Blog Auto Feed Retired

American businessman Sheldon Adelson (CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, whom Bloomberg lists at the 14th richest person in the world), says the United States should drop a nuclear bomb in the Iranian desert—and then threaten to drop a second in the center of Tehran—in order to end Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons, reports the Jerusalem Post. Asked . . . whether the US should negotiate with Iran if it were to cease its uranium enrichment program, Adelson retorted, “What are we going to negotiate about?” Adelson then imagined what might happen if an American official were to call up an Iranian official, say “watch this,” and subsequently drop a nuclear bomb in the middle of the Iranian desert. “Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse [your nuclear weapons program], and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes’,” Adelson said. Although America’s goal regarding Iran should be not merely to end the regime’s quest for nuclear weapons, but to end the regime altogether, thus clearing the way for liberty minded Iranians to establish a peaceful, rights-respecting republic—and although the details of military strategy are matters for military experts to work out—Adelson is correct in calling for America to use pure and overwhelming force in dealing with the Iranian regime. As Adelson said, “It’s the only thing they understand.” It is refreshing to hear a prominent American businessman openly acknowledge this fact, which so many Americans evade. Kudos to Adelson for having the courage to say what is clearly true yet utterly contrary to conventional morality. Let’s hope more visible and outspoken Americans come to see the need for such force and demand that our government employ it before the Iranian regime succeeds in slaughtering more Americans. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: “No Substitute for Victory”—The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism On the Anniversary of 9/11, Relativism and Religion Still Paralyze American Self-Defense Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original

The theocratic regime in Saudi Arabia is an enemy of reason and human life on multiple counts, not the least of which is its constant effort to spread Islam across the globe and to destroy America and Israel by funding mosques and schools that “educate” children about the evil of infidels and the need to kill them. And, of course, the regime’s assaults on all things civilized are not limited to westerners; the theocrats regularly assault people who are trying to live at least semi-human lives in Saudi Arabia as well. Fortunately, at least some of the assaulted are making an effort to resist at least some of the evil. Today, for instance, Saudi activists are fighting the regime’s ban on women driving. Following similar protests in 1990 and 2011, the “October 26 Driving” campaign has created a petition calling for the government to lift the ban: Since there is no justification for the Saudi government to prohibit adult women citizens who are capable of driving cars from doing so, we urge the state to provide appropriate means for women seeking the issuance of permits and licenses to apply and obtain them. The petition has garnered over sixteen thousand signatures, and the website (which, unsurprisingly, was blocked in Saudi Arabia) calls for Saudis to show their support by displaying the “Oct26th” logo on their cars, championing the cause in social media, and teaching women to drive. In addition, the campaign asks women with international driving licenses to drive on October 26. Madeha Al Ajroush drove in the first protest against the ban in 1990 and—despite being briefly detained, losing her job, and being denounced by religious leaders—she is an active participant in the October 26 campaign: I actually don’t need to drive myself. I am well off and I can afford a driver. I am doing this for all the women who can’t. Who can’t go to school, who can’t go to university, who can’t even go to a grocery store without waiting for some man to take them. Some end up not going to work or getting an education under the excuse that the family can’t afford a driver. That is not fair to the women. What is the Saudi “case” for barring women from driving? After the 2011 protest, Saudi “scholars” in association with the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala (Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council) issued a report claiming that allowing women to drive would lead to the same “moral decline” seen in other nations, by effectively eliminating the presence of virgins in Saudi Arabia and causing “a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, and divorce.” There you have a clear indication of the intellectual sophistication of this savage regime and of the primitive, anti-reason, anti-life philosophy it embraces. It is, of course, not the U.S. government’s responsibility to free the non-savage Saudis from the savage ones. But if the U.S. government were to eliminate the Saudi regime—as it should in order to protect Americans from the Islamists’ assaults and threats—at least some Saudis might be grateful. Here’s to the Saudis struggling against their oppressive government. May they eventually succeed in ending the tyranny even if America never does what it should do. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society On the Anniversary of 9/11, Relativism and Religion Still Paralyze American Self-Defense Link to Original

In response to a reporter’s questions during his October 8 news conference, Barack Obama offered the following argument in favor or raising the debt ceiling: magine, in your private life, if you decided that I’m not going to pay my mortgage for a month or two. First of all, you’re not saving money by not paying your mortgage. You’re just a deadbeat. And you can anticipate that will hurt your credit, which means that in addition to the debt collectors calling, you’re going to have trouble borrowing in the future. And if you are able to borrow in the future, you’re going to have to borrow at a higher rate. Well, what’s true for individuals is also true for nations, even the most powerful nation on earth. Obama is right: Nations, like individuals, should pay their debts. (He falsely implies that raising the debt ceiling necessarily means defaulting on our debt obligations, but let’s set that aside.) Why limit this fine analogy to the payment of debts? In what other ways is what’s true for individuals also true for nations? And in what other ways should it be? The government’s massive “stimulus” programs of late are based on the Keynesian notion that spending (consuming) causes prosperity. Is that true for individuals? Suppose you threw budgetary caution to the wind and started borrowing and spending money willy-nilly, emptying out your savings, maxing out your credit cards, tapping your home-equity credit, and so on—spending and spending, but, like the government, not producing value in the marketplace. What would happen? Would you thereby become prosperous and financially secure? And suppose when you could no longer borrow, you set up a printing press in your basement and began printing Ben Franklins. What would happen? Would you be met by the law with a tip of the hat? What’s true economically for individuals is true for nations—and what’s true legally for individuals should be true for nations (at least in this respect). But the goose-and-gander analogy carried to such sensible conclusions doesn’t serve the leftist agenda. So we’ll hear none of that from the likes of Obama. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty ObamaCare “Exchanges” Are Not Markets Link to Original

