Good Posts on the Net

J Kendall at Crucible and Column links to a Forbes magazine article by Paul Rubin, professor of economics at Emory. Mr. Kendall tells about a quote from the article:

But here was the item I found astonishing. While many think doctors forego less expensive generics, in favor of newer drugs that are incremental improvements over them, the reality is that newer drugs are more cost effective!

"...new drugs lead to better health outcomes. They keep people out of the hospital. A 2007 study by business professor Frank Lichtenberg of Columbia University estimated that a prescription for a new drug (5 years from FDA approval) costs an average $18 more than an older one (15 years on the market) but reduces other medical costs, including hospital and office visits, by $129."

It is indeed refreshing to see a reasoned defense of the doctor/pharmaceutical company relationship. However, though Mr. Rubin presents good practical arguments, he does not offer the moral argument, namely, that doctors and drug companies have the right to do business with each other in a way that is mutually beneficial to each so long as no one's rights are violated.

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J Kendall also has a post on the book 'Journals of Ayn Rand' in which he presents examples of her writings as she developed her scenes and characters. Fascinating stuff. While I have a copy of most of her writings, I don't have that one. J has inspired me to put 'Journals' on my wish list.

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Darren at Darren Cauthon has a good post on the evils of democracy. Evidently, the mayor of Kansas City and the council wanted light rail for the city. After the issue was voted down by citizens 5 times, it finally passed on the 6th try. Will there be any more voting on the issue? Darren explains:

With a tiny majority of voters who bothered to vote in that election, they finally had what they needed. They declared that the public had finally spoken, and they wanted light rail!

But what about all of the past elections where it was voted down? That’s the past!

But what about what they want today? Should we continue to vote on this as we have in the past? No, the public has spoken!

But what about the rights of those citizens that might not want to pay for a light rail system? Tough, the public has voted!

This is what happens when individual rights are put up for vote. Rather than persuade you to voluntarily contribute to something, people can go to your neighbors and try to convince them for your help. And in the same way that proponents for things like these don’t care for your opinion, they don’t really care for the opinion of others, either. They want light rail, not your opinion. So long as they get 51% or more at one point in time, and they suddenly have the mandate to use the government’s power to do what they want — no matter what it costs or who has to pay.

Even with things like this going on around the country, people will still think democracy is a good thing. Sad. This is a good example of the fact that democracy always devolves into tyranny of the majority and by its spokesmen. Darren goes on to point out the proper solution, limiting the government to its proper function, the protection of individual rights.

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Gus Van Horn has an interesting article on lying. He explains how it is not enough to teach a child why lying is wrong, but how it is better to teach him the value or worth of honesty.

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Lastly, Amit Ghate at Thrutch has the good news that the Danish newspaper that printed the cartoons of Mohammed that sparked Riots by Muslims in 2005, has reprinted a caricature of the one with the bomb in the turbin. He says other European papers have done likewise even printing all 12 of the cartoons. They say they are doing it to take a stand for free speech. It can only be hoped that maybe American papers will find some spine as a result.

How Not to Motivate Students Pt. 2.

Pedagogically Correct Volume 2, Issue 6
February 11, 2008

"Pedagogy": The art and science of teaching.
:: Calling All LifeLong Learners: Learn Science the VanDamme Academy Way!
:: Announcement: Pedagogically Correct Blog


Last time, I described the "all day recess" approach of Waldorf-type schools to the issue of motivation, which have children engaging in wood carving, finger-knitting, and movement games rather than learning to read or write because they find the former activities more "personally engaging." This is akin to a mother motivating her picky eater by letting him eat cookies.

This approach is irrelevant to a meaningful discussion of motivation. These educators are not solving the problem of motivation; they are evading it by pandering to the spontaneous impulses of the child. The real issue of motivation is: how do we inspire children with the ambition to master real academic content, to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for mature life? How do we help them to develop a deep and lasting interest the subjects they must study if they are to become informed, intelligent, efficacious adults? How do we encourage in them a love of math and history and literature and English and science?

To this question, today's educators offer two basic answers. The first is the one put forth, implicitly or explicitly, by advocates of classical or traditional education. And their answer as to how you motivate children to master the academic curriculum is, in essence: you can't. The classical educators regard learning as a noble, lofty pursuit that appeals to man's higher nature. It does not appeal to his desires and interests, which are this-worldly and base, but to his intellect, which is above selfish and material concerns. Because the idea of motivation is that the child must be given a personal reason for putting forth the effort to learn, because it suggests that there must be something in it for him, the very concept of motivation would be regarded by such educators as a selfish concept, and as such, at odds with the purpose of education.

The spirit of the traditional, classical movement in education is one of duty. The student is bound by obligation, to his community, his country or God, to develop his character and intellect through the study of mankind's accumulated wisdom. His goal in becoming educated is not a personal, selfish one; on the contrary, the very purpose of education is to help him rise above his childish selfish impulses. In Norms and Nobility, by David Hicks, a popular treatise on classical education, Hicks condemns modern public schooling, saying, "In its utilitarian haste, the state often peddles preparation for the practical life to our young as the glittering door to the life of pleasure; but by encouraging this selfish approach to learning, the state sows a bitter fruit against that day when the community depends on its younger members to perform charitable acts and to consider arguments above selfish interest." By contrast, classical education, he says, aims to "satisfy man's deepest longings to belong, to transcend his disconcerting self-centeredness, to serve the whole, and to know his purposes and meaning within the context of the whole." It is this spirit of duty that yields as the image of traditional, classical education the military taskmaster or the nun with a ruler.

This view of education falls in the intrinsicist tradition. Education, like all other values, is not a value to an individual for a certain purpose, but is intrinsically good-good in itself. Values are severed from reason and from reality, so the child can be given no explanation as to why he should develop his intellect, no this-worldly purpose for doing so. Education is simply a moral obligation detached from his life and his interests.

We have heard the intrinsicists' answer to the question of motivation; next week, we will hear from the subjectivists.





Calling All LifeLong Learners: Learn Science the VanDamme Academy Way!
Now Anyone Can Understand The Fundamental Principles of Science Better than Most Scientists
"Fundamentals of Physical Science: A Historical, Inductive Approach"
By David Harriman, Historian and Philosopher of Physics

Learn all about it at our brand new website.

Here's what other Pedagogically Correct Readers are Saying:

"I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in physics, and I was amazed at how much I learned from David Harriman's course. This course stands head and shoulders above any other course or textbook I have encountered."

"It's perfect for someone relatively new to physics like myself; it's perfect for even advanced people who want a deeper historical perspective than is usually taught...I found Mr. Harriman's physics course to be an exciting walk through the fascinating world of physics."

"I think this type of course is needed for everyone, as in my experience, it's so far above the courses I've had throughout my life as far as the actual transmittal of knowledge is concerned...In short, this course has made science and math much more intelligible for me, and was completely worth the time and cost - I highly recommend it."

I was a physics major when I entered college, yet I can easily say that my actual understanding of physics is much greater as a result of this course than I can credit to any other class I've taken.

www.vandammescience.com

With this course you will:
* Finally understand the world around you, the world of science and technology, in a way you never thought possible. (No, you don't have to be a math wiz.)
* Learn the thinking methods of the greatest minds in history.
* Understand what all those physics equations and formulas you once memorized really mean.
* Be inspired by scientists' amazing 2500-year quest to unlock the mysteries of the physical world.
* And have a great time in the process!

All thanks to a one-of-a-kind science teaching methodology available in no other course or textbook.


www.vandammescience.com


Announcement: Pedagogically Correct Blog
www.pedagogicallycorrect.com
Check out our 'blog, which will contain much (but not all) of the material we sent out in our newsletters. Spread the word!




VanDamme Academy encourages you to forward our newsletter to your friends or post it on your website or blog. If this newsletter has been forwarded to you, you can sign up to receive Pedagogically Correct for free, at www.vandammeacademy. com.

Happy Learning!

VanDamme Academy--Experience the Power of a Real Education



VanDamme Academy
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phone: 949-581-1881
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Blogroll Additions

I've added a few more objectivist oriented sites to my blogroll. Highly recommended all.

First is Amy who just launched her new blog Kindredist. Amy says "Whimsy and studiousness from a nice lady who lives in Michigan and loves Objectivism." I know this lady and can vouch for that. Good luck Amy on your blogging adventure!

Next is Burgess Laughlin at Making Progress. Burgess posts on history and philosophy and has a book "Aristotle Adventure" which can be ordered at his site. This was an oversight on my part. He should have been on my blogroll some time ago.

Stella at ReasonPharm posts on the field of health and medicine. Her recent post about how thin healthy people are the real burden on health care and fat people are saviors because they presumably die young, is a must read.

Monica at Spark a Synapse has the inside scoop on why the chicken really crossed the road. heh

How Not to Motivate Students Pt. 1.

