"Sustainability" Another Floating Abstraction

On August 15th WJR radio talk show host Frank Beckmann had an op-ed in the Detroit News titled "'Sustainable' curriculum teaches kids to envy success." In it Mr. Beckmann reports:

"This curriculum is called Sustainability Education and nowhere in the syllabus can one find any inspirational themes that use the success stories of American entrepreneurs as role models to be admired by students.

Instead, groups like Creative Change Educational Solutions in Ypsilanti emphasize the creation of a "humane and environmentally sustainable future."

Several schools in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor have committed to Sustainability Education and crow about projects that have students compare "wages and working conditions in factories in China and Vietnam (to) corporate profits...and compensation for chief executive officers." In other words, kids aren't taught to admire and emulate success -- they're taught to envy such outcomes and "evaluate campus boycotts...and workers rights movements."

Obviously another attempt to indoctrinate children to hate the good for being the good, more concretely, to hate capitalism.

In Wednesday's 8/27/08 Detroit News is a LTE from two members of Bloomfield Hills School Board taking Mr. Beckmann's op-ed to task. In it they claim

"It's a given that our children face a dramatically different future than we did. Global workforce needs will require competence in reading, writing, math, science and computer literacy. But Beckmann misses the point: While it's worthwhile to honor our industrial past and important to create knowledgeable technicians, job success will demand both comprehensive knowledge and highly discerning thinking."

I hate to break it to my Bloomfield Hills neighbors but 'comprehensive knowledge and highly discerning thinking' is what our elementary and high schools are supposed to be about and would be if it weren't for the anti-conceptual, educational philosophy of former intellectuals like John Dewey et el. Nowhere in this attempted rebuttal did they refute Mr. Beckmann's charge that their curriculum teaches kids to envy success.

The home page of the above mentioned organization provides ready made curricula to teachers for the advancement of collectivism which is hidden in the candy wrapper of environmentalism. One of their ready made courses is called "Economics for the Common Good."

But I would like to apply a little 'discerning thinking' to their core ideal 'sustainability.' Sustainability is a meaningless concept by itself. It gains meaning only when attached to a thing or process one wants to sustain. My dictionary says sustain means to 'maintain or 'prolong.' To sustain then means to resist or prevent change. The call for 'sustainability' therefore means to call for stagnation or maintaining the status quo. In the above case it would be a government controlled stagnation which of course, we already have in education. This stagnant school system---government controlled indoctrination--is one of the things they seek to sustain. The rest is the environment, the economy, the culture etc.

The two school board members claim that the UN had no influence on their program. This is flat out false. Maybe no direct input but the ideal that 'sustainability' is a 'practical' goal was started by the UN in a paper called Agenda 21 in which it declared that modern Western industrial and technological society is unsustainable, even in your neighborhood. The supporting evidence was based on false assumptions which I won't go into here. But the main false premise is that everyone thought that our way of living was sustainable in that no more progress would be needed, that the standard of living we had in the 80s and 90s would last forever. I don't know of anyone who thought that way except maybe some union leaders and some liberals.

If people were polled back in the 80s or 90s and asked if they thought their standard of living were sustainable to which they would say yes, it does not mean they were thinking of freezing time at that moment or living that lifestyle unchanged forever and that this should be condemned as unsustainable. People understood that in a free society, things change generally for the better. It is this progress they would refer to as sustainable. They did not believe that their lifestyle would destroy the planet. They had to be convinced otherwise.

Like the concept extremism, sustainability is a floating abstraction. It is never defined explicitly. No clear evidence is ever given as to why a 'sustainable' environment or economy is a good thing or why an unsustainable one is bad. In a universe whose nature is constant change, 'sustainability' is a defiance of reality.

The purpose of the concept is to appeal to those who are in the habit of always thinking in terms of the approximate. No one wants to be for unsustainability right? Who would argue for things that don't last? So sustainability is something everyone should obviously be for. All they want from their approximate-minded public is an approximate "I guess so."

Notice the words used by environmentalists. They always want to 'save' this or 'preserve' that and 'protect' some other thing. From what? Change. (Which, when initiated by humans, environmentalists equate with destruction.) Progress is a form of change. Growth is a form of progress. Even nature sustains itself by a constant process of change. Species evolve while others go extinct. To teach children that sustainability is an ideal is to set them against the requirements of their own survival.

For thousands of years man has lived in abject poverty which is easily sustainable. So is a 25 year lifespan and slavery. The only change open to man in such societies is death which is permanently sustainable.

If we want sustainable progress, then laissez-faire capitalism should be demanded loudly. It is the only system that can provide it. And it can only exist in a constitutional rights-respecting republic. The one social system that's not sustainable is democracy. And neither is a sustainability curriculum designed to sustain that democracy.

Force Needed to Get Altruist's Utopia

In the same edition of the Detroit Free Press as my last post, is an article pointing out that "Michigan No. 10 in obesity". My initial reaction to such stories is usually So what? But this short news story demonstrates the antagonism of 2 NGOs' altruistic agenda to individual rights. First it tells us the statistics:

"For the five years ending in 2007, waistlines in Michigan have slowly expanded with nearly two-thirds of the state needing to lose weight. According to state data and the report, titled "F as in Fat," 27.7% of state residents are obese, and 36% are overweight."

First, I want to point out how routinely obesity and overweight are equated in the media. The above headline "Michigan No. 10 in obesity" was on the front page. The continuation on page 5 has the headline "State makes top ten in overweight." No it didn't. The first headline was accurate. Also, these figures are a far cry from the alleged national average of 60% of Americans being obese often touted in the media.

The article then admits:

"Two positive policies adopted by the state include a Web-based healthy lifestyle portal called Michigan Steps Up, www.mfia.state.mi.us/surGeneral/. Since its inception, about 25,600 people have created online healthy eating profiles, said state Department of Community Health spokesman James McCurtis."

But alas, such voluntary advice programs just aren't enough:

"But for all the forward thinking, said Dr. James Marks, the foundation's senior vice president, without adequate funding in a state with a long-troubled economy, the programs can only help so much."

This of course is a plea for government looted tax dollars. But wait. There's more:

"'Permissive legislation without action doesn't get it done,' he said."(bold mine)

So advising people and 'permitting' them make their own decisions will not provide us with our utopia. We must take 'action' to get our ideal world in which everyone looks like Barbie and Ken.

