Announcing the Virtual Objectivist Club

From the OCN team:

I helped start the Objectivist Club Network (OCN), an organization dedicated to helping all Objectivist Campus Clubs. OCN is not affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute, although we support them and regularly communicate with them to ensure our respective organizations are not duplicating efforts.

Recently we've expanded our efforts to solve a new problem: there are students interested in joining an Objectivist club where no club exists. Some of these students start their own club, but others don't have time to start a club or do not find enough participants on campus to form a club.

We've created the Virtual Objectivist Club (VOC) for these students -- a phone-based discussion group dedicated to the study of Objectivism. Meetings will be weekly, beginning this September, each moderated by an experienced Objectivist. The group is open to any current students who would like to learn more about Objectivism.

Please help spread the word to any students you know who may be interested in learning more about Objectivism. The deadline for applying to the VOC is August 31st. Students can learn more and apply at: http://www.oclubs.org/voc

Modern Education: A Trojan Horse

By Michael Gold from EGO,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In America, we’ve accepted a Trojan Horse into our midst: mainstream modern education. It has a nice appearance, but within carries an element of destruction.

We want to believe that it produces students who, upon graduating from high school, are competent (or better) at reading, writing, math, history and science.

We believe high school graduates should possess the math skills they need to make change, balance a checkbook, finance a car, invest in savings instruments, and understand science. They should possess the political and historical background knowledge they need to make intelligent, considered decisions when voting. They should understand science so they can contend with issues of “global warming,” technology, health, and medicine. They should be able to write logical, developed prose for everything from work, to letters to friends and family, to testimony in courts of law.

It is clear that, regardless of whatever else it may accomplish, the primary role of education should be the systematic, conceptual training of the young by teaching them the general knowledge and thinking skills needed for adult life.

But we are seeing few students graduating with such training today. Education, like a Trojan Horse, might look good on the outside, but inside it is dumbed down, it is about non-conceptual “social activities.” This is necessitated by the major theoretical underpinnings of mainstream modern education: the philosophy of John Dewey.

John Dewey said, in “My Pedagogic Creed,” that:

“the true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s own social activities;”

“language...is fundamentally and primarily a social instrument. ... When treated simply as a way of getting individual information...it loses its social motive and end;”

“there is, therefore, no succession of studies in the ideal school curriculum;”

“education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.”

This is a clear call -- one that has been put into practice -- to de-emphasize and neglect the conceptual training, the general knowledge, and the thinking skills students need.

Group work, activity/experiential learning, class discussion, and social promotion might appear innocuous on the outside -- in a proper school the first few could be beneficial -- but their inner purpose is to de-emphasize the grasp of particular facts, to inculcate “group think,” and to stifle individual, objective thought. Most students graduate knowing nothing in particular, and not knowing how or why anything is true.

John Dewey’s ideas are found, implicit and explicit, in teachers’ magazines, educators’ required reading lists, professors’ research and writings, curricula of Colleges of Education, and most local schools, both public and private.

The Columbia Encyclopedia says “The principles and practices of progressive education gained wide acceptance in American school systems during the first half of the 20th cent. .... [M]any hold that by the late 1950s the movement had collapsed. By that time, however, the progressive movement had effected a permanent transformation in the character of the American school....”

Dr. A. G. Rud, Professor in Purdue University’s College of Education, said “The American philosopher and educator John Dewey (1859-1952) is central to current philosophy of education and the development of progressive educational theory and practice. ...[H]is thought is enjoying a resurgence of interest today among philosophers and educators.”

And the results are clear. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, one-fourth of high school graduates are functioning at a “below basic” level in most subjects; about one-third are functioning at a “below basic” level in science and about one-third at “basic;” and over one-half are “below basic” in history and about one-third at “basic.” “Below basic” means unable to understand even short, simple texts and documents, and unable to do any math beyond some simple addition. “Basic” is not much better; the student can understand only simple readings, and can perform only one-step arithmetic -- when the operation is specified or obvious.

High school graduates’ poor education is also evidenced by post-college tests. In “Is College Worth It?,” Walter Williams, Professor of Economics and nationally syndicated columnist, writes: “According to a 2006 Pew Charitable Trusts study, 50 percent of college seniors failed a test that required them to interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, and compare credit card offers. About 20 percent of college seniors did not have the quantitative skills to estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station. According a recent National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the percentage of college graduates proficient in prose literacy has declined from 40 percent to 31 percent within the past decade. Employers report that many college graduates lack the basic skills of critical thinking, writing and problem-solving.”

Regarding science, the physicist and educator David Harriman, in “High Schools Flunk Science,” says “the vast majority of high school graduates never take a course in physics and know almost nothing about the role of the scientific revolution in creating the modern world. While this alone constitutes criminal negligence by educators, there is an even worse crime of which they are guilty: the students who do take physics are indoctrinated with a fundamentally false view of science.”

High school graduates are ignorant of induction -- ask children you know, even adults, what induction is; ask if they can give you three examples from the history of physics. High school grads do not know how to engage in induction, the soul of scientific reasoning, and therefore have not been equipped to make sense of or properly evaluate claims about “global warming,” health, diet, and medicine.

Mainstream educators might claim they are teaching math, reading, science -- but the anti-thought and anti-conceptual nature of John Dewey’s influence is demonstrable and measurable. There is a disconnect between educators’ words and students’ reality.

Mainstream modern education is a Trojan Horse that has unleashed attacks upon the minds and thoughts of students, our children. It needs to be driven from our midst and replaced with a more fitting Greek image: that of the Greek goddess of wisdom. We need in education the image of Athena -- and the intellect of Aristotle.

Michael Gold, B.S. Mathematics and B.A. Philosophy, is owner of MGTutoring.com, a math tutoring service. He has been involved in education for over fifteen years, earning his Teacher’s Credentials and teaching in public and charter schools before starting his own private tutoring service.

(c) 2009 Michael Gold

Whole Foods Update

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

Recently, Paul Hsieh noted the good news that debate over physician slavery has shifted to a more fundamental level than politics, and become a moral debate. In addition to that encouraging development, there is also the matter of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey taking this debate to the home soil of the pro-slavery side.

As with all battles, each side fires shots, and forces join each side. According to the Huffington Post, two labor unions have decided to come to the aid of the pro-slavery side:

As the NY Times write-up of "the most unexpected" sideshow to the 2009 Health Care Debate put it: "Reaction from pro-reform [sic] Whole Foods shoppers was swift and vociferous." Now the Change To Win Investment Group and United Food And Commercial Workers Union -- both a part of the Change To Win federation of unions representing six million workers -- have put out statements criticizing Mackey and encouraging a boycott of the store.

CtW called for Mackey's removal as chairman of the board and CEO. "Mr. Mackey attempted to capitalize on the brand reputation of Whole Foods to champion his personal political views, but has instead deeply offended a key segment of Whole Foods consumer base," the group's executive director Bill Patterson said in a statement. UFCW has begun handing out pamphlets to Whole Food shoppers. The group said Mackey's op-ed was an "attempt to undermine Obama's health-care reform." (Whole Foods is not unionized.) [bold added]

So a bunch of dumb thugs who can scarcely read are going to pass out paper with stuff printed on it?

That's potentially very good news: Let's hope this accelerates the process of "a key segment of Whole Foods consumer base" actually reading Mackey's editorial. Many of these shoppers now reflexively support "healthcare reform," but perhaps after they read the editorial and think about it, they will instead come to reflectively oppose physician slavery, as Ann Althouse recently suggested they might. (She posts an update of her own here, and points to a BBC story on the boycott as well.)

Perhaps, if a few of them think about the issue enough, they will come not just to oppose physician slavery, but support freedom for all individuals. Dumb opponents can be a godsend, so to speak.

This Southerner recently made his first post-transplant visit to Whole Foods here in Boston when he discovered that his usual grocery store, despite having a "Southern and Southwestern Cuisine" aisle, does not stock Tabasco sauce. (He also enjoyed confounding the checkout girl with a "third" (nearly-extinct) word beginning with the letter "P" when asked whether he wanted a bag for his purchase.)

On that trip, I remember thinking that it's nice to have a place for occasional purchases of the more "exotic" items in my diet, but now, I will make it a point to go there each week in support of its CEO. As Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post put it, "Now is the time for all good capitalists to shop at Whole Foods."

I don't have a car. I am on a budget. My usual store is ten blocks closer and I'm mostly happy with it. I couldn't do all of my shopping at Whole Foods even if I wanted to, but I am sure I can find an excuse to make the trip once a week. The excuse will be the food, but the reason will be to thank Mr. Mackey for standing up when it counts.

-- CAV

Clinton vs. Obama

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

Three sources I check on a near-daily basis --RealClear Politics , The Drudge Report, and Fresh Bilge -- all point me to a William McGurn editorial in the Wall Street Journal about what Barack Obama ought to do to "save" his presidency.

Let's set aside for the moment the whole question of whether it might be a little premature to gloat over the failure of Obama's push for physician slavery. The article draws some interesting parallels with how Bill Clinton responded to the resounding defeat of his attempt to impose government control over your health (and with it, the Democrats) during his first term. It is these parallels and how conservatives might react to them that I want to consider.

McGurn writes from a pragmatist's (read: unprincipled) perspective and the assumption that political office is an end in itself. This causes him to misjudge the Obama situation in several ways. The root of his difficulty lies in the fact that this speculation about how Obama might "save" his Presidency ignores the fact that, as Clinton might have put it, "That depends on what the meaning of the word, 'save' is." I think that McGurn (and Clinton) have a vastly different idea from Obama of what "saving" his Presidency would entail.

McGurn sees the presumed defeat of central planning in medicine as an opportunity for Obama to become free of the farthest left reaches of his party because its agenda is unpopular. He cites another political writer on this score.

In his book The Pact, historian Steven M. Gillon puts it this way: "Ironically, Gingrich's revolution may have saved the Clinton presidency by freeing him from the control of his party's more liberal base in Congress, giving him the opportunity to return to the moderate message that helped him win election in the first place. [minor edits]

Alan Sullivan of Fresh Bilge gives what I think is at the same time a perceptive and tin-eared response: "[T]here's no way stiff Obama will suddenly morph into flexible Bill Clinton..." The good and the bad of this observation both come from the same notion, which McGurn shares, that holding the presidency is somehow worth it to Obama in and of itself. But yes, Obama could well turn out to be inflexible. Why?

Notice that I said "holding the presidency," rather than "holding power." That's an important distinction, and which side of this distinction Obama lands on will determine how he might react to a major setback. Bill Clinton learned from his defeat that he did not have the power -- perhaps a better term would be "political capital" -- necessary to enact his entire agenda. But for Bill Clinton, holding office made him feel like a big shot. In this way, I think that Obama is fundamentally different: It's all about imposing his vision on America. Bill Clinton was all about the office and Barack Obama is all about power. This means -- contrary to the blindness of pragmatism -- using power for a specific goal.

I doubt that just hanging on will do anything for Barack Obama.

Clinton could have reacted to his discovery in a variety of ways: (1) He could have evaded the lesson and kept working full bore, but fruitlessly, for the same agenda; (2) He could work to get parts of his agenda enacted with what power he had; or (3) He could pretend to favor a different agenda and bask in popularity for helping to enact it. Clinton mainly chose the third of these, as McGurn indicates:

Though he continues to deny GOP contributions to his success, after his 1994 health-care defeat, Mr. Clinton did what all smart pols do: He appropriated the most appealing parts of his opponents' agenda.

The result was a new Bill Clinton, embracing everything from deregulation and welfare reform to the Defense of Marriage Act. In his 1996 State of the Union, he even struck a Reaganite chord by announcing that "the era of Big Government is over." From this newly held center, Mr. Clinton advanced his presidency and pushed, both successfully and unfairly, to demonize Mr. Gingrich. Mostly he got away with it.

One might be tempted to scoff about Obama taking this option, given how far to the left he seems to be. In fact, one might also say, "What agenda is there for him to appropriate, this time?" The rotten parts. The ones that, perhaps, already exist in his agenda, but are on the backburner for now.

Most of the better parts of the Republican agenda have withered away, but I think that this Clinton-like turn is a more dangerous possibility than Sullivan apparently does. Recall whom Obama chose to deliver his inaugural invocation, and with whom he sojourns, so to speak. If Obama chose such a path, we might get our first taste of a religious left presidency. (Obama might also try this if he is sufficiently pragmatic.) And if he does, watch for some evangelicals to help him throw capitalism under the bus.

But what if Obama is more principled than Bill Clinton or less religious than he appears? He and the Democrats could well decide to enact physician slavery on moral grounds and take the electoral losses. (The word "repeal" wasn't in the Republican lexicon even in 1994...)

On Friday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said his boss was 'quite comfortable' with the idea that sticking to his agenda may well mean 'he only lives in this house' for one term.

We could get both option (1) and option (3). This could give us the worst of both worlds if the Democrats actually took over the medical sector.

We have to hope Obama is too secular to want to enact a religious agenda, and willing to take what he can get from a less friendly Congress, or that he continues going full bore, but sees little success in enacting his agenda.

In the sense of his Presidency offering anything of immediate political good to America, the Obama Presidency is beyond saving. I doubt we'll get a Clinton II, but not just on grounds that Obama is probably too inflexible to "pull a Clinton." Because the Republicans have learned nothing from their loss of power, they are ill-equipped to make Obama be a decent -- or at least harmless -- President. (That said, pro-capitalists will profit from not having to rebut the silly idea that the President is "pro-capitalist." This is an enormous long-range good that many conservatives fail to appreciate for a variety of reasons.)

And if you don't believe me, just look at what a couple of Republicans -- including the last presidential nominee -- recently said (via HBL) about health insurance "reform:"

Though one of the Senate's most liberal members, Kennedy -- and his ability to work out bipartisan deals -- was on the minds of a couple of key Republican senators in the health care debate Sunday. "No person in that institution is indispensable, but Ted Kennedy comes as close to being indispensable as any individual I've ever known in the Senate, because he had a unique way of sitting down with the parties at a table and making the right concessions, which really are the essence of successful negotiations," said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, speaking on ABC's "This Week." "So it's huge that he's absent, not only because of my personal affection for him, but because I think that health care reform might be in a very different place today."

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch echoed the sentiment on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Well, Sen. Kennedy would, first thing he would have done, would have been call me and say, 'Let's work this out.' And we would have worked it out so that the best of both worlds would work." [bold in original]

With Republicans like this, who needs Democrats?

I don't think Barack Obama could turn out to be another Bill Clinton even if he secretly wanted to.

-- CAV

Williams on Profiling

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

Walter Williams has written a thought-provoking piece, posted at Capitalism Magazine, on racial profiling as a means of economizing on information costs -- thought-provoking, but not perfect.

On the one hand, Williams does successfully make the case that using race or ethnicity is warranted in some circumstances:

In a 1999 article, "Capital Cabbies Salute Race Profiling," James Owens writes, "If racial profiling is racism, then the cab drivers of Washington, D.C., they themselves mainly blacks and Hispanics, are all for it. A District taxicab commissioner, Sandra Seegars, who is black, issued a safety-advice statement urging D.C.'s 6,800 cabbies to refuse to pick up 'dangerous looking' passengers. She described 'dangerous looking' as a young black guy ... with shirttail hanging down longer than his coat, baggy pants, unlaced tennis shoes."

This is a very good example. Let the wrong character into your car and you could wind up robbed, beaten, and left for dead. Spend too much time trying to figure out whether to do business with someone and you starve.