I’ve already reported anecdotal accounts of insurance premiums going up under ObamaCare (see here and here). A recent study by the Heritage Foundation confirms that insurance hikes under ObamaCare are widespread, with average rates going up in at least 42 states. In a few states premiums are more than doubling. The only surprise in any of this is that anyone is surprised about it. A primary goal of ObamaCare is to force some people to subsidize the health care of others through increased insurance premiums. As examples, ObamaCare forces those who don’t use birth control to pay for the birth control of others; it forces those without adult children to pay for the health care of others’ adult children (up to age 26); and it forces people who are generally healthy (predominantly younger people) to subsidize people who are not. Of course ObamaCare is raising health insurance premiums for many people—that is what it was designed to do, and that is why the American people supported the politicians that drafted and enacted the law. Either we accept the idea that we are our brother’s keeper, or we don’t. If we do, this is what we get. Americans can either challenge that premise or continue to be “surprised.” Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: The Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty ObamaCare: “What the Hell Kind of Reform Is This?” ObamaCare Supporter: “I Didn’t Realize I Would Pay for It Personally” Creative Commons Image: Marc Nozell Link to Original

In his October 21 speech about ObamaCare, Barack Obama used the term “market” or “marketplace” nineteen times to refer to the government-run health-insurance “exchange.” For example, he said: About three weeks ago, as the federal government shut down, the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces opened for business across the country. Well, we’ve now gotten the government back open for the American people, and today I want to talk about how we’re going to get the marketplaces running at full steam, as well. But the government-run exchange is the opposite of a genuine marketplace. In a true market, government protects people’s rights to control their own wealth and to contract voluntarily with others—and, in general, to pursue their values according to their own judgment. Under ObamaCare, government dictates the terms by which insurance may be bought and sold, threatens to fine people for not buying government-approved insurance, and forces some people to subsidize the “insurance” of others. In short, ObamaCare violates people’s rights to control their own wealth and to contract voluntarily. A genuine marketplace exists only where, when, and to the extent that government bans force. Under ObamaCare, government initiates force in myriad ways. And it is profoundly dishonest of Obama and the left to pretend there is no difference between voluntary exchange and government force—that is, between a marketplace and coerced “exchanges.” Americans concerned with protecting their rights and their health must demand that their representatives repeal ObamaCare and work toward the establishment of a genuine marketplace in this vital area of production and exchange. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Capitalism and the Moral High Ground Why Capitalism is Moral Creative Commons Image: Adam Glanzman Link to Original

A recent report by Denver’s ABC affiliate illustrates one of the many problems resulting from bureaucrats violating rights by throttling construction: Meanwhile, as Complete Colorado points out, Denver has fast-tracked permits for political popular projects such as solar installations. That article argues, “The city should take its thumb off the scale when it comes to zoning and permits.” Government has no moral right to require contractors or property owners to get permits to build on their property. In this sphere, the only role government should play is (a) to protect the rights of individuals and businesses to develop their property as they see fit and ( to prohibit fraud, negligence, and the like. If residents of Denver and Americans in general want to see construction and other aspects of the economy boom rather than bust, they must demand that their representatives work to limit government to its only proper function: the protection of rights—including property rights. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Deeper Than Kelo: The Roots of the Property Rights Crisis Get Government Out of Beer Link to Original

Thirty years after Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union, Russia maintains considerable influence over the nation by controlling much of its energy. OJSC Gazprom, of which the Russian government is majority shareholder, provides Lithuania’s natural gas—which amounts to half of the country’s energy consumption. In an effort to decrease its dependency on Russian gas, the Lithuanian government decided to sell the “rights” to explore Lithuania for shale gas—a project that would require the American-developed technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Chevron Corporation was the only company willing to invest the ten of millions of dollars and import the cutting-edge technology and skilled employees necessary to undertake the project. And, last month, the Lithuanian Government announced to great fanfare that it had accepted Chevron’s bid. But Chevron recently announced that it will not move forward: Significant changes to the fiscal, legislative and regulatory climate in Lithuania have substantially impacted the operational and commercial basis of the investment decision since the company submitted its bid in January 2013. Among its reasons for backing out, Chevron cited Lithuania’s new environmental approval procedures and threats to dramatically increase taxes on energy production. In response, Birute Vesait, Lithuania’s “minister of economy,” said, “Sure, the parliament has put a too tight muzzle on the nose.” Chevron was willing to deliver a vital solution to the Lithuanians’ dire situation—a solution that requires knowledge and technology that few people on this planet have. But rather than provide Chevron with a legal environment sufficiently stable to make the project financially feasible, the Lithuanian government chose to treat the productive men and women of Chevron as dogs to be muzzled. So the Lithuanians will continue to depend on the puppies in the Russian government for their energy needs. This episode of Statist Is as Statist Does offers a sober reminder that producers can function only when left sufficiently free to act on their judgment and to keep and use the fruits of their efforts. It is a lesson that not only Lithuanians but also Americans—who benefit enormously from energy produced by frackers—would do well to learn or remember. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Energy at the Speed of Thought: The Original Alternative Energy Market American Frackers May Soon Power Japan, Too Creative Commons Image: Jonathan McIntosh Link to Original

