Unauthorized Government is Wrong
Tibor R. Machan
What was most horrible about the bulk of political history is that some people ruled others, often to the point of using them entirely against their will, even sending thousands and thousands of them to their death or using their lives for purposes they had no part in choosing. The big deal about the American revolution was the idea that one owns one’s life—the Lockean idea of the unalienable right to one’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This was so radical a notion—although here and there expressed by earlier thinkers but never really given official endorsement—that even now most folks just don’t get it. No one owns you—not your country, not your family, not your neighborhood, not your community, no one. You are the one who owns your life and properly gets to say what will be done with it. To reiterate what Lincoln so aptly said about this, “No one is good enough to govern another without that other’s consent.” And in some respects everyone has an inkling of this idea—it is entirely unacceptable for a doctor to operate without the patient’s consent, for an auto mechanic to work on your car without your giving permission, and so forth. Plain as anything can be!
Yet we are still in grips of public policies that directly contradict this idea and hark back to a time when government treated people as its resource, as its possession, as if only the ruling head and elites had the authority to set agendas with the rest of us having to tow the line. Day in and day out politicians and bureaucrats manage to make laws—in fact, the term law is all too honorific for most of their petty rules—by which the rest who have not consented must live their lives lest they be subject to fines or incarceration.
This distinctively American political idea has often been criticized—and today it is mostly denigrated by communitarians like Charles Taylor and Robert N. Bellah—for an alleged failure to stress the importance of community in human affairs, a lament that's entirely misguided. The founders had no prejudice against community, our social nature. What they did insist upon, however, is that human community life needs to be voluntary, un-coerced. They had a clear notion that unless a community is founded on the principle of voluntarism—unless each member of that community has his or her unalienable rights respected and protected—the result is not a genuine, bona fide human community but something akin to a bee hive or an ant colony. But because human beings are self-directed, because they have the freedom of the will to give meaning and direction to their lives—and only when they do so does it achieve full meaning—they realized that it is a condition of a human community that coercion is excluded from it. In other words—using the parlance of contemporary public policy—the public (human) good cannot involve the violation of basic rights. Those rights in fact serve to define what is the public good, namely, a society in which those basic rights are protected and promoted. That is what is meant by what the Declaration states, namely, that the just powers of government are derived from consent and such just powers have as their purpose to secure our basic rights.
None of this is against community but in favor of a community of free men and women. A community that rejects these criteria fails to be properly human, fit for proper human living.
But, because the propagation of the idea that some get to rule others is so entrenched, having for millennia served to rationalized the more or less arbitrary rule of some by others, even in America, let alone the rest of the world, it is still thought odd that one would oppose oppressive governments, including those which deploy the democratic method in achieving their oppression. Democracy that oppresses is no less oppressive than out and out dictatorship. It merely disperses the process of oppression so that it is somewhat disguised.
Those who appreciate the full impact of the words of the Declaration are few—even America’s founders only went a certain distance to fully realize them. Still, it is just the thing to realize if one is serious about aiming for establishing and maintaining a just human community.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Science and State
Tibor R. Machan
By now it has become predictable that each time a new president of the USA is elected, the letters sections of major newspapers, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, fill up with pleas from various professionals who believe that their services must not be left to the uncertain, volatile forces of the market place. Instead, they must be assured of funding by the government, via coercion, taxation.
If memory serves me right, the loudest bunch of folks who advance this plea are scientists of all stripes—natural, social, applied, you name them, they are in line with their hands reaching out, expecting to have the benefits of coerced funding because, well, what they are doing is so vital and so few people appreciate this that the money just cannot be expected to come voluntarily. Never mind that everyone can cook up this rationale for innumerable projects, personal, professional, political, philanthropic, whatever. Too many of us are convinced that on our agenda are gathered the most profound and urgent items, while other people’s priorities can certainly wait. Or so it would appear, given how the scientists line up to demand special treatment. It has become so bad that what might be deemed special is now indeed the norm—nearly everyone wants to escape having to convince the public of the merits of his or her projects, to go about raising support in a civilized, peaceful way. Instead nearly all seem to be convinced that support is due them automatically, that the allocation of funds based on the extortion that is taxation is what they are entitled to.
There are a few folks who have argued against funding sciences, let alone other endeavors, in this coercive fashion but they are by no means many. Terrence Kealey, in his book The Economic Laws of Scientific Research (Macmillan, 1996) is one of the few and his efforts to defend a free market in funding of research and development quickly came under criticism from those who want to continue with the now well established practice of exempting the sciences from having to make their case without the benefit of political clout. (I edited a book not long ago, Liberty & Research and Development [Hoover Institution Press, 2002], in which this topic is debated by the various contributors.)
But here my focus is not so much whether it is just to have science—or, indeed, any other human endeavor—supported coercively. I am convinced that it is not except where science supports bona fide law enforcement and defense against foreign aggression. Just as in the criminal law, force may only be used defensively, not to achieve various goals that may not be popular with enough people for them to gain support. But another aspect of this matter has become evident to me, although I speak about it as an amateur. I have in mind whether all this funding of science by coercive means isn’t actually having a corrupting effect.
Over the last twenty years or so I have been an avid reader of the little weekly magazine, Science News, which carries many reports of recent and current work in most of the sciences. And what I have noticed is that a great deal of what is being done just has no plausible relevance to anything at all except that it interests the scientists doing the work. This is easy enough to appreciate when it comes to various obscure studies in astrophysics or paleontology, for example. Why are millions and millions of dollars taken from citizens and handed to these professionals to produce findings that, well, are little more than curiosity items? Yes, they might turn into something more and there is plenty of evidence in the history of science that the results of work motivated by nothing more than curiosity eventually turn out to be useful. Good, but that means at best that we have been lucky—it does not imply any kind of imperative for the coercive support of such curiosity, none, nor that the bulk of it bears fruit for all those who are coerced to fund them!
I am willing to bet that if some God’s eye perspective could be found—an impossible idea, I admit—a very great deal of what scientists spend money on could be used better if left for the taxpayers to spend on projects of their own. But because the idea is so foreign, it seems evident that the way the politicians and bureaucrats allocate the funds is best. But there really is no good reason to think so.
Tibor R. Machan
By now it has become predictable that each time a new president of the USA is elected, the letters sections of major newspapers, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, fill up with pleas from various professionals who believe that their services must not be left to the uncertain, volatile forces of the market place. Instead, they must be assured of funding by the government, via coercion, taxation.
If memory serves me right, the loudest bunch of folks who advance this plea are scientists of all stripes—natural, social, applied, you name them, they are in line with their hands reaching out, expecting to have the benefits of coerced funding because, well, what they are doing is so vital and so few people appreciate this that the money just cannot be expected to come voluntarily. Never mind that everyone can cook up this rationale for innumerable projects, personal, professional, political, philanthropic, whatever. Too many of us are convinced that on our agenda are gathered the most profound and urgent items, while other people’s priorities can certainly wait. Or so it would appear, given how the scientists line up to demand special treatment. It has become so bad that what might be deemed special is now indeed the norm—nearly everyone wants to escape having to convince the public of the merits of his or her projects, to go about raising support in a civilized, peaceful way. Instead nearly all seem to be convinced that support is due them automatically, that the allocation of funds based on the extortion that is taxation is what they are entitled to.
There are a few folks who have argued against funding sciences, let alone other endeavors, in this coercive fashion but they are by no means many. Terrence Kealey, in his book The Economic Laws of Scientific Research (Macmillan, 1996) is one of the few and his efforts to defend a free market in funding of research and development quickly came under criticism from those who want to continue with the now well established practice of exempting the sciences from having to make their case without the benefit of political clout. (I edited a book not long ago, Liberty & Research and Development [Hoover Institution Press, 2002], in which this topic is debated by the various contributors.)
But here my focus is not so much whether it is just to have science—or, indeed, any other human endeavor—supported coercively. I am convinced that it is not except where science supports bona fide law enforcement and defense against foreign aggression. Just as in the criminal law, force may only be used defensively, not to achieve various goals that may not be popular with enough people for them to gain support. But another aspect of this matter has become evident to me, although I speak about it as an amateur. I have in mind whether all this funding of science by coercive means isn’t actually having a corrupting effect.
Over the last twenty years or so I have been an avid reader of the little weekly magazine, Science News, which carries many reports of recent and current work in most of the sciences. And what I have noticed is that a great deal of what is being done just has no plausible relevance to anything at all except that it interests the scientists doing the work. This is easy enough to appreciate when it comes to various obscure studies in astrophysics or paleontology, for example. Why are millions and millions of dollars taken from citizens and handed to these professionals to produce findings that, well, are little more than curiosity items? Yes, they might turn into something more and there is plenty of evidence in the history of science that the results of work motivated by nothing more than curiosity eventually turn out to be useful. Good, but that means at best that we have been lucky—it does not imply any kind of imperative for the coercive support of such curiosity, none, nor that the bulk of it bears fruit for all those who are coerced to fund them!
I am willing to bet that if some God’s eye perspective could be found—an impossible idea, I admit—a very great deal of what scientists spend money on could be used better if left for the taxpayers to spend on projects of their own. But because the idea is so foreign, it seems evident that the way the politicians and bureaucrats allocate the funds is best. But there really is no good reason to think so.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Even Astronauts are People
by Tibor R. Machan
No, I am not at all gleeful about Astronaut Lisa Nowak's indictment for attempted murder. But I do consider it instructive that someone from an elite group of men and women can apparently turn out to be quite vicious. It shouldn't need to be said but, sadly, it does. On one Los Angeles radio station, for example, a commentator intoned with great indignation about the event, lambasting Nowak not for what she is supposed to have done but for doing it while an Astronaut with NASA. How dare someone with such a prestigious outfit turn out to do bad things, maybe even end up a bad person?
I wish I could have replied to this ignorant exclamation right on the spot, just in case some listeners didn't appreciate its full implications. Are certain groups of human beings supposed to immune to evil, lack the freedom of will to do the wrong thing? Surely that is a hopelessly delusional idea, embrace by the likes of those who believe in the innate goodness of certain groups of people.
We have so many examples of the supposedly elite going bad; we have Aristotle teaching that the hypothetically best regime governed by the best among us will not work because the best rulers often turn into despots; and we have ourselves to check out so as to confirm that anyone is capable of going bad. Not that anyone must go bad—the idea of innate evil is as insidious as the idea of innate goodness. What makes the human species distinctive is precisely that anyone can become either good or bad or hover somewhere in between, in mediocrity.
Of course there is a long tradition of some folks managing to pull off the ruse that they are a special breed and those who aren't of their ilk, just aren't up to snuff. This has served thousands of those in the upper echelons of society very nicely for thousands of years. But it was and continues to be nothing more than a ruse. We are all capable of turning out to do things right or to do thing wrong or, as is often the case, do a bit of this and a bit of that throughout our lives.
The belief that suggests that NASA folks are a special breed and that Lisa Nowak is thus some freak lends credence to one of the most insidious aspects of social thought. It goes hand in hand with the many varieties of tribalism, whereby Germans are superior to Jews, Muslims to Christians, white folks to black ones, men to women—or vice versa, you name it. And it is responsible for a huge amount of the misery that we find throughout human history.
Instead, the best understanding of human nature suggests that keeping on the straight and narrow is a matter of constant vigilance, of shaping and keeping in good shape one's moral character, of never stopping the monitoring process whereby one conducts oneself virtuously instead of viciously. The temptation to become lax in this task can lead to disaster, and indeed most of the avoidable disasters in human history have been due to such negligence and the subsequent efforts to cover it up.
