An History Professor Speaks About The Tea Parties of 2009
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.
Atlas Shrugged and the Tea Party Revolts
Atlas Shrugged and the Tea Party Revolts ARC has lots of great resources such as the following suggested remarks:For those who have an opportunity to speak at the Tea Party efforts, we offer the following as a guideline for remarks that you may wish to use. We are not suggesting that you read this, but rather that you take it as a presentation of essential ideas that you may wish to express. On April 15, thousands of Americans will gather for modern day tea parties, proudly named after the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Like our revolutionary ancestors, we are protesting against growing government power, a government that increasingly oppresses its citizens instead of protecting them. But what are we fighting for? Have we earned the right to call our protests by the same name the Founding Fathers used? Believe me, they understood exactly what they were fighting for. When those Bostonians boarded the cargo ship, Dartmouth, and hurled chests of tea into the ocean, they were not just mad about high taxes. In fact, the Tea Act that inspired the protest had actually lowered the tea tax on the colonies. No, the colonists were driven by a certain view of the proper purpose of government, which the Tea Act repudiated. That view, which would reach its full expression in the Declaration of Independence, was that the role of government is to protect individual rights--to protect the sovereign individual’s right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. But over the past two centuries, the ideal of individual rights has all but disappeared from public discourse. In its absence has emerged today's massive regulatory-welfare state, which taxes away nearly half our income, tells us what medicines we can take, what kind of light bulbs to buy, and is rapidly consolidating control over America’s banks, insurance companies, and industrial giants like General Motors. What happened? Why did we abandon the American ideal? Above all, because the ideal lacked a moral defense. To uphold the individual's political right to pursue his own happiness, we must recognize the individual's moral right to pursue his own happiness. But just try and say such a thing, and the voices will come from all sides--that’s selfish. "It's selfish to want to plan for your own retirement--what about those who aren't responsible enough to save? It's selfish to oppose bailouts for struggling homebuyers--why should they have to move? It's selfish to earn and keep a lot of money for yourself--what about those struggling to make ends meet?" And it's all true: the pursuit of happiness is selfish. That’s why you need the individual freedom of a capitalist system--to pursue your own interests, to act on your own judgment, to make your own life the best it can be. That’s why you need to crusade for individual rights, not just against the latest Washington power grab. To mount such a crusade requires more than protest slogans and picket signs. You must resolve to morally defend the individual's right to live for his own sake, not as a servant of society. So long as you are willing to concede that self-interest and the profit motive are immoral, and that self-sacrifice for the "common good" is a moral ideal, you will continue to see freedom diminish and prosperity decline. In my judgment the only philosopher to provide such a moral defense of capitalism is Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. So I'll close with her words: "The world crisis of today is a moral crisis--and nothing less than a moral revolution can resolve it: a moral revolution to sanction and complete the political achievement of the American revolution. . . . [You] must fight for capitalism, not as a 'practical' issue, not as an economic issue, but, with the most righteous pride, as a moral issue. That is what capitalism deserves, and nothing less will save it."Make sure to check out the ARC Tea Party Activism site.
Update: (April 18, 2009) For some links to Tea Party Reports see Diana's list at Noodlefood.
Your Nest Egg on the Government Bailout
Censorship and The Slide To Dictatorship
Onkar Ghate, a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights on the Glenn Beck Program on Fox News today, Friday, February 20, 2009. Dr. Ghate discuss the erosion of our constitutional republic, and how we can end our slide toward dictatorship.Free Speech For Me, But Not For Thee
Here's a great op-ed in the WSJ by Bret Stephens, explaining the hypocrisy of "liberals" on the issue of free-speech:For liberals, the issue is straightforward. If routine mockery of Christianity and abuse of its symbols, both in the U.S. and Europe, is protected speech, why shouldn't the same standard apply to the mockery of Islam? And if the difference in these cases is that mockery of Islam has the tendency to lead to riots, death threats and murder, should committed Christians now seek a kind of parity with Islamists by resorting to violent tactics to express their sense of religious injury? The notion that liberals can have it both ways -- champions of free speech on the one hand; defenders of multiculturalism's assorted sensitivities on the other -- was always intellectually flimsy. If liberals now want to speak for the "right" of this or that group not to be offended, the least they can do is stop calling themselves "liberals."In criticizing religious conservatives (what he calls "cultural conservatives"), he adds:
Western civilization is not simply the "Judeo-Christian tradition." It is also the civilization of Socrates and Aristophanes, Hume and Voltaire, Copernicus and Darwin; of religious schismatics and nonbelievers. This is the civilization that is now required to define itself, oddly enough, by the case of a flamboyant Dutch politician with inconsistent ideas and a bouffant hairdo. If he can't be defended, neither can Mr. Rushdie. Or Mr. Serrano. Liberals and conservatives alike, take note. [Geert Wilders Is a Test for Western Civilization, WSJ, February 17, 2009]
The Financial Crisis: Causes and Possible Cures
The most recent video from the ARC Lecture Series: The Financial Crisis: Causes and Possible Cures by John Allison. Recorded January 29, 2009.
