Sweet!

And somehow it makes it even better that Obama picked the Colts.

CEO Qualities

I found a lot of good ideas and identifications in this NY times article.

HT Crossfit

Quick Follow Up

Gus Van Horn links to a Mark Steyn article that does a much more entertaining job of making the same point as the Noonan column I'd previously posted.

Closer to Bankruptcy

While I disagree with the collectivist approach adopted in this analysis (i.e. to the authors it's just a matter of aggregates, not of individual rights), it's interesting to see how much of future revenues are already committed to mandatory (essentially legacy and past) spending. Indeed the difference between projected revenues and existing commitments is now negative.

Gradually, over decades, Americans have committed almost all government revenues to what policy nerds call "mandatory programs" — those whose funding and funding growth are set by past laws — and to interest on the debt.

For the first time in U.S. history, in 2009 every single dollar of revenue was committed before Congress voted on any spending program. Meanwhile, most of government's basic functions — from justice to education to turning on the lights in the Capitol — are paid for out of swelling, unsustainable deficits.

FDR's Hypocrisy (and our failure to learn from it)

In doing some background research for a potential editorial, I came across this description of FDR's campaign:

Economist Marriner Eccles observed that "given later developments, the campaign speeches often read like a giant misprint, in which Roosevelt and Hoover speak each other's lines." Roosevelt denounced Hoover's failures to restore prosperity or even halt the downward slide, and he ridiculed Hoover's huge deficits. Roosevelt campaigned on the Democratic platform advocating "immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures," "abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating bureaus and eliminating extravagances reductions in bureaucracy," and for a "sound currency to be maintained at all hazards." (emphasis added)

Certainly later politicians, including Bush and Obama learned from FDR's example. Hopefully the tea party movement is a sign that the public is becoming less credulous and more informed -- and therefore more civically responsible.

(To see the contrast between word and deed, continue reading the first link to the section on the New Deal, then check out FDR's proposed second bill of rights.)

Government Budget Cuts

Though privatization of illegitimate government functions will have to be done under the principle of individual rights if it is to last, let's hope that privatization by lack of funds helps give us time to get the right ideas out into the culture. And the latter is starting already, see this story on Colorado Springs (the second largest city in CO).

An Accepted Statist Contradiction

I’m not generally a fan of columnist Peggy Noonan, but I thought she did a good job yesterday in exposing one of the essential contradictions that any semi-honest statist must face:

The central fact of the speech was the contradiction at its heart. It repeatedly asserted that Washington is the answer to everything. At the same time it painted a picture of Washington as a sick and broken place. It was a speech that argued against itself: You need us to heal you. Don't trust us, we think of no one but ourselves.

The people are good but need guidance—from Washington. The middle class is anxious, and its fears can be soothed—by Washington. Washington can "make sure consumers . . . have the information they need to make financial decisions." Washington must "make investments," "create" jobs, increase "production" and "efficiency."

At the same time Washington is a place "where every day is Election Day," where all is a "perpetual campaign" and the great sport is to "embarrass your opponents" and lob "schoolyard taunts."

Why would anyone have faith in that thing to help anyone do anything?

All true (except her characterization of selfishness). But if the contradiction is so glaring, what makes it possible for so many people to hold this view? The magic wand of altruism. Everything comes down to motivation, not facts or worldly success. If you’re doing something explicitly to benefit yourself, it’s morally suspect, and as a result you’ll be held accountable for any faults or contradictions. But if your goal is sacrificial, i.e. you’re operating at a loss or for some unidentified “other”, then anything goes. Thus, for example, destructive behemoths like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and any number of government agencies can flout any and all accounting standards and accountability simply because they operate in the “public interest”. Businessmen, on the other hand, are subject to heinous regulations and standards because (allegedly) their own voluntary clients and investors must be protected from the depredations of profit-seeking activities. Or to look at the other side of business activity, today the words “not for profit” are a badge of honor. This despite the fact that the very term trumpets that any such enterprise’s output is literally less than (or equal to) the sum of its inputs. Only in a culture where sacrifice is regarded a virtue could this kind of wasteful inversion be held in high esteem.

The lesson to be drawn here is that anyone who wants to advocate for responsible political change must begin by challenging the altruist’s moral premises. For absent such a challenge, no amount of pointing out the economic contradictions, waste and devastation created by statism will ever phase its advocates.

Stephen Bailey for Congress

I was encouraged to see the election campaign site of Stephen Bailey (Colorado) who appears to be taking a principled stand in the political arena. I haven't read everything on the site, but what I did read looks great. Here's wishing him all the success in the world! (HT Adam Reed)

Facts not "Hope"

I'm encouraged that I seem to see more of these types of fact-checking stories in the mainstream media. It's a small but positive step in the right direction (i.e. towards objectivity instead of blind faith in our demagogic leaders).

Why concern oneself with politics?

I really like this quote from Plato:

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Heschel Walker

I really wish Herschel Walker had opted to play in the NFL his whole career. It would have been interesting to see how he did given his seemingly freakish athletic prowess and legendary physical fitness.

What brings this thought on? Walker is going to fight his first MMA fight at the ripe age of 47. Here's how the athletic commission's doctors evaluate him:

Commission head physician Dr. Allan Fields, who oversaw the stress test on Walker’s heart, said that Walker’s heart functions better than any individual tested at the cardiac institution that handled the testing. “He’s in as fine a shape as [a prime] Muhammad Ali or any of these people we’ve had under our care,” said Fields, who has been a physician with the U.S. Olympic boxing team. “This guy is 47 going on 22, as far as his physical fitness goes.”

Rapping about Business Cycle Theories

This video is pretty clever and accurate (for a rap video that is):
HT various Facebook friends

The Importance of Ideas

I like this quote from John Adams which highlights the fact that revolutions are first and foremost ideological.

But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations...This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.
John Adams, letter to H. Niles, February 13, 1818

To effect the kind of change we advocate requires that we persuade people of the validity and importance of our ideas. It's thus a process, not something that can happen instantly or even rapidly, since our ideas differ so radically from those currently accepted. (And for any thoughtful person in the opposition, it takes time to one by one repudiate their wrong ideas, accept new ones, and then integrate the new ideas into a systematic whole.)

HT Mark Nitikman for the quote

Lucidicus Project on the MA election

For those following the MA election today, the Lucidicus Project has a good microblog for its twitter feed. (I haven't followed the election in any detail, but I know many of you probably are.)

Say No to a Health Insurance Czar

Paul Hsieh has another good editorial up at PajamasMedia. Here's the comment I left:

Thanks for the article Dr. Hsieh.

To echo Roxanne A’s thoughts, and to contradict goy’s claim that discussion of czars is a “distraction”, I’d suggest that your point fits a bigger picture. Any attempt to bypass the minds of individual citizens, which means bypassing their knowledge and personal values, is doomed to failure. Primarily because doing so thwarts each person’s ability to choose and achieve his own values -- in the process grinding away at his independence, self-sufficiency and sense of personal responsibility. Secondarily because no one person, or cabal of people, can hold the knowledge of supply and demand (and all their inputs) necessary for an economy to function properly. Installing czars anywhere in the political landscape can therefore do nothing but accelerate the on-going corrosion of individual autonomy and of economic success we see all around us.

Funny Report Card

This really has nothing to do with the subject matter of this blog, but I still want to relay this line on the Chargers' latest choke session because it's so funny:

NEXT OPPORTUNITY:

at Despair

F Maybe a few guys can get a Pro Bowl ring. Maybe Nate Kaeding kicks the game winner!

