Lecture: Destroying Islamic Totalitarianism: The West’s Moral Imperative
Monday, October 16, 2006. 6:30pm - 9:00pm; UCLA Campus: Dodd 147, Los Angeles, CA. Email: info@ClubLogic.org The Middle East has been the stage for conflict and crisis for many decades now. What philosophical principles underlie the continued hostilities and tensions? In the five years since 9/11 especially, the Middle East has been a hotbed of military conflict--ranging from the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq to controversies and violence surrounding Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad to Israel's attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon. No doubt, Islamic Totalitarianism poses a grave threat to the security and prosperity of Western nations, but our attempts to stop the enemy has fallen short of successful. In many ways, the Western response has only emboldened and incited terrorist organizations and governments. What historical and philosophical factors account for the present state of affairs and what do they suggest for the future? Is the war on terror really un-winnable? What should be the U.N.'s role in international policy? Should Israel have assented to the U.N.'s dictates, or should it have continued to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon? Should Iran be allowed to develop nuclear technology? What should Western countries do in the Middle East to advance the causes of freedom and liberty? In his lecture and the subsequent Q & A session, Dr. Yaron Brook undertakes these questions from a unique philosophical perspective. He will show why appeasement and U.N. sanctions are ineffective, why self-defense cannot be achieved by compromise and dialogues with those who have abandoned reason, why civilian casualties are always the responsibility of the aggressor, why Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear program, why Israel and America should be unconcerned with world opinion, why terrorist organizations and governments must be eradicated, why Israel should not have compromised its campaign against Hezbollah, and ultimately, why securing liberty requires acting on consistent, rational principles. Dr. Yaron Brook is the President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute. He is interviewed extensively by the print, radio, and television media for the Objectivist position on current events such as the war in Iraq, Internet control and censorship, and threats to freedom of speech. His recent media appearances include TV interviews on Closing Bell (CNBC) and The O'Reilly Factor (Fox News Channel). He also speaks regularly at college campuses and professional associations across the country.Western Governments Must Protect Right to Free Speech
The Berlin opera house, Deutsche Oper, has called off a production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" for fear that a scene featuring the severed head of Islam's prophet might lead to violence. This confirms the warnings, made by defenders of free speech during the Danish cartoon crisis, that the failure of Western governments to respond decisively to the death threats from offended Muslims could lead to self-censorship in the West. "This decision demonstrates the disgraceful failure of Western governments to defend our right to free speech," said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "In 1989, when the Iranian Mullahs issued a fatwa calling for Muslims to murder Salman Rushdie and attack his publisher, Western governments did nothing. Last year, when violent mobs threatened the lives of the Danish cartoonists, Western governments did nothing. If a government does not ensure its citizens are able to express their views without fear of violent reprisals, free speech is dead. "Western governments must reverse their trend of appeasement and declare their commitment to ruthlessly punish anyone who attempts to violate their citizens' right to freedom of speech."Andy Roddick’s Philosophical Confusions About Selfishness
US Open Finalist Andy Roddick on why he has no self-interest in playing for his country:Andy Roddick's attempt to stretch the Davis Cup semifinals to a fifth and deciding match came up short Sunday as the American came back from two sets down, but still fell to Dmitry Tursunov 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, 17-15 as Russia advances to the final against Argentina.Isn't Roddick playing for his teammates and his country? That is selfish -- if you value your teammates and you love your country -- because one does have a self-interest in the outcome.
