»Home | »Philosophy  | »Advocacy | »Weblog  | »Contribute Online
:: The Rule of Reason ::

:: Saturday, August 30, 2003 ::

Foreign Policy: Six-Party Talks Produce DPRK-China split 

:: Posted by John Bragg at 8:28 AM

The Bush policy on North Korea has recently enjoyed two limited successes. The Administration consistently demanded multilateral rather than bilateral talks with North Korea to dismantle the DPRK nuclear program. After much posturing, and much criticism of the Administration this spring at home and abroad, the North agreed, first to three-party talks with China (which, at the talks, became bilateral US-Chinese and Chinese-DPRK talks) and then to six-party talks with both Koreas, China, Russia, the US and Japan.

The talks were held, and nothing was agreed to. But the first partial victory is that the North Koreans, who desperately need foreign money, "blinked" and accepted the US terms for the negotiations. The US was not stampeded into a negotiation on the North's terms. The six-party talks also have the benefit of sharing the responsibility for the issue with the other Northeast Asian regional powers.

The second partial victory is that, by involving the Chinese in the diplomacy, the North Koreans have been split from their Chinese allies. After the talks, the Chinese statement was that all parties agreed that a second round of talks would be held sometime somewhere, that everyone wanted a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, and (more implied than stated) that the meeting was a constructive, limited success for Chinese diplomacy and prestige.

The North Koreans today declared the talks a failure, refused to give up their nuclear weapons or weapons program and either did or did not rule out future talks, depending on the translation. In response, according to ABC Radio Australia, China declared that all parties should continue meeting.

China is the country with the most significant leverage over North Korea, their historic ally as well as their largest contributor of subsidies, especially fuel oil for the army. North Korea's only source of fuel is a pipeline from China. The pipeline was shut down for a few days in March for allegedly technical reasons, which coincided with reports of Chinese messages to North Korea to enter negotiations with the US.

Keeping the option of war against North Korea on the table is paying dividends—there is increasing pressure on the Chinese to deliver a solution. The Chinese are certainly in a position to squeeze the Kim regime, and may be in a position to replace is with a more amenable, nonnuclear puppet state.

This was a good week for the Administration's North Korea policy.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: Atheists Demand Equally Arbitrary Exemptions 

:: Posted by John Bragg at 10:22 PM

As long as there are public schools, there will be public school rules. Children who go to public schools must follow public school rules. If you don't like the public schools, there are private schools. There is homeschooling in most states.

A lawsuit by a Pennsylvania atheist parent and the American Atheists group demands that an atheist child get a religious exemption from a school-uniforms policy. The lawsuit claims that the uniforms "hinder her children's creativity... and freedom of expression" and are militaristic, too, which the mother opposes.

As a public school teacher, I "hinder my students' creativity" every flipping day when I stop them from drawing Japanese-style fighting cartoons when they should be reading. I also hinder their "freedom of expression" by telling them when they may and may not speak and what they may and may not talk about. Schools have to be able to set rules and enforce them to function.

If there is a rule that anyone can opt out of for any reason they choose, then it isn't a rule. The Constitution protects the free exercise of religion--access to a public facility such as a school cannot be denied or limited as a result of someone's religion or the demands of that religion. That means that if someone's religion says that they wear all black without buttons, or a skullcap, or a turban, or a feathered headdress, then public facilities must admit those costumes and headgear. Atheists' personal views, however, are not religions, they are personal views. Personal views, if they are not religiously based, are not the free exercise of religion and they do not have to be accommodated in the public schools. A child who is a Jehovah's Witness does not have to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. A child who simply hates America does. This is why we require the signature of a minister, to have a standard for denying frivolous exemptions.

The suit raises an equal protection claim, that anything religious folks get, atheists should get. Religious exemptions are exceptions to rules based essentially on the fact that a religion claims that to follow the rule would cause God to be angered and smite them. The religious exemption protects the believer from the smiting. Only incidentally does it exempt them from the rule. Whereas if God is going to smite an atheist, it's probably not because I didn't wear the proper hat. Reason does not enjoy the constitutional protection that religion does. Fortunately, we don't need it.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights & Reason: Exempting Rationality 

:: Posted by Skip at 7:42 PM

Nick Provenzo is on vacation this week, and I remain on blogging recess until after Labor Day, but I did want to share one brief observation regarding Eugene Volokh's post on the constitutional limits of government-school dress codes:
Exemptions for religious observers: This story about a public school dress code raises the perennial constitutional question: May the government exempt religious observers from a generally applicable rule (here, a dress code, though it could equally be military conscription, a high school biology vivisection requirement, or a variety of other rules) but not extend the same exemption to conscientious nonreligious observers? If you're interested in this general question, you might check out this summary in an article of mine -- I don't take a stand on the subject, but I outline the issues. (As a policy matter, I think that secular conscientious objectors should generally be treated the same as religious objectors, but it's not clear to me whether, and to what extent, the Establishment Clause requires this.)

Note, though, that the dress code case also includes a different twist: Not all religious objectors are entitled to an exemption, but only those who can get a note from their religious leader. This, I'm pretty sure, is unconstitutional, because it privileges those religions that have organized clergy over those that don't, and those people whose religious beliefs match their leader's and those whose beliefs are more idiosyncratic. The Supreme Court held, in Thomas v. Employment Division (1981), that constitutionally mandated religious accommodations (when the Free Exercise Clause was interpreted as mandating such accommodations) turn on a person's own sincere beliefs; and I think the same principle would apply to religious accommodations that the government voluntarily creates.
My observation: How would an Objectivist get exempt from the dress code? Would they need a note from the Ayn Rand Institute, or would they need only submit a note proving the irrationality of the dress code according to Objectivist ethics? Not that Objectivism is a religion, mind you, but it is an integrated philosophy. It surely is entitled to the same legal protections as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Monday, August 25, 2003 ::

Capitalism and the Law: Fox News Drops Suit Vs. Franken Over Book  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 7:44 PM

Erin McClam of the Associated Press reports it's the end of the line for the Fox News suit against liberal humorist Al Franken:

Fox News dropped its lawsuit against Al Franken on Monday, three days after a federal judge refused to block the liberal humorist from using the Fox slogan "Fair and Balanced" on the cover of his book.

The lawsuit had sought unspecified damages from Franken and Penguin Group, publisher of "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."

"It's time to return Al Franken to the obscurity that he's normally accustomed to," Fox News spokeswoman Irena Steffen said.
The story of how Al Franken got Fox to plug his book for him for free has got to be one of the great tales of modern communication. Don't get me wrong--I think Franken is a big dumb idiot, but Fox's idiocy against him was bigger and more idiotic, and has to be one of the least savvy moves since new Coke.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: CAC Opposes Federal Antitrust Settlement With Gambling Services Organization 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 2:26 PM

CAC commented on another antitrust settlement. This from our press release:

Alexandria, VA--The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism (CAC) today filed formal comments with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia opposing the U.S. Justice Department's settlement with the National Council on Problem Gambling, Inc. (NCPG), a nonprofit trade association representing organizations that assist individuals addicted to gambling.

NCPG consists of 34 state affiliates that provide "problem gambling services" within particular states.  The DOJ charged NCPG with illegally restraining trade among its affiliates by maintaining internal policies designed to prevent one affiliate from offering services in another state's territory.

"NCPG's members entered into a voluntary agreement governing their operations, and that agreement was arbitrarily and capriciously negated by the Justice Department's antitrust police," CAC Chairman Nicholas Provenzo said. "No consumer was deprived of their legal rights by NCPG's actions, but rather the DOJ has deprived of NCPG of its right to associate with one another on mutually agreeable terms."

The proposed settlement, which must be approved by the district court, prevents NCPG from maintaining any policy governing competition that contradicts the beliefs of the Justice Department. "The proposed settlement goes so far as to prevent NCPG from lobbying Congress and the public to overrule the Justice Department's erroneous and unconstitutional attack on the organization's First Amendment rights," CAC senior fellow Skip Oliva said.

The NCPG settlement could become final after the Justice Department reviews and replies to CAC's comments and the court makes a determination of whether the agreement is in the "public interest", a process that could take three to six weeks.

The comment letter can be accessed online at:
http://www.capitalismcenter.org/Campaigns/Antitrust/NCPG_Comments.pdf
One has to wonder about the DOJ enforcing antitrust against a nonprofit? After all, it's a nonprofit. Do we really want nonprofits competing against one another?

:: help support this website | link |



 

Elections: How will you vote? 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 2:21 PM

This in from Mike Walker:

California Taco Bell restaurants are offering their own election.

I'll just have a salad. To go.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Oh, the Humanity: From Wall Street to Mean Street 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 1:50 PM

Don Luskin points us to this New York Times story:

In nearly every American city or town, you can find people like Peter Jaquith. He is 67 and has $150 in his checking account. He lives on $1,100 a month in Social Security and a little help from family members. To make ends meet, he has worked as a deliveryman and a toilet cleaner.

It hasn't always been like this for Mr. Jaquith. In the 1980's, he was a partner at Lazard Frčres, the elite investment bank, and the right-hand man of Felix Rohatyn, its legendary deal maker. At his peak, Mr. Jaquith was worth at least $20 million.

Back then, he led the glamorous life of a major Wall Street player. For Thanksgiving, he thought nothing of spending $40,000 to fly 30 friends to his weekend home in Palm Springs, Calif. He paid their air fares, hotel and restaurant bills and golf fees.

But one night 10 years ago, an increasingly frustrated and heavy-drinking Mr. Jaquith discovered crack cocaine. Suddenly, Mr. Jaquith, who had earned millions advising corporate tycoons on deals, found himself begging dealers with names like "Cuffie" for drugs. At one point, he wound up homeless. "Part of me wondered if he was dead," his daughter Pamela recalled.
Can we really find, in every American city or town, ex-millionare crackheads? And if so, why did it take the New York Times so long to find one?

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: Political Debate Looms Over Obesity  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:47 AM

Siobhan Mcdonough of the AP reports on the anti-obesity lawyers.

[W]ith obesity a growing health problem, lawmakers, lawyers and activists are lining up the way they do for most issues: on two sides.

The left's view is that the food industry and advertisers are big bullies that practically force-feed people with gimmicks and high-calorie treats. They say Ronald McDonald is the cousin of Joe Camel.

The right's argument has been dubbed: You're fat, your fault. They say people can make their own choices about food and exercise.
These two paragraphs outline why I think the chances are better for Objectivists to influence the Republican Party over the Democratic Party. In this case, the left sees individuals bereft of free will. The right sees otherwise. The left will claim that its view is scientific and rational. The right will claim common sense.

That’s not to say either side is consistent. The right certainly does not display common sense on questions like abortion (whereas the left does defend abortion, but I have a nagging suspicion that it does so the grounds that abortion is the only individual right that is gender specific.)

Yet when you think about obstacles to overcome, I do think, outside of Roy Moore and his ilk, that many on the right recognize at least vaguely that there is link between freedom and free will. The right has its economic conservatives. There are no such parallel creatures on the left.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: In God I Trust 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 9:51 AM

Alabama Judge Roy Moore explains his position in the Ten Commandments case in today's Wall Street Journal:

[W]e must acknowledge God in the public sector because the state constitution explicitly requires us to do so. The Alabama Constitution specifically invokes "the favor and guidance of Almighty God" as the basis for our laws and justice system. As the chief justice of the state's supreme court I am entrusted with the sacred duty to uphold the state's constitution. I have taken an oath before God and man to do such, and I will not waver from that commitment.

By telling the state of Alabama that it may not acknowledge God, Judge Thompson effectively dismantled the justice system of the state. Judge Thompson never declared the Alabama Constitution unconstitutional, but the essence of his ruling was to prohibit judicial officers from obeying the very constitution they are sworn to uphold. In so doing, Judge Thompson and all who supported his order, violated the rule of law.

[***]

The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It does not take a constitutional scholar to recognize that I am not Congress, and no law has been passed. Nevertheless, Judge Thompson's order states that the acknowledgment of God crosses the line between the permissible and the impermissible and that to acknowledge God is to violate the Constitution.

Not only does Judge Thompson put himself above the law, but above God, as well. I say enough is enough. We must "dare defend our rights" as Alabama's state motto declares. No judge or man can dictate what we believe or in whom we believe. The Ninth and 10th Amendments are not a part of the Constitution simply to make the Bill of Rights a round number. The Ninth Amendment secured our right as a people. The 10th guaranteed our right as a sovereign state. Those are the rules of law.
Judge Moore speaks of individual rights in the same breath that he trashes them. Moore has an unquestioned right to place his monument to the Ten Commandments on private property. He does not have a right to place his monument on public property.

The basis for belief in the Ten Commandments is that they are an edict given to man by God, and that man must obey them or suffer God’s displeasure. Judge Moore specifically wants to use the statehouse to show what he believes is the link between the Ten Commandments and the constitution.

As the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals noted:

Thousands of people enter the Judicial Building each year. In addition to attorneys, parties, judges, and employees, every fourth grader in the state is brought on a tour of the building as part of a field trip to the state capital. No one who enters the building through the main entrance can miss the monument.
Yet there is no rational basis for belief in the Ten Commandments. They are not a refection of reasoned thought on the nature of man and his requirements of survival—such an analysis would reject intrinsic, other-worldly commandments out of hand. The Ten Commandments are an article of faith. The Founders were wise enough to recognize that while the freedom of individuals to their faith must be protected, the faithful do not have the right to use the power of government to establish their religion as the law of the land. In the public ream, reason must rule over all. The government and its agents have no place memorializing faith-based doctrine on public land.

Judge Moore has a right to his beliefs. He does not have the right to use the statehouse to transmit those beliefs to others.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Sunday, August 24, 2003 ::

Proper Mission of Government: U.S. Troops Use Confiscated Iraqi AK-47s 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 9:15 PM

This in from the AP:

An American soldier stands at the side of an Iraqi highway, puts his AK-47 on fully automatic and pulls the trigger.

Within seconds the assault rifle has blasted out 30 rounds. Puffs of dust dance in the air as the bullets smack into the scrubland dirt. Test fire complete.

U.S. troops in Iraq may not have found weapons of mass destruction, but they're certainly getting their hands on the country's stock of Kalashnikovs--and, they say, they need them.

The soldiers based around Baqouba are from an armor battalion, which means they have tanks, Humvees and armored personnel carriers. But they are short on rifles.

A four-man tank crew is issued two M4 assault rifles and four 9mm pistols, relying mostly on the tank's firepower for protection.

But now they are engaged in guerrilla warfare, patrolling narrow roads and goat trails where tanks are less effective. Troops often find themselves dismounting to patrol in smaller vehicles, making rifles essential.

"We just do not have enough rifles to equip all of our soldiers. So in certain circumstances we allow soldiers to have an AK-47. They have to demonstrate some proficiency with the weapon ... demonstrate an ability to use it," said Lt. Col. Mark Young, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.
So we just do not have enough rifles to equip all of our soldiers? Why not? Why is an armored regiment running infantry patrols? Why are our fighting men not already provided with a rifle they prefer for the mission they have been given? Why does the United Sates of America have to rely on captured weapons to put down its enemies?

I am disgusted. Any American casualty that results from one of our fighting men not having a proper rifle is an appalling and useless sacrifice. A nation that sends its men to fight for it without providing these men every necessary tool and every practical advantage has lost its moral compass.

Somebody once told me that defenders never get the support they need from those they protect. I hear stories like this one and I begin to wonder if that person was right.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Saturday, August 23, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: Schumer Faults Bush for Massive Blackout 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 9:47 PM

Chuck Schumer plays the blame game in this week's Democratic radio address:

Under-investment in transmission lines and a weak oversight board controlled by utilities have created an unstable, unreliable and overloaded patchwork system for transmitting power from one place to the other.
Of couse, it could never be the fault of the regulators themselves.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Death by Environmentalism: Thousands Die in European Heat Wave 

:: Posted by John Bragg at 3:00 PM

This summer, an abnormal heat wave struck Europe. We have been accustomed to thinking of Europe as part of the First World, and area where freak natural events did not automatically mean thousands of casualties. For example, flooding last year forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands in Germany and in the recently Communist Czech Republic. There were no results of hundreds or thousands of deaths. But, surprisingly, this summer's heat in Europe has been linked to 10,000 deaths in France and uncounted deaths throughout Europe. (Numbers were obtained by French undertakers comparing this summer to last summer.)

Why? France is not Bangladesh, not Liberia, not even Mexico. France is a member of the G-7, with an industrial economy, and for all the jokes, a serious country. France has the economic capacity to deal with unexpected problems--or should.

So why are old and sick Frenchmen dying in droves just because it's hot? It's a heat wave, not a meteor strike. It's 100 degrees Fahrenheit, not Celsius. This is not a sudden, unexpected, deadly plague. It's hot, that's all. Why do temperatures in France kill people while the same temperatures mean a hot, but playable golf day in the US. Because Europeans do not, as a rule, have air conditioning.

Patrick J. Michaels, of Foxnews.com, explains why. European governments tax energy heavily. Air conditioners are energy hogs, and so, in Europe, they are inordinately expensive. Since they cannot afford to run them, Europeans do not buy them. Since Europeans do not buy them, stores do not sell them.

Why is energy taxed heavily in Europe? To limit consumption. Environmentalism kills.

Note: I apologize for placing Mexico 2003 in the category of Third World states. I realize that Mexico is a member of the OECD and an outside shot for a Major League Baseball franchise in the relatively near future. However, many Americans still remember when Mexico was a Third World country.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Capitalism and the Law: U.S. Man Pleads Guilty to Music Piracy 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 12:17 AM

Reuters reports on the conviction of an online music pirate:

Federal prosecutors on Thursday said a former leader of a group that distributed pirated music ahead of its commercial release pleaded guilty to criminal infringement of copyright laws.

Mark Shumaker, 21, of Orlando, Florida, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a statement. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 7.

Prosecutors charged that Shumaker headed Apocalypse Crew, a group that would recruit music industry workers, such as radio disc jockeys and employees of music magazines, to obtain pre-release copies of compact disks.

