1) She may intend to run for President in 2012 and feels like it's to her advantage to resign now. It will mean no more phony ethics complaints. She'll be able to raise money and campaign for Republican candidates without having it used against her as governor as well. On the downside, it would hurt her in her weakest area: experience. Some people may perceive it as being flaky and emotional as well, which is something a female politician needs to work especially hard to avoid.
2) There may be some big scandal that's about to come down the pike. That's a pretty standard reason for resignations of this sort. What it would be, I have no idea at this point.
3) She, or perhaps Todd, could have a big health issue.
4) Maybe the Left finally wore her down and she just decided politics wasn't worth it anymore. I've seen it happen to other conservative women who've endured far less abuse than Sarah Palin and her family have so far. Indeed, it's part of the Left's strategy with conservative women. They try to make politics so ugly, so nasty, so personal, and so vicious that conservative women just quit. ...
5) She could be pregnant again.
Option #1 is not credible: Sarah Palin has ended her political career with this resignation. (Thank goodness!) Option #4 isn't so likely either at this late date, not without some additional pressure. So I'm betting on Options #2, #3, or #5. My money is on #5. Or perhaps another of her children is in some kind of un-Christian trouble. If Palin herself is pregnant, my only comment is somewhat general: career women really ought to figure out how to use birth control.
He gave a strong, principled defense of individual rights, capitalism, and the separation of church and state. And he properly blamed the Repubicans for their failure to uphold these basic American ideals.
You can watch his talk here at the ARC-TV website.
His speech is also available on the ARI YouTube channel in two parts -- Part 1 and Part 2:
On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.
Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster "permissiveness," and said that "it breaks the family." But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases -- like interracial pregnancies, he said.
"There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white," he told an aide, before adding, "Or a rape."
UGH. (Via Ari Armstrong, who sent me the link in e-mail with the subject line "i hate nixon part 981." Seriously.)
The Not-So-Forgotten Woman By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
This spring, I enjoyed reading Amity Schlaes' new political history of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man. Although I disliked the meandering, narrative style of the book, I learned much of value about the politics that created and sustained the Great Depression for it. I definitely recommend it.
Given that background, I was very interested to read this Bloomburg column by the same author on Atlas Shrugged: Rand's Atlas Is Shrugging With a Growing Load. (It was published last week, but I only read it yesterday.) The column isn't particularly deep: it reads Atlas on a purely political level. Here's a sample:
Rand knew that government tends to drive the most- productive economic figures away even as it pretends to utilize them. Today's shortage of primary care doctors serves as an example. Various administrations, Democratic and Republican, have tried to nudge more medical students into primary care. Young doctors simply haven't complied. That is in part because of the higher compensation of specialties. But it is also because the great charm of being a primary care doctor -- autonomy to work in a range of areas -- has been removed.
Rand foresaw this: "Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce," says one of her characters. "It is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled."
Long before managed-care existed, Rand was describing doctors' frustration with it.
Back in March, Greg Salmieri wrote the following about the tendency to focus only on the political lessons of Atlas:
Most of the recent discussion of Atlas has focused on its political themes, creating the impression that the novel is essentially a condemnation of government intervention in the economy. However, its scope, its relevance to the current crisis, and the reasons for its enduring appeal go much wider and much deeper than this. Galt goes on strike not simply against high taxes and unjust regulations, but against the morality of altruism, which Rand identifies as the cause of such measures, and against the world-view of which this moral code is an expression--a philosophy that denies the efficacy of reason and the absolutism of reality.
Atlas Shrugged is a novel about the role of the mind in man's existence. In it, Rand diagnoses not only political and economic trends, but also much of the frustration, injustice, and pain that we experience in our personal lives, tracing them all back to the mind-stultifying ideology that has come to dominate western culture and has replaced the Enlightenment ideals on which America was founded. As a prescription for the rebirth of America, and as a guide to anyone who seeks to make the most of his life, Atlas offers a revolutionary philosophy of reason and egoism.
First and foremost, however, Atlas Shrugged is a literary masterpiece: Rand presents her ideas in the form of an ingeniously plotted mystery, with unforgettable characters, heart-wrenching conflicts, and an inspiring resolution. The thousands who have picked the novel up as a result of the financial crisis are getting more than they bargained for, and they're in for a real treat.
Dr. Salmieri recommends Robert Mayhew's new anthology, Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I've not yet had a chance to read it, but based on the quality of the prior volumes and the contributors, I definitely recommend it to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the novel.
In any case, I do not mean to complain about Amity Schlaes' focus on the politics of Atlas in her column. Reasonably accurate and positive reviews -- particularly of a book published 50 years ago -- are always welcome. As Salmieri observes, most readers will find more to interest them in the book than just commonality with current political trends.
Social Security representatives said there is a good explanation. Of the about 52 million checks that have been mailed out, about 10,000 of those have been sent to people who are deceased.
On the bright side, maybe such errors will be helpful when He is running the health care industry.
It also features frequent NoodleFood commenter Steve Simpson from the Institute of Justice, discussing how the state of Virginia infringes on the free speech rights of some honest businessmen by outlawing their ability to make true statements about the products they sell.
(Via Ari Armstrong, who was also the 2009 winner of the "Modern Day Sam Adams" award.)
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.
Against the Drug War By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
An old student of mine recently wrote me asking my views about the drug war. Here's what I wrote in reply:
Like you, I'd like to live in a society of rational, productive, and interesting people -- as opposed to stoners, addicts, and the like. However, I would argue that drug prohibition actually undermines that goal, as well as endangers innocent people. You simply cannot force people to be rational, productive, and interesting people -- and the costs of attempting to do so are enormous.
Drug prohibition creates more serious drug problems. Due to the legal risks of using drugs, people are more inclined to seek stronger and shorter highs. That, plus the unknown nature of most street drugs, promotes overdoses, addiction, and other medical problems. As the price of drugs rises hugely with the risks, drug addicts turn to stealing to support their habit. Moreover, the scum of the earth have a strong incentive to become drug dealers. Then, because those drug dealers operate outside the law, gang warfare becomes a way of doing business. Ordinary people simply attempting to live their lives are caught in the crossfire.
Even with all those problems, the drug war has been completely ineffective: illegal drugs are as plentiful and easily available as ever. We have no reason to think that greater brutality in the drug war -- like executing drug dealers -- will make much of a difference. (Such people often have little regard for their own lives, I think.) Plus, the costs of an overzealous police force are quite severe. No-knock raids on wrong houses are quite common these days. People are routinely killed as a result -- not just innocent residents but also police officers. (The homeowner often reasonably thinks himself to be in the midst of a violent home invasion, and so shoots a police officer.) The result is that ordinary, law-abiding people are abused and endangered by the police, rather than protected by them.
Moreover, once you accept the principle that the state ought to force people to do or not do something for the sake of some supposedly greater social good, then that's the end of all individual liberty. Someone can always make a case against anything that a person might do. So if a majority of people think that the world would be a better place if you didn't read certain controversial books, watch certain violent television programs, marry certain kinds of people, and so on, then laws could be passed and law-breakers hunted down. The world would be a much poorer -- and more frightful -- place as a result.
Even if drug prohibition could stamp out drug use, I would regard it as too much of a cost to bear. However, given that drug prohibition makes the drug problem worse, I think the only sensible thing to do is repeal it. Sure, just like with alcohol, gambling, sex, food, and every other pleasure, some people will abuse drugs. They would be welcome to ruin their own lives, but in a capitalist society no one else would be obliged to associate with them, pay for their medical care, or whatnot. Absent some danger to others, like driving drunk or high, the law would not intervene. They could quietly destroy themselves, if they pleased. You could avoid such people entirely -- unless you chose to associate with or otherwise help them.
All of that is probably more than you needed or wanted to hear from me! However, you might find the following writings from the Cato Institute on the drug war of interest. I don't agree with Cato on lots of things, but I think they're pretty good on this issue.
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
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!
Against Public Works By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
On a mailing list, someone recently asked about Adam Smith's "third duty of government," namely:
... the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.
The person asked, and reasonably so:
How is this determined; and to what extent is the benefit of the majority a reasonable argument for the forced expense of any individual? (i.e., National defense)
Here was my reply:
Adam Smith's view puts us on a slippery slope, I think. It concedes the moral superiority of the collective over the individual.
If you grant that it's acceptable to forcibly tax people to provide for "public works" and "public institutions," then you'll soon be forcibly taxing people to satisfy the demands of narrow special interests. Why? Because the mechanism of doling out such public funds can and will be used by the special interests that stand to gain so many unearned dollars from it.
That's certainly has happened in American history, to such an extent that we're now spending billions on special interests with barely any discussion thereof. Everyone expects their slice of the government pie, they demand it at other people's expense, and they get it. While many people question the legitimacy of this or that project, few people question the legitimacy of the basic principle. They accept that some people should be forced to part with their money for the sake of projects of no interest to them -- or even projects contrary to their values. But that's wrong.
If some project is truly of great benefit to humanity, then either (1) the users of that project should be willing to pay for the benefit they get (e.g. by paying to visit the museum, attend the opera, drive on the road, attend the school, or use the open space) or (2) benefactors, whether large or small, must be found to fund it (e.g. to endow the school, museum, or opera). Often, some combination of those two methods is perfectly workable -- as history itself shows. (The National Gallery of Art, for example, was created and endowed by Andrew Mellon and other private collectors.)
If some grand project cannot be funded by either of those two voluntary methods, then it's clearly not valued by the public. And in that case, to force people to spend their hard-earned dollars on it is utterly indefensible. It's a sham, in fact.
As a side note, I regard the military, the police, and the courts as a different kind of case than "public works": they are legitimate functions of government. Yes, they do benefit everyone, and they are necessary to the existence of a civilized society. Yet even in their case, coercive taxation is morally wrong -- and practically dangerous. All government should be financed by voluntary contributions. If we can have an all-volunteer military -- where men and women put their lives on the line for too-low pay in order to protect America (and more, unfortunately) -- then citizens voluntarily contributing their part in taxes is hardly far-fetched.
The Two "Sides" of Freedom of Conscience By Greg Perkins @ 12:01 AM
"Freedom of Conscience for Pharmacists," Idaho House Bill 216, passed the House last Monday and will now be taken up by the Idaho Senate. The debate has split along party lines, but what's remarkable is how it reveals an utter hostility to individual rights on both sides, even while they pose as defenders of rights.
The bill's proponents on the Right appeal (correctly) to the need to respect freedom of conscience and the right to refuse to engage in activities one considers immoral, citing the example of supplying emergency birth-control like the "morning after pill." But of course, pharmacists are not required to dispense anything: they can always exercise their right to freedom of association and quit, joining or forming another pharmacy. Or the pharmacy could see the light and choose to change its policies if it doesn't choose to fire the insubordinate for breach of contract, an exercise of its freedom of association and property rights. But the bill's proponents are apparently unhappy with what genuine freedom and mutual respect for rights would allow in response to someone acting on their religious beliefs regarding birth control and abortion. So now they are attempting to ban legitimate exercises of rights by pharmacy owners, and seeking to shield pharmacists from the ramifications of breach of contract.
The bill's opponents on the Left fail to highlight that fundamental problem. Instead, they focus on the potential for conscientious objectors to similarly refuse to dispense drugs like birth control and Viagra (maybe the pharmacist is a prude) and insulin (perhaps he's an animal-rights advocate), frustrating the satisfaction of important needs. But of course nobody has a right to buy anything independent of someone else being willing to sell it. The bill's opponents are apparently unhappy with what genuine freedom and mutual respect for rights would allow from those who disagree with them about what is best for business, people, and society. And so the opponents advocate mandatory dispensing of whatever prescriptions are written -- or at the very least mandatory referrals to someone who is willing -- independent of the pharmacist having freely agreed to do so. This would likewise constitute an obvious violation of rights to freedom of association and property.
So here we have a microcosm illustrating what is going wrong in American politics. One "side" seeks to violate pharmacy owners' authentic rights in the name of pharmacists' pseudo-rights -- while the other "counters" by advocating violation of the authentic rights of both in the name of consumers' pseudo-rights. No wonder Atlas is threatening to shrug.
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.
Barack's TelePrompter By Greg Perkins @ 12:38 PM Okay, given Obama's reputed dependence on prepared text for his charismatic orating, and recent slips like his slavishly reading another person's speech the other day (and thereby oddly thanking himself for hosting the event), this blog is just hilarious: "Barack's TelePrompter -- Reflections from the hard drive of the machine that enables the voice of the leader of the free world."
Okay, I see the bus coming right at me, so let's be clear: this was His ad lib. ... It's days like this that make me miss the days when He and I would walk the streets of Chicago, doing community activism. Sure, it took Him 30 minutes to set me up, and sometimes he couldn't get the extension cord to reach an electrical outlet, or the folks he wanted to talk to would walk off because they had better things to do, or the glare off my screen made his remarks unreadable. But it was a simpler time, when he could stay on script and didn't feel the need to "speak his mind," and we were a team. All I know, is it's going to be a long flight home.
Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) is challenging part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional, which is good. Any challenge to legal discrimination between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage is a good thing, in my book. No person of any status, married or single, gay or straight, has a right to government social welfare benefits. But government violates rights when it fails to protect any citizen who respects the rights of others. Voluntary marriages between two consenting adults do not involve the initiation of force against anyone, and therefore, do not abridge anyone's rights. Where there has been no violation of rights, there's no role for the government. End of story.
Unfortunately, this is probably the only good fight that GLAD is waging.
GLAD recognizes that ...
[t]here are many priorities for the LGBT community that likely rank ahead of a DOMA Section 3 repeal, including the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a hate crimes bill, the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), and repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).
What I find particularly noteworthy is the likelihood that the LGBT community thinks "a hate crimes bill" is more important than challenging DOMA. The only difference between "crime" and "hate crime" is motive. If I graffiti your property, I've violated your property rights. If the graffiti is of a swastika, what's the difference? Only the hurt feelings of the victim. This makes hate crime laws not about punishing objective rights violations, but about punishing some people for hating others. This is wholly improper, and itself a violation of rights. As Dr. Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Center said:
According to "hate crime" laws, a murderer deserves a greater punishment if his crime is motivated by an idea such as racism or sexism. If the government assumes the power to punish on the basis of "unacceptable" ideas, it has assumed the power to exonerate and offer leniency to favored ideas. If anti-abortion religionists hold sway in government, on the premise of "hate crime" laws, a zealous Christian who guns down an abortion doctor could receive a lighter sentence or be exonerated--on the grounds that such an act is evidence of noble "idealism."
Once the government starts punishing criminals for acting on "unacceptable ideas," it has assumed the role of arbiter for which ideas are acceptable or not. If whoever wields power can shape the law to advance an ideological agenda, then it cannot be long before merely holding unorthodox or unconventional ideas becomes a crime that the government punishes.
The government has no business punishing people for their ideas, no matter how repugnant. By demanding the government do precisely that, "hate crime" laws threaten our freedom of thought--and undermine the system of objective law that protects it. Such laws should be abolished.
So here's the problem. On the one hand, GLAD is challenging the fact that DOMA discriminates between heterosexual and homosexual marriage, discrimination that is clearly religiously motivated. On the other hand, GLAD wants to make it a crime for people to hate homosexuals. Religion is a feeling that there's a God. Hate is feeling that someone is vicious. Religion is a feeling. Hate is a feeling. Are we seeing a similarity, here?
In other words, GLAD thinks it is permissible to legislate feelings about homosexuality. Godbangers on the religious right think it is permissible to legislate feelings about marriage. What's the diff?
