Capitalism Review

Where are the Peace-niks?

Jul 12, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From Scott McConnell at the Ayn Rand Institute:

Where are they all?

The placard-waving throngs of former hippies; Jesse Jackson pretentiously speechifying to foreign multitudes; Jimmy Carter pontificating to Larry King--all those peaceniks protesting the deaths of Iraqi civilians?

Where are they now that they are really needed--to support and defend the Iranians rising up to shake off the shackles of dictatorship?

The Iranian people are oppressed by the Mullahs like the Iraqis were oppressed by Saddam Hussein. They have lost their right to free speech, free movement and assembly, freedom of (or from) religion, and the freedom to live their lives by their own freely chosen values, not those of their rulers.
Could it be that these alleged peace protestors were really demonstrating, not for Iraqis and their rights, but against America?

Is that why they are not supporting the Iranian people (or the Venezuelans or Zimbabweans for that matter)--because the U.S. government is (albeit timidly) on the side of these freedom yearning people?

Anyone who truly values individual rights should be cheering and supporting those brave Iranians who want and deserve something very moral and simple: freedom.

US Government Should Not Spend Money to Fight AIDS in Africa

Jul 12, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:

President Bush's pledge to spend $15 billion to combat AIDS in Africa is an outrageous misuse of taxpayers' money. Those who want to help AIDS victims--or any charitable cause at home or abroad-- should do it privately, on their own initiative, with their own money. President Bush, however, has no moral right to force taxpayers to bankroll his "charitable" causes. Thus our government should stop giving away our money and stick to its proper purpose: the protection of our individual rights.

Altruism: The Central Axiom of Left-liberal Foreign Policy, Part 2

Jul 12, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From the Washington Post:

The only conclusion one can draw is that for liberal Democrats, America's strategic interests are not just an irrelevance, but also a deterrent to intervention. This is a perversity born of moral vanity. For liberals, foreign policy is social work. National interest--i.e., national selfishness--is a taint. The only justified interventions, therefore, are those that are morally pristine, namely, those that are uncorrupted by any suggestion of national interest.
Hence the central axiom of left-liberal foreign policy: The use of American force is always wrong, unless deployed in a region of no strategic significance to the United States....
What should be our criteria for military intervention? The answer is simple: strategic and moral necessity. Foreign policy is not social work. Acting for purely humanitarian reasons is wanton and self-indulgent. You don't send U.S. soldiers to die to assuage troubled consciences at home. Their lives should be risked only in defense of their country. [Washington Post , July, 10, 2003]

We're making inroads, though as is evident from the last paragraph (and the rest of his column), Krauthammer still thinks that self-interest is something entirely separate from morality.

Inverted Priorities on Reporting on Iran

Jul 11, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From Cox and Forkum:

Comments Allen Forkum:

It's bad enough when a crucial story goes virtually unreported by the major media ...but the BBC takes the cake in this story: Tehran jammed by protesters. They provide a list of actions taken by the tyrannical regime to suppress the protests, such as jamming outside radio and TV signals, disabling mobile phone systems, and arresting student leaders. The problem is that the BBC lists them under the subhead "Safety measures," which I'm sure is exactly the way mullahs categorize of them. (The BBC gets credit for even reporting the evening protests, which I could find no mention of in the U.S. media.) [July 10, 2003]

Our Friends the Kuwaitis

Jul 11, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Kuwaiti voters ousted most of Parliament's Westernized liberals in favor of fundamentalist Muslims and supporters of the royal-led Cabinet, results showed Sunday. [Yahoo News, July 6, 2003]

Altruism: The Central Axiom of Left-liberal Foreign Policy

Jul 10, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Shades of Ayn Rand from James Taranto this Thursday:

Howard Dean, who emerged as the Democratic presidential front-runner with his uncompromising antiwar stand, now favors military intervention--in Liberia, where he'd like to send 2,000 U.S. troops...
Iraq's history of invading its neighbors, using chemical weapons and pursuing nuclear ones, and backing terrorists actually made it a threat beyond its borders--and thus the U.S. had a strategic interest, not just a moral one, in removing the dictatorship. Some on the left seem to think U.S. intervention is just fine, so long as its moral purity isn't tainted by self-interest.... [OJ]

