Principles in Practice: The Blog of the Objective Standard

Principles in Practice: May 2007

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Objectivist Summer Conference 2007 Set to Be Largest Objectivist Conference Yet

Posted by ARI Media at 6:46 PM

Irvine, CA—Objectivist Conferences (OCON) has announced that their latest registration numbers make Objectivist Summer Conference 2007, to be held in Telluride, Colorado, from July 6-15, the largest Objectivist conference ever held, with 447 registered attendees to date. Objectivist Conferences holds annual gatherings for people interested in Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. This summer's conference features keynote speaker Dr. Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand's designated heir and the world's foremost authority on Objectivism. "This year's conference is in a state-of-the-art facility in a beautiful mountain setting, and it celebrates the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged," said OCON president Yaron Brook. "And there is still more space available, with more than a month left before the conference begins."

More information about Objectivist Summer Conference 2007, including online registration, can be found at www.objectivistconferences.com/ocon2007.

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The Right to Assisted Suicide by Thomas A. Bowden

Posted by ARI Media at 7:57 PM

The Right to Assisted Suicide by Thomas A. Bowden

Here's a quiz: During the eight years Dr. Jack Kevorkian languished in a Michigan prison, how many state legislatures reformed their laws against physician-assisted suicide? Answer: none. Oregon remains the only state to have provided clear procedures by which doctors can end their dying patients' pain and suffering while protecting themselves from criminal prosecution.

For ten years now, Oregon doctors have been permitted to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to a mentally competent, terminally ill patient who makes written and oral requests, consults two physicians, and endures a mandatory waiting period. The patient's free choice is paramount throughout this process. Neither relatives nor doctors can apply on the patient's behalf, and the patient himself administers the lethal dose.

Elsewhere in America, however, the political influence of religious conservatism has thwarted passage of similar legislation, leaving terminal patients to select from a macabre menu of frightening, painful, and often violent end-of-life techniques universally regarded as too inhumane for use on sick dogs or mass murderers.

Consider Percy Bridgman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who, at 79, was entering the final stages of terminal cancer. Wracked with pain and bereft of hope, he got a gun and somehow found courage to pull the trigger, knowing he was condemning others to the agony of discovering his bloody remains. His final note said simply: "It is not decent for society to make a man do this to himself. Probably this is the last day I will be able to do it myself."

What lawmakers must grasp is that there is no rational, secular basis upon which the government can properly prevent any individual from choosing to end his own life. When religious conservatives use secular laws to enforce their idea of God's will, they threaten the central principle on which America was founded.

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed, for the first time in the history of nations, that each person exists as an end in himself. This basic truth—which finds political expression in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—means, in practical terms, that you need no one's permission to live, and that no one may forcibly obstruct your efforts to achieve your own personal happiness.

But what if happiness becomes impossible to attain? What if a dread disease, or some other calamity, drains all joy from life, leaving only misery and suffering? The right to life includes and implies the right to commit suicide. To hold otherwise—to declare that society must give you permission to kill yourself—is to contradict the right to life at its root. If you have a duty to go on living, despite your better judgment, then your life does not belong to you, and you exist by permission, not by right.

For these reasons, each individual has the right to decide the hour of his death and to implement that solemn decision as best he can. The choice is his because the life is his. And if a doctor is willing (not forced) to assist in the suicide, based on an objective assessment of his patient's mental and physical state, the law should not stand in his way.

Religious conservatives' opposition to the Oregon approach stems from the belief that human life is a gift from the Lord, who puts us here on earth to carry out His will. Thus, the very idea of suicide is anathema, because one who "plays God" by causing his own death, or assisting in the death of another, insults his Maker and invites eternal damnation, not to mention divine retribution against the decadent society that permits such sinful behavior.

If a religious conservative contracts a terminal disease, he has a legal right to regard his own God's will as paramount, and to instruct his doctor to stand by and let him suffer, just as long as his body and mind can endure the agony, until the last bitter paroxysm carries him to the grave. But conservatives have no right to force such mindless, medieval misery upon doctors and patients who refuse to regard their precious lives as playthings of a cruel God.

