 Prudence: The Stolen Virtue
by Paul Hibbert
Due to the proliferation of laws and regulations designed to protect people from themselves it is becoming almost impossible to be truly prudent — because to be prudent one must choose one's actions. (Read more...)
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Time to Get Real About Elections
by Walter Donway
Observing our selection of Presidential candidates this year, it becomes evident that ANYONE can run for President of the United States. Soon, this will be recognized by Americans at large, and shortly after, by politicians. The result, I predict, will be a radical reform of the election process. Because we don't bothe... (Read more...)
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Bill Buckley, RIP
by Tibor R. Machan
William F. Buckley, Jr., has died, at age 82. I want to reflect a bit on him because he was the persons whose writing awoke in me my political passions. (Read more...)
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 Low-quality thinking on "rationality": A chronological index of highly-relevant quotes
by Ed Thompson
A first effort to summarize the historical errors associated with published philosophical thought on the subject of "rationality" (Read more...)
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 Art and Entrepreneurship: The Michael Newberry Interview
by Kaizen Newsletter
The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship has published the second issue of its newsletter, Kaizen, featuring an interview with New York City artist Michael Newberry. (Read more...)
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Martin Wolf and the Soft Way against Globalization
by Manfred F. Schieder
An analysis of Martin Wolf's book "Why Globalization Works", pointing out that his support lacks the required recognition of the basis that makes globalization efficient. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 27, 2008 |
Unabashed Prejudice at The Times
by Tibor R. Machan
These matters tend to show up without much fanfare but that’s exactly what makes them interesting and significant. When Eleanor Randolph of The New York Times wrote these lines [Sunday, 2/24/08], I am sure she was being quite unselfconscious. It was simple common sense to her to say, as she wrote about the program "Law & Order"--which she and I both seem to have watched from its inception--that these shows "elevate Sam Waterston to his ethical pedestal, even though he appears elsewhere pitching investments." (Read more...)
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The 4 Main Kinds of Ethics: An Introduction.
by Ed Thompson
The purpose of this short essay is to introduce the 4 main ways that we can think about morality and to get a glimpse at how those 4 mutually-exclusive and altogether-exhaustible views result in radically different ethical recommendations. (Read more...)
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Thursday
February 21, 2008 |
Employment Blues Revisited
by Tibor R. Machan
Even though making lots of money is often derided by politicians, they do routinely champion employment security. Exactly why it is fine to want the latter but not the former is quite unclear to me. There are some theories about this, though. (Read more...)
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 Impossible? A 'Village Poet' on the Right?
by Walter Donway
For a century, "Greenwich Village" has been synonymous with "experimental" poets, the drug-inspired art scene, and the counter-culture, from Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" to William Burroughs's "Naked Lunch." Now, a Village poet has published a book of poetry inspired by Ayn Rand, and with a title taken from John Galt's speech. The publisher is the Atlas Society and sales, even before publication, are making it a best-selling first poetry book. (Read more...)
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Freud and the "Social Utility" of Objectivism
by Dennis C. Hardin
Freud’s views on the social role of religion may offer some insights on how to spread Objectivism (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 13, 2008 |
It Isn’t Throwing it Away
by Tibor R. Machan
Over the years, since when I voted for Barry Goldwater back in 1964, I have supported libertarian candidates and ballot measures, few of whom or which had any chance of winning. Often my more pragmatic, realistic friends tell me that I am throwing away my vote and I should stop this if I want to be serious about giving concrete support to my political convictions. They sometimes even suggest that it is irresponsible to keep up this practice of voting for hopeless candidates and measures. (Read more...)
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Atlas Shrugged: The 50th Anniversary
by Walter Donway
Walter Donway, a founding trustees of the Atlas Society, wrote this for the 50th anniversary celebration of the publication of Atlas Shrugged. (Read more...)
