May 27, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
Washington, D.C., May 27, 2009–“Judge Sonia Sotomayor is unqualified to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States,” said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. Sotomayor was nominated yesterday for the seat being vacated by the retiring Justice David Souter.
“What disqualifies Judge Sotomayor,” said Bowden in his new commentary at the Voices for Reason blog , “is a judicial philosophy that explicitly rejects objectivity and impartiality. She has declared that ‘the aspiration to impartiality is just that–it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact’ that ‘our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions.’
“Elsewhere in her 2001 speech titled ‘A Latina Judge’s Voice,’ she noted that judges are typically unable to ‘transcend . . . personal sympathies and prejudices’ and that ‘gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.’ She also stated that ‘there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives.’
“Referring repeatedly to her ‘Latina soul’ and ‘Latina identity,’ Sotomayor rejected the view often expressed by the Court’s first female Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, that ‘a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.’
“On the contrary, Sotomayor said, ‘I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.’
“This is a blatant endorsement of subjective emotional decision-making, which has no place on the Court and will swiftly corrupt what’s left of its integrity,” said Bowden.
“The Supreme Court has a solemn duty to interpret and apply the Constitution. That is an intellectual task requiring ruthless objectivity–which, contrary to Judge Sotomayor, is not an illusory ‘aspiration’ but a requirement of justice.
“A conscientious judge strives to banish all emotional influences from the decision-making process. But here is Judge Sotomayor declaring herself helpless to resist–indeed, even welcoming–the influence of personal intuitions that cannot be grasped or shared by persons of another gender or ethnicity.
“Although Judge Sotomayor has many of the tools necessary for service on the Supreme Court–judicial experience, intelligence, legal knowledge–she has adopted a philosophy of judging that makes all of those qualities irrelevant.
“The Senate Judiciary Committee should expose Judge Sotomayor’s dangerous judicial philosophy, and the Senate should vote to reject her nomination.”
Apr 20, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
Washington, D.C., April 20, 2009–In a dramatic rescue operation a week ago, U.S. Navy Seals succeeded in freeing Capt. Richard Phillips from captivity by Somali pirates.
According to Elan Journo, analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, even though the operation was successful, it did not teach the pirates the appropriate lesson, as evidenced by news of a pirate attack on another American-flagged ship, the Liberty Sun.
“The pirates have not been deterred,” said Mr. Journo, “because we have emboldened them for years through an entrenched policy of passivity and accommodation–and the freeing of Capt. Phillips was unfortunately just one halting step in a better direction.
“What we need–in response to piracy as well as other foreign threats–is an across-the-board reversal in U.S. policy. When, for example, it became clear more than a year ago that the waters off the coast of Somalia are a playground for pirates, the minimum that Washington should have done was to lay down an ultimatum to the pirates to leave Americans alone or else–and lived up to it.
“The substance of that warning: if any American vessel is captured by pirates, we will use military force to destroy every last pirate base in Somalia. When such a threat of retaliation is made fully credible, it can be sufficient to deter would-be aggressors. If any dare test us, then we must unapologetically respond with force.
“When America has once again earned a reputation as a power that none dare cross,” Mr. Journo concluded, “we won’t have to worry about pirates.”
Apr 20, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2009/04/18/finnstrom.atlas.shrugged.cnn (Hat Tip: HB)
The video (to add balance) also quotes an anti-capitalist on the banking crisis who blames freedom for the mess. Peter Schwartz’s Mob Rule Comes to Washington: Capitalism as a Scapegoat for Government Intervention answers her nicely by pointing out that Washington by Peter “blames capitalism for the mortgage and credit crisis, in order to divert attention from the real culprit: government intervention.”
[Update] And this from ARC:
First, ARC executive director Yaron Brook was interviewed on CNN on Saturday. The report, titled “Ayn Rand Resurgence ,” can be viewed on the CNN Web site. Unfortunately, the report concludes with comments attempting to blame capitalism for the present financial crisis, and to link Ayn Rand to the failed policies of Alan Greenspan. Dr. Brook was not given an opportunity to respond to these statements, but readers may visit the ARC Web site to read our statements on the financial crisis and Alan Greenspan .
In addition to this, yesterday Dr. Brook published an op-ed in The Fox Forum titled “The Ayn Rand Renaissance .” The article discusses the popularity of Atlas Shrugged, and its relation to today’s cultural and political trends. As of this writing, there are more than 500 comments on the article.
Apr 18, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
Elan Journo has an excellent short piece on dealing with piracy off the Coast of Somalia in his blog post “Ending the scourge of piracy?” His solution:
The substance of that warning: if any American vessel is captured by pirates, we will use military force to destroy every last pirate base in Somalia (and any neighboring African country). No country that harbors pirates can demand that its sovereignty be respected. When such a threat of retaliation is made fully credible, it can be sufficient to deter would-be aggressors. If any dare test us, then we must unapologetically respond with force.
Not just occasionally, when negotiations go south — but on principle.
When America has once again earned a reputation as a power that none dare cross, we won’t have to worry about pirates.
This appraoch is similar to the one America should take with terrorism in general. For details see Dr. Peikoff’s End States That Sponsor Terrorism.
Apr 16, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
On April 15 I had the pleasure of addressing a tea party at Charlotte, North Carolina. Attendance was probably 3,000 people, and they were well equipped with signs, placards and tee shirts bearing messages of outrage against the present state of government. Every individual came not by some orchestrated plan, but by a desire to support liberty.
The event was non-partisan. There were lots of anti-Obama signs, but not a one pro-Bush that I saw. Nor did I hear any religious right propaganda; the only mention of abortion was the assertion that a doctor who does not want to do an abortion should not be forced to do it. The overriding message was outrage against the growth of government power.
My own talk focused on the moral aspects of the crisis. I contrasted the elevated view of man and his rights that is enshrined in the American founding documents, versus the cancerous view of man and the phony rights that dominate today. I noted that those who think that such events must be financed by billionaires have no conception of autonomous individuals with independent minds, and thus cannot understand people who come together out of love for liberty.
My mention of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” brought cheers. Afterward, at least two dozen people told me that Atlas was their favorite book. The crowd was hungry for ideas; I passed out hundreds of pieces of literature, and talked to dozens of people about the nature of this crisis.
These tea parties are expressions of an emotion, outrage, that is directed against a rising tide of taxation and increasing government coercion. But emotions are not guides to life, and will not tell a person either how to oppose a motivated socialist movement, or how to formulate a rational alternative. Unless some intellectual focus is brought to these events, they are likely to fade into irrelevance.
Thanks go to Andy Clarkson for the video, to Matthew Ridenhour for organizing the event, and to Lin Zinser and Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.
