Principles in Practice: The Blog of the Objective Standard

Principles in Practice: November 2006

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Winter Issue of TOS

Posted by Craig Biddle at 5:50 PM

The print edition of the Winter issue of TOS is at press and will be mailed shortly; the online version will be accessible to subscribers on December 18. For promotional purposes, we are making “From the Editor” and “No Substitute for Victory” available early and to all.

Here are the contents of the Winter issue:

  • From the Editor
  • "The Tragedy of Theology: How Religion Caused and Extended the Dark Ages"
    by Andrew Bernstein
  • “'No Substitute for Victory': The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism"
    by John Lewis
  • "The Educational, Psychological, and Philosophical Assault on Self-Esteem"
    by Edwin A. Locke
  • "Property and Principle"
    by Larry Salzman
  • "Mr. Jekyll and Dr. House: The Reason-Emotion Split as Manifested in House, M.D."
    by Gena Gorlin

If you are searching for the perfect gift for active-minded friends or relatives, look no further. The Objective Standard presupposes no understanding of Objectivism and will be appreciated by anyone with an interest in cultural or political issues. While supplies last, we can even begin your gift subscriptions with the inaugural issue so that your recipients will receive the whole first year of the journal. Give the gift of objectivity. They’ll be glad you did.

Happy Holidays!

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The Real Key to Fixing Science Education

Posted by Lisa VanDamme at 5:43 PM

Science education is a frequent topic in the news these days. This past Wednesday, Microsoft announced a campaign to improve math and science education in the Seattle area. According to Brad Smith, a senior vice president and general counsel for Microsoft: "We're very concerned about the possibility that our kids are falling behind in areas like math and science."

As well they should be. Study after study shows that the average American student has an abysmal level of scientific knowledge. And as we witness greater and greater demand for strong math and science skills—and the thinking abilities that math and science foster—a poor background in science is a greater handicap than ever.

Many smart, wealthy, and well-meaning people are attacking the problem of science education. Unfortunately, I am not optimistic about their chances of success.

Why? Because, from what I have seen, they are not getting to the core of the problem. They are trying to improve science education with a combination of money, computer programs, motivational speeches, and exciting field trips—but without changing the fundamental flaw of almost all science education today.

Consider this example from a newspaper story on Microsoft's initiative:

"One idea being floated is to have Microsoft employees volunteer to meet with kids to explain how they use math on the job, such as in developing the Xbox videogame player. If kids can see real-world applications for the advanced math skills they'll learn in school, it can get them more enthused about the subject, Smith said."

Now there is certainly nothing wrong with showing students the modern, practical applications of math and science. But does anyone really believe that kids talking to Xbox engineers will do anything significant to alleviate the mass boredom that exists in math and science classes around the nation?

Students around the nation are ignorant and bored with science because most science education goes against the most crucial principle of education: the hierarchy of knowledge. In brief, the hierarchy of knowledge is the fact more abstract knowledge, such as Newton's laws, depends on less abstract knowledge, such as Galileo's discoveries.

But consider how most of us were taught Newton's laws.

As I write in my essay, "The Hierarchy of Knowledge: The Most Neglected Issue in Education":

"If your education was typical, the teacher came into class one morning, stood at the board, and declared that Newton identified three laws of motion—which you dutifully wrote down and later committed to memory. No context had been established for these discoveries. No information had been given as to what earlier observations and theories were made by other great scientists, what further discoveries were made by Newton, and how Newton's incomparable genius enabled him to integrate all this information into three fundamental, universal laws governing the behavior of every object in the universe.

"Pick up any grade school science textbook and you will see the same problem. Page one usually displays in vivid color a diagram of the structure of an atom. The chapter tells the students that an atom is a tiny unit of matter, that it has a nucleus made up of protons and neutrons, that the nucleus is surrounded by electrons, and so on. The question that such books make no attempt to answer is: Why should a child believe this drawing any more than he believes the Saturday morning cartoons? He has never seen an atom, or a nucleus, or an electron; he has not been told how scientists discovered the existence and properties of this thing that cannot be seen; nor can he possibly understand the implications of the existence or nature of atoms. Thus, all of the material stands as meaningless gibberish he has been asked to accept on faith.

