Principles in Practice: The Blog of the Objective Standard

Principles in Practice: August 2007

Thursday, August 30, 2007

The Road to 9/11: How America's Selfless Policies Unleashed the Jihadists

Posted by ARI Media at 7:51 PM

Who: Elan Journo, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk and Q & A on America's foreign policy

Where: Hilton Costa Mesa, 3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA 92626

When: September 10, 2007, at 7:30 PM

Admission is FREE.

Description: Six years after 9/11, the Bush administration's disastrous foreign policy has led many Americans to call for a supposedly "practical" alternative. To confront the threats from nuclear-weapons-chasing Iran and other aggressors, they say, we need a policy of diplomatic engagement and negotiation with hostile regimes. But what were the results when essentially the same policy was followed in the decades prior to 9/11? 

Was America's resolution of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis really a triumph of diplomacy? When Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death decree against author Salman Rushdie, for daring to offend Muslims, was our response one that we should emulate? Is it true that responding to aggression with "flexibility" and diplomatic talks will soften the aggressor and bring lasting peace, whereas retaliation only aggravates conflict?

What kind of foreign policy will protect the lives and freedom of Americans?

Tragically, argues Elan Journo, Americans have continually been offered a false alternative in foreign policy: self-sacrificing, "idealistic" policies (such as Bush's crusade) or unprincipled "practical" policies (such as appeasing Iran)--a choice between two fundamentally selfless, and thus self-destructive, approaches. What America needs instead is a practical, principled approach to foreign policy, one informed by Ayn Rand’s revolutionary morality of rational egoism.

Bio: Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute focusing on foreign policy. His articles have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times and the Objective Standard. He has lectured at college campuses and has given numerous radio interviews on  U.S. policy in the Middle East and on Islamic totalitarianism.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail events@aynrand.org.

###  ### ###

Elan Journo is available for interviews now and after his talk.
Contact: Larry Benson
E-mail: media@aynrand.org
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism's unique point of view, go to ARI's Web site at http://www.aynrand.org/. Founded in 1985 the Ayn Rand 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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Losing the 'War on Terror': The West's Failed Strategy of Compromise and Appeasement

Posted by ARI Media at 7:47 PM

A Free Public Lecture

What: A lecture and Q & A on the moral and strategic requirements for an American victory on the "War on Terror"

Who: Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute

When: Wednesday, September 12, 2007, at 7:00 p.m.

Where: Batelle-Tompkins Atrium, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC  20016

Directions: http://www.american.edu/perf_arts/facilities/atrium.htm

This event is free and open to the public and the media. 

Description: In 1953 America failed to defeat North Korea. In 1975 America left Vietnam, having given up Saigon to the North Vietnamese. And now, in 2007, after four and a half years in Iraq, Americans are demanding that we once again withdraw our troops. Six years after 9/11 we still face the threat of al-Qaeda--with no end to the "War on Terror" in sight. Why does America, which has the most powerful military in the world, lose wars? And how can we stop losing wars and start winning again, as we did in World War II? These are the questions that Dr. Brook will answer in his talk. He will argue that our war failures are caused by our moral failures and lack of self-esteem, which result in self-defeating war strategies. To stop losing wars, America needs to undergo a moral revolution. It needs to reject self-sacrifice and failure, and adopt self-interest and victory. 

Bio: Dr. Brook is the president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. He lectures on Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, business ethics and foreign policy at colleges, community groups and corporations throughout the world. His articles have appeared in academic business journals, magazines and popular newspapers, including USA Today. He is the co-author of "'Just War Theory' vs. American Self-Defense," published in the spring 2006 issue of The Objective Standard. His numerous media appearances include interviews on On the Money (CNBC) and The O'Reilly Factor (Fox News Channel).

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

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Exploit the Earth or Die

Posted by Craig Biddle at 1:59 PM

Exploit the Earth or die. It’s not a threat. It’s a fact. Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.

The fact annoys some people. But it shouldn’t: Hence our “Exploit the Earth or Die” campaign.

Place an EED banner on your blog or website; wear an EED T-shirt; drink from an EED mug. The good guys will smile. The bad guys will snarl. And the battle for civilization and against “environmentalism” will be brought to the fundamental alternative whereupon the matter ultimately must be decided: life or death.

