Stark Relief

I hope the Republicans are paying attention

2006-11-08T16:27:00.001-08:00

Ballot measure losses jolt the religious right

From the country's heartland, voters sent messages that altered America's culture wars and dismayed the religious right - defending abortion rights in South Dakota, endorsing stem cell research in Missouri, and, in a national first, rejecting a same-sex marriage ban in Arizona.

Conservative leaders were jolted by the setbacks and looked for an explanation Wednesday. Gay-rights and abortion-rights activists celebrated.

It's the religion, stupid. As mentioned later in the article:

In Missouri, anti-abortion groups, evangelical Christian clergy and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis campaigned hard against the stem cell measure, contending it would condone life-destroying embryonic research.

Debbie Forck, a Catholic from Jefferson City, Mo., was among those giving the measure a narrow victory.

"I've had several family members that have had debilitating illnesses," said Forck, 50. "It goes against my church, but to eliminate pain in my life, I thought it was worth it."

Good for you, Debbie.

The verdict on abortion rights was particularly clear. Oregon and California voters defeated measures that would have required parents to be notified before a girl under 18 could get an abortion, and South Dakotans - by a margin of 56 percent to 44 percent - rejected a new state law that would have banned all abortions except to save a pregnant woman's life.

Red-state rebellion
"This was really a rebellion in the heart of red-state, pro-life America - the heart of the northern Bible Belt," said Sarah Stoesz, head of the Planned Parenthood chapter that oversees South Dakota. "It sends a very strong message to the rest of the country."

South Dakota legislators had passed the law in expectation it would trigger a court challenge and lead to a possible Supreme Court reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Abortion-rights leaders said Wednesday that such strategies should be abandoned.

Now, if only the Republicans make the connection between religiously motivated ballot measures failing and their party's large loss yesterday. Like Debbie Forck, many Americans want to be able to live well here on Earth, regardless of the superstitions of themselves or others.

Checking in on The Moral Majority Coalition

2006-11-02T00:25:00.001-08:00

Right after the election in 2004, I posted briefly about a new organization called the "Faith and Values Coalition", about which the Benjo Blog wrote:

It seems that the Moral Majority has been "born-again". From the AP:

Seeking to take advantage of the momentum from an election where moral values proved important to voters, the Rev. Jerry Falwell announced Tuesday he has formed a new coalition to guide an "evangelical revolution."

Falwell, a religious broadcaster based in Lynchburg, Va., said the Faith and Values Coalition will be a "21st century resurrection of the Moral Majority," the organization he founded in 1979.

Falwell said he would serve as the coalition's national chairman for four years.

He added that the new group's mission would be to lobby for anti-abortion conservatives to fill openings on the Supreme Court and lower courts, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and the election of another "George Bush-type" conservative in 2008.

It will be interesting to see how successful this group is in the next four years or so. If religion truly is on the march again, this group will have more influence culturally and politically than the Moral Majority did in the 80's. It's also interesting to see (in the story) that the board chairman will be theologian Tim LaHaye, known for his popular Left Behind series.

I checked to see how the Coalition was doing last night and I found that they had changed their name to The Moral Majority Coalition. Here's an interview with Jerry Falwell from 2004, in which he puts the third goal of the group as "voter registration beginning immediately to strengthen the president's hand in '06 and '08 and hopefully get another good George Bush-type elected in '08." Their platform has been changed to these 4 points now:

Platform # 1
The Moral Majority Coalition will conduct an intensive four-year "Voter Registration Campaign" through America's conservative churches, para-church ministries, pro-life and pro-family organizations.

Platform #2
The Moral Majority Coalition will conduct well organized "Get-Out-The-Vote Campaigns" in 2006 and 2008.

Platform #3
The Moral Majority Coalition will engage in the massive recruitment and mobilization of social conservatives through television, radio, direct mail (U.S.P.S. and Internet) and public rallies.

Platform #4
The Moral Majority Coalition will encourage the promotion of continuous private and corporate prayer for America's moral renaissance based on 2 Chronicles 7:14.

2 Chronicles 7:14

No doubt the backing away from endorsing candidates or parties directly is because "The Liberty Alliance/The Moral Majority Coalition is a not for profit educational and lobbying organization" and they would like to keep their tax-exempt status.

From their site is this timeline, to which I've added emphasis:

1973 - Thomas Road Baptist Church Founder and Pastor Jerry Falwell begins a series of meetings and conversations with theologian Francis Schaeffer (“How Should We Then Live?”). Dr. Schaeffer routinely encourages Falwell to defy traditional evangelical reasoning by taking on a policy of confronting the culture with the Gospel. In the months to come, Falwell begins to meet with conservative leaders, including Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), to formulate how Christians can begin to influence the culture, specifically in terms of the burgeoning environment of legalized abortion (initiated with the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade).

1979 - With the country in a seeming moral downfall, in April, Falwell joins with Drs. Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Dr. Charles Stanley and Dr. D. James Kennedy to launch an organization with a mission of organizing evangelical leaders who will boldly engage the culture. The Moral Majority kicks off with a pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-national defense and pro-Israel platform.

1980 - By November, more than 100,000 evangelical pastors, conservative Cath-olic priests and orthodox rabbis have come on board along with seven million families. Add-itionally, the organization mobilizes 8.5 million new voters, largely through church-based voter registration drives, and raises $70 million to continue its efforts. The Moral Majority backs the presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan and helps sweep him into office in dramatic fashion. In addition, 12 liberal Democrat senators and several liberal House members are also defeated, launching a new wave of political activity within the evangelical community. The political landscape is spectacularly altered.

1988 - At the end of his presidency, Ronald Reagan has appointed three Supreme Court justices and 378 federal judges and has almost single-handedly defeated the “evil empire” of communism. Continuing a close relationship with Falwell and the pro-life community, President Reagan has enhanced respect for unborn life. Most importantly, he has revived America’s esprit de corps, the combination of pride and purpose that is rooted in the values of the nation’s founding.

1989 - Determining that he must focus on the growth of Liberty University — which has today grown into an 8,100-student resident training ground for future political, social and church leaders — Falwell announces that he is disbanding the Moral Majority. The “religious right” continues to survive through the following years, but seems to decline and meander during the Clinton years.

1995 - In February, Falwell launches the National Liberty Journal. The monthly newspaper is designed to inform evangelicals on key moral and spiritual issues of the day. The publication serves as a major tool to encourage hundreds of thousands of pastors and leaders to once again conduct voter registration efforts and get-out-the-vote campaigns in 2000 and 2004.

2004 - In November, Falwell unveils The Moral Majority Coalition, an organization designed to continue the “evangelical revolution” that swept President Bush back into the White House and saw the election of many pro-life leaders to national office. Referring to TMMC as a “21st century resurrection of the Moral Majority,” Falwell, the father of the modern “religious right” political movement, commits to leading the organization for four years.

From "It’s Time for Christians to Get Out the Vote":

I don’t believe the polls accurately depict the preparedness of the conservative Christian community to vote. Sure, I think the recent Foley scandal and other government indignities have discouraged some, but when you get down to brass tacks, these controversies don’t alter our core values.

Christians continue to want to elect those candidates that best reflect their biblical values and support the issues that have defined our movement since we swept Ronald Reagan into the Oval Office in 1980. Our values have not changed.

As Gary Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, says, “The right to life and traditional marriage are not wedge issues, they are winning issues. Values issues are not distractions from the business of governing. They are central to the survival of our republic.

