TOS Blog: Daily Commentary from an Objectivist Perspective

Topics: Presidential Candidates

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Obama Admin Seeking to Reestablish Funding for Evil UNESCO

Posted by Joshua Lipana at 11:23 pm

Obama_SchemingThe Obama administration wants to reestablish funding for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). American funding for UNESCO was cut upon UNESCO’s admission of the terrorist organization, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). U.S. law forbids the funding of the United Nations or any of its specialized agencies “which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states.” The Obama administration is now seeking a waiver to exempt itself from this law.

In an earlier post I wrote:

Since its inception, the PLO has repeatedly attacked Israel and slaughtered Israelis. Massacres include the Coastal Road Massacre, in which PLO agents hijacked an Israeli bus and murdered 38 civilians, 13 of whom were children—and the so-called “Second Intifada,” in which the PLO murdered more than one thousand Israelis. This is the PLO’s MO: attack Israel, kill Israelis.

Another prominent member of UNESCO—so prominent that it is a member of a human rights committee—is Syria. In another post, I recounted the horrors the Syrian regime is forcing upon its citizens:

The Syrian regime has been torturing people in hospitals, killing, raping and torturing children, and killing thousands of protesters who oppose the Syrian tyranny. These horrors alone—even aside from Syria’s alliance with the Iranian theocracy and their support of terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah—should have made any person or government shriek in horror in being associated with such evil.

UNESCO is clearly a fundamentally corrupt, pro-tyranny organization. That the Obama administration seeks to loot Americans to pour money into this foul organization is monstrous.

Americans should demand that Congress stop Obama’s efforts to fund UNESCO and that the United States immediately end all affiliation with it.

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Image: Wikipedia Commons

Posted in: Foreign Policy and War, Individual Rights and Law, Presidential Candidates

Friday, February 17, 2012

The Problem of Gary Johnson’s Libertarian Affiliation

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 4:00 pm

Gary JohnsonWhy won’t I support Gary Johnson as a Libertarian even though I might have supported him as a Republican? Last month I argued that “it is impossible to support Johnson as a Libertarian candidate without promoting the Libertarian Party itself,” and that the party promotes moral subjectivism and anarchism. Several readers replied that the Republican Party is a disaster, too, so why is it any better to support Johnson as a Republican?

I readily concede that the GOP is a complete disaster. It is, after all, the party that in recent years has given us Bailout Bush, First-Amendment-Shredder John McCain, Mandate Mitt Romney, and Big-Government Theocrat Rick Santorum.

But the Libertarian Party is a disaster of a different order. Supporting any Libertarian candidate unavoidably undermines the principles of liberty in a way that supporting a Republican candidate does not.

The central problem is that, unlike the major parties, the Libertarian Party (LP) is explicitly built on a core ideology, an ideology of subjectivism and hostility toward government, logically tending toward anarchism. (The Socialist Party too is based on an explicit ideology, that of collectivism and forced wealth transfers, and for that reason Johnson would never think of running with that party.) While I cannot demonstrate this fact in a short blog post, I have done so in a previous article and in thousands of other words I’ve written elsewhere on the topic. (For a lengthy expose of Libertarianism, see Peter Schwartz’s “Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty.”)

Because some Libertarian goals are superficially similar to those required for a free society, promoting Libertarianism packages together some seemingly positive policy prescriptions (e.g., tax cuts) with philosophically corrupt fundamentals. Thus, promoting a Libertarian candidate blurs the lines between the objective moral basis for freedom and moral subjectivism, and between a rights-respecting government and no government at all.

When a Libertarian candidate pronounces his endorsement of “smaller government”—and the notion that the smaller the better—critics rightly point out that the logic of Libertarianism, and very often the explicit pronouncements of Libertarians, leads to anarchy. Recall that Libertarians twice ran an avowed anarchist for president; that in 2008 the LP selected Bob Barr only after casting multiple tied votes for Mary Ruwart, the anarchist who advocates (among other insanities) legalizing child pornography; and that the work of anarchist Murray Rothbard, widely known as “Mr. Libertarian,” has always been and continues to be a major influence on the party.

