Column on Morality, Individualism & Liberty

Individualism and Obligations

Tibor Machan

The ethical basis of a free society is not often discussed because any
genuine morality, be it Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, atheistic,
agnostic?any serious, plausible answer to the question ?How should human
beings conduct themselves in their lives??requires individual freedom.
That?s because morality or ethics involves choosing to do what?s either
right or wrong and without individual freedom there cannot be such a
choice. The institution of the right to private property may be thought
important for purposes of economic activity but it, too, is vital to
morality and ethics because without a personal sphere of authority?what
the late Harvard University philosopher Robert Nozick called one?s ?moral
space??one has no chance to make significant ethical choices. A prisoner
is powerless to choose other than on some minimal matters, such as what he
or she will think and attempt to do, but rarely concerning extensive plans
of action. And those in tyrannies suffer Draconian demoralization, loss of
their human dignity, something that amounts to being in a position to make
choices for oneself. It?s vital to note that even communities with milder
tyrannies?for example, with massive government regulations and meddling in
people?s lives?undermine moral choice.

Still, it is not only the very general precondition of morality that
matters for the basis of a free society. It is no accident that the
American founders listed the pursuit of happiness as a crucial,
unalienable individual right. A sound morality concerns what our proper
goals are and how to achieve them, at least in a very broad sense. From
the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, one very serious candidate for
why we need morality has been that happiness is our goal in life and
virtues or principles of good conduct are the best guides to it. If we
are routinely honest, prudent, courageous, generous, moderate, temperate,
honorable, and so forth, this is how we are going to become happy or
successful in living a proper human life. (This kind of happiness isn?t
the same as that which so many modern thinkers keep pooh-poohing, namely
being continuously cheerful or pleased with oneself.)

Of course, this emphasis on linking morality with our happiness in life
has also been hotly disputed by many who hold that morality is about
unselfishness, sacrifice, having mainly obligations toward others or
serving humanity, the poor, the helpless and so forth. The main reason for
this different emphasis of such contending ethical or moral outlooks has
been the underlying belief that human beings are naturally greedy,
anti-social, selfish, and mean. The doctrine of original sin seems to
suggest this, as does the influential idea of human nature put on record
by the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes; it is also implicit in
the famous Venetian political thinker Niccolo Machiavelli?s teachings.
Freud, too, added to this, with his doctrine that we have basic instincts
that drive us to do bad things, especially where it concerns others.

Perhaps the most influential thinker who opposed the idea of the
connection between morality and happiness was the German philosopher
Immanuel Kant who believed that we need to be ethical or moral just
because, not for any purpose but because it is the right way to be for
rational creatures?virtue for its own sake alone, that was his message.
Others, like Auguste Comte and Karl Marx, also stressed that we ought
first of all to be devoted to others. Comte made it clear that ?This [?to
live for others?], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a
direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common
source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are
entirely.? And as Marx put the point early in his career, ?When we have
chosen the vocation in which we can contribute most to humanity, burdens
cannot bend us because they are sacrifices for all. Then we experience no
meager, limited egoistic joy, but our happiness belongs to millions, our
deeds live on quietly but eternally effective, and glowing tears of noble
men will fall on our ashes.?

Most religious moralities also advocate that people?s first obligation is
to others, but they do offer a personal reward for doing this all through
one?s life, namely, everlasting salvation. And that?s pretty close to the
idea of one?s happiness, although in their case not in this but in the
after life.

Even if one doesn?t contend that people need to live for others?and it
was W. H. Auden who found the idea trouble when he exclaimed: ?We are here
on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't
know??there is a nagging concern that a highly individualist ethics or
morality may not even motivate one to respect other people?s rights to
life, liberty and to the pursuit of their happiness. This has been
suggested as a problem with some efforts to deploy such an ethical stance
in support of freedom?how could one insist on freedom for all if we have
as our primary task to promote our own happiness?

An answer to this has been offered by some. It goes, mainly, that an
individualist morality implies that when one has chosen, mainly to achieve
happiness in one?s life, to live among other people (that is, in human
communities), one must realize, as a reasonable person, that one?s own
striving for happiness is something everyone else also shares?namely, that
very same responsibility?and that realization gives rise to the firmest
possible obligation to respect the rights of all. Otherwise one would have
no rational grounds to insist that one?s own rights be respected, nor for
a system of law that, in the words of the American founders, aims to
?secure [our] rights.?

Be this as it may, in fact morality, whatever is to be its substance, its
basic edict, is impossible without human liberty. And in a free and
diverse human community, where people with different moral convictions
must live in peace, that is what must be kept in mind, first and foremost.

Column on Varieties of Conflict

Varieties of Conflict

Tibor R. Machan

Much of human history has involved conflict among various people of
different convictions on innumerable topics. One topic, of course, has
been religion?to wit, which of it is the true one. In our day such
conflicts continue and there is no reason to think they will ever end.
That?s one of the difficulties about belief systems based on faith?even
the hope for resolution is misplaced since faith is not grounded on
publicly accessible evidence or the methods of rational reflection that
all human beings are capable of. Even in the more mundane areas the means
of seeking resolutions to conflicting ideas success are often very
difficult to achieve?consider child-raising or economics, as examples.

Despite the evident hopelessness of finding solutions to conflicts,
especially where the source is faith, but also where more mundane
approaches are deployed, some relief may be found in the way human beings
can go about dealing with conflicts. One example will illustrate the
source of such possible relief.

In the USA there are roughly 4200 different religious groups, some nearly
indistinguishable from others, some drastically different in what they
believe. Yet America hasn?t been host to massive religious
strife?substantial peace reins among these numerous religious groups. How
come?

I suggest that one answer lies in the institution of private property
rights. Unlike in many other regions around the globe, religious groups in
the USA do not fight violently about who is to rule the public square.
Each group has its own sphere where it conducts worship and other
religious activities and so there are few occasions when they would get
physically in one another?s way. The remaining areas of conflict have to
do mainly with attempts to win over converts, not by force of arms but by
means of persuasion, advocacy, proselytizing, and similar measures. (The
exception is in the schools, where there is plenty of political power
wielding so as to get to rule that primarily public sphere.)

But the property rights factor is one of a cluster contributing to the
relative peaceful co-existence in America and elsewhere in the Western
world?which goes far beyond the West, to New Zealand, Australia and the
like?of different religious and other groups. Another one is the influence
of the classical liberal tradition of tolerance and mutual respect, not so
much for all the varieties of viewpoints but for the principle of
individual decision and choice. Yes, in America and all those societies
influenced by this liberal legacy both custom and law have guided us not
to impose our outlook on others but to try to handle our conflicts in a
civilized fashion. In fact, this liberal legacy has moderated many
religions that had been quite ruthless about trying to get everyone to
follow their ways. It has trumped the fervor, tamed the zealotry, and
restrained the enthusiasm.

Of course, members of different religious and other groups still consider
their position superior to those of others. Jews, Roman Catholics,
Baptists, Moonies, atheists, Darwinists, and the rest haven?t caved in on
that point?they all take it that they are right and the rest are wrong.
What has made the big difference, though, is that thinking oneself right
does not imply that one has any authority to coerce others to one?s ways.
The liberal tradition of individual sovereignty simply moderates the way
one ought to go about bringing others into one?s own flock. They must do
it of their own free will, as a matter of personal choice. Otherwise any
conversion is worthless. What good does it do if people follow even the
truest of viewpoints, religions, or ethical codes because they are made to
do so? What good does it do for their conscience? They are then mere
sheep, following orders. The idea that this is a sound approach to getting
them all to join the flock is, indeed, the hallmark of barbarism.

Sadly in many places around the globe this liberal legacy hasn?t taken
root, nor has the institution of private property rights. When it does,
the ruthless and violent conflict among different sects will change from
the barbaric to the civilized. That is the most, I think, that can be
expected. Consensus on matters of belief, however, is a naïve dream.

Column on Darwinism

An Omission of Darwinism

Tibor R. Machan

No, no, I will not reenter the debate about whether Darwin set us on the
right course for understanding the development of life on earth. The point
I wish to stress it that one particular problem faces those who think he
has. This is that there appears to be little room left for genuine
morality in the story Darwin and his students tell about human life.

Darwin himself worried a bit about this. He wrote on the topic in The
Ascent of Man and affirmed the uniqueness of homo sapiens on that score,
namely, that for them there is a special task in their lives of having to
get things right. But, admittedly, Darwin, not unlike other modern
thinkers, had a difficult time with making room for the phenomenon of
moral choice. David Hume, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Herbert
Spencer, among others, with varied philosophical and political positions,
saw the same difficulty, mainly because modern philosophy was hamstrung by
a certain popular and appealing materialist outlook that seemed to
everyone to demand determinism.

The idea, since at least the time of Galileo and Thomas Hobbes, was that
everything that happens has to have been produced by some prior event,
which itself had to be so produced, ad infinitum, in an everlasting chain
of causal connections. The earlier, Aristotelian notion that it isn?t only
events but beings, too, that can be causes, had been discarded for a
variety of (ultimately not every good) reasons. That, however, rendered it
theoretically incoherent for free will, a basic ingredient of bona fide
morality, to exist. No choice, well, then no choice between right and
wrong conduct, period.

