 Fourth of July and the Public Interest
by Tibor R. Machan
Throughout history political thinkers have been doing a lot of fretting about the public good (or public interest, common good, general welfare, etc.). Usually they came up with massive plans or enchanting visions. Plato's teacher, Socrates, was the great grand daddy contributing to this tradition, what wi... (Read more...)
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 Why the Right Should Stop Attacking Homosexuality
by G. Stolyarov II
Mr. Stolyarov makes an appeal to everyone on the political Right to cease attacking homosexual individuals as immoral, obscene, vicious, flawed, self-destructive, or unnatural. He urges the withdrawal of all objections to homosexual marriage or open manifestations of homosexual preferences – provided that those manifestations are done civilly and in accord with the same expectations of good taste as accompany manifestations of heterosexual preference. (Read more...)
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Public TV bash
by Tibor R. Machan
A colleague asked me to come and sit with him and his pals at the table to celebrate KOCE-TV’s 35th anniversary celebration. I went, though with some trepidation, given that KOCE-TV is a "public" television station in Orange County, CA. It is mostly funded from contributions but does receive about 10% of its operating expenses from the government, via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I was informed by one official at the organization. Compared to many other subsidized undertakings, the amount isn’t huge but, still, it does involve robbing Peter a bit so as to support Paul with the latter’s preferred projects. (Read more...)
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The War on Jihad and the Jihadis
by Kyrel Zantonavitch
Some basic thoughts on "the war on terror." (Read more...)
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Politicizing Science
by Tibor R. Machan
As many who read my columns would know, I am an avid reader of Science News, the magazine of the Society for Science and the Public located in Washington, D. C. It's now been a few decades that I have been kept abreast of developments in a great variety of sciences, natural and social, by reading this publication. (Read more...)
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Civility: A Powerful Weapon
by G. Stolyarov II
Advocates of political freedom and strong ethical standards have a powerful weapon on their side – if they choose to use it. In an age where too many people are ready to hurl insults at one another at the onset of any discussion or debate, civility sets one apart from the crowd and gives one a chance to actually persuade people of the soundness of one’s views. (Read more...)
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Liberty and Hard Cases
by Tibor R. Machan
One book I edited has the same title as this column and focuses mainly on how a free society would cope with disasters such as earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. When the nature of a just society is discussed, those who defend big government solutions to problems tend to start with orphaned children and catastrophes, claiming that only by means of massive government intervention can a society cope. But then, of course, it becomes evident that big government advocates—actually, advocates of governments with extensive scope, way beyond the task of securing the rights of the citizenry—don’t stop with the dire cases. Instead they move on to advocate government intervention into every nook and cranny of people’s lives. The tendency is toward totalitarianism, with just a few exceptions such as freedom for the press and for people religious choices. Everything else, however, seems to require government meddling, just as was believed in the thousands of years when monarchies ruled virtually everywhere because the king was thought to be God’s representative on earth. (Read more...)
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 An Atheist's Response to Pascal's Wager
by G. Stolyarov II
Pascal’s Wager is one of the more respectable arguments in favor of religion. As an atheist, Mr. Stolyarov is nonetheless sympathetic to this argument, because it attempts to use reason to actually persuade people to believe in God, rather than circularly using the Bible as a reason to believe in the truth of the Bible. Of course, as an atheist, Mr. Stolyarov also believes that Pascal’s Wager is a mistaken argument. But here he will give it the consideration it deserves. (Read more...)
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Spring Awakening & Jersey Boys
by Samantha Steven
Reviews of two Broadway shows in the lens of Ayn Rand's view of art. (Read more...)
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The Liberty We Must Have
by Tibor R. Machan
It is becoming more and more fashionable among political thinkers and even politicians to disparage the kind of individual liberty championed in the American political tradition. Several scholars—e. g., Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago—have argued that what really matters most is something called positive liberty. This is the notion that people have liberty only when others provide them with the resources that enable them to do what they would like to or should do. And there is a use of the idea "liberty" or "freedom" along these lines—you are free to fly to Paris only if you get funds to pay for the trip. But it used to be understood, maybe still is normally, that to get this kind of freedom or liberty one needs to earn the funds to pay instead of take it from other people by way, of say, taxation. But that is now challenged by the idea that what we lack but need or want is something we are entitled to from others and governments exist to serve us by obtaining it all from these others and they have no say in the matter. (Read more...)
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Rough Draft: Functions of morality
by Joseph Rowlands
The following is a very rough draft of an essay I started on morality. It's in very rough shape, as I wrote it for my own clarity and not a general audience. I submit it here for those who might be interested. (Read more...)