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Monday, August 27, 2007

The Real Lesson of World War II

Posted by ARI Media at 10:17 PM

Irvine, Calif.—In a recent speech at the Foreign Wars National Convention, President Bush defended the Iraq war, comparing it to America's actions in Japan following World War II. He argued that by sacrificing the lives of American soldiers in order to bring freedom to Japan, we were able to turn the Japanese into friends and allies; by doing the same in Iraq, we will ensure that the Iraqis one day become allies as well.

But according to Dr. Yaron Brook, "President Bush is twisting history to defend his immoral war. The real lesson of World War II is that American self-defense requires crushing and demoralizing the enemy so that it is non-threatening—not sacrificing the wealth and lives of Americans in order to spread "democracy" and make hostile nations like us.

"The goal of World War II was not Japanese freedom—it was the unconditional surrender of the Japanese war machine. To achieve that goal, America unleashed its full military might against Japan, smashing its infrastructure, and killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese, military and civilian. And because the Japanese had been thoroughly defeated, U.S. troops faced no Japanese insurgency.  America's goal in setting the terms and guiding the creation of a new state was to ensure that defeated Japan remained non-threatening to Americans; the goal was not a selfless mission to serve the needs of the Japanese people.

"President Bush has rejected the lessons of World War II and the goal of U.S. security. Instead of eliminating the threat from states that support the cause of Islamic totalitarianism—particularly its main sponsors in Iran and Saudi Arabia—he sent Americans on a mission to bring the vote to secular Iraq. Instead of crushing and demoralizing our enemies, Bush made our top priority protecting Iraqi civilians, Iraqi infrastructure, and Iraqi religious shrines—sacrificing American troops to that end. Instead of demanding that Iraqis embrace a pro-Western and, thus, non-threatening government, President Bush declared that they have the right to elect a government of their choosing—including a hostile, Islamic state.

"President Bush is wrong. American security does not depend on bringing elections to the Middle East—it depends on making hostile regimes in the  Middle East non-threatening. To achieve that, we need a real war. Not one that substitutes the goal of defeating the enemy with a self-sacrificial crusade for democracy, but one that places no purpose higher than American self-defense. A war like World War II."

Dr. Brook discusses this issue in greater depth in "'Forward Strategy' for Failure," an essay co-written by ARI junior fellow Elan Journo. The essay was published in the Spring 2007 issue of The Objective Standard, and is available here.

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

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Saturday, August 25, 2007

Regarding the Economic Costs of my Proposed Campaign against Iran

Posted by Craig Biddle at 1:45 PM

Dear Craig,

Thank you for this article on your blog, which I very much enjoyed, especially your "Mafia hitmen" analogy.

In your article, you state "The way to accomplish [Iran's defeat] is by waging a massive bombing campaign from high altitude and long distance—and by sustaining this campaign until the Iranian regime is no more. (American soldiers should not be sent in on foot, except as necessary to identify targets or gather intelligence.)"

Obviously, I agree that we must win an overwhelming military victory over Iran in order to end the threat of Islamic totalitarianism. However, I'm not sure this can be done without considerable numbers of American soldiers on the ground there. A long-range bombing at this point would cause oil prices to skyrocket, which could drive Western economies from their current slight unease into a full-blown recession. It seems to me we would be shooting ourselves in the foot, so to speak.

Of course there is much else we should do about this problem, such as abolishing the government controls responsible for our current economic malaise, and allowing drilling of the oil reserves in Alaska—but even if we did all that, our dependence on Middle Eastern oil would still continue for months or years, and we might not have that long to act against Iran.

My question is: wouldn't U.S. troops be needed to take control of the Iranian oil fields and secure the supply lines to the West? Shouldn't we do this in any case to pay for the war, especially given the fact that the oil was stolen from Western oil companies in the first place?

Perhaps you can see a flaw in my analysis, but it strikes me as a possible objection to your position on Iran.

Warm regards,

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Thank you for your excellent question.

Yes, the campaign I propose would cause oil prices to spike, but the spike would be just that: a high but short-lived increase.

We exist in a causal environment: Choices have consequences; values entail costs; we have to pay for what we want and what we do. America has for decades evaded the facts concerning Iran and the Middle East; this evasion is what created the current situation—which America must now pay a price to resolve. Should we pay the price with American money—or with the lives of American soldiers?