Nothing, however, in Darwinism implies this?it was an earlier proposed
reductive materialism that led to this result. Indeed, Darwin?s theory of
evolution opened the door to the possibility of the development of a
living being that has free will. After all, one thing Darwin is about is
how through the process of natural selection new and different life forms
emerge. The highest of these, Homo sapiens, could well possess quite
unheard of attributes and capacities, not excluding that of free choice or
initiative. Whether human beings do have this attribute or capacity is a
matter of discovery, not of metaphysics.

Materialism, by the way, is a metaphysical position that has many
problems?first of all, with what exactly is matter anyway? It seems matter
is a formal concept, meaning no more than anything that has mass, is
quantifiable. But the units of quantity aren?t specified and depend on
what kind of matter something is; so if the matter happens to be human, it
all depends on what that comes to, that is, on whether it has certain
attributes like the capacity to initiate some of its conduct, not on the
fact that it is material, which, of course, it is but tells us virtually
nothing about it.

Anyway, unfortunately many who have found Darwin convincing on the score
of natural selection also believed he is a metaphysical materialist, which
by no means follows (mainly because that is an empty idea). He is, of
course, largely a naturalist, although Darwin himself had some deistic
inclinations, thinking?actually, like some contemporary defenders of
Intelligent Design?that God got the whole shebang off the ground but stood
back ever since to let the laws of, among other things, evolutionary
biology do the rest. In any case, none of what he argued rules out free
will and morality. But those who champion Darwin often think so.

It is this fact, not so much natural selection and the rest of
evolutionary biology, which makes many people queasy about evolution?it
seems, in the hands of many of today?s Darwinians, to preclude morality.
Yet, morality is such a firmly entrenched aspect of human life that any
viewpoint will be widely shunted which makes no room for it.

It is sad. We need a coherent account of how the world got to be where it
is, especially regarding the life in it, and Darwin certainly is a good
beginning toward making sense of it. No one can reasonably expect
Darwinism to be a finished story?only God, if He exists, could have a
finished story in any field of human interest; for us it would require to
have managed to get a peak at the end of it all to come up with one. With
contemporary challenges of Darwin we get, in fact, greater mysteries than
anything Darwinism includes?like, how can intelligence exist prior to
everything else when, in fact, intelligence requires a living brain that
can produce it (and the activity of designing something).

If Darwin?s defenders spent some time figuring out how human morality?and
its prerequisite, free will?fit into Darwinism, I am sure the position
would fare much better with ordinary men and women, most of whom know that
morality matters and also might give a naturalist view a chance that makes
room for it. As to God, well that must be left to faith and not science,
if faith is to have a role in any of this.

Column on "Marketplace" Follies

Marketplace Follies

Tibor R. Machan

No, I am not about to lament some supposed failures of the free market,
even if I am a supporter of it who doesn?t argue that it?s perfect. Market
places are human realms and, as is likely, will contain human follies.

My focus is on the radio program, usually following NPR?s ?All Things
Considered,? produced, I believe, by RPI, Radio Public International, that
manages each evening to chime in on various aspects of the highly mixed
economic market place we have here in the USA and around the globe?we
might call it, markets with petty dictators regimenting everyone about.
This program is one I once was invited to join as a commentator, back in
the late 80s, but when I sent in some sample commentaries they were
rejected because I had been too fervent in my support of, you guessed it,
the free market place.

Anyway, with full disclosure behind me, let me tell you what caught my
attention on their program Wednesday afternoon, June 15, 2005. There was
an interview with one Ruth Epstein, a former Wall Street trader, I think
they said she was, who had gone to Hollywood to produce a movie, ?The
Deal,? about the oil business, a movie in the making, she told the
interviewer, for five years.

From what I learned in this interview, this movie pretty much buys into
the Michael Moore theory of the international oil business?it?s all pretty
conspiratorial, underhanded, and generally harmful to everyone but all
those bad guys in the industry.

OK, what else would one expect from a Hollywood movie about oil trade,
coming out of the same culture that produced Wall Street and dozens of
other pictures, including David Mamet?s Glenn Gary Glenn Ross (the current
Broadway hit that?s a major relentless and tiresome put down of those who
work in the real estate business)? Business bashing is the name of the
game in tinsel town, even while the main activity there is, of course,
business. Just goes to show you how wrong Marx was in thinking that
people in business will routinely promote their self-interest!

No, what was most noteworthy in the Marketplace interview is how few
challenges Ms. Epstein heard from whoever it was who interviewed her. It
was all a classic instance of throwing the Christians to the Christians.
Every question was a soft ball, a veritable support group type chit chat,
with both parties ganging up on big oil and capitalism.

Just now this is especially disgusting since during the last few days
various news services have finally published reports that point out that
oil prices are actually relatively low. Mark J. Perry, professor of
finance and economics at the University of Michigan-Flint and an adjunct
scholar at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan, made this
clear in a recent essay in USA
Today?http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-05-31-gas-prices-edit_x.htm.
Compared to earlier times, the amount people spend on gasoline is a far
smaller percentage of their income than it is today.

Judging by what transpired on the Marketplace interview, however, the idea
that gas prices are way over the top figures in heavily in the plot of The
Deal. It functions as major and decisive evidence for how Big Oils is
screwing the consumer around the globe, especially in America.

Well, it isn?t so, but did the interviewer raise it as a possibility? Of
course she did not. Marketplace, like its fellow programs on NPR, is
nothing if not a piece of the unending Leftist propaganda, partly funded
by extorting money from citizens via taxation. This is just the sort of
policy the US Supreme Court, with the enthusiastic support of one Justice
Antonin Scalia, supported as fully constitutional in a recent ruling that
upheld using tax monies for government public service and special interest
support messages. As I wrote in connection with that case, ?Justice
Scalia, writing for the majority in the 6 to 3 decision, explained:
?Compelled funding of government speech does not alone raise First
Amendment concerns.? He added: ?Citizens may challenge compelled support
of private speech, but have no First Amendment right not to fund
government speech?.?

This, of course, protects NPR and Marketplace from any legal challenge
concerning their use of tax monies to proselytize whatever they wish. So,
please remember: to find any kind of hard-hitting interview with the likes
of the producer of The Deal, you will have to go elsewhere than
Marketplace, where they always love to diss the market, never praise it.

Column on the Menace of "Imperialism"

The Menace of Imperialism

Tibor R. Machan

You?d think history would have taught us that empires are a menace. In
their name more murderous killing has taken place than for any other
purpose.

Yet, in some ways, imperialism is very much part of the contemporary age.
It may not amount to the sort of vast military missions with which it is
so prominently associated, although, sadly, much of that continues today.
Another type of imperialism temps too many people who would never think
themselves followers of the imperial tradition.

Take, for example, all those folks who believe that their pet projects
must gain state support so as to be spread around the world, to be
preserved in granite, if you will, so everyone will know how superior
these are in the history of a country, the world, in one?s city or county.
Historical preservationists who insist that we all be taxed so as to keep
around various monuments or buildings at everyone?s expense?they are
imperialists. They want everyone to be subjugated to what they believe is
important; they refuse to acknowledge that importance is a matter of
individual and special concern, very, very rarely one of universal
significance. Few if any concerns of people are actually, really, proper
concerns for us all and even those few that are, ought to gain support via
the civilized method of persuasion, not the barbaric one of coercion.

A prominent movement today that utterly fails to see this point is that
of environmentalism. By embracing the false doctrine that matters
designated to be ?the wilds? are of superior significance to all others,
that only what is wild is part of authentic nature, they have ended in the
trap of imperialism. They have convinced themselves that what isn?t of the
wilds isn?t natural and, therefore, does not deserve respect and a place
in the world. So, for example, all housing developments are treated as
evil, unnatural, never mind that they are the nesting places for human
beings who are every bit a part of nature as is, say, the beaver or the
swallow. But whereas the beaver and the swallow are deemed precious, thus
deserving all the coercive powers of government behind them, human beings
are treated by environmentalists as some kind of fungus or virus. Why? Not
one good reason has ever been offered, none. It turns out to be no more
than the personal preference of environmentalists, their malicious
imperialism that they?ve decided to lord over everyone.

Of course, environmentalists aren?t alone, only they have managed to
accrue to themselves the tone of moral superiority by way of producing
reams of literature in which they promote the myth that only the wilds
qualify as Nature?or Gaia?and since human beings have left the wilds more
prominently than any other critter on the globe, they have no moral
standing.

Such an insidious attitude is, sadly, treated with sympathy and
understanding even by those who do not quite go with the flow, mainly for
reasons of impracticality. As if the environmentalists really did have a
hold of a true ideal but, alas, it just cannot be had, not in the measure
they demand.

But the environmentalists haven?t gotten hold of an ideal, not by any
means. They have, instead, perpetrated a grand ruse, namely, that their
imperialistic mission is a holy crusade.

Yes, some of the wilds is and will always be of importance to most
people, just as are decent housing, transportation, science, education,
art, commerce, and even athletics. But it is whatever matters to us that
ought to determine the measure of environmental concern that makes the
best sense, not what matters to other living things in the world. And even
that proper measure must be something promulgated in a civilized,
non-coercive fashion, which is to say, via the private, non-governmental
sector, without the meddling of the most imperialistically tempted
institution in human history, namely, government.

