Weisberg on Obama's "Vision"

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

Myrhaf rightly notes that the real meaning of Barack Obama's recent swipe at Rush Limbaugh is to attack the Man with the Golden Microphone as a surrogate for holding pro-capitalist principles.

... I think Obama's statement is about a deeper issue than any single radio personality. Rush Limbaugh is a symbol here for holding principles. Granted, Obama is overestimating the Republicans by implying they might have principles any more, but that is what he is truly attacking in his statement. [bold added]

He elaborates more on that last thought:

If the Republicans had free market principles, they would be fighting for separation of economy and state. Any compromise they make with Obama on a stimulus bill helps only the side that wants more big government. Freedom is not advanced by any compromise any more than a man's health is advanced if he only takes half a dose of poison instead of a full dose. [bold added]

Myrhaf is right about that, too, and proceeds to note that Obama, whom some praise as a pragmatist and others hope is "only" a pragmatist -- is perhaps simply using pragmatism here as a means of eliciting compromise -- which really, ultimately means accepting Obama's principles.

Whatever the case, the following example of Republican "opposition" to Obama's stimulus plan was none too heartening:

Republicans are also angry that the economic stimulus plan contains funding for contraceptives and other Democratic pet projects....

Not that I am morally opposed to contraception, but I don't want the government funding it, either. However, as a principled proponent of capitalism, I must say that even if such opposition were secular (which it isn't), there are far bigger fish to fry here.

I would oppose the "stimulus" plan on the grounds that I oppose the government interfering with the economy at all. This is in part because, in order to redistribute wealth, the government must violate property rights sooner (e.g., via taxation) or later (e.g., via inflation). In addition to the recent orgy of Republican interference in the economy, this bickering over how to redistribute wealth shows that many Republicans are already exactly where Obama wants them.

Be that as it may, and regardless of whether Obama is more the cunning leftist who sees the value of pragmatism in breaking up an unprincipled opposition or simply the pragmatist surrounded by leftists, it is interesting to see that the issue of pragmatism staring to crop up in the more sympathetic mainstream press.

I saw an excellent example on a visit to RealClear Politics this morning, where we see that Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate and author of In Defense of Government, is no pushover for mere pragmatism, and finds himself disappointed when reconsidering the Obama Inaugural Address "in the less euphoric light of the next day":

"Whatever works" is less a vision of the public sector's proper role than a placeholder for someone who has yet to figure out what he thinks that role should be.

Obama's pragmatic liberalism risks blurring execution with intention, means with ends. To take his illustrations, it is either up to the commonweal to provide a minimum income to retired people, to offer health insurance to everybody and to increase income equality -- or it isn't. Most liberals would say these are legitimate responsibilities of government. Most conservatives would argue they aren't. On income security for the elderly, we've had a social consensus since the New Deal. On health care, a consensus may be emerging after decades of national ambivalence. When it comes to growing income inequality, a newer problem, there is no consensus. But Obama must decide what government's goals are before considering the subordinate questions of what works and how much we can afford. [minor formatting edits, bold added]

And yet, we get the following somewhat vague clarification at the end of the piece:

But as he navigates the crisis, Obama would do well to figure out what he thinks about the fundamental question of government's responsibilities. He might begin by pondering some words of his role model, Abraham Lincoln, who in 1854 wrote, "The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves." Obama's test of practicality comes after Lincoln's test of principle. [bold added, link dropped]

Lincoln's wide-open (and incorrect) notion of the proper role of government still leaves hanging the whole question of what the people ought to do. This is interesting in and of itself, but I think it shows that the left is starting to become paranoid about Obama, but not yet so paranoid as to openly admit what it thinks the the government ought to be doing.

Whether that paranoia is warranted or not, it is high time that America began discussing the proper role of government, for it would seem she has been slowly forgetting it for quite some time.

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 396

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

Facing Prosecution

Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, noted for distributing the documentary Fitna over the Internet, is facing criminal prosecution for anti-Islamic statements.

In a statement, the appeals court wrote: "The Amsterdam appeals court has ordered the prosecution of member of parliament Geert Wilders for inciting hatred and discrimination, based on comments by him in various media on Muslims and their beliefs.

"Regarding this turn of events, Wilders recently made an appearance (clip embedded below) on the Glenn Beck show, where he rightly likened Europe's Moslem immigrants to colonists.


Somehow, I don't think the savage holding the sign that read, "God bless Hitler," will have to defend himself in court similarly, not that airing an opinion should ever result in prosecution, outside of incitement.

Obama's "One-Letter-Off" Presidency

Ian Hamet titles a post with the exact same sentiment I had regarding other news pertaining to Barack Obama. First, he quotes from an Instapundit post discussing an Obama nominee: "[Tax] rules, it seems, do not apply to the lofty," to which he says, "There seems to be a typo. The last word ought to read 'lefty'."

That's close to how my mind reacted the other day to Obama's calls for a "new maturity", of which one of his aids said, "He will buck up the American people."

"Buck up?" Yeah. That's one letter off, too!

Zimbabwe Hyperinflation Update

Andrew Dalton recently linked to a news report that Zimbabwe has issued a Z$ 100 trillion note.

In the process, he reminded me of a back-of-the envelope calculation I did some time back when I realized that Mardi Gras doubloons were probably worth much more than Zimbawean currency.

Here it is, revised for the new exchange rate, which is already two orders of magnitude lower than when I did the original calculation a month or so ago.

(3.40 USD /100 gold plastic doubloons)*(26,255,633 ZWD/1 USD) = Z$ 892,691.53 per cheap plastic doubloon

Myrhaf on the Era of Clarity

Myrhaf notes that Obama has started his Presidency off on the left foot: "Obama signed three executive orders appeasing an enemy that wants to destroy America." The three orders pertain to closing Guantanamo Bay, reviewing the use of military tribunals against terrorists, and banning certain forms of torture. And, oh yeah. He snubbed the Salute to Heroes Ball and made his first presidential phone call to Mahmoud Abbas.

Objectivist Roundup

Travelling, I forgot to contribute, but it's hosted by Rule of Reason this week.

Watkins on Big Government vs. Freedom of Speech

Read it and be prepared for the next time some hippie complains about Clear Channel.

How He Does It

Recently, I said, "Paul Hsieh has been such an effective advocate of individual rights in medicine that it seems almost superfluous to mention his appearance in a major news media outlet."

Today, Diana posts on how he does it! Worth the read.

-- CAV

The Bureaucrats are Coming! A New Madiera for the 21st Century

By Gina Liggett from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

As I have been learning in a wine certification seminar, Madeira wine, called the "Wine of the Patriots," played an important part in American colonial rebellion against the British.

For years during the American colonial period, Madeira wine was uniquely exempted from taxation because of the British Navigation laws, and became a symbol of American rebellion against the British. When John Hancock's sloop, Liberty, was seized in Boston harbor, the stage was set for the Boston Tea Party. George Washington toasted the signing of the Declaration of Independence with Madeira, and it was used in the christening of the warship Constitution. It was also favored by the likes of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams.

When the ordinary American colonist walked into a pub and boldly ordered a Madeira rather than a British beverage, the symbolic rebellious gesture was nothing less than piquant.

Madeira is a fortified wine made on the Portuguese island of Madeira. It is a rich-tasting mélange of the flavors of roasted fruit, burnt oranges, espresso coffee and sugar-coated nuts, as described in the Complete Idiot's Guide to Wine Basics by Tara Q. Thomas. (I can attest to that description, having tasted some delicious Madeiras recently.)

Sadly, there are only nine producers of Madeira left in the world, questioning its sustainability as an enduring legacy in wine making. But it's obsolescence as a symbol also raises the question of what could be our contemporary symbol of rebellion in our fight against the anti-egoism state of our culture. America is morphing every day into ever-greater states of dependency, paternalism, socialism, irrationalism and even nihilism. As Objectivists, we want to create a new American Renaissance through the power of ideas.

The symbol of rebellion that I display in public is the mysterious and foreboding question, "Who Is John Galt?" I display that bumper sticker on my car and wear tee-shirts with that quote. One day, when someone at the gym read my tee-shirt, he looked me straight in the eye and gave me a knowing thumbs up. I felt a camaraderie with that stranger. I wonder if in some small way what I felt was the same kind of pride a colonist felt when he ordered Madeira in a bar full of British soldiers.

I challenge other readers to suggest a new "Madeira" for today. I look forward to your suggestions! Cheers to all!

Hsieh LTE in Colorado Springs Gazette

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The January 22, 2009 Colorado Springs Gazette published one of my LTEs on government regulation vs. personal responsibility. It's the 5th one down:

INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY
Government paternalism saps desire to make own decisions

I want to thank The Gazette for the nice discussion of individual responsibility in Monday's paper ("People responsible for safety," Our View). Too many adult Americans expect the government to treat them as if they were still children and the government was their parents.

It's only a small step from the government telling you what kind of houses you can build to telling you what food you can eat or what books you can read.

When citizens start asking the government do their thinking for them, it makes them easy prey for demagogues and dictators. That's why this kind of government paternalism is so dangerous.

Paul Hsieh, Sedalia

It was in response to their own January 16, 2009 OpEd opposing more government home safety regulations, "People responsible for safety".

Although it's important to oppose bad ideas, it's even more important to support good ideas. I'm glad to have had this opportunity to do so.

Activism: Time to Up Your Game?

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I posted the following message to my OActivists e-mail list after Paul's first national op-ed -- Universal healthcare and the waistline police -- was picked up by Yahoo News and listed as the most-read op-ed all day. I thought NoodleFood readers might be interested too.

Two years ago, Paul had zero experience in activism. So how did he get from zero to sixty? As someone who saw the process up close, I'd mention a few points:

His two years of regular blogging on health care at the FIRM blog gives him an important base of knowledge from which to write. He doesn't just rely on his knowledge of Objectivism.

He developed his skills of writing letters and op-eds in our local Colorado papers. He wrote and published a great deal for those markets before seriously attempting to publish in national-level papers.

He has been very willing to allow others to edit his work. He endured some very brutal criticism from me and others on occasion. He's very conscious of his writing, so he doesn't make the same mistakes twice.

He treats newspaper editors with respect, rather than like punching bags. The opinion editors for the major Colorado newspapers know who he is -- and they're often receptive to getting another submission from him.

He's always on the lookout for a new idea or angle to turn into an op-ed. We routinely discuss the best ways of answering some argument or presenting some point. He works on making his writings ever more engaging, interesting, and clear.

Most of all, he writes and writes and writes -- just as Yaron Brook urged us to do at OCON 2008. He does that in his spare time, despite an exceedingly busy work schedule -- and he enjoys it.

So here's a challenge: What are you going to do to up your game in 2009?

The popular vote

By SN from Software Nerd,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Does the media hype around Obama tell us that he is one of our most popualr modern presidents? I don't think so. The media does love him; i doubt the general public does. Inauguration-coverage of the public is also a biased sample. If one interviews people as they come to a concert by a particular rock-band, a vast majority of them will be fans. This cannot be extrapolated to the general public.

Of course, it is true that the vast majority of Americans do not think that Obama's brand of socialism is some major evil. I guess the general viewpoint could be something like: "a decent enough guy, who seems thoughtful, who seems willing to tackle the country's problems, and who should be given an opportunity to do so". This does not mean that the GOP-voters among them want to change their votes. Most of them would still prefer McCain (or Huckabee, etc.), but do not think ill of Obama, and are approach him with the spirit of: "let's work together".Obama is in a honeymoon period.

Today, I think the best objective measure of his more enduring (non-honeymoon) popularity is to look at people who actually voted for him. He got 53% of the popular vote. This is a good number, but nowhere near a "vast" majority. For some historical perspective, here is the percent of popular vote to winners of the last few elections:

• 2008: Obama - 53%
• 2004: G.W.Bush - 2nd term - 51% [Remember Bush stupidly talking about how he was going to use this great "political capital"]
• 2000: G.W.Bush - 1st term - 48%
• 1996: Clinton - 2nd term 48%
• 1992: Clinton - 1st term 43% [Not commensurate, because Perot took about 19%]
• 1988: Bush Sr. - 53% .... .... Look at that! Who would have thought that boring old Bush Sr. got the same as what Obama got
• 1984: Reagan - 2nd term 59% ... Now we're talking about a real sweep!
• 1980: Reagan - 1st term 51%
• 1976: Carter - 50% ... Not too bad for him; that's better than Clinton's second term
• 1972: Nixon - 2nd term 61% ... who would have thunk it! He even beat the gipper! Ended up impeached.
• 1968: Nixon - 1st term 43% [Not commensurate, because a third party took 13%
• 1964: Lyndon Johnson 61% [Barry Goldwater got just 38%... shame on America! But, it shows that we are not at some extreme point in our history]
• 1960: JFK 50% [For all the talk of Camelot, and all the excitement about Jackie's wardrobe, the split on votes was 49.7% to JFK and 49.5% to Nixon]

Big Government, not Big Media, Threatens Free Speech

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

Big Government, not Big Media, Threatens Free Speech

By Don Watkins

Self-appointed consumer watchdogs--including Obama’s recent pick for FCC chair, Julius Genachowski--have long complained about media consolidation. So it was no surprise that when the FCC recently loosened restrictions barring companies from owning a newspaper and TV station in the same city, these critics went apoplectic and are now urging the House to follow the Senate in blocking the measure.

Media consolidation supposedly threatens free speech. A few conglomerates, critics warn, have seized control of our media outlets, enabling these companies to shove a single “corporate-friendly” perspective down our throats. As Senator Byron Dorgan put it, “The free flow of information in this country is not accommodated by having fewer and fewer voices determine what is out there. . . . You have five or six corporate interests that determine what Americans can see, hear, and read.”

Leave aside that Dorgan’s comments are hard to take seriously in the age of the Internet: his position is still a fantasy. Media consolidation is no threat to free speech--it is the result of individuals exercising that right.

All speech requires control of material resources, whether by standing on a soapbox, starting a blog, running a newspaper ad, or buying a radio station. Media corporations simply do this on a larger scale.

Consider the critics’ favorite bogeyman, News Corp. When Rupert Murdoch launched the company, he and his fellow shareholders pooled their wealth to create a communications platform capable of reaching millions. They further expanded their ability to communicate through mergers and acquisitions--that is, through media consolidation. As News Corp.’s owners, shareholders were able to exercise their freedom of speech by deciding what views their private property would (and wouldn’t) be used to promote--the same way a blogger decides what ideas to champion on his blog. Like most other media companies, News Corp. even extended the use of its platforms to speakers from all over the ideological map--including opponents of media consolidation.

Do News Corp.’s resources give Murdoch an advantage when it comes to promoting his views? Absolutely. Free speech doesn’t guarantee that everyone will have equal airtime, any more than free trade guarantees that every business will have the same amount of goods to trade. What it does guarantee is that everyone has the right to use his own property to speak his mind.

Some of today’s most prominent voices, such as Matt Drudge, have succeeded without huge financial resources. But regardless of how large a media company grows, it can never--Dorgan’s complaints notwithstanding--determine what media Americans consume. It must continually earn its audience. Fox News may be the leading news channel today, but if it doesn’t produce shows people want to watch, it will have all the influence of ham radio. Just think of how newspapers and the big-three network news stations are losing audiences to Web-based sources.

Now consider the actual meaning of government restrictions on media ownership. The FCC is telling certain Americans that they cannot operate a printing press or its equivalent. Such restrictions cannot protect free speech--they are in fact violations of the right to free speech. There is no essential difference between smashing someone’s printing press and threatening to fine and jail him if he uses one; either way, he can’t use it to express his views.

What galls critics of media consolidation is not that News Corp. stops anyone from speaking--it’s that they don’t like the choices Americans make when free speech is protected. In the words of one critic: “[M]arket forces provide neither adequate incentives to produce the high quality media product, nor adequate incentives to distribute sufficient amounts of diverse content necessary to meet consumer and citizen needs.” Translation: Can you believe what those stupid consumers willingly pay for? If I got to decide what Americans watched, read, and listened to, things would be different.

In order to “correct” the choices Americans make, these critics demand that the FCC violate the free speech rights of some speakers in order to prop up other speakers who, absent such favors, would be unable to earn an audience. In short, they want a gun-wielding Uncle Sam--not the voluntary choices of free individuals--to determine who can speak and therefore who you can listen to.

The critics of media consolidation are frauds. They are not defenders of free speech--they are dangerous enemies of that freedom.

 

Ayn Rand Institute Now Offering Impact Newsletter Free on the Web

By from The Ayn Rand Institute Media Releases,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Ayn Rand Institute Now Offering Impact Newsletter Free on the Web

The Ayn Rand Institute is pleased to announce that its Impact newsletter is now available electronically to Web visitors. Beginning with the January 2009 issue, ARI’s Web site will now offer all of its Impact issues online as PDF documents.

Impact, which remains available in a print edition for ARI donors of $35 or more each year, delivers the latest news and progress reports on ARI’s programs, along with interviews of Objectivist intellectuals and monthly highlights of different aspects of Ayn Rand’s philosophy.

The new, free electronic format will serve as an excellent way of introducing newcomers to ARI’s goals and programs. Additionally, visitors may now view a three-part introductory video on ARI’s home page, which provides information about Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and the Ayn Rand Institute.

» View ARI’s Impact newsletter online

Saturday Round-up 2

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

Five more from the week’s reading.

1. I’ve added NewMajority.com to the list of blogs that I read. During this election cycle, many Republican intellectuals chose not to back John McCain in the final contest. This included the likes of George Will, Peggy Noonan, Christopher Buckley (who publicly announced his intention to vote Obama as he left The National Review), an David Frum. These people were not pro-Obama so much as they were embarrassed by what the Republican Party has become. Most are moderates; some lean libertarian; but all are intellectuals. NewMajority is David Frum’s new website dedicated to reasoned dialogue about where the Republican’s go from here. It’s worth keeping an eye on what the debate looks like here, and if possible having a voice. I think Objectivists need to get involved in mainstream, rational debates like this. I’d love to see Ari Armstrong’s “Toward a GOP Revival” get air time on forums like this.
2. The Three Economists. Much publicized discussion by three leading macro-economists on the Obama stimulus plans. Healthy skepticism is growing on the prudence of such a plan, as it should be. [Hat tip: Megan McCardle]
3. Buffett on whether the stimulus will work. Notice the complete lack of certainty he claims as to whether anyone knows what the right course of action is; and conversely the complete certainty that doing nothing is not an option.  A lesson in bad epistemology, and a fatal flaw in the logic. The question that exposes it: "What if government interference makes things worse? a lot worse?” [Hat Tip: Tyler Cowen]
4. Univesity of Chicago professor Luigi Zingales has some continued advice for government regulators. He continues to advocate what I think is the clearest solution to the financial crisis: streamlined bankruptcy and speedy recapitalizations. This is also the most free-market solution one can get given the high level of government involvement in the financial sector.
5. I wanted to echo Ari’s recommendation of the movie Slumdog Millionaire. It is a wonderfully told tale of the pursuit of values, where the plot is threaded through the 20 questions of a quiz show.

Chekhov

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

One of twelve on Goal #4 is complete.

The Russian sense of life is incredibly dark, and gloomy, but Chekhov is a master at using concrete images to create a mood. Plot begins to disappear in some of his stories, but characterization is good.

Next up: James’ The Bostonians

A Tyranny Postscript

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

I want to thank and compliment those who left comments in response to “An Inauguration of Tyranny” (January 20) for their perceptive and concerned remarks. The essay certainly excited vigorous thought and argument, more than I had expected. What those comments are evidence of is the existence of rational minds at large, minds that will be needed if the suicidal course this country is on is ever to be grasped, communicated and corrected. Many respondents’ remarks were outstanding, deserving some annotation here.

One respondent suggested that definitions of the terms tyrant and dictator would be helpful in determining whether Barack Obama is one or the other. In history, tyrants usually seized power in contravention to an established political process, and seized it with popular support or with the connivance of politicians. Dictators usually came to power by means of a formal political process, also with popular support. But, in the end, such persons wielded the arbitrary and destructive powers of a tyrant. Technically, then, Obama is now an elective dictator (and what president over the last 150 years hasn‘t been one, exercising powers the Founders never intended the office to have over the economy, property, science, the arts, and health?), but together with an eagerly compliant Congress, he will be a tyrant, cashing in on the uncorrected trends in philosophy, in the culture, and in politics so aptly described by Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff.

However, not even the OED is helpful in distinguishing the fundamental difference between a tyrant and a dictator, except that its definition of tyrant stresses the cruelty of someone exercising absolute power.

One respondent remarked that Obama is the first “anti-American” president. True. Obama is a thorough-going collectivist committed to everything the Founders opposed, all his assurances to the contrary notwithstanding. Now that he is in office, he has become a statist. He is now sporting an American flag pin on the lapel of his suit jacket, as though that will deflect charges of his anti-Americanism.

Another respondent wrote: “Together with Obama’s claim that he is not an ideologue, what this statement sets up is the opportunity for him and his supporters to call those who disagree with him small minded, prejudiced and bigoted ideologues.” True. The irony is that Obama is what could be called an anti-intellectual ideologue, a person who, as a matter of conscious policy, dispenses with ideas and demands “action” without thought of the consequences, except for the wish (or hope, to borrow Obama’s term) that the action has the results he imagines and wants. The only people who could confound or delay the realization of those wishes, hopes and ends are identifiable “ideologues” who question the wisdom of the action on moral and/or practical grounds. These are the persons he and his allies in and out of Congress wish to silence or denigrate or so side-line that they are for all practical purposes unheard of and unheard.

Furthermore, the only ingredient left that would complete the picture of total control is blatant censorship (barring for the time being the incarceration and/or trial of political opponents, but the ”bailout” and “stimulus” packages are direct or indirect seizures or nationalizations of private property). Obama needn’t issue a directive that silences Rush Limbaugh or anyone else who disagrees with government policies and actions. He has the Federal Communications Commission and other government bodies with the power to permit free or controlled expression, in addition to that vampire, the “Fairness Doctrine,” ready to climb out of its coffin and sink its thought-numbing teeth into the minds of all Americans. He needn’t stick his neck out so obviously and leave himself open to the charge of censorship, a concept which, to him and its advocates, retains as much a superstitiously negative or unsavory connotation as does the term socialist. As many other commentators have noted, Obama et al. instead prefer to be called progressives.

As with the original Progressives, they do not want Americans to know what it is they are “progressing” to, which, in a word, whether they intend it or not, is to totalitarianism.

The established press and news media are already losing audiences to the Internet and are also in financial straits. Expect to hear louder calls in and out of Congress to regulate the Internet.

Another respondent observed that I did not call Obama a tyrant. This is correct. I called him a “horror.” It will be his administration that will have the trappings and characteristics of tyranny.

One respondent noted that “Obama himself is much less a harbinger of coming tyranny than are his followers.” This is true. For space and length reasons, I did not dwell on the potential danger of Obama’s supporters. If he succeeds in pushing through Congress his idea of a “civilian army” the coequal of the military, it will be largely composed of the “community thugs” identified by another respondent, the kind who made so much “change” in Obama’s old Chicago neighborhood in his pre-Illinois senate activist days. This “army” will be managed and directed by persons in business suits, but instead of Nazi brown or Fascist black shirts, their recruits will come knocking on your door in jeans, T-shirts and baseball caps or the equivalent. Without such an army of “enforcers” (a.k.a. “volunteers”) Obama could not hope to “persuade” the recalcitrant to become “public spirited” and sacrificially cooperative. Or to just shut up…or else.

Long live Lady Liberty!

Book Review: Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists by Michael Morgan

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

Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists by Michael Morgan is an exploration into the "Islamic Golden Age," which is when the Middle East was a wellspring of intellectual flourishing. The second half of the 8th century to the 12th century in the Near East is a keystone of the intellectual history of human civilization. Many great thinkers of this time period, such as Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Al-Kindi are responsible for translating, preserving and adding to the wealth of knowledge created by the great intellectuals of Classical Greece and the Roman Republic. During the Islamic Golden Age, there were countless advancements in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, optics, engineering and surgery while the Western world intellectually wallowed in the Dark Ages. Because many Muslim scholars kept the Aristotelian tradition of recognizing that the universe can be known through reason, it was possible for the Western world to eventually rediscover these values (by gaining access to the Islamic works) and to ignite the Renaissance.

Unlike many other books that touch upon this subject, this book recognizes the individuals who made specific intellectual achievements. Most other books typically credit the accomplishments of this era to the Muslim world in general. Needless to say, such a false attribution is as misleading as stating that 19th and 20th century Americans invented the light bulb, the telephone and the transistor.

