Nov 30, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA---At the opening of the Middle East conference in Annapolis, President Bush stated that the time is ripe for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. "The Palestinian people," he stated, "are blessed with many gifts and talents. They want the opportunity to use those gifts to better their own lives and build a future for their children."
But do Palestinians really want peace with Israel?
According to Elan Journo, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, "On the day the Annapolis conference opened, more than 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza took to the streets to protest the peace conference." Gaza is the stronghold of Hamas, the Islamist group that denies Israel's right to exist. There were also demonstrations in the West Bank city of Hebron, organized by another militant Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, that regards Hamas as a sell-out for stooping to take part in elections. "The Palestinians who demonstrated," said Journo, "refuse to contemplate the possibility of peaceful co-existence with Israel; they're ideologically committed to replacing Israel with an Islamist regime."
"Yet despite the popular support for Islamists--Hamas won a landslide victory in the 2006 elections--Washington insists on regarding them and their many avid followers as fringe elements.
"The Bush administration and the Israeli government evasively claim they can marginalize such fringe groups by supporting the supposedly 'moderate' Palestinian faction Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas. Israel has removed 178 Fatah militants from its wanted lists and Washington has bolstered Abbas with money and arms so that his faction can maintain order in the Palestinian territories. But Fatah 'security forces' refuse to pursue militants wanted by Israel. Why? A recent story in the New York Times explains: as a governor of the West Bank town of Nablus put it, 'We don't want to look like collaborators with Israel.'
"That these 'security forces' policing towns fear being branded 'collaborators' with Israel tells us a lot about what the supposedly 'moderate' Palestinian public expects them to be doing. Not 'collaborating' can mean only one thing: abetting the militants in attacking Israel--as the Palestinian Authority has done for years. This is the goal that has inspired Palestinians across the political spectrum for decades, and the reason they idolized the arch terrorist Yasser Arafat (who led Fatah before Abbas), and continue to glorify and support the legions of suicide 'martyrs.' The so-called moderates of Fatah, who have pursued the phased destruction of Israel, share the same goal as so-called radicals like Hamas, who openly seek to liquidate Israel; they differ only in the means and timeline they choose for their common goal.
"The conference in Annapolis is based on a lie," said Journo. "What kind of accommodation is possible between the state of Israel and the Palestinians who want to destroy it?"Washington is urging Israeli concessions of land for the 'promise' of Palestinian peace, but such appeasement can only harm U.S. interests. By fostering such a deal, Washington will encourage the Islamists and help establish a new terrorist regime in the Middle East."Nov 7, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--With the Southeast suffering a prolonged drought, the city of Atlanta, Georgia, has only about a three month supply of readily accessible water. Nevertheless, in compliance with the Endangered Species Act, the Army Corps of Engineers continues to drain more than a billion gallons a day from Lake Lanier, Atlanta's main water source, to release it downstream for an endangered species of mussel.
"The Endangered Species Act is a danger to the human species," said Dr. Keith Lockitch, a resident fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute. "People find it hard to believe that environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act could really require the sacrifice of human beings to nature. But that is exactly what they have to mean in practice; they mean that in order to sustain some obscure mussel species, the people in Atlanta must go without water.
Environmentalists claim that blaming the mussels is unfair. They say it is just a way of diverting attention from the real causes of the water crisis, which, in their view, are a lack of strict water conservation mandates and the 'unbridled development' of metro Atlanta over the last few years."
But, says Lockitch, "this amounts to the bizarre claim that the problem is not a failure to build reservoirs and expand water capacity, but a 'failure' to obstruct economic progress and impose draconian water restrictions on Atlanta. In other words, the environmentalists' view is that Atlantans should sacrifice even more to nature."In fact, the opposite is the case. Solving the Southeast's water problems requires the rejection of the Endangered Species Act and environmentalist obstacles to development and growth. Indeed, the real solution is more profit-driven development. What is needed is a water management system that is entirely owned and operated by private individuals and companies, who would be driven by the profit motive to ensure a sufficient water capacity. A wholly private system would protect the rights of all users with a legitimate interest in the Chattahoochee River Basin--including metro Atlanta as well as the energy plants downstream and the Florida seafood industry in the Gulf--with no one requiring that human beings be sacrificed to mussels."Oct 31, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--The House of Representatives wants to greatly expand the number of Americans who are entitled to sue their employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act after being disciplined, demoted, or discharged. The proposed ADA Restoration Act would rewrite the definition of "disabled" to include employees who wear eyeglasses, have acne scars, or drink too much coffee.