Pedagogically Correct Volume 2, Issue 5
February 7, 2008

"Pedagogy": The art and science of teaching.
:: Calling All LifeLong Learners: Learn Science the VanDamme Academy Way!
:: Announcement: Pedagogically Correct Blog


The following is from an article featured in the education section of USA Today on January 28, 2008:

"Teachers have long said that success is its own reward. But these days, some students are finding that good grades can bring them cash and luxury gifts. In at least a dozen states this school year, students who bring home top marks can expect more than just gratitude. Examples:

·Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso last week promised to spend more than $935,000 to give high school students as much as $110 each to improve their scores on state graduation exams.

·In New York City, about 9,000 fourth- and seventh-graders in 60 schools are eligible to win as much as $500 for improving their scores on the city's English and math tests, given throughout the school year.

·In suburban Atlanta, a pair of schools last week kicked off a program that will pay 8th- and 11th-grade students $8 an hour for a 15-week 'Learn & Earn' after-school study program (the federal minimum wage is currently $5.85)."

This article, which understandably makes many parents and educators bristle, raises a real and important question: How do we motivate our children to learn? In my lecture "Motivation in Education," I addressed the "cash for grades" and other desperately misguided attempts at motivation. I boiled the motivation theorists down to three essential categories, which I will explain over the next few weeks.

The first category includes those who attempt to create "motivated" students by allowing them to engage in activities of their choice, activities that are inherently enjoyable given their juvenile desires.

The Waldorf Schools, for example, say that until the age of seven, children should be taught no academic skills, including reading or writing. Instead, they are encouraged to participate in activities believed to be natural to their stage of development, such as finger-knitting, storytelling, and movement games. The FAQ section of a Waldorf charter school says that at Waldorf Schools "abstraction and conceptual teaching are kept to a minimum, especially with younger children. In this way children become more personally engaged in whatever they are learning." (emphasis added)

An Atlantic Monthly article praising the virtues of the Waldorf method describes the activities of a dozen fourth graders in the original Waldorf school. "The class was finishing a year-long project: making mallets for wood carving out of stubborn pieces of hardwood, which they were patiently filing and sanding by hand. One boy, who had finished his mallet, was making a knife out of teak, and regularly paused to feel its smoothness on his cheek." The author also respectfully describes the enthusiasm of a 12-year-old Waldorf student in a depressed California town, saying, "[He] sat with me after school, regaling me, in enthusiastic detail, with a creative mixture of Greek and Roman history. The boy could barely read, but he'd been inspired by the oral storytelling that Waldorf teachers emphasize."

These children are-in a sense-"motivated," but motivated to do what?

To say that a person is motivated is to say that he has some drive or desire that incites action. For the purposes of a rational discussion of education, that drive or desire must incite the ambition to learn. It must incite the drive to acquire knowledge-and not just any knowledge, but that knowledge necessary for life as an adult human being.

Motivation cannot be confused with any feeling of eagerness, enthusiasm, or joy independent of the focus of those feelings of the purpose of the action they incite. The manager of a company would not describe his employees as motivated if they were eager and excited to come to work every day so that they could play basketball in the company gym or spread gossip in the break room. A motivated employee is one who is inspired to action consistent with the central goal of his job.

Similarly, it is not relevant to a meaningful discussion of motivation in education to discuss the suggestion that the problem of motivation be solved by offering children a program of all-day recess. This is not a solution to the problem; it is an evasion of the problem.

In the next newsletter, I will describe another theory of motivation-in this case, a wrongheaded and disastrous approach to motivating real academic content.

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Calling All LifeLong Learners: Learn Science the VanDamme Academy Way!
Now Anyone Can Understand The Fundamental Principles of Science Better than Most Scientists
"Fundamentals of Physical Science: A Historical, Inductive Approach"
By David Harriman, Historian and Philosopher of Physics

Learn all about it at our brand new website.

Here's what other Pedagogically Correct Readers are Saying:

"I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in physics, and I was amazed at how much I learned from David Harriman's course. This course stands head and shoulders above any other course or textbook I have encountered."

"It's perfect for someone relatively new to physics like myself; it's perfect for even advanced people who want a deeper historical perspective than is usually taught...I found Mr. Harriman's physics course to be an exciting walk through the fascinating world of physics."

"I think this type of course is needed for everyone, as in my experience, it's so far above the courses I've had throughout my life as far as the actual transmittal of knowledge is concerned...In short, this course has made science and math much more intelligible for me, and was completely worth the time and cost - I highly recommend it."

I was a physics major when I entered college, yet I can easily say that my actual understanding of physics is much greater as a result of this course than I can credit to any other class I've taken.

www.vandammescience.com

With this course you will:
* Finally understand the world around you, the world of science and technology, in a way you never thought possible. (No, you don't have to be a math wiz.)
* Learn the thinking methods of the greatest minds in history.
* Understand what all those physics equations and formulas you once memorized really mean.
* Be inspired by scientists' amazing 2500-year quest to unlock the mysteries of the physical world.
* And have a great time in the process!

All thanks to a one-of-a-kind science teaching methodology available in no other course or textbook.


www.vandammescience.com


Announcement: Pedagogically Correct Blog
www.pedagogicallycorrect.com
Check out our 'blog, which will contain much (but not all) of the material we sent out in our newsletters. Spread the word!




VanDamme Academy encourages you to forward our newsletter to your friends or post it on your website or blog. If this newsletter has been forwarded to you, you can sign up to receive Pedagogically Correct for free, at www.vandammeacademy. com.

Happy Learning!

VanDamme Academy--Experience the Power of a Real Education

What a Choice!

Well, it looks like it will be McCain on the Republican side. The Dems race is closer and I would probably like to see Obama win it. The thought of voting for Hillary is extremely depressing. So is Obama but less so I think. The choices we're faced with this election are like being asked "what kind of slow torture would you like today sir?"

In my opinion all three of these candidates will increase in a big way the rate at which Atlas will shrug. Hillary's socialized medicine will destroy healthcare in this country by sacrificing the providers. McCain will sacrifice businessmen in general with his tax on carbon use, and his contempt for the profit motive. He's already proven his disdain for free speech with McCain-Feingold.

I think McCain is every bit the two-faced, opportunistic, principle hating, power-luster that Hillary is. He flat out said that McCain-Feingold was not a restriction on free speech. Hillary announced boldy and in advance of the elections, to the producers,IIRC, "We will have to take some things away from you for the common good." Did anybody but Objectivists and a few producers shudder at those words?

I am reminded of Hitler's Mein Kampf in which he said "Du bist nichts, dein volk ist alles", "You are nothing, your race is everything." I wondered how many Germans and others read those words and, unable to think in principles, unable to deduce a concrete example of their meaning, shrugged their shoulders in unthinking complacency only to have their meaning become explicit as they were marched in front of firing squads or into ovens.

No I don't think any of the current candidates plan on erecting any ovens any time soon. But I do see more and more Americans listening to spoken words hoping to detect not a meaning, but a feeling. When Hillary said those words, no doubt some people felt "Good. There'll be more for me." While others may have felt "Well, a little bit more fairness would be nice." Or "It won't hurt to take a little something from them, they can afford it." And so on. When I see all those people cheering her every word and giving her all those states on Tuesday, I see hordes of people who are totally unable to understand that if she has the right to take some things away from any person, she has the right to take everything away from him including that person's life.

It's true that McCain has no use for free speech but Hillary's web site declares that she wants to strengthen hate crimes legislation. Most rational people know that hate crime laws are aimed at controling thought, since hate is an emotion and emotions are the result of values and values are the result of thought processes. Attempts to outlaw hate speech being a recent example of an attempt at censorship.

But I don't yet know. About the only way I'd vote for Hillary is if McCain picks Huckabee as his VP. On this 'necessity' I agree with Gus Van Horn.

I still have more evaluating to do. If Obama gets the Dem nod I'll probably vote for him. Otherwise I might vote for a third party candidate like I did in 2000. I couldn't stand Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' and I refused to vote for an adult 10 year old. (Gore) And boy I'm happy I did. After watching that fiasco with the hanging chads and is that a dimple or not? I'm glad there was no doubt about who I did and did not want for pres.

My hope is that this mess is the darkness before the dawn.

More Leftist Hatred in Berkeley

I know I'm a little late with this but it's such a good cause. Nicholas Provenzo at Rule of Reason has a petition defending the Marines from the attempted ostricism by the Berkeley Cal. city council. Mr. Provenso reports:

I've created an online petition in defense of the Marines against the resolutions of the City Council of Berkeley which declare that United States Marine Corps recruiters are "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" within Berkeley city limits and applauds those who choose to "impede" the Marines in their recruiting mission.

It's time Americans let the Berkeley city council know that they are "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" in America. I recommend signing it. I did and I applaud those who choose to "impede" the Berkeley council's mission.

(You know, in a laissez-faire capitalist society, the government would not be involved in education in any way. All universities would be privately owned and would have the right to refuse having military recruiters on campus if so desired. But this will never occur to the banal bird brains at Berkeley city hall.)