In this book, amongst many other things, you will learn about:

* al-Haytham and his seminal work on optics
* Omar Khayyam, and his written eloquent and insightful attacks on religious mysticism that were ahead of his time
* Ibn Firnas and his designing and testing of a flying contraption
* Ibn Sina's impressive list of accomplishments in medicine, including his extensive study of human anatomy, of various infectious diseases, of bone fractures, of cancers, his introduction of over 700 drugs and a rudimentary understanding of a scientific approach to clinical trials.
* Al-Zahrawi's advancements in suture, antiseptics, and obstetrics
* And many more, including the great mathematician al-Khwarzimi, the chemist Jabir ibn Haiyan, the physician Maimonides, the staunch Aristotelian Ibn Rushd and the prolific translator of the classical works Al-Kindi.

Unfortunately, this book has a number of salient flaws. First of all, the style of presentation is very unpleasant for those who read history to accumulate facts. Each chapter begins with several pages of a contemporary fictional account that intends to serve as a lead in, but, in my opinion, is uninteresting and detracts from the book. More importantly, the author provides no citations. This blurs the divide between fact and speculation, which is in particular very bad here, since the author warns the reader that he dressed up the factual content with "imaginary recreations."

Second of all, this author is an explicit Multiculturalist, which makes reading this book nauseating at times if not downright awful. The author does a great disservice to many great thinkers by arguing that all cultures, including Muslim culture, have their own achievements instead of recognizing the many of the accomplishments from the Islamic Golden Age are genuine achievements for individuals of any kind.

Furthermore, the author intentionally does not answer the most important questions: "What caused the deluge of intellectual achievement in the Muslim world of the Middle Ages?" and "What brought this brilliant era to a halt?". Thus, the author fails to recognize that it was a commitment to reason that lead to the intellectual flourishing of the Islamic Golden Age (which suggests that this period should be renamed) and that it was a devotion to religious mysticism (triggered by al-Ghazali) that ended this age. The author indicates that he does not wish to "settle any academic debates" but instead seeks to incorporate elements from each of many competing and contradictory viewpoints. Unfortunately, this leaves the reader with a sense of incompleteness and suggests that while the author sought to present the truth when it came to individuals and their accomplishments, he was not interested in identifying the causal, intellectual forces that drive history.

Despite its many flaws, I still think this book is definitely worth reading for those who enjoy intellectual history. An accessible book on the Islamic Golden Age is such a rare commodity and this time period is so essential to fully understanding what happened to Aristotelian philosophy between the fall of the Roman Republic and the Renaissance. A much better book (one that lacks the awful Multiculturalism) can and should be written. Once this happens, I will withdraw my endorsement.

The Amazon version of this book review can be found here. If you enjoyed this review, please rate it as helpful on Amazon. Doing so gives my book reviews higher visibility and will encourage me to post more book reviews. You can find the complete archive of my Amazon book reviews here.

LTE Daily Telegraph, Taxing the wealthy

By Roberto 'Tito' Sarrionandia from Tito's Blog,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Tears from the left wing

By Roberto 'Tito' Sarrionandia from Tito's Blog,cross-posted by MetaBlog

On drugs

By Roberto 'Tito' Sarrionandia from Tito's Blog,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Libertarians vs Property

By Roberto 'Tito' Sarrionandia from Tito's Blog,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Bias

By Roberto 'Tito' Sarrionandia from Tito's Blog,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Jefferson vs. Obama

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

In a letter to John Taylor in May 1816, Thomas Jefferson commented on the term republic, after having read Taylor’s “Enquiry into the principles of our government”* :

“Indeed, it must be acknowledged, that the term republic is of very vague application in every language. Witness the self-styled republics of Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Venice, Poland.”

Jefferson goes on to state that the term is ideally applicable to a population of a particular size inhabiting a region not much larger than a Greek city-state, and in which elected and appointed officials are directly answerable to the electorate. He projected that in larger republics, representatives would also be answerable to the electorate and be duty-bound to follow its instructions to secure its life, liberty, and property.

“On this view of the import of the term republic, instead of saying, as has been said, ‘that it may mean anything or nothing,’ we may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing, as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights, and especially, that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people, are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient.”**

Jefferson also noted in his letter that “the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” What an apt description of the current federal “bailout” and “stimulus” programs! Jefferson, of course, could not have imagined the scale of evil that will flow (and has flowed in past administrations) as a result of a combination of the “duperies of the people” and the arrogance of President Barack Obama through his proposed $1 trillion plus spending programs, together with the government’s theft in the act of printing more money.

Although the body of Jefferson’s politics is often referred to as “Jeffersonian democracy,” one paragraph in his writing obviates that notion. It occurs in an April 1816 reply to Pierre S. DuPont de Nemours (1739-1817), a French economist who had drafted constitutions for South American governments. It buttresses his idea of an ideal republic, one that protects and upholds individual rights:

“Liberty, truth, probity, honor, are declared to be the four cardinal principles of your society. I believe with you that morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force; that a right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings; that no one has a right to obstruct another, exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature; that justice is the fundamental law of society; that the majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society; that action by the citizens in person, in affairs within their reach and competence, and in all others by representatives, chosen immediately, and removable by themselves, constitutes the essence of a republic; that all governments are more or less republican in proportion as their principle enters more or less into their composition and that a government by representation is capable of extension over a greater surface of country than one of any other form.”*** [Italics mine.]

So much for Jeffersonian “democracy.” Jefferson’s concept of “majority rule” was founded on the premise that men would “naturally” know their individual rights and act to defend them, although he had witnessed in his own time how groundless that belief was. However, his concept of the nature of man (inherited chiefly from John Locke) is the basis for his statement on the evil of physical force and is derived from reality. I do not think Jefferson ever divested himself of the intrinsicism present in much of his political thought, but this should not gainsay the empirical truth of his argument here, that is, that he made true statements.

That observation brings us to the pièce de résistance of this commentary. In June of 1816, Samuel Kercheval wrote Jefferson for his thoughts on a proposed revision of Virginia's first constitution. A month later Jefferson replied, devoting a great part of his letter to a warning about the consequences of unending government debt:

“I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and our drink, in our necessities and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. Our landholders, too, like theirs, retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in foreign countries, and be contended with penury, obscurity, exile, and the glory of the nation.

“This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance….A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia [war of all against all], which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”****

No better description of our current dilemma can be found anywhere else, except in John Galt‘s speech to the nation in Ayn Rand‘s prophetic novel, Atlas Shrugged.

It could be said that Jefferson placed too much confidence in the wisdom and rectitude of “the people.” Perhaps in his time, a time when reason still exerted an influence on men and on the culture, there was reason to believe that they would not so easily or so quickly sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, as many Americans have done today, that is, those who chose profusion and servitude over economy and liberty. These are the Americans who have been raised in a welfare state, but who also have benefited from the energies of the productive sector of the economy. They have been taught that there is no connection between a growing, looting welfare state and decreasing productivity and a shrinking private sector, and that because there is no connection, there is nothing to think about. Just believe what politicians and college professors and the news media say.

Destroy private fortunes, expropriate the wealth and savings of the productive and the thrifty, redistribute the proceeds, as a consequence sentence millions of others to servitude to subsist on oatmeal and potatoes, to labor in the private sector or to help link their own chains to those of others in government jobs that are but camouflaged welfare programs -- and all will be well.

When the connection between the moral and the practical is severed in men’s minds and in practice, then we have today’s crisis. A crisis is a state when all is not well.

John Galt, in his speech, said that man’s only original sin is a refusal to think. That is what many Americans are guilty of, faced with the evidence which they repress in their minds because their appetite for the unearned exceeds their apprehension of reality, an appetite made “moral“ by the advocates, past and present, of faith and force. They are both the dupes and the engine of statism. Our government has little to fear from “the people,” else why would it accelerate its extravagant takeover of the economy with impunity?

“I tremble for my country,” wrote Jefferson in Notes on Virginia, “when I reflect that God is just.” Some Americans may agree with him, as the country moves closer to bankruptcy, collapse, anarchy, and war of all against all for possession of what is left of it, because it had abandoned reason and tried to cheat reality.

Other Americans will agree with John Galt, that it is reality which cannot be cheated, and that its justice is ineluctable and impervious to hopes and wishes.


*Also known as An Enquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States, completed in 1814. Taylor (1753-1824), veteran of the Revolution, a strict “constructionist” of the Constitution, and advocate of the states’ rights doctrine, also wrote Arator (1813) and Tyranny Unmasked (1822), the latter a critique of growing federal powers. A life-long ally of Jefferson, he was a key political philosopher who served in the U.S. Senate and Virginia House of Delegates.

**Jefferson: Writings, New York: The Library of America (1984), “The Test of Republicanism,” pp. 1391-5.
***Op. cit., “Constitutionally and Conscientiously Democrats,” pp. 1384-8.
****Op. cit, “Reform of the Virginia Constitution,” pp. 1395-1403.

Wishing Darwin Away

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

Sharon Begley, writing at Newsweek, would have you think that new research is casting serious doubts on the validity of the theories of evolution and molecular biology.

Teamed with genetics, Darwin's explanation of how species change through time has become the rock on which biology stands. Which makes the water flea quite the skunk at this party.

Some water fleas sport a spiny helmet that deters predators; others, with identical DNA sequences, have bare heads. What differs between the two is not their genes but their mothers' experiences. If mom had a run-in with predators, her offspring have helmets, an effect one wag called "bite the mother, fight the daughter." If mom lived her life unthreatened, her offspring have no helmets. Same DNA, different traits. Somehow, the experience of the mother, not only her DNA sequences, has been transmitted to her offspring.

That gives strict Darwinians heart palpitations, for it reeks of the discredited theory of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829). The French naturalist argued that the reason giraffes have long necks, for instance, is that their parents stretched their (shorter) necks to reach the treetops. Offspring, Lamarck said, inherit traits their parents acquired. With the success of Darwin's theory of random variation and natural selection, Lamarck was left on the ash heap of history. But new discoveries of what looks like the inheritance of traits acquired by parents -- lab animals as well as people -- are forcing biologists to reconsider Lamarckism. [minor format edits, bold added]

That "somehow", as Begley correctly notes, is called a "genetic switch", and the notion that a primitive species like the water flea might use one to determine whether offspring develop "helmets" makes perfect sense -- in the context of Darwinian evolution and the genetic theory of inheritance.

Clearly, a water flea without a helmet would be ill-adapted to survive in an environment rich in predators. Perhaps not so clear is the fact that a water flea with a helmet has at least one disadvantage to one that does not: That helmet has to come from somewhere. The superior armament will cost it more food. In an environment where there are no predators, then, a helmet-less water flea has an advantage in needing less food.

What solution is best? Predators aren't always a problem for water fleas, so a species that saddled itself with unneeded armament would be wasting precious food. (And, I suppose, creationists would pounce on that as an example of how God was telling puny man that He was in charge.... What Intelligent Designer would fail to sign His work?)

But predators sometimes are a problem. Gosh, perhaps an organism that could either have a helmet or not have one as needed would have an evolutionary advantage! I am no expert on water fleas, but something tells me that they don't live too long, so its best bet as a species would be -- oh, I don't know -- to evolve the capacity to turn the helmet gene(s) on or off from one generation to the next. (News flash: Genetic switches, as "gene regulatory proteins", are encoded in the DNA by genes.)

Well! I'll be switched! That's exactly what happened!

But Begley either does not understand this fully or she is an active, dishonest opponent of the theory of evolution, as we see in another example:

Since 1999 scientists in several labs have shown that an experience a mouse mother has while she is pregnant can leave a physical mark on the DNA in her eggs. Just to emphasize, this is not a mutation, the only way new traits are supposedly transmitted to children. Instead, if mother mouse eats a diet rich in vitamin B12, folic acid or genistein (found in soy), her offspring are slim, healthy and brown -- even though they carry a gene that makes them fat, at risk of diabetes and cancer, and yellow. It turns out that the vitamins slap a molecular "off" switch on the obesity/diabetes/yellow-fur gene. [minor format edits, bold added]

Yes, a genetic switch has been thrown, and it affects the physical appearance of offspring. But without the genetic code already in place (including both the regulated genes and the switch proteins other genes encode), neither the range of possibilities nor the switching mechanism we're busy distracting ourselves with would even exist.

In Begley's defense, some of the scientists she draws upon seem not to understand how to hold new data or complicated theories such as evolution and genetics in their proper context, and Francis Crick's foolish decision to refer to his theory of inheritance as the "Central Dogma of Molecular Biology" has not helped. On the other hand, the fact that the phenomenon of epigenetic inheritance has been known about for quite some time indicates that further research was warranted -- on Begley's part.

There is no great controversy here. Epigenetic inheritance, far from being a reason to resurrect older, discredited or -- worse -- arbitrary theories of speciation, actually serves as further evidence in support of Darwinian evolution and molecular biology. Begley just insulted the guest of honor by calling it a skunk!

-- CAV

New Technology, Old Fallacy

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

Via Arts and Letters Daily is an informative, but misleading article by Harry Lewis on Internet censorship called, "Not Your Father's Censorship".

Unfortunately, Lewis ends his article by making not just your father's, but your father's father's equivocation between political power (i.e., the use of force by the government) and economic power (i.e., corporate market share, which is a gross measure of the voluntary, uncoerced decisions of large numbers of customers):

The Internet is, for the most part, privately owned. So is the publishing business, where the free market has always worked. If a publisher doesn't want my book, I can take my business elsewhere, but I can't cry censorship. We wouldn't want government regulation of book publishers, and we don't need it. Is the Internet any different?

The Internet is different from publishing, in fact if not in theory. Were one publisher as dominant as Google or YouTube, its corporate judgments might have a very big impact on the free flow of ideas. And the DMCA protocol presents opportunities for the powerful to suppress speech by spurious invocation of copyright law. In the United States, the Internet is still the "most participatory form of mass speech yet developed," as a federal judge, Stewart R. Dalzell, wrote in overturning an early Internet-censorship law. For the Internet to remain so, more legislation will be needed to guarantee its openness. [bold added]

The monopolist element of the above argument will sound all too familiar to anyone who knows the story of the rise of Standard Oil, which Alex Epstein did a fantastic job of setting straight in The Objective Standard not too long ago.

But Lewis does tweak the old argument just a bit. Earlier in his article, he notes that Google has actively aided the Chinese government in maintaining censorship. Later (and above), he argues (correctly or not) that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can be misused to remove content from the web that ought to be freely available.

In both cases, he is counting on readers to miss the fact that there is (or may be) an element of illegitimate government interference contributing to the blockage of information. (I add now that, consonant with its property rights, no company has an obligation to provide a forum to all comers. That said, aiding government censorship remains immoral.) Not to whitewash Google for aiding Chinese censorship, but if governments the world over (including, incredibly, even Australia's) want to impose censorship, how is "more legislation" going to "guarantee" the "openness" of the Internet?

There is merit in the idea of improving the government's own conduct regarding the protection of freedom of speech in electronic media, but that is quite a different thing than proposing that it be free to dictate a Google's "corporate judgments".

Regarding the latter, Lewis might counter that Google's cooperation with the Chinese government shows that corporations, free to act on their own, will not necessarily stand up for freedom of speech. He would be correct, but the fact remains that in a free market, someone would be free to address the shortcomings of a Google. Should the YouTube owner begin pulling rather tame videos over allegedly sexual content, for example, some other competitor might decide to post just that sort of video.

A government, on the other hand, could simply threaten anyone who wants to show such videos with fines or imprisonment. In other words, decisions by even huge corporations are not backed by government force -- except when government interference in the economy such as Lewis proposes to somehow guarantee open access to all information for everyone makes it otherwise.

There are no guarantees in life. Even the leaders of a successful corporation like Google can fail to stand up for the very principles their success depends on. But unlike government officials, who can make the same mistakes, a mere corporate leader cannot force others to suffer from his mistaken judgement. This is why the best solution to the emerging problem of the abuse of technology to promote government censorship is to have the government much less involved in the communications industry.

And an important first step towards that solution is for more people to recognize the difference between government force and market share, and see that the government imposing, say, "decency" standards is a different phenomenon in kind from a corporation deciding that it need not provide a forum to pornographers, who remain free to create one of their own, provided that in doing so, they do not violate the individual rights of others.

-- CAV

Papal Confession

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

At some point during my ongoing blur of incessant travel and guzzling from the font fire hose of scientific knowledge, I read a short news blurb somewhere about a campaign by the Vatican to encourage more Catholics to go to confession. This morning, still a bit tired from one of the busiest days I've had in quite some time, my mind remembered thinking at the time that the piece was blogworthy. So I hunted for and found the story.

The above link discusses the campaign in some detail, specifically the small part my blurb focused on:

It will be a historical day for the world, Catholicism, and the Vatican. For the first time, is going to give a peek into the tribunal of confessions. It will be the first time in 830 years.

In the last few years, the Vatican has seen a decline of people coming in for confession. That means not many people are coming to confession. As a result, the Vatican is trying to get more people to come into confession. For the first time in its history, the Vatican will be giving a sneak peek of what goes on in regards to the handling of confessions. While the priests listen to confessions, it is a revealed that there is a tribunal for such confessions.

There are confessions for the most sinful acts and crimes. The tribunal that handles such confessions is known as the "tribunal of conscience." It has invited the public to see what goes on in regards to confessions. This is the Vatican’s way of fighting against the decline of people confessing their sins. [minor format edits]

This story sets the context, but, in addition to never naming the Apostolic Penitentiary, it misses the juicy morsel that caught my eye the first time. For that, we'll go to another report:

As the Vatican's highest court, the tribunal deals with confessions considered so grave only the Pope himself has the authority to absolve them.

Defiling the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, is among several sins that can be forgiven only at the highest level, officials said. Yet confessions of crimes the general public may consider even more serious, including genocide and serial murder, can be dealt with by local priests or bishops.

...

Defiling the Eucharist is one of five sins that can be dealt with only through the tribunal.

Cardinal Stafford says there has been a rise in incidents of people receiving the host and spitting it out or otherwise desecrating it, sometimes in Satanic rituals.

Other sins that would land a repentant Catholic before the tribunal include attempting to assassinate the Pope and, as a priest, breaking the seal of confession by revealing who has sought penance and why. In addition, the Vatican's highest court would handle priests who have offered absolution to their own sexual partners and men who directly participate in an abortion, such as by funding it, and later seek to become priests or deacons. [bold added]

To summarize: Spitting out a piece of unleavened bread at the wrong time will get you into a long, one-sided conversation with the Pope, but serial murder and genocide get pawned off onto the local priest.

Remember this the next time someone claims that the "alternative" to the various modern expressions of collectivism is religion, or that without God, there would be no morality. What kind of morality -- what guide to living one's life -- would appraise human life so cheaply?

This was part of a campaign to entice people to become more observant in their faith? That, too, is a confession!

-- CAV

Circumcision as Mutilation

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I've been catching up on my listening of Dr. Peikoff's excellent podcasts (available via iTunes) over the past few weeks. I have been enjoying them immensely -- although I definitely prefer his solo podcasts to the group discussions. The questions have become increasingly interesting, and his answers are often a bit surprising. I don't always agree with him fully, and I find our minor disagreements of great interest. All in all, I think these podcasts are a fantastic contribution our understanding of Objectivism -- particularly its application to the ordinary problems of daily life. So if you're not listening to them, you're missing out!

A few weeks ago, my ears perked up in his discussion of circumcision in Podcast #34. I am adamantly opposed to that practice -- on the grounds that it inhibits a man's natural potential for sexual pleasure. Admittedly, I was a bit petrified to hear what Dr. Peikoff might say. (What if he didn't think it was a big deal?!? Yikes!) But I need not have worried: he knows his stuff. Here's the transcription, courtesy of Flibby:

Question: Medical issues aside, what right does a parent have to alter a child's body? On one end of the spectrum, I could imagine a parent wanting to remove an abnormal but benign growth, say, a sixth, non-functioning finger. On the other end of the spectrum is circumcision, which I regard as mutilation.:

Peikoff: By the way, I agree with that 100 percent. There can be no legitimate reason for anyone to circumcise a boy. It's either primitive religion, abject conformity, or the evil of destructiveness. Now this question goes on.

Question: Aside from from those two extremes of the sixth finger and circumcision, somewhere in the middle of the spectrum are things like ear-piercing on which I am undecided.

Peikoff: Now, my view would be this: If there is no violation of the biologically normal, then a parent may make changes. He may make changes in that which is abnormal or that which is required by the health. For instance, I do not think parents should have the right to withhold blood in the case of a child who is going to sicken and die for lack of a transfusion. That should be absolutely mandatory on similar grounds on what I said on the further question. But aside from this, I think anything else that would be permanent should be left to the child once he's 18, forbidden by the parent until he's 18. For instance, even piercing ears to wear earrings, piercing the tongue, having indelible tattoos -- all of that I think should be prohibited by a parent and impermissible to a parent to do when the child is their ward and doesn't know well enough what to do.

So that's a pretty old-fashioned view but that's definitely my view.

I was allowed to get my ears pierced after I graduated from 8th grade. That seemed way too late to me at the time, but in retrospect, I'm glad that I was mature enough to make my own decision and to care for the wound as required. (A friend of mine who got her ears pierced some years before me was so grossed out that she couldn't touch them.) I don't think that was problematic -- but only because ear piecing is such a small thing, without any negative implications for a girl's life. I wouldn't say the same about a tattoo, piercing another area of the body, or a boy piercing his ears. I think those should be forbidden by the parents while their child is still a child.

What say you?

Good Riddance

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Economist savages George W. Bush's eight years as president. It's an interesting survey, even though the praise and criticism is often misplaced. Here's what I found most interesting:

Lack of curiosity also led Mr Bush to suspect intellectuals in general and academic experts in particular. David Frum, who wrote speeches for Mr Bush during his first term, noted that "conspicuous intelligence seemed actively unwelcome in the Bush White House". The Bush cabinet was "solid and reliable", but contained no "really high-powered brains". Karen Hughes, one of his closest advisers, "rarely read books and distrusted people who did". Ron Suskind, a journalist, has argued that Mr Bush created a "faith-based presidency" in which decisions, precisely because they were based on faith, could not be revised subsequently.

Now onward -- and likely downward -- to Barack Obama.

Hot Damn!

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

[Originally posted to Politics without God.]

Eugene Volokh reports that South Carolina state senator Robert Ford -- a Democrat -- proposes a bill against "dirty" language, including the following provisions:

It is unlawful for a person in a public forum or place of public accommodation wilfully and knowingly to publish orally or in writing, exhibit, or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature.

And:

It is unlawful for a person to disseminate profanity to a minor if he wilfully and knowingly publishes orally or in writing, exhibits, or otherwise makes available material containing words, language, or actions of profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature.

Violating either provision would be a felony -- with the potential for five years in prison: "a person who violates [either provision] is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than five thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

Ah well, at least the Bible would be banned along with Atlas Shrugged -- and almost everything else, including swearing within earshot of your 17-year-old kid.

The bill is currently in committee. While I'm sure it won't go anywhere, the fact that such legislation could even be proposed in 21st century America is mind-boggling.

FRS: Healthy Energy for Intellectuals

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

LTC: Vote NO on TARP Extension

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

The following went to my congressman today (LTC = Letter to Congressman). Unfortunately, I missed the Senate vote, and I’m not sure I hold out much hope for the House to block the measure.

Dear Sir:

I am writing to you to request that you vote against the upcoming release of the 2nd $350 billion in TARP funding.

The original TARP legislation was wildly unpopular with the American people, yet you voted for it. The first installment of funds was not spent in the manner that was originally planned and it failed to accomplish its objective, yet the same people are now going to oversee a successful spend of the second installment? This is madness!

We were told that we could not sit back and do nothing or the economy would collapse. We were told that again when the Detroit auto companies were bailed out. We certainly shall be told the same thing for this second installment of funding, as well as the upcoming Obama stimulus. The economy has not collapsed yet we are told we must do more. We are told that the cause of the crisis was profligate spending and the overextension of credit, but that the solution to it is for government to commit those same sins.

This economic crisis was caused by government policy, most notably a loose money policy on the part of former FED chairman Alan Greenspan and a zealous desire to overstimulate the economy on the part of the Republican administration. The crisis is not the result of the free market, but rather the result of government interference in the free market. Continued government interference will not resolve the issue. Continued government spending will lead to severe inflation and risk a second Great Depression.

The only way to resolve this crisis is to stop government spending, and facilitate the private restructuring of our banking system. You must vote now to rein in excessive, ineffective government spending.

