Gus Van Horn blog

Via the Harry Binswanger Letter, I learned of a fantastic editorial from the British press regarding the situation in Iran and what the West ought to do.

In "Iran Is About to Start a Nuclear World War -- and the West Is Determined to Lose," Allister Heath makes the following statement, which would have been obvious decades ago, but is controversial today:Heath contrasts this with the actual policy of evasion and appeasement the West is continuing instead, which he demonstrates is a serious danger by placing this conflict within its broader context of warmongering by the authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, and North Korea: "[T]he Islamic Republic is the weakest link, the least difficult one to deal with today, if we had the sense to act."

I highly recommend reading this rare jewel of clarity and urgent call to action, and publicizing it by whatever means one has.

-- CAVLink to Original

Since he became speaker based solely on his loyalty to Trump -- a man who would throw his own mother under the bus on a whim -- I had an extremely low estimate of Speaker Mike Johnson.

After he ignored such luminaries as Marjorie Taylor Greene to pass a military aid package, that estimate is slightly higher: He would seem possessed of enough low cunning or even common sense to know when and how to work with political opponents to achieve a goal.

Writing at UnHerd, Fred Bauer outlines the ways the other Trump loyalists (who are now calling for Johnson's head) screwed themselves by preemptively writing off any and all cooperation with the Democrats:Just as Bauer accurately describes how the populist kook wing of the GOP got nothing by demanding everything, I believe he pretty accurately foretells the future when he considers the deep reflection this should cause among them, but won't:The likes of Greene are so blinded by rage at the left that they cannot see how stupid they are behaving or entertain the idea of achieving part of what they want, under the current political makeup of the legislative and judicial branches. I am no fan of Joe Biden, but this is a textbook example of how not to win against a political opponent, and I can't think of a political faction I'd want doing this more.

The silver lining here is that Johnson has shown that there is room for a halfway sane legislative agenda to get passed in a closely-divided House: There will be enough center-left and center-right votes to pass measures that aren't too nutty for every member of either party to block, and that the authoritarian wings of each party can be marginalized.

One cheer for Mike Johnson.

-- CAVLink to Original

Some time back, I tweeted a Value for Value post by Peter Schwartz which explains how our culture's dominant ethical code, altruism, justifies supporting Hamas over Israel, despite the demands of justice to do exactly the opposite.

Schwartz says in part:Now that Iran, a nation nearly ten times more populous than Israel, has more directly waged war against Israel, it would be interesting to quiz the above schoolteacher about which side she is on.

I would not expect her allegiance to have shifted, despite the fact that Israel had enough help repelling that attack that it is a fair question whether it could have done so alone.

Absent the ability to ask directly, we can get the answer by consulting a recent Brendan O'Neill article article at Sp!ked. It is titled "How Woke Leftists Became Cheerleaders for Iran," and I think the below is crucial to understanding why we're seeing mass "demonstrations" by people claiming to be in favor of this warmongering regime's "right" to "self-defense:"The whole idea that all of Israel is Caucasian or that the Islamic world is entirely brown-skinned is nearly as ridiculous as assuming that race determines character or as using white as code for oppressor and brown for needy or oppressed.

If anyone needs disabusing of the notion that the left stands for racial equality or individual rights, what we're seeing unfold -- the use of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to excuse racially slurring Israelis as white (which is a racial slur coming from the left these days) en route to enabling their extermination -- should concern anyone with a grain of rationality or a sense of justice.

By casting the alleged neediness of Palestine and Iran -- and Israel's well-earned strength -- as racial attributes, the left has excused making the mindless siding with terrorists in the name of altruism permanent.

They're coming for the Jews now, and they will come for the rest of West as soon as is convenient. We're all "colonialists" now, according to the left, anyway.

-- CAVLink to Original

Some time back, I tweeted a Value for Value post by Peter Schwartz which explains how our culture's dominant ethical code, altruism, justifies supporting Hamas over Israel, despite the demands of justice to do exactly the opposite.

Schwartz says in part:Now that Iran, a nation nearly ten times more populous than Israel, has more directly waged war against Israel, it would be interesting to quiz the above schoolteacher about which side she is on.

I would not expect her allegiance to have shifted, despite the fact that Israel had enough help repelling that attack that it is a fair question whether it could have done so alone.

Absent the ability to ask directly, we can get the answer by consulting a recent Brendan O'Neill article article at Sp!ked. It is titled "How Woke Leftists Became Cheerleaders for Iran," and I think the below is crucial to understanding why we're seeing mass "demonstrations" by people claiming to be in favor of this warmongering regime's "right" to "self-defense:"The whole idea that all of Israel is Caucasian or that the Islamic world is entirely brown-skinned is nearly as ridiculous as assuming that race determines character or as using white as code for oppressor and brown for needy or oppressed.

If anyone needs disabusing of the notion that the left stands for racial equality or individual rights, what we're seeing unfold -- the use of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to excuse racially slurring Israelis as white (which is a racial slur coming from the left these days) en route to enabling their extermination -- should concern anyone with a grain of rationality or a sense of justice.

By casting the alleged neediness of Palestine and Iran -- and Israel's well-earned strength -- as racial attributes, the left has excused making the mindless siding with terrorists in the name of altruism permanent.

They're coming for the Jews now, and they will come for the rest of West as soon as is convenient. We're all "colonialists" now, according to the left, anyway.

-- CAVLink to Original

Over the weekend and from its own territory, Iran launched a barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, using Israel's attack on its "embassy" in Syria as an excuse.

I recommend Yaron Brook's real-time reporting and commentary (embedded here). I was out running errands when I began listening. Any time I checked, I found him to be well ahead of other outlets both in terms of timeliness and quality of information.