Recently, a financially struggling elderly woman wrote to Pat Robertson explaining that she has been tithing (giving 10 percent of her income to charity) since childhood and that she and her husband are still tithing despite his medical expenses. She explained that they “barely have any money” and are both “retired and living on a small pension and Social Security income.” She then asked Robinson whether it would be okay for them to apply money they normally give to charity toward her husband’s medical expenses instead. Robertson replied that their medical and financial problems are the result of failing to give their tithes faithfully: Read carefully what the Bible has to say in Malachi. He says prove me with your tithes and offerings. He says I will rebuke the devourer for your sake. Your husband has all these medical problems because the devourer has not been rebuked. You need to rebuke him. You give your tithes faithfully, and God said, “I will rebuke the devourer,” the person who is eating up your money and eating up your health. So you want to be healthy? That’s a promise in the Word. There you have Christian mysticism and altruism laid bare. Robertson’s message in plain English is: You should sacrifice because God said so. Your sacrifices are causing you pain? That’s because you are sacrificing with insufficient faith. Sacrifice more faithfully, and God will solve your health problems. Hopefully the elderly couple will ignore Robertson’s evil advice, stop watching his death-worshiping show, start thinking for and about themselves, and start using their money solely toward making their lives as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. The only “devourers” in need of rebuke here are Robertson, mysticism, and altruism. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Religion Versus Morality Objective Moral Values Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original

In this episode of Reason at Large, Craig Biddle answers a question from Nick: “Can there be objective morality without God? In other words, can morality be both secular and absolute?” In answering, Biddle zeros in on the basic reason people need morality, which is in order to live and prosper, and he explains that objective moral principles are identifications of factual requirements of human life. He discusses Ayn Rand’s discovery that man’s life is the standard of moral value; the principle that reason is man’s basic life-serving value; and several moral virtues—including honesty, productiveness, independence, and justice—by means of which people gain or keep the values they need in order to live and prosper. Finally, Biddle explains why God-based morality is necessarily subjective and utterly incompatible with genuine, objective morality. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Religion Versus Morality Why “Sacrifice” Means Loss, Not Gain Link to Original

When people think of 3D printing, they typically have in mind high-tech mechanical or medical devices, but this technology offers much broader potential than one might suppose. Fashion designer Michael Schmidt and architect Francis Bitonti have created what they describe as “the first fully articulated gown” using computer modeling and 3D printing. Articulated in this context means “jointed and moveable,” a feature of the gown enabled by the nature of its “fabric,” which is similar to a fine mesh with thousands of individual joints. The gown was printed in large sections by the 3D printing experts at Shapeways, then dyed, assembled, and adorned with 12,000 tiny Swarovsky crystals. In a short video, Schmidt describes the process involved in bringing his vision to reality (see below). He explains: Schmidt here aptly identifies the central function of technology in human life: It extends the abilities of the human mind to act in the world beyond the physical limitations of our unassisted bodies. Congratulations to Schmidt, Bitoni, and their team for this remarkable achievement. It’s exciting to see the expansion of 3D printing into new fields, especially when done so exquisitely. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Painter Bryan Larsen on His Artwork and Ideas Interview with Jeff Britting on Ayn Rand’s Anthem Off-Broadway Image: Albert Sanchez Photography Link to Original

Although the government has not yet fully rolled out ObamaCare, the immensely rights-violating law has already caused severe problems. Consider just a few: ObamaCare has caused health insurance rates around the country to skyrocket, as evidenced by the many people—including leftists—who are complaining about the fact. For example, after seeing his and his wife’s health insurance premiums nearly double, a blogger at Daily Kos wrote, “I am canceling insurance for us and I am not paying any f**king penalty. What the hell kind of reform is this?” Likewise, a supporter of ObamaCare said, “Of course, I want people to have health care; I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally” through higher premiums. Because of the onerous regulations inflicted by ObamaCare, hundreds of employers and insurance providers have requested waivers to exempt themselves from aspects of the law. Complete Colorado cites numerous organizations requesting waivers, including Carpenters H&W Philadelphia and the Adecco Group, who say that, unless they receive waivers, they will have to impose higher insurance costs or cut services. The grand opening of ObamaCare’s online “health insurance exchanges” was a technical disaster. USA Today reports, “Websites crashed, refused to load, or offered bizarre and incomprehensible choices. . . . [E]arly reports continued to suggest an epic screw-up.” As of October 14, 226 people in Colorado (to take just one example) had enrolled in the exchange—for a promotion cost of $21 million in the state. The documents detailing the massive web of regulations under ObamaCare have exploded to nearly twelve million words spanning more than ten thousand pages, CNS News reports—and this is on top of the “381,517 words in the Obamacare law itself.” Obviously no human being could possibly comprehend or follow such a body of legalese. But here we have it. It’s the law. These are merely a few indications of the massive rights-violating mess that is ObamaCare. No one should be surprised by any of this, though. Such is the nature of a government program that systematically violates the rights of individuals and businesses to contract freely and to control their own wealth. “What the hell kind of reform is this?” It’s the kind that Americans asked for when they elected a president and representatives who promised to deliver it. Hopefully, the pain and suffering caused by ObamaCare will provide Americans with incentive to think about political causes and consequences in the future. A citizenry gets what it asks for. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: How to Protect Yourself Against ObamaCare ObamaCare Supporter: “I Didn’t Realize I Would Pay for It Personally” Creative Commons Image: Geoff Livingston Link to Original