Regards,

Kendall Justiniano

An Inauguration of Tyranny

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

A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. -- The Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776.

January 20th, 2009. Another “date which will live in infamy.”

Watching news media coverage of Barack Obama’s journey to the White House was much like watching the broadcast propaganda of a dystopian fantasy in films like V, or the Richard Burton’s 1984, or Fahrenheit 451 -- except that the news media is not a vast government department spewing out lies and disinformation, haranguing and brow-beating the public, but a nominally independent entity reporting Obama’s triumph with deliriously mindless happy talk. For all practical purposes, the news media have largely surrendered the sovereignty of the freedom of the press in exchange for the emotional solicitude of “hope” and the privilege of being a demagogue’s mouthpiece. That so many viewers and listeners disagree or are skeptical of what the news media has reported about Obama are blithely ignored by editorial writers and news anchors is a measure of media bias. We wish it to be so; ergo, it is true. He is our savior, our Messiah, our Leader. He will show us the way.

At a cost of over $150 million, the inauguration of January 20th had the character of a royal coronation (or a biblical pageant, if you will), witnessed by millions in Washington and on television by millions around the world, secured by 8,000 police, 11,000 military personnel, 1,000 park rangers, and countless plainclothesmen, and reported by a euphoric press. The millions who thronged or thrilled to see Obama become the 44th president of the United States are comfortable with the idea of being ruled, of being told what to do and why to live -- and with the idea of seeing those who neither need nor want rulers overruled.

Having written extensively on America’s Revolutionary period in fiction and nonfiction, I took special and personal offense to Obama’s Philadelphia speech on January 17th, in which he appropriated the Revolution without once mentioning the ideas that made it possible. In that speech, he turned those unnamed ideas inside out, pronouncing the words “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but meaning entirely different things by them. Your “life,” he said or implied, is not entirely your own, but your neighbor’s or the nation’s; your “liberty,” he suggested, exists as long it is regulated if not otherwise prohibited; your “pursuit of happiness,” he insisted, is possible but not before you serve and sacrifice for the good and happiness of all.

Lest it be thought that I am putting words into his mouth or twisting his meaning, read the transcripts of all of Obama’s campaign and acceptance speeches, and it will be seen that he is no friend of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness -- qua individual rights. Obama’s speeches have always been a broth of rhetorical ambiguities and populist language addressed to the worst in men, concealing an intention to rule, to decree, to govern like a prince with the unqualified leave of his subjects.

Obama’s admirers and supporters constitute a people who do not want to be free, and who do not want anyone else to be free. Allowing their emotions to govern their minimal thought and their actions, they have endorsed his notion that everyone must be tied in servitude and sacrifice to everyone else to “work together” for a “more perfect union.” Further, they view themselves as “victims,” and he has been the salve of their troubled souls.

I have argued for years that the Founders created a republic and were hostile to the idea of a democracy. Obama’s victory is a perilous instance of democracy in action. A majority of the electorate wished for bread and circuses. He has promised them bread and circuses. And uncounted tens of thousands of them have made what Diane Sawyer of ABC approvingly, but appropriately, called a “pilgrimage” to hear him promise them again.

But, listening to Obama and the obliging news media, one would get the impression that his “mandate” was unanimously granted by the whole nation. Not true. But Obama never knew the truth, while the news media has forgotten it or buried it.

An examination of his Philadelphia speech, however, is in order. That speech, like his past speeches and those of so many other power-seekers, is a conceptual mess. A line by line critique may be interesting, but fruitless. What deserves highlighting and closer scrutiny is his theft of the Revolution, for without that arrogant purloining of the Declaration, the speech would have had no substance. Obama dared not elaborate on the ideas that made the Revolution possible; they are radically antithetical to what he has professed to be the solution to the nation’s problems, real or imaginary.

It is noteworthy that while the terms tyrant and tyranny each occur twice in the Declaration of Independence, Obama dared not refer to them in the Philadelphia speech, either. Using them might have given his worshippers food for thought. Thinking is not what he wants Americans to do.

“And yet, they were willing to put all they were and all they had on the line -- their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor --for a set of ideals that continue to light the world. That we are equal. That our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come not from our laws, but from our maker. And that a government of, by, and for the people can endure.”

“They” were just a group of “farmers and lawyers, merchants and soldiers,” in addition to “fishermen, laborers, and craftsmen,” who somehow, for some reason, assembled to sign the Declaration, out of loyalty to a “set of ideals.” Which ideals? Private property? Freedom of speech? Ownership of their own lives? Ideals that they plucked from a tree? And how do those unnamed ideals continue to “light the world,” when statism and collectivism are on the rise around the globe?

Are we all “equal,” or equal before the law? And, before which laws? Objective laws that protect and ensure individual rights, or non-objective laws that rob us of those rights and surrender us to the unpredictable whims of arbitrary authority? And, no, those rights do not come from “our maker,” they come from a recognition of the nature of man as a being of volitional consciousness who must employ reason to survive, establish his goals and pursue them. Rights do not originate with ghosts, majority rule, or pragmatism.

It is the height of narcissism that Obama would steal from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, as well, and change the meaning of that president’s words.

“We are here today not simply to pay tribute to our first patriots but to take up the work that they began.”

What work was that? To expand the scope of government powers so they intrude upon every facet of an individual’s life? Obama taught law, but has he ever read even an infinitesimal fraction of the political thought the Founders read in order to argue for a limited government?

“Only in a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast. An economy that is faltering. Two wars, one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely. A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil.”

The economy is faltering because of government interventionist policies. The two wars were against the wrong enemies; one can be certain that Obama will be as wrong-headed about those enemies as was Bush. And, no, the planet is not warming because of our dependence on oil, if it is warming at all. And our dependence on oil would be sustainable if we had free markets, if the government were prohibited from making deals with dictatorships, medieval monarchies and other tin pot regimes, and if the government were constrained from having any role in the economy. Economies are not created by governments; they can only be taken over by them, as ours has been incrementally for over a century.

Not all the news media are ignorant of economics or indifferent to reason. One refreshing exception is a brilliantly pungent article that appeared in The Scotsman on January 18th, “New president, same old snake-oil economics,” whose author warns that Obama’s plan to fix the economy by creating 244,000 new government jobs and 459,000 new jobs in “green energy” will only smother an economy already wheezing from federally injected emphysema. Gerald Warner notes:

“Overall, Obama promises more than three million new jobs. Unfortunately, some clever clogs in Congress with a ball-point and the back of an envelope spotted that meant a cost of $275,000 per job. Governments cannot create jobs. All they can do is invent camouflaged welfare programs. Only the market can create jobs; and massive “job” creation in the public sector destroys real employment.”

But Rahm “The Enforcer” Emmanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, once advised that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” So, to hell with reason and costs and rights. It’s the perfect time to take over everything and everyone. Run Warner’s observation by Emmanuel, and he would growl and probably reach for his baseball bat. Run it by any random news anchor, and he would blink in utter confusion. Run it by Obama, and he would begin sucking his thumb in denial.

In Philadelphia, he decreed:

“What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives -- from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry -- an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.”

This is an especially significant paragraph. What Obama is stating is that the nation needs a declaration of independence from the Declaration of Independence, that is, from the ideas or ideology that made the Declaration possible, and from “small thinking,” a code term for selfishness. He is willing to draft that new declaration into a manifesto of “responsibility,” that is, the “responsibility“ of Americans to become a selfless zombie population moved by “giving,” “caring,” “service“ to a cause “higher“ than oneself, and “self-sacrifice.”

As for “prejudice” and “bigotry,” his entire campaign was based on just those phenomena, and have nothing to do with the economic “crisis.” He proposes to replace a crucial intellectual priority with a mystical one, that is, with a deference to our “better angels,” which one can only guess is a reference to man’s allegedly “innate” desire to sacrifice and live for others.

“Let’s build a government that is responsible to the people, and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable.”

It sounds benign, even banal enough. What politician indicted for corruption and serving time hasn’t said the same thing? But, given the statist and collectivist character of Obama’s political and economic program, this statement is a call for the government to be responsible for expanding the welfare state, and a call for citizens to blame the government for not expanding it faster and more widely.

Obama claims that he will make government “accountability” and “responsibility” two of his top priorities. Were this promise not taken so seriously by so many who ought to know better, such hubris would be laughable, given that he, Emmanuel, and so many in his administration are products of the Chicago political machine, given that so many are indictable Clinton era Jacks-in-the-Box, and given that he has nominated for key posts in his cabinet out-and-out socialists, such as Eric Holder as Attorney General and Carol Browner as his energy-environment “czarina.” Obama and his picked wrecking crew are sledgehammer- and shovel-ready to smash and bury what remains of the American republic. There isn’t a person Obama has picked for his cabinet, staff, and other government posts who isn’t already a human Petri dish of corruption ready to cash in on his power. No “idealistic” tyranny in history has ever been inoculated from the accompanying corruption.

Having used the Declaration of Independence as a crib sheet, Obama also wishes to scrap what remains in effect in the Constitution. The Wall Street Journal on October 28th cited his statements during an interview on a Chicago public radio station on September 6, 2001, that, in his opinion, the Constitution hasn’t been emasculated enough.

“Mr. Obama noted that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren ‘never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society,‘ and ‘to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical.’

“He also noted that the Court ‘didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted.’”

That is, reports the WSJ, according to Obama, the Court was deficient in leftist “empathy” for whatever party in a criminal or civil case had not stirred the Court’s “feelings.”

“For the American Revolution did not end when British guns fell silent. It was never something to be won only on a battlefield or fulfilled in our founding documents. It was not simply a struggle to break free from empire and declare independence. The American Revolution was -- and remains -- on ongoing struggle ‘in the minds and hearts of the people’ to live up to our founding creed.”

The term struggle appears in every collectivist manifesto of the 20th century that I know of. Hitler used it, Mao, Lenin, Castro and other dictators used it, not to mention Basque separatists and the IRA, to name but two other murderous movements. It must also occur somewhere in Saul Alinsky’s books on “community activism,” which Obama plans to implement on a national scale. More prominently today, it is employed by Islamic jihadists. It is a euphemism for force and terror, and the password for establishing totalitarianism.

That Obama would employ the term should come as no surprise. Here he suggests that the American Revolution was but a first phase of the collectivization of America. Here he suggests that our “founding documents” were something akin to the progressives’ “living Constitution,” whose words can be interpreted any way one wishes, as long as it is a collectivist, non-objective interpretation. Note that he claims that the Revolution was a “struggle to break free from empire,” which is not true. It was a fight to free men from tyranny. Note also that he ends with a reference to “our founding creed,” as though the political philosophy of the Founders was a religion, and not a social system drawn from their observations of man and reality, that it was a matter of faith, and not of conclusions based on reason and empirical evidence.

“Let’s all of us do our part to rebuild this country.”

Here he pleads for Americans of faith and feeling to join him in a course of action which will not rebuild the country, but guarantee its ultimate destruction.

Gerald Warner of The Scotsman redeemed the reputation of journalism when he began his article on Obama with:

“Tuesday may be regarded by future historians as the beginning of the end for the United States of America….When a politician masquerades as a messiah, be very afraid.”

Why be afraid? Because such a messiah asks one to take his “truths” on faith. Men took Hitler’s “truths” on faith, as they did Lenin’s, Stalin’s, Mao’s, and those of other power-lusters, and observe what such faith wrought. Think of the intellectual honesty and fealty to reason it required to make such a statement, an honesty and fealty all but abandoned by the news media. Warner was able to see through all of Obama’s posturing and rhetoric and named what Obama is to himself and to his worshipping millions. Yet too many Americans are not afraid to submit to his will and to heed his sermons; in fact, they are eager to. Warner correctly predicts the consequences of Obama’s socialist policies, which are the country’s economic collapse and an accelerated decline.

I take the privilege and opportunity on this infamous date to offer an excerpt from Book IV: Empire, of the Sparrowhawk novels, from Chapter 10, Part II, in which Patrick Henry, on a famous day in May, 1765, argues before a hostile House of Burgesses for passage of his Stamp Act Resolves:

“Why are you gentlemen so fearful of that word?” he demanded. “Why have not one of you dared pronounce it? Is it because you believe that if it is not spoken, or its fact or action in any form not acknowledged, it will not be what it is? Well, I will speak it for you and for all this colony to hear!” His arms dropped, but the left rose again, and he shouted, stabbing the air with a fist, “Tyranny! Tyranny! Tyranny!” The arm dropped again. “There! The horror is named!”

And today, its name is also Barack Obama.

Objectivist Round-Up #80 - January 22, 2009

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

Welcome to the January 22, 2009 edition of the Objectivist Round-Up. This week presents insight and analyses written by authors who are animated by Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. According to Ayn Rand:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

"About the Author," Atlas Shrugged, Appendix.

Without any further ado, it is my pleasure to present this week's round-up:

Edward Cline presents An Inauguration of Tyranny posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "Watching news media coverage of Barack Obama’s journey to the White House was much like watching the broadcast propaganda of a dystopian fantasy in films like V, or the Richard Burton’s 1984, or Fahrenheit 451 -- except that the news media is not a vast government department spewing out lies and disinformation, haranguing and brow-beating the public, but a nominally independent entity reporting Obama’s triumph with deliriously mindless happy talk."

Non Talbot Wels presents Public Water District Takes On Private Fires posted at The Undercurrent, saying, "As wildfires raged through southern California this year, firefighters often did not have the water needed to fight the fires, resulting in a considerable amount of preventable fire damage. Who is responsible for this ongoing problem and how can it be prevented?"

Roberto Sarrionandia presents Why be an activist? posted at Tito's Blog, saying, "Why activism is important"

Jim Woods presents So Help Me God posted at Words by Woods, saying, "Are Americans still so well read in history as to obstruct the ascension of faith-based power-lusters, who in the name of their God would restrain our liberty?"

Stephen Bourque presents Dennis Prager: If There Is No God, Part 4 posted at One Reality, saying, "One must never relinquish the responsibility of thinking for oneself by surrendering it to authorities - scriptural, spiritual, scientific, or otherwise."

Rachel presents Is irony a heavy metal? posted at Brass in Pocket, saying, "What do an NPR article and a hard-rock song have in common?"

Michael Labeit presents On Black Business vs. Black Bureaucracy posted at Philosophical Mortician, saying, "A recession!!! Obama, quick - to the idiot mobile!!!"

Michael Labeit presents On "Mortgage" posted at Philosophical Mortician, saying, "The latin meaning of "mortgage" is unsuitable relative to the actual results of mortgage."

Rational Jenn presents A Sign Of The Times posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "This is funny, in a not-so-funny kind of way (and yet, still funny!). The comments on Amazon for this toy are encouraging, in that they're evidence that many Americans haven't totally lost their minds."

Stella presents It's not wrong to put a price on health posted at ReasonPharm, saying, "Yes, good health costs money. Get over it!"

Paul Hsieh presents The Value of Innovation in Health Care posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, "I link to an article detailing numerous positive private sector innovations in health care, and discuss why we need a government that will protect our freedom to innovate."

Diana Hsieh presents Circumcision as Mutilation posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Should parents be permitted to permanently alter the normal body parts of their children?"

Ari Armstrong presents Obamanomics Threatens Economic Recovery posted at FreeColorado.com, saying, "Obama's grand plans to "help" the economy promise only to squander wealth and create uncertainty."

Shaun Connell presents This is How Capitalism Dies posted at Financial Planning, saying, "What is the future of capitalism in the next few years? What are the anti-capitalists trying to attempt? What's going to happen...? Who is behind the collapse? The answers are in this article."

Myrhaf presents Inauguration posted at The New Clarion, saying, "Here are some thoughts on the inauguration of the 44th POTUS."

K. M. presents History is not the case against collectivism posted at Applying philosophy to life, saying, "This post argues that mere historical arguments against collectivism are insufficient and miss the moral issues."

John Drake presents Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire posted at Try Reason!, saying, "History has a way of showing philosophic truths. I found a very interesting example while reading the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

Daniel presents The "Shimmy" Song posted at The Nearby Pen, saying, "Links to a sublime performance of the "Shimmy" song in Emmerich Kalman's Die Bajadare, and has an excerpt from We the Living of Rand's thoughts on it."

Monica presents The Bankruptcy of Ethanol posted at FA-RM.

Monica presents The Nature of Collectivism posted at Spark A Synapse.

Flibbert presents Flibbertigibbet posted at Flibbertigibbet, saying, "Most of my posts these days involve me being Scrooge McDuck BEFORE he got that giant money bin to swim in, but this post is a response to all the attention FDR's New Deal is getting and how spending tax dollars does not actually stimulate the economy.

In fact, the people who think like that are the very ones preventing me from getting my money bin! Curse you, Beagle Brothers!"

Grant Jones presents Ordinary Courage: The Revolutionary Adventures of Joseph Plumb Martin posted at The Dougout, saying, "Michigan War Studies Review published my book review of the classic soldier's memoir of the Revolutionary war."

Jason presents What Causes Sexual Attraction? posted at Erosophia, saying, "Have you ever wanted to know how sexual attraction operates? Have you ever wondered what the goal of sexual attraction is? Find out in my new essay abstracted from my forthcoming book "Sexual Perfection: Foundations of a New Sexual Ethic"."

Kim presents Good Things Day After Day After Day posted at Kim's Play Place, saying, "So many people have found the 3-good-things exercise from Martin Seligman, as recommended by Jean Maroney, beneficial. I post how our family uses it."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of objectivist round up using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: objectivist round up.

Are people stupid?

By Roberto 'Tito' Sarrionandia from Tito's Blog,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Labour just don't get it

By Roberto 'Tito' Sarrionandia from Tito's Blog,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Richard Kemp : A dose of reason

By Roberto 'Tito' Sarrionandia from Tito's Blog,cross-posted by MetaBlog

My random thoughts now on Facebook

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

For the last month or so, I’ve been posting a “thought of the day” to my facebook profile as a “quickie” form of activism.  Some of the “thoughts” refer to current events, while others are more philosophical.  I’ve decided to collect the more quotable ones on my wiki.  I’m going to try to continue posting my thoughts on a daily basis.

I’m getting hitched!

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

According to the FeedBurner counter on the left, I have 105 regular readers, so for those who haven’t heard elsewhere, I proposed to Sarah, my lovely girlfriend of two and a half years shortly after midnight, December 31st.  Sarah and I met at my Examined Life philosophy meetup group.  We plan to wed sometime this summer.

 

My Mac blog

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

Introducing DotMac: I got a MacBook laptop as a personal birthday present in October, and started a blog for Mac users with tutorials and programming tips .

Popular posts so far: using a Mac with a Windows pc and organizing your music library.

Miracle on the Hudson

By Greg Perkins from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog


[HT: PZ Meyers]

Why be an activist?

By Roberto 'Tito' Sarrionandia from Tito's Blog,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Quick Roundup 394

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

Raed Jarrar Update

About a week ago, through a press release by the Ayn Rand Institute, comes news of a matter I blogged about over two years ago: An incident in which an airline faced a federal lawsuit simply for attempting to exercise its property rights.

Thomas Bowden succinctly describes the injustice of the outcome:

It's an injustice when a private airline is penalized for exercising its rights as an owner. ... Property owners are entitled to set standards for conduct, including dress codes, that their customers must observe when using company property. If a potential customer finds those standards unreasonable, he is free to take his business elsewhere.

... JetBlue should have been legally entitled to forbid Mr. Jarrar from frightening other passengers aboard its privately owned jetliner. In deciding the matter, JetBlue had a right to consider that Mr. Jarrar’s behavioral and physical profile resembled that of terrorists who have left a trail of blood and bone across the globe, both before and after destroying the World Trade Center with hijacked airliners in 2001.

Now, however, Mr. Jarrar is a quarter-million dollars richer because our anti-discrimination laws forbid businesses to use their own judgment in these matters. [bold added]

I agree completely with Mr. Bowden.

At Study Group for Objectivists: The Ominous Parallels

Burgess Laughlin will be moderating a six-week look by the Study Group for Objectivists at Leonard Peikoff's The Ominous Parallels this spring.

Being a participant in the OAC, I'm sitting this one out, but it does sound interesting.

Lying in Wait

Awhile back, I noted that there can be value in, "having rational commentary 'out there', just waiting to be Googled." Recently, I have seen just that with a very old post about Large Group Awareness Training that a relatively new blog, The Truth about Human Potential Seminars, has recently linked to, causing a small, steady, trickle of traffic to head my way.

Some Tunes

Reader Adrian Hester points me to a pretty good (but embedding-disabled) music video.

I found this as I was looking for videos of my favorite African singer, Baaba Maal.... [The] video features him singing his style of music (yela) along with reggae. Works quite well, beautiful scenery, fun dancing, and if you listen to the reggae enough you'll have all the major acts about Senegal stuck in your brain forever, so it's even educational! Heh.

Loved the music, liked some aspects of the video -- but was reminded by other aspects of a dated and lame UB40 video of one of my favorite songs of theirs. (You can hear a slightly better version of "Dubmobile" here, as well as "I've Got Mine" following directly after.)

Well, that's a wrap. Working weekend ahead for me!

-- CAV

Chinks in the FED’s Armor, and the Reducto ad Keynsianism

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

Two items. First, not everyone at the FED agrees with the current “stimulus” tack taken by Bernanke. In a Market Watch article, “Fault Lines Emerge at the FED,” Philadelphia FED President Charles Plosser and former St. Louis FED President William Poole publicly took issue with Bernanke’s policies.

Plosser urged the Fed to "proceed with caution" with the new policy. Others outside the Fed are much more strident and want plans in place immediately to reverse it. They believe an inflation storm is already in train…

Fed officials who pay attention to the money supply believe that the Fed's current policy of printing money never ends well and the danger of inflation is very high. They believe the Fed must withdraw the stimulus before there is any sign of inflation or it is too late….

William Poole, who recently left his post as president of the St. Louis Fed, says it is crucial that the Fed set a target for cutting its balance sheet.

Poole said the expansion of the Fed's balance sheet is unprecedented and research suggests that a surge of inflation is sure to follow.

"I would say if the policy is not reversed, there is a high probability that the unpleasant risk (of inflation) materializes," Poole said in an interview.

I chuckle when I see the empiricist phrase “there is a high probability that…” as though we are simply relying on some unexplained correlation in the data to suggest that inflation is on it’s way. We know what causes inflation. It occurs when the government cranks up the printing presses. If the FED President knows that such policies are occurring, he could be a little bit more certain of what it portends. As in 100%.

I am preparing a letter to my congressmen specifically advocating them to deny additional TARP funds and also vote down the Obama stimulus. I urge my readers to do the same. Maybe we’ve become too used to seeing the large bills from the IRAQ war, but the fact remains that these stimulus packages are tremendously large. Our Congress is mortgaging our future to accomplish very little, and ultimately damage us greatly.

My next item is an analysis discussed by Yves over at naked capitalism. Martin Wolf has an analysis over at the Financial Times (free RSS feeds there!) looking at the stimulus package. He attempts to understand the cost imposed on the US private sector of all this government “stimulus.” The answer? The stimulus won’t work.

The stimulus required is significantly larger than anyone has estimated, and since public money comes from the private sector, the damage that paying down this stimulus debt will inflict on the private sector is significant.

The argument still seems to take a Keynesian perspective on the whole issue, but at least he is attempting to account for where this stimulus money is going to come from, and the damage that obtaining it will do.

This is the logical conclusion of Keynsianist policies. The government doesn’t create anything of value. It is simply mortgaging the private sector’s productivity in order to supposedly fix the private sector. On the surface this makes no sense, and I marvel at how seemingly rational people can hold the idea. If the problem was over-leverage the solution cannot be more of the same.

Yves comes back with some rational analysis in her critique. Banks were not restructured using the TARP funds, and this is what must occur. True asset values must be discovered and write downs must be taken. Treasury is simply providing banks with operating cash and ignoring the toxic balance sheets. This is like throwing money down a bottomless pit. It does nothing.

We are avoiding the bitter pill, spending like there is no tomorrow, hoping that we won’t have to deal with the problems. I’ve not seen a situation like this in my lifetime.

Saturday Round-up 1

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

Those of you who follow this blog may occasion to glance at the “What Kendall’s Reading” pane off to the left there. This is a collection of articles that I pull from the news feeds that I read every day. There are usually new articles posted to the list every day, and usually not more than 10 or so. The list is very easy to generate as I simply mark the article I’m reading and Google assures it is posted to the window.

