The Objective Standard Blog
The Objective Standard Blog
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Spring Issue of TOS
The print edition of the Spring issue of TOS is at press and will be mailed shortly; the online version will be accessible to subscribers beginning March 20; and the Kindle edition will be delivered to Kindle subscribers on March 30. For promotional purposes, we are making Steve Simpson’s article “Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech in America” available on our website early and for free.
The contents of the Spring issue are:
ARTICLES
Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech in America by Steve Simpson
Government-Run Health Care vs. the Hippocratic Oath
by Paul HsiehThe Virtue of Treating People Like Animals: Why Human Health Care Should Mirror Veterinary Health Care
by Sarah GelbergThe Practicality of Private Waterways
by J. Brian Phillips and Alan GermaniNorman Borlaug: The Man Who Taught People To Feed Themselves
by Audra HilseMaking Life Meaningful: Living Purposefully
by Craig BiddleBOOKS REVIEWED
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Reviewed by Heike LarsonWinning the Unwinnable War edited by Elan Journo
Reviewed by Grant W. JonesWhy Are Jews Liberals? by Norman Podhoretz
Reviewed by Gideon ReichCapitalism Unbound by Andrew Bernstein
Reviewed by Ari ArmstrongEssays on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged edited by Robert Mayhew
Reviewed by Daniel WahlThe Sparrowhawk Series by Edward Cline
Reviewed by Dina Schein FedermanBorn to Run by Christopher McDougall
Reviewed by Daniel WahlYour Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
Reviewed by David H. MirmanNewton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl
If you have not yet subscribed to TOS, why not do so today? You can subscribe online or by calling 800-423-6151.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Foreign Policy and War, Healthcare, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion, Science and Technology, The Arts
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Citizens United and the Future of Campaign Finance Law
From the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights:
Citizens United and the Future of Campaign Finance Law
A Panel Debate in Washington, D.C.
Who: Steve Simpson, Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Eric Daniels, Research Assistant Professor, Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism
Tara Malloy, Associate Legal Counsel, The Campaign Legal Center
Doug Kendall, Founder and President, Constitutional Accountability Center (Invited)
Moderator: Tom Bowden, Analyst, Ayn Rand Center for Individual RightsWhat: A panel discussion on campaign finance laws.
Where: 722 12th Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20005 (Americans for Tax Reform's event room)
When: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at Noon (lunch to follow)
Description: We invite you to join us for an engaging discussion on one of the most important and controversial campaign finance decisions in decades. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court held that corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money on speech during elections. Critics view Citizens United as a striking example of judicial activism that will unleash a flood of corporate money in elections. Defenders view it as a ringing endorsement of First Amendment rights. All agree that it will have a significant impact on campaign finance laws. Please join our panel of experts for a vigorous discussion and debate about this important ruling.
Admission: FREE. Open to the public.
RSVP: Please email Krissy Keys at the Institute for Justice at kkeys@ij.org by Friday, March 12th.
Sponsors:
Institute for Justice
Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
Labels: Announcements, Events, Individual Rights and Law
George and Sharlee McNamee Fight to Keep Their Own Back Yard
From FOXNews:
George and Sharlee McNamee have a beautiful home, an ocean view and a bounty of children and grandchildren who invade their house every weekend. The breeze is fresh, the view is stunning and retired life in Corona Del Mar, Calif., is good.
But the McNamees wake up every morning fighting for their rights. In this case, the freedom to use a picnic table, shed and shower in their own backyard.
"We fight for two reasons, property rights and freedom," says George McNamee, a silver-haired former insurance salesman. "My wife and I decided a long time ago, those two things matter. Without that, there isn't much left."
For the last decade, the McNamees' backyard has been a battlefield. The retired couple has spent $250,000 in legal fees protecting amenities worth little more than $100.
Those numbers are shocking, but not to those who know the regulatory reach and zeal of the California Coastal Commission, which claims that items in the couple's backyard—the picnic table, a thatched palapa, a shower and barbecue—are illegal. Failure to remove them results in a fine—and that fine is $6,000 per day. . . .
For background on this horror story and on the tyrannical nature of the California Coastal Commission, read Paul Beard’s article “The California Coastal Commission: A Case Study in Governmental Assault on Property Rights,” which is now accessible for free. And please send these links to everyone you know who cares about property rights. Your property could be next.
Labels: Individual Rights and Law
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Capitalism: The Only Moral Social System
Craig Biddle will be delivering his talk “Capitalism: The Only Moral Social System” at the following universities next week:
- February 22, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Grainger Hall, Morgridge Auditorium (Room 1100) [map] 7:00pm
- February 23, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Willey Hall, Room 125 [map] 7:30pm
- February 24, Ohio State University, Wexner Center for the Arts, Performance Space [map] 6:00pm
- February 25, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Physics Building, Room 204 [map] 7:00pm
Admission is FREE and open to the public.
Description: Capitalism is widely recognized as the practical social system because, wherever and to the extent that it is implemented, it leads to wealth and prosperity. But this same system is widely regarded as immoral because it enables people to act fully in their own self-interest—that is, to act on their own judgment and to keep, use, and dispose of the product of their own effort. In this talk, Mr. Biddle demonstrates why, far from making capitalism immoral, the fact that it enables everyone to act selfishly and own property is what makes it not only the most practical but also the only moral social system ever devised.
Image: Wiki Commons
Labels: Announcements, Business and Economics, Events, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Altruism vs. America
[The following is an excerpt of from Craig Biddle’s article “The Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty.” Citations have been omitted here but are available in the article, which is accessible for free.]
The correlation between the morality of sacrifice and the violation of rights is no accident. It is a causal relationship. To see why, we must zero in on the little-understood essence of altruism.
Altruism is not about moral obligation as such; it is about a specific kind of moral obligation. Altruism does not call for a person to serve others if he has made an agreement or a commitment to do so—as in the case of a doctor who contracts to provide a patient with medical care in exchange for payment, or an employer who contracts to pay an employee in exchange for his work. Such obligations are chosen obligations, obligations stemming from mutually beneficial agreements, agreements in which both parties gain a life-serving value. Altruism is not about chosen obligations. It is about “unchosen” obligations or “duties.”
As the altruist philosopher John Rawls explains, whereas regular obligations “arise as a result of our voluntary acts,” duties “apply to us without regard to our voluntary acts.” We have a duty “to help another, whether or not we have committed ourselves to [doing so]. It is no defense or excuse to say that we have made no promise . . . to come to another’s aid.”
A “duty” is non-optional; it is something you must do regardless of what you want, regardless of what you think is in your interest, regardless of what you would choose to do if you had a choice in the matter. In the words of the foremost advocate of this idea, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, “duty is a necessitation to an unwillingly adopted end,” and its “specific mark” is “the renunciation of all interest.”
Altruism is the morality of “unchosen” obligations—obligations you must honor regardless of your values, desires, interests. This fact points to why altruism not only calls for self-sacrifice but also necessitates the initiation of physical force. British philosopher John Stuart Mill explains:
It is a part of the notion of duty in every one of its forms that a person may rightfully be compelled to fulfill it. Duty is a thing which may be exacted from a person, as one exacts a debt. Unless we think that it may be exacted from him, we do not call it his duty. . . . There are other things, on the contrary, which we wish that people should do, which we like or admire them for doing, perhaps dislike or despise them for not doing, but yet admit that they are not bound to do. . . .