Secular and rational state legislators should regard the occasion of Dr. Kevorkian's release from jail as a stinging reminder that 49 of the 50 states have failed to take meaningful steps toward recognizing and protecting an individual's unconditional right to commit suicide.

Thomas A. Bowden practices law in Baltimore, Maryland, and is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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U.S. Should Shut Down Al Hurra TV

Posted by ARI Media at 1:07 PM

Irvine, CA—The U.S.-financed TV channel Al Hurra, broadcasting in Arabic to the Middle East, has come under fire for failing to win popular support for America in the Arab world—a goal Washington calls "public diplomacy." Critics attack the channel for providing "friendly coverage" to Islamist groups, such as Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaeda.

According to Republican and Democratic critics, better oversight is needed to ensure that in the future the channel will not, as it did recently, broadcast a 30-minute speech by Hezbollah's leader or devote coverage to Iran's Holocaust-denial conference. But the very premise of this TV channel is preposterous and immoral, said Elan Journo, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand institute. "America's self-interest demands not that we fix Al Hurra; but that we scrap it—along with all 'public diplomacy' initiatives.

"The goal of this channel, and of the State Department's other 'public diplomacy,' is to appease the hostility of the Arab world and thereby supposedly discourage Muslims from 'radicalizing.'To that end, Washington funds Islamic radio and TV shows, cultural workshops, the restoration of mosques, the building of Islamic schools. But this is perverse. Our goal should be to defend American lives and uphold our own values, not to apologize and pander to hostile peoples.

"Contrary to the administration's evasions, the enemy is an ideological-political movement—Islamic totalitarianism—that is widely endorsed and supported in the Arab-Islamic world. The only rational means of eliminating the threat from Islamic totalitarianism is to defeat its state representatives—Iran and Saudi Arabia—by military force—and thus demoralize its many supporters.

"Doing that will demonstrate to hostile peoples in the Arab-Islamic world that the cause of jihad is lost—and that fighting for this cause can bring them only destruction. Only demoralized people will reject the ideals and leaders that inspired their belligerence and promised victory; only humiliating defeat will drive them to renounce the fight as hopeless.

"America's fawning 'public diplomacy' in the Middle East is self-destructive, because it can only strengthen the appeal of Islamic totalitarianism by lending plausibility to the charge that the United States is cowardly and morally bankrupt. It is high time Washington declared that America stands for—and will defend to the death—the ideals of individualism, reason and freedom. Our lives depend on bringing our enemies defeat, not an Arabic version of ' Sesame Street.'"

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Unjust Imprisonment of Dr. Jack Kevorkian

Posted by ARI Media at 10:34 PM

Irvine, CA—Assisted-suicide practitioner and advocate Jack Kevorkian will be paroled on June 1 after eight years of imprisonment for assisting in the suicide of a terminal patient suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease.

"Dr. Kevorkian's imprisonment was a great injustice," said Thomas Bowden, a practicing attorney and a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. "He would never have been convicted of murder if Michigan law had allowed a defense based on irrefutable, objective evidence of consent. Dr. Kevorkian should be honored for his courageous stand in defense of the right of individuals suffering from devastating terminal diseases to end their lives with the assistance of a trusted doctor."

Before his conviction, Kevorkian claimed to have assisted in the suicide of 130 patients. Now he has vowed to work for the legalization of assisted suicide across the country while not practicing it himself.

"Hopefully," said Thomas Bowden, "Dr. Kevorkian will be successful nationwide in promoting the right to commit suicide with voluntary physician assistance. Currently, only Oregon has set forth clear procedures by which doctors can insulate themselves from criminal prosecution while easing their dying patients' pain and suffering."

"What lawmakers and judges must grasp," added Bowden, "is that there is no rational basis upon which the government can properly prevent an individual from choosing to end his own life. Our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means that we need no one's permission to live, and that no one may forcibly obstruct our efforts to achieve personal happiness. But if happiness becomes impossible to attain, due to a dread disease or some other calamity, a person must be able to exercise the right to end his own life."

"To hold otherwise—to declare that society must give us permission to commit suicide—is to contradict the right to life at its root," said Bowden. "If we have a duty to go on living, despite our better judgment, then our lives do not belong to us, and we exist by permission, not by right.

