Column on the New Supreme Court

Roberts Court Statist to Core

Tibor R. Machan

Of course, when soemone in a house doesn't want others to come
in, including cops without a warrant, this must be honored. As William
Pitt The Elder, Lord Chatham (1708-1778) stated the principle, "The
poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the
Crown. It may be frail?its roof may shake?the wind may blow through it?the
storm may enter?the rain may enter?but the King of England cannot
enter!?all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined
tenement!" Now if someone else who is co-owner of the place disagrees, the
default position should be that the objection carries. The rights to
private property
and privacy trump convenience, unless there is a crime being committed.

Sadly the new US Supreme Court has not found this a principle
worth upholding with a unanimous vote. Indeed, the very Justices who are
often
urging a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, Antonin Scalia
and Clarence Thomas, turned out to reject the unambiguous wording of the
in the Constitution banning unreasonable searches of private homes.
Instead,
the ban was upheld by the more Left leaning members of the court, Stevens,
Ginsburg, Breyer and Kennedy (who is all over the place, so his principles
are never firm). Anyone who had hopes that Justice Roberts would stick to
the workding of the Constitution can now abandon this hope in favor of the
reality that Roberts likes the power of the state, of cops to do what they
prefer, enver mind individual rights.

At least such is my current view of this new court. But then I
have been arguing for several years that in our post-modern era principles
have hardly
any force where decisions and actions of governments are concerned. What
we have instead is feelings, it appears. And that bodes ill for the rule
of law. When government rests on how those who administer it feel about
something, you are sure to get public policies that are unpredictable and
largely arbitrary.

The trouble appears to be that government includes the
justices--they are paid from taxes, perhaps the most awesome power of
government and one the exercise of which is completely unjustified in a
free country. As I have stressed many times, taxation is a relic of the
age of monarchical rule, where the court basically owns the country and we
must all pay for the privilege of living and working in it. Like renting
an apartment
in someone else's building.

We need a court that is independent of government, not beholden
to all of its powers so it is hardly likely that these will ever be
seriously challenged. If there is any wiggle room at all in the basic
document of the country, its constitution, the justices who depend for
their livelihood on the powers of government will be strongly tempted to
vote for continued and expanded state powers.

Perhaps the only way to counter all this in the present situation
is to educate the legislatures across the land. But they, too, tend to
love power. As Lord Acton so wisely noted, "Power tends to corrupt, and
absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The spectacle of the U. S. Supreme Court sanctioning arbitrary
police actions, especially in support of the detection and arrest of
victimless criminals, is totally antithetical to the spirit of a free
society. And in most cases it is also to the letter of ours, which at
least began with high ideals about turning into a free country. Those who
hold out hope that the courts, because of a professed loyalty to the
Constitution, will help the country recover its direction toward liberty
have been dealt a wake-up call with what Justices Roberts, Scalia and
Thomas did in dissenting in this George drug case.

Column on Needing Proxmire

William Proxmire?We Need You!

Tibor R. Machan

The later Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire (1915?2005) used to
hand out what he called the Golden Fleece Awards. The awardees were
usually people and organizations embarking upon huge expenditures that
funded ridiculous social science studies, such as ?Why do people fall in
love??

On my way to school today I was listening to the Los Angeles CBS
affiliate AM radio station, KNX, which reported on a recent study about
how children often understand their parents talking with each other, so
they could well be influenced for better or worse by how their parents use
language. No mention was made of who funded the study?whether taxpayers or
some willing private citizens were stuck with the bill?but it did occur to
me that this one would be a great candidate for one of Proxmire?s Golden
Fleece Awards, regardless. Even when some private foundation spends money
on certain studies, it could well be a waste, albeit not so objectionable
as when people have their resources extorted to provide the funding.

Unfortunately the late Senator didn?t object to the extortion
itself?he, like nearly all other politicians, saw nothing wrong with
expropriating funds from citizens. Taxation is the friend of every
politician and, indeed, of all government officials, which is why no
challenges to the practice ever win in the court system.

It is the left-over legacy of the feudal era that those living
in a country must pay the government?it used to be the monarch, now it is
the more democratic or republican form of government?for the privilege. As
if people in government owned the country and gave their permission, for a
price, for the rest of us to live and work here.

Still, one can distinguish between worthy projects, even if
taxes shouldn?t fund them, and unworthy ones. And the temptation to dip
into the public treasury to fund innumerable bogus projects is tremendous.
That is just the result of the tragedy of the commons?everyone rushes to
get as much as possible from the common till. Never mind whether a project
has merit, whether a sizable number of citizens want it undertaken, no.
Just come up with some cockamamie question and you can proceed to apply to
fund the study needed to answer it.

I have helped raise 3 children and, of course, way before they
know how to express themselves in their native tongue they can understand
what people around them are saying. Why does this require an expensive,
formal study? I have my serious doubts that it does. And it sounds like
the social scientists who did the work also had some trepidation since the
report made a big deal about how they implored us all to realize how
important their findings really are. But hardly anyone is so ignorant as
to assume that even very young children are oblivious to what those around
them are saying.

However, in the eagerness to get some of that money in the
public trough, these kinds of pointless studies will be routine. Why not?
After all, there is always more where the funds came from, in the
shrinking budgets of taxpayers (or their future earnings, against which
the government has the power to borrow).

April 15th?it is the 17th this time around?is just around the
corner and these candidates for the late Senator?s Golden Fleece Award are
merely the tip of the iceberg of the way the practice of politicians and
bureaucrats deciding where our money should be spent is so corrupt.
Unfortunately too many people have fallen for the ruse, reinforced by such
noted jurists as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who announced that
?Taxation is the price we pay for civilization.?

Holmes is wrong?taxation is the very corruption of civilization
because it involves what civilized life should exclude, the coercion of
some people by others. Civilization is about peaceful relations among
human beings, including between citizens and government officials. The
goal of all civilized people ought to be to rid us of the menace of
taxation and substitute a system of paying fees, voluntarily.

Columnon Freedom and Ethics--Again

Freedom and Ethics?Again

Tibor R. Machan

This is a point that just cannot be stressed too often: Human beings both
need to be free to choose and also ought to do the right thing. But to do
the right thing is exactly why they need to be free to choose. If they are
slaves or oppressed, they cannot choose to do the right thing. They lack
sovereignty, self-rule, self-direction.

In many parts of the globe this is not at all clearly understood,
including even in the good old U.S.A. That?s why so many people ask for
laws to force us not to smoke dope, not to engage in unwise trade, not to
deal with people unfairly or to be decent and generous to one another.
They hope to force us to do the right thing but that is exactly what
cannot be done?the right thing must be done as a matter of free choice,
otherwise it?s not something we actually do at all.

There are places around the globe where governments systematically coerce
people to do what some people think is the right thing. As recent reports
tell it, in Afghanistan a man, 41 year old Abdul Rahman, who converted
from Islam to Christianity, is being tried and if convicted, he may be
executed. What a barbaric system that is!

Suppose it is really wrong for a Muslim to convert to another faith. OK,
if so, convince him of this, show him the right way, argue him into doing
the right thing. But to coerce the person achieves nothing at all?even if
others now desist, it will only be out of fear, not honest conviction. And
he will go to his death knowing his rulers are a bunch of fascists. So it
will mean nothing. There will also remain phony Muslims who would rather
be Christians but cannot admit it. What good does that do, even if Islam
is the right faith?

It is exactly the mark of a just and civilized society that such matters
are not regimented, commandeered but left to people?s free decisions. And
even in the U.S.A. it is utterly wrong to attempt by rules and regulations
to make people do what?s right. It shows that those who aim for this
haven?t a clue what it is to deal properly with their fellow human beings.
Only to protect people?s liberty is force ever justified.

This is also what is so clear about what Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton
promised recently, namely, that she will force people to give up their
resources so she can use them to promote the common good. It really isn?t
different from the Afghan law, only somewhat less Draconian. Essentially
it treats people as the pawns of others instead of acknowledging their
right to their lives and liberties.

Yes, people ought to consider all kinds of consequences of their conduct
and act responsibly. And this can also involve their doing things for the
common good?like helping promote the arts, sciences, and a host of other
things that many can benefit from. But these deeds must be their own, not
imposed on them as is the pseudo-loyal behavior of that poor Afghan to
Islam.

The greatest declaration of the American Founders was that individuals
have unalienable rights to their lives, liberties and ways to pursue
happiness. That is what was so revolutionary about the system they
envisioned, even if they didn?t quite get it fully right when they crafted
the U. S. Constitution (by tolerating slavery). It is this idea that makes
America special and deservedly so and it is this idea that also provokes
so many rulers and their apologists around the globe to hate America.
Sure, the U. S. government does nasty things, some of it nearly as awful
as the worst in human history. But the U. S. system is the only one that?s
on record acknowledging that everyone is equally free to live his or her
own life, without having to yield to the commands of others even when
those commands may be wise and prudent.

As Abraham Lincoln put it, ?No man is good enough to govern another man,
without that other's consent.? Why this is not reiterated over and over
again by America?s intellectuals is a mystery to me?it is, after all, the
most important truth about human community life that has ever been
established and taught anywhere.