U.N. Sanctions Dictatorships

Jul 10, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Three leading Iranian student activists were arrested minutes after holding a press conference to blast the Islamic regime for banning events marking the fourth anniversary of bloody student clashes with security forces.
The arrests were made after activists from the Office to Consolidate Unity (OCU) -- a pro-reform student umbrella group -- said President Mohammad Khatami had failed in his drive for reforms and alleged the hardline-controlled judiciary was trying to prevent freedom of thought. [Yahoo News, "Iranian student leaders arrested on riots anniversary after blasting regime", July 9. 2003]

Writes CapMag.com reader J. Clarke:

The Iranian students deserve the full moral--and possibly financial or military--support of America. Unfortunately, the students are mistaken in thinking that an appeal to the United Nations will help their cause. The UN was founded on the principle that a dictatorship (Soviet Russia and Red China) and a free nation (U.S. and Taiwan) are morally equivalent. Such principles have led to the U.N.'s recognition of damn near every slave-pen as legitimate. The Iranian students should steer completely clear of the U.N.

Iran Students Cancel Protest

Jul 9, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

The following is from Cox and Forkum:

Today was supposed to be a momentous day for the revolt against throcracy in Iran, but sadly, according to a Reuters article, it appears that the mullahs' arrests, murders and threats have struck terror into those hoping to speak out: Iran students cancel protest to mark 1999 unrest. We'll see what actually happens throughout the day.
***
Yahoo News is reporting that Islamic Vigilantes Seize Three Iran Student Leaders. Excerpts: "Armed Iranian Islamic vigilantes seized three student leaders on Wednesday as they left a news conference where they announced they had canceled protests to mark the anniversary of 1999 university unrest, witnesses said. ... Authorities have banned off-campus rallies, closed campus dormitories, postponed summer exams and vowed to deal strictly with any unrest after arresting 4,000 people during 10 nights of sometimes violent protests across the country in June. [...] Witnesses said police and military units were posted outside the Tehran U.N. headquarters on Wednesday and photographers and camera crews were prevented from taking pictures at the scene." (Via Little Green Footballs)
A sworn enemy dedicated to our destruction is censoring, kidnapping and murdering dissidents right before our eyes, and all the media and the administration are talking about is Liberia. This is outrageous.
***
Yahoo News reports: Islamic Vigilantes, Police, Youths Fight in Iran. Excerpt: "Hundreds of Iranian hard-line Islamic vigilantes, police and pro-democracy youths fought three-sided running street battles near Tehran University on Wednesday on the anniversary of 1999 student unrest. ... A witness said police had fired tear gas at groups of youths near the campus and also fought fistfights with plainclothes Islamic militiamen to prevent them from engaging in more running battles with youths."
CNN and Fox News have nothing on this crucial story. One would think that after 9/11 the media would consider it a priority to report news of an anti-Islamist revolt in Iran, a country that even the State Department lists as the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism. But apparently not. It is a horrible error.
***
BBC reports: Raid anniversary sparks tensions. Excerpts: "[T]he students agreed to call off all protests after an intervention by reformist members of the Iranian parliament, who told them their demands would stand a better chance of being met -- and their leaders of being freed -- in an atmosphere of calm. ... Despite their compliance, three more student leaders were detained immediately after giving a news conference [...] One of them is believed to have had his nose broken as he was being detained. 'If I am arrested today, I don't guarantee that I won't come out with confessions against myself after they've held me for a while, because of the pressures they put people under,' Ameri-Nassab told journalists only minutes before he was seized."
Apparently detained student leaders were used as hostages to pressure the remaining student leaders not to protest. Once the protest was suppressed, the remaining leaders were taken hostage.
The BBC story notes more of the government censorship measures: "The authorities have also taken steps to silence the radio and TV stations run from California by Iranian exiles bitterly hostile to the Islamic regime. Residents who defy the ban on satellite dishes and watch the broadcasts said they had been jammed for several days. ... Several of the stations had openly incited Iranians to rise up against their rulers."
No need for mullah censorship in the American media. As of 2:30pm CST, CNN had buried the Update 2 story in their World section. Still nothing on Fox that I could find.
***
Iran-Va-Jahan reports that Clashes Are Spreading in Iran. CNN online has finally moved their story to the bottom portion of their front page (under World tab). Still nothing on Fox online.
***
More editorials on the Iranian demonstrations against the mullahs:
Reading the Popular Mood in Iran by Patrick Clawson of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. This contains good background information on the protests. (Via Iran-Va-Jahan)
It's Mullah time! by Mark Steyn. Excerpt: "[W]hatever the defects of post-ayatollah Iran, the fall of the prototype Islamic Republic will be a huge setback to the world's jihadi. ... It was Ayatollah Khomeini who successfully grafted a mid-20th-century European-style fascist movement on to Islam and made the religion an explicitly political vehicle for anti-Westernism. It was the ayatollah who first bestowed on the US the title of 'Great Satan.' And it was the ayatollah who insisted that this new Islamic revolution had to be taken directly to the West -- to the embassy hostages, to Salman Rushdie, and, ultimately, to America itself."

