First, OList.com is the home of three specialized e-mail lists for Objectivists. All aim to help promote Objectivist ideas in the culture at large:
OActivists: OActivists is an informal e-mail list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural and political change. Its purpose is to facilitate and encourage effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas in non-Objectivist forums by facilitating communication with other Objectivist activists. Posts to the list alert subscribers to opportunities to speak out, recommend sources of information, discuss effective arguments and principled strategies, reproduce op-eds and letters written by subscribers, announce events, and more. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
OBloggers: OBloggers is an informal mailing list for Objectivist bloggers. Its basic purpose is to facilitate communication about matters of mutual interest, such as upcoming events, posts of interest, best blogging practices, and the like. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
OAcademics: OAcademics is a forum for Objectivist academics to discuss teaching, research, coursework, dissertations, job prospects, publication, and all other aspects of life in (or after) academia. The list is basically a means of sharing knowledge and experience as ever more Objectivists enter academia. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
Please feel free to join if you're interested, provided that you meet the criteria for membership.
Second, I heartily support the following activism-oriented e-mail lists. They do not require agreement with Objectivism, but they do require support for the mission statement of the organization.
CSG Activists: An unmoderated, low-volume mailing list for activists for government solely based on secular principles of individual rights with the Coalition for Secular Government (CSG).
FA/RM Activists: An unmoderated, low-volume mailing list for activists for agricultural and health policies based solely on the principles of individual rights with Free Agriculture - Restore Markets (FA/RM).
Colorado Free Marketeers: Ari Armstrong's new list for free-market activism in Colorado. He describes the list as follows: "Colorado Free Marketeers is a moderated list for activists looking for information and inspiration. Membership is open to any person committed to the principles of free markets and willing to engage in activism involving public speaking or writing at least every three months. While the list focuses on Colorado activism, those outside Colorado may join the list to track activism in the state and pick up ideas for activism where they live."
Brian Jennings is the author of a new book on the Fairness Doctrine, Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio, and he came through Boise on his promotional tour a couple days ago. The biggest talk-radio station in the area had a live-broadcast event featuring him and local talk show host Nate Shelman (who was the anchor speaker for Boise's Tax Day Tea Party). It was all about free speech, censorship, and the Fairness Doctrine.
The book's author is a Conservative, distressed at the Left's use of the Fairness Doctrine to disrupt or destroy Conservative talk radio, and most everyone in the audience seemed to identify as a Conservative as well. After listening for a while, I decided to actually go there in person to see if I could get some mic time and maybe inject a little principled thought into the conversation. I figured a couple minutes on air had to be at least as effective as a letter to the editor. :^)
Why did I go there? Well, people recognize there's something seriously wrong with the Fairness Doctrine, and they can (and did) talk about how it is a blunt political weapon involving arbitrary powers and undefined terms, constitutes censorship, is a violation of free speech, and so on. But what I wasn't hearing was any principled stand for the absolute right to free speech and the consistent rejection of censorship. Without this, their argument is basically reduced to a flowery appeal to partisan interests. Demanding that people follow a principle only works if you're doing so yourself! More important, they should uphold the crucial ideas that make human life possible in society, and which brought about the best country in the world.
So there I was, sitting among a couple hundred conservative folks, trying to figure out how I could point out hypocrisy and inspire a genuine stand for liberty without being booed out of the room.
I waited, surveying the discussion... Eventually, a lady who was known and liked by the host and audience took the mic and talked about how the Left says the Right is "just as bad" and should therefore feel guilty, which she and the audience of course rejected out of hand. Sweet! Now all I had to do was try to springboard from her comments, contradict her in a way that wouldn't make me seem like a jerk, articulate my point while the host did his thing, and keep my own off-the-cuff mental chaos from making me look like a fool or a crank. :^)
I think it was worth the effort. While I wasn't nearly as smooth and clear as I would have liked, I managed to get the essential points across, and in a way that worked for an audience that could have easily been alienated. Either way, it was good training for the next opportunity! And nice fodder for a letter to the editor I'm about to go write.
President Obama and Congress have now shifted their attention towards health care reform. This subject is critically important to anyone who might need medical care someday — namely, all Americans. Unfortunately, too many pundits and politicians erroneously equate "health care reform" with government-run "universal health care." Before we rush headlong into any such program, here are three basic facts that Americans should know about universal health care...
The three basic facts I discuss include:
1) Government-run "universal health care" leads to rationing 2) Health care is not a "right" 3) Free-market health care reform can and does work
PDF version of "Health Care is Not a Right" By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
In anticipation of the nationwide April 15 Tea Parties, FIRM (Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine) offered free copies of Dr. Leonard Peikoff's "Health Care is Not a Right" brochures to Objectivists to distribute at their local Tea Parties. Based on feedback from around the country, these were popular items.
I've since received multiple requests for more brochures, but unfortunately I've given them all away.
However, Tod (the original designer of the brochure) has created a nicely-formatted PDF version of Dr. Peikoff's essay. Now anyone can download and print out copies to give out at future Tea Parties, community events, etc.
The link to this version, as well as to other OpEds and essays can be found at the main FIRM webpage.
Yaron Brook on Pajamas TV By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Yaron Brook has appeared several times on the Pajamas TV internet news and commentary website. I've enjoyed all of his videos, and I'm glad to see him getting such a wide exposure in the "New Media" world.
The interviewer Allan Barton asks good questions, and he has given Yaron Brook excellent opportunities to discuss fundamental ideas. So if you haven't watched these videos yet, go check them out!
Overall, PajamasMedia has been a good outlet for Objectivists. In the past three months, they've also published the following OpEds by Amit Ghate and myself:
At its heart, the economic and political crisis is a deeper problem--a moral problem. The cause of the crisis today is the worship of need, and the view of man as too stupid to act for his own sake, and worthy of being milked of all his values, to provide for others. This is what we must reject.
Do you think that this is a conspiracy to seize your wealth? It is far worse than that. As Ayn Rand wrote, "It is not your wealth that they're after. Theirs is a conspiracy against the mind, which means: against life and man."
This is an attempt to seize your life, to destroy your sense of self as an independent human being, and to replace it with a being with no self-esteem and no capacity for individual action--a being doomed to beg for sustenance from an all-powerful ruling elite.
Much to my delight, John Lewis will be speaking at a FROST brunch on May 9th. If you're in the area, please join us. Here's the announcement:
Brunch Talk with Dr. John Lewis on "The Greek Lessons for Today's Crisis of Government"
Date: Saturday, May 9, 2009
Time: 9:00 am social time; 9:30 am breakfast buffet; 10:30 am to 12:30 pm talk
About "The Greek Lessons for Today's Crisis of Government"
The crisis of government we face today--out of control spending, non-objective law, and a ruinous foreign policy--is caused by a corruption of the ideas needed to protect individual rights under law. In the fifth century BC the people of Athens faced a similar crisis: a devastating military defeat, financial ruin, and tyranny. The nature of this crisis and how they rose to overcome it is the subject of this talk. The solution involved a renewed commitment to follow their laws and the conceptual and institutional reforms needed to constrain their democracy from acting on whim. This talk will be taken from a forthcoming article, "Constitution and Fundamental Law: The Lesson of Classical Athens," to appear next fall in the journal Social Philosophy and Policy.
About Dr. John Lewis
John David Lewis received his PhD in Classics from the University of Cambridge. He is visiting associate professor of political science at Duke University. He has been a senior research scholar in history and classics at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, and an Anthem Fellow for Objectivist Scholarship. A writer for The Objective Standard, his books are Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens, and Early Greek Lawgivers.
For the full details, including the cost and RSVP information, please see the announcement.
Tea Party Report By Diana Hsieh @ 10:21 PM
Without further ado... here's the various reports on Objectivist activism at Tax Day Tea Party Protests that I've found:
I attended the rally in Colorado Springs. I'm not good at estimates, but there were at least 1,000 people. I carried a hand-lettered sign on a stick that said "Atlas will Shrug" on one side and "I (heart) Capitalism...on principle" on the other. Both sides had "www.aynrand.org" at the bottom in red marker (Thanks Ari for that suggestion!). I carried 30 flyers: [Ayn Rand Center's] flyer on one side and Diana's [Front Range Objectivism] flyer on the other (I would have liked to include more, but I figured simpler was better). I only offered flyers to those I spoke to, and I spoke to anyone who made eye contact and who looked interested. Several people came up from behind to ask for a flyer (I kept them visible in my hand). I circulated around as much as I could, which helped; I think most people read my sign.
I came home with 2 flyers left over, and had my picture taken multiple times (no news outlets that I know of took my picture, though two local TV stations were there). I spoke to several people who seemed seriously interested, one of whom commented that she was glad to have the flyer as she is "looking for like-minded people." There were at least 5 signs with reference to Atlas Shrugged (I saw Linda Rogers there; she had a nice one), and I tried to speak to those people (and did to all but one). My hands were full and so I did not get pictures. I had no hostile interactions. I had to leave before 1 PM, as I needed to get back to work (to earn money to pay taxes...).
Thanks for the flyer, Diana! It came in handy, as I mentioned the local group to everyone I spoke to. I would have loved to have heard or even given the kind of speech I printed off the [Ayn Rand Center] website, but there was no way to even approach the speaker's platform. There was the usual Colorado Springs religious contingent (evidenced by response to some talking points from the podium), which is one reason I wanted to go there. But the vast majority of the signs had no religious reference at all. One referred to immigration, but most were anti-Tax, anti-Obama, anti-Big government, etc. Lots of flags (American and Don't Tread on Me).
Whew! It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It was a good chance to try some verbal communication, and I gained some confidence. I will try to attend future tea parties.
On April 15 I had the pleasure of addressing a tea party at Charlotte, North Carolina. Attendance was probably 3,000 people, and they were well equipped with signs, placards and tee shirts bearing messages of outrage against the present state of government. Every individual came not by some orchestrated plan, but by a desire to support liberty.
The event was non-partisan. There were lots of anti-Obama signs, but not a one pro-Bush that I saw. Nor did I hear any religious right propaganda; the only mention of abortion was the assertion that a doctor who does not want to do an abortion should not be forced to do it. The overriding message was outrage against the growth of government power.
My own talk focused on the moral aspects of the crisis. I contrasted the elevated view of man and his rights that is enshrined in the American founding documents, versus the cancerous view of man and the phony rights that dominate today. I noted that those who think that such events must be financed by billionaires have no conception of autonomous individuals with independent minds, and thus cannot understand people who come together out of love for liberty.
The video of my talk is here:
[And here's the interview:]
My mention of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" brought cheers. Afterward, at least two dozen people told me that Atlas was their favorite book. The crowd was hungry for ideas; I passed out hundreds of pieces of literature, and talked to dozens of people about the nature of this crisis.
These tea parties are expressions of an emotion, outrage, that is directed against a rising tide of taxation and increasing government coercion. But emotions are not guides to life, and will not tell a person either how to oppose a motivated socialist movement, or how to formulate a rational alternative. Unless some intellectual focus is brought to these events, they are likely to fade into irrelevance.
Thanks go to Andy Clarkson for the video, to Matthew Ridenhour for organizing the event, and to Lin Zinser and Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.
Dr. John David Lewis Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science, Duke University Author, Solon the Thinker and Early Greek Lawgivers www.classicalideals.com esse quam videri
Request: Tea Party Report By Diana Hsieh @ 1:02 PM
I'm going to put together a quick report collecting various pictures and commentary from Objectivists about their local tax day tea parties. So please post the relevant links in the comments of this post by tomorrow at 4 pm MDT, so that I can compose and post the report tomorrow evening. Oh, and be sure to note the city.
Feel free to post links to random pictures of signs mentioning Atlas, Ayn Rand, etc as well. Nothing beats this gem though!
Denver Tea Party By Diana Hsieh @ 12:26 PM
Yesterday, I was able to stop by the Denver Tea Party for about 45 minutes on my way to Boulder. I was surprised and pleased by the large turnout. A Denver Post article estimates a crowd of "more than 5,000 people" in attendance. Ari Armstrong has more details, including a slew of great pictures. From what I saw, he's right to call the event "a limited success," I think.
I was frazzled and overwhelmed, so I didn't spend much time passing out the fliers I brought with me. (Next time, I'd like to make that my primary purpose.) Instead, new doggie Conrad and I walked about, being petted by and chatting with people on occasion. (I'll leave you to figure out who was petted and who was chatting!) Although one of many dogs at the event, Conrad attracted quite a bit of attention because he was the only dog smart enough to wear his own sign:
Here's a close-up:
And here's the other side:
As you can tell, I didn't prepare these signs carefully in advance. The idea only really occurred to me as I was driving to Denver. I was able to buy the requisite paper at Kinko's, then make them hurriedly in the car with some markers I brought with me.
Despite that lack of good preparation, I was happy with the results. Many people noticed my signs: we got lots of friendly comments. Conrad definitely attracted far more attention than I would have carrying my own sign. Next time, I'll make better signs and attach them more securely to him. It helps to have a gimmick for these kinds of events, I think.
Oh, and in light of Flibby's well-justified scolding about the use of "tea bag" as a verb, I couldn't help but take a picture of this unfortunate sign:
Here's a great example of what the Ayn Rand Center is enabling around the nation.
They made some excellent material available, and I thought it would come in handy for any tea party protests that might happen here in Boise. When I found out that there was indeed one being organized here, I quickly put together a single-sheet front/back handout and printed several hundred in full color to distribute. Quick and easy cultural activism!
And then Tammy suggested that I offer myself as a speaker, on the off-chance that the organizers might be receptive to an Objectivist and find a way to fit me in. So I sent them a note the night before and heard back the morning of that they would like to have me speak! I cribbed and customized the backside of my handout, and voila, a 3.5-minute speech ready for delivery with almost no notice.
They ended up using me as their opening speaker! You can see me above in the lower-right, a while before I took the stage (it was cold and drizzly, and my papers were getting soggy). By the time I had the mic there were thousands of people in the audience, and I was surprised at how vocal and receptive they were! Tammy was off handing out the flyers (likewise, surprisingly popular) and didn't expect me to take the stage so early, but she nonetheless managed to capture a nice chunk of my performance on her little point-n-shoot camera:
Lots of people expressed gratitude and enthusiasm after I left the stage. The crowd was mostly stock conservative folks unhappy with the current situation and filled with all sorts of mixed, inconsistent, disintegrated ideas. And of course (ugh) there was the inevitable handful of crackpots. One conspiracy nutter buttonholed me to let me in on the secrets of the Federal Reserve, and we moved on pretty quickly. I was also pulled aside by a couple of far-Left media people looking to confirm that I was some crank trying to rewrite history or something -- I just responded pleasantly and explained more about what I was saying. We'll see what shows up in their outlets, if anything.
Quite a day for a guy who simply didn't have the time to design a flyer or write a speech from scratch. Thank you, ARC!
Ayn Rand as Prophet April 13, 2009 - by Amit Ghate
In recent months there has been a surge of interest in Ayn Rand's works. Fifty-two years after its first publication, her novel Atlas Shrugged is once again topping best-seller lists. As businesses are "bailed out" and quasi-nationalized; as one regulation leads inexorably to the next; and as the productive and innocent are increasingly burdened with the sins and failures of the guilty -- many people recognize the haunting resemblance to the world depicted in Atlas. Some now characterize Rand as a "prophet.”" Others, as seen on placards at "tea parties" nationwide, simply observe: "Rand was Right." But that she was right is, in some respects, less important than why she was right...
I'm glad to see Rand's ideas receiving the attention they deserve. And I'm glad to see Objectivists stepping up to help promote those ideas in venues like PajamasMedia.
The original Tea Party protesters were not just fighting against higher taxes but *for* something positive -- the idea of individual rights. And in the process they helped create the greatest nation on earth.
Similarly, today's Tea Party protesters need to do more than just oppose bad government bailouts. They also need to support the positive case for limited government and capitalism. Fortunately, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged provides us with precisely the positive case we need -- a philosophy that defends the morality of rational self-interest and the importance of freedom in allowing honest men and women to pursue their own happiness.
Ayn Rand's ideas provide the necessary intellectual foundation that Americans need to save America. Let’s hope more people read her books and debate her ideas. The future of our country may well depend on it!
Last Christmas, I sold a greeting card celebrating Isaac Newton instead of Jesus. It turned out to be unexpectedly popular. So I've designed some more, all on an Objectivist theme. You can actually use these for activism. A birthday or a holiday can be an excuse to send someone a positive message. It's passive and easy.