The whole thing was barely a blip in mainstream media, and even sites like the Drudge Report were somewhat late.

At one point, Brook noted the issue with the most military significance at present: Iran doesn't have the nuclear capability it has been trying to develop.

This attack could have been far worse, and harder to deal with if that had not been the case. And after this weekend there is no doubt that this scenario must be averted, in the minimal form of the destruction of Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.

Ideally, the West also does whatever it can to topple the murderous, theocratic regime behind the attack and decades of terrorism and proxy conflicts. See also "End States That Sponsor Terrorism," by Leonard Peikoff.

As became apparent during the podcast, the need to end Iran's nuclear capability is a point many in Israel seem to grasp, as the following, quote of former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett, tweeted by Open Source Intel would indicate:That army of useful idiots -- the ninnies who are worrying about "escalation" -- are ignoring what happened on October 7 and over this weekend: Iran has already escalated unprovoked twice, and is going to escalate again, anyway. Its threats of doing worse if Israel retaliates are superflous and should be ignored, because these theocrats plan atrocities, genocide, and tyranny regardless of what we do.

This is war. We should fight it on our own terms.

This attack on Israel is a proxy attack on the West by dogs that smell fear. Let's snuff out these animals while they are still weak.

-- CAVLink to Original

Over the weekend and from its own territory, Iran launched a barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, using Israel's attack on its "embassy" in Syria as an excuse.

I recommend Yaron Brook's real-time reporting and commentary (embedded here). I was out running errands when I began listening. Any time I checked, I found him to be well ahead of other outlets both in terms of timeliness and quality of information.

The whole thing was barely a blip in mainstream media, and even sites like the Drudge Report were somewhat late.

At one point, Brook noted the issue with the most military significance at present: Iran doesn't have the nuclear capability it has been trying to develop.

This attack could have been far worse, and harder to deal with if that had not been the case. And after this weekend there is no doubt that this scenario must be averted, in the minimal form of the destruction of Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.

Ideally, the West also does whatever it can to topple the murderous, theocratic regime behind the attack and decades of terrorism and proxy conflicts. See also "End States That Sponsor Terrorism," by Leonard Peikoff.

As became apparent during the podcast, the need to end Iran's nuclear capability is a point many in Israel seem to grasp, as the following, quote of former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett, tweeted by Open Source Intel would indicate:That army of useful idiots -- the ninnies who are worrying about "escalation" -- are ignoring what happened on October 7 and over this weekend: Iran has already escalated unprovoked twice, and is going to escalate again, anyway. Its threats of doing worse if Israel retaliates are superflous and should be ignored, because these theocrats plan atrocities, genocide, and tyranny regardless of what we do.

This is war. We should fight it on our own terms.

This attack on Israel is a proxy attack on the West by dogs that smell fear. Let's snuff out these animals while they are still weak.

-- CAVLink to Original

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. According to New ideal, the Ayn Rand Institute is promoting a booklet titled Finding Morality and Happiness Without God, and quotes author Onkar Ghate:Mentioning happiness in the title should intrigue the more active-minded: Thanks to religion, most people associate fear and guilt with morality, and are reluctant if not afraid to think about this life-and-death topic.

We can blame the all-encompassing cultural stranglehold of religion for the fact that, while the true purpose of morality should be a huge sales advantage for Objectivism in the marketplace of ideas, it will cause suspicion for most.

I think the exeception I noted above will more than offset the current disadvantage, since those who will be intrigued will inlcude some future intellectuals.

2. At How to Be Profitable and Moral, Jaana Woiceshyn advocates the free market as the solution the medical care crisis caused by Canada's government-run system.

She outlines what this might look like in part:It is worth noting why Woiceshyn goes into such detail: The lack of truly private systems worldwide makes "envisioning how such a system would work ... difficult."

3. At Thinking Directions, Jean Moroney addresses an interesting question that I'd put as What is the difference between a habit and an internal (psychological or mental) context?This is an important distinction: bad habits and unhelpful contexts make desirable self-directed action harder, but because they have different causes, combating or replacing them requires different approaches, which Moroney discusses throughout.

4. At Value for Value, Harry Binswanger considers the common claim that the United States is a "representative democracy."

The most interesting part of the piece to me was the following:Picking one term from those available is ubiquitous today, and explains lots of what is wrong with the current political discourse. And that means not just that practically everyone falls into it on at least some issues, but it can be easy for those who don't to forget or be unaware that that is what often happens. This can affect how best to argue for a good position.

The rest of the piece is highly instructive, both for its demonstration of the correct method of approaching the question and for its answer.

-- CAVLink to Original

Over at The Bulwark is an instructive article titled "From Intellectual Dark Web to Crank Central" that follows the inevitable downward arc of a group of dissident intellectuals whose only unifying characteristic was that they had been ostracized from or chose not to participate in the leftist intellectual establishment.

The article credits Bari Weiss's 2018 reservations about the group with being "prescient." Cathy Young quotes Weiss: "Could the intellectual wildness that made this alliance of heretics worth paying attention to become its undoing?"

This is so prescient that it is practically a rhetorical question: As with atheism or any other mere rejection of an orthodoxy, being against something leaves wide open what one stands for.

There is nothing inherently wrong with stating opposition to an orthodoxy. Sometimes, all one has the time or energy or public visibility to do is to make it known that one does not support some horrible idea or trend.