We next learn something about the study:

"The study gathers self-reported height and weight information from a large national behavior survey. The authors calculate body-mass index from the weight-height measurements. Those with BMIs of 30 or higher are considered obese, and those with BMIs between 25 and 30 are considered overweight."

Studies that use self-reported data are notoriously unreliable as the article admits, to a degree. The BMI is unreliable too as it was put together in a somewhat arbitrary manner.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is a tax exempt charity which regularly lobbies congress on behalf of some of its biggest donors. They would be makers of weight loss machinery and equipment, drug companies selling weight loss pills and publishers pushing diet and weight loss advice. I have no problem with these companies selling, even hyping their wares but I very much resent them lobbying government through RWJF to force me to buy their products.

I have to wonder how many Michiganders read this article and saw nothing wrong with it or even felt a little unearned guilt.

Michigan's Savior?

Yesterday's Aug 20th. Detroit Free Press has an op-ed by Presidential candidate Barak Obama titled "Obama: New stimulus and energy packages will revive Michigan." In it Obama gives the reader all the grim statistics on Michigan's and the auto industry's sad state. No news there. He then proposes a new second stimulus package:

" It includes energy rebates of $1,000 for more than 5 million Michigan workers and their families, and $1.7 billion dollars to keep Michigan’s essential state and local government services running."

Exactly what are these 'essential' services is nowhere mentioned. He continues:

"In addition to this immediate relief, I will, as president, also provide a middle class tax cut that is three times larger than the one my opponent offers — putting a $1,000 tax cut directly into the pockets of 95% of workers and their families. And I will end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create good-paying jobs here in America."

Nevermind the fact that jobs in America will cost more which will raise prices of those products especially hurting the poor, where does he propose to get this money for $1000 checks? Why it's a tax cut he's generously putting in your pocket. He does say how we're going to secure this new prosperity:

"That starts with solving our energy crisis once and for all. This isn’t just a challenge to meet; it’s an opportunity to seize[Freudian slip?-ME] — an opportunity that will create new businesses, new industries and millions of new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced."

Pay well? Can't be outsourced? This will be music to union ears. Obviously he plans to force companies to pay well and stay home ignoring why they outsourced in the first place. So what is his preferred method for achieving this domestic paradise? The goal is complete energy independence in a decade.

"To do this, we’ll invest $150 billion over the next ten years and leverage billions more in private capital to build a new energy economy that harnesses American energy and creates 5 million new American jobs."

When a politician uses the word 'leverage' think of Ayn Rand's metaphor "Have gun will nudge" except that I think we are moving beyond the stage of just 'nudging' to outright intimidation and threats. And how does one 'harness' American energy? All dictatorships try to 'harness' their citizens' energy. It doesn't work. But 'leverage' is his preferred terminology because he uses it again regarding getting more fuel efficient cars:

"We’ll leverage private sector funding to bring these cars directly to American consumers, and we’ll give consumers a $7,000 tax credit to buy these vehicles. That’s how we’ll get one million 150-m.p.g. hybrids on our roads within six years. That’s how we’ll not only protect our auto industry and our auto workers, but help them thrive in a 21st Century economy; and that is how we will finally lower gas prices, secure our energy future, and save this planet for our children."

Yep. Piece of cake! There's that magic word 'leverage' again. Notice the statist attitude regarding money. The government is going to 'give' us $7000 of its money, not our tax money returned, to buy those cars from those well paid workers. You see, money really does grow on trees, at the Fed and the mint.

Sometimes elementary school kids are asked to write a short paper on how to make the world a better place and their responses are run in the local papers. Have you ever read any of those? See any resemblance to the above? I sure do.

The Ubiquitous Nanny State

Below is a post I thought I posted in July but can now see that I never hit the publish button. Better late....

If one wants to see how the U.S. Gov--just the House in this case--wants to micromanage every aspect of the economy, go here and read the titles of the 1000 or so bills and resolutions put forth since Jan 2007. I only read about 150 of the titles but I think I can safely say none of them had anything to do with protecting individual rights. What's sad is that none of the Senators or Congressmen understand that America can't keep piling on one restriction and regulation after another and expect America to stay free. But they all look the other way and seek only an excuse to claim "I couldn't help it."

I can see congress passing resolutions honoring great achievements by someone, but "Supporting the goals and ideals of National Wear Red Day."? Sure this is intended to show support for womens' health but what are some of these 'goals and ideals'?

Encourages: (1) Americans nationwide to wear red on that day to show support for women's heart disease awareness; (2) all American women to embrace the goals of The Heart Truth campaign and take action to modify, prevent, and control their risk factors for heart disease; and (3) all Americans to exercise regularly and maintain a healthy weight, develop good eating habits, avoid tobacco, drugs, and excessive alcohol, and have regular checkups to take advantage of screenings that can detect heart disease-related problems early.

Reaffirms our nation's commitment to fighting heart disease by promoting awareness about its causes, risks, and prevention and by promoting new education programs, supporting research, and expanding access to medical treatment.

They need to reaffirm our nation's commitment to individual rights. The rest would take care of itself.

Just a Thought on Rights

Ayn Rand once said that the concept individual rights was a redundancy since rights can only belong to individuals. In the same way I think the concept human rights is also a redundancy since rights can only belong to rational beings i.e. humans. I raised this question at a study group meeting and it was agreed that human rights could have a valid use when used to differentiate from invalid rights like for example animal rights or plant rights.

But I still don't like the concept human rights. It's too collectivist and could mean individual rights and/or group rights. Politicians routinely use 'human rights' to hide the fact that they support group rights in violation of individual rights.

I think I'll have to settle for the fact that its validity depends on how it is used.

Light At End of Tunnel?

The Thursday 8/14/08 Macomb Daily, a Detroit suburban newspaper had an article of interest to me on which I thought I would comment. It is a news article by Christy Strawser titled 'Foreclosures Scooped Up In Macomb [County-ME].'According to the article:

For the seventh straight month, metro Detroit increased overall in sales volume over the same month last year, including a 39 percent hike in sales in Livingston County, 36 percent in Detroit, and 23 percent in Wayne County.

No this isn't the end of the housing crises:

Experts said growth was fueled by a glut of foreclosed homes on the market, short sales, and sellers willing to take a loss - so while sales are up, prices continued to plummet.

