Ed Hudgins of The Objectivist Center writes in today’s Washington Times:
This decision in the Kelo v. New London case is another giant step toward classical corporatism or fascism in America.
The op-ed explains why the Supreme Court ruling effectively means that no one’s property is secure from government and how this moves us closer to fascism. Hudgins closes by reaffirming that property rights are essential to a prosperous and free society.
Read the full article…
An interesting commentary on world stock markets from Conrad de Aenlle in the International Herald Tribune:
The most attractively priced stock markets are often in countries that subject businesses to the most onerous taxation and regulation. What’s a capitalist to do? Consider building an “Atlas Shrugged” portfolio.
John Hatherly, head of global asset allocation for M&G Investment Management in London, judges the United States and China to have the most dynamic, investor-friendly economies, but he prefers to buy them on the cheap through European and Japanese companies that sell into those markets or, better yet, use them as manufacturing bases.
Just like the frustrated business owners in Ayn Rand’s novel who close up shop and move abroad to enjoy a less fettered commercial environment, the companies Hatherly likes – Japanese carmakers, British drug companies, German banks among them – are doing as little as possible in their putative homes and seeking out opportunities in more vibrant markets.
See the full article for more information.
The new article “Question Authorities” at Wired Magazine raises some interesting points, not the least of which is the value of thinking for oneself:
For more than four years – steadily, seriously, and with the unsentimental rigor for which we love them – civil engineers have been studying the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, sifting the tragedy for its lessons. And it turns out that one of the lessons is: Disobey authority. In a connected world, ordinary people often have access to better information than officials do.
Proof can be found in the 298-page draft report issued in April by the National Institute on Standards and Technology called Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communications. (In layman’s terms, that’s who got out of the buildings, how they got out, and why.) It’s an eloquent document, in many ways. The report confirms a chilling fact that was widely covered in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. After both buildings were burning, many calls to 911 resulted in advice to stay put and wait for rescue. Also, occupants of the towers had been trained to use the stairs, not the elevators, in case of evacuation.
Fortunately, this advice was mostly ignored. According to the engineers, use of elevators in the early phase of the evacuation, along with the decision to not stay put, saved roughly 2,500 lives. This disobedience had nothing to do with panic. The report documents how evacuees stopped to help the injured and assist the mobility-impaired, even to give emotional comfort. Not panic but what disaster experts call reasoned flight ruled the day.
Keep reading for more info. Found via InstaPundit, who also has additional thoughts of his own worth reading.
From a press release by the New Zealand Libertarianz:
RMA Surely Don’t Impress Shania Much
“Shania Twain’s proposed home doesn’t impress Queenstown’s busybodies, but their personal views should not be the business of law,” says Libertarianz spokesman to deregulate the environment, Peter Cresswell. “Unfortunately the RMA has given them that power. It doesn’t say to property owners ‘Come on Over,’ instead it screams ‘I’m Gonna Getcha Good’!”
“The Resource Management Act (RMA) has given unelected power to busybodies who now consider they have rights over other people’s property,” says Cresswell. “It seems nothing will allow Twain’s house past Andrew Henderson, the planning stickybeak from CivicCorp who rejected the application and Julian Haworth, head busybody from the Upper Clutha Environmental Society, who between them have decided that ‘the complex would not be in harmony with the surrounding landscape,’ and ‘man-made mounds to screen the house’ were ‘not appropriate.'”
“I guess even a camouflage net wouldn’t have satisfied these meddling arseholes,” says Cresswell. “Remind me again how the RMA is “permissive” as Owen McShane has called it, and “far-sighted environmental legislation” as Nick Smith has described it. The RMA is neither,” says Cresswell. “It has destroyed property rights in this country, and it is time that the RMA itself were now destroyed.”
As author Ayn Rand once observed, when the productive have to ask permission from the unproductive in order to produce, then you may know your culture is doomed. “Time to put a stake through the heart of the RMA,” concludes Cresswell.
The Libertarianz advocate abolition of the RMA, replacing it with common law protection of property rights and the environment.
In an e-mail op-ed for the Objectivist Center, Ed Hudgins provides this review of the new Revenge of the Sith movie. I’ve not seen the movie, but the review makes some interesting points.
With Revenge of the Sith George Lucas faced the same problem as did the classical Greek playwrights. Their audiences already knew the stories and myths on which their dramas were based. Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides had to make their plays interesting, enlightening or instructive, usually by offering lessons about hubris, unchecked emotions or moral failing.
While the Greeks were not keen on happy endings, Lucas has already given one with the first Star Wars trilogy and we know what to expect in the prequels. We know that Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, apprentice to the evil emperor; that Vader’s son Luke joins the rebellion; that the Empire is overthrown by pro-Republic heroes; that Vader saves Luke from the emperor, abandons the Dark Side of the Force, and before dying, is redeemed.
To make the prequels interesting Lucas offers us political and moral lessons, but with mixed results.
In Sith Lucas continues the story of the fall of the Republic. Chancellor Palpatine — secretly the evil Sith Lord Darth Sidious — accumulates power in the name of fighting a long war against separatists — a war that he himself is secretly behind. Curiously, we are told that the Senate of the Republic is corrupt and in the text crawl that starts every Star Wars film we’re told that in the war “There are heroes on both sides.” Lucas seems to be backing away from the clear-cut black-and-white, good-vs.-evil themes that so characterized the original trilogy. As he obscures that distinction he also obscures his theme.
