Thursday
December 29, 2005 |
 Machan's Musings - America, the New Switzerland
by Tibor R. Machan
Back in the mid-80s I lived a while in Lugano, Switzerland but I had traveled in the country and through it several times before. And while there are innumerable desirable features of the place-the great Alps, the brilliant lakes, the clean neighborhoods everywhere, the efficiency of the train system and the general a... (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 28, 2005 |
Machan's Musings - Students Need No Special Protection
by Tibor R. Machan
David Horowitz, the radical-turned-conservative think tank leader and campus activist, has been making a lot of waves regarding the overwhelming “liberal” bias in university classrooms across the country. He has proposed the drafting of an “Academic Bill of Rights” that, as The New York Times reports, “he says would encourage free debate and protect students against discrimination for expressing their political beliefs.” (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Monopoly Blues
by Tibor R. Machan
The post office should either hire more people so the mail gets out earlier or an alternative mail service should move into the region, offering competing first class delivery service. But, of course, this is illegal. (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Critics of the Halfway Free Society
by Tibor R. Machan
Most of us who champion a certain political system concern ourselves mainly with showing why its full implementation would be best. Few people argue for a halfway house—socialists, libertarians, welfare statists, and so forth all tend to find their system of political economy to be sound when it is in full bloom. Yet hardly anyone expects a full blown actualization of the theory he or she has conceived as the best. (Read more...)
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 Learning Lessons from BB&T
by Luke Setzer
Just as a rational individual needs the ruling Objectivist values to survive alone on an island to accomplish his life-affirming goals, so he needs them in a free society to achieve such goals. Furthermore, organizations of free people in a free society also need to arrange themselves in accordance with these three supreme structural values to accomplish their common life-affirming goals. One organizational role model stands as an exemplary embodiment of these values: the Branch Banking and Trust Company (BB&T). (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Predictability and Free Will in Economics
by Tibor R. Machan
At the beginning of each term I mention an apparent problem for students taking my business ethics course in our school of business and economics: While economists tend to approach their discipline with the understanding that human beings are relentless utility maximizers, in business ethics that idea would be very odd... (Read more...)
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Thursday
December 22, 2005 |
The First Renaissance
by A. Robert Malcom
The universe is, by its nature, dynamic. This is to say that everything of the universe is in motion, though of different speeds relative to each other. There is no beginning nor any ending, just an infinite series of evolving continuums. All actions have consequences, including those which have origins. What, then, ar... (Read more...)
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Thursday
December 22, 2005 |
Machan's Musings - Being Helpful isn't Always Best
by Tibor R. Machan
Now and then when one shops or patronizes some establishment, one receives favors from clerks or servers and this is usually quite welcome. Indeed, it is often believed that what makes people decent is how willing they are to be benevolent toward others. The late W. D. Falk, a philosopher at the University of North Car... (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 21, 2005 |
 Thoughts for the Neophyte Objectivist
by Ethan A. Dawe
One of the great things about learning Objectivism is the clarity it can give you when looking at life and the world around you. Each day we are bombarded by issues and concerns in all forms of media and in our interactions with others. Pundits, experts, friends, and co-workers alike talk on and on about what’s w... (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 21, 2005 |
Machan's Musings - Federal Judge Dictates Content of Biology Course
by Tibor R. Machan
Here you have it, the result of government education: Academic freedom is dead—a federal judge decided what Pennsylvania teachers may teach in biology classes. As MSNBC reports, "The Dover [PA] Area School Board violated the Constitution when it ordered that its biology curriculum must include ‘inte... (Read more...)
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Learning Lessons from Meetup
by Luke Setzer
The challenging undertaking of creating, sustaining and growing a global Objectivist club network demands the use of best practices gleaned from a wide range of sources. Meetup® has risen as the most outstanding recent upstart in the discipline of rapid growth of live, networked clubs. Only when it sprang sudden, unexpected, unaffordable monthly costs onto its members did it experience an overnight loss of support. While it remains in business, its popularity as a widespread tool for organizations has largely evaporated. A careful study of its merits and drawbacks offers valuable lessons for the Webmaster who wants to build a dedicated Internet site for a global Objectivist club network. (Read more...)