Molly Ball at the Atlantic reveals the sad truth about the now-lifted government “shutdown” (sad at least for advocates of rights-respecting government): Obamacare will not be repealed. Obamacare will not be defunded. Obamacare will not be delayed. The individual mandate will not be delayed. The medical-device tax will not be repealed. The health-insurance subsidies given to members of Congress and their staffs will not be taken away. Democrats will get the government funded at levels they (grudgingly) sought in the first place, for longer than they originally sought, and without the looming threat of default. In other words, government will go on violating people’s rights to the same degree or to a greater degree than it did prior to the partial shutdown. The only apparent value of the shutdown is that it highlighted just how pervasively government violates people’s rights. We were reminded that the federal government controls vast tracts of recreational land that it has no compunction in using for political purposes. We learned that government regulations are so onerous that, when the government supposedly shuts down, it violates rights more severely than when it is fully operational—as by failing to issue permits that the government requires for operation. And we learned that, contrary to recent claims by some members of Congress, the vast majority still have no interest in scaling back the rights violations inherent in ObamaCare, or reining in government spending, or anything of the sort. What’s sad is not that the government partially shut down, but that the government shut down the wrong things in the wrong ways, then reopened without doing anything to decrease its rights-violating policies. To move toward a government that permanently shuts down the right things in the right ways (by ending rights-violating programs) and that keeps open the aspects of government that protect rights, Americans must come to embrace the principle that the only proper purpose of government is to protect rights by banning physical force and fraud from social relationships. Congress works for the American people, and until the American people coherently tell Congress what it should do, Congress will continue doing more of the same. Related: The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty Feds Intentionally Inflict Pain in Park Shutdowns; Solution is to Privatize Parks Get Government Out of Beer Toward a Shutdown to Celebrate Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original

My grandfather played a huge role in my life as a young child, and we remained close into my adulthood. Thus, watching him suffer with Alzheimer’s—slowly losing his memory, his ability to recognize his loved ones, and his ability to live independently—was agonizing. And, of course, I live with the prospect that I may share a similar fate. For these personal reasons, news reports about potential Alzheimer’s treatments tend to jump out at me. Thankfully, as Fox News reports, British scientists have made headway toward treating Alzheimer’s and other diseases involving abnormal proteins. The scientists “induced a neurodegenerative disease” in lab mice, then treated some of them with a substance intended to stop the disease, and it worked: “The mice who were treated remained free of symptoms like memory loss, impaired reflexes, and limb dragging five weeks later.” For details, see the article here. Godspeed to these men of the mind who are working to extend and improve our lives—heroes all. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: The Curious Life of Richard Feynman BYU Engineers Develop Promising Spinal Disc Replacement Link to Original

To the Founding Fathers, “equality” meant all citizens have equal rights and thus should have equal standing before the law. To today’s so-called liberals, “equality” means everyone should have equal opportunities in life. A recent illustration of this can be seen in an article John Cook wrote for Gawker, “There’s a Simple Solution to the Public Schools Crisis: Let’s Ban Private Schools.” “Public schools,” Cook notes, are beset with “stagnant or declining graduation rates, substandard educations, dilapidated schools, angry teachers, underserved students.” These problems could be fixed, Cook argues, by outlawing private schools. “Wealthy people tend to lobby effectively for their interests, and if their interests were to include adequate public funding for the schools their children attend,” equality of opportunity would follow. “Put simply,” writes Cook, the “moral argument for banning private education” is this: Equality of opportunity demands that children should not be penalized—or advantaged—by the accident of their birth. Educational benefits, which are the most crucial resource when it comes to determining the life-outcomes for children of all backgrounds, shouldn’t be distributed based on how rich your parents are. They should be distributed equally. In addition to being morally obscene because it calls for massive increases in the violation of individual rights, Cook’s argument is economically absurd because it ignores the rights-based causes of quality in education. When government-run schools have received greater funding, they have failed to improve. Why? In short, because government-run schools are not accountable to owners or to customers. Why? Because no one owns them, everyone is forced to fund them, and children are forced to attend them. When government-run schools fail, they get to stay in “business” and complain that they need more money to do “better”—and that if they don’t get more money, they’ll continue to provide sub-par services. What other “business” gets to operate this way? (Think mail.) Contra Cook, the solution to the atrocity known as “public” schools is to abolish government-run schools and completely privatize the market for education. Then all schools would be accountable to owners (or voluntary supporters) and customers—all would sink or swim based on merit—and all would enjoy equality before the law. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of Our Time If You Berate Parents for Sending Their Kids to Private School, You Are a Bad Person Link to Original

