Jul 1, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
A great interview with Leonard Peikoff by Professor Robery Mayhew on Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead.RM: I heard you say in a lecture that you went back to The Fountainhead when you were having trouble with the section on integrity in your book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand [OPAR], and that that proved to be very helpful. Is that correct?
LP: Yes, but it's misleading to single out integrity. In OPAR, I tried to reproduce exactly Ayn Rand's essential thought on everything relating to philosophy. So I steeped myself in her work, including The Fountainhead, for every topic. The Fountainhead doesn't offer an explicit epistemology, but I certainly returned to it many times for the sections in OPAR on independence, sex, selfishness versus altruism, physical force and the like. I milked The Fountainhead of everything I thought essential. For instance, at the end of the section on productiveness, I quote from a scene with Austin Heller and Roark, which contains one of my favorite lines in the novel. Heller says: "After all, it's only a building. It's not the combination of holy sacrament, Indian torture and sexual ecstasy that you seem to make of it." Roark answers: "Isn't it?" That's a wonderful way to describe in condensed form the three components of genuine creative work—the three essential elements of the inner state of a creator. I just wish that in my work I'd had less Indian torture and more sexual ecstasy.
Read the rest.
Jun 28, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes John A. Allison, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the BB&T Corporation, on BB&T's philosophy:In a rapidly changing and unpredictable world, individuals and organizations need a clear set of fundamental principles to guide their actions. At BB&T we know the content of our business will, and should, experience constant change. Change is necessary for progress. However, the context, our fundamental principles, is unchanging because these principles are based on basic truths.
BB&T is a mission-driven organization with a clearly defined set of values. We encourage our employees to have a strong sense of purpose, a high level of self-esteem and the capacity to think clearly and logically.
We believe that competitive advantage is largely in the minds of our employees as represented by their capacity to turn rational ideas into action towards the accomplishment of our mission.
Jun 28, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--Commentators are hailing Warren Buffett's $30 billion contribution to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation as a historic day for the alleviation of poverty and sickness around the world. They, like Buffett, think that tens of billions of dollars of charity directed by Bill Gates's brilliant mind will change the world.But, said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "While Gates and Buffett are brilliant businessmen, they and other philanthropists ignore the fundamental cause of poverty, including poor health care, around the world: lack of capitalism. Wherever and to whatever extent capitalism exists, the productive ability of individuals is unleashed, enabling them to make their lives progressively better. The West used to be as poor as Africa today; it is capitalism that made us rich."
"If the tribalist or religious dictatorships of Africa and the Middle East do not renounce their destructive political systems and adopt capitalism, even $100 billion in charitable handouts will make little difference in their lives."
"Anyone who is truly committed to helping the world's poor should first and foremost use their charitable dollars and their public platforms for the promotion of capitalism.
Jun 25, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes Terence Corcoran in Canada's Financial Post:It is now firmly established, repeated ad nauseam in the media and elsewhere, that the debate over global warming has been settled by scientific consensus. The subject is closed. It seems unnecessary to labour the point, but here are a couple of typical statements: "The scientific consensus is clear: human-caused climate change is happening" (David Suzuki Foundation); "There is overwhelming scientific consensus" that greenhouse gases emitted by man cause global temperatures to rise (Mother Jones).
[...] Global warming science by consensus, with appeals to United Nations panels and other agencies as authorities, is the apotheosis of the century-long crusade to overthrow the foundations of modern science and replace them with collectivist social theories of science. "Where a specific body of knowledge is recognized and accepted by a body of scientists, there would seem to be a need to regard that acceptance as a matter of contingent fact," writes Barnes. This means that knowledge is "undetermined by experience." It takes us "away from an individualistic rationalist account of evaluation towards a collectivist conventionalist account."
In short, under the new authoritarian science based on consensus, science doesn't matter much any more. If one scientist's 1,000-year chart showing rising global temperatures is based on bad data, it doesn't matter because we still otherwise have a consensus. If a polar bear expert says polar bears appear to be thriving, thus disproving a popular climate theory, the expert and his numbers are dismissed as being outside the consensus. If studies show solar fluctuations rather than carbon emissions may be causing climate change, these are damned as relics of the old scientific method. If ice caps are not all melting, with some even getting larger, the evidence is ridiculed and condemned. We have a consensus, and this contradictory science is just noise from the skeptical fringe. ["Climate consensus and the end of science", Financial Post, Friday, June 16, 2006]
Jun 23, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
Another brilliant cartoon from the team of Cox and Forum: 
From the Investor's Business Daily editorial page: Friend Or Foe?.