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Harry Reid’s "Voluntary" Taxation
by Tibor R. Machan
On the Web Site, FreeLiberal.com, to which someone guided me, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada defended the idea that taxation in America, especially the federal income tax, is voluntary. His basic argument was, believe it or not, that elsewhere in the world people lack the many loopholes we enjoy here. (These, by the way, are the loopholes Senator Reid and his fellows in the Senate are constantly promising to close!) So while the Senator’s case that taxation is voluntary rests on there being loopholes in the system, he is vehemently opposed to those loopholes. (Read more...)
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Affirmative Action and Blood Guilt
by G. Stolyarov II
The heinous idea of blood guilt is alive and well today in the United States. Yes, the same kind of fundamental mindset that characterized the policies of the governments of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union is today advocated by proponents of affirmative action. (Read more...)
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Pursuing your Happiness
by Tibor R. Machan
When the Founders made happiness part of America’s political fabric they made clear that what each of us has a right to is the pursuit of it. As with all individual rights in this political tradition, the right to the pursuit of happiness is a right to take actions of certain sorts, ones that are aimed at achieving our happiness. Even the most basic right, to one’s life, is a right to take a great many actions. Life, after all, consists of being active! The right to private property, too, is a right to take actions that result in the acquisition of valued items. (Read more...)
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 The Young Sparrow
by Ed Thompson
A short story. (Read more...)
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A Corrupt Profession
by Tibor R. Machan
There are those who believe that business is inherently corrupt--communists would be among those, and socialists. The very idea of striving to make a profit is treated by these people as morally objectionable. Of course, some even think medicine fits the bill, or military service. And there are animal rights advocates who believe the entire meat industry is morally base. (Read more...)
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Soros' Follies Again
by Tibor R. Machan
In the late 60s I was invited to listen to a fellow Hungarian refugee in Los Angeles discuss communism. I nearly walked out when he began with the refrain about how communism is such a wonderful ideal but, sadly, unattainable in practice. What wonderful ideal? The prospect of a worldwide intelligent ant colony, bound together completely with no individual initiative in play anywhere, all automatically serving humanity--is that some wonderful ideal? It is hell, so (Read more...)
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 Emotional Responses and Selecting Values
by Joseph Rowlands
In the last lecture, I talked about how intrinsic values can't be rationally compared, so you're left with just feeling your way to a solution. This is a pretty serious problem, and what we're going to focus on in this thread. (Read more...)
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Should We Elect a Problem Solver?
by Tibor R. Machan
In his long interview with Chris Wallace on Fox TV on Sunday April 27, Senator Obama asserted that "The American people, what they are looking for is somebody who can solve their problems." (Read more...)
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Arthur C. Clarke Was Wrong, So Progress Must Have Stopped
by Warren Meyer
Despite the pessimistic title, this is a wonderfully optimistic piece in response to an Erlich-esque view by Paul Krugman, who has been less than impressed by the past 50 years of Western technology. Julian Simon and Paul Pilzer would enjoy this piece immensely.
Sometimes, we all need a reminder of just how fortunate we are to be living in the time and place that we do. This piece is just such a reminder. (Read more...)
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Randula, the Altruist Slayer
by Dennis C. Hardin
George H. Smith taunts Objectivists for seeing altruistic ‘Reds’ under every ideological bed (Read more...)
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Wandering About the East Village
by Tibor R. Machan
It was a very mild, pleasant Sunday afternoon and my older daughter and I were spending a couple of hours walking about in her New York City East Village neighborhood. After a bite of lunch we took in some of the shops, not so much to spend the required $20 I heard everyone is likely to part with once leaving home in this part of the world but to do what I like to call museum cruising. Yes, even when I have no interest in shopping, I do enjoy checking out all the goodies offered for sale in the hundreds of places that feature thousands of items that come from the commercial motives of people. Not just commercial motives, of course. A goodly portion of what's for sale is probably born out of a sense of creativity, with the idea of selling following as more of an afterthought. Like all those paintings and sculptures in Soho. Or the jewelry on display in the umpteen boutiques. (Read more...)
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Objective, Subjective, Intrinsic
by Joseph Rowlands
There are three major views of the nature of values. The first two, subjective and intrinsic, are often seen as a dichotomy. Objectivism accepts an objective view of values. (Read more...)
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What Are Taxes?
by Tibor R. Machan
In the April 15th edition of The New York Times Richard Conniff suggests that what the government collects from us each year on or about this date be called "dues" instead of "taxes" ("Abolish All 'Taxes'"). As he puts it, "we need language to remind us that this is our government, and that we thrive because of the schools and transit systems and 10,000 other services that exist only because we have joined together."
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A New Discipline
by Fred Seddon
I have been president of the West Virginia Philosophical Society since 1988 and there have been many first during my tenure, but this one may be the most important. It is not everyday that one hears about a new discipline, but at the Spring Meeting held on Mar. 28-29 in Wheeling, WV, Professor Ted Drange, one of my fa... (Read more...)
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