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Schwartz made some salient points but he was so apoplectic over the rise of the religious right I had to turn him off at points. Equating the power of the religious right with the rabid left was moral equivalence and just plain wrong. They have not taken over the Republican party the way the far left has hijacked the Democratic party platform. Schwartz was a raving atheist, unforgiving of religion.

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I was forced to leave before the end of the debate, as I had to come back for a staff meeting, but all in all, I think it was very informative. As I was leaving, people were STILL in line, waiting to get through the metal detector. Barring some outrageous event occurring in the last bit of the program, I think the only bit of "news" there tonight was that if you complain loud enough, and people are scared enough, you can get what you want. And that's sad.

Or at least this guy thought so.

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As an investor, I regularly receive complex legal notices petitioning me to join a class action lawsuit against some company. I trash them. Shorn of the typical incomprehensible legalese, this is the first notice I've ever seen that I can comprehend. It's in English. And all I have to do is collect my loot.

The heading reads, "Consumers and Businessmen May Claim Microsoft Settlement Benefits."

The proposed settlement arises from allegations that Microsoft violated New York antitrust and unfair competition laws. Consumers who acquired certain Microsoft products for use in New York over the past TWELVE years are eligible to collect an estimated $350 million. No proof of purchase required.

[W]e can fight this. Class Members can write to the court if they do not like the settlement. Of course, the court anticipates exactly the opposite of what we will write, as to what is fair.

One can also ask the Court for permission to speak at a "Fairness Hearing." I intend to ask.

This is an opportunity for Objectivists to affect favorably an outcome of the continued unjust persecution of Microsoft. Since there are seventeen states involved, there are many venues for us to participate. Even those living elsewhere might participate through a proxy, if you have a willing friend or relative who qualifies for an award.

Note: vouchers may be donated to a charity. If enough of us put in claims worth up to $60 and donate our vouchers to ARI, then ARI can take the accumulated vouchers--blood money, actually--up to a total of $10,000, and donate them to Microsoft--publicly.

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Kenneth Deffeyes believes the world passed a very important landmark, with very little notice, on Dec. 16, 2005.

On that day, he said, the world's residents finished off the first half of the world's oil and started in on the second. Price volatility will be the norm, and if some big changes aren't made, famine, pestilence, war and death are on the way.

Deffeyes, who presented his ideas during a talk Tuesday night at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is a Princeton University professor emeritus and author of "Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak" and "Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage."

The idea comes from the work of M. King Hubbert, who predicted in 1956 that the amount of oil produced in the United States would peak in 1970, when half of the country's oil had been recovered, then start its decline. [Stefan Milkowski, Daily News Miner]

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The European Union closed a long-standing antitrust dispute with England's Premier League on Wednesday, forcing one the of richest leagues in the world to stop selling the rights to its live soccer matches exclusively to one TV channel.

"The solution we have reached will benefit football fans while allowing the Premier League to maintain its timetable for the sale of its rights," said EU Antitrust Commissioner Neelie Kroes, after the EU executive finalized the deal between both sides.

Under the agreement, live TV rights will be sold in six balanced packages with no one bidder being allowed to buy them all.

British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC -- a pay channel owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch -- has held the exclusive rights to the richest broadcast contract in European sport for the past 13 years. The satellite broadcaster dominates Britain's pay-TV market with close to 8 million subscribers.

Kroes's office said the new commitments made until the end of the 2012-2013 season "will increase the availability of media rights, and improve the prospect of competition in providing services to consumers."

Packages will be sold to the highest standalone bidder for each package.
The agreement will allow the Premier League to prepare its bidding process for rights as of 2007. It will be monitored by a trustee named by the Commission.

"The Commission could impose a fine amounting to 10 percent of FA Premier League's total worldwide turnover if it breaks its commitments," the statement from Kroes's office said.

BSkyB's nearest rival, cable operator NTL Inc., has already said the deal does not go far enough to deliver a level playing field and said the EU head office had ignored the "pubs and clubs" market which it said needed a critical mass of at least half of all matches to be economically viable.

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Mr. Wakeland's support of Bush's "Forward Strategy of Freedom", in my understanding, is based on the fact that it means Bush has recognized two truths: that the real battle here is an ideological one, and that we have to stick with it until we win. While Bush hasn't been fantastic about finding and applying the correct strategies to realize either of these goals, he HAS been consistent in maintaining that there is an ideological battle and that we have to stick with it. In that respect, his floundering efforts deserve our support.

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Dear Mr. Sexton:

I have just now received news of your institution's surrender to the Islamic
jihadists in this country, by refusing to allow a student group, the NYU
Objectivist Club, to host a panel discussion on "Free Speech and the Danish
Cartoons." Further, your school's action appears to be in direct violation of
its own "free speech" policy.

I am the author of "Sparrowhawk," a series of novels set in England and
Virginia in the years preceding the American Revolution. That Revoltution
truly began in 1765, when courageous colonial editors broadcast Patrick
Henry's Stamp Act Resolves, passed in the Virginia General Assembly in May
of that year, and served to unite the colonies for the first time to resist
and protest Crown tyranny. In publishing those Resolves, the editors risked
prosecution, imprisonment, and even death by the Crown for treason and
blasphemous libel. They saw the truth and broadcast it, nevertheless.

One of the little known objections to Crown tyranny was the proposed
establishment of a state church in the colonies, which all American
colonists would be taxed to support, regardless of their creed or lack of
one. What you have surrendered to is something worse: a theocracy that
promises death or enslavement for not submitting to it.

Obviously, you and your administration are not of the same caliber.

I urge you to rescind the prohibition of that event and so reinstate not
only the reputation of New York University, as well as your own, but the
inviolability of the First Amendment and free minds.

Sincerely,

Edward Cline

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Dear President Sexton:

I am deeply dismayed by the New York University's decision to close a student organization’s discussion of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy to the general public and severely limit the number of students who may attend the event.

Realize what is taking place at a prestigious American intellectual institution under your watch. A university is a realm of ideas, yet the ideas examining the philosophic foundation of free speech rights as they relate to an important international controversy are being squelched in order to appease the sensitivities of those who disagree with the material being discussed. Rather than defend free speech, the university is attacking the very principles that allow it to exist and taking a position that severely curtails its ability to fulfill its mission.

One wonders what comes next. Will certain art be forbidden, because it offends the sensibilities of its critics? Will unpopular political views be taken off the table as well?

On the eve of the war in Iraq, I took part in a contentious debate over US policy with a peace studies professor at George Mason University, and there, GMU President Alan Merten personally thanked me, saying that such a debate "is the reason we have universities." Yet NYU's seeming position is to hold that the opposite as true, and that proponents of controversial ideas should check their minds at the door.