Ayn Rand wrote that "[w]hen men share the same basic premise, it is the most consistent ones who win." One can argue whether GLAD or the godbangers are more consistent in their calls for thought control. But that's just the problem -- it's arguable. GLAD is, putting it mildly, inconsistent on the issue of thought control. And unfortunately, same sex marriage advocacy happens largely through groups like GLAD.
Equal marriage rights is a legitimate issue, but so long as GLAD is hypocritical about thought control, the drive to eliminate discrimination in marriage is vulnerable to defeat by opponents -- like the godbangers -- who are more consistent in their drive to become the nation's thought police.
The solution, naturally, is for all proponents of same-sex marriage to make a consistent, principled argument on the basis of individual rights for everyone, in all circumstances, no exceptions. In fact, that's the solution in a number of analogous cases involving attempts to shove religion down our throats, like the attempts to teach creationism in schools, or to outlaw abortion.
When freedom-lovers fight on the basis of principles, the difference between the religious right and the defenders of individual rights is clear for all to see.
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?...
A Big Nod to Fat Head! By Greg Perkins @ 1:00 PM Fat Head (movie website) is a brand new documentary by Tom Naughton that started out as a hilarious and informative sendup of the Super Size Me documentary from a few years back. The resulting film is that, plus a lot more -- it’s also a hilarious and informative sendup of the nutritional industry’s disastrous turn of the last several decades!
Now, I’m the sort of guy who will cheerfully devour books like Gary Taubes’ meticulous and astonishing Good Calories, Bad Calories, but that is simply too much of a long, technical grind for most folks (he was really addressing doctors and professionals in the nutrition industry). I can’t give that to my parents, for example. In contrast, this movie is a wonderful resource I can pass on to introduce others to what I’ve learned from people like Taubes.
Naughton features many of the big names we’ve come to recognize in this area, like the Drs. Eades, and Fallon and Enig from the Weston A. Price Foundation. And he consulted with people like Taubes -- so even when he needs to simplify something, the result is nonetheless strong. Naughton cleverly, effectively, and humorously addresses topics such as:
The many distortions and errors of Supersize Me.
The “lipid hypothesis”, where it came from, why it’s complete crap, and what damage it’s done.
Metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and the mechanisms of energy storage and use in our bodies -- what the science actually says about how people get fat.
Inflammation and heart disease, and how they really relate to cholesterol.
How activists and special interests and their coercive efforts via government intervention are responsible for so much dietary mischief that's hurting us.
And the look on his doctor's face after seeing the results of a month of thoroughly flouting the standard advice of the nutrition industry was priceless!
While there is of course much more to say than can be packed into a film like this, Fat Head just became the first resource I’ll share with family and friends on this front -- highly recommended!
A Terry Schiavo Case in Italy By Gina Liggett @ 12:01 AM
Remember in 2005 when then-President Bush rushed back to Washington to get the Republican-dominated Congress to intervene directly in the Terry Schiavo right-to-die case? Terry Schiavo had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, alive only because she was receiving nutrition through a feeding tube. Her husband and legal guardian--who knew she would never want to live like that--fought Terry's staunchly Catholic family in the court system for years over her right to die in such a circumstance. A Florida state appeals court agreed with Terry's husband and allowed the feeding tube to be removed in spring of 2005.
Out of all legal options, the family went to the top of the political ladder, and got President Bush and his religious-right powerhouse in Congress to counteract that ruling. Congress passed, and Bush signed, emergency legislation, sending the case back to the federal court. But wisely, the federal court did not overrule the previous decision. The feeding tube was not reinserted, and Terry was allowed to die.
The case was a sickening display of not only the breach of the separation of powers as well as the separation of church and state, but also of how quickly and deeply one's personal life can be penetrated by a government. A federal appeals court judge in Atlanta quite eloquently admonished Congress and the White House for acting “in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers’ blueprint for the governance of a free people — our Constitution.”
Fast forward to 2009, and there is an eerily similar kind of family nightmare in Italy. A 37-year old woman, Eluana Englaro, has been in a coma since a car crash in 1992. Her father, who claims that her daughter would not want to live in such a vegetative state, has spent years petitioning the Italian court system to allow her to die. Finally, doctors were allowed to implement a medical protocol for withdrawing Eluana's artificial nutrition--that is, until Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, after consulting with the Vatican, issued an emergency decree stating nutrition cannot be withdrawn.
Magnifying the absurdity of the Italian government's and Vatican's interference in the private lives of these citizens is the Prime Minister's justification for his decree: physically at least, Eluana was "in the condition to have babies."
Allow me to elucidate. Irregardless of the comatose woman's inability to consent to anything, the Italian Prime Minister and the Vatican are in effect saying that it would be acceptable for someone to impregnate this woman, have her body incubate a fetus, then deliver it; but to allow her to die a natural and dignified death by withdrawing artificial nutrition would be immoral, despite what Eluana would have wanted.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who pleaded with Berlusconi to not permit Eluana to die, told him "We have to stop this crime against humanity." (I must say, I find it ludicrous and ironic that the religious institution responsible for the horrific crimes of the medieval Crusades and the systematic enabling of pedophilia in the priesthood has the audacity to say anything about crimes against humanity.)
In these two right-to-die cases, Terry and Eluana were young when they suffered their irreversible brain damage and had not made their wishes explicitly known in writing. But those closest to them and legally responsible for making decisions on their behalf have a better idea than the government or the Church about whether or not they would want to linger for decades in an unconscious state.
Even more fundamentally important than the ethics of proxy medical decision-making is the right to die. I think this right is a corollary of Ayn Rand's concept of the right to life: "There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life."
In their quest to take away the right-to-die, the Vatican and America's Religious Right are basically taking away the right to life, claiming your life belongs to God, not to you. This religious view is the reason the Schiavo family fought Terry's right to die; this was the reason they took their case to a President who actively promulgated religious initiatives; and this is what the Italian father is fighting.
Your right to life includes your right to end your life according to your values. If you would not want to be kept alive for decades in a comatose state--and your proxy decision makers know that--then they have the ethical and legal obligation to carry out your wishes. And any governmental or church interference with that right is an immoral and egregious offense to the citizens of a society obligated to uphold their Constitutional rights.
Update: Eluana died Monday Feb 9 as legislators debated her case. The Italian government intends to push for an anti-right-to-die law.
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.
For years during the American colonial period, Madeira wine was uniquely exempted from taxation because of the British Navigation laws, and became a symbol of American rebellion against the British. When John Hancock's sloop, Liberty, was seized in Boston harbor, the stage was set for the Boston Tea Party. George Washington toasted the signing of the Declaration of Independence with Madeira, and it was used in the christening of the warship Constitution. It was also favored by the likes of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams.
When the ordinary American colonist walked into a pub and boldly ordered a Madeira rather than a British beverage, the symbolic rebellious gesture was nothing less than piquant.
Madeira is a fortified wine made on the Portuguese island of Madeira. It is a rich-tasting mélange of the flavors of roasted fruit, burnt oranges, espresso coffee and sugar-coated nuts, as described in the Complete Idiot's Guide to Wine Basics by Tara Q. Thomas. (I can attest to that description, having tasted some delicious Madeiras recently.)
Sadly, there are only nine producers of Madeira left in the world, questioning its sustainability as an enduring legacy in wine making. But it's obsolescence as a symbol also raises the question of what could be our contemporary symbol of rebellion in our fight against the anti-egoism state of our culture. America is morphing every day into ever-greater states of dependency, paternalism, socialism, irrationalism and even nihilism. As Objectivists, we want to create a new American Renaissance through the power of ideas.
The symbol of rebellion that I display in public is the mysterious and foreboding question, "Who Is John Galt?" I display that bumper sticker on my car and wear tee-shirts with that quote. One day, when someone at the gym read my tee-shirt, he looked me straight in the eye and gave me a knowing thumbs up. I felt a camaraderie with that stranger. I wonder if in some small way what I felt was the same kind of pride a colonist felt when he ordered Madeira in a bar full of British soldiers.
I challenge other readers to suggest a new "Madeira" for today. I look forward to your suggestions! Cheers to all!
It is unlawful for a person in a public forum or place of public accommodation wilfully and knowingly to publish orally or in writing, exhibit, or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature.
And:
It is unlawful for a person to disseminate profanity to a minor if he wilfully and knowingly publishes orally or in writing, exhibits, or otherwise makes available material containing words, language, or actions of profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature.
Violating either provision would be a felony -- with the potential for five years in prison: "a person who violates [either provision] is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than five thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
Ah well, at least the Bible would be banned along with Atlas Shrugged -- and almost everything else, including swearing within earshot of your 17-year-old kid.
The bill is currently in committee. While I'm sure it won't go anywhere, the fact that such legislation could even be proposed in 21st century America is mind-boggling.
Lack of curiosity also led Mr Bush to suspect intellectuals in general and academic experts in particular. David Frum, who wrote speeches for Mr Bush during his first term, noted that "conspicuous intelligence seemed actively unwelcome in the Bush White House". The Bush cabinet was "solid and reliable", but contained no "really high-powered brains". Karen Hughes, one of his closest advisers, "rarely read books and distrusted people who did". Ron Suskind, a journalist, has argued that Mr Bush created a "faith-based presidency" in which decisions, precisely because they were based on faith, could not be revised subsequently.
Now onward -- and likely downward -- to Barack Obama.
"Rights" of the Obese By Paula Hall @ 12:22 AM
Since NoodleFood has been blogging a lot lately on the subject of health, nutrition, and achieving a healthy body weight, I thought I'd weigh in (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) with some updates on laws concerning obesity.
"Discrimination" against the overweight is a hot topic. Those who see and decry such discrimination claim that many overweight people aren't responsible for their condition. They claim that obesity is a disease, the result of environmental factors, genetic factors, and food addiction. You can find discussion of all these claims at the American Obesity Association, which lobbied for the Medicare change and proclaims on its home page that
Obesity is not a simple condition of eating too much. It is now recognized that obesity is a serious, chronic disease. No human condition — not race, religion, gender, ethnicity or disease state — compares to obesity in prevalence and prejudice, mortality and morbidity, sickness and stigma.
The American Obesity Association doesn't seem to be very active lately, but the Obesity Action Coalition is very active. Their "Advocacy" page declares that "[o]besity is a complex disease" and complains that "some [insurance] payors and employers still do not recognize obesity and morbid obesity as a disease."
The notion of "rights" concerning employment, housing, education and public accommodation turn the concept of individual rights on its head. Individual rights protect freedom of action and prohibit the initiation of force. A legal claim to anything that must be produced by another human being -- like a place to work, a house, tutelage and a seat on an airplane -- requires the initiation of force against the producers and violates individual rights.
But all that is Rights 101. What I think is particularly astounding about calls to treat the overweight as involuntarily disabled is that they apparently ignore that Americans have been getting fatter for decades. That is -- the further back you look, the thinner Americans appeared to be. There's little valuable data on nutrition at the Center for Disease control, but they do have a great little graphic which shows how much fatter Americans have become since 1985. Below are some sample images:
I haven't looked very hard for data on American obesity before 1985, but I wouldn't be surprised if Americans were thinner in the decades prior to 1985. But let's say 1985 is a good baseline. What has changed since 1985? One candidate is the explosion in technology that allows us to feed and entertain ourselves with very little effort -- microwave ovens, videos, electronic games, cable television and the like. But the primary problem is how our diet has changed in the last few decades -- more grains, sweeteners and vegetable oils. On top of that, many who tried to lose weight followed the advice of the government or of misinformed experts and went on a low-fat, low-calorie, high-carbohydrate diet. That is not a long-term solution.
So there's a lot of bad information out there, but there's a lot of good information available, too. But do the advocacy groups focus on making getting better information available? No, that would require acknowledging that obese people are responsible for getting themselves into shape. What the advocacy groups concentrate on is getting other people to expend the effort they don't think their constituents should have to expend.
The U.S. government is on the horns of a dilemma. The CDC website focuses on diet and exercise, taking the position that people can control their weight and in large part because the government is paying for ever-growing medical costs attributable to obesity. On the other hand, advocates of obesity "rights" are having success pushing legislation treating obesity as a disease for which the obese have no responsibility. So where is the government going to come down on this issue?
You'd think that with socialized medicine on the horizon in the U.S. we'd see increasing government emphasis on preventing obesity. But on the other hand, look at the demographics -- the percent of the voter base that is obese is increasing. I think we'll see more legislation like The Binghamton Human Rights Law. In a country dominated by pressure-group warfare, might is right -- and might is also "rights."
(Thanks to Diana for her suggestions on this post!)
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 particular, Officer Pyle does an excellent job of showing that two guns can have nearly identical inessential cosmetic features (such as the material the stock is made of), but differ in this one essential feature (semi-automatic vs. automatic), making them fundamentally different guns. Conversely, two guns can have the same essential features (i.e., both be semi-automatic), but one can be made to look very menacing and the other very innocuous simply by changing a few inessential cosmetic features.
In my experience, there are even some Objectivists who lack this basic understanding of the difference between automatic vs. semi-automatic weapons.
This is a nice real-life example of the importance of good epistemology, and in particular of defining by essentials. And we can see the dangers of failing to define by essentials when policy makers talk about banning "assault weapons", which is a bogus concept created grouping together firearms based on these inessential cosmetic features, rather than the essential ones.
Even now, there are some Republican Congressmen (not Democrats) who wish to reinstate the expired "Assault Weapons Ban" based on precisely this bogus concept. And given the incoming Obama Administration, this bill may become law.
As a corollary, this is also a concrete example of why a proper defense of one's political freedoms depends on upholding a proper rational epistemology -- and more generally a proper objective philosophy. Fortunately, that epistemology and that broader overall philosophy is already available to us -- we just have to be willing to use it.
At least 20 activists were detained in Cuba this week for planning to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). According to independent and verifiable sources inside Cuba, detainees, some of who were taken by force and beaten, include former political prisoners, human rights activists, opposition political leaders, and independent journalists.
"The government of Raul Castro is arresting human rights advocates for wanting to celebrate a declaration of human rights--it's business as usual, the new boss is the same as the old boss," said Sarah Wasserman, Chief Operating Officer of the Human Rights Foundation. "For a country that denies violating human rights, this is the epitome of hypocrisy; it's evident that the Cuban government's signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to notable pomp, circumstance, and self-congratulation earlier this year was just window-dressing."
WAAA!!!! Take Care of Me! By Gina Liggett @ 12:11 AM
When I hear of some new government program that's made available courtesy of working, tax-paying citizens and businesses, I'm left stunned in a state of resentful disbelief. But our government -- of the free and brave -- provides benefits in the areas of career development, child care, counseling, disability, disaster relief, education and training, food and nutrition, energy assistance, scholarships and grants, health care, housing, insurance, living assistance, loans, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and tax assistance.
Well, that pretty much covers food, clothing, and shelter... wait a minute, no mention of clothing. Oh well.
Since I currently receive no welfare benefits because I work for a living and buy everything I need and then also pay taxes (like millions of other Americans), I wondered what governmental benefits I could receive anyway. So I took a little on-line quiz at govbenefits.com.
After answering questions about my age, profession, education, veteran status, disabilities, needs I have, etc., I discovered that I would be potentially eligible for 17 government programs! Most of these were for the opportunity to use my educational and professional background to do research in the biological sciences. But I also might qualify for some HUD (Housing and Urban Development) benefits. My favorites, though, were two exciting opportunities, the Prose and Poetry Fellowship and the National Ocean Service Intern Program. Maybe I could combine the two somehow by taking a government-sponsored cruise and write a novel!
It was a dreary and foreboding moment for Juliet as she pondered tearfully with heaving and panting breaths, her longing for Sven, her long-lost beau of an era swept away by the wind which whipped the willows in a wild winter when wondrous wanderings of the heart did happen.