All in all, let us leave behind the imperialist temptation once and for
all. Let us not assume that our pet projects must be everyone?s or that
our pet peeves must be shared by all. Human beings are a highly diverse
lot and no one?s best need be everyone?s best, or worst everyone?s worst.
Certainly imposing these notions on everyone is no more than that menace
of imperialism that history shows to be such a malicious force.

Column on the Jackson Verdict

Racists or Just Sick of the Charade?

Tibor R. Machan

Before making some observations connected to Michael Jackson?s court room
triumph the other day, let me remind everyone that in Spain, today, in the
21st Century, if a 19 year old guy has sex with a consenting 13 year old
gal, it?s all legal. Is Spain some Neanderthal country? Or what?s going on
here?

Many kids who commit crimes in the good old US of A?twelve, fourteen year
olds?are prosecuted as adults. What is that all about?they cannot vote,
sign contracts, get married without parental permission but when they do
the crime, they must do the adult time. Weird, is it not?

Michael Jackson has been weird for a long time but, hey, in a free
country it?s no crime to be weird. He may even like the company of
youngsters too much, even tussle and bustle with them now and then as if
he were still a kid. But is that child molestation? Perhaps not, if we
look at it with Spanish eyes?if they consent, no problem.

So when I saw around eight black employees at a McDonalds?where I had my
once-a-year-dosage of French fries?shriek with joy upon hearing the
announcement from the jury leader that Jackson isn?t guilty and can go
free, I thought, maybe this isn?t racial solidarity at all but simple
empathy and relief. Fans jumping from joy that justice won out over
trivial pursuit.

My own take is that I have no take when I am not part of the jury. That,
indeed, was my take with the O. J. Simpson verdict as well. I wasn?t
there, hour after hour, day after day, listening and watching and then
considering the charges and the evidence. I saw bits and pieces and heard
a lot of rather questionable late night humor. I am still committed to my
non-commitment. Ignorance may not be bliss but it?s better than prejudice.

Of course, some of the young blacks who yelled from joy when they heard
Jackson go free may have had a tinge of racist attitude mixed in with
their relief and vindicated sense of justice. But I think not much. They
didn?t turn on me, the only white in the place, and yell at me gleefully.
Instead they had smiles on their faces and no sooner was it all over on
the TV set, they went back to work.

Mind you, even that tinge of racial attitude may well be quite
reasonable. Many blacks, especially in the Deep South?the scene took place
in Auburn, Alabama?still often feel demeaned by whites, not out of
paranoia but from clear cut evidence. This and quite a few other regions
of the USA haven?t quite left behind the widespread belittling of blacks
that has been part of the country?s history for a very long time. When a
group of people is grouped by others and picked on for traits over which
they have absolutely no control, they will quite naturally huddle
together, at least until the picking has stopped. And maybe longer, just
in case it should start up again.

The solidarity felt by many blacks toward O. J. and Michael need not be
an insidious type of racism at all. Not that it justifies blanket
support?after all, just as I wasn?t one of the jurors, neither were the
blacks who were cheering the verdict. But there was a certain measure
emotional sense to their delight??So, you see, you will not get yet
another chance to deride us, to think badly of us because of some black?s
misdeeds, something you do a lot even if it is quite irrational to make
such generalizations.?

So, I admit, I felt quite good about the verdict too, not because I had
any opinion about the matter but because I, too, felt that had it gone the
other way, it would probably have fueled some racist sentiments across
parts of the USA. These sentiments certainly ought to vanish anyway, but
with Jackson acquitted this may accelerate somewhat now.

But then what about the laws that enabled the prosecution to go after
Jackson, actually to hound him for nearly ten years? Are these laws good,
just principles for a free society? Are we to dismiss the Spanish as
barbarians, ones who give credence to the consent of 13 year old girls?

I am not sure. I do know that where I was born parents regularly let
their young children drink a glass or two of wine at dinner, do not have a
fit when children have a beer or go to a bar where 16 year olds can drink,
smoke and dance. I grew up completely immune to the temptation to
repeatedly get plastered, in contrast to many of my friends in American
who had to wait until they reached 21 before they could freely decide to
drink alcohol. And what about Holland, where pot smoking is legal and you
can go to cafes and order up a joint? Are they nuts or is it possible that
this land of the free isn?t really so free and that here and there some
other parts of the world outshine us where that?s concerned?

Column on Miseducation

Schools are Making Students Sick

Tibor R. Machan

So many kids are afflicted with various maladies in school today that one
has to be suspicious about the diagnoses being advanced throughout the
educational community. The varieties of Attention Deficit Disorders in
records boggle the mind, even as many of us have managed to pass through
the system reasonably unscathed. Or have we?

There are those who do not buy into this medical approach to assessing
the problems with contemporary education. I am one of them. Although not a
specialists in the relevant fields of psychological and cognitive
disciplines, I have a bit of experience with schooling, if only my own
education?from kindergarten to the end of graduate school?and my teaching
career?starting in the fall of 1970 and still going strong (not to mention
the educational history of my own three children). Maybe the ideas
garnered throughout this history of experience, observation, and
reflections qualify me to have formed some measure of reasonable insight,
if not strict scientific hypotheses (if such is really available in this
realm of human interest).

For one, in America there is a pedagogical ideal afoot that?s worth some
skeptical consideration. This is that every solitary child deserves and
requires the nearly identical educational experience, from age 6 to at
least 18 (graduation from compulsory schooling), if not all the way to 22
(graduation from college, now treated as everyone?s virtual natural
right). Elsewhere around the globe education is not treated all that
differently as regards its various stages but the egalitarian element is
missing?not all are thought to be fit for such schooling. If we combine
this egalitarianism and the one-size-fits-all aspects of education, the
very reasonable possibility arises that millions and millions of children
are getting miseducated.

Just consider that children, like adults, are individuals, not all the
same?their psychological, temperamental, and related constitution is
highly varied. Although some matters may be required for them all?a bit
like in the fields of nutrition and medicine?on many fronts they have
drastically different needs. Their talents and aptitudes aren?t at all the
same. Their interests begin to diverge early in their lives, especially in
the modern era when opportunities are so plentiful for most of them.

Yet they are essentially given the same ?education.? They are coerced to
attend the same pre-school programs, elementary schools, and high schools,
with the nearly identical courses spoon-fed to them whether or not that?s
what they need, with hardly any attention paid to the fact of their
individuality, their highly varied pedagogical requirements.

Do they really all benefit from being taught nearly the same way, the same
subjects, at the same pace, in the same kind of environments, with
virtually identical administrative methods? That?s simply highly
implausible, even preposterous.

Instead, however, of promoting an educational system that adjust itself
to the immense diversity of the student body, everyone is regimented to
conform to the nearly identical schooling process. Is it, then, any wonder
that a lot of kids are deemed unfit, even afflicted with maladies, within
such an educational system?

Consider that students who are completely mismatched to what the system
has to offer turn their minds to other matters as they are forced to sit
in class being ?taught? by someone serving as a teacher. So they fail to
pay close attention. Instead their minds drift?they gaze out the window
and imagine animals forming from clouds, ?hear? music in their minds, wish
for experiences drastically different from the one with which they are
forcibly confronted.

So, upon doing so such students are declared sick, suffering from ADD of
whatever, then plugged full of some drugs or sent for counseling or
therapy, instead of the much more reasonable conclusion that they are
being totally miseducated, mismatched to the system in place. It?s like
beating someone to a pulp and then complaining that he is sick?what else
do you expect? Whose fault is this? Is their malady natural or most likely
artificially induced?

I think it is the system that is creating a bunch of sick kids and the
kids are fine unless they are subjected to the system. That makes much
better sense than the other way around.

Column on A Terrible Favoritism

Injustice versus Entrenched Legal Favoritism

Tibor R. Machan

Why should journalist and ministers be exempt from government meddling
when the rest of us suffer state intervention on so many fronts? Or to
put it much better, why should the rest of us all suffer government
meddling while those in journalism and the ministry get to be free?

There really is no good reason for such favoritism. Why should the
criminal law, especially when it comes to violent crime, observe the ban
on violations of due process while professionals are being
regimented?subjected to various rules, and fines if they do not comply?by
governments, despite having done nothing wrong at all? Such prior
restrain, such ?precautionary,? pre-emptive policies have no place in a
free society.

No one has the moral authority to restrain another on grounds that the
other may perhaps or could possibly embark upon the violation of another?s
rights. The demonstration of clear and present danger or probable cause is
required for this, under the strict supervision of those appointed to
stand guard against violation of due process, that is to say, of
everyone?s individual rights. That?d be justice!

It is interesting, even outrageous, that in an era of
anti-discrimination?wherein so much emphasis is placed on the evil of
certain kinds of individual prejudices that some people, even in their
personal but especially in their professional, lives practice toward
others?the system of laws under which we live is rife with systematic
unjust discrimination. Those in journalism, the arts, fiction and
non-fiction writing, the ministry, priesthood, and similar fields are
given near total protection from state interference. That is the impact
of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which now trumps all state
constitutions with this protection of the individual liberty of those
fortunately enough to have ended up in these fields of work.