An illuminating comment

I enjoyed this comment by Jim May over on a Noodlefood thread. He succinctly points out that liberty was a discovery of the (pro-reason, anti-faith) Enlightenment and that those on the right who pragmatically co-opted it, did so as a tactical move, not for any fundamental reason. Indeed it clashes with their fundamental principles which is why conservatives have rarely ever defended liberty in practice (see the Bush presidencies for countless examples of implementing statist policies).

December 2009 OActivity

The compilation of OActivist output for December 2009 is now available.

I'll still be posting links to these next year, but Mark Wickens has graciously volunteered to produce them.

Detroit as a Case Study

Here’s a quick follow up to my earlier post on Detroit. First, commenter Richard links to this PJTV video showing more of the details and background to Detroit’s “experiment” with welfare-statism (subscription required).

Second, this WSJ editorial illustrates the power of unions in Michigan in particular, but throughout the country in general.

Please note that I’m not against anyone’s right to bargain collectively, but I am against the numerous rights violations entailed by strike-breaking laws and other powers legislated to the unions. For instance, strike-breaking laws prevent employers from hiring other, non-union workers (who would happily work for less money or fewer perks than do the union workers). This violates both the rights of the employers and of the non-union laborers. As is often the case, immorality (in this case the injustice against employers and potential workers) also results in economic consequences. Here, not only are consumers punished by having to pay higher prices for the goods produced, but union workers are given a false sense of worth, which is exposed when producers in other markets, undercut and eventually put the high-cost producers out of business — leaving their workers without jobs and often without prospects.

Note also how, once it gains any foothold, government encroachment gradually increases to take over more and more areas of life. In this case the putative reason that day care centers are forced to unionize is because some of their customers receive government aid.

Of course, Michigan's independent day-care providers don't work for anybody except the parents who were their customers. Nevertheless, because some of these parents qualified for public subsidies, the Child Care Providers "union" claimed the providers were "public employees."

There are very few sectors of the economy where a similar argument couldn’t be made, so unless we begin to fight some of the principles upon which these laws are enacted, expect further decay of your rights and liberties.

November 2009 OActivity

The compilation of OActivist output for November 2009 is now available.

I'm also pleased to report that Mark Wickens has volunteered to maintain these compilations in 2010. Thanks Mark!

Odysseus and Achilles

I just finished reading Homer’s Odyssey, and in it came across a passage which I think is very indicative of the difference between the ancient Greeks’ attitudes and those of the (Plato-inspired) Christian ones which followed. The Greeks thought of life as meaning life on this earth and were the first, and perhaps still the best, practitioners of a true mind-body integration. These fundamental attitudes are instrumental in explaining why the classical world was so culturally and materially successful, and why, when the Christians substituted the opposite approach, they ended up with a thousand years of stagnation and decline.

Indeed, one of the reasons that Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism appeals to me so much is because it re-introduces many of the best features of Greek thought and attitudes, all presented in a systematic and integrated fashion.

In any case, here is the passage from the Odyssey which caught my attention. It occurs when Odysseus makes his way to Hades and meets Achilles (the hero of the Illiad). Here’s what Achilles tells him (my emphasis):

…The soul of Achilles, the great runner, recognized me. “Favourite of Zeus, son of Laertes, Odysseus, master of stratagems,” he said in mournful tones, “what next, dauntless man? What greater exploit can you plan to surpass your voyage here? How did you dare to come to Hades’ realm, where the dead live on as mindless disembodied ghosts?”

“Achilles”, I answered him, “son of Peleus, far the strongest of the Achaeans, I came to consult with Teiresias in the hope of finding out from him how I could reach rocky Ithaca. For I have not managed to come near Achaea yet, nor set foot on my own island, but have been dogged by misfortune. But you, Achilles, are the most fortunate man that ever was or will be! For in the old days when you were on Earth, we Argives honoured you as though you were a god; and now, down here, you have great power among the dead. Do not grieve at your death, Achilles.”

“And do not you make light of death, illustrious Odysseus,” he replied, “I would rather work the soil as a serf on hire to some landless impoverished peasant than be King of all these lifeless dead.”…

PS I read the Penguin classic version translated by the Rieu’s and with an introduction by Peter Jones. I found Jones’ notes quite helpful and would recommend this version (though I haven’t read others to compare it to).

October 2009 OActivity

The compilation of OActivist output for October 2009 is now available. (If anyone is interested in maintaining these summaries in 2010 please let me know.)

Conference on the Philosophic Foundations of Freedom

I'm very much looking forward to attending this conference at UCLA on the weekend of Jan 30-31. Thanks to LOGIC for organizing it.

Memorial to a once great city

Ever wonder what the effects of anti-individualist policies are? Atlas Shrugged gives the definitive answer, but there are also more narrow, concrete examples all around us today. Detroit, with its massive union culture and entitlement mentality, has gone from being an industrial powerhouse to a dangerous city in rapid decline. Diana links to these poignant photos of a city destroyed by its philosophy.

September 2009 OActivity

The compilation of September's OActivist output is now available. (If anyone is interested in maintaining these summaries in 2010 please let me know.)

Commercialism Adds to the Holidays

Onkar has an editorial in this week's US News & World Report. I particularly like the contrast between the attitudes of the puritans vs. those of the men of the 19th century.

LC Purple Cascade 'Fragrance Princess'

The Parasites' Feast

To those private workers still among us, next time you're scrimping and saving to make ends meet, or contemplating the extra hours you're working for no extra pay, be sure to take a moment to think of all the federal government bureaucrats, who not only live off our backs, but who make our lives incredibly harder with all their restrictions and regulations. You'll be happy to hear that they're "enjoying an extraordinary boom time" in USA Today's words. (Note that I carefully distinguish those honorable men who are helping the government perform its legitimate function from the bureaucrats whom I characterize as parasites. Indeed, from what I can tell, the brave men and women in the military are underpaid for their valuable services.)

Truck Exhaust in the Middle of the Desert

Although I make no prediction about the price of gold, I found this piece interesting as it shows to what extent environmentalists will oppose any human value production -- and the terrible cost it burdens us all with. Until we challenge the environmentalists' moral position, I doubt we can ever enact the legal reform necessary to thwart their anti-life agenda.

The photo here is of Barrick Gold’s new Cortez Hills mine, which – after ten years and $500 million – has just hit something of a wall. The U.S. Appeals Court in San Francisco ordered the company to “provide injunctive relief” in a case brought by an environmental organization called the Western Mining Action Project, which is using a local Indian band for cover.

The latest hold-up revolves around a claim that Barrick and the Bureau of Land Management, which made Barrick jump through any number of costly hoops in order to permit the mine in the first place, failed to properly evaluate the impact of truck emissions on the air of the barren desert – trucks transporting the mine’s ore 70 miles to a processing facility.

If a mine can be held up, after 10 years and half a billion dollars spent, by a handful of environment activists over such a niggling concern as truck exhaust in the middle of a desert – a desert, it must be pointed out, in one of the world’s most prolific and politically favorable mining jurisdictions – then how can any mining operation expect to succeed?

Any company wishing to build any mine pretty much anywhere now has to be willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars – and a decade or more – before even hoping to start production. And even then, as the Barrick ruling shows, they aren’t safe from rear-guard actions by the environmentalists.

EPLC Don Herman 'H&R'

Archimedes: "Eureka!"; The Climate 'Scientist' Establishment: "OH F--K THIS"

It's nice to see Mark Steyn was able to publish this pithy column in a major Canadian magazine. (HT Not PC)

And More Great News

John Stossel has a new show coming out on the Fox Business and News channels.