I get a bit weary writing what seems like the same letters, giving the same speeches, and grudgingly being drawn into debates I don't want to have. The thought of giving someone a colorful card with a shocking message in it really is exciting. Of course a greeting card does not replace detailed exposition on philosophy. It's just a small, and different, way of reaching people.
The culture is sending us insidious messages about ourselves and what our values should be. We can hear it in all forms of media, the language of our politicians, and even social customs. You can't even have a movie hero who isn't an alcoholic these days.
So often, in trying to build a culture of individualism, we focus on the horrible things spewing out of Washington. That's an important battle to have, but it's only part of a larger whole. We need a culture in which people are not automatically suspicious of anyone with a profit motive, and in which the mystical is mocked and ridiculed and not taken seriously, among other things.
How do you create that? I mean, just think of all the self-deprecating little phrases that people utter to themselves every day. Altruism has crept into absolutely everything.
One way to change it is to be a fearless example of your values. You have to live them, every day, consistently. You have to keep sending the same message, and the right message, tirelessly.
Philosophical messages do not need complex prose to be expressed. An image of a proud man, in the proper context, affirms that the achievement of one's values is real and possible. And we have very few of those grand images on TV or in the news today.
The future of this culture matters enough to me that I want to use every tool I have to change its course. These cards will start conversations. They will get attention. Find excuses to send them to people you barely know. Wear down the layers of cynicism and apathy and hopelessness drop by drop, like water. Greeting cards are a very small thing, but small things can add up. Like drops of water.
Media Release: Freecolorado.Com Wins Sam Adams Award
The Sam Adams Alliance announced that Ari Armstrong, publisher of FreeColorado.com, has received the 2009 "Modern-Day Sam Adams Award," the organization's top prize, for "his relentless -- and ubiquitous -- defense of free markets and individual liberty in the state of Colorado."
The organization's media release is available here.
Armstrong will receive his "Golden Sammie" April 18 in Chicago. Presenting the awards will be Michelle Malkin, Stephen Moore, John Fund, Jonathan Hoenig, Mary Katharine, and Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher.
In his entry, Armstrong summarized his "food stamp" diets of 2007 and 2009, his fight against political correctness (as with the "bitch slap" controversy of 2008), his work on health policy, and various other projects.
Armstrong said, "I congratulate the other winners and look forward to learning from their example. I thank the Sam Adams Alliance for recognizing the important work for liberty done at the regional level. Finally, I thank my fellow liberty activists in Colorado -- especially my wife -- for teaching me so much about liberty, individual rights, and free markets, and how to advocate those values through intellectual activism. This award is for you, my brothers and sisters in liberty."
Armstrong founded FreeColorado.com (then co-freedom.com) in late 1998, before the term "blog" had been coined.
A Tea Party Without Egoism Is like a Republic Without a Chance
America was founded on the individual's rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. But, contrary to the beliefs of many Americans, these rights are, by their very nature, egoistic. The freedom to live one's life as one sees fit, to act on one's judgment, to keep and use the product of one's effort, and to pursue one's happiness is the freedom to act in a consistently self-interested manner. The politics of freedom is the politics of self-interest -- and it is entirely incompatible with the widely accepted notion that self-interest is morally wrong and self-sacrifice is morally right. This -- Americans' acceptance of the morality of self-sacrifice -- is the fundamental reason we are losing our Republic.
Those who want to fight for a return to the Land of Liberty must embrace the morality on which liberty depends: the morality of egoism. And to do so, they must understand its nature and implications; they must grasp what egoism is, why it is true, and what it means in practice. The Objective Standard is a quarterly journal dedicated to elucidating the principles of egoism and applying them to the cultural and political issues of the day. Everyone concerned with the future should be reading this journal today.
The flier, which can be printed in black & white or in color, is a great way to start conversations about the root cause of America's problems and the corresponding solution. It also brings peoples' attention to TOS, which is the source for in-depth articles on this and other issues from an Objectivist perspective.
Please distribute the flier liberally at the tea parties -- and feel free to make it available from your own blogs and websites as well.
This is just our published output in print and other media. It does not include web comments, letters to elected officials, and other activism which is also important in advancing our goals. Pretty much everyone in FROG is doing this in their spare time, in addition to their own full-time work/school/etc.
I'd like to thank my fellow FROG members for their willingness to publicly stand up for their values!
Summary
OpEds: 18
LTEs: 27
Articles: 1
Media Citations: 7
Radio/Television Appearances: 7
OpEds: 18
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Politicians Caused and Worsened the Great Depression", Grand Junction Free Press, 12/8/2008.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Would Santa Claus plead for a bailout?", Grand Junction Free Press, 12/22/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "Liberty is best prescription for health care", Rocky Mountain News, 12/26/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Polis vs. Polis on Cars and Health Care", Boulder Daily Camera, 12/28/2008.
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.
LTEs: 27
Paul Hsieh, "Health Care Debate", Los Angeles Times, 12/4/2008.
Ari Armstrong, "Here's to Prohibition's end", Rocky Mountain News, 12/5/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Steer clear of making purchase mandatory", Boston Globe, 12/8/2008.
Santiago Valenzeula, "Public employees' retirement woes", Denver Post, 12/8/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "GOP's 'social conservatism' alienates young Republicans", Christian Science Monitor, 12/22/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Three Big Problems With Obama's Health-Care Plan", Wall Street Journal, 12/22/2008.
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.
Articles: 1
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.
Media Citations: 7
Paul Hsieh cited in "Universal health coverage? Look to Bay State first", San Francisco Examiner, 1/10/2009.
Paul Hsieh, cited in "Universal coverage? First, look at the disaster in Massachusetts", Washington DC Examiner, 1/11/2009.
Ari Armstrong cited in "Chowing down on Ari Armstrong's low-carb food-stamp diet", Denver Westworld, 2/11/2009.
Ari Armstrong cited in "Double Standard", Rocky Mountain News, 2/20/2009.
Ari Armstrong cited in "Trying to eat cheap and healthy", Colorado 9 News, 2/23/09.
Ari Armstrong cited in "Inflation Nation", Colorado Springs Gazette, 3/5/09.
Ari Armstrong cited in "Beer Bill Not Dead?", Denver Daily News, 3/16/09.
The fightback is starting... well, sort of. A chap called Rory Hodgson is organising a G20 Pro-Capitalist Counter-protest and is rallying supporters of market economics, via Facebook, for events on 1 April at the Bank of England and 2 April at the ExCel Centre. He claims state regulation, rather than market forces, is to blame for the recession. “It is in the most regulated sectors -- the banking and housing sectors -- that this crisis has occurred,” says Hodgson.
National service bill makes 'volunteerism' compulsory by Lucy Hugel
Thursday, the U.S. Senate sent back to the House an amended bill to "expand and improve opportunities for service," legislation modeled on President Obama's campaign promise to establish "universal voluntary citizen service."
If passed, this act will produce an explosion in the number of service programs. Unfortunately, the goal of this legislation is profoundly un-American--to instill an ethic of servitude in every citizen.
How could expanding community service programs have such a radical effect in the land of liberty? To understand this, one must see how the plan aims to smuggle in compulsory service...
Re "A Health Plan for All and the Concerns It Raises":
To the Editor:
It would be just as wrong for the government to compete with private insurers to provide health insurance as it would be for the government to compete with G.M. or Ford to build taxpayer-subsidized "public automobiles."
The unfair competition from a public plan would destroy the private health insurance industry. The inevitable result would be the rationing and other horrors of a Canadian-style single-payer system, which most Americans neither wish nor deserve.
Paul Hsieh Sedalia, Colo., March 25, 2009
The writer, a medical doctor, is a co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine.
The National Service Threat By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
The March 26, 2009 Washington Examiner has published a good OpEd on the threatened expansion of the Americorps "National Service" program. Although this issue has received less press than the various bailout-related issues, it could be equally important to the future of America.
Here's an excerpt from the Examiner piece (bold emphasis is mine):
"Expanded Americorps Has An Authoritarian Feel"
...To begin with, the legislation threatens the voluntary nature of Americorps by calling for consideration of "a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people." It anticipates the possibility of requiring "all individuals in the United States" to perform such service -- including elementary school students.
The bill also summons up unsettling memories of World War II-era paramilitary groups by saying the new program should "combine the best practices of civilian service with the best aspects of military service," while establishing "campuses" that serve as "operational headquarters," complete with "superintendents" and "uniforms" for all participants. It allows for the elimination of all age restrictions in order to involve Americans at all stages of life. And it calls for creation of "a permanent cadre" in a "National Community Civilian Corps."
But that's not all. The bill also calls for "youth engagement zones" in which "service learning" is "a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency." This updated form of voluntary community service is also to be "integrated into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula" at all levels of schooling. Sounds like a government curriculum for government approved "service learning," which is nothing less than indoctrination.
Now, ask yourself if congressmen who voted for this monstrosity had a clue what they were voting for. If not, they're guilty of dereliction of duty. If yes, the implications are truly frightening.
This bill has already passed the House and being considered by the Senate.
The Senate recently voted 74-14 to move the bill onto the floor (i.e., to not filibuster the bill). Hence, it has support from numerous Republicans and Democrats.
If you're alarmed and outraged by this idea, then you can do the following:
1) Forward the Examiner piece to friends, family, co-workers, etc.
To contact your Senators to tell them to oppose S.277, click here.
You don't have to write anything long or super-eloquent. It's more important that your e-mail subject line be something unambiguous like "Oppose S.277", so their staff aides know how to tally your e-mail. For instance, I dashed off the following short note to my Senators:
Please oppose S.277. It moves us dangerously close to mandatory national service, something which is un-American and a violation of individual rights.
Of course if you are so inclined, you can write something longer. Here's what Diana sent:
As your constituent, I wish to express my opposition to any expansion of AmeriCorps and other "service" programs. Such programs are not just costly and ineffective. They also violate the property rights of taxpayers to dispose of their own hard-earned income in accordance with their own choices and values.
Personally, I strongly object to any attempts to use the power of the government to promote the moral ideal of selfless service to the community -- as AmeriCorps does. That ideal does not represent my values: I reject that moral ideal as destructive to human life and happiness. Yet I am forced to pay for this government program. That is morally wrong.
A person has every right to donate his own money to the charity of his choice. A person has every right to volunteer or work for the charity of his choice, if the charity is amenable. I do both -- routinely -- for causes that I care about.
However, a person has no right to dispose of another person's money to fund his charitable work. That's theft, plain and simple.
AmeriCorps should be dismantled, not expanded.
The Senate will be voting soon on this. Hence if you wish to speak out on this issue, the time is now!
Update: The Senate has just passed its version of the bill by a margin of 78-20. They still have to reconcile their version with the one passed by the House of Representatives before they can submit it to President Obama (who has promised to sign it).
Health Insurance Industry Sells Its Soul to the Devil
Summary: Health insurance companies are on the verge of a Faustian bargain that will take the rest of us down with them.
March 22, 2009 - by Paul Hsieh
In German folklore, Johann Faust was a physician who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge. Of course, the pact destroyed him. The American health insurance industry is on the verge of striking its own Faustian bargain with the U.S. government. But this bargain won't just destroy the insurance industry; it will also drag 300 million Americans into the pit of government-run "single payer" socialized medicine...
The USDA has proposed a rule to require all farms and ranches where animals are raised to be registered in a federal database under the NAIS for existing disease control programs. The draft rule covers programs for cattle, goats, sheep, and swine. It also sets the stage for mandatory NAIS animal identification in the future.
It's not too late to comment. The alert noted that:
You can submit written testimony to the subcommittee up to 10 days after the hearing. Send your testimony to the Hearing Clerk, Jamie Mitchell, at Jamie.Mitchell@mail.house.gov. Be sure to put "March 11 Hearing - Animal Identification Programs" in the subject line. Keep your comments clear, polite, and concise.
Here is the e-mail that I sent yesterday. I encourage others to write their own letters.
From: Diana Hsieh <diana@dianahsieh.com> Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:58:58 -0600 To: <Jamie.Mitchell@mail.house.gov> Subject: March 11 Hearing - Animal Identification Programs
Dear Members of the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry --
I am writing to you to oppose National Animal Identification System (NAIS).
I am an ordinary citizen from Colorado, albeit with some interest in raising livestock myself. I am opposed to NAIS because:
* NAIS violates the property rights of all farmers. Farmers should not be required to tag their livestock any more than parents should be required to tag their children. Livestock is private property, and the government should respect that by limiting itself to protecting the rights of property and contract.
* The costs of compliance with NAIS will drive smaller farmers out of business. Sadly, I suspect that many large farms -- particularly those already on the government dole -- are pushing for NAIS for that very reason. They are eliminating their competition by government regulation. That's anti-American. The government should not be complicit in such schemes.
* NAIS will raise prices for consumers. Food prices have already gone through the roof. Particularly during an economic downturn, to require farmers to incur more costs -- which will then be passed on to consumers -- is very bad economic policy. Freedom, not government controls and regulation, is the key to economic prosperity.
* NAIS will not protect the food supply. The government does a lousy job of protecting the food supply, as the recent peanut butter and tomato scares show. The solution is not more burdensome regulations. It is a free market in agriculture. Under that system, Americans would have the capacity to buy from known local farmers or rely on the private certification of their choice. Americans will be responsible for their own safety -- just as they ought to be. We are not children: we are rational adults who ought to be free to act on our own best judgment.
NAIS is indefensible. It is anti-American. It should be wholly abandoned.
For more information on Free Market Agriculture, see the web site of Free Agriculture - Restore Markets (FA/RM) at http://fa-rm.org/.
I also sent that letter to my two senators and one representative in Washington.
If you express your opposition to this dangerous and expensive expansion of government control over the private property of farmers, write to the subcommittee hearing clerk at Jamie.Mitchell@mail.house.gov. You can find and contact your own representatives via Congress.org. You are welcome to use my letter (or portions thereof) as you see fit. Please feel free to post what you write in the comments.
Challenging What Everybody Knows By Greg Perkins @ 12:01 AM
How do you quickly explain -- or at least motivate further exploration of -- subtle ideas that would challenge "what everybody knows"? It's just hard, a skill to be practiced, which is why I eagerly listened to the (quite excellent) debate between Dr. Ghate (Ayn Rand Institute) and Dr. Huemer (CU Boulder Philosophy Department) over Ayn Rand's ethics.
One of Huemer's big points was that egoism logically entails predation. The idea is that there are times when it is in one's interest to lie, cheat, steal, etc. -- so it logically follows that a true egoist selfishly seeks to exploit others when he would so profit. Huemer's reduction to absurdity on this was that the true egoist would do so even when the overall benefit is tiny and the offense is great, like killing someone for the net benefit of a dollar. If an "egoist" wouldn't murder for a dollar, then he isn't actually an egoist and ought to stop peddling the notion that thoroughgoing selfishness is proper.
That one can profit from "prudent predation" is one of those things that Everybody Knows. So what might an Objectivist say to shake a general audience's confidence in the idea that predation is egoistic? That's a tall order given our current culture; there's just too much conceptual territory to cover to truly nail it down in a scant few minutes. So my first-blush approach would be to only try to indicate how Objectivists have a considered view that reveals predation -- no matter the form or degree -- to be utterly, unequivocally, hideously at odds with genuine egoism. Something like:
Recall my sketch of Rand's analysis of the nature of "value" and how values are what living organisms must pursue to live -- i.e., that there are needs they must satisfy to maintain their existence as living organisms. Different kinds of organisms do this in different ways, of course. Look at, say, the need for food: trees grow roots and turn their leaves to the sun, while squirrels climb and scurry to harvest nuts, and lions use their speed and teeth and claws to chase and catch their prey. But we are a bit different, in that there is no particular method we need to use to satisfy our requirement for food: we may grow it on a farm, harvest it from the sea, raise it on a ranch, hunt for it in the plains, trap it in the forest, create it in the lab, and on and on. So it wouldn't make sense to say that we eat by virtue of fangs, claws, or roots like we might say of other organisms -- rather, we get our food by some method, but that method is determined by our thinking. It's a long discussion, but the same is true for every need we have and every value we pursue: put simply, our primary or basic means of survival is thinking. We are the rational animal, discovering by reason what is valuable, and determining via reason how to achieve it.
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed -- and ignoring facts and acting on emotion or whim means courting disaster. So someone really interested in living -- our truly selfish ethical egoist -- will want to internalize the fact that reason is his fundamental means of survival, his basic tool for living, the essential faculty and activity that he needs to cultivate and use and jealously protect as the lifeline it genuinely is. Reliant on the power of his conceptual awareness, he will see the value of working to understand the nature of concepts and the implications for the nature of knowledge; the laws of logic and absolute requirement for objectivity -- because indifference to these things would mean indifference to his lifeline! He will seek to think and act on principle because reason demands it as his only hope for methodologically pursuing life over the span of an entire lifetime in the face of an incredibly complicated world.
