The Objectivism Online Meta-Blog

Great Producers Deserve Our Gratitude, Not Obama’s Tax Hikes

Great Producers Deserve Our Gratitude, Not Obama’s Tax Hikes:

In his State of the Union address, Barack Obama said the wealthy need to pay higher taxes in order to pay their “fair share.”

As Newt Gingrich told Newsmax, Obama’s plan apparently would entail doubling the capital gains tax to 30 percent, something Gingrich justifiably characterizes as he “most destructive anti-jobs proposal by a president in my lifetime.” (The tax hike would be on top of the double taxation already applied to capital gains.)

But Obama’s proposed tax hikes are not merely economically destructive, they are the antithesis of actual fairness. Toward genuine fairness, a good first step would be to dramatically cut taxes on those who produce enormous wealth. Such producers earn their money by creating the technologies, products, jobs, and effective business practices that keep us alive and help us flourish. They deserve to use their resources as they judge best rather than see their earnings looted by federal politicians and the special-interest groups that many of those politicians serve. And yet, rather than applaud the giants of industry whose productivity enhances our lives in myriad ways, federal politicians punish them with insanely high taxes. (James Pethokoukis reviews relative tax burdens for the American Enterprise Institute, and I discuss the matter in a piece for Pajamas Media.)

To puff up his claim that forcing the wealthy to pay higher taxes is somehow more “fair,” Obama presumes that their wealth automatically belongs to the federal government. If politicians allow wealthy producers to keep more of the money they earn, he argued, then that is a “special tax subsidy,” no different than if the government hands the wealthy the money that somebody else earned.

The federal government should forcibly seize more of the earnings of the wealthy, Obama argued, in order to give that money to someone else, whether “a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet.” Elsewhere in his speech Obama suggested that politically-connected parasites posing as businessmen also deserve more corporate welfare. But, regardless of which interest groups win the federal payouts, Obama’s principle is the same: the wealth of the great producers should be forcibly confiscated and turned over to those who did not produce it but allegedly need it or profess to need it.

In other words, one’s “unalienable rights” to one’s “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” must make way for the collectivist doctrine: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Fairness does not mean letting the federal government forcibly confiscate more of the wealth of those who produce the goods, services, businesses, and jobs on which our lives depend. It means limiting the government to the protection of each person’s rights to his property and earnings, whether that person earns ten thousand dollars every year or ten billion.

Related:

• To Give Americans a “Fair Shot,” Obama Should Stop Violating Our Rights
  
  


• The Justice of Income Inequality Under Capitalism

Image: Public Domain

Re-Checking Some Premises

Re-Checking Some Premises:

On Some Recent Controversies

On Some Recent Controversies:

Yesterday on Facebook, I was alerted to a new web site attacking me: CheckingPremises.org. The web site claims to be "in response to the danger that some, who may seem in agreement with the philosophy, are in fact subverting it." It has pages on "The Brandens," "David Kelley," and "Libertarianism," with a few perfunctory links. Then, under "Current Controversies," you'll find six pages on me, albeit with little of substance. The site claims:

We believe [Diana Hsieh] has revealed herself to not understand and/or to not agree with certain aspects of Objectivism. In addition, we have serious concerns about the nature, frequency, and tone of her public disagreements with Dr. Leonard Peikoff.

The purpose of the web site is clearly to attack me, and I was expecting that something like that might happen. As many of you know, a handful of people have been loudly condemning me on Facebook in recent weeks, demanding that our mutual friends un-friend me, and so on.

The site is not something that I can take too seriously. A handful of people -- none of whom I know, except to barely recognize a few names -- think poorly of me. Mostly, I regard the site as an embarrassment to Objectivism: it deserves to disappear into the ether.

For obvious reasons, the creators and supporters of this web site are not welcome in my life, including online. They are not entitled to post belligerent comments on my Facebook wall or in these NoodleFood comments, as happens periodically. They should have had the good sense to unsubscribe themselves from my OLists, rather than obliging me to remove them. Most of all, they're not entitled to violate my rights, such as by reposting video segments from my webcast without my permission. (Happily, I was able to remove such a video with a DMCA takedown request.)

Here, I'd like to explain my views on some of the controversial topics, so that anyone confused by this brouhaha can know where I stand and judge me accordingly. If you have any further questions, please e-mail me privately.

For me, discussion between thoughtful and friendly Objectivists -- not just on the proper application of our common philosophic principles, but on a wide range of practical topics -- is a huge value. In such discussions, reasonable people will disagree from time to time, particularly on complex topics. Such disagreements can provide an excellent opportunity to question assumptions, consider new facts, understand opposing views, and more. That's a value to me -- and to many others too.

Such friendly discussion doesn't happen automatically: it requires purposeful effort. The people involved in the discussion need to focus on the substantive issues. They need to strive to be rational and benevolent, including in their assumptions about and treatment of others. They need to give others the necessary time to think through the issues on their own. They need to consider the judgments of experts carefully, yet come to their own rational, independent conclusions. By such means, disagreements can be friendly, or at least civil, and even a passionate disagreement need not cause rifts among good people.

I learn lots through such discussions with my fellow Objectivists, and I hope that others do too. That's part of the purpose of the various OLists, and I'm proud of the success of those lists.

If Objectivists don't nourish and protect that kind of rational culture, then a self-destructive culture of suspicion, hostility, and dogmatism will take its place. Then, any disagreement -- even if trivial, even if outside the scope of Objectivism -- will become grounds for denouncing someone else as dishonest and attempting to ostracize them. Any connection with a condemned person will be grounds for your condemnation too. People will fear speaking their minds, and some will even forego thinking for themselves.

That kind of repressive culture actively undermines the virtues of rationality, justice, and independence. It's not compatible with the fundamental principles of Objectivism, nor is it the kind of culture that can revitalize America.

To promote a rationally benevolent Objectivist culture does not mean eschewing moral judgment, nor that every Objectivist will join hands to sing kumbaya. A person may falsely describe himself as an Objectivist, meaning that he rejects core principles of the philosophy in word and deed. Such people, as well as the dishonest critics of Objectivism, should be judged and treated according to their merits (or lack thereof). Moreover, some Objectivists just might not wish to work together due to personal conflicts. That's to be expected -- and while sometimes unfortunate, that's hardly unusual for intellectual movements.

As for me, I occasionally disagree with other Objectivists -- including with scholars and intellectuals who I like and respect -- on various topics. When their publicly-stated views are relevant to my projects or of sufficient interest to me, I might discuss my disagreement publicly. That's been my longstanding policy. People familiar with my history know that I've spoken out on controversial topics before, and that I've sometimes taken heat for doing so. That's nothing new for me.

Of course, I'm always interested in substantive arguments against my views. I'm happy to change my mind when I see that I'm wrong -- or at least to accept that my opponents have a better case than I realized. However, I'll never accept someone else's say-so, nor hide my views because I think they might be unpopular. That's just not the kind of person I am, nor the kind of person that I'd ever want to be.

As it happens, Dr. Peikoff has said some things in recent podcasts that I disagree with, sometimes very strongly. Twice, I've made my disagreement known -- in my webcast discussions of compulsory juries (May 2011) and the transgendered (Oct 2011). (In the debate about the NYC Mosque, I blogged my view before Dr. Peikoff's podcast on the topic, and I continued to disagree with him on that issue.) Given that Dr. Peikoff and I happen to share some similar interests in practical philosophy, such periodic disagreements are hardly surprising.

On the whole, I've tried to be careful in my tone and manner, as is evident from my writings on the NYC Mosque and John McCaskey's Resignation. Alas, I didn't take proper care in my discussion of compulsory juries. Unfortunately, some people wrongly interpreted my enthusiasm for the topic as enthusiasm for criticizing Dr. Peikoff. I didn't intend any disrespect, and I regret that I could be interpreted that way. (I say more on this later.)

Because I expect to disagree with other Objectivists from time to time, particularly on applications of the philosophy, I don't regard my occasional disagreements with Dr. Peikoff as of much significance. I almost always agree with him, so disagreements are a kind of interesting philosophical mystery that I like to unpack. Sometimes, after further reflection, I find that I was wrong, and that Dr. Peikoff is right. But that's not always the case.

Of course, I regard Dr. Peikoff's books and courses as a huge value: I've learned more from him over the past two decades than I can properly express. As I routinely tell people, anyone who wants to deeply understand Objectivism simply must read his books and listen to his major courses. Nonetheless, I've never thought myself duty-bound to agree with Dr. Peikoff, nor to be silent about any disagreements, due to that appreciation for his work. To remain silent would not be respectful: it would be either patronizing or cowardly.

