The Objective Standard Blog
Archive for April 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Help Fight for a Future of Reason and Freedom
Dear Reader,
I’m writing to ask for your help.
Because of the parallels between Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and current events, Rand’s ideas are increasingly mentioned on talk shows, the internet, the news. This burgeoning interest in Rand’s philosophy is promising, but to fully grasp the practicality of Objectivism, people need to see how its principles apply in real life—which is not obvious.
The Objective Standard, now in its fourth year of publication, is dedicated to elucidating these principles and applying them to the cultural and political issues of the day. TOS consistently delivers crystal-clear, highly concretized essays on subjects ranging from “The Hierarchy of Knowledge: The Most Neglected Issue in Education” to “‘Just War Theory’ vs. American Self-Defense” to “Moral Health Care vs. ‘Universal Health Care’” to “The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists” to “Reason or Faith: The Republican Alternative” to “Altruism: The Moral Root of the Financial Crisis.” Such articles change peoples’ minds—and TOS is the only periodical publishing them.
With the West being consumed by mysticism and altruism, people need not only to read Atlas, but also to see how the principles of Objectivism apply to their concerns—whether education or terrorism or religion or the economy. This is where you can help.
By giving gift subscriptions of TOS to active-minded friends, relatives, colleagues, intellectuals—whoever you think might be interested—you can help spread not only the ideas on which civilized society depends, but also the all-important understanding of what these ideas mean in practice. And now through May 8, to encourage a concerted effort among TOS fans and subscribers, we are cutting the prices of all gift subscriptions by 15%.
Please help us educate people about the practicality of Objectivism. Whether you can afford ten gift subscriptions or five or one, the price is right, and the future is worth it.
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Posted in: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Monday, April 20, 2009
John David Lewis’s Charlotte Tea Party Speech
Dr. Lewis has made available an edited version of his excellent Tea Party speech. The opening paragraphs are below. The whole speech can be found here.
The Charlotte Tea Party Speech
Dr. John David Lewis
Dept. of Political Science, Duke University
First delivered: April 15, 2009, Charlotte, North Carolina
Revised for publication: April 20, 2009.
[Permission is given to read this in full, wherever defenders of liberty may gather. Thank you to Char Cushman for the transcription, Andy Clarkson for the original video, and to Matthew Ridenhour for arranging the Charlotte Tea Party. A text version, in Word, may be seen here.]
It is high time for a tea party in America!
But to do this right, we need to understand what it means. So I want to think back for a moment to what happened over 200 years ago, at the time of the original Boston Tea Party.
The Founders of this nation brought forth a radical idea. It was truly radical, practiced nowhere before this time.
This idea was the Rights of Man. The Founders saw each of us as endowed with certain inalienable rights, rights that may not be separated from our nature as autonomous beings.
These inalienable rights are:
- The Right to Life—the right to live your own life, to choose your own goals, and to preserve your own independent existence.
- The Right to Liberty, which is the right to act to achieve your goals, without coercion by other men.
- The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness, to act to achieve your own success, your own prosperity, and your own happiness, for your own sake.
- And the Right to Property—the right to gain, keep, and enjoy, the material products of your efforts.
Unless I’m mistaken I don’t see anything here about a right to happiness. I see a right to the pursuit of happiness: the right to take the actions needed to attain one’s own happiness. Nor do I see any rights to things at all—no rights to food, clothing, healthcare or diapers. There is only a right to act to achieve those things. This is called freedom.
These rights to act—the rights to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness—are founded on a certain view of man. Each of us is an individual, autonomous, moral being, with the right to choose his own values and capable of directing his own life.
Look at the person next to you, and look in the mirror—do you see the individual sovereign human being, existing for his own sake, with the right to live, to love, and to act?
This idea—the Founders’ idea of the individual Rights of Man—led to a radical view of government. Government was not to be inherited by the force of an entrenched aristocracy as in Europe, imposed by the divine right of kings through generations of oppression, or enforced by the force of a club.
Government in America was to be designed and instituted by thinking men, for a single purpose: to protect and defend the Rights of Man.
This is what the American Declaration of Independence says: “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” Thinking men, armed with the idea of rights, created a government limited to the protection of individual rights.