I call upon you to correct the mistakes that your university is making in falling to defend free speech rights. If not, I will simply do everything within my power to highlight your failure to act as the cowardly failure it would be.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Provenzo
Chairman
The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism

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Objectivism recognizes that the meaning of an idea is the facts it refers to in reality. A value is a fact that is understood in relation to human life. "A value," said Ayn Rand, "is that which one acts to gain and/or keep"--it is not an idea divorced from action. For example, men are free when the government protects their rights; this is what freedom means. Freedom is a value because the facts of man's nature will not allow him to live under coercion.

But this view of values contrasts utterly with the views of the neoconservative team behind Mr. Bush. They see values as ideas from a higher reality, whether religious or secular, and then applied imperfectly to this world. This is Platonism, so called after the philosopher Plato, who implanted it into western thought. "Freedom" becomes an idea from intuition, or a dictate of the almighty, that can be applied only imperfectly in the real world. This is not necessarily religious faith, but also "common sense"--stuff that all of us just know, as I was once told by a conservative atheist.

The chasm is not between their values and their actions to preserve them, but rather between their values and reality.

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I stand with [J]ohn Lewis on his point that Bush is not about advancing individual rights domestically or defending America internationally.

The effect of the war has been worse then had it not been fought at all. America is not more secure as a result of Bush's expeditionary campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan when the jihad still survives, when both nations can vote themselves into Islamic republics and when Iran--the fountainhead of Islam and America's key enemy--remains unchecked.

Objectivists who are sympathetic to Bush argue that he represents both the best and the worst in the "honest American" while his cowboy demeanor depicts the vibrant American spirit. If only. The more realistic appraisal is that that Bush's cowboy persona runs only skin-deep, while his neo-conservatism (a literal cross of both liberalism and religion) has advanced some of the worst ideas to be offered in American politics since the rise of the New Left.

Bush spent months begging the UN for permission for the US to protect its interests, only to couch that interest in sacrificial language. Bush's "Ownership Society" died stillborn for want of a moral argument. The "Forward Defense of Freedom" assumed that the liberty-hating people of the world nevertheless desire freedom and that it is for America to bring it to them. The Bush administration and the Republican congress can't even find the sauce to abolish the NEA, let alone correct any substantive spending injustice--or prevent the rise of new ones. And don't even ask me about antitrust or fundamental tax reform under Bush.

All the while, Bush has been energizing the wing of the Republican party that seeks to establish theocracy in America. The White House doesn't call an Objectivist when it has a problem--it calls an evangelical preacher. The Bush presidency is a disaster.

People animated by a revolutionary philosophy such as Objectivism ought to be highlighting these facts and explaining the principles that drive them. This debate goes far beyond the question of which political party can do a worse job--it's a question of what Objectivists have to say about the current state of the world and how we will publicly present our antidote to today's unabated orgy of irrationality and sacrifice.

[O]ver the past four years I have seen quite a few Objectivists--including many of our most talented and accomplished intellectuals--sitting on the edges of their seats, waiting for disaster. Some of them expect the evil premises of our post-Kantian culture to manifest themselves in a suicidal war policy. Some of them expect defeat to materialize at any moment on any front.

In any mixture--regardless of the degree--of good premises and bad, some expect the bad to win. "A half-battle is worse than none," Ayn Rand observed, "It does not end in mere defeat--it helps and hastens the victory of your enemies." Some misuse that maxim and conclude that any inconsistency in war policy will, therefore, lead a speedy and total defeat.

Some see the combination of the external pressure of Islam and our nation's own Christian premises and conclude that America will descend into theocracy--in five or ten or twenty years. With Olympian detachment, this unhappy band points to every setback as evidence of impending defeat.

How can any man who understands that America is an irreplaceable institution--a living repository of the best that man's mind has ever produced--how can he see defeat in the opening years of so small a fight? How can he sell his own civilization so cheaply?

To say that George Bush's efforts at national defense are worse than nothing--something I hear way too often from Objectivists--is worse than factually false. If you follow the implications of this falsehood to claim that America is losing, you are doing our enemy's work.

When American was attacked, Mr. Bush knew that the best defense was a strong offense. Which of our past presidents would have had the courage to act on that knowledge--the moral courage to kill in defense of a supreme value? No more than two of the past four presidents--Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, or Carter--would have kept fighting when 54% of the population didn't approve; when hundreds of our nation's young men were sent home in body bags.

Before rejecting Mr. Bush as inadequate to be the man responsible for the defense of our country, our way of life, and our very bodies, we should understand that his vices are the vices typical of an honest American and his virtues are the virtues typical of an honest American. Reluctant to use ideas and to think long range unless pressed by adversity, George Bush is not our intellectual equal, not fully the kind of man we want to lead us into war. But he is like most good Americans. He will never knowingly give up the battle.

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Remember ImClone? This was the company founded by physician Sam Waksal, an immunologist who worked for years to develop a treatment for cancer. His company had one product: the drug "Erbitrux" which promised to extend the lives of thousands of desperately ill people. While Erbitrux has lived up to its pledge, the government has nevertheless destroyed the life of its creator.

First a recap. In 2001, Waksal was told by a government insider that the FDA was going to reject approval for his drug. The FDA's ruling would prohibit him, along with every doctor and every patient in America, from using Erbitrux-even in a last ditch effort to save a dying life.

The fallout from the FDA's decision would be ruinous, for Waksal, his family, his shareholders and for desperate patients, yet securities law required Waksal say nothing of the "inside knowledge" that the government had leaked to him. In the face of the impending castration of his company by regulatory fiat, Waksal was simply expected to sit silently and do nothing. Unsurprisingly, Waksal was unable to squelch himself.

So in June of 2003, Waksal was convicted of "insider trading" and sentenced to prison for seven years for the crime of telling his family to sell their stock. During his sentencing, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley told Waksal that the harm he caused was "truly incalculable." Since his conviction, Waksal has been forced to pay millions in restitution to his alleged victims.

Yet despite all the attention paid to his case, it is not Waksal, but FDA regulators who have blood on their hands. The FDA was the source of the leak that prompted Waksal to tell his family to sell. The FDA decision to forbid the use of Erbitrux destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars in shareholder wealth and led to Martha Stewart being sent to prison for the ridiculous crime of asserting her own innocence to federal investigators. All the while, the cancer patients who would have benefited from Erbitrux needlessly suffered and died--as many as one hundred people a day according to one estimate.

In the face of thousands of lives needlessly shortened, it still took the FDA over three years to reverse its original decision and permit doctors to use Erbitrux as a treatment for colon cancer, and only this month has the FDA expanded its permission for doctors to use the drug to treat cancer of the head and neck. All the while, the FDA has repeated the regulator's mantra that it has acted only in the "public interest."