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Figure the Future, Upcoming TAS Talk
by Michael Newberry
Figure the Future The nude in art graced the civilizations of Ancient Greece, the Italian Renaissance, and much of Europe through to the beginning of the 20th century. In this presentation, painter Michael Newberry will explain how the nude stands for more than titillation—that rather it is the p... (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 6, 2008 |
Americans Don’t Much Care About Freedom
by Tibor R. Machan
Ever since I have been an American citizen--starting 1961--I have noticed that after elections losers often blame winners for distortions, misrepresentations, and so forth. Few of the losers say, "Well, I lost because the voters didn’t agree with me." This become most evident for me during the elections when one ballot measure aiming to sock it to oil companies in California lost. Supporters of the measure, led, I think, by a very busy and prominent leftist political activist, Bill Press, insisted that their measure lost because the voters were deceived, lied to, and so forth, not because voters didn’t buy their pitch. (Read more...)
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Clinton-Obama Debate and Health Care Costs
by Merlin Jetton
Will health care costs keep on rising? You can bet on it. Are the campaign promises about lowering health care costs flimflam? Of course. (Read more...)
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A World of Devils -- and Political Perfection
by Kyrel Zantonavitch
Having outstanding people in the nation and the government vs. having an outstanding socio-economic and political system. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 30, 2008 |
Revolutionaries and Reality
by Tibor R. Machan
Those who are loyal to the political values of the American Founders are revolutionaries, far more so than any other type (like the Marxists or radical Muslims). This is because the American Founders identified something brand new and radical when they declared that individuals have unalienable rights to their lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
(Read more...)
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 Values
by Joseph Rowlands
Value is the central concept in ethics. Everything else revolves around it. Ethics is a person's means of choosing between actions. Actions, on the other hand, are aimed at accomplishing something. That something is called a value. Rand defined a value as "that which you act to gain and/or keep". It's what you're trying to accomplish when you do something. That can be acquiring some physical good, like a steak or a new car. It can also mean something like pleasure or improved physical fitness. It can be a friendship, or romantic interest. It can be the development of a new skill. And to give an example of keeping something, putting out a fire to protect your house is an example of acting in order to keep it. Anything you act to gain and/or keep is a value, in the widest sense of the term.
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 What's Worse: Foie Gras or Africaines Gras?
by Alexander Butziger
"Animal rights" activists complain about geese force-fed to make foie gras. Funny, they don't seem to care that there are places in the world where humans are routinely force-fed. (Read more...)
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Rights, Games, and Self-Realization - Part II
by Stephen Boydstun
[Editor's Note: Stephen long ago posted parts 2 and 3 of his essay in the discussion area of part 1 http://rebirthofreason.com/cgi-bin/SHQ/SHQ_FirstUnread.cgi?Function=FirstUnread&Board=2&Thread=1912 I'm adding them both now so that they come up if one searches for his articles.] Property rights are now taken up, first for two in isolation, then with wider social surroundings. Property rights in land, in the general economic sense of the term land, are center stage. (Read more...)
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Rights, Games, and Self-Realization - Part III
by Stephen Boydstun
[Editor's Note: Stephen long ago posted parts 2 and 3 of his essay in the discussion area of part 1 http://rebirthofreason.com/cgi-bin/SHQ/SHQ_FirstUnread.cgi?Function=FirstUnread&Board=2&Thread=1912 I'm adding them both now so that they come up if one searches for his articles.] The concept land state is reached as the core of all political states. The possibilities for justice in that core and its extensions are discussed, including the just forms of financing. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 23, 2008 |
Economic ups and downs
by Tibor R. Machan
Those who study a country’s economic conditions, mostly macro-economists, track general trends--is inflation or unemployment, how about productivity, comparative strength of the currency, etc., and so forth. But the basics of all these are mostly local matters, all about what happens to you, me, our neighbors, all about what we decide to do with our income and other liquid assets. (Read more...)
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Themes of Ethics
by Joseph Rowlands
The first question of ethics, which is the starting point of it all, is why do we need ethics in the first place? Can we live without it? The answer Objectivism gives is that we need a code of values in order to make our decisions. Since we're beings of volitional consciousness, we don't have an automatic means of knowledge. We don't have an automatic way of deciding what to do. We have to figure out a way of making choices. And that's the role ethics fills. (Read more...)
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 Sacrilege
by Eric Rockwell
When the likes of Ellsworth Toohey attacks something you value, what is the proper response? (Read more...)
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