Released to the Internet, the advance copies would filter down to public distribution channels such as the file sharing networks of KaZaa and Morpheus, law enforcement officials charged.
I wonder if Shumaker will get off as lightly as David Smith.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Friday, August 22, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: 'We Can Do Better' 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:09 AM

Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean spells out his agenda in today's Wall Street Journal:

Promising a "compassionate" administration, President Bush pledged to "recover the momentum of our economy," "reward the effort and enterprise of working Americans" and confront economic problems now, "instead of passing them on to future generations." Instead, he's offered tax cuts that don't address our needs, and saddled our children with debt for generations to come. On this president's watch, the federal debt has grown by over $1 trillion. That's the rough equivalent of putting $3,500 on the charge card of every American.

How did our nation come to this place? The answer is simple--the economic policies of this administration are aimed at ideological goals, not help for the average American.

We can do better. As president, my economic policies will be focused and clear. I will begin by repealing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, and using the revenues that result from the repeal to address the needs of the average American, invest in the nation's infrastructure and, through tax reform, put money in the hands of those most likely to spend it.

The task of meeting the needs of American families begins with health care. My plan will not only insure millions of Americans who are without adequate care today, it will reduce costs for small business, states and communities--freeing up funds that can be used to grow businesses and meet other national and local priorities.

An important part of my program for a full-employment recovery will be extending a helping hand to states and communities. My policies as governor kept Vermont strong fiscally; but all over America, the financial resources of other states and cities are strained to the limit. Teachers are being laid off, highways lack repairs, firehouses are closed. Instead of tax cuts that have not created jobs, we need to make investments in America. I will increase federal aid for special education, and provide more temporary help to the states--for homeland security and school construction and infrastructure modernization. And I will increase the availability of capital for small businesses, so that they can invest in new technology and create more jobs.
Dean believes that allowing the people who create wealth keep their fruits of their labor is a foolish ideological flight of fancy, but redistributing it to “average American[s]” is not. By Dean’s account, respecting the individual rights of wealth creators is not a “national and local priorit[y].” Nationalized healthcare is.

How does one defeat a candidate like Dean? I do not think it is enough to show that Dean is “impractical,” one must also show that he is immoral. Dean and his supporters do not understand humankind. Dean believes that one man’s need is a mortgage on the life of another, and that claiming this mortgage is the moral course. To thoroughly expose the viciousness of Dean’s proposals, one must name and attack its moral premise. One must defend egoism.

That ought not to be hard in a nation dedicated to the individual’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The trouble is that Dean’s opponents, the conservatives, share that same premise as Dean at root. That makes me reluctant to write Dean off as the George McGovern of 2004. How can the conservatives attack Dean’s national health care plan when they themselves support things like prescription drug benefits for seniors? Both sides ultimately differ only in degree, and on that question, it is conservatives that looks like hypocrites. Dean’s candidacy is a strong candidacy, if only by the weakness of his opponents.

There is of course an antidote to today’s conservative impotence and that is Objectivism. Yet it remains to be seen if and when Objectivists will play the full role they ought to in the nation’s intellectual and political life. Will Objectivists sit out another election? Will they even attempt to set the terms of the debate to questions that ought to be debated? It remains to be seen.

If politicians like Dean are foolish and evilly inspired, what are those who do little or nothing to defend themselves against them?

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Thursday, August 21, 2003 ::

Capitalism and the Law: Spread of 'Sobig.F' Virus Is Fastest Ever  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 9:15 PM

Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer reports that the 'Sobig.F' virus is the fasted propagating computer virus ever.

MessageLabs Inc., which scans e-mail for viruses, said that within 24 hours it had scanned more than 1 million copies of the "F" variant of the "Sobig" virus, which was blamed for computer disruptions at businesses, colleges and other institutions worldwide.

The previous record was "Klez," with about 250,000 copies spotted during its first 24 hours earlier this year, MessageLabs chief technology officer Mark Sunner said Thursday.

* * *

Sobig does not physically damage computers, files or critical data, but it tied up computer and networking resources, forcing networks like the University of Wisconsin-Madison to shut down outside access to its e-mail system Wednesday.

"We were removing 30,000 bad e-mails an hour," said Jeff Savoy, an information security officer at the school.

In India's high-tech city of Bangalore, dozens of cybercafes shut down and home computers blacked out. Some cafes were hit because their service provider was affected, but others got the virus in their machines using Windows operating systems.

"Our cybercafe has been down since Tuesday night," said Afar, a cafe manager in north Bangalore who goes by a single name. "Customers are returning home disappointed."

The owner of one of the Internet's most popular e-mail lists, technologist David Farber, was livid about Sobig.

"I got 1300 junk e-mails `delivered' this AM," he said in a message to subscribers Thursday. "Find the person and put him/her in jail."
What exactly should the punishment be for unleashing a computer virus?

According to newsfactor.com, in 2002, David Smith pleaded guilty to creating and unleashing the Melissa computer virus -- the first major virus spread by e-mail. Smith, whose virus caused more than $80 million in damage, was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison.

A computer virus is a pre-meditated attack on the property of others. 20 months for $80 million in property damage--how about 20 years?

The person who created the 'Sobig.F' virus, with its own e-mailing software, clearly hoped to disable the Internet as a whole. If the hundreds of infected e-mails I’ve cleaned off my computer are any indication of what others face, this person has done a good job of it. If this computer virus ends up being linked to Bin Laden, I would say that this was an attack on the civilized world. If this virus ends up being linked to a 40 year old man in his underwear working out of his mom’s basement, I’m almost inclined to hold him in the same contempt. You should not be able to destroy mountains of wealth and walk away from your crime in less than two years.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Foreign Policy: The Pipes Nomination 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 2:11 PM

I found this from David Frum at NRO:

Can we have a moment of appreciation please for the characteristic gutsiness of President Bush’s expected recess appointment of Daniel Pipes to the board of the US Institute for Peace. Radical Muslim groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations had organized to defeat Pipes. Despite the modest importance of the Institute itself, these groups understood that the struggle over Pipes was a potentially decisive political event. For underneath the wild allegations against him (about which more in a moment), the argument over Pipes boiled down to this: is it an act of bigotry to notice that the terrorists we are fighting commit their acts of terror in the name of Islam

Pipes’ critics claimed that it was. All of their other slanders against him quickly collapse on examination into a pile of distorted quotations. Pipes has never impugned Muslims in general – on the contrary, he has been an eloquent voice in favor of the need for and possibility of democracy and liberty in the Islamic world. But he has eloquently and presciently sounded the alert for a decade and a half over the gathering menace of extremist Islamic ideology – and he has fearlessly and tirelessly struggled against that menace as it has tried to sink roots into American soil.

It is for these services to the American people that this scholar who has devoted his life to the study of Islamic civilization, and who has mastered modern and medieval Arabic for his studies, has been damned by CAIR and others as a bigot.

Some people might have feared that CAIR might succeed. President Bush has boldly and consistently championed the rights and good name of the American Muslim community, and he has taken his sympathy for American Muslim to the point of being willing to meet with some of that community’s least responsible members. This openness triggered a familiar pattern of conservative response to President Bush:

Bush speaks gently.

Conservatives panic.

Bush acts firmly.

Conservatives are surprised.

Now issn’t [sic] it past time to stop being surprised when this president acts in a principled manner?

Bush surely understood better than anyone what it was that the radical Muslim groups were claiming when they called for Pipes’ defeat. They were implicitly contending that anyone willing to name the enemy in this war thereby disqualified himself for a role in the prosecution of the war. They were demanding a veto over the conduct of the war for those people in American life who have shown the most sympathy for the enemy: It would be rather as if the leaders of the Communist Party USA asserted veto power over national-security nominations during the Cold War.
Huh? I've read this three times and I still can't figure it out. Does Frum mean that groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations are akin to the old Pinks? I agree with that. But when did President Bush say this? Can’t we applaud the Pipes nomination and still be appalled at the president’s utter failure to say that it is the consistent application of Islam that leads to poverty, murder, and suffering?

Oh, wait, we’d have to see that there is something wrong with faith to do that. And no one at NR is going to be fighting that battle any time soon.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: The Northeast blackout 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 8:50 AM

Jim Woods is the winner of the "find a parallel between the blackout and The Fountainhead contest" with his entry below.

The recent blackout is a concrete consequence of the elevation a secondhander’s values to governance.

In the electric utility industry, the producer is not free from coercive restraint to produce and trade value for value with his customers. Instead through government intervention, the productive capacity is checked by the requirement to consider the feelings and opinions of anyone and everyone regardless of the protection of individual rights. Thus the rational is subordinated to any arbitrary claim seeking to impose its voice upon the product of another.

Based upon demand for electricity, an electrical utility could plan to expand generating capacity, expand its distribution network, acquire the market of weaker utilities, or implement revolutionary new technology. But first, we must have public hearings, environmental impact studies, the consideration of arbitrary health concerns that lack scientific evidence, and baseless lawsuits appealing to the authority of non-objective law. Instead of profitable investment, capital is squandered on satisfying the whims of the non-productive.

Consequently, productive ability is thwarted while mediocrity reigns. And when the lights go out, the secondhander’s do not accept responsibility, while inflicting upon the productive the double burden of the blame and the shame of begging their inferiors for permission to produce.
Well, there you have it folks.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 ::

Our Favorites: Dr. Michael Hurd 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 5:29 PM

I greatly enjoy the insight of Dr. Michael Hurd and his "Daily Dose of Reason". Here is a gem that fits perfectly with the EPA story below.

"I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean."

So says a popular song. The implication, clear from the rest of the song, is that man should feel in awe of nature, because nature is far superior to anything human beings can generate.

I don't know about you, but I actually feel tall when I stand beside the ocean.

I feel tall because I belong to the human race, and I know that the human race can sail great ships, even aircraft carriers, on the ocean; I know that gigantic jetliners cross the ocean in the sky; I know the human race can develop sophisticated underwater cameras to photograph century-old shipwrecks with the clarity of a family portrait; I also know that the human race can build wonderful hotels and condominiums, not to mention candy popcorn and salt water taffy stands, to allow human beings to relax and enjoy the wonderful ocean air and sounds.

I feel tall beside the ocean because I am human, and humans can navigate, master and enjoy the ocean better than any fish, whale or bird ever could.

Many look at the ocean and exclaim how tiny they are. I look at the ocean and marvel at how great it is to be human.
Yes!

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: EPA agrees to clean up scenic skies  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 5:13 PM

Jane Kay, Environment Writer at the San Francisco Chronicle reports on a victory for "Banana* Environmentalists":

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signed a court settlement Tuesday intended to clear the skies and improve the views in national parks and wilderness areas.

The settlement with Environmental Defense, a national environmental group, places the EPA on a court-ordered schedule to curb by April 2005 haze-forming pollutants that threaten such national parks as Yosemite, Sequoia, Glacier, Big Bend, Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah, Big Bend and Acadia. The deal applies to 156 parks and wilderness areas in all.

Hundreds of industrial plants nationwide could be affected by the settlement, including cement plants, copper smelters and coal-fired power plants in the West that supply energy to California.

The settlement must go through a public comment process and requires approval by a Washington, D.C., court before it takes effect.

"This settlement is a big step toward cleaning up the air in our national parks and wilderness areas," said David Baron, attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit legal organization that represents Environmental Defense.

"The law sets a national goal of clearing the skies in these special places, for the enjoyment and inspiration of present and future generations," Baron said.

Under 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act, industrial plants are prohibited from creating "regional haze" that spoils scenic vistas in parks and wilderness areas. The National Park Service has blamed fine particles created by emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that blow hundreds of miles and impair visibility in many of its wild parks.
So the enjoyment and inspiration of a pretty view comes before the enjoyment and inspiration made possibe by cement plants, copper smelters and coal-fired power plants. Brilliant.

*BANANA--Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: Ala. Ten Commandments Group Holds Vigil  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 8:22 AM

Saw this report by Bob Johnson of the AP:

Supporters of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore held a candlelight vigil early Wednesday, hoping to convince state and federal leaders that his Ten Commandments monument should not be removed from the state judicial building.

Nine pastors led some 30 worshippers from across the country in prayer just after midnight.

"Even if they should remove this monument--and God forbid they do--they'll never be able to remove it from our hearts," said the Rev. Greg Dixon of Indianapolis Baptist Temple.

Moore later reiterated his refusal to move the 5,300-pound monument by the deadline, set by a federal judge, of midnight Wednesday.

"This case is not about a monument, it's not about politics or religion, it's about the acknowledgment of God," he said during an interview on CBS' "The Early Show."

"We must acknowledge God because our constitution says our justice system is established upon God. For (the judge) to say 'I can't say who God is' is to disestablish the justice system of this state."
That's an interesting statement by Roy Moore. I checked my copy of the constitution and found no mention of "God" (there is mention that the constitution was "done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven," but I don't think that establishes the Lord as the foundation of the American system of justice).

I did find this in Article III, Section One however:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
Maybe Moore thinks Congress is Lord almighty, as they "ordain and establish" the lower courts. Hmmmm . . .

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: The Northeast blackout 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 8:06 AM

At CAC, we have come across more than one comparison between the blackout and Atlas Shrugged. Elementary, my dear Objectivists. Here's our charge to you: find a good parallel between the blackout and The Fountainhead.

Submit your entrees to info_at_moraldefense.com. Best integration gets bragging rights and their integration featured in tomorrow's Rule of Reason.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: FCC to Allow Video on AOL Messenger 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 7:53 PM

This from Jonathan Krim of the Washington Post:

The Federal Communications Commission has agreed to allow America Online to transmit video entertainment over its popular Instant Messenger system, ending a restriction imposed when it approved the merger of the online company with media giant Time Warner Communications in early 2001.

A source familiar with this week's decision said that the commission's three-member Republican majority decided in favor of lifting the ban while the two Democrats dissented. The result of the vote, which is not required to be conducted in a public session, is expected to be announced in the next 48 hours.

The decision is a victory for struggling AOL Time Warner Inc., which lobbied hard for the change and hopes to use instant messaging to promote its video content. AOL spokeswoman Tricia Primrose declined to comment on the decision before an official announcement from the FCC but said the company has been hoping for a favorable decision.

"We think that we made a compelling case," Primrose said.

FCC spokesmen declined to comment.

AOL and Time Warner were primarily in different businesses when they announced their merger in early 2000. But regulators were concerned about the marriage of the largest online service provider with one of the nation's most powerful media conglomerates.

They reasoned that a combined company that included a large cable television system, magazines, CNN, and Warner movies and music could dominate news and entertainment over the Internet and lock out competitors.
Well thank God our federal fathers were protecting us from video transmitted via Instant Messenger. Until they changed their minds, of course.

And I'm glad AOL spokeswoman Tricia Primrose is pleased with AOL's "compelling case" to the FCC. I wonder if anywhere in that case was there an argument that AOL has a right to its property and that was outright idiotic for the government to regulate IM in the first place. The Post article would indicate there was not.

When it approved the [Time-Warner/AOL] merger, the FCC said it would need to see convincing evidence that AOL's instant-messaging dominance had significantly lessened.

According to people familiar with the vote to lift the ban, AOL prevailed by demonstrating that since the merger, its share of the instant-messaging market had dropped from a percentage in the mid-sixties to the mid-fifties.
I wonder if it bothers AOL that their ability to improve their product and profit accordingly hinges not on their technological ability, but on their declining share of the market.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Crime and Punishment: E-mail virus attack 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 5:04 PM

CAC's e-mail is being spoofed along with a virus. As much as I would like to see the perp's punished under the full weight of the law, there is not much we can do. E-mail spoofing is practically impossible to track.

Needless to say, if you get an e-mail attachment from CAC or someone claiming to be CAC and you don't know us, don't open the attachment.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Humor: Bride in Conn. Rages at Reception, Jailed  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 1:09 PM

OK, this has nothing to do with capitalism, but . . . the AP reports:

A North Haven bride spent part of her wedding night in a jail cell, after police said she hurled things at reception hall workers who closed the bar.

Adrienne T. Samen, 18, was arrested on criminal mischief and breach of peace charges Saturday after police responded to The Mill on the River restaurant.

When workers there closed the bar, Samen allegedly began throwing things, including wedding cake and vases. Samen left the restaurant, and police found her walking down the road in her gown.

While being taken into custody, police said she kicked the door and window of the police cruiser and tried to bite an officer.
It's her mug shot that has me in tears. See here.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Foreign Policy: 'Bush Good, Saddam Bad!'  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 12:56 PM

A motivated Marine Lance Corporal reports from Iraq in today's Wall Street Journal:

There's more to America than New York, Washington and Los Angeles. The same is true for Iraq; there's a vast country outside Baghdad and the "Sunni triangle" that's now the center of a guerrilla campaign. It's understandable that Western press reports are fixated on attacks that kill American soldiers. But that focus is obscuring what's actually happening in the rest of the country--and it misleads the public into thinking that Iraqis are growing angry and impatient with their liberators.

In fact, there is another Iraq that the media virtually ignore. It is guarded by the First Marine Division, and, unlike Baghdad, it has been a model of success. The streets are safe, petty and violent crime are low, water and electrical services are almost universally available (albeit rationed), and ordinary Iraqis are beginning to clean up and rebuild their neighborhoods and communities. Equally important, a deep level of mutual trust and respect has developed between the Marines and the populace here in central and southern Iraq.

I know because I'm one of those Marines. My reserve unit was activated before the war, and in April my team arrived in this small city roughly 60 miles south of Baghdad. The negative media portrait of the situation in Iraq doesn't correspond with what I've seen. Indeed, we were treated as liberating heroes when we arrived four months ago, and we continue to enjoy amicable relations with the local populace.
Well, what do you know. Jut!!

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: Cellulose Antitrust Classes Certified 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 12:51 PM

This from law.com:

A federal judge in Pennsylvania has certified three separate classes of purchasers to pursue antitrust claims against two of the world's top manufacturers of microcrystalline cellulose, or MCC, a binding agent used in pills and vitamins and as a food additive.

