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Thirty years after Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union, Russia maintains considerable influence over the nation by controlling much of its energy. OJSC Gazprom, of which the Russian government is majority shareholder, provides Lithuania’s natural gas—which amounts to half of the country’s energy consumption.
In an effort to decrease its dependency on Russian gas, the Lithuanian government decided to sell the “rights” to explore Lithuania for shale gas—a project that would require the American-developed technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
Chevron Corporation was the only company willing to invest the ten of millions of dollars and import the cutting-edge technology and skilled employees necessary to undertake the project. And, last month, the Lithuanian Government announced to great fanfare that it had accepted Chevron’s bid.
But Chevron recently announced that it will not move forward:


Significant changes to the fiscal, legislative and regulatory climate in Lithuania have substantially impacted the operational and commercial basis of the investment decision since the company submitted its bid in January 2013.
Among its reasons for backing out, Chevron cited Lithuania’s new environmental approval procedures and threats to dramatically increase taxes on energy production. In response, Birute Vesait, Lithuania’s “minister of economy,” said, “Sure, the parliament has put a too tight muzzle on the nose.”
Chevron was willing to deliver a vital solution to the Lithuanians’ dire situation—a solution that requires knowledge and technology that few people on this planet have. But rather than provide Chevron with a legal environment sufficiently stable to make the project financially feasible, the Lithuanian government chose to treat the productive men and women of Chevron as dogs to be muzzled. So the Lithuanians will continue to depend on the puppies in the Russian government for their energy needs.
This episode of Statist Is as Statist Does offers a sober reminder that producers can function only when left sufficiently free to act on their judgment and to keep and use the fruits of their efforts. It is a lesson that not only Lithuanians but also Americans—who benefit enormously from energy produced by frackers—would do well to learn or remember.
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Related:
Energy at the Speed of Thought: The Original Alternative Energy Market American Frackers May Soon Power Japan, Too Creative Commons Image: Jonathan McIntosh


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Suppose a criminal brutally raped your daughter or friend and impregnated her, she got an abortion, and then the government subjected her to first-degree murder charges (for killing the fetus) and handed her life imprisonment or the death penalty. A proposal likely to appear on the Colorado ballot in 2014 carries this potential.
The measure would—if interpreted by the courts as its sponsors intend—criminalize every intentional killing of an embryo or fetus, whatever the reason. It would outlaw not only all abortions—even in cases of rape, incest, fetal deformity, and risks to the woman’s health—but all forms of birth control, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research that might kill an embryo. Anyone violating the law could be charged with first-degree murder.
If the measure sounds too insane to be real—or if it sounds like it could be seriously proposed only in places like Saudi Arabia—consider the measure’s language and what its sponsors have said about it.
One of the two sponsors of the measure is Gualberto Garcia Jones, who sits on the board of Personhood USA. This organization calls itself a “Christian ministry” and considers all embryos and fetuses to be “preborn children” deserving the same legal rights as (born) people. Personhood USA supported two previous “personhood” measures in Colorado, one in 2008 and another in 2010. (Voters defeated each measure by wide margins.)
The 2014 measure (known by the Colorado Secretary of State as Initiative 5) is worded differently than were the previous two proposals, but its intended effect is the same. The measure calls for “homicide prosecutions for killing the unborn.” On September 30, supporters of the measure submitted signatures to place it on the Colorado ballot. (The Secretary of State must review the signatures before formally placing it on the ballot.)
The measure declares that “the words ‘person’ and ‘child’ in the Colorado criminal code and the Colorado wrongful death act must include unborn human beings.” Jones explicitly equates a drunk driver who injures a woman and thereby kills her fetus with a doctor who provides an abortion: Both, in his view, deserve criminal prosecution. (Whether the courts would interpret the proposal to include all embryos and fetuses as “unborn human beings,” the measure’s sponsors clearly intend the courts to do just that.)
The proposal would subject anyone who intentionally kills an embryo or fetus to first-degree murder charges—whether a pregnant woman seeking an abortion, a doctor who provides one, an in vitro fertility provider who destroys unused embryos, and so on. Colorado statute 18-3-102 states:


A person commits the crime of murder in the first degree if . . . [a]fter deliberation and with the intent to cause the death of a person other than himself, he causes the death of that person or of another person. . . .
First-degree murder is a Class 1 felony under Colorado law. Colorado statute 18-1.3-1201 states that the penalty for a Class 1 felony is the death penalty or “life imprisonment.” Obviously, then, if the term “person” in Colorado’s criminal statutes includes all embryos and fetuses, the deliberate and intentional killing of any embryo or fetus would be considered first-degree murder under existing statutes.
One difference between the 2014 proposal and the previous “personhood” proposals is its packaging. Supporters of the measure call it the “Brady Amendment,” after Brady, the name that Heather Surovik gave her eight-month-old fetus who was killed by a drunk driver. (Surovik is listed as the second sponsor of the measure, along with Jones.)
Calling this proposal the “Brady Amendment” adds injury to absurdity by tying the proposal to a genuinely criminal act. The law would do far more than punish criminals who kill a woman’s embryo or fetus against her wishes—it would also punish women, doctors, and others for ending a pregnancy in accordance with a woman’s moral right.
Moreover, Colorado already has a law that punishes criminals for killing a fetus or embryo against the wishes of the pregnant woman. On June 5, Governor John Hickenlooper signed bill 13-1154, the “Crimes Against Pregnant Women Act,” which carefully distinguishes between an abortion a woman wants and a criminal assault that kills her embryo or fetus. Notably, Personhood USA opposed the bill because it did not grant full legal “rights” to embryos and fetuses.
The so-called “Brady Amendment” cannot be dismissed as the insanity of a tiny fringe group, as around 140,000 people signed this year’s “personhood” measure, and “personhood” is widely embraced by leading Colorado Republicans. At least three possible candidates for governor support “personhood” to varying degrees, as do three possible candidates for U.S. Senate and three standing members of Congress in Colorado. A Colorado religious leader in this video explicitly calls for the death penalty for women who get abortions.
Although the measure is not likely to pass a popular vote next year—and, even if it did, it is not likely to pass judicial muster anytime soon—“personhood” supporters are serious about someday making their proposals the law of the land. Deadly serious.
Those who recognize what rights are—and that women have them whereas embryos and fetuses do not—should be outraged at the very thought of such a measure, let alone a movement with the backing this proposal has today. Speak up.
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Related:
The Assault on Abortion Rights Undermines All Our Liberties Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society Planned Parenthood and Others Admirably Fight Texas Anti-Abortion Bill

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“The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it is delaying a major provision in the [ObamaCare] health care overhaul, putting off until 2015 a requirement that many employers offer health insurance”—a date after the 2014 congressional elections—Fox News reports.
This political move illustrates (among other things) that ObamaCare is creating a slow-motion disaster in health care—and that it is run by the capricious rulings of bureaucrats. (The Treasury Department announced the change, according to Fox News.)
The federal government has no legitimate role in forcing employers to provide insurance or in regulating insurance that employers may wish to offer. All such decisions should be left to employers, and potential employees should be free to accept or reject terms that an employer offers.
Rather than delay the employer mandates in question, the federal government should repeal all regulations and tax penalties associated with insurance, whether obtained privately or through an employer.
ObamaCare is unjust and destructive because it violates the rights of individuals to freely negotiate terms of employment and insurance. ObamaCare should not be delayed, it should be ended.
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Related:
How to Protect Yourself Against ObamaCare Supremes’ ObamaCare Ruling: Altruism In Politics Creative Commons Image: Marc Nozell


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In this episode of Reason at Large, Craig Biddle answers a question from Amy: “You’ve said that people should be intolerant of Islam. How do you square this with the right to freedom of religion?” In answering, Biddle discusses the difference between respecting rights and being tolerant, the fallacy of package-dealing, the nature of Islam, and the fundamental reason so few Westerners are able to categorically condemn a religion that calls for their death.

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Related:
Great Islamic Thinkers Versus Islam Why “Sacrifice” Means Loss, Not Gain

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The well-documented abysmal failure of government schools has prompted a homeschooling boom, as many parents have chosen to retain or regain control of their children’s education instead of leaving it in the hands of the state.
One inspiring example comes by way of the Harding family. The parents, Kip and Mona Lisa, have ten children, and they have applied an education program that dramatically accelerates their children’s learning. Education in the Harding household begins with mastery of the “three Rs” (reading, writing, and arithmetic) and then moves on to independent study. And all of it proceeds in the context of a supportive family culture. The results? The six oldest Harding children reached college by age 12, and the four youngest are on track to follow suit.
By the time a Harding child is 4 years old, Kip and Mona Lisa have taught him to identify and trace letters, to sound out English phonemes (distinct units of sound in the language), and to read what they call “easy books.” By age 6, the child has learned to subtract, to multiply, to write simple sentences, and to read more-advanced books.
The Hardings look to the child’s personal interests to provide motivation for studying each subject. For example, if the child loves music, as one of the Harding children does, his parents give him reading materials, writing assignments, and mathematical problems that relate to this interest. Mona Lisa explains, “We find out what [our children’s] passions are, what they really like to study, and we accelerate them gradually.” The goal is to make learning enjoyable and fruitful. Kip explains, “The expectation is that you’re going to have a fun day.”
The Harding children who have graduated from college are enjoying careers as: a Navy doctor, a mechanical engineer, a musician, an architect, and a computer scientist.
Although the Hardings incorporate Christian doctrine in their children’s education (a substantial flaw in their approach), for the most part they aim to help their children achieve mastery of the three Rs and other subjects, and to love learning.
It is debatable whether sending a child to college at age twelve is in his best interest. But the Hardings’ program demonstrates that children have potential to learn much more and much faster than educators typically realize. Other parents and educators would do well to take note.
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Related:
The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of our Time Interviews with Innovators in Private Education