"For these reasons, each individual has the right to decide the hour of his death and to implement that solemn decision as best he can. The choice is his because the life is his. And if a doctor is willing—not forced—to assist in the suicide, based on an objective assessment of his patient's mental and physical state, the law should not stand in his way."

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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The VanDamme Academy Field Trip

Posted by Lisa VanDamme at 2:43 PM

In my recent newsletter "The Failure of Field Trips," I explained what is wrong with traditional school outings. The typical field trip is irrelevant to the students' education, either because they have been unprepared to appreciate it by their schooling (e.g., City Hall or the opera) or because it is intended as a reprieve from their schooling (e.g., the water park or bowling alley).

At VanDamme Academy, we use field trips as opportunities for students to have experiences that enhance their education-experiences that directly relate to their schooling but are not available to them within the walls of the classroom. Past field trips include: an astronomy night, to observe a lunar eclipse and to find the constellations they had mapped on a star chart in science class; a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest, to watch on stage a play they had read and thoroughly analyzed in literature class; the King Tut exhibit at LACMA, to see relics of a time they had studied in depth in history class. In each case, because they were so well prepared, they relished the experience.

Probably the most thrilling of the VanDamme Academy outings, and the one that best exemplifies the very meaning and purpose of field trips, was our visit to the San Diego Museum of Art. This field trip was attended-and enjoyed- by every student in the school, from kindergarten to eighth grade.

The students had been thoroughly prepared for the experience by many aspects of their education. They were well read in literature: five- year-olds delighted to find a painting of the myth of Apollo and Daphne; elementary students discovered portraits that reminded them of Arthur and Lancelot; junior high students argued over which artist best depicted a figure with the strength and independence of An Enemy of the People's Dr. Stockmann. They were knowledgeable about history: all the students had some familiarity with the cultural context in which a Medieval, Renaissance, or American painting was produced; many students identified portraits that reminded them of historical figures, like Charlemagne or St. Augustine; the junior high students could relate the philosophy of asceticism to three different renderings of Mary Magdalene.

In addition to being broadly well educated, the students were also expertly trained in the process of analyzing and thereby appreciating a work of art. This is thanks to Luc Travers who—with his knowledge of philosophy, literary analysis, and art history, and his unique ability to see to the theme of a painting, relate it to real- life values, and make it accessible and meaningful to students— has developed a remarkable course in art appreciation.

Mr. Travers has taught all the VanDamme Academy students how to "read" a work of art. They learn how to make detailed observations, about the setting, the objects, the facial features, the expressions, the posture, the attire, etc. They learn to make explicit their immediate impressions (that the central figure looks brave, or apprehensive, or proud, or determined), to connect those impressions to their observations (the muscular figure, the furrowed brow, the upright posture, the clenched jaw), and to then make further observations and refine their original impression. They learn to compare and contrast their observations with closely related works of art, and identify subtle differences (the furrowed brow of concentration vs. the furrowed brow of anger vs. the furrowed brow of resolution). After repeatedly cycling through this process, they formulate a statement of the work's theme. Then, to round out their understanding of that theme and harness its power, they relate it to history and literature and their own life experience.

Armed with the knowledge of how to analyze a work of art and having experienced the rewards of doing so, the students stormed the museum grounds, clipboards in hand, eyes and spirits wide open, ready to discover and enjoy a new work of art. As one parent arrived on the museum grounds, her six-year-old daughter Sydney cried excitedly, "Le Cid! Look! It's Le Cid!" There, proudly leading his troops to battle, was the sculpture of the Spanish hero she had analyzed, contrasted with the meek and weary Don Quixote, and come to love. Walter, a junior high student, found a wealth of visual images of the moments and traits he had encountered in literature: one reminded him of Marguerite from The Scarlet Pimpernel when she was in fear for the life of her husband, because she is "on her knees," has "her hands folded," and has "an upward, teary gaze"; another reminded him of the novel's villain Chauvelin, because of his "tightly closed, almost snarling mouth" and his "sinister gaze"; another called to mind Montfleury from Cyrano de Bergerac because of the "dull, inane look in his eyes." Chelsea, a junior high student, did a reading of an unfamiliar portrait, noting her glossy eyes, her coal-black pupils, her smooth, peachy skin, her erect posture, her slight smile, and her seeming unhappiness. She brought these and other features together into her determination of the theme: "She smiles, yet her eyes droop; she seems happy, yet sad—the woman is LONGING for something."