Update; added final comment footer.

Super Sunday Silliness

Heh. Rational Jenn links to a site where you can see how much and to whom some of your neighbors are donating to political campaigns this election cycle. Jenn advises:

Wouldn't that be a good ice-breaker at parties? "Hey, Bob! I saw you donated $500 to Hillary Clinton! I had no idea you were one of those!" And then smoothly move on to the bean dip, while Bob is wondering if you work for the government or possibly Mitt Romney's campaign.

I can see where that would liven up a party.

I checked my zip code but nobody on my street donated a cent to anyone. If you were to ask one of my mostly lower middle-class, red-neckish neighbors why they didn't donate to a campaign, you would probably get something like "Why should I give some of my hard earned money to multi-millionairs?" Impeccable logic.
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Gus Van Horn links to two quizes also at RJ's. I took the animal one and discovered I'm a groundhog.

You Are A: Groundhog!

Groundhogs are cuddly-looking and timid mammals that eat mostly grass, seeds, and other vegetation. As a groundhog you will rarely stray far from your burrow and will run in the face of danger, but you will defend their home fiercely from predators. Groundhogs are even given their own holiday in the US, during which a groundhog is said to predict how long winter weather will last!

You were almost a: Turtle or a Bear Cub
You are least like a: Squirrel or a Chipmunk
Take the Cute Animal Test

A tad less flattering than I'd hoped but ok I guess.

There is another which asks which Harry Potter character are you? But I decided not to take that one.

A groundhog?

Lil' Round Up Jan 31, 2008

Monica at Spark a Synapse does a pretty thorough job of exposing the misanthropic nature of many animal rights activists especially PETA and USHS. She also has an impressively long list of anti-man quotes right from the non-horses mouth so to speak. What is the name of the philosophy that teaches hatred of man? Altruism and its requirement of sacrifice.
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Rule of Reason has an editorial by Ed Cline noting the parallels between today's political climate and that which existed when the ink on our Constitution was still drying. He correctly points out that:

“Confidence” is nearly all we have heard now from the candidates for the presidency of both parties this year, coupled with vapid assertions of “experience,” “vision,” and the need for “change.” And the Constitution has been so adulterated with statist amendments and skewed by non-objective interpretations that its chains have less power to bind men from mischief than Styrofoam. To the statists whose ambitions compel them to “lead” and to mold America into a nation of sacrificing toilers and tax cows, the Constitution is a paper dragon.

I recommend reading the whole thing.
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Junkfoodscience reports that a Mississippi congressman has introduced legislation that would require restaurants to refuse to wait on anyone who is obese. The man doesn't believe the bill will pass but is serious about the so-called obesity crises. I hope it does pass. Maybe the Miss. electorate will throw this thug out on his ear. Then again, the people will be getting what they deserve, a life regulated by the whims of men.

Talk About the Sanction of the Victim!

In Monday's Jan. 28th. Detroit News business/auto section is an article titled "Tire rules to improve safety" which says in part:

A three-judge federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit by tire makers who said that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's ruling requiring tire pressure monitoring systems wasn't strict enough.(!!!!--ME) Tire makers argued that NHTSA's regulation put drivers and passengers at risk because it didn't warn drivers of low tire pressure soon enough; didn't require the systems to work with replacement tires and allowed tire monitors to be tested under conditions that don't take into account cold weather extremes, which can alter tire performance.

"Beat me harder, I'm not bleeding enough! No wait! Give me the whip, I'll do it myself!

The auto industry was happy because some of the guidlines are voluntary instead of manditory. But are these voluntary chains impressing anyone?

Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies Inc., said the regulation was "a good first step, but we need to do more than apply a Band-Aid to a system that hasn't worked for 30-plus years."

This isn't about safety. It's about some people's desire to control others on the premise that some people can be given the right to initiate force against others. A social system where no one is allowed to start the use of force against his fellow man is becomming more alien to the minds of Americans. They are getting too comfortable with the idea of submission as the tire makers demonstrate.

It also illustrates how a mixed economy will chase out independent minded businessmen and replace them with the kind second-hand, favor groveling, regulation protected commisars we see today. But this is what the dumbed down American people have been led to believe is good for them by their equally dumbed down intellectuals. What neither the intellectuals nor the public can imagine is how a free laissez-faire economy would provide safety, the same way it provides everything else, by supply and demand.

In Denial of the Curriculum

The Friday Jan.25th Detroit News offers an interesting contrast by way of two articles as to what's wrong with Michigan schools. First is an op-ed under Labor Voices in the editorial section by Iris Salters president of the Michigan Education Association (MEA, a teachers union) titled "How Michigan Should Improve Schools." My comments will be in brackets.

Ms. Salters reports on a visit to Chicago where she observed smaller schools within schools and this seemed to be having good results. Then adds:

Regardless of school size, students need a sense of belonging. [No, they need a sense of efficacy, of competence in dealing with the real world] They need to take responsibility for decisions about their learning. [How can a student take responsibility for his learning except by showing up hoping his teacher will teach him something?] In a transformed high school dedicated to building relationships, [What about building knowledge?] empowered staff members learn to share leadership responsibilities, [With whom?] innovative ideas, student profiles and best practices. [What best practices?]

There are lots of feel good words and adjectives in the op-ed but no mention of any desire or plan to develop students' conceptual faculties. No mention of the need to teach kids how to think instead of what to think. It's as if these concepts are totally irrelevant to today's educational leaders. Ms. Salters goes on to use the 'without access' argument so often used by modern intellectuals to explain problems with which they don't know how to deal.

Beyond these areas, all students need a strong foundation with access to solid preschool and kindergarten programs, highly qualified teachers, up-to-date books and technology, consistently high expectations and a safe environment where basics are taught well.

One can see the influence of Immanuel Kant as that entire paragraph is a description of appearances with no mention of how to make them happen. 'Strong', 'solid', 'highly qualified', 'up-to-date', 'high', 'safe', 'well' are nice touchy-feely, who can argue with such desirable images, kind of words. But no mention is made as to how to bring them into existence. I will only add that if teachers are teaching the whole language method of reading and/or the shotgun approach (new math) to mathematics, they are not qualified to teach anything.

The next item is a front page article "Volunteers needed to tutor kids" by News writer Jennifer Mrozowski. It starts:

The United Way of Southeastern Michigan on Thursday launched a new early education initiative to improve dismal reading test scores in Metro Detroit by recruiting and training more than 2,000 volunteers to serve as tutors.

Dubbed Operation ABC, the plan seeks to improve the reading levels of first- and second-graders by joining together school districts, nonprofits, corporations and volunteers. The project is a component of United Way's Agenda for Change.

United Way President and CEO Michael J. Brennan, who unveiled the new initiative at the UAW Solidarity House, issued a formal call to action for volunteers, who will be required to commit one to five hours each week.

You know, we have charter schools, private schools, home schooling, the commercial marketing of "Hook On Phonics" and many others, and now the labor unions and private charities are getting involved all trying to make up for the utter cognitive destructiveness of the public school curriculum of whole language reading. At least United Way understands the importance of learning to read:

"The reason this is so important is that you learn to read up through grade three, and you read to learn from grade three and on," Brennan said. "Third-grade learning is one of the key academic metrics you want to see success on."

But even in this article there is no questioning as to why these efforts are needed, why aren't the public schools teaching kids to read today the same successful way kids were taught 50 years ago? The answer is of course the curriculum.

In reading education articles today, one never sees the issue of curriculum discussed. It's as if the subject is off limits; as if the whole language method of reading is sacred ground not to be questioned in any way. Of course, if the United Way and Ms. Salters really wanted to improve education, they would be screaming at the top of their lungs "Get the government out of it."

The essence of education is developing the reasoning mind. The essence of government is physical force. To mix the two is to eventually force reason out. That is why we have an irrational curriculum in public schools. And it isn't just public schools. Wherever government influence is felt, reason will be subordinated to justifying government policy. Why? "Governmental encouragement does not order men to believe the false to be true, it merely makes them indifferent to the issue of truth or falsehood"--Ayn Rand, and she was so right.

Good News for Capitalism

The Charleston Daily Mail reports that BB&T will donate $1 million to Marshall University. It reads in part:

The BB&T Charitable Foundation was expected to announce a $1 million gift to Marshall University's Lewis College of Business during a press conference today in Huntington.

The contribution, to be made over 10 years, will establish "The BB&T Center for the Advancement of American Capitalism," Phyllis Arnold, president of BB&T Corp. in West Virginia, said in remarks prepared for delivery at the event.

Arnold said the center's purpose will be to provide students with a solid grounding in the workings of capitalism and free-market forces. Components of the center's curriculum will include:

n An upper-level course focusing on the principles outlined in author Ayn Rand's book, "Atlas Shrugged," and author Adam Smith's book, "The Wealth of Nations."

n A lecture series, named the BB&T Lectures, with speakers advocating public policies that promote economic and political freedom.