In a significant victory for the plaintiffs in the case, In re Microcrystalline Cellulose Antitrust Litigation, the judge applied the "Bogosian short-cut" -- named for a 1977 decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- in which the court presumes that all buyers of that product have suffered an antitrust injury where the anti-competitive behavior artificially raised the price of a product.

In the suit, purchasers allege that Chicago-based FMC Corp. set out to neutralize competition in the MCC market and to secure monopoly power for itself in North America by conspiring with a Japanese firm, Asahi Kasei Co., to divide the world MCC market into two territories.

The alleged conspiracy came to light in December 2000 when the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint that said FMC had agreed not to sell any MCC product to customers in Japan or East Asia without Asahi's consent, while Asahi promised not to sell in North America or Europe without the consent of FMC.

The FTC suit also accused FMC of trying to secure agreements with three smaller Asian manufacturers of MCC in order to maintain its monopoly position.

FMC and Asahi settled the suit with a consent decree in which both companies offered no admission of wrongdoing but nonetheless pledged to end the practice.

Under the terms of the settlement, FMC and Asahi were prohibited from agreeing with competitors to divide or allocate markets; agreeing with competitors to refrain from producing, selling or marketing MCC; and inviting or soliciting other companies to enter into agreements not to compete.

The settlement sparked a flurry of lawsuits brought by purchasers of MCC -- pharmaceutical companies, vitamin producers and food manufacturers -- that said the illegal practice had inflated MCC prices since 1984. Now Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O'Neill Jr. has certified the suit as a class action on behalf of three classes of FMC's customers -- vitamin producers, pharmaceutical companies, and companies that purchased MCC to be used as a food additive.
The lure of treble damages is a powerful incentive.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: Majority Favors Law Against Gay Marriage  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 9:00 AM

This from Will Lester of the AP:

More than half of Americans favor a law barring gay marriage and specifying wedlock be between a man and a woman, an Associated Press poll found.

The survey also found presidential candidates could face a backlash if they support gay marriage or civil unions, which provide gay couples the legal rights and benefits of marriage.

The poll, conducted for the AP by ICR-International Communications Research of Media, Pa., found 52 percent favor a law banning gay marriages, while 41 percent oppose it.

About four in 10 — 41 percent — support allowing civil unions, roughly the same level found in an AP poll three years ago. But 53 percent now say they oppose civil unions, up from 46 percent in the earlier survey.

The increase came largely from people who previously were undecided, the polls suggested.

Close to half those surveyed said they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who backs civil unions (44 percent) or gay marriage (49 percent), while only around 10 percent said they would be more likely.

"I don't think it's a great idea, the whole idea of marriage is bringing up children," said Jim Martin, a 64-year-old engineer from Alexandria, Va. "If somebody was promoting it, I would vote against them."
Well, Mr. Martin from Alexandria is wrong. Marriage is whatever the parties involved choose to make it, and Mr. Martin's opinion on marriage is patently irrelevant. Not finding the raw poll data on the web, I can't comment on the question, but I'm intrigued as to exactly what was asked. I doubt it was "do adults have a right to set the terms of their relationships without restraint by others."

But whatever question was asked, it is disturbing that the rights of gays to the advantages of legal recognition of their relationships is denied them, simply because they are a pariah group in the eyes of many. The principle of individual rights has yet to animate this debate, and I find that appaling.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Monday, August 18, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: Recall Republicans Must Stand for Individual Rights 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 12:47 PM

Scott Holleran hits it on the mark at Capitalism Magazine:

Not long ago, the GOP offered an alternative to Big Government: individual rights, which were once implicit as the Republican Party's premise. The Republican philosophy was represented by the late Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, who opposed Medicare, favored a woman's right to an abortion, and promoted a strong defense. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, religion replaced individual rights as the guiding Republican philosophy.

To the extent Americans have resisted theocratic notions of government, the GOP's religious right domination is mixed with pragmatism, resulting in a Republican Party whose goal is a smaller welfare state under God. The arch proponent of this blend is the GOP's standard-bearer, faith-based President Bush, who is pushing the largest expansion of Medicare since it was enacted in 1965.

Contrary to Jefferson's contention that the best government is that which governs the least, today's Republicans increase public school subsidies. While Goldwater opposed Medicare, today's Republicans expand it. Individual rights -- the right to own property, to make money and to be left alone -- have no meaningful place in the Republican Party.

Goldwater's defiant cry that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue, has been abandoned. Before the party that cheered Goldwater at the 1964 San Francisco convention recalls California's governor, the GOP must restore individual rights as their essential philosophical principle. Then, Republicans will win elections -- or, in losing, they will at least have been right.
Exactly.

:: help support this website | link |



 

The Culture: The Northeast Blackout 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 12:43 PM

Do you remember the year 2000 bug? How civilization was supposed to come unglued when all the computers crashed. Didn't happen. Nor did the northeast come unglued despite being without power last Friday and Saturday. Makes you wonder what the motives of all they naysayers are.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Friday, August 15, 2003 ::

Rights And Reason: Evolution and Intellectual Egalitarianism 

:: Posted by John Bragg at 2:14 PM

The Bad News is that according to The New York Times, 72% of Americans are pig-ignorant.

The Good News is, the New York Times overstates our ignorance by about 20%.

The Bad News is, by my calculations, about 20% of Americans think that ignorance and science should both be taught in public schools as electives.

When I read the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof this morning, I had a mild case of panic. I wasn't surprised by the numbers on Americans' belief in the Virgin Birth(83%), but I was shaken by the low number of Americans Kristof cites as believing in evolution: 28%.

After a bit, I decided to check Kristof's sources. In his "Kristof Responds" section, Kristof says his 28% of Americans believe in evolution comes from "a Gallup poll." Way to footnote, Kristof. You're at the New York Times, can't you get a sucker, er, intern, to work for free at making your weblog not stink? Anyway, googling "evolution gallup poll 28" yields http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199909/0176.html, which describes a Gallup poll from 1999 on teaching evolution and creationism in public schools. According to the press release, "only 28% say evolution should be a required subject in public schools, and 49% say it should be an elective." My guess is that some of this could be just crabgrass libertarianism—"whatever they want, it's a free country, different strokes for different folks" kind of thing, like allowing Christian Scientists to withhold lifesaving medical treatment from their kids, or allowing crazy people to wander the streets if they don't feel like taking their medication.

Since the Center has higher standards than the New York Times, I did a little bit of research before I put something out for public consumption, as well as supplying links for the interested or dubious to follow. I went ahead and found a description of a Gallup poll on evolution itself: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_Poll.. When asked what they believe, rather than about what should be taught in school, America breaks down about 45-50% biblical creationists, 40% theistic evolutionists, 10% naturalistic evolutionists. Since, logically, if there is a God and if there is evolution, He's going to have a thumb in the evolution pie, we're talking about a 50-50 split between recognizable forms of rational thought and proud, militant ignorance.

The more I've thought about this, the more I've wondered just what I meant by "crabgrass libertarianism." What it really is, under the surface, is intellectual egalitarianism—the idea that any belief is as good as any other belief. This idea combines with our culture's abhorrence of judgement. It's rude, you know, to mock creationists. It's insensitive to ridicule snake-handlers, astrologists, that fraud who talks to dead people on the Sci-Fi channel, charlatans like Deepak Chopra who claims to levitate, Reverend Sun Yung Moon mass-marrying cultists, the Natural Law Party, recovered-memory therapists and their poor dupes, alien abductees, people who study the Book of Revelations for portents, wiccans who "cast spells", Scientologists, etc.

Think of the times in our culture today when open scorn for a religion is expressed. Usually, the targets are either the Catholic Church or conservative Christians, and the grievance is that their religion is homophobic and/or misogynist. In other words, the religions are attacked, not for their logical merits or lack thereof, which can be debated, but because they make women and homosexuals feel unwelcome.

The result is a large slice of the population that, while not ignorant themselves, recognizes no important distinction between their own knowledge and someone else's creationist delusion. This is the climate allows half of Americans to believe and state in public that humans were divinely created in the last 10,000 years, without fear of censure.

What will happen when, soon, unassimilated Islamic nutburgers in America start making demands? When Moslems in America demand to live under "Islamic law"?

People who believe indefensible or silly or false things are free to do so. But they should be held to account, and should have to defend their silly or false beliefs. If they are embarrassed, then good—hopefully they will act to correct their ignorance, and we will all be better off.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: A 'Big Government Conservatism' 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:41 AM

In today's Wall Street Journal Fred Barnes calls President Bush a "big government conservative" and writes the following:

The essence of Mr. Bush's big government conservatism is a trade-off. To gain free-market reforms and expand individual choice, he's willing to broaden programs and increase spending. Thus his aim in proposing to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare is to reform the entire health-care system for seniors. True, the drug benefit would be the biggest new entitlement in 40 years. But if paired with reforms that lure seniors away from Medicare and into private health insurance, Mr. Bush sees the benefit as an affordable (and very popular) price to pay. Mr. Bush earlier wanted to go further, requiring seniors to switch to private health insurance to be eligible for the drug benefit. He dropped the requirement when queasy congressional Republicans balked. Now it's uncertain whether Congress will pass a Medicare bill with sufficient market incentives to justify Mr. Bush's approval. Should he sign a measure without significant reforms, he won't be acting as a big government conservative.

On education, Mr. Bush and Mr. Kennedy joined to pass the No Child Left Behind Act. Its only real reform was a mandate for states to test student achievement on the basis of federal standards. Many conservatives, including some on the president's staff, felt this wasn't sufficient reform to warrant boosting the federal share of education spending. Still, Mr. Kennedy and other liberals aren't happy either. They'd expected even more spending.

When I coined the phrase "big government conservative" years ago, I had certain traits in mind. Mr. Bush has all of them. First, he's realistic. He understands why Mr. Reagan failed to reduce the size of the federal government and why Newt Gingrich and the GOP revolutionaries failed as well. The reason: People like big government so long as it's not a huge drag on the economy. So Mr. Bush abandoned the all-but-hopeless fight that Mr. Reagan and conservatives on Capitol Hill had waged to jettison the Department of Education. Instead, he's opted to infuse the department with conservative goals.

A second trait is a programmatic bent. Big government conservatives prefer to be in favor of things because that puts them on the political offensive. Promoting spending cuts/minimalist government doesn't do that. Mr. Bush has famously defined himself as a compassionate conservative with a positive agenda. Almost by definition, this makes him a big government conservative. His most ambitious program is his faith-based initiative. It would use government funds to expand social programs run by religious organizations. Many of them have been effective in fighting drug/alcohol addiction and helping lift people out of poverty. So far, the initiative has had only a small impact, its scope limited by Congress.

Another trait is a far more benign view of government than traditional conservatives have. Big government conservatives are favorably disposed toward what neoconservative Irving Kristol has called a "conservative welfare state." (Neocons tend to be big government conservatives.) This means they support transfer payments that have a neutral or beneficial effect (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) and oppose those that subsidize bad behavior (welfare). Mr. Bush wants to reform Social Security and Medicare but not shrink either.

Mr. Bush has never put a name on his political philosophy, though he once joked that it was based on the premise that you could fool some of the people all of the time and he intended to concentrate on those people. An aide characterized Bushism as "an activist, reforming conservatism that recognizes it's sometimes necessary to use the power of the government to change the status quo." I doubt that Mr. Bush would put it that way, but at least it distinguishes him from the ordinary run of conservatives. He's a different breed.
So President Bush has never put a name on his political philosophy. I will. It’s pragmatism. Bush (and Barnes) think it’s hopeless to defeat the advocates of state power, so if you can’t beat them, join them. How uninspired. This from two champions—or semi-champions—of free enterprise.

Trouble is, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t have big government and freedom from big government simultaneously. Yet Bush (and Barnes) seem to think otherwise, and that they are "realistic" for thinking so.

The conservatives do not deserve the mantle of defenders of capitalism. More than anyone, it is the conservatives who represent the largest threat to capitalism—it is only though their half-hearted and inconsistent defense of capitalism and individual rights that capitalism’s enemies have power.

Not all of us are so easily disarmed, or so easily dissuaded, as the conservatives. It is not hard to defend individual rights—if you know how to argue. But frankly, where Objectivism fails is not the strength of its principles, but in the faint tone its adherents make as they state their case to the world.

Some think that Atlas Shrugged alone is enough to change the world. As powerful a force as Atlas can be, the history of the past 46 years shows us that it is not enough. If America—and the world are to change, we need more.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Thursday, August 14, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: Stair-Climbing Wheelchair Gets FDA's OK  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 11:14 AM

This from the AP:

It's complicated and carries a hefty pricetag, but the federally approved iBOT wheelchair promises to give some of the nation's 2 million wheelchair users new freedom of movement, even allowing them to climb stairs.

The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) on Wednesday authorized the sale of the iBOT, which uses sensors and gyroscopes to climb up and down stairs. It also shifts into four-wheel drive to navigate grassy hills and can lift its occupant to standing height.

Doctors have called the technology potentially revolutionary and the FDA termed it a breakthrough, but one so complex that, unlike other wheelchairs, it will require a doctor's prescription and special training before patients can buy an iBOT.
It's a wheelchair. Where does the FDA get the authority to approve a wheelchair? Where does it get the authority to require a prescription for a wheelchair? Why aren't people rioting in front of the FDA? Why aren't they burning their representatives of Congress in effigy?

This in a nation whose founders rioted over tea.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights & Reason: On Pricing 

:: Posted by Skip at 10:26 AM

Virginia Postrel has a superb column in today's, cough, New York Times on prices and how regulators fail to understand the true context of price competition:
Prices capture the relative value people put on intangibles. The price system lets individuals make trade-offs among goods, without having to articulate a "good reason" for their preferences. It rewards value you cannot easily count.

Some critics find that wasteful. "Addiction to a strict and unremitting valuation of all things in terms of price and profit" leaves executives "unfit to appreciate those technological facts that can be formulated only in terms of tangible mechanical performance," Thorstein Veblen wrote in 1921 in "The Engineers and the Price System."

Veblen's critiques still influence both intellectual opinion and practical policy. His intellectual heirs, like the economists Robert Frank and Juliet Schor, treat the intangible pleasures of style as either deceptive "salesmanship" (Veblen's term) or wasteful status competition.

Public policy often regards aesthetic value as illegitimate or nonexistent. This oversight comes less from ideological conviction than from technocratic practice. Unlike prices, regulatory policy requires articulated justifications and objective standards. So policy makers emphasize measurable factors and ignore subjective pleasures.
The FTC and DOJ, of course, have mastered (if not monopolized) the talent of reducing price competition to technocratic factors. Take the Justice Department's response in the Mountain Health Care case to several customers' complaints that they were pleased with the service--and by extension, the pricing--of Mountain. The DOJ dismissed the consumer's "subjective" judgment by declaring "they could have received lower prices and better service with competition." This statement was not accompanied by any factual evidence such as a study or even a description of the marketplace. The DOJ simply decided that no reasonable consumer could want to receive medical services from Mountain, and that the only reason they did patronize the group was because of Mountain's "coercive" power over the marketplace.

I do, however, quibble with Postrel's theory that regulators do not emphasize "ideological conviction" over technocratic practice. While that's true in many cases, there is, at least in antitrust, a core regulatory principle--competition as a primary. Time and time again, the FTC and DOJ state their premise that competition--not individual rights--is the organizing principle of society, and that all government action must be directed at protecting competition from those who would harm it. This means that individuals and businesses that do not "compete", i.e. lower prices to the government's satisfaction, are committing a heretical offense against society. Capitalism and individual rights are to the FTC what gay marriage is to the Family Research Council, an abomination that should never be spoken about, let alone implemented.

And with that, I'm off on a blogging recess. Expect to hear from me again sometime after Labor Day.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: President Bush can undo his worst economic mistake 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:22 AM

The Wall Street Journal has a good op-ed on the wrongheadedness of President Bush's steel tariffs.

The President has been quiet about his tariffs ever since he imposed them in March 2002, and with good reason. The evidence is that they've done far more economic harm than good, especially to American manufacturing. Designed to help only a single industry, the tariffs have instead punished the far more numerous industries that use steel.

In the wake of the tariffs, domestic steel prices have risen by 30% or more. The price of hot-rolled steel, a major industrial commodity, nearly doubled from late 2001 to July 2002. Shortages in specific products abound, as foreign steel makers have sent their steel to suppliers in other countries. Many steel consumers have struggled to find reliable, quality product at prices that keep them competitive with foreign manufacturers.

This has all cost American jobs. A study done this year for the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition found that higher steel prices cost some 200,000 American jobs and $4 billion in lost wages from last February to November. That compares to employment in the entire domestic steel industry of only 188,000. No fewer than 16 states lost at least 4,500 steel consuming jobs, including the key Presidential election states of Pennsylvania and Florida that each lost nearly twice that number. (Karl Rove, see Electoral College map.)

The specific job consequences were laid out in illuminating detail on the Senate floor last month by Tennessee's Lamar Alexander. The Republican noted his state is now home to 900 auto supply companies that employ 100,000 workers. When those companies couldn't raise prices to cover increased steel costs, they "suffered losses and began to lay off employees. In a few instances entire plants closed." Auto supplier ArvinMeritor closed a plant employing 317 in Gordonsville. A plant in Pulaski laid off 100 more.
Exactly. And as the Journal observes:

Rarely do American Presidents get such a clean chance to amend their economic blunders as Mr. Bush now has with steel. Lifting the tariffs would do more to help workers and create jobs than all of the media road shows and economic summits from here to Election Day.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: Man Sues Bureaucrats in China Over Name  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:31 PM

This report from Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer:

SHANGHAI, China - An aspiring businessman hoping to tap China's growing enthusiasm for capitalism is suing communist bureaucrats who vetoed his plan to register a company whose name includes the once-taboo word, "capitalist."

Lu Yuzhang tried to register his "Shanghai Capitalist Competition Capability Consulting Co. Ltd." as a private company earlier this year, but he said officials rejected the name as "politically sensitive" and detrimental to national interests.

Seeking recourse through the courts, Lu sued the city commercial bureau officials, demanding they reverse their decision and approve his company name.

"Capitalists and capitalism exist in China. That's a fact," said Lu, a recent college graduate. "The calling of capitalism is absolutely legal and in line with the national benefits."