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Principles of Activism 2: Low Hanging Fruit
by Joseph Rowlands
In continuing with the identification of principles to make our activism more effective, we need to turn to a very simple one. The principle is to aim for the low hanging fruit. It means we should be seeking the easy accomplishments first instead of jumping at the most challenging.
... (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Iraqi Blogger Misguided about Occupation
by Tibor R. Machan
The December 18, 2005, New York Times featured some Iraqi bloggers commenting on their recent election. No enthusiastic samples were selected by The Time—naturally, since the editors there probably don’t like what has transpired—but some of them were revealing about how ill-educated certaikn Iraqis are. Here is one of ... (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Death Penalty for A Reformed Man
by Tibor R. Machan
The decision by California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger not to commute the death penalty sentence of multiple murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams is as right and it can be under the circumstances. (Read more...)
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Saturday
December 17, 2005 |
Objectivist Clubs and the Four Basic Human Needs
by Luke Setzer
As the designated Club Coordinator for the Rebirth of Reason™, I find myself tasked with the monumental charge of creating a global network of Objectivist clubs. Such a monumental charge demands a monumental article. Although I am not religious, I certainly accept as a timeless truth the verse from the Book of Proverbs that informs us, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." This article explores the core working premises one should use from which to arrive at a vision for a global Objectivist club network, an organization "as it might be and ought to be." (Read more...)
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Saturday
December 17, 2005 |
Machan's Musings - Journalists et al & What Justice Needs
by Tibor R. Machan
Someone help me out—why do journalists, priests, psychiatrists and such folks (I can understand about attorneys) get a pass when they obstruct justice? Yes, that’s what they are doing when they refuse to tell who told them about some crime. (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Oil and Blood
by Tibor R. Machan
This is just what you get when people's value systems have become so warped that they are willing to put trees, snail darters, and rare frogs ahead of human lives and well-being on their list of priorities. But, like the Jehovah Witnesses or Christian Scientists, if they do it to themselves, that can only be argued with in a free country. But if they inflict their perverse notions on us all, they should be stopped.
(Read more...)
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Thursday
December 15, 2005 |
Machan Musings - Capitalism and Environmentalism
by Tibor R. Machan
One of the major challenges put before champions of a fully free, capitalist political economy comes from those worried about environmental degradation. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 14, 2005 |
Principles of Activism 1: Capital Accumulation
by Joseph Rowlands
This is the first part in a series of articles exploring the topic of activism, in an attempt to identify some basic principles to help guide our decision making process. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
December 14, 2005 |
Machan's Musings - Reforming Countries
by Tibor R. Machan
Some people will not accept even the help that's very good for them, period. We surely know this from our personal familiarity with some of those closest to us. (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Impossible Egalitarianism
by Tibor R. Machan
Egalitarianism is undesirable, which is often left unmentioned when the idea is discussed. Many have thought it would be so swell if it only could exist but it wouldn't. Everyone being the same, having the same, etc., etc., is a pitifully dismal vision of human-and the rest of-life.
(Read more...)
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 Pride of Place
by Stephen Boydstun
"It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgment of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth." Those are the words of the hero in Rand's Anthem (194... (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Bush’s Censorial Temptation
by Tibor R. Machan
Ladies and gentlemen, this is America and if Americans share a common trait, it is most likely rebellion at those who wield power over them too overtly. (Read more...)
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Saturday
December 10, 2005 |
Binswanger's Appreciation of ANTHEM
by Fred Seddon
In an Epilogue to ESSAYS ON AYN RAND'S ANTHEM, (for which I am writing a glowing review) Harry Binswanger writes an “Appreciation” of ANTHEM in which he tells the story of a student asking whether Rand wrote ANTHEM as an answer to Plato’s “Myth of the Cave” from The REPUBLIC. While he suspected that Rand did not have P... (Read more...)
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Saturday
December 10, 2005 |
Machan's Musings - The Mess Created by Nationalization
by Tibor R. Machan
It is not for nothing that the respect and protection of the institution of the right to private property is so vital to human liberty. Wherever it is compromised, your liberty is likely to vanish. (Read more...)
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