Blog Auto Feed Retired

Below is my introduction to the Fall issue of TOS, which has been mailed and will be posted to our website this Tuesday. If you’ve not yet subscribed to the journal for people of reason, subscribe now for a mere 8¢ per day. Satisfaction is guaranteed. —CB * * * Welcome to the Fall 2013 issue of The Objective Standard. In the lead article, “The Roots of the IRS Scandal,” Steve Simpson exposes the fundamental causes of the Internal Revenue Service’s “closer scrutiny” of Tea Party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, identifying the constellation of laws that effectively authorized the IRS to target such groups, showing how these laws operate in practice, and shedding light on the deeper premises that support these laws and fuel their enforcement. If you care about freedom of speech, read this article and recommend it to your friends. It is the only explanation I’m aware of that goes to the roots of this scandal, making its causes crystal clear. In “Nuclear Energy: The Safe, Clean, Cost-Effective Alternative,” Thomas Eiden first elucidates the nature of nuclear energy, explaining how nuclear power plants work, why nuclear power is safer and cleaner than other forms of energy production, and why the nuclear alternative could provide the industrial world with ample energy for millions of years; Eiden then dismantles several widely accepted myths propagated by anti-nuclear groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resource Defense Council. This is one to recommend to your environmentalist acquaintances as well as your pro-industry friends. Next up is Ari Armstrong’s extensive interview with Dr. Josh Umbehr, in which Dr. Umbehr discusses the nature of concierge medicine, his own version of this revolutionary approach to health care, and the various ways in which his approach results in higher-quality, lower-cost, higher-profit health care that both sidesteps and undermines ObamaCare. If you think that sounds too good to be true, read the interview, meet Dr. Umbehr, and see why it is true. Then share this interview with your doctor, your friends and family, and anyone else you know who has an interest in good health care. This is the beginning of a revolution we should all join. Movies reviewed in this issue are: Les Misérables, directed by Tom Hooper (reviewed by Zachary Huffman); Oz the Great and Powerful, directed by Sam Raimi (reviewed by Ari Armstrong); and Star Trek: The Original Films (reviewed by Ari Armstrong). Books reviewed are: The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire, by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy (reviewed by Alexander V. Marriott); The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy—How to Save Yourself and Your Country, by Peter D. Schiff (reviewed by Michael Dahlen); Living Proof, by Kira Peikoff (reviewed by Mikayla Callen); The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander (reviewed by Daniel Wahl); Killing Floor, by Lee Child (reviewed by Ari Armstrong). In addition to reading The Objective Standard, be sure to visit TOS Blog for daily commentary from an Objectivist perspective; join us on Facebook and Twitter for a steady stream of interesting links and (sometimes-heated) discussion; and check out our YouTube channel, where you’ll find my Reason at Large videos and much more. Hope to see you there! —Craig Biddle Link to Original

In his recent National Affairs essay, “Religion and the American Public,” George Will writes: “I approach the question of religion and American life from the vantage point of an expanding minority,” namely, Americans with no religious affiliation, “a cohort that the Pew public-opinion surveys call the ‘nones.’” Will’s essay is long and rich, and much could be said about it, but we want to focus on the significance of Will’s lack of religious affiliation, and on a deficiency in his thinking about rights. Will, a major conservative thinker, has, in this essay, to some extent broken ties with religious conservatism. Granted, denying affiliation with a religion is not the same as rejecting religion, but it is deeply significant—especially for a prominent and highly celebrated conservative journalist. Will discusses the American founders’ thoughts on religion, noting that some, such as Benjamin Franklin, were Deists who relegated the “creator” to the status of “a rich aunt in Australia: benevolent, distant, and infrequently heard from.” George Washington, notes Will, refused to kneel for prayer; the “longer John Adams lived, the shorter grew his creed”; and Thomas Jefferson endorsed a “wall of separation” between church and state. Will then moves to the main concern of his essay: the relationship of religion to the American way—that is, to government based on rights. Here, Will appears further at odds with conservative tradition. “I do not think the idea of natural rights requires a religious foundation,” he writes. “The American founding owed much more to John Locke than to Jesus.” He even says explicitly that neither successful self-government nor “a government with clear limits defined by the natural rights of the governed” requires religion. For these, writes Will, “religion is helpful and important but not quite essential.” That last point is the essence of Will’s position. He holds that although religion is not the keystone of American liberty, it does serve as a significant brace. In his words, “It is . . . indubitably the case that natural rights are especially firmly grounded when they are grounded in religious doctrine.” It is great to see a conservative acknowledge that religion is not essential to the existence or defense of rights. But why does Will maintain that religion is even “helpful” or “important” to the cause? Why is that indubitably the case? What exactly does religion supply that Will regards as so crucial as to warrant condoning ideas that he believes to be false? How could false ideas support true ones? What are we to make of the countless instances of religious scriptures calling for or permitting the violation of rights? And how are we to deal with religionists who have “faith” that they are divinely justified in violating rights? Unfortunately, Will does not raise, let alone address, any such questions. If he did, he would eventually (if not quickly) see that religion is not only non-essential and unhelpful and unimportant to rights and liberty, but also inimical to them. Rights, as the American philosopher Ayn Rand discovered and elucidated, are not “self-evident truths” (as Will and some founders claim); nor are they God-given truths (as many conservatives and some founders claim); nor are they government-given permissions or myths (as leftists and today’s so-called “liberals” claim). Rather, rights are recognitions of certain factual requirements of human life and prosperity on earth. As Rand put it: “Rights” are a moral concept—the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others—the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context—the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law. . . . A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.) Rand’s secular, observation-based derivation of the principle of rights involves a logical hierarchy of moral, epistemological, and metaphysical facts; and it is impossible to spell out in a brief blog post. But the essence of her argument is this: Because man’s only means of knowledge is reason (i.e., the use of observation and logic)—and because man must therefore use his rational judgment to discover truths, establish principles, and guide his actions in order to live and prosper—man morally must be left free to act on his judgment so that he can live and prosper. These and related facts, Rand observed, give rise to the need of a principle to protect people from the one thing that can stop them from acting on their judgment: physical force. That principle is the principle of rights: the truth that every individual has a moral prerogative to act on his own judgment for his own sake so long as he does not violate the same rights of others. Rand’s approach to rights is not faith-based, nor feeling-based, but fact-based. It is based on the observably and historically clear facts concerning man’s need of freedom in order to live and prosper. If Will and other conservatives want to discover the objective, secular source and nature of rights, they would do well to study Ayn Rand’s theory of rights. Armed with Rand’s observationally true theory, they could proceed to apply it consistently and fruitfully toward the restoration of the land of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 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 American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty Creative Commons Image: Keith Allison Link to Original

“The National Security Agency [NSA] has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008,” the Washington Post reports. Regardless of how one evaluates the Post’s source for this information (Edward Snowden), the NSA’s big-brother tactics clearly violate the rights of American citizens. Of course, the government has a right and an obligation to investigate potential criminals when it has sufficient evidence to warrant investigation. The fourth and fifth amendments to the Bill of Rights spell out the fundamental legal principles in this area. To pursue an investigation, the government need not have perfect or conclusive information—otherwise it could not investigate or arrest any suspected criminal. But, in order to investigate potential criminal activities of American citizens, the government must have just cause as determined by a constitutionally authorized court. Government is properly the agent of the citizens to protect their rights. A government that spies on citizens without sufficient cause, as the NSA has obviously been doing, violates rather than protects citizens’ rights. The primary reason the U.S. government is spying on and restricting the activities (as with airport “security” procedures) of U.S. citizens is that the U.S. government has failed to take appropriate action against Islamic terrorists—and, especially, the states supporting them—who continue to threaten U.S. citizens and America in general. Americans who care to preserve our liberty and our security must demand that our government stop spying on peaceable citizens and start doing its job—which, in this area, means destroying the Islamic terrorists who have killed many Americans and are working to kill many more. 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 The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original

During the push to pass ObamaCare in 2010, leftists ridiculed anyone who likened the legislation to socialized medicine. But socialized medicine—medicine provided by and controlled by the government—was and is the logical end of ObamaCare. And last week, Harry Reid—who as the senate majority leader was instrumental in passing ObamaCare—confessed as much. While on a Nevada PBS television show, Reid said that ObamaCare is a “step in the right direction” toward more government control of health care, Karoun Demirjian reports for the Las Vegas Sun. Although, judging by the news report, Reid did not fully articulate his ideal health care policy, he praised the so-called “single-payer system”—in which the government is the single payer for health services—and said that eventually private health insurance “absolutely” should be abolished. Reid is correct that the ultimate goal toward which ObamaCare is merely a step is fully socialized medicine. ObamaCare forces people to purchase government-approved and government-regulated health insurance. By subsidizing insurance and regulating rates, it forces some people to pay for the health care of others. ObamaCare also establishes a bureaucracy to determine which services doctors may and may not offer their patients under such “insurance.” The purpose of ObamaCare is for the government to control insurance so that it can control health care. Under the sort of socialized medicine that Reid envisions and advocates, the government controls health care directly and (more) completely. Under Reid’s proposed system, the government forces every taxpayer to pay for everyone else’s health care, and the government controls all of the health care that is so funded. Reid is wrong that ObamaCare is a “step in the right direction.” The proper purpose of government is to protect people’s rights—including the rights of patients to seek the health care and health insurance they want and can afford, the rights of doctors and insurers to offer products and services as they see fit, and the rights of everyone to keep and use their income as they see fit. ObamaCare violates people’s rights substantially; fully socialized medicine would violate people’s rights fully in the area of health care. Will health care in America become fully socialized? It depends on whether Americans decide to support politicians who aim to make it so. In any event, we can’t say Harry Reid didn’t warn us. 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 Government-Run Health Care vs. the Hippocratic Oath Creative Commons Image: Brian Finifter Link to Original