My mild quarrel with Williams arises from his colloquial, albeit loose use of the term "racial." For example, he starts building his case that racial profiling is a way to cut the cost of gathering information by noting that certain medical conditions are more common among blacks than among other racial groups, and ends by shifting over to crime, for certain types of which blacks (at least in the United States) are much more prone.

The problem with this is that it lets slide too easily the fact that there is a difference between genetic makeup and cultural background. Differing racial incidences of certain diseases might, for example, simply reflect the fact that genetic susceptibility to these diseases differs among races. (Risk for some diseases could also (or only) reflect cultural differences, but for our purposes here, this is irrelevant.)

But what about crime rates? Barring certain rare mental conditions, individuals possessing free will commit crimes. What might account for a racial difference in crime statistics? Culture. While one always has free will, some cultures encourage civilized behavior better (i.e., make it easier for one to form rational habits) than others.

Owing largely to the history of slavery and legal persecution blacks have suffered in America, that group is not only genetically distinct, but culturally distinct, and failing to make such a distinction thwarts intelligent discussions about racial matters in two ways: (1) by making it easier (by failing to challenge the surface plausibility of their claims) for racial determinists to claim that the ills of black America are due to an inferior genetic makeup and, thus not soluable within an integrated society (i.e., one that respects individual rights); and (2) by allowing multiculturalists to insist that we all pretend that nothing is culturally wrong, by (incorrectly) slamming any and all criticism of black American culture as merely racist.

Both "alternatives" ignore free will (and, with it, morality) and short-change the individual, black or not. I agree with Walter Williams that practices like racial and cultural profiling are warranted sometimes, but failing to distinguish between the two makes it hard to address some of the very problems that so often make cultural profiling of a racial group necessary to begin with.

Perhaps "group profiling," as is done in non-racial categories (search term: prejudice) all the time, might be a better term.

-- CAV

Updates

8-23-09: Corrected a typo.

The Power of History and Art Combined

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

After graduating from college, I started to really learn history for myself. I had to…I was teaching it! I already had a love of art as well, and these two passions slowly came together. For the past three years, I’ve been using art to enjoy history even more and to help my homeschooling students across the country better understand history as part of the HistoryAtOurHouse curriculum.

The verdict is in. Students and parents agree: it’s awesome! Art really helps bring the past to life. In fact, it has worked so well, I decided to pass on the the unique benefits of this program to adults.

That’s where art can help.

Art has the ability to show us the past in visual form. Simply put, art lets us see history. In some ways, art can function much like photography and film do today. But art can also do so much more than document history. As we’ll see throughout this course, art can represent much more than just a moment in time. It can depict the meaning of history.

It’s a cliche, but it’s true: a picture really is worth a thousand words! In fact, when it comes to history, a picture–if it’s a great work of art–might be worth a lot more than that!

Program Details

History Through Art for Adults will operate in the same way as A First History for AdultsTM.

The program will operate on a three-year rotation: Ancient, European, and American history.

• This year, the program will focus on European history.

Students will have two options for attending: live lectures, via conference-call and/or on-line recordings.

• 
  

The program will run from September to June, with two seminars per month.

• That’s 20 lectures in all!

Classes start September 2nd!

Each interactive seminar will last 1 hour to 1.5 hours.

Students will receive images and links via a dedicated class web page.

Live classes will be held Wednesday evenings at 8:30 PM Central Time (9:30 PM Eastern, 6:30 PM Pacific), usually on the first and third Wednesday of the month.

All lectures will be recorded and made available indefinitely for listeners to download for repeat listening.

Can’t attend Wednesday nights?

You can listen to the lectures on-line, anytime.

Lectures can easily be downloaded to an iPod or other portable player.

You can listen as many times as you like.

Like A First History for Adults^TM classes, History Through Art for Adults classes are recorded.

Program Cost

History Through Art for Adults is available for only $20/month!

• That’s less than the price of a movie per lecture! (And it’s better art!)

You can listen as many times as you like, at no extra charge.

Click here for a tuition discount.

Pay in advance, and get one month free!

Want to try it, before you buy the whole course?

Click here, and select a single month of lectures.

Virtual Objectivist Club

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

From the Objectivist Club Network (OCN):
-----------------------------------

I helped start the Objectivist Club Network (OCN), an organization dedicated to helping all Objectivist Campus Clubs. OCN is not affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute, although we support them and regularly communicate with them to ensure our respective organizations are not duplicating efforts.

Recently we've expanded our efforts to solve a new problem: there are students interested in joining an Objectivist club where no club exists. Some of these students start their own club, but others don't have time to start a club or do not find enough participants on campus to form a club.

We've created the Virtual Objectivist Club (VOC) for these students -- a phone-based discussion group dedicated to the study of Objectivism. Meetings will be weekly, beginning this September, each moderated by an experienced Objectivist. The group is open to any current students who would like to learn more about Objectivism.

My request: Please help spread the word to any students you know who may be interested in learning more about Objectivism. The deadline for applying to the VOC is August 31st. Students can learn more and apply at: http://www.oclubs.org/voc

Please let me know if you have any questions and we greatly appreciate you sharing this with others!

Is Atheism a Religion?

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I saw this on Twitter a few weeks ago, via @amyalkon, and I'm so going to use when people claim that atheism is just another religion:

"If atheism is a religion then not collecting stamps is a hobby."

Other variations might work too:

... then watching daytime soaps from your parents' couch is a career.
... then starvation is just a different kind of eating.
... then not giving to charity is a way of being charitable.

I still prefer the "not collecting stamps" version, however. Any others?

Health Care Debate Shifting onto Moral Grounds

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The August 20, 2009 New York Times reported that President Obama is trying to make the argument that we have a "moral obligation" to provide universal health care.

This is good news for free market reform advocates.

The President and his political allies know that they are losing the economic arguments, so they are now trying to shift the argument to the moral plane. But this happens to be our strength. Most Americans want to "do the right thing", but they are sometimes mistaken as to what that right thing is. Fortunately, more and more people are raising the point that universal health care is wrong because there is no such thing as a "right" to health care.

Here are a few recent OpEds along these lines

Mike Rosen, "No 'Right' To Health Care"
Denver Post, August 13, 2009

John Lewis, "Health Care: Why Call It a 'Right'?"
Huffington Post, August 12, 2009

John Mackey, "The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare"
Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2009

Theodore Dalrymple, "Is There a 'Right' to Health Care?"
Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2009

Wendy Milling, "Lest We've Forgotten, Health Care Is Not a Right"
RealClearMarkets, June 23, 2009

In my opinion, the best-formulated arguments are from John Lewis and Wendy Milling. But all of these writers are trying to steer the debate in the right direction -- to the level of morality and rights. And their arguments are resonating with ordinary Americans.

This means that Americans are receptive to a discussion of these issues at the fundamental philosophy. At some level, they recognize that this fight is not merely about a particular economic program, but about the future direction of America.

The best essay I've ever read along these lines is Dr. Leonard Peikoff's classic article entitled, "Health Care is Not a Right", available at the FIRM website.

(This is the 2007 version by Leonard Peikoff updated with the assistance of Lin Zinser. For printing, I recommend the PDF version, but for sending as an e-mail link there's also an HTML version. The Ayn Rand Center website also has a nice PDF version suitable for printing.)

As Dr. Peikoff noted:

...Most people who oppose socialized medicine do so on the grounds that it is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical; i.e., it is a noble idea -- which just somehow does not work. I do not agree that socialized medicine is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical. Of course, it is impractical -- it does not work -- but I hold that it is impractical because it is immoral.

This is not a case of noble in theory but a failure in practice; it is a case of vicious in theory and therefore a disaster in practice.

I want to focus on the moral issue at stake. So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan -- not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it -- to show that it is the very opposite of noble. Then at least you have a fighting chance...

Last week, a local doctor called me up to tell me that he had started surfing the FIRM website, read Dr. Peikoff's essay, and thought it was the best analysis he had ever seen on this issue, precisely because it cut to the heart of the debate.

We are at a crucial point in the battle of the ideas. According to pollsters and pundits, ObamaCare is in political jeopardy -- but it is not dead yet. The American people know that there is something deeply wrong with the idea, and they are starting to understand why. We can help them by providing the proper moral arguments they need to counter the faux moral arguments now being advanced by the White House.

Hence, please feel free to circulate the above links to any friends, family, or elected officials who might be interested. You can also print out copies to distribute at Tea Parties, Town Hall meetings, etc.

We have the right ideas and the right tools. Now we just have be willing to use them!

The Long Shadow of the National Health Service

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

Aeon McNulty has a great post on the Ayn Rand Forum, summarising and getting to the core over the recent attention the NHS is getting.

By Aeon McNulty, August 24th, 2009

The British contribution to the healthcare debate in America has been predictable. Facts have been distorted and emotions stirred. A great deal of heat has been generated but comparatively little illumination.

Step forward Daniel Hannan, the Conservative Euro-MP who catapulted to fame when a video of his passionate denunciation of the Prime Minister went viral. He recently dared to criticise the National Health Service on American TV. For this he has been branded “unpatriotic” by the Health Secretary and “eccentric” by his own party leader.

In light of what was actually said, I think the character assassination Mr Hannan endured was unjust. The spectacle of a spluttering John Prescott demanding that the Americans “reject this man” exemplified the political reaction in the UK. Since Mr Hannan is quite capable of defending himself, I want to concentrate on the subject cultivating all this brouhaha. Why does the NHS excite such extraordinary emotions in my fellow countrymen? Where did it come from? And what’s wrong with it?

If you read one thing today, make it this article. It is invaluable.

On Good Governance

By Michael Gold from EGO,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In "That government is best which protects individual rights" (Grand Junction Free Press, Monday, August 17, 2009), Linn and Ari Armstrong say:

You just don't like government. That's what a friend told your elder author Linn following a local political event, during an informal discussion about which candidates are running and who is supporting them.

It's an odd sort of charge, given that Linn once ran for elected office himself and has participated in numerous campaigns and political functions.

The fact is we love government, if it's the right sort of government. But not all governments are created equal. Who loves the oppressive governments of North Korea or Iran? What about the fallen government of the Soviet Union? There is no greater evil on the face of the earth than a government gone wrong.

The question, then, is what constitutes good government. That depends primarily on what is the proper purpose of government.

We disagree with Henry David Thoreau when he writes, “That government is best which governs not at all.” We answer that government is best which protects individual rights.

Fortunately for us, our forefathers created a republican form of government with strictly delimited powers and an explicit recognition of individual rights. The obvious exception, slavery, took another century to expunge, and racist laws took longer to root out, but finally in this respect America lived up to her founding principles.
...

Milton Friedman explained, “Adam Smith's key insight was that both parties to an exchange can benefit and that, so long as cooperation is strictly voluntary, no exchange will take place unless both parties do benefit. No external force, no coercion, no violation of freedom is necessary to produce cooperation among individuals all of whom can benefit.”

Good article; recommended reading.

It's Easier to Tear Down

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

Via Instapundit, I have encountered an interesting analysis, from an Alinsky-ish perspective of Barack Obama's current political difficulties. This occurs in the first item of a Best of the Web feature at Wall Street Journal Online. As is so often the case with conservative analysis, its strength is generally better on the less abstract levels, but get far enough away from the concrete level and it falls flat on its face:

Which brings us to a word of caution for those who don't want to see Obama re-elected: Inasmuch as the condition of being leaderless gives Republicans significant tactical advantages now, they will not enjoy those advantages in three years. Even if Obama's performance as president leaves much to be desired, he could win a second term if the Republicans nominate an opponent who makes an easy target for ridicule. Just ask John Kerry. [bold added]

Or the Republicans could win, and find themselves eaten alive as their leader, now suffering the same tactical disadvantages Obama currently possesses, flounders about. Non-ridiculousness will get you only so far.

Why is James Taranto so blind to this? I oppose Obama's agenda and find myself wondering whether, at the rate things are going, we might want him for eight years. The lesson Taranto draws in the first section of this Best of the Web is something like, "It's easier to erode someone else's power than to wield it for oneself." That's true enough, particularly when that power is held at the pleasure of a voting public.

Part of the answer, to which I suspect Taranto is oblivious, lies in the very next section of his entry. Here, he discusses a fascinating aspect of the predictable calls for a boycott of Whole Foods by its predominantly left wing clientele in response to a recent editorial by its CEO, John Mackey. Taranto quotes Ann Althouse, a regular customer of Whole Foods:

The place was packed as usual--here in lefty Madison. It occurred to me that the boycott will not only fail, it will backfire. Whole Foods shoppers won't give up their pleasure easily. If they are pushed to boycott, they will want to read the Mackey op-ed, and if they do that, they will see it is a brilliant and specific analysis that is stunningly better thought-out than what we are hearing from Obama and the Democrats. Moreover, once they do that, they should be outraged--or at least annoyed--by those who called for a boycott, who sought to enforce such strict obedience to the particular of legislation [sic] that the Democrats in Congress have been trying to ram through. Maybe some of the people who want to support Obama and the Democrats will stop and think for themselves about what health care reform should be. [bold added]

Besides the fact that possessing power carries with it the tactical liabilities of having to maintain it, there is also the simple fact that if the truth is on your side, you have a huge advantage. Perhaps, in addition to being gutsy, Mr. Mackey is amazingly shrewd. If this pans out, I promise to go easy on the patchouli jokes when mentioning Whole Foods in the future.

Taranto appreciates how this battle is shaking out, but does he see how it applies to the war for America's political future? I suspect not, for the Republicans, insofar as they have become a party of big government and theocracy, also do not have the truth on their side. Taranto has repeatedly made it clear that, while he is useful as an opponent of Obama having power, his positive agenda would be little better. The truth is not on his side, so he does not appreciate its tactical value and arguably even fears it.

In some respects, the fact that neither side is aligned with reality bodes well for those of us who understand that the key to a good future for America is to fight against both theocracy and leftist collectivism, its secularized twin.

-- CAV

John Galt Speaks

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I've been re-reading Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged this summer, as part of a whirlwind ten-week Atlas Shrugged Reading Group for members of Front Range Objectivism. I've learned so much more about the novel than I expected. I have enjoyed the process of finding so many new delights in it. In addition to releasing my discussion questions, I hope to blog about some of what I've learned this upcoming fall and spring, as I work through the novel again in a slower-paced reading group in Colorado Springs.

For the moment, I just wanted to note my particular pleasure at this near-final passage from Galt's Speech:

In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.

But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

Given the sordid state of the world today, I felt like John Galt grabbed me and shook me when I read those words.

Inclusionary Zoning Excludes Freedom

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

Inclusionary Zoning Excludes Freedom

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 17, 2009—A new inclusionary zoning law went into effect in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. It requires housing developments with ten or more units to set aside 8 to 10 percent of their units for low and moderate income residents—in effect, partial rent control. 

“Rent controls violate your rights,” writes Michael Berliner, co-chairman of the Board of Directors of the Ayn Rand Center. “As an apartment owner, you have the moral right to decide the price at which you’ll offer a unit for rent. The government has no right to dictate to you what rate you can offer.

“In a free society, no government—local, state, or federal—has the right to interfere with the choices of people to do business with each other. It should no more tell a landlord what price to offer than it should tell a prospective tenant how much he can spend on rent. Both the landlord and the tenant have the moral right to ‘just say no’ to the other’s offer. That’s freedom.”