And this is just disturbing:

Liberty University and Child Evangelism Fellowship announced that they are partnering in offering two new degrees in Children’s Ministry. I believe this is an important endeavor because we must reach children with the message of Christ before they are tainted with the cynicism and corruption of the world.

Or, you know, before they are able to rationally evaluate our beliefs.

Liberty’s partnership with Child Evangelism Fellowship teams up the largest evangelical university in the world with the largest children’s ministry in the world. It’s a natural affiliation.

CEF was founded in 1937 and operates in all 50 states and 156 nations. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, the second-largest city in the world, CEF curriculum has been required by the government in the public schools for the past 40 years. CEF’s focus is on children ages 5 to 12.

With 85 percent of all Christians making their decision to accept Christ during this period in their lives, it is evident that this program is more vital than ever.

Mathew D. Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel and interim dean of the Liberty University School of Law, commented on this new partnership: “Our future is being shaped today in the minds and hearts of our youth. Based on my work with children over the past several years, youth outreach has become my passion. The lives of many children will be changed through this development.”

I don't doubt that they will be, unfortunately.

If only they had an RSS feed to make it easier to keep track of them...

Another good post on the mid-terms

2006-11-01T15:02:00.001-08:00

This one from Andrew Medworth, especially worth reading is his reply in the comments, which starts out:

Thanks for your comment, and for linking to the SoloPassion debate. While many commenters make good and interesting points on it, some of the posts are very bad, involving sneering, name-calling and a few very fundamental misunderstandings of key philosophic concepts (”rationalism” and “concrete-bound” being two examples which spring to mind). These are not compatible with, nor are they a good advertisement for, Objectivism.

I must say I disagree with the idea that the Republicans are “jogging” towards tyranny, while the Democrats are “sprinting” towards it. The Democrats are not “sprinting” anywhere, especially not if they have nothing but small majorities in Congress. Bush will have veto power over any bill they could draft, and they will not have anything like the majority required to override that veto. And history shows that liberty does best when government is divided: some of the worst laws and the highest spending increases in American history have come under Republican government.

There is no question in my mind that a Democratic victory would improve the domestic policy scene in America - not much, but some. (And that is indeed a dire indictment of the Republicans.) The only question in my mind is over foreign policy: would a vote for the Democrats be a vote for retreat, surrender and defeat in the war against Islamic totalitarianism?

At present, my answer is no, at least not compared to a vote for the Republicans. I disagree with the assertion that the Republicans are “muddling through”, fighting a half-hearted war, and that this is better than the Democrats’ total lack of willingness to fight. The Democrats will certainly not fight the war properly. But the Republicans are actively aiding the enemy: they are fighting to establish the right of the Iraqis to vote in an Islamist, anti-American government which will be more dangerous to the United States than Saddam ever was.

Mid-Term Elections

2006-11-01T00:24:00.001-08:00

Oh. My. God.

Where do I start? I have a ton to say/repeat, but it's been difficult to sit down and put it in writing. I'll start with a list of links that are very near to being required reading, insomuch as I can require my readers to do anything. :)

Leonard Peikoff's statement

Leonard Peikoff's DIM Hypothesis course, which can currently be listened to for free with registration [I talked about it a couple of years ago here; highly recommended and well worth the time commitment.]

C. Bradley Thompson's article "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism"

If you have the Fall issue of The Objective Standard, I would also recommend Elan Journo's article "The Jihad on America"

Diana Hsieh has a great post from Sunday morning integrating a lot of information

Also on Sunday, Dr. John Lewis and Craig Biddle both posted on the blog of The Objective Standard, Principles In Practice

I believe that I have been vindicated in the reasons that I voted for John Kerry in 2004, and that the last 2 years have emphasized why the Republicans are so destructive to this country. Even more so than the Democrats, because they are destroying us in the name of Capitalism, Self Defense, and America and because they have [despicable, evil, religious] ideas behind them.

Of course the Republicans aren't trying to impose their superstitions on us

2006-10-31T18:43:00.001-08:00

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-30-abstinence-message_x.htm

More on the clueless

2006-09-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

Mike N. commented on my previous post about my experience of watching a few minutes of Hardball:

I agree with you in that I no longer get my news from the TV either. What little bit of truth you do get has to be deciphered from the false and even then it's only about 20% of what you need to know to make a rational evaluation.

I replied that while I do agree that TV news is very biased in presentation and in choosing what to present and what not to, my point is more that this news analysis program offers such patently absurd and illogical "analysis." How can anyone hear these "arguments" and be convinced, unless it's only by hearing phrases they emotionally respond to and howling in agreement, "Yeah! You tell it! Bush sucks!"

I guess I expected a little higher level of discourse here. One that wasn't patently nonsensical if you actually tried to follow their argument. Instead, I hear: "Katrina sucked. Bush didn't make it not suck. Therefore Democrats really can be trusted to govern." Either Scarborough really is a moron, or he isn't even trying to build an argument here, just getting people agreeing with him about President Bush, and then attaching another statement on that they're supposed to agree with because he uttered it right after the first part. My post title, "Are they really _this_ clueless?" could also be taken to be aimed towards the target audience of this approach.

I seriously do not think that news analysis programs were this bad at pretending to present a logical argument 10 or 20 years ago, but maybe I just wasn't as exposed to them when I was 10 or 20 years old.

I am all the more impressed with the ability of Yaron Brook to appear on such a show. I saw him on a show talking about profiling recently, and thought he did a wonderful job in such conditions. It also had someone from CAIR and I could hardly watch it due to the mixture of evasions, whining and threats that is so common from CAIR.

Why I don't recycle*

2006-09-06T18:34:00.000-07:00

If it was valuable for a compaqny to use my trash, they would pay me for it.

Andy at the Charlotte Capitalist answers when his daughter asks, "Daddy, Why Don't We Recycle?" and today he elaborates more on Recycling.

*At work, I receive free cans of soda and juice, and every office, meeting room and cafeteria have aluminum recycling bins. I do use these, as I see them as an implicit part of the free drinks and I am willing to do with the company's trash as they see fit.

Are they really _this_ clueless?

2006-08-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in a "business center" in a resort hotel in Orlando, FL. The TV's on nearby, tuned to MSNBC. Apparently today is the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans. Hardball was just on with the tagline on the screen: "Will Katrina sink Bush in the fall?" which is a stupid question [oh yeah, I forgot, "there's no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people"] for many reasons. First of all, how can a storm a year ago cause our President "to lower in standing or reputation" in a few months? No new information came out today, or is projected to come out in "the fall" that would have this effect on Bush's "standing or reputation." Of course, they are probably referring to elections this fall, but I'm sure someone's told them that President Bush will not be a candidate in this fall's elections, nor will he be a candidate for President in 2008, and probably not a candidate for anything else, either.

No, they must really mean, "Will the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina hurt Republican U.S. Congressional candidates' chances in November's elections?" Surely, the people at Hardball, a national political news show, realize that President Bush is not the Republican party. Yes, he is a member of that party, and is currently the one who holds the highest position, and, yes, looked at simplistically, more Republican congressmen will probably help Bush get the laws he wants passed, but it reveals a certain mentality when the word "Bush" is used to mean the Republican party. Based on my experience, it seems a lot like BDS, "Bush Derangement Syndrome," a malady that causes ostensibly intelligent people to lose any critical thinking skills when the subject is President George W. Bush, the evil super-genius, moronic chimpanzee that controls everything and will destroy anyone who disagrees with him, or, at least, he would if the courageous people like Dan Rather, Kos, and George Soros didn't get the message out before he had them silenced. To someone suffering from BDS, _everything_ is about Bush, literally. Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 is about sinking Bush in fall of 2006.