Column on Business Ethics

Business Ethics Distortions

Tibor R. Machan

Ethics is an ancient discipline, mostly tackled by philosophers. It
addresses the issue of how human beings should choose to live, what
standards should guide them in deciding what conduct is right, what is
wrong. And it concentrates mainly on broad principles or virtues?honesty,
generosity, temperance, courage, moderation, prudence, and so forth.
Philosophers tend to argue about the exactly ranking of these principles
or virtues, as well as about whether ethics is possible at all.

There has always been some interest on the part of certain philosophers
in the application of ethics to specific areas of human life?parenting,
farming, medicine, business, engineering, and so forth. For some years,
however, the study of business affairs was completely taken over by
economics, which is deemed a social science. Thus ethics had been set
aside where business was being investigated?it was assumed, largely, that
what happens in commerce and business goes on as a kind of natural
process, driven by the innate human impulse to prosper?in other words, the
profit motive.

In time, however, it became evident that business, like other special
areas of human concern like medicine or law, also needed to be studied
with an eye to its special ethical dimensions. That gave rise to the
currently widespread and even fashionable academic field of business
ethics.

Apart from cynics, who say ?business ethics? is an oxymoron, those who
study the field tend to bring to it the most prominent ethical theories
within the philosophical community. Those mainly include
utilitarianism?strive to promote the general welfare?and altruism?serve
your fellow human beings first and foremost. Yet, oddly, this is not what
those who study the special ethical dimensions of, say, art or science or
even medicine focus on.

In these other professions it is widely understood that the ethical
guidelines arise from the purpose that?s to be served by the profession.
So that education, for example, should generally be guided by the goal it
serves?imparting knowledge and understanding to students. That purpose, of
course, must be pursued without doing violence to ordinary ethical
principles or virtues. So educators may not ignore honesty and generosity
and prudence as they do their work. But their basic purpose is to teach.

For the profession of business, however, this idea has been undermined.
Instead of acknowledging that those in the profession ought to strive to
produce wealth?heed the bottom line, for which they are hired by the
owners of firms, investors, shareholders, and so forth?many teachers of
business ethics have embraced the doctrine of Corporate Social
Responsibility. This basically holds that the primary goal of those in
business must be to advance the social or common good, never mind their
professional obligations to those who have hired them, their clients.

Now business is unabashedly committed to promoting prosperity, to seeking
a profit, and this goal has irked a great many people, specially many
philosophers. Too many of them have embraced, instead, the ethical view
that our actions should serve humanity or other people, not our own well
being or success in life. So unlike what seem more like service
professions?thus appear mainly be helpful?business is more directly aimed
to advancing the benefits of the owners.

Of course, in medicine this holds as well?doctors and health
professionals are hired to serve the well being of their patients or
clients, not of society or someone down the street. So there?s nothing off
about an ethical perspective in which the emphasis is on benefiting
clients. But with health this seems less objectionable than with wealth,
for a variety of reasons. The pursuit of prosperity has always been
problematic among philosophers and theologians, starting with Socrates and
Christ all the way to today?s teachers in the field.

Nonetheless, the idea that business must be aimed to benefit society is
highly dubious. It comes from the historical accident that it was the
monarch who initially set up business corporations. But that?s because it
used to be the monarch who set up everything?religion, science, the arts,
you name it.

Since monarchies have been discredited as fraudulent?no one is really
appointed by God to run other people?s lives, to own and care for the
realm?businesses, too, are primarily private enterprises, not state
projects. And this is where the myth of CSR breaks down. Corporate
managers have as their goal to serve their owners, not society, humanity,
the nation, or anything of that sort. This doesn?t mean those in business
have no other responsibilities than to enrich the folks who hired them.
But while on the job, that?s mainly what they ought to be doing.
-------------------------

Machan is RC Hoiles Professor of business ethics & free enterprise at the
Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University, and a research
fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He also advises
Freedom Communications, Inc., on public policy issues.

Column on Demeaning Libertarianism

Demeaning Libertarianism in Academe

Tibor R. Machan

In a new reader in business ethics that?s just been sent to me by the
publisher, Honest Work (Oxford University Press, 2007!)?so I might consider
using it in my business ethics courses?the editors include a final ?case?
about ?Roberto, a pure libertarian in moral and political philosophy,? who
decides to enter the cocaine trade as ?a pure form of the free market in
which supply and demand control transactions. This fact about the business
appeals to Roberto, as it seems perfectly suited to his libertarian views.?

Now to start with, libertarianism is not a moral but only a political
philosophy or theory. That is to say, it proposes an answer to the
question ?How ought human communities to be organized, what laws should
govern them,? not to the question, ?How ought one to live his life, what
are standards of right and wrong conduct.?

Once this is appreciated, the attempt at besmirching
libertarianism in
this final, concluding piece of this new text book becomes evident: the
authors of this imaginary case, supposedly based on ?accounts in The Wall
Street Journal and The Economist? (without a clue as to where those
accounts could be located)?Professors Tom Beauchamp, Jeff Greene, and
Sasha Lyuste?conflate the moral (or ethical) issue of whether trading
cocaine (and, by implications, any other hazardous items) is ethical with
whether there ought to be government regulations and bans controlling such
trade.

Let?s go back for a moment to those Danish cartoons to see the
difference. It is one thing to defend the right of the editors of the
papers that published them; it is another thing to defend the journalistic
ethics of publishing those cartoons or, indeed, anything else offensive
and insulting in various publications, from magazines, newspapers, books,
and the media in general. Obviously, even if one is wrong to publish
something, one can have the right to do so?many, for example, defend the
basic right of Larry Flynt to publish Hustler?s magazine, a filthy glossy
rag that?s a frontal insult upon women?s bodies, without defending the
morality of his doing so. In the case of freedom of speech and religion,
there is no confusion like this other than by some fundamentalists around
the globe. One can have the right to do what is wrong.

Roberto?s entering the cocaine trade may very well be wrong.
Libertarianism as such, as a political theory, does not address that
issue, just as it does not address whether Roman Catholicism or Judaism or
Islam is a faith to embrace, but it does address whether the rights of
adult men and women to enter that trade ought to be respected and
protected. Since, of course, there is plenty of agreement on other fronts
about the merits of the basic rights to life and liberty, attacking them
would be bad strategy. Instead it is smarter to make it appear that
libertarianism not only defends these rights but also endorses the ethics
of entering cocaine trade, as if it not only defended the right to freedom
of speech but also whatever those who exercise this right actually say.

The business ethics industry is, of course, full of such smear efforts.
If you defend free markets, oppose government regulations, or champion
global free trade, then you need to be shown as an promoter of immorality.
Never mind that this is a complete non-sequitur. It is very sad that
business
ethics students across the country will have such a smear effort peddled
to them by well credentialed professors in books published by the most
prestigious publisher in the world.

In my own history of teaching business ethics, I have encountered such
efforts everywhere?I have called it business bashing, because it mainly
involves besmirching, belittling the profession of business and commerce
itself, presenting these as amoral?morally indifferent, callous?endeavors
that then need to be tamed by governments, by those paragons of virtue
across the globe, politicians and bureaucrats.

Go figure.
-----------------
Machan is RC Hoiles Professor of business ethics & free enterprise at the
Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University, and a research
fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Column on Besmirching Tierney

TNR: It Ain?t Cool to be Tierney

Tibor R. Machan

Noam Scheiber of The New Republic made a desperate effort in the
magazine's March 20, 2006, issue to deliver a fatal blow against one of
the very few visible libertarian columnists in the country, The New York
Times' John Tierney. As with most such folks, they have their own more or
less characteristic style of writing, and Tierney is a relatively low-key,
mild-mannered chap who has over the last several months, ever since he has
stepped in to try to fill the shoes of William Safier, produced a stream
of difficult to answer critiques of the modern American welfare state. And
he has done this from a principled, unbending libertarian political
economic position, not in some haphazard, catch as catch can fashion.

For this Tierney, of course, needs to pay, and Scheiber tried to deliver
the payment in a mean-minded little screed that's titled "The Times'
boring libertarianism. Second Tierney." It is the sort of condescending,
snooty and supercilious missive the aim of which appears not to show
Tierney's position mistaken, his criticisms wrongheaded, or even his
writing flawed. No, the aim seems to be to achieve something that is more
potent?to marginalized Tierney and his libertarian outlook.

Perhaps the only complaint Scheiber issues that has even the smattering
of plausibility about it is Tierney's constancy, the fact that the columns
all emanate from a principled, integrated general political economic
viewpoint. This charge has some sting in our time only because it is oh so
fashionable to be pragmatic, uncommitted, flexible?let's call it what it
is, wobbly?these days. That such a haphazard way to offer criticisms of
contemporary institutions and politics, in particular, is cool has to do
with some very important developments in recent intellectual history,
among them the onslaught of the earlier pragmatic philosophy of Charles
Peirce, William James, and John Dewey and more recently the radical
pragmatism of Richard Rorty and the post-modernism of the
deconstructionists. All of these have helped to produce an age of unreason
and disintegration in the discussion of important issues of our time. All
have discouraged respect for coherent, integrated and principled thinking.