But since this leaves open the question of why one opposes something, doing so as part of a group makes it look like one might agree with what other members of the group do believe. Doing so beyond a very specific issue is a big mistake, as the better members of this group learned over time:The piece reads like an up-to-date What Not to Do companion to Ayn Rand's 1972 Essay, "What Can One Do?", in which she cautioned against forming alliances with people whose stand on an issue might cause them to pass as fellow travelers, but who really aren't allies:When discussing compromise, Rand warned:The essay illustrates this in spades, and on multiple levels, from Sam Harris's having to distance himself from anti-vaxxers to individuals being tempted, often successfully, to sell out to keep the large audiences of kooks they ended up with by associating with this group. Young calls this last "audience capture."

It is not enough to oppose an evil like "wokeness." One must do so for the right reasons, articulate those reasons, and offer a positive alternative. Joining forces with anyone who does not also do those things will ultimately backfire.

-- CAVLink to Original

If Venezuela's Chavista regime held actual elections, they would probably lose the next one, according to a recent Wall Street Journal profile of Corina Yoris, the 80-year old grandmother whose 10-party coalition carefully vetted her and applied for her to run as their standard-bearer against Nicolás Maduro, the leftist dictator of Venezuela.

This they did after their previous candidate, Maria Corina Machado, was blocked from running:The candidate, unlike the two incoherent old men running for President in the United States, is someone I might support.

For one thing, she advocates free markets:For another, she is in full possession of her mental faculties, unlike her American counterparts, and uses them more effectively than most people do at half her age:Oh, and she is also much more benevolent than the two bitter old men we have here.

Sadly for Venezuela, the Maduro regime, scared of this kind, elderly lady and the optimistic, sunny view of the world she represents, has, predictably, blocked her election bid, like the cowards that they are.

-- CAVLink to Original

"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby." -- Penn Jillette

***
Lately, articles about the increasing percentage of Americans who aren't "religious" -- like this and this -- have been popping up.

Please consider the italicized quote above any time you encounter one of these.

Why?

Because (1) In today's increasingly tribalistic, anti-individualist Zeitgeist, it would appear that the first impulse is to lump together any group of people to which one can apply a label. (2) So many people lack intellectual rigor that many labels are next to meaningless, anyway.

The first piece, about "nonreligious" people includes some whose stated beliefs include all the hallmarks of religion; they just aren't enrolled in a church:Indeed, somewhere, buried in the piece, is the closest thing it comes to offering its own definition of "nonreligious:" They. Really. Don't. Like. Organized. Religion.

Given how "the nones' diversity splinters them into myriad subgroups," don't expect to be able to learn anything meaningful from the rest of the piece.

Even the second article, about "atheists" talks about people I'd say are actually religious:With that much latitude in the term, it is ridiculous to wonder -- as the article starts out doing -- why more atheists are reluctant to volunteer that fact about themselves.

The negative stereotypes and bigotry on the part of many religious people don't help, but if a term has been emptied of all meaning, why bandy it about?

I am an atheist, and would describe myself as circumspect, but not shy about it. I reject nearly everything about religion, especially professing to believe things absent evidence, and equating morality to a set of supernatural orders that have nothing to do with reason or life on earth. These two things are direct threats to a life proper to a rational animal.

If I have a realistic chance of making my world a better place by challenging these evil practices, I will do so. (This is the not shy part.) If doing so will change nothing, except expose me or loved ones to harm by bigots or actual thugs, I will not. (This is the circumspect part.) Self-sacrifice is against my moral code.

But simply saying I'm an atheist, or I'm not religious at all is only the start of a conversation.

Religion is not the only alternative out there for moral guidance or reflection. Not adhering to religion is not the only aspect of my thinking and my personality.

Stating that I am an atheist is thus something that I would hope would at least provoke thought in another, and perhaps require a conversation on my part. The person hearing that from me, or the occasion calling for me to say this, has to be worth it.

I find the widespread need to "come out" as something that is so common today both sad and puzzling. Our culture causes most people to feel alienated because it is increasingly blind to or disdainful of the individual. Many people yearn for some measure of visibility, and aren't getting it. But past a certain point, it is puzzling that many people have such a weak sense of themselves that they will compromise on almost anything to "belong."

I'm not sure what to say about that, except, perhaps to advise that one should well understand one's reasons for disclosing one's beliefs, or not. Fashion is probably the worst reason to do either.

-- CAVLink to Original

Over at Hot Air, Jazz Shaw discusses the decision by Democrat strategist Hal Malchow to go abroad in order to end his own life on his own terms, before he loses his mind to Alzheimer's Disease.

Before this story broke, I was unaware that even in American states that have legalized physician-assisted suicide, the laws apply only to people with a fatal condition who will die in a few months.

Malchow, after seeing his mother deteriorate with the disease, got himself tested for its genetic markers and discovered that he would eventually succumb to the same fate:Malchow had to travel to Switzerland to do something that should be a matter of making one's intent legally clear, settling one's affairs, and going to a hospital.

This should serve as a wake-up call to anyone who would want the option to end life on one's own terms in the event of a catastrophic illness that involves a lengthy period of deterioration.

Legal protection of the right to seek out assistance in suicide faces two major obstacles, one a legitimate concern and one not.

Malchow's story mentions one along the way:Because the law exists to protect the individual's rights, it should be non-trivial to exercise this right, because of the possibility of a momentary lapse of sound judgement or pressure from, say, relatives hoping for an early inheritance. These are legitimate concerns, and it appears -- contrary to theocratic smears -- that jurisdictions that recognize this right have accounted for them.

And speaking of theocratic smears, Jazz Shaw brings up the other, illegitimate obstacle:They may argue, but the argument is based on an arbitrary premise that has no place as a basis for law. Or, as I said last year:If the law permits euthanasia, and the state is barred from ordering executions, then anyone worried about offending an imaginary being can choose to continue suffering.