"The vast majority of today's science teachers simply do not understand what it means to learn. They do not understand that there is a necessary order to learning, and that adhering strictly to this order is the only way to ensure that the student has a clear, independent grasp of the material. Today's teachers seem more concerned with enabling their students to parrot impressive-sounding words than they are with fostering their ability to think. That is why a high school chemistry teacher of Kira, one of my former students, said the following when he began a section on quantum theory: 'This material is far too complex for any of you to really understand—but don't worry, we'll only spend a few days on it.

"Such 'teaching' is a betrayal of the purpose of education, which is to give children the essential knowledge and cognitive powers necessary to be independent, productive, happy adults. In terms of content, to the extent that the hierarchy of knowledge is violated in students' education, they learn nothing of the material they are being taught; they learn only to repeat what they are told. In terms of method, to the extent that the principle is violated, students fail to learn what it really means to come to know something; this is replaced with the deadly lesson that knowledge of complex, abstract scientific issues is gained by parroting the words of an authority.

"If students are to be truly knowledgeable about and excited about science, they must be taught by teachers who recognize that there is a necessary order to the formation of the concepts and generalizations that a students learns throughout his education. An abstract idea—whether a concept, generalization, principle, or theory—should never be taught to a child unless he has already grasped those ideas that necessarily precede it in the hierarchy, all the way down to the perceptual level.

"Visitors to VanDamme Academy often comment on the total engagement of the students. It is typical for every student in the class to be completely attentive and actively involved in class discussion. The fundamental reason for our students' excitement is that we teach students knowledge in a sequence that allows them to gain a real, deep understanding of it; they grasp its connection to reality and its importance in human life.

Several months ago, I gave a lecture to the parents at my school about the hiearchy of knowledge—and how it is the most neglected issue in education. If you're concerned about the state of modern education in general, and science education in particular, I highly recommend that you listen to this lecture. I am making it available free, in three parts, on our school's website.

If you are interested in gaining a real knowledge of the scientific principles that animate the wondrous world we live in—or if you wish to help a junior high, high school, or college student gain that knowledge—there is no better source than VanDamme Academy's "Introduction to Physical Science" course by David Harriman.

Rather than putting into my own words why this course is so valuable for just about anyone, let me quote a review I recently came across, by Andrew Layman of StrongBrains.com, who happens to also be a Product Unit Manager at Microsoft.

"These wonderful lectures, recorded before an audience of students just learning science and mathematics, teach the critical ideas in man's knowledge of the physical world by starting at the beginning of science and showing each step by which more was learned, what evidence and reasoning validated the new knowledge and how each step built on and extended prior knowledge into wider integrations. I was a physics major when I entered college, yet I can easily say that my actual understanding of physics is much greater as a result of this course than I can credit to any other class I've taken—in large measure because I now have a clear grasp of what the physical theories actually refer to and, thus, why they are correct. (ages 13 to 16)"

This is what it means to have a real science education. Nothing less—for our children and ourselves—will do.

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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Elementary Students Learn to Be Like Victor Hugo's Bird

Posted by Lisa VanDamme at 11:09 AM

This year, I have the pleasure of teaching literature to our school's Elementary 1 students, children in second and third grades, a class that includes my own seven-year-old daughter Lana. Their uninhibited enthusiasm for learning, their eager quest to see connections, and their budding insights make them a delight to teach.

The first poem I introduced them to was "The Bird," by Victor Hugo.

Be like the bird, who
Pausing in his flight
On limb too slight
Feels it give way beneath him
Yet sings
Knowing he has wings.

We discussed what it means for the bird to "sing," "knowing he has wings," and we discussed what it would mean for them to "have wings" in their own lives: to be confident, self-possessed, secure in the understanding that you can overcome obstacles that might come in your way.

Soon after, we read the novel "A Door in the Wall," the story of a boy named Robin who is supposed to be apprenticed to a knight but loses the use of his legs and must find new meaning for his life. He does so brilliantly: learning to read and write, and then serve his lord and lady in the writing of letters; learning to whittle, sing, and play, and then making crutches and his own harp; and finally, building strength of body and character by swimming, and eventually playing a heroic role in the defense of his castle. He finds "a door in the wall."

One day, I asked the students, "How is Robin like the bird?" I then watched as one face after another illumined with the glow of a new understanding. They saw it.

In Lana's words: "They both have a problem and then they solve it. The branch is falling, but the bird knows he has wings, so he flies. Robin's legs don't work, but he learns to read and whittle and swim. They both find a door in the wall: if they can't solve something one way, they find another."