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There’s a lot wrong in the world, and, here in the United States, where government is expanding its rights-violating activities, lovers of liberty can easily become pessimistic. But, with a series of 30 charts, Rob Wile of Business Insider promises to “restore your faith in humanity.” The good news he conveys reminds us to appreciate just how great the world has become. Consider a few examples:
Whereas nearly three-fourths of the global population was enslaved or held in serfdom in the mid-1700s, today around one-tenth are. That’s profound progress. Whereas, in the late 1800s, people in the United States and other industrial countries worked around 3,000 hours per year, today they work less than 2,000—and during the same time leisure spending has skyrocketed. Life expectancy increased in the United States from 47 in 1900 to 77 in 1998. Gun-related violence in the United States has declined substantially since the early 1990s. Between about 1930 and 1950, the incidence of death in childbirth in the United States declined by about 85 percent. Although several of Wile’s charts are a bit out of date, and although some of them are questionable (for example, his chart showing a decline in illiteracy does not account for degradation of literacy), he offers a welcome reminder that, in myriad ways, the world we live in is the best that anyone has ever lived in. As we work for better futures, let us not take for granted how good life is in most ways for most of us.
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Related:
The British Industrial Revolution: A Tribute to Freedom and Human Potential Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Taught People To Feed Themselves

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Now this promises to be a world-changing development: Google plans to launch blimps and other “high-altitude platforms” above sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia to bring the internet wirelessly to a billion or more additional people, the Wall Street Journal reports.
With what will these people access the internet? Google is also working to make low-cost smartphones available in these markets.
Why would Google pursue these goals? Because of its huge business success and massive wealth creation, the company has the resources to pursue this magnificent project, and in the process to significantly improve life for many of the world’s poorest people. But the core motivation seems to be, appropriately, to turn a profit. The Wall Street Journal reports:


Connecting more people to the Web world-wide creates more potential users of its Web-search engine and other services such as YouTube and its Google Play media and app store. . . . More Internet users, in turn, would drive online advertising on many of Google’s services. The company currently derives 87% of its annual $50 billion in revenue from selling online ads.
Godspeed to Google as it develops these new internet platforms and helps welcome hundreds of millions of people into the networks of global capitalism. And may Google ultimately profit enormously from this ambitious undertaking.
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Related:
Apple’s App Revolution: Capitalism in Action Is Africa the Next Beneficiary of the Industrial Revolution? Image: Wikimedia Commons


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Dr. Jane Wright, a pioneer of chemotherapy—the medical treatment that uses drugs to destroy cancer cells—has died.
Wright made her key discovery after observing the symptoms of patients, including her father, who were being treated for exposure to mustard gas during World War II. These patients, she noticed, had low white blood cell counts, in contrast to sufferers of leukemia whose white blood cell counts were unusually high. From this she reasoned that some of the chemicals found in mustard gas—a deadly and, ironically, carcinogenic chemical—might be useful in the treatment of leukemia.
This spurred Wright’s interest in chemotherapy, which was then a new and relatively unsophisticated field, and she proceeded to develop the technique of testing potential cancer drugs on cultures of human tissue in a petri dish, a process that made drug testing faster and more reliable. She also pioneered the use of the drug methotrexate in chemotherapy, which is now widely used in the treatment of breast and skin cancers.
Although cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, cannot always cure the disease and can induce terrible side effects, they have cured cancer in many patients and have prolonged the lives of many more.
Here’s to the life, thought, and work of a great scientist, researcher, and hero, Jane Wright, whose life-giving work will live forever.
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Related:
Herman Boerhaave: The Nearly Forgotten Father of Modern Medicine Robert Edwards, Creator of Life, Has Died Image: Wikimedia Commons


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What is morally outrageous about Apple’s highly publicized tax avoidance is not that Apple (legally) avoided paying taxes—for that, Apple should be praised. Rather, what is outrageous is that the government is harassing Apple for legally avoiding taxes—and that various commentators are smearing Apple for it.
The root injustice is the government’s confiscation of corporations’ hard-earned wealth. As the Wall Street Journal points out, the United States sets the corporate tax rate at 35 percent (although, fortunately, many corporations manage to pay less than that through various tax breaks). In 2012, the federal government confiscated $6 billion of Apple’s earnings and distributed the vast majority of it to illegitimate government programs.
Apple and all producers have a moral right to keep and use the product of their thought and effort as they judge best. As a practical matter, had Apple been able to invest that $6 billion in its business operations, the company could have provided even more and better goods and services to its customers and even more and better jobs to prospective employees.
The government’s harassment of the country’s most productive businesses violates rights, impedes economic recovery, and showcases the immorality of taxation.
Of course no one argues that Apple did anything illegal. The Wall Street Journal summarizes, “Apple used technicalities in Irish and American tax law to pay little or no corporate taxes on at least $74 billion over the past four years,” according to the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Yet the Denver Post (among others) slammed Apple despite the fact that the company complied with the law, complaining that Apple “legally [!] dodged taxes.” Not only is it perfectly moral to legally “dodge” taxes, every corporation does so to whatever extent its accountants and attorneys can manage.
Americans who want to advance a rights-respecting government should praise Apple for attempting to legally minimize the government’s confiscation of the company’s wealth—and they should demand that the government begin reducing its unjust wealth confiscations by radically lowering corporate tax rates across the board.
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Related:
Apple’s App Revolution: Capitalism in Action Justice Department Unjustly Attacks Apple The Patience of Jobs Image: Wikimedia Commons


