The Objective Standard Blog

Archive for March 2007

Sunday, March 18, 2007

On Second Thought, GMU Refuses to Submit

Posted by Craig Biddle at 3:20 pm

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

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

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

Posted in: Events, Foreign Policy and War, Religion

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

‘Shareholder Democracy’ vs. Shareholder Rights

Posted by ARI Media at 10:20 pm

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved

Posted in: Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law

Friday, March 9, 2007

‘The Rise and Fall of Property in America’

Posted by TOS Admin at 1:35 pm

‘The Rise and Fall of Property in America’

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

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

When: Wednesday, March 14 at 7:30pm

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

The public and media are invited. Admission is FREE.

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

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

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

To see the flier for the event, click here.

Posted in: Announcements, Individual Rights and Law