The Cloward-Piven Candidate?

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

When the Russians invaded Georgia in August, Republicans must have smugly thought, "Good. When issues of national security dominate people's concerns, they vote Republican!" History had returned, the the glib saying went, and that was good for McCain.

In this bizarre election year they should have known history had some more to say. What do we get in September? The greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. For whatever reason, this seems to be helping the Democrat.

The graph in this post by Jay Cost shows McCain's poll numbers falling with each bit of financial news.

This election is beginning to look like an absurdist comedy to me, especially if Obama goes on to win. Obama is a comic character. What has he done in life but run for office? He voted present over 120 times as a State Senator. He's a guy who stays quiet and goes along with the machine.

During the negotiations for the bailout bill -- despite what you think of the bill, and I do not support it -- McCain went to Washington and was in the trenches doing whatever Senators do. Obama did nothing. The bill collapses and Obama's lead over McCain grows.

Jim Simpson thinks something more sinister is going on, something called the Cloward-Piven Strategy.

In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?

Why?

One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.

I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent - the failure is deliberate. Don't laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.

The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:

"The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse."

In other words, Democrats don't care if their policies destroy the economy because that serves their ultimate end of socialism. Crises are good for the left. They blame capitalism and then move us closer to socialism. You'll note that the standard line on the left is that deregulation caused the current crisis and solution is more regulation. The cause of our problems is never government and the solution is never freedom.

Is Obama in on this nefarious goal of advancing socialism through crisis? Simpson thinks so:

I ask you, is it possible ACORN would train Obama to take leadership positions within ACORN without telling him what he was training for? Is it possible ACORN would put Obama in leadership positions without clueing him into what his purpose was?? Is it possible that this most radical of organizations would put someone in charge of training its trainers, without him knowing what it was he was training them for?

As a community activist for ACORN; as a leadership trainer for ACORN; as a lead organizer for ACORN's Project Vote; as an attorney representing ACORN's successful efforts to impose Motor Voter regulations in Illinois; as ACORN's representative in lobbying for the expansion of high risk housing loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to the current crisis; as a recipient of their assistance in his political campaigns -- both with money and campaign workers; it is doubtful that he was unaware of ACORN's true goals. It is doubtful he was unaware of the Cloward-Piven Strategy.

I'm suspicious of Simpson's explanation. If Obama believes in and fights for Cloward-Piven, then he will have a contradiction at the heart of his presidency, for presidents are admired for their accomplishments, not the crises they create by screwing up. Or does Obama plan to go past the crisis phase to the institution of socialism?

Another thing that makes me suspicious of Cloward-Piven is that, as Mises and the Austrian economists have demonstrated, government intervention creates crises regardless of the motivation of interventionists. Many politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, earnestly think they are making things better when they pass laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley or the Community Reinvestment Act. (Are the well meaning ones mere useful idiots of the radicals?)

Finally, Simpson's theory reminds me of the John Birch Society's old ways of finding a communist conspiracy behind, well, everything. As Ayn Rand wrote, the Birchers don't understand the role of philosophy. Those who hold the same philosophic premises will tend to want the same political policies. Those who do not understand the role of philosophy in man's life think conspiracy theories are at work.

None of my reservations refute the idea that there are radical groups out there that want to replace capitalism with socialism. No question, these leftist radicals exist, they have infiltrated to the heart of the Democrat Party, and Obama has had connections with these groups all his life, starting with his hard-line communist father. But the goals and machinations of the radical left are not the fundamental explanation of America's stumbling from crisis to crisis toward socialism. No, at the root of the problem is the philosophy of altruism, which leads to government intervention in the economy to help the "little guy," and which -- rather conveniently for the acolytes of Cloward-Piven -- does not care if its programs make the world actually better. With altruism, intentions are always more important than results. In the end, altruists are more interested in putting chains on the rich rather than raising the standard of living of the poor. As Ayn Rand showed, their goal is to attack the good for being the good. This destructive, nihilist philosophy led to Cloward-Piven, not the other way around.

Correspondence on the Bailout

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Objectivist historian John Lewis recently sent his representative a terse note against the bailout. His representative responded with the pro-bailout crap. And Dr. Lewis wrote a lengthy, informative, and very pointed reply. He has given me permission to reproduce the whole correspondence, but you might just want to skip down to his reply. Then you might want to forward it to your representatives in Washington.

Here's the first letter:

From: John Lewis

Dear Speaker Pelosi and all US Representatives:

I oppose all bailouts of financial institutions by the US government.

Government regulation and meddling is solidly to blame for this crisis.

We must reduce government involvement in the economy now.

Sincerely;
Dr. John David Lewis
Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science, Duke University
Senior Reasearch Scholar, Social Philosophy and Policy Center

Here's the reply from Representative David Price of North Carolina:

Date: September 29, 2008
From: Congressman David Price
To: Dr. John David Lewis
Subject: Reply from Congressman David Price

Dr. John Lewis

Durham, NC 27705

Dear Dr. Lewis:

Thank you for contacting me about our country's financial crisis and the proposed recovery legislation. Today the House defeated this legislation, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, by a vote of 205 to 228, despite my support.

Like you, I do not have any interest in "bailing out" Wall Street firms and business leaders who have speculated recklessly, endangered our country's consumers and homebuyers, and resisted regulation that would protect the public interest. My concern is for Main Street - for the people depending on a sound economy and the availability of credit to buy a house or car, to run their business and meet payroll, and to save for college and retirement.

Like it or not, we are all in this together, and the entire economy is threatened as we teeter on the edge of a 1929-style meltdown. Today Wachovia Bank, a North Carolina mainstay, collapsed. But this goes much deeper than bank failures. Last week, the City of Raleigh could not find a buyer for a $300 million bond, and Wake County cancelled its planned $472 million bond issue for school construction, Wake Tech, libraries, and open space acquisition. Both have AAA bond ratings.

Although President Bush lacks the credibility to be of much help, I take the dire warnings of economic analysts very seriously, particularly in light of everything that has happened in the last few weeks. But I could not support Secretary Paulson's request for a blank check for $700 billion to purchase mortgage-backed securities and stabilize the markets.

I thus became part of the intensive discussions over the last ten days to rewrite the Treasury plan in several critical respects. The legislation which came before us today would:

o Provide strict independent oversight and accountability for all activities undertaken by the US Treasury

o Release the $700 billion in installments, with multiple reviews along the way

o Make certain that the entire $700 billion is recaptured by the Treasury and thus by the American taxpayer, by requiring that taxpayers share in any profits resulting from the government's help and providing for assessment of the financial industry for any remaining losses

o Forbid "golden parachutes" and limit other compensation for executives of participating financial institutions.

o Require the government to work with participating institutions and loan servicers to help deserving homeowners negotiate reasonable repayment terms and stay in their homes

The defeat of the bill prolongs and perhaps deepens the crisis. Coordinating with the Senate, the House will need to return within days to try again. Perhaps the economic situation will then lead some members to reconsider. Perhaps the bill can be changed in ways that attract a majority; I certainly have a list of improvements I would like to see. But considering the members who voted "no," I will want to scrutinize carefully any changes designed to attract them.

I am committed over the next few days to continue working to avert financial collapse and get the best possible deal for America 's taxpayers and homeowners. I welcome and share your concern about this situation and will be glad to hear from you at any time.

Sincerely,

DAVID PRICE

Member of Congress

Here's Dr. Lewis' stellar response:

Date: Monday, September 29, 2008
From: John Lewis
To: Congressman David Price of North Carolina
Subject: Reply from Congressman David Price

Dear Congressman Price;

Thank you for your frank and fast response. I should be clear. I am opposed to bailing out these firms. But what I am more opposed to is the entire political culture of regulation--including manipulation of interest rates, Sarbanes-Oxley, changes in accounting rules, the Community Renewal Act, and a scad of others--that has fostered this mess. Two weeks ago no politician in Washington knew this was coming. Suddenly, after several all-nighters, they have enough knowledge to grant a quarter of a trillion dollars to a government bureaucrat, to dole out as he sees fit--and to promise another half-trillion, should his actions make it worse.

Meanwhile, the country focuses on the allegedly evil CEOs, "speculators" (read "investors"), and loan initiators who were earlier damned for NOT making loan money available to high-risk borrowers. I remind you that the Community Renewal Act penalizes firms for not making such risky loans. Now, suddenly, those firms are villified for following the law. Well, that's government--it faces no penalties, except a periodic popularity contest, and can contradict itself with impunity.

Most of all, I resent the politicians and punditrs who are claiming, contrary to evidence, that it is now "impossible to get a loan" on Main Street. It is impossible to borrow millions on Wall Street, but regional banks that made prudent investors are not in danger--unless the government further coerces them.

The government is not saving Main Street--it is nationalizing it. Is it not true that, with the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government now holds paper on tens of millions of American mortgages? What does granting American citizens "equity positions" and "profits" in companies seized by the government mean, except communism? Don't we condemn Hugo Chavez for nationalizing oil companies?

I will also recall, as a student of economics, that the Great Depression was caused by a string of obnoxious legislation, and was then cruelly extended by massive government interference. Contrary to prevailing, but long-discredited, opinion, the government did not save us from that mess. It created, and prolonged, it. Twenty years earlier, JP Morgan ended the panic of 1908 in a few weeks--bankers in 1929 could not so act. Today, Morgan would have been jailed for the private pooling of assets he arranged. Is it not true that AIG was told by the Attorney General of New York that it would not be allowed to sell sound assets in order to save the holding company? Who is to blame for the collapse of a huge, and largely sound company, excpet those who forbhid its executives from acting?

You will forgive me if I have no respect for the likes of Senator Schumer, who started a run on a bank with his irresponsible statements and then claimed virtue for them, or Senator McCain, up to his neck in the Keating scandal, or Senator Dodd, whose reputation was on the rocks until this crisis saved him, or Senator Obama, who had not a clue at a White House meeting last week, and then went on-script before the press to cover his ignorance. You will please forgive me if promises of "oversight" by these PR men do not instill confidence.

I much more respect the CEOs who have spent their years in the business, and who face actual consequences for their errors. They do not have access to hundreds of billions of dollars of other people's money--and they do not expect their stockholders to approve busines plans that cannot foretell whether they will lose three-quarters of a trillion dollars, or get some of it back in five or twenty years. They do not have their hands in the pocket of every person who produces in this country.

The truly brave politicians are those who recognize that the government is largely to blame for this mess, and should start emergency repeal of regulations now. Only this can allow responsible CEOs to start making decisions based on sound economics, rather than fear of breaking a law.

Sincerely;
John Lewis

Dr. John David Lewis
Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science, Duke University

Thank you, John!

James Grant's comments

By softwareNerd from Software Nerd,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Jim Grant is a smart guy, who publishes the Grant Interest Rate Observer. I rarely see him on TV, so I thought I'd share these recent interviews he did with the FT.

More here.
... and one from 2006

And for another smart commentator, check out Marc Faber.

Both Grant and Faber have been bears for a long time, so of course they seem particular wise at the moment., when their dire predictions come home.

So, as a counter, here are two smart guys who are usually bullish: Bogle and Heebner.

A Rational Plan

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

I saw this vid today, and I like his proposal to address the financial markets. His plan addresses the issue the same way that I've indicated, an orderly and speedy restructuring and/or liquidation of insolvent assets.

What the Treasury has been doing, in seizing companies such as WaMu is egregious. Hank Paulson is circumventing the law and property rights principles to use the force of government to do what he thinks is best. These asset sales could have happened speedily and with due process. Instead assets were seized and disposed of, and the capital structures of the companies decimated.

I have a longer post on the principles behind government's proper role coming, but this gentleman has it correct as well. His proposal is here.

Congress did not defeat this bill based on any rational principle. It was for various politically expedient reasons depending on which group a congressman belonged to. I suspect another plan that is materially no different than this one, and another vote will be eminent before week's end. You must keep up the pressure.

Quick Roundup 365

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

Articles on the Mortgage Crisis

Via HBL are two must-reads on the government-caused mortgage crisis. The first explores the origins of the housing crisis, pinpointing events in 1999:

Why did it happen? Let's go back to 1999, when Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, was under pressure by the Clinton administration to find a way to get more loans to "borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans." A pilot program was launched, which soon became general policy. Money flowed to people who couldn't afford to pay it back.

Michael Arrington then quotes one Peter Wallison predicting a government bailout resulting from that policy that same year!

The next article, by Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, ends up asking a similar question to the one I raised the other day: "Who will rescue the federal government?" Unlike myself, he presents the gory financial details behind this question.

Even the government admits this can't go on forever. A report from the Treasury Department says that without big increases in revenue, "Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security spending and the related deficit financing costs will far exceed the government's ability to pay."

When you spend more than you bring in, you have to borrow to cover the difference. In the next three decades, the government's official debt is on track to triple. But at some point, the Treasury predicts, "the world's financial markets would likely cease lending to the United States."

Then what? David Henderson, a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and editor of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, ticks off the options: We could close the budget gap by drastically cutting spending or raising taxes. The Federal Reserve could print a lot of money, reducing the real value of the debt and making it easier to pay off. Or the government could default -- in short, declare bankruptcy. [link dropped, bold added]

Huge spending cuts, confiscatory taxation, government theft by inflation, or federal bankruptcy, take your pick. Even the only moral or permanently viable answer, the first of these, will be painful, thanks to most Americans having become accustomed to some kind of government handouts.

Now that we're in this situation, what ought we do about it? Through Instapundit and, again, HBL, we have "Key Points on 'Rescue' Plan From A Healthy Bank's Perspective" from John Allison, Chairman and CEO of BB&T. Among other things along the way, he traces the origin of the crisis even further back than Bill Clinton's big assist in 1999:

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the primary cause of the mortgage crisis. These government supported enterprises distorted normal market risk mechanisms. While individual private financial institutions have made serious mistakes, the problems in the financial system have been caused by government policies including, affordable housing (now sub-prime), combined with the market disruptions caused by the Federal Reserve holding interest rates too low and then raising interest rates too high. [bold added]

As Yaron Brook recently put it so well, this is not a failure of capitalism, but of the "unfree market".

To make matters worse -- as if this bailout bill weren't already bad enough -- some earlier versions of this bill included massive outlays for ACORN, a left-wing advocacy group. That particular measure appears to be gone, but there's plenty more to hate about this bill:

In the interest of "transparency," there will be four layers of oversight, and judicial review of Treasury decisions -- something Hank Paulson tried (with good reason) to exclude in his initial draft. The ACORN subsidy is gone, but mortgage relief is in, through some yet-to-be-determined process of federal mortgage review. [bold added]

Re-read John Allison's analysis of the origins of this crisis and recall that "bailout" and solution" are not synonyms.

Update: Just as I was about to head out the door, I noticed that David Veksler has posted on the economic crisis as well.

The key to understanding economic theory is to grasp that the same principles that apply to your personal finances, and perhaps to your interaction with your local grocer apply equally to the world at large, at all levels of economy activity. The key to understanding politics is to grasp that political success requires advocating policies which violate these basic economic principles - and then evading the consequences of their own policies - with the voters' eager participation in the delusion.

This last sentence indicates why cultural change is the only possible long-term solution to the current crisis. If people do not generally re-gain at least the same level of appreciation of personal independence and freedom that they once had in America, the formula for political "success" will not change.

Bush's Statist Legacy, Updated

In barely over a month since I pointed to an eye-opening MacLean's article about the enormous growth in the size of the federal government under our current President, we have not only seen him accelerate our disastrous domestic policies (above), but have had him doing exactly the same thing in the meantime with respect to foreign policy.

On The Drudge Report, in a single day, I spotted the following collection of headlines. They practically do my job for me:

1. "Israel Asked US for Green Light to Bomb Nuclear Sites in Iran"
2. "US, Russia Reach Deal on New UN Iran Resolution"
3. "Russia Offers Chavez Nuclear Help amid US Tensions"

I leave it up to the reader to determine how (1) stopping an ally from doing (even a part of) what we should have done to Iran long ago, (2) making a deal on Iran with the country that has been helping it become a nuclear threat, and (3) evading the open intercourse between that same nation and an open enemy very nearby, will promote our long-term national security. I certainly don't see it.

Who needs McCain or Obama to take office when we still have George W. Bush until January?

Chavez Echoes the Ayn Rand Institute...

... regarding a fact, but not his evaluation of that fact.

As if recent world events haven't closely-enough resembled some hack attempting to re-write Atlas Shrugged in as grotesquely-exaggerated a manner possible, we have Hugo Chavez saying of the financial crisis, "I am sounding like Bush, more or less. What a novelty!" Sadly for us, the only novelty is that this is now so obvious, even Hugo Chavez can see it.

A press release from the Ayn Rand Institute indicated a year and a half ago that this has been the case:

"In announcing his commitment to achieving 'social justice' in Latin America," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "President Bush is following in the footsteps, not of Thomas Jefferson, but of Hugo Chavez."

In addition to this being old news, this is not a good thing.

Furthermore, both Chavez and Vladimir Putin, who understand this on the level of cunning, see this and appear to be getting ready to use it.

Of course, if any leader really understood this, he would do, as Stephen Borque suggests in a letter he sent to his Congressmen, and "grab the free-market baton that the Republicans have long ago dropped."

Sadly, in a twist too ironic even for a good farce, Chavez and Putin seem closer to doing this than our own government!

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Added link to David Veksler to end of first section.

Keep Up the Pressure

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The proposed bailout plan has failed in the House of Representatives.

The vote against the measure was 228 to 205, with 133 Republicans joining 95 Democrats in opposition. The bill was backed by 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans.

HOORAY! As a result, the plan is stalled, at least for the moment:

Supporters vowed to try to bring the rescue package up for consideration again as soon as possible, perhaps late Wednesday or Thursday, but there were no definite plans to do so.

That's great news. But I'm not terribly surprised, I must say. (I can't claim credit for the following insight, however. A friend suggested it to me last night.) Why not?

People are inundating their representatives with strong opposition to the bailout. Mark Udall, a representative from Colorado running for Senate reported: "People are mad. My calls are mixed, between people who say 'No' and people who say 'Hell no.'"

Members of the House of Representatives are vulnerable to political discontent. Unlike in the Senate, the whole bunch (except those retiring) is up for re-election in just over a month. So as this vote indicates, many do not wish to risk their seat by voting in favor of wildly unpopular legislation -- despite all the pressure from party leadership.

So what does that mean for us? It means: keep up the pressure. If you representative voted "no," call or e-mail him to give your moral support. If he voted "yes" (as mine did; he's retiring), then call or e-mail to tell him that you're upset with him. You can find out how your representative voted here.

Unfortunately, the web site for the House (including their contact form) seems to be down, as does Congress.org. Does anyone have a working link to suggest?

Update: Reading that NY Times article in full, I'm impressed by the seemingly principled opposition to the bailout. See these descriptions and quotes:

Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, said he intended to vote against the package, which he said would put the nation on "the slippery slope to socialism." He said that he was afraid that it ultimately would not work, leaving the taxpayers responsible for "the mother of all debt."

Another Texas Republican, John Culberson, spoke scathingly about the unbridled power he said the bill would hand over to the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., whom he called "King Henry."

A third Texan, Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat, said the negotiators had "never seriously considered any alternative" to the administration's plan, and had only barely modified what they were given. He criticized the plan for handing over sweeping new powers to an administration that he said was to blame for allowing the crisis to develop in the first place.

In contrast, consider what the supporters of the bailout are saying:

When it comes to America's economy, [Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Democratic Majority Leader] said, "none of us is an island."

Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat, said the measure was vital to help financial institutions survive and keep people in their homes. "There's plenty of blame to go around," she said, and attaching blame should come later.

Adopt an Investment Bank

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Via Bill, a funny column on the bailout from Joel Stein in the LA Times:

Even though I understand so little about economics that much of my long-term investments are tied up in Costco products, I feel pretty sure that letting Congress give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson $700 billion to buy super-crappy mortgages is not the right call.

Sure, like any American, when I see a photo on the Internet of an adorable little investment bank and find out it's at risk of being put to sleep, I want to throw in $2,000 to $3,000 of my own money to adopt it. But instead of jacking up inflation, letting the dollar sink further and paying higher taxes so we can keep up cheap borrowing -- which is what this plan amounts to -- I think we need to let those who made bad loans get burned. We need to accept that credit will dry up and that maybe -- for just a bit -- we'll have to stop buying more than we can afford.

And:

So let's not stop the short-selling of financial stocks -- the only brake on overindulgence -- as Paulson did last week. Let's not strip Congress of yet another power by giving the Treasury secretary the right to decide where to dole out a large portion of our budget. Let's not encourage more risky loans by making profits private and losses public. And let's not create some bastardized form of communism in which the new rule is, "From each according to his ability, to each according to the size of the investment bank he owns shares in."

I don't agree with the whole column. He fails to recognize government regulation as the root problem of the current crisis, instead claiming that "we've got basically sound banking system that got a little under-regulated during the Clinton administration." However, I do appreciate his insistence that the people and corporations who took the risks assume the responsibility for their losses. And I liked his humor: it highlighted the absurdity of treating corporations as objects of government charity.

Will It Really Matter?

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

The Looming Crisis over Free Speech

By Eric Daniels from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

PRESS ADVISORY
AYN RAND INSTITUTE

The Looming Crisis over Free Speech
September 30, 2008

What: A lecture examining the escalating censorship in America and explaining what is needed to protect our freedom of speech

Who: Eric Daniels, research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism

Where: 101 Morgan Hall, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720

When: Monday, October 6, 2008, 7 pm

Description: In this lecture, Dr. Daniels examines the state of free speech in America and finds that it is under serious threat. From campus speech codes to anti-discrimination and harassment law, from campaign finance to commercial speech, Americans today enjoy less and less freedom in communicating their ideas. Today’s colleges and universities have become a hotbed of censorship, producing generations of Americans who have accepted suppression of speech as the norm. Daniels argues that the emerging crisis is a result of the lack of a proper understanding of individual rights, especially property rights. Only by understanding the proper basis of rights can we act to secure our freedom of speech and to protect the rights that give rise to it.

Bio: Dr. Eric Daniels is a research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He has lectured internationally on American history, particularly on American intellectual history, business history and political history. He taught for five years at Duke University's Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, where he was nominated for a university-wide teaching award. Dr. Daniels was a contributor to the recently published Oxford Companion to United States History, and wrote a chapter in The Abolition of Antitrust. He has appeared on C-SPAN and Voice of America Radio.

For more information on this lecture, please e-mail media@aynrand.org.

###  ### ###

Eric Daniels is available for interviews now and after his lecture.

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. The Ayn Rand Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI. ARI does not necessarily endorse the content of the lectures and sessions offered.

 

Another Banker Weighs In

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

David Littman, former vice president and chief economist for Comerica Bank and Chief Economist for my home town free-market think tank, The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, has penned an op-ed in last week's Detroit News laying blame for the financial mess where it belongs, on government intervention in the economy.

Add that to the letter to Congress penned last week by John Allison, CEO of BB&T, stating the same thing.

Certainly if the risk of financial ruin that advocates of the current bail-out want us to believe necessitates it is so certain, it's odd to me that people who are intimate with the banking industry don't think so.

"How Your Government Can Wreck Your Economy and Get Away with It" in 6 Easy Steps

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

1. Set up a Mechanism to Launder Risky Home Mortgage Debt. Create an agency whose sole purpose is to "offer liquidity to the secondary mortgage market." The agency will guarantee home loans for a small "insurance" fee, or it will buy them and repackage them as "mortgage-backed securities" also guaranteed to pay, regardless of default. Set low standards for the types of loans that will quality, and make sure your fees are low so lots of people will sign up for your insurance. Sell these new low risk securities into the financial markets. Viola! You make risky debt look good, and sell it to "suckers" thereby providing liquidity to the mortgage market. Oh, it's true that some of them won't fall for it, but all we need a few, the dumber ones, and the ones who know what's going on, but who are hoping to find a sucker of their own to pass the buck to. Oh, almost forgot. Make sure you set up this agency as a "private" company. Imply that you'll save it if it gets into trouble, but don't promise it explicitly. Give it a nifty, folksy name like Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.They'll love that.