At the same time, in the very same country, other features of the legal
system impose draconian regulations on people whose professions are not
among those protected by the First Amendment. And no one is hollering
about this, no civil rights movements are afoot protesting it all,
registering outrage with the powers that be about the injustice of it all.

One may surmise that perhaps there is some kind of blindness afoot here.
Yet it is so clear, so obvious that there is favoritism going on and that
those outside of journalism and religion are being treated in
systematically prejudicial ways.

Of course, the solution to this massive and widespread injustice would be
pretty simple: set all the professions free, get rid of all the
regulations, licensing laws and paternalistic, pre-emptive supervision
imposed on all people practicing whatever profession and do what the
criminal law requires, namely, interfere with anyone only once there is
demonstrable evidence of wrong doing or at least its high probability. It
would, under such a system, be illegal for the government to make rules of
conduct for anyone in any field of work?only professional (voluntary)
associations could, as could various contracting parties by their free
agreement. The psychiatrists or architects or TV repair people or
pharmacists or doctors could all form organizations that would bind
members who join of their free will to various policies, codes and the
like.

But if someone wanted to stay out of such groups and go it alone in some
profession and could manage to find customers or clients, this would not
be prohibited or impeded by any state authority. If something went amiss
with the service being provided, it would have to be hashed out in
litigation or adjudication, with no resort to the device of pre-emptive
regulation.

Alas, this idea, which is simply part and parcel of a reasonable theory of
justice, is not getting play in our political arena. Now and then we hear
about how government regulations stymie economic development, restrict
entrepreneurial savvy, cause unemployment and the like. And one also hears
about how government regulatory bodies get captured by the very industries
they are supposed to regulate for the benefit of costumers and clients; so
the government is not just perpetrating massive unjust discrimination but
extending extra-special favors to various firms and professionals in an
area. But these are all details, important as they may be.

What really is outlandish and, indeed, should not be tolerated in a
country aiming for justice for all, is that government meddling in most
professions is preemptory and does violence to due process of law.

Column on Promoting Right Conduct

On Promoting Right Conduct

Tibor R. Machan

On far more occasions than I care to recall I?ve been told that my
politics is altogether too negative??You are a naysayer,? it often goes.
And I must confess that with the bulk of contemporary politics that?s what
I am??stop it,? ?put a halt to it,? ?desist,? ?forget about it,? and on
and on I go.

Beneath this apparent negativism lies, however, a firm commitment to
something entirely positive, the confidence that free men and women solve
problems far better any day than a bunch of regimented folks. So, I say,
?Yes? to people setting about figuring out solutions to and going about
solving their and their various communities? problems, be these simple or
indeed extremely complex.

Not that I have utopian expectations, not at all. People are likely to
fall down on the job of fixing everything for themselves and their loved
ones, but on average they do much better when they aren?t being pushed
around by politicians, bureaucrats, or the police than if they are treated
as invalids or helpless slobs by others thinking they possess this special
authority derived from God, the General Will, the majority, or the tooth
fairy. No, give me the risky, messy collection of free men and women
anytime and I bet the results will be far better, even more admirable,
than when leaders march us all toward some glorious end we haven?t been
convinced to freely pursue.

But, of course, there will be plenty of recalcitrant individuals among
those free men and women in whom I am and urge the rest of us to place our
confidence, despite the risks that some will fail. If I do not believe in
placing guns to such people?s heads?making laws and regulations to
straighten them all out, as the eager beaver statists among us believe is
proper?what solution can we find to such recalcitrant conduct? Is there
anything else beside the force of laws and regulations that can offer us
the hope to improve others?

Well, to start with, forcing people to be good is entirely pointless. As
a general principle, coerced good conduct brings no merit at all to those
engaging in it. It also wastes the energies of those who do the
coercing?they could be doing something productive instead of ordering and
pushing people around to do the right thing. Then there is the
non-negligible fact that when people are legally empowered to push others
around, they more often than not become corrupted by their morally
unauthorized power. Power over others, even when well intentioned, tends
to reap that result?both history and common sense informs us of this. So
is there nothing to be done?

To start with, there is rational persuasion, approaching those whose
conduct leaves something to be desired with good arguments, with an
effective appeal, the most civilized way to dealing with our fellow human
beings, the way that distinguished how human communities ought to function
and how the rest of the animal world does in fact function. No brute force
but reason must govern among us.

OK, but this is a bit utopian, is it not? Some people just will not
listen to reason?that cliché is one because it is so true. What is to be
done then?

There are peaceful ways of imploring people, of inducing them to do the
right thing, when they aren?t initially inclined and even when reasonable
persuasion does not achieve this goal. Boycotts, well orchestrated
ostracism, rebuke, chiding, and even ridicule are all peaceful and often
quite effective approaches to getting folks to act right. Labor unions had
initially placed their confidence in such methods as they attempted to get
reasonable terms from employers, although in time many of them turned to
governments to achieve this goal and thus became lobbyists for coercion.
(And, of course, too many commercial firms, the employers, also went?and
continue to go?to governments for special privileges against both their
domestic and foreign competitors.)

Sadly, this civilized approach to inducing proper behavior in other
people is not even considered as a live option in our time by most who
complain about people not doing the right thing. Neither the Left nor the
Right embraces such peaceful means but turns, instead, to legislatures,
city councils, state commissions, federal regulators, and vice squads?or
to out and out war?in order to have their edicts adhered to. This lack of
patience with the civilized approach is a sure sign of politics having run
amuck, having reverted to the era of conquests and subjugation.

Yet it does not at all have to be that way and
certainly should not.

Column on Why I'm nearly an anarchist

Confession of a Near-Anarchist

Tibor R. Machan

No, I am not really an anarchist in the sense of believing neither in law
nor in government. I think both are good things, properly conceived,
established, and maintained. That would be pretty much along lines
sketched in the Declaration of Independence, following the idea of John
Locke, developed further by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Ludwig von
Mises, Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick and a host of other classical liberals and
libertarians.

What has turned me into a practicing anarchist, one who has no respect of
the actual legal order under which he lives?at least not some of the now
salient and dominant elements?is how far the country?s laws?including the
way its Constitution is understood by the Supreme Court? have strayed from
the principles of the Declaration.

The USA has by now become something of a representative tyranny, meaning,
those elected by some of the people?not a whole lot of them, if you do the
math?are imposing their will on us all and, yes, the Supreme Court and the
rest of the courts are backing up this vicious charade. Under the
circumstances I have virtually no respect for the law.

Oh, I still consider it my obligation to obey much of the criminal law,
which basically prohibits direct violations of individual rights. Even if
these violations didn?t comprise the substance of the law, I would abstain
from committing any because they are substantially just. Don?t murder,
anyone, don?t steal from anyone, don?t assault anyone, do not trespass on
other?s property, etc., and so forth?these deserve loyalty.

But when it comes to all the powers that the various governments of our
country?federal, state, county, municipal?have managed to accrue to
themselves (with much complicity by a lot of the citizenry), they are
plainly unjust, virtually the opposite of what government ought to be in a
society of free and responsible human beings. We now have a nearly
completely paternalistic state; and the highest court of the land provides
it with transparent rationalizations in case after case, with but a few
decisions falling in line with the basic political ideal set out in the
Declaration (probably by accident). (In that document we find some
enlightening ideas about how such a government may?even ought to?be
overthrown because it has gotten thoroughly corrupted.)

Yes, other places around the globe are often a lot worse, although not in
all respects, when it comes to the quality of their legal order. But
America has become depressingly corrupt in what might be considered its
very own terms?what with all its laws banning this and imposing that on
everyone, punishing citizens mercilessly for perfectly peaceful activities
that various bullies in or out of government (including the courts) wish
to control, regulate, regiment. That is, frankly, an outrage in a country
that started with such marvelous notions as everyone having an unalienable
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How, given this clear
statement in the founding document, is it tolerable for politicians,
bureaucrats, judges, and justices to sanction subjecting us all to myriads
of absolutely vicious edicts, edicts about conduct that is none of anyone
else?s business but that of the persons who perform it (and perhaps of
their intimates)?

Think of it?this is supposed to be a free country, one in which adult men
and women get to run their own lives, dispose of their own resources, for
better or for worse! But, instead, it is one in which people are
constantly tyrannized?supervised mostly by various ambitious incompetents
when it comes to their commerce, their professional affairs, what they
consume, with whom they associate, and nearly everything else (except, to
some extent, what they say and write, although with government-backed
political correctness running rampant, that, too, is under serious threat).

So then why obey the law at all? Well, for one, they have the weapons to
back up their petty but accelerating tyrannies, let?s not forget about
this. You resist strongly enough, you may be shot, period. Then, also,
there is hope?the hope for improvement, for the eventual recovery and
restoration of the ideals of the Declaration, the abandonment of the mad
dash for the reactionary system of top down government (with the minor
modification that instead of monarchs, we will have committees dictating
everything).