Hey, I could dig it.
Then I wondered what I could get if I decided to quit working, quit paying for health insurance and had $45 dollars in my savings account. I would quality for 32 government programs in my state! Not only would I potentially quality for the Special Milk Program but also the Colorado Summer Food Service program. I'm not sure how as a middle-aged woman those school-based programs would apply to me, but maybe it's because women are recommended to get lots of calcium in their diet.
But certainly I could qualify for more than that. So I re-took the quiz and claimed to be a "practicing artist." Hey! I practice my dance steps everyday! I also added that I have an Injury or Illness because the other day I got this nasty hamstring pull from practicing so much. And I also put in my claim to have a "difference of limb length" because I'm pretty sure that my right leg is 1/17th millimeter longer than the left. I added that I would like Mental Health Services because I've been so distraught over the U.S. socialist revolution that happened on November 4. I would also like some Women's Health Care. Oh, also, I answered "yes" to the question, "Do you feel that you've been denied housing or financial assistance due to discrimination." I'm awfully sure that I feel that somewhere along the line I been discriminated against.
Guest what? 37 programs! Oh my gosh! Lots of housing assistance. Food stamps. Health care. Architectural Barrier Act Enforcement (that's probably because of my limb length difference). Energy assistance. Short-term lending. Job opportunities for low-income persons (hey! I don't want a job!). Weatherization Assistance for Low-income persons (now, THAT, I could use).
And I would only have to jettison maybe that one Objectivist virtue of "independence" to get my goodies. But hey, as our presidential candidates reminded us, this is the country of sacrifice, right?
Tara Smith in her book, "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist," presents Ayn Rand's definition of the virtue of independence: "one's acceptance of the responsibility of forming one's own judgements and living by the work of one's own mind." Tara Smith adds,
More colloquially, it is a matter of making one's own way in the world. The independent person supports himself both intellectually and materially, thinking for himself and taking productive action to sustain himself.
As an individual becomes an adult, a psychological milestone of independence is supposed to occur. This is a time when children separate from their parents who cared and provided for them; they strike out their own, choose a career or job, form new social relationships, and pursue their values. Our welfare-minded society enables the dependency of many of its adult citizens, leaving them in a perpetual state of adolescence, unable to survive without sacrificing others to meet their endless needs.
I've decided after all not to apply for that government-sponsored cruise to become a novelist (although, I hate to deprive the world of my prose). But a society that sacrifices its citizens so that others don't have to grow up is an immoral society.
And despite the so-called good intentions of politicians and interest groups who come up with these care-taking programs, they are no different than the parents who enable their unemployed 30-year-old offspring to live at home for free and play video games all day long.
The virtue of independence is a requirement for survival as a moral being. Only in an individual-rights-respecting society, where there is no sacrifice of some to pay for the dependency of others, can the virtue of independence manifest to its fullest potential -- a benevolent society of individuals left free to pursue their happiness.
So for now I'll keep my job and work on that novel on my free time. (I know you can hardly wait for me to finish it!)
Deals With the Devil By Gina Liggett @ 12:01 AM
This month, the Chief Executives of Chrysler, General Motors and Ford grovelled back to Washington, tails between their legs, chastised by Congress for their display of capitalist excess when they arrived to their November begging session aboard separate corporate jets. This time, their humble 520-mile road trip in hybrid cars was just so Green and so Special that I bet it moved even Al Gore (also known as "The Inventor"). Speaking of invention, getting the Big 3 automakers to make hybrid cars is part of the grand scheme Gore has invented to save the planet.
Well, what about saving the country from economic ruin? The auto leaders warned that American families and the very soundness of our economy would be disastrously affected if a bailout is rejected by Congress. And the Big Three have a lot of support in their appeal to Santa as other major companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, labor unions, and other interest groups hunker down for a major lobbying effort.
If saving the planet and saving the economy are the very raisons d'etre of a business enterprise, where does this duty come from? As many Objectivists know, it is the pernicious and ubiquitous moral standard of altruism. And its modern manifestation is the Corporate Social Responsibility Movement which has placed tremendous pressure on companies to cast aside the very notion of profit-making as their primary goal and legitimate purpose.
This movement pushes businesses to "behave responsibly," by demonstrating environmental awareness, concern for human rights, and giving money for community development. The Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government explains it very well:
Throughout the industrialized world and in many developed countries there has been a sharp escalation in the social roles corporations are expected to play. Companies are facing new demands to engage in public-private partnerships and are under growing pressure to be accountable not only to shareholders, but also to stakeholders such as employees, consumers, suppliers, local communities, policymakers, and society-at-large.
While the moral foundation for capitalism identified by Ayn Rand is largely unknown today, there is no such lack of awareness of the moral rationale for Corporate Responsibility. We find its specific ideas in the popular notion of "economic and social justice." The Center for Economic and Social Justice defines that principle in what I describe as a stew of the best original ideals of America's Founding Fathers, seasoned with a religious-based identity of the nature of man, and congealed in the view that man's highest moral purpose is a duty to the social justice of others -- in other words, the incompatible combining of liberty and property rights with religion and altruism:
There is a Source of all creation and of all universal and absolute values such as Truth, Love and Justice, which represent the ultimate ends of human actions. Many people call this Source, God. ... The essential means to achieve the sovereignty of the person include such inalienable human rights as the right to life, liberty, and access to productive property and free markets, equality of opportunity, and the secret ballot. These rights--including the rights of property--are not ultimate ends in themselves, but they are intermediate ends or fundamental means to enable each person to pursue Truth, Love and Justice. ... The highest responsibility of each person is to pursue absolute values and to promote economic and social justice in his or her personal life and all associations with others.
To enlighten us as to the social system consistent with these "core values," the Center offers a side-by-side comparison of what it considers two "unjust" models, capitalism and socialism, with the ideal "just third way" of economic and social justice. I have provided a link to the entire comparison; but in summary, the Center views capitalism as literally a "dog-eat-dog" kind of system that is morally and practically no better than "scarcity"-causing socialism.
The Big Three arrived in Washington not only in a hybrid car, they arrived with a hybrid morality. The ever-growing and widely-embraced partnerships of government and business is the natural consequence of these moral contradictions. In such a union of social purpose, government and business desperately need each other to survive. But the price is paid by the American heart and soul, and the individuals who must set aside their pursuit of happiness for social goals defined by think tanks and politicians.
But what if there were a non-contradictory view of the nature of man, his requirements for survival and a non-sacrificial moral purpose in life? Such a system would be opposite of the deal-with-the-devil mixed economy we have now, where the main moral and practical purpose of business is to serve the welfare of society. Such a system would be laissez-faire capitalism, a society of real economic and social justice for individuals who create wealth and prosper because of it.
A libertarian columnist at nolanchart.com coined the term for himself, and now lays it out for the rest of us:
I submit, to a candid world, my explicit definition of what it means to be a 'John Galt Republican'. And since Ayn Rand was agnostic with regards to political parties during her life, I've also realized that you can prefix your own political party affiliation with 'John Galt', if you agree with the items of definition, below.
These three of the 14(!) elements pretty much say it all:
1) You've read one or more of Ayn Rand's works, and by doing so, your world views have either been changed or strengthened to a positive degree.
5) You do not care to talk about Ayn Rand's (or anyone else's) metaphysical views.
13) OPTIONAL: You have an affinity for laissez faire capitalism.
Good grief, what a mess. Capitalism as optional?? And in a political context, no less? Rand/Galt advocates an integrated system of philosophy -- each element is essential and intertwined with the rest. As I commented there,
This part of a candid world can only say: Rand understood that her politics flowed from her metaphysics, and she showed how capitalism was its only valid expression. I know who John Galt is, and he would have nothing to do with the vast majority of those meeting this confused "definition."
What's the point of adding that Galt qualifier if it doesn't really mean anything? Sheesh.
Progressive Fantasies By Diana Hsieh @ 5:22 PM
Progressive hopes for July 4th, 2009, as reported in a fictional New York Times: www.nytimes-se.com. Click on some of the articles, if you have a strong stomach. They're quite revealing.
On Election day twelve Obama voters were interviewed extensively right after they voted to learn how the news media impacted their knowledge of what occurred during the campaign. These voters were chosen for their apparent intelligence/verbal abilities and willingness to express their opinions to a large audience. The rather shocking video below seeks to provide some insight into which information broke through the news media clutter and which did not.
It is indeed shocking to see the demonstration of just where abysmal ignorance contrasts with easy knowledge.
I wouldn't lay it at just the media's feet, though -- this sort of thing is enabled by serious cultural and epistemological degradation. The state of the news media is only a symptom. An incredibly nasty symptom.
UPDATE: A little clarification: the quote from their website was only sharing what they claim. Obviously, I have no idea what their methodology was for selecting their interviewees, nor how fair they were in their editing. What caught my attention was the contrasting pockets of knowledge and ignorance within the individual people.
Absent a Moral Defense of Capitalism By Gina Liggett @ 12:01 AM
On a Nov. 20th NPR radio interview, David Wessel, Pulitzer-prize-winning Economics Editor of the Wall Street Journal sounded rather optimistic. Despite calling our present economy "as fragile as at anytime since Roosevelt took over," he predicted that the Obama team would get right to work even before inauguration to hold off another Great Depression.
He said the challenge for Obama will be basically threefold: 1. like Roosevelt during the Depression, Obama will have to reassure the American people, that is "make us feel better," by whom he appoints and how he describes the economic situation; 2. put together a huge fiscal stimulus package consisting of tax cuts and increase in government spending; and 3. deal directly with the housing crisis by helping people whose mortgages are worth more than the value of their home.
He summed up his personal reaction to the economic crisis by saying he was "quite impressed by the diligence of the people in the government who are charged with this and how creative they've been and inventive in trying to respond to it."
In an October panel discussion at his alma mater Haverford College he explained the causes of the present crisis -- that complicated interplay of Federal Reserve interest rates, the across-the-spectrum failure of economic checks and balances by rating agencies and regulators, the "democratization of credit" for homeownership, the "morally criminal" predatory lending practices, faulty assumptions about ever-increasing housing prices and unsecured lending by investment banks, and the under-appreciated connection between the housing market and banking system.
He then describes the timeline of the government's reaction to each emerging crisis: a huge Fed rate cut in January, the historic loan to Bear Stearns (a non-Federal Reserve bank), the quick and efficient nationalization of Freddie and Fannie, Treasury Secretary Paulson's sweeping authority granted by Congress, the $700 billion bailout legislated by Congress in a 400-page bill, Barney Frank, Democrat chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, being unable to refute the argument that "if you help Wall Street, why can't you help Main Street," and the spill-over protectionist reaction by central governments in Europe and Asia.
Mr. Wessel's comment about the historic economic crisis: "I don't think this was a problem caused by government, but government permitted it to happen."
Despite a couple of disparaging remarks Mr. Wessel made about businessmen and choosing a career on Wall Street, maybe I can't explain Mr. Wessel's reaction to the crisis on the fact that he's worked his entire career as a journalist and never as a businessman who has had to meet payroll, answer to shareholders, negotiate with unions, comply with regulations, pay ever-rising costs of employee health care, pay taxes, pay Worker's Compensation taxes, hold the line on production costs, etc. etc. ... and still survive.
I also can't necessarily explain it by the fact that the college economics department co-sponsored the talk with the college's Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, which:
"...exists to expose all members of the Haverford community, but especially students, to the key global issues of the day so that they can better equip themselves to help solve these problems after they leave Haverford's campus. In this regard, the CPGC is one of the most visible examples of the College's Quaker ethos, grounded in testimonies of peace, lives of service, and a concern for the world at large." (emphasis mine)
Regardless, what I can say is that one of society's best-recognized experts on the American economy makes absolutely no defense of capitalism in anyway whatsoever. He not only credits government in "creatively" tackling the crisis, he tacitly accepts the premise that government bureaucrats, regulators and legislators should play a fundamental and sweeping role in managing the economy. Furthermore, he flagrantly denies that government is the problem.
Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute , has spoken a lot about the economic crisis lately. He correctly explains that if capitalism is to survive, it needs moral sanction to counter the altruist ethics that infects our society today. As Objectivists know, Ayn Rand provided that philosophic moral justification for the total separation of state and economics: the morality of rational egoism.
We have a separation of church and state that is explicitly spelled out in the Constitution, and yet we still are fighting tooth-and-nail against the Religious Right to uphold it.
And we don't even have that much of an explicit defense of capitalism. How then is capitalism to survive in an environment when leading knowledgeable and educated intellectuals like Wessel can look the facts straight in the eye, and be blind to the conclusions?
As Dr. Brook states in his talks, obviously the fact about capitalism's success is simply not enough; the fact that government interference in the economy wrecks havoc is simply not enough. We must make the moral argument that laissez-faire capitalism is not only practical, it is morally right.
"And Now, Let Us Pra....GLOAT!" By Gina Liggett @ 12:07 AM
The Religious Right has been driving a sledgehammer into the wall of separation of church and state for 30 years, and has enjoyed an especially-intimate relationship with the politically powerful for eight years running. They have achieved significant successes: Bush's faith-based initiatives, the partial-birth abortion ban, the passage of parental-notification laws, the Bush appointments of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and the constitutional amendments against gay marriage just passed in Florida, Arizona and California. There are doubtlessly many other successes I've left out, especially at the state and local level.
Now, bow your heads and let us gloat. Because the Religious Right had some significant defeats this election, and I think its time to celebrate!
First and foremost, let's sing a hallelujah to the crushing, sweeping, stunning blow to Amendment 48 in Colorado. Hip-hip-horrrahhhh!! Your possibility of getting sued in court by a fertilized egg claiming its right to your body and property is just not gonna happen!
Washington state passed the nation's second assisted suicide law in the country! Now individuals who are suffering and who rationally decide to end their life with dignity have more opportunity to do so humanely. This is a "right-to-life" issue: the right to choose to control your life, and that includes ending interminable suffering, even if evangelical Christians don't want you to.
Another attempt to severely ban abortion in South Dakota failed! Hurrah!! Proponents tried to make a previous draconian abortion bill more palatable by allowing rape and incest victims or women in danger for their health to have an abortion if necessary. Oh, gee, thanks for the crumb, but all women in South Dakota will get to retain at least most of their right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy according to their decision.
And candidates favored by the Religious Right suffered some losses at the polls. Hurrah!! In five of eight Senate races, the Religious Right's favorite candidate lost (Colorado, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina and South Dakota); and two races are in a run-off (Georgia and Minnesota). In eleven races for the the House, six incumbent Representatives favored by the Religious Right were ousted (Colorado, Florida, Idaho, North Carolina, Michigan and Virginia). And three incumbents held off religious challengers (Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania). This means that it will be more difficult for evangelicals to forcibly decide for all of us that we should abide by a biblical morality.
Nah-nah-nah-nahhhh-nahhh!!
Cheers to us all! The Wall of Separation of Church and State is still there. It's big!!! It won't come down... for the time being, at least!
I would like to add to David Harsanyi's comments about Republicans needing renewed idealism and intellectualism. To put it bluntly, the Republican Party is bankrupt. Their "statism-lite" support of the massive growth in government is a pathetic imitation of the the sacred policies of the left. And their hijacking by the religious right has turned them into "theocrat-lite." There is nothing of the idealism of limited government and individual liberty -- policies they give only lip service to. They deserve the whooping they got; and as an advocate of reason, individual liberty and laissez-faire capitalism, I'm hoping that out of the ashes will emerge a leader who won't let America go down in flames.