"The plan is to do a single subject, so it will be a little different than most of what's on cable," he says, of shows that will tackle topics such as Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," a book the libertarian Stossel says predicted 50 years ago the future we're living today.

"I believe in the dignity of the individual and she celebrates that," says Stossel, noting that the "Atlas Shrugged" episode might be the debut episode, with Yaron Brook of the Irvine-based Ayn Rand Institute one of the guests.

Great News

The Ayn Rand Forum is delighted to announce that Dr. Yaron Brook will be speaking in January 2010 at the UK Parliament on the subject of rights.

Thanks to all those who put in the effort to make that possible!

Analyzing HR 3962

Dr. John Lewis has taken the time to go through the latest health care bill (all 1,990 pages of it!) and excerpt relevant passages and summarize their meaning.

Jason Crawford of OActivists offers this summary of Dr. Lewis' post, but make sure to check out the whole thing and pass it along. (Rush Limbaugh had previously read Dr. Lewis' work on HR 3200, so no avenue is too big to try.)

1. Will the plan punish Americans who do not carry the required insurance, or employers who do not provide it?
2. Will the plan make private insurance illegal?
3. Will the plan ration medical care through budgets?
4. Will the plan ration care through waiting lists?
5. Will the plan impose special, higher taxes on Americans who earn more than others?
6. Will the plan levy special taxes and surcharges on medical devices?
7. How will the plan affect health insurance provided by employers?
8. Does the plan allow the government to set fees?
9. Can the government officials audit taxpayers, employers, and insurance plans to enforce compliance?

It also lists "new boards, committees, programs, and other bureaucratic encumbrances" established by the bill.

Untagged Orchid

Government Intervention Kills Science

Another good editorial from the WSJ: Climategate -- Science is Dying. I think it's becoming more and more apparent that government involvement at all levels of science makes it increasingly politicized, and thus in any conflict between objectivity and politics, politics wins more and more often. To bring science back to Science requires nothing less than free inquiry, and this is only possible in a free market.

Lindzen on Climategate

Richard Lindzen has an excellent editorial showing that the Climate Science Isn't Settled.

I'm not a climate scientist, but from the outset the idea that the earth's atmosphere could provide significant positive feedback has always seemed very counter-intuitive to me. I just couldn't see how it wouldn't "blow up" with the various changes that the Earth has seen in its billions of years. So these paragraphs resonated with me:

The notion that the earth's climate is dominated by positive feedbacks is intuitively implausible, and the history of the earth's climate offers some guidance on this matter. About 2.5 billion years ago, the sun was 20%-30% less bright than now (compare this with the 2% perturbation that a doubling of CO2 would produce), and yet the evidence is that the oceans were unfrozen at the time, and that temperatures might not have been very different from today's. Carl Sagan in the 1970s referred to this as the "Early Faint Sun Paradox."

For more than 30 years there have been attempts to resolve the paradox with greenhouse gases. Some have suggested CO2—but the amount needed was thousands of times greater than present levels and incompatible with geological evidence. Methane also proved unlikely. It turns out that increased thin cirrus cloud coverage in the tropics readily resolves the paradox—but only if the clouds constitute a negative feedback. In present terms this means that they would diminish rather than enhance the impact of CO2.

There are quite a few papers in the literature that also point to the absence of positive feedbacks. The implied low sensitivity is entirely compatible with the small warming that has been observed. So how do models with high sensitivity manage to simulate the currently small response to a forcing that is almost as large as a doubling of CO2? Jeff Kiehl notes in a 2007 article from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the models use another quantity that the IPCC lists as poorly known (namely aerosols) to arbitrarily cancel as much greenhouse warming as needed to match the data, with each model choosing a different degree of cancellation according to the sensitivity of that model.

Why Ayn Rand Still Resonates

Onkar has a new editorial out.

Government 'Science'

The Washington Post provides a revealing look at how a consensus (backed by government force via grants and educational appointments) is made. In the long run, in my opinion, the absolute separation of state and science is as important as the separation of state and economy, or state and religion -- for basically the same reasons.

HT Crossfit

August 2009 OActivist Compilation

August's compilation is now available.

Nothing Less than Victory

Diana has good news on John Lewis' forthcoming book. I must say that I can't ever remember looking forward to a new book as eagerly as I am this one.

Government 'Independence'

Gus Van Horn has a good post today which includes an excellent quote from Stephen Bourque.

Concepts as Tools of Thought

This article on, of all things, lego naming, is interesting because it confirms the Objectivist view that concepts are primarily tools of cognition, not tools of communication. (In other words, even on a desert island, you'd have a crucial need of concepts held as words.) Here's the salient paragraph (emphasis added):

Our small, international cast (half Brits, half Americans) is made up of four children. First, my seven-year-old son Barney, who surveyed the list as if it was another piece of homework. His friend, Jem, also seven, went through the list and then wanted to do it again. Five-and-a-half-year-old Max didn’t hesitate to name every piece. Six-year-old Raimi often builds spaceships, but has never referred to the pieces by name, until prompted by his father—at which point he revealed that he possessed names for all of them in his head.

HT: TUEditors

Cascades or Consensus by Secondhandedness

In going through some of my papers I ran across an article I'd meant to blog. I think it's still relevant in explaining how a consensus by itself doesn't mean much, and how having government enforce a consensus makes it that much more difficult to correct. The article in question is by John Tierney introducing Gary Taubes' book "Good Calories, Bad Calories". Here's an excerpt of Tierney's lucid writing:

He was caught in what social scientists call a cascade.

We like to think that people improve their judgment by putting their minds together, and sometimes they do. The studio audience at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” usually votes for the right answer. But suppose, instead of the audience members voting silently in unison, they voted out loud one after another. And suppose the first person gets it wrong.

If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an “informational cascade” as one person after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong.

Because of this effect, groups are surprisingly prone to reach mistaken conclusions even when most of the people started out knowing better, according to the economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch. If, say, 60 percent of a group’s members have been given information pointing them to the right answer (while the rest have information pointing to the wrong answer), there is still about a one-in-three chance that the group will cascade to a mistaken consensus.

Let's End the Fed

It still amazes me how intellectually corrupt that paragon of financial wisdom, the Fed, truly is. How anyone can maintain that we need a Fed because somehow a few men behind closed doors can successfully machinate the economy is beyond me. Or hold that such politically appointed men can remain politically independent. A few excerpts from today's NY Times story:

Voters had become suspicious and unnerved by the Fed because of its trillion-dollar efforts to bail out the financial system, Mr. Frank warned. If the Fed really wanted to survive the disgruntlement in both parties, he continued, Mr. Bernanke would have to step back and let him devise a compromise.

[...]

"Ben Bernanke turns out to have better political instincts than anybody thought," Mr. Frank said in an interview last week. "They accept the fact that I know what I'm doing up here."

[...]

At one recent meeting, Senator Sherrod Brown challenged Mr. Bernanke's bona fides as a regular guy by giving him a pop quiz on baseball statistics. Mr. Bernanke, a passionate fan, passed.

[...]

To fight illustrates Mr. Bernanke's political challenge better than the one over Mr. Paul's bill to audit the Fed.

The maneuvering is still under way, involving intricate negotiations outside of public view. But, aided by the pledge of help from Mr. Frank and backing from the administration, Fed officials cautiously predict they will get what they want.