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The Freedom from Religion Foundation recently threatened to sue public schools in the town of Muldrow, Oklahoma, if they refused to remove plaques inscribed with the Ten Commandments from classrooms.
Unfortunately, when Republican State Representative John Bennett weighed in on the controversy in his district, he upheld the popular yet false view that the Ten Commandments—and, more broadly, Biblical morality—are necessary in order to teach children the difference between right and wrong.
Although Representative Bennett conceded that “the superintendent and local school board has no choice but to remove the plaques if they want to avoid a lawsuit,” he also warned of ominous consequences: “A nation that refuses to allow educators to teach children right from wrong will become a corrupt nation, where sin prevails, evil abounds and everyone does as they please.”
Surely children need to be taught the difference between right and wrong, and schools necessarily play some part in this aspect of children’s education. But educators should not turn to the Ten Commandments or to any other religious scripture for this purpose. Students should learn that stealing, lying, committing murder and the like are wrong not because the Bible says so but because such actions are contrary to the requirements of successful living. Such lessons should be taught through the reading and discussion of literature, history, and science—not by posting contextless commandments on the wall.
As for having no other gods before the Judeo-Christian God, keeping the Sabbath holy, and the like, these ideas have no place in publicly funded schools. Of course, parents have a right to inflict such dogma on their own children (at least until the children reach adulthood), but they have no right to force religious dogma on other children or to have government force others to fund its dissemination.
Bennett should rest easy: Removing the Ten Commandments from the schools will in no way interfere with the ability of teachers to teach or students to learn rational moral lessons in school. It will only free them from some of the irrational ones.
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Related:
Teaching Values in the Classroom Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism Religion vs. Subjectivism: Why Neither Will Do Image: Wikimedia Commons


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Dr. Beth Haynes makes a surprising but warranted claim in her recent article for Huffington Post: “Very few Americans have health insurance . . . because what people call health insurance really isn’t insurance at all.”
Real insurance, Haynes explains, covers high-cost, catastrophic events, not routine care. What usually passes for health insurance today is actually “prepayment of medical expenses.” Unfortunately, Haynes notes, ObamaCare makes this problem worse by mandating that “insurance” cover various types of routine care such as “health maintenance checks.” Haynes points out the absurdity of this: “It’s like having a law requiring homeowner’s insurance to pay for lawn care, house painting and water heater replacement.”
The consequence, Haynes notes, is that insurance companies have less money to cover truly catastrophic events; thus, “when we are at our most vulnerable, we are less protected.” Because the federal government requires insurance companies to spend more on routine care, that money is not available for emergencies or catastrophes. The government’s solution to the problem? To heck with the emergencies! Haynes offers the example of the American Academy of Pediatrics, “under pressure” to declare fewer premature infants eligible for treatment and to restrict the amount of care that insurance will cover for them.
Haynes admirably describes some of the key problems with ObamaCare and insurance mandates, and she identifies part of the solution: “We have to allow our health coverage to conform to the requirements of true insurance.” But I would like to emphasize the moral principle that ObamaCare and all such mandates violate: the principle of individual rights.
Insurance providers have a moral right to offer insurance packages they deem best for business, and customers have a moral right to seek the type of insurance that best meets their needs. Because the federal government increasingly violates the rights both of providers and consumers of health insurance to freely negotiate terms according to their own judgment, the government increasingly throttles people’s ability to serve their own interests.
Kudos to Dr. Haynes for pointing out some of the destructive consequences of government interference in health insurance. Let’s demand an end to this rights-violating practice.
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Related:
Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care” How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability Government-Run Health Care vs. the Hippocratic Oath Image: Wikimedia Commons (Elizabeth Cromwell)


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As Ayn Rand observed, “There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days—the conviction that ideas matter . . . that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one’s mind matters.”
Joshua Lipana was one of the few. He held this conviction from the core of his soul, and it radiated on the world with his every deed.
In this portrait of Joshua, which was commissioned for me by Linda and Quent Cordair, Bryan Larsen captures this aspect of Joshua’s character—and, consequently, his independence, his confidence, his love of life. This is Joshua.
Thank you, Bryan, Linda, and Quent. I will cherish this portrait forever. —Craig Biddle


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Events last week surrounding the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombers were instructive regarding the contradiction that is anarchy.
Anarchy, the absence of government, leaves political justice to the will of the general public. How would that have played out in this instance?
Had there been no government—that is, no police, no law, no final arbiter restricting what people may do—how would these killers have been identified and apprehended? By individual citizens investigating and prowling around on their own? By multiple private “defense agencies,” each working for different individuals or groups and following their own favored practices regarding the use of force?
Over the course of that week, how many people were wrongly identified as “suspects” by the police, by professional journalists, by random citizens and people on social media? Without force being subjugated to the rule of law and due process, how many innocent people would have been assaulted and possibly slain? Shudder to think of it.
The hunt for and apprehension of these terrorists illustrates why the use of retaliatory force (outside of immediate self-defense) must be placed under objective control—that is, control of pre-established legal processes enacted by a government strictly limited to the protection of individual rights.
Yes, government can violate rights, as illustrated throughout history and by our current government’s myriad uses of initiatory force to interfere in people’s peaceful choices. But the solution is not to eliminate government. The solution is to strictly limit government to its only legitimate function—that of protecting individual rights and of using retaliatory force only in compliance with rights-protecting law.
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Related:
The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty How Would Government Be Funded in a Free Society? The Problem of Gary Johnson’s Libertarian Affiliation Image of Murray Rothbard: Wikimedia Commons


