Principles in Practice: The Blog of the Objective Standard

Greens Against Renewable Energy by ARI Media
California Children Still Considered State Property by Thomas A. Bowden by ARI Media
Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights to Open in Washington, D.C. by ARI Media
Retire Social Security by Alex Epstein by ARI Media
$43,000 to Winners of 'The Fountainhead' Essay Contest by ARI Media

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Greens Against Renewable Energy

Posted by ARI Media at 9:48 PM

Washington, DC—Green activists have been pushing for "renewable energy" for decades, even though it shows little promise—after billions of dollars in government subsidies—of ever being practical and inexpensive. Nevertheless, plans are springing up all over the country for large-scale solar, wind, and geothermal projects.

But now, in addition to their enormous technical obstacles, these green power projects are facing fierce opposition . . . from environmentalists.

The Bureau of Land Management has reportedly received more than 130 proposals to build solar power plants on federal lands in the Southwest. New transmission lines to carry the power from the sun-baked deserts to places where electricity users actually live are also under consideration.

However, the solar applications are mired in environmental impact studies, which one solar industry executive said "could completely stunt the growth of the industry." And the plans for new transmission capacity are being ferociously protested by environmentalists decrying the "permanent destruction of hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine public lands."

According to Dr. Keith Lockitch, resident fellow of the Ayn Rand Center: "This just shows the true objective of green activism. Environmentalists don't actually want us to find alternative ways of producing energy; they want us to stop using energy altogether.

"The basic premise of environmentalism is to leave nature alone. Capturing and utilizing any source of energy—even ones that are supposedly green and renewable—will necessarily have some impact on nature, and will therefore inevitably be subject to environmentalist attacks and condemnation.

"Since the use of energy is an indispensable component of everything we do in our lives, the greens' opposition to even such ridiculous, impractical sources of energy as solar and wind reveals their basic animus against human life.

"An exasperated Arnold Schwarzenegger said 'if we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it.' But that is the whole point. On green philosophy, there is literally no place on earth for mankind."

Keith Lockitch is a PhD in physics and a resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand—author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Labels: Environmentalism

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

California Children Still Considered State Property by Thomas A. Bowden

Posted by ARI Media at 9:57 PM

In a decision being widely hailed as a victory for parental rights, a Los Angeles County court has confirmed, grudgingly, that homeschooling “is permitted under California statutes.” In so ruling, the court reversed an earlier decision that ordered the parents of “Rachel L.” to send her away to a public or private school, where she could get a “legal education.”

But where’s the real victory for parents’ rights? Rights identify actions you can take without permission. A true victory would have been a judicial declaration that parents have an absolute right to control their children’s upbringing—and that they therefore don’t need government permission to educate their children as they see fit.

Instead, as this decision makes clear, California’s parents are expected to accept the status of perpetual supplicants, knees bent and backs bowed down to an all-powerful legislature that can decide at any moment to revoke its homeschooling “permission.”

Neither the state nor “society as a whole” has any interests of its own in your child’s education. A society is only a group of individuals, and the government’s only legitimate function is to protect the individual rights of its citizens, including yours and your children’s, against physical force and fraud. The state is your agent, not a separate entity with interests that can override your rights.

To give parents a permanent victory, California would need to make its law consistent with America’s founding principles. Parents are sovereign individuals whose right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to control their child’s upbringing. Other citizens, however numerous or politically powerful, have no moral right to substitute their views on child-raising for those of the father and mother who created that child.

Instead, a proper legal system recognizes and protects parents’ moral right to pursue the personal rewards and joys of child-raising. At every stage, you have a right to set your own standards and act on them without government permission. This parental right to control your child’s upbringing includes the right to manage his education, by choosing an appropriate school or personally educating him at home.

Of course, there are certain situations in which government must step in to protect the rights of a child, as in cases of physical abuse or neglect. But no such concern for individual rights can account for California’s arrogant assertion of state control over the minds of all school-age children residing within its borders.

Education, like nutrition, should be recognized as the exclusive domain of a child’s parents, within legal limits objectively defining child abuse and neglect. Parents who starve their children may properly be ordered to fulfill their parental obligations, on pain of losing legal custody. But the fact that some parents may serve better food than others does not permit government to seize control of nutrition, outlaw home-cooked meals, and order all children to report for daily force-feeding at government-licensed cafeterias.