But is the FDA's claim true? It is worth comparing the goals of Waksal-a scientist, businessman and creator--to the goals of a government regulator. Waksal's mission was to command nature by bringing life to people suffering from the most intractable disease to ravage the human body. He relied upon the independent judgments of doctors and patients that his product would help them. Success would mean that his cutting-edge drug prolonged the lives of dying patients and profits for Waksal and his investors.

In contrast, the government regulator's goal is not command nature, but to command men--men like Waksal. Why? Because we have vested regulators with the absolute power to substitute their judgment for our own in the name of protecting us from our choices. It matters not to the regulator whether a million people could have been saved during the wait for a new drug to meet their approval--any appraisal other than the regulator's simply does not factor.

In a system that respected freedom in medicine, a doctor and his patient would choose for themselves if the benefits of new medicines outweighed their risks. Yet under the current system of government controls, it is the regulator alone who decides who lives or dies. If one wants to see the naked exercise of power and the horrific price paid by innocent victims, it can be found in the saga of Erbitrux and its creator. It is not Sam Waskal, but government regulators who have caused "truly incalculable" damage to people's lives.

So at root, government regulation--the real cancer metastasizing in the brains of America-remains unexcised. Sam Waksal is confined to prison with over four more years to serve for the crimes of creation and of self-protection. All the while, Waksal's regulators sit comfortable in their government offices, secure in the knowledge that they will never be held to account for any of the lives they destroyed as a result of their deeds.

There is no drug to fight diseases such as the FDA--only better ideas can end the plague of a government that tells the terminally ill and their doctors what is good for them, and jails those who create the means they need to live. To avenge the injustice done to Dr. Waksal and the thousands of faceless victims of the Erbitrux fiasco, Americans must take back the power of the regulators and leave people free to live by their own minds.

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About a dozen Marines are being investigated for possible war crimes in connection with the deaths last year of 15 Iraqi civilians who were initially reported killed by a roadside bomb.

The Navy has opened a criminal investigation into the November 2005 bombing and subsequent firefight between Marines and insurgents that led to the deaths of the Iraqi citizens, defense officials said Thursday.

The inquiry will attempt to determine whether the Marines acted appropriately when they fired back at insurgents following a roadside bomb attack in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, said a military official who requested anonymity because the investigation has not been announced yet. The civilians were hit during that battle.

Military officials in Iraq completed a preliminary investigation and have forwarded it to the Navy Criminal Investigative Service there. Several defense officials acknowledged the investigation was taking place, though the details were provided by one official.

According to the official, the initial allegations of possible violations were brought to the attention of the military by a reporter in mid-February.

Fifteen Iraqis, eight insurgents and a Marine were killed during the Nov. 19 firefight, which began when a roadside bomb detonated next to a joint Iraqi-U.S. squad patrolling Haditha. Immediately after the explosion, insurgents attacked the patrol with small arms.

The Marine killed was assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2 of the 2nd Marine Division; two other Marines were wounded. Defense officials would not identify the unit or Marines involved in the investigation. While several Iraqis were part of the patrol, they are not involved in the investigation, the official said.

Military officials will try to determine whether the Marines followed the international law of armed conflict, including whether they positively identified or tried to identify the enemy and whether they determined there was hostile intent, as they are supposed to do.

The law regulates international military operations, and anyone found in violation can be held liable for war crimes and be court-martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

It is not uncommon for insurgents to launch attacks from homes, hospitals and other public buildings, where civilians can get caught in the crossfire. [Lolita C. Baldor, AP]

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Growth, capitalism fueled flames of disaster

On the morning of Oct. 8, 1871, a Chicago Tribune writer who -- in the tradition of the era, wasn't given a byline -- rose to the occasion of the biggest story in the city's history:

"Only a few minutes elapsed after the striking of the alarm before the flames were seen sweeping into the sky. ... The wind -- seeming to rise as the flames did -- set from the southwest, carrying with its outward rush streams of sparks, cinders and partially-burned wood, which covered the sky with dazzling spangles, sweeping northward like a flight of thousands of meteors."

Headlined, "THE FIRE FIEND: A Terribly Destructive Conflagration Last Night," that story was the first coverage of the Great Chicago Fire, a blaze that would kill at least 250 people and destroy 18,000 buildings -- theaters, hotels, banks, newspaper offices and public buildings.

The blunder wasn't putting a kerosene lamp near a cow (widely dismissed now as the cause) but the city's eagerness to grow faster than any place in history and, in its eagerness, charting a course for disaster.

In less than 40 years since its birth as a city, Chicago had grown from a half-mile-square town of 150 people to an 18-square-mile city of 340,000. It grew at a frenetic pace, fueled by anything-goes capitalism. Whatever the endeavor, if it made for money and development, it was good.

As a result, Chicago had become a tinderbox. Most buildings were wood, the cheapest and fastest material for construction. Those few made of stone or brick were heavily trimmed in wood. The sidewalks were wood; so were the signs and the roofs. Downtown streets were lined with pine planks.

In 1868, the Fire Department warned of the "grave defects in [the way] which our city is being built," and noted that contractors often cut corners, creating "firetraps pleasing to the eye," but in fact "all shams and shingles."

On Oct. 11, while embers still smoldered, the Tribune's headline was "CHEER UP: Chicago Shall Rise Again."

The words were prophetic. Skipping hardly a beat, Chicago turned its greatest goof into greater (though safer) growth spurt that made it, as the 19th Century ended, the only major city on the planet that hadn't been a city at all at the beginning of that century.

rebuilding

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The teacher, after arguing that he had given balancing views to counter his heavily biased tape-recorded version of President George Bush’s presidency and the U.S. capitalist political system, was asked in one interview what that balancing view was. Specifically, had he compared Bush’s "style" with anyone else’s besides German dictator Adolph Hitler. Given several moments to consider his answer, and prompted a couple of times by the radio host, Bennish came up blank.

The astonished host pressed again, asking if Bennish had "ever" made a different comparison of Bush, with any political figure in history, he again could not produce an example.

In another interview session, on a different radio program, some of Bennish’s students were asked what balance Bennish had provided to his tape-recorded lecture. Although all of the students said he had provided balance, none of them could think of any examples.

Either Bennish had failed as a teacher, or the students had failed as pupils - there was no evidence that the students had grasped the lesson.

"He teaches, like, in an interesting way, you know?" was the typical response. "He’s fair, you know, in what he teaches us, like, he covers both sides, you know?"

During more than a dozen radio interviews last week, Allen was articulate and probing in presenting his case - the kind of student you would expect to find in an accelerated class, which Bennish teaches.