So the lesson from astronaut Nowak's story may well turn out to be important not only for her and some of the folks in her life but for all those who are tempted to believe that going into some line of work, some profession, or some calling will spare one the trouble of having to work at being a decent human being. There is no formula for achieving that apart from one's own relentless, full focus on what it takes to live one's individual life as best as one can. While there can be some practices that will make this come about at greater ease than without them, even then constant vigilance is unavoidable since the future can always pose unexpected challenges, temptations, obstacles and diversions.
by Tibor R. Machan
No, I am not at all gleeful about Astronaut Lisa Nowak's indictment for attempted murder. But I do consider it instructive that someone from an elite group of men and women can apparently turn out to be quite vicious. It shouldn't need to be said but, sadly, it does. On one Los Angeles radio station, for example, a commentator intoned with great indignation about the event, lambasting Nowak not for what she is supposed to have done but for doing it while an Astronaut with NASA. How dare someone with such a prestigious outfit turn out to do bad things, maybe even end up a bad person?
I wish I could have replied to this ignorant exclamation right on the spot, just in case some listeners didn't appreciate its full implications. Are certain groups of human beings supposed to immune to evil, lack the freedom of will to do the wrong thing? Surely that is a hopelessly delusional idea, embrace by the likes of those who believe in the innate goodness of certain groups of people.
We have so many examples of the supposedly elite going bad; we have Aristotle teaching that the hypothetically best regime governed by the best among us will not work because the best rulers often turn into despots; and we have ourselves to check out so as to confirm that anyone is capable of going bad. Not that anyone must go bad—the idea of innate evil is as insidious as the idea of innate goodness. What makes the human species distinctive is precisely that anyone can become either good or bad or hover somewhere in between, in mediocrity.
Of course there is a long tradition of some folks managing to pull off the ruse that they are a special breed and those who aren't of their ilk, just aren't up to snuff. This has served thousands of those in the upper echelons of society very nicely for thousands of years. But it was and continues to be nothing more than a ruse. We are all capable of turning out to do things right or to do thing wrong or, as is often the case, do a bit of this and a bit of that throughout our lives.
The belief that suggests that NASA folks are a special breed and that Lisa Nowak is thus some freak lends credence to one of the most insidious aspects of social thought. It goes hand in hand with the many varieties of tribalism, whereby Germans are superior to Jews, Muslims to Christians, white folks to black ones, men to women—or vice versa, you name it. And it is responsible for a huge amount of the misery that we find throughout human history.
Instead, the best understanding of human nature suggests that keeping on the straight and narrow is a matter of constant vigilance, of shaping and keeping in good shape one's moral character, of never stopping the monitoring process whereby one conducts oneself virtuously instead of viciously. The temptation to become lax in this task can lead to disaster, and indeed most of the avoidable disasters in human history have been due to such negligence and the subsequent efforts to cover it up.
So the lesson from astronaut Nowak's story may well turn out to be important not only for her and some of the folks in her life but for all those who are tempted to believe that going into some line of work, some profession, or some calling will spare one the trouble of having to work at being a decent human being. There is no formula for achieving that apart from one's own relentless, full focus on what it takes to live one's individual life as best as one can. While there can be some practices that will make this come about at greater ease than without them, even then constant vigilance is unavoidable since the future can always pose unexpected challenges, temptations, obstacles and diversions.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Revisiting Taxation's Origins
by Tibor R. Machan
Come tax day each year it is important to recall just what gave rise to this practice of government extorting money from us. Not that the good people at the IRS confine their crimes to April 15 or thereabouts—the 17th in 2007. There are hundreds of hidden and not so hidden taxes involved in virtually all our commercial undertakings. (The exception I know of seems to involve horses—but don't tell anyone!)
First a little history: In feudal times, and even before, the monarch or whoever else pretended to be the "keeper of the realm" was deemed to have been granted ownership of a country, either with absolute title or with some constraints. (As the feudal era lost its dominance, the constraints became stricter and in time monarchies came to be mostly ceremonial—the still very expensive—as in the UK.) But the framework in all feudal systems involved statism—the government owned nearly everything. So if one lived in this realm and worked there, it collected rent, just as an apartment owner does form those renting in the building. The entire system rested on the firmly held assumption that the head of the state owned the country and could collect taxes from others who lived and worked there.
With the American revolution a new idea emerged, namely, that no head of state owned anything. Governments were now deemed to be instituted as a kind of service agency assigned the task of protecting the basic (and derivative) rights of all those who lived in the country. And it was these folks, not some king, tsar, pharaoh or some other keeper of the realm, who owned stuff. The right to private property had been identified as a proper instrument for deciding who owns what. John Locke, the grandfather of the American political tradition, claimed that people came to own stuff by mixing their labor with raw nature. While a challenging idea, it had the ring of truth about it far more than that story about the king owning it all!
With this new political notion the system of serfdom or involuntary servitude—whereby people were tied to the land that the king owned and needed the king's permission to act as they wanted to—had been consigned to the dustbin of history in most places in the West as well as a few others. But taxation remained in place because it hadn't been figured out how governments might be funded. However, severe limitations had been conceived so that all that taxes would do was fund a highly limited government.
Now as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men—well, taxation quickly got out of hand and we are now nearly back where we were with all those monarchs. Governments are claiming ownership of their countries' wealth—and some of their apologists are making sophisticated arguments defending the idea. (See Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, The Myth of Ownership [Oxford UP, 2002].) To put the matter differently, the current system of taxation is a reactionary policy that conflicts with the idea of the right to private property and the right to one's life and liberty, as well.
But then how might the valid functions of a government be funded, if taxation is really but extortion? There are answers but no one at major, prestigious centers of learning is doing research on the details. In broad outline, the proper substitute is a contract fee. Most people take advantage of contracts and these need a legal order for them to function properly. But it is not necessary to do so—it's technically optional. (For more on this, see my "Dissolving the Problem of Public Goods, Financing Government Without Coercive Measures" in my edited volume, The Libertarian Reader [Rowman & Littlefield, 1982].)
Men and women have lived with many unjust institutions and policies but that isn't sufficient to construe them acceptable, morally and politically. Nor should taxation be taken as an exception. An alternative must be found that avoids its injustices.
by Tibor R. Machan
Come tax day each year it is important to recall just what gave rise to this practice of government extorting money from us. Not that the good people at the IRS confine their crimes to April 15 or thereabouts—the 17th in 2007. There are hundreds of hidden and not so hidden taxes involved in virtually all our commercial undertakings. (The exception I know of seems to involve horses—but don't tell anyone!)
First a little history: In feudal times, and even before, the monarch or whoever else pretended to be the "keeper of the realm" was deemed to have been granted ownership of a country, either with absolute title or with some constraints. (As the feudal era lost its dominance, the constraints became stricter and in time monarchies came to be mostly ceremonial—the still very expensive—as in the UK.) But the framework in all feudal systems involved statism—the government owned nearly everything. So if one lived in this realm and worked there, it collected rent, just as an apartment owner does form those renting in the building. The entire system rested on the firmly held assumption that the head of the state owned the country and could collect taxes from others who lived and worked there.
With the American revolution a new idea emerged, namely, that no head of state owned anything. Governments were now deemed to be instituted as a kind of service agency assigned the task of protecting the basic (and derivative) rights of all those who lived in the country. And it was these folks, not some king, tsar, pharaoh or some other keeper of the realm, who owned stuff. The right to private property had been identified as a proper instrument for deciding who owns what. John Locke, the grandfather of the American political tradition, claimed that people came to own stuff by mixing their labor with raw nature. While a challenging idea, it had the ring of truth about it far more than that story about the king owning it all!
With this new political notion the system of serfdom or involuntary servitude—whereby people were tied to the land that the king owned and needed the king's permission to act as they wanted to—had been consigned to the dustbin of history in most places in the West as well as a few others. But taxation remained in place because it hadn't been figured out how governments might be funded. However, severe limitations had been conceived so that all that taxes would do was fund a highly limited government.
Now as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men—well, taxation quickly got out of hand and we are now nearly back where we were with all those monarchs. Governments are claiming ownership of their countries' wealth—and some of their apologists are making sophisticated arguments defending the idea. (See Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, The Myth of Ownership [Oxford UP, 2002].) To put the matter differently, the current system of taxation is a reactionary policy that conflicts with the idea of the right to private property and the right to one's life and liberty, as well.
But then how might the valid functions of a government be funded, if taxation is really but extortion? There are answers but no one at major, prestigious centers of learning is doing research on the details. In broad outline, the proper substitute is a contract fee. Most people take advantage of contracts and these need a legal order for them to function properly. But it is not necessary to do so—it's technically optional. (For more on this, see my "Dissolving the Problem of Public Goods, Financing Government Without Coercive Measures" in my edited volume, The Libertarian Reader [Rowman & Littlefield, 1982].)
Men and women have lived with many unjust institutions and policies but that isn't sufficient to construe them acceptable, morally and politically. Nor should taxation be taken as an exception. An alternative must be found that avoids its injustices.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Free Speech is Dead
Tibor R. Machan
When Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) wrote their bipartisan letter to demand that the giant oil corporation Exxon “end any further financial assistance [to those] whose public advocacy has contributed to the small but unfortunately effective climate change denial myth,” I recalled the following report about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak: “There are freedoms, but they can’t contradict our traditions,” the president intoned some years ago as he opened a book fair in Egypt. “We must guarantee that freedom of expression agrees with our values.”
In a genuine free society there must be freedom of expression even about matters that are highly unpopular and perhaps conflict with received scientific truth, if that idea makes any sense at all in science. Scientists have been notorious throughout the ages for tilting against windmills, for being skeptics about mainstream thinking. And in our day mainstream thinking has it that human beings are a very significant contributing cause to global warming. There are dissidents regarding this view and maybe they are wrong—that isn’t the point here. What is the point is that Snowe and Rockefeller are in the wrong about whether Exxon has the right to support organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Reportedly, Exxon made its decision to withdraw its support of CEI before this letter went out, so that, again, isn’t the issue. What is very disturbing is that the one remaining liberty in the United States of America, due to how the courts have read the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, is now being threatened by the very agency that is supposed to be making our rights secure. Governments are instituted among us for that purpose, according to the Declaration of Independence.
Of course, when this is noted, apologists will come forth and claim that the Exxon case is special. Richard Littlemore of the blog Desmog.com, for example, writes that “The problem is that this kind of speech [Exxon’s support of CEI] is not ‘free.’ In distracting us from addressing an issue that threatens the world in an unprecedented way, it is costing us all a price that we may never be able to pay.”
Notice how the concept “free” is being twisted around by Littlemore—from meaning that no one may interfere with someone else’s speaking out or funding other’s doing so to meaning that something doesn’t cost anything. Hardly related, if at all! Mubarak is far more honest when he states what Snowe and Rockefeller actually mean, namely, that “we must guarantee that freedom of expression agrees with our values.” But that’s Egypt, which is a virtual dictatorship, not the United States of America where politicians constantly stress how everyone is free, especially as far as thinking and saying what they will.