***
Lu's suit has prompted a minor debate in Shanghai's state-run media, with some experts accusing the young businessman of seeking publicity and others backing his demands as reasonable and legal.

"Western multinationals have been asked to invest in China to `exploit' Chinese workers. Leading capitalists from those countries are serving as advisers to the mayors of Shanghai and Beijing," noted a commentary in the Shanghai Star.

"All these things would have been regarded as sheer capitalism three decades ago," it said.

Lu said he plans to appeal if he loses.

"I will insist," he said.
He should.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News:Indie Music Retailers Sue Best Buy 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:19 PM

This report in from Ed Christman at Billboard:

A group of independent music retailers has filed a class-action lawsuit against Best Buy Co. Inc., alleging that the chain violates U.S. antitrust laws, as well as California state laws, that govern loss-leader selling, the strategy of pricing product below cost.

In the lawsuit -- filed Aug. 6 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division -- the plaintiffs charge that Best Buy uses its clout to receive benefits from the major labels that are not generally available to the chain's competitors. The plaintiffs in the case are Mad Rhino, Boo Boo Records, Lou's Records, Dimple Records and Rand Foster of Fingerprints.

The lawsuit says Best Buy is "able to extract from the major record companies an additional 10% discount vis-a-vis other purchasers" and receives advertising and other allowances not generally granted to other merchants. According to the complaint, these favorable prices, terms and conditions allow Best Buy to sell new albums as loss leaders, diverting massive amounts of business away from its competitors.

The complaint alleges that Best Buy has knowingly received favorable and discriminatory prices on new albums, a practice that violates the Robinson-Patman Act. Also, the complaint says that Best Buy's below-cost pricing is a way of injuring competitors or destroying competition, in violation of the California Business and Professions Code. California has a state law that merchants must price product at least 6% above cost.

The lawsuit asks for treble damages and legal fees.
But wouldn't Best Buy's purchasing leverage benefit consumers? Oh, I forget. Under antitrust, a business can be punished for selling too high, too low, or the same as others. I'm glad antitrust law is of sufficient breadth to cover all these instances.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Strange But True: The air gets thin in Denver 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 3:40 PM

This from the AP:

Voters will get to decide this November whether the city should do more to reduce stress.

City council members said Monday they were forced to put the question on November's ballot because resident Jeff Peckman collected 2,462 certified signatures, slightly over the required number.

***

Peckman said the council members should favor his proposal because it supports their duty under the U.S. Constitution to provide for the common defense and ensure domestic tranquility.
Er, sure. Consider this snippet from the proposed initiative:

According to one promising theory, warfare and other social violence are caused by social stress. If the stresses in the social atmosphere mount too high - if political, economic, religious and ethnic tensions reach the breaking point - then they erupt as crime, warfare and terrorism. To reduce social violence, therefore - to reduce crime, warfare and terrorism, social stress and tension must be reduced.

One example of a peace-creating program: Many approaches exist for reducing stress in individuals, families and communities through proper behavior, wholesome food and herbal medicines, natural healthcare and exercise, holistic education and specific types of meditation and music, etc. At least one program for dissolving social stress on a national and global scale, as well, has already been scientifically validated. This consciousness-based approach has worked every time - as measured by reduced crime, accidents, fires, substance abuse, warfare and terrorism, and yet in a completely peaceful way.

Medical science has already accepted that meditation by any one individual will dissolve stress in that individual. The result is reduced anxiety, heart disease and other stress-related disorders. The new research - 50 demonstrations written up in 23 scientific studies published in peer-reviewed academic journals - shows that meditation by large groups dissolves stress in society as a whole, and even around the world. The result: reduced crime, war and terrorism.
With logic like that, who could ever vote "no"?

:: help support this website | link |



 

Sports: Remembering the Miracle Worker 

:: Posted by Skip at 12:13 PM

Eric McErlain posts a fitting tribute to the late Herb Brooks on his blog:
I never knew Herb Brooks. I never saw him in person, and after the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid, never rooted for a team he coached.

Then why have I been walking around all evening feeling like I've been gut punched?

It may be hard for readers even just a few years younger than me to understand, but even back then as a 12-year old, I could tell that things just weren't right in America. The nation was locked in a recession, with gasoline rationing a recent memory. Our nation seemed impotent in the face of a radical Islamic regime in Iran that invaded our Embassy and took its staff hostage. The Cold War was real, and we didn't know if the good guys were going to win.

Enter Brooks and a team of college kids he had molded into a fiery squad that at times may have hated and resented him more than the Olympic opposition. Brooks had taken the 1980 team on a brutal pre-Olympic tour that culminated in an exhibition against the powerful Soviets at Madison Square Garden just a week before the start of the Games in Lake Placid.

I can still remember begging my father to take me. And I should feel lucky that he didn't, as the Russians cruised to a 10-3 victory, hardly noticing the Americans at all. Heading to Lake Placid, expectations couldn't have been lower.

Which made what happened next all the more delightfully improbable. The Olympic Tournament started quietly enough, as the team salvaged a last-minute tie with Sweden, then rolled through the rest of the preliminary round without a loss and earned another date with the Soviets in the medal round.

In a 300-channel universe with satellite tv and digital cable, can anyone still understand the concept of tape delay? But that's what the geniuses at ABC served up for us on that February evening, not starting the telecast until 5:00 p.m. in the East, several hours after the game had already begun.

But this was a miracle we're talking about, and the weekend would be magic. Even today, nearly a quarter century later, when I watch the highlights of Al Michaels counting down the final seconds of the 4-3 win over the Soviets the tension all comes flooding back, as if the Soviets might actually be able to tear a rift in time and come out on top.

But it wasn't over yet. Team USA still had to beat Finland on Sunday morning in order to win the gold medal. How Brooks was able to bring his team down from such an emotional high on Friday, and then have them focused for success on Sunday has to be one of the greatest coaching achievements of all time.

But bring them down he did, and a 4-2 win secured the gold for the Americans. And then, over the next few weeks, something equally improbable happened. All over the country, after being out of fashion for some time, it became ok to say you loved your country again. Full throated, flag waving patriotism was back, and it was Brooks and 20 kids with names Eruzione, Schneider, O'Callahan, Craig, Christian, and all the others, that made it happen.

Yesterday, on a highway outside of Minneapolis, America lost a hero. A team lost it coach. A family lost its father. And I said goodbye to a cherished piece of my childhood. Rest in peace, Herb Brooks. And thank you. Thank you for more than you could ever know.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: Automakers Settle With Calif. Regulators 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 11:14 AM

Brian Melley of the Associated Press reports that three automakers have settled their lawsuits challenging California’s auto emissions regulations:

Under terms of the deal, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and Isuzu will not challenge new regulations for creating low-polluting and nonpolluting cars. In turn, the state will drop its appeals of lawsuits brought by automakers, said Jerry Martin, an Air Resources Board spokesman.

The settlement, scheduled to be announced Tuesday, strengthens the possibility that automakers will be forced to build cleaner cars rather than continue fighting to weaken the emissions rules.

"We get to start getting the cars on the road so California breathers can get what they expect from us, cleaner air," Martin said.

A GM spokesman in California who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the settlement and said it depends on the air board adopting the rules as they now stand. The board changed its emissions regulations in April, but they are still in a public comment period and subject to change.

The automakers and car dealers in the San Joaquin Valley successfully challenged California's landmark 1990 requirement that 10 percent of cars sold in the state this year — about 100,000 vehicles — be nonpolluting.

They charged that the state overstepped its authority and was setting fuel efficiency policy that can only be set by the federal government.

A federal judge in Fresno agreed in June last year and ordered the state to put the regulations on hold. Automakers also won a round in state court.

The air board appealed the federal ruling, claiming they enacted sound air pollution control policy and that any improved mileage was a benefit to drivers. Environmentalists joined state regulators in the appeal, while the Bush administration sided with automakers.
The California auto emissions regulation is a troubling mandate. It places the responsibility for smog on automakers, instead of drivers. It forces drivers into smaller, lighter cars, despite their obvious preference for larger vehicles. It also treats the state as a homogeneous whole, instead of specifically targeting smog afflicted areas, and drivers who drive during periods of smog risk.

There also is the larger question of just who are the victims of smog and what damages do they suffer. Not being able to see 100 miles on a summer day is not an actionable tort. Asthma, if proven to be caused by smog, probably is.

At rough glance, I think the question of smog could be alleviated if roads were private and we approached the problem from the common law instead of regulation. Road owners would charge tolls, and those tolls could be raised during periods of high smog. If there are victims of smog, their damages could be compensated by common law torts and paid out by the road tolls.

Vehicles could also be given a smog rating that would be the basis for computing their tolls. If you drive a non-polluting vehicle, no responsibility for smog is placed on you. If you require a polluting vehicle, and you do drive it during periods of smog risk, you are assessed your toll based on your level of culpability.

Under this system, pollution generators pay when their pollution impacts others, and are left free when it doesn’t.

I put this out, not on the grounds that I have a fully formed answer to this problem, but that I think the principle of individual rights ought to drive the debate. Environmentalists have owned the smog problem for too long. The simple fact is that if smog does impact people’s lives for the negative, it ought not to be taken as metaphysically given. People who burn fuel inefficiently produce smog. In smog afflicted areas, we ought not to give up civilization to alleviate smog, but, even if the contribution is infinitesimal, those responsible for creating smog are still responsible for the negative effects of their actions. I think it stands that they be held accountable under the common law.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights & Reason: Copps v. FCC v. Consumers 

:: Posted by Skip at 10:58 AM

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps is outraged...at the FCC:
Last August WNEW-FM in New York ran an Opie & Anthony show which allegedly contained a broadcast of sexual activity at St. Patrick’s Cathedral as part of an on-air stunt. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received numerous outraged e-mails and phone calls complaining that this broadcast violated a federal law against indecent programming.

One year later the FCC has failed to even address these complaints. Commissioner Michael J. Copps reacted: “When we allow complaints to languish for a year, the message is loud and clear that the FCC is not serious about enforcing our nation’s laws. Congress expected action from the FCC, but all too often our citizens’ complaints are ignored.”

Copps continued: “I wonder when the FCC will finally take a firm stand against the ‘race to the bottom’ as stations continue to push the envelope of outrageousness even further.” Recently, the FCC proposed a mere $27,500 fine against another station owned by this same company – on WKRK-FM in Detroit – after it aired some of the most vulgar and disgusting indecency that the Commission has examined.

Copps stated: “Nothing has changed over the past year in the FCC’s enforcement of the indecency laws. And at the same time, the Commission’s actions have ensured that things will get even worse.” Instead of enforcing indecency laws, the FCC recently rewarded giant station owners by dismantling the FCC’s media concentration protections. The FCC took this action without even considering whether there is a link between increasing media consolidation and increasing indecency on our airwaves. Copps explained: “It stands to reason that as media conglomerates grow ever bigger and control moves further away from the local community, community standards go by the boards. It is a time to increase, not diminish, our vigilance and our enforcement of the law.”

Copps concluded: “The time has come for the Commission to send a message that it is serious about enforcing the indecency laws. Yet, we continue to turn a deaf ear to the millions of Americans who are fed up with the patently offensive programming coming their way so much of the time.”
This is a clever attempt by Copps to take another swing at the FCC's decision to raise the media ownership cap--a move Copps voted against--by trying to introduce the "indecency" card. You would think someone who is allegedly an expert in the communications market would realize "community standards" is an antiquated and ultimately irrational standard to apply in the modern media age. After all, what "community" gets to decide the standards? By Copps' way of thinking, it should be the most puritanical, easily offended, pro-regulation types who get their way.

Opie and Anthony may be crude--I certainly don't listen to that sort of programming--but if enough people tune-in to make the show profitable for their host station, than the FCC shouldn't get in the way. Unless the FCC thinks itself to be the proper judge of what consumers should want to listen to. Remember, the people who complain the loudest about "indecent" programming are generally not the ones actually listening to the offending programs. But if you accept regulation, rather than individual rights, as the moral basis of society, you believe that your tastes and preferences must be statically imposed upon the national as a whole--in the name of the "public interest" of course.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: North Carolina's Ink Problem 

:: Posted by Skip at 10:37 AM

It must have been a slow legislative session this year in Raleigh, as North Carolina legislators felt an insatiable need to meddle in the inkjet cartridge market:
Shares of printer-maker Lexmark International Inc. fell sharply Monday morning after a news release was issued praising North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley's decision to sign into law a bill giving printer users in the state the right to refill any inkjet cartridge. The law essentially voids contracts or purchase agreements that ban some cartridges from being remanufactured.

The law stems from lawsuits between Lexmark and Greensboro, N.C.-based Static Control Components over rights to refill some inkjet cartridges manufactured by Lexmark for its printers. Lexmark has accused Static Control of selling chips that disarm Lexmark's "technological controls" and infringe on its patents.

Static Control alleges that Lexmark has attempted to monopolize the market for toner cartridges that are used in Lexmark printers and contends the Lexington company is in violation of antitrust laws.

Officials with Lexmark could not immediately be reached for comment.

Company officials previously have defended the company's "prebate" program, which sells discounted printer cartridges to consumers who agree to return empty cartridges to Lexmark to be refilled.

Tim King, director of corporate public relations at Lexmark, told Business First in March that rather than stifling competition from competitors, the prebate program "adds another layer of choice" for Lexmark customers. He said that competitor companies still are able to refill basic Lexmark printer cartridges that are not discounted.

On Monday, Static Control issued a news release touting the North Carolina law as a victory in its battle with Lexmark.

"I think the issues are extremely simple," Static CEO Ed Swartz said in the release. "Does the (original-equipment manufacturer) have the right to tell as a matter of public policy that their product cannot be remanufactured and therefore it must go into landfills? I am glad that the legislature intervened to protect the jobs of North Carolinians and our environment."
The invocation of "public policy" is predictable, if not misleading. If you're a rationalist, it's good "public policy" to enforce voluntary private contractual agreements. If you're a mixed-economy proponent, as Lexmark's competitor appears to be, "public policy" is a subjective matter of getting some state legislators to pass a law favoring your company's interest over your competitors.

Here's what the North Carolina law in question says:
Any provision in any agreement or contract that prohibits the reusing, remanufacturing, or refilling of a toner or inkjet cartridge is void and unenforceable as a matter of public policy. Nothing in this section shall prevent any maintenance contract that warrants the performance of equipment under the contract from requiring the use of new or specified toner or inkjet cartridges in the equipment under contract.
It's worth noting the legislature felt no need to address Lexmark's allegation that Static Control was illegally infringing upon its patents. Obviously protecting valid intellectual property rights--or private contract rights--are not a matter of "public policy" in North Carolina. No wonder the Justice Department was able to destroy Asheville-based Mountain Health Care without a word of protest from state officials.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: DOJ Loses to Dentures 

:: Posted by Skip at 9:59 AM

Contrary to popular myth, a government antitrust prosecution does not inevitably result in a government victory, as one company happily found out last week:
A judge in the U.S. District of Delaware recently ruled in favor of Dentsply International’s distribution practices of artificial teeth.

The decision came down late Friday afternoon and the outcome is positive for the company and its shareholders, said John C. Miles II, chairman and CEO of the dental product designer and manufacturer.

Though artificial teeth represent about 5 percent of the company’s business and don’t have a great impact on earnings per share, Miles said the decision removes a level of uncertainty and could save legal fees if the government decides not to appeal.

Gina Talamona, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said it’s too soon to say if the department will appeal.

The Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice began investigating the company for antitrust violations in 1995, Security and Exchange Commission documents state.

Within the company’s Trubyte Division’s distribution clause, Dentsply maintains the right to pull its products from the distributor if the distributor decides to carry competing products.

In 1999, the federal government filed suit against the company saying that this clause affected 80 percent of dealers nationwide because they don’t carry brands that compete closely with Dentsply’s products.

In April and May 2002, a trial took place leading to the recent decision.

On Monday, Miles said the company holds the distribution policy because it invests time and money into training the distributor’s employees on the products, which are similar among competing products. If it allowed its distributors to carry other products, it would be training them for free, he said.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Monday, August 11, 2003 ::

Sports: Miracle on Ice Coach Killed 

:: Posted by Skip at 5:52 PM

WTEM-AM in Washington is reporting that Herb Brooks, the coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, was killed in an automobile accident in Minnesota. That 1980 hockey team was of course the "Miracle on Ice" team that upset the top-ranked Soviet Union in the semifinals en route to a gold medal at Lake Placid, New York. It was one of the great moments in sports history, if not contemporary American history, which makes Brooks' life all the more worth remembering in light of his passing.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: J. Thomas Rosch Named Antitrust Lawyer of the Year 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:46 PM

This from Latham & Watkins and the Antitrust and Unfair Competition Section of the State Bar of California:

California State Bar's Antirust and Unfair Competition Law Section is proud to announce that Latham & Watkins' San Francisco partner J. Thomas Rosch, has been named Antitrust Lawyer of the Year for 2003. The State Bar will officially honor Rosch at its 13th Annual Antitrust Lawyer of the Year Award Dinner on October 23, 2003.

"We're very pleased to honor Tom with this award. His work and achievements of the past thirty-eight years clearly show Tom is a leader in the field," said James E. Herman, President of the State Bar of California.

Rosch, internationally regarded as one of the preeminent practitioners in the areas of antitrust and trade regulation law, has been with Latham for nearly a decade. He has been lead counsel in more than one hundred federal and state court antitrust cases. He has successfully tried many of them and has won summary judgments in many more. Additionally, Rosch has acted as antitrust counsel in the planning and implementation of numerous joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions.

* * *

"This richly-deserved award recognizes Tom's exemplary career," said Robert Dell, Chairman and Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins. "Tom's encyclopedic knowledge of the antitrust laws combined with his years of experience in the courtroom make him a treasured resource among clients and colleagues alike."
Talk about dubious achievement. In recognition of Mr. Rosch's role as an antitrust practitioner, CAC offers its congratulations, but needless to say, our summary judgment is that Rosch will not be awarded "Capitalist of the Year" from us any time soon.