Unfortunately Allen and Bennish won’t be seeing much of each other now. While Bennish returned to his classroom Monday, after a week of administrative leave, Allen is changing schools.

The two made a good pair - even if their roles seemed reversed at times.

In his discussions of the controversy, and in his analysis of the issues involved in Socratic teaching methods, Allen appeared to have a good grasp of world history and politics - a field of knowledge he didn’t credit Bennish with teaching him. He also seemed eager to debate all comers, not shying away from defending his decision to expose Bennish’s teaching style.

Bennish, on the other hand, avoided the press most of the week and seemed almost reticent about debating his class structure in the few media interviews he granted. In the most confrontational interview, with talk-show host Peter Boyles, he was utterly unable to engage in an effective defense of the political content of his world geography class.

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A soldier must take careful aim at his military target and away from nonmilitary targets. He can only shoot if he has a reasonably clear shot; he can only attack if a direct attack is possible . . . he cannot kill civilians simply because he finds them between himself and his enemies. . . . Simply not to intend the deaths of civilians is too easy. . . . What we look for . . . is some sign of a positive commitment to save civilian lives. . . . if saving civilian lives means risking soldiers' lives the risk must be accepted.

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For centuries, we have been told that without religion we are no more than egotistic animals fighting for our share, our only morality that of a pack of wolves; only religion, it is said, can elevate us to a higher spiritual level. Today, when religion is emerging as the wellspring of murderous violence around the world, assurances that Christian or Muslim or Hindu fundamentalists are only abusing and perverting the noble spiritual messages of their creeds ring increasingly hollow. What about restoring the dignity of atheism, one of Europe's greatest legacies and perhaps our only chance for peace?

A moral deed is by definition its own reward. David Hume, a believer, made this point in a very poignant way, when he wrote that the only way to show true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God's existence.

While a true atheist has no need to boost his own stance by provoking believers with blasphemy, he also refuses to reduce the problem of the Muhammad caricatures to one of respect for other's beliefs. Respect for other's beliefs as the highest value can mean only one of two things: either we treat the other in a patronizing way and avoid hurting him in order not to ruin his illusions, or we adopt the relativist stance of multiple "regimes of truth," disqualifying as violent imposition any clear insistence on truth.

What, however, about submitting Islam — together with all other religions — to a respectful, but for that reason no less ruthless, critical analysis? This, and only this, is the way to show a true respect for Muslims: to treat them as serious adults responsible for their beliefs.

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Overland High School teacher Jay Bennish will be back in the classroom Monday, Cherry Creek Schools Superintendent Monte Moses said today in a press conference.

Bennish, 28, has been on paid administrative leave after student Sean Allen made public a 21-minute, 40-second recording of part of the teacher's lecture the day after Bush's State of the Union speech.

In that lecture, Bennish compared President Bush to Adolf Hitler, questioned U.S. foreign and drug policy and suggested that capitalism was "at odds" with human compassion.

After hearing the recording, school district officials concluded that Bennish's comments appeared to be inappropriate and that he may have violated a district policy requiring teachers to present balanced viewpoints when teaching controversial subjects. [Rocky Mountain News]

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I have more good news for you, coming out of Europe. Reuters of London reports that a British vicar whose daughter was killed in last year’s London suicide bombings has stepped down from her parish role, saying she cannot and does not want to forgive the killers.

"I rage that a human being could choose to take another human being’s life," the Rev. Julie Nicholson told a regional BBC program. "I rage that someone should do this in the name of a God. I find that utterly offensive. Can I forgive them for what they did? No, I cannot. And I don’t wish to. I believe that there are some things in life which are unforgivable by the human spirit."

Her associates in the church are trying to soft-pedal it, but her words sound clear as a bell to me. Terrorism is evil and wrong. There's no reason whatsoever to forgive it. Christianity is, therefore, wrong in preaching that forgiveness is a virtue.

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Taheri-azar didn't just want nine funerals with nine gravestones to mark his crime. Taheri-azar wanted front-page photographs of our faces in anguish; he wanted to draw us into reactions of irrational violence against Muslims; he wanted his day in court.

He wanted us to fear standing in the Pit - the spot that represents everything Islamist terrorism seeks to eradicate.

On UNC's campus, the Pit is a literal place where worship, art, music, poetry, relationships, celebration and charity thrive. It is a sacred space on our campus - a brick sanctuary for dialogue, nestled between two libraries full of mankind's diverse ideas.

When Qutb says the West "does not possess anything which will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence" he called our very existence a debauchery, an abomination and an unjustifiable stain on history.

We are a nation of disparate values. We cannot unite behind religion. We live among saints and sinners of every denomination and creed.

We cannot unite behind symbols - such as a flag that we alternately hail and ignite or a Bill of Rights some call gospel and others hypocrisy.

Islamist terrorists find one true path, while we embrace the possibility of multiple truths. There are few things in this country that we harmoniously coalesce behind and even fewer times when we speak with a united voice.

And that in and of itself is worth fighting for.

Above all we believe in - and demand - a political space where we can disagree. [Ginny Franks, The Daily Tar Heel]

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You don't have to be a genius to figure out that viewership of the Oscars is down because movie attendance itself is down, and that movie attendance is down because Hollywood isn't making the kind of movies that compel people to leave their homes and go to the multiplex.

There are those who think Hollywood hates America, and they have reason to think it. Hollywood does, as host Jon Stewart suggested, seem detached from the country it seeks to entertain. It is politically and culturally to the left of America, and it often seems disdainful of or oblivious to its assumptions and traditions.

I don't think it is true that studio executives and producers hate America. They are too confused, ambivalent and personally anxious to sit around hating their audience. I think they wish they understood America. I think they feel nostalgic for what they remember of it. I think they find it hard to find America, in a way.

I also think that it's not true that they're motivated only by money. Would that they were! They'd be more market-oriented if they cared only about money. What they care about a great deal is status, and in their community status is bestowed by the cultural left. This is an old story. But it seems only to get worse, not better.

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"Well you know the lecture initially was an introduction to world geography and we were covering very, you know stereotypical terms like mental mapping and cultural landscapes. And I was receiving questions from Sean [NB: Sean is the victim of false consciousness that framed Bennish] as well as from other students trying to get me to respond to the State of the Union address that was the night before and I explained to the students that in the case of the State of the Union this is applicable to a world geography class because for many people around the world this speech might impact their lives more so than the speeches that their own, own leaders give."

"From the students? Yes. From the national media and the attention from people all over the country? Obviously not. You know my job as a, as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society. And you know the process of cognitive dissonance is one way to activate their minds and to get them to think about these various things."

