How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability
In "How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability" Paul Hseih makes the economic case and moral case for a free-market in health insurance. Here is just one choice quote:It is true that patients today with preexisting medical problems can have difficulty purchasing health insurance. But forcing insurers to cover such patients is not the solution. On the economic level, such coercion would create many new problems. For instance, under such legislation patients would have a strong incentive to delay purchasing insurance until they got sick, knowing they could not be denied coverage at that time. Why pay for insurance before you need it if you can wait and purchase it when you need it? Thus, many people would simply go without insurance until they needed medical care, at which time they would purchase an insurance policy and receive immediate coverage far in excess of the price paid for the policy. Such laws would legalize plunder.Required reading.
Comedy: The Government Can
Anti-Capitalism: The Legacy of George W. Bush and The Republican Party
Writes John Lewis in the The Objective Standard:The administration of George W. Bush, for instance, greatly expanded government power. President Bush doubled the national budget, doubled the deficit, added a digit to the national debt, signed the largest entitlement bill since the 1960s, ordered his cabinet to cooperate in regulating carbon dioxide as a “pollutant,” signed Sarbanes-Oxley, distributed economic “stimulus” checks, asked for $700 billion as business handouts, and never vetoed a spending bill. [...] Although no Republican in three generations has defended capitalism in a principled way, Republican rhetoric continues to use pro-capitalist language, mainly to oppose Democrats. Ronald Reagan’s assertion that “government is the problem” continues to resonate among supporters of the free market. However, few Republicans have been willing to face the inescapable fact that the federal budget and debt grew exponentially under both Reagan and his Republican successor, George H.W. Bush. Republican lip service to the free market has muddied the waters and continues to make it difficult for people to see that Republicans were, in fact, throttling freedom under a maze of growing federal controls. Hence there was no uprising against Republicans or their policies. Following eight years of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush appeared to offer the best hope to regain that alleged free-market, low-tax legacy. Once again, most people did not see that the free-market image of this Republican was a mirage that bore no relation to his actions. This image gained power when Bush was touted as an alternative to his leftist Democratic challengers. This contrast of images obscured the fundamental differences between Bush’s policies and a truly pro-capitalist position. This obfuscation—instigated by the Republicans—deeply confused many honest Americans about the nature of his policies, and caused enormous harm to their understanding of both capitalism and conservatism. This split between appearance and reality—between the image of a pro-freedom Republican and the reality of a welfare-state Republican—made it difficult for people to recognize that no candidate in either party was willing to defend capitalism. As a result, any real discussion of capitalism—properly understood as a truly free market, in which individual rights are protected by the government—was obliterated from public discourse. Bush fostered his undeserved free-market image with tax cuts that accompanied huge increases in spending and led to enormous deficits. He also appeared to oppose business regulations, even as he approved thousands of pages of new controls (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley and the steel tariffs). His selective repeal of some rules (such as parts of the Glass-Steagall Act) contributed to the image of a free-market administration that had “deregulated” the economy. He promoted the expansion of huge federally-sponsored entities such as the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginny Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) because he wanted to appear compassionate to people who “needed” loans. When the market imploded, Bush proposed hundreds of billions in federal aid, saying “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free market system.”6 The visible result was an exploding welfare state in which capitalism was blamed for massive deficits, for rising health-care prices, for the collapse of Wall Street, for the cost of the Iraq war, and for every other bad consequence of Bush’s policies. The more fundamental, unseen result was a confused American public—a public confused about the very meaning of the free market, liberty, and individual rights, and about what a proper defense of those values would mean. “Capitalism has failed” became the mantra of the left: “We tried it under Bush, and look what happened.” In his systematic treatment of the philosophy of Objectivism, Leonard Peikoff wrote that “[p]recisely because of their pretense,” conservatives “are the main source of political confusion in the public mind; they give people the illusion of an electoral alternative without the fact. Thus the statist drift proceeds unchecked and unchallenged.”7 George W. Bush is the quintessential example of this point.Read the rest in The Objective Standard.