Unfortunately, a few Objectivists seem to regard any disagreement with Dr. Peikoff as some kind of personal attack on him. That's wrong. To criticize a person as wrong -- even very seriously wrong -- on some particular issue is not the same as condemning the person. Good people can be very seriously wrong sometimes. To personalize mere disagreements over ideas by interpreting them as personal attacks is unwarranted, as well as unfair. It's also toxic to the Objectivist movement, as that approach erodes the much-needed culture of independent thinking and rational judgment.

Notably, my occasional disagreements with Dr. Peikoff and other Objectivists are not disagreements about the principles of Objectivism -- like that humans have free will or that integrity is a virtue. At most, they concern the application of Objectivist principles to circumstances and questions not considered by Ayn Rand. As such, they're outside the scope of Objectivism. They are the kinds of peripheral issues about which Objectivists sometimes disagree, and when they do, they should do so civilly, particularly if they wish to succeed in their own lives and change the culture.

Remember, Objectivism does not encompass all philosophic truth. It's the philosophy developed by Ayn Rand, and it's a closed system. Hence, even the best scholarly work done by Objectivists since Ayn Rand's death cannot be regarded as part of Objectivism. As Leonard Peikoff himself explains in Fact and Value:

"Objectivism" is the name of Ayn Rand's achievement. Anyone else's interpretation or development of her ideas, my own work emphatically included, is precisely that: an interpretation or development, which may or may not be logically consistent with what she wrote. In regard to the consistency of any such derivative work, each man must reach his own verdict, by weighing all the relevant evidence. The "official, authorized doctrine," however, remains unchanged and untouched in Ayn Rand's books; it is not affected by any interpreters.

Objectivism doesn't have a theory of induction or a theory of children's rights. It doesn't tell us who to vote for in 2012 or whether Agora was a good movie. Many Objectivists have views on these topics, and those views might be more or less consistent with Objectivist principles. However, there is simply no such thing as "the Objectivist position" on the NYC Mosque or "the Objectivist position" on gun rights or "the Objectivist theory of induction." (People often loosely describe new philosophic works that are consistent with and based on Objectivism as "Objectivist," and that's fine. However, such works are not part of the "official, authorized doctrine" of Objectivism.)

To claim that my few disagreements with Dr. Peikoff on issues outside the scope of Objectivism prove that I don't understand or don't agree with Objectivism is just plain wrong. Although Dr. Peikoff understands Objectivism thoroughly, he's not immune from error, particularly in the application of Objectivist principles to current events or new questions. Everyone must judge for himself the truth of Dr. Peikoff's claims, as well as their consistency with Objectivism.

Personally, I take the closed system view of Objectivism very seriously, particularly because I thought long and hard about it some years ago. (See my essays Ayn Rand on David Kelley and The Open System, One More Time.) I'm an Objectivist because I agree with and practice the principles of Objectivism. I don't claim to speak for Objectivism, nor do I regard my new philosophic work as part of Objectivism. (That's part of the reason why my webcast is "Philosophy in Action," not "Objectivism in Action.") I regard my philosophic work as compatible with Objectivism. But it is my own work, and others can and ought to judge its compatibility for themselves. As always, I welcome substantive comments and criticisms, particularly from an Objectivist perspective.

As for some of the particular objections raised against me, I'd like to explain a few points that might not be apparent from a distance. (I've explained much of what follows to people who inquired with me, usually to their satisfaction. A person's action and motives are often not what others suppose from afar. That's why justice often requires inquiring with a person about the facts in a civil way before judgment.)

NYC Mosque

All of Paul's and my blog posts are collected here, in reverse order: NYC Mosque.

This issue was hugely controversial among Objectivists. It is a complex and difficult subject, partly because the debate concerned what people ought to do given that our government refuses to do the right thing, namely protect us against terrorist threats from Islamists by declaring war against states that sponsor terrorism. With the proper course closed off, our only options were "bad" and "worse," and Objectivists were arguing over which was which. (That's similar to debates about the proper rules for government schools: since government schools ought not exist, plausible arguments can often be made both for and against some proposed rule.)

I stand by the concerns that Paul and I raised in our blog posts, but I understand -- mostly thanks to Amy Peikoff's posts -- why others saw the matter differently. I was, and still am, disturbed by Dr. Peikoff's manner in his podcast discussion, and I found much of his argument unpersuasive on its own.

Mostly though, I think that Objectivists ought to be able to disagree about this kind of topic in a friendly or at least civil way.

John McCaskey's Resignation

Paul and I have already said all that we wish to say about this matter in these posts. We think that our concerns about Dr. Peikoff's letter were warranted, and we think that the dispute between Dr. Peikoff and Dr. McCaskey could and should have been handled better by ARI.

Compulsory Juries

As I said earlier, I should have been more careful in how I expressed my disagreement with Dr. Peikoff in my webcast discussion of compulsory juries. As my regular webcast viewers know, I love wrangling with difficult issues, particularly when I think I can cut through them clearly. I was enthused about this particular topic, and I knew that my arguments on it were solid. I didn't intend any disrespect to Dr. Peikoff: I was too focused on the substantive issues to even think about that. That was a mistake, of course, and I don't intend to repeat it. (It's easy to make such errors in speaking extemporaneously, as everyone who speaks extemporaneously knows.)

My views on the issue have not changed: I do not think that compulsory juries are compatible with individual rights, particularly given Ayn Rand's clear rejection of the draft and compulsory taxation. Moreover, a compulsory jury is an attempt to force men to think, and that's something that Ayn Rand knew to be impossible and dangerous. Also, I think that my summary of Dr. Peikoff's stated views was fair. Mostly, I quoted him at some length. Although he was uncertain whether juries would be used in a free society, he clearly stated that they could be compulsory, if so.

Dr. Peikoff didn't offer any substantive justification for his views in his two podcasts. After my webcast, Amy Peikoff attempted to defend his view in this blog post by appealing to tacit consent to a social contract. Her argument fails for the reasons given in this comment by NS. (When preparing for the webcast, I thought that Dr. Peikoff's remarks perhaps suggested an appeal to social contract. However, I never would have attributed that view to him, not even provisionally, because I've long known that social contract theory is wholly incompatible with individual rights.) Also, for more on the errors of social contract theory, I'd strongly recommend reading Harry Binswanger's April 29th, 2011 post to HBL. (That's only available to subscribers of HBL, but it was sent to me as the "HBL Monthly Enticement" on May 30th, 2011.)

I've not yet seen any plausible defense of Dr. Peikoff's views, and I hope that he reconsiders his position at some point.

Anencephalics

I discussed the rights of the the severely mentally disabled in a May 2011 webcast. My basic view is that normal children, as well as mentally impaired children, have all the usual rights to care from their parents. However, in the rare cases of complete mental incapacity -- such as in the horrifically tragic cases of anencephalic babies, where only the brain stem exists -- rights cannot apply. Rights are not inherent in our DNA; they're based on the role of reason in man's survival. Hence, if a child is proven in court to have zero current or future capacity to reason -- or, as in the case of the anencephalic, not even the potential for consciousness -- then that child could be humanely enthanized by its parents.

On hearing this view, any thinking person will immediately inquire about the logical implications of saying that anencephalic babies have no rights. Consider the extreme cases: Does that mean that they could be treated like any other animal, e.g. used for medical experiments, kept as a pet, or even eaten for food? (UGH!) The thought is repulsive, undoubtedly, but that's not a reason to refuse to think about it. An honest person's thinking is guided by facts, not emotions, and refusing to examine the logical implications of views under consideration is just evasion. (I was asked about this very issue in a discussion over dinner with some Objectivist friends prior to the webcast. It's a natural question.)

In the webcast, I said that using such babies as a food source, even if legally permitted, would be morally horrifying. That feeling would be pretty near universal, however, so I couldn't imagine that any kind of widespread problem with that would ever exist. That wasn't a pleasant thing to say, but I didn't want to evade the question.

Later, someone seemingly determined to misrepresent what I said in the webcast -- as if I was all in favor of eating babies for breakfast -- questioned me about my views. Part of that discussion showed up in these NoodleFood comments. I found the whole discussion pointless and irritating, but I was thinking through my views as I posted comments. Hence, some of what I said earlier in that thread is definitely wrong. My current view can be found in this comment. Basically, I can imagine a few far-fetched scenarios in which consuming human flesh would not be horrifyingly immoral, provided that no rights were violated in doing so. (I'm still uncertain about Case #3: I feel an overwhelming sense of revulsion at the thought of doing that, but I'm uncertain that every rational person would necessarily feel that way. When in doubt, I will not condemn.)