UPDATE: According to Skip, Rosch is not as bad as his press release might indicate. Perhaps. But as with most members of the antitrust bar, we won't be hitting the links together any time soon.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Education: Fun with Numbers 

:: Posted by Skip at 1:38 PM

The Associated Press reported last week on the decline of Germany's completely government-run school system. This passage caught my attention:
Once in college — government funded and free of charge like lower schools — students take an average of seven years to earn a degree. And 32 percent of them actually do so, well below the average of 48 percent for industrialized nations.

Germany has relatively few private schools, and they are expensive. Private universities are almost nonexistent.
To put this number in further perspective, consider the plight of American college students who play Division I-A sports. Years of negative press would lead you to assume major college "student-athletes" are among the lowest academic performers in all of civilization. In fact, the NCAA's most recent numbers for the 120-or-so Division I-A schools show 60% of student-athletes who entered school during the 1995-1996 academic year graduate within six years, as opposed to the 32% of all Germans who graduate within seven. The 60% figure is consistent with the average for the last four classes studied by the NCAA, and it's on par with the overall graduation rate of U.S. students under the same NCAA formula.

Now, when it comes to the big sports—football and men's college basketball—the numbers start to slide into German-like territory. Football players graduated at about a 50% rate, while male basketballers only averaged about 35%. Still, that is higher than the national German average.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Capitalism: Taxing Yourself into Prosperity 

:: Posted by Skip at 1:25 PM

My esteemed colleague Daryl Cobranchi debunks a particularly nasty anti-capitalist theory of wealth creation:
Dennis Redovich's latest weekly column is particularly inane. He first predicts a world-wide depression similar to the Great Depression. No data are provided to back up that prediction (NOTE: data "are", right?). It then goes from bad to worse, promoting g-schools as an engine of prosperity. Or, more precisely, promoting the money spent on the schools as creating wealth.
Government spending on programs that benefit largely low and middle class income citizens for education, health and welfare is the greatest stimulus for an expanding and prosperous economy and “also” improve the quality of life for individuals and the entire population. The Milwaukee Public Schools is the largest employer in Milwaukee, and with a budget in 2002-2003 of more than $1 Billion is the largest single source of money for consumer spending in the entire southeastern area of Wisconsin. Public school systems and universities are the largest employers in many communities in the State of Wisconsin. (Education jobs are stable and better than average paying jobs. Better in most cases than the jobs created with millions of corporate welfare that may be gone tomorrow when someone offers a better deal)

Sure, except for the fact that the money for those high-paying education jobs came from TAXES. Last time I checked, taxes were a drag on the economy. So, schools are just a form of welfare for educrats? Good to know. The rest of the column is no better. Give it a click only if you want to see how the other half thinks.
Redovich, of course, does nothing more than reiterate the core of Keynesian economics—government spending drives the economy. While that theory has been wholly disproven at every turn, the Keynes mantra continues to hold sway over government officials, especially the permanent bureaucracy that depend on high taxes and spending. Indeed, the most popularly reported measure of the economy, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), reflects an anti-capitalist bias, as Club for Growth's Stephen Moore and Phil Kerpen explained last week in the Washington Times:
The headline-grabbing number of 2.4 percent growth, immediately applauded throughout the media as strong, is about double the real rate that the private economy grew. While the private economy grew at about 1.3 percent, the federal government component of GDP increased by a staggering 25 percent, the largest quarterly increase in more than three decades. The increase was due almost entirely to the high cost of the war in Iraq. But even domestic agencies saw growth in their budgets far surpassing private sector growth.

The important word here is "cost." Wars are a cost, not an asset.

You fight wars because you have to — because there are bad people in the world. But to suggest the war was good for the economy would be as dimwitted as suggesting Saddam Hussein deserves a medal of honor for helping revive the U.S. economy.

Defending U.S. interests militarily is a legitimate and necessary function of government, but it eats up resources and reduces growth, rather than enhancing it. So to a large extent, the growth reported this past quarter is a statistical mirage. The way we currently measure GDP makes billions of dollars spent on military expenditures look like productive economic activity.
The war example is actually quite telling. After all, pro-government spending leftists rarely call for more military spending to drive the economy, even though military spending arguably makes the GDP-with-government go up a lot faster than than it would with spending on education and public welfare.

Moore and Kerpen suggest, quite sensibly, that future GDP be calculated solely as a function of private sector spending. Such an act would deflate a lot of the pro-government spending bias now seen in the media, since GDP would no longer be subject to wholesale political manipulation. It certainly won't solve the problem of big government, but an honest GDP will at least allow the people to receive better information.

:: help support this website | link |



 

The Good Life: Falling Water 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 11:37 AM

Art historian Lee Sandstead visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater over the weekend. See http://sandstead.com/images/fallingwater/

If the goal of life is happiness, Wright was a master at building it, and Lee is becoming a master in photographing it.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: More Hospital Trouble 

:: Posted by Skip at 8:35 AM

I can already see the battle lines being drawn at the FTC over this deal:
Baptist Health South Florida has reached an agreement to buy Doctors' Hospital of Coral Gables, giving the nonprofit health giant its sixth medical center in South Florida and making it Miami-Dade County's biggest employer.

The deal, announced Friday, would extend Baptist Health's coverage area from northern Monroe County into Coral Gables and boost its Miami-Dade workforce to more than 9,800 employees. The acquisition would give Baptist Health more leverage in negotiating agreements with insurance providers, doctors and suppliers.

Mercy Hospital, which lost out on the bidding for Doctors', said it would challenge the sale.

''We do not believe that this transaction is in the best interest of the community and will result in higher healthcare costs to employers and consumers,'' John E. Matuska, Mercy president and chief executive, said in a statement.
Mercy isn't alone in their displeasure. Baptist beat out Mercy and six other bidders. Those losing bidders will likely provide the FTC (or DOJ) with grist for the antitrust mill. That's how it works in antitrust: when you lose in market competition, you get the government to rewrite the rules after the fact or simply declare the initial competition was "unfair" because the bigger company won.

Another possibly important fact: the city of Coral Gables will lose $1.2 million in property taxes under this deal, because Baptist, a nonprofit corporation, is acquiring a currently for-profit hospital. Don't think that won't contribute to a possible federal antitrust prosecution.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: Hospital Wars 

:: Posted by Skip at 8:28 AM

The Justice Department's witch-hunt for antitrust violations in the hospital industry continue:
The Department of Justice is scrutinizing Premier Health Partners, apparently to see if the seven-year-old hospital merger has violated antitrust law by resulting in higher prices than would have happened otherwise.

"We have no reason to believe that the action is anything but a routine investigation," Dale Creech, Premier's chief legal counsel said Friday. The Justice Department indicated several months ago that it would review some of the many U.S. hospital mergers in the 1990s, he said, and Premier is among more than a dozen to have received requests for information.

A Justice spokeswoman declined to comment on the investigation, or even to confirm its existence, citing office policy not to discuss any ongoing matters.

"We're providing a lot of documentation about what we've done since the affiliation in terms of cost-savings and improving efficiency," Creech said. "We are cooperating fully."

Miami Valley and Good Samaritan hospitals have operated jointly as Premier since 1996, when the Federal Trade Commission decided not to challenge the affiliation on antitrust grounds. Fidelity HealthCare, Samaritan North Health Center, Maria-Joseph Living Care Center and a physicians network are also part of Premier.

The entities have cut costs by consolidating administrative departments, purchasing in greater quantities, avoiding duplication of medical equipment and sharing more effective medical and administrative practices, Creech said. The savings have grown year by year to more than $50 million annually "that the citizens of the Miami Valley no longer have to pay," he said.
Think about this: The Clinton administration FTC decided not to challenge this merger when it took place, but the Bush administration FTC--which allegedly represents the pro-business conservative Republican way of life--is looking to undo mergers years after they were completed. How this fits in with "compassionate conservatism," I don't know. What I do know is that at a time when the economy is still in recovery, meritless investigations like this divert valuable resources from economic production to the enrichment of lawyers, both in the government and those inevitably retained by the hospitals.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust: Taking on Zimbalist 

:: Posted by Skip at 8:23 AM

Andrew Zimbalist is an intellectual leader among baseball conservatives who believes with great frevor that the only way to improve his beloved sport is to—drumroll, please—repeal the antitrust exemption. Andrew Alexander, co-editor of the Intellectual Conservative website, begs to differ:
For Zimbalist, the roots of baseball’s problems are clear: Major League Baseball is an unregulated monopoly. The Supreme Court’s 1922 Federal Baseball decision exempted MLB from the nation’s antitrust laws on the grounds that baseball did not constitute “interstate commerce;” baseball has enjoyed exempt status ever since. This exemption is unique to MLB; football fans may recall that Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis successfully brought an antitrust suit against the NFL and was able to move his team to Los Angeles in 1980. Applying antitrust law, the judge in that case held that the NFL engaged in an “unreasonable restraint of trade” by preventing the Raiders from moving out of Oakland. If Congress were to remove MLB’s antitrust exemption, MLB would be unable to prevent teams from changing cities – except when preventing such movement was “reasonable.”

Like most monopolists, MLB artificially restricts supply to increase demand, according to Zimbalist. The “restriction of supply” takes the form of limiting the number of Major League ballclubs. The most glaring example of this restraint on trade is the lack of a baseball team in Washington, DC, the nation’s sixth-largest market. According to Zimbalist, MLB uses Washington as economic leverage against current baseball cities. MLB threatens to relocate teams to Washington if current host cities fail to publicly finance stadiums for their teams. On the other hand, if MLB were subject to antitrust regulation, it would be unable to prevent the creation of an expansion team in Washington unless such action was found to be “reasonable.” Nor could MLB prevent an owner from moving its team to Washington -- or any other city -- unless such action was deemed “reasonable.”

* * *

What is needed is not antitrust regulation but a salary cap or a strong luxury tax. Repealing MLB’s antitrust exemption seems like a way of avoiding confrontation with those most responsible with maintaining the status quo – the players union and the high-revenue owners.

And it is not clear why Zimbalist thinks MLB is a “monopoly” anyway. He states that baseball is a monopoly because “it is the only provider of top-level professional baseball in the country.” But so is the Professional Bowlers Tour, and is anyone clamoring for increased antitrust scrutiny of bowlers?
Alexander, of course, misses the point: Antitrust is generally designed to punish successful businesses. Although, to be fair, the current administration likes to use antitrust against financially struggling businesses as well, making it a political weapon of mass destruction rather than just a tool to use against unpopular "greedy" businesses.

Chief Justice Rehnquist, dissenting from the denial of certiorari petition in the early 1980s, suggested the professional sports leagues should be viewed, for antitrust purposes, as competitors with each other, rather than construing the individual franchises within a league as market competitors. This would certainly make economic sense, but antitrust has nothing to do with making sense, but empowering government lawyers to decide how the market should be run.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Sunday, August 10, 2003 ::

The Culture: Sports, Capitalism, and Other Evils... 

:: Posted by Skip at 2:24 PM

Syndicated columnist Dan Thomasson exhibits a great deal of sanctimony in trying to convert the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case into an indictment of the entire professional sports culture. Not only does Thomasson decry the culture of professional sports, he also professes to know the ultimate culprit behind Bryant’s possible downfall:
The root cause of all this trouble in professional athletics is money. We are all culprits who supply it in irrational, unbelievable quantities to undereducated, exploited youngsters, who have little understanding of its value or how to manage it. They are not atypical in their age group. They are just wealthy enough to indulge the normal excesses of youth. Add that wherewithal to environmentally and socially deprived backgrounds and the combination is lethal.

Worshiping fans must bear part of the blame. But a major share belongs to the corporations that fuel the entire big-time sports industry. They buy the overpriced boxes and blocs of seats in the arenas for clients and pay the hefty endorsements to sell the shoes and paraphernalia for which less fortunate children have been known to kill one another. Their advertising supports the huge television revenues distributed among the various teams. The average NBA fan can't afford to see a game first-hand, so high are the prices for anything close to a decent seat and minimal concessions. Often the corporate seats are empty in surreal defiance of the announced "sell-out."

In a perfect world, no one whose only skill is throwing a ball through a hoop would be paid anywhere near the kind of money that Kobe Bryant and his fellow players enjoy, and in the old days they weren't. The great player and coach, John Wooden, used to get $5 a game as a professional, the same as a Ford assembly worker. But that was before endorsements and television. This is a world intoxicated by the vicarious thrill of celebrity. It is a world where hitting a baseball can earn a person a million times more than a distinguished teacher or an artist of immense talent would be paid, where the athletes are far more valued than the doctors who must constantly patch them together.
In these three paragraphs, Thomasson flawlessly demonstrates what Ayn Rand once called “hatred of the good for being good.” Thomasson doesn’t simply criticize; he exhibits moral contempt for those who do not share his idealized, conservative view of how the world should behave. In doing so, he reveals a contempt not for professional sports or “money,” but for the very principles that underlie our free society and, ultimately, man’s ability to prosper on this earth.

Take, for starters, Thomasson’s breathless condemnation of “money” as the root of “all this trouble in professional athletics.” In the first place, one could not classify an endeavor as “professional” unless the participants are paid, so in this sense Thomasson is condemning professional athletics as per se evil. Beyond that, he mislabels his premise. Money cannot cause trouble or evil. Money is not a volitional creature, but a medium of exchange devised by man for his benefit. Without money—the root of Thomasson’s evil—man would be reduced to a bartering culture, where wealth would lack portability, and commerce itself would be impossible except on the village or household level.

What Thomasson means with his words is that capitalism is the root of evil in professional sports. He reserves his most hated criticism for the various instruments of capitalism: corporations, consumers, producers, and the marketplace. Without any of these instruments of evil, Thomasson reasons, sports could return to the purer, egalitarian ideals of his memorialized youth.

Of course, the sports culture was far from ideal in the time “before endorsements and television.” Thomasson, making the classic conservative’s error, excludes the unpleasant details of the past while finding nothing but fault with the present. While it’s nice that John Wooden was once paid no more than a Ford worker, what about the men who played in the NFL prior to the modern rise in salaries? Many, if not most, of the pre-1960s era players found their bodies broken and their wallets empty when their careers ended, a testament to the low salaries of the era “before endorsements and television.” Find any linesman from the 1950s, 1960s, or even the 1970s, and ask them how things were in the good old days. What you’ll find is that they have small pensions and multiple surgeries (and quite probably some permanent injuries) to their credit. This was the world without the evils of modern capitalism.

Thomasson dismisses such notions by trying to denigrate the work of athletes. He says men like Bryant should be cast aside by society because their “only skill is throwing a ball through a hoop.” This is not just false; it is a vicious slander on the millions of Americans who actively participate in all walks of sports. A professional basketball player puts thousands of hours into training and development, both physical and mental, before he ever sets foot on an NBA court. Even high school phenoms like LeBron James—who Thomasson considered undereducated and exploited—has put more time into perfecting his body and skills than most typical college freshmen. Basketball is certainly not rocket science, but nor is it easy; if it were, everyone would be earning multi-million dollar contracts and the NBA would have 300 franchises rather than 30.

Thomasson tries arguing Bryant and James are incapable of handling their fortunes at such a young age. That’s just nonsense. It’s also reflective of another conservative sentiment—young people are useless except as compliant drones for infallible authorities. Blame the spread of four-year high schools for this. There was a time in this country, when the nation was far less advanced economically, when men were reasonably expected by the age of 16 to be capable of working for a living, possibly starting a family, and in general making something of their lives. Today, men like Thomasson decry the gainful employment of 18 year old high school graduates as unreasonable and unethical. Yes, there is always a risk that a young man with money will consume himself into financial ruin. But one cannot presume that will always be the outcome, and one cannot deny a man the fruits of his labor simply because an outside critic deems him unworthy of his fortune. Furthermore, there is no evidence in Bryant’s case—the alleged source of Thomasson’s angst—that Kobe was foolish with his money (the $4 million ring for his wife notwithstanding), only that he committed adultery. Cheating on one’s wife is a moral transgression that defies age, and it is hardly unique to athletes as a group.

In decrying the sports culture, Thomasson attacks capitalism for such alleged crimes as corporations buying “overpriced” arena boxes. This is a classic conservative attack that’s used to support such market “correcting” policies as antitrust. What makes an arena skybox overpriced? Well, Thomasson says they’re overpriced, ergo that must be the case. There’s no evidence the customers—those evil corporations—are unhappy. The same goes for the “average” fan who “can’t afford to see a game first-hand”. Here in Washington, for example, the Redskins have several thousand names on their waiting list, and have sold out every game for three decades, despite rising prices that men like Thomasson would consider insufferable capitalist plunder.

And incidentally, why is it that important that ticket prices be lowered to the “average” fan’s level? Personally, I am an avid sports fan, but I don’t go to many games. It’s not the ticket prices that keep me away, I just don’t care for crowds. But thanks to—gasp—television and their wicked corporate sponsors, I can watch just about any game I want to from the comfort of my home. Thanks to corporations, for example, for the relatively modest cost of a DirecTV system, I can watch every single NFL game on a given Sunday, something I could not do while sitting in a cramped section of FedEx Field. So far from exploiting the aggrieved fan, television benefits average fans by making sporting events available to him that would not otherwise be accessible on national basis.

So if corporations, money, and capitalism benefit players, businesses, and fans, who exactly is the loser here? People like Thomasson, whose corrupt sense of right and wrong lead them to hate institutions that, on balance, benefit man and improve the quality of their lives.

Thomasson’s last argument is that athletes shouldn’t be paid more than a “distinguished teacher or an artist of immense talent” or doctors. Let’s take those one at a time:

The teacher argument is actually fascinating when you consider the contrasting nature of a professional sports league to a government-run school system. In a capitalist system like the NBA, players essentially are paid based on merit and performance (or on future expectations of such) within the general guidelines established by a collective bargaining agreement. A veteran player, for example, is entitled to a minimum salary based on years of service, but the team can pay him more if both sides so agree. A “distinguished teacher” in a government school, however, does not have such opportunities, because “merit pay,” as it’s called, is considered an anathema to the political leadership of almost all teacher unions. Instead, teachers are paid solely on the basis of years served, without regard to merit, talent, or achievement. It is, in effect, a socialist system.