"Congress is headed the wrong way down this road," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "The cure for the ADA is not to tinker with its definitions but to reject the idea that jobs are public property, to be molded and remolded by government according to public opinion. Jobs are private contracts. Employers and employees have an absolute right to negotiate terms agreeable to each other, by their own standards of profit and satisfaction. The resulting contract, not arbitrary Congressional dictates, should govern their legal relationship. The ADA is immoral because it denies the individual rights of everyone involved."
Enacted in 1990 the ADA currently regards as disabled only people whose physical or mental impairments impose a "substantial limitation" on a "major life activity." The proposed ADA Restoration Act would erase that part of the definition. The revised law would cover everyone who has any physical or mental impairment, however minor, regardless of whether the problem is completely resolved by medication or physical devices, or is in remission or latent.
"Since almost every individual has some physical or mental impairment, the proposed expansion of ADA coverage would transform virtually every adverse employment action into a potential lawsuit," Bowden said. "It is bad enough that the threat of expensive litigation hangs in the air every time a wheelchair-bound paraplegic or recovering schizophrenic applies for work. The proposed amendment would extend ADA-based fear, uncertainty, and resentment throughout the workplace, to the detriment of all concerned."Oct 29, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--The Senate will soon decide whether to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty, which deems most of the earth's vast ocean floor "the common heritage of mankind" and places it under United Nations ownership "for the benefit of mankind as a whole."
"This treaty vests monopoly authority over most of the world's seabeds in a U.N. agency that issues licenses burdened by complex regulations, fees, royalties, and mandatory land transfers," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "Licensees are required to give back half or more of the submerged land they explore, to be mined by the International Seabed Authority using the licensees' technology and know-how, with proceeds going to U.N. members such as Cuba, Uganda, and Venezuela, who contribute nothing to the productive process.
"The proposed treaty ignores the fundamental principle that unowned natural resources should become the private property of the people whose efforts make them valuable," Bowden said. "Although the ocean floor is full of potentially valuable minerals, they remain useless until some pioneer discovers how to retrieve them. Under this treaty, however, the deep-sea mining companies whose science, exploration, technology, and entrepreneurship are being counted on to gather otherwise inaccessible riches are treated as mere servants of a world collective.
"This treaty is an injustice that will hamper, if not halt, the exploitation of undersea wealth," Bowden said. "Because no self-respecting entrepreneur will work under such conditions, the U.N. regime will attract only the kind of lumbering state-owned enterprises that have historically failed to match the performance of private, profit-seeking companies."
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently held hearings on the treaty, which has the support of the Bush administration. The treaty, which President Reagan refused to sign in 1982, was submitted to the Senate by President Clinton in 1994 but never ratified. The treaty requires a two-thirds Senate majority for ratification.
"Governments have legitimate options regarding how to deal with undersea explorers' need to establish property rights in the deep ocean," Bowden said. "But it would be totally improper for America to declare eternal hostility to private property in the ocean floor by ratifying a treaty dedicated on principle to denying such rights."Oct 24, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Dr Vincent Gray, a member of the UN IPCC Expert Reviewers Panel since its inception, has written to Professor David Henderson, to support the latter's call for a review of the IPCC and its procedures. But Dr Gray goes further: calling for IPCC's abolition.
SUPPORT FOR CALL FOR REVIEW OF UN IPCC
Thank you for your latest article containing your analysis of the limitations of the IPCC and your belief that it is possible for it to be reformed.
