GOP Joins Thought Police

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

At FrontPage Magazine, Jacob Laskin correctly cries foul on the Republican response to Nevada Senator Harry Reid's recently-publicized "racist" comments about Barack Obama. Laskin notes that the GOP is acting on an ill-conceived premise of expediency by adopting the childish tactics of the multiculturalist left. Doing so, while bemoaning the obvious double-standard applied to those who make such remarks, he argues is foolish because it wrongly legitimizes these tactics:

[GOP National Chairman Michael] Steele is of course right about this double standard. But the chairman does nothing to restore integrity to the political debate by validating the political left's pernicious smear that any and all comments about race, however innocuous, must be treated as an act of racism, with their author forced to prostrate himself before various racial lobbies or risk banishment from polite society.

As I have noted in the past with other, similar, cries of "Hypocrisy!" from the right, it is fine to call someone a hypocrite, but not enough when that person's precepts are wrong to begin with and it would thus be immoral to actually follow them anyway.

The right, unfortunately, does this all the time, even going so far as to dare the Democrats to be more consistent collectivists from time to time. But in this case, it's worse: The right is doing the job for the left rather than taking this golden opportunity to stand up for freedom of speech and against the attempted thought control that is multiculturalism.

Until the right definitively repudiates collectivism and its undergirding morality of altruism, such moral cowardice will be the order of the day. For the guilty secret of many conservatives is that they aren't individualists, either. This is why we see them, time and time again, toss tomatoes at the Democrats, only to "show them how it's done" in exactly the wrong way.

This is not the first time the GOP has aped the left right after noting one of its shortcomings, but it is one of the more obvious examples in recent memory.

-- CAV

Mayor Bloomberg: The Gun-Toting Nanny

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

You might be surprised to learn that New York City doesn't have a mayor. Yet it's true! New York City is governed by an armed nanny, Michael Bloomberg. He is determined to coerce adults into his vision of healthy living, without regard to their rights or the relevant science. His latest proposal concerns salt. The New York Times reports:

First New York City required restaurants to cut out trans fat. Then it made restaurant chains post calorie counts on their menus. Now it wants to protect people from another health scourge: salt.

On Monday, the Bloomberg administration plans to unveil a broad new health initiative aimed at encouraging food manufacturers and restaurant chains across the country to curtail the amount of salt in their products.

...

The city's campaign against salt resembles its push to cut trans fat from restaurant foods, which began with a call for voluntary compliance. When that did not work, the city passed a law to force restaurants to eliminate trans fat.

But city officials said it would be difficult to legislate sodium reduction.

"There's not an easy regulatory fix," said Geoffrey Cowley, an associate health commissioner. "You would have to micromanage so many targets for so many different products."

Oh, don't worry about those pesky details! Nanny Bloomberg will do his very best to mandate salt reduction at the point of a gun when his "voluntary" scheme fails.

Back in April, John Tierney wrote an excellent op-ed for the New York Times about this proposal, likening it to an ill-founded experiment using the whole city as unwitting subjects. That's clearly immoral, particularly given that the case against salt -- not just for healthy people but even for people with heart disease -- is weak at best. Tierney writes:

First, a reduced-salt diet doesn't lower everyone's blood pressure. Some individuals' blood pressure can actually rise in response to less salt, and most people aren't affected much either way. The more notable drop in blood pressure tends to occur in some -- but by no means all -- people with hypertension, a condition that affects more than a quarter of American adults.

Second, even though lower blood pressure correlates with less heart disease, scientists haven't demonstrated that eating less salt leads to better health and longer life. The results from observational studies have too often been inconclusive and contradictory. After reviewing the literature for the Cochrane Collaboration in 2003, researchers from Copenhagen University concluded that "there is little evidence for long-term benefit from reducing salt intake."

Even worse, salt-reduction might kill people with heart disease:

In the past year, researchers led by Salvatore Paterna of the University of Palermo have reported one of the most rigorous experiments so far: a randomized clinical trial of heart patients who were put on different diets. Those on a low-sodium diet were more likely to be rehospitalized and to die, results that prompted the researchers to ask, "Is sodium an old enemy or a new friend?"

Moreover, salt might be the only source of iodine for many people. Of course, iodized salt isn't a great source of iodine, and much salt isn't iodized. Nonetheless, further salt reduction would likely only exacerbate the all-too-common iodine deficiency in America today. Such iodine deficiency can be a source of major health problems -- such as hypothyroidism, retardation in children, goiter, and possibly breast disease. Moreover -- surprise, surprise! -- hypothyroidism dramatically increases risk of heart disease -- the very condition that the Nanny of NYC seeks to reduce by limiting salt.

No, I won't call that an unintended consequence. Like the politicians determined to worsen the mortgage crisis with their good intentions, Nanny Statists like Bloomberg ought to know better. They deserve to be morally condemned in the strongest possible terms for the suffering and death they cause by their negligent exercise of force.

Quick Roundup 497

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

The US Never "Bullied" Castro

Via Dismuke is an interesting look at the actual history of the Cuban "revolution," in which Humberto Fontova even calls a spade a spade regarding the nature of Cuba's nationalization of American assets:

The Castro regime has never settled a penny of this mass burglary with its U.S. victims. Search for any mention of the above in an MSM article on the so-called U.S. embargo of Cuba (in fact, we've been Cuba's main food supplier and fifth largest trading partner for close to a decade now) and you will draw a complete blank.

Between Oliver Stone and the abysmal history curriculum in the typical public school, this editorial is a much-needed breath of fresh air.

Where There's Smoke, ...

... and the U.S. Treasury smells it, there's fire.

We may be about to see what can happen when an arsonist tries to avoid getting caught. Karl Denninger quotes Business Week:

The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort.

This move Denninger variously calls, "an attempt to prevent the collapse of the Treasury market," "a forced "CALL option on the future taxing ability of the government," and "the most dangerous investment of all."

He was most succinct the first time, though, when he called it a "screw job." (HT: Dismuke)

The Anti-Filibuster Movement

Claiming that the filibuster violates the intent of the Constitution because it "renders [the Senate] even less representative," Timothy Noah calls for its elimination at Slate and notes what he hopes is growing momentum for same. This is one of the last things I needed to hear about today.

Needless to say, Noah fails to adequately consider the intent of the checks and balances added to the Constitution, which exist in part to protect Americans from unrestrained democracy. To the extent that he does, he parrots James Fallow's charge that the filibuster,"converts the Senate from the 'saucer' George Washington called it, in which scalding ideas from the more temperamental House might 'cool,' into a deep freeze and a dead weight."

Given the amount of serious deliberation that occurs in a legislative body that has gotten into the habit of passing major legislation unread -- and which is, incidentally, unconstitutional -- Noah should be thanking his lucky stars for the longstanding precedent of the use of this happy accident of history.

When, like socialized medicine, the drink is a hot tea made from the leaves of a poisonous weed, I for one would rather it be placed in a deep freeze permanently than into a mere saucer.

Heh!

Regarding my mentioning to him over email that, on my way to work every day, I walk past Stata Center, in whose bowels nests Noam Chomsky, reader Snedcat opines: "One of the few valid circumstances in which to wear a cross! Though garlic works just as well, I hear...but you're probably safe so long as you keep in direct sunlight."

-- CAV

A Clear Agenda of Repeal

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

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Clark S. Judge offers some surprisingly sound advice for the Republican Party in the form of a ten point plan for the 2010 mid-term elections, although it does not go far enough. My favorite item, because it reintroduces a much-needed idea into the mainstream political debate is his Item 6:

6) For the midterm election, unite around a clear agenda of repeal. The party should give its candidates a list of programs and spending that will be up for cancellation the hour a Republican Congress is sworn in. At the top of the list should be the Troubled Asset Relief Program, unspent stimulus funds, and the health-care overhaul.

I've long said that the voting public and politicians alike should become reacquainted with the "r-word."

Although the above suggestion is a good place to start, it is too bad that Judge didn't make a more principled case that recommended a "clear agenda of repeal" extending well beyond the next election and did not stop at only the newest incursions against individual rights foisted on us by Bush and Obama-Pelosi.

For instance, why focus on penny-ante earmarks...

The House and Senate GOP caucuses should walk away from earmarks, leaving Democrats alone to defend this symbol of D.C.'s degeneracy.

... or stop at mere "reform" of social programs that are inherently corrupt, rather than formulating a strategy to phase them out?