###

 

Today's insult from the Libertarian Alliance

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

Add to this the fact that the NHS employs over a million people. It is not the only bureaucratic mass-employer in this country. But it is the largest. These institutions impose values of hierarchy and obedience on those within them that are hostile to liberty. People who are regimented in their working lives – and who do not rebel against this – will tend to accept regimentation in their private lives. They will accept it for themselves. They will vote for politicians who promise it for everyone. They will spread these values directly to others so far as they have contact with the public as providers of services.

You read that correctly - people who voluntarily enter a hierarchy of control in an economic context, will tend to accept similar hierarchy's in their private lives.

By this standard, people in the army are somehow predisposed to be statists. As are... well, just about the entire workforce. Most people have a boss, or are a boss - but this is absolutely no indication of their political leanings.

Humans are rational, and fully able to distinguish between taking orders voluntarily (that is, when they are legitimate according to your personal values and voluntary obligations) and taking orders politically (that is, arbitrarily and without regard to your personal evaluation)

Craig Biddle in Denver on Principles

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

On September 19th, Craig Biddle will be in Denver to speak to Front Range Objectivism about "What Principles Are and Why We Need Them." Here's the announcement:

FROST Supper Talk: Craig Biddle on "What Principles Are and Why We Need Them"

Date: Saturday, September 19, 2009

Time: 6:00 pm social hour (cash bar); 7:00 pm dinner; 8:00 pm talk

Location: West Woods Golf Club, 6655 Quaker Street in Arvada, Colorado

Cost: $60.00 per individual, $35.00 for students

RSVP: To Ann Williams by September 14th via e-mail (ann6031@msn.com) or by phone at 720-363-0345. You can pay at the door; send a check to FROGS c/o Betty Evans, 1140 US Hwy 287 STE 400-283, Broomfield, CO 80020; or use Paypal to send your payment to betty@frontrangeobjectivism.com.

Mr. Biddle will present material from chapter one of his book in progress, "Good Thinking: The Science of Selfishness." He will examine the nature and need of principles, show that they are essential guides to good thinking, discuss the dual standard of validity and its significance with respect to principles, examine the relationship of principles and egoism, and discuss why acceptance of altruism proportionally precludes the possibility of principled thinking. The talk will be followed by a Q&A, during which Mr. Biddle will answer questions relating to this material and other aspects of his book.

Craig Biddle is the editor of The Objective Standard and the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It . He is currently writing a book about the principles of rational thinking and the fallacies that are violations of those principles, which is tentatively titled "Good Thinking: The Science of Selfishness."

I have nothing but the highest expectations for this talk. Please join us, if you can!

Projection vs. Power

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

Left-wing radio commentator Ed Schultze -- whose voice and delivery, at least in the linked clip, bear a bizarre resemblance to Rush Limbaugh's -- claims he "sometimes think[s]" that conservative pundits "would love to see Obama taken out," because they "fear socialism [and] Marxism."

Another link at RealClear Politics claims that Schultze himself had once "Wishe[d] Death On Dick Cheney."

For this post, I will leave aside the lowness of this insult on Schultze's part. He is basically attempting to dehumanize his opponents by claiming that we have no regard for human life, and cannot see our political opponents as human beings. I am sorry, but this is still a civilized country. I want Obama to go down in flames, politically, but I have no desire to see him murdered.

That said, I will address a few other aspects of Schultze's remarks...

Although I am no conservative, I share with the likes of Rush Limbaugh a fear Obama's agenda of government control of the economy. If fact, I would say I fear it even more than many conservatives do because I understand it better than they do. In fact, I understand it so much better than they do that I am very ambivalent about the prospect of the Republicans returning to power in Congress in 2010, only perhaps to save Obama's healthcare agenda, among other things.

The GOP, still a party of intrusive government and, as such, no friend of individual rights or capitalism, only opposes Obama controlling the reigns of improper government power, and not, as it ought, anyone having such power on principle. Nevertheless, I doubt many conservatives want "Obama Clause" shot for this very reason. He is saving the GOP from having to do what it cannot do at present: make a positive appeal to the American voter. One would need command of a set of principles consistent with freedom to do that. (Sadly, too many conservative pundits do not appreciate how ineffective the GOP may turn out to be in putting the brakes on Obama's anti-American agenda.)

That said, Schultze's charge is still ludicrous on its face. This is the first peep I have heard of such an idea, and I am more familiar with conservatives by far than with leftists.

Speaking for myself, as one whom Schultze has inexcusably smeared, I have to say that the murderous impulse he projects onto people like me -- people who abhor tyranny -- is not only unjust, but objectively incompatible with our goals and the current political context.

We still have freedom of speech here in America, and Barack Obama has done wonders for making certain issues so clear that Americans can finally discuss them intelligently. I, for one, am thrilled that I now no longer have to start almost any discussion with something like, "Bush's policies are not really capitalist because, ..." Not only that, but Obama has opened up the debate on ethics!

The two parties are both against individual rights anyway -- just like all the major political parties of an earlier time once supported slavery. What the United States must have, as history shows, is an intellectual debate, and the resulting rise of a pro-individual rights group of voters that the parties ignore only at their own peril. Obama has unintentionally accelerated progress in this crucial debate, rather than allowing the United States to continue sleepwalking towards the same fascist measures under a "pro-capitalist" Republican President.

In addition to the above, the event Schultze claims Obama's opponents want could end public debate even more effectively than Obama's threats or the Democrats' "enact first, read later" approach to government. Obama would become a martyr, and the timid Republicans, altruists to begin with, would be more likely to cave to an agenda subsequently cast as a way to honor the legacy of our First Black President.

Ed Schultze's comment indicates that all he can see in politics is a king-of-the-mountain struggle for momentary power over others. Perhaps that is what he would do were he an opponent of Obama's. But for those of us sincerely interested in freedom, the better part of power -- as with valor -- lies in discretion.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Added third and fourth paragraphs shortly after initial posting.

Switch and Pitch

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

Barack Obama could have passed -- to many Republicans, anyway -- as an advocate of capitalism recently when he noted that, "UPS and FedEx are doing fine," as they "compete" against the US Postal Service. This he said while addressing a crowd friendly to his plan for health insurance "reform," but at a time when his congressional henchmen are being surprised across the country to learn that real Americans do not want said plan.

His remark is clearly intended to assuage the public, and to make his plan seem harmless to us. But other video, of earlier remarks by him and by Democratic members of Congress plainly indicates that he does not really believe his own words and that his plan is, in fact, a "Trojan horse," (as he once put it) for a goal he has repeatedly endorsed over the years: single-payer health care (i.e., government control of the medical sector of the economy).

It is nevertheless worth stopping for a moment -- before we report him for it -- to consider the full meaning of Obama's comparison of the plan he wants to foist on us with the Post Office. If it's going to be such feeble competition for the insurance industry, why implement it at all? And why would we want it? And why would Obama leave himself wide open to such a glaring policy failure?

To really understand any utterance, one must always step back and consider its full context. In this case, it might be worthwhile to consider the nature of the "competition" Barack Obama claims the Post Office is participating in. An old column by Edwin Feulner over at Capitalism Magazine will do us nicely:

We know we can count on private services such as FedEx and United Parcel Service to deliver on time. If they didn't, they'd go out of business. And we also know--many of us from bitter experience--that we always can't count on the post office.

That's because the post office is a government-protected monopoly; 19th century laws make it illegal for anyone else to deliver letters. It's also exempt from state and federal taxes and free from most government regulations. That combination is a recipe for disaster.

If you read the whole thing, it will become plain as day that the only reason there even exists a Post Office to "compete" is federal protection. It would be for similar reasons, as John Lewis recently indicated, that Obama's plan could exist. Here's just one example:

By setting a minimum 70% actuarial value of benefits, the bill makes health plans in which individuals pay for routine services, but carry insurance only for catastrophic events, (such as Health Savings Accounts) illegal.

For a similar reason you can't just post a letter for, say, a quarter, at FedEx (or even a Post Office that really had to compete), you won't be permitted to find more affordable health insurance than Obama's even if a free market could provide it. When the government disallows consumers the choice of less-expensive options, inferior enterprises like the Post Office become "viable."

And, as Lewis indicates further down the line for this plan, enough government aid to such an enterprise will artificially make it not just viable, but the cheapest "option" we will have. This is why, when you hear Obama say he wants single-payer coverage by the end of his term and when you hear him talk about his plan like it's a Post-Office-like "loveable loser," he seems to mean it both ways.

It is because, to him anyway, it is both ways: The Obama Plan is a sort of Medical Post Office -- but on steroids. Government protection will make it ineffective by shielding it from real competition, and put better options out of reach of the public.

Too bad he underestimates the intellect of the American people. I don't want, "The doctor can see you now," to have the same level of reassurance as, "The check is in the mail." That is why I don't want Barack Obama's plan, and I thank the President for making it clear from which direction that fishy odor is coming.

Barack Obama implies that his plan is "self-sustaining." If that is the case, why doesn't he just resign, slightly increase his "premiums," and make millions selling it on the open market? I'll even help his cause by demanding that the government stop strangling the insurance industry with regulations.

-- CAV

Safeguarding Afghanis More Important Than American Lives?

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

Safeguarding Afghanis More Important Than American Lives?

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 12, 2009--According to the latest reports, the United States suffered a six-fold increase in casualties in the war in Afghanistan last month, versus the same time a year ago. The Wall Street Journal, in a story earlier this week, declared the Taliban are now winning the war. The Wall Street Journal noted that the American strategy in Afghanistan “puts a premium on safeguarding the Afghan population rather than hunting down militants.” This is why we’re losing the war, and we at the Ayn Rand Center have been saying it for seven years.

In 2006 Elan Journo, a fellow with the Ayn Rand Center, wrote: “The failure in Afghanistan is a result of Washington’s foreign policy. Despite lip service to the goal of protecting America's safety, the ‘war on terror’ has been waged in compliance with the prevailing moral premise that self-interest is evil and self-sacrifice a virtue. Instead of trouncing the enemy for the sake of protecting American lives, our leaders have sacrificed our self-defense for the sake of serving the whims of Afghans.”

In 2004 Mr. Journo wrote about the Iraq war: “Though Washington may be blinded by the longing to buy the love of Iraqis, our service men know all too well that (as one put it): ‘When you go to fight, it’s time to shoot--not to make friends with people.’ In its might and courage our military is unequaled; it is the moral responsibility of Washington to issue battle plans that will properly ‘shock and awe’ the enemy. Eschewing self-interest in the name of compassion is immoral. The result is self-destruction.”

In 2002 ARC senior fellow Dr. Onkar Ghate wrote: “How then goes the war? An objective answer must be: badly. But our cause is not yet lost. We lack not the wealth nor the skilled military necessary to defeat the enemy, only the ideas and the will. If we articulate and practice a rational foreign policy, one actually premised on America’s self-interest, we will prevail. Nothing more is needed to achieve victory than to replace the pragmatism and self-sacrifice now dictating America’s actions with the principles of reason and rational self-interest; nothing less will do.”

Will our government listen?

###

 

The Real Threat to Human Life: Climate Change Alarmism

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

The Real Threat to Human Life: Climate Change Alarmism

Washington, D.C, August 14, 2009—In an article on climate policy recently published in the journal Energy and Environment, Dr. Keith Lockitch, a fellow with the Ayn Rand Center, addresses a crucial issue ignored by climate change policy makers: the danger most global warming "remedies" pose to industrial civilization and human life.

Lockitch comments, “Climate alarmists are trying to make people hysterical over the possibility of large-scale changes to the earth’s climate, which they claim will be a 'planetary emergency.' But they ignore the fact that our susceptibility to climate-related threats depends on a lot more than what’s happening in the atmosphere. In particular, it depends on our political and economic conditions.

“Industrial development under capitalism has actually made us safer from climate-related risks than ever before in human history; it is freedom and industrialization that keep us safe from natural disasters. So even if large-scale climate changes were to occur—whether man-made or not—the worst thing we could possibly do would be to adopt green policies that attack freedom and industrial development."

###

Dr. Lockitch has a PhD in physics from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. His writings have appeared in publications such as the Washington Times, the Orange County Register and the San Francisco Chronicle.

To interview Dr. Keith Lockitch or book him for your show, please contact media@AynRandCenter.org

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

Obama's Health Care Deception

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

Obama’s Health Care Deception

Washington, D.C., August 11, 2009--President Obama has recently gone on record saying that his health care reforms “will keep government out of health care decisions,” that they will enable individuals to keep their current plans, and that they will be “deficit neutral.”

“But,” says Jeff Scialabba, a writer with the Ayn Rand Center, “the President’s eight ‘health insurance consumer protections’ demonstrate the contradictions inherent in these claims. The protections are effectively eight mandates that the President intends to place on insurance companies. These mandates would, among others, prohibit them from pricing their plans according to the health risks of the consumers purchasing them, prohibit them from limiting the amount of coverage a customer receives, require that they pay in full for preventive care, and require that they renew plans in perpetuity.

“Are we really expected to believe that a whole series of new mandates forcing insurance companies to absorb additional costs while preventing them from making up the losses elsewhere will have no effect on current plans--or that this does not constitute government involvement in health care decisions? The only certainty is that Obama’s mandates will affect everyone--even those who like their current insurance plan. Cumulatively, we’ll be worse off for it.”

###

Obama’s DNC Mouthpiece

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

On August 8, I sent this letter to the Democratic National Committee. The letter from Jen O’Malley Dillon -- obviously a form letter prepared for emailing to countless Citizens X for or against ObamaCare -- is reprinted in italics in its entirety following my response to it. Dillon’s letter is as impersonally comforting and assuring as a spam notice that you have a fantastic amount of money sitting in an account with the Bank of Lagos, ready to be wire-transferred to your stateside checking account, if only you would send the undersigned your private banking details. My response does not attempt to counter or refute every assertion, charge, and lie in Dillon’s letter, just the more egregiously offensive statements.

Jen O'Malley Dillon
Executive Director
Democratic National Committee
democraticparty@democrats.org


Dear Jen:

A friend shared with me your letter to him about how evil and anti-democratic Americans are for exercising their First Amendment right to protest the lies and deceptions of the President and the Democratic Party about the health care legislation.

The truth is that the protesters are truly "grassroots," not being guided, advised, or manipulated by nefarious powers behind the scenes. I took part in several Tea Parties over the last few months. No one asked me to. No one paid me to. I'm not being "funded" by anyone or by any organization. I took part because I do not want socialized medicine to destroy my liberty. I know of no one who has taken part in these protests who was acting as a tool of the Republican Party or an insurance company or some other Darth Vaderish entity, as Democratic propaganda asserts.

The truth is that the protesters are not "organized mobs, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion." They have every right to shout down any politician who believes he can feed his constituents the same old pap of assurances, promises, and lies about the health care legislation and get away with it. That is what Americans have been told for decades, and they are tired of it. They are smart enough to see a snake in the grass -- dozens of snakes in the tall grass of political obfuscation and in the self-serving rhetoric of venal politicians.

The truth is that there is a need for real health insurance reform -- to get the government out of the realms of medical, health care, and insurance. In fact, out of the economy entirely. Nothing in the Constitution permits the federal government to take care of anyone. The Constitution exists to protect individual rights, the lives of individuals, their happiness and their property. But several Democratic and Republican administrations have usurped those restrictions and limitations. Americans are beginning to connect those dots. Just as Americans connected the dots in 1773 when they "disrupted" the cargoes of tea and tossed them into Boston Harbor. Just as they connected the dots in 1765 against the Stamp Act, and "disrupted" collection of that tax.