[The following is a section on the virtue of honesty from chapter 6 of my book Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It.] Honesty “is the refusal to fake reality—i.e., to pretend that facts are other than they are.”1 It can be described as the flip side of rationality: Whereas rationality is the commitment to think, judge, and act with respect to the relevant facts, honesty is the commitment not to do otherwise. Since reality remains what it is regardless of any efforts to ignore or deny it—since facts are facts and cannot be wished away—the consequences of recognizing reality can only be positive, and the consequences of evading it can only be negative. The following examples will bear this out. Generally speaking, a job applicant who presents his actual qualifications, and does not pretend to possess qualities he does not have, will be able to perform his responsibilities successfully if he is hired. Thus, he will likely be retained and might even be promoted. But an applicant who misrepresents his qualifications, by pretending to possess qualities he does not have, will be unable to perform his responsibilities successfully if he is hired. Consequently, he might be demoted but more likely will be fired. Similarly, if a married man maintains fidelity to his wife, and lives his life rationally in all other regards as well, he will know that he is a faithful husband and a good person. Consequently, he will be able to respect himself and enjoy his marriage—which, due to his honesty, will be intact. By contrast, if a married man cheats on his wife, regardless of whatever else he does, he will know that he is a lying adulterer. Thus, he will be unable to respect himself or enjoy his marriage—which, due to his dishonesty, will be in tatters. Of course, there can be circumstances in which an extramarital affair does not involve dishonesty. For instance, if a woman’s husband is in a coma for some length of time and she loses all hope of his recovery, falls in love with another man, and decides to move on with her life, she is hardly dishonest for doing so. Likewise, if a married man wants to divorce his wife but she or the government will not allow him to do so, it is not dishonest of him to have an affair with another woman. Nor is a person being dishonest if he has an extramarital relationship to which he, his spouse, and the third party agree. Such choices and actions are not dishonest, because they do not entail the pretense that facts are other than they are. Brief and straightforward examples about honesty versus dishonesty can be multiplied end over end, but there is more involved here than such examples can reveal. To better understand the meaning and implications of honesty, we need to consider a few examples in greater detail and from several perspectives. Let us compare the life of an honest bank manager to that of a dishonest one. The honest manager acknowledges his commitments, works hard, reconciles his books, and refuses to take money that does not belong to him. Thus, he is able to face his associates and customers with a clear conscience—knowing that he is doing a good job, upholding his chosen obligations, and treating everyone fairly. Further, since he has nothing to hide, he is able to talk about his work to his family and friends without having to worry about what he says or to whom he says it. Whether at work, home, or play, he is able to live his life openly and fearlessly with no need to “cover his tracks.” By being honest, he is living in harmony with reality and reaping the consequent rewards. The dishonest manager takes a different course of action. He “cooks” his books and embezzles from his customers. He is acting in conflict with reality—that is, against the fact that he does not own the money he is taking. Consequently, he has big problems. Besides the fact that he might get caught and thrown in jail for embezzlement, in order to maintain the illusion of his innocence he will have to engage in additional acts of dishonesty to cover up the initial one. Then he will have to tell even more lies to cover up the cover-up lies, and so on. Each act of dishonesty will necessitate further lies in an ever-expanding web of deceit. The following are, in pattern, just some of the kinds of lies he will have to tell as a result of his one act of dishonesty. If his family or friends ask about the nature of his financial “success,” he will have to lie to them about it. If he tells them that he got a raise, he had better hope they never run into his boss and mention the alleged achievement. If they do, the liar will then have to lie to his boss about why he lied to his family and friends about getting a raise; and he will have to lie to his family and friends about why his boss claimed to know nothing of it. If, instead, he tells his family and friends that he is working a second job, he had better hope they don’t ask “Where?” If they do, he will have to tell them something. If he makes up a company, he had better hope they don’t try to contact him there. If they do, he will have to lie about why the company is “unlisted” or “top secret” or something like that. If, instead, he names an existing company, he had better hope they don’t call looking for him there. If they do, he will have to lie about why the receptionist has never heard of him. If he knows the receptionist, and if she is willing to lie for him by also pretending that he works where he does not, he will be at her mercy thereafter—and we already know the nature of her character. If over the course of his cover-up efforts he tells different lies to different people (as he will have to do), he had better hope they never communicate with one another about anything having to do with him. If they do, he will have to lie again to all of them about why he lied to the others. And so forth. Each new lie will require the dishonest manager to tell additional lies in order not to get caught in his previous lies. Of course, there is no way to predict the specific lies he will have to tell, since they will depend on the particular circumstances surrounding his various attempts at deception. But what is certain is that if he wants to avoid exposure, he will have to lie again and again. What is also certain is that he will not be able to escape the consequence of his dishonesty: self-destruction. Until and unless the dishonest manager decides to change his ways, atone for his wrongdoings, and start doing what is right, each lie he tells will further chip away at any remnant of self-esteem that might be left within him. And he will be lying more often than one might suspect. He will be lying a lot. He will be lying to his customers when he tells them that their money is in “good hands” (chip . . . ); to his subordinates when he reminds them of his alleged standards (chip . . . ); to his boss when she asks, “How go the books, Joe?” (chip . . . ); to his date when she asks, “What do you like most about your career, Joe?” (chip . . . ); to his friends when they marvel at his “lifestyle” (chip . . . ); to his future employer about his past “performance” (chip . . . ); even to the grocer when he exchanges a dollar he does not rightfully own for a banana he does not actually deserve (chip . . . ). The point is twofold: 1) Dishonesty cannot be contained, and 2) its effects cannot be escaped. Once a person begins lying, his dishonesty spreads like cancer throughout his life, creating anxiety and destroying his self-esteem. While he might not get physically “caught,” his need to continuously “cover his tracks” combined with his irrepressible knowledge of the fact that he is a fraud will spiritually thwart every significant aspect of his life. Just as a person cannot wish facts out of existence, so he cannot wish knowledge out of his mind. He cannot expel what he knows to be true. He can ignore or evade his knowledge—that’s precisely what dishonesty is—but he cannot get rid of it. He cannot un-know what he knows. Reality won’t let him. Until and unless a dishonest person stops lying, makes appropriate reparations, and commits himself to being honest, he will continue to destroy himself, lie by lie, chip by chip. Another telling angle on the vice of dishonesty is that it puts a person in the position of relying on peoples’ inability to discover the facts surrounding his so-called life. While to an honest person, a friend or colleague’s keen eye and good judgment provide a benefit—to a dishonest person, these same qualities pose a threat. A dishonest person has to surround himself with people whom he can deceive, and he has to avoid those whom he cannot. In other words, his character trait of choice in others is their gullibility. The only people who qualify for partnership, friendship, or romance with him are those whom he, a degenerate, can delude. As Ayn Rand put it, a dishonest person is “a dependent on the stupidity of others . . . a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling.”2 That fact alone speaks volumes. But there’s more. Perhaps the most revealing fact of all regarding the selflessness of dishonesty is that the time and energy a dishonest person puts into deceiving the deceivable could have gone into achieving the achievable. It could have gone toward creating values rather than fooling people. It could have gone toward promoting his life rather than retarding it—which is all that dishonesty can do. If a person attempts to gain a value by means of dishonesty, even if he appears to “get away” with it, he actually does not. The ill-gotten gain does not and cannot bring him happiness; it necessarily creates spiritual conflict, anxiety, and self-contempt. Since he was dishonest to get the “value,” he will have to continue being dishonest to keep it. And since he knows that he gained the “value” dishonestly, he also knows that he is not worthy of having it. Consequently, the “value” cannot serve its intended purpose; it cannot promote his life; thus, it is not—in the moral, life-serving sense of the term—a value. It is a disvalue; it can only thwart his life and work against his happiness. To understand why this is so, we must bear in mind the fact that a person can value something that is not in his best interest. He can act to gain or keep things that harm or destroy his life—such as an abusive spouse or a heroin “high.” And we must acknowledge that, morally speaking, such things are not legitimate values, because they do not and cannot promote human life; they can only harm or destroy it. In the broadest, goal-directed sense of the term, a value is anything that one acts to gain or keep. But in the narrower, moral sense of the term, a legitimate value is a value that actually promotes one’s life.3 For instance, if a person earns money and buys a car with it, the car is a legitimate value; it can promote his life, and he can enjoy driving it. His possession of the car is a result of his virtue; thus, it is a reward and a reminder of his accomplishments. But if a person steals a car, the car is not a legitimate value; it cannot promote his life, and he literally cannot enjoy driving it—not unless chronic fear and self-doubt are the hallmarks of joy. His possession of the car is a result of his vice; thus, it is a penalty in the form of a reminder that he is a thief. In addition to the fact that he might get caught and thrown in jail for stealing the car, driving it will always remind him that he is a parasite, and anything he uses the car to “accomplish” will be tainted by that fact. If he picks up a deceivable date, even though she may not know it, he will know that she is getting into someone else’s car with an incompetent who can’t earn money to buy his own. Likewise, if strangers admire the car, the thief will know that they are admiring someone else’s hard-earned accomplishment, which he (the thief) could only muster the “guts” to steal. Now, the thief might say that he is enjoying the car. But his words cannot reverse cause and effect. Genuine joy comes from achieving values, not from stealing them. Happiness is an effect—of which personal achievement is the cause. No one—no matter how stupid he might be—can make himself “believe” that he has achieved something when he knows that he has not. The one person no one can fool, in this respect, is oneself. Dishonesty cannot lead to values. Reality won’t let it. To further illustrate this point, consider a student who cheats on an exam. Even if he does not get caught and expelled from school, the cheating cannot promote his life. For starters, since higher-level knowledge is built on lower-level knowledge, if he has not learned how to write a sentence or do arithmetic, how will he learn to write a paragraph or do algebra? And if he cannot write a paragraph or do algebra, how will he ever write an essay or do calculus? He won’t. Like the book-cooking bank manager, he will have to cheat again to cover up his initial cheating, and then again to cover up that cheating, and so on. And like the car-stealing incompetent, if the cheating “gets” him a “good” grade, since he will know that he did not earn it, every “accomplishment” built thereon will be spoiled by his irrepressible knowledge of the fact that he is not an achiever but a deceiver. For instance, if his cheating gets him into a college, then in addition to being ill-equipped to do the necessary schoolwork, he will know that he does not deserve to be there in the first place. If he continues cheating throughout college and that gets him into a law school, then in addition to being ill-equipped to do his coursework, he will know that he does not deserve to be there, either. If he persists and cheats his way through law school and into a law firm, then in addition to being ill-equipped to do his casework, he will know that his entire “career” is built on a pile of sham. What kind of life will he then have? Will he be genuinely happy? Or will he be spiritually eaten by his knowledge of the fraud that he actually is? Dishonesty is incompatible with life and happiness for the simple reason that it pits a person against the very source and realm of values: reality. Morality is a matter of the immutable laws of identity, causality, and non-contradiction. An action either promotes a person’s life and long-term happiness or it does not. If it does, it is virtuous; if it does not, it is not. For someone to “get away” with being dishonest—for dishonesty to “promote” a person’s life—would literally take a miracle: a violation of natural law. In other words: It can’t happen. Ill-gotten gains are not and cannot be values; they are and can only be disvalues. They are not rewards, but penalties. They do not promote one’s life; they thwart it—and they do so every time. Thus, not only is it true that honesty pays; the deeper truth is that only honesty pays. Such is the nature of reality. In the above examples, the acts of honesty and dishonesty are rather obvious. But the requirements of honesty are not always so easy to discern. Consider another kind of situation. Suppose a robber walks into a store, points a gun at the owner, and demands: “Empty your cash drawer into this bag, or I’ll blow your head off!” Fearing for his life, the owner complies. The robber then demands to know if there is any more money on the premises. Here is the tricky part: Since the owner keeps a few hundred dollars hidden in the back room, is he morally obligated to inform the thief of this fact—or can he lie and still maintain his honesty? To answer such a question we must bear in mind the purpose of morality. The purpose of morality is to guide a person in living as a human being. The purpose of moral principles is to guide a human being in gaining and keeping his life-serving values. Thus, in order for a moral principle to be valid, it has to serve that purpose. With this in mind, we can begin to answer the question. For a person to be able to keep his values, he must also be able to protect them from people who wish to steal, harm, or destroy them. And for honesty to be a virtue, it has to allow for such protection. Thus, honesty cannot mean “never, under any circumstance, tell a lie”; it cannot be the virtue of “always telling the truth, no matter what the consequence.” Such a “virtue” would not permit a person to protect his life-serving values; thus, it would defeat the very purpose of morality. If honesty required a person to “always tell the truth no matter what,” it would be opposed to life; in other words, it would not be a virtue. What honesty does require a person to do is to account for all of his knowledge—and to ignore or evade none of it. Honesty means never faking reality in order to gain a value. It is the virtue of refusing to pretend that facts are other than they are. As such, it requires recognition of all the relevant facts of a given situation—and only the facts. Given the purpose of morality, honesty does permit a person to lie—if the lie is intended to protect a legitimate value from a person (or group) that seeks to steal, harm, or destroy it. Thus, unless the storeowner has reason to believe that doing so would further endanger his life, lying to the thief would not be an act of dishonesty. On the contrary, it would be an act of honesty. He would be accounting for all the facts and only the facts—including the fact that his money is rightfully his—and excluding the fiction (the non-fact) that the thief has any right to take it. Honesty requires that one take into account the full context of one’s knowledge. Dishonesty consists in ignoring or evading some aspect of one’s knowledge. In attempting to steal the storeowner’s money, the thief is trying to gain a value that is not rightfully his by ignoring this and other relevant facts. In lying to the thief, the storeowner is trying to keep a value that is rightfully his by acknowledging this and all the relevant facts. The thief is placing his fantasy over reality; the storeowner is placing nothing over reality. Whether one should tell the truth or not depends on the context of the situation in question. Lying to a friend in order to lure him to his surprise party is not a breach of morality; the context makes such a lie morally appropriate and thus perfectly honest. Nor is it dishonest to lie to a person who is unjustly prying into one’s private life. If the snoop has no morally legitimate reason to be asking certain questions, one is morally entitled to answer as necessary to thwart his unwarranted inquiry. The broader point here is that morality is not a matter of categorical imperatives or contextless commandments. Rather, it is a matter of purposeful principles and contextual absolutes: principles formed for the purpose of making human life possible—which are to be applied absolutely with regard to the full context of one’s knowledge.4 The full context of one’s knowledge is simply the sum of one’s knowledge—all of what one knows. A person is morally responsible for acknowledging all the relevant items of his knowledge pertaining to any given situation with which he is faced. Should I store the Drano in the lower cabinet or the upper one? It depends on the context: Is there a toddler in the house? Can the lower cabinet be locked? What are the surrounding facts? To ignore the context would be immoral. If my refusal to think rationally and act accordingly leads to the death of my child, I am morally responsible for his death. I am morally responsible for the consequences of my choice to be rational or irrational. Take another situation: Should I enter the burning building or not? It depends on the context: Is someone in there? If so, who? Is it possible for me to save him—or is the building already fully engulfed in flames? What are the conditioning factors? Again, to ignore the context would be immoral. It would be quite a sacrifice to risk my life in order to save the life of a person who is clearly already dead. And it would be an even greater sacrifice to risk my life in order to save the likes of Joseph Mengele, Pol Pot, or Osama bin Laden from the flames they so richly deserve. One more example: Should I get the money out of the drawer before I go? It depends on the context: What drawer? Whose money? What are the relevant facts? You get the idea. Questions of good and bad, right and wrong can be answered only by means of moral principles in reference to the context surrounding and conditioning the given situation. Honesty requires that we always account for that context—in full. With this in mind, let us turn to our next virtue: integrity. . . . Endnotes 1 Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (New York: Meridian, 1993), p. 267. 2 Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual (New York: Signet, 1963), p. 129. 3 Cf. Leonard Peikoff, Unity in Epistemology and Ethics, taped lecture (New Milford: Second Renaissance Books, 1997). 4 Cf. Peikoff, Objectivism, pp. 274–76. 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 Is-Altruism Dichotomy Ayn Rand: America’s Comeback Philosopher Link to Original