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On March 26, construction crews started work on the Dakota Prairie Refinery, the first new oil refinery in the contiguous United States since 1977, and the first in North Dakota since 1956. The new refinery will process 20,000 of the 770,000 barrels of crude that oil producers pump out of the ground every day in the state.
The refinery will be a boon to the region. Its construction will employ some five hundred people through the end of next year, and then its full-time operation will employ a hundred.
The refinery will also meet more of the state’s demand for diesel. The state consumes 53,000 barrels of diesel per day, much of which is used to power the trucks, oil rigs, locomotives, and other heavy equipment used to pump and ship oil and maintain the related infrastructure. The state’s sole existing refinery, Tesoro Mandan, provides about 22,000 barrels of that diesel (the rest is imported), and the Dakota Prairie Refinery promises to deliver another eight thousand barrels.
Aside from regulatory burdens, the refinery faces only one major hurdle. As Jennifer Straumins, CEO of Calumet Specialty Products, explains, “the only risk is finding enough talented employees with North Dakota’s low unemployment rate. We’re recruiting right now.”
Now that’s the sort of “problem” Americans could use more of. Kudos to the producers pushing ahead on this important new refinery.
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Vindicating Capitalism: The Real History of the Standard Oil Company Alex Epstein Visits Vassar: Some Students Learn, Others Disrupt Creative Commons Image: Lindsey Gee


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When I was a kid I loved watching The Six Million Dollar Man, the television show starring Lee Majors about the bionic man. Of course that was just make-believe. But today scientists are making bionic components a reality.
Time reports that Second Sight Medical Products produced (and the FDA approved) the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System.
Earlier this month Second Sight announced the results of an encouraging study: In ages past, people vainly hoped that “miracle workers” and faith could make the blind see. Today, scientists and reason are actually helping the blind see. Let the refrain be: It’s not a miracle!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—2, Worms—0 Image: Wikimedia Commons

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<p><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-6560" title="crucifixion" src="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/_files/crucifixion-300x237.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="237" />Easter properly is a celebration of life. The holiday takes place in Spring, the season of budding leaves and flowers, of hatching eggs, and of newborn deer and other animals. Some think “Easter” derives from the name of a Germanic fertility goddess.</p>
<p>But some Christians celebrate death instead. In the Philippines, thousands have gathered to watch people get nailed to crosses and whip themselves bloody. The Associated Press <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/filipino-devotees-reenact-crucifixion-christ-093544016.html" target="_blank">reports</a> that one man “screamed in pain as men dressed as Roman soldiers hammered stainless steel nails into his palms and feet. A wireless microphone carried his voice to loudspeakers for everyone watching to hear.”</p>
<p>The fact that these Christians cling to the faith-based fantasy that Jesus’s death and their own suffering somehow will grant them an eternal afterlife does not change the fact that their “celebration” is the worship of physical pain and death here on earth.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, as some Filipinos intentionally damaged their bodies, inflicted horrific pain on themselves, and flirted with their own death, one Filipino, Joshua Lipana, laid in a hospital room, fighting for his life.</p>
<p>As Craig Biddle recently <a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2013/03/joshua-lipanas-cancer-has-relapsed-he-needs-our-help/" target="_blank">reported</a>, Joshua—an assistant editor for <em>The Objective Standard</em> and the author of numerous <a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/contributors/joshua-lipana.asp" target="_blank">articles</a> and <a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/author/jlipana/" target="_blank">blog posts</a>—has returned to the hospital to obtain treatment for his relapsed lymphoma. Joshua faces another series of brutally painful chemotherapy treatments—treatments he undergoes in order to beat the cancer and live.</p>
<p>Joshua, not those nailing themselves to crosses, is the proper representative of Easter, the holiday of life. May those of us who love our lives denounce death cults in all their variations, celebrate our lives this Easter, and <a href="http://www.gofundme.com/w6lkk" target="_blank">aid</a> Joshua toward a speedy recovery.</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="258" height="338" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="flashvars" value="page=w6lkk&amp;template=2" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="src" value="//funds.gofundme.com/Widgetflex.swf" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="258" height="338" src="//funds.gofundme.com/Widgetflex.swf" wmode="transparent" flashvars="page=w6lkk&amp;template=2" quality="high"></embed></object></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/blog/index.php/2013/03/joshua-lipanas-cancer-has-relapsed-he-needs-our-help/" target="_blank">Joshua Lipana’s Cancer Has Relapsed and He Needs Our Help</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2010-summer/obamacare.asp" target="_blank">How to Protect Yourself Against ObamaCare</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="font-size: 10px;">Image: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crucifixion_in_San_Fernando,_Pampanga,_Philippines,_easter_2006,_p-ad20060414-12h54m52s-r.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a></p>