Topically, it’s a mix of everything; sometimes raw material for my posts; sometimes off-topic article of interest; sometimes humor or human interest stories. For those of you who find yourself glancing at it and sometimes clicking through, you can also view the articles as their own RSS feed, which can be found at: “My Favorite Posts.”

I find myself at times wanting to leave a comment about these articles, but not really enough for a full blown post. So I’ve decided to pull four or five from the week and formulate a “round-up” post for Saturdays.This is the first installment! I’ll also add a few sentences of commentary or a quick quote as well so you have the essence of my perspective on the topic.

Certainly if you have elaborations or comments on the links, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I. Next to Obama’s speech writers, I think that nobody does pure, consistent altruism better than Colin Powell. This week he weighs in on the subject in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, “Let’s Renew America Together.” With a subtitle “Everybody can be great because anybody can serve,” he delivers a consistent missive on the topic of “our shared responsibility to one another.”

II. The antidote to the Powell’s thinking is to be found in the winter edition of The Objective Standard, in Craig Biddles lead essay “Capitalism and the Moral High Ground.”

Altruism does not call merely for “serving” others; it calls for self-sacrificially serving others. Otherwise, Michael Dell would have to be considered more altruistic than Mother Teresa. Why? Because Michael Dell serves millions more people than Mother Teresa ever did. The difference, of course, is in the way he serves people. Whereas Mother Teresa “served” people by exchanging her time and effort for nothing, Michael Dell serves people by trading with them—by exchanging value for value to mutual advantage—an exchange in which both sides gain.

Renewal will not come from the type of service Powell talks about. It will only come from the type of service which does not even appear on Powell’s radar screen as service.

III. For a look at how Powell’s sort of service specifically banishes and excludes the kind of service we need, see The Wall Street Journal op-ed “The Mugging of Bank of America.” In September Bank of America stepped up to buy financially failing Merrill Lynch. After enough due diligence to realize how toxic Merrill’s balance sheet was, and that absorbing the bank would threaten the solvency of his own firm, CEO Ken Lewis attempted to back out. The article details how he was forced by the Treasury Department to execute the deal anyway. Today, Bank of America is teetering itself. A prime example of the effects of Powell’s type of “service.” Read this article. It is straight out of Atlas Shrugged.

IV. The big talk these days is the final installment of TARP and Obama’s proposed stimulus package. In a follow-up to my post on emerging skeptics, I offer a few more links. Two more economists come out wondering who thought the stimulus was a good idea. University of Chicago Economist Gary Becker wonders where the hell all the Keynesians came from. Finally Brian Kaplan asks the most basic of questions to be put to anyone advocating a stimulus package, “How will we know that the bailout worked?”

V. Finally, while we’re on the topic of service and The Objective Standard, I wanted to highlight an article in this month’s issue by my friend Ray Niles. It is “Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet” and it very effectively concretizes how government regulation in supposed “service” of those who would seek broadband access only hurts them. Unfortunately you’ll have to subscribe to get the whole article, or you can drop by your local Barnes & Noble and see if they carry the journal. If they don’t, ask them to Start!

more statist philosophy

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

… In economic matters, most people, including most politicians, mainstream economists, and investors unconsciously follow Dewey’s philosophical principles: reality is ultimately driven by social consensus, and the success or failure of markets depends only on the optimism or pessimism of consumers and investors. This is more than the belief that wishes and prayers affect reality - this is a belief that one’s wishes are reality – if only enough people share the delusion.

(From What you need to know about the economic “crisis”)

Two more examples:

“As long as no one knows about it, the counterfeit money we print doesn’t really exist:”
“The Bank of England will be able to print extra money without having legally to declare it under new plans which will heighten fears that the Government will secretly pump extra cash into the economy.”

“As long as we ignore the problems in your economy, they won’t really affect us:”
“South Korea set a rare and controversial example over the weekend by arresting a popular blogger who was accused of undermining the financial markets [by correctly predicting economic downturns] but worshipped by many Koreans as an online guru.”

Lucy is to Charlie Brown ...

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

... as Hugo Chavez is to Any Oil Executive.

As I mentioned a few days ago, it's crunch time on my paper, hence the short, pre-scheduled post....

This news article from The International Herald-Tribune is a two-pager, but well worth the time, for it gives a valuable glimpse at what Hugo Chavez has done to the Venezuelan economy, as well as how involved Western oil companies are in enabling him to pretend that socialism is a viable (or even powerful) economic system. (That said, it fails to explicitly link Venezuela's decline in oil production to its actual cause: government mismanagement.)

President Hugo Chavez, buffeted by falling oil prices that threaten to damage his efforts to establish a Socialist-inspired state, is quietly courting Western oil companies once again.

Until recently, Chavez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with tax authorities and imposing a series of royalties increases.

But faced with the plunge in prices and a decline in domestic production, senior officials here have begun soliciting bids from some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks -- including Chevron, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total of France -- promising them access to some of the world's largest petroleum reserves, according to energy executives and industry consultants here.

Their willingness to even consider investing in Venezuela reflects the scarcity of projects open to foreign companies in other top oil nations, particularly in the Middle East. [minor edits, bold added]

"Their willingness" also reflects about equal doses of pragmatism and resignation to the unforgivable fact that our government, in failing to take a moral stand against theft by foreign governments, thus encourages nationalization. Why not organize an industry-wide boycott of Venezuela, so that even greater profits can be had after Chavez fell?

But that would require long-range thinking, a commodity that is in scarce supply these days. I doubt that anyone involved in this really thinks Chavez plans to actually hold the football for them as they kick. He'll gobble up as much of whatever they have that he thinks he can get away with just as surely as Lucy will yank that ball before Charlie Brown attempts to kick it.

On the second page, we learn that Halliburton is helping Chavez along even more than in the past. This is not surprising, but it is the first I've heard of it. Apparently, leftists neither care that Halliburton is propping up a dictator like Chavez -- nor are they having a post-Iraq change in heart now that it is helping a "hero" like Chavez carry on. But then, leftists don't spend a lot of time discussing useful idiots.

There was one part that almost made me laugh, regarding Chavez's temporary admission that socialism does not and can not work:

"If re-engaging with foreign oil companies is necessary to his political survival, then Chávez will do it," said Roger Tissot, an authority on Venezuela's oil industry at Gas Energy, a Brazilian consulting company focusing on Latin America. "He is a military man who understands losing a battle to win the war." [bold added]

Yeah. He's making a tactical retreat in the war against reality that is socialism!

-- CAV

This post was composed in advance and scheduled for publication at 5:00 A.M. on January 15, 2009.

Of Piracy and Politics

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

The Associated Press reported on January 11th what was otherwise an amusing episode in the saga of the Somalian pirate infestation off the east coast of Africa.

“Five of the pirates who hijacked a Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a $3 million ransom…the day after the bundle of cash was apparently dropped by parachute onto the deck of the ship….The drowned pirates’ boat overturned in rough seas….Abukar Haji, uncle of one of the dead pirates, blamed the naval surveillance for the accident that killed his pirate nephew Saturday.”

“’The boat the pirates were traveling in capsized because it was running at high speed because the pirates were afraid of an attack from the warships patrolling around.’”*

The late pirates needn’t have worried that any one of the American, French, German, British, Indian, or Chinese naval vessels patrolling the area would attack them. The naval coalition’s ineffectual gunboat diplomacy hasn’t made a dent in the scale of piracy in the region. The standing order forbids those vessels from firing on pirate boats unless fired upon by the pirates -- and what pirate would be crazy enough to fire on a warship that could blow his dingy or speedboat to smithereens? The article reports that pirates attacked over 100 ships last year and that hundreds of sailors remain hostages. Pirates collected over $30 million in ransoms in 2008, a testament to the moral impracticality of the coalition’s multinational policy.

No government today is going to instruct its navy to reduce the pirates’ hideouts and bases of operation along Somalia’s coastline to rubble and floating debris, because no government is going to risk calls for an immediate ceasefire by the United Nations and negotiations. If it ignores such calls, and presses on with the legitimate goal of exterminating an aggressor or a gang of thugs, it would immediately be labeled the brutal aggressor or insensitive villain. Incredibly, that is exactly what has happened as a result of Israel’s retaliation against Hamas in Gaza. Hamas and the pirates are seen as the “underdogs.” But not all “underdogs” are noble; in history, many of them deserved to be extinguished.

However, to Uncle Abukar, piracy is a legitimate career choice which shouldn’t be put in jeopardy by the threat of retaliatory force, as well as to the author of the AP article, Mohamed Olad Hassan, who penned this revealing observation:

“Piracy is one of the few ways to make money in Somalia.”

Make money? Extortion is a form of theft, and coupled with armed robbery and kidnapping on the high seas, one has a description of piracy. “Making money” is a description of productive, wealth-creating work. But Uncle Abukar and Mr. Hassan exhibit the same grasp of the economics and morality of looters as that of the pirates, outgoing president George W. Bush, president-elect Barack Obama, and Congress. The extortionate, unmitigated looting of the private sector of the economy by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulsen and his ilk in Congress and the White House in the so-called “bailout” differs from the Somalian pirates’ looting only in scale. The pirates “made” $30 million. The federal government has “made” trillions and stands to “make” trillions more if Obama pushes his “stimulus” program of public works and subsidies through Congress.

The government can “make” money only by stealing it. Like the pirates, it can “make” that money only by employing physical force or the threat of it. It can steal it directly with coercive tax collection, or indirectly through inflation. In the next administration, we will experience large doses of both methods.

President-elect Obama, when he takes the oath of office on January 20th, will swear to protect the United States and uphold the Constitution. But as he made clear throughout his campaign, and has made clear in a number of television interviews and at press conferences since winning the election, he promises to do no such thing. Instead, he has promised to continue the federal government’s policy of “saving” the country by looting the productive private sector of wealth and manpower in a program that will make his hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt, look like a rank amateur. He will, with Congress’s help, add over a trillion dollars to the over trillion dollars rung up by the Bush administration. Hypothetically, this represents a mortgage on the lives of two or three unborn generations. Hypothetically, because the economy and the country will collapse long before our elective oligarchy and its bureaucratic minions present impoverished Americans with the tax bill.

The point here is deviously simple: The statist economics of Obama, his fiscal appointees, Bush, and virtually every government economist is no more advanced or “sophisticated” than that of the Somalia pirates, or of the cargo cultists of the South Pacific. Wealth exists. It came into existing somehow -- somehow, because Obama and fellow politicians and bureaucrats, being career public “servants,” do not have a first-hand acquaintance with productive work. Wealth, savings, plans, futures, investments all can be magically taken from one person and given to another (redistributed), and a moral end will have been achieved. And when all the wealth, savings, plans, futures and investments have been consumed by the non-producing parasites, and all the new environmental and tax policies have made it impossible for producers to replace them, what then? Neither Obama nor his fiscal appointees can think that far in advance. What is unthinkable to them is that the government is the cause of whatever economic crisis they wish to solve. Intentions, not facts, govern their statements and actions.

What of those who have been robbed or ruined by such intentions? It is Obama’s explicit policy that they should endure their involuntary sacrifices as a matter of duty and in the name of “change.” As he told George Stephanopoulos on ABC last Sunday: “Everybody is going to have to give, everybody is going to have to have some skin in the game.”

This is gangster talk. Yet our slobbering, fawning news media accepts it and the facetious thinking behind it with wide-eyed rapture. Even when this faux-naif back-pedals on his promises, the news media glosses over it with forgiveness or ignorance. When he hedges on an issue, they grin in expectation of some wonderful surprise he has in store. Obama won’t need a Department of Disinformation or an Orwellian Ministry of Truth to propagate his economic illiteracy and deceptions. He has the worshipping news media in his pocket willing to wait on his every word.

Well, Adolf Hitler said the same thing when he nationalized Germany’s economy in much the same fashion that Bush has nationalized America‘s. Bush is to Herbert Hoover as Obama is to FDR. Hoover attempted to save “free enterprise” by regulating it, subsidizing failed industries and businesses, and erecting tariff walls to “encourage“ it. Every president since then has attempted to “fine tune” or “manage” the economy it, discounting or ignoring the element of volition in men when they make choices. Some liberal and conservative pundits claim that Bush abandoned his “free market” principles when he pressured Congress to approve the “bailout” of the auto industry, oblivious to the fact that Bush professed no such principles.

Another clue to Obama’s intentions are the character of his cabinet and staff and the character of his appointees to it. To Obama, it is a “dream team”; for anyone who has wealth to confiscate or freedom to abridge, it is a nightmarish wrecking crew. The cabinet is about as far-left as was Saul Alinsky, the real life Ellsworth Toohey (the collectivist villain in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead) who propounded “community activism” and whose doctrines and methods Obama swallowed whole.

There is Larry Summers, nominated to be head of Obama’s National Economic Council, and whose redistributionist philosophy is as primitive as a Somalian pirate’s.

There is Timothy Geithner, currently head of the New York Federal Reserve, and nominated to be Secretary of the Treasury, who has confessed ignorance of why companies fail (his mantra: Don’t blame government interventionist policies, we had nothing to do with it!). It is not so ironic that he will also be boss of the Internal Revenue Service, and that at his confirmation hearings it was revealed that he failed to file tax returns for several years. He said he was “sorry,” and the Senate let him off the hook. For the average taxpayer, however, being “sorry” or having made an “honest mistake” is never good enough to the IRS. But then, Congress is now just Obama’s extended Chicago corruption “machine.”

There is Rahm Emanuel, the new chief of staff, who has all the charisma and charm of Frank Nitti, Al Capone’s “Enforcer” and who is a career power-luster (and enemy of the Second Amendment). He will be in charge of ensuring that all of Obama’s cabinet and staff stay in line, and in particular that none of them has ever owned or even touched a gun. After all, Obama wants to make sure that no one can fight or talk back, inside or outside of the White House. As the magazine America’s First Freedom reported in January:

“Time magazine noted Emanuel’s reputation as a ’profane, hyperactive attack dog.’ His tactics and style are fully consistent with the world of Chicago machine politics, from which he and Obama sprung.”

One can imagine that Emanuel will equip his office with a baseball bat.

There is Eric Holder, Obama’s choice for Attorney General, who assured listeners at a convention of the American Constitution Society last summer that Obama would win the election and that the U.S.. would then be “run by progressives” -- that is, by socialists. Or, by national socialists, if you will. The American Constitution Society is a left-wing organization founded to counter the influence of The Federalist Society, and its goal is to turn the absolute principles of the Constitution into positivist mush. That is, the Constitution can be whatever the collectivist of the moment wishes it to be. Holder, according to a Front Page Magazine article of December 18, was a member of the ACS Board of Advisors. Front Page cites a New York Times article of December 11 which observed that Holder and the Obama team “will turn to ACS members to fill subcabinet positions and judgeships.”

The balance of Obama’s designated cabinet and appointees is comprised of recycled Clinton-era officeholders or new unknowns who will work with him and Congress to legislate socialized medicine, radical environmentalism, volunteerism (e.g., his promise of a $4,000 college tuition “credit” to high school and college students who perform 100 hours a year of community service), and in creating new pork barrel jobs to “repair the infrastructure.” Shades of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Obama pledged during the campaign to fight Congressional earmarks. What the news media hasn’t realized -- or perhaps doesn’t want to know, because that would put a brake on the giddiness -- is that his whole domestic program is one mammoth earmark.

As for Obama’s foreign policy, his choice of Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, that says it all. Doubtless she will strive to top Condoleezza Rice’s pragmatist foreign policy.

It is in the cards that his proposed economic policies will bankrupt the nation and lead to economic havoc. That will be the signal to call for totalitarian measures to bring “discipline“ to the anarchy. One can predict with certainty that Obama’s speedboat of controls, spending and nascent fascism will capsize in the rough seas of reality, and take its occupants and their ransom money with it. And a good portion of the country.

And then perhaps enough non-docile Americans will learn the hard way and agree with Ayn Rand that a welfare state will always lead to totalitarianism, and decide to do something about it.

Give Back, Schmive Schmack

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Here's an interesting even if year-old tidbit, sent to me by William Stoddard. A list of words that ought to be banished in 2008 includes the following:

GIVE BACK – "This oleaginous phrase is an emergency submission to the 2008 list. The notion has arisen that as one's life progresses, one accumulates a sort of deficit balance with society which must be neutralized by charitable works or financial outlays. Are one's daily transactions throughout life a form of theft?" – Richard Ong, Carthage, Missouri.

"Various media have been featuring a large number of people who 'just want to give back.' Give back to whom? For what?" – Curtis Cooper, Hazel Park, Michigan.

The suggestions for 2009 are have already been posted. They include this gem:

CARBON FOOTPRINT or CARBON OFFSETTING – "It is now considered fashionable for everyone, tree hugger or lumberjack alike, to pay money to questionable companies to 'offset' their own 'carbon footprint.' What a scam! Get rid of it immediately!" Ginger Hunt, London, England.

Mike of Chicago says that when he hears the phrase 'carbon footprint,' "I envision microscopic impressions on the surface of the earth where an atom of carbon forgot to wear its shoes."

Christy Loop of Woodbridge, Va., says that 'leaving a carbon footprint' has become the new 'politically incorrect.' "How can we not, in one way or another, affect our natural environment?"

Exactly!

Quick Roundup 393

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

I'll take a skull, thank you.

Jason, writing at Erosophia, takes a look at an ancient practice from a secular, this-worldly perspective:

As a human, I am necessarily going to die. It is important to realize that my time is finite, that every moment I have is precious. Memento mori serves to remind me not to waste my time, not to let it slip through my fingers, to never take my life for granted.

Along those lines, but focused more squarely on the process of living my life, I have to say that I am enjoying my Book of Happiness....

Job Hunt Update

Among the more recent entries in my Book of Happiness are a couple related to my job hunt, which is now, finally, making progress, thanks to advice the Resident Egoist pointed me to some time ago. When I head up to Boston next week, I will meet two new contacts, one of whom works in an industry in which I could be hired quickly, and another in an industry I may want to move into. Both I have met through people I already know.

I don't want to discuss details, but this -- not answering random job ads posted at Monster or flapping my gums at HR reps who know nothing about science at job fairs -- is what I had originally guessed my job hunt might look like. This I can understand and be comfortable with. This promises actual success. And, most importantly, this is better than I did in the previous months of my job hunt.

I am now speaking with professionals who know the kinds of jobs and industries I am looking at, rather than pragmatic "recruiters" who, for a real example, tell me I'm speaking to a hiring manager "next week", only to cancel within an hour and never be heard from again. (Having said that, I will still go to job fairs and answer interesting-enough ads, but will do so bearing in mind their lower probability of success.) How do I even know I want to be hired unless I've spoken to people at the company? How will I learn what the job entails or they get a measure of me? A relationship involving the lion's share of my time should evolve naturally.

This academic moving into the private sector regards his job hunt as having actually started December 14. Much else I did before then was a waste of my time. At least I learned a better way to do this.

Details Kill?!?!

If you went to your physician and, instead of taking your history, examining you, and running some tests, he held his hands over his ears and shouted "Nananananana," you would probably not listen to this doctor's advice, and you would doubtless find another. How can he prescribe a rational course of action without knowing the relevant details of your illness, so he can apply the relevant principles of medicine to your situation?

And yet, this is exactly the approach Tom Daschle wants to do take regarding America's semi-free medical sector! We see this from the following example, which Paul Hsieh recently quoted from Dr. Steve Knope at We Stand FIRM:

All indications are that there will be attempts to ram a national healthcare program through Congress early in the Obama administration. They will create a false sense of urgency, just as they did with the "financial bailout" of our economy. No time to study the issue; this must be done or the society will collapse! Tom Daschle has studied Hillary Clinton's failed national healthcare attempt and he does not want to make the same mistakes she made. He was just quoted in the WSJ as saying that the new Congress needs to act quickly. "We need to be on the offense. This time around, lawmakers cannot try to address every detail when it comes to legislation. Details kill." [Secretary-nominee of Health and Human Services Tom] Daschle said. [bold added]

Details kill?!?! Whom or what, Mr. Daschle?

This, by the way, is yet another example of how politics in a mixed economy stifles debate. Most, unfortunately, agree broadly that the government should solve all our problems, but any particular scheme will, by its nature, have major flaws, so putting forth positive proposals for rational evaluation is to invite being shot down. So, just as we got the President who managed to say the least during the campaign, we have lawmakers who intend to avoid any serious consideration of their dangerous schemes.

Write it Down

Paul Hsieh's post was actually about protecting oneself as much as possible from any future socialized medicine scheme, and is worth a read on that basis. Related, but on a level that applies to any situation, Darren Cauthon offers some good advice regarding hospitalization: Write everything down.

Watch Your Wallet (And Your Lawn)

The Texas legislature is back in session. And the Houston City Council is getting ready to empower neighborhood busybodies to keep you from parking in your own yard.

A Time Line

Sez the Software Nerd, "[W]hen a young Objectivist is pessimistic, tell him that we've got till 2026 if we go at the pace of the Communist revolution!" He provides evidence from history to back up his claim. I'd like to add abolition of slavery and black equality to the list, although they don't have as definite starting points.

2026 may be a little early, given that Ayn Rand's ideas are more revolutionary than in any of his examples, but the point is well-taken. Major positive change can and does occur rapidly.

Superb Op-Ed

Keith Lockitch's recent piece on "Environmental Angst" is a must-read.

The only way to leave no "footprint" would be to die -- a conclusion that is not lost on many green ideologues. Consider the premise of the nonfiction bestseller titled "The World Without Us," which fantasizes about how the earth would "recover" if all humanity suddenly became extinct. Or, consider the chilling, anti-human conclusion of an op-ed discussing cloth versus disposable diapers: "From the earth's point of view, it's not all that important which kind of diapers you use. The important decision was having the baby." The next time you trustingly adopt a "green solution" like fluorescent lights, cloth diapers or wind farms, only to be puzzled when met with still further condemnation and calls for even more sacrifices, remember what counts as a final solution for these ideologues.

(HT: Diana Hsieh)

-- CAV

Chuck that map and floor it!

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

"I heard we were gettin' near a cliff, so I chucked my map and floored it!"

Assuming one was hearing the truth, anyone would rightly conclude that, fool that he is, the interlocutor is lucky to be alive.

How much worse is it, then, to hear basically the same thing coming from the mouth of the man invested with the most responsibility for protecting our rights and our lives and, in today's mixed economy, the most power to endanger both.

It happened yesterday, with President Bush boasting yet again that he abandoned his professed "free market principles" in order to save the day:

I readily concede I chucked aside my free-market principles when I was told ... the situation we were facing could be worse than the Great Depression. (But) we've taken extraordinary measures to deal with frozen credit markets (that) have helped thaw the credit market. [minor edits]

I have already elaborated at length on the vital importance of rational principles, and summarized myself thus:

[A] pro-capitalist would know what capitalism is, what it requires (full government protection of individual rights), and why statism and anarchy are inferior, and dangerous to the survival of the people he is sworn to protect. He would know these things because he would rely upon free market principles when thinking about the economy. And he would know that if he doesn't rely on such principles -- if he "abandons" -- them, he will have no way to decide what action is best for the discharge of his office.

In his folksy boast, Bush has -- as usual -- conceded much more than he realizes, as men who attempt to go through life without thinking are wont to do: He has admitted that he never really held "free market principles".

It is telling that Bush chose to make this unwitting confession just before his last week in office. During such times, I imagine one would stress those things about his term of office for which he wants to be remembered.

So be it.

Our Founding Fathers were men of principle and men of action. George W. Bush is not, and he is proud of it. Dropping all historic context, and, in the process, failing to see whom he would be measured against, the fool described himself better by accident than I could have had I wasted a day thinking about it.

Not to embrace Obama's continuation and distillation of your willfully ignorant approach to government and the failed policies that flow directly from it, but here's wishing the door doesn't hit your ass on the way out, Mr. President.

-- CAV

LTE About Obama's Choice for Advisor on Science & Technology

By Gina Liggett from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

My following LTE was published in the Rocky Mountain News on January 6th. I responded to the Rocky's fairly good Editorial concerning Obama's pick of a humanity-causes-global-warming alarmist to head the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Dear Editor(s),

I agree with the Rocky's Dec. 27 editorial "The limits of science/Does Obama advisor respect them?" about President-elect Obama's choice of Stephen Holdren to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. But I might suggest a different title: "The limits of politics." Because that's what Obama's all about.

Besides lack of any executive experience, he has never actually created wealth in our economy, but only spent someone else's. And now Obama has selected greenhouse-gas alarmist Holdren who joins the chorus of politicos in blaming global warming on industrialization, and who advocates severe strangulations on our economy as the answer.