A proper reading program enables students to experience the joy of reading as they should: as an exciting plot, with inspiring characters, with a clear theme, and with insights they can then bring to their own lives and experiences. Students should not be grudgingly reading dull stories from textbook readers and completing unsatisfying, routine exercises about vocabulary, allegedly interesting facts, and topic sentences—they should be exposed to the joy and power of art.

The VanDamme Academy Email List features inspiring stories, exclusive commentaries, and special product offers from one of the best schools in America. Subscribe at www.vandammeacademy.com or send an email to custserv@vandammeacademy.com with the subject "Subscribe."

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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Don't Say Grace. Say Justice.

Posted by Craig Biddle at 4:13 PM

The religious tradition of saying grace before meals becomes especially popular around the holidays, when we all are reminded of how fortunate we are to have an abundance of life-sustaining goods and services at our disposal. But there is a grave injustice involved in this tradition. It is the injustice of thanking an alleged “God” for the productive accomplishments of actual men.

Where do the ideas, principles, constitutions, governments, and laws that protect our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness come from? What is the source of the meals, medicines, homes, automobiles, and fighter jets that keep us alive and enable us to flourish? Who is responsible for our freedom, prosperity, and well-being?

Is freedom a gift from God? It is not. Freedom, the absence of physical coercion, is a political condition resulting from the rational, principled thought and action of men—men such as Aristotle, John Locke, the Founding Fathers, and American soldiers.

Did God make the ambrosia that melts in your mouth, or the asthma medication that keeps your child alive, or the plush recliner in which you relax, or the big-screen TV on which you watch your favorite show? Did God create the jetliners that bring friends and family from afar, or the stealth bombers that keep the barbarians at bay, or the music that warms your heart and fuels your soul?

Since God (who does not exist) is responsible for none of the goods on which human life and happiness depend, why thank him for any of them? More to the point: Why not thank those who actually are responsible for them? What would a just man do?

Justice is the virtue of judging people rationally—according to what they say, do, and produce—and treating them accordingly, granting to each man that which he deserves. If someone spends the day preparing a wonderful meal, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for doing so. If someone provides his family with a warm, safe, comfortable home, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for providing it. If a policeman or fireman or doctor saves someone's life, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked. If a loving spouse or child or parent or friend provides you with great joy, justice demands that he, not God, be acknowledged accordingly. If a philosopher discovers the principles on which freedom depends—and if others put those principles into practice—justice demands that they, not God, be given credit.

To say grace is to give credit where none is due—and, worse, it is to withhold credit where it is due. To say grace is to commit an act of injustice.

Rational, productive people—whether philosophers, scientists, inventors, artists, businessmen, military strategists, friends, family, or yourself—are who deserve to be thanked for the goods on which your life, liberty, and happiness depend. This holiday season—and from here out—don't say grace; say justice: Thank or acknowledge the people who actually provide the goods. Some of them may be sitting right there at the table with you. And if you find yourself at a table where people insist on saying grace, politely insist on saying justice when they're through. It's the right thing to do.

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Friday, November 17, 2006

U.S. Appeasement Encourages Arab Nations to Go Nuclear

Posted by ARI Media at 5:37 PM

Irvine, CA—Six Arab nations have told the U.N. atomic energy agency that they plan to pursue and master nuclear technology—meaning that we face the threat of nuclear weapons held not only by Iran, but by several other regimes swarming with and supportive of Islamists. "That nations like Islamist-sponsor Saudi Arabia can make such a declaration is a consequence of America's appeasement-ridden foreign policy—a policy that encourages new threats and aggression," said Elan Journo, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.

"America's treatment of nuclear-chasing North Korea and Iran has emboldened these Arab states. For decades America and its allies have submitted to the extortion of North Korea, appeasing that hostile regime and showering it with money. North Korea succeeded in going nuclear not despite, but thanks to, Western diplomacy.

"Concessions to North Korea emboldened the Iranians, who are aggressively pursuing nuclear technology. America's groveling diplomatic overtures toward Iran have demonstrated that the United States is willing to provide economic 'incentives'—essentially, protection money—to hostile regimes bent on arming themselves.

"America's shameful policy toward Iran and North Korea has made these regimes stronger and worse threats. That is a necessary result of rewarding evil. And, witnessing the spectacle of the lone superpower prostrating itself at the feet of enemies, what malignant regime would not be encouraged to seek nuclear weapons? And, when it acquires such weapons, deploying them against us through terrorist proxies?