I find it interesting that the same religion that condemns suicide was fine with "Kill them. The Lord knows those that are his own," back when it held power. Those who claim that death and suffering are God's will bring exactly those things to those who will not fight against them.

They did it on a grand scale in the Middle Ages, and they do it now, every time someone who would want a dignified end to an inhuman future is denied that end by a superstitious taboo enshrined as law.

-- CAVLink to Original

Before the GOP became a nationalist/theocratic cesspit, it was a band of cowards who would soil themselves the moment some leftist brought up poverty while they posed as champions of capitalism.

Today, they have found a way to be even more disgraceful: Throw capitalism under the bus, and adapt left-wing arguments to be deployed against ... porn.

This is both a trial balloon and a proof-of concept. If this succeeds, just wait to see how else they'll try cram their religious strictures down your throat.

The below is buried within a Reason Magazine article, about Mike Lee's (R-Utah) PROTECT Act, which could ban all existing pornography from the internet as it is written today.

The rationale will sound familiar to anyone who grew up (as I did) while the South was under the thumb of Southern Baptists and to anyone whose has suffered an RSI to his eye muscles (as mine have) by rolling his eyes every time some mealy-mouthed leftist has used poverty as an excuse for crime (individual theft not sanctioned by the state) or redistributionism (theft performed by the state):That's right. After decades of being too frightened to contest the idea that one man's need is another man's moral duty, conservatives haven't bothered to think for themselves for once, or (if they ever did) finally dared to say Nobody owes another anything simply because he needs it.

No. They have instead chosen to say, Okay. Men are obligated to arrange their lives around the needs of others, and we declare that others 'need' to be unable to see porn -- or anything else we decide is 'offensive' to the deity we have never proved exists and whose will we claim to know.

What's next? Welfare for "porn exploitation survivors"? Don't laugh: Conservatives are now big fans of welfare for women whom they've denied abortions to.

I said years ago that the moment a religious conservative saw a conflict between his religion and freedom, he would throw freedom under the bus.

As usual, I was right.

Today, they're going after the porn industry, an easily demonized target.

What will they do tomorrow?

Rank-and-file conservatives would do well to stop cheering abuses like this, and salivating over what they hope people like Mike Lee will target next. Rather, they should consider something they like that some nut from a religion not their own somewhere might object to, and think about that getting banned on some equally ridiculous pretext.

-- CAVLink to Original

A Vox article about the Boeing safety scandal cites the following example of what it calls the FAA "get[ting it] right about airplane regulation:"The FAA doesn't ban the practice because car travel -- which many people might choose if lap children were banned -- is much less safe than air travel, even when children are held on a lap rather than in a separate seat.

The author praises this as an example of big-picture thinking and she is correct that the way the FAA chose to regulate does improve overall safety.

But I have argued in the past that such examples of regulations that mimic rational behavior often fail to account for the cost of lost individual freedom inherent in the uncontested premise that it is appropriate for the state to do our risk calculations for us.

Indeed, thanks to the regulatory state, we are lucky lap children aren't outlawed. I'd prefer not to leave something like that to chance.

I will grant one cheer for the FAA on this matter: So long as we are saddled with a regulatory state (rather than advisory bodies), the least it can do is base its laws on hard science and err on the side of liberty. But the fact that we have dual agencies in disagreement should illustrate the peril inherent in the regulatory state.

That is the big picture that the entire regulatory state misses, but which our founders well understood and hoped to protect us against when, long ago, they declared:I, for one, would rather make up my own mind about what is safest for myself and my children, than have my safety and my options hemmed in by the whims of bureaucrats.

In the big picture, the best way for the government to protect my safety would be for it to protect my freedom to look after myself.

-- CAVLink to Original

Regulars here know that I take issue with the way touchscreens are deployed in many (if not most) newer cars.

Granted, they provide a viewer for a back-up cam, cut costs for controls, and allow for greater dashboard functionality through software.

But because much of this software is written poorly and controls are indiscriminately moved to the touchscreen, the result is often a frustrating mess of poorly laid-out controls and nested menus that is a real safety hazard because many simple things drivers used to be able to do by touch, like adjust fan controls, now require them to take their eyes off the road.

In today's nanny state, the first impulse most people will have will be to scream Force manufacturers to have buttons and knobs again! Not only is this an abuse of government, such abuses are at least partially responsible for the current predicament: American manufacturers are required by law to include backup cams.

Since I have long opposed the government regulating every facet of our economy and frequently argue that whatever legitimate functions it wrongly arrogates into regulatory agencies could be done better by watchdog groups and the like, I am pleased to have an example of exactly this, and doubly so because this problem annoys me so much!And, much later:Yes.

Although some automakers have been dialing back a little on this insanity, non-government watchdogs like the NCAP and the IIHS could help marshal market forces to improve automotive safety more quickly, not to mention help customers who want better options than touchscreens for everything.

-- CAVLink to Original

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. "Why Can't Professional Philosophers Get Rand Right?," by Mike Mazza (New Ideal):Mazza indicates that parochialism, of which the above is only a type, is a problem even for those few non-Objectivist academics who have been sympathetic to Rand, and is right to call out professional philosophers, of all people, for falling into it.

2. "Selfish Randsday to All," by Harry Binswanger (Value for Value):I especially recommend visiting this post for the excerpt from Rand's The Fountainhead, which powerfully demolishes the trite, but deadly and wrong sentiment that it's easy to be selfish.

3. "Portraying CEOs as Cartoon Villains," by Jaana Woiceshyn (How to Be Profitable and Moral):This dishonest practice has always been a hallmark of the left, but the right has moved from failing to even pretend to stand up for business to joining in.

Indeed, such phrases as corporate media -- once a shibboleth of the left -- now get bandied about as if we're all communists now.