The whole topic is so ridiculously far-fetched that I just can't see any point in further discussion of it. I'd be far more interested to hear a well-reasoned defense of some kind of legal protections for anencephalic babies, even if not rights. (That could have fascinating implications for laws pertaining to the treatment of animals.) Of course, any such attempt would have to be based on the Objectivist theory of rights, as opposed to the intrinsicist view. That intrisicist view says that rights are inherent in human nature, and it leads to granting rights to zygotes.

If anyone wants to assess my understanding of rights, I'd recommend reading my two published writings on the nature and basis of abortion rights, both co-authored with Ari Armstrong:

• The 'Personhood' Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception, particularly the section on Individual Rights and Abortion (2010)
  
• The Assault on Abortion Rights Undermines All Our Liberties (2012)

I'd also recommend reading my two graduate papers on the follies of animal rights:

• Animal Wrongs (PDF, 2004)
  
• On the Margins of Humanity (2005, PDF)

The second paper discusses what rights humans without any capacity for rational thought might have, and the implications of that for claims about animal rights.

The Transgendered

I strongly disagree with Dr. Peikoff's moral condemnation of the transgendered and their surgeons. In this December 13th, 2010 podcast, he claims that transgenders are engaged in "a war against reality." He also says that the doctors who perform sexual reassignment surgery are "corrupt without qualification," and he likens them to the doctors who performed experiments in Nazi concentration camps. In this June 20th, 2011 podcast, he claims that a person's sex is immutable, that sexual reassignment surgery does not change it, and that such surgery destroys a person's capacity for sexual enjoyment. In this January 2nd, 2012 podcast, he says that transsexualism is a "metaphysical assault on reality" and "a thorough corruption" that he would "never voluntarily associate with." He thinks that gay groups should be opposed if they welcome transsexuals. (Note: This third podcast was posted after my webcast discussion.)

I briefly registered my strong disagreement in this webcast discussion: Restrooms for the Transgendered in Transition. I regard Dr. Peikoff's views on this subject as terribly ill-informed and his moral condemnations as unjustified. I was particularly disappointed because his moral condemnation of transsexualism seems exactly like the moral arguments against homosexuality that used to be common in Objectivist circles.

Given that I know some transgendered Objectivists -- and that OHomos @ OList.com welcomes transgenders -- I didn't want to remain silent about these repeated public condemnations of the transgendered, particularly not when I was answering a question on the transgendered in my webcast. Others have spoken up too, and I'm glad of that. People -- particularly the transgendered -- should know that Dr. Peikoff doesn't necessarily speak for other Objectivists on this topic. Also, I wanted transgender Objectivists to feel welcome in the forums that I manage.

In the webcast, I said that Dr. Peikoff's comments on this topic are "horribly ignorant" and "armchair philosophizing." I stand by those remarks, strongly-worded as they are. Dr. Peikoff doesn't seem to be aware of the basic claims about the psychology of transgenderism. He would likely disagree with those claims, but a fair judgment of the transgendered and their doctors requires some familiarity with them. His remarks are premised on other critical factual errors, as Trey Givens discusses in this blog post. Moreover, in light of the strength and vehemence of Dr. Peikoff's repeated condemnations of the transgendered, I don't think my language was out-of-proportion. Of course, my criticisms are limited to his comments on this particular topic, which I regard as a striking exception to the keen insight that I've enjoyed in Dr. Peikoff's lecture courses, time and again.

Privacy Lies

For many years -- probably more than a decade -- I've been interested in the question of the morality of lies to protect one's privacy. That's part of my broader interest in the virtue of honesty -- as evidenced by my two published papers on the topic: "Dursley Duplicity: The Morality and Psychology of Self-Deception" in Harry Potter and Philosophy and "False Excuses: Honesty, Wrongdoing, and Moral Growth" in the Journal of Value Inquiry. Privacy lies are of particular interest because Objectivists often disagree about them, and I enjoy sorting through such moral tangles. However, there's more to the story.

For many years, I knew that Nathaniel Branden condemned such lies in very clear terms in his "Basic Principles of Objectivism" course. (That course was originally given at NBI, and it was approved by Ayn Rand.) However, the version of that course available to the public (which I own) was actually re-recorded after his break with Ayn Rand. I worried that, particularly on this issue, Branden might have changed the content. Recently, I was able to get my hands on a rarity: the original lectures recorded at NBI. To my surprise, the discussion of privacy lies was exactly the same as in the publicly available versions. Moreover, Ayn Rand didn't seem to change her view later in life: her remarks in the Q&A of Dr. Peikoff's "Philosophy of Objectivism" course indicate that she still regarded lies for the sake of privacy as wrong in 1976.

However, Leonard Peikoff has claimed that lies for the sake of privacy are justified. He discusses the issue in Understanding Objectivism, and he has a line about it in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. When I asked him about the issue during an OCON Q&A, he wasn't able to offer a suitable example of what he meant. (I don't mention that to fault him, but rather only to indicate my longstanding interest in this topic, including my attempt to get a better understanding of Dr. Peikoff's views.)

Personally, I'm fascinated by this apparent difference of opinion between Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff. I want to consider what each side has to say in depth, and I'd like to see if their views can be reconciled. Mostly though, I want dive into the substantive question, then develop a clear and cogent analysis of these kinds of lies from an Objectivist perspective.

My own view has long been that privacy lies are dangerous (like other kinds of lies) and unnecessary (provided that a person thinks ahead). Ultimately, if Dr. Peikoff disagrees with Ayn Rand on privacy lies, I won't consider that any reason to cast doubt on his understanding of and committment to Objectivism. Given that the topic is so narrow, that would be silly and wrong for anyone to do that.

When I was playing the relevant segments of audio from the tapes of the "Basic Principles of Objectivism" to create MP3s on my computer, I posted a quick status update to Facebook on the topic. I said, "I've been doing some fascinating historical digging on Ayn Rand's view of 'privacy lies' today. Her view, in contrast to that of Leonard Peikoff, was that such lies are wrong, and often downright vicious. And she's right!" In the first comment, I said, "Hopefully I'll have the time to put together a blog post on this topic sometime in the next week or two." Later in that thread, I said more about my sources and my own views.

I thought that people might be curious about the issue, as I was. Naively, I never imagined that people would get upset about the matter. (Alas, I've learned that anything that can be taken out of context via unfavorable assumptions about my motives probably will be. Recently, I posted a simple quote from Ayn Rand on rights. Much to my amazement, some people interpreted that as "quoting Ayn Rand out of context as a weapon against Leonard Peikoff.")

According to my critics, I'm culpable on this issue of privacy lies because I've not yet blogged about it. Of course, if anyone had asked me why, I would have given them a very simple answer: I've been very busy of late, and I have about 20 blog posts that I'd like to write at any given moment. I will blog about it -- although I'm not sure exactly when -- precisely because privacy lies have been such a longstanding topic of interest for me. In the meantime, anyone else can investigate the matter for themselves, as all the sources are public.

Objectivists ought to be able to discuss -- and disagree on -- the morality of privacy lies in way that respects each person's independent judgment and context of knowledge. Ultimately, I suspect that a person cannot coherently advocate for the morality of privacy lies and uphold the virtue of honesty. However, that's far from self-evident, and some might argue that privacy lies don't aim to gain a value but only to keep it. Among Objectivists, any such claims will have to be argued carefully and chewed over thoroughly, as people think through a wide range of cases in light of the virtue of honesty and other relevant principles. Objectivists can foster that kind of discussion by scrupulously respecting each person's independent judgment, rather than demanding deference to experts. I'd like to see that happen, and I hope that my future writings on this topic contributes to that.

* * *

Objectivists will disagree with each other on occasion: that's inevitable. To be happy in our own lives, as well as promote rational ideas in the culture, we must keep those disagreements in perspective. We must take care to practice the virtues and respect them in others. By doing that, we can create a vibrant, healthy, and friendly community of Objectivists. That will attract others to our ideas, and enable us to be better advocates for Objectivist principles in the culture.