First, a quick announcement about a change in The Objective Standard’s publishing schedule: Beginning with the Fall 2013 issue, the quarterly will be published a month earlier than in the past. The new schedule is as follows. Fall: print edition mails on August 15, electronic editions post on August 20; Winter: November 15, November 20; Spring: February 15, February 20; Summer: May 15, May 20. Correspondingly, the Fall 2013 print edition of TOS will be mailed tomorrow, and the electronic versions—including online (HTML), ebook, audio, and Kindle—will be posted on August 20. The contents of the Fall issue are: FEATURES The Roots of the IRS Scandal Steve Simpson Nuclear Energy: The Safe, Clean, Cost-Effective Alternative Thomas Eiden Dr. Josh Umbehr on the Concierge Medicine Revolution Interviewed by Ari Armstrong FILM REVIEWS Les Misérables , directed by Tom Hooper Reviewed by Zachary Huffman Oz the Great and Powerful , directed by Sam Raimi Reviewed by Ari Armstrong Star Trek : The Original Films Reviewed by Ari Armstrong BOOK REVIEWS The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire , by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy Reviewed by Alexander V. Marriott The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy—How to Save Yourself and Your Country , by Peter D. Schiff Reviewed by Michael Dahlen Living Proof , by Kira Peikoff Reviewed by Mikayla Callen The Chronicles of Prydain , by Lloyd Alexander Reviewed by Daniel Wahl Killing Floor , by Lee Child Reviewed by Ari Armstrong FROM TOS BLOG Scientists Advance 3D Printing toward Fabrication of Living Tissues and Functional Organs Mikayla Callen Teach Rational Morality, Not Religious Dogma Natalie Ogle Government Has No Business in Broadband Business Michael A. LaFerrara Apple’s Tax Avoidance Justifies Moral Outrage—Toward Those Harassing and Smearing Apple Ari Armstrong There Is No Right to Religious Proselytizing in U.S. Military Natalie Ogle Federal Ownership of California’s Resources Hinders Oil Production David Biederman Get Government Out of Student Loans Zachary Huffman Obama Gets Rights Wrong; Americans Need to Get Them Right Stephen Bourque Government Involvement in Organ Donation Constitutes Death Panels Ari Armstrong Celebrate Sarah Murnaghan’s Life; Demand an End to Government Death Panels Ari Armstrong Superman’s Moral Ambitiousness Ari Armstrong A Heroic Mission Saved Ancient Manuscripts from Islamic Barbarians Derrick Nantz Homeschooling Family Shows That Children Can Learn More and Faster Robert Begley Members of Congress Misrepresent Food Stamp Program and Ignore Its Injustice Ari Armstrong Valedictorian’s Speech Highlights Problems Inherent in Government Schools Natalie Ogle A Miraculous Pope? Ari Armstrong Freedom and Fracking Fuel Investment in Texas David Biederman Obama’s War on Energy Producers and Consumers Ari Armstrong Dwyane Wade and Miami Heat Put the “I” in Win Joseph Kellard Celebrating Civil War Victories and Individualism Robert Begley Death by Prayer: Christian Fundamentalist Parents Denied Their Children Medicine and Watched Them Die Natalie Ogle Oil Developers’ Innovative Technology Breathes New Life into Legendary Oilfield David Biederman Justice Department and Congress Commit Massive Act of Injustice against Apple, Et Al. Ari Armstrong Contra Robert Reich, Some Firefighters Are Rationally Selfish Joseph Kellard Texas Anti-Abortion Bill Abnegates Rights Ari Armstrong DEPARTMENTS From the Editor Letters to the Editor If you’ve not yet subscribed to The Objective Standard, you can do so here. The journal makes a great gift for your active-minded friends and relatives. Subscriptions start at just $29 and are available in Print, Online, E-book, and Audio editions. Subscribe Here | Give Gifts Here Also, be sure to regularly visit TOS Blog—the source for daily commentary from an Objectivist perspective. Enjoy the issue and have a wonderful fall! Link to Original

