Hizbollah

While rumors of a supposed attack on Iran continue to circulate, Dr Walid Phares, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, writes a worrisome article at The Counterterrorism Blog. Here are some key points:

If –or when the US- will engage in military activities against the Iranian regime over the nuclear crisis, one has to expect that Tehran would use its assets to respond against US targets in the region and beyond.
...
of course Tehran will respond; obviously it had already considered, planned and even deployed its assets in that regard; and mais bien sur it will use its own intelligence services, Hizbollah and its other allies.
...
While a future Jihad analysis leads directly to a conclusion asserting the inevitability of an Iranian counter-strike, my concern is that Washington is still struggling with its possibility not with its certainty. That a Washington Post article is raising media eye brows just because it is warning about that “possibility,” raises our eye brows about the readiness to the Iran noises of War. In short: we should not allow another 9/11 to surprise us, let alone to even occur. In shorter: The Khumeinists are preparing for it, and that shouldn’t surprise us.

Read the whole thing -- the extent of Hizbollah's reach is frightening precisely because we're doing so little to counter its source in Iran. I certainly hope that the administration is planning to attack Iran but sometimes I wonder whether whatever they choose to do will be too little, too late. Once again one is reminded that some lonely wise souls have called for attacking Iran for some time now.

The latest

Earlier this week I finally received the first issue of The Objective Standard (TOS). The issue clearly represents a new milestone in Objectivist publications in every aspect. First it seems by far to be the largest Objectivist periodical publication ever -- over 120 pages in the first issue. Second, while I would have preferred a color other than red (I like the blue on the web page -- why didn't they use that? Red has too many bad connotations-- but I digress), the issue has a highly professional look and feel. Third, the content is excellent. In particular, the Brook/Epstein article on “Just War Theory” vs. American Self-Defense finally lays out in print and in detail the full critique of present war effort.
**
If one thinks the American political scene is depressing, perhaps a look abroad will demonstrate that it could always be worse.

As presumably everyone knows by now, elections were recently held in Israel. Here are the official results per the Jerusalem Post.

The first 12 parties on this list -- those with more than 2% of the vote -- will get proportional representation is Israel's 120 member parliament (the "Knesset") -- see this helpful Q&A. For some details on what the parties stand for see here.
The 12 parties can be more or less divided into four blocks: Religious, Right-Wing, Left-Wing, Arab

Religious (ultra-orthodox -- "haredi") -- 14.1%

• Shas (run by "Sephardi" Rabbies, i.e., with ethnic origins in Muslim countries)
  
• United Torah Judaism (run by "Ashkenazi" Rabbies, i.e., with ethnic origins in European countries)
  

One has to keep in mind that these parties are more concerned with funding of religious schools and religious laws than any security issues -- they are not to be confused with the religious right in the US.

Right-Wing -- 24.9%

• Likud
• Israel Beitenu
• NU/NRP (also religious)

The NU/NRP is basically the religious right. It's the party of the religious settlers. Israel Beitenu is further to the right than Netanyahu's Likud in terms of defense issues but they tend to be more Anti-Arab than is just, flirting with the idea of a "transfer" of populations.

Left-Wing -- 36.5 %

• Kadima
  
• Labor
• Gil (party promising to address Senior citizen's issues -- imagine an AARP party)
  
• Meretz
  

Arab -- 7.9%

• United Arab List
• Hadash
• Balad

I think this election clearly demonstrates Daniel Pipes recent thesis that Israel Shuns Victory. Pipes writes:

And so, they experiment with compromise, unilateralism, enriching their enemies, and other schemes. But as Douglas MacArthur observed, "In war, there is no substitute for victory." The Oslo diplomacy ended in dismal failure and so will all the other schemes that avoid the hard work of winning. Israelis eventually must gird themselves to resuming the difficult, bitter, long, and expensive effort needed to convince the Palestinians and others that their dream of eliminating Israel is defunct.

Should Israelis fail to achieve this, then Israel itself will be defunct.

Around the web

1. Nick Provenzo takes on Jack Wakeland's claims that Objectivists highly critical of Bush's war efforts are "are doing our enemy's work" in an important post on Rule of Reason. Also please support his "$50K to fight for freedom" campaign for the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism
2. At Stephen Speicher's Forum for Ayn Rand Fans Burgess Laughlin is holding a fascinating detailed discussion on Rodney Stark's controversial new book Victory of Reason:How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success

Tax Policy Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics

Contrary to Dennis Prager, many people have no problem drawing the somewhat socialistic implications of these two ancient religions. C. S. Lewis in his Mere Christianity admitted that a truly Christian society would be more socialist society. Now, we have a detailed article (hat-tip Andrew Sullivan) that claims to be "An Evaluation of Federal Tax Policy Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics." The article was written by Susan Pace Hamill of the University of Alabama School of Law. From the abstract:

This article severely criticizes the Bush Administration's tax policies under the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics. I first document that Judeo-Christian ethics is the most relevant moral analysis for tax policy because almost eighty percent of Americans and well over ninety percent of the Congress, including President Bush, claim to adhere to the Christian or Jewish faiths. I also show that evaluating federal tax policy under Judeo-Christian principles not only passes constitutional muster but is also appropriate under the norms of a democracy. I then provide a complete theological framework that can be applied to any tax policy structure. Using sources that include leading Evangelical and other Protestant scholars, Papal Encyclicals and Jewish scholars, I prove that tax policy structures meeting the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics must raise adequate revenues that not only cover the needs of the minimum state but also ensure that all citizens have a reasonable opportunity to reach their potential. Among other things, reasonable opportunity requires adequate education, healthcare, job training and housing. Using these theological sources, I also establish that flat and consumption tax regimes which shift a large part of the burden to the middle classes are immoral. Consequently, Judeo-Christian based tax policy requires the tax burden to be allocated under a moderately progressive regime.

So far so good. I have never accepted that Judeo-Christian values lead to laissez-faire capitalism. However, Hamill manages to reach this bizarre conclusion:

Using a wealth of sources, I then establish that the moral values driving the Bush Administration's tax policy decisions reflect objectivist ethics, a form of atheism that exalts individual property rights over all other moral considerations.

Certainly, I would like to hope that Objectivism is influencing the President but judging by his actions the influence has, at best, been surface deep. The fact that the President is hesitant to raise taxes is certainly commendable (though I would say that Ayn Rand was hardly the first American to call taxation evil -- this used to be a far more mainstream position). But his many other positions are hardly consonant with what Objectivists would like to see done. Nevertheless, the article includes a mostly surprisingly reasonable summary of Objectivism:

Objectivist ethics views human beings as independent agents and deems each person acting in his or her own rational self-interest as the only avenue to reach moral correctness. Because individual autonomy and right of each person to be able to personally benefit from their efforts in the free market are valued above all other considerations, objectivist ethics unequivocally epitomizes the “leave us alone” philosophy of Grover Norquist and his coalition, which includes the Bush Administration and therefore it is reasonable to assume also includes President
Bush himself.

When morally evaluating legal and economic structures, the principles of objectivist ethics state that in order to avoid discouraging personally autonomy, government functions beyond what is needed to protect each individual’s life, liberty and private property should ideally be eliminated. Because taxation is considered a restraint impinging on the personal autonomy and right of every individual to enjoy the profits from his or her success, the ideal tax policy under objectivist ethics would raise only enough tax revenues to cover the needs of the minimum state and would make the payment of all taxes completely voluntary. Opportunities such as education would be available only in the private free market economy and minimum safety nets providing subsistence and healthcare for the poor and elderly would only be covered by voluntary charitable contributions. In that proponents of objectivist ethics recognize that on a practical level their ideals cannot be fully achieved, they politically advocate cutting all government expenditures beyond the needs of the minimum state as much as possible while substantially reducing the tax burden of the wealthiest individuals and businesses by adopting a flat/consumption tax model. The moral conversation surrounding President Bush’s first term tax cuts, and, the long term goals of taking those trends further towards a flat model squarely reflects the values of objectivist ethics.