The woman hosting Hardball then talked to some idiot named Joe Scarborough [evidently, he even has his own show]. I tried to turn my music up load enough not to have to listen, but I did catch him saying how the Republicans had built this myth since 1968 and 1972, that the Democrats couldn't be trusted to govern, and that Hurricane Katrina destroyed that myth. Huh, come again, Joe? I assume he thinks that Republicans did a poor job of governing after Katrina hit New Orleans, since they controlled the federal government, but I don't see how that shows whether the Democrats can govern or not. In fact, the actual cases of Democrats governing during that time are the Democrat mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana who had horrible evacuation plans and then didn't even activate them. See this post from Mike N. for more on that. Mike brings up the most important point here:

All in all, the documentary shows that all three levels of government failed at the task of disaster prepardness [sic], and relief. I was a little disappointed though, that the question "Should the government be in the business of disaster prepardness and relief?" was never asked. It is just assumed that such is the government's natural role. But Charity Hospital had lost power and for several days staff were hand ventilating some of the critical patients. When it became clear that the government-at any level- wasn't going to transfer them to another hospital, they appealed to CNN who did a report. Seeing the report a private air-lift ambulance company volunteered its services and quickly transported the patients to other hospitals. To me, the the [sic] utter incompetence of government compared to the efficiency of private enterprise was glaringly obvious. Yet it is the government we are told to depend on. It makes no sense.

But for the media, and much of "Blue America," a hurricane is just a way to try to score political points. Just the fact that they're wondering if it will "defeat" or "sink" Bush [in some weird, unspecified way] without mentioning the millions of people who are currently trying to kill us just strikes me as a huge non-sequitur. I can't believe that anyone can take these guys seriously, and it's one reason why I can't watch TV news.

The Ivory Tower: Visiting "God" Again

2006-08-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Amanda Carlson at The Ivory Tower is Visiting "God" Again. She refers to a post that she made last year, and describes some clarifications she recently has had on the topic.

A Recap

2006-08-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

President John Kerry uses his Secretary of State, Howard Dean, and Ambassador to the United Nations, Dennis Kucinich, to work multi-laterally with the French to draft a UN Resolution to "cease the hostilities" between Hezb'Allah and Israel.

After UK law enforcement foils a plot to destroy several planes over the Atlantic, President Kerry says, "Travelers are going to be inconvenienced as a result of the steps we've taken. I urge their patience and ask them to be vigilant. The inconvenience is -- occurs because we will take the steps necessary to protect the American people." The steps necessary to protect the American people consist of forbidding liquids and gels to be carried on airplanes:

That is, the West has accepted, indefinitely, as a norm, a state of siege. A state of siege requires the diminution of the freedom and liberties of the besieged, which is what we are witnessing now in the U.S. The besiegers will do as they please, and keep probing for weaknesses, or find a way to bypass our Maginot line. And all we will do is "react."

It is certainly pragmatic to prohibit paying passengers from taking liquids, make-up, toothpaste and laptop computers on board commercial planes to thwart suicide bombers. But this is merely another example of a siege philosophy, a policy to protect the country from enemies the [...] administration refuses to acknowledge and attack. Do these restrictions on Americans serve to preserve freedom, liberty and other rights that creatures like Michael Chertoff, head of Homeland Security, claim they are serving? Hardly.

In national politics, treating Islamic terrorists as a law enforcement problem and locking down our country into a further state of siege has riled up a vocal portion of the electorate, who organize using the Internet and work to get politicians elected who talk tough against state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and Syria. Recently, Montana's incumbent Republican Senator lost the GOP's primary to a rancher, Jed Beaumont, who promised the first thing he would do in Congress is work to declare war on Iran if it didn't immediately cease its aspirations for nuclear weapons. This has many progressives in the country worried about what they call the "Rabid Right" fringe taking over the Republican party.

Many on the right bemoan the fact that President Bush failed to win reelection, believing that we wouldn't be in this situation with such a strong foreign policy President who didn't have to worry about another election in charge. Iran wouldn't dare appear to be crossing a US government that demolished Iraq's defenses so quickly. In fact, it would probably try to earn points by calling on Iraqi Shiites to work with the Sunnis on creating a stable country.

It almost makes me regret my vote.

"An Unmitigated Disaster"

2006-08-12T23:59:00.000-07:00

And I'm not just talking about not being able to bring beverages on our flights; Caroline Glick explains.

We stop a deadly terrorist plot, yet we still decide to surrender.

They say that only the good die young...

2006-08-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

Gus has a great post on the [hopeful] death of Fidel Castro. As with Yasser Arafat, I'm looking forward to raising a toast to his demise; I'm thinking, "¡Viva Cuba libré!"

And I've added Babalú to my RSS reader.

"If you want a prettier picture, bring me a prettier face"

2006-08-03T17:22:00.000-07:00

There's a pretty good article in today's USA Today on how the US Government tries to hide how much of our money they overspend and obligate us to pay. My post title comes from the end of the article:

Tom Allen, who will become the chairman of the federal accounting board in December, says sound accounting principles require that financial statements reflect the economic value of an obligation.
“It's hard to argue that there's no economic substance to the promises made for Social Security and Medicare,” he says.
Social Security and Medicare should be reflected in the bottom line because that's the most important number in any financial report, Allen says.
“The point of the number is to tell the public: Did the government's financial condition improve or deteriorate over the last year?” he says.
If you count Social Security and Medicare, the federal government's financial health got $3.5 trillion worse last year.
Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, a certified public accountant, says the numbers reported under accrual accounting give an accurate picture of the government's condition. “An old photographer's adage says, ‘If you want a prettier picture, bring me a prettier face,' ” he says.

Harry Binswanger has long made the point that tax cuts are a secondary concern and the primary goal should be to cut government spending. Taxes are only one way that our government loots us; the other two are borrowing and inflation, so lowering taxes without first cutting spending just changes the form of that looting. [Also recommended is his article on why there would be no "Transition Costs" in privatizing Social Security.]

In First Veto, Bush Blocks Stem Cell Bill

2006-07-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

Disgusting.

The Future "Mrs. Stark"

2006-07-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend has now become my fiancée, and we are both very excited about our wedding next summer, as well as everything that lies beyond.

At the dance after OCON's closing banquet Saturday, she sang two songs ["The More I See You" and "I've Got You Under My Skin"]. When she finished, I surprised her by taking the microphone and proposing to her. We met at last year's conference in San Diego, and it seemed to be an appropriate time to ask her to spend the rest of our lives together.

We are planning to be married in early July, 2007 in Boulder, CO, a town that I loved living in 10 years ago though I generally did not like the politics of its residents. After the wedding we'll go to Telluride for OCON, tying it all back together, then leave for our honeymoon when it's over.

At this year's conference, several people mentioned that many talks and the general state of the culture were depressing. Dr. Yaron Brook made the excellent point that he was not depressed; this is the best time to be alive, and there are many, many wonderful values out there to be pursued and achieved right now. Well, I'm not depressed, either, and I am working hard to make my life as full and wonderful as I can. I hope that, as a side effect, the people who saw my proposal got a very concrete example of one of the things that can be worth living for.