In a recent New York Times article, “For Obamacare to Work, Everyone Must Be In,” Robert H. Frank observes that for insurance companies to offer coverage at the same rate to everyone, including those with “pre-existing conditions,” they would have to charge higher premiums, which would induce healthier people to drop coverage, driving the premiums still higher, and so on. This so-called “adverse-selection problem,” Frank claims, constitutes a failure of the free market and demonstrates the need for further government regulation of insurance companies. But the premise that insurance companies should cover everyone at the same rate is false, and forcing insurance companies to cover everyone at the same rate is immoral and thus impractical. Insurance is a product that certain businesses produce for trade and profit. Insurance companies price their product by assessing risks and accounting for many variables involving the market and their customers. Insurance companies and their customers (properly) deal with each other voluntarily, by mutual consent to mutual advantage. Insurance, properly speaking, is a kind of voluntary contract. The coverage for “pre-existing conditions” that insurers are forced to provide is, strictly speaking, not insurance at all. The “adverse-selection problem” that Frank describes would never arise in a free, voluntary market because when buyers and sellers are free to negotiate prices, they don’t select “adversely”; rather, they select selfishly—each contracting as he thinks is in his best interest. (Of course, they don’t have to select selfishly, but they are both free and have incentive to do so.) In a free market, the facts of reality provide people with incentive to obtain whatever kind and degree of insurance is in their best interest given their personal circumstances—including any “pre-existing conditions” they might have. Who pays for insurance in a free market? Each person pays for whatever (available) insurance he deems appropriate to his needs and can afford. An individual’s pre-existing conditions are his pre-existing conditions, and, if he wants them covered, then it is his (or, in the case of a child, his legal guardian’s) moral responsibility to pay for the insurance. At the end of his article, Frank offers a challenge: “We must ask those who would repeal Obamacare how they propose to solve the “adverse-selection problem.” The answer is to establish a free market in health insurance by restricting the government to protecting (and not violating) the rights of insurance companies and their customers to voluntarily negotiate the terms of their contracts. In short, the solution to the “adverse-selection problem” is the selfish-selection alternative—which comes only with a free market in health insurance. 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: ObamaCare v. the Constitution A Prescription for America’s Health Care Ills Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care” Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original

On July 18, the city of Detroit declared that it had reached insolvency, and, with $11 billion in debt, filed for bankruptcy. Since the announcement, numerous pundits have penned postmortems attempting to explain Detroit’s decline, but Daniel Hannan has gotten closest to the essence of the issue. In his piece for the Telegraph, Hannan insightfully compares the similarities between the downfall of Detroit and that of Starnesville, a town in Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged. Quoting from the Observer, Hannan relayed of modern Detroit: What isn’t dumped is stolen. Factories and homes have largely been stripped of anything of value, so thieves now target cars’ catalytic converters. Illiteracy runs at around 47%; half the adults in some areas are unemployed. In many neighborhoods, the only sign of activity is a slow trudge to the liquor store. This decayed landscape is eerily similar to the description of Starnesville provided by Ayn Rand fifty-six years ago. Hannan provides a comparative excerpt from Atlas Shrugged: A few houses still stood within the skeleton of what had once been an industrial town. Everything that could move, had moved away; but some human beings had remained. The empty structures were vertical rubble; they had been eaten, not by time, but by men . . . The inhabited houses were scattered at random among the ruins; the smoke of their chimneys was the only movement visible in town . . . Beyond the town, on a distant hill, stood the factory of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Its walls, roof lines and smokestacks looked trim, impregnable like a fortress. It would have seemed intact but for a silver water tank: the water tank was tipped sidewise. Although the town of Starnesville is fictional, it serves as a warning of the destruction wrought by a particular ideology and the regulations and wealth-redistribution schemes it demands or condones. Unfortunately, like so many people and so many governments, those of Detroit did not heed Rand’s warning. Nor does Hannan explicitly name the ideology at play. Let’s look at some telling facts and name that ideology. When Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957, Detroit was a far cry from the Starnesville it is today. In fact, “Motor City,” as it was called, was the heart of the auto manufacturing industry and one of America’s iconic boomtowns. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the city boasted one of the highest per capita income rankings of metropolitan areas in the United States. At that time, Detroit and its nearly two million residents seemed to be headed down a path of ever-increasing prosperity. Today, however, the city has one of the lowest per capita income levels compared to other large metropolitan areas in the United States, and its population has shrunk to barely 700,000 residents. In some areas of the city, entire neighborhoods have been abandoned, and dozens of factories that used to exemplify Detroit’s productivity and prosperity now sit empty and dilapidated. As Hannan points out, Detroit’s collapse did not occur overnight. Like Starnesville, Motor City collapsed as a result of certain policies enacted by local, state, and national lawmakers—and supported by citizens and voters—over the course of several decades. One key factor in Detroit’s collapse is decades of deference to unions. Of the city’s $11 billion in outstanding debt, $9 billion is union related, mostly in the form of pensions, Hannan notes. Over the course of fifty years, Detroit’s cartel-like labor unions worked in tandem with the city, state, and federal government to gain control over private-sector employers. (Public-sector unions did the same with their government counterparts.) As union members lobbied government to coercively increase their salaries, pensions, and power, they stifled innovation and entrepreneurship, and Detroit became an increasingly expensive and difficult city in which to do business. So, unsurprisingly, businesses left for greener pastures. Another factor in Detroit’s decline was its substantial dependence on federal subsidies and bailouts—the most recent example being the bailout of General Motors in 2009. The auto industry’s reliance on government handouts caused it to neglect the importance of innovation and value creation. Why produce competitively when you receive lots of money for being important to the local economy and resting on your laurels? Detroit also enacted a host of damaging tax policies in attempt to finance the city’s big-spending agenda. During nearly six decades of decline, the city’s combination of high property taxes, income taxes, and corporate taxes drove out many of Detroit’s productive citizens and businesses, leaving a shrinking tax base to foot the ever-increasing bill. Detroit further assaulted its citizens and businesses through the use of eminent domain laws. In one egregious instance in 1981, the city forced more than 4,000 individuals from their homes, and forced numerous businesses from their chosen locations, in order to make way for a new General Motors factory. The foregoing is by no means an exhaustive list of the policies that caused the downfall of Detroit, but it is enough to see a common denominator. What killed Detroit is collectivism—the notion that the collective (i.e., the “community” or the “union” or the “city” or the like) is the unit of moral and political concern, and thus that individuals and business have a moral duty to serve the collective. Whether it was to meet the demands of the unions, or to provide for the financial needs of crucial companies that (allegedly) couldn’t make it on their own, or to support the city’s “greater good”—individuals and businesses were forced to act against their own best judgment and thus driven from the city or throttled if they stayed. Motor City became Starnesville for the same reason Starnesville collapsed: because collectivism and its attendant policies violated the rights of individuals and businesses and thus caused economic destruction upon economic destruction upon economic destruction. This is what collectivism does. Unfortunately, Ayn Rand’s fictional Starnesville didn’t convince enough people of this universal truth in time to save Detroit. Hopefully the downfall of Detroit will incentivize enough people to think about the cause of the problem, identify it as collectivism, and reverse this trend before another major U.S. city becomes another Starnesville. 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: Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice Why Walker’s Victory Matters Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original

Biomedical Engineers at Brigham Young University have developed a cutting-edge artificial spinal disc that mimics the function of a natural disc. Developers Anton Bowdon, Larry Howell, and Peter Halverson hope their innovative artificial disc will serve as a new option for those suffering from severe back problems caused by disc degeneration, spinal stenosis (“progressive narrowing of the spinal canal”), and back fractures. Those suffering from chronic back pain often face a limited number of options. For many, the choice is either a lifetime of pain medications and a reduced quality of life or major back surgery. Fusion surgery, the most common solution to severe chronic back pain, is a costly and extensive procedure that involves the fusion of two or more vertebrae. It comes with a host of associated risks, and around a fifth of cases fail to relieve the patient’s suffering. Even when successful, fusion surgery results in reduced mobility. Howell believes that his team’s artificial disc “has a lot of promise for eventually making a difference in a lot of people’s lives.” It will provide a “more human-like, more natural” solution to those with severe back pain. Congratulations to Howell and his team of engineers for developing this life-enhancing medical device. May they profit handsomely from 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: Review: Crashing Through: The Extraordinary True Story of the Man Who Dared to See New Prototype Shows Promise in Medical Diagnostic Imaging Image: Brigham Young University Link to Original