Frankly, I wish the Republican Party would take its name seriously enough to be more forthright in its applause of the "disruptions." This is, after all, supposed to be a republic of free individuals, not a democracy of mob rule orchestrated by petit tyrants and professional looters.

More power to Americans if they can intimidate presumptuous, power-seeking, sanctimonious lawmakers.

You stated in your letter that "as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no 'government takeover' in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress." Who asked you to intrude on people's choices in the first place? Why intrude, if you do not intend to take over the whole realm of health care? Who are you to care whether or not I like my insurance or my doctor? The only job of an elected representative or senator is to uphold the Constitution and individual rights. Period.

You state in your letter: "Health insurance reform is about our lives, our jobs, and our families -- we can't let distortions and intimidation get in the way." What is this our business? I don't own you, and you don't own me. There is no such thing as a collective that can legitimately employ that adjective. There is just a collection of individuals, free to associate with each other or not. My business is not your business, or anyone else's, except in voluntary association or trade. But that's something the health care legislation would end -- by chaining all Americans together in a work gang.

Speaking of distortions, how many millions of dollars has the DNC committed to defeating American opposition to slavery or servitude with smears, lies and glitzy TV ads? And speaking of intimidation, just who unleashed the troglodytes of ACORN, the AFL-CIO, and SEIU (a notoriously communist organization, with international links, of course) on Tea Partiers and others who protest the health care bill? You should warn those thugs: If attacked, we will fight back. Just as we did at Lexington and Concord, and at Bunker Hill.

Your party stooped to a new low when the President authorized an invitation to Americans to inform on each other if they overheard or read a breath of criticism of the health care bill. Well, that tactic certainly backfired, did it not?

Yes, it's going to be a long, hot August. We, the new Sons of Liberty, will also stand strong together to expose the truth about the indentured servitude you are proposing.

Sincerely, and yours in liberty,

Edward Cline

Dear Citizen:

There's been a lot of media coverage about organized mobs intimidating lawmakers, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion about the need for real health insurance reform.

The truth is, it's a sham. These "grassroots protests" are being organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform. They're trying to use lies and fear to break the President and his agenda for change.

Health insurance reform is about our lives, our jobs, and our families -- we can't let distortions and intimidation get in the way. We need to expose these outrageous tactics, and we're counting on you to help. Can you read these "5 facts about the anti-reform mobs," then pass them along to your friends and family?

Five facts about the anti-reform mobs

1. These disruptions are being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies who fear that health insurance reform could help Americans, but hurt their bottom line. A group run by the same folks who made the "Swiftboat" ads against John Kerry is compiling a list of congressional events in August to disrupt. An insurance company coalition has stationed employees in 30 states to track where local lawmakers hold town-hall meetings.

2. People are scared because they are being fed frightening lies. These crowds are being riled up by anti-reform lies being spread by industry front groups that invent smears to tarnish the President's plan and scare voters. But as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no "government takeover" in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress.

3. Their actions are getting more extreme. Texas protesters brought signs displaying a tombstone for Rep. Lloyd Doggett and using the "SS" symbol to compare President Obama's policies to Nazism. Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil was hanged in effigy outside his district office. Rep. Tim Bishop of New York had to be escorted to his car by police after an angry few disrupted his town hall meeting -- and more examples like this come in every day. And they have gone beyond just trying to derail the President's health insurance reform plans, they are trying to "break" the President himself and ruin his Presidency.

4. Their goal is to disrupt and shut down legitimate conversation. Protesters have routinely shouted down representatives trying to engage in constructive dialogue with voters, and done everything they can to intimidate and silence regular people who just want more information. One attack group has even published a manual instructing protesters to "stand up and shout" and try to "rattle" lawmakers to prevent them from talking peacefully with their constituents.

5. Republican leadership is irresponsibly cheering on the thuggish crowds. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress."

It's time to expose this charade, before it gets more dangerous. Please send these facts to everyone you know. You can also post them on your website, blog, or Facebook page.

Now, more than ever, we need to stand strong together and defend the truth.

Thanks,

Jen

I have a suggestion in reference to the poor Congressmen who fled their town halls under police escort, or who were hanged in effigy, or who find Americans who “disrupt” their peaceful convocations of the clueless wholly “un-democratic” and “thuggish.“ It should be an emphatic point of discussion that any politician who does not open his town hall meeting or forum with a clear statement that he is pledged to defend individual rights and private property -- including the bodies of individuals -- and will fight tooth and nail against passage of the health care/health insurance legislation -- that unless he is willing to make such a statement with unquestionable sincerity and certitude -- he will overstep or suborn his mandate to uphold the Constitution and represent his constituents, and will earn the disruption and untoward questions put to him, regardless of the rules of order.

He may advocate socialism and all the scams and schemes he wishes, as a private citizen -- but not as an elected official. This is what Americans should demand. They must grasp that it is not reason or civil discourse that the statists and collectivists want in these encounters. They want bovine agreement and unthinking obedience.

If a Congressman or Senator is unwilling to make such a pledge, then he should not hold the charade of a town hall meeting or forum. He should ignore his constituents and vote according to his feelings.

It is now a matter of either/or, not only for Democratic and Republican politicians, but for any American with courage and integrity enough to understand what is at stake and to question any politician’s right to plunder the lives and fortunes of those who sent him to office.

Quick Roundup 456

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

Trial Balloon

LB informed me the other day of a story in the Nashua Telegraph concerning someone turned in to the White House snitch line for posting "fishy" comments.

On Thursday morning, NashuaDan found himself on the phone with a Secret Service agent explaining that his remarks were only philosophical and not intended to threaten Obama, he said.

While NashuaDan's comments did not strike me as implying a threat to the President, it is the job of the Secret Service to protect the person holding that office, and I have no problems with them erring on the side of caution.

However, ...

NashuaDan's subsequent phone conversation seems so innocuous that one just about can't help wondering whether the call itself was orchestrated, right along the lines of NashuaDan's comments. Let me explain...

Yes, the Secret Service ought to investigate threats made against the President, but don't forget about how they learned of this "threat." And don't forget that it isn't as if informant SLRNashuan could not have found another way to tip off the Secret Service to a legitimate threat against the President.

But the lack of a media ruckus indicates to me that this is exactly what is being forgotten or ignored. As a result, now that the snitch line has been used for an arguably legitimate purpose, it has an undeserved air of legitimacy. If President Obama is not called on this one, watch for his snitch line to gradually be used for its intended purpose, which is to end all public debate that hurts Barry's feelings.

The Secret Service exists to protect the President, not to monitor political debate. President Obama's snitch line is blurring the distinction between the former and the latter. Whether that is intentional is immaterial. That is the effect.

The Janitor-in-Chief

Our President seems to be a little bit confused about his job description ...


I don't know what I find most annoying about this silly pronouncement.

First, it is not his job to be "cleaning up" the financial catastrophes caused by the economic interventions of past administrations -- but to get out of the way himself so that the free market can function properly.

Second, his metaphor of people just shutting up and getting to work does not apply to a situation in which the first order of business is to have a frank discussion about what we ought to be doing.

Third, his condescendingly common (if affected) air of doing us all a favor by cleaning up for us clearly distracts his most vocal fans in the audience from the fact that his idea of "cleaning up" is no different from the "solutions" his predecessors have had.

Having Barack Obama for President is like we hired an un-paper-trained puppy to do a janitor's work when we should have hired a security guard.

Don't "Do a Lot of Talking" ...

... if you have a disabled son and are worried about one of the "cleaning" methods -- i.e., rationing -- the Janitor-in-Chief wants to employ with the medical mess.


I am unfamiliar with Mike Sola's overall position in the medical care debate, but his inexcusable treatment at the hands of "Representative" John Dingell and the late-night harassment he has received at home are worth noting. (HT: Dismuke)

The Democrats plainly have abandoned the ideal of representative government: Who in his right mind would want to put his medical decisions in the hands of the kind of people who would insult him (at best) over a difference of opinion and show up at his home to threaten him at night?

And if those hints aren't enough, Sola asks why Congress won't use the plan themselves and Mike N reports that the plan won't go into effect until the Democrats have gotten to run another election first. But if all that isn't enough to make you not want this clunker of a plan, then I suggest reading it. John Lewis did, and he has posted a fine executive summary over at Principles in Practice.


Mike Dingell and President Obama would do well to consider the above political cartoon, but they will not. Will their bosses, the American people, have the sense to fire them?

And Speaking of Cleaning up...

The American electorate need look no further than about ninety miles south of Florida to see where socialism can take us if Obama gets his way:

Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said on Friday.

To use a metaphor of my own, central planning has made Cuba unable to wipe its own behind.

Vendor Lock-in Hell

Glenn Reynolds notes that an Apple netbook has the potential to introduce the iPhone commercial model to computing in general. I'm not happy to hear that, but no, I don't want Obama to step in to "save" personal computing.

-- CAV

Three Bits on OGrownups

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I'm pleased to report three bits of news about the new OGrownups e-mail list.

First, list manager Jenn Casey of Rational Jenn has a partner in crime: C. August of Titanic Deck Chairs. Thank you, C!

Second, non-Objectivists are now welcome to subscribe to the list, but as lurkers only. In other words, they can read posts to the list but not post themselves. Such people need only be interested in parenting and education based on the principles of Objectivism. If you're one of those people, please indicate when you subscribe that you're requesting to join as a non-Objectivist lurker. (Bosom buddies of David Kelley, Chris Sciabarra, Nathaniel Branden, and the like are still unwelcome.)

Third, the list has nearly 100 subscribers already, and good discussion is already underway. Hooray!

The Relevance of Ayn Rand

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The New York Times published an excellent letter from Daniel Schwartz in response to its article on Ayn Rand and BB&T, Give BB&T Liberty, but Not a Bailout. It reads:

Re "Give Me Liberty, but Not a Bailout" (Aug. 2), which described how the chairman of BB&T, the banking company, is a proponent of the Objectivist ideas of Ayn Rand:

The article quotes one of Ms. Rand's detractors as calling her "irrelevant." Given that Ms. Rand described Objectivism as "a philosophy for living on earth," this claim is ironic indeed. No other philosophy is as focused on dealing with the needs of real people. This is clear from the case of BB&T. Could Plato or Kant take credit for the success of a business in the way that Ms. Rand could take credit for this bank's success?

Objectivism, as a philosophy which upholds rationality, honesty, justice, and pride -- not as duties, but as tools for success -- is very relevant.

Daniel Schwartz

San Diego, Aug. 3

The writer is a graduate student in philosophy at the University of California, San Diego.

Nice! The other published letter was offensive, in that its basic point was to suggest that Ayn Rand's political views were the product of her experience with the Soviets. Yet even that could have been worse.

Ohio Teen Wins $2,000!

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

Ohio Teen Wins $2,000!

IRVINE, Calif, August 11, 2009--High school sophomore Hillary Purcell, from Terrace Park, Ohio, is the winner of the Ayn Rand Institute’s annual Anthem essay contest, for which she received a prize of $2,000. Ms. Purcell is a student at Mariemont High School in Cincinnati.

First published in 1938, Anthem depicts a collectivist dictatorship in a future in which the word “I” has vanished, and how a lone dissident discovers the lost word’s true meaning.

ARI also awarded 5 second prizes ($500), 10 third prizes ($200), 45 finalist ($50) and 175 semifinalist ($30) prizes. A complete list of winners and information about next year’s competition can be found here.

Open to 8th, 9th and 10th graders, the Anthem 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.

Since 1985 more than 226,000 students from around the world have entered ARI’s essay contests. This year, more than 16,000 students submitted their essays to the Anthem contest, an all-time record.

Each year ARI offers three separate contests (Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) and awards more than $81,250 in prizes. ARI has given away more than $838,000 to contest winners during the past 20 years.

###

 

Atlas Still Shrugs

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

This morning, I noticed this super-positive review of Atlas Shrugged by Terry Savage of MoneyShow.com. It begins:

Who is John Galt?

If that doesn't ring a bell--or even if it slightly jogs your memory--I have a summer reading recommendation for you during this lazy month of August.

I'm in the midst of re-reading Atlas Shrugged, the legendary novel first published in 1957 by Ayn Rand. It reads as if it were written this month--and that's only the first shocking thing that will strike you if you're brave enough to attempt this 1,100-page work of art.

I remembered its influence it had on me when I read it as a teenager, and it strikes with new force as I read it today in the context of Obamacare, wage and car "czars," and multibillion-dollar "cash for clunkers" payouts, and amid headlines decrying profits, bonuses, speculation, and well, financial success.

If the comparisons don't strike you within the first 100 pages, you can stop reading. But if every page leaves you wondering how this novel could have been written 50 years ago, when it so perfectly depicts our own times, then I won't have to exhort you to finish.

I'm about one-third of the way through, and as I reread through more mature eyes and in today's context, I find it even more compelling. I'm sure I will have more to say on this blog in coming weeks.

Go read the whole thing -- and then please write a positive comment to encourage her to write more! (The registration process is rather onerous, but you can post an anonymous comment. I did that, then left my name.)

Hands Off My Health Rally Videos

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Ari Armstrong created three great YouTube videos from a recent "Hands Off My Health" rally in Longmont. Ari reports that about 150 to 200 people showed up to this rally in the middle of the day on a weekday. Amazing. Even better, I'm pretty impressed with their reasons for opposing the current proposals for heath care "reform," i.e. socialized medicine. Here are the three videos:

Longmont Colorado Health Rally Participants Reply to the Democratic 'Mob' Charge:



Longmont Colorado Health Rally Interviews, August 6 2009, Part 1:



Longmont Colorado Health Rally Interviews, August 6 2009, Part 2:



Great job, Ari!

U.S. Appeasement Continues

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

U.S. Appeasement Continues

Washington, D.C., August 10, 2009--Secretary of State Clinton, in an interview on Sunday, indicated that the United States has no choice but to engage Iran in negotiations. 

“In the three decades since its Islamic revolution, Iran has dedicated itself to spreading its moral ideal--Islamic totalitarianism--by force of arms,” says Elan Journo, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center. “Teheran spends millions every year, not to pursue prosperity for its tyrannized citizens, but to finance terrorism and to build a nuclear arsenal to wield against enemies of Allah.

“Would diplomatic negotiations encourage Iran to mitigate its ideology? No, they would only intensify its hostility. Negotiations buy Iran time. Above all, diplomacy grants Iran moral legitimacy as a civilized regime: its hostile goals--‘death to America’--and its murder of our citizens are made to seem reasonable differences of opinion. Such appeasement confirms the perverse notion that Allah’s warriors, materially weaker but morally self-righteous, can succeed in bringing down the mighty infidel West.

“To protect American lives, we must learn the life-or-death importance of passing objective moral judgment. We must recognize the character of Iran and act accordingly. By any rational standard, Iran should be condemned and its nuclear ambition thwarted, now.”

###

 

A "Uniquely American" Health Care Plan

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

A “Uniquely American” Health Care Plan

Washington, D.C., August 7, 2009—President Obama, in an effort to sell his socialized health care plan, has said that what America needs is not a free market in health care, but a “uniquely American” government-controlled system. But what would such a plan really look like? 

Jeff Scialabba, a writer with the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, says: “The distinctiveness of America was that it set man free from other men. That uniquely American document, the Declaration of Independence, was premised on the idea that each individual has the moral right to his own life, to live free from coercion and with no duty to subordinate his mind and values to anyone. Yet government-provided health care can only be provided by violating this right, by forcing men to provide and pay for the health care of others and of themselves.