Lawyers Claim Fat People are Dense?

Jul 9, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From Edwin A. Locke of the of the Ayn Rand Institute on:

The lawyers who claim that we are not responsible for the consequences of anything we do (e.g., smoking) are at it again. In a meeting in Boston two weeks ago, they decided to attack the food and restaurant industry. For what crime? For selling food that contains calories.
These lawyers are initiating lawsuits claiming that overweight people were not aware of the alleged dangers of eating fatty foods. If people are not aware that eating fatty foods in large quantities contributes to making them fat and may cause them health problems--something that has been publicized in the media virtually everyday for decades--then what are they aware of? These "victim" lawyers are not just claiming that people are not responsible for what they eat--they are claiming that people are not responsible for being conscious! If people are not responsible for being aware of reality, then just what are they responsible for?

Death to Theocracy in Iran

Jul 9, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From Cox and Forkum:

Required Reading:

Iraq: The Wrong War by Leonard Peikoff
Iran--not Iraq--is the primary threat to American interest in the Middle East and has been since it confiscated our oil fields in the 1950s. Iran is the major sponsor of international terrorism throughout the world and is the country most responsible for lethal attacks on American citizens. For these reasons, Iran fully deserves bloody retribution.

End States That Sponsor Terrorism by Leonard Peikoff
Fifty years of increasing American appeasement in the Mideast have led to fifty years of increasing contempt in the Muslim world for the U.S. The climax was September 11, 2001.

Death to Theocracy: America Must Act Now to Bring Down Iran's Regime by Robert W. Tracinski
The reasons for toppling Iran's theocracy are far stronger--and more certain--than the reasons for invading Iraq.

Iran, Not So Far Away by Scott Holleran
While the world seems locked in an endless debate over whether to strike even one state sponsor of terrorism --- Iraq -- the religious dictatorship chiefly responsible for the wave of Islamic fundamentalism that culminated in the Sept. 11 attack on America is becoming an imminent nuclear threat.

The Real Revolutionaries by Robert W. Tracinski
For months, courageous protesters have braved riot police to oppose the depredations of a warlike and oppressive regime bent on world domination. No, I am not talking about the "anti-war" protesters who menace the cities of Europe and America--the creeps who scale the barricade of a Starbucks storefront for no greater goal than the glee of smashing its windows. These are only brave and idealistic souls in their own warped self-image. I am talking about real courage and real idealism--the kind shown by the young men and women manning the very real and very deadly barricades of freedom in Iran--the students who, armed with nothing but a burning conviction of the rightness of their cause, are facing down a brutal theocratic dictatorship.

"Death to America" by Daniel Pipes
In retrospect, the mistake began when Iranians assaulted the U.S. embassy in Tehran and met with no Amrican resistance.

The Road to Victory Goes Through Tehran by Robert W. Tracinski
An end to the threat of Islamic terrorism requires, not just the toppling of one state sponsor of terrorism in Iraq, but the toppling of the regime that is the Middle East's most active promoter of terrorism--and the most virulent center of the ideology behind Islamic terrorism: the theocracy that rules Iran.

