Democracy and Self Determination of Peoples: Euphenisms for Mob Rule in the Middle East
Writes Raymond Ibrahim in Jihad -- When Elections Fail over at Jihad Watch:The Obama administration supports “democracy” and “self determination” in the Middle East—two euphemisms that, in the real world, refer to “mob-rule” and “Islamic radicalization,” respectively. Yet, as Jimmy Carter recently put it: “I don’t have any problem with that [an “Islamist victory” in Egypt], and the U.S. government doesn’t have any problem with that either. We want the will of the Egyptian people to be expressed.”The Islamists behave similar to the American "Progressives" who only support free elections as a vehicle to put their particular brand of collectivism -- egalitarian socialism in place. As an example observe their praise of the Castro regime and communism, and their attacks on the profit motive, freedom and capitalism.
Sounds fair enough. The problem, however, is that Muslim clerics openly and unequivocally characterize democracy and elections as tools to be discarded once they empower Sharia law. Thus Dr. Talat Zahran holds that it is “obligatory to cheat at elections—a beautiful thing”; and Sheikh Abdel Shahat insists that democracy is not merely forbidden in Islam, but kufr—a great and terrible sin—this even as he competed in Egypt’s elections.
The Obama administration can overlook such election-exploitations because the majority of Muslims are either indifferent or willing to go along with the gag—with only a minority (secularists, Copts, etc.) in Egypt actually objecting to how elections are being used to empower Sharia-enforcing Muslims.
But what if Muslims do not win elections? What if there are equal amounts of non-Muslims voting—and an “infidel” wins? What then? Then we get situations like Nigeria.
While many are aware that Boko Haram and other Islamic elements are waging jihad against the government of Nigeria, specifically targeting Christians, often overlooked is that the jihad was provoked into full-blown activity because a Christian won fair elections (Nigeria is about evenly split between Christians and Muslims).
According to Peter Run, writing back in April 2011:The current wave of riots was triggered by the Independent National Election Commission’s (INEC) announcement on Monday [April 18, 2011] that the incumbent President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, won in the initial round of ballot counts. That there were riots in the largely Muslim inhabited northern states where the defeat of the Muslim candidate Muhammadu Buhari was intolerable, [but] was unsurprising. Northerners [Muslims] felt they were entitled to the presidency for the declared winner, President Jonathan, [who] assumed leadership after the Muslim president, Umaru Yar’Adua died in office last year and radical groups in the north [Boko Haram] had seen his ascent [Christian president] as a temporary matter to be corrected at this year’s election. Now they are angry despite experts and observers concurring that this is the fairest and most independent election in recent Nigerian history.Note some key words: Muslims felt “entitled” to the presidency and seek to “correct” the fact that a Christian won elections—which they assumed “a temporary matter.”
Of course, had elections empowered a like-minded Muslim, the same jihadis would still be there, would still have the same savage intent for Christians and Westerners—Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden.” But there would not be a fullblown jihad, and Obama would be singing praises to Nigerian democracy and elections, and the MSM would be boasting images of Nigerians with ink-stained fingers.
Yet the same jihadi intent would be there, only dormant. Like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood—whose ultimate goal is “mastership of the world”—they would not need to expose themselves via jihad, would be biding their time and consolidating their strength.
Now, back to the Egyptian clerics, specifically Sheikh Yassir al-Burhami—yet another leader in Egypt’s Salafi movement, who teaches that Muslims must preach peace when weak but wage war when strong. Discussing the chances of a fellow Salafi, Burhami asserts:We say—regardless of the outcome of the elections—whether he [his colleague, the aforementioned al-Shahat] wins or loses, we will not permit an infidel [kafir] to be appointed to a post where he assumes authority over Muslims. This is forbidden. Allah said: “Never will Allah grant to infidels a way [to triumph] over the believers [Koran 4:141].” We are not worried about losing elections or al-Shahat losing votes. We will not flatter or fawn to the people.What will you and your associates do, Sheikh Burhami—wage jihad? Of course, that will not be necessary: unlike Nigeria, most of Egypt is Muslim; one way or another, “elections” will realize the Islamist agenda.
Thus, whether by word (al-Burhami) or deed (Boko Haram) those who seek to make Islam supreme prove that democracy and elections are acceptable only insofar as they enable Sharia. Conversely, if they lead to something that contradicts Sharia—for instance, by bringing a Christian infidel to power—then the perennial jihad resumes.