“A ‘uniquely American’ government health care plan is a contradiction. In an America true to its founding principles, no aspect of any individual’s life is planned by a bureaucrat in Washington.”

The Patriots List

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

Senator John Cornyn of Texas has rightfully asked President -- and I mean no disrespect to the office here -- Obama what he intends to do with the list of political opponents he has begun compiling. Naturally, the reactions from those quarters -- the quarters where I live -- has ranged from indignant to concerned, and those reactions are entirely appropriate.

Indeed, there is no exaggerating the seriousness of the threat that Barack Obama poses to our freedom. His actions, thanks to modern database technology, are not just petty: They are actually dangerous, as Byron York of the Washington Examiner indicates (via John Hinderaker) when he examines the legal ramifications of that despicable move.

The White House request that members of the public report anyone who is spreading "disinformation" about the proposed national health care makeover could lead to a White House database of political opponents that will be both secret and permanent, according to Republican lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are examining the plan's possible implementation.

Hinderaker reacts:

A secret and more or less permanent dissident database--in America! That's quite an accomplishment for an administration still in its seventh month. It seems longer, somehow.

This is chilling, but if this is something to keep in mind at all, it is only in a tactical sense. A few people have tasted the possible short-term consequences of opposing Obama at various town hall "meetings" across the country, as reported yesterday: One man was attacked for bearing what


Nancy Pelosi might call a "swastika," (above, HT: Alan Sullivan) and another was pushed or slapped in the face (Click through images 9-16.) simply for defending the same health care system that Ted Kennedy used when diagnosed with brain cancer.

Now imagine what the man in charge of the executive branch could do, were he so inclined, and bear in mind the violent metaphor he used last night while speaking to his constituency of union thugs and ne'er-do-wells. This is what he wants you to imagine -- while forgetting that the consequences of failing to stand up to him will be far worse in the long run. (Here is one example.)

Myrhaf is right:

The left is statist, and therefore more authoritarian. It is the party for "control freaks." The pro-freedom right (as opposed to the pragmatist welfare staters and the religionists) is a leaderless phenomenon of America's tattered tradition of individual liberty. The left is the party of totalitarian cynicism and lies. The opposition -- call it the Tea Party movement if you will -- is an honest reaction by millions of good people to the shocking loss of freedom in America. All the left can do is hope to "define" their opponents with smears that are actually a self-portrait.

The slaps and punches are just the start, regardless of what we do. Now is hardly the time to back down.

We will survive Obama only by successfully fighting him. Do not be deterred by his pathetic scare tactics or the public confession that is his "enemies list." This is a roll of honor: Be sure to join it today.

Is anyone out there selling Gadsden Flag armbands? I'd happily buy one.

-- CAV

Reporting Myself

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Obama Administration is asking people to report on "fishy" conversations about health care they encounter:

Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President's health insurance reform positions.

...

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

I'm a patriotic American, so I decided to report myself this morning. Here's what I sent, inspired by what some other OActivists did:

Dear Minister of Propaganda,

I'd like to report myself. I think that the Obama administration is attempting a government takeover of health care. Mandates are bad enough in themselves, and they're just one step on the road to total government control of medicine. That's appalling. I support individual rights and free markets in health care -- not more government welfare and controls.

I've told that to tons of people. Please tell me when and where I should report to my re-education camp.

Please do send a protest e-mail to flag@whitehouse.gov. I'd love to see them flooded with useless-to-them e-mails.

OGrownups

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I'm delighted to report on the creation of a new mailing list on OList.com: OGrownups. Here's the basic list description:

OGrownups is an informal mailing list for Objectivists interested in raising and educating children well. Its basic purpose is to facilitate discussion amongst Objectivists about child development, discipline techniques, education methods, parenting resources, and more.

Any Objectivist interested in polite and practical discussion about raising and educating children rationally may join OGrownups -- parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, caregivers, and friends. Anyone considering parenthood is also welcome.

OGrownups is managed by Jenn Casey, author of the blog Rational Jenn. She can be reached at rationaljenn@gmail.com.

Here's what Jenn says in her announcement of the list:

The original name of the list was "OParents" but we thought that name was a little too restrictive. We want to encourage any Objectivist who wants to participate in discussions about "raising and educating children rationally" to join. I know that I would have loved to participate in such a list back when we were contemplating parenthood.

The "Grownups" part refers to the end result of childraising--that they will become grownups, hopefully rational ones. The primary parenting question is, what's the best way to get them there (without losing our minds)?

Actually, my thought was that the "Grownups" part refers to us -- the list members -- because we're the grownups in relation to the kids we interact with. However, either meaning will do!

The criteria for membership are similar to that of the other OList e-mail lists:

To join the OGrownups mailing list, you must meet two criteria:

• You must be an Objectivist, meaning that you agree with and live by the principles of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism as best you understand them. Newcomers to Objectivism are just as welcome as old-timers. Please do not subscribe if you consider yourself to be a libertarian (or associate with the Libertarian Party), advocate revising Objectivism (like David Kelley's "open system"), or associate with the dishonest pseudo-advocates of Objectivism (most notably David Kelley, Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, and Chris Sciabarra).
  
  
• You must be interested in parenting and education based on the principles of Objectivism.

If you do not clearly meet those criteria, you should not subscribe without first e-mailing the list administrator, Jenn Casey, rationaljenn@gmail.com.

The OGrownups list is managed through Google Groups. You can request a subscription via this web interface. You will be asked to confirm that you meet the two criteria for membership. Subscription requires an account with Google. (It's free and easy to create.)

After you subscribe, please feel free to post an introduction.

The rules are the same too, namely:

• Please be friendly or at least civil in posts to the list. Subscribers who behave like asses, such as by insulting other list members or attacking Objectivist intellectuals, will be removed from the list.
  
  
• Please respect the purpose of the list. Subscribers who prove disruptive to the basic purpose of the list -- such as by attempting to arguing against Objectivist positions or posting on irrelevant topics -- will be unsubscribed or subject to moderation.

I've been really pleased to see the serious and thoughtful discussions on parenting that Jenn's blog posts have generated. In less than a day, this new list has acquired 44 members, with discussion already in progress. Wow! Thank you, Jenn, for taking charge!

Obama’s Email Arrogance

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

Obama’s Email Arrogance

Yesterday I sent this impertinent message to President Barack Obama when his staff sent me the invitation to inform on other Americans who criticize his and Congress’s plans to impose socialized health care on the country.


The White House
flag@whitehouse.gov

5 August 2009

Dear Mr. President:

What is your definition of "fishy"? That it is odiferous? Bad-smelling? Unwelcome? Stinky? Ready to bury?

How dare you refer to Americans criticizing your socialist health and economic plans, and the facts they are bringing to light about your whole power-lusting, corrupt regime as fishy? How dare you threaten to abrogate their First Amendment rights?

Oh, that's right. I forgot. You don't want to be president of a nation of free men. You want to lord it over a nation of dependent troglodytes, ever grateful for the crumbs you throw them after you've eaten the cakes they created through productive work.

If anything can be described as fishy in this country now, it is your administration, and Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, and Barney Frank, and the whole crew of your looting parasites.

So, flag this!!

Regards,

A real American and a genuine patriot.

The key paragraph in the White House’s invitation is this:

“There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors travel just beneath the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

This was preceded by two other interesting paragraphs:

“Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, ‘facts are stubborn things.’

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to ‘uncover’ the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.”

This announcement was posted by Macon Phillips (White House Director of News Media, go here for the career of this non-entity), but bets can be taken that the idea of inviting Americans to inform on each other is not flying too well at the moment, for undoubtedly the “in box” of flag@whitehouse.gov was almost immediately filled to overflowing with emails from outraged Americans, organized or not. This was not a good idea. Phillips and his handlers in the White House should have realized, given the genuine opposition across the country to Obama’s and Congress’s health care bill, that the reaction to it would have been overwhelmingly instant and “negative.”

What were they thinking? Perhaps, given that opposition, which has chiefly taken the form of what White House denizens have characterized as “disrupters” not tolerating the bromides and platitudes of elected representatives’ raucous town hall meetings about the proposed legislation, they are feeling desperate enough to try anything.

In addition to having the gall to quote John Adams, Phillips (or whoever wrote the invitation, it was probably a committee effort) also paraphrased Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” as though that reference to Gore’s discredited “scary movie” on global warming still had some currency among Americans. He also refers to First Amendment communications between bloggers and individuals as “scary chain emails” and videos as “percolating” on the Internet, chock full of “disinformation.” Facts, however, are not what the White House and its allies in Congress are conveying to the American public about the contents of the health care bill. They have launched, for the length of August up until Congress reconvenes in September, a campaign of disinformation not only about the contents of the bill, but against anyone opposed to the legislation, whether he is a Republican, a voter, or a blogger.

One might wonder where Obama and Company get their arrogance. They get it from the fact that the have gotten away with lies and disinformation for so long.

What is worrisome -- and that is the kindest term I can think of at the moment -- is that all the emails, friendly or not to the idea of informing on fellow Americans, can be collected and used somehow to punish or reward, whether or not the health bill legislation passes. Remember the outrage of the news media over President George W. Bush’s “lost” emails? Even the ever-loyal news media is stammering its reservations about the informant program.

Senator John Cornyn raises this issue in his letter to Obama about the impropriety of asking Americans to inform on others.

“Furthermore, Cornyn wrote, the collection of e-mails could amount to the White House amassing various forms of personally identifiable information.”

Among other things, Cornyn posed this important question to Obama:

“At the very least, I request that you detail to Congress and the public the protocols that your White House is following to purge the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in “fishy” speech.”

It will be interesting if Cornyn gets an answer to any of his questions. Read the whole text of his letter here. There is some comfort in seeing that not all politicians are clueless or indifferent.

But, make no mistake about it: If Obama and Company are willing to stoop to so low a tactic as inviting Americans to inform on each other, even in “casual conversation,” what else would they be willing to do? Aside from all the lies and disinformation conveyed to the public over the last six months about not only the health care bill, but about TARP, the cash for clunkers program, and even Harry Reid’s pet project, a magnet-train link between California and Las Vegas (!!!), this tactic reveals the core, evil soul of Obama and his supporters in and out of government in their quest for total power. Germans were asked by Hitler to inform on their fellow Germans, and tens of thousands of Germans wound up in work camps or concentration camps.

Will Americans follow suit, or are there still enough of us alive to put a brake on our march to fascism?

Cool Reaction to Hot Air

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

Last week, the scientific news magazine Chemical and Engineering News, received a large number of letters to the editor (HT: Alan Sullivan) in response to an editorial it previously carried in which Rudy Baum, its editor-in-chief, proclaimed that the scientific debate over climate change (aka global warming) is over -- and implicitly compared scientists who disagree with him to Holocaust deniers. Many were scathing rebuttals from scientists, and at least one called for "find[ing] a new editor." Among the rebuttals was one by a scientist who identified himself as a "progressive" and dismissed a conservative think tank as, "free-market fanatics."

I'll quote from a few of my favorites below. (Note that not all of these are necessarily by scientists.)

First, Edward H. Gleason of Ooltewah, Tennessee, reminds Baum of the uncomfortably close and inappropriate relationship often existing between government and science today.

I can't accept as facts the reports of federal agencies, because they have become political and are more likely to support the regime in power than not. Baum's attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS [American Chemical Society] is certainly alarming to me.

Second, a couple of writers weigh in on hysterical claims to the effect that complex scientific issues have been "settled," and on the nature of actual scientific debate. The first of these is by Howard Hayden of Pueblo West, Colorado.

I am always intrigued by claims that science is settled, especially when it comes to something as complex as climate. Rudy Baum's remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist's soul. Let's cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? [my emphasis]

Heinrich Brinks of Monterey, California, adds the following coupe de grace:

I'm sure you would have espoused the merits of phlogiston theory as it was a matter of "scientific consensus" at the time and took a great deal of skepticism, experimentation, and thought to overturn it. [link added]

And, lest we forget who is calling whom Nazis in this debate, here's a letter in support of Baum from one Roger Shamel of Lexington, Massachusetts:

Your comments about the climate-change deniers are right on target. In fact, your closing paragraph, "Sow doubt; make up statistics," etc., was one of the best summaries I've seen of the deceitful practices that the deniers are allowed to get away with.

We humans seem to learn from experience, and thus our modern systems of justice are not well geared for dealing effectively with climate-change deniers. This is a shame, because every month's delay in taking meaningful action likely will lead to more climate-related death and destruction in the future. There should be a law. [my emphasis]

That one makes me think of a certain Inconvenient Amendment.

And that reminds me of the one thing I wish had been mentioned, but wasn't: individual rights. I was happy to see that some respondents appear to see on some level that see the scientific debate over global warming and its causes is a distinct issue from the debate over what to do about it if it is occurring due to human causes.

This is unfortunate, because it requires a firm grasp of the concept of individual rights (as well as of the proper purpose of government) to see that the real political question is: "Should the government do anything at all about global warming if, for the sake of argument, it is occurring and is due to human activity?"

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected characterization of Chemical and Engineering News from "journal" to "scientific news magazine."

Envier-in-Chief

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

Barack Obama, whose friend and advisor, Cass Sunstein, wants to "regulate" freedom of speech, seems both in a hurry to get started with and eager to broaden the scope of that "regulation." Specifically, he wants to "encourage" the debate over socialized medicine in much the same way that socialized medicine will "encourage" our good health and continued existence.

Jeff Emanuel quotes from the White House web site:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov. [his emphasis]

This is interesting, since many "members" of Congress (to use John Conyers's unintentionally apt self-description) and the President seem so eager to make such "health insurance reform" law without even reading the bill. How the hell would they even know what "disinformation" was?

Does Obama regard the bill itself as "disinformation?" After all, it does address government control of end of life care:

(B) The level of treatment indicated under subparagraph (A)(ii) [i.e., "life sustaining treatment" --ed] may range from an indication for full treatment to an indication to limit some or all or specified interventions. (430)

This paragraph clarifies what Conyers and Obama hope will go on during "advance care planning consultations" which will become more frequent once you are admitted to "a skilled nursing facility [or] a long-term care facility" according to the previous page.

Enough of a "limit" in such a case will make this an "end of life" issue. And so we see that one needn't look very hard nor must one exactly make one's head hurt while connecting the dots in order to find examples showing that this bill is exactly what the White House is afraid you might realize it is -- if you value your life and do not regard it as government property.

Emanuel rightly adds:

[A]s we've seen in the health care debate to date, the term "disinformation" is used by the Obama White House as a catchall to describe any opposition to the President's push for single-payer, government-run health care...

When I first heard that Obama is hoping to enlist the aid of free-lance informants, I saw this as a symptom of his pragmatism. He obviously thinks he can get away with claiming that arguments against his "reforms" like the one I posted yesterday are not "factual" because they rely on abstractions and are thus, in such a view, not concrete enough to be factual.

I still think that this is true, but there's more going on here than a pragmatist's disdain for principles. This move is also an implicit admission on the President's part of the basest emotion there is, envy, or, as Ayn Rand famously described it, "hatred of the good for being the good."

Hatred of the good for being the good means hatred of that which one regards as good by one's own (conscious or subconscious) judgment. It means hatred of a person for possessing a value or virtue one regards as desirable.