This is good news because there are way too many businessmen who simply don't understand properly the nature of capitalism as evidenced by this post at Galileo Blogs.

"Scientific Authority" an Anti-Concept

The Jan 22nd, Junkscience.com links to an article at Spiked by Frank Furedi. Mr. Furedi makes many good points about how science is morphing into dogma and I recommend reading the whole thing. Gus Van Horn posted on this article Friday here and I agree with Gus's assessment of it. But I want to focus on a specific concept Mr. Furedi cites.

In his essay, Mr. Furedi mentions the use of the word 'scientific authority.' This term is a cognitive anti-concept. It is trying to package together two ideas that do not belong together, that are essentially different. In terms of essentials, the essence of science is reason and the essence of authority is power. So packaging the two together will give us science where truths are determined by force, that is, where reason has been forced out.

In science there are hypotheses and facts that are either true, false or not yet determined either way. There are no authoritative facts or hypotheses. A scientist can be an authority in a given field. But his facts and theories do not give orders to other facts and theories or lord over them. He discovers what is true by whether or not it corresponds to reality. He discovers this relationship by means of testing and experiment, not by demanding reality conform to his theories. Authority is a political concept. It does not belong in science.

But what does putting it there do? Its purpose is to destroy a valid meaning and replace it with a new meaning. The valid meaning to be exorcised is scientific knowledge. The new intended meaning is scientific belief. The coiners of the term 'scientific authority' want their reality to be accepted in the same way religious people accept as true the tenants of their religion as revealed by religious authorities. Religious authorities don't have to prove their tenants. They are accepted on faith. The new 'authority' scientists want the same luxury. They can have it if they can get society to accept the notion that knowledge doesn't exist, only beliefs do. Therefore, the beliefs that governments are to consider important and thus enforce, are not those that have truth, but those that have "authority." The concept 'scientific authority' achieves that goal by defining out of existence the idea of scientific knowledge and replacing it with scientific beliefs.

One of the reasons this seems to be working so well is the fact that Americans still have respect for science and its ability to discover the truth about reality. It is this positive respect for the concept scientific knowledge that is used by the pushers of 'scientific authority' to smuggle into the minds of the public the idea that science deals in beliefs that have or don't have authority. If someone asks about a scientific hypothesis or theory, they must be referring to beliefs they'll be told. Provable knowledge? There is no such thing they will intone. (The concept belief is such a mixed bag, it means different things to different people, it needs a post of its own which I will attempt soon.)

The IPCC has been declared the 'authority' on climate change we are told. They have 'revealed' the reality that it is all man's fault and will lead to disaster for life on Earth unless we all make sacrifices. Those who disagree are not called critics which is what they are, but "skeptics", "deniers" and "doubters." Just like the dark ages. It's my guess that if the greenies could burn a Richard Lindzen or John Christy at the steak, they readily would. But I digress.

In his excellent lecture series Clarity In Conceptualization: The Art of Identifying Package-Deals, Peter Schwartz pointed out that package-deals and anti-concepts are spread through a culture like drugs, by two kinds of people, pushers and users. The pushers would be university professors of philosophy and maybe social sciences and the users pretty much everyone else who unquestioningly accepted the concepts. I entirely agree with this assessment.

So when I hear or read a scientist, reporter or politician using the term 'scientific authority' I know I'm listening to a user I can no longer trust for credible info.

Life After People?

Last night (Monday Jan 21st.) I watched a history channel special on what the Earth would be like after people were all gone. The title, "Life After People" should read "Life Without People, the eco-ideal". Needless to say, most of the two hour special was pure speculation. While parts were mildly interesting, as far as I'm concerned it was nothing more than an exercise in environmentalist wishful thinking.

The feature-I hesitate to call it a documentary-(how can you document the future now?) was sprinkled with quotes like (from memory) "Man's mastery over nature has always been an illusion", and referring to the gradual greening of the cities as "nature's revenge". There were several mentions of the fact that man is the only species capable of destroying itself, as if this were some kind of flaw or original sin. Such a claim ignores the fact that that same power--if used rationally--provides man with the ability to survive that no other life form possesses. It is not surprising of course, that they would fail to mention this fact. And what is that power? The reasoning ability of a volitional mind.

But you know, I wondered out loud, if these narrators and interviewees took ideas seriously, why didn't they point out the contradiction in the claims that man's mastery of nature is an illusion, but we can control climate change? Duh!

Hanging In There

It looks like I'll be around for another year. My visits for 2007 increased by 2572 over 2006. Not great but fine with me. I noticed that I've been averaging about one or two visits every other day from universities or colleges. I've decided that I like that. If I can get just a few of these students to further investigate concepts like rational self-interest, egoism, primacy of existence, laissez-faire capitalism, it will have been worth it. Since Feb 1st of 2007, I've had 200 visits from institutions of higher learning. Sure, many are google searches but that's fine with me. I am doing this part time so I'm happy with these results.

How Not to Promote Capitalism

Junkscience.com of 1/15/07 links to a WSJ article on how the free market works best at providing prosperity for poor countries. I was hoping to see an explanation as to how freedom unleashes the power of the mind and/or how the concept of individual rights provides that freedom. But alas, it was not forthcoming. In fact there was no mention of the role of the mind at all. The word capitalism was not mentioned once either. What I read was:

Yet the evidence is piling up that neither government nor multilateral spending on education and infrastructure are key to development. To move out of poverty, countries instead need fast growth; and to get that they need to unleash the animal spirits of entrepreneurs.

Animal spirits? Voluntary free trade between individuals to mutual benefit is an example of animal spirits? The freedom to think, the right to act on those thoughts and keep the just rewards is now reduced to animal spirits?
"Economic freedom" is good because it unleashed not man's mind but his animal spirits? What is the nature of these spirits? How do they create wealth? The reporter, Mary Anastasia O'Grady doesn't say but goes on to cite the 2008 index of economic freedom which she correctly notes that: "In other words, economic freedom and prosperity are strongly correlated." Very true. But as rational people know, correlation is not causation. So what is the cause? No mention though 3 feeble attempts are offered. As you read these, keep in mind the efforts used to avoid any mention of the role of the mind in production.

Three essays in the 2008 Index help illustrate why economic liberty matters to human progress. In "Economic Fluidity: A Crucial Dimension of Economic Freedom," Carl Schramm, president of the Kaufmann Foundation, explains that growth-driving innovation results not only from sound macroeconomic policy, but also from dynamism at the micro level.

What is "economic fluidity" precisely? It can't mean economic freedom because it is part of that. If he means the free flow of capitol sans government regulations, why doesn't he say so? I take the rest of the sentence to mean that "growth-driven innovation results not only from" the guys with the guns (government) backing off a little and being nice to our businessmen so they will be more dynamic "at the micro level". He continues:

Most important is the interaction between "institutional, organizational and individual elements of an economy," which gives rise to "the entrepreneurial energy and the speed of economic evolution." Such "fluidity," he writes, "facilitates the exchange and networking of knowledge across boundaries. This fosters both innovation and its propagation through entrepreneurship."

Mr. Schramm's essay illuminates why successful economies cannot be centrally planned. Fluidity, he writes, resembles "the idea of the 'the edge of chaos,' the estuary region where rigid order and random chaos meet and generate high levels of adaptation, complexity and creativity." It is "ideas on the margins, challenging the status quo, that lift the trajectory of an economy's performance." Try that in Cuba.

So "high levels of adaptation, complexity and creativity" are generated when rigid order (government controls) meet random chaos (the free market) and magically bring about prosperity. Also, "fluidity is not 'the edge of chaos' but only resembles the idea of it. This gives new meaning to the concept obfuscation. But we plod on:

In "Narrowing the Economic Gap in the 21st Century," Stephen Parente, associate professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, debunks several World Bank myths by showing that it is not the resources -- land, workforce and capital -- of an economy that play the most important role in explaining higher income countries. Instead it is "the efficiency at which a society uses its resources to produce goods and services."

Mr. Parente cites the microeconomic research of McKinsey Global Institute, which estimates that modern industry in India could take a huge bite out of its productivity gap with U.S. competitors by simply upgrading production techniques. India doesn't need another multilateral education project. It needs to tap into knowledge already available in successful economies -- the information and technology is out there. The trouble is that it is unavailable in many countries like India, because government barriers and constraints to limit competition make access difficult or impossible.

While this last sentence is manifestly true, it is manifestly not true that the cause of poverty is the inefficiency with which society uses its resources and that the solution is "simply upgrading production techniques". How does one do this 'simple' thing? blankout. If it is so simple, why doesn't North Korea or Cuba or Africa do it? The last essay says:

French journalist Guy Sorman's "Globalization is Making the World a Better Place" is a treatise on "one of the most powerful and positive forces ever to have arisen in the history of mankind." It fosters economic development, moves countries from tyranny to democracy, sends information and knowledge to the most remote corners of the globe, reinforces the rule of law, and enriches culture. International commerce in post-World War II Europe, he reminds us, wasn't invented by diplomats, but by entrepreneurs who wanted to end centuries of strife on their continent and build a peaceful union based on commerce.

