Principles in Practice: The Blog of the Objective Standard

Principles in Practice: March 2007

Government Has No Business Banning Plastic Bags by ARI Media
Hostages of Iran by ARI Media
Lenders Are Damned If They Lend--and Damned If They Don't by ARI Media
The Endangered Species Act Should Be Revoked by ARI Media
Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley by Alex Epstein by ARI Media
In Defense of Income Inequality by Peter Schwartz by ARI Media
What to Do About Gasoline Prices by Alex Epstein by ARI Media
Legalize 'Price-Fixing' by ARI Media
Totalitarian Islam's Threat to the West by ARI Media
The Separation of School and State: The Case for Abolishing America's Government Schools by C. Bradley Thompson by ARI Media
On Second Thought, GMU Refuses to Submit by Craig Biddle
'Shareholder Democracy' vs. Shareholder Rights by ARI Media
'The Rise and Fall of Property in America' by TOS Admin

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Government Has No Business Banning Plastic Bags

Posted by ARI Media at 12:52 AM

San Francisco's ban on plastic grocery bags is an outrageous abuse of government power.

The government has no right to force supermarkets and stores to stop using plastic bags. It is the prerogative of these businesses to decide what type of bags, if any, to offer their customers. If environmentalists and lawmakers don't like plastic bags, they are free to not use them and to try to persuade others to do likewise. They have no right, however, to impose their preferences on the rest of us.

The environmentalists' claim that plastic bags should be banned because they litter the streets and choke marine life is absurd. People, not plastic bags, are responsible for littering, and we already have laws against littering. As to the alleged harm plastic bags do to marine life, even if true it would not justify curtailing human freedom. No human activity "harms" marine life more than fishing does—yet we respect and protect the rights of fishermen to earn their livelihoods. In any conflict between protecting animal life or protecting the freedom that is necessary for human life, the only moral choice is siding with humanity.

David Holcberg
Ayn Rand Institute

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Friday, March 30, 2007

Hostages of Iran

Posted by ARI Media at 5:20 PM

Irvine, CA—"There is a profound, but unrecognized, lesson in the West's weak response to Iran's hostage-taking of British naval personnel," said Elan Journo, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.

"The U.K. government and Washington are widely regarded as aggressive defenders of their interests in the face of Islamist aggression. But the present Iranian hostage crisis shows, again, how these would-be defenders of our life and freedom are pathetically timid—while our enemy is shameless and ever more confident.

"Iran is a leading world sponsor of Islamic totalitarianism and has long been waging a terrorist proxy war against the West, through groups such as Hezbollah. In Iraq, Iran's proxies have been slaughtering U.S. and British troops. Iran initiates all of this aggression—to say nothing of its nuclear weapons program—with the confidence that it has an Allah-given right to murder. No surprise, then, that when 15 British naval personnel came near Iranian waters, Teheran took them hostage—and unabashedly demanded an apology from Britain, its victim.

"What has been the British, and American, response to Iran's outrage? What has the West done in the face of such a confidently evil regime? Did Britain give Iran an ultimatum backed by the threat of force? Far from it. With Washington's endorsement, London meekly protested, renounced using force to free its troops, and solemnly vowed to pursue 'patient diplomacy.' It has brought up the issue at the international sewer known as the United Nations, London is hoping that the U.N. will condescend to issue a press statement—its weakest possible statement—deploring Iran's actions. But since the U.N. is packed with Iranian allies and sympathizers, even this futile gesture is unlikely to happen.

"What underlies this unconscionably weak response? Fundamentally, it is the corrupt moral principle that dominates the West, the principle that regards selflessness as a virtue and self-assertion in pursuit, and defense, of one's interests as immoral. To punish Iran militarily for its many acts of war would be wrong, it would flout the will of the 'international community,' it would, on this premise, be 'selfish.' It is this premise that inhibits, and thus disarms, the West in the face of the enemy—and, as a result, spurs our enemy.