Objectivist ethics represents a form of atheism because the human person is substituted for a supreme deity. Within the framework of objectivist ethics individuals owe no moral obligations to endure greater sacrifices for anyone else’s benefit because only each individual’s own self-interest has any moral relevance. Human beings acting in their long term self-interest are considered the sole source of all wealth, and, through the strength of their own rationality are viewed as capable of acting morally without God’s grace or God’s standards of justice as a guide. By providing moral justification for legal structures, such as tax policy, that minimize and seek to eliminate the moral obligations owed to God and therefore to all others in the community, objectivist ethics presents a monumental stumbling block for all Christians and Jews enjoying greater levels of wealth and power than the average person.

Aside from Hamill's frustrating refusal to tread Objectivist as a proper noun, one senses that Hamill has not tried to understand anything beyond Objectivist ethics, which she thinks encompasses the whole philosophy. The reasons for the atheism in Objectivsm are not derived from ethical considerations but for far more fundamental metaphysical and epistemological reasons. The article gives Ayn Rand a lot of credit in influencing the views of today's Conservatives, and certainly some of that is true but really, as far as laissez-faire is concerned, it has a long history in the United States with many supporters particularly in the 19th century. And even in the 20th, given the inconsistency of Bush's own support for capitalism, it's clear that he is far more influenced by moderate, compromising voices than the radicals for capitalism. In the end he is no more influenced by Ayn Rand than Hillary Clinton purportedly is. As Andrew Sullivan states "the Randians could do better" -- and when the time comes, when the culture is ready, we will.

Black Holes, RIP?

Many years ago I planned on being a physicist and spending the rest of my life researching the mysteries of the universe. While I did get an undergraduate degree in physics from UCLA, I did not pursue graduate work and pretty much abandoned the field, at least as far as my occupation is concerned. Nevertheless, I continue to have some enthusiasm for the field and, as a result of my Objectivist philosophy, I particularly maintain an interest in the philosophical implications of physics.

It has been my experience that physics (or rather, certain interpretations of it) is often used to claim that Objectivism violates physical law. Objectivism does claim to have a certain "veto power" over presumed physical claims. That is, physics cannot violate metaphysics. That is because all science in fact depends on the fundamental principles and axioms of metaphysics. No matter what the specifics of the phenomena we discover, the axioms of existence and identity will continue to apply and causality will continue to operate -- entities will act in accordance with their identity. One implication of the Objectivist metaphysics is that infinities cannot be actual but are merely potential. Actually, all existents are necessarily finite because otherwise they would have no specific identity.

So in particular, Objectivists would have some difficulty accepting the existence of Black Holes, if as the theory seems to imply, their existence would require a singularity. This helpful page describes what the theory predicts:

At the center of a black hole lies the singularity, where matter is crushed to infinite density, the pull of gravity is infinitely strong, and spacetime has infinite curvature. Here it's no longer meaningful to speak of space and time, much less spacetime. Jumbled up at the singularity, space and time cease to exist as we know them.

I don't follow the scientific reports on black holes carefully, but based on the popular press, it seemed more and more as if the idea of black holes was becoming less controversial as more and more evidence accumulated for their existence.

Today however, I came across an interesting new report in New Scientist. Apparently,

DARK energy and dark matter, two of the greatest mysteries confronting physicists, may be two sides of the same coin. A new and as yet undiscovered kind of star could explain both phenomena and, in turn, remove black holes from the lexicon of cosmology.

The scientists who have suggested this are George Chapline, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and Nobel laureate Robert Laughlin of Stanford University "and their colleagues." It seems that some of the contradictions embedded in the theory of black holes are finally making some scientists think:

This radical suggestion would get round some fundamental problems posed by the existence of black holes. One such problem arises from the idea that once matter crosses a black hole's event horizon - the point beyond which not even light can escape - it will be destroyed by the space-time "singularity" at the centre of the black hole. Because information about the matter is lost forever, this conflicts with the laws of quantum mechanics, which state that information can never disappear from the universe.

Another problem is that light from an object falling into a black hole is stretched so dramatically by the immense gravity there that observers outside will see time freeze: the object will appear to sit at the event horizon for ever. This freezing of time also violates quantum mechanics. "People have been vaguely uncomfortable about these problems for a while, but they figured they'd get solved someday," says Chapline. "But that hasn't happened and I'm sure when historians look back, they'll wonder why people didn't question these contradictions."

Since I have never completely grasped the physics behind black holes in the first place (or much of the rest of physics, if truth be told), I cannot say whether this new theory is correct. But I do find the following quote from the article quite revealing and hopeful:

Black hole expert Marek Abramowicz at Gothenburg University in Sweden agrees that the idea of dark energy stars is worth pursuing. "We really don't have proof that black holes exist," he says. "This is a very interesting alternative."

Free Speech Campaign

The Ayn Rand Institute has announced a campaign to bring "to bring the Danish cartoons to the widest possible audience—and to arrange a series of panel discussions to discuss the vital need to defend free speech." The Institute is asking for donations to support this project. The letter announcing the campaign is reproduced at Noodlefood. I urge everyone who supports freedom to support this project. I have already made a contribution.

Update 3/8/2006: Added Mohammed cartoon image

South Dakota: A small loophole

In today's edition of Slate, William Saletan writes that a careful reading of the new anti-abortion law implies that "South Dakota gives you five days to kill what it calls your unborn child." This is because while it prohibits taking drugs to abort the embryo after pregnancy has been detected, it does not prohibit them after sex. Thus a window of a few days is opened that legally allows pharmacists and doctors to prescribe women abortive contraceptives before a pregnancy is detected. Saletan points out that:

The purpose of the loophole is to give rape victims a grace period. Americans overwhelmingly think abortion should be allowed in cases of rape. Rape victims are the women most likely to know immediately after sex that they're at high risk of unwanted pregnancy. Give them morning-after pills, and you've solved the political problem.

Of course, this completely goes against the law's own logic:

But now you've got a scientific, moral, and legal problem. The South Dakota law purports to supersede Roe because "scientific advances since the 1973 decision" show that "life begins at the time of conception." It concludes that unborn children, "from fertilization to full gestation," have an "inalienable right to life." Nobody who seriously believed these things would give you five days to kill an embryo, any more than they'd give you five days to kill a baby. The loophole discredits the law's rationale.

I suppose we should be grateful that the law's proponents are not yet fully consistent. But then evil never has to be.

Lowest of the low: Right vs. Left

Usually it is the nihilist left that excels at expressing ideas and engaging in actions that are beneath contempt. However, Robert Tracy of Illustrated Ideas brings to our attention a part of the religious right that seems to want to compete in that category of depravity. The level of profound evil that motivates these "people" simply boggles the mind.

Today in South Dakota

State of South Dakota
EIGHTY-FIRST SESSION
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY, 2006
529M0546
HOUSE BILL NO. 1215 (emphasis added, comments in brackets):

Section 1. The Legislature accepts and concurs with the conclusion of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion, based upon written materials, scientific studies, and testimony of witnesses presented to the task force, that life begins at the time of conception [life sure -- but do rights begin at that time?], a conclusion confirmed by scientific advances since the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, including the fact that each human being is totally unique immediately at fertilization. Moreover, the Legislature finds, based upon the conclusions of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion, and in recognition of the technological advances and medical experience and body of knowledge about abortions produced and made available since the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, that to fully protect the rights, interests, and health of the pregnant mother, the rights, interest, and life of her unborn child [Are the elderly then undead bodies since they are potentially corpses?], and the mother's fundamental natural intrinsic right to a relationship with her child, abortions in South Dakota should be prohibited.