Unlike Holdren, there are many scientists who attribute global warming primarily to the formidible forces of nature that have caused drastic climate change in Earth's past. There is a great deal of scientific debate that has become squashed because of politics.

But despite Obama's hot air about "free and open inquiry," it's clear by his choice of Holdren that he doesn't care about facts, science or economics, but the world he knows best--politics.

Gina Liggett, Denver

Distortions due to Subsidies and Protectionism in Domestic Corn Production

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

When discussing government intervention in the economy, many times we see industries where government's role is primarily one of suppression of an industry. That is, regulation, taxation, and trade restrictions serve to depress an entire industry. This is true in my industry, the chemical industry. It is also true in the pharmaceutical industry. While there may be differences in impact from firm to firm, generally all firms suffer from government intervention, and generally all firms can be viewed in some ways as victims of government intervention.

But what happens in an industry when government subsidizes a particular set of players at the expense of another? Are all firms victims? No, The picture it turns out is very different.

Dr. Monica Hughes of Free Agriculture - Restore Markets and I have been having a discussion on the economics of the agricultural industry. I wanted to understand where the biggest economic impacts were and their mechanism of impact. She has been extremely helpful in providing background information on the subject. Subsidies are a huge factor in agriculture, and I've decided to use the largest subsidized segment of agriculture, corn, as an example.

Two things happen when government subsidizes an industry. First, on the economic side, the subsidies create distortions in normal markets. These distortions generally benefit some players in the industry, and hurt others. Also, these distortions can usually be shown to be inefficient. That is, the distortions incur costs that would not normally be incurred if the system were free of intervention. Second, on the political side, some firms that benefit from subsidization use political influence to attempt to preserve those subsidies. Essentially, some firms use their political "pull" to attempt to preserve (or maybe even increase the benefit) to themselves, at the expense of others. The subsidy creates a class of "Orren Boyle" businessmen [referring to the corrupt steel mill owner who uses his political connections to stay in business in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged]. Not all businessmen are innocent victims. Some are complicit in preservation of the distortions, and economic inefficiencies, through the use of political "pull."

Agriculture is an industry that takes on this sort of character. Let's illustrate with corn. I've put together a small diagram showing corn production and consumption in the U.S. today. Now analyzing this industry as a whole is a complex undertaking and I don't purport to be an economist. But I have shown the corn production "envelope," extended out to one step beyond simple production. That is, I've shown some of uses that contribute to the consumption of corn, and their impact on the corn subsidy as well.

2008 corn production in the U.S. totaled 13.2 billion bushels, and utilized 87M acres of farmland. It was consumed primarily in four downstream uses: grain for export, feed for meat production, raw material for fuel ethanol production, and as an input to the food and sweetener industry. Stunningly, food for human consumption is a very small part of this mix.

This envelope is subsidized to the tune of about $20 billion dollars annually. It's important to consider all of the various ways in which subsidies act on this envelope. This includes direct Federal payment to corn producers, capital funding and subsidies for ethanol production, subsidies for feedlot waste disposal, and the sugar import tariff/quota system (which is currently cost neutral but will become an additional subsidy soon), and also the additional price consumers must bear for ethanol and corn sweeteners.

These subsidies create huge distortions. Both the fuel ethanol industry and the corn sweetener industry are industries that exist almost entirely due to the subsidy. The U.S. sugar quota / duty system inflates domestic sweetener prices by two times. High fructose corn syrup and other corn-based sweeteners, along with domestic sugar, cost twice to manufacture than international sugar does, but the quotas and duties on imported sugar assure you'll pay the extra cost. Fuel ethanol costs twice what gasoline does, but ethanol content laws in some states assure you'll pay the extra cost. The subsidy of corn and feedlot waste disposal make concentrated farming operations more competitive than they would normally be, and thus much more prevalent.

All of this has the effect of inflating corn and corn product production at the expense of the substitutes it replaces. Ultimately this comes at a net cost to the consumer and the taxpayer. Firms within the industries that exist as a result of subsidization now have a direct incentive to use political pull to maintain their positions. Who are these firms? They are those firms who lobby for and directly receive government benefit. Monica has shown that large corporate farms (not the small independent farmer) are the most prevalent recipients of direct corn subsidies. Also included in this mix are ethanol producers, and corn-based sweetener producers, neither of which would exist in any significant number without the subsidy. Probably the most notorious recipient of corn-based subsidies, and one who possesses a formidable Federal lobby is corn-products firm Archer Daniels Midland. From a 1995 profile of ADM by The Cato Institute:

ADM is certainly the nation's most arrogant welfare recipient. And it is one of the few welfare recipients that spend millions of dollars each year advertising on Sunday morning television shows populated and watched by politicians. Chairman Dwayne Andreas's and ADM's success in farming Washington represents the rational result of contemporary government policies that turn elections into "an advanced auction of stolen goods," as H. L. Mencken quipped. Thanks to its multi-million-dollar hustling in Washington, a company that lives and dies on the generosity of the American taxpayer has managed to get itself revered as a great public servant. Although ADM is not the only corporation with its hand out in Washington, it is easily one of the most successful beggars on the block.(1)

This is the nature of those who would use political pull to get government to force you to subsidize them, and to force you to pay higher prices for the products they produce. It is reprehensible.

What would the industry envelope look like without subsidies? I took a first pass estimate, assuming ethanol and HFSC are eliminated as a result of the changes, and animal feed is replaced mostly by grass feeding practices (for beef only using Monica's analysis), but all other consumption is steady. The answer is that we would produce significantly less corn, use less land overall, replace sweeteners with cheaper [by half!] imported sugar, and cut the cost of fuel by approximately $0.22/gallon of gasoline.

Now the practicality and effectiveness of a laissez faire system is part of what makes it moral. But the laissez faire system fundamentally preserves individual rights; it prevents the confiscation of funds from some to benefit others; and it rewards the free productive farmer, not the skilled politico's. Notice how many laws go toward the distortion of the corn industry? A truly free market means the repeal of them all.

The answer is laissez faire!

Rand in the Wall Street Journal

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

Stephen Moore has a fantastic opinion piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, entitled "Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years." In it, he draws parallels between government actions in Atlas, and in today's financial crisis.

Other than his unnecessary mention of David Kelley, the article does Rand justice (bold mine).

Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.

...

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the "Anti-Greed Act" to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the "Equalization of Opportunity Act" to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act," aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn't Hank Paulson think of that?

These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act." Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion -- in roughly his first 100 days in office.

The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies -- while standing next in line for their share of the booty are real-estate developers, the steel industry, chemical companies, airlines, ethanol producers, construction firms and even catfish farmers. With each successive bailout to "calm the markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost. Yet, as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate "windfalls."

What Really Caused China’s Success?

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

In November of last year, China announced a massive stimulus plan in response to its current economic crisis. While smaller in nominal value than the U.S. TARP package, it is huge relative to the size of China’s economy. The conventional economic wisdom heralds China for it’s blended economic policies which combine strong government spending with private enterprise. From the New York Times article cited above:

State-driven investment projects of this kind have been a major impetus to Chinese growth throughout the 30 years of market-oriented reforms, a strong legacy of central planning.

News of the stimulus was received generally well, given this perspective, and certainly it adds to the general momentum in favor of such Keynesian measures. But is the perspective, that mixed economies function better than more pure forms of capitalism, correct?

A recent article I ran across challenges this thesis with hard research on China’s development. The article is “Private Ownership: the Real Source of China’s Economic Miracle” by MIT Sloan School of Management Associate Professor, Yashen Huang, and it appeared in this last month’s McKinsey Quarterly. It summarizes the thesis of his book, Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State. [Note: I have not read the book, but plan to in the next year. My observations are taken from the article. “Capitalism with Chinese characteristics” is the Chinese government’s somewhat nationalistic description of their system, couched in a “we’re going to do it out own way” tone.]

What stands out as a credit to the author is that he has analyzed economic data on China’s 30 year journey toward a market economy in order to tease out the factors contributing to China’s phenomenal growth. China is a complex case and it surely has experienced phenomenal economic growth. Understanding the true causes of this growth is critical because it is such a compelling growth story. According to the author, the popular thinking is wrong.

The received wisdom on the country’s economic miracle – it was a triumph of technocracy, in which the Communist Party engineered a gradual transition to the market by relying on state-controlled businesses – gets all the important details wrong. This standard account holds that entrepreneurship, private-property rights, financial liberalization, and political reform played only a small role. Yet my research, based on a detailed analysis of the Chinese governments’ survey data and government documents at the central and local levels, indicates that property rights and private entrepreneurship provided the dominant stimulus for high growth and lower levels of poverty.

…

The real mystery of China’s miracle isn’t how the economy grew, but how Western experts got the growth story so wrong.

The author backs up his thesis with hard research, looking at the issue from several different perspectives. He shows that China’s growth was fueled in the more rural coastal areas, and that private enterprises dominated the mix, grew at a faster rate, and generated the bulk of economic growth. In a second example he compares to nominally similar provinces, Zhejang and Jiangsu, who used very different mechanisms to fuel their growth. Jiangsu province “courted foreign investment and benefitted significantly from public-works spending. However, Zhejang province relied on private growth mechanisms. The difference in outcomes tells the tale. Starting out as a poorer province, Zhejang eventually caught up with and surpassed Jiangsu over a 20-year period. Today it leads on every significant economic measure. Zhejang’s asset base is more productive and its residents enjoy a higher standard of living.

In another example he examines rural policy vs. the more interventionist policies in large cities, showing that their change in living standard is far greater in those rural regions where privatization measures were stronger and government stimulus spending was lower. Contrasting rural municipality of Wenzhou with metropolitan Shanghai, the author notes:

Today, Wenzhou is China’s most dynamic municipality, teeming with businesses that dominate European garment markets. By contrast, Shanghai, once home to China’s earliest industrialists, is now oddly bereft of native entrepreneurs.

Wenzhou’s transformation resulted almost entirely from free-market policies. As early as 1982, officials there were experimenting with private lending, liberalized interest rates, cross-regional competition by savings and loan organizations, and lending to private-sector companies. The Wenzhou government also worked to protect the property rights of private entrepreneurs and to make the municipality friendly to business in many other ways.

Bold mind. Here we see not mixed economic policies, but laissez faire policies, with government performing it’s proper function, protecting property rights. And the contrast is clear. Capitalism with Chinese characteristics is simply another name for the mixed economy, and when the analysis is done, laissez faire capitalism is the winner.

We need more analysis like this to understand the phenomena, and to break the myths that reign today, especially in this time where government intervention is seen as the solution to our financial woes.

How to Stop the Next Madoff

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

How to Stop the Next Madoff

January 12, 2009

Washington, D.C.--“Want to stop the next Madoff? Gut the SEC,” says Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

“Part of the reason Madoff’s misdeeds went undetected is that the Securities and Exchange Commission spends most of its time doing things the government has no business doing. The only legitimate job of a securities law enforcement division is to protect investors against the specific crimes of theft, fraud, and breach of contract.

“But the SEC plays a much different role. Its mandate is to attempt to make investing ‘safe’ by controlling every aspect of financial markets, from dictating the composition of mutual fund boards to mandating public release of executive compensation numbers that shareholders want kept private to determining when executives are allowed to sell stock--‘insider trade’--instead of leaving that to the discretion of a company’s owners.

“In pretending to guarantee to investors that their investments are sound, which is impossible, the SEC encourages the kind of blind group-think that characterized the Madoff investors. And with the SEC devoting itself to a sprawling array of elaborate witch-hunts, such as the ‘insider trading’ case against Mark Cuban, what time or attention does it have for real fraud?

“The answer--as is clear from the fact that a 29-point, 17-page report on Madoff, submitted in 1999, 2001, and 2005, entitled The World’s Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud slipped through its cracks--is none.”

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Pain of Recession Foretells Agony of Green Economy

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

Pain of Recession Foretells Agony of Green Economy

January 12, 2009

Washington, D.C.--For the first time in 25 years, global demand for oil is expected to decline two years in a row. The decline is an effect of the global economic recession, which has dramatically reduced production and trade worldwide.
 
“This recession, with all its grim news of job loss and economic hardship, should be seen as a cautionary tale against coercive energy and climate policies,” said Keith Lockitch, fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.
 
“Energy is the motive power that fuels production and trade. When economic activity slows, so does energy demand. But it goes the other way too. Imposing restrictions on the use of energy--as would occur under a system of carbon regulation--would choke off the economy’s fuel and shut down productive activity. The economic pain we’re all feeling in this recession is nothing compared to the pain we would feel if we adopt green policies that cut off fossil fuel consumption.
 
“For one thing, a recession is a temporary downturn; we can expect that once the economy picks up again, producers will increase their demand for energy toward renewed growth and prosperity. Also, nobody sets out to cause a recession. But if we voluntarily adopt green policies that force cutbacks in energy, the result would be a self-inflicted depression that would cause economic pain for as long as the policies are in place.
 
“Those who claim that we could avoid economic hardship by running a green economy on windmills and solar cells are seriously out of touch with reality. None of the so-called alternative energies that are supposedly going to power the ‘green energy revolution’ have proven themselves to be practical sources of energy. And this despite decades of research and billions of dollars in subsidies.

“Whatever you think about global warming--and there is ample evidence to reject the hysterical claim that we are facing any sort of planetary emergency--the reality is that a drastic reduction in carbon emissions means a reduction in the use of energy far greater than anything we are seeing right now, and the corresponding economic decline would make this recession seem like a party.”

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Watch and Learn from Hugo Chavez

By Thomas A. Bowden from The Ayn Rand Institute Media Releases,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Watch and Learn from Hugo Chavez

January 12, 2009

Washington, D.C.--Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has halted construction of a private shopping mall in downtown Caracas as a first step toward confiscation. “We’re going to expropriate that and turn it into a hospital--I don’t know--a school, a university,” said Chavez on his weekly radio show.

“Americans can learn an important lesson from the spread of socialism in Venezuela,” said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “What is Chavez counting on when he grabs a private building and vows to make it into a hospital, school, or university? He’s counting on his listeners to excuse the seizure of private property because a higher moral purpose is supposedly being served.

“Chavez is relying on the fact that socialism embodies the world’s moral ideal of individual sacrifice for the ‘common good.’ History has taught him that no opponent will denounce that ideal. And so he climbs to the moral high ground, turning his back on socialism’s dismal historical record of economic decline, lost freedoms, and human misery.

“As long as the moral ideal of self-sacrifice remains unchallenged, socialism will continue to spread--not only in the third world, but in America as well.

“There is a rational alternative. It’s laissez-faire capitalism, which upholds the individual’s moral right to live and work for his own sake, not society’s. But to establish freedom we must dig up the moral roots that continue to nourish socialism worldwide.”

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Rand Discussion on Secular Right Blog

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The conservative blog Secular Right has started an open thread on Ayn Rand. Some of the contributors to this blog include high-profile conservative intellectuals such as Heather Mac Donald, John Derbyshire, Walter Olson, and Razib Khan who are sympathetic to secular ideals. Hence, this is an excellent opportunity for Objectivists to leave thoughtful, polite comments supporting Rand's ideas.

Here's the comment I left:

Ayn Rand's greatest contribution to the realm of political philosophy was her explicit moral defense of capitalism. Too many defenders of capitalism on the political right are lukewarm on capitalism. They argue that it "works" (in the sense of delivering material prosperity), but regard the essential element of capitalism (the pursuit of one’s self-interest) as morally suspect. For instance, Irving Kristol only gives capitalism "two cheers" in his famous book by the same title because he regards capitalism as lacking an essential moral dimension.

In contrast, Rand argued that capitalism is moral precisely because it allows men to pursue their self-interest. At an implicit level, most Americans understand this. They want to be happy, prosper, and pursue goals and values that are important to their own lives.

And this country is a beacon of hope to millions of people around the world precisely because it promises an "American dream" where honest, hard-working people can make a better life for themselves. It is this promise that drew my parents to America from Taiwan over 40 years ago. They came over to this country with little more than the clothes on their back. But they worked hard, prospered, sent two children to medical school, and are now enjoying a happy and well-earned retirement.

Many thinkers on the right do a very good job defending capitalism on economic grounds. But capitalism needs a moral defense as well. Right-leaning thinkers too-often find themselves losing the political debate to leftists who claim the moral high ground by attacking capitalism as "selfish" and promoting socialism as noble precisely because it isn't selfish. Americans want to "do what's right", so if a leftist tells them that capitalism is immoral whereas socialism is moral, they'll keep falling for leftist demagogues even though socialist ideas never work in practice.

For this reason, intellectuals on the right need to proudly and unabashedly defend capitalism as moral -- not despite the fact that it allows men to pursue their self-interest but *because* it allows men to pursue their self-interest.

Ayn Rand was the first thinker to make this fully moral defense of capitalism to the American people. For our sakes, I hope she's not the last.

(BTW, much of what I've said is straight from Eric Daniels' superb lecture, "The Morality of Capitalism".)

Washington Examiner Quotes Me On Health Care

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The January 11, 2009 Washington Examiner has quoted me in their editorial on the dangers of universal health care. Here is the opening:

Universal coverage? First, look at the disaster in Massachusetts
By Examiner Editorial -- 1/11/09

To much fanfare from both right and left in 2006, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to require all residents to buy health insurance. A new state health insurance clearinghouse was created, with taxpayers subsidizing those who couldn't afford to buy coverage. Then Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, promised that "every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance." Yet just two years later, Romney's much-heralded "solution" -- touted by many as the model for a national program -- has become an embarrassing flop.

Just a year after the universal coverage law passed, The New York Times reported, state insurers were already jacking up rates to twice the national average. According to Dr. Paul Hsieh, a physician and founding member of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine, 43 mandatory benefits -- including those that many people did not want or need, such as in vitro fertilization -- raised the costs of coverage for Massachusetts residents by as much as 56 percent, depending upon an individual's income status. So much for "affordable" health care...

Read the rest here.

Their OpEd quoted extensively from my article in the Fall 2008 issue of The Objective Standard, "Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America".

I'm deeply grateful to the Examiner for publicizing this issue and to Craig Biddle for encouraging me to write the original article.

Update: The OpEd also appeared in the San Francisco Examiner. So it may be getting a fairly wide circulation!

Protestant Reformation

By softwareNerd from Software Nerd,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Let Airlines Decide Who Boards Their Planes

By Thomas A. Bowden from The Ayn Rand Institute Media Releases,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Let Airlines Decide Who Boards Their Planes

January 9, 2009

Washington, D.C.--A 29-year-old Middle Eastern man who insisted on occupying the window seat closest to the cockpit while wearing a T-shirt saying, in Arabic and English, “WE WILL NOT BE SILENT,” has been paid $240,000 to drop his discrimination lawsuit. Raed Jarrar had sued JetBlue and two federal security officers for having made him cover the T-shirt and sit in the rear of the plane, to mollify passengers who felt threatened.

“It’s an injustice when a private airline is penalized for exercising its rights as an owner,” said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Property owners are entitled to set standards for conduct, including dress codes, that their customers must observe when using company property. If a potential customer finds those standards unreasonable, he is free to take his business elsewhere.

“Here, JetBlue should have been legally entitled to forbid Mr. Jarrar from frightening other passengers aboard its privately owned jetliner. In deciding the matter, JetBlue had a right to consider that Mr. Jarrar’s behavioral and physical profile resembled that of terrorists who have left a trail of blood and bone across the globe, both before and after destroying the World Trade Center with hijacked airliners in 2001.

“Now, however, Mr. Jarrar is a quarter-million dollars richer because our anti-discrimination laws forbid businesses to use their own judgment in these matters.”

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Quick Roundup 391

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

Vote Early, Vote Often!

These days, I barely have time to follow my own blog, much less meander about the blogosphere, so I have been really slow on the uptake....

Bubblehead's blog, The Stupid Shall Be Punished, has been nominated for "Best up and Coming Blog" in the 2008 Weblog Awards. As of this writing, he leads in his category by about twenty votes. Remember: You can vote once per day per computer, and, counting Monday, when the polls end, that means we can help put him over the top with 4 votes apiece per computer.

It was thanks to Bubblehead's nomination last year that Gus Van Horn was able to compete for and win last year's award in its size category.

Daddy's New Car

Mrs. Van Horn and I had already decided it was high time to buy a new main computer, but we'd decided to wait until after I moved to Boston, just to avoid having to worry about moving a brand new computer cross-country. But the need to have Windows to run some proprietary data analysis software for my paper, and the spotty availability of the workstation I normally use for that at work conspired to make my purchase earlier.

Love the machine, hated the OS until last night when I installed Linux.

Linux?

Yes. The plan all along was to buy a good machine, run Linux on it, and Windows when necessary on virtual machines. I had wanted to wait to do that until Boston, but along with the 2.4 GHz processor, 6 GB RAM, and 640 GB hard drive was a serious deficiency. It is euphemistically known as Windows Vista.

The program I needed to use -- the very reason I decided I could not wait to buy -- calls on a proprietary Microsoft database that the newer version packaged with Vista can't read properly! I hate vendor lock-in to begin with, but shouldn't you at least be able to access your own data if you buy future versions of a vendor's product? This show-stopper instantly transformed my purchase into a $700.00 brick. I can't touch a new version of Windows without being reminded why I switched to Linux over a decade ago.

So I have Linux installed now, and plan to run my application on XP in a virtual machine on top of that so I can do what I bought the computer for. With 6 GB RAM, I don't think virtualization is going to slow me down! Thanks for wasting my time -- again -- Mr. Gates!

On a positive note, I love having twelve times as much RAM as the computer I'd assembled from the smoldering remains of two others that had died around the same time! And Firefox 3 seems much more stable than Firefox 2.

Objectivist Roundup

The weekly Objectivist blog carnival is going strong, and you can see it over at Rational Jenn's this week.

Two New Blogs

I have finally gotten around to adding Caroline Glick's blog and Heroes of Capitalism to the sidebar. Happy reading!

The Picture of Mindlessness

The fact that we haven't already defeated an enemy like this says a lot more about us than it does about them. (HT: Scott Powell)

The sign says, "Death to all juice." And we need a Department of Homeland Security because of these guys? No. We are told we need one because we aren't using the Department of Defense properly.

Wrong Title

This video is hilarious, but FAIL Blog got the title wrong. They should have called it, "Darwin Award Fail"....

-- CAV

Hsieh OpEd in Christian Science Monitor

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I'm pleased to report that the January 7, 2009 edition of the Christian Science Monitor has published my latest OpEd on health care entitled, "Universal healthcare and the waistline police".

My theme is that adopting government-run universal healthcare will lead to a "nanny state on steroids" deeply antithetical to core American principles of individual freedom and responsibility.

Here is the opening:

Universal healthcare and the waistline police

Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.

Is this some nightmarish dystopia?

No, this is contemporary Japan.

The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs. This highlights one of the greatly underappreciated dangers of "universal healthcare." Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs. The inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens' health and their behavior. Hence, Americans should beware that if we adopt universal healthcare, we also risk creating a "nanny state on steroids" antithetical to core American principles...

Read the rest here.

(I would also like to extend my deepest thanks to Diana Hsieh, Ari Armstrong, and Brian Schwartz for their many helpful suggestions when proofreading earlier drafts of this piece.)

Update: My piece has also been picked up by Yahoo News - Opinion.

Israel and the Media

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Mike Janis posted the following to FRODO, Front Range Objectivism's discussion list on Tuesday. I thought it deserved a wider audience, so I'm reposting it here, with his permission:

The news coverage of the current conflict in the Middle East says a lot about the state of our culture, especially considering that the news agencies, being businesses, cater their stories to their audiences.

I'm looking at today's story on MSNBC.com, U.N. official: 'There's nowhere safe in Gaza'.

First of all, the tone makes it sound like the evil empire is closing in on the helpless, innocent rebels (made me think of Star Wars). "Tanks rumbled closer to the towns of Khan Younis and Dir el Balah in south and central Gaza but were still several miles outside..."

Second, is it the U.N.'s official job to tally the civilian casualties? It seems that whenever the U.N. is mentioned, it's so they can mention how many 'innocent' Palestinians are being killed. "More than 500 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 100 civilians, according to United Nations figures."

Third, they can't seem to mention enough that Israel isn't bowing to international pressure for cease-fire. "Israel, which has already encircled Gaza City, the area's biggest city, ignored mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire." Why are 'international calls' so quick to support the aggressors?

And lastly, if the article doesn't get its point across with words, there are two links to slide shows with pictures of injured Palestinians and international protestors (most appear to be Muslim, and there's even a picture of Muslim children in France standing next to a sign proclaiming Israel to be the terrorist nation).