The Loss of Values Due to Contradiction By Gina Liggett @ 12:01 PM
Two current events I have selected have nothing in common, except for being in the news. Well, they also pertain to underlying rational values that are at risk of being destroyed by their own best advocates. Why? Because their champions are trying to operate under contradiction.
On the heels of the joyously-resounding defeat of Colorado's "personhood" amendment comes another threat to abortion in Colorado. This time a private citizen, Mark Hotaling, is suing Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and Boulder Valley Women's Health center for violating the state's constitution. He claims that federal dollars received by these clinics are illegally being used to perform abortions. Hotaling says he's just standing up "for the will of the people and the constitution." For this, he's getting moral support from Ms. stand-up-for-the-people Kristi Burton, the evangelical who got Amendment 48 on the ballot "to empower the citizens to have a choice" about when life begins. And he's getting financial and legal support from the influential Religious Right group, the Alliance Defense Fund.
In the other story, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the $700 billion bailout plan won't include the purchase of troubled assets from banks after all, a turn-around from the original plan. And unlike the rescued financial sector, the American auto industry might not get the additional help it's been asking for. Stock exchanges revolt in their roller-coaster tumble with daily bad news about the economy and over worries of how governments will fix it.
What values are at stake here?
In the first story, the value is the right to abortion. As writers on this blog and on Politics without God have argued, abortion is an absolute, inviolable right. Ayn Rand explains the right to abortion in her famously clear and pithy way: "An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being."
In the second story, the value is free trade. Free trade is the unencumbered right for free individuals and companies to voluntarily exchange goods or services with each other to their own mutual benefit on terms they both agree on. Because humans must create what they need to survive and thrive, and because they can't individually make everything they need, a market for such exchange is required. It reflects the sum of "all the economic choices and decisions made by all the participants," thereby creating wealth.
In a society based on rational principles, it is possible to protect the right to abortion under any and all circumstances; and it is possible for free trade to proceed to any degree of wealth that can be created by human ingenuity. But not so in a society where contradiction is introduced and enforced.
In the first story, the women's health and abortion clinics vociferously defend a woman's legal right to abortion as granted by the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade. Yet they are willing to accept the expropriated earnings of wealth from others in society in the form of government grants in order to survive. While the clinics in the lawsuit deny directly using federal funds for abortion, they still must play by the arbitrary and ever-changing rules of those who hold the monopoly on force (i.e., the government). In the end, the right to abortion becomes conditional.
In the second story, the biggest intervention in the marketplace in American history has just happened. But decades of regulation, restrictions and biased preferences haven't led businesses to rise up and crusade for their right to free trade. It's led to just the opposite: the despairing cry for help using the expropriated earnings of others in society in the form of bailouts. Business are boldly proud and assertive when things are going well; but when things are not, they crumble under pressure and want a quick fix by any means from those who hold the monopoly on force (i.e., the government). In the end, the right of free trade becomes conditional.
It is a contradiction that we can uphold and pursue rational values that require freedom while accepting the conditions set by those who hold the monopoly on force. We have nobody to blame but ourselves: American citizens, with their endless special-interest appeals to their legislators, have allowed this untenable situation to unfold.
You can't be free and sleep with the devil. Or, as Ayn Rand more eloquently puts it: "a contradiction cannot be achieved in reality and... the attempt to achieve it can lead only to disaster and destruction."
Abortion rights are being chipped away every year. And we are in a worsening financial crisis of unprecedented proportions. The only way out is to eliminate the contradiction. The only way out is to hold government to its proper, non-contradictory function of protecting individual rights. And it is the citizens who must take this corrective action.
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.
Post Mortem By Paula Hall @ 12:06 AM
I followed this political season more closely than I've followed any other. There's the narrative that this just wasn't the Republicans' year, the brand is too tarnished. There's the narrative that Obama is a cool customer, and the narrative that McCain squandered his honorable "maverick" brand. There's the it's-the-economy-stupid-redux narrative. There's the Obama's-shady-associations narrative.
What to make of these narratives? Which one is true?
None, I think. It's all euphemism. I think that every four years, but perhaps in this presidential election cycle in particular given Obama's historic candidacy, the American electorate trots out its metaphysical angst for all to see. And there's a big rush to put the just-so stories out there to cover it up.
The angst to which I refer? It's your garden variety can-I-cope-with-reality angst. American voters get the opportunity to choose which story they prefer to tell themselves about why the problem isn't within, but in the world they never made.
Some people tell themselves that someone is trying to take what they have, some "other." That other might be after their money, or after the spiritual values that they claim make them feel good about themselves. When they seek an answer to why their self-image is threatened, they look down at the threat from "below," from the people they consider beneath them in moral stature. These people run Right with the Republicans.
Some people tell themselves that others got unfair advantages, that those others have forced inequitable bargains on everyone else. When they seek an answer to why their life seems harder than they feel they deserve, they see the threat as coming from "above," from people who get to enjoy the high life because of the luck of the draw. These people run Left with the Democrats.
Both today's Left and Right are really two sides of the same coin. (Yes, I know, depressingly unoriginal observation, there.) They're both asking for the same thing -- they want the government to steal from someone and give to them what they feel themselves incapable of producing on their own. Those on the Right are looking for unearned moral status. Those on the Left are looking for unearned material wealth. Neither those on the Left nor on the Right realize that asking for the unearned is always a single problem, and that there's no real difference between them.
The Right needs to wash out its soul with soap and water. The Left needs to recognize the crook that looks back at them when they look in the mirror.
I sometimes despair of either side accepting that theirs alone is the responsibility for living and enjoying the good life.
Leaving the Country? Pay the Price! By Paul Hsieh @ 12:06 AM
In the wake of Barack Obama's election as 44th President of the United States, some people have talked about leaving the country. However, an Instapundit reader noted that the US government may impose a stiff exit tax for the more productive people seeking to leave:
..."Going John Galt" is not that easy -- Congress quietly passed an "exit tax" earlier this year to penalize any (somewhat) high net worth US resident that decides to vote with their feet.
As quoted in the links below, the U.S. government, through the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Act of 2008 (the HEART bill, for short, and I am not making this up), effective June 17, 2008, imposes an "exit tax" on certain citizens and long-term residents who expatriate or terminate their long-term residency. Such individuals, called covered expatriates, will be deemed to have sold all of their worldwide property for its fair market value on the day before expatriating or terminating U.S. residency, and will be liable for U.S. tax on the amount deemed realized in excess of $600,000 (subject to cost of living adjustments).
Covered expatriates are: citizens and long-term residents who (a) have an average annual U.S. tax liability for the previous five years of $139,000 (adjusted for inflation), (b) have a net worth of at least $2,000,000 on the expatriation date, or (c) fail to certify compliance with all U.S. federal tax obligations for the previous five years.
And regular NoodleFood commenter Jim May gets a mention from Instapundit with this quote:
...I left Canada for the greater opportunity and freedom in America. I never expected Canada to follow me here.
I still agree with Dr. Leonard Peikoff's assessment in his November 3, 2008 podcast -- I'd still rather stay in the US and fight for good ideas than leave, at least at this point in time
I bought about a pound of almonds yesterday for a backpacking trip I'll be doing this weekend. I like to soak raw almonds, then lightly toast them. It sweetens them and breaks down some of their anti-nutrients.
When I arrived at the grocery store, the only raw almonds they had were from California. I prefer to buy domestic products when I can, but in case you haven't heard, "raw" almonds from California are no longer raw. They are required to be sterilized using steam or antiseptic gases, despite their relative safety as a raw food.
The worst part is that they are not required to label them as pasteurized; they can still be labeled as raw. The Almond Board's argument is that there's no difference in quality and pasteurized almonds are safer. I find this highly offensive and deceptive. It flies in the face of common sense. If you walked up to someone in the street and asked them what the phrase "raw milk" means, would they say "oh yeah, that means pasteurized"? A raw seed can sprout. A pasteurized seed can't. Remember all those enzymes that break down anti-nutrients when you soak beans, grains and nuts? Denatured by heat.
I tried soaking them like I would regular raw almonds. I covered them in water overnight. In the morning, I noticed that the soaking water was milky and had an unpleasant smell. The outer layer of the almonds (the most cooked part) was falling apart into the water. They also didn't have the crisp texture of soaked raw almonds.
Tonight, I toasted them lightly. They definitely taste "off", and the texture isn't as good. There's no doubt about it, pasteurized California almonds are inferior. Despite my preference for domestic products, I'll be buying Spanish almonds the next time around. If enough of us do the same, we'll hit the Almond Board in the only place that counts: its wallet.
Because of cases of Salmonella traced to almonds in 2001 and 2004, in 2006 the Almond Board of California proposed rules regarding pasteurization of almonds available to the public, and the USDA approved them. Since 1 September 2007, raw almonds have technically not been available in the United States. Controversially, almonds labeled as "raw" are required to be steam pasteurised or chemically treated with propylene oxide. This does not apply to imported almonds.
According to this blog post, organic almonds are pasteurized with steam, whereas non-organic almonds may be treated with propylene oxide.
Some months ago, I noticed that the whole, raw almonds I occasionally bought at the grocery store had a chemical taste to them -- almost gasoline-like. They were inedible. I thought perhaps that I'd just gotten a bad batch, but when I tried them again a few weeks later, the taste was the same. Now I wonder whether that taste is some kind of residue from the propylene oxide.
Since then, I've switched to buying my whole almonds at Whole Foods. They're organic, and they taste fine. However, I'm pretty sure that, contrary to their label, they're not raw but instead pasteurized with steam. I'll have to ask a manager whether the "raw almonds" are actually raw or not. If not, I'll probably order some unpasteurized almonds direct from the farm. Or perhaps I can find a local grocer who stocks imported almonds. I want my raw foods to be raw, with all their enzymes intact, dammit. Is that really too much to ask?
In the final paragraph of his blog post, Stephan notes:
One of the most irritating things is that the new rule is designed to edge out small producers. I can't see any other reason for it. Raw almonds are a safe food. Far safer than lettuce. Should we pasteurize lettuce? Pasteurization requires specialized, expensive equipment that will be prohibitive for the little guys. I'm sure the bigger producers will generously offer to fill the production gap.
Sadly, large food producers often seem eager to use the power of the government to prevent their smaller competitors from providing consumers with much-wanted goods. It's very frustrating -- and very wrong.
The Future of Social Security? By Paul Hsieh @ 12:06 AM
One of the slowly-simmering issues I try to follow is the future of Social Security. Eventually, the current Ponzi scheme is going to go bankrupt, and right now there's no morally principled reform on the horizon. So one big question is what sort of response to this brewing problem can we expect, given the current political and cultural climate?
Last week, there were a couple of high-profile news stories that indicate which way we'll be headed. And it's not a pleasant picture.
...President Kirchner painted the move as an attempt to help workers weather the financial crisis. The value of private retirement accounts in Argentina has probably fallen in recent months due to a declining stock market, economists say. President Kirchner said in a speech: "The main member countries of the [Group of Eight] are adopting a policy of protection of the banks and, in our case, we are protecting the workers and retirees."
Buenos Aires economist Aldo Abram, among many other economists, wasn't buying that argument. "They were in a tight situation and this was an accessible source of funds," he said.
The step requires approval of Congress, where the governing Peronist party has a majority. Opposition leader Elisa Carrio vowed to contest it, saying, "The government measures aren't designed to better the retirement system but rather to plunder the funds of the retirees."
The current financial crisis is being used as a pretext to confiscate that money, in the name of "protecting" the Argentinian workers. Of course, in reality it's just a way for a bankrupt government to attempt to steal enough money to keep going for a little while longer.
House Democrats recently invited Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School of Social Research, to testify before a subcommittee on her idea to eliminate the preferential tax treatment of the popular retirement plans. In place of 401(k) plans, she would have workers transfer their dough into government-created "guaranteed retirement accounts" for every worker. The government would deposit $600 (inflation indexed) every year into the GRAs. Each worker would also have to save 5 percent of pay into the accounts, to which the government would pay a measly 3 percent return.
By taking over this huge pot of private 401(k) retirement money, but promising to pay out only a pittance to the nominal "owners", the government would (quite literally) make out like bandits.
Although this is just an academic proposal at the moment, these ideas have a way of leaping from academia and think tanks to the floor of the US Congress in a surprisingly short period of time.
Several of my friends and co-workers have independently told me that they fear that their own private retirement money will no longer be available to them by the time they retire. (They already recognize that Social Security won't be). The government might not engage in a complete confiscation this private money. Instead, they might use an indirect approach, such as imposing, say, a 40% tax on any balance over $1 million on 401(k) accounts. That way, it would only harm evil "millionaires", whom the government would claim could easily afford such a tax.
Or it might be mandatory conversion of private 401(k) accounts into government accounts as proposed by Ghilarducci, where the government would then control which retirees could receive any money, and how much.
Another less likely possibility (which some libertarian groups advocate) is that the government might propose some sort of faux-privatization scheme, in which our current Social Security system was replaced by a system of "private" accounts (but still heavily regulated by the government). In that case, there is still the worry that current 401(k) plans would have to be folded into these new accounts (in the name of "efficiency"). Such a pseudo-privatization would merely gives the government more control over private assets, not less. Hence, this would still not protect Americans from the possibility of confiscatory taxation of those nominally "private" accounts -- not if there were political and economic pressure to do so, as I predict there will be.
Given that (1) there are lots of working Americans who will not have saved enough for retirement, and (2) there will not be anywhere near enough Social Security money to pay for these people, the gloomy scenario predicted by my friends may not be too far-fetched.
Furthermore, I predict that many statists will argue that the need of those who didn't save outweighs any alleged claims of "right" to the money by those who actually did save, and that the savers have an obligation to bail out the non-savers. This would be the predictable end result of the altruist morality that is too-prevalent in our culture.
Based on numerous conversations, those who have been responsible and who have saved enough money for their retirements are understandably angry at the prospect that they will be punished for their frugality in order to reward those who didn't exercise proper long-range thinking and failed to save when they could have.
What they need is the moral sanction to be told that this money is rightfully theirs and that it's therefore wrong for the government to steal their money to give to others.
Most of society won't give them that sanction. Objectivists will.
Hence, the purpose of this post is two-fold: (1) I want to put this issue on more Objectivists' radar, since I predict it will heat up over the next several years. (2) I want Objectivists to be prepared to give the virtuous people (i.e. the savers) their moral sanction at that point in time in the future when they'll be needing it the most.
ARC and Obama on Gay Marriage By Paul Hsieh @ 3:00 AM
The Ayn Rand Institute just published a good press release on California's Proposition 8, warning that Americans should not allow a dangerous breach in the separation of church and state:
Church and State: A Marriage Not Made in Heaven October 31, 2008
Washington, D.C. -- Californians will soon have the chance to vote on Proposition 8, which would define marriage in the state constitution as being only between a man and a woman, denying marriage to same-sex couples. The proposition is heavily supported by the religious community. Said one religious leader who supports the measure, "We believe it is a religious issue as well as a political issue. That's where we feel the Church must have a word."
According to Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, "Regardless of how one thinks 'marriage' should be defined, there's a much graver issue at stake: this is a flagrant attempt to inject religion into politics.
"As our Founders understood, religion is properly a private matter -- not a legitimate basis for government action. The government's only role is to protect our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Under our secular political system, individuals are free to hold any religious views they wish, but they cannot impose their views on the rest of us. That is the meaning of freedom of religion.
"Once we accept the view that the 'Church must have a word' in the political sphere, we are accepting a principle completely opposed to freedom. If gay marriage can be barred because, as one supporter of Prop. 8 put it, 'I don't think God has ordained it,' then why, for instance, can't speech that similarly offends religionists also be banned? Indeed, this is the very principle that motivates the religious right's crusade against broadcast 'indecency' -- and the brutal principle that recently led the Afghani government to sentence a journalism student to 20 years in prison for blasphemy.