Far from enjoying a diversion from school or being forced through a cultural experience they were unequipped to enjoy, these students were cashing in on the groundwork laid in their education. That is why they met with universal enthusiasm the news of next week's school-wide trip to the Getty Museum. The experience is sure to justify a newsletter of its own.

Click here to sign up for the VanDamme Academy's free, weekly e-newsletter: "Pedagogically Correct." Every week, you will be sent a new article about the principles of teaching employed at VanDamme Academy, along with stories about the results they are achieving.

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Friday, May 25, 2007

Library of Free Ayn Rand Recordings on Ayn Rand Institute Web Site

Posted by ARI Media at 6:10 PM

This week the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) unveiled a major collection of audio and video recordings of Ayn Rand. The recordings, made available by special permission from the Estate of Ayn Rand, are available at no charge to registered users on the Ayn Rand Institute's Web site (http://www.aynrand.org/). Included are more than 48 hours of audio and video taken from 54 of Ayn Rand's public appearances, interviews and lectures.

"We believe this is an excellent opportunity for anyone interested in ideas to experience first-hand one of the 20th century's most influential and provocative thinkers," said ARI's executive director Yaron Brook. "We are offering a great deal of incisive, original material, much of which is not available in print. We expect it to stimulate a great deal of discussion and interest in Ayn Rand."

Registration at ARI's Web site is free and confidential; more information is available at http://www.aynrand.org/.

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Say 'No Way!' to 'Say on Pay' by Yaron Brook

Posted by ARI Media at 10:51 AM

The House of Representatives recently passed the "say on pay" bill proposed by Congressman Barney Frank. The bill forces all corporations to allow shareholders a non-binding vote on CEO compensation. The idea is to shame directors into lowering CEO pay, which the bill's supporters claim is out of control.

Although the bill is touted as a means of protecting the interests of shareholders, what it actually represents is a usurpation of corporate control. It is therefore a violation of shareholders' rights.

Those clamoring for this bill insist that legislation is necessary to give shareholders a "say on pay." But shareholders already have a say on pay—i.e., a means of exercising control over corporate governance. If a shareholder is upset about CEO pay or any other management issue, he has three legitimate, free market options: 1. "Vote with his dollars" by selling his shares; 2. Accumulate a controlling interest in the company (typically 51%) and impose a new board of directors; 3. Persuade a majority of shareholders to replace the board with people sympathetic to their concerns.

If enough shareholders really wanted a vote on CEO pay, they could demand a change to their company's by-laws. But very few companies have adopted such changes, suggesting that most shareholders are not actually interested in this control. After all, one of the great benefits of the corporate structure is a clear division of labor: shareholders invest capital, but leave the business management to an elected board and its chosen executives.  Rational shareholders do not want to micromanage public companies by participating in such decisions as setting CEO pay.

It is a minority of "activist" shareholders—together with anti-business politicians—who are shrieking about "outrageous" CEO pay packages. And it is highly revealing that, instead of pursuing one of the above methods that respects everyone's freedom, they are agitating for legislation—seeking to wield the power of government to force their views of corporate governance and CEO pay on the majority of shareholders.

What motivates these activists is not the wellbeing—i.e., the wealth—of fellow shareholders, but an anti-profit, anti-capitalist social agenda. It is they who call for corporate "social responsibility"—the idea that executives and shareholders should sacrifice money-making for the sake of sundry "stakeholders." This is incompatible with the purpose of business and with the responsibility of corporate leaders to maximize shareholder wealth.

Indeed, if these activists were truly concerned with the shareholder and the quality of boards of directors and CEOs that he can hire, they would be advocating for less government regulation not more. Regulations today prevent market forces from fully operating in corporate America.

For instance, the Williams Act restricts stock accumulation, and other regulations place strict constraints on board membership and hostile takeovers, all of which make ousting incompetent management more difficult. Sarbanes-Oxley, that incredible perversion of justice, has cost innocent businessmen billions of dollars in the name of fighting the misdeeds committed by others. This has made running an honest business more precarious and less enjoyable.