2. Force banks to offer Risky Debt. What? Not enough people are helping you issue risky debt? Well, that's easy. Just pass a law that forces banks to lend to high-risk prospects. Tell them you won't let them do things like merge with other banks unless they can prove they are issuing risky debt the way you want them too. Make sure the law states that they specifically shouldn't look at things like applicants' income, or current assets when making decisions about them. If it doesn't work so well at first we can just revise it, so our money laundering agency gets into the act too. Oh, name again. We certainly don't want something like the "Let's Issue More Risky Debt Act", so we need something that will tug at their heartstrings. Got it! the "Community Reinvestment Act"! They'll love that.

3. Hold interest rates down so anyone can afford Risky Debt. OK it's starting to work, but still not enough risky debt to clobber the economy. We need more time! A delaying tactic. Wait! We control interest rates right? Shoot let's just keep interest rates low for a while. We know low interest rates stimulate potential new risky debt holders to go ahead and get that house they can't afford. Do that for a couple of years and we'll have risky debt all over the place!  Oh, once again, we don't want anyone to know. Let's wait until we have some sort of minor crisis and say we're doing it to help "stimulate" the economy. How about that "Dot com bubble" we just had? Oh, and we need some cover again. Let's get some free-market guy to advocate it. Some pragmatist who's advocated some pretty strong free-market principles but who'll sell them out at a hat drop, and whine about it afterward that he didn't know. What? Robert Stadler isn't available? How about that Greenspan guy? Yeah, they love him.

4. Make it a moral, noble action to take out Risky Debt. Proclaim that every citizen should indulge the noble dream of home ownership. That buying a home is good for the economy; that it's the government's duty to help you afford your new home purchase, and it's your duty to help out the economy. Use the full power of the largest public relations machine in the free world, the U.S. Government, to trumpet the notion. This is the key, of course. Now when Joe Citizen shows up at his local bank and wonders why his banker doesn't ask him about his income, he won't second guess it because he knows that what he's doing is good for the economy. When Joe Banker sells of his mortgage to Freddie, and wonders how it is that Freddie can afford to guarantee what he suspects is a risky debt, he won't think to ask, because it's the government's duty to see that everyone has a home. Oh, I just get warm and fuzzy thinking about it.

5. Wait. That's it. Just let the machinery work. After a few years, Risky Debt will be everywhere. Some people will be worried, but our PR will have worked on most. Even if they're worried, they'll think about how noble and selfless they're being and all that worry will just evaporate in a cloud of happy thoughts.

6. Blame the Free Market. The implosion will happen. What sets it off will be immaterial because the mechanism, the time bomb, will have long been in place. Everyone will be powerless to help it. We will be too, but think of the mileage we'll get by blaming the free market! We'll get to nationalize things, and give out tons of money. We'll call those Wall Streeters "greedy" bastards, call for their heads, take away their companies. Everyone will come to us for help, and we'll tell them we will, even though we can't really. We'll ask for broader powers. Say that we need to be left alone to handle things the way we see fit. And they'll give them to us, of course. Because they won't know any better.

Now I certainly don't want to imply some sort of conspiracy on the part of government here, but the cause and effect I've outlined is real. It is the cause of this financial mess we're in. And it has nothing to do with the free market. But after all the finger pointing at the greed of the businessman I've heard spewed in the last few days, this version pales in its sinister quality, and the actual actions line up better with the facts on the ground. Free-market intellectuals know this and they are saying so, Bank CEO's, the ones who weren't duped by this trickery, know this and they are saying so.

There is one action on this list however that was taken, consciously and consistently. #4 - making it a noble, moral action. You cannot go anywhere today and not hear the resounding chorus. Man is too selfish and greedy; it is his duty to help those less fortunate; we are our brothers' keepers; it is right for government to force this to happen; people rise to their highest when they pursue a "cause greater than self-interest". It doesn't matter if all the other actions above are mistakes. #4 is not, and from #4 all the others necessarily follow. #4 is known as altruism, and it has only one known antidote, rational self-interest as a moral code, and a politics based upon individual rights.

From his recent The Objective Standard article "The Resurgence of Big Government", ARI Executive Director Yaron Brook states it better than I can:

If selfishness and the profit motive are immoral, then no wonder they are blamed for any and all economic crises. Nor is it any wonder that the government—which we are assured is not self-interested—is posited as the solution to such greed-induced crises. Politicians and bureaucrats, we are told, are working not for their own benefit, but for the “common good” or “public interest.” Thus, economic disasters cannot be their fault; the blame must lie on the shoulders of greedy businessmen.

Because Americans accept the notion that self-interest is morally wrong, they have come to equate businessmen with crooks, on the grounds that both pursue self-interested goals. The argument goes, in effect, like this: Left to his own devices, free from the watchful eye of our public servants in Washington, a businessman will try to make a buck by raiding the cookie jar rather than by producing and selling cookies.

...

Americans must come to understand that appeals to the “common good” and the “public interest” are not moral claims but licenses to evil. Because the American public is just a number of separate individuals, whenever some group trumpets action in the name of the “public interest”—say, a new prescription drug benefit or Social Security scheme—it is declaring that the wishes of some individuals trump the rights and interests of other individuals. But everyone has a moral right to pursue his own happiness, free from coercive interference by others. If it is to have a legitimate meaning, the “public interest” can mean only this: The rights of each and every individual are equally protected by the government.

If Americans want to turn permanently toward a genuinely free market—and thus toward peak prosperity—they will have to reconsider their moral convictions. They will have to discover a new morality, one based on the requirements of human life and backed by detailed arguments and demonstrable facts. This is what Ayn Rand offers in her body of writings. She is the only champion of capitalism who would and could defend capitalism on moral grounds, as indicated by the radical titles of her books Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal andThe Virtue of Selfishness. Those who want to fight the trend toward statism—those who want to effect a real and lasting turn toward capitalism—would do well to study her thought.

The people who know what's going on are saying so. I'm saying so. It's time for you to do the same.

No friends of capitalism

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

The following letter went to my congressmen at the end of last week. Should another "bailout" plan be proposed which, while smaller in total dollar figure, differ little in principle then subsequent follow-up letters will be sent.

I urge you if you have not done so yet, to do the same!

Dear Sir:

As Congress considers a bail-out provision totaling over $700B and which could run higher, please reconsider any decision to vote for this sort of proposal in any way.

What the country needs now is not the govt granting broad reaching, unchecked powers to the Department of Treasury so that it can spend taxpayers money to buy up bad paper and greater than market prices. Such a measure will not save the economy but plunge it further into crisis. It will not punish those executives who made poor decisions while saving those who were smart. It will treat all equally.

What the country needs now is for the govt to provide an orderly mechanism to allow banks to liquidate assets as needed to solve their liquidity problems. That mechanism exists under the rule of law already. It is known as Chapter 11 restructuring. The free market, a truly free market must be allowed to work to clean up the mess, which ultimately has government intervention in both monetary policy and the mortgage industry at the heart of its cause.

Today John Allison, CEO of BB&T, one of the largest commercial banks in the country articulated the principles by which government should behave in a letter to all of Congress. I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment and urge you not to vote for any sort of bail-out plan.

I have generally voted for you and the Republican party party in the past; however, your vote for such a plan now will irrevocably change my future vote. This action will be akin to the disastrous aftermath of the 1929 crash whereby government attempts to solve the financial problems they created only made them worse and caused a protracted Depression. The Democrats were no friend of capitalism in that time, and should this measure pass with Republican approval, then I will have to conclude on principle that the Republican party is no longer a friend of capitalism either.

Respectfully yours,

Kendall Justiniano

Paul Newman, RIP

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Great movie actors have an elusive, hard to define quality called screen presence. It is not just a matter of beauty, although beauty helps. Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn and the mature Joan Crawford, none of them great beauties, had screen presence. Hedy Lamarr, called by some the most beautiful woman of the last century, wasn't much of a screen presence. (These actresses flourished back when Hollywood made movies for adults. Today Hollywood is a factory for making comic book movies, and actresses too old to play the action hero's sex kitten struggle to find work.)

Paul Newman had screen presence as much as anyone ever has. He was the ultimate movie star, although he had contempt for Hollywood and chose to live back east. I remember him reading a letter from a fan of his food products that said toward the end, "My wife tells me you are also an actor." The writer went on to wish him luck in his acting career. Newman carried the letter in his wallet to keep his Hollywood fame in perspective. He was not one to believe his press agent's PR.

Newman also said once that every audition he went to in the '50s, he would see James Dean coming out the door with the part. (How would like to be a mere mortal actor back then competing against Paul Newman and James Dean?)

I'm conflicted about Paul Newman because, though he a brilliant actor, he represents the rise of naturalism in Hollywood in the '60s. I'll never forget how startling and original Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was in 1969. Early in the movie there's a scene in which Butch (played by Newman) is arguing with this big guy in his gang. It looks like the scene is heading toward a fist fight -- standard stuff in westerns. Then Newman kicks the big guy in the balls. The fight is over before it begins. My 12-year old self could not believe what I was seeing. He kicked him in the balls!

If the kick in the balls seems like a cliche now, it is only because William Goldman's screenplay is one of the most influential scripts of all time. Before this movie, good guys did not kick their enemy in the balls. Cowboys were heroic and noble; they had a code of ethics.

This brash, rule-breaking naturalism was fresh and unexpected in 1969. However, I do not think it has been good for American culture since then. Naturalism works like a literary Gresham's Law: bad heroes drive good heroes out of the culture. Just as in our value-deprived culture there are young people today who have no idea of what a beautiful melody in popular music would sound like (because they don't listen to Radio Dismuke), so the young have never seen a hero who is good, noble, moral and intelligent. Instead, they get psychotic Dark Knights and mystics with lightsabers.

The essence of Newman's career is described:

Newman gave strong performances and appeared in important movies in each of the decades he worked. Still, it's the two indelible title roles from the early 1960s -- paradigms of what came to be called "antiheroes" -- that throw the longest shadows. In "The Hustler" he played "Fast Eddie" Felson, a cocksure pool player come from the West Coast to New York City to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Eddie has talent to burn but not yet the "character" to avoid snatching defeat from victory. The drama -- which takes on Faustian overtones via an enigmatic gambler (George C. Scott) who diagnoses Eddie as a "born loser"-- ends on a note of bleak triumph, but only after exacting a terrible cost from Eddie and those who loved him.

No matter how brash, rash, or sulky Eddie Felson became, he still compelled sympathy. "Hud" is a portrait of "an unprincipled man," a "cold-blooded bastard" who "doesn't give a damn" about anybody or anything. Up to a point, this was not an unheard-of challenge for an avowedly serious actor, especially one with cred from Yale School of Drama, the Actors Studio, and performing in original Broadway productions of plays by Tennessee Williams and William Inge. But "Hud," and Hud, went beyond. Surely there'd be a turning, some piercing blow or epiphany to show Homer Bannon's unloved second son the way to "character"? No. Nothing reformed Hud. His character was what it was. And he remained true to it even as he casually slammed the ranchhouse door in our collective face. The End.

So Hud compelled scant sympathy. But he could charm the dew off the grass, and certainly the audience. And despite the film's firm denunciations of Hud and his heartlessness and materialism, that was at bottom OK. Because as the tagline on billboards assured us: "Paul Newman IS Hud."

He could play antiheroes because he was so damned likable on screen. You couldn't believe a face that noble was really bad inside. With Hoffman, Pacino, De Niro, Malkovich and the rest you can believe it because there is nothing heroic in these faces.

Paul Newman can hardly be blamed for acting in the movies of his time. He brought glamour to movies like the overrated Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler and Cool Hand Luke and the more tightly plotted The Sting. It would have been nice to see him as Don Carlos or Hernani or Jean Valjean or Cyrano. Could he have played a hero of great moral stature? I think he might have risen to the occasion. Maybe not: he might have dragged these heroes down to his level of comfort because, after a lifetime of acting flawed antiheroes, he was no longer capable of playing a moral giant.

Army at Home?

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Why is it that I'm not comforted by this "we're from the army and we're here to help" plan?

The 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they're training for the same mission -- with a twist -- at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.

And:

"I can't think of a more noble mission than this," said [1st BCT commander Col. Roger] Cloutier, who took command in July. "We've been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home ... and depending on where an event occurred, you're going home to take care of your home town, your loved ones."

Oy. Will these soldiers also be on call for "manmade emergencies and disasters" like ... say ... economic collapse caused by rampant government interference in the financial markets? Whoever wins the election, the answer surely would be "yes."

I love and respect the American military, and that's why I'm so worried about these plans to deploy the military inside the US. Soldiers must be trained to operate effectively in hostile territory amongst potentially hostile civilians. In those circumstances, every unknown person must be regarded with suspicion, and the overriding goal must be the mission at hand. In contrast, maintaining peace and security at home amongst fellow Americans is the job of the police -- and the national guard, if necessary -- including in times of crisis. That's what they're trained to do, at least in theory.

This news highlights the very real threat to our liberty of reshaping the American military into a humanititarian force abroad, as has happened since World War 2. The threat is not just that taxpayer dollars are wasted on feel-good missions without any relevance to national security. The threat is not just that soldiers must risk their lives for the sake of random strangers in foreign lands, rather than to preserve and protect American liberty. The threat is the logic of the idea: if the military help foreigners in times of disaster, why shouldn't they also help Americans too? To the extent that the military is easygoing and friendly, thereby allowing it to operate at home with all due respect for American civilians, then it's not an effective fighting force: it would not have the kind of detachment, discipline, and ambition to fight real wars in hostile territory. And, if it is that kind of effective fighting force, then any operation inside the US risks a ugly clash between civilians and military. Either way, it's bad.

(Via The Agitator.)

Opposing the Bailout

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

If you want to let your elected officials know that you oppose the $700 billion Bush Bailout of Wall Street, you can use this website to send them an e-mail.

For example, Rob Abiera has sent the following excellent letter to his elected officials:

Dear *** SENATOR/REPRESENTATIVE XXX ***

I am writing as a constituent to ask you to oppose the Bush Administration's request for $700 billion to bail out Wall Street. The healthiest thing for our economy would be to allow the market to work and let those firms deal privately with the consequences of their own actions. I don't believe in accepting responsibility for other people's actions and I have no desire to see my taxes used to help some Wall Street firms out of a situation which they created, not me. The answer to the current economic situation is not handouts to Wall Street tied to more regulations. The answer is to get the government OUT of the economy.

I'm sure that I disagree with Senator DeMint of South Carolina on other issues, but on this issue I have seen no better statement of the truth about this situation than his recent press release.

In this instance, Senator DeMint speaks for me, as well.

*** YOUR NAME ***
*** YOUR ADDRESS ***

Rob also included the text of Senator DeMint's Press release.

I liked Rob's letter a lot, and I've already sent similar e-mails to my own Senators and Representative.

BTW, Alex Epstein has a good piece on the bailout on the Fox News website, "The Bailout: Just a $700 Billion Hedge Fund?"

Update from Diana:

I send the following letter to my representatives, plus various other politicians and officials:

Dear So-And-So,

I'm writing to tell you that I strongly oppose any bailout of Wall Street.

The current crisis was created by government controls and regulations. The only rational solution is to allow the market to correct itself by allowing full freedom of trade. The ban on shorting financial stocks should be lifted now: the markets cannot function properly without shorting. The government should not bail out any Wall Street firms -- nor anyone else. Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for other people's irresponsibility.

Then, to preserve economic health in the long run, all of the myriad anti-capitalist controls on the markets must be repealed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be totally privatized. The Community Reinvestment Act must be repealed.

Do not blame the current crisis on the free markets. Such crises are the inevitable product of a dangerous hybrid of capitalist markets and government controls. More government meddling will only exacerbate the problem. The only real solution is to move to a fully free market in which the government upholds and protects the rights to property and contract. Only then will every person be free to act on his own rational judgment in pursuit of his own wealth, security, and happiness. That's what America should be all about.

I sent that to:

• My senators, find yours here
  
• My representatives, find yours here
  
• The Senate Committee on Banking, plus Chairman Christopher J. Dodd and Ranking Member Richard C. Shelby
  
• President Bush: president@whitehouse.gov
  
• Vice President Cheney: vice-president@whitehouse.gov
  
• The Board of the Federal Reserve
  
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
  
• Sen. DeMint, referencing his excellent press release

You need not write anything so lengthy and detailed as my letter. Just a single line saying that you oppose the bailout -- and that you oppose government controls of the financial markets -- would be fantastic.

What you need to know about the economic “crisis”

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

The First Debate

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

McCain beat Obama in tonight's debate. He wiped him out. Foreign policy is the one area in which McCain is clearly superior to Obama. This one wasn't even close.

William Kristol brought up the analogy of a boxing match on Fox News. If this were a fist fight, McCain knocked Obama down and then kicked him almost to the point of unconsciousness. Obama lay in blood with snot dripping from his nose, whining, "Mommy! Make the bad man go away!"

It is disgusting that Obama holds as one of his foreign policy goals "to restore America's standing in the world." If America is in low standing in world, then there is something wrong with the world, not with America. In effect, high on Obama's to do list is to kiss the butt of every two-bit socialist dictator around the world and to give them boatloads of taxpayer dollars.

Neither candidate is great on the issue of talking to Achmadinejad. You don't talk to man like Achmadinejad; you kill such a man. The very act of talking to a dictator who wants to destroy you is worse than anything that could be said in these vaunted discussions because it gives the dictator moral sanction. How can you wipe out a regime if it is decent and rational enough to talk to? You can't. And that's why Obama is desperate to talk to our enemies: the act of talking itself prevents us from attacking. For someone who voted present over 120 times as a State Senator, it is important to be relieved from any expectation or responsibility to take action. Talking is what politicians do when they pretend to have a solution but in reality have nothing. Obama has nothing. He is all symbolism and no substance.

Even on the economy in the first half hour of the debate, McCain won. Obama's big idea is to redistribute wealth. Hey, there's an original idea! When he talks about tax cuts for 95% of Americans, he means a tax increase for the richest 5%. That's redistribution from the richest to the rest of America. This has been Democrat policy for, I dunno, a hundred years or so? Will the Democrats ever come up with a new idea?

McCain came off as a man who understands that the world is a dangerous place and America must preserve peace through strength. Obama came off as a shallow cipher and an empty suit who wants to appease America's enemies.

In economics, both candidates prescribe more of the poison that is killing us: government intervention. In foreign policy, only Obama prescribes more the poison that is killing us: appeasement. McCain will probably come around to appeasement, but he prescribes a lower dosage of the poison. I guess that's the most one can hope for from a Republican these days.

Walking Cultural Activism: Got Reason?

By Greg Perkins from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Tammy and I thought it would be great to produce a series of T-shirt designs for those occasions when it is appropriate to wear our ideas on our sleeves.  Bonus points if they aren't just provocative but actually spark some good engagement!

Here is the first design.  It uses the same font and style of a certain famous ad campaign, echoing its clever device for pointing to something important we need and should want:


(Just click through to BoltOfReason.Com to check out all the available styles and colors. We of course love suggestions and requests -- we're already working on a lot of fun ideas, and if you are the first to hit us with a new one that we use in a future shirt design, you'll get one for free!)

Intellectual Thugs and Those Who Fight Against Them

By noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Provenzo) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Diana Hsieh offers some thoughtful analysis of my appearance as a guest on the Laura Ingraham show this Monday and I recommend it to our readers here. As Objectivist ideas percolate more and more throughout our culture, there will be times when those who oppose the philosophy push back--and even push back hard. These times won't be pretty; in fact, they may be outright horrific. For example, there will come a day when an Objectivist is murdered for his or her views and that day is going to be shocking. Yet such is the nature of our enemies.

And now there have been two experiences in my life where some of my countrymen have revealed themselves to be borderline savages. The first was when John Lewis spoke at George Mason University in an event I helped to organize. There Lewis stood firm as Islamists and their leftist sympathizers screamed at him with seething rage for his having the audacity to say that those who seek to impose their creed by force are a threat to the good and must be defeated. In the absence of the 20-plus police officers sent there to guard Lewis as he spoke, I am all but certain that he would have been strung up from the nearest tree, yet Lewis never so much as winced. And now I have my own recent experiences to draw upon.

Of all the reasons my blog post garnered the attention it did, I think the first and foremost was that I expressed my position with moral confidence. When I argued that it was moral for a woman to abort a fetus with Down syndrome and place her own interests and happiness above that of the unborn, I attacked our enemies where they are most sensitive. They believe that their mystic creed makes them good and they responded to me as anyone who relies upon blind faith as a method must. That is the nature of the beast we must grapple. We have seen this before, we will see this ever again, and we should be ready to deal with it.

And in this endeavor, the support of our allies in reason is deeply appreciated. If you agree with our efforts, if you think that we fought well, I ask that you stand alongside us by offering a financial contribution to help further our activities. Our goal is to fight for freedom and win. We will never stop in this effort, we will never quit, but we can do so much more if you help us. Just follow the this link to make a donation; it's quick, easy (and hopefully painless), and by doing so, will help this organization all the better stand for our common values of reason, egoism, and capitalism.

The Color of Hypocrisy

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

Via Arts and Letters Daily is one of those fascinating articles that sneaks up you and leaves you pleasantly surprised with an insight where you'd expected merely to fulfill a twinge of morbid curiosity. Here's the blurb:

Sushi is just what “White People” want: foreign, expensive, healthy, and hated by the uneducated. White People are not snobs or anything...

"Here we go again," I thought, remembering a bus ride in Dallas shortly after college. Some black guy in the front of the bus was very loudly and pointedly slamming "white people" every chance he got.

Was he trying to incite his fellow black passengers against the whites or dare his white passengers to do something about his rude behavior?

I don't know, but I had fun reducing him to a stammer when, as I left, he looked at me and said, "Oh! When I say 'white people', I mean management."

"Well that's funny! I thought you were talking about skin color the whole time," I replied without so much as raising my voice or breaking stride as I continued to exit the bus.

I had hoped to simply not give this idiot the satisfaction of acting irate, but he handed me his own head on a platter instead. Thanks for the memories, Malcolm X!

But back to the article, which discusses the most recent "instant book" based on a blog, this one being, Stuff White People Like, by one Christian Lander. The article, rather than being some sort of elitist slam against American culture actually gives insight into someone who slams an American subculture (and probably does despise American culture).

I'd heard of this blog before, shortly after mentioning St. Patrick's Day and having this guy's entry about it pointed out to me. Kinda funny, but more sarcastic in tone than I cared for. A more recent entry of his on ultimate frisbee, which I played in grad school, is more to my liking:

If you look a little closer, you will see some surprising things. First, you will never see hippies get more upset than on an Ultimate Frisbee field. It can be jarring to see people who look like they should be playing acoustic guitars yelling at each other about whether or not Blake stepped out of bounds. Secondly, you will notice that Ultimate Frisbee matches are the best place to meet white guys who wear headbands. [bold added]

Heh! How true! Maybe I like this one better because I am not a leftist. And my wife really is Irish, and yet never has said a word about being "oppressed". Maybe she's Black Irish....