For centuries in Europe, the relationship between the people and the government had been that of serf to master: everyone was a servant of the ruling elite. In America, this was turned upside down: government became the servant of the individual. The very reason for a government—and its purpose—is to secure our inalienable, individual rights.
Posted in: Events, Individual Rights and Law
Friday, April 17, 2009
On April 22, Celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day
Because Earth Day is intended to further the cause of environmentalism—and because environmentalism is an anti-human ideology—on April 22, those who care about human life should not celebrate Earth Day; they should celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day.
Exploiting the Earth—using the raw materials of nature for one’s life-serving purposes—is a basic requirement of human life. Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.
According to environmentalism, however, man should not use nature for his needs; he should keep his hands off “the goods”; he should leave nature alone, come what may. Environmentalism is not concerned with human health and wellbeing—neither ours nor that of generations to come. If it were, it would advocate the one social system that ensures that the Earth and its elements are used in the most productive, life-serving manner possible: capitalism.
Capitalism is the only social system that recognizes and protects each individual’s right to act in accordance with his basic means of living: the judgment of his mind. Environmentalism, of course, does not and cannot advocate capitalism, because if people are free to act on their judgment, they will strive to produce and prosper; they will transform the raw materials of nature into the requirements of human life; they will exploit the Earth and live.
Environmentalism rejects the basic moral premise of capitalism—the idea that people should be free to act on their judgment—because it rejects a more fundamental idea on which capitalism rests: the idea that the requirements of human life constitute the standard of moral value. While the standard of value underlying capitalism is human life (meaning, that which is necessary for human beings to live and prosper), the standard of value underlying environmentalism is nature untouched by man.
The basic principle of environmentalism is that nature (i.e., “the environment”) has intrinsic value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of the requirements of human life—and that this value must be protected from its only adversary: man. Rivers must be left free to flow unimpeded by human dams, which divert natural flows, alter natural landscapes, and disrupt wildlife habitats. Glaciers must be left free to grow or shrink according to natural causes, but any human activity that might affect their size must be prohibited. Naturally generated carbon dioxide (such as that emitted by oceans and volcanoes) and naturally generated methane (such as that emitted by swamps and termites) may contribute to the greenhouse effect, but such gasses must not be produced by man. The globe may warm or cool naturally (e.g., via increases or decreases in sunspot activity), but man must not do anything to affect its temperature. And so on.
In short, according to environmentalism, if nature affects nature, the effect is good; if man affects nature, the effect is evil.
Stating the essence of environmentalism in such stark terms raises some illuminating questions: If the good is nature untouched by man, how is man to live? What is he to eat? What is he to wear? Where is he to reside? How can man do anything his life requires without altering, harming, or destroying some aspect of nature? In order to nourish himself, man must consume meats, fruits, and vegetables. In order to make clothing, he must skin animals, pick cotton, manufacture polyester, and the like. In order to build a house—or even a hut—he must cut down trees, dig up clay, make fires, bake bricks, and so forth. Each and every action man takes to support or sustain his life entails the exploitation of nature. Thus, on the premise of environmentalism, man has no right to exist.
It comes down to this: Each of us has a choice to make. Will I recognize that man’s life is the standard of moral value—that the good is that which sustains and furthers human life—and thus that people have a moral right to use the Earth and its elements for their life-serving needs? Or will I accept that nature has “intrinsic” value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of human needs—and thus that people have no right to exist?
There is no middle ground here. Either human life is the standard of moral value, or it is not. Either nature has intrinsic value, or it does not.
On April 22, make clear where you stand. Don’t celebrate Earth Day; celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day—and let your friends, family, and associates know why.
Posted in: Environmentalism, Events, Philosophy, Science and Technology
Friday, April 17, 2009
John Lewis’s Tea Party Interview
In addition to John Lewis’s excellent tea party speech, Andy Clarkson has posted an interview with Lewis, which is also well worth viewing.