Section 2. That chapter 22-17 be amended by adding thereto a NEW SECTION to read as follows:

No person may knowingly administer to, prescribe for, or procure for, or sell to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, or other substance with the specific intent of causing or abetting the termination of the life of an unborn human being. No person may knowingly use or employ any instrument or procedure upon a pregnant woman with the specific intent of causing or abetting the termination of the life of an unborn human being.

Any violation of this section is a Class 5 felony.

Section 3. That chapter 22-17 be amended by adding thereto a NEW SECTION to read as follows:

Nothing in section 2 of this Act may be construed to prohibit the sale, use, prescription, or administration of a contraceptive measure, drug or chemical, if it is administered prior to the time when a pregnancy could be determined through conventional medical testing and if the contraceptive measure is sold, used, prescribed, or administered in accordance with manufacturer instructions.

Section 4. That chapter 22-17 be amended by adding thereto a NEW SECTION to read as follows:

No licensed physician who performs a medical procedure designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother is guilty of violating section 2 of this Act. However, the physician shall make reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child in a manner consistent with conventional medical practice.

Medical treatment provided to the mother by a licensed physician which results in the accidental or unintentional injury or death to the unborn child is not a violation of this statute.

Nothing in this Act may be construed to subject the pregnant mother upon whom any abortion is performed or attempted to any criminal conviction and penalty.[Isn't that nice? The woman is left to fend for herself because only doctors are subject to criminal penalties, do they know the history of backalley abortions?]
Section 5. That chapter 22-17 be amended by adding thereto a NEW SECTION to read as follows:

Terms used in this Act mean:

(1) "Pregnant," the human female reproductive condition, of having a living unborn human being within her body throughout the entire embryonic and fetal ages of the unborn child from fertilization to full gestation and child birth;

(2) "Unborn human being," an individual living member of the species, homo sapiens, throughout the entire embryonic and fetal ages of the unborn child from fertilization to full gestation and childbirth;

(3) "Fertilization," that point in time when a male human sperm penetrates the zona pellucida of a female human ovum.

Sigh...so it's come to this. Abortion is presently illegal in a state within the U.S. -- this is what happens when liberals think that "pro-choice" is a sufficient response to the faith of the anti-abortionists and more fundamental rational arguments for the morality of abortion are not heard. One can only hope that this law will be challenged and overturned at the Supreme Court though that is far from certain.

Positive News

I came across a couple of items that qualify as good news.

The first item is Robert Tracinski's article The Lessons of the Cartoon Jihad is featured at the top of the Friday, March 3 edition of RealClearPolitics.com. This is an excellent article which criticises both right and left for their inadequate response to this controversy.

The second item is a hopeful sign that another important book by a prominent Objectivist may be published by a distinguished publisher. One of my daily pastimes is to check the resume of John Lewis, Assistant Professor of History at Ashland University. I check the resume because he has a section in which he notes the publication status of the books he has written. Specifically, I was very interested in seeing his Nothing Less than Victory published as it includes the details of his argument against the indequacy of the present war effort with some comparison to a number of historical wars. Over the last few months the listing on the website has mostly been "in progress", which I surmise means that no publisher is looking at it. There was a brief time a while ago when it was listed as "under press review" -- presumably that means that some unidentified publisher was reviewing the book. However, after a week or so of this status, the page was updated back to "in progress." Now however the listing has not only returned to "under press review" but has in fact been updated as follows: "under review, Princeton University Press." This is certainly a very positive and hopeful sign. I certainly hope Prof. Lewis gets the publishing contract. That the book may be published by Princeton University Press will likely ensure that it gets the exposure, publicity and reviews that it deserves.

Codevilla on our "Peace Process"

In 2005, the U.S. government's "war on terror," as well as its operations in Iraq, were entwined in the same tortuous logic by which they had been conceived. After redefining the mission in Iraq from finding Weapons of Mass Destruction, to building democracy, to eliminating terrorists, to enabling the Iraqis to fight for themselves—and not being serious about any of these—the Bush Administration was arguing that to withdraw would be to admit defeat. But what would victory look like?

Thus begins The Logic of the "Peace Process" by Angelo Codevilla in the Winter 2005 issue of the Claremont Review. Codevilla is a rare thing -- a Conservative principled enough to criticise the administration for fighting an indequate war. I don't necessarily agree with all of his prescriptions but his analysis of some the problems with the present "strategy" are very much on target. Here's another long excerpt:

The Bush Administration had understood its commitment to "regime change" to involve merely the removal of some 55 high-ranking Iraqis. It learned the hard way—and even then, incompletely—that Saddam Hussein's regime consisted of at least 2,000 persons who wielded the levers of power in Ba'athist Iraq. They never surrendered; on the contrary, they continued to fight for victory. Thanks to ready sanctuary in Syria; massive amounts of resources stashed as part of the regime's post-invasion strategy; and the U.S. Occupation Authority's opposition to de-Ba'athification—many party members, accordingly, were reinserted into the government—the Ba'ath party resumed its role as the country's most cohesive force outside the Kurdish provinces. Just as important, the party faithfully represents the deepest fears and hatreds of 20% of the population: the Sunni Arabs.

Contrary to what the administration wanted to believe, the Sunni population was the bedrock of the old regime. Although they had suffered almost as much violence at Hussein's hands as other Iraqis, he had given them powers and privileges that they had come to see as their birthright. And so the Sunnis fought to re-subjugate their fellow Iraqis. They murdered judges and intimidated witnesses at Hussein's trial, with the Arab world's tacit support. The Sunni view of America's role was summed up in a local newspaper cartoon that showed Uncle Sam's exit from bloody Iraq as passing over a bridge—controlled by a terrorist sitting at a negotiating table. The Sunnis fought to induce America into pressing their demands on other Iraqis, believing they could, by force of arms, obtain concessions from the U.S. that they could never obtain from their fellow Iraqis. They were correct. Iraq's majority, for their part, were dismayed that the American government was negotiating with their enemies behind the backs of the native people, even as it had decades ago in Vietnam.

Read the whole thing.

Free Speech and Antisemitism

It is wrong and a violation of individual rights to arrest people for the ideas they hold. This is the case regardless of the morality or immorality of the ideas involved. Even the publication or broadcast of ideas as viciously evil as holocaust denial deserve to have the protection the law. That's why I do not agree with the this verdict. David Irving may be scum, but being scum is not a crime and should not result in imprisonment. Irving deserves to be socially shunned.

Speaking of antisemitism, for an interesting review of the history of antisemitism, one could do a lot worse than read this interesting essay by Middle East Historian Bernad Lewis. It includes a good review of Arab attitudes before and after the creation of the State of Israel.