Today's entrepreneurs, across the globe, have similar aspirations and abilities. If only the politicians would let them be free.

I have not read those 3 essays myself so I don't know if they get better or worse than the quotes given. But it is true that globalization is helping economic development. It is not true that entrepreneurs were motivated by a desire to end centuries of strife and build a peaceful union. They did it for reasons of rational self-interest. For profit. For self-interested reasons. It is this rational selfishness that created America's great wealth.

While Ms. O'Grady was right on many of her practical reasons for promoting economic freedom-capitalism-it is futile to defend or promote it solely on those grounds, especially when the dominant moral code of our culture considers any self-interested action to be immoral. Nobody will buy the idea that entrepreneurs seek to sacrifice themselves for any noble, social 'good'. Nor should they. To promote capitalism, one must promote the ethics on which is rests, rational self-interest. To do that, one must adopt it first.

Allowing Colleges to Make Money Off the Ignorent is Wrong, and other inanities.

David Veksler at Truth, Justice and the American Way reports on a Boston Globe news article in which Boston Mayor Thomas Menino wants to ban retail stores from opening low cost health clinics in them. The Mayor's argument is that such clinics will not provide a continuum of quality health care to its customers.

Of course the Mayor thinks he knows better than poor people what is good for them and plans, like the primitive savages of the past, to force his idea of the good on the rest of society. Our Constitution was written precisely to prevent men like Menino from violating the rights of citizens by forcing them to comply with his whims, and they are whims. If one ever needed proof that altruistic government controls are not about concern for others, this is a prime example. As I wrote here about the same clinics reported in Detroit's papers:

But, as the main headline reveals "Quick, low-cost outlets prompt medical turf war", this is about political control.

And so it is. Mr. Menino may have strong feelings about wanting to do good by poor people. So what? Feelings mean nothing in this world, not his or mine or anyone else's. What matters are facts. And when Mr. Menino decides to forcibly prevent poor people from getting a more affordable medical care in these clinics, he is violating their rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". He is also violating the same rights of of the businessmen to provide that care. They have a Constitutional right to do so.

But the Meninos of the world are like the distraught recipient of unrequited love who kills the object of his affection on the grounds that if he can't have her then no one can. If Bostonians can't have the kind of health care Menino wants them to have, too bad they're not going to get any other. Again, our Constitution was written to prevent this sort of thing. The right to 'liberty and pursuit of happiness' means that every person has the right to determine what kind of health care he wants and can afford without any interference from government.

Ayn Rand once said (from memory) that man's capacity for evasion was almost limitless. Mr. Menino is evading the fact that poor people have rights to think for themselves. What the Mayor also evades is that it is not up to him to decide what kind of health care anyone gets and that our Constitution was written to protect citizens from government, not themselves. But the biggest evasion is his equating mutual trade for mutual benefit in the marketplace, which is what buying and selling health care is,--with the activities of robbers, theives and other hustlers when he said:

"Limited service medical clinics run by merchants in for-profit corporations will seriously compromise quality of care and hygiene. Allowing retailers to make money off of sick people is wrong."

The absolute asininity of that statement was nailed by David when he pointed out that "Allowing restaurants to make money off hungry people is wrong." I would add "Allowing newspapers to make money off the uninformed is wrong" or "Mayors, like Menino, who collect paychecks off the backs of their poorest citizens are wrong." He evades the fact that health care is a commodity and service just like any other. If one wants to make affordable health care available to the masses, then put in on the free market like all other plentiful commodities. Keep the government out of it.

You know, back in the 60s and 70s we had hoards of mindless hippies and emotionally oriented nit wits running around our university campuses holding sit-ins, lay-ins, love-ins and assorted other brainless feel-ins. Well, these twits have since moved into and control most of our universities. Every year they graduate classfuls of unthinking clones who now have spread into all parts of the culture. I think America will survive these zombies but there will be some convulsions along the way. I hope the people of Boston wake up to the kind of Marxist, power luster they have for a mayor and decide not to return him to office. But I'm not optimistic, Boston is after all, in Massachusetts.


Update: corrected typo in headline.

Supporting Evidence for Self-Reliance

In my last post I wrote about the futility of government attempts to protect us from ourselves and all other things. I tried to make the point that to surrender any responsibility for our own survival is actually a surrender of our freedom and those to whom we surrender that freedom will necessarily control that part of our lives.

As supporting evidence I offer an excellent article at Junkfoodscience.com about how many parents are upset that their children in school are being screened for mental illnesses, some, without their (parent's) consent. I recommend reading the whole long but worth it article. It's scary. But in closing, the article points out that:

These mandated and school-backed screening programs show that intuitively believing that officials or credentialed experts always knows what’s best for us, and have carefully and impartially weighed the evidence, isn’t always true. In fact, it has never been more important for us to become informed and to think critically about things we hear when making decisions about our own health and those of our children. This isn’t about the value of having a trusted health advisor.

The greater danger in regularly letting others decide what’s best for us is that we assume a passive and dependent, patient role. And that makes us more vulnerable to being taken advantage of, rather than know we are empowered and capable.

Yes indeed. Every person is capable of discerning what is good for him and what is not. I don't mean that we have to make every decision on every medical or scientific subject. The Reagan saying "trust but verify" should be reversed, "verify then trust." Find doctors and scientists you can trust by verifying their work. But the only way to know is to learn to trust one's own judgement. The more one does it, the better one gets at it.

In the same vein, Galileo Blogs also has a good post on the banning of incandescent bulbs in which he correctly observes:

It is in a shower of small infringements of my freedom such as this one that I will find myself one day drowning in a society that is not free. The American Revolution was fought over stamp taxes and tea duties. But was it really? Our forefathers understood that a government that has the power to dictate even the smallest part of our lives has the power to direct all of our lives.

It certainly does. Which is why we all should seek candidates who are committed to phasing out government control of the economy. At present none exist. But I do believe they'll start showing up soon.

The Futility of Safety Regulations,FDA and CPSC

On the Dec. 26th Detroit Free Press editorial page was an op-ed by congressman John Dingell who represents Dearborn Michigan. I can't link to it because it is now in the paper's archive which requires money to access and I'm cheap. Mr. Dingell laments the sad state of consumer protection recently provided by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). He lists what he sees as failures of these agencies:

"With over 500 products and million of pounds of food recalled this year, it is no wonder U.S. consumers are nervous."

[...]

"To date this year, more than 20 million toys have been recalled because of high lead content and other hazards--including one toy containing chemicals that, when ingested, have the effect of a date-rape drug.
Earlier this month, the Ann Arbor-based Ecology Center released the results of a study in which it tested more than 1,200 toys and baby products--most of them purchased in Michigan.
The center found that 35% of the toys tested contained lead, half at a level above the allowable federal standard. Only 28% of the toys tested were free from hazardous materials, including lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). This means that more than two in every three toys tested contained one or more of these poisonous substances."

He also shows how understaffed the CPSC is and how "overburdened" the FDA is:

"Though the value of all imports increased by 67% from 2000-06, the CPSC now operates
with half the staff it employed nearly three decades ago. Today, just 15 CPSC inspectors police the millions of toys and products entering the United States. By one CPSC commissioner's estimates, less than 1% of all imported products are properly inspected.
The FDA is also overburdened, able to inspect less that 1% of all food imports. With
13% of our food supply arriving from other countries, current inspection levels are
unacceptable and dangerous."

So what is Congressman Dingell's solution?

"On Nov. 1, I joined my colleagues Reps. Bobby Rush, D-Ill, Joe Barton, R-Texas, and
Cliff Stearns, R-Florida., in introducing the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act."

[...]

"This legislation provides the funding the CPSC needs to hire additional staff and modernize its testing lab. It also increases the panel of commissioners from two to five and provides the tools and flexibility necessary to better protect America's consumers--and America's kids."

It seems to me Mr. Dingell is evading four facts of reality.
First, there is no such thing as completely safe.
Second, no organization will ever be able to inspect the millions of products in the market.
Third, it is not the responsibility of government to protect citizens from unwise or unsafe decisions.
Fourth, the congressman is practicing a double standard and setting up future generations to be victims of the same failures.

Now lets look at these four evasions. First, there is no such thing as completely safe. Safe is a relative term. All products have some chemicals in them that could be harmful to humans at high enough doses but which are harmless at low doses. Even the FDA's "safe" threshold is many times higher than the actual harmful level to humans. Needless to say, the one toy that had the chemical that acted like a date-rape drug should result in law suits by Americans against the foreign manufacturer. But I didn't see Mr. Dingell calling for this. This whole idea of government provided safety leads to the second evasion.