I'll continue to promote that kind of Objectivist culture -- and to fight for reason, egoism, and rights in America. I'm proud of what I've accomplished so far, and I'm eager to do even more in the years to come. Surely, I'll err on occasion -- but I'll always strive to correct my errors and do better in the future. I appreciate substantive arguments against my views, but I'll pass on the circular firing squad. I've got too many positive values to pursue and too much statism to fight for that kind of silliness.

Again, if you have any burning questions, please e-mail me privately.

Egypt's GOP

Egypt's GOP:

Over at Salon is an article that likens the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to the Republican Party in the United States.

[T]he Brotherhood is a free-market party led by wealthy businessmen whose economic agenda embraces privatization and foreign investment while spurning labor unions and the redistribution of wealth. Like the Republicans in the U.S., the financial interests of the party's leadership of businessmen and professionals diverge sharply from those of its poor, socially conservative followers.

While I disagree with Avi Asher-Schapiro that the economic interests of wealthy individuals and poor individuals differ, I think this writer has a point. Since privatization, as the term is too-commonly used today, does not necessarily even really mean "privatization", and many people who are said to be "free market" are not really pro-capitalists, but advocates of a less government-controlled mixed economy, I think that the article is right to note that each political party is a coalition between such "free market" types and theocrats. (I wouldn't tout either party as "pro-capitalist".) The article clearly depicts this as a bad thing for the wrong reason: Asher-Schapiro seems to regard any vestige of capitalism in post-Mubarak Egypt as a bad thing.

What is actually bad about this is that Islam (like Christianity) is, in fact, ethically incompatible with capitalism. These businessmen are already soothing foreign investors: If their economic policies really do represent a loosening of the economy, the theocrats in their coalition will be in a position to falsely gain credit when, as often happens, the loosening of state economic controls brings about an economic boom. The "free market" part of this coalition is, like that of the GOP, serving as "useful idiots" for the theocratic part of the coalition, and will, ultimately, either have to leave the coalition or lose after the theocrats entrench themselves and some choice has to be made between businessmen remaining wealthy (or free to enjoy their wealth) and the dictates of Islam.

In the meantime, watch for other unwarranted or premature sighs of relief from the West.

-- CAV

Objectivist Blog Carnival

Objectivist Blog Carnival:

by Jason Stotts

Welcome to the January 26, 2012 edition of the Objectivist Round Up and the 17th time Erosophia has hosted!

Today’s quote is from Jean-Baptiste Say:

Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right?

If you have never read Say, he is worth reading and is a clear writer, even for those without a background in Economics.

——————————-

Burgess Laughlin presents Making Progress: An Activist’s Choices posted at Making Progress, saying, “Who is an activist? What are the choices an activist faces once committed to activism? The answers are as varied as the personal values and individual abilities of the activists.”

Santiago and Kelly Valenzuela presents Give Thanks posted at Mother of Exiles, saying, “Short and sweet, but I love this image and the message it conveys!”

Rational Jenn presents Brain Dump posted at Rational Jenn, saying, “In this post, I give my views about several parenting posts that have recently made the rounds on Facebook and Twitter. The last link and commentary especially will be relevant and, I hope, interesting to Objectivists.”

Rational Jenn presents ATLOSCon Speaker Proposals! posted at Rational Jenn, saying, “ATLOSCon 2012 will be in Atlanta on May 24-27. We are soliciting proposals for classes. The deadline is FEBRUARY 1, so get your proposal in soon!”

Jim Woods presents U.S. Troops in Uganda? Blame Congress, Not Obama posted at Words by Woods, saying, “When Obama sent troops to Uganda in October, many wondered why.”

Paul Hsieh presents Repealing CO Health Insurance Exchange posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, “Here is my invited written statement to the CO state legislature supporting a good bill to repeal last year’s bad law establishing a state health insurance “exchange”.”

Earl Parson presents Sam Maloof Exhibit at the Huntington posted at Creatures of Prometheus, saying, “Iconic furniture craftsman Sam Maloof would have been 96 this week. As part of my ongoing ‘Birthdays of the Great Ones’ series, I reviewed the current exhibition of his work at the Huntington in Pasadena. Maloof developed a highly individualized style over the course of his long career – he was a man with a truly unique vision. Enjoy!”

Diana Hsieh presents On Some Recent Controversies posted at NoodleFood, saying, “Here are my thoughts on how the Objectivist movement might and ought to deal with disagreements, as well as some background on current criticisms of me.”

Edward Cline presents “Strike” One at The Rule of Reason

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That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of objectivist round up using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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U.S. - Other unfunded liabilities

U.S. - Other unfunded liabilities:

"Strike" One

"Strike" One:

The voluntary “blackout” of Wikipedia and other major Internet sites on January 18th in protest of the proposed SOPA/PIPA legislation in Congress had Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged written all over it. It’s likely that these sites’ owners even disdain Rand and her philosophy of reason and individual rights, but, there it was. They heard the wolf packs baying in the distance and coming closer, and took action. Here’s your world without us or our minds and our services. That was the message of the novel and of the blackout.

Moreover, the blackout had consequences. It forced the sponsors and advocates of the legislation to think twice about passing it. Can you imagine what might have happened if doctors had gone on a one-day strike before ObamaCare was passed? Possibly Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would have demanded that National Guard SWAT teams be called up to force doctors to return to their hospitals and clinics. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. There was no strike. That would have revealed the true nature of ObamaCare. It could possibly have delayed or aborted passage of that pernicious legislation. And Vice President Joe Biden would have instead exclaimed, “What’s the big *%#!* deal???”

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, House Bill 3261), and PIPA (Protect IP Act, Senate Bill 968) were condemned for two main reasons: the congressmen who drew up the legislation revealed a fatal ignorance of how the Internet works and so were proposing to hand government bureaucrats and law enforcement agencies the power to control its content, rendering the legislation ill-conceived and utterly impotent to combat the piracy of movies, music and even copyrighted written content; or because it would indeed empower the government to police the Internet, ostensibly to protect copyrights and intellectual property, but actually to control content and silence opposition to government policies at the behest of whatever lobby, group, or person had influence over Congress.

Some “strikers” and pundits opposed the legislation for technical reasons, citing the confusing language of the legislation. You can’t start a car without a solenoid, they were saying. It’s really very simple. The car can’t be stolen by pirates either if you remove the solenoid. That means the thieves would have to stop and strip or vandalize the car, giving you enough time to call the cops and see them arrested. Or they could bring their own solenoids, usually stolen from an auto parts store. What you’re proposing is that the guy who buys a used car not knowing it was stolen is a party to the theft, and you’d arrest him and let the thieves go free. That’s not really fighting car-theft, is it? – you cretins.

And your rules would crush the whole used-car market, in which the majority of used car sales are legitimate, but no one would want to risk selling or buying a used car because anyone could claim his car was stolen, even though it might have sat on the lot for ages. So, we refuse to be the patsies and fall guys of bureaucrats and other government knowledge “managers.”

An article by Derek Broes in Forbes on January 20th, “Why Should You Fear SOPA and PIPA?” cuts to the chase. After posing the rhetorical question, “What’s so bad about trying to protect movies and music from being pirated?” Broes notes:

The birth of SOPA and PIPA has been established through the efforts of the lobbying arms of the studios and labels The MPAA and RIAA. SOPA or (Stop Online Piracy Act) is in the Senate and PIPA, or (Protect Intellectual Property Act) is in the House [sic]. Both bills are essentially the ‘same wolf in sheep’s clothing’ so there is really no need to try and differentiate.

If passed, SOPA and/or PIPA will give the Justice Department the ability to shut down almost any blog or website at will, PLUS it will also do absolutely nothing to stop those that pirate movies or music.

Today the studios and labels rely on DMCA take down notices to handle piracy on websites such as YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook. The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) allows the website to take down the content within a specific period of time after receiving a DMCA notice without penalty.

Broes has the venues of the legislation backwards, but adds that in “most cases all of the companies mentioned above do a fantastic job, and thus far have not done too much complaining about the costs of implementing technology and resources for a successful DMCA compliance structure.” He then wades into the complexities of the Internet and how piracy is practiced on it. This article should be read for the “solenoid” details to better understand how piracy is possible and why SOPA and PIPA would not actually stop it.

If the government, and those behind government, didn’t like Huffington Post or Breitbart.com it would now be legally plausible and simple to shut them down. After all, Huffington Post editors at some point in time have posted links to content from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other organizations. These networks could now claim that the Huffington Post was infringing upon their copyrights, and that Huffington editors, under SOPA/PIPA, be charged for each offense and go to jail. Yes jail.