If a child wants to get good grades in school, but is unable or unwilling to achieve them and begins to hate the children who do, that is hatred of the good. If a man regards intelligence as a value, but is troubled by self-doubt and begins to hate the men he judges to be intelligent, that is hatred of the good. (from "The Age of Envy," Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, 152.)

To exaggerate only slightly, if you just read the bill, you can see that if it is passed, your life can be forfeit at the government's convenience. There is nothing to "disinform" about.

This move is all about and only about you selfishly valuing your own life. Obama claims to regard selfishness as immoral, but another quote from Ayn Rand should illustrate why I think he does envy the spirit of the nation he hopes to rule:

Isn't that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison .... They're second-handers ....

They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They're concerned only with people. They don't ask: "Is this true?" They ask: "Is this what others think is true?" Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. (605, and more here) [bold added]

Does that last paragraph not sound familiar? And does it not almost perfectly characterize the form which Obama hopes political "debate" will take? Obama does not really have a self, and he hates those of us who do.

Obama, as this bill clearly shows, could care less about the quality or length of your physical life. It's your spirit that he's really after. And he expects to break it by making you afraid to speak your mind.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: There is more on the subject of Obama's recruitment of informants over at Titanic Deck Chairs.

The Atlas Shrugged Revolution

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The Ayn Rand Institute is hosting a fancy fundraising dinner on Atlas Shrugged in New York City on September 15th. Yaron Brook will be speaking, as well as BB&T president John Allison. If you know of anyone who might wish to attend, please send them to www.arievents.com! Here's the announcement:

Invitation: Upcoming Ayn Rand Institute Event: The Atlas Shrugged Revolution

While Washington rapidly expands its control over our lives--exacerbating an economic crisis that was caused by government control in the first place--a hopeful countertrend is underway.

Ayn Rand's classic best-selling novel Atlas Shrugged is flying off bookstore shelves at an unprecedented rate.

Hundreds of thousands of concerned Americans are turning to Atlas Shrugged--and discovering Ayn Rand's morality of rational egoism and her uncompromising defense of laissez-faire capitalism.

Why is this happening? And what can those of us who uphold reason, individual rights and capitalism do to encourage and support this trend?

For an evening devoted to the discussion of these questions, we invite you to join us in New York City on September 15, 2009, for a special dinner event, The Atlas Shrugged Revolution.

At this benefit dinner event, Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, and John Allison, chairman of BB&T Corporation, will discuss why Americans are turning to Rand's magnum opus--and why the novel's revolutionary ideas are crucial to the future of freedom in America. You'll also learn what the Ayn Rand Institute is doing right now to promote even greater public interest in Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand's philosophy.

We hope you'll be able to join us on September 15th for The Atlas Shrugged Revolution!

Sincerely,
Mark Chapman
Vice President of Development
The Ayn Rand Institute

P.S. In addition, a number of rare Ayn Rand books and manuscripts will be auctioned at the event. Images and descriptions of the items are available for viewing on the Web site for this event at www.arievents.com.

The One Minute Case against the Existence of God

By heroic@gmail.com (David Veksler) from One Minute Cases,cross-posted by MetaBlog

A religion is an organized system of belief, most often assuming the existence of a higher power such as a supernatural almighty deity or an ultimate truth, first designed to enlighten humanity on the act of creation and produce specific prophecies that will come true if certain requirements are met. This case argues that supernatural deities do not exist, which entails the fact that all major religions are false and outdated phenomena outstripped by science, serving little other use than hampering additional scientific progress.

The cosmological argument

Some religious individuals argue that whatever begins to exist has a cause and since nothing causes itself, there has to be a First Cause, namely God. There are several objections to this argument, some of them being as following;

• What caused the First Cause? By making use of the cosmological argument one presupposes that an uncaused effect exists, enabling it to cause a chain of effects without being caused itself. Seeing that the argument is reliant upon the premise that all effects have a cause it is in consequence invalid.
• The First Cause is by no means equal to a deity. Even though the origin of the universe remains scientifically unexplained, it doesn’t justify supernatural religious claims.

The Teleological argument [Intelligent Design]

This argument states that some phenomena are too complex, or too apparently purposeful, to have occurred randomly. Therefore, these phenomena must have been designed by an intelligent or purposeful being (God).

- Who designed the designer? If an intelligent designer only is able to design irreducibly complex units, then an even more intelligent designer is necessary to design the original designer. This entails an infinite chain of designers. To counter this counter-argument some individuals make use of the cosmological argument. However, as explained above, this argument fails because it omits why a designer can be undersigned while the universe cannot.

William Paley’s watchmaker analogy makes use of this argument, and is to this date one of the most famous teleological arguments. He argues that there are structures which cannot function unless all substructures are present. By asserting that each substructure constitutes no benefit alone, evolutionary theory is unable to explain the substructures presence. Since the substructures presence cannot be explained, the whole structures presence cannot be explained either. Counter-arguments are as following:

• There is a probability that all substructures came into existence simultaneously.
• Substructures may have changed in function. A gradual replacement by several advantageous substructures’ function can lead to the evolution of structures claimed to be irreducibly complex.

The omnipotence paradox

Most, if not all, monotheistic religions claim the existence of an omnipotent God. This argument leaves the concept of omnipotence as a mere paradox unable to exist in a logical universe. If a deity is in fact omnipotent, then he is able to create a rock he himself cannot lift. Since he cannot lift the rock he just created he is not omnipotent.

Argument from free will

All monotheistic religions claim their god to be omniscient, and at the same time claim to have been given free will by the very same god. These two concepts are incompatible. Here is why: An omniscient being knows everything, including the future will of his supposed free willed- designees. Since the will is already known, it cannot be free at the same time.

Other[inductive] arguments state that a complete being (God) must also be dead or non-existing in order to be fully complete. Furthermore, some conclude that since most theistic religions eventually were regarded as untrue, all theistic religions are most likely to be untrue. Stephen F. Roberts formulated this beautifully by saying:
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

See Also

• The One Minute Case For Atheism

High School Student Wins $10,000!

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

High School Student Wins $10,000!

IRVINE, CA, August 5, 2009--High school junior Dinah DeWald, from Phoenix, Arizona, is this year’s winner of the Ayn Rand Institute's annual essay contest based on Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead, for which she received a prize of $10,000.

First published in 1943, The Fountainhead offers the vision of a totally independent man, architect Howard Roark, who stands against society's conventions.

ARI also awarded 5 second prizes ($2,000), 10 third prizes ($1,000), 45 finalist ($100) and 175 semifinalist ($50) prizes. A complete list of winners and information about next year's competition can be found here.

Since 1985 more than 226,000 high school students from around the world have entered ARI’s essay contests. This year, more than 7,000 students submitted essays on The Fountainhead, which is an all-time record.

Each year ARI runs three separate contests (Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged) and awards more than $81,250 in prizes. ARI has given away more than $838,000 to contest winners during the past 20 years.

###

America’s Mobocracy

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

There are three overlooked or un-emphasized facets of the Obama administration and Congress’s breathless rush to seize everything in the country that is not nailed down -- health care, car production, the used or “clunker” car market, executive pay -- the list may prove to be endless, and there may be nothing that is not nailed down exempt from their avarice. These facets should be the principal foci of critics to the point of obsession.

A minor facet of the Obama administration itself is the Chicago “gangster government” character of his White House staff and his cabinet and departmental appointees. Not all of his appointees are from Chicago. They just have that odor about them, of professional political parasites who have scurried in and out of sight and up and down the totem pole of Washington politics over the years as their chosen career choices, to a soul advancing or pimping for collectivism, most of them never having worked a productive day in their lives. Heading the list is chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, who has all the charm and savvy of Meyer Lansky. (One can legitimately wonder if the grandfather of “community organizing,” Saul Alinsky, and Lansky traded pointers on political activism. They were Chicago contemporaries.)

The President and his wife, Michelle, of course, live like royalty and behave like it. There are the appointed thirty-two “czars” lording it over the American economy, and then there are Michelle’s twenty-two staffers who aid her in her “social” life, all of whose salaries are paid by taxpayers -- not all of them in Chicago.

The first major facet is that, if there is a crisis in any realm over which the government seeks to expand its power to control, the problem can be traced to government controls in the first place. The minuscule, hardly noticeable controls of yesteryear, when men wore handlebar moustaches and labored to write laws in un-air-conditioned chambers, have grown into a forest of lacerating rose bushes without the benefit of roses. This facet has been admirably dwelt on by better analysts than me, but it has not been emphasized by Tea Party organizers or critics to the level it deserves. It does no good to be preoccupied by cost analyses and projected debt and the like, if they are not accompanied by the moral argument. After all, if mere facts had the power to persuade the minds of our governing elite, why are they so immune to and proof against those facts?

If emails, faxes, hand-written letters, unruly townhall meetings, and demonstrations outside of legislators’ offices and the like are beginning to cause some Senators and Congressmen to think twice about the feasibility of their grandiose plans to transform the country from a republic of free individuals to a highly policed and costly hospital regime, forcing them to acknowledge the role of force and fiat law for the “public good” and how that presumptive power has exacerbated existing problems or has simply created them out of whole cloth, ought to underscore the unlikelihood that if they vote for the hospital regime in any form, they in turn will be voted out of office. Our elitist cadre will be obliged to contemplate being forced to make a living in the private sector which they once presumed to “manage,” but which their actions have helped to tie into several Gordian knots.

The second facet is that when the White House and Congress prescribe socialism (a.k.a. “progressivism”) and legislate to that end, they do it for free. It costs them nothing. They do it with taxpayer money. And, whatever destruction they cause, they are indemnified from the consequences. Ted Kennedy will die without ever having been punished for his crimes. Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer and Henry Waxman will return to California and live the high life on a pension and enjoy health care packages few productive persons could ever afford. Barney Frank and Bernard Bernanke will fade into comfortable retirements and, like Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, embark on lucrative speaking careers. Barack and Michelle will traipse back to their Chicago mansion on a pension, as well, and begin to solicit donations for the Obama Presidential Library.

This will ever be a conflict between the “governed” and the government for as long as fiat powers are sanctioned or tolerated by the electorate. It is an unfair contest between the government and the electorate. Those who advocate and pass laws destructive of freedom, property, happiness and the ownership of one’s life, work on the money extorted from those who are the subjects or targets of the destructive law. It is time that the thinking electorate woke up to this rigged game and forced the culprits to acknowledge the fact, as well. Think of it: It cost legislators nothing to regulate or ruin your life. You, on the other hand, must, with countless others, invest time, effort, and money in opposing their plans, besides paying their salaries and getting the check for all their fringe benefits, including first-class health care. And you invest your time, effort and money with no guarantee that it will accomplish anything. Ayn Rand called it the “sanction of the victim.” General Patton might liken it to supplying Nazi artillery and Panzer tanks with ordnance with which to blast advancing American forces.

The culprits should be forced to stammer transparent irrelevancies and more obvious lies, and plot to rush undetected from home to office and back again, to avoid being cornered by the citizenry’s cattle prods and pitchforks. They should be compelled to feel, for once, powerless, redundant and extraneous. They should be forced to feel mean, small and despised beyond redemption and reclamation.

The third facet concerns the motivation behind all the coercive legislation passed, most recently under the reigns of Bush I, Clinton I, Bush II, and now Bush III (a.k.a. Obama). Tea Partiers should make the key connection between “reform” of the health care system (or of “reform” of anything that attracts a Congressman’s attention, for he has nothing else to do in Washington or a state capital or a municipal headquarters but to think up “crises” needing “reform”), and the compulsory nature of such “reform.” Why would politicians bother with “reform” if force were not the key ingredient in the “reform”? There would be no point in their debating “reform” if they did not assume they would have the power to coerce everyone into participating in it. They are not working to extend liberty, but to put fetters on it or to extinguish it altogether. Be warned: Any “compromise” between the Blue Dog Democrats, the Republicans, and the Democrats must by necessity retain the element of coercion, no matter how watered down or conciliatory or “humane” they word the compromise.

Further, the element of coercion or legalized extortion in such legislation should be the main tip-off. Tea Partiers should ask: If the proposed legislation is so efficacious and practical, why, for all the puffery about it being voluntary, would it rely on force? Why would its advocates insist that participation be made mandatory? A secondary tip-off is the fact that those proposing or voting for such legislation notably ensure that they are exempt from all its provisions. Organizers should ask themselves: If this idea is so good, why do Congressmen keep their distance from it? Why do they not want to take part in what they wish to force everyone else to participate in? Is there something so seriously wrong with it that they would no more want to buy it than they would a used car from Richard Nixon?

Yes. There is something wrong with it. The element of force guarantees its impracticality and its character as a moral and economic fraud -- just as robbing a bank or a 7-11 is immoral and an impractical way to “make a living.” Waxman, Pelosi, Dodd, Obama, Frank and the rest of the “progressive” crew, all know this. They are not idiots. The only village idiots party to the fraud are those members of the news media who shill for the plan with looks of urgency -- an urgency that does not dwell on the insidiously evil aspects of the plan, chief among which are its compulsory provisions.

Nine Reasons to Reject Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court

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

Fundamental error: She said that fidelity to the law should be the guiding principle in making judgements. The correct principle is fidelity to the Constitution. Otherwise, how would you judge whether a law was right or wrong? The argument would be circular.

Bias: Substituting empathy and Latina ethnicity for reason and objective judgement, she has displayed unquestioned bias and the risk that her decisions would be biased. She has disqualified herself by repeatedly making these obviously biased statements.

Dishonesty: Inspite of abundant evidence that she said and, prior to the hearing, believed that,
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," at the hearing she said that she really didn’t mean that. Yet this was clearly not an off-handed remark that can be so easily dismissed. She said it several times over the past many years and on camera. Note that she didn’t apologize for making the biased comment.

In an editorial, the Washington Post said, "Judge Sotomayor's attempts to explain away and distance herself from that statement were unconvincing and at times uncomfortably close to disingenuous, especially when she argued that her reason for raising questions about gender or race was to warn against injecting personal biases into the judicial process. Her repeated and lengthy speeches on the matter do not support that interpretation."

Interstate Commerce: She agreed with a ruling in, Swedenburg v. Kelly, that New York State had the right to restrict the sales of wine from other states to buyers in New York. The law and the ruling were in violation of the Interstate Commerce clause of the U. S. Constitution. The Supreme Court eventually ruled the New York statute unconstitutional.

Evasion: Not unique to her hearing, nonetheless, she evaded numerous questions saying that she couldn’t comment on cases that might come before her.

Diversity: Supporters of Sotomayor and by implication, she herself believes that diversity on the bench is a good thing. To say that is to imply that race and ethnicity is the or a criteria by which people and in this case Supreme Court justices should be judged. Choosing someone solely or evenly partly, because he or she is black, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Irish, Scotch, Namibian, white, etc. is blatant racism. It is so obviously contrary to the essence of the American system.

Diversity on the bench tells you nothing about the intellectual capacity and the ability of any justice or the justices as a whole to make objective judgements. It is judicial merit, not diversity that should be the standard.

Property Rights: Sotomayor sat on a panel that banned nun chucks, saying that they could not only cause "serious, but fatal damage." Just how many other objects could cause "serious, but fatal damage?" Should silverware be banned and people forced to return to eating with their fingers? Or perhaps she doesn’t know that there are techniques of using your hands to kill. Should the use of hands and fingers be banned?

This case illustrates a complete misunderstanding of property and the right to property implied in the 2nd Amendment. You might say, nun chucks don’t kill people; people kill people.