"Being honest, I'm not feeling a whole lot of positive things right now," Roddick said. "Davis Cup losses are the toughest to take because you're not playing for selfish reasons. You feel like you let your teammates down, your country down. It's tough It's not an easy thing, especially to fight back all that way and to lose. It's tough." [emphasis added]
Angelina Jolie will play Dagney Taggart in “Atlas Shrugged” Movie Adaption
From Variety:Angelina Jolie is set to star in the film adaptation of Ayn Rand's iconic tome "Atlas Shrugged" for Lionsgate. Howard and Karen Baldwin ("Ray"), who hold the rights to Rand's most ambitious novel, are producing with Media Talent Group topper Geyer Kosinski, Jolie's manager. Jolie, a longtime fan of Rand's, was eager to play the role of Dagney Taggart, the most powerful female character in any of Rand's books. A movie version of the Russian-born author's novel, which runs more than 1,100 pages, has been long in the making. For years, producer Al Ruddy tried to bring "Atlas Shrugged" to the bigscreen, attracting the interest of Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway along the way. ["Jolie shoulders 'Atlas'", Pamela McClintock, Variety, Sep. 21, 2006]
Event: Democracy vs. Victory: Why the “Forward Strategy of Freedom” Had to Fail
After Sept. 11 the Bush administration declared that we must go on a mission to bring freedom to the Middle Eastern nations that threaten us; thus, the Forward Strategy of Freedom. According to this strategy, establishing democracies in key Muslim countries, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq, would spur a revolution in the rest of the Muslim world--a revolution that would bring free, pro-Western, anti-terrorist governments to power. But the strategy has failed. With the rise of the religious Shiites in Iraq, of Hamas and of Hezbollah, and with the electoral victories of Islamic radicals elsewhere in the Middle East, the Muslim world has grown more militant. Why has the Forward Strategy of Freedom failed, and why was failure inevitable? What are the flaws inherent in the strategy? How does it necessarily undermine victory? What motivates it and what strategy should replace it? These are the questions Dr. Brook will address in this talk. Who: Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute What: A talk and Q & A explaining why President Bush's strategy to bring democracy to hostile Middle Eastern nations is harmful to America Where: 1 Faneuil Hall Market Pl, Boston, MA 02109 When: Sunday, October 22, 2006, at 6:30 PM The public and media are invited. Admission is FREE.Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring — An Environmentalist Diatribe Against Science
From Dr. Keith Lockitch's op-ed "Reject Environmentalism, Not DDT":[...] Carson filled her book with misinformation--alleging, among other claims, that DDT causes cancer. Her unsubstantiated assertion that continued DDT-use would unleash a cancer epidemic generated a panicked fear of the pesticide that endures as public opinion to this day. But the scientific case against DDT was, and still is, nonexistent. Almost 60 years have passed since the malaria-spraying campaigns began--with hundreds of millions of people exposed to large concentrations of DDT--yet, according to international health scholar Amir Attaran, the scientific literature "has not even one peer reviewed, independently replicated study linking exposure to DDT with any adverse health outcome." Indeed, in a 1956 study human volunteers ate DDT every day for over two years with no ill effects then or since.
Why We Are Losing the War: Five Years After 9/11
The Objectivist Club at NYU Presents Why We Are Losing the War: Five Years After 9/11 with Dr. John D. Lewis Five years after Manhattan was viciously attacked by Islamic holy warriors, the world is still held hostage to their rants and their bombs. Iraq is in turmoil, Syria is emboldened, and Iran, in pursuit of nuclear weapons, intends to wipe Israel off the map and destroy the Great Satan—America. What went wrong? This lecture will show how our failure to identify the ideology of our enemies—Islamic Totalitarianism—has made it impossible to confront them. Drawing on the lessons of America's victory over Japan, this lecture will challenge us to reject our assumptions about the nature of a "just war," and to demand the removal, by force, of Islamic Totalitarianism—State Islam—from the face of the earth. Dr. John Lewis is in the Department of History and Political Science at Ashland University in Ohio. He holds a PhD in classics from the University of Cambridge, a BA in history from the University of Rhode Island, and an Anthem Fellowship for Objectivist Scholarship. He is the author of Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens, and is now completing a new book, Nothing Less Than Victory: Military Offense and the Lessons of History. Date: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 Time: 7:30 PMLocation: Kimmel Center – Room 914 60 Washington Square South All non-NYU attendees must register by email to nyu@objectivistclubs.org
WHO Sides with Humanity Against Mosquitoes and Environmentalists
Irvine, CA--The World Health Organization, conceding that alternative methods to fight malaria have failed, will start encouraging the use of DDT around the world."For anyone who cares about human life, this is excellent news," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "The widespread use of DDT against malaria-carrying mosquitoes can prevent the infection of hundreds of millions of people every year and save millions of lives."
Before environmentalists managed to ban or severely restrict its use, DDT led to a dramatic reduction in malaria cases wherever it was used.
"The decades-long environmentalist opposition to DDT never had any basis in science: for half a century DDT use has been proven safe to humans and deadly to mosquitoes.
"The environmentalists responsible for banning or tightly restricting the use of DDT are responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people and for the untold suffering of hundreds of millions more, most of them children.
"The environmentalists' persistent opposition to the use of DDT shows that they are indifferent to human suffering. This is because environmentalism places the ‘preservation' of nature above the requirements of human survival and prosperity. Given the choice of eradicating malarial mosquitoes with a man-made pesticide or condemning millions of people to suffering and death, committed environmentalists have consistently opted for the latter.
"Environmentalism is an anti-human ideology that must be eradicated intellectually in order to ensure that deadly diseases such as malaria can be eradicated physically."
Gene Therapy Cures Men Dying of Cancer
Irvine, CA--"Dr Steven Rosenberg and his team of scientists at the National Cancer Institute should be congratulated for developing a gene therapy that eradicated cancer from two dying men," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.The successful treatment using the patients' genetically modified version of their own white blood cells is reported today in the journal Science. "Such a magnificent achievement shows the power of reason and science to unveil nature's secrets, create new life-enhancing technologies, and improve human life. "At a time when reason and science are under attack in American universities, schools and churches, this new medical treatment reminds us that these are crucial values worth defending--and that our very lives depend on successfully doing so."