“That would never happen” a friend of mine that works at a major studio told me. My response to him was simple. “I have never known a law that gives the government more power that they have not only used but exceeded the law’s intent to gain even more power.”

Broes concludes:

SOPA and PIPA are dangerous, half-baked solutions that will cost millions of jobs, stifle innovation and ultimately do nothing to stop piracy at all. It [sic] could be used as a solution for those in Government that seek to silence their opposition, even if that was never the intention. Hollywood has many large donors that are huge contributors to Obama so, even though Harry Reid postponed a vote on the bill, you can bet that they will try to wait for the frenzy to calm down before voting on a somewhat different version of the bill and most likely have a different name than SOPA or PIPA. After all, those names are as about as unpopular as members of Congress right now.

And who would be the Alpha Male wolf leading the pack? Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) and regulatory “czar.”

Alec Rawls in an article on the “Watts Up With That” anti-climate change site, “Regulatory Czar wants to use copyright protection mechanisms to shut down rumors and conspiracy theories” (January 20th), also gets down to brass tacks and opens with:

As Congress considers vastly expanding the power of copyright holders to shut down fair use of their intellectual property, this is a good time to remember the other activities that Obama’s “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein wants to shut down using the tools of copyright protection. For a couple of years now, Sunstein has been advocating that the “notice and take down” model from copyright law should be used against rumors and conspiracy theories, “to achieve the optimal chilling effect.”

What kinds of conspiracy theories does Sunstein want to suppress by law? Here’s one:
… that the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud. [From page 4 of Sunstein's 2008 “Conspiracy Theories” paper.] [Italics Rawls’]

What an odd but cruel metaphor for Sunstein to employ – chilling effect – when advocating the gagging of critics of global warming. Yet Sunstein means it. Rawls poses a real life conundrum:

Suppose you are a simple public-spirited blogger, trying to expose how Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Tom Wigley, and other Team members conspire to suppress the research and destroy the careers of those who challenge their consensus views. If Sunstein gets his way, Team members will only have to issue you a takedown notice, and if you want your post to stay up, you’ll have to go to court and win a judgment that your version of events is correct.

Sunstein is for government information “management” of men, to combat what he cynically deems “rumors and conspiracy theories,” that is, truth or the search for truth. He views men as mere sociological units and passive receptors of sense data which their “bias” translates into subjective interpretations of reality. Nothing that men know, that is, men who are not in power to enforce their own subjectivity, has any validity. Reality is unknowable. The peace and quiet of society must be preserved at all costs, even if it means tearing out the tongues of men or addling their minds with “preferred” or "official" truths.

If men sense that they are being tracked by wolf packs – if they sense that a government or president is preying upon their freedom, their wealth, their livelihoods, their lives – then this is simply a group “bias” or a psychosis that the government must combat with knowledge manipulation. Rawls writes:

The path from Sunstein’s 2008 “Conspiracy Theories”” article to his 2009 On Rumors book is straightforward. According to Sunstein’s 2008 definition, a conspiracy theory is very close to a potentially libelous rumor:

… a conspiracy theory can generally be counted as such if it is an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role. [Abstract]

At this time, Sunstein’s “main policy idea” was that:

government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories….

… government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. ["Conspiracy Theories," pages 14-15] [Italics Rawls']

Sunstein wrote in On Rumors:

“….[R]umors [or conspiracy theories] often arise and gain traction because they fit with, and support, the prior convictions of those who accept them. Some people and some groups are predisposed to accept certain rumors, because those rumors are compatible with what they think they know to be true.” [p. 6]

So, if your conviction is that your life is your own, and you notice that various regulatory “czars” assert otherwise, that you must live for the good of the nation and sacrifice yourself to penury, and defer to elitist society managers before you buy a can of soup or light a cigarette or purchase a pair of shoes, and you conclude, with others who hold and share the same conviction, that the government is encroaching on every little aspect of your life and that this enveloping trend seems to be a conspiracy – well, SOPA or PIPA would allow the government to send in its “infiltrators” to set your mind straight. Or perhaps an ATF or DHS SWAT team for a more visceral persuasion, if you persist in your delusion that the government is intent on enslaving you.

Picture a worst case scenario under SOPA or PIPA: The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or the Islamic Circle of America, or the Muslim Public Affairs Council filing a complaint with the government about “rumors and conspiracy theories” being posted on Jihad Watch or The Middle East Forum, and demanding that these sites be taken down as defamatory and disrespectful and malicious, even though all these sites do is report on the crimes committed in the name of Islam and the stealth jihad conquest of the country. Or imagine Ron Paul wishing to have his weird foreign policy statements expunged from the Internet record so that no one could judge him by those statements.

Imagine the doors to all kinds of knowledge shut in your face because Cass Sunstein has diagnosed you as nuts.

Do not be fooled by the ubiquitous photo of a smiling Cass Sunstein. He is a totalitarian of the first rank. But while he is only one of dozens of such creatures in the current administration, SOPA and/or PIPA would empower him to impose his vision of an ideal society

Another website, “Cloud Tweaks,” carries an article by Jeff Norman on the intricacies of “cloud computing” and the inherent dangers of SOPA and PIPA.

Understandably, many would-be cloud users might be warded off by fear of a federal shakedown. Businesses should also be concerned, since their employees might choose to store important information in cloud sites that might be dismantled and rid of their data.

The SOPA/PIPA affair has not concluded by any means. Both Craigslist and Wikipedia warn their users that the bills will continue to lurk in Congress’ shadows, perhaps to eventually resurface in a revamped and less easily overpowered form.

Let us concretize the peril and the stakes this way: the Internet enabled me to research and write this article in record time – one day – whereas in the past researching and writing such an article may have taken me a week. But all the research capabilities were there, thanks to protected IP’s and the skill and knowledge of those “providers” (too frequently regarded by regulators and a mooching public as “common carriers”). Yes, there are pirates who exploit the Internet, but they need to be combated with objective law, and not by slapdash legislation drawn up by men with faulty and fatal grasps of how and why the Internet works.

Finally, a great lesson is being overlooked even by those who welcome Congress’s second thoughts about SOPA and PIPA. The Internet blackout proved, perhaps more than the Tea Party movement ever put Congress on notice that Americans were tired of its juggernaut to national insolvency and socialism, that power-lusters and their abettors can be stopped cold. On January 23rd, PC World reported:

By the time the week was over, dozens of lawmakers had abandoned the two bills or voiced opposition, and a cloture vote on PIPA scheduled for this Tuesday in the Senate was delayed as lawmakers try to find a compromise. In the House, Representative Lamar Smith, the lead SOPA sponsor and Texas Republican, killed his bill.

And that was “Strike One” against statism. Who will throw the next pitch at Congress and the White House? Who will emulate John Galt? Doctors, or oil companies?

Double-Taxation Means Double Injustice for Romney

Double-Taxation Means Double Injustice for Romney:

Why do the same people who continually cry that “corporations aren’t people” want to tax them as though they were? Corporations are voluntary organizations of individuals. The law should protect the rights of each individual (including the right to speak as part of a group), not impose double burdens on individuals who happen to participate in corporations. Yet today’s tax code punishes individuals who invest in corporations twice: once at the corporate level and once at the individual level.

Thus, far from getting off easy on his taxes, Mitt Romney suffers unjust double taxation. John Berlau and Trey Kovacs explain this important context in an article for the Wall Street Journal. They write, “Our tax code layers taxation of dividends and capital gains on top of a top corporate tax rate of 35%,” and such “double taxation brings the effective tax rate on investment income to as much as 44.75%.”

At least Romney wants to limit the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent. But he should go much further and call for the abolition of all corporate taxes with a commensurate cut in federal spending. Not only would that end this injustice of double taxation, it would protect the rights of corporations to use their resources to create wealth, profits, and employment.

Romney’s critics are right about one thing: It is grotesquely unfair to tax individuals who earn less an even greater proportion of their income. Thus, as a good first step tax rates for all individuals should be reduced to 15 percent or less. Forcing some people to hand over a third or more of their earnings to the politicians and bureaucrats of the federal government is a blatant violation of their rights.