4. "Has the Right Been Eviscerated by Trump?," by Peter Schwartz (PeterSchwartz.com, 2019):This post is even more relevant now than when I read it in 2019.

And if the above isn't disturbing enough, news from the latest CPAC will more than underscore Schwartz's point.

-- CAVLink to Original

John Stossel gives an informative update on how things are going in Argentina, which elected as its president Javier Milei, a professed capitalist who campaigned on a promise to reduce the size of the government.

One of the things I wondered about when I'd heard he was elected was how much he'd actually be able to accomplish.

The short answer is more alone than an American president could:This is quite interesting and, given Milei's apparent popularity with Trumpists, I hope they notice the huge chasm between Trump and Milei on imports (for starters).

The article is a very interesting read, but has a major drawback: Although I think both the author and Milei are well-meaning, they are under the false impression that big-L Libertarianism is a friend to capitalism, and regard Murray Rothbard favorably.

This is interesting to consider in light of a recent hour-long interview (also embedded below) titled, "Libertarianism: Big Tent or Big Mess?," between Ben Bayer of the Ayn Rand Institute and Nikos Sotirakopoulos of the Ayn Rand Center UK. Within, Sotirakopoulos delves into "[t]he connection between libertarianism and the progressive left," which was largely initiated by Rothbard.


Stossel, Milei, and other better Libertarians correctly blame the left for Argentina's current mess: They and their fans would do well to consider how and why this alliance during the foundation of their political movement might undercut and ultimately defeat the battle to achieve capitalism. This engaging interview, which I listened to about two months ago, would be a great place to start.

-- CAVLink to Original

For years, I've heard complaints from the less-liberty-friendly parts of the conservative movement that the news aggregator Drudge Report, lost its mojo when Donald Trump won in 2016.

Today, I see that one of the few conservative sites I still respected, Issues and Insights has joined that bandwagon en route to providing a sort of short, annotated bibliography of alternatives.

Before I get to that, let's consider the following complaint about a recent set of headlines at the the site started by Matt Drudge:Does anyone in the conservative movement know how to play Devil's advocate anymore? Might the reason so many of these stories come from leftist partisan media be that right-wing partisan media have become largely a pro-Trump echo chamber? Have conservatives memory-holed the idea that a true friend is one who is willing to talk about bad news?

If I were a Trump supporter, I'd be concerned about signs of mental decline. Might the case be not so much Matt Drudge leaving the conservatives so much as they left him? (Here's a Trump toady who incidentally notes the post-Trump change in the conservative movement.)

And finally, is it really news to Biden's opponents that he is quite the senile "embalmed Soviet corpse of an incumbent," as Dan Hannon recently put it so aptly?

Sorry, Issues and Insights, but Our guy isn't as senile as their guy is weak sauce as a defense and the fight song for a ship of fools.

I&E even stoops to Trump's rhetorical style, dismissing Nikki Haley as a "neoCon" and "the left's current favorite Republican."

This pro-capitalist reader of I&E wonders: Will that site start kowtowing to Trump's economically illiterate protectionism? His anti-American xenophobia? His threats to misuse government to punish political opponents?

With those questions in mind, here is their list of recommended sites that are "better than the Old Drudge:"I will admit that these sites can be useful in the same way as Drudge -- which was never perfect and has always tended to sensationalize things.

Indeed, they might be more useful than the original now in the sense that, just as one should slum around in the likes of the Huffington Post or Mother Jones to get news the right ignores and get the pulse of the left, one should do so with sites on the right -- whatever "the right" means now.

I'll close with a link from each site: Don't Listen to Woke "Pastors", Christians Can't Just "Agree-to-Disagree" on Degeneracy -- The Liberty Daily (The story should -- but won't -- bother anyone who says America is a "Christian" country. The aggregator is my pick of the litter for "looniest Drudge alternative." Also: I am not cherry-picking. This one is from The Federalist.) Healthcare Students Still Forced to Inject Vaccines -- The Discern Report (Nobody's being forced to do anything, here. I am old enough to remember when being anti-vax was "for hippies" and when a conservative would acknowledge that an institution can require such things as proof of vaccination as a condition for membership or patronage.) Supreme Court To Hear Abortion Pill Case -- Off the Press (This site seems the most substantive of the lot.) 89% of 'American Elites' Back WEF's Plan to Ration Meat, Gas, Electricity for General Public -- Whatfinger (Mostly substantive, but seems comfortable with that brain-dead, populist term of blind rebellion, "elites." This site has layout options.) Inside America's Covid Lab ... Deadly viruses manipulated in Wuhan-style experiments. -- Citizen Free Press (Like most of these other alternatives, there is pandering to populist nuttiness about covid.) Novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand and historian Brad Thompson declared conservatism dead long ago. They were correct to do so. Whatever the right has become, it isn't even conservative in the sense of pretending to be pro-capitalist or pro-individualist.

It pains me to see people who call themselves conservatives turning off their minds and descending into mere populism, which might win elections -- so theocrats and nationalists who have very anti-American agendas can carry them out in the name of patriotism.

I do appreciate I&E bringing some new news aggregation sites to my attention, including helping me more quickly learn what the other other side is saying about any given issue.

-- CAVLink to Original

Donald Trump managed to eke out a win over Nikki Haley yesterday in New Hampshire. Haley is not dropping out of the GOP primary yet, but her battle is more uphill than I was hoping to learn from yesterday's vote.

The outcome likely means that too many Republicans are part of Donald Trump's personality cult for that party to nominate a serious candidate for President and that not enough independents appreciated the need to have a better choice than Trump or Biden in November.

That is awful.