When government systematically confiscates wealth from producers and gives it to “welfare” recipients who didn’t produce it, should we be surprised that many recipients of the loot acquire a looter mentality? Consider recent events involving a glitch with the computer system handling the electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards for the food stamp program called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). USA Today reports: People in 17 states found themselves unable to buy groceries with their food stamp debit-style cards Saturday after a routine check by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure. But in two Louisiana towns where (due to the glitch) the EBT cards showed no spending limits, SNAP users piled up huge orders at Walmart stores. They either checked out with the faulty cards, thus stealing the merchandise, or—after police arrived—left carts overflowing with food that store employees then had to restock. KSLA 12 reports that one woman rang up a bill of $700.00 and only had .49 on her card. She was held by police until corporate Walmart said they wouldn’t press charges if she left the food. Although fraudulent use of EBT cards is a crime, both fraudulent and “legitimate” welfare stem from the same immoral premise—the notion that some people have a moral right to wealth produced by others. Toward the achievement of a rights-respecting society—one in which government outlaws coercive looting rather than indulges in and promotes it—Americans should demand that their representatives work to end SNAP and all welfare programs. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Review: After the Welfare State, edited by Tom G. Palmer Republicans Make Trivial Cuts to Food Stamp Program, Refuse to Identify Its Immorality The Moral Integrity of Condemning Social Security While Collecting It Creative Commons Image: Jared C. Benedict Link to Original

Christian Lunsford, a fifteen-year old-high school student living in Oklahoma, really wanted to go to band camp. His father—who has played a minimal role in his life—gave him $250 toward the expenses of the camp. Unfortunately, Lunsford learned, his father likely stole that money from elderly Tona Herndon as she visited her recently deceased husband’s grave. See the Blaze story for details. In a CBS interview, Lunsford said that, reflecting on his father’s life of crime, he sometimes feels “really low” and wonders, “Is that going to be me? Am I going to end up like that?” Clearly he isn’t. Lunsford visited Herndon and returned the money—which she graciously accepted and then gifted to him to spend on band camp. Lunsford said, “You’re not who your parents are. . . . Even if they do raise you, you can become whomever you want to be.” Lunsford’s comments and actions provide a beautiful illustration of the fact that people do have free will and that they largely control their own lives. Kudos to him for making things right with Herndon—and for setting a great example for others. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: The Beauty of Ayn Rand’s Ethics Review: The Bourgeois Virtues, by Deirdre N. McCloskey Link to Original

First the federal government shut down the production of Buckyballs—small magnets that can be arranged in interesting patterns and that were sold as toys to adults. Now the government is aiming to hold Craig Zucker, the CEO of the company that produced Buckyballs, personally liable for $57 million, the cost of the government-mandated recall. But Zucker is not taking the government’s abuse lying down. He sees fit to fight this massive rights violation, and he has the balls to do it: Liberty Balls, magnets 33 millimeters in diameter (larger than Buckyballs), the sale of which will support his legal battle. A recent media release states: Unwilling to roll over and accept an unprecedented lawsuit by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Craig Zucker, the founder of the company that created Buckyballs, and his supporters have launched “United We Ball,” a campaign to fight the lawsuit. The campaign is selling two new products as well as branded merchandise with 100% of the profits going toward the legal fees of defending CPSC v. Maxfield and Oberton Holdings, LLC. et al., the legal battle of one individual against the government to stand up for what’s right for American consumers, businesses, and individuals. “The CPSC sued me personally as an officer of a small business because the company disagreed with the agency and addressed their double standard when it came to Buckyballs,” said Mr. Zucker. “What matters more, though, is that the CPSC is trying to have a court ignore and rewrite the cherished American principle of ‘limited liability,’ which protects responsible, law-abiding company officers like myself from being unjustly sued.” Should the CPSC succeed in forcing an individual to pay for a company’s product recall, government agencies, in the future, could go after any entrepreneur or officer of any company and hold him or her personally responsible for the company’s actions, even if no laws or regulations were violated. For more information about the government’s assault on Zucker, see the United We Ball website. And consider buying your own set of Liberty Balls to support Zucker. (I purchased mine already.) Zucker is defending not only himself but the principles of individual rights and limited liability; in other words, he is defending our rights as well as his own. Zucker is correct: If the government gets away with this assault on him, it can come after any entrepreneur any time it likes. Zucker deserves moral support from all and financial support from anyone who can (nonsacrifically) afford it. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Capitalism and the Moral High Ground Government Destroys Buckyballs, Assaults the Mind Government Killed Buckyballs, Now Seeks to Destroy CEO, Too Image: Craig Zucker Link to Original