Observe what this means in regard to the relationship of “duties” and rights. Whereas a “duty” is an (alleged) obligation that one has apart from one’s choices or interests and that one “may rightfully be compelled to fulfill,” a right is a prerogative to act in accordance with one’s choices and interests so long as one does not violate the same rights of others. In other words, “duties” and rights are utterly incompatible. They are mutually exclusive. A person can have one or the other—but not both.
The French philosopher Auguste Comte (who coined the term “altruism”) puts this clearly: Because “to live for others” is “for all of us a constant duty” and “the definitive formula of human morality,” it follows that “[a]ll honest and sensible men, of whatever party, should agree, by a common consent, to eliminate the doctrine of rights.” Altruism, explained Comte, “cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism.” On the premise of altruism, “[rights] are as absurd as they are immoral. . . . The whole notion, then, must be completely put away.”
The morality of altruism is incompatible with the principle of rights, and the theoreticians of altruism are clear on this point. In order to “completely put away” the concept of rights in America, however, the pushers of altruism will have to convince Americans to abandon their love of liberty—which is easier said than done.
Historically, Americans have been profoundly attached to liberty. Their country, after all, was founded on the right to liberty. They have even called their country the “Land of Liberty.” Putting away this principle will require persuading Americans to accept altruism fully, consistently, as a matter of principle. How do the opponents of rights propose to accomplish this goal? By taking their cue from John Stuart Mill, who explained precisely how to do it. “[T]he direct cultivation of altruism, and the subordination of egoism to it,” wrote Mill, “should be one of the chief aims of education, both individual and collective.”
Nor can any pains taken be too great, to form the habit, and develop the desire, of being useful to others and to the world . . . independently of reward and of every personal consideration. . . . [E]very person who lives by any useful work, should be habituated to regard himself not as an individual working for his private benefit, but as a public functionary; and his wages, of whatever sort, not as the remuneration or purchase-money of his labour, which should be given freely, but as the provision made by society to enable him to carry it on. . . .
American intellectuals and politicians have taken Mill’s advice. Over the past century, intellectuals have advocated altruism and condemned egoism at every turn. They have sought to habituate Americans to regard themselves not as individuals but as public functionaries. They have tried to sap the American spirit of individualism and to instill the altruistic spirit of collectivism. And they have done so to great effect. The American philosopher John Dewey, for instance, called for “saturating [students] with the spirit of service” and making “each one of our schools an embryonic community life, active with the types of occupations that reflect the life of the larger society.” To those who contend that schools should instead teach children the facts of history, science, literature, and the like, Dewey replied: “The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat.”
Dewey’s philosophy launched the “progressive education” movement, which has dominated American schools and saturated students with the spirit of service for almost a century. Given the wild success of this movement, is it any wonder that so many Americans today accept the propriety of sacrificial service to the community as an unquestionable absolute?
And while Dewey and company have focused on “educating” students for sacrificial service, other intellectuals—led by the American philosopher William James—have focused directly on forcing youth to do their “duty.”
James called for “a conscription of the whole youthful population,” which he appropriately called a “blood tax.” Contemporary political theorist Benjamin R. Barber advocates “a national service program, universal and mandatory.” And sociologist Charles Moskos explains that “[a]ny effective national service program will necessarily require coercion,” and he rebuffs those who “de-emphasize the role of the citizen duties in favor of a highly individualistic rights-based ethic.” We should, he says, “extend the concept of national youth service to include quasi-military civilian services . . . cast in terms of civic duty.”
Such educational and political efforts have given rise to an increasingly pliable citizenry, a steady stream of service-oriented legislation, and the establishment of numerous altruistically motivated institutions, from the Peace Corps, to Volunteers in Service to America (aka AmeriCorps), to Learn and Serve America, to the Corporation for National and Community Service, to the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, to the recent efforts by Congress and the Obama administration—which, if successful, will eclipse all preceding efforts combined.
The purpose of the $5.7 billion Serve America Act, recently passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama, is “to integrate service into education,” to encourage “many more Americans to give a year” of their lives, and to “increase service early in life” because “service early in life will put more and more youth on a path to a lifetime of service.” One advocate of the law hails it as the “quantum leap in community service that we’ve all been looking for.” Another exclaims: “The stars are aligned for national service.”
It seems that they are.
Following the lead of the state of Maryland—which, in 1993, became the first state in America to require community service as a condition of high school graduation—hundreds of school districts across America have established similar policies. And, today, pressure is growing not only for all students to be required to serve, but for everyone in general to be required to serve.
The Congressional Commission on Civic Service Act, a bill introduced on March 11, 2009, reads, in part: “The social fabric of the United States is stronger if individuals in the United States are committed to protecting and serving our Nation by utilizing national service and volunteerism.” The goal of this bill is, in part, to “improve the ability of individuals in the United States to serve others”; and, in part, to identify the “issues that deter volunteerism and national service, particularly among young people, and how the identified issues can be overcome.” Toward these ends, the bill calls for Congress to consider “[w]hether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed,” and “[t]he effect on the Nation, on those who serve, and on the families of those who serve, if all individuals in the United States were expected to perform national service or were required to perform a certain amount of national service.”
Such is the state of the Land of Liberty today: The government is passing and enforcing an ever-increasing number of laws and regulations that violate our rights. It is nationalizing private corporations and nullifying private contracts. It is mandating community service for students and investigating the possibility of mandatory service for everyone. And—as if the foregoing were not enough to cause alarm—the government is now asking Americans to inform on fellow citizens who oppose the government’s statist measures.
On August 4, 2009, the following request was posted to the blog of the White House Briefing Room:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
In light of all the evidence above—which barely scratches the surface of the mounting government power over the lives of Americans—the unavoidable conclusion is that the Land of Liberty is slipping down the slope to tyranny. The fundamental cause of this slide—the basic reason it is happening—is the widespread and increasing acceptance of the morality of altruism.
By accepting the morality of altruism, Americans accept the notion that they have a “duty” to serve “the common good”; and by accepting this “duty,” they thereby reject the basic principle of America: individual rights. The two are mutually exclusive. It is altruism or America. Indeed, it is altruism vs. America. And altruism is winning.
If Americans want to reverse this trend, they will have to challenge the creed of sacrifice at its root, which will require intellectual independence and substantial courage because the philosophic root of altruism is: religion. . . . [Read the whole article.]
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Labels: Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Philosophic Foundations of Freedom: A Conference on the Principle of Individual Rights
Here’s an announcement from the UCLA Objectivist Club about an upcoming conference:
What is liberty? Why is it desirable? How is a free society achieved?
Today, it is relatively uncontroversial that freedom is good, but there is widespread disagreement about what it actually constitutes and how to implement it. Some believe that liberty amounts to the wishes of a democracy being carried out; others believe that it is being faithful to a literal interpretation of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. But is there an objective basis in philosophy for determining what freedom is in principle and in practice?
Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, laid out such philosophic principles: A free society requires limited government that enacts and enforces objective laws for the sole purpose of protecting individual rights. It is where the government does not interfere, by penalty or reward, in thought, production, or trade. It requires a separation of church and state, science and state, education and state, and economics and state.
The Philosophic Foundations of Freedom Conference will focus precisely on these philosophic fundamentals, with numerous talks and Q&A sessions, a leadership seminar on intellectual activism, as well as a panel with a special guest, Alex Kozinski, the Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Saturday, January 30, 2010–Sunday, January 31, 2010
Click here for full event details.
Labels: Announcements, Events, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
The Real Goal of the Green Climate Crusade
An event announcement from the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights:A talk at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
Who: Dr. Keith Lockitch, fellow focusing on science and environmentalism at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
What: A talk examining the drastic claims put forth by environmentalists, and a critical look at their fundamental goal
Where: Angell Hall, Auditorium C, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI 48105
When: Wednesday, February 3, 2010, at 7:30 p.m.
Description: Environmentalists claim that our use of carbon-based energy is altering the climate, making us more vulnerable to climate disasters. Human survival, they insist, requires the immediate abandonment of fossil fuels in favor of carbon-free sources. So why do environmentalist groups vehemently oppose projects involving every alternative form of energy ever proposed to replace fossil fuels--including wind farms and solar power plants? And why do they ignore the dramatic degree to which industrial development under capitalism has reduced the risk of harm from severe climate events? Before we rush headlong into drastic climate policies and energy rationing, a critical examination of these policies is urgently needed. Dr. Lockitch will address these important issues and answer audience questions.
Admission: FREE. Open to students and the public.
Bio: Dr. Keith Lockitch is a fellow focusing on science and environmentalism at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He teaches writing courses for the Objectivist Academic Center’s undergraduate program and a history of physics course for the graduate program. His writings have appeared in publications such as the Orange County Register, San Francisco Chronicle, Australia’s Herald Sun and the Canberra Times, and USA Today magazine. Dr. Lockitch has been a frequent guest on radio shows such as The Thom Hartmann Program. Prior to joining ARI in 2003, Dr. Lockitch was a postdoctoral researcher in physics at the University of Illinois and at Pennsylvania State University. He is an alumnus of the Objectivist Graduate Center.
More information: Please e-mail Adam Gaglio, president of the University of Michigan Students of Objectivism, at agaglio@umich.edu.
Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI. ARI does not necessarily endorse the content of the lectures and sessions offered.
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Labels: Announcements, Environmentalism, Events, Individual Rights and Law, Science and Technology
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Force versus Egoism and Happiness: Response to Will Wilkinson on Ayn Rand
Commenting on the recent revival of interest in Ayn Rand, libertarian blogger Will Wilkinson recently asserted that while "Rand's emphasis on the role of individual rights in generating creativity and entrepreneurial effort remains enlightening," her moral justification for individual rights fails. Wilkinson, himself a former Ayn Rand enthusiast who became disenchanted with Objectivism, dismisses Rand's argument with stunning brevity:On the face of it, Rand needs to solve the compliance problem—why should a rational egoist comply with constraints on self-interested action?—and the way to solve the compliance problem is to show that mutual restraint is generally to mutual advantage. But I don't think Rand ever shows this. Instead she goes off the rails trying to argue that rational thought, and therefore a distinctively human life, is impossible in the absences [sic] of a strong version of the non-coercion principle, and that predation or parasitism are never in an individual's self-interest. None of that is convincing. (A strong version of the non-coercion principle is not in effect, but we're doing fine thinking rationally and living human lives. Lots of people live long and satisfying lives of institutionalized parasitism and predation, especially in and around Washington, DC.)Wilkinson's objection unjustly attributes a bizarre kind of naiveté to Rand's argument. Does Wilkinson really believe that in Rand's view all rational thought and happiness must cease immediately in a society that adopts even the tiniest amount of coercion? This interpretation is difficult to square with Atlas Shrugged, in which John Galt, Hank Rearden, and Dagny Taggart make important discoveries, produce innovations, and at least at times draw substantial happiness from these achievements, in spite of the coercion to which they are subject.
Rand's point, quite obviously, is that the greater the extent of force used against individuals, the less they are able to act on their own judgment, and thus the less happy they can be. As Leonard Peikoff summarizes in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
In all its forms and degrees, from private crimes to the incursions of the welfare state to full dictatorship, the principle is the same: physical force, to the extent it is wielded or threatened, denies to its victim the power to act in accordance with his judgment.In the context of the present mixed economy, Wilkinson's contention that we are "doing fine thinking rationally and living human lives" is ridiculous. Surely we are doing better than cave men and Medieval serfs, but as the present financial crisis illustrates, we could obviously be doing a lot better—and the crisis is demonstrably a result of government coercion.
Wilkinson's only remotely plausible objection is his allegation that Rand's egoist has no reason to refrain from coercion because it seems as though he can profit from predation and parasitism. The example of comfortable beltway bureaucrats feeding off the public trough could lend one pause. But how are we to evaluate Wilkinson's smug contention that these people live satisfying lives—and his implication that they would not live better lives if they were producers rather than plunderers?
Wilkinson is a fan of empirical "happiness studies," which measure people's self-reported happiness under different social and economic conditions. He is happy to trot out empirical evidence alleging that people in richer countries are happier than those in poorer ones, that those in less-religious countries are happier than those in more-religious ones, and that those in more-individualist cultures are happier than those in more-collectivist cultures. On one occasion, Wilkinson even provided evidence in support of the idea that people who earned their wealth reported greater satisfaction than those who inherited it or otherwise obtained it through luck. Why would this not bear on our evaluation of the happiness of those comfortable beltway bureaucrats?
Of course all of this data comes to little, because happiness is not merely the short-term feeling of satisfaction one might enjoy while sitting in comfortable house, or the elation of winning political power over the producers—and self-reported happiness is far from objective data. Wilkinson himself admits that we can be wrong about how happy we are. If that's true, then we'd better not measure the self-interest of an act by the extent to which it affords us temporary material comfort or superficial self-satisfaction. Instead we must appeal to philosophic principles that measure the value of an action or policy to the life of a being who survives by reason—principles such as the virtues of independence, production, honesty, and integrity—none of which support the initiation of force.
Happiness is not a fundamental standard of value, though it is a consequence of the achievement of values. Contrary to Wilkinson's claim that Rand never sought to understand the relationship between the use of force and the achievement of one's own happiness, her most crucial passage on the matter defines happiness as "a state of non-contradictory joy" and connects directly to the question of predation or parasitism on others:
Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions. Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury or the favor of others, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires—so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal's lust, men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them.
Labels: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The Source and Nature of Rights, Part IV
Part four of Craig Biddle’s six-hour seminar The Source and Nature of Rights has been posted to UFM’s website and is accessible for free. In this section, Mr. Biddle concludes his discussion of Ayn Rand’s ethics and theory of rights.Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Source and Nature of Rights, Part III
Part three of Craig Biddle’s six-hour seminar The Source and Nature of Rights has been posted to UFM’s website and is accessible for free. In this section, Mr. Biddle continues his discussion of Ayn Rand’s ethics and theory of rights.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
2009 Front Range Objectivism Media Output
Kudos to all the writers and activists involved with Front Range Objectivism. As reported by Paul Hsieh, in 2009 FRO members published 3 articles, 57 op-eds, and 48 letters to the editor.