Although libertarians often claim to be inspired by the ideas of Ayn Rand, Rand denounced the movement precisely because of its amoralism and anarchism. There is simply no getting around the fact that these elements open the gates to all sorts of insanity. To take but one example from my own experience (when I was an LP activist), one Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in Colorado distributed emails promoting racism and violence; later he earned a felony conviction for threatening a judge.

Whereas the LP is based on an ideology of subjectivism and anarchism, the GOP is not. Initially the GOP was driven by anti-slavery activism, but once slavery was outlawed the GOP morphed into a coalition party, electing such ideologically diverse presidents as Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. The party is still without an ideology and in search of one. Thus, the promotion of a Republican candidate does not necessarily entail the promotion of a corrupt ideology in the way that the promotion of a Libertarian candidate does—and the possibility remains that advocates of liberty could, over time, establish a sound philosophical underpinning for the GOP. This possibility does not exist with the Libertarian Party.

If Gary Johnson had remained a Republican or run as an independent or with some coalition party, he might have been worth continued support. As it is, Johnson has thrown in his lot with the subjectivists, anarchists, advocates of legalizing child pornography, and clownish incompetents of the LP. America needs the real case for liberty, not the Libertarian perversion of liberty.

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Image: Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons

Posted in: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Presidential Candidates

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Ignore Santorum’s Depraved Prescription: Have Sex for Pleasure this Valentine’s Day

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 4:54 pm

According to Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, using contraception is “not okay” because it is somehow “counter to how things are supposed to be”; sex, according to this would-be leader of the free world, should be “for purposes of procreation,” not “simply [for] pleasure.” (Thanks to blogger Ace of Spades for commenting on this yesterday.)

But Santorum’s view is totally corrupt. Sure, couples who want to have children engage in sex partly in hopes of conceiving. But romantic couples rightly have sex for the sheer pleasure of it, even if they don’t want or are unable to conceive a child. And if they don’t want a child, they properly use birth control to prevent pregnancy. Contra Santorum, the primary purpose of sex is not procreation (an optional value) but pleasure (a requirement of human life), which corresponds to the fact that the latter purpose is far more widely embraced.

As Ayn Rand pointed out, pleasurable sex is not the surrender to some lowly animalistic impulse; it is instead the pinnacle of a thriving life appropriate to a rational being. In her essay condemning the Catholic renunciation of birth control, Rand writes, “To a rational man, sex is an expression of self-esteem—a celebration of himself and of existence.”

Valentine’s Day is a great time to commit to celebrating life as it should be—full of spiritual joy and sensual pleasure. Santorum and his wife can do as they please tonight, but we who love life should feel free to indulge in lovers’ bodies—just for the pleasure of it.

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Image: iStockPhoto

Posted in: Presidential Candidates, Romance

Monday, February 6, 2012

Israel Should Obliterate the Iranian Regime

Posted by Joshua Lipana at 1:58 pm

IDF_Air_ForcePresident Obama is feverishly trying to dissuade Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, warning of the “disruptive” consequence such an attack would have on oil prices and regional security. Instead, Obama is encouraging more diplomacy.

The Iranian regime continues to fund and support Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah—both of which have committed numerous massacres on the Israeli people—and has repeatedly staged rallies calling for “Death to Israel.” Making matters worse, as the Associated Press reports, “Israel fears that Iran is fast approaching a point at which a limited military strike would no longer be enough to head off an Iranian bomb.” That Obama and his ilk are discouraging the Israelis from defending themselves against this ongoing and increasing assault is an abomination.

The Israelis should act in their self-interest, ignore the siren songs leading them to their slaughter, and obliterate the Iranian regime.

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Image: Creative Commons by Israeli Defense Forces

Posted in: Foreign Policy and War, Presidential Candidates

Monday, January 30, 2012

Gingrich Seeks to Violate Rights of Women and Doctors to Engage in Fertility Care

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 4:39 pm

Newt GingrichThe spectacle of Newt Gingrich—of all people—trying to dictate the family planning of others is ludicrous.