By confirming that homeschooling is legal in California (at least for the time being), the recent court decision will undoubtedly quiet the shockwaves that were threatening to impact the apologists for government education—teachers’ unions, educational bureaucrats, and politicians. Their political and financial survival depends on a policy that treats children as, in effect, state property—but they have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, when the undiluted collectivism of that policy is trumpeted publicly.

The defenders of public schooling can now go back to papering over their system’s own failures‑‑the very failures that helped fuel the homeschooling movement, by driving desperate parents to seek refuge from the irrationality, violence, and mediocrity that have come to characterize government education, in California and elsewhere.

But what if parents stopped groveling and started asking whether the state has any right at all to be running schools, dictating educational standards for children, and “permitting” parents to homeschool their own kids? This would call into question the moral foundation of public education as such.

As the smoke clears from the current round of litigation, the battle lines remain as they were, clearly drawn. Are parents mere drudges whose social duty is to feed and house their spawn between mandatory indoctrination sessions at government-approved schools? Or are they sovereign individuals whose right to guide their children’s development the state may not infringe?

The answer could determine not only the future of homeschooling but the future of education in America.

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Thomas A. Bowden is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute, focusing on legal issues. A former lawyer and law school instructor who practiced for twenty years in Baltimore, Maryland, his op-eds have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Daily News, and many other newspapers. Mr. Bowden has given dozens of radio interviews and has appeared on the Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes.

Labels: Education, Individual Rights and Law

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Monday, August 18, 2008

Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights to Open in Washington, D.C.

Posted by ARI Media at 8:22 PM

Irvine, CA—The Ayn Rand Institute is preparing to launch its new public policy and media center, the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, which will open later this year in Washington, D.C. The Center's Web site has already been launched, and can be visited at http://www.aynrandcenter.org/.

The Ayn Rand Center is named after author and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982), who is best known for her novels “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” and for her original philosophy Objectivism.

According to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "The Ayn Rand Center's mission is to advance individual rights—the rights of each person to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness—as the moral basis for a fully free, laissez-faire capitalist society."

Toward this end, the Ayn Rand Center will promote the philosophical case for individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism to the public policy and business communities, the media, the general public, and elected officials and their staffs.

Among its various activities, the Ayn Rand Center will sponsor writing and research; create audio and video commentaries; provide experts to discuss current issues in the media; host public events, talks, lectures, forums, panel discussions, and debates; offer programs to businessmen; reach out to policymakers; and assist victims of governmental abuse in their efforts to defend themselves on moral grounds. The Ayn Rand Center will also produce articles, op-eds, press releases and letters to the editor, all of which were formerly produced by the Ayn Rand Institute.

"We are confident," said Dr. Brook, "that the Ayn Rand Center will be instrumental in establishing a future society in which each individual is left free to think and to act on his own best judgment, in which production and profit are seen as virtuous, and in which government is strictly limited to a single function: protecting the legitimate rights of its citizens."

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Ayn Rand Institute experts are available for interviews on this topic.

Contact: Larry Benson
E-mail: media@aynrand.org
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism's unique point of view, go to ARI's Web site. Founded in 1985, the Ayn Rand Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law

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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Retire Social Security by Alex Epstein

Posted by ARI Media at 6:59 PM

August 14 marks Social Security's 73rd birthday—placing it eight years past standard retirement age. But, despite the program's $10-trillion-plus dollar shortfall, no politician dares to suggest that this disastrous program be phased out and retired; all agree on one absolute: Social Security must be saved. While the program may have financial problems, virtually everyone believes that some form of mandatory government-run retirement program is morally necessary.

But is it?

Social Security is commonly portrayed as benefiting most, if not all, Americans by providing them "risk-free" financial security in old age.

This is a fraud.

Under Social Security, lower- and middle-class individuals are forced to pay a significant portion of their gross income—approximately 12 percent—for the alleged purpose of securing their retirement. That money is not saved or invested, but transferred directly to the program's current beneficiaries—with the "promise" that when current taxpayers get old, the income of future taxpayers will be transferred to them. Since this scheme creates no wealth, any benefits one person receives in excess of his payments necessarily come at the expense of others.

