money. Most of them came from middle-class backgrounds, and many had been accepted to universities. But they dropped out as soon as they discovered that they could make $20-30,000 a month as an escort.

Then they got addicted to the money and the lifestyle. And then one day, usually between the ages of 25 and 28, once they'd developed that knowing, experienced look that clients instinctively disliked, they found that themselves in a classic bind: they were addicted to high living but could no longer pay for it; they had no marketable skills; and years of late nights and lazy days had left them with no self-discipline. What to do? The really smart ones pulled themselves together and, with the help of a sympathetic client, started some kind of a business. Others married rich, cynical, older men in a sort of paid-wife arrangement. Those were the most common stories. I did not inquire into the fate of the girls who sort of faded away. I did not want to hear about their loneliness and poverty.

You can read the full essay here.

'The Child and the Invader'

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

This video is so outrageous that if I described it here, you would not believe me . . . just go to MEMRI and watch this video clip of an Iranian cartoon for children.

If Eisenhower Had Given the Gettysburg Address

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

Quick Roundup 314

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

The Paucity of Guts?

Caroline Glick, who grew up in the same part of Chicago as Barack Obama, cleans his clock regarding his bigotted, America-hating mentor, Jeremiah Wright.

I was 13 years old when I stood up alone to all my classmates and told them that I thought they should be ashamed of themselves for supporting an anti-Semite [i.e., Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson] for president. I was a child. But Obama came to Wright as an adult. And as an adult, he sat through 20 years of Wright's anti-white, anti-Jewish, and anti-American vitriol and said nothing. Indeed, until just a few months ago, he was honoring him as his spiritual mentor. What does that say about him?

...

It can be argued that there is a difference between how I reacted to black bigotry and how he reacted to black bigotry because I was an outsider and he was an insider. I wasn't trying to become a member of the black community. I was simply demanding to be treated with respect as a non-black by blacks who happened to be the vast majority of my classmates and teachers.

But then, here's another example.

...

I saw that the audience had given [Paul Williams, a speaker she vehemently disagreed with, but who was supposedly on her side] a standing ovation and so I began to wonder if I shouldn't simply return the check I had received from the organizers and leave. But I decided to stay and to challenge him.

And that is what I did. I quietly and forcefully explained why what Williams said was wrong, un-American, and in defiance of both Christian and Jewish values and approaches to human beings. And, as luck would have it, I received an even larger standing ovation than Williams did.

The point here is that I didn't nod my head to fit in, or treat him politely simply because we sat on a stage together. And I didn't surrender the floor to him. We were supposedly on "the same side," but his statements were so contrary to what I believe that it occurred to me that I'd rather be shopping with Nancy Pelosi than sitting through his hateful nastiness.

And I write all of this not to puff myself up. I don't think I did anything extraordinary by standing up to Williams or to my classmates and teachers in high school. I think that it is how people should behave particularly if they are smart enough to understand that ideas are important. And Obama is certainly smart enough to understand that ideas are important.

Obama's denunciation of Wright's bigotry amounts to too little too late. The time to stand up to him wasn't now, when his association with Wright is sinking his hopes for the White House. The time to have stood up to Wright was when Obama was just another member of his church. If he truly believes in what he says he believes, he should have walked out of Wright's church or grabbed Wright’s microphone and told his fellow churchgoers that Wright was wrong and that they mustn't hate. In twenty years of attending Wright's church, why didn't Obama once stand before his fellow church members and tell them that they mustn't hate their country and their fellow Americans? [bold added]

This needed to be said, and deserves to be widely publicized. (HT: LGF)

The best that could be said of Barack Obama is that he lacks the courage to stand up for his convictions. The alternative is that he agrees with Jeremiah Wright.

What Passes for Optimism

Regarding Obama's speech, Alexander Marriott has pronounced unity dead.

Fortunately, the American people, even the supremely gullible, are generally skeptical and disdainful, again generally, of hypocrisy. That Senator Obama, who claims to be a unifying leader who embodies every and all conceivable qualities which the great mass of the American people hold in common, is sitting by while his "spiritual mentor" accuses the government of the United States of unleashing biological warfare upon its own citizenry and the rest of the world, murdering "innocent" people without offering any context, and bringing the just fury of Islamic terrorists upon itself explodes his logic. Ironically, Obama has been wrapping himself in this man's coattails in order to appear sufficiently religious and pious. That goal was ridiculous. His call for unity is just plain dangerous (even in wartime, a loyal opposition is useful and necessary). Now one irrational desire is destroying another. And who says there is nothing good in American politics these days?

A disdain of hypocrisy speaks well of a people, but it will go only so far in carrying the day when the dominant morality is altruism. Obama's collapse will, after all, play into the hands of either Hillary Clinton or John McCain, both altruists, and the latter proudly so. In this race, we want the idiot or the cynic, but we look like we're going to get the "hero".

Pragmatism Making Altruism "Work": Exhibit A

Some time ago, I ran across this post, "Pigs Fly", heaping praise on the blogosphere for making "pork busting" a major congressional priority.

Progress is being made when all 3 remaining presidential candidates oppose earmarks.

Unfortunately, they are up against an entrenched and immovable object: Congress.

So what if all three candidates want to bust pork when all three support strangling the economy with global warming legislation and a big lurch towards fully socialized medicine? The desire on the part of Congress to fine-tune the vote buying pales by comparison to the huge new statist proposals our great anti-pork crusaders have in store for us -- and which Congress is likely enact in some form.

Reducing earmarks "works" to lower our national budget only if evaluated in the present moment, completely yanked out of the larger context of the government looting the economy on a massive scale. (Compare this pound foolishness to a recent proposal to "save money" by minting steel pennies.) That is to say, it does not really work as advertised.

But if a few fried pork rinds tossed into the air constitutes porcine aviation, I guess Don Surber has a point.

-- CAV

Updates

3-21-08: Minor edits.

Obama's Pragmatism

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

Dick Morris, an excellent political handicapper, describes how the prevalent influence of the philosophy of Pragmatism on American culture might help save Barack Obama from the electoral consequences of his long association with the racist Jeremiah Wright and his own failure to make a principled stand against him:

As the controversy continues, Americans will gradually realize that Obama stuck by Wright as part of a need to get ahead. They will chalk up to pragmatism why he was so close to such a preacher. As they come to realize that Obama doesn't agree with Wright but used him to get started, they will be more forgiving. [bold added]

I am afraid that Dick Morris is on to something here....

The philosophy of Pragmatism, in a nutshell, holds that the sole criterion for deciding whether to take an action is whether it "works" in the range of the moment. This approach is severely limited in ways that Leonard Peikoff presents in The Ominous Parallels:

By itself, as a distinctive theory, the pragmatist ethics is contentless. It urges men to pursue "practicality," but refrains from specifying any "rigid" set of values that could serve to define the concept. As a result, pragmatists -- despite their repudiation of all systems of morality -- are compelled, if they are to implement their ethical approach at all, to rely on value codes formulated by other, non-pragmatist moralists. As a rule the pragmatist appropriates these codes without acknowledging them; he accepts them by a process of osmosis, eclectically absorbing the cultural deposits left by the moral theories of his predecessors -- and protesting all the while the futility of these theories. (128) [at "Pragmatism" link, search "twentieth-century" and read preceding entry]

When you reject the whole idea of a clear definition of "what works", those who do not will happily set your terms for you.

Pragmatism makes it easier for the likes of Jeremiah Wright to set the terms of political debate. Many, many people will dismiss him out of hand as a blowhard, but fail to see the importance of opposing his ideas or the danger in leaving them unchallenged. Pragmatism thus removes the dangerousness of Wright's ideas from consideration.

This means that not just those who agree with him will be influenced by his ideas, but that even some who don't see their full implications and profess disagreement with him will also be under his influence. All, including Obama (whether or not he really feels disagreement with Wright), will put these ideas into practice.

In the meantime, the proper purpose of government -- the protection of individual rights -- is too abstract a notion for a pragmatist to ever consider long enough to see as anything other than a source of short-term frustration. Acquiring power, often for professed altruistic ends, is the name of the game, and sucking up to the likes of Jeremiah Wright is an obvious, easy way to acquire it.

This short-ranged and absurd conception of "practicality" is why Obama struck his devil's bargain in the first place and why he may get away with it long enough to become President of the United States. And then he'll be in a position to show us just how "practical" not thinking in terms of principles really is when he starts showing everyone in general that he does, indeed, use those foolish enough to help him.

Under the addling influence of Pragmatism, even a question like, "If Obama will use Jeremiah Wright, what will stop him from using me?" will be quickly forgotten the moment another question arises: "How will I use Obama?"

It is only when one appreciates the objectively practical role of abstract principles in guiding one's actions that one can understand that we really have no use for men like Barack Obama or Jeremiah Wright.

-- CAV

BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Awesome news:

BB&T Donates $2 Million for Ayn Rand Research At The University of Texas at Austin
March 20, 2008

AUSTIN, Texas -- BB&T Corporation, one of the nation's largest banks, has awarded $2 million to the Department of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin to establish the BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism.

Tara Smith, professor of philosophy, has been named the first holder of the chair. Over 10 years, the gift will support research on Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, as well as conferences, workshops, guest lecturers, visiting scholars and research on the moral foundations of capitalism.

Smith spearheads Objectivism scholarship in the university's philosophy department. She has published several articles on Rand's philosophy and the 2006 book, "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist" with Cambridge University Press. She holds the Anthem Foundation Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism and is organizing the interdisciplinary conference, "Objectivity in the Law," April 4-5.

"Ayn Rand's philosophy has been the subject of increasing academic interest in recent years, and this generous gift will allow us to deepen examination of her thought and engage leading scholars in other fields, such as law," the Rand scholar said. "It's an exhilarating opportunity and a testament to BB&T's recognition of the vital importance of philosophy in people's lives."

Rand, a Russian-born American philosopher and novelist, is best known for her magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged." A joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that "Atlas Shrugged" is the second most influential book for Americans today, after the Bible. According to the Ayn Rand Institute, an estimated 20 million copies of her books have been sold.

"We believe that ideas matter. In this context, BB&T is trying to encourage a thorough and fair discussion of Rand's philosophy and the moral foundations of capitalism on university campuses," said BB&T Chief Executive Officer John Allison. "We are pleased to support the philosophy department's important work in the study of Objectivism at The University of Texas at Austin."

BB&T Corp., headquartered in Winston-Salem, N.C., is a financial holding company with $132.6 billion in assets. With more than 29,000 employees, its bank subsidiaries operate more than 1,500 branch offices in 11 states and Washington, D.C.

If you'd like more information on John Allison, you can listen to an excellent EconTalk interview with him. (To hear of a company systematically practicing the Objectivist ethics is quite thrilling!) You can also read about BB&T's philosophy and values on their web site.

Snapshot of the Liberal Mind

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I was talking to a liberal recently. He is an erudite, educated man who prides himself on looking up conservative lies at snopes.com and calmly explaining the truth. Of course, being a liberal, for all his education and intelligence, he is abysmally ignorant of economics. They all are. It's one of the defining characteristics of liberals.

He is an entertaining conversationalist, however -- and he makes some good points about the more hysterical claims of conservatives.

But then the subject of Ann Coulter came up. This man changed from a sophisticated urbanite to a neanderthal at the mention of her name. He began to fantasize about her being gang raped. I was stunned at the sheer, brutal ugliness of his words. He imagined a scenario of violent sex that no one should wish on any woman. I don't know if he has an underlying hatred of women or just a hatred of Ann Coulter, but the hatred was there.

Why does an otherwise calm, pleasant intellectual become a barbarian at the mention of Ann Coulter's name? Because liberals think conservatives are evil, and therefore any attack on them, however dirty or mean, is an act of justice. This is the premise that leads to "the end justifies the means" in liberal thinking. This is the premise that leads liberals to think they can lie, cheat to win elections and smear their opponents character.

The problem is not that liberals make moral judgments of their opponents. The problem is that they discard reason and act by their emotions with no regard to justice, fair play or honesty. It's as if liberals are subjectivists and moral relativists who make no judgments about anyone -- until they are threatened by their enemy, then they go to the other extreme and fight dirty.

We see in the liberal mind the end of two centuries of irrationalist philosophy at work. Liberals no longer have confidence in reason. To liberals, socialism was "scientific," and the collapse of socialism proves the efficacy of irrationalism and radical subjectivism. When push comes to shove in the real world -- and push always comes to shove in politics -- the liberals turn into snarling beasts when they fight. Having abandoned reason, they will tell any lie and smear any character it takes to win.

Changes to Watch For

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Since the 1972 rout of liberal George McGovern by Richard Nixon, the Democrat Party has had a problem. How does a New Leftist party win the presidency in a nation whose voters are not so far left?

It has been a difficult 36 years for the left. The Democrats won the presidency twice in that period with southern governors, Carter and Clinton. Their primary strategy has been to obfuscate their identity as liberals. They have been a party that is afraid to admit who they really are. Liberal became a dirty word, so much that even Ted Kennedy would not admit on a Sunday morning talk show that he was one. The Democrat Leadership Council was created to help Dems get elected in a nation afraid of liberals.

The great hope of the left has been that the American electorate is changing, becoming more liberal, and the Democrats can stop "triangulating" and compromising their liberal principles. The "netroots," led by Daily Kos, have championed the more open, in-your-face liberal candidates. Recently, there has been an upheaval as supporters of Hillary Clinton have left the web site. Kos doesn't care, sneering at them as "laughable."

I'm hoping the 2008 election answers the question of whether or not the Kossacks are right. Can the Democrats campaign honestly and openly as liberals and win the presidency?

It's an open question. America is not the same country it was in 1972. Take California, where I live. This is the state that gave us Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. Orange Country used to be synonymous with the far right wing; now it seems to be full of young college educated kids and hispanics, two groups that vote Democrat. It's been a long time since a Republican presidential candidate wasted any time in California.

At the same time we have seen a growth in religion in America, and those voters tend to be conservatives. But as Huckabee showed, religious people can happily embrace environmentalism and socialism. Another big question of our time: what does it mean to be conservative? Ironically, it seems that, like the liberals, conservatives are giving up the pretense of being against big government.

We have two parties getting in touch with their inner statist. Hey, I love big government! Yes! This is who I am, damn it, and I don't care who knows it! I'm liberated!

I suspect we are at the precipice of a whole new era in American politics. The prospect is ominous.

The History of the Middle East in 90 Seconds

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

John Lewis on his recent talk at Georgia Tech

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

Historian John Lewis chronicles his experiences with questioners at a recent lecture he gave at Georgia Tech at Principles in Practice:

On March 13, I gave my talk "'No Substitute for Victory': The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism" to an audience of about forty at Georgia State Technical University . . . The onslaught began with the first "question," actually a monologue that lasted nearly fifteen minutes. The monologist claimed that: (1) there is a long history of separation of church and state in Islam; (2) Islamic law is good; (3) whenever imposed, Islamic law has brought peace; (4) jihad is a "wonderful idea" and does not mean war; (5) Islamic Totalitarianism poses no threat, since 500 million Muslims reject terrorism; (6) the tax leveled against subjugated peoples is just, because they are protected by Muslims in return; (7) I am "ignorant of history" if I do not acknowledge the "truth" of these claims.

I listened to him without interrupting-and even asked a legitimately annoyed member of the audience to allow him to finish-so that he could fully reveal himself. In answer, I re-read a series of quotes in which Islamic leaders-as well as a young girl on Lebanese television-call for jihad, war, and death; and I pointed out to the monologist that he must be quite angry at these Muslims for their incorrect view of jihad. But instead of being angry at those who give his presumably peaceful religion a bad name, he condemned me for reading their quotes. This is evasion par excellence-to condemn those who raise Islam's violent past and present rather than have to face the fact that the vision of idyllic peace that one associates with one's religion has no basis in reality.

Lewis goes on to report more of the same with other questioners with a notable exception:

[A man who described himself as a thirty-year emigré from Turkey] noted with pride that his homeland had a thoroughly secular government and he praised Kemal Ataturk for bringing Turkey into the modern age, for instance, by banning the headscarf. But today Turkey's secular government is being undercut-by Americans who describe its government as "moderate Islamic" and thereby blur the line between theocracy and secularism. This opens the door to the establishment of Islamic law. The man's message was this: There can be no compromise between theocracy and secular government; it is either-or. To accept "moderate Islam" into government is, in principle, to establish theocracy. I wonder if he realized that, by the standards of the brownshirt in my audience, he was a criminal for holding such a view.

Or worse, that an American president would dare to call the ideology that seeks to enslave Turkey and the rest of the world "a religion of peace."

Dr. Lewis definitely enters the lion's den when he gives his lectures in defense of secularism in government and victory in war; almost every itineration of his talk exposes him to savage hostility unprecedented (and unacceptable) in American education. As I observed last year, had there not been an overwhelming police presence at George Mason University when he presented his lecture before that audience, I believe that there would have been nothing to prevent the mob from assaulting him physically. It takes moral courage to face down such an adversary, and I certainly salute Dr. Lewis for his.

Burt Rutan: a Capitalist Space Race

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

=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true">

Source: TED Video

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Capitalism and the Environment: The Virtues of "Exploitation"

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

Capitalism and the Environment: The Virtues of "Exploitation"

What: A talk analyzing the destructive nature of environmentalism--and explaining the constructive role of science, technology, and capitalism in promoting human life and progress. A Q&A will follow.

Who: Richard M. Salsman, speaker for the Ayn Rand Institute

Where: Rice University, Herzstein Hall, Room 212, Houston, TX

When: Tuesday, March 25, 2008, at 7:30 pm

Admission is FREE.

Description: Man achieves his survival by using his mind to alter his environment to suit his needs and improve the conditions of his existence. It is this process--expressed in science, technology, and capitalism--that has allowed man to rise from the hunger, drudgery, and misery of primitive existence to the comfort of modern civilization. But it is precisely this process that is under attack by the reactionary "greens"--who want to return man to the pre-industrial era even to the Stone Age.

In this talk, Mr. Salsman does not merely discredit the scientific claims of environmentalism; he demolishes its moral and philosophical base. He demonstrates that: (1) the doctrine that nature has "intrinsic value," i.e., some sort of mystical value entirely apart from its relation to man, is nothing but the desire to destroy human values, (2) the improvement of the environment--for man--can only be provided by laissez-faire capitalism, and (3) that it is the environmentalist movement itself that is today's greatest danger to human health and happiness.

Bio: Richard M. Salsman, CFA, is founder, president and chief market strategist of InterMarket Forecasting, Inc., an investment research and forecasting firm based in Chapel Hill, NC. Mr. Salsman is a noted authority on banking and capitalism. He is the author of two books, Gold and Liberty (1995) and Breaking the Banks: Central Banking Problems and Free Banking Solutions (1990). Mr. Salsman's articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, Barron's, Forbes, and The National Post (Canada). Mr. Salsman lectures widely at investment gatherings and at universities such as Harvard University, the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley.

For more information: e-mail media@aynrand.org

###  ### ###

You Call this "Victory"?

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

Ayn Rand Institute Press Release

You Call this "Victory"?
March 24, 2008

Irvine, CA--In Congress, on the campaign trail, and across America, many have accepted a strangely favorable view of what President Bush's war policies have accomplished.

Conservatives regard his "surge" as a master stroke and celebrate what Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell calls the "extraordinary progress that has been made in Iraq." The popular sense that the war is going well is at least part of the story behind the comeback of McCain, whose support for Bush's policies initially dragged him down.

Democratic candidates Clinton and Obama both concede that the "surge" has worked and grudgingly quibble about the slow pace of political reconciliation among Iraqis.

"But the idea that we're nearing 'victory' in Iraq is a fantasy," said Elan Journo, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. "Iraqis may now be butchering each other a bit less often, but Bush's war policy has done nothing to protect Americans."

"Cheerleaders of the President's policy focus myopically on whether insurgents have been kicked out, for the time being, from one street in one neighborhood of Baghdad. But the only rational benchmark for the war's success is whether it has made the lives of Americans safer from the threat of Islamists. Our security depends on how we're doing in the face of the global enemy, the ideological movement of the jihadists, which is widely popular and sponsored by states such as Iran.

"Far from working to defeat the enemy, Bush's war policy has been, not to defeat the jihadist forces, but to show 'compassion' to Iraqis and Afghans, to raise them out of poverty and give them elections. Bush's policy has left the enemy undefeated and empowered."

It is not Washington, but the hostile Iranian regime that can definitely claim to have scored "successes" thanks to Bush's policies, argues Mr. Journo. "As the leading sponsor of Islamist hostility and terrorism, Iran has grown stronger in the face of Washington's inaction. Iran arms insurgents in Iraq and jihadists across the region in attacking Americans. And Iran has won enormous power over Iraq.

"The loudly touted security 'gains' of the surge in Iraq are but a momentary reduction in bombings and attacks on U.S. troops. The Iraqi government is still the theocratic regime dominated by Islamist groups, which still operate death squads, and it is still in Iran's pocket." 

Mr. Journo continued: The Iraq fiasco is emblematic of the turmoil Bush's policies have caused across the region. U.S.-backing for elections has given Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Islamists more political power and added confidence. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Director, al Qaeda is gaining in strength and improving "the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S." (i.e., new recruits who can blend into American society and attack domestic targets). The creeping Talibanization along the Afghan-Pakistan border poses a real threat of further attacks on the United States.

"All Americans should ask themselves: Why has Bush's 'compassionate' war policy not only failed to confront the major enemy, but strengthened it--and left us more vulnerable? How can we truly defend ourselves against the Islamist enemy? If we are to protect American lives, we need to answer these questions correctly, now."

###  ### ###

Mr. Journo is a resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He specializes in foreign policy and the Middle East. His writings have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle, The Chicago Sun Times, and the Globe and Mail of Canada. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Journo has been a guest on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs.

Elan Journo is available for interviews.

Contact: Larry Benson
E-mail: media@aynrand.org          
Phone: (949) 222-6550 ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism's unique point of view, go to ARI's Web site at www.AynRand.org. Founded in 1985, the Ayn Rand Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

How Will the Iraq War End?

