 Another Crazy FDR "Right"
by Tibor R. Machan
Over the last couple of years I have explored FDR’s Second Bill of Rights because recently some heavy hitters in politics and legal theory (e.g., Cass Sunstein) have made a point of championing these ultimately phony rights. With the Democrats back in power in Washington, it is not unreasonable to suppose that securing and expanding FDR’s list of rights—as distinct from those laid out by the American founders in the Declaration of Independence—will once again dominate the federal government’s agenda. Not that Republicans put up much of a fight against the Democrats but the Republicans' version of statism focuses less on wealth redistribution and more on soul craft. (Read more...)
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Anti-Individualism, Conservative Style
by Tibor R. Machan
Just to keep matters in balance, let me point out that although it is mostly the Left that hates individualism—remember, socialism means that we, humanity, are all just one organism—the Right’s hostility toward it is no less virulent. Just recall that both Hitler and Stalin hated individualism, in any of its varieties. American individualism, one that stresses the independent judgment of human beings—not their alleged and, not surprisingly, ridiculous, fictional independent or self-sufficient existence—does not suit either the Left or the Right, including some fairly powerful voices among American conservatives. Just consider the blurb peddling one currently rising conservative’s recent book, Peter Augustine Lawler’s Stuck With Virtue, The American Individual and Our Biotechnological Future. “These insightful, provocative essays critique what the author sees as America’s ever-increasing individualistic habits and attitudes, centered on a view of the individual as self-sufficient and unencumbered.” As if that is what American individualism were about. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 20, 2006 |
Bad Arguments For And Against Liberty
by Tibor R. Machan
In his December 18th guest column for The New York Times, Orlando Patterson of Harvard University lays in on George W. Bush and his neo-conservative pals for misguidedly pushing Western style liberalism on Iraqis. The gist of his point is that Bush believes that liberty is "written in our hearts," something supposedly learned from John Locke, and that simply is false. (Read more...)
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General Pinochet-Some Lessons
by Tibor R. Machan
It is interesting just how real politics works. When the chips are down, we can often detect from little gestures and moves where people really stand on basic issues. When General Pinochet died the other day, there was not a great deal of discussion about him and those that did appear tended to make a lot out of his having been supported by the American CIA when he overthrew the regime of Salvador Allende. Now for my money if it took the CIA to do this, it could well be to its credit, even though technically Chile was a so called sovereign country and Allende a sovereign leader (or ruler!). (Read more...)
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Natural Rights as Derived from Ethical Egoism: Tibor R. Machan's Randian Approach
by Edward W. Younkins
Unlike Rasmussen and Den Uyl, prominent philosopher of human flourishing, Tibor R. Machan, approaches the derivation of natural rights by way of ethical egoism. For Machan, rights are a moral concept rather than a metanormative one. His strong case for natural rights and the legitimacy of the minimal state rests on a c... (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 6, 2006 |
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
by Ryan Brubaker
On a recent trip to Italy, I had the opportunity to reflect on Ayn Rand's philosophy of art while viewing many of the famous works displayed in Italy's major cities. I have very little, if any, expertise in the technical aspects of art or expertise in art history. I have also never read The Romantic Manifesto, so my ... (Read more...)
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Reductionism, Science and Reason
by Tibor R. Machan
Some natural scientists who like to philosophize prefer the doctrine of reductionism as their philosophical position. This view is that everything in reality is but one kind of thing—there are no real differences, only apparent ones. So, for example, even though it seems like music is different from airline travel, or mice are different from giraffes, or again that a Rembrandt painting is different from the contents of one's trash can, by the reductionist account all these things are the same—atoms, or strings or, to quote a famous passage from All the King's Men, dirt: (Read more...)
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The Rebirth of Benevolence
by Joseph Rowlands
Today is the first birthday of the Rebirth of Reason(TM) website. I thought it would be appropriate to mark this day by reviewing the first year, and describing the current state of affairs. We should be able to look back at our goals and see if we're moving in the right direction.
... (Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 22, 2006 |
Human Flourishing and Natural Rights
by Edward W. Younkins
Natural law is an older concept than the idea of natural rights. John Locke and his predecessor, Hugo Grotius, are frequently credited with ushering in the modern concept of natural rights. Historically, the doctrine of natural rights appears to have developed either within, or at least consonant with, the framework of... (Read more...)
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The Temptation to Lie
by Tibor R. Machan
Have you noticed that when you ask someone on the street where the next post office or drug store or some other locally known place is, they usually tell you it's just a couple of blocks when in fact it is a lot farther than that? Or when someone tells you she will be there in a few minutes and then you wait for half an hour and she is still missing? Or when you are told on the phone 'May I put you on hold for a moment?' and you are still waiting ten minutes later? (Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 15, 2006 |
Two kinds of Stereotyping
by Tibor R. Machan
Now and then people will characterize groups in various ways. Some of this is clearly prejudice—as when one ascribes to blacks, whites, women, those from Poland, or Latin Americans certain moral attributes which some of those from these groups may exhibit but which are certainly not innate to all members of the group. Thinking that all Mexicans are lazy or that Germans are by nature methodical or, again, that Americans are phlegmatic would be such prejudice. These are traits of individuals and while some in these groups may have them, many clearly do not. One needs to see if the ascription is justified instead of making it just because someone is a member of the group. One is, to put it somewhat differently, not morally good or bad because one is born black or Australian or Chinese. One is good or bad as a result of one's own judgments and actions. (Read more...)