The war for freedom is hardly over, but this particular battle appears to be lost, and we will almost certainly have one of Joe Biden or Donald Trump and -- if either drops dead while in office -- one of their Vice Presidents continuing to damage our country for another four years.

This is both a bigger deal and a lesser concern than Oh well, I'll leave President blank again in the next election.

Two articles do an excellent job of explaining why.

On the bigger deal side is the first, which I learned about from the excellent Yaron Brook's Twitter feed. It's by Briton Dan Hannon, and its title is, "This Isn't About Trump Anymore -- It's About Whether America Is the Country It Always Was." The whole thing is worth a read, and ends as follows:In the short term, things look bleak. This election cycle and no matter who wins, we could be moving from a discussion of breathing room, of how much time we have to turn the ship around -- to wondering if we can politically further the cause of liberty at all, any time soon, in America.

On the not as big a deal side of the ledger we have Ayn Rand's 1972 essay, "What Can One Do?", which I first encountered in Philosophy: Who Needs It:The essay was written with people concerned about the state of the world in mind, but it has a deeper meaning than is apparent, as is frequently the case with Rand's writings.

The passage above is a reminder, frequently needed anyway, about the nature of current trends, particularly for people interested in improving the world around them: Politics is the end product of a long conceptual and causal chain. Philosophically, it arises from ethics, and the dominant form of politics (increasingly, collectivism today) derives from the dominant ethics in the culture, which is altruism.

Until enough voices in the culture challenge altruism and its philosophical underpinnings (of mysticism and primacy-of-consciousness), our society will remain dominantly altruistic and political movements appealing to it -- be they leftist crusades to redistribute wealth or save "the planet" or right-wing crusades for nationalism or theocracy -- will always threaten to gain ground.

Change the dominant philosophy and the politics will take care of itself.

That's the easier part to see of a philosophical battle is a nuclear war. On a deeper level, one should ask, Why do I want to improve the world?

My answer is because I live in it, and I would hope any fellow travelers are at least equally selfish in that regard. That is the only good reason to want to participate in an intellectual movement. One cannot improve anything without knowing how, and one cannot know how without knowing why, and having a solid grasp of facts.

In the process of getting one's house in order and developing an active mind, one will consequently improve the quality of one's daily life by applying what one has learned.

Rand shows that the battle to improve the culture is long-range, and -- barring a true cataclysm -- much bigger than any single election. But she also shows that it is a personal battle for self-betterment that is always within the grasp of anyone who seeks it.

Speaking for myself: Short-term, while I might be unfortunate enough to be witness to the start of a dark time in American history, I'm glad I am doing so with open eyes, and am not deluded enough to see either of Donald Trump or Joe Biden as America's savior. I know that the constant media blare about Trump isn't worth too much of my time, and I can spend it on better things.

Politics can help or hinder one's life, but it isn't the whole of one's life. Thank God for that, so to speak.

-- CAVLink to Original

Donald Trump managed to eke out a win over Nikki Haley yesterday in New Hampshire. Haley is not dropping out of the GOP primary yet, but her battle is more uphill than I was hoping to learn from yesterday's vote.

The outcome likely means that too many Republicans are part of Donald Trump's personality cult for that party to nominate a serious candidate for President and that not enough independents appreciated the need to have a better choice than Trump or Biden in November.

That is awful.

The war for freedom is hardly over, but this particular battle appears to be lost, and we will almost certainly have one of Joe Biden or Donald Trump and -- if either drops dead while in office -- one of their Vice Presidents continuing to damage our country for another four years.

This is both a bigger deal and a lesser concern than Oh well, I'll leave President blank again in the next election.

Two articles do an excellent job of explaining why.

On the bigger deal side is the first, which I learned about from the excellent Yaron Brook's Twitter feed. It's by Briton Dan Hannon, and its title is, "This Isn't About Trump Anymore -- It's About Whether America Is the Country It Always Was." The whole thing is worth a read, and ends as follows:In the short term, things look bleak. This election cycle and no matter who wins, we could be moving from a discussion of breathing room, of how much time we have to turn the ship around -- to wondering if we can politically further the cause of liberty at all, any time soon, in America.

On the not as big a deal side of the ledger we have Ayn Rand's 1972 essay, "What Can One Do?", which I first encountered in Philosophy: Who Needs It:The essay was written with people concerned about the state of the world in mind, but it has a deeper meaning than is apparent, as is frequently the case with Rand's writings.

The passage above is a reminder, frequently needed anyway, about the nature of current trends, particularly for people interested in improving the world around them: Politics is the end product of a long conceptual and causal chain. Philosophically, it arises from ethics, and the dominant form of politics (increasingly, collectivism today) derives from the dominant ethics in the culture, which is altruism.

Until enough voices in the culture challenge altruism and its philosophical underpinnings (of mysticism and primacy-of-consciousness), our society will remain dominantly altruistic and political movements appealing to it -- be they leftist crusades to redistribute wealth or save "the planet" or right-wing crusades for nationalism or theocracy -- will always threaten to gain ground.

Change the dominant philosophy and the politics will take care of itself.

That's the easier part to see of a philosophical battle is a nuclear war. On a deeper level, one should ask, Why do I want to improve the world?

My answer is because I live in it, and I would hope any fellow travelers are at least equally selfish in that regard. That is the only good reason to want to participate in an intellectual movement. One cannot improve anything without knowing how, and one cannot know how without knowing why, and having a solid grasp of facts.

In the process of getting one's house in order and developing an active mind, one will consequently improve the quality of one's daily life by applying what one has learned.

Rand shows that the battle to improve the culture is long-range, and -- barring a true cataclysm -- much bigger than any single election. But she also shows that it is a personal battle for self-betterment that is always within the grasp of anyone who seeks it.