Yet Gingrich’s recent call for more rules controlling in vitro fertility treatments raises an important issue: Under the proposed anti-abortion “personhood” laws that Gingrich endorses, common fertility treatments would be outlawed. The result would be that many women who wish to have children would be legally barred from getting pregnant.

“Personhood” laws would arbitrarily declare eggs at the moment of fertilization to be the legal equivalent of a born child, conferring full legal rights to zygotes. Among many other things, such laws would ban common fertility treatments that involve harvesting multiple eggs from the woman, trying to fertilize those eggs, and then implanting one or more of the resulting zygotes in the woman’s uterus. Because these procedures typically produce extra zygotes that are later destroyed, “personhood” laws declare them to be murder.

If doctors were forbidden from fertilizing more than a single egg at a time, that would dramatically increase the cost of fertility treatment and dramatically reduce the chances of success. As a result, many women who wish to have children would be legally prevented from doing so. (For details, see a 2010 paper on the subject by Diana Hsieh and me.)

Thus, “personhood” laws would violate the rights of women and their partners to seek fertility care as well as the rights of doctors to administer it—a violation of the founding rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And yet, even though they would prevent many women from having children of their own, the “personhood” laws are preposterously called “pro life” by their advocates. They are in fact profoundly anti-life, and it it time for Americans to recognize them as such.

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Image: Creative Commons by Gage Skidmore

Posted in: Health Care, Individual Rights and Law, Presidential Candidates

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Obama Should Help End All Energy Subsidies, Not Play Favorites

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 7:13 pm

Barack ObamaPresident Obama is schizophrenic in his energy proposals.

In a Thursday address at Buckley Air Force Base, Obama said he wants “the same set of rules for everyone.” Yet, on one hand, he said he wants to end subsidies and “taxpayer giveaways” to oil companies, while on the other hand he wants to establish “clean energy tax credits” and mandates that compel people to use politically favored energy sources.

In other words, Obama wants one set of rules for productive oil companies and a different set of rules for his political cronies who run parasitical “alternative” energy companies like Solyndra. Instead, Obama should call for the elimination of tax-funded subsidies and the even-handed lowering of taxes across the board.

A business subsidy—corporate welfare—is an abomination. As Mike Brownfield argued for the conservative Heritage Foundation last year, “The left’s anti-subsidy rhetoric is right on. Ending all energy subsidies, including those for oil and gas, would be good for American taxpayers and consumers.” More importantly, it would protect their rights to control their own wealth. Why, then, do some people condemn corporate welfare for oil companies even as they champion it for their own pet projects? Brownfield notes that, for such activists, “vilifying an industry [oil] is their end game.”

The problem of discriminatory taxes is trickier. However, clearly the wrong approach is to confuse subsidies with tax breaks. A subsidy involves forcibly confiscating the wealth of some parties and giving it to other parties. A tax break involves letting a business keep more of the wealth that it produces and properly owns. The two things are fundamentally different.

That said, the federal government ought not play favorites by punishing some businesses with higher tax rates. Discriminatory taxes violate the basic principle of equality under the law.

The solution to discriminatory taxes is not to impose even higher taxes on the historically favored businesses. To do so would be to act on the flawed principle that two wrongs somehow make a right. Instead, the proper approach is to start by dropping everyone’s taxes to the lower rate. Obama should not try to raise net taxes on oil companies; he should reduce net taxes on everyone paying more.

But Obama refuses to demand “the same set of rules for everyone.” Instead, he wants to pick the winners and losers in the economy—the rights and well-being of energy companies and their customers be damned.

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Image: Creative Commons by Bernard Pollack

Posted in: Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Presidential Candidates

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Great Producers Deserve Our Gratitude, Not Obama’s Tax Hikes

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 5:55 pm

Lower ManhattanIn his State of the Union address, Barack Obama said the wealthy need to pay higher taxes in order to pay their “fair share.”