So, if one can convince readers of The New Republic and of The New York
Times that someone about to break out of obscurity suffers from lack of
coolness this way, well one has done the demolition job without having to
do much work on the substance of what he or she has written. Dismissing
someone as an ideologue will do nearly the same damage, since that, too,
isn't cool, unless the ideology is that of the editors of The New
Republic, as well as The New York Times, namely, a relentless, blindly
faithful embrace of the potency of the coercive welfare state.

Scheiber, accordingly, doesn't even have to contend with the plain fact
that two other regular columnists at The Times are really, really
boring?Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert. Both of these blokes produce columns
galore venting their hatred for George W. Bush and anything the man
touches. They do hardly anything more in their columns than call for more
government intervention in our society, never mind the massive accumulated
evidence that such intervention has been the main culprit in producing the
problems in the country and abroad. They never fail to repeat that the
Bush tax cuts serve the rich. It is such a boring mantra that every time I
begin reading one of their columns I find myself saying, "Blah, blah,
blah." There is simply nothing new there.

But, no, it is Tierney's refreshing skepticism about statist policies
that Noam Scheiber targets for belittlement. And this of course is not
difficult to appreciate?Tierney's sober, sometimes bemused commentaries
are nothing if not the paradigm of reasonableness. And that does in fact
have the potential of gaining support from otherwise mainstream readers to
a now nearly forgotten viewpoint that used to mark the essence of
Americanism, limited government, free markets, and a foreign policy of
Washingtonian non-entanglement.

So how do we silence such a dangerous person? Never mind taking him on,
on points. No, deliver a nasty bit of smear against him?declare him not
too cool. Will it work? I hope not.

Column on Why People Aren't Deemed to be Agents

Must it Be Either Nurture or Nature?

Tibor R. Machan

In a recent column I referred to Judith Rich Harris?s book No Two Alike
(2005) to illustrate a widespread tendency among contemporary students of
human nature, especially in the discipline of psychology. I made a mistake
to describe the book as in large part a response to the criticism of the
author?s earlier book, Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way
They Do (1999). Although some response is made by her to those critics,
this new work is not primarily devoted to their criticism.

In my discussion I characterized Harris? No Two Alike as advancing a
determinist view of human action and development and this, too, is denied
by the author, although here I think she is wrong. She makes clear that
she explores whether genes or the environment are the more important
determinants and settles on the environment, based, in part, on her study
of twins whose genetic make-up is identical yet whose development and
conduct vary considerably. So she argues it must be the environment that
makes the decisive difference.

It is this point that caught my attention about Ms. Harris?s work. That?s
because over my several decades of having paid attention to the discussion
about human nature and behavior?since before I wrote my book, The
Pseudo-Science of B. F. Skinner (1974)?I have found that hardly any of the
scientists?what we might call soft scientists, such as psychologists,
sociologists, anthropologists and the like?involved in the research ever
even consider that one vital factor in how a person develops and acts is
indeed that very same person. In other words, a most widely assumed fact
about human behavior?in law, ethics, international relations, everyday
relationships, etc.?namely, that people are responsible for what they do
or fail to do, is virtually completely ignored by the scientists who set
out to provide a rigorous account of ourselves.

Why would this be so? Why the nearly systematic refusal of these
persons?who in their personal lives clearly share the widespread
assumption (and this is evident from Ms. Harris?s criticism of some of
those who criticize her other book and of me for misrepresenting her) of
personal, individual responsibility?to even explore this way of explaining
how people develop and act? Why not just leave it at, que sera sera?

I suspect that the main reason is that too many people in the soft
sciences, though not all, take it that when it comes to explaining
something, the only candidates have to be efficient causes. That is to
say, only when some events in the history of someone?s life are suggested
to have produced what needs to be explained?events such as their
upbringing, genetic history, or cultural, economic, and social
environment?are they treated as plausible. If an individual?s own choices
are suggested, these are deemed to be beyond the pale. They are deemed
spooky or mysterious, not scientifically respectable.

Some exceptions to this trend should be mentioned. The late Nobel
Laureate Roger W. Sperry, who performed the split brain experiments and
then went on to focus on psychophysics for the rest of his professional
life, had forged a radically different yet he instead every bit scientific
understanding of human behavior. His book on this, aimed at the general
reader, is Science and Moral Priority (1983). And there are several
philosopher who have also challenged the prevailing orthodoxy on this
topic?John Searle, Timothy O?Connor, and so forth.

Still, those who make the strongest claim to being systematic, thorough,
and experimental students of human behavior have tended to simply ignore
the idea that causes need not all be alike, that agents such as human
beings could well have the capacity to do things on their own initiative.
And this is disturbing, given that innumerable human practices and
institutions rest on the idea that we are responsible for what we do and
become. Ethics, law, politics, diplomacy are all replete with claims about
how some people ought to do this, not do that, should have done this and
not done that. And in only very exceptional cases are they understood in
terms of either the agents? genetic make-up or environmental influences.
(Defense attorneys, of course, try to press such explanations all the
time.)

If the Enron executives get convicted, it is highly doubtful that Ms.
Harris and her colleagues will step up and say, ?Leave them be, their
environment made them do it.? Nor will they defend politicians convicted
of corruption or world leaders accused of gross malpractice along such
lines.

But refusing to address this very serious conflict between how human life
is normally understood and how most professional, scientific people
understand it can only produce sever and widespread confusion and discord.

Column on Entertainment & Business

Entertainment & Business

Tibor R. Machan

As I was channel surfing late the other night, having just woken up from
my second nap, I went past one broadcast channel on which I saw and heard
the following sentence uttered by a young woman: ?He was a businessman so
he would do anything to turn a profit.? I caught a glimpse of the name and
it was Law & Order, Special Victim?s Unit. Then I moved on.

But I could not shake the experience so I stopped searching for something
to watch and began to reflect one what I just saw and heard. The sentence
in question was extremely revealing. It gave a rather unambiguous
characterization of how many in the entertainment industry understand
business professionals.

Imagine if someone said on a program, ?He was an artist so he would do
anything to create something aesthetically worthwhile,? or ?She was a
farmer so she would do anything to harvest her crop,? or, yet again, ?He
was a professor so he would do anything to get his students to understand
what they needed to know.? By ?anything? what is meant here, given the
context, is even a heinous crime.

It is imaginable, of course, that an artist kidnaps some model so as to
capture his or her image on canvas given that model?s refusal to cooperate
voluntarily. Or that a farmer might enslave a number of farm hands so as
to get the crop harvested, given that he or she is short of funds to pay
for their work. Or again that a professor would make use of something
illicit, like the torture of some animal or even student, in order to
teach a lesson.

Yet characters who are artists, farmers, or professors in television
shows, movies or other fictional fares are rarely if ever portrayed that
way. Rarely is it said of them that they would resort to anything to
accomplish their professional objectives. It is well understood that they
would instead adhere to ethical and legal standards. Artists are shown to
get their work done, normally, without turning to crime, as are farmers,
doctors, or teachers.

When it comes to how many in the entertainment industry conceive of
people in business, there?s a dramatic difference. Those who conduct
business ?would do anything to turn a profit.? It is taken to be their
nature to have no ethical or legal restraints, not unless they don?t see
how they could get away with it.

As a professor of business ethics this brings to mind the sadly but
frequently heard notion that the very subject I teach is an oxymoron, a
contradiction in terms. People in business simply cannot act
ethically?business itself, like cheating at cards, is unethical. This
notion is in part promulgated by those who produce entertainment fare
around the country, even the world?screenwriters, novelists, dramatists,
lyricists and so forth. And yet nothing can be further from the truth.

It is just as much of a false generalization about business that those
working in the field will do anything to turn a profit as all those other
generalizations I imagined before. Some, of course, will. But some health
care professionals will do anything to accomplish their objectives, as we
have been made aware recently from news reports about how at various
hospitals they have been selling body parts without the authority to do so
or engaging in various other forms of malpractice. (Just check out the
news about what has been going on recently at the hospitals of UCLA and
UCI, for example.) And there are professors who will utilize corrupt
means by which to convey their message to their students, as we know from
all the reports about biased instructions, the exploitation of research
assistants, and so on and so forth.

In every profession there is the potential and there are some actual
instances of unethical and illegal conduct, and this is, of course, true
of business. But what seems undeniable is that those screenwriters,
dramatists, novelist, and lyricist who churn out all the entertainment
products that we see and read have it in mainly against people in
business. For too many of these folks those in business simply ?would do
anything to turn a profit.? Why? Not because there is evidence of
disproportionate instances of unethical and illegal conduct by people in
the profession. (If anything, considering the ubiquity of commerce in our
society, there is not all that much immorality and illegality, not when
one compares it to how politicians are doing.)

There is, rather, a prejudice about business, that?s what explains it.
There is a predisposition on the part of too many people among those
giving us movies, television programs, pulp fiction, and drama to
denigrate business. Even though these same folks are ever so eager to get
their agents to make good deals for them, they regard deal making
detestable, dirty.

The ultimate reason for this, I submit, is that when it comes to
business, no one can deny that most people act in a self-interested
fashion?they want to come out of a deal better off than they have gone in;
they want to prosper from deals, not lose. They are not doing charity. And
that means they cannot pretend to be altruistic as they carry on, not like
farmers, artists or educators who can all make it seem they aren?t in it
to pursue some personal ambition but rather to serve some supposedly
higher good or the public interest.

