TOS Blog: Daily Commentary from an Objectivist Perspective
Friday, February 24, 2012
Why Greece’s and America’s Economies Stink
The Greeks suffer a failing economy largely because of that nation’s bloated redistributionist state, but another contributing factor is the mountain of bureaucratic feces the Greek government piles on entrepreneurs.
Alexandra Kassimi reports for Ekathimerini.com: “It took 10 months, a fat bundle of paperwork, countless certificates, long hours of haggling with bureaucrats and overcoming myriad other inconceivable obstacles for one group of young [Greek] entrepreneurs to open an online store.”
Tellingly, Kassimi writes, the government forced “all the shareholders of the company. . . to provide chest X-rays, and, in the most surreal demand of all, stool samples.”
If anyone still wonders why the Greek economy stinks, that story provides a strong indication.
But before Americans complain about the economic odors emanating from Greece, they ought first to clean up the bureaucratic cesspool in their own back yards.
As John Stossel reports, police officers ordered two Georgia girls to shut down their lemonade stand. Stossel tried to start his own stand in New York, and he ran into the following Greek-style bureaucratic demands:
Register as sole proprietor with the County Clerk’s Office (must be done in person).
Apply to the IRS for an Employer Identification Number.
Complete 15-hr Food Protection Course!
After the course, register for an exam that takes 1 hour. You must score 70 percent to pass. (Sample question: “What toxins are associated with the puffer fish?”) If you pass, allow three to five weeks for delivery of Food Protection Certificate.
Register for sales tax Certificate of Authority. . . .
And on and on.
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Journal for People of ReasonAmericans and Greeks who wish to restore a vibrant economy must demand that government stop assaulting businessmen and start protecting their rights, including their rights to produce and trade freely. Only that will clear the air.
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Related:
- Modern Greeks Destroy ‘Foundations of Justice’
- The Rise and Fall of Ancient Greek Justice: Homer to the Sermon on the Mount
Image: iStockPhoto
Posted in: Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
Friday, February 24, 2012
Happy Birthday, Steve Jobs—and Thank You
Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 and died last fall. In his short life, he revolutionized the world of personal computing, digital animation, music distribution, and portable computing.
Today I pay tribute to Jobs by writing these words on my 24-inch iMac running the state-of-the-art Lion operating system, tracking my projects with my iPod Touch, listening to my music collection via iTunes, and using myriad other products created by Jobs and the companies he founded. In every waking hour, the productive work of Steve Jobs, work made tangible in the products we now often take for granted, enormously improves my life. I occasionally pause to contemplate this fact, and offer a silent “thank you” to Jobs. His birthday is one such occasion.
When Ayn Rand was in her early twenties, she wrote the following in her journal (as quoted in Essays on Ayn Rand’s Anthem): “Achievement is the aim of life. . . . Give yourself an aim, something you want to do, then go after it, breaking through everything, with nothing in mind but your aim, all will, all concentration—and get it.”
Steve Jobs got it. And his achievements inspire me and many others to get it as well. We are fortunate that he lived.
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Image: Wikimedia Commons
Posted in: Productivity, Science and Technology
Thursday, February 23, 2012
A Rational U.S. Policy Regarding Iran and Saudi Arabia
Here’s an excerpt from my article “The Iranian and Saudi Regimes Must Go.” This is the kind of speech that a rational, America-loving, rights-respecting candidate for president would deliver, and the kind of policy that Americans should demand from any candidate seeking our votes:
. . . Americans (and our allies the Israelis) have a right to live free of fear that we might be killed by enemy regimes or their proxies. As president of the United States, I will do whatever is necessary to put an end to any and all regimes that pose such a threat. The primary threats in this regard, as the U.S. government well knows, are the regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia, which, among other things, spawn, train, finance, and spiritually fuel terrorist groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda.
In addition to threatening and assaulting Americans and Israelis, these regimes and their henchmen assault and oppress the people of Iran and Saudi Arabia—many of whom want to live in a free and civilized society. The Iranian regime, for instance, has jailed, tortured, raped, and murdered countless dissidents who have spoken out against the regime. It has also tortured and stoned countless girls and women for the “crimes” of being raped or having premarital sex, hanged or beheaded countless homosexuals for the “crime” of being gay, and committed countless other atrocities in the name of “Allah.” The Saudi regime has a similar record.
The Iranian and Saudi regimes are morally illegitimate. They have no right to exist. And their elimination is clearly in the best interests of both American citizens and the citizens of Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Because the long-standing policy of seeking to negotiate with regimes that want to kill Americans for the sake of “Allah” is obviously futile, as president of the United States I will take a different tack. I will encourage the people of both Iran and Saudi Arabia to overthrow the regimes that oppress them and threaten us, and I will encourage them to establish free republics in place of the ousted regimes.