"The separation of church and state is a cornerstone of liberty. It protects our right to live by our own judgment, free from the dictates of ministers and mullahs. To protect that right, we should oppose any attempt to bring religion into politics."
Diana and I wholeheartedly support gay marriage, and Diana has stated her reasons in this NoodleFood post:
The essence of marriage is the total integration of two lives: sexually, legally, socially, financially, geographically, sexually, morally, etc. The fact that most marriages involve two people with contrasting genitalia is not of any grand significance.
Several gay friends and wealthy gay donors to Senator Barack Obama have asked him over the years why, as a matter of logic and fairness, he opposes same-sex marriage even though he has condemned old miscegenation laws that would have barred his black father from marrying his white mother.
The difference, Mr. Obama has told them, is religion.
As a Christian -- he is a member of the United Church of Christ -- Mr. Obama believes that marriage is a sacred union, a blessing from God, and one that is intended for a man and a woman exclusively, according to these supporters and Obama campaign advisers. While he does not favor laws that ban same-sex marriage, and has said he is "open to the possibility" that his views may be "misguided," he does not support it and is not inclined to fight for it, his advisers say...
(The article notes that McCain also opposes same-sex marriage.)
Clearly, Barack Obama has no problems taking political positions based on his personal religious views. Anyone who votes for Obama thinking that he will offer any kind of principled defense of church-state separation is going to be deeply disappointed.
...I fully support the continued separation of church and state in this country. As our founding fathers recognized when they made religious freedom a fundamental principle of our Constitution, our nation is home to people of a large variety of religious backgrounds and beliefs. Our government has no role to play in selecting those beliefs, in advocating for one religion over another religion, or in supporting the presence of religion in favor of no religion. I will continue to vote against legislation that compromises our country's ability to keep religion and government separate. That includes programs that discriminate against people based on their religious belief or that use government funds to support one religion over another.
Although I sharply disagree with many of Udall's positions on other important issues, I applaud his clear and unambiguous position on this one.
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.
...We flushed 'em out. We found out they're not really Republicans and they're by no means conservatives, and now they're gone. Now the trick is to keep 'em out.
...The minute you say that conservatism includes people who are pro-choice, you've destroyed conservatism because conservatism stands for "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness." Without life, there is nothing else here, and if we're going to sit around indiscriminately deciding who lives and who dies based on our own convenience, that's not conservative. Individual liberty. The essence of innocence is a child in the womb who has no choice over what happens to it. Sorry. If we don't stand up for that person, if the government doesn't, then nobody will. And if we allow ourselves to get watered down by a bunch of people who are embarrassed over that position, they're not conservatives.
No problem, Rush. I've already sent the following message to numerous Republicans at the local, state, and national level:
I used to support the Republican Party because I believe in individual rights, free markets, a strong national defense, and the right to keep and bear arms.
However, the Republican Party alliance with the religious right on "social issues" like stem cell research, abortion and gay marriage has turned off many former supporters such as myself.
Americans have a right to practice their religion as a purely private matter, and I defend everyone's right to do so.
But the government should not force one group's religious views on everyone. Hence, I no longer have a home in any political party. To paraphrase a quote from Ronald Reagan, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me."
Given that Rush Limbaugh has just confirmed that they don't want members like me, I'm happy to oblige him.
If the Republican Party wants to become the party of the Religious Right, then they will lose big in 2008. And they will deserve to do so.
Update:An Objectivist friend has also contacted us privately to point out that in another show, Limbaugh spoke out to defend individual rights, but as part of a pro-McCain plea. As our friend notes (quoted with his permission):
And let's not forget that his impassioned defense of individual freedom (which I heard part of, and which by itself was quite good) was made in defense of voting for JOHN MCCAIN... you know, the guy who blames the financial crisis on greedy Wall Street, who dismisses those who pursue profit instead of "service," who thinks the First Amendment deserves scare quotes, who supports cap and trade, who opposes drilling for oil in Alaska, whose hero is Teddy Roosevelt, who chose religious nut-job and anti-intellectual populist Sarah Palin as his running mate, etc., etc., etc. What a sin it would be to elect that kind of nightmare in the name of *capitalism*!
If McCain and Limbaugh were the only "defenders" of individual rights against the likes of Obama, then our country would be in sorry shape. Fortunately, there are better defenders out there...
Free Speech Versus Campaign Finance By Diana Hsieh @ 12:25 AM
Ari and Linn Armstrong recently wrote an excellent column for the Grand Junction Free Press on the clash between campaign finance laws and freedom of speech. Ari was kind enough to give me permission to repost it here, and he also sent me a version with links added. Also, below the column, you'll find the full text of his interview with Eric Daniels.
Also, if you're not reading Ari's blogs -- AriArmstrong.com (on faith and politics) and FreeColorado.com (on politics and culture) -- you should be.
Time to speak out for free speech
by Linn and Ari Armstrong
Free speech is under assault in America by state and federal governments, despite constitutional protections.
Both major presidential candidates are enemies of free speech. In 2002, John McCain rode the McCain-Feingold campaign censorship law through Congress. Among other things, the law prohibited select groups from running certain political ads before elections, though the Supreme Court struck down some of the worst parts of the law. Barack Obama wants federal controls on media ownership, his spokesperson toldBroadcasting & Cable.
Some conservatives want more censorship over pornography. Many on the left call for censorship of the radio by forcing broadcasters to air certain views; supporters laughably call their scheme the "Fairness Doctrine."
Here in Colorado, various activists have faced legal threats for daring to exercise their rights of free speech. For example, in 2006 Becky Clark Cornwell put up yard signs and protested a plan to annex her community of Parker North into the city of Parker in Douglas County.
A supporter of annexation filed a legal complaint against Cornwell and others, claiming they had engaged in "illegal activities" under Colorado's campaign censorship laws.
Lisa Knepper of the Institute for Justice (IJ), a civil rights group that defended Cornwell and her neighbors, said that, while the U.S. District Court ruled the group could not be penalized, the court "failed to change the law to prevent such abuses of campaign finance law in the future, so we're appealing to the 10th Circuit."
ABC's 20/20featured Cornwell in an October 17 story about the campaign finance laws. Cornwell said "the lawsuit was used in an effort to shut us up about the annexation, to scare us enough and clobber us with these laws so that we wouldn't talk about it any more."
20/20 paid people to try to fill out Colorado's campaign forms. Nobody did so successfully. One subject said, "A regular citizen cannot read this legalese." Another said, "I'd rather just not get involved in the political process if I have to go through the nonsense that I had to go through today."
Steve Simpson, the IJ lawyer defending the Parker North residents, said he's also defending the Independence Institute, which was sued over its criticisms of Referenda C and D in 2005. Simpson is awaiting a decision from the Colorado Court of Appeals. He said "it would be impossible" for the Independence Institute, a think tank, to comply with the reporting requirements as an issue committee, because the group gets funds for general purposes and spends them on a wide variety of issues.
Even though we've condemned Amendment 48, which would absurdly define a fertilized egg as a person in the state constitution, we were displeased to see that a fellow named John Erhardt sued the Amendment 48 campaign for petty violations of the campaign censorship laws. Erhardt gloats on his blog, "So, while the fine of $150 won't break their campaign, they did have to spin their wheels to defend this."
Diana Hsieh, co-author of the paper "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life" at SecularGovernment.us, said the advocates of 48 "should be free to advocate their views -- not bogged down in opportunistic legal action by opponents... I want opponents of Amendment 48 to be spending their time arguing against the substance and philosophy of it, not playing campaign finance dirty tricks."
Finally, Douglas Bruce has taken flak in the media [one and two] for mailing a flyer against Amendment 59 and Referendum O through a nonprofit group, Active Citizens Together, without filing the legal paperwork that some think applies.
It's past time to rethink the validity of the campaign censorship laws, along with all the other restrictions on free speech. We checked in with Eric Daniels of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, and he offered a refreshingly consistent defense of our rights.
Daniels said, "Free speech means the right (not privilege) of individuals to express their opinions without government censorship of any kind, whether by hindering speech through regulation or through restricting it through prosecutions after the fact."
We don't even like requirements to report contributions. People have a right to speak anonymously. There's no clear way to distinguish between advocacy and education. And, the voters can demand disclosure with their votes.
Daniels agrees: "If politicians wish to disclose the source of their financing to the public, they are free to do so... The electorate can indeed decide through voting whether to support candidates who do or do not disclose their financing. Contributing money to a political candidate or to supporters or opponents of a ballot measure should properly be a matter between the private parties themselves."
Government should not abridge "the freedom of speech, or of the press." Politicians have gotten away with doing just that for far too long. If we wish to retain and restore our other liberties, we must above all fight for our rights of free speech.
Linn is a local political activist and firearms instructor with the Grand Valley Training Club. His son Ari edits FreeColorado.com from the Denver area.
Full Interview with Eric Daniels
Note from Ari: My purpose in contacting Daniels was not to cover familiar ground, but to elicit responses about some of the most difficult implications of free speech. Until I thought more carefully about the matter on October 23, talked with another friend about it, and contacted Daniels, I wasn't sure about my position on the matters of campaign-finance disclosure and campaigns by foreigners. Now I am sure. I am for freedom, not controls.
Daniels's answers follow the questions in italics:
Briefly, why do you think free speech has come under attack by both right and left in recent decades?
Fundamentally, the reason free speech is under attack by both is because both fail to understand the nature of individual rights. The majority opinion in politics today holds that rights are gifts from the government that allow individuals to do some things as long as they do not upset certain vested interests. In the case of free speech, politicians believe that you should be allowed to say what you want as long as it does not, for example, offend religious or ethnic groups or as long as what you say is not backed by too much money, or as long as what you say meets some vague notion of community standards. But that is not free speech. Free speech means the right (not privilege) of individuals to express their opinions without government censorship of any kind, whether by hindering speech through regulation or through restricting it through prosecutions after the fact.
Should the law require disclosure of campaign-related expenses? I'm leaning no. People have a right to speak anonymously. There's no clear way to distinguish between advocacy and education. And, the voters can demand disclosure with their votes. Do you agree with this? Explain.
I do not think the law should require public disclosure of campaign- related financing. If politicians wish to disclose the source of their financing to the public, they are free to do so. Likewise, if they choose to keep their donors' identities to themselves, they should also be free to do so. The electorate can indeed decide through voting whether to support candidates who do or do not disclose their financing. Contributing money to a political candidate or to supporters or opponents of a ballot measure should properly be a matter between the private parties themselves. It does not matter how much a person gives or how much air time he buys, voters always remain free to take the message for which he has paid in the appropriate context. No one forces the voters to believe or discredit any given message, they do so of their own will.
Should the law prohibit campaign contributions from foreign entities and people? For instance (Diana Hsieh raised this example), if the U.S. were going impose a tariff on British goods, should British citizens be able to campaign against it in the U.S.?
Giving money to a political campaign is an issue of individual right -- that is, the donor who has earned his wealth has a right to give it to whatever candidate he chooses, and the candidate has a right to accept money from anyone he chooses. Foreign citizens or political action committees have just as much right to speak as do Americans. Again, if there is some belief on the part of voters that foreign influence is unduly affecting some candidate, the voters retain the right to demand that the candidate disclose the source of his funding or face losing their votes.
Is there anything else we should know about free speech in the modern era?
Even though much of the recent controversy about free speech is tied to speech about political issues, it is important to remember that we have the freedom of speech not just because it facilitates a robust discussion of public policy (which is the unfortunate modern interpretation), but because it is a right of each individual to express his ideas in the manner he chooses and to reach whatever size an audience his rightly-earned wealth will allow.
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.
Greenspan Has No Free Market Philosophy October 24, 2008
Washington, D.C. --Opponents of the free market are giddy at Alan Greenspan's declaration that the financial crisis has exposed a "flaw" in his "free market ideology." Greenspan says he is "in a state of shocked disbelief" because he "looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity"--and it didn't.
But according to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, "any belief Greenspan ever had in truly free markets was abandoned long ago. While Greenspan long ago wrote in favor of a truly free market in banking, including the gold standard that such markets always adopt, he then proceeded to work for two decades as leader and chief advocate of the Federal Reserve, which continually inflates the money supply and manipulates interest rates. Advocates of free banking understand that when the government inflates the currency, it artificially increases prices and causes booms in certain sectors of the economy, followed by inevitable busts. But not only did Greenspan lead the inflation behind the .com bubble and the real estate boom, he blamed the market for their treacherous collapses. Greenspan should have recognized that what he wrote in 1966 of the boom preceding the 1929 crash applied here: 'The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market--triggering a fantastic speculative boom.' Instead, he superficially blamed 'infectious greed.'
"Should it be any shock that Greenspan now blames the free market for today's meltdown--rather than the Fed's policies, which fueled an inflationary housing boom, which rewarded reckless lenders and borrowers from Wall Street to Main Street? Greenspan didn't mention the word 'inflation' once in his testimony.
"Whatever Greenspan's economic philosophy is, it is not anything resembling a free market."
I can't possibly express the depth of my disgust at Alan Greenspan. Well, let me try. By continuing to associate himself with the free market ideas of his former mentor, even while thoroughly contradicting them in word and deed as Fed Chairman, and then publicly repudiating them based on a government-created financial crisis, the man has done more damage to Objectivism than Barbara and Nathaniel Branden.
Way to go, Alan. You've done what I thought impossible. Dr. Stadler has nothing on you.
I know because Jacob Weisberg, the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Slate Group (which publishes the online magazine), has just penned an article describing for us immature Ayn Rand naifs how it is that the financial collapse killed libertarianism.
A source of mild entertainment amid the financial carnage has been watching libertarians scurrying to explain how the global financial crisis is the result of too much government intervention rather than too little...
Utopians of the right, libertarians are... convinced that their ideas have yet to be tried, and that they would work beautifully if we could only just have a do-over of human history. Like all true ideologues, they find a way to interpret mounting evidence of error as proof that they were right all along.
To which the rest of us can only respond, Haven't you people done enough harm already? We have narrowly avoided a global depression and are mercifully pointed toward merely the worst recession in a long while. This is thanks to a global economic meltdown made possible by libertarian ideas.
[Emphasis in original.]
That's all by way of introduction. He follows with a bunch of haphazard facts strung together in a string of non sequiturs that I've become bored with, they're so ubiquitously offered as proof the financial crisis was caused by the "free market." So forgive me if I don't quote here the "facts" the article supposedly marshals in support of its conclusions (check out the full article if you're not easily nauseated). Weisberg concludes with slap at, of all people, Ayn Rand:
The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school.
This article is yet another gob-smacking exercise in tortured rationalization of the avoidance of uncomfortable facts by someone steeped in the rhetorical method not of thrust-and-parry, but avoid-and-slime. Weisberg first avoids the facts that 1) Libertarians have never run the American government, 2) it's a non sequitur to declare that financiers and corporate-welfare statists who run to the government for a bailout believe in the free market (!) and 3) Libertarianism has been rejected wholesale, outright, and damn near shrilly by Ayn Rand and the philosophy of Objectivism. Weisberg then slimes principled Objectivists as "immature" and "ideologues," and by playing on the flat ignorance of most of the public of the tenets of Objectivism. (Not to mention trotting out that tired when-are-you-going-to-grow-out-of-it smear.)
I would label this a serious example of the pot calling the kettle black except that there is no "kettle." There's definitely a "pot" -- Weisberg's beloved regulatory state has failed. There is no "kettle"; there has never been a free market upon which to blame the current financial crisis or any so-called "market failure," and I defy Weisberg and his ilk to identify when that state of affairs has subsisted.
