The Objective Standard Blog
Archive for May 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
What We Owe Our Soldiers by Alex Epstein
Every Memorial Day, we pay tribute to the American men and women who have died in combat. With speeches and solemn ceremonies, we recognize their courage and valor. But one fact goes unacknowledged in our Memorial Day tributes: all too many of our soldiers have died unnecessarily—because they were sent to fight for a purpose other than America’s freedom.
The proper purpose of a government is to protect its citizens’ lives and freedom against the initiation of force by criminals at home and aggressors abroad. The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizens’ lives, and thus to do everything possible to protect the rights of each to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. This absolutely includes our soldiers.
Soldiers are not sacrificial objects; they are full-fledged Americans with the same moral right as the rest of us to the pursuit of their own goals, their own dreams, their own happiness. Rational soldiers enjoy much of the work of military service, take pride in their ability to do it superlatively, and gain profound satisfaction in protecting the freedom of every American, including their own freedom.
Soldiers know that in entering the military, they are risking their lives in the event of war. But this risk is not, as it is often described, a "sacrifice" for a "higher cause." When there is a true threat to America, it is a threat to all of our lives and loved ones, soldiers included. Many become soldiers for precisely this reason; it was, for instance, the realization of the threat of Islamic terrorism after September 11—when 3,000 innocent Americans were slaughtered in cold blood on a random Tuesday morning—that prompted so many to join the military.
For an American soldier, to fight for freedom is not to fight for a "higher cause," separate from or superior to his own life—it is to fight for his own life and happiness. He is willing to risk his life in time of war because he is unwilling to live as anything other than a free man. He does not want or expect to die, but he would rather die than live in slavery or perpetual fear. His attitude is epitomized by the words of John Stark, New Hampshire’s most famous soldier in the Revolutionary War: "Live free or die."
What we owe these men who fight so bravely for their and our freedom is to send them to war only when that freedom is truly threatened, and to make every effort to protect their lives during war—by providing them with the most advantageous weapons, training, strategy, and tactics possible.
Shamefully, America has repeatedly failed to meet this obligation. It has repeatedly placed soldiers in harm’s way when no threat to America existed—e.g., to quell tribal conflicts in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. America entered World War I, in which 115,000 soldiers died, with no clear self-defense purpose but rather on the vague, self-sacrificial grounds that "The world must be made safe for democracy." America’s involvement in Vietnam, in which 56,000 Americans died in a fiasco that American officials openly declared a "no-win" war, was justified primarily in the name of service to the South Vietnamese. And the current war in Iraq—which could have had a valid purpose as a first step in ousting the terrorist-sponsoring, anti-American regimes of the Middle East—is responsible for thousands of unnecessary American deaths in pursuit of the sacrificial goal of "civilizing" Iraq by enabling Iraqis to select any government they wish, no matter how anti-American.
In addition to being sent on ill-conceived, "humanitarian" missions, our soldiers have been compromised with crippling rules of engagement that place the lives of civilians in enemy territory above their own. In Afghanistan we refused to bomb many top leaders out of their hideouts for fear of civilian casualties; these men continue to kill American soldiers. In Iraq, our hamstrung soldiers are not allowed to smash a militarily puny insurgency—and instead must suffer an endless series of deaths by an undefeated enemy.
To send soldiers into war without a clear self-defense purpose, and without providing them every possible protection, is a betrayal of their valor and a violation of their rights.
This Memorial Day, we must call for a stop to the sacrifice of our soldiers and condemn all those who demand it. It is only by doing so that we can truly honor not only our dead, but also our living: American soldiers who have the courage to defend their freedom and ours.
Alex Epstein is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand—author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."
Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Foreign Policy and War, Individual Rights and Law
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Study of Troops’ Mental Health, Ethics Indicts Bush’s Selfless War by Elan Journo
Irvine, CA—A recently disclosed Pentagon study on the impact of the Iraq war on U.S. combat troops suggests that many are stressed and hold views at odds with official ethics standards. Critics view this as evidence that more must be done to ensure troops comply with those standards. But in fact the study provides evidence for a searing indictment of Washington’s immoral battlefield policies—policies that entail the sacrifice of American troops for the sake of the enemy.