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Republican Election Fiasco
by Ed Hudgins
In my article on "The Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party" I analyzed the likely results of a GOP turning more and more to big government, interventionist policies. In the 2006 election they got what they asked for. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 8, 2006 |
Can One Respect the Police?
by Tibor R. Machan
It began with the Orange County ordinance authorizing police to stop teens from smoking in public places. One of my children asked me, who are these people to tell them whether they may smoke? Isn’t that the job of parents? Don’t the cops have kidnappers, rapists, murderers, and robbers to deal with? Is it really their role in our lives to order us to stop smoking?
(Read more...)
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Government School Follies
by Tibor R. Machan
France, England, Germany, and who knows which other countries are in deep doo-doo because of the impossibility of supporting both multiculturalism and state school policies. (Read more...)
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Respect our Enemies - Why?
by Tibor R. Machan
Freeman Dyson, who is a famous physicist and Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton University, wrote the following lines in The New York Review of Books that are, in my view, worth reflecting upon: (Read more...)
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Wednesday
October 18, 2006 |
The Justice of Inequality
by William Scott Dwyer
Increases in the inequality of wealth and income are viewed as a moral and economic failure, but insofar as they occur in a free market, they are simply a reflection of the laws of supply and demand and are in fact desirable, because they not only provide for the proper allocation of economic resources and thereby ensure that people's needs and desires are met, but also reflect the fact that producers receive the value of what they produce -- that those who produce more earn more -- which, far from being unjust, is a prerequisite of economic justice. (Read more...)
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Ayn Rand and Religion
by Dennis C. Hardin
Did Ayn Rand miscalculate the strength, endurance and appeal of religion? (Read more...)
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One Size Fits All Revisited
by Tibor R. Machan
Outside of politics, the place where the one size fits all approach is most tempting would be the family. Parents are often eager to urge their own tastes and preferences on their children, confusing these with the basic values, virtues and principles they do need to teach them. (Read more...)
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Two Cheers for the Welches
by Tibor R. Machan
In their BusinessWeek column of October 9, 2006, Suzy and Jack Welch make a valiant effort to debunk the stakeholder theory of corporate ethics. This is the view that managers do not owe service first and foremost to shareholders or owners of a company but, rather, to anyone who has an "interest" in the company's activities. The idea has also been dubbed the CSR thesis, whereby the first duty of business managers is their so-called "corporate social responsibility." (Read more...)
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Thursday
September 28, 2006 |
Religion and the Public Square
by Tibor R. Machan
A wonderful aspect of a free, capitalist society is that nearly everything is privately owned. That applies to churches -- they are owned by the order, such as Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Moonies, Muslims, Hindus, and all the some 4200 different religious groups (that's the number of how many different religious groups exist in the USA now [http://www.adherents.com/]) -- or by their congregations. Because a free society has no state religion, various religious groups are not involved in politically squaring off against one another. Sure, there are some political aspects of some religious orders, but in the main their affairs are left to the social and private realms of our lives. (Read more...)
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The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics
by David Gordon
This is a good and fairly long article from David Gordon on the Aristotelian origins of the Austrian school of economics. Gordon tells us that Carl Menger was influenced by Franz Brentano who "held Kant and Hegel in contempt, viewing them as retrogressive figures." (Read more...)
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Thursday
September 21, 2006 |
CHARITY? NO, HUMBUG
by Doug Casey
Here is Doug Casey's excellent take on Warren Buffett's gift to the Gates Foundation. This appeared in Doug Casey's investment newsletter, International Speculator. Casey has been an investment writer for many years and travels the world. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
September 20, 2006 |
The Pope vs. Islam: Who Stands for Reason?
by Ed Hudgins
Islamists complain about the Pope's quote from an old emperor about their religion but they prove the quote correct in their violent, irrational reactions. But in the Pope's speech he fails to understand that it is putting faith above reason that causes such violence and is responsible for most of the world's problems today. (Read more...)
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Arabs’ Handling of Dissent
by Tibor R. Machan
It is interesting to notice, by the way, that here is where the Marxist-Leninist Left is very close to the radical Muslims. They, too, make everything political, everything subject to a physical conflict, to coercion. (Read more...)
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"Progressives" Aren't Progressive
by Tibor R. Machan
At my university I was sitting at one interminably long meeting where sadly much time is wasted and little gets done. But during one of the discussions the person who was the leader made the point that there are faculty members of different political persuasion (a piece of vital information we all needed to be provided) and divided them into two groups, conservative and progressive. By this was meant something simply descriptive and showing not kind of bias at all. (Read more...)
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