But Lander is a leftist, and what he means by "white people" is basically the same thing my old pal Malcolm from the bus did: the educated elite. Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic Monthly comments:

Lander's White People aren't always white, and the vast majority of whites aren't White People (he doesn't even capitalize the term). But although Lander's designation is peculiar, he's hardly the first to dissect this elite and its immediate predecessors. ... [David] Brooks calls these people variously "bourgeois bohemians," the "educated elite," and the "cosmopolitan class"). Lander, like many of these writers, traces this group's values to the 1960s, and there's clearly a connection between a politics based on "self-cultivation" (to quote the Students for a Democratic Society’s gaseous manifesto, the Port Huron Statement) and what Lander defines as White People's ethos: "their number-one concern is about the best way to make themselves happy." That concern progresses naturally into consumer narcissism and a fixation on health and "well-being": Lander's most entertaining and spot-on entries dissect White People's elaborate sumptuary codes, their dogged pursuit of their own care and feeding, and their efforts to define themselves and their values through their all-but-uniform taste and accessories (Sedaris/Eggers/The Daily Show/the right indie music/Obama bumper stickers/uh, The New Yorker [And ribbons and wristbands. --ed]). [bold added]

And, much later:

Here and elsewhere, accompanying the book's mockery of the essentially innocuous solipsism of White People is what Lander, a man of the left, described to me as his exasperation with progressives' "cultural righteousness" and "intolerance and groupthink"-- a set of attitudes that enhances and is enhanced by a profoundly smug and incurious outlook.

In other words, Lander has spent a large amount of time and emotional energy banging his head against a cultural wall Ayn Rand identified nearly fifty years ago!

Avowed non-materialists whose only manifestation of rebellion and of individualism takes the material form of the clothes they wear, are a pretty ridiculous spectacle. Of any type of nonconformity, this is the easiest to practice, and the safest. ("Apollo and Dionysus" in The Objectivist, Jan. 1970, p.775)

This irritates the hell out of Lander, who regularly lambastes his "white" fellows for superficiality and laziness ("White People 'like feeling smart without doing work -- two hours in a theater is easier than ten hours with a book.'") and apparently doesn't shrink from the impracticality of the immoral ethos/politics of altruism/collectivism he espouses ([White people] will also send their kids to private school with other rich white kids so that they can avoid the 'low test scores' that come with educational diversity.").

Landers thus seems to have an inkling that poor academic performance and public education go hand in hand -- that his moral code is at odds with the requirements of human survival -- and chooses what he regards as the high road. He is thus intellectually independent to the limited degree that he can call his fellows for "acting white", so to speak, but he ultimately fails, for whatever reason, to stray too far from "white" tradition himself. Rand said something about this, too.

Intellectually, the activists of the New Left are the most docile conformists. They have accepted as dogma all the philosophical beliefs of their elders for generations: the notions that faith and feeling are superior to reason, that material concerns are evil, that love is the solution to all problems, that the merging of one’s self with a tribe or a community is the noblest way to live. There is not a single basic principle of today’s Establishment which they do not share. Far from being rebels, they embody the philosophic trend of the past 200 years (or longer): the mysticism-altruism-collectivism axis, which has dominated Western philosophy from Kant to Hegel to James and on down. [bold added] ("From a Symposium," Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, 174.)

The fact that so many "white people" act the same is certainly irritating, but when one understands the source of an irritation, one can, accordingly, learn to accept the circumstance or act to change it. In Lander's case, understanding why so many "white people" are banal hypocrites might help, but he would first have to take time to critically evaluate (and therefore reject) his own moral code and political assumptions.

"White people" are hypocrites in part because their survival depends on it: Altruism and collectivism, if consistently applied, would ultimately be deadly. Some are, doubtless, also hypocrites because they do not want to think. And some, after an entire lifetime of being told that the moral and the practical are at odds, have been beaten into intellectual submission.

Lander seethes about the wrong thing even as he, "acting white" himself, profits from the book he published -- not that there's anything objectively wrong with earning money.

It isn't that personal style, or exotic food, or sending one's kids to good schools is wrong because it isn't altruistic. It's that altruism and collectivism are wrong. Lots of those "white people" out there would have become much more interesting and dynamic people had they not been saddled with an inverted morality their entire lives, and that probably includes the witty Lander himself.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Added a sentence explaining why I thought the article was valuable.

And Another Thing...

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I take a break from my break on this blog to urge you to take an hour to watch this lecture by Yaron Brook called, "The Resurgence of Big Government." Not only is Dr. Brook an Objectivist, but he used to teach finance at a college, so he, like, actually knows what he's talking about regarding economics.

You won't find any commentary this good from conservatives, neo-conservatives, paleo-conservatives or libertarians. (Commentary from liberals, socialists and environmentalists on economics is about as useful as flapping your lips with your index finger while vocalizing. Try it! You'll sound just like Barney Frank.)

On another note, I heard on the radio that a church in the midwest, referring to Katy Perry's smash hit, "I Kissed A Girl," had a sign out front that read, "I kissed a girl and I liked it -- then I went to hell."

UPDATE: This commentary by Hugh Hewitt castigating House Republicans for having the temerity to question Paulson's bailout plan shows why Hewitt is the worst. Republicans should be saying, "Uh, wait a minute..." about the greatest leap toward socialism in recent memory. But if the government does not intervene and the meltdown spreads, then McCain's presidential hopes might suffer, and Hewitt cares only about one thing: Republican electoral success.

Republicans embracing big government for fear they might lose the next election is destroying the party. Voters are not stupid: if they want Democrats, they know they might as well elect real ones instead of these trembling, spineless creatures that are me too Republicans.

Consistent Evil

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The evangelicals want to make America a Christian nation. And they really mean it.

For example, consider how Dani -- a supporter of Colorado's Amendment 48 describes herself:

I am a wife and a homeschooling mother of three beautiful girls and an adorable baby boy. I am also a right-wing fanatic on assignment from God to be a good helper to my husband and to train up my children with the Fear and Admonition of the Lord! My beliefs are radical, oftentimes offensive, and fundamental to the core. You're either going to love me or hate me, but I am here to share the TRUTH to an entire generation trained not to notice and blinded by lies. ===> "Have I now become your enemy by telling the TRUTH?" - Galatians 4:16

In response to her blog post supporting Amendment 48, I posted the following comment:

Are you willing to punish a woman with the death penalty or life in prison for terminating a pregnancy, whatever her circumstances? To lock up a woman so that she will bring a non-viable fetus to term?

Do you want to ban the birth control pill and IUD, thereby causing more unwanted pregnancies? Would you like to see a ban on in vitro fertilization? To grant frozen embryos in labs inheritance rights?

If not, then you ought not vote for or support Amendment 48 -- because those evils and absurdities would be the real-life consequences granting fertilized eggs full legal rights. To kill or harm a fertilized egg would be a criminal offense under Colorado law, regardless of the circumstances.

The fact is that Amendment 48 is deeply, profoundly anti-life. For the details, read "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person," an issue paper by Ari Armstrong and myself. It's available for download at:

http://www.SecularGovernment.us/docs/a48.pdf

The Christians supporters of Amendment 48 are welcome to act on their own beliefs in their own lives. They have no right to force their religious views on the rest of the people of Colorado -- just as Muslims have no right to force Christians to pray to Allah five times per day.

Now, consider her reply:

Diana - you asked, "Are you willing to punish a woman with the death penalty or life in prison for terminating a pregnancy, whatever her circumstances?"

Yes, abortion should be re-criminalized and punishable by death. As individuals we do not have the authority to legalize murder, and I believe the government should enforce the law upon those who take an innocent life. In the same respect, if a baby is conceived through rape or incest, we should not punish the child because it's father is a criminal - the rapist and child molester should also be swiftly put to death.

If a woman's "health" is supposedly at risk, you don't need to intentionally kill the baby in order to save the mother's life. Doctors should do everything in their power to save both the mother and the baby, and if the child should die from natural causes in the process, then there is nothing immoral or illegal about that.

"Do you want to ban the birth control pill and IUD, thereby causing more unwanted pregnancies?"

Well, if those forms of birth control terminate a fertilized egg or prevent implantation, then yes, they should be banned.

"To grant frozen embryos in labs inheritance rights?"

Yes! As evidence of the Snowflake Children - Since 1997 over 400,000 frozen embryos became real live human beings and were given a chance at life.

"The Christians supporters of Amendment 48 are welcome to act on their own beliefs in their own lives. They have no right to force their religious views on the rest of the people of Colorado..."

The fundamental right to life is a universal right given to us by our Creator, regardless of a person's beliefs or religious background. Even the atheists have the right to life, and radical, baby-killing feminists like you, Diana, do NOT have the authority or the right to decide when an innocent child should die. Quit being so selfish and quit advocating for the real evils and absurdities which comes from re-defining when a person becomes a person.

Amendment 48 is simple - The term "Person" or "Persons" shall include any human from the time of fertilization.

If that's not enough, you can find more comments from her about the evils of the self and the like in these Politics Without God comments.

A person who shrinks from the horrifyingly destructive real-life consequences of his abstract ideas might be -- maybe, possibly -- convinced to abandon those ideas by some further experience or argument. He has an internal conflict that might be resolved for the better.

Such a happy resolution is not possible when a person wholeheartedly embraces the horrifyingly destructive real-life consequences of her vicious ideas -- as does Dani. Such a person is not admirable for her consistency; consistency is only a virtue in the service of the good. Such a person is completely evil, likely irredeemably so.

And wow, I've seen that too much lately.

The Cost of Termination

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

What's the cost in weeks of pay of firing workers in various countries? The Economist has the chart. I'm definitely surprised that China is so much higher than France and Germany.

FDA Okays Safer Spinach but Not Tomatoes

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

FDA Okays Safer Spinach but Not Tomatoes
September 25, 2008

Washington, DC--Eight years after grocers asked the Food and Drug Administration for permission to kill salmonella and E. coli by irradiation, the agency is preparing to approve that treatment for spinach and iceberg lettuce.

Romaine lettuce and tomatoes, however, must wait until the FDA gets around to considering those particular vegetables.

“If a private company stood by while customers died, instead of implementing known safety measures, it would be criminally prosecuted and driven out of business in a storm of public outrage,” said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “But when the FDA plods along nonchalantly for eight years, churning paperwork while people drop dead from food-borne diseases, no one calls for the agency’s abolition.

“The FDA’s existence is based on the false belief that profit-seeking grocers will poison their customers if not required to seek prior government clearance for each product they sell. But in fact, the profit motive is what keeps businesses vigilant about product safety. A grocery store that paid no attention to food-borne pathogens would soon go out of business, in favor of stores that did. Customers’ best guarantee of food quality and safety will always be the need of growers and purveyors to guard their reputations.

“If consumers are leery of irradiation, they are free to avoid buying foods prepared that way. But grocers should be free to offer such produce to those who welcome the increased safety that irradiation brings. Government should not have the power to interfere with free trade in food.”

########

Mr. Bowden is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, focusing on legal issues. A former lawyer and law school instructor, who practiced for twenty years in Baltimore, Maryland, his op-eds have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Daily News, and many other newspapers. Mr. Bowden has given dozens of radio interviews and has appeared on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes.

Thomas Bowden and other Ayn Rand Center experts are available for interviews on this topic.

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

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                 RSS                                                   

Napoleon and the Birth of Egyptology

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

Doomsday? Maybe. Maybe Not.

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

In an article called "269 tie: An electoral college 'doomsday'?", Joseph Curl of The Washington Times speculates on a few plausible Election Day scenarios that could lead to a tie in the Electoral College, and conceivably result in Sarah Palin serving as Barack Obama's Vice president.

There are at least a half-dozen plausible ways the election can end in a tie, and at least one very plausible possibility - giving each candidate the states in which they now lead in the polls, only New Hampshire - which went Republican in 2000 and Democratic in 2004, each time by just 1.5 percent - needs to swap to the Republican column to wind up with a 269-269 tie.

The odds of this happening are slim -- about 1.5 percent -- but higher than they were for the last election. My initial reaction to this possibility was something like, "So what? We're getting stuck with Unity '08 no matter who wins!"

But then I realized that a tie could ultimately be a good thing: It would clothesline any argument that the incoming administration has a "mandate", and if there is one thing we want after Election Day it's anything that will help gridlock happen or destroy any momentum towards tyranny the winner might have. Or almost anything....

The news isn't all good. The law regarding how Congress (or which -- the incoming or the outgoing) should break a tie is not unambiguous, and one particularly nauseating scenario looms: According to Electoral College specialist Judith Best, we could end up handing the reigns over to an Acting President Nancy Pelosi while armies of lawyers duke things out for a couple of years.

In the sad state of confusion regarding the proper role of government, I am loathe to contemplate what could ultimately come out of a protracted constitutional crisis like this. (More foolishness about abolishing the Electoral College, which we should not do, would be just the start.)

This election is potentially a disaster for the cause of individual rights no matter what the outcome. The potential for difficulty in breaking a tie is particularly unfortunate, because a tie otherwise would be just the sort of unintended benefit from the Electoral College we could use right about now.

-- CAV

U.S. Economic Freedom Index

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Pacific Research Institute recently published the U.S. Economic Freedom Index: 2008 Report. It's an analysis and ranking of the 50 United States by economic freedom. You can download the full PDF for free. (The annotated US map is also cool.)

Objectivist historian Eric Daniels contributed to the book. He wrote the first chapter, and contributed to the third.

Happily, Colorado is ranked #3! I pity all you poor bastards in New York, #50.

Intellectual Thugs

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Over the past week, I have been absolutely horrified by the venomous hatred expressed by those supposed lovers of life, peace, and mercy: the fundamentalist Christians committed to strangling America with the law of God.

Undoubtedly, the ugliest examples are the myriad death threats e-mailed to Nick Provenzo for his defense of the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down's Syndrome. The various responses of right-wing bloggers (and their commenters) was little better. They grossly misread Nick's remarks, then refused to consider any correction.

One might hope for better from the intellectual leaders of this movement. After all, they earn their bread and butter by argument: they seek to persuade others that their views are correct. So even if hopelessly wrong, they must maintain some semblance of rationality, right?

Nope.

Catholic talk show host Barbara Simpson said on the air that "there was a day when someone would take somebody like this Provenzo guy out in an alley and beat him beyond whatever. He deserves it." Nice.

Yet even worse was Laura Ingraham's interview of Nick: she failed to conduct anything remotely resembling a fair debate, yet her methods were more subtle than Simpson's explicit appeal to thuggery.

To understand the problem, let me explain how to respectfully argue with someone who disagrees with you.

You allow someone to explain their views. You ask them tough questions about the reasons for and implications of those views. The whole time, you allow them to speak for themselves. You represent their views fairly. And then you crush them with your own devastating criticisms, always politely given. You allow them to reply, and then you crush them again. That's what any decent radio talk show host -- and any respectable intellectual -- does in debate.

That's not what Laura Ingraham did. She made no effort to understand Nick's position. Despite his protests, she refused to focus on the actual intellectual disagreement between them. She refused to consider his reasons for his views. Worst of all, she attributed a variety of morally repugnant ideas to Nick, purely of her own invention. Then she refused to allow him to reply, choosing instead to pontificate to her listeners.

Her method of debate was that of a gang leader seeking to impress her minions by intimidation, not that of a respectable intellectual concerned with airing out ideas in pursuit of knowledge. Given that, Nick deserves a good bit of credit for conducting himself as well as he did.

As Objectivism makes ever-greater inroads into the culture, some people will behave like civilized adults in debate. And others will use whatever dirty tricks they can muster to misrepresent our views. We've just seen a taste of the latter. I must admit, I've grown accustomed to civilized discourse between reasonable adults -- or at least the appearance thereof. So this week has been a bit of a wake-up call for me. I expect that I'm not alone in that feeling.

Who Wants a Bailout?

By Brandon Byrd from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

As you have no doubt heard, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently presented a plan to Congress that seeks to buy as much as $700,000,000,000 in "troubled assets" from prominent financial institutions. But why should these firms be the only ones to get massive amounts of milk from the taxpayer teat? I don't know about you, but I've purchased plenty of assets of dubious future value in my day... why shouldn't the government help me out too?! If you're like me, I'm sure you're wondering why the government isn't doing more to help alienate you from the negative consequences of your poor decisions. After all, isn't that what the government's there for? Granted, they do a lot for us in that regard... but if they're bailing out Wall Street, why not bail out Main Street -- or MY Street?

I recently ran across a website (hat tip to BoingBoing) asking just this question: BuyMyShitPile.com. From their site's description:

With our economy in crisis, the US Government is scrambling to rescue our banks by purchasing their "distressed assets", i.e., assets that no one else wants to buy from them. We figured that instead of protesting this plan, we'd give regular Americans the same opportunity to sell their bad assets to the government. We need your help and you need the Government's help! Use the form below to submit bad assets you'd like the government to take off your hands. And remember, when estimating the value of your 1997 limited edition Hanson single CD "MMMbop", it's not what you can sell these items for that matters, it's what you think they are worth. The fact that you think they are worth more than anyone will buy them for is what makes them bad assets.

So head on over and list whatever crap you'd like for whatever amount you think it's worth. If enough of us band together, maybe we can reap the rewards of the welfare state too!

Big Business: Home of Individualism

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

Big Business: Home of Individualism
By Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein (Ariadne Capital Journal, September 23, 2008)

Through much of the 20th century, the world was bombarded with the collectivist idea that the individual is insignificant, and that human progress is the achievement of society as a whole. In The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand powerfully illustrated that progress is in fact the product of the individual through the use of his independent reasoning mind.

continue reading >>

 

 

The Real Lesson of the Great Depression

By Yaron Brook from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Real Lesson of the Great Depression
September 24, 2008

Washington, D.C.--Many of those calling for greater government control over the economy in response to the current financial crisis point to the Great Depression, arguing that it provides a clear example of the crucial need to curb the “excesses” of the free market through government intervention.
 
“The Great Depression does have something to teach us about the current crisis,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, “but it’s not that we need more government control over the economy.
 
“Most people believe the Great Depression was caused by an ‘excessively’ free market--and they regard the massive expansion of government intervention under FDR as its cure. But as many economists have demonstrated, it was government intervention that caused and exacerbated the Depression--from the massive tariffs of Smoot-Hawley to a series of disastrous interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve to antibusiness measures such as the National Recovery Act.
 
“Few acknowledged this at the time, however. The Great Depression--a failure of government intervention--was called a failure of capitalism, and was used to justify even more government intervention. We are seeing this same process repeat itself today.

“There is overwhelming evidence that our current crisis is the result primarily of government intervention in the economy, from the Fed’s inflationary policy of keeping interest rates artificially low to the creation and regulatory coddling of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to the government’s quasi-official policy of bailing out large financial institutions deemed too big to fail. But despite such evidence, this crisis is being blamed on too little government control of markets, and is being used to justify an even greater expansion of the state’s control over financial markets.
 
“It’s time we learn the real lesson of the Great Depression: that instead of rushing to blame capitalism and businessmen for an economic crisis, we should work to discover its real cause--and its real cure.”

### ### ###

 

                                                                                          RSS

 

Why Big Government Is Back, and How to Shrink It to Its Proper Size

By Yaron Brook from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Why Big Government Is Back,
and How to Shrink It to Its Proper Size
September 23, 2008

Washington, D.C.--In a talk delivered last week at the Costa Mesa Hilton in Orange County, California, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, explained the reasons for the resurgence of big government in America and called for a moral revolution to reduce government to its proper size and function.
 
According to Dr. Brook, the current level of government involvement in the economy is almost unprecedented in American history. As Dr. Brook noted, even though the current housing and financial crisis was brought about by government regulations, controls, and widespread interference with the markets, all we hear from the left and the right are calls for more government regulations, controls, and interference with the markets.

In Dr. Brook’s view, these calls for bigger and bigger government are due, not to any alleged failures of the market, but to a longtime cultural hostility to its moral basis: the selfish pursuit of profit.

Capitalism and markets, observed Dr. Brook, are all inherently about self-interest and the pursuit of profit. Capitalism encourages and enables selfishness, and as long as our culture looks at profit and self-interest as vices, he argued, big government will always be preferred to free markets.

Dr. Brook also made the point that capitalism has always been defended pragmatically, on the basis that it creates wealth and economic growth--which it does; but it’s time, he said, to defend capitalism on principle, on the basis of its morality, on the basis that it protects the rights of individuals to pursue their own values and allows them freedom to act in their own self-interest.

As Dr. Brook explained, the current crisis is indisputable evidence that we need a massive reduction in the size of government, in the number of regulations and in the level of taxation. But first, he said, we will have to reject the morality of altruism, which holds that self-sacrifice, not self-interest, is the good--and adopt a new morality of rational self-interest, one that says that pursuing our own personal values and goals under freedom is a good thing; and that only a morality compatible with capitalism and private markets will save us from this crisis and prevent an even worse one in the future.

Dr. Brook’s talk is available for free at: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_big_government

### ### ###

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                          RSS

 

Ayn Rand on Today's Crisis

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

Ayn Rand on Today’s Crisis
September 23, 2008

Washington, D.C.--Today’s financial crisis is widely being blamed on “the free market”--including free-market intellectuals such as the late philosopher Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged.

“These attacks are completely baseless,” said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “There was no free market in mortgages or finance--these markets were riddled with controls and distortions, courtesy of the Fed, Fannie and Freddie, the CRA, the FDC, and Sarbanes-Oxley. And that lack of a real market was precisely the problem; it induced irrational behavior through dictates, handouts, and bailouts.
 
“If the critics of capitalism had bothered to read Ayn Rand, they would know that their attacks are part of a historical trend of blaming capitalism for the sins of government intervention--a trend that needs to stop if we are to prevent further economic damage.

“In The Voice of Reason, Rand wrote: ‘One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.’

“Is this not exactly what is happening?

“In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, she wrote: ‘If a detailed, factual study were made of all those instances in the history of American industry which have been used by the statists as an indictment of free enterprise and as an argument in favor of a government-controlled economy, it would be found that the actions blamed on businessmen were caused, necessitated, and made possible only by government intervention in business. The evils, popularly ascribed to big industrialists, were not the result of an unregulated industry, but of government power over industry. The villain in the picture was not the businessman, but the legislator, not free enterprise, but government controls.’”

###  ### ###

Mr. Epstein is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, focusing on business issues.

Mr. Epstein’s op-eds and letters to the editor have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Canada’s National Post, and the Washington Times. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Epstein has been a guest on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs.

Alex Epstein is available for interviews.
Contact: Larry Benson          
E-mail: media@aynrandcenter.org          
Phone: (949) 222-6550 ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                           RSS

The Monopoly Myth: The Case of Standard Oil

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

PRESS ADVISORY
AYN RAND CENTER FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
555 12th Street NW, Suite 620 N, Washington, DC 20004

September 23, 2008

The Monopoly Myth: The Case of Standard Oil

What: a talk in defense of laissez-faire capitalism that will tell the real story of Rockefeller’s rise to market dominance in the oil industry

Who: Alex Epstein, fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, a division of the Ayn Rand Institute

Where: Smith Building Room 105. Georgia Tech Campus, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332

When: Monday, September 29, 2008, at 7 pm

Description: Most of us were taught in school that laissez-faire capitalism was tried in the 1800s--and failed. Without government regulations and antitrust law, we learned, businessmen used “anti-competitive” tactics to become giant, unchallengeable monopolies. The most famous monopoly was John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust, which supposedly used its “market power” to squelch innovative competitors and jack up consumer prices at will. But did this really happen? Did laissez-faire really fail? No, argues Alex Epstein. In this talk Epstein will tell the real story of Rockefeller’s rise to market dominance--and explain how his success was the result not of shady practices, but of his company’s incredible ability to bring the cheapest, best oil to millions of Americans. Epstein will argue that the case of Standard Oil raises many questions about Americans’ commonly held beliefs on monopolies, competition, and government. Is antitrust law really necessary to protect us against monopolies and promote competition? Was the government right to punish Microsoft for “monopolization,” and is it justified in investigating Google and Yahoo for “anti-competitive” behavior? Epstein will address these questions and more in his 45-minute talk, followed by a question-and-answer period.