But I see the increase in buying not as an end to the crises but as a light at the end of the tunnel. At least I hope so.

It shows that supply and demand still work despite massive interference in our economy by the government, that when prices come down to meet demand sales will result--without the help of government.

Preparing the Sacrificial Altar

My U.S. Congressman Sander Levin's latest newsletter to constituents was a head shaker. The letter starts with the usual statist fare. First, he tells us that the House passed a paycheck fairness act which closes loopholes that allowed employers to avoid penalties for discriminatory pay.

Then we're told the house adopts overhaul of product safety rules. It is pointless to tell him that these are not legitimate functions of government. But I sometimes do it anyway just to let him know there is a difference of opinion out there. But these things are not the point of this post. Mr. Levin ended the letter with this paragraph:

Oil Companies Post $44 Billion in Profits

While American families continue to struggle with high energy costs, the oil companies recently reported record profits for the 2nd quarter of 2008. In just 3 months, oil companies reported a whopping $44 billion in profits. ExxonMobil reported earnings of $11.68 billion over the three-month period, the largest quarterly profit by a U.S. company in history. Other 2nd quarter oil industry profits include: Shell – $11.56 billion; BP – $9.47 billion; ConocoPhillips – $5.4 billion; and Chevron – $6 billion. Profits for the top five oil companies are projected to top $160 billion this year.

Notice how this shameful appeal to envy and hatred of the good for being the good doesn't explicitly come out and say that profits are evil or should be taken away. It simply states the fact that huge profits are made by oil companies while other people suffer. This is very close to the "picturism" that Dr. Peikoff discusses in his excellent CD lecture "A Picture Is Not An Argument" which can be purchased here.

This simple paragraph projects two images rather clearly; the image of billions of dollars on one hand and people struggling on the other. No argument is being made. Mr. Levin is hoping the images will provoke an emotional or psychological 'no' in the mind of the reader which he, Levin, hopes in turn will translate into positive support for any action he takes against the oil companies. I fired off the following e-mail to the Congressman and as you can see I'm finding it difficult to maintain the required politeness towards people with such animosity towards businessmen in general.

I was disappointed in the ending to your Congressional Connector of Aug 11th. which declared that oil companies made $44 billion while people struggled. This was a most shameful display of what Ayn Rand called 'hatred of the good for being the good.'

It displays an ignorance of economics, ignorance that profits are how wealth is created, ignorance that profits mean purchased survival time, ignorance in that wealth is not a static quantity in which the wealth of some is achieved at the expense of others but rather is created by the free minds of productive individuals.

The paragraph is immoral in that it appeals to one of the worst elements of human nature, envy and resentment of the successful. For over a century oil companies have, through the profit motive, provided America with abundant and cheap energy. They don't deserve this kind of vilification. If energy costs are high, it is because of congressional activities.

I have always had some respect for you and Carl as members of the old left who in turn had some respect for individual freedom and rights. It now looks like you are abandoning even that as you attack profits in the billions. Do you know what that says? It says that you believe that morality is a matter not of principle but of numbers. In your eyes, if a man makes millions he is productive but if he makes billions he is evil and must be smashed in some way for the benefit of those who did not make it.

I urge you not to make such appeals to envy in the future and reconsider your position. It is very un-American.

I see that Congress has adjourned for a few weeks so he probably won't see it for awhile. That's good. Perhaps it will be fresh in his mind when the House reconvenes.

The Ominous Parallels, book recommendation

I just finished reading "The Ominous Parallels" by Leonard Peikoff and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is subtitled "The end of freedom in America." The parallels of course are those ideas that exist in America today and the German people in the 40 or so years leading up to the arrival of the Nazis and Hitler.

He showed how pragmatism destroyed the Germans' ability to think in terms of principles just as it's doing in America today, and how it reduces a human mind to the perceptual level of animals. But it isn't just pragmatism. Dr Peikoff discusses dogmatism, subjectivism--both individual and social versions, nihilism, romanticism, relativism and others.

I've heard people say that Hitler was insane, a madman. This is a mistake. Hitler was loyal to his principles. He and his lieutenants studied philosophy, mostly that of Plato, Kant and Hegal on whose principles Nazism was based.

If there was ever any doubt about the power of philosophy to create of destroy an entire nation, this book will remove it.

Anti-Social Medicine?

The Telegraph.co.uk in their 'your views' section asks "Should doctors be paid bonuses for saving lives?" This isn't just a rhetorical question. British hospitals are planning to do just that.

All the government has to do is get out of the way and the doctors will have all the incentive they need and then some. Sad.

(Right now there is about 160 comments but I especially like #5 by Pinkie

Nurse: Doctor, this patient has a cut on his leg which could get infected.

Doctor: we'd better act straight away before it gets any worse.

Manager: Our life-saving target is down this month. You know what it would mean; our funding could be cut.

Doctor: Hmmm... and with Christmas on the way... could do with that bonus. On second thoughts, leave it till it gets gangrene. We can then lop it of and save his life.

How to bring out the worst in people. Labour knows how.)

Electoral College Under Attack Again

The 7/20/08 Detroit Free Press has its Sunday editorial section On Point mostly devoted to getting rid of the Electoral College. Its main editorial "Graduate the Electoral College" is mostly a plea for straight 'democracy,' the so-called one man,one vote idea. The editorial looks at the recent efforts of the NPV (National Popular Vote) movement where states would form co-ops and all their electoral votes would go to the popular vote leader. But it correctly points out:

"And it could mean that a candidate gets the votes of a state he or she didn't carry."

The paper's solution then is a plan of reapportionment.

"Apportioning electoral votes is a compromise between direct election and preserving the Electoral College. It would force candidates to pay more attention to every state and give voters on the short side of politically lopsided states a chance to have their ballots count for something."

I'm not an expert in Constitutional Law so I can't say if any of these apportionment plans are even feasible. My own guess is that such plans will get knocked down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

The editorial is joined by an op-ed by Clyde Frazier, professor of political science at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. who argues a justification for this side-stepping of the Constitution:

"State action has one enormous advantage over constitutional amendment; it is much more easily reversible. The most serious concern about any change in election procedures is the possibility of unintended consequences. If NPV does cause problems, individual states can withdraw from the compact at any time, except right before and after an election, forcing a return to the current system. We aren't locked into change, as we would be with an amendment."