Morality is a set of principles guiding your choices and actions in life. And rationality is our fundamental tool for living. So it makes sense that an egoist will understand moral virtues as expressions or applications of rationality to various aspects of living. Indeed, Rand framed each major virtue as the recognition of a fundamental fact. At this point you should be able to glimpse why Objectivists recoil in horror at someone suggesting that even the most "prudent" of predation would be egoistic: seriously considering predation means ignoring or outright rejecting the fundamental facts of human life captured in supremely-prudent moral principles like productiveness, justice, and honesty. Seriously entertaining their violation means rejecting not just particular principles and the facts they describe, but the need to act on principle and rationality as one's basic means of survival. What a real egoist hears is someone suggesting living by actively repudiating their fundamental means of living! That's insanity. And it's certainly not selfish.
This of course invites followup on just what those fundamental facts are, why reason demands thinking and acting on principle, etc. That's fine, though, as the goal was only to weaken their confidence in what "everybody knows" and spark further investigation.
There are so many angles that could be taken, so many basic ideas to try to sketch -- how would you approach this? What are the actual words you would use in such a setting?
The good news is that there's tremendous interest in Ayn Rand's ideas.
At OCON 2008, Yaron Brook said that one of ARI's goals was to reach the point that Ayn Rand's ideas were being discussed everywhere -- in the newspapers, in line at the local Starbucks, on talk radio, etc. He hoped that it could happen in 10 years.
It's taken less than 10 months.
The bad news is that there's a lot of misinformation about Objectivism being circulated out there, either knowingly or unknowingly.
Hence, if you think that some people are not accurately portraying Rand's ideas, feel free to set the record straight by leaving your own comments on the various blog or news article sites.
The single most important thing you can do is to encourage people to read (or re-read) Rand's books for themselves, so that they can make up their own minds on these issues (rather than just taking the word of some random author or online commenter).
Or if you're feeling ambitious, write up your own blog post or OpEd on what "going John Galt" really means.
Other promotional methods (t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc.), can also play a part as long as they get people interested in studying Rand's ideas.
And think about "upping your game" by one notch. If you're a blogger and you've written an especially nice post on the topic, think about also sending it to your local newspaper as an OpEd. If you've composed a good online comment, think of sending it to your local newspaper as an LTE, as well as leaving it as a comment on more than one blog or article website. If you've read a good article on Rand, forward it as appropriate to your friends, family members, co-workers, and elected officials.
We have an unprecedented opportunity right now to promote Rand's ideas. If we let her opponents and detractors frame the debate on their terms, it could harm our cause for years to come. On the other hand, if we frame the discussion on our terms, we could advance our cause by several years or possibly decades.
From personal experience, a single individual can have a disproportionately large effect in this battle of ideas, if he or she is willing to speak up and willing to articulate their ideas in a way that makes sense to the average American.
But we don't have a lot of time to spare. Hence the importance of taking advantage of this golden opportunity.
Of course, there's no "duty" to advocate and defend Rand's ideas. But for many of us, it's enjoyable and in our self-interest. If this is something that appeals to you, then please do so in whatever fashion is most suitable within the context of your life.
First, OList.com is the home of three specialized e-mail lists for Objectivists. All aim to help promote Objectivist ideas in the culture at large:
OActivists: OActivists is an informal e-mail list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural and political change. Its purpose is to facilitate and encourage effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas in non-Objectivist forums by facilitating communication with other Objectivist activists. Posts to the list alert subscribers to opportunities to speak out, recommend sources of information, discuss effective arguments and principled strategies, reproduce op-eds and letters written by subscribers, announce events, and more. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
OBloggers: OBloggers is an informal mailing list for Objectivist bloggers. Its basic purpose is to facilitate communication about matters of mutual interest, such as upcoming events, posts of interest, best blogging practices, and the like. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
OAcademics: OAcademics is a forum for Objectivist academics to discuss teaching, research, coursework, dissertations, job prospects, publication, and all other aspects of life in (or after) academia. The list is basically a means of sharing knowledge and experience as ever more Objectivists enter academia. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
Please feel free to join if you're interested, provided that you meet the criteria for membership.
Second, I heartily support the following activism-oriented e-mail lists. They do not require agreement with Objectivism, but they do require support for the mission statement of the organization.
CSG Activists: An unmoderated, low-volume mailing list for activists for government solely based on secular principles of individual rights with the Coalition for Secular Government (CSG).
FA/RM Activists: An unmoderated, low-volume mailing list for activists for agricultural and health policies based solely on the principles of individual rights with Free Agriculture - Restore Markets (FA/RM).
Colorado Free Marketeers: Ari Armstrong's new list for free-market activism in Colorado. He describes the list as follows: "Colorado Free Marketeers is a moderated list for activists looking for information and inspiration. Membership is open to any person committed to the principles of free markets and willing to engage in activism involving public speaking or writing at least every three months. While the list focuses on Colorado activism, those outside Colorado may join the list to track activism in the state and pick up ideas for activism where they live."
My theme is that the Tea Party protesters must couple their outrage at the government bailouts with a positive vision of a properly limited government based on Ayn Rand's ideas.
Over the past week, an extraordinary wave of "Tea Party" protests has erupted across America. Citizens around the country have expressed outrage at the government's mishandling of the financial crisis. And one of the most intriguing developments has been a resurgence in interest in Ayn Rand's classic novel Atlas Shrugged.
Denver's Tea Party protest opened with a reading from Atlas Shrugged. A sign at the New York City protest read, "Ayn Rand Was Right." One banner at the Atlanta Tea Party said, "Read Atlas Shrugged Before It Happens." The Ayn Rand Institute reports that sales of Atlas Shrugged have nearly tripled compared to last year due to Americans' concerns about the economic crisis.
So why has there been such a renewed interest in Ayn Rand?...
Walking Cultural Activism: People of Reason By Greg Perkins @ 12:01 PM
Tammy and I thought it would be great to produce a series of T-shirt designs for those occasions when it is appropriate to wear our ideas on our sleeves. Bonus points if they aren't just provocative but actually spark some good engagement!
Here is a design that underscores a cardinal value, the primary virtue, our essential nature -- highlighting a fundamental contrast with all those who tout being people of faith:
(Just click through to BoltOfReason.Com to check out all the available styles and colors. We of course love suggestions and requests -- we're already working on a lot of fun ideas, and if you are the first to hit us with a new one that we use in a future shirt design, you'll get one for free!)
Your Nest Egg on the Government Bailout By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Amanda Teresi is an activist for free markets and limited government here in Colorado. She runs Liberty on the Rocks, for example. I met her through the Leadership Program of the Rockies (which I'm really enjoying) -- and I think very highly of her. She recently made this very clever and memorable video of "your nest egg on the government bailout":
I'd love to see more Objectivists being so creative and memorable in their activism -- in conjunction with the necessary economic and moral arguments, of course.
KEY DATA: Free market health reforms could reduce health insurance costs by over 50%.
TAKE HOME: President Barack Obama's plans for a "health czar" would represent an unprecedented and dangerous intrusion of government into the practice of American medicine.
Former senator Tom Daschle's withdrawal as President Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services has left the White House administration scrambling to find a new "health czar" to implement their goal of government-run "universal health care."
But while the primary focus had been on Daschle's tax problems, Americans should also ask a more fundamental question: Why do we need a health czar in the first place?...
On February 18, 2009, they printed this letter opposing the latest proposal for "single payer" health care in Colorado:
Single-payer health care has failed in every other country Paul Hsieh, Sedalia
Response to your story, "Dems' bill shoots for universal health care" from 2/5/2009 by Ed Sealover.
Single-payer health care has failed in every other country that has tried it. Canada controls health costs by forcing patients to wait months for MRI scans and cardiac surgeries that Americans can get in a few days.
Single-payer advocates mistakenly claim that health care is a "right".
Health care is a *need*, not a right. Rights are freedoms of action (such as the right to free speech), not automatic claims on goods and services that must be produced by another.
Instead of single-payer health care, America needs free-market reforms, such as allowing patients to purchase insurance across state lines and use health savings accounts for routine expenses. Insurers should be allowed to sell inexpensive, catastrophic-only policies to cover rare but expensive events.
Such reforms could reduce costs and make insurance available to millions who cannot currently afford it, while respecting individual rights.
On February 19, 2009, they printed this letter on the Obama Administration's expanded welfare state programs:
Heads they win, tails we lose Dr. Paul Hsieh, Sedalia
When the economy is bad, welfare statists say, "We must expand government programs because everyone is hurting." When the economy is good, they say, "We must expand them because we can finally afford it."
If I didn't know better, I'd think that they wanted to increase people's dependency on government programs regardless of the reason.
My PajamasMedia OpEd on Cass Sunstein By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
The online political commentary website PajamasMedia.com has published my OpEd on Cass Sunstein, who is President Obama's new director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein is one of the leading advocates of the philosophy known as "libertarian paternalism".
Obama's Regulatory Chief Believes in Paternalistic Government February 10, 2009 -- by Paul Hsieh
The old joke runs, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Most Americans are appropriately skeptical of such a claim, just as they are skeptical when told that they've won $10 million in a Nigerian lottery. But President Obama's selection of Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein to direct the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs threatens to turn this joke into grim reality.
The basic premise of libertarian paternalism is that the government should use its power to "nudge" people into acting in their best interest, while leaving them the choice to "opt out." If the government decides that saving money is good, it would automatically divert a percentage of your paycheck into a savings account in your name unless you explicitly declined. Supporters claim that this preserves freedom because government is only changing the default, while leaving individuals the final choice. It is merely a gentle "nudge," not a hard push.
However, nudging represents an assault on freedom, because it undermines man’s basic tool of survival -- his mind. By creating a default, libertarian paternalism in essence says, "Don't worry -- we'll do your thinking for you." Sunstein’s book explicitly compares Americans to a bunch of Homer Simpsons in need of such guidance. If Americans surrender their minds to the government, they become easy prey for demagogues and dictators...
Both Tara Smith and Eric Daniels have also written about Sunstein's philosophy in Fall 2008 issue of The Objective Standard. Tara mentions his in her article "The Menace of Pragmatism". Eric Daniels has a review of the Nudge book in the same issue.
Healthy Diet on Food Stamps? You Bet! By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM Ari Armstrong will prove that a person can eat a perfectly healthy diet of low-carb whole foods on a limited budget -- contrary to demands to extract more heard-earned dollars from taxpayers for government welfare programs. Here's his media release:
A healthy diet is achievable on a food stamp budget, and Ari Armstrong plans to prove it, again. Armstrong, who previously spent a month eating for $2.57 per day -- see http://tinyurl.com/c35e8q -- will spend February 4-10 eating a highly nutritious, low-carb diet for less than food stamps provide.
Armstrong said, "Not only has Congress increased the food stamp budget since my $2.57 per day diet, but the so-called 'stimulus' package calls for additional food-stamp funds. Enough is enough. I oppose any increases to the food stamp budget, and call for the program to be replaced with voluntarily funded food banks, which offer more nutritious food at lower cost."
Armstrong's new diet, unlike his previous one, will be low-carb, roughly following the advice of such writers as Gary Taubes and similar to "paleo" or "cave-man" diets. The diet will consist of meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts, olive oil, chocolate, and spices. It will not contain any grains, vegetable oils, hydrogenated fat, potatoes, or processed sugar.
Armstrong will limit his daily budget to $4.74 per day, less than food stamps provide to a single individual. The Department of Agriculture -- see http://www.fns.usda.gov/FSP/faqs.htm -- offers a family of four $588 per month, or $4.74 per person per day. (The food stamp allotment is reduced for those deemed able to fund some of their own food.) Armstrong will not accept any free food, and he will shop only at nearby regular grocery stores. He will track all his purchases and receipts at FreeColorado.com.
"With the previous diet, my goal was to minimize daily expenses. With the new diet my goal is to show that a very healthy diet is possible on a limited budget. The cost of my diet will actually be inflated, not only because I'll be eating no free food, but because a week's diet is not able to take advantage of bulk purchases of sales items," Armstrong pointed out. "I've been known to purchase 40 pounds of bananas, a dozen squash, or twenty pounds of meat when they're on sale; obviously that's not possible for a single week."
Part of the motivation to track the new diet was a recent CNN report -- see http://tinyurl.com/d2lb5g -- in which a woman on food stamps complains, "We get like the mac and cheese, which is dehydrated cheese -- basically food that's no good for you health wise... Everything is high in sodium and trans fats... and that's all we basically can afford. There's not enough assistance to eat healthy and maintain a healthy weight."
Armstrong replied, "That's nonsense, and I'm prepared to prove it. I'm frankly irritated that some food stamp recipients waste our tax dollars on overpriced junk food, then complain about their grocery budget. I'll make the following offer. For anybody on food stamps who complains that they can't afford good food, I'll be more than happy to evaluate your entire monthly budget, including your grocery budget, and recommend judicious cuts, limited to the first five people who reply."
No Stimulus By Diana Hsieh @ 10:08 AM
I just e-mailed my Colorado Senator Mark Udall the following message about the proposed "stimulus package":
Dear Senator Udall,
Please vote NO on the stimulus package. The economy doesn't need to be stimulated by government handouts and pork. Instead, congress and the president should:
Cut the corporate tax rate. The US has one of the highest in the world; it damages our economy by enticing businesses to move overseas.
Cut the personal income tax rate for everyone who actually pays taxes. Stop vilifying and punishing financial success. Stop discouraging people from using their own creativity, skills, and effort to succeed in business.
Cut capital gains tax rate. It's unjust double taxation that distorts the market.
Eliminate all tariffs and protectionism. Any barriers to trade hurt America.
Massively cut government spending on welfare and health programs, eliminate corporate welfare, and eliminate the regulations that make doing business a mess of inane red tape.
Freedom -- not more government spending -- is the recipe for a speedy economic recovery.
Our other senator, Michael Bennett, does not list an e-mail address, so I called him instead, leaving a message saying basically what I said in the letter above. I'm also trying to call Senator Udall, but I'm on perpetual hold.
You can find contact information for your senator on Senate.gov. Please feel free to use my letter (or a modified version thereof) if you so choose. The most important thing is to write or call -- and just express your opposition to the stimulus package.
Update: I finally got through to a real person at Udall's office. I told her that I strongly opposed the stimulus plan -- and that I wanted to see tax cuts, not more government spending.
Ray Niles Hits Two Home Runs By Paul Hsieh @ 12:03 AM
I've just had the pleasure of reading two of Ray Niles' recent articles, one on financial regulation and one on proposed government internet regulations to guarantee "net neutrality". Both are clear and excellent applications of Objectivist principles to important and timely issues. If you have an interest in these topics (or know someone who does), these are "must reads".
Given the widespread prevalence of the "information wants to be free" viewpoint by libertarian tech types, it's refreshing to read a principled defense of property rights as applied to the issues of internet traffic and the "net neutrality" debate.
If you're not a subscriber, you can purchase a PDF of the entire piece for $4.95. But you really should be a subscriber, if you're not already.
His second piece is on the issue of financial regulations in the wake of the recent economic crisis. Here is his description (reproduced with his permission):
I am excited to announce that an article I wrote has been published in CFA Magazine, a magazine with global circulation of 100,000 that is published by CFA Institute, a finance professional organization. It is part of an "Agree / Disagree" set on the proposition: "The global market crisis calls for an expansion of regulatory oversight." I have permission to email it; if you want a copy, let me know and I will email it to you. Please feel free to re-distribute it, but do not post it in its entirety on the web.
In the article, I call for gold money and the abolition of regulatory agencies. I identify the need for government to recognize the right to life, liberty, and property. The editor featured the article as the magazine's cover story under a scary image that says, "Big Government Is Watching." In the print version of the magazine, a yellow banner also asks, "Is more regulation the answer to market woes?"
Here are the opening paragraphs. Later, I discuss the specific causes and solution to the crisis.
Regulation cannot be the solution to the financial crisis because it is the cause of the financial crisis. The only proper action for governments to take is to remove existing regulations, fully recognize property rights, and enforce already-existing laws against fraud and theft. Doing so will help our economy speedily recover and make future crises smaller and rarer.
In fact, the premise itself is misleading. "Regulatory oversight" implies that regulation is some form of law enforcement mechanism that protects the rights to life and property, akin to laws against robbery, murder, and fraud. But that is not the case. Such laws already exist on the books and should be enforced when mortgage lenders, for example, commit fraud. No new regulation is necessary to protect rights.