Anyone truly concerned about shareholders—and about the health of corporate America—should be campaigning for the repeal of these regulations.

But far from fighting government controls, shareholder "activists" fight to hand control over American corporations to government—or to organizations controlled indirectly by politicians, such as public pension plans. Indeed, this is already beginning, prompting many businesses to flee to the relative safety of private ownership—i.e., being owned and run by professionals—so that they can continue to maximize their wealth.

With this ever-increasing web of regulations, does anyone really believe that the government will stop at non-binding shareholder votes, that the next step won't be the imposition of binding votes and, longer-term, government limits on CEO pay?  Congressman Frank doesn't. Frank—who has supported outright caps on CEO pay—has threatened that if "say on pay" does not sufficiently reduce CEO compensation relative to that of other employees, "then we will do something more."

Don't be fooled by those who say they just want to give shareholders a say. The real issue is who has the right to decide how a business is run: its owners or "activists" who have seized the power of governmental coercion?

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand—author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Thursday, May 24, 2007

What to Do About Rising Gas Prices by Alex Epstein

Posted by ARI Media at 2:13 PM

With gasoline prices at their highest point in recent years, the knee-jerk response of many is to call 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, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand—author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Rachel Carson's Genocide by Keith Lockitch

Posted by ARI Media at 7:08 PM

On May 27, environmentalists will celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson, the founding mother of their movement.

But Carson's centenary is no cause for celebration. Her legacy includes more than a million deaths a year from the mosquito-borne disease malaria. Though nearly eradicated decades ago, malaria has resurged with a vengeance because DDT, the most effective agent of mosquito control, has been essentially discarded—discarded based not on scientific concerns about its safety, but on environmental dogma advanced by Carson.

The crusade against DDT began with Carson's antipesticide diatribe "Silent Spring," published in 1962 at the height of the worldwide antimalaria campaign. The widespread spraying of DDT had caused a spectacular drop in malaria incidence— Sri Lanka, for example, reported 2.8 million malaria victims in 1948, but by 1963 it had only 17. Yet Carson's book made no mention of this. It said nothing of DDT's crucial role in eradicating malaria in industrialized countries, or of the tens of millions of lives saved by its use.

Instead, Carson filled her book with misinformation—alleging, among other claims, that DDT causes cancer. Her unsubstantiated assertion that continued DDT use would unleash a cancer epidemic generated a panicked fear of the pesticide that endures as public opinion to this day.

But the scientific case against DDT was, and still is, nonexistent. Almost 60 years have passed since the malaria-spraying campaigns began—with hundreds of millions of people exposed to large concentrations of DDT—yet, according to international health scholar Amir Attaran, the scientific literature "has not even one peer reviewed, independently replicated study linking exposure to DDT with any adverse health outcome." Indeed, in a 1956 study, human volunteers ate DDT every day for over two years with no ill effects then or since.

Abundant scientific evidence supporting the safety and importance of DDT was presented during seven months of testimony before the newly formed EPA in 1971. The presiding judge ruled unequivocally against a ban. But the public furor against DDT—fueled by "Silent Spring" and the growing environmental movement—was so great that a ban was imposed anyway. The EPA administrator, who hadn't even bothered to attend the hearings, overruled his own judge and imposed the ban in defiance of the facts and evidence. And the 1972 ban in the United States led to an effective worldwide ban, as countries dependent on U.S.-funded aid agencies curtailed their DDT use to comply with those agencies' demands.

So if scientific facts are not what has driven the furor against DDT, what has? Estimates put today's malaria incidence worldwide at around 300 million cases, with a million deaths every year. If this enormous toll of human suffering and death is preventable, why do environmentalists—who profess to be the defenders of life—continue to oppose the use of DDT?

The answer is that environmental ideology values an untouched environment above human life. The root of the opposition to DDT is not science but the environmentalist moral premise that it is wrong for man to "tamper" with nature.

The large-scale eradication of disease-carrying insects epitomizes the control of nature by man. This is DDT's sin. To Carson and the environmentalists she inspired, "the 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy." Nature, they hold, is intrinsically valuable and must be kept free from human interference.