3) Start talking about the need to reform Social Security and Medicare. Swing voters know these programs could devastate federal finances. They want assurance that politicians know this, too, and are committed to fixing them. Talk of reforming these programs is no longer the third rail of politics. It will win the swing voters' respect.

The fact that Judge does not go quite far enough in his suggestions to the Republicans should serve notice on all who favor individual rights. The kind of substantive, principled reform of which Judge's suggestions can really only be a first baby step will never occur unless we renounce all party loyalty and treat every election as an auction with the winning bidder being the politician who believably (preferably via a solid track record) pledges to increase government protection for individual rights at every opportunity.

-- CAV

Brook on the Estate Tax

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

The January 9, 2010 edition of PJTV includes an interesting discussion by Yaron Brook and Terry Jones on the estate tax.

Apparently, due to a fluke in US tax laws, the estate tax for 2010 is zero percent. (It's scheduled to go back up to 55% in 2011.)



One of the points Yaron Brook discussed was this view expressed by Bill Gates, Sr. (father of the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jr) that, "Society has a just claim on our fortunes, and that claim goes by the name estate tax."



As Brook notes, this battle is not just over economics but over fundamental philosophy. Does wealth properly belong to "society" or to the person who created it? The way our country answers that question will determine our future.

The segment on the estate tax begins at 8:35 minutes, but I enjoyed watching the whole video. (You can click on either image above to go to the PJTV video.)

Hearts of Darkness

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

The moral sewers that are the minds of the likes of Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, and Senate majority leader, were revealed this week with the report that Reid has apologized to President Barack Obama (and to other black civil rights leaders) for having said privately in 2008 that Obama was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”

Reid’s remark was made public in a new book, Game Change, by political reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. The book chronicles the sludge and sleaze behind the Democratic contest for presidential nomination and the race against John McCain and Sarah Palin. The publisher’s website describes what can only be characterized as a chronicle of dirt:

Game Change answers those questions and more, laying bare the secret history of the 2008 campaign. Heilemann and Halperin take us inside the Obama machine, where staffers referred to the candidate as "Black Jesus." They unearth the quiet conspiracy in the U.S. Senate to prod Obama into the race, driven in part by the fears of senior Democrats that Bill Clinton's personal life might cripple Hillary's presidential prospects….And they reveal how, in an emotional late-night phone call, Obama succeeded in wooing Clinton, despite her staunch resistance, to become his secretary of state.

Reid has apologized for the remark but sounded more like he was campaigning for reelection.

In a statement, Reid confirmed his remarks and apologized for them. “I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans for my improper comments,” he said today, “I was a proud and enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama during the campaign and have worked as hard as I can to advance President Obama’s legislative agenda. Moreover, throughout my career, from efforts to integrate the Las Vegas strip and the gaming industry to opposing radical judges and promoting diversity in the Senate, I have worked hard to advance issues important to the African American community.”

He was forgiven by Obama. Well, of course. Reid, together with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, has the principal task of getting the socialist health-care bill passed by Congress.

President Barack Obama released a statement this afternoon stating that Reid called him to apologize “for an unfortunate comment.” The president said he accepted the apology. “I’ve seen the passionate leadership he’s shown on issues of social justice and I know what’s in his heart. As far as I am concerned, the book is closed.”

Why would he castigate Reid over a mere slip of tongue and unguarded moment, when more important things are at stake than Obama’s own self-respect, such as vanquishing America? But, the book is not closed. Game Change goes on sale in a few days, and the guided tour by Heilemann and Halperin of the cesspools of Beltway politics should make the authors millionaires.

This is all very revealing about Harry Reid. It should not be surprising that a man who “advances Obama’s legislative agenda” of nationalizing the economy and abridging American freedoms would also harbor the same knee-jerk racist premises as Vice-President Joe Biden and former Senate majority leader Trent Lott. All the minds party to this legislation are vessels of malignity. In public, these creatures appear well-groomed in pressed suits and are on good conduct. Behind the scenes, they are, as Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota suggested, manipulative, foul-mouthed gangsters.

If the Republicans wished to “bring down” Harry Reid as a means of defeating the health-care legislation, they ought to be challenging his political career, premises, and political agenda. They ought to be screaming their heads off about the Marx/Alinsky/Ayers number Reid and his ilk in Congress and the White House are about to pull on the country.

Instead, they are calling for his resignation over a comparatively unimportant racial remark. If Reid is guilty of anything, which is his greater offense? Saying something uncouth, or advocating and working hard to bring about the destruction of American liberty?

The Republican ruse to defeat the health-care legislation is intellectually vacuous. The Republican strategy is as ludicrous and futile as if the Romans accused the Huns of being bad dressers, and so they should just go away, instead of pillaging Rome. Harry Reid may be, in the core substance of his existence, a rotten, hypocritical creature. But in the hearts of Republican leadership, there is only the hollow darkness of moral bankruptcy.

More on Gay Marriage

By noreply@blogger.com (Jason) from Erosophia,cross-posted by MetaBlog

by Jason

The case will decide a challenge to California's gay marriage ban that was approved by voters in 2008, and the ruling will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. How the high court rules in the case could set the precedent for whether gay marriage becomes legal nationwide.

Quick Roundup 496

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

Hitler's "Human" Side

Oliver Stone's idea of providing historical context would appear to be to drop moral context:

"Stalin has a complete other story," Stone said. "Not to paint him as a hero, but to tell a more factual representation. He fought the German war machine more than any single person.

We can't judge people as only 'bad' or 'good.' Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He's the product of a series of actions. It's cause and effect...

...


"He's not saying we're going to come out with a more positive view of Hitler," emphasized professor Peter Kuznick, the lead writer on the project. "But we're going to describe him as a historical phenomenon and not just somebody who appeared out of nowhere."

Stone said that conservative pundits will dislike the show.

"Obviously, Rush Limbaugh is not going to like this history and, as usual, we're going to get those kind of ignorant attacks," said Stone...

Hitler and Stalin were responsible for millions of deaths within their respective countries. Much is known (and already easily-enough learned) about the lives and intellectual influences on each.

Stone's denigration of moral judgment as "scapegoating" and "ignorant" are a direct result of determinism. Of course "we're [not] going to come out with a more positive view of Hitler." How could you have a positive view of anyone if, like Stone, you see the common (and correct) view of Hitler as an evil monster as foolish?

The creation of a historical account shares with fiction the element of selectivity, except that, because the ideas men accept and and act upon drive history, the historian's criterion for selectivity is which facts best illustrate what ideas motivated one historical figure or another.

Stone's rejection of the normative aspect of his job as a historian will lead him to dwell on nonessential details and create an account that will hinder a proper understanding of the people and events he covers. And, his prattling to the contrary notwithstanding, he will portray Hitler in an undeservedly positive light. Even to paint him an an ordinary human being is far better than he deserves.

There is a reason certain details about Hitler and Stalin are not more widely discussed: They're insignificant -- just like Oliver Stone's contribution to the field of history will prove to be.

Well, at least it isn't Avatar!

Eric Raymond makes some interesting comments on Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes:

The Holmes we have become used to from later interpretations is sort of Holmes-as-Vulcan, the Mr. Spock of the gaslight era; cool, cerebral, controlled, a bit disdainful. Forgotten in the Holmes-as-Vulcan version is that the original Holmes was an eccentric drug addict who went to pieces in the absence of a degree of mental stimulation ordinary life could not afford him.

I am not terribly familiar with the literary character or the Spock-like movie portrayals, but this Holmes sounds closer to Gregory House.

Raymond gave it a positive view overall and he disliked Avatar, which sounds abysmal to me. That's not saying much, but still...

Heh!



Because I haven't posted the results of a silly quiz here in quite a while.

Objectivist Roundup

Amy Mossoff hosts last week's edition. Hopefully, I will have recovered by Tuesday from my post-vacation backlog/adjusted to my new daily routine enough to submit a post for this week's edition.

Blah! Blah! Blah!

And speaking of catching up, I found the below observation spot-on:

My final thought on the comment that I find appropriate is the capitalization of "BLAH." In netiquette (i.e. network etiquette), capitalization is typically used to indicate a shout. This completes the perfect image of the modern leftist: a lout with nothing to say . . . and shouting it to drown everybody else out.

But that's just the summary of SB's analysis of a comment consisting of the word, "Blah!" repeated 262 times. Be sure to read the rest.

-- CAV

A World without Nuclear Weapons?

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In the Fall 2009 issue of Daedalus, economist Thomas Schelling asks what would happen if President Obama had his way and we had a "A World Without Nuclear Weapons?"