Peddling Pull in Healthcare

The WSJ has an good editorial out showing how the new health bill will create dependence on government and thereby increase what Ayn Rand termed "Pull Peddling" (see her essay in Capitalism the Unknown Ideal). A few excerpts:

The vote was 220 to 215, with 39 House Democrats joining all but one Republican in opposition. Mrs. Pelosi had to cajole and bribe her way to the magic 218, and the list of her promises must be stacked to the ceiling.

The lone Republican, Joseph Cao, represents a Democratic-leaning Louisiana district and extracted a promise that Mr. Obama would increase Medicaid payments to his state, and even then he only voted after Democrats had already hit 218. Let no one suggest this was the "bipartisan" health reform that Mr. Obama has long promised.

...

The real importance of the abortion uproar is as preview of the politics that will dominate every medical coverage issue if ObamaCare becomes law. Every decision of what to insure or not—when an MRI can be used, or whether a stage-four breast cancer patient can get Avastin or some future expensive drug—will become subject to political intervention over moral disputes or budget constraints. Heretofore, these decisions have largely been made between a doctor and patient. This is the real "right to life" issue.

Krening on Health Care

Congrats to Hannah Krening for having this excellent editorial published in the Denver Post! I particularly enjoyed this section, but be sure to read the whole piece:

What kind of health care will this system provide to you when you have a life threatening condition? How will it compare to what you have come to expect? I can tell you.

During my months of treatment for breast cancer in my early forties, my caregivers used their minds to make hundreds of important decisions that helped me win my battle. Their focus was on me, not government bureaucrats looking over their shoulders. Without their ability to freely exercise their judgment, I would not have survived.

Ask yourself: who do you think should be in charge of these kinds of decisions and work? Our smooth-talking president and his minions? Or medical personnel thinking and working for the benefit of their paying patients? Is it really in your best interest as a patient to have your doctor's mind forced by government?

Von Mises in the WSJ

It's nice to see Ludwig Von Mises getting some attention.

Virtuous Advice

Here's a second passage from William Zinsser's On Writing Well. I think his advice illustrates the importance and practicality of the four derivative Objectivist virtues which, to me, are most central in living one's life (independence, productiveness, integrity and pride). (Set aside the fact that it's written in terms of competitiveness, the same ideas hold without that element.)

[...] We're all working with the same words and the same principles.

Where, then, is the edge? Ninety percent of the answer lies in the hard work of mastering the tools discussed in this book. Add a few points for such natural gifts as a good musical ear, a sense of rhythm and a feeling for words. But the final advantage is the same one that applies in every other competitive venture. If you would like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft. And you must be willing to defend what you've written against the various middlemen--editors, agents and publishers--whose sights may be different from yours, whose standards not as high. Too many writers are browbeaten into settling for less than their best.

I've always felt that my "style"--the careful projection onto paper of who I think I am--is my main marketable asset, the one possession that might set me apart from other writers. Therefore I never wanted anyone to tinker with it, and after I submit an article I protect it fiercely. Several magazine editors have told me I'm the only writer they know who cares what happens to his piece after he gets paid for it. Most writers won't argue with an editor because they don't want to annoy him; they're so grateful to be published that they agree to having their style--in other words, their personality--violated in public.

Yet to defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive. I'm a known crank on this issue--I fight over every semicolon. But editors put up with me because they can see that I'm serious. In fact, my crankiness has brought me more work than it has driven away. Editors with an unusual assignment often thought of me because they knew I would do it with unusual care. They also knew they would get the article on time and that it would be accurate. [...]

Send your Congressmen a NO on Socialized Medicine

Here's a link to make sending your congressmen a NO on socialized medicine easy. Please use it (it allows you to put in your own text or use theirs if you don't have time to compose your own). I used Jason Crawford's succinct message (via OActivists) which he has graciously allowed others to use too:

The Wall Street Journal calls Pelosi's bill "the worst bill ever". I agree.

Please vote NO to socialized medicine, to "universal coverage", to any "public option" or "single-payer" system, and to any expansion of government control over health care.

Please vote YES for real reform and increased *freedom* in health care, especially repeal of insurance mandates, opening insurance across state lines, and opening HSAs to everyone.

Please do NOT help pass a compromise bill! We don't need compromise with socialized medicine, we need to defeat it.

Health care is not a right! It is a service to be bought and paid for. And doctors, hospitals, and patients should have the right and the freedom to deal with each other any way they want.

Learning from RomneyCare

Paul Hsieh has another valuable editorial out. Check it out and feel free to leave supportive comments.

Vulnerability has a strength of its own.

On the advice of a Noodlefood commenter (PMB), I'm reading William Zinsser's "On Writing Well". In it I came across this passage which I thought was worth passing on both for its sentiment and its turn-of-phrase:

My encounter with the principals began when I got a call from Ernest B. Fleishman, superintendent of schools in Greenwich, Connecticut. "We'd like you to come 'dejargonize' us," he said. We don't think we can teach students to write unless all of us at the top of the school system clean up our own writing." ...

What appealed to me was the willingness of Dr. Fleishman and his colleagues to make themselves vulnerable; vulnerability has a strength of its own.

Honk if I'm paying for your golf cart

I sometimes wonder if politicians and economists get together behind closed doors and compete to see just how a great a sham they can foist on the public in the name of collectivism and altruism (e.g. "stimulus" in the name of the "public good")?

In South Carolina, sales of these carts have been soaring as dealerships alert customers to Uncle Sam's giveaway. "The Golf Cart Man" in the Villages of Lady Lake, Florida is running a banner online ad that declares: "GET A FREE GOLF CART. Or make $2,000 doing absolutely nothing!"

Golf Cart Man is referring to his offer in which you can buy the cart for $8,000, get a $5,300 tax credit off your 2009 income tax, lease it back for $100 a month for 27 months, at which point Golf Cart Man will buy back the cart for $2,000. "This means you own a free Golf Cart or made $2,000 cash doing absolutely nothing!!!" You can't blame a guy for exploiting loopholes that Congress offers.

Hyperinflation on the Horizon?

Though I don't make much of any one indicator or statistic, I thought this was interesting (from John Mauldin's weekly newsletter):

"There have been 28 episodes of hyperinflation of national economies in the 20th century, with 20 occurring after 1980. Peter Bernholz (Professor Emeritus of Economics in the Center for Economics and Business (WWZ) at the University of Basel, Switzerland) has spent his career examining the intertwined worlds of politics and economics with special attention given to money. In his most recent book, Monetary Regimes and Inflation: History, Economic and Political Relationships, Bernholz analyzes the 12 largest episodes of hyperinflations - all of which were caused by financing huge public budget deficits through money creation. His conclusion: the tipping point for hyperinflation occurs when the government's deficit exceed 40% of its expenditures.

"According to the current Office of Management and Budget (OMB) projections, US federal expenditures are projected to be $3.653 trillion in FY 2009 and $3.766 trillion in FY 2010, with unified deficits of $1.580 trillion and $1.502 trillion, respectively. These projections imply that the US will run deficits equal to 43.3% and 39.9% of expenditures in 2009 and 2010, respectively. To put it simply, roughly 40% of what our government is spending has to be borrowed.

Catching Up

I'm way behind on my reading and blogging and will be gone on a hiking trip next week, but I did want to post a few important links for those of you who haven't seen them yet. (I assume most readers here are regular NoodleFood readers, but since I know a few aren't I'll post some of the highlights along with an encouragement to become regular NF readers.)

...

Paul Hsieh has been on a productive tear, with two Op-Eds out, one in the Christian Science Monitor "Health care in Massachusetts: A warning for America" and one in the Denver Post "The Real Stakes". Thanks and congrats to Paul for all his hard work and success.