The life of one American soldier is worth more than any economic costs my proposed campaign would impose on America.

Further, there are ways to spread the costs of the war among others who are responsible for our having to wage it. For instance, as I said in point 5 of "How to Solve America's Terrorism Problem in 5 Easy Steps," after we take out the Iranian regime, we should:

5. Notify the regime in Saudi Arabia that it got lucky and has the option of not being obliterated; that we are prepared instead to seize “its” oil fields and sell them to private industry, in part to pay for the campaign against Iran, and in part to return the fields to private industry where they belong; that it has 24 hours to turn the fields over to our agents; and that if it fails to comply or ignites the fields or does anything to thwart our program, its leaders, like those of Iran, will meet Allah sooner than later.

If we did this—and if we opened ANWR for drilling, and freed American producers to build nuclear reactors, and the like—we would be back on our economic feet in short order.

The solution to our problem is not to sacrifice American soldiers to pay for our prior sins; the solution is to stop sinning and to start thinking and acting selfishly.

Best regards,

Craig

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Friday, August 24, 2007

Stop Playing Games with the Rights of Parents

Posted by ARI Media at 1:54 PM

Irvine, CA—A federal judge recently struck down as unconstitutional a California bill that would have criminalized selling or renting "excessively violent" video games to minors. A spokesman for Calif. state Sen. Leland Yee, who helped draft the legislation, defended the bill saying: "We prohibit children from smoking. We regulate driver's licenses. We prohibit alcohol. We prohibit lots of things from children, and we think it's logical that kids should not be able to purchase these games on their own." Similar bills have been passed or are being considered in many other states.

But according to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute: "Protecting children from violent video games is the job of parents, not politicians.

"A violent video game is not a physical threat to a child. Like a book or a movie, its effects are intellectual—it depicts words and actions that communicate certain ideas and values. As with adults, the government's only proper function is to protect children from physical force. Just as it has no business deciding what ideas and values adults should be exposed to, so it has no business deciding what ideas and values children should be exposed to. That is a judgment that only parents have a right to make. Parents have the right—and the responsibility—to judge the messages about violence conveyed by a particular video game and to decide what messages about violence their children may be exposed to. While the government has a right to restrict a minor's ability to purchase physically dangerous items, such as alcohol or explosives, it has no right to stop him from buying a video game.

"The ultimate result of video game bans would be to establish a dangerous precedent: that the government should have the power to decide what ideas children may be exposed to. If it can ban selling video games to children on the basis of the ideas those games convey, then why not books, movies, television shows, and works of art? If it can condemn certain ideas about violence as 'unacceptable' for children, then why not ideas about religion, or politics, or morality? And if it can punish retail clerks for transmitting these 'unacceptable' ideas to children, then why not parents as well?

"Parents properly want to shield their children from the gratuitous violence so common in today's video games. But we must not allow power-hungry politicians to use that desire as a pretense for usurping the rights of parents to oversee the intellectual upbringing of their children."

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

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Thursday, August 23, 2007

The Bush Administration's Latest Deadly Evasion

Posted by Craig Biddle at 9:44 AM

The Bush administration’s plan to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization is worse than a waste of time: It is an outright evasion of the Iranian assault on America.

There is a good reason why the New York City Police Department does not make official pronouncements to the effect that Mafia hitmen are murderers: Everyone knows that Mafia hitmen are murderers. There would be no point in making such a declaration—unless, of course, the NYPD wanted to hype the significance of the hitmen so as to avoid having to deal with the real problem: the Mafia.

Of course the Iranian Guard is a terrorist organization; the very state that founded and employs it is a terrorist state—and every thinking person on the planet knows this. So why is the Bush administration engaging in such folly? The stated rationale is that by officially designating the Iranian Guard a terrorist organization, we will dissuade foreign firms and financial institutions from doing business with the organization. The problem with this rationale is (among other things) that it blatantly ignores the identity of our enemy.

Just as our enemy in World War II was not the German Navy but the Nazi regime, so our enemy here is not the Iranian Guard but the Iranian regime—a regime that has murdered or aided in the murder of thousands of Americans—a regime whose political and spiritual leaders chant every day about their desire to murder more Americans—a regime that is working around the clock to build or buy nuclear weapons. Yes, the Guard is a major part of the regime’s military, but, as such, it is a part of the regime—not a separate and distinct enemy. To treat the Guard as though it were an enemy apart from the Iranian regime is to pretend that the regime itself is not our enemy—and thus to evade the necessity of eliminating it.