The grisly deaths of two American servicemen show how hard it is to fight a war in which the enemy knows no rules and civilians can't be distinguished from combatants. Maybe it's time to make it easier.There's a method in the madness of those who kidnapped, tortured and murdered Pfcs. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Thomas Tucker, 25, who were manning a Baghdad checkpoint with a comrade who was killed in the assault.
The jihadists want to give momentum to those in the U.S. such as Rep. John Murtha and Sen. John Kerry who want to bring the boys home either now or by a certain date. ...
This is a war where terrorists routinely kill innocent civilians and booby-trap their bodies so others will die as well. They use civilians as shields and masquerade as civilians, hoping overly cautious Americans will become their next prey. They follow no rules. They wear no uniforms. They could be behind any door. They could be the next person you see. They could be the last.
As war critics mourn three jihadist suicides at Gitmo, we have three dead soldiers who might have met their fate simply because, after Hamandiyah and Haditha, they took too long to determine if their kidnappers were friend or foe. If they'd killed their assailants, would they now also be accused of killing "innocent" civilians?
The cartoon is based on a suggestion from Philip Hannum.
Jun 8, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
Thomas Jefferson on the superstition of Christianity:"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."
Jun 8, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From CBS News: Iraq Terror Chief Killed In Airstrike.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq with a $25 million bounty on his head, was killed when U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated safehouse northeast of Baghdad, coalition officials said Thursday.U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell showed a picture Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with his eyes closed and spots of blood behind him after he was killed by an air strike. Caldwell also showed a video of the attack in which he said F-16 fighter jets dropped two 500 pound bombs on the site. ...
His fighters led a wave of kidnappings of foreigners, killing at least a dozen, including Arab diplomats and three Americans. Al-Zarqawi is believed to have wielded the knife in the beheadings of two of the Americans, Nicholas Berg and Eugene Armstrong, and earned himself the title of "the slaughtering sheik" among his supporters.
From FoxNews: Zarqawi Was Mastermind Behind Iraq's Bloodiest Attacks.
The string of kidnappings of Westerners by his followers terrorized foreign workers in Iraq, forcing them to limit movements and take up costly security precautions.Among the other hostage slayings claimed by Al Qaeda in Iraq were American Jack Hensley, British engineer Kenneth Bigley, Kim Sun-il of South Korea and Shosei Koda of Japan, whose decapitated body was found dumped and wrapped in an American flag.
Jun 6, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From FoxNews: Canadian Authorities Arrest 17 Suspects on Terror Charges.Canadian authorities decided to move quickly against a suspected homegrown terror ring and head off any attack on Ontario targets after undercover Mounties delivered bomb-making materials in a sting operation, according to a news report Sunday. [...] Police arrested 12 adults, ages 19 to 43, and five suspects younger than 18 Friday and Saturday on terrorism charges, including plotting attacks with explosives on Canadian targets. The suspects were citizens or residents of Canada, and police said they had trained together.
From The National Post: Nevermind foreign terrorists, why is Canada growing its own extremists?They are young, militant and Canadian. And according to senior counterterrorism authorities, they have been plotting large-scale terrorist attacks on Canadian soil. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service acknowledged this week it has been investigating groups of "homegrown" extremists. In candid testimony to the Senate national security committee, the agency went on to say that these young followers of the "al-Qaeda ideology" have been plotting against targets within Canada."They are not looking to Afghanistan, the U.K. or anywhere else," Jack Hooper, the CSIS Deputy Director of Operations, testified on Monday. The exact targets of these young terrorists were not revealed, but it is their profile that is most shocking: young Canadian Muslims who have somehow become radicalized while growing up in Canada.They are "homegrown." In other words, they have emerged from within Canada, rather than infiltrating it from abroad. They are insiders, not outsiders like Millennium Bomber Ahmed Ressam, who was behind Canada's last major terrorism scare in 1999."Increasingly, we are learning of more and more extremists that are homegrown," says a declassified CSIS report obtained by the National Post. "The implications of this shift are important." Across the Atlantic, the term "European Jihad" is now used to describe the new generation of young Muslim extremists who not only live in Europe, but also consider it a legitimate terrorist target.
Jun 6, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
Here is what happens what you let foolish Europeans dictate US foreign policy -- this from Yahoo News:"A package of incentives presented Tuesday to Iran includes a provision for the United States to supply Tehran with some nuclear technology if it stops enriching uranium — a major concession by Washington, diplomats said." [US to give Iran nuclear technology]"The package includes a promise of Western technical help in developing peaceful civilian nuclear energy if Iran stops enriching uranium, a waiver of U.S. legal restrictions to allow export of some agricultural technology, access to U.S. aircraft parts or new Boeing Co. planes to upgrade Iran's aging fleet and U.S. and European backing for Iran to join the World Trade Organization, diplomats and others said." [Link]
Now once Irans gets the goods -- what is to stop Iranian dictators from starting the enrichment process again?