The Unfairness of “Fair Speech”
WASHINGTON, September 15, 2009--The Supreme Court has recently finished an unusual second round of hearings in the case of Citizens United v. FEC. The case concerns the government’s decision to ban Citizens United from airing a movie about Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Democratic primaries on the grounds that it violated a campaign finance provision in the McCain-Feingold Act. Supporters of campaign finance restrictions argue that by limiting the ability of the wealthy to promote their political views, these restrictions make speech more "fair." "What campaign finance supporters call ‘fair’ speech is anything but fair,” writes Don Watkins, a writer and researcher with the Ayn Rand Center. “Those who acquire wealth through productive activity, whether individuals or corporations (which are nothing more than groups of individuals), have every right to use their ‘louder megaphone’: they earned it. What possible reason could make it ‘unfair’ for these individuals to use their resources to support and further their political views? “In ordinary speech, ‘fairness’ means justice: getting what you deserve--i.e., what you have earned. But the advocates of campaign finance laws twist it to mean equal results: everyone, they claim, must have ‘equal speech.’ They are speech egalitarians. "But real fairness demands, not ‘equal speech,’ but equal freedom--not equal megaphones or equal commercial time but the equal right to get your message out as widely as you can given your time, interest, resources, and persuasiveness. But that’s precisely what campaign finance laws prevent, by having government bureaucrats dictate what you can spend, how you can spend it, when you can speak, and what you can say."9/11: Recommended Reading
End States Who Sponsor Terrorism by Leonard Peikoff (September 11, 2009) 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.Hatred of Western Civilization: Why Terrorists Attacked America by John Lewis (September 11, 2009) The hatred of the West is not based on jealousy but on hatred of the good because it is good. Nihilism, the desire to destroy, is why the enemies of freedom fly planes into buildings and blow themselves up with dynamite.September 11th: Where Have Our Leaders Gone Wrong? by Keith Lockitch (September 8, 2006) Unable to defend America intellectually, our leaders are unable to defend her militarily.September 11th: Five Years Later by Edwin A. Locke and Alex Epstein (September 7, 2006) It is now five years since September 11, 2001--and since that horrific day we have witnessed numerous additional attacks by Islamic terrorists against the West. In the face of a seemingly never-ending supply of suicidal killers, many still do not understand the motivation of the terrorists. Commentators are eager to offer a bevy of pseudo-explanations--poverty, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc.--while ignoring the motivation the terrorists themselves openly proclaim: Islam.Columbus Day: The Cure for 9/11 by Thomas A. Bowden (October 5, 2004) Columbus Day's celebration of Western Civilization reminds Americans why they deserve to win the war against Islamic totalitarianism.Reflecting America: World Trade Center Memorial Should Celebrate America's Producers by Dianne Durante (September 2, 2004) The people who worked at the World Trade Center (WTC) were all productive people: they were there to do a job and earn money. They died on September 11 because they symbolized that productivity, not just to millions around the world who aspire to live like Americans, but also to the terrorists who despise all that America stands for.Diverting the Blame for September 11th by Onkar Ghate (April 1, 2004) Sept. 11 could have been prevented only by having a principled foreign policy.1776 vs. 9/11 by Edward Cline (September 11, 2008) Non-actions also have consequences.The Health Care Speech Was a Moral Obamination
WASHINGTON, September 10, 2009--In a joint speech to Congress last night, President Obama laid out his plan for health care reform. The president, quoting the late Senator Ted Kennedy, said: “What we face is, above all, a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.” “The President and the Senator are right about one thing: health care is above all a moral issue,” writes Alex Epstein, an analyst with the Ayn Rand Center. “Unfortunately, the ‘social justice’ morality behind universal health care is utterly un-American and destructive. “A proper system of health care, based on America’s founding principle of individual rights, is one in which each individual has a right to pursue health care on a free market of medical professionals and insurance companies. Such a system recognizes each individual’s right to his own life, and responsibility for its preservation--as well as the right of doctors and others to assist the poorest Americans through private charity. The practical result would be the same as emerges in any truly free market: ever better, cheaper products and services for your (health care) dollar. “Health care is a moral issue. And it should be dealt with via the American morality of individualism, individual responsibility, and individual rights.”Could These Books Be Banned?
Arlington, Va.—What do Bill Clinton, Peggy Noonan, John Kerry, Michael Moore, Maureen Dowd and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth founder John O’Neil have in common?All wrote books that could have been banned, just like “Hillary: The Movie,” the film at the heart of the campaign finance case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear new arguments in the case Wednesday, Sept. 9, in an unusual session ordered after justices appeared troubled by the government’s suggestion during the first oral argument that it could ban corporate-funded books. Indeed, Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer, a leading advocate of campaign finance regulations, admitted this week to The New York Times, “A campaign document in the form of a book can be banned.” Today, the Institute for Justice released a “top ten” list of political advocacy books from the last four presidential election cycles and asked: If the First Amendment doesn’t protect “Hillary: The Movie,” would it protect books like these?
1. Dude, Where’s My Country?, Michael Moore, 2003 (“There is probably no greater imperative facing the nation than the defeat of George W. Bush in the 2004 election.”)