On this environmentalist premise the proper attitude to nature is not to seek to improve it for human benefit, but to show "humility" before its "vast forces" and leave it alone. We should seek, Carson wrote, not to eliminate malarial mosquitoes with pesticides, but to find instead "a reasonable accommodation between the insect hordes and ourselves." If the untouched, "natural" state is one in which millions contract deadly diseases, so be it.

Carson's current heirs agree. Earth First! founder Dave Foreman writes: "Ours is an ecological perspective that views Earth as a community and recognizes such apparent enemies as 'disease' (e.g., malaria) and 'pests' (e.g., mosquitoes) not as manifestations of evil to be overcome but rather as vital and necessary components of a complex and vibrant biosphere."

In the few minutes it has taken you to read this article, over a thousand people have contracted malaria and half a dozen have died. This is the life-or-death consequence of viewing pestilent insects as a "necessary" component of a "vibrant biosphere" and seeking a "reasonable accommodation" with them.

Rachel Carson's birthday should be commemorated, not with laudatory festivities, but with the rejection of the environmental ideology she inspired.

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."

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

The Writing Process: One Step at a Time

Posted by Lisa VanDamme at 1:35 PM

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (or NAEP), the average high school student is an incompetent writer. To evaluate their writing ability, testers asked high school juniors to write a paragraph based on notes they were given about a haunted house. The performance of half the students was judged to be either unsatisfactory or minimal. The following is a "minimal" response:

"The house with no windows. This is a house with dead-end hallways, 36 rooms and stairs leading to the cieling [sic]. Doorways go nowhere and all this to confuse ghosts."

This is the student's complete, word-for-word response-and represents the performance of nearly half of all eleventh graders. Most of the other half were evaluated as writing "adequate" paragraphs. Just two percent wrote something that was judged to be "elaborate," a step up from "adequate."

This explains why when Francisco LePort, one of my first students, started college at the age of 13, he was pulled aside by his humanities professor and asked, "Where did you learn to write so well?" In an age plagued by misguided efforts at preserving students' "self-esteem" (by leaving their mistakes uncorrected), classrooms bursting at the seams, teaching-to-the-standardized-test methods, and a disdain for the traditional, rigorous, academic approach to education, essay writing is simply not taught.

It is taught at VanDamme Academy. Our K-1 students learn to write complete, articulate, properly punctuated sentences; our lower elementary students learn to write coherent, grammatical, well-structured paragraphs; our upper elementary students learn to write clear, fluent, logical essays; and for our junior high students, who have been through this evolution, the writing process is second nature. That is why when a law professor evaluating the school for her children, after seeing samples of the junior high students' essays, asked whether she could photocopy them to show her law students what real writing looked like.

Those of us educated in a public school in the last few decades probably remember with a mutual shudder what it was like to face the blank sheet of paper. On those rare occasions that we were asked to do any writing, it was treated as an automatic or inborn skill. We were given a topic, an injunction to write about it, and that dreaded piece of paper, and at best managed to pour out a semi-coherent series of sentences loosely related to the assignment. That is why most of the parents of VanDamme Academy students confess, shame-faced, that they do not know how to write well, and then confess, amused, that they ask their children to proofread any letters they send to me.

At VanDamme Academy, writing is not crammed in with vocabulary, spelling, and literature under the heading of "English." Writing is its own course, and students have a daily opportunity to learn crucial writing skills.

The writing process is broken down into small, incremental steps learned, practiced, and mastered over the course of their nine years at the school. From learning what makes a sentence complete at the kindergarten level, to learning how to create the topic sentence of a paragraph at the elementary level, to learning when one has adequately supported an essay's theme at the junior high level-students build their writing skills methodically over many years.

When they begin to write essays, at about third or fourth grade, they are taught and asked to follow a deliberate sequence of steps in the writing process, and these steps are reviewed and supervised by the teacher along the way. First, they are asked to create a "laundry list" of points, in no particular order, that are related to the topic at hand. Then, they are asked to group these points into categories. Next, they are asked to formulate a theme for their essay, and to use that theme to identify which points from their laundry list are relevant and which can be discarded. Using the theme as a guide, they create an outline of sub-points to support the main idea. Then they write a rough draft of the essay using the outline as a blueprint. Finally, they reach the last three stages of the writing process: edit, edit, edit.