Hsiehs' Rebellion

2006-07-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

In Boston, I finally met Diana and Paul Hsieh, as well as Don Watkins, from Noodlefood. They were very enjoyable company, and I wish I had met them last year in San Diego.

[The post title is just my way of remembering how to pronounce their last name.]

OCON 2006

2006-07-12T13:30:00.000-07:00

I have returned from my 7th Objectivist Conference, this one in Boston. Diana Hsieh has a good post on what she enjoyed, and I agree with what she has said. I also greatly enjoyed the other General Sessions, especially Peter Schwartz's talk "The 'Diversity' Delusion".

The dangers of government science combined with the dangers of government regulations

2005-08-04T17:12:00.000-07:00

Gus Van Horn posts today on NASA disasters and why they are to be expected for a political/scientific institution.

And so we have lost not one, but two space shuttles as a result of governmental abuse of power forcing space engineers to employ inferior materials in a situation that is, to grossly understate, unforgiving of error.

More on Privacy

2005-08-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

Don at Anger Management linked to my last post, as well as to a related post at Coyote Blog that I suggest you read for details on why the Roe v. Wade decision is a disaster that just hasn't exploded in our faces yet. I commented further in Don's comment section.

I would also like to address a question that a couple people have asked. Quoting Jason Kuznicki in Anger Management's comments: "[W]as it not Ayn Rand who wrote that civilization is the progress toward... privacy? How would you distinguish her claim from those "bad" privacy rights that infringe on property?"

For the short answer, let me draw an analogy. You do not have a right to a house; you have a right to buy a house with money you earn by your productive effort. You do not have the right to health care, you have the right to trade for health care with the money you earn by your productive effort. You do not have a right to privacy, you have the right to use your property and right to contract to prevent others from learning things which you would like them not to.

Now, lets consider what Ayn Rand wrote [this is in the courtroom speech of Howard Roark in The Fountainhead; I will refer to the paperback edition of For the New Intellectual, which has the speech reprinted in it]:

"Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else's. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.

"It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."[For the New Intellectual, pp. 83-84]

I take this as saying that privacy is a value, and I agree, but I don't take it as saying that it is a right.

As I said in my comments on NoodleFood:

Think of what such a "right" to say, "Don't look at me," or "Don't listen to me, even when I say, 'don't listen to me'," would mean. What kind of right could there be to have people not perceive you? Keep in mind that perceiving is not a volitional process. You couldn't prevent yourself from the possibility of violating another's "right" not to be seen, until you *did* see them and averted your gaze. To avoid violating that "right", you would have to avoid seeing anything at all.

What you do have the right to do is to use your property to keep something private; putting it behind walls, in locked containers, using your right to contract with those which you will let have private knowledge to make an agreement on whom they can pass the knowledge onto, etc.

[Update 08/04/2005 12:40 AM]: Don Watkins elaborates well on this tonight, which makes me very grateful, as I don't always have the time for all of the things that I would like to say.

The "Right" to Privacy

2005-08-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

Paul Hsieh at NoodleFood has an interesting post with the fun name of "Privacy Rights and the Korean Dog Poop Girl" concerning the "right" to privacy. In the comments, I have a couple entries on my view of this "right". [The scare quotes probably give you an idea of what I think of the concept.] A couple of excerpts from one of my comments:

The conclusion that I came to [...] is that the "right to privacy" is an anti-concept designed to obliterate the right to property by replacing it with a vague, undefined, limited [by "public" interests] "right" to privacy. [....]

Think of what such a "right" to say, "Don't look at me," or "Don't listen to me, even when I say, 'don't listen to me'," would mean. What kind of right could there be to have people not perceive you? Keep in mind that perceiving is not a volitional process. You couldn't prevent yourself from the possibility of violating another's "right" not to be seen, until you *did* see them and averted your gaze. To avoid violating that "right", you would have to avoid seeing anything at all.

Note that I include the right to contract as a corollary of the right to property.

The battle for the Supreme Court begins

2005-07-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

MSNBC is reporting that President Bush is going to announce judge John G. Roberts Jr. as his choice to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court tonight. The article isn't very clear on what his ideas are [or if he even has any of his own], but I believe what happens with the Supreme Court in the next couple of years will be critical for our future. As I said in "A few reflections on the election":

From these two exit polls, I think the Republicans will conclude that they have a large Moral mandate, and a nearly as large mandate on the way that President Bush has been waging the war on "terror." Both of these are disastrous. Look for a serious push against Roe v. Wade in the next 4 years, unless Bush only gets to appoint 1 Supreme Court Justice, and look for an even stronger Iran and North Korea, an emboldened China [especially against Taiwan], and the very strong probability of another Islamic theocracy in Iraq, because, hey, "democracy is democracy."

Already, the Court has handed down two horrible decisions in the last couple months: the Kelo v. City of New London and Gonzales v. Raich cases. How emboldened the religious right is after the Terry Schaivo grotesquery remains to be seen.

My new [other] blog

2005-01-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

I've made an MSN "Space" that has a blog, which will mainly be for blogging personal things that may not interest people here. My first post about my music collection is a good example.

Implicit recognition that agnosticism rewards the bad and punishs the good

2005-01-14T15:30:00.000-08:00

I was surprised to read this article that my friend sent me because of the perceptive judge in this case. The Cobb County, Ga. Board of Education had put a sticker on textbooks in 2002 stating:

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.

In declaring the stickers unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper gets close to naming the main issue:

His conclusion, he said, "is not that the school board should not have called evolution a theory or that the school board should have called evolution a fact."

"Rather, the distinction of evolution as a theory rather than a fact is the distinction that religiously motivated individuals have specifically asked school boards to make in the most recent anti-evolution movement, and that was exactly what parents in Cobb County did in this case," he wrote.

"By adopting this specific language, even if at the direction of counsel, the Cobb County School Board appears to have sided with these religiously motivated individuals."

The sticker, he said, sends "a message that the school board agrees with the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists and creationists."

"The school board has effectively improperly entangled itself with religion by appearing to take a position," Cooper wrote. "Therefore, the sticker must be removed from all of the textbooks into which it has been placed."

The more fundamental issue is hinted at by this sentence in the article:

The school system defended the warning stickers as a show of tolerance, not religious activism as some parents claimed.

"Tolerance," in this sense, is just another word for agnosticism: the idea that in a given category, any specific thing is just as good as any other. The worst part about agnosticism is that it lumps everything into a single evaluation; it gives the bad items an undeserved positive evaluation, and the good items are unjustly maligned or "smeared."

For example, what would happen if you decided to be "tolerant" of poison and decide that, for a given meal, it didn't make much difference if you sprinkled salt or cyanide on your mashed potatoes?

It's similar in this case. "Creatonism" has no chance if it is evaluated in accordance with the facts of reality. Its pushers realize that the strategy that they need is to say that there really is no difference between a scientific theory with mountains of backing evidence and a myth that is to be accepted in the absense of or in spite of evidence. They don't need schools to teach that "Creationism" is the only true version of history, they just need it to be given a false dignity by having it taught on an equal footing with valid science. This tells the students that they both are "taken on faith" and that both have "some evidence" for them, and that, ultimately, the student should pick whichever one they want to believe on a whim. Then they just use peer pressure to swing the students to the religious side.