Second, no organization or group of same can make everything safe for everyone else. It's not going to happen. If the FDA can only inspect 1% of all food imports, then it is not the FDA that's making us safe. Shut them down. They're ineffective big time. Also, presumably, to inspect all imported goods, that part of the FDA would have to be expanded by 99%. By the same standard, the CPSC estimates that only 1% of imported products are inspected. Well, if so, then it's not the CPSC that's keeping us safe either. Shut them down too for the same reasons. Can you imagine a private corporation surviving on 1% efficiency?

Third, it is not the job of government to provide safety for everyone from everything. Our Constitutional guarantees of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" means that every person has the right to judge what is in his own interest, and has the freedom to act on that judgement so long as he does not infringe on the same rights of others.

In such an atmosphere, people are left free to make rational and irrational decisions and to enjoy or suffer the consequences of those actions. In this way such a society begets a learned citizenry. Decisions that sustain and advance life will be rewarded and recorded in the popular literature. So will decisions that will threaten or harm life. Both what works and what doesn't will be recorded and from that record future generations will be able to learn.

But not in a regulated society. Such a society is one in which the judgements of a few regulators are substituted for the judgements of the citizens and then forced on those citizens at the point of a regulatory gun. The regulators do not explicitly say to the populace "Do not think about this subject. We'll do your thinking for you." But that is the exact consequence of regulatory action. When the responsibility for one's own welfare is assumed by a second or third party, it is human nature that one will do that much less thinking about it. I once questioned an acquaintance on why he didn't seem to know what his Senator was doing regarding a certain topic. His response was "If I have to concern myself with that, what do I need him for?" By trying to protect everyone from everything, Dingell et al are creating not a learned citizenry but a dumbed down one. The congressman and colleagues are in denial of this reality.

Fourth, Mr. Dingell is practicing a double standard. It does not occur to him that all those reasons he cited as regulatory failures are in fact good reasons to abolish those agencies entirely and/or privatize them. The alleged reason usually given for government regulations is that private companies failed in some way so the government must step in. But when the government fails on an even bigger scale, it becomes unthinkable to take that responsibility away from them. This is a double standard.

To put it another way, if a handful of government inspectors is a good thing as Mr. Dingell obviously believes, and if more handfuls are a better thing as his legislation portends (or is that pretends?), then why not shoot for the optimum--300 million inspectors, i.e. an educated citizenry and get government out of the safety protection business altogether? Sure, some people will have to learn the hard way. So what? At least they'll learn. Those who refuse to learn will only hurt themselves. They will not have the power to force the rest of the population to support their irrationality. There is nothing more efficient about government. In fact the exact opposite is true. Private enterprise is always--when left alone--more efficient than government.

Lastly, I want to address the issue of integrity. In a private market, there would be a financial demand for integrity. In fact, there were businesses specializing in that commodity in the past. Just to name two off the top of my head, there was Good Housekeeping magazine and its Seal of Approval. Underwriter Laboratories made its money by charging corporations to test their products for safety--safety being a selling point for most products.

But the population at the time viewed those companies as an aid to rational decision making, not a substitute for it. People were learning about the world and becoming more adept at survival. Life expectancy was increasing. However, the massive expansion of regulatory agencies snuffed out that learning process. It made people dependent on the government for some of their survival needs. Government regulations in effect, tell people that they no longer have to evaluate products approved by it. One of the free market advisories, caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, has always been disdained by intellectuals and politicians. But that phrase really means let the buyer think. Mr. Dingell and crowd say no, he don't have to anymore. We'll take care of that.

Another evil is that government regulations tend to place all businessmen under the same cloak of suspicion. The honest businessman and the fly-by-nighter are treated by the government regulators as equal malfactors not to be trusted. This attitude is often explicitly conveyed to the public by intellectuals and politicians. I just heard John Edwards in a campaign speech, say he would protect Americans from greedy selfish corporations. In his mind businessmen are automatically evil. Under this onslaught, the public eventually adopts the same mistrust. An atmosphere is created where businessmen eventually realize that competition for a good reputation is no longer rewarded, that competition for government favors, licenses, permits and subsidies is. If there were no dishonest businessmen anywhere, such a regulatory atmosphere would create them.

In closing I just want to say that what many people don't seem to understand is that when one relinquishes responsibility for any part of one's survival, one is also surrendering control over that part of one's survival. It is freedom one is really relinquishing.

Sacrificing Self-Sacrifice?

My Google news page linked to an interesting Associated Press article titled "'Gospel of Wealth'Facing Scrutiny" by Eric Gorski. Evidently there are evangelical ministries raking in untold (to the IRS) riches and the various pastors are living the life of luxury. Predictably, all this money has caught the attention of the U.S. government:

The probe by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has brought new scrutiny to the underlying belief that brings in millions of dollars and fills churches from Atlanta to Los Angeles — the "Gospel of Prosperity," or the notion that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches.

All six ministries under investigation preach the prosperity gospel to varying degrees.

This raised a question in my mind. In light of the growth of religion in America in recent decades, could it be that this growth is due not to the appeal of self-sacrifice, the stock in trade of all religions, but to the appeal of self-survival, a morally acceptable self-interest that is ok with God? I think it is so. From the article:

One of the teaching's attractions is that it doesn't dwell on traditional Christian themes of heaven and hell but on answering pressing concerns of the here and now, said Brian McLaren, a liberal evangelical author and pastor.

The result of this appeal is:

Yet the prosperity gospel continues to draw crowds, particularly lower- and middle-income people who, critics say, have the greatest motivation and the most to lose. The prosperity message is spreading to black churches, attracting elderly people with disposable incomes, and reaching huge churches in Africa and other developing parts of the world.

Obviously these ministries are appealing to the desire for the unearned but using self-interest as a hook. They seem to be saying "don't feel guilty for making money but do feel guilty if you don't sacrifice some of it to God's voices here on Earth, (us evangelicals)." A lot of people are looking for a moral sanction that tells them it's ok to be self-interested without feeling guilty about it. It is going to be difficult however to convince people that self-interest is in fact virtuous as long as they insist that virtue must be sacrificial. What's sad is that what most people call a sacrifice really isn't. When I talk to most people today, what they call a sacrifice is actually a trade. But in their mind a trade cannot be virtuous. So they just call their trades sacrifices in order to feel virtuous.

As long as this is the case, these people will always be in the market for something that will make sacrifice work like a trade while allowing them to pretend the transaction is in fact a sacrifice and thus virtuous. It is the need for a moral sanction for earning wealth coupled with the desire to avoid guilt that these ministries are cashing in on.

I recommend reading the entire article. I saw a little humor in the sentence:

One of the pastors in the Grassley probe, Bishop Eddie Long of suburban Atlanta, has written that God told him to get rid of the "ungodly governmental structure" of a deacon board.

And I saw a little honesty in the sentence:

But the prosperity gospel, McLaren said, not only preys on the hope of the vulnerable, it puts too much emphasis on individual success and happiness.

I don't think the tax-exempt status of these ministries is in any danger. Sen. Grassley will hold a hearing, demand more transparency, the pastors will agree, probably ala the Joyce Meyer disclosures, and that will be the end of it.

I do think these ministries however are approaching a contradiction they cannot afford. Is self-sacrifice being sacrificed to self-interest? I think this is what is scaring the other ministries that don't preach the prosperity gospel.

Light Blogging

As you may have guessed by now, blogging may be light till after the first but if you're looking for something other than bad news, Nicholas Provenzo has some pictures of Gunston Hall at George Mason U after a dusting of snow.

And,

Ralph Buttigieg reports on a new world record cave dive. I don't think I could spend 15 hours in a decompression chamber though.

Two More Things Spotted By Mike's Eyes

The 12/21/07 print edition of the Detroit News printed a LTE of mine in response to an AP article proclaiming that Arctic ice was melting faster that scientists expected.

Arctic ice melt temporary
I protest the Dec. 12 Associated Press article "Arctic ice melting faster" because it is misleading. It is not true that the melting is caused by carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. The ice is melting because the Pacific Ocean, since 1976, has had a south-to-north movement of warm air to the Arctic. It is due to revert back to a weak phase any time. When it does, the Arctic ice will reform. The speed at which it is melting may surprise some scientists but not those who study climate history.

Every now and then I have to and want to let the media know that the BS their readers are hearing about the perils of global warming are just that, BS.
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On a lighter note.

Last week we in the Midwest really got dumped on with snow. My suburb of Detroit got 8 inches. Some burbs got 10 and 12 inches. Schools were all closed the next day. On the third day though my sidewalk was shoveled as were all my neighbors' and the schools were reopened. An elementary school is only a block from my house which is why I moved here many years ago. As I sat there in my dinette drinking my morning coffee and looking out the front window, I observed small groups of kids with backpacks strapped over their shoulders walking to school. But instead of walking on the nice clean sidewalk, they deliberately stepped off the walk and into the deep snow between the walk and the street and walked to school that way. A smile broke across my face as I took in this sight and recalled my own childhood in which I did the same thing. I didn't have an explicit, well thought out reason for wanting to walk in the snow. It was more like an urge which, if it could be put into words might be something like "Go ahead. It might be fun".