"While the British may hope that their timid, deferential approach will avoid inflaming the crisis and antagonizing Iran, they are accomplishing the opposite. The spectacle of Western nations bowing in submission is an encouragement to Iran and Islamic totalitarians worldwide.

"Iran and other evil regimes grow stronger and more threatening precisely because the morally good nations, who should defeat Iran's regime, are cowardly, apologetic, and meek."

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Lenders Are Damned If They Lend--and Damned If They Don't

Posted by ARI Media at 2:22 PM

Dear Editor:

With 2 million homeowners defaulting on their mortgage payments, we are increasingly hearing denunciations of lenders for having loaned money to people who had no means of paying it back. But these denunciations reveal a disturbing double standard. For years, politicians pressured lenders to not discriminate against those with poor credit history and shaky finances. Now we have the despicable spectacle of politicians accusing lenders of not having discriminated enough and of having made too many risky loans.

Lenders are damned if they lend—and damned if they don't. Whatever lenders do, politicians seem to always find their practices objectionable, and will take advantage of any excuse to call for more regulations and increased political power over lending. Politicians should leave lenders alone, and instead of damning them, they should acknowledge their crucial role in making home ownership possible for so many people.

David Holcberg
Ayn Rand Institute

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Thursday, March 29, 2007

The Endangered Species Act Should Be Revoked

Posted by ARI Media at 10:30 PM

Irvine, CA—Bush administration officials said Tuesday that they were reviewing proposed changes to the way the 34-year-old Endangered Species Act is enforced.

Environmentalists have already protested the suggested changes on the grounds that they would reduce protection for "endangered" species and their habitats.

But according to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "this immoral law should be revoked.

"For decades the Endangered Species Act has been used to victimize property owners, to take away their land, their assets and their livelihoods. In the name of preserving animal life, the Endangered Species Act has enabled the violation of individual rights in every corner of the country, rights that our government was instituted to protect, not trample upon.

"Because of this Act, farmers have been prevented from cultivating or building on their own land; because of this act, housing complexes have been blocked—to mention just two examples.

"This corrupt law sacrifices people for the sake of animals. The Endangered Species Act should be revoked, not reformed."

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley by Alex Epstein

Posted by ARI Media at 8:01 PM

Imagine opening tomorrow's newspaper and reading this: "Citing all-too-frequent child abuse and neglect, Congress has proposed the Parenting Reform Act. Under the proposed law, all parents must swear that they have not 'caused unreasonable physical harm or danger' to their children. To verify compliance, all parents will be required to submit their children to a monthly full-body inspection by the new Parental Oversight Board, and account for every cut, scrape, and bruise that inspectors find. If a parent cannot prove the 'reasonableness' of any injuries to the Board's satisfaction, it could result in a loss of custody and 20 years in prison."

Our reaction to this proposed law would be outrage. It is unjust and destructive, we would say, for the government to make arbitrary accusations of abuse and neglect, to conduct baseless investigations, and then to force an innocent parent to try to disprove them.

We should say the same about an existing law that perpetrates such horrors, not against parents, but against businessmen: Sarbanes-Oxley.

Sarbanes-Oxley has been under debate lately—pitting those who say the law must be amended against those who say it must be preserved. But both sides are wrong: Sarbanes-Oxley is a fundamentally corrupt law that must be repealed.

Sarbanes-Oxley was passed nearly five years ago, in the anti-business frenzy following the collapse of Enron—a frenzy in which any corporate crimes were characterized as a black mark on all businessmen. Instead of simply gathering evidence and prosecuting individual perpetrators accordingly, our leaders passed a law that forces all businessmen to prove to the government that they are not cooking their books.

Under Sarbanes-Oxley, the government, without any evidence of possible fraud, has free reign to scour a company's books to determine whether they "fairly" represent the company's finances and do "not contain any untrue statement of a material fact or omit to state a material fact."