If you own a beer brewery in, say, New York, the federal government now forbids you to sell your new specialty beers to people living in Connecticut or New Jersey—or anywhere else in the country. That’s right, the federal government, via the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), currently forbids the sale of new specialty beers across state borders. Thomas Jefferson must be drinking in his grave. I recently mentioned the TTB as a random example of a government agency that obviously violates rather than protects rights and that therefore should be eliminated. A USA Today article offers additional information in support of that conclusion: The federal government shutdown is giving some folks one more reason to cry in their beers: An obscure but powerful arm of the Treasury Department has stopped approving new brews. All new beers that get bottled or canned to be sold across state lines must be approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. . . . Federal workers must approve the label, as well as the recipe if it uses non-traditional ingredients, which many seasonal beers contain. While the TTB [has] stopped approving new recipes and labels, workers there are still collecting brewery taxes. And, as the Associated Press reports, the TTB also stops new breweries from opening until they gain TTB approval, and it has stopped granting such approval. In other words, today’s regulatory situation is so bad that when the government partially “shuts down,” it violates rights more severely than when it is fully operational. What should be shut down is not the TTB’s approval process, but the TTB itself—so that brewers can sell whatever beers they want to sell to whomever wants to buy them. Although getting government out of our beer is just one small part of achieving a properly limited government, it would be a refreshing achievement worthy of a toast. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Toward a Shutdown to Celebrate Toast the Re-Legalization of Homebrewing Image: Great American Beer Festival Link to Original

After shooting schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head last year but failing to kill her, Pakistan’s Taliban have sworn to assault her again—in case anyone needed another reminder of the evil of which Islamic terrorists are capable. Malala’s alleged crime? She advocates girls attending school—a practice that’s contrary to the Taliban’s religion of Islam. Malala—recipient of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought—deserves respect and admiration for acting in defiance of the subhuman barbarians known as the Taliban. (Unfortunately, she calls for pacifism toward the Taliban, but the blame for this lies primarily with the adult intellectuals who push such nonsense.) Malala also deserves her government’s active protection against these monsters. Let’s hope she gets it. As for the Taliban (who deserve only to be exterminated) they have, by seeking to murder a child—by means of a bullet to the brain—for the “crime” of advocating education for girls, offered the starkest possible illustration of the conflict between consistently practiced religion and the fundamental requirement of human life: the use of one’s mind. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: “No Substitute for Victory”: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism On the Anniversary of 9/11, Relativism and Religion Still Paralyze American Self-Defense Link to Original

Yesterday Barack Obama nominated Janet Yellen as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, to replace Ben Bernanke next February. Yellen has been vice chair to Bernanke since 2010 and will likely win approval from the Senate. The first important thing to realize about Yellen is her ideology and monetary views. Now 67 years old, Yellen has for decades been a left-leaning academic economist, after earning degrees from Brown (BA, 1967) and Yale (PhD, 1971), an era when Keynesian-interventionist policies were held as sacrosanct. Later she taught at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business (1980–1994), while publishing articles that never materially questioned Keynesian dogmas—such as that a free economy is prone to “failures” or “imbalances” (where aggregate demand runs short of aggregate supply); that government spending can add to output; that inflation (a decline in money’s purchasing power) results not from excessive money creation but from excessive economic growth; that money-printing can lower unemployment; that savings “leak” from spending flows and cause recessions; and that a central bank should keep interest rates as low as possible in order to provide a profligate, deficit-spending, debt-accumulating government with low-cost funding. The second crucial fact to know is that Yellen unabashedly imports these myths into the political realm, instead of leaving them in the ivory tower. In the words of Allen Sinai, long-time Keynesian and president of Decision Economics Inc., “the philosophy of Janet Yellen is activism of government policy to achieve [Fed] objectives.” Yellen’s predecessor, Ben Bernanke (Fed chief since early 2006), believed many of these same myths, which led to his policy of wildly gyrating interest rates, which in turn reintroduced a boom-bust pattern into the U.S. financial economy, thus terminating the sober and stable years economists had come to call “the Great Moderation” (mid-1980s to mid-2000s). Bernanke’s policies—all fully endorsed by Yellen—triggered both the Great Recession (2007–2009) and the financial debacle of 2008. Since 1994, Yellen has contributed to the deleterious shift away from bullish, supply-side policies, towards bearish, demand-side (Keynesian) policies, first as a Federal Reserve Board member (1994–1997); then as an advisor to president Clinton (1997–1999), pushing for more sub-prime mortgages; then as president of the San Francisco Fed (2004–2010); and, most recently, as vice chairman of the Fed (2010–2013). At every step Yellen has helped Bernanke impose money-printing, vast purchases of U.S. federal debt, and near-zero interest rates. She’ll likely continue those destructive policies for even longer than Bernanke might have. Consequently, we may see a prolonged period of artificially low interest rates, huge national debt purchases, and economic stagnation. This is not good. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: The End of Central Banking, Part I The End of Central Banking, Part II Review: The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure, by John Allison Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original