Which if, of course, bunk.

Column on Hilary's Socialism

Hilary Clinton?s Open Socialism

Tibor R. Machan

Although, as it has been observed here and there, ?few media have
trumpeted that Sen. [Hilary Rodham] Clinton exposed her socialist agenda
during a speech Monday [March 6th, 2006] in San Francisco (which the
Associated Press dubbed the "leftiest big city on the Left Coast"),? it is
worth reflecting on this reactionary viewpoint that an American Senator
can so glibly embrace in our time.

Senator Clinton showed her hand way back when, under the tutelage of her
Marxist teacher, TIKKUN editor Rabbi Michael Lerner, she wrote her famous
book, It Takes A Village (1996). In that book she made no bones about the
fact that, according to her, decisions about people?s lives, especially
those of their children, must be made collectively. And that is the
central thesis of socialism?we are all one tribe, not individual human
beings with a few similar but innumerable other distinct, unique lives,
goals, needs, and wants. No, what we are is a huge tribe, a collective,
exactly as Karl Marx envisioned we would someday be, once we have reached
the emancipated stage of humanity, communism.

The reason socialism is called that is that it is supposed to be a
scientific view of human society. And society is the focus because the
entity that has the highest historical reality is not you, I, and all the
rest of us individually but the mass of us together, lumped into one large
glob. It is the well-being of this huge glob that is to be engineered by
politicians and bureaucrats and if some of the parts of the glob, such as
you, I, or some others need to be sacrificed to the welfare of the whole,
then that?s what must be done. And who is to do it? Well, people like Karl
Marx and his followers, the scientists of society. As Marx said,
?Theoretical communists [are] the only ones who have time to devote to the
study of history....? and so they alone understand what?s what, not ever
you or I or the rest of us amateurs.

Senator Clinton shares this Marxists view. As she is reported to have put
it, quite explicitly, "Many of you are well enough off that ... the [Bush]
tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on
track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you." She
announced this at a fund-raiser for Senator Barbara Boxer. She reportedly
added, "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common
good." And why not, if she, as taught by Professor Lerner and his teacher,
Karl Marx, are indeed the theoreticians who have time to study history and
know about humanity, unlike you and me who probably know only a thing or
two about ourselves, our family, friends and neighbors. Accordingly, of
course, none has the right, via tax cuts for examples, to stop Senator
Clinton and her political and bureaucratic cohorts when they embark upon
their historical mission of ?taking away from [us] on behalf of the common
good.?

Oddly, Karl Marx actually disputed some of Senator Clinton?s own
interpretation of the socialist idea when he added to his above
observation, that ?[socialists] are distinguished precisely because they
alone have discovered that throughout history the ?general interest? is
created by individuals who are defined as ?private persons.? They know
that this contradiction is only a seeming one because one side of it, the
so-called ?general,? is constantly being produced by the other side,
private interest....? This is a view he seems to have shared with Adam
Smith, namely, that the private interest, when pursued, actually produces
the general interest or common good. What he didn?t say but should have,
as Adam Smith did, is that because the common good is ultimately created
by the actions of private persons, the meddlesome interference of the
likes of Senator Clinton, who want to step in a remove our material means
of taking our private actions, isn?t required at all. As Smith realized,
the wisdom needed to produce the common good is held by all of us
individually, not, as Senator Clinton and her teachers believed, by some
theoretical communists.

Marx or no Marx, Senator Clinton is hell bent on taking America back to
the pre-revolutionary era when individuals persons were not deemed
sovereign but subject to the will of the crown who supposedly had the
divine authority to order us all about in our lives for the common good.
Maybe Senator Clinton ought to get a better understanding of the nature of
the American revolution, which created the country that she serves as a
Senator and is probably going to attempt to lead as president. That is
clearly the opposite of what she thinks it is. What the Founders
understood is that we are individuals, first and foremost, and need to
form our groups, societies, by our will and action as such, not under the
dominant, dictatorial rule of men and women who imagine themselves as so
wise as to run roughshod over us and thereby serve what they take to be
the common good.

She might also call to mind and ponder Abraham Lincoln?s insight that ?No
man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent.?

Column on Bush on Free Expression

Bush Doesn?t Quite Get It

Tibor R. Machan

When that Colorado teacher compared President George W. Bush to Adolph
Hitler in one of his classes?saying later that this was only one side of a
controversy he had been covering and he would get to the other side
soon?the president himself was asked about it when he addressed some
newspaper publishers the next day in Washington. And he nearly got it
right, but not quite. Bush said ?I think people ought to be allowed to
criticism me all they want, and they do? and added, ?There are some
certain basic freedoms that we?ve got to protect, the freedom of people to
express themselves.?

The president is of course basically right, except for some ill chosen
terms?it isn?t a matter of what we ?ought to be allowed? to do but what we
have a right to do. (When you talk of allowing people to do this or that,
it presupposes that someone has the authority to issue permissions that
could also be withheld, which isn?t so in the case of rights.) What is not
evident in what Bush said is whether he understands the relationship
between the right of free speech or expression and the nature of public
schools. The importance of this is illustrated well by the fact that
Republicans in Colorado went to work on a bill, after this incident, that
would make it possible to fire teachers who do not present both sides of a
controversy.

In other words, when it comes to government administered realms of our
society, the right of freedom of expression runs smack into conflict with
the democratic principle that the voters, through their elected and
appointed officials, are authorized to manage such realms. Just as the
Federal Communications Commission has the legal authority to banish Howard
Stern from broadcast radio and may dictate to TV and radio stations
various policies they must follow (because they operate on the public
airwaves), so administrators of public schools, from elementary to
university levels, have the authority to set policy. Which means, that
unless teachers have a contract with these administrators that spells out
a contractual (but not basic) right to say what they choose in the course
of teaching a course, they have to abide by school policy. And because
school policy is subject to the political process, it may or may not grant
the privilege to teachers to say what the choose to say in their class
rooms.

This is especially so in primary and secondary public schools where there
isn?t a strong tradition of academic freedom?the usually observed college
and university policy of not interfering with how professors teach their
courses, especially once they have tenure. Even this is not without some
exceptions. I cannot conduct my business ethics classes by just telling
jokes or discussing global warming or abortion. I must keep to the
announced topic.

In private schools, of course, all kinds of different arrangements and
agreements can be hatched as far as what?s in and what?s out in various
courses being taught. But that?s not so in public schools, mainly because
the public realm is governed by various administrative rules, some of them
going all the way up to the U.S. Constitution. Yes, this would make it
appear that the First Amendment reins supreme at public schools but
clearly that?s not so?the democratic processes can trump it, just as it
can trump whether some Nazis or KKK group can use a public park to
advocate their vile creed.

Which all goes to reinforce the point that a prerequisite of what
president Bush stated, namely, ?There are some certain basic freedoms that
we?ve got to protect, the freedom of people to express themselves,? is the
protection of private property rights. Only if those rights are firmly
protected and maintained will free expression also gain firm protection.
For if a speaker?teacher, pundit, preacher, or the like?is expressing
himself or herself on public (i.e., government) property, the basic
freedoms the president was talking about will often have to yield to the
will of the (voting) people!

Column on Hype versus Truth

Hype Versus Truth

Tibor R. Machan

Let?s admit it, most of us indulge in hype. If you?ve ever said, walking
in from a cold outdoors, ?My hands are freezing,? you?ve done hype. Hype
is just exaggeration?hyperbole. It has its point, namely, to call
attention to something you regard important, like your cold hands and to
plea for sympathy, perhaps.

Advertising is often hyperbolic, but then ads aren?t about truth at all
but about promotion. Sure, when they include lies, that?s a flaw but they
include a whole lot more than truth. Gimmickry, for example, which is
quite OK. Any reasonable person would expect that when people try to
promote their wares, services, they are going to hype them up a bit. So
one is on guard, takes a careful look before jumping into a purchase.

Trouble is that much hype is paraded as truth or as information, rather
than as unabashed exaggeration. When politicians lay out their plans,
their promises, they aren?t supposed to but do in fact produce hype. Their
constituents should not depend on these promises so as to evaluate them,
for which one needs to get accurate information, not a bunch of baloney.
But in fact voters get hardly anything but hype and vague hype at that,
lest the candidate may have to answer for breach of promise. (This ignores
the issue of whether these blokes should really be in the business of
making promising to various groups, which of course they shouldn?t.)

Hype, however, appears now to be the norm in many areas. Do those who
champion the better treatment of animals really believe that these beasts
have rights? That they understand our language? That they have moral
sensibilities? I doubt it but saying such things, even writing books
arguing for them, would appear to be the exaggeration that advocates think
is necessary to accomplish their more reasonable, modest objective of
getting animals treated more humanely. If you shout out, ?The chimp is so
like us,? which isn?t true, then perhaps the fact that the chimp is a bit
like us will get noticed. If you demonstrate in front of a fur shop with
placards calling ?Murderers? those who wear fur, then perhaps the idea
that furry creatures might best be treated more kindly will get some
consideration from those who otherwise have different concerns. Just like
that bit about your hands freezing.