Recently Dutch scientists in London prepared the world’s first stem-cell burger, a development with great potential toward (among other things) making beef more affordable and nutritional. Mark Post of the University of Maastricht led the team that developed the burger over a two-year period; Google’s Sergey Brin funded the project. The five-ounce burger was made of stem cells taken from the shoulder of a cow and cultivated in a nutrient solution for two months. Although further research and development will be necessary to make the meat marketable, with continued improvements lab-grown meat could soon provide high-quality nutrition for a fraction of the cost of regular beef. Unfortunately, rather than praising the burger for its potential to benefit human beings, various commenters are praising it for its alleged benefits to the planet and to animals. For example, a New York Times article states: Recent studies have shown that producing cultured meat in factories could greatly reduce water, land and energy use, and emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases . . . Depending on how the stem cells were obtained, no animals might need to be killed to make the meat. Even the project’s organizers emphasized the meat’s “benefits” to non-humans. As the Times reports, Post said his goal was to “let beef eaters eat beef in an environmentally friendly and ethical way,” and Brin expressed similar aims. It is wonderful if, by requiring fewer resources to produce, the stem-cell burgers can provide high-quality, low-cost meat. But, apart from the benefit to people, there is nothing valuable or laudable about using fewer resources or eating fewer cows. People should proudly use the resources—including the animals—they need to pursue their lives and happiness. If people choose to eat stem-cell burgers, it should be because doing so makes economic or nutritional sense, not because they feel guilty about eating regular beef. Congratulations to Post’s team for their technological breakthrough and its great potential for the lives of human beings. 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: Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Taught People To Feed Themselves Alex Epstein Exposes Josh Fox’s Gasland II as Anti-All Technology Image: David Parry / PA Wire Link to Original

<p><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7477" title="Europa_Report_Official_Poster" src="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/_files/Europa_Report_Official_Poster-211x300.jpg" alt="" width="211" height="300" />The new film <em><a href="http://www.magnetreleasing.com/europareport/" target="_blank">Europa Report</a></em>, showing in select theaters and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DNUF7KW/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00DNUF7KW&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=theobjestan-20" target="_blank">online</a>, is a finely produced, directed, and performed “hard” (realistic) science-fiction film—with a terrible theme.</p> <p>Set in the not-too-distant future, <em>Europa Report</em> tells the story of six astronauts who travel to Jupiter’s moon Europa in search of alien life. (Spoilers follow.) Part way through the journey, the ship suffers a severe mechanical failure that severs the astronauts’ communication with Earth. The six astronauts then experience sheer terror in the far reaches of the solar system and ultimately sacrifice their lives in search of alien life for an alleged greater good.</p> <p><em>Europa Report</em> conveys the message that astronauts should sacrifice their values and lives in order to advance the knowledge of others. As one astronaut perishes near the end, she says, “Compared to the breadth of knowledge yet to be known, what does your life actually matter?” The company releasing the film, Magnet, summarizes it in three words: “Fear. Sacrifice. Contact.”</p> <p><a href="https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/subscriptions.asp?ref=blog_int" target="_blank"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-6404" title="subscribe-now-por" src="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/_files/subscribe-now-por.png" alt="" width="220" /></a>(As for what’s wrong with the morality of self-sacrifice promoted by the film, readers should see the works of Ayn Rand, especially <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451163931/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=theobjestan-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0451163931" target="_blank">The Virtue of Selfishness</a></em>, and Craig Biddle’s <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971373701/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=theobjestan-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0971373701" target="_blank">Loving Life</a></em>.)</p> <p><em>Europa Report</em> will hardly raise a rallying cry among a new generation of space explorers, the way that <em>Star Trek</em> and other science-fiction works have done. The message, “Go into space, where you can experience sheer terror and then die a horrible death so that others may learn about primitive lifeforms on distant moons,” is an absurd sales pitch for would-be explorers.</p> <p>Although <em>Europa Report</em> offers a realistic portrayal of the science of space exploration, it provides less than zero in the way of an uplifting story about virtue and space exploration.</p> <p><em>Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our <a href="https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/mailing-list.asp" target="_blank">weekly digest</a>. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal,</em> <a href="https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/subscriptions.asp" target="_blank">The Objective Standard</a>.</p> <p><strong>Related:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2009-fall/creed-of-sacrifice-vs-land-of-liberty.asp" target="_blank">The Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2013/01/william-shatners-tweet-and-the-power-of-art/" target="_blank">William Shatner’s Tweet and the Power of Art</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2012/11/spacex-founder-musk-envisions-mars-colony-potential-value-is-immense/" target="_blank">SpaceX Founder Musk Envisions Mars Colony: Potential Value is Immense</a></li> </ul> Link to Original

*** Mod's note: merged topics - sN *** In 2005, in Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court permitted cities to take land by force for the purpose of “economic development.” Now officials in Newark, New Jersey want to expand their use of eminent domain to seize mortgages in order to pressure lenders to the “negotiating table” and thus “help” homeowners with underwater mortgages receive a reduction in principal. Tom De Poto reports for the New Jersey Star-Ledger: [T]he city would seize the mortgage—not the house. . . . Newark would not be the landlord, but would give or sell the mortgage to a third party, which would pay the lender fair market value [sic] and then issue a new mortgage based on the property’s true worth [sic]. If a bank rejects the fair-market offer [sic], then it’s left with nothing because the government has seized the mortgage. Advocates are betting lenders would rather have pennies on the dollar than nothing, and this could be the stick that drives them to the negotiating table. This “stick” is patent extortion. But, according to its proponents, the (unnamed) extortion is justified because it serves an alleged “public good.” De Poto continues: In Newark . . . home values have dropped an estimated $1.9 billion since 2008 as a result of foreclosures. When property values drop, so do tax revenues, resulting in . . . fewer police and firefighters on the streets. According to the National Association of Realtors, a few other cities are considering the use of eminent domain to seize mortgages as well. Will this new application pass court challenge? Given the history of eminent domain, it’s likely. In his article “Deeper than Kelo: The Roots of the Property Rights Crisis,” Eric Daniels documents how the scope of eminent domain and the “public good” doctrine has steadily broadened since the U.S. Constitution initially permitted government to seize private property for “public use.” Today, concludes Daniels, “As long as the legislature proffered some altruistic rationale, any claim to the needs of society, the Court would override property rights”—to which we may now have to add “or contract rights.” The proposed use of eminent domain to seize mortgages is an attack on the sanctity of contracts, a bedrock of rule of law and economic freedom. Whatever the legal outcome, this latest effort to expand its use highlights the open-ended danger of eminent domain and the need to end the rights-violating practice as such. 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 Crises Pacific Legal Foundation Fights for Rights of Florida Property Owner Link to Original

The Uber car service company uses innovative technology that “connects you with a driver at the tap of a button.” Now administrative law judge Harris Adams of Denver has proposed that the government forcibly stop Uber from using such technology—a ruling that may drive the company out of Denver, the Denver Post reports. “Uber contracts with limo companies for its service and issues drivers iPhones, which they use to help determine fees,” the Post reports. On the pretext of “consumer protection,” Adams proposes, “A luxury limousine may not contain a taxicab meter or other device for calculating any component of rates charged based upon time and mileage, other than a clock.” Uber can appeal these “recommendations,” the Post notes, and a “three-member Colorado Public Utilities Commission [PUC] would ultimately decide whether to adopt the new rules.” It is outrageous that a city judge and city bureaucrats can limit Uber’s use of technology to serve the company’s clients—all of whom happily sign up for the service, and all of whom are free to stop doing so whenever they please. Although the government today unfortunately owns and controls the roads, this doesn’t give the government the right to forcibly restrict competition among companies offering car services. Best wishes to Uber in fighting these absurd government controls. If Adams and the members of the PUC do not wish to ride in Uber cars, they are free to abstain from doing so. But they have no right to tell the rest of us that we cannot hire Uber cars—or to tell Uber that it cannot use the latest technological advances in offering its services. Adams’s ruling is shameful—as are the regulations on which it is based. May the former be overturned, and may the latter be repealed. 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 Hands Off, Uber Car Service Tells D.C. Politicians Link to Original

Sony has recently developed a “head-mount image processing unit” for surgeons that gives them real-time, high-definition video of the inside of a patient during surgery. Sony, a company that has long been a dominant player in the video game industry, created a “Personal 3D Viewer Head Mounted Display” for video games and movies in 2011. Soon after, it recognized the value in developing a similar product for the medical field. Sony’s new headset receives and processes video from an endoscope, or small surgical camera, used in minimally invasive surgeries. Once the surgeon receives the enhanced video stream, he can manipulate the images by changing their display from 3D to 2D; by flipping the video to different display angles; or by turning on a “picture-in-picture” display, simultaneously providing the surgeon with two different views of the surgery. Sony’s new device will help ease the job of surgeons who often must maintain maximum concentration over a period of many hours. With a comfortable headset displaying images, surgeons will no longer need to focus on a computer screen displaying video from an endoscope. When a team of surgeons is needed for an operation, the surgeons wearing Sony’s headset will be able to alter their views of the surgery without having to reposition themselves. Congratulations to Sony for producing and marketing this wonderful medical device that will undoubtedly help surgeons save many lives and restore innumerable people to health. 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: A Prescription for America’s Health Care Ills Innovative Doctors Save Infant’s Life with 3D Printing Image: Sony Link to Original

A young robotics company has found that keeping people out of harm’s way is great business. The company, Robotex, builds robots designed to (among other things) help emergency responders handle dangerous situations via remote control. Before Robotex robots, law enforcement officers had to search for armed suspects in person. Now, the policy of the Oakland, CA SWAT team is to let a robot do the initial sweep. If officers need to “enter” a building in which they think there might be an armed criminal or other danger, they begin by sending in a remote-controlled AVATAR robot equipped with cameras. In one instance: A SWAT Officer drove the robot towards [a suspect’s] home from the safety of an armored vehicle. The robot mounted a curb, sped through wet grass in the front yard, and finally climbed two stairs before entering through the home’s front door. The robot proceeded to move up another staircase and through each room of the home, navigating over toppled pieces of furniture, clothing, food, and drug paraphernalia. On several occasions, the Officer activated the AVATAR’s pan-tilt-zoom camera to scan for dangerous ordnance and additional suspects. Using this method, the SWAT Officer [controlling the robot] identified several shotguns in a bedroom, and he was able to clear the rest of the house rapidly. Such useful robots have been a part of science fiction for years, but actually building them is no trivial matter. In 2006, the year before Robotex was founded, one state-of-the-art humanoid robot crumpled on stage while trying to demonstrate its ability to climb stairs. Last year, a prototype version of a robot produced by Boston Dynamics did a better job, but only by using a wall for support. To put what Robotex is doing into perspective, Boston Dynamics received an $11 million government contract for eight robots. So far, Robotex has raised a comparable amount from venture capitalists, and they’ve used their money to produce enough life saving robots for multiple law enforcement agencies in almost every state to own one. Robotex operates more efficiently and effectively in large part because it develops its robots with private money for commercial use. Instead of designing robots with or to gain big government contracts or grants, Robotex engineers build affordable robots that solve real-life problems and generate revenue. Robotex’s owners know that if their robots function poorly or cost too much they will not sell, so Robotex aims to keep their robots simple, functional, and economical. (For example, Robotex robots move around on treads instead of legs, and their mechanical parts are molded out of durable plastic rather than aluminum.) May Robotex produce prolifically, solve many more problems, and profit enormously. 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 Scientists at Riken BioResource Center Make Major Leap in Life-Serving Cloning Technology Image: Robotex Link to Original