Private Schools for the Poor
James Tooley writes in Private Schools for the Poor:The accepted wisdom is that private schools serve the privileged; everyone else, especially the poor, requires public school. The poor, so this logic goes, need government assistance if they are to get a good education, which helps explain why, in the United States, many school choice enthusiasts believe that the only way the poor can get the education they deserve is through vouchers or charter schools, proxies for those better private or independent schools, paid for with public funds.But if we reflect on these beliefs in a foreign context and observe low-income families in underprivileged and developing countries, we find these assumptions lacking: the poor have found remarkably innovative ways of helping themselves, educationally, and in some of the most destitute places on Earth have managed to nurture a large and growing industry of private schools for themselves. ["Private Schools for the Poor", The Catholic Education Resource Center]
Holleran on Anti-Hero Worship
Writes Scott Holleran at his blog:“You’re our hero,” read a sign at a statue of the late government-college football coach Joe Paterno, who died on Sunday at the age of 85. But Paterno, who by his own admission sidestepped, ignored or evaded allegations of child rape, is not a hero. He was a football coach at a state college and he made crucial errors of judgment which, by the kindest interpretation of his involvement, which was under investigation, may have aided or abetted serious crimes against children. Nevertheless, government-financed Penn State declared that it will hold a public memorial service, where signs, photography and video will be forbidden. [Anti-Hero Worship]
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Salsman on the Anti-Capitalist Conservatives
Writes Richard Salsman in Mitt Romney's Uphill Battle Against Anti-Capitalist Conservatives over at Forbes:Most people assume GOP conservatives are reflexively pro-capitalist, that they embrace free markets, profit-making, and the pursuit of happiness through worldly success. But this assumption is far from the truth, as should now be evident after the anti-capitalist harangues launched at GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney by the much-touted “conservative alternatives” in the race – Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry.
Now conservative voters in South Carolina have through the ballot box stated that they prefer Mr. Gingrich, with his ethically challenged public and private lives, to Mr. Romney, whose personal life and professional career have been morally and productively impeccable. Evangelicals representing 60% of GOP voters in the South Carolina primary claimed to care most about family values and the sanctity of marriage, yet revealed their hypocrisy by disproportionately favoring Gingrich to Romney.
Sad to say, but conservatives and leftists alike don’t actually believe Mr. Romney’s career as a financier has been moral, because they assume the finance profession itself is fundamentally unproductive and parasitical, that it somehow saps or robs the “real” economy, which is popularly defined as that mass of common folk who work not with their minds for profits, but with their muscles, backs and callused hands for plain wages. This is the age-old Marxist myth that only manual labor creates wealth or value-added (profit). It’s one of the worst myths in the whole history of political economy, because in truth the mind is the main source of wealth; widespread ignorance of that basic truth makes people demonize financiers as exploitative thieves.
Myths aside, one of the world’s hardest jobs is that of financial capitalist, and sustained success at such work simply isn’t had by luck. It’s akin to being a consistently successful investor. Who can say this is a commonly held skill? It isn’t. The venture capitalist or private equity specialist must study and comprehend how best to allocate pools of capital (savings) to their most productive, efficient and profitable use. He must choose among thousands of potential companies, industries, and financial instruments. Most people find such work to be far too complex, too difficult, too time-consuming, and too ill-paid to undertake alone; yet most such spectators are also suspicious or even hateful toward the very few who earn millions succeeding at finance.
The profession of financial capitalist aside, it’s even more difficult today being a consistent ideological capitalist – i.e., an advocate of capitalism as a moral socio-economic system that enshrines rational self-interest, profit seeking, individual rights, the rule of law, and the pursuit of earthly happiness. Historically, capitalism is the radical system, and most religions (Marxism included) have decried it.
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New Website: Checking Premises
From checkingpremises.org:This site is being created by serious students and proponents of Objectivism in response to the danger that some, who may seem in agreement with the philosophy, are in fact subverting it. The tabs representing the subjects are arranged, left to right, in chronological order.
The "Context" tab is where we suggest you begin. Here we have quoted from Dr. Leonard Peikoff's 1989 essay, "Fact and Value." The first passage clearly defines what is, and what is not, Objectivism. The second passage describes how he "finally" identified the common denominator of past, and future, schisms. This essay was seminal for many of us. It helped us to understand the past more clearly, and, we think, to identify current detractors disguised as Objectivists. A link to the entire essay may be found under the "Resources" tab, and we encourage everyone to study it.
We understand there are different levels of Objectivist detractors, from outright enemies of Objectivism to those who are "Objectivish" and who need to recognize and admit their differences with Objectivism.