As Newt Gingrich told Newsmax, Obama’s plan apparently would entail doubling the capital gains tax to 30 percent, something Gingrich justifiably characterizes as the “most destructive anti-jobs proposal by a president in my lifetime.” (The tax hike would be on top of the double taxation already applied to capital gains.)

But Obama’s proposed tax hikes are not merely economically destructive, they are the antithesis of actual fairness. Toward genuine fairness, a good first step would be to dramatically cut taxes on those who produce enormous wealth. Such producers earn their money by creating the technologies, products, jobs, and effective business practices that keep us alive and help us flourish. They deserve to use their resources as they judge best rather than see their earnings looted by federal politicians and the special-interest groups that many of those politicians serve. And yet, rather than applaud the giants of industry whose productivity enhances our lives in myriad ways, federal politicians punish them with insanely high taxes. (James Pethokoukis reviews relative tax burdens for the American Enterprise Institute, and I discuss the matter in a piece for Pajamas Media.)

To puff up his claim that forcing the wealthy to pay higher taxes is somehow more “fair,” Obama presumes that their wealth automatically belongs to the federal government. If politicians allow wealthy producers to keep more of the money they earn, he argued, then that is a “special tax subsidy,” no different than if the government hands the wealthy the money that somebody else earned.

The federal government should forcibly seize more of the earnings of the wealthy, Obama argued, in order to give that money to someone else, whether “a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet.” Elsewhere in his speech Obama suggested that politically-connected parasites posing as businessmen also deserve more corporate welfare. But, regardless of which interest groups win the federal payouts, Obama’s principle is the same: the wealth of the great producers should be forcibly confiscated and turned over to those who did not produce it but allegedly need it or profess to need it.

In other words, one’s “unalienable rights” to one’s “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” must make way for the collectivist doctrine: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Fairness does not mean letting the federal government forcibly confiscate more of the wealth of those who produce the goods, services, businesses, and jobs on which our lives depend. It means limiting the government to the protection of each person’s rights to his property and earnings, whether that person earns ten thousand dollars every year or ten billion.

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Image: Public Domain

Posted in: Business and Economics, Presidential Candidates

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Double-Taxation Means Double Injustice for Romney

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 3:44 pm

Mitt RomneyWhy do the same people who continually cry that “corporations aren’t people” want to tax them as though they were? Corporations are voluntary organizations of individuals. The law should protect the rights of each individual (including the right to speak as part of a group), not impose double burdens on individuals who happen to participate in corporations. Yet today’s tax code punishes individuals who invest in corporations twice: once at the corporate level and once at the individual level.

Thus, far from getting off easy on his taxes, Mitt Romney suffers unjust double taxation. John Berlau and Trey Kovacs explain this important context in an article for the Wall Street Journal. They write, “Our tax code layers taxation of dividends and capital gains on top of a top corporate tax rate of 35%,” and such “double taxation brings the effective tax rate on investment income to as much as 44.75%.”

At least Romney wants to limit the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent. But he should go much further and call for the abolition of all corporate taxes with a commensurate cut in federal spending. 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.

Romney’s critics are right about one thing: It is grotesquely unfair to tax individuals who earn less an even greater proportion of their income. Thus, as a good first step tax rates for all individuals should be reduced to 15 percent or less. Forcing some people to hand over a third or more of their earnings to the politicians and bureaucrats of the federal government is a blatant violation of their rights.

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Image: Creative Commons by Brian Rawson-Ketchum via Wikipedia

Posted in: Business and Economics, Presidential Candidates

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

To Give Americans a “Fair Shot,” Obama Should Stop Violating Our Rights

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 7:00 am

Barack ObamaIn his State of the Union address, President Obama said, “We can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” If only he had the slightest clue what constitutes fairness and equality under the law.