"We need a radically different foreign policy—a policy that upholds American self-interest on moral principle. Such a policy would punish hostile regimes, not reward them."

Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

The Anti-Life Movement by Christian Beenfeldt

Posted by ARI Media at 8:09 PM

South Dakota voters have rejected the state's proposed abortion law—a law that would have outlawed abortion in virtually every case. The law's supporters claim that its rejection is a blow to "the sanctity of human life." But is it?

Consider what banning abortion would mean for human life—not the "lives" of embryos or primitive fetuses, but the lives of real, living, breathing, thinking women.

It would mean that women who wanted to terminate a pregnancy because it resulted from rape or contraceptive failure—or because the would-be father has abandoned her—or because the fetus is malformed—would be forbidden from doing so. It would mean that they would be forced to endure the misery of unwanted pregnancy and the incredible burdens of child rearing. It would mean that women would be sentenced to 18-year terms of enslavement to unwanted children—thereby suffocating their hopes, their dreams, their personal ambitions, their chance of happiness. And it would mean that women who refused to submit to such a fate would be forced to turn to the "back-alley" at a staggering risk to their health. According to a World Health Organization estimate, 110,000 women worldwide die each year from such illegal abortions and up to six times as many suffer injury from them.

Clearly, anti-abortionists believe that such women's lives are an unimportant consideration in the issue of abortion. Why? Because, they claim, the embryo or fetus is a human being—and thus to abort it is murder. But an embryo is not a human being, and abortion is not murder.

There is no scientific reason to characterize a raisin-size lump of cells as a human being. Biologically speaking, such an embryo is far more primitive than a fish or a bird. Anatomically, its brain has yet to develop, so in terms of its capacity for consciousness, it doesn't bear the remotest similarity to a human being. This growth of cells has the potential to become a human being—if preserved, fed, nurtured, and brought to term by the woman that it depends on—but it is not actually a human being. Analogously, seeds can become mature plants—but that hardly makes a pile of acorns equal to a forest.

What can justify the sacrifice of an actual woman's life to human potential of the most primitive kind? There can be no rational justification for such a position—certainly not a genuine concern for human life. The ultimate "justification" of the "pro-life" position is religious dogma. Led by the American Roman Catholic Church and Protestant fundamentalists, the movement's basic tenet, in the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is that an embryo must be treated "from conception as a person" created by the "action of God." What about the fact that an embryo is manifestly not a person, and treating it as such inflicts mass suffering on real people? This tenet is not subject to rational scrutiny; it is a dogma that must be accepted on faith.

The "pro-life" movement tries to obscure the religious, inhuman nature of its position by endlessly focusing on the medical details of late-term abortions (although it seldom mentions that "partialbirth" abortions are extremely rare, and often involve a malformed fetus or a threat to the life of the mother). But one must not allow this smokescreen to distract one from the real issue: the "pro-life" movement is on a faith-based crusade to ban abortion no matter the consequences to actual human life—part of what the Pro-Life Alliance calls the "absolute moral duty to do everything possible to stop abortion, even if in the first instance we are only able to chip away at the existing legislation." This is why it supports the South Dakota law, which is the closest the movement has come to achieving its avowed goal: to ban abortion at any stage of pregnancy, including the first trimester—when 90 percent of abortions take place. As the Pro-Life Alliance puts it: "We continue to campaign for total abolition."

The "pro-life" movement is not a defender of human life—it is, in fact, a profound enemy of actual human life and happiness. Its goal is to turn women into breeding mares whose bodies are owned by the state and whose rights, health and pursuit of happiness are sacrificed en mass—all in the name of dogmatic sacrifice to the pre-human.

The result in South Dakota is the only pro-life result.

Christian Beenfeldt, MA in philosophy, is a guest writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand—author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

What We Owe Our Soldiers by Alex Epstein

Posted by ARI Media at 1:31 PM

Every Veterans Day we pay tribute to our fellow Americans who have served in the military. With speeches and ceremonies, we recognize their courage and valor. But justice demands that we also recognize that we should have far more living veterans than we do. All too many of our soldiers have died unnecessarily—because they were sent to fight for a purpose other than America's freedom.

The proper purpose of a government is to protect its citizens' lives and freedom against the initiation of force by criminals at home and aggressors abroad. The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizens' lives, and thus to do everything possible to protect the rights of each to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. This absolutely includes our soldiers.