All of this is done in class, with the guidance and feedback of the teacher, over a course of weeks. It is this approach that led a former student of mine who, at her past school, had loathed writing, to become and eager and enthusiastic writer. "What changed?" her mother asked. She replied, "The teacher showed me how."

It is important that a child learn to write not just so that he can draft a compelling essay for his college applications or compose a persuasive cover letter for a resume. The repeated practice of a deliberate, structured, systematic approach to writing is critical for training students in a deliberate, structured, systematic approach to thinking. It is in writing class that they are asked to take the knowledge they have gained in other subject areas, contemplate it, organize their thoughts, and express their understanding with clarity and purposefulness. If we want students to develop clarity of thought on any issue, if we want them to harness the power of the knowledge they gain over the course of their education, they must learn, practice, and master the skill of writing.

Click here to sign up for the VanDamme Academy's free, weekly e-newsletter: "Pedagogically Correct." Every week, you will be sent a new article about the principles of teaching employed at VanDamme Academy, along with stories about the results they are achieving.

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Monday, May 21, 2007

What We Owe Our Soldiers by Alex Epstein

Posted by ARI Media at 9:50 PM

Every Memorial Day, we pay tribute to the American men and women who have died in combat. With speeches and solemn ceremonies, we recognize their courage and valor. But one fact goes unacknowledged in our Memorial Day tributes: 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 Memorial 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, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand—author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Study of Troops’ Mental Health, Ethics Indicts Bush’s Selfless War by Elan Journo

Posted by ARI Media at 2:30 PM

Irvine, CA—A recently disclosed Pentagon study on the impact of the Iraq war on U.S. combat troops suggests that many are stressed and hold views at odds with official ethics standards. Critics view this as evidence that more must be done to ensure troops comply with those standards. But in fact the study provides evidence for a searing indictment of Washington’s immoral battlefield policies—policies that entail the sacrifice of American troops for the sake of the enemy.  

The study reports, for example, that less than half of the soldiers and Marines surveyed would report a team member for unethical behavior. It also finds that “soldiers that have high levels of anger, experienced high levels of combat or screened positive for a mental health problem were nearly twice as likely to mistreat non-combatants” as those feeling less anger and screening negative for a mental health problem.  

Although many military personnel may support the Iraq war, and although war is inherently distressing, Washington’s immoral policies necessitate putting our troops in an impossible situation. The reported attitudes of combat troops in Iraq can be understood as the natural reaction of individuals thrust into that situation. 

U.S. troops were sent, not to defend America against whatever threat Hussein’s hostile regime posed to us, as a first step toward defeating our enemies in the region; but instead the troops were sent (as Bush explained) to “sacrifice for the liberty of strangers,” putting the lives of Iraqis above their own. Bush sent our troops to lift Iraq out of poverty, open new schools, fix up hospitals, feed the hungry, unclog sewers—a Peace Corps, not an army corps, mission. Consistent with that immoral goal, Washington enforced self-sacrificial rules of engagement that prevent our brave and capable forces from using all necessary force to win, or even to protect themselves: they are ordered not to bomb key targets such as power plants, and to avoid firing into mosques (where insurgents hide) lest we offend Muslim sensibilities.  

According to the report: "More than one-third of all Soldiers and Marines continue to report being in threatening situations where they were unable to respond due to the Rules of Engagement (ROE). In interviews, Soldiers reported that Iraqis would throw gasoline-filled bottles (i.e., Molotov cocktails) at their vehicles, yet they were prohibited from responding with force for nearly a month until the ROE were changed. Soldiers also reported they are still not allowed to respond with force when Iraqis drop large chunks of concrete blocks from second story buildings or overpasses on them when they drive by. Every group of Soldiers and Marines interviewed reported that they felt the existing ROE tied their hands, preventing them from doing what needed to be done to win the war."  