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

Yaron Brook Op-Ed in Forbes

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Yaron Brook has published an op-ed on campaign finance reform in Forbes. Here's the opening paragraph:

This presidential campaign will be, by far, the most expensive in U.S. history. And it is ironic that John McCain, the co-author of McCain-Feingold, is one of the candidates hustling to raise tens of millions of dollars. One thing is for sure: No matter who wins, the call for more campaign finance legislation will intensify--all in the name of combating the allegedly corrupting influence of money on politics. This is ominous, because what campaign finance restrictions actually do is subject political speech to the corrupting influence of government control.

It's an excellent column, particularly in its use of telling examples from the current presidential election. Sadly, one need not look far to see the absurdity of the McCain-Feingold law and other restrictions on political speech. His point about total government funding of elections as a sure means of creating a "political aristocracy" in America as particularly apt -- and chilling. Based on the numbers he cites, it's already happening in America, thanks to current regulations.

Also, if you like the article, please do post a supportive comment, rate it highly, e-mail it to friends, etc.

Sales of "Atlas Shrugged" at All-Time Record

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

The Easter Masquerade

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

The Easter Masquerade
By Keith Lockitch

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII established our modern calendar and fixed the rules determining the date of Easter. This year Easter falls on March 23, but from year to year it can shift by as much as a month on the Gregorian calendar.

Finding Easter's date for a given year requires a surprising degree of scientific acumen. The last things one might expect to see in, say, the Book of Common Prayer are tables of numbers and rules for mathematical calculations--but there they are, nevertheless.

At first glance, this seems to exemplify a kind of harmony between religion and science, a peaceful concord between faith and reason. Indeed, a variety of public figures--from prominent scientists to the Pope--have promoted the view that science and religion are not adversaries but complementary and mutually supporting fields. "Truth cannot contradict truth," they declare, implying that the truths discovered by reasoning from sensory evidence cannot clash with the "truths" of religious dogma.

A closer look, however, reveals the long history of the hostility of faith towards reason--which continues to this day. Violent clashes between the two are not only possible but unavoidable, and the notion that religion can coexist on friendly terms with science and reason is false.

For reasons both biblical and astronomical, Easter is defined as the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox (the first day of spring). To get his calendar rules right, Pope Gregory had to rely on some of the best astronomers and mathematicians of his day. Ironically, one of these was Nicolas Copernicus, whose sun-centered astronomy engendered one of history's most famous clashes between science and religion.

A faithful canon of the Catholic Church, Copernicus supported the calendar project happily. His scientific work was partly motivated by the goal of predicting more accurately the first day of spring and the subsequent full moon. He modestly expressed the hope that by facilitating the calculation of Easter his labors would "contribute somewhat even to the Commonwealth of the Church."

At first Copernicus's work was warmly accepted by Church officials--but only because they didn't take it seriously. Sixteenth century common sense held that the Sun orbits the Earth, which is motionless at the center of the universe. More important, Church scholars held that the true structure of the world is established not by science but by official interpretation of Scripture. Hence, they regarded the motion of the Earth as nothing more than a convenient mathematical assumption--an idea justified solely by its utility in making astronomical predictions. Thinking they could evade a clash between reason and revelation, they denied the reality of the Earth's motion but used the Copernican theory nonetheless.

This contradiction became inescapable decades after the Gregorian reform when Galileo removed the objections from common sense by explaining the physics of the moving Earth. But the objections from faith proved more intractable. Galileo's outspoken defense of the Earth's motion as a serious physical idea forced Church leaders to take a stand--and when they got off the fence, they came down firmly against science. That the Church persecuted Galileo for defending Copernican theory is well-known. Less frequently acknowledged is the utter hypocrisy of that act: the Church persecuted Galileo for defending the very ideas on which its Easter reform depended.

In 1992 Pope John Paul II grudgingly admitted-- 350 years too late--that his predecessors had been wrong. He called the Church's persecution of Galileo a "sad misunderstanding" that "now belongs to the past."

But does it?

Although few would now declare the Earth the motionless center of the universe, it is not difficult to find those who claim it to be 6,000 years old and deny the long, slow evolution of its species. More alarming is that the same Dark Ages mentality that dragged Galileo before the Inquisition now seeks to prohibit entire fields of scientific research, such as therapeutic cloning. The war of religion against science has merely shifted to new battlegrounds, but it still rages on.

Religion's alleged harmony with science is a fraudulent masquerade, extending only insofar as religious dogmas are not called into question. True defenders of science must be committed to reason as an absolute principle--following facts wherever they lead and bowing to no authorities but logic and reality. And they must understand that the servile obedience demanded by faith is wholly incompatible with science--and with the rational thinking on which all human progress and prosperity depends.

 

Easter Safety

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

So much is horribly wrong with this news report that I just don't know where to begin...

Easter warning: crucifixion is bad for you
By Thomas Bell, South East Asia Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:54am GMT 20/03/2008

Many people in the Philippines consider crucifixion and self flagellation good for the soul, but it is bad for your health according to new government advice for penitents.

This Holy Week, the thousands of guilt stricken or pious worshippers who will flay the skin off their backs, and the handful who will crucify themselves, are encouraged to get a tetanus shot first and be sure to use a clean whip or nails. "We are not trying to go against the Lenten tradition here because whipping has somewhat already become some form of 'atonement for sins' for some of us," Health Secretary Francisco Duque the 3rd said. "Getting deep cut wounds during whippings or lashings is inevitable and being so exposed during the course of the penitence, with all the heat and dust blowing in the wind, welcomes all sorts of infections and bacteria like tetanus," he explained.

Re-enactments of the Passion of Christ are common in many parts of the mostly Roman Catholic Philippines but frowned upon by the church authorities. In San Fernando City 23 people, including two women, have signed up to re-enact the crucifixion at three "improvised Golgothas" around town. Four of them will use real nails. The city government's website trumpets the preparations.

"The City Health Office (CHO) autoclaved all the nails to be used and will administer anti-tetanus vaccine to all the "Cristos" to ensure their protection from possible infection," it points out. City officials will conduct an inspection of the Golgothas on Thursday.

The festival is sponsored by Coca-cola and a company called Smart Telecommunications.

In a break from the original tradition, penitents are encouraged to "bring enough drinking water for the whole course of the pilgrimage to avoid dehydration, rather than buy bottled drinking water from unfamiliar sources."

There is also government advice for the many tourists and spectators who attend the events. "It is also better to bring self-prepared foods such as sandwiches, not only to save money, but also to avoid getting diseases such as diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid after eating food bought from street vendors," the health secretary suggested.

Wow. Why can't they just do a nice quiet egg hunt?!? (Oh wait, that's the pagan tradition. Silly me!)

OCON Early Registration Deadline

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The early registration deadline for OCON 2008 is fast approaching: it's March 31st. So if you plan to attend or if you're thinking of attending, you'll wish to register sooner rather than later to receive the price discounts.

If you want recommendations on particular optional courses, I'd be happy to provide those. Just e-mail me. I'm taking fewer than usual this year, as I expect to be working on my dissertation during OCON. I've signed up for:

• Health-Care Activism: Saving the Life Savers by Lin Zinser (Session 1). Lin has a wealth of information to share on effective activism -- a topic near and dear to my heart.
  

• Two, Three, Four and All That: The Sequel by Pat Corvini (Session 1). Pat's course was my absolute favorite last year, so I'm looking forward to the sequel.
  

• Freedom of Speech in American History by Eric Daniels (Session 2). Eric is a phenomenal lecturer with a philosophically-rich, encyclopedic knowledge of history. He could give a course on the history of radish farming in the United States -- and he'd make it worth hearing. So this course of the history of free speech is not-to-be-missed.

Depending on my work schedule, I'm also hoping to be able to attend John Lewis' course Rome's Punic Wars: Three Victories and Their Lessons in Session 2, but I won't commit to that until OCON itself. (Paul is taking it.) John's courses are always excellent, so I'll definitely buy the course if I'm unable to attend.

As for the general courses, I'm especially looking forward to:

• Cultural Movements: Creating Change by Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate
  

• Ancient Greece and the Birth of Philosophy by Robert Mayhew
  

• The Menace of Pragmatism by Tara Smith

As usual, Paul and I will be attending the opening banquet, but not the closing banquet or the Fourth of July picnic.

Paul Scofield, RIP

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The great actor, Paul Scofield, is dead at 86. Check out these two clips of his acting, one from A Man For All Seasons and one from Mel Gibson's Hamlet.

Both clips feature brilliant acting. Scofield's Ghost quietly and convincingly shows the agony this creature is in -- something most actors miss in this role.

The writing in these clips is also pretty good. The scene from A Man For All Seasons has a nice defense of law against the medieval religious mentality. And Hamlet is, well... it's Hamlet. I'm always struck by how modern Shakespeare's writing is in this play. It is one of the great masterpieces of drama, a work of art that enhances your life for experiencing it.

When I watch a master like Scofield at work, I am inspired to make the extra effort in my own work. A good actor is not satisfied with mediocrity, not when such greatness is possible.

(If you want to see another bit of brilliant Shakespearean acting, though not featuring Scofield, check out this scene from Coriolanus starring Alan Howard. The language is quite difficult, but it's worth watching the whole scene. The way Howard says "Shall remain!" is spine-tingling. I find Coriolanus a fascinating play because it is about a proud hero who disdains the mob.)

How to tell if a law is total garbage

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

What is one way to tell that a law is utterly non-objective and deserves to be repealed? When the enforcement of the exact same law can radically change from one political administration to another. Consider this report that quotes an antitrust lawyer warning businesses to announce their mergers now, lest they run afoul of a potentially Democratic antitrust enforcement apparatus.

Phillip Zane, who specializes in antitrust matters for the law firm Baker Donelson, said that a Democratic administration was likely to take a tougher line on merger reviews than the Bush team.

"If I had any sort of close deal, I'd rather have it go now," Zane said. "It may be that some of the airline deals are close deals." [Diane Bartz Reuters]

OK, that's probably true, but imagine if Mr. Phillip Zane esq. was a criminal attorney warning the public that a Democratic administration was likely to take a tougher line on murder. Most would recognize that different political administrations may seek more or less aggressive sentences for murder as punishment for having been convicted of committing it, but the actual definition of what constitutes murder under the law remains the same regardless of administration.

Such is not the case for antitrust enforcement; antitrust law is so vague that political administrations can and do diverge greatly over what constitutes "restraint of trade" or the "attempt to monopolize." Right then and there this wild divergence ought to signal that the law is utterly un-objective and unfair. How can one possibly hope to avoid running afoul of a law that changes with the political winds? And worse, why would one continue to tolerate it?

The Dalai Lama: Dumb and dumber

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

In researching what a potential "free Tibet" would look like absent Chinese rule, I found the following quote which is attributed to Tenzin Gyatso, aka the 14th Dalai Lama and the head of Tibet's government in exile:

Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis and the equitable utilization of the means of production. It is also concerned with the fate of the working classes--that is, the majority--as well as with the fate of those who are underprivileged and in need, and Marxism cares about the victims of minority-imposed exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and it seems fair. I just recently read an article in a paper where His Holiness the Pope also pointed out some positive aspects of Marxism.

As for the failure of the Marxist regimes, first of all I do not consider the former USSR, or China, or even Vietnam, to have been true Marxist regimes, for they were far more concerned with their narrow national interests than with the Workers' International; this is why there were conflicts, for example, between China and the USSR, or between China and Vietnam. If those three regimes had truly been based upon Marxist principles, those conflicts would never have occurred.

I think the major flaw of the Marxist regimes is that they have placed too much emphasis on the need to destroy the ruling class, on class struggle, and this causes them to encourage hatred and to neglect compassion. Although their initial aim might have been to serve the cause of the majority, when they try to implement it all their energy is deflected into destructive activities. Once the revolution is over and the ruling class is destroyed, there is not much left to offer the people; at this point the entire country is impoverished and unfortunately it is almost as if the initial aim were to become poor. I think that this is due to the lack of human solidarity and compassion. The principal disadvantage of such a regime is the insistence placed on hatred to the detriment of compassion.

The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist.

So here we have a leader who repeats the tired chestnut that Marxism is a noble ideal and implies that all Marxism needs is less coercion and more guilt. After all, if "Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis" that wealth won't just distribute itself—it will require a means of distribution. Since the Dali Lama says he eschews coercion, all that's left is guilt.

Yet what about those allegedly amoral businessmen who live by their own minds and for their own sake, feel no shame over their concern with "gain and profitability" and who think that an idle man's pointing his finger to his mouth is not an act of human solidarity? The Dalai Lama acknowledges that even Vietnam (a predominantly Buddhist country) was unable to implement the so-called Marxist ideal absent coercion. Why would a half-Marxist, half-Buddhist "free" Tibet be any different? After all, the Dali Lama doesn't acknowledge that capitalists' posses even a hint of morality. Why then would anyone assume that as leader of Tibet he would protect their moral right to their independent lives and private property?

Ultimately, there is a reason all Marxist states must resort to coercion: because men have free minds and not all willingly accept unearned guilt, the Marxist moral code demands that these men be destroyed. Being "half-Marxist and half-Buddhist" does not change this equation and even if Tenzin Gyatso personally disdains violence, there are plenty of Marxists who do not. For all of China's many faults, it is no longer a Marxist state. It seems clear that an ostensively "free" Tibet would be Marxist and if that's true, that horror would be far worse than anything the Chinese could hope to unleash.

Around the World Wide Web 54

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

1. Obama, Clinton and McCain are all ignorant of economics.

2. The conservative Rick Moran reveals his ignorance of economics in "Is Capitalism and the Conservative Rationale for It Dead?"

...the huge investment companies who manage the hundreds of funds that invest in securities were overconfident in their ability to manage everything from the risk of mortgage securities to the effect the bursting of the housing bubble had on the value of their portfolios.

They just got it wrong, that’s all.

Mr. Moran fails to take into account economic distortions created by preexisting government policies.

For decades our government has had a semi-official policy that large financial institutions are too big to fail—and therefore must be bailed out when they risk insolvency—a policy that creates perverse incentives for them to take on far more risk than they otherwise would. "Too big to fail" is implemented through a network of government bodies that protect financial institutions from the long-term consequences of their decisions at taxpayer expense—a phenomenon we can observe right now.

Mr. Moran ends up calling for more of what caused the problem, government intervention in the economy:

Maybe we need new regulation to prevent this from happening again. Maybe we need better monitoring and thus less “free” markets by the government. And what good is “individual and corporate responsibility” if the economy would be prostrate if we followed that dictum and just allowed economic Darwinism to rule the day and watch as millions lost their savings and millions were thrown out of work?

Thus do breezy, half-assed dilettantes like Rick Moran, blithely unaware of the damage they wreak, spread stupid ideas and take America a little further down the highway to hell.

3. Harry Binswanger demolishes two ghastly conservatives, David Brooks and William F. Buckley.

4. Cassandra imagines what would happen if Obama's relationship with a radical preacher were a Republican problem.

5. My mom said I could.

6. Hillary Clinton's plan to end war in Iraq:

On taking over the presidency in January 2009, she says she will instruct the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draw up a plan for withdrawal to start within sixty days of her inauguration; she will next convene a regional stabilization group composed of states bordering Iraq, major US allies and other global powers to find an agreement on how to support a durable Iraqi state - a long overdue proposal, first put forward by another Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, in the 2004 race; and she will ask the most important multilateral organization on the planet, the United Nations, for its involvement as a "neutral, honest broker" to forge political reconciliation in Iraq.

It sounds like a recipe for chaos to me. And one of those states bordering Iraq is Iran. Would it be good to have Iran dictating how Iraq should be run? Can the UN keep peace in Iraq?

America Offers "Moral Bailout"

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

Even as the clouds of a financial storm gather, brought on by the foolishness of "government bailout crack", our government is involved in a bailout of another, far more obscene kind: The moral bailout of the intellectually bankrupt Islamic faith.

In a recent summit held in Senegal, leaders of Islamic countries reaffirmed that their religion is at war with the West as they outlined a new tactic. In the process, they all but admitted that their religion has nothing constructive to offer to man, the rational animal.

[L]eaders of the world's Muslim nations are considering taking legal action against those that slight their religion or its sacred symbols. It was a key issue during a two-day summit that ended Friday in this western Africa capital.

The Muslim leaders are attempting to demand redress from nations like Denmark, which allowed the publication of cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in 2006 and again last month, to the fury of the Muslim world.

Though the legal measures being considered have not been spelled out, the idea pits many Muslims against principles of freedom of speech enshrined in the constitutions of numerous Western governments.

"I don't think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy," said Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. "There can be no freedom without limits." [bold added]

Before I move on, the president of Senegal has it exactly backwards. One cannot have freedom of speech at all by imposing limits.

Given the all-encompassing nature of a religion such as Islam, that is nearly devoid of any influence from rational philosophy, one need not even consider the example provided in the story of what Islamic "limits" on freedom of speech would, by their nature, entail. And yet there it is: If these primitives had their way, we would be unable simply to draw or display a cartoon of their "prophet" (who is, incidentally, this blog's mascot).

And that's for starters. As the rational animal, man's tool for survival is his mind, which enables him to survive by discerning the facts of reality and acting accordingly for the sake of his own benefit. Freedom of speech directly benefits man by allowing him to pool cognitive resources with other men, be it by sharing truths, uncovering falsehoods, or even warning against arbitrary doctrines (such as Islam) that are, as Wolfgang Pauli would put it, "not even wrong".

The value of freedom of speech lies in its connection to reality, which any prohibition, however apparently innocuous, will sever. Having no evidence or proof that there is such a thing as Allah, I do not pretend that He exists. Is saying as much "blasphemy"? Marking paper and saying that the marks represent Mohammed is. Is openly defying some of this alleged being's commandments blasphemy? Is openly questioning the basis of the tenets of Islam blasphemy?

This last is an important question because the whole prohibition against blasphemy is rooted in the assumption that there is a God and this act displeases Him. (Incidentally, my use of capitals here is done only out of love and respect for English grammar. I have neither for Islam.) There is no other basis for this prohibition.

Acceptance of such a prohibition by any government, then, removes all objectivity from its legal system by smuggling in religious justification -- arbitrary commandments -- as a basis for preventing men from acting according to their own rational judgement.

Once we have accepted such a premise, the sky's the limit for what other laws can be introduced because in the course of arguing their merits, the fact that they are based on a religion we don't all follow will necessarily come up. And past a certain point -- as we saw with the Danish cartoons -- the Moslems will claim that the discussion is closed on the grounds that it has become blasphemous. Our freedom would not immediately end with a prohibition against blasphemy, but its demise will be all but assured.

This incompatibility between Islam and freedom of speech -- and hence the benefits of modern civilization -- should be manifest to all in the West. But it apparently isn't. At least not to some of those whose job it is to protect that freedom, officials from the government of the United States:

While the Muslim world worries about the image of Islam in the West, the U.S. envoy to the OIC attended the summit to try to tackle the thorny question of America's image among Muslim states.

Sada Cumber calls his campaign the "soft power" of the U.S. -- an effort to find common ground with Muslim nations by championing universal values the U.S. holds dear like religious tolerance and freedom of speech. [bold added]

In the objective sense that freedom of speech promotes man's life, it is a value. In the sense of being appreciated by all men, it is plainly not "universal". To pretend that America has any "common ground" with those who have pledged to attack freedom of speech is to betray that value. The fact that we sent an envoy to such a conference is bad enough, but the fact that our envoy apparently did not protest this declaration of war is a remarkable act of appeasement.

When I think I have a good idea to offer, I fight for it by marshaling evidence and arguments in its favor and submitting it to the rational judgement of someone I respect. If I am right and convince that person, we will benefit. If I am wrong and he corrects me, we still benefit. Were I to force someone else to accept my idea, we would act upon it even if it were wrong, compounding the crime of my violation of that person's autonomy.

The unique aspect of the government that these Islamic leaders hope to take advantage of is that it is holds a legal monopoly on the use of force that its citizens have to act in self-defense, but have delegated to it. These "leaders" hope to subvert that force from its proper purpose -- the protection of our lives and rights -- and use it to squelch dissent instead. That is, they hope to turn our governments against us.

This is not just a thinly-veiled declaration of war, it is also a startling admission of intellectual bankruptcy. If Islam is so great, present me with an argument. Present me with facts in its favor. Explain to me how following its tenets will improve my life on earth. ("Submit or die," doesn't count because a threat is not an argument.) If you are right and I am wrong, but don't buy into it, move on. The fact that these leaders haven't and won't speaks volumes.

Too bad that our government, rather than presenting them with an unambiguous refusal to yield on the principle of individual rights, is giving them the moral bailout of its sanction, by pretending that we have even one speck of common ground. They know that their words, unbacked by the gold of reality, are worthless, so they plan to use our government to make us accept them as legal tender.

Our government, by saying nothing now, has averted the collapse they deserve and effectively told them to to go ahead with their plan.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Minor edit.

The Bitter Fruits of Egalitarianism

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This article -- "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man? by Christina Hoff Sommers -- is a fascinating article on the disturbing attempt to inject sexual egalitarian politics into math, science, and engineering education.

From what I've seen in academia over the years, the liberal-egalitarian push for "diversity" in race, sex, orientation, and the like at the expense of the science opens the door for conservative-religious demands for "diversity" of viewpoints at the expense of the science. The results are bad all-around.

Obama's Speech

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I watched Obama's speech given in response to the furor around the statements of Obama's preacher-mentor, Jeremiah Wright. The speech is an enormous straw man meant to obfuscate and distract from the real problem.

Let me sum up Obama's problem in a paragraph:

Barack Obama, like most Democrats, is a New Leftist. As such he believes in many ideologies such as multiculturalism, feminism and environmentalism. The most controversial idea held by New Leftists is anti-Americanism. This leftist anti-Americanism is not a problem within the Democrat Party, but It is the one belief that Democrats must hide more than any other in order to be elected President. Obama's preacher has made outrageous anti-American statements. People wonder if Obama agrees with them; they wonder why he did not break with Wright years ago. For a Democrat presidential candidate even to be suspected of anti-Americanism is catastrophic problem, one that is probably fatal to most politicians.

In his speech Obama did not attempt to answer the problem -- it is so profound and dangerous that Democrats will not even name it. Instead, he changed the subject and made a speech about race.