Soldiers are not sacrificial objects; they are full-fledged Americans with the same moral right as the rest of us to the pursuit of their own goals, their own dreams, their own happiness. Rational soldiers enjoy much of the work of military service, take pride in their ability to do it superlatively, and gain profound satisfaction in protecting the freedom of every American, including their own freedom.

Soldiers know that in entering the military, they are risking their lives in the event of war. But this risk is not, as it is often described, a "sacrifice" for a "higher cause." When there is a true threat to America, it is a threat to all of our lives and loved ones, soldiers included. Many become soldiers for precisely this reason; it was, for instance, the realization of the threat of Islamic terrorism after September 11—when 3,000 innocent Americans were slaughtered in cold blood on a random Tuesday morning—that prompted so many to join the military.

For an American soldier, to fight for freedom is not to fight for a "higher cause," separate from or superior to his own life—it is to fight for his own life and happiness. He is willing to risk his life in time of war because he is unwilling to live as anything other than a free man. He does not want or expect to die, but he would rather die than live in slavery or perpetual fear. His attitude is epitomized by the words of John Stark, New Hampshire's most famous soldier in the Revolutionary War: "Live free or die."

What we owe these men who fight so bravely for their and our freedom is to send them to war only when that freedom is truly threatened, and to make every effort to protect their lives during war—by providing them with the most advantageous weapons, training, strategy, and tactics possible.

Shamefully, America has repeatedly failed to meet this obligation. It has repeatedly placed soldiers in harm's way when no threat to America existed—e.g., to quell tribal conflicts in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. America entered World War I, in which 115,000 soldiers died, with no clear self-defense purpose but rather on the vague, self-sacrificial grounds that "The world must be made safe for democracy." America's involvement in Vietnam, in which 56,000 Americans died in a fiasco that American officials openly declared a "no-win" war, was justified primarily in the name of service to the South Vietnamese. And the current war in Iraq—which could have had a valid purpose as a first step in ousting the terrorist-sponsoring, anti-American regimes of the Middle East—is responsible for thousands of unnecessary American deaths in pursuit of the sacrificial goal of "civilizing" Iraq by enabling Iraqis to select any government they wish, no matter how anti-American.

In addition to being sent on ill-conceived, "humanitarian" missions, our soldiers have been compromised with crippling rules of engagement that place the lives of civilians in enemy territory above their own. In Afghanistan we refused to bomb many top leaders out of their hideouts for fear of civilian casualties; these men continue to kill American soldiers. In Iraq, our hamstrung soldiers are not allowed to smash a militarily puny insurgency—and instead must suffer an endless series of deaths by an undefeated enemy.

To send soldiers into war without a clear self-defense purpose, and without providing them every possible protection, is a betrayal of their valor and a violation of their rights.

This Veterans Day, we must call for a stop to the sacrifice of our soldiers and condemn all those who demand it. It is only by doing so that we can truly honor not only our dead, but also our living: American soldiers who have the courage to defend their freedom and ours.

Alex Epstein is a junior 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."

Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Monday, November 06, 2006

On Veterans Day we must call for a stop to the sacrifice of our soldiers

Posted by ARI Media at 10:01 PM

Irvine, CA—This Veterans Day, we will once again pay tribute to our fellow Americans who have served in the military. "Americans should be very proud of our heroic veterans," said Alex Epstein, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. "But we must also acknowledge that our government has repeatedly failed our men in uniform.

"It is proper to send soldiers to war only when their and our freedom is truly threatened, and only if we make every effort to protect their lives during war.

"Shamefully, America has repeatedly failed to meet this obligation. It has repeatedly placed soldiers in harm's way when no threat to America existed—e.g., to quell tribal conflicts in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. America entered World War I, in which 115,000 soldiers died, with no clear self-defense purpose but rather on the vague, self-sacrificial grounds that 'The world must be made safe for democracy.' America's involvement in Vietnam, in which 56,000 Americans died in a fiasco that American officials openly declared a 'no-win' war, was justified primarily in the name of service to the South Vietnamese. And the current war in Iraq—which could have had a valid purpose as a first step in ousting the terrorist-sponsoring, anti-American regimes of the Middle East—is responsible for thousands of unnecessary American deaths in pursuit of the sacrificial goal of 'civilizing' Iraq by enabling Iraqis to select any government they wish, no matter how anti-American.