It's good to know I was just being natural. There is nothing wrong with human nature, properly understood.

Merry Christmas to all!

Spotted by Mikes Eyes Tue. 12/18/07

Yesterday 12/17/07, I stopped by the Cassandra Page and found a head shaking quote by Mark Steyn. Evidently Mark has found a couple writers who are perfect that is, 110%, misanthropes. According to Mr. Steyn:

Oxford University Press has published a book by professor David Benatar of the University of Cape Town called "Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence." The author "argues for the 'anti-natal' view – that it is always wrong to have children … . Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct." As does Alan Weisman's "The World Without Us" – which Publishers Weekly hails as "an enthralling tour of the world … anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like." It's a good thing it "anticipates" it poetically, because, once it happens, there will be no more poetry.

Ayn Rand once referred to this mentality as the worship of the zero, the non-being. As usual, her identification was right on.
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My opinion.

Benny Peiser has an article in The Financial Post titled "climate alarmism hits a brick wall". While that general idea pleases me, my point is the pragmatic--which means unprincipled--nature of Australia's new leader elect. This paragraph is in evidence:

This power shift has perhaps never been more transparent and dramatic than in
Bali, when Australia's Labour government, under the newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, announced a
complete U-turn on the thorny issue of mandatory carbon dioxide emissions
targets. Only days after Australia's delegation had backed Europe's demand for a
25% to 40% cut in emission by 2020, Mr. Rudd declared (his signature under the
Kyoto Protocol wasn't even dry) that his government would not support such
targets after all.

Ayn Rand once pointed out that modern pragmatists don't want to get elected to advocate certain ideas. They advocate certain ideas in order to get elected. I almost feel sorry for the Aussies. They have elected one of these.

Their only hope I think, is that he wants to stay in power so bad he'll do whatever they want. But do they even know what they want? Perhaps the Aussies want a leader who will say the magic words that will make the Europeans and the UN greenies like them. Maybe they're so terrified of not being liked they will elect a man like Rudd who will say the right words and go through the right motions (perform the right rituals) to achieve the expediency of the moment and everything will be nicey wicey again.

I'm glad Mr. Rudd nixed the Kyoto accord but do our mates down under really prefer a man who says one thing and does another-Rudd-to a man who says one thing and stands by it-Howard? I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Update: Corrected word in F.Post title.

Look Who's Talking

Via Fred Singer's Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) comes news that the Pope has criticized greens for their gloom and doom senarios. According to the linked article at the Daily Mail:

The 80-year-old Pope said the world needed to care for the environment but not to the point where the welfare of animals and plants was given a greater priority than that of mankind.

Despite the fact that this sounds quite rational and the Pope is right about placing man above plants and animals, I think there is an underlying motive.

The Pope, leader of one of the world's largest religions, is acutely aware that his religion has some serious competition in environmentalism. In the spirit of "Thou shalt not worship false gods before me" or something like that, he seems to be saying all the attention and donations going to NGOs should go to the Church and the alms basket. But I had to chuckle when the article said:.

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

Look who's talking about dogma!

The church and the NGOs both call for man's sacrifice. But the Holy See sees exactly what is going on. He sees enviromentalism as the new God and "carbon footprint" as the new original sin. It's competition for the sacrificial offerings pure and simple. The government, public and the press are mostly clueless on this. Seems like the only people who truly understand what's going on are the Greens, Objectivists, some skeptics, and the Papacy.

Public Interest Trumps Private Interest

Billy Beck has a good post at Two-four about how the New York Times is looking more like the old Soviet Union's Pravda every day. He points out how the Times regards Bush's tax cuts as depriving the government of its money. He even has a relevant quote from Ayn Rand on the subject. But I'm mainly concerned with an excellent point Billy made when he wrote:

Sometimes, dear reader, the FNORDs blow away and you can see right through the clear sky to the naked, evil premise. The Comfy Commissariat is not concerned with you. Take them at their words.

This is so very true. The altruists, collectivists don't see you as an individual. To them you only have value as a member of some collective which can do anything it wants to you for the 'greater good'. That's when you learn that the 'greater or common good' does not include your good. When they say you must sacrifice for the 'public interest', that's when you discover that the 'public interest' does not include your interest, that 'general welfare' does not mean your welfare. You are an individual. You are not a 'greater' or a 'public' or a 'social' or a 'general' thus your interests, good and welfare don't count.

An example of FNORDs being blow away was revealed in a short editorial in the Detroit Free Press of 12/12/07. It complained that the Michigan State Senate's refusal to ban smoking in public places was some kind of travesty. The editorial's argument:

The French made it a priority. The English and Irish, too. And New York City, and some 30 states. Even the casino in Windsor. The U.S. Surgeon General says secondhand smoke is flat-out dangerous. But Michigan bar and restaurant owners say it should be their choice. What other aspect of public health is left to private interests?

There is proof. "Public health" does not include your health. You are an individual and as such a very private interest. Public health cannot be left to private interests means that public health refers to everyone's health except those of private interests like you and me. Public interest or health or welfare or good always means that the health and welfare of some will be sacrificed for the benefit of others. Those others could be anybody or nobody but most likely will be those in power.

(I am ignoring the fact that the Free Press has no doubt, never checked into the so-called evidence behind the Surgeon General's claim that second hand smoke is dangerous and thus abandoning any pretence of speaking truth to power. Nor will I harp on the fact that the editorial uses the logical fallacy of the arguement from consensus and since the editors are educated people who cannot fail to know they are using it, they have given up any pretence of speaking truth period.

It should be noted that the republican Senate did not shelve this bill to protect the individual rights of bar and restaurant owners. They said since Michigan's economy is so bad they didn't want to place any more burdens on the businesses that haven't left the state yet. IOW, lets wait till the golden goose regains his health and starts laying more golden eggs, then we'll bash him over his greedy, selfish head and congratulate each other on how noble and virtuous we are.)

But I digress.

So, whenever you hear intellectuals using collective phrases like common good or public interest, be very afraid because they do not mean you, your interests or welfare.

Free Michael Vick

Via Breitbart.com (h/t Drudge) comes an AP story that Michael Vick has been sentenced to 23 months in jail for running a dogfighting ring. This is an egregious miscarriage of justice. Vick needs to appeal this judgement right away. He violated no one's rights and should not be in jail.

It is morally wrong to be cruel to animals. It demonstrates a profound lack of respect for life in general. Those who do it deserve every bit of private and public moral condemnation they get. His football team has every right to drop him and ditto his commercial sponsors. What Michael Vick is going through now sans the prison sentence, is in fact a form of social ostricism and its a good and proper thing for a morally just society to do.

But it is politically wrong to give rights to animals. Rights pertain to the freedom of choices that present themselves to volitional beings which animals are not. The only rights that belong to an animal are those of its owner. If someone should abuse or kill an animal without that owner's permission, then he can and should go to jail for violating the owner's property rights. If there are now laws making such cruelty illegal, they should be removed. I am even willing to compromise and say that at the very least, for now, the law should be reduced to a misdemeanor without prison time.

This issue is a good test of one's loyalty to principles. It is often very difficult to defend on principle someone whose actions are morally repulsive. Like defending the free speech rights of the printers of sleaze and pornography. If you're loyal to the principle of free speech, you will do it in opposition to those who would outlaw sleaze thus bringing censorship to this country, free speech being a value held higher than censorship which if adopted, would lead to the destruction of free speech.

Giving political rights to animals would mark the destruction of all rights for humans. Once adopted, this non-objective principle would spread to everything and the next thing you know, humans have no rights and must be sacrificed to everything and anything that does. How would you justify cutting down the tree in your yard because its roots are cracking your foundation, or sidewalk, or plugging your sewer drain, or you want to build a garage there, when that tree has the same right to life you do? If a dog bites a human the government has the right to use retaliatory force to remove that dog from society. But, having rights, how would you put that dog on trial? And what would a jury of his peers look like? Sound stupid? Of course. But no more stupid than giving political rights to animals.

Free Michael Vick now.

Spotted By Mike's Eyes Dec. 2007.

I think Steven Milloy at Junkscience.com of Dec. 6th. has coined a new term which is so admirably precise I plan on using it in future posts. See if you can spot it in this paragraph:

Andy (Revkin's article in New York Times--ME) is partly right, energy-starved third worlders would (and will) love nothing better than cheap, abundant coal-fired electricity. The problem with the piece stems from the totally-wrong idea that atmospheric carbon dioxide presents a problem that must be addressed. This is true only in the virtual world of Play Station® Climatology and has exactly no bearing on the real world. The real motivation for many in the global warming industry has always been the suppression of human activity and the global warming scare represents their greatest success, far greater than their anti-nuclear activities.