Given America’s ill-conceived military commitments around the world at this time, and given the apparent desire on the part of many Iranians and at least some Saudis to take down their respective regimes, I think this is the best approach to start with: full, firm, unequivocal moral support from the United States toward that end.
Taking down the evil regimes, however, is the easy part. The difficult part is establishing and maintaining free republics.
For Iranians and Saudis to create free republics will require great thought, coordination, and effort. But they are intelligent and capable people, and they have an excellent model from which to work: the United States as conceived by the Founding Fathers. As president, I will encourage the Iranian and Saudi people to read what the American Founders wrote on the subject—especially the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution. And I will ask them to join Americans and the other (relatively) free people of the world as brothers and sisters in liberty by embracing the basic principle of a free society: that of individual rights.
This principle, which America upholds imperfectly today but which is still the essence of what America stands for, entails the right to life—the right to take all the actions necessary to support and further one’s life. It entails the right to liberty—the right to act on one’s own judgment, free from coercion by the state or others. It includes the right to property—the right to keep, use, and dispose of the product of one’s effort. It includes the right to the pursuit of happiness—the right to seek the goals and values of one’s own choosing. And, crucially, it entails the right to freedom of religion or conscience—which is the right of each individual to accept and express whatever ideas he thinks make sense, regardless of what others think or feel about those ideas.
These are the basic principles on which the liberation of a people and the establishment of a free republic depend, and these are the principles that, as president of the United States, I will encourage the Iranian and Saudi people to embrace and codify in their new governments.
Regarding U.S. military support for Iranian and Saudi rebels seeking to overthrow the evil regimes, as president, I will certainly be open to that possibility—but only in coordination with movements explicitly dedicated to the principle of individual rights and to the establishment of rights-respecting republics. Insofar as Iranian and Saudi rebels demonstrate that their movements are dedicated to these ideals, I will seek to provide them with whatever technology, weapons, and training are necessary to oust the current regimes.
Iranians and Saudis have suffered under tyranny for decades. That is no way to live. It is time for them to enjoy liberty. As president of the United States, I will encourage them to work toward that mutually self-interested end, and I will seek agreement from Congress to provide additional support as warranted.
My primary concern, however, will always be with the interests of the American people, and on this count the elimination of the Iranian and Saudi regimes is not optional. It is mandatory.
If the Iranian and Saudi people are unwilling or unable to oust their respective regimes in a reasonable period of time—say, within two months of my taking office—I will seek agreement from Congress to use the full force of the U.S. military to end the regimes by whatever means necessary. This force may include the use of nuclear weapons, it may include visits from our Navy SEALs, and it may include new surprises.
In any event, as president, I will do everything within my power to eliminate the regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia. This is my solemn promise.
If Americans want to end the danger posed by the Iranian and Saudi regimes—and thus substantially solve our terrorism problem—we must demand that our politicians explicitly commit themselves to ending these regimes. There is no other way.
Related:
- The Iranian and Saudi Regimes Must Go
- “Gifts from Heaven”: The Meaning of the American Victory over Japan, 1945
- High Time to End the Iranian Regime
- “Just War Theory” vs. American Self-Defense
Image: Istock Photo
Posted in: Foreign Policy and War, Presidential Candidates
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Moral Justice Requires not Shuffling but Eliminating Corporate Taxes
“The Obama administration is proposing to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent,” reports the AP. Unfortunately, the plan would not cut net taxes on corporations, as it also involves eliminating some so-called “tax loopholes” through which the government permits some corporations to pay less than they otherwise would.
The proper, moral goal is not to shuffle the tax burden—which merely violates the rights of some corporations more and others less—but to reduce or, better yet, eliminate it. Unfortunately, many continue calling for the opposite.
For instance, as Reuters reports in an article on Obama’s proposal, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research favors “the basic principle of lowering rates in exchange for eliminating loopholes”—but, he adds, “I think it is important that the target be some increase in tax revenue. While we are at the top in marginal tax rates . . . we rank near the bottom in effective average taxation.”
Baker and his ilk are morally wrong in calling for net tax hikes. The government has no right to increase coercive takings. Its only proper function is to protect people’s rights—including the rights of people who are members of corporations—and including their rights to their property.
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Journal for People of ReasonAs I have argued, Congress should abolish all corporate taxes and cut federal spending commensurately: “Not only would that end this injustice of double taxation, it would protect the rights of corporations to use their resources to create wealth, profits, and employment.” At a minimum, Congress should act in the short run to at least reduce the net taxes on corporations.
If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to The Objective Standard and making objective journalism a regular part of your life.