The study reports, for example, that less than half of the soldiers and Marines surveyed would report a team member for unethical behavior. It also finds that “soldiers that have high levels of anger, experienced high levels of combat or screened positive for a mental health problem were nearly twice as likely to mistreat non-combatants” as those feeling less anger and screening negative for a mental health problem.
Although many military personnel may support the Iraq war, and although war is inherently distressing, Washington’s immoral policies necessitate putting our troops in an impossible situation. The reported attitudes of combat troops in Iraq can be understood as the natural reaction of individuals thrust into that situation.
U.S. troops were sent, not to defend America against whatever threat Hussein’s hostile regime posed to us, as a first step toward defeating our enemies in the region; but instead the troops were sent (as Bush explained) to “sacrifice for the liberty of strangers,” putting the lives of Iraqis above their own. Bush sent our troops to lift Iraq out of poverty, open new schools, fix up hospitals, feed the hungry, unclog sewers—a Peace Corps, not an army corps, mission. Consistent with that immoral goal, Washington enforced self-sacrificial rules of engagement that prevent our brave and capable forces from using all necessary force to win, or even to protect themselves: they are ordered not to bomb key targets such as power plants, and to avoid firing into mosques (where insurgents hide) lest we offend Muslim sensibilities.
According to the report: "More than one-third of all Soldiers and Marines continue to report being in threatening situations where they were unable to respond due to the Rules of Engagement (ROE). In interviews, Soldiers reported that Iraqis would throw gasoline-filled bottles (i.e., Molotov cocktails) at their vehicles, yet they were prohibited from responding with force for nearly a month until the ROE were changed. Soldiers also reported they are still not allowed to respond with force when Iraqis drop large chunks of concrete blocks from second story buildings or overpasses on them when they drive by. Every group of Soldiers and Marines interviewed reported that they felt the existing ROE tied their hands, preventing them from doing what needed to be done to win the war."
When being ethical on Washington’s terms means martyring oneself and one’s comrades, it is understandable that troops are disinclined to report "unethical" behavior. When they are in effect commanded to lay down their lives for hostile Iraqis, it is understandable that troops should feel anger and anxiety. Anger is a response to perceived injustice—and it is perversely unjust for the world’s most powerful military to send its personnel into combat, prevent them from doing their job—and expect them to die for the sake of the enemy. Our troops are put in the line of fire as sacrificial offerings—and it would be natural for an individual thrust into that position to rebel with indignation at such a fate.
The study not only indicts the self-crippling rules of engagement that liberals and conservatives endorse; it brings to light the perversity of the moral code of self-sacrifice on which those rules of engagement are based.
Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand—author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.
Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Foreign Policy and War
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Rise and Fall of Property Rights in America
A Free Public Lecture by Adam Mossoff
When: Wednesday, May 16, 2007, 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM with Q & A from 8:30 to 9:30 (Bookstore opens: 6:30 PM)
Where: Hilton Costa Mesa, 3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, California (At Bristol and the 405 Freeway) [map]
Description: In today’s America, our laws do little to protect U.S. property owners from either dictators abroad or government bureaucrats at home. How did this come to pass in a country founded on the principle that all men have the inalienable right to life, liberty and property? This lecture will answer this question by tracing the rise and fall of property rights in America. Professor Mossoff will first discuss the intellectual history of the right to property, explaining how the Founders turned seventeenth-century theory into eighteenth-century practice. He then describes how early-twentieth-century Progressives sought to destroy the right to property in order to remove this fundamental obstacle to their implementing the modern regulatory and welfare state. The result has been the disintegration of property rights at both the constitutional level and in basic legal protections.
Ultimately, the lesson to be learned is that a renaissance in the protection of property rights cannot occur solely through political or legal action—such a renaissance as its essential precondition requires the justification of property as a fundamental moral right.
Adam Mossoff is an associate professor of law at Michigan State University College of Law. His work on topics in property theory, intellectual property law and jurisprudence has been widely published. He received a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, an M.A. in philosophy from Columbia University and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Michigan.