Some of the topics covered include the financial crisis, health care, gun control, environmentalism, free speech, and government regulation.
The majority of this writing was done by people working in their spare time, in addition to their day jobs.
This list does not include numerous citations and interviews in local and national media, participation in Tea Party events, letters to elected officials, and blogging.
I'd like to thank my fellow FRO activists for their hard work this past year.
The detailed list of our published output includes the following:
Articles: 3
Ari Armstrong, "Lest We Be Doomed to Repeat It: A Survey of Amity Shlaes's History of the Great Depression", The Objective Standard, Spring 2009.
Monica Hughes, "A Brief History of U.S. Farm Policy and the Need for Free-Market Agriculture", The Objective Standard, Summer 2009.
Paul Hsieh, "How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability", The Objective Standard, Fall 2009.
OpEds: 57
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Shut down corporate welfare for tourism", Grand Junction Free Press, 1/5/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Universal healthcare and the waistline police", Christian Science Monitor, 1/7/2009. (Also redistributed to ABC News, Yahoo News and multiple local newspapers.)
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Obamanomics threaten economic recovery", Grand Junction Free Press, 1/19/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Free Our Beer", Colorado Daily, 1/25/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Salazar promotes special-interest warfare", Grand Junction Free Press, 2/2/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Obama's Regulatory Chief Believes in Paternalistic Government", Pajamas Media, 2/10/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "We're From the Government and We're Here to Help You Drive", Grand Junction Free Press, 2/16/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Food Thoughts", Boulder Weekly, 2/19/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "America Doesn't Need a Health Care Czar", Washington Examiner, 2/23/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Ayn Rand and the Tea Party Protests", Pajamas Media, 3/2/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Political Controls Provoke Producers to Go On Strike", Grand Junction Free Press, 3/2/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Beware single-payer health care", Colorado Daily, 3/8/2009 (also Denver Daily News, 3/9/2009).
Paul Hsieh, "Health Insurance Industry Sells Its Soul to the Devil", Pajamas Media, 3/22/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Everyone is welcome at Hamburger Mary’s", Grand Junction Free Press, 3/30/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "See you at the Grand Junction Tea Party", Grand Junction Free Press, 4/13/2009.
Lin and Ari Armstrong, "After tea, try long, cool drink of liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 4/27/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Health Care Reform vs. Universal Health Care", Pajamas Media, 5/5/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Legislature Passes Job-Killing Bills”, Grand Junction Free Press, 5/11/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Udall's credit controls punish the responsible", Colorado Daily, 5/24/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Invasion forces headed for Japan", Grand Junction Free Press, 5/25/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Are you a conservative or a liberal?", Grand Junction Free Press, 6/8/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Reject political control of health care", Grand Junction Free Press, 6/24/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "More poison, not an antidote: Mandating employer health insurance”, Boulder Daily Camera, 6/28/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Politicians Cause Mortgage Meltdown", Grand Junction Free Press, 7/6/2009
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "DeMint's health handouts violate liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 7/20/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Hope and change in Harry Potter", Denver Daily News, 7/22/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Don’t ban or force abortions", Boulder Weekly, 7/23/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Federal Health Care Muggers", PajamasMedia, 7/24/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "In health debate, left and right need to check premises", Grand Junction Free Press, 8/3/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Rationing inherent in Obamacare", Colorado Springs Gazette, 8/14/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "That government is best which protects individual rights", Grand Junction Free Press, 8/17/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Not a health care remedy", Denver Daily News, 8/21/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Debunking health care reform myths", Grand Junction Free Press, 8/31/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Free Market Is Not Another Form of Rationing", PajamasMedia, 9/2/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Is Not a Privilege... Nor Is It a Right", PajamasMedia, 9/8/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Atlas Shrugged relevant for modern times", Longmont Times-Call, 9/14/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Restore free market to address preexisting conditions", Grand Junction Free Press, 9/14/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Is Your Doctor Getting Ready To Quit"?, PajamasMedia, 9/18/2009. Edited version also appeared as "Health Overhaul Could Force Doctors to Quit", Health Care News (Heartland Institute), 10/13/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Republican plans for health care reform similar to Obamacare", Colorado Springs Gazette, 9/18/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Fifty Ways to Leave Obama", Grand Junction Free Press, 9/28/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Healthcare in Massachusetts: A Warning For America", Christian Science Monitor, 9/30/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Real Stakes", Denver Post, 10/1/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Pay Your Own Doctors", Colorado Daily, 10/2/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "James Warner Shares Light of Liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/12/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Radical environmentalists undermine human progress", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/26/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "ObamaCare: A National Version of RomneyCare", PajamasMedia, 11/2/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Bizarro Health Care 'Reform': Expect Less, Pay More", PajamasMedia, 11/5/2009.
Hannah Krening, "Dissent and Nationalization of Health Care", Denver Post, 11/8/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "If planet did warm, low-cost tech could cool it", Grand Junction Free Press, 11/9/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Why we should keep selling low-priced books", Denver Post, 11/12/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Mafia-Style Health Insurance: An Offer You Can't Refuse", Washington Examiner, 11/16/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Environmentalist clowns threatening human life", Colorado Springs Gazette, 11/20/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "People vote for freedom with their feet and effort", Grand Junction Free Press, 11/23/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Have a Harry Potter Christmas", Grand Junction Free Press, 12/7/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "ObamaCare: Tightening the Noose Around Private Health Care", PajamasMedia, 12/15/2009.
Monica Hughes, "Animal fat, sugar and diabetes", Denver Post, 12/17/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Ralph Carr shows politicians can stand for liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 12/21/2009.
LTEs: 48
Paul Hsieh, "'Concierge' model offers a free-market solution", Baltimore Sun, 1/2/2009.
Brian Schwartz, " Come together... right now: It's the law", Boulder Daily Camera, 1/3/2009.
Gina Liggett, "Science adviser pick is pure politics", Rocky Mountain News, 1/6/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Economic grief started with Hoover, not FDR", Denver Post, 1/7/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "New insurance law wastes taxpayer dollars", Denver Post, 1/7/2009.
Richard Watts, "Let's try capitalism for a change", Rocky Mountain News, 1/9/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Year-round Schooling", Boulder Daily Camera, 1/10/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Kefalas readies comprehensive health-care bill", Northern Colorado Business Report, 1/16/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Government paternalism saps desire to make own decisions", Colorado Springs Gazette, 1/22/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Medicare For All", Boulder Daily Camera, 2/7/2009.
Hannah Krening, "The Stimulus Plan", Denver Post, 2/11/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Single-payer health care has failed in every other country", Rocky Mountain News, 2/18/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Heads they win, tails we lose", Rocky Mountain News, 2/19/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "No food stamp soup for you!", Westworld, 2/19/2009.