"In addition to being sent on ill-conceived, 'humanitarian' missions, our soldiers have been compromised with crippling rules of engagement that place the lives of civilians in enemy territory above their own. To send soldiers into war without a clear self-defense purpose, and without providing them every possible protection, is a betrayal of their valor and a violation of their rights.

"This Veterans Day, we must call for a stop to the sacrifice of our soldiers and condemn all those who demand it."

Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Evil, and Uncorrectable

Posted by John David Lewis at 11:12 AM

One argument made for a Republican vote in this election—and the support it will bring to President Bush—is that Bush has the right foreign policy aims in mind; he errs only in their pursuit. If we would just give him the support he needs, he will correct his errors—thus speak his apologists.

Well, some 3,000 Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and over 10,000 have been maimed. Until those apologists raise the dead and restore lost limbs, the "errors" remain uncorrectable.

Bush has had nearly four years to watch this horrendous destruction of our youth—and to understand its purpose, and its cause. But the more body bags and stretchers come home, and the more our position deteriorates, the more he demands we "stay the course." What course? The good of the Iraqis, which trumps all other considerations.

This is not error. This is the intentional, ongoing, committed sacrifice of our young people to foreign strangers. This is evil.

Please spare me the rejoinder that Iraq is a "small war" next to World War II, and that we lost 12,500 dead and over 50,00 wounded at Okinawa alone. The war is not small to that 25 year old soldier who wanted to protect his country, but ended up losing his legs for the Iraqis. It is the purpose of the war—sacrifice on behalf of others—that makes it evil, not the body count.

The withdrawal of support for the Iraq war by the American people is a healthy response to this sacrificial carnage. It is their recognition, even though implicit, that that the Iraqis have no claim on the lives of our young people. Most Americans, who are value-seekers rather than value-destroyers, do not like sacrifice. The vast majority of Americans support their troops, want them to win, and to come home safe. But these Americans do not confuse their brave young soldiers with the commander in chief who is sacrificing them on an altar built by others.

One blogger has had the courage to say this—Diana Hsieh.

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Friday, November 03, 2006

Sacrificing our Soldiers in Sadr City

Posted by ARI Media at 9:41 PM

Irvine, CA—In response to the kidnapping of an American soldier in Iraq, U.S. forces imposed a blockade around Sadr City. Five days later, with the solider still missing, the United States ended the blockade at the behest of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"President Bush has mocked the idea that military decisions should be made by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., yet he is now allowing them to be made by bureaucrats in Iraq," said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "This is disgraceful."

"Yet this is perfectly consistent with Bush's Iraq policy, which aims, not to defend U.S. interests, but to sacrifice American wealth, security, and lives in service of Iraqis. So long as the welfare of Iraqis is paramount, there are no grounds for asserting our right to direct our soldiers as we see fit.

"We must reject President Bush's suicidal policy and embrace a foreign policy aimed solely at protecting the interests of the United States."

Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

U.S. Should Dump Anti-"Dumping" Laws

Posted by ARI Media at 5:23 PM

Irvine, CA—U.S. steel producers are calling for the federal government to extend until 2011 the duties imposed on foreign steel.

"The U.S. government should lift these duties as soon as possible, once and for all," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Duties on steel harm all American businesses that use steel in their products and all American consumers of products that contain steel. They violate the right of Americans to engage in free trade with efficient, productive foreign steel producers.

"As for so-called dumping of foreign goods, if foreign producers (or governments) are willing to subsidize their own losses to sell us products below their production costs, we should be free to take advantage of such bargains."

Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Washington's Failed War in Afghanistan by Elan Journo

Posted by ARI Media at 3:27 PM

America's campaign in Afghanistan was once widely hailed as a success in the "war on terror." We have nothing more to fear from Afghanistan, our policy makers told us, because the war had accomplished its two main goals: al Qaeda and its sponsoring regime, the Taliban, were supposedly long gone, and a new, pro-Western government had been set up. But as the daily news from Afghanistan shows, in reality the war has been a drastic failure.

Legions of undefeated Taliban and al Qaeda soldiers have renewed their jihad. Flush with money, amassing recruits, and armed with guns, rockets and explosives, they are fighting to regain power. In recent months, they have mounted a string of deadly suicide bombings and rocket attacks against American and NATO forces; more U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan in the last 20 months than did during the peak of the war.