I happen to agree that there is a bit of confusion about what the freedom is that Snowe and Rockefeller are threatening, although there is a lot of expert debate about this. For example, in the campaign financing debate many who oppose caps consider it a violation of freedom of speech to impose them. I think it is more accurate to view this as a violation of the right to private property. However, since private property is now hardly protected in America, many have decided to attempt to defend our right to give support to causes and political candidates on the basis of the right to freedom of speech and expression. In any case, what is at issue is human freedom and those like Snowe, Rockefeller, Littlemore and Mubarak clearly care nothing about it.
It is no big surprise, of course. There is that famous quip from William Pitt who answered similar arguments by saying, “Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of the tyrant and the creed of the slave.” From the Right it is national security or the dire necessity to spread democracy across the globe that serves to justify the abridgement of liberty. From the Left it is poverty, inequality, and, now, environmental precaution that serve to invalidate our rights and undermine the government’s duty to secure our rights.
I am still not fully despondent, though, mainly because the habit of crushing human liberty is a very old one and difficult to shake, like most bad habits are. But to quote another favorite philosopher of mine, the jazz pianist and song writer Mose Allison, “I am not downhearted, but I’m gettin’ there.”
Tibor R. Machan
When Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) wrote their bipartisan letter to demand that the giant oil corporation Exxon “end any further financial assistance [to those] whose public advocacy has contributed to the small but unfortunately effective climate change denial myth,” I recalled the following report about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak: “There are freedoms, but they can’t contradict our traditions,” the president intoned some years ago as he opened a book fair in Egypt. “We must guarantee that freedom of expression agrees with our values.”
In a genuine free society there must be freedom of expression even about matters that are highly unpopular and perhaps conflict with received scientific truth, if that idea makes any sense at all in science. Scientists have been notorious throughout the ages for tilting against windmills, for being skeptics about mainstream thinking. And in our day mainstream thinking has it that human beings are a very significant contributing cause to global warming. There are dissidents regarding this view and maybe they are wrong—that isn’t the point here. What is the point is that Snowe and Rockefeller are in the wrong about whether Exxon has the right to support organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Reportedly, Exxon made its decision to withdraw its support of CEI before this letter went out, so that, again, isn’t the issue. What is very disturbing is that the one remaining liberty in the United States of America, due to how the courts have read the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, is now being threatened by the very agency that is supposed to be making our rights secure. Governments are instituted among us for that purpose, according to the Declaration of Independence.
Of course, when this is noted, apologists will come forth and claim that the Exxon case is special. Richard Littlemore of the blog Desmog.com, for example, writes that “The problem is that this kind of speech [Exxon’s support of CEI] is not ‘free.’ In distracting us from addressing an issue that threatens the world in an unprecedented way, it is costing us all a price that we may never be able to pay.”
Notice how the concept “free” is being twisted around by Littlemore—from meaning that no one may interfere with someone else’s speaking out or funding other’s doing so to meaning that something doesn’t cost anything. Hardly related, if at all! Mubarak is far more honest when he states what Snowe and Rockefeller actually mean, namely, that “we must guarantee that freedom of expression agrees with our values.” But that’s Egypt, which is a virtual dictatorship, not the United States of America where politicians constantly stress how everyone is free, especially as far as thinking and saying what they will.
I happen to agree that there is a bit of confusion about what the freedom is that Snowe and Rockefeller are threatening, although there is a lot of expert debate about this. For example, in the campaign financing debate many who oppose caps consider it a violation of freedom of speech to impose them. I think it is more accurate to view this as a violation of the right to private property. However, since private property is now hardly protected in America, many have decided to attempt to defend our right to give support to causes and political candidates on the basis of the right to freedom of speech and expression. In any case, what is at issue is human freedom and those like Snowe, Rockefeller, Littlemore and Mubarak clearly care nothing about it.
It is no big surprise, of course. There is that famous quip from William Pitt who answered similar arguments by saying, “Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of the tyrant and the creed of the slave.” From the Right it is national security or the dire necessity to spread democracy across the globe that serves to justify the abridgement of liberty. From the Left it is poverty, inequality, and, now, environmental precaution that serve to invalidate our rights and undermine the government’s duty to secure our rights.
I am still not fully despondent, though, mainly because the habit of crushing human liberty is a very old one and difficult to shake, like most bad habits are. But to quote another favorite philosopher of mine, the jazz pianist and song writer Mose Allison, “I am not downhearted, but I’m gettin’ there.”
Dinesh D’Souza Goes Bananas
Tibor R. Machan
D’Souza is a man to reckon with. He is no fool and many of his ideas have considerable merit. But in his latest book, The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, D’Souza has gone over the top big time. The theme of this work is that 9/11 is partly the responsibility of the American Left, which, as Publishers Weekly characterized the work, "roots the blame for the 9/11 attacks in the left wing's ‘aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family’."
The flaw in this is elementary and is contained in that famous saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones (but words will never hurt me)." The main point, a serious one, is that human beings can be unavoidably hurt only when physically attacked. Otherwise, when insulted or offended, they are free to turn and walk away from what doesn’t please them. There is, in short, nothing coercive about verbal assaults.
In turn, of course, the response to such "assaults" must be peaceful, non-aggressive. However much one may take exception to what someone else says, thinks, advocates, promotes, suggests, intimates, and so forth, none of it justifies responding with violence. Yes, there may some borderline cases, as with all things human. But those are few and far between—if someone is grieving for an intimate and you insult the person, the pain may be too difficult to bear and the response could be violent and excusable. Even in the criminal law in some countries crimes of passion are forgiven because, well, they are deemed to have been provoked. But that’s already too lenient, too willing to accept as an excuse one’s failure to act in a civilized fashion, namely, with proper restraint.
When the Danish newspapers ridiculed Mohammed, those were insults. A civilized response would not have gone beyond a verbal, if firm, protest. Instead many Muslims went out and burned down buildings and killed people. No insults warrant this.
So Mr. D’Souza is wrong to blame the American Left, with all of its moral relativism and support of decadence and licentiousness, for how Muslims acted, specifically when they assaulted and murdered innocent people in New York City on September 11, 2001. They should have confined themselves to criticizing those in the West, including, perhaps, those on the Left, for being wrong. Instead they acted like barbarians. And for this neither the Left nor anyone else besides the perpetrators are responsible.
Mr. D’Souza has a compatriot on the Left in this matter. Catherine MacKinnon, the University of Michigan law professor and author of the book, Only Words (Harvard University Press, 1993), argued against first amendment protection for pornographers because, well, their words, pictures, and films should be construed as being equivalent to physical weapons. But they aren’t. And when people who read or view pornography engage in violent conduct, it is not the pornography that’s responsible but they are. That is the meaning of human freedom of thought, namely, that the bulk of what we are offered without coercion is not assault by any stretch of the imagination. It may be offensive, insulting, annoying, irritating, blasphemous, and so forth; but it is no justification for violent reaction from any human being. If one’s culture taught one that being offended justifies violent response, one’s culture is misguided, wrongheaded, period.
The idea behind this is that human beings can read and view anything and freely accept or reject it—they have free will and aren’t coerced into doing what the material they read or view urges them to do. This is, indeed, the basis for the First Amendment’s protection of the right of freedom of speech and expression in the U. S. Constitution. It is the height of civilized law! The fact that many Muslims are unwilling to act accordingly cannot be blamed on those whose words and deeds offend them.
Mr. D’Souza, who has written some fine things about America and why it is such a free and essentially great country, seems to have forgotten his own ideas in this latest book.
Tibor R. Machan
D’Souza is a man to reckon with. He is no fool and many of his ideas have considerable merit. But in his latest book, The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, D’Souza has gone over the top big time. The theme of this work is that 9/11 is partly the responsibility of the American Left, which, as Publishers Weekly characterized the work, "roots the blame for the 9/11 attacks in the left wing's ‘aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family’."
The flaw in this is elementary and is contained in that famous saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones (but words will never hurt me)." The main point, a serious one, is that human beings can be unavoidably hurt only when physically attacked. Otherwise, when insulted or offended, they are free to turn and walk away from what doesn’t please them. There is, in short, nothing coercive about verbal assaults.
In turn, of course, the response to such "assaults" must be peaceful, non-aggressive. However much one may take exception to what someone else says, thinks, advocates, promotes, suggests, intimates, and so forth, none of it justifies responding with violence. Yes, there may some borderline cases, as with all things human. But those are few and far between—if someone is grieving for an intimate and you insult the person, the pain may be too difficult to bear and the response could be violent and excusable. Even in the criminal law in some countries crimes of passion are forgiven because, well, they are deemed to have been provoked. But that’s already too lenient, too willing to accept as an excuse one’s failure to act in a civilized fashion, namely, with proper restraint.
When the Danish newspapers ridiculed Mohammed, those were insults. A civilized response would not have gone beyond a verbal, if firm, protest. Instead many Muslims went out and burned down buildings and killed people. No insults warrant this.
So Mr. D’Souza is wrong to blame the American Left, with all of its moral relativism and support of decadence and licentiousness, for how Muslims acted, specifically when they assaulted and murdered innocent people in New York City on September 11, 2001. They should have confined themselves to criticizing those in the West, including, perhaps, those on the Left, for being wrong. Instead they acted like barbarians. And for this neither the Left nor anyone else besides the perpetrators are responsible.
Mr. D’Souza has a compatriot on the Left in this matter. Catherine MacKinnon, the University of Michigan law professor and author of the book, Only Words (Harvard University Press, 1993), argued against first amendment protection for pornographers because, well, their words, pictures, and films should be construed as being equivalent to physical weapons. But they aren’t. And when people who read or view pornography engage in violent conduct, it is not the pornography that’s responsible but they are. That is the meaning of human freedom of thought, namely, that the bulk of what we are offered without coercion is not assault by any stretch of the imagination. It may be offensive, insulting, annoying, irritating, blasphemous, and so forth; but it is no justification for violent reaction from any human being. If one’s culture taught one that being offended justifies violent response, one’s culture is misguided, wrongheaded, period.
The idea behind this is that human beings can read and view anything and freely accept or reject it—they have free will and aren’t coerced into doing what the material they read or view urges them to do. This is, indeed, the basis for the First Amendment’s protection of the right of freedom of speech and expression in the U. S. Constitution. It is the height of civilized law! The fact that many Muslims are unwilling to act accordingly cannot be blamed on those whose words and deeds offend them.
Mr. D’Souza, who has written some fine things about America and why it is such a free and essentially great country, seems to have forgotten his own ideas in this latest book.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Business and Money
Tibor R. Machan
On a recent trip to a college in Louisiana I was in a discussion with some academic philosophers one of whom advanced the idea that business isn’t guided by ethical principles since its purpose is to make money. A 1961 essay by the late Milton Friedman, a Nobel Laureate in economics, from The New York Times Magazine and reprinted in many business ethics readers, seems to give support to this idea. Friedman argued that the social responsibility of corporate managers is to earn a profit. And this does appear to mean that nothing other than making money hands over fist should motivate those in the profession of business.
Actually, Friedman made clear that while people in business ought to strive to make money, they need to do so while adhering to "the rules of the game," as it were. And these rules include the criminal law as well as basic ethical principles such as truthfulness, keeping promises, etc. Still, Friedman’s essay left the impression that all business is about is making money. And if this is so, one might ask—as the professor I spoke with did—why bother with any standards other than whether one’s professional decisions lead to making money.
But, of course, business isn’t just about making money, anymore than medicine is just about advancing health. A doctor who would attempt to advance the health of a patient by deceit—say, by failing to fully disclose what’s amiss to the patient—or by theft—say, of someone else’s vital organs—and so forth would not be carrying on professionally. Such a doctor would engage in malpractice. A manager of a firm who would produce shoddy goods so as to make a quick buck would be no different.