John Allison on the Financial Crisis
Why Israel Attacked the Gaza
The "news" we have heard about the Israeli military action in the Gaza strip has often focused on the deaths of "civilians." This obfuscates the fact that the majority of casualties were Hamas warriors in civilian dress. When the Israelis retaliate, the press reports it as Israeli "aggression." Every dead child then becomes a propaganda weapon for Hamas. The more dead civilians, the better it is for Hamas. Here is a concrete example of how Hamas warriors intentionally position themselves in civilian buildings, incite the Israelis to respond, and then cash in for propaganda purposes. In a slip on Alarabiya-TV, an announcer states that a missile had just been launched from the basement of the press building: "Hamas fires Grad Missiles from foreign Press building in Gaza January 2009—Unintentional News from Alarabiya-TV." The press later reported the Israeli response, "IDF hits the foreign Press building," without reporting the missile that triggered the retaliation by the Israeli Defense Forces. The press building incident is a microcosm of the entire conflict. Hamas has launched thousands of missiles from densely populated areas against civilians in Israel. For Hamas, the entire population of the Gaza is an expendable resource to be used to create the propaganda needed to continue the war. Thanks to Boaz Arad for bringing this to my attention.U.S. Should Help Crush Hamas
Washington, D.C.--In response to the Hamas bombardment of Israel, Washington must encourage and help Israel to annihilate that Islamist group, once and for all. The failure to wipe out Hamas on previous occasions has encouraged Palestinian terror groups. It teaches Islamists that their terrorist war will be rewarded, that their quest to destroy Israel--and ultimately America--is achievable. To put an end to Hamas’s brazen aggression, the jihadist group must be defeated. It is proper and necessary for America to aid and bolster Israel, its one true ally in the Middle East, in the face of a common enemy.Sam Harris: Causal Connection Between Islam and Islamist Violence is Undisputable
Liberal atheist Sam Harris writing in the Huffington Post has penned an important piece on the connection between Islam and Islamist violence called Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks. Here are some quotesWhat about all the civil, freedom-loving, moderate Muslims who are just as appalled by Muslim intolerance as I am? No doubt millions of men and women fit this description, but vocal moderates are very difficult to find. Wherever “moderate Islam” does announce itself, one often discovers frank Islamism lurking just a euphemism or two beneath the surface. The subterfuge is rendered all but invisible to the general public by political correctness, wishful thinking, and “white guilt.” This is where we find sinister people successfully posing as “moderates”—people like Tariq Ramadan who, while lionized by liberal Europeans as the epitome of cosmopolitan Islam, cannot bring himself to actually condemn honor killing in round terms (he recommends that the practice be suspended, pending further study). Moderation is also attributed to groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamist public relations firm posing as a civil-rights lobby.Even when one finds a true voice of Muslim moderation, it often seems distinguished by a lack of candor above all things. Take someone like Reza Aslan, author of No God But God: I debated Aslan for Book TV on the general subject of religion and modernity. During the course of our debate, I had a few unkind words to say about the Muslim Brotherhood. While admitting that there is a difference between the Brotherhood and a full-blown jihadist organization like al Qaeda, I said that their ideology was “close enough” to be of concern. Aslan responded with a grandiose, ad hominem attack saying, “that indicates the profound unsophistication that you have about this region. You could not be more wrong.” He then claimed that I’d taken my view of Islam from “Fox News.” Such maneuvers, coming from a polished, Iranian-born scholar of Islam carry the weight of authority, especially in front of an audience of people who are desperate to believe the threat of Islam has been grossly exaggerated. The problem, however, is that the credo of the Muslim Brotherhood actually happens to be “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”The connection between the doctrine of Islam and Islamist violence is simply not open to dispute. It’s not that critics of religion like myself speculate that such a connection might exist: the point is that Islamists