Schelling argues that, contrary to the optimists like Obama, the world would become far more unstable and dangerous.

One big problem is that the knowledge of how to create and deploy nuclear weapons wouldn't disappear. Hence, if the major nuclear powers did decide to eliminate their active stockpiles, any global crisis would create a tremendous incentive for them to reconstitute and/or use their nukes as quickly as possible before hostile countries did the same.

Here are a couple of noteworthy excerpts from Schelling's article:

Considering that enough plutonium to make a bomb could be hidden in the freezing compartment of my refrigerator, or to evade radiation detection could be hidden at the bottom of the water in a well, I think only the fear of a whistle-blower could possibly make success at all questionable.

I believe that a "responsible" government would make sure that fissile material would be available in an international crisis or war itself. A responsible government must at least assume that other responsible governments will do so.

The natural implication:

...[I]f, at the outset of what appears to be a major war, or the imminent possibility of major war, every responsible government must consider that other responsible governments will mobilize their nuclear weapons base as soon as war erupts, or as soon as war appears likely, there will be at least covert frantic efforts, or perhaps purposely conspicuous efforts, to acquire deliverable nuclear weapons as rapidly as possible.

The result would be greater global instability, rather than greater stability:

In summary, a "world without nuclear weapons" would be a world in which the United States, Russia, Israel, China, and half a dozen or a dozen other countries would have hair-trigger mobilization plans to rebuild nuclear weapons and mobilize or commandeer delivery systems, and would have prepared targets to preempt other nations' nuclear facilities, all in a high-alert status, with practice drills and secure emergency communications. Every crisis would be a nuclear crisis, any war could become a nuclear war. The urge to preempt would dominate ; whoever gets the first few weapons will coerce or preempt. It would be a nervous world.

Part of the fallacy behind the desire for a "world without nuclear weapons" is the false notion that the evil resides within the weapons, rather than within the aggressors who would use them against us. (This is just a grander example of the same fallacy that drives many gun-control advocates.)

If a US President truly wanted a safer world, perhaps he should eliminate America's enemies, rather than eliminating our means of striking against them.

(Link to the Schelling article via Marginal Revolution.)

Not Unintended Consequences

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Surprise, surprise:

The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.

Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.

As a result, desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences. Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies.

Some experts argue the program has impeded economic recovery by delaying a wrenching yet cleansing process through which borrowers give up unaffordable homes and banks fully reckon with their disastrous bets on real estate, enabling money to flow more freely through the financial system.

Go read the whole article. Conservatives tend to speak of these kinds of harms to underwater homeowners and financial markets as "unintended consequences." That's terribly wrong, I think.

Politicians should know better than to enact such laws. They ought to take some care in how they do their job -- just as electricians, doctors, and even garbage collectors do. That includes investigating the likely effects of proposed laws -- rather than hand-waving them away with the thought that they mean well. If they fail to do that due diligence, we are entitled to think them negligent -- or worse... that they intend their laws to fail so as to excuse even more violations of our property and contract rights.

Let's make sure that we call the spade that's digging our mass grave "a spade," not an "unintended consequence."

There's no G-Spot??

By noreply@blogger.com (Jason) from Erosophia,cross-posted by MetaBlog

by Jason

The Mayo Clinic Objects

By noreply@blogger.com (Jason) from Erosophia,cross-posted by MetaBlog

by Jason

Mayo’s hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the Glendale facility, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year, Yardley said. The program’s payments cover about 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients at the Glendale clinic, he said. [Emphasis mine]

Tips for Leading Discussions

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Shortly after Lin Zinser created Front Range Objectivism's second FROG study group, she posted the following helpful suggestions for leading a discussion based on an assigned essay. I dug up the e-mail because FRO recently created a third FROG study group. (Hooray!) I wanted to post it here, as I think her suggestions might be of use to others seeking to create (or improve) their own study groups.

Notably, while Lin's comments pertain to studying Objectivist essays, they'd apply to almost any discussions of readings. Also, more advice and help for Objectivist study groups can be found on the uber-useful web site of the Objectivist Club Network.

Without further ado, here's Lin's e-mail:

These are suggestions I have regarding leading a discussion group -- Take this for what it may be worth to you.

The point of the discussion group is to discuss articles, teasing out and chewing the ideas in a way that crystallizes them so that they can be understood and integrated by each individual. The discussion group premise is that anyone who attends has something to contribute in most discussions, and we are seeking a better understanding and development of the ideas based on the broader context of knowledge provided by all of the participants.

It is expected that everyone comes to the meeting having read the material. Occasionally, someone will not be able to complete the readings, but the presumption should still be made. Therefore, the idea is not to prepare an outline or book report or detailed summary of what the article said. The idea is to present a short synopsis of the article in 3 to 5 minutes to remind everyone of what the article was about, and to set the context for the discussion.

This synopsis could be a short summary and also might include specific phrases or sentences or parts that you, the leader, might have found particularly noteworthy for some reason. Or you might simply isolate the theme and purpose of the article and then identify the main parts that support the theme.

To then start the discussion, the leader could come prepared with either points or questions from the article that were confusing, puzzling or problematic. Or, the leader could prepare a few questions for discussion. One way to figure out some questions is to use the "who, what, when, where, why, and how" questions, or the "as opposed to what?" question. (Some of you may recognize these from Jean Moroney's course... or from journalism courses)

In reading any of Ayn Rand's works, it helps to ask -- what is the point here? Why is this included? How does Ayn Rand make this point clear? How does this apply to my life? When or where do I see this viewpoint being expressed -- at work, on TV, where? Do I know people who act like she describes? How should I act or behave towards them? How is the best way to respond to this behavior? Is there a better way to react to people who are saying, doing or advocating wrong ideas than the way I have reacted to them in the past? How can I use this information to better my life? I am sure you can come up with many more questions along these lines. Our group seems very disposed to discuss issues, so I think that only a few questions are necessary.

As a reader and discussion member, but not the leader on a particular article, I think it helpful, while reading the material, to figure out one question or point to discuss from each article. If most people in the group do that, there will be more than enough material for a discussion. Think about discussion points as you read the material.

These are some of my general observations and suggestions to facilitate the discussion. I want to state that I have no criticisms of anyone who has led the group. In fact, just the opposite. I am very pleased with the enthusiasm, the interest, and competence of all involved. I am very pleased, as you must be also, for the interest and discussions that have been generated.

Finally, I want to reiterate that the above are suggestions because some people have specifically asked for assistance. The point of having a leader is to guide the group to a profitable, productive discussion that will enhance your understanding of Ayn Rand's philosophy, and thereby enhance your life.

For those of you involved with Objectivist study groups, what have you found most helpful in terms of facilitating good discussion? What mistakes have you made that you'd recommend others avoid?

Last year, I posted on the three major benefits of participation in an Objectivist study group. Unbeknownst to me, Ben B. posted something for the Objectivist Club Network just a few days earlier: 3 Selfish Reasons for Running a Campus Club. Our posts were totally independent, yet our three points were remarkably similar.

(Some morons would point to that similarity as evidence of some kind of insidious group-think. That's absurd. The real explanation is far simpler: armed with similar experiences and values, Ben and I recognized the same basic facts of the matter.)

The State of Marriage

By noreply@blogger.com (Jason) from Erosophia,cross-posted by MetaBlog

by Jason

Nanny's Burqa

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

Still catching up with the news when able, I learned through HBL of some trenchant observations by Christopher Hitchens about airline "security" after the Christmas bombing attempt. His observations also go far to explain anarcho-tyranny, of which his subject matter is an example.

Hitchens notes that for every news story about a Moslem fanatic waltzing through security on his way to attempt murder, there is another one about additional "security" burdens borne by the rest of us. He comments:

Why do we fail to detect or defeat the guilty, and why do we do so well at collective punishment of the innocent? The answer to the first question is: Because we can't--or won't. The answer to the second question is: Because we can. The fault here is not just with our endlessly incompetent security services, who give the benefit of the doubt to people who should have been arrested long ago or at least had their visas and travel rights revoked. It is also with a public opinion that sheepishly bleats to be made to "feel safe." The demand to satisfy that sad illusion can be met with relative ease if you pay enough people to stand around and stare significantly at the citizens' toothpaste. My impression as a frequent traveler is that intelligent Americans fail to protest at this inanity in case it is they who attract attention and end up on a no-fly list instead. Perfect.