...

Freedom of speech is under attack in many ways. Here's a scary story of what happened to Dan Edge when he tried to lead a respectful and lawful protest against a curfew law in Greenville. (The comments to this post are also worth reading.)

Here's an example of the government telling private enterprise what they can and can't say (hint: disagreeing with the administration's viewpoint is on the prohibited list). It's worth reprinting the government's language in this matter:

CMS is concerned that, among other things, this information is misleading and confusing to beneficiaries, represents information to beneficiaries as official communications about the Medicare Advantage program, and is potentially contrary to federal regulations and guidance for the MA and Part D programs and other federal law, including HIPAA. As we continue our research into this issue, we are instructing you to end immediately all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your website.

Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings of our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement actions.

And here's a report on the FTC's new guidelines forcing bloggers to disclose any material connections to products they may discuss, review or endorse. The "guidelines" are necessarily and purposefully non-objective so that bureaucrats will have to weigh each instance on a case-by-case basis.

I don't think it's hyperbole to start wondering when we'll have a Speech Czar and when we do, that may mean the end of any peaceful and rational disagreement -- so speak up as forcefully and often as you can to help ensure that we can continue to argue for a better society.

...

Diana Hsieh has started a great new project (on top of her podcasting) . She's developed materials to help lead Atlas Shrugged reading groups. There are currently three such groups on-going in Colorado and she's generously made the material available to others who might want to follow suit. (BTW if anyone in the coastal Orange County, CA area wanted to start a group, I'd try to attend.)

...

Gus Van Horn brings us an inspiring story of a young entrepreneur in Malawi. Now imagine what that type of person could accomplish in a capitalist society.

...

The Financial Post has a good article on the causes of the financial crisis and the dangers of increased regulation. I liked this section (emphasis added) as well as those explaining how regulation forces homogeneity and therefore susceptibility to the same risks:

IT IS A FUNDAMENTAL misunderstanding that the market is rational and at some sort of equilibrium, where all information and wisdom are incorporated in decisions. Neoclassical economic models filled with unrealistic assumptions about humans and the economy should always have warning stickers attached to them. The market is nothing other than all the millions of decisions that we all take as we produce, act and invest -- and the tiniest bit of introspection is enough to realize that we do not behave like the textbook models. Since finding lots of information before acting takes time and costs money, we often go with our gut, following rules of thumb and copying what others have already done. That is why the market has a herd instinct. When others seem to be successful at something and get rich on it, you follow suit. After a while, the hollowness of the enthusiasm becomes apparent, and then it often changes into overblown fear that soon ushers in recession.

A key lesson to be drawn from such events, however, is that borrowers, lenders, bankers and brokers are not the only ones to be affected. Politicians, bureaucrats and central bankers are at least as likely to succumb to the herd instinct -- and they have special power. If you act in a different way from what they have approved, they may take your money or even send you off to jail. This gives them the ability to head the march of the lemmings and set its pace.

Congrats

Congratulations to Burn Notice for being picked up for a fourth season! I'm delighted as it's my favorite show and one that really adds to my life. (And after the FireFly experience, a great show being renewed is truly a noteworthy and praiseworthy event.)

The Dangers of Arbitrary Government Force

Here's a scary concretization of the dangers of both non-objective law and unaccountable government agencies and bureaus:

Mr. Norris ended up spending almost two years in prison because he didn't have the proper paperwork for some of the many orchids he imported. The orchids were all legal - but Mr. Norris and the overseas shippers who had packaged the flowers had failed to properly navigate the many, often irrational, paperwork requirements the U.S. imposed when it implemented an arcane international treaty's new restrictions on trade in flowers and other flora.

There's more, read the whole thing.

Government Force as a Corrupting Influence

I enjoyed the opening of this article, as well as its warning. (HT John Lewis via OActivists). Here's the intro:

There are all kinds of corruption. Some are pretty easy to identify. You can’t miss it when a congressman sells the public’s vote for money, say, or a husband sets his personal promises at nothing in order to score some extracurricular sex. But the slow rot that enters the soul of individuals when the tendrils of the state overcreep the life of a society—that’s a little tougher to define. It may just be the toadying deference that steals into your behavior with the guard who searches you at the airport. Or it could be the baksheesh you pay the safety inspector to keep your business from being shut down. But as subtle as the effects may be, the rule is ironclad: the more areas of life are funded and regulated by government, the less free you are, and the more corrupt and servile you ultimately become.

Through the work of artist and blogger Patrick Courrielche, Andrew Breitbart’s new website Big Government—reporting the news so the mainstream media won’t have to—has just released a sickening transcript of an August 10 conference call jointly hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts, the White House’s Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve, an initiative overseen by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency. The purpose of the call was to urge a group of pro-Obama artists to get out there and start creating art that would support the president’s agenda on health care, the environment, education, and community services. Speaking at the request of “folks in the White House and folks in the NEA,” Michael Skolnick, political director for Obama-mad hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, told the assembled artists, “All of us who are on this phone call were selected for a reason, and you are the ones that lead by example in your communities. You are the thought leaders. You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art, or promote a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what do and what to be into, and what’s cool and what’s not cool.”

OActivist July 2009 Compilation

The compilation of OActivist activity for July 2009 is now up.

Will Your Doctor Shrug?

Paul Hsieh has an excellent editorial on the subject. Check it out!

Putting a Price on Freedom

The Undercurrent's Fall edition is now out. So far I've had a chance to read Noah Stahl's editorial which is truly excellent.

Physicians Poll

There's a lot of interesting facts and data in this story. E.g.:

-[In Massachusetts] The percentage of primary care practices closed to new patients is the highest ever recorded.
-The U.S. today has just 2.4 physicians per 1,000 population — below the median of 3.1 for members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the official club of wealthy nations.
-The AMA, in fact, represents approximately 18% of physicians and has been hit with a number of defections by members opposed to the AMA's support of Democrats' proposed health care overhaul.
-Four of nine doctors, or 45%, said they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind.

A Principle for Politics

I have a column out today entitled: We Need a Return to Principled Government. As always, comments and links welcome.

PS I submitted it with this post's title, any thoughts on which is better?

Announcement (1)

Dear Subscribers and Friends of The Objective Standard,

Given the Obama administration’s efforts to nationalize the health care industry—and the Republicans’ rush to capitulate on the matter—we are making Paul Hsieh’s article “How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability“ (from the forthcoming issue of TOS) accessible on our website early and for free. Dr. Hsieh’s article shows that, contrary to proposals being put forth by Republicans, a genuinely free market in health insurance is not only moral, in that it respects the rights of producers and consumers, but also practical, in that it enables businessmen to solve problems for profit—which leads to more and better products and services at lower prices for consumers. Please forward the link to everyone you know who might be open to reason.

Two other TOS articles pertaining directly to this national emergency are:

“Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America,” which identifies the theory behind the Massachusetts mandatory health insurance program, exposes the program as a fiasco, explains why the theory had to fail in practice, and sheds light on the only genuine, rights-respecting means to affordable, accessible health care for Americans—and . . .

“Moral Health Care vs. “Universal Health Care,” which surveys the history of government interference in health insurance and medicine in America, specifying the rights violations and economic problems caused thereby; enumerates the failed attempts to solve those economic problems by means of further government interference; and shows that the only viable solution to the debacle at hand is to gradually and systematically transition to a rights-respecting, fully free market in these industries.

America is slipping into statism, and, if we do not reverse course soon, we are going to slip all the way. Please promote these articles—which provide clear, principled, moral arguments for a free market in health care—in whatever ways you can. Our freedom and health are at stake.