The 20th century English philosopher J. L. Austin, a leader of the
movement that was dubbed linguistic analysis and ordinary language
philosophy, made a good deal of how when we say things, we are not always
aiming to tell what is the case, the truth. We are often doing things like
warning, chiding, alerting, promising, threatening and so forth. His book
How to do Things With Words (Oxford, 1962) was very famous for a while for
having made those points and many others about how misguided it is to
believe that all talk is about making assertions only.

Perhaps that is how we should be looking even at the so called
documentaries that are so popular these days, ones that are really not
conveying what is true but urging upon us certain attitudes the makers
wish we shared with them. For example, Michael Moore?s several movies, not
just Fahrenheit 9/11(2004) but, also, Bowling for Columbine (2002) and the
much earlier Roger & Me (1987) fall under this description. (There was,
actually, a counter-documentary produced by some Dick Morris, titled
Fahrenhype 9/11 [2004] that was much more of a documentary than Moore?s
own product.)

Moore?s work is pure hype, with what I assume Moore could defend as a
perfectly justified purposes, namely, to scare people, to get them to hold
his own sentiments and ideas about his various topics. That, however,
isn?t what a documentary is supposed to do. All of Moore?s work?as well as
George Clooney?s recent Oscar nominated docudrama, Good Night and Good
Luck (2005)?commits the informal fallacy of pleading the case, of
presenting only such facts and ideas that support Moore?s position, kind
of what the attorneys do in court, expecting their opposite numbers to
produce the balancing facts and ideas. It?s only that Moore wasn?t in
court but pretended to be telling the whole truth, not just what favored
his side. And that is hype, not truth.

If one recognizes that these efforts aren?t about telling the truth but
about highly partisan championing of a cause, then they can be appreciated
better. Those, in turn, who are interested in the truth about the topics
of these exercises in hyperbole will know to turn elsewhere to seek for it.

Column on Free Speech and Property Rights

So, Here We Go Again!
Tibor R. Machan
The lawsuit against a Kentucky school district over a Confederate flag
prom dress, set to go to trial in August, is yet another illustration of
what trouble is caused by public or government schooling. When Jacqueline
Duty reportedly alleges that the Russell Independent Board of Education
denied her right to free speech when she was barred from her senior prom
in May 2004 because of a homemade dress bearing the confederate flag, she
shows that freedom of speech and government schooling are plainly
incompatible.
But this has been clear for years. All those lawsuits against school
boards about making students say the Pledge of Allegiance, saying a prayer
before a football game, etc, and so forth, demonstrate that a prerequisite
for being able to exercise the right to free expression is privatization
and the institution of private property rights. This is also clear from
how broadcasting over government owned airwaves cannot enjoy the
protection of freedom of expression?just consider how Howard Stern has
been bumped off their air for using foul language (and, indeed, how
several decades earlier George Carlin met with a similar fate). That?s
also why the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to tell
broadcasters that they must air public service messages so many times a
week or may not run too many ads during a program. Not very long ago this
went so far as to impose on broadcasters the Fairness Doctrine, according
to which stations had to be balanced in their treatment of controversial
topics. (This is why tobacco ads were originally taken off the air,
because the FCC coerced broadcasters into airing opposition ads to tobacco
commercials.) And believe it or not, in our time many modern liberals in
Congress, mostly Democrats, are asking for the reinstatement of this
policy, seeing nothing wrong in making broadcasters be the mouthpiece of
government.
These hassles will not go away until the scope of the public realm is
significantly reined in. The greater that realm, the smaller the sphere of
free expression and, indeed, of free action. Even such policies as the
banning of smoking in ?public? establishment, like private restaurants and
taverns, gained legal support on the basis that they connected with a
public realm such as the street onto which they opened their doors. But
this reasoning, as I have noted umpteen times before, one could also begin
to censor newspapers sold in boxes sitting on street corners!
It is clear that freedom of the press, freedom of artistic expression,
and freedom of political speech all rely on the institution of private
property rights. In public spaces all these are subject to the authority
of public officials who do what they claim is required of them by the
democratic process (or some facsimile). Just in a monarchy it is the royal
court that calls the shot, so in a democracy the politically active and
powerful voters do?often the ones with the fiercest bigotry in their
hearts and the greatest influence on government.
Yet this point is hardly every realized by the supposed champions of
freedom of speech and expression. ACLU types hardly every defend the
institution of the right to private property, even as they claim to find
the right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution. But instead of looking to
the Fifth Amendment for the right to privacy, where it is clearly linked
to the right to private property, they seek in in the Ninth Amendment,
where by this time in our constitutional history such a right is very
difficult to locate. (That?s because the Ninth has been rendered nearly
void through systematic neglect by U.S. courts.)
What this suggests to me is that despite how often modern liberals,
Leftists, proclaim their loyalty to freedom of expression, based on the
First Amendment, they will not do what is most vital to secure this
freedom, namely, affirm and defend the right to private property. That?s
because these folks are far more hostile to capitalism, a clear
consequence of this right, than they are friendly to free speech, also a
clear consequence of it. They are caught on the horns of a dilemma and
their stronger sentiments, namely, against economic liberty, renders them
intellectually paralyzed for purposes of standing up effectively for
freedom of speech.

Column on Being a Globalist

Am I a Globalist?

Tibor R. Machan

Over the years?ever since I was persuaded by the classical liberals among
political economists?I have championed certain (few) universal principles
of social organization, including some that identify the free marketplace.
In time, after the Cold War wound down, it became more acceptable than
before to defend these principles?privatization, globalization, and the
spread of infrastructures that stress the right to private property and
the value of freely formed contracts.

Those who have been hostile to freedom have regrouped and instead of
advocating an alternative political economy, such as socialism, communism,
fascism, the welfare state (?the third way?), have penned reams of pages
and taken part in innumerable protest marches (how do they get the time
for this has always puzzled me) in opposition to what I have found only a
most natural way of life, without any restraint on trade or any other
peaceful conduct, period. And these critics have in fact come not only
from the Left, where opposition to capitalism anywhere and everywhere had
been a steady theme. They also include many from the Right, where there
used to be, at least in the U.S.A., some sympathy for the free economy. As
understood nowadays, this merger of Left and Right regarding the global
expansion of the regime of liberty rests on certain similarities between
the two groups regarding cultural diversity.

It used to be popular among Leftists to denounce capitalism because it is
supposed to be, based on Hegelian and Marxist notions, only a temporary
phase of humanity?s development. To believe it should be the basic
standard of human political economy was deemed to be a mistake. Kind of
like thinking that adolescent psychology is actually psychology per se.
This is what amounts to the historicist criticism of capitalism. It sees
the human race in a process of development which will culminate in
communism, so those who champion capitalism are simply way off about what
system of economy ultimately best suits human beings.

Rightists, in turn, have always felt uncomfortable about principles?too
rationalistic for them, too much a result of Socratic or Enlightenment
hubris, they have argued over the years. Powerful human sentiments such as
tribalism and nationalism, ethnic and racial solidarity, and so forth are
deemed to be superior human impulses to the universalism of reason and
freedom. People also need to be kept in check, otherwise their baser
inclinations will win out, so a mighty government needs to have a strong
hand in our lives. Many on the Right regard these ideas unjustly played
down by supporters of universal liberty.

So, even though the global statism of communism is no longer a widespread
theme among critics of capitalism, there are plenty who still regard the
classical liberal, libertarian polity misguided. The fact that it accords
best with human nature, as most reasonably conceived in the tradition of
such thinkers as Aristotle, Locke, von Mises, and Rand, leaves these
critics unimpressed. So they have come forth with the label ?globalist?
with which to tar and feather those who support freedom for all human
beings in all of their communities.

Well, then I must confess to being a proud globalist myself. I consider
it well established that human beings, anytime and anywhere, live better
if their right to liberty, including free trade and property, is widely
respected and well protected. The essential creative nature of human
beings, whereby they must choose to exercise the proper functions of their
minds and act accordingly, requires for everyone a condition of individual
sovereignty.

Communities are only as good as long as they rest on this idea, stated so
succinctly in the Declaration of Independence, by those revolutionary
globalists, the American Founders. We all, by our very nature, have the
rights to life, liberty and pursuit of our happiness and those who would
violate them are bent on criminal conduct, period. And this isn?t some
glitch in human history on the way to some ?new man? envisioned by
communists, nor some imperialist concept that destroys or erases
particular cultures. Within the framework of a free polity there is ample
room for diverse forms of human living. But all of that must happen
without breaching the principles of liberty.

If that?s being a globalist, bring it on, I say.

Column on Movies w/sympathy for Terrorists

Partisan ?Understanding?

Tibor R. Machan

During the last few weeks some movies have come out that are, in effect,
a plea for the case of terrorists. Steven Spielberg?s Munich is one of
them. (A little known fact is that there was a previous TV movie, 'Sword
of Gideon? [1986]?based on the same book, Vengeance?that Spielberg
borrowed from freely.) In Munich the murders of the 11 Israeli Olympians
are treated as, well, sort of understandable, given the feelings and
anxieties of the Palestinians who committed the terrorist act. Those, in
turn, who have vowed to avenge the murders are depicted as morally not so
different from the terrorists. This way, one may assume, we are provided
with a balanced and nuanced view of both sides in an ongoing, age-old
deadly conflict.