Apple Inc. revolutionized desktop computing—and then tablet computing—with its user-friendly operating systems and hardware interfaces now mimicked throughout the industry. Apple revolutionized the telephone industry with its touch-screen iPhone, a product that immediately became the benchmark for Apple’s competitors. Apple revolutionized the music industry with iTunes, a music player and online music store where customers can easily purchase and download a vast and ever-increasing array of music. And on and on. Apple is one of America’s greatest success stories. The company has radically improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the globe—“half of all U.S. households own at least one Apple product”—and has earned massive profits doing so. Had Apple never existed, the state of computer technology would not be anywhere near the quality it is today, nor would our daily lives be as productive or as enjoyable as they are. How does the U.S. government respond to Apple’s showering the world with goods, wealth, technology, jobs, examples, inspiration, and so much more? The government relentlessly assaults the company. Politicians, bureaucrats, and judges who have never and could never produce even a miniscule fraction of the goods Apple has produced—government officials who are not competent to work at Apple except perhaps as janitors or the like—respond to Apple’s massively life-serving productivity by attacking the company for being successful and for obeying tax laws. Earlier this year—after looting $6 billion from Apple in 2012 alone—Congress hauled in Apple’s CEO Tim Cook to “answer” for the company following existing tax law in order to legally reduce its tax burden. Last month, the courts ruled against Apple in an antitrust case brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ), decreeing Apple “guilty” of negotiating voluntary contracts with book publishers and of selling books to willing customers at voluntarily negotiated prices. As Bloomberg summarized, Apple’s particular transgression was to voluntarily contract with publishers on an “agency model, [in which] publishers, not retailers, set book prices, with Apple getting 30 percent.” Apple, like every company, has a moral right to enter such agreements. But the government violated this right—on the part of Apple, the book publishers, and their customers—by forcibly squelching the agreements. The latest government action against Apple is equally outrageous. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the government, as a follow-up to its antitrust case, is seeking numerous controls of Apple, including the following: “The Justice Department is seeking a five-year prohibition on new e-book distribution contracts that would restrain Apple from competing on price.” “Rival e-book sellers also would be allowed for a two-year period to sell books to Apple users via e-books apps that are distributed through Apple’s App Store, by providing a link to their websites within their apps.” “The Justice Department also proposed a court-appointed monitor of Apple’s compliance with its proposed final judgement, which would be in effect for ten years.” “Because Apple was found liable for violating U.S. antitrust laws, it also faces a separate trial on damages in a lawsuit against the company brought by 33 state attorneys general, who are seeking to recover money on behalf of consumers who paid higher prices for e-books.” In other words, the government is seeking to forbid Apple from negotiating various voluntary contracts, to force Apple to sell apps on terms it deems unfavorable, to operate a major portion of Apple’s business for a decade, and to loot the company of untold additional wealth. Why? Because Apple dared to become so successful and to amass such vast resources and customers that it could enter the ebook market in a highly competitive manner and thus expand its productivity and offerings in ways that lawyers at the DOJ don’t like. Did Apple violate anyone’s rights? No. All Apple did is voluntarily negotiate with book publishers to sell books to willing customers. The DOJ—acting on non-objective, right-violating laws passed and maintained by Congress—responded by waging political war on Apple. The government’s assault on Apple is outrageously immoral. Every American who cares to restore liberty in America should proclaim Apple’s moral innocence; condemn the laws, regulations, and government agents responsible for persecuting Apple; demand the repeal of the rights-violating policies; and vow to vote these vile politicians out of office. 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: Antitrust with a Vengeance: The Obama Administration’s Anti-Business Cudgel Apple’s App Revolution: Capitalism in Action Justice Department and Congress Commit Massive Act of Injustice against Apple, Et Al. Antitrust Suit against Anheuser-Busch and Grupo Modelo Violates Rights Creative Commons Image: Matt Buchanan Link to Original

In an interview with Popular Mechanics, Martine Rothblatt, founder and CEO of United Therapeutics, discusses the progress her company has made developing genetically enhanced pig lungs for transplantation in humans. Rothblatt, who entered the biotechnology field when her daughter was diagnosed with a life-threatening pulmonary disease, now believes she is on the verge of dramatically improving treatment for those suffering from acute pulmonary diseases such as pulmonary hypertension, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary fibrosis, and emphysema. Rothblatt explains that most people suffering from severe pulmonary disease have a reduced life expectancy and are burdened by (among other things) medications that cause exhaustion. The majority of patients on waiting lists for human lung transplants die before receiving them. Creating a viable alternative with genetically enhanced pig organs for human transplant would open an abundant market of organs that could save the lives of tens of thousands of people each year. The challenge is preventing the human body from rejecting the organs of other species. In 2010, Australian scientists successfully removed from pig DNA an element called the Gal gene, which seems to have eliminated the problem of blood coagulation in pig-to-human transplantation. Rothblatt is building on this success and working to solve the problem of inter-species rejection. She has already successfully made four genetic modifications of about twelve she thinks necessary to achieve human-compatible organs. Rothblatt aims to successfully complete a pig-to-human lung transplant by the end of the decade, and to follow shortly with transplants of other organs, including kidneys, livers, and hearts. Congratulations and “thank you” to Rothblatt and her team on the progress they have made so far—and best success to them as they proceed with their research and experimentation. Their advances give rational hope to millions suffering from as-yet unconquered diseases. Cheers to these men and women of reason. 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: Herman Boerhaave: The Nearly Forgotten Father of Modern Medicine Praise Is Due for Facial Transplant Success Link to Original

Living is risky. In 2011, for example, 123,000 people in the United States died from unintentional injuries, including 35,000 from motor vehicle accidents and 27,000 from falls (figures rounded). But we don’t quit driving because some people die in car accidents, and we don’t quit walking or using ladders because some people die from falls. Engaging in any activity entails some kind and degree of risk. And the activity of producing energy is no exception. The breakthrough technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract oil and natural gas from deep underground are remarkably effective and, relative to countless other activities, remarkably safe. Fracking in the United States has made possible dramatic increases in the production of natural gas, which millions of Americans use to heat their homes, cook their food, and generate their electricity. As for safety, the most recent federal study of fracking found no evidence that it contaminated drinking water in the study area, western Pennsylvania; nor has any other objective study found substantial harms from fracking. But Josh Fox, director of the anti-fracking “documentary” Gasland II, is not interested in an objective appraisal of the technology. He is interested in smearing fracking and slandering frackers. Thankfully, Alex Epstein of the Center for Industrial Progress, writing for Forbes, corrects many of Fox’s distortions. I will let Epstein and others address Fox’s various factual errors; here I want to focus on a profound insight that Epstein has into Fox’s general approach: This is a blueprint for opposing any technology. For example, Fox could make Carland, which could show car crashes and then blame all of them on “Big Auto.” Then it could argue that because car crashes are possible, we don’t need cars. To take Epstein’s point further: Every single piece of technology we use could be condemned by Fox’s approach, for every one of them involves the use of raw materials and energy to create and (often) to use the product. All of the plastics, metals, and fibers we use for everything from computers to cameras to bicycles come from resources buried in the ground or growing on top of it. Likewise, the electricity used to manufacture and operate these items comes from power generated by use of natural resources. It is simply impossible to produce anything without accepting some risk. Shame on Fox for smearing this life-serving technology and the heros who develop and employ it. And kudos to Epstein for exposing Fox’s fraudulent claims and anti-technology—thus anti-life—premises. 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: FrackNation Interview with Ann McElhinney on Fracking, James Cameron, and Cold Beer FrackNation Defends Revolutionary Energy Technology Creative Commons Image: Linh Do Link to Original