For more information:
Phone: 949-222-6550
E-mail: events@aynrand.org
Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Events, Individual Rights and Law
Friday, May 11, 2007
Don’t Extend the ‘Hate Crime’ Law—Abolish It
Irvine, CA—Last week the House passed a measure that extends the federal "hate crime" law to include attacks motivated by the victims’ gender or sexual orientation.
"Congress should not extend the federal ‘hate crime’ law," said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "It should abolish the law.
"The government’s job is to punish criminals for initiating force against other citizens; objective laws that ban the use of force and fraud are its means of doing so. But ‘hate crime’ laws undermine objective law at the root by punishing criminals, not for their actions, but for their ideas.
"According to ‘hate crime’ laws, a murderer deserves a greater punishment if his crime is motivated by an idea such as racism or sexism. If the government assumes the power to punish on the basis of ‘unacceptable’ ideas, it has assumed the power to exonerate and offer leniency to favored ideas. If anti-abortion religionists hold sway in government, on the premise of ‘hate crime’ laws, a zealous Christian who guns down an abortion doctor could receive a lighter sentence or be exonerated—on the grounds that such an act is evidence of noble ‘idealism.’
"Once the government starts punishing criminals for acting on ‘unacceptable ideas,’ it has assumed the role of arbiter for which ideas are acceptable or not. If whoever wields power can shape the law to advance an ideological agenda, then it cannot be long before merely holding unorthodox or unconventional ideas becomes a crime that the government punishes.
"The government has no business punishing people for their ideas, no matter how repugnant. By demanding the government do precisely that, ‘hate crime’ laws threaten our freedom of thought—and undermine the system of objective law that protects it. Such laws should be abolished."
Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Individual Rights and Law
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Jamestown: Birthplace of America’s Distinctive, Secular Ideal by Eric Daniels
On May 14, America will commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. The occasion provides us with an opportunity to understand and celebrate the distinctive, secular ideal underlying America’s freedom and prosperity.
Although many Americans recognize that Jamestown was the first permanent English colony in North America (predating the Pilgrims and Puritans of Massachusetts by over a decade), too many mistakenly view the religious ethos of the New England colonies as the impetus for America’s flourishing. But the religious colonists, whose moral outlook stands opposed to our ideals of intellectual and political liberty, merely transplanted Old World ideas to new soil. The New World that promised opportunity and progress had begun in Jamestown, where the defining spirit of American individualism was born.
The Jamestown settlement project began, not as a Puritan escape to pursue and enforce a dogmatic faith, but with a group of profit-seeking investors in London pooling capital in a joint-stock company, a forerunner of our modern corporations. Members of the Virginia Company had organized with the goal of uncovering economic opportunity in North America by finding precious metals and possibly a water route to the Pacific.
The intrepid band of 104 adventurers who survived the Atlantic journey, braved a forbidding wilderness, established Jamestown, and faced extreme peril. In its first fragile decade, Jamestown lost hundreds of settlers to disease, starvation, and war, with casualty rates in one harsh winter reaching 80 percent of the colony. Eventually, under the deft leadership of Captain John Smith, the colony weathered these trials to emerge with renewed resolve. Smith himself had risen from modest circumstances in England to lead these adventurers, and he saw America as a land where his kind of self-reliance could flourish.
Though the Virginia Company found little gold and no sea route to Asia, they soon discovered something vastly more important—that economic opportunity lay wherever men were left free to work and create new wealth. In contrast to the rigid class structure and static economy of Jacobean England, America promised rewards based on individual merit. It was this spirit, and not the Puritan belief in cosmic predestination and unthinking duty to God, that attracted men to pursue their own earthly success in the New World.
"Here every man may be master and owner of his own labor and land," Smith noted in one of his many promotional books intended to attract new settlers to America. "If he have nothing but his hands," he boasted, "he may set up his trade, and by industry quickly grow rich." For Smith and the other early settlers of Jamestown, the profound significance of America lay in the possibility that a man could choose, pursue, and realize his own destiny—it lay in a new ideal of individual liberty.