The solution to the problem of Iran’s aggression against America is not economic pressure on a portion of its military, but the swift and total destruction of everything that enables the Iranian regime to exist: its military installations, assets, and personnel (including the Guard); its government buildings and political officials; its mosques, madrassahs (colleges in which students are trained to be Islamists), mullahs, and clerics. The way to accomplish this goal is by waging a massive bombing campaign from high altitude and long distance—and by sustaining this campaign until the Iranian regime is no more. (American soldiers should not be sent in on foot, except as necessary to identify targets or gather intelligence. And, as always, the deaths of all innocents in such a campaign are solely the responsibility of the force-initiating regime that necessitated the retaliatory measures.)

Why does the Bush administration ignore such an elementary solution? Why does it refuse to employ our advanced weaponry and eliminate the Iranian regime? Because the only possible motive for such a campaign is American self-interest, and, according to the Judeo-Christian ethic—the moral code that guides the Bush administration—self-interest is immoral.

Therein lies the obstacle.

We cannot support a foreign policy of self-defense apart from a morality of self-interest; the former is wholly an expression of the latter. In order for the U.S. government to engage in a campaign of American self-defense, American citizens—those who elect and influence our country’s leadership—must demand it. And in order to demand such a campaign, Americans must come to understand and embrace the principle that acting in a self-interested manner—which means: using reason to identify, pursue, and defend the values on which their life, liberty, and happiness depend—is the essence of being moral. The observation-based, logical proof of this principle, for those willing to let the evidence decide the matter, can be found in Ayn Rand’s book The Virtue of Selfishness.

The Iranian regime is tirelessly plotting to murder you, me, our children, our families, and our friends. Every literate American knows this (even the ones who deny it). But under the spell of America’s current moral premises, we will not defend ourselves; we will not destroy the Iranian regime; and we will pay dearly, again and again. It is time to abandon the self-sacrificial guidance of the Judeo-Christian ethic and its corresponding foreign policy of paralysis. It is time to embrace the morality of self-interest and its corresponding foreign policy of self-defense. Our lives and the lives of our loved ones depend on it.

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Monday, August 20, 2007

Multiculturalism's War on Education by Elan Journo

Posted by ARI Media at 3:14 PM

Back to school nowadays means back to classrooms, lessons and textbooks permeated by multiculturalism and its championing of "diversity." Many parents and teachers regard multiculturalism as an indispensable educational supplement, a salutary influence that "enriches" the curriculum. But is it?

With the world's continents bridged by the Internet and global commerce, multiculturalism claims to offer a real value: a cosmopolitan, rather than provincial, understanding of the world beyond the student's immediate surroundings. But it is a peculiar kind of "broadening." Multiculturalists would rather have students admire the primitive patterns of Navajo blankets, say, than learn why Islam's medieval golden age of scientific progress was replaced by fervent piety and centuries of stagnation.

Leaf through a school textbook and you'll find that there is a definite pattern behind multiculturalism's reshaping of the curriculum. What multiculturalists seek is not the goal they advertise, but something else entirely. Consider, for instance, the teaching of history.

One text acclaims the inhabitants of West Africa in pre-Columbian times for having prosperous economies and for establishing a university in Timbuktu; but it ignores their brutal trade in slaves and the proliferation of far more consequential institutions of learning in Paris, Oxford and elsewhere in Europe. Some books routinely lionize the architecture of the Aztecs, but purposely overlook or underplay the fact that they practiced human sacrifices. A few textbooks seek to portray Islam as peaceful in part by presenting the concept of "jihad" ("sacred war") to mean an internal struggle to surmount temptation and evil, while playing down Islam's actual wars of religious conquest.

What these textbooks reveal is a concerted effort to portray the most backward, impoverished and murderous cultures as advanced, prosperous and life-enhancing. Multiculturalism's goal is not to teach about other cultures, but to promote—by means of distortions and half-truths—the notion that non-Western cultures are as good as, if not better than, Western culture. Far from "broadening" the curriculum, what multiculturalism seeks is to diminish the value of Western culture in the minds of students. But, given all the facts, the objective superiority of Western culture is apparent, so multiculturalists must artificially elevate other cultures and depreciate the West.