In the wake of the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese government shuttered the nation’s nuclear power plants (at the moment, all of them are closed), which had been generating 30 percent of the nation’s electricity. Consequently, electricity prices in the country have doubled, while electricity providers have scrambled to meet energy needs with the only viable alternatives: coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuel consumption has skyrocketed in the country, already the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas. In July, Japanese paid nearly $16 per million British Thermal Units (mmBTU) for gas. In contrast, during this same month, North American natural gas futures traded at just over $3.50 mmBTU. Given this enormous difference in cost, executives of Tokyo Gas Co, Japan’s largest natural gas utility, began the process of importing gas from the United States. In April, the U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo Gas Co purchased a 25 percent interest in the Texas Barnett Shale assets of Quicksilver Resources. Meanwhile, in Maryland, Tokyo Gas Co. signed contracts (through its subsidiary) to purchase gas from the planned Dominion Cove Point Liquefied Natural Gas Export Terminal. If this terminal is built, it will load ocean tankers with gas from the Gulf of Mexico, the Rockies, the Appalachians, and elsewhere, and send it to Asia. Energy wise, the Japanese are clearly in dire straights. Whether this is due more to natural disasters or to statist policies, the Japanese people are fortunate that American energy producers—operating in relative freedom—have revolutionized the technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking, thereby radically expanding production of oil and natural gas, such that they can supply the East with the fruits of the West. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: Nuclear Energy: The Safe, Clean, Cost-Effective Alternative Denbury Resources Uses CO2 to Dramatically Expand Montana Oil Production Creative Commons Image: Kondo Atsushi Link to Original

Cindy Vinson is among the “big believers in the Affordable Care Act” (aka ObamaCare), and she is “proud to say [she] helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama,” reports the San Jose Mercury News (in an article publicized by Michelle Malkin and Instapundit). Unfortunately for Vinson, her health insurance policy now costs $1,800 more per year, a hike necessary to make the policy “conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.” Vinson was shocked(!) to learn this. She said, “Of course, I want people to have health care; I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.” Who did she think was going to pay for it? Health care is not manna from Heaven; the provision of health care and health insurance must be provided by someone’s effort. Someone has to pay for it. At its root, ObamaCare is a scheme to forcibly redistribute wealth from some people to others through mandated coverage of certain services, subsidized premiums, and the like. Forcing some people to pay for the health care of others is its central feature. This is altruism—the alleged duty to live for others—applied to politics. According to altruism, the government must force people to sacrifice their own values and wealth for the sake of others. We should not be surprised when altruistic policies involve such sacrifices. Ending altruistic policies will require far more than expressions of shock and anxiety. It will require the recognition that individuals properly live by their own judgment and for their own sake, and thus that individuals should be free to do so. This is the only principle by reference to which government can be limited to its proper role of protecting people’s rights. Americans who don’t want to “pay personally” for the health care of others must reject the moral code that mandates that they do. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: The Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty Supremes’ ObamaCare Ruling: Altruism In Politics Link to Original

An October 6 email from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) points out, “This week more than 1,000 privately operated parks were required to close during the government shutdown—even though they receive no federal funding.” A PERC report gives an example: [T]he U.S. Forest Service owns Crescent Moon Ranch [in Arizona]. . . . The fee revenue at this park . . . not only keeps the park fully maintained, it adds more than $60,000 to the local Forest Service recreation budget—all without requiring tax money to operate. Meanwhile, the federal government has kicked an elderly couple out of their home because it sits on federal land, and one Park Service ranger said, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.” Such problems point to an obvious solution: privatize the federal lands in question. Then the lands would be unaffected by shutdowns and other political shenanigans—and federal bureaucrats would be, at least in this context, unable to order rangers to “make life as difficult for people” as they can. This would be relatively easy to do for federal lands already maintained by private parties—the government need only grant deeds of title. Then the government could move to transfer the remaining park lands to private parties—which, according to constitutional scholar Rob Natelson, the federal government is legally required to do, anyway. The government should cease and desist from making “life as difficult for people” as it can; it should turn over ownership of parks to the private sector, where it morally belongs; and, more broadly, it should focus exclusively on doing its proper job of protecting individual rights and otherwise leaving citizens and property alone. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty Toward a Shutdown to Celebrate Oil Shale Politics Points to Problems of Federal Land Ownership Image: Coconino National Forest Link to Original

It’s bad enough that thousands of Colorado families were displaced by recent flooding; now they have to fear prosecution under rights-violating gun laws, too. Thankfully, Kenneth Buck, the district attorney for Weld County (northeast of Denver), has publicly declared that he will not prosecute rights-respecting flood victims under capricious gun laws. A September 30 press release from Buck’s office states: The Weld County District Attorney’s Office will not prosecute any cases associated with firearms transferred by evacuees of the recent floods. A number of residents who were forced to leave their homes are now facing the long rebuilding process of damaged or destroyed homes. These residents have been forced to give their firearms to others for safekeeping during this challenging and stressful time. While this seems an innocuous task, it is a violation of House Bill 1229, passed and signed into law during the 2012–13 legislative session. The legislation makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor if a resident fails to perform a background check before transferring a firearm to another individual. Buck said it would be “unconscionable to prosecute [people] under these circumstances,” and, he added, “This is an example of the consequences of laws that are overbroad and not well thought out and illustrates how such laws can harm residents’ rights.” Shame on the Colorado legislators who voted for the bill in question. And kudos for Buck for protecting the rights of people living in his jurisdiction. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty Gun Restrictions Punish the Rational and Responsible for Acts of the Irrational and Irresponsible Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original