Richard Watts, "Lincoln did not value unity above liberty", Rocky Mountain News, 2/25/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Free market alternatives to zoning", Boulder Daily Camera, 2/28/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Legislator’s comments on promiscuous women", Denver Post, 3/4/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "HB 1256 would aid health coverage", Denver Business Journal, 3/6/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Ward Churchill", Boulder Daily Camera, 3/28/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Our Health, and the Health of Insurers", New York Times, 3/30/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Eliminating the charitable tax deduction", Denver Post, 3/30/2009.
David Weatherell, "Employee Free Choice Act", Denver Post, 4/1/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Prepare For More Expensive Medical Insurance", Boulder Daily Camera, 4/12/2009.
Doug Kreninng, "Denver's Tea Party", Denver Post, 4/18/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Drug legalization", Boulder Daily Camera, 4/19/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Taking guns won't hike safety", Colorado Springs Gazette, 4/24/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Don't Raise Taxes, Legalize Marijuana”, Boulder Daily Camera, 5/16/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Sotomayor for Supreme Court", Boulder Daily Camera, 5/30/2009.
Anders Ingemarson, "Is Canadian Health Care Better?", Denver Post, 6/14/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Reform: Coverage Is Not Care”, Boulder Daily Camera, 6/16/2009.
Hannah Krening, "Time to fight for your rights", Colorado Springs Gazette, 7/3/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "The Public plan will be the only plan", Boulder Daily Camera, 7/4/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Systems", Boulder Dail Camera, 7/18/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Democrats' health care 'reform' would reform nothing", Boulder Daily Camera, 7/25/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Cash For Clunkers", Boulder Daily Camera, 8/8/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Debate", Denver Business Journal, 8/10/2009.
Anders Ingemarson, "The Heart of the Health Care Debate", Denver Post, 8/19/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Health Care Statistics", Denver Post, 8/29/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Single payer: rationing both ideas and medicine", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/5/2009.
Doug Krening, "Health Care Debate Renewed", Denver Post, 9/13/2009.
Briain Schwartz, "Boulder land use restrictions undermine rights & personal responsibility", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/18/2009.
Diana Hsieh, "Government’s attempts to stifle speech", Denver Post, 10/20/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health care reform and the public option", Denver Post, 10/30/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Incentives Aren't To Help You", Wall Street Journal, 11/2/2009.
Gina Liggett, "Governor’s proposal to tax candy and soda", Denver Post, 11/18/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Why To Condemn Insurance Companies", Boulder Daily Camera, 12/5/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Climate Science Isn't Settled", Wall Street Journal, 12/7/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Raising Federal Debt Ceiling", Denver Post, 12/20/2009.
Remarkable!
Labels: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
'Doing Nothing' Is An Option
Remember when President Obama insisted that health care "reform" had to be done his way, and that doing nothing was "not an option"?
Well, the American people disagree.
In "Do Nothing, Majority Says" (Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2009), James Taranto notes a recent Fox News poll showing:
While 41 percent of Americans want Congress to pass major health care reform legislation this year, a 54 percent majority says they would rather Congress "do nothing on health care for now," up from 48 percent who felt that way in July.
Taranto also adds:
...[A] CNN poll found that an even bigger majority—61%—oppose the Senate's version of the ObamaCare bill.
One of the core principles every first-year medical student learns is "Primum non nocere", which is Latin for "First, do no harm". In other words, it's better to do nothing than to take a positive action that will make the situation worse—a principle that should apply to politics as well as to medicine.
Our current health care system has many problems. But the proposed ObamaCare "reforms" would make things worse, not better. In this case, doing nothing is an option, at least until genuine free-market reforms are on the table.
The American people understand this. Will our politicians?
Reposted from We Stand FIRM
Labels: Business and Economics, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
Two New Audio Articles
Audio versions of Paul Hsieh's article "How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability" and Richard M. Salsman's article "Altruism: The Moral Root of the Financial Crisis" have been posted to our Audio page. These recordings are accessible for free and can be played directly on our website or downloaded to your MP3 player.
Enjoy!
Labels: Announcements, Business and Economics, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
The Winter Issue of TOS
The print edition of the Winter issue is at press and will be mailed shortly; the online version will be accessible to subscribers beginning December 20. For promotional purposes, we are making Robert Mayhew’s review of Jennifer Burns’s Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right available on our website early and for free.
The contents of the Winter issue are:
ARTICLES
Pharmacide: The Pharmaceutical Industry’s Self-Destructive Effort to Loot America
by Cassandra ClarkAntitrust with a Vengeance: The Obama Administration’s Anti-Business Cudgel
by Eric DanielsWhat the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” HR 3962, Actually Says
by John David LewisThe California Coastal Commission: A Case Study in Governmental Assault on Property Rights
by Paul BeardThe Barbary Wars and Their Lesson for Combating Piracy Today
by Doug AltnerObjective Moral Values
by Craig BiddleBOOKS REVIEWED
Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns
Reviewed by Robert MayhewHeaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science by Ian Plimer
Reviewed by Gus Van HornRed Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed by Christopher C. Horner
Reviewed by Daniel WahlIslamic Imperialism: A History by Efraim Karsh
Reviewed by Andrew LewisThe Israel Test by George Gilder
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl
Due to popular demand, we have extended our 60% off sale through January 1. Online subscriptions—including gift subscriptions—are only $19. If you have not yet subscribed to TOS, now is the perfect time to give it a try. And if you are looking for the perfect gift for an active-minded friend or relative, what could be better than a steady stream of clearly written, easy-to-read articles addressing current events and cultural issues from a rational, principled perspective? You can purchase gift subscriptions online or by calling 800-423-6151.
Enjoy your holidays!
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Foreign Policy and War, Healthcare, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Source and Nature of Rights, Part II
Part two of Craig Biddle’s six-hour seminar, The Source and Nature of Rights, given at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in October, has been posted to UFM’s website and is accessible for free. In this section, Mr. Biddle begins presenting the principles of Ayn Rand’s ethics that give rise to her theory of rights.
Labels: Announcements, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Capitalism: The Only Moral Social System
Craig Biddle’s talk Capitalism: The Only Moral Social System, given at Universidad Francisco Marroquín on October 28, has been posted to UFM’s website and is accessible for free. Enjoy!
Labels: Announcements, Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Bob McDonnell on Liquor Stores: Right Direction, Wrong Reason
According to a recent article in the Washington Post, newly elected governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell submitted a proposal to privatize state-run liquor stores. While we should applaud McDonnell’s push toward privatization, we should condemn his reason for the push as wrong.
In Virginia the only place one can purchase hard liquor is at a store owned and managed by the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (the ABC), which severely limits the number of stores and the variety of beverages they carry. Nearby DC, though saddled with its own regulations, has more liquor stores serving a greater variety of beverages at lower prices; thus many residents of VA cross into DC and purchase their adult beverages there. This, of course, results in diminished revenue for the VA government, and this is why McDonnell and company want to privatize the state-run liquor stores. The government can reap greater revenue, they argue, by selling the state-run stores through a public auction, eliminating the cost of managing the stores, while increasing competition with neighboring states and thus increasing tax revenue.