I have been an "Expert Reviewer" for the IPCC right from the start and I have submitted a very large number of comments on their drafts. It has recently been revealed that I submitted 1,898 comments on the Final Draft of the current Report. Over the period I have made an intensive study of the data and procedures used by IPCC contributors throughout their whole study range. I have a large library of reprints, books and comments and have published many comments of my own in published papers, a book, and in my occasional newsletter, the current number being 157.
I began with a belief in scientific ethics, that scientists would answer queries honestly, that scientific argument would take place purely on the basis of facts, logic and established scientific and mathematical principles.
Right from the beginning I have had difficulty with this procedure. Penetrating questions often ended without any answer. Comments on the IPCC drafts were rejected without explanation, and attempts to pursue the matter were frustrated indefinitely.
Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound. Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only "reform" I could envisage, would be its abolition.
I wonder whether I could summarize briefly some of the reasons why the scientific procedures followed by the IPCC are fundamentally unsound. Some of you may have received more detail if you received my recent NZClimate Truth Newsletters (see under "Links" on this website).
The two main "scientific" claims of the IPCC are the claim that "the globe is warming" and "Increases in carbon dioxide emissions are responsible". Evidence for both of these claims is fatally flawed.
To start with the "global warming" claim. It is based on a graph showing that "mean annual global temperature" has been increasing.
This claim fails from two fundamental facts
1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any period, has ever been made.
How can you derive a "global average" when you do not even have a single "local" average?
What they actually use is the procedure used from 1850, which is to make one measurement a day at the weather station from a maximum/minimum thermometer. The mean of these two is taken to be the average. No statistician could agree that a plausible average can be obtained this way. The potential bias is more than the claimed "global warming.
2. The sample is grossly unrepresentative of the earth's surface, mostly near to towns. No statistician could accept an "average" based on such a poor sample. It cannot possibly be "corrected"
It is of interest that frantic efforts to "correct" for these uncorrectable errors have produced mean temperature records for the USA and China which show no overall "warming" at all. If they were able to "correct" the rest, the same result is likely
And, then after all, there has been no "global warming", however measured, for eight years, and this year is all set to be cooling. As a result it is now politically incorrect to speak of "global warming". The buzzword is "Climate Change" which is still blamed on the non-existent "warming"
The other flagship set of data promoted by the IPCC are the figures showing the increase in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. They have manipulated the data in such a way to persuade us (including most scientists) that this concentration is constant throughout the atmosphere. In order to do this, they refrain from publishing any results which they do not like, and they have suppressed no less than 90,000 measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide made in the last 150 years. Some of these were made by Nobel Prizewinners and all were published in the best scientific journals. Ernst Beck has published on the net all the actual papers.
Why did they do it? It is very subtle. Brush up your maths. In order to calculate the radiative effects of carbon dioxide you have to use a formula involving a logarithm. When such a formula is applied to a set of figures, the low figures have a greater weight in the final average radiation. The figure obtained from the so-called "background figure" is therefore biased in an upwards direction.
My main complaint with the IPCC is in the methods used to "evaluate" computer models. Proper "validation" of models should involve proved evidence that they are capable of future prediction within the range required, and to a satisfactory level of accuracy. Without this procedure, no self-respecting computer engineer would dare to make use of a model for prediction.
No computer climate model has ever been tested in this way, so none should be used for prediction. They sort of accept this by never permitting the use of the term "prediction", only "projection". But they then go ahead predicting anyway.
There is a basic logical principle that a correlation, however convincing, is not proof of causation. Most scientists pay at least lip service to this principle, but its widespread lack of acceptance by the general public have led to IPCC to explore it as one of their methods of "evaluating" models.
The models are so full of inaccurately known parameters and equations that it is comparatively easy to "fudge" an approximate fit to the few climate sequences that might respond. This sort of evidence is the main feature of most of the current promotional lectures.
The most elaborate of all their "evaluation" techniques is far more dubious. Since they have failed to show that any models are actually capable of prediction, they have decided to "evaluate" them by asking the opinions of those who originate them, people with a financial interest in their success. This has become so complex that many have failed to notice that it has no scientific basis, but is just an assembly of the "gut feelings" of self-styled "experts". It has been developed to a complex web of "likelihoods", all of which are assigned fake "probability" levels.