It’s also worth pointing out that government schools, unlike the NBA, are instruments that consume wealth rather than produce wealth. The NBA can only pay its players multi-million dollar salaries if the league actually earns the revenue. Government schools, in contrast, appropriate their funds from taxpayers under threat of force. Additionally, most teacher unions will eagerly use their legal protections as a collective bargaining unit (and sometimes their not-so-legal privileges) to extract salary increases by holding their customers—the children forced to attend government schools—hostage. Say what you will about professional athletes, but I can’t recall of a single sports labor dispute where children were forcibly used as bargaining chips.

Now as to the allegedly underpaid “artist[s] of immense talent,” I admit I’m confused. What artists are we referring to? Plenty of artists—actors, singers, etc.—make money on par with professional athletes. Clearly they’re not at a market disadvantage. Or maybe Tomasson was referring to artists that he likes but that others don’t, maybe the kind that rely on government grants to get by? Either way, Thomasson hasn’t proven much beyond restating his hatred of a free market that doesn’t produce the results he cares for.

Finally, as to doctors, I admit that I agree with Thomasson. Doctors are certainly underpaid relative to their actual value. Most of my days are spent studying this precise problem. One major impediment to justly compensating physicians is federal antitrust laws that are used to prevent doctors from collectively negotiating with health insurers. If only doctors could band together legally, they wouldn’t be at the mercy of health plans. Much the same way athletes were once at the mercy of franchise owners—and compensated even more poorly—until the players formed an effective union to leverage their economic power in the marketplace. The result, of course, is the decrepit capitalist system Thomasson now condemns. Thus, it’s unclear what Thomasson wants the doctors to do. Since money, capitalism, and free trade are not virtuous means of pursuing one’s interests, in Thomasson’s view, I suppose that leaves only force. But that’s not what Thomasson could have meant. He is, after all, a conservative...

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Friday, August 08, 2003 ::

Antitrust News: Crist on Competition 

:: Posted by Skip at 2:08 PM

Few people get more self-satisfaction out of redistributing wealth than state attorneys general:
Attorney General Charlie Crist today presented a $50,000 check to Broward Children's Center, using proceeds from the state's settlement of an antitrust case against two major hospital corporations.

The nonprofit Broward Children's Center in Pompano Beach helps more than 360 children with various handicaps and their families throughout South Florida and around the state. The center also provides residential programs for medically fragile youngsters at three group homes and two preschools.

The settlement between the attorney general's office and Hospital Corporation of America and Cleveland Clinic Florida came in April. The two companies were accused of secretly agreeing to reduce competition by dividing up certain medical services. That's a violation of state and federal antitrust laws.

Each corporation was required to make restitution payments of $100,000 for medical and social services to under-served populations in Broward and Collier counties.

Presentations to several other South Florida charities will be announced later.
This reporter's account makes you question whether Crist's motive was to protect consumers or to hold press conferences presenting giant checks. The latter certainly makes you appear more popular in the eyes of voters.

Crist is also involved in another high-profile "competition" dispute, the Big East schools' lawsuit against the University of Miami and the ACC. Crist intervened in support of Miami, and last week filed a motion to dismiss the case, in which the lead plaintiff is the University of Connecticut, represented by the King of states attorneys general, Richard Blumenthal. In the opening of Crist's motion, he makes the following observations:
Vigorous competition underlies much of what we value as a society, forming the foundation of our economic and political system. It is a principle the parties to this action are intimately familiar with - they compete in lecture halls and laboratories, on their playing fields, to recruit new students and faculty members, to establish alumni bragging rights, and for public and private funds. Underlying competition are the freedom to contract and to freely associate, and fundamental to those freedoms are the abilities to both join and leave the voluntary relationships so created. These principles inure to the benefit of us all, helping to create a dynamic society whose members are motivated to strive for the best, and the Attorney General of Florida has intervened in support of the jurisdictional motions to dismiss because of his concern that Plaintiffs' action could cause long-term harm to these principles.
Crist makes a good point, but he fails to properly emphasize individual rights - the freedom to contract, et al. - as the true moral basis of society. He does say this, but only after lavishing praise on "competition" as the prime virtue. This, of course, is how most antitrust advocates think: competition first, then individual rights a distant second. It's that hiearchy of values that makes Crist able to go after hospitals for exercising their freedom to contract, while simultaneously defending Miami's right to engage in identical behavior without antitrust penalty.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Creighton Watch: USA Today Asks No Questions 

:: Posted by Skip at 1:59 PM

USA Today offers its usual non-critical reporting, this time in a profile of new FTC antitrust chief Susan Creighton:
Mergers that need reviewing have fallen 75% since 2000 because of the sluggish economy and a policy change that raised the value of mergers that must be reported to the government. But that means the 250-lawyer staff that Creighton heads can focus on anti-competitive behavior that costs consumers money.

Since the start of the Bush administration, the FTC has opened more than 100 investigations and taken enforcement action in 25, a 30% jump over any two-year period since the mid-1980s.

While some expect a lighter touch with business from Republicans, Bush-appointed FTC Chairman Tim Muris and former antitrust chief Joseph Simons brought a series of cases against brand-name and generic drug firms whose deals were believed to be keeping low-cost drugs off store shelves. Creighton, a Republican who was Simons' deputy for two years, is said to have been a driving force behind the cases.

Those who know Creighton have only high praise. "She's very, very bright with an intellectual quietness," says William Baer, who had Creighton's job for much of the Clinton administration. Adds former FTC mergers chief George Cary: "She's extremely bright, very thoughtful and understands the legitimate purpose of antitrust enforcement without being at all reflexive."
Not a single critical word of Creighton—or the FTC—is spoken in the article. I'm particularly amused at the article's conclusion that the lack of mergers leaves the Bureau's 250 lawyers with more time to "focus on anti-competitive behavior." A more interested journalist's eye would probably view the expansion of non-merger enforcement as a sign that 250 lawyers are looking for something to do lest Congress figure out they can spend less money on antitrust activities.

And while the article quotes a former FTC official as saying Creighton "understands the legitimate purpose of antitrust enforcement," USA Today never thought to share with its readers what that purpose is. Talk to the several thousand physicians that the Muris FTC has prosecuted in the past two years and see if they think Creighton & Company aren't being "reflexive" or anti-consumer in their thinking.

Even when discussing Creighton's record, USA Today never thinks to look at the other side of the discussion:
Creighton is widely considered to be the behind-the-scenes brains that launched the Justice Department probe-turned-lawsuit against Microsoft. Her law partner in a Silicon Valley law firm, Gary Reback, was the public pitchman for their client, Netscape. But it was Creighton who wrote the report laying out the complaints about Microsoft's tactics that helped antitrust enforcers make their case.

Creighton is a loyal member of the government team now but once fought the FTC in court. Creighton represented VISX, maker of laser-eye-surgery equipment, against charges that it broke antitrust laws when it formed a joint venture with Summit Technology, the only other laser maker, and fraudulently obtained the patent. Creighton successfully defended VISX against some of the FTC charges. She also helped negotiate a settlement of the rest of the case.

Creighton says that even though she was working against the government, the VISX position was defensible for consumers because if the companies had not teamed up, there's a good chance neither would have entered the market, leaving consumers without any source for the surgery.

One of Creighton's major projects now is an ongoing review of some hospital mergers approved during the Clinton administration. People familiar with the agency's work say the FTC is expected to challenge some of those mergers because they ultimately led to higher prices for health care.
It's interesting that a nominally "pro-business" Bush administration would have the leader of the Microsoft antitrust mugging running its antitrust shop. Then again, Creighton's an FTC bureaucrat, and since the Commission is an "independent agency," the White House gets no formal imput on these types of appointments. The White House does, however, appoint the FTC commissioners who supervise Creighton, and when President Bush made his first FTC appointment last month, he picked a career antitrust lawyer with no outside business experience. Antitrust thus remains a governmental function without any accountability mechanism—just antitrust lawyers "supervising" other antitrust lawyers.

Finally, consider Creighton's agenda on issues like hospitals. Since taking over, the Muris FTC has made it abundantly clear that no merger is safe—even those that the FTC previously approved or that are outside the Commission's normal jurisdiction. This is nothing but a naked power grab, one that abandons the traditional American view of the law as objective. A business's actions can be deemed illegal by the FTC even if the FTC itself previously found it legal. Tyranny doesn't get much more obvious than that.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Humor: Episcopalians Reject Blessing Gay Unions  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 12:55 PM

This from Scrappleface:

Confusion about the wording of a resolution caused the Episcopal House of Deputies to reject "blessing gay unions" yesterday.

The resolution was returned to committee for more research to determine exactly which unions are 'gay'.

While members of the United Auto Workers, for example, earn relatively high wages, frequent labor disputes lead many Episcopalians to believe that they're not really gay.

"How could you be happy with so much labor strife," said one unnamed church deputy. "We're not opposed to blessing these unions, but we just want to make sure we have agreement on what we mean by 'gay unions'."

In other action, the Episcopal church approved allowing local churches to "celebrate and bless" pairs of homosexuals who pledge mutual sexual fidelity for life.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: SCOTUS refuses adult comic book case 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 12:38 PM

Sometimes I just don't get the Supreme Court. This time, it refused to hear the case of Jesus Castillo, who was convicted under Texas law for selling an adult comic book to an adult. This from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund:

The CBLDF has been providing counsel for Castillo since his arrest in 2000 when he was charged with two counts of obscenity for selling adult comic books to adults. The Fund's lawyers persuaded the court to try the two counts separately and waged a fierce courtroom battle that included expert testimony from Scott McCloud and Professor Susan Napier. The State prosecutor did not offer contradictory testimony, but secured a guilty verdict with a closing argument stating, "I don't care what type of evidence or what type of testimony is out there, use your rationality, use your common sense. Comic books, traditionally what we think of, are for kids. This is in a store directly across from an elementary school and it is put in a medium, in a forum, to directly appeal to kids. That is why we are here, ladies and gentlemen. … We're here to get this off the shelf." Castillo was found guilty and sentenced to 180 days in jail, a year probation, and a $4,000 fine.

Immediately following the first trial, the State dropped the second obscenity count while the Fund prepared its appeal. In 2002 the Appeals court rendered a 2-1 split decision upholding the conviction. Justice Tom James, writing in dissent, would have reversed the conviction on the ground that the State did not provide sufficient evidence that Castillo had knowledge of the content and character of the offending comic book. On the strength of James' dissent, the Fund filed a Petition for Discretionary Review to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which was denied. At the end of the road for Texas Justice, the Fund took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Fund Legal Counsel Burton Joseph explains, "It is rare that the Supreme Court accepts individual criminal cases for consideration. In the Castillo case, in spite of the odds, CBLDF appealed to the Supreme Court on the chance that they would reverse what appeared to be an unjust and unconstitutional decision in the Texas courts. The principle was important, but we knew the odds were long."
I haven't read the arguments, but I wish the odds weren't so long and that the court would have taken this case. "Convict for the kids" is about as asinine an argument as the day is long.

Thanks to SCOTUSBlog for the reference.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: Model Injustice  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:23 AM

Thanks to 'John Galt' for pointing us to a Collin Levey's WSJ editorial on the models' antitrust suit.

A final philosophical question: Whose business is it really what modeling agencies charge for their services? They don't own an "essential facility" necessary for life and well-being. The investigators should think hard about what public purpose is served by chasing down people who've entered into voluntary contractual relationships in a business that is beyond the Justice Department (or anyone else) to make economic sense of.
I think the final philosophical question should be why antitrust should apply to any voluntary contractual relationship.

"Those who create," Coco Chanel said, "are rare. Those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger." That is the bureaucrat's ode, illustrated again by the antitrust division's attempt to force another industry into a facile economic mold.
Coco Chanel said that? I might just take back my dig against the modeling agencies from the other day.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: Critics Blast Delays in Arming Pilots  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:09 AM

Leslie Miller of the AP reports that the Transportation Security Administration program to arm airline pilots is under fire for inordinate delays.

Fewer than 100 pilots have been trained to carry guns in the cockpit in the eight months since Congress approved the idea, and hundreds more are waiting, but pilots and members of Congress say the program is not moving fast enough.

Pilots say it's more important than ever to get weapons in the cockpit because the Transportation Security Administration froze hiring in the air marshal program in May and the government is warning al-Qaida may try more suicide hijackings.

"Between the air marshals and the federal flight deck officer force, we should cover a vast majority of the domestic flights," said Capt. Bob Lambert, president of the Airline Pilots' Security Alliance. "It just seems like we haven't learned very much from Sept. 11."
There should be minimal hassle to carry a firearm in order to defend your life and the lives of your passengers and crew. Remind me—are we living under a Republican administration?

:: help support this website | link |



 

Politics: The making of an egoist 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 9:54 AM

This quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared in an AP story detailing how he would psych out his bodybuilding opponents:

"I knew I was a winner. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way."
Interesting.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Thursday, August 07, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: West Nile Virus Cases Triple in One Week 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:46 PM

Daniel Yee of the AP reports that the environmentalists' epidemic is on the rise:

In one week, the number of West Nile virus cases has tripled, and a U.S. health official warned Thursday that this year's outbreak may top last year's record.

The numbers are starting to change very, very quickly," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites). "That is very concerning."

So far there are more than 153 cases in 16 states, an explosion of the mosquito-borne virus in just a week, she said. That doesn't include 39 new cases Colorado officials reported Thursday.

A week ago, there were 59 cases nationwide. Health officials had expected the disease to spread this year, invading Western states previously unscathed. But they appeared somewhat surprised at its speed.

The new numbers compare with 112 cases in four states for this date last year.

"It indicates we are starting the epidemic with more cases than last year," the CDC director said. She warned of "a great number of infected people."

Last year, 4,156 people caught the virus, and 284 died. The United States also suffered the biggest reported outbreak of West Nile encephalitis in the world in 2002.
Funny thing is, West Nile virus is controllable, if only a certain pesticide known as DDT was legal to use . . .

It’s horrific to know that every death caused by West Nile was preventable. I wonder just what the body count will have to reach before the DDT ban is lifted.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: EU Intends to Fine Microsoft 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:35 PM

Paul Geitner, AP Business Writer reports:

The European Union intends to fine Microsoft for past antitrust abuses regardless of how the software giant changes its future business practices, an EU spokesman said Thursday.

"We are minded to impose a fine for the past and minded to impose remedies for the future, and we will adopt a final decision which does exactly that," said Tilman Lueder, a spokesman for the EU's antitrust office, the European Commission.

The EU can fine violators up to 10 percent of their worldwide sales — which would be more than $3 billion in Microsoft's case. In practice, fines have never exceeded 1 percent, which would still be an EU record but easily managed by a company with cash reserves of $49 billion.

The EU sent Microsoft a statement of objections Wednesday accusing it of trying to monopolize new markets, namely servers, which tie desktop computers together, and audiovisual players, which allow users to play music and video on their computers.

Arguing that new market surveys found the abuses continuing despite the settlement last year of the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft in the United States, the EU spelled out steps it wanted Microsoft to take to address those complaints.
I think what’s most amusing about this current round in the Microsoft antitrust saga is the degree that the Computer and Communications Industry Association has lobbied the EU to attack Microsoft. If first you can’t succeed in America, there is always Europe’s more regulatory pastures.

According to CCIA’s website, Microsoft is a big meany in:

audio/video streaming and playback software (including digital rights management software);
e-mail client software;
instant messaging software and services;
server operating system software;
authentication services;
consumer Internet portals;
web services;
handheld computing device operating systems and applications software;
smart phone operating systems and applications software;
server applications (notably, mail server and media server software).
I know, I was shocked too. What business does Microsoft have in technology, after all?

:: help support this website | link |



 

Politics: Bush support cracking on the right? 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 3:21 PM

Bruce Bartlett wonders if President Bush's leftward turn hurts Republicans:

Conservative dismay over Taft's liberal agenda led directly to massive Democratic gains in Congress in 1910 and his own loss in 1912. The same dismay over Nixon's liberal agenda led to massive Democratic gains and his ouster from office in 1974.

I am sorry to say that I see Bush traveling the same path. He has concluded that the Democrats are very likely to nominate a candidate so far to the left as to be unelectable. Howard Dean's ascension to the head of the Democratic pack supports this conclusion. But ironically, rather than making Bush feel more comfortable pursuing a conservative agenda, he continues to move left on domestic issues -- especially the budget-busting prescription drug subsidy bill.

Bush has also signed into law a campaign finance reform bill that most conservatives view as blatantly unconstitutional, endorsed an education bill written by Ted Kennedy and initiated more trade protectionism by any president since Nixon. But against these, Bush continually plays his trump card: the war against terrorism. And just as Nixon played the anticommunist card in terms of the Vietnam War, it has been enough to keep most Republican voters under control -- so far.
Bartlett continues:

[I] think Bush is a "lock" for re-election, regardless of whom the Democrats nominate. Yale economist Ray Fair predicts he will get 56.7 percent of the vote based on economic data already in hand. If the economy does better than expected, his vote total will only rise.

But conservatives still need to ask themselves: to what end? Do we want another Taft or Nixon, who imposed liberal policies no Democratic president could achieve as the price for keeping a Republican in the White House? It is a question worth asking.
What we really need to ask is, "to what end the conservatives?" Republicans control the Congress and the Executive. Yet what should be a crowning achievement leaves one feeling under-whelmed.

Conservatives stand for tradition and tradition can mean literally anything. In the primary, President Bush ran on Christian “compassion” and there is nothing in the conservative lexicon that would see that as dangerous. Bush got through in the first place because the conservatives could offer no alternative. Only now do some conservatives scratch their heads.