Putatively frustrated with the “fragile economic recovery,” Barack Obama recently launched a major speaking campaign “ahead of a major economic debate this fall over the federal budget and the best way to ensure sustained growth,” the Washington Post reports. His kickoff speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, was short on specific legislative proposals but long on broad policy principles. E. J. Dionne, a prominent columnist on the left, hailed Obama’s strategy as “going big”: “Franklin D. Roosevelt accomplished this. So did Ronald Reagan. . . . The most important reason this offensive has a chance,” writes Dionne, “is that it goes to the heart of why Obama got elected in the first place and won reelection.” So what is the “heart” of Obama’s politics, and what is the essence of his “going big?” Obama is promoting a big vision of egalitarian statism. “nequality,” he said, is only to be “tolerated . . . for the sake of a more dynamic, more adaptable economy.” Obama aims to employ government force to facilitate economic equality. Such force, he implies, is necessary to provide fairness: “If we believe that government can give the middle class a fair shot in this new century—and I believe that—we’ve an obligation to prove it.” Obama claimed that the government provides such a “fair shot” by forcibly confiscating wealth to subsidize manufacturing, preschool, and college; by getting government more involved in health care; by more strictly regulating wages to which an employer and employee may “agree”; and similar policies. Obama explicitly contrasts his political program with free-market capitalism, slamming those who advocate the latter: n some cases . . . [my opponents] sincerely . . . have a fundamentally different vision for America—one that says inequality is both inevitable and just; one that says an unfettered free market without any restraints inevitably produces the best outcomes, regardless of the pain and uncertainty imposed on ordinary families; and government is the problem and we should just shrink it as small as we can. But Obama’s egalitarian goals are immoral, and his characterization of an unfettered free market is false. The only sort of equality with which government is properly concerned is equality before the law—that is, equal protection of individual rights to life, liberty, and property. When government consistently protects people’s rights—including their rights to keep and use the product of their effort and to trade freely with others—it establishes an unfettered free market, also known as capitalism. Under capitalism, the government creates equality before the law by outlawing initiatory force and by using retaliatory force only against those who initiate (or threaten) to initiate it. Individuals who violate rights—by assaulting others, stealing their property, committing fraud, or the like—are restrained, so that everyone else may peaceably conduct their affairs. In a free market, people deal with others voluntarily through reason, persuasion, and trade, not force. A consequence of capitalism—wherein people vary by ability, ambition, interests, upbringing, values, moral character, lifetime goals, and countless other variables—is that people earn different amounts of wealth. Under capitalism, inequality of wealth is both inevitable and just. When government seeks to achieve greater equality of outcome through force—what Obama ludicrously calls offering “a fair shot”—it overturns the justice of equality before the law and violates individual rights. The danger to American prosperity and liberty is not economic inequality or unfettered markets but a rights-violating government. In order to restore a just and thus prosperous economy, Americans must condemn Obama’s egalitarian premises as immoral and impractical, and we must advocate a fully free market with all its glorious inequality of income and wealth. 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: America’s Comeback Philosopher Political “Left” and “Right” Properly Defined The Justice of Income Inequality Under Capitalism Creative Commons Image: Adam Glanzman Link to Original

Here we go again. Current and former government officials in the country founded on the principle of individual rights—the country that fought a horrific bloody war to end slavery—are calling for re-institutionalizing involuntary servitude in the form of “universal national service.” Sigh. The latest figurehead to advocate this abomination is the former commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. “Universal national service,” he says, “should become a new American rite of passage.” McChrystal stops short of overtly advocating legally mandated national service. Instead, he advocates back-door physical coercion to implement it. He introduces a “proposal that would create one million full-time civilian national-service positions for Americans ages 18–28.” The program would be modeled after AmeriCorps, a coercively tax-funded federal organization. He then suggests that corporations and universities, among other institutions, . . . be enlisted to make national service socially obligatory. Schools can adjust their acceptance policies and employers their hiring practices to benefit those who have served—and effectively penalize those who do not. McChrystal doesn’t say how he would “enlist” these institutions, but it’s clear that, given the massively intrusive role that government has accrued in education and business via taxpayer funding, regulations, and the like, the state has the means to coerce “enlistment.” Given the structure of McChrystal’s proposed program and the nature of U.S. government today, if his program were implemented, national service would effectively be mandatory. To support his call for national service, McChrystal summons Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, saying “the president exhorted a crowd of civilians on their duty to carry forward the nation’s work.” But Lincoln never spoke of or implied any such collectivist premise in his address. Instead, his brief speech recalled the promise of the Declaration of Independence, which “brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty,” and urged us to honor the Civil War dead by resolving “that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom.” (Although around 2 percent of Union soldiers were drafted, this practice patently contradicted the primary purpose of the war, which was to end involuntary servitude in the United States, and this fact has no bearing as an argument for involuntary servitude.) McChrystal’s call for national service obviously contradicts America’s founding principles. That McChrystal invokes the name of the president who worked to abolish slavery in America—in order to call for a new form of slavery—is shameful. It’s time to bury the un-American idea of universal national service and the corrupt moral code behind 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: The Creed of Sacrifice vs. the Land of Liberty To U.S. War Veterans, Heroes All Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original

<p><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7438" title="Nudge-cover" src="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/_files/Nudge-cover-195x300.jpg" alt="" width="195" height="300" />The federal government is hiring a so-called “nudge squad” to “scientifically” manipulate the behavior of American citizens. What could possibly go wrong?</p> <p>Fox News has the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/30/govt-knows-best-white-house-creates-nudge-squad-to-shape-behavior/" target="_blank">story</a>: “The federal government is hiring what it calls a ‘Behavioral Insights Team’ that will look for ways to subtly influence people’s behavior” along lines suggested by the book Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein. A professor who received the government’s offer to join this team called it the “nudge squad,” Fox reports.</p> <p>But the government’s proper role is not to “nudge” us into behaving in ways of which politicians and bureaucrats approve; it is to recognize and protect our rights, including our rights to produce wealth in accordance with our own judgment and to keep and spend our wealth as we deem best. When the government employs the coercion of taxes or regulations to “nudge” us to act one way or another, it violates our rights.</p> <p>Consider some of the ways:</p> <ul> <li>Nudging bureaucrats <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2013/07/30/behavioral-insights-team-document/" target="_blank">aim</a> to increase college enrollment by offering “streamlined personal assistance” with federal student aid forms. Federal aid, the program on behalf of which the “nudging” in question is done, violates rights by forcibly seizing wealth from those who earn it and handing it to select students who didn’t earn it. Properly, government plays no role in education—except to protect people from force, fraud, and the like.</li> <li>Government nudgers <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/30/govt-knows-best-white-house-creates-nudge-squad-to-shape-behavior/" target="_blank">seek</a> to encourage people to save more by automatically enrolling them in savings programs and automatically increasing the level of savings over time. (Individuals who wish to opt out must take action to do so.) This violates rights by using tax policy—forcible confiscation of wealth—to create investment programs, 401(k)s and the like, regulated by the federal government. Properly, government plays no role in directing or incentivizing people’s actions regarding savings.</li> <li>The U.S. government’s advertisement seeking employees for the “nudge squad” approvingly <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2013/07/30/behavioral-insights-team-document/" target="_blank">cites</a> a British program that aims to increase the installation of energy-conserving attic insulation by “offering an attic-clearance service (at full cost).” This program violates rights by using taxpayer dollars (or pounds) to promote a service properly left entirely to the free, non-coerced marketplace.</li> </ul> <p>The Fox story and the government advertisement discuss numerous other examples of existing and potential programs to “nudge” Americans’ behavior, and no doubt the “nudge squad,” once entrenched as a formal bureaucracy, will think of unlimited more applications. Indeed, the government advertisement encourages new “nudge squad” employees to come up with “new ideas” for how to implement “behavioral insights” through federal policy.</p> <p><a href="https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/subscriptions.asp?ref=blog_int" target="_blank"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-6404" title="subscribe-now-por" src="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/_files/subscribe-now-por.png" alt="" width="220" /></a>The nudges discussed in the cited documents are bad enough; even worse is that a government with the power and inclination to “nudge” our behavior by violating our rights will soon violate rights in increasingly severe ways. As economist Jerry Ellig told Fox, “nudges can turn into shoves pretty quickly.” A government with the power to “nudge” us into going to college, saving more, installing attic insulation, and the like, is a government with the power to determine what we may study in college, dictate how we must invest our wealth, decide how large a house we live in, and violate rights in a potentially unlimited number of other ways.</p> <p>Undoubtedly a scientific approach to management can be useful in private business as well as in government. But, insofar as the government violates rights—as the “nudge squad” obviously aims to do—it violates the only proper purpose of government.</p> <p>America does not need a “nudge squad”; it needs a <em>rights squad</em>—a squad of citizens who demand loudly and consistently, by word and by vote, that the government stop violating and start exclusively protecting individual rights.</p> <p><em>Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our <a href="https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/mailing-list.asp" target="_blank">weekly digest</a>. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal,</em> <a href="https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/subscriptions.asp" target="_blank">The Objective Standard</a>.</p> <p><strong>Related:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-fall/thaler-sunstein.asp" target="_blank">Review: <em>Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness</em>, by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2013/01/cass-sunstein-and-the-second-bill-of-rights-seek-to-obliterate-rights/" target="_blank">Cass Sunstein and the “Second Bill of Rights” Seek to Obliterate Rights</a></li> </ul> Link to Original

Dan Goldberg of the New Jersey Star-Ledger recently claimed that the federal government is subsidizing America’s “obesity epidemic.” Citing a report from the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG), Goldberg notes: Because the federal government chooses to subsidize corn and soy—key ingredients in junk food—instead of fruits and vegetables, unhealthy snacks are kept artificially cheap while healthier food remains relatively pricey. NJPIRG’s Joe Coleman suggests adding subsidies for “apples and other fruits and vegetables” to make us “a little healthier as a nation,” Goldberg reports. Although Coleman correctly argues that the government is wrong to subsidize corn and soy, the fundamental problem is not subsidies to corn and soy producers, but farm subsidies as such. Rather than add subsidies—or substitute apples for corn—congress should end all subsidies. Subsidies violate the rights of taxpayers who are forced to fund them. The government has no business using tax dollars to subsidize farmers, to manipulate us into eating “healthier,” to provide a “farm safety net,” or to affect the economy in any other way. Government’s proper job is not to affect the economy but to protect individual rights—including each individual’s right to spend his money as he sees fit. For the government to protect people’s rights it must eliminate all farm subsidies. 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: A Brief History of U.S. Farm Policy and the Need for Free-Market Agriculture Senator Menendez Dishonestly Equates Private Food Bank with SNAP Link to Original