Bio: Alex Epstein has a BA in Philosophy from Duke University and is an analyst focusing on business issues at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He was the editor and publisher of The Duke Review for two years. He is a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. His Op-Eds have appeared in such publications as the Detroit Free Press, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Arizona Republic, Canada’s National Post, Indianapolis Star, Orange County Register, Tampa Tribune, and the Washington Times. Mr. Epstein has been interviewed on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs on business topics such as income inequality, media and internet regulation, oil industry profits, social security and the FDA.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrandcenter.org

###  ### ###

Alex Epstein is available for interviews now and after his talk.

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

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI.

                                                                                         RSS

 

Religious Discrimination Laws vs. Free Speech

By Don Watkins from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Religious Discrimination Laws vs. Free Speech
September 24, 2008

Washington, D.C.--A Christian anti-abortion group, the Christian Institute, recently filed a lawsuit against Google after Google rejected one of its ads. The group’s lawsuit claimed Google was discriminating on religious grounds. The lawsuit was settled out of court after Google agreed to run the ad.

“Private companies have the right to decide what advertisements they will run,” said Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

“Just as the Christian Institute’s right to free speech entitles it to promote its views--and to refuse to promote views it disagrees with--so Google’s right to free speech entitles it to promote its views and to refuse to promote views it disagrees with. Using ‘religious discrimination’ laws to force Google to run anti-abortion ads is to force them to promote an anti-abortion message.

“Laws against ‘religious discrimination’ by private parties are incompatible with freedom of speech. They should be abolished.”

### ### ###

Ayn Rand Center experts are available for interviews on this topic.

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

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                             RSS 

Don't Cap CEO Pay: End Bailouts

By Yaron Brook from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Don’t Cap CEO Pay: End Bailouts
September 23, 2008

Washington, D.C.--As the government scrambles to assemble a massive financial bailout package, many are declaring that companies receiving the taxpayer-funded bailouts should face severe restrictions on executive compensation. As Representative Barney Frank put it, “I just think it’s inconceivable that the taxpayer should put some money at risk because of bad decisions made by people who then continue to be rewarded without any restrictions.”
 
But according to Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, “This is nothing more than a political maneuver designed to establish a precedent for regulating all CEO pay. If these long-time critics of executive compensation were really concerned about the injustice of making taxpayers shoulder the burden of others’ mistakes, they would be opposing government bailouts--not making CEOs into scapegoats.
 
“It’s true that some CEOs performed poorly in the lead-up to this crisis, but that is no reason to allow the government to nullify private contracts. A company sets its CEO’s compensation based on its best guess as to how he will perform. Just as a baseball team can’t refuse to pay its star pitcher his agreed-upon salary after an off year, so a CEO’s poor performance does not justify paying him less than what he was promised.
 
“The government should not use this crisis as an opportunity to start dictating to shareholders how much they can pay their managers. Doing so will only compound the injustice of this bailout--not lessen it.”

### ### ###

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                           RSS 

Staring into the Bailout Abyss

By noreply@blogger.com (Edward Cline) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I sent this letter to The Wall Street Journal yesterday.

21 September 2008

To the Editor

The Wall Street Journal

New York, NY

(wsj.ltrs@wsj.com)

Editor:

A Kentucky politician remarked, in response to the Federal government’s proposed nationalization of the American economy, that “the free market is dead.” A WSJ front-page headline read, “In Turmoil, Capitalism in U.S. Sets New Course” (Sept. 20-21). The question no one seems to be asking is: Since when has the U.S. ever had a free market, one free of government intervention, or laissez-faire capitalism, one free of government “capital”? Historically, never.

And why is no one asking that question? Because virtually everyone, from the secretary of the Treasury, to the head of the Federal Reserve, to both presidential candidates, to Congress, to the news media, to Wall Street fund managers, to too many denizens of “Main Street,” believes that the government ought to be the bullying gorilla in the marketplace to ensure social or financial equity and justice. Why do so many economic “experts” and politicians believe that? Because they all cling to the idea that the best route to political power and popularity is to offer something for nothing, or for very little, necessarily at someone else’s expense, someone who has no say in the matter. That someone has always been the productive, wealth-accumulating private individual.

Now we have the news media laughably but blithely informing the public that it now owns billions of dollars in bad debt. No, gentlemen and ladies of the anchor desk, the public owns nothing. The government owns the public and will expect it to work hard to erase that “private” debt. This is called fascism, or national socialism.

The recent actions of the Federal government amount to nothing more than panicked regulators and controllers and politicians rushing to stave off, as a friend put it, “reality catching up with unreality,” the unreality of free lunches and low-cost mortgages (which comprise a welfare state within the general welfare state) which must be paid somehow, by someone, at some time. Their actions are also taken to deflect, defer, deny, and postpone justice, whose connection with reality was best dramatized by Ayn Rand in her novel, Atlas Shrugged. And the longer justice is denied, a justice denied ever since the 1960’s, when the welfare state ballooned under Lyndon Johnson, the worse its vengeance will be when reality comes calling.

Don’t blame capitalism for the current crisis. Lay the blame where it belongs: at the feet of the government. Capitalism never promised a free lunch. Our government always has.

Sincerely,

Edward Cline

Yorktown, VA

Of course, I could have gone on for pages - mentioning the Social Security, Medicare, Homeland Security, and other financial scams - or even further back in time beyond the 1960's to the 19th century, but I was afraid I would overload the mind of the letters editor or readers of the WSJ and cause a power-outage. What other things are our political leaders, the news media, the Left and Right not mentioning?

That the scale of the proposed "bailout" is unconstitutional, but the Constitution, limping along as it was long before the current "crisis," is now, for all practical intents and purposes, a dead letter.

That the proposed "bailout" would mean nothing less than the socialist conquest of the American economy, something yearned for by a long line of Democrats, ending most recently with the likes of Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, et al.

That, regardless of how soothing and cooperative members of Congress might feel after pushing this conquest through both houses, and how reassured they might feel that they've "done the right thing," the "bailout" will break the spine of the American economy, and precipitate a future and certain collapse.

On another matter, readers will note just how feverish the Democrats are to punish CEOs for their lavish paychecks and severance packages (whether or not these CEO's are overpaid or over-compensated, is a separate issue). You can bet, however, that no Congressman or Senator considers himself overpaid and over-compensated with all his taxpayer-funded medical and other benefits and other perks. I'm waiting to see Matt Lauer or Brian Williams or Charlie Gibson or Bill O'Reilly to throw that hot potato into Obama's or McCain's lap. That is just a rhetorical comment, of course. Neither of them will bring up that subject. Staring into the abyss.

Long Live Lady Liberty!

Ayn Rand or Objectivism?

By noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Provenzo) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I noticed in the many comments that have been posted to the blog concerning my abortion posts, a commentator posted a quote that contained a statement by Ayn Rand on the issue. The quote is as follows:

"Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a 'right to life.' A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable."

“A Last Survey,” The Ayn Rand Letter.

The commenter felt that since even Ayn Rand seems a little bit less than certain abortion in the later stages of pregnancy, perhaps I was overstepping my supposed mandate in affirming the right to abortion up until birth.

I do not agree. I cannot say what Rand's arguments concerning late-term abortion were because she does not flesh them out. Rand certainly lays out the essential point that sacrificing a woman's life to a fetus is vicious (a principle which she also affirmed elsewhere in her writing), but that is the extent of her argument. It would be absolutely improper to allow oneself to become paralyzed by a vague aside and quite frankly, that's not how Objectivism works.

Ayn Rand's contribution to the cause of mankind was the development of a rational philosophy for thinking and acting, not a group of texts for her admirers to slavishly follow like it was the revealed gospel of some lord. As a deeply powerful thinker, Ayn Rand offers volumes of astute observations about the world and its nature. That doesn't absolve those of us who admire her ideas to see the world as it is with our own eyes. I hold that Rand's philosophic system is essential in that identification, but even the merits of Objectivism have to be validated by a person using it for it to be a truly useful tool. There is just no getting around the need to think independently and rationally about the questions of life.

So every now and again, I do come across something that Ayn Rand wrote or said that I don't exactly see eye-to-eye with. These points have been minor and trivial at best, which I think is a powerful statement of Rand's unprecedented accuracy as a thinker. Yet there has never been anything substantive that I have been able to show that was wrong with her philosophic system; quite the contrary, I see a sturdy and stout tool for perceiving reality as it is and acting accordingly. And that's why I choose to use it as such a tool in order to answer my own questions about life and respect her for it. I take Ayn Rand and Objectivism but my loyalty to Ayn Rand and Objectivism is not slavish; it is rational, and there is a world of difference between the two.

Q & A on the Abortion Question

By noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Provenzo) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This note comes to me from Steve C.:

I heard Mr. Provenzo on the Laura Ingraham Show, and although I do not agree with him, I would like to thank him for going on to discuss his views. Knowing Laura I'm sure he had a fair idea of what he would receive, but he went on anyway, and I salute him.

One thing that he mentioned in his interview with her was that he believed that human life begins at birth, or once the baby is out of the birth canal. To me this is a very problematic view, and I would like to ask Mr. Provenzo two questions-

1.) Does location decide worth? It seems to me that the ONLY difference between an unborn child moments before birth, and a child moments after birth is location. Ontologically there is no change. The child's nature hasn't changed- same DNA, same level of development, same physique- only his "home" has changed. So, does human worth depend on our location? ...Also, it must be said, that since the unborn depend on their mother's bodies to survive, this in no way negates their right to full human status. All this shows is that human life's viability is dependent on at least two environments during it's natural existence. To pull a fetus from the womb will kill it as sure as if we held a grown man under the water. In BOTH cases we have pulled a human being from the environment best suited to sustain it's life at that level of development.

2.) Isn't the development of the unborn itself proof of life before birth? To say life begins at birth begs the very question. For the development necessary to bring an unborn to that point is one of the four criteria used to define life. The unborn from conception have all four criteria- metabolism, development, growth, and reproduction (in it's DNA). How can anyone deny the process within the womb as being signs of life, and then affirm the very same process outside the womb? Do not babies continue to develop after birth? ...And isn't this a form of prejudice? Developism? You seem to prefer one set of developmental stages over another purely out of preference.

I thank Steve for his questions and I'm happy to attempt to answer them as I can. To start with his first, I do not argue that a fetus/newborn child's location decides its worth. I say that its location decides its rights.

For example, for a woman who wants nothing more than to have a child, a fetus's worth is inestimable the moment it is first conceived in her womb. In contrast, for woman who does not wish to have a child, a fetus inside her carries no worth.

In this light, I say that it is only the question of individual rights that must concern us. I argue that in the womb and until birth, a woman's right to her own life and her own body supersedes any right of her fetus to be born--that is, if the woman wishes to terminate her pregnancy. A woman assigns worth to both her own live and values and in the case of her pregnancy, that of her fetus. Because we are dealing with a woman's independent body and her own internal processes, a woman's personal evaluation of her life (and her wishes for it) are and must be sovereign.

I think that Steve sees this to a certain degree when he points out that a fetus's existence is dependent upon a woman's body to survive, even if he seeks a different conclusion in respecting the right to choose to have an abortion than I do. In the womb, the fetus is physically dependent upon the woman. A woman must be able to regulate that dependence and shut it down if she judges the needs of her own life to be incompatible with its continued existence.

"Outside the hatch," as I so eloquently put it when I was a guest on the Ingraham show yesterday, the context completely changes. Now giving birth to full-fledged newborn child with a conscious faculty, biological and physical independence, the child enjoys its right to its life and its parents have a moral responsibility to care for the child that they created until it is able to sustain itself.

I think that by reading through my answer, above, one can see why I am not so concerned with the issues Steve raises in his second question. For example, I might not be particularly impressed with a woman who waits until the last moment to abort a healthy fetus absent a particularly compelling cause (such as knowledge of retardation). I might even wonder exactly what such a woman was waiting for in delaying her abortion. Nevertheless, I still and absolutely hold that such a woman has the right to abort her pregnancy; furthermore, if she is acting in her rational self-interest (a far, far more demanding task that many of my opponents consider it to be), I would hold her choice to be fully moral. I hold that rational morality comprises of those choices that advance individual human life without coercion or sacrifice. To deny a woman the right to abort an unwanted fetus would compel her against her will to sacrifice her life in the name of the unborn. I oppose any such attempt with the fiber of my being because no one has the right to coerce another in such a manner, least of all here.

My open message to talk show host Barbara Simpson

By noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Provenzo) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Yes, Barbara Simpson, there probably was a day when someone "would take a guy like me out in an alley and beat me beyond whatever because they thought I deserved it." There was also a day when women would die from the abortions they had in back alleys because their individual and legal rights were not respected. You and your other "Pro-Life" allies may pine for those days, but as long as I draw breath, as long I am still standing, I will fight you with every fiber of my being.

And if some moron you whipped up into a frenzy does beat me or does kill me as so many who think like you have wished in this past week, I feel secure in guaranteeing you this: thousands will take my place. You and your ilk cannot win here and you will not; not when right and reason are on the side of the good.

Capitalism and the Abortion Debate

By noreply@blogger.com (C. August) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

During the heated debates over the past week about a woman's moral right to choose abortion, a number of people have asked, "Why is the CAC talking about abortion at all? What does that have to do with capitalism?" This is a reasonable question, though it was often posed in the middle of ranting and sometimes violent tirades.

From: S
... And what has the issue to do with capitalism, anyway? ...

All life should be respected. And if that is not to be honored, I humbly submit that the author of this atrocious article should be deemed of no value and he be first in line.

During this time of national fiscal crisis -- one in which large swaths of the financial system are being nationalized -- why spend time on abortion?

The answer is very simple and clear: individual rights. The protection of individual rights is the fundamental prerequisite for a free capitalist society. This does not mean just some of them. A woman's right to keep the rewards of her productive effort -- her right to property -- is irrevocably tied to her right to her own life, i.e. her right to choose what to do with her own body.

Capitalism is not simply an economic concept that can be divorced from all other areas of life. Capitalism doesn't only describe Wall Street, or the Wal-Mart down the street. Capitalism is a full social system based on the primacy of individual rights. Thus, any attack on individual rights is an attack on the very foundation of our country. A threat to individual rights is a threat to our capitalist society as a whole.

Don't be fooled into thinking the debate is between religious conservatives who supposedly favor free markets but wish to impose their Christian morality in all other areas of life, and progressive liberals who supposedly favor free speech and other civil liberties but wish to socialize the economy in the name of egalitarianism. This is a false dichotomy; you cannot have true "civil liberties" without "economic liberties." The individual rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness cannot be upheld piecemeal. We are either free to live our lives in all spheres of action, or we are not.

It is also important to note that although these two "opposite sides" are commonly seen to represent "economic liberties" vs. "civil liberties," in practice, neither side can resist imposing state controls over all aspects of our lives. The Right is currently overseeing the largest nationalization effort in America since the New Deal. The Right is no friend of the free market. Meanwhile, the Left engages in vicious attacks on free speech. The Left is the enemy of any speech it doesn't like.

Thus, the alternative is not a choice between Left and Right, between civil and economic liberties, but between state control over our lives on one side, and full, unabridged freedom of action and thought, of laissez-faire capitalism and individual rights on the other side. This is stated in full recognition of the fact that we do not currently live in such a free society; it has been under attack for well over 100 years and every year brings increasing statism. And yet, it is still the freest country on earth, which makes it all the more important to defend against every encroachment upon our individual rights.

This is why it is not only understandable that the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism would defend the absolute moral right of a woman to choose to abort her fetus based on her own judgment, but it is also vital that we do so. The stakes are high; they represent the very underpinnings of the free capitalist society we hope to achieve.

Refuting the Distortion and Lies Told About My Stand on Sarah Palin and the Right to Abortion

By noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Provenzo) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Most of the criticism against my blog post defending the morality of abortion and questioning Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's choice to knowingly give birth to a child afflicted with Down's syndrome relies upon outright lies and distortions of my position and the selective interpretation of the text of my post. I think that this distortion is a deliberate tactic of the so-called "Pro-Life" movement because if this movement took my argument at face value, it would be impossible for it to refute my reasoning. I maintain that when you hold a dishonest position, it is inevitable that you will rely upon a straw man to make your case.

Thus the purpose of this post is to reveal the "Pro-Life" straw man being used against my arguments and my response to such dishonesty. Below are some of the common refrains I have seen since my initial post along with my answer to them.


You advocate "Nazi-style" eugenics.

This claim is a lie. The goal of the eugenics movement in history has been to 'improve' the human race by controlled selective breeding, forced sterilizations, forced abortions, and forced euthanasia. I hold that the human race is not improved in such a manner and that any initiation of force is an absolute violation of a person's individual rights.

Furthermore, to call me a Nazi is utterly dishonest and nothing more that a visceral attempt to inflame people's emotions rather than examine my arguments for what they are. There is no parallel between the goals of the eugenics movement and/or the goals of the Nazi's and my personal affirmation the individual, un-coerced and perfectly moral choice of a woman to have an abortion (or not) if she deems it to be in her rational self-interest. There is zero parallel between the force of the Nazi's and my advocacy for individual freedom and moral justice protected under our Constitution and laws--and it is a lie to claim as much.


You only judge a person by their worth to "society" and support forced euthanasia for anyone who is disabled, ill, or otherwise cannot sustain themselves.

This claim is a lie. A person's "worth to society" is not the basis of any part of Objectivism, which is the philosophy I adhere to and advocate. As a living, physically independent entity possessing the unique attributes of human consciousness, I defend the right to life of any born person capable of even a modicum of human thought because that person's life has worth to them and that is enough. If a person decides that life is untenable for them (such as in the case of painful terminal illness), I support the right of that person to terminate their own life in accordance with their own wishes, but I categorically reject any initiation of coercion over the life or mind of man.

At root, I claim no power over anyone's life or anyone's ability to peaceably live it, and I demand as much in return. I am not my brother's lord or keeper, and they are not mine.


You claim that you support the "right to life," and yet you support abortion, and thus you contradict yourself.

That would be either a lie, or a gross misunderstanding of the right to life. A rational view of the right to life does not extend into the womb when a woman wishes to veto the live birth of her fetus. Call it what you will, but the entity that exits in the womb of a woman is different in nature from what exists outside the womb and the difference must be judged accordingly.

In contrast, a living, physically independent human being possessing the unique attributes of human consciousness demands the ability to think and act in furtherance of their own life (or in the case of a born child, the ability to rise to the point where they can to think and act though the care of those who chose to create that child's life).


By defending a woman's choice, including her potentially irrational choices, you advocate moral relativism and/or utilitarianism.

That would be either a lie, or a gross misunderstanding of the basis of a rational code of morality and how it works. Upholding self-interest over codes of religious or collectivist morality is not upholding moral relativism or utilitarianism-it is upholding Objectivism, which is predicated upon perceiving the facts of existence though reason and governing one's personal conduct in accordance with these facts. As Ayn Rand observes:

The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve "the common good." It is true that capitalism does-if that catch-phrase has any meaning-but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice. [Emphasis mine]

"What Is Capitalism?" Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 20.

I wholeheartedly agree with Rand. Justice is the act of giving to each person what that person deserves, and each peaceable person requires the freedom to live a proper human life. In the case of an unborn fetus, it is not yet a person in the true sense of the word and it deserves no special protection against a woman's self-interested wishes for herself and her own life. A woman's life is her alpha and omega and her sovereign judgment over herself must be respected.
And as a corollary of respecting an individual's freedom to make rational choices over their own life, we must not prohibit choices that we may disagree with if these choices do not violate the rights of others. As an example, for some, smoking is a ticket to an early death, while for others, it is one of life's enjoyments worth any risk that the smoker might bear. It is not my place to force my personal estimate of such a choice upon others. I may disagree with a person's private choices and I may declare as much as I have with Sarah Palin, but my primary mission is to defend one's individual freedom over one's own life, and nothing more.

Why? Because my selfish right to make my own rational choices demands as much.


You think that you have the right to "play God" over everyone and/or advocate designer babies.

That would be a lie. I reject any mystical morality that holds that some deity controls the strings of the universe that that we must obey the revealed claims of those who assert that they somehow know this deity's mind. Man is a being of self-made purpose and he must form his own moral code derived from the facts of his existence. He must make and live by his own moral judgments. In this regard, each of us rates the right to be our own lord and master over our own precious lives.

Needless to say, such freedom does not sit well with those who advocate blind allegiance to the wide-eyed mystics of antiquity and who seek a return to primitivism--a time when man had little control over his own nature or the nature of the things around him.


You say that the only moral choice for Sarah Palin was to have an abortion when she discovered she was pregnant with a fetus afflicted with Down syndrome, and thus you deny Palin her right to make her own choice.

This is a lie. I hold that Sarah Palin had every right to make her own choice to carry (or not carry) her pregnancy to term (even if I personally can find no rational reason for her to do so and even if I would not choose to do as she did). Notice however that this is not a right that Sarah Palin is willing to extend to others, and this despite the fact that more than 90% of the women faced with her situation choose to have an abortion by their won will.

People have accused me of playing God and their attention is utterly misdirected; only one person between Sarah Palin and me seeks to lord our own personal and political will against people's most private judgments, and that is Sarah Palin.


You have contempt for the existence of people afflicted with Down syndrome and other genetic disorders and you seek their destruction.

That is a lie. I feel nothing but compassion for the people so afflicted when they are born. I emphasize with those who must contend with the challenges they and those who care for them face. Nevertheless, I defend a woman's moral right to abort her fetus if it is afflicted with such conditions and if the woman decides that it is in her interest to do so. I also support aborting healthy fetuses if a woman decides to have an abortion along similar lines. I simply hold that a woman must be master over her own life and biological processes and I hold her mastery to be absolute.


Abortion has nothing to do with capitalism and your stand is a discredit to capitalism's cause.

Abortion has everything to do with capitalism because capitalism is not just a system of private property and economic liberty; it is a system of rationally identified and validated individual rights. Ayn Rand (the philosopher whose ideas this organization seeks to apply to our social and political relationships) offers the following observation about such rights:

A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action-which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

The concept of a "right" pertains only to action-specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.

Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive-of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.

"What Is Capitalism? Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 19.

The right to have an abortion (or not) is a prime example of the right of a human being to have the freedom to take actions in furtherance of their own life and in affirmation of their own values. Defending such a right is absolutely critical and germane to the advance of capitalism as the only moral social system for mankind.

Pet Your Little Zygote ... Knock Yourself Out

By noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Provenzo) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Our dear conservative freinds at the National Review pointed out that I had some catchy one-liners when I was on the Laura Ingraham Show today, including one that they felt might make a good T-Shirt.

Might? You just can't let inspiration like that pass you by. It is my honor to present to you the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism's First Ever T-Shirt, the "Pet Your Little Zygote ... Knock Yourself Out" special avalible through our CafePress store. Here's the graphic:



And here's the Men's T-shirt. Yup, I know exactly what you are thinking: "Is that just your Zygote, or are you happy to see me?"

And you ladies won't feel left out with our Spaghetti Tee:

And yes, even you Moms to be can get in on the action with our special Maternity Tee:

My view? It's so wrong, it's gotta be right.

Credit Crisis Makes a Case for Abolishing, Not Expanding, the Fed

By Yaron Brook from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Credit Crisis Makes a Case for Abolishing, Not Expanding, the Fed
September 22, 2008

Washington, D.C.--In response to the credit crisis, the Federal Reserve has been granted unprecedented powers to bail out and nationalize companies--as if its track record makes it a good candidate for addressing our economic problems.

“The Federal Reserve is not the solution to the crisis, it is its root cause,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. “By keeping interest rates artificially low and inflating the currency, it created the illusion that homes and subprime mortgages were can’t-miss investments.