themselves acknowledge and demonstrate this connection at every opportunity and to deny it is to retreat within a fantasy world of political correctness and religious apology. Many western scholars, like the much admired Karen Armstrong, appear to live in just such a place. All of their talk about how benign Islam “really” is, and about how the problem of fundamentalism exists in all religions, only obfuscates what may be the most pressing issue of our time: Islam, as it is currently understood and practiced by vast numbers of the world’s Muslims, is antithetical to civil society. A recent poll showed that thirty-six percent of British Muslims (ages 16-24) believe that a person should be killed for leaving the faith. Sixty-eight percent of British Muslims feel that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted, and seventy-eight percent think that the Danish cartoonists should have been brought to justice. And these are British Muslims.Link: Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks
Ending Piracy Should be a U.S. Government Priority
Washington, D.C.-- “It is unbelievable that one of the top news stories, today in the 21st century, is that pirates are seizing ships, cargo and people off the high seas,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “The Gulf of Aden is a major international shipping route. The Somali pirates are snatching cargo destined for all corners of the globe. To the extent that American commercial interests are being impacted, the U.S. government should immediately and decisively secure the shipping route by whatever military means necessary. Why have a navy if not to safeguard the rights of Americans to participate in and benefit from trade on the high seas? “The American government should act swiftly: the ransom money collected by the pirates is at least in part being filtered to Islamic totalitarian groups, which have openly declared ‘Death to America.’ Our failure to act is providing additional strength to our known enemies.”Event: The Menace of Pragmatism: How Aversion to Principle Is Destroying America
Shouldn't we be pragmatic? While Americans disagree vehemently about all manner of moral and political issues, beneath that disagreement rests the shared presumption that the way forward is always through moderation and compromise. In intellectual method--i.e., in our way of addressing problems and disagreements--Americans are united as pragmatists. Contrary to pragmatism’s image of reason and practical good sense, however, pragmatic methodology is actually self-destructive. This talk explains what pragmatism is and the countless ways it is manifested across the cultural spectrum. It analyzes the major elements of pragmatism’s appeal as well as its fundamental errors. It also surveys the vast damage that pragmatic methods inflict, damage that is spiritual as well as material. Finally, the talk considers the most effective means of dethroning this pervasive--and destructive--mindset. Tara Smith is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, where she currently holds the Anthem Foundation Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism. She is the author of the books “Moral Rights and Political Freedom,” “Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality,” and “Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist,” as well as numerous articles.Who: Dr. Tara Smith, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas and speaker for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. What: The Menace of Pragmatism: How Aversion to Principle Is Destroying America. A talk explaining the influence and the destructive nature of pragmatism in our culture. A Q&A will follow. Where: National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, 13th floor, Washington, DC 20045. When: Monday, December 8, 2008, at 6:30 pm. Admission: FREE. The public and media are invited.
Don’t Bailout U.S. Automakers–Untie Them
Washington, D.C. --Politicians across the spectrum are calling for an auto bailout, arguing that we cannot allow such large companies to fail.“If U.S. automakers cannot find a market fix for their problems, they must fail,” said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “They should go through bankruptcy proceedings so that creditors and owners can redeploy their assets as efficiently as possible.
“Every day these companies remain in existence in their current form, they are destroying shareholder wealth and wasting worker effort. To preserve these companies with a bailout would be obscenely unfair. Every dollar of a bailout would come at the expense of those who did nothing to cause the auto mess.