I'm not up for reinventing the wheel this morning, so I'll just send everyone to the new Repeal The Bailout site for an excellent compilation of Objectivist thought leadership on the current economic situation and offer some closing thoughts on Weisberg's article.
Perhaps the biggest thing Weisberg evades is that we Objectivists who advocate for a truly free market are entirely principled on this: we hold that if you regulate any aspect of the economy, to any degree, it is not free. (I mean, really -- you'd think that someone calling Objectivists "ideologues" would jump at the chance to point out how just how "utopian" we are about what we're saying.) He seems to pay lip service to this fact but then proceeds brazenly to avoid even the most elementary logical implications of the principled consistency of Objectivism.
If she could, I'm sure Ayn Rand would be rolling over in her grave at the willful ignorance of those who persist in equating Libertarianism, which has rightly been repeatedly discredited, with a philosophy so diametrically opposed to it. But let's accept for a fleeting moment and for the sake of Weisberg's "argument" his nonsensical conflation of Objectivism and its true free market principles with Libertarianism. Weisberg must nevertheless be charged with his unapologetic evasion of the fact that he's celebrating the demise of a Libertarian hegemony that has never existed.
Imagine this: Your household will be restricted in their consumption of pinto beans due to the potential over-production of intestinal gases with a corresponding excessive release of colonic C02 into the atmosphere, exceeding EPA standards.
We haven't even considered the potential impact of feeding cheese to your dog, or those statistically-higher ambulance runs made from nursing homes. We're talking C02 excesses in the...in the....parts per something!
Front Range Objectivism hosted a fascinating supper talk on October 18 by John Lewis, PhD, visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University and research scholar and writer in history and classics. His talk was entitled, "A Call to Action: Understanding and Defeating the EPA's Plan for Environmental Dictatorship." From his talk I drew several disturbing conclusions concerning the sweeping powers delegated to the Enviromental Protection Agency as a result of a recent Supreme Court ruling.
As background, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007, in Massachusetts et al. v the EPA, ruled in favor of a consortium of environmentalist-friendly plaintiffs, delegating to the Environmental Protection Agency the responsibility of regulating C02 emissions under the Clean Air Act. The plaintiffs argued that man-made C02 emissions (and other greenhouse gases) are the primary cause of "global climate change," and that to avoid worldwide disaster action must be taken. The EPA established an "Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" to allow public comment, advising the public of the widespread impacts this would cause to our society and economy. Dr. Lewis argued that, even as lay persons, we can judge and reject the claims of imminent worldwide catastrophe raised by the plaintiffs in this case. (I'm including the link to the comments to the EPA made by Dr. Lewis and scientist Paul Saunders.)
From the talk, three issues struck me as particularly important about this case: the scientific, the political and the constitutional.
First the scientific. The Supreme Court ruling used the widely-reported conclusions of the United Nations-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the scientific basis for regulating C02. The panel's basic conclusion: "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."
What's concerning about this conclusion from a lay person's observation is the fact that global climate over the eons has changed not just dramatically, but extremely: ice ages, deserts that used to be jungles, plains once covered by oceans, gigantic shifts in northern ice patterns but the opposite occurring in the southern hemisphere, etc.
As far as the validity of the science, the IPCC conclusions were based primarily on computer modeling involving many variables. And much of the data is bad, as in faulty measurements of ground temperature. Then then there's Al Gore's infamous inversion of the C02-temperature relationship: Ice core data actually indicates that over the millennia global temperature increase comes before C02 rise by several hundred years. Finally, as every lay person knows from experience, the best of climatologists can't even predict the local weather very well, let alone weather change on a global scale projected decades into the future.
On to the political. The IPCC is essentially a governmental entity that works by political consensus, like most U.N. endeavors. In fact, as Dr. Lewis pointed out (and as I have learned elsewhere), the conclusions were haggled out first, line-by-line, by bureaucrats. This is not at all proper to the standard method of producing a scientific paper.
There are many respected scientists from such fields as oceanography, climatology and astronomy that study the impact of the oceans and the sun and other factors in global temperature change and C02. Many claim that their input was either dismissed, suppressed or ignored by the IPCC, even when they were initially involved as expert reviewers. And there are many other scientists who simply claim that nobody can get a handle on something as vastly complex as global climate change at our present state of knowledge. But this input is exed-out in the IPCC and the Supreme Court ruling because of politics, not good science.
Finally, Dr. Lewis responded to a question concerning the Constitution and the very disturbing and ever-growing power of the emerging "fourth" branch of government: those rule-making regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services. These are composed of unelected civil employees who have been delegated the power to write detailed rules and regulations impacting rights of property, contract, privacy, and more. Operating behind the scenes, they have enormous power to control our businesses and lives.
And with the new Supreme Court ruling, the EPA will have no choice but to somehow figure out--despite the fact that climate science is really in its infancy--how to regulate all of the C02 emissions we put out. Just imagine the onerous responsibility, tremendous power and grave consequences involved...
Getting Rand Wrong By Brandon Byrd @ 12:01 AM
As someone who takes ideas seriously, I've always found it frustrating when philosophers take it upon themselves to offer judgments on subjects they haven't bothered to devote serious time and attention to studying. The charge that philosophers (academic or otherwise) sometimes judge where the epistemically virtuous would fear to comment isn't new. (For instance, it isn't rare to hear someone claim that speculation from the philosophical armchair is a poor method of settling some contentious issue.) What makes this phenomenon -- the venturing of unwarranted opinions -- especially pernicious in the case of philosophers is that philosophers are supposed to be the guardians of rationality, revering the mind by sacrificing hasty conclusions at the altar of the well-formed argument. Philosophers are supposed to love wisdom and shun mere belief; when they make assertions that betray culpable ignorance, they sin against their profession as well as the truth.
I don't know what it is about Ayn Rand that makes many philosophers think they can get away with saying whatever they damn well please about her without having studied her work carefully and honestly. I suspect that the real explanation has less to do with Rand and more to do with personal biases on the part of her critics. But whatever the cause, the phenomenon is nevertheless real. It isn't just that many philosophers dislike Rand. We philosophers are an opinionated bunch; we dislike all sorts of things. Rather it's that many philosophers will attribute all sorts of nonsense to Rand without actually considering what she has to say.
To offer an example, below is a passage from Rosalind Hursthouse's On Virtue Ethics. This work, published relatively recently by Oxford University Press, is intended to be used as a textbook on, unsurprisingly, virtue ethics.
"We can interpret Thrasymachus, and more obviously Nietzsche and Rand, as saying that, rather like hive bees, human beings fall, by nature, into two distinct groups, the weak and the strong (or the especially clever or talented or 'chosen by destiny'), whose members must be evaluated differently, as worker bees and the drones or queens are."
Um... what? Anyone with even a cursory familiarity with Rand's ideas will realize that she believes no such thing. Rand's philosophical anthropology -- her theory of human nature -- does not recognize a distinction between types of human beings. Her ethical theory evaluates individuals on the basis of their choices, not their unchosen attributes, and she appeals to a univocal standard of moral evaluation -- not to distinct standards for distinct types.
Hursthouse does not provide any sources that might justify her 'obvious' interpretation of Rand's philosophy. But this totally wrongheaded interpretation of Rand was good enough for her editors and peer reviewers at OUP (as well as the numerous philosophers who gave her editorial comments on the final manuscript). Apparently that group of distinguished professors found nothing objectionable in Hursthouse's characterization of Rand. Of course, realizing Hursthouse's error would have required reading Rand.
(On a grimly ironic note, the above passage comes from chapter 11 of On Virtue Ethics. The chapter title? "Objectivity.")
Hursthouse isn't the only person who presents Rand's views incorrectly in a way that betrays ignorance. Chandran Kukathas's entry on Rand in the otherwise excellent Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is another example. No, Kukathas... Rand didn't think that integrity was "at the root of the idea of freedom," her "real concerns" were not "the defence of the value of integrity (to the point of self-sacrifice) in the face of evil and moral despair," and The Virtue of Selfishness was not a novel.
So far, we've seen a philosopher attribute views to Rand that she 'obviously' didn't hold, and we've seen another philosopher misunderstand the fundamentals of Rand's politics and misconstrue her central concerns. But Gerald Dworkin, a professor of philosophy at UC Davis, has recently exemplified yet another way of getting Rand wrong: saying that her ideas lead to catastrophe.
The forum in which Dworkin makes this charge is Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog -- a blog featuring "news and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture... and a bit of poetry." The blog is run by Brian Leiter, currently John Wilson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, and Director of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values. Leiter is also the editor of The Philosophical Gourmet, which ranks the top philosophy departments in the English-speaking world. I read Leiter Reports semi-regularly, as it is a good source of professional news related to academic philosophy (faculty hires, moves, deaths, retirements and whatnot). In addition to this valuable material, the blog also features occasional leftist cultural commentary of more dubious value. Of extremely dubious value is Dworkin's post "Blame it on Ayn Rand" in which he claims Rand is a cause of our economic troubles. Dworkin doesn't really provide much of an argument for this claim, so I'll attempt to provide him with a charitable reconstruction (a courtesy I'm not so sure he deserves... but for the sake of argument...).
Dworkin quotes a recent New York Times article on Greenspan's involvement in the current financial crisis. (That article seems to get Rand wrong too; Rand didn't have "a resolute faith that those participating in financial markets would act responsibly" but that's beside the point.) The article implies that Greenspan's positions on regulation -- specifically the regulation of derivatives markets -- were causally relevant factors in producing the recent financial crisis. Why did Greenspan hold his positions on regulation? Here, Dworkin invokes Keynes:
"...the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."
(I can't resist noting that Rand held a similar view to Keynes about the importance of philosophy in history, though her insight was deeper than Keynes. Rather than viewing history as being primarily driven by political philosophy, Rand viewed metaphysics and epistemology as being much more influential. For more on Rand's insights here, consult the title essay of For the New Intellectual, as well as the title essay of Philosophy: Who Needs It. Peikoff develops Rand's insights on the philosophical motor of history in Ominous Parallels, the epilogue to Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, and in his forthcoming book on how epistemology shapes society.)
Greenspan was a student of Rand, and Rand argued for the principled separation of the state and economics, and thus for an absence of government interference in voluntary economic exchanges. She was a categorical opponent of governmental regulation in financial markets. Greenspan opposed regulation of derivatives markets. The current financial crisis was supposedly brought on by an absence of regulation in these markets. Thus Dworkin claims that Rand is "an important cause of the catastrophe we are in."
Let us examine this argument.
This argument gets its force from the claim that Greenspan was practicing what Rand preached. In an update to Dworkin's post, Leiter snarkily remarks that "Greenspan was not only a friend of Rand's, but a lifelong devotee of her ideas and her 'philosophy,' such as it is." While it is true that Rand and Greenspan were friendly toward one another, it is demonstrably false that Greenspan was "a lifelong devotee of her ideas." It doesn't take a hell of a lot of legwork to discover this; thanks to Google, I didn't even have to leave my armchair.
In The Age of Turbulence, Greenspan's recent autobiography, Greenspan discusses the important formative influence Rand had on his intellectual development. In his discussion, he talks about how Rand encouraged him to look beyond mere economic data and more deeply into the values and ideas that move history and influence human action (including economic action). She was credited with broadening his perspective on the world and helping him reject logical positivism. He even describes himself as "writing spirited commentary for [Rand's] newsletter with the fervor of a young acolyte...". But this enthusiasm was not to last; Greenspan's autobiography claims that Rand's philosophy has inherent contradictions, and that his "fervor receded."
So Greenspan isn't an Objectivist. His policies, as we shall see, reflect this fact.
We're in the midst of a recession, teetering (some might say) on the precipice of a depression. What were Rand's views about recessions and depressions? Well, Dworkin doesn't say. His blog post doesn't even bother to discuss which of Rand's ideas were supposed to get us into this mess. He doesn't explicitly discuss her ideas at all. If one consults Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal to discover her views on the causes of recessions and depressions, one is directed to the works of Ludwig von Mises. It is important (for getting Rand right) to recognize that while Rand found Mises's economic analyses convincing, she had substantial philosophical and methodological disagreements with him. Mises was a Kantian who viewed economics as a primarily deductive enterprise (and thus was inclined toward epistemological rationalism). He also attempted to do economics in an ethical vacuum, divorcing economic analysis from any underlying normative framework. Rand, of course, rejected Kantianism, rationalism, and a strict division between morality and economics. But despite his errors, Rand thought that Mises's economic theories represented a significant achievement.
At this point, I don't want to provide a lengthy, detailed summary of Mises's views on the business cycle. I may write something in the near future about the causes of our current economic woes, but I'll hold off for now. The following short summary should provide a general indication of the economic views Rand found most convincing.
The most salient aspect of the Austrian theory of the business cycle is that implicates central banks as the fundamental cause of depressions and recessions. Ah! The plot thickens! Wasn't Greenspan the head of our central bank? He was indeed. How do central banks cause recessions?
In a free market, the interest rate (the price of money) is determined by the law of supply and demand. Roughly, the supply of loanable funds that banks have (our savings) determines the interest rate, when taken in conjunction with the overall demand for money and the riskiness of potential debtors. Central banks, such as the Federal Reserve, distort this market mechanism by setting artificially low interest rates (interest rates below the market rate). What happens next? I defer to Wikipedia:
Low interest rates tend to stimulate borrowing from the banking system. This expansion of credit causes an expansion of the supply of money, through the money creation process in a fractional reserve banking system. This in turn leads to an unsustainable "monetary boom" during which the "artificially stimulated" borrowing seeks out diminishing investment opportunities. This boom results in widespread malinvestments, causing capital resources to be misallocated into areas which would not attract investment if the money supply remained stable. A correction or "credit crunch" -- commonly called a "recession" or "bust" -- occurs when credit creation cannot be sustained.
Loose monetary policy by central banks leads to people taking on more debt than they otherwise would. Artificially low interest rates allow more credit to be extended to risky borrowers. In our current case this lead to skyrocketing real estate values, since there was an increased demand for houses (made possible by banks extending credit to more and riskier debtors). This effect is obvious enough in the case of commercial banks, which more than doubled the amount of real estate loans they made (thus allocating large amounts of resources into the real estate market -- allocations that wouldn't have occurred in a free market for money and credit.
And then there's the welfare state. Don't let's forget about Fannie and Freddy. The former is a holdover from the New Deal; the latter is a "government sponsored enterprise" created by the Emergency Home Finance Act of 1976, and designed to increase home ownership. Both of which did their part to screw us all by spurring on the housing bubble... and they were able to borrow money at a (de facto, if not de jure) subsidized rate in the marketplace because the public viewed them as being low risk (since the state would presumably bail them out, should the need arise).
All of a sudden, everyone's in debt and no one wants to lend. Small wonder. Small wonder that risky investors are defaulting on their mortgage payments. Small wonder that the derivatives markets are screwing up (I'd argue that we can only make sense of the kerfuffle in the derivatives market in light of monetary policy). Small wonders that major financial institutions are losing their credit rating because they took on too many risky debtors.
We frequently hear that that the market got drunk. What was it drunk on? Cheap credit. Who was the man behind the bar? You can probably guess.
In May of 2000, the Fed Funds rate was 6.5%. By June of 2003, Greenspan had slashed it to 1%, and it stayed there for more than a year (and remained ridiculously low for much longer). Would Rand have found this type of monetary policy commendable (or even tolerable)? Of course not. She'd read her Mises. Moreover, she regarded central banking as morally repugnant and politically unnecessary.