Instead of protecting rights, regulations violate them. A regulation is an action by a government body that intervenes in voluntary agreements between individuals. It prohibits -- before the fact -- entire classes of behavior, criminalizing that behavior even if it is voluntary and involves no compulsion or fraud. For example, a law such as the Community Reinvestment Act that forces lenders to give mortgage loans to borrowers that do not meet their credit standards violates the right of the lender to decide whether and to whom to lend its money.
To get the full version of the article, you can contact Ray directly at: "rayniles (at) rcniles (dot) com".
This would be a great article to distribute to friends, coworkers, your investment advisor, or anyone who lost money in the markets in the last 6 months (which is pretty much everyone in the Western World!)
Plus Ray's example highlights two important points:
1) Americans are interested in hearing our message. Many people know that there is something deeply wrong with the status quo, and at some level they recognize that Obama-style socialism is not the answer. But they don't know what the positive alternative is. We can offer them that. Americans are becoming increasingly receptive to our ideas. Hence, there is no better time to speak out.
2) Individuals can make a difference. I'll let Ray speak for himself if he wishes, but until relatively recently he did not engage in any kind of formal activism. But he has found subjects that were of great interest to him and chosen to write on those subjects to appropriate audiences.
The result has been two articles in The Objective Standard (one on energy policy now available for free and his more recent article on "net neutrality") as well as his article for CFA Magazine. This latter piece could reach many influential minds in the financial industry and give them the moral defense of the free market that they so badly need.
Ray Niles has clearly upped his game. And I thank him for it!
INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY Government paternalism saps desire to make own decisions
I want to thank The Gazette for the nice discussion of individual responsibility in Monday's paper ("People responsible for safety," Our View). Too many adult Americans expect the government to treat them as if they were still children and the government was their parents.
It's only a small step from the government telling you what kind of houses you can build to telling you what food you can eat or what books you can read.
When citizens start asking the government do their thinking for them, it makes them easy prey for demagogues and dictators. That's why this kind of government paternalism is so dangerous.
Paul Hsieh, Sedalia
It was in response to their own January 16, 2009 OpEd opposing more government home safety regulations, "People responsible for safety".
Although it's important to oppose bad ideas, it's even more important to support good ideas. I'm glad to have had this opportunity to do so.
Two years ago, Paul had zero experience in activism. So how did he get from zero to sixty? As someone who saw the process up close, I'd mention a few points:
His two years of regular blogging on health care at the FIRM blog gives him an important base of knowledge from which to write. He doesn't just rely on his knowledge of Objectivism.
He developed his skills of writing letters and op-eds in our local Colorado papers. He wrote and published a great deal for those markets before seriously attempting to publish in national-level papers.
He has been very willing to allow others to edit his work. He endured some very brutal criticism from me and others on occasion. He's very conscious of his writing, so he doesn't make the same mistakes twice.
He treats newspaper editors with respect, rather than like punching bags. The opinion editors for the major Colorado newspapers know who he is -- and they're often receptive to getting another submission from him.
He's always on the lookout for a new idea or angle to turn into an op-ed. We routinely discuss the best ways of answering some argument or presenting some point. He works on making his writings ever more engaging, interesting, and clear.
Most of all, he writes and writes and writes -- just as Yaron Brook urged us to do at OCON 2008. He does that in his spare time, despite an exceedingly busy work schedule -- and he enjoys it.
So here's a challenge: What are you going to do to up your game in 2009?
Walking Cultural Activism: A Personal Relationship By Greg Perkins @ 3:12 PM
Tammy and I thought it would be great to produce a series of T-shirt designs for those occasions when it is appropriate to wear our ideas on our sleeves. Bonus points if they aren't just provocative but actually spark some good engagement!
Here's a design that offers a simple, wry response to the oddly-fashionable notion that Christianity isn't a religion (no sir, it's a relationship with Jesus): I have a personal relationship with reality.
You can't tell at that resolution, but the font sports a distressed typewriter look, and there is a subtle emphasis on the word 'reality'. Here's a closer look:
(Just click through to BoltOfReason.Com to check out all the available styles and colors. We of course love suggestions and requests -- we're already working on a lot of fun ideas, and if you are the first to hit us with a new one that we use in a future shirt design, you'll get one for free!)
I agree with the Rocky's Dec. 27 editorial "The limits of science/Does Obama advisor respect them?" about President-elect Obama's choice of Stephen Holdren to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. But I might suggest a different title: "The limits of politics." Because that's what Obama's all about.
Besides lack of any executive experience, he has never actually created wealth in our economy, but only spent someone else's. And now Obama has selected greenhouse-gas alarmist Holdren who joins the chorus of politicos in blaming global warming on industrialization, and who advocates severe strangulations on our economy as the answer.
Unlike Holdren, there are many scientists who attribute global warming primarily to the formidible forces of nature that have caused drastic climate change in Earth's past. There is a great deal of scientific debate that has become squashed because of politics.
But despite Obama's hot air about "free and open inquiry," it's clear by his choice of Holdren that he doesn't care about facts, science or economics, but the world he knows best--politics.
Universal coverage? First, look at the disaster in Massachusetts By Examiner Editorial -- 1/11/09
To much fanfare from both right and left in 2006, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to require all residents to buy health insurance. A new state health insurance clearinghouse was created, with taxpayers subsidizing those who couldn't afford to buy coverage. Then Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, promised that "every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance." Yet just two years later, Romney's much-heralded "solution" -- touted by many as the model for a national program -- has become an embarrassing flop.
Just a year after the universal coverage law passed, The New York Times reported, state insurers were already jacking up rates to twice the national average. According to Dr. Paul Hsieh, a physician and founding member of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine, 43 mandatory benefits -- including those that many people did not want or need, such as in vitro fertilization -- raised the costs of coverage for Massachusetts residents by as much as 56 percent, depending upon an individual's income status. So much for "affordable" health care...
Rand Discussion on Secular Right Blog By Paul Hsieh @ 7:30 PM
The conservative blog Secular Right has started an open thread on Ayn Rand. Some of the contributors to this blog include high-profile conservative intellectuals such as Heather Mac Donald, John Derbyshire, Walter Olson, and Razib Khan who are sympathetic to secular ideals. Hence, this is an excellent opportunity for Objectivists to leave thoughtful, polite comments supporting Rand's ideas.
Ayn Rand's greatest contribution to the realm of political philosophy was her explicit moral defense of capitalism. Too many defenders of capitalism on the political right are lukewarm on capitalism. They argue that it "works" (in the sense of delivering material prosperity), but regard the essential element of capitalism (the pursuit of one’s self-interest) as morally suspect. For instance, Irving Kristol only gives capitalism "two cheers" in his famous book by the same title because he regards capitalism as lacking an essential moral dimension.
In contrast, Rand argued that capitalism is moral precisely because it allows men to pursue their self-interest. At an implicit level, most Americans understand this. They want to be happy, prosper, and pursue goals and values that are important to their own lives.
And this country is a beacon of hope to millions of people around the world precisely because it promises an "American dream" where honest, hard-working people can make a better life for themselves. It is this promise that drew my parents to America from Taiwan over 40 years ago. They came over to this country with little more than the clothes on their back. But they worked hard, prospered, sent two children to medical school, and are now enjoying a happy and well-earned retirement.
Many thinkers on the right do a very good job defending capitalism on economic grounds. But capitalism needs a moral defense as well. Right-leaning thinkers too-often find themselves losing the political debate to leftists who claim the moral high ground by attacking capitalism as "selfish" and promoting socialism as noble precisely because it isn't selfish. Americans want to "do what's right", so if a leftist tells them that capitalism is immoral whereas socialism is moral, they'll keep falling for leftist demagogues even though socialist ideas never work in practice.
For this reason, intellectuals on the right need to proudly and unabashedly defend capitalism as moral -- not despite the fact that it allows men to pursue their self-interest but *because* it allows men to pursue their self-interest.
Ayn Rand was the first thinker to make this fully moral defense of capitalism to the American people. For our sakes, I hope she's not the last.
My theme is that adopting government-run universal healthcare will lead to a "nanny state on steroids" deeply antithetical to core American principles of individual freedom and responsibility.
Here is the opening:
Universal healthcare and the waistline police
Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.
Is this some nightmarish dystopia?
No, this is contemporary Japan.
The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs. This highlights one of the greatly underappreciated dangers of "universal healthcare." Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs. The inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens' health and their behavior. Hence, Americans should beware that if we adopt universal healthcare, we also risk creating a "nanny state on steroids" antithetical to core American principles...
(I would also like to extend my deepest thanks to Diana Hsieh, Ari Armstrong, and Brian Schwartz for their many helpful suggestions when proofreading earlier drafts of this piece.)
OList and Activist Mailing Lists By Diana Hsieh @ 2:47 PM
Here's a reminder about mailing lists potentially of interest to NoodleFood readers -- particularly appropriate if one of your resolutions for 2009 includes more actively promoting respect for reality, reason, egoism, and rights.
First, OList.com is the home of three specialized e-mail lists for Objectivists. All aim to help promote Objectivist ideas in the culture at large:
OActivists: OActivists is an informal e-mail list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural and political change. Its purpose is to facilitate and encourage effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas in non-Objectivist forums by facilitating communication with other Objectivist activists. Posts to the list alert subscribers to opportunities to speak out, recommend sources of information, discuss effective arguments and principled strategies, reproduce op-eds and letters written by subscribers, announce events, and more. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
OBloggers: OBloggers is an informal mailing list for Objectivist bloggers. Its basic purpose is to facilitate communication about matters of mutual interest, such as upcoming events, posts of interest, best blogging practices, and the like. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
OAcademics: OAcademics is a forum for Objectivist academics to discuss teaching, research, coursework, dissertations, job prospects, publication, and all other aspects of life in (or after) academia. The list is basically a means of sharing knowledge and experience as ever more Objectivists enter academia. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
Please feel free to join if you're interested, provided that you meet the criteria for membership.
Second, I heartily support the following activism-oriented e-mail lists. They do not require agreement with Objectivism, but they do require support for the mission statement of the organization.
CSG Activists: An unmoderated, low-volume mailing list for activists for government solely based on secular principles of individual rights with the Coalition for Secular Government (CSG).
FA/RM Activists: An unmoderated, low-volume mailing list for activists for agricultural and health policies based solely on the principles of individual rights with Free Agriculture - Restore Markets (FA/RM).
Colorado Free Marketeers: Ari Armstrong's new list for free-market activism in Colorado. He describes the list as follows: "Colorado Free Marketeers is a moderated list for activists looking for information and inspiration. Membership is open to any person committed to the principles of free markets and willing to engage in activism involving public speaking or writing at least every three months. While the list focuses on Colorado activism, those outside Colorado may join the list to track activism in the state and pick up ideas for activism where they live."
Boulder's Congressman-elect Jared Polis recently took a bold stand against a federal bailout of the automobile industry, correctly arguing that that the car manufacturers' problems should be handled by the private sector, not the government. Coloradans should urge him to apply the same principles to the issue of health care reform.
In the Dec. 10 Wall Street Journal, Polis wrote: "Our United States Congress... now finds itself poring over 'business plans' submitted this week by Ford, GM and Chrysler. People who have never before in their lives seen -- no less implemented -- a business plan are now trying to decide if these companies will succeed by means of a 'capital infusion' with... [taxpayer] money. Something is wrong with this picture."
Polis is absolutely correct on this point. As a successful businessman himself, he knows that government cannot and should not be manufacturing cars.
His argument applies even more strongly to the issue of health care. Although he campaigned on a platform of government-run "single payer" health care, he should recognize that government cannot and should not be running health care.
Similar socialized medical systems in other countries are consistent failures, leading only to harsh rationing and long waiting lists. In Canada's "single payer" system, a woman who feels a lump in her breast might wait months for the surgery and chemotherapy she needs. In contrast, a Boulder woman could get the care she needed in a few days.
Furthermore, whenever government attempts to guarantee "universal health care," it must also control it. Government then decide who gets what health care and when, not doctors and patients. In single payer systems, far from being a "right," health care becomes just another privilege dispensed at the discretion of government bureaucrats.
A 20-year old Canadian snowboarder who hurts his knee on the slopes might wait almost a year for an MRI scan, if the government does not consider it an "emergency." Yet such a delay in proper diagnosis and treatment could result in a permanent crippling arthritis by age 30. A Colorado snowboarder with the same injury could receive the necessary scan and surgery in a few weeks, avoiding such a life-long disability.
Finally, single payer health care necessarily interposes the government into the doctor-patient relationship in the name of cost control. According to the Telegraph, Great Britain's National Health Service paid bonuses to primary care physicians who reduced the numbers of referrals to hospital specialists -- thus forcing those doctors to choose between their oaths to their patients or the government which pays their salaries.
This corrosive effect on the doctor-patient relationship is one of the worst evils of single payer health care. The evil is not that it allows a few doctors to act badly, but rather that it takes good doctors and encourages them to become bad physicians willing to betray their patients' best medical interests.
The fundamental flaw behind single payer systems (or any other form of "universal health care") is the assumption that health care is a "right" that must be guaranteed by the government. Health care is a need, not a right. Rights are freedoms of action (such as the right to free speech), not automatic claims on goods or services that must be produced by another. There's no such thing as a "right" to a car -- or a tonsillectomy.
Individuals are legitimately entitled to health care that they purchase with their own money, are promised by prior contractual agreements, or are given to them via voluntary charity.
Any attempts to guarantee an alleged "right" to health care must necessarily violate the genuine rights of others -- such as the physicians who are forced deliver health care on the government's terms (rather than their own) and the taxpayers who are forced to pay for others' health care against their will.
Socialism doesn't work for car manufacturing, and won't work for health care. Congressman-elect Polis correctly understands that the government should not be running the auto industry. If Coloradans value their lives and their health, they should urge him to apply that same understanding to health care and to support free market reforms, instead of a "single payer" system. After all, it is their own future health care at stake.
Dr. Paul Hsieh of Sedalia is co-founder, Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine
You are probably correct that a major new national health-care program will be rushed through the next Congress without substantial debate through some mechanism such as budget reconciliation. That is because many of its elements would not survive close examination. The fatuous claim of Sen. Max Baucus that placing the nation's medical care under the rule of an "independent" council of presidentially appointed experts would not constitute government management of care is only the most conspicuous example. Others include the claim that computerizing those remaining medical records still on paper would reduce insurance costs by $2,500 a year per family.
But the main reason for the big rush is that nobody has a clue how the government will pay for it -- anymore than they know how the current unfunded liability of Medicare and Medicaid can be honored.
The last thing that proponents want is for anyone to ask where the money will come from, except perhaps questions about such details as the individual rights of patients and physicians to make their own medical decisions without the approval of presidentially appointed experts.
Richard E. Ralston Executive Director Americans for Free Choice in Medicine Newport Beach, Calif.
Businesses expecting to save money under President-elect Barack Obama's universal health-care plan are going to be in for a rude awakening. President-elect Obama's plan includes an employer mandate in which businesses must either pay their employee health insurance or else pay into a government fund to cover the uninsured.
A similar mandate has already been in place in Massachusetts for two years. As health costs there have skyrocketed, the state government has asked for more and more "contributions" from businesses. During this financial crisis, the last thing America needs is yet more economic burdens on the businessmen who create jobs and prosperity.
The fundamental problem with Mr. Obama's plan is the premise that health care is a "right" that must be guaranteed by the government. Health care is a need, not a right. Rights are freedoms of action, not automatic claims on goods and services that must be produced by another. Attempting to guarantee an alleged "right" to health care must necessarily violate actual individual rights and will destroy the American economy in the process.
GOP's 'social conservatism' alienates young Republicans
In regard to the Dec. 17 article, "Young Republicans seek a new kind of party": I voted Republican in 1996, 2000, and 2004, but not in 2008, because I was finally fed up with the ever-increasing influence of the religious right on the Republican Party – especially on issues such as abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage.
If the GOP returned to affirming individual rights, limited government, and fiscal responsibility, then I would be glad to support it again.
But as long as they support the toxic "social conservative" agenda of the religious right, then they will continue to alienate many young and independent voters and lose elections. And deservedly so.
In the comments, Steve Simpson of the Institute for Justice was kind enough to write a lengthy reply. I'm reposting it here, with his permission, because I thought it contained particularly good advice that I wanted to make sure that all NoodleFood readers saw:
This is a very good and very important question, so I figured I would chime in and offer some thoughts from the perspective of someone who is a professional activist of sorts and has some experience in this area. I'm a lawyer at the Institute for Justice; in addition to litigating, we do quite a bit of writing and public speaking about our cases. So I have some experience in the area of "getting heard." (How's that for credentialing myself up front?)