Indeed, properly understood, businesses are highly varied, some involved in producing products, some services, some investing in other firms—all aiming for prosperity, yes, but not at any price. Any profession could be corrupted by failing to heed the standards of producing what it is about. So an educator, for example, who seeks to impart knowledge by means of deception or taking advantage of the naiveté of students would be engaged in misconduct. It is not only when the teacher becomes a preacher that he or she misbehaves. And it is not only when someone in business fails to heed the bottom line that there’s malpractice.
Indeed, business is never just about making money—even when it seems to be so. For making money even while managing money requires adherence to certain standards of conduct based on the simple fact that one is a human being making money by dealing with other human beings. In the employment relationship, for instance, it is wrong to hire and promote on the basis of factors irrelevant to the business at hand. This is why racial or sexual discrimination, nepotism and such, are deemed violations of business ethics even though they do not directly involve neglecting the bottom line.
In any profession one can carry on badly while seeming to pursue the ends that define the profession. A journalist could obtain an interview on false pretenses, gain information dishonestly and even steal it, in which case the job of producing information for his or her clients would be mishandled.
One reason that my academic pal may have maintained the perverse thesis that nothing else matters in business but making a buck is that some economists actually advocate this idea, just as the late Milton Friedman appeared to (although, once fully understood, didn’t, in fact). Economists have for centuries argued that the best explanation of how people act in the market place is that they are driven by the profit motive. This wasn’t actually an idea that came from economists, originally, but from a 16th century philosopher, namely, Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes held that we are all driven to behave as we do because we seek power, because we are afraid of death. For Hobbes right versus wrong conduct amounted to no more than doing what felt right versus what didn’t. And that itself could be explained by how we are made to feel good by improving our changes of survival.
This idea was derived form the more basic notion of Galilean physics that everything moves ineluctably until it is stopped by some force. It introduced mechanistic determinism as a way to understand human behavior. Economists tended to adept this to their efforts to make sense of how markets work. Morality was excluded from the picture, especially since so many moral theorists believe that self-interested conduct is unethical. Going the mechanical route avoided having to contend with these moralists. And it still does, to a large extent.
In fact, however, market conduct, as any other conduct, is governed by ethical principles. That includes, of course, the vigilant pursuit of profit—but not at any cost.
Tibor R. Machan
On a recent trip to a college in Louisiana I was in a discussion with some academic philosophers one of whom advanced the idea that business isn’t guided by ethical principles since its purpose is to make money. A 1961 essay by the late Milton Friedman, a Nobel Laureate in economics, from The New York Times Magazine and reprinted in many business ethics readers, seems to give support to this idea. Friedman argued that the social responsibility of corporate managers is to earn a profit. And this does appear to mean that nothing other than making money hands over fist should motivate those in the profession of business.
Actually, Friedman made clear that while people in business ought to strive to make money, they need to do so while adhering to "the rules of the game," as it were. And these rules include the criminal law as well as basic ethical principles such as truthfulness, keeping promises, etc. Still, Friedman’s essay left the impression that all business is about is making money. And if this is so, one might ask—as the professor I spoke with did—why bother with any standards other than whether one’s professional decisions lead to making money.
But, of course, business isn’t just about making money, anymore than medicine is just about advancing health. A doctor who would attempt to advance the health of a patient by deceit—say, by failing to fully disclose what’s amiss to the patient—or by theft—say, of someone else’s vital organs—and so forth would not be carrying on professionally. Such a doctor would engage in malpractice. A manager of a firm who would produce shoddy goods so as to make a quick buck would be no different.
Indeed, properly understood, businesses are highly varied, some involved in producing products, some services, some investing in other firms—all aiming for prosperity, yes, but not at any price. Any profession could be corrupted by failing to heed the standards of producing what it is about. So an educator, for example, who seeks to impart knowledge by means of deception or taking advantage of the naiveté of students would be engaged in misconduct. It is not only when the teacher becomes a preacher that he or she misbehaves. And it is not only when someone in business fails to heed the bottom line that there’s malpractice.
Indeed, business is never just about making money—even when it seems to be so. For making money even while managing money requires adherence to certain standards of conduct based on the simple fact that one is a human being making money by dealing with other human beings. In the employment relationship, for instance, it is wrong to hire and promote on the basis of factors irrelevant to the business at hand. This is why racial or sexual discrimination, nepotism and such, are deemed violations of business ethics even though they do not directly involve neglecting the bottom line.
In any profession one can carry on badly while seeming to pursue the ends that define the profession. A journalist could obtain an interview on false pretenses, gain information dishonestly and even steal it, in which case the job of producing information for his or her clients would be mishandled.
One reason that my academic pal may have maintained the perverse thesis that nothing else matters in business but making a buck is that some economists actually advocate this idea, just as the late Milton Friedman appeared to (although, once fully understood, didn’t, in fact). Economists have for centuries argued that the best explanation of how people act in the market place is that they are driven by the profit motive. This wasn’t actually an idea that came from economists, originally, but from a 16th century philosopher, namely, Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes held that we are all driven to behave as we do because we seek power, because we are afraid of death. For Hobbes right versus wrong conduct amounted to no more than doing what felt right versus what didn’t. And that itself could be explained by how we are made to feel good by improving our changes of survival.
This idea was derived form the more basic notion of Galilean physics that everything moves ineluctably until it is stopped by some force. It introduced mechanistic determinism as a way to understand human behavior. Economists tended to adept this to their efforts to make sense of how markets work. Morality was excluded from the picture, especially since so many moral theorists believe that self-interested conduct is unethical. Going the mechanical route avoided having to contend with these moralists. And it still does, to a large extent.
In fact, however, market conduct, as any other conduct, is governed by ethical principles. That includes, of course, the vigilant pursuit of profit—but not at any cost.
BBC Biased Environmental Correspondent
Tibor R. Machan
Reporting on a meeting at which various organizations came together to address the issue of global warming, climate change, and the possibility of having to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the BBC’s environmental correspondent, Richard Black, wrote how US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman declared that energy companies will reduce greenhouse gas emissions because, well, they cared about the environment. As Bodman reportedly put the point, "I believe that the people who run the private sector, who run these companies: they too have children, they too have grandchildren, they too live and breathe in the world. And they would like things dealt with effectively."
In response to this the reporter for the BBC offered this: “Call me cynical if you will, but my first thought was, so you mean, what, corporations like Enron? Or Arthur Andersen? Or WorldCom? And I was not alone. Mr Bodman had momentarily silenced an entire press corps.”
Now just consider the companies Mr. Black mentioned as he considered Mr. Bodman’s comment—Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom. All of these have recently committed some kind of corporate crime, or have been charged with criminal conduct, although one of them has recently been nearly completely exonerated from all criminal culpability. Now imagine another scenario. A representative of the Roman Catholic Church offers a declaration that the church cares about young people, their education, their upbringing, their future. Mr. Black, who is in the audience when this declaration is made, writes about this as follows: “Call me cynical if you will, but my first thought was, so you mean, what, the Roman Catholic clergy, like those in Boston and San Francisco and Los Angeles, care about children? And I was not alone. The Roman Catholic spokesman had momentarily silenced an entire press corps.” Or consider the following: At a conference of university medical systems a representative of university hospitals declares that these institutions are concerned about the health of the citizenry in their neighborhoods, whereupon Mr. Black reports, “Call me cynical if you will, but my first thought was, so you mean, what, hospitals like the one at UCLA or UC Irvine care about patients? And I was not alone. The university hospital spokesman had momentarily silenced an entire press corps.”
Now perhaps my own response to Mr. Black’s report will not be fully appreciated by most people, probably because they have not followed the scandals involving Roman Catholic priests who have molested children entrusted into their care or the scandals at university hospitals where body parts have been selling on the black market and other gross malpractice has occurred, for instance, involving obtaining livers to be used in transplants. This would be understandable. The mainstream media is far more eager to report malfeasance in the business community than in the Roman Catholic clergy or at university medical schools. Yes, at first the news did make headlines but it never became the grounds for widespread condemnation of either the clergy or university medical care as such. The scandals were treated, rightly, as exceptions to the rule.
If Mr. Black and his colleagues took a count, they would learn that among all the major corporations doing business throughout the globe, only a very, very small minority is involved in malfeasance. Therefore to indict the integrity of all of them, to be cynical as Mr. Black and his fellow journalists reportedly were, is irresponsible and unprofessional. Might it be something of an indictment of professional journalism, perhaps? But it is best to recall that those who go into environmental journalism are a minority and tend to be ideologically motivated and, frankly, largely anti-business, not fully representative of journalists.
As to whether Mr. Bodman and others in the business community are justified in being concerned over greenhouse gas emissions, that’s a different topic. Perhaps they, like millions of other people, are victims of a hoax or the exaggerations of environmentalist doom-sayers. Whatever the case, the idea, conveyed by BBC reporter Richard Black, that people in corporate commerce must all be like a certain few corporate villains is disgraceful. It is completely unbecoming of someone in his own profession!
Tibor R. Machan
Reporting on a meeting at which various organizations came together to address the issue of global warming, climate change, and the possibility of having to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the BBC’s environmental correspondent, Richard Black, wrote how US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman declared that energy companies will reduce greenhouse gas emissions because, well, they cared about the environment. As Bodman reportedly put the point, "I believe that the people who run the private sector, who run these companies: they too have children, they too have grandchildren, they too live and breathe in the world. And they would like things dealt with effectively."
In response to this the reporter for the BBC offered this: “Call me cynical if you will, but my first thought was, so you mean, what, corporations like Enron? Or Arthur Andersen? Or WorldCom? And I was not alone. Mr Bodman had momentarily silenced an entire press corps.”
Now just consider the companies Mr. Black mentioned as he considered Mr. Bodman’s comment—Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom. All of these have recently committed some kind of corporate crime, or have been charged with criminal conduct, although one of them has recently been nearly completely exonerated from all criminal culpability. Now imagine another scenario. A representative of the Roman Catholic Church offers a declaration that the church cares about young people, their education, their upbringing, their future. Mr. Black, who is in the audience when this declaration is made, writes about this as follows: “Call me cynical if you will, but my first thought was, so you mean, what, the Roman Catholic clergy, like those in Boston and San Francisco and Los Angeles, care about children? And I was not alone. The Roman Catholic spokesman had momentarily silenced an entire press corps.” Or consider the following: At a conference of university medical systems a representative of university hospitals declares that these institutions are concerned about the health of the citizenry in their neighborhoods, whereupon Mr. Black reports, “Call me cynical if you will, but my first thought was, so you mean, what, hospitals like the one at UCLA or UC Irvine care about patients? And I was not alone. The university hospital spokesman had momentarily silenced an entire press corps.”
Now perhaps my own response to Mr. Black’s report will not be fully appreciated by most people, probably because they have not followed the scandals involving Roman Catholic priests who have molested children entrusted into their care or the scandals at university hospitals where body parts have been selling on the black market and other gross malpractice has occurred, for instance, involving obtaining livers to be used in transplants. This would be understandable. The mainstream media is far more eager to report malfeasance in the business community than in the Roman Catholic clergy or at university medical schools. Yes, at first the news did make headlines but it never became the grounds for widespread condemnation of either the clergy or university medical care as such. The scandals were treated, rightly, as exceptions to the rule.