Second Amendment and Federalism: In the nun chucks ruling, Sotomayor reveals a profound misunderstanding of the 2nd Amendment and of Federalism. She is not alone in this, but she has ruled on it. She has alleged that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t apply to the individual states, by which she means that states can pass their own laws that might be in conflict with Federal law and that Federal law cannot supersede those state laws. This is so absurd that it is almost beyond belief that anyone would even say it, much less rule so in court. Sotomayor’s position is completely the opposite of Federalism, under which the Federal Government is the superior, overriding body in a system of government. For example, no state can regulate or interfere with interstate commerce as was ruled in the Swedenburg case mentioned earlier.

Federal law is superior to state law and in any conflict between the two, Federal law reigns supreme. I hasten to say that this is not always the case in practice, but it should be based on the intent of the Founding Fathers who, after all, invented the system.

Individual Rights and the Purpose of Government: I listened to all of the Senate Judicial Committee hearings, but didn’t hear once any substantial discussion about the sanctity of individual rights or the purpose of government in protecting those rights. I would like to have heard from Sotomayor, that she believes in the principles and the individual rights defined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I would like to have heard her assert an allegiance to the rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness and that she would rule against any act of an individual or a government that violates those rights.

Yet, I heard nothing remotely similar to such thoughts. Instead I heard evasions and vague answers to questions, bold denials of previous statements and claims that we just don’t understand her. I heard the ramblings of someone who is devoid of principle and someone who lacks reason and the ability to make objective judgements in a court of law.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor should be rejected as Justice on the Supreme Court.

Objectivist Blog Round-Up #107

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

Welcome to the July 30th, 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.

So without any further delay (and in no particular order), here's this week's round-up:

Joseph Kellard presents Guggenheim's Wright Exhibit Inspires posted at The American Individualist.

Jennifer Snow presents On Parasitism posted at Literatrix, saying, "Some commentary on unscrupulous practices in the games industry and how this applies to capitalism in general."

Andy Clarkson presents Are Conservatives Going To Save Socialism Again? posted at The Charlotte Capitalist, saying, "I guest blogged at EGO this week. Asked the question, "Are Conservatives Going To Save Socialism Again?""

Roderick Fitts presents Rand on Concepts, Relation to Induction (Part 1) posted at Inductive Quest, saying, "Part 1 of a comparison between Rand's theory of concepts and the elements of induction I regard as true."

Stella presents At least this guy's honest posted at ReasonPharm, saying, "A power-lusting Democrat who's at least honest about his power lust comments on HR 3200."

Rational Jenn presents A Conversation about Integrity posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "Explaining the virtue of Integrity to children can be difficult. I helped my son begin to grasp this idea by pointing out an example of when he displayed that virtue himself."

Trey Givens presents Faith Leads Youths to Believe They Can Make Things Up Themselves posted at Trey Givens, saying, "I can't say that I am a huge fan of sex education as such, but children should certainly be educated in the science and biology of sexual reproduction and associated infections and diseases. But look what happens when educators attempt to break the link between science and real life with faith and foolishness."

Roberto Sarrionandia presents Letter to 3 Mobile posted at Tito's Blog, saying, "A letter of complaint to my phone company, for encouraging government regulation"

Paul Hsieh presents The Federal Health Care Muggers posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, "PajamasMedia published another of my health care OpEds."

JStotts presents Objectivism and Sexuality: YouTube posted at Erosophia, saying, "The video version of my speech "Objectivism and Sexuality" delivered to the Ohio Objectivist Society."

Ari Armstrong presents Pro-Liberty Health Rally Draws Hundreds posted at FreeColorado.com, saying, "Hundreds of people gathered in Denver July 28 to protest Obamacare and stand for liberty in medicine."

The Editors present Is Health Care a Right? Answer the question, Congressmen! posted at The Undercurrent, saying, "Of the many specials on health care that have been taking place these past few weeks, this recent PJTV forum should be singularly commended for daring to ask of our political leaders the one question upon which the whole concept of government health care rests: Is health care a right?"

Stephen Bourque presents The Absolutism of Principles posted at One Reality, saying, "Like a crack in a dike, a single breach of a principle is enough to collapse it; the tiniest compromise eventually becomes a gaping hole through which all the values that the principle once supported pour out."

Ryan Krause presents Green Jobs posted at The Money Speech, saying, "A few things I've noticed in researching this abysmal topic."

John Drake presents AT&T's monopoly posted at Try Reason!, saying, "In my class, I present facts that show how AT&T's monopoly on long distance was government mandated and greatly influenced the evolution of telephone services for over 60 years. This is part of my quest to demonstrate principles through the exploration of facts."

Doug Reich presents The Modern Intellectual's Virtue of Complexity, Part I posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "Why is simplicity regarded as a virtue in the physical sciences, but regarded as the hallmark of naivete in the social sciences? When we analyze human problems, should we think more like a human or a dog?"

Doug Reich presents Wishing for Non-A, The Sequel posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "Many on the right seem bewildered that Obama supports a plan that will only exacerbate the problems caused by government intervention in the first place. What they fail to realize is that Obama's wish is not better health care, but egalitarianism, and the more general wish that reality be not what it is."

Michael Labeit presents On Jurists and Mortgage Loans posted at Coroner's Bureau, saying, "Wise jurists in government are badly needed in order to maintain a free society."

C. August presents Target's Free Market Health Care Innovation posted at Titanic Deck Chairs, saying, "A quick post that gives a hint to what a true free market in health care could be like."

That concludes this edition of the round-up. 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.

Profiling the President

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

Tea Party commitments have consumed my time and energy over the last three weeks and allowed little of either for close analyses of ObamaCare, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the Cap and Trade bill, and other pressing issues, all of them emanating from a government bent on conquering reality by fooling it. So permit me to issue a simple, blanket opposition to all of them, stuff them all into a burlap bag, and drop it into the raging river of current events. The issues are certain to return.

A minor but diverting controversy occurred when Prof. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. of Harvard University was arrested on July 16 while trying to break into his rented home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At least, that is how it was originally reported. He was actually arrested for disorderly conduct. Gates, director of the W.E.B. Dubois Institute for African and African American Research at the university, is a kind of intellectual Rev. Jeremiah Wright of “God damn America” notoriety. I have read several different conflicting accounts of what happened (Gates verbally accosted Sergeant James Crowley from inside his house, on the porch of the house, Crowley was about to walk away from Gates’ loud, confrontational behavior so he could call in resolution of the investigation of a break-in until he could take it no longer, and so on), but I have concluded that if blame for the incident is to be assigned to anyone, Gates earned the full portion. He behaved like hooligan, employing street language against a man who had badge, gun, handcuffs, and authority. A rather foolish action regardless of the race of either party.

And the race of either man is immaterial. Suppose the race roles were reversed? Imagine the confrontation if a black police sergeant had to deal with a white supremacist professor in the same circumstances (this person being director of the David Ernest Duke Institute for Aryan Race and Culture Studies at Harvard). Or with a white liberal professor (chair of any department at Harvard, it won‘t matter which). The supremacist’s remarks would be unrepeatable here. The white liberal would have ranted something like, “After all I’ve done for you people, this is the thanks I get?? How dare you harass me??” You take it from there. Would you blame the sergeant for cuffing either man? Hardly.

In the first hypothetical instance, the news media would have lavished the cop with praise and excoriated the white supremacist. The second instance would have left the Fourth Estate scratching its collective head. What to do? Whom do we blame? There’s no room for bias here!

Gates did not behave like a respected university professor. Not that he should be respected. What rational person could respect a person who has made a career of exacerbating -- and even inventing -- racial conflict, and an academic career, at that? The incident could have ended if Gates had kept his mouth shut and let it go, regardless of his “feelings” of victimization. But he chose to act like a thug. He let his emotions get the best of him. He was charged with disorderly conduct. The charge was shortly thereafter dropped at the apparent behest of Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, and Denise Simmons, mayor of Cambridge City, both blacks.

What makes this incident interesting are two things: President Barack Obama feeling a compulsion to say something about it, and saying something that cast aspersions on Sgt. Crowley without having the facts on hand (in tune with his advocating socialized medicine, for example, but then facts are irrelevant to him); and the news media’s treatment of the incident. Almost without exception, journalists and columnists are siding with Gates, and the siding crosses racial and gender lines. And almost without exception, while they let Gates off with a list of irrelevant or circumstantial excuses for his behavior (he’d just returned from a trip to China, he’d misplaced his keys and was upset, etc.), Crowley is subjected to psychoanalytical examination and no excuses are made for him.

Obama initially accused Crowley and the Cambridge police department of “acting stupidly” (and later back-pedaled without any gears meshing to remove himself from the imbroglio). What exactly did he mean by “acting stupidly”? It is certain that he did not mean that Crowley acted illogically or irrationally. Knowing Obama’s rhetorical sleights-of-hand, he had to have meant that it was not politically and socially pragmatic of Crowley to arrest a black man, especially not one of Gates‘ alleged importance. After all, it virtually guaranteed a bad press, regardless of the legitimacy of the arrest, and he, Obama, would need to take the side of his friend, Gates. Just how practical was that, Sergeant? You could have acted, well, uh, smartly.

(For evidence of how Obama cannot think on his feet, and cannot speak extemporaneously and make any sense without the aid of a teleprompter or excruciatingly prepared texts, see the Patriot Post here for excerpts from his remarks about Crowley and Gates.)

Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post devotes nearly a whole article, “Redemption on Tap,” to dissecting Crowley’s possible motives for arresting Gates. Late in the article, she states, “We weren’t there. We’re not mind readers.” But mind-reading was the theme of her article, and Crowley was her principal subject. Gates is exonerated with a narrative of rationalizations for his conduct.

Christopher Hitchens, writing for Slate, overlooks the whole character of the incident in “A Man’s Home is His Constitutional Castle,” and suggests that Gates should have barraged Crowley with a recitation of the Bill of Rights. This, to a man who derogates the Bill of Rights and any individual rights, and encourages racial collectivism? The Bill of Rights, after all, does not protect asinine behavior, such as verbally assaulting an officer of the law who is leaving you alone after ensuring that your property rights had not been violated by a genuine burglar.

Professor Gates: Just how dumb can you get?

It would be interesting to take this a step further and contrast the approaches of two black columnists, Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and Eugene Robinson, of The Washington Post, and a Pulitzer Prize winner (for his coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign).

In his column, “Pique and the Professor” of July 28, Robinson sides with Gates, and forgives Obama for his impolitic choice of words about Crowley and the Cambridge police department. Robinson also stoops to citing irrelevancies about Gates’ behavior.

“Gates is 58, stands maybe 5-feet-7 and weighs about 150 pounds. He has a disability and walks with a cane….Crowley could see that the professor posed no threat to him.”

That was probably true, that Crowley saw no threat in Gates. But it was Gates who posed a potential threat to Crowley with his unprovoked, vitriolic outburst - which Robinson dismisses as a “fit of pique.” But then, with more assuredness than Kathleen Parker, Robinson proceeds to psychoanalyze Crowley, not Gates.

“Apparently, there was something about the power relationship involved -- uppity, jet-setting black professor vs. regular-guy, working-class white cop -- that Crowley couldn’t abide.”

This is unsupportable, and unforgivable speculation about Crowley and his motives. One supposes that the Cambridge police department maintains psychological profiles on all its personnel, but, to paraphrase Robinson, one could put money on the likelihood that Robinson had no access to it and probably would not have liked what he read in Crowley’s profile anyway. So he indulged in creative journalism. Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize ought to be recalled. But, if this is the caliber of journalism that earned Robinson the recognition, it is no wonder journalism is in the pathetic state it is in.

Thomas Sowell will never win a Pulitzer Prize. He is too objective, intellectually honest, and deep. In his nationally syndicated column of July 27, “A Post-Racial President?” he gets right to the heart of the matter, one raised by Gates himself, racial profiling. But he turns the tables on the issue and broaches the matter of what one could call “reverse racial profiling,” that is, he scores Obama, and indirectly Gates, for his past affiliations with groups that exploited race to acquire political power and influence. For Sowell, the important issue is not Gates, but the impropriety of a president uttering some stupid words about an event of whose circumstances he was ignorant.

But Sowell describes just how logical it was for Obama to intrude on the matter.

“As a state senator, Obama pushed the ’racial profiling’ issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was investigating a report from a neighbor that someone [race indeterminate] seemed to be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in Cambridge.”

Obama, writes Sowell, has made a career of being a “community organizer,” from his days in Chicago through the Illinois senate right up to the Oval Office. He is our Community-Organizer-in-Chief.

“What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a community, directing those feelings against other communities, from whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.”

Was this not the theme of Obama’s presidential campaign? Is this not the leitmotif of his administration in every particular, from his cabinet appointments to TARP, executive pay, bank and industry takeovers, to his co-opting of a friendly news media, and socialized health care? He ought to be thanked for so obviously showing his hand -- if the preceding were not enough evidence of his malice and method-- in siding with Professor Gates, who also has made a career of organizing resentments and paranoia.

Quick Roundup 453

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

Robbed

Well, I can now add theft to the long list of annoyances that have plagued my move to Boston. Whoever it was that received my desktop after its manufacturer repaired it and then "cross-shipped" it and his computer, has, as I learned when I called yesterday to ask when I could expect it back, "not been cooperating." I sent his in nearly two weeks ago, the day I received it. If I hadn't received mine by now, it should have been on its way, according to my last conversation with them.

In other words, this person ignored the strange boot menu he got when he powered up the "upgrade" that arrived after he sent his in (It dual boots Windows and Linux.), never bothered to call about the error, and then ignored the calls he got requesting him to send it back. In short, he stole someone else's computer and he knew it. He stole from me. At least I removed the data from it before I sent it in and have full, redundant backups, including the hard drive of the machine it replaced.

I'll end up with a computer as good or marginally better in every respect, but I have now been without my main computer since leaving Houston and will be for at least another week, possibly two. And, of course, this has dragged out incrementally, tossing in good time after bad. Had I known I'd be without my computer for six or seven weeks, and had the money to do so, I might have just sucked it up and bought a new one.

The real kicker is that every time I call these clowns, the first thing I hear is an "offer" for an extended warranty! Ummmm... No thanks. And the new machine had better be as good as they say (and work) or I'll mention the manufacturer by name and tell the whole story in more detail all at once.

Dude, I should have gotten another Dell...

Seriously. On-site repairs!?!

Thoughts on Meetings

Over the course of my work life, I have endured my fair share of time-wasting, counterproductive, and inane meetings. Lifehacker's Gina Trapani discussed some concrete ways to get meetings to speed along some time ago. (I doubt whether making people stand is necessarily a good idea.) I recall finding some of the back-and-forth within the comments worthwhile, too.

What reminded me of the Trapani post was a highly original piece (also via Lifehacker) by Paul Graham that I ran into yesterday evening. It explains -- for the benefit of creative types and management alike -- why meetings are hated and feared by the former (although they are necessary).

Graham notes how "makers" and managers use their time differently, and explains it from there. As with many of his essays, this one is so clear and forceful that the point seems obvious after you read it.

Most powerful people are on the manager's schedule. It's the schedule of command. But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That's no problem for someone on the manager's schedule. There's always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker's schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it. [bold added]

Do you manage makers? Are you a managed maker? Either way, you will want to read this all the way through. And it's as engaging as it is insightful and useful.