What is "fairly"? What is "material"? Since these terms are undefined, they mean anything government bureaucrats want them to mean. For example, the government under Sarbanes-Oxley can declare a CFO a defrauder for reasonably deciding to capitalize an expenditure instead of expensing it (there are many such judgment calls in accounting).

Further, how can the government hold a businessman criminally responsible for any mistake in a financial report, which is the product of hundreds of people making thousands of individual judgments and decisions? Sarbanes-Oxley says the mistake is "knowing" if the internal controls management establishes to prevent error and fraud are not "adequate." But since the government does not define "adequate," anytime a regulator decides there "should have been" still one more control to prevent even the most inconsequential of errors—management is guilty of fraud.

If parents knew that the government could throw them in jail for every judgment call and innocent error that resulted in a skinned knee, they would avoid "risky" situations like trips to the park, and spend their time tracking their child's every move and their own so that they could rebut the government's arbitrary accusations. The same is true for businesses under the potential guillotine of Section 302 of Sarbanes-Oxley—behavior practically mandated by the extensive testing and documenting of internal controls required by Section 404. Whole companies avoid any action the government might frown upon, and pour endless time and energy into monitoring and cataloging anything that a government inspector might conceivably believe is relevant to financial reporting.

Such behavior is now rampant in corporate America. One study documents businesses engaging in practices like "requiring an auditor to attend a meeting to prove it took place" and "proving that all of the physical keys to an office in Europe have been accounted for since it opened in 1995"! "Even a completely harmless error that nobody cares about," says a lawyer who handles Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, "takes up hundreds and hundreds of hours of the auditors, the CEO, the CFO and the audit committee."

That America's honest, productive businessmen are spending their time and shareholder money to "prove" they are not criminals—when they could be spending those hours and dollars on R&D, new product launches, or mergers and acquisitions—is a monumental injustice. Is it any wonder that misery among top executives is reported throughout corporate America, that top executives are departing at record rates, that more and more public companies are going private, that only a small fraction of the largest IPOs last year took place in the United States?

Sarbanes Oxley must be repealed—not "relaxed," as many business groups are timidly suggesting. And we must start treating businessmen as American citizens: innocent until proven otherwise.

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."

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

In Defense of Income Inequality by Peter Schwartz

Posted by ARI Media at 11:28 AM

Income inequality used to be a rabble-rousing issue of the left. Now it is being raised by mainstream figures, from the head of the Federal Reserve to President Bush, who are apologetically trying to offer solutions. But what is the actual problem they wish to solve? Certainly, it is not a growth in poverty. To the contrary, between 1979 and 2006—the period during which income inequality has supposedly become more acute—real wages for the median worker rose 11.5%. Even workers in the lowest tenth percentile had an increase of 4%.

No, the alleged problem is not that some are becoming poor—but that others are too rich. The complaint is that while the bottom tier enjoyed a 4% rise in income, the top tier enjoyed a 34% increase. The complaint is that over the past 25 years, the share of income of the top fifth of households climbed from 42% to 50%, while that of the bottom fifth fell from 7% to 5%.

But this development represents an injustice only if we use a perverse standard of evaluation. It is unjust only if we measure someone's economic status not by what he has, but by what others have—i.e., only if he benefits not by making more money, but by making his neighbor have less.

This is the standard of egalitarianism—the standard that demands a uniformity of income, regardless of anyone's ability or effort. It is the standard of envy, whereby a problem exists whenever some have more, of anything, than others. And the egalitarian's solution is to eliminate all such inequalities.

Egalitarianism is the antithesis of the valid tenet of political equality, under which we have equal rights. That is, we have the right to achieve whatever our ambition and talents allow, with no one permitted to forcibly stop us. Egalitarianism, however, is a denial of the individual's right to be left free. It is an abhorrent demand that some people be punished for achieving what others haven't. It is a brazen declaration that an equality of condition must be attained.