“Now, as we bear witness to the wreckage of the Fed’s previous central planning, the solution offered is even more Fed central planning. This is absurd. The way to prevent future credit crises is to get rid of the government’s arbitrary power to determine the money supply and the price of credit, and return to a gold standard.”

### ### ###

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                   RSS

Protect Private Property: End Smoking Bans

By Yaron Brook from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Protect Private Property: End Smoking Bans
September 19, 2008

Washington, D.C.--The Washington state Supreme Court ruled recently that the state’s smoking ban applies not only to businesses open to the general public, but to private clubs as well.

“It is bizarre that in a free country public officials are deciding the smoking policies of private businesses,” said Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Those decisions rightfully belong to business owners. Smoking bans, whether in private clubs or privately owned businesses open to the public, are a violation of property rights.

“Supporters of smoking bans claim that the government must protect consumers and employees from the alleged dangers of secondhand smoke. But they are already protected: no one can force them to patronize or work in an establishment that allows smoking. Smoking bans don’t protect the unwilling from smoke--they merely abrogate the rights of business owners.

“These bans should be disturbing to anyone who values freedom. If the government can trample on private property rights in the name of dictating people’s health choices, then smoking bans are only the beginning. Indeed, we are already seeing bans on trans fats, and even proposals to revoke the business licenses of fast food restaurants that serve overweight people.

“It’s time to end this trend and recognize the right of businesses to use their property as they see fit.”

### ### ###

Ayn Rand Center experts are available for interviews on this topic.

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

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                                
                                                                                       RSS           

Stop the Bailouts

By Yaron Brook from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Stop the Bailouts
September 22, 2008

Washington, D.C.--“Over the last year,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, “the central planners at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department have pretended that by bailing out homeowners, then bailing out investment banks, then bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they were wisely ‘steering’ the economy to protect us against some undefined ‘systemic risk.’

“But the mounting financial problems reveal that Paulson and Bernanke are as clueless as any other central planners who try to control an entire economy. They are not saving us from anything; they are delaying some of the pain that necessarily follows from a Fed-induced credit bubble, and redistributing that pain to innocent victims. They are punishing responsible individuals and rewarding irresponsible individuals.

“The bailouts must stop. The government must make clear that from now on, those who are in financial trouble must turn to the private market for help if they are to avoid failure; the government must no longer foist their failures on others, and invite another crisis in the future.”

### ### ###

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                        RSS 

Antitrust: Punishing Success

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Jason Crawford published an excellent letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal on the potential for an antitrust suit against Google:

Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, says that "if search is the gateway to the Internet . . . this deal [with Yahoo] will put Google in position to own that gateway and the information that flows through it" ("Top Lawyer Is Selected as U.S. Mulls Google Suit," Marketplace, Sept. 9). Why shouldn't they own it? They built it. Google is the most popular search engine because of the relevance and speed of its results; it is the dominant advertising platform because ads are more effective there than anywhere else. Google deserves its leading position and the rewards that go with it.

This case, like every other major antitrust case from Standard Oil to Microsoft, aims to punish a winning company for the crime of winning. This is a grave injustice to Google and will only harm the industry in the long run. Why place the ideal of "competition" ahead of the economic productivity that competition is supposed to promote?

It would be far more just, and better for the economy, to simply let the winners win.

Jason Crawford
Seattle

Great letter, Jason!

Abolishing the Housing Welfare-regulatory Apparatus

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

Abolishing the Housing Welfare-regulatory Apparatus
By Alex Epstein (Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2008)

Bert Ely is right that the Fannie-Freddie implosion "must spark fundamental rethinking about how best to finance American home mortgages." But while his proposals, such as "covered bonds," may have some merit, he misses the fundamental point.

Decisions about how best to finance mortgages should not be made by politicians or by editorial page columnists -- they should be made by individuals in a truly free mortgage market, where lenders are free to lend as they choose and reap the full consequences of their decisions. The problem with the current system is not that borrowers and lenders have been unaware of more sensible financing options, but that implicit bailout guarantees have made reckless, shortsighted lending options more appealing. Abolishing the housing welfare-regulatory apparatus is the only "fundamental reform" that will do.

Ms. Laura Ingraham: You are an intellectual coward

By noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Provenzo) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Here is an audio stream of my appearance.

Here is a downloadable MP3.

For allowing me the modest opportunity to present my arguments to her listeners, I give Laura Ingraham her due. But for mischaracterizing my position into a straw man, for constantly interrupting me as I attempted to explain my reasoning, for allowing her staff to turn off my mike in our debate (implying that I sat in silent awe while she pontificated), I give Laura Ingraham nothing but my utter contempt. I judge Laura Ingraham to be an intellectual weakling whose main stunt is to bring in a guest on her show for the sole purpose of abusing them in order to aggrandize herself and her followers.

To add to her outrage, Ingraham had the audacity to talk about "elites" such as me dominating our country. I never clerked for a US Supreme Court Justice like she did. I never wrote speeches for a presidential administration like she did. I joined the Marine Corps to help pay for college and when that money ran out (little as it was), I did things like wash windows to get by. Laura Ingraham shouldn't lecture me about how I'm some sort of out of touch elitist who doesn't understand the problems of real life. I'm well aware of these problems because I've lived through many of them myself.

I've been a guest on countless radio talk shows and I anticipated a rhetorical slug-fest with someone who disagrees with my every view, yet what I received as guest on the Laura Ingraham Show exceeded even my worst expectations. At root, Laura Ingraham is a discredit to civil discourse in this country. She should be nothing but ashamed and appalled for her obnoxious conduct while I was a guest on her show.

Recap #10

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This week on Politics without God, the blog of the Coalition for Secular Government:

• Monday, September 15, 2008: Two Bits of Good News by Diana Hsieh
  
• Tuesday, September 16, 2008: Sharia in the UK by Diana Hsieh
  
• Wednesday, September 17, 2008: More from The Oklahoman by Diana Hsieh
  
• Thursday, September 18, 2008: Did You Just Call Me a Zygote? by Diana Hsieh
  
• Friday, September 19, 2008: The Fundamental Right to Abortion by Diana Hsieh

And this week on We Stand FIRM, the blog of FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine:

• Monday, September 15, 2008: Mandated Coverage Lesson by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, September 16, 2008: Military Medicine and Universal Health Care by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Wednesday, September 17, 2008: British Parody of Government Paternalism by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, September 18, 2008: Week 3 Winners in Blog Contest by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, September 19, 2008: The Dangers of Medical Licensing by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, September 19, 2008: Hsieh OpEd on Employer Insurance Mandate by Paul Hsieh, MD
  

Scholarship Funds for the Leadership Program of the Rockies, Take Two

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I'm pleased to report that I've been accepted in the Leadership Program of the Rockies, the nine month training course for the up-and-coming policy makers in Colorado, particularly aimed at people of a more conservative persuasion.

I'm even more delighted to report that I've raised about $500 for my tuition via NoodleFood and OActivists. LPR will be contributing $200 from their scholarship fund as well. So I'm still in need of about $200.

If you haven't yet donated but wish to do so, please contact Jenn Hamann, the finance director of the Leadership Program of the Rockies, sometime in the next few days. Her e-mail address is JennHamann#AT#aol#DOT#com. Please indicate that you wish to help fund a scholarship for me in particular. Remember, any donation would be tax-deductible -- and even a small donation would help.

You can donate via LPR's website (with PayPal) or by check to Leadership Program of the Rockies; 1777 South Harrison Street, Suite 807, Denver, CO 80210. You might wish to verify with Jenn that funds are still required before actually donating, however. Also, please e-mail me, so that I can thank you properly and update you on the program.

Again, I give a huge thank you to everyone who has already donated -- or will donate. You folks are awesome!

The New Diet

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In late June, I blogged about the cow share I bought from Isle Farms, in order to obtain a supply of raw milk, i.e. milk straight from the cow, without any pasteurization or homogenization. In that post, I said:

As for why I'm going to so much trouble to obtain raw milk, I have two reasons. First, it tastes much better. It's deeply satisfying in a way that its equivalent of pasteurized, homogenized whole milk equivalent is not. Second, it's part of an overall change in diet. I'm consuming more protein and certain kinds of fats, and I'm trying to avoid stuffing myself full of goodness-only-knows-what from processed foods, particularly carbohydrates. I'm also interested in trying natural grass-fed beef, likely from this local supplier, as I have worries about the inappropriate feed given to cows intended for consumption. (I'm also interested in more natural forms of other meats like pork, lamb, and chicken.)

Since that time, my diet has evolved even further in a "paleo" direction -- with fascinating results. My cholesterol numbers are much improved. I've lost weight, even while gaining muscle. I no longer suffer from strange energy lows. I've made significant gains in strength and balance. My tastes in food have changed -- radically. I can easily ignore feelings of hunger for hours on end, even through vigorous exercise. I've lost all my cravings for sweets. Best of all, I enjoy what I eat immensely -- and I don't miss the rest.

Overall, I feel so much better than I have in years -- if not ever.

I'm utterly fascinated by all that I've been reading -- and experiencing -- with these changes in diet. So now I'm going to inflict bestow them on you: I aim to blog on issues pertaining to diet and health on Saturdays.

Let me start with a brief description of my own diet at present. I'll delve into some of the details and reasons in future posts.

My general goal is to approximate -- to some reasonable degree -- the hunter-gatherer diet that humans were adapted to eat by a few hundred thousands of years of evolution. That diet changed radically with the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. It has changed even more in the last 100 years or so. Today, the major effect of that change is the consumption of far more refined carbohydrates -- particularly in the form of sugar and flour -- than most humans bodies can handle well. For many, the result is the infliction of the "diseases of civilization," particularly diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Today's dominant view that such chronic health problems are caused overconsumption of fat (and of calories in general) is not -- and was never -- supported by science. As Gary Taubes painstakingly documents in his stellar book Good Calories, Bad Calories, that view was pushed on us by a few determined dogmatists, with a good dose of help from the federal government, without regard for the facts.

So what do I eat? My diet consists of plenty of meat, eggs, dairy, nuts, vegetables, and limited fruit. I do not eat pasta, rice, bread, or sugar. (I'm not eating potatoes at present, as they're very starchy. However, I'll likely return to eating them in moderation and on occasion this winter.)

I usually eat a good hunk of meat at least once if not twice per day. I eat beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and buffalo on a regular basis. I also eat seafood once or twice per week. I go out of my way to buy high-quality meats from animals not treated with hormones or antibiotics. Such meats are more expensive, but they taste much, much better than the barely-edible crap sold in regular grocery stores. I also rely on eggs, greek yogurt, and cheese as sources of protein. I'm not a fan of soy.

I consume lots of fat. I enjoy deliciously fatty cuts of meat like ribeye steaks. I braise vegetables in raw cream. I drink unskimmed raw milk, and make my own greek yogurt from it. I usually eat cheese and raw nuts at least once per day. In cooking, I use olive oil, bacon fat, butter, and coconut fat liberally. However, I studiously avoid all modern vegetable oils (e.g. canola oil, corn oil) and transfats.

I eat lots of vegetables and some fruits. I try to eat a wide range of vegetables, within the limits of what's in season -- or better yet, what's ripening in my garden. I limit my fruits because they often contain quite a bit of sugar -- although berries are better on that score.

I avoid anything made with sugar or high-frucose corn syrup. On rare occasion, I will sweeten something with raw honey or maple syrup. I don't drink juice or soda. I avoid all artificial sweeteners too, as I think they tend to create an expectation of and desire for sweetness.

I also avoid grains, particularly wheat. I avoid white flour like the plague -- and contrary to contrary to popular belief, whole grains are just as bad. On rare occasion -- meaning less often than once per week -- I'll eat a slice of sprouted bread or a small bowl of overnight-soaked oatmeal. (The sprouting and the soaking are supposed to make the grain more digestible. However, I find that if I eat more than a wee bit, I can feel the ill effects.)

So that's what I eat, with only very rare exceptions. Notably, I do no counting or balancing or weighing. I'm not particularly concerned with the macronutriet composition of my meals. Instead, I have two basic goals: (1) to eat real, whole, unprocessed foods, and (2) to avoid foods that spike my blood sugar. These two categories strongly overlap, but they aren't quite the same.

Six months ago, I would have regarded such a diet as a major deprivation. However, that's not how it feels now. It's very easy -- and very rewarding -- to eat well. As for the science supporting my new diet, that will have to wait for another Saturday.

Biden Plagiarizes McCain

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

At first, it astounded me, although it should not have, that Barack Obama selected as his running mate Joe Biden, whose own 1988 presidential campaign was ended by a plagiarism scandal. Furthermore, by all appearances, this is one dog that, like "a thousand generations" of dogs before it, can't learn new tricks, as Joe Biden himself -- I mean Neil Kinnock -- might put it.

One of the many flaws of John McCain, who heads the Democratic Vice President's opposing ticket, is that he confuses national servitude with individual voluntarism. Alex Epstein put this well last year:

The logical end road of the belief that you have a duty to serve the nation is legislation that forces you to do so--i.e., compulsory national service. Like Time magazine, Senators John McCain and Evan Bayh, who introduced the Call to Service Act in 2003, think that "national service should one day be a rite of passage for young Americans." But there is only one way to make national service a "rite of passage": by government coercion. McCain has long favored compulsory national service, but laments that it "is not currently politically practical." Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution has proposed that every 18-year-old be forced to perform one year of compulsory service. This is nothing less than involuntary servitude of the youth in the land of the free. [minor format edits, bold added]

McCain never tells us how it is that a period of servitude will prepare the young to live lives as free men.

And add Joe Biden to the list of politicians who wish to tread on the last embers of freedom in America while whistling "Yankee Doodle":

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans. In a new TV ad that repeats widely debunked claims about the Democratic tax plan, the Republican campaign calls Obama's tax increases "painful." [bold added]

It is bad enough that essentially the entire body politic takes government confiscation of property for granted as acceptable, which it is not. What is worse is that Biden is, like McCain, (1) selling a government coerced act as a virtue of altruistic morality -- while (2) ignoring the fact that coerced acts have no moral import whatsoever, (3) evading the demonstrable fact that acting in one's own self-interest (as the Founding Fathers did when they volunteered to fight the British at great personal expense and risk) is demonstrably the moral thing to do, and (3) helping to further set in stone the pernicious, anti-American notion that the government is the guardian of public morality. What is scandalous beyond belief is that none of this so much as raises a brow of the average voter.

Joe Biden is, obviously, not actually guilty of my rhetorical charge of plagiarism, although I wish that were his only sin. But if he and all the other major candidates in the upcoming presidential race seem as if they might as well be, it is because they all subscribe to the same, wrong, moral code. That is, they attach nobility to human sacrifice. Worse still, they all threaten to force America -- the land of the free! -- to endure the consequences of living by this idea by means of a collectivistic, anti-freedom political agenda, that differs between the two major tickets only in the details of its implementation.

What is supremely ironic about all these flag-wrapped calls to self-immolation is that it would be patriotic, and in the proper sense, for Americans to donate money, time, and effort to America -- but only if America consistently protected individual rights, meaning that she never forced anyone to do so! Just look at how the Founding Fathers acted as they rebelled from the tyranny of the British, and why they did so.

As Joe Biden -- I mean Neil Kinnock -- might put it, I wish I were among the first of a "thousand generations" of Americans to see freedom wax rather than wane in my lifetime. I will continue to work to see that happen, but I do not labor under the illusion that either Obama-Biden or McCain-Palin will help this happen. Appearances to the contrary, these tickets are carbon copies of each other.

-- CAV

The Nature of the Democrats

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

For years I've been following one of the most ominous trends in American culture, the radicalization of the Democrat Party. The Democrats are taking on aspects of a totalitarian party. Force, lies and intimidation replace reason in the party's pursuit of power.

Obama's campaign has taken this totalitarian trend farther than any Democrat presidential candidate has done before. The campaign has taken a series of troubling actions.

It smeared McCain in a cynical, outright dishonest ad in which Rush Limbaugh's comments were taken out of context to make Republicans look racist. Limbaugh writes,

...the commercial flashes two quotes from me: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!

The "stupid and unskilled Mexicans" remark came while he was defending NAFTA, and attributing that line to its opponents. Limbaugh believes the opposite about Mexican workers.

Limbaugh sums up,

The malignant aspect of this is that Mr. Obama and his advisers know exactly what they are doing. They had to listen to both monologues or read the transcripts. They then had to pick the particular excerpts they used in order to create a commercial of distortions. Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society.

This ad shows a shocking contempt for the truth from the Democrats. These people have decided that their end of power justifies any means.

This week Obama exhorted his followers,

I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face.

(Bold added.)

This asking for more than just persuasion. This is not just asking the Bambis of the Democrat party to show some spine. This is asking for Democrats to intimidate. Getting in another person's face is an attempt to instill fear and silence that person. The threat of violence is implicit. This is not about reason; it is about force. Obama is turning his supporters into proto-brown shirts. Today they are asked to intimidate. What might they be asked to do tomorrow?

If any Republican exhorted his followers to get in the other side's face, the MSM would take this as evidence of the Republicans' mean-spirited nature.

Also this week Palin's emails were hacked into by a 20-year old boy who happens to be the son of a Democrat Tennessee State Representative.

ACORN, which registers voters for the Democrats, is suspected of voter fraud.

...ACORN workers often handed in the same name on a number of voter registration cards, but showing that person living at different addresses. Other times, cards had the same name listed, but a different date of birth. Still another sign of possible fraud showed a number of people living at an address that turned out to be a restaurant.

We will see a lot more voter fraud on November 4 as the Democrats try to steal the election. It worked for them in 1960 and they almost pulled it off in 2000.

For weeks now Obama has attempted to silence his critics with intimidation from lawyers and his followers.

In today's Chicago Tribune, the Obama camp responds to nitpicky concerns about their attempts to shut down radio shows that might say things they don't like, via their "Obama Action Wires":

"The Action Wire serves as a means of arming our supporters with the facts to take on those who spread lies about Barack Obama and respond forcefully with the truth, whether it's an author passing off fiction as biography, a Web site spreading baseless conspiracy theories or a TV station airing an ad that makes demonstrably false claims," said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Having listened to the previous Milt Rosenberg show with Stanley Kurtz that got "Action-Wired" (which is available here), I can tell you what this translates to:

"We'll provide a page of talking points for you to spout at the host and his guest. Just read it from your screen. Unfortunately, we're unable to provide you with the necessary brainpower to keep up when the host asks you to explain the reasoning behind 'your' opinion, or poses any other question that isn't found in our script.

"But that isn't the point anyway. We just want to tie up their phone lines with thousands of angry calls, both to intimidate them and to prevent people with legitimate questions from getting through. Yes We Can... Shout Down All Blasphemers."

(Bold in original.)

Robert Tracinski in his latest TIA Daily traces the left's problem back to the 1930's:

The modern left was born from America's "Red Decade," in which the intelligentsia embraced collectivism and dictatorship and hailed the bloodthirsty Soviet regime as a noble experiment. The left was born out of a conscious act of treason, not just to America, but to the principles it stands for.

...

The root of the American left's fundamental sympathy with the Soviet Union—and with dictatorship in general—is that they share the basic political outlook of the Soviets: a belief in rule by force. This infects every element of the left and explains why the left tends to inject thug tactics into political campaigns...

If the party has been rotten for 70 years -- and I think it got really bad with the ascent of the New Left in the '60s -- it is remarkable they have not done more damage to America's tradition of freedom by now. I have to think America dodged a bullet by electing only two Democrat presidents in the last 40 years.

I have argued that Obama, as one who prides himself in being a "blank screen" on which others see what they want to see, reflects the unexceptional, generic Democrat Party. He is not one to forge a new ideological path within the party. He senses the accepted, majority opinion and goes along. But this same man shows the totalitarian tendencies described above. Those tendencies are very much a part of the nature of the Democrat Party today. This is who they are. This is how low they have fallen.

Harry Binswanger asks an interesting question on HBList. After he had the nomination in the bag, Obama moved to the center, adopting Republican positions on various issues (to the point of advocating more war in Afghanistan), and yet, the left has complained little. They are staying silent about Obama's positions.

Why? What do they understand about Obama that the rest of us don't?

Hsieh OpEd on Employer Insurance Mandate

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Today's (September 19, 2008) edition of the Rocky Mountain News has printed my OpEd supporting free market health care reform and opposing Colorado Amendment 56 (which would require businesses with more than 20 employees to purchase health insurance for all its workers.)

Free market reforms healthier than Amendment 56

By Paul Hsieh, MD
Friday, September 19, 2008

This fall, Colorado voters must decide whether to require all businesses with more than 20 employees to provide health insurance for their employees (Amendment 56). Although voters may be tempted to say "yes," this is an immoral and impractical solution to the problem of rising health insurance costs.

It is morally wrong because it violates the rights of employers and employees to negotiate to their mutual self-interest in a free market.

Businessmen create jobs through rational thought and hard work. Consequently, they have the moral right to decide on what terms to offer those jobs to prospective employees, including specific wages and benefits.

Similarly, workers have the right to negotiate for any specific wages and benefits they desire, and the right to reject job offers that don't meet their criteria. But they have no right to demand a specific salary or benefit from employers (such as health insurance) via government force.

Two motivations behind this proposed law are (1) the mistaken notion that health care should be a guaranteed "right," and (2) the desire to force businesses (rather than government) to pay for this supposed obligation. But health care is a need, not a right. A right is a freedom of action in a social context, such as the freedom of speech.

It is not an automatic claim on a good or service that must be produced by someone else. There is no such thing as a "right" to a car or an appendectomy. Any attempt by the government to guarantee a false "right" to health care can only be done by violating the actual rights of someone — in this case, business owners.

Forcing businesses to provide health insurance to employees will also cause serious economic harm to Colorado. Such a law would cause many businesses to fire workers, outsource jobs, or cancel plans to hire new workers. This will disproportionately harm unskilled workers and those at the lower end of the income scale — the very people the measure is intended to help.

According to Howard Roerig, owner of Seale & Associates, Inc. in Centennial, "This measure will have a chilling effect on all small businessmen. Although I don't have 20 employees at present, I would make certain never to hire that 20th person. The costs would be so high that I would be better off starting another firm in a different state, and letting it do business in Colorado as an out-of-state firm.

"I would have to find some means of skirting this measure or else close my doors."

Other states such as California have driven away many businesses and jobs due to high taxes and heavy regulations. Colorado must not repeat these mistakes.

To "solve" the problem of high insurance costs by foisting those costs onto businesses would be just as wrong as "solving" the problem of rising gasoline prices by forcing businesses to pay their workers' gasoline expenses.

Our current high health care costs have been caused by decades of government interference in the free market. Hence, the proper solution is not more government regulations, but instead free market reforms that addressed the problems caused by prior government controls.

Some examples of free market reforms include allowing Coloradans to purchase health insurance across state lines and eliminating mandatory insurance benefits. Patients should be allowed to purchase Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) for small routine expenses and insurers should be allowed to sell low-cost catastrophic-only policies to cover rare but expensive events. These measures could greatly reduce insurance prices and allow patients to purchase from the best offerings of all 50 states, thus making insurance available to thousands of Coloradans who want to purchase it but currently cannot afford it. Furthermore, the state legislature could adopt these reforms without permission from the federal government.

If Coloradans want to address the problem of high health insurance costs, they should reject the Amendment 56 and instead demand free market reforms. This is right for employers, right for employees, and right for Colorado.

Paul Hsieh, MD, of Sedalia is co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM)

I'd like to thank Ari Armstrong for suggesting that I write about this issue and Howard Roerig for providing me with a fantastic quote that concretizes the economic issues at stake.