Related:

• Romney Should Call for Property Rights and Lower Taxes for Everyone


• To Protect Rights, Phase Out Payroll Tax Completely

Image: Creative Commons by Brian Rawson-Ketchum via Wikipedia

Rick Santorum on Free Speech

Rick Santorum on Free Speech:

In this video, Rick Santorum answers a question on SOPA. He doesn't express an opinion about the bill, but he does explain his view that he regards all rights as limited and subject to regulation, including free speech rights:



Here are some highlights, but I recommend listening to the whole video:

My general feeling is that we have a free market and a free market should work. But like any freedom, there has to be regulation. We're not unlimited in any right, even rights that we have within our Constitution: they're not unlimited rights. There is, and can be, limitations on that. Freedom of speech, there are things that you can't say: you can't cry "fire" in a crowded theater. There are limitations to all freedom: there are no absolute rights. There are rights that have responsibilities that come with them. If you abuse those rights -- piracy -- if you abuse those rights, then you have a consequence of abusing that right. ...

I would make the case that ... there are limits to freedom on the internet. The internet is a powerful source for good. And, as we all know, it has been a powerful source for bad in this country. So the idea that we should just "hands-off" -- and it's a moral-free zone, it's a regulation free-zone, and that people should be able to do whatever they want -- I don't know of any other zone in America where that's the case. Why should the internet be different than everything else?

So I would say that responsible, well-[something], discussed regulation -- if there is abuse, taking someone's private property -- if there is abuse, as there is in pornography and a lot of other areas where we are destroying the moral fabric of our country -- to say, "well, it's just tough, let people to whatever they want -- let a 12 year old -- let them do whatever they want."

There are limitations that have to be put in place because your free speech rights can be incredibly harmful to someone else. Your desire to go a grab something that doesn't belong to you can be very harmful to someone else. ...

Rick Santorum views liberty as mere license to indulge in whims, including stealing from others. That's an utterly corrupt conception of rights. A person does not have the right to violate the rights of others! Yet on Santorum's view, protecting intellectual property from theft is on par with banning pornography to protect the moral fabric of society. They're both a matter of limiting rights to prevent harm to others.

Oy vey.

Graham on "Resourcefulness"

Graham on "Resourcefulness":

Venture capitalist Paul Graham considers why it is that, in hindsight, the most successful and least successful start-up groups stand out in two seemingly unrelated metrics:

[T]he startups that did best were the ones with the sort of founders about whom we'd say "they can take care of themselves." The startups that do best are fire-and-forget in the sense that all you have to do is give them a lead, and they'll close it, whatever type of lead it is.

However,

[T]he least successful startups ... all seemed hard to talk to. It felt as if there was some kind of wall between us. I could never quite tell if they understood what I was saying.

Graham resolves his conundrum by making the following connection:

It turns out there is, and the key to the mystery is the old adage "a word to the wise is sufficient." Because this phrase is not only overused, but overused in an indirect way (by prepending the subject to some advice), most people who've heard it don't know what it means. What it means is that if someone is wise, all you have to do is say one word to them, and they'll understand immediately. You don't have to explain in detail; they'll chase down all the implications. [italics added]

Equally interesting are Graham's and one of his partner's thoughts on why some people are not wise (or, as Graham calls it "conversationally resourceful"). Graham sees the absence of wisdom as denial, while his partner sees a more passive, semi-automated process at work.

I think either or both can be at work in any given situation, with active denial being a moral flaw and the semi-automated process falling into the realm of the psycho-epistemological. Some of the unwise may well be unaware of that aspect of their thought process, but they can be made aware of it, and they can change their habitual mode of function through effort and self-monitoring. That said, someone who, "desperately tries to munge [possibly good advice from a clearly good source] into something that conforms with [his] decision" will have his work cut out for him.

-- CAV

The Immorality of a “Reasonable Profits Board”

The Immorality of a “Reasonable Profits Board”:

A recent bill before the U.S. House of Representatives, known as the “Gas Price Spike Act” (HR 3784) aims to create a body known as the “Reasonable Profits Board.” The Board’s mission would be to oversee the profits generated by businesses in the fossil fuel industry, to determine whether those profits are “reasonable” and, if not, to levy a windfall profits tax. Such a Board would plainly violate the rights of the owners and managers of oil and gas companies by overriding their judgment about how to allocate their resources and run their businesses, and by subordinating their judgment to the whims of government bureaucrats.

What would the Board regard as a reasonable profit? The text of HR 3784 tells us: “The term ‘reasonable profit’ means the amount determined by the Reasonable Profits Board to be a reasonable profit.” This is patently circular and arbitrary.

Where does the government propose to allocate the “unreasonable” portion of the businesses’ profits? Supporters of the bill want to use the money to fund government-sponsored “clean energy initiatives,” to reduce fares for publicly funded mass-transit, and, in the words of Rep. Kucinich, to finance “forward-thinking transportation alternatives.” Since two of the six representatives sponsoring the bill are from California, namely Bob Filner and Lynn Woolsey, both of whom advocate more government involvement in transportation, including high-speed rails, one may reasonably conclude that the “forward-thinking transportation alternatives” would include boondoggles such as the project to build a high-speed rail linking San Diego to San Francisco, the projected cost of which is now close to $100 billion. Further, nothing in the bill limits the government from using the businesses’ “unreasonable” profits on pet projects like Solyndra and Evergreen Solar.

As if all that weren’t enough to damn the bill, could anyone possibly believe that the power of a “Reasonable Profits Board,” once created, would remain limited to its initial intentions? Surely its power would soon extend into other industries, such as banking when the next financial crisis hits or the internet when bureaucrats determine that Google and company have “unreasonable” profits too.

In short, HR 3784 would violate the rights of oil and gas companies by forcing them to subsidize their otherwise incapable “competitors” and politicians’ pet projects, and it would set the stage for more of the same in other industries. In a word, it would be immoral.

HR 3784 and the very notion of a Reasonable Profits Board should be cast into the sewer, where it belongs.

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bureaucrats_at_work.jpg

Video: Dealing with Temperamental People

Video: Dealing with Temperamental People:

In Sunday's Philosophy in Action Webcast, I discussed dealing with temperamental people. The question was:

Should people be willing to "walk on eggshells" around temperamental people? Some people – often very talented – are known to be highly temperamental. They'll explode in anger if others disagree with them, make innocent mistakes, or just act differently than they'd prefer. Is that a moral failing, and if so, what is its source? How should people around them act? When and how much should others try to placate them?

My answer, in brief:

Temperamental people indulge their emotions when they don't get their way because they don't respect and value other people as autonomous individuals. If that irrationality is entrenched, then the best course is likely to refuse to deal with the person.

Here's the video of my full answer:

If you enjoy the video, please "like" it on YouTube and share it with friends in e-mail and social media! You can also throw a bit of extra love in our tip jar.

All posted webcast videos can be found in the Webcast Archives and on my YouTube channel.

1-21-12 Hodgepodge

1-21-12 Hodgepodge:

New (as in Coke) Google

FarhadManjoo hitsthe nail on the head whenhe discusses Google's tampering with search results in the name ofturning everything into a social network.

For more than a decade, Google search wasn't"social" in any way. When I searched for a new car or a European hotelor the best way to plunge a toilet, Google would give me results thatreflected the collected view of all Web users. That worked really well!

Not once during those years did I get to aGoogle results page and lament that I couldn’t see my friends' ideasabout the car I should buy or the hotel I ought to book. While myfriends are thoughtful and knowledgeable people, their views on thetens of thousands of large and small inquiries that I bring to Googleevery year are almost always irrelevant...

And,much later:

Google just broke its search engine. It didso under the guise of an improvement, an effort to mesh traditionalsearch results with stuff from your social network. Within hours ofannouncing the change, Google took fire from tech pundits andcompetitors. Most of the criticism focused on implementation: Insteadof drawing content from many different social networks, Google’s newresults will lean heavily on its own network, Google+. [link removed]

Yearsago, before Google became popular, I randomly discovered it when Inoticed how bad most search engines were. (One kept changing what "AND"meant between narrowing its results to having BOTH terms and expandingits results to include EITHER term.) What caused me to adopt it as mysearch engine -- and tell other people about it -- were its simplicityand the fact that I knew what I would be getting out of it would bebased on (a) my actual query and (b) relevance to most people, and notjust a possibly biased group of people.

Maybeit's time to start looking around for a search engine again.