I recently read William Tecumseh Sherman and the Moral Impetus for Victory by John Lewis in the The Objective Standard, Vol 1, No 2 and highly recommend it for anyone else who needs to hear a rational and sane voice about the moral duties/rights of a nation under attack and the role of civilian casualties.

Thank you, Mike!

Vatican Cites Environmentalist Objections to the Pill

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Reposted from Politics without God, as yet another indication of the coming merger of religion and environmentalism:

Another news item of interest from the iFeminists news feed:

Vatican newspaper slams 'the pill'
January 4, 2009

The contraceptive pill is polluting the environment and is in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said on Saturday.

The pill "has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature" through female urine, said Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, in the report. "We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill," he said, without elaborating further. "We are faced with a clear anti-environmental effect which demands more explanation on the part of the manufacturers," added Castellvi.

The article was promptly dismissed by several organisations. "Once metabolised, the hormones contained in oral contraceptives no longer have any of the characteristic effects of feminine hormones," said Gianbenedetto Melis, vice-president of a contraceptive research association, quoted by the ANSA news agency. The hormones contained in the pill such as oestrogen "are present everywhere... in plastic, in disinfectants, in meat that we eat," added Flavia Franconi, of the Society of Italian Pharmacology. ...

The alliance between capitalism and religion in the 20th century in America was artifact of the rise of atheistic communism. It's not a sustainable union: a religious worldview cannot ground the rights of the individual to pursue his own happy life by his own rational judgment as required by capitalism. (On that point, see Ayn Rand's essay "Faith and Force" in Philosophy: Who Needs It.) More particularly, the Christian scriptures preach disdain for this world, blind obedience to the whims of God, abject sacrifice for the sake of the poor and weak, acceptance of sin, the positive value of suffering, and the moral corruption of wealth. A person who takes those values seriously cannot preach or practice capitalism. (See this LTE and this one.)

Consequently, I'm not surprised to see supposedly "conservative" religious institutions abandon their marginal respect for individual rights in favor of statist causes like the welfare states and environmentalism. Of course, the Catholic Church has never been a defender of individual rights, particularly not reproductive rights. But its embrace of environmentalist arguments to further that end is something new -- and ominous.

No "Footprint," No Life

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

No "Footprint," No Life

By Keith Lockitch (Washington Times, January 9, 2008)

As environmentalism continues to grow in prominence, more and more of us are trying to live a "greener" lifestyle. But the more "eco-friendly" you try to become, likely the more you find yourself confused and frustrated by the green message.

Have you tried giving up your bright and cheery incandescent light bulbs to save energy--only to learn that their gloomy-but-efficient compact fluorescent replacements contain mercury? Perhaps you’ve tried to free up space in landfills by foregoing the ease and convenience of disposable diapers--only to be criticized for the huge quantities of energy and water consumed in laundering those nasty cloth diapers. Even voicing support for renewable energy no longer seems to be green enough, as angry environmentalists protest the development of "pristine lands" for wind farms and solar power plants.

Why is it that no matter what sacrifices you make to try to reduce your "environmental footprint," it never seems to be enough?

Well, consider why it is that you have an "environmental footprint" in the first place.

Everything we do to sustain our lives has an impact on nature. Every value we create to advance our well-being--every ounce of food we grow, every structure we build, every iPhone we manufacture--is produced by extracting raw materials and reshaping them to serve our needs. Every good thing in our lives comes from altering nature for our own benefit.

From the perspective of human life and happiness, a big "environmental footprint" is an enormous positive. This is why people in India and China are striving to increase theirs: to build better roads, more cars and computers, new factories and power plants and hospitals.

But for environmentalism, the size of your "footprint" is the measure of your guilt. Nature, according to green philosophy, is something to be left alone--to be preserved untouched by human activity. Their notion of an "environmental footprint" is intended as a measure of how much you "disturb" nature, with disturbing nature viewed as a sin requiring atonement. Just as the Christian concept of original sin conveys the message that human beings are stained with evil simply for having been born, the green concept of an "environmental footprint" implies that you should feel guilty for your very existence.

It should hardly be any surprise, then, that nothing you do to try to lighten your "footprint" will ever be deemed satisfactory. So long as you are still pursuing life-sustaining activities, whatever you do to reduce your impact on nature in one respect (e.g., cloth diapers) will simply lead to other impacts in other respects (e.g., water use)--like some perverse game of green whack-a-mole--and will be attacked and condemned by greens outraged at whatever "footprint" remains. So long as you still have some "footprint," further penance is required; so long as you are still alive, no degree of sacrifice can erase your guilt.

The only way to leave no "footprint" would be to die--a conclusion that is not lost on many green ideologues. Consider the premise of the nonfiction bestseller titled "The World Without Us," which fantasizes about how the earth would "recover" if all humanity suddenly became extinct. Or consider the chilling, anti-human conclusion of an op-ed discussing cloth versus disposable diapers: "From the earth’s point of view, it’s not all that important which kind of diapers you use. The important decision was having the baby."

The next time you trustingly adopt a "green solution" like fluorescent lights, cloth diapers or wind farms, only to be puzzled when met with still further condemnation and calls for even more sacrifices, remember what counts as a final solution for these ideologues.

The only rational response to such a philosophy is to challenge it at its core. We must acknowledge that it is the essence of human survival to reshape nature for our own benefit, and that far from being a sin, it is our highest virtue. Don’t be fooled by the cries that industrial civilization is "unsustainable." This cry dates to at least the 19th century, but is belied by the facts. Since the Industrial Revolution, population and life expectancy, to say nothing of the enjoyment of life, have steadily grown.

It is time to recognize environmentalism as a philosophy of guilt and sacrifice--and to reject it in favor of a philosophy that proudly upholds the value of human life.

Obama's Backward Economics

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

Obama’s Backward Economics

January 9, 2009

Washington, D.C.--“Barack Obama claims that Americans can only stave off economic disaster by trillions in government spending--which means trillions of dollars taxed or borrowed to finance government make-work programs,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.
 
“Obama-nomics couldn’t be more wrong.
 
“Prosperity requires that the government drastically cut government spending. That way, as much real capital as possible will remain in private hands, and be put to productive use by entrepreneurs to create valuable goods and services to sell at home and abroad. By taxing and inflating our wealth away, Obama will simply be creating more of the crushing debt that brought about the current crisis.”
 
“You don’t put out a fire with more gasoline. And you don’t end a recession by destroying capital.”  

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“Rising Water Worsens Flooding”

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

I was reading the Wall Street Journal Wednesday and happened upon a poorly written general interest story which I promptly blew off until I saw that it was the second most read online article of the day. In “Hard-Hit Families Finally Start Saving, Aggravating Nation's Economic Woes” author Kelly Evans attempts to make the case that the sudden contraction in consumer spending is somehow making the recession worse.

Usually, frugality is good for individuals and for the economy. Savings serve as a reservoir of capital that can be used to finance investment, which helps raise a nation's standard of living. But in a recession, increased saving -- or its flip side, decreased spending -- can exacerbate the economy's woes. It's what economists call the "paradox of thrift."

The premise of this article is flawed. It implies that the shift in savings rates are somehow independent of the recessionary condition itself. To imply that the economy is made worse by saving leads one to the question “worse compared to what?” A contraction in spending is what happens during the initial stages of a recession. It is the recession! To imply that it worsens the recession is like implying that rising water worsens flooding.

This sort of thinking is at the heart of the reasoning of those economists who think that we must try to stimulate the economy by spending. Implying that something that is a natural part of any recession is worsening it gives credence to the idea that one could spend their way out of a recession. Ultimately, if the public won’t spend, then they must be “stimulated” to spend by allowing the government to spend their money for them. This is a failure to understand a basic law of economics, Say’s Law, which says that supply constitutes demand. One way to consider this is that it is ultimately capital (i.e. money) put to productive use in the hands of capitalists, which causes costs to drop and buying power to increase stimulating consumer demand.

We have seen capital destruction in the last few years, and with it, a natural contraction in the resulting demand. In order to quickly recover then, one would want to accumulate that capital, and put it to productive use. In other words, the best thing one can do when faced with destruction of personal capital is to reaccumulate it, i.e. to save!

Note the funny logic implied as well. This crisis was supposedly caused by a glut of consumer credit, a binge of spending, a lack of savings. But now, the solution to exiting the crisis is to spend. Don’t believe it. The best thing for the public to do today is to save. Yes that will cause a contraction of demand for a time, but the capital saved and ultimately deployed will mean that demand will again begin to increase naturally.

The Politics of Fear

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

President-elect Obama in a speech (full text here) at George Mason University today called for “dramatic” action on the part of the Federal government in response to the U.S. economic situation. The basic premise of his speech is one that we’ve heard many times in the last few months. We heard President Bush present it when he called for the initial $700 million “bail-out” package for key Wall Street financial institutions. He reiterated it when he bypassed a grid-locked Congress to extend TARP funds to the Detroit Big Three. And today Obama gave the same justification:

I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. We could lose a generation of potential and promise, as more young Americans are forced to forgo dreams of college or the chance to train for the jobs of the future. And our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and standing in the world.

In short, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.

This is the “government can’t sit by and do nothing” argument or as I like to call it, the “Doomsday scenario.” It consists of positing some sort of unnamed, nebulous “worst case” scenario, claiming that this scenario is what we face in the absence of any action, and then claiming that government must act to prevent such a scenario. It is a spurious argument, and the key to its success lies in two key aspects.

First, it relies on the fear of such an event as a motivator for action. Notice that he provides no discussion of the mechanism by which this disaster will come to pass, but only dire predictions of the result. This is the basic premise that should be questioned of course, but the hope is that your fear will be so great, and your ignorance of the situation so blinding that you’ll not question it. Note that if we do not face such a dire situation, that the basis for “dramatic” action becomes questionable.

Second, its success also relies on the fact that once action is taken one can’t confirm if the original premise was indeed true. This makes it almost impossible to appear to “fail".” Let’s say that we are indeed headed for a “cliff.” By what measure will we determine if government action actually succeeded? Well, the economy won’t fail. But isn’t this the exact outcome we would expect if there were in fact actually no “cliff?” How do we tell the difference between those two scenarios? We can’t. And so the average person is bound to conclude that the stimulus package actually worked.

This whole line of thinking is simply a enticement to help us get used to the idea of looking to government to solve our problems. In fact, Obama brazenly claims that government is the only way out of the dilemma.

There is no doubt that the cost of this plan will be considerable. It will certainly add to the budget deficit in the short-term. But equally certain are the consequences of doing too little or nothing at all, for that will lead to an even greater deficit of jobs, incomes, and confidence in our economy. It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy – where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.

That is why we need to act boldly and act now to reverse these cycles. That’s why we need to put money in the pockets of the American people, create new jobs, and invest in our future. That’s why we need to re-start the flow of credit and restore the rules of the road that will ensure a crisis like this never happens again.

We can’t depend on government to create jobs at all. Don’t buy this line. The irony, of course, is that both this stimulus and the original TARP package will only end up hurting the economy more. Of course we now have the momentum of the precedent set by the Republican administration fueling a Democratic spending binge. This is nothing but the justification for a money grab using your taxpayer dollars. Don’t stand for it.

We are not headed for a cliff. The best thing the government can do for the economy is let it recover on it’s own. University of Michigan economist Mark Perry has been collecting data to quantify how big this economic crisis is at his blog Carpe Diem. It is a much needed antidote to fear, and I suggest following it for a while. In this post (check the comments) you’ll see that looking at the volume of bank failures in nominal dollar value, we have yet to see as much bank failure as occurred in the S&L crisis in the late 80’s. There certainly is economic stress, but it is not a Doomsday scenario. The best thing the government can do is “laissez faire!”

Missing the Memo in Israel

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

I recall seeing a day or so ago an HBLer post excitedly to the effect that perhaps Dr. John Lewis' recent talks in Israel might have influenced its recent decision to conduct a military offensive in Gaza.

That would be good news, and an excellent start towards Israel finally developing the backbone it should already have, as occupier of the moral high ground in its conflict with the "Palestinians". But it would be just a start. Israel has already shown that it is not pursuing victory:

Earlier today, Israel ordered a pause in its Gaza offensive for three hours to allow food and fuel to reach besieged Palestinians, and the country's leaders debated whether to accept an international cease-fire plan or expand the assault against Hamas.

With criticism rising of the operation's spiraling civilian death toll and Gazans increasingly suffering the effects of nonstop airstrikes and shelling, Israel's military said opened "humanitarian corridors" to allow aid supplies to reach Palestinians.

Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said the "recess in offensive operations" was aimed at allowing in supplies and fuel and would last from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m local time (6 a.m. to 9 a.m. EST). He said similar lulls in the coming days would be considered.

However, Lerner said that even during the pause "for every attack against the army, there will be a response." Gaza residents reported scattered gunfire and explosions even after it was supposed to have gone into effect, but the scale of fighting appeared to drop. [bold added]

Recall that "Palestinian" civilians -- freely elected Hamas (but no, this is not the only reason that they are fair game) -- the instigators of numerous such attacks against Israel -- as its governing party in 2006. And note further how Americans once responded to an unprovoked attack several decades ago, as described by John Lewis:

Americans mount a vigorous offense against the center of the enemy's power. Waves of bombers obliterate dozens of enemy cities. His food is choked off, his military is decimated, his industry is bombarded, his ships are sunk, his harbors are mined -- his people are psychologically shattered. In a single night, a hundred thousand civilians die in a firestorm in his capital. Americans drop leaflets telling the enemy population which cities could be next. Civilians are immersed in propaganda from their government, telling them that they are winning the war -- yet they cower defenselessly while American bombers level their homes.

One of our generals announces his personal goal: to "kill the bastards." [bold added]

And, as if the contrast between what I suspect Lewis might advocate and what Israel is doing is not obvious enough, Hosni Mubarak, practically dares us to put two and two together and say, "four!"

Israel's leaders -- including the top troika of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak -- were to discuss whether to broaden the operation in Gaza or move to accept a plan being proposed by Egypt and France to end the fighting.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the initiative calls for an immediate cease-fire by Israel and Palestinian factions for a limited period to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and an urgent meeting of Israel and the Palestinian side on arrangements to prevent any repetition of military action and to deal with the causes. [bold added]

But "military action" (which includes killing people), specifically to render Gaza innocuous to Israel is the way to "deal with" the "causes".

The "Palestinians" -- to the degree they support, aid, or fail to resist Hamas and renounce terrorism -- are the cause of the problems here, and Hosni Mubarak is not merely aiding them, he is lying. And he looks "good" doing it thanks to altruism, the irrational doctrine that need trumps all other considerations.

Remember this the next time someone claims that there is no rational basis for morality. The twin spectacles playing out in Gaza -- of "military action" without the objective of victory, and savages being spared by diplomacy of the annihilation they deserved long ago -- are being made possible by this demonstrably wrong, immoral, and impractical idea.

-- CAV

PS: Lewis comments on a previous speaking engagement in Israel at Capitalism Magazine.

The Goat of the Gaps

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

Some time back, I think it was through this Greg Perkins post at NoodleFood, I was introduced to the term "God of the Gaps":

The history of mankind has been one long account of religious explanation being crowded out by scientific discoveries and rational understanding. This pattern of poor thinking is so common that it even has its own name: the "God of the Gaps," where a supernatural agent is cited as the reason behind something we do not understand. Here's the clincher: just notice how it always goes one way -- natural, rational explanations are never displaced by supernatural "explanations."

Today, news that huge, existing and projected federal budget deficits might threaten some of Barack Obama's massive spending programs alerted me to a type of argument we can expect to hear incessantly over the next four years. I propose to call this argument the "Goat of the Gaps":

Yet while Obama stressed that he'll inherit the $1.2 trillion deficit -- and on Tuesday called the Bush administration irresponsible for adding to the national debt -- he didn't identify any Bush-era policy that he'd reverse to reduce the deficits and mounting debt. [bold added]

On the one hand, this is just another example of "more of the same" from the candidate for "change", and, too, blaming other politicians as cover or diversion is common. On the other hand Obama's slickness gives those of us who know better a valuable opportunity. He is using Bush to distract us from his own intellectual bankruptcy for a reason: Regarding the origins of the economic crisis, he does not want to go there at all. This is valuable information.

In a sense, Obama is hoping to do what Greg Perkins has never observed: replace actual knowledge with a convenient non-explanation. He hopes to use the gaps in many people's understanding of the financial crisis (or whatever else, like the "war" in Iraq) to scapegoat George Bush even as he prepares to follow essentially the same course of action. The bad situation is already Bush's fault, according to Obama, so who can blame him if he has a hard time resolving things?

Although the chance for most of us to challenge Obama directly on the national stage will be slim to none, we can still go where Obama doesn't want us to go -- in daily conversation and in any forum open to us. Obama expects his followers and admirers to accept what he said uncritically and repeat it often enough for it to become the conventional wisdom.

The solution to Obama's tactic lies in using whatever opportunities we get to challenge what he says. For that reason, it is worth taking note of what Obama said, why he said it, and what he wants to remain unclear.

But how? As Myrhaf once pointed out, we can't explain capitalism anew in every single conversation, or even convey how horrible Obama's policies would be when put into practice.

But we can raise the questions Obama is hoping nobody will ask. McClatchy indicates for us at the very end of the article where the line of questioning should go when it notes that Obama "didn't identify any Bush-era policy that he'd reverse to reduce the deficits and mounting debt."

This -- That Obama has never said how he will differ from Bush. -- is what one must bring up when hearing capitalism blamed through the convenient proxy of Bush (Who is far from being a capitalist.) Your mileage may vary, as I recently saw, but it is always worthwhile to indicate that, at the very least, not everyone simply takes Obama's word as received wisdom.

Obama wants us to act as if he differs in some significant way from Bush. We must question that at every possible time, and, when we can, note that neither man is a capitalist. Bush holds a large share of the blame for lots of what is wrong today, but he is not the only one to blame. And we cannot allow Obama to get away with making things worse through essentially the same policies, while making Bush the "Goat of the Gaps".

-- CAV

PS: Related to this, I recalled a favorite old Myrhaf post of mine.

Understanding capitalism requires an ability to think in higher abstractions and principles. With progressive education teaching people to think in the opposite manner, in isolated concretes that never integrate into principles, we're in big trouble. Stupidity and freedom do not mix.

This is a huge problem, but should not deter one's efforts.

Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest Pays $24,000 in Prizes

By ARI from The Ayn Rand Institute Media Releases,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest Pays $24,000 in Prizes

January 7, 2009

IRVINE, CA--University of California Los Angeles undergraduate Robert Sanders, from San Jose, CA, is the winner of the Ayn Rand Institute’s annual “Atlas Shrugged” essay contest, for which he received a prize of $10,000.

Open to 12th graders and both undergraduate- and graduate-level college students, the “Atlas Shrugged” essay contest requires contestants to write on one of several topics dealing with the characters and themes in the novel. The contest is designed to promote critical thinking and writing skills. Essays are judged on both style and content.

With 1,917 contestants, 2008 was the most competitive year in the contest’s history. The previous record was 1,647 contestants in 2003.

The following students have won this year’s second and third prizes:

Second-prize winners ($2,000):

Gregory Arney, Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA
Ryan Krause, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Margaret Wray, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Third-prize winners ($1,000):

Abigail Chernick, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
Cadmus Kyrala, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
Melanie Martin, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
Ryan Menezes, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Tay Tufenkjian, George Washington University, Washington, DC

The contest also awards 20 finalists ($100) and 20 semi-finalists ($50). A complete list of winners and a copy of the first-prize essay can be read online at the Ayn Rand Institute's website.

 =======

First published in 1957, “Atlas Shrugged” is a mystery story about the murder--and rebirth--of man’s spirit. It offers the spectacle of human greatness through the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did.

Since 1999 about 10,000 college students from around the world have entered ARI’s “Atlas Shrugged” essay contest. This year more than 1,400 students submitted their essays, and the winners were awarded a total of $24,000.

Information about next year’s competition, which again offers a $10,000 first prize, is now available online.

 

A Singular Ambition

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

A refreshing antidote to Nock's Our Enemy, the State is John Blundell‘s Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady (New York: Algora Publishing, 2008). For a time, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, Thatcher not only retarded the progress of statism but reversed its course. There certainly was nothing fatalistic in her or in her political career, and everything inspiring and encouraging. Blundell, director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, has known Thatcher since 1970 and has written a personal portrait of her (“a very personal interpretation of a very special life”), as opposed to an exhaustive biography and scholarly analysis of her life and politics. (He provides two pages of “further reading” on Thatcher at the end of his biography, listing books, essays, and articles.)

Britain, by the time Thatcher became Prime Minister, had reached exactly the kind of political and economic nadir forecast by Nock when the State assumed coercive and near total sovereignty over the lives and fortunes of its citizens, otherwise known as “society.” Presumably, by Nock’s formula, the country should have descended into total bankruptcy, anarchy, and extinction. “There is no such thing as Society,” she once remarked. “There are only individual men and women and there are families.” Nock would have agreed with her, but while he condemned most individuals for harboring what he called an “invincible ignorance,” Thatcher was certain that most people would listen to clear reason when their liberty was at stake, and that those who harbored a willful ignorance were in the minority and beyond reclamation (such as Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers).

When she took office in 1979, the willfully ignorant in and out of office had brought the country to the brink of collapse. Mineworkers were running amok with strikes, government-fueled inflation was soaring, industrial production was plummeting, and nationalized industries such as steel, aerospace, and telecommunications were deficit ridden, congenital beggars for more government subsidies.

“From being a dominant trading nation Britain’s presence on world markets had shriveled. The U.K. accounted for 20 per cent of world trade in manufactures in 1955 but only 10 percent by 1979. It had exported 33 percent of the world’s cars in 1955. That was down to 3 per cent by 1979. Under the socialism of both parties the British economy was atrophying.”

The “lame duck” Labourite Prime Minister James Callaghan was reluctant to take a principled stand on any of the issues. Without going into the complexities of the British election process and British party machinations, Thatcher won the General Election, beating party rival (and consummate compromiser) Ted Heath and replacing Callaghan at 10 Downing Street. She won because she appealed to the self-interest of the electorate in terms of freedom and the idea that hard work deserved rewards that were not siphoned off by “society“ or other parasites, whether they were welfare mothers living in council flats (government housing) or Rolls Royce or British Petroleum. She promised to free people from the inherently inefficient, wealth-consuming socialist controls that were reducing the standard of living and inculcating a fatal miasma of hopelessness, as well as a militant sanctimoniousness in those dependent on State patronization.

In short, although she (and Mr. Blundell) might not put it this way, she won because she appealed to the desperate yearning of productive men to be left alone to live their lives without having to become slaves to society or to the State. I believe she won more for psychological rather than economic or ideological reasons. That portion of the British electorate which sent her to 10 Downing Street confounded Nock’s determinism, because it did not want to be “taken care of” and because it saw through the sham of government coercion in the name of “democracy” and “popular sovereignty.”

As far back as 1975, when she was a leader of the Conservative opposition party, she was not interested in offering the electorate or her party a paltry soupçon of freedom. Her enemy was the State, and her singular ambition was to dismantle as much of it as possible. Blundell relates that her speech to a party conference:

“…was a foot-stomping success as she attacked socialism as the arch enemy of freedom and presented a principled conservatism rooted in private property, markets, liberty, smaller governments, choice, and the rule of law.” The 3,000 or so constituency loved it -- what a change after decades of lukewarm government paternalism, easily labeled socialism, dressed up as middle-of-the-road conservatism.”

Blundell continues, ironically describing the political scenario that has come to pass in 2009 America:

“Margaret Thatcher had three problems with the middle of the road. First, you get run over by traffic from both sides. Second, as the Labour Party moved to the left, so the middle moved with it. Third, Labour tended to introduce new entitlements which were hard to unpick, so there was a ratchet moving the political scenery ever closer to the left ever closer to her much hated Moscow and even further from her much loved USA.”

Substitute the Democratic Party and Barack Obama for Labour, and the compromising, middle of the road Republican Party for the pre-Thatcher British Conservatives, and one has a fairly accurate American political parallel. Unfortunately, America has had no articulate political leader the stature of Thatcher since Barry Goldwater. (I do not include Ronald Reagan here; while his defense policies may have precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was the first major president to inject religion into politics.) To most politicians, the State is not your enemy, but your friend and savior. Republican candidate John McCain was simply a shot of the mulled wine of demi-fascism, as opposed to Obama’s whiskey neat of a command, socialist economy.