Posted in: Announcements, Individual Rights and Law
Friday, April 17, 2009
John Lewis on the Proper Meaning of a Tea Party
Here’s a video of John Lewis’s excellent speech at yesterday’s tea party in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Thanks to Andy Clarkson for recording it)
Posted in: Events, Individual Rights and Law
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
A Snapshot of Obama’s Obscene Foreign Policy
Caroline Glick has written a good piece summing up the global situation in the wake of President Obama’s recent travels to Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey, and Iraq. Here’s an excerpt:
Somewhere between apologizing for American history—both distant and recent; genuflecting before the unelected, bigoted king of Saudi Arabia; announcing that he will slash the US’s nuclear arsenal, scrap much of America’s missile defense programs and emasculate the US Navy; leaving Japan to face North Korea and China alone; telling the Czechs, Poles and their fellow former Soviet colonies, “Don’t worry, be happy,” as he leaves them to Moscow’s tender mercies; humiliating Iraq’s leaders while kowtowing to Iran; preparing for an open confrontation with Israel; and thanking Islam for its great contribution to American history, President Obama made clear to the world’s aggressors that America will not be confronting them for the foreseeable future.
Whether they are aggressors like Russia, proliferators like North Korea, terror exporters like nuclear-armed Pakistan or would-be genocidal-terror-supporting nuclear states like Iran, today, under the new administration, none of them has any reason to fear Washington.
In addition to the abominations identified by Glick, the Obama administration is considering cutting a deal with Iran to the effect that, if the death-to-America-chanting theocracy will agree to “talks” regarding its atomic program, then America will permit it to continue enriching uranium and to go full steam ahead with its nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, North Korea—which may already have enough plutonium to produce a half dozen atomic bombs, and which recently shot a multistage rocket over Japan—has vowed to “restore nuclear facilities it has been disabling and resume operating them, apparently referring to its five-megawatt plutonium-producing reactor and other facilities at the Yongbyon complex north of Pyongyang”—and to “reprocess spent fuel rods, also apparently referring to an activity at Yongbyon”—and to “‘actively consider’ building a light-water nuclear reactor.” In response, the Obama administration has done and likely will do nothing beyond participating in another round of finger shaking via the U.N. Security Council.
This Bush-like sellout of our security will continue until Americans repudiate the morality of altruism—which demands such self-sacrificial measures—and embrace the morality of rational egoism—which calls for the unwavering defense of America and her allies. Those who care to defend the civilized world need to discover the virtue of self-interest so that they can credibly advocate a foreign policy of self-interest. A good place to start is with Ayn Rand’s book The Virtue of Selfishness.
Posted in: Foreign Policy and War
Monday, April 13, 2009
The Seals Have Done What ‘God’ Could Not
Those who are thanking an alleged “God” for the rescue of American cargo ship captain Richard Phillips are engaging in a grave injustice. Phillips was saved not by “God,” who does not exist, but by Navy Seals, who deserve full credit for this marvelous feat.
Paraphrasing one of the protagonists from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the brutes who believed they could defeat their betters by force have learned what happens when brute force encounters mind and force.
Cheers to the Seals!
Posted in: Foreign Policy and War, Religion
Saturday, April 11, 2009
What Is America’s Stake in the Arab-Israeli Conflict?
Who: Elan Journo, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
What: A talk followed by Q&A
Where: American University (Washington DC), School of International Service building, room 203
When: Wednesday April 15, 8:30 p.m.
Contact: Jasmine Whiting, auobjectivists@gmail.com
Description: Many people claim that U.S. policy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict has been destructive of our security—and that a change in direction is urgently needed. Echoing many of his predecessors and legions of commentators, President Obama has announced plans to make dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict a “key diplomatic policy” of his administration. What kind of policy toward that ongoing conflict is actually in America’s interests? What policy can enhance U.S. security? What in fact have been the effects of Washington’s policy? Has it been unfair? If so, to whom—the Arab-Palestinian side, or Israel? In a presentation addressing these and other questions, Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute will offer a secular moral case for principled U.S. support of Israel.
For more information on this and other ARI events, please visit www.aynrand.org/events_other.
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Center for Individual Rights. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Announcements, Events, Foreign Policy and War
Saturday, April 11, 2009
ARC on the Tea Parties
Dear Admirer of Ayn Rand,
Earlier this week, we wrote to you to promote a new video, titled "Atlas Shrugged and the Tea Party Revolts." Today we’re writing to let you know that we are expanding this effort with two new videos, along with a new Web page of Tea Party resources.
The new videos expand upon the moral meaning of the Tea Party efforts, and the ideas that will be needed in order to make the defense of individual rights a success.