Iran is the Root of Islamic Terrorism by Joseph Kellard
Iran is the root of Islamic terrorism, and destroying its theocracy would be a major victory in the war on terrorists. But in this war the Bush administration takes an inverted, appeasing approach. Bush not only fails to declare that the US will us force to topple Iran's regime; he's busy appeasing Palestinian terrorists that are mere heads of the Iranian hydra.

The City of the Snoozing Teachers

Jul 8, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Writes William Tucker at the NY Sun, on "The City of the Snoozing Teachers":

As Sol Stern illustrates on every page of his brilliant new book, Breaking Free, the teachers unions that run the public schools operate on the principle that people who finish in last place should set the standard for everyone else. Teachers unions don't simply protect against failure, they virtually embrace it. Everything in the teachers' contract is designed so that the worst teachers suffer the least amount of harm...
Finally settling down to raise his children on the Upper West Side in the 1980s, he was dedicated to the egalitarianism of the public schools....
At one point Mr. Stern encountered what he thought was a homeless derelict wandering the schoolyard. The man turned out to be a tenured teacher permanently shunted to playground duty. When the disheveled educator occassionally appeared in the classroom, the children complained of his body odor and made up songs about him.Yet union rules made it impossible to get rid of him. [July 8, 2003]

MSNBC Fires Savage

Jul 8, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From Brent Baker at MRC:

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell today praised MSNBC for firing host Michael Savage for wishing death to a caller into his show over the weekend. But he also pointed out the hypocrisy: The same media turn a blind eye to liberals in the media who spew the very same hateful venom at conservatives. "MSNBC was right to fire Michael Savage. His comments have no place in civilized debate. But neither did comments that have come from liberal icons of television such as Bryant Gumbel, Nina Totenberg and Julianne Malveaux -- all of whom have said hateful things about conservatives, and none of whom has had to answer for it," Bozell said.

The release than goes on to provide some quotes, like this one from the nationally syndicated on PBS show Inside Washington, July 8, 1995:

Host Tina Gulland: "I don't think I have any Jesse Helms defenders here. Nina?"
ABC News/NPR Reporter Nina Totenberg: "Not me, I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the Good Lord's mind, because if there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it."

Or this one From To the Contrary on PBS, November 4, 1994:

USA Today Columnist/Pacifica Radio Talk Show Host Julianne Malveaux, on Justice Clarence Thomas: "You know, I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease. Well, that's how I feel. He is an absolutely reprehensible person."

Let’s Roll Over Iran’s Mullahs

Jul 8, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Comments David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute on the upcoming general strike in Iran:

As the July 9 general strike in Iran approaches, the United States should do everything within its power to ensure that the popular revolt against Iran's theocracy succeeds in overthrowing the regime.
Iran presents a much greater danger to the United States' security than did Iraq or Afghanistan.
Iran--as acknowledged even by the terrorist appeasers at the State Department--is the most active sponsor of terrorism in the world, supporting terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Moreover, Iran--alongside Saudi Arabia--is the main source of Islamic fundamentalism in the world today, and thus the principal ideological enemy of the United States and the free world.
Iran is openly developing a nuclear weapons program, and has gone as far as threatening to use its soon-to-be-produced nuclear weapons against Israel, America's only true friend in the region. If Iran's mad mullahs are willing to strike Israel, the "Small Satan," they would not hesitate to strike their arch-enemy, America, the "Great Satan."
President Bush was right when he said eighteen months ago, in his State of the Union Address, that "time is not on our side." The President told the country and the world that he would not "wait on events, while dangers gather." But dangers have gathered and time is running out. In a speech at West Point a year ago President Bush promised: "The United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."
Let's roll. Before it's too late.

Congratulations to Roger Federer: Wimbledon Champion

Jul 6, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

After beating the reigning champion Pete Sampras in five sets two years ago, 19 year old Roger Federer, was hailed as the next Wimbledon champion. He then proceeded to loose his next match to Tim Henman in the 2001 Wimbledon quarterfinals. In Wimbledon 2002, he lost in the first round.

Today that prediction of a Wimbledon crown for Federer--made by myself at the start of this year's tournament, and also made by a "retired" Pete Sampras--became a reality, as Roger Federer defeated Mark Phillipousis in straight sets in the Gentleman's final to the tune of 7-6 (7/5) 6-2 7-6 (7/3).