Personally, I don't like the idea of a 'living constitution' of which this set up smacks. It also introduces pure democracy into the voting process. Eventually such democracy will spread to other voting issues and eventually our Constitutional Republic will be replaced by a full democracy. These always devolve into chaos or dictatorship.

Offering the contrary view is Robert Hardaway, professor of law at the University of Denver and the author of "The Electoral College and the Constitution: the Case for Preserving Federalism" who writes:

"In 1956, a Republican proposal to abolish the Electoral College was defeated after a vigorous defense by Sen. John F. Kennedy, who declared that "direct election would break down the federal system under which most states entered the union, which provides a system of checks and balances to ensure that no area or group shall obtain too much power.""

This idea of breaking down the federal system under which most states entered the union is the right argument and is elaborated upon by Jeff Jacoby in a July 16 Boston Globe op-ed. Mr. Jacoby says:

"Such concerns didn't trouble the framers of the Constitution, who did not believe that political contests should be decided by majority rule. They rejected "pure democracy," as James Madison explained in Federalist No. 10. They knew that with "nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual," blind majoritarianism can become as great a menace to liberty as any king or dictator. The term "tyranny of the majority" was coined for good reason."

And also points out:

"The Electoral College (like the Senate) was designed to preserve the role of the states in governing a nation whose name - the United States of America - reflects its fundamental federal nature. We are a nation of states, not of autonomous citizens, and those states have distinct identities and interests, which the framers were at pains to protect. Too many Americans today forget - or never learned - that the states created the central government; it wasn't the other way around. The federal principle is at least as important to American governance as the one-man-one-vote principle, and the Electoral College brilliantly marries them: Democratic elections take place within each state to determine that state's vote for president in the Electoral College."

I agree. To do away with the EC is to dissolve state borders and I think any politician who gives it a second thought would reject the idea. I urge reading all of Mr. Jacoby's article.


Update. Gus Van Horn comments on this subject here. Thanks Gus

Confusion is Illegal?

The Detroit News of 7/15/08 has a front page article titled "New Law: gift cards to be good for 5 years." Aside from the fact that this is just another violation of businessmens' rights, this is also clear evidence of how government regulations create an ignorant, helpless and irresponsible citizenry utterly dependent on the government to do their thinking for them.

Governor Granholm signed the bill into law saying it will "...protect citizens pocketbooks and makes sure consumers are getting the most from their dollars." This is precisely the responsibility that should lie on the shoulder of every citizen, not the government. In a laissez-faire economy, papers, like the Detroit News for example, and magazines would report on whose gift cards offered the best or worst value. People who cared about their money and their gift giving would make the effort to learn this information. Those who don't care deserve to get burned.

The new law says:

"Among provisions of the new laws:

• Michigan retailers can't alter the terms or conditions of a gift card or certificate after it's issued.

• Inactivity fees and other charges can't be applied.

• Stores can't refuse to accept cards or certificates during sales, close-outs or liquidations.

• Retailers can't refuse gift cards or certificates as partial payment for items that cost more than the remaining balances on them."

Proof that this law is not about justice or fairness of any kind is found in the last paragraph:

"The legislation responded to complaints that some retailers issue gift certificates or gift cards with expiration dates, and some charge fees or discount the value if a card isn't redeemed by a certain time. The bills' sponsors said that's confusing and inconvenient."

The Governor and the Michigan legislature are catering to and encouraging one of the worst elements of human nature, laziness.

I don't know if they'll print it but I sent the following LTE to the News yesterday:

Dear Editor:
"The Detroit News Article of 7/15, "New Law: gift cards to be good for 5 years" is a violation of every businessman's rights. It denies him the right to decide how to run his business as he sees fit. This law is not about justice or fairness of any kind. It's about the State government's desire to exercise political power (force) on behalf of the confused and inconvenienced. Perhaps there should only be one kind of tomato or car on the market because having to choose between many can be confusing and inconvenient. When the government is eager to initiate force against businessmen for something as frivolous as 'inconvenience', it is no wonder Michigan's economy is in the tank. It is of such seemingly trivial laws that the destruction of America will be made."

Stealth Advertising?

For those who worry that cell phones will fry their brain, and haven't seen the CNN report on it, check out this video. Then see what Snopes says about it here. To see the CNN report on how it was done scroll down to the last paragraph to the CNN link. I gather this is called 'stealth advertising.' Seems quite irrational to me. I didn't see a product identification in the video.

I agree with Dr. Piekoff in his lecture "A Picture is not an Argument" (which can be purchased here) in which he opined that today's advertising looks the way it does mainly because of our income tax laws. I couldn't agree more.

Pants pull-up law or Bag the sags.

The July 9th Detroit Free Press has a front page article titled "Flint police crackdown on saggy pants." The city of Flint Michigan has a new police chief, David Dicks, who issued a memo to all officers informing them that:

The crime, he says, is disorderly conduct or indecent exposure, both misdemeanors punishable by 93 days to a year in jail and/or fines up to $500.

The chief's justification is:

On June 27, the chief issued a departmental memorandum telling officers: "This immoral self expression goes beyond freedom of expression."

The new law's form will be:

Dicks, 41, broke down his interpretation of the laws as such: Pants pulled completely below the buttocks with underwear showing is disorderly conduct; saggy pants with skin of the buttocks showing is indecent exposure, and saggy pants, not completely below the buttocks, with underwear exposed results in a warning.

As a rule, I'm against any laws that try to legislate 'decency.' I can see laws that prohibit genitalia exposure, maybe even underwear exposure on the grounds of a threat to the health of others. But if this new rule on pants is accepted, what will be next? Skirts and/or shorts above the knees being deemed indecent? In the same paper, Freep writer Rochelle Riley op-eds that she hopes thongs will be next.

My main point is that if the pants law can't be based on the principle of protecting the rights of citizens e.g. a health threat, it shouldn't exist. The pressure to wear pants above the hip should come from the private sector. An example of this would be a sign I saw on the door of a family owned grocery store which read, IIRC, "Pull your pants up before entering or no service." That is a proper use of private social pressure.

Some of these kids will out grow this fad as did the black chief. Others won't but all are second handed conformists. They can't wait to 'fit in' to the latest socially tolerated method of expressing their social independence or individualism.