By drawing attention to these obvious facts I have now found myself persona non grata with most of my local professional associations, Surely, I am questioning the integrity of these award-winning scientific leaders of the local science establishment. When you get down to it, that is what is involved.
I somehow understood that the threshold had been passed when I viewed "The Great Global Warming Swindle". Yes, we have to face it. The whole process is a swindle, The IPCC from the beginning was given the licence to use whatever methods would be necessary to provide "evidence" that carbon dioxide increases are harming the climate, even if this involves manipulation of dubious data and using peoples' opinions instead of science to "prove" their case.
The disappearance of the IPCC in disgrace is not only desirable but inevitable. The reason is, that the world will slowly realise that the "predictions" emanating from the IPCC will not happen. The absence of any "global warming" for the past eight years is just the beginning. Sooner or later all of us will come to realise that this organisation, and the thinking behind it, is phony. Unfortunately severe economic damage is likely to be done by its influence before that happens.
Sep 21, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--An al Qaeda representative in Iraq recently called for the murder of an artist and his editor after a Swedish newspaper published a sketch of Muhammad's head on the body of a dog. The sketch appeared alongside an editorial decrying self-censorship by Swedish museums that refused to display the sketch for fear of Muslim reprisals.
"This death threat is the latest consequence of the West's disgraceful failure to stand up for free speech in the face of Islamic totalitarians' attempt to squash it," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.
"Islamic totalitarians are enemies of free speech. Nations like Iran, for instance, suppress the speech of their own citizens, punishing those who criticize Islam, and actively seek to extend these brutal policies worldwide. In 1989, for instance, Iran's ruler Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the murder of British writer Salman Rushdie following the publication of Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. More recently, in the wake of the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons satirizing Muhammad, Islamists across the Middle East rioted and called for the death of the cartoonists.
"In both cases, most Western leaders refused to stand up for the principle of free speech. Indeed, some leaders denounced as equally offensive both the publications and the Islamists' decree to murder those who created and published them. Such craven appeasement has emboldened the Islamists and helped spawn an alarming trend of self-censorship in the West--the very trend that inspired the Swedish paper to publish the Muhammad sketch."If we are to end the jihadists' attempts to silence the West, Western leaders must stop apologizing, denounce the jihadists as immoral enemies of freedom, and defiantly assert their citizens' right to free speech."Sep 20, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
The online version of the Fall issue of The Objective Standard has been posted to their website. In connection with all the press surrounding the fiftieth anniversary of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged—from the New York Times article "Ayn Rand's Literature of Capitalism," to the Los Angeles Times piece "Ayn Rand's Epic Storytelling," to Lionsgate's selection of a director for the Atlas Shrugged movie—TOS presents Andrew Bernstein's essay "Transfiguring the Novel: The Literary Revolution in Atlas Shrugged." Bernstein examines Rand's dramatization of the novel's plot-theme, her use of literary techniques, and the nature and significance of key figures in the story, showing how Rand employed such elements to tap the full potential of this supremely conceptual art form, and shedding new light on Rand's literary genius. Also in this issue are "The Morality of Moneylending: A Short History" by Yaron Brook (which is accessible to all for free) and "How to Analyze and Appreciate Paintings" by Dianne Durante (which is accompanied by fifteen color images of the paintings discussed).Sep 19, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--Under Monday's ruling by a European Union appeals court, Microsoft must disclose secret software codes to rivals, strip Windows Media Player from its operating system, and pay a $613 million fine. The court rejected Microsoft's appeal of a 2004 antitrust ruling in which the company was found to have "abused" its "dominant position" in the marketplace.
"This ruling violates Microsoft's right to profit from the enormous popular acceptance of its Windows operating system," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Microsoft cannot force anyone to buy its products. If the company sets prices unreasonably high relative to its customers' interests, then competitors are free to step in and offer a better value. But if 95 percent of consumers choose to buy Windows software, then Microsoft has a right to profit from that success and not be punished for it."