If Mr. Black and his colleagues took a count, they would learn that among all the major corporations doing business throughout the globe, only a very, very small minority is involved in malfeasance. Therefore to indict the integrity of all of them, to be cynical as Mr. Black and his fellow journalists reportedly were, is irresponsible and unprofessional. Might it be something of an indictment of professional journalism, perhaps? But it is best to recall that those who go into environmental journalism are a minority and tend to be ideologically motivated and, frankly, largely anti-business, not fully representative of journalists.
As to whether Mr. Bodman and others in the business community are justified in being concerned over greenhouse gas emissions, that’s a different topic. Perhaps they, like millions of other people, are victims of a hoax or the exaggerations of environmentalist doom-sayers. Whatever the case, the idea, conveyed by BBC reporter Richard Black, that people in corporate commerce must all be like a certain few corporate villains is disgraceful. It is completely unbecoming of someone in his own profession!
Why Skepticism is Sound
Tibor R. Machan
In the global warming debate the big issues is whether what human beings do contributes significantly to global warming. That global warming is occurring is not much in dispute, although some scientists do make a good deal of the point that there have been warming periods in the past, some of them far greater than those being recorded in our time. There has of course been steady global warming, on average, since as the earth evolved it was at certain early times covered with ice and quite uninhabitable by anything alive. Warming was a precondition to the emergence of life. But the warming never increased steadily and there have been periods of both, warming and cooling all along. Even after serious warming had commenced, there were long periods during which cold spells reemerged.
At this time, however, there is discernible warming, although the actual records—as distinct from computer projections—show only very small increases in the temperature of the earth. And in some places no warming is occurring at all. However, the history of temperature rise is not what concerns many of the skeptics about climate change. Nearly everyone agrees that there has been a rise recently. What is in dispute is (a) how much of an increase is likely to occur in the future and (b) whether human activities have had, are having, and will have a significant impact on global warming.
As to (a), the evidence is mixed and the more dire predictions are all based on several computer models combined with other computer models. And as the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out." Here is the first place where skepticism occurs. Are those doing the modeling doing it right and can they actually be trusted to do it right? Is the science and technology on which modeling is based itself—and the scientists themselves—reliable?
Given that global warming research now consists of a mostly government subsidized industry across the globe, including the United Nations, with millions of dollars in grants going to those doing work in the field, there is understandable concern about whether those involved are stacking the deck in favor of a Doomsday scenario. It is often noted by private industry research critics that profit can corrupt research but the same is hardly ever noted in mainstream circles about government subsidized research. Furthermore, skeptics well understand that without a scare, there are fewer funds forthcoming. Government funding requires, ultimately, political support and such support relies heavily on a concerned, even frightened constituency. No Doomsday scenario, no concerned citizenry, and no allocation of funds obtained via taxation.
But there is more. In my own community the rangers put warnings out each day about fire hazards, ranging from "moderate" to "extremely high." Interestingly, the "moderate" sign is displayed even if it is pouring rain. In the ten years I have lived here, there hasn’t been a fire. Yet the "extremely high" has been displayed (by my assessment) routinely roughly 70% of the year. It is a tendency of those assigned to be on the lookout to exaggerate hazards. Vigilance calls for it, as they see their jobs.
As to the human factor, here the skeptics are often concerned about what may be dubbed (following a book by that title by Jonathan R. T. Hughes) the governmental habit—if global warming were unrelated to human activity, there isn’t a lot that politicians and bureaucrats could promise to do about it. Or, alternatively, if the best approach to encouraging responsible human conduct would be to leave politicians out of the picture and simply deploy various measures banning or containing what economists call negative externalities—bad side effects from normal productive processes—that, too, would leave the politicians out of the picture. And then what would they do, how would they gain the power most of them hunger for? There is, then, a strong probability that Doomsday scenarios will be projected by government officials and all those who work for them—get financial support, appointments to prestigious committees, invited to plush conferences, etc., etc.
So when one puts together the lack of solid science and technology behind the claim that global warming is imminent and that human conduct significantly contributes to the probable global warming, the attitude of skepticism is most reasonable. Or, to put it differently, how reasonable is it to trust politicians about their need for increased powers over the rest of us?
Tibor R. Machan
In the global warming debate the big issues is whether what human beings do contributes significantly to global warming. That global warming is occurring is not much in dispute, although some scientists do make a good deal of the point that there have been warming periods in the past, some of them far greater than those being recorded in our time. There has of course been steady global warming, on average, since as the earth evolved it was at certain early times covered with ice and quite uninhabitable by anything alive. Warming was a precondition to the emergence of life. But the warming never increased steadily and there have been periods of both, warming and cooling all along. Even after serious warming had commenced, there were long periods during which cold spells reemerged.
At this time, however, there is discernible warming, although the actual records—as distinct from computer projections—show only very small increases in the temperature of the earth. And in some places no warming is occurring at all. However, the history of temperature rise is not what concerns many of the skeptics about climate change. Nearly everyone agrees that there has been a rise recently. What is in dispute is (a) how much of an increase is likely to occur in the future and (b) whether human activities have had, are having, and will have a significant impact on global warming.
As to (a), the evidence is mixed and the more dire predictions are all based on several computer models combined with other computer models. And as the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out." Here is the first place where skepticism occurs. Are those doing the modeling doing it right and can they actually be trusted to do it right? Is the science and technology on which modeling is based itself—and the scientists themselves—reliable?
Given that global warming research now consists of a mostly government subsidized industry across the globe, including the United Nations, with millions of dollars in grants going to those doing work in the field, there is understandable concern about whether those involved are stacking the deck in favor of a Doomsday scenario. It is often noted by private industry research critics that profit can corrupt research but the same is hardly ever noted in mainstream circles about government subsidized research. Furthermore, skeptics well understand that without a scare, there are fewer funds forthcoming. Government funding requires, ultimately, political support and such support relies heavily on a concerned, even frightened constituency. No Doomsday scenario, no concerned citizenry, and no allocation of funds obtained via taxation.
But there is more. In my own community the rangers put warnings out each day about fire hazards, ranging from "moderate" to "extremely high." Interestingly, the "moderate" sign is displayed even if it is pouring rain. In the ten years I have lived here, there hasn’t been a fire. Yet the "extremely high" has been displayed (by my assessment) routinely roughly 70% of the year. It is a tendency of those assigned to be on the lookout to exaggerate hazards. Vigilance calls for it, as they see their jobs.
As to the human factor, here the skeptics are often concerned about what may be dubbed (following a book by that title by Jonathan R. T. Hughes) the governmental habit—if global warming were unrelated to human activity, there isn’t a lot that politicians and bureaucrats could promise to do about it. Or, alternatively, if the best approach to encouraging responsible human conduct would be to leave politicians out of the picture and simply deploy various measures banning or containing what economists call negative externalities—bad side effects from normal productive processes—that, too, would leave the politicians out of the picture. And then what would they do, how would they gain the power most of them hunger for? There is, then, a strong probability that Doomsday scenarios will be projected by government officials and all those who work for them—get financial support, appointments to prestigious committees, invited to plush conferences, etc., etc.
So when one puts together the lack of solid science and technology behind the claim that global warming is imminent and that human conduct significantly contributes to the probable global warming, the attitude of skepticism is most reasonable. Or, to put it differently, how reasonable is it to trust politicians about their need for increased powers over the rest of us?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Lexus Parallel Parking not For All
Tibor R. Machan
One of the annoying elements of advertising is that it often treats us all as if we were just one person. So, for example, because some people may befit from a product--say Lexus's new automatic parallel parking device—it appears to be suggested in the ad that this is something for us all. Of course, very few products or services being promoted to us are really for all of us. But back when advertising used to come mainly from the radio and TV industry, and both of these were oligopolies, ads were indeed usually addressed to millions of people all at once, with no differentiation among them possible. With diversified commercials now possible, targeting people in markets whose interests it is possible to anticipate, this apparent one-size-fits-all assumption in ads has subsided.
Nonetheless, the habit is still pervasive, so this Lexus ad makes it appear that we all require help with parallel parking. It is exactly this that the Op Ed piece By Calvin Trilling in The New York Times, Friday, January 26th, brought to my mind. I thought about how the Lexus ad, which I have seen several times, "suggests" that we all need the help that the new model provides.
But that would to be to misunderstand the function of advertising, which is not to make suggestions, not to give advice, not to inform us of anything but simply to effectively promote products and services. And in promotions one uses hype or other attention-getting means because all one aims for is to alert people to the availability of a produce or service. Once they are aware, they then can reject or accept—it's up to them.
The late Harvard celebrity economist, John Kenneth Galbraith argued against this because he believed that advertising destroys our ability to choose, to be sovereign consumers. He believed corporations produce ads so as to create desires in us which we will have to fulfill by purchasing what they are marketing. This demeaning view is not totally unreasonable—indeed many ordinary folks outside of Harvard University tend to think of others as very vulnerable to the lures of commercials. Many of us think other people are uncritical when they view or hear or read ads and therefore we are being lead unwillingly to go out and buy stuff. But being uncritical is a matter of choice!
F. A. Hayek, another economist and Nobel Laureate, penned a rebuttal to Galbraith in which he pointed out that while becoming aware of new products and services does indeed create desires—as do all innovations in art, science, entertainment, technology, etc.—human beings have the capacity to select which of their desires they will try to fulfill. Depending on their budgets and other constraints, as well as their priorities apart from commerce, they may or may not act so as to fulfill a desire that may have been prompted by means of advertising. Men and women in the market place are free agents and as such are also free to do dumb things, so they can and often do respond to advertising mindlessly, hastily, imprudently. But this doesn't mean they have to. Yet that’s is just what Galbraith thesis suggests—that we lack sovereignty means we cannot govern ourselves, be in charge of our own actions.
Now such thinking is quite rampant because many educated and well placed scholars, natural and socieal scientists and researchers—not to mention philosophers—hold that whatever we do, we must do. We have no choice. So when people go out to buy something after having encountered an ad for it, they had to do this and the immediate cause to explain their conduct seems to be, well, the ad itself. Not their considered judgment as to what to do, which may have involved weighing alternatives against this option, even if ever so rapidly and even un-self-consciously. So the Galbraithian thesis gains support form the widespread deterministic understanding of human behavior.
As with all such determinist notions, this, too, runs up against the fallacy of self-exclusion. If we are all just doing what we have to, then what the proponent of this idea is doing he or she must be doing, like rain that must fall or earthquakes that must erupt. In which case the issue of whether it is true is moot—the utterings of a parrot cannot qualify as a theory of anything.
Tibor R. Machan
One of the annoying elements of advertising is that it often treats us all as if we were just one person. So, for example, because some people may befit from a product--say Lexus's new automatic parallel parking device—it appears to be suggested in the ad that this is something for us all. Of course, very few products or services being promoted to us are really for all of us. But back when advertising used to come mainly from the radio and TV industry, and both of these were oligopolies, ads were indeed usually addressed to millions of people all at once, with no differentiation among them possible. With diversified commercials now possible, targeting people in markets whose interests it is possible to anticipate, this apparent one-size-fits-all assumption in ads has subsided.
Nonetheless, the habit is still pervasive, so this Lexus ad makes it appear that we all require help with parallel parking. It is exactly this that the Op Ed piece By Calvin Trilling in The New York Times, Friday, January 26th, brought to my mind. I thought about how the Lexus ad, which I have seen several times, "suggests" that we all need the help that the new model provides.