Yes, I merely comply with the bulk of the law, I follow it because I
don?t cherish being in jail and being silenced in my admittedly modest
efforts to arrest and reverse these trends so that the ideals of the
Founders get a good chance finally?not because the Founders were angels
but because by all accounts they were right, beyond any reasonable doubt.

Column on Puzzles with Science

Shifting Science or What?

Tibor R. Machan

I am not sure now but I used to think science, at least, managed to hang
together pretty well. There is no Catholic or Jewish or Buddhists
chemistry or biology, only biology. Even economists aspire to this. Thus
Milton Friedman is reported to have said that we?d do well to forget about
Chicago or Austrian or Marxist economics but worry only about good versus
bad economics. Amen to that.

Alas, with sciences getting more and more specialized, discord tends to
strike its ugly head on many fronts. Each week there?s a different report
about whether, for example, Viagra is good or bad for those who take
it?one week it gives one anxiety or heartburn, the other it reduces the
risk of heart attacks or produces some other beneficial side effect (and I
am making this up but only slightly). Frankly, I cannot keep up with what
Bayer aspirin does any longer, or antibiotics or, of course, coffee or
even cigarettes. (Recall Woody Allen?s character in Sleepers, I think it
was, who wakes up a few decades after having been checked into hospital
only to learn that smoking was, after all, good for people!)

I don?t know what drives this mad rush to announce the latest and
invariably inconclusive or tentative findings, although I have a hunch. In
the academy there is nothing more respectable and advantageous than coming
up with something original, whatever is one?s field of study. From the
time one is required to write a doctoral dissertation to the end of one?s
productive career?which for many is when they obtain tenure, and perhaps
understandably so, given all this mad hustle?one is supposed to come up
with original research or scholarship. Never mind that one?s field may
indeed have run out of stuff to discover or figure out, at least for a
while. That?s irrelevant?what matters is that promotions, tenure,
consulting gigs, and the rest all depend upon whether one is doing things
no one else has thought of.

Accordingly, discoveries must fall under neglect and imagination has to
be the driving force. Whatever is, just maybe, possible, is what will get
one an foot in the door of originality, since what actually exists may for
the time being have been pretty much fully explored. And that tend to lead
to artificiality, to made-up novelties, to make-believe subjects of
significance.

It now looks like the sciences are falling into line with this, too, so
from one day to the next one cannot be sure of what is true in biology,
medicine, physiology, chemistry, and all of their sub fields. I suppose
there are some folks who are happy about this?the folks who think
scientists are too arrogant and too confident and have a tendency to lord
it over the humanities. Religion, after all, has never managed to get on
the same page with much?the 4200 different ones in the USA alone are all
committed to more or less diverse truths about God, Jesus, angels, sin,
immortality, heaven, hell, guilt, innocence, how to live, how to die, and
the rest.

Now it looks like science is falling apart too, even the hardest of them,
physics, which is battling over whether everything is really just one
thing?the latest candidate being something called ?strings??or are there,
perhaps, basically different types of things in the world, each deserving
its own science (which may account for why there are different sciences
such as biology, chemistry, anatomy, etc.).

I am not making some breakthrough point here, only registering some
confusion I believe many share with me. When it comes, at least, to the
practical import of the various sciences, the reports keep getting more
and more volatile, less and less coherent.

Maybe this is due to some basic problem, some possibly philosophical
malady?say, in epistemology, metaphysics (both of which some scientists
have almost casually jettisoned recently). Or maybe it is because of some
journalists, the ones who are always eager to present something allegedly
newsworthy, even if there isn?t such a thing just at the moment. So they
may tend to grab anything the offers a slight hope of a new discovery, or
invention, never mind that these haven?t yet gotten properly sorted out by
the researchers.

In any case, it just goes to show you that one cannot much reply on any
experts and has to do one?s own thinking, however risky that may be.

Column on Linguistic Peccadilloes

A Few Linguistic Peccadilloes

Tibor R. Machan

English is my third language and as a speaker and writer I have always
appreciated receiving editorial help, just in case a faux pa has slipped
into some missive of mine. But even the best editors cannot be relied upon
to follow one?s strictures in some areas of the English language.

For example, I reject ?the reason is because? and insist on ?the reason
is that,? and not just for the sake of old fashioned form. The one?s about
what causes things, the other about what reason one has for thinking
something. They are not the same at all.

Then there is ?different from? instead of the corrupt ?different than.?
Something is different from a thing that isn?t like it, whereas when you
talk of ?than,? as in ?other than,? there need be no difference at all
just that the two things aren?t the same.

And, yes, I don?t at all prefer sentences ending in propositions,
although I realize this is sometimes unavoidable. Still, the fewer the
better, it seems to me.

Perhaps the most egregious mistake?indeed, malpractice?in contemporary
lingo is when people are referred to as ?that,? as in ?the doctors that?
or ?the Germans that,? instead of ?who,? as in ?the doctors who? or ?the
Germans who.? Talk about demeaning human beings! Talking about them as if
they were mere objects surely does that, but one can see how it may play
into the hands of, say, animal ?rights? advocates. Now and then I ever run
across references to groups via ?who,? as in ?the team who played us
tonight.? Not just bad form but politically corrupting, I say.

Of course, there are all those uses of ?lay? instead of ?lie,? as if ?she
lies me down to sleep? meant the same thing as ?she lays me down to
sleep.? This is from the likes of reporters and newscasters, lyricists
writing pop tunes, and public speakers everywhere. It?s really
annoying?the killing of a distinction that does in fact capture an
important difference.

Of course I have ethical and political objections to the widespread use
of ?we? when people talk about decisions they like but do not wish to
admit they alone support?as in ?We have decided to build a stadium in this
city.? No, it wasn?t at all we who did this but some of us, while we all
were made to pay for it through the insidiously misapplied democratic
method. (?We? is the favorite word of communitarians and other
collectivists since they pretend that they are speaking for everyone
within a community. They are not.)

At this point I am brushing up against the problem of essentially
contestable concepts?for example, ?justice,? ?love,? ?liberty,? ?rights,?
and so forth. These are perennially disputed, even if some have a far
better worked out version than the rest. Too much hinges on the meaning
that will be widely accepted, so people are fighting to get their version
into circulation all the time.

Take, as an example, ?public.? It is used innocently enough in such
context as ?there is a public phone over there,? meaning a phone that
anyone willing to pay may use, provided another isn?t using it just then.
But what about ?public? in ?public interest?? In this usage, of course,
corruption is replete because when one can identify something as being in
the public interest, one has prima facie grounds for getting government to
do something about it. Yet I am willing to bet, based on my years of
paying attention to this, that ninety nine percept of such so called
public interests are, in fact, the private or special or vested interests
of some, by no means of us all. (Environmentalists have gotten away with
this ploy forever, but they are by no means the only ones. In fact, the
only bona fide public interest is the respect and protection of individual
rights because those are something we all have in the very same measure
and so we all benefit from having them honored.)

I am also hard put to ever use the word ?selfish? in the way many do,
namely, as if it had to mean being cruel or nasty to others. But I
understand that centuries of bad ideas about the nature of the human self
have led to this. I, however, will continue to wage a war or proper
meaning here, because I am convinced that the self that one may be
concerned about is very often very worthy?so, I follow Aristotle in
endorsing self-love by, for example, those who are just.

Anyway, perhaps you too have something you find especially annoying, for
good reason, about how people use the English language. I think that one
need not be pedantic to stand up for using it right.

Column on Religion, Politics & Society

Religion, Politics and Society

Tibor R. Machan

During the Q&A following a recent presentation I made to a Rotary Club
about the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, I was asked whether
I believe what the Pledge of Allegiance states about ?under God.? I do not
usually answer this question because I share the view that when it comes
to religion, that?s just too personal to bandy about in public, especially
when the topic didn?t have much to do with it. But there is an aspect of
this issue that is worth reflecting about.

Of course, a voluntary organization such as Rotary has every right?and
may most reasonably be expected?to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the
start of its meetings. In a culture in which most citizens are monotheists
of one or another type, something like the pledge, with its line about
?One nation, under God,? will be widely and significantly recited. The
interesting issue is whether public institutions, involving the various
levels and branches of government, ought to be making use of the Pledge
with this line figuring so prominently in it.

A government of a country like the United States of America is supposed
to have as its central purposes ?to secure our rights.? And that means the
rights of everyone, not only its monotheistic, atheist, agnostic, or
pantheist citizens. Thus in an important respect the prohibition of the
coupling of any faith or philosophical viewpoint and the government must
apply, and most sensibly so. Government may not champion agnosticism,
pantheism, atheism, or any other form of commitment?or non-commitment?to
religion. The government must only be concerned with something that
pertains to everyone, which happens to be just what the Founders
believed?to secure everyone?s basic individual rights.

However, when government becomes entangled in as many aspects of the
society as ours?and that of most other society?s?has, it is impossible to
insist that it remain divorced from people?s religious or non-religious
convictions. Remember the high school football team whose captain wanted
to say a prayer before a game, with the full consent of his team mates?
Surely that makes perfectly good sense. Or supposed some elementary or
high school in Kansas or New Hampshire has a policy of saying a prayer
before classes commence? That, too, is perfectly understandable?religion
and school are intricate elements of people?s lives and to expect the two
to be kept separate by law is absurd.