McDonnell is right that privatizing the liquor stores will result in greater profits for stores, more variety for consumers, and increased tax revenue for the state, but this is not the reason that liquor sales should be privatized. They should be privatized because of individual rights.
When the government forbids a store from selling liquor, the government thereby violates the store owner’s rights to liberty (freedom to act on one’s judgment) and property (freedom to use and dispose of one’s property as one sees fit). The proper role of government is not to manipulate markets or increase tax revenue, but to protect citizens’ rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. The government has no moral right to regulate the sale of liquor.
Virginians should demand a free market in the liquor industry for the same reason they should demand a free market in all industries: because individuals and businesses have a moral right to produce and trade according to their own judgment, free from interference by the government.
Labels: Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The Source and Nature of Rights, Part I
The video of part one of Craig Biddle’s six-hour seminar, The Source and Nature of Rights, has been posted to the website of Universidad Francisco Marroquín. In this first hour, Mr. Biddle surveys common theories of rights—from God-given rights to man-made rights to so-called “natural” rights—and explains why each fails to ground rights in reality. In part two, which has yet to be posted, he begins his presentation of Ayn Rand’s theory of rights.
Labels: Announcements, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Lin Gilbert's Rationing Story
Canadian Lin Gilbert tells of the wait she endured for over two years for her MRI and spine surgery, and the toll it took on her life:
In Canada, health care is never truly a "right". She was repeatedly told that she hadn't suffered for long enough to receive the surgery she needed, and that older patients were ahead of her on the waiting list.
Do Americans really want this kind of medical system?
(Via Instapundit.)
Reposted from We Stand FIRM
Labels: Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
Friday, November 06, 2009
The Best Option For The Public
In the November 4, 2009 Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby outlines the best option for the public. (Hint -- it's not the "public option".)
From his article, "An option for public: less government, more choice":
A government-run health insurer would radically tilt the health-insurance playing field. It would amount to a new entitlement program, able to undercut the price of private insurance by squeezing hospitals and doctors, reimbursing them at below-market rates. "Just like Medicaid and Medicare," which also underpay medical providers, the public option would force hospitals and doctors to charge private insurers more. Insurers would be compelled to raise their premiums, eventually losing millions of customers to the government plan.
Obama insists that any public option would have to be self-supporting, properly balancing its premiums and risk and not expecting the government to cover its losses. Sound familiar? The same assurances were made about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Instead, he recommends the following free-market reforms:
* Tear down the barriers to buying insurance across state lines
* Repeal mandatory benefits that make health insurance needlessly expensive
* De-link health insurance from employment
(Read the full text of "An option for public: less government, more choice".)
These are all excellent ideas. Let's hope our politicians are listening!
Reposted from We Stand FIRM
Labels: Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Praying Won't Make It So
I'm a second-year student in the Objectivist Academic Center, and the class is currently working through the difference between the metaphysically given (such as the law of gravity) and the man-made (such as traffic laws). The man-made is the result of choice, and as such is subject to praise or criticism. The metaphysically given simply is what it is, and all the whining, crying, and pleading we do will not change it. Neither will praying.
What's this got to do with health? According to the Los Angeles Times, religious Congressmen have slipped into the healthcare "reform" proposal a provision that insurers be required to pay for "religious and spiritual healthcare," including "prayer treatments" offered by Christian Scientists.
If an individual believes he can deny the metaphysically given, that by praying or paying someone else to pray for him, he can kill the cancer cells growing in his body, or heal a broken bone, that is his problem. He should be left to his own devices. He can go ahead and waste his money on "treatments" that do nothing—that can do nothing. As long as he spends his own money or money given to him voluntarily, he violates no one else's rights, and he will be the only victim of his own poor decision.
But this law would force insurers to act against their own judgment, so that some individuals can indulge their fantasies that their own wishes and prayers can change nature. Any insurer willing to examine the facts of reality—and it had better examine them, if it wants to stay in business— would eliminate coverage of such "treatments," knowing that they would never produce any value in return for the money paid for them. The "religious and spiritual healthcare" provision would force insurers to act against their rational judgment and pay for these services, and it would force those of us who know the difference between the metaphysically given and the man-made to pay for them, since insurers would have to distribute the cost of "prayer treatments" across all customers.
It doesn't seem like a big issue—after all, "prayer treatments" cost an awful lot less than MRIs. But it's an illustrative one. There is no benefit—not "prayer treatments," not in vitro fertilization, not autism therapy, not even heart transplants—that justifies the violation of the rights of insurers to offer coverage on whatever terms they choose, nor the violation of the rights of consumers to purchase the coverage that best suits their personal needs. And that's why a mandate is so evil—it turns decision-making about insurance from a voluntary exchange between insurer and insured into a dictate from bureaucrats and whatever special interest of the month is calling. That insurance mandates are evil is something all the prayer in the world won't change.
Reposted from ReasonPharm
Labels: Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law, Religion
Monday, November 02, 2009
Debate: 'Is Government Intervention in the Free Market Moral?'
This Wednesday, November 4, I will debate UNC Adjunct Professor of Economics Ralph Byrns on the question: "Is Government Intervention in the Free Market Moral?"
When: Wednesday, November 4, 7:00 PM
Where: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Murphey 116
Website: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178947119387&ref=ts
Labels: Announcements, Business and Economics, Events, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Net Neutrality Means an Unfree, Slow, and 'Stupid' Internet
The chairman of the FCC recently called for applying “net neutrality” to the wireless spectrum. Such a measure would dramatically extend the reach of proposed “net neutrality” rules, which were originally slated to govern the delivery of Internet content via wire—cable and DSL lines—but not via wireless signals. The expanded rules would govern the delivery of Internet content to cell phones, iPhones, Kindles, and other wireless devices. The advocates of net neutrality claim they are seeking to preserve a “free” and “open” Internet and to prohibit the “unfair” policies of Internet service providers that favor some content over others. According to them, to preserve this openness and freedom, the FCC must be granted vastly greater powers to coercively determine the business practices of Internet service providers.
That claim, however, is a sham.
An “open” and “free” Internet cannot be achieved by means of further FCC regulations. Extending FCC controls to the wireless spectrum would not “open” anything or free anyone; rather it would further violate the rights of Americans to produce and trade according to their own judgment and thus thwart this vital new realm of life-serving technology. It would unleash a torrent of government control over every aspect of the Internet, granting the government power to dictate how content is to be delivered and at what price, making it less profitable for Internet service providers to invest in costly infrastructure, and thereby quashing their incentive to innovate.
To the extent that “net neutrality” is implemented, the result will be a slower, less robust Internet—a “stupid” Internet, as one of the chief advocates of this pernicious idea aptly describes it. For an elaboration on how “net neutrality” violates the rights of Internet service providers and users alike, and why it is a bad idea for the wired Internet and by implication the wireless spectrum, read my article “Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet.”