Speaking for myself: Short-term, while I might be unfortunate enough to be witness to the start of a dark time in American history, I'm glad I am doing so with open eyes, and am not deluded enough to see either of Donald Trump or Joe Biden as America's savior. I know that the constant media blare about Trump isn't worth too much of my time, and I can spend it on better things.

Politics can help or hinder one's life, but it isn't the whole of one's life. Thank God for that, so to speak.

-- CAVLink to Original

New Hampshire holds its presidential primaries today. Ron DeSantis has suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump. (I'd wager, given his earlier pledge to save the GOP from Trump and his over-the-top pandering to the Trump base, he's hoping Trump's legal problems represent a reentry path later.)

We thus have an early primary in a state that allows independent voters to participate in party primaries, and a two-person contest between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. This represents as good a chance as there is for a sane candidate to begin to break the stranglehold of Trump's personality cult on the Republican Party, and give Americans a real choice in the next election.

According to a headline from the Boston Globe, it is unlikely that Haley will win, but buried at the end of the story is what I think will be the decisive factor:Haley isn't drawing big crowds -- and doesn't have me raving about her here -- because she keeps committing unforced errors. So she doesn't have people excited about her candidacy so far. (I think the excitement -- or at least noticeable support -- might come if she does well, and offers real hope of keeping Trump out of office.)

The real question then, is How sick are independent voters of Donald Trump and Joe Biden?

If they're annoyed enough, they don't have to like Haley to want to vote for her, and they will.

I'd show up and vote for Haley if I lived there, but I don't know the answer to that question.

Today, we will find out.

-- CAVLink to Original

New Hampshire holds its presidential primaries today. Ron DeSantis has suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump. (I'd wager, given his earlier pledge to save the GOP from Trump and his over-the-top pandering to the Trump base, he's hoping Trump's legal problems represent a reentry path later.)

We thus have an early primary in a state that allows independent voters to participate in party primaries, and a two-person contest between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. This represents as good a chance as there is for a sane candidate to begin to break the stranglehold of Trump's personality cult on the Republican Party, and give Americans a real choice in the next election.

According to a headline from the Boston Globe, it is unlikely that Haley will win, but buried at the end of the story is what I think will be the decisive factor:Haley isn't drawing big crowds -- and doesn't have me raving about her here -- because she keeps committing unforced errors. So she doesn't have people excited about her candidacy so far. (I think the excitement -- or at least noticeable support -- might come if she does well, and offers real hope of keeping Trump out of office.)

The real question then, is How sick are independent voters of Donald Trump and Joe Biden?

If they're annoyed enough, they don't have to like Haley to want to vote for her, and they will.

I'd show up and vote for Haley if I lived there, but I don't know the answer to that question.

Today, we will find out.

-- CAVLink to Original

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. Over the years, I have taken to task various installments of National Review's war on Ayn Rand. (Here's a good one I'd forgotten about.)

Scratch war on Ayn Rand in the name of accuracy: It's really a war against anyone learning what Ayn Rand had to say, and it began in earnest with an infamous non-review of Atlas Shrugged by professed ex-communist Whittaker Chambers.

I recently learned via New Ideal that Leonard Peikoff penned a rebuttal, in the form of a letter-to-the-editor.

National Review, true to form, elected to memory hole it, but now it appears as a chapter of the collection, Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged -- and as the blog post linked above.

It reads in part:I am glad to see not only that this thorough rebuttal is now available for anyone to read, but also that it is now easy for anyone to ascertain the true character of the National Review, as exemplified by its treatment of Ayn Rand.

2. At How to Be Profitable and Moral, Jaana Woiceshyn asks, in the form of her title, a question she clearly hopes to make non-controversial one again. "Instead of ESG and DEI, how about value creation, justice, and independence?"

Here is an excerpt regarding justice:This essay is a much-needed corrective for both ESG/DEI and the alleged rationale for them, the latter of which is part and parcel of widespread ignorance about the nature of capitalism and suspicion of self-interest that permeate our culture.

Image by wirestock, via Freepik, license.3. At Value for Value, Harry Binswanger economically addresses a couple of favorite conservative myths behind the ridiculous idea that there is a "border crisis."

Regarding terrorism, Binswanger reminds us of what really needs to be done:I completely agree with his contention that, "The only crisis on our border is the outrageous refusal to recognize that 'All men are created equal, endowed ... with certain unalienable rights, that among these are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'"

4. Brian Phillips of the Texas Institute for Property Rights alerts us to a proposal in New York that is as obscene as his post title ("The Right to Eat Fried Chicken") is ridiculous:As annoyed as this atheist is that Chick-fil-A closes on Sunday, I recognize and support the right of its owners to set their own schedule, and I am outraged that this little dictator in New York wants to set their hours for them.

-- CAVLink to Original

Snatches of two bits of political commentary pretty well encapsulate my assessment of the "landslide" outcome in the GOP's Iowa caucuses the other day.

First, Iowa hasn't exactly been predictive lately:Caucuses aren't polls of the general public, and whoever it is -- strong partisans, I presume -- who participate in the Iowa caucuses have been out of touch in the theocratic/social conservative direction lately.

Trump is the man for that anti-freedom lot in this election.

Second: 51%.

That's all?

I agree with Phil Boas, who argues in USA Today that this result is a weak showing, because Trump is, for all practical purposes, running as an incumbent. (And that would be true despite polling showing that 65% (!) of the caucus participants there are brain-dead enough to believe Trump actually won the 2020 election.) Boas notes a big incentive for independents who want a choice other than Trump or Biden to vote in New Hampshire's Republican primary at a time when polling shows Haley smoking Biden by 17% in a head-to-head matchup.