Scientists' reactions are here.

For more on "Creationist" public school pushs, see Benjo Blog, here, here, here, and here.

Also, related humour here, here, here, here.

Some Progress

2005-01-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

The inventor of the blue LED [Light Emitting Diode], Shuji Nakamura, has settled with his former employer, the Nichia Corporation, to be paid $8.1 million for his very lucrative invention. This is infinitely more just than the initial payment of $200 he received for the creation of Intellectual Property that is worth roughly $580 million to the company. A lower court awarded him $200 million, but he was urged to settle for $8.1 million by his lawyer on the appeal.

While it is good to see that the Japanese business culture is changing to be more open to financially rewarding employees who create profitable intellectual property [this article from the New York Times cites other examples; free registration required], I believe that he probably deserved an award more in line with the $200 million.

For years, blue LEDs were a holy grail of the LED industry. With the three primary colours of light [Red, Green and Blue], any colour can be created. Red and green LEDs had been possible for decades, but without blue, many LED applications were very limited in the colours they could use [for example, LED advertising]. Also enabled by the invention of the blue LED was the white LED [because equal parts of Red, Green and Blue light create White light]. The white LED has become very popular in flashlights, where they last many, many times longer than traditional incandescent bulbs; I have two such flashlights myself. [Hat tip: TIA Daily]

Semper Fi

2004-12-16T15:12:00.000-08:00

The story of a heroic Marine; here's another recounting of the story by a Marine who was there. I should point out that Sgt. Rafael Peralta's actions were not selfless as frequently described in these links; for what could be a better demonstration of the value that he placed upon his fellow Marines?

On a similar topic, here's a history of the inspiring Marines' Hymn.

When addressing West Point students, Ayn Rand told them,

In conclusion, allow me to speak in personal terms. This evening means a great deal to me. I feel deeply honored by the opportunity to address you. I can say--not as a patriotic bromide, but with the full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political and esthetic roots--that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world. There is a kind of quiet radiance associated in my mind with the name West Point--because you have preserved the spirit of those original founding principles and you are their symbol. There were contradictions and omissions in those principles, and there may be in yours--but I am speaking of essentials. There may be individuals in your history who did not live up to your highest standards--as there are in every institution--since no institution and no social system can guarantee the automatic perfection of all its members; this depends on an individual's free will. I am speaking of your standards. You have preserved three qualities of character which were typical at the time of America's birth, but are virtually nonexistent today; earnestness--dedication--a sense of honor. Honor is self-esteem made visible in action.

You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service--it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality, the defense of one's country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as the conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic. This is an enormous virtue. Some of you may not be consciously aware of it. I want to help you realize it.

The army of a free country has a great responsibility: the right to use force, but not as an instrument of compulsion and brute conquest--as the armies of other countries have done in their histories--only as an instrument of a free nation's self-defense, which means: the defense of a man's individual rights. The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right. The highest integrity and sense of honor are required for such a task. No other army in the world has achieved it. You have.

West Point has given America a long line of heroes, known and unknown. You, this year's graduates, have a glorious tradition to carry on--which I admire profoundly, not because it is a tradition, but because it is glorious.

Since I came from a country [the USSR] guilty of the worst tyranny on earth, I am particularly able to appreciate the meaning, the greatness and the supreme value of that which you are defending. So, in my own name and in the name of many people who think as I do, I want to say, to all the men of West Point, past, present and future: Thank you.

I feel the same way about all of our Armed Forces, and I'm pretty sure she did, too.

The ideal mouse?

2004-12-07T15:29:00.000-08:00

Apparently, researchers have been able to train paralyzed people to move a computer cursor by thinking about it; even better, they have been able to do this by monitoring the brain's energy just outside the scalp, not requiring any surgery [although I would guess that it may require shaving your head, although that is not mentioned]. The article talks about its potential solely to paralyzed people, but I can imagine something like this being very useful once it reachs a stabler level. It has to be less conducive to developing carpal tunnel than using a mouse is. [Hat tip: TIA Daily]

How religious are we?

2004-12-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

This poll surprised even me; a taste:

Seventy-nine percent of Americans believe that, as the Bible says, Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, without a human father, according to a new NEWSWEEK poll on beliefs about Jesus.
Sixty-seven percent say they believe that the entire story of Christmas—the Virgin Birth, the angelic proclamation to the shepherds, the Star of Bethlehem and the Wise Men from the East—is historically accurate. Twenty-four percent of Americans believe the story of Christmas is a theological invention written to affirm faith in Jesus Christ, the poll shows. In general, say 55 percent of those polled, every word of the Bible is literally accurate. Thirty-eight percent do not believe that about the Bible.[emphasis added]

Reason number 8,241,734 why the UN is, de facto, an evil organization

2004-12-01T23:02:00.000-08:00

At Belmont Club, Wretchard discusses the recommendations of a United Nations panel for making institutional changes to the UN. The big unstated reason is to try and restrain the United States. With a big dose of moral relativism and Just War Theory:

"It said that if the arguments for "anticipatory self-defense" in such cases were good ones, they should be put to the Security Council, which would have the power to authorize military action under guidelines including the seriousness of the threat, the proportionality of the response, the exhaustion of all alternatives and the balance of consequences. Apparently in anticipation of objections from Washington over that requirement, the report said, 'For those impatient with such a response, the answer must be that, in a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order and the norm of nonintervention on which it continues to be based is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action, as distinct from collectively endorsed action, to be accepted. Allowing one to so act is to allow all.'"[International Herald Tribune]

Arafat is in stable condition after dying in a Paris hospital.

2004-11-16T15:55:00.000-08:00

[The title comes from James Taranto at OpinionJournal's Best of the Web Today.]

I have made my toast, have you?

The Altruism Index

2004-11-10T17:39:00.000-08:00

Michelle Malkin points out an interesting chart from The Catalogue for Philanthropy and its "Generosity Index" of U.S. States and which way they went on election night. See if you can guess what it looks like before clicking.

A group to keep an eye on

2004-11-10T16:32:00.000-08:00

Benjo Blog: The Second Coming

A few reflections on the election

2004-11-03T18:54:00.000-08:00

Looking at the election results, a couple of things strike me. First, nearly all of the 50 states cast their electoral votes the same way they did in 2000. New Hampshire switched its 4 votes to the Democrats, and Iowa and New Mexico [which haven't been finalized yet] look likely to have switched their combined 12 votes to Bush this time. The swing states were generally very close margins [with the exception of Florida, where Bush had a comfortable 5% lead]. Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Wisconsin had the candidates within 1% of each other. Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania had margins of 2-3%. With that, I think that if 9/11 had not occurred, Bush would have been voted out of office. It looked like not a lot of people changed their minds from the last election, and I would guess that a lot of those who did change their mind for Bush did so because of the Republican's successful campaign of "Vote for Bush or terrorists will kill you."

Second, this will be interesting to see what lesson the Democrats take from this defeat [as well as the decisive Senate and House defeats]. My prediction is that they didn't lose by enough to actually do honest soul searching on why; rather, they will only shift personnel and presentation; expect the "Hillary the Democrat's Savior" meme in the next couple years. I doubt they will take the defeat as a sign that they can't get a majority of Americans behind their platform and either change the platform, or split into more directed parties.