Taliban forces have effectively besieged several provinces in southern Afghanistan. Local officials estimate that in some provinces the "number of Taliban . . . is several times more than that of the police and Afghan National Army." Taliban fighters are said to amble through villages fearlessly, brandishing their Kalashnikovs, and collecting zakat (an Islamic tithe) from peasants. With astounding boldness, they have assassinated clerics and judges deemed too friendly to the new government, and fired rockets at a school for using "un-Islamic" books.

The Taliban and al Qaeda forces are so strong and popular that Senator Bill Frist recently declared that a war against them cannot be won, and instead suggested negotiating with the Islamists.

How is it that five years after the war began—and in the face of America's unsurpassed military strength—Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are threatening to regain power?

Victory in Afghanistan demanded two things. We had to destroy the Taliban and we had to ensure that a non-threatening, non-Islamic-warrior-breeding regime take its place. But we did not think we had a moral right to do what was necessary to achieve either goal.

Our military was ordered to pursue Taliban fighters only if it simultaneously showed "compassion" to the Afghans. The U.S. military dropped bombs on Afghanistan—but instead of ruthlessly pounding key targets, it was ordered to gingerly avoid hitting holy shrines and mosques (known to be Taliban hideouts) and to shower the country with food packages. The United States deployed ground forces—but instead of focusing exclusively on capturing or killing the enemy, they were also diverted to a host of "reconstruction" projects. The result is that the enemy was not destroyed and crushed in spirit, but merely scattered and left with the moral fortitude to regroup and launch a brazen comeback.

Even with its hands tied, however, the U.S. military succeeded in toppling the Taliban regime—but Washington subverted that achievement, too.

A new Afghan government would be a non-threat to America's interests if it were based on a secular constitution that respects individual rights. The Bush administration, however, declared that we had no right to "impose our beliefs" on the Afghans—and instead endorsed their desire for another regime founded on Islamic law. Already this avowedly Islamic regime has jailed an Afghan magazine editor for "blasphemy"; earlier this year Abdul Rahman, an Afghan convert to Christianity, faced a death sentence for apostasy. The new Afghan regime cannot be counted on to oppose the resurgence of Islamic totalitarianism. Ideologically, it has nothing to say in opposition to the doctrines of the Taliban (two members of the Taliban leadership are in the new government). It is only a matter of time before Afghanistan is once again a haven for anti-American warriors.

The failure in Afghanistan is a result of Washington's foreign policy. Despite lip-service to the goal of protecting America's safety, the "war on terror" has been waged in compliance with the prevailing moral premise that self-interest is evil and self-sacrifice a virtue. Instead of trouncing the enemy for the sake of protecting American lives, our leaders have sacrificed our self-defense for the sake of serving the whims of Afghans.

The half-hearted war in Afghanistan failed to smash the Taliban and al Qaeda. It failed to render their ideology—Islamic totalitarianism—a lost cause. Instead, at best it demonstrated Washington's reluctance to fight ruthlessly to defend Americans. How better to stoke the enthusiasm of jihadists?

America cannot win this or any war by embracing selflessness as a virtue. Ultimately, it cannot survive unless Washington abandons its self-sacrificial foreign policy in favor of one that proudly places America's interests as its exclusive moral concern.

Elan Journo is a junior 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."

Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Insulting Our Soldiers vs. Sacrificing Them

Posted by Craig Biddle at 12:52 PM

John Kerry has once again proven himself despicable. He has insulted our fine soldiers, saying: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." That is reprehensible. And Kerry's effort to defuse the blunder by saying that it was "a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops" is ridiculous.

That said, let us bear in mind who is insulting the troops by calling them "stupid" and who is sacrificing them by sending them off to bring "freedom" to savages in the Middle East. Sticks and stones (and mortars and mines and suicide bombers) will break their bones (and kill them and ruin their homes and leave their children fatherless), but names will never hurt them.

While John Kerry is merely insulting our troops, George W. Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress that supports him are sacrificing them on the altar of religious altruism by bringing democracy (i.e., unlimited majority rule) to Middle Eastern mystics who want only to vote themselves into theocracy. And Bush and company are doing this while ignoring (or befriending) our primary enemies: Iran and Saudi Arabia. In other words, as bad as all these politicians are, some are substantially worse than others.

As I said in "Notes on the Coming Election," we need to focus not on politicians' words, but on their actions and the motivations behind them.

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