By the late eighteenth century, under the growing influence of that ideal, the colonists began to resist and protest against British imperial controls on their economic and political freedom, which led to the American Revolution. In framing our constitutional government, the Founders put individualism into political practice by protecting individual rights against the claims of any cleric, monarch, or legislative majority. The new nation’s founding ideals had emerged in opposition to the religious morality that entailed obedience to Biblical teachings and authority, conformity to the group, and condemnation of worldliness and material success.
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the individualist spirit born in Jamestown brought countless millions to America, each looking to create a better life for himself. Through the years, that spirit has fostered untold prosperity by encouraging self-reliant innovators like Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, or James J. Hill. Its legacy lives on in America today, in anyone who believes that each individual owns his own life and has an inalienable right to pursue his own happiness.
In the centuries since Jamestown, America has thrived because of this distinctive ideal—an ideal in marked contrast not only to America’s religious colonies but also to the rest of the world today, where duty to the group or to divine command still subjugates millions.
Americans should pause to celebrate the full significance of the Jamestown anniversary as an opportunity to appreciate and rededicate themselves to America’s noble spirit of individualism. Doing so will help remind us of the need to defend this value from those who would compromise or attack it. Doing any less would be an act of injustice to those brave men who helped to shape our most important institutions.
Eric Daniels, PhD, is a Visiting Scholar at the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism at Clemson University, and a guest writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand—author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."
Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: History, Philosophy
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Chavez Steals American Property, Bush Does Nothing
Irvine, CA—On Tuesday president Hugo Chavez forced ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil to cede operational control over their multi-billion dollar projects to the Venezuelan government. With their backs to the wall, these oil companies are "negotiating" the terms of their surrender, and trying to get some "compensation" for the property being stolen from them.
"President Bush should do something to protect the assets of American companies in Venezuela," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "It is disgraceful that while Chavez steals American property Bush says nothing and does nothing."
"At a minimum," Dr. Brook said, "Bush should denounce Chavez’s nationalization of private businesses as a form of robbery and cut U.S. diplomatic relationships with Venezuela."
Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Business and Economics, Foreign Policy and War
Thursday, May 3, 2007
The Failure of Field Trips
Many educators stress the importance of field trips: opportunities to get students out of their desks and away from their books, and to give them direct, vivid, sensory experience with the world around them. Reflecting on my own education, these excursions off campus are indeed some of my most memorable moments—but not because of their educational merits, not because they brought alive the important knowledge I had gained in the classroom. I remember them either as days off- reprieves from my painfully dull schooling-or as painfully dull experiences in themselves.
Whether the trip was playtime or punishment depended on which of the two main purposes that field trip was to serve. In practice, one of the goals of the typical field trip is to offer a treat, a diversion, a rewarding break from the "daily grind" of learning. Mrs. O’Brien, a VanDamme Academy teacher, witnessed this when working as a student teacher at a Minnesota public school. She relayed to me a discussion among some teachers planning a trip to the park, desperately seeking some "educational" excuse for the outing. "We could stop by the cranberry field along the way, and give them a quick lesson about cranberry farming?" suggested one.
This attitude toward field trips can be seen reflected in the popular destinations, from water parks to movie theaters to bowling alleys, and in the reasons offered for given destinations. An on-line educators’ resource recommends visits to a taxidermy shop—for the "ick factor"—and to a bakery or grocery store—for the "free samples of their wares."
Clearly, the need for these in-school vacations, these diversions entirely unrelated to the curriculum content, is the consequence of a much deeper problem: the work is not motivation in itself. Teachers and students alike view education as a painful chore to be dutifully endured-and occasionally rewarded with a "Pajama Day" a pizza party or a park trip. (See the other issues of this newsletter for a different attitude toward education: www.pedagogicallycorrect.com.)