Thank you,

Craig Biddle, Editor
The Objective Standard
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/
Phone: 804-747-1776
Fax: 804-273-0500

H. W. Jenkins Ghost Writes Obama's Health Care Speech

The WSJ has a humorous but trenchant take on how Obama's "reforms" are following a bipartisan path we've been on for many decades.

Health Care is neither a Right nor a Privilege

Here's another good editorial. A short excerpt:

Nor is medical care a privilege. A privilege is something authority figures permit us to do at their discretion. No one considers auto repair to be a right, but it’s absurd to consider it “a privilege.” No one grants you the “privilege” of having money to repair your car. Rather, if you want to own a functioning car, you must take responsibility to finance its repair by earning wealth. The same goes for medical treatment.

Typical Conservatives

It seems that everywhere I look, even the most conservative and fiscally responsible voices in our mainstream media have this kind of approach:

David Walker sounds like a modern-day Paul Revere as he warns about the country's perilous future. "We suffer from a fiscal cancer," he tells a meeting of the National Taxpayers Union, the nation's oldest anti-tax lobby. "Our off balance sheet obligations associated with Social Security and Medicare put us in a $56 trillion financial hole—and that's before the recession was officially declared last year. America now owes more than Americans are worth—and the gap is growing!"

So what do they propose?

Mr. Walker identifies the disease as having a basic cause: "Washington is totally out of touch and out of control," he sighs. "There is political courage there, but there is far more political careerism and people dodging real solutions." He identifies entrenched incumbency as a real obstacle to change. "Members of Congress ensure they have gerrymandered seats where they pick the voters rather than the voters picking them and then they pass out money to special interests who then make sure they have so much money that no one can easily challenge them," he laments. He believes gerrymandering should be curbed and term limits imposed if for no other reason than to inject some new blood into the system. On campaign finance, he supports a narrow constitutional amendment that would bar congressional candidates from accepting contributions from people who can't vote for them: "If people can't vote in a district not their own, should we allow them to spend unlimited money on behalf of someone across the country?"
[...]
As for health care, Mr. Walker says he had hopes for comprehensive health-care reform earlier this year and met with most of the major players to fashion a compromise. "President Obama got the sequence wrong by advocating expanding coverage before we've proven our ability to control costs," he says. "If we don't get our fiscal house in order, but create new obligations we'll have a Thelma and Louise moment where we go over the cliff." Mr. Walker's preferred solution is a plan that combines universal coverage for all Americans with an overall limit on the federal government's annual health expenditures. His description reminds me of the unicorn—a marvelous creature we all wish existed but is not likely to ever be seen on this earth. (emphasis added)

Despite being overt advocates of socialism, here's how they label themselves:

Despite an occasional detour into support for government intervention, Mr. Walker remains the Jeffersonian he grew up as in his native Virginia. "I view the Constitution with deep respect," he told me. "My ancestors and those of my wife fought and died in the Revolution, and I care a lot about returning us to the principles of the Founding Fathers."

I'm working on a new editorial which I hope will effectively challenge this all too typical attitude and approach.

Man Haters Strike Again

Environmentalists--who value wilderness over man--appear to be largely responsible for the fires currently raging here in California. Refreshingly, a mainstream media article actually points this out:

Some critics suggested that protests from environmentalists contributed to the disaster, which came after the brush was allowed to build up for as much as 40 years.

"This brush was ready to explode," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose district overlaps the forest. "The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today."

Prescribed burns are intended to protect homes and lives by eliminating fuel that can cause explosive wildfires. The wildfire that has blackened 140,000 acres — or nearly 219 square miles — in the forest over the past week has been fed by the kind of tinder-dry vegetation that prescribed burns are designed to safely devour.

The blaze has destroyed more than five dozen homes, killed two firefighters and forced thousands of people to flee. Firefighters reported modest progress Wednesday as investigators said the blaze was human-caused, though it was not clear exactly how the fire started or whether it was accidental or arson.

Figures from the California's South Coast Air Quality Management District suggested even less was protectively burned. The agency said it granted seven permits sought by the Forest Service to conduct prescribed burns on 2,748 acres in the forest this year. The agency reviews such requests to ensure air quality in the often-smoggy Los Angeles area will not be worsened by smoke from intentional fires. But records show only 12.8 acres burned.

Four of the permits, totaling 1,257 acres, were granted in areas involved in the wildfire, according to the air quality agency.

But the Forest Service disputed those figures. Bear said the plan was to burn 1,748 acres, and 193 were cleared.

Government firefighters set thousands of blazes each year to reduce the wildfire risk in overgrown forests and grasslands around the nation. Prescribed burns can also improve overall forest health and increase forage for wildlife.

Obtaining the necessary permits is a complicated process, and such efforts often draw protests from environmentalists.

A university professor, who lives off of our tax dollars, had this to say in rebuttal:

Ultimately, he said, the answer is to stop building in fire-prone areas instead of spending huge sums on firefighting.

That's the anti-man view in microcosm.

Rationing Violates Rights

Paul Hsieh has an excellent editorial out today on Pajamasmedia, be sure to check it out. (And congrats also on getting an Instapundit link!)

An Update on Government Waste

A quick update on the my editorial on government waste. First off, many thanks to Paul Hsieh (Noodlefood) and Lucy Hugel (The Undercurrent) for linking to it! I really wish I'd thought of the title Lucy used.

Also, a bit of data to support the idea that government has little incentive to contain costs.

Celebrating Oil

Congrats to Alex Epstein for having an excellent editorial published in IBD. The takeaway:

Nearly every item in your life would either not exist or be far more expensive without oil; there is simply no comparable source of practical, portable energy.

Yet today people increasingly label oil a pollutant that damages rather than enhances our lives and, even worse, an addiction — likening our consumption of oil to a junkie's self-destructive heroin habit. This is profoundly ignorant, not to mention unfair to the petroleum industry that tirelessly innovates, year after year, to find more oil and extract it more efficiently.

Ted Kennedy

I agree with the general sentiment of this short and well-written article.

Virtual Objectivist Club

Here's an announcement that might be of interest to students:

The Virtual Objectivist Club (VOC) is a weekly phone-based/online discussion group dedicated to the study of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. The VOC is being offered for the first time this 2009 academic year. It's open to any current students who would like to learn more about Objectivism.

During the Fall 2009 semester, we'll meet online to discuss essays and topics from either the Ayn Rand Reader or from free, online resources. Each meeting will be hosted by a rotating set of moderators, including Greg Perkins, Diana Hsieh, Kyle Haight, Andrew Dalton, and Kurt Colville. We'll meet on Wednesday evenings at 9 p.m. Eastern.

If you're a student who does not have access to a study group at your school, we may just be the group for you. If you're interested, you can get more information and our full schedule at http://www.oclubs.org/voc

Misconstruing the Cause of Waste

I have an editorial out today on the topic. Here's a short excerpt:

The ramifications to waste are threefold. First, by prohibiting certain activities, government eliminates competition. For example, private companies like FedEx are legally barred from competing with the Postal Service — creating that paragon of efficiency, the USPS. Next, because it can confiscate our money to pay its bills, government has little incentive to control costs. Should it overpay for services, salaries, or pensions, government simply takes more from helpless taxpayers. Finally, because the government has usurped their prerogatives, individuals no longer decide what is worthwhile and what isn’t. Government forcibly disconnects the decision of what’s valuable from the people who actually pay for the values.

Comments and links welcome.