There's much more to be said about our current credit crunch and how to evaluate it in light of Rand's moral and political philosophy. But it should now be evident that Dworkin (and Leiter) are wrong on all counts. They were wrong about Greenspan; they were wrong about Rand. Their errors on these subjects betray a culpable ignorance. One needn't do much research to figure out Greenspan's real views on Rand, or Rand's views on economics. Twenty minutes with Google and Wikipedia would probably have gotten the job done. If a philosopher is going to assert, in a public forum, that another philosopher's ideas lead to disaster, then they have an obligation to carefully consider that thinker's ideas, to understand them, and to show how (in practice) they would result in catastrophe. When a philosopher fails to do that, they do a disservice not only to the thinker they criticize, but also to the truth, to their profession, and to themselves.
Academic philosophers often get Rand wrong. They often have only themselves to blame.
Two Cheers for Divided Government By Paul Hsieh @ 1:06 PM
There's been a lot of buzz on the blogosphere lately regarding this chart in the October 14, 2008 New York Times showing that since 1929, the stock market has done far better under a Democratic President than a Republican President (even if you exclude the Herbert Hoover years).
The annualized rate of return under Democrats was 8.9% where as under Republicans was 4.7% (excluding Hoover) and 0.4% (including Hoover).
However, this article in the Wall Street Journal shows that although the figures are true, the stock market has actually done best under a divided government -- and specifically when the President is a Democrat and the Congress is Republican.
This makes sense to me. Under a divided government, each party tends to moderate some (although not all) of the worst excesses of the other party. Furthermore, a divided system seems to work better with a Republican Congress restraining a Democratic President, rather than the other way around. For a variety of reasons, Republicans are better in the opposition than in power and will then sometimes even fight for fiscal responsibility. On the other hand, when we've had a Republican President and a Democratic Congress, the President often tries to be "more altruist than thou" in outspending the Democrats, so as to avoid looking mean and selfish.
Yaron Brook once said that we've seen the least growth in government when we've had this pattern of divided government with a Democratic President and Republican Congress. It's good to know that this also is the best combination for the stock market and economic growth.
Unfortunately, it seems pretty unlikely that we'll have that particular combination in 2008. But depending on how the next 2 years turns out, we could easily see this relatively desirable combination in 2010 (just as Democratic control of both branches in 1992 turned into the "better" divided government in 1994.)
My reply is of general interest, as I think the legitimacy of "right-to-work" laws can be confusing. I wrote:
The idea that people have some kind of natural right to work for another person -- without regard for their employer's terms -- is completely ridiculous.
If my employer says that he's only willing to hire me if I cut my hair short, put in 10 hour days, donate money to ARI, or join a union, that's his right. And it's my right -- precisely because I'm a free person, not a slave -- to refuse employment under those terms.
To say that he is obliged to hire me, even though I don't meet his terms, would make him my slave.
That's why "right-to-work" laws are wrong. They are yet another violation of the right to contract -- in a misguided, typically conservative attempt to make existing pro-union laws more "fair." But in fact, freedom requires the repeal of those unjust pro-union laws -- not passing even more unjust regulations to "level the playing field" or "protect choice."
My view here is the definitive Objectivist position. In the June 1963 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter, Barbara Branden addressed the issue of "right-to-work" laws:
What is the Objectivist stand on "right-to-work" laws?
As advocates of laissez-faire capitalism, Objectivists are opposed to any legislation that abridges the freedom of production and trade. We are, therefore, opposed to the "right-to-work" laws.
The "right-to-work" laws prohibit employers and unions from contractually agreeing to and stipulating a closed and/or union shop. As such, these laws clearly represent an infringement of the rights of the parties involved; these laws rest on the principle that the government has the right to prescribe the terms of contractual agreements-which is a Statist concept. In a free society, an employer who voluntarily negotiates with a voluntary union, may sign any agreement with the union that he wishes. Although it is doubtful whether a closed and/or union shop agreement would ever be economically wise, that choice is the employer's to make. No one's rights are infringed by such an agreement; a worker does not have a "right" to a job with a given employer; if he does not or cannot meet the employer's terms, he is free to seek employment elsewhere.
Many "conservatives" champion "right-to-work" laws on the ground that today unions are so powerful they can virtually compel an employer's agreement to a closed and/or union shop. It is true that unions have such power. But they acquired it only by virtue of legislation, which had the effect of forcing men into unions whether they wished to join or not and of forcing employers to deal with these unions. Unions did not and could not achieve, in a free society, the monopolistic, destructive power they possess in today's "mixed economy." The guilty party is not unionism as such, but government controls.
The solution lies, not in passing new laws, but in repealing the laws that caused the disaster in the first place.
The defenders of freedom do not serve their own cause by trying to fight their battle on the enemy's terms, that is, by deciding that the solution to the evil of government intervention in the economy is more government intervention.
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.
Faith-based politics costs Colorado Republicans by Ari Armstrong
Colorado is known for its Western values of independence and economic liberty. So why do Republicans, the supposed champions of those values, keep getting trounced?
Republicans can blame wealthy Democratic donors, but in large part Republicans have beaten themselves by pushing a faith-based agenda of banning abortion and stem-cell research, discriminating against homosexuals, and directing welfare dollars to religious groups. They have subverted the law to religious doctrine and weakened the wall between church and state.
Republicans also have alienated freedom-minded independents and Republicans. Polls released by Pew show most Americans, and half of conservatives, now oppose church involvement in politics. As Ryan Sager shows in his review of 2005 Pew data, the Interior West holds a "live and let live" philosophy, with 53 percent of residents saying homosexuality "should be accepted by society" and 59 percent saying "the government is getting too involved in the issue of morality." [See the appendix of Sager's The Elephant In the Room.]
Yet the GOP panders to its evangelical base at the expense of political victory.
This year, Republicans passed a resolution at their state convention calling for the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Eighteen Republican candidates signed the Colorado Right to Life survey, saying they want to ban abortion as the will of God and outlaw stem-cell medical research.
The same candidates also endorsed Amendment 48, which would define a fertilized egg as a person in Colorado's constitution. This would lay the ground to ban all abortion except perhaps to save the mother's life, ban the birth control pill and other forms of contraception that may prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, and ban most fertility treatments. Women would be forced to bring a pregnancy to term, even in cases of rape, incest, fetal deformity, and health risks.
True, some of these candidates, such as Congressman Doug Lamborn and congressional candidate Mike Coffman, live in safe districts for Republicans. But Libby Szabo, a candidate for state senate in District 19, does not. Her opponents have hammered her over her answers to the survey, making sure to link her views to the GOP.
Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, the incumbent in a Republican district, has managed to fall behind challenger Betsy Markey in some polls [one and two]. Musgrave wants to outlaw abortion, and she is most well known for sponsoring a constitutional gay marriage ban.
Republican Bob Schaffer is trailing Mark Udall in the polls in the U.S. Senate race in part because of Schaffer's faith-based politics. Udall has written, "I fully support the continued separation of church and state in this country." He opposes bans on abortion and stem-cell research. Schaffer, evoking God's will, said abortion is "always wrong."
Republicans should have learned their lesson when they lost the governership to the Democrats in 2006, when Bob Beauprez touted his faith-based politics and selected a running mate of the same cloth, Janet Rowland. Like Beauprez, Rowland wanted to outlaw abortion and maintain faith-based welfare.
Yet the GOP continues to actively push its anti-abortion agenda. A recent flyer "Paid for by Colorado Republican Committee" urged recipients to vote for a presidential candidate who opposes abortion and who will appoint Supreme Court justices to outlaw it.
But some who are pro-choice across the board are fighting back. Diana Hsieh founded the Coalition for Secular Government, which issued a paper that she and I wrote titled, "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life." Diana's husband Paul wrote to Dick Wadhams, head of the state GOP, "Although I'm pro-free market, pro-strong national defense, and pro- gun, the position that the CO GOP has taken against abortion is a clear breach of the principle of separation of church and state." Doug Krening wrote to Republican officials, "I have been a Republican for my entire voting life, but cannot endorse the GOP currently because of it's explicit endorsement of religion in government."
On September 11, Amanda Mountjoy, chair of the Colorado Republican Majority for Choice, hosted a banquet with 240 participants to oppose Amendment 48. Former Senator Hank Brown told the crowd, "At the point that we give up supporting and defending individual freedom and choice, we give up the very core of this great party."
Colorado Republicans have two options. They can respect the separation of church and state and defend individual freedom and choice, or they can continue to lose and deserve to do so.
Ari Armstrong is a writer for the Coalition for Secular Government and the editor of FreeColorado.com.
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...
Fairness Doctrine for Blogs? By Diana Hsieh @ 12:03 AM
A few hours ago, Stephen Green of VodkaPundit sent out a mass e-mail to over 100 notable bloggers (and others) with this post on the threat of Obama attempting to apply the Fairness Doctrine to blogs, if elected. What the hell, I thought. So I replied to all with the following:
Stephen (and others) --
Like you, I'm seriously worried about free speech under Obama. But damned if I'd feel any more secure with McCain. The man has absolutely no respect whatsoever for the First Amendment -- and he showed that by sponsoring and passing the most severe restrictions on political speech in recent decades.
When asked whether McCain-Feingold violates freedom of speech, McCain said, "I would rather have a clean government than one where quote 'First Amendment rights' are being respected that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government."
Campaign finance laws are strangling political debate in America. In recent months, I've been forced to spend hours of my time filling out campaign finance forms -- just to spend a whopping $200 of my own money fighting Amendment 48. (That's the Colorado ballot measure that would grant full legal rights to fertilized eggs.) The money was used to print and mail copies of an issue paper I co-authored, i.e. simply to advocate my views. After that, I realized that spending money to defeat the measure just wasn't worth my cost in time. Galt help me if I was actually taking donations -- or spending serious money. I would have had to hire an army of accountants!
The next four years will be very bad for freedom of speech, regardless of the name of the man in the Oval Office. Blogs will likely be on the chopping block, and we'll have to fight for our most basic right to speak our mind.
(1) I'm familiar with the basics of the Fairness Doctrine, but it's not clear to me how it might be applied to online media (in general) and blogs (in particular). Does anyone know?
(2) I'm not sure that I agree with my last sentence: "Blogs will likely be on the chopping block." The fact is that blogs are substantially dependent on mainstream media. If the government effectively controls those sources of information, then it might not need to enact any controls particular to blogs to effectively silence them.
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.
With respect to the presidential election, I'll likely abstain for the reasons similar to those given in Craig Biddle's essay McBama vs. America. Given the Republican Party's dangerous entanglement with fundamentalist Christianity, I will not vote for Republican candidates. (For my detailed reasons, see my 2006 essay Why I'm Voting for the Democrats.) However, McCain is particularly revolting. So if I vote for anyone, I'll vote for Obama. He's beyond awful, but I have some reason to hope that he'll be ineffectual. Plus, the Republicans might grow some cajones as the opposition party.
Colorado's Senate Race
With respect to Colorado's Senate race between Republican Bob Schaffer and Democrat Mark Udall, I plan to vote for Udall. Again, part of my reason is my unwillingness to vote for any Republican. To do so is to hasten the transformation of America into a "Christian nation," and I do not wish to live in such a place. In particular, Republican Bob Schaffer is an ardent opponent of all abortion because it's contrary to God's will. In contrast, Udall has offered a wonderfully strong statement in support of the separation of church and state.
Of course, many of Udall's views are downright awful. Although he voted against the bailout twice, he's no advocate of free markets or limited government. However, Republicans are no better on that score: federal spending rose a whopping 68% under President Bush. Also, Bob Schaffer advocates a "refereed private sector" -- i.e. an economy controlled and managed by politicians and bureaucrats. He even supports antitrust lawsuits against health insurance companies. Despite the vocal claims of his advocates, he is no friend of capitalism.
Colorado's Ballot Measures
Colorado has an insane number of measures on the ballot this year. In my view, the two most important are Amendment 48 -- which would grant full legal rights to fertilized eggs -- and Amendment 59 -- which would permanently raise taxes. Please, vote NO on both measures.
Here are my recommendations on all the measures:
Amendment 46: Colorado Civil Rights Initiative: A46 would prohibit the government from discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, education, or contracting.
Diana says: Yes. Governments ought not discriminate on the basis of irrelevant factors like race and sex.
Amendment 47: Right to Work initiative: A47 would prohibit requiring an employee to join and pay any dues or fees to a labor union as a condition of employment.
Diana says: No. It is a violation of contract and property rights to prohibit businesses from voluntarily agreeing with unions to only hire only union employees.
Amendment 48: Definition of Personhood: A48 would define the term "person" to "include any human being from the moment of fertilization," thereby granting all the rights of persons to embryos and fetuses.
Diana says: NO NO NO NO! A person is not created at conception but rather born. This measure would outlaw nearly all abortion, ban the birth control pill, morning-after pill, and IUD, and impose police controls on pregnant women. For more, see the Coalition for Secular Government's information on Amendment 48.
Amendment 49: Limitation on Public Payroll Deductions Initiative: A49 would prohibit union dues from being automatically deducted from the paychecks of public employees by limiting the allowed deductions.
Diana says: Yes. Although this measure should not be a constitutional amendment, taxpayers are within their rights to manage the terms of government employment. Currently, union withholdings often go strait to pro-union political campaigns seeking to violate our rights. Government employees will retain their right and ability to fund any group through their own bank account. For more, see John Caldera's damn funny video.
Amendment 50: Limited Gaming Initiative: A50 would allow residents of gaming towns to vote to extend casino hours, add games, and increase the bet limit to $100--with most of the resulting tax revenue going to community colleges.
Diana says: Yes. Limitations on gambling are a paternalistic violation of rights, and this measure would loosen some of them. While gaming regulations shouldn't be part of our constitution, A50 only amends existing constitutional provisions. Also, the additional tax revenue will be used for government education, but that seems inevitable in our current political climate.
Amendment 51: Sales Tax for Developmentally Disabled Initiative: A51 would increase the state sales and use tax from 2.9% to 3.0% in 2009 then to 3.1% in 2010 to fund services for disabled people. It would prohibit any reduction in funding for such programs.
Diana says: NO! This tax hike is not just welfare-statist but downright altruistic. Moreover, the constitution should not limit the legislature in its budget allocations.
Amendment 52: Severance Tax & Transportation Initiative: A52 would require the legislature to spend a portion of state severance taxes on highway projects.
Diana says: No. The use of tax revenue should be determined by the legislature, not by the constitution.
Amendment 54: Clean Government Initiative: A54 would limit the campaign contributions of certain government contractors and labor groups.
Diana says: No. Campaign finance laws are unjust restrictions on freedom of speech. They ought to be repealed, not extended.
Amendment 58: Severance Tax Initiative: A58 would increase the amount of state severance taxes paid by oil and natural gas companies, primarily by eliminating an existing tax credit. The additional revenue would fund college scholarships, wildlife habitat, renewable energy projects, etc.
Diana says: NO! This measure is populism at its worst. It is a tax hike against an unpopular but vital industry for the sake of illegitimate government funding of schooling.
Amendment 59: Savings Account for Education Initiative: A59 would eliminate TABOR rebates, spending the that tax revenue on P-12 education, eliminating the required inflationary increase for P-12 education spending, and setting aside money in a new savings account for P-12 education.
Diana says: NO NO NO! This measure would be a permanent tax hike to enable more irresponsible spending by politicians. See the web site of Vote No on 59.
Referendum L: Candidate requirements: Ref L would lower the age of a candidate for the Colorado House and Senate from 25 to 21.
Diana says: Yes. Adults should be able to serve in the legislature.
Referendum M: Obsolete constitutional provisions: Ref M would eliminate obsolete provisions in the constitution about land value increases.
Diana says: Yes. Obsolete provisions should be repealed.