And how is it to be attained? By—as the Australians aptly phrase it—cutting down the tall poppies. No one is to be allowed to surpass his fellow-citizen. No one is to be allowed to rise. Which means that the most able must be brought down to the level of the least able. The equal spread of misery and privation is the only "equality" that egalitarians ultimately seek. This is why they extol socialist societies, where all suffer equal destitution, while vilifying capitalist societies, where all are free to advance according to their abilities and where the poorest enjoy greater luxuries than any citizen in a "worker's paradise."

Making others fall does not make you rise. While prohibiting a Thomas Edison or a Bill Gates from becoming fabulously wealthy does indeed reduce income inequality, it does not make the poor richer. Nonetheless, it is what egalitarians desire. They are motivated by what Ayn Rand called "hatred of the good": if they lack something of value, they want to make sure nobody else has it either.

Income inequality is an effect. The cause is the difference in people's economic production. Criticizing income inequality is like complaining that a computer carries a higher price than a paper clip. Price reflects an object's market value—and the money someone earns reflects the market value of his work. There is no fixed, pre-existing glob of income that somehow oozes disproportionately into the pockets of the rich. Wealth is created. The top fifth of the population have ten times more income than the bottom fifth because they have produced ten times more.

In a statist system, people advance through government favors and at the expense of the genuinely deserving. But in a free, capitalist system, income inequality represents something good. It means that exceptional individuals are free to do their productive best, and to reap their rewards. Whenever a Bill Gates arises to make his fortune, the income disparity between top and bottom increases—but so does everyone's standard of living. If so, why shouldn't we welcome an inequality—including a widening inequality—in incomes? And, instead of apologizing for this phenomenon, why aren't our leaders denouncing the egalitarian enviers who want to level us all?

Peter Schwartz is a Distinguished Fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand—author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

What to Do About Gasoline Prices by Alex Epstein

Posted by ARI Media at 8:14 PM

In response to recent rises in gas prices, we are once again hearing calls for the government to "do something" to force prices lower. But no matter what the price of gasoline is, such calls are wrong. All market fluctuations in the price of gasoline, up or down, are a good thing—and none of the government's business.

When customers' demand for gasoline increases relative to the supply, the sellers of gasoline raise their prices. As the producers and owners of gasoline, this is their right—and we should be glad that they exercise it. Not only do price increases encourage future production, but without such price increases, we would very quickly see shortages as customer demand for cheap gasoline far outstripped the available supply. Thanks to price increases, we can ensure our continued access to gasoline to the extent we are willing to pay for it—i.e., to the extent we value it. Most of us are willing to pay $3 a gallon for a 15-mile office commute—but might not be for a 15-mile drive to our pet's beauty salon, and so our personal consumption voluntarily decreases as prices increase.

In the realm of business, a higher price means that firms will only purchase oil or gasoline to the extent that they can make profitable use of it at those prices. An efficient airline will still be able to offer low prices while using high-priced jet fuel; a less efficient airline may not be able to. A company in China or India that uses oil to run highly efficient factories can make profitable use of oil at $70 a barrel; their laggard competitors may not be able to. Since nearly every product we use involves oil at some stage of production, we all gain vast benefits from oil being directed toward its most profitable uses.

There is no moral or economic justification for any politician or consumer to declare market prices "too high," and to use the government to coerce lower prices. To do so violates both the rights of gasoline producers and their productive customers to set voluntary prices—and, in doing so, causes destructive shortages. When shortages exist, how much gasoline one is able to get depends not on one's willingness to pay a mutually agreeable price, but on one's political pull to secure rations, or on whether one has time on one's hands to wait in endless lines (as in the 1970s).

There is only one sense in which we are entitled to tell the government to "do something" about gasoline prices: insofar as these prices are made artificially high by the government's many regulations on oil and gasoline production.