The suspicions about Obama's anti-Americanism will linger. People don't want the Commander In Chief to be someone who can listen to a nutjob shout, "God damn America" without breaking relations with the man. Obama has lost those Democrats who are not anti-American leftists. They used to be called Reagan Democrats; come November 5, 2008, if Obama is the Democrat candidate, they will be called McCain Democrats.

Let's NOT Unite

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

RealClear Politics is loaded with links analyzing yesterday's Obama speech on race, although it is sprinkled with a few other things, including a column written by none other than the Republican nominee, John McCain. Too bad we'll be getting nearly the same thing no matter which color predominates the electoral map come November.

First, although I haven't heard or read the entire speech myself, indications are that it is as effective as such a speech can be coming from a conventional leftist. In other words, Obama seems intent on using race to advance his left-wing agenda.

One self-proclaimed "secular conservative" describes how Obama just slipped that race card out from his sleeve and played it: "His main theme is this: we have to set aside racial grievances and agree to a racial truce--so that we can unite across racial lines and work together to achieve socialism."

This would confirm the fears that several commenters have expressed here in the past and which a long-time association of an eloquent leftist with a racist makes completely unsurprising. Namely, this speech paves the way for all dissenters from Obama's leftist agenda to have to defend themselves against charges of racism. This is an opportunity for cultural activism in disguise.

I recommend looking at an Obama Presidency as the opportunity to de-couple, once and for all, the ideas of racial equality and egalitarianism. Egalitarianism is not the opposite of racism: Respect for individual rights is. Time to get the word out.

Thomas Sowell devastates Obama's attempt to plead ignorance of Jeremiah Wright's racism and hatred of America:

Spin number one is that Jeremiah Wright's words were "taken out of context." Like most people who use this escape hatch, those who say this do not explain what the words mean when taken in context.

In just what context does "God damn America" mean something different?

Spin number two is that Barack Obama says he didn't hear the particular things that Jeremiah Wright said that are now causing so much comment.

It wasn't just an isolated remark. Nor were the enthusiastic responses of the churchgoers something which suggests that this anti-American attitude was news to them or something that they didn't agree with.

If Barack Obama was not in church that particular day, he belonged to that church for 20 years. He made a donation of more than $20,000 to that church.

In all that time, he never had a clue as to what kind of man Jeremiah Wright was? Give me a break!

You can't be with someone for 20 years, call him your mentor, and not know about his racist and anti-American views. [bold added]

Indeed. And I also agree with Sowell that, "Equality means that a black demagogue who has been exposed as a phony deserves exactly the same treatment as a white demagogue who has been exposed as a phony."

I agree further with Sowell that it is "heartening that the country has reached the point where a black candidate for President of the United States sweeps so many primaries in states where the overwhelming majority of the population is white". That said, if we are to reach the point of true racial equality with Obama in charge, those of us who oppose the left will have to stand up to charges of being racists or being in league with them. The Republicans cannot be counted on to do this on their own.

And speaking of the Republicans, what alternative do they offer to Barack Obama's package-dealing of racial equality with socialism? Setting aside for the sake of argument McCain's disqualification as an enemy of freedom of speech, it is: A call for "unity". In other words, the same bet, but without the convenience of a race card!

Americans and Europeans share a common goal – to build an enduring peace based on freedom. Our democracies today are strong and vibrant. Together we can tackle the diverse challenges we face, whether radical religious fanatics who use terror as their weapon of choice, the disturbing turn towards autocracy in Russia or the looming threats of climate change and the degradation of our planet. [bold added]

McCain plays the "freedom from foreign threats equals socialism" card instead. He also touts his message as "the truest form of realism". He does not explain, however, how subordinating America's national sovereignty in order to impose, for example, a multinational fuel ration is "realistic", let alone moral.

Both candidates tout unity as an unlimited virtue in service of goals that are incompatible with individual rights. Obama plans to use unjust charges of racism as a cudgel to preempt or quash dissent while McCain has already demonstrated a willingness to outlaw it. Both are enemies of individualism. One will be our next president unless, by some miracle, yet another enemy of individualism, Hillary Clinton, wins out.

Whether one votes against McCain or leaves the presidential ballot blank, one has a sacred obligation to explain whenever appropriate that political unity for any purpose other than the self-defense of free individuals is anything but a virtue.

-- CAV

PS: Myrhaf has more on Obama's speech.

Updates

Today: (1) Corrected a typo. (2) Fixed wording in last sentence. (3) Added a PS.

“The Anticapitalists: Barbarians at the Gate” - Larry Sechrest

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

(You can skip to the lecture’s beginning at 5:40.)

By the way, the introductory quote is from Ayn Rand’s 1970 essay “The Comprachicos.” The text is:

Observe also the intensity, the austere, the unsmiling seriousness with which an infant watches the world around him. (If you ever find, in an adult, that degree of seriousness about reality, you will have found a great man.)

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China blocks YouTube over Tibet videos

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

The AP reports that the Chinese censorship apparatus is working overtime:

Internet users in China were blocked from seeing YouTube.com on Sunday after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the popular U.S. video Web site.

The blocking added to the communist government's efforts to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule.

Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad.

There were no protest scenes posted on China-based video Web sites such as 56.com, youku.com and tudou.com.

Invariably the discussion turns to the Olympic Games which are to be held in Beijing this summer. My view is if their will be no Olympic boycott (and at this stage at least I doubt their will be), let every athlete who medals wear a Tibetan flag on his lapel for the presentation of his medal or some other form of protest. The Chinese cannot fathom dissent and "disorder;" with these games that are supposed to symbolize their emergence as a world power, let them confront it everywhere they turn--and in a form they cannot squelch. It is high time the Chinese learn that it cannot be authoritarian and simultaneously embrace the rest of the world in friendship and sport.

More Quick Movie Reviews

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

More quick movie reviews:

• Scoop: An enjoyable and clever bit of fun, with very good acting.
  

• Million Dollar Baby: Stellar acting, and a gut-wrenching plot. I only wish I'd seen it earlier. (See this article on Hilary Swank's training for the film.)
  

• Collateral: Interesting premise, but not particularly exciting in its execution.
  

• Stardust: A charming and clever fairy tale, in a similar vein as The Princess Bride. Strongly recommended.

What have you seen lately that you liked?

Music with an Ayn Rand Connection

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Dismuke has compiled an interesting (and surprisingly lengthy) collection of music with some connection to Ayn Rand. If you're interested, go have a peek -- or rather, a listen.

The Truman Doctrine vs. American Self-Interest

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

Question for NoodleFood: Environmentalism

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Graig Janssen asks:

I'm a regular reader of Noodlefood, and have a question about environmentalism. I understand and agree with the idea that human beings should not hold nature as an end in itself nor sacrifice themselves for its benefit. However, does Objectivism differentiate between environmentalism of this kind and the kind that would seek to preserve the planet for humanity's own sake? For example, many Objectivists seem to be of the mind that the global warming issue is nothing but hysterical propaganda aimed at subjugating mankind to nature. However, isn't it in our self interest to avoid a future catastrophe that could be disastrous for people as well as the planet? If there are scientific papers claiming that global warming poses no threat to humans, I'd very much like to read them. Do you think Objectivists are too quick in dismissing pro-environment ideas as "anti-man" when there are clearly cases in which both environment and mankind benefit?

That's a good question. Due to constraints of time and ignorance, I will limit myself to a few brief comments, plus recommended reading.

An environment conductive to human life is definitely a genuine value to be sought and kept: it's necessary for life! That requires a broad concern for all living organisms and their environs, as well as for the future effects of present actions -- but within limits. In other words, we shouldn't adopt any precautionary principle, nor just extrapolate from current trends to 50 generations hence, nor protect dangerous-right-now species based on claims of intrinsic value or on arbitrary speculation about future benefits. Today's environmentalists do that in spades -- with predictably absurd results. Without exception, environmental philosophy is seriously, deeply corrupt.

None of the above implies that environmental questions can be resolved from a comfy philosophic armchair. Sure, philosophy must identify the proper standards of proof in science, the ultimate value of human life, and the absolute requirement of respect for rights in public policy. Yet the particular details of environmental problems and solutions must be left to the experts, i.e. the biologists, geologists, chemists, etc. I'm certainly skeptical of the claims of impending doom from global warming, but I have only laymen's questions, not proof. I can say that whatever the environmental problem, the proper solution is more reason, more egoism, and more freedom, particularly more respect for the rights to life, liberty, and property -- not less. That's easy to assert in the abstract, but likely more difficult to implement, as the proper legal remedies for collectively-caused environmental torts are not obvious. Working out those problems would require not just good philosophy in general, but also expertise in philosophy of law, particularly tort law.

As for further readings, I'd recommend a few items off the beaten track from two Objectivists I respect:

• Philosopher Noumenal Self's essay on environmental problems and solutions: In which I reveal my seedy green underbelly?
  
• Two essays on conservation from biologist Monica: Property Rights are Good, Not Bad, for Environmental Conservation and Why Environmental Conservation?

While I don't agree with all that is said in those essays, they do thoughtfully challenge the sweeping disdain for environmental concerns sometimes espoused by Objectivists.

Faith Versus Reason #1

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Ayn Rand Institute recently posted eight short Q&As on faith versus reason to its YouTube account. They're an excellent series, and I hope that ARI will post more such videos. I'm breaking them into separate posts, and here's the first:



If you like it, please give it a good rating! Also, if you know people who like Ayn Rand yet cling to their faith, you might e-mail them the whole series. Or if a blogger professes the same, you can post links to the series in their comments. Here are the links to copy and paste:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1jMD3bFJdI
   
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd-3C9l7d0E
   
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ0i71VuV_o
   
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hxKyIO6YoE
   
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-BEQqDS7Fo
   
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M37Kq0ob9MA
   
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYm-U_etSrU
   
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z87IeNbLA0

Defining the Right of Self-Defense by Gun

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

Defining the Right of Self-Defense by Gun

By Thomas A. Bowden

First, the robber hit Willie Lee Hill more than fifty times with a can of soda, knocking him unconscious. Later, the 93-year-old victim awakened, covered with blood, to find his 24-year-old assailant ransacking the bedroom. When Hill pulled out a .38-caliber handgun from near his bed, the robber lunged at him. Hill stopped his attacker with a single bullet to the throat. “I got what I deserved,” the robber told police afterward.

That episode happened in Arkansas last July, but similar acts of self-defense occur by the thousands all across America every year. Overwhelming historical evidence and common sense demonstrate that guns--often called the “great equalizer,” for obvious reasons--are a powerful method of self-defense in the precious minutes before police can arrive.

In the District of Columbia, however, citizens may not lawfully possess a handgun for self-defense, even in the home. The Supreme Court will soon hear oral argument in D.C. v. Heller, which is expected to determine whether such a blanket ban violates the Second Amendment. But regardless of how the Court may interpret the Constitution, citizens deserve a legal right to own a handgun for self-defense.

As the Declaration of Independence recognizes, governments are created to protect our individual rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The right of self-defense is included and implied in the right to life. In forming a government, citizens delegate the task of defending themselves to the police. But to delegate is not to surrender. Each citizen retains the ultimate right to defend himself in emergencies when his appointed agents, the police, are not available to help.

But what constitutes an emergency? What acts of self-defense are permissible in such a situation? And what tools may private citizens own for emergency self-defense? The law’s task is to furnish objective answers to such questions, so that citizens may defend their lives without taking the law into their own hands.

An emergency, properly defined, arises from an objective threat of imminent bodily harm. The victim must summon police, if possible. An emergency ends when the threat ends, or as soon as police arrive and take charge. During that narrow emergency interval, a victim may defend himself, but only with the least degree of force necessary under the circumstances to repel his attacker. A victim who explodes in vengeance, using excessive force, exposes himself to criminal liability along with his assailant.

Many objects commonly owned for peaceful purposes can be pressed into service for emergency self-defense. But unlike kitchen knives or baseball bats, handguns have no peaceful purpose--they are designed to kill people. The same lethal power that makes handguns the most practical means of self-defense against robbers, rapists, and murderers, also makes handguns an essential tool of government force. Handguns are deadly force and nothing but--a fact that gives rise to legitimate concerns over their private ownership in a civilized society.

These concerns can be resolved only by laws carefully drawn to confine private use of handguns to emergency self-defense, as defined by objective law. Such laws must also prohibit all conduct by which handguns might present an objective threat to others, whether by intent or negligence.

Contrary to an often expressed worry, therefore, a right to keep and bear arms in no way implies that citizens may stockpile weaponry according to their arbitrary preferences. Cannons, tanks, and nuclear weapons have no legitimate use in a private emergency, and their very presence is a threat to peaceful neighbors.

If handguns are confined to emergency self-defense, no legitimate purpose is served by an outright ban such as the District of Columbia enacted. Even if such laws actually deprived criminals of guns (which they don’t), they would infringe upon a law-abiding citizen’s right in emergencies to repel attackers who are wielding knives, clubs, fists--or cans of soda.

With the aid of his handgun, Willie Lee Hill survived that violent home invasion last July. Self-defense was his right, as it is ours. A proper legal system recognizes and protects that right, by permitting private ownership of handguns under appropriate limits.

Thomas A. Bowden is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute, focusing on legal issues. Mr. Bowden is a former attorney and law school instructor who practiced for twenty years in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ayn Rand Institute (www.AynRand.org) promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at

media@aynrand.org.

Quick Roundup 312

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

More on Spitzer

Myrhaf links to some further commentary on Eliot Spitzer's self-destruction and, along the way, comments on what Client #9's resorting to prostitution says about his outlook on existence:

Eliot Spitzer's public career was at war with reality because his ideals -- altruism, statism and collectivism -- are also at war with reality. They are an affront to justice, a massive con game in which the rights of the strong and able are violated in the name of the weak and disable.

The welfare state breeds creeps like Spitzer and Bill Clinton, who seek affirmation in the bedroom that they are above reality, that the rules don't apply to them, that they can get away with whatever they want. [bold added]

There are many aspects of this scandal that strike me as "teachable moments", as Jim May once put it, and this goes beyond just the fact that Spitzer is a consistent practitioner of the morality of altruism. He was so consistent, in fact, that he was, as Galileo Blogs pointed out yesterday, so petty and short-range in his thinking as to be barely more than a criminal.

If one says nothing else about Spitzer, it should be that was most definitely not a good man. Joseph Kellard does just that in a letter to the editor:

The problem with Spitzer's downfall is that [it] happened over a sex scandal and not for the dictatorial behavior he exhibited toward his real or perceived enemies, such as innocent businessmen like John Whitehead.

Here's a small taste of the kind of attitude we're up against from The Houston Chronicle's own capitalism-hating business columnist, Loren Steffy:

Spitzer's goal wasn't to win convictions -- it was to change behavior. At that, he proved adroit. [This is praise for trial by media backed by government threats, something that is underhanded and undermines rule of law. --ed]

He's not the only attorney general to use the tactic. In fact, a long line of AGs in New York and elsewhere have employed similar strategies in consumer protection.

But if he was effective at forcing changes in corporate behavior, he was far less adept at changing his own.

As governor, and as the state's former top cop, he has, in all likelihood, been caught in alleged illegal activity. So it's not just about sex, it's about breaking the laws that he was sworn to uphold.

Spitzer and those he prosecuted are linked by a common denominator in their undoing, a bond of conceit and hypocrisy. [bold added]

That last line takes the cake in the "obscene moral equivocation" department, but should be no surprise coming from someone who opens his column about such a sleazeball with the following gem of psychological projection: "When a white knight falls in the mud, we all seem to laugh a little louder."

If Eliot Spitzer is an evil man, commentators like Loren Steffy are worse because their moral praise gives his lot ample room to operate.

Get up to Speed on the Subprime Meltdown

Alex Epstein of the Ayn Rand Institute has recently written two must-read pieces on the subprime meltdown. In the first, he considers the real nature of government offers of "assistance" to the banking sector:

If an ordinary citizen proposed to the mortgage industry that it bail out borrowers through a widespread rate freeze and call it a "private sector effort," the proposal would be dismissed as a joke. But when the government proposes such an initiative to private industry, all participants know that it can do great damage to them if they refuse--and can grant them huge favors if they comply. Today's HOPE NOW and Project Lifeline participants, for instance, can be harmed by the passage of "anti-predatory-lending" laws, which would expose them to huge lawsuits by borrowers who claim to have been in the dark about the contracts they signed. These participants can also be helped with unearned handouts--with cheap Fed money, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taking risky mortgages off their hands, and with a bailout in the future if, say, they face bankruptcy because of sloppy lending practices. [bold added]

The sum of his two articles shows that this situation is analogous to some thug making you sample crack cocaine at gunpoint. He makes the crack analogy in his second article.

[A]s a Fortune cover crudely put it: "What were they smoking?"

A major part of the answer is: government bailout crack.

Read the whole thing to see how the promise of a bailout destroys long-range planning on the part of those whose job it is to do just that.

Government force intruding into the economy gets us coming and going, by making us afraid to do what we know is right, and eager to do what we know is wrong.

Israel on its Own

Several others have pointed to this already, but Scott Powell's take on the foreign policy implications of the upcoming presidential election cannot be advertised too much.

Council of Ex-Muslims in Britain

I have recently learned of a new organization in Britain whose time has definitely come, and its leader is on the ball. She shows a firm grasp of the danger and motivation of the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent advocacy of sharia.

[Maryam Namazie, head of the Council of Ex-Muslims in Britain] must have been shocked, I suggest, when the Archbishop of Canterbury said the introduction of some Sharia in Britain was unavoidable. No, she says; she wasn't even surprised. "It was quite apt, although he didn't expect the reaction he got. It was an attack on secularism really. It is, in a sense, to his benefit if there are Muslim schools and Sharia. It makes it less likely that anyone will oppose Christian schools and the privileged place of religion in society."

She is adamant, though, that no form of Sharia should be allowed here. "It is fundamentally discriminatory and misogynist," she says and is dismissive of the idea that people would be able to choose between Sharia and civil jurisdiction. Women could be railroaded into a Sharia court, she says. "This would hit people who need the protection of British law more than anyone else." [bold added]

The Christian religion offers no protection against the left or against Islamism. The sooner advocates of freedom understand this, the better.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a typo.
3-12-08: Minor edits.

Congressional Duplicity, or Treason?

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

I rarely write commentary from anger, preferring a properly objective, psuedo-dispassionate approach to a subject deserving my attention. But news of the details, nature and scope of pending legislation in the U.S. Senate has caused me to make an exception to that rule.

As though Americans were not already burdened with:

• Extortionate and confiscatory taxes wherever they turn on virtually everything they earn, purchase, or do, from the local level on up to the federal level;
• Myriad regulations, controls and arbitrary rules that hamper or obstruct their productivity and their lives;
• Footing the endless bills of earmarked pork barrel projects at home in the amount of billions;
• Footing the bill in the amount of the billions for bottomless altruist and "humanitarian" pork barrel projects abroad;
• Footing the bill for an ever-expanding and ever more costly welfare state to subsidize the ill, the retired, the aged, the young, etc.
• Being held hostage by, say, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other hostile "oil-producing" countries, because our government has decided that snail darters, sea cows, and caribou have a greater right to live than have human beings;
• Paying more for food because mandated ethanol, which reports prove costs more in oil to produce than it "saves," in the gas they buy is taking more crop acreage out of production;

Congress is proposing, in Barack Obama's Global Poverty Act (S.2433, based on H.R. 1302, passed by the House September 25, 2007), that Americans be delivered into a state of indentured servitude as laborers for the United Nations. Perhaps "indentured servitude" is too kind a term, for as horrendous a condition as it is, there is usually a time limit to such servitude. Slavery would be the more accurate term in this instance, for what Congress is considering is servitude by Americans in perpetuity, in exchange for nothing but the privilege of laboring to "save" the world without thanks or reward, of filling the alleged needs of others, of performing unlimited "community service" for the offense of merely existing.

The not-so-peculiar and odd thing about H.R. 1302 was that it passed the House by voice vote. This is a stratagem adopted by legislators who fear that a bill is so outrageous that it is better that no record be kept of those who endorsed it. S.2433 was passed from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the same manner - by voice vote, without public hearings, to protect the identities of the guilty.

It will probably be introduced to the Senate for a similar, anonymous voice vote - by Harry Reid.

There is a double irony in this behavior. First, S.2433 is a bipartisan-sponsored bill. This underscores the fact that there is no fundamental difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Second, it is a piece of legislation which, given the altruist, collectivist premises behind it, one would have thought its creators should have trumpeted boastfully. But it is being handled by corrupt, guilty, fearful sneaks who haven't the courage of their own malice.

It reminds one of the scene in Atlas Shrugged, when James Taggart pulls down a window blind to obliterate the sight of the Washington Monument, just as he and government officials decide to decree a moratorium on brains.

The proper American response to this evil and to its sponsors and supporters, in Congress and in the U.N., should be Dagny Taggart's when she learns of it: "I won't work as a slave or as a slave-driver."

The bill's co-sponsor is Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee. Its other co-sponsors are Senators Joseph Biden, Maria Cantwell, Chris Dodd, Dick Durbin, Russ Feingold, Dianne Feinstein, Charles Hagel, and Robert Mendez, all Democrats.

The bill was the subject of a strong editorial in Investor's Business Daily of February 28, 2008, "Obama's 0.7% Solution For Poverty Gets Pass from Senate Republicans." According to IBD, the bipartisan bill would require the president

"to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day."

The "Millennium Development Goal" refers to a United Nations declaration adopted by the U.N. Millennium Assembly and Summit in 2000 that calls for "the eradication of poverty" by "redistribution (of) wealth and land," cancellation of "the debts of developing countries" and "a fair distribution of the earth's resources."

The IBD reports that

"The Millennium project is monitored by Jeffrey D. Sachs, a Columbia University economist. In 2005 he presented then-U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan with a 3,000-page report based on the research of 265 so-called poverty specialists.

"Sachs' document criticized the U.S. for giving only $16.5 billion a
year in global anti-poverty aid. He argued that we should spend an additional
$30 billion a year in order to reach the 0.7% target that the U.N. set for the
U.S. in 2000....Sachs said that the only way to force the U.S. to commit that much
money is by a global tax, such as a tax on fossil fuels [oil, coal, natural
gas]."