A Critique of Global Warming Science and Policy

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This upcoming panel discussion on global warming in Los Angeles looks promising:

A Critique of Global Warming Science and Policy

A panel discussion at the University of Southern California

What: A panel discussion challenging widely accepted views on global warming science and policy, followed by a Q&A

Who: Keith Lockitch, fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, and Willie Soon, geoscientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Where: Taper Hall of Humanities (THH) Room 102, 3501 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles 90089

When: Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 7:00 pm

Description: It is now widely believed that man-made greenhouse gases are causing an unnatural warming of the earth that will have devastating consequences for human life. Environmentalists and politicians are pressing for severe restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions aimed at preventing global warming. But are these beliefs and policies justified? What does the scientific evidence actually support regarding the causes of climate variability and the role of anthropogenic greenhouse gases? Are the predictions of catastrophic changes supported by scientific fact? Is government economic intervention aimed at severely restricting greenhouse gases an appropriate policy response? Panelists will address these critical issues in a lively discussion.

Bios:

Keith Lockitch is a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, specializing in science and environmental policy. His writings have appeared in numerous newspapers and he has been a frequent guest on radio shows. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Dr. Lockitch teaches a history of physics course for the Ayn Rand Institute's Objectivist Academic Center. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and has conducted postdoctoral research in relativistic astrophysics at the University of Illinois and at Pennsylvania State University.

Willie Soon is both an astrophysicist and a geoscientist at the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Soon is the receiving editor in the area of solar and stellar physics for the journal New Astronomy. He is also the chief science adviser of the Science and Public Policy Institute. He writes and lectures both professionally and publicly on important issues related to the Sun, other stars, the Earth, as well as general science topics in astronomy and physics. He is the author of The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection.

The Unfree Market Has Failed

By Yaron Brook from The Ayn Rand Institute Stories,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Unfree Market Has Failed
September 19, 2008

Washington, D.C.--“Everyone is blaming ‘the free market’ for today’s financial crisis,” observed Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. “But we should be blaming the unfree market. The mortgage and financial markets have been thoroughly controlled by government--and that is why they failed.

“It was the government’s hand in the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve Board’s inflationary policy of keeping interest rates artificially low, the irrational lending standards forced on lenders by the federal Community Reinvestment Act, and the quasi-official policy of bailing out large financial institutions deemed too big to fail, that contributed to creating a situation in which millions of people were buying homes they could not afford, in which the participants experienced the illusion of prosperity, in which billions upon billions of dollars were going into bad investments.

“We do not need more regulation or economic ‘supervision.’ What we need to do is remove the government’s power to coerce, bribe, reward and bail out irrational decisions. The unfree market has failed. It’s time for a truly free market.”

### ### ###

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                      
                                                                                               RSS

Ancient History Registration Opens Soon

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

SEC bans Stock Shorting

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

In light of the SEC’s decision to ban all short selling, last year’s One Minute Case for Stock Shorting is especially relevant.

The Fundamental Right to Abortion

By noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Provenzo) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In affirming a woman's absolute right to abort an unwanted fetus, it seems I have triggered the wrath of the anti-abortion lynch mob if the recent death threats in my inbox are any indication. Such is life when confronting the morally ignorant with their irrationality, yet all their "pro-life" death threats aside, the fact remains: a woman has the unqualified moral right to abort a fetus she carries inside her in accordance with her own judgment.

What is the basis for this claim? What facts of reality demand that a woman enjoy the freedom to exercise her discretion in such a manner? At root, it is the simple fact that until the fetus is born and exists as a separate, physically independent human entity, the fetus is potential life and the actual life of the woman grants her interests and wishes primacy. As an acorn is not the same thing as an oak tree, a fetus is not the same thing as an independent human being. In the case of the fetus, its location matters: inside the woman and attached to her via the umbilical cord, its position in relation to the woman subordinates its status to her wishes; outside the woman, welcome to life in the human race.

But why is biological independence the defining factor of personhood in both morality and under the law? Why isn't it the moment of conception, or the first instance of fetal heartbeat, or the first instance of fetal brain wave activity (just to name a few of the benchmarks often put forward by anti-abortion activists)? Again, it is the nature of the direct physical connection between the fetus and the mother. Physically attached to a woman in the manner a fetus is, the woman's right to regulate the processes of her own body is controlling. Unattached and physically independent, the fetus is thus transformed; it is a person no different from anyone else and enjoys all the individual rights of personhood.

Needless, to say, this truth offends the sensibilities of some. They cannot fathom that something like the physical presence of the fetus inside a woman grants a woman power to control it as she controls the affairs of her own body. In a more just world, such people would simply choose not to have abortions, which is their every right. And leave it at that. Yet justice is not the aim of the anti-abortion mob. They simply seek to sacrifice unwilling women upon their altar of the unborn, reducing a woman to a mere birthing vessel the second a fetus exists in her body.

Let us not forget that raising a child is a tremendous commitment. As a life created by its parents, parents owe the children they bring into the world what they need in order to be independent and self-sufficient human beings, to include food, shelter, clothing, and an education. Not every person can measure up to this commitment and not every person wants to. While her fetus in her womb, a woman has every right to reject this obligation. Contrary to the claims of the anti-abortionists, a child should be a choice.

And since the morality of aborting fetuses with severe disability was the original topic at bar, let us remember that over 90% of the women faced with such a situation choose to have an abortion. This is not just my decision; it is the independent, un-coerced decision of women acting within their complete and lawful discretion. And while I would not wish to be them, their decision to terminate their unwanted pregnancy is a decision I am more than willing to publicly defend.

And as I read the sundry comments and messages of those who choose to oppose me on this issue, I cannot help but notice the utter insincerity in their near-hysterical defense of Sarah Palin's decision to knowingly give birth to a child with Down's syndrome. While I have received many odes to the glory of living life while afflicted with Down's syndrome, I have seen little acknowledgement that the decision to give birth to a severely retarded child is a difficult choice and to choose so entails heroic commitment (or a willingness to dump this obligation upon others and against their will). I have seen little acknowledgement that not everyone decides to have a child such as Palin did.

I also see that the many of the objections to my position center upon my framing the issue in the terms of a cost-benefit analysis, as if some choices are somehow exempt from this kind of review. The absurdity of such a claim should be manifest; a nervous groom on his weeding day is performing a cost-benefit analysis, a person standing before the fridge contemplating a midnight snack as they look at their waistline is performing a cost-benefit analysis, and like it or not, a woman confronted with the terrible choice between giving birth to a child with Down's syndrome and having an abortion is performing a cost-benefit analysis. As an advocate for individual liberty, I defend the freedom of each to perform their own analysis and act upon their own good judgment.

So yes, a woman has the absolute right to choose to have an abortion, including the right to abort a fetus diagnosed with physical handicap. It is not "eugenics" for a woman to choose as much; the choice to abort is the woman's alone and there is no element of coercion or a racial master plan. Nor is it some form of "euthanasia" to have an abortion, the fetus not being the same as a physically independent human being. The claims that I or any other Objectivists support eugenics or involuntary euthanasia are utterly dishonest; they are lies told to advance the vicious agenda of those who seek to deny half of our species their legitimate and fundamental freedom.

Freedom is a peculiar thing. It is the recognition that each person is sovereign over their own lives. It is the recognition that a person has the liberty to make choices that you might not make because their choices concern their own life and not yours. It is the recognition that you do not have the right to coerce another against their will. That a person does not have the right coerce the process of a woman's womb against her will ought to be academic. That it is not is testament to the irrationality and ignorance of our times.

Palin, Down's Syndrome, and Trolls

By noreply@blogger.com (Edward Cline) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The tone and content of most of the dissenting remarks in response to Nick’s Palin/Down’s syndrome article to date together verge on the hysterical madness of a lynch mob, sharing with Christian and Muslim fundamentalism the same unreasoning, teeth-clenched emotionalism and the urge to convert or kill. The anti-abortionists are about as “pro-life” as the Muslims who bury a woman up to her neck and then stone her to death for having broken one of their irrational, tribalist rules. Especially appalling was the sneering attack on Judy, who spoke in her remarks of her first-hand experiences as the mother of a “special needs” child with as much authority as Nick spoke on the issue.

I’m glad that Nick has not removed these malicious posts, as he has every right to, for they reveal that the enemies of reason and individual rights are not only Republicans and Democrats, but also libertarians and other cretins in various states of intellectual arrest. Having read every one of the remarks, over one hundred and twenty-five to date, I got the impression that when a libertarian or Christian or Rockwellian read Nick’s article and gasped at his “blasphemy,” he alerted his ilk to descend on Rule of Reason with the cry, “Let’s get ‘im! How dare he contradict the consensus of the scientific community!!” (Like the scientific “consensus” on global warming, or on smoking, or on any other government-friendly scientific chicanery that costs individuals their freedom and money?) Also, I think it is nearly flattering that so many trolls visit Rule of Reason. They must consider the blog a major threat to their premises and peace of mind.

And it was nearly amusing to read another Anonymous’s religious quotation: “Do what thou will shall be the whole of the Law.” Excuse my ignorance, but is that from Kant or from the Bible? This categorical imperative is also evident in the yahoo-ish, anti-intellectual rhetoric of both presidential candidates and their running mates. How could anyone sincerely defend Sarah Palin, whose political record is being whitewashed, suppressed and retrofitted with the same dishonesty and fervor as has been Obama’s?

Lastly, it was interesting to see Nick’s critics play by the Rulebook of Argumentative Irrelevancy and latch onto an incidental remark in his article that “a person afflicted with Down syndrome is only capable of being marginally productive (if at all)…” and beat it to death as though it was his primary point and premise. His major premise is that a woman owns her body; his minor premise is that a fetus in her body, defective or not, is an appendage until it can sustain its own life upon birth, whether as a billionaire wastrel or as a productive individual. His critics couldn’t deny with any credibility the validity of his major premise, and so resorted to skewing and misrepresenting his minor one, consequently losing all credibility as defenders and valuers of any kind of freedom.

Abortion and Down's Syndrome

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Nick Provenzo's recent post on Palin's Down syndrome child and the right to abortion has been inundated with comments from anti-abortion zealots, thanks to various hysterical distortions from LifeNews, LewRockwell.com, NewsBusters, and more.

However, I thought this comment said more than all the insane ravings of his critics:

I would like to thank you, Nicholas, for your stand here. As the mother of a child with Down syndrome born prior to Roe v. Wade and before the advent of pre-screening tests, I did not have the choice when it came to giving birth to my daughter. While I loved my daughter deeply (who is now deceased), had I known what I would have faced and had I had the freedom to choose to accept this responsibility or not, I very well might have been with the 90% of women who choose to terminate their pregnancy because of Down syndrome.

Those who think that it is vicious to not want to have a child with severe retardation should try raising with one before they pass judgment. It is no easy task; in fact, it is a cruelty made real when you realize that your beloved child can never think like a healthy person, never be independent, or find the love that a person can find when they are in full possession of all their faculties.

I spit on all of you here who would morally condemn a woman for rejecting such a fate. I spit on all of you here who would condemn such a choice as murder. You simply have no idea what you are talking about, and it offends me that you prance around as if you do. Walk a mile in my life before you presume to tell me that abortion is wrong.

Also, Nick has posted an excellent defense of abortion rights. I don't expect that bit of reasoned argument to slow the rate of death threats against him, however.

The Proper Subservience of Christian Women

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Some evangelicals are less than thrilled with Sarah Palin's new role as the Republican vice-presidential candidate. According to them, a Christian woman's proper place is in the home, raising her family and supporting her husband. While probably a minority opinion at present, such views are worthy of our attention, I think. They represent the leading edge of evangelical Christianity in America. If the Christians win their battle for American politics and culture, these views will become ever-more dominant. Women will be confined to their homes, relegated to a life of supporting husband and children. Women will not be lawyers, doctors, politicians, journalists, or entrepreneurs. They will be daughters, then wives, and then mothers.

If that seems insane, just consider the following quotes collected from Christian message boards about Sarah Palin:

Why is a wife and mother with five children (including a newborn with Down's syndrome) running for vice president? She has a bountiful amount of work cut out for her by the Lord sitting in her lap and around her dining room table. I can certainly respect her Christian and biblical views, but I am really amazed at Christians leaping to embrace putting a wife and mother into political office--particularly an office that will essentially make her the helpmate of the highest official in the land and practically remove her from her husband and children.

Isaiah 3:12 truly applies: "As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people! Those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths." I can assent to Sarah Palin's conservative views and even applaud them, but I mourn for a nation whose men have forgotten how to lead their families and their land in the way our Founders envisioned and the way God intended. A wife and mother has already been elected by God to the highest office in the land. She has her own particular husband to help, his calling to make successful, and her children to nurture and train to the glory of God. How could the vice-presidency possibly compare with a task that God has personally designed her to fill?

And:

The home, the family, the raising of children--it is the zenith of human accomplishment. It's a full-time job, requiring full-time attention if it's to encompass all God intended. [...]

The message is "women can have it all"...and it is a lie, because they can't.

The message is "men and women should have equal access to the same roles". The reality is, that's not how God created HIS universe to run. He created them male and female, and yes, by their very biological design, nature screams at our dull senses "YOU ARE DIFFERENT"! Created for different purposes, created to compliment one another in their life work.

Such views are not from nowhere: they are actively developed and advocated by Christian intellectuals. For example, some critics of Palin favorable quoted Christian minister William Einwechter's 2004 essay entitled "Should Christians Support a Woman for the Office of Civil Magistrate?" It argues that a woman ought not hold any public office, based purely on scripture. Here's the opening paragraph:

With more and more women entering the political sphere and running for political office, the conscientious, biblically oriented Christian is confronted with the question of whether or not he should give his support and vote to a woman. This question becomes more pressing for many when the "best candidate," i.e., the most conservative, pro-life candidate in a particular race is a woman. A number of years ago, we in Pennsylvania were confronted with this issue when an articulate, pro-life, politically conservative woman (who was also a wife and mother) ran for governor of our state. Many Christians enthusiastically supported her. But not all of us were confident that this was the right or consistent thing to do. The following essay grew out of the concern over her candidacy, and seeks to address the larger questions of the acceptability of women magistrates and the Christian's responsibility before God in regard to supporting a woman for political office.

His methodology is simple: scripture reigns supreme, reason is dispensable. He writes: "In approaching this matter, we need to first understand that these questions can only be answered from Scripture. Mere human opinion or reason is not sufficient for the Christian. The Word of God is the only infallible, authoritative standard for directing us into the paths of righteousness."

He considers four scriptural "arguments" against women holding political office. His primary case -- with the most far-reaching implications -- is found in the first section. Here it is, in full:

1. The Biblical Doctrine of the Headship of Man Disqualifies a Woman for Civil Office.

The scriptural revelation of the creation of man and woman, and the scriptural commentary on their creation establishes the headship of the man over the woman. The text of Genesis 2:7 and 2:18-24 teaches us that man was made first, and then the woman was made to be man's helper and companion. The Bible instructs us that this order of creation was by God's design, and that it establishes the positional priority of the man over the woman in regards to authority and leadership. In setting forth the authority of the man over the woman in the context of the local church, Paul appeals to the creation order saying, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve" (1 Tim. 2:13). In another passage, Paul states the divinely ordained order of authority and headship: "But I would have you to know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God" (1 Cor. 11:3). Therefore, the Apostle Paul teaches that God has decreed that the order of authority be as follows: God-Christ-Man-Woman. Each one in this "chain of command" is under the headship (i.e., authority) of the one preceding him or her. Later on in this same text, Paul, as in 1 Timothy 2, calls upon the order of creation to show man's headship over the woman. He says, "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man" (1 Cor. 11:8-9). The Bible explicitly states that the man has headship over the woman, and that this headship is not based on cultural factors, or even the fall; rather, it is based on the created order established by God Himself.

Now it is also plain in the Bible that God has ordained that the order of the headship of man must be maintained in each governing institution set up by God. There are three primary institutions established by the Lord for the ordering of human affairs. These are the family, the church, and the state. Each of these institutions has authority to govern within its appointed sphere. We could say, then, that there are three "governments" in the world: family government, church government, and state government. In each of these governments, God has commanded that men bear rule. The man has headship in the family (Eph. 5:22-24), the church (1 Tim. 2:11-14; 1 Cor. 14:34-35), and also by implication and command, in the state as well (1 Cor. 11:3; Ex. 18:21; see point 2 below).

Could it be that the man has headship only in the family and the church but not in the state? No, this could not be, lest you make God the author of confusion, and have Him violate in the state the very order He established at creation and has revealed in Holy Scripture! If one is going to argue for the acceptability of women bearing rule in the civil sphere, then to be consistent, he or she also needs to argue for the acceptability of women bearing rule in the family and the church. Now it is true that some attempt to do just that; but their denial of male headship for the family, church, and state is really a rejection of the Word of God and is a repudiation of God's created order. And it is not sufficient to contend that it is acceptable to support a woman for civil ruler when she is the best candidate, unless you are also prepared to argue that it is acceptable to advocate a woman for the office of elder because she is better suited than the available men in the church; and unless you are also prepared to say that the wife should rule over her husband if she is better equipped to lead than her husband is.

Notice that his arguments do not merely concern the proper place of women in politics. He explicitly claims that men must rule over women in the family, in the church, and in politics. Yet his analysis would apply just as well to any endeavor, including business. By his principles, no woman should ever claim any authority over any man in any sphere of life, regardless of her knowledge, skills, experience, and capacities. So a woman doctor ought never order a male nurse to medicate her patient as she directs. A woman police officer cannot rightfully demand a male criminal to submit himself to lawful arrest. A woman professor cannot fail a male student for cheating over his protests. A woman business owner cannot fire a male employee for failing to show up to work on time. God has designed men and women such that men always have "positional priority" over women in "authority and leadership."

That's our future -- unless we fight for rational values today.

Quick Roundup 363

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

Mr. Patchoulihead

Well, courtesy of Hurricane Ike, I missed getting my hair cut by my regular stylist before leaving town and instead got a two-fer in the Culture Shock Department when I took care of that in Cambridge yesterday.

I needed a cut some time before 2:00 so I could make it to an evening event in Waltham. Found this place through a Google search of barber shop recommendations, after passing over the top result, which read like its own staff "reviewed" it. The shop is described as "funky" by one customer. Consistently good reviews. Call 'em, explaining my situation, and they fit me in, no problem.

I've been using a stylist (rather than a barber) for a little over a year now. She won my loyalty by devising a new hair style for me that solved all the problems that normal thinning had been causing for some time with my old style, while updating it, making it far easier to maintain, and yet not radically altering the basic look. Ingenious. If a stylist can be an artist, then she certainly is one. She can work magic with any head of hair.

Nobody cuts hair like she can, but I did wonder how well I'd be able to convey what she did to this new guy. I've heard her describe what she does to the sides as a "fade". I don't know whether white barbers use the term, but yesterday makes me suspect that the answer is, "No." Still, I was satisfied overall with the final result.

So I navigated the business end of things well enough, but was too stunned by the conversation in the shop to miss the salon as much I expected to. Some kind of high-falutin' far-left news/talk radio was going on in the background. (Bonus: Until yesterday, I had never heard a radio ad for Matlab!) The other patron was talking about how his normally apolitical and "somewhat conservative" wife was livid about Sarah Palin and getting ready to donate huge amounts of cash to the Obama campaign. The barbers were on the same page as this guy, who was going on about "the lies" of the McCain campaign.

In Texas, such a conversation would be unthinkable among such "men on the street". Ordinary people there may lean a little to the left, but these people were so far out there, I am not sure how I could have even begun to engage them in a political conversation. Some time in a blue state will definitely be good intellectual practice for me. I hope.

The second wave of the culture shock came later, on the subway back. My barber had applied some kind of styling goop to the top of my head. In the shop, I got a strong whiff of mint. "Interesting," I thought with some indifference. I normally avoid using fragrances, but I was heading straight home to wash my hair anyway.

But I started sensing that there was some odd undertone to the scent of the goop that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Mint and .... What?!? At some point on the Red Line, the answer hit me: It was patchouli! Where I come from, only hippies use patchouli!

This place is nuts!

Case Closed

Via HBL is an instructive look at what should be the end of the "controversy" surrounding the conviction of the Rosenbergs for espionage. What I found most interesting about it was how much the Left did to cover for them. Even I was stunned.

To this day, this received wisdom [that the Rosenbergs were persecuted merely for being communists] permeates our educational system. A recent study by historian Larry Schweikart of the University of Dayton has found that very few college history textbooks say simply that the Rosenbergs were guilty; according to Schweikart, most either state that the couple were innocent or that the trial was "controversial," or they "excuse what [the Rosenbergs] did by saying, 'It wasn't that bad. What they provided wasn't important.' "

Being curious about how bloggers would react to this, I did a cursory blog search and found a ton of conservative commentary and little left-wing commentary. Many conservatives seemed of the mind that now, finally, the Left would "have to" admit they were wrong about the Rosenbergs.

This is wrong, of course. Men have a capacity for evasion of facts that would be unlimited but for natural selection. Amid the deafening silence are whispers that the whole thing is unimportant because the messenger, Ronald Radosh, holds a grudge and, besides, the events of the case happened so long ago. And, oh yeah, the LA Times marks the piece as "opinion".

Context and Lessons

Curious awhile back about an aspect of the job hunt that was causing me to wonder whether I was doing something gravely wrong (and worse, completely oblivious to), I stumbled upon an interesting pair of articles. The first half of "Job Search Pet Peeves" was of commiserative value, but a blog entry by a corporate recruiter offers an interesting explanation that at least makes sense of many of the items on that list -- and what not to do about a common job hunting situation.

If you find yourself in perpetual limbo about an interesting position, take a look at those articles -- and then keep on hunting. The more options you have, the less any one of them matters, and the less it will bother you for it to remain unresolved or go to someone else.

With that, I don my hunting gear and head out the door!

-- CAV

An "F" in Reading

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

Via Arts and Letters Daily is an article from the site's parent, The Chronicle of Higher Education, that discusses the pedagogical pitfalls of online content, both in terms of how people read content from a computer screen and in terms of how delivery through the Internet can affect comprehension.

Given one of the points it makes -- that we go for the "nut" as we browse the web -- I can't resist the temptation to provide a short, pithy excerpt, this being a quote from web researcher Jakob Nielsen. (But I do recommend reading the whole thing.)

We should accept that the Web is too fast-paced for big-picture learning. No problem; we have other media, and each has its strengths. At the same time, the Web is perfect for narrow, just-in-time learning of information nuggets -- so long as the learner already has the conceptual framework in place to make sense of the facts. [bold added]

The educational fad of exposing children to computers at a very young age has bothered me for a long time because a computer is just a tool and, as such, it is no better than the person using it.

The article argues that the widespread use of computers in educational settings may be detrimental to cognitive development. That point is well-taken, and I agree that much could be gained by having children do more learning without all the distractions of a computer to compete with the lesson at hand.

But it is noteworthy that the article describes a study of how "student achievement" in New York was influenced by a laptop program. Laptop use was found to have no effect on student achievement. If computer use is so detrimental to the development of young minds, shouldn't laptop users have scored lower on such a test?

More important, other than in the narrow skill set of knowing how to use a computer, why would we necessarily expect students to score better simply by virtue of familiarity with the use of a computer? Calculators are superior to abacuses and slide rules in many respects, but were we to test for a student's understanding of mathematical concepts, why would the use of a tool really matter, unless one tool gave better practice in the use of the concepts in question? (I dare say, I can easily imagine that inferior tools could often be better in this regard!)

Not mentioned in the article is the elephant in the room of the dismal quality of our educational system and its systematic, purposeful resemblance to the "hidden television set" of the modern, networked computer. Computers can be distracting in many ways, yes, but were we to consider that the dominant school of thought in education fails to "emphasize systematic study of the academic disciplines", we would probably better understand why our students can't make better use of computers than they do.