Materialism in a new form
Via Andrew Sullivan, I learned of this fascinating book review. It's essays like this that make me miss my lapsed NY Times subscription. New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier, does a pretty good job setting Daniel Dennett straight in Dennett's absurd attempts to explain religion as somehow an evolutionary phenomenon. There is much in Wieseltier's review that I can agree with, for example the following passage:

For Dennett, thinking historically absolves one of thinking philosophically. Is the theistic account of the cosmos true or false? Dennett, amazingly, does not care. "The goal of either proving or disproving God's existence," he concludes, is "not very important." It is history, not philosophy, that will break religion's spell. The story of religion's development will extirpate it. "In order to explain the hold that various religious ideas and practices have on people," he writes, "we need to understand the evolution of the human mind."

and also this passage:

It will be plain that Dennett's approach to religion is contrived to evade religion's substance. He thinks that an inquiry into belief is made superfluous by an inquiry into the belief in belief. This is a very revealing mistake. You cannot disprove a belief unless you disprove its content. If you believe that you can disprove it any other way, by describing its origins or by describing its consequences, then you do not believe in reason. In this profound sense, Dennett does not believe in reason. He will be outraged to hear this, since he regards himself as a giant of rationalism. But the reason he imputes to the human creatures depicted in his book is merely a creaturely reason. Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.) Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.

And, indeed, rationalism, in the strict philosophic sense of Spinoza and Leibniz, is closer to mysticism. But the point is well taken -- reason is neither materialistic nor rationalistic. It must be objective and thus include both method and content or it is empty. There are a number of other really good points that Wieseltier makes, though at times I think he rejects what I might term biological naturalism a bit too much. The mind is a natural biological product of evolution (since everything about us is) but its nature is the one that Wieseltier insists gives us our limited independence from our animality. The book review is well worth reading in its entirety.

On the Bush Administration

There's an ongoing debate among Objectivists as to how to evaluate President Bush and his administration. It is not necessarily an easy topic to reach a definitive conclusion about, as there are various conflicting strands of evidence that have accumulated about Bush since he was first elected in 2000 and yet more since his reelection in 2004. In a rough way, one group of Objectivists may be termed critical supporters of Bush, in the sense that they regard Bush, his administration and strategy, as a generally positive force, perhaps the most positive that can be expected within the present culture, despite the many criticisms that can be made of his individual policies.

Among these one can list the folks at The Intellectual Activist, including Robert Tracinski and Jack Wakeland, who, in a recent article for TIA Daily entitled "President Bush Represents the Virtue and Vices Typical of the Honest American" wrote that Bush is "an honest defender of our nation." Wakeland's starts out the article with a plea to fellow Objectivists:

The idea that America is going to lose the war with Islam by ideological corruption is a grave injustice to the man elected to decide our nation's war policy. Objectivists should criticize George Bush for the errors and the sins in his war policy, but we should recognize him as the honest and persistent warrior that he actually is. We should never allow ourselves to vilify such a man--not a man who fights for us.

Another notable Objectivist who arguably falls into this camp is Harry Binswanger, who recently wrote at least in partial defense of Bush and Conservatives in general on his mailing list (HBL) . While he thought Bush's efforts were inadequate, they could not be entirely dismissed as worthless.

The members of the other side of this argument think that Bush does not have any truly redeeming values and thus is, in fact, hurting the cause. They may be termed the critical detractors of Bush and include Scott Holleran of the Concord Crier, Prof. John Lewis of Ashland University, as well as Craig Biddle of new journal The Objective Standard and Yaron Brook, director of the Ayn Rand Institute. Holleran wrote last Thanksgiving that "the President's lowest approval ratings are a thin silver lining, since it shows there is hope if Americans realize we are losing the war and our individual rights and many do." John Lewis recently argued on HBL that the foreign policy mess that Bush has created is worse than what the left might have done. Brook has a long record of criticising the Bush administration's war effort in his lecture appearances. Biddle opposed the reelection of Bush in 2004.

I must admit my own view of Bush has changed substantially over the years. Initially, I did not think much of him. He seemed to be another pragmatic Republican, lacking anything resembling principles. During the 2000 primaries, I thought he was better than McCain, who couldn't stop talking about sacrifices. During the 2000 election, Bush rose somewhat in my estimation, since he stood for a number of issues that I supported including lower taxes, less regulation, drilling in Alaska, and opposition to nation building, which had become a feature of the outgoing Clinton administration. Gore, on the other hand, looked and acted positively scary and his actions since his loss have not made him any less scary. But Bush's initial time in office before September 11, 2001 did not make him seem particularly impressive. His handling of the downing and capture of our spy plane over international waters near China was not to be an opportunity for him to rise to the occasion.

Then came 9/11. I must admit my own thoughts were very much confused at the time. I wanted very much to believe that the seemingly patient and deliberate efforts of the President in Afghanistan would work. His speeches at that time seemed to support an adequately forceful policy against the terrorists and their state sponsors, although it was clear even then that there was much equivocation involved. And even when force was used, it was always less force than seemed to be appropriate, given the magnitude of the attack on us.

Then followed the seemingly endless diplomatic effort to get the world on our side with respect to the Iraq war. Never mind that Iran was the number one sponsor of terror even according to the State Department. Iraq was going to be the next target. There was a case to be made that Iraq needed to be taken out. Iraq certainly had terror connections and either had or was attempting to rebuild its weapons of mass destructions (WMD). And of course, Iraq had never completely submitted to the requirements of the 1990 Gulf War and was shooting at our planes on a daily basis. So in early 2003, Bush lauched a US dominated coalition into Iraq.

Again, while there were early successes in terms of the speed of the operation, it was clear that our military was again restrained in the amount of force they could use. We were altruistically freeing the Iraqi people from the evil dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and thus we were only after the leadership. In the aftermath of the downfall of the regime, in light of the terrorist insurgency that followed, it became clear that a country cannot be ruled by 50-odd people alone. And, new, other hostile forces appeared on the scene, forces that had previously been suppressed by Hussein but were nevertheless equally opposed to us. These forces, such as Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite fundamentalist militia were supported by Iran, who still appears to have been one of the major beneficiaries of our efforts in Iran.

To make a long story short, presently I'm very skeptical of Bush's war efforts. There are some who argue that the replacement of Colin Powell with Condoleeza Rice should have put the President more firmly in charge of the State Department. They claim that some of the diplomatic games in the first administration were the result of Colin Powell's influence. But it seems in the second administration under Rice the reverse has happened. The President, no doubt partly weakened as a result of the mess in Iraq, has taken a very conciliatory diplomatic tone lately. We are not likely to see much more pretend unilateralism from him.

Yet, am I now a critical supporter or a critical detractor? I would say that my highest point of support for the Bush administration came right after 9/11 and has been steadily declining since. I did support him during the last election. Yet, he seems to have done little right and some things really wrong since his reelection, even though (or because) his party controls the two houses of government. I honestly think I would have trouble voting for him again and I'm seriously wondering whether I'll vote Republican in the next election. So, yes, consider me in the critical detractor camp.

Offensive Cartoons

Steven Brockerman of American Renaissance posts what are in fact truly offensive cartoons, namely the ones the Arab/Moslem world has been publishing over the last few years. Of course, it would be incorrect to claim that the Arab or Islamic world is hypocritical -- they never pretended subscribe to the multicultural nonsense present in the West. They, unlike us, have clear objectives.

Space Elevator News

One of the most fascinating technological ideas gain more prominence recently has been the idea of a "space elevator" as a method of reaching Earth Orbit. The elevator would basically consist of a very strong long wire or "tether" that would drop down from space to the ground and allow a climbing machine or robot to climb from Earth all the way to space with the help of lasers on the ground pushing the robots up.

The latest milestone is the achievement of a 1-mile long tether:

A slim cable for a space elevator has been built stretching a mile into the sky, enabling robots to scrabble some way up and down the line.

LiftPort Group, a private US company on a quest to build a space elevator by April 2018, stretched the strong carbon ribbon 1 mile (1.6 km) into the sky from the Arizona desert outside Phoenix in January tests, it announced on Monday.