Weekend Reading

"CharlesDow's original stock index wasn't the Dow Jones Industrial Average, butthe Transportation Index, first calculated in 1884 as a leadingharbinger of the economy." -- Jonathan Hoenig, in "Playingthe Rally in Transport Stocks", at SmartMoney

"...I frequently suggest that couples start with separate sessions, ratherthan meeting me as a couple." -- Michael Hurd, in "DoesCouples Therapy Work?", at DrHurd.com

"If we wish to continue enjoying the benefits of capitalisticinnovation, we should regard 'making a profit' as praiseworthy as'creating value,' and give those who earn honest profits the respectand gratitude they deserve." -- PaulHsieh, in "WhyIs Creating Value Good, Profits Bad?" at RealClear Markets

"[T]he fact that bad people can misuse a technology does not justifyrestricting the freedoms of honest users." -- Paul Hsieh, in "SOPA,Guns, and Freedom" at PJ Media

My Two Cents

MichaelHurd's column has several choice quotes about how the question forwhich he names his column often arises for the wrong reasons. I alsofound his discussion of what he calls "triangulation" interesting.

Calltriangulation, "the bane of the second-hander",since the very problem someone who does this needs to solve is gettingin the way of him solving it.

And the winner is ...

KompoZer. A couple of weeks ago, I blegged for ideas on HTML editors.I was leaning towards the first suggestion I got, which was a Chromeplug-in, but saw lots of complaints about its latest version on its website, so I dug a little more and found something that works well for me.

Noteto Google: Using Chrome as the browser sped things up very nicely, andthe new Blogger editor would be okay -- except that it drives me crazythat when I'm done with a paragraph and want to skip down a line, Ihave to hit a down arrow after hitting ENTER. Also annoying: When Itype something in bold, like the title of this sectionof the post and then skip down a line to start writing, why does youreditor (a) assume I want the paragraph in bold even after I toggle boldoff, and (b) make me switch to the HTML view to fix it.

WithKompoZer, I have restored order to the computer-aided editingexperience: I tell my computer to do something, and the computer doesit.

--CAV

Hsieh RCM OpEd: Why is Creating Value Good, Profits Bad?

Hsieh RCM OpEd: Why is Creating Value Good, Profits Bad?:

The 1/17/2012 edition of Real Clear Markets has just published my latest OpEd, "Why Is Creating Value Good, Profits Bad?"

It's not directly related to health care policy, but rather the broader theme of defending the virtue of the profit motive in a free, capitalistic society. (I do use insurance as an example of how value is created). Here is the opening:

"Profit" is a dirty word. Profit-seeking businessmen are stock villains in Hollywood movies. "Occupy Wall Street" protestors demand, "People not profits" (whatever that means). Companies reporting healthy profits are automatically assumed to be exploiting customers and can only atone for this by "giving back" to their communities. "Making a profit" has an unsavory, morally suspect taint.

Yet simultaneously, Americans have a far more positive view of the concept of "creating value." The mainstream press lauds visionary businessmen who "create value," such as the late Steve Jobs of Apple. The business literature routinely emphasizes the importance of "creating value." So many organizations wish to be seen as "creating value" that it has become a business cliche, like "best practices" and "thinking outside the box."

But in a free society, "creating value" and "making a profit" are just two sides of the same coin...

(Read the full text of "Why Is Creating Value Good, Profits Bad?")

Those who earn honest profits by creating value should be proud of this fact.

I'd like to thank attorney-blogger Doug Mataconis for providing the Tweet which I cited later in the OpEd, as well as pointing me towards the Wall Street Journal piece on Bain Capital that I cited.

Objectivist Roundup

Objectivist Roundup:

The Objectivist Roundup is a weekly blog carnival for Objectivists. Contributors must be Objectivists, but posts on any topic are welcome.

Try Reason! hosted this week's Objectivist Roundup. Go take a look!

You can submit your blog article to the next edition of The Objectivist Roundup using this submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found here. If you're an Objectivist blogger, you can get weekly reminders to submit to the carnival by subscribing to OBloggers @ OList.com.

Minimum Wage Laws

Minimum Wage Laws:

by Jason Stotts

This short video does a very good job of explaining the problem of minimum wage laws.

One problem that it does not address is this: let’s say under market conditions you employ 100 low-level workers each for $1 per day. In order to rectify this “social injustice” a minimum wage law is passed such that th enew minimum wage is $2. Ceteris paribus, you can now only employ 50 workers, since the total expenditure on this amount of labor cannot exceed $100. Thus, the effect minimum wage law was to give 50 workers extra income and to deprive 50 workers of all of their income. This is hardly better for the 50 workers who now have zero income instead of their $1 per day wage. In fact, in Economics it is considered an obvious truth that minimum wage laws create a minimum level of unemployment and all of it at the lowest income levels, harming only the poorest workers.

This example, among countless others, should give people pause when the gesticulate for their to be a law for something that they feel is wrong, even though they don’t understand it. When the government tries to manipulate the market, instead of doing it’s proper function which is to protect the rights of individuals, then there are always negative repercussions: like poor Simon.

The Harms of Welfare

The Harms of Welfare:

More and more I'm coming to accept the conclusion that not only does welfare harm those who are robbed to support others, but it also harms the recipients of those stolen goods. This is true both at the individual level and when one looks at groups of individuals. This story on the failures of massive subsidies to the city of Buffalo is a good example of the latter.

Buffalo may be the paradigmatic example of why expensive government revitalization efforts often fail. Back in 2004, the Buffalo News estimated that the city had garnered more federal redevelopment aid per capita than any other city in the country, a total of more than half a billion dollars since the 1970s. Yet, the paper noted, the city had virtually nothing to show for the money.

Officials squandered millions granting loans and subsidies to projects that went bust. There was a proposed trade center near the famed Peace Bridge that was never completed even after the city granted it federally backed loans; a failed shopping plaza on William Street; and several hotels that defaulted on their government loans. Among the past three decades' failures have been a dozen or so businesses in the theater district—"one of Western New York's most heavily subsidized stretches of real estate," said the Buffalo News.

[...]

Sometimes these schemes have done real harm. In the 1970s, the federal government decided to invest $530 million to build a 6.2-mile light-rail system through downtown Buffalo. It was supposed to further spur redevelopment, of course.

Opened in 1985 and anchored by a transit mall that banned cars, the rail line fell well below ridership projections—and downtown businesses suffered mightily from the lack of traffic. As Buffalo landlord Stephen P. Fitzmaurice wrote in 2009: "Walk down Main Street on the transit mall; aside from a few necessities like drug and cell phone stores, blight dominates." Last month the city received a $15 million federal grant to restore traffic to Main Street.

These massive investment subsidies failed partly because officials were ill-suited to select the right projects and often instead gave money to favored insiders. Even former Mayor Anthony Masiello described the federal government's redevelopment funds as "a politically motivated system trying to please everybody."

Read the whole thing to see how taxes and regulations also play into Buffalo's poverty.

Make-a-Wish Politics

Make-a-Wish Politics:

Via HBL comes a story that, even in this day and age, is a little hard for me to believe. The New York Times reports that energy producers are being fined by our government for not selling a biofuel that doesn't even exist.

When the companies that supply motor fuel close the bookson 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasurybecause they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into theirgasoline and diesel as required by law.

In 2012, the oilcompanies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend inthe fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plantslike corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons intogasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallonsthis year.

...

Penalizing the fuel suppliers demonstrateswhat happens when the federal government really, really wants somethingthat technology is not ready to provide. In fact, while it may seemharsh that the Environmental Protection Agency is penalizing them for failing to do the impossible, the agency is being lenient by the standards of the law, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. [bold and hyperlink added]

In a sense, there is a strange logic to these fines: This law is, ofcourse, supposed to remedy global warming, a phenomenon that may or maynot exist, that may or may not be a problem if it does, and wouldn't be the government's problem to solve even then. When you start acting on the arbitrary, why draw a line anywhere, including whether what you want is even possible?

-- CAV

P.S. It is worth noting that President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act into law.

Are Americans spendthrifts?

Are Americans spendthrifts?:

Bain Capital

Bain Capital:

While I'm not a fan of Romney, the attacks on his work at Bain Capital by other Republicans are revealing of their attitude towards capitalism. This editorial in the WSJ does a good job of making the point. An excerpt:

One Bain investment during Mr. Romney's tenure was to back an entrepreneur named Tom Stemberg, who was convinced he could provide savings for small-business owners if they were willing to shop at a store instead of taking deliveries. Today, the Staples chain of business-supply stores employs 90,000 people.

Bain also backed a start-up called Bright Horizons that now manages child-care centers for more than 700 corporate clients around the world. Many other venture bets failed, but that's capitalism, which is supposed to be a profit and loss system.