Under Social Security, every aspect of the government's "promise" to provide financial security is at the mercy of political whim. The government can change how much of an individual's money it takes—it has increased the payroll tax 17 times since 1935. The government can spend his money on anything it wants—observe the long-time practice of spending any annual Social Security surplus on other entitlement programs. The government can change when (and therefore if) it chooses to pay him benefits and how much they consist of—witness the current proposals to raise the age cutoff or lower future benefits. Under Social Security, whether an individual gets twice as much from others as was taken from him, or half as much, or nothing at all, is entirely at the discretion of politicians. He cannot count on Social Security for anything—except a massive drain on his income.

If Social Security did not exist—if the individual were free to use that 12 percent of his income as he chose—his ability to better his future would be incomparably greater. He could save for his retirement with a diversified, long-term, productive investment in stocks or bonds. Or he could reasonably choose not to devote all 12 percent to retirement. He might plan to work far past the age of 65. He might plan to live more comfortably when he is young and more modestly in old age. He might choose to invest in his own productivity through additional education or starting a business.

How much, when, and in what form one should provide for retirement is highly individual—and is properly left to the individual's free judgment and action. Social Security deprives the young of this freedom, and thus makes them less able to plan for the future, less able to provide for their retirement, less able to buy homes, less able to enjoy their most vital years, less able to invest in themselves. And yet Social Security's advocates continue to push it as moral. Why?

The answer lies in the program's ideal of "universal coverage"—the idea that, as a New York Times editorial preached, "all old people must have the dignity of financial security"—regardless of how irresponsibly they have acted. On this premise, since some would not save adequately on their own, everyone must be forced into some sort of "guaranteed" collective plan—no matter how irrational. Observe that Social Security's wholesale harm to those who would use their income responsibly is justified in the name of those who would not. The rational and responsible are shackled and throttled for the sake of the irrational and irresponsible.

Those who wish to devote their wealth to saving the irresponsible from the consequences of their own actions should be free to do so through private charity, but to loot the savings of untold millions of innocent, responsible, hard-working young people in the name of such a goal is a monstrous injustice.

Social Security in any form is morally irredeemable. We should be debating, not how to save Social Security, but how to end it—how to phase it out so as to best protect both the rights of those who have paid into it, and those who are forced to pay for it today. This will be a painful task. But it will make possible a world in which Americans enjoy far greater freedom to secure their own futures.

Alex Epstein is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute, focusing on business issues. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand—author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Labels: Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law

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Sunday, August 10, 2008

$43,000 to Winners of 'The Fountainhead' Essay Contest

Posted by ARI Media at 10:19 PM

Irvine, CA—High school senior Ryan Holley, from Burlington, IA, is the winner of the Ayn Rand Institute's annual "Fountainhead" essay contest, for which he received a prize of $10,000.

Open to high school juniors and seniors, the "Fountainhead" essay contest requires contestants to write on one of several topics dealing with the characters and themes in the novel. The contest is designed to promote critical thinking and writing skills. Essays are judged on both style and content.

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

Second-Prize Winners ($2,000):

Shea Levy, 12th Grade, New York, NY
Kristen Liu, 12th Grade, Warrensburg, MO
Sarah Magill, 12th Grade, Aravada, CO
Matthew Noakes, 11th Grade, Modesto, CA
Stasey Vishnevetsky, 12th Grade, New Haven, CT

Third-Prize Winners ($1,000):

Michael Bruner, 12th Grade, Ames, IA
Nathan Doan, 12th Grade, Elizabethtown, PA
Michael Harris, 11th Grade, Burbank, CA
Yameen Huq, 12th Grade, Cumming, GA
Jessica Hwang, 11th Grade, Columbia, MO
David Kurz, 12th Grade, Smithsburg, MD
Jade Lawrence, 12th Grade, Fallbrook, CA
Molly Ma, 11th Grade, Richmond, VA
Madeline Magnuson, 11th Grade, Idaho Falls, ID
Raphael Pond, 12th Grade, Westminster, MD

In addition to the $30,000 awarded to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, other finalists and semifinalists received a total of $13,000.

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

Since 1985 a total of more than 190,000 high school students from around the world have entered ARI essay contests. This year, more than 5,000 students submitted their essays on "The Fountainhead."

Each year ARI awards more than $57,000 in prizes to high school students and has given away more than a half a million dollars to contest winners during the past 23 years.

Information about next year's competition can be found at http://aynrand.org/contests.

Media inquiries: media@aynrand.org 949-222-6550, ext 213

Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Education

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