But that would to be to misunderstand the function of advertising, which is not to make suggestions, not to give advice, not to inform us of anything but simply to effectively promote products and services. And in promotions one uses hype or other attention-getting means because all one aims for is to alert people to the availability of a produce or service. Once they are aware, they then can reject or accept—it's up to them.
The late Harvard celebrity economist, John Kenneth Galbraith argued against this because he believed that advertising destroys our ability to choose, to be sovereign consumers. He believed corporations produce ads so as to create desires in us which we will have to fulfill by purchasing what they are marketing. This demeaning view is not totally unreasonable—indeed many ordinary folks outside of Harvard University tend to think of others as very vulnerable to the lures of commercials. Many of us think other people are uncritical when they view or hear or read ads and therefore we are being lead unwillingly to go out and buy stuff. But being uncritical is a matter of choice!
F. A. Hayek, another economist and Nobel Laureate, penned a rebuttal to Galbraith in which he pointed out that while becoming aware of new products and services does indeed create desires—as do all innovations in art, science, entertainment, technology, etc.—human beings have the capacity to select which of their desires they will try to fulfill. Depending on their budgets and other constraints, as well as their priorities apart from commerce, they may or may not act so as to fulfill a desire that may have been prompted by means of advertising. Men and women in the market place are free agents and as such are also free to do dumb things, so they can and often do respond to advertising mindlessly, hastily, imprudently. But this doesn't mean they have to. Yet that’s is just what Galbraith thesis suggests—that we lack sovereignty means we cannot govern ourselves, be in charge of our own actions.
Now such thinking is quite rampant because many educated and well placed scholars, natural and socieal scientists and researchers—not to mention philosophers—hold that whatever we do, we must do. We have no choice. So when people go out to buy something after having encountered an ad for it, they had to do this and the immediate cause to explain their conduct seems to be, well, the ad itself. Not their considered judgment as to what to do, which may have involved weighing alternatives against this option, even if ever so rapidly and even un-self-consciously. So the Galbraithian thesis gains support form the widespread deterministic understanding of human behavior.
As with all such determinist notions, this, too, runs up against the fallacy of self-exclusion. If we are all just doing what we have to, then what the proponent of this idea is doing he or she must be doing, like rain that must fall or earthquakes that must erupt. In which case the issue of whether it is true is moot—the utterings of a parrot cannot qualify as a theory of anything.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Bush's Costly Fruitless Blind Faith
by Tibor R. Machan
President George W. Bush stood before Congress and the few million Americans and people across the globe to plead that they all give his new approach to the Iraq war a chance: "Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq—and I ask you to give it a chance to work," he intoned. "And I ask you to support our troops in the field—and those on their way."
I hope very much that his plea will meet with a resounding rejection from all concerned. First of all, the death of one more American soldier who signed up to defend the United States of America and the American Constitution from enemies must not be wasted on this miserable war, one for which very few are asking and hardly anyone is grateful, certainly few, it appears, in Iraq.
When Americans volunteer for the U. S. military—something I once did for four years—they do not mean this to be taken as carte blanche permission to be sent to do anything anywhere on the globe. The purpose of a government and its military arm in a free country is, as the political philosophy sketched in the Declaration of Independence states so clearly, "to secure [our] rights."
Second, even if one accepts that despite its misconceived commencement, this war now spawned expectations that the U. S. needs to take seriously, at most this means that as the military disengages from Iraq, it leaves as intact an Iraqi security force as is possible under the circumstances, not that it wait until who knows when for an ideal Iraqi security organization to come into existence. Do the best to assemble such a security force and leave ASAP. Anything else amounts to an indefinite commitment to "stay the course" which is, as noted, completely misconceived and puts thousands of Americans in harm's way—many of them did not enlist to do this kind of service but enlisted to defend America. (Perhaps some kind of operation, run by the CIA or whatever to abate terrorism abroad and by the FBI or some other organization to hold it at bay here at home can do the bit of legitimate work the military is expected to be doing in Iraq now.)
Third, by permitting Bush to start up a new approach to this ill-conceived, badly conducted military operation—not necessarily because the military is inept but because this is an impossible war for it to fight, like sending in a bulldozer to squelch heavy fog—the American government is simply going to consume extensive resources in a futile operation, bent then, inevitably, to do so for an indefinite period of time. Even if our security does require serious expense, this isn't were the investment needs to be made, not, if as we are told by Bush, the objective is to abate terrorism.
Fourth, generally government needs to be curtailed in its enormous growth and this policy sure as heck isn't going to help with that goal, one Bush at least claims he supports.
Obviously more could be remedied in this awful mess, but these are just some of the reasons the Bush approach is a bad one and needs to be nipped in the bud. The entire notion that America is to establish democracy around the globe is flawed; but that it must do this in Iraq and elsewhere in the most unstable regions is out and out suicidal—literally so for many American citizens. No one abroad is entitled to be protected against monsters by America's military, not unless a firm and well conceived, mutually advantageous military treaty has been drafted and approved for this purpose.
My plea, in response to President Bush's, is to end this utterly disgusting undertaking and to restore the legitimate function of the U. S. government and its military arms. It is utterly incomprehensible to me why this president is pursuing this war, why he has any confidence in such a demonstrably fruitless and unjustified undertaking. Let's end it ASAP instead of carrying on in what comes to be nothing but blind faith.
by Tibor R. Machan
President George W. Bush stood before Congress and the few million Americans and people across the globe to plead that they all give his new approach to the Iraq war a chance: "Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq—and I ask you to give it a chance to work," he intoned. "And I ask you to support our troops in the field—and those on their way."
I hope very much that his plea will meet with a resounding rejection from all concerned. First of all, the death of one more American soldier who signed up to defend the United States of America and the American Constitution from enemies must not be wasted on this miserable war, one for which very few are asking and hardly anyone is grateful, certainly few, it appears, in Iraq.
When Americans volunteer for the U. S. military—something I once did for four years—they do not mean this to be taken as carte blanche permission to be sent to do anything anywhere on the globe. The purpose of a government and its military arm in a free country is, as the political philosophy sketched in the Declaration of Independence states so clearly, "to secure [our] rights."
Second, even if one accepts that despite its misconceived commencement, this war now spawned expectations that the U. S. needs to take seriously, at most this means that as the military disengages from Iraq, it leaves as intact an Iraqi security force as is possible under the circumstances, not that it wait until who knows when for an ideal Iraqi security organization to come into existence. Do the best to assemble such a security force and leave ASAP. Anything else amounts to an indefinite commitment to "stay the course" which is, as noted, completely misconceived and puts thousands of Americans in harm's way—many of them did not enlist to do this kind of service but enlisted to defend America. (Perhaps some kind of operation, run by the CIA or whatever to abate terrorism abroad and by the FBI or some other organization to hold it at bay here at home can do the bit of legitimate work the military is expected to be doing in Iraq now.)
Third, by permitting Bush to start up a new approach to this ill-conceived, badly conducted military operation—not necessarily because the military is inept but because this is an impossible war for it to fight, like sending in a bulldozer to squelch heavy fog—the American government is simply going to consume extensive resources in a futile operation, bent then, inevitably, to do so for an indefinite period of time. Even if our security does require serious expense, this isn't were the investment needs to be made, not, if as we are told by Bush, the objective is to abate terrorism.
Fourth, generally government needs to be curtailed in its enormous growth and this policy sure as heck isn't going to help with that goal, one Bush at least claims he supports.
Obviously more could be remedied in this awful mess, but these are just some of the reasons the Bush approach is a bad one and needs to be nipped in the bud. The entire notion that America is to establish democracy around the globe is flawed; but that it must do this in Iraq and elsewhere in the most unstable regions is out and out suicidal—literally so for many American citizens. No one abroad is entitled to be protected against monsters by America's military, not unless a firm and well conceived, mutually advantageous military treaty has been drafted and approved for this purpose.
My plea, in response to President Bush's, is to end this utterly disgusting undertaking and to restore the legitimate function of the U. S. government and its military arms. It is utterly incomprehensible to me why this president is pursuing this war, why he has any confidence in such a demonstrably fruitless and unjustified undertaking. Let's end it ASAP instead of carrying on in what comes to be nothing but blind faith.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
American Conservatism, RIP
by Tibor R. Machan
Back when I became actively political, meaning I started to pay attention to elections, candidates and so forth in the wake of the Kennedy-Nixon TV debates, you would have considered me a conservative in the American sense of that term. As someone who was smuggled out by a professional from Hungary in 1953, I had very strong anti-communist sentiments. And as someone who was raised for a while by a virulent anti-Semitic father and was surrounded by quite a few anti-Semites in my family and their friends, I also felt repulsed by Nazism. Perhaps there was also that personal attitude I have harbored for as long as I can remember, namely, wanting to figure things out for myself and resenting any attempt to group me or any other human beings with others because of birth, location, color of skin, or any other trait I might accidentally share with other people.
American conservatives like William F. Buckley, Jr., and some of his own heroes like Frank S. Meyer and Frank Chodorov, made a great deal of hay with the ideas of the American founders. To my somewhat cursory observation, they favored individualism, civil and property rights—in short, the ideals sketched in the Declaration of Independence. They were committed, I thought, to preserving—conserving—those ideals as against all the collectivisms that Europe embraced, both Left and Right. I discovered Buckley while reading his article, "Why Don't We Complain?" in Esquire magazine, back in 1961 or so, and I felt I had a comrade in arms, even a leader, in him. I started to read National Review and felt quite comfortable with the spirit and letter of what it contained—up to a point.
The thing about American conservatism is that it is only so much American but also a bit too much conservative. The essence of conservatism is expressed poignantly by the 18th century leader of the movement, Edmund Burke. He made the observation that "... Men have no right to risk the very existence of their nation and their civilization upon experiments in morals and politics; for each man's private capital of intelligence is petty; it is only when a man draws upon the bank and capital of the ages, the wisdom of our ancestors, that he can act wisely."
Burke he also noted that "We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank of nations and of ages." The gist of this is that human individuals may not be entrusted with the wisdom and virtue to figure things out for themselves. The idea comes from the somewhat retrograde part of Christianity, contained in spades in Thomas a Kempis's disturbing book, Imitation of Christ. Kempis (1380-1471) taught that for a good Christian it was immoral to seek knowledge since doing so is an affront to God, the only one who can truly know. Of course, not all Christians believed or believe this but even today some Christian groups swear that Kempis's book is a wonderful piece of work, with the most valuable advice for human living.
The American element of the conservatism of this country eventually became overshadowed by the conservative element and in our time many conservatives are scornful of what the Founders believed, namely, that individuals have unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They might not quarrel much with the right to life—although considering how some are now calling for the military draft, even that isn't universally true—but they do have serious problems with the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Conservative intellectuals like Russell Kirk were mercilessly harsh about these notions, believing, as show in Kirk's The Conservative Mind, that individual human beings are fundamentally corrupt or at least very, very easily corrupted, so for them happiness will mostly turn out to be short term pleasure and freedom nothing better than license.
Once the conservative began to overshadow the American for American conservatives, what they stood for became something dismal and pessimistic, namely, a kind of spiritual nanny state. Having no confidence in the fundamental innocence of human beings at birth, they focused on what we need so as to stop from descending into degradation, something we are all inclined to do.