Consider oil refining regulations. Various state governments impose the absurd mandate that companies refine nearly 60 different "blends" of gasoline—despite the fact that cars using today's standard unleaded gasoline, even with the overall increase in driving, pollute very little by historical standards. Additionally, endless red tape and "environmental impact studies" forced by regulators hostile to industrial development, make new construction dramatically less profitable. The costs of such regulations are huge and raise the price of gasoline; according to the American Petroleum Institute, "the refining industry has spent over $47 billion over the last decade to comply with environmental and fuels regulations—expenditures that generally yield little or no return on investment."

Another costly set of regulations are those prohibiting domestic drilling on plentiful sources of oil. In the name of safeguarding a portion of the caribou habitat in an Alaskan wasteland, drilling is prohibited in ANWR—a potential source of 1 million barrels a day. Also off-limits is the entire Outer Continental Shelf of the United States—a far larger untapped source of oil. Chevron's recent discovery of an estimated 3 to 15 billion barrel reserve in the Gulf of Mexico invites the question: How many such troves are currently off-limits?

The government is right to take action if an oil company provably threatens or harms a person's property. But to impose huge costs on oil companies and their customers in the name of preserving untouched nature is unconscionable.

What should the government do about gasoline prices? Get its hands out of the market—and keep them off.

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."

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Friday, March 23, 2007

Legalize 'Price-Fixing'

Posted by ARI Media at 6:34 PM

Irvine, CA—On March 26 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., where the justices will decide whether antitrust law forbids a manufacturer from setting a minimum retail price for its products. In the past, judges have ruled that this is "price-fixing," and therefore must be prohibited. Critics of this precedent, including the Bush administration, claim that it is "outdated" and "cannot withstand modern economic analysis."

"An overturning of this particular anti-price-fixing precedent would be a welcome development," said Alex Epstein, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. "But the Court should go further and repudiate any prohibition against so-called price-fixing.

"Prohibitions against 'price-fixing' are defended by alleging that if multiple companies agree to sell some product at the same price, they will be able to gouge consumers by making that price exorbitant.

"But this is nonsense. So long as the government stays out of the market, no group of companies can force a customer to pay more for a product than it is worth—nor can a group of companies that arbitrarily jack up their prices prevent worthy competitors from winning over their customers.

"There is no danger to anyone from the practice of 'price fixing.' There is however, continuing danger—as there has been great damage done throughout economic history—from antitrust's prohibition of the practice. The reason is that 'price fixing,' like many other key terms in the antitrust lexicon, is undefined and indefinable; it can mean anything government bureaucrats and prosecutors want it to mean.

"For example, in the case under review by the Supreme Court, it is currently considered illegal 'price-fixing' for a handbag manufacturer to contract with retailers to set a minimum sale price on handbags. But, at the moment, it is perfectly legal for a manufacturer with its own retail outlets, such as The Gap, to set a minimum sale price on its retail products. Why is one illegal and one not? Ultimately, because government judges and bureaucrats have said so. And the fact that they may change their minds tomorrow forces all American businesses to function under a perpetual guillotine of uncertainty.

"Every company sets or 'fixes' its price based on its desire for profit, customer demand, and the prices charged by its competitors. This is entirely proper. Every company should be free to set its own prices and policies, which includes the freedom to contract with any other company in whatever way it chooses, so long as there is no coercion involved.

"The government's proper function is to stop coercion—not to be a whim-driven dictator of business policy."

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Totalitarian Islam's Threat to the West

Posted by ARI Media at 6:26 PM

Who:

Dr. Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum
Dr. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute
Dr. Wafa Sultan, outspoken critic of Islam and author of the forthcoming book "The Escaped Prisoner: When God Is a Monster"

What: A panel discussion on the threat of Islamic totalitarianism and how to deal with it

Where: UCLA Campus: Moore 100, Los Angeles, CA

When: Thursday, April 12, 2007, at 7:00 PM

Admission is FREE.

Description: From the Iranian hostage crisis to September 11 to the London subway attacks to the Iraqi insurgency—it is clear the West faces a grave threat from a committed enemy. Conventional wisdom holds that the enemy is a rogue group of fanatics, who have hijacked a great religion in order to justify their crimes. It tells us there is no way to permanently eliminate these violent groups, that we have entered an "age of terror" and that we must give up the desire for a decisive victory.