If you guessed Play Station® Climatology you'd be right. Computer game technology is exactly what climate models are about when used for predicting future climate. All the catastrophic gloom and doom scenarios come from a single source, computer climate models, not from the observable, historical record. That is why such predictions of disaster should be dismissed as nonsense. If global warming were in fact harmful to life on Earth, there would be evidence of it in the historical record. There isn't any.
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Accuracy Schmacuracy

In Friday Nov 30th Detroit News is the headline "MSU [Michigan State Univ.--ME] finds tainted food killed 350 pets". But the article says "More that 300 dogs and cats may have died earlier this year as a result of eating contaminated pet food, a new survey shows" (my emphasis). It's just a survey of vets, and vet hospitals in which 347 animals "met the criteria" for the sickness. About 25% of these had pre-existing conditions. My point is if someone only read the headline, they would believe that 350 pets died when in reality it's only an estimate which could be significantly off.
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MY MICHIGAN NANNY STATE PROTECTS ME and...

"Legislators draft gift card reform" is the headline in Friday 12/07/07 Detroit News. The article says:

Both [state house and senate--ME] packages would make gift cards or gift certificates good for five years after purchase. As it stands, the life of the cards varies widely from a brief period of time to no expiration date at all.

The House and Senate bills also would:

• Bar retailers from changing the terms and conditions once a card is issued and require terms be disclosed to the purchaser.

• Require that retailers honor the gift cards, even for advertised sale items.

• Ban the charging of inactivity fees.

"Our plan protects every Michigan consumer," said Rep. Michael Sak, D-Grand Rapids, main sponsor of the House package. "Our legislation ensures that consumers get their money's worth from gift certificates, no matter when they choose to use them."

I do think that changing the terms of a card after issue is already illegal or, if our politicians were the least bit concerned about protecting rights, would be.

The idea that deciding how gift certificates should be used is not a legitimate function of government, would not occur to Mr. Sak or the legislature. That businessmen have the right to use and dispose of their own property--which includes gift cards--so long as they don't violate the rights of other citizens, is alien to the Michigan Government mindset. They know they can get away with violating the rights of businessmen because--

...THEY HAVE THE SANCTION OF THE VICTIM:

The legislation is called "imperfect" by the Michigan Retailers Association, which does not oppose the bills.

"They offer important protections for consumers and retailers," said Tom Scott, spokesman for the retailers' group. "We hope the legislation gives consumers even greater confidence so they buy even more gift cards."

He said the five-year shelf life is reasonable, given that retailers have to carry the cards on their books at some cost to the businesses until they are redeemed.

He said retailers are "disappointed" that the bills do not address cards issued by shopping centers for a number of stores.

Like their feelings of disappointment mean anything to the state! This is what it means to be pragmatic and only consider that which is right in front of one's nose ignoring long term consequences and even the path down which one is taking the state. It also proves that pragmatism does not work.

Another Editorial on 2nd Amendment

This past Monday I posted on a Detroit Free Press editorial calling for a national list of gun owners. Yesterday, 12/04/07, Detroit's other paper the Detroit News ran an editorial urging the SCOTUS to find that the 2nd Amendment protections apply to individuals and not to state militias. While I support this position generally, the editorial makes a common epistemological mistake:

But the Second Amendment does use the phrase "well-regulated."

In our view, this means the government, federal, state and local, has the right to restrict private ownership of such items as machine guns and heavy military hardware. Reasonable regulations such as registration, gun training, certain gun lock requirements, waiting periods for background checks before guns are sold, barring felons from gun ownership and other limitations may easily fall within the normal police powers of the state.

First of all, the phrase well-regulated is explicitly tied to the concept militia and not to the pool of citizens from which the militia was to be drawn. Well-regulated does not apply to individual citizens or their guns outside the context of militia. I do hope the Court understands this context. As I mentioned Monday, to say the the right to keep and bear arms applies only to government militias is to say that the right of the government to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a completely ludicrous notion. The right to keep and bear arms can have only one meaning, a right of the individual.

As for the list of so-called reasonable regulations in that paragraph, they're a mixed bag. No distinction is made between substantive regulations, those that involve initiating force against citizens by restricting thus violating their rights, and procedural regulations, those that employ the government's monopoly on retaliatory force to answer the question: How best can we exercise our right to keep and bear arms? It's my judgement that requiring certain gun locks would be a substantive regulation involving initiatory force against citizens thus violating their rights. Where as laws against say firing a weapon in a residential neighborhood could be valid regulations because no one has the right to threaten the life of others. The removal of such threats is a proper function of government. But such threats must be clearly and objectively defined.

It is critical that the distinction between starting the use of force and retaliating with it be grasped clearly. Procedural regulations are based on the positive idea of respecting the rights of others and not on the idea of restricting or limiting rights. No one has the right to violate or threaten to violate some one else's rights. Since that right does not exist, well, you can't limit or restrict that which does not exist. It is absolutely essential that our lawmakers and judges think in these terms. To suppose that rights can be restricted in any way is not only sloppy thinking epistemologically, it is very dangerous politically in that it can lead to all kinds of very real limits on very real rights in turn leading to their complete destruction.

I am not a lawyer so I'm not sure exactly what regulations would qualify as procedural or substantive in any given context. Such determinations are for those schooled in the law. But I think any lawmaker or judge when considering a particular regulation, should ask these questions: does this law aid in the exercising of a right by employing the retaliatory use of force in the service of recognizing the rights of others? Or does it consist of starting the use of force against citizens to compel a certain behavior which does not remove an objectively provable threat thereby violating rights.

An objectively provable threat must be clearly defined and does not mean that because one is uncomfortable with a neighbor who has a gun and might someday shoot one it justifies one's desire to have the government confiscate his gun. All such
preventive laws are substantive in nature and a violation of citizens' rights and therefore unconstitutional. I seriously doubt that our Supreme Court is even capable of thinking in these terms but who knows, maybe someday someone will be nominated to the SC who is.

Aiming At Guns

Sunday's, 12/2/07, Detroit Free Press had an editorial titled "Safety first on guns" by editorial page editor Ron Dzwonkowski. He is calling for the establishment of a national list of gun owners. His main argument is:

It makes sense to me that police should have access to a national database of gun owners. If I'm rolling up to a house where there's a reported burglary in progress or some kind of assault going on, I'd want to know if guns are registered for the premises. Wouldn't that advance warning protect gun owners, too, from police reacting badly to the presence of a firearm? Seems as if it'd be safer for both. (In Michigan, police can run a computer check to see if a person has a permit to carry a firearm, if they have a name; license plate checks for vehicle ownership do not include such information)
[um, I thought license plate checks revealed a name which can then be checked for ccw--ME]

This has to be one of the inanest arguments for a national list I've ever heard. First, I don't think there is a cop in his right mind who, upon discovering no gun was registered to a given house, would enter that house on that assumption. Second, Mr. Dzwonkowski points out that there are an estimated 240 million guns in homes in America. Cops cannot fail to know this. Any cop who thinks he will be safer with a national list of owners won't be safe for long. Third, criminals usually have unregistered guns precisely so they can't be traced to them. A gun owners list will not provide an iota of safety from real criminals. I know that domestic violence cases are often very dangerous for police but an owners list will not alleviate that one bit, unless the gun is removed before the DV crime is committed and that is the real point isn't it.

This is nothing but an attempt to get all guns registered which will be an aid to any attempt to confiscate them. Using harmless sounding words and phrases like "But nobody's allowed to keep a list of who's armed" (poor oppressed government) and "...not even for police-eyes only..." (can't we even have a peek?) Mr. Dzwonkowski is trying to couch this as a harmless little list for police-eyes only which will simply be used for police safety. Right! If you can believe that....

This editorial does have merit though. It shows how a principle (like letting the government keep records on you) once adopted even only partly, grows by its own merit until it is applied entirely or is repudiated entirely. Mr. Dzwonkowski reminds us of the extent to which we have already adopted the above principle so why not let it expand a teensy bit more?

Yet government agencies keep records of your driving habits and vehicle ownerships, of births and address changes, can get at records of your phone and credit card use and, soon enough I'm sure, will have basic medical information about you on a central computer.

But only you get to know if there's a gun in your house. Should the police ever roll up in an emergency, might be a good idea to let them know it's there, and that it's legal.

"But only you get to know if there's a gun in your house." Yep, and that's the way I want to keep it.

He seems to be of the opinion that SCOTUS will rule next year on Washington DC's effort to ban handguns in favor of the individual and not state militias but that guns will be 'well regulated' "sparing us a national war over disarmament" which disarmament he obviously prefers.

Of course the Court should rule that the 2nd Amendment applies to the individual and not state militias. When you consider that a proper government must have a monopoly on the retaliatory use of force, therefore it must have guns, and that a state militia is a government entity, to say that the 2nd Amendment applies to militias would be saying that the government must have the right to keep and bear arms, a ridiculous redundancy. The right of the people to keep and bear arms can have no other meaning than individual human beings.