May 30, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--The U.S.-financed TV channel Al Hurra, broadcasting in Arabic to the Middle East, has come under fire for failing to win popular support for America in the Arab world--a goal Washington calls "public diplomacy." Critics attack the channel for providing "friendly coverage" to Islamist groups, such as Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaeda.
According to Republican and Democratic critics, better oversight is needed to ensure that in the future the channel will not, as it did recently, broadcast a 30-minute speech by Hezbollah's leader or devote coverage to Iran's Holocaust-denial conference. But the very premise of this TV channel is preposterous and immoral, said Elan Journo, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand institute. "America's self-interest demands not that we fix Al Hurra; but that we scrap it--along with all 'public diplomacy' initiatives.
"The goal of this channel, and of the State Department's other 'public diplomacy,' is to appease the hostility of the Arab world and thereby supposedly discourage Muslims from 'radicalizing.' To that end, Washington funds Islamic radio and TV shows, cultural workshops, the restoration of mosques, the building of Islamic schools. But this is perverse. Our goal should be to defend American lives and uphold our own values, not to apologize and pander to hostile peoples.
"Contrary to the administration's evasions, the enemy is an ideological-political movement--Islamic totalitarianism--that is widely endorsed and supported in the Arab-Islamic world. The only rational means of eliminating the threat from Islamic totalitarianism is to defeat its state representatives--Iran and Saudi Arabia--by military force--and thus demoralize its many supporters.
"Doing that will demonstrate to hostile peoples in the Arab-Islamic world that the cause of jihad is lost--and that fighting for this cause can bring them only destruction. Only demoralized people will reject the ideals and leaders that inspired their belligerence and promised victory; only humiliating defeat will drive them to renounce the fight as hopeless."America's fawning 'public diplomacy' in the Middle East is self-destructive, because it can only strengthen the appeal of Islamic totalitarianism by lending plausibility to the charge that the United States is cowardly and morally bankrupt. It is high time Washington declared that America stands for--and will defend to the death--the ideals of individualism, reason and freedom. Our lives depend on bringing our enemies defeat, not an Arabic version of 'Sesame Street.'"May 29, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--Assisted-suicide practitioner and advocate Jack Kevorkian will be paroled on June 1 after eight years of imprisonment for assisting in the suicide of a terminal patient suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease.
"Dr. Kevorkian's imprisonment was a great injustice," said Thomas Bowden, a practicing attorney and a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. "He would never have been convicted of murder if Michigan law had allowed a defense based on irrefutable, objective evidence of consent. Dr. Kevorkian should be honored for his courageous stand in defense of the right of individuals suffering from devastating terminal diseases to end their lives with the assistance of a trusted doctor."
Before his conviction, Kevorkian claimed to have assisted in the suicide of 130 patients. Now he has vowed to work for the legalization of assisted suicide across the country while not practicing it himself.
"Hopefully," said Thomas Bowden, "Dr. Kevorkian will be successful nationwide in promoting the right to commit suicide with voluntary physician assistance. Currently, only Oregon has set forth clear procedures by which doctors can insulate themselves from criminal prosecution while easing their dying patients' pain and suffering."
"What lawmakers and judges must grasp," added Bowden, "is that there is no rational basis upon which the government can properly prevent an individual from choosing to end his own life. Our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means that we need no one's permission to live, and that no one may forcibly obstruct our efforts to achieve personal happiness. But if happiness becomes impossible to attain, due to a dread disease or some other calamity, a person must be able to exercise the right to end his own life."
"To hold otherwise--to declare that society must give us permission to commit suicide--is to contradict the right to life at its root," said Bowden. "If we have a duty to go on living, despite our better judgment, then our lives do not belong to us, and we exist by permission, not by right."For these reasons, each individual has the right to decide the hour of his death and to implement that solemn decision as best he can. The choice is his because the life is his. And if a doctor is willing--not forced--to assist in the suicide, based on an objective assessment of his patient's mental and physical state, the law should not stand in his way."May 16, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--A recently disclosed Pentagon study on the impact of the Iraq war on U.S. combat troops suggests that many are stressed and hold views at odds with official ethics standards. Critics view this as evidence that more must be done to ensure troops comply with those standards. But in fact the study provides evidence for a searing indictment of Washington's immoral battlefield policies--policies that entail the sacrifice of American troops for the sake of the enemy.
The study reports, for example, that less than half of the soldiers and Marines surveyed would report a team member for unethical behavior. It also finds that "soldiers that have high levels of anger, experienced high levels of combat or screened positive for a mental health problem were nearly twice as likely to mistreat non-combatants" as those feeling less anger and screening negative for a mental health problem.