Is Free Speech the Issue This Election?

Gus Van Horn has a post on the continuing persecution by the Canadian Human Rights commissions against Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn. My concern is how do our presidential candidates view this Canadian attack on free speech? As things stand right now, I think free speech is the big issue. If free speech is destroyed, or even thwarted, Objectivism will have a much harder time spreading through academe and the culture.

As far as I can tell, McCain has a nonchalant attitude toward free speech. He may regard it as a value but further down on his priority list; something that can be sacrificed away to achieve a higher goal like campaign finance reform. But I don't know where Obama stands. If he comes out for hate speech legislation, I would consider it to be a frontal assault on free speech and would consider him more of a threat than McCain. Even though McCain would be a longer term threat, Obama would be a serious short term one.

So what if Obama declares he will fight for hate speech legislation? Will McCain oppose him? Join him? How much will the Dem controlled congress let him have his way? Will the Republicans find a spine someplace and resist him? (At a recent objectivist study group meeting in the Detroit area this election was discussed. One thing we all agreed on was the fact that the only time Republicans fight against anything is when Dems are in power. When Repubs are in power they enact the Dem agenda of bigger government and more regulation.) So the question becomes, how much will Obama actually be able to get away with? McCain too for that matter?

Then this voice in my head keeps telling me that I can't trust anything either of them says because they are pragmatists and don't use words to convey meanings but to evoke emotional responses. It gives me a headache thinking about it. There are lots of reasons to vote against both of them.

Darren Cauthon posts on an excellent reason not to vote for McCain. Evidently, McCain thinks innovation can be spurred by tougher 'penalties.'

Myrhaf has good reasons not to vote for Obama pointing out that Obama is just as adamant about mandatory national service as McCain is.

As the election draws near, the two may become more committal, maybe. I'll see.

(If you live in the Detroit area and would like to attend one of the study group meetings, send me a private email and I'll get back to you. It's in my profile)

Offshore Drilling Editorial Rant

The Sunday June 22nd Detroit Free Press has an editorial titled "Drill into the Future." Reading it, one gets the impression the editor was dragged kicking and screaming to write it. The tone of the editorial is that of an 8 yr. old spoiled brat who realizes that a tantrum isn't going to work this time and is reluctantly giving in to his parents wishes while making some demands like "This giving in to dumb demands by grownups is not sustainable." Within that context, I decided to parody my criticism of the editorial. Sometimes when I read an editorial like this, I can't just give a respectful critique. I feel the need to ridicule. In response to Bush's call for offshore drilling the editorial begins:

OK, let's drill for oil along the continental shelf.

But let's do it with extraordinary safeguards and let's also be clear -- as President George W. Bush has not been -- that sucking more oil and natural gas from deep water off the nation's coasts will not bring down the price of gasoline today or next month, and may not make more than a few pennies difference a decade from now.

Notice the hatred revealed by the use of the derogatory word 'sucking.' The spoiled brat is calling grownup activities stupid and wrong.

The sole reason to allow more offshore drilling would come in its political payoff, a splashy finish for an oil-soaked administration in exchange for real action on long-term energy sustainability.

More pouting about how grownups desires are soaked in stupidity (oil).

But wait, the brat has an idea (rationalization). He tells his fellow children: "If we give in to the adults on this, we might be able to extract some goodies from them. He offers four possibilities:

The trade offs could be:

• A floor on the price of gas, so America never again hops on the big car/compact car/SUV/hybrid rollercoaster.

Notice that the freep has no problem deciding how others should exercise their right to liberty (travel), i.e. grownups desires need restrictions so as not to be uneven.[?]

• An energy tax credit for low-income workers, who have been hit hardest by $4-plus prices.

We editors know that the poor are suffering--due to our past editorials. We really don't want to get rid of the source of their pain, just give them some aspirin.

• A massive energy efficiency push, not just on oil but natural gas as well.

Our chores need to be made easier.

• Grants for research and development that let all sorts of alternative energy ideas sprout. Not all of them will grow, but we've got to get far more serious about alternative thinking.

Increase our allowances and lets lobby the grownups to adopt alternative methods of parenting.

The editorial again dwells on how much the poor are hurt. But, it claims, the two solutions offered so far, dropping the gas tax for the summer and offshore drilling, do not address "...the question of how the country can live sustainably in an era when all the easy oil is already being pumped." In other words, the grownup's reasoned method of parenting is not sustainable but our whim worship is, so you adults need to adjust.

It is not the job of the Free Press or anyone else, to decide how the country can live sustainably. The whole 'sustainability' argument is based on false premises which have been exposed before. The one thing that is not sustainable is a government regulated economy. We continue:

Offshore drilling needs restrictions that keep rigs over the horizon and out of sight, and it must come with ample funding for the Coast Guard and other agencies to ensure proper inspections and the expertise to deal with oil spills if they occur.

That's right, oil rigs (like windmills) must be kept out of sight. Uncle Teddy said!

But then this feeble attempt at honesty:

But opponents of offshore drilling need to give the oil industry some credit, as well.

"Opponents of offshore drilling..."? Why who could they be? I don't see any around here, do you?

Raising the specter of the Santa Barbara oil spill, which happened in 1969, is no longer enough. Operations have been nearly blemish-free for almost four decades, including through Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

Oh alright. I guess it's true after all, the grownups way of doing things is right most of the time. But enough with the facts already, lets get back to our feelings:

More exploration offshore does not equate, however, to tearing up whatever landscape the oil riggers covet.

Notice the slanting words. The phrase 'tearing up whatever landscape' projects an image of grasslands and meadows where deer and bunnies play being destroyed by oil CEOs. The word covet means to desire something one shouldn't or in excess. Like others, this sentence is not aimed at anyone's mind. Its target is the readers' emotions. Its purpose is to try and evoke an emotional NO! which the editorial hopes will translate into the same hatred of oil companies that the editorial so glaringly exhibits.

Since oil companies are so wantonly destructive:

Prime natural areas, including the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, must remain off-limits -- one position that presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama also agree on.

Unfortunately true. No hope anytime soon.

The Great Lakes certainly cannot come into play, even though Canada has, so far anyway, put rigs in Lake Erie without incident. The potential risk to self-contained lakes, which supply drinking water to millions, may be minimal, but it's a gamble that no one should allow.