On the importance of credentials, I would say: if you have them, flaunt them (because they are way to get yourself heard, not because they matter to the truth or falsity of your ideas). If you don't, don't worry about it. As Diana pointed out, you shouldn't pursue an advanced degree just to credential yourself as an activist. It's much more important to focus on gaining the knowledge and the advocacy skills to be an effective activist than it is to try to become "credentialed" in some way. There are lots of people in the activist/policy world with no more than a bachelors degree (or less) who are regularly quoted and published.
So if you want to be an effective activist, there are two things off the top of my head you can and should do. First, and most importantly, develop and hone your knowledge and advocacy skills. The good news is that the sky is the limit, and if you are interested in activism you already have the motivation. Pick an area in which you are interested and learn a lot about it, then start writing letters to the editor, op-eds, and talking and arguing with everyone you can about it. I think it makes the most sense to focus on a particular area rather than on something broad like philosophy in general, because you are much more likely to have pertinent information and to gain some expertise and experience if you focus more narrowly. You don't have to devote your life to the area; it's more a matter of setting priorities for a given period of time. For instance, for the next 6 months, I'm going to focus on health care, or the financial mess, or some idiotic environmental policy, etc., as opposed to the decline of western civilization, why the republicans and the democrats are stupid, etc. (Don't get me wrong; there's nothing wrong with gaining broad knowledge. It's just not enough if your interest is activism).
You'll also need to practice your advocacy skills, primarily writing. There's a lot to say about this, so I will just say learn to write short, punchy, and informative letters and op-eds. Brevity is key if you want to get published, as is clarity of thought and expression. Practice, practice, practice. Write a letter to the editor every day. Focus on one or two points in everything your write. Edit ruthlessly.
Second, although credentials are not terribly important in getting published (or just heard), some sort of a "hook" often is. There are two main types of hooks--news hooks and what I'll call "experiential" hooks (by the way, never use words like "experiential" in your writing). A news hook is simply something that is happening in the news that makes a particular letter or article or point of view relevant. Sometimes they are obvious, but often they aren't. Never assume that because others have not made a particular connection or have a particular insight it isn't worth writing about.
An experiential hook is something that indicates that you have relevant experience or knowledge that connects you to what you are talking about. For good or ill, news organizations love to feature "relevant" voices on any subject. So Paul's voice in health care is relevant because he's a doctor, and Diana's is relevant on the amendment she opposed because she set up a group that opposed it. But there are many possible hooks of this sort, so be creative in thinking of relevant experiences you've had that might make your view stand out. Maybe you are a businessman who has specific knowlege on the impact of taxes and regulation; or someone who was in the military and can offer an informed perspective on conscription or the war. Also, again for better or worse, news organizations love contrast and seeming contradictions. So, for instance, an african american who oppose affirmative action will be more likely to get published than a white guy who does; and a gay person who supports the boy scouts' right to keep out gay people will be more likely to get published than a straight person. These are just examples to convey the point; there are many other possibilities here that go beyond immutable characteristics. For instance, if you are young or in college, write an article about why young people should not be encouraged to vote because so many of them are vacuous and uninformed. Or when national service comes back in vogue, write an op-ed about how you and many of your peers would prefer to let homeless people ladle out their own crappy soup while you try to live your lives and be happy and productive. The point is, there are lots of "hooks" like this that you can find to make your views stand out from the crowd and get published. Be creative, be entrepreneurial, and never, ever give up.
FA/RM By Diana Hsieh @ 8:43 AM I'm delighted to report that Dr. Monica Hughes recently launched Free Agriculture - Restore Markets (FA/RM) -- a new organization devoted to promoting "agricultural and health policies based solely on the principles of individual rights." Check out the web site including the goals of the organization, opportunities for activism, and readings on rights. Also, be sure to bookmark the blog.
Until quite recently, I was almost entirely ignorant of the nature and extent of the government controls on agriculture and food production. Sure, I'd heard vague tidbits here and there, but I didn't realize the breadth and depth of the sheer insanity until I began doing just a wee bit of digging for myself, often with Monica's help.
The simple fact is that the pursuit of one's life, health, and happiness requires a government that respects and upholds the rights of property and contract in all aspects of food production, distribution, and consumption. We have nothing of the sort in America today. The rights of individuals (i.e. producers and consumers) are utterly disregarded by the state -- often in ways that border on a police state (e.g. see here, here, and here). The growing alarming about "carbon emissions" threatens to unleash even more life-threatening statist controls. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Advice on Objectivist Groups By Diana Hsieh @ 7:39 AM
Back in November, Amy Nasir posted some good advice for people looking to create a local Objectivist group. Based on my experience with the highly successful Front Range Objectivism, I think such groups should focus on discussing Objectivism -- particularly essays by Ayn Rand -- with the goal of understanding how the principles of the philosophy apply to their own lives.
Such groups have three major benefits, in my view:
They can help people deepen their understanding of Objectivism. Personally, I find it enormously helpful to be committed to reading and discussing two or three essays by Ayn Rand (or another other Objectivist philosopher) each month in FROG. I learn something new each time I do that, and I know I'm not alone.
They can be a great resources for friendships with like-minded people. Paul and I have a really fantastic slew of friends in Colorado, almost all found through FROG. Not everyone has been fantastic, but the few real duds have made themselves scarce.
They can be a springboard for local activism. Not everyone in a discussion group will become an activist. But a few might be inspired to do so in a serious way, and some others might be willing and able to contribute on occasion. And given #1, they'll have the requisite knowledge to do that relatively well.
If you want to see how we conduct our FROG meetings, see this page.
Yes advocacy is essential. But as with anything, understanding reality is essential. If your goal is cultural change, it is important to understand how ideas are adopted by individuals in society. Are there any over-arching trends that might help guide your efforts into a more efficient programs of advocacy? For a partial answer to this question,
I recommend the book Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers. In Rogers terms, innovations can be technology OR ideas (including philosophic ideas). After 1000s of research projects over many decades looking at many different innovations, some overarching trends are observed as to how ideas and technologies spread through society. Like much research today, the work tends to be highly descriptive, not normative. But there are a few practical applications, such as on page 361, where he very briefly discusses "Strategies for Getting to Critical Mass". I will note that [the Ayn Rand Institute] is explicitly pursuing 3 of the 4 strategies.
A couple years ago, I wrote a few notes on Objectivism in relation to Diffusion of Innovation theory: see here. (As a disclaimer, I no longer associate with some groups or websites listed in that post...many thanks to Diana for helping me see the light). There is much more I would add today if I could find the time to write about it.
I ordered the book John recommended, then wrote in reply: "Thanks for the book recommendation. Do you have any other books on business management that you think those of us interested in spreading ideas should definitely read?" I also e-mailed John privately to tell him that I'd be interested in posting anything that he might write up as a NoodleFood post. Here it is, with links added. You can also find it on his blog here.
Although my initial recommendation was from the perspective of how best to spread ideas, I thought it might be useful to suggest books about management that may be helpful when speaking or writing to/for businessmen and women. I also thought it might be useful to suggest books on how to run activism campaigns as a business. I've mixed each perspective, but hopefully you can find what you need.
In all honesty, there really are not a lot of management books I would recommend for the express purpose of spreading ideas. I had a seminar in strategic management where we read many of the classic management books. Except for the one by Peter Drucker, they were a cesspool of bad philosophy propagated as intelligent thought. Peter Selzinck, in Leadership in Administration, gives explicit credit to the pragmatists, Dewey and James. Herbert Simon (Nobel prize winner in economics) has a chapter in Administrative Behavior titled "Fact and Value in Decision-making" that would probably make Peikoff's head explode. It was pure philosophic torture getting through that seminar. Interesting enough, most of the authors were Harvard professors of business. According to the professor of our seminar (who was himself a DBA from Harvard's school of business), these books were all part of a seminar required of all Harvard DBAs back then. I'm not sure if these books are still taught at Harvard, but the influence of these authors is felt in the business schools and business research studies throughout the U.S. today. The Harvard influence over the business research has lead to few useful books, in my opinion.
I mentioned Drucker's above as the exception. Pretty much anything he has written I would recommend. His first book, The Practice of Management, is superbly written and the one best books on management and decision-making that I have ever read. While written in the 50s, it largely defined how business evolved over the next 30 years and the best at describing businesses as they are run today. I would recommend it to any Objectivist activist that plans on speaking to business executives and/or business professionals.
I would also recommend a newer book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Friedman. This book is about globalization and the role technology has played in changing the world workforce, particularly in the past 10 years. While not as essentialized as it could be, it does offer a good view of the changing nature of information exchange and how its effecting businesses, cultures, and personal experiences. I use parts of this book in my Introduction to Information Systems class.
For running your activism as a business, I would recommend Drucker's book as well as The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber (Chapter 1). The E-Myth (entrepreneurial myth) posits that most entrepreneurs fail because they get into business for the wrong reasons. Its been quite a few years since I read it, but my take-away was that many entrepreneurs fail because they are good technicians, but poor businessmen. They think that just because they know the skill or subject (for [Objectivists], read philosophy), they can be effective entrepreneurs (read activists). This book offers various ways to overcome these common failures. For example, think turn-key when designing your activism. Also, use metrics to measure effectiveness.
I don't know much about marketing, but I imagine a good introductory book on marketing may be useful to activists as well.
Another book from sociology and psychology fields that uses many of the ideas from Diffusion of Innovations without giving it much due is a recent best seller called The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. The focus again is on how ideas spread through society, from cool shoes to Sesame Street. It isn't a great book (not as good as Diffusion of Innovations), but it may be of some value.
I give a very limited recommendation of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. If you have ever heard the phrase "paradigm shift", Kuhn is the one who invented it. Philosophically, the book is way off base. Essentially, Kuhn claims scientists fail to integrate new facts of realty due to their adoption of inbred intrinsicist thinking. The only way to overcome this inbred intrinsicism is with outsiders who come up with new ideas and create scientific revolutions. This leads Kuhn to suggest the cure for intrinicism is subjectivism. That being said, the book contains a number of interesting historic examples about how radical new ideas are rejected and/or adopted by a community. If you can ignore Kuhn's philosophy and focus on the facts illustrated in the book, you may be able to take away something of value.
I've also read a number of other good business books, but I'm not sure how useful they'd be for [Objectivist activists]. And I'm sure there are plenty I haven't read.
Thank you, John! That's a very helpful bit of sources and commentary. Anyone else want to add their own recommendations? As always, the comments are open!
Walking Cultural Activism: Of The World By Greg Perkins @ 3:08 PM
Tammy and I thought it would be great to produce a series of T-shirt designs for those occasions when it is appropriate to wear our ideas on our sleeves. Bonus points if they aren't just provocative but actually spark some good engagement!
This design speaks to the phenomenon of Christians who are taught to be in the world but not of the world and revel in being aliens here in reality. There is even a company named NOTW ("Not Of This World") that sells them a staggering array of hip decals and clothing.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's just messed up. The world is the source of every one of our values -- that's why we are in it, and why we should love being in it!
Yes, that is a reference to Leonardo da Vinci's renowned Vitruvian Man drawing. "This image exemplifies the blend of art and science during the Renaissance and ... represents a cornerstone of Da Vinci's attempts to relate man to nature." Here's a closer look:
(Just click through to BoltOfReason.Com to check out all the available styles and colors. We of course love suggestions and requests -- we're already working on a lot of fun ideas, and if you are the first to hit us with a new one that we use in a future shirt design, you'll get one for free!)
Consider Dr. Binswanger's list of Alan Greenspan's betrayals of Ayn Rand's principles:
I can't say I knew Alan Greenspan, though, being an associate of Ayn Rand, I met him a few times in the 1960s. But by 1970--almost 40 years ago--I and a couple of other Objectivists in that circle already realized that Greenspan was compromising on her philosophy. Little did we know how far his anti-Rand journey would take him. As the years rolled on,
he was hailed as the man who "saved" Social Security--by extending its confiscatory power,
when Bill Clinton's State of the Union address called for socialized medicine, he rose to his feet, standing next to Hillary Clinton in giving a standing ovation to that proposal,
he became head of the mammothly anti-capitalist Federal Reserve, directing the government's manipulation of money and credit,
he provided a laudatory dust-jacket blurb for a book attacking Ayn Rand (by a woman he had "irrevocably" condemned in print in 1968). Yet he repeatedly refused to contribute to or lend his name to the Ayn Rand Institute,
he wrote, in 1995, that government central banking is a necessity: "Only a central bank, with unlimited power to create money can guarantee that such a process ["a cascading sequence of defaults"] will be thwarted before it becomes destructive." (Note that we just witnessed this "cascading sequence of defaults" despite --or, actually, caused by --our central bank.),
he wrote in his autobiography about coming to reject Objectivism: "as contradictions inherent in my new notions began to emerge . . . the fervor receded",
and now he has blamed free markets (as if we had them!) for his failures at the Fed. In conceding that his "ideology" was wrong, he was understood to be saying Ayn Rand was wrong--even though he had long ago forgotten or evaded every essential of what Ayn Rand stood for.
Can it get any worse than that? Yes, it can -- and Dr. Binswanger lays out the case clearly. In essence, "a man who betrays Ayn Rand, and who wrecks the economy of the U.S. in carrying out that betrayal, then succeeds in shifting the blame onto Ayn Rand and capitalism." Lovely, no?
Go read the whole thing. And then post a link to it in the comments of every annoying blogger who claims that the current financial crisis is a refutation of Ayn Rand's ideas.
In the 1990s, politicians wanted to make home ownership as universal as possible. They used laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act to force banks to make unsustainable loans to millions of people. They also expanded quasi-government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to guarantee these loans.
This scheme could last only a few years. In 2008, the housing bubble finally burst and economic reality caught up with the politicians. American taxpayers were stuck with the tab for these "toxic" mortgages. The result was the Wall Street Bailout of 2008 and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
In 2008, politicians want to guarantee "universal health care" with new laws and new government programs. President-elect Barack Obama wants to require health insurers to sell policies whether or not those policies are economically sustainable (for instance by requiring them to issue policies regardless of pre-existing conditions). He has also proposed creating a massive new "National Health Insurance Exchange" to help ensure "universal coverage."
But no politician can evade the laws of economic reality. Massachusetts' program of "universal coverage" requires hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money a year to stay afloat, paid for by the taxpayers of the other 49 states. If the U.S .attempted this at a national level, there would be no one to bail us out.
When Obama's proposed national system inevitably collapses under the weight of market inefficiency and bureaucratic overhead, this will merely pave the way to fully socialized single-payer health care. Health care spending now comprises one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Forcing taxpayers to pay for everyone's medical expenses would make the $700 billion Wall Street bailout look like pocket change in comparison.
Even worse, under nationalized health care the government will eventually have to ration medical services to control costs. This is already commonplace in other countries. A Canadian woman who feels a lump in her breast oftens wait months before she receives the surgery and chemotherapy she needs. In contrast, an American woman can get the treatment she needs within days.
According to The Telegraph, Great Britain's National Health Service paid bonuses to primary care physicians who reduced the numbers of referrals to hospital specialists - thus forcing those doctors to choose between their oaths to their patients or the government which pays their salaries. Whenever government attempts to guarantee a "right" to health care, it must also control it. Bureaucrats then decide who gets what health care and when, not doctors and patients.
The fundamental problem with "universal health care" is the mistaken premise that health care is a "right." Rights are freedoms of actions (such as the right to free speech), not automatic claims on goods and services that must be produced by others.
Individuals are legitimately entitled to health care that they purchase with their own money, are promised by prior contractual agreements, or are given to them via voluntary charity.
Attempting to guarantee an alleged "right" to health care must necessarily violate someone's actual rights - the rights of those compelled to pay for it. The ultimate victims will again be the taxpayers, just as they were the ultimate victims of the Wall Street bailout.
Instead of universal health care, we need free market reforms that reduce costs, reward individual responsibility, and respect individual rights. Some examples include eliminating mandatory insurance benefits, repealing laws that forbid purchasing health insurance across state lines, and allowing individuals to use Health Savings Accounts for routine expenses and to purchase low cost, catastrophic-only insurance for major expenses. Such reforms could lower costs up to 50 percent, making health insurance available to millions who cannot currently afford it.
We can't go back in time and avoid the Wall Street Bailout of 2008. But we can still make the right decision with respect to health care. We must reject calls for "universal health care" or else we'll be faced with a massive "Health Care Bailout of 2018." The events of the past few months have taught us some important lessons about economic reality. The only question is whether we're willing to learn from them.