But is the conventional wisdom right?

A distinguished panel of Middle East experts will provide new and illuminating answers to the most important questions of our time: Is the West ready to concede victory so easily? Are the terrorists a fringe group of fanatics, or are they part of a much wider ideological movement? What threat do they pose to the West? What can the West do to ensure victory? Is peace possible?

While the experts will answer these complex questions from diverse points of view, they all agree on one thing: Islamic totalitarianism is a real threat, and the right response necessitates engaging in a principled, ideological battle to defend the West from the jihad declared against it.

Speakers' Biographies:

Dr. Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and a recognized Middle-East expert who has written and lectured on a variety of Middle-East issues. Dr. Brook has served in the Israeli Army and has discussed the Israeli-Arab conflict and the war on Islamic totalitarianism on hundreds of radio and TV programs, including FOX News (The O'Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN's Talkback Live, CNBC's Closing Bell and On the Money, and a C-SPAN panel of experts on terrorism.

Dr. Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum. He taught history at the University of Chicago and at Harvard University, and lectured on policy and strategy at the Naval War College. He currently teaches at Pepperdine University. Dr. Pipes is the author of twelve books and numerous articles. He is a columnist for the New York Sun and he appears weekly in Israel's Jerusalem Post, Italy's L'Opinione, Spain's La Razón, and monthly in the Australian and Canada's Globe and Mail. His Web site, DanielPipes.org, is among the most accessed Internet sources of specialized information on the Middle East and Islam. Mr. Pipes has appeared on ABC World News, CBS Reports, Crossfire, Good Morning America, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, O'Reilly Factor, The Today Show, the BBC and Al Jazeera.

Dr. Wafa Sultan is a secular Syrian-American writer and thinker, Dr. Sultan is known for her participation in Middle East political debates, widely circulated Arabic essays and television appearances on Al Jazeera, CNN and Fox News. Dr. Sultan was shocked into secularism by the atrocities committed against innocent Syrian people by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1979, including the machine-gun assassination of her professor in front of her eyes at the University of Aleppo, where she was a medical student. On February 21, 2006, she appeared on Al Jazeera, where she scolded Muslims for treating non-Muslims differently and for not acknowledging the accomplishments of non-Muslim societies, including their greater freedom and capacity for producing wealth and technology. She named the Islamic threat to the West as "a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose." A video of her appearance, widely circulated on Web logs and through e-mail, has been viewed an estimated 12 million times. Her outspokenness has brought her both threats and praise. Dr. Sultan is currently working on a book to be called "The Escaped Prisoner: When God Is a Monster."

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The Separation of School and State: The Case for Abolishing America's Government Schools by C. Bradley Thompson

Posted by ARI Media at 2:52 PM

Why do so many Americans—liberal and conservative—support a compulsory system of government-run education? What role should the State play in educating America’s children? Are government schools compatible with a free society? Is it possible to have a free-market in education?

Dr. Thompson's lecture will examine the destructive effects of "public" education in America, he will critique the principal assumptions behind government schooling (e.g., that children have a "right" to an education and that government schools are for the "public good"), and he will call for the abolition of all government schools. Thompson will present a principled argument for a free-market in education that begins with the rights and responsibilities of parents to provide for the education of their own children.

THIS EVENT IS FREE TO THE PUBLIC.

LOCATION and DETAILS:

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Hilton Costa Mesa [map]
3050 Bristol Street
Costa Mesa, California
(At Bristol and the 405 Freeway)

Bookstore opens: 6:30 PM
Presentation: 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Q & A: 8:30 PM to 9:30 PM

Click here to see the event flyer in PDF format.

For information on other upcoming events, visit our events page.