Even though the threat is negligible, we must pretend it is so serious that we can't allow it. We simply can't let facts get in the way of our feelings.

The editorial ends with its proposed solution:

The question is what America should do. And the answer is to start on the long-term transition to more sustainable energy. If more offshore drilling can speed the plan that brings that day sooner, it will be a political bargain.

So if more offshore drilling will put and end to offshore drilling, then that's presumably a good thing. Hmmm. Perhaps this will allow the Free Press the future declaration "But I was against it before I was for it."

The real intent here is not sustainable energy but a desire to stop the use of fossil fuels like oil and gas and presumably coal too, even if these can sustain us for a long time. The goal is sacrifice. There is eternal sustainability in death.

There were no government regulators to declare whale oil or horse drawn buggies unsustainable; to call for the development of alternative technologies like oil and cars. Adult thinkers were a tad more mature back then. New technologies came about precisely because men were free to invent and discover new ways of doing things that individuals were willing to pay for. There were no government altruists trying to force the changes and thus causing economic hardship as is the case with the sustainability agenda today. If one wants sustainable development which is also friendly to nature-there is no other kind-one will advocate laissez-faire capitalism.

I once wrote about the spectacle of one toddler trying to do good to a second toddler by offering him a toy or cookie. But the second toddler doesn't want it. Feeling rejected and having been taught that giving is always good, the first toddler tries to force the object on the second causing animosity to develop. That's when an adult has to step in and stop the process. The first toddler needs to be taught that the good cannot be forced; that starting force violates the rights of the second toddler. The first needs to learn that the right to choose of the second must be respected.

But what if the adult did not so instruct the toddlers? What if the adult supported the first in his effort to force the good on the second? The child will of course grow up to be an aggressive brat convinced that starting force is ok if done for a so-called 'altruistic' reason.

Imagine that adult gaining control of the school system and every year turning out hordes of such brats. Some of these will stay in academe creating more copies of themselves. These in turn would go into the culture to places like the media who would champion that educational system; to the body politic who would cater to it, to the businessmen who would cave in to the stamping-foot demands of all the other brats. The result of course is America today. And when I look at the current candidates for president, Obama and McCain, I can see the toddlers will be in charge for awhile longer. Sadly there are no adults in sight, not even in the editorial pages of the Freep.

(A footnote:
As for the idea that oil is unsustainable and peaking out, a good refutation of this was abundantly clear recently. As soon a Bush called for offshore drilling, the Saudis announced they would increase production. The Saudis know only too well that we have massive amounts of oil at our fingertips and could easily replace the 10% of our supply we get from them if we get the government and enviros out of the way. They don't want that to happen.)

Book Recommendation With Comments

I just finished reading "The God of the Machine" by Isabel Paterson. The newest printing has an in depth introduction by Stephen Cox who, according to the back cover, "[I]s professor of literature and director of humanities at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of 'The Woman and the Dynamo', a biography of Isabel Paterson published by Transaction." Although this book was published in 1943, it is even more relevant today. According to Cox's intro:

"On it publication in 1943,The God of the Machine appeared hopelessly old-fashioned. Today, it appears prophetic. It exposes the moral and practical failures of collectivism, failures that are now almost universally acknowledged but are still far from universally understood; and it identifies problems that continue to threaten the destruction of free societies." (Pg. IX of intro)

Miss Paterson refers to the dynamics of free trade among men as 'energy' and the 'free flow' of this energy as being determined by the amount of government interference in the economy (machine).The greater the government involvement, the greater the poverty and misery. The lesser the involvement, the greater the energy and thus prosperity.

Within this context, she goes back to ancient Greece and presents a historical perspective on why Greece and Rome had to fail, on why the middle and dark ages were stagnant, and why the Enlightenment succeeded. Through out the book Paterson refers to the futility of 'democracy' many times:

"Democracy is pure process,consisting of a series of pragmatical expedients, arrived at by majority vote, the verdict of numbers."

And:

"Democracy inevitably lapses into tyranny; but while in flux it may temporarily leave a wide margin of conduct and thought unregulated." (Pg 16)

This is true and one of the reasons people often confuse democracy with freedom; the deterioration can happen slow enough that people don't perceive it.

Even if a society erects a democracy with certain minority rights written into law, whenever these minority rights are invoked against majority wishes, the cry will always be: "Since when does a minority get to dictate to a majority?". We hear this complaint often today from liberals and conservatives as they try to force their idea of the good on society over the objections of various minorities.

Eventually, in a democracy, the majority will vote away the rights of all minorities. That's what majority rule means if not in theory, always in practice. The rights of minorities will be abrogated partly de jure and partly de facto. The later method has been at work in America for some time. The particular technique used to make it happen was identified by a onetime protege and admirer of Ms. Paterson-Ayn Rand. In her novel The Fountainhead, Ms. Rand's villain Ellsworth Toohey explains his technique to one of his victims saying in part: "Don't set out to raze all shrines--you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity--and the shrines are razed."

This technique is being used by modern Tooheys to destroy individual rights and other American ideals. They don't attack individual rights, they simply ignore them. They enshrined need to be superior to rights just by focusing all policy on need and ignoring rights. When was the last time you heard your representative use the concept individual rights? The tool used to raze rights and enshrine need was switching rights from the individual realm to the collective. They had to destroy in the minds of the masses the idea that individual rights provides individual justice by getting them to accept in its place the notion that servicing social needs provides social justice. They don't attack individual justice. It's just that when the idea of justice is discussed, it's only meaning is the social variety.

Getting back to Ms. Paterson, she was quite perceptive regarding the nature what she called 'humanitarianism' and the nature of political do-gooders:

"An amiable child wishing for a million dollars will usually 'intend' to give away half of this illusory wealth. The twist in the motive is shown by the fact that it would be just as easy to wish such a windfall directly to those others without imagining oneself as the intermediary of their good fortune." (Pgs 153-154)

Today's Tooheys not only want to be the intermediary, they want to be the direct cause of everyone's fate. She continues:

"Carried into adult years, this naive self-glorification turns to positive hatred of any suggestion of persons helping themselves by their own individual efforts, by the non-political means which imply no power over others, no compulsory apparatus. The hatred has a deep motive back of it; for it is true that nothing but the political means will yield unearned public adulation." (153-154)

This snarling hatred is very evident with today's leftists and they control the Democratic party, the media and most of academe.