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<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-6278" title="Richardsears-young" src="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/_files/Richardsears-young.jpeg" alt="" width="216" height="281" />Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is a modern American hero. He has put millions of products ranging from books to movies to clothing to groceries within easy reach of millions of customers. But long before there was Amazon, before there was an internet or even computers, there was the Sears catalog. As innovative as Bezos has been, in many respects he is following in the pioneering footsteps of Richard Sears.</p>
<p>In his book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JMKSE2/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B000JMKSE2&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=theobjestan-20" target="_blank">The Long Tail</a></em>, Chris Anderson tells Sears’s story. Sears, Anderson notes, was a railway agent in Minnesota. In 1886, a box of watches was mistakenly sent via the railway to a dealer local to Sears. Seeing an opportunity, Sears purchased the watches from their owner and sold them “for a nice profit to other railway agents up and down the line.”</p>
<p>The next year, Anderson continues, Sears moved his watch business to Chicago and hired Alvah Roebuck to repair broken items. Within a few years, the pair founded Sears, Roebuck and Co. to sell watches by catalog “to the rural farmers who were being gouged by local general stores and an army of middlemen.”</p>
<p>Soon Sears and Roebuck expanded to more products and opened a “forty-acre, $5 million mail-order plant and office building on Chicago’s West Side,” Anderson writes. It was the “largest business building in the world.”</p>
<p><a id="callout-subscribe-blog-int-l" title="Subscribe to the Journal for People of Reason" href="/subscriptions.asp?ref=blog_int">Subscribe to the<br />Journal for People of Reason</a>In 1897, the company released the Sears “Wish Book,” a 786 page catalog featuring 200,000 items, including everything from coffee to soap to guns to violins. Anderson writes, “This was mind-blowing stuff for a rural farm family.”</p>
<p>So, as you go check out <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JMKSE2/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B000JMKSE2&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=theobjestan-20" target="_blank">Anderson’s book on Amazon</a>, say a silent “thank you” to Richard Sears and his friend Alvah for launching the mail-order industry, which Bezos and others continue to revolutionize in the digital age.</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/2011-winter/patience-steve-jobs.asp" target="_blank">The Patience of Jobs</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2012/11/amazon-kindle-e-reader-brings-books-to-the-developing-world/" target="_blank">Amazon Kindle E-Reader Brings Books to the Developing World</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="font-size: 10px;">Image: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Richardsears-young.jpeg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a></p>