If students were to learn the truth of the hardscrabble life of primitive farming in, say, India, they would recognize that subsistence living is far inferior to life on any mechanized farm in Kansas, which demands so little manpower, yet yields so much. An informed, rational student would not swallow the "politically correct" conclusions he is fed by multiculturalism. If he were given the actual facts, he could recognize that where men are politically free, as in the West, they can prosper economically; that science and technology are superior to superstition; that man's life is far longer, happier and safer in the West today than in any other culture in history.

The ideals, achievements and history of Western culture in general—and of America in particular—are therefore purposely given short-shrift by multiculturalism. That the Industrial Revolution and the Information Age were born and flourished in Western nations; that the preponderance of Nobel prizes in science have been awarded to people in the West—such facts, if they are noted, are passed over with little elaboration.

The "history" that students do learn is rewritten to fit multiculturalism's agenda. Consider the birth of the United States. Some texts would have children believe the baseless claim that America's Founders modeled the Constitution on a confederation of Indian tribes. This is part of a wider drive to portray the United States as a product of the "convergence" of three traditions—native Indian, African and European. But the American republic, with an elected government limited by individual rights, was born not of stone-age peoples, but primarily of the European Enlightenment. It is a product of the ideas of thinkers like John Locke, a British philosopher, and his intellectual heirs in colonial America, such as Thomas Jefferson. 

It is a gross misconception to view multiculturalism as an effort to enrich education. By reshaping the curriculum, the purveyors of "diversity" in the classroom calculatedly seek to prevent students from grasping the objective value to human life of Western culture—a culture whose magnificent achievements have brought man from mud huts to moon landings. 

Multiculturalism is no boon to education, but an agent of anti-Western ideology.

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 © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Saturday, August 11, 2007

The Deadly FDA

Posted by ARI Media at 9:28 AM

Irvine, CA—The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently ruled that terminally ill patients do not have a right to take medicines that have not been approved by the FDA.

"Barring individuals from choosing what medicines to take is immoral and destructive," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

"The decision about what drugs to put in one's body rightfully belongs to each individual, not to FDA bureaucrats. To deny individuals this right is to impose a death sentence on those who, in the face of certain death, would rationally choose to accept the risks of an experimental treatment, but are barred from doing so until the urgently needed drug completes the FDA's onerous, years-long approval process. Indeed, this case was initiated by a group founded by the father of a girl who died after she was denied access to an experimental anti-cancer drug the FDA later approved.

"Individuals, in consultation with their doctors, should be free to assess the evidence of a drug's effectiveness and safety, taking into account their own personal context (such as their unique risk factors, or the fact that they are certain to die without the treatment). Some people may take ineffective or harmful drugs, but FDA approval does not eliminate such risks. The individual always assumes some level of risk when deciding on a course of treatment, and it is capricious—and too often deadly—for the FDA to usurp the individual's right to decide which risks it is in his interest to accept.

"Some claim that, freed from the necessity of gaining FDA approval for new medicines, 'greedy' drug companies will sell ineffective and dangerous drugs. But a company that sells such drugs is only ensuring its own financial destruction. And if a company knowingly misleads the public about a drug's safety or reliability, or is negligent in putting a dangerous drug on the market, it should properly be prosecuted. The solution is not to give FDA bureaucrats the power to condemn sick people to certain death.

"Some claim that allowing individuals to take unapproved drugs will make effective clinical testing impossible, since, as they say, no rational person would willingly submit to the double-blind, randomized tests that are currently used in clinical trials required by the FDA. In such tests, some of the participants are unknowingly given a placebo, which, it's said, no one would chance if he could ensure that he received the drug by paying for it. But, contrary to those who make this argument, individuals are not lab rats who may be blackmailed by the government into becoming test subjects. It is chilling that defenders of the FDA's current trial system are, in effect, advocating as an incentive to take part in such trials: 'join or die.'

"Moreover, such twisted ultimatums are not necessary in order to make effective drug research possible. Were individuals free to take untested medicines, new incentives to take part in clinical trials would surely arise, such as, for instance, an offer of free treatment to those who choose to take part—an inestimable value to people unable to afford the drugs.