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My colleague has said that he never offends other people's beliefs. What civilization on the face of this earth allows him to call other people by names that they did not choose for themselves? Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma, another time he calls them the "People of the Book," and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians "those who incur Allah's wrath." Who told you that they are "People of the Book"? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them "those who incur Allah's wrath," or "those who have gone astray," and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?

I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others' right to believe in it.

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Speaking is not writing. Converting lectures, and still more, spontaneous answers in question periods, into the form of an essay or book requires editing and a process of considerable intellectual refinement. As a result, in order to put her oral material into the form of a book, Prof. Mayhew was placed in the impossible position of trying to improve upon Ayn Rand. This is an assignment that no one in the world would be capable of carrying out but Ayn Rand herself.

"Even the most minimal respect for honesty would have required explicitly naming all [edited] Q&As and providing the exact text of Ayn Rand's answers in all such cases. If transcripts were not to be provided for all the Q&As, they should most certainly and absolutely have been provided in cases of this kind. That way, the reader would know what Ayn Rand actually said, not what Prof. Mayhew had decided she should be allowed to say."

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The governor of South Dakota on Monday signed into law severe restrictions on abortion, in a direct challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court's legalization of the practice 33 years ago.

Abortion foes have said they hope to use the South Dakota law to eventually bring the issue back before the high court, where they believe conservatives added to the bench by President George W. Bush in the last year could weaken or dismantle the court's landmark Roe vs Wade decision of 1973.

[R]epublican Gov. Mike Rounds inked the measure, which had been passed by the state legislature on February 24, after a review to make sure there were no technical problems.

Rounds, who has described the legislation as a "frontal assault" on Roe v. Wade, had vetoed a similar measure two years ago, saying it would have wiped out existing restrictions on abortion while it was fought in the courts.

The new law bans abortion in virtually all cases, punishing doctors who perform one with a $5,000 fine and five years in prison.

The measure bans abortion even in cases where a woman is pregnant as a result of rape or incest, or if giving birth would damage the health of the mother. It creates a narrow exemption in cases in which a physician's effort to save a pregnant woman's life results in the accidental death or injury of her fetus. [Reuters]

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House Concurrent Resolution No. 13
93RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Whereas, our forefathers of this great nation of the United States recognized a Christian God and used the principles afforded to us by Him as the founding principles of our nation; and

Whereas, as citizens of this great nation, we the majority also wish to exercise our constitutional right to acknowledge our Creator and give thanks for the many gifts provided by Him; and

Whereas, as elected officials we should protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs while showing respect for those who object; and

Whereas, we wish to continue the wisdom imparted in the Constitution of the United States of America by the founding fathers; and

Whereas, we as elected officials recognize that a Greater Power exists above and beyond the institutions of mankind:

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the members of the House of Representatives of the Ninety-third General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the Senate concurring therein, that we stand with the majority of our constituents and exercise the common sense that voluntary prayer in public schools and religious displays on public property are not a coalition of church and state, but rather the justified recognition of the positive role that Christianity has played in this great nation of ours, the United States of America.

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On its face, it appeared an odd decision for a banker: to turn down business on a principle that most people don’t think much about.

And so far, the banking giants haven’t seen fit to follow the lead of BB&T Corp.’s John Allison, who declared in January that the nation’s ninth-largest bank would no longer make loans to developers who planned to build commercial projects on land seized from private citizens through the power of eminent domain.

“We happen to believe in the fundamental concept of individual rights, and one of those is property rights,” Allison said. “If that is jeopardized, our entire financial system is also in jeopardy.”

The prospect of losing out on a few loans, or taking a stand alone, hasn’t shaken Allison’s resolve, and has only added to his reputation as a banker whose thoughts routinely stray to the philosophical.

Colleagues probably should have seen it coming from an executive known to quote Aristotle during board meetings.

“John is a student,” said Dick Janeway, the retired head of Wake Forest University’s medical school, who served as a board member at Winston-Salem-based BB&T for years. “He’s a living example of continuing education.”

While often overlooked in a state that’s home to the nation’s second- and fourth-largest banks — Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp. and Wachovia Corp. — BB&T has grown from its 1872 founding in rural Wilson into a bank with $109 billion in assets and 1,400 branches in 11 states and Washington, D.C.

The 57-year-old Allison has led the firm as chairman and chief executive since 1989.
“I just celebrated my 35th year with the bank,” he said during a recent interview with The Associated Press. “I made a lot of loans in eastern North Carolina to farmers and I can remember praying some years for it to rain more and others for it to rain less.”

Such low-profile loans and BB&T’s focus on consumer banking had long kept it in the shadow of the bigger banks. Then came last year’s decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 that a local government in Connecticut had the power to seize private property for a private development project. A few months later, Allison said publicly that his bank would forgo any business connected to such taking of private land.

“John has a pretty unshakable moral compass, and frankly I think he is right on this,” said Charles Moyer, dean of the business school at the University of Louisville. “The potential for abuse is great and someone needs to stand up for it. I was not surprised it was John and BB&T.”

Allison is an executive who mixes in re-readings of the works of Thomas Aquinas and John Locke into a book-a-month habit. “My absolute favorite writer is Ayn Rand,” he said of the Russian-American philosopher and advocate of capitalism. His reasoning against eminent domain is based in part on a strong belief in property rights, one of Locke’s cornerstone values, and one shared by the farmers in rural North Carolina.

“To these people, property rights are the single most important thing,” he said. “It’s the basis of economic freedom in this country, so they take it very seriously.” [Paul Nowell, The Associated Press]

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Van Horn’s key observation:

A man's home is his castle, but only if he is a free man. Yet if we here in America are afraid simply to print some innocuous cartoons, our home is no longer our castle. It has become our prison, and the Moslems have become our jailers. The fight to protect our home was not won after Kelo. It really only began in earnest with the cartoon riots and the threat to freedom of speech they represent.

Our press has been deterred from its duty to report the news -- by printing the cartoons the rioters used as an excuse for murder -- by that very same violence. The threat to our home, America, may be more abstract this time around, but it is no less immediate or important. The time to defend it – by demanding that our politicians stand up for freedom of speech -- is now.

I'm pleased to report that Van Horn allowed CAC to add his article our op-ed collection and I hope this collaboration continues to bear fruit.

::The Objective Standard

The Objective Standard is Craig Biddle's new journal. Biddle sent me an advance copy and he clearly has set a new high-watermark for Objectivist commentary and critical review. Biddle defines the Standard as follows:

It is widely believed today that our cultural and political alternatives are limited either to the ideas of the secular, relativistic left—or to those of the religious, absolutist right—or to some compromised mixture of the two. In other words, one’s ideas are supposedly either extremely liberal or extremely conservative or somewhere in-between. We at The Objective Standard reject this false alternative and embrace an entirely different view of the world.