Others use field trips as opportunities to expose students to culture, to politics, to important worldly knowledge and experiences that they view as sadly lacking in the children’s day-to-day education. I distinctly remember a junior high field trip to a production of Madame Butterfly, or rather, I distinctly remember falling asleep. In school, I had never been exposed to operatic music, I knew nothing of the story or historical context of the drama, and I was consequently thoroughly unprepared for this cultural bolt-from-the-blue. Similarly, at a performance for students of Cyrano de Bergerac, I watched in sadness as the teenage audience giggled, passed notes, and whispered in each other’s ears, becoming engaged in the play only when something went awry or there was some blatant, physical humor. I didn’t fault the students; it is the school system that should be held accountable.
The problem inherent in field trips of this kind is that they try to cash in on a bankrupt account. Students are exposed to a cultural experience, whether a trip to Washington, a classic play, or an art museum, that they do not have the educational background to value. This error is one example of a problem prevalent in education: the violation of hierarchy, or the proper order of knowledge.
Another violation of hierarchy is the field trip designed to promote a political cause. In California, for example, an increasingly popular outing is "Ocean Day." In 2006, over 7,000 California kids converged at the beach to clean up trash. The day culminated with the students posing for a picture meant to capture the experience: they were lined up for an aerial photograph in the shape of a fish with an oxygen mask. The express mission of the program’s sponsors, the Malibu Foundation, is "to motivate children to care about their environment and to do something about it." To demonstrate the program’s success, the foundation’s website describes an 8- year-old participant gazing out at the water, declaring, "I think I can save earth."
If this were simply a community-spirited effort to have trash-free beaches, its worst offense might be no more than a waste of the children’s precious school time. But such an outing is fraught with political and ethical questions: Is community service a moral obligation? Should industry be regulated to protect marine life? Does earth need to be "saved"—and if so, by what means? Field trips like this smuggle in implicit answers to these important, complex, abstract questions.
I contend that an 8-year-old has no business contemplating or forming judgments on these issues, because he does not have the knowledge of history, the thinking skills, and the life experience that would allow him to consider them rationally. An 8-year-old should concern himself with such problems as how to master long division, when to study for his history test, and what to wear to school in the morning…not how to save the earth.
At VanDamme Academy, we believe that it is our sacred duty to identify that knowledge which is essential to the development of a child into an informed, thoughtful, mature adult (which means, no diversions), and to present that knowledge in a careful, hierarchical sequence that allows for the student’s thorough, independent understanding (which means, no propaganda).
On our view, field trips should give students the opportunity to make observations or have experiences not available to them in the classroom, but directly related to the crucial knowledge being gained in the classroom. My next newsletter will offer a glimpse of the VanDamme Academy field trip.
Click here to sign up for the VanDamme Academy’s free, weekly e-newsletter: "Pedagogically Correct." Every week, you will be sent a new article about the principles of teaching employed at VanDamme Academy, along with stories about the results they are achieving.
Posted in: Education
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Iran Sponsors Terrorism, U.S. Seeks ‘Dialogue’
Irvine, CA—As the State Department once again designates Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning to meet Iran’s foreign minister to talk about the future of Iraq.
But according to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "Talking will not convince the Iranian theocrats to give up their support for terrorism and their feverish quest for nuclear weapons. Quite to the contrary, any such ‘dialogue’ will only demonstrate America’s weakness and encourage the Iranians to sponsor even more terrorism, especially against Americans in Iraq.
"The religious zealots in Iran are committed to a global jihad and will not stop sponsoring terrorism or cease pursuing the weapons that they believe will bring them victory. The only way for the United States and its allies to ensure that Iran will not acquire—or use—nuclear bombs, is to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and wipe out its hostile regime. This does not mean embarking on an Iraq-like crusade to bring democracy to Iran; it means eliminating the Iranian threat against America.
"The Iranian regime has repeatedly called for ‘death to America.’ We must take these threats seriously—or risk an attack much more devastating than 9/11."
Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Foreign Policy and War, Religion
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Audio of John Lewis’s Talk at GMU
The audio of John Lewis’s talk “‘No Substitute for Victory’: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism,” which was delivered at George Mason University on April 24, 2007, has been posted to the events page of the TOS website. The audio is free and accessible to all. Click here to listen now.
Posted in: Events, Foreign Policy and War
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