Among other things, Ms. Paterson talks about the fallacy of public property, why real money is indispensable--that is, backed by gold and silver--and about the mind destroying nature of public education.

The only things I would object to are 1. Mr. Cox's intro could have been a little shorter, and 2. Ms Paterson never identified altruism as a culprit of any kind. I think this may have been a result of her wanting to remain a deist. That's also one reason her and Ms. Rand parted ways. I have a few other misgivings but not of a major nature so I highly recommend the book which can be purchased here.

Of the Feelers, By the feelers, For the Feelers

At Rule of Reason, Edward Cline has part 4 of his essay "The Year of the Long Knives." In it Mr. Cline discusses the funding behind not only Obama's campaign but of most of the extreme leftist organizations. It is sad to see how many successful businessmen, men who used the principles of freedom and free trade to amass their wealth, using that wealth to destroy that freedom and free trade. Mr. Cline gives anecdotal evidence in the person of Mr. Wolf, CEO of UBS Americas, who supports Obama because doing so makes him feel good. It is amasing to me how such men can be so rational in the business world but so massively irrational when they step out of their office.

When I see or hear of a man like that I am reminded of a scene in an old movie-I think-called "The Vikings." The Kirk Douglas character is part of a love triangle. Standing atop a castle-from memory now-with the woman he loves, he looks down and sees his rival running up the steps to challenge him for her love. The Viking says "See how he hastens to his death."

That is what I see whenever I see any business people donating to any leftist, altruist, collectivist foundation. They do not understand that when a government is allowed to act on whims-feelings-one of the first changes to be made will be to the Wolfs of the world who will be changed from existence to nonexistence. But they don't feel this to be the case, so in their minds, it isn't.

Mr. Cline is also on the money when he compares the mindset of today's general population to that of the German people in the decades before the rise of Naziism. I am about halfway through the excellent book "The Ominous Paralells" by Leonard Peikoff which can be purchased here. (A deal at $13.45)

And I urge everyone to read parts one, two, and three of Mr. Cline's essay.

Obama vs McCain

I've been trying to stay away from blogging on the presidential candidates mainly because it's such a depressing subject. But I knew I couldn't stay away from it completely. So here are a few thoughts which I admit are mostly speculation at this point in time.

Barak Obama is a collectivist, altruist and statist. He is a rookie in politics and he doesn't seem to know much about history. He's a firm believer in sacrifice including forced sacrifices as evidenced by his 'we can no longer enjoy prosperity and expect others to like us' speech which also shows his second handedness.

If elected president, I see him being pulled in different directions. There will be those who will pressure him not to do anything that would hurt or destroy the chances of future black men to get elected. A 'once in a lifetime, ground-breaking opportunity so don't screw it up' kind of pressure will be present.

There will be those who will tell him he has a mandate to bring about 'change', the main slogan of his campaign. What kind of change? He will do what all sacrificers do when it becomes obvious that all previous sacrifices haven't worked: call for more and bigger sacrifices. A non-sacrificial course of action is alien to his mind.

I figure that because of his inexperience and second handedness, he will be somewhat paralyzed to move at least at first and will do nothing without a consensus of his cabinet. If his cabinet suggests one course of action, he will not go against it.

On foreign policy, the main driver will be to make other nations-including our enemies-like us. This will mean presenting to the world a militantly straight-spined, shoulders back, chin up image--while on one's knees posture. It won't make anyone like us of course, but the glee with which our enemies will view our moral cowardice and self-immolation will be viewed as approval and all will be right with the world in Obamaland, just as it was in Carterland.

What kind of concrete policies he'll propose is hard to say now but for sure appearances will mean everything. I think he will call for a world summit on Iraq with a view towards getting the troops out. Perhaps he'll call for a summit on world oil prices too. I don't see him nationalizing the oil companies ala Maxine Waters but I do see him appeasing her and her Marxist ilk with a windfall profits tax which will punish corporate greed. The press will swoon over this one. Do you see the republicans standing up to defend greed? Me neither.

On the domestic front--I call it a front because the intellectuals are at war with the general population--I'm wondering if he'll come out with some "Great Society" type of program. I think he's too green for that right now. Maybe in his second term. (Biting my tongue)

One thing I think he will do is offer a giant program to improve and/or save inner city schools most of which are utter failures. It will require a massive allocation of taxpayer dollars into such schools. Or perhaps, no taxes will be needed. Obama could easily use these schools' plight as an altruistic excuse for the windfall profits tax, the money from which would go directly to said schools. The media will kneel before him.

But like all the white presidents of the past, he will not even try to look for the root causes of those schools' failures: an irrational curriculum fostered by government encouragement. To do that he would have to take on the educational establishment. But that would be seen as political suicide and thus not happen. It won't happen even though taking on the educational establishment, that is, reincorporating phonics into the reading classes, structuring math classes hierarchically and providing a historically contextual science curriculum, would virtually guarantee his reelection. Sad.

When I look at John McCain I see an older and craftier Obama. He too is a collectivist, altruist and statist. They both believe in forced sacrifices. Whereas Obama wants Americans to be sacrificed to lower life forms and 'change' which means more and bigger sacrifices, McCain wants Americans to be sacrificed to lower life forms and the homeland. Whereas Obama wants Americans to sacrifice the products of freedom, SUVs etc., McCain aims directly at freedom itself via forced service to the homeland and his hostility to free speech.

Obama says we can no longer afford the prosperity of our freedom, McCain says yes we can but we must purchase our freedom in annual installments of self-sacrifice. In other words, we can buy our freedom by giving up pieces of it. This of course can have only one outcome: the loss of all freedom. That is why I think McCain is the more dangerous of the two.

Things will get a little clearer as the election draws nearer, maybe more so when each gives his acceptance speech at their conventions. I know I'll be blogging on this election a few more times but I dread the task.

(Speaking of dread, I was listening to a conservative talk radio show this morning and they were discussing the possibility of Obama, if elected, appointing Hillary to the Supreme Court! Talk about a nightmare!) [Is that even possible?]