Binswanger rightly notes that the solution to this problem remains to go on offense. He mentions a foreign policy proposal that I happen to agree with, but I have noted in the past that a freer economy could do wonders to enhance travel security, too.

The Islamic totalitarians are coopting the apparatus of the nanny state. All the more reason to disband it, then. The task is daunting because the real power lies with the people who are willing to accept a nanny state. Their overall opinion needs to change to an appreciable degree before the nanny state will be eliminated. But once that occurs, the Islamic totalitarians will drop like the flies they are.

In today's world, when one can feel beset on every side by enemies, that kind of economy of effort is heartening when one realizes it, but it is a direct result of the fact that rational principles are highly practical.

Protect individual rights consistently. The wolf of big government and the fleas of Islamic terrorism that hitchike in its fur will both be taken care of.

-- CAV

Crawford Letter on Health Care

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Jason Crawford has started sending the following letter to his elected officials. With his permission, I am posting his text below:

Dear _______,

I am opposed to the health care bill for several reasons:

First, I just read an important editorial in Saturday's Wall Street Journal explaining why the health-care bill is unconstitutional in multiple ways. In particular: "the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance."

Further, I oppose a mandate to buy insurance from a company where I can't negotiate freely.

Finally, I oppose any further restrictions on abortion rights.

In general, I oppose socialized medicine, "universal coverage", any "public option" or "single-payer" system, and any expansion of government control over health care.

Real reform would be increased freedom in health care, especially repeal of insurance mandates, opening insurance across state lines, and opening HSAs to everyone.

Health care is not a right! It is a service to be bought and paid for. And doctors, hospitals, and patients should have the right and the freedom to deal with each other any way they want.

- Jason A. Crawford

Thank you, Jason, for a fine letter! I encourage anyone who agrees with his ideas to send something similar to their elected officials.

You can find their contact information at:
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

"Atlas Shrugged" Still Making News

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

“Atlas Shrugged” Still Making News

January 5, 2010

WASHINGTON--The Ayn Rand Center is excited to announce that “Atlas Shrugged,” Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, will be the subject of Thursday’s edition of “Stossel” on the Fox Business Network.

The program will air at 8 p.m. ET and feature interviews with leading Objectivist intellectuals including Dr. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Center.

The year 2009 was unprecedented in media attention of “Atlas Shrugged” and the book sold a record number of copies.

With prominent national media figures like John Stossel taking an interest in “Atlas Shrugged,” it looks like the momentum from 2009 will carry on into the New Year.

# # #

For interviews, please contact: media@aynrand.org or call 202-609-7470.

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

 

 

2009 Front Range Objectivism Media Output

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

In 2009, Front Range Objectivism (FRO) had another successful year with respect to activism and publishing.

In particular, FRO members published the following at the regional and national level:

Articles: 3
OpEds: 57
LTEs: 48

Some of the topics covered include the financial crisis, health care, gun control, environmentalism, free speech, and government regulation.

The majority of this writing was done by people working in their spare time, in addition to their day jobs.

This list does not include numerous citations and interviews in local and national media, participation in Tea Party events, letters to elected officials, and blogging.

I'd like to thank my fellow FRO activists for their hard work this past year.

The detailed list of our published output includes the following:

Articles: 3

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

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

Paul Hsieh, "How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability", The Objective Standard, Fall 2009.

OpEds: 57

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Shut down corporate welfare for tourism", Grand Junction Free Press, 1/5/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Universal healthcare and the waistline police", Christian Science Monitor, 1/7/2009. (Also redistributed to ABC News, Yahoo News and multiple local newspapers.)

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Obamanomics threaten economic recovery", Grand Junction Free Press, 1/19/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Free Our Beer", Colorado Daily, 1/25/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Salazar promotes special-interest warfare", Grand Junction Free Press, 2/2/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Obama's Regulatory Chief Believes in Paternalistic Government", Pajamas Media, 2/10/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "We're From the Government and We're Here to Help You Drive", Grand Junction Free Press, 2/16/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Food Thoughts", Boulder Weekly, 2/19/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "America Doesn't Need a Health Care Czar", Washington Examiner, 2/23/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Ayn Rand and the Tea Party Protests", Pajamas Media, 3/2/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Political Controls Provoke Producers to Go On Strike", Grand Junction Free Press, 3/2/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Beware single-payer health care", Colorado Daily, 3/8/2009 (also Denver Daily News, 3/9/2009).

Paul Hsieh, "Health Insurance Industry Sells Its Soul to the Devil", Pajamas Media, 3/22/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Everyone is welcome at Hamburger Mary’s", Grand Junction Free Press, 3/30/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "See you at the Grand Junction Tea Party", Grand Junction Free Press, 4/13/2009.

Lin and Ari Armstrong, After tea, try long, cool drink of liberty"", Grand Junction Free Press, 4/27/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Health Care Reform vs. Universal Health Care", Pajamas Media, 5/5/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Legislature Passes Job-Killing Bills”, Grand Junction Free Press, 5/11/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Udall's credit controls punish the responsible", Colorado Daily, 5/24/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Invasion forces headed for Japan", Grand Junction Free Press, 5/25/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Are you a conservative or a liberal?", Grand Junction Free Press, 6/8/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Reject political control of health care", Grand Junction Free Press, 6/24/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "More poison, not an antidote: Mandating employer health insurance”, Boulder Daily Camera, 6/28/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Politicians Cause Mortgage Meltdown", Grand Junction Free Press, 7/6/2009

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "DeMint's health handouts violate liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 7/20/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Hope and change in Harry Potter", Denver Daily News, 7/22/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Don’t ban or force abortions", Boulder Weekly, 7/23/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "The Federal Health Care Muggers", PajamasMedia, 7/24/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "In health debate, left and right need to check premises", Grand Junction Free Press, 8/3/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Rationing inherent in Obamacare", Colorado Springs Gazette, 8/14/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "That government is best which protects individual rights", Grand Junction Free Press, 8/17/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Not a health care remedy", Denver Daily News, 8/21/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Debunking health care reform myths", Grand Junction Free Press, 8/31/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "The Free Market Is Not Another Form of Rationing", PajamasMedia, 9/2/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Is Not a Privilege... Nor Is It a Right", PajamasMedia, 9/8/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Atlas Shrugged relevant for modern times", Longmont Times-Call, 9/14/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Restore free market to address preexisting conditions", Grand Junction Free Press, 9/14/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Is Your Doctor Getting Ready To Quit"?, PajamasMedia, 9/18/2009. Edited version also appeared as "Health Overhaul Could Force Doctors to Quit", Health Care News (Heartland Institute), 10/13/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Republican plans for health care reform similar to Obamacare", Colorado Springs Gazette, 9/18/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Fifty Ways to Leave Obama", Grand Junction Free Press, 9/28/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Healthcare in Massachusetts: A Warning For America", Christian Science Monitor, 9/30/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "The Real Stakes", Denver Post, 10/1/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Pay Your Own Doctors", Colorado Daily, 10/2/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "James Warner Shares Light of Liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/12/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Radical environmentalists undermine human progress", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/26/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "ObamaCare: A National Version of RomneyCare", PajamasMedia, 11/2/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Bizarro Health Care 'Reform': Expect Less, Pay More", PajamasMedia, 11/5/2009.

Hannah Krening, "Dissent and Nationalization of Health Care", Denver Post, 11/8/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "If planet did warm, low-cost tech could cool it", Grand Junction Free Press, 11/9/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Why we should keep selling low-priced books", Denver Post, 11/12/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Mafia-Style Health Insurance: An Offer You Can't Refuse", Washington Examiner, 11/16/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Environmentalist clowns threatening human life", Colorado Springs Gazette, 11/20/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "People vote for freedom with their feet and effort", Grand Junction Free Press, 11/23/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Have a Harry Potter Christmas", Grand Junction Free Press, 12/7/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "ObamaCare: Tightening the Noose Around Private Health Care", PajamasMedia, 12/15/2009.

Monica Hughes, "Animal fat, sugar and diabetes", Denver Post, 12/17/2009.

Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Ralph Carr shows politicians can stand for liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 12/21/2009.

LTEs: 48

Paul Hsieh, "'Concierge' model offers a free-market solution", Baltimore Sun, 1/2/2009.

Brian Schwartz, " Come together... right now: It's the law", Boulder Daily Camera, 1/3/2009.

Gina Liggett, "Science adviser pick is pure politics", Rocky Mountain News, 1/6/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Economic grief started with Hoover, not FDR", Denver Post, 1/7/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "New insurance law wastes taxpayer dollars", Denver Post, 1/7/2009.