Once again, we want to bring these videos to as wide an audience as possible, and we encourage you to view them and, if you like them, pass them along to others. Remember also that you can watch our videos as they are produced by subscribing to our YouTube channel for updates.
We are also proud to present our new Web page, titled "ARC on the Tea Parties." There you’ll find relevant material on the morality of capitalism, Atlas Shrugged, and ARC’s tea party resources. Materials on the page include:
- Flyers that can be used as Tea Party handouts
- Speaker resources
- Video presentations by ARC spokesmen
- Radio interviews
- Recordings of Ayn Rand
- … and much more.
I’m grateful for the outpouring of activism that we have seen from our audience in recent times. I encourage you to continue, so that we may influence the culture towards Ayn Rand’s vision of individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism.
Sincerely,
Yaron Brook
Executive Director
The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Events, Individual Rights and Law
Monday, April 6, 2009
Mob Rule Comes to Washington by Peter Schwartz
In dealing with AIG, why are people pussyfooting around? They believe that the bonus money was stolen from the public and must be retrieved by any means possible. So why not bypass the niceties and just send in some well-armed “enforcers” to confiscate the bonus recipients’ cars and houses and bank accounts?
If this raises fear about ushering in mob rule, it’s too late. AIG employees have been crudely vilified, they have been targets of death threats, a U.S. senator has urged them to kill themselves, protestors “tour” their homes, they have had to hire security guards and AIG has removed its name from the front of its Manhattan offices.
This mass hysteria is being fueled by the government, which is proceeding on the premise of: “Get the money back first, rationalize later.” The House passed an extraordinary piece of punitive—and unconstitutional—legislation to tax away almost all the bonus money. New York’s attorney general, abetted by the threat of making their names public, has gotten many of the recipients to “voluntarily” return their bonuses. Perversely, the rights of captured Islamic jihadists generate greater concern in Washington.
All these actions are tantamount to rule by mob action.
A mob is driven by rampant emotionalism, with no concern for facts—facts such as: Are these particular recipients guilty of anything? Are they competent individuals, necessary to keep the company operational? Would they have resigned without the inducement of the bonuses? Didn’t Washington consent to the bonuses at the time of the bailout? Aren’t the recipients entitled to the bonuses by contract?
The essence of mob rule is arbitrary and unchecked force, in disregard of all rights. If so, then when the government spends our money with virtually no limits—then trillions of dollars are gleefully disbursed through unrestrained horse-trading and arm-twisting among members of Congress—when trillions more are poured down the rat holes of failing companies at the uncontrolled discretion of bureaucrats—when government “czars” can select a company’s CEO and dictate its product line—then what we have is government by mob rule. That is, we have government with arbitrary, unchecked power to do as it wishes—which means: government unconstrained by the principle of individual freedom.
Like any mob, Washington desires a scapegoat. It blames capitalism for the mortgage and credit crisis, in order to divert attention from the real culprit: government intervention. Every housing-related measure taken by Washington has made the standards for homeownership looser than they would be in a free market. Government has stepped in to override private companies’ aversion to undue risk. Regulators criticized banks for turning down too many mortgage applications. FNMA and FHLMC were created to encourage the issuance of mortgages that would not be prudent in a free market. The FDIC anesthetizes depositors against risks taken with their funds. And the entire Federal Reserve exists to pump paper money into the economy, and to keep interest rates artificially low—often below the rate of inflation—so that more lending occurs. Yet when this house of cards collapsed, it is capitalism that was denounced, and more government power that was demanded.
The administration’s latest proposal, for a “systemic risk regulator,” should leave little doubt that it seeks carte blanche in ruling the economy. This is a plan for an economic dictator, an “enforcer” who will have the frightening authority to oversee every decision that, in his opinion, significantly influences the economy.
Of course, once the mob-rule mentality takes hold, everyone becomes a potential target. If you obtain a mortgage or a college loan, the government may subject you too to “risk regulation.” You may be told that you can’t buy a plasma TV or take a vacation or quit your job, because the risk to your finances is “unacceptable.” But isn’t that a purely private decision?—you will indignantly demand. If government power keeps expanding, however, there may no longer be any private decisions.
Peter Schwartz is the author of The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest: A Moral Ideal for America. He is a distinguished fellow, and former chairman of the board, of the Ayn Rand Institute.
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
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