Trouble is that with all these aspects of society being treated as if
they were a matter of public policy?namely, something that governments are
involved with?the separation between religious or non-religious
convictions and government is impossible to uphold. In consequence, those
in the various minorities will see their views squelched by those in the
majority, simply because of the nature of public institutions. This would
not occur if the government kept to its proper task, the protection of our
rights. Apart from some pro-forma involvement with religion?such as a
prayer at the opening of Congress?there would be no incursion of
government sponsored religion?or non-religion?in our social lives. Those
who are members of Rotary would be perfectly free to proclaim whatever
their allegiance happens to be for no one would be forced to be part of
the organization. And those going to private schools would be free to
adhere and proclaim whatever beliefs they took to their hearts.

But with government?and government schools?everyone is involved, simply
by being a citizen. That?s precisely one of the reasons government must be
strictly limited to its essential function, to serve us all in the one
capacity this can happen, namely, as the protector of our universal,
unalienable rights. It should not be involved in sports, education,
entertainment, science, and the other myriad aspects of society wherein
folks often wish to give some expression to their deeply held convictions.
Government should not be in the position of having to speak for us all
when, in fact, it can only speak for some of us, as do various
organizations like Rotary.

In the USA religion is part of most people?s lives yet governments are
supposed to be kept separate from it precisely because there are so many
people with widely different religions?or non-religions. And this has
worked quite nicely for the most part?there are no overt religious battles
on US soil, not like in many societies around the globe and throughout
history. But the more the government encroaches on various parts of our
society that?s not any of its proper business, the more difficult it will
be to keep the peace among all those who take their religion?or its
absence?seriously in life.

Column on Impossible Idealism

Ideals One Can't Practice

Tibor R. Machan

One very troublesome influence of the philosophy of Plato, one of three
very influential ancient Greek philosophers, is the popularity of
idealism. Of course, "idealism" is used to mean different things but his
version was widely interpreted as meaning: an impossibly perfect version
of something. So an ideal apple, for example, simply cannot exist in the
actual world, nor an ideal political system. (Less extreme versions of
idealism ask not for some kind of impossible dream but the best of what is
possible.)

The bad influence of this version of Plato's idealism is evident in how
people so often depict what good people would be like, especially in
fiction. It is ironic--major Hollywood studios or New York publishing
houses give us stories in which the heroes, for example, routinely demean
making money and profit, only to earn big bucks from the sale of these
movies and books.

I was a fan of Rockford Files, the long running show staring James Garner
as a PI who lived in a trailer, parked near the Pacific shores by Los
Angeles. There were some pretty nifty aspects of this show but one always
irritated me: Rockford always made a point of losing money on his cases.
His clients could rarely pay him and he could rarely pay his associates,
including his attorney. And this was presented on the show as a virtuous
trait of the protagonist. At the same time, of course, the show itself was
making gobs of money for all those involved in its production, certainly
not excluding its star, James Garner.

William Lashner is a best selling author of legal thrillers and his
attorney is another of these heroes who keeps losing money hand over fist.
That's supposed be a part of what makes him heroic, while, of course, if
his books didn't bring in big bucks for HarperCollins Publishers, they
would not be published, at least not for long.

Then there are all those annoying actors, actresses, pop signers,
musicians, and other show folk who keep telling their TV talk show hosts
and fans everywhere how little they care about money, all the while raking
in tons of it from their gigs and letting their staff worry about
negotiating their percentages and salaries. How they get away with
pretending not to care about money while actually caring about it via
their highly paid delegates without being called on this beats me.

But, of course, these are just the more mundane versions of the bad
influence of reckless idealism. The notion that we must all strive to
achieve the impossible dream--in morality, politics, foreign affairs,
fitness training, and the rest--is far more serious and, indeed, quite
destructive. Out of this attitude, which places on us all demands that
cannot in principle be satisfied, arises a widespread attitude of cynicism
and defeatism for many people. Why bother trying if the chances of success
are hopeless?

Some answer this by saying that it is useful to have such impossible
goals because then people will keep on trying to do better and better.
Yes, if they are stupid. But if they have any brains at all, they will
abandon the task of doing well since they will quickly realize that it is
an impossible one. Unfortunately they usually haven't the time to figure
out that this entire scheme is a misguided one from the get go. So then
they will turn to pragmatism, the idea that all principles are useless.

Plato appears to have gotten the notion of the impossible ideal from his
admiration of geometry. In that discipline we do have notions of the
perfect circle, square, triangle, or straight line that simply cannot be
achieved in actual practice. They are mere models, kind of like those
beautiful people on the covers of Vogue or GQ. No one expects any actual
circles or squares to be perfect like those formally defined in geometry.
Unfortunately, even the models on the covers of these magazines can do
some harm by creating persistent frustration for people everywhere as they
strive but cannot ever achieve the looks depicted there.

If one could live a purely non-profit life, perhaps it would be a good
thing, although I doubt it--there is a good chance that this would lure us
into thinking that neither effort, nor, especially, budgeting, is required
for living successfully. But as the world actually is, these images are
highly misleading. Sadly, many people take them seriously, which is one
reason ordinary profit-seeking business people get such a bad press while
non-profits are admired.

Here it may be useful, ironically, to learn a lesson from Plato. He also
taught that the arts are a bad guide to truth. Maybe if we remembered
this, we would stop demanding of human beings that they live up to the
expectations projected via impossible dreams.

Column on Race vs. Class Card

Race Card Out, Class Card In!

Tibor R. Machan

A while back Bill Cosby made news with chiding black parents for not
being responsible enough with their kids? education. Stop buying them huge
speakers, start buying them books. This made sense because it does appear
that when one is surrounded with even a modest library in one?s youth,
one?s more likely than not to get used to books, even read some of them,
without parents having to badger one about this. Worked in my youth?I was
never told to read, unlike I was constantly forced to do sports?but the
apartment where we lived had a substantial library. I fell in love with
the books but rebelled against the relentless push to be athletic. While
one swallow does not a springtime make, this is more than just one case?I
have found my own and most other children responding much better to gentle
or subtle than to harsh or fierce urgings.

Alas, the idea that there is anything poor blacks could do other than
what they are actually doing is anathema to modern liberals. They love the
idea that the poor, black or white or whatever, are simply helpless and in
desperate need not of mustering initiative but, you guessed it, government
programs. So Mr. Cosby had to be placated.

Ah, but Mr. Cosby is black, so charging him with the vice of racism would
not work too well. It could carry no punch with which to silence what he
suggested, namely, that black parents can and ought to straighten up their
parental acts. Had his words been spoken by some prominent white
commentator, that ploy would still have been appealing to the modern
liberal establishment. Call the messenger a racist and thus squash the
truth about what parents can and should do for their kids.

But what to do now, when a prominent black figure delivers this piece of
sensible insight? How can it be squelched, neutralized so we can keep
going to government to answers?

Come to the rescue The New York Times, via the ?Editorial Observer,? one
Brent Staples (5/29/05). The problem with Bill Cosby isn?t that he is
white?no, it?s that he belongs to the upper black classes. The class card,
thus, takes the place of the race card.

Mind you ever since the 19th century, the class card has been a potent
weapon by those who loved the state, who would have government resurrected
to its previously prominent place of the ruler and the caretaker of the
realm. That used to be the role of benevolent monarchs?or so the story was
told to rationalize the monarchy. But monarchs had become discredited by
too obviously drifting toward despotism, with not much benevolence in what
they did as the top down rulers of countries. So the new idea was that all
the oppression perpetrated by the upper classes against the lower classes
didn?t simply require busting up the entrenched, legally protected class
system. No, instead it became fashionable to promote the notion that some
kind of benevolent people?s government could bring about the process of
equalization.

That this simply made that government grossly unequal and perpetuated the
institution of a ruling class?this time consisting of politicians and
bureaucrats?didn?t phase the advocates. After all, they were going to be
the ones who made up this new class. They were going to be the
intelligentsia in service of the people, via the state.

Once again this reactionary nonsense is dished out for us in The Times
that hopes our envy of the well off will bring us on board and get us to
join in the class warfare. Bill Cosby, who clearly cannot be charged with
being a racist, can now be dismissed because he is part of the upper black
class and that, of course, fixes his mind in a way that isn?t worth any of
our attention. And the class card gambit may help continue the notion that
the poor, especially the black poor, cannot fend for themselves, cannot
become better parents, cannot help with the improvement of the children?s
future. So, goes the refrain, ?We need the government, after all.?

Let?s not fall for this new trick, please. And let us not accept the
insulting notion about poor blacks but heed Mr. Cosby?s idea that black
folks?any folks?can and ought to do something about what ails them.

Column on Natural Law Ethics

About the Ethics of Natural Law

Tibor R. Machan

My task here isn?t to defend certain moral principles, ideals, or virtues
but to explore why the natural law approach to ethics makes sense. The
idea has been receiving a bad press and for reasons that should not go
unchallenged. (One criticism comes from famous Harvard Law Professor Alan
Dershowitz, in his recent book, Rights from Wrongs [Harvard University
Press, 2004].)