The tax would be imposed not only on their production, but on their use, as well. Among other consequences, Americans would be impoverished for the purpose of reducing poverty abroad by 0.7 percent of the U.S.'s gross domestic product.

The Millennium declaration, reports IBD, also calls for a "currency transfer tax," a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources," a "royalty on worldwide fossil energy production - oil, natural gas, coal," "fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."

The U.N. has assumed that it governs the earth, and wishes to penalize the most productive country on it for, well, being the most productive. If you never quite understood the nature and purpose of the "unification" and "global amity" plans described by Rand in Atlas Shrugged, this plan is its real world counterpart.

In practical terms, the Millennium declaration is a prescription for not only perpetuating the "global poverty" it purports to eradicate, but also for impoverishing everyone, and for perpetuating that condition, as well.

But the Obama bill does more than allow the U.N. to tax American citizens. It is more than a matter of legality or illegality. For all practical purposes, it surrenders U.S. political sovereignty and independence to the U.N., an organization most of whose members are actively hostile to the U.S.

Has the U.S. ever approved a tax on its citizens imposed by the U.N.? If it has, by what authority? Note that the wording of the Obama bill would require "the president to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy" - which assumes that the office of president is just another mode of tyranny or arbitrary power, no different from the "presidency" of any random tin pot dictatorship or regime.

There is some logic to their premise. After all, the U.S. has withheld moral judgment of every one of those countries. Long, long ago, the U.S. should have won World War II, but not participated in the formation of an organization that admitted dictatorships and other tyrannical regimes for the purpose of "peace." Long ago, the U.S. should have withdrawn from that organization, and evicted its headquarters from this country's soil.

But it maintains its sanction of that organization, and has paid the price for it every since.

Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution states: "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

It would be interesting to see if this definition could be applied to the actions of Senators Obama, Lugar, Reid and the rest of the supporters of S. 2433 (and also the sponsors and supporters of H.R. 1302). Given that the U.N. has never disguised its hostility for the U.S., and that the enemies of the U.S. are legion in the U.N.'s membership, would passage of this bill by Congress constitute giving "aid and comfort" to our enemies, and "adhering" to their purposes and ends? For that is what the bill amounts to: giving our enemies the right to conquer, loot, and subjugate this country and its citizens.

Are we not already burdened by our own lords and masters of "social policy" and "redistribution" in Washington and in every state capital, without inviting the depredations of a clique of international thugs and looters?

I urge those reading this to call or email his senator and urge that Barack Obama's S. 2433 be roundly defeated by a recorded roll call. If possible, communicate your outrage with the same moral indignation as Dagny Taggart's.

My LTE in The Washington Post

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

Over the weekend, The Washington Post ran a three part series that attempted to serve as a scathing indictment of DC landlords for seeking to convert their rental properties to condominiums (often flouting DC landlord and tenant law in the process) and of DC regulators for falling to better regulate the landlords. The series was one of those "in the public interest" exposés that attempted to show how the "little guy" is set upon by the world, yet true to form, it failed to properly identify the real little guy. Below is the text of my letter to the editor in reply which was published on page A16 of today's Post.

What About Landlords' Interests?

The premise of The Post's series on the condominium boom ["Forced Out," front page, March 9-11], that landlords victimize their tenants in pursuit of profits, failed to capture the root cause of the District's housing woes.

We cannot exempt rents from the law of supply and demand and expect that landlords will maintain their properties, build new properties or not seek to convert their properties to more profitable uses.

What incentive does a landlord have to endure a market in which profits are capped and the specter of criminal liability for regulatory violations looms omnipresent?

In a free market, a tenant's desires could be obtained by contract and a willingness to pay the market rate (and a willingness to move when expectations are not met). Instead, under rent control, we have a system in which tenants are legally permitted to get something for nothing.

Some may wish otherwise, but it is inevitable that such a system fails in practice.

NICHOLAS PROVENZO

Chairman
Center for the Advancement of Capitalism
Washington

Discover the Greatness of Sir Edward Everett Millais!

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

The Soul of a Tyrant

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

Via HBL, I came across a very disturbing portrait of Eliot Spitzer, who very fortunately ran afoul of the very type of law he should have opposed, but decided to wield instead:

Whether it was Spitzer's involvement in the Dirty Tricks and Internal Revenue scandals that targeted Senate Republican Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, his threats against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and other Assembly Democrats, his undermining through rumor and innuendo of Lt. Gov. David Paterson, or his seemingly paranoid hostilities to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Spitzer's style struck many as so far out of line with his public claims of righteousness that many started using the jargon of abnormal psychology to describe him. [bold added]

The above passage is disturbing for two reasons. First, it describes a widely respected and admired man who actually held elected office in New York, and who had legitimate presidential aspirations. Second (and worse), it draws the wrong conclusion about the relationship between Spitzer's "claims of righteousness" and his megalomaniacal, controlling personality.

What did Eliot Spitzer do to be able to claim "righteousness"? He prosecuted citizens for victimless "crimes", some of which were forms of productive activity. The laws that made these acts crimes were legal codifications of arbitrary religious and altruist proscriptions against behavior that violated the rights of no one and, therefore, did not belong on the books.

In other words, Eliot Spitzer was not motivated by a desire to protect the individual rights of the people who elected him, but by a moral code that is incompatible with personal freedom because it calls for the sacrifice of individuals. Whether Spitzer was benevolent but misguided at first (which seems very unlikely to me) or a power-luster from day one is irrelevant.

In either case, his implicit ethical system condoned human sacrifice and the only difference would be whether that moral code demanded sacrifice of others for the "common good" (benevolent Spitzer) or his own aggrandizement -- and whether Spitzer's actual motivations stemmed from the source the public originally thought or were camouflaged by it. This is because his implicit ethical system (whatever it is) and his explicit one (what the public elected him on) are variants of the same theme, differing only by who Spitzer thinks is entitled to drink the sacrificial blood.

If you later start seeing some of the very actions Spitzer was once admired for being re-cast as evidence that he was "selfish" (which he wasn't) or merely crazy, it will be only because Spitzer drank of that cup himself, and not, alas, because he filled it in the first place.

Yes. Spitzer's personal behavior sounds like that of a disturbed man. But that fact makes him no less of an altruist, nor does it make him "inconsistent". He is gone, but the idea that man should be sacrificed to others remains at large, ready to empower others like him or worse through the mantle of undeserved respectability.

Spitzer will get only poetic justice, and his political demise will not save us from tyranny for long.

-- CAV

Washington Times Letter

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Hooray! My letter to the editor in praise of Dick Armey's moral defense of intellectual property was published in The Washington Times today:

Sing a song

Thanks to Dick Armey ("Airing on free use," Commentary, Friday) for defending intellectual property in broadcast radio as a matter of justice to the creators.

Today's producers of music--artists, management and record companies--offer consumers around the world a vast array of music for all tastes. Those producers deserve to be rewarded handsomely for their efforts, not cheated of royalties by legal loopholes for broadcast radio or online file sharing.

Without the producers of music, we'd be stuck listening to our own off-key shower singing.

DIANA HSIEH

Sedalia, Colo.

Normally, I prefer to focus my activism efforts on local papers, but that was too good an opportunity to pass by. Paul also published a letter to the editor on health care in The Christian Science Monitor last Friday. Hooray FIRM!

Campus Rape Culture?

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Heather MacDonald has an excellent article in The City Journal entitled "The Campus Rape Myth." It's a detailed look at the supposedly widespread phenomena of campus rape.

While I'm pretty familiar with the absurd statistics that feminists use to support their claims that rape on campus by acquaintances is commonplace, I didn't realize the obvious implication: that campuses waste oodles of money in the attempt to offer support for mostly non-existent campus rape victims. In other words, the phones of campus rape crisis lines are mostly silent.

While I was disappointed by MacDonald's final suggestion that postponing sex until marriage might be the proper alternative to indiscriminate sex, her general point in the article -- that women must take responsibility for their sex lives, including the compromising positions in which they often place themselves -- is completely right.

In fact, the article made me think that the topic might be worth teaching in my Intro Ethics course, particularly since the course covers various philosophers' views of sex, friendship, and pleasure. I'd definitely like to connect some of those older views with a modern debate about student life!

Daily Show Bodyslams Berkeley Hippies

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

Now this is funny:

Quick Roundup 311

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

Return of the Steel Penny?

Our government's inflationary fiscal policies appear to have finally made stamping out fiat dollars one cent at a time cost more than it's worth:

A House subcommittee chaired by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., convened a hearing Tuesday on a proposal to change the composition of both coins. Republicans and Democrats like the concept, particularly its promise to save taxpayers $100 million a year by using cheaper metals at the U.S. Mint. If the legislation clears the House and Senate and President Bush signs it, you could be plucking steel pennies off the street before year's end. [bold added]

Wow! A nationwide savings of one hundred million dollars a year! (Excuse me while I whistle through my teeth here.)

This is like Pork Busters for monetary policy in that it focuses on petty theft and turns a blind eye to grand larceny. I'd far rather spend an extra thirty cents helping Uncle Sam mint copper-clad zinc pennies next year if our lawmakers would focus less on navigating a bureaucracy they helped create and more on preserving the strength of the dollar in the short term. And I'd really love it if they'd consider exploring a way to return to the gold standard in the long term.

Instead, until more American voters demand protection of their individual rights rather than government handouts, Congress will continue to use the ability to print currency as a means of robbing my bank account behind my back even as they "demonstrate" with steel pennies that they want to save me money. Spit in my face and tell me it's raining....

I regard Ron Paul's refusal to insist on or acknowledge a proper intellectual defense of individual rights as treasonous to the cause of freedom. Nevertheless, if Polly does indeed want a cracker, even a parrot will sound like it knows what it's talking about from time to time. In a similar vein, Paul pretty well summed things up when he said, "[W]e cannot even maintain a zinc standard."

(Real) Money is good. (And inflation is deadly.)

The Resident Egoist actually found a decent comment about money over at Slashdot, which reminded him a little of Fransisco d'Anconia's famous "Money Speech" in Atlas Shrugged. And while we're on the subject of money and inflation, here's a good quote from Rand's essay, "Egalitarianism and Inflation" from the online version of The Ayn Rand Lexicon:

Money is the tool of men who have reached a high level of productivity and a long-range control over their lives. Money is not merely a tool of exchange: much more importantly, it is a tool of saving, which permits delayed consumption and buys time for future production. To fulfill this requirement, money has to be some material commodity which is imperishable, rare, homogeneous, easily stored, not subject to wide fluctuations of value, and always in demand among those you trade with. This leads you to the decision to use gold as money. Gold money is a tangible value in itself and a token of wealth actually produced. When you accept a gold coin in payment for your goods, you actually deliver the goods to the buyer; the transaction is as safe as simple barter. When you store your savings in the form of gold coins, they represent the goods which you have actually produced and which have gone to buy time for other producers, who will keep the productive process going, so that you'll be able to trade your coins for goods any time you wish. [bold added]

Consider what government printing of unbacked currency means in this light: Inflation not only robs you of part of your current effort by effectively reducing your income, it retroactively taxes the fruits of any past effort you have set aside. To the extent that this occurs, it is as if you hadn't lived a portion of your productive life at all.

Socialism or Slavery?

Alexander Marriott recalls an interesting discussion he once had concerning a very common and very unfortunate mistake: That capitalists haven't the moral standing to oppose slavery. He concludes:

It is no accident that societies built upon socialism resemble societies built on slavery in that the great mass of people are being sacrificed either to some smaller group of people or, theoretically, to each other. In either case, their lives do not belong to them but to others. The only real difference is whether one prefers being ground up in the sugar mills of an 18th century French plantation in St. Domingue (Haiti) or being pounded into the dust of some five year plan in Soviet Russia. Either way, you are just as sacrificed; either way, you are just as dead. [bold added]

The distinction between slavery and socialism is one that unfortunately masks their essential similarity.

Mere Poetic Justice for Spitzer

I share Amit Ghate's frustration that the only justice for Eliot Spitzer will be of the poetic variety. Excuse the obscene moral equivocations below, but it is impossible to find a news report devoid of them....

Eliot Spitzer knew how to catch bad guys by following the money. As attorney general, he once broke up a call-girl ring and locked up 18 people on corruption, money-laundering and prostitution charges. He ruthlessly investigated the pay packages of Wall Street executives and was so familiar with shady financial maneuvers that he rose to become the top racketeering prosecutor in Manhattan.

But in the end, it appears that Spitzer may have been done in by the same behavior he built a career out of prosecuting.

In fact, it seems he was tripped up by some of the very financial accounting methods he used so successfully against multibillion-dollar Wall Street firms. [bold added]

This man made a career out of using the apparatus of the state to go after people who, in many cases, were not doing anything that should have been illegal. He could have chosen to work to repeal such bad laws, but decided instead to enforce them ruthlessly. His semi-just desserts, while cathartic on some levels, will in fact be a legal travesty. I do not morally condone a married man using prostitutes, but the fact remains that prostitution should be legal.

Have Silver Lining, but Want the Cloud Back!

C. August and I are on the same page regarding paternalistic smoking bans: "So as much as I hate smelling like I rolled around in an ashtray upon leaving a bar, I say repeal the smoking ban!"

Particularly interesting is how proponents justified the ban in the first place. One would do well to consider how opponents in crusades like this can strengthen their arguments so that one can be prepared to respond. I am glad he talked about this.

How to Fix All of the Above

As I often mention here, significant political change for the better will not and can not occur without profound cultural change. Paul Hsieh and Rational Jenn both have recently said some very good things about how to bring this about. And Monica brings up something that sounds familiar to me:

I realized that oftentimes - not always, but oftentimes -- I am more interested in winning an argument than I am about the ideas. OR I am interested in the ideas and it sickens me to see people with the wrong ideas prevail, so I just end up avoiding the discussions altogether.

This is doubtless as common as it is counterproductive, and the fact that the false theory/practice dichotomy gets pounded into our skulls from every direction in our culture makes it almost impossible not to be afflicted with this urge to some degree, especially soon after encountering Ayn Rand. (And as I know from experience, it can take lots of time to get past this.)

I don't know how, specifically, to deal with this problem, but I suspect that it gradually goes away on its own as one integrates theory and action more fully on a subconscious level. Rational Jenn, for example, notes that before she became intellectually active on a more constructive level, that she "used to be frustrated to no end, 'debating' minutiae with people who were less interested in ideas and more interested in winning an argument." I went through a "silent period" of my own, and for similar reasons.

Ultimately, I think anyone who really values one's life and really understands having the right ideas as important to one's life hits this kind of wall and learns to stop beating one's head against it. Eventually, one's forays into the battlefield of ideas have the betterment of one's life as the motivation, and hence become much more effective and satisfying. Just noticing the problem is a good sign, in my opinion.

A Bleg

And now, after being so "helpful", I am going to turn right around and ask for some help. Despite my lower blogging output, I am in fact writing more than I used to, and it is beginning to take a physical toll on me. I want to nip that in the bud.

Does anyone out there happen to know of a good resource for work place ergonomics? Specifically, I am thinking of investing some money in a new computer desk and chair, and I don't want to waste it on something uncomfortable or likely to end up causing me physical harm from repeated stress injuries.

The chair is extremely important. (It's important enough for me to cast away mild embarrassment and admit that I'm on the bony side.) I've already whiffed twice on that.

I know that I could Google "egronomics" or other such terms, but getting a recommendation from someone with some experience with following such recommendations would probably save me lots of time and money. Especially someone else with an inefficient metabolism! If you don't wish to use the comments, email me.

-- CAV

Updates

3-13-08: Corrected spelling of "Eliot".

Alex Epstein on Market Neutral

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In this 35 minute "Market Neutral" podcast, Chip Hanlon interviews ARI's Alex Epstein. The description reads: "Ayn Rand Institute analyst, Alex Epstein, discusses government's proper role in 'fixing' the subprime mess. He also weighs in on Libertarians, with remarks that may surprise given the recent euphoria surrounding long-shot presidential candidate, Ron Paul." (Via Mike)

I was able to listen to this podcast in early January. It was definitely interesting, particularly the comments on Ron Paul and libertarianism. I'm not sure that I agree with Alex's analysis of libertarianism, but it was good food for thought.

Update: I recalled what in particular I disagreed with in Alex's analysis of libertarianism. It's posted in the comments.

Eliot Spitzer and Reality

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Susan Estrich attempts to make sense of Eliot Spitzer:

My old roommate used to call it "getting stupid." In the beginning of the story, the guy might be smart, thoughtful, good-looking and funny. But when it came to sex, she'd just shake her head. Lord, could guys get stupid or what?

That's the phrase that kept running through my head as I listened to the reports, read the affidavits and plowed through the details of the mess surrounding my very smart former student Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

How could one smart guy get that stupid?

...

Rich, powerful men don't need to pay women to have sex; there are plenty who will do it for nothing, save the expectation that they be treated as people. I have never understood why such men prefer to pay for it. Or, more accurately, I have understood, and I think less of them for their choice. What does it say about a man that he'd rather pay for sex? That he is willing to offer nothing but money?

Estrich fails to understand that sex is more than just physical pleasure, more even than psychology. Sex is an affirmation of metaphysics.

Eliot Spitzer's entire career was at war with reality. Why shouldn't his sex life reflect that war as well?

Spitzer was a statist thug who persecuted innocent businessmen.

As he declared war on Wall Street and other corporate abusers, Spitzer also declared war in effect on his own oath of office: a commitment to the state and federal constitutional guarantees of the presumption of innocence.

Time after time with high-profile corporate officials - most conspicuously, former American International Group CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg - Spitzer railed on national television that his targets had broken the law.

But in most cases - after the damage to reputations was already done - no charges were brought.

Robert Tracinski notes that Spitzer had the soul of a power luster:

Spitzer's "crusading" career as New York's attorney general is a catalog of abuses of prosecutorial power. He tried cases in the media instead of the courts by releasing embarrassing documents at press conferences and leaking carefully selected facts to sympathetic reporters. This is slander under the color of law, an attempt to ruin a target's reputation without actually have to prove the allegations against him. Spitzer smeared his victims by digging into their personal lives and spreading rumors about their infidelity (another disgusting irony of this affair). He blackmailed businesses into paying massive fines by threatening to file corporate indictments that would cripple a firm's ability to operate, even if it were eventually acquitted. He threatened respectable businessmen with the prospect of being hauled off in handcuffs in front of their families.

He did everything he could, in short, to bully the rest of the world into a solicitous state of submission—the state of terrorized subjects groveling before a tyrannical emperor.

Gus Van Horn writes,

He prosecuted citizens for victimless "crimes", some of which were forms of productive activity. The laws that made these acts crimes were legal codifications of arbitrary religious and altruist proscriptions against behavior that violated the rights of no one and, therefore, did not belong on the books.

In other words, Eliot Spitzer was not motivated by a desire to protect the individual rights of the people who elected him, but by a moral code that is incompatible with personal freedom because it calls for the sacrifice of individuals. Whether Spitzer was benevolent but misguided at first (which seems very unlikely to me) or a power-luster from day one is irrelevant.

Eliot Spitzer's public career was at war with reality because his ideals -- altruism, statism and collectivism -- are also at war with reality. They are an affront to justice, a massive con game in which the rights of the strong and able are violated in the name of the weak and disable.

The welfare state breeds creeps like Spitzer and Bill Clinton, who seek affirmation in the bedroom that they are above reality, that the rules don't apply to them, that they can get away with whatever they want.

Reality caught up with Spitzer and Clinton, and someday it will catch up with the welfare state. There will be hell to pay when those chickens come home to roost. Spitzer's problems, if they are then remembered, will seem insignificant.

Israel Attack on Iran, Sooner Rather Than Later?

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

Too Big to Bail

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

Too Big to Bail
By Alex Epstein

Every few days we hear that another leading financial institution has written down billions more on subprime investments gone bad. Nearly every major financial institution, it turns out, had a hand in loans to low-credit borrowers--borrowers whose ability to pay often hinged on endlessly low interest rates or a strong housing market. How could this happen? How could nearly all the leading lights of the financial industry--the experts in assessing and managing risk--expose themselves to such massive losses? Or, as a Fortune cover crudely put it: "What were they smoking?"

A major part of the answer is: government bailout crack.

For decades our government has had a semi-official policy that large financial institutions are too big to fail--and therefore must be bailed out when they risk insolvency--a policy that creates perverse incentives for them to take on far more risk than they otherwise would. "Too big to fail" is implemented through a network of government bodies that protect financial institutions from the long-term consequences of their decisions at taxpayer expense--a phenomenon we can observe right now.

Consider Countrywide, a major subprime money-loser just acquired by Bank of America. Private lenders have not been willing to grant Countrywide  the $10s of billions it sought to keep afloat, given the company's huge and difficult-to-measure subprime exposure. In a free market, bankruptcy would loom--but in our system, Countrywide and others can turn to the government-backed Federal Home Loan Banks for cash; these banks have lent Countrywide over $70 billion so far. According to the Wall Street Journal, these banks specialize in "providing funding where other creditors won't go"--which they can do because of "a widespread belief the government would bail them out [with taxpayer money] in a crisis."

Cash from Federal Home Loan Banks is just one of the many entrees the government provides on its bailout menu. Another option a failing bank has is to court bank depositors--who will not be scared away because their deposits are backed by the government's Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Countrywide and others have a huge potential pool of capital accessible to them if they take on the additional cost of offering depositors higher interest rates than their competitors'. On its Web site, Countrywide is actively chasing your dollars, boasting, "Can your bank match our CD rates?" The policy is working; American depositors have invested or kept $10s of billions of their savings in Countrywide's coffers--despite regular headlines about the company's perilous finances. Depositors know that no matter how reckless Countrywide is with their money, other taxpayers will be there to pay the company's FDIC-backed commitments--just as they were there to bail out depositors in savings and loans in the 1980s.

Still another item on the bailout menu is provided by the Federal Reserve. Today and throughout history, when major financial institutions are losing money, the Fed uses its power to manipulate interest rates and the money supply so that banks can borrow cheaply--giving them easy money with which to paper over their old mistakes. Again, it is other taxpayers who pay--in this case, through inflation. Inflation depletes Americans' hard-earned savings; the trend of skyrocketing housing and commodity prices we have witnessed during the last five years is just the latest and most obvious harm done by our government's inflationary actions.