Labels: Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law, Science and Technology
Thursday, October 01, 2009
The Fall issue of TOS has been Posted and Mailed
The print edition of the Fall issue has been mailed, and the online version has been posted to our website. (Due to production difficulties, the print edition was mailed a few days late. I apologize for the delay.) The contents of the Fall issue are:
ARTICLES
Obama’s Atomic Bomb: The Ideological Clarity of the Democratic Agenda
by John David LewisAmerica’s Self-Crippled Foreign Policy: An Interview with Yaron Brook, Elan Journo, and Alex Epstein
An Unwinnable War?
by Elan JournoThe Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty
by Craig BiddleThe Rise of American Big Government: A Brief History of How We Got Here
by Michael DahlenHow the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability
by Paul HsiehHow Morality is Grounded in Reality
by Craig BiddleBOOKS REVIEWED
Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz
Reviewed by Dina Schein FedermanThe Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
Reviewed by Daniel WahlFred Astaire by Joseph Epstein
Reviewed by Scott HolleranThe Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants by Jane S. Smith
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl
If you have not yet subscribed to TOS, there is no time like now. You can subscribe online or by calling 800-423-6151.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Foreign Policy and War, Healthcare, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion, Science and Technology
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Raymond C. Niles on 'The Big Biz Show'
Ray Niles will be on “The Big Biz Show” with Bob “Sully” Sullivan & Russ “T” Nailz, discussing his article “Property Rights and the Crisis of the Electric Grid,” on Wednesday, Sept 30, at 2:40 p.m. Pacific Time. The show can be heard live online from 1 to 3 p.m. Pacific Time at www.businesstalkradio.net (click on “Listen Live”).
Labels: Announcements, Business and Economics, Events, Individual Rights and Law
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Fall Issue of TOS
The print edition of the Fall issue is at press and will be mailed shortly; the online version will be accessible to subscribers beginning September 20. For promotional purposes, we are making both John David Lewis’s article “Obama’s Atomic Bomb: The Ideological Clarity of the Democratic Agenda” and Paul Hsieh’s article “How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability” available on our website early and for free.
The contents of the Fall issue are:
ARTICLES
Obama’s Atomic Bomb: The Ideological Clarity of the Democratic Agenda
by John David LewisAmerica’s Self-Crippled Foreign Policy: An Interview with Yaron Brook, Elan Journo, and Alex Epstein
An Unwinnable War?
by Elan JournoThe Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty
by Craig BiddleThe Rise of American Big Government: A Brief History of How We Got Here
by Michael DahlenHow the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability
by Paul HsiehHow Morality is Grounded in Reality
by Craig BiddleBOOKS REVIEWED
Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz
Reviewed by Dina Schein FedermanThe Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
Reviewed by Daniel WahlFred Astaire by Joseph Epstein
Reviewed by Scott HolleranThe Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants by Jane S. Smith
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl
If you have not yet subscribed to TOS, why not subscribe today? You can do so online or by calling 800-423-6151.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Foreign Policy and War, Healthcare, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion, Science and Technology
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Yaron Brook Interviewed by Larry Greenfield
Here is part one of a four-part interview with Yaron Brook, conducted by Larry Greenfield of The Claremont Institute.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion
Monday, August 31, 2009
John David Lewis Interviewed on KOGO, August 31
Monday August 31, at 7:30 p.m. PST (10:30 EST) John David Lewis will be on KOGO radio (San Diego) discussing why Obama has ignited nationwide protests. The show can be heard online at www.kogo.com (click “Listen Live”).
Labels: Announcements, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
Friday, August 28, 2009
The Dire Message of Mr. David Walker
A person who is in the pay of the government is not always free to speak publicly about the most pressing issues he confronts. Administrators who are appointed to perform specific tasks are generally not free to contradict or even to challenge policies. They often cannot advocate for specific proposals, even if they think that such proposals will be needed to prevent catastrophe.
When Dr. Alan Carlin, a federal Environmental Protection Agency official, wrote a report in March, 2009 that criticized the EPA’s process of formulating regulations, the report was squashed both internally and publicly. Emails from EPA officials state that “a very negative impact on our office” made use of the report impossible. To protect the bureaucracy, Dr. Carlin was told to cease his criticisms.
Such officials must often make a choice: to remain silent and keep their jobs, or to resign and speak the truth. Faced with this dilemma, on March 12, 2008, David Walker chose to resign.
David Walker is the former Comptroller General of the United States, and former head of the Government Accountability Office. As the nation’s chief accountant he was appointed by President Clinton. He resigned near the end of George W. Bush’s second term. He had no authority to decide how a single penny of government funds should be collected or distributed. His job was to count those funds.
Mr. Walker’s enormous range of mind extends far beyond a single budget year. His long-range perspective allows him to project fiscal trends decades into the future, and to assess, through simulations, the impacts of policy decisions beyond their immediate effects. He truly understands the economic maxim, promoted by Henry Hazlitt, to look beyond the visible effects of any given policy and to consider its unseen consequences.
When Walker plotted these trends, and considered demographics among many other factors, what he found was “chilling.” If fundamental reforms are not begun now, he concluded, the United States will experience a financial and political collapse comparable to the fall of Rome.
In a presentation to the National Press Foundation, January 17, 2008, Mr. Walker brought forth the following facts and projections:
- From 1966 to 2006, the percentage of federal funds spent on Medicare rose from 1% to 19%. This trend will grow exponentially as millions of “baby boomers” enter the entitlement pool.
- For the same period, spending for mandated government commitments rose from 26% to 53% of the total budget. The budget is increasingly out of the control of government officials.
- As of 2007, Medicare is running in arrears. In 2017 Social Security will be in deficit. By the year 2040, Medicare and Social Security alone will be running annual deficits of nearly 900 billion dollars.
- Medicare spending from now until 2032 will be 235% of economic growth. By 2040, Medicare will be spending about 10% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product annually, and the annual deficits of the United States will total some 20% of the total Gross Domestic Product.
The bottom line is this: mandated fiscal entitlements, projected into the future, are over 52,000 billion dollars. That will equal 90% of all household wealth in the U.S., and will place a burden of over 450 thousand dollars on every household in the land. This is almost ten times the present median household income level.
Mr. Walker concludes that “We face large and growing structural deficits largely due to known demographic trends and rising health care costs.” Further, “GAO’s simulations show that balancing the budget in 2040 could require actions as large as cutting total federal spending by 60 percent, or raising federal taxes to two times today's level.”
To close the revenue gap through growth, the United States economy would need to expand in the double-digit range for the next seventy-five years. During the boom years of the 1990s, the economy grew at an average rate of 3.2%. Walker concludes, succinctly: “we cannot simply grow our way out of this problem.”
Health care entitlements constitute by far the largest single piece of this economic disaster. Those who think that creating thousands of billions of dollars in new government entitlements—in a health care bill that adds tens of millions of Americans to government programs—will do anything except hasten the coming bankruptcy are out of touch with reality.
Mr. Walker has taken his show on the road, in an attempt to educate Americans about the financial disaster they are creating. He was accompanied by both the Brookings Institute on the left, and the Heritage Foundation on the right. He stresses that this coming financial meltdown is known by everyone in Washington--but no one wants to acknowledge it.
The Rasmussen poll shows that almost twice as many Americans think that cutting the deficit, rather than health care reform, should be the president’s top priority. Another poll shows that twice as many people think that the reform legislation will drive up costs than think it will lower costs. Perhaps these Americans grasp Mr. Walker’s point better than their elected representatives do.