The idea of ?natural law? calls to mind for many people principles that
the various sciences identify within?and engineers use to control?nature.
And since most principles like that hold invariably, without fail?if it?s
a law of nature, it must always be operating, there is no escaping it?the
suggestion that ethics is part of natural law seems implausible. After
all, a crucial aspect of ethics is that one can choose either to follow or
to disobey it. So if natural laws are invariable, hold all the time,
ethics couldn?t be about natural law, given how it involves choice. Or so
the critics argue.

But there is a misunderstanding afoot here. Sciences do not prescribe how
laws of nature must operate?they must discover, not dictate that. If per
chance there is something in the world that involves free choice, so be
it. Science cannot rule that out, anymore than it can rule out black swans
or flying fish. These may be odd but not impossible and, indeed, science
has discovered them to be real.

Now human beings seem clearly to have free will, to be able to make
choices. As I write I have a choice about whether to continue or to get up
and have a sandwich or watch some TV instead. We all can make such
choices, nearly always except when we have chosen to go to sleep for a
while and but ourselves on hold, as it were, or when something puts us out
of commission. The very idea that someone is wrong about something?for
example, that I am wrong about free will?assumes that I can choose.
Critics assume that I might?and should?have chosen to be right!

Given at least the strong possibility that human beings are free to
choose how they will conduct themselves, at least within certain limits,
how would natural law apply to them? How would it apply to aspects of
their lives over which they have control, where they can choose?

The answer is that given the kind of beings we are, some things are more
likely to help us in living our lives, including among other human beings,
and some things will hinder this. Such ideas can be understood as natural
laws, as these pertain to human living. But we are not compelled to follow
them?that is something we have to choose. Not that the choices we make
will not have highly likely consequences. If we violate the laws of our
nature, we are most likely to fail at living well, properly; if we follow
them, it?s likely that we will succeed at living well, as is fit for a
human being. And exactly what that will be is a difficult thing to
tell?that?s is what ethics or morality tries to figure out. What courses
of conduct are the laws of our being? we might put it. Natural law ethics
takes these as laws because they regularly hold for us and if we violate
them, we will experience adversities, whereas if we obey them this will
help us get ahead in our human lives. (This is all akin to the laws of
medicine or nutrition.)

The content of natural law is, of course, controversial?does our nature
require us to be honest, prudent, generous, courageous, decent or what
have you? Or something else? Or doesn?t it matter one way or the
other?does our nature make it possible for us to behave whichever way
strikes our fancy? These are tough issues and here I am not addressing
them.

What is important to recognize is that when one speaks of natural laws
with respect of how we ought to act, it is not about how we will
necessarily act?as that would be with the natural laws governing the
behavior of rocks or fish?but about how we ought to choose to act. Still,
they are natural laws because whether we choose to obey them, whatever
they may be, will have serious and predictable consequences.

This, by the way, is also why in the field of jurisprudence or legal
theory, the natural law tradition champions certain principles to be
included in sound constitutional law. That?s because only if those
principles of basic law are indeed expressions of natural law will they
guide those in human communities to conduct themselves properly.

An essay on our Rigths

What Rights Do We Have?

Tibor R. Machan

Since ancient times some idea of basic human rights has been considered
but not until John Locke (1632-1704) developed the idea did it become a
vital part of political theory.

The idea of ?rights? comes, in part, from the idea of ?right??correct,
true?in the realm of (natural law) ethics, concerning how we ought to act
or not act because we are human beings. From this there was a development
toward the (Lockean) idea of rights, which concerns political life?how our
human communities should be governed, organized.

1. What are our basic individual rights? Each of us has rights to our
lives and resources, including what we produce or create. We are
sovereign, no one may rule us, so slavery, serfdom, involuntary servitude
are forbidden. Any such relationship of ruler and ruled between us and
others is contrary to our nature. These basic rights are sometimes called
?relational.? They identify the principles of the most basic relations
between people, ones never to be violated, even by government, even in war
time, even in emergencies.

2. Having rights implies an obligation on the part of everyone to respect
them, not to violate them. For anyone who chooses to live in a human
community, such obligations are binding. The rights identify the ?borders?
or ?side constraints? around people, the area of their free actions and
others have the enforceable obligation not to trespass on those borders.

3. Rights are compossible, which means everyone has them and they must be
equally respected regardless of who the holder is, man, woman, black,
white, tall, short, native or from abroad. These are what the natural
individual rights are that Locke identified. Each of us has them because
we are all human beings (that is, because of our human nature).

4. Our human rights are also un- or inalienable because simply by being a
human being each of us has them and cannot lose them. Even when we commit
crimes for which we are convicted and put into jail, this does not
alienate our rights because this outcome stems from a choice we have made
that has the predictable consequence that we will be banished from society.

5. John Locke taught, and the American Founders learned, that since each
of us, in adulthood, is a free and independent person, when we live in
communities this needs to be acknowledge and we need an institution, a
legal order, so as to protect our freedom and independence. As noted,
these basic rights are prohibitions on others, so we now call them
?negative? rights. They place a ?stop? or ?halt? sign before everyone
demanding that each of us abstains from violating such rights. These
rights are about what no one is authorized to do, about such negative
obligations.

6. As Locke and quite a few others before him?in what is called the
Natural Law tradition of ethics and politics?realized, our basic rights
are natural; they are not created by people (e.g., by governments), only
acknowledge by them. And governments or law-makers do not grant these but
are themselves bound to conduct their administrative and other duties
without violating them. The laws of a just society lay out these rights in
its basic document, such as the US Constitution (in the Bill of Rights)
and legislators are to be guided by such a document to only make such laws
that do not violate these rights; justices are responsible to strike down
laws that violate them when the legislators are so zealous as to make them
despite what their constitutionally limited powers authorize them to do.

7. Some theorists make mention of positive rights but these are bogus
unless they come from free agreements among people?for example, contracts
or compacts. No one has a right to health care or old age security or the
variety of so called rights included in FDR?s ?Second Bill of Rights.? If
they did, those who need to provide them with these benefits would be
subjected to impermissible involuntary servitude. Some complain that just
because we have these rights, we aren?t obligated to respect the rights of
others, but that, too, is a mistake: If one has rights, one may protect
them and may establish a community that rests on such protection. And one
needs no permission from people who would violate one?s rights to do this!

8. As to where the US Constitution exhibits the influence of basic
(Lockean) rights theory, consider the 4th Amendment which speaks of ?the
right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizure, shall not be
violated?.etc.? Or consider the 5th Amendment which speaks of private
property that may not be taken unless a genuine public purpose (court
house, police station) requires it, and then only if properly compensated.
These reflects, clearly, Locke?s own identification of private property
(estate) as a fundamental right. Others, including the government, is not
authorized to do violence to this security to which we have a right. (A
reasonable search and seizure could be conducted only against someone who
is strongly and demonstrably suspected of rights violations.)

9. When the US Constitution?s Bill of Rights mentions, in the 6th
Amendment, that ?In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the
right to a speedy and public trial, etc.,? this shows the influence of the
idea that each of us has a natural right to his or her life and liberty,
meaning that only if there is credible reason provided in an orderly
fashion may someone be incarcerated and only if there is a prompt
procedure afoot making sure that the charges against the individual will
be fully investigated. The idea that it is the prosecution who has the
duty to make a case against the defendant in a criminal case reflects the
(Lockean) idea that each of us is indeed free and independent and must be
so treated unless we have ourselves forsaken or voided such treatment by
our commission of a crime that violates the rights of someone else.

It is vital to appreciate that in a free society, one the Founders of the
American republic set out to establish, the rights everyone has may not be
set aside even in times of emergency or danger. The commitment to those
rights is what is stressed by identifying them as un- or inalienable which
means, to reiterate, incapable of being lost. The task of good government
is to protect the country, its citizens, while all the time respecting the
rights that justify that very protection. As Benjamin Franklin put it,
?Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither?.?

Column on Different Diversities

Understanding Varieties of Diversity

Tibor R. Machan

It is objectionable to fuss about diversity when all that tends to mean
is bringing together people of different ethnic, racial, linguistic, and
related backgrounds. Such diversity is about things no one can help?what
race they are, whether they are men or women, be they of Hispanic or
German origin, and so forth. These attributes are not really, ultimately,
what makes people who they are.

But, let?s face it, many people do invest a great deal in their own
membership in such groups even though they had nothing to do with it. For
some reason they derive their personal identity from them, not from
individual accomplishments. And in some instances this is actually
understandable and worth some sympathy.

Take, for example, being black in the United States of America. While
this really shouldn?t be very important to blacks or anyone else, sadly
often others make it important for them by their racists attitudes. If
blacks are often lumped together by others, treated with prejudice because
they are black, it is understandable that they will see their blackness as
important, if only in a sort of defensive way. Or make it gays or
Hispanics or what have you?in each case if such a fact about someone is
demeaned by others, it can become important to those in the target group.
Moreover, the experience of being treated with unjustified hostility, with
negative prejudice, can forge a uniting feature among those who are so
targeted.