“There is one thing the government does owe the auto companies, however: freedom. For example, however the industry shakes out, automakers must be liberated from CAFE fuel economy laws that arbitrarily dictate what kind of cars they must sell, forcing them to sell millions of small cars that have no chance of profitability given consumer preferences. The auto industry must also be liberated from the Wagner Act, which gives unions the coercive negotiating power that railroaded the Big Three into their lavish, unprofitable wage and health plans. If a liberated Big Three can rejuvenate themselves, great; otherwise, a liberated next generation will be able to succeed where they failed.
“Economic freedom is what created the American automotive industry and made it the envy of the world. Economic freedom is the only thing that can bring it back.”
Bush Is No Champion of the Free Market
Washington, D.C. --In a recent speech on the financial crisis, President Bush said, “If you seek economic growth, if you seek opportunity, if you seek social justice and human dignity, the free market system is the way to go.”According to Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, “It’s true that free markets are the source of economic prosperity and individual liberty--but President Bush, while he may pay lip service to free markets, has been a consistent opponent of them.
“Did Bush abolish the countless regulations and controls strangling businessmen? No. But he did sign into law Sarbanes-Oxley--the largest expansion of business regulation in decades. Did Bush consistently push for free trade? No. But he did give us a new steel tariff. Did Bush attempt to roll back America’s massive welfare state? No. But he did pass the prescription drug benefit, the largest new entitlement program since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Did Bush curtail government spending? Far from it. Bush presided over an unprecedented increase in the federal budget: from $1 trillion at the time he took office to more than $3 trillion today. This is to say nothing of Bush’s response to the financial crisis. He has completely evaded his administration’s responsibility for the Fed and housing policies that created the housing bubble. Instead, he has led the chorus blaming the market and calling for unprecedented handouts, bailouts, and nationalizations as the cure.
“If Bush is a friend of the free market, who needs enemies? By praising the free market while systematically undermining it, Bush has done more to discredit capitalism than any open critic could. Like a con artist who undercuts the reputation of Mercedes by selling lemon look-alikes, Bush has now led people to associate his failed policies with capitalism. That association needs to be erased. We must make it clear: Bush is no friend of free markets.”
Pro Capitalist Campus Events
November 13, 2008Religion versus Morality by Andrew Bernstein
College Park, Maryland
University of Maryland, College Park
Benjamin Banneker Room, Adele H. Stamp Student Union [map]
6:30 PM November 24, 2008
Capitalism without Guilt: The Moral Case for Freedom By Yaron Brook
Berkeley, California
University of California, Berkeley
2040 Valley Life Sciences Building [map]
7:00 PM November 25, 2008
Set the Market Free: The Cure for Today's Financial Crisis By Yaron Brook
Davis, California
University of California, Davis [map]
Room 194, Chemistry Building
7:00 PM
The 2008 Election in One Sentence
"Personally, I think McCain comes across as a tired moron, Obama as a lying phony, Bidden as an enjoyably hilarious windbag, and Sarah Palin as an opportunist struggling to learn how to become a moron, a phony and a windbag." -- Leonard Peikoff (Podcast, October 20, 2008)
Free Speech in a Globalized World: A Lecture by Mr. Flemming Rose
Notice of a Special Event: A Lecture by Mr. Flemming Rose, editor of Jyllands-Posten, publisher of the Danish Muhhamad cartoons, on "Free Speech in a Globalized World."When: Thursday, October 30, 2008, 7:00 PM
Where: Page Auditorium, Duke University (directions: http://maps.duke.edu/building.php?bid=7716)
In September 2005 the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of cartoons depicting the Islamic figure Muhammad with images of terrorism. The newspaperʼs publishers stated that they wanted to bring issues of free speech and censorship forward into public awareness. The result was a firestorm of protest, ordered by clerics some weeks after the publication, that highlighted the seriousness of this issue. Over one hundred people were killed in the ensuing riots.
This event will be a unique opportunity to hear the cultural editor of this publication explain the decision to publish these cartoons, the issues at stake in the decision, and the meaning of the protests and the violence that followed. A Q&A will follow the talk.
Flemming Rose is a journalist with long experience in European, Russian, and American issues. He has been awarded the "Free Speech Award" from the Danish Free Press Society.
Web Site: www.committeeforfreespeech.com