Our view is fully secular and absolutist; it is neither liberal nor conservative nor anywhere in-between. Our philosophy uncompromisingly recognizes and upholds the natural (this-worldly), factual, moral foundations of a fully free, civilized society.

Culturally, we advocate scientific advancement, productive achievement, objective (as opposed to “progressive” or faith-based) education, romantic art—and, above all, reverence for the faculty that makes all such values possible: reason. Politically, we advocate pure, laissez-faire capitalism—the social system of individual rights and strictly limited government—along with the whole moral and philosophical structure on which it depends. In a word, we advocate Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and apply its principles to the cultural and political issues of the day.

Ayn Rand described Objectivism as “a philosophy for living on earth.” The reason why it is a philosophy for living on earth is that its every principle is derived from the observable facts of reality and the demonstrable requirements of human life and happiness.

These men are incredible and I wish them continued success.

::Literatrix

Literatrix is the personal blog of Jennifer Snow, who posts include book reviews such as her recent examination of the works of Thomas Paine. According to Snow:

My initial impression is that this man was the absolute nuclear generator of quotes; even more so than Ayn Rand, and she is eminently quotable. The reason that both were very quotable is, in my mind, that both spent their time turning a vast complexity of information into simple, memorable principles. They are different, though, in that when you quote Ayn Rand, you have to remember that you are summoning up a vast context for your quote and be careful not to oversimplify the case. Thomas Paine’s quotes generally require little or no context, and he frequently manages to oversimplify the case without the interference of any outside agency.

This book shows the utter bankruptcy of Democrats in terms of ideas, their conception of keeping people safe it protect them from elephant monsters (Republicans), their conception of economic policy equates to kids sharing their toys (as if this in any way relates to the hard earned fortunes of individuals in the economy at large, not to mention you typically don't pull a gun on a kid to get him to share his "toys").

The Dougout is a history, politics and current events blog run by Grant Jones and named in honor of General Douglas MacArthur. Jones gets the hat tip for his initial reporting of the University of Washington "Pappy" Boyington outrage that inspired me to write an open letter to the university and get 120 of my Marine buddies to sign along with me. Jones most recently chronicles the Battle of the Bismarck Sea and remarks on Inside Higher Education's review of David Horowitz's 101 Most Dangerous Professors.

::Armchair Intellectual

Armchair Intellectual is the personal blog of Gideon Reich, an old college friend of mine from my George Washington University days. At his blog, Reich reports on some good news for Objectivists:

The first item is Robert Tracinski's article The Lessons of the Cartoon Jihad is featured at the top of the Friday, March 3 edition of RealClearPolitics.com. This is an excellent article which criticizes both right and left for their inadequate response to this controversy.

The second item is a hopeful sign that another important book by a prominent Objectivist may be published by a distinguished publisher. One of my daily pastimes is to check the resume of John Lewis, Assistant Professor of History at Ashland University. I check the resume because he has a section in which he notes the publication status of the books he has written. Specifically, I was very interested in seeing his Nothing Less than Victory published as it includes the details of his argument against the inadequacy of the present war effort with some comparison to a number of historical wars. Over the last few months the listing on the website has mostly been "in progress", which I surmise means that no publisher is looking at it. There was a brief time a while ago when it was listed as "under press review" -- presumably that means that some unidentified publisher was reviewing the book. However, after a week or so of this status, the page was updated back to "in progress." Now however the listing has not only returned to "under press review" but has in fact been updated as follows: "under review, Princeton University Press." This is certainly a very positive and hopeful sign.

I agree. I've seen a draft copy of Lewis' book and he makes many vital arguments. Reich also recently contributed book reviews of The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein and The Abolition of Antitrust by Gary Hull for CAC's Capitalist's Book Club. Eat that for dinner, Oprah.

::The Charlotte Capitalist

Andy Clarkson is the Charlotte Capitalist, and he's posted about my work so many times it's high time I paid him back the favor. Clarkson covers North Carolina and national politics and his most recent posting of note is a parody of the Charlotte Mecklenburg government’s management of the public schools.

For decades the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County have run the nutritional system. While a few private grocery stores and restaurants exist, 96% of Charlotte citizens’ food is supplied through a number of Charlotte Mecklenburg Food Board distribution centers. Traditionally, most of the distribution centers have been located close to uptown.

As CharMeck growth has exploded, pressure on the food system has created shortages and conflicts. The suburbs are demanding more food distribution centers and better nutrition. The inner city is demanding renovation of aging centers. The food board says there is nothing it can do without more local, state, and national funding. Without that funding, it will need to sell food bonds for the renovation and building of food distribution centers.

Meanwhile, Charlotte national and state nutritional rankings are far below where they should be. People, particularly the children, are not getting the nutrition they should be getting. The food board points to occasionally spotty areas of improvement, while critics point out longer-term problems.

In order to get to the root of the problem, The Charlotte Capitalist sponsored a workshop to drive discussion of the CharMeck nutritional system. It invited both politicians and pundits. While no ideas or action items, or for that matter anything worthwhile was created, there was a lot of revealing discussion.

As Andy says, here are some, ugh, highlights from the workshop.

::Ego

Ego is American-in-spirit Martin Lindeskog’s blog. Always plently of good material and lots of cross-posting; in fact, you should just head on over and have a look-see for yourself.

::Daily Dose of Reason

Daily Dose of Reason is Dr. Michael Hurd's blog in support of his private psychotherapy and life coaching practice. Dr. Hurd has the uncanny ability to be published in USA Today, in fact, they have ran his essays more times than I can count, which is quite a remarkable achievement. His most recent "Daily Dose" is on the continued fallout from Hurricane Katrina:

People continue to blame President Bush for the Katrina disaster; but how come nobody blames government itself? The abysmal federal response to the hurricane relief effort was a great opportunity for advocates of limited government (including Republican conservatives, you would think) to point out how government can never do the job that private groups and individuals can. Instead, the media has fixated on Bush and, in the absence of any comments to the contrary, the impression becomes embedded in most Americans' minds that it's all Bush's fault. This is dangerous, because people are now left with the assumption that if only we get the "right" government leader -- not Bush, but somebody else -- then the government will be able to do what no government has ever done or will do: rebuild people's lives after a disaster. Victims of the next natural disaster shouldn't view the Katrina debacle as proof that Bush is bad; they should view it as proof that government is by its nature incompetent, particularly when expected to do what it cannot and should not do.

Do these actors have the right to smear America? Absolutely. Do they have the right to do it with impunity? Absolutely not. Just as they have a right to condemn America, Americans have the right to condemn them. So, I hereby declare I will not spend a cent to see any movie which casts sirs Zane, Busey or Clooney.