Suppose a criminal brutally raped your daughter or friend and impregnated her, she got an abortion, and then the government subjected her to first-degree murder charges (for killing the fetus) and handed her life imprisonment or the death penalty. A proposal likely to appear on the Colorado ballot in 2014 carries this potential. The measure would—if interpreted by the courts as its sponsors intend—criminalize every intentional killing of an embryo or fetus, whatever the reason. It would outlaw not only all abortions—even in cases of rape, incest, fetal deformity, and risks to the woman’s health—but all forms of birth control, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research that might kill an embryo. Anyone violating the law could be charged with first-degree murder. If the measure sounds too insane to be real—or if it sounds like it could be seriously proposed only in places like Saudi Arabia—consider the measure’s language and what its sponsors have said about it. One of the two sponsors of the measure is Gualberto Garcia Jones, who sits on the board of Personhood USA. This organization calls itself a “Christian ministry” and considers all embryos and fetuses to be “preborn children” deserving the same legal rights as (born) people. Personhood USA supported two previous “personhood” measures in Colorado, one in 2008 and another in 2010. (Voters defeated each measure by wide margins.) The 2014 measure (known by the Colorado Secretary of State as Initiative 5) is worded differently than were the previous two proposals, but its intended effect is the same. The measure calls for “homicide prosecutions for killing the unborn.” On September 30, supporters of the measure submitted signatures to place it on the Colorado ballot. (The Secretary of State must review the signatures before formally placing it on the ballot.) The measure declares that “the words ‘person’ and ‘child’ in the Colorado criminal code and the Colorado wrongful death act must include unborn human beings.” Jones explicitly equates a drunk driver who injures a woman and thereby kills her fetus with a doctor who provides an abortion: Both, in his view, deserve criminal prosecution. (Whether the courts would interpret the proposal to include all embryos and fetuses as “unborn human beings,” the measure’s sponsors clearly intend the courts to do just that.) The proposal would subject anyone who intentionally kills an embryo or fetus to first-degree murder charges—whether a pregnant woman seeking an abortion, a doctor who provides one, an in vitro fertility provider who destroys unused embryos, and so on. Colorado statute 18-3-102 states: A person commits the crime of murder in the first degree if . . . [a]fter deliberation and with the intent to cause the death of a person other than himself, he causes the death of that person or of another person. . . . First-degree murder is a Class 1 felony under Colorado law. Colorado statute 18-1.3-1201 states that the penalty for a Class 1 felony is the death penalty or “life imprisonment.” Obviously, then, if the term “person” in Colorado’s criminal statutes includes all embryos and fetuses, the deliberate and intentional killing of any embryo or fetus would be considered first-degree murder under existing statutes. One difference between the 2014 proposal and the previous “personhood” proposals is its packaging. Supporters of the measure call it the “Brady Amendment,” after Brady, the name that Heather Surovik gave her eight-month-old fetus who was killed by a drunk driver. (Surovik is listed as the second sponsor of the measure, along with Jones.) Calling this proposal the “Brady Amendment” adds injury to absurdity by tying the proposal to a genuinely criminal act. The law would do far more than punish criminals who kill a woman’s embryo or fetus against her wishes—it would also punish women, doctors, and others for ending a pregnancy in accordance with a woman’s moral right. Moreover, Colorado already has a law that punishes criminals for killing a fetus or embryo against the wishes of the pregnant woman. On June 5, Governor John Hickenlooper signed bill 13-1154, the “Crimes Against Pregnant Women Act,” which carefully distinguishes between an abortion a woman wants and a criminal assault that kills her embryo or fetus. Notably, Personhood USA opposed the bill because it did not grant full legal “rights” to embryos and fetuses. The so-called “Brady Amendment” cannot be dismissed as the insanity of a tiny fringe group, as around 140,000 people signed this year’s “personhood” measure, and “personhood” is widely embraced by leading Colorado Republicans. At least three possible candidates for governor support “personhood” to varying degrees, as do three possible candidates for U.S. Senate and three standing members of Congress in Colorado. A Colorado religious leader in this video explicitly calls for the death penalty for women who get abortions. Although the measure is not likely to pass a popular vote next year—and, even if it did, it is not likely to pass judicial muster anytime soon—“personhood” supporters are serious about someday making their proposals the law of the land. Deadly serious. Those who recognize what rights are—and that women have them whereas embryos and fetuses do not—should be outraged at the very thought of such a measure, let alone a movement with the backing this proposal has today. Speak up. Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard. Related: The Assault on Abortion Rights Undermines All Our Liberties Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society Planned Parenthood and Others Admirably Fight Texas Anti-Abortion Bill Link to Original