TOS Article on Mandatory Insurance Now Free! By Paul Hsieh @ 12:05 AM
Craig Biddle (publisher of the journal, The Objective Standard) has graciously agreed to make the full text of my article in the Fall 2008 issue on the dangers of mandatory health insurance available for free, to subscribers and non-subscribers alike.
Even more ominously, insurance companies have agreed to support this idea, saying that they'll accept new government regulations in exchange for the federal government requiring all citizens to purchase health insurance: "Insurers make pitch for health coverage mandate"
President-elect Obama has pledged to make universal health care one of the highest priorities of his new administration.
If we don't want to go down this dangerous path, we'll have to speak out in opposition to this bad idea.
Hence, please feel free to link to this article and/or send it to friends, coworkers, elected officials, and anyone else who might make a difference. A few active minds in the right places could make more difference than you think. And it's your future health care at stake:
Furthermore, given the importance of the philosophical battles we'll be fighting over the next 4 years, please consider sending Christmas gift subscriptions of The Objective Standard to friends, family members, and other active-minded people. I gave two subscriptions last year to two non-Objectivist friends. Both of them enjoyed reading it. And even though they didn't always agree with the ideas, they found the articles thought-provoking. I plan on giving even more this year, and I encourage other Objectivists to do the same. Not only is it a great gift, it's an investment in your own future.
To give a gift subscription, go to this page. Give your friends the intellectual ammunition they'll need to fight for their values -- and yours!
FROG Media Output: Fall 2008 By Paul Hsieh @ 12:26 AM
At the 2008 OCON conference, Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate issued a rousing call to Objectivists to engage in intellectual and cultural activism. This was the concluding message of their superb three-part lecture series "Cultural Movements: Creating Change". A room full of over 400 Objectivists gave them a standing ovation.
Members of the Front Range Objectivism Group (FROG) here in Colorado have responded to their challenge. The following is the summary of our published media output between September 7, 2008 and November 22, 2008:
OpEds: 15
Letters to the Editor: 28 (including New York Times, Economist and Wall Street Journal)
Articles: 1
Media Citations: 2 (New York Times, Salon.com)
Television Appearances: 3
New Media -- Online Contests Winners: 2
New Media -- Online Debates: 1
(Full details are listed at the end of this post. I've done my best to include all the OpEds and LTEs that I know about, but if I inadvertently omitted someone's contribution, then please let me know and I'll update the tally.)
I chose this time period (Labor Day until just before Thanksgiving), because it coincided with people returning from their summer and Labor Day vacations and with the election season shifting into high gear. As many know, the news/politics cycle is relatively slow before Labor Day, heats up during September, October, and November, and then slows down again during Thanksgiving and the winter holidays. In 2008, this time period included politically important events such as the bailout crisis and the election.
All of us at FROG are amateurs with regular day jobs, writing in our free time with a budget of zero dollars. Hence, no think tank in Washington DC can claim a better output-to-expenses ratio!
We all wrote on topics of our own choosing, based on our personal interests. We covered a broad range of topics, including the financial crisis, health care reform, abortion, church-state separation, and various state and local ballot initiatives, all with the purpose of applying Objectivist ideas to issues of importance to ordinary Americans. Each of us participated as little or as much as was appropriate within the full context of our busy lives, in a non-sacrificial fashion, according to the principles discussed by Debi Ghate and Tom Bowden in their 2008 OCON special workshop, "How to Be An Agent of Cultural Change".
The list also includes some "new media" recognition from non-Objectivists, specifically the "Anti-Socialized Medicine Blog Post Contest". This contest ran weekly for 4 consecutive weeks in September 2008, sponsored by the David All Group, a conservative media consulting firm in Washington, DC. It was open to all bloggers (not just Objectivists). The winner each week received $50 from the David All Group, as well as free publicity on multiple conservative websites and blogs. Members of the Front Range Objectivism Group were the contest winners for 2 of those 4 weeks.
This list does not include our own personal blog posts, online comments that we've left on news websites linking to material from ARI/ARC (or The Objective Standard), or private letters we've written to our elected officials.
Nor does it include some important activities prior to September 7, 2008, such as the "white paper" that Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh issued in August 2008 on Amendment 48 ("Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person"). Their paper has been downloaded over 3700 times, and has been cited by the national media at Salon.com.
Nor does it include the websites that Diana created to inform Colorado voters of various state ballot initiatives (and which generated multiple local media inquiries and requests for interviews).
The battle is not over by any means. But all the participants here in Colorado have greatly enjoyed our activism and we have experienced first-hand the truth of Ayn Rand's adage, "Those who fight for the future live in it today."
So as we get ready to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, I'd like to extend my own heart-felt thanks to my fellow FROG members as well as to all the other Objectivists around the country who have been fighting for reason, individual rights, and capitalism.
And I also welcome Objectivists in other parts of the country to post on their own activism successes these past few months.
Thank you all, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
-- PSH
Front Range Objectivism Group Media Output: Fall 2008 (Sept 7, 2008 - Nov 22, 2008)
Summary:
OpEds: 15
Letters to the Editor: 28
Articles: 1
Media Citations: 2
Television Appearances: 3
New Media -- Online Contests Winners: 2
New Media -- Online Debates: 1
Detailed List:
OpEds: 15
Paul Hsieh, "Free market reforms healthier than Amendment 56", Rocky Mountain News, 9/19/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "'Worthy Cause' Tax, It's Not Your Penny to Give", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/25/2008.
Diana Hsieh and Ari Armstrong, "Abortion and Abolition", Boulder Weekly, 10/9/2008.
Diana Hsieh, "Why Amendment 48 Is Polling 39 Percent", Pagosa Daily Post, 10/10/2008.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Mark Your Colorado Ballot For Liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/13/2008.
Ari Armstrong, "Faith-based Politics Costs Colorado Republicans", Capitalism Magazine, 10/15/2008.
Diana Hsieh, "Abortion is a Woman's Right", Pagosa Daily Springs, 10/23/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "It's Not Your Penny to Give", Colorado Daily, 10/26/2008.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Time to Speak Out for Free Speech", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/27/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "Vote No on 1B and Donate Your Own Money", Longmont Times-Call, 10/31/2008.
Diana Hsieh, "There's Nothing Wrong with Abortion, But 48 Is Wrong", Rocky Mountain News, 11/3/2008.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Ayn Rand Doesn't Need A Bailout", Grand Junction Free Press, 11/10/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "How the GOP Lost My Vote", Denver Post, 11/13/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "The Future of Social Security?", Capitalism Magazine, 11/18/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Asking for Trouble in Health Care", Colorado Springs Gazette, 11/22/2008.
Letters to the Editor: 28
Paul Hsieh, "The Massachusetts Way", New York Times, 9/7/2008.
Ari Armstrong, "Amendment 48 Smoke Screen", Pagosa Daily Post, 9/19/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "The $700 Billion Plan", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/27/2008.
Tom Hall, "Fate of Her Unborn up to Each Woman", Rocky Mountain News, 9/29/2008.
Gina Liggett, "Amendment 48, the 'Personhood' Measure", Denver Post, 9/29/2008.
Diana Hsieh, "Amendment 48 Would Fabricate Rights for Fertilized Eggs", Grand Junction Sentinel, 9/29/2008
Paul Hsieh, "Markets and Bailouts", Denver Post, 9/30/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Keep government out of benefits arena", Rocky Mountain News, 10/2/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "Amendment 59 Raises Taxes", Denver Post, 10/7/2008.
Ari Armstrong, "Carroll too quick to invoke Depression", Rocky Mountain News, 10/13/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "Count on taxes rising if Amendment 59 passes", Rocky Mountain News, 10/14/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Running for cover", Economist, 10/14/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Obama's plan would move us toward government health care", Rocky Mountain News, 10/16/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "Mandatory Voting is Immoral", Boulder Daily Camera, 10/18/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Freedom to Choose", Economist, 10/23/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "Capitalism and Socialism", Boulder Daily Camera, 10/25/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Whose Health Plan Is Best?", Denver Post, 10/26/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "Beware Udall's Health Care Policy", Boulder Daily Camera, 11/1/2008.
Hannah Krening, "Surprised By Election Results", Rocky Mountain News, 11/5/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "GOP Recipe", Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11/11/2008.
Joe Collins, "On Freedom", Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11/12/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Voters Still Want Small Government", Rocky Mountain News, 11/13/2008.
Paul Hsieh, "Compassionate Conservatism Is Dead. What's Next?", Wall Street Journal, 11/14/2008.
Gina Liggett, "The Republican Party Has Gone Bankrupt", Denver Post, 11/15/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "Stop the Bailouts, Try Freedom", Boulder Daily Camera, 11/15/2008.
Bryan Armentrout, "Disgusted with a GOP that's 'Democrat Light'", Rocky Mountain News, 11/17/2008.
Brian Schwartz, "Amendment 59 backers should send refunds to schools", Rocky Mountain News, 11/21/2008.
Articles: 1
Paul Hsieh, "Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America", The Objective Standard, Fall 2008.
Media Citations: 2
Ari Armstrong/Diana Hsieh paper mentioned in "Did You Just Call Me A Zygote?", Salon, 9/16/2008.
Diana Hsieh mentioned in, "For Atheists, Politics Proves to Be a Lonely Endeavor", New York Times, 10/17/2008.
Television Appearances: 3
Brian Schwartz, Channel 54 (CCTV), "Worthy Cause" Tax interview, 10/8/2008.
Ari Armstrong, Channel 31 (Fox), Amendment 59 interview, 10/13/2008.
Ari Armstrong, Channel 4 (CBS), Election Night commentary, 11/4/2008.
New Media -- Online Contests Winners: 2
"Anti-Socialized Medicine Blog Post Contest", Week 2 winner, Paul Hsieh, "UK Doctors Withholding Treatment Information From Patients", 9/8/08.
"Anti-Socialized Medicine Blog Post Contest", Week 4 winner, Brian Schwartz, "Single-Payer Health Care: Immoral and Deadly", 9/24/08.
New Media -- Online Debate: 1
Opposing Views: "Should the U.S. Have Universal Healthcare?", 11/14/2008. (FIRM participated as one of the "Verified Experts" on the "No" side of the debate.)
The Word Spreads By Diana Hsieh @ 10:22 PM
I'm delighted to report that Paul's Denver Post op-ed How the GOP Lost My Vote seems to be making the rounds of the blogosphere. Most notably, it's a "top headline" on Michelle Malkin's Hot Air and a good chunk of it was sympathetically quoted on Little Green Footballs. (Yikes! LFG has over 1000 comments on that post already.)
After a resounding electoral defeat, in which voters in this once-red state rejected Republicans McCain, Schaffer, and Musgrave, the Colorado Republican Party will undoubtedly be asking themselves, "Why did we lose?"
I want to let them know that they lost the vote of many former supporters (including myself) because they have chosen to embrace the Religious Right.
I voted Republican in 1996, 2000, and 2004. I believe in limited government, individual rights, free market capitalism, a strong national defense, and the right to keep and bear arms - positions that one normally associates with Republicans.
But I didn't vote for a single Republican in 2008. I've become increasingly alienated by the Republicans" embrace of the religious "social conservative" agenda, including attempts to ban abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage.
The Founding Fathers correctly recognized that the proper function of government is to protect individual rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. But freedom of religion also implies freedom *from* religion. As Thomas Jefferson famously put it, there should be a "wall of separation" between church and state. Public policy should not be based on religious doctrines.
Instead, the government's role is to protect each person's right to practice his or her religion as a private matter and to forbid them from forcibly imposing their particular views on others. And this is precisely why I find the Republican Party's embrace of the Religious Right so dangerous.
If a woman chooses not to have an abortion for reasons of personal faith, then I completely respect her right to do so. But she cannot impose her particular religious views on others. Other women must have the same right to decide that deeply personal issue for themselves.
The Religious Right's goal of outlawing abortions would violate that important right, and sacrifice the lives of actual women for clumps of cells that are only potential (but not yet actual) human beings, based on religious dogma. As a physician, I find that position abhorrent and deeply anti-life.
In his October 24, 2008 radio broadcast, Rush Limbaugh told pro-choice secular supporters of limited government such as myself that we should leave the Republican Party. Many of us have already taken his advice and changed our affiliation to "independent."
The Republican Party stands at an important crossroads. The Republican Party could choose to follow the principles of the American Founding Fathers and promote a limited government that protected individual rights but otherwise left people alone to live their lives.
This includes affirming the principle of the separation of church and state. If they did so, I would happily support it.
Or the Republican Party could instead choose to become the party of the Religious Right and seek to forcibly impose the religious values of one particular constituency over others (thus violating everyone else's rights).
In that case, it will continue to alienate many voters and lose elections -- and deservedly so.
Even though I no longer regard myself as a Republican, I definitely regard myself as a loyal American.
My parents immigrated legally from Taiwan to America over 40 years ago. They had very little money, but they worked hard, sent two children to college and medical school, and are now enjoying a well-earned and comfortable retirement.
Their life has been a real-life embodiment of the American dream. America is a beacon of hope to millions of people around the world precisely because our system of government allows honest, hard-working people to prosper and thrive.
Our system is a testament to the genius of the Founding Fathers, who recognized that the proper function of government is to protect individual rights, such as our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Hence, I believe the Republican Party should choose the first path - the path of limited government, separation of church and state, and protection of individual rights.
This is the America that brought my parents from a ocean away in hopes of a better life for themselves and their children. This is the America I want to live in. And this is the America I want the Republican Party to stand for.
Walking Cultural Activism: One Nation By Greg Perkins @ 4:55 PM
Tammy and I thought it would be great to produce a series of T-shirt designs for those occasions when it is appropriate to wear our ideas on our sleeves. Bonus points if they aren't just provocative but actually spark some good engagement!
Here are two designs that respond to the religionists who called on Congress to edit our nation's official Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950's to include the phrase "under God" -- along with all those today who smile on that and wrongly insist that our great nation was founded on religious ideals.
(Just click through to BoltOfReason.Com to check out all the available styles and colors. We of course love suggestions and requests -- we're already working on a lot of fun ideas, and if you are the first to hit us with a new one that we use in a future shirt design, you'll get one for free!)
In Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged," her hero, John Galt, refuses to accept the position of economic dictator. Alan Greenspan accepted such a position as head of the government's central bank, and his dictates were enforced over an economy burdened with thousands of pages of regulations.
Greenspan's own flawed ideas have nothing in common with Rand's philosophy. Nor was the U.S. economy ever set free of government control. Had Froma Harrop (Other Opinion, Oct. 30) discussed the content of Rand's philosophy along with the actual state of business regulation, this would have been clear.
Credentials for Activism By Diana Hsieh @ 12:22 AM
Paul and I recently received the following inquiry from Miranda Barzey. I thought it of general interest, so I'm posting it and our replies here, with her permission. Miranda wrote:
What's the importance of credentials when writing or arguing for a cause? Is it important to have an MD or PHD when trying to persuade other people of an idea's creedence, namely Objectivism? Can an average, everyday, YOUNG person make an argument and be taken seriously without the pieces of paper backing them up? What about when trying to reach a large group of people? It just seems to me that a good argument is a good argument despite the background of the person giving it. What do you think?
Paul wrote the following in reply:
That's an excellent question, Miranda! Here's my quick 2 cents' worth:
For technical subjects (law, medicine, engineering), the credential helps somewhat. If I needed to resolve a biochemistry argument, I'd definitely give more weight to someone with a PhD in biochemistry than someone with a masters' degree in English Literature.
For public policy, it's helps a little bit. But mostly it's a proxy marker to show that the person has done some level of advanced education and thus presumably is not just some random person with an opinion.
Of course we all know that this sort of proxy may have very little to do with the merits of the argument. For example, there are Nobel Prize winners in economics (like Paul Krugman) who support all sorts of bad ideas like "universal health care", when they should know better.
Yes, ultimately it's the quality of the argument that should matter. And it usually does. But for better or worse, the credential might help you get an initial hearing. But in sustained debates and discussions with a fair-minded audience, the quality of arguments (including reasoning and evidence used) and often the tone/demeanor (especially on the internet) make more difference in the end.
And I wrote:
This is a great question to pose to the OActivists list. You're welcome to join it, if you meet the list qualifications.
Let me just say the following, in addition to what Paul said:
It's hard to have credibility as a young person: I've noticed that people take me more seriously in my 30s than they did in my 20s, even when my views haven't changed one iota.
What every speaker needs is credibility -- at least to get his/her foot in the door. An audience needs some reason to think that this person will have something interesting and informed to say, rather than just a bunch of ill-conceived opinions. A degree can provide that, as can personal experience or proven expertise (e.g. working in a field for some years, authoring an issue paper, etc).