Conceptual development (which Nielsen alludes to above) and self-discipline are two qualities that are systematically omitted in today's dominant Progressive school of educational thought. Blaming modern technology for our failing classrooms now is as wrong-headed as expecting computers alone to somehow save our children from public education was in the past. (I don't think the article makes this error, but making the computer less prominent in education will not alone accomplish much in our current context.)

Rather than snatching tools from their grasp, perhaps we should save our children from the clutches of public education and its entrenched cadre of comprachicos.

-- CAV

Abortion and Eugenics

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The immensely popular conservative blog, Hot Air, put up a link that read, Objectivist writer: It’s very morally important to abort social burdens like Trig Palin. The link is to a post at Newsbusters criticizing this post by Nicholas Provenzo at Rule of Reason. I believe Lew Rockwell also linked to it.

The fur is flying in the comments section to Mr. Provenzo's post. I've read the post carefully twice to see what he wrote that is so controversial, but I can find nothing to disagree with. Despite Hot Air's mockery implying that Provenzo is a moron ("very morally"), the piece argues intelligently that it is rational and perfectly moral for a woman to abort a fetus she knows will be defective.

The post brings up a major argument by opponents of such abortions:

...the anti-abortion zealots try to attach a dirty little slur to these abortions, labeling them a form of eugenics. For example, in 2005, as he condemned those who opposed federal legislation that would have attempted to dissuade women carrying fetuses diagnosed with severe disabilities from having abortions, conservative pundit George Will wrote:

If it is not unobjectionable, let's identify the objectors, who probably favor the pernicious quest -- today's "respectable" eugenics -- for a disability-free society.

Eugenics is the opposite of a proper defense of a woman's right to abortion. Eugenics is collectivist. It is the idea that a race must be protected by weeding out the weak and making sure they do not breed. Eugenics holds that individuals must sacrifice for the good of the race.

A woman's right to an abortion has nothing to do with the good of any collective; it is only a matter of her individual rights. For her own selfish happiness, she has the right to abort a child that will be mentally retarded.

The comments to Provenzo's post, 108 comments long as I write, are mostly a cesspool of mysticism. The anti-abortionists assert, as they always do, that abortion is killing a baby. A fetus is not an actual baby, but a potential one, just as an acorn is not an actual oak tree. I believe it is the idea that God inserts a soul into the fetus at conception that confuses the believers.

I didn't notice any liberals attacking Provenzo, which figures, considering where the links came from, and considering that liberals are pro-choice. Those comments confirm my suspicion that America will never be destroyed by the nihilist left, but by conservatives and libertarians who pose as defenders of liberty but are in fact its enemies.

Environmentalists Run Amok In the UK

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Two recent stories from the UK should serve as a warning for Americans. Unless we fight the battle against bad environmentalist ideas now, we'll be facing similar problems in the US in just a few years.

The first story describes a proposed law in (part of) the UK that would require drivers to turn off their engines if they are stuck in traffic: "Drivers could face £20 fine for leaving engines running in traffic jams".

The goal, of course, is to reduce pollution and carbon emissions, and it would be humorous if it were not so wrong-headed.

The second more alarming story comes via Amit Ghate. A jury in the UK has acquitted a group of Greenpeace vandals who inflicted thousands of dollars worth of damage against a coal-fuled power plant:

Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law

...Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage -- such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

Of course, once one accepts the principle that it's ok to commit violence against property in order to stop global warming, then the next logical step will be the (currently fictional) argument that, "the best way to reduce carbon emissions is to kill as many rich Westerners as possible".

How will it be before long before that far-fetched fictional example turns into tomorrow's real-life killing spree?

This is all the more reason to support the "EPA Ruination" project by John Lewis and Paul Saunders. Feel free to forward their "Letter to All Americans" to any appropriate venues and/or use their talking points in your own letters, conversations, etc. Their letter also includes links on how to give feedback to the EPA.

Remember: "Outlawing carbon means outlawing civilization."

This cartoon from Wondermark pretty much says it all:

Advertisers vs. the Free Market

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

Ayn Rand Center Press Release

Advertisers vs. the Free Market
September 17, 2008

Washington, D.C.--The Association of National Advertisers, a trade association representing 400 companies, has asked the Justice Department to use antitrust law to halt a proposed Google-Yahoo search advertising partnership. The deal, the group claims, will “diminish competition,” increase Google and Yahoo’s “market power,” and “raise prices.”

“This call to prevent Google and Yahoo from collaborating is an attack on the free market,” said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Google and Yahoo, individually or combined, have no power to force anyone to advertise with them; their only power is the power to continually persuade advertisers that their services are the best use of advertisers’ money.

“If the members of the Association of National Advertisers object to the advertising options offered under a new Google and Yahoo partnership, there is a simple solution: don’t advertise with them. But they have no right to dictate to Google and Yahoo how to run their businesses.”

###  ### ###

Mr. Epstein’s op-eds and letters to the editor have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Canada’s National Post, and the Washington Times. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Epstein has been a guest on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs.

Alex Epstein is available for interviews.
Contact: Larry Benson          
E-mail: media@aynrandcenter.org          
Phone: (949) 222-6550 ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                      RSS 

Quick Roundup 362

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

(Just Part of) The Difference between Houston and New Orleans

As my property sits unattended after Ike's unwelcome visit Saturday, I find the Houston Chronicle news report containing the following to be encouraging:

Houston police have arrested almost 100 people suspected of looting since Hurricane Ike barreled through the area. Sixty-one were taken into custody from 6 a.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. on Sunday and another 33 during the following 24-hour period.

"We expect those numbers to continually decrease," said HPD Sgt. John Chomiak. He said additional police patrols are working 12-hour shifts.

At Sonny Ngo's east Houston convenience store, the S&T Food Mart on Navigation near Wayside, two men on Sunday tried to force their way into his business. "I didn't let them inside," Ngo said. "They weren't from the neighborhood."

Ngo said a group of regular customers confronted the two men, keeping them there until police arrived. "The good people in the neighborhood supported me," Ngo said. "They backed me up." [bold added]

The paper is also keeping tabs on power restoration efforts on its front page -- except that I'd prefer this to be listed in terms of "percent restored" rather than "percent out". This is, after all, only the biggest power outage in Texas history!

Wordweb Environmentalism

Dinesh Pillay used a software program called "Wordweb", until he read its unreasonable licensing conditions:

WordWeb free version may be used indefinitely only by people who take at most two commercial flights (not more than one return flight) in any 12 month period. People who fly more than this need to purchase the Pro version if they wish to continue to use it after a 30-day trial period.

In better days, an airline executive would hear about this and find a way to bankroll a competitor, and there would be a critical mass of people calling for the boycott of this software that it deserves.

The Case for Abstaining

I will not be casting my vote for John McCain in the upcoming presidential election because he has a track record as an enemy of freedom of speech. So should I help elect his collectivist twin, Barack Obama, or should I abstain?

A recent posting at HBL by Harry Binswanger points the the below video of Barack Obama as food for thought for those considering voting for him. It comes from the time before he moderated his stated positions in order to broaden his appeal among the general electorate.


After considering his suicidal views on national defense, it is also worth noting his dearth of character witnesses, something Charles Krauthammer recently discussed:

Eerily missing at the Democratic convention this year were people of stature who were seriously involved at some point in Obama's life standing up to say: I know Barack Obama. I've been with Barack Obama. We've toiled/endured together. You can trust him. I do.

The strategy of the Democrats, ever since the party was taken over by the New Left, has been to conceal its agenda from the voting public, and Barack "the human Rorschach Test" Obama would seem to be the very incarnation of this strategy. Electorally, this strategy can easily backfire, as Myrhaf (from whom I learned of the Krauthammer piece) describes: "An undefined man is vulnerable to hostile definition."

I don't want McCain, but I am afraid he will win.

Update: See also, Myrhaf's post, "The Blank Screen President", for another take on Obama's changing "positions".

Two Interesting Reads

Darren Cauthon recently read -- and strongly recommends -- the book based on Randy Pausch's inspiring "Last Lecture".

Meanwhile, Apollo points to some talks by Michelle Goldberg on her book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism.

-- CAV

Updates: (1) Changed "Abstention" to "Abstaining". (2) Added update to "The Case for Abstaining".

Around the World Wide Web 78

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

1. When McCain beats Obama in a landslide in November, you can think of it as job security for Tina Fey.

2. What's the Matter With Canada? subtitled, "How the world's nicest country turned mean," is actually a story about what is right with Canada. The liberal writer of this piece does not understand freedom and equates socialism with morality, and is therefore baffled by the conservatives in Canada.

Canada was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the fight against climate change, and as recently as 2005 it was the Canadian environment minister who helped broker an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. Then last December, at a U.N. conference in Bali to negotiate a successor to Kyoto, Canada executed a neat 180-degree turn, trying to block an agreement that set a target for future cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions. Of the 190 countries at the conference, only Russia supported Canada's position.

Thank you, Canada and Russia! (And what does it say when Russia is saving us from environmentalist regulations?)

...Canada is now the only Western country that still has one of its citizens held in Guantanamo, but Ottawa has refused to press for his release.

Imagine that -- Canada is letting a terrorist rot in Guantanamo. Oh, the humanity.

The Conservative Party, formed five years ago in a merger of the country's two right-wing parties, is Canada's first experience with an anti-government, socially conservative party in the mold of Reagan-Bush Republicans. Its leader, Stephen Harper, who is now the prime minister, once called Canada "a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term."

Man, that really is mean. If they keep this up, where will America's Democrats threaten to move if Republicans win an election?

3. How can conservatives listen to Sarah Palin and think she is on the side of freedom? She is every bit as ignorant of economics and every bit the statist nightmare that John McCain is. Watch her speak in Colorado as she promises to continues the trend of expanding regulations and persecuting CEO's. Because management has not run companies "responsibly," this fascist wants to stop "multi-million dollar payouts and golden parachutes to CEO's who break the public trust." She is promising non-objective law and greater intervention in the economy. Her ideas will not solve the problem, which is too much government regulations in the first place.

The coming McCain/Palin administration will be bad for America. Four years from now we will all be a little more enslaved than we are now.

4. Obama meddled in Iraq.

The Obama campaign spent more than five hours on Monday attempting to figure out the best refutation of the explosive New York Post report that quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying that Barack Obama during his July visit to Baghdad demanded that Iraq not negotiate with the Bush Administration on the withdrawal of American troops. Instead, he asked that they delay such negotiations until after the presidential handover at the end of January.

The three problems, according to campaign sources: The report was true, there were at least three other people in the room with Obama and Zebari to confirm the conversation, and there was concern that there were enough aggressive reporters based in Baghdad with the sources to confirm the conversation that to deny the comments would create a bigger problem.

Maybe if Obama ignores it long enough the MSM will move on.

As to the original meddling, I think so little Obama's intelligence and his grip on reality that I doubt he understood he was doing anything wrong.

5. Some of Obama's coworkers from the '80s dispute Obama's version of what he did while working at a newsletter publisher. For instance, he says he had a secretary when in reality he did not.

We're not holding our breath until Andrew Sullivan and the Kossacks jump up and down and shriek that Obama is a "LIAR!"

6. McCain would rather attack businessmen and undermine capitalism than attack Democrats:

John McCain was interviewed this morning on CNBC's Sqawk Box program about the Wall Street crisis by the lone conservative anchor, Joe Kernan. Kernan, doing everything he could to point McCain in the right direction, fought an uphill battle as McCain was blaming most of the problem on CEO's who had "broken the public trust" and on "unfettered capitalism" in the spirit of "Teddy Roosevelt."

McCain managed to blame both parties equally in the mess, refusing to acknowledge that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman Brothers are all much more aligned with Democrats in congress than with Republicans. The Arizona Senator mentioned that he was willing to "reach across the aisle" to help solve these problems and "restore Americans' faith in government."

You know what this is recipe for? BUSINESS AS USUAL IN WASHINGTON, D.C. Both Obama's promise of change and McCain's promise of reform are two steaming piles of horseshit. All we will get is more and more government intervention in the economy until someday it all collapses. America will then be ready for a dictator who promises order amid the chaos.

Season of Mud

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In an election year, the time between Labor Day and the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is Mud-Slinging Season. Both parties are in the spirit of the season.

The Democrats, traumatized by the Swiftboat campaign against Kerry in 2004, have been assuring their base since the primaries that they won't let it happen this year. This year, we hear over and over, they will give as well as they get. In reality they always have given as well as gotten, but as altruists their self-image is so wrapped up in the idea that they are nice, benevolent people that they evade their own mudslinging. Their moments of victimization at the hands of the beastly Republicans (Swiftboat! Swiftboat!) are seared into their memory, but they forget that they invented Borking.

Obama has been reeling since McCain chose Palin as his Vice-President -- and whether you like McCain or not (I do not), you have to admit that his choice was brilliant, simply because it stole the spotlight from The One. (Picking a VP has always been about helping a candidate win an election. JFK is reported to have loathed Johnson, but he needed Texas so LBJ was his man.)

So what do Democrats want Obama to do now? What else? Get dirty:

According to NBC and the New York Times, Democrats have put enormous pressure on Barack Obama to start hitting John McCain in a more personal manner and to get his momentum back in this race. Team Obama says that the “bed-wetting” will not knock them off their game plan, but according to Andrea Mitchell, that may change.

Obama has taken some mockery because he has announced three or four times that he will take off the gloves.

Wham! You do that again and the gloves are off. Wham! You must not have heard what I said. One more time and the gloves are coming off... Wham! Okay. Okay, that hurt. It is bare knuckle time, baby. Wham! You are about to ANGER ME. I shall doff these expensive gloves. And I am just crazy enough to do it. Wham! What the hell is wrong with y... Wham!

The geniuses at Obama Central came up with an ad criticizing McCain for not using email. (That is some bare-knuckle brawling, man.) It turns out that McCain can't type because of his injuries from being tortured. Obama's attack succeeded only in reminding people that McCain is a war hero and that Obama's campaign is too incompetent to use google. Over the weekend the Obama camp decided to attack McCain because he is old.

Mickey Kaus is unimpressed by Obama's negative campaigning against McCain's supposed lack of honesty.

The current lib blog-MSM-campaign tack--getting outraged by McCain's "lies"--is a total loser strategy. Why?

a) MSM outrage doesn't sway voters anymore. It didn't even back in 1988, when the press tried to make a stink about George H.W. Bush's use of "flag factories," etc. After this year's failed MSM Palin assault, it certainly won't work;

b) When Dems get outraged at unfairness they look weak. How can they stand up to Putin if they start whining when confronted with Steve Schmidt? McCain's camp can fake umbrage all it wants--the latest is that an Atlantic photographer took some nasty photos that the mag didn't run!--and nobody will accuse MCain of being weak. That's so unfair. A double standard. Dems can learn to live with it or complain about the unfairness for another 4 years. Their choice.

c) It's almost always impossible to prove that a Republican attack is a 100% lie. Either there's a germ of truth (Kerry did hype his wartime heroism at least a bit) or the truth is indeterminate (i.e., there's no way of knowing what Obama meant by "lipstick"--just because he and McCain used the word earlier doesn't mean he didn't think using it now, after Palin's speech, didn't add a witty resonance).

d) Lecturing the public on what's 'true" and what's a "lie" (when the truth isn't 100% clear) plays into some of the worst stereotypes about liberals--that they are preachy know-it-alls hiding their political motives behind a veneer of objectivity and respectability.

e) Inevitably the people being outraged on Obama's behalf will phrase their arguments in ways well-designed to appeal to their friends--and turn off the unconverted. ('This is just what they did to John Kerry and Michael Dukakis!' As if the public yearns for the lost Kerry and Dukakis Presidencies. 'Today's kindergarteners need some sex education. Just because Republicans are old fashioned ...' etc. Or 'These are Karl Rove tactics,' which signifies little to non-Dem voters except a partisan rancor they'd like to put behind them.)

As always with liberals, there is a weird disconnect from reality. All their huffing and puffing about going negative should not be necessary because they have the MSM to do their mud-slinging for them. For the last two weeks we have seen the most remarkable attempt, both extensive and intensive, at character assassination at least since Clarence Thomas or Dan Quayle. The media have been desperate to define Sarah Palin as stupid, inexperienced, strange and nasty. They have employed outright lies, such as that Trig Palin is not really Sarah's son, but her daughter's son. Leftist radio host Randi Rhodes has suggested that Palin molests teenage boys. It has been observed that in two days Palin underwent more investigation from the media than Obama has suffered in 18 months. Charlie Martin is keeping track of the rumors about Palin; he is up to 71 now.

The left side of the blogosphere believes its mission is to sling the mud that is beneath Obama to sling. Andrew Sullivan hyperventilates:

I intend to be relentless for the next six weeks, morning, noon and night, weeks and weekdays, exposing the lies of the McCain-Palin campaign and showing their unfitness - in terms of competence, decency, intelligence, and experience - to become president and vice-president of the US. I will be making arguments and presenting facts in ways I do not expect and do not want Obama himself to engage him.

But these last two weeks - and this absurd, insulting pick for veep - has roused me. As I know it has roused many. McCain needs to be more than defeated. He needs to be exposed as the dishonest, despicable, desperate and dishonorable cynic he has become.

Let's hope he wiped the foam from his mouth when he finished writing that.

(Sullivan, just to provide context, happily publicized the unfounded rumor about Trig Palin's parentage. When the rumor became a joke because of pictures of Sarah Palin in full pregnancy, and testimonies from eye witnesses in Alaska, Sullivan was still demanding that the McCain campaign prove the arbitrary lie was not true.)

McCain has slammed Obama with some effective ads. He belittled Obama as a celebrity, likening him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. He mocked Obama's messianic pretensions. He attacked Obama for wanting to teach sex education to kindergartners. He hit Obama about his use of the phrase "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," which ad managed to dominate two or three news cycles.

McCain's ads have been effective at defining Obama because Obama is an oddly undefined man. There is something shadowy and obscure about him. Who really is Obama? Charles Krauthammer has observed,

Eerily missing at the Democratic convention this year were people of stature who were seriously involved at some point in Obama's life standing up to say: I know Barack Obama. I've been with Barack Obama. We've toiled/endured together. You can trust him. I do.

An undefined man is vulnerable to hostile definition. By contrast, earlier this year the Obama campaign quietly trotted out a series of prominent Democrats to belittle McCain's military service. (Another smear campaign Democrats evade as they keep telling themselves, "We're the nice guys! We're the nice guys!") This campaign failed because voters know who John McCain is. Democrat sniping at his military experience was a loser that only reflexive, anti-American leftists could entertain as a good idea.

I would submit that Republican negative campaigns have been quite effective for over three decades now. This is not, as Democrats believe, because Republicans are naturally mean-spirited and Democrats are these wide-eyed Bambis who must force themselves to attack their fellow man. It is because Democrats cannot be honest with the American people about their socialism; if they were, the party would go the way of the Whigs in two weeks. This sets them up like bowling pins to be knocked down by a few ads pointing to the facts of a candidate's liberalism.

John McCain promised "to take the high road," then immediately went negative against Obama. Despite protestations of high-mindedness on both sides, they both have gone negative, as candidates have since the birth of the Republic. They do it because it works. When mud-slinging stops working, then the slinging of mud will stop.

Neither side can afford to run just positive ads because both parties are essentially the same: they are welfare state parties. They are two gangs fighting over power so they can spend the taxpayers' money the way their pressure groups want it spent. Neither party stands for real political values such as individual rights and liberty. Neither side has ideals worth advertising.

When you have two parties dedicated to expanding government power in a country that once believed, long ago, in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then it is best to say as little as possible about your true intentions. It is much safer to attack the other party and keep the focus on them -- attack, attack, attack. Rush Limbaugh has made a career mocking liberals, but you'll notice he says little positive about Republicans these days. What is there to say? "The Republicans will destroy your freedom only half as much as the Democrats"? Not many votes in that message.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan Nightmare

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

Ayn Rand Center Press Release

The Afghanistan-Pakistan Nightmare
September 15, 2008

Washington, D.C.--Seven years into the Afghanistan war, America faces resurgent Taliban and Islamist forces carrying out more daring and increasingly deadly attacks on U.S. troops. Suicide bombings, once rare, are a commonplace in Afghanistan. According to news reports, the number of roadside bombs has been climbing (from 1,931 in 2006 to 2,615 last year). More Americans died in Afghanistan this year, so far, than did in the first three years of the war, combined.

Appearing before Congress, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported, with signal understatement, that he’s “not convinced we’re winning in Afghanistan.”

Why has this war--once thought of as the right war--gone so wrong?

U.S. military and intelligence officials have pointed to the tribal belt along the Afghan-Pakistan border as a source of the problem. The region is a safe haven for Islamists, where they train, plot and launch attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan (and on targets in the West). Many officials suspect Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI, of colluding with the Islamists and allowing them sanctuary, and complain that Pakistan’s government--a supposed U.S. ally--has failed to do enough to root out the Islamists. The remedy now being pushed in Washington involves sending U.S. Special Operations forces on raids in the tribal areas (as recently happened) and deploying several thousand more troops in Afghanistan.

But while there’s reason to believe Islamists enjoy the support of Pakistan’s intelligence services and military, this is far from the fundamental reason why, despite a U.S. war against them, the Islamists are resurgent in Afghanistan. This nightmare is yet another result of Washington’s broader “compassionate” war.

From the beginning, our military was ordered to pursue Taliban fighters only if it simultaneously showed “compassion” to the Afghans. The U.S. military dropped bombs--but instead of ruthlessly pounding key targets, it was ordered gingerly to avoid hitting holy shrines and mosques (known to be Taliban hideouts) and to shower the country with food packages. And even more so today, according to a report by the New York Times, “vast numbers of public, religious and historic sites make up a computer database of no-strike zones” while Air Force lawyers vet all air strikes. The U.S. deployed ground forces--but instead of focusing exclusively on capturing or killing the enemy, they were also diverted to “reconstruction” projects for the sake of the Afghan population.

The Bush administration allowed the enablers of bin Laden to flee and find a welcome home in Pakistan’s tribal region, where they regrouped. Washington then passed off to Pakistan the dirty work of rooting them out. Given that Pakistan had helped create and put the Taliban in power, it should be no surprise that the Islamists there have grown stronger. (They feel themselves so safe that they hold press conferences and give interviews by cell phone.)

The half-hearted war in Afghanistan failed to smash the Taliban and al Qaeda. Instead of defeating them, Washington’s timid war scattered the Islamist forces and left them with the moral fortitude to regroup and launch a brazen comeback. What we need is a war policy that proudly places America’s interests as its exclusive moral concern and ruthlessly destroys our enemies.

### ### ###

Mr. Journo is a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. 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, 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 on this topic.

To interview Mr. Journo or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

                                                                                       RSS 

<>

How NOT to Teach China a Lesson

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

"It is the government's duty to intervene. Now we have a very good example that it is acceptable."    -- former Chinese government advisor

What is this government official referring to? Could it be the Russian invasion of Georgia? The latest move by Venezuelan strong-man Hugo Chavez to nationalize more of his country's industry? Not at all. The official refers to Treasury Secretary Paulsen's decision last week to effectively nationalize the U.S. mortgage industry.

As fellow blogger, Gallileo articulated last week, this nationalization was simply making a long standing situation explicit. However, this very public act serves as a demonstration of how far away from the free market the US has actually strayed, and how badly we undercut our efforts to influence other nations' policies.

From a Wall Street Journal article, "U.S. Plan serves as Template For China to Bolster Its Markets"

Still, over the past 30 years, China has studied the U.S. economic model and cherry-picked elements to introduce little by little. It has adopted U.S.-style financial principles to build a market-based system for trading stock. It has invited U.S. financiers to help, with cash and advice, transform its banks into consumer-focused firms with mortgages and private lending. America-focused economic courses are popular at Chinese universities.