Speculators Perform Valueable Service

Galileo Blogs has a compact post on the value of market speculators. Lots of people seem to think that speculators are just irresponsible hustlers who do nothing but mindlessly gamble on whether some aspect of the market will go up or down. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact speculators actually help market downturns to correct sooner than they would if there were no speculators or if they were severely restricted by government regulations.

Walter Williams also has an article on the value of speculators at Capitalism Magazine.

Mass Preventive Medicine Prevents Individual Rights

In April, I reported that I had read the first 8 chapters of Gary Taubes's book "Good Calories, Bad Calories". I pointed out that those chapters are replete with evidence that "Government encouragement does not order men to believe that the false is true. It merely makes them indifferent to the issue of truth or falsehood." That quote is from Ayn Rand in her essay Establishing of an Establishment now in the book Philosophy: Who Needs It which can be purchased here.

I quoted two paragraphs of his book from the chapter "Creation of Consensus" which showed how evidence contrary to government policy tends not to get funded by the funding agencies, and often gets attacked by their spokesmen. Also, it is this pressure that causes some scientists to interpret the findings of their studies in a light favorable to government policy even when the studies themselves do not support it.

Today's post will look at how this indifference to truth is evolving into the destruction of the concept of health by moving it from the individual context--its rightful place--to a collective context. In other words, the concept of 'public health' is to be considered separate from and superior to individual health. And since you are an individual, your health doesn't matter and can be sacrificed to the good of the collective or the so-called 'common good.'

An example of this is provided by Sandy Szwarc at JunkfoodScience.com in a post about a conference at which it was advocated that medical ethics be replaced by social ethics. Summarizing it for us Ms. Szwarc writes:

Essentially, this philosophy argues that the obesity “epidemic” is such a threat to society and our quality of life, that to be moral and ethical, public health policies and preventive health must act in the name of the common good. Public interests are more important than those of individuals. The government must determine what is best for all, as individuals are incapable of protecting themselves. Society, most importantly, must act on behalf of children. Today’s public health has reached such crisis proportions, the viewpoint goes, that coercive policies that strip away individual freedoms and leave people no choice but to comply with “healthy behaviors” are now justified.

I recommend reading the whole short article. The desire of these people to employ the use of force against American citizens is obvious.

That the new concept of 'public health' is designed to sacrifice the individual to some higher entity like the 'common good' is indisputable. But in fact, there is no such thing as public health per se. Most people who use that term generally regard it to mean the sum of the health of all the people in a given society or at least a majority of them since someone is always sick somewhere. That would be a valid use of the term public health. That is not however the intent of the new concept in its collective context. In its new context, public health' is a tool to serve the concept 'common good' or 'public interest' the definition of which will be determined by the intellectuals. But is there such a thing as 'common good'?

When "the common good" of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. It is tacitly assumed, in such cases, that “the common good” means “the good of the majority” as against the minority or the individual. Observe the significant fact that that assumption is tacit: even the most collectivized mentalities seem to sense the impossibility of justifying it morally. But “the good of the majority,” too, is only a pretense and a delusion: since, in fact, the violation of an individual’s rights means the abrogation of all rights, it delivers the helpless majority into the power of any gang that proclaims itself to be “the voice of society” and proceeds to rule by means of physical force, until deposed by another gang employing the same means.-Ayn Rand Lexicon

Observe how Rand identifies the "good of the majority" as only a pretense and a delusion. This is so true and very important. The new concept of public health can mean anything the 'authorities' want it to mean. It can mean the sacrifice of a minority to a majority or of the majority to a minority. This last is its real meaning. To see how, I have to return to "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and Mr. Taubes' description of how the mass preventive medicine idea took hold.

"This strategy [collective medicine-ME] is credited to the British epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose, a longtime veteran of the dietary-fat controversy. "The mass approach is inherently the only ultimate answer to the problem of mass disease," Rose explained in 1981.

"But, however much it may offer to the community as a whole, it
offers little to each participating individual. When mass
diphtheria immunization was introduced in Britain 40 years ago,
even then roughly 600 children had to be immunized in order that
one life be saved--599 'wasted' immunizations for the one that was
effective....This is the kind of ratio that one has to accept in
mass preventive medicine. A measure applied to many will actually
benefit few." (Rose quote)

When it came to dietary fat and heart disease, according to Rose's calculation, only one man in every fifty might expect to avoid a heart attack by virtue of avoiding saturated fat for his entire adult life: "Forty-nine out of fifty would eat differently everyday for forty years and perhaps get nothing from it." (pp66,67)

So we see that 49 people will be sacrificed for the alleged benefit of one. That is collectivism. It is important here to understand how these collectivists think. By way of an analogy, collectivists see a barrel of 300 apples, (or 300 million people) and notice that 1 in 50 are bad. They see doctors treat each bad apple individually and return them to health. They see that the entire population has been improved. They wish to be as beneficial to mankind as those doctors are. But they seek a shortcut. Instead of treating individual apples to make them better, they look only at the whole population and dream of what it would be like to prevent those 6 apples from going bad. This would certainly be better for all of applekind wouldn't it?

Studies are done and a 'socially acceptable' range of sizes and colors for healthy apples is politically established. All apples must conform to these new standards for their own good. There is only one problem with this behavior on the part of apple authorities. It ignores the nature of apples. According to this web site, there are about 7500 varieties of apples each having its own nature. It's obvious that if any one-size-fits-all program of preventive medicine won't work with apples, it sure as hell won't work with humans. But this kind of thinking is what collectivists want to force or see forced on the public. Only this time the 'public' does mean every individual.

But the truth is they don't care about those 6 apples, or the 294 others whose forced sacrifices are now required. The real ideal of the collectivists is sacrifice, the sacrifice of everyone to everyone all the time. And the tool that will help them achieve this goal is mass preventive medicine as permanent government policy.

The only way a society can protect itself from them is to fight for a separation of state and economics and the best place to start is in medicine. Aside from a rare quarantine, the government has no business getting involved in medicine or public health in any way. The United States was founded on the principle of the primacy of the individual, not the collective or the state.

(As an aside, I recommend Good Calories, Bad Calories if for no other reason than that it's a good history of diet hypotheses and public policy. I don't agree with everything he says but in fairness, he calls for more randomized, double-blind, clinical trials to study refined carbohydrates in a quality way. While I'm not in favor of government funding of any science-except for defense-if it is going to fund some studies then it should fund this also.)