Although many military personnel may support the Iraq war, and although war is inherently distressing, Washington's immoral policies necessitate putting our troops in an impossible situation. The reported attitudes of combat troops in Iraq can be understood as the natural reaction of individuals thrust into that situation.
U.S. troops were sent, not to defend America against whatever threat Hussein's hostile regime posed to us, as a first step toward defeating our enemies in the region; but instead the troops were sent (as Bush explained) to "sacrifice for the liberty of strangers," putting the lives of Iraqis above their own. Bush sent our troops to lift Iraq out of poverty, open new schools, fix up hospitals, feed the hungry, unclog sewers--a Peace Corps, not an army corps, mission. Consistent with that immoral goal, Washington enforced self-sacrificial rules of engagement that prevent our brave and capable forces from using all necessary force to win, or even to protect themselves: they are ordered not to bomb key targets such as power plants, and to avoid firing into mosques (where insurgents hide) lest we offend Muslim sensibilities.
According to the report: "More than one-third of all Soldiers and Marines continue to report being in threatening situations where they were unable to respond due to the Rules of Engagement (ROE). In interviews, Soldiers reported that Iraqis would throw gasoline-filled bottles (i.e., Molotov cocktails) at their vehicles, yet they were prohibited from responding with force for nearly a month until the ROE were changed. Soldiers also reported they are still not allowed to respond with force when Iraqis drop large chunks of concrete blocks from second story buildings or overpasses on them when they drive by. Every group of Soldiers and Marines interviewed reported that they felt the existing ROE tied their hands, preventing them from doing what needed to be done to win the war."
When being ethical on Washington's terms means martyring oneself and one's comrades, it is understandable that troops are disinclined to report "unethical" behavior. When they are in effect commanded to lay down their lives for hostile Iraqis, it is understandable that troops should feel anger and anxiety. Anger is a response to perceived injustice--and it is perversely unjust for the world's most powerful military to send its personnel into combat, prevent them from doing their job--and expect them to die for the sake of the enemy. Our troops are put in the line of fire as sacrificial offerings--and it would be natural for an individual thrust into that position to rebel with indignation at such a fate.
The study not only indicts the self-crippling rules of engagement that liberals and conservatives endorse; it brings to light the perversity of the moral code of self-sacrifice on which those rules of engagement are based.Apr 29, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Dr. Peikoff will be interviewed on Austin, Texas, radio station KVRX, 91.7 FM, on Monday, April 30, at 8:00 PM central time. KVRX is a student radio station at the University of Texas. Dr. Peikoff will be on "The Kumar Abhinov Show." Live audiostreaming can be accessed at http://kvrx.org/.Apr 20, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
The U.S. House approved a bill today that would force companies to hold yearly shareholder non-binding votes on the pay of their CEOs and top executives.
"While this bill is being portrayed as protecting the rights of shareholders," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "it is in fact a violation of those rights."
"If a majority of shareholders wishes to hold an annual vote to voice approval or disapproval of their board's executive compensation decisions, they have long been free to implement such a policy. But most companies and shareholders have judged that such votes are not in their interest, and it is not hard to imagine why--they do not want to give anti-CEO pundits and politicians yet more fuel to grandstand about 'excessive' CEO pay."To force shareholders and companies to adopt such policies against their judgment is not to protect shareholder rights, but to violate them wholesale."Apr 19, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
After an intense four-year struggle, Australian energy company BHP Billiton's attempt to build a Liquefied Natural Gas facility off the coast of California has been effectively killed by the state's Lands Commission, which voted 2-1 that its "Environmental Impact Report" was unsatisfactory.
"When we in California experience our next energy crisis--or the next time we complain about our exorbitant gas and electric bills--we should remember the fate of BHP Billiton," said Alex Epstein, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. "That company wanted to build a plant that could satisfy up to 15 percent of Californians' energy needs--a plant that did everything possible to maximize safety and minimize pollution. And what did it get in return? Nearly half a decade of obstruction from California's endless constellation of environmental bureaucracies--and seething opposition from environmental groups that oppose every single practical form of energy production, from coal to oil to gas to nuclear power. The message California sends to any would-be producers of plentiful energy is obvious: Not in Our State.
"California and many other states are riddled with laws based on environmentalist hostility toward industrial energy. These laws must be replaced with a respect for property rights and an appreciation for the incomparable value that is industrial energy. Fossil fuels and nuclear power are the lifeblood of our civilization; without them, the average American's food, clothing, shelter, and medical care would be impossible. And, contrary to claims that we must abandon fossil fuels to protect against alleged weather disasters caused by global warming, fossil fuels are vitally necessary to build the buildings and power the technologies that protect us from dangerous weather.
"The anti-industrial mentality of environmentalists must be rejected, in word and in law, by everyone who truly cares about human life."