I produce a rational advocacy of individual rights. I wonder, as I contemplate my career and its future, just what steps it will take to impact thinking in America for the better.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: Another End-run 

:: Posted by Skip at 11:29 AM

The FTC doesn't like the fact Congress raised the threshold for reporting mergers a few years ago. This means that unless a proposed merger is worth a certain dollar-value, the FTC is not entitled to receive a Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) filing in advance of the merger's consummation. As a result, the FTC under Tim Muris has moved to undo a number of HSR-exempt mergers after the fact. Today the Commission filed a complaint to do just that in the case of a software company:
Alleging that Aspen Technology, Inc’s (AspenTech) $106.1 million acquisition of Hyprotech, Ltd. (Hyprotech) in 2002 was anticompetitive and led to the elimination of a significant competitor in the provision of process engineering simulation software for industry, the Federal Trade Commission today authorized its staff to file an administrative complaint challenging the transaction, which was exempt from the reporting obligations of the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Premerger Notification Act.

“AspenTech’s purchase of Hyprotech directly led to the combination of two of the three largest firms in the development and sale of certain process engineering simulation software,” said Susan Creighton, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Although the fact that a merger has been consummated increases the complexity of the Commission’s decision to seek relief, that hurdle is not sufficient for the agency to forgo a challenge to a transaction that is likely to lead to anticompetitive effects.”
It's no accident that Susan Creighton, who took over the Bureau of Competition on Monday, is behind this prosecution. Before joining the FTC in 2001, Creighton was a top lawyer for Netscape in their antitrust puruit of Microsoft. She was a principal author of the antitrust theory used to unjustly convict Microsoft of "illegal monoplization" in the web browser market. Also not surprisingly, her appointment as Bureau director was welcomed by antitrust advocates in the technology industry:
Tech lobbyists welcomed Creighton's appointment, saying her depth of knowledge about the industry is a good sign for enforcement of fair competition in the industry.

"She's a very smart, very savvy player,'' said Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black.

She is one of the few people who was able to combine her understanding of technology, antitrust law, and the economics of the industry to articulate the competitive problems associated with Microsoft, Black said.
CCIA, the group Black heads, is one of the two industry groups pursuing an appeal of the federal antitrust settlement with Microsoft. No doubt CCIA will enjoy special access to Creighton as she assumes her new role of deciding how the tech industry should be governed.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: Clear Channel Cleared 

:: Posted by Skip at 11:18 AM

The Justice Department should take note that merely yelling "antitrust" in the direction of Clear Channel won't make judges cower in terror:
Clear Channel Communications Inc. said a district court Wednesday denied a motion by Spanish Broadcasting System Inc. for reconsideration of an antitrust lawsuit filed against Clear Channel and Hispanic Broadcasting Corp.

According to Clear Channel's quarterly report filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the court's ruling concludes the case in the district court.

Spanish Broadcasting filed a lawsuit against the company and Hispanic Broadcasting in June 2002 alleging that Clear Channel was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Miami-based Spanish Broadcasting also made various other claims such as unfair trade practices and defamation.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, was dismissed on Jan. 31.

On Feb. 14, Spanish Broadcasting filed a motion for reconsideration of the court's order.
Meanwhile, the FCC continues to delay approval of the Clear Channel-Hispanic Broadcasting deal. No doubt FCC chairman Powell is looking for some way to appease Clear Channel's opponents—a coalition of Democrats and Telemundo-owner NBC—before ending his agency's antitrust review, which has now taken more than six months.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: The future of gay marriage 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:44 AM

Consider this gem from conservative writer Maggie Gallagher:

America is disfigured by high rates of sexual disorders, including unnecessary divorce, unmarried childbearing, sexually transmitted diseases, a pornographic culture, and the progressive normalization of alternative sexual lifestyles, along with the sudden real threat that courts will impose gay marriage. A Vatican statement simply repeating a 2,000-year-old ethical tradition about marriage and sex has prompted a flurry of threats, overt and implicit, around what we used to call the Free World.
Impose gay marriage? I just love how conservatives think that by recognizing gay relationships before the law the whole world will come to an end. Gallagher calls gay marrage a threat, but just who does it threaten? It would seem to me the only people gay marriage is a problem for are those who detest that our sexual capacity can be used for our own gratification. And that, of course would be Maggie Gallagher.

The present may look bleak, but the future belongs to those people and cultures that deeply commit to ideas grounded in human nature: Men and women are not interchangeable units, sex has a meaning beyond immediate pleasure, society needs babies, children need mothers and fathers, marriage is a word for the way we join men and women to make the future happen.
Yet the desire for the recognition of gay marriage speaks to long term—the long term relationship and happiness of consenting adults. So much for individual rights—as long as gays don’t procreate, in Gallagher’s eyes, they are less that full humans. I wonder how Gallagher feels about those who can’t have children, or chose not to get married. Hell, I wonder how she feels about priests and nuns, who renounce their sexual capacity outright.

Human beings are free to adopt self-destructive ideas, but we are not free to make them work. Ideas based on a faulty view of human nature can grip the imagination of the powerful for decades, wreak havoc and suffering on untold millions, but they cannot triumph in the end. What is contrary to nature, including human nature, cannot ultimately survive.
I agree. It's too bad Gallagher doesn’t see that it's her own views that are destructive and don’t work.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 ::

The Agencies: Free Internet Access 

:: Posted by Skip at 8:39 PM

FCC Chairman Michael Powell is a "service-first" kind of regulator:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced today that it would provide free wireless Internet access to visitors at its Washington, D.C. office.

“When you come to the FCC, leave the cords at home,” said FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell. “We’re embracing the power of WiFi and the freedom and convenience of wireless Internet access it gives to consumers.”

Last year, Powell directed his staff to take the steps needed to make the FCC one of the first federal agencies to provide public WiFi access. Visitors bringing their own hardware and software can use the service on the Twelfth Street, Courtyard, and Eighth Floor levels of the headquarters located at 445 12th Street, SW in Washington, D.C.
No word yet on whether the FCC will open a coffee bar...

:: help support this website | link |



 

The Courts: Where's Your Amicus Now?  

:: Posted by Skip at 8:26 PM

Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner, the nation's self-appointed chief intellectual, issued an in-chambers opinion today denying leave for various parties to file amicus briefs in a case pending before his court. Certainly it's within Judge Posner's discretion to deny leave, but the good judge couldn't let things slide without lecturing the movants:
In my experience in two decades as an appellate judge, however, it is very rare for an amicus curiae brief to do more than repeat in somewhat different language the arguments in the brief of the party whom the amicus is supporting. Those who pay lawyers to prepare such briefs are not getting their money's worth.
Funny, I always thought those who pay to read Posner's books aren't getting their money's worth.

:: help support this website | link |



 

The Law: The OYEZ Project 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 5:40 PM

The AP reports on the OYEZ Project, a multimedia database with abstracts of key constitutional cases and digital audio of oral arguments before the US Supreme Court.

Getting audio recordings of landmark legal arguments is becoming as easy as downloading the latest Snoop Dogg single.
For the first time, Internet users can download, edit and swap many of the U.S. Supreme Court's greatest hits.

Oral arguments available include those for the Roe v. Wade abortion-rights case and the disputed 2000 presidential election.

The audio files come from the OYEZ Project, a multimedia archive that gets its name from the synonymous phrase "Hear ye, Hear ye."

"There's so much more information and emotion in the human voice that a transcript can't do it justice," said Jerry Goldman, the project's director and a professor at Northwestern University.

Goldman said the bitterness in Justice Thurgood Marshall's voice is apparent when he explains his views in Regents v. Bakke, a 1978 affirmative action case. And the silence is deadening in Roe v. Wade when Jay Floyd, representing Texas, makes a joke but no one laughs.

Since 1994, the OYEZ Project, run out of Northwestern, has made audio of the cases available in a "streaming" format that requires a continuous Internet connection. Available were some 2,000 hours of audio dating to 1955, when taping of oral arguments began.

The project is converting the files to the MP3 format, which permits offline listening, use of portable devices and sharing through the same peer-to-peer networks used to swap music and movies. The first batch of MP3 files was released in late June.

Goldman said he ultimately wants to make available in MP3 every bit of Supreme Court recordings, about 6,000 hours in all. He also wants them easily searchable.
Hehe. Sounds interesting. I'm sure Skip has already listened to it all. . .

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: EU Alleges Microsoft Abuses 'Ongoing'  

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:24 PM

The AP Reports about Microsoft's EU antitrust woes:

Backed by new evidence, the European Union on Wednesday accused Microsoft Corp. of trying to monopolize markets for server software and audiovisual players and gave the U.S. giant a last chance to defend itself before demanding changes in its Windows operating system.

The EU's executive Commission, which has been investigating Microsoft for four years, said recently collected information from businesses across Europe and the United States confirmed that abuses were "still ongoing."

Specifically, it charges Microsoft with unfairly leveraging the "overwhelmingly dominant position" Windows has in personal computers into the market for servers, which tie those desktop computers together.

It also alleges that Microsoft's inclusion of Windows Media Player in the Windows operating system hurts competing audiovisual software such as Apple QuickTime and Real Networks.

"In light of this evidence, the Commission's preliminary conclusion is that Microsoft's abuses are still ongoing," it said in a statement.

EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said the charge sheet sent to Microsoft also identifies "appropriate remedies," including additional code Microsoft would have to disclose to competitors in the low-end server market to ensure interoperability.

It also would have to either offer a version of Windows without the Media Player, or agree to carry rival players with Windows.
You know what's interesting about the EU's antitrust prosecution of Microsoft: unlike in the US, I have not seen any grassroots support of Microsoft in the EU. No petitions like we had. No protests. Just silence.

What's up with that? Where are the European Objectivists?

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 ::

Antitrust News: Feds Eye Top Modeling Agencies Conspiracy 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 1:13 PM

Peter Kaplan of Reuters reports that the DOJ is joining the investigation of fashion modeling agencies for allegedly charging inflated commissions and expenses.
Lawyers with the Justice Department antitrust division have conducted interviews in connection with antitrust complaints leveled in a civil class action lawsuit against the agencies, the sources said.

A spokeswoman for the department declined to comment on the case or whether department was investigating.

Last month a federal judge granted class action status to a complaint against several modeling agencies, including Elite Model Management and Ford Models Inc.

The class is expected to be made up of thousands of models. The judge appointed the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner as lead counsel.

Elite and Ford are both top modeling agencies. Elite models include actress Lara Flynn Boyle as well as Lauren Bush, niece of President Bush. Ford represents supermodels like Christie Brinkley, Jerry Hall, Frederique, and Rachel Hunter.

The suit, filed in Manhattan federal court, alleges the agencies fixed models' commission rates at 20 percent, twice the 10 percent allowed by state law for employment agencies. The models alleged that the defendants conspired to evade state pricing regulations by calling themselves model management companies.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs say price-fixing in the industry stretches back to the 1970s. They contend the agencies used a trade association called the International Model Management Association as a clearinghouse to discuss rates and other competitive terms.
What a grand scheme. The modeling agencies are being sued under antitrust because they did not follow a state price fixing law. Then, they are being hammered for an alleged conspiracy 30 years old.

It will be interesting to see how the modeling agencies choose to defend themselves, if at all. I suspect that these agencies are home to capitalism-like money, but are devoid of capitalism-like principles.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Monday, August 04, 2003 ::

Letters, Letters, Letters 

:: Posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 12:31 PM

This e-mail came in the the other day from Richard Smith:

I am completely for capitalism and individual rights. However, my complaints are with consumerism in America. I see so many overweight, greedy Americans. So many of them risk their lives to be two yards ahead of someone else while driving in an oversized unnecessarily large S.U.V. . I can see the difference between excessive consumerism and capitalism, but is one not an inevitability of the other. I'm just completely disenchanted with American excess. Maybe I have a point maybe you will not even read this email. However If you do then I would like some sort of feed back of any kind about contemporary society, consumerism, and capitalism.
Mr. Smith says that he's for capitalism, but that he opposes consumerism. Let's define our terms. In his letter, Mr. Smith sees that capitalism is connected to individual rights. Capitalism is the principles of the Declaration of Independence applied to our social and economic relationships. That, Mr. Smith says, he supports.

At the same time, Mr. Smith says he opposes consumerism, which I’ll define as preoccupation with and an inclination toward the buying of consumer goods. Mr. Smith sites two examples, the SUV, and the trend toward obesity, as symbols of American excess.

Let’s deal with overweight Americans first. For most of human existence, food was a hard-won commodity. Biologically, the only way humans could survive was through the ability to store energy as fat and live off those fat stores in times of deprivation. Now, as a result of political freedom and mankind’s productive genius, much of the world enjoys an abundance of food. For many of us, over-indulging in this abundance runs counter to our biological programming. I, for one, can say that it is very easy for me to put on weight. Thankfully, I finally have learned that it’s pretty easy to take it off. I lift weights to put on muscle and I have lost 40 lbs in since April. I wish I could tell you that it was hard, but it wasn’t—it just required some time, and it will require a little more time to reach my ultimate goal.

Was I living a life of avarice before I dedicated myself to getting in shape? I don’t think so. I certainly wasn’t happy being overweight, but I wasn’t making the intelligent choices given my biological programming and desires. Once I figured out what I needed to do, I just did it.

It’s solving the problem opposite of food abundance that ought to concern us. The world that starves today starves because it lives in war, tyranny, and oppression. I’d rather wrangle with my waste line under capitalism then wrangle with war and tyranny any day.

As far as the SUV goes, John Bragg deals with that topic in fine fashion here. I can add that I recently was with a friend as they bought one of BMW’s latest. Why shouldn’t they put themselves in a vehicle that is built to fit their body like a glove and transport them in comfort and safety if they can afford it? As John observes in his essay, “the SUV is an example of people using the best technology available to enhance their lives.” Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, this time expressed in a car and an open road. And to that, this capitalist says, “Amen.”

Mr. Smith’s ultimate question is whether capitalism inevitability leads to avarice. The answer is of course, no. Abundance is not a threat; it is the fruit of hard work and intelligence. If Mr. Smith still questions capitalism, I would urge him to ask himself if he really understands capitalism’s moral basis.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Sunday, August 03, 2003 ::

Antitrust News: Oracle Expansion 

:: Posted by Skip at 1:52 PM

The antitrust battle over Oracle-PeopleSoft welcomes some more players to the field:
PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Attorneys general from about 30 U.S. states are cooperating in federal antitrust enforcers' review of Oracle Corp.'s ORCL.O $7.3 billion hostile bid for PeopleSoft Inc. PSFT.O, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

"This is purely procedural and a matter of course," Oracle spokeswoman Jennifer Glass told Reuters on Friday.

Glass said all of the information Oracle provides for the Department of Justice's antitrust review is also available to the state attorneys general, who are also invited to attend the company's ongoing meetings with regulators.

The attorneys general, including those from New York, Texas and California, have already spent more than a month reviewing the deal. They have agreed to share information and costs associated with their investigations, and to divide up tasks related to the probe, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
One attorney general not part of this group is Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal, who already filed suit to block the potential merger on antitrust grounds. The group-of-about-30, however, may or may not take action at some later date. My guess is the AGs will defer to the Justice Department, which almost certainly will take action for political reasons.

The interest of the state AGs can be attributed to the importance of database software to state governments. Most states are customers of Oracle or PeopleSoft, and thus the AGs are likely most interested in protecting their own financial butts. Nothing wrong with that per se, but that still doesn't excuse contemplating the use of force to prevent a possible merger between two private businesses.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights & Reason: Defining Corporate Liability 

:: Posted by Skip at 1:47 PM

MCI faces a bumpy road, to its planned emergence from bankruptcy court, due to continued attacks by the company's competitors. Leading the charge are AT&T and Verizon--whose general counsel is a former U.S. attorney general--who seek to have MCI liquidated rather than reorganized. Among the reasons cited are allegations that MCI illegally routed long-distance calls to shift its costs from MCI (then WorldCom) to rivals like AT&T and Verizon. Because calls often cross networks owned by different providers, there is a complex system in place to determine which firm is responsible for the charges. MCI allegedly manipulated the system by, among other things, routing U.S. calls through Canada, thus leaving Verizon and AT&T to pick up the tab when the calls re-entered this country.

There is, of course, something unseemly about AT&T and Verizon asking the government to forcibly liquidate MCI rather than proceed with the reorganization approved by MCI's creditors. A liquidation would almost certainly result in some MCI assets and business being acquired by AT&T and Verizon (unless antitrust regulators stick their thumbs in the dyke, which they almost certainly would). Thus, while I respect the two telecom giants' selfish motivations, a federal bankruptcy judge must consider other factors in deciding MCI's eventual fate.

In the early aftermath of the various corporate scandals, I found myself vigorously opposed to the Justice Department's criminal prosecution of the Arthur Andersen firm, which resulted in a conviction that effectively shut down the company. In my view, a company can never be criminally liable. This is not a statement of blind pro-business arrogance, but of simple reason. A criminal act requires intent, and a corporation--an artificial person--cannot form or act upon intent. Individuals within a corporation, however, can form such intent, and thus only the specific individuals involved for a criminal act should be held liable.

Civil liability is obviously a different matter. One can commit a civil tort without specific intent. More importantly, civil actions arise from contractual obligations, and such duties are at the heart of a corporation's existence. A corporation itself is nothing more than an agreement among individuals to work together for a specific purpose (such as the pursuit of profit). Within the framework of this agreement, the group as a whole assumes certain risks and liabilities, including potential damages for civil wrongs committed. This can be the case even where individuals within a company act outside the bounds of their fiduciary duty to other members of the company.

Now in the case of MCI, we're faced with determining the proper role of the bankruptcy court. Verizon and AT&T seek liquidation because, among other reasons, they believe allowing MCI to emerge from bankruptcy largely intact will give it an unfair competitive advantage--why should MCI, after all, be allowed to shed its debt while remaining a viable competitor? This is a valid point, and the court should give it some weight. But the principal job of a bankruptcy court is not to protect the "competitiveness" of a marketplace; it is to protect the interests of MCI's creditors, whose property rights are directly at stake. If the creditors believe their interests are better served by reorganization than liquidation, the court should give that far greater weight than the objections of MCI's competitors.

Unfortunately, one of the consequences of modern legal theory is that private contractual rights--such as the creditors' interests in MCI--are often rendered subservient to invented legal interests, such as "promoting competition" and "protecting the public interest," and other wonderful socialist euphemisms. Bankruptcy, however, has generally remained above this fray, and hopefully the judge supervising MCI's case will do so as well. And remember, there is nothing preventing AT&T and Verizon from filing suit against MCI if they believe they are victims of the latter's fraud. Such is the wonder of a civil court system.