For more information:
Phone: 949-222-6550
E-mail: events@aynrand.org

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Sunday, March 18, 2007

On Second Thought, GMU Refuses to Submit

Posted by Craig Biddle at 3:20 PM

To the credit of George Mason University's administration, the school has decided not to submit to the "will of Allah" or to "his" followers on earth.

John Lewis's previously cancelled GMU talk, "'No Substitute for Victory': The Defeat of Islamic-Totalitarianism," has been rescheduled for Tuesday, April 24, at 7:30 PM, in the Johnson Center Cinema, on GMU's Fairfax campus (see PDF flier here). In addition to the sponsorship of the GMU Objectivist Club and The Objective Standard, the talk is now being cosponsored by the College Republicans, who reportedly have read Dr. Lewis's article of the same title and are moved by its cogent call for an uncompromising, self-interested approach to eradicating the Islamic-Totalitarian threat against America. (It is my great hope that these young active-minded Republicans foreshadow a broader movement of rationality and egoism within the Republican Party—and thus a move away from the faith-based, altruistic, American-sacrificing, status quo foreign policy of the Bush administration.)

Dr. Lewis's talk, which illustrates the application of rational egoism to the problem of Islamic terrorism, is one of the most important discussions of American foreign policy in history. Please help to spread the word about it by any means you can. If you have contacts in the media, please let them know about the event and urge them to cover it. If you have a blog or website, please announce the talk there. If you have friends or relatives who live in the D.C. area, let them know about it and encourage them to attend. And if you live within driving distance of George Mason University, or if you happen to be in the D.C. area on April 24, don't miss this excellent lecture; the survival of Western civilization hinges on Americans understanding and embracing the principles that Dr. Lewis elucidates therein.

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

'Shareholder Democracy' vs. Shareholder Rights

Posted by ARI Media at 10:20 PM

Irvine, CA—House leaders are promoting a new measure that would require all public corporations to hold annual shareholder votes to voice approval or disapproval of executive compensation.

"While this measure is being portrayed as protecting the rights of shareholders," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "it is in fact a violation of those rights."

"If a majority of shareholders wishes to hold an annual vote to voice approval or disapproval of their board's executive compensation decisions, they have long been free to implement such a policy. But most companies and shareholders have judged that such votes are not in their interest, and it is not hard to imagine why—they do not want to give anti-CEO pundits and politicians yet more fuel to grandstand about 'excessive' CEO pay.

"To force shareholders and companies to adopt such policies against their judgment is not to protect shareholder rights, but to violate them wholesale."

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post

Friday, March 09, 2007

'The Rise and Fall of Property in America'

Posted by TOS Admin at 12:35 PM

'The Rise and Fall of Property in America'

Who: Professor Adam Mossoff, Michigan State University College of Law

What: A talk on the rise and fall of property rights in America, discussing the intellectual history of the right to property and how early twentieth-century Progressives destroyed property rights.

When: Wednesday, March 14 at 7:30pm

Where: University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Angell Hall Auditorium D

The public and media are invited. Admission is FREE.

Summary: What happened to property rights in America? Our laws today do little to protect property owners from either the dictator abroad or the bureaucrat in D.C. How did this come to pass in a country founded on the principle that all men have the inalienable right to life, liberty and property? In this lecture, Professor Adam Mossoff explains the rise and fall of property rights in America. He first discusses the intellectual history of the right to property and how the Founding Fathers turned 17th-century theory into 18th-century practice. He then explains how early twentieth-century Progressives destroyed property in order to remove this fundamental obstacle to the implementation of their socialist programs.

The effects of this assault are still felt today, which he illustrates with examples from famous and recent court cases in which judges disintegrated basic property protections, such as the Supreme Court's recent decision in Kelo v. City of New London. Ultimately, the lesson to be learned is that a renaissance in the protection of property rights will not occur through politics or law, but rather in the proper justification of property as a fundamental moral right.

For more information on this talk, please email sardone@umich.edu.

To see the flier for the event, click here.

PermaLink | Email this link to a friend | Write TOS about this post