Gus Van Horn blog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog A venomous rant by Maureen Dowd shows us exactly how and why Judge Sonia Sotomayor's opponents haven't a prayer of stopping her from reaching the Supreme Court -- barring a "meltdown" on her part or a near-miraculous epiphany about the proper role of a Supreme Court justice on theirs. Two popular misconceptions -- one about the proper, non-cognitive role of emotions and one about the proper role of a Supreme Court justice -- are shared by her proponents and opponents alike, shielding her from the criticism she deserves now. First, we have the soul-body dichotomy, which manifests here as the notion that reason and emotions are opposites, and that our choice between them is either-or. Despite the best efforts of Republicans to root out any sign that Sonia Sotomayor has emotions that color her views on the law, the Bronx Bomber kept a robotic mask in place. A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not know that a gaggle of white Republican men afraid of extinction are out to trip her up. Don't get hung up on the sexist and racist slur against males of European descent. That's just a smear against Dowd's real targets -- people having Western values. She makes her smear by arbitarily equating them with various negative stereotypes of Republicans. (Why else would race and sex matter?) The important thing here is the glee that Dowd shows about how easily -- if we take her assessment at face value -- that Sotomayor is foiling the Republican attempts to call her out on a vice that Dowd herself admits she has. Sotomayor is succeeding simply by acting "robotic." How robotic? Take a gander: She even used a flat tone when talking about the "horrific tragedy" of 9/11, when she was living near the World Trade Center. Even setting aside the mislabeling of this atrocity as a "tragedy," this is bizarre. Did this not anger and frighten Sonia Sotomayor, herself? Does Judge Sotomayor not care about the victims of those events? And is she not confident enough in the justice of the laws and founding principles of this nation to think that, within her prospective role as a Supreme Court justice, she would be doing her part -- whatever her decisions -- to ensure that America remains strong enough at least to live to fight another day? The ease with which Sotomayor's ruse seems to be working can be explained by the acceptance on both sides of this debate of the soul-body dichotomy. Both see reason and emotion as opposites, with each side paying lip-service at different times to the idea that either reason is man's tool of cognition or that emotions are. This time, the conservatives are holding the banner of reason (although often upside down), while the left believes emotions are needed in applying or interpreting the law. So the conservatives are parroting without grasping the content of charges like those made by ARI's Tom Bowden that Sotomayor is unqualified for this position due to her belief that objectivity and impartiality are impossible. They know enough to try to trip her up on the grounds that she will rule based ultimately on her emotions, but, failing to understand the true nature of emotions, don't see her iciness as the red flag that it is. Emotions are not tools of cognition, but they do reflect one's values and motivate one's actions. A sitting judge must apply logic rigorously to all questions that come up, but this does not preclude anger at massive injustice or harm to the country one is sworn to protect. Reason and emotion can and -- when one's principles are objective -- will end up on the same side. And that brings up the second point. The sould-body dichotomy is just the start of the difficulties of Sotomayor's senatorial adversaries. The other "crack" our suddenly snake-like nominee is slithering through is that between originalism (which is widely mistaken for judicial objectivity) and "ruling from the bench" (a dangerously imprecise term for non-objectivity). Besides explaining this better than I could, Tara Smith succinctly shows why this is happening: While each of these reasons may help to explain Originalism's appeal, none of them captures the heart of the issue. The deeper reason that Originalism will not die, I think, is that it has staked out the moral high ground, championing the objectivity of interpretation that is essential to the ideal of the rule of law. Anything other than fidelity to the written words, it seems, surrenders us to the rule of mere men (the individual justices on the bench). Or so things would appear. What I will suggest is that the very objectivity which explains Originalism's appeal is misunderstood by Originalists themselves. And part of the reason that criticisms have not inflicted more crippling damage is that the leading alternatives also suffer from confusions about appropriate standards of objectivity in the legal domain -- which many people sense, I think, and which sends them back to the apparently safer harbor of Originalism. [bold added] Writing elsewhere, Smith notes a big problem with originalism: The charge of "judicial activism" typically condemns proper activity on the part of judges along with improper activity . It has become dangerously commonplace to equate a judge's support for overturning a law with pernicious activism. Prevailing wisdom holds that we can identify "activists" simply by counting up the number of times a judge rules against existing laws or government practices. Notice that by that logic, the only way for a judge to avoid overstepping his authority is to engage in no activity--to simply rubberstamp whatever the legislature and other agencies of government serve up. What, by this reasoning, is the point of having a Supreme Court? Some laws should be struck down. ... Judges who so rule are acting responsibly and fulfilling their function. [bold added] And she later explains what ought to be going on in hearings like this: The salient question in assessing any nominee, then, is not whether a judge takes action, but the factors that guide his actions . To be qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, a person must, at minimum, understand three basic facts: First, that individual rights are broad principles defining the individual's freedom of action. The familiar rights of life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness subsume a vast array of particular exercises of this freedom, some explicitly named in the constitution (e.g., the freedom of speech) and some not (the right to travel). Second, he must understand that the government's sole function is to protect individuals' freedom of action. As Jefferson explained, it is "to secure these rights, [that] governments are instituted among men." Third, he must recognize that our government properly acts exclusively by permission. Articles I, II and III specify the powers of the three branches of government and the 10th Amendment expressly decrees that powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved by the states or by the people. The government, in other words, may do only what it is legally authorized to do. [bold added] But for this to happen, someone in the Senate needs to understand what qualifies someone to sit on the Supreme Court. Until then, Dowd will get to crow about her inept heroine parrying even more inept blows: The judge's full retreat from the notion that a different life experience is valuable was more than necessary and somewhat disappointing. But, as any clever job applicant knows, you must obscure as well as reveal, so she sidestepped the dreaded empathy questions -- even though that's why the president wants her. "We apply law to facts," she told Kyl. "We don’t apply feelings to facts." To an originalist, that reply is the sound of the oven timer going off. To someone interested in objective law who understands that the law must sometimes be interpreted in light of objective principles, that's the signal that some more time and a thermometer are needed for that goose. During the rest of her column, Dowd wallows about in her smear of "white Republican men," making the point that many Republicans are, under the skin, also really just fellow emotionalists. (I agree with her there.) Her point in doing so is to is to make sure that reason never rears its head -- ugly to her -- as a serious threat to the left again. She wants us all to think -- no, to feel -- that objectivity is a mere figment. (I emphatically and confidently disagree with her about that.) -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog A conservative blogger I follow bemoans the fact that a recent papal encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, opens Barack Obama up to attack from the left on economic issues by the Pope. Between the gloating of leftist E.J. Dionne and the open evasion of Robert A. Sirico in the Wall Street Journal, I am reminded of Ayn Rand's essay, "Requiem for Man," in which she responded to Populorum Progressio, by Pope Paul VI. First, we'll get the gloating out of the way. Benedict's letter had some good things to say about the market system, but only if it is tempered by both "distributive justice and social justice." He thus spoke approvingly of "the redistribution of wealth" -- not a phrase currently on many American lips -- and caused free-market conservatives to blanch with his call for a "world political authority" to oversee the global economy in the name of "the common good." Remember: "Capitalism" is fine only as long as we're talking about elements of a market economy subordinated to government conrol, and that's the best this anti-secular Pope can say for it. And now for the open evasion. The context [of this encyclical] is of course a global economic crisis -- a crisis that's taken place in a moral vacuum, where the love of truth has been abandoned in favor of a crude materialism. The pope urges that this crisis become "an opportunity for discernment, in which to shape a new vision for the future." Yet his encyclical contains no talk of seeking a third way between markets and socialism. Words like greed and capitalism make no appearance here, despite press headlines following the publication of the encyclical earlier this week. People seeking a blueprint for the political restructuring of the world economy won't find it here. But if they look to this document as a means for the moral reconstruction of the world's cultures and societies, which in turn influence economic events, they will find much to reflect upon. Never mind that one cannot have a political-economic system "in a moral vacuum," and that the erosion of capitalism over the past century has occurred precisely because the moral philosophy of altruism cannot support capitalism, the political expression of egoism, the morality of rational self-interest: The pope didn't use the word "capitalism." Also, we're supposed to pretend that the government policies that precipitated the financial crisis were formulated in a moral vacuum and that businessmen somehow function in a moral vacuum -- unless of course, they're being immoral according to the distorting light of altruism. Ayn Rand's response (search term: "Dark Ages") to Populorum Progressio is just as apt for this, because the very same issues -- within the encyclical and within America's craven conservative movement -- apply today. The encyclical is the voice of the Dark Ages, rising again in today's intellectual vacuum, like a cold wind whistling through the empty streets of an abandoned civilization. Unable to resolve a lethal contradiction, the conflict between individualism and altruism, the West is giving up. When men give up reason and freedom, the vacuum is filled by faith and force. No social system can stand for long without a moral base. Project a magnificent skyscraper being built on quicksands: while men are struggling upward to add the hundredth and two-hundredth stories, the tenth and twentieth are vanishing, sucked under by the muck. That is the history of capitalism, of its swaying, tottering attempt to stand erect on the foundation of the altruist morality. It's either-or. If capitalism's befuddled, guilt-ridden apologists do not know it, two fully consistent representatives of altruism do know it: Catholicism