I saw "Syriana" and let us just say that's two hours I'll never get back . . .

::Oak Tree

This blog is by an undergraduate student who often comments on the inanity of some of his classes. Here's his latest:

Summary of today’s Business Ethics class: Won’t someone please [pretend to] think about the children?

Here’s what I learned:

1. Boycotting child labor may hurt the kids even more, but I’m willing to pay the price to feel morally righteous.

Here’s how the actual dialog went between me and prof:

Me: I’m assuming that the poor families are having their children work because they need the money. So abstaining from buying child-labor carpets is essentially a kiss of death for those families.

Prof: It’s true that if children lose these jobs, they will either have to resort to prostitution or starvation. But isn’t this still a rationalization to keep child labor alive?

2. Economic development is an important solution to child labor, but let’s ignore that for now and think about these feel-good solutions.

Again, me and prof:

Me: I agree that child labor is terrible, but it won’t end until these families become wealthier. So I think the only solution is capitalism and economic development.

Prof: I think we can all agree that economic development is ultimately needed, but right now I want you all to choose one of these five. [points to the slide with five possible solutions, all of them suggesting either abstain from buying child-labor products, donating to charity, or a combination of the two]

3. Alright, if you’re going to insist on economic development, can’t we at least do it altruistically?

I was confused by this at the time, but now I realize he was actually trying to come up with an altruistic way to bring about economic development:

Prof: Wouldn’t a country like Nepal achieve “economic development” by using its lack of child labor as a selling point?

Me: I don’t see why. Again, I don’t think the solution is to boycott child labor. Ideally, companies will employ poor children and as the economy grows they will
be employed less and less.

It seems old Oaks is the only ethical person in his Business Ethics class. I recall the feeling.

::Quent Cordair Fine Art

Quent Cordair has Dianne Durante looking at film as an art form in anticipation of Sunday's Oscars:

Evaluating a film esthetically means looking at the "how" of the movie. Do all its elements work together to convey the theme? There may be subplots, plot twists, flashbacks and dream sequences, but once you've watched the end of the film, you should be able to analyze how every gesture, every line of dialogue, every costume and every camera angle contributed to the theme. To put it negatively, nothing should be inexplicable or pointless, and nothing should be confusing unless (as in many mysteries or thrillers) confusion is necessary at a certain point in the plot development.

There are so many books that need to be written about nineteenth-century art—thousands actually. While there have been many books documenting the influence of Spanish artists on the French modernists, a more interesting book would concern the Spanish artists that trained, worked and excelled in Academic Paris. This particular artist, Raimundo de Madrazo Y Garreta would be the subject of one such book. (Or maybe several such books.)

Today, little is known about him. For instance, this gorgeous portrait has neither title, date, nor detailed provenance.

But the painting is gorgeous. The sitter, whoever she may be, has the look of intelligence, bearing, and surely commands the attention of whoever looks at her.

I've just returned from the bookstore, where I had a pleasant conversation with a fine looking young woman who, as it happened, was looking in the philosophy section at Rand's books :-) I couldn't let this opportunity slip by so I said, "excuse me, are you interested in Ayn Rand's ideas?" She said a friend had recommended her works to her and what would I recommend to her (!). I said she should read 'The Fountainhead' but then asked if she preferred fiction or non-fiction. She said non-fiction, and had 'Return of The Primitive' and 'Philosophy: Who Needs It?' already in hand, which I praised highly and also recommended to her 'The Virtue of Selfishness,' "which explains her theory of ethics". We then sauntered over to the Literature section, where I pulled out FH for her.

We continued our conversation about Rand and FH in particular briefly. I left before she did, but she had all four books in hand when we parted company.

To stand together means to assert our rights with our government as our agent. To those who threaten us with force, asserting our rights means responding with force, in fact, with overwhelming force. We must say to Iran (which on February 14 just reconfirmed the Rushdie fatwa) “oust and turn over the regime which sees fit to condemn a single citizen of ours to death, or face all out war.” And if they refuse, give them the war they started, but be sure to win it decisively, not protecting their mosques and infrastructure, but instead doing everything necessary to ensure they have no capacity to ever threaten us again. To Pakistan and India, which host clerics bold enough to put bounties on the heads of our citizens, demand that they turn over the men and their supporters, and if they refuse, go in and take them by force.

For if we fail to reverse our pattern, men will continue to learn that their rights are a sham, that the government’s promise to protect the individual is a hoax, and that only by refraining from thinking and speaking out might they be momentarily safe. Men will then go on to realize that they must seek out true protectors, in the form of some gang; ethnic, religious or otherwise; who may afford them a measure of security, albeit at the cost of complete obedience. Eventually the gangs will fight it out in an effort to wrest absolute power and to subjugate the others.

So will end the great intellectual and political achievement of the West, which began 2,500 years ago in Greece with its discovery and reverence for the individual, and which culminated in the enunciation of the guiding principles of the United States. The end will not come because an over-powering enemy has arisen –- no, to our everlasting shame, the end will come because Western governments, in a display of incredible cowardice and treason, have abandoned and delivered their disarmed individual citizens to a mob of stone-age savages.

Harry Browne, former presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, has died today. Color me unsad.

Why? This is why. Notice that he was pushing this tripe on September 12, 2001—the day after the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Mr. Browne's brand of triumphalist defeatism might seem unremarkable by the standards of today's "anti-war" Left, but he did have the remarkable dishonor of being first. Take that, Michael Moore! Does anyone needed a clearer concretization of why Objectivism is not "libertarian"?

The U.A.E has some significant freedoms compared to the U.S., especially in some areas that I find personally important. Whether economic or political freedom is more important to you personally is not the issue.

The issue is that the UAE has an economy that is mostly free, and further trade with the West will encourage the growth of productive values instead of the destructive values prevalent in the Arab world. Isolating a progressive country like the U.A.E will be a racist statement that will discourage the rest of the Islamic world from economic liberalization, and instead encourage their anti-Western sentiment—and in this case, with good reason.

This is not about the safety of our ports, as [Harry] Binswanger explained, or the totally irrelevant fact that the UAE is not a democracy. The issue is whether we will recognize the virtue of a society that has chosen civilization, or engage in collectivist thinking and refuse to distinguish a potential ally from our enemies.

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A 16-year-old boy at Overland High School doesn't want to hear what he calls his teacher's left-wing political rants.

Sean Allen frequently recorded his teachers to back up his notes. Allen recorded Jay Bennish, his 10th grade World Geography teacher, making comments about President Bush's State of the Union Address. [audio here]

Allen's father claims the comments made in the recording are biased and inappropriate for a geography class.