The ruling forces Microsoft to disclose the secret codes used by workgroup servers to access Windows-based computers, and it also requires the company to offer a version of Windows that omits the company's proprietary media player.
"European regulators should have no power to dictate the availability or price of any company's inventory of goods, services, or intellectual property," said Dr. Brook. "Antitrust laws in Europe and America unjustly threaten the freedom of every successful business and should be abolished."
If Microsoft chooses not to appeal, the multi-million-dollar fine will be distributed to the member states of the European Union. "The governments of Europe should be ashamed, dividing the loot like highway robbers who have terrorized a helpless victim," said Dr. Brook.Sep 19, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--The government has been investigating and prosecuting Microsoft under antitrust law since 1990--including a 2001 judgment that forced the company to be subject to government dictates of its business practices that apply to no other software company. This regime was scheduled to end in November, but a group of states, led by California, are saying that it must be extended. According to the Wall Street Journal, their reason was that "Microsoft has faced little new competition" in "operating-systems and Internet-browser technologies."
"This justification for further government control of Microsoft is a microcosm of the fundamental injustice of the government's entire prosecution of the company," said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. The criticism against Microsoft amounts to: Microsoft has been too successful in comparison to its competitors for their liking. By this perverse logic, only if the company had been a miserable failure in producing desirable operating systems and Web browsers would it deserve to be free.
"Of course, Microsoft's tremendous success is the whole reason it ever fell under antitrust prosecution in the first place. Antitrust law regards any company that has earned substantial market share as a dangerous ‘monopolist.' Microsoft has suffered almost two decades of government threats and punishment on the grounds that its 90 percent plus market share in operating systems was a ‘threat' to the consumers who eagerly chose Microsoft Windows over the competition. Microsoft used no force or fraud against anyone; its ‘crime' was to choose to add a valuable feature, a Web browser, to its popular operating system."If the government extends its coercive ‘oversight' of Microsoft, it will further compound this injustice. Instead, the government owes Microsoft an apology--and it owes other successful companies the justice of abolishing the success-punishing antitrust laws."Sep 19, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
As toy companies recall numerous toys based on safety concerns about lead paint, many are using the events to call for a dramatic increase in regulation. "To guarantee the safety of the nation's children," says the New York Times, "American toy makers must be truly regulated by a well-financed, powerful government agency." Toy makers themselves have expressed similar sentiments; the Toy Industry Association, according to the Times, "called on the government to require mandatory safety testing with uniform standards."
Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute, blasted the proposals. "To establish a new toy agency is exactly the wrong response to concerns about lead paint. Establishing testing procedures and safety standards is the right and responsibility of toy manufacturers, parents, and any private safety organizations they choose to employ. Such organizations exist in many other fields, from bicycle helmets to rock climbing gear, and have exemplary records. And no wonder; they live and die based on their reputation.
"By contrast, if the government gets to dictate what companies must do to make their toys safe, the judgment of toy companies about toy safety will be superseded by the whims of bureaucrats. Already, protectionists are using the occasion to try to restrict imports from countries like China as uniformly ‘dangerous.' And this is in response to a ‘crisis' that has not injured one single child!
"The government's only role in toy safety should be to prosecute those who, through malice or negligence, sell toys that provably harm children in the course of normal use. Such a role is consistent with the government's proper function of protecting individuals against force and fraud; being a toy safety czar is not.
"The toy recall should remind American parents to take greater responsibility for the safety of their children, and should remind toy companies to improve their testing procedures. It should not be used to justify taking away the rights and responsibility of both."Sep 18, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--As high default rates on subprime loans continue, various state and federal officials are eager to "do something" to counter the failures--especially to give aid to the homeowners who bought mortgages they couldn't afford.