The company's lofty objective will sound familiar to followers of NASA's Centennial Challenges programme. The desired outcome is a 62,000-mile (99,779 km) tether that robotic lifters – powered by laser beams from Earth – can climb, ferrying cargo, satellites and eventually people into space.

The recent test followed a September 2005 demonstration in which LiftPort's robots climbed 300 metres of ribbon tethered to the Earth and pulled taut by a large balloon. This time around, the company tested an improved cable pulled aloft by three balloons.

It's enough to make one enthusiastic about the space program again. But that's not all:

A platform linking the balloons and the tether was successfully launched and held in place during the test. LiftPort calls the platform HALE, High Altitude Long Endurance, and plans to market it for aerial observation and communication purposes.
...
In March, LiftPort hopes to set up a HALE system in Utah's Mars Desert Research Station and maintain it for three weeks. Then, later in the spring, Laine says he wants to test a 2-mile (3.2-km) tether with robots scaling to at least half way up.

And it's especially encouraging that this is done by a private company.

Another Weimar Germany/Middle East Comparison

This one's by Lee Harris, in an article on TCS Daily entitled "Misunderestimating Moktada al-Sadr". A friend of mine recently suggested that the political situation in Iraq is an experiment. The result of the experiment remains to be seen. If Mr. Harris is correct, the result may not be quite what most of us expected when we enthusiastically supported this war. The article is well worth reading. Here's an excerpt:

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda, often said that Hitler's rise to power was like a fairy tale. Al-Sadr's rise to power, on the other hand, seems suspiciously like a fable from A Thousand and One Nights. What Hitler did was merely improbable; what al-Sadr has done verges on the seemingly impossible. After having twice led bloody uprisings that killed American troops, Sadr is now the most powerful man in an Iraqi government that the American people have created at great sacrifice to themselves, both in lives and in money. Even more bizarrely, Sadr has made it clear that he will use every bit of power he gets in order to fight against us, and to help spread fanatical anti-Americanism through the Muslim world. We could have stopped him early and effectively; but we didn't. And now it is too late for us to do anything except to wonder what new surprise this twisted tale of Scheherazade will next unfold.

Reason in the Middle East

The Jerusalem Post has an excellent column today by Barry Rubin entitled "Appeasement Redux". Here's how it starts:

We have come full circle. Here is how the last great historical era began, the one we seem to be starting over afresh.

It's January 30, 1933, and here's what the Cleveland Press reports from Washington under the headline, "US Unruffled by Hitler Rise."

"High authorities here regard with complacence Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany... They [express] faith that Hitler would act with moderation... Experts based this belief on past events showing that so-called radical groups usually moderated, once in power."

Read the entire column -- it is excellent.

Two Movies

I have recently seen two movies. I enjoyed them very much and I highly recommend them. I had seen both movies before but it was only on the recent viewing of them that I noticed some interesting similarities. Ronin (1998), stars Robert De Niro, with screenplay written by J. D. Zeik and directed by John Frankenheimer. Proof of Life (2000) stars Meg Ryan and Russel Crowe, was written by Tony Gilroy and directed by Taylor Hackford.

For the most part, these movies have little in common. Ronin is a spy/intelligence thriller. The name is taken from Japanese history and describes wandering Samurai who have failed in protecting their master and turned into hired mercenaries. The story focuses on the efforts of an eclectic team of mercenaries to acquire a mysterious package. Proof of Life has more of an action/drama and centers about Meg Ryan's efforts to get her husband back from kidnapping guerrilas in South America with the help of Russel Crowe.

And yet, if one looks at the movies from the perspective of the characters Sam (De Niro) and Terry Thorne (Crowe) then some commonalities are immediately evident. Both Sam and Terry are highly experienced, highly competent, admirable characters. Both Sam and Terry eliminate an incompetent fraud from playing a larger role early in their respective stories. Both Sam and Terry have equally admirable friends in the movie, Vincent (Jean Reno) in the case of Sam and Dino (David Caruso) in the case of Terry. Both Sam and Terry speak foreign languages in the movie. Sam speaks French, while Terry speaks Spanish. Both Sam and Terry fall for the female character in the movie, yet in neither case does a full relationship develop.

I realize this doesn't add up to to very much but I stand by my point that these are both highly enjoyable movies well worth watching.

What's on the web

• Don't miss Gus Van Horn's excellent discussion of "Faith-Based Prisons" and check out his great new template
  
• Diana Hsieh talks about the inadequacy of TOC's response to the Danish cartoon controversy
• George Reisman has recently added a blog
• My review of Andrew Bernstein's The Capitalist Manifesto is now up on Nicholas Provenzo's Rule of Reason Blog and will be on the upcoming Center for the Advancement of Capitalism website
  

Obscenity of the Day

If there was any confusion about the state of politics in Europe at this time, this story brought to my attention by a friend of mine should put it to rest. Unfortunately European politicians are firmly on the side of appeasement and appear to have learned exactly zero from WWII.

Scientists & Altruist Confusions

LiveScience.com is today featuring the following story:

Altruistic Love Related to Happier Marriages

Altruism may breed better marriages, a new study suggests. Or, the data might mean that good marriages make people more altruistic.

Whatever, altruism and happiness seem to go together in the realm of love.

Sadly, scientists have mostly been profoundly ignorant of what altruism (or for that matter love) means. In this case they attempted to test for it through the following method:

Study participants were asked whether they agreed with statements that define altruism, such as, "I'd rather suffer myself than let the one I love suffer," and "I'm willing to sacrifice my own wishes to let the one I love achieve his or hers."

Sorry, incorrect! That question not only does not define altruism, it is the opposite of altruism it is acting in one's self-interest. Altruism as a word was originated by Auguste Comte and means in effect "otherism." It means that one's moral purpose in life ought to be the welfare of others. It was invented as an antonym for egoism. But if egoism means anything it means concern for one's interests or values. What could be a higher value than the spouse one loves? Is it selfless, to wish to die rather than see one's spouse suffer? No it isn't! Not if one selfishly wishes to live only a certain kind of life and anything else is worse than death. To show concern for one's top values even at the cost of some suffering is to choose a higher value (the spouse's life) over a lower value one's own (presumably temporary) suffering, is not selflessness but a sign of integrity and pride, thoroughly egoistic virtues.

Objectivist Conference in Denver Colorado Coming Up

I have not had a chance yet to go to a multi-day Objectivist conference (I have been to single day events) but I hear from people who have gone they are most enjoyable experiences. Colorado's Front Range Objectivism is holding an upcoming "Weekend Conference on Law, Individual Rights and the Judicial System." It will be held from March 4th-5th in Denver, Colorado. The speakers will include Tara Smith, Amy Peikoff, Eric Daniels, and Dana Berliner. With speakers like these it promises to be an event to remember. For all the details, plus online registration, visit:

http://www.frontrangeobjectivism.com/2006-law.html

The early registration deadline is this Saturday, February 11th. (Save $75!) so act now!

Healthcare vs. the FDA

It is often claimed by opponents of capitalism that without the mechanism of government regulation we would not be safe from the alleged greed of the pharmaceutical companies. Thus the products of pharmaceutical companies are regarded as guilty until proven innocent as if the companies were simply aching to sell fraudulent medications to innocent patients. The drug companies must subject their drugs, which took years to develop and test, to yet further testing by the FDA and only with FDA approval can their drugs be legally sold within the United States. What is less often understood is the role played by this kind of regulation in preventing information about important applications of drugs from reaching doctors and patients.

Leonard Flynn, an advisor to ACSH, writes:

The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently won a case against Eli Lilly & Co. when the company agreed to plead guilty and pay $36 million in connection with illegal promotion of its pharmaceutical drug Evista. What did the company do to earn such a penalty?