A proper government gives people a “fair shot” by protecting their rights to produce, trade freely with others, use the fruits of their labor as they deem best, and guide their own lives in accordance with their own rational judgment. A proper government protects people’s rights to their own wealth and property, enforces chosen obligations defined by freely entered contracts, and prevents people from forcibly confiscating the “share” of others. And a proper government protects free trade under laws that protect individual rights.

Obama proposes policies with opposite goals and outcomes.

Rather than slash oppressive taxes that drive businesses overseas, Obama wants to impose new oppressive taxes on companies that do businesses elsewhere.

Rather than protect the equal rights of all business operators, Obama calls for corporate welfare for politically-favored businesses (such as Solyndra).

Rather than respect the rights of parents to fund the educational opportunities that best meet the needs of their children, Obama wants more federal controls of education.

Rather than lower tax rates across the board, Obama calls for discriminatory taxes that favor the politically connected.

Rather than protect the rights of individuals and companies to buy goods from their suppliers of choice, Obama wants to establish a “Trade Enforcement Unit” to restrict free trade.

Rather than protect the rights of consumers to purchase the energy that best suits their needs, Obama wants to play favorites with federal mandates.

Rather than seriously restrain federal spending, Obama is content to continue many of the policies that have contributed mightily to the nation’s $15 trillion debt.

There is nothing fair about Obama’s blatant violations of individual rights.

True, Obama offered a few words about protecting property rights, preventing fraud, and slightly loosening the federal shackles on domestic energy production. But such comments seem calculated to blur the difference between rights-protecting behavior and rights-violating behavior by the government, and Obama’s policies clearly favor the latter.

Moreover, Obama blamed the free market for the failures of the government, as with the mortgage meltdown caused by the federal government’s easy-money policies, even as he credited politicians and bureaucrats for the astounding achievements of industrialists, as with hydraulic fracturing in the production of oil and gas (see, for instance, the story of producer George Mitchell).

A nation of prosperous individuals depends on governmental policies that consistently protect individual rights. Unfortunately, many of Obama’s policies threaten to more seriously undermine rights.

Related:

Image: Ben Stanfield via Wikipedia

Posted in: Individual Rights and Law, Presidential Candidates

Monday, January 9, 2012

Even with Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party Undermines Liberty

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 11:51 pm

Gary_JohnsonTo many lovers of liberty, Gary Johnson seemed like the ideal Republican candidate for president, an advocate of staunch fiscal responsibility along with personal liberty on issues such as abortion and gay marriage. He appeals to many who share the sentiments of a Colorado business owner: “I want the Democrats out of my pocket and Republicans out of my bedroom” (a quote invoked by Paul Hsieh in an article on abortion rights).

On December 28, Johnson, formerly the Republican governor of New Mexico, announced that he was leaving the Republican Party to launch a presidential campaign with the Libertarian Party. Many who supported Johnson on the Republican ticket wonder whether they should also support him on the Libertarian ticket. One crucial consideration is that it is impossible to support Johnson as a Libertarian candidate without promoting the Libertarian Party itself, and that party undermines the very foundation of individual rights.

Historically, the Libertarian Party (LP) has always been laced with moral subjectivism, the notion that right and wrong are matters of opinion or social consensus; and anarchy, the notion that the ideal society is one without a government. Although not every self-identified libertarian today embraces subjectivism or anarchy, these elements continue to characterize the Libertarian Party and the broader libertarian movement.

Consider, for instance, the web page about abortion at Libertarianism.com (a web site run by Advocates for Self-Government, a group distinct from the LP but embraced by many in the Party), which claims: “Abortion is a difficult issue upon which reasonable, ethical people can disagree.  Until society can come to consensus about the status of the fetus, libertarians can reasonably be divided on their policy prescriptions.” But there is nothing reasonable about the notion that whether a fetus has rights is to be determined by social consensus. As Diana Hsieh and I argue in a recent article for The Objective Standard, the question of abortion rights cannot be decided by social consensus; rather, it must be decided by an objective assessment of the nature of rights and of the fetus. (Such an assessment shows conclusively that women have the right to seek an abortion and doctors have the right to perform abortions; see the article for details.)