The combined effect of these and other bailout policies is to make risk-taking less risky for large financial institutions--because true failure is not an option.

If an institution can be bankrupted when its investments go bad, it is supremely clear to its managers and its creditors (its depositors, in the case of a bank) that they must be continuously diligent about risk. They have every incentive to thoroughly investigate long-term consequences--because enough money badly invested could mean the firm's extinction.

However, when the long term loses its meaning, when institutions are told they can never fail, managers are given an incentive to put more capital at risk. If the investments go well in the short term, as subprime investments did for several years, the profit potential is huge. If they eventually fail, the downside is only so bad; the government will "do something" to keep the firms afloat.

And when these reckless investments do go well in the short term, they're sure to be repeated. If one financial giant is reaping huge profits from subprime, other firms are pressured to follow along--or else risk losing investors, customers, or employees who want to be part of the exciting profit machine. The long-term result of "too big to fail" is a gradual and overall decline in responsible risk-taking--with periodic crises like the subprime debacle.

Any doctrine that encourages overly-risky investing, and punishes sound risk-taking is unfair and destructive. We need to phase out "too big to fail" and replace it with a free market in banking, which would reward sound long-term lending and borrowing practices and punish irresponsible ones. Otherwise, the next financial market fiasco is just a matter of time.

Alex Epstein is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute, focusing on business issues. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org.

Green with Envy

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

The ideas that people hold guide their actions, and sometimes this plays out with such consistency that it could almost make a conspiracy theorist seem credible. Yesterday, for example, the news revealed that two major Christian sects on opposite sides of the world had officially accepted the leftist global warming package of guilt-motivated government controls as their own.

First, it was the Southern Baptists:

The signers of "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" acknowledged that not all Christians accept the science behind global warming. They said they do not expect fellow believers to back any proposed solutions that would violate Scripture, such as advocating population control through abortion.

However, the leaders said that current evidence of global warming is "substantial," and that the threat is too grave to wait for perfect knowledge about whether, or how much, people contribute to the trend. [bold added]

For anyone who still thinks that religion is any kind of a bulwark against the left or socialism, please note the priorities given in bold above. The codified oral traditions of primitive tribesmen from millennia ago are to be obeyed even if they contradict minor aspects of this agenda, and yet they somehow know that this "threat" is "too grave" to worry about whether human beings really do contribute to global warming!

Translation: "Ignore what you rationally judge to be best and just do as we say." How often do religious leaders come so close to actually saying this? We can thank the global warming alarmists on the "secular" left for paving the way for this brazen display of contempt for science. (Who, after all, has been screaming all along that the sky is falling?) Capitalism requires freedom, which is anathema to men who want to tell you what to do. And men who do not think for themselves will not remain free for long.

(And before we go any further, I wish to point out that even if "the science" were true, that the question of whether or not we should adopt the various political positions global warming activists endorse remains a political question.)

Later in the day, the Catholic Church also jumped in:

Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight. [bold added]

Another report notes that these more modern mortal sins have a more collectivist emphasis than the older ones:

The "sins of yesteryear" - sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride - have a "rather individualistic dimension", he told the Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper.

The new seven deadly, or mortal, sins are designed to make worshippers realise that their vices have an effect on others as well.

"The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an individual one," said Mgr Girotti. "In effect, it is more important than ever to pay attention to your sins." [bold added]

I recall one Objectivist intellectual acknowledging that one positive cultural contribution (although couched in an inconsistent mystical context) Christianity had made to the West was the notion of man as an individual.

Individualism, which can be properly defended only by a rational, secular philosophy, had been much more widely accepted in Western culture, but has been under philosophic attack since the rise of Immanuel Kant and in cultural decline for some time, thanks again to his cultural spawn, the left.

Since Kant's goal was to save the morality of altruism from reason, it should come as no surprise that with the culture shifting to an elevation of the collective over the individual, that religious altruists are cashing in. If individualism has any intellectual roots in Christian soil, it would have eventually withered anyway unless transplanted, but Kant has hastened the process.

For a very long time, religion had been in retreat, especially in the face of scientific advances that cast doubt on such matters as the position of the earth in the universe. But now that science is being increasingly co-opted by altruists and collectivists, those who have trafficked in guilt and slavery for centuries, the religionists, have taken note. They will not be left out of the game of moving us all about like pawns on a board.

And, as I have noted before regarding the economic ruin that environmentalism can cause, "Environmentalism is not just a moral ideal.... Its destruction of capitalism is also a tactic." For what better context exists to declare that one man's purpose is to care for others than when as many people as possible are miserable and "in need"?

Reason and science, although both are under attack, still command respect by the people (and envy among mystics) in the West. By adopting the global warming agenda, the religionists can appear rational to those who see this as a foregone scientific conclusion. At the same time, they obviously see that reason and science are now on the defensive and they are moving in for the kill.

-- CAV

PS: Ari Armstrong has further thoughts on this subject.

Updates

Today: Fixed a typo.

McCain or Obama: Either Way It’s All Up to Israel

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

OCON 2008

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The full schedule and registration for the Ayn Rand Institutes's summer conference, OCON 2008, was recently made available online at http://www.objectivistconferences.com/ocon2008/. The conference will be held in Newport Beach from June 28th to July 6th.

Please forward the URL to anyone you think might be interested in attending. OCON can be a great experience for anyone with a budding interest in Ayn Rand's ideas. Such people will be able to see those ideas in action -- not just as applied in the lectures but also as embodied in the people present. They'll also be able to discuss the philosophy in greater depth and with far more knowledgeable people than perhaps they've ever done before. In addition, the theme of the conference will be a topic near and dear to my heart, namely "changing the culture."

Note that student prices are heavily discounted -- and student scholarships
are available.

Interestingly, I didn't think to forward this announcement to the mailing lists of Front Range Objectivism and the Boulder Objectivist Club mailing lists until I'd thought to post it on the new OActivists list. So, much to my delight, that list is helping remind of me of what I can do. It's shaping my habits -- even more than I expected! Hooray!

Quick Roundup 310

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

When a Symbol Isn't a Symbol

Seeing parts of my childhood home town quickly succumb to urban decay, I have developed a morbid fascination with the decline of Detroit, which I indulge from time to time through the Internet.

Needless to say, I found the following image and commentary (via Marginal Revolution) highly compelling at first glance. This is what the book depository of the Detroit public school system looks like, after many years of neglect.

This is a building where our deeply-troubled public school system once stored its supplies, and then one day apparently walked away from it all, allowing everything to go to waste. The interior has been ravaged by fires and the supplies that haven't burned have been subjected to 20 years of Michigan weather. To walk around this building transcends the sort of typical ruin-fetishism and "sadness" some get from a beautiful abandoned building. This city's school district is so impoverished that students are not allowed to take their textbooks home to do homework, and many of its administrators are so corrupt that every few months the newspapers have a field day with their scandals, sweetheart-deals, and expensive trips made at the expense of a population of children who can no longer rely on a public education to help lift them from the cycle of violence and poverty that has made Detroit the most dangerous city in America. To walk through this ruin, more than any other, I think, is to obliquely experience the real tragedy of this city; not some sentimental tragedy of brick and plaster, but one of people.

Pallet after pallet of mid-1980s Houghton-Mifflin textbooks, still unwrapped in their original packaging, seem more telling of our failures than any vacant edifice. The floor is littered with flash cards, workbooks, art paper, pencils, scissors, maps, deflated footballs and frozen tennis balls, reel-to-reel tapes. Almost anything you can think of used in the education of a child during the 1980s is there, much of it charred or rotted beyond recognition. Mushrooms thrive in the damp ashes of workbooks. Ailanthus altissima, the "ghetto palm" grows in a soil made by thousands of books that have burned, and in the pulp of rotted English Textbooks. Everything of any real value has been looted. All that's left is an overwhelming sense of knowledge unlearned and untapped potential. [bold added]

What better symbol could there be of the failure of state-run education, right?

Wrong. The problem with this picture, so to speak, is that the fire happened before the supplies were abandoned. And yet, this obvious possibility and the commentator's use of the word "apparently" did not stop some "friends" of capitalism from picking up this soot-covered ball and running with it before further facts behind the history of this building came to light:

I have seen these photos and selections from my post appropriated by right-wing, racist, and libertarian bloggers to illustrate existing prejudices against black people, the city of Detroit, and the very idea of public education.

Let's set aside, for the sake of argument, whether this passage is meant to lump advocates of capitalism together with white racists and Republicans (or equating us with libertarians), as so often happens.

Suffice it to say that even without such an unfortunate smear, such carelessness played right into the hands of someone who, after taking the moral high ground ceded to him, was apparently just as quick to blame this sad state of affairs on capitalism, through the convenient surrogate of the building's absentee landlord. ("[T]he free market capitalist is the bad guy here....", he claims in a comment at Marginal Revolution.)

There are, as that blogger later admits, "a million other ways to go after the detroit [sic] public schools", (not to mention "the very idea of public education"), but this is indeed not one of them. A picture is not merely not an argument. It can, through carelessness, be made worth a thousand words to one's intellectual opponents! In fact, even if the original commentator had said nothing beyond elaborating on the circumstances behind the ruin he blogged, anyone who held it up as an example of the failure of public education would have undercut his position.

Such carelessness makes one look sloppy, and therefore, one's position look suspect.

Sowell on Writing

I can't believe I took so long to think of seeing whether Thomas Sowell (who is one of my favorite writers on economics) has a web page, but he does, and I learned when I found it that he has posted some interesting and entertaining thoughts on writing.

It's long, but worthwhile. He offers me and my fellow aspiring writers his condolences and some good advice -- and copy editors a thrashing!

From time to time, I get a letter from some aspiring young writer, asking about how to write or how to get published. My usual response is that the only way I know to become a good writer is to be a bad writer and keep on improving. However, even after you reach the point where you are writing well—and that can take many years—the battle is not over. There are still publishers to contend with. Then there are editors and, worst of all, copy-editors. [bold added]

Enjoy!

I like the name!

C. August, who recently left a comment here, has started his own blog, and has named it Titanic Deck Chairs:

What's with the "Titanic Deck Chairs" thing? Hopefully it's pretty obvious, but here's the thumbnail sketch. I hate talking about trivial crap. Sure, I may talk about working on my house or something, but when it comes to Ideas, I can't be bothered to discuss the surface issues at any great length. The only thing I get fired up about is digging to the heart of an issue and finding the fundamentals.

Thus, I refuse to "rearrange deckchairs on the Titantic" when there are icebergs out there.

He's got just a couple of posts up so far, but I can't wait to read more!

My Favorite Faulkner Quote

There's something about the way he said this that I really enjoy....

He got the job of postmaster at the University of Mississippi ..., but his duties began to interfere with his writing. His letter of resignation to the Postmaster General is one of the brighter items on file in Washington.

"As long as I live under the capitalistic system," he wrote, "I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation." [bold added]

... but my advice would be: "Do not attempt this -- unless your name happens to be 'William Faulkner'!"

-- CAV

How OActivists Can Help ARI Promote Cultural Change

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

How does the formal work of the Ayn Rand Institute fit in with the informal work of the OActivists list in their mutual goal of promoting Objectivist ideas? Although the two entities are separate and independent, I'd like to sketch out one possible way that both groups could work to their mutual benefit.

Yaron Brook mentioned in last year's "State of the ARI" address that one of his eventual goals was to have Ayn Rand's ideas circulating everywhere. Those ideas might not necessarily always be associated with her name or the name "Objectivism", but they would become part of the background cultural climate.

So this would mean that an average thoughtful person would get exposed to Ayn Rand's ideas if he walked into his local Starbucks and overheard other customers discussing foreign policy. Or if he started talking politics with his coworkers at lunch. If he opened the newspaper, he'd see a letter to the editor taking an Objectivist position. If he read a blog post about a current events topic, he would see someone in the comments section offering an Objectivist perspective.

Even if those ideas weren't always associated with the names "Ayn Rand" or "Objectivism", they would still have an effect. And of course, once an honest and open-minded person started doing some investigation, he would quickly find out where they came from.

For instance, if he asked his co-worker at lunch where he heard that interesting take on Middle East politics, his friend might say, "My cousin mentioned it to me last week, and he said it came from Ayn Rand". Then he might read an OpEd in his local newspaper from the Ayn Rand Institute. Then his daughter might tell him that her high school English class was covering the theme of independence and individualism in their reading of the Ayn Rand novel, The Fountainhead. A leftist local politician whom he disliked might say something snarky about Ayn Rand while advocating another bad government program.

Each repetition of those ideas would continue to reinforce one another, and soon the average honest person would recognize that there was an interesting body of ideas out there, from Ayn Rand under the name of "Objectivism" -- a body of ideas that had application to real-world issues that were important to him.

If we got to that stage, then we would be in pretty good shape. As Ayn Rand's ideas became widely circulated in the culture and recognized as such, then they would be (correctly) regarded as part of the mainstream of public discussion. From there, it would be much easier for Objectivists (either at the Ayn Rand Institute or outside of it) to have opinion pieces published regularly in major outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Investors Business Daily, etc., with an explicit affiliation to "Ayn Rand" and/or "Objectivism". Similarly, Objectivsts would be appear regularly on television and radio programs. News editors would want to know the Objectivist position on important public issues, just as they currently seek out the environmentalist viewpoint or the feminist viewpoint or the religious conservative viewpoint on a variety of issues.

At that point, I believe that the quality and clarity of Objectivists ideas compared to those of the opposition would become increasingly apparent to all reasonable people, especially because it would resonate with the fairly good "sense of life" still held by many Americans. They would learn that there was an explicit philosophy that matched their implicit sense of life. And once we established a self-reinforcing "virtuous cycle" where the advocacy of our ideas inspired others (Objectivists and non-Objectivists alike) to express support for similar ideas, then we would be well on our way to victory.

So how does the OActivists project fit into all this? I believe that we can be very helpful throughout this process, but especially in this critical first phase of getting the ideas seeded and circulated in the culture. Everyone who has an interest in some sort of activism can proceed in whatever fashion suits his or her own goals, interests, and desires. This should not be a painful duty or chore, but something that one actively enjoys.

For instance, I like to write, but I don't have much time for or interest in public speaking. Others might enjoy going to a high school class and presenting the basics of Ayn Rand's ideas to students. Others might enjoy sending letters to public officials or speaking at community meetings. Others might be willing to leave a brief comment on a non-Objectivist blog post, even if it's just a link to an ARI webpage that summarizes the Objectivist position on that topic or to a relevant The Objective Standard article. Others might enjoy informal discussions with co-workers, friends, and family. All of these efforts can have an impact.

No single bit of writing or speaking needs to be overly deep and profound. It just has to be clear and relevant. The constant repetition and exposure to these ideas will add up in the average readers' and listeners' minds faster than one might realize. In particular, repeated exposure to our ideas will have a good effect on two noteworthy target audiences -- public officials and news editors. An editor might not print the first letter supporting free market health care or supporting America's right to self-defense against Islamofascism, but if he gets 7 or 8 of them, then he'll start thinking that this should be a legitimate part of the debate. The same is true with politicians. No single drop of water will wear a hole in a stone, but given enough time a steady drip of water will wear through any rock.

If only 15-20 active people could shape the course of the debate of an important political issue (health care) in the state of Colorado, think of what 500-1000 motivated Objectivists around the country could do, if they each pursued avenues for activism that they found satisfying and enjoyable.

Personally, I'm getting tired of hearing the same old garbage from the leftists, the environmentalists, the multiculturalists, and the religious mystics, and feeling that my ideas are always under attack. I think it's about time for us to go on the offensive promoting our ideas in the culture, and let them start worrying if their ideas will become a beleaguered minority.

But to accomplish this, one thing needs to change: Ordinary Objectivists need to begin actively advocating their ideas publicly. There may be many reasons why this isn't already happening to a greater extent. Some may want to do something, but not know what to do or how to do it. Others may think it's hopeless, and hence not worth their time. Some may think that this is the job of the ARI. Others may be wasting time in fruitless online arguments with other Objectivists, rather than directing some of that energy towards the outside world where it could have a much greater payoff. (This is not meant as a criticism of online Objectivist discussion groups and mailing lists per se, but only of the sorts of endless back-and-forth internet debates that generate more heat than light.)

Of course, there is no self-sacrificial "duty" for anyone to engage in any sort of intellectual activism. But I believe that many (if not most) Objectivists would find that they would greatly enjoy this kind of activism, and that they would also recognize that it was in their self-interest. Some tangible benefits of engaging in this sort of activism include deepening one's understanding of Objectivism, concretizing the ideas more firmly in one's mind, watching others change their minds in response to one's arguments, gaining a sense of efficacy and optimism by seeing one's words have an impact in the culture, and meeting like-minded Objectivists. I personally have experienced all of these benefits because of my past year of involvement with the Colorado FIRM activists.

This sort of informal activism dovetails nicely with the formal efforts by the ARI to spread Objectivism through their "Education Funnel" of introducing high school kids to Ayn Rand through their Free Books Program, teaching the motivated college students more about Objectivism through the OAC (Objectivist Academic Center), and helping them get placed in influential positions as scholars, writers, teachers, journalists, politicians, and community/professional leaders after they've completed college and graduate school. In a few years, these writers and thinkers will help feed the growing demand for Objectivist ideas in the culture as well as create more demand.

The OActivists can play an important role by seeding the ground and "softening the culture" for these ideas, thus making people receptive towards and interested in learning more. And as the culture continues to become more friendly to Objectivist ideas, we'll be able to build on our earlier success with even more grass-roots intellectual advocacy, thus feeding the virtuous cycle.

For those who are familiar with chemistry, the OActivists can function as the equivalent of a "catalyst", i.e., an agent that helps speed up a chemical reaction. Of course, in chemistry a catalyst speeds up a chemical reaction that would have happened anyways, just more slowly. In intellectual affairs, there is no such guarantee that the ARI's efforts to affect cultural change will automatically pay off; people have free will to accept or reject any idea. But the OActivists can help increase the likelihood that good intellectual change will happen, and we can help increase the speed with which it occurs.

Given that there are other powerful intellectual forces driving the the culture in bad directions, we may not have much time to spare. Hence, the OActivists could save precious time and could conceivably even make the difference between victory or defeat.

If the ARI and the OActivists remain active and committed, then I predict that we will see significant cultural change for the better within 15-20 years. We have a legitimate and realistic shot of winning. But whether we do so depends on whether we have the willingness and courage to take tangible action to actually promote our ideas -- in other words, whether we are willing to act to turn our goals into reality.

To join OActivists, visit: http://www.olist.com/oactivists.

Immigration and Individual Rights

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

This excellent essay by Craig Biddle, Editor of The Objective Standard is definitely worth reading. It presents both the argument for open immigration and a trenchant polemic against the anti-immigration position.

Here's an excerpt from the opening paragraphs:

Every year, millions of people seek to immigrate to the United States, and with good reason: Opportunities to improve their lives abound here. Immigrants and would-be immigrants want to pursue the American dream. Whether or not they would put it in these terms, they want to be free to think and act on their best judgment; they want to produce wealth and keep and use it as they see fit; they want to make better lives for themselves and their families. In other words, foreigners want to come to America for the same reason the Founding Fathers established this republic: They want lives of liberty and happiness.

Immigration is the act of moving to a country with the intention of remaining there. Morally speaking, if a person rationally judges that immigrating to America would be good for his life, he should immigrate; a rational morality holds that one should always act on one’s best judgment. But does a foreigner have a right to move to America? And should America welcome him? Yes, he does—and yes, she should. Recognition of these facts was part and parcel of this country’s founding . . .

Read the whole thing.

Yaron Brook on Optimistim

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

At a public Q&A session, Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute, was asked why he was optimistic that Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, will have political influence in the near future:



(Just remember that some people have trouble following Yaron's "Brooklyn accent"...)

Update from Diana: If you wish to help ARI spread Objectivism in the culture, you might consider joining the OActivists list.

Talk Objectivism

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

If you enjoy listening to podcasts, you might try those found over on TalkObjectivism. I've not heard any yet, as I've been engrossed in listening to Orson Scott Card (particularly Ender's Game and Enchantment) of late. However, the podcasts look good from their descriptions. Also, although the archives aren't listed on the main page, I found them here.

Update: Courtesy of Mark Wickens, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes via this link.

Wafa Sultan strikes again

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

Wafa Sultan has yet again unleashed her wisdom against the brazenly thuggish. This time she debated Egyptian Islamist Tal’at Rmeih on an Al-Jazeera TV show broadcast this Tuesday (MEMRI translation here). It is worth viewing the whole video as it reveals the both the Islamist's utter hatred for the West and the powerful defiance of rational mind in opposition.

Property: A Right, Not a "Privilege"

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

Yesterday, I encountered a news report which described (even as it participated in) an attack against capitalism which stands out for its mendacity even by today's shabby standards of objectivity. Its misleading title was, "Plane flies five passengers from US to London."

While the headline is factually true, it is misleading in the sense that jet flights carrying few (or no) passengers are not newsworthy events. Come to think of it, it also isn't newsworthy that left-wing advocacy groups scream bloody murder over the fact that fuel has gotten burned somewhere in the world. Or that such groups use any and all such occasions to call for government control of the actions of any fuel owners who might actually wish to use their fuel.

But the headline is just the beginning. The UK Telegraph continues its collaboration with Friends of the Earth beyond the headline and throughout the story by leading with the amount of fuel used and the accusations of waste, followed shortly by a slapdash summary of the circumstances of the flight:

The latest "eco- scandal" flight took place on February 9 after American was forced to cancel one of its four daily services from Chicago to London.

While it was able to find places for nearly all the passengers on the fully-booked flight, five still had to be accommodated. Those who did fly were upgraded to the business class cabin.

Does this not sound like American made a half-hearted effort to cancel a flight, only to decide to go ahead anyway? It did to me when I first skimmed through the article.

A more complete explanation occurs later on in the article, but only after an environmental activist is quoted complaining and the "carbon footprint" of each passenger is reported. (The Telegraph did at least report that American took a loss on the flight.) CNN, although also biased, did at least explain this in a little more detail, so I'll quote them:

Because of a mechanical malfunction, AA flight 90 was 14 hours late leaving Chicago's O'Hare airport on February 8. Though most passengers made other arrangements to London, five lucky passengers unable to be rebooked made the 6,400 kilometer (4,000 mile) flight in business class, with two crew members per passenger.