During her tenure as Prime Minister, Thatcher embarked on a bold and successful program of denationalizing industries, privatizing many “social services” presumed to be the natural venue of government (such as garbage collection), and reducing the scale of government-built and subsidized housing by offering tenants the chance to buy homes and apartments.

Blundell features a chart which shows that in 1914, 90% of Britons lived in private homes or flats and only 1% in “public” housing. By 1979, thanks to successive governments “socializing” the housing stock, only 10% lived in private rentals, 53% in private homes, and 37% in “council” housing. By 1997, 12% lived in private rental units, 71% in private homes, and only 17% in council housing. Thatcher apparently failed to make any progress in dismantling Britain’s socialist National Health Service and the Royal Mail. But, she was successful in reducing Britain’s notoriously confiscatory income tax rates. She also suspended currency exchange controls, allowing Britons to travel overseas with more than $50 in their pockets. By setting a political and ideological precedent, Thatcher’s 1981 budget became a norm which even socialists applauded:

“The top tax rates had been brought down from 83% on earned income and 98% on so-called ‘unearned’ to 60%, and then 40%, still high, but a huge drop. Even leftists today acknowledge the need for a vibrant private sector and low taxes to encourage it.”

(“The better to eat you,” said the collectivist wolf to privatized Little Red Riding Hood, which is a subject Mr. Blundell might have pursued, but it can wait until another day.)

“The U.K. abandoned all price controls. Dividend controls were scrapped. Limits on hire purchase were abandoned. Office Development Permits ceased. So did Industrial Development Certificates. Centralized pay controls ended.”

Blundell narrates this whole astonishing episode of the recovery of liberty through consistent privatization in the economy, demonstrating what can be accomplished through an unswerving dedication to liberty and what cannot be accomplished by middle-of-the-roaders and compromisers.

Given the sobriquet of “The Iron Lady” by one of her political enemies, Thatcher took pride in the name and lived up to it when Argentina invaded the British owned Falkland Islands in April 1982. While the world looked on in unbelieving horror, Britain sent a fleet to the South Atlantic and reclaimed the Falklands after a brief war. The conflict was waged because the Islands’ residents wished to remain British and under British law, and not come under the thumb of Argentine law or the military junta that ruled the country then. Instead of agonizing over possible world disapproval of a unilateral military response to the aggression, she immediately sent her high command into action. Compare that policy with President George Bush’s interminable and disgraceful quest for world approval to respond to the attacks on America on 9/11.

Many of Thatcher’s accomplishments in Britain have been undone by her successors, but especially by the European Union. Initially, earlier in her career, she was warm to the idea of a Europe united by control- and tariff-free borders. But that enthusiasm soured when the EU began to assume the character of an arrogant, ungainly bureaucratic monster. She did not think Britons’ pockets should be picked or their actions proscribed by unelected placeholders in Brussels, nor did she think that Britain’s sovereignty should be eroded by EU laws and regulations, which more or less are reducing Britain (as well as other EU members) to the status of a client state beholden to a patron state.

Now out of office, and free to speak her mind as never before on the subject, Thatcher, writes Blundell, “was openly asking the applicant countries [to EU membership] not to join and declared that the U.K. needed either to renegotiate its terms of membership or simply withdraw.”

In 2006 she said in a speech in Washington, D.C.:

“We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”

In chapter 20, “Dealing with Brussels,” Blundell paints a grim picture of the prospect of total EU dominance over Britain. “But as the EU went from a loose trading model toward federalism she [Thatcher] became increasingly uneasy,” he writes. He probably did not wish to sound chauvinistic, so I am free to say here that, going by the EU’s unceasing campaign over the decades to persuade Britain to submit to Brussels, the advocates of the EU have always envied and hated Britain, and have always wished to knock it down to manageable size, to humble it, and to eat it alive, simply because it was freer and “fatter“ than any other European nation. I include in those movers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, past and present Prime Ministers, who are on record of having conspired to bypass the “popular sovereignty” of Britons by making concessions to the EU on their own advice. (The EU’s partner in the campaign to compel Britain and the West to submit is Islam, but that is another drooling, omnivorous beast altogether.)

Blundell and Margaret Thatcher may not dare call it treason; I do. After all, the same envy and hatred exists in many American multiculturalists and American politicians, who wish to see the U.S. submit to U.N. and European law. They, too, hanker to see it eaten alive in the name of global amity.

I have two bones to pick with Blundell, one of them minor, the other major. The first concerns usage of the term democracy throughout his book to describe or refer to countries whose governments respect individual rights, private property, freedom of the press, the rule of law, and so on. The term is not synonymous with republic. Democracy means literally mob rule, in which rights may be granted or abolished at the whim of a majority. Republic, as it has been used in the past, implies a nation that meets some or all of the criteria of freedom. A sedulous commitment to the meanings of these definitions is needed if an advocate of freedom does not wish to confuse his auditors or the reading public. But the thoughtless employment of democracy is evidence of a pandemic disease in semantics. Exactitude matters; it is the antidote to lumpy thinking.

The second bone is that Blundell does not discuss the “handover” of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China in July 1997. One cannot account for Thatcher’s lapse in this regard. It was the predecessor government that initiated talks with Red China about the future of Hong Kong in 1979, two months before she won the premiership in May (her party lost the election in 1990). Hong Kong was happily a Crown colony, and its dazzling prosperity a reproach to impoverished Mainland China and its communist dictatorship. Thatcher even flew to Peking in September 1983 to discuss the future of the colony. She hated the communist dictatorship of the Soviet Union, but apparently was not so discriminating about the one that ruled China.

The original issue was the status of the New Territories on the mainland per se, for which Britain had signed a 99-year lease with the Qing Dynasty. The leaders in Red China, however, insisted that any “handover” must include Hong Kong island and Kowloon, for which Britain had signed treaties of perpetuity with the Chinese monarchy. In any event, Britain, and presumably Thatcher, caved and endorsed the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984-1985 ceding all of Hong Kong to Red China, to go into effect in 1997.

I noted in a suspense novel long ago (Whisper the Guns, completed 1977, published by the Atlantean Press 1992) that “Peking would destroy Hong Kong….Or Hong Kong would destroy Peking.” An IEA editorial director predicted in 1980 that “China will go capitalist. Soviet Russia will not survive the century. Labour as we know it will never rule again.” He was right about Soviet Russia, but Labour is in power again, and Russia is governed by the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin instead of the “proletariat.” China never went “capitalist,” but fascist, since much of the nominally communist party leadership has invested stakes in enterprises that are “private” in name only. (We see the same phenomenon happening in the U.S., with the federal government’s “bailout” program, in which it has bought controlling stakes in key companies.)

Hong Kong now exists in a political purgatory. I am reminded by this whole sorry episode of two of Ayn Rand’s rules on compromise: 1) In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins; 2) In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.

Red China won. Britain was under no moral obligation to deal with a liberty-hating dictatorship responsible for the murder of millions, not to mention its regular brutal suppressions symbolized by Tiananmen Square in 1989, religious persecutions, and its policing of the Internet today. Further, the current regime was not a signatory to the treaties of the 19th century, and this should have been stated from the very beginning. It remains a dictatorship today, an outlaw government as evil as Iran’s theocracy and Saudi Arabia’s medieval monarchy, propped up by Western pragmatism.

But, as a refutation of Albert Jay Nock’s fatalism, not to mention of the doctrinaire collectivism of various schools, John Blundell’s compact biography of Margaret Thatcher demonstrates how a nation can, for a time at least, reclaim itself from its past follies, and give those in it who champion a moral basis of capitalism time to marshal their courage, arguments and numbers.

After all, freedom isn’t just a matter of privatization.

An Interview with Gus Van Horn

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

Brian Phillips interviews me at his blog, Live Oaks (formerly Houston Property Rights):

It is with great pleasure that Live Oaks presents an interview with Gus Van Horn. Gus is an award winning blogger and also the author of an article and book review in the latest issue of The Objective Standard.

I was quite flattered to be interviewed by Brian, whose past success as a property rights activist I greatly admire, and whom I respect as a writer. He asked some very good questions, which were interesting to think about.

I enjoyed the interview, and think you will find it to be very good reading. And when you're done, be sure to take a look around. Brian's been doing some pretty good work over there lately.

-- CAV

How to Throw the Fight for Freedom

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

The difference between pessimism and fatalism is that the first term reflects a realistic, fact-based appraisal of the outcome of a conflict between ideas, movements or men. It does not rule out the eventual triumph of the good. The second term concedes -- too often based on an invalid premise -- the inevitable victory of one party of a conflict and the dismal defeat of its opponent. A fatalistic premise promotes the futility of fighting for the good and ensures its defeat.

Albert Jay Nock (1870-1945), American essayist and social critic, considered a “grand old man” of libertarianism, was later in his life deemed a pessimist by both his friends and enemies, when in reality he was a fatalist. Mixed in with his many piquant and accurate observations on history and politics is a bitter surrender to a species of determinism -- which I would call a secular version of original sin -- one which governed his main political thesis and spared him the task of becoming an articulate and powerfully eloquent advocate of freedom. That is, while he advocated freedom, individualism and limited government that would protect life, liberty and property (through what he called “negative intervention“), he did not believe they were sustainable in man, and, in most circumstances, not even desirable by him once he saw a way of securing his existence via political or coercive means (via what he called “positive intervention”).

He received what was in the late 19th century a “classical” education, mastering Latin and Greek, history, philosophy and literature, and emerged from his schooling with an impressive and invaluable fund of knowledge. Later in his life he taught at Bard College and the University of Virginia. He became an Episcopalian priest and served in several different parishes, but left the church in 1909. It could be argued that his determinism was rooted in the religious notion of original sin. Another perspective is that his political ideas were inextricably founded on what Ayn Rand would call a malevolent universe premise.

He described himself as a philosophical anarchist, oblivious to the fact that to call one’s self such is to confess that one has eschewed philosophy altogether, although the corpus of his work does represent a philosophy, one colored by a cloying union of skepticism and determinism. He wrote over twenty books, his most famous ones being Our Enemy, the State (1935) and Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943). After his death, his works faded into obscurity, until rediscovered and promulgated by conservatives and libertarians later in the 20th century.

This was a logical adoption; both camps disdain the necessity of a comprehensive philosophy of reason, and treat such concepts as freedom and liberty as self-evident concretes not requiring metaphysical validation or a foundation. Conservatives remain clueless or hostile to a morality founded on a rational, non-religious view of the nature of man. Libertarians remain hostile to a non-subjectivist view of the nature of man as a being of volitional consciousness who must be consistently rational in his mind and actions in order to survive and flourish.

Reading especially Nock’s Our Enemy, the State, one has the disquieting sense that one is imbibing a libertarian rendition of Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism, that is, an autonomous force that pits freedom-valuing men against freedom-evading men, and that, given the timbre of Nock’s fatalistic view of man, the “original sin” of favoring the investment of the least amount of effort over genuinely productive work, the freedom-evaders are always certain to triumph. They will always find a way to seize control of a limited government and transform it into a coercive, looting “State” (in the meantime persuading a duped, dumbed-down populace that it is an expression of “popular sovereignty” or a manifestation of “democracy“). Nowhere in this work does one encounter the term volition.

Evidence of this absence can be seen in one statement at the beginning of Chapter 5, “Politics and Other Fetiches”:

“

It is a commonplace that the persistence of an institution is due solely to the state of mind that prevails towards it, the set of terms in which men habitually think about it….At one time, a certain set of terms regarding man’s place in nature gave organized Christianity the power largely to control men’s consciences and direct their conduct; and this power dwindled to the point of disappearance, for no other reason than that men generally stopped thinking in those terms.”

Why did men cease thinking that the Church was the centerpiece of their lives? Nock does not give a clue, neither in that chapter nor elsewhere in his book. It just happened. Never mind the Renaissance, the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, eras of major philosophical conflicts in which men struggled to be set free from the tyranny of a politically powerful Church to pursue their lives, and then against the fiat power of secular governments. It just happened. They were mere puppets of a Hegelian dialectical Absolute Spirit.

And not only did it “just happen,” but almost immediately what Nock calls the “feudal-state” began to be supplanted by the “merchant-state,” exemplified, he writes, by the British model. That is, when men were free to embark on trade, commerce, and manufacturing, with little or no leave from a monarch, most of them looked to the State to preserve and sanctify by lawful monopoly their positions in those realms. This was certainly the case with the mercantilist system, from which America’s Founders wish to free themselves.

Nock claims that most of the Founders, however, wished to exercise that political power themselves, and quickly abandoned the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence once the break with the mother country was militarily secured at Yorktown, once independence had been won from the Crown. The Constitution, he avers, was a consequence of that abandonment. Nowhere in his book is that position more evident than in Chapter 4, “Land Monopoly and American Independence.” And nowhere does he mention the Bill of Rights, intended to restrict the federal government’s actions to protecting one’s freedom and property (and without which the Constitution would never have been ratified). This chapter could well have been written from the perspective of Marx, Engels, and other collectivist theoreticians.

“It was said at the time, I believe, that the actual causes of the colonial revolution of 1776 would never be known. The causes assigned by our schoolbooks may be dismissed as trivial; the various partisan and propagandist views of that struggle and its origins may be put down as incompetent.”

That position, I contend, is evidence of Nock’s disparagement of the rise and rule of reason in the pre-Revolutionary period, and is the necessarily jaded outlook of someone who has abandoned philosophy. Ideas have no consequences, evil is autonomously potent and will always trump the good. The Constitutional Convention, he claims, was more or less a conspiracy of most of its delegates:

“The task of the delegates was precisely analogous to that of the earlier architects who had designed the structure of the British merchant-state, with its system of economics, politics and judicial control; they had to contrive something that could pass muster as showing a good semblance of popular sovereignty, without the reality.”

And, in Chapter 5:

“Nowhere in the history of the constitutional period do we find the faintest suggestion of the Declaration’s doctrine of natural rights, and we find its doctrine of popular sovereignty not only continuing in abeyance, but constitutionally stopped from every reappearing. Nowhere do we find a trace of the Declaration’s theory of government; on the contrary, we find it expressly repudiated. The new political mechanism was a faithful replica of the old disestablished British model….”

That is, Nock writes, the Constitution was meant to pay lip-service to the sanctity of life, liberty and property, while at the same time establish a State that would slyly rob individuals of them by means of providing access to political power to anyone pragmatic and unscrupulous enough to seek it. In short, the Constitution, with its checks and balances and all its pre-Civil War articles and amendments, was a fraud, a fabrication the result of a “gentlemen’s agreement” to admit power and exclude or diminish freedom. This position leaves one wondering if Nock, who was widely read in so many subjects, had ever perused the Federalist and anti-Federalist papers, and saw that the Constitution was a product of a passionately fought intellectual contest.

It is true, as his defenders state, that Nock valued individual rights and that he wrote that the State had no natural right to enact “positive interventions” on individuals, or to implement statism. But, his deterministic perspective would discourage his vaunted “Remnant” of anti-statists or anti-collectivists. I would judge Albert Jay Nock to be in the first rank of thinkers who have done more damage to the cause of liberty than good. If one doubts my charge of his enervating fatalism, here is his own appraisal of Our Enemy, the State:

“I would be the first to acknowledge that no results of the kind which we agree to call practical could accrue to the credit of a book of this order, were it a hundred times as cogent as this one -- no results, that is, that would in the least retard the State’s progress in self-aggrandizement and thus modify the consequences of the State’s course.”

How can one hope to win the fight for freedom, when one concedes defeat by stating that it would be futile to even face the enemy? This is what neither Thomas Jefferson (a particular hero of Nock’s) nor the other Founders thought should be a practical policy when they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.

Richard Ebeling to be at Clemson Conference

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

In my previous post advertising the 2009 Clemson Summer Student Conference on Atlas Shrugged and the Moral Foundations of Capitalism, I indicated that there would be a "to be announced" expert on the economics of laissez-faire capitalism. According to the conference website, Dr. Richard Ebeling, an esteemed economist in the tradition of the Austrian school and longtime admirer of Ayn Rand, will return to the conference, presumably to lecture on the economics of capitalism. Dr. Ebeling joins Objectivists intellectuals Dr. Andrew Bernstein, Dr. Eric Daniels, Dr. Onkar Ghate and Dr. Brad Thompson to compose the faculty for the upcoming event.

To reiterate from my previous post, this conference is a great opportunity for college students to learn more about Objectivism applied to defending laissez-faire capitalism!

How Hamas Brainwashes Children

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

I came across a few videos of a Palestinian children's program called The Pioneers of Tomorrow. This show has aired on Al-Aqsa TV, a Hamas-run television station since April 2007. As you can probably infer, this show regularly presents a few deeply disturbing anti-Israel and anti-West themes.



For example, in the above video, an obvious knock-off of Mickey Mouse named Farfour receives instructions from his dying grandfather to guard his Homeland that has been taken from him since 1948 and "occupied by Jews". Farfour swears to his grandfather (who is portrayed by a relatively youthful actor) that he will protect this land. To consummate and symbolize this pledge, Farfour is handed a key that looks like a piece of scrap metal and a document that looks like an empty beanbag. Although this show is obviously meant to appeal to children, note that the "evidence" of the true ownership of Israel is portrayed as a secret passed down through Palestinian lore. This suggests a grand conspiracy concerning the real history and the rightful owners of Israel. Farfour then laments how his homeland is occupied by "filthy, plundering Jews" who "killed his grandfather."

Later in this video, Farfour is interrogated by a man portrayed as a government agent who has a flag resembling the flag of Israel behind him. The flag is Israel's flag without the Star of David in the center. The man, exhibiting increasing hostility, demands to buy the land from Farfour, who refuses to "sell to terrorists." This heated exchange escalates into Farfour getting pummeled by the g-man and the video ends with the show's young hostess narrating that Farfour was beaten to death while "defending his homeland."

First of all, this is obviously perverse, as the video implies an Israeli agent beating an innocent and childlike Palestinian to death to acquire land, which suggests to Palestinian children that this is one of the methods in which Israelis originally acquired land to form there state. In particular, I found the Israeli agent's forceful offer to buy the land teaches Palestinian children that when Israeli's originally purchased land in Palestine [1], it was not actually a voluntary exchange.



This is the second video chilling episode that I encountered. In this video, a giant pink bunny named "Assud" learns that his older brother (who is a giant bee) was martyred because he was not permitted to be treated in a hospital in El Arish. This is an obvious reference to how Egypt closed the Rafah border since the Hamas militantly took control of the Gaza strip, which prevents wounded Palestinians from being treated in a hospital in the nearby Egyptian town of El Arish [2]. Even though Egyptians closed the border, Hamas propaganda still is content with blaming this political predicament entirely on Israel. After briefing grieving over the death of his insect-brother, Assud proudly declares that "just like how Rahoul took Farfour's place after [Farfour] was martyred" he will "bring smiles and joy" to all of the children of Palestine, the Arab world and the Islamic world by taking Rahoul's place. Assud then goes on to discuss this pledge with the show's eleven-year-old hostess Saraa. After hearing Assud reiterate his pledge, Saraa indicates that "we (meaning all children who view the show) are ready to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of our homeland" and continues with "we will sacrifice our souls and everything we own for our homeland."

One can draw several disturbing inferences from this declaration. One, this show glorifies dedicating one's life for the "liberation" of Palestine and the implied slaughter of its inhabitants. Two, this echos and encourages the Arab cultural values of honor (which mandates that one make such a declaration) and revenge. Three, this dialogue emphasis how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not just a local issue but a global issue for the entire Islamic world.



The last disturbing video that I encountered from The Pioneers of Tomorrow concerns the Danish cartoons. In this video, the child-hostess Saraa indicates that "the West" has launched an attack on the Prophet Muhammad. Note the collectivism in her statement. This is teaching Palestinian children to not view these cartoons as the decision of a few individuals but as being endorsed by the entire Western world. Later, the discussion concludes that the West has launched these attacks because Muslims have "forsaken the religion of Allah." As a remedy, Saraa proposes that Muslims should practice their faith more vigorously. In addition, Saraa then pledges that the "soldiers of the Pioneers of Tomorrow" (note the militant language used to refer to the children viewing this program) will "redeem the Prophet with all that they possess", "even with their blood". Assud, the giant pink bunny, agrees and adds that they will "kill the infidels" if they dare make any future affronts to the Prophet.

This is truly disturbing indeed. This perverse, state-sanctioned indoctrination is one of many reasons why we must all morally support Israel as it wages war on Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups.

[1] For more information on this, see The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz, pg 24. Google books

[2] http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=6556617&page=1

What to Resolve This New Year

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

What to Resolve This New Year

By Alex Epstein (January 1, 2009)

Given the devastated state of many Americans’ finances, our New Year’s resolutions will take on greater significance this year. To “get out of debt” was often a casually stated goal to be set as midnight approached and forgotten soon after; today it is rightly recognized as a fundamental necessity of life.

Unfortunately, the New Year’s commitment to self-improvement is widely viewed with cynicism--in part because New Year’s resolutions go so notoriously unmet. After years of watching others--or themselves--excitedly commit to a new goal, only to abandon the quest by March, many come to conclude that New Year’s resolutions are an exercise in futility that should not be taken seriously. “The silly season is upon us,” writes a columnist for the Washington Post, “when people feel compelled to remake themselves with New Year’s resolutions.”

But this attitude is false and self-destructive. Making New Year’s resolutions does not have to be futile--and to make them is not silly. Done seriously, it is an act of profound moral significance that embodies the essence of a life well-lived.

Consider what a New Year’s resolution consists of: we look at where we are in some area of life, think about where we want to be, and then set ourselves a goal to get there. We are tired of feeling chubby and lethargic, say, and want the improved appearance and greater energy level that comes with greater fitness. So we resolve to take up a fun athletic activity--like tennis or a martial art--and plan to do it three times a week.

Is this a laughable act of self-delusion? Hardly. If it were, then how would anyone ever achieve anything in life? In fact, to make a New Year’s resolution is to recognize the undeniable reality that successful goal-pursuit is possible--the reality that everyone at one time or another has set and achieved long-range goals, and profited from doing so. Indeed, not only is it possible to achieve long-range goals, it is necessary for success in life. To make a New Year’s resolution is also to recognize the undeniable reality that secure finances, rewarding careers, and romances do not just happen automatically--that to get what we want in our lives, we must consciously choose and achieve the right goals. We must be goal-directed.

Unfortunately, a goal-directed orientation is missing to a large extent in too many lives. It is all too easy to live life passively, acting without carefully deciding what one is doing with one’s life and why. How many people do you know who are in the career they fell into out of school, even if it is not very satisfying--or who have children at a certain age because that’s what is expected, even if it’s not what they really want--or who spend endless hours of “free time” in front of the TV, since that’s the most readily available form of relaxation--or who follow a life routine that they never really chose and don’t truly enjoy, but which has the force of habit?

Too often, the goal-directedness embodied by New Year’s resolutions is the exception in lives ruled by passively accepted forces--unexamined routine, short-range desires, or alleged duties. It is the passive approach to happiness that makes so many resolutions peter out, lost in the shuffle of life or abandoned due to lost motivation. More broadly than its impact on New Year’s resolutions, the passive approach to happiness is the reason that so many go through life without ever getting--or even knowing--what they really want.

It is a sad irony that those who write off New Year’s resolutions because so many fail reinforces the passive approach to life that causes so many resolutions--and so many other dreams--to fail. The solution to failed New Year’s resolutions is not to abandon the practice, but to supplement it with a broader resolution--a commitment to a goal-directed life.

This New Year’s, resolve to think about how to make your life better, not just once a year, but every day. Resolve to set goals, not just in one or two aspects of life, but in every important aspect and in your life as a whole. Resolve to pursue the goals that will make you successful and happy, not as the exception in a life of passivity, but as the rule that becomes second-nature.

If you do this, you will be resolving to do the most important thing of all: to take your happiness seriously.

 

 

Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial

By Leonard Peikoff from The Ayn Rand Institute Media Releases,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial

By Leonard Peikoff (Miami Herald, Dec. 23, 1996; Las Vegas Review-Journal, Dec. 21, 1997; Dayton Daily News, Dec. 22, 1997; Oregonian, Dec. 24, 1997; Richmond Times-Dispatch, Dec. 25, 1998; Montreal Gazette, Dec. 22, 1998; Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 25, 1999; San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 26, 1999; Asbury Park Press, Dec. 19, 2001; Detroit Free Press, Dec. 23, 2001; Houston Chronicle, Dec. 24, 2001; Barron's, Jan. 7, 2002; Providence Journal, Dec. 19, 2002; Arizona Tribune, Dec. 22, 2002; Globe and Mail, Dec. 24, 2002; Allentown Morning Call, Dec. 24, 2002; Atlanta Journal Constitution, Dec. 19, 2003; Louisville Courier-Journal, Dec. 23, 2003; Chicago Sun-Times, Dec. 24, 2003; San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 25, 2003)

Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. Yet all of these are castigated as "materialistic"; the real meaning of the holiday, we are told, is assorted Nativity tales and altruist injunctions (e.g., love thy neighbor) that no one takes seriously.