Minimum Wage, Maximum Wrong
IRVINE, CA--There is an accelerating trend of big-city governments passing minimum wage laws that far exceed either the state or federal minimums. Yesterday, contrary to this trend, Mayor Richard Daley vetoed a measure that would have raised Chicago minimums to $10.00 an hour plus $3.00 in fringe benefits by mid-2010. "Daley's veto was right--but he and other political leaders should go further and abolish the minimum wage altogether," said Dr. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute and a former finance professor. "By mandating a certain level of wages, the government violates the rights of both employers and employees to reach a voluntary agreement based on their own judgment of what they can afford. "Those who provide jobs are not the slaves of city hall, and have a right to set the wages they are willing to pay. And those who are willing and eager to work for relatively low wages--either because they are unskilled, inexperienced or would rather have a low-paying job than no job at all--have a right to do so. "In a capitalist system, the price of labor (i.e., wages) is determined in the same way as all other prices: by the individual judgments and voluntary decisions of buyers and sellers."Islam: A Religion of Peace?
Writes Warren Ross:There is a lot of confusion about the nature of Islam, and the extent to which it is the religion itself, as opposed to an "extremist" wing of it, that breeds terrorism. President Bush believes that Islam has been "hijacked" by the terrorists for their own use, and that Islam itself is a peace-loving religion. Is that true? Or is there something about Islam that promotes, condones or ideologically endorses terrorism? Is it a fundamental aspect of Islam, or a perverted interpretation? [Is Islam at Fault?]Read the rest in Is Islam at Fault?
Khatami’s Harvard Visit Is a Disgrace
Irvine, CA--This Sunday, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, Iran's former president, Mohammed Khatami, will speak before Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and give a talk titled "Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence." This is outrageous.Iran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. Khatami's government jailed Iranian students who spoke out against the theocratic regime, and his intelligence service murdered leaders of an Iranian opposition party. For him to lecture Americans on ethics and non-violence is as obscene as a child molester instructing his victims on the importance of respecting individual rights.
Harvard defended Khatami's visit, claiming we must have an "open dialogue" with Iran and allow for a "free exchange of ideas." But there can be no "free exchange of ideas" between a killer and those he seeks to kill--or between a brutal dictatorship and the free nation it seeks to annihilate.
Let's stop appeasing Iran and make it clear that those who threaten the United States will not receive an "open dialogue," but swift destruction.
Event: Global Capitalism: The Solution to World Oppression and Poverty
Global Capitalism: The Solution to World Oppression and Poverty Who: Andrew Bernstein, senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute and author of "The Capitalist Manifesto." What: A talk and Q & A explaining the real nature of capitalism and why it is the ideal social system. Where: 101 Thomas Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park. When: September 11, 2006, at 7:30 PM. The public and media are invited. Admission is FREE.Hurricane Katrina’s Villain-ized Victims: Insurance Companies
Irvine, CA-- One year after Hurricane Katrina left the Gulf Coast in ruins, many residents have started to rebuild their homes and their lives, relying in many cases on payouts from their home-insurance policies. Yet despite paying out an unprecedented $56 billion in claims to victims of Hurricane Katrina, U.S. insurance companies have been smeared as "greedy" and "cold-hearted" for not doing more. Some are even being sued by their customers for refusing to cover flood damage. This, even though the companies never sold flood insurance, which is only available through the federally funded National Flood Insurance Program. "This is as absurd as hiring someone to mow your lawn and suing him because he did not also paint your house," said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Insurance companies are responsible for fulfilling the terms of their contracts--not for satisfying their customers' every financial need. "Insurance companies should not be demonized for insisting on the terms of their contracts. The fact that some Gulf Coast residents did not have flood insurance means that they must bear the costs of the flood damage or else rely on private charity. Their misfortune does not give them the right to impose those costs on anyone else."Bush Should Defeat, Not Debate Ahmadinejad
IRVINE, CA-- Iranian president Ahmadinejad's offer to President Bush for a debate "on how to end world predicaments" is a farce, said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "The Iranian regime is the world's leading sponsor of the Islamic totalitarian movement that terrorizes us, and it is eagerly pursuing long-range missiles and nuclear warheads with which to terrorize us further. The only way to "end world predicaments" is for this regime to cease to exist. We must defeat Ahmadinejad and his regime--not debate them.U.S. Muslim Group Should Apologize
Irvine, CA—Following news of the foiled plot to bomb airlines, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) criticized President Bush for calling the would-be killers "Islamic fascists." "CAIR is demanding that we evade the actual goal of those trying to kill us," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Just as the Soviet Communists and the Nazis sought to impose their version of socialism on the world, so the new killers seek to impose their version of Islam on the world. They seek total power to enact the dictates of Islam. Theirs is an Islamic totalitarian movement. "I wish Bush would take his own rhetoric seriously, because understanding this fact about the killers is crucial to achieving victory in the war. Only when the political aspiration of Islam--the imposition of its religious dogmas by force--has been shown to result in the deaths of Islamists, not their victims, will we be safe. Only when the cause of Islamic totalitarianism has been thoroughly discredited, will victory be achieved."CAIR's demand that we evade the role of religion in this conflict is undermining America's self-defense. For this, the group should apologize to all Americans."