Health Care is not a Right

Somehow I've neglected to link to Dr. Peikoff's fantastic essay available on the FIRM site. Sorry for my oversight, it's now rectified.

The Effects of a Government Monopoly

This WSJ article analyzing the performance of the postal service is quite interesting, and relevant to an editorial I hope to be posting next week. This section in particular is worth noting:

Here's a secret Washington doesn't want to admit: That 14 cent per letter cost hike after inflation over the past 60 years imposes a $20 billion a year toll on the U.S. economy. The government mail system is essentially a $20 billion annual income transfer from businesses and households to the postal unions.

About 80 cents of every postal dollar pays for employee salaries and benefits (compared to less than 50 cents for Fed Ex and UPS). What that means is that if you want to cut costs at the post office, you have to slash labor expenses. Mr. Potter has reduced Postal Service employment to 650,000 from 800,000 the past four years, largely through attrition. But he still employs 650,000 workers who have among the best wages and benefits in all of American life.

Most employees have no-layoff clauses, the starting salaries are about 25% to 30% higher than for comparably skilled private workers, and the fringe benefits are so expensive that the Government Accountability Office says $500 million a year could be saved merely by bringing health benefits into line with those of other federal workers. Mr. Potter has to set aside $5 billion a year just to pay for health insurance. Postal management now wants to "save" money by not advance-funding those obligations, and Congress is likely to say yes. But that doesn't save a dime; it simply creates even larger unfunded liabilities down the road.

Advocating Slavery

Gus Van Horn noted this terrible LA Times column a few days ago. It was too late to have an LTE published, but I sent one in anyways with the idea that it's always worthwhile to make editors aware of reader's reactions to their stories. Here's my unpublished letter:

After reading D. Lazarus’ Aug 16th column, I quickly ran to my dictionary to see if I’d misunderstood. But no, “mandate” does mean “to force” and “slavery” is still defined as “forced unpaid labor”. So Lazarus’ call for mandated medical labor is indeed a call for slavery. Welcome to liberalism in the 21st century.

Spread the Wealth Until It's Gone

Via the OActivist list comes this amusing site.

Lest We've Forgotton, Health Care is not a Right

Another good article on the subject, this one from OActivist Wendy Milling.

"California Disease"

This story, which purports to show how "California Disease" is affecting Oregon, does a good job of summarizing the problems with California. Too bad it doesn't mention the only solution: a renewed respect for individual rights.

From the story:

Some might call this California disease. This refers to a chronic inability to make hard decisions as well as a general disregard for business and economic activity.

California's inability to plan or create new public infrastructure affects every part of the state's economy. California was once a leader in building infrastructure, but that was in Pat Brown's gubernatorial administration in the 1960s when California last planned a major infrastructure project.

There are consequences to California's inability to deal with infrastructure. Its freeways are parking lots. Its water problems are threatening the viability of Central Valley agriculture, one of the key drivers of the state's economy. Its electrical system is so bad that every summer brings the fear of interruptions in the supply of electricity. Its universities are in decline. Its prisons are overcrowded.

Another symptom of California disease is regulation and red tape that increases the uncertainty for any project and raises the cost.

California projects can be in planning for years, and at the end of that planning process they may still be denied. The long delays are expensive. And as many would-be California developers will tell you, the uncertainty is a strong detriment to economic activity and development.

We also see symptoms of California disease in tax policy. California no longer has the United States' highest income tax rate. Big deal. With a top income tax rate of 10.3 percent, sales taxes that can reach 10.25 percent and a 33.9 cents-per-gallon gas tax, its total taxes are among the highest in the country.

California's regulatory climate also reflects the disease. Even as the state endures its most brutal recession in decades, it persists in unilaterally imposing new regulation, making the state less competitive with other states.

OActivist June 2009 Compilation

It's a bit late, but the OActivist compilation for June is now up.

Well Done Video

For those with a mechanical bent, Paul Hsieh has posted a really good video explaining how a differential works.

Town Hall Meetings

I thought this was a good story on town hall meetings. It seems worthwhile to attend if you the time and are willing to speak up.

Fishy Behavior

There have been many good letters written, some posted as comments to Diana's post, others posted to the OActivist email list. I particularly liked Hannah Krening's from the latter list, which I reprint with her permission.

To: flag@whitehouse.gov
Subject: fishy behavior

Good morning!

You asked for reporting of "fishy" behavior. I see fishy people everywhere (and they don't even know they're fishy!).

I have seen actual videos on YouTube of people protesting your plan to provide health care for all. They all seem to think that you will not run this program well. They ignore the astounding success of Medicare and military health care, which any senior citizen or member of the armed forces knows is the best in the universe.

I've seen seniors who fear that they will be shelved, and people with medical conditions who believe that pursuing the options of their choosing is actually something they should reasonably be able to do as free citizens. Imagine the nerve of these mobs of undesirables in our country! Perhaps you will move them to the bottom of the waiting list when your wonderful plan goes through. It will serve them right!

I know of a soldier who is actually concerned because the Army dentist told her before she deployed to Afghanistan that all those little tiny cavities in her mouth could wait until after she has been away serving her country for a year. I'm sure you will agree that this soldier is simply expecting too much from her government-supplied health care.

And you need to add some Canadians to your list of suspected dissidents. They actually have the nerve to go to the US and pay out of pocket for care when they are told their heart problems and cancers will need to continue to progress in their bodies while they work their way up the waiting list (and slip down a bit sometimes when More Important Government People are moved to the top of the list). How unreasonable and just plain impatient of them!

I certainly hope you will budget for gulags and re-education camps for all these terribly unreasonable people. After all, the government can always get more funds -- from somewhere....

Sincerely,
A Fan of Slavery

The Myth Of Free Market Health Care In America

This Forbes article is wealth worth reading. As Ms. Dalmia rightly notes and then debunks:

...both ObamaCare's supporters and opponents believe that--unlike Europe--America has something called a free market health care system. So long as this myth holds sway, it will be exceedingly difficult to prescribe free market fixes to America's health care woes--or, conversely, end the lure of big government remedies.

Read the whole thing.

Obama's Thought Police

Diana points out this white house blog page which urges us to turn in neighbors who might hold opinion's different than the administration's. As our new thought police put it:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

I urge everyone to immediately respond to this, because once government takes our freedom of speech, we're doomed (or at least there's nothing left but violent revolution).

Here's my letter:

Dear Mr. President, Mr. Macon and the Whitehouse Team,

I have to hand it to you! Even though I’m extremely contemptuous of your administration’s policies and approach, I thought it would take you a while to come up with something more repulsive and anti-American than your attempts to socialize medicine. You’ve proven me wrong! Setting up a thought police and a Stasi-style informant campaign is much worse.

Ayn Rand once observed: “Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries."

Now granted you’ve chosen coercion and subjugation instead of freedom in each of these key realms, yet the consistency of your policies still serve to substantiate her insight. Indeed it seems that every step and action you take highlight the accuracy of Rand’s analysis and conclusions.

So for what it’s worth, I thank you for doing your part to so dramatically show the nation the life-and-death contrast between your philosophy and Rand’s. It will be the one redeeming part of your awful legacy.

Amit Ghate

Click on the link to Diana's post to see other good examples of people "turning themselves in".

Gaining Traction

Dr. John Lewis on the OActivist list points to this great endorsement of ARI:

Dodge: Is there any required reading for budding right-of-center types to advise them on how to deal with socialists?

Irving: On reading, I would recommend Madsen Pirie’s book on debating techniques. Young people are attracted by ideology, and I still find Rand to be a good start — novels then non-fiction.