Referendum N: Obsolete constitutional provisions: Ref N would eliminate obsolete provisions in the constitution about intoxicating liquor.
Diana says: Yes. Obsolete provisions should be repealed.
Referendum O: Initiative Process: Ref O would increase the requirements for placing a constitutional amendment on the ballot by requiring more total signatures, with 8% to be gathered from each congressional district. The requirements for statutory initiatives would be lessened.
Diana says: Yes. Amending the Colorado constitution should not be the state sport. Those attempting to do so should have to show that their measure has substantial and broad support from across the state.
Washington, D.C.--In response to the financial crisis, traditional defenders of free markets have criticized certain controls passed by U.S. regulatory agencies, but are not calling into question the legitimacy of the agencies themselves. But, argued Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, "It is insufficient and indeed counterproductive to criticize a few failed policies of the Fed and the SEC, without challenging the existence of these market-dictating agencies in the first place.
"As Exhibit A, consider the response to the SEC's recent war on short selling. The Wall Street Journal, regarded as a strong defender of free markets, wrote that '[T]he SEC first clamped down on so-called naked shorting--a reasonable move under any circumstances, even if there's no evidence of widespread naked shorting of financial stocks in this panic. But Mr. Cox didn't stop there. The SEC has also temporarily banned any short selling of hundreds of financial stocks, a list that has grown to include the likes of General Motors. Then, when the SEC was reminded that selling a stock short is a legitimate part of many unimpeachable hedging strategies, it relaxed the prohibition for certain types of sales while continuing to expand the list of "protected" stocks. . . . If the SEC wants to help restore calm, it would stop issuing new emergency rules in the dead of night and bring some transparency and calm to its own rule-making.'
"In praising some of the SEC's actions, while criticizing others, the Wall Street Journal is conceding a disastrous principle: that financial markets should be controlled by government at all.
"Under capitalism, the proper role of the government in financial markets is to protect individual rights by banning force and rooting out fraud. This requires objective laws that do not permit would-be central planners to tinker with markets when they don't like the results. But the SEC's regulatory authority allows it to coercively prevent individuals from engaging in voluntary transactions like short selling whenever it decides those transactions do not serve the 'public interest.'
"Since the 'public interest' is an indefinable standard compatible with any interpretation or rationalization, this means in practice that SEC goons can arbitrarily unleash their regulatory club on financial markets whenever they feel it's warranted. For example, see Chris Cox's blitzkrieg of contradictory emergency orders attacking short sellers.
"The basic principle behind regulation is that the government can use force, not to protect individual rights, but in an attempt to engineer 'socially desirable' outcomes, i.e., outcomes different from what would result from the voluntary choices of individuals on a free market. That is the same premise that underlies all disastrous attempts at central planning--from the Soviet Union to modern-day Venezuela.
"If the Wall Street Journal really wants to defend capitalism, this is the premise it must oppose. Instead of prodding government regulators to be better central planners, it should call for a complete end to government control of financial markets. This is the lesson all defenders of capitalism must learn: you cannot defend capitalism by conceding the legitimacy of its opposite."
Washington, D.C.-- "Despite overwhelming evidence that government policies caused the current financial crisis, Congress is blaming businessmen," said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. "What's worse, the capitalists who have been shackled with unprecedented regulatory burdens are unable to defend themselves morally. Though the events are different, this pattern of abuse and submission is straight out of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
"The cycle starts with government intervening into the economy and imposing regulations and controls on business. This distorts the free market, leading to economic dislocations. When the problems caused by these distortions inevitably follow, everyone blames the free market and its greedy capitalists. The proposed solution? More government controls. Over the years, conservative critics of creeping government have repeatedly exposed this illogic but have always been helpless to explain why the cycle keeps repeating, decade after decade.
"The pattern keeps recurring because businessmen are willing to take the blame. From capitalism's inception, its defenders have been morally disarmed by the widespread view that self-interest is morally suspect, and disinterested service to others is a moral ideal. So each new spate of controls has been grudgingly accepted as a fair price to pay for society's toleration of the selfish pursuit of profit.
"Atlas Shrugged depicted a society in economic collapse due to this recurring cycle, and today's parallels are obvious. Government manipulation of money, credit, and lending standards over several decades caused the mess we're in. Now, the offered solution is more of the poison that sickened the economy--more bailouts, more cheap money, more government-guaranteed loans, and above all, more regulations.
"This chronic cycle will not end until businessmen accept that their production of profit is neither immoral nor amoral--it is the capstone of moral virtue. Once they shrug off the role of scapegoat, businessmen can demand with moral certitude that government punish fraud and enforce contracts but refrain from interfering with voluntary trades among consenting adults.
"When America's markets are finally free of all coercion--in other words, when laissez-faire is achieved--financial crises such as the one we're experiencing will never happen again."
Washington, D.C. --The Treasury Department, as part of its ongoing assumption of control over the financial industry, is preparing to inject cash into U.S. banks in exchange for preferred shares of bank stock.
"Are we all socialists now?" said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. "Have we learned nothing from the devastation that socialist policies wrought worldwide in the twentieth century? Government intervention distorts markets and causes economic dislocations, no matter whether Uncle Sam controls private companies by regulation or assumes public ownership outright.
"A crisis doesn't transform poison into medicine. Over decades, government manipulation of money, credit, and mortgages poisoned this economy and left it dangerously weak. Now Hank Paulson and his comrades are hooking up IV tubes filled with more of the same poison--bailouts, loan guarantees, cheap money, and more burdensome regulations--and hoping we will lie still and trust in their cure.
"But the real cure is capitalism, not more doses of socialism. We should act quickly to put government in its place, by rolling back the interventionist measures that caused the present emergency. Government's proper role is to punish fraud and enforce contracts, not to own and manage the economy. We cannot achieve financial health unless we are willing to free the markets."
Letter on the Bailout By Diana Hsieh @ 12:38 PM
On September 27th, I sent the following letter on the bailout to various papers in Colorado. I don't think it was printed -- although I haven't checked. In any case, I thought I should post it here:
Are politicians in Washington trying to sink the country into a depression? It seems so. The current financial crisis was created by government controls and subsidies. Now politicians want to inject more of that poison into the markets.
Financial meltdowns are the inevitable product of bureaucratic meddling. The health of the economy requires the opposite: freedom. The government should not bail out any Wall Street firms -- or anyone else. The ban on shorting financial stocks should be lifted immediately. The Community Reinvestment Act must be repealed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be privatized.
The only proper role of the government in the financial markets is the protection of the inalienable 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.
Abortion and Abolition by Diana Hsieh and Ari Armstrong
Colorado is ground zero in a national battle over the morality of abortion, and the defenders of abortion rights are ceding ground.
The opponents of abortion declare that every human life is endowed by God with an inalienable right to life. To terminate a pregnancy, whatever the circumstances, is murder.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade, then "end abortion at the state level." His running mate Sarah Palin says she's as "pro-life as any candidate can be." She thinks "abortion [should] only be allowed if the life of the mother is endangered."
Colorado's Amendment 48 inaugurates a new strategy for ending abortion. Instead of restricting abortion via piecemeal government controls, the measure would usher in a near-total ban on abortion by defining a fertilized egg as a person with full legal rights in the state constitution.
The opponents of abortion claim the sanction of divine morality, based on the premise that "life begins at conception." Many anti-abortionists now openly seek to ban not only abortion and most fertility treatments, but also the birth control pill, morning after pill, and IUD because they may prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Amendment 48 would help them do that.
Given this all-out assault on reproductive rights, traditional defenders of abortion might be expected to launch a vigorous counter-attack. Instead, they've dodged tough questions and conceded basic principles, leaving reproductive rights with a flimsy defense.
When Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was asked when a baby gets "human rights," he famously declared the question to be "above [his] pay grade." Yet he will be called on to judge such matters if elected. His running mate Joe Biden accepts the teachings of his Catholic Church: the fertilized egg is a human person. Yet he regards abortion as "a personal and private issue" -- as if the state should allow every person to decide for himself whether or not to recognize the rights of others, so long as any killings happen behind closed doors. That's clearly wrong: if an embryo or fetus is a person, then abortion is murder. If not, then it's a woman's right.
In response to the threat posed by Amendment 48, the traditional defenders of abortion rights -- such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL -- organized a broad coalition to fight the measure. They persuasively argue that Amendment 48 would have disastrous legal consequences for abortion, birth control and in-vitro fertilization.
Yet their oft-repeated slogan of "it simply goes too far" is a whopping concession to their opponents. It implies that abortion, birth control and in-vitro fertilization could be and perhaps ought to be restricted -- just not as severely as Amendment 48 would do. Instead of upholding reproductive rights, the slogan implicitly welcomes further incremental controls on abortion.
Just imagine if the abolitionists of the 19th century had attempted to defend the inalienable rights of slaves based on the slogan, "slavery: it simply goes too far." Imagine Lincoln declaring the morality of slavery to be "above [his] pay grade." The monstrous evil of slavery would still exist today. The recognition and protection of the rights of slaves required an uncompromising defense of those rights based on the facts of human nature.
Similarly, the recognition and protection of abortion rights requires an uncompromising defense of those rights based on the all-important differences between a fetus and a baby.
Neither an embryo nor a fetus is a human person with a right to life. While still in the womb, it exists as part of the woman, wholly contained within and dependent on her. It goes where she goes, eats what she eats, and breathes what she breathes. It lives as she lives, as an extension of her body. A fetus is only a potential person without a right to life.
That situation changes radically at birth. A baby lives his own life, outside his mother. Although very needy, he maintains his own biological functions. He breathes his own air, digests his own food and moves on his own. He can leave his mother to be cared for by someone else. He has a life of his own that must be protected as a matter of right, just the same as every other person.
During a pregnancy, the only person with rights is the pregnant woman. She has a right to liberty, including a right to use her body as she pleases. So she has every right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy -- for any reason. If an abortion will further her own life and happiness, then she ought to pursue that option with a clear conscience.
The growing faith-based opposition to abortion cannot be countered by vague appeals to choice and privacy. Roe v. Wade will be overturned and Amendment 48 (or its like) will be passed without a clear, consistent and positive defense of abortion rights. We must be as principled in our defense of a woman's right to her own body as were the abolitionists in defending the rights of slaves. Liberty cannot be won by any other means.
Diana Hsieh is the founder of the Coalition for Secular Government. Ari Armstrong is the editor of FreeColorado.com. They co-authored "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life," available through SecularGovernment.us.
The upcoming election is the most critical in the history of our nation. The very future of our nation's foundation is at stake. Every person will be affected. If the liberals win, then our foundation will no longer be based on the traditional Judeo-Christian morality. It will gradually but assuredly be based on an ever shifting, ever moving foundation.
In case you may think I'm a "the sky is falling" type of person, you should know: I am a graduate of Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, and Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. I am an ordained United Methodist minister and have been for 44 years. I founded AFA more than 30 years ago and see the upcoming election as the most critical ever. Yes, if the liberals win you will lose some of your religious freedom and free speech rights. You will not be allowed to say certain things about a particular group. Homosexual marriage will be approved.
I cannot overemphasize the importance the Nov. 4 election. That is why I hope you will sign the Pastor's Pledge, and forward it to fellow pastors and encourage them to sign the Pastor's Pledge.
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman American Family Association
The Pastor's Pledge
I pledge to:
1. Encourage my members to register to vote. 2. Encourage my members to study the issues. 3. Encourage my members to vote.
I've seen plenty of gushing praise for Sarah Palin and nasty criticism for Barack Obama from various e-mail lists of evangelical political organizations, but these alarm bells are pretty shrill. Obama is not an opponent of Christianity, nor even a real defender of the separation of church and state. So just imagine how these folks would react to a politician with a genuine understanding of and commitment to individual rights, including an absolute wall of separation between church and state. They'd go ballistic, to put it mildly.
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.
All I can say is, "Bad, Bush!" "Bad, Barney!" for taking such a hard left turn to the land of socialism when they were warned about the crisis in the housing markets years ago.
Furthermore, "Bad, Democrats!" for blaming the whole thing on the Republicans, when the Clinton administration helped stage the inevitable fallout by legislating irrational lending to facilitate home ownership among people who otherwise wouldn't qualify.
And "Bad, Bolivia!" "Bad, Brazil!" for blaming the whole financial crisis on capitalism.
Dr. Yaron Brook, director of the Ayn Rand Institute, provides a good explanation of the realunderlying causes of the biggest financial threat to this country since the Great Depression. This whole greasy mess is a direct consequence of a conglomeration of governmental initiatives such as: artificially-low interest rates set by the central planners at the Federal Reserve; politically-motivated lending standards set by the social planners in Congress; and the artificial profit opportunities created by the financial planners at Freddie and Fannie and the SEC. It is a conspiracy of irrational market manipulations that preclude any corrective forces that would have kicked in long ago in a truely free-market.
At some point, the houses of cards had to fall down. And now we're stuck with a botched emergency Financectomy performed on Wall Street's bleeding wallet by a panic-stricken Treasury Secretary, President, and Congress.
And it doesn't matter who takes over the care of this patient in November because both candidates were right there in the operating room agreeing with the chief surgeon's basic care plan. And both blamed the crisis on some entrenched greediness of businessmen.
Hugo Chavez must feel vindicated. He even says that it's so bad over here, America needs a new Constitution to free itself of the tyranny of big banks and corporations.
Thanks for the advice, Hugo, but I think the Constitution--even with its flaws--is pretty good already. It's just that our leaders don't like to follow it. It's like they've missed the whole essence of it. Ayn Rand clarifies that the "Constitution is a limitation on the government...(it is) a charter of the citizens' protection against the government."
While Hugo confuses American political power with the economic power of our quasi-capitalist system, he hasn't missed the chance to enhance his own economic power by exercising his monopoly on political power in Venezuela. And America has been inexorably following suit.
This bailout is just the latest in a long string of Venezuelanesque growth in government: from Medicare/Medicaid/FDA...to public schooling... to Social Security...to limitations on abortion..to special programs this..to special programs that...to subsidized industries in agriculture/autos/airlines/Savings and Loans....and now to the big kahuna bailout of October 3. The greed of capitalism? I don't think so.
But if we did follow Hugo's advice and make a new Constitution, maybe it should start with, "We The People of the United States, who don't want our freedoms mucked up by a bunch of central planners in Washington, want a Constitution that really means it when we say limited government..."
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...
..."Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements," said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. "Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market."
...In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's. [Emphasis mine. -- PSH]
"From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry."
...Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.
At least Fannie Mae's directors had good intentions -- shouldn't that be what's most important here?
Berton Braley on the Bailout By Diana Hsieh @ 12:00 PM
Berton Braley was a very popular early 20th century poet; his writings often extolled the virtues of capitalism, industry, success, and the like. Here's a particularly apt poem, sent to me by Boaz Arad:
The Profits and Loss By Berton Braley
From New Deal Ditties: or, Running in the Red with Roosevelt, 1936
When "planned economy" first began It looked like a swell "idea" – Until we learned it had no plan And wasn't economee.
For the taxes rise and the budget's shot And the New Deal costs are met By spending money we haven't got For things that we never get.
The Billions roll in mighty stream, A regular tidal flood, With the net result that each spending scheme Bogs down in a sea of mud.
When plans and programs go all to pot Do the New Deal planners fret? Why no, they think up a brand new lot Of schemes to spend what we haven't got For things we will never get!
The House is scheduled to vote on this new bailout plan on Friday. It might well pass this time, in part due to all the special-interest pork added to the bill. (UGH!) Please tell your representative that you still oppose the bailout. You might wish to mention that your vote in November will be influenced by their vote tomorrow.
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.