Job Creators: Who Do those Immigrants Think They Are?
TD Waterhouse: Markets > News & CommentaryImmigrants founded or cofounded almost half of 50 top venture-backed companies in the United States, a new study shows, underscoring some of the high stakes in potential immigration reform.
The venture capital community argues the study, completed by research group National Foundation for American Policy, proves the need to overhaul rules governing how entrepreneurs can immigrate to the United States to spur job development.
VIDEO: Obamacare — Government Takeover of Medicine
Obamacare: Government Takeover of Medicine - YouTubeOn Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
Review & Outlook: The Bain Capital Bonfire - WSJ.comAbout the best that can be said about the Republican attacks on Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital is that President Obama is going to do the same thing eventually, so GOP primary voters might as well know what's coming. Yet that hardly absolves Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and others for their crude and damaging caricatures of modern business and capitalism.
Bain's business model is little more than "rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company," says Mr. Gingrich, whose previous insights into free enterprise include years of defending the taxpayer-fed business of corn ethanol.
[...]
We have our policy differences with Mr. Romney, but by any reasonable measure Bain Capital has been a net job and wealth creator. Founded in 1984 as an offshoot of the Bain consulting company, Bain Capital's business is a combination of private equity and venture capital. The latter means taking a flyer on start-ups that may or may not pan out, something that neither Mr. Gingrich nor Mr. Obama seem to find offensive when those investments are made by Silicon Valley firms in "clean energy."
[...]
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.
[...]
Imagine what might have happened if Chrysler or GM had been bought by private equity two or three decades ago. They might have been turned around much earlier, at far less pain to fewer workers, and without any taxpayer cost.
Free Objectivist Books for Students
Free Ayn Rand and Objectivist Books for StudentsGet any Ayn Rand novel or book about Objectivism for free. You just have to pledge to read it.
Salsman: Newt Gingrich Reveals The Deep Rot Within the GOP
Why Do Takers Obama and Gingrich Attack Creators Like Romney? - Forbes[...] Finally, take the case of Newt Gingrich, who despite posing earlier as the sober GOP candidate who’d run a positive campaign and wouldn’t trash his GOP rivals, this week chose to trash one of them: Mitt Romney, the only genuine wealth-maker among the entire GOP bunch. For context, note that when Gingrich first won a House seat in 1978 he was making a mere $10,000 a year; he went on to win nine more terms, the last couple as Speaker of the House (1995-1999). In 1994, the year before he became Speaker, Gingrich reported annual income of $675,000 a year – or many multiples of his official salary. In 1999 Gingrich was forced to resign from the GOP-controlled House and as Speaker, after being disciplined for wrongdoing (with a lop-sided vote of 395-28) and paying a $300,000 fine; it was the first time in U.S. history a Speaker was disciplined for ethical wrongdoing.
By the time Gingrich left as Speaker in 1999 – as a so-called public servant - his net worth had grown to astounding $7.5 million. What possible market value did Gingrich produce to attain such net worth while occupying political office?
[...] Mitt Romney, in contrast, has been a genuine creator-maker of wealth who earned his millions honestly and productively, first as a management consultant and then as a venture capitalist.
[...] That Gingrich would equate his record of taking with Romney’s record of making is truly despicable. This is a career-long taker of wealth viciously and shamelessly assaulting a career-long maker of wealth, to the glee and applause of GOP conservatives, Barack Obama and the liberal media alike. This is Newt Gingrich the demagogue, assaulting Mitt Romney the epitome of a good, productive capitalist. Indeed, this is the same smear campaign run against Mitt Romney by Ted Kennedy in 1994.
Newt Gingrich is a corrupt, unprincipled power-luster who’ll say anything and take any position necessary to attain high office, and if he can’t do that, he seeks to take wealth by selling his access to political offices.Nothing reveals more the deep rot within the GOP itself than the fact that its conservatives-evangelicals so despise wealth-makers like Mitt Romney and so sympathize with wealth-takers like Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich.
Examiner: Occupy protesters should be demanding economic freedom
Occupy protesters should be demanding economic freedom | The Examiner | Op Eds | Washington ExaminerLeading the most-free states in this year's report are Delaware and Texas, while West Virginia and New Mexico are the least free. Protesters might argue that these benefits have been accumulated by relatively few -- the 1 percent -- while leaving the majority of Americans behind.