Richard Watts, "Let's try capitalism for a change", Rocky Mountain News, 1/9/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Year-round Schooling", Boulder Daily Camera, 1/10/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Kefalas readies comprehensive health-care bill", Northern Colorado Business Report, 1/16/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Government paternalism saps desire to make own decisions", Colorado Springs Gazette, 1/22/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Medicare For All", Boulder Daily Camera, 2/7/2009.

Hannah Krening, "The Stimulus Plan", Denver Post, 2/11/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Single-payer health care has failed in every other country", Rocky Mountain News, 2/18/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Heads they win, tails we lose", Rocky Mountain News, 2/19/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "No food stamp soup for you!", Westworld, 2/19/2009.

Richard Watts, "Lincoln did not value unity above liberty", Rocky Mountain News, 2/25/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Free market alternatives to zoning", Boulder Daily Camera, 2/28/2009.

Ari Armstrong, "Legislator’s comments on promiscuous women", Denver Post, 3/4/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "HB 1256 would aid health coverage", Denver Business Journal, 3/6/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Ward Churchill", Boulder Daily Camera, 3/28/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Our Health, and the Health of Insurers", New York Times, 3/30/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Eliminating the charitable tax deduction", Denver Post, 3/30/2009.

David Weatherell, "Employee Free Choice Act", Denver Post, 4/1/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Prepare For More Expensive Medical Insurance", Boulder Daily Camera, 4/12/2009.

Doug Kreninng, "Denver's Tea Party", Denver Post, 4/18/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Drug legalization", Boulder Daily Camera, 4/19/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Taking guns won't hike safety", Colorado Springs Gazette, 4/24/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Don't Raise Taxes, Legalize Marijuana”, Boulder Daily Camera, 5/16/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Sotomayor for Supreme Court", Boulder Daily Camera, 5/30/2009.

Anders Ingemarson, "Is Canadian Health Care Better?", Denver Post, 6/14/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Reform: Coverage Is Not Care”, Boulder Daily Camera, 6/16/2009.

Hannah Krening, "Time to fight for your rights", Colorado Springs Gazette, 7/3/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "The Public plan will be the only plan", Boulder Daily Camera, 7/4/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Systems", Boulder Dail Camera, 7/18/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Democrats' health care 'reform' would reform nothing", Boulder Daily Camera, 7/25/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Cash For Clunkers", Boulder Daily Camera, 8/8/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Debate", Denver Business Journal, 8/10/2009.

Anders Ingemarson, "The Heart of the Health Care Debate", Denver Post, 8/19/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Health Care Statistics", Denver Post, 8/29/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Single payer: rationing both ideas and medicine", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/5/2009.

Doug Krening, "Health Care Debate Renewed", Denver Post, 9/13/2009.

Briain Schwartz, "Boulder land use restrictions undermine rights & personal responsibility", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/18/2009.

Diana Hsieh, "Government’s attempts to stifle speech", Denver Post, 10/20/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Health care reform and the public option", Denver Post, 10/30/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "The Incentives Aren't To Help You", Wall Street Journal, 11/2/2009.

Gina Liggett, "Governor’s proposal to tax candy and soda", Denver Post, 11/18/2009.

Brian Schwartz, "Why To Condemn Insurance Companies", Boulder Daily Camera, 12/5/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "The Climate Science Isn't Settled", Wall Street Journal, 12/7/2009.

Paul Hsieh, "Raising Federal Debt Ceiling", Denver Post, 12/20/2009.

Mankiw on Inflation and Interest Rates

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw discusses why an exploding monetary base doesn't necessarily translate into impending high inflation.

He notes that the frequently-circulated graph of money supply-vs.-time does look dramatic:



But he also emphasizes that the other critical factor that will determine whether significant inflation will occur is interest rate policy:

...But, you might ask, won't the inflationary logic eventually take hold as the economy recovers and banks start lending more freely? Not necessarily. Recall that the Fed now pays interest on reserves. As long as the interest rate on reserves is high enough, banks should be happy to hold onto those excess reserves. That should prevent a surge in the monetary base from being inflationary.

Of course, interest rates are driven by decisions made by the Federal Reserve.

Hence, Mankiw concludes:

...[T]he worry should stem not from the monetary base but from the political economy and difficult tradeoffs facing monetary policymakers.

But as Yaron Brook notes, there is no way that the Fed can set a "correct" interest rate. Any rate they choose must necessarily be arbitrary:



So whether we experience inflation (or even worse, hyperinflation) will depend on arbitrary decisions made by politicians and bureaucrats -- decisions that are necessarily detached from real-world market forces.

Maybe we'll get lucky and dodge the hyperinflation bullet. Or maybe we won't.

When rational markets aren't allowed to operate, that's all we can do -- trust to luck...

States’ Rights: Dumb Show and Noise

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

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out , out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. -- Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5

The Republican Party has reached deep into its armory of political arguments and come up with its best shot against federally-mandated health care “reform.” Citing the Tenth Amendment, they are beginning to claim that Congress is overstepping its Constitutional authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance, thus usurping states’ “rights” to do the same thing. The power is not enumerated; ergo, it is unconstitutional.

In the meantime, over two dozen states, also citing the Tenth Amendment, have drafted proposals, resolutions or amendments to their state constitutions that would nullify in situ any federal health care legislation that may pass, because the power of Congress to enact such legislation is not enumerated. This movement smacks of secessionism.

In the meantime, Congress has simply ignored the tea parties and the polls that have made it resoundingly clear that the majority of Americans oppose any form of mandatory government administered and regulated health care. Aside from some specious rationalizations of Congressional power to enact the health care legislation, the original enumerated powers have garnered nothing but the Democrats’ disparaging raspberries.

Congress, the White House, and the Democrats may regard all this as just paper tigers meowing from behind the iron bars of already existing federal power. Just as Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska was bribed into becoming the sixtieth vote for cloture on the Senate version of the health care bill (he was assured that federal funds would not be used to pay for abortions and that the bill -- or someone or some federal department -- would provide extra Medicaid matching funds and grants for Nebraska), Congress could just as well threaten to cut off federal funds to recalcitrant states, and nearly all states depend on federal “subsidy” money or allocations to maintain their economies. It could threaten to withdraw programs in which states are financially and/or politically ensnared, such as highway maintenance, or federal grants to universities, or a multitude of social programs. Or, the White House, in typical Chicago gangster style persuasion, can threaten to close military bases.

The White House, Senator Harry Reid and his allies in the Senate suggested to Nelson that Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base would be put on the Base Realignment and Closure list as “redundant” if Nelson did not help them reach the sixty votes needed.

But, what is the Tenth Amendment, the last of the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791? It reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Intimately linked to the Tenth Amendment is the “Necessary and Proper” clause of Article One (section 8, clause 18), which grants Congress the power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution….” But, the purpose of the Tenth, as well as the First through the Ninth Amendments, was to constrain Congress from making “all laws” that would violate the letter and spirit of the Amendments.

Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, together with Kenneth Blackwell of the Liberty University School of Law and Kenneth Klukowski of the American Civil Rights Union, listed a number of protuberant reasons in The Wall Street Journal (January 5) of why the Obama/Reid/Pelosi bill is unconstitutional. To wit:

Under the power to “regulate commerce” clause, commerce by citizens may be prohibited by Congress and states alike, but Congress is constrained from mandating that citizens engage in commerce -- in this instance, buying health insurance. Clearly, unconstitutional! Why, we never heard of Congress compelling citizens to purchase “green cars” or “clean” energy!

“The ‘general welfare’ [Article I, Section 8] clause identifies the purpose for which Congress may spend money. The individual mandate tells Americans how they must spend the money Congress has not taken from them and has nothing to do with congressional spending.” Clearly, unconstitutional! Debate on Congressional spending is out of bounds!

The purchase of Ben Nelson’s crucial sixtieth vote was made possible by demonstrably unfair and illegal chicanery. Clearly, unconstitutional! Chicanery never has besmirched the Senate before now!

The health care bill requires individual states to establish “such things as benefit exchanges, which will require state legislation and regulations,” not funded, however, by the federal government. If the states do not comply, the “Secretary of Health and Human Services will step in and do it for them. It renders states little more than subdivisions of the federal government.” Clearly, unconstitutional!

And where in this opinion piece are individual rights mentioned? Nowhere. Where is the moral argument against the government’s initiation of force -- by state governments or by Washington? Nowhere. What is the crux of Hatch’s argument?