"This is exactly the wrong approach," said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "The current subprime problems are the result of borrower and lender irrationality, and of government intervention in the market to ‘help homeowners.' Government housing assistance programs, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encourage people to buy homes even when they cannot truly afford them. And the government's longtime manipulation of interest rates to keep them artificially low led many to expect that their adjustable rate mortgages would stay low forever--only to see their fortunes at the mercy of government rate hikes or rate cuts.
"This does not absolve lenders or borrowers of responsibility for taking on risky loans, and it certainly does not justify any sort of bailout. The individual who buys an expensive home counting on interest rates to stay low forever is responsible for the consequences of his risky decision. For the government to ‘do something'--anything--to alleviate a mortgage failure necessarily rewards those who took on large housing risk at the expense of those who didn't. And it invites future irrationality by telling people that they do not need to think about their financial decisions, because the government will always be there to save the day.
"The only moral and rational response by the government, besides prosecuting genuine cases of fraud, is to stop encouraging people to make bad decisions--but then leave them to face the consequences when they do."Sep 18, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--Hillary Clinton has announced her new "universal healthcare" plan, which she claims will solve the problem of high insurance premiums. "You'll never again have to worry about finding affordable coverage," says Mrs. Clinton. "Your coverage will be guaranteed--if you pay your premiums and follow the rules, your insurance company will be required to renew at a price you can afford."
Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute, denounced the proposal. "Like all other ‘universal healthcare'--that is, socialized medicine--schemes, Mrs. Clinton's is guaranteed to lead to disaster if implemented, because it ignores the basic requirement of medical progress and falling prices: freedom for doctors, patients, and insurance companies.
"Health care is a mess because it is one of America's most controlled and socialized industries--beginning with the fact that we are all forced to pay for one another's health care through Medicare and the government-induced third-party-payer system. In the name of the individual's ‘right' to health care and the government's 'responsibility' to provide it, the government has reached its tentacles into every facet of medicine, from how many doctors are allowed to be licensed to which medical professionals may perform what procedures, to what procedures insurance companies must provide on their plans.
"Mrs. Clinton and other advocates of socialized medicine all seek to ‘solve' this problem by adding more government coercion to the system. For example, her ‘guarantee' that ‘your insurance company will be required to renew at a price you can afford' is a veiled call for price-controls--and a prescription for insurance companies to be exposed to a bankrupting combination of huge liabilities with comparatively low premiums.
"If anyone is interested in fixing American health care, there is only one solution: remove coercion from the system. If medicine were left free, with individuals responsible for paying for their own care and insurance, and America's businessmen, doctors, and educators liberated to offer it at all different price points, we would see quality and price improvements like those for flat-panel television sets. Indeed, we already see this in the few realms of medicine that are left free; laser eye surgery, for example, has improved dramatically over the years while prices have fallen. We could see such developments with medical care as a whole--as soon as we agree to take responsibility for our own health, and get the government out of it."Aug 10, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently ruled that terminally ill patients do not have a right to take medicines that have not been approved by the FDA.
"Barring individuals from choosing what medicines to take is immoral and destructive," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.
"The decision about what drugs to put in one's body rightfully belongs to each individual, not to FDA bureaucrats. To deny individuals this right is to impose a death sentence on those who, in the face of certain death, would rationally choose to accept the risks of an experimental treatment, but are barred from doing so until the urgently needed drug completes the FDA's onerous, years-long approval process. Indeed, this case was initiated by a group founded by the father of a girl who died after she was denied access to an experimental anti-cancer drug the FDA later approved.
"Individuals, in consultation with their doctors, should be free to assess the evidence of a drug's effectiveness and safety, taking into account their own personal context (such as their unique risk factors, or the fact that they are certain to die without the treatment). Some people may take ineffective or harmful drugs, but FDA approval does not eliminate such risks. The individual always assumes some level of risk when deciding on a course of treatment, and it is capricious--and too often deadly--for the FDA to usurp the individual's right to decide which risks it is in his interest to accept.