Let's look into this conjecture using data from the Economic Policy Institute, which compares the share of income of the highest earners to that of middle and lower income earners in the mid-2000s. These data do not demonstrate that more economic freedom has been the source of inequities in the distribution of income. In fact, if we compare the 10 most economically free states between 1981 and 2005 with the 10 least free states, the opposite is the case. The ratio of average family income of the richest fifth compared with the poorest fifth is 6.9 in the most free states compared with 7.1 in the least free states.
The gap between the richest and poorest is actually larger for the least free states. Based on these numbers, it is difficult to argue that the free market has led to worse outcomes for the majority of Americans. More government spending and higher taxation will not alleviate the plight of struggling workers.
Protesters seeking to improve opportunities for all Americans should be protesting on Capitol Hill, demanding Congress to give Americans back the freedom to pursue their own economic well-being through cooperative economic activities that lead to prosperity for all.
Salsman on the Flip Flopping GOP
GOP Conservatives - Not Romney - Are The Real Flip-Floppers - Forbes:The only GOP presidential candidate demonstrating steady poll numbers and consistently superior debate performance is Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. National polls show he’s the only GOP rival with a real chance of defeating President Obama next fall. He’s also a worthy rival, with the character, convictions, policies and experience needed to lead America.
Yet most GOP conservatives, especially the more religious ones, despise Mr. Romney and actively oppose him – and thus bolster Obama’s re-election chances. These are the same conservatives who gave us John McCain in 2008 and before that George W. Bush, the “compassionate conservative” who ballooned the size and scope of government more than any predecessor since WWII.
Despite President Obama’s horrendous policies and governing record, he nevertheless has a pretty good chance of winning re-election in November 2012, not only because the U.S. economy may be showing some improvement by then, compared to this year, and not only because he will have killed more Al Qaeda leaders than did Mr. Bush, but because the GOP isn’t sufficiently rallying behind the only worthy candidate: Governor Romney. Never underestimate the GOP’s willingness to shoot itself in the foot electorally.
Salsman: Capitalism Isn’t Corporatism or Cronyism
Another great one by Richard Salsman:Capitalism is the greatest socio-economic system in human history, because it’s so moral and so productive – the two features so essential to human survival and flourishing. It’s moral because it enshrines and fosters rationality and self-interest – “enlightened greed,” if you will – the two key virtues we all must consciously adopt and practice if we’re to pursue and attain life and love, health and wealth, adventure and inspiration. It produces not only material-economic abundance but the aesthetic values seen in the arts and entertainment.
But what is capitalism, exactly? How do we know it when we see it or have it – or when we haven’t, or don’t?
[...]Capitalism has been blamed for the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and for the financial crisis and bailouts of 2008, but it’s not “capitalism” but the mixed economy and corporatism-cronyism that did it. We’ve had corporatism in the U.S. for roughly the past century, and it’s getting worse over time; it’s also the system we’ve seen in Europe since at least the time of Germany’s Otto von Bismarck, who launched the womb-to-tomb welfare state in the 1870s. In the interim, of course, Europe also imposed communism, socialism and fascism. The result, we know, was mass murder, world war, and the continent-wide destruction of wealth.
Capitalism’s greatest intellectual champion, Ayn Rand (1905-1982), once defined it as “a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.” This recognition of genuine rights (not “rights” to force others to get us what we wish) is all-crucial and it has a distinctive moral foundation, according to Rand:
The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.” “The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve “the common good.” It is true that capitalism does—if that catch-phrase has any meaning—but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man’s rational nature, that it protects man’s survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice.
Elaborating, Rand explained in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966) that historically, politically, economically, and morally, capitalism was the superior socio-economic system, yet also how, for decades, its achievements and virtues had been hidden and buried deliberately in an avalanche of prejudice, distortion, and falsehood. Rand argued that capitalism is a moral ideal yet also was made real, and to the greatest extent, in America in the 19th century, especially during the Gilded Age (1865-1890). Thus she called the U.S. “the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.”
Read the rest of Capitalism Isn't Corporatism or Cronyism over at Forbes.
Three Myths About President Kennedy
Ross Douthat dispels the myths about the Lord of American Camelot in his op-ed, The Enduring Cult of Kennedy - NYTimes.com:The first premise is that Kennedy was a very good president, and might have been a great one if he’d lived. Few serious historians take this view: It belongs to Camelot’s surviving court stenographers, and to popularizers like Chris Matthews, whose new best seller “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero” works hard to gloss over the thinness of the 35th president’s actual accomplishments. [...]