2. Bush Must Go, Bill Press, 2004 (“If you need any ammunition for voting against George Bush, here they are: the top ten reasons why George Bush must be denied a second term.”)
3. My Dad, John McCain, Meghan McCain, 2008 (“There are a few things you need to know about my dad, and one of them is that he would make a great president.”)
4. The Case Against Hillary, Peggy Noonan, 2000 (“And that is the great thing about democracy: Before Hillary Clinton gets to decide your future, you get to decide hers.”); and The Case for Hillary, Susan Estrich, 2005 (“And when I say a woman president, it means Hillary.”)
5. Unfit for Command, John E. O’Neil and Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D., 2004 (“I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States.”)
6. A Call to Service, John Kerry, 2003 (“It is that determination I hope to bring to the election of 2004, to the presidency of the United States, and to the common challenges Americans face.”)
7. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken, 2003 (“George W. Bush is the worst environmental president in our nation’s history.”)
8. Shrub, Molly Ivins & Lou Dubose, 2000 (“George W. Bush is promising to do for the rest of the country what he has done for Texas.”)
9. Bushworld, Maureen Dowd, 2004 (“So it’s understandable why, going into his reelection campaign, Mr. Bush wouldn’t want to underscore that young Americans keep getting whacked over there [in Iraq].”)
10. Between Hope and History, President Bill Clinton, 1996 (“Now, I believe with all my heart, this is another moment for Americans to decide.”)
“Every one of these books takes a position on a candidate’s qualifications for office, just like ‘Hillary: The Movie,’ and every one was published by a corporation,” said Steve Simpson, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which filed a friend-of-the court brief in Citizens Untied. “Every election season, candidates and their backers and detractors flood stores with similar titles. The question for the government and campaign finance ‘reformers’ is: Why not ban these books, too?”
Under McCain-Feingold’s electioneering communications ban, the nonprofit corporation Citizens United was barred from airing “Hillary: The Movie” on cable TV during the 2008 primary season. A lower court ruled the film fell under McCain-Feingold because “it takes a position on [then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s] character, qualifications, and fitness for office.” The Supreme Court is now revisiting the parts of McConnell v. FEC that upheld McCain-Feingold’s ban on corporate electioneering communications, as well as Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which upheld a ban on corporate express advocacy.
Although McCain-Feingold applies only to broadcast speech, if the Court okays the banning of Hillary: The Movie, there is no principled reason Congress could not extend the ban to books and other media, like newspapers and the Internet.
“Speech is speech, no matter who is speaking, who funds it or in what form it comes,” continued Simpson. “The same ideas do not become dangerous because they are funded by corporations or because they appear in an ad or film instead of a book or newspaper. The Supreme Court must return to first principles and protect all speech, regardless of the speaker, and overturning Austin and McConnell is a critical first step.”
“Political ads, books and films, like ‘Hillary: The Movie’ or Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ contribute to a robust and healthy debate, and they all deserve the fullest protection of the First Amendment,” said IJ Senior Attorney Bert Gall. “What’s at stake in Citizens United is whether the First Amendment protects this speech from censorship if Congress decides that it prefers silence over debate. The Supreme Court should reject censorship and open the floodgates to all speakers—and then let citizens and voters decide for themselves.”
The Institute for Justice defends First Amendment rights and challenges campaign finance laws nationwide. In May, the Institute secured a federal court ruling striking down Florida’s electioneering communications law, and IJ previously won a ruling in the Washington Supreme Court that stopped an attempt to regulate media commentary as “in-kind” political contributions. IJ is currently challenging laws in Colorado that suppress speech about ballot issues by grassroots groups and nonprofit organizations, as well as Arizona’s “Clean Elections” law for funding political campaigns with taxpayer dollars.
Safeguarding Afghanis More Important Than American Lives?
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 12, 2009--According to the latest reports, the United States suffered a six-fold increase in casualties in the war in Afghanistan last month, versus the same time a year ago. The Wall Street Journal, in a story earlier this week, declared the Taliban are now winning the war. The Wall Street Journal noted that the American strategy in Afghanistan “puts a premium on safeguarding the Afghan population rather than hunting down militants.” This is why we’re losing the war, and we at the Ayn Rand Center have been saying it for seven years.In 2006 Elan Journo, a fellow with the Ayn Rand Center, wrote: “The failure in Afghanistan is a result of Washington’s foreign policy. Despite lip service to the goal of protecting America's safety, the ‘war on terror’ has been waged in compliance with the prevailing moral premise that self-interest is evil and self-sacrifice a virtue. Instead of trouncing the enemy for the sake of protecting American lives, our leaders have sacrificed our self-defense for the sake of serving the whims of Afghans.”