Dear Friend of TOS, I’m writing to ask for your support in fighting for your values. As you probably know, TOS has become much more than a quarterly journal. While our quarterly is still the anchor of our offerings, we now have a highly active blog, a rapidly expanding YouTube channel, and increasingly popular Facebook and Twitter pages. As an indication of our recent expansion in these areas, traffic to our website and blog for the first half of 2013 is up 67 percent compared to the same period in 2012; views of our YouTube videos in 2013 have skyrocketed, exceeding 32,000 and counting; and followers of TOS’s Facebook page have quadrupled so far this year, increasing from fewer than 4,000 in January to more than 15,000 today. All of this means TOS is reaching more and more minds with our crystal-clear explanations and crucial applications of the ideas on which civilized society depends. Not only are we expanding our content and offerings, we are also hiring and training an army of Objectivist intellectuals and writers. Since January, we have added more than twenty new bloggers to our team, seventeen of whom we have already published. Some of them are seasoned writers, some are relatively new to the art, but all are highly intelligent and motivated to excel. And, in working with TOS, they are not only honing their thinking and writing skills; they are also publishing their works and thus reaching and moving minds. This concerted drive to increase the number of TOS bloggers is part of our push to substantially increase our daily commentary. Whereas we now publish one or two posts per day on TOS Blog, we aim to increase that to three or four posts per day by the end of the year. TOS Blog is already the top source for daily commentary from an Objectivist perspective, and this increase in output will establish TOS as a major commentary site on the political right. With enough expert writers to post four times per day, we will be positioned to provide commentary on all the important stories and issues of the day when and as they happen. This will put TOS Blog in the ranks of The Daily Caller, Breitbart.com, Hot Air, and the like—except that our commentary will focus on essentials and be philosophically correct. Toward this end, we will continue hiring and training new writers, many of whom you will hear from in the weeks and months to come. TOS has also hired a top web development firm to build a new TOS website. The new site, which is underway and is expected to be up and running in November, will provide better navigation, greater marketing capabilities, greater search engine optimization, better integration with social media, better integration with YouTube, and greater interaction with our readers and viewers. We have much more in the works, but the foregoing is an indication of what is to come. Of course, all of this costs money—substantially more money than TOS makes by means of journal sales. To produce and disseminate all the top-quality intellectual material we do—the vast majority of which we make available for free on the Internet (only the quarterly is behind a paywall)—TOS needs financial support from people like you, people who recognize the vital nature of what we do and the importance of getting Ayn Rand’s ideas into the mainstream. Like most intellectual publications (e.g., Reason, Commentary, National Review, The American Spectator), TOS’s sales revenues do not cover its expenses. Although we are gradually closing the gap between the two, we still rely on donations to continue operating. This fact raises the question, why is TOS a for-profit rather than a non-profit corporation? So let me say a few words about this. Many intellectual organizations (periodicals, think tanks, etc.) opt to incorporate as non-profit corporations so that (a) the donations they receive are tax-deductible for the donors, and ( the profits they make are tax-free for the corporation. (Non-profits do make profits, but rather than distribute them to shareholders, which non-profits don’t have, they use their profits to expand operations, purchase new assets, hire more employees, increase salaries, and the like.) Those are the upsides to being a non-profit. The downsides are that non-profit organizations are severely limited in what they can say and advocate politically, and they are subject to extensive government “oversight” and red tape. As an organization whose purpose is to speak plainly and forthrightly about cultural and political matters, TOS cannot fulfill its mission properly if we are not fully free to speak our minds about these matters. And, as for the government “oversight” and red tape, we have more important people to engage (i.e., rational people) and better ways to spend our time (changing the world). The only drawback to TOS being a for-profit corporation is that donations to the organization are not tax-deductible. Other than that, our finances work essentially the same way as do those of a non-profit. Like a non-profit, TOS must generate revenue in order to operate and grow; we must spend our revenue efficiently and effectively; and we must produce high-value goods that our customers and donors see as worthy of support, or they will not continue supporting our work. The fact that TOS produces top-quality content—and a lot of it—is a matter of public record; it is known to everyone who has an interest in studying or spreading Objectivism. What is not so well known is the astonishing efficiency with which TOS operates. As just one indication, the company’s entire payroll for 2012—including all salaries, all payments to subcontractors, and all payments to writers and bloggers—was only $133,000. That is a fraction of just the single salary of many directors of intellectually oriented non-profit corporations. In fact, our entire $210,000 annual budget is a fraction of many such salaries. Yet TOS produces more philosophically correct, top-quality intellectual material than any other organization on earth. TOS is extremely effective with the money we make, the donations we receive, and the way we spend them. We do more with a mere $210,000 than other intellectual organizations do with ten, twenty, or even fifty times our budget. In The Objective Standard, we produce a steady stream of crystal-clear, in-depth articles and reviews—which are then disseminated not only to our subscribers but also to more than seven hundred newsstands (mostly Barnes & Noble) and to more than a hundred college libraries (including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and many other top universities). On TOS Blog, we produce both the best and the most daily commentary from an Objectivist perspective, commentary that is read by tens of thousands of people each month. In our Reason at Large videos, we produce highly persuasive, layman-oriented presentations dealing with philosophic fundamentals, such as the illegitimacy and danger of accepting faith as a means of knowledge, the baselessness and immorality of altruism, and the reason a sacrifice entails a loss and not a gain. With our regular writing workshops (available only to TOS writers and bloggers), we help to hone the thinking and writing of our seasoned intellectuals and foster the development of new intellectuals—whose articles, in turn, we publish in our quarterly or on our blog, where they reach and move minds. We do all of this and more on a budget of $210,000. Imagine what TOS could do with a budget of $400,000—or $1 million—or $10 million. Imagine TOS fifty times larger, fifty times more visible, fifty times more effective than it is today. That is where we aim to go. And to get there, we need your help. We don’t need $10 million in donations (although we certainly would use it beautifully). We just need enough to continue operating and growing. With each level of expansion, we become more visible, more valuable, more world-changing. At this juncture, we are seeking to raise $80,000 by the end of September—in part to cover expenses not met by journal sales; in part to pay for our new and vital website; and, in general, to enable TOS to continue operating, to continue expanding, and to continue reaching and changing more and more minds. If you appreciate what TOS does—if you see the value in our clarity, our consistency, our productivity—help us to continue our work and expand our reach. The future is ours—if we fight for it. And no organization fights for it like TOS. Please make a donation to support our work today. If you are interested in donating and would like to see TOS’s income and expense statements, I’m happy to forward them. And if you would like to discuss anything with me over the phone, I’d be happy to schedule a call. Just let me know. I hope I can count on your most generous support at this critical juncture. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Craig Biddle, Editor The Objective Standard Contribute Now Link to Original

Recently the Mayor of London wrote that within two years, energy scarcity will “force some industries not to operate at peak times” in the city. His solution is to bring hydraulic fracturing to the country; he said, “We should leave no stone unturned, or unfracked, in the cause of keeping the lights on.” Britain, Europe’s largest consumer of natural gas, does possess abundant energy potential in the form of raw materials. Beneath the ground lies (among other things) the Bowland shale, which the British government estimates to hold decades of energy in the form of shale gas. The technology and expertise to develop this potential could be imported from North America. However, unlike in the United States, where the shale gas that fueled the fracking revolution was largely on private land, where property rights were largely protected and businessmen were free to take risks and seek profits, the shale is Britain is on “public” land controlled by the government, which is motivated not by profits but by politics. Bureaucrats who lack both the incentive and the talent to get oil from rocks will not get oil from rocks. And businessmen who are throttled by “public” interests and political considerations will not get much oil from rocks either. If the British want the kind of fruit that real and unshackled businessmen can reap from the Bowland shale or the like, they will have to convince their government to sell the property to the private sector, and to protect the rights of the private owners and the businessmen with whom they contract to develop it for profit. The mayor of London has said “We should leave no stone unturned, or unfracked, in the cause of keeping the lights on.” One stone the Brits must not leave unturned is the producer’s stone, under which they will find the unassailable primaries of private property rights and the profit motive. When it comes to fracking, these are king. Hence the American Energy Revolution. 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 Coal Keeps The Lights On—Thank You, Jimmy Rose Creative Commons Image: Duncan Link to Original

Ralph Peters—retired Army officer, Fox News “Strategic Analyst,” and early supporter of President George W. Bush’s Mideast policies—has come to an important realization that all lovers of liberty should heed: Democracy doesn’t mean freedom. With the very best intentions, we got it wrong. By elevating the establishment of democracy above all other priorities in states beyond Europe, we got elections—then had to watch freedom suffer. Peters argues that the United States’s support for “democracy” has led not to freedom but to the suppression of individual rights by democratically elected governments in country after country in the Middle East, Russia, and elsewhere. “Mesmerized by elections,” Peters writes, “we forgot freedom.” Although Peters laudably criticizes the “democracy at all costs” mentality, he unfortunately does not offer a clear alternative. He correctly notes that the United States was established on ”the rule of law and impartial judicial institutions” tasked with protecting individual rights. However, he calls this system a democracy rather than what it truly is: a constitutional republic. Americans need to understand what democracy is—and unequivocally repudiate it. “Freedom,” as Yaron Brook and Elan Journo explain in their article, “The ‘Forward Strategy for Failure,” “is fundamentally incompatible with democracy.” Though democracies and constitutional, rights-respecting republics both entail elections, that similarity is superficial. Fundamentally, democracies and rights-respecting republics spring from opposite philosophic premises. Under democracy, the individual is regarded as having no rights and as subordinate to the majority or the state. Under a rights-respecting republic, the majority and the state are recognized as subordinate to the sovereign individual. The majority can elect representatives, but the power of representatives and of the entire government is strictly limited by the rights-respecting constitution. The government exists solely to protect individuals’ rights to life, liberty, and property. The choice is stark: democracy or freedom—collectivism or individualism. If we are to advance the cause of freedom, both at home and abroad, we must recognize that democracy is the antithesis of freedom because it is the nemesis of 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: The “Forward Strategy” For Failure Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice Image: Wikimedia Commons Link to Original