That kind of credibility is hard for a young person to gain, precisely because they're young. However, you need not be discouraged. A great deal of really important activism is totally (or mostly) blind to credentials. If you write a letter to the editor or web comment, no one will know how old you are. The same goes if you write an op-ed. (For an op-ed, I would definitely draw on people who do have experience in a given field -- i.e. act like a journalist in part -- to give your writing more credibility and power.)
Finally, I should mention that pursuing an advanced degree -- particularly one that will give you a title -- requires years of grueling work. So I don't recommend doing that unless you have a real interest in the topic and eagerness to learn it. The work is just too hard to do for a mere piece of paper.
IndianObjectivists By Diana Hsieh @ 5:25 PM
Dinesh Pillay has created a mailing list for promoting Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism in India. (Hooray!) Here's the basic list description:
IndianObjectivists is a private mailing list for Objectivists either based in India or with an interest in Indian society. Its purpose is to facilitate ideas for activism & also for promoting the philosophy of Objectivism in India.
You can find more -- including the criteria for membership and the link to subscribe -- at this blog post.
(1) Last night, I finished the first draft of the fifth chapter of my dissertation. It was a 43-page chapter articulating, developing, and defending Aristotle's theory of moral responsibility. I've now written 148 pages, and I probably have about 80 left to write, in the form of the final three chapters applying my Aristotelian account of moral responsibility to the various cases of circumstantial, resultant, and constitutive moral luck. I'm going to have to crank them out fast -- before the end of the calendar year. (For some background on my dissertation, see this post on my prospectus.)
(3) In celebration, I'm going to take today off. I have a slew of household chores to catch up on, plus some fun cooking to do. I'll be making homemade applesauce, as well as roasting the seeds from one of the delicious pumpkins I grew in my garden this year.
The news story also mentioned Ayn Rand and her book The Virtue of Selfishness, including hyperlinks to the book and the ARI.
Numerous non-Objectivist blogs have also linked to the ABC story, mostly in support. I think this is an excellent opportunity for Objectivists to add to the public discussion in defense of limited government, individual rights, and egoism.
It's probably not worth adding a comment to the ABC story itself, because there are well over 1000 comments there already. But you can easily leave comments on blogs that are covering the story. For instance, using Google to search for "'ayn rand' selfish obama", I found the following:
You can then click through to go to various blogs/websites, many of which allow comments.
I've left versions of the following comment on several of them:
The kind of selfishness that Ayn Rand advocated (and which Obama apparently opposes) is a completely noble and moral American virtue. This country was founded on the principle that men and women had the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" free from government interference and tyranny.
Many immigrants (such as my parents) came to this country precisely to be able to work hard, prosper, and give their children a chance for a better life. They came to this country with little more than the clothes on their back, but did well over the years, sent two children to college and medical school, and are now enjoying a well-earned and comfortable retirement. Their lives have been a real-life embodiment of the American dream.
If we want America to remain a beacon of hope to millions around the world, we should re-affirm our commitment to free markets and capitalism, and reject calls for more socialism and "redistribution of wealth".
This country is great precisely because it allows people like my parents to attain selfish goals such as their lives and happiness. Americans should be proud of that fact, not condemn it.
If you've composed something on this topic that you like, then this is a good way to defend Ayn Rand and rational egoism with a minimum of additional effort.
They did minor editing, but kept the central meaning intact. The letter is the 4th one down:
Freedom to choose
SIR – The Massachusetts system of "universal" health care remains afloat only because of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support ("In need of desperate remedies", October 18th). One reason costs are so high in Massachusetts is that individuals are forced to purchase benefits they neither need nor want. Under any system of mandatory insurance, the state must necessarily define what constitutes an acceptable insurance policy, meaning that individuals are buying insurance on terms influenced by lobbyists and bureaucrats, rather than based on a rational assessment of their needs. If the federal government adopts the Massachusetts system on a national scale, it would merely multiply those problems fifty-fold.
Dr Paul Hsieh Co-founder Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine Sedalia, Colorado
OList Mailing Lists By Diana Hsieh @ 11:24 AM
A few days ago, I realized that I ought to occasionally post a reminder about my various OList mailing lists. So without further ado...
OList.com is the home of three specialized e-mail lists for Objectivists, all to help promote Objectivist ideas in the culture at large:
OActivists: OActivists is an informal e-mail list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural and political change. Its purpose is to facilitate and encourage effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas in non-Objectivist forums by facilitating communication with other Objectivist activists. Posts to the list alert subscribers to opportunities to speak out, recommend sources of information, discuss effective arguments and principled strategies, reproduce op-eds and letters written by subscribers, announce events, and more. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
OBloggers: OBloggers is an informal mailing list for Objectivist bloggers. Its basic purpose is to facilitate communication about matters of mutual interest, such as upcoming events, posts of interest, best blogging practices, and the like. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
OAcademics: OAcademics is a forum for Objectivist academics to discuss teaching, research, coursework, dissertations, job prospects, publication, and all other aspects of life in (or after) academia. The list is basically a means of sharing knowledge and experience as ever more Objectivists enter academia. Click here for a full description of this list and its membership requirements.
Please feel free to join if you're interested, provided that you meet the criteria for membership.
A short op-ed I wrote for Fox News' Fox Forum on the threat either a McCain or Obama presidency poses to freedom is the featured commentary for the weekend. I argued that both Obama and McCain are "equally dangerous for economic freedom in America" and that "on every question, both men share the same corrupt moral premise, differing only in degree and their particular focus."
I encourage you to leave a comment there adding your own thoughts. The URL is:
To add to Nick's point, the biggest problem in modern American politics is the failure to recognize what individual rights are.
Rights are freedoms of actions (such as the right to free speech), not automatic claims on goods and services that must be produced by others. Individuals are legitimately entitled to services such as health care that they purchase with their own money, are promised by prior contractual agreements, or are given to them via voluntary charity.
Otherwise, government programs to guarantee health care as a "right" must necessarily violate someone's actual rights - either the rights of those compelled to provide medical care or the rights of those compelled to pay for it. Such programs then become just another form of state-sanctioned slavery or theft.
Both McCain and Obama suffer from this faulty understanding of individual rights. Both would use the power of government to trample on legitimate rights (such as the right to free speech) as well as to attempt to guarantee false entitlement "rights".
Unless Americans reaffirm the proper conception of rights as freedoms of actions (and concomitant limitations on government powers), then we'll continue our current downhill slide. A civilization will collapse if citizens decide that they can vote each other goodies from the government trough, at the expense of those who produce such goods.
The Romans learned this lesson the hard way. The big question is whether Americans will also learn this lesson before it's too late.
Pro-Life Feminist? By Diana Hsieh @ 7:12 PM
Today, the Christian Science Monitor published an excellent letter to the editor by William Stoddard, a much-valued NoodleFood commenter. As published, it reads:
Regarding the Oct. 14 Opinion piece, "Amid Palin hype, a pro-life feminist's dilemma": "Pro-life feminism" is a contradiction in terms. A woman who would deprive other women of control over their own bodies, by legally compelling them to carry pregnancies to term against their will, is not a credible advocate of women's rights.
Abortion is not an easy choice for any woman, and it would be a good thing if the need for it were minimized through conscientious use of contraception. But the claim that a fetus is a person under the law has intolerable implications. A fetal "right to life" would define doctors who perform abortions, and women who undergo them, as murderers. This would be the case even for women who became pregnant through rape, or who were carrying profoundly defective children.
The law should protect the pregnant woman's right to decide what to do. Any other policy is opposed both to feminism and to the broader concept of individual rights.
William H. Stoddard San Diego
Unfortunately, it's not available online yet. (It was definitely printed today, as I have a hard copy in front of me. Paul subscribes, as it's a great little newspaper.)
In response to last week's passage of the financial bailout legislation, I've taken the liberty of acquiring the domain name repealthebailout.net and creating a rudimentary website. It can be found here:
Right now, it's more or less just a skeleton, consisting mainly of links to various articles on the subject. However, I have a strong suspicion that last week's bailout isn't the last one we're going to be facing, and that the website may continue to be relevant for some time to come. I plan to try to update it steadily as my (unfortunately limited) time allows, both with original material and with new and timely links.
I'm interested in feedback and thoughts on what I've (hastily) thrown together so far, so please feel free to respond to me (preferably directly, so as not to clutter the list) if you have any. I'm also interested in new and useful links as well as original contributions if you have any to offer or suggest.
Thanks -- Tony Donadio
Tony has done a fantastic job with Repeal the Bailout. Kudos to him! Please do point people to it in any writing you do about the financial crisis, e.g. in e-mail discussions, comments on news stories, comments on blogs, and the like.
Such small sites focused on some current issue -- like my even smaller Vote No on 59 -- are relatively easy to create, maintain, and promote. They can get a steady stream of search traffic, as shown by the stats of No on 59. (See the visits and referrals.) They're an effective and enduring form of activism for just a few hours of your time.
Notably, because of Vote No on 59, Ari Armstrong was interviewed by the local news for a segment on Amendment 59 on Tuesday. It was shown at 5:30 and again at 9:00; you can watch it here. (The reporter called me due to the web site, and I pointed her to Ari, as he's more knowledgeable than me.) That's an unusually good result, but certainly possible in a busy election season! In the meantime, over 100 interested Colorado voters each day are reading why they should vote "No" on this permanent tax hike.
A Slender Silver Lining to the Bailout? By Paul Hsieh @ 2:02 PM
Although the economic crisis and subsequent bailout are going to be painful for our country, there may be a very slender silver lining -- namely that the loss of money will likely derail some plans for more big government programs.
Here are a two recent examples, one in health care and the other in "green" legislation:
A growing number of experts have abandoned all hopes of major health reform. "The bailout makes it that much tougher, because health care will be crowded out by other issues," said Drew Altman, president and CEO of Kaiser Family Foundation...
The economic free fall gripping the nation may bring down one of the main environmental objectives: capping the greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming. ...[T]he focus on stabilizing the economy probably will make it more difficult to pass a law to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. At the very least, it will push back when the reductions would have to start.
These stories suggest that even if a President Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress wanted to implement these bad ideas, they probably wouldn't be able to do so immediately, purely because of cost.
(It was similar economic constraints that stopped California from imposing "universal health care" at the state level last year, even though the Democratic state legislature and Republican Governor Schwarzenegger were both strongly in favor of it.)
Obviously, this would just be a temporary reprieve -- the liberals' underlying bad ideology has not changed. And I fully recognize that there are plenty of other bad laws that both the Left and the Right could propose (such as restrictions on free speech) that wouldn't require much money to implement.
But the economic downturn could buy us a little more time to continue the fight for good ideas. Let's not waste it...
Update: This New York Times column by David Brooks argues the opposite -- that an Obama admininistration would use the financial crisis as the pretext for massively increased government spending, despite the fact that the country will not be able to afford it.
Either way, I think we'll have our work cut out for us...
Activism with Sock Puppets By Diana Hsieh @ 1:50 PM
In my voting guide below, I linked to a video on Amendment 49 by Jon Caldera of the Independence Institute. Even if you don't live in Colorado, the video is worth watching, simply because it's so damn fun -- nothing like the usual blah blah blah from policy wonks. So here it is:
Seriously, I'm going to need to get myself a video camera and some sock puppets if I really want to make a difference in Colorado politics.
Palin called for "government strict oversight," implying that the problem was caused by a lack of such oversight, rather than the presence of foolish federal controls. ...
Biden's message is that the free market doesn't work, deregulation equals the free market, deregulation has failed, and government controls are the alternative to deregulation.
Unfortunately, Republicans often have used the term "deregulation" because they don't want to talk about the fundamental issue: individual rights. Because they don't favor individual rights. As Bush II has proved, Republicans (in general, not in every particular) are enthusiastic about government controls and political power.
The problem is that the term "regulation" is a package deal. "Regulation" means to make regular. Well, we want things to be regular, don't we, as opposed to irregular? For example, the Constitution grants to Congress the power "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states..." Those of us of the individual-rights persuasion like to think of that clause as granting to Congress the ability to "make regular" trade; that is, to free it of state interference.
Government plays a crucial regulatory role. The proper role of government is to protect individual rights. In the sphere of economics, that means protecting property rights and the right to contract. It means fighting fraud. It means eliminating the initiation of force. In those functions, the government regulates -- makes regular -- the economy. Protecting individual rights is regulation.
But what Biden means by "regulation" is a host of federal controls that violate, rather than protect, individual rights. These rights-violating controls do not make the economy "regular;" they make it irregular and chaotic. For example, the federal controls that forced lenders to make risky loans are "regulations" of this sort. The mortgage crisis is a crisis not of the free market, not of the regulation of protecting individual rights, but of the "regulations" of government controls that violate rights of property and contract.
What we need is not some out-of-context "deregulation" or "regulation." What we need is a government that protects individual rights rather than violates them. That is the very definition of the free market. That is what Joe Biden condemns, and what Sarah Palin cannot even conceive.
Amendment 59 (or "SAFE") is the proposed amendment to Colorado's constitution that would increase your taxes by forever funneling your TABOR rebate back to the government, ostensibly to fund P-12 education.
Colorado voters should say NO to 59. Why? Because:
It is a permanent tax increase.
It is really about raising general tax revenues.
It violates property rights.
It increases government interference in our economy and our lives.
Nearly 40% of Colorado Voters Seek to Destroy Reproductive Rights
Sedalia, Colorado / October 7, 2008
Contact: Diana Hsieh, co-author of "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life" and founder of the Coalition for Secular Government, Diana@SecularGovernment.us or 303.304.0689
A poll of likely voters shows strong support for Amendment 48, the ballot measure that would grant the full legal rights of persons to fertilized eggs. The survey, conducted on September 28th by Rasmussen Reports with 500 likely voters, shows that 39% plan to vote for the measure, 50% to vote against it, while 11% are unsure. (See .)
Such strong support for Amendment 48 should surprise anyone familiar with the barrage of criticism published in Colorado media in recent weeks. Critics of the measure have warned voters of its destructive effects on Colorado's laws if passed and enforced. They have shown that it would usher in a near-total ban on abortion, outlaw the birth control pill and in vitro fertilization, and subject pregnant women to police controls. Yet these latest poll results are basically unchanged from a June poll, also by Rasmussen. (See .)
Diana Hsieh, founder of the Coalition for Secular Government and co-author of "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life," argues that the broad support for Amendment 48 is driven by a deeply-held faith pretending to be "pro-life."
The most recent Rasmussen poll showed that 41% of Colorado voters believe that "life begins at conception." That number explains the strong support for Amendment 48, despite the media barrage against it. "People who endorse that slogan regard a fertilized egg as a new, whole person with a right to life," Hsieh said. "They regard the enormous sacrifices forced on real men and women by the measure as insignificant -- or even ennobling. Their vote is based on faith, without regard to the real-world requirements of human life and happiness. It's not 'pro-life' at all."
"To effectively combat measures like Amendment 48, the whole 'pro-life' ideology must be challenged at its root," Hsieh said. "A mushy slogan like 'it simply goes too far' is unconvincing, even misleading. It doesn't speak to the fundamental dispute. Worse, it suggests that some compromise -- like banning most abortions -- would be acceptable."
"Instead, reproductive rights must be defended on principle, based on the objective facts of human nature. With regard to abortion, the fact is that a fetus or embryo is only a potential person so long as encased within and dependent on the woman. Once born, the infant is a new individual person with the right to life. That view ought to be the basis for the laws of a free society. Any alternative -- any attempt to grant rights to the embryo or fetus -- would violate the rights of pregnant women."
For a principled defense of reproductive rights, see the Coalition for Secular Government's issue paper, "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person," available at http://www.seculargovernment.us/docs/a48.pdf, particularly the section "Personhood and the Right to Abortion," pages 10-13.
RSVP by October 13th to Betty Evans via e-mail (betty@frontrangeobjectivism.com) or phone (303.421.7334). Please send your check to FROST c/o Betty Evans, 1140 US Hwy 287 STE 400-283, Broomfield, CO 80020.
About "A Call to Action: Understanding and Defeating the EPA's Plan for Environmental Dictatorship"
On July 11, 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking-the outline of a national plan to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide, a "pollutant" according to the U.S. Supreme Court. The EPA admits openly that, under this plan, the entire nation is in non-compliance, and will have to be controlled in minute detail by a maze of bureaucratic rules and procedures. The EPA has invited public comment on this plan, to which the speaker has replied with six reasons to reject these proposals categorically.