In reality, the kindest interpretation of Kennedy’s presidency is that he was a mediocrity whose death left his final grade as “incomplete.” The harsher view would deem him a near disaster — ineffective in domestic policy, evasive on civil rights and a serial blunderer in foreign policy, who barely avoided a nuclear war that his own brinksmanship had pushed us toward. (And the latter judgment doesn’t even take account of the medical problems that arguably made him unfit for the presidency, or the adulteries that eclipsed Bill Clinton’s for sheer recklessness.)
The second false premise is that Kennedy would have kept us out of Vietnam. [...] Actually, it would be more accurate to describe the Vietnam War as Kennedy’s darkest legacy. [...]
The third myth is that Kennedy was a martyr to right-wing unreason. Writing on J.F.K. in the latest issue of New York magazine, Frank Rich half-acknowledges the mediocrity of Kennedy’s presidency. [...] This connection is the purest fantasy, made particularly ridiculous by the fact that both Rich and King acknowledge that Oswald was a leftist — a pro-Castro agitator whose other assassination target was the far-right segregationist Edwin Walker. [...]
This last example suggests why the J.F.K. cult matters — because its myths still shape how we interpret politics today. We confuse charisma with competence, rhetoric with results, celebrity with genuine achievement. [...]
Your Life Driven By The State
The Washington Times has an editorial on the U.S. government's banning of the non-toxic light bulb.Within four weeks, it will be a crime to manufacture a 100-watt version of Thomas A. Edison’s brilliant invention. Thanks to a Democratic Congress and the signature of President George W. Bush in 2007, anti-industrial zealots at the Energy Department received authority to blot out one of the greatest achievements of the industrial age. They’re coming for our light bulbs.
Know-it-all bureaucrats insist that foisting millions of mercury-laden fluorescent tubes on the public is going to be good for the planet. The public obviously does not agree. Voting with their wallets, people have overwhelming favored warm, nontoxic lighting options over their pale curlicue imitators. Beginning Jan. 1, Obama administration extremists will impose massive financial penalties on any company daring to produce a lighting product that fully satisfies ordinary Americans.
[...]
The reality is that this ban is yet another example of the sort of job-destroying regulations that enrich the administration’s friends at the expense of consumers. Specifically, the rules turn a 50-cent light bulb into a purchase of $3 or more.
Rampaging bureaucrats aren’t just satisfied with foisting inferior light bulbs on the public. The Energy Department uses the force of the federal government to redesign an entire suite of consumer products to meet their personal preferences. In nearly every case, their meddling makes things worse. Current regulations micromanage the function of ceiling fans, clothes washers, dehumidifiers, dishwashers, faucets, freezers, furnaces, heat pumps, lamps, pool heaters, power supplies, refrigerators, room air conditioners, shower heads, stoves, toilets and water heaters. Enough is enough.
All of this is entirely unnecessary. The public is more than capable of encouraging the development of efficient products. [Time to stock up on light bulbs]
Hallelujah! Conservatives Should Take Article VI of the Constitution Seriously
Richard Salsman on GOP Conservatives - Not Romney - Are the Real Flip-Floppers - Forbes:In that answer Gingrich was directing his remarks about faith and politics at Romney. Yet consider the hubris of Gingrich believing some deity hears his prayers and responds with sound public policy advice. The man can’t imagine an alternative to judgment apart from faith, even though it is, obviously, judgment based on the facts of reality, using reason and logic. The man says he cannot trust political leaders who don’t pray, whereas in fact we should distrust those who don’t think. In viewing candidates like Gingrich, one might be excused for uttering one worthy prayer, as was spray-painted on a wall in D.C., in the wake of 9/11, a day Americans could not live free from religion: “God please save us from all those people who believe in you.”
Mr. Romney spelled out his view of religion and politics in a speech, “Faith in America,” in December 2007:
“We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion.” I am an American running for president. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.” “As governor, I tried to do the right as best I knew it, serving the law and answering to the Constitution. I did not confuse the particular teachings of my church with the obligations of the office and of the Constitution — and of course, I would not do so as President.” I believe in what Abraham Lincoln called America’s ‘political religion’ — the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution.”
At this stage in America’s history, as it seems to be hurtling toward bigger and bigger government, voters can probably ask nothing more from a candidate than his plain pledge to at least try and abide by the U.S. Constitution. In this regard it’s worth reminding both the religious right and religious left among us that the Constitution never once mentions a deity or Christianity and that in Article VI it specifically requires officers of government in America “to support this Constitution” and says “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Conservatives should grow up, cease their promiscuity in the GOP primaries, and take Article VI seriously.