When being ethical on Washington’s terms means martyring oneself and one’s comrades, it is understandable that troops are disinclined to report "unethical" behavior. When they are in effect commanded to lay down their lives for hostile Iraqis, it is understandable that troops should feel anger and anxiety. Anger is a response to perceived injustice—and it is perversely unjust for the world’s most powerful military to send its personnel into combat, prevent them from doing their job—and expect them to die for the sake of the enemy. Our troops are put in the line of fire as sacrificial offerings—and it would be natural for an individual thrust into that position to rebel with indignation at such a fate.  

The study not only indicts the self-crippling rules of engagement that liberals and conservatives endorse; it brings to light the perversity of the moral code of self-sacrifice on which those rules of engagement are based. 

Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand—author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Rise and Fall of Property Rights in America

Posted by ARI Media at 2:41 PM

A Free Public Lecture by Adam Mossoff

When: Wednesday, May 16, 2007, 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM with Q & A from 8:30 to 9:30 (Bookstore opens: 6:30 PM)

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

Description: In today's America, our laws do little to protect U.S. property owners from either dictators abroad or government bureaucrats at home. 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?  This lecture will answer this question by tracing the rise and fall of property rights in America.  Professor Mossoff will first discuss the intellectual history of the right to property, explaining how the Founders turned seventeenth-century theory into eighteenth-century practice.  He then describes how early-twentieth-century Progressives sought to destroy the right to property in order to remove this fundamental obstacle to their implementing the modern regulatory and welfare state.  The result has been the disintegration of property rights at both the constitutional level and in basic legal protections.

Ultimately, the lesson to be learned is that a renaissance in the protection of property rights cannot occur solely through political or legal action—such a renaissance as its essential precondition requires the justification of property as a fundamental moral right.

Adam Mossoff is an associate professor of law at Michigan State University College of Law.  His work on topics in property theory, intellectual property law and jurisprudence has been widely published. He received a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, an M.A. in philosophy from Columbia University and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Michigan.

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

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Friday, May 11, 2007

Don't Extend the 'Hate Crime' Law---Abolish It

Posted by ARI Media at 3:02 AM

Irvine, CA—Last week the House passed a measure that extends the federal "hate crime" law to include attacks motivated by the victims' gender or sexual orientation.

"Congress should not extend the federal 'hate crime' law," said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "It should abolish the law.

"The government's job is to punish criminals for initiating force against other citizens; objective laws that ban the use of force and fraud are its means of doing so. But 'hate crime' laws undermine objective law at the root by punishing criminals, not for their actions, but for their ideas.

"According to 'hate crime' laws, a murderer deserves a greater punishment if his crime is motivated by an idea such as racism or sexism. If the government assumes the power to punish on the basis of 'unacceptable' ideas, it has assumed the power to exonerate and offer leniency to favored ideas. If anti-abortion religionists hold sway in government, on the premise of 'hate crime' laws, a zealous Christian who guns down an abortion doctor could receive a lighter sentence or be exonerated—on the grounds that such an act is evidence of noble 'idealism.'

"Once the government starts punishing criminals for acting on 'unacceptable ideas,' it has assumed the role of arbiter for which ideas are acceptable or not. If whoever wields power can shape the law to advance an ideological agenda, then it cannot be long before merely holding unorthodox or unconventional ideas becomes a crime that the government punishes.

"The government has no business punishing people for their ideas, no matter how repugnant. By demanding the government do precisely that, 'hate crime' laws threaten our freedom of thought—and undermine the system of objective law that protects it. Such laws should be abolished."

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Jamestown: Birthplace of America's Distinctive, Secular Ideal by Eric Daniels

Posted by ARI Media at 12:05 AM

On May 14, America will commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. The occasion provides us with an opportunity to understand and celebrate the distinctive, secular ideal underlying America's freedom and prosperity.

Although many Americans recognize that Jamestown was the first permanent English colony in North America (predating the Pilgrims and Puritans of Massachusetts by over a decade), too many mistakenly view the religious ethos of the New England colonies as the impetus for America's flourishing. But the religious colonists, whose moral outlook stands opposed to our ideals of intellectual and political liberty, merely transplanted Old World ideas to new soil. The New World that promised opportunity and progress had begun in Jamestown, where the defining spirit of American individualism was born.

The Jame