The company illegally promoted its pharmaceutical drug Evista because Lilly employees had advocated the product for "off-label" uses. Evista was approved for the treatment of osteoporosis, but the company was not allowed to breathe a word that Evista might be good for something else. The company did have evidence for the prevention of breast cancer and heart disease, but according to the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), as interpreted by FDA regulations, promotion of these other uses was forbidden.

What was the evidence for Evista's other potential uses? Was it on a limited number of test subjects for a short period of time? Far from it. Flynn continues:

Two research articles were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a prominent peer-reviewed scientific journal that presented scientific data supporting the use of raloxifene (the chemical name for Evista) for breast cancer prevention and heart protection. The first article was published in 1999, and it showed that raloxifene "reduced the risk of invasive breast cancer by 76% during three years of treatment." This was a substantial study that ran from 1994 through 1998 at 180 clinical centers in twenty-five countries, primarily the United States and countries in Europe, and included a total of 7,705 postmenopausal women with osteoporosis as the subject population. A "secondary analysis" of the same 7,705 women was published in 2002, and it demonstrated a "lower risk of cardiovascular events" for a subset of 1,035 women in the study who had an increased cardiovascular risk when the study began.

The FDA is after power, not health. Sadly, most of the time, evidence of regulation's destructive effects is hard to come by, since it involves what Henry Hazlitt referred to as the unseen results of government intervention, for example, the products that did not make it to the market, the businesses that were not started, the money that was not saved, etc. Neverthess Flynn is quite correct to wonder:

So, who cares if drug companies are prevented from informing doctors about additional uses of their products? The drug companies are obviously highly motivated to distribute favorable scientific information about their products because they can make more sales, it is argued, and FDA rules block the claims because the agency's regulatory power rests on this ability. What difference does this regulatory struggle make? It could make a big difference -- to patients.

In the late 1990s my mother, Inge Flynn, was dying of advanced breast cancer. In 1999, the Evista cancer study was published in JAMA. I wonder: if my mother's doctors had known of the raloxifene study, would they have prescribed it during her illness? Might the "off-label" drug Evista have benefitted her? She died on September 30, 2000.

Technological Achievement

Some good news on this blog for a change:

From asahi.com, the English edition of the Japanese Asahi Shimbun. The picture you can see above shows a little square to the left of the finger and a distinctive black dot to the right. The square on the left is an integrated circuit (IC) measuring 0.4 mm. The latest achievement however is the black dot on the right. Hitachi Ltd has created the world's smallest IC chip at 0.15 mm by 0.15 mm. Its thickness is 0.0075 mm! Asahi.com reports:

If an antenna is attached, the chip will still be thinner than paper for copy machines, and the information can be obtained without being touched by a reader, they added.
...

The newly developed chip can be used in a number of other ways, the officials said. Used with the Internet, for example, it can track the flow of products for home-delivery services.

The chip can also contain information about food, such as who raised the product and who distributed it.

In addition, it can be incorporated in bank notes, securities certificates and government documents to prevent forgeries.

On Immigrants (Legal or Otherwise)

A story in the San Diego Tribune discusses the plans of San Diego Minutemen to picket at an intersections " where day laborers wait for work." A counterprotest is expected by so-called "human rights activists." It is interesting to dissect the statements made representatives of both sides. First from the Minutemen side:

Organizers and Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, who will drive from his Aliso Viejo home to participate, say the goal is to educate employers of migrant workers that they are breaking U.S. tax and labor laws.

The whole intent is to bring national attention to this issue, said Gilchrist, whose organization has patrolled U.S. borders. We have this 21st-century slave labor trade, and we have the buyers or the users of those slaves, who are no different upstairs than those Southern Democrat slave traders from the pre-Civil War era.

There some truth but also quite a bit wrong with the above statements and that a leader in the Minutemen movement has said it does not bode well for the movement. First, let's agree with the legal claim -- employers who are hiring "migrant workers" are violating the law because they are providing employment to individuals they know have entered the country illegally and are thus accessories to a crime. Unfortunately, witpreponderanceerance of bad and immoral laws violations of the law become more common but it is a mistake to dismiss the legality of actions as unimportant. If we hope to be a "nation of laws" rather than a "nation of men" as our Founders hoped, it behooves us to enact moral laws that serve the proper function of government (protection of individual rights) and remove all other laws. When government and its laws serve their proper function, there should be no conflict between morality and law, because government then enforces those only the specifically social part of morality. I regard the immigration law with its various restrictions as profoundly immoral. Yet ultimately the proper response ought to be to change the law, not to find ever more elaborate means of circumventions.

Of course, the truly offensive part of the above statement by Gilchrist is the comparison of immigrants to slaves. The idea that people who willingly pay others to be transported across the border so that they can find employment in the United States can be compared to slaves is really quite absurd. The African slaves had no choice about their precarious voyages aboard the slave ships across the Atlantic. They certainly did not pay for it.

Here's a quote from one "migrant worker":

"We are here because of a huge necessity," said a man yesterday who gave his name as Alberto Rodriguez, 25, a Vista resident from the Mexican city of Puebla."We are not doing anything bad. "We are not robbing people. We want a better future."

This quote is clearly meant to generate sympathy for the workers and yet what possible moral argument could be given against it? Fundamentally, if an employer in the United States wants to hire a person to work for him on a mutually agreed to basis and that person happens to come from Mexico, why should any government interfere? Whose rights are being violated? If anything, to stop the person entering from Mexico would constitute a violation of the rights of trade and freedom of association of both the Mexican worker and the American employer. Clearly if what Rodriguez is doing is against the law then immigration laws ought to change.

Our only border restrictions ought to be security or public health related. We should have a list of terrorists that are not allowed into the country because they are known to be dangerous. We should watch out for obvious signs of dangerous, life-threatening infectious disease. Other than that, if people want to come here and work, they should be allowed. Of course, all welfare and so-called public services would have to be abolished so that people don't just come here for a free lunch but even today most immigrants do not come here for our welfare programs. However, citizenship, as opposed to mere residency, should continue with the present restrictions (a minimum of 5 year residency, various examinations and a swearing in ceremony). Through their vote citizens determine the make-up of governments and thus its policies. That kind of power must stay with people who actually intend to stay in the country in the long-term.

Denmark and Freedom of the Press



There is not much to add to what has already been said on the Danish cartoon controversy, for example at Cox & Forkum who have illustrated the basic point quite well.

I did buy some Havarti cheese this weekend.
Another amusing cartoon can be seen on the site of the German newspaper Die Welt.

The text in the bubble reads (my rough translation): "Please understand me doctor, I feel emotionally hurt." It's nice to see elements of Europe show a hint of a backbone for a change.

I've seen the supposedly offending cartoons in question. I can't say I find them offensive; for the most part they merely point out the obscenity of what is currently done in the name of Mohammed and Islam. But it is important to keep in mind that even if the cartoons were highly offensive to objective values, that the only moral response would be intellectual condemnation and boycott. The fact that violence has accompanied protests against the cartoons means that even if they were offensive, the moral high-ground has been lost, much as during the days of Salman Rushdie, any problem with Rushdie or his book, pales in comparison to the violent response he has had to face. The leaders of the civilized world ought to take a stand against any intimidation of its free press. Unfortunately, from both the previous Democratic President and the State Department of the current Republican one, the response has been morally sickening.