Although some libertarians say that all abortions should be legal, others say they should be legal only until “the cerebral cortex has emerged,” and still others, such as 1988 LP Presidential candidate Ron Paul, say that all “abortion is an act of aggression that is incompatible with libertarianism.” Such contradictory viewpoints coexist within libertarianism because one of its central ideas is that there are no demonstrably true, objective moral standards on which to base political conclusions.

Because libertarians generally deny the possibility of objective standards in morality, they offer no coherent theory of rights or of what constitutes freedom or force; thus, they disagree about all sorts of important issues in addition to abortion. For example, some support intellectual property rights, while others regard any effort to impose copyrights or patents as an “initiation of force” (see the Wikipedia entry devoted to this debate.)

Likewise, some libertarians argue that children should be “free” to have sex with adults. Although the LP platform says, “Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships,” Mary Ruwart, an author featured prominently by Advocates for Self-Government and a leading contender for the 2008 LP presidential ticket, claims that restriction is too narrow. Regarding the question of child pornography, she writes in her book on libertarianism: “Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right to make that decision.” Such a view obliterates the very meaning of rights and sanctions the ugliest of crimes. Granted, many libertarians rightly recoil at such positions, but that does not change the fact that Johnson has placed himself in the same philosophic cesspool as the likes of Ruwart.

Libertarians do tend to agree on foreign policy, on which subject their views are generally abhorrent. The libertarian aversion to government as such helps explain why libertarians such as Ron Paul routinely denounce U.S. efforts toward self-defense and blame America for Islamist terrorism. Granted, various U.S. foreign policy moves have failed to defend America and in fact have empowered Islamist states that sponsor terrorism. But this does not change the fact that Islamists are ideologically driven to establish a global Islamic theocracy and that Islamist terrorism stems fundamentally from that goal. Yet libertarians routinely bury their heads in the sand in the face of such threats, choosing instead to blame our government.

Further, many libertarians in and out of the LP openly endorse anarchy. For example (and not surprisingly), Ruwart writes that, while studying libertarianism, she “was easily won over to anarchy.” Murray Rothbard, active in the LP during the 1970s and 1980s and known to many as “Mr. Libertarian,” also explicitly advocated anarchy, professing his “deep and pervasive hatred” of government.

Libertarians who do not openly endorse anarchy nevertheless tend to see government as inherently evil. Harry Browne, the LP’s presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, expresses a typical libertarian perspective: “It seems to me that a lot of time is wasted by libertarians who argue whether it’s possible to have a society without any government at all. Those who want no government at all can continue working to reduce the size of government. Those who want limited government can fight to keep the federal government” small. In other words, the ideal is anarchy, but if we cannot achieve that ideal, the closer we get to it the better. Before running for office Browne was less ambivalent; in his 1973 book he wrote, “I believe a world without ‘government’ would be a better place to live.”

True, the LP platform states, “Government exists to protect the rights of every individual including life, liberty and property.” Yet for the LP such statements constitute baseless platitudes. The platform also states that “where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual” (emphasis added). Given that Libertarians have repeatedly promoted avowed anarchists as high-level candidates and party leaders, it should come as no surprise that the party’s platform leaves open the possibility that government ought not exist. The Founders, by contrast, saw constitutional government dedicated to the protection of individual rights as essential to liberty.

Obviously many Libertarian Party members, including Johnson, reject anarchism and the kookier elements of the party. Yet, by running as a Libertarian, Johnson necessarily drags his better ideas into the libertarian muck. By lending his credibility to a party that often tolerates (or even glorifies) anarchism, blames America for Islamist assaults against us, and embraces moral subjectivism and outright craziness, Johnson sullies the case for liberty by muddying it with antithetical ideas.

Note: The author used to be a Libertarian Party activist who campaigned for Harry Browne.

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Image: Gaga Skidmore

Posted in: Business and Economics, Foreign Policy and War, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Presidential Candidates