The federal government may exercise only the powers granted to it or denied to the states. The states may do everything else. This is why, for example, states may have authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance but the federal government does not. It is also the reason states may require that individuals purchase car insurance before choosing to drive a car, but the federal government may not require all individuals to purchase health insurance.

And who is to protect us from our protectors? Who is to object to the states invoking their “states’ rights” and imposing the same powers and regulations as Hatch objects to Congress assuming?

On these points, Hatch is mute. He says nothing in what is a paramount moral issue. His argument, and others similar to his, are clearly irrelevant. The Constitution already contains amendments that obliterate the Bill of Rights and any statement of enumerated powers. He is a poor player, strutting and fretting, sounding furious, but signifying nothing.

In a September 16, 2009 press release about Utah governor Gary Herbert‘s participation in a governors‘ conference on health care reform, Hatch reveals his true colors. He protests the health care legislation then being concocted by the House, claiming that “individual states…have a greater understanding of the specific needs of our citizens,” and that it was “unfair” for strong states to be forced to subsidize the costs of weaker states.

Although Democrats and the administration are still trying to force a path of more government, more spending and more taxes, it is not too late start over and come up with a truly bipartisan and fiscally responsible solution that we can all be proud of. Taking a state-based approach is a great place to start.

Clearly, the Hatch arguments against the health care legislation are irrelevant. Utah already has a semi-fascist “health exchange.” One can only wonder if the irrelevancy is rooted in power-envy or is simply resentment of the prospect of the federal government stealing Utah’s thunder.

Compare the picayune constitutional arguments proffered by opponents of the health care and event the cap-and-trade legislation with this brief description of how the Tenth Amendment came into being:

After ratification of the Constitution, the anti-Federalists continued to voice their concerns over the powers of the federal government. In the course of the states’ ratification debates over the Constitution, states had recommended over two hundred amendments, which fell into two categories: 1) amendments aimed at limiting the powers of the federal government, and 2) amendments that protected individual rights. After ratification of the Constitution, it was feared that the anti-Federalists might garner enough support to call for a second constitutional convention, so James Madison, then Virginia’s representative in Congress, undertook the drafting of a bill of rights.

The Tenth Amendment Center contains a treasure trove of information on the history, significance, and role of the Tenth Amendment in American politics. James Madison, when the Constitution was being debated and was up for ratification by the states, answered the Anti-Federalist demands for provisions in the Constitution that would limit Congressional powers, by proposing some forty-two amendments, which were whittled down to twenty-seven, the first ten of which became the Bill of Rights. (The Twenty-seventh Amendment, which prohibited Congress from giving its representatives pay raises or cuts before the beginning of a new term, was ratified as recently as 1992.) He intended the Tenth Amendment to be broad and clear enough to constrain Congress from violating the first nine. But, a succession of Supreme Court decisions in the 19th and 20th centuries that sanctioned government expansion of powers so dulled the knife of the Tenth that it became extraneous verbiage -- much as the Constitution has become to a venal and avaricious Congress.

Couple that with the diminished character, intellectual moribundity, and congenital dishonesty of the majority of Congress’s members, past and present, and it is easy to grasp why America is in the state it is in.

There are signs that many states will revolt against any health care legislation passed by Congress. These movements are a direct consequence of the Tea Parties of 2009. One obvious question is why the advocates of this species of opposition believe that state governments are imbued with the wisdom and competency Congress clearly lacks. But these same states will need to swallow their guilt because, before now, they never stringently opposed or prohibited Congress from assuming undelegated, unenumerated, or unconstitutional powers, and were only too glad to plead for federal assistance. It may be too late to start now.

The issue, nevertheless, is one of force or compulsion, regardless of the level of government. This is the fundamental issue on which any constitutional argument should be based. The Constitution was drawn up to guarantee individual rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. All else is merely dumb show and noise.

New California Laws for 2010

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

As many people have observed, California is often a bellwether for trends that will hit the rest of America.

Or as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat puts it, "The argument about what went wrong with California is really an argument about the future of America".

Those of us in Colorado have also noted that many Californians like to move here to escape the high taxes and high regulations that made their lives miserable. Yet once here, many of those refugees then vote to impose the same policies in CO that caused them to leave CA in the first place!

Hence, I thought NoodleFood members might be interested in the new laws that will take effect in California in 2010. All of these laws were passed by a Democratic state legislature and presumably met with approval by Republican governor Schwarzenegger.

Here is the summary from the January 1, 2010 Los Angeles Times story, "California ushers in new laws limiting trans fats, the paparazzi and more":

Air safety: Allows airports to kill birds that pose a danger to aircraft without violating state fish and game laws.

Blueberries: Creates a California Blueberry Commission, to be funded by an industry fee of up to $0.025 per pound of berries sold.

Burial fees: Allows state-owned cemeteries to waive the fees for interment of the spouses and children of honorably discharged veterans if they determine the families cannot pay the costs.

Charter schools: Allows such schools access to about $900 million in voter-approved bond money for construction. A separate law gives districts more incentive to approve them by cutting red tape.

College violence: Allows universities to obtain restraining orders on behalf of students against a person who has threatened them with violence.

Cow tails: Bans the dairy-industry practice of shortening cows' tails unless necessary to protect the health of the animals. Some argue that tail-docking is inhumane.

Delta restoration: Creates a new Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy to oversee restoration of the failing delta ecosystem. Sets goals of "providing a more reliable water supply for California and protecting, restoring, and enhancing the delta ecosystem." Part of the larger water package.

Dog fights: Raises the maximum penalties against those convicted of being spectators at dogfights, subjecting them to as much as a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Drunk driving: Creates a test program in four counties, including Los Angeles County, in which judges can require that first-time drunk-driving offenders install a breath-testing device on every vehicle they own and pass a test on it before the vehicle will start.

Education: Allows school and student performance data to be used to judge the quality of instruction. The change will allow California to compete for federal Race to the Top education grants.

Fat in food: Requires restaurants to use oils, margarine and shortening with less than half a gram of trans fat per serving of regular foods. The standard will apply to deep-fried bakery goods next year. Trans fat has been linked to heart disease.

Football stadium: Exempts a professional football stadium proposed in the City of Industry from state environmental laws, so it can proceed despite a lawsuit filed by opponents.

Fire prevention: Requires government officials to improve guidelines for protecting property from wildfires, including larger brush-clearance zones and better access roads in regions vulnerable to such fires.

Fire safety: In response to evacuation problems during a 2008 wildfire that destroyed dozens of mobile homes in the San Fernando Valley, a new law requires owners of mobile home parks to adopt and post notice of an emergency preparedness plan.

Gangs: Allows tougher penalties, including a fine of up to $1,000 and up to a year in jail, for gang members who return to school campuses within 72 hours of being asked to leave.

Gasoline: Increases the underground storage fee paid by gas retailers to help fund grants and loans to those who need to meet tank cleanup rules and install devices that capture more vapor from gas nozzles.

Gay marriage: Recognizes same-sex marriages performed in other states before California voters banned gay marriage in 2008 by approving Proposition 8.

Hanging nooses: Makes it a misdemeanor to hang a noose, "knowing it to be a symbol representing a threat to life," in order to terrorize a person who lives, works or attends school at the property where the noose is hung. The law is in response to a series of incidents at California colleges.

Harvey Milk: Proclaims gay-rights activist Harvey Milk's May 22 birthday as a day of recognition and encourages schools to consider commemorating his life.

High-speed rail: Requires the state's High-Speed Rail Authority to prepare, publish and adopt a business plan by Jan. 1, 2012, and every two years thereafter, so the public knows how its money is being spent.

Hospital fee: Imposes a new fee on hospitals to make them eligible for $2 billion in federal funds. The funds are subsidies for Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program for the poor.

Human trafficking: Quadruples the fine, to $20,000, for those convicted of human-trafficking crimes and allows law enforcement officers to seize traffickers' assets.

Inhalants: Makes it a misdemeanor for a person to sell or furnish products containing nitrous oxide to a minor.

Jail guards: Allows jail guards and custodial assistants to have the blood of people taken into custody tested for specified communicable diseases when exposed to the suspect's bodily fluids.

Liquor ads: Waives rules prohibiting indoor alcohol advertisements in one club that sells the featured products: Club Nokia, a downtown Los Angeles venue owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz.

Mammogram safety: Requires facilities that operate mammogram machines to post any notices of "serious violations" they may receive in an area visible to patients. Serious violations are those posing a significant threat to public health.