One may wonder just how this would have played back after World War II.
Had anyone done this with the Nazis, I doubt all this talk about gaining a
better understanding of them would have found too many mainstream
champions. But we do not need to go all the way back to the Nazis and how
they were depicted on film. What about, say, Enron executives in the
movie, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)? Or the villain of the
movie Wall Street (1987)? Or how about the tobacco company executives who
have been presented as virtual murderers in several Hollywood vehicles,
both on the big and small screens (for example, in Insider [1999].)? What
about as Erin Brockovich (2000), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) and, even
earlier, in The China Syndrome (1979)?

If the intent of those who have given us the recent sympathetic
presentations of terrorists were really to provide a deeper insight into
the lives and minds of those taking part in the conflict, one would expect
that this same motivation would have produced for us numerous complex
dramas about the inner lives of the constantly denigrated business
executives on television, in novels, and in the movies. But none of the
movies above, or their cousins in other fictional vehicles, ones in which
business and capitalism are depicted in the worst possible light, make any
effort to get at the possible nuances of the heavies who are targeted.

So you will forgive me for not finding the current explanation for
treating terrorists with kid gloves very convincing. Instead, I suspect
that what is going on is precisely a tad too much sympathy with
terrorists. Why? Among other reasons that come to mind I would place on
top the fact that terrorists are all thoroughly anti-American.

Let us not forget that most of the writers and producers in Hollywood?the
ones who make a quintessential American institution, namely, business,
look so terrible in their various vehicles?are politically sympathetic
with the Left. They have been that for a long time. (Even today, after the
true nature of communists has been clearly demonstrated?based on, among
other things, KGB and similar archives?there is still far more hostility
shown from much of Hollywood against Joe McCarthy than against Joe
Stalin?for instance, in George Clooney?s movie, Good Night and Good Luck
[2005].)

No, there is no sudden discovery of subtlety and complexity within the
minds of evil people by Hollywood writers and producers. Rather what we
have here is apologetics, plain and simple. The folks who put out this
stuff just cannot work up a genuine disgust of terrorists because, well,
most of the terrorists share their anti-American point of view. That seems
to suffice for them to place most terrorism?which, one must keep in mind,
consists primarily of killing people who are innocent, among them
civilians and many children, and whose only ?crime? is to be Americans or
Westerners, meaning, they belong to the tribe the terrorists want to wipe
out?into a sympathetic light.

The movies in question are, of course, made up, fictional, and fiction at
one time used to deal with essentials, not with all the nuances of human
personality. Good guys versus bad guys didn?t play so widely and well
because we all believed that in actual life those who did immoral things
had no complexity about them. But such complexity didn?t matter much for
the sake of the kind of drama shown in the movies or on TV. What mattered
is to show the conflict and to indicate how and why the good guys would
win.

This sudden decision that the fictional depiction of terrorists must
acknowledge their complexities, doubts, inner battles?as if that was
totally absent among Nazis or racists or other villains often depicted in
such fares?doesn?t appear to me to be concerned with improving the art of
film. Maybe some writers and producers are genuinely interested in digging
deeper into the souls of villains. But too many of them seem to be hell
bent on convincing us that the terrorists are not really villains at all
but soldiers fighting the right enemy, America.

Column on Freedom and journalism

Liberty and journalism

TIBOR R. MACHAN

What journalists should and should not do varies, depending on where
they work, what topics with which they deal, how often they publish, etc.,
and so forth. But there are objective standards of journalism ? what
students are supposed to learn in journalistic ethics courses. It is not
at all subjective or relative how they should pursue their craft.
Journalists ought to be thorough within the space and time restrictions
they face, objective, relevant and so forth.
Most know this implicitly. But at times it is good to reflect on it
explicitly. My point here isn?t to spell out the details, just to make
note of the fact that writing for and editing newspapers, either in the
news or editorial departments, isn?t a matter of ?anything goes.?
When it comes, however, to what rights journalists have, that?s a
different issue. It is a political or public policy question, and the
answer is, ?To do whatever they believe they ought to do, even if they are
wrong.? In other words, even if journalists produce something awful,
disgusting, insulting, offensive, they have the right to do so. Which
means no one may stop them form doing as they choose ? any opposition must
be confined to peaceful means. That is the crux of the freedom of the
press. It applies, of course, also to publishing books, making movies,
drawing cartoons and so forth.
Take the recent example of the Danish cartoonists and their editors, or
the writings of Holocaust denier David Irving. Arguably, both produced
vile stuff, though that again isn?t something I will either defend or
oppose here. But no one is authorized, morally, and no one ought to be
empowered legally, to ban and restrict their drawing or writing what they
choose to draw or write. They are free agents, and whether they do what is
right or wrong, if they aren?t violating the rights of others ? and
drawing or writing something just cannot do this ? they must have the
freedom to proceed.
Some apparent exceptions do apply. Thus writing threats that promise to
violate another?s rights can constitute conspiracy to commit a crime, and
that may be resisted, thwarted, in law. That?s akin to someone who
seriously threatens another with violence, which then justifies a
defensive response ? one need not wait until the promise to do violence
has actually been carried out (even if some legal dramas make it appear
so). Incitement to violence is similar. For a leader of a church or some
other organization to order the believers or members to go out to hurt
someone fits this bill and the law in a free country may step in.
Of course, matters can get complicated, and I am here only dealing with
the basic principles, with just some hints as to where the gray areas lie.
(In all human affairs there are gray areas ? just think of who qualifies
as an adolescent, who as an adult, who as a senior citizen.)
Concerning the recent upheaval about the cartoons published in some
Danish newspapers for Danish readers, ones then taken to some Arab
countries to incite the violence against the Danes, the first thing to
note is that it is not only the Arabs involved who have gone overboard,
past the limits of a civilized response, in such cases. Recently David
Irving was convicted in Austria of claiming that the Holocaust didn?t
happen. He was forced by law to retract his claim. This, though not fully
comparable to the barbarism of burning down a Danish embassy and causing
the death of several innocent people, still amounts to unjustified conduct
in response to what Irving did. He wrote, something no one has to read,
and even those who read it need not have believed what they read. Just as
with the Danish papers? cartoons, which no one needed to sympathize with
or approve of, so it is with Mr. Irving. Yet the man was convicted in a
court. Sure, it wasn?t so drastic but in the final analysis he was
convicted with the threat of violence should he have resisted. And no
justification exists for this, none at all.
When during the Civil War President Lincoln jailed some newspaper
editors for their opposition to his policies, he too acted without
justification, even if the courts sanctioned what he did. When in some
American courts people who are convicted of a violent crime are sentenced
more severely than usual because they hate their victims, because they
have racists or bigoted attitudes toward them, that too is unjustified,
however much their hatred is contemptible.
So it is important that in America and elsewhere in the non-Arab world
people do not get all that righteous about how they would not act as the
angry mobs in the Arab countries did. Many people who live in the West
approve of measures that are not all that different from the conduct of
the Arab mobs. We are a long way from living up fully to the principles of
the First Amendment to the Constitution even in the country where that
document was ratified, let alone elsewhere in the non-Arab world.

Column on Chimps Not All that Much Like Us

Not Much Like Us, Actually

Tibor R. Machan

Titles of books, movies, poems, and such tell but little of what?s to
come?they are, like advertisements, attention getters. So Jane Goodall?s
title for her movie, Chimps: So Like Us, might not need to be taken
seriously. Since, however, in her narration of this very appealing
depiction of her interaction with chimpanzees, she keeps saying, very
seriously, earnestly, how chimps are ?so like us,? the claim may be taken
as more than just a come-on.

There is, of course, the DNA evidence that human beings and chimps share
about 98% of their DNA, and this has been known for quite some time. So in
terms of the biological facts of the case there is not much new in this
movie. Nor would those of us who have stood transfixed at the chimp and
other great ape sections of zoos and witnessed the amazing array of
behavior these animals exhibit, admittedly under training, in movies and
other entertainment venues be surprised with what the movie shows us.
Chimps are quite clearly, contrary to all those reactionary critics of
Darwinian evolutionary theory and natural selection, closely enough
related to the human species on several fronts. Arguably their social
behavior also calls to mind some of what human beings do, as parents,
mates, even managers of various organizations.

It is fortunate that this documentary movie is so much fun to watch apart
from Jane Goodall?s endless whining and intoning about how the chimp is
virtually a human being. I have seen it with the audio on and with it off
and it is far more enjoyable without Goodall?s narrative, at least for me.
When I hear what she has to say, all that comes to mind for me is that
this is a lengthy example of the informal fallacy of reasoning called
pleading one?s case.

In this fallacy, which obviously calls to mind what attorney?s do in
court in behalf of their clients, one who advances a position is entirely
focused on the pieces of evidence that back it up and leaves anything that
might call the position into question out of the presentation. Which is at
it should be in the adversarial forum of the law courts or even formal
debates?the other side will take care of the skeptical points. But
scholarship, and whatever approximates it?such as documentaries that aim
to tell it to the general public as it is, of which Chimps: So Like Us is
a clear case in point?must avoid the fallacy of pleading one?s case.
(Michael Moore should have thought of that in all his failed attempts to
produce responsible work.) One needs not only to look at evidence that
helps the position one thinks may be true but also evidence that suggests
otherwise. Only if this method is deployed, can one have reasonable
confidence in the conclusions reached.