"I'm not saying Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they're not. OK? But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use," says Bennish in his critique of U.S. economic and foreign policy.

Towards the end of the class, Bennish goes on to say, "I'm not in anyway implying that you should agree with me, I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position. But what I'm trying to get you to do is to think about these issues more in depth and not to just take things from the surface."

The Cherry Creek School District is conducting a thorough investigation of the complaint from the Overland High School parent and student concerning comments.

The school district says at first glance it does appear the teacher acted inappropriately at the very least.

A spokesperson for the Cherry Creek School District said they have placed Bennish on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. This is not a disciplinary action; the school district wants to remove him while they sort through the rest of the investigation.

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...has been falsely characterized as theft from manual laborers (or consumers) due to improper "market power," as some transitory residual reflecting "market failure" or a consequence of dumb luck. Tragically, false theories, of profit have become an integral part of the pseudo-intellectual, Byzantine edifice of antitrust law. Since the law rests of false theories, it necessarily assaults genuine market competition, restrains free trade, and penalizes legitimate business gains. (p.27)

For most Austrians, profits are not created but "captured"-as one might secure a ransom by a hostage taking. Accepting the false view that markets in equilibrium do not generate profits--yet looking favorably upon profit and sensing that it has something to do with entrepreneurial motivation-Austrians have been left to conclude that markets are in a perpetual state of disequilibrium, that they do not clear, and that entrepreneurs or capitalists do not create profit but, through their arbitrage activity, inevitably eliminate it. (p.46)

DuPont realized that cutting-edge chemistry and state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities were, by themselves, insufficient to create wealth. The company grasped that it need to educate potential customers about the virtues of cellophane. It needed the same creative thinking, the same purposeful plan and productive prowess in marketing and sales that were employed by its scientists and engineers. Tragically, the company's successful marketing would soon unleash the hounds of trustbusters. (p.151)

After World War II, the company wanted to expand its production of cellophane to meet growing demand-a demand that the company had created. Then trustbusters alleged that DuPont "monopolized" the cellophane market and that it had "effective market power"--which is described loosely by defenders of antitrust as the ability to raise prices or exclude competition. Fearful of providing the government with "evidence" of a "crime," DuPont cancelled its expansion plans and was compelled-by the threat of the government's suit-to build a cellophane plant for one of its competitors, Olin Industries. (p.153)

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"Just War Theory" vs. American Self-Defense

Who: Dr. Yaron Brook, foreign policy expert and president of the Ayn Rand Institute
What: A provocative talk identifying the only solution to the bloody mess in Iraq
Where: Conference Room, National Press Club, Washington DC (529 14th St, NW)
When: Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 1:00–3:00 PM

The public and media are invited. Admission is free.

Summary: Nearly five years after President Bush declared “war on terrorism,” victory is nowhere in sight. American soldiers continue to die in Iraq for no clear self-defense purpose, while enemy regimes like Iran and Saudi Arabia continue to sponsor Islamic terrorism and spread anti-Americanism without fear of reprisal. The cause of America’s continuing insecurity is not any practical inability to defeat our enemies--America can militarily crush any enemy it chooses--but our leaders’ unwillingness to do what is necessary to defeat them. The only path to American security is real war, self-interested war, a war of genuine American self-defense. In his talk, Dr. Brook will present the principles of “Just War Theory,” the altruistic theory guiding the Bush administration’s so-called “War on Terrorism,” and will contrast them with the principles of a proper moral approach to American self-defense.

Dr. Brook is available for interviews on this topic before and after his talk. He lectures on foreign policy around the world and has appeared on hundreds of television and radio shows. This talk is based on an article of the same title, by Dr. Brook and Alex Epstein, which is the lead article of the premiere issue of The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics.

Contact: Craig Biddle, Editor, The Objective Standard
Phone: (800) 423-6151
Email: cbiddle@theobjectivestandard.com

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Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilizations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and un-egalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject cultural relativism, which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatization of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

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As God's creatures, we owe unconditional obedience to His will. By that very fact however we do not owe such obedience to anyone else.

Legitimate political authority--the right of one human being to require obedience of another human being--arises only from consent. The fundamental act of consent is, as the 1780 Massachusetts Bill of Rights states, "a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good." The "certain laws for the common good" have no other purpose but to preserve and protect the rights that each citizen possesses prior to government, rights with which he or she has been "endowed by their Creator." The rights that governments exist to secure are not the gift of government. They originate in God.

Our difficulty in pursuing a rational foreign policy in the Middle East--or anywhere else--is compounded by the fact that we ourselves, as a nation, seem to be as confused as the Iraqis concerning the possibility of non-tyrannical majority rule. We continue to enjoy the practical benefits of political institutions founded upon the convictions of our Founding Fathers and Lincoln, but there is little belief in God-given natural rights, which are antecedent to government, and which define and limit the purpose of government. Virtually no one prominent today, in the academy, in law, or in government, subscribes to such beliefs. Indeed, the climate of opinion of our intellectual elites is one of violent hostility to any notion of a rational foundation for political morality. We, in short, engaged in telling others to accept the forms of our own political institutions, without reference to the principles or convictions that give rise to those institutions.

According to many of our political and intellectual elites, both liberal and conservative, the minority in a democracy enjoys only such rights as the majority chooses to bestow upon them. The Bill of Rights in the American Constitution--and similar bills in state constitutions--are regarded as gifts from the majority to the minority. But the American Constitution, and the state constitutions subordinate to it have, at one time or another, sanctioned both slavery and Jim Crow, by which the bills of rights applied to white Americans were denied to black Americans. But according to the elites, it is not undemocratic for the minority to lose. From this perspective, both slavery and Jim Crow were exercises of democratic majority rule. This is precisely the view of democracy by the Sunnis in Iraq, and is the reason they are fighting the United States.

Unless we as a political community can by reasoned discourse re-establish in our own minds the authority of the constitutionalism of the Founding Fathers and of Lincoln, of government devoted to securing the God-given equal rights of every individual human being, we will remain ill equipped to bring the fruits of freedom to others.

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AMMAN — Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa yesterday considered the blasphemous cartoons as part of a "battle against Islam" rather than a symptom of conflict among civilizations, and urged Arab parliamentarians to put pressure on the United Nations to come up with a "strict" solution to this problem.

"I don't think the issue pertains to an inter-civilization conflict. We have to mention the issue in its real perspective — it is a battle against Islam," Moussa said at the opening session of the Arab Parliamentary Union (APU) conference at the Dead Sea resort in Jordan.

"I urge you to send a message to the United Nations that it should address this issue in a strict manner in order we can deal in future with each other on bases that exclude double standards," he added. [Khaleej Times]

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