"Anyone who values human life, and the freedom of judgment required to maintain it, should oppose this disgraceful ruling—and demand an end to the unnecessary deaths caused by FDA drug regulations."

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

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Thursday, August 09, 2007

'Open-Access' vs. Freedom in the Wireless Industry

Posted by ARI Media at 3:05 PM

Irvine, CA—As the FCC prepares to auction off valuable wireless spectrum, potential bidders, including Google, are demanding that the agency impose strict requirements on how any purchased spectrum be used. Google, for example, is demanding so-called open access provisions, which would force any spectrum owner to make his bandwidth available to any device or software application, and force him to resell portions of his bandwidth on a wholesale basis.

"These demands by Google and others, some of which have recently been granted by the FCC, constitute a complete power grab and are completely antithetical to freedom in the wireless industry," said Alex Epstein, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.

"Under a free market approach, the business that is willing to pay the most for spectrum should be free to employ whatever business model it chooses—and succeed or fail accordingly. If Google is confident that its preferred "open access," "dumb pipe" business model would be most appealing to potential customers, then it is welcome to outbid the competition and try to make money from it. But neither Google nor the FCC has any legitimate right to dictate to other companies, who have invested billions upon billions in wireless infrastructure and may favor other business models, how they may use their purchased spectrum.

"Unfortunately, dictating the practices of cell phone companies, radio stations, and television stations, and others is the MO of the FCC—which has the power to coerce media producers in the "public interest." Since there is no such entity as "the public," what this means in practice is that the interests and freedom of some producers (like Verizon) are sacrificed for the sake of others (like Google).

"It is time to replace the FCC's wireless regime of pressure group warfare and dictator-regulators with a truly free wireless market, in which any company is free to offer any type of product package it chooses."

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

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Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Pharmaceutical Price Controls: A Prescription for Disaster

Posted by ARI Media at 7:06 PM

Irvine, CA—The prices of many U.S.-made prescription drugs are lower in places such as Canada, Australia, and Europe than in the United States. In order to allow Americans to take advantage of these lower prices, the House recently passed a bill that would permit the re-importation of these cheaper drugs to the U.S.

But according to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "The supporters of this measure fail to ask one crucial question: why do prescription drugs cost so much less in other countries?

"The answer is that, unlike the U.S., countries such as Canada impose price controls on prescription drugs, forcing drug companies that want to do business there to sell their products for less than they would in a free market. Drug re-importation schemes, like the one passed by the House, are in effect 'back-door' price controls. They enable Americans to buy the foreign price-controlled drugs at a lower price than their U.S. counterparts—just as if the U.S. government itself had capped prescription drug prices.

"But price controls violate the rights of drug makers. Neither the Canadian government nor the American government has a right to tell drug makers what prices they may charge for their products.

"Proponents of prescription drug price controls claim they are necessary in order to protect consumers from 'excessive' drug prices. But if a consumer determines that a drug price is 'excessive,' he already can protect himself—by refusing to buy the drug. He has no right to buy the drug for less than the drug company is willing to sell it, anymore than he has a right to buy a car for less than a car dealer is willing to charge.

"Indeed, the ultimate result of forcing drug makers to offer their products for less is to ensure that fewer such products are available. As with any commodity, price controls lead inevitably to shortages, as it becomes unprofitable for companies to produce enough drugs to meet the rising demand created by the artificially low price. And such controls hamper the creation of new life-saving medicines, as drug companies find it less profitable to invest the millions upon millions of dollars necessary to discover new drugs and bring them to the market.

"The sole reason Canada has been able to institute its price controls without severely hampering the discovery and production of prescription drugs is because it is 'free riding' on the backs of Americans. It is only because the American market is free from price controls that drug companies are able to recoup their enormous R&D costs, and thus find it profitable to sell additional units of the drugs at a lower cost in other, price-controlled countries. Should America impose price controls either directly or by proxy, the house of cards will collapse.

"We should protect the rights of pharmaceutical companies—and the welfare of consumers—and demand an end to price controls, direct and indirect."

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

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The Saudi Arms Deal and Our Addiction to American Sacrifice

Posted by ARI Media at 1:47 PM

Irvine, CA—The Bush administration is asking Congress to approve a $20 billion arms sales package to Saudi Arabia, with the justification that a better-armed Saudi Arabia may serve as a "counterbalance" to the threat posed to us by Iran.