:: help support this website | link |



 

The Culture: Inflationary Politics 

:: Posted by Skip at 1:21 PM

When all is said and done, I suspect the campaign to recall California Gov. Gray Davis will have been a waste of time and money. It's not that the case has not been made for booting Davis to the curb, but the entire recall process reveals the true source of California's political problems, and it's not the incumbent governor.

Davis may be the purest form of bottomfeeder to ever win a major political office in the United States. The governor's long political career is noteworthy for its absence of ideological principle and the near-total reliance on personality politics--i.e. negative attacks--to win and hold office. In a perverted way, you have to almost respect Davis' ability to win five statewide elections in a large, diverse state like California, a place one would figure would have awakended long before now to repudiate a political cockroach like Davis.

The larger trend seen in Davis' career and looming recall is what I call "inflationary politics." Like most Objectivists and libertarians, I favor a gold standard in monetary policy. The principle is simple: gold provides an objective control to determine the value of money, thus securing the money supply itself from political manipulation. In America today, of course, we no longer have the gold standard but fiat currency, where the Federal Reserve decides the size of the money supply and the subjective value of the dollar.

In politics, there is a "gold standard" as well: ideology. Ideas are the objective currency of politics. Ideas can be objectively assessed using reason and the branches of philosophy (epistemology, metaphysics, etc.) An idea can ultimately be proved true or false. A political system that is based on ideas can thus flourish even in the face of bad ideas, for they can be disproven and considered by the electorate for what they are.

Modern politics, such as that personified by Gov. Davis, is not idea-based, but personality-based. The currency of personality-based politics is the personal attack, such as calling your opponent a "right-wing extremist." Unlike objective ideas, personality attacks cannot be rationally proven or disproven, since they are inherently arbitrary assertions. How does one disprove that he's an "extremist"? By renouncing his views, of course, and subjecting his judgment to that of the mob. This is precisely the point: win the argument without having to weather fact-based inquiry or debate.

Like fiat currency, personality attacks can be manufactured at will, and their supply can be expanded in times of great need, such as elections. Ideas, on the other hand, require a substantial intellectual investment that politicians--and many voters--disdain as too abstract or complex.

The result of this is inflationary politics: an artificially expanded supply of political personalities without a corresponding increase in ideas. This is not something that one can solely lay at the feet of politicians like Gray Davis--he's only a skilled beneficiary. Ultimately, it is the voters who must look in the mirror and accept their own responsibility for today's political culture.

Of course, that's not something you're likely to hear from Gray Davis or any of the other potential candidates for his job. One key to personality-based politics is blame assessment. If there is a problem, if people are unhappy, then someone must be at fault--someone other than the person himself, that is. Government leaders have perfected the art of using others--largely private businesses--as scapegoats for the misconduct of public officials. For example, Davis will spend much of his recall campaign blaming Republicans, energy companies, and "special interest" groups for his failures as governor.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Almost all politicians, especially regulatory agencies, assign blame as a substitute for intellectual inquiry. Here at CAC, we see that constantly from antitrust regulators, who blame private businesses when "consumers" are made to suffer such indignities as a possible 40-cent increase in the cost of ice cream.

:: help support this website | link |



 

:: Friday, August 01, 2003 ::

Rights and Reason: The Vatican Opts for Orphanages over Gay Parents 

:: Posted by John Bragg at 3:39 PM

I start with what I presume is a point of agreement with the Cathoic Church. The ideal situation for a child is to live with a loving birth mother and a loving birth father in a stable marriage. However, the question of adoption exists because this is sometimes not feasible. Ideally, every child put up for adoption would be adopted by a loving, married heterosexual couple with the means to take care of the child. Since there is a shortage of such couples willing to adopt, that is not feasible, and very broadly any loving, responsible, permanent parent or couple is an improvement over the uncertain state of foster care and orphanages.

"As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood."


So, by the decree of the Vatican, we should deny them both fathers and mothers. How compassionate.

"Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children..."


It is staggering that the Vatican chooses to describe an orphan child being adopted by a gay couple as "doing violence to these children," given the American Church's decades-long record of leniency with pedophiles. Suffice to say that on the issue of the treatment of children, the Church lacks credibility.

"...doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development."


Whereas, apparently, orphanages and foster care are entirely conducive to their full human development.

By the way, "Experience has shown..."? There is a body of experience of children adopted by or raised by gay couples? If not, the entire passage is rendered to be, as the British say, bollocks. Reason might indicate, logic might dictate, but to the best of my knowledge there haven't been a whole lot of gay couples raising children in the past couple of millenia to provide a body of data to support a paragraph which begins "Experience has shown..."

What experience (thousands of years of recorded history) does indicate is that lifelong celibacy is an unnatural and deviant lifestyle. ("...a man shall leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and they will become one flesh." Gen 2:24) Logically, the rejection of sexuality would tend to attract those whose sexuality for whatever reason is not healthy and who feel a need to escape from it. Great care should be taken when entrusting children to the care of such persons, as the code of celibacy collapses the distinction between healthy and deviant sexual behavior, both classified as regrettable human failings.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Sports: Clarret's Claim 

:: Posted by Skip at 2:15 PM

My colleague Eric McErlain believes Ohio State running back Mauric Clarett should abandon college and seek his riches in the NFL. Fine by me. The only problem is that Clarett can't enter the NFL draft for another year. Under current policy, a player doesn't become eligible for the draft—and thus entry into the NFL—until he's been out of high school for two years, and Clarett's only been out for one. McErlain states this shouldn't be a problem, however:
Were I in [Clarett's] shoes, knowing that my athletic talent might be lost forever on my next carry up the gut, I might seriously consider leaving Columbus early and challenging the NFL policy on drafting underclassmen (a situation where he would prevail in court, and quite easily, just like Spencer Haywood in the NBA).
I can find no authority to support McErlain's conclusion that Clarett would prevail in court. The Haywood case does not have the weight McErlain thinks it does. Indeed, Haywood's situation was not exactly like Clarret's.

Spencer Haywood graduated from high school in 1968, and following graduation he played for the U.S. Olympic team and enrolled at the University of Detroit. After his freshman year, Haywood signed a contract with the Denver Nuggets, then in the ABA, and quickly became a star, leading the league in scoring his rookie year and winning the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards.

In 1970, Haywood tried to renegotiate his contract with Denver, and things turned ugly. For a variety of reasons I won't go into here, Haywood repudiated his new contract with Denver in August 1970, charging the team with fraud. In December of that year, Haywood signed a contract with the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics. Both Seattle and Haywood realized their contract would violate the NBA's bylaws, which require a player to be out of high school four years before becoming draft eligible. A U.S. district court in California issued an injunction permitting Haywood to play while he challenged the legality of the NBA's bylaw under the Sherman Act.

The Supreme Court's role in this matter was extremely limited. The Ninth Circuit had stayed the district court's injunction permitting Haywood to play, and Justice William O. Douglas, as the supervising justice for the Ninth Circuit, was asked to rule on a petition to reinstate the district court's order. Douglas did so, issuing a brief opinion which represented the Supreme Court's sole involvement in the matter. Douglas' opinion in substantive part held (1) the NBA, unlike Major League Baseball, was not generally exempt from the antitrust laws and (2) Haywood would suffer a far greater economic injury than the NBA if the district court's injunction was not granted pending the outcome of the underlying litigation.

The district court eventually invalidated the NBA bylaw prohibiting players like Haywood from entering the league. The judge considered the NBA's actions a "group boycott" plainly forbidden by the Sherman Act. How, then, is this different from Maurice Clarett's hyopthetical case? The main reason is that the Haywood case dealt with a rule adopted unilaterally by the league. The NFL's current policy, in contrast, reflects the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the NFL and its players association. As a general principle, policies arising from labor agreements are immune from antitrust review, even if such policies would be plainly illegal under the antitrust laws outside the collective bargaining context.

Now, I've reviewed the NFL's CBA, and there is no express language defining draft eligibility, only several clauses that refer to it. But if the NFL Players Association felt the current "two years out of high school" policy violated the CBA, they have numerous channels to redress the situation. But under existing law, as best I can tell, it is the NFLPA's right alone to challenge the policies under the CBA. A third-party like Clarett cannot challenge valid provisions of the CBA under antitrust laws.

This is a principle well established in existing case law for sports leagues. In 1987, for example, the Second Circuit turned back an antitrust challenge to the NBA's CBA by Leon Wood. Wood was drafted in 1984 by the Philadelphia 76ers, who were then over the salary cap. As a result, the 76ers offered Wood a contract far below what he thought his value to be. Wood then sued to have the draft system and other parts of the CBA declared illegal under the Sherman Act. Both the district court and the Second Circuit rejected this claim. Circuit Judge Ralph Winter, writing for the Second Circuit, explained the defects in Wood's complaint:
Although the combination of the college draft and salary cap may seem unique in collective bargaining (as are the team salary floor and 53 percent revenue sharing agreement), the uniqueness is strictly a matter of appearance. The nature of professional sports as a business and professional sports teams as employers calls for contractual arrangements suited to the unusual commercial context. However, these arrangements result from the same federally mandated processes as do collective agreements in the more familiar industrial context. Moreover, examination of the particular arrangements arrived at by the NBA and NBPA discloses that they have functionally identical, and identically anticompetitive, counterparts that are routinely included in industrial collective agreements.

Among the fundamental principles of federal labor policy is the legal rule that employees may eliminate competition among themselves through a governmentally supervised majority vote selecting an exclusive bargaining representative. Section 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act explicitly provides that "representatives . . . selected . . . by the majority of the employees in a unit . . . shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining." 29 U.S.C. § 159(a). Federal labor policy thus allows employees to seek the best deal for the greatest number by the exercise of collective rather than individual bargaining power. Once an exclusive representative has been selected, the individual employee is forbidden by federal law from negotiating directly with the employer absent the representative's consent, NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 388 U.S. 175, 180, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1123, 87 S. Ct. 2001 (1967), even though that employee may actually receive less compensation under the collective bargain than he or she would through individual negotiations. J.I. Case Co. v. NLRB, 321 U.S. 332, 338-39, 88 L. Ed. 762, 64 S. Ct. 576 (1944).

The gravamen of Wood's complaint, namely that the NBA-NBPA collective agreement is illegal because it prevents him from achieving his full free market value, is therefore at odds with, and destructive of, federal labor policy. It is true that the diversity of talent and specialization among professional athletes and the widespread exposure and discussions of their "work" in the media make the differences in value among them as "workers" more visible than the differences in efficiency and in value among industrial workers. High public visibility, however, is no reason to ignore federal legislation that explicitly prevents employees, whether in or out of a bargaining unit, from seeking a better deal where the deal is inconsistent with the terms of a collective agreement.
Now, not everything in a CBA would be exempt from outside legal review. For instance, if the NFL's CBA contained a provision preventing white people from becoming draft eligible, the courts would strike down such a provision as inconsistent with federal civil rights law. There is, however, no such public policy protecting against minimum age discrimination. There are laws preventing maximum age discrimination—you can't generally hire or fire an employee because of age if he's over 40—but that's inapplicable here.

None of this should be read to preclude the possibility Clarett could sustain an antitrust claim against the current NFL rule. But McErlain erred in asserting that it was a foregone conclusion that such a claim would succeed. All of the current evidence weighs decisively against challenging the NFL policy so long as it remains within the CBA's zone of influence.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: Orbitz Cleared 

:: Posted by Skip at 1:10 PM

A second federal antitrust investigation into Orbitz, the online travel company co-owned by five U.S. airlines, found no evidence of "anticompetitive conduct":
R. Hewitt Pate, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department's Antitrust Division, issued the following statement today after the Department announced the closing of the Orbitz joint venture investigation:

"After an extensive investigation of the available facts, the Antitrust Division concluded that the Orbitz joint venture has not reduced competition or harmed airline consumers. This thorough review involved interviewing numerous interested parties, reviewing many documents that were produced by Orbitz as well as by third parties, engaging in extensive empirical analyses of airline booking data, and examining the analyses suggested by third parties.

"The Division considered several theories of harm none of which was ultimately borne out by the information collected by the Antitrust Division. These concerns included whether certain Orbitz contract terms would facilitate coordination among the participating airlines or reduce their incentives to discount resulting in higher fares and whether those contract terms would make the Orbitz joint venture dominant in online air travel distribution. The Division found that those terms did not result in higher fares or make Orbitz dominant in online air travel distribution."
Orbitz was previously investigated by the Transportation Department's inspector general, who also found no "consumer harm" resulted from the formation and operation of the joint venture. And the pesants rejoice!

:: help support this website | link |



 

Antitrust News: FTC Ups the Ante 

:: Posted by Skip at 1:05 PM

Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission issued a "policy statement" on the possible future use of "monetary remedies" in antitrust cases. In most antitrust cases, you see, the FTC generally seeks injunctive remedies, i.e. orders not to engage in a particular business practice. Monetary remedies, in contrast, seek to directly seize property from offending businesses, either in the form of "restitution" to alleged victims or by "disgorgement," where the government takes all profits allegedly earned from anticompetitive activities.

Viewed alone, the Commission's policy statement amounts to nothing more than a restatement of existing theories on potential uses for monetary remedies. Placed in context, however, it seems to me that the FTC is sending a message to certain businesses—like Brown & Toland Medical Group—that there will be a price to pay for challenging the FTC's authority and not settling right away. Monetary remedies, after all, are of little benefit in settlement cases, the majority of the FTC's docket, because most businesses would fight rather than see all of their profits "disgorged." Thus in conparison, settling for injunctive relief meets the FTC's need to regulate while leaving the majority of businesses intact.

Every business that asserts its rights however acts in defiance of the FTC's mission to regulate the economy without question. In these cases, restitution and disgorgement are powerful weapons to hold over businesses—a nuclear option, if you will.

:: help support this website | link |



 

Rights and Reason: Vatican Condemns Gay Marriage Proposals, Not Gays--Why? 

:: Posted by John Bragg at 12:42 PM


From the Vatican via New York Times:



In its recent Vatican statement, the Roman Catholic Church says that gays "must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity." "They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity." This is not, as some have suggested, an expression of hostility towards gays. This is the Church's ideal for all of us, not a special punishment for gays. The church calls upon all people to come to Christ, and upon all Christians to live the virtue of chastity, in other words to live as sexless a life as possible.

Once again, the Catholic Church makes clear that it sees sex not as a celebration of love between two people, a celebration of humanity, but as a human failing to be regretted and to be avoided and censured where possible. The Catholic Church sees sex as a sin, justified only by its effects in propagating the human species. The Church, accordingly, condemns contraception, masturbation, and heterosexual sodomy as well as homosexual sodomy, while denying marriage and therefore any sexual satisfaction to its most devoted followers, the men and women of the clergy.

This fundamental mistake informs every statement and every action by the Church concerning sexuality. The ill effects of the "virtue of chastity" doctrine are seen more clearly the higher one goes in the Church heirarchy. The parish priest who interacts regularly with married couples at least has years of firsthand observations of how healthy sexual and romantic relationships between loving, married couples operate. The bishops, however, interact mainly with other priests, and the cardinals interact largely with other bishops. The sobering fact is that no one in the entire College of Cardinals has any personal understanding of what it is like to love and be loved in a healthy relationship with another person.

Looked at from this perspective, is it more understandable why the Catholic Church in America regarded pedophile priests as good men who strayed from the path, and tried to silence their accusers, rather than as predators who would molest and rape again? Since the Church sees sexuality itself as suspect, is it any wonder they could not distinguish between sex in a loving relationship and molesting an altar boy, treating both as regrettable but forgivable human failings?

:: help support this website | link |



 

 

» Recent Posts

» The Saga of Ted Haggard's Anti-Gay Bigotry
» The Scientist and the Preacher: Disintegration v. Misintegration
» The Objectivist Election Controversy (and Its Causes)
» Founders votes with its feet
» A Great Divide
» Please take our totally unscientific poll
» Which is worse?
» Hope for a 'Do-Nothing' Congress
» The Atlas Shrugged movie challenge
» Objectivists and Politics

» RSS Feed

» Archives


» Capitalist Book Club
Purchase the essential texts on capitalism.


» Feedback
Send us a comment or ask a question—we want to hear from you!


» Contribute
The Center's advocacy programs are not free—we depend on you to support our efforts. Please donate today.


Blogs We Love:
» Acid Free Paper
» Alexander Marriot
» American Renaissance
» Andrew Sullivan
» ARI MediaLink
» Armchair Intellectual
» Bahr's House of Exuberance
» Best of the Web Today
» Conspiracy to Keep You Poor & Stupid
» Charlotte Capitalist
» Cox & Forkum
» Daily Dose of Reason
» Dithyramb
» Dollars & Crosses
» Ego
» Ellen Kenner
»
EnviroSpin Watch
» GMU Objectivists
» Gus Van Horn
» Harry Binswanger List
»
How Appealing
» Illustrated Ideas
» Intel Dump
» Instapundit
» Liberty and Culture
» Literatrix
» Little Green Footballs
» Michelle Malkin
»
Mike's Eyes
» NoodleFood
» Oak Tree
» Objectivism Online
» Outside the Beltway
» Overlawyered
» Political State Report
» Quent Cordair's Studio
» Randex
» Reclaim Your Brain
» Sandstead.com
» SCOTUSBlog
» Scrappleface
» Separation of State and Superstition 
» Southwest Virginia Law Blog
» The Dougout
» The Ivory Tower
» The Objective Standard
»
The Primacy of Awesome
» The Secular Foxhole
» The Simplest Thing
» The Truth Laid Bear
»
Thrutch
» Truck and Barter
» Truth, Justice and the American Way
» Washington Re-Post
» Witch Doctor Repellent
» Words by Woods
 

» Link Policy

 


SPONSORED LINKS


 

Copyright © 1998-2006 The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism. All Rights Reserved.
Email: 
info-at-capitalismcenter.org · Feedback · Terms of Use · Privacy Policy · Webmaster