Continue reading “Ed Hudgins Reviews Revenge of the Sith”
An incisive new Op-Ed from David Holcberg and Alex Epstein, writing for the Ayn Rand Institute, begins:
In the name of the sanctity of human life and the inviolability of rights, embryonic stem cell research must be allowed to proceed unimpeded.
It is widely known that embryonic stem cell research has the potential to revolutionize medicine and save millions of lives. Yet many Congressmen are frantically working to defeat a measure that would expand federal financing of this research. Why are they (and so many others) opposing embryonic stem cell research–and doing so under the banner of being “pro-life”?
The opponents of embryonic stem cell research claim that their position is rooted in “respect for human life.” They say that the embryos destroyed in the process of extracting stem cells are human beings with a right to life.
But embryos used in embryonic stem cell research are manifestly not human beings–not in any rational sense of the term. These embryos are smaller than a grain of sand, and consist of at most a few hundred undifferentiated cells. They have no body or body parts. They do not see, hear, feel, or think. While they have the potential to become human beings–if implanted in a woman’s uterus and brought to term–they are nowhere near actual human beings.
See the full article for more details.
From William Dwyer:
I just received a hard-to-find copy of the January 1944 Reader’s Digest with an article by Ayn Rand entitled “The Only Path to Tomorrow.” The article is condensed from a project that Rand began in 1943 entitled “The Moral Basis of Individualism,” which she eventually abandoned.
I am taking the liberty here of transcribing the article, which is not very long, since it is virtually impossible to find a copy of it. I was very lucky to locate the January ’44 issue from an obscure book seller. You won’t find it on the internet.
The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.
Totalitarianism is collectivism. Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group – whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.”
Throughout history no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing “the common good.” Napoleon “served the common good” of France. Hitler is “serving the common good” of Germany. Horrors which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake are perpetrated with a clear conscience by “altruists” who justify themselves by – the common good.
No tyrant has ever lasted long by force of arms alone. Men have been enslaved primarily by spiritual weapons. And the greatest of these is the collectivist doctrine that the supremacy of the state over the individual constitutes the common good. No dictator could rise if men held as a sacred faith the conviction that they have inalienable rights of which they cannot be deprived for any cause whatsoever, by any man whatsoever, neither by evildoer nor supposed benefactor.
Continue reading “'The Only Path to Tomorrow' by Ayn Rand (1944)”
From an MSNBC article by Glenn Reynolds about the situation in Sweden:
It’s almost as if high taxes, heavy regulation, and an extensive dole sap people’s desire to work hard, making the society as a whole worse off so that those policies don’t just redistribute wealth, but actually destroy it. That’s probably because they do, and have done so everywhere they’re tried. People are usually pointing to some socialist paradise or other where life is wonderful, but — not to put too fine a point on it — those places are basically a lie. Socialism just doesn’t work, anywhere, for very long. You’d think people would learn.
One of the unfortunate things that happens under socialism is that people have fewer children. (This is a bug. For a while it was seen as a feature, but with the world now facing a global baby bust, it’s a bug.) This disturbing essay from The Belmont Club spells out what Europe’s demographic collapse means. I think it’s a bit on the pessimistic side — but the Europeans had better hope that I’m right about that. And we Americans should be very grateful that we didn’t follow the Swedish model. Socialism produces shortages — and in Sweden’s case, apparently, it’s even managed to produce a sex shortage among the formerly randy Swedes. Which just proves that too much government can ruin anything, given enough rope.
Indeed. Read the full article for details.
Larry Salzman and Alex Epstein have published their analysis of an important new Supreme Court case, including an impassioned defense of property rights.
From the article in the Naples Daily News:
The case of Kelo v. New London now before the U.S. Supreme Court could determine the future of property rights in America. The central question: Should the government be able to use its power of eminent domain to seize property from one private party and transfer it to another?
The seven property owners on the side of Kelo are the last remaining of more than 70 families whose homes and businesses were targeted for demolition several years ago by the city of New London, Conn., to make room for a 90-acre private development. The story of one of the owners, Susette Kelo, is representative.
Kelo, a nurse, bought and painstakingly restored a home that initially was so rundown she needed to cut her way to the front door with a hatchet. After she had achieved her dream home, she was informed, in November 2000, by the local government that her home was condemned, and ordered to vacate it within 90 days. She and other owners in the neighborhood remain in their homes only by the grace of a court order, which prevents eviction and demolition until their appeals are exhausted.
What justifies this treatment of Kelo and the other owners, who simply want to be free to live on their own property? The seizures and transfers, the government says, are in “the public interest,” because they will lead to more jobs for New London residents and more tax dollars for the government.
This type of justification was given more than 10,000 times between 1998 and 2002, and across 41 states, to use eminent domain (or its threat) to seize private property. The attitude behind these seizures was epitomized by a Lancaster, Calif., city attorney explaining why a 99 Cents Only store should be condemned to make way for a Costco: “99 Cents produces less than $40,000 (a year) in sales taxes, and Costco was producing more than $400,000. You tell me, which was more important?”
To such government officials, the fact that an individual earns a piece of property, and wants to use and enjoy it, is of no importance ? all that matters is “the public.” But as philosopher Ayn Rand observed, “there is no such entity as ‘the public,’ since the public is merely a number of individuals … (T)he idea that ‘the public interest’ supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.”
See the full article for further details.
Reason magazine has published a roundup of commentary on Bush’s second term in office by some well-known and intelligent commentators. Check it out if you’re interested in a pro-freedom take on the subject. (found via Instapundit)
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