Related:
- How to Actually “Separate Government from the Corporations”
- Double-Taxation Means Double Injustice for Romney
Image: iStockPhoto
Posted in: Business and Economics
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
My Interview with Cynthia Farahat, Now in Hebrew
My interview with Cynthia Farahat has been translated to Hebrew by Boaz Arad, a founder of the Israeli Freedom Movement, and founder and publisher of the Israeli magazine and website, Anochi. Boaz sent me a nice note saying, “I would like to tell you that the translation of your excellent TOS interview with Cyntia Farahat is a great beginning for a real Israeli-Egyptian cooperation for freedom.”
Among other things, Cynthia and Boaz are now working together with the aim of increasing the visibility of Ayn Rand and her ideas in the Middle East. Boaz ended his note, saying, “You see; we are changing the world!”
I wish these two champions of freedom nothing but the best.
Related:
Image: Creative Commons by Fipplet
Posted in: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Fear Not “Satan” but Santorum
What are we to make of a presidential candidate, a man seeking the most powerful position in the world—a position that grants him the ability to sign bills into U.S. law and that places his fingers on U.S. nuclear launch codes—who thinks the problems of our nation are caused by . . . “Satan”?
Unfortunately, this is not a B-grade horror movie gone wrong; it is the presidential campaign of Rick Santorum. Recently Santorum’s 2008 speech at Ave Maria University, a speech in which he argues that Satan is attacking America, has been reviewed by Gateway Pundit, Media Research Center TV, and other publications.
Here is part of what Santorum said about America’s alleged demonic possession:
This is a spiritual war. . . . The Father of Lies, Satan, [has] his sights on a good, decent, powerful, influential country. . . . And Satan has done so by attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality. . . . The place where he was, in my mind, the most successful and first successful was in academia. He understood pride of smart people. He attacked them at their weakest, that they were in fact smarter than everybody else, and could come up with something new and different, pursue new truths, deny the existence of truth, play with it, because we’re smart.
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Journal for People of ReasonSantorum is here attacking not the subjectivist or nihilistic trends in parts of academia, but intelligence and the pursuit of truth as such. He apparently sees no difference between the efforts and discoveries of Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, and today’s “smart people” who “come up with something different and new,” and those who absurdly “deny the existence of truth.”
Why?
To Santorum, intelligence is a manifestation of the “vice” of pride. In Santorum’s way of “thinking,” there is no difference between legitimate pride in one’s discovery of objectively demonstrable truths (e.g., the theory of evolution or that of relativity) and the “pride” of, say, Richard Rorty, who denied the possibility of truth, or the vanity of John Rawls, who “proved” that no one deserves the fruits of his success.
To Santorum, these all are equally the “vice” of pride because they are claims to intelligence—which Santorum imagines arising from a supernatural demon talking in people’s ears.
Santorum’s comments do point to a crucial issue, the fundamental choice faced by all people: to think or not, to use one’s mind or not, to discover the nature of the world around us or not, to pursue intelligence or not. The “or not” alternative, in Santorum’s view, is the right alternative. Don’t think; have faith. Don’t read Darwin; read the Bible. Don’t look to the stars; look to Jesus. One path enables us to discover objective truths, pursue science, and live lives of reason and prosperity; the other subjects us to baseless fears of unnatural forces working beyond our understanding and leads to squalor.
Americans need fear not the likes of “Satan” but the likes of Santorum.
If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to The Objective Standard and making objective journalism a regular part of your life.
Related:
- Ignore Santorum’s Depraved Prescription: Have Sex for Pleasure this Valentine’s Day
- Santorum Stands for Big Government because He Stands for Collectivism
- Religion vs. Subjectivism: Why Neither Will Do
- The Tragedy of Theology: How Religion Caused and Extended the Dark Ages
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Posted in: Presidential Candidates, Religion
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Education “Stimulus” Thwarts Education
In an extraordinary set of reports for the Denver Post, Jennifer Brown reveals some of the problems not only with the federal government’s “stimulus” spending but also with government financing of education.
In her first article of the series, Brown reports that some of the 5,000 “worst schools in America” were chosen to receive some “$5 billion in federal tax dollars” to implement reforms. The money was allocated as part of the so-called “stimulus” spending of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In Colorado, Brown reports, $9.5 million of the $26.6 million fund has gone to “consultants.”
As Brown reports, Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute said that the program “is likely to go down in the annals as one more pretty expensive, failed initiative.” Even worse than the waste is the pretense that it’s promoting education when it’s in fact thwarting it.
Brown reports in a second article that, of $12.4 million sent through the program to Pueblo City Schools, $7.4 million “will go to its contracted partner,” Global Partnership Schools out of New York. Yet, notes Brown, “after the first year of a three-year contract with the company,” performance in one school stayed the same while in five other schools it dropped.