"Some claim that, freed from the necessity of gaining FDA approval for new medicines, 'greedy' drug companies will sell ineffective and dangerous drugs. But a company that sells such drugs is only ensuring its own financial destruction. And if a company knowingly misleads the public about a drug's safety or reliability, or is negligent in putting a dangerous drug on the market, it should properly be prosecuted. The solution is not to give FDA bureaucrats the power to condemn sick people to certain death.
"Some claim that allowing individuals to take unapproved drugs will make effective clinical testing impossible, since, as they say, no rational person would willingly submit to the double-blind, randomized tests that are currently used in clinical trials required by the FDA. In such tests, some of the participants are unknowingly given a placebo, which, it's said, no one would chance if he could ensure that he received the drug by paying for it. But, contrary to those who make this argument, individuals are not lab rats who may be blackmailed by the government into becoming test subjects. It is chilling that defenders of the FDA's current trial system are, in effect, advocating as an incentive to take part in such trials: 'join or die.'
"Moreover, such twisted ultimatums are not necessary in order to make effective drug research possible. Were individuals free to take untested medicines, new incentives to take part in clinical trials would surely arise, such as, for instance, an offer of free treatment to those who choose to take part--an inestimable value to people unable to afford the drugs.
"Anyone who values human life, and the freedom of judgment required to maintain it, should oppose this disgraceful ruling--and demand an end to the unnecessary deaths caused by FDA drug regulations."Aug 9, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--The prices of many U.S.-made prescription drugs are lower in places such as Canada, Australia, and Europe than in the United States. In order to allow Americans to take advantage of these lower prices, the House recently passed a bill that would permit the re-importation of these cheaper drugs to the U.S.
But according to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "The supporters of this measure fail to ask one crucial question: why do prescription drugs cost so much less in other countries?
"The answer is that, unlike the U.S., countries such as Canada impose price controls on prescription drugs, forcing drug companies that want to do business there to sell their products for less than they would in a free market. Drug re-importation schemes, like the one passed by the House, are in effect 'back-door' price controls. They enable Americans to buy the foreign price-controlled drugs at a lower price than their U.S. counterparts--just as if the U.S. government itself had capped prescription drug prices.
"But price controls violate the rights of drug makers. Neither the Canadian government nor the American government has a right to tell drug makers what prices they may charge for their products.
"Proponents of prescription drug price controls claim they are necessary in order to protect consumers from 'excessive' drug prices. But if a consumer determines that a drug price is 'excessive,' he already can protect himself--by refusing to buy the drug. He has no right to buy the drug for less than the drug company is willing to sell it, anymore than he has a right to buy a car for less than a car dealer is willing to charge.
"Indeed, the ultimate result of forcing drug makers to offer their products for less is to ensure that fewer such products are available. As with any commodity, price controls lead inevitably to shortages, as it becomes unprofitable for companies to produce enough drugs to meet the rising demand created by the artificially low price. And such controls hamper the creation of new life-saving medicines, as drug companies find it less profitable to invest the millions upon millions of dollars necessary to discover new drugs and bring them to the market.
"The sole reason Canada has been able to institute its price controls without severely hampering the discovery and production of prescription drugs is because it is 'free riding' on the backs of Americans. It is only because the American market is free from price controls that drug companies are able to recoup their enormous R&D costs, and thus find it profitable to sell additional units of the drugs at a lower cost in other, price-controlled countries. Should America impose price controls either directly or by proxy, the house of cards will collapse.
"We should protect the rights of pharmaceutical companies--and the welfare of consumers--and demand an end to price controls, direct and indirect."Aug 7, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--The Bush administration is asking Congress to approve a $20 billion arms sales package to Saudi Arabia, with the justification that a better-armed Saudi Arabia may serve as a "counterbalance" to the threat posed to us by Iran.
"This is absurd," said Alex Epstein, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. "The administration has been telling us that we must forgo oil for more costly fuels because our 'addiction to oil' helps finance hostile Middle East regimes--among them Saudi Arabia, which has spent almost $100 billion spreading the terrorists' ideology of Islamic Totalitarianism. And yet at the same time that our leaders demand that we sacrifice oil-consumption for the sake of protection from the Saudis, they are arming the Saudis to the teeth.