In time I realized that the conservative mind was indeed an anti-American mind, in the last analysis, one the logic of which would return us to the European ideal of a strangling communitarianism, even tribalism. At this stage the conservative becomes indistinguishable, in his essence, from the Leftist collectivist—today mostly represented by communitarianism. Both detest individualism since it affirms the right—and implicitly the legitimacy—of everyone to govern his own life instead of entrusting this task to some elite or group.
American conservatism, in the main, isn't American anymore. Which is one reason libertarianism is needed to reinvigorate the American soul.
by Tibor R. Machan
Back when I became actively political, meaning I started to pay attention to elections, candidates and so forth in the wake of the Kennedy-Nixon TV debates, you would have considered me a conservative in the American sense of that term. As someone who was smuggled out by a professional from Hungary in 1953, I had very strong anti-communist sentiments. And as someone who was raised for a while by a virulent anti-Semitic father and was surrounded by quite a few anti-Semites in my family and their friends, I also felt repulsed by Nazism. Perhaps there was also that personal attitude I have harbored for as long as I can remember, namely, wanting to figure things out for myself and resenting any attempt to group me or any other human beings with others because of birth, location, color of skin, or any other trait I might accidentally share with other people.
American conservatives like William F. Buckley, Jr., and some of his own heroes like Frank S. Meyer and Frank Chodorov, made a great deal of hay with the ideas of the American founders. To my somewhat cursory observation, they favored individualism, civil and property rights—in short, the ideals sketched in the Declaration of Independence. They were committed, I thought, to preserving—conserving—those ideals as against all the collectivisms that Europe embraced, both Left and Right. I discovered Buckley while reading his article, "Why Don't We Complain?" in Esquire magazine, back in 1961 or so, and I felt I had a comrade in arms, even a leader, in him. I started to read National Review and felt quite comfortable with the spirit and letter of what it contained—up to a point.
The thing about American conservatism is that it is only so much American but also a bit too much conservative. The essence of conservatism is expressed poignantly by the 18th century leader of the movement, Edmund Burke. He made the observation that "... Men have no right to risk the very existence of their nation and their civilization upon experiments in morals and politics; for each man's private capital of intelligence is petty; it is only when a man draws upon the bank and capital of the ages, the wisdom of our ancestors, that he can act wisely."
Burke he also noted that "We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank of nations and of ages." The gist of this is that human individuals may not be entrusted with the wisdom and virtue to figure things out for themselves. The idea comes from the somewhat retrograde part of Christianity, contained in spades in Thomas a Kempis's disturbing book, Imitation of Christ. Kempis (1380-1471) taught that for a good Christian it was immoral to seek knowledge since doing so is an affront to God, the only one who can truly know. Of course, not all Christians believed or believe this but even today some Christian groups swear that Kempis's book is a wonderful piece of work, with the most valuable advice for human living.
The American element of the conservatism of this country eventually became overshadowed by the conservative element and in our time many conservatives are scornful of what the Founders believed, namely, that individuals have unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They might not quarrel much with the right to life—although considering how some are now calling for the military draft, even that isn't universally true—but they do have serious problems with the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Conservative intellectuals like Russell Kirk were mercilessly harsh about these notions, believing, as show in Kirk's The Conservative Mind, that individual human beings are fundamentally corrupt or at least very, very easily corrupted, so for them happiness will mostly turn out to be short term pleasure and freedom nothing better than license.
Once the conservative began to overshadow the American for American conservatives, what they stood for became something dismal and pessimistic, namely, a kind of spiritual nanny state. Having no confidence in the fundamental innocence of human beings at birth, they focused on what we need so as to stop from descending into degradation, something we are all inclined to do.
In time I realized that the conservative mind was indeed an anti-American mind, in the last analysis, one the logic of which would return us to the European ideal of a strangling communitarianism, even tribalism. At this stage the conservative becomes indistinguishable, in his essence, from the Leftist collectivist—today mostly represented by communitarianism. Both detest individualism since it affirms the right—and implicitly the legitimacy—of everyone to govern his own life instead of entrusting this task to some elite or group.
American conservatism, in the main, isn't American anymore. Which is one reason libertarianism is needed to reinvigorate the American soul.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
A Primer on Progress
by Tibor R. Machan
In some realms, progress means the creation of more and more efficient means by which to achieve worthwhile objectives. So we find that in the area of technology progress has been nearly undeniable (although some argue that with each improvement of the means to reach one worthy objective, the attainment of some other worthy objective has been impeded). Elsewhere it means advancement toward a better and better state of being. In philosophy there have been some notable champions of the idea that not just humanity's journey in history but that of reality itself is taking a progressive course. The future, on the whole, is always an improvement over the past, not just technologically but ethically, aesthetically, politically and so forth. Hegel and Marx are obvious examples of progressivism but John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer are also likely candidates.
In contemporary science fiction the idea is commonplace that humanity is always lurching ahead, and that only through unnatural influences does it ever regress. There are detractors even here, ones who hold that the future will be worse than the past has been. They produce the opposite of utopian fiction, namely, dystopian literature.
In particular there is a good deal of thinking that sees the future improved by means of genetic engineering and other "artificial" means, to the point that some envision human beings improved intellectually and even morally or, alternatively, the emergence of artificial intelligence suppressing what humans are capable of. Arguably, however, such a picture challenges the idea that those who would embody such progress would still be human beings. Moreover, one of the most well-entrenched conceptions of human nature is that we are all capable of both good and evil, regardless of our levels of intelligence. So while progress may be possible in one or another special region of human life, the idea that humanity in its essence might somehow become upgraded is likely to be wrong. Evolution or God produced humanity and it is what it is. There may emerge something different from it but also much like it but that would no longer be humanity.
What is likely is that progress of the fundamental sort that motivates the works of optimistic science fiction writers can take place only in the course of an individual human being's life. Someone may become a better and better person, although even there nothing is guaranteed. Certainly one can improve one's skills and techniques, learn to play an instrument or a sport better and better up to a point. We all may well reach a later stage of life at which we must face the end and this may be advantageous to some, while not so much to others--it depends on their character, ultimately. (Character is detiny, said Heraclitus wisely many moons ago!) Yet the inevitability of death and old age, as far as current mainstream understanding has it, seems to place a limit before everyone's progress.
When one is inclined, as have been Hegel and Marx, among others, to treat humanity (even reality) as a developing organism, the idea of holistic progress comes naturally to one's mind, since the organisms with which we are familiar, including ourselves, do undergo progress or development. But the extrapolation is probably mistaken. Progress of the kind that would in the future remove the necessity for individual effort, for vigilance and tenacity, is not likely to be possible.
In general, the kind of progress that it's reasonable to strive for in human communities has to do with individual self-improvement, some measure of improvement on the system of laws, and the overall deployment of technologically improved means for doing what is important to people. None of this, however, can reasonably be guaranteed or expected and regress, stagnation, as well as progress, are always a possibility. Expectations that progress is inevitable are not reasonable when it comes to human beings, given their nature as self-directed, self-governing beings, each of whom individually needs to make the choice to advance in life. If that choice isn't made on a sustained, ongoing basis, progress will not be forthcoming. Nor can the diligent, effortful life of one person carry over to his or her offspring.
by Tibor R. Machan
In some realms, progress means the creation of more and more efficient means by which to achieve worthwhile objectives. So we find that in the area of technology progress has been nearly undeniable (although some argue that with each improvement of the means to reach one worthy objective, the attainment of some other worthy objective has been impeded). Elsewhere it means advancement toward a better and better state of being. In philosophy there have been some notable champions of the idea that not just humanity's journey in history but that of reality itself is taking a progressive course. The future, on the whole, is always an improvement over the past, not just technologically but ethically, aesthetically, politically and so forth. Hegel and Marx are obvious examples of progressivism but John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer are also likely candidates.
In contemporary science fiction the idea is commonplace that humanity is always lurching ahead, and that only through unnatural influences does it ever regress. There are detractors even here, ones who hold that the future will be worse than the past has been. They produce the opposite of utopian fiction, namely, dystopian literature.
In particular there is a good deal of thinking that sees the future improved by means of genetic engineering and other "artificial" means, to the point that some envision human beings improved intellectually and even morally or, alternatively, the emergence of artificial intelligence suppressing what humans are capable of. Arguably, however, such a picture challenges the idea that those who would embody such progress would still be human beings. Moreover, one of the most well-entrenched conceptions of human nature is that we are all capable of both good and evil, regardless of our levels of intelligence. So while progress may be possible in one or another special region of human life, the idea that humanity in its essence might somehow become upgraded is likely to be wrong. Evolution or God produced humanity and it is what it is. There may emerge something different from it but also much like it but that would no longer be humanity.
What is likely is that progress of the fundamental sort that motivates the works of optimistic science fiction writers can take place only in the course of an individual human being's life. Someone may become a better and better person, although even there nothing is guaranteed. Certainly one can improve one's skills and techniques, learn to play an instrument or a sport better and better up to a point. We all may well reach a later stage of life at which we must face the end and this may be advantageous to some, while not so much to others--it depends on their character, ultimately. (Character is detiny, said Heraclitus wisely many moons ago!) Yet the inevitability of death and old age, as far as current mainstream understanding has it, seems to place a limit before everyone's progress.
When one is inclined, as have been Hegel and Marx, among others, to treat humanity (even reality) as a developing organism, the idea of holistic progress comes naturally to one's mind, since the organisms with which we are familiar, including ourselves, do undergo progress or development. But the extrapolation is probably mistaken. Progress of the kind that would in the future remove the necessity for individual effort, for vigilance and tenacity, is not likely to be possible.
In general, the kind of progress that it's reasonable to strive for in human communities has to do with individual self-improvement, some measure of improvement on the system of laws, and the overall deployment of technologically improved means for doing what is important to people. None of this, however, can reasonably be guaranteed or expected and regress, stagnation, as well as progress, are always a possibility. Expectations that progress is inevitable are not reasonable when it comes to human beings, given their nature as self-directed, self-governing beings, each of whom individually needs to make the choice to advance in life. If that choice isn't made on a sustained, ongoing basis, progress will not be forthcoming. Nor can the diligent, effortful life of one person carry over to his or her offspring.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Some Scientific Paradoxes
Tibor R. Machan
I recall when I was being educated at various colleges and universities the orthodoxy in vogue was that while scientists talk clearly and meaningfully because they were dealing only with facts, others were mostly uttering nonsense because they wanted to make value judgments. The value free approach was being hailed as superior, even by non-scientists, something that turned out to be rather paradoxical. After all, if value judgments are all meaningless, unsupportable by logic or research, how can it be known that the scientific approach is superior to others? Isn’t “superior” a term indicating value?
But for quite some time this paradox was dismissed and the idea that scientists get it right because they avoid value judgments was widely embraced. Up until environmentalism became a doctrine that scientists began to embrace!
Environmentalism is, of course, full of value judgments. So what are we to make of these value judgments—aren’t they just as meaningless as those made in, say, ethics, politics, or aesthetics? That is what would follow from the old idea that nothing can be true (or even false) aside of the value-free claims scientists offer us. How can we exempt the claims made about how we ought to—or should or must—conduct ourselves regarding environmental issues? Certainly these claims are value judgments, so how come they are passed off as true by the scientists who make them, while other value judgments are regarded as mere biases, prejudices, or subjective utterances?