Alas, Jane Goodall, although offered up as a well credentialed scientist,
sounds, instead, more like a sentimental child throughout Chimps: So Like
Us. Even in watching the film, how could it escape anyone that it is human
beings making movies of chimps and not the other way around? It is human
beings who do research on animals, not vice-versa. It is they who write
lengthy books reporting on this research, not their subjects. And that?s
just for starters.

Even more importantly?aside from all the evidence about how much more
creative, productive, inventive, imaginative, intelligent and the like
human beings are than chimps that are supposedly so much like us?there is
the fact that while Jane Goodall and many of her supporters freely wag
their fingers at those who do not accept their views on chimps, no finger
wagging at all occurs when it comes to anything that chimps or other
animals do. Chimps & Co., in other words, are not moral agents, none of
them, whereas normal adult human beings are. And that is why those like
Dr. Goodall are confident about relentlessly imploring us all to be better
than we are when it comes to how we treat chimps and the rest of the wilds.

I am personally quite taken with the animal world. I, and my children
have always had, and have taken good care of, both domesticated and some
wild beasts. None of us, however, has made the error of attributing to
them the qualities of consciousness and personality that give rise to
moral responsibility and, most importantly, basic rights. That would be a
very serious confusion and those who have made it have produced some
serious problems as a result, what with several animal research
laboratories having been pressured to close down recently and leaving
behind the work that could well lead to serious beneficial findings to us
in medicine and other areas of research.

Why? Why?? Why??? 为什么?为什么??为什么???

Why? Why?? Why??? 为什么?为什么??为什么???


如果盗版者应该处罚，对杜邦(强占者)应该如何处理？



您（美国知识产权所有者）能不为流氓杜邦的无耻获利行为承担损失吗？


（如果您上www.google.com网站搜索，复制"美国杜邦化学公司" 八 个汉字的全名粘贴在"搜索框"中，就可在从第1网页开始的10多个网页内搜索到我已经发表过的10多封英文或/及中文公开信。）

If pirates should be punished, how about Du Pont, the robber?

Could you (intellectual property proprietors in U.S.A.) avoid shouldering loss for hoodlum Du Pont's shameful behaviors for profit?

(If you log on www.google.com, copy and paste the 8-Chinese character full name of Du Pont "美国杜邦化学公司", you could see more than 10 published English or/and Chinese open letters by me on more than 10 pages from the first one.)

All intellectual property proprietors in U.S., how are you?

Your government sued Chinese government for "not doing its best to fight against piracy" to WTO on April 9, 2007. Chinese government publicly reiterated its resolution to strictly crash piracy, and compensated related companies in your country with several billions USD for their loss. As a result, enterprises involved in piracy were devastatingly struck, but related company in your country still thought Chinese government was not in its best to crash piracy. If now your government still fails to convince or force Du Pont to fulfill its obligations in Agreement 1995, world public may have a series of doubt and concern below. Since Du Pont could 100% publicly possessed by power (exclusive possession) Mr. Huang's patent technology of effective and nontoxic agricultural pesticide, why venders in other countries were accused of violation of law for just selling some piratical disks, which is far from 100% publicly possessing by power the right of production and sales of the disks worldwide? Why could Du Pont distain and trample the law, but venders have to observe all laws? Why must laws be strictly enforced by other country's government? Although other country's government has the intention to strictly enforce the laws and take relevant actions, since Du Pont's behaviors-publicly possession of Mr. Huang's patent by force, refusing to fulfill its commitments in Agreement 1995 to pay patent fee and license fee to Mr. Huang for many years, slandering China "a raffish country", and Mr. Huang "a rascal", writing letter to threaten and intimidate Mr. Huang and bringing false charge against him before Chinese police-did not deserve what they should have, with the feeling of unfairness and negative mentality caused in the public worldwide, would that take the effect of "strictly enforcing the laws" as expected? Whether it would instigate a minority of people to breach your intellectual property as revenge? Whether it will lead to a vicious circle of competitively violating the others' intellectual property? If these doubt and concerns unfortunately come true, would it be an absurd situation in which other intellectual property proprietors in your country should shoulder the loss for Du Pont's unashamed violation of agreement? Then why should trade intellectual property proprietors' legal benefits for illegal benefits of Du Pont and its accomplice? Why?Why??Why??? Is it necessary?

Implementation of a law, regulation or agreement should rely on not only compulsory measures adopted by government, but also, or more important, on conscious abidance of related parties worldwide. To achieve that goal, related law-executing departments must bear "all are equal before the law" in mind during execution process, but must not ignore open and brutal trample of laws, regulations and agreements of one certain member, who is with great power or has special interest relations with the executor. Otherwise, any agreement between governments will become blank before public without any sanction.

Disputes between Mr. Huang and Du Pont comprise of adequate fact evidence and clear legal relations (rights and obligations), namely Du Pont has been fully entitled to the rights regulated in Agreement 1995, now simply carrying out the corresponding obligations will solve all problems. What we are waiting for now is just forced fulfillment of Du Pont of obligations in Agreement 1995 by law-executing departments in your country.



Best wishes!

Universal Agent: SXF 2007-04-15


如果盗版者应该处罚，对杜邦(强占者)应该如何处理？



您（美国知识产权所有者）能不为流氓杜邦的无耻获利行为承担损失吗？


（如果您上www.google.com网站搜索，复制"美国杜邦化学公司" 八 个汉字的全名粘贴在"搜索框"中，就可在从第1网页开始的10多个网页内搜索到我已经发表过的10多封英文或/及中文公开信。）



尊敬的美国知识产权所有者，各位好！


贵国政府已在2007年4月9日以中国政府"打击盗版不力"为由向WTO提起了诉讼。中国政府严厉打击盗版是多次向全世界公开过的，并已依法向贵国有关公司赔偿了数以十亿美元计的损失，使有盗版活动的企业受到了毁灭性的打击，只是贵国有关公司还认为"打击盗版不力"而已（"打击盗版不力"，《参改消息》
2007.04.11.P8援引美联社华盛顿4月10日电）。如果现在贵国政府还不能说服或强制美国杜邦化学公司履行它在《1995年协议》中所承诺的义务的话，全世界许多公众可能会产生下述一系列疑问和忧虑。既然杜邦可以公开地100%（"独占性"）地强占黄先生的高效、无毒农业虫剂专利技术，为什么别国的小商贩卖几张盗版光盘（远远不是公开地100%地强占了那些光盘在全世界的生产、销售权）就违法呢？为什么杜邦可以蔑视践踏法律，那些小商贩就必须"有法必依"呢？别国政府就必须"执法必严"呢？即使别国政府有"执法必严"的意愿并采取了"执法必严"的行动，但是由于杜邦公开强占黄先生的专利、多年来一直拒绝按照它在《1995年协议》中的承诺向黄先生支付专利费和许可证费并且反而坚持诬蔑中国（P.R.China）是一个下贱的无赖国家、黄先生是一个下贱的无赖份子、写信对黄先生进行威胁-恫吓、到中国公安机关对黄先生进行诬告陷害，得不到应有的处理，因此在全世界公众中产生受不平等待遇的感觉和逆反心理，能取得"执法必严"的效果吗？是否甚至反而会激发极少数人报复性地侵犯贵国的知识产权呢？这样是否会造成一种相互竞赛性地侵犯对方知识产权的恶性循环呢？如果这些疑问与忧虑不幸成为现实的话，那不就成了一种杜邦无耻违约获利而贵国其他知识产权所有者为杜邦的无耻违约获利行为承担损失的荒谬局面吗？那为什么要用你们这些知识产权所有者的合法利益来换取杜邦及其合谋者的非法利益呢？为什么?为什么??为什么???有此必要吗？
一个法律、法规、协议的执行，除了依靠政府的强制措施外，还必须、甚至更重要的是全世界相关成员的自觉遵守；而要全世界相关成员自觉遵守，相关执法部门在执法时就必做到"在法律面前，人人平等"，而不能因为某一成员势力较大或执法者与这一成员有某种特殊利益关系就对它公开地、粗暴地践踏法律、法规、协议的行为不给予处理 ，由他任意公开地、粗暴地践踏法律、法规、协议，否则任何政府间的协议在公众面都很可能仅仅就是一纸空文 ，对公众没有任何约束力。

黄先生与杜邦之间的纠纷,事实证据充分，法律（权利和义务）关系明确，即杜邦已经完全享受了《1995年协议》中规定的权利，只要履行《1995年协议》中规定的义务就一切问题都解决了。现在只等待贵国执法部门强制杜邦履行《1995年协议》中规定的义务。



此致

最崇高的敬礼！

全责代理人：SXF 2007-04-30

 

Artificial Controversies

Tibor R. Machan

Enemies of the free society are prone to find something that will render the very idea of it not just odd but insidious. So we have one Gerry Stoker, writing in the January 2006 (issue #118) of Prospect Magazine that “Politics has been infected by one of the dominant myths of our time: that the goal of life is self-actualization. Politics as an exercise in collective decision-making has been unable to withstand the assault of a naïve individualism” (http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?search_term=Stoker&id=7176&issue=514).