"What explains this blatant contradiction? While one might attribute it to simple hypocrisy, the Bush Administration is in fact being consistent. In response to both the Saudi threat and the Iranian threat, our response is not self-assertion, but self-sacrifice. When Saudi Arabia spreads a terrorist ideology around the world, we do not punish that regime, we punish ourselves by rejecting the lifeblood of our civilization. And when Iran unleashes even more terrorist aggression, we do not destroy that regime, we imperil ourselves by arming our Saudi enemies and hoping it will somehow protect us. Indeed, the same pattern has been at work in the Iraq fiasco; to the extent the Hussein regime was a threat to us, we did not simply use our military to end it, but instead set out to sacrifice American money and lives to bring the good life to the hostile tribal Iraqis.
"The pattern here follows a definite principle; America has no right to use its unmatched military might for its own sake—it is duty-bound to sacrifice its soldiers, money, and self-defense.
"America, the most moral and most powerful nation on earth, has both the right and the ability to end state sponsorship of terrorism. But we will not be able to do so until we abandon our addiction, not to oil, but to the morality of self-sacrifice."Jul 30, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
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Contact Us if you are interested.Jun 28, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--Senator John Kerry joined other Democratic lawmakers in calling for the return of the Fairness Doctrine, which demands that television and radio broadcasters give a balanced presentation of all sides of controversial issues.
"The Fairness Doctrine is a violation of broadcasters' right to free speech," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Broadcasters should not be forced to promote ideas they may disagree with.
"Defenders of the Fairness Doctrine claim that, left unrestrained, broadcast corporations will stop some views from being heard. But no private individual or organization can keep people from voicing dissenting views--it is only the government that has the power to suppress speech. By granting a cabal of government bureaucrats the power to arbitrarily dictate what ideas should and should not be heard on the air, the Fairness Doctrine represents the real threat to free speech.
"Those who think their views are not being heard have every opportunity to promote them--on television, on radio, in print, online--but they must earn their audience, not demand that it be provided to them ready-made. As Ayn Rand put it, 'The right of free speech means that a man has the right to express his ideas without danger of suppression, interference or punitive action by the government. It does not mean that others must provide him with a lecture hall, a radio station or a printing press through which to express his ideas.'
"Those who value the First Amendment must oppose the Fairness Doctrine as a grave threat to freedom of speech."Jun 22, 2007 | Dollars & Crosses
Irvine, CA--President Bush vetoed a measure promoting embryonic stem cell research Wednesday, claiming that "Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical." Bush went on to trumpet new research which suggests that scientists will one day be able to create pluripotent stem cells (i.e., cells that can develop into multiple cell types) from non-embryonic skin cells, supposedly making the "unethical" destruction of embryonic cells unnecessary.
"There is nothing unethical about destroying embryos in the course of scientific research," said Dr. Keith Lockitch, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. "An embryo is a potential, not an actual, human being, just as canvas is a potential, not an actual, work of art. It is a primitive cluster of cells, which is no more unethical to destroy than the cells that make up one's appendix.
"Calling an embryo 'human life' is an evasion of the distinction between a mass of undifferentiated cells in a test tube and an actual, living human being. Only the mystical doctrines of religion, which hold that a human being is, not a biological entity with certain natural properties--i.e., an independent organism possessing a rational faculty--but a transcendent soul temporarily trapped in a body, could cloud that distinction.
"Stem cell research has the potential to improve the lives of millions by revolutionizing treatments for a number of afflictions, from Parkinson's disease to spinal cord injuries to cancer. Scientists should pursue every possible avenue in an effort to realize this promising technology. If one day they successfully create pluripotent cells from non-embryonic cells, we should cheer that as an additional avenue for research--not clamor for them to stop investigating the properties of embryonic cells. To do so would only hamstring scientists and prolong the suffering of actual human beings.
"We should praise embryonic stem cell research for the life-enhancing breakthroughs it promises--and condemn the immoral attempt to return us to the Dark Ages, before science was liberated from the chains of religious dogmatism."