In 2004 Mr. Journo wrote about the Iraq war: “Though Washington may be blinded by the longing to buy the love of Iraqis, our service men know all too well that (as one put it): ‘When you go to fight, it’s time to shoot--not to make friends with people.’ In its might and courage our military is unequaled; it is the moral responsibility of Washington to issue battle plans that will properly ‘shock and awe’ the enemy. Eschewing self-interest in the name of compassion is immoral. The result is self-destruction.”
In 2002 ARC senior fellow Dr. Onkar Ghate : “How then goes the war? An objective answer must be: badly. But our cause is not yet lost. We lack not the wealth nor the skilled military necessary to defeat the enemy, only the ideas and the will. If we articulate and practice a rational foreign policy, one actually premised on America’s self-interest, we will prevail. Nothing more is needed to achieve victory than to replace the pragmatism and self-sacrifice now dictating America’s actions with the principles of reason and rational self-interest; nothing less will do.”
Will our government listen?GOP Health Care Reform Is More of the Same
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 25, 2009--In a Washington Post editorial yesterday, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele offered his principles for reforming health care. While he rightly condemned the Obama plan for expanding government control over health care, Mr. Steele vowed to preserve the existing government policies and programs that are responsible for today’s health care crisis, such as Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center, writes, “If the government guarantees health care to people, costs have to skyrocket. When someone else is footing the bill for health care costs, consumers demand medical services without having to consider their real price. The artificially inflated demand this creates sends expenditures soaring out of control. It is irrelevant whether the government finances this spending spree directly, as it does with traditional Medicare, or indirectly, as with Medicare Advantage. In the end, the results are the same. “The only way to fix the problems caused by government interference in medicine is to eliminate government interference in medicine. By returning to a truly free system where each individual is responsible for his own health care costs, we would unleash the power of capitalism in the medical industry, leading ultimately to high quality, affordable medical care for Americans. Let’s start looking at ways to phase out government interference in medicine.” Editor's Note: The conservatives are worse than the Liberals as they are supposed to be the alternative to the "progressivism" (i.e., socialism) of the Left; but, instead the conservatives merely respond with a watered down version of socialism (as they accept the principles of the Left), thus providing no real alternative. Conservatives do this because of their acceptance of altruism -- the doctrine of self-sacrifice -- over the right to the pursuit of happiness.Boston Tea Party Speech of July 4
Dear All;My Boston Tea Party Speech of July 4 is now on Youtube, in two parts:
Happy Independence Day!
John
Boston Tea Party Speech: July 4, 2009
The incredible historian John Lewis.Iran Election Chaos…Future of The Islamic Republic of Iran in Question?
John Lewis appears on Pajamas TV to discuss the Iran Election Chaos. He also gives an excellent contrast between Israel and Iran. (LINK)
Punishing Google for Its Success
Washington, D.C., June 8, 2009--In an op-ed published last week by Investor’s Business Daily, Alex Epstein, analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, reacted to the Department of Justice’s recent announcement that it will increase enforcement of antitrust laws, and argued that the government should leave successful businesses alone to operate as they see fit. According to Mr. Epstein, companies like Google, which are in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice, have “no power to force consumers” to use their products and “no power to prevent competitors from offering products” of their own. Consequently, such companies can pose “no threat to anyone’s rights or to the competitive process.” The only player in today’s market that can thwart competition, said Epstein, is the government. “By using the vast and arbitrary political power given to it by antitrust law, the government can forcibly control successful companies such as Google and Microsoft, telling them what products they cannot sell, what markets they cannot enter, what prices they cannot charge. Obama’s new push to ‘protect’ competition,” noted Epstein, “is the real threat to competition.” “Under the reign of antitrust, any superior company can be stopped in its tracks because some bureaucrat, company, or academic decides that the prices in its voluntary contracts are too high, or its voluntary terms are too onerous, or even,” added Epstein, “that its stable of free products is too large!” “Success earned in a free, competitive process is an achievement.” It is a travesty, concluded Epstein, that “our Department of Justice regards it as a crime.”Judge Sonia Sotomayor is Unqualified for Supreme Court
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.”CNN Video on the Popularity of Atlas Shrugged
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.
How to End Piracy in the High Seas
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.”
End States That Support Piracy
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.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.
When America has once again earned a reputation as a power that none dare cross, we won’t have to worry about pirates.