Third, whither the Republican Party? I was hoping they would lose the Presidency [and the religious conservative Alan Keyes' Illinois Senate bid, which they did lose] and gain in the Senate and House. I hoped they would then be dumbstruck as to how they could lose reelection in the middle of a War, something that has never happened in American history. This could have led them to realize that they can't put forward as blatantly a religious candidate as they did and expect the fundamentalist Christian voters of the country to carry him. This would have been a good thing for our culture; alas, it is not to be.

Now, considering that Bush did win with a fairly comfortable lead, although nowhere near as overwhelmingly as Reagan and Clinton won their second terms, how are the Republicans and the Bush administration going to take the win? We already see in Cheney's victory speech that he believes that they have been given a mandate by the country: "in the election of 2004, we did more than campaign on a record. President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for this nation’s future and the nation responded by giving him a mandate. Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." And what is the nature of this "mandate?" From Bush's victory speech:

We will continue our economic progress. We'll reform our outdated tax code. We'll strengthen the Social Security for the next generation. We'll make public schools all they can be. And we will uphold our deepest values of family and faith. We'll help the emerging democracies of Iraq and Afghanistan so they can grow in strength and defend their freedom. And then our service men and women will come home with the honor they have earned. With good allies at our side, we will fight this war on terror with every resource of our national power so our children can live in freedom and in peace." [emphasis added]

A New York Times article [registration required] entitled "President Seems Poised to Claim a New Mandate" says "a third of all voters yesterday identified themselves as evangelicals, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls."

Robert Tracinski, writing in TIA Daily, dismisses Bill Bennett's claim of a mandate to legislate morals:

This election gave Bush a mandate to fight the war, and that is how the administration is interpreting it. But now Bill Bennett is trying to steal the Bush mandate for the religious right, claiming that "morals trumped terrorism" and that Bush has a mandate to "promote a more decent society, through both politics and law." Let's hope that the Bush administration is smart enough to ignore this insidious advice.

However, the article by Bill Bennett uses the L.A. Times' exit polls to back up his claim. I believe that this is not a case of Mr. Bennett projecting, but a valid reading of the poll data that President Bush will probably take to heart.

CNN's exit poll data shows that the single most important issue was Moral Values [22% cited it as the most important], which is probably code for Christian/altruistic values for all or nearly all respondents. This was followed by Economy/Jobs at 20%, Terrorism at 19%, Iraq at 15%, Health Care at 8%, Taxes at 5% and Education at 4%. Bush got 80% of those who cited Moral Values as the most important issue to vote for him. He also got the vote of 86% of those who cited Terrorism. Of those who cited Taxes, he got a slight majority: 57%. For those who cited one of the other issues listed [a total of 47% of the respondents], he got, at most, 26% of their votes [Economy/Jobs 18%, Iraq 26%, Health Care 23%, Education 26%].

26% said that abortion should be mostly illegal and 16% said it should be always illegal; Bush got 73% and 77% of the vote of these two categories, respectively. 21% said it should always be legal, 34% said it should mostly be legal; Bush only received 25% and 38% of the votes in those categories.

The L.A. Times' national exit poll asked, "What issues, if any, were most important to you in deciding how you would vote for president today?" Among Bush voters: Moral/ethical values 52%, Terrorism/homeland security 45%, Jobs/the economy 18%, Situation in Iraq 11% [N.B.: respondents could choose more than one issue].

From these two exit polls, I think the Republicans will conclude that they have a large Moral mandate, and a nearly as large mandate on the way that President Bush has been waging the war on "terror." Both of these are disastrous. Look for a serious push against Roe v. Wade in the next 4 years, unless Bush only gets to appoint 1 Supreme Court Justice, and look for an even stronger Iran and North Korea, an emboldened China [especially against Taiwan], and the very strong probability of another Islamic theocracy in Iraq, because, hey, "democracy is democracy."

The DIM Hypothesis

2004-11-03T16:14:00.000-08:00

During the last week, I have been listening to Leonard Peikoff's course "The DIM Hypothesis: The Epistemological Mechanics by which Philosophy Shapes Society" [also available on CDs and Tapes in early December].

I just finished listening to the fifteenth and last lecture yesterday on Election Day, and I believe that he devestatingly refuted any arguments for voting for Bush. Of course, now the elections are over, and Mr. Bush has won again, which just makes this course all the more important to listen to in order to understand where our American culture is headed.

I highly, highly recommend it.

4 more years...

2004-11-03T15:48:00.000-08:00

I remember living in Boulder, CO in November 1996 and being quite despondant upon realizing that Slick Willy would be President for another 4 years. I couldn't think of what could be worse than that. Now I'm older and wiser, and I know what could be even worse.

The Belmont Club on the war that so many want to pretend we're not in

2004-10-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Another great post by Wretchard at the Belmont Club today. Emphasis in the original:

Radical Islam is self-evidently at war with the West because their efforts are limited only by their capability. And the West is just as clearly not yet at war with radical Islam because its actions are still limited by its intent. Zarqawi sawed off Bigley's head simply because he could; America spares Fallujah from choice. That inability to think of ourselves as being truly at war underlay the rejection of Mark Steyn's column. He had only stated the obvious.

While he doesn't address this criticism explicitely to President Bush, I would like to, "Mr. President, radical islam is at war with the West, with its secular respect for reason, and we should be at war with it. A real war; i.e. one that we are trying to win."

Objectivism is not part of "The Right"

2004-10-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

Last week, I found out that a friend of mine had a blog called Contemporary History that has many excellent posts on why President George W. Bush is not a person that any Objectivist should be championing in any respect. Today, he posted Objectivism is not part of "The Right".

Benjo Blog

2004-10-07T02:10:00.000-07:00

I found a good blog tonight at http://asonofliberty.blogspot.com/, run by the delightfully named "Tecumseh." Some entries that I found especially interesting:

Beating the EPA to It's Own Punch
O'Reilly Interviews Bush (Part 1 of 3)
Why Bush Can't Win War on "Terrorism"
God I Hate Conservatives
Not Good Enough

I've added him to my links [and favourites].

[His page seems to have a bug where it will often truncate the page short; I've found that hitting escape shortly after the page starts loading to work if I stop it before the right sidebar loads and truncates the page to its length.]

Update: Tecumseh has changed his page layout this weekend, and now it doesn't truncate the text.

Two [more] reasons why Capitalism Magazine is a good site

2004-10-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

Don at Anger Management notes two new articles at Capitalism Magazine that expand on the arguments that I've been making, but generally do so more eloquently. :)

The first is from Dr. John Lewis and is entitled "Opposing Platonic Conservatism: A Matter of Values," and the second is by Craig Biddle, "Capitalist Hawk for Kerry" [subtitled at his website as "An Open Letter to Objectivists"]. I highly recommend reading these two essays to better understand the arguments that I have made for voting against President Bush in this election.

Decisions, decisions...

2004-10-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

Don at Anger Management has decided that he can't vote for Kerry, and that voting for Bush is the better alternative:

Robert Tracinski put it best: 'George W. Bush cannot be trusted to fight the war properly, but John Kerry can be trusted to retreat and surrender.'

I recommend reading his whole entry, and all of his recent entries the last few days while you are there.

My comments:

I believe that, of the two candidates, we have the most direct evidence on how President Bush would handle this war as President, since he has been the one handling it in that capacity for the last 3 years. We can make educated guesses on what Kerry would do [unfortunately, the statements he has made hasn't helped with that effort]. Mr. Bush has spent his political capital attacking Iraq when he could have used it to attack Iran [although it's possible that he could have botched that as much he did with our attack on Iraq]. I can't see how he can do anything more in a second term than maybe striking some of Iran's nuclear production sites UNLESS there's another psychologically big attack on American soil.