and communism. And there's more where that came from. When Michael Moore's next "documentary" -- allegedly about capitalism -- comes out, don't forget that he's Catholic, too. But be sure to remember as well that the title of Ayn Rand's eloquent defense of capitalism is Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog During a flight over West Texas last week, I spotted something very odd from the window. At first glance, it seemed to be a hilly subdivision, with roads winding through some hills. I've seen things like that plenty of times, but something drew my attention back to the ground. There was something funny about this "subdivision." What was with the light poles? Or were they light poles? I took a closer look and saw that I was actually looking at massive wind farm, most likely part of the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, based on my best guess of our flight path. Its size, to which even the image shown here can't do justice, was mind-boggling. It stretched all the way to the horizon and I probably spent several minutes looking at it, stunned at how huge it is, before simply becoming bored with it. I began to wonder when environmentalists will finally add scarring of the earth along with their complaints about bird deaths to their objections to the technology. Every tower sat on a parcel of cleared land. In any event, I was also reminded of something I encountered about a year ago concerning a scheme by T. Boone Pickens for the government to force the American economy to shift towards wind generation as a primary source of electricity. Back then, I wondered: If wind power were really such a great cash cow, why can't or won't Pickens finance this himself? Why insulate him from losses if he's wrong, while guaranteeing that everyone in Texas will subsidize his next fortune at best or take his bath at worst? According to Wikipedia, the "Pickens Plan" -- of which the fleecing of his fellow Texans was just a part -- would cost $1 trillion. Not that this Congress has shown one jot of resistance to the temptation to spend huge amounts of money or micromanage our lives, but Pickens continues his full-court press for this scheme. In fact, Pickens even seems to have borrowed a page from Barack Obama's playbook, busy as he is "organizing the New Energy Army in every Congressional District" in the name of "[telling] Congress to reduce our dependence on foreign oil." Too bad this approach -- which is just a type of central planning -- will only result in America needlessly restricting its access to cheap, reliable energy. Think "Terror-Free Oil" -- but without the oil. Ever since I first moved to Texas when I was seventeen, the "big sky" of its flat landscape always made me think of America's vast potential. But now, thanks to T. Boone Pickens, whose government mooching is a betrayal of his American heritage, it is being transformed into a symbol of massive government waste and tyranny, one windmill at a time. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Via HBL, I learned of an outstanding piece (registration required) in the New York Times that illustrates in lurid detail how the federal grant system systematically prevents and impedes groundbreaking scientific research. For 25 years, Eileen K. Jaffe received federal grants to run her lab . As a senior scientist at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, with a long list of published papers in prestigious journals, she is a respected, established researcher. Then Dr. Jaffe stumbled upon results that went against textbook explanations, suggesting that it might be possible to find an entirely new class of drugs that could disable proteins that fuel cancer cells. Now she wants to find chemicals that might be developed into such drugs. But her grant proposal was rejected out of hand by the institutes of health, not even discussed by a review panel. She had no preliminary data showing that the idea was likely to work, something reviewers always want to see, and the idea was just too unprecedented. [bold added] But even this system doesn't have a 100% kill rate. Some scientists do know how to game it, although I wonder how long such an option will last. Some experienced scientists have found a way to offset the problem somewhat. They do chancy experiments by siphoning money from their grants. "In a way, the system is encrypted," [molecular biologist Keith] Yamamoto said, allowing those in the know to wink and do their own thing on the side. Great discoveries have been made with N.I.H. financing without manipulating the system, [Richard] Klausner [a former Director of the National Cancer Institute] said. "But," he added, "I actually believe that by and large it is despite, rather than because of, the review system." [bold added] Read the whole thing. Amusingly (in a sick way), the NIH is "experimenting" with ways to improve this inherently broken system by encouraging innovation with "challenge grants," even as the best way to encourage truly cutting-edge research lies hidden in plain sight. Now women with excess HER-2 proteins, who once had the worst breast cancer prognoses, have prognoses that are among the best. But when Dr. [Dennis] Slamon wanted to start this research, his grant was turned down. He succeeded only after the grateful wife of a patient helped him get money from Revlon, the cosmetics company. Too bad so many scientists think that, without government loot, scientific progress would be retarded because those big, evil corporations "have no interest" in scientific research. That misconception will unfortunately cause companies like Revlon to have to continue to pay the highest corporate taxes in the world to finance mere tinkering, rather than have more of their own money at their own disposal to use for real innovation. (And no, government research prizes are not an "answer," either.) Read the whole thing. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog More than You'd Ever Want to Know ... ... about pressure cookers. I was in the process of simplifying this recipe for chicken pot pie recently when it occurred to me that a pressure cooker I unpacked earlier in the day could speed up cooking the chicken, if only I knew how to use it. So I googled something like "how to use a pressure cooker" and stumbled upon Miss Vickie's site. There's a wealth of information there on how to use these devices, probably including how to blog with one if you were to look hard enough. I was able, in pretty short order, to test mine and find a problem without ruining dinner. (See "beginner basics" at the top menu and proceed to "test drive" at the bottom of the left sidebar. If you've been reading for the past few days or know about my past professional background, you'll see why I am a big fan of testing gadgets before using them.) Once I replace a defective overpressure relief on said cooker, I'll be back: The recipe came out really well, but I would really like to eliminate the twenty minute lull that came with having to boil the meat in a normal pot. Then, my total preparation time will clock in under an hour and I will be occupied throughout. Leftists Never Kill Leftists? Via HBL, I learned of a leftist blogger getting into a tizzy over a of Harry Binswanger on the Glenn Beck Show. He concludes his post with, "Leftists hellbent on killing leftists--the Nazis were special that way." Yeah. That never happens. And the national socialist variety of socialism is fundamentally, opposite-end-of-a-spectrum different from Communism, too. Nor could it possibly ever happen. Wikipedia summarizes the approach of President Obama's mentor for achieving leftist goals as, "the most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired ends." How reassuring! Or maybe Steve Rendall always agrees with Barack Obama, and thinks that anyone who disagrees with him is, ipso facto, not really a leftist. Better Living through Blogging/Desktop Update I have often had commenters here come through with helpful advice when I have found myself in some kind of bind, as was most recently the case with my computer. Now, I've had a question I was pondering recently preemptively asked and answered by someone in the industry over at Rational Jenn's. I was leaning in the direction he indicated already, but learned through his answer of a way to save more money on a land line than I thought we could. (I'll file that idea away for now as it turns out that we have free basic phone service in our new place.) As for the computer, the troubleshooting was not as straightforward as it could have been. But the advice I got both helped me do the troubleshooting and to think of other things I could look into, like BIOS beep codes. I was unable to determine the exact set of beep codes for my particular BIOS, but I am fairly sure the problem is probably with the motherboard or the power supply, as I'd feared. I'll start making phone calls about it this morning. Oddly, with only a RAM stick, the hard drive, and the video card installed, I can get as far as the boot loader. Once. (I don't want to boot all the way until I fix this.) If I power off and try again, no boot loader at all. Without RAM, I get a continuous beep and nothing else. In any other case, I get one beep and either progress to the boot loader or no progress at all. There is the further option of buying a PC board diagnostic test card, but I don't think I'm going to learn anything new with one. Objectivist Roundup This week, Rule of Reason is hosting. Obama Kills a Bug No, he didn't bomb Iran overnight. He literally killed a bug about a month ago, and PETA is fulminating. As Dismuke puts it, "What was considered a COMIC ABSURDITY in 1930 is now taken seriously." " /> " type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"> The above clip, from a 1930's movie about the future, presents the song as funny even by the Anthem-like, every man's a number standards of its fictional society. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog The Atlantic has published a glowing eulogy of William F. Buckley by Garry Wills which I highly recommend -- but with the proviso that one read the following passage from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead shortly before or after: Isn't that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison . . . . They're second-handers . . . . They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don't ask: "Is this true?" They ask: "Is this what others think is true?" Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. (605, and more here) [bold added] Wills praises Buckley in turns for such exploits as using "big words" he does not know the meanings of, beating a CIA polygraph test, being let off the hook as a favor by the police at a traffic stop, defying other Catholics in political squabbling over papal encyclicals, attending Spanish Masses with his servants, and habitually riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Wills marshals all these things in an attempt to portray a man of physical courage, moral strength, and common appeal. Too bad that the real common thread is an elevation of the perceptions of others over all else, including the facts of reality. Revealingly, Wills praises Buckley for being "basically egalitarian" "[d]espite [sic] his religious and ideological preferences" -- and then goes right along with Buckley's lack of concern for facts (and hypocrisy) with the following passage under the heading of "Ideological Snob?" By the time of his death, even Bill's earlier critics admitted that he had done much to make conservatism respectable by purging it of racist and fanatical traits earlier embedded in it. He distanced his followers from the southern prejudices of George Wallace, the anti-Semitism of the Liberty Lobby, the fanaticism of the John Birch Society, the glorification of selfishness by Ayn Rand ( famously excoriated in National Review by Whittaker Chambers), the paranoia and conspiratorialism of the neocons. In each of these cases, some right-wingers tried to cut off donations to National Review, but Bill stood his ground. In doing so, he elevated the discourse of American politics, making civil debate possible between responsible liberals and conservatives. Buckley's egalitarianism apparently went out the window when he thought his "preferences" might not be deemed "respectable." I hold no esteem for egalitarianism and think ideas far too important to relegate to the realm of whim, so I leave it to Wills to explain the above discrepancy. Intellectual standards cannot be based on whim and, as such, cannot coexist with egalitarianism. Buckley and Wills's deliberate injustice towards Rand bears this out. History is also bearing this out: Read on. It is of interest that, other than advertising links to books, the above hyperlink is the only one in the article. The fact that the Whittaker Chambers piece is a review in name only speaks volumes about Buckley's (and Wills's) "concern for facts" and reveals that Ayn Rand understood him far better than he understood her or, I hazard to guess, cared to understand himself. But yes, I'll grant that Buckley was selfless. Fortunately, if relative book sales figures for God and Man at Yale and Atlas Shrugged are any indication, it would appear that the facts of reality so blithely flouted by Buckley and his boy Wills are vindicating Ayn Rand, and leaving Buckley's intellectual legacy where it belongs: in the same ash heap to which his followers continue trying to consign her. Wills devotes an entire article to debunking the charge that Buckley was a snob, going so far as to address three distinct types of snobbishness: social, ideological, and intellectual. Nevertheless, Buckley was a snob, but more important, his snobbishness is rooted in his second-handedness. Wills might not see this, and Buckley's other admirers might not see this, but anyone with an independent mind will, as soon as he spends any time with the man through the verbiage he left behind. Egalitarianism, as an intellectual fashion, often goes hand-in-hand with snobbishness, and a truly selfish man who understands the potential value of other people will not be a snob. Nor will he read Buckley and fail to see either the egalitarianism or the snobbery. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog It isn't news to me that Fidel Castro has legions of sympathizers among the American left, but even so, Humberto Fontova's recent piece (HT: Dismuke) on the Walter Myers spy scandal is upsetting. To highlight that difficulty in catching Castro's spies that bedevils U.S. spy-catchers, let's play a game I've titled, "Castro Spy or Democratic Official? Who Said It?" "Fidel has lifted the Cuban people out of the degrading and oppressive conditions which characterized pre-revolutionary Cuba. He has helped the Cubans to save their own souls. Cubans don't need to try very hard to make the point that we have been the exploiters." If you answered, "Castro spy Kendall Myers, from his diaries," you're right. "I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime…" If you answered, "Democratic President of the United States John F. Kennedy speaking to French Journalist Jean Daniel in Nov. 1963," you're right again. No less of a challenge to the spy catchers -- or to my stomach -- has been the high demand in "high" society for Fidel Castro that Fontova describes on top of that. Castro has huge numbers of aspiring spies and little need for them for precisely the same reason: The dominant code of morality in our society is altruism, of which communism -- as preached and practiced by Castro and his Soviet mentors -- is a consistent political expression. Now that we've seen a very ugly rip here, what to do? Keep after the spies and fight against "improving" American relations with Cuba to the extent possible, of course. But there is also a more effective long-term solution available: Repair our social fabric by arguing for a superior moral code or supporting those who do. With an improved culture in America, sympathy for communism here will, like Castro's decrepit body, inevitably wither away. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Wow! Via HBL, I learned of a remarkable column by Joseph McHugh in The American Chronicle regarding William F. Buckley's unjust treatment of Ayn Rand. McHugh starts out with comments about his son, Christopher's just-published memoir, but that is only a point of departure. The real strength of his article is that it considers the elder Buckley's long, ignominious record of unjustified, personal attacks on Rand on as well as what other intellectuals influenced by Rand have had to say about the matter. The piece ends: Rand made the case against the welfare state root and branch. She was the first to make a secular case against Communism and Socialism, and the first to make a fully secular defense of American values. The fact that her ideas were shut out by Buckley hurt the entire cause of Americanism. These days people are flocking to read Atlas Shrugged. They are not burning a hole in their wallets to buy God and Man at Yale. And that's a good thing. [minor edits] It is refreshing to see journalism like this, and frustrating at the same time, because (a) I wish I'd written it myself, and ( I want to quote the whole thing here, verbatim. McHugh says several things that have needed saying for a very long time. I will indulge myself one more quote, though: "... Buckley made a career out of trashing Rand personally, not intellectually, and one cannot help but feel justice at his public bubble being burst." Amen! (So to speak.) Another Satisfied Customer I am delighted to see that Paul Hsieh is enjoying his new Asus Eee PC 1000, and, owning one of the older models, find myself slightly jealous at the same time. Fortunately, thanks to an earlier post of his on the same subject, I can at least upgrade my operating system soon. I hadn't had time to look into that, and was reluctant to do so anyway while bouncing back and forth between cities so much over the past year. Working from Home I will be working from home for awhile once I return to Boston for good next week, so I found this post (and the ensuing comments) over at Noodlefood on the subject to be of interest. (I'd swear I have encountered the wonko.com post before, but I'd forgotten about it.) Also, I am considering a career change to a type of work that, in a few years, I could make into an at-home occupation. A major issue with such a move is setting clear boundaries between work and leisure. A History Primer for Barack Obama Via Ron Pisaturo, I see that there is a nice refutation of Barack Obama's unjust praise of the Islam for the cultural achievements of the ancient Arab world over at The Charlotte Capitalist. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog It isn't news to me that Fidel Castro has legions of sympathizers among the American left, but even so, Humberto Fontova's recent piece (HT: Dismuke) on the Walter Myers spy scandal is upsetting. To highlight that difficulty in catching Castro's spies that bedevils U.S. spy-catchers, let's play a game I've titled, "Castro Spy or Democratic Official? Who Said It?" "Fidel has lifted the Cuban people out of the degrading and oppressive conditions which characterized pre-revolutionary Cuba. He has helped the Cubans to save their own souls. Cubans don't need to try very hard to make the point that we have been the exploiters." If you answered, "Castro spy Kendall Myers, from his diaries," you're right. "I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime…" If you answered, "Democratic President of the United States John F. Kennedy speaking to French Journalist Jean Daniel in Nov. 1963," you're right again. No less of a challenge to the spy catchers -- or to my stomach -- has been the high demand in "high" society for Fidel Castro that Fontova describes on top of that. Castro has huge numbers of aspiring spies and little need for them for precisely the same reason: The dominant code of morality in our society is altruism, of which communism -- as preached and practiced by Castro and his Soviet mentors -- is a consistent political expression. Now that we've seen a very ugly rip here, what to do? Keep after the spies and fight against "improving" American relations with Cuba to the extent possible, of course. But there is also a more effective long-term solution available: Repair our social fabric by arguing for a superior moral code or supporting those who do. With an improved culture in America, sympathy for communism here will, like Castro's decrepit body, inevitably wither away. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Wow! Via HBL, I learned of a remarkable column by Joseph McHugh in The American Chronicle regarding William F. Buckley's unjust treatment of Ayn Rand. McHugh starts out with comments about his son, Christopher's just-published memoir, but that is only a point of departure. The real strength of his article is that it considers the elder Buckley's long, ignominious record of unjustified, personal attacks on Rand on as well as what other intellectuals influenced by Rand have had to say about the matter. The piece ends: Rand made the case against the welfare state root and branch. She was the first to make a secular case against Communism and Socialism, and the first to make a fully secular defense of American values. The fact that her ideas were shut out by Buckley hurt the entire cause of Americanism. These days people are flocking to read Atlas Shrugged. They are not burning a hole in their wallets to buy God and Man at Yale. And that's a good thing. [minor edits] It is refreshing to see journalism like this, and frustrating at the same time, because (a) I wish I'd written it myself, and ( I want to quote the whole thing here, verbatim. McHugh says several things that have needed saying for a very long time. I will indulge myself one more quote, though: "... Buckley made a career out of trashing Rand personally, not intellectually, and one cannot help but feel justice at his public bubble being burst." Amen! (So to speak.) Another Satisfied Customer I am delighted to see that Paul Hsieh is enjoying his new Asus Eee PC 1000, and, owning one of the older models, find myself slightly jealous at the same time. Fortunately, thanks to an earlier post of his on the same subject, I can at least upgrade my operating system soon. I hadn't had time to look into that, and was reluctant to do so anyway while bouncing back and forth between cities so much over the past year. Working from Home I will be working from home for awhile once I return to Boston for good next week, so I found this post (and the ensuing comments) over at Noodlefood on the subject to be of interest. (I'd swear I have encountered the wonko.com post before, but I'd forgotten about it.) Also, I am considering a career change to a type of work that, in a few years, I could make into an at-home occupation. A major issue with such a move is setting clear boundaries between work and leisure. A History Primer for Barack Obama Via Ron Pisaturo, I see that there is a nice refutation of Barack Obama's unjust praise of the Islam for the cultural achievements of the ancient Arab world over at The Charlotte Capitalist. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Around a decade ago, when I was in grad school, a column I'd written in a student newspaper -- quite contrary to my pessimistic expectations -- helped a Libertarian, as he put it, "see the light." Said recovering Libertarian and I subsequently engaged in a back-and-forth correspondence that he initiated with "You'd make a good Libertarian," and ended with his saying, "Chalk one up to pamphleteering." Enjoying the exchange, but finding my time at a premium, I finally ended up recommending Peter Schwartz's Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty, and letting him read my copy. I was on the verge of asking for him to return it after quite some time when I finally did hear back from him. Also, to my great surprise, he went on to found a campus Objectivist club which even had decent regular attendance. There wasn't a club before? I and a good friend were, I thought, the only two Objectivists on campus, and didn't see the point. My lesson on the importance of holding correct principles was more than repaid with one on the importance of communicating them effectively. I recall this story, because something I encountered this morning at the web site of the New York Times reminded me of an email one of the members of this club once sent me about a libertarianesque scheme to build artificial islands in the middle of the sea and, with them, fully free societies out of whole cloth. That fantasy has never really died down and, thanks to new technology, it seems to be growing new legs. Such dreamers aren't alone, or the first, as several articles note (links below). "For decades, an assortment of romantics and whack jobs have fantasized about fleeing the oppressive strictures of modern government and creating a laissez-faire society on the high seas," Wired observed earlier this year. "Over the decades, they've tried everything from fortified sandbars to mammoth cruise ships. Nearly all have been disasters." True, but one difference today is improved knowhow, as The Futurist notes -- be it in the design of floating utopias or built-up artificial islands (the latter a specialty of Dubai, above). The pertinent question here is "Disasters? By what standard?" Certainly, technology makes us able to create artificial land more readily, but a society is much more than the land it sits on. I have argued repeatedly here that technology is no substitute for a rational culture (or thinking for oneself) among the denizens of any such society. At this point, the casual reader might think I am making the same pessimism-inducing mistake I was making years ago by discounting this movement, but he would be wrong on that count. It is, in fact, the people who want to build such island-states who are the pessimists: They are the ones not developing a solid understanding of the theoretical basis and justification for freedom so that they can make its case to the rational people in their very midst. (They do exist.) The island-builders are the ones giving up without a fight (of the intellectual variety). They are, in fact, deliriously and recklessly pessimistic. One moment's thought about the viability of such islands as states should make the point. Even assuming one achieves a capitalist society on such an island, which is no trivial feat, what of self-defense? How would one stop the pirate island ten miles away from enslaving or laying waste to his? With weapons? Purchased from where? The now-socialist United States one fled? Before or after the pirates strike? Before or after Obama invades your island instead, seeing it as a threat to hope and change? You started out with nukes? How nice: So did the pirates. And Obama. When dealing with other men, we all have two fundamental choices that technology will never change: reasoned persuasion or force. The island builders aren't even giving reasoned persuasion a chance, and are defaulting to force, and with a poor strategy at that. That is, if they aren't guilty of an even greater sin, which is basically pretending that conflict will pass them by if they pretend that other men don't exist. Certainly, freedom must be won by guns, as the American Revolution demonstrated, but it cannot exist at all within a society that does not understand and value it -- as the same war and our misguided and fruitless occupation of Iraq both make clear. This is why it is important to make the case for freedom in America, and, incidentally, why fleeing to an island really isn't a guarantee of having freedom even there for very long. Principles are like maps. If I had to flee an oncoming hurricane, I'd take a good map and a working Model T over a blindfold and a Lamborghini any day. The island-builders are spending too much time ogling fancy technology and ignoring the theoretical basis that makes it -- and their lives as free men -- possible. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Glenn Reynolds asks, CAN MITCH DANIELS SAVE THE GOP?If you aren't from Indiana, you might well stop asking, "Who is John Galt," long enough to shrug and ask, "Who is Mitch Daniels?" He's the governor of Indiana, and at least by today's mixed economy standards, he has an impressive-sounding resume: There's no doubt Daniels is an intriguing prospect [to head the 2012 GOP ticket]. A former corporate executive and foundation head, he was George W. Bush's first budget chief, serving from 2001 to 2003. Going home to Indiana, he not only was elected governor on his first try, but won a second term last November by 18 points -- at a time when a Democratic presidential candidate won Indiana for the first time in 40 years. In victory, Daniels attracted a lot of Democratic votes, and 20 percent of the African-American vote. He inherited a deficit and turned it into a surplus. And he has a huge job approval rating -- almost 70 percent. Daniels' stock with the national party began rising as the full extent of last November's damage began to sink in. His reputation has gone up still more as his performance with Indiana's economy continues to shine amid national financial calamity. Clearly, Daniels can get reelected. He seems, at first blush, to have some inkling of fiscal restraint. He can connect with a broad cross section of the voters, including Democrats. These have all been glaringly absent from his party in recent years. But then, for those of us who want a meaningful alternative to the Democrats, the other shoe drops. Then came May 10, when Daniels gave the commencement speech at Butler University in Indianapolis. Facing graduates born in the late 1980s, Daniels delivered a roundhouse condemnation of the selfishness of the Baby Boomer generation and a call for today's young people to live more responsibly than their elders. "All our lives, it's been all about us," Daniels, who recently turned 60, said of his generation. "We were the 'Me Generation.' We wore t-shirts that said 'If it feels good, do it.' The year of my high school commencement, a hit song featured the immortal lyric 'Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today.'" [bold added] Yes -- and this wasn't just another journalist giving a sloppy summary of someone else's words -- Mitch Daniels condemned selfishness. In fact, he places it at the lowest rung of the hell of short-range moral dereliction: As a group, we have been self-centered, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and all too often just plain selfish. To be completely fair, Daniels's speech is inconsistent about the meaning of the term, confusing (or package-dealing) it with legitimate vices, but the fact remains that his words are at odds with those of John Galt, the hero of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (which is prophetic for a good reason). In a time of crisis such as this, there is a dire need for moral clarity. John Galt was clear that actual selfishness is anything but short-range or whim-driven and, most importantly, not sacrificial -- of self to others or of others to self. Consider Galt's Oath, taken by the strikers in the novel: I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. (675) The Baby Boomers certainly did their share of asking everyone else to live for their sake, which is actually anything but selfish. But the course taken to be the opposite (and too frequently equated with "responsibility" today), sacrificing oneself to others, is also wrong. It is also -- like that of the Baby Boomers -- the very morality of altruism to which the GOP has succumbed, and which has driven it to become the other big government party rather than a proper government party of freedom and individual rights. Mitchell is certainly a proponent of this morality, as evidenced by a favorite government program of his. If there is one major change America needs post haste, it is to pull back from the current orgy of human sacrifice. There is an alternative to being a moocher versus being a sucker, and that is to choose to be neither, to be an individualist. Daniels, by condemning the only morality that supports such a choice, has made it clear to me that he doesn't have the big moral guns needed to point the GOP in the right direction, much less save it. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Rand Gets the Last Laugh Via HBL is an interesting, mostly positive, book review of Atlas Shrugged which focuses on the story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company, drawing parallels between its theme of false hope and the election of Barack Obama, as well as between that company's downfall and that of General Motors. And so the workers voted overwhelmingly to follow the new plan, which would mean that no worker would fall through the cracks -- everyone would take care of everyone else. "We thought it was good," the tramp says wearily. " No, that's not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good." And so begins this experiment in "modified" capitalism. As the worker explains it, "The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need." Of course, in the long run, "modified capitalism" turns out to be socialism or worse, and as Rand points out with brutal logic, it leads inevitably to a system that encourages laziness and lying and punishes success. [bold added] Reviewer Frank Miele does accuse Rand of unspecified "excesses" once or twice, and, similarly to an issue Diana Hsieh raises regarding a recent Amity Shlaes column on the same novel, his appreciation of the novel is mainly at the political level. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see wider acceptance of Rand as a serious commentator among a growing number of intellectuals after the savaging her work often got in the past. And Speaking of Bankruptcy A Rasmussen poll indicates that fewer than half of all current owners of GM cars would buy from the same company again. That figure includes just 30% who are Very Likely to do so. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 43% of current GM owners are not likely to buy another GM car, while 16% are not sure. My wife and I will be able to make do with the occasional Zip Car, now that we're in Boston, but as far as cars go, I am a Honda man. That said, I was about to say something cute like, "If you put a gun to my head and made me buy an American car (That was only a figure of speech, Barry.), I expect that it would be a Ford." Of course, as Frank Miele pointed out: Pity poor Ford Motor Co. which was the only one of the Big Three automakers in the United States that was healthy enough to pass up government bailout money last November. Now, instead of owing money to the government, they actually have to compete AGAINST the government (the new owner of GM) selling cars. And remember, the government has the improper power of regulating that industry, setting the terms by which Ford will "compete" with it and, not to put too fine a point on things, holding a gun to our heads and making us buy from GM. So, actually, Barry is poised to hold a gun to my head and make me buy GM, only his pal Cass Sunstein might call that "nudging." I haven't driven a Ford lately, but perhaps, instead of "Fix Or Repair Daily," we could come up with a new pseudo acronym. I propose, "Free OR Die." Clean Air Standards vs. Biodiesel When I first encountered this story about how hippie regulations have made it impossible to run 100% hippie fuel in diesel engines, I laughed out loud: Until two years ago, all diesel engines were [compatible with pure biodiesel (aka B100)]. Then standards set by both the Environment Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board, phased in for 2007, required all passenger vehicles to meet the same, stricter emissions. That meant diesel manufacturers had to reduce emissions of NOX and particulate matter to meet those of gas-powered cars. These standards were created with good intentions -- to look out for our health by improving the air that we breath. (After all, particulate matter is a known carcinogen.) But the way most manufacturers did this created a setback for those of us trying to use biofuels. [link dropped] As a bonus, get a load of how slavishly loyal to the government the author is. The government, which improperly bullies everyone around nowadays, is doing so "to look out for our health." But the manufacturers who have to design engines around its arbitrary regulations are villains because this means that if you buy from some of them, you might have to (gasp!) adulterate your fuel by 2% with fuel stolen straight from Mother Earth's veins. Somehow, I would not be surprised if, pressed on the matter, this man would exhibit other symptoms of "Vitamin F deficiency" and demand that diesel particulate filters be outlawed. Stop to Smell the Flowers It's been a while since I've done so, but this morning's visit to Thrutch was richly rewarded with no less than three picture sets of the latest of his stunning orchids! I especially like the last of the three. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Writing at City Journal, teacher Marc Epstein blows out of the water all illusions of reform of the New York City public school system since Chancellor Joel Klein's adoption of a "business model" of "accountability and results." There are so many gory details -- like universal promotion -- within his piece that I'd just about have to reproduce its entirety here to do it justice, but the most important one just about says all that needs saying: For years now, schools have been switching to "annualization" of their course offerings. Under this structure, students who fail the first semester of a sequential course (say, English 5 and 6) can get credit for both terms if they pass the second semester. The practical effect of this change is to destroy the work ethic of those students who've figured out how to game the system. By their junior and senior years, they know that they can blow off the first term and, with some effort in the second, get credit for the full course. For the schools' part, annualization obviates the need to create costly, inefficient "off-track" spring sections of sequential courses for students who failed the fall section. This helps cut down drastically on night school and summer school, and also sends graduation rates skyward. Under this flawed model, teachers face inexorable pressure to get their numbers up in the second term, however they can. [bold added] One of the metrics Klein's "business model" employs happens to be graduation rates. Too bad that in the real business world, customers who have not been pickpocketed before entering the free market would not be confronted with a single huge, heavily-subsidized, inept (but apparently cheap) competitor and an army of small, expensive ones. And too bad that in a free market, it is the customer who sets his own standards for what constitutes an acceptable return on his investment. In a free market, parents would have to spend actual, hard-earned money on their children's education, and might not be placated by simply having a piece of paper with "diploma" stamped on it in Gothic lettering shoved at them after their child has been coddled for several years. They might look at things like how successful a school's graduates were at such things as winning gainful employment or entering college. The inflationary, statistical expedients of publicity-hungry career politicians would no longer be able serve as a pretty facade for the mass disfigurement and extermination of young souls (See item 4.) that is happening at their parents' expense. "But how would the poor go to school?" the whining will go. Hustling in the streets would be preferable to the above in many respects. The whole idea behind public education is that everyone needs and ought to have education, because education helps prepare children to survive as adults. Everyone ought to have two arms, too, but if the state started sending children to "public gymnasiums" to have one or both of them crippled or removed, there would be a massive public outrage and a loud call for the immediate abolition of the practice. I see no essential difference between this and what is going on in many public schools today. Again, I call for a freeing of the educational sector from government control. New York should stop toying with cheap, toxic models from communist countries and use the real thing to educate its children. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog I almost never listen to talk radio anymore, but if I did, I bet I'd hear this story get beaten like a dead horse today: A kindergartner's mother cannot read Scripture during show and tell, even if the Bible is the boy's favorite book, a U.S. appeals court said Monday in the latest challenge over religion in public schools. The Marple Newtown School District in suburban Philadelphia told plaintiff Donna Kay Busch in October 2004 that she could not read the Bible passages during her son's "All About Me" program. The school did permit the boy to discuss a poster that included references to his church as well as his family, pet and best friend. The reasoning behind the ruling is sound: A mother was attempting to proselytize and the state, having no business promoting any specific viewpoint, had to forbid the activity from taking place in a forum intended for education and paid for with public funds. Within the context of this case, the judge did well. What's interesting about the case is the context in which it occurs, and the questions about government funding of education it quickly leads to. Why should the state not be in the business of promoting one ideology or another? (And yes, theocratic protests to the contrary, Christianity is an ideology.) Because government's modus operandi is the deployment of physical force against individuals. Properly, this force is retaliatory in nature, and employed only for the protection of individual rights. In short, the government makes us safe to live our lives as we see fit. Since life does not come with an instruction manual, a crucial part of this freedom involves the free examination and exchange of philosophical views. Should the government give even the remotest appearance of taking sides in such a debate, that debate is stifled, if not ended outright. That is precisely why the Founding Fathers wrote religious freedom into law and why America is under attack on all fronts from religious totalitarians today. This case is an example. Even if the Bible really were this child's favorite book, no one had any business reading from it at a government function. [Note: Except students. See first two comments.] (We'll get to the question of whether this should be a government function shortly.) But later in the story, that assertion is cast into doubt. The boy's mother apparently reads it to him every day and, being an evangelical Christian, also seems to feel that her mission is to do exactly what she was doing, preaching to the captive audience this event provided her. Conservatives on talk radio and elsewhere -- and not even particularly religious or zealous ones at that -- will pooh-pooh this, asking what harm a little Bible story can do to a child. They will hold this decision up like a leper's shroud as a blatant example of "the left-wing agenda" gone mad. They will be right that one story might be harmless, but wide off the mark about the important point, and especially so if they complain that freedom of speech has been abridged. That point would be that the government should not be telling us how to educate our own children, and the conservatives will be wrong because freedom of property was abridged first. Were the education system completely private, parents like Donna Kay Busch would be perfectly free to read Bible verses to their children all day in kindergartens run by like-minded individuals or, failing that, within their own homes. But they would not be free to force this on the children of other parents who do not agree that pounding Bible verses into the skulls of children all day is the best way to educate them. If most rank-and-file conservatives appreciated the danger to property rights posed by public education, they would not support it. And if theocrats were sincerely interested in freedom of speech, they would also fight against public education because they would realize that every attempt on their part to inculcate their values in a school setting would, at best, end up in court and that other values will necessarily end up being taught. (Read on.) But they find the opportunity to preach at captive audiences too great to resist. And it is these "other values" that "will necessarily end up being taught" that make this case really interesting. Like America's Founding Fathers (but for different reasons), leftists will insist that we must have public education so the citizenry will have the skills and knowledge necessary to function as responsible citizens of a republic. This is true, but how do we decide what skills are appropriate or what constitutes knowledge? Should children be taught to obey the alleged word of an alleged god? Should children be taught to question all assertions? Should they be taught the scientific method? Should they be trained to accept any and every "consensus", so long as it is held by men who claim to be scientists? Ultimately, the question of what constitutes knowledge is a philosophical one, and any educator, state-sponsored or not, will end up having to take a stand on it. In other words, public education, by its very nature, involves government interference in the realm of public debate. Specifically, public education forces anyone who has to pay for it, to promulgate ideas one may or may not agree with. This is always wrong. So the left is also wrong here. While the conservatives mouth pieties to freedom of speech while ignoring the fact that nobody is keeping Ms. Busch from reading the Bible to her own child, leftists will, for example, hide behind the "scientific" "consensus" while ignoring the fact that environmentalism is an ideology, is not scientifically sound, and would not equal political guidance even if it were. Freesom is of a piece, and violating part of it eventually endangers all of it. Stealing property by government force, even for a good purpose like education, lands people in court for things they ought to be free to do on their own, and obscures the proper political solution, freedom, from view. -- CAV Updates Today: Added parenthetical note. Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Off and on, I have used the term "dictator fantasy" to refer to a type of context-dropping I see time and time again on the left and the right: [P]eople who dream of imposing their will on others through force [are] short-sighted at best. Why? Because one moment's thought would indicate that, aside from the inherent difficulties (i.e., opposition from others) to such a goal, there is the inconvenient fact that one is quite likely himself to go under the yoke of an alleged ally or someone one has had to dupe along the way. Related to this fantasy is the notion that ethical ideas held, untested against and untied to reality as floating abstractions, will somehow lead to paradise on earth. A tale from the sixties that popped into my head recently illustrates this point quite well. We [commune-dwellers] were supposed to be heroes, you know, and a hero is not supposed to get jealous because somebody is f-- your old lady, or upset because somebody has left the sink a greasepit. The day-to-day, quotidian stresses and tensions -- exacerbated by having 20 people in a one family house. That wore thin. The very ideals of our narrator -- and 0f the current administration -- have already been been tried and found wanting, at least in terms of leading to an enjoyable and fulfilling life. But a moment's thought could have told you that: If you're supposed to subordinate your self to the collective, the question is not whether you will lose a major value like your partner or your ability to sleep at night, but when. (Or, perhaps, how often.) And this leads us to another lesson. If you look at all the political agendas of the 1960s, they basically failed. We didn't end capitalism, we didn't end imperialism, we didn't end racism. Yeah, the war ended. But if you look at the cultural agendas, they all worked. There's no place in the United States you can go today where you can't find organic food, alternative medical practices, alternative spiritual practices, women's issues and groups, environmental issues and groups. All those things got injected into the culture on a very deep level. My feeling is, and my hope is, that those things will eventually change the politics. The politics, obviously, are influenced by huge historical forces and a lot of base human impulses. [bold added] This passage immediately followed the last! Our hippie has lived through his ideals being put into practice and even been honest enough to admit that they have failed very unpleasantly, and yet he still supports them, and hopes they will continue to shape the world. Why on earth would he ever wish for that? He is impervious to evidence because he has decided that he will never call altruism into question. The best he ever did was choose hypocrisy occasionally in order to keep on living while paying lip-service to an ethics that would kill him if carried out consistently. The idea that collectivist restraints are good, and yet also meant for the hoi polloi has exactly this as its basis. This is why so many nominees and officials in Obama's idealistic kleptocracy are tax cheats. -- CAV This post was composed in advance and scheduled for publication at 5:00 A.M. on May 20, 2009. Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog I am intermittently working my way through the book version of Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture." Some time this weekend, I encountered his advice on time management and found it particularly worthwhile. Curious as to whether he had anything further to say on the subject, I was delighted to find that Pausch had delivered an hour-long lecture on the subject at the University of Virginia. As I will from time to time over the next few weeks, I am noting it here in part to remind myself about it later on when I have more time for it. I look forward to it, and have no doubt that it will be good. " /> " type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"> UVA Today reviewed the lecture and, in the process, recapitulated some of the points I remember Pausch making in his book. I particularly enjoyed his advice regarding telephone calls, and am always impressed with his value-driven approach to any subject he considers: Urging the audience to balance work and family life, he said people with partners and children are often good models for time management, because they have a more immediate sense of the cost of time. Pausch, a father of three, talked about how to set goals, how to avoid wasting time, how to delegate and how to deal with stress and procrastination. One of his goals for passing along this advice, he said, is to allow time for having fun. A master multi-tasker, he said a speaker-phone is a must to free up your hands, as are two or three computer screens -- it's the big desk you need, he declared. His latest time-saver is making necessary phone calls while riding his bicycle for exercise, talking via a headset. If you can't pull off that feat, make calls right before lunch to help keep them short. "You may think you're important, but you're not as important as lunch," he said. ... Pausch told the audience to " find your creative time and defend it ruthlessly." [bold added] Through a link to Pausch's web page late in the UVA Today article, I was able to find PDFs for the lecture transcript and slides hosted at the web site of his friend, Gabe Robins. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog The Worst of Both Worlds As John Marshall once put it, "The power to tax is the power to destroy." (Too bad he did not apply this wisdom with any degree of consistency.) Every government tax reduction in the name of "saving" an industry or "incentivizing" economic growth is a tacit admission of this fact, as well as a desire by voters to have their cake and eat it, too. Otherwise, there would be demands for permanent tax and spending cuts across the board. The practice of many politicians of pretending that such measures are capitalistic cedes the whole premise of property rights and muddies the vital debate over the proper role of government. This is bad enough, but at least the public remains free to debate. Enter Washington State to endanger that freedom with a tax cut: Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved a tax break for the state's troubled newspaper industry. The new law gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40 percent cut in the state's main business tax. The discounted rate mirrors breaks given in years past to the Boeing Co. and the timber industry. The similarity of the tax cut to that for Boeing is a red herring, and it obscures an essential difference between the industries in question. Boeing is not in the business of publishing news or opinion. As I noted in January when I heard the first whispers about newspaper "bailouts" coming from Frank Nicastro, a Connecticut lawmaker: Certainly, if Nicastro thinks the papers should start making changes to how they report the news, he has them where he wants them: by the purse-strings. Nicastro is, perhaps (and at best) well-intentioned, but suffering from the " dictator fantasy", and needs help imagining just how much worse his idea is than doing nothing, and allowing the papers to fail. Along those lines, I would first suggest that Nicastro imagine a hated political opponent succeeding him and leaning on the papers to make sure he looks good. Second, I would remind him that we already have examples of government "encouragement" of media tempting officials with having a say. For an example of this, note that Phil Berger, a counterpart of his from North Carolina, recently proposed to have the government review movie scripts before "incentivized" cameras could roll in his state. And, on top of all of this, there is the question of what constitutes a newspaper (and therefore qualifies for the tax break. This is a losing proposition for freedom of speech as well: The government will end up (a) deciding that certain outlets aren't "real" newspapers and taxing them fully, to their relative detriment, or ( regulating what they can and cannot say, in the name of making sure the tax breaks are properly implemented, or © some combination of both. This measure not only does nothing to advance economic freedom, it is very bad news for freedom of the press in particular and freedom of speech generally. Not surprisingly, the Feds are already considering a "Newspaper Revitalization Act." Our Court-Jester-in-Chief Cuts up again No sooner do I comment on Barack Obama's unspoken message of contempt for the rulers of his country does he prove me right. He has apparently taken to lecturing us on indebtedness right on the heels of "throwing trillions down a rathole," as Instapundit puts it. Cultural Note Regarding my use above of the phrase "cutting up:" That comes straight from my arrival at work the morning I wrote a post concerning Obama's obvious pleasure at Wanda Sykes' distasteful "jokes." As I passed a group of people chatting, someone saying, "Boom!" at the top of his lungs caught my attention, and it was immediately obvious that this was about the White House Correspondents' Dinner. "Wanda Sykes cuttin' up wit' de President!" was the last comment I could make out as I walked by. Idiots. "Cuttin' up?", I thought. "I haven't heard or used that phrase since approximately middle school." The whole idea of five grown men having a conversation about politics while assuming a schoolyard subtext with Obama in the role of favorite teacher was momentarily jarring. People like this vote, and they are impervious to reason. Yep. That's about the demographic Obama's aiming for. To the extent that he regards people with this mentality as his constituency, his contempt for voters has a basis in fact. Properly, one interested in cultural change writes off such flotsam and works to persuade thinking adults. And one shrugs such incidents off, and considers in that regard. Tap Your Own Brilliance My schedule is highly unfavorable for this, but Jean Moroney is offering a very interesting-looking teleclass in June: In my class, Tap Your Own Brilliance, I teach you exactly what to do if you feel overloaded, confused, conflicted, or blank. At such times you may feel like your brain has stopped functioning and has nothing to offer, but that's not true. I guarantee there is crucial information in your mental databanks that could help right at that moment. In my course, I'll teach you what to do. We'll cover one issue in each of four sessions: Picking Someone's Brain (Yours!): Learn how to get helpful, relevant information flowing from your databanks at the first sign of problems. Lassoing Runaway Thoughts: Find how to capture the good ideas when you're feeling overloaded, confused, or overwhelmed by emotions. Resolving Hidden Conflicts: See how to easily uncover and resolve conflicts that are causing you to flounder. Triggering New Insights: Discover a reliable way to prod new, helpful ideas from your subconscious when it feels like you've run dry. I will present a tool, explain what it is, how it works, and when to use it. Then you'll get to try out the tool, on an issue of your choice. You try the tactics on a real-life problem, in an in-class individual exercise. Each exercise is fairly short, usually only a few minutes, but they are long enough for you to see how powerfully the tactics focus your attention on top issues and help you zero in on answers. Plus, immediately after trying the technique, you'll have a chance to ask questions, hear other people's comments and questions, and get help and clarification. The class will take place over four ninety-minute sessions and will be limited to 15 participants. Objectivist Roundup This week, Try Reason! is hosting. Enjoy! -- CAV Updates 5-16-09: Corrected a typo. Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog The first time I heard the term "access" used as a euphemism for theft, I played hooky from work, endured a long wait for the pleasure of seeing a government official of the Virgin Islands texting, and got to hear a union thug in a Hawaiian shirt say, "we have the rocks." In other words, I was present for "testimony" at an "unofficial hearing of the House Judiciary Committee" regarding HR 676, aka the "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act"). The poor, as they claim, lack "access" to medical care. The implied solution, government insinuation in and control of medical care necessarily involves stealing from physicians, as put so well by the character Dr. Hendricks in Atlas Shrugged (HT: Doug Reich): I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind--yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it--and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't." (687) And now, from the very same people who are proclaiming that they'll take care of you comes the following admission that they will "take care of" you: Treasure the tax benefits from your health savings account? Some experts say the accounts encourage "excess consumption" of health services -- and committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) agreed they're worth a look. Money in the pot: $60 billion over 10 years. That's right: If you obtain more medical care than John Conyers, Barack Obama, or Donna Christian-Christensen (D-Virgin Islands) feel like allowing you to have, that's "excess consumption." I suppose that one way to get around your constituents not having "access" to medical care is to effectively make it illegal. -- CAV This post was composed in advance and scheduled for publication at 5:00 A.M. on May 14, 2009. Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog "So here I am -- Comrade Sonia -- ready to serve you all! Comrade students! We've got to stand up for our rights. We've got to learn to speak our proletarian will and make our enemies take notice. We've got to stamp our proletarian boot into their white throats and their treacherous intentions. Our Red schools are for Red students." -- Comrade Sonia in Ayn Rand's We the Living, p.64 The latest egalitarian to raise her combat boot for the purpose of planting it firmly on the throats of American citizens is Representative Linda Sanchez of California, who has introduced a bill, HR-1966, which is ostensibly to prevent "cyber--bullying," but which -- like a Texas bill that literally bans marriage -- is so vaguely written that it can be construed to criminalize a wide array of ordinary Internet activities. (Note that my link to the bill differs from that on page 2 of the Network World article cited by Ars Technica: Thomas, the web presence of the Library of Congress, seems to have a case of amnesia as I write this. OpenCongress, on the other hand, is working. Remember this the next time you hear some official complain that private enterprise can't be depended upon to get information out to the public.) Here is the text of the bill pertaining to cyber-bullying, as quoted by Network World: (a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. The article goes on to elaborate: The bill defines "communication" as "the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received." Electronic means" is defined as "any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, Web sites, telephones, and text messages." HR 1966, formally an amendment to Title 18, "Crimes and Criminal Procedure," of the U.S. Code, does not define any other term, including "severe emotional distress," "hostile" or even "behavior." "The law, if enacted, would clearly be facially overbroad (and probably unconstitutionally vague), and would thus be struck down on its face under the First Amendment," wrote Eugene Volokh, the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, and blogger in chief at The Volokh Conspiracy, an online legal blog. Volokh offered six quick sketches of the kinds of activities that could be prosecuted if HR 1966 becomes law, including trying to pressure a politician, organizing a boycott against a company with whose policies you disagree, or even sending angry e-mails to an unfaithful lover. Network World also notes that this bill has gotten very little attention so far. Nevertheless, we have a Congress that passes foolish legislation unread, and I am not so happy about our judiciary's track record of ruling laws void for vagueness. We should keep an eye out for this one. We live in interesting times -- made morbidly so by widespread confusion over the nature (and evil) of the initiation of physical force (and the proper role of government as an agent of retaliation against same). Mere words are being used as justification for real, unwarranted intrusions of force into the lives of people who merely want to exchange ideas. And thus it is that the real bully poses as a champion of the oppressed. -- CAV PS: I just remembered that "linda" is Spanish for "nice" or "pretty." As Fred G. Sanford might put it if he were an Objectivist blogger, "Beauty may be skin deep, but irony goes clear to the bone." This may be a cheap shot, but I do not deserve criminal prosecution for it. Nor has the government any right to to impose it upon me. Updates Today: Added a PS. Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog This week, we were all over the place! Voices for Reason, the blog of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, reports several appearances by Yaron Brook on PJTV last week. On top of that, other writers for the Ayn Rand Institute are starting to show up there, as well. You can see Harry Binswanger on YouTube after his appearance on Glenn Beck: " /> " type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"> Fellow bloggers Paul Hsieh and Amit Ghate each got editorials published by Pajamas Media. Respectively, they were "Health Care Reform vs. Universal Health Care" and "Questioning the Value of Regulation." Closer to home, Houston's own Brian Phillips received an Instalanche after using a very interesting statistic to illustrate a point about the relatively free economy America's fourth-largest city enjoys. Last but not least, Titanic Deck Chairs is hosting the ninety-fifth weekly Objectivist Blog Carnival. We're now approaching two years of solid roundups on a weekly basis. Back when I started blogging, I don't think there were even as many Objectivist blogs as there are features to this week's roundup. That's good progress, and I'm not sure I would have believed it possible back in 2004 to have come so far so fast. And now? I'm wondering whether I've left anything out! If so, feel free to leave a comment. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Warner Todd Huston discusses a report that ranks personal freedom by state. Apparently, I will be moving myself from the fifth-freest state in the union to the forty-second later this month: According to a new study released by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, some of our most liberal states rank at the bottom in a measure of personal freedom. " Freedom in the 50 States, an index of personal and economic freedom," finds the most free states to be first New Hampshire, then Colorado, followed by S. Dakota, Idaho, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Arizona, Virginia and N. Dakota.The bottom ten least free states in the U.S. are (in descending order) Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Hawaii, Maryland, California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and bringing up the bottom is New York. Huston cites the excerpt about New York, the least-free state in the union according to the study, to give us a feel for what went into the rankings: New York is by far the least free state in the Union (#50 economic, #48 personal). One of us lives in New York and can attest to the fact that few New Yorkers would be surprised by such a finding. Sadly, equally few New Yorkers seem to believe that anything can be done about the situation. New York has the highest taxes in the country. Property, selective sales, individual income, and corporate income taxes are particularly high. Spending on social services and “other” is well above national norms. Only Massachusetts has more government debt as a percentage of the economy. Government employment is higher than average. On personal freedoms, gun laws are extremely restrictive, but marijuana laws are better than average (while tobacco laws are extremely strict). Motorists are highly regulated, but several kinds of gambling are allowed statewide (not casinos, except on reservations). Home school regulations are burdensome, but asset forfeiture has been reformed. Along with Vermont, New York has the strictest health insurance community rating regulations. Mandated coverages are also very high. Eminent domain is totally unreformed. Perversely,the state strictly limits what grassroots PACs may give to candidates and parties, but not what corporations and unions may give. On page 5 of the PDF, available at the link, the criteria for the rankings are made more explicit. In part: We rank all fifty states on overall respect for individual freedom and on components of freedom: "Fiscal Policy," "Regulatory Policy," and "Paternalism." Our approach in this report is to weight policies according to the number of people affected by the policy, the intensity of preferences on the issue, and the importance of state policy variation. However, we happily concede that different people value aspects of freedom differently. Hence, we provide the raw data and weightings on our website... It should come as no surprise that I learned of this study through a conservative-leaning web site, RealClear Politics or that Huston writes for a blog called The Next Right. Indeed, Huston even headlines his entry, "New Study: America's Most Liberal States Rank Least Free." At long last, the ailing conservative movement has something to crow about. Or has it? Having grown up in Mississippi and lived over half my life in Texas, I am all too familiar with the theocratic tendencies of some of the "redder" parts of the electoral map. Blue laws weren't off the books in my home town until just as I was leaving for college, nor did I ever see an entire commercial for wine until I'd left for college in Texas. Much later on, a friend in Texas who was considering a run for public office (and wanted to allow grocery stores in his city to sell wine) told me about the unbelievable pressure various local ministers were placing on him to forget about that part of his platform. And then, of course, my adopted state has fairly recently passed sloppy, theocratically-motivated legislation that makes it possible to charge some physicians who perform abortions with murder and arguably bans marriage. And, oh yeah, a theocrat -- same link -- was talking about charging soon-to-wed couples a fee for not taking a marriage counseling course. This is the fifth-freest state in the union? This is Texas? To be fair, Huston links to the study, which openly admits not weighing certain things, like abortion and capital punishment: Our definition of freedom presents specific challenges on some high-profile issues. Abortion is a critical example. On one account, the fetus is a rights-bearing person, and abortion is therefore an aggressive violation of individual rights that ought to be punished by government. On another account, the fetus does not have rights, and abortion is a permissible exercise of an individual liberty, in which case government regulation of abortion would be an unjust violation of a woman’s rights. Rather than take a stand on one side or the other (or anywhere in between), we have coded the data on state abortion restrictions but have not included the policy in our overall index. Another example is the death penalty. Some would argue that a murderer forfeits her own right to life, and therefore state execution of a murderer does not violate a basic right to life. Others contend that the right to life can never be forfeited or that the state should never risk taking away all the rights of innocent individuals by mistakenly executing them. The authors of the study claim to view freedom in terms of individual rights, but they sidestep the issue of whether a fetus has rights. At least they admit doing so. This does not make their work useless, but as an advocate of individual rights, I will not play into the hands of theocrats by uncritically spouting these rankings, nor will I sit idly by while religionists (and their "battered wife" secular allies) use them to sweep under the rug the vital, fundamental issue of what constitutes the basis for individual rights. If a fetus has rights, states that attempt to restrict abortion are more free. If not, then such states are less free. I think that the latter is the case, because fetuses are only potential human beings, not actual human beings. So when conservatives start talking about how the "red states" are not just freer in economic terms, but in terms of personal freedom, remember the qualifications stated in this report. The odds are good that someone is pulling a fast one -- or being duped into helping someone else do the same. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog Voting with Their Feet Before noting that Houston's leaders are working to kill the goose that lays its golden eggs, Brian Phillips cites a very interesting statistic: When comparing California with Texas,U-Haul says it all. To rent a 26-foot truck one way from San Francisco to Austin, the charge is $3,236, and yet the one-way charge for that same truck from Austin to San Francisco is just $399. Clearly what is happening is that far more people want to move from San Francisco to Austin than vice versa, so U-Haul has to pay its own employees to drive the empty trucks back from Texas. Our elected leaders enact policies -- obviously demanded by the body politic -- that destroy prosperity and yet people who have to live under such policies find that they cannot -- and leave. This reminds me of Cass Sunstein. This difference between the altruistic morality that people profess (and attempt to make others abide by through law) and the selfish one they actually live by (if with imperfect consistency), lends surface credibility to Sunstein's Platonic notion (summarized by Doug Reich) that: Sunstein relies on a distinction between what he calls the "consumer" and "the citizen" arguing that our behavior as consumers differs from our behavior as "citizens". In other words, as "consumers" we act selfishly and might indulge in the inane mindlessness of "infotainment" or "sports" news whereas when we act as "citizens" we adopt the high minded aspirations of the thinker busily considering such monumental topics as "environmental protection" or "antidiscrimination". Note the Platonic separation of the world into a sort of "imperfect" realm of immediate, brute reality which we approach as a "consumer" and the higher, idealized realm of "the citizen"... Of course, Sunstein disdains selfishness, and so focuses on things like "infotainment." As an altruist, he sees nothing wrong with this state of affairs. As a pragmatist and collectivist, he wants to use this to promote a state that forces people to act more in line with how they should, according to altruism. And as a determinist, he thinks the state has to do this. At the end of his post, Reich points to web site focused on stopping Sunstein from being confirmed as Obama's "Regulatory Czar." And that may not be the only post we have to be concerned about. Sunstein's name is already appearing on "short lists" of possible replacements for David Souter, who recently announced plans to retire from the Supreme Court. Fascist Thuggery From several sources I am reading ominous reports of thuggery by the current administration on behalf of its efforts to "fix" our economy. Via Amit Ghate is a link to blog post that reproduces the following unsubstantiated story about an encounter between the "Car Czar" and the manager of a hedge fund owning some Chrysler debt: Who the fuck do you think you're dealing with? We'll have the IRS audit your fund. Every one of your employees. Your investors. Then we will have the Securities and Exchange Commission rip through your books looking for anything and everything and nothing we find to destroy you with. Sadly, Respice Finem also produces ample documented accounts that collectively make the point that such an encounter is well within the realm of possibility. Glenn Reynolds notes that Jake Tapper has been looking into this matter. A leading bankruptcy attorney representing hedge funds and money managers told ABC News Saturday that Steve Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration's Auto Industry Task Force, threatened one of the firms, an investment bank, that if it continued to oppose the administration's Chrysler bankruptcy plan, the White House would use the White House press corps to destroy its reputation. The White House and a spokesperson for the investment bank in question challenged the accuracy of the story. Tapper is a senior White House correspondent for ABC News. As Amit Ghate puts it, "I strongly suggest you make your voice heard before it's no longer possible." Caspar Milquetoast After listening to Tom Waits' song. "The Piano Has Been Drinking" (a somewhat "cleaner" version from a seventies television appearance of his can be seen ), I looked up "Caspar Milquetoast" and found a blog that has posted several examples of the comic strip (The Timid Soul) that has given us the idiom. Some of [these cartoons] are more wry observations, some laugh-out-loud funny. We all know a Caspar Milquetoast. Sometimes Webster used subtlety, as in the drawing where the census taker asks, "Are you the head of the household?" Caspar's sidelong glance at his wife tells us all we need to know. Yes, I might want to buy myself a copy of The Best of H.T. Webster, after seeing these. Past - Present - Principles Dianne Durante has set up a blog which she describes as a "trial run for a website I'd like to produce that would offer short essays on major events in American history, with suggested readings from Ayn Rand and Objectivist scholars." It's called Past - Present - Principles and she's looking for advertisers. You can also find Past - Present - Principles linked from Forgotten Delights, as well. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog House Votes to Criminalize Opinion Through this blog entry linked at The Houston Chronicle, I learned that the House was considering HR 1913, a "hate crime" bill. The writer at The Black Shards Chronicle makes an argument against the very concept very much like one I made a few years ago in The Undercurrent. As I said then: Punishing someone for his beliefs in addition to his actual crime is, in fact, exactly the opposite of what the government should be doing. For example, if someone gets ten years for a crime and has two more added on because he is "guilty" of a "hate crime," he's being jailed two years for his ideas by the government. As of this morning, the bill has passed. I am not sure whether WorldNetDaily is correct that a minister can now be prosecuted under this bill, "should their teachings be linked to any subsequent offense," but it certainly paves the way for it. (Proper laws -- against actual incitement -- are already on the books, just as they are for assault, rape, and murder.) Also, as I noted then, the conservative movement is hardly opposing this latest assault on freedom: A 2007 Hart Research poll shows large majorities of every major subgroup of the American electorate -- including such traditionally conservative groups as Republican men and evangelical Christians -- expressing support for strengthening hate crimes laws. The headline? "Log Cabin Republicans applauds passage of hate crimes prevention." Playboy Interviews Ayn Rand Jeff Scialabba of the Ayn Rand Institute reports that, "Playboy has posted its dynamite 1964 interview with Ayn Rand." Objectivist Roundups Last week, Rational Jenn hosted. This week, it will be is at Stephen Bourque's blog, One Reality. Drat! Gotta make that submission deadline next time! Additional note to self: Watch this video. Leonard Nimoy and hobbits! How can I lose? My wife will probably like it, too. Handouts against Handouts! Paul Hsieh notes that printouts of the PDF version of "Health Care is Not a Right" would make excellent handouts to have on hand for the next round of Tea Party protests and tells you how to get the PDF. Altruism vs. Beauty -- and Courtesy Jennifer Snow writes a very thought-provoking post, taking the oft-alleged "objectification" of women as her point of departure: But saying that a woman who clearly has put in quite a lot of effort is "ugly"? To me, this is frankly disturbing. The ramifications of a statement like that are incredible, particularly when it is made in front of another woman as a sort of compliment, which is how I hear this most often. Even if I ascribe the best of intent to the man making the statement--he is saying this particular woman is not his type--it implies an ugly comparative standard. He is saying to the other woman present that she should be pleased because he is elevating HER appearance above that of this other, idolized woman. I'm sorry, but no rational person wants to be valued only because they're BETTER THAN someone else. They want to be valued because they are good by an objective standard. [bold added] Read the whole thing. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog

By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog I was at the airport looking for a newspaper when I saw the headlines about GM's nationalization "deal." I immediately muttered something like, "I'll never buy anything from GM again." Not that I was planning to do so, anyway. Myrhaf and Billy Beck have already discussed the matter, with Beck specifically catching another blogger framing the event in a way I have seen before, but in another context. (More on that momentarily.) After quoting TigerHawk referring to the government takeover as an "experiment," Beck weighs in: I understand the man's sense of humor and its well-earned reputation 'sphere-wide. I would point out that this could only be considered an "experiment" in the style of fourth-grade baking soda and vinegar volcanoes in custard dishes. In other words, all grown-ups know what's going to happen here. The fact that it's unprecedented doesn't mean that it can't be seen coming... [bold added] This is very succinctly put, although with the reign of confusion that permeates much conservative discourse, I am almost as loathe to speak of "grown-ups" as I am to call this foolishness an "experiment." Regarding the GM "experiment," TigerHawk notes that its "lessons" will be applicable to the subject of socialized medicine. A commenter -- assuming, perhaps rhetorically, that evidence actually matters to advocates of socialized medicine -- notes that this "test" is happening too late in the game. Be that as it may, TigerHawk has a point: This maneuver will fail for the same reason that any government takeover of medicine will fail. That's all fair and good, but this analogy very closely resembles a mistake I see time and time again by conservatives and libertarians: Treating public policy debates as if they exist outside the realm of ideology. One prime example of this I saw awhile back when Arnold Kling proposed what I could only call, "Libertarian medical experiments," proposing in all seriousness that "four or five diverse states adopt" socialized medicine on an experimental basis for some sort of standardized comparison to other states a few years down the line. Just a few issues: Whose standards would be used? Will four or five other states get government completely out of medicine as a control? The latter never comes up. Most important, by what right can people be compelled to participate? That also never comes up. If Arnold Kling can dislike socialized medicine, and yet end up proposing its liberty-crushing and life-threatening adoption in several states, it is precisely because he foolishly sees freedom as uncontroversial and in no need of an intellectual or moral defense. This attitude is reflected in his willingness to treat individual human beings as laboratory animals. Another example comes from a favorite columnist of mine, Thomas Sowell, who makes this same error across the board when he speaks of "adolescent intellectuals." As I said then: [sowell's] error is a common one, in which he treats an implicitly rational, reality-oriented philosophical outlook as a given, rather than as an implicit example of just another possible ideology. My last would doubtless strike many, probably including Sowell himself, as moral relativism at first blush, but it is not. For if the rational, "adult" ideology that Sowell implicitly favors can be judged as an ideology, so must all other ideologies be examined under the cold light of reason, and compared against the facts of reality, which include the requirements for man's survival. It is easy, but wrong, to hold all intellectuals in such disdain, for to do so is to cede the deadly premise that so many of them have that a rational philosophy is not worthy of consideration in the marketplace of ideas, that ideology is somehow the one realm of human endeavor that is exempt from reason. Indeed, it allows them to go on pretending this is the case. Worse, it allows them to continue their attack against rational morality openly and unashamedly, while doing real damage to our civilization. [bold added] It is fine, but not enough, to liken the GM "experiment" to a middle school demo whose results are pre-ordained, but the comparison should go further than that. It's as if we're in a classroom with a sadistic instructor who knows that dropping water into concentrated acid will cause it to spatter -- or that elemental sodium dropped into a beaker of water can cause a glass-shattering explosion-- and yet he forces the whole class to perform these experiments again and again. If your child were in such a school, you would withdraw him immediately, and would have no doubt that the "instructor" was a moral monster. And yet our public has no such qualms about government officials who play similar games with our freedom, our finances, and our lives. This analogy partially breaks down when you remember that, we, the public, are both parent and child. Nevertheless, if you go just a bit further, and ask why so many "parents" are still willing to send their kids to such a "school", you will begin to see why -- if you don't already -- the battle for freedom is a moral one, and why massive cultural change must precede any lasting or significant political change. Any parent who would permit his child to suffer such "instruction" would have to be very ignorant at best or in agreement that the such a method of instruction is acceptable. Unfortuanately, we who disagree with such parents live in the same republic, and can currently be compelled to live with many of their foolish choices. The only solution is to work to help as many of the mistaken partents see what is wrong, and to win allies in the fight to sack the sadists in charge. -- CAV Cross-posted from Metablog