Overall, while it was disappointing to see Trump run away with Iowa, his winning there was predictable. But his margin there -- under ideal conditions for him -- wasn't the catastrophe Democrats and Trump supporters were hoping for, albeit for different, co-dependent reasons.

New Hampshire will give a better picture of whether Nikki Haley can topple Donald Trump.

-- CAV

P.S. One bit of good news out of the caucuses: DeSantis, who has come to represent a more competent (and therefore dangerous) version of everything bad about Donald Trump, may have fatally wounded his future political aspirations:This is the direction a significant part of the conservative movement has been headed for some time, and unless we get a "more competent DeSantis" in the near future, the Iowa caucuses may well have bought some time to fight for freedom.Link to Original

Over at Jewish World Review, Carl Leubsdorf handicaps the early Republican primaries, and concludes that Nikki Haley is in a strong position to emerge as the main alternative to Donald Trump after Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

I mostly agree with his analysis, but I think New Hampshire might be more interesting for Democrat voters and political junkies than Leubsdorf realizes. His take on New Hampshire:Important here is why the Democrats won't recognize that winner, and the name of that why is Dean Phillips, the Minnesota congressman who is challenging Biden in large part because of the President's age. Phillips is in that "Biden-less contest" and stands to get headlines as the winner, regardless of what his party does.

Absent Phillips, what Democrats ought to do in New Hampshire is a no-brainer: Vote for Trump in the Republican primary since running against Trump again is Biden's best shot at getting reelected.

But with Phillips? Any Democrat who shares Phillips's concern about Biden's age and wants to send a message to the DNC should seriously consider voting for Phillips, even if only to show other younger possible candidates -- like Gavin Newsom -- that Biden is vulnerable.

Yes, this might narrow or outright derail a Trump victory, but that might not be a bad thing: After all, running against Biden is Trump's best shot at getting back into office, so maybe sticking with Slow Joe isn't a great idea...

On top of that, and especially if Haley (or DeSantis) actually wins or does well in Iowa, Trump will have been shown to be vulnerable, and the Democrats will be looking at Biden running against a younger and less-disliked candidate than Trump.

In that case, telling the DNC to dump Biden while there's still a chance to do so might be a compelling reason to vote for Phillips, who has other strong points, as I wrote earlier at the link above.

And the fun doesn't stop there. With RFK, Jr. in the general, there is high protest vote potential that can go any number of ways. If Biden is in the general, RFK, Jr. is leftist-enough to attract dissatisfied Democrats. (I hear that he's a hit with younger voters.) If Haley (or, less likely, DeSantis) is in the general, RFK, Jr. -- as an anti-vax conspiracy nut -- is kooky enough to draw support from a significant number of disgruntled hard-core Trump supporters.

Either prospect could motivate Democrats in New Hampshire to vote for Phillips in their own (unofficial) primary or for the best non-Trump alternative in the Republican primary.

-- CAVLink to Original

Years ago, possibly through Alex Epstein's How to Talk to Anyone About Energy course or Don Watkins's Persuasion Mastery course, I recall one of the later steps of the process of persuasion being to point the other person to a book which will present whatever argument or viewpoint you are promoting in a comprehensive way.

This makes perfect sense and mirrors my own experience. Way back in grad school, a big-L Libertarian contacted me after reading a few of my student newspaper columns, saying among other things that he thought I'd "make a good Libertarian."

I disagreed, and began arguing that the Libertarian movement would actually harm the cause of liberty. We emailed back and forth for quite some time.

(This was a surprise, as I'd expected a short correspondence, ended by him insulting me for bringing Ayn Rand into the conversation: That's basically what had always happened in my semi-captive audiences with my Libertarian ex-father-in-law...)

I finally reached the conclusion that (a) this guy was actually interested in what I was saying, although he did not always agree with it, and (b) he needed (and was ready) to see a better case than I was making because his questions and objections were intelligent. So I lent him my well-worn copy of Peter Schwartz's booklet, Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty.

A week or so passed, and I, probably a decade older than the Libertarian, began to think something like, This kid's ghosting me. Time to ask for my booklet back.

Within about another day, and before I'd done anything else, I heard back from him. He'd changed his mind! "Chalk one up for pamphleteering," his email began.

Some time later, at his suggestion I would join him in starting a campus Objectivist club, which did very well.

That is, in microcosm, how the kind of ideas we need to spread, to improve our culture happens: One mind at a time, and, crucially, with each new fellow traveler deciding on his own to join the cause in whatever capacity makes sense to him.

I've been re-reading Ayn Rand's Philosophy: Who Needs It lately, and this episode came to my mind as I read the essay "An Untitled Letter," where she commented on John Rawls's A Theory of Justice.

Within is her brief description of the funhouse mirror image of how good ideas spread: how bad works gain currency. It is instructive to consider the differences between the two processes:When one considers the need to change the overall direction of a culture, this sounds intimidating. But omitted from the above are important elements of context, supplied in part by Rand's description of how more active-minded readers will react to such garbage (within that essay); as well as how intellectuals can influence a culture, and in this way, affect the course of history (elsewhere).

In short, merely looking at numbers is the wrong way to view cultural trends. The people who glom on to an impenetrable work they keep hearing is profound do not count in that regard. They can't or won't bother to grasp anything truly original.

They're the ones who skip editorials and run away from serious conversations of any kind. There are tons of them and, aside from perhaps being amenable to persuasion at a very superficial level, on a very specific issue, and for a very short time, they are not the best targets for meaningful, long-range attempts to persuade them of something that will challenge major philosophical premises most people in their society -- likely including themselves -- hold.

-- CAVLink to Original