American Airlines said it chose to continue with the flight because of the full load of passengers waiting at London's Heathrow airport to return to the United States.

"With such a small passenger load we did consider whether we could cancel the flight and re-accommodate the five remaining passengers on other flights," says American Airlines' European spokesperson Anneliese Morris.

"However, this would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded in London Heathrow who were due to fly to the U.S. on the same aircraft." [bold added, links dropped]

In other words, American needed a plane in London and somehow had to get it there in time to carry a full load of passengers home. So they made the best of a bad situation and boarded five passengers on the otherwise empty jet they decided to ferry to Heathrow. But I'm not going to remain bogged down ranting about media bias because there are bigger fish to fry here.

If you put yourself in the shoes of an airline executive, one moment's thought will tell you that you will have to run flights at a loss from time to time in order to maintain reliable service. This is because people do not arrange their lives around how many seats are available on an airline's flights. (And since they have to plan ahead and can't predict the future, they couldn't even if they wanted to.)

Certainly, you'd love it if you could run every flight at exactly 100% capacity, but if you did not routinely fly with extra capacity, you would be constantly having to turn passengers away, either at home or -- as the environmentalists evidently expect you to -- when they need to return. Airlines have to do this, and our five-passenger flight is merely an extreme example of an airline taking the prudent measure of flying with extra capacity.

So the whole premise that American "wasted" fuel is dishonest, as is the premise that this flight is remarkable in any important way. But as Ayn Rand's arch-villain, Ellsworth Toohey once put it, "Don't bother to examine a folly -- ask yourself only what it accomplishes." So what is raising a hue and cry over a normal aspect of operating any transit system accomplishing here? Put another way, what do environmentalists always try to accomplish when they start making noise about anything? Richard Dyer puts it this way:

Governments must stop granting the aviation industry the unfair privileges that allow this to happen by taxing aviation fuel and including emissions from aviation in international agreements to tackle climate change. [bold added]

This is an attempt to gain public sympathy for more government taxation and regulation of the economy. Such regulation will, if Dyer has his way, take the form of preventing airlines from using their own property to make money by, incidentally, providing you and me with reliable transportation.

Our individual rights stem from the fact that as rational animals, we prosper or perish according to our ability to plan ahead and act in accordance with our best judgement -- such as making sure we have enough jets on hand to fulfill our obligations to paying passengers. And we depend on the government to protect us from others forcing us to act to the contrary (i.e., to protect our individual rights, including the right to property). Dyer would have the government function for exactly the opposite of its proper purpose.

The left wants the government to override the rational judgement of countless individuals because its followers think they know better, and one way to do this is to dismiss property rights as "privileges" and to pave the way for the government to deprive us of those rights in the name of preventing waste that really isn't waste.

And if you don't believe me, ask yourself the following two questions. (1) If airlines routinely waste fuel, how do they manage to stay in business in the face of competition? (2) If the greens really cared about waste, why do they insist that citizens who do not use government transportation pay taxes to support countless empty buses burning fuel on unprofitable routes in countless American cities every day? (Hint for Question 2: Words to the effect of, "The buses wouldn't be empty if the government forced more people to ride them," only prove my point.)

This asinine attack against American Airlines has nothing to do with waste, and everything to do with depriving us of our right to property, and further expanding the reach of the already over-intrusive governments on both sides of the Atlantic.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Minor edits.

Why not just put everyone in padded rooms?

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

After banning kitchen knives, the next logical step for the U.K. is to add padding to lampposts to prevent “walking and texting” accidents.

Before you start laughing at the British Nanny State, check out this ruling of the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles, which forces home schooled kids to attend public school on the grounds that:

“. . . the educational program of the State of California was designed to promote the general welfare of all the people and was not designed to accommodate the personal ideas of any individual in the field of education.”

In other words, the State of California will not tolerate any non-conformist, individual thought. If the parents do not comply, the state will certainly seize the children and place them in a state-approved parental program, since the State of California does not intent to accommodate any personal ideas in the field of parenthood either.

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Censorship Àla Carte

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

Were you a dictator, or merely an appointed bureaucrat or official charged with preserving a status quo by abridging, repealing, policing, or suppressing the written and spoken word of your worshipping but delusional private citizens’ troublesome thoughts and deeds, you would have a gilt-edged menu from which to select the best, tried-and-true methods to preserve the peace – your own peace of mind or that of your masters.

In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it is simply a matter of creating an atmosphere of spine-dissolving fear and obedience and the passage of a law or two to make it “unpatriotic” to question or criticize federal policies. At hand are battalions of riot police and secret police to knock a few heads together, or to arrest loudmouths and sentence them to long spells in Soviet-style mental “hospitals.” Failing that, they can be shot in elevators or kidnapped from their offices or residences, never to be heard of again.

Unpatriotic Russians, such as Alexander Litvinenko, who defect to the decadent West from which to slander you and your government can be poisoned, murdered, or maimed with impunity. Remember Anna Politkovskaya? Weak-willed “democracies” are not likely to insist that you or your agents be hauled into court to face indictments or charges of murder committed in their own capitals.

In China, the same alternatives are available at nominal cost, with the added perk of having the assistance of Western companies, such as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and others to police, detect, gag, and arrest troublemakers with an efficiency that would be the envy of Caligula, Hitler, and Stalin. The unpatriotic can be shipped to reeducation camps to labor for the good of the country and incidentally be “struggled” until they get their minds straight.

In Venezuela, you can gag the press and opposition simply by denying them access to newsprint and the airwaves. Those who insist on taking to the streets to express their ingratitude and dissatisfaction with your beneficent and humanitarian regime can be dealt with by your loyal supporters, the army, and the riot police.

In the Middle East, you own the airwaves and the press, so there would be little problem with blasphemers and other sinners. Those who speak out, or behave in any immodest or traitorous manner, can be lashed, stoned to death, have their hands cut off, and the like. It is a little known fact that the Nazis borrowed a page from Islam and beheaded persons they accused of treason. (The only thorn in your side would be Israel.)

A free press, and freedom of speech, after all, are not prescribed by Allah’s will, and are nowhere mentioned in the Koran or in Mohammad’s (bpbuh!) works. (And if you are a Christian dictator, there is nothing in the Bible about them, either.) In point of fact, as Islam’s learned scholars will tell you, they are proscribed by implication in the sacred texts. Such notions are the tools of infidels to suppress and offend Islam and to cast an unflattering light on one’s minions, who are insulted in their characterization of being helpless, mindless manqués.

Here, too, one can extend the range of one’s fidelity to Allah and his Prophet by becoming what the infidels, in their perverted amusement, call “libel tourists” to sue writers and speakers in their own countries for slandering in print your faithful and gentle jihadists. You will need mountains of petro-dollars to indulge in this pastime and the tacit approval of their oil-rich eminences the Royal Family, guardians of the faith. The principal aim is to bankrupt writers and publishers, or to instill fear in them of the possibility of bankruptcy. After all, Mohammad never insisted that Dar-al Harb must be a theater of blood, violence, looting and rapine. It can be conquered and their occupants made to submit by exploiting the infidels’ own laws and courts.

Britain is the chief resort and playground of such libel tourists. Of all the countries within Dar-al Harb, Britain is the most important after America. Italy, Germany, and Spain, for example, are “in the bag,” as is the European Union. Tremendous progress in the reconquest of the West is being made all over the British Isles. Its infidel jurists are beginning to accept that there is no “Bill of Rights” in Islam. The back is stiff but it is bending by measurable degrees in the direction of Mecca, not to mention in the direction of Brussels and the super-state of the European Union. (Allow one the pun of thanking its politics for “Labouring” diligently for its submission to Islam and to that super-state, which is a willing accomplice to Islamic ends.)

Even one of the prominent servants of Satan there, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has conceded the inevitability of Sharia law (and the poor dog was mercilessly beaten up on by other worshippers of false gods, but to no perceptible avail) that would somehow “coexist” with its atheistic secular law (which is rapidly deteriorating into police-state style law, which is fine with Islam, which thrives on such politics, viz., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other repressive regimes). The press there no longer equates Islam with totalitarianism or thought control or violence; it has done you the favor of prohibiting inflammatory terminology, e.g., referring to suicide bombers and violent conspirators as merely “Islamic extremists,” and not “Islamists,” and if one flouts the prohibition, one can be charged with “insensitivity” and interviewed (what a quaint, misleading term for the “third degree”) by the authorities if enough Muslims complain.

(To beg a question, is Islam any less thoroughly “radical” or “extreme” than Christianity, if consistently practiced? Both creeds offer eternal personal salvation at the price of suspending one’s mind, denying the evidence of one’s senses, and heeding the authority of persons who have been dead for hundreds, or even thousands of years. If you are an ambitious Muslim dictator, Islam, of course, is the true faith, while Christianity, Judaism and other faiths are merely false and punishable digressions. But there’s no reason you and a Christian dictator can’t get along.)

One instance will illustrate how mushy a target Britain has become. A British broadcaster, Channel 4, aired a libelous and filthy “documentary” called “Underground Mosque,” produced by a mercenary company, Hardcash Productions. This “documentary” revealed that Islamophobic “journalists” infiltrated British mosques and recorded, without any leave, permission, or warning, the sermons and prayers of humble clerics as they addressed their congregations. The “documentary” claimed these faithful holy men preached blood and violence to their votaries, and predicted the ultimate conquest of Britain through fair means and foul.

Naturally, Muslims who viewed this program were offended, and complained to the Crown authorities, who investigated and made public their concerns. Channel 4 countered with a suit, citing libel. But, what chance has this colony of infidel insects against unlimited Saudi petro-dollars that brim from British-Muslim legal war chests? Furthermore, Muslims have “hate laws” on their side, passed by an obliging, compliant and very confused Parliament, and endorsed by such notable infidels as Prince Charles, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, and Ken Livingston.

You can bet that Channel 4 won’t be airing any more offensive programs!

Here is another choice and very funny morsel on the censor’s menu: In Malaysia, a poor, deluded woman, Kamariah Ali, chose apostasy over her faith and joined a lunatic cult called the “Sky Kingdom,” which held its services in a giant teapot and claimed a desire to “reach out” to Muslims in the name of peace. This is the woman’s second offense. Of course, the Koran and Mohammad prescribe death to anyone who is born into the Islamic faith but who abandons it for any reason. The Malaysian authorities were lenient the first time and simply jailed her for twenty months. The outcome of her new trial may not be so merciful. The teapot and its surrounding garden of icons and curious sculptures have been demolished.

Censorship in North America is making slow but observable progress. “Hate crime” laws have been passed in a number of the United States and in Canada, and present the dictator and bureaucratic preserver of public decency and sensitivity with numerous cocktails of suppression. For example, at New York City’s Pace University, in October and November of 2006, a student got into an argument with some Muslim students, and subsequently removed two copies of the Koran from the school library and put them in toilets. The Muslims considered that an act of desecration, and so Russian immigrant Stanislav Shmulevich was at first charged with a hate crime. The student later entered a plea of disorderly conduct and was sentenced to three hundred hours of “community service.”

It is interesting, and encouraging, that the first thing the authorities thought of was to charge Shmulevich with a hate crime, that is, with unlawfully expressing his contempt for Islam. In the “good old days” of freedom of expression, Shmulevich’s action would have been treated as petty larceny, and no recognition of the hurt feelings or offended esteem granted to Muslims. Some day, when the rot has eaten away at objective law far enough, people like Shmulevich will be faced with hate crime as a capital crime and certainly not allowed to plead “disorderly conduct.” They will have to answer to a Minister or Secretary of Public Piety.

Of course, “hate crime” legislation can favor not only Muslims, but homosexuals, Indians, women, the obese, the disabled and any other group whose members can collectively claim “offense” and “emotional distress” should someone publicly disagrees in any form with a group’s claims to uniqueness. An ambitious dictator or moral bureaucrat would be wise to patronize these groups and get them on one’s side. They make great social blocs and fine street fighters.

Self-censorship by private individuals and organizations and the press will prove to be a boon to you in your quest for power, not to mention such bizarre laws that regulate and punish political action committees for overzealous money collection. There is a Constitution that may obstruct one’s means and goals, but no one in the U.S. seems to take it literally or seriously, or even to understand it anymore, especially the Supreme Court. So, don’t sweat the Constitution.

In Canada, censorship is making better progress than in its southern neighbor. There, the government subsidizes many film, book and sound production projects through tax credits awarded to companies whose films, books and recordings stress “Canadian” content. Such is the just fate of “freedom of speech” in a welfare state with touchy nationalist aspirations.

The government there, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail, is amending the income tax law to deny such credits to any material its “Heritage Minister” deems explicitly “sexual in nature, that denigrates a group, or is excessively violent without an educational value.” The Minister and his appointees and associates will be the sole judges of what is “contrary to public policy.” A Toronto lawyer said that the government “feels it must invest public funds wisely….They don’t view this as censorship because they say anyone is free to make the film or show or book, but not with their money.” Of course, no one in Canada has been sharp enough to issue the retort, “Whose money?” or even to question what the Canadian government is doing in the “angel” business.

It can only be hoped that Canada and its southern neighbor progress to the point that no one will be free or even able to produce a movie, book or recording without a government subsidy. That would save you statists much grief and anxiety; nothing could be said without your having said it first.

The menu of censorship is quite long. Take time making your selections from it. It is rich in practical, effective modes of action. And don’t worry about the prices. The bill will be footed by those it was necessary to silence.

And never forget your ultimate goal: to secure for you and your adherents the exclusive right to practice freedom of speech.

Yaron Brook at Ford Hall Forum

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Ford Hall Forum announces a May lecture by Yaron Brook:

"Apollo and Dionysus" Revisited

In 1969, Ayn Rand's Ford Hall Forum talk, "Apollo and Dionysus," addressed the near simultaneous events of Woodstock and the first lunar landing. Employing Greek mythology's god of the sun and god of wine, she compared the awe-inspiring accomplishments of NASA's Apollo space program to the famous three-day concert that has come to exemplify the counterculture of the 1960s and the "hippie era." Almost four decades later, Dr. Yaron Brook, President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, reflects on her words and takes a new look at our society's drives toward individualism versus wholeness, light versus darkness, and civilization versus primal nature.

Thursday, May 8
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Old South Meeting House

If you know of people in the Boston area who might like to attend, please send them the announcement.

A Cartoon Metaphor

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

Of course I skipped the voting here in Texas yesterday! What was I going to do? Vote for the dark male socialist or the pale female socialist from the party of the donkey? Or the very pale male socialist from the party of the elephant? Or "protest" the whole lot of them by casting a vote for my "choice" of even worse options: an unabashed theocrat or a looney pacifist posing as a capitalist?

Well, I will say that this is, after all, the most diverse-looking election in American history!

Surface appearances are apparently too subtle for this scientist to master, so it was with detached amusement only that I overheard political chatter yesterday, or with mild annoyance that I briefly participated just long enough to say I'd vote for a Democrat later on -- as long as whichever one it was would not support curtailing freedom of speech as McCain has. It blows my mind that people I know were thinking about caucusing! They're all the same damned thing!

And while this morning's election coverage makes me sympathize with the ennui of the Inspector, I did find one story that at once delivered commentary on about the right level for this election while also making what is on balance a profound point. Jeff Greenfield of Slate explains "why voters always choose [Bugs Bunny over Daffy Duck] for President":

... Bugs and Daffy represent polar opposites in how to deal with the world. Bugs is at ease, laid back, secure, confident. His lidded eyes and sly smile suggest a sense that he knows the way things work. He's onto the cons of his adversaries. Sometimes he is glimpsed with his elbow on the fireplace mantel of his remarkably well-appointed lair, clad in a smoking jacket. (Jones once said Cary Grant was his inspiration for Bugs. Today it would be George Clooney.) Bugs never raises his voice, never flails at his opponents or at the world. He is rarely an aggressor. When he is pushed too far and must respond, he borrows a quip from Groucho Marx: "Of course, you realize this means war." And then, whether his foe is hapless hunter Elmer Fudd, varmint-shooting Yosemite Sam, or a raging bull, Bugs always prevails.

Daffy Duck, by contrast, is ever at war with a hostile world. He fumes, he clenches his fists, his eyes bulge, and his entire body tenses with fury. His response to bad news is a sibilant sneer ("Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin!"). Daffy is constantly frustrated, sometimes by outside forces, sometimes by his own overwrought response to them. In one classic duel with Bugs, the two try to persuade Elmer Fudd to shoot the other -- until Daffy, tricked by Bugs' wordplay, screams, "Shoot me now!" [bold added]

Given the lack of contact with reality of most intellectuals and academics today, the fact most political activists are meddlesome and annoying, and that most Americans have their own business to mind, it is understandable that so many are apolitical, and tune in just long enough (if at all) to decide which candidate they like more (or dislike less) come election time. Foolish, but understandable.

Furthermore, most Americans haven't an explicit or coherent political philosophy, and so would be ill-equipped to do a more thorough analysis of the candidates in any given election. And so, they choose their candidates on a gut, sense-of-life level. Americans, being an implicitly Aristotelian people, are confident in dealing with the world, and expect the same of their leaders. He who best projects such confidence will win the election, absent any excruciatingly obvious danger signs.

Ayn Rand once said that, "If America is to be saved from destruction -- specifically, from dictatorship -- she will be saved by her sense of life." But she also once characterized the hippies of the 1960's as, "a desperate herd looking for a master, to be taken over by anyone ... who would tell them how to live". Obama's more cult-like followers seem to have been cut from the same cloth.

Considering that Barack Obama is definitely the Bugs Bunny in this year's presidential election, and that his leftist agenda is so pervasive -- albeit soft-pedaled -- that his notion of income tax reform is for the government to fill our forms out for us, it would seem that we have in Obama someone who can be all things to all people long enough to get elected, anyway. The apolitical, sense-of-life middle gets the projection of confidence it wants, and the hippies get the guru they want.

And McCain is still worse.

For this very dangerous situation, we can thank generations of intellectual descendants of Immanuel Kant, who have managed over time to transform those who should shape our culture for the better into its destroyers, and driven away or disgusted everyone else. Conservative cynics to the contrary, intellectuals have a proper role to play in the division of labor of a modern society. Until America has a large number of rational intellectuals who uphold freedom again, our freedom will be at the mercy of cartoon politics and the criminal competence of the winners of such contetsts.

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 309

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

High on Mount Sinai

A news report linked by Matt Drudge a day or so ago discusses the claims of one scientist that Moses was under the influence of a psychedelic substance shortly before he reported hearing God tick off the Ten Commandments.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the "burning bush," suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

"The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a classic phenomenon," he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to "see music."

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil's Amazon forest in 1991. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," Shanon said.

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible. [bold added, minor edits]

The technical term for Shanon's "classic phenomenon" is synesthesia.

This is quite interesting, but this scientific finding has no bearing one way or the other on the philosophical question of whether there is (or can be) such a thing as God, for the same reasons I once briefly discussed regarding a report that the tomb of Jesus had been found.

But just wait for some clueless "new atheist" to play into the hands of the Christians by trying to misuse this hypothesis in just such a way -- even though there is no need to argue against arbitrary claims.

More than Just Cliches

Christopher Hitchens comes closer than any other mainstream commentator I know of to have gotten to the heart of the Obama plagiarism kerfuffle.

It is cliche, not plagiarism, that is the problem with our stilted, room-temperature political discourse. It used to be that thinking people would say, with at least a shred of pride, that their own convictions would not shrink to fit on a label or on a bumper sticker. But now it seems that the more vapid and vacuous the logo, the more charm (or should that be "charisma"?) it exerts. Take "Yes We Can," for example. It's the sort of thing parents might chant encouragingly to a child slow on the potty-training uptake. As for "We Are the People We Have Been Waiting For" (in which case, one can only suppose that now that we have arrived, we can all go home), I didn't think much of it when Rep. Dennis Kucinich used it at an anti-war rally in 2004 ("We Are the People We Are Waiting For" being his version) or when Thomas Friedman came across it at an MIT student event last December. He wrote, by the way, that just hearing it gave him -- well, you guess what it gave him. Hope? That's exactly right. [bold added]

True, but only up to a point. The real problem is what underlies all these cliches: The recycling of stale old ideas which most people would reject out of hand if they were stated openly.

C. Bradley Thompson on Atlas Shrugged

C. Bradley Thompson, who uses Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in the college classroom, writes about his experiences and in the process explains something I ran into more than once when I was in college:

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. [bold added]

I went to a small, conservative college, and had a professor take the trouble to mail me clippings of stories -- some bilge from one of the Brandens and something, I think, from National Review -- that attacked Rand personally, but failed to answer any of her arguments. He had promised to send something that would "prove" Ayn Rand wrong. He obviously failed.

Read the whole thing.

-- CAV

No Substitute for Victory: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism

By John Lewis from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

No Substitute for Victory:
The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism

Who: Dr. John Lewis, speaker for the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk and Q & A explaining why we are losing the war against Islamic totalitarianism, and what we must do to win it

Where: Georgia Tech, Smith Building Auditorium, Room 105, Atlanta, GA

When: Thursday, March 13, 2008, at 8 PM

Admission is FREE.

Description: Over six years after Manhattan was viciously attacked by Islamic holy warriors, the world is still held hostage to their rants and their bombs. Iraq is in turmoil, Syria is emboldened, and Iran, in pursuit of nuclear weapons, intends to wipe Israel off the map and destroy the Great Satan, America. What went wrong?

This lecture will show how our failure to identify Islamic Totalitarianism as the ideology of our enemies has made it impossible to confront them. Drawing on the lessons of America's victory over Japan, this lecture will challenge us to reject our assumptions about the nature of a "just war," and to demand the removal, by force, of Islamic Totalitarianism from the face of the earth.

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

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Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand's Morality of Egoism

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

Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand's Morality of Egoism

Who: Craig Biddle, editor and publisher of "The Objective Standard"

What: A talk and Q & A examining Atlas Shrugged and explaining Ayn Rand's morality of rational egoism

Where: University of Virginia, Cocke Hall, Gibson Room, Charlottesville, VA

When: Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 7:30 pm

Admission is FREE.