Federer outplayed Phillipousis from the backcourt with vicious topspin backhand service return winners off high kicking serves, from the net with deft touch shots and volleys that pinpointed the corners, and from defensive positions with offensive angled crosscourt forehand passes made on the dead run. The Swiss superstar even outserved Phillipousis by scoring more service aces!

Writes Boris Becker for the BBC:

I am convinced [Federer] will be around for a long time and I am convinced he will win many more Wimbledons, US Opens and other Grand Slam titles. In a way, he has an old-fashioned technique. He does not just play heavy topspin, he is very versatile. He can serve and volley, he can stay back, he can slice, he can play drop shots. That is a good example for any junior watching. You don't need to serve at 135 mph, you don't need heavy topspin to become a complete player.
We have seen the future - it arrived today.

Federer is the greatest talent in one of the greatest individual sports--he is a combination of Pete Sampras, Stefan Edberg, and John McEnroe. He can do anything humanly possible with a tennis racquet. If any man playing today has a chance win the Grand Slam in one year--that is all four Grand Slam events in one year--it will be Roger Federer.

Libertarians for Dictatorship, Part II

Jul 5, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2

A reader writes:

In your [Dollars and Sense news item] "Libertarians for Dictatorship," you libel libertarian Rep. Ron Paul as being pro-dictatorship because he [opposed] a symbolic resolution in support of freedom in Hong Kong.This is misleading, for Ron Paul opposes all symbolic resolutions because he believes it is not just to spend taxpayer money on unconstitutional resolutions. He calls this his "continuing and uncompromising opposition to appropriations not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution."

Can it be any clearer that libertarians' preoccupation with nonessentials and disdain for philosophy makes them enemies of freedom?If Congress has the Constitutional power to declare war, and the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution [its] powers," then it has a legitimate foreign policy role. Saying that the House has no business passing such a resolution is tantamount to saying that whether or not foreign governments are dictatorships is irrelevant to America's national security. Whatever "freedom" means to Rep. Paul, it has nothing to do with reality.

Dick Morris on Bill Clinton

Jul 5, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From an open letter to Hillary Clinton by Dick Morris:

...The real reason I was reluctant was that Bill Clinton had tried to beat me up in May of 1990 as he, you, Gloria Cabe, and I were together in the Arkansas governor's mansion. At the time, Bill was worried that he was falling behind his democratic primary opponent and verbally assaulted me for not giving his campaign the time he felt it deserved. Offended by his harsh tone, I turned and stalked out of the room.
Bill ran after me, tackled me, threw me to the floor of the kitchen in the mansion and cocked his fist back to punch me. You grabbed his arm and, yelling at him to stop and get control of himself, pulled him off me. Then you walked me around the grounds of the mansion in the minutes after, with your arm around me, saying, "He only does that to people he loves." [June 12, 2003, "Setting the Record Straight: An open letter to Hillary Clinton", National Review]

Egalitarianism Is Hatred of the Good for Being the Good

Jul 4, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

From Andrew Wolf in Wednesday's New York Sun:

In September 1997, fourth-grade parents at P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village discovered that there would be four classes instead of the usual five, because of a slightly shrunken enrollment.... It wasn't just bigger classes for their children, but the fact that class 4-406 was being disbanded and their teacher, Lauren Zangara, moved to another school that upset the parents. A letter went home to fourth-grade parents asking them to donate $360 toward the $46,000 needed to keep Ms. Zangara and the extra fourthgrade class at P.S. 41. Amazingly, P.S. 41 was successful in raising the funds virtually overnight, to the delight of then-District 2 Superintendent Anthony Alvarado. But once the commitment of the parents to their own children became public knowledge, they found themselves at odds with then-Chancellor Rudy Crew. Such a generous action would result, he believed, in an "imbalance" in the system, giving more affluent parents and their children an "advantage" over children from poorer neighborhoods. Mr. Crew allowed the teacher to be retained, but the school district had to come up with the cash. So serious an infraction was this, that there was even talk of bringing Mr. Alvarado up on charges for accepting the parents' generosity.