Isn't this what North Korea did in the recent past:
In the early 1980s, alarmed at North Korea's construction of a nuclear reactor capable of yielding weapons-grade material, America tried to induce the North to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. By 1985, after much stonewalling, Pyongyang finally agreed to ratify the treaty--but then demanded military concessions in return for promising to forgo nuclear weapons. Rather than dismissing these demands as extortion by a hostile nation, by 1992 the United States had agreed to cancel its military exercises in the area and to withdraw U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in South Korea; the South gave up its nuclear program and also offered a non-aggression pact and economic benefits. During this period, meanwhile, the North, bolstered by guarantees of security and the West's willingness to swallow its lies, completed two reactors capable of yielding weapons-grade fuel.
In 1993, after preventing required inspections of its nuclear facilities, Pyongyang announced its intention to withdraw from the treaty. Our response? More "diplomacy"--in the form of the "Agreed Framework," brokered in 1994. Under this scheme the North agreed to freeze its plutonium program in exchange for two light-water nuclear reactors (putatively for generating electricity) and, until the reactors were operational, 500,000 metric tons of oil annually (nearly half its annual needs). The United States, along with Japan and South Korea, paid for these lavish gifts. The agreement also provided for the lifting of trade and diplomatic restrictions, previously imposed as penalties for North Korea's aggression against its neighbors.
This shameful deal openly rewarded the North--already closer to acquiring nuclear weapons--for its aggression and lies, and furnished it with the means to become a worse threat. And indeed, by 2003--when the North actually did withdraw from the treaty--it was clear that Pyongyang had continued secretly to develop weapons-capable nuclear technology. [Elan Journo, Diplomacy" Aids North Korea's Nuclear Weapon's Program]
Unless someother development occurs, Iran will do the same. To paraphrase a famous line: "Those who do not study the lessons of history are bound to repeat its mistakes."The proper response to Iran see
End States Who Sponsor Terrorism and
Iraq: The Wrong War.From
Cox and Forkum:
Meanwhile, from CNN:
Israel: Iran 'months' from making nukes.
Iran is only months away from joining the club of nations that can make a nuclear weapon, Israel's prime minister said in a recent interview. "The technological threshold is very close," Ehud Olmert said on CNN's "Late Edition" in an interview taped Thursday and broadcast Sunday. "It can be measured by months rather than years." Asked whether he believes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would halt his nation's nuclear-enrichment program under international pressure, Olmert said, "I prefer to take the necessary measures to stop it, rather than to find out later that my indifference was so dangerous." Some observers disagree with Israel's characterization, saying Iran is five to 10 years away from being able to make a nuclear weapon.
Jun 6, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
Writes Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe:
...the burning immigration problem of our time isn't that too many people are breaking the rules to get in. It is what they are finding when they get here.
Instead of a national commitment to assimilation, a cynical multiculturalism sends the message that our culture is no better than any other, so there is no particular reason to embrace the American experience. ''Bilingual" education and foreign-language ballots accelerate the loss of a common English tongue, making it easier than ever for newcomers to cluster in linguistic ghettoes. Identity politics erodes the national identity, encouraging immigrants to see themselves first and foremost as members of racial or ethnic groups, and only secondarily as individuals and Americans.
From the day he got off the boat from Europe, my father lived up to the code that expected immigrants to go to work, learn the language, obey the laws, and become an American. My immigrant son, I hope, will live up to it too. The melting pot, it used to be called, before political correctness intervened. That political correctness is what has caused the present crisis. The crisis won't be solved by blaming the immigrants.
For more on multiculturalism, read Diversity and Multiculturalism: The New Racism and Multiculturalism's War on Education. For more on immigration read The Moral and Practical Case for Open Immigration.
Jun 5, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes Robert Tracinski in TIA Daily on the reporting on Haditha:With the help of the American mainstream media, Iraqis are now apparently "enraged" at the US over these cases—but much less enraged at terrorists who continue to murder civilians by the dozens in public markets. [...] [The mainstream media] are merely acting to provide a propaganda victory for the enemy—and in providing disproportionate coverage of these stories, they are working to demoralize the American people.