The loss part is what seems to trouble the Gingrich-Perry-Obama critics, especially in Bain's private-equity business. Like some 2,300 other such U.S. equity firms, Bain looks to buy companies that are underperforming or undervalued and turn them around.

Far from "looting," this is a vital contribution to capitalism and corporate governance. One of the persistent gripes of the left is that too many CEOs make too much money even as their companies flounder. Private-equity firms target such companies or subsidiaries, replace their management, and try to unlock the underlying value in the enterprise.

Read the whole piece.

What People Are Missing About Property

What People Are Missing About Property:

Over at Rondam Ramblings is a very interesting post about the debate over some Internet-threatening legislation (the Stop Online Piracy Act, aka SOPA) that Congress is considering. The author, "Ron", makes quite a few very interesting points, and shows himself to be quite astute about the importance of naming all the premises in any debate. Unfortunately, he reaches a dangerously wrong conclusion, which he claims is what "everyone is missing in the SOPA debate":

[I]ntellectual property [is] a granted right, not a recognized or fundamental right...

Ron reaches this conclusion by considering the clause in Article 2 of the Constitution that establishes patents and copyrights, and noting several differences between these rights and property rights, both legally and culturally:

[T]he "right" to "intellectual property" does not exist unless explicitly granted by Congress at its discretion. Furthermore, Congress is constrained to grant this right only in service of a specific purpose. namely, to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, and only "for limited times".

... "[I]ntellectual property" is clearly on a different legal footing from the "inalienable rights" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to which people are endowed by their Creator, as recognized in the [D]eclaration of Independence. Neither the Declaration nor the Constitution mentions "property" by name [correction: the 5th amendment does mention it. See the comments.], but it is quite clear that the right to physical property was universally considered an inalienable fundamental right by the Founders.

Ron clearly is grappling with the issue of what the Founding Fathers might have meant by their clause, as he looks for historical evidence within the Constitution and other historical documents. Unfortunately, two aspects of his approach lead him astray.

First, it seems to me that the Founding Fathers were themselves unclear about the exact nature of property. For one thing, a quick search of the web site usconstitution.net reveals that they themselves did not use the term "intellectual property". This suggests that perhaps the concept of intellectual property hadn't been fully formed yet (or at least was very new, or not yet widely accepted), although the Founding Fathers realized on some level that there was something about creative work that merited protection. For another thing, the fact that slavery was recognized in the Constitution suggests that the way that many people held "property" as a concept at the time was wrong. Otherwise, the idea that people could be property would have been widely ridiculed, rather than codified into law in any way whatsoever. The Founders thus were sincerely attempting to protect individual rights, while at the same time (and like anyone), facing errors (e.g., the slavery question, for some) and incomplete knowledge (e.g., an incomplete grasp of the nature of intellectual property) of their own, as well as whatever virtues or limitations the culture of their time placed on what, politically, was possible.

Second, and proceeding directly from the above, while I do not fault anyone with looking at history, an attempt to grapple with the question of whether intellectual property is an individual right is hampered without also considering the philosophical question of what property really is. Any errors or incompleteness of knowledge on the part of the authors of the Constitution will limit any such inquiry that does not account for (1) the essential purpose of the document (setting up a government that protects individual rights) and (2) the nature of those rights.

It is at this point that I defer to Ayn Rand, who made the following argument in a chapter of her book ("Patents and Copyrights"), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal:

What the patent and copyright laws acknowledge is the paramount role of mentaleffort in the production of material values; these laws protect the mind’scontribution in its purest form: the origination of an idea. The subject ofpatents and copyrights is intellectual property.

An idea as such cannot be protected until it has been given a material form. Aninvention has to be embodied in a physical model before it can be patented; astory has to be written or printed. But what the patent or copyright protectsis not the physical object as such, but the idea which it embodies. Byforbidding an unauthorized reproduction of the object, the law declares, ineffect, that the physical labor of copying is not the source of the object’svalue, that that value is created by the originator of the idea and may not beused without his consent; thus the law establishes the property right of a mindto that which it has brought into existence.

It is important to note, in this connection, that a discovery cannot bepatented, only an invention. A scientific or philosophical discovery, whichidentifies a law of nature, a principle or a fact of reality not previouslyknown, cannot be the exclusive property of the discoverer because: (a) he didnot create it, and (b) if he cares to make his discovery public, claiming itto be true, he cannot demand that men continue to pursue or practice falsehoodsexcept by his permission. He can copyright the book in which he presents hisdiscovery and he can demand that his authorship of the discovery beacknowledged, that no other man appropriate or plagiarize the credit forit -- but he cannot copyright theoretical knowledge. Patents and copyrightspertain only to the practical application of knowledge, to the creation of aspecific object which did not exist in nature -- an object which, in the case ofpatents, may never have existed without its particular originator; and in thecase of copyrights, would never have existed.

The government does not "grant" a patent or copyright, in the sense of a gift,privilege, or favor; the government merely secures it -- i.e., the governmentcertifies the origination of an idea and protects its owner’s exclusive rightof use and disposal. [bold added]

Rand is arguing that, as a type of property (i.e., something obtained through individual effort), intellectual property is a fundamental right. Elsewhere in her article, Rand explains that the time limits on patents and copyrights are essential aspects of securing these rights: When the originator of the idea dies, his ideas cease to exist as property. She goes further:

Since intellectual property rights cannot be exercised in perpetuity, the question of their time limit is an enormously complex issue. If they were restricted to the originator's life-span, it would destroy their value by making long-term contractual agreements impossible: if an inventor died a month after his invention were placed on the market, it could ruin the manufacturer who may have invested a fortune in its production. Under such conditions, investors would be unable to take a long-range risk; the more revolutionary or important an invention, the less would be its chance of finding financial backers. Therefore, the law has to define a period of time which would protect the rights and interests of all those involved.

Intellectual property is a fundamental right, and the differences in how the government secures that right from other property rights are not concessions to its being a granted favor or a civil (rather than a fundamental) right, but rather recognitions of the fact that intellectual property differs from tangible property in fundamental ways.

I disagree with Ron's conclusion about intellectual property: Intellectual property is a fundamental right, regardless of whether the Founding Fathers regarded it as such. That said, breaking the Internet is not the proper way to secure that right, and for that reason, I agree that Congress should scrap SOPA/PIPA.

-- CAV

High Time to End the Iranian Regime

High Time to End the Iranian Regime:

Related:

• Interview with Reza Kahlili, an Ex-CIA Spy Embedded in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards


• “No Substitute for Victory” The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism


• An Interview with John R. Bolton on the Proper Role of Government


• The Iranian and Saudi Regimes Must Go


• Interview with Peter Huessy on U.S. Foreign Policy, Iran, and the Middle East

Image: Wikipedia Commons

Did God Help the Patriots Beat the Broncos?

Did God Help the Patriots Beat the Broncos?:

Christians offering prayers for a victory for Tim Tebow and the Broncos had exactly the same effect as witches holding a seance for Tom Brady and the Patriots: none. Football games are won or lost based on the skill and intensity of the players and the quality of the coaching. As I wrote previously, crediting a supernatural being for a team’s success is an injustice to the members of that team who put so much into a game.

Yet, oddly, some continue to suggest that God may influence the outcome of football games. For example, a letter to the Denver Post, referring specifically to the outcome of sporting matches, suggests, “God and Tim Tebow are working together in wonderful and mysterious ways.” (The letter was written without any apparent hint of sarcasm; whatever the author’s intention, some people embrace its sentiment.)

The most glaring problem with such claims is that there is no evidence that a “God” exists, much less that such a being plays a direct role in human affairs.

A secondary problem with claims of supernatural intervention is that they are senseless even on their own terms. A God who would get involved in sporting matches would be even more petty than those fans who pray for such divine intervention. Further, as another letter to the Denver Post asks, why would God choose “to intervene in trivial sports contests and not [prevent] famine and genocide in Africa, or the murder of protesters in Syria, etc.?” This raises the issue formally known as the “problem of evil”: Why would a God with unlimited power to stop human suffering decline to do so?

Those who claim divine intervention in sports and daily life ignore the actual and obvious causes of human events: the willed actions of people and the nature of the things on which they act. A football crosses a goal line because men run it, kick it, or throw it over the line, not because God wills it to cross the line.

Neither God, nor the stars, nor some magical incantation helped the Patriots destroy the Broncos. They did it on their own.

Image: Jeffrey Beall via Wikipedia