Mortgage crimes: Creates a new offense, "mortgage fraud," punishable by up to a year in prison. Such crimes are defined as those in which someone makes "any misstatement, misrepresentation or omission during the mortgage lending process with the intention that it be relied on by a mortgage lender, borrower, or any other party to the mortgage lending process."

Office bets: Changes the penalty for participation in a non-commercial or office "sports betting pool" from a misdemeanor, punishable by fines up to $1,000, to an infraction, punishable by a fine not to exceed $250.

Paparazzi penalties: Allows celebrities and others to sue for up to $50,000 when someone takes and sells their pictures without permission while they are engaging in "personal or familial activity," such as taking their children to school.

Plastic surgery: Enacts the Donda West law, named after the deceased mother of rapper Kanye West, that prohibits elective cosmetic surgery unless the patient is first cleared by a physical examination.

Political spouses: Prohibits political candidates from paying their spouses or domestic partners to work on their campaigns to enrich their own households.

Prostitution arrests: Allows local government agencies to impound vehicles used in the commission of prostitution-related crimes.

Rental cars: Allows car-rental companies to recover from customers an increase made last year in the vehicle license fee from 0.65% to 1.15%.

School books: Expands the use of digital textbooks in public schools by allowing districts to use textbook money to buy electronic viewing devices.

School buses: Extends to school buses the $300 penalty already applicable to commercial vehicles that idle too long. Existing clean-air regulations prohibit school buses from idling for more than five minutes within 100 feet of a school, but the fine has been $100.

School safety: Makes it a misdemeanor to possess a razor blade or box cutter on school grounds.

Talent agents: Prohibits talent representatives from charging advance fees.

Teen voting: Permits a California resident who is 17 to pre-register to vote.

Snake food: Requires pet stores to use specific, "humane" methods for killing rodents before they are used as food for another animal.

Toll roads: Allows toll road operators to use license-plate-reading technology to bill motorists who use their roads.

Used car sales: Bars car dealers from selling a used vehicle until action is taken to cover any previous loan or lease obligations held by a previous owner. Also boosts by $25 fees for dealers' state business licenses.

Vietnam veterans: Establishes an annual Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day on March 30.

Water management: To better manage California's water supplies, creates a statewide monitoring program to track groundwater levels.

Water softeners: Allows local governments to ban residential water softeners if regulators find that salts discharged into municipal sewer lines pose a pollution problem.

(Via Radley Balko.)

River Boat Epistemology

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

Last week, my in-laws treated my wife and me to a welcome break from the New England winter in the form of a Caribbean cruise. One of the highlights for me occurred one afternoon when I participated in a Texas Hold'em poker tournament I leaned about from my wife's mother, who remembered that I used to play poker regularly during grad school around the time Mrs. Van Horn and I started dating.

Back then, my group didn't play Texas Hold'em that much, and I have since indulged my interest in the game only intermittently, watching games here and there on television and occasionally joining co-workers in informal Texas Hold'em tournaments with very small buy-ins.

Playing for a few hundred dollars and facing complete strangers were both new to me, and the buy-in was just enough so soon after starting to work again that I did have to think it over a little bit. But I wanted to know what it would be like and how I would do enough that I finally decided at the last minute to play.

Although I did not win -- only the top two players won money -- I did far better than I expected to, finishing third after eliminating four of the other ten players directly (two of them in one hand) and leading my closest opponent at one point by a factor of three. Bragging aside (not to mention probably also admitting that I don't know what to do with a huge lead), what really fascinated me were a few thoughts I had about the process of learning as a result of that game.

Poker is simple in some respects and complex in others. It is fairly straightforward to estimate the potential strength of one's hand at any given point and, at least in Texas Hold'em, to come up with reasonable estimations of what an opponent might possess.

Betting patterns can help one refine one's estimate of what an opponent might have, but the ability of an opponent to bluff has to be accounted for. (e.g., There are whole books about "tells" -- minor expressions or actions that can indicate deception -- that have been written with the object of determining whether an opponent might be bluffing.) So the rules of the game are simple, but its strategy is actually quite complex. What interests me here is the fact that both explicit knowledge and intuition are both involved at all levels of the game.

As I just indicated, there are different mixtures of explicit knowledge and gut feel for different aspects of the game and I suspect that this might vary over certain ranges by individual. For example, I am almost certain that it is possible to calculate the mathematical odds for any given hand to win. (I'd normally check on something like this and provide a link, but I'm writing this on a plane and probably won't be home until after midnight... [Actually, it ended up being 2:30 am. I woke up at six, for work beckons. Oh, and I'm less sure that this can be done, but the question is still interesting to consider. --ed]) I don't know how to perform such calculations, but I did notice myself feeling generally better or worse about my pocket cards after the deal as I played different hands even before thinking something like, "Hmmm. An ace and a seven in diamonds. Good high card and a fair chance for a flush." Clearly my subconscious was working from previous experience on some level.

Thinking about what I did right and wrong after the game, I wondered whether I might want to learn how to calculate the odds of my hand winning. Strange as it might seem, decided against doing so -- for now. At the time, I was not able to state explicitly why this seemed like a bad idea to me, but on reconsidering this point, I now think I understand what I was grappling with: The details of such calculations (and maybe the results) would distract me from learning other aspects of the game, among them figuring out how strategies generally evolve over the course of a game and how they can vary among individuals.

Among the reasons I might have run into trouble later in the game was that I realized too late that the risk of staying in a hand changes in multiple ways as the game goes on. For one thing, due to increasing initial bets it's more expensive to see the up-cards and this fact in turn seemed to make players more reluctant to stay in with the weaker hands they might have chanced earlier in the game.

On top of that, bluffing can really pay off at such a point: One of the two players left after me took advantage of this fact to bluff me successfully, one of the three most important plays in the game as far as I was concerned. (This is not to say that I got bluffed easily. I did call a bluff by the other top player early in the game after considering a fold. I decided to stay in when I realized that his bet made no sense. I remember feeling quite comfortable with that decision, although not completely sure about why. This first-hand experience of using intuition was part of what I was after when I decided to play.)

So I would say that eventually, I could improve my game by learning how to calculate odds, but that at this point, I still need to learn too many other things about the parameter space of the game before going into that much detail. Something I observed suggests that I am right: The people who talked before the tournament about their gaming on-line dropped like flies early on. I strongly suspect that this was due to their concentrating too much on the mathematical aspects of the game and too little on learning how to read their opponents: You don't see your opponents in on-line poker and so cannot observe everything they do. (Incidentally, I considered and rejected the idea of playing on-line poker for that reason alone: On-line gaming in general and on-line poker in particular do not appeal to me. That said, people who are weak at estimating how good their hands are might do well to practice on-line.)

I wouldn't call myself a serious student of poker, but if I were to study anything at this point, it would be tells. But still, it's really too early to do that in much detail, either. At this point, I'm a rank beginner and not too sure that the cards weren't a little bit kinder than average to me. What I would really need to see are more examples of play before I can gain an overall grasp of what a game of poker typically entails and where I am strongest and weakest. (The best advice for someone like me would be of a general nature that touches on all the important points of the game without dwelling on any one of them.)

In parallel with gaining experience, I could conceptualize the knowledge by making it more explicit or studying certain issues in more detail as I feel ready for them or in need of them. (This is an example of the spiral theory of learning. To get lost from the outset in details about one issue or another as the on-line players may have would be an example of what I have heard called "over-thinking," although I regard that colloquialism as misleading. Such an approach strikes me as rationalistic, but there could be any number of other reasons someone might make such an error.)

Poker appears to be a good model for certain aspects of how we learn generally. In a certain respect, I am almost glad I didn't win that tournament. I might not have learned as much as I did about how to approach poker in particular and knowledge in general.

-- CAV

OList E-Mail Lists

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

As a reminder, my ever-growing OList.com empire includes the following e-mail lists:

• OActivists: OActivists is an informal e-mail list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural and political change. Its purpose is to facilitate and encourage effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas in non-Objectivist forums by facilitating communication with other Objectivist activists. Posts to the list alert subscribers to opportunities to speak out, recommend sources of information, discuss effective arguments and principled strategies, reproduce op-eds and letters written by subscribers, announce events, and more.
  
  
• OBloggers: OBloggers is an informal mailing list for Objectivist bloggers. Its basic purpose is to facilitate communication about matters of mutual interest, such as upcoming events, posts of interest, best blogging practices, and the like.
  