From Cox and Forkum:
Comments Michelle Malkin in "The Truth About Haditha":
Let me repeat that: The investigations are ongoing. Not complete. Official reports aren't expected for several weeks. I do not know the truth about Haditha. Neither do Murtha and the media outlets calling the alleged massacre a massacre before all the facts are in.
[...]
There are countless numbers of anti-war zealots on the American Left rooting for failure. They believe the worst about the troops. They've blindly embraced frauds who've lied about their military service and lied about wartime atrocities. They've allied themselves with socialist kooks and coddled murderous dictators. They are looking for any excuse to pull out, abandon military operations and reconstruction, and impeach the president. They insist on giving suspected foreign terrorists more benefit of the doubt than our own men and women in uniform. And that, I know, I am not willing to do. [...] I will remind you that while the murder of civilians is and remains an anomaly in American military history, it is the jihadists' way of life.
Jun 1, 2006 | Politics
Writes Harry Binswanger on The Solution to Ilegal Immigration - Capitalism Magazine:
The problem of “illegal” immigration can be solved at the stroke of a pen: legalize immigration. Screen all you want (though I want damn little), but remove the quotas. Phase them out over a 5- or 10-year period. Grant immediate, unconditional amnesty to all “illegal” immigrants.[...]I admire those who broke our rotten, rights-defying anti- immigration laws to come here. These brave people knew it was better to live in America under a stigma, in the semi-shadows, than as “legals” in their native countries.
May 26, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA— "The House's decision to keep a 25-year-old moratorium on oil and gas drilling off much of the nation's coasts is a disgrace," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute."At a time when oil and gas prices are hitting record highs, our politicians should be removing, not entrenching, obstacles to oil and gas production.
"Politicians say keeping the moratorium is justified because oil and gas drilling off the coast would ruin the view and threaten the beaches with oil spills. But there is no such thing as a "right" to an unobstructed view of the horizon. Moreover, oil spills are rare events against which oil companies take reasonable and effective precautions. As long as oil companies are held financially responsible for any property damages their activities may cause, we should let them drill at will."
May 25, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA--The Senate bill passed last Thursday boosting fines against media companies that violate "indecency" standards is an ominous attack on the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.
Just as the government doesn't fine newspapers that publish cartoons that some Muslims deem indecent, it shouldn't fine broadcasters that air shows that some viewers deem indecent. Viewers are free to change the channel or turn off their TV set if they do not like what they see. They can't be forced to patronize a station they find indecent.
Moreover, it is the parents--not the government--who should be responsible for determining what their children are allowed to watch on TV.May 17, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
This has been on the internet for a while but it is still relevant today:Global Warming Lecture by Dr Art Robinson Instructor
A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th Century have produced no deleterious effects upon global weather, climate, or temperature. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth rates. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like CO2 are in error and do not conform to current experimental knowledge.
Play Video - HTTP Server Real Player
Download (7.5 MB) as a zip file Real Player
May 13, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
The Objective Standard's now has a blog ("Principles in Practice"), where you will find principled commentary on cultural issues and current events. The blog debuts with a post by John Lewis entitled "The Social Worker and The President."http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog
May 12, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
IRVINE, CA—"The reborn Afghanistan is hailed as a success in the Bush administration's 'war on terror,' but in reality America's campaign there has been a drastic failure. Legions of undefeated Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are resurging. They have launched suicide bombings and rocket attacks on American and Western troops, and are besieging several Afghan provinces."The U.S.-endorsed, and supposedly friendly, Afghan government is committed not to protecting individual rights, but to enshrining sharia--jailing 'blasphemers' and threatening execution to apostates. Such a regime cannot be counted on to oppose the forces behind the attacks of 9/11.
"Washington failed to eradicate the terrorist-sponsoring Taliban and to make Afghanistan a non-threatening regime, because its battle plans are shaped by the moral code of self-sacrifice.
"Instead of waging a ruthless war of self-defense, Washington pulled its punches in the air bombing and ground war--for fear of upsetting Afghans and Muslims elsewhere. By embracing a 'compassionate' war, Washington renounced victory."
May 12, 2006 | Dollars & Crosses
Comments John Lewis in the new Objective Standard blog on Tom Miller's Review of Flight 93:Miller is right about all of this, especially his forceful identification of the Islamic empire as the enemy's goal, and its connection back to the founder of Islam. This is what needs to be remembered. Miller is also right not to name Saddam Hussein as one of those advocating the Islamic empire—Hussein was just a tyrant of the non-religious type and an enemy of Iran. If only our government had empowered our soldiers—the guys being shot at—to take out the Islamic totalitarians, instead of digressing into Iraq…[Link]