The Ayn Rand Institute has changed direction under Yaron Brook who impressed me greatly when I met him. ARI has moved into outreach and invested heavily in new websites. The commentary — videos, op-eds, press releases — is the best around. It is the main advocate of capitalism around. Cato and Reason are wishy-washy by comparison.

Socialized Medicine

Yaron Brook has an excellent editorial out on the subject. Please forward it to anyone who might find it of interest.

A Lesson for Activists

Though I don't agree with the conservative ideology of these professors, their battle is very interesting, as it shows how much of the oppressive and seemingly intractable bureaucracy one can fight if one puts one's mind to it. In particular, a principled, open and direct approach is just what our opponents fear, as that forces them to give reasons for their positions and to set firm precedents -- something which is anathema to their "fluid" thought processes. Here's the authors' summary of their activism approach:

So we responded with boldness and openness in every public venue we could.

We publicized the investigation thoroughly through opinion columns and letters to the editor. We proposed and began to work through university governance on an amendment to the Anti-Discrimination Policy to better protect free speech. We brought the movie Indoctrinate U to campus and leafleted students on the campus Library Bridge urging them to attend. We also began meetings with representatives in the state legislature who were becoming interested in the problem.

The defiance and vigor of our response was almost certainly a shock to the Office for Inclusion and to the university administration generally. And worse still for them was out (sic) outreach to the state legislature. In fact, the investigation (then going on six months) ended the day after Allen and I met with one of the leaders of the majority Senate Republicans in Michigan. The investigation report released in March 2008 concluded that no discrimination had taken place at a "level" that called for any action against the student groups or the advisors.

HT: TU editors

The Sprit of the Crossfit Games

I enjoyed this spectator's description of what Crossfit and the crossfit games meant to him. I share his view that:

Remember when you were a kid, how long you could play outside in the mud and in the snow? Running up hills, down hills, through the woods, throwing snowballs, throwing footballs in the snow? Remember that? It was hard work! But we don't remember it as work, because it was fun. I get that feeling when I CrossFit.

Indeed, I think that regularly participating in games or sports of some type helps one stay young, so crossfit serves a bigger purpose for me than simply staying fit (bouldering is also an important activity for me in this respect).

Pull Peddlers

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand describes in great detail the type of bureaucratic leaders who emerge when the wall between economics and state is broken. (She uses the term "pull peddlers" to denote these men, and points out that they become more prevalent and more powerful as the mixed economy slips towards outright statism.) Today's NY Times article describing the new head of Calpers provides a concretization of this type of person and his qualifications:

He was hired in large part for his management skills and political savvy — honed in Washington, where (sic) headed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the Clinton years. He does not have an M.B.A. or any other advanced degree in finance. Harvard, Yale or Wharton is not on his résumé. Instead, his lone degree, in political economy, is from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.

“My career sort of culminates in this job, where this combination of investment and political management and organization management come together because that’s what Calpers needs,” he said in his expansive corner office decorated with a photo of himself and Bono. (Bono was a general partner in an equity fund in which the Washington State fund invested.)

(And as an aside, notice the NYT's double standard in its reporting: if private pension funds took significant risks to "double-down" as it were, they'd be crucified by the media; when a quasi-public official does it, he's admired and praised for his "daring". Only the unquestioning acceptance of altruism and the transmorgrifying effect of the term "for the public good" can explain this type of inconsistency.)

The Federal Health Care Muggers

Paul Hsieh has another excellent editorial out at PajamasMedia. Please stop by and leave supportive comments, and/or forward the piece to anyone who'd benefit from reading it.

Keynes on the Power of Ideas

I'm surprised to be favorably quoting Keynes, but I ran across this quote in Sowell's "on Classical Economics" and found it to be both true, and of a much wider application than just economics and politics (philosophy being the most important realm of its application).

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.

More on the Tea Parties

Here is OActivist Neil Erian's excellent tea party speech (in two parts). It's perhaps my favorite of the ones I've heard.

Part 1


Part 2


Also, Dr. John Lewis has announced that he and other Objectivists will be speaking and giving educational seminars at the next Virginia Tea Party being held in Richmond on July 25th. Check it out and help spread the word.

How Vulnerable is California?

If a particular set of 144,000 people left California -- a state of 38,000,000 inhabitants -- half of its income tax revenue would be lost. This is the result of the state's "stick it to the productive" mentality and says much about the nature of its populist democracy. I personally hope that all these productive giants leave, both to save their own skins and to perhaps force the state into a position where it will have to begin examining the nature and purpose of man's rights, and then implement them to the great benefit of any productive resident (after which hopefully those who were forced to flee would come back).

Moreover I hope that California's situation puts the rest of the nation on guard, as Obama's policies are sure to put the country in the same position California now finds itself in.

Here's hoping for more cuts to public education

One of the good things about the California fiscal crisis is that the State is being forced to leave, or reduce its presence in, certain areas, thereby reducing spending and taxes and perhaps more importantly, making room for productive and efficient private parties to take their place. As an illustration of how the public sector thinks, consider this quote from the president of the University of California.

“It’s important not to take money from enterprises that are really entrepreneurial,” Mr. Yudof said, “and it wouldn’t help us with our deficit. Maybe this will encourage people to be entrepreneurial and go out and get those grants.” (emphasis added)

How many private educators do you think would characterize entrepreneurship this way and how much harm is done to students who are taught this type of “entrepreneurship”?

Every reduction in public education is a twofold benefit, it reduces the State’s ability to propagandize for whatever consensus views it happens to want to foist on its citizens, and it allows the private sector a better chance to bring proper education back. Let’s hope we see many more cuts...

John Lewis' Excellent Tea Party Speech

Part 1


Part 2

Den. Roy Tokunaga x Polysema

Good Post

I enjoyed this post over at 3 ring binder on why LB is an Objectivist. It's very personal, self-interested and concrete -- exactly the approach that I think is necessary to benefit from the philosophy on a daily, "real-life" level. I particularly liked this section:

It is unfortunate that the immediate gratification stage of a child is most often mistakenly identified as “selfishness”. As we begin to interact with others, and more importantly, to appreciate some people as values in and of themselves, we learn that achieving our own happiness may often include the happiness of those we hold as valuable (as in friendship and love). When I value someone, their happiness is also important to me. I want them to be happy for selfish reasons. This is in keeping with my desire to be happy rather than in conflict with it.

The Nature of Paternalism

In a recent editorial, Mark Steyn quotes this description of paternalism written by Tocqueville in the 1830's. I've never seen a more apt and eloquent characterization, and I particularly like how he differentiates what a father does from what a "paternal" state does:

Over these is elevated an immense, tutelary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate. It is absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle. It would resemble the paternal power if, like that power, it had as its object to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks, to the contrary, to keep them irrevocably fixed in childhood … it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs…

The sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulations—complicated, minute, and uniform—through which even the most original minds and the most vigorous souls know not how to make their way… it does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does it force one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting on one's own … it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way: it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

It's also interesting to note that Tocqueville singled out the dangers of the supposedly modern discovery of "nudging" 170 years ago. Is it possible that during Cass Sunstein's years at Harvard and U of Chicago he never ran across Tocqueville's admonitions?

And while I'm not a proponent of "State's rights", I find much of the rest of the editorial worthwhile, particularly the fact that there is no innate desire for freedom, and that no society can be good without the active participation of good citizens.

PS Sorry about the "read more" at the bottom of the posts. Something has changed in blogger's handling of some HTML codes and I haven't figured out how to work around it yet.