Description: In her novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand set forth a new morality, which she called rational egoism. In contrast to altruism--the idea that one should self-sacrificially serve others--rational egoism holds that one should selfishly pursue one's own life-serving values. Against predation--the practice of sacrificing others for one's own ends--Rand's egoism holds that sacrificing others is immoral and impractical. In contrast to hedonism--the idea that pleasure is the standard of value--Rand's egoism holds that the long-range requirements of one's life and happiness constitute the standard of value. And against moral relativism--the notion that "anything goes"--Rand's egoism holds that morality is absolute: Nothing "goes" except that which promotes one's life while respecting the rights of others.

Rand's egoism is a system of observation-based principles regarding the requirements of human life, personal happiness, social harmony, and political freedom. In this talk, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Atlas Shrugged, Craig Biddle presents the basic principles of rational egoism, contrasts them with the alternatives, and shows why everyone who wants to live happily and freely needs to understand and embrace them.

Bio: Craig Biddle is the editor and publisher of "The Objective Standard" and the author of "Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It." He is currently writing a book on the principles of rational thinking and the fallacies that are violations of those principles. In addition to writing, he lectures and teaches workshops on ethical and epistemological issues from an Objectivist perspective.

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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

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: New York University, Kimmel Center, Room 802, New York, NY

When: Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 7:00 PM 
 
Admission is FREE: Attendees must RSVP to nyu@objectivistclubs.org

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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Ayn Rand's Ideas: An Introduction

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

Ayn Rand's Ideas: An Introduction

Who: Elan Journo, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk presenting an introduction to Ayn Rand's philosophy. A Q&A will follow.

Where: UC Davis, Social Sciences Building, Room 1100, Davis, CA

When: Thursday, March 6, 2008, at 7:00pm

Admission is Free

Description: With the publication of her two major novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), Ayn Rand achieved spectacular and enduring success. Today, interest in Ayn Rand continues to burgeon: her books sell upwards of half a million copies per year, and university courses on her works are increasing in number. Underlying her fiction is a comprehensive system of ideas--a philosophy (as she put it) for living on earth: Objectivism. She wrote: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
 
What, specifically, does Objectivism advocate? What guidance does it offer man for everyday living? What does it say about ethics? Politics? These are some of the questions to be considered in this lecture. (No prior knowledge of philosophy or of Ayn Rand’s works is assumed.)

Bio: Elan Journo is a resident fellow focusing on foreign policy issues at the Ayn Rand Institute. His Op-Eds have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, and Orange County Register. Mr. Journo's articles have also been published in major newspapers abroad, including Australia's Herald Sun, Canberra Times and Canada's Globe and Mail. Mr. Journo is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Journo has lectured in college campuses and has given numerous radio interviews on foreign policy and the threat of Islamic totalitarianism

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

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Ayn Rand's Ideas: An Introduction

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

Ayn Rand's Ideas: An Introduction

Who: Elan Journo, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk presenting an introduction to Ayn Rand's philosophy. A Q&A will follow.

Where: Wrinston Auditorium, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI

When: Friday, March 7, 2008, at 7:30pm

Admission is Free

Description: With the publication of her two major novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), Ayn Rand achieved spectacular and enduring success. Today, interest in Ayn Rand continues to burgeon: her books sell upwards of half a million copies per year, and university courses on her works are increasing in number. Underlying her fiction is a comprehensive system of ideas--a philosophy (as she put it) for living on earth: Objectivism. She wrote: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
 
What, specifically, does Objectivism advocate? What guidance does it offer man for everyday living? What does it say about ethics? Politics? These are some of the questions to be considered in this lecture. (No prior knowledge of philosophy or of Ayn Rand's works is assumed.)

Bio: Elan Journo is a resident fellow focusing on foreign policy issues at the Ayn Rand Institute. His Op-Eds have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, and Orange County Register. Mr. Journo's articles have also been published in major newspapers abroad, including Australia's Herald Sun, Canberra Times and Canada's Globe and Mail. Mr. Journo is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Journo has lectured in college campuses and has given numerous radio interviews on foreign policy and the threat of Islamic totalitarianism

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

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The EU's $2.5 Billion Theft from Microsoft

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

The EU's $2.5 Billion Theft from Microsoft
February 28, 2008

Irvine, CA--The European Union has just fined Microsoft another $1.35 billion under antitrust law, bringing the company's total EU fines to $2.5 billion.

"This fine should be regarded by all for what it is: an act of government theft," said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "It is not proper for a government to impose a financial penalty unless a company is violating someone else's property rights. But Microsoft has violated no one's rights. It has sold a valuable product to willing customers and made voluntary agreements with willing developers.

"The European Union, on the other hand, has flagrantly violated the rights of Microsoft. It has forced the company to spend untold man-years tied up in court, submitting to invasive EU probes, and providing as much new documentation as EU antitrust chief Neelie Kroes feels like demanding. And it is seizing $2.5 billion of the company's earnings.

"That a productive company doing its best to succeed in the fiercely competitive software and online markets can be fined for adding a media player feature to its Windows software, or setting the price for access to its secret software codes, is a travesty. But it must be recognized as a travesty that flows from the nature of antitrust laws.

"Antitrust laws regard successful competitors on a free market as dangerous 'monopolists,' and authorize governments to punish these companies however they see fit. For over 100 years, some of the world's most productive companies, from Standard Oil to General Electric to IBM, have been persecuted under antitrust for expanding markets and lowering prices.

"It is time to put an end to this injustice. The EU can start by paying back to Microsoft's shareholders every penny it has taken from them."

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Better than a PDA?

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

It's been awhile since I blogged about the time management techniques of David Allen, "life hacks", or personal productivity technology, but these topics have never been far from my mind. Regulars here will note that from the my initial encounter with Allen's methods, I have opted for a low-tech implementation of the suggestions in Getting Things Done.

I have done this for several reasons. First, PDA's and some productivity software cost money, which I don't have quite enough of to toss around, or too much time to implement. To jump right in with a buying spree before I knew my actual needs would have been counterproductive. Second, I wanted to focus on productivity rather than on getting something to work -- or even playing with some neat gadget. (Although Allen suggests putting that last urge to use, I know myself well enough to realize that the suggestion would be almost useless to me.)

But now I am more aware of my needs and have taken "low-tech" just about as far as it can go. Since I am normally near computers most of the time, I have been able to get by well enough with a nice leather organizer (which allows me access to copies of the week's calendar and my lists, as well as to have ubiquitous capture), and a "pocket office" on a pen drive.

But what about when I am away from home or work, or traveling? Furthermore, I have found there to be something of a barrier between the easy access (but inflexibility) of paper copies of lists and the flexibility (but requirement for a computer) of my electronic files. I even have a nickname for it: the digital bottleneck.

Off and on for awhile, I have been contemplating PDAs, even though they strike me as not quite flexible enough for my needs, over and above the various hassles that come with proprietary computer technology. But there is another option, which I learned about on a trip to Instapundit yesterday: A cheap, very portable laptop. This one is very close in size (picture at link) to the leather binder I currently use! (See Wikipedia and this personal account for more information.)

At 2 pounds, it's easy to tote.

At about $350, it's incredibly cheap compared to, say, my old Vaio laptop.

I decided not to install Windows. [That one's a no-brainer. --ed] The Linux software suite is very capable and loads a lot faster than Windows. The Open Office word processor handled some short edits of the speech I'm giving tomorrow.

The whole thing is incredibly user friendly. Open the box. Power it up. Everything's loaded and ready to rock and roll.

The bonus for me is that I normally use Linux, anyway! No "new gadget" learning curve. No software incompatibility issues. No vendor lock-in. Oh yeah. Its "hard drive" is actually flash memory, so you don't have to worry as much about damaging your computer if you drop it. The company's web site even touts it as "shock-proof".

One big drawback -- and this is only after a cursory web search and some frantic skimming, so I could be wrong -- is that I can't seem to find this on sale in a brick-and-mortar store, including Fry's. I don't really want to buy one without trying it out, because the small keyboard could be an issue. This is especially true if I want to use one of these for more than just a travel computer. I don't travel quite enough to justify buying one of these strictly for that purpose, and we do already own a normal laptop.

A long out-of-town trip looms in the near future. If you know who sells this from actual stores or use it yourself, I'd be grateful if you dropped me a line.

I just love capitalism!

-- CAV

Super Quick Movie Reviews

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Here are some uber-quick reviews of some movies Paul and I have seen lately, in no particular order:

• Happy Feet: stupid and cute in a sickening way, then heavy-handed environmentalist propaganda
  
• Flushed Away: fun and funny but not deep
  
• 16 Blocks: very good drama, characters faced hard choices, definitely recommended
  
• Live Free or Die Hard: good and often absurd fun, plus the Mac guy
  
• Ratatouille: thoroughly funny, compelling, and endearing -- with some serious themes
  
• Firewall: basically boilerplate, Harrison Ford plays a computer whiz about as well as I'd play Michael Jordon
  
• The Kingdom: better than expected, striking contrasts between the Americans and the Saudis
  
• Black Book: overdone but not all bad, like a sauce at a mediocre restaurant with pretenses of cuisine, plot holes that I've forgotten
  
• Fracture: good DA versus smart killer thriller
  
• Rocky Balboa: predictable, unmotivated, and generally a waste of time
  
• Lady in the Water: huh? okay, um, whatever.
  
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: I'm too confused to care any longer, and what's so damn good about piracy anyway?
  

Add your own quick movie reviews of films you've seen lately in the comments, if you like!

Project Lifeline: Collaboration or Intimidation?

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

Project Lifeline: Collaboration or Intimidation?
By Alex Epstein

Since the subprime meltdown began, the Bush administration has pledged to act to prevent foreclosures--but without interfering in the market or bailing anyone out. How is this possible? The administration's answer: by "facilitating" what it calls "private" initiatives to prevent foreclosures. In December the administration announced, in conjunction with mortgage industry leaders, HOPE NOW--a "private sector effort" to give hundreds of thousands of subprime borrowers a free, five-year extension on low introductory teaser rates. Now, the administration has announced Project Lifeline, under which participating servicers (those who collect loan payments for mortgage investors) will offer a 30-day pause in the foreclosure process to borrowers whose mortgage payments are 90 or more days overdue.

The leader of these initiatives, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, repeats endlessly that these are "private" initiatives adopted because they are in "everyone's interest"--not government-mandated schemes. But if that is truly the case, why is the government involved at all? What does it bring to the table that the market can't?

Paulson says government is necessary because servicers face an "unprecedented volume of resets that cannot be addressed through individual, loan-by-loan negotiations." It requires, he says, a "streamlined" approach "facilitated" by Washington.

But why? Grant for a moment the dubious premise that the entire mortgage and finance industries can't do one or two million loan-by-loan negotiations (the anticipated volume of potential subprime foreclosures)--even though they process millions of new loan applications a year, and even though individualized processing, by optimally assessing each case, could potentially save $10s of billions. If large-scale "streamlining" is truly necessary to protect investor interests, servicers and investors are perfectly capable of "streamlining" different classes of borrowers as they judge best.

So the question remains: What is the government bringing to the table? Is it as simple as: it came up with an ingenious financial plan? Hardly. Consider the rate freeze, which offers five extra years of low rates to practically any subprime borrower with bad credit (a FICO score of less than 660) and little-to-no equity in his home (less than 3 percent) who bought during the height of the housing boom. Paulson claims this makes sense "because we all know it is in everyone's interest--homeowner, servicer, investor . . . to avoid foreclosures that are preventable." Not true.

There are many cases in which it is investors' interest to foreclose, because the cost of foreclosure is lower than the hit taken on a rate freeze. For instance, it might make sense to foreclose if a borrower shows no prospect of being able to pay his regular rates five years down the line. It might make sense if the borrower's teaser rate is so low (say, 1 percent) that an extension would mean huge losses. It might make sense not to freeze a rate but to negotiate a compromise between the teaser rate and the reset rate. What is certain is that it does not make sense to follow Paulson's cookie-cutter approach, which would lead to billions in unnecessary investor losses--a "private sector" bailout of borrowers that would actually break servicers' contractual obligation to serve the financial interests of investors.

And yet over 90 percent of servicers are in HOPE NOW. Why? Because of the real attribute the government brings to the table in "collaborations"--not mortgage-handling capabilities or financial ingenuity, but the power to coerce and intimidate.

If an ordinary citizen proposed to the mortgage industry that it bail out borrowers through a widespread rate freeze and call it a "private sector effort," the proposal would be dismissed as a joke. But when the government proposes such an initiative to private industry, all participants know that it can do great damage to them if they refuse--and can grant them huge favors if they comply. Today's HOPE NOW and Project Lifeline participants, for instance, can be harmed by the passage of "anti-predatory-lending" laws, which would expose them to huge lawsuits by borrowers who claim to have been in the dark about the contracts they signed. These participants can also be helped with unearned handouts--with cheap Fed money, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taking risky mortgages off their hands, and with a bailout in the future if, say, they face bankruptcy because of sloppy lending practices.

With all these sticks and carrots on the line, is it any wonder that the mortgage industry has walked in lockstep with whatever the administration proposes? It is impossible to know exactly what combination of winking assurances and veiled threats brought so much of the finance and mortgage industry into these "collaborations." What we can know is that nothing resembling economic freedom and respect for property rights is occurring--just coercion, bailouts, and the abridgement of contracts.

What today's market desperately needs is for lenders and borrowers to bear the full consequences of their own bad decisions, and for the government to stop manipulating the market, violating property rights, and inviting future disasters. It is time to stop letting the Bush administration pretend it can have government-dictated economic policy and a free market, too.

 

Europism: Collectivism’s Failure and the Resentment of America (Part 3)

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

American military giving Iraqi soldiers 165,000 M-16’s.

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

In a move that could be the most enduring imprint of U.S. influence in the Arab world, American military officials in Baghdad have begun a crash program to outfit the entire Iraqi army with M-16 rifles.

Imagine if, after defeating Japan in WWII, the U.S. military trained every Japanese soldier in our military tactics, and handed them our latest rifle.  That would be insane, right?  Right?

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Quick Roundup 308

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

Perfect Middle = Perfect Storm

The Software Nerd offers his thoughts -- and a good way to visualize them -- on the emerging political consensus that so many people are foolish enough to be excited about:

Many "independent" voters do not hold much of an explicit political philosophy. They aren't like Objectivists who have strong views on an ideal political system, but do not like either party. Rather, the typical "independent" has accepted the principles of current status quo. He thinks that the problems lie only in implementation (i.e. bad politicians), not with political philosophy. [bold added]

John McCain's crusade for campaign finance "reform" is a perfect example of how this type of thinking can make our problems far worse even in the process of attempting to solve them.

A failure to question the prevailing wisdom is bad enough, because any changes will still be based on the same bad political philosophy that got us into our mess in the first place. But as more people gravitate towards the middle, the counterbalance between the two "extremes" has a smaller effect:

[E]ven though the center-of-gravity remains unchanged in the middle, the more people there are crowding around the middle, the faster and more likely such policies will get enacted at all. As long as enough people from both sides are far from the middle, they will delay and fight changes, and government is slowed down a bit.

This annoys the typical independent "in the middle", because they see the bickering and the "gridlock" and think it's bad. They want their politicians to stop fighting, and meet at the middle.

And this is just one more thing that makes McCain especially scary to me. He'll save us from the frying pan of gridlock by casting us into the fire of a consensus of statists.

A Building is Not an Argument, Either


And speaking of statism and efficient government, China has opened the world's largest airport terminal -- which measures two miles in length -- as a means of impressing the world in preparation for the 2008 Olympics.

Too bad that in this obsequious news clip, even the Beeb notes that the government has displaced a million people from their homes in preparation for the Olympics. "In return for not having no say, the people of Beijing get a brand new, modern airport." I would rephrase that: The Chinese government gets a brand new, modern airport.

This building, built with wealth confiscated from the Chinese people, some of whom were forced to get out of the way by vacating their homes before it was built, is an attempt to make the ruling kleptocracy look good in the eyes of the rest of the world. Too bad that, as Leonard Peikoff once put it, a "picture is not an argument". This building is nothing more than an attempt to distract anyone who passes through it from the knowledge that China oppresses its citizens and from any conception he might have of the vital importance of individual rights. It is thus like the pictures used in lieu of coherent arguments we see all the time by pro-lifers or animal "rights" activists.

As with the broken window fallacy, we can see the admittedly magnificent building built on the orders of the Chinese government, but we can't see how all that money might have been used otherwise. We will not see the millions displaced so China's leaders can look good. And we cannot see the abstractions of moral and political philosophy which show how immoral and impractical it actually is for a government to push its citizens around.

We can only see what the state was able to build thanks to the unseen effort it took to create the wealth that built this terminal, and the ingenuity of countless men, thinking as individuals around the world and over the centuries that it took to develop all the scientific and technical expertise that went into that enormous building. The Chinese government is just as much a parasite of the West as it has been an exploiter of its own people, but its efficiency is all we will see. And it will not be clear to most people that this is an efficiency of thuggery and parasitism. Too bad.

The Chinese government hopes that the West has forgotten the values that made it great, and enough that we will be fooled by the magnificent wrapper containing this package deal. We are to feel awe -- and we do thanks to the genius and effort of those who built this terminal -- and then falsely ascribe it to the practices of the immoral political system in place in China.

Related: Save the Humans -- which recently re-launched as a blog -- has proposed several mascots for the Olympics. I vote for Timmy the Tank.

We've Got Your Consensus Right Here, Al!

Mike N discusses some interesting polling data that indicate that, apparently America's unwashed masses have somehow figured out what many of its academics haven't: That "consensus" is a political -- and not a scientific -- term.

Three More Roundups

1. Bo's latest submarine blogger roundup.
2. Objectivist roundup #32.
3. The William "Effin" Buckley Death Party Roundup.

Facets of Ayn Rand Online!

I probably heard about this over email first, but Andrew Medworth reminded me to add the memoirs of Charles and Mary Ann Sures to my list of links (where it is listed as Facets of Ayn Rand under "Publications" in the right hand column).

-- CAV

Second Virginity

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Here's a good article on an insane topic: women who've had sex claiming a "second virginity." Notably, many of these women are not teenagers who regret an early sexual experience. They include women in their twenties with long-term sexual partners and multiple children (!!) and married women spending $5000 to reconstruct their hymens as a present to their husbands (!!!).

This notion of a "second virginity" is obviously repugnant for its dishonesty: the simple fact is that a woman with years of sexual experience cannot honestly claim to be a virgin. However, that's not the worst of it. The worst is that virginity -- i.e. mere ignorance of sex -- is upheld as a major value.

Women (and men) should be discriminating in their choice of lovers. A young person ought to think hard about whether and when and with whom to have sex for the first time, just as any person ought to do with any new love interest. However, that need for discrimination does not imply that virginity is any kind of major value, as its champions assume. In modern society, virginity not a value at all -- except to jealous fiends and religious dogmatists. Virginity is not even a real quality of a person: it's just an ignorance of and inexperience with sex. Ignorance of sex means incompetence at sex. So for a rational, value-seeking lover, virginity can only be an obstacle to be overcome in the pursuit of the pleasures of sex, not a positive value. For a person to seek virginity requires a mangled set of sexual values.

Our culture worships virginity. Even those who reject the dogma of abstinence until marriage often claim to respect the supposed value of virginity. So next time a person speaks of virginity as a prize to be cherished, speak up!

America in the Middle East: Lecture this Wednesday!

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

For a complete explanation of the Islamic world’s rejection of America, one must first understand the story of Britain in the Middle East (Lecture 1 of The Islamist Entanglement) and trace the cultural reaction of the various Middle Eastern nations to their contacts with the West (Lectures 3-9).  This sets the proper context for a discussion of America’s past, present, and–undoubtedly–future failures, which will be the emphasis in the final lecture, lecture 10, of the series.

To start participating in The Islamist Entanglement find out about how you can purchase individual lectures here.  Act now, and you can participate in the live teleconference lecture this Wednesday evening, 8:30 PM Central.

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The Freedom to Petition One's Government

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

Charles Krauthammer makes a trenchant argument in defense of a perennial whipping boy:

Everyone knows the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. How many remember that, in addition, the First Amendment protects a fifth freedom -- to lobby?

Of course it doesn't use the word lobby. It calls it the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Lobbyists are people hired to do that for you, so that you can actually stay home with the kids and remain gainfully employed rather than spend your life in the corridors of Washington.

To hear the candidates in this presidential campaign, you'd think lobbying is just one notch below waterboarding, a black art practiced by the great malefactors of wealth to keep the middle class in a vise and loose upon the nation every manner of scourge: oil dependency, greenhouse gases, unpayable mortgages and those tiny entrees you get at French restaurants.

Some will argue that not all lobbyists are good, to which Krauthammer offers the following:

There is a defense of even bad lobbying. It goes like this: You wouldn't need to be seeking advantage if the federal government had not appropriated for itself in the 20th century all kinds of powers, regulations, intrusions and manipulations (often through the tax code) that had never been presumed in the 19th century and certainly were never imagined by the Founders. What appears to be rent-seeking is thus redress of a larger grievance -- insufferable government meddling in what had traditionally been considered an area of free enterprise.

I agree, but I think one needs to take the argument a step further. No one has a right to regulate or vet the speech of others merely because they disagree with it. As much as the rational may detest the words and ideas of the irrational, the protection of the rights of the rational demand that all non-fraudulent and non-defamatory speech be protected under the law—which includes the right to lobby one's government. Those who seek to shackle lobbyists and regulate political campaigners attack a fundamental freedom: the right to persuade others of the merits of one's views, yet that is precisely what we are seeing more and more of today.

Some claim that since much of the regulation of speech is linked to money, it makes the system fairer for the "little guy." I argue the opposite; these regulations punish the wealthy because of their wealth, denying them the opportunity to speak publicly when their interests demand it and today they are the little guy. I am reminded of the Nike v. Katsky case, where the so-called commercial speech doctrine was used to prevent Nike from publicly defending itself against the criticism of anti-globalization activists. Here Nike wasn't even attempting to lobby the government; it merely bought advertising defending its business model and yet the firm found its right to speak restrained. The standard now is such that if you speak out of an economic motive, stand by to have your rights assaulted.