Of course, the best situation would be if no one were ever treated badly
for attributes over which he or she has no power. It is not sensible,
however, to expect that no choices would ever be made based on such
attributes. In personal relationships, for example, people do invoke their
unaccounted for tastes and preferences for or against how someone looks,
behaves, feels, sounds, and so forth, however harmless any of this may be.
We sometimes regard someone simply based on how they do or fail to appeal
to us. And why shouldn?t we? But when this extends to determining choices
in professional contexts, that?s not admirable, even if in a genuinely
free society it may not be prohibited?the right of free association
requires not banning it. But those who do receive such treatment in
professional and other contexts where it is plainly wrong may feel a bond
with others and even come to treat this bond as somewhat defining of who
they are.

In educational and other institutions it may be reasonable to make a bit
of room for those who have a history of such experiences, especially if
that history of vital to understanding the society where the institution
is located and functions. Of course, the much more important diversity in
education institutions has to do with different philosophical, political,
religious, and similar perspectives that scholars may bring to the various
topics being studied. Sadly, this kind of diversity is not very much at
issue in the current concerns about diversity?centers, grants being
distributed, scholarship being conducted, and so forth. The racial, ethnic
and related diversity has nearly crowded out this far more important
diversity from academic institutions.

Nonetheless, those who lament the abandonment of a concern for diversity
of viewpoints need not condemn completely the other types of diversity
being stressed beyond reason these days. There is something of value in
that, since unfortunately in much of human history, including America?s,
some have had very bad experiences as members of diverse groups,
experiences that have given them useful information and a reason for them
to receive some remedial attention, something with which to balance the
adverse treatment their groups have been receiving all too often.

Those, in turn, who haven?t been lumped in with a group of others and
picked on with more or less severe and hurtful prejudice may not fully
appreciate what it is to be part of a group whose members have been widely
mistreated. And that lack of full appreciation may come across as
reinforcing the prejudicial treatment even when it is the farthest thing
from the truth.

But some serious reflection and patience can contribute to a better
understanding about these matters. It may even help wean many from their
need for what might be called tribal unity and prepare them to begin to
look to their own achievements as the main source of personal identity and
pride.

Column on US Supreme Court Squelching Liberty

Don?t Expect Court to Care for Liberty

Tibor R. Machan

The US Supreme Court ruled, on Monday, May 23rd, 2005, that to compel
people to support its propaganda with which they disagree does not violate
the First Amendment to the US Constitution, the one about everyone having
the right to freedom of speech. Yes, the court acknowledge, no one may be
coerced into funding some private party?s advertisements or related
speech. But when the government or some part of it decides it will
proselytize for something, it can make us all fund it.

Justice Scalia, writing for the majority in the 6 to 3 decision,
explained: "Compelled funding of government speech does not alone raise
First Amendment concerns." He added: "Citizens may challenge compelled
support of private speech, but have no First Amendment right not to fund
government speech."

Of course, since government has come to be legally authorized by courts
after courts to take money from people for whatever the government?s
agents want to fund, why would it not then extend this same legal
authority to fund propaganda? After all, government supports National
Public Radio, PBS, Voice of America and umpteen public service messages,
many of them contrary to what millions of American citizens want
supported. And, of course, thousands of government projects are funded
with which millions of Americans disagree.

In short, this is nothing very new. But it is a case that makes it very
clear and unambiguous that we aren?t free to spend our resources for our
purposes and that government may rob us to fund theirs. Why? Well, the
theory is, the government is us. Once the election is over, the
administration and its hooligans may all spend away at their hearts?
content since this isn?t a free country but a tyranny of the majority.

In a free country, in contrast, there would be nothing aside the
protection of our individual rights that government would be authorized to
have us all fund. That, as the US Declaration stated with no ambiguity at
all, is why governments are instituted among us: ?To secure these rights
(those listed in the Declaration, ones we all have and need protected).?
Because that is the only true public interest, the legal authorities of a
free society would be justified in spending funds on advancing it. That is
what we all would be paying the government to do, freely, by being
citizens of the country.

Supporting various special interest projects, such as promoting beef
eating, has absolutely no relationship to such a bona fide, genuine public
interest. But, because the original idea of what government is supposed to
do has been totally corrupted by now, and because one of the main force of
this corruption has been the US Supreme Court, it is hardly any wonder why
this same court reaffirmed government?s legal authority to loot us all of
our resources so as to promote yet another pet project the government?s
agents have cooked up.

As reported in The New York Times, ?Justice Scalia's opinion was joined by
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor,
Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer,? while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
concurred separately, saying that she viewed the assessments in all the
marketing cases as ?permissible economic regulation?.? Notice how chummy
all these otherwise quarrelling justice have become when it concerns
government spending the resources of the citizenry on matters having
absolutely nothing to do with the true public interest but with some
cockamamie project of its hirelings. Of course, they themselves are part
of this gang, so why would you expect it otherwise?

As an aside, this bit about how such spending amounts to ?permissible
economic regulation? is poppycock. The commerce clause, of Article 1,
Section 8, which empowers Congress ?to regulate commerce ... among the
several states? meant nothing like this mess of government intervention
the court has been rationalizing for decades now. It meant ?to regularize
commerce,? which had been irregular because the different colonies didn?t
share a common free market. The whole point was only to eliminate barriers
to the free flow of commerce, not to empower Congress to act like some
fascist or socialist economic planning agency.

Alas, if there were any integrity left to the US Supreme Court, we could
perhaps hope for some liberty in our future from that corner but that hope
has been squelched a long time ago.

Column on modern liberalism kaput

Why Modern Liberalism Is In Retreat

Tibor R. Machan

Liberalism was once a radical social philosophy because it championed
liberty, in particular, the right to individual freedom in civil and
economic affairs. In time, however, the term ?liberal? was hijacked by
those who were actually advocating a return to extensive government
interference, championing this now as necessary so as ?to make people
free.? In fact, however, what they proposed is the paternalistic state
whereby adult human beings would once again be treated as if they were
children, dependents, in constant need of being regimented by superior
leaders so they would live successfully.

So the radical liberalism that meant freeing adult individuals from
government became classical liberalism and, later, libertarianism, at
least in the United States of America. (Throughout the rest of the world
?liberal? still calls to mind the original radical meaning.) Yet the
debate isn?t only about words.

Modern liberals?or what elsewhere is referred to as social democrats or
out and out socialists?do have a different idea of what human beings are.
They think they are helpless in the face of the challenges and adversities
of nature and society. Classical liberals generally viewed people as
capable of taking the initiative, if only other people and governments
didn?t put chains on them, didn?t stop them from helping themselves.
Certainly people would have different starting points in the effort to
advance themselves?some would have more fortunate beginnings than others,
would start off healthier, more appealing or talented, born to wealthier
parents, than others. But, all in all, they could put their shoulders to
the task of improving on their lives, whatever their original situation.
And a free society, one championed by classical liberals or libertarians,
would then afford the best chance for them all to succeed at their diverse
endeavors.

Modern liberals, however, embraced a different view of human nature. They
held that we are basically moved by impersonal forces and have no capacity
to initiative any improvements on our lives. Any such improvement would
have to come from the outside, and government, with its concentrated and
massive coercive power, was the most promising candidate to bring about
such improvement. This is, in fact, the intellectual source of the switch
from the basic idea of individual rights of the American Founders versus
the idea of positive rights or entitlements that came to be the substance
of FDR?s ?Second Bill of Rights.?

Of course, many other factors influenced the change, including various
special interests parading as the public interest, but all rested,
fundamentally, on the switch from understanding people as self-starters to
seeing them as passive participants within a society. So the issue is
really about human nature?are we at heart self-governing living entities
or are we being moved about by impersonal forces and in constant need of
help from government?

Yet, as should be evident, the modern liberal?s approach to advancing the
lot of human beings is paradoxical. While denying that individuals can
help themselves if left to their own resources and to voluntary
cooperation, they affirm that governments?which are, after all, composed
of individuals?can take the initiative and come up with adequate solutions
to human problems. How is this possible? Either we are helpless, in which
case so is the government, or we can help ourselves, in which case it is
best, in most cases, to leave us free to find our own solution to
problems. Moreover, if we can take the initiative, then those who know the
problems they face, who have access to what has come to be called local
knowledge?which is where solutions most often lie?are in a far better
position to address challenges facing them than far off agencies of
governments.

So what has stymied the full development of the classical liberal,
affirmative view of human individual capabilities of free men and women?
It is, first, that the idea was simply very radical and unfamiliar to most
and, second, that those who had taken advantage of the opposite idea (that
rulers need to run everyone?s life) didn?t wish to yield power.

The modern liberal, in point of fact, turns out to be a reactionary, one
who still clings to the old idea that people in the main are inept and
require some supreme ruler to run their lives, to take care of them. That
is what supported the idea of feudalism and monarchy, with tsars, Caesars,
kings, queens, pharaohs, and other chiefs ruling the realm and the rest
relegated to the position of subjects required to follow the leaders? will.

In time, one may reasonably hope, the classical liberal?s radical but
very sensible insight about human nature?that it is fundamentally creative
and productive and needs liberty to flourish?will reemerge, having
overcome the bad habit of dependency on government. But this cannot be
expected to happen automatically?eternal vigilance is its price, indeed.