I don't think that President Bush has done enough to prevent us from being attacked again; I believe it is now a question of when, where, what form it will take, and how many die. We definitely had and have the means to end this threat, but America is stopping itself from using it because most Americans hold an incorrect morality: altruism. This is a testament to the power of morality.

When the next attack occurs, I expect the same out of a President Bush as we have seen the last three years. "Islam is not our enemy" [when militant Islam is our enemy], "This will be a long, drawn-out war" [when it does not need to be, if we had the moral conviction that we were right], and not attacking the biggest state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. Three years ago, it was no secret that Iran consistently topped the State Department's list of terror sponsoring nations; that still didn't stop Mr. Bush from leaving it be. What evidence do we have that this will change? And, more importantly, based on how he conducted the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, what evidence do we have that he will conduct any military action against Iran correctly? There is no substitute for victory, and, especially in Iraq, President Bush refused to win.

On the other hand, Senator John Kerry is atrocious; I find him odious, disgraceful and many other unflattering adjectives. I do not think that he is a *pure* pragmatist, I recognize that he really is against the use of America's military. If we elected Mr. Kerry Supreme Commander of America, I have no doubt that he'd pull back the military to our borders. But we are not voting for our dictator. A President Kerry would be under enormous political pressure to defend America, especially when we get attacked again [I wish I could only say "if" for any potential President at this point]. One important reason for that pressure is that the Republicans will always be pushing Kerry to the Right [I hope that they retain control of the Congress]. As Ayn Rand said in 1971 [and I quoted below]:

"It used to be widely believed that the election of a semi-conservative (a 'moderate') is a way of gaining time and delaying the statist advance. President Eisenhower proved the opposite; President Nixon proved it conclusively. Their policies have not delayed, but helped and accelerated the march to statism. A major reason is the silencing and destruction of the opposition. If Mr. Nixon's program had been proposed by a liberal Democrat, the Republicans would have screamed their heads off--either on some remnant of principle or, at least, on the grounds of narrow party interests. But when total economic controls are imposed by a Republican President--in the name of preserving free enterprise--who, among today's politicians, is going to protest and in the name of what?" ["The Moratorium on Brains," The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol. 1, No. 2 October 25, 1971]

I believe the exact same argument applies to foriegn policy. Kerry would commit political suicide by retreating from more terrorist aggression, and I think he would realize this.

In a Bush Presidency, we can tell everyone that our government should "End States Who Sponsor Terrorism" and defend America from terrorists and the country says, "Right on! Go Bush!" because they believe that that is what he is doing; explaining why Bush isn't doing the right thing is harder--people think they are being protected by him already.

Under a Kerry Presidency, we can say the same things and then describe what that would really entail without having to clear away as much conceptual confusion that President Bush's administration has produced. Either way, it's Objectivists who have to advance the right ideas, but the Republicans' "defense" of the idea that we should protect our country by attacking our enemies is worse than no defense of the idea. Again, from Miss Rand in "Conservatism: An Obituary" where she explains the damage that conservatives have caused to the true defense of capitalism by basing their arguments for it on faith, tradition, and the depravity of man:

"A bad argument is worse than ineffectual: it lends credence to the arguments of your opponents. A half battle is worse than none: it does not end in mere defeat--it helps and hastens the victory of your enemies." ["Conservatism: An Obituary," Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 199-200]

Again, I think the same principle applies to the Republicans' defense of America. Tragically, a lot of their statements resonate deeply with the best part of Americans' senses of life, but underneath it, like a foundation made of quicksand, is the morality of altruism. Please see my earlier entry on context about why it's not helpful for someone to make a statement that is this same as our conclusions if their basis for making the staement is wrong [or non-existent].

As an aside, let me say that i doubt this is a pleasant election for any Objectivists; I'm sure that even those of us who have decided whom they will vote for are not happy with the current situation that has necessitated such hard decisions, and we know that, whomever is our President next year, we still have to fight for the right ideas to expand in our culture. I believe the best way to do so on a large scale is to support the Ayn Rand Institute and to speak out on the smaller scale.

To sum up...

2004-09-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

In an email to me, Noumenalself summarizes what he thinks the difference between a Bush Presidency and a Kerry Presidency would be, namely Bush would make things worse, long-term, by entrenching religion into the government, and he lulls America into a false sense of security, by making us think that he's fighting a war against our enemies, when he isn't. Noumenalself has argued [I, II, III, IV] that fighting a half-assed war may make things worse than no war at all, and I agree. We don't see much of a difference between them in short-term policy. I would also add that the other difference depends on who loses. To wit, will the major opposition and dissent come from the Right or from the Left? In "The Moratorium on Brains" [The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol. 1, No. 2 October 25, 1971], Ayn Rand addresses this point:

"It used to be widely believed that the election of a semi-conservative (a 'moderate') is a way of gaining time and delaying the statist advance. President Eisenhower proved the opposite; President Nixon proved it conclusively. Their policies have not delayed, but helped and accelerated the march to statism. A major reason is the silencing and destruction of the opposition. If Mr. Nixon's program had been proposed by a liberal Democrat, the Republicans would have screamed their heads off—either on some remnant of principle or, at least, on the grounds of narrow party interests. But when total economic controls are imposed by a Republican President—in the name of preserving free enterprise—who, among today’s politicians, is going to protest and in the name of what?"

I believe that the exact same principle applies to foreign policy as well as domestic.

Good advice for the Kerry campaign

2004-09-27T00:07:00.000-07:00

Don at Anger Management comments on an open letter to the Kerry campaign about how to effectively run against George W. Bush on the War on Terrorism. Don starts out: "I still haven't decided for whom I'm voting, but if Kerry doesn't shape up his campaign quickly, it won't matter," which is all too true [although I have decided]; he then highlights an important identification of the letter's writer [William Saletan]. The entire open letter is worth reading.

On why a parrot is not an Objectivist, an "Objectivist Sympathizer," nor an ally

2004-09-26T16:47:00.000-07:00

Recently, in email to Noumenal Self [I highly recommend his blog, as well], I outlined a problem that I see when some Objectivists discuss Presidents Reagan, George W. Bush or Republicans in general [although it occasionally arises when discussing Democrats]. The problem is that a statement is made by a non-Objectivist that, if made by an Objectivist, would be a true statement. This statement is then used to argue that the person [or group they represent] is an "Objectivist Sympathizer" and can be our ally. I won't bother to touch the reductio-ad-absurdum of this argument: Libertarians.

What I will cover is what the argument drops: context.

Admittedly, it is tempting to fall into this argument and not recognize it because it does takes work to analyze their context and to hold the correct context to compare it against, but it is vital to do so.

The purveyors of this argument are quick to ascribe their context to the statements of non-Objectivists and think that because they're saying the right words, that they agree with Objectivists: "Abortion is a right of women," or "Free markets are good," or "You're either with us or with the terrorists." But the others who say such things hold a different context and different definitions of the words they are using than an Objectivist saying the exact same statements would.

"Abortion is a right of women." They mean that a woman has a "right" to privacy; a right that is "limited" by the government's interests. [The "right to privacy" is a package deal designed to obliterate the true right to property.]