More on the current war

A couple of excellent columns are available in today's edition of the Jerusalem Post. First Dore Gold, Israel's former ambassador to the UN, writes about The Middle East Terror Trail and illustrates the connection between Hamas and the rest of the Islamic terrorists. Here's a relevant excerpt:

In 2003-4, Hamas distributed a colorful poster in Jenin and Hebron featuring individual portraits of Hamas founder Yassin with bin Laden and the leaders of the Chechen mujahideen, Shamil Basayev and Khattab. The poster also refers to other battlefields of global jihad - the Balkans and Kashmir. This indicates that Hamas sees anyone fighting in global jihad as potential allies. It should not have been surprising, then, that after Israel completed its Gaza pullout, Israeli military intelligence reported that al-Qaeda cells had infiltrated from Egyptian Sinai and found a new area which would host them.

The essay is illustrated with the above poster which can be found in this article from the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

The Jerusalem Post adds the following description to the image above which is feature next to Mr. Gold's essay:

Hamas poster boys. Portraits of Yassin with Bin Laden and the leaders of the Chechen mujahideen together on a placard distributed in Jenin and Hebron.
Photo: www.intelligence.org.il

The original caption at the the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reads:

A poster found on an propaganda and indoctrination CD distributed by Hamas. The title reads: “Chechnya, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Kashmir, Palestine and Lebanon.”

It's well worth reading Gold's entire article to grasp the connections among the various derivatives of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition today's Jerusalem Post features the excellent column The lies we tell ourselves by Caroline Click. She writes:

The main truth that Hamas's rise to power has exposed is not that Palestinian society is perhaps the most genocidal society on the face of the planet. That has been clear for all to see for the past five and a half years of the enormously popular Palestinian terror war against Israel. What Hamas's ascent to power has uncovered is that in everything related to the Palestinian conflict with Israel, the policies of the US-led international community, like the policies of the current Israeli government, are predicated on myths rather than facts.

She goes on to illustrate the myths both in Israel and the rest of the world. However, I have one criticism of her essay. Later on she writes:

...Bush was clear that democratization of the Arab world meant the embrace of freedom by Arab societies, as the US became bogged down by the terror war in Iraq, the president pretended that liberalization and the conduct of open elections were the same thing. That is, he conflated elections with democracy.

Unfortunately the confusion lies with just about everybody, not just Bush and it includes individuals such Ms. Glick. Democracy is not freedom. If words have a proper meaning and do not simply mean whatever we feel like at any given moment then democracy can mean only majority rule such as is demonstrated by the presence of free elections. The freedom which Glick hints at relies on elections in a very limited way, namely the selection of personnel. Democracy, relies on votes and the will of the people for the determination of all the important issues facing the country. What freedom actually requires is a constitutional republic. Freedom depends on the government being limited and restricted to the protection of individual rights by a proper written constitution that everybody can read and understand. The people do NOT decide every major issue, neither directly nor through representatives. In fact the most important issues, the fundamental moral principles of society, are never brought to a vote, nor were they determined by a vote. Such was the intention and for the most part the practice of the American republic at its inception, when the Founding Father's devised the most perfect system of government presently in existence. But the preservation of such a system depended on a clear understanding of what freedom consists of and unfortunately Ms. Glick's article, while valuable in many ways, illustrates that today even the best people do not have a clear understanding of liberty and its requirements.

Unilateral Withdrawal and Its Consequences

Lebanon, Israel's northern border, from Debka:

Hizballah mortars and anti-tank missiles bombarded IDF Mt Dov positions on northern Israeli border Friday. Israeli jets and artillery struck back at Hizballah positions near Lebanese village of Kfar Shouba

February 3, 2006, 4:16 PM (GMT+02:00)

Gaza, now a section of Israel's Southern border, again, Debka:

At least 4 Israelis injured, including a baby in serious condition, by a Qassam missile that hit their home in Kibbutz Carmieh south of Ashkelon

February 3, 2006, 4:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

The baby with head injuries was lifted by helicopter to hospital. Both her parents were wounded in the attack. Palestinian fire from Gaza continues. It erupted at the same time Friday as the Hizballah attack from Lebanon.

Thus continues the march of Israel to its own destruction.

Recent Items of Interest


Today Charles Krauthammer comes close to understanding the obvious about the Saddam Hussein trial in Iraq:

Although Hussein deserves to be shot like a dog -- or, same thing, like the Ceausescus -- we nonetheless decided to give him a trial. First, to demonstrate the moral superiority of the new Iraq as it struggles to live by the rule of law. Second, and even more important, to bear witness.

At least he agrees that Hussein "deserves to be shot like dog" -- this is something many Objectivists have understood all along. But contrary to Krauthammer's claim there's is no justification or need for demonstrating "the moral superiority of the new Iraq" and certainly not via a trial of a mass murderer. Dr. Yaron Brook at ARI states the case most clearly in a press release from December 2003:

"The values compromised or lost by going through an Iraqi trial would be far greater than anything we could possibly gain. By its nature a trial grants the defendant the presumption of innocence. With the evidence of his guilt so overwhelming, how can the Congress, the President or any honest person presume Saddam's innocence? A trial also grants the presumption that there could possibly be some sane defense of mass murder. That presumption should never be allowed. Worst of all, a trial would give Saddam a platform to address the world while under the presumption of innocence--an unconscionable concession to evil.
"Saddam is guilty of killing hundreds of American soldiers; he's guilty of initiating a war against the Kuwaitis; and he's guilty of murdering hundreds of thousands of his own people. This murderer deserves a firing squad, and the sooner the better."

**
Also today Caroline Click of the Jerusalem Post made this interesting point in her column "Arik and Iraq":

Quite simply the president has staked his presidency on the war in Iraq and he cannot afford to accept defeat on that battlefield. At the same time, the political weakening of the administration as a result of the unrelenting attacks on its handling of the war makes it unlikely that Bush will widen the war to include Iran and Syria (or Saudi Arabia) which serve as the principal bases for the terrorists fighting in Iraq. In the absence of a military option against any of these countries, it is difficult to believe that the Americans will be able to win the war in Iraq before the end of Bush's second term.

Bush's successor, regardless of his party affiliation, will not be personally invested in Iraq as Bush is. As a result the next American president will not be able to be counted on to see the war through to victory. In light of this, it cannot be ruled out that the US will depart from Iraq without victory.

I would have to agree that it's difficult to see how Iraq can be stabilized without initiating military action against Iran and Syria, yet I don't really see this administration doing so, unless Syria or more likely Iran provides a clear provocation. This is unfortunately necessary as our government refuses to consider all previous interaction with Iran as sufficient to justify a military intervention, even though ever since the embassy hostage taking, the Lebanese bombings of our Marine barracks and embassy in Lebanon, as well as hostage taking, the threatening of our publishers for publishing Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses", etc. it would seem we have had plenty of provocation.

Smear Followup (part 2)

(Continued from here)

Valiunas next criticises Ayn Rand's idea that "man is a being of self-made soul":

Human beings in [Rand's] view are entirely “self-made souls”: if there is no Creator, then man must be purely his own creation. But ...man is a creature who arrives on earth through no will of his own, and whose nature, both as a human being and as an individual, is circumscribed by genetic endowment and other inscrutable strokes of fate. ...no man is sole master of his destiny... Rand has no idea what being reasonable means, and no sense of men as creatures, each graced—whether by chance or design—with his own particular gifts, lacking others he may wish he had, and subject to all the pains of his individual nature and of human nature.

It seems Valiunas is here is taking a rather Augustinian view of man's life, or as Objectivists would term it a malevolent view. Contrary to Valiunas describes Ayn Rand does recognize that people come from different backgrounds and circumstances, as well as with different genetic endowments and this is evident in both her fiction and nonfiction. After all, she has both great and small, rich and poor, intelligent and not-so intelligent morally good and bad characters. It is also evident in her nonfiction, where she always emphasized that she is not morally demanding a certain level of intelligence but only the use of one's intelligence to one's fullest capacity.