"This is absurd," said Alex Epstein, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. "The administration has been telling us that we must forgo oil for more costly fuels because our 'addiction to oil' helps finance hostile Middle East regimes—among them Saudi Arabia, which has spent almost $100 billion spreading the terrorists' ideology of Islamic Totalitarianism. And yet at the same time that our leaders demand that we sacrifice oil-consumption for the sake of protection from the Saudis, they are arming the Saudis to the teeth.

"What explains this blatant contradiction? While one might attribute it to simple hypocrisy, the Bush Administration is in fact being consistent. In response to both the Saudi threat and the Iranian threat, our response is not self-assertion, but self-sacrifice. When Saudi Arabia spreads a terrorist ideology around the world, we do not punish that regime, we punish ourselves by rejecting the lifeblood of our civilization. And when Iran unleashes even more terrorist aggression, we do not destroy that regime, we imperil ourselves by arming our Saudi enemies and hoping it will somehow protect us. Indeed, the same pattern has been at work in the Iraq fiasco; to the extent the Hussein regime was a threat to us, we did not simply use our military to end it, but instead set out to sacrifice American money and lives to bring the good life to the hostile tribal Iraqis.

"The pattern here follows a definite principle; America has no right to use its unmatched military might for its own sake—it is duty-bound to sacrifice its soldiers, money, and self-defense.

"America, the most moral and most powerful nation on earth, has both the right and the ability to end state sponsorship of terrorism. But we will not be able to do so until we abandon our addiction, not to oil, but to the morality of self-sacrifice."

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

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Wednesday, August 01, 2007

U.S. Negotiates with Iran, Iran Wins

Posted by ARI Media at 11:03 PM

Irvine, CA—Recent talks between Iran and the United States resulted in an agreement to hold further talks and create a "subcommittee" to deal with Iraqi security. For America and Iran, this outcome is seen as a qualified success, promising mutual advantages.

"But these talks are an unqualified success for Iran," said Elan Journo, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. 

" Iran is the flagrant aggressor—in its backing of Iraqi insurgents who murder American troops and in its decades-long terror war on America and the West. Iran helps fuel the hellish chaos in Iraq—it is the self-righteous arsonist that U.S. diplomats absurdly hope to recruit as a fire-fighter. These talks grant Iran an undeserved moral legitimacy as a civilized, peace-seeking regime. Iran's hostile goals—'death to America'—and its murder of our citizens are made to seem reasonable differences of opinion. Iran is elevated to an equal moral footing with its victims.

"Since Teheran knows its hostility will be met with words and bribes, rather than punished with bombs, it has nothing to fear from continuing its aggression. Indeed, as the U.S. ambassador to Iran stated: 'over the roughly two months since our last meetings, we have actually seen militia-related activity that can be attributed to Iranian support go up, and not down.'

"That Iran feels it has a free hand to unleash its wrath on U.S. troops in Iraq—and broadly, to continue its other aggressive goals, such as acquiring nuclear weapons—is the inevitable result of such appeasing negotiations. For the United States merely to recognize Iran as worthy of negotiations—let alone offer it bribes—is a moral capitulation."

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

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Income Inequality Is Good

Posted by ARI Media at 6:12 PM

Irvine, CA—Democratic and Republican candidates for President are debating one another on nearly every issue—but nearly all are united on one thing: America faces a crisis of "income inequality."

But, said Alex Epstein, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, "there is no such crisis. Income inequality is a natural and desirable part of a free, prosperous society.

"Critics of income inequality act as if American wealth is a communal pie that belongs equally to all of us. But the vast wealth that exists in America has been created—through the productive activities and voluntary arrangements of individuals. And individuals do not necessarily create the same amount of wealth. Because all wealth is created, it rightly belongs to those who earn it (or their chosen beneficiaries)—and no one can rightly claim to deserve wealth earned by others.

"Critics of income inequality point to some legitimate problems, such as poor educational opportunities, growing healthcare costs, and stagnating wages—but these are the result, not of too much capitalism, but of government policies based on the same egalitarian mentality that denounces 'income inequality.' If business and wages were deregulated, we would see a dramatic rise in economic opportunity. If education and medicine were left free, with America's businessmen, doctors, and educators liberated to offer education and medicine at all different price points, we would see quality and price improvements like those for computers or flat-panel television sets. But these benefits of freedom require that we recognize the moral right of each individual to enjoy whatever he produces—and recognize that none of us has a right to something for nothing."