This talk will consider why non-scientists should reject claims to an imminent global disaster, and why the true disaster facing us is our own self-created political destruction. This is a moral issue, and it is only by affirming a morality proper to man's life that we can preserve and defend our freedom as sovereign moral beings. To learn more before the talk, go to http://www.classicalideals.com/EPA_Ruination.htm.
About John Lewis
John David Lewis received his PhD in Classics from the University of Cambridge. He is visiting associate professor of political science at Duke University. He has been a senior research scholar in history and classics at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, and an Anthem Fellow for Objectivist Scholarship. A writer for The Objective Standard, his books are Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens, and Early Greek Lawgivers.
If you haven't yet done so, I urge you to speak out on this issue. You can find out how to do so on John Lewis' web site. Here's the e-mail that I sent on Sunday:
Dear EPA Administrator --
Re: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0318
I am completely opposed to the rules outlined in this Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR).
These rules are incompatible with a free society: they would grossly violate our rights as Americans to life, liberty, and property.
These rules are incompatible with science: carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a gas vital to life.
These rules are incompatible with prosperity: business and industry will be strangled by them.
Personally, I'm alarmed by the prospect of EPA regulation of the food supply. The government already does enormous harm by promoting demonstrably unhealthy foods -- particularly grains, sugars, and modern vegetable oils -- while doggedly opposing healthy foods like raw milk. More government regulation would only do more damage to the health and happiness of Americans. It would certainly be very bad news for me.
Please -- in the name of American values -- reject these rules.
Hsieh LTE on the Bailout By Paul Hsieh @ 10:34 AM
The September 30, 2008 Denver Post did publish my LTE on the proposed bailout, but only in the online edition, not the print edition. (All of the LTE's on this topic were online-only.)
It's the second LTE on the page:
The current financial mess is not the fault of the free market, but rather of government interference in the free market. It's clearly not in the interest of banks to loan money to people who can't pay it back. The government created artificial incentives (such as the Community Reinvestment Act) that rewarded lenders for doing so, with the implied promise that taxpayers would pick up the tab if anything went wrong. The current mess is exactly the result one would expect.
To blame the free market for problems caused by government interference in the free market is like blaming one’s automobile accident on the car, rather than the fact that one was driving while yakking on a cellphone while looking at the onboard GPS system while reaching for a stick of gum in the glove compartment...
Many defenders of the government's efforts to prompt banks to lend more to minorities have claimed that this effort had little to do with the present mortgage mess. Specifically they point out that many institutions that made subprime mortgages during the market bubble weren't even banks subject to the Community Reinvestment Act, the main vehicle that the feds used to cajole banks to loosen their lending.
But this defense misses the point. In order to push banks to lend more to minority borrowers, advocates like the Boston Fed put forward an entire new set of lending standards and explained to the industry just why loans based on these slacker standards were somehow safer than the industry previously thought. These justifications became the basis for a whole new set of values (or lack of values), as no-down payment loans and loans to people with poor credit history or to those who were already loaded up with debt became more common throughout the entire industry.
What happened in the mortgage industry is an example of how, in trying to eliminate discrimination from our society, we turned logic on its head. Instead of nobly trying to ensure equality of opportunity for everyone, many civil rights advocates tried to use the government to ensure equality of outcomes for everyone in the housing market. And so when faced with the idea that minorities weren't getting approved for enough mortgages because they didn't measure up as often to lending standards, the advocates told us that the standards must be discriminatory and needed to be junked. When lenders did that, we made heroes out of those who led the way, like Angelo Mozilo, before we made villains of them.
Now we all have to pay.
A deliberate policy of elevating "lack of value" above value sounds almost like something from Atlas Shrugged. The end results certainly looks like it...
Top lawmakers said the Senate proposal, worked out after a day of behind the scenes maneuvering, would include tax breaks for businesses and alternative energy and higher government insurance for bank deposits.
We do need to speak up against this new bailout plan. The market crash after the defeat of the bill in the House caused some to think that a bailout would be a good idea:
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Senate banking committee, said the Senate decided to move quickly, citing signs of regret from some House members after the markets plunged in response to their initial vote.
"I think their will is coming back having heard from their constituents," Mr. Dodd said.
Lawmakers said the stock market response to the rejection was a sobering experience that could enhance prospects for a revised plan. Some anxiety lifted on Tuesday, as the Dow Jones industrial average rose 485 points, regaining more than half of the 778 points it lost on Monday. ... On the morning after the sell-off on Wall Street, Congressional offices reported a shift in angry calls from constituents, with some now demanding that lawmakers take some corrective action -- a distinct change from the outpouring of public opposition that contributed to the defeat of the plan.
"I started hearing from a lot of people who lost money on their investments thanks to the big drop on Wall Street yesterday," said Representative Steven C. LaTourette, Republican of Ohio, who voted against the plan.
So even if you already wrote or called your Senators, contact them again to tell them that you still oppose the bailout.
Also, the Ayn Rand Center has created a page of great resources on the bailout:
Feel free to make good use of it in your activism on this issue -- not only by informing yourself but also by posting the link in comments on news articles, forwarding it to friends, including it in e-mails to representatives, and so on. Here's ARC's announcement:
The Ayn Rand Center Responds to the Financial Crisis September 30, 2008
Americans are now facing an historic economic crisis. What was the cause? What is the cure? How do we prevent it from happening again?
While pundits and politicians blame the current housing and financial crisis on "greedy" businessmen and lax regulators, and are frantically urging the government to expand its control over our economic lives, the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights has launched a new Web page to defend a different view--that the actual cause of the crisis is government intervention, and the only cure, laissez-faire capitalism.
We invite you to check out our collection of essays, op-eds, lectures, and interviews arguing for a rational approach to this crisis--an approach you will not find anywhere else.
Opposing the Bailout By Paul Hsieh @ 3:00 PM
If you want to let your elected officials know that you oppose the $700 billion Bush Bailout of Wall Street, you can use this website to send them an e-mail.
For example, Rob Abiera has sent the following excellent letter to his elected officials:
Dear *** SENATOR/REPRESENTATIVE XXX ***
I am writing as a constituent to ask you to oppose the Bush Administration's request for $700 billion to bail out Wall Street. The healthiest thing for our economy would be to allow the market to work and let those firms deal privately with the consequences of their own actions. I don't believe in accepting responsibility for other people's actions and I have no desire to see my taxes used to help some Wall Street firms out of a situation which they created, not me. The answer to the current economic situation is not handouts to Wall Street tied to more regulations. The answer is to get the government OUT of the economy.
I'm sure that I disagree with Senator DeMint of South Carolina on other issues, but on this issue I have seen no better statement of the truth about this situation than his recent press release.
In this instance, Senator DeMint speaks for me, as well.
I send the following letter to my representatives, plus various other politicians and officials:
Dear So-And-So,
I'm writing to tell you that I strongly oppose any bailout of Wall Street.
The current crisis was created by government controls and regulations. The only rational solution is to allow the market to correct itself by allowing full freedom of trade. The ban on shorting financial stocks should be lifted now: the markets cannot function properly without shorting. The government should not bail out any Wall Street firms -- nor anyone else. Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for other people's irresponsibility.
Then, to preserve economic health in the long run, all of the myriad anti-capitalist controls on the markets must be repealed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be totally privatized. The Community Reinvestment Act must be repealed.
Do not blame the current crisis on the free markets. Such crises are the inevitable product of a dangerous hybrid of capitalist markets and government controls. More government meddling will only exacerbate the problem. The only real solution is to move to a fully free market in which the government upholds and protects the rights to property and contract. Only then will every person be free to act on his own rational judgment in pursuit of his own wealth, security, and happiness. That's what America should be all about.
You need not write anything so lengthy and detailed as my letter. Just a single line saying that you oppose the bailout -- and that you oppose government controls of the financial markets -- would be fantastic.
Walking Cultural Activism: Got Reason? By Greg Perkins @ 6:21 PM
Tammy and I thought it would be great to produce a series of T-shirt designs for those occasions when it is appropriate to wear our ideas on our sleeves. Bonus points if they aren't just provocative but actually spark some good engagement!
Here is the first design. It uses the same font and style of a certain famous ad campaign, echoing its clever device for pointing to something important we need and should want:
(Just click through to BoltOfReason.Com to check out all the available styles and colors. We of course love suggestions and requests -- we're already working on a lot of fun ideas, and if you are the first to hit us with a new one that we use in a future shirt design, you'll get one for free!)
Intellectual Thugs By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Over the past week, I have been absolutely horrified by the venomous hatred expressed by those supposed lovers of life, peace, and mercy: the fundamentalist Christians committed to strangling America with the law of God.
One might hope for better from the intellectual leaders of this movement. After all, they earn their bread and butter by argument: they seek to persuade others that their views are correct. So even if hopelessly wrong, they must maintain some semblance of rationality, right?
Nope.
Catholic talk show host Barbara Simpson said on the air that "there was a day when someone would take somebody like this Provenzo guy out in an alley and beat him beyond whatever. He deserves it." Nice.
Yet even worse was Laura Ingraham's interview of Nick: she failed to conduct anything remotely resembling a fair debate, yet her methods were more subtle than Simpson's explicit appeal to thuggery.
To understand the problem, let me explain how to respectfully argue with someone who disagrees with you.
You allow someone to explain their views. You ask them tough questions about the reasons for and implications of those views. The whole time, you allow them to speak for themselves. You represent their views fairly. And then you crush them with your own devastating criticisms, always politely given. You allow them to reply, and then you crush them again. That's what any decent radio talk show host -- and any respectable intellectual -- does in debate.
That's not what Laura Ingraham did. She made no effort to understand Nick's position. Despite his protests, she refused to focus on the actual intellectual disagreement between them. She refused to consider his reasons for his views. Worst of all, she attributed a variety of morally repugnant ideas to Nick, purely of her own invention. Then she refused to allow him to reply, choosing instead to pontificate to her listeners.
Her method of debate was that of a gang leader seeking to impress her minions by intimidation, not that of a respectable intellectual concerned with airing out ideas in pursuit of knowledge. Given that, Nick deserves a good bit of credit for conducting himself as well as he did.
As Objectivism makes ever-greater inroads into the culture, some people will behave like civilized adults in debate. And others will use whatever dirty tricks they can muster to misrepresent our views. We've just seen a taste of the latter. I must admit, I've grown accustomed to civilized discourse between reasonable adults -- or at least the appearance thereof. So this week has been a bit of a wake-up call for me. I expect that I'm not alone in that feeling.
Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, says that "if search is the gateway to the Internet . . . this deal [with Yahoo] will put Google in position to own that gateway and the information that flows through it" ("Top Lawyer Is Selected as U.S. Mulls Google Suit," Marketplace, Sept. 9). Why shouldn't they own it? They built it. Google is the most popular search engine because of the relevance and speed of its results; it is the dominant advertising platform because ads are more effective there than anywhere else. Google deserves its leading position and the rewards that go with it.
This case, like every other major antitrust case from Standard Oil to Microsoft, aims to punish a winning company for the crime of winning. This is a grave injustice to Google and will only harm the industry in the long run. Why place the ideal of "competition" ahead of the economic productivity that competition is supposed to promote?
It would be far more just, and better for the economy, to simply let the winners win.
I am slated to be a guest on the nationally syndicated Laura Ingraham Show at 10:30 AM Monday morning to defend a woman's moral right to have an abortion. Ingraham's show is tied as the fifth highest-rated radio talk show in America. I have been told that my segment will be run approximately 10 to 12 minutes. Ingraham is a staunch opponent of abortion and I expect my appearance to be a hard-fought battle of ideas.
To find a station carrying the broadcast in your area, visit here.
To call the show, dial 1-800-876-4123.
Fight the good fight, Nick!
Update #1: Nick hasn't been on yet, but he is upcoming, as Ingram has mentioned him. You can listen to the live stream here.
Update #2: Nick did as well as he could have, but Laura Ingraham was not even remotely fair in her interview. I'll say more in a post later today or tomorrow.
I'm even more delighted to report that I've raised about $500 for my tuition via NoodleFood and OActivists. LPR will be contributing $200 from their scholarship fund as well. So I'm still in need of about $200.
If you haven't yet donated but wish to do so, please contact Jenn Hamann, the finance director of the Leadership Program of the Rockies, sometime in the next few days. Her e-mail address is JennHamann#AT#aol#DOT#com. Please indicate that you wish to help fund a scholarship for me in particular. Remember, any donation would be tax-deductible -- and even a small donation would help.
You can donate via LPR's website (with PayPal) or by check to Leadership Program of the Rockies; 1777 South Harrison Street, Suite 807, Denver, CO 80210. You might wish to verify with Jenn that funds are still required before actually donating, however. Also, please e-mail me, so that I can thank you properly and update you on the program.
Again, I give a huge thank you to everyone who has already donated -- or will donate. You folks are awesome!
Hsieh OpEd on Employer Insurance Mandate By Paul Hsieh @ 12:42 PM
Today's (September 19, 2008) edition of the Rocky Mountain News has printed my OpEd supporting free market health care reform and opposing Colorado Amendment 56 (which would require businesses with more than 20 employees to purchase health insurance for all its workers.)
This fall, Colorado voters must decide whether to require all businesses with more than 20 employees to provide health insurance for their employees (Amendment 56). Although voters may be tempted to say "yes," this is an immoral and impractical solution to the problem of rising health insurance costs.
It is morally wrong because it violates the rights of employers and employees to negotiate to their mutual self-interest in a free market.
Businessmen create jobs through rational thought and hard work. Consequently, they have the moral right to decide on what terms to offer those jobs to prospective employees, including specific wages and benefits.
Similarly, workers have the right to negotiate for any specific wages and benefits they desire, and the right to reject job offers that don't meet their criteria. But they have no right to demand a specific salary or benefit from employers (such as health insurance) via government force.
Two motivations behind this proposed law are (1) the mistaken notion that health care should be a guaranteed "right," and (2) the desire to force businesses (rather than government) to pay for this supposed obligation. But health care is a need, not a right. A right is a freedom of action in a social context, such as the freedom of speech.
It is not an automatic claim on a good or service that must be produced by someone else. There is no such thing as a "right" to a car or an appendectomy. Any attempt by the government to guarantee a false "right" to health care can only be done by violating the actual rights of someone — in this case, business owners.
Forcing businesses to provide health insurance to employees will also cause serious economic harm to Colorado. Such a law would cause many businesses to fire workers, outsource jobs, or cancel plans to hire new workers. This will disproportionately harm unskilled workers and those at the lower end of the income scale — the very people the measure is intended to help.
According to Howard Roerig, owner of Seale & Associates, Inc. in Centennial, "This measure will have a chilling effect on all small businessmen. Although I don't have 20 employees at present, I would make certain never to hire that 20th person. The costs would be so high that I would be better off starting another firm in a different state, and letting it do business in Colorado as an out-of-state firm.
"I would have to find some means of skirting this measure or else close my doors."
Other states such as California have driven away many businesses and jobs due to high taxes and heavy regulations. Colorado must not repeat these mistakes.
To "solve" the problem of high insurance costs by foisting those costs onto businesses would be just as wrong as "solving" the problem of rising gasoline prices by forcing businesses to pay their workers' gasoline expenses.
Our current high health care costs have been caused by decades of government interference in the free market. Hence, the proper solution is not more government regulations, but instead free market reforms that addressed the problems caused by prior government controls.
Some examples of free market reforms include allowing Coloradans to purchase health insurance across state lines and eliminating mandatory insurance benefits. Patients should be allowed to purchase Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) for small routine expenses and insurers should be allowed to sell low-cost catastrophic-only policies to cover rare but expensive events. These measures could greatly reduce insurance prices and allow patients to purchase from the best offerings of all 50 states, thus making insurance available to thousands of Coloradans who want to purchase it but currently cannot afford it. Furthermore, the state legislature could adopt these reforms without permission from the federal government.
If Coloradans want to address the problem of high health insurance costs, they should reject the Amendment 56 and instead demand free market reforms. This is right for employers, right for employees, and right for Colorado.
Paul Hsieh, MD, of Sedalia is co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM)
I'd like to thank Ari Armstrong for suggesting that I write about this issue and Howard Roerig for providing me with a fantastic quote that concretizes the economic issues at stake.
On July 11, 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking-the outline of a national plan to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide, a "pollutant" according to the U.S. Supreme Court. The EPA admits openly that, under this plan, the entire nation is in non-compliance, and will have to be controlled in minute detail by a maze of bureaucratic rules and procedures. The EPA has invited public comment on this plan, to which the speaker has replied with six reasons to reject these proposals categorically.
