The Objective Standard Blog
Archive for July 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Why Harry Reid Loves Social Security
“Social Security is the most successful social program in the history of the world,” says Harry Reid, the Democratic senator of Nevada. Investors Business Daily replies:
Successful? A program that socks future generations with trillions in higher taxes and lower standards of living? A program that’s already running in the red and whose unsustainable finances promise to push the U.S. to the verge of bankruptcy?
Investors Business Daily is of course correct. By any fiscal standard, Social Security has been an abject failure. But what the IBD editorial staff misses is that politicians such as Reid are not concerned with that standard. They are concerned with a moral standard—specifically that of altruism, the idea that being moral consists in self-sacrificially serving others.
To those who embrace altruism, Social Security must be regarded as successful. Why? Because Social Security, like all welfare programs, demands sacrifice. It forces some Americans to sacrifice for the sake of others, enshrining in law the view that no man has a right to exist for his own sake. This is why individuals such as Reid love it—no matter the consequences for America.
Related Articles:
Related Posts:
- Altruism: The Morality of Logical Fallacies
- Altruism: The Morality of Suffering and Death (Exhibit 347R: Organ Donation)
- Altruism vs. America
Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harry_Reid_SCHIP.jpg
Posted in: Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Happy Birthday, Ayaan Hirsi Ali!
On this day in 1992, a young Muslim woman stood on a train platform with only a duffel bag, a tenacious spirit, and an active mind. These were all she needed now.
Before she wrote a best-selling autobiography, the stories of her childhood would have sounded as foreign to Westerners as her name, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. From the moment she could speak, she was taught to obey authority without question, to honor her parents no matter what, and to remember her second-class position as a woman.
The horrific nature of the Islamic culture into which Ayaan was born can be concretized in a single event from her childhood. In order to eliminate the possibility of sexual pleasure and to preserve her virginity for the husband her parents would later choose, her elders subjected her to a form of hell on earth. As Ms. Ali explains, “There is no other way to describe this procedure. . . . After the child’s clitoris and labia are carved out, scraped off . . . the whole area is often sewn up, so that a thick band of tissue forms a chastity belt made of the girl’s own scarred flesh.”
Fortunately, while growing up in Kenya, Ayaan attended a colonially-influenced school and learned of a different kind of culture—one where girls were not mutilated but venerated; where independence, not blind obedience, was prized; and where a woman was free to pursue her own life in her own way.
Now, standing on this train platform, she faced a choice. Her parents had arranged for her to marry a Muslim. That meant a life of submission not only to the dictates of Mohammed and the community but also to those of an unchosen husband. Her only alternative was to run away and start a new life somewhere else.
Ayaan got on the train and marked the date: July 24, 1992. Of this day, she later wrote: “Every year, I think of it. I see it as my real birthday: the birth of me as a person, making decisions about my life on my own.”
Happy Birthday, Ms. Ali!
Related Post:
Image: Courtesy of Tali Yashinski Despins
Posted in: Announcements, Religion
Friday, July 23, 2010
Did Obama Ask the SEC to Assault Goldman Sachs?
In a previous blog post I showed how the Securities and Exchange Commission has wielded power, assaulted businesses, and ignored fraud. Now it appears that the SEC colluded with the Obama administration to assault Goldman Sachs, boost the administration’s chances of passing the financial “reform” bill, and line the coffers of Obama’s reelection campaign. Quoting the Washington Examiner:
It seemed a little odd last week when the Securities and Exchange Commission settled its lawsuit against Goldman Sachs within two hours of Senate passage of the Democrats’ Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. After all, who could ask for a more perfect backdrop than a successful prosecution of the investment colossus of Wall Street and a prime mover in the economic crisis of 2008? But this one looks stranger still considering that the SEC action was announced on April 15 of this year, only a week before the legislation was brought before the Senate, thus neatly bookending debate on the proposal. And it gets even stranger. On the same April 15, President Obama’s campaign organization, Organizing for America, purchased a Google ad directing people who Googled “Goldman Sachs SEC” to donate money at my.barackobama.com.
Whether or not evidence of collusion in this case is conclusive, the sad fact is that there is no reason to put such corruption past the SEC or this administration. Fortunately, as John David Lewis has argued, the brazen evil of Obama and company is providing a kind of political clarity that could lead Americans to see that our alternatives really are capitalism or statism.
Related Articles:
- Obama’s Atomic Bomb: The Ideological Clarity of the Democratic Agenda
- Review of David Einhorn’s Fooling Some of the People All the Time
Related Post:
Posted in: Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Larry Downes Interviews Steve Simpson on Free Speech in America
Here’s a great interview with Steve Simpson in which he argues that Americans need to recognize freedom of speech not as a permission to be granted when it suits social purposes, but as a right to be protected at all times. (The interview is in the first hour of the July 17 podcast.) For more on this subject, see Simpson’s article “Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech in America,” which is also available in audio.