Lebanon’s Complicity in Arming Hezbollah
From Cox and Forum:
Regarding the Lebanese army ... Dafka posted an interesting July 30th letter by a Lebanese who described Lebanon's culpabilty in this war, in particuar how his country completely failed to disarm Hezbollah under the last U.N. resolution: A Lebanese Speaks Out.[O]ur army, reshaped over the years by the Syrian occupier so it could no longer fulfill its role as protector of the nation, did not have the capacity to tackle the militamen of the Hezb [hezb-Allah : the party of Allah. Translator's note]. Our army whom it is more dangerous to call upon – because of the explosive equilibrium that constitutes each of its brigades – than to shut up behind locked doors in its barracks. A force that is still largely loyal to its former foreign masters, to the point of being uncontrollable ; to the point of having collaborated with the Iranians to put OUR coastal radar stations at the disposal of their missiles, that almost sunk an Israeli boat off the shores of Beirut. ... It is easy now to whine and gripe, and to play the hypocritical role of victims. We know full well how to get others to pity us and to claim that we are never responsible for the horrors that regularly occur on our soil. Of course, that is nothing but rubbish! The Security Council's Resolution 1559 – that demanded that OUR government deploy OUR army on OUR sovereign territory, along OUR international border with Israel and that it disarm all the militia on OUR land – was voted on 2 September 2004. We had two years to put implement this resolution and thus guarantee a peaceful future to our children but we did strictly nothing. Our greatest crime – which was not the only one! – was not that we did not succeed but that we did not attempt or undertake anything. And that was the fault of none else than the pathetic Lebanese politicians. Our government, from the very moment the Syrian occupier left, let ships and truckloads of arms pour into our country. Without even bothering to look at their cargo. They jeopardized all chances for the rebirth of our country by confusing the Cedar Revolution with the liberation of Beirut.From AFP: Truce will be Israel's last, Lebanon envoy declares. (via LGF)Lebanon's UN ambassador bitterly slammed Israel's month-long bombardment of his country ahead of a hard-won truce, and vowed that the treaty would be Israel's last with any Middle East country. "Lebanon will be, I think, the last state to sign a peace treaty with Israel," UN ambassador Nouhad Mahmoud told CNN television's "Late Edition" program, without explaining the remark. ... The diplomat added that the 15,000 Lebanese soldiers to be dispatched to south Lebanon to help keep the peace alongside a similarly-sized international UN force "are not going to use force" to disarm the Hezbollah militia which has been battling Israel. "Hezbollah will just leave the area as armed elements as I understand it, and the Lebanese army will take over the whole region along with the United Nations forces," he saidFrom Haaretz: Hezbollah torpedoes Lebanese gov't meeting on disarmament. (via Donald Sensing who has more)A meeting of the Lebanese government on the disarming of Hezbollah south of the Litani River was canceled on Sunday following an announcement by the Shi'ite organization that it was not willing to discuss the subject. ... A Lebanese government source wrote on the Arab internet site Ilaf that "when it comes to crunch time, Hezbollah is refusing to give up its arms."More on the Lebanese army's complicity in arming Hezbollah. From The Australian: Iran's rocket route to Israel. (via Tom Minchin)The Lebanese army said the transportation and storage of ammunition belonged to the "resistance". Once inside Lebanon it was subject to a ministerial policy statement of the Lebanese Government, which considers the "resistance" to be legitimate. "As the Government of Lebanon has confirmed, the Lebanese Armed Forces has thus not been authorised to prevent further movement of the ammunitions, which had been a common practice for more than 15 years," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a letter to the Security Council in April. "Hezbollah publicly confirmed that the arms were destined for the group." It's this uninterrupted flow of weapons, mostly made in Iran, under the nose of the Lebanese Government, that has allowed Hezbollah to stockpile some 12,000 Katyusha rockets. Over the past 29 days of conflict, Hezbollah has fired more than 3000 rockets into Israel.The fact that Annan knew this before the latest cease-fire resolution was signed shows that there never been any real intention to disarm Hezbollah.