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<p><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-6004" title="Linn Armstrong" src="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/_files/armstronglinn-300x248.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="248" />In the aftermath of the horrific murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School—while various federal and state legislators have proposed numerous bills restricting the sale and possession of guns, magazines, and ammunition—many Americans have wondered about or discussed the propriety of self-defense and of gun ownership.</p>
<p>My father, Linn Armstrong, is an expert instructor in firearms and self-defense. He is certified by the National Rifle Association as a senior training counselor in firearms instruction, allowing him to certify other gun instructors. He cofounded the Grand Valley Training Club in Grand Junction, Colorado, which has provided firearms training to thousands of people.</p>
<p>Linn has also assisted Alon Stivi of <a href="http://www.directmeasures.com/buy-ACT-LastResort.htm" target="_blank">Direct Measures International</a>, a security consulting firm, in training school administrators, teachers, hospital administrators, and law enforcement personnel in effective responses to “active shooters” in a public place. Here, Linn discusses his views on guns and self-defense. (The views he expresses here are his own, not those of any other organization.) —Ari Armstrong</p>
<p><strong>Ari Armstrong:</strong> Bystanders, including those without any weapons, have stopped the perpetrator during several mass murders, including the 2011 murders in Arizona. What are the most important things people need to know if, heaven forbid, they find themselves confronted by a mass murderer in a crowded place?</p>
<p><strong>Linn Armstrong:</strong> One needs to understand how people think. Good guys and bad guys all think the same way—in a linear fashion. In taking action, people have to observe what’s around them, orient themselves relative to the things and people around them, decide what action to take, and then follow through with the action. This has been part of law enforcement and military training since World War II.</p>
<p>It’s impossible, if an adversary has the drop on me, for me to beat him to the draw, so long as he is in the stage of decision, while I’m still in the stage of observation. Therefore, I have to put him back into the position or thinking process of observation. I can do that, for example, by blinding him with light, cutting the lights, blinding his vision by throwing something at him, or changing my position. I’m always trying to keep myself in the stage of decision, while he’s always in the stage of observation. I call this the “chess game of life.”</p>
<p>In the case of the Aurora theater murders, if the first two rows of people had thrown their purses, soda-pops, cell phones, shoes, and so on, at the perpetrator, that would have tended to restrict his vision and put him back in the stage of observation. This gives others a better opportunity to attack the adversary and take him down.</p>
<p><strong>AA:</strong> In reading about mass murders, I am struck by the accounts of people cowering in fear rather than attacking the perpetrator. Often bystanders fail to act, even when they are to the back of the perpetrator. Certainly this fear is understandable. But how do people move past that fear and take positive action?</p>
<p><strong>LA:</strong> Part of this is training. Training will change your attitude and give you confidence that you can control some aspect of your life even in these horrible situations. That attitude change is this: You refuse to be victimized by this person. You may die fighting, but at least you’ll die fighting for your life and the survival of your loved ones, rather than waiting to be executed.</p>
<p>We have gotten into this position of passivity in our society, where often we’d rather crawl under a desk and wait to die rather than attack the perpetrator. Nobody’s training, even mentally, to defend themselves.</p>
<p>Somewhere our society forgot that it is right to protect ourselves from violence. Too often we read about the victim of a bully who is thrown out of school because he stood up and refused to be a victim. We should not tolerate those who initiate violence against others.</p>
<p>With just a little bit of training, so that they feel competent, in many circumstances bystanders can take down down the perpetrator.</p>
<p>We don’t have to go out and look for such situations, but when have an opportunity to do something like stop a mass murderer, I think there’s a moral dimension to doing so. But people need to gain the knowledge, skills, and attitude enabling them to do that.</p>
<p><strong>AA:</strong> In 2011, more than twice as many people were killed in automobile crashes as were killed in homicides. Despite the relatively low risk of criminal attack, you have a permit to carry a concealed handgun. Why is that important do you?</p>
<p><strong>LA:</strong> I am an avid supporter of wearing seatbelts (although I don’t believe they should be government mandated). I don&#8217;t put my seatbelt on only when I think I may have an accident or after the crash. I feel the same way about a handgun. How could I explain to those I love deeply that I could have prevented their daughters or grandchildren from being murdered or assaulted but I just didn&#8217;t feel like taking the effort to carry?</p>
<p><strong>AA:</strong> Do you think it would improve the safety of school children for school administrators, teachers, and perhaps other responsible adults to carry concealed handguns in schools?</p>
<p><strong>LA:</strong> I see no problem with this idea, but training and especially training that teaches firearm use in tight confines with lots of people would be helpful.</p>
<p><a id="callout-subscribe-blog-int-l" title="Subscribe to the Journal for People of Reason" href="/subscriptions.asp?ref=blog_int">Subscribe to the<br />Journal for People of Reason</a><strong>AA:</strong> In recent weeks, gun sales have shot through the roof. If someone new to guns is considering becoming a gun owner, what are the main things that person needs to consider in buying a gun and acquiring the necessary training to use it safely and appropriately?</p>
<p><strong>LA:</strong> In buying a gun, my number one consideration, after reliability, is fit. You would not buy shoes too big or too small, or a bicycle too tall or too short. One must purchase a firearm that fits his or her hand. Watch what gun store owners say, as some of them may try to sell you the special on hand. Although the quality of training varies from class to class, all NRA classes at least have good, standardized content, and they teach about different types of guns.</p>
<p>You should be able to reach all of the gun’s controls without shifting your hand around. Many semi-automatics are too large to fit the hands of many women. Therefore, sometimes I recommend a revolver, even though other things equal I prefer a semi-automatic. (A semi-automatic can carry more rounds, and often they are better for “point” or “instinctive” shooting, as used by Israelis for many years, often suitable to emergency situations.)</p>
<p>NRA classes are designed to teach the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for safe gun handling. The NRA has been doing this training for a long time and is good at it.</p>
<p>I would make sure an instructor is NRA certified and also a good teacher. Look for thorough classes with plenty of time on the range. Some classes deal only with shooting paper targets, whereas the classes we developed in Grand Junction focus on self-defense, especially inside the home.</p>
<p>Then go to the range and practice your skills.</p>
<p><strong>AA:</strong> Do you have any closing thoughts?</p>
<p><strong>LA:</strong> In reading about the history of Russia and Germany, I’ve asked myself how people in a society allow their family members and neighbors to be taken away, shot, or sent to a gulag, without taking a stand and stopping such things from occurring.</p>
<p>Self-defense training gives people the ability, mentally and physically, to confront evil.</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/blog/index.php/2012/07/thoughts-on-the-aurora-murders-and-armed-citizens/" target="_blank">Thoughts on the Aurora Murders and Armed Citizens</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-winter/no-substitute-for-victory.asp" target="_blank">“No Substitute for Victory”: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="font-size: 10px;">Image of Linn Armstrong: Ari Armstrong</p>


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Earth date: January 3, 2013. William Shatner—most famously known as “Captain Kirk” from Star Trek—sent a Tweet to Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut currently commanding the International Space Station.
Shatner Tweeted, simply, “@Cmdr_Hadfield Are you tweeting from space?” Hadfield replied, “Yes, Standard Orbit, Captain. And we’re detecting signs of life on the surface.”
This is remarkable for at least two reasons. First, it illustrates that, in some important ways, we are living in the future portrayed by Star Trek. No, we cannot “beam” people around or travel faster than light. But we can carry around pocket computers once found exclusively in science fiction; we can communicate with people in space; and we are witnessing the private space race heating up, promising bold future ventures into the Final Frontier.
Shatner’s Tweet also illustrates the power of art. Recently my wife and I watched several documentaries about Star Trek, one featuring the son of Gene Roddenberry (creator of the series), another included on a disk release of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a third directed by Shatner himself. Watching these documentaries, I was struck by the stories of scientists working in technology and space engineering who were inspired to pursue their careers by watching the old black-and-white television show featuring Captain Kirk. Star Trek presented to them a vision of a future they wanted to live in—and they decided to help achieve it.
Although I often disagree with the political views expressed in the series, I too have found Star Trek to be great and inspiring art. Hats off to the creators of the series and to the scientists and explorers it has inspired. And “thank you” to Shatner and Hadfield for creatively reminding us of such greatness.
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:
Transfiguring the Novel: The Literary Revolution in Atlas Shrugged
SpaceX Founder Musk Envisions Mars Colony: Potential Value is Immense