Myths and Realities about Writing

Erin Doland, a professional writer who is editor-in-chief at Unclutterer, describes how she used to imagine life as a writer:

Before I became a full-time writer, I didn’t give much thought to what a realistic day at the office would be for me. I had an idealized image of a writer in my mind -- one that included afternoon drinks at the White Horse Tavern with Jack Kerouac and Anais Nin -- and most of my wayward fantasies didn’t actually include writing.

This reminds me of two other, more realistic pictures of writing. One, by Tom Shone of The New Yorker, takes a sobering look at "writers who drink." And, on a more positive note, Doland talks about "Having it all."

Lessons for Activists

Amit Ghate points to a story about how to fight off a bureaucracy, and Moe Lane of Red State tells us "How to ruin a professional agitation group's day." (HT: Instapundit)

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected an attribution and made one other minor edit.

Gates and Freedom of Speech

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

Glenn Reynolds points to a lengthy analysis of the Skip Gates affair in Forbes by Harvey A. Silverglate, who considers it from a legal perspective and concludes that the arrest was unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds. I found the article interesting and unsatisfying at the same time, but definitely worth reading.

One of the best points of the article is that it does a good job reminding the reader of how dangerous government "restrictions" on freedom of speech can be, and in a way that anyone following this story can appreciate.

Conceding that the Harvard professor made an ass of himself on the day he was arrested, Silverglate paints a more sympathetic picture of Gates by noting that he has in the past opposed aspects of the various campus speech codes that threaten higher education across the country.

Indeed, Professor Gates, to his enormous credit, has parted ways with the ubiquitous speech police on his own and other campuses. In September 1993, Gates wrote for The New Republic a powerful critique of campus "harassment codes" that outlaw unpleasant speech. Gates was dealing with a typical university speech code, such as the one in force at the time (and still in force on campuses all around the country) at the University of Connecticut, that banned "treating people differently solely because they are in some way different from the majority, … imitating stereotypes in speech or mannerisms, … [or] attributing objections to any of the above actions to 'hypersensitivity' of the targeted individual or group."

Gates labeled this hypersensitivity provision "especially cunning" because "it meant that even if you believed that a complainant was overreacting to an innocuous remark, the attempt to defend yourself in this way could serve only as proof of your guilt." In other words, self-defense against claims of uttering "harassing" speech only furthered the culpability of the accused in the Orwellian world of academic censorship.

Under Gates' own analysis of the University of Connecticut "harassment" speech code, neither Officer Crowley's words to Gates, nor the professor's responses, nor the officer's replies to those responses, should prove the guilt of either. There was no violence. There were only words, some of which might have been insulting and otherwise unpleasant. And in a free society, verbal expression--even if disagreeable--should never lead to clamped handcuffs.

Indeed, during discussion pursuant to Monday's post, it became evident that (aside from this problem), the arrest looked pretty dubious even according to the disorderly conduct law under which -- I, no legal expert, think -- it was made!

First, a charge of disorderly conduct would appear to be valid only (rightly or not) if there was actual concern for a riot breaking out. That was obviously not a concern here.

Behavior that might cause a riot. Massachusetts courts have limited the definition of disorderly conduct to: fighting or threatening, violent or tumultuous behavior, or creating a hazardous or physically offensive condition for no legitimate purpose other than to cause public annoyance or alarm. (The statute, however, just says "idle and disorderly persons," a formulation that is, on its own, patently unconstitutional.) Violators may be imprisoned for up to six months, fined a maximum of $200, or both.

The stilted language in the Gates police report is intended to mirror the courts' awkward phrasing, but the state could never make the charge stick. The law is aimed not at mere irascibility but rather at unruly behavior likely to set off wider unrest. Accordingly, the behavior must take place in public or on private property where people tend to gather. While the police allege that a crowd had formed outside Gates' property, it is rare to see a disorderly conduct conviction for behavior on the suspect's own front porch. In addition, political speech is excluded from the statute because of the First Amendment. Alleging racial bias, as Gates was doing, and protesting arrest both represent core political speech.

The one objection I still would have had then also seems to have been answered: Crowley is required by law to identify himself, and he needn't be able to be heard to comply. (I do wonder whether this would leave him no way to defend himself if whether he did so came up in a court case and there was only audio evidence.)

Crowley merely had to display his identification:

Section 98D. Each city or town shall issue to every full time police officer employed by it an identification card bearing his photograph and the municipal seal. Such card shall be carried on the officer's person, and shall be exhibited upon lawful request for purposes of identification.

That said, it is clear to me -- and feel free to correct me if I have made an error here -- that Crowley should not have arrested Gates. They were, to answer my own question, both wrong.

All this said, I remain unsatisfied with the overall analysis. Yes, freedom of speech is protected by the Constitution, and, yes, the mere fact that someone is a government official does not grant him the arbitrary power to punish the rude. But I am concerned that the discussion was not a principled one.

Men living in a society have an inalienable right -- whether a government recognizes it or not -- to freedom of speech. Furthermore, the sole proper purpose of government is to protect that, and all other individual rights we possess. More to the point, our rights are not granted by the government or have any other origin than our nature as rational animals and the context of our living within a society.

Silverglate's analysis seems to suffer at times from a lack of clarity on this point. Below, I consider a couple of examples.

First, while it is true that universities, as government-owned or government-controlled entities, have no business restricting freedom of speech, such government control should be phased out and abolished. First, such control is wrong because it violates property rights. Second, it is impractical since, among many other things, it hamstrings universities from making decisions like, "Do we teach the science of evolution as fact, or will the state force us to teach creationism as science alongside it?"

In other words, Silverglate fails to notice that, although Gates may have been well-intentioned in his opposition to campus speech codes, the problem ultimately arises from the government violating property rights wholesale. This leads it to violate freedom of speech, be it in the name of protecting minorities or in the name of not promoting any ideology during conduct of business legitimate for a private entity, but not for the government.

Second, I thought the following passage also suffered from the same problem.

Today, the law recognizes only four exceptions to the First Amendment's protection for free speech: (1) speech posing the "clear and present danger" of imminent violence or lawless action posited by Holmes, (2) disclosures threatening "national security," (3) "obscenity" and (4) so-called "fighting words" that would provoke a reasonable person to an imminent, violent response. [links dropped]

This may be an accurate legal picture, but how does one make sense of this or determine whether the law adequately protects freedom of speech? (Why do we have these exceptions? Are they all valid? Are they really exceptions?) By way of thinking in terms of principles -- in this case, by noting that we do not have the right to interfere with the exercise of someone else's rights through the initiation of force, the threat thereof, or by helping others do so. (The spoken or written word can do nicely for the last two of these.) Had Silverglate done this, he would have also noticed some more "exceptions."

Take the prohibition against endangering national security. Babbling state secrets can make it impossible for the government to serve in its role as protector of our rights from foreign aggressors. This is why such speech is not legally protected and, more importantly, why we don't have a right to it in the first place.

Considering this principle further, might there be cases where someone's saying something might interfere with the work that the police ought to be doing? This possibility came up as we discussed the case here, and it would appear that the charge of "disorderly conduct" may be an expedient, unprincipled way of addressing this problem which is often used tactically and often abused.

The issue of freedom of speech is certainly important in the Gates affair, but also important is that it exposes a widespread lack of appreciation for the role of government in protecting our individual rights and its underlying cause: a culture-wide failure to appreciate the importance of principles in guiding our thinking, and therefore, our actions.

Barack Obama may soon attack freedom of speech, thanks to the urgings of his friend and advisor, Cass Sunstein. In such a context, I don't know whether to count his and Gates's preoccupation with racial ancestry as a blessing or a curse (i.e., as a distraction or an excuse to them). Whatever the case may be, principles are no luxury to men who would like to remain free.

-- CAV

Monica Hughes in The Objective Standard

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Dr. Monica Hughes has an article in the Summer 2009 edition of The Objective Standard (TOS) entitled "A Brief History of U.S. Farm Policy and the Need for Free-Market Agriculture".

I just read it, and I found it very informative. I know very little about farm and agriculture policy, so her article filled in a big gap in my knowledge. If you're not a subscriber, you can purchase a PDF of the article from TOS for $4.95 at the article link.

She also runs a website devoted to free market agricultural policy, Free Agriculture - Restore Markets (FARM).

Congratulations, Monica!

As a side note, this the fifth Objective Standard article written by members of our local Front Range Objectivism Group, all done pretty much by people working in their spare time on top of their regular day jobs.

The list of TOS articles from FROG members includes:

Monica Hughes, "A Brief History of U.S. Farm Policy and the Need for Free-Market Agriculture", Summer 2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Lest We Be Doomed to Repeat It: A Survey of Amity Shlaes’s History of the Great Depression", Spring 2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America", Fall 2008.

Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh, "Moral Health Care vs. 'Universal Health Care'", Winter 2007.

Diana Hsieh, "Egoism Explained: A Review of Tara Smith's Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist", Spring 2007.

I'd especially like to thank Craig Biddle, editor of The Objective Standard, for his hard work in publishing such a consistently strong journal, as well as for providing a great platform for new writers such as me.

Health Care is Not a Right

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

Health Care Is Not a Right

Washington, D.C., July 27, 2009--President Obama’s push for universal health care rests on the premise that people have a right to medical care and medical insurance. “This is wrong,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center. “This notion of some sort of entitlement to health care is a distortion of the concept of a ‘right’ and is ultimately what’s behind all of the problems with today’s medical system.

“Philosopher Leonard Peikoff explained the basic point in a 1993 speech (view the video or PDF) given in the context of HillaryCare. It applies equally to Obama’s ‘reforms.’ Peikoff argued that ‘all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights [to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness] impose no obligations on other people, merely the negative obligation to leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want--not to be given it without effort by somebody else. . . . Under the American system you have a right to health care if you can pay for it, i.e., if you can earn it by your own action and effort. But nobody has the right to the services of any professional individual or group simply because he wants them and desperately needs them. The very fact that he needs these services so desperately is the proof that he had better respect the freedom, the integrity, and the rights of the people who provide them.”

For more information on the Ayn Rand Center’s position on health care, please visit our Web site.

### ### ###

 

Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?

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

Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?

By Yaron Brook

Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama’s “reforms” will only expand that intervention.

Prior to the government’s entrance into medicine, health care was regarded as a product to be traded voluntarily on a free market--no different from food, clothing, or any other important good or service. Medical providers competed to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible prices. Virtually all Americans could afford basic health care, while those few who could not were able to rely on abundant private charity.

Had this freedom been allowed to endure, Americans’ rising productivity would have afforded them better and better health care, just as, today, we buy better and more varied food and clothing than people did a century ago. There would be no crisis of affordability, as there isn’t for food or clothing.

But by the time Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, this view of health care as an economic product--for which each individual must assume responsibility--had given way to a view of health care as a “right,” an unearned “entitlement,” to be provided at others’ expense.

This entitlement mentality fueled the rise of our current third-party-payer system, a blend of government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, together with government-controlled employer-based health insurance (itself spawned by perverse tax incentives during the wage and price controls of World War II).

The resulting system aimed to relieve the individual of the “burden” of paying for his own health care by coercively imposing its costs on his neighbors. Today, for every dollar’s worth of hospital care a patient consumes, that patient pays only about 3 cents out of pocket; the rest is paid by third-party coverage. And for the health care system as a whole, patients pay only about 14 percent.

Shifting the responsibility for health care costs away from the individuals who accrue them led to an explosion in spending. In a system in which someone else is footing the bill, consumers, encouraged to regard health care as a “right,” demand medical services without having to consider their real price. When, through the 1970s and 1980s, this artificially inflated consumer demand sent expenditures soaring out of control, the government cracked down by enacting further coercive measures: price controls on medical services, cuts to medical benefits, and a crushing burden of regulations on every aspect of the health care system.

As each new intervention further distorted the health care market, driving up costs and lowering quality, belligerent voices demanded still further interventions to preserve the “right” to health care: from regulations mandating various forms of insurance coverage to Bush’s massive prescription drug bill.

The solution to this ongoing crisis is to recognize that the very idea of a “right” to health care is a perversion. There can be no such thing as a “right” to products or services created by the effort of others, and this most definitely includes medical products and services. Rights, as the Founders conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but to freedoms of action.

You are free to see a doctor and pay him for his services--no one may forcibly prevent you from doing so. But you do not have a “right” to force the doctor to treat you without charge or to force others to pay for your treatment. The rights of some cannot require the coercion and sacrifice of others.

Real and lasting solutions to our health care problems require a rejection of the entitlement mentality in favor of a proper conception of rights. This would provide the moral basis for breaking the regulatory chains stifling the medical industry; for lifting the tax and regulatory incentives fueling our dysfunctional, employer-based insurance system; for inaugurating a gradual phase-out of all government health care programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid; and for restoring a true free market in medical care.

Such sweeping reforms would unleash the power of capitalism in the medical industry. They would provide the freedom for entrepreneurs motivated by profit to compete with each other to offer the best quality medical services at the lowest prices, driving innovation and bringing affordable medical care, once again, into the reach of all Americans.

 

Study Ayn Rand's Ideas

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

Study Ayn Rand’s Ideas

IRVINE, CA, July 30, 2009--The Objectivist Academic Center (OAC)--a four-year educational program offered by the Ayn Rand Institute--is accepting its final round of applications for the 2009-10 academic year. The OAC is designed for motivated students who want to study Ayn Rand’s ideas in a systematic fashion, under the guidance of ARI’s top intellectuals.

“Students of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, know that it is a rich, complex system that can take years to fully understand when studied on one’s own,” said Debi Ghate, vice president of Academic programs at ARI. “Those students who are seeking an in-depth understanding of that system come to the OAC, where they receive an unparalleled education in Objectivism and in the art of objective thinking and communication.”

The OAC is especially designed for full-time college students to supplement their university education, although others may apply. Visit http://www.objectivistacademiccenter.org/ to find more about the program, as well as an online application. There are a limited number of spots available, and the deadline to apply is July 31, 2009.

 

Ayn Rand Institute Announces $2 Million Fundraising Campaign--the Atlas Shrugged Initiative

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

Ayn Rand Institute Announces $2 Million Fundraising Campaign—the Atlas Shrugged Initiative

IRVINE, CA, July 24, 2009—The Ayn Rand Institute has announced a $2 million fundraising campaign—the Atlas Shrugged Initiative—in an unprecedented effort to increase readership of Ayn Rand’s best-known novel, Atlas Shrugged.

The impetus behind the Atlas Shrugged Initiative, explains ARI President and Executive Director Yaron Brook, is the fact that “At no time in history has there been greater public interest in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. And its message has never been more urgent.

“The torrent of destructive, statist policies emanating from Washington represents both a crisis—and an opportunity. Through the Atlas Shrugged Initiative, we intend to capitalize on the soaring grassroots interest in Ayn Rand and her ideas.”

Adds Dr. Brook, “The Atlas Shrugged Initiative is off to an outstanding start. A very generous benefactor has already offered to match every dollar donated to this Initiative—up to a total of $500,000—and as a result of early and substantial funding, the bookstore promotions that are a key component of the Initiative are already well underway.”

Key elements of the Atlas Shrugged Initiative include significant bookstore promotions of the novel; an expansion of ARI’s web-based efforts to spur readership of Atlas Shrugged; expansion of ARI’s long-running educational programs for high school and college students; and targeted outreach to pro-liberty, pro-capitalist activists around the nation.

Visit the Ayn Rand Institute’s Atlas Shrugged Initiative campaign page to learn more or to support this campaign.