In fact, Christmas as we celebrate it today is a 19th-century American invention. The freedom and prosperity of post Civil War America created the happiest nation in history. The result was the desire to celebrate, to revel in the goods and pleasures of life on earth. Christmas (which was not a federal holiday until 1870) became the leading American outlet for this feeling.

Historically, people have always celebrated the winter solstice as the time when the days begin to lengthen, indicating the earth's return to life. Ancient Romans feasted and reveled during the festival of Saturnalia. Early Christians condemned these Roman celebrations--they were waiting for the end of the world and had only scorn for earthly pleasures. By the fourth century, the pagans were worshipping the god of the sun on December 25, and the Christians came to a decision: if you can't stop 'em, join 'em. They claimed (contrary to known fact) that the date was Jesus' birthday, and usurped the solstice holiday for their Church.

Even after the Christians stole Christmas, they were ambivalent about it. The holiday was inherently a pro-life festival of earthly renewal, but the Christians preached renunciation, sacrifice, and concern for the next world, not this one. As Cotton Mather, an 18th-century clergyman, put it: "Can you in your consciences think that our Holy Savior is honored by mirth? . . . Shall it be said that at the birth of our Savior . . . we take time . . . to do actions that have much more of hell than of heaven in them?"

Then came the major developments of 19th-century capitalism: industrialization, urbanization, the triumph of science--all of it leading to easy transportation, efficient mail delivery, the widespread publishing of books and magazines, new inventions making life comfortable and exciting, and the rise of entrepreneurs who understood that the way to make a profit was to produce something good and sell it to a mass market.

For the first time, the giving of gifts became a major feature of Christmas. Early Christians denounced gift-giving as a Roman practice, and Puritans called it diabolical. But Americans were not to be deterred. Thanks to capitalism, there was enough wealth to make gifts possible, a great productive apparatus to advertise them and make them available cheaply, and a country so content that men wanted to reach out to their friends and express their enjoyment of life. The whole country took with glee to giving gifts on an unprecedented scale.

Santa Claus is a thoroughly American invention. There was a St. Nicholas long ago and a feeble holiday connected with him (on December 5). In 1822, an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem about a visit from St. Nick. It was Moore (and a few other New Yorkers) who invented St. Nick's physical appearance and personality, came up with the idea that Santa travels on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, comes down the chimney, stuffs toys in the kids' stockings, then goes back to the North Pole.

Of course, the Puritans denounced Santa as the Anti-Christ, because he pushed Jesus to the background. Furthermore, Santa implicitly rejected the whole Christian ethics. He did not denounce the rich and demand that they give everything to the poor; on the contrary, he gave gifts to rich and poor children alike. Nor is Santa a champion of Christian mercy or unconditional love. On the contrary, he is for justice--Santa gives only to good children, not to bad ones.

All the best customs of Christmas, from carols to trees to spectacular decorations, have their root in pagan ideas and practices. These customs were greatly amplified by American culture, as the product of reason, science, business, worldliness, and egoism, i.e., the pursuit of happiness.

America's tragedy is that its intellectual leaders have typically tried to replace happiness with guilt by insisting that the spiritual meaning of Christmas is religion and self-sacrifice for Tiny Tim or his equivalent. But the spiritual must start with recognizing reality. Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism; that is what Christmas should celebrate--and really, underneath all the pretense, that is what it does celebrate. It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.

 

MY TAKE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

By Martin Lindeskog from EGO,cross-posted by MetaBlog

My first post in 2009 will include several things, e.g., reflections on 2008 and plans for this year, my future blogging schedule and other social media activities.

We had to restructure our company and close down the physical meeting place in Gothenburg due to the economical situation. We will continue with the business idea and during these two years we have established plenty of good relationships for the future. We are looking into the possibility to set up a virtual community online so we could keep in touch with our old customers and business contacts and create a new type of network.

I have been exposed to a potential big business opportunity in the field of renewable energy. More about this later on...

I have received the opportunity to write pieces for Open Forum. My latest one has the title, Will Social Media Tools Be Monetized In 2009? I look forward to your comments and feedback.

Reading material:

• The Meaning Of Friendship by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.
• Virtual Water Cooler by Barbarella.

I have about 350 followers at Twitter at the moment. I probably follow 400 individuals in the near future. I have started to use Facebook again and I have more than 200 friends there. I will start to use FriendFeed on a regular basis. You could find my feed on the Facebook wall.

I am thinking of creating a special room at FriendFeed in connection to my future podcast interviews at Solid Vox. The following individuals will soon be scheduled for an interview:

• Jonathan Hoenig.
• John Cox.
• Scott Holleran.

In order to get my work-life more in balance, I have to get back on track with my studies of Getting Things Done and the practical implementation of the system. The GTD-IQ quiz told me that I belong to The Crazymaker/ Visionary quadrant. [Via Lifehacker.] Check out Robert Scoble's interview with David Allen.

Related: My post, WRITING DOWN NEW RESOLVING THOUGHTS.

CHEWING VIRTUAL STUFF

By Martin Lindeskog from EGO,cross-posted by MetaBlog

At the moment, I am a little overwhelmed by the the flow of information and it feels like the crow epistemology will kick in soon...

I would like to see that this post shall continue as a thread in the blogosphere and elsewhere, for example as microblogging tweets and messages at FriendFeeds accounts.

I will begin to use Twitter and FriendFeed regularly during this year. But at the moment it feels a bit chaotic. I had a similar feeling when I first started to use ICQ and other instant message programmes and when I visited IRC (InterRelayChat) channels. How much time should you spend on it? What will it give you? How to use filters, in order to reduce the noise level?

My basic position is clear and I believe that these tools can be used for both social and business. It appears to be a natural flow back and forth between the social and the commercial. Could this be the work-life mix that it talks about in GTD (Getting Things Done) circles?

I see that these tools will enable the exchange of tangible and spiritual things between individuals. Perhaps we can draw parallels to ancient Greece and Aristotle's school, Lyceum, where there was a continuous flow of lectures, discussions and conversations of various kinds.

Reading material:

• Power Twitter: Inline Media, Integrated Search And A Lot More by Michael Arrington.
• The Last Temptation of Twitter by Ben McConnell.
• About My Twitter Hiatus by Jeremiah Owyang.

Things that I will do in the near future:

Clean out some stuff at the "boxes" section on my Facebook profile. I am sorry to say, but I can't keep up with all the games, applications, etc. [Editor's note: That said, I am interested in getting in touch with someone who is creating third-party applications for Facebook and other social networking sites. It is for an idea I have chewed for a long time.] I like the new layout of Facebook with tabs. I think I will add a section for notes and a RSS feed. Please feel free to join my EGO blog network on Facebook. Thanks in advance for showing that you are a loyal reader of EGO!

I will try to aggregate as much of my stuff as possible into one place. I think that Scrapplet will be the right tool for this task. Stay tuned for my new start & homepage in the near future...

As a end note, I want to quote John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing: "Social media is a tool, it's not a religion."

Africa Needs Reason

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

Via Arts & Letters Daily is an article by Matthew Parris, an atheist, to the effect that Africa's path towards civilization and prosperity is Christianity.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

But this doesn't fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.

First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall. [bold added]

Parris makes an interesting observation here, but he draws the wrong conclusion. In fact, he makes the same type of error Dennis Prager makes on a near-daily basis when he extols what he calls "Judeo-Christian values". That is, he is package-dealing the generally rational, implicit outlook of Western missionaries with their explicitly irrational teachings. As I once put it:

While we are indeed witnessing a battle of civilizations, this battle is between Western civilization and Islam. Western civilization is in fact a mixture of two traditions: the Greco-Roman and the Judaeo-Christian. Ever since the spread of the latter into the West, there have been periods when that element has been stronger or weaker. ... [T]he lowest point for the Western world was reached precisely when its cultural milieu was closest to being unadulterated Christianity. The Renaissance arose after classical learning was rediscovered in the West and men began using their minds again, rather than subordinating them in blind obedience to the dictates of religious authority.

...

... Prager lumps [together] the virtues of the classical, non-Judaeo-Christian strain in Western civilization [with] his religious tradition. As I just noted, the relative influences of the Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian traditions vary over time in the West. While some might claim that these complement one another, these two strains are actually at odds on a fundamental level. One tradition is based on the epistemology of reason while the other is based on faith. One tradition offers argument and demonstrable achievement; the other authority and misery. Just as Islamic civilization objectively offers nothing in the way of accomplishments, so too would the Judaeo-Christian -- without Greco-Roman rationality to prop it up. [formatting dropped, bold added]

The Christian missionaries are thus transmitting not just their teachings to Africa, but, however imperfectly, rational elements of their native civilization. I further give the angels their due, so to speak, by noting another role of religion here, which Parris seems to be alluding to.

As I have noted here from time to time, religion has, by default held a monopoly on terminology for (and attributed source of) higher emotions, such as exaltation. It also enjoys an undeserved reputation, thanks to the fact that most modern philosophy is nihilistic, as the only coherent worldview that fosters positive values. Both of these facts lend further surface credibility to the notion that Christianizing Africa is its surest path towards civilization.

To be sure, the Christian missionaries may be the best, comparatively speaking, among the various other prominent attempts at helping Africa, but to say this is one thing. To credit faith with rational achievements and a positive, this-worldly outlook is quite another.

Africa needs the same thing any other part of the world needs: Reason. The Christian missionaries foster reason imperfectly and incidentally. That they are as successful as they are at doing so is not because of their faith, but in spite of it. Imagine what truly rational men could accomplish!

-- CAV

Fascism Comes to Media

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

A Connecticut lawmaker has proposed a government bailout of two failing newspapers there, admitting in the process that he is completely unqualified to serve as a government official in a free country:

[Frank] Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. "The media is a vitally important part of America," he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations. [bold added]

Nicastro is right that news media are vitally important to America, but if he thinks financial support from the government, or government "incentives" to promote private investment in them will "save" them, he is being naive or dishonest.

Why do I say this? Because the government differs from all other social institutions in being the only one to legally wield force. In a proper political system, its sole purpose would be to protect individual rights by exercising this force -- the delegated, retaliatory force of self-defense of its citizens. Any time the government strays from this purpose, it is guilty of initiating force against someone, violating his inalienable rights in the process. That is, the government is functioning like any other foreign or domestic enemy in every such case.

Where will the bailout money in question come from? Taxes? The government must violate the property rights of citizens, by confiscating money from them, just like a criminal gang. Tax "incentives" for investors? That's simply a euphemism for stealing less from an arbitrary part of the populace. This is being done in the name of the so-called public good, but the government, unlike private individuals, operates by force. This means that officials like Nicastro are the ones defining for us what the "public good" is, and they can make us pay for what they think it is whether they are correct or not, and whether we agree or not.

Certainly, if Nicastro thinks the papers should start making changes to how they report the news, he has them where he wants them: by the purse-strings. Nicastro is, perhaps (and at best) well-intentioned, but suffering from the "dictator fantasy", and needs help imagining just how much worse his idea is than doing nothing, and allowing the papers to fail.

Along those lines, I would first suggest that Nicastro imagine a hated political opponent succeeding him and leaning on the papers to make sure he looks good. Second, I would remind him that we already have examples of government "encouragement" of media tempting officials with having a say. For an example of this, note that Phil Berger, a counterpart of his from North Carolina, recently proposed to have the government review movie scripts before "incentivized" cameras could roll in his state.

As I said then:

[I]n any "partnership" where one side wields force, it is the side with the guns that will win any argument that comes up, as we see here. When the operating premise behind North Carolina's film "incentive" is that the tax money confiscated in the first place from the film producers is the government's to keep or give back, then it is only a matter of time before the government will decide that strings might need to be attached.

In this case, matters are even worse, because, by its very nature, Nicastro's proposal encourages biased, pro-government reporting, especially by journalists whose jobs are on the line. The importance of our news media lies in its ability to convey factual information for rational consideration by its audience. The very nature of this function makes it impossible to "save" the newspapers by the government controlling them even very indirectly.

Reporter Robert MacMillan opens this story by noting that some "think [Nicastro] and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press". This is true, but the fact is that no government should be involved in running the press.

Worse, MacMillan says little about why this idea sets a "worrisome precedent," and reports on the proposal in such a way as to make government "incentives" sound unlike actual or de facto ownership. He also quotes a journalist whom he says "would not let gratitude get in the way of reporting on local political peccadilloes." How reassuring!

Is MacMillan merely inept, or is he planting the idea of a federal role in "saving" the media in the minds of readers across the country? Your guess is as good as mine. Thanks a heap, Mr. Nicastro.

-- CAV

Hamas: The Big Bully on the Playground

By Gina Liggett from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Thirteen-year-old Gaza resident, Yousef Nakhala, called out the equivalent of "the Emperor has no clothes!" in reaction to Israel's retaliation against Hamas's rocket attacks from Gaza. He said: "I blame Hamas. It doesn't want to recognize Israel. If they did so, there could be peace. Egypt made a peace treaty with Israel, and nothing is happening to them."

The kid clearly gets it. But not the civilized world, which has told Israel to hold back, like the platitudinous let's-just-all-hold-hands-and-get-along from the E.U. Foreign Policy chief, Javier Solana: "We are very concerned at the events in Gaza. We call for an immediate ceasefire and urge everybody to exert maximum restraint."

Oh wow, what a clever suggestion.

Not wanting to piss off anyone else on the playground, the U.S.'s policy is just as morally neutral: "Hamas must end its terrorist activities if it wishes to play a role in the future of the Palestinian people. The United States urges Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza." (White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe)

Just like a spoiled brat, Hamas is getting exactly what it wants -- more pity and attention from the Arab and Islamic world:

"Iran strongly condemns the Zionist regime's [Israel's] wide-ranging attacks against the civilians in Gaza. The raids against innocent people are unforgivable and unacceptable." (Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi)

"Egypt condemns the Israeli attacks." (Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak)

"We are facing a continuing spectacle which has been carefully planned. We face a major humanitarian catastrophe." (Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa)

Oh, give me a break. Hamas doesn't have anything to offer the world -- or the Palestinians for that matter -- except the perpetual state of hate and poverty of its population. But what else could you possibly expect from the efforts of an avowed terrorist organization?

When Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, won the majority in the Palestinian Authority's parliamentary elections in 2006, the governing Fatah party and the world wondered what this would mean for future peace negotiations with Israel, a two-state solution called the "road map" which would create an independent Palestine alongside Israel.

Hamas wants to kick Israel off the playground. It explicitly does not recognize the right of Israel to exist, and it has carried out terrorist attacks against Israel for decades.

Even though the Middle East quartet's (U.N., E.U., Russia, U.S.) price for bankrolling the Palestinian government is peaceful behavior towards Israel, Hamas leaders couldn't care less. Hamas attacked Israel and forcibly seized control of Gaza in a very undemocratic fashion within a year after its election victory, leading to an economic blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt.

A bully is still a bully if it behaves like one, even though he gets elected to student council. Now maybe Israel can put the bully in his place, having learned lessons from its anemic response to Hezbollah's repeated aggression in Lebanon in 2006 which only emboldened that Islamic fundamentalist organization.

In the whole long-running and complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict, why is it in America's best interest to condemn an organization like Hamas and support Israel? The principle is that the only moral government is one that upholds individual rights.

In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I think the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights applies this principle well:

We recognize that those who attack Israel are not seeking to establish an even freer nation: they are seeking to wipe out the only outpost of freedom in the Middle East. We support Israel not for its failings but for its virtues, and we understand that those who threaten Israel's freedom also threaten America's. If they succeed in destroying Israel, they will turn their full attention to the United States.

The bully Hamas has no intention of playing nice, and should be expelled. Israel ought to continue fighting hard and eliminate Hamas. And instead of cowardly giving in to intimidation from the U.N. and Arab/Islamic countries by calling for yet another cease-fire, the civilized world should give unqualified support for Israel in the face of this chronic Islamic threat. Hamas, and the civilian population who elects and supports it, should suffer the painful consequences of their ongoing war against freedom -- and peace.

Announcing our enagement [Flickr]

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

HeroicLife posted a photo:

Objectivist Round-up - Best of 2008

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

 

Happy New Year and welcome to the January 1st, 2009 edition of the Objectivist Round Up! Our New Year's roundup features some of the best posts from 2008, written by authors who are animated by Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. According to Ayn Rand:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

"About the Author," Atlas Shrugged, Appendix.

Valda Redfern presents There's no pragmatic way outposted at Valzhalla, saying, "Can we find pragmatic solutions to today's crises? No - pragmatism isn't practical"

Burgess Laughlin presents The third greatest sacrifice? posted at Making Progress, saying, "This article, about sacrificing one's beloved work, personalizes an earlier post, "What is a central purpose in life?" (Making Progress, May 20, 2008)."

Brian Phillips presents A Christmas Fantasy posted at Houston Property Rights, saying, "Americans awoke today to startling news-- the federal government declared itself morally bankrupt and closed the doors on virtually all of its operations. "We have realized the error of our ways," President Bush announced on the steps of the White House."

Khartoum presents Islam: What The West Needs To Know. posted at Philosophy, Law and Life., saying, "My first identification of Islamic totalitarianism."

Darren Cauthon presents Earth Day Advice posted at Darren Cauthon, saying, "Here's a post I wrote in April about Earth Day that was a great starter to some good conversations with family and friends. I also submitted it to the local morning radio guy who read and talked about it on the radio. Very fun!"

Greg Perkins presents Why the New Atheists Can't Even Beat D'Souza: The Best and Worst in Human History posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Dinesh D'Souza has been famously beating up the "New Atheists" in debates and op-eds, but it is not because he is a strong Christian Apologist. Rather, it is due to their fundamental philosophical weaknesses. This series of articles shows how D'Souza and his ilk don't stand a chance against Objectivism, by demolishing his biggest-scoring points in metaphysics ("Science vs. Miracles"), epistemology ("The Gap in Religious Thought"), ethics ("Morality and Life"), and the fundamental role of reason in human life ("The Best and Worst in Human History")."

Valda Redfern presents Valzhalla: Baltic delights posted at Valzhalla, saying, "If you read to the end, you'll find out how to add a bit of shine to your philosophy"

Ari Armstrong presents Politicians Caused and Worsened the Great Depressionposted at FreeColorado.com, saying, "Will modern American politicians repeat the mistakes of history?"

K. M. presents Freedom of Speech « Applying philosophy to life posted at Applying philosophy to life, saying, "A post defending an absolute right to free speech with some good exchange in the comments. I chose this post because 'Freedom of Speech' is perhaps the most important idea to understand today."

Paul Hsieh presents How The GOP Lost My Vote posted at NoodleFood, saying, "My favorite piece of 2008 was this Denver Post OpEd which I wrote immediately after Election Day, on the dangerous influence of the Religious Right on the Republican Party. Once it hit the conservative blogosphere, I received lots of positive feedback from disaffected Republicans as well as plenty of hate mail from religious conservatives. This was yet another demonstration of the fact that (1) this country needs our ideas, and (2) there are many people ready and willing to listen to them."

Rational Jenn presents Heroic Me posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "The first part of 2008 was marked by our resistance to participation in the "mandatory" American Community Survey. I have continued to receive hits from the domain "census.gov" ever since. Just a reminder--the ACS is completely over the top, and to my knowledge, no threat of fine or jail has ever actually been carried out by the government. I'm so happy that we refused to comply with this serious invasion of our privacy!"

C. August presents Boston's Medallion Morass posted at Titanic Deck Chairs, saying, "From June 27th, an analysis of the absurd taxi medallion mess in Boston, and the only real solution to it."

Diana Hsieh presents Jury Nullification posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Should jurors ever acquit a person they know to be guilty of breaking the law on the grounds that the law is unjust? This post explores that question."

Kendall J presents My Hero Anna Schwartz posted at The Crucible and Column, saying "A monetarist's look at causes of the financial crisis."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of objectivist round up using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Republican Socialists

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

Republican Socialists

December 31, 2008

Washington, D.C.--“Republicans routinely criticize the policies of Barack Obama and other Democrats as socialist,” said Alex Epstein an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “But their endorsement of Barack Obama’s imminent, trillion-dollar ‘stimulus plan’ shows that they buy into socialist ideas just as much as the Democrats. Indeed, Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s explanation of his party’s approach to a ‘stimulus plan’ would make Leon Trotsky proud: ‘We should have a simple test: Will the . . . trillion-dollar spending bill really create jobs and grow the economy . . .?’
 
“What is socialism, if not the idea that the government should seize citizens’ wealth and control industry in the name of creating jobs and growing the economy? If the government has the political right and economic ability to conduct this ‘simple test’ with a trillion dollars of stimulus, why not just nationalize the whole economy outright, and have McConnell, Obama, and a handful of czars tell us what to do and where to spend our money?
 
“A party that truly understood what is wrong with socialism would recognize the injustice and impossibility of central planners expropriating and dictating citizens into prosperity. It would recognize that wealth creation and economic prosperity are the result of protecting the rights of productive individuals to plan, produce, and trade on a truly free market--absent the massive government manipulation of interest rates and home-buying that brought about the current disaster. The Republicans have not earned the right to call anyone socialist--except themselves.”

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The Objectivity of Ethics (Show 090)

By Brandon from talkObjectivism.com,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In response to my own request for the discussion, for Show 089 Mosley and Arthur consider the question: How does one validate the objectivity of ethics, namely life as the standard and ultimate value, as opposed to a standard that is arbitrarily chosen?

Topics include: the objectivity of ethics; life as the standard of value; two methods of approach on the issue; what gives rise to values; life as an end in itself; rational goals as dependent on the pursuit of life; subjectivism defined; ethical subjectivists and their arguments; the purpose of ethics; types of subjectivism; the relationship of happiness to ethics; what virtue is; the cardinal values and virtues; The Virtue of Selfishness & OPAR as useful resources; Objectivism & dogmatism; etc.

There was no show on the following Sunday, December 28th, but there will be this Sunday, January 4th. We hope to see you there, and Happy New Year!

The Powell History Person of the Year (2008)

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

OList and Activist Mailing Lists

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Here's a reminder about mailing lists potentially of interest to NoodleFood readers -- particularly appropriate if one of your resolutions for 2009 includes more actively promoting respect for reality, reason, egoism, and rights.

First, OList.com is the home of three specialized e-mail lists for Objectivists. All aim to help promote Objectivist ideas in the culture at large:

• OActivists: OActivists is an informal e-mail list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural and political change. Its purpose is to facilitate and encourage effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas in non-Objectivist forums by facilitating communication with other Objectivist activists. Posts to the list alert subscribers to opportunities to speak out, recommend sources of information, discuss effective arguments and principled strategies, reproduce op-eds and letters written by subscribers, announce events, and more. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
  
  
• OBloggers: OBloggers is an informal mailing list for Objectivist bloggers. Its basic purpose is to facilitate communication about matters of mutual interest, such as upcoming events, posts of interest, best blogging practices, and the like. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
  
  
• OAcademics: OAcademics is a forum for Objectivist academics to discuss teaching, research, coursework, dissertations, job prospects, publication, and all other aspects of life in (or after) academia. The list is basically a means of sharing knowledge and experience as ever more Objectivists enter academia. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.

Please feel free to join if you're interested, provided that you meet the criteria for membership.

Second, I heartily support the following activism-oriented e-mail lists. They do not require agreement with Objectivism, but they do require support for the mission statement of the organization.

• FIRM Activists: An unmoderated, low-volume mailing list for activists for free market medicine with Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM).
  
  
• CSG Activists: An unmoderated, low-volume mailing list for activists for government solely based on secular principles of individual rights with the Coalition for Secular Government (CSG).
  
  
• FA/RM Activists: An unmoderated, low-volume mailing list for activists for agricultural and health policies based solely on the principles of individual rights with Free Agriculture - Restore Markets (FA/RM).
  
  
• Colorado Free Marketeers: Ari Armstrong's new list for free-market activism in Colorado. He describes the list as follows: "Colorado Free Marketeers is a moderated list for activists looking for information and inspiration. Membership is open to any person committed to the principles of free markets and willing to engage in activism involving public speaking or writ