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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It isn’t Galt’s Motor from Atlas Shrugged, the fictional generator that pulls unlimited amounts of static electricity from the air. Still, an innovative new use of available materials shows promise in converting static electricity into power for small devices.
Katherine Bourzac, writing for the MIT Technology Review, explains the work led by Georgia Tech’s Zhong Lin Wang:


The Georgia Tech researchers demonstrated that [a] static charge phenomenon, called the triboelectric effect, can be harnessed to produce power using a type of plastic, polyethylene terephthalate, and a metal. When thin films of these materials come into contact with one another, they become charged. And when the two films are flexed, a current flows between them, which can be harnessed to charge a battery. When the two surfaces are patterned with nanoscale structures, their surface area is much greater, and so is the friction between the materials—and the power they can produce.
This technology provides enough power for such things as pacemakers, LEDs, and small batteries for cell phones and other devices. The advance is a wonderful example of how devotion to reason and science improves human life.
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.
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Apple’s App Revolution: Capitalism in Action
Heroic Researchers Markedly Improve Thought-Controlled Prosthetics for the Severely Paralyzed

Creative Commons Image: Ken Bosma

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The Winter issue of TOS is at press and will be mailed shortly. The e-book and audio versions will be posted by December 25 and 30 respectively. The Kindle edition will be delivered on December 30.
The contents of the Winter issue are:


FEATURES
“The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of Our Time,” by C. Bradley Thompson
Interviews with Innovators in Private Education
“Great Islamic Thinkers Versus Islam,” by Andrew Bernstein
“Sam Harris’s Failure to Formulate a Scientific Morality,” by Ari Armstrong
“Independent Thinking, Morality, and Liberty,” by Craig Biddle
“Apple’s App Revolution: Capitalism in Action,” by Karl G. Kowalski
BOOK REVIEWS The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined
, by Salman Khan (reviewed by Daniel Wahl) Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders
, by Jason L. Riley (reviewed by Kevin Douglas) The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy
, by William J. Dobson (reviewed by Daniel Wahl)
PLUS
From TOS Blog
From the Editor
Letters and Replies
If you’ve not yet subscribed to TOS, you can do so here. The journal also makes a great Christmas 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 / Give Gifts
Cover Art: Young Builder by Bryan Larsen

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Stable owner Thomas Hobson is said to have offered his customers the choice: “Take the horse nearest the gate, or take none at all.” At least Hobson offered a reasonable alternative.
Bill Clinton offers no such thing. Here’s what the former president said at the Democratic National Convention:


We Democrats, we think the country works better with a strong middle class, with real opportunities for poor folks to work their way into it, with a relentless focus on the future, with business and government actually working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. You see, we believe that “We’re all in this together” is a far better philosophy than “You’re on your own.”
Here’s Clinton’s Choice: Either government must forcibly confiscate people’s wealth and shackle producers, or people just can’t work together.
This is truly ridiculous.
Not only do people not need government coercion in order to work together; government coercion stops them from working together in countless ways.
By imposing wage controls and myriad other job-killing regulations on businesses, by raising taxes, and by doling out corporate welfare (“business and government actually working together”), Democratic politicians (often in conjunction with their Republican counterparts) violate the rights of people of all income levels and destroy innumerable economic opportunities in the process.
When people are left free from government coercion—that is, when they live within a social system of capitalism—they are able to go into business together as they see fit, trade goods and services as they see fit, give to charity organizations as they see fit, and engage in joint ventures in countless other ways as they see fit. When government forces people not to engage with each other as they see fit, people can’t work together in those ways.
Clinton offers the absurd choice of government force or individual isolation. Capitalism makes possible both individual liberty and voluntary association.
How do Democrats keep coming up with this stuff?
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.
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Schiff Exposes the Nihilistic, Anti-Profit Left
Capitalism and the Moral High Ground

Creative Commons Image: World Economic Forum

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According to a recent WIN-Gallup International poll, the number of Americans saying they are “religious” has declined since 2005 from 73 percent of the population to 60 percent. In that same period, the number of “convinced atheists” has risen from 1 to 5 percent of the population. In the 39 countries polled, the number of people saying they are “religious” declined from 77 to 68 percent, while the number of “convinced atheists” increased from 4 to 7 percent.
While this is good news for those who recognize the destructive nature of religion, the rejection of religious faith hardly equals the acceptance of reason. Communists reject religious faith but embrace a secularized version of faith demanding blind acceptance of collectivist dogmas such as, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Atheism means only that one does not believe in god; it does not mean that one embraces reason.
What should we make of the rise of atheism in America? The Washington Post points out that the increase in the number of atheists coincides with the prominence of the New Atheists: Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett. Although in some ways these writers demonstrate a reverence for reason, in important ways they do not.
As Alan Germani summarizes:


While decrying faith, [the New Atheists] fail to show that morality can be based on reason and thus grounded in reality. They fail to offer anything essentially different from the religionists whom they condemn, instead joining them in the belief that moral knowledge can only be gained by non-rational means.
For details, see Germani’s illuminating article.
Far more important than whether someone rejects religion, is whether someone embraces reason—thinking grounded in observation of reality.
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 Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists
Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Original: http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2012/08/atheism-rises-in-u-s-but-what-about-reason/