  
• OAcademics: OAcademics is a forum for Objectivist academics to discuss teaching, research, coursework, dissertations, job prospects, publication, and all other aspects of life in (or after) academia. The list is basically a means of sharing knowledge and experience as ever more Objectivists enter academia.
  
  
• OGrownups: OGrownups is an informal mailing list for Objectivists interested in raising and educating children well. Its basic purpose is to facilitate discussion about child development, discipline techniques, education methods, parenting resources, and more.
  
  
• OEvolve: OEvolve is an informal private mailing list for Objectivists and others interested in the proper application of evolutionary principles to diet, fitness, and health. Its basic purpose is to facilitate discussion and information-sharing amongst Objectivists about the science of cooking, nutrition, exercise, supplements, health, and more.

If you're interested, please be sure check out the list's membership requirements.

Dave Barry on 2009

By Diana Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

As 2009 comes to a close, you must read one thing, namely Dave Barry's lengthy review of the year. It's insanely hysterical -- and depressing. Here's the opening:

It was a year of Hope -- at first in the sense of "I feel hopeful!" and later in the sense of "I hope this year ends soon!"

It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting "business as usual," finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it.

To be sure, it was a year that saw plenty of bad news. But in almost every instance, there was offsetting good news:

BAD NEWS: The economy remained critically weak, with rising unemployment, a severely depressed real-estate market, the near-collapse of the domestic automobile industry and the steep decline of the dollar.

GOOD NEWS: Windows 7 sucked less than Vista.

BAD NEWS: The downward spiral of the newspaper industry continued, resulting in the firings of thousands of experienced reporters and an apparently permanent deterioration in the quality of American journalism.

GOOD NEWS: A lot more people were tweeting.

BAD NEWS: Ominous problems loomed abroad as -- among other difficulties -- the Afghanistan war went sour, and Iran threatened to plunge the Middle East and beyond into nuclear war.

GOOD NEWS: They finally got Roman Polanski.

The column then launches into a month-by-month survey of major events. It's fabulous. And it's awful. Go read the whole thing.

Republics vs. Democracies

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

As the last post for 2009, I reprise a perennial aggravation.

Reading a volume of Albert J. Nock’s essays, The Disadvantages of Being Educated, I came upon a footnote in one article, “A Study in Manners” (1925), in which Nock echoed my own impatient frustration with the promiscuous -- indeed, slatternly -- usage of the term democracy.

I wish to complain against the common and culpable use of the term democracy as a synonym for republicanism. Time and again one hears persons who should know better, talk about democracy in this country, for example, as if something like it really existed here. They discuss “democracy on trial,” “democracy’s weakness,” and so on, when it is perfectly clear that they refer only to the political system known properly as republicanism. The fact is that republicanism, which is a system theoretically based on the right of individual self-expression in politics, has as yet done but little for democracy, and that democracy is less developed in some republican countries, as France and the United States, than in some others, like Denmark, whose political system is nominally non-republican.*

Later, in a 1926 essay, Nock makes the piquant observation:

Those who speak of the United States as a democracy…are misusing language most ludicrously, for it is no such thing, never was, and was never intended to be. The Fathers of the Republic were well aware of the difference between a republic and a democracy, and it is no credit to the intelligence of their descendents that the two are now almost invariably confused.**

In that same volume, Nock expanded on the fundamental differences between democracy and republicanism in “Life, Liberty, and…” (1935), and offered an explanation for why Thomas Jefferson purportedly omitted a key term, property, from the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. It was, Nock avers, because Jefferson and the drafting committee assumed that “pursuit of happiness” included the omitted term:

“The pursuit of happiness” is of course an inclusive term. It covers property rights, because obviously if a person’s property is molested, his pursuit of happiness is interfered with. But there are many interferences which are not aimed at specific property rights; and in so wording the Declaration as to cover all these interferences, Mr. Jefferson immensely broadened the scope of political theory -- he broadened the idea of what government is for.***

Most of the Founders agreed on that point, that “pursuit of happiness” necessarily included the right to property. Such private property, Joseph Warren noted in 1775, is natural and necessary to an individual‘s freedom:

That personal freedom is the natural right of every man, and that property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has honestly acquired by his own labor, necessarily arises therefrom, are truths which common sense has placed beyond the reach of contradiction.

(Omission of the term property from the phrase, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” can be linked to the omission of an entire paragraph from Jefferson’s original draft, which castigates George III for condoning and encouraging the slave trade. The paragraph, and possibly even the term property from the phrase, were dropped from the final version to oblige the sensibilities of the southern delegates to the Continental Congress, many of whom were slave owners and who regarded slaves as real property. Northern delegates could not countenance the inclusion of slaves as property. Jefferson, though a slave owner, was an advocate of the abolition of slavery. But, this is entirely another issue.)

It is apparent that Jefferson’s phrasing is not broad enough for modern politicians and political commentators to admit. Or perhaps it is so broad it is beyond their cognitive abilities to grasp, just as the perception of a mountain is impossible to the epistemology of an ant. It is unfortunate that the term was omitted, because its retention might have saved the nation much grief, turmoil and bloodshed. The force and sanctity of its presence in the Declaration might have carried over into the Constitution itself, and served as a check on the ambitions and usurpations of several generations of elected altruists, humanitarians, and other property thieves.

But, recall all the cretinous explanations by Senators and Congressmen of the power of Congress to establish socialized medicine. I have often remarked in this column that a republic, as the Founders intended it, denotes a form of government created to defend, uphold and advance individual rights. It is a system of the rule of law, of law enacted to protect individual rights. It is what the Constitution, as originally written and sans its statist (or interfering) amendments, is all about.

But the term republic is as foreign to our representatives as the term wendigo. In fact, Congress can be said to be currently populated by wendigos, and the White House occupied by an exalted vampire. They all creep stealthily and carefully by night, garbed in the protective hood and cloak of democracy, intent on drawing blood and feasting on the substance of their victims. Should the light of reason catch them off guard, they have nothing to say that means anything or that is meant to mean anything.

Democracy, whether pure or directly participatory (as in ancient Greece or New England), or via national plebiscite, is simply mob rule. Politely defined: majority rule. We have what could be said to be a representative government, but what is the chief function of our representatives, as opposed to their perceived function? Their actual, intended function was to serve as guardians of individual rights. Their perceived function, at least for the last century or so, is to patronize the real or imagined wants of the majority and to deliver them through coercive and confiscatory legislation.

With an Augean assist from public education, modern politicians and their allies in academia and the press have, over the course of a few generations, put over the fallacy that the term republic is synonymous with democracy, and so republic, to the ignorant and the ignorance-mongers, means majority rule, too. However, they prefer to emphasize the term democracy, because the other term has too many unsettling connotations, and the last thing our night-stalkers wish to do is cause uneasiness and curiosity among the ruled and the beguiled.

As Congress has ably demonstrated over the last two months, it is not representative in the first sense. It is dedicated to delivering imagined wants or “needs” to an electorate it claims demands them but has, at the same time, ignored that electorate. Democracy, Congress has demonstrated, begets tyranny.

John Adams, as have many others, warned against the temptation of democracy:

[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few.****

This is an apt description of the current state of affairs. Americans are beginning to wake up to the fact that they have been the object of the capricious will of a president and Congress, and are expected to pay without protest, as a matter of duty, for the cruelties, frauds, vanities, and wanton pleasures of a powerful few. Political anarchy has been inaugurated, with politicians and their beneficiaries, heedless of or indifferent to the rumblings among the electorate, are scrambling to loot or defraud Americans of the last of their rights and wealth. Numerous fine essays have been written by contemporaries such as Walter Williams on the differences between republicanism and democracy, and what those differences can mean to productive Americans.

Perhaps, in 2010, we shall see the concrete differences described by Williams, Adams, Jefferson and so many others. The Tea Parties of 2009, hopefully, were but a prelude to a determined campaign to recover the republic created by the Founders.


*Albert J. Nock, “A Study in Manners,” in The Disadvantages of Being Educated and Other Essays (Tampa: Hallberg Publishing Corp., 1996), p. 50.

**Ibid.,” Towards a New Quality-Product,” pp. 67-68.

***Ibid., “Life, Liberty, and…” p. 29

****John Adams, The Papers of John Adams, Robert J. Taylor, editor (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1977), Vol. I, p. 83, from "An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, with the Author's Comment in 1807," written on August 29, 1763. First published by John Adams in 1807.

Jason's Best of 2009

By noreply@blogger.com (Jason) from Erosophia,cross-posted by MetaBlog

by Jason