A nation that violates the rights of its citizens cannot, in the long run, escape the consequences of its moral failure. When a nation with the unique strength of the United States does so systematically and over decades, the results must necessarily be catastrophic. The dire economic forecast of David Walker illustrates the connection between the moral and the practical. To regain our economic viability we must regain our moral viability.
Labels: Business and Economics, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Activism with TOS
American culture is at a critical juncture. Over the next few years, the country will move substantially toward either further violations of individual rights or better protection of individual rights. So I’d like to offer a few suggestions about how you can employ The Objective Standard in the fight for the latter alternative.
TOS, now in its fourth year of publication, is written consistently from an Objectivist perspective, which means it goes consistently to fundamentals, anchoring political arguments in the principle of individual rights and the morality of rational egoism. And TOS stands alone in this regard. No other periodical publishes essays such as “Altruism: The Moral Root of the Financial Crisis” by Richard M. Salsman, “Reason or Faith: The Republican Alternative” by John David Lewis, “The Menace of Pragmatism” by Tara Smith, “Energy at the Speed of Thought: The Original Alternative Energy Market” by Alex Epstein, “Deeper Than Kelo: The Roots of the Property Rights Crisis” by Eric Daniels, “Moral Health Care vs. ‘Universal Health Care’” by Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh, or “The Morality of Moneylending: A Short History” by Yaron Brook.
Importantly, however, articles in TOS presuppose no familiarity with Objectivism; they are written entirely in layman’s terms and are thus accessible to active-minded people in general. This makes TOS a crucial tool for spreading the ideas on which a culture of reason and the politics of freedom depend. The articles are easy to read, easy to comprehend, and anchored in sound philosophic principles. Such articles change minds.
But few people know that TOS exists, and our articles cannot change minds if they are not read. Here is where you can make all the difference. The following are three key ways in which you can help TOS reach a wider audience:
- Let your university, alma mater, or local librarian know about the journal.
TOS is now indexed and abstracted in Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO), Public Affairs Information Services (PAIS), and Political Science Complete (PSC). Periodicals covered by these indices are more appealing to libraries, so now is a good time to try (or retry) persuading your university, alma mater, or local librarian to subscribe. To inform a librarian about the existence and nature of TOS, please print and hand (or mail or email) him our Library Recommendation Letter, which can be found here. - Purchase PDFs of TOS articles, and distribute them far and wide.
TOS articles are now available in Portable Document Format (PDF) for $4.95 ea. For activism purposes, once you purchase a TOS article in PDF, you are welcome (and encouraged) to email or print and distribute it to as many people as you see fit—friends, relatives, colleagues, politicians, pundits, talk show hosts—anyone who might be moved by rational ideas and logical arguments. The more the merrier! We ask only that you not resell the article nor post it on the internet. PDFs of articles can be purchased here. - Give the journal as a gift.
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Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
John David Lewis on the Bill LuMaye Show August 27
Thursday, August 27, at 4:00 p.m. (EST), John David Lewis will be interviewed again on the Bill LuMaye Show (WPTF, Raleigh, NC) elaborating why there is no right to health care. The show can be heard online at www.wptf.com (click on “Listen Live”).
Labels: Announcements, Business and Economics, Events, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Suppose Car Insurance Was Considered to Be a 'Right'
The major impetus behind the Democratic health care plans is not economic—it is moral. The claim that health care is a moral right has motivated enormous government coercions against the medical industry for nearly fifty years. But this moral claim has blinded people to the fact that huge price increases have necessarily followed the growth of the coercions.
To understand why, it is instructive to consider what would happen if car insurance were considered to be a “right” and the right was enforced by the government.
After the purchase of a home and the ordeal of major surgery, a car is most people’s biggest financial risk. One mistake—or one bad driver—can harm dozens of people. We need insurance, so why should it not be considered a right?
Car insurance is provided by companies that manage their investments in order to absorb financial losses. If insurance is considered to be a “right,” then someone must be force to provide it: either the companies directly, or the citizens through coercive taxation. Either way, the new “right” will be taken by physical force, that is wielded by the state against those who are bound, by law, to provide it.
To enforce this new “right,” the government must take money from some people and give it to others, without regard for the actual risk they pose. As huge amounts of money are pumped into insurance markets, demand increases, and prices rise. Government officials blame the companies, so they pass more controls, thus squeezing the supply. Prices rise further—the law of supply and demand cannot be thwarted.
People want to be protected from greedy repair shops and auto manufacturers. So the companies undergo a ten-year approval process costing millions of dollars for new products. As lawsuits mount, courts enforce claims of strict liability against the companies—who pass the costs on. Price rises accelerate.
As people get used to a “right” to car insurance, they demand more coverage. Oil changes, brake jobs, torn seats and new tires become insurance matters. If insurance is a “right,” then no one should be deprived of these goods because he cannot pay for them. Every visit to the repair shop—big or small, routine or emergency—now involves an insurance claim. Prices escalate.
Male drivers under 25 pay more because they are statistically higher risks—but they resent this inequality. So they assert their “right” to insurance at the same price as older, wiser drivers. Companies spread the costs out across the board—and as good drivers face higher premiums, they demand more coverage. Prices shoot up further.
By this point, no one asks what a repair job will actually cost—they ask only about their “co-pay.” Customers have little incentive to keep costs down. Why bother to change the oil, if the insurance will give you a new engine?
As regulations increase, critics castigate companies who are unwilling to cover pre-existing conditions, such as a fender dented before the car was insured. As paperwork increases, repair shops that once had four mechanics and one secretary now have five secretaries, who spend their days filing claims. Prices rise further—until car insurance becomes a crushing burden.
By this point, the very idea that insurance should be used for catastrophic losses—not routine maintenance—has been lost. A chorus of calls for “reform” demands more government coercion to enforce the “right.” Anyone who suggests reducing the controls is shouted down by those who blame the “free market” for rising costs. By this point, most people have forgotten what a free market is—or that they had no “right” to insurance before someone else produced it—or that there was a time when insurance was not so costly.
This is fiction, of course—but it directly mirrors what has happened in health care. After World War II, companies began to offer employee health insurance because government controls forbid them from paying higher wages. Twenty years later, the “Great Society” lavished billions on programs—and as prices rose, regulation against the producers multiplied. HMOs and a host of other schemes were tried.
Now, bucking under the weight of economic distortions and regulations, the law of supply and demand is wreaking vengeance on those least able to pay. Medicare and Social Security are approaching insolvency, insurance companies are forbidden from selling across state lines or from offering innovative health savings accounts, and the solution offered is—even more programs, with a price tag so large that it that cannot be grasped by the human mind.
To expand government programs is not “reform.” It is an extension of sixty years of government interventions. The government now controls nearly fifty percent of all health care dollars—paid for by skyrocketing prices, taxes and borrowing. The correlation with history, and with the law of supply and demand, is precise and inescapable.
The primary cause of medical price increases is the government coercions. But the cause of the coercions is the idea that health care is a right. Until we understand that nothing is a “right” if others must be forced to provide it, we will continue to swallow the same poison, and we will reap even worse consequences in the future.
John David Lewis
Associate Professor
Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
Labels: Business and Economics, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
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