In terms of “stimulus” spending, this is but one more indication that such money is spent for political reasons, not to improve the economy or, in this case, education. The economy would have been “stimulated” much more effectively if those resources had been left in the hands of the people who earned the wealth, rather than forcibly taken from them and spent on “education” (i.e., political projects).
title="Subscribe to the Journal for People of Reason">Subscribe to the
Journal for People of ReasonRegarding education, the fundamental problem is that the government has cut parents out of the matter—except insofar as they are forced to fund it. Rather than leave people free to finance their own children’s education, and to voluntarily donate to schools and scholarships if they so choose, the government forcibly confiscates people’s wealth regardless of whether they use the funded schools or even approve of them. And then the government runs the schools with reckless abandon. The fact that teachers’ unions, administrators, and “consultants” feeding at the tax-funded trough often get paid more the worse they do is just a symptom of the deeper problem, which is the systematic violation of the rights of everyone who is forced to fund this monstrosity.
Until the government respects and protects people’s moral right to finance education (or not) in accordance with their own judgment, there can be no fundamental reform of education.
If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to The Objective Standard and making objective journalism a regular part of your life.
Related:
- The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools
- Government School Steams Parents Over Lunch Controls
Image: iStockPhoto
Posted in: Education
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
“If You’re Looking for Brains, Just Stop at Israel”
If productiveness in the face of difficult obstacles is a virtue, then Israel is indeed a virtuous country. Bloomberg reports that during the last decade, despite two wars (Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008) and on-going security problems, Israel’s stock exchange had the highest percentage return among twenty-four developed-nation exchanges, beating Hong Kong, which came in second, and Norway, which had the highest total return.
“Israel is an exciting place to invest,” Michael Steinhardt, the former hedge fund manager who produced returns averaging 24 percent a year over almost three decades until he retired in 1995, said in a telephone interview from Fisher Island, Florida. “The country is surrounded by enemies, it’s always on the edge of extinction, but it expands and prospers.”
The source of Israel’s success? The Israeli’s use of their minds. As Warren Buffet said, “If you go to the Middle East and you’re looking for oil, skip [Israel]…. If you’re going looking for brains, just stop at Israel. You don’t have to go anyplace else.”
Related:
- Economics in Atlas Shrugged
- Israel Should Obliterate the Iranian Regime
- Israel and America’s Flotilla Follies (and How To Avoid Them in the Future)
- Israel and the Front Line of Civilization
Image: Creative Commons by Fipplet
Posted in: Business and Economics
Monday, February 20, 2012
Government Stimulus: $489,000 to Renovate a Yacht
CBS LA reports that $489,000 of federal taxpayer stimulus money was used to renovate a yacht that gives people “free” tours of the Port of Los Angeles.
Although, in the age of “stimulus” packages and bailouts, this is not a lot of money, it does illustrate the utter disregard the current government has for individual rights.
The government’s job is to protect individual rights, not to take money from hardworking Americans to provide other Americans with free tours on a yacht. If politicians aimed to show perfect contempt for struggling taxpayers, this is the kind of thing you’d expect.
Tom Schatz with Citizens Against Government Waste (CAWG) calls for the government to sell the yacht. This is a great idea. LA is currently more than $70 million in the red; revenue from selling the yacht could be used to pay down some debt while lessening government assets and services that have nothing to do with protecting rights.
More Americans should be outraged at a government that spends their hard earned money on such foolishness.
Related:
- An Interview with Andrew Schiff about Fishing Nets, Hut Gluts, and other Economic Matters
- The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty
- Capitalism and the Moral High Ground
Image: Wikipedia Commons
Posted in: Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
Monday, February 20, 2012
Washington Guided the Constitutional Convention
Perhaps less well-known than George Washington’s astounding military victories is his steadying influence at the Constitutional Convention during the summer of 1787.
In her work Miracle at Philadelphia, Catherine Drinker Bowen notes that “Washington was unanimously elected president of the Convention” on May 25. She describes his demeanor over the course of the months that followed:
Washington showed himself firm, courteous, inflexible. When he approved a measure, delegates reported that his face showed it. Yet it was hard to tell what the General was thinking and impossible to inquire. In his silence lay his strength. His presence kept the Federal Convention together, kept it going, just as his presence had kept a straggling, ill-conditioned army together throughout the terrible years of war.
Thank you, General, not only for pursuing the military campaigns that made the Convention possible, but for guiding the Convention itself in the creation of our nation’s founding legal document. The greatest monument we can offer to Washington is to preserve and expand the Blessings of Liberty for which he so valiantly fought.
If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to The Objective Standard and making objective journalism a regular part of your life.
Related:
- Immigration and Individual Rights
- The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Posted in: History
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