U.S. officials have often called on China to cease heavy-handed interventions and occasionally lectured Beijing on financial issues such as how it manages its currency. With the U.S. having to increase its own market intervention, foreign calls for liberalization are likely to be received more cynically in Beijing.

"I think the Chinese regulators will learn the wrong lesson from this," says Liu Jing, professor of accounting and finance at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing. "Both systems have problems. The problem in China is too much government control, not too little. And they will end up thinking that they should control even more."

The Federal bail-outs, nationalizations and liquidity injections over this crisis are some of the largest interventions in the financial sector since the Great Depression. They are an example of statism, and statist moves. But as this example points out, the US is seen by others as trumpeting the free-market, as an example of how to run free markets, and it is the name of the free market that will be sullied instead of the true cause here, statism.

As Yaron Brook effectively points out in his recent Forbe's op-ed, "The Government Did It," the blame for this financial crisis is to be laid squarely at the doorstep of big government and statist policies. This not an example of the free market mismanagement, but of statism, using an altruist philosophy, run amok.

Again, the The Wall Street Journal article,

Overall, however, the U.S. housing crisis has raised questions about the wisdom of adopting too much American-style capitalism that aren't likely to dissipate soon. The U.S. mortgage crisis is "sobering" for Chinese, who are used to believing "that American financial markets are the best regulated and best managed," says Mr. Zhou [Zhou Dunren, deputy director of the Pudong Institute for the U.S. Economy].

What other nations get wrong when they see this example is that this is a case of American-style statism, not capitalism. True American-style capitalism takes one form, lasseiz-faire, and it would do America some good to once again start practicing it.

Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Most NoodleFood readers should be aware that the Ayn Rand Institute is in the process of opening a Washington, DC office. If you haven't heard, here's the official press release:

Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights Press Release

Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights to Open in Washington, D.C.
August 18, 2008

Irvine, CA--The Ayn Rand Institute is preparing to launch its new public policy and media center, the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, which will open later this year in Washington, D.C. The Center's Web site has already been launched, and can be visited at http://www.aynrandcenter.org.

The Ayn Rand Center is named after author and philosopher Ayn Rand (19051982), who is best known for her novels "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," and for her original philosophy Objectivism.

According to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "The Ayn Rand Center's mission is to advance individual rights--the rights of each person to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness--as the moral basis for a fully free, laissez-faire capitalist society."

Toward this end, the Ayn Rand Center will promote the philosophical case for individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism to the public policy and business communities, the media, the general public, and elected officials and their staffs.

Among its various activities, the Ayn Rand Center will sponsor writing and research; create audio and video commentaries; provide experts to discuss current issues in the media; host public events, talks, lectures, forums, panel discussions, and debates; offer programs to businessmen; reach out to policymakers; and assist victims of governmental abuse in their efforts to defend themselves on moral grounds. The Ayn Rand Center will also produce articles, op-eds, press releases and letters to the editor, all of which were formerly produced by the Ayn Rand Institute.

"We are confident," said Dr. Brook, "that the Ayn Rand Center will be instrumental in establishing a future society in which each individual is left free to think and to act on his own best judgment, in which production and profit are seen as virtuous, and in which government is strictly limited to a single function: protecting the legitimate rights of its citizens."

However, some of you might not be aware that my very best friend in the whole wide world, Lin Zinser, has abandoned her beloved Colorado to take charge of that office. Here's her official employee description from the web site:

Lin Zinser
Vice President of Public Outreach

Lin Zinser oversees operations of the Ayn Rand Center and its public outreach programs, including media and think tank relations, along with outreach to professional groups.

For the past few weeks, Lin has been working for ARI from Colorado, with occasional trips to Irvine. She left Colorado for good on Monday. She will be settling into her new office in Washington next week.

I must admit: the reality of Lin's departure has yet to sink in for me. We will feel the loss of her enormously here in Colorado. However, I am super-excited for her -- and for ARI. She's going to do fantastic work in DC.

British Educational Bureaucracy

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This short satirical video mocks the arrogance and paternalism of the bureaucrats who run the British educational system, but most of the arguments apply equally well to socialized health care. Or socialized anything!



The American equivalent in health care would be ABC News Medical Editor Dr. Tim Johnson's comments on individuals buying health insurance directly from an insurance company instead of through one’s employer. He stated (halfway through the following video):

The idea that individuals are going to have enough knowledge and enough savvy and enough insight and, frankly, enough guts to make choices all by themselves is pretty much a pipe dream.

(Via Brian Schwartz.)

Two Bits of Good News...

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

... from the Coalition for Secular Government:

Last Wednesday, Ari Armstrong and I attended a fundraising dinner for the Colorado chapter of Republican Majority for Choice. Ari and I were generously invited to the event because of our issue paper, "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person."

I was very impressed with the 200-strong turnout, as well as the commitment to individual rights so clearly expressed by master of ceremonies Hank Brown. The event was a bright spot in our fight against Colorado's Amendment 48, which would grant full legal rights to fertilized eggs in Colorado's constitution. I do hope to see more pro-choice Republicans speaking up for reproductive rights within their party.

Ari Armstrong's op-ed -- "With Palin, McCain ignores Colorado warning" -- was published by the Boulder Weekly. That op-ed was distributed by the Coalition for Secular Government.

Independent of CSG, Ari also published an excellent op-ed in the Rocky Mountain News entitled Lessons for U.S. politicians from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this weekend. (Ari is the author of a fantastic short book Values of Harry Potter.)

Palin's Down syndrome child and the right to abortion

By noreply@blogger.com (Nicholas Provenzo) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Like many, I am troubled by the implications of Alaska governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's decision to knowingly give birth to a child disabled with Down syndrome. Given that Palin's decision is being celebrated in some quarters, it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome (or by extension, any unborn fetus)—a freedom that anti-abortion advocates seek to deny.

A parent has a moral obligation to provide for his or her children until these children are equipped to provide for themselves. Because a person afflicted with Down syndrome is only capable of being marginally productive (if at all) and requires constant care and supervision, unless a parent enjoys the wealth to provide for the lifetime of assistance that their child will require, they are essentially stranding the cost of their child's life upon others.

So while anti-abortion commentators such as Michael Franc of the National Review sees Down syndrome's victims as "ambassadors of God" who "offer us the opportunity to rise to that greatest of all challenges," for many, that opportunity for challenge is little more than a lifetime of endless burden. In this light, it is completely legitimate for a woman to look at the circumstances of her life and decide that having a child with Down syndrome (or any child for that matter) is not an obligation that she can accept. After all, the choice to have a child is a profoundly selfish choice; that is, a choice that is an expression of the parent's personal desire to create new life.

And most parents seek to create healthy life; in the case of the unborn fetuses shown to have severe developmental disabilities, one study reports that over 90% of these fetuses are aborted prior to birth. But if you notice, the anti-abortion zealots try to attach a dirty little slur to these abortions, labeling them a form of eugenics. For example, in 2005, as he condemned those who opposed federal legislation that would have attempted to dissuade women carrying fetuses diagnosed with severe disabilities from having abortions, conservative pundit George Will wrote:

If it is not unobjectionable, let's identify the objectors, who probably favor the pernicious quest -- today's "respectable" eugenics -- for a disability-free society.

So in the anti-abortion advocate's eyes, a parent's desire to raise healthy children by squelching unhealthy fetuses while the are still in the womb is little more than a pernicious quest, but it is not considered a pernicious quest to knowingly bring severely disabled children into this world. On the contrary, such a choice is held out as an great example of upstanding morality. For example, consider this recent press release from a conservative anti-abortion advocacy group which celebrated Plain's birth announcement:

The Palin family is a wonderful example of a family who made the right choice to embrace their child and his future. Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), commends Governor Palin, saying, "She is even more beautiful inside than out. Her proud and warm announcement of the birth of their special child revealed the depth of love and faith of this extraordinary woman. May God give America more women and statesmen like her.

"Special needs children can bring out the best in people. They draw out compassion, patience, a joy for the simple things in life in people around them," says Wright. "In some ways, we need special needs people more than they need us."

That is, we need the mentally retarded to teach us how to better sacrifice our lives and divest ourselves of our self-interested ways more than they need us to care for them. At Noodlefood, Diana Hsieh condemns such a stand as "the worship of retardation." Given that Palin had complete foreknowledge of her child's severe disability yet nevertheless chose to have it, it is hard not to see her choice as anything less.

Book Review of 'Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism' by Michelle Goldberg

By noreply@blogger.com (Doug) from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The organized push from radical Christians to dissolve the separation between church and state is currently one of the most potent threats to individual rights in the United States. With Kingdom Coming, Michelle Goldberg presents a detailed intellectual history of Christian nationalism and how it is changing the culture. In particular, if Dr. Onkar Ghate's culture change lecture at OCON 2008 inspired you to do more research on the threat of the Religious Right, Kingdom Coming is an excellent book for further reading.

This book is rich in intellectual history. In the first chapter, Goldberg explains Dominionism, which holds that Christians have the god-given right and duty to be sovereign over one's country, if not the entire world. This idea derives from Christian Reconstructionism, which argues that American law should be replaced by Biblical law.

You will learn about many important figures in the intellectual origins of Christian nationalism. This includes the following thinkers and writers:

• R. J. Rushdoony, the profoundly influential prolific writer who wrote that homosexuals, blasphemers and unchaste women should be sentenced to death as well as insisted that Jesus Christ would not return until Christians establish a thousand-year reign on Earth. Rushdoony is the father of Christian Reconstructionism.
• Francis Schaeffer, whose Christian Manifesto argued that history is a contest between two antipodal forces: the Christian worldview and a materialist (secular) worldview, that the U.S. was founded on a Christian Consensus and that any public official who "commands what is contrary to God's Law [abrogates his authority]." Unfortunately, Goldberg only speaks of Schaeffer for a little over two pages.
• David Barton, a Christian revisionist historian who writes extensively on how the separation between church and state is a myth and that the founding fathers intended for basic biblical principles to permeate public life.
• Marvin Olasky, a prolific writer who is considered the founder of Compassionate Conservatism. One of Olasky's major works, The Tragedy of American Compassion, argues that there was a golden age of social services provided by churches until the secular government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt made social welfare the government's responsibility. President George W. Bush cites Olasky as his leading influence for funding faith-based initiatives.

This book also thoroughly documents how religion is permeating American culture. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Many widely-read revisionist history books such as Barton's Original Intent.
• Textbooks designed to bring Christian science and morality into classrooms such as the intelligent design championing text Of Pandas and People.
• Television shows that promote Christian ideology such as Pat Robertson's 700 Club.
• Rock concerts and campus clubs intended to convert and recruit the younger generation.
• Highly influential political activists such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Ralph Reed and their respective non-profit political organizations.
• Active Christian think-tanks such as Answers in Genesis, Discovery Institute and the Family Research Council.
• Media moguls such as the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
• Many recent/current legislators with radical religious agendas such as Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, Rick Santorum, Jesse Helms and former House Majority Leader Tom Delay.

After the first, each chapter is organized around a specific political campaigns that the Religious Right has embraced: against gays, for intelligent design, for faith-based initiatives, for abstinence-only education and against "activist" judges. The ongoing war on abortion rights is also thoroughly treated.

My only complaint is that, like a waitress who seasons your food without asking, the author rudely inserts her socialist views throughout the book. She even explicitly celebrates FDR's New Deal for "[bringing] socialism to America." As if everyone who is anti-religion is also pro-socialism! Irritating as this is, it does not ruin an otherwise informative book.

If you enjoyed the above review, please rate it as helpful on Amazon.com. My Amazon version of this review can be found here. The more helpful ratings I receive, the higher my visibility is on Amazon.com. You can access all of my reviews on Amazon.com here.

My Hand, and How I Play It

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

I woke up this morning at my mother's home in Mississippi to the brightness of cloud-scattered sunlight in a happy, tranquil emotional state it is impossible for me to describe adequately. There are elements of the feeling that goes with my very distinct recollection of playing in a sandbox in the shade during a sunny morning just before my first day of kindergarten -- the rest of that day escapes me -- and a somewhat "tropical" mood (to use a crude approximation) I sometimes get when I listen to some of Bob Marley's music.

That feeling, fortunately, has not entirely dissipated, but I do recall thinking it odd, in a very good sense, to feel that way as I woke up further and remembered that today, Hurricane Ike is probably doing -- or has done -- whatever it will do to the house in Houston.

I write now -- before looking at any hurricane news -- partly to enjoy the small dose of normalcy that writing can afford me and partly to collect and record some very interesting thinking I have done over the last couple of days. If I recorded the mundane details of the Rita evacuation, my chronicles of the travails of Ike will look inward a little more, to how I dealt with them.


As I mentioned just before boarding up here, I had planned an evacuation in three stages: (1) Get out of immanent danger. (2) Evaluate the post-strike situation. (3) Act accordingly.

As with Rita, Ike demanded an evacuation just before a week-long trip out of town I was already planning. In the one case, I was to take a trip down memory lane, heading to Jackson for the twenty year reunion of my high school class. In this case, I am headed to Boston to see my wife, who has already relocated there, and for purposes related to my job hunt.

My flight to Boston is Tuesday, or at least it is scheduled for Tuesday. An event I must attend for networking purposes is Wednesday: I would really like to attend it because it may offer me a chance to meet someone in a position to help me get a job with one of my favorite companies. In addition to preserving my life, then, I needed to have a way to keep building my future.

Houston's official disaster plan, of "hiding from the wind", was foolish advice for me for two reasons. (I worry that it was bad advice generally.) First, any one of the enormous pine and ash -- or is that "trash"? -- trees surrounding my house could fall on it to turn it into a death trap during the storm. Second -- and I was not accounting for this when I decided to leave -- the lack of electrical power and the logistical nightmares brought on by littered and blocked streets would have limited anything I could do for at least a week afterwards to physical labor and "guarding" whatever was left at the house. Did I mention that I don't own a gun?

How does one react to such a potential disaster, whose effects can range from practically nil to a near-total loss of possessions? My plan was not a bad first stab, but the nature of the storm, compounded with its huge size, ruined Stage One. Removing to a location north of town looked good at the time. I would, in fact,be safer there than at the Houston house. But at minimum, my kind hosts were going to be without power the next day, and my cell phone connection was unreliable as it was. I'd take a step back to look and see, only to be blinded by the power loss, and immobilized by impassable country roads.

So I checked some track maps of the storm, and the traffic conditions along U.S. 59 to be sure that my customary "northern route" to Mississippi would allow me to outrun the storm and head to an unaffected area. Now, thanks the fact that I am such a fine son, I can use the DSL connection I helped Mom set up in July to follow up on the storm.

(Cable and radio are useless. "The real problem is the storm surge," isn't just the particular way that the moronic products of modern journalism schools happen to be bragging to others and fooling themselves about how "on top of things" they are. And it isn't just something that can drive you crazy if you need real information. It could also be the refrain of a musical farce about the television "coverage" of this storm, which has been wrong or ambiguous in content and patronizing in tone. These ass clowns are so collectivistic that they're gearing their news coverage to a mass rather than to their own individual customers. The wind is a big deal -- to anyone not on the coast.)

I can do what I need to do now. I can call people in Houston, if they are reachable, about matters pertaining to my current job and what the house looks like. Failing that, I can probably at least see if I still have a roof through Google Earth or something like that. I can follow the progress of the storm through the National Hurricane Center and a few good storm bloggers. I can change travel plans, if need be, and contact anyone I need to in Boston -- and the storm preparations have put me behind on that already.

Today, I plan Stage Three. For the extreme cases of a late miss -- There was still hope, the last time I checked, that my area could see the "clean side" of the storm. -- or the total disaster of a dirty side hit from an intensified storm, my course of action is straightforward. If the storm "misses", I may be able to drive back to Houston today and more or less proceed as if Ike never happened. If there is utter devastation, I change the flights to Boston to start and end in Jackson, or possibly New Orleans. It will be at least a week before I can get to the Houston house, and probably longer before I would be able to act effectively there anyway. My time is better-spent in Boston.

My biggest concern, next to the state of the house, is the possibility of looting, but I have our most important things with me, and that is what insurance is for. I think I made a very good decision yesterday.


Before I post this, answer some comments, and then get back to the business at hand, I briefly note an interesting observation on how the prospect of losing most of one's possessions can lend perspective.

Now, I'm all for checking into things and learning that I have agonized over nothing and made a long trip that was ultimately unnecessary. That would be great. May all my coworkers turn me into the butt of a running in-joke involving paranoia about high winds and pine trees! But there is a certain amount of freedom that would come with such a loss. Most material possessions can be replaced fairly easily. I essentialized this best in a joke I made to my mother: "Well, a claim check is a lot easier to transport than a bunch of furniture." There can, perversely, be upsides to this disaster. There's no use spending too much energy mourning losses when one ought to be seeing how to use them.

My wife is safe in Boston. The cats and I are safe in the forests of Mississippi. And Ike may have volunteered to downsize our furniture for us. I just hope he leaves that one photo album I forgot in the living room alone!


Before I turn to answering some comments -- and I thank all who wrote in to wish me well -- I note that while I am back to blogging, how regular I can be will depend on whether things in Houston are as bad as they could be, and then on how quickly they can be improved or I can get myself to Boston.

-- CAV


PS: Incidentally, I think that the state of serenity I felt before, coupled with some sort of implicit realization that not all aspects of an "act of God" are necessarily bad, are often expropriated by hucksters of religion. (e.g., "Everything God does has a purpose.")

Before I saw the potential upsides of a direct hit and had made, I'm guessing, some subconscious adjustments to my potential losses, I thought something like, "Any worshipper of 'nature' or a God who could do something like this is an utter asshat!" My remark stands for nature-worshippers, but religious people are being helped in their folly by people who are more than happy (and prepared) to help them mis-integrate life's lessons with arbitrary religious dogmas.

The Blank Screen President

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In May of 2007 Barack Obama made an odd gaffe:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Barack Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.

The death toll was 12.

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died—an entire town destroyed," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser.

He blamed the error on being tired, but ask yourself: at your weakest moment, would you mistakenly exaggerate a death toll of 12 to 10,000?

There is a deeper explanation. Barack Obama's habitual way of thinking does not focus first on the facts, but on other people's emotional reaction to what he is saying. He was so focused on the effect of his story that, like a fiction writer, he made up the fact he needed for that effect.

He has described himself variously as a "rorschach test" and a "blank screen" on which people project what they want to see. Always with Obama his primary focus is on what other people think. The reactions of other people guide him as he speaks -- and facts are malleable things that can be made to fit the needs of the moment.

Obama is greatly feared on the right as a crypto-socialist who is acting moderate to gain power. This is possible, but I don't think it is the fundamental explanation of his character. His radicalism in the past has been the result of being surrounded by radicals. In liberal Chicago, he did what was needed to rise in the Chicago political machine. He reflects back to people what they want to see. If anything, Obama's far-left positions show how far the Democrats in general have moved to the left.

He has shown an astonishing ability to flip-flop on his positions. On issue after issue, he has changed his mind, as if his principles and positions are of secondary importance to what the voters want to hear. Recently, he even admitted that the surge had worked.

Look at the way he soaks up adoration when he speaks before large crowds. For a social metaphysician like Obama, in which metaphysical importance lies not primarily in the facts of reality but in what other people think, the adoration of the masses must be something like a peak experience. It doesn't get better than that.

His speaking technique has been shaped by his psychological orientation to reality. He speaks in sonorous, idealistic phrases -- that have no substance. His empty rhetoric about change we can believe in is meant to emotionally move the crowd of the moment without further meaning.

I suspect that Obama's epistemology -- and his popularity among the young -- is the product of American educational theory. John Dewey's progressive education seeks to socialize students. It emphasizes getting along. It produces people who are not independent thinkers, but who want to go along with the crowd. But Obama's thinking could be just the way he developed himself, regardless of schooling. Man is a being of self-made soul, after all.

It looks like the Democrat primary voters chose Obama because he is capable of inspiring oratory and because he is black. Had the media "vetted" Obama the way they do Republicans, he never would have survived the primaries. But the media, being on Democrats' side, have not done them a favor by going easy on Obama in the primaries. The presidential campaign is a long endurance trial, and with talk radio and the internet, the Democrat is bound to be tested even if the MSM favor him.

Here is the greatest irony about Obama. If he were elected, his administration would change nothing. The word he campaigned on would be his last consideration. What does a blank screen reflect when he is inside the beltway? He reflects the inside of the beltway. Business as usual would be the theme of Obama's presidency. The conventional wisdom at the State Department would be his foreign policy. The conventional wisdom among Democrat economists would be his domestic policy. Obama would be a servant, enacting policies others tell him to do.

But Obama would also try to appease and go along with Republicans -- who are, despite what the moonbats might think, people too. An Obama presidency could very well end up like Bill Clinton's: an initial push for socialism and big government, disastrous failure by mid-term, then being pushed around by Republicans for the rest of his time in office. This, folks, is the best-case scenario.

Of course, the world is a dangerous place, and the next presidency will likely be shaped by events from abroad. Militant Islam is at war with us, Russia is aggressive, and there are many others enemies around the world just waiting for a sign of American weakness before they make their move. With Obama, the question to ask is not, "How would Obama react," but "How would the Democrat foreign policy establishment react?" The establishment would tell Obama how to react.

Really, in electing Obama we are electing the generic Democrat. In this case the generic has a name; it has little else.

Hsieh LTE in Chicago Tribune on Rights

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The September 7, 2008 edition of the Chicago Tribune published an OpEd which praised Ayn Rand and criticized both McCain and Obama for failing to defend the concept of freedom. The OpEd included a favorable mention of selfishness (!) as well.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

"When did the idea of freedom become a political orphan?"

...What has set this country apart since its inception is not the notion of obligations but the notion of rights.

"All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself," wrote the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. "The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary co-existence of individuals."

...What do Republicans believe in? McCain told us Thursday: "We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law . . . We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities."

Would it be too much to mention that what sustains the American vision of those things is freedom?

...While [liberals] value many personal liberties, they have no great attachment to forms of freedom that involve buying, selling, trading and accumulating. Those, after all, can involve selfishness, and Democrats, like Republicans, don't want to protect selfishness.

I don't know much else about the writer (Steve Chapman) except for what's on the newspaper website.

I did respond with the following supportive LTE, which the newspaper printed in the September 11, 2008 edition:

Columnist Steve Chapman correctly criticizes both Republicans and Democrats for abandoning the principle of individual rights as the foundation of a proper political system ("When did the idea of freedom become a political orphan?" Commentary, Sept. 7).

Both major political parties instead offer only warmed-over variations of collectivism as their solution to today's problems.

The founding fathers correctly understood that rights are freedoms of action (such as the right to free speech), not entitlement claims on goods or services that must be produced by another (such as housing or health care). This principle made America a beacon of hope for millions around the world because it gave people the freedom they needed to pursue their own happiness as their highest moral goal.

If we wish America to remain great, we must reject calls to embrace all forms of collectivism, religious mysticism or socialism, and instead reaffirm our commitment to individual rights.

Paul Hsieh
Sedalia, Colo.

One of my goals in my LTE was to tie Objectivists principles (individual rights, ethical egoism, and the morality of pursuing one's own happiness) to values held implicitly by many Americans as part of their current healthy sense of life. As Yaron Brook has said repeatedly, Objectivism provides the explicit philosophical grounding for the American sense of life -- in that sense, it is "the American philosophy". This LTE was my small attempt to articulate this for the general public.

Pragmatism in Action

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Politics today is dominated by pragmatism. So politicians (and their supporters) routinely shift their views based on loyalty to their chosen party rather than any concern for principle. This funny-but-disturbing Comedy Cent