"Free markets are good." They mean that competitors must be "helped" by the government to compete; that there must be an "even playing field" in the market; that everything must be insured by the government: banks, retirements, stock markets, food, drugs, firearms, smoking: all risks in life.

"You're either with us or with the terrorists." They mean "us" [including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, Libya] and "the terrorists" [Al Qaida, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and 55 select members of his government]; they mean that you are with us by virtue of not blatantly proclaiming that you are with Al Qaida, the Taliban, or Saddam Hussein, regardless of what you actually do to support either side. They mean that once you're "with us," you will have input on which actions "we" should take. They mean that they will attempt to determine which camp each individual in countries controlled by those with "the terrorists" fall into before possibly hurting them. And of course, American lives are no object, it's the "just," "moral" thing to do.

Next time you hear a statement that you think you agree with; remember to hold the context that it is being spoken in; including what the speaker means by the words that he uses. Especially examine those words for which he has a different meaning than you do. Then you can accurately evaluate the truth or falsehood [or arbitrariness] of the statement.

The Belmont Club on 'Dark Networks'

2004-09-24T01:22:00.000-07:00

First off, let me say that the Belmont Club is a very worthwhile blog to bookmark. Wretchard's posts are always insightful and interesting. His latest is no exception, here's a taste, but I recommend reading the whole thing:

John Robb took at look at the September 11 network and analyzed its characteristics. The Mohammed Atta network had evolved under Darwinian pressure until it reached the form best suited for its purpose: to conduct strategic attacks against the United States of America. Robb concludes that a cell of 70 persons will answer to the purpose, yet be sparse enough to allow its members to remain in relative isolation. For example, no one member of Atta's cell knew more than five others. Moreover, the average distance between any two members was more than four persons. Crucially, but not surprisingly, this disconnected network of plotters maintained coherence by relying on a support infrastructure -- probably communications posts, safe houses, couriers -- to keep themselves from unraveling. Because security comes at a price in performance and flexibility, Robb arrives at an astounding conjecture: you can have small, operationally secure terrorist groups, but you can't have large, operationally secure cells without a state sponsor.

Yet another piece of evidence for why we need to End States Who Sponsor Terrorism.

No Comment

2004-09-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

Meet Microsoft's 'spiritual leader' for Antitrust Compliance:

Even after the trial, however, Snapp and her team are grappling with some significant antitrust issues.

One of them began last year, when the Justice Department and the states involved in the settlement raised concerns over the terms of a licensing program through which Microsoft offers competitors access to "communications protocols" that let their server software work more effectively with Windows for PCs.

The idea is to help level the playing field between Microsoft and its rivals. But critics called Microsoft's original terms unreasonable, and demand for the licenses has been less than the government had hoped. As a result, Microsoft has made a series of changes designed to encourage more licensing deals.

Inside the company, Snapp has "tirelessly championed" the effort to rework the program's terms, said Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel. "Even in situations where other people might have lost their patience or succumbed to frustration, Mary just kept pushing things forward, which is absolutely what we needed to do to be successful."

One of Snapp's colleagues in the legal department said it wasn't an unusual role for her to play.

"We are all advocates for compliance, but Mary is in the position of really having an impact on other people's attitudes," said Nancy Anderson, a Microsoft deputy general counsel. "It's absolutely critical that the person who has her set of responsibilities be that advocate, that spiritual leader."

Another indicator of the philosophical bankruptcy of the Left

2004-09-21T02:06:00.000-07:00

Roger L. Simon makes an observation already familiar to many Objectivists about the dead-end of post-modernism:

Who knows if this will actually connect up with the Kerry Campaign, but, you know, who cares? The whole thing is already so pathetic, just as the campaign itself is. The Democratic Party this year is running on fumes and those fumes are equal parts Bush hatred, paranoia and projection. Ever since Kerry got up and "reported for duty," not a single constructive idea or even thought has been in evidence. Bob Shrum and his cohorts are the most overpaid group of political advisers (if such a thing is possible) in history. They have made hundreds of thousands of dollars, I would imagine, for absolutely nothing. This is the emptiest campaign I can recall in my lifetime. People accuse Kerry of flip-flopping, but what's he flip-flopping from and to? You can't flip-flop if you have no starting point. To say there's no there would be an insult to the city of Oakland, the original butt of Gertrude Stein's sarcasm. I'm a registered Democrat and sometimes I'm so disgusted I think I should get in my car and go register Independent. But what's the point? What would I be leaving? It doesn't even exist. Can anyone tell me what the Democratic Party stands for besides keeping some people in their jobs? And please don't give me this palaver about socialism, crypto or otherwise. That's an insult to Karl Marx. He had a real philosophy, like it or not. These people have bubkus.

I agree. Hopefully, their vacuum is filled with something that isn't religion once they don't have Bush to hate anymore. As Michael J. Totten pointed out in the article I linked to below:

Electing John Kerry won't put radical left activists into power. It will put them in a box. Their knee-jerk anti-American jackassery won't get a hearing if mainstream liberals are the "establishment." Soccer moms who voted for John Kerry are not going to put up with punks who say he is the "real" terrorist. Mainstream liberals won't want to march in the streets against the president they elected alongside ranting neo-Stalinist goons from International ANSWER. Radical leftists will be first isolated then ridiculed by the overwhelming majority when they and the Democratic Party have no common "enemy" to unite them.

"Hawks" for Kerry

2004-09-21T01:11:00.000-07:00

Michael J. Totten makes a pretty good case.

For more, I recommend Don's summary post on Anger Management.

UPDATE: For the record, I do plan on voting for Kerry for president. Yes, I do consider him to be repugnant, disgraceful and thoroughly obnoxious. But I believe strongly that the worst enemies of Capitalism and America are its "defenders" who base their defense on altruism, blind-traditionalism and/or the argument that no man is good enough to rule over others leaving freedom as the only alternative for us "flawed" humans. More on that in a few days.

As for the national security concerns over a Kerry Presidency [no, I don't like the sound of that at all], I don't think any reasonable American expects that America will not have another attack on its soil in the near future. President Bush's altruistic, appeasing wars [nothing wrong with wars, everything wrong with how they were conducted] and homeland defense [which has never permanently won a war in history] have not given anyone the confidence that we are safe now, least of all President Bush himself.

If we grant that another attack will occur in America, the question is how will the country and its President will react. I think we all have a good idea how President Bush would react, with strong words and appeasing actions; with altruism as the touchstone of it all. I believe that because Kerry is a disgustingly pragmatic politician [who can argue that he doesn't take every position he can on a subject, depending on the audience], his response would be very much dictated by the country's and the Republicans' outcry. [Remember that under President Bush, there is no organized political group to argue against his policies from the right; and any one who doesn't support his policies is commonly seen as helping the enemy.] Under a Democratic President, the Republicans' statements [which, lately, usually advocate action that is much better than the action that they actually undertake] will be the driving dissenting voice in the nation. If we are attacked under Kerry's Presidency and he tries to appease the world and blatantly defaults on America's self-defense, I believe it would be political suicide for him.

Incidentally, the above should explain why I am aiming for a Republican Congress [that and the fact that I despise Patty Murray; voting against her will be the highlight of November 2nd for me, even though she will probably win again].

I plan on taking the same stance here in Washington: voting Democrat for governor and Republican for state legislature [gridlock, you are my friend]; and against any Libertarians on any other part of the ballot.