However, she denies that one's background or genetics are fundamental to the formation of one's character, which despite Valiunas's denial to the contrary is entirely within our capacity to control and shape, so long as we are mentally free (i.e., not psychotic). Valiunas grudgingly admits that "[m]ost individuals are of course responsible for their actions," yet that rings rather hollow given his above endorsements of man's helplessness. It is rather strange to hear Conservatives sound like Liberals and in essence claim that individuals really can't help the way they are.

Valiunas concludes by criticising Ayn Rand's alleged disdain for "compassion":

As a champion of American democracy, finally, Rand is blind to the foremost democratic virtue, namely, compassion. She claims that reason scorns compassion, but that which she despises is in fact rooted in human rationality. Compassionate men of faith accept their gifts as an obligation to help others less gifted, while compassionate agnostics or atheists recognize that chance has a great deal to do with their own excellence, achievement, and prosperity, and, at best, they pity those whom fortune has not dealt with so generously.

There are of course reasonable limits to compassion: no one can be held responsible for everyone else, nearly everyone must bear some degree of responsibility for his own condition, and some individuals are so depraved by their own choices that they deserve no compassion from others. But Rand sees compassion as simply evil, an unreasonable obstacle to the pursuit of happiness by nature’s aristocrats, who owe everything to themselves and nothing to anyone else. In this sense, too, her failure as a writer and thinker is her failure as a human being, and her idea of what life should be is inimical to life itself.

Sigh...where to begin! First of all, long time readers of Miss Rand's writings will be suprised to find her described as "a champion of American democracy," given that she made quite a big deal of her advocacy of capitalism and her opposition to unlimited majority rule or "democracy." And they will be further surprised to find that her opposition to altruism turns in Valiunas's writing into opposition to "compassion" even though she was always careful to distinguish altruism from benevolence or compassion.

However, let's assume that Valiunas meant capitalism and altruism and proceed from there. Valiunas claims that compassion is "rooted in human rationality" yet his entire argument for the moral "obligation to help others less gifted" consists in the following claims.

• Religious people will assume their good fortune is a conditional gift from God -- a gift conditioned on their sharing the gift with the less fortunate.
• Non-religious people will assume their fortune is largely the result of luck and ought to give to less fortunate out of pity for their lack of luck.

Excuse me? This is supposed to be a rational argument? Sure, if you are willing to believe in a God, all sorts of things may follow, although what those things may be seems to be a subject that has been debated for millenia. For those of us who understand that reason and reality permit no such concept, however, pity does not usually result in moral obligations. Of course, Valiunas again backtracks somewhat arguing for "reasonable limits" on what one is obligated to give but on what basis? Aren't the Christian Saints still admired for practically giving it all to the less fortunate, up to and including their own life? Are they not according to the predominant morality, the most virtuous men that are held up as examples to emulate. Well, Valiunas does not want us to go to extremes. He seeks a compromised "compassion" where "nearly everyone must bear some degree of responsibility for his own condition."

I have to admit I'm regretting treating this "embarassing rejoinder" with as much respect as I have, as it does not deserve it. That it was published in Commentary, a magazine I used to respect is even sadder.

Smear Followup (part 1)

In the current December 2005 issue of Commentary Magazine, letters in response to Algis Valiunas's essay "Who needs Ayn Rand" from the September 2005 issue are published, as well as Valiunas's response to the letters. Unlike the original essay, the letters and Valiunas's response are available online (the letters begin on page 20 and the response follows, hat-tip HBL). As readers of this blog may remember, I wrote a long piece criticising the Valiunas essay back in September.

As already mentioned int the blog Passing Thoughts, Valiunas's response is "a truly embarassing rejoinder." It is however a good illustration how some Conservatives are simply unable to go beyond their preconceived views about Ayn Rand and their continuing stubborn refusal to take her ideas seriously.

First of all, Valiunas only concedes a single error -- "the publication date of Ayn Rand's first novel" even though numerous others have been pointed out to him in the letters preceding his response, including the fact that the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) was established in 1985, after her death, a fact he continues to ignore in his confusion of the Nathaniel Branded Institute with ARI.

But let's look at Valiunas's various attempts to criticise Rand's views. He claims:

Socrates, that paragon of reason, famously declared that he knew what he did not know; this awareness of reason’s limitations distinguishes him from those pretending to knowledge they do not actually have. Rand is one of the pretenders: she believes—never proves—that human reason can answer every question, and that indeed her own philosophy does precisely that, once and for all.

It difficult to see what Valiunas is aiming at here. Ayn Rand argued:

Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

As far as I know she did not necessarily argue that human reason can answer every question (though that may ultimately be true). At any given time many questions may be unanswered. She did argue that if there is an answer, it would have be arrived at by means of reason, since that is the way man reaches answers. She also never claimed that her own philosophy answers every question. She explicitly acknowledged philosophical problems to which Objectivism as she defined it has no detailed answer (e.g., the problem of induction). She did have many crucial and original answers to questions in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics and esthetics.

Ayn Rand did have reasons and proof for the answers she gave and they are elaborated in her writings, particularly her nonfiction books Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology as well as in the various other collections of her essays and lectures. It is true that she personally did not write a single volume tome on her ideas. However, during her lifetime she did endorse a lecture course as "the only authorized presentation of the entire theoretical structure of Objectivism." In addition, there has for some time now (since 1991) existed a book based on the authorized lecture course, written by the original presenter and foremost student and heir of Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff. If Mr. Valiunas had been truly interested in gaining an understanding of Ayn Rand's reasoning he could have consulted any of those sources but it seems that such research would get in the way of his berating Ayn Rand for her lack of proof for her ideas.

Let's continue to review Valiunas' claims:

In fact, Rand’s reasoning is founded on the very gobbledygook of imperious sentiment that she loathes as reason’s nemesis. She cannot demonstrate by reason the non-existence of God: rather, her pride tells her there cannot be a God, for to acknowledge that a perfect Being exists would be to admit her own inferiority, something her emotional constitution makes unthinkable. So she thought—more precisely, so she felt—at the age of fifteen, when she decided she was an atheist, and, as I noted in my article, she never really refined her basic thoughts or feelings on the matter.

To begin with, it seems an elementary error of logic to demand that Rand "demonstrate by reason the non-existence of God." The onus of proof is on him who asserts the positive. It can however, be shown that the Judeo-Christian God, when desribed in the traditional terms of infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, etc. violates all sorts of basic axioms of existence and logic that the concept simply makes no sense and therefore that cannot have an actual referent in reality. (and this was in fact done in Peikoff's authorized lectures on Objectivism). Of course, if the monotheist then chooses to redefine God, he may escape this reasoning but again, the onus of proof is on him to demonstrate the existence of God. Furthermore, to assert as a criticism that Ayn Rand "felt" that there is no God and "never really refined her thoughts or feelings" is a little disingenous. Ayn Rand refined and clarified numerous aspects of her thought, including her views on religion, as can clearly be seen if Valiunas bothered to study her intellectual development. Frankly, the issue of God is pretty basic. Valiunas, like all Conservatives, tries to pretend that having faith in God and not believing in God are equally faith-based position and thus the Conservatives's ever present assertion of "faith-in-reason" -- but the facts are otherwise. It is a rational conclusion that no evidence for God has ever been found and it is rational to conclude that an impossible of concept of God cannot exist in reality. On the other hand, it is a faith-based feeling that God exists. The two are not equivalent.
(to be continued)