I will freely admit: the outcome of the Nike case was a deep professional disappointment for me, especially in the face of all the tremendous work that this organization did in defense of free speech (work that I must point out went largely unremunerated). Nevertheless, if we don't take concrete steps to safeguard our right to free speech, freedom in America will die. Most people think that the threat to free speech exists only for social outliers, such as flag burners and the like. I've witnessed the flag burned ten feet in front of me to no negative effect for the flag-burner. In contrast, I have watched as businessmen and their lobbyists have had their freedom of speech whittled away--a fact that makes me wonder just who the real social outliers are.

Seeing with sound

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

In the quest to find an electronic cure for blindness, some researchers are experimenting with brain-computer interfaces. While promising, this is an expensive and long-term solution. Another innovative approach is seeing with sound, which uses an inexpensive home-made setup to project a sonic representation of images to the user. I downloaded a free copy of the software to give it a try – and it works. I was able to quickly memorize the “sonic shape” of my face, and move the webcam around to focus on my face without looking at it. I was even able to tell how far away my face was by the duration of the signal. The sounds are the same whether you are “viewing” images on a computer screen or reality.

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The Impostor Syndrome

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

Columnist Ken Hoffman of The Houston Chronicle is usually a pretty light read, but last weekend, he briefly mentioned a psychological condition I'd never heard of called the "impostor syndrome" and quoted the following description from a web site devoted to the condition:

Despite evidence of their abilities, many bright, capable people do not experience an inner sense of competence or success, believing instead that they have somehow managed to fool others into thinking they are smarter and more competent than they "know" themselves to be. [bold added]

If the emphasis on innate ability rings a bell, it may be because you recall an intriguing article I blogged some time ago about how flattering children for their intelligence stunts the development of a work ethic and genuine self-esteem.

"That's the smart thing to do. Steer clear of situations where your dumminess may be exposed," jokes Hoffman, but this is exactly what children who have been told they are smart all their lives learn to do, as Po Bronson, discussing results of a psychological study, pointed out:

Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The "smart" kids took the cop-out.

Why did this happen? "When we praise children for their intelligence," Dweck wrote in her study summary, "we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don't risk making mistakes." And that's what the fifth-graders had done: They'd chosen to look smart and avoid the risk of being embarrassed. [bold added]

I think it would be inaccurate to claim that a tendency to flatter children for "being smart" is the sole cause of impostor syndrome, but I suspect that it is a major culprit, and not just for those being flattered.

It's easy to see how the "smart" kids could develop impostor syndrome, but what of the ones who are not flattered? An article about the syndrome suggests how:

Such sentiments seem at odds with entrepreneurship. Starting companies, after all, requires plus-size confidence, and few positions are more exposed than the summit of one's own business. In addition, factors that often contribute to the impostor syndrome -- such as poor academic records and uninspiring early careers -- are badges of pride for many entrepreneurs, who often speak derisively of M.B.A.'s and have made "fake it till you make it" a mantra. [bold added]

These people have had brilliance pounded into their skulls as an important quality all their lives. And they have also had it pounded into their skulls that they lack it. But they nevertheless do work hard, and they do in fact apply their minds successfully to problems.

In other ways, though, entrepreneurship is a perfect breeding ground for the syndrome. "People who have had bad experiences in organizations may see entrepreneurship as the only way out because it allows them to control their lives," says Manfred Kets de Vries, a psychoanalyst and professor of leadership development at Insead, in France. With no boss, company founders can avoid critical scrutiny. Buffered by their relative control of the environment, entrepreneurs may feel ill-equipped to survive in the outside world. "I've always felt if I stopped doing Cornucopia, who would hire me?" says Stockwell. "If I think about it rationally, I know there's good reason I'm successful. But it wouldn't take a lot to shake my confidence." Adds Steven Myhill-Jones, CEO of Latitude Geographics Group, a $2.5 million geographic-analysis software company in Victoria, British Columbia: "I know my company, but I don't have skills that I could go apply somewhere else. I feel like a lot of what I've done has been a fluke or good timing." [bold added]

Never mind that, as Louis Pasteur put it, "Chance favors the prepared mind." Someone who is not used to knowing his virtues as virtues -- but is used to not enjoying praise for the usual reasons it is handed out -- is going to fail to appraise himself in the way he deserves and he will expect others not to appreciate him. Only there is a twist: Since he "knows" that success demands a superior intellect, he feels a constant, nagging fear of exposure rather than occasional indignation.

Having said that, I reiterate that the kind of flattery of children so much in fashion today is probably not the only circumstance that can predispose someone to eventually have impostor syndrome. False theories about how man acquires knowledge also doubtless play a role, for example.

It is common, for example, for people to hold omniscience as a standard for knowledge, as seems to be the case here:

Another Achilles' heel has to do with expectations. The public assumes CEOs will be knowledgeable about every aspect of their businesses, and business is getting more complex. In this respect, those with scant education are especially vulnerable. "It's like the skills I have are just commonsense skills, like being able to relate to people," says [Bud] Stockwell. "They don't feel as valid as knowledge-based skills." [Steven] Myhill-Jones, for his part, is the founder of a software company who knows very little about technology. "To this day I can't do the work we do," he says. "I can make a comment on the user interface or something. But I don't understand the underlying technology." [bold added]

Note that in addition to selling his well-honed interpersonal skills short as mere common sense (i.e., an ability everyone has), Myhill-Jones also accepts the false premise that he should understand technology in minute detail.

This man understands his limitations well enough to exploit division of labor to make up for them -- so well, in fact, that he can run a software company that probably employs its fair share of programmers who would be unable to head up a company on their own. Everyone does this in a sense every time he purchases services from someone else with an unfamiliar specialty. There is no shame in not being omniscient, so long as one takes his knowledge gaps into proper account.

The way in which philosophy can affect the culture extends beyond how it guides the actions of men to how the consequences of philosophy can affect us psychologically. Ayn Rand's essay, "Our Cultural Value Deprivation" (anthologized in The Voice of Reason), for example, discusses how modern culture can sap our motivation by making it difficult for us to achieve or experience many rational values. (Search "deprivation" at the link.)

The impostor syndrome strikes me as a particularly demoralizing example of value deprivation, in which countless individuals have been made unable to objectively evaluate their own good qualities and their own fitness for survival. Sad and fascinating all at once!

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a typo.

Europism: Collectivism’s Failure and the Resentment of America (Part 2)

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

Question for the Academic Experts

By Greg from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I have been checking around a little and haven't found solid answer, so I'm curious if any of our resident scholars of Aristotle and Rand (and Western philosophy in general) can clue me in on a couple of things:

1. Is it fair to say that Aristotle originated the idea of causality as identity applied to action ("entity-causation" -- things act the way they do because of what they are), though he wasn't absolutist on it (they do so "always or for the most part") -- and that Rand developed his lead into the clean, absolute formulation we enjoy slinging around today? Any other big players?

2. Was it Rand alone who came up with "existence is identity", clearly articulating how existence and identity are metaphysically inseparable, two different perspectives on the same basic fact? Or did she develop it from some earlier lead?

Any hints would be most appreciated!

Thanks,
Greg

John Lewis on the Radio Today

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

John Lewis writes:

I will be on the radio next Monday, March 3, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM EST. [That's TODAY!] WBGU FM is Bowling Green University radio. The show is "Political Animals," hosted by graduate students qua political junkies. The show has had some well-known guests; Jonah Goldberg was on last week, and they get a lot of play in Canada.

My ostensive topic is the election, although I told them I'll have nothing to say about the "candidates" per se, except to note the crappiness of it all, and to offer an alternative in Ayn Rand''s thought. I expect some Ron Paul adherents to call in, and I expect to have to disgorge on the libertarians and "anti-state versus anti-statism."

Radio is 88.1 FM in the Bowling Green, Ohio area. It may be heard on the web at http://wbgufm.com/tunein.php

Please call in. You can do so at (local) 419-372-8810, or (long-distance) 888-7-WBGUFM. You can email during the show at politicalanimals@wbgufm.com (they read emails on-air).

Listen and call in, if you can!

The Morality of Capitalism

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

WSJ's blog "Deal Journal" posted the following inquiry under the title "Is Capitalism Immoral?" yesterday:

Here's a question to think about over the weekend: Is capitalism immoral?

Stefan Theil seems to think that is what is being taught to European school kids. In an article in the January/February edition of Foreign Policy magazine, Stefan Theil concluded that Europe, particularly France and Germany, are teaching their children a "philosophy of failure," based on the idea that capitalism is immoral, savage and unhealthy. Theil - whose day job is European economics editor for Newsweek - cites a 2005 poll in which only 36% of French citizens said they support the free enterprise system; 47% of Germans said in 2007 that they support socialist ideals. Theil mentions that anti-American attitudes may be, in part, anti-capitalist.

Theil, who studied French and German financial textbooks as a fellow for the German Marshall Fund, compiles a couple of quotes from the books that guide Europe's impressionable young into what he calls a "deep anti-market bias." One German textbook intones, "The worldwide call for...more deregulation in reality means a grab for the material lifeblood of the modern nation-state," and a French one teaches, "Globalization implies 'subjugation of the world to the market,' which constitutes a true cultural danger."

Well, now you know why foreign companies have such a hard time buying anything in Germany or France. (And why France's Suez and Gaz de France were forced to merge with each other rather than accept foreign buyers, and why NYSE-Euronext has a big Paris base, as does Alcatel-Lucent.) But you knew that already.

In contrast, it would seem easy to conclude that "Western-style capitalism" is actually only practiced by the U.S. and Britain. Those two countries are the biggest sellers of their own homegrown assets, according to a report this week from Canada's Secor Conseil.

But the U.S. is hardly immune to protecting its national borders, particularly when it comes to China, as CNOOC will tell you. Or how about the long to-do about China's Huawei's involvement in Bain Capital's $2.2 billion bid for 3Com. It's America that's having trouble with the bid, and America's not, as far as we can tell, anti-capitalist. (That's why Ayn Rand lived here). And some of the policies that Thiel considers anti-capitalist, like a "rich-people tax," are espoused not just by Germany's Angela Merkel; they're also supported by American Democrats, including Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

So Deal Journal Readers, what would be the ideal U.S. textbook entry addressing the morality or immorality of our globalized capitalist system?

My apologies for posting the entry in its entirety, but I wanted to include the mention of Ayn Rand, since that included the false claim that the US isn't anti-capitalist.

Here's what I posted in the comments:

"What would be the ideal U.S. textbook entry addressing the morality or immorality of our globalized capitalist system?"

I'd recommend Ayn Rand's essay "What is Capitalism?" from _Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal_. Rand clearly and persuasively argues that capitalism is the only moral political/economic system. Only capitalism respects the inescapable metaphysical fact that a person must reason in order to live. By recognizing individual rights, particularly by banning force and fraud, capitalism protects each person's capacity to act according to his own rational judgment in pursuit of his values. To varying degrees, every other economic system makes the pursuit of the values required for life impossible. (Today, that's most dramatically illustrated by the starvation of North Korea under communism.)

However, America is not a capitalist nation: we have a mixed economy in which the government routinely violates individual rights with welfare programs, antitrust laws, environmental regulations, corporate subsidies, drug laws, and more. As much as Ayn Rand loved America, she would not defend the status quo.

The comments so far are mostly horrid: either openly anti-capitalist or pragmatist. So I'd encourage people to post something arguing for the morality of capitalism.

OActivists Subscriptions

By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The new OActivists mailing list has been up and running -- with a lovely flurry of posts -- since Tuesday. If you tried to subscribe but you've not gotten any messages, that's probably because a spam filter ate the confirmation e-mail from the list software. In that case, please send an e-mail to diana@dianahsieh.com requesting that I subscribe you. I'll do so manually. The list has 130 members, but I want more!

The Philosophic Postmortem of William F. Buckley, Jr.

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

William F. Buckley, Jr. died in Connecticut on February 27. Most Western newspapers and news media have bid adieu to the intellectual major-domo of American conservatism with glowing, admiring salutations.

And every one of those salutations has missed the point: That Buckley was a vile man who rescued the Republican Party from the self-destruction of irrelevancy and a just demise. Because of him, the Party was saved the task of rethinking or at least remembering the meaning of its name, republican, that is, of the Party which in the late 18th and early 19th centuries struggled to preserve a government charged with protecting and upholding individual rights to life, liberty, property, and happiness.

The New York Times, in its February 28 article on Buckley's death, "William F. Buckley Jr., 82, Dies; Sesquipedalian Spark of Right," noted that

"Mr. Buckley's greatest achievement was making conservatism - not just electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas - respectable in liberal postwar America."

The Times does not say what ideas comprised that system. Further on it notes that

"The liberal primacy Mr. Buckley challenged had begun with the New Deal and so accelerated in the next generation that Lionel Trilling, one of America's leading intellectuals, wrote in 1950: 'In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation.'"

The article is wrong that the liberalism Buckley opposed had begun with the New Deal; it began long before that, long before World War I. But Trilling, at least, was partly right; the dominant political ideas after World War II were liberal collectivist ones. Opposing them were "conservative" ideas, with the Republicans especially becoming vaguer and vaguer about what it was that they wished to "conserve." Their vision of a limited government republic was growing dimmer and hazier, and in light of their tepid opposition to (and in many instances, of their endorsement of) statist policies, their occasional harking back to the days of freedom, liberty and free enterprise was growing more and more hollow. They had no compelling answers to the liberal ideas.

Buckley saved their necks and provided them with a "system" of ideas they could feel at home with. He persuaded a spent and ideologically rudderless conservative movement to base its political philosophy on religion, altruism, and self-sacrifice as an alternative to the "atheistic" liberal welfare state of society, altruism and self-sacrifice. Individual rights were nothing to him if not "God-given." He was as much an enemy of freedom - and of freedom of speech - as any holy-roller Democrat. Fundamentally, there is no difference between the policies advocated by "atheistic" or secular collectivists and "religious" ones. Buckley never seriously challenged the "status quo" of controls, deficit spending, or the regulation of business and industry. He was one of the original advocates of volunteerism or mandatory public service.

The Daily Telegraph (London) of February 28 best summarized Buckley's influence on American politics:

"Buckley's aim was to turn the Right-wing movement in America into a recognizable, politically definable and powerful force, and to cleanse it of what some of its critics saw as leanings toward anti-Semitism and Fascism....Buckley was often credited with being the originator of the conservative thrust of the post-war years, which he saw as the antidote to the liberal philosophy which he believed had been dominant since the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt....[His] greatest moment, arguably, came when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter for the presidency in 1980. The fall of Communism vindicated much of what he fought for for decades."

It was Reagan's tenure in the White House that legitimatised the religious character of Republican conservatism and gave it impetus, the results of which we are seeing today not only in President Bush's faith-based initiative and in his war policy, but also in a religious revival in America that straddles left and right.

Learned, glibly articulate with a penchant for obscure words and noted for a complex, obfuscating verbosity nearly as convoluted as Immanuel Kant's, a master of sardonic humor, often self-deprecatory, Buckley was the Ellsworth Toohey of the Right.

In the 1950's the country was ripe for a revolution in ideas against the collectivist and altruist ideas that were steering it by default in the direction of statism. William F. Buckley proposed that ideas were not necessary. Faith and tradition were enough to save the country.

But, we should let Ayn Rand, whom Buckley in his National Review and in various columns slandered and answered with snide, sophomoric, cowardly attacks (or allowed other writers to attack her in a similar style), never daring to tackle her positions with any kind of intellectual honesty, have the last word on Buckley and his conservatism. In answer to a question in the Playboy interview of March 1964 about why she considered National Review "the worst and most dangerous magazine in America," she explained that

"...[I]t ties capitalism to religion. The ideological position of National Review amounts, in effect, to the following: In order to accept freedom and capitalism, one has to believe in God or some form of religion, some form of supernatural mysticism. Which means that there are no rational grounds on which one can defend capitalism. Which amounts to an admission that reason is on the side of capitalism's enemies, that a slave society or a dictatorship is a rational system, and that only on the ground of mystic faith can one believe in freedom. Nothing more derogatory to capitalism could ever be alleged, and the exact opposite is true. Capitalism is the only system that can be defended and validated by reason."

In commentary in the New York Daily News of March 11, 1982, shortly after Rand's death, Buckley revealed a petulance that cloaked his malice for her and for reason:

"She was an eloquent and persuasive anti-statist, and if only she had left it at that, but no. She had to declare that God did not exist, that altruism was despicable, that only self-interest was good and noble."

In short, his animus for Rand was based essentially on her refusing to relegate reason in the role of handmaiden of theology, on her divorcing reality from mysticism, on her "anti-statism" integrating an "eternal vigilance" against any tyranny over the mind of man as well as over his body. Let no one doubt that Buckley understood Rand's philosophy to the core, that he feared it, and chose as his weapon against it the Toohey-esqe tactic of snickering laughter. For that reason alone, he should be damned and no respectful esteem granted him.

Earlier in that article, he remarked that the "philosophy she sought to launch" is dead.

He was wrong about that philosophy. Objectivism, or a philosophy of reason, is making progress in the culture. It is alive and well, as William F. Buckley is not.

William F. Buckley

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

William F. Buckley is dead. So, incidentally, is the philosophy he sought to launch dead; it was in fact stillborn.

If that first paragraph sounds like a rather graceless and gloating way to talk about the recently deceased, I'm paraphrasing Buckley's column on the death of Ayn Rand:

"Ayn Rand is dead," wrote conservative author William F. Buckley in an obituary in 1982 about the best-selling novelist-philosopher. "So, incidentally, is the philosophy she sought to launch dead; it was in fact stillborn."

Objectivism was not dead in 1982, nor is it dead now. It thrives and grows more influential every year. It was ignored, however, in 1982, and there were misconceptions about it due to dishonesty and smears such as Whittaker Chambers's vile review of Atlas Shrugged in National Review that likened the philosophy of the book to Hitler's genocide of the Jews.

Unlike Objectivism, conservatism is dead, and Buckley lived long enough to see its death, if he was still paying attention. We now have a Republican party that has made its peace with the New Deal and is a big government, welfare state party. Buckley deserves some of the blame, even though his stated goal was limited government.

But Buckley himself was not as consistent about free market economics as many conservatives even back in the 1960's. He always had pragmatist streak:

All this adds up to a conservatism premised on firm principle and opportune adjustment alike, a dialectic impressed upon Buckley by two of his early mentors, James Burnham and Whittaker Chambers, both ex-Communists with well-developed aversions to strict party lines. When conservatism emerged from the wilderness in the 1960s, it was Buckley who insisted its elected tribunes be given room to operate outside the strictures of "the movement." In 1967, he defended the right's brightest star, Ronald Reagan, who, as governor of California, had enlarged, rather than slashed, the state's budget. Buckley calmly spelled out the reasons and concluded his case by quoting Chambers: "A conservatism that cannot find room in its folds for the actualities is a conservatism that is not a political force, or even a twitch: it has become a literary whimsy."

So from the beginning he defended Republicans acting like Democrats in order to get elected.

Buckley's disastrous mission was to integrate religion and capitalism. It doesn't work. As Robert Tracinski writes:

Fusionism is unstable because its basic premise--that the moral foundation of free markets and Americanism can be left to the religious traditionalists--is false. For five decades, under Buckley's influence, conservatives have ceded to the religious right the job of providing the moral fire to sustain their movement. But they are discovering that the religionists do not have a strong moral commitment to free markets. In fact, the religious right seems to be working on its own version of "fusion"--with the religious left.

Wednesday's Washington Post provided the latest example: a column by former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson on the shift to the left among evangelical Christians, who "respond to a message of social justice and community values, not only to a message of rugged individualism and unrestricted markets." Gerson insists that "Christianity indicts oppressive government--but also the soul-destroying excesses that sometimes come in free markets and consumerism." So much for traditional religious values serving as the basis for advocacy of capitalism.

The reason for this shift toward the religious left is that religion cannot support the real basis for capitalism and a strong American national defense: a morality of rational self-interest. Christianity is too deeply committed to a philosophy of self-abnegation, a destructive morality that urges men to renounce any interest in worldly goods and to turn the other check in the face of aggression. The early Christian saints, for example, abandoned all material comforts and lived in caves--which is to say that their closest contemporary disciples are the radical environmentalists. As for foreign policy, St. Augustine spent a fair bit of his massive apologia for Christianity, The City of God, explaining to the Romans that being sacked by barbarians was good for them because it taught them the virtue of humility and cured them of their attachment to material wealth.

Ayn Rand wrote about National Review in a letter to Barry Goldwater in 1960:

"This leads me to the subject of the National Review. I am profoundly opposed to it--not because it is a religious magazine, but because it pretends that it is not. There are religious magazines which one can respect, even while disagreeing with their views. But the fact that the National Review poses as a secular political magazine, while following a strictly religious "party line," can have but one purpose: to slip religious goals by stealth on those who would not accept them openly, to "bore from within," to tie Conservatism to religion, and thus to take over the American Conservatives. This attempt comes from a pressure group wider than the National Review, but the National Review is one of its manifestations. . . .

"The attempt to use religion as a moral justification of Conservatism began after World War II. Observe the growing apathy, lifelessness, ineffectuality and general feebleness of the so-called Conservative side, ever since. You are, at present, a rising exception in the Republican ranks. I do not believe that that pressure group could succeed in making you its tool. But a philosophical pressure group is very hard to detect, particularly at first. That is why I want to warn you against them now, and help you to identify the nature of their influence.

"I am not certain that you understood my relationship to the National Review, when I spoke to you here. I thought that you knew the facts, but perhaps you do not. In brief, they printed a review of Atlas Shrugged by Whittaker Chambers, which I have not read, on principle; those who have read it, told me that this former Communist spy claimed that my book advocates dictatorship. Thereafter, the National Review printed two articles about me (which I did read), one of them allegedly friendly, both of them misrepresenting my position in a manner I have not seen outside The Daily Worker or The Nation. What was significant was their second article: it denounced me for advocating capitalism."

The post-war movement to defend capitalism with religious morality will prove to be the most damaging thing ever to happen to American liberty. The leader of that movement was Buckley.