As you might expect, Mr. Stoker gives no example of any thinker who advances the so called myth he sets out to deconstruct. In fact there have been very few if any individualists who have argued that individual self-actualization and politics are incompatible. And, in any case, individualism in any of its forms is far from dominant today.

However, Alexis de Tocqueville, in his famous Democracy in America, did grapple with the possible questionable influence of a certain type of individualism, speculating that unless it is clarified, it may lead people not to care about the legal infrastructure of their societies. But it is mostly critics of the free society who have produced caricatures of individualism so as to besmirch the thing good and hard.

Stoker appears to be among this latter group. It is a tactic that appeals to some—make individualism look something awful; then persuade us that collectivism is right; then anoint yourself as the voice of the collective, the royal we, and have your way with us all.

For there really is no collective humanity or society or nation or any such thing. That really is a myth. Individuals make up all these groups, as they do the tribe, family, corporation, team, orchestra, band, or what have you. What sometimes makes it appear that there is some new entity afoot with such groups is that their members do often embark upon purposes they have in common. But that doesn’t create some new being that stands above the individual members, not by a long shot.

Now what about this supposed divide between individual self-actualization and politics? It’s all concocted. In a proper understanding of the individual human being, one’s self-actualization includes the political dimension of one’s life. Just as one’s marriage, family, fraternity, and company all include one’s self-actualization as a human individual, so as a human individual one also needs to fulfill political values, needs, objectives.

It is only when one works with the caricature version of the human individual that one finds no harmony between oneself and one’s fellows. Maybe there are such individuals—hermits—for whom “self” means nothing but what amounts to one’s physical dimensions, what is found inside one’s skin. But this is an aberration. Normal people have projects that very much involve others, their welfare, their concerns, their foibles and so forth. The human self is a robust entity, reaching out all around itself to many others.

What is important about individualism is that it recognizes that the starting point is the individual, at least once one becomes an adult. One’s decisions, choices, values, aspirations, and so forth are the base from which the self-actualization processes commences, but never to the exclusion of the input from one’s loved ones and many others.

This is a vast issue and I am only trying to warn about those who try to create some kind of artificial bifurcation between oneself and others, including the society in which one makes something of one’s life. Watch out—what these folks are after is to rest the decision-making power from you and me and have it transferred to them, all in the name of some supposedly higher being, the public, society, humanity, or polity. There is no such higher being apart from the individuals who are its constituents.

Sadly the trick has worked all too often, ever since Plato’s Socrates introduced the idea that it isn’t you and I who are important but the ideal form of the human being, humanity! Since that time many have perpetrated the ruse of gaining power by claiming they speak for this higher entity—in Hitler’s words, Das Volk, in Stalin’s the proletariat, etc.

Mr. Stoker should be rebuffed good and hard by reminding him that individuals can actualize themselves best when they gain a clear understanding of what politics is about, namely, the establishment of standards that keep the peace among them all.

Limiting Outsourcing is Wrong and Harmful

Tibor R. Machan

Former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan is still at it—he wants to do something about the global competition that is making it tough for America’s Big Three automakers to keep up. When the Big Three were flying high, the rest of the world hadn’t yet discovered free markets, especially in labor. But now they have and millions of people abroad are trading their labor for much less money than are people used to trading it in America. Ergo, cars made abroad—and, incidentally, in American regions that aren’t controlled by unions—cost less than those made at the plants of the Big Three. So Big Three and all those working for them need to make painful adjustments. Mr. Buchanan and other foes of global capitalism are calling for ways to combat these developments.

But what is to be done? If my kid has been mowing your lawn for $5 an hour and he has gotten used to this, when some other kid offers to mow it for $3 an hour, my kid will be upset. He will have been outbid! The alternative of putting the competitor and the customer in chains isn’t acceptable. It’s flat out morally wrong. The only thing my own kid can do is either find some other job where he can make his $5 an hour or lower his price and keep the job at $3 an hour or less.

Now if I had given the mowing job to my child and got a better offer and took it, I could be faulted for my insensitivity as a parent. But most of us aren’t related to those who work at the Big Three, so we do not owe them special considerations that trump commerce. Indeed, we would be quite unjust in turning down the better offer since that would mean we no longer play by the rules of free trade, of going by economic factors rather than something else unrelated to economics. This would be like changing the rules in some sport because the referee is a personal buddy of some players.

But that’s not all. As far as helping American workers and firms is concerned, introducing special measures such as protectionism, high tariffs or duties, or anything else that restrains free trade cannot really work in their favor. Yes, for a little while, perhaps, a tariff on imported cars or steel may reduce their sale and increase the sale of domestic ones, although these days, when cars and their parts are made all over the globe, even this isn’t likely. In time, however, because the Big Three will be charging more than what the market would require customers to pay, customers will be using more of their income for cars and less for other merchandise. This, in turn, will reduce the income of those making all that other merchandise being bought in smaller amounts, making it difficult for them to buy cars and whatever else they would want. That, in turn, will reduce the demand for the cars made by the Big Three and the benefits coming to their employees will still dry up.

In fact, ultimately to try to circumvent market forces would require a police state—watching everyone’s buying and selling practices, controlling it all, sending in the cops wherever someone is dodging the officials who now run the show instead of market agents. And that is just what happens in a planned economy, leading, in the end, to drops in production, sales, employment, and economic growth.

The way that Mr. Buchanan and his pals want to help American workers ultimately results in far greater harm to them than anything that the global economy would produce. Indeed, global capitalism rarely produces long term harms. Sure, one needs to adjust to new technologies and new competitors but this comes about relatively gradually and people can make the adjustment much easier than what would be necessary if the entirely system was to experience the impact of the inevitable bad judgments of planners, namely, economic collapse.

The measures urged by Mr. Buchanan, namely, protectionism and restraint of trade, are like so many efforts to take shortcuts by means of violating the principles of the free market. They create hardships unheard of in free economies wherein changes are expected and people can prepare for them.

Roe & Privacy

Tibor R. Machan

One reason that Roe v. Wade is still with us is that legal scholars and jurists are arguing about the wrong issue. The question isn’t whether the US Constitution contains any reference to a right to privacy. Let’s assume it does. Let’s assume that the Ninth Amendment, as argued in Griswold v. Connecticut and some other cases, implicitly refers to the right to privacy every human beings has. Why would this be relevant?

Some might argue that if one has the right to privacy, a woman who has an abortion is doing something private, something no one else has the authority to regulate or ban. But this simply will not do.

If a pregnant woman is carrying a child—as pro-life folks call it, “an unborn child”—she has no authority to have a procedure that will kill this child. Wherever one locates a human being, inside the pregnant woman or in a crib or at some hotel, unless he has threatened to attack someone, no one is justified killing him. Only self-defense justifies killing another human being, period. (I leave aside the death penalty for now—some argue that it, too, is simply the extension of self-defense, though I doubt this.)

But one might say, the pregnant woman’s womb is certainly as private a place as you can find. Well, yes, provided it hasn’t been made the home of this “unborn baby.” If the “unborn baby” is indeed a new, budding human being from the moment of conception or thereabouts, the pregnant woman’s womb is not private any longer. The body is now being shared—some of it is occupied by this new human being, some by the woman’s insides.

Privacy, then, is really quite irrelevant to the debate surrounding Roe v. Wade. The relevant question to be answered is, “Is the being to be killed in an abortion a human being or is it human only potentially?” If the former, then abortions are killings, unless they amount to self-defense—say the “unborn baby” poses a fatal hazard to the pregnant woman. And such killings are a form of murder—infanticide.

But if in the early stages of pregnancy the woman is carrying a potential human being, then abortions performed in those stages are not infanticide because they are not homicide. They do not amount to the unjustified killing of a human being.

The debate here is not unlike that about the very sick and incapacitated at the end of life. Without a brain that can function as those of normal human beings do—without its capacity to think, to have ideas, to imagine, to envision and so forth which human beings as such are distinctive for in the living world—arguably no human being exists any longer. So removing life supports and similar acts that terminate life do not constitute homicide.

Exactly when that point comes about is where the debate needs to focus in the end-of-life discussion, while when a human being comes into existence is the point that needs to be debated in the abortion issue.

Maybe the following rough analogy will help here: If you invite someone into your home for dinner, you are not authorized to kill him. Doing so, unless he attacks you, would be murder. Sure, your home is your private sphere but you invited the guest, he didn’t break in and threaten your life. So you do not get to kill him, never mind your right to privacy. If, however, you bring home something that could, in time, become a human being but you don’t wait and annihilate it, you haven’t killed anyone. And none of this has anything to do with whether your home is within your private sphere.

Of course, discussing abortion in terms of when a human life comes into existence raises very tough issues—What is it to be a human being? What attributes or faculties or capacities must something possess to be such a being? Is it human at the beginning of its life or at some later point when certain faculties have emerged? Is there anything like a precise enough point during pregnancy that this occurs? Could it be conception, at which point no single entity exists that will become the baby but several might? Could it be when the cerebral cortex develops where thinking is made possible?

But at the edges of the law there will always be difficulties. Who is an adult? Who is still a child or juvenile? Similar ones can be found throughout human affairs.

Still, to pretend that the issue isn’t about when human beings comes into being but about the right to privacy is to confuse matters and postpone a reasonable solution.