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

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$31,000 to Winners of 'Fountainhead' Essay Contest

Posted by ARI Media at 6:10 PM

Irvine, CA—High school senior Rituparna Basu, from Landsdale, PA, is the winner of the Ayn Rand Institute's annual "Fountainhead" essay contest, for which she received a prize of $10,000.

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

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

Second-Prize Winners ($2,000):

Edward Larkin, 12th Grade, Lansing Catholic High School, Lansing, MI
Madison Fitzpatrick, 12th Grade, North Springs High School, Atlanta, GA
Caroline Gorman, 12th Grade, Coronado High School, El Paso, TX
Trenton Morrow, 12th Grade, Parkview Magnet High School, Little Rock, AR
Austin Case, 12th Grade, Eastern Regional High School, Voorhees, NJ

Third-Prize Winners ($1,000):

Matthew Daley, 12th Grade, Georgetown High School, Georgetown, TX
Hannah Thurman, 12th Grade, William G. Enloe High School, Raleigh, NC
Michelle Alaya, 12th Grade, Sam Rayburn High School, Pasadena, TX
Jennifer Hall, 11th Grade, Santiago High School, Corona, CA
Jason Merritt, 12th Grade, Pine View School, Osprey, FL
Stephen Miller, 12th Grade, Escondido Charter High School, Escondido, CA
Nayantara Bhushsan, 11th Grade, La Reina High School, Thousand Oaks, CA
Ming Tseng, 12th Grade, Hunter College High School, New York, NY
Preston Montano, 12th Grade, Greeley West High School, Greeley, CO
Frances Mallari, 12th Grade, Holy Spirit High School, Abescon, NJ
Douglas Laskowske, 12th Grade, Mindanao International Christian Academy, Philippines

===

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

Since 1985 a total of more than 140,000 high school students from around the world have entered ARI essay contests. This year, more than 7,000 students submitted their essays on "The Fountainhead."

Each year ARI awards more than $57,000 in prizes and has given away more than a half a million dollars to contest winners during the past 20 years.

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

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

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$6,500 to Winners of 'Anthem' Essay Contest

Posted by ARI Media at 6:07 PM

Irvine, CA—High school freshman, Denise Orthner, from Hammonton, NJ, is the winner of the Ayn Rand Institute's 12th annual "Anthem" essay contest, for which she received a prize of $2,000.

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

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

Second-Prize Winners ($500):

Annemarie Ryu, 10th Grade, Mayo High School, Rochester, MN
Harrison Falk, 9th Grade, Duluth High School, Duluth, GA
Sophie Arlow, 10th Grade, The Overlake School, Redmond, WA
Megan Arkenberg, 10th Grade, Germantown High School, Germantown, WI
Nick Kowalczyk, 10th Grade, Crown Point High School, Crown Point, IN

Third-Prize Winners ($200):
 
Angela Fu, 10th Grade, Irvine High School, Irvine, CA
Benjamin Dong, 10th Grade, Irvine High School, Irvine, CA
Renee Bruner, 10th Grade, Cypress Creek High School, Houston, TX
Elisabeth Burns, 10th Grade, Dobyns-Bennett High School, Kingsport, TN
Stephanie Gonzalez, 10th Grade, Douglas MacArthur High School, San Antonio, TX
Victor Bartash, 10th Grade, Wall High School, Wall, NJ
Stephanie Aldrich, 10th Grade, Worcester Academy, Worcester, MA
William McChesney, 10th Grade, Paul M. Dorman High School, Roebuck, SC
Angela Li, 9th Grade, Cypress Falls High School, Houston, TX
Kelsey Lay, 10th Grade, Hamilton High School, Hamilton, IL

===

First published in 1938, "Anthem" depicts a collectivist dictatorship in a future in which the word "I" has vanished, and how a lone dissident discovers the lost word's spiritual meaning.

Since 1985 a total of more than 140,000 high school students from around the world have entered ARI essay contests. This year, more than 14,000 students submitted their essays to the "Anthem" contest.

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

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

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