Posted in: Individual Rights and Law
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Government Intervention: It’s Not Just Bad for Business
In a recent article in Investor’s Business Daily, Thomas Sowell explains why Obama’s economic policies are bad for the economy:
The current issue of Bloomberg Businessweek has a feature article about businesses that are just holding on to huge sums of money. They say, for example, that the pharmaceutical company Pfizer is holding on to $26 billion. If so, there should not be any great mystery as to why they don’t invest it.
With the Obama administration being on an anti-business kick, boasting of putting their foot on some business’ neck, and the president talking about putting his foot on another part of the anatomy, with Congress coming up with more and more red tape, more mandates and more heavy-handed interventions in businesses, would you risk $26 billion that you might not even be able to get back, much less make any money on the deal?
Of course you wouldn’t. No rational person would. And this phenomenon of businesses hording cash is rampant today for this very reason. Just as Pfizer does not want to risk its cash on investments, so other businesses don’t want to risk theirs on new employees or equipment or innovations or branches. As Sowell points out so clearly, Obama’s economic policies are thwarting the economy.
But Sowell misses the more important point: the moral factor. The fundamental offense for which Obama’s economic policies should be condemned is their violation of businessmen’s moral right to keep and use their wealth and property as they see fit. The crucial point to be made is that for a government to put its boot on a businessman’s neck or to “kick [his] ass” is profoundly immoral. Unfortunately, the worst Sowell and most other “defenders” of capitalism can say about our increasingly enslaved society is that such policies are bad for business.
It is time for Americans to realize that if we want to save this country from the likes of Obama (and Bush for that matter), we must argue not merely for the economic superiority of capitalism, but also, and more fundamentally, for the moral propriety of capitalism.
Related Articles:
- Capitalism and the Moral High Ground
- The California Coastal Commission: A Case Study in Government Assault on Property Rights
Related Posts:
- The Little Dictators
- There’s Nothing “Bright” About the Stimulus Bill
- Capitalism: The Only Moral System
Posted in: Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Atlas Shrugged Revolution
A message from Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute:
UPCOMING AYN RAND INSTITUTE EVENT—THE ATLAS SHRUGGED REVOLUTION, SEPTEMBER 14, 2010
I am very pleased to announce that on Tuesday, September 14, 2010, in New York City we will hold our second annual Atlas Shrugged Revolution fundraising dinner event.
Last year’s event attracted 125 attendees and raised more than $400,000—and we hope that this year’s event will be an even greater success.
Here are the details for this year’s dinner:
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
6:00 p.m.
W New York
541 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10022
John Allison of BB&T Corporation will again join me to discuss the public’s continuing interest in Atlas Shrugged—and the ideas behind it. We will also update attendees on the work being done by ARI to promote Ayn Rand’s philosophy at this critical time in our nation’s history.
For more details and to register, please visit our event Web site.
We hope you’ll be able to join us in Manhattan on September 14, for ARI’s second annual Atlas Shrugged Revolution event!
Sincerely,
Yaron Brook
President and Executive Director
P.S. At this year’s event we will again hold an auction of rare Ayn Rand books and manuscripts. Images and descriptions of the items are available for viewing on the Web.
Copyright © 2010 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Posted in: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Events
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
TOS Subscription Upgrades
Due to popular demand, we have created a quick-and-easy means of upgrading to our new Audio, E-book, and Premium subscriptions. If you wish to upgrade, simply click on the Renew/Upgrade button in the navigation bar, log in, and make your selection. Upgrade prices based on your existing subscription and the upgrade alternatives will appear next to the options. (For instance, if you currently have a Print subscription with two issues remaining, the price for upgrading to a Premium subscription will show as $10.)
Full descriptions and general pricing for all options can be found on the subscriptions page.
Upgrade today and access TOS on the go!
Posted in: Announcements
TOS Updates & Commentary
Sign up to receive TOS updates & commentary.
Featured Posts
- Who Deserves Credit for Tebow’s 316 Yards?
- Santorum Stands for Big Government because He Stands for Collectivism
- When Ayn Rand Meets Patrick Henry
- The Justice of Income Inequality Under Capitalism
- The Beauty of Ayn Rand's Ethics
Blog Archive
Blog Topics
- Announcements (165)
- Ayn Rand and Objectivism (107)
- Business and Economics (234)
- Education (57)
- Environmentalism (56)
- Events (100)
- Foreign Policy and War (217)
- Health Care (84)
- History (55)
- Individual Rights and Law (352)
- Philosophy (139)
- Presidential Candidates (17)
- Productivity (2)
- Psychology (10)
- Religion (131)
- Science and Technology (70)
- Sports (2)
- The Arts (40)
- Week in Review (12)
Ideas presented in posts on TOS Blog are those of the authors of the posts and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Objective Standard. TOS Blog is powered by WordPress.