Consider a recent book, Endangered: Wildlife on the Brink of Extinction (Firefly Books Ltd., 2006)~~by George C. McGavin, an Oxford University research lecturer, discussing species extinction. The author basically chronicles five great mass extinctions, all do to nonhuman causes, but then warns of a sixth caused by the fact that people have learned to change their environments to suit their needs and wants. He advances as fact some of the highly disputed contentions in science about how the Industrial Revolution, with its pollution, has helped produce climate change and its effects on animal species. Once he has gone through this story, McGavin gives the reader a bunch of suggestions as to what kind of actions people can take to stem all the destruction they have wrought.
First, why is the good researcher, consistent with the value-free approach, not satisfied with the possibility that human beings are part of nature and just like some elements of the rest of nature, they can destroy animal species galore. Why is their destruction not deemed to be simply a part of nature’s value-free unfolding? Especially with what so many scientists teach us, namely, that the course of evolution is inevitable, it is what had to happen, why is human evolution different?
But of course that would require scientists to accept some notions they tend mostly to reject, including the idea of freedom of choice. So not only do the likes of Mr. McGavin accept the idea now that value judgments, namely theirs, are well grounded and no at all subjective or arbitrary (as it was contended in the early 20th century about value judgments and why many scientists insisted on embracing a value-free point of view), they even embrace a stance that assumes something with which many scientists are very uncomfortable, namely, free will. Without free will it makes no sense to make any suggestions as to how people ought to conduct themselves, including as far as the environment is concerned. It is, once again, going to be Que sera, sera—what will be will be and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it.
But if this is wrong, as all the advice and admonitions from environmentalists clearly suggest, then we can actually debate the issue of just what is the right course for people to take—should they continue to insist on having their way with the wilds, transform it to suit their needs and wants, or should they defer to some other values, say, preserving the wilds even if they must make serious sacrifices in the process? Or perhaps some other idea could be right?
And then it could also well be that human beings are different from other animals—maybe even superior to them--exactly in being free to choose how they conduct themselves. So all this talk about people being governed—driven—by their genes or DNA or, especially, the forces or laws of evolution would have to be given up since all those notions imply that how we behave is just how we must behave, including when we destroy various species of other animals.
---------------------------
Machan is the author of Putting Humans First, Why We Are Nature’s Favorite (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).
Tibor R. Machan
I recall when I was being educated at various colleges and universities the orthodoxy in vogue was that while scientists talk clearly and meaningfully because they were dealing only with facts, others were mostly uttering nonsense because they wanted to make value judgments. The value free approach was being hailed as superior, even by non-scientists, something that turned out to be rather paradoxical. After all, if value judgments are all meaningless, unsupportable by logic or research, how can it be known that the scientific approach is superior to others? Isn’t “superior” a term indicating value?
But for quite some time this paradox was dismissed and the idea that scientists get it right because they avoid value judgments was widely embraced. Up until environmentalism became a doctrine that scientists began to embrace!
Environmentalism is, of course, full of value judgments. So what are we to make of these value judgments—aren’t they just as meaningless as those made in, say, ethics, politics, or aesthetics? That is what would follow from the old idea that nothing can be true (or even false) aside of the value-free claims scientists offer us. How can we exempt the claims made about how we ought to—or should or must—conduct ourselves regarding environmental issues? Certainly these claims are value judgments, so how come they are passed off as true by the scientists who make them, while other value judgments are regarded as mere biases, prejudices, or subjective utterances?
Consider a recent book, Endangered: Wildlife on the Brink of Extinction (Firefly Books Ltd., 2006)~~by George C. McGavin, an Oxford University research lecturer, discussing species extinction. The author basically chronicles five great mass extinctions, all do to nonhuman causes, but then warns of a sixth caused by the fact that people have learned to change their environments to suit their needs and wants. He advances as fact some of the highly disputed contentions in science about how the Industrial Revolution, with its pollution, has helped produce climate change and its effects on animal species. Once he has gone through this story, McGavin gives the reader a bunch of suggestions as to what kind of actions people can take to stem all the destruction they have wrought.
First, why is the good researcher, consistent with the value-free approach, not satisfied with the possibility that human beings are part of nature and just like some elements of the rest of nature, they can destroy animal species galore. Why is their destruction not deemed to be simply a part of nature’s value-free unfolding? Especially with what so many scientists teach us, namely, that the course of evolution is inevitable, it is what had to happen, why is human evolution different?
But of course that would require scientists to accept some notions they tend mostly to reject, including the idea of freedom of choice. So not only do the likes of Mr. McGavin accept the idea now that value judgments, namely theirs, are well grounded and no at all subjective or arbitrary (as it was contended in the early 20th century about value judgments and why many scientists insisted on embracing a value-free point of view), they even embrace a stance that assumes something with which many scientists are very uncomfortable, namely, free will. Without free will it makes no sense to make any suggestions as to how people ought to conduct themselves, including as far as the environment is concerned. It is, once again, going to be Que sera, sera—what will be will be and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it.
But if this is wrong, as all the advice and admonitions from environmentalists clearly suggest, then we can actually debate the issue of just what is the right course for people to take—should they continue to insist on having their way with the wilds, transform it to suit their needs and wants, or should they defer to some other values, say, preserving the wilds even if they must make serious sacrifices in the process? Or perhaps some other idea could be right?
And then it could also well be that human beings are different from other animals—maybe even superior to them--exactly in being free to choose how they conduct themselves. So all this talk about people being governed—driven—by their genes or DNA or, especially, the forces or laws of evolution would have to be given up since all those notions imply that how we behave is just how we must behave, including when we destroy various species of other animals.
---------------------------
Machan is the author of Putting Humans First, Why We Are Nature’s Favorite (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).
The Individual and the General in Our Lives
Tibor R. Machan
Often people who speak out on various issues will do so as if they knew what is true about all of us. This is the source of all the “we” talk in public discourse. “We have such and such rights,” “We need this or that vitamin or exercise or educational program.” Medical science certainly weighs in with such pronouncements all the time, claiming that coffee is or is not healthful, that cholesterol must be lowered or a certain ratio of age to height to weight is right for everyone.
At the same time there is much criticism about a one-size-fits-all approach to, say, education, exercise, weight loss, nutrition, or style of clothing. It is clear enough that in these and numerous other matters one person’s truth is not that of another, certainly not that of many, many others. It's a bit like shoes—we have our own size that fits while the rest don't. So the career path of one’s brother, father, mother, or friend may well not be the right one for oneself. This is important to realize, otherwise many people will pursue personal policies that do not fit them at all. A singing career may be right for some folks but not at all for others—as, for example, the show American Idol teaches viewers.
This lesson about individualism is perhaps most important to learn in relation to romance. Some of us appeal to some others, but not to all those who appeal to us. There is nothing amiss here at all, only the lack of a good match. Not understanding this can often lead people to get very angry at each other, thinking that they are owed being liked, even loved, when the mutual attraction is plainly missing. But instead of accepting this fact, many take it as a put down or criticism from those they would like to appeal to. It isn’t. It’s merely the announcement or declaration of lack of interest or appeal. And while those who wish to be appealing to someone will find it disappointing that they are not, they need to learn that such this is nothing against them. Again, one could think of it on analogy with liking a piece of clothing which simply doesn’t fit.
In human affairs, like in most matters, some things are true about us all, some about quite a few but not all, some about a few but not most, and sometimes a truth is only about one individual. We, human beings, are, yes, human, and that means some things will be true of all of us—as the Declaration of Independence states, we all are created with certain unalienable rights, for instance. But we are not all equally talented to sing, dance, or run a major corporation. Some of us are suited for parenthood, others may not be, given our other valid purposes and commitments, or our economic preparedness.
This matter is quite important because when folks fail to heed it, there is a strong tendency to promote public policies that will fit some but not others. Some people can live with trans-fatty foods, peanut butter, mountain climbing, and so forth, while others will be hurt by them. Some people can even safely smoke a few cigarettes a day or week without hurting themselves in the slightest, while others will be hurt due to their physiology and biology.
One size really does not fit all but the temptation to think so has spawned public policies that amount to nothing less than tyranny. Never mind for now that imposing even the right way to live is morally and politically wrong, intolerable. But when the wrong ways are being forced on people, that's even more vicious.
Throughout the globe there are many regimes that live by the one-size-fits-all approach and the worst dictatorships in history, ancient and modern, have be guided by such a fallacious political ideal. The regime of Sparta, no less than those of Nazi and Communist countries more recently were, was motivated in large part by this misguided outlook on how human beings should live in their communities.
Of course, thinking that there is nothing that humans have in common is also misguided. Yes, all people have basic rights and when regimes fail to acknowledge this, they can go very wrong along this opposite line of thinking. Some people, for example, think that the mere diversity of cultures around the globe and throughout human history means that everything is relative, there are no universal principles such as human rights or ethics. And there are common goals and purposes suited to some of us but not others—such as joining a bridge club or playing golf or watching football or tennis or, more seriously, becoming experts in disciplines such as physics, biology or economics. More or less large groups of people can share what is right for them to do, what is good for them in their lives, without everyone doing so.
Indeed, both the individualism that rejects one-size-fits-all policies and the communitarianism that tends to promote it need to be rethought. Both have a place in human affairs and it is best to get it right how they make themselves evident in our own lives.
Tibor R. Machan
Often people who speak out on various issues will do so as if they knew what is true about all of us. This is the source of all the “we” talk in public discourse. “We have such and such rights,” “We need this or that vitamin or exercise or educational program.” Medical science certainly weighs in with such pronouncements all the time, claiming that coffee is or is not healthful, that cholesterol must be lowered or a certain ratio of age to height to weight is right for everyone.
At the same time there is much criticism about a one-size-fits-all approach to, say, education, exercise, weight loss, nutrition, or style of clothing. It is clear enough that in these and numerous other matters one person’s truth is not that of another, certainly not that of many, many others. It's a bit like shoes—we have our own size that fits while the rest don't. So the career path of one’s brother, father, mother, or friend may well not be the right one for oneself. This is important to realize, otherwise many people will pursue personal policies that do not fit them at all. A singing career may be right for some folks but not at all for others—as, for example, the show American Idol teaches viewers.
This lesson about individualism is perhaps most important to learn in relation to romance. Some of us appeal to some others, but not to all those who appeal to us. There is nothing amiss here at all, only the lack of a good match. Not understanding this can often lead people to get very angry at each other, thinking that they are owed being liked, even loved, when the mutual attraction is plainly missing. But instead of accepting this fact, many take it as a put down or criticism from those they would like to appeal to. It isn’t. It’s merely the announcement or declaration of lack of interest or appeal. And while those who wish to be appealing to someone will find it disappointing that they are not, they need to learn that such this is nothing against them. Again, one could think of it on analogy with liking a piece of clothing which simply doesn’t fit.
In human affairs, like in most matters, some things are true about us all, some about quite a few but not all, some about a few but not most, and sometimes a truth is only about one individual. We, human beings, are, yes, human, and that means some things will be true of all of us—as the Declaration of Independence states, we all are created with certain unalienable rights, for instance. But we are not all equally talented to sing, dance, or run a major corporation. Some of us are suited for parenthood, others may not be, given our other valid purposes and commitments, or our economic preparedness.
This matter is quite important because when folks fail to heed it, there is a strong tendency to promote public policies that will fit some but not others. Some people can live with trans-fatty foods, peanut butter, mountain climbing, and so forth, while others will be hurt by them. Some people can even safely smoke a few cigarettes a day or week without hurting themselves in the slightest, while others will be hurt due to their physiology and biology.
One size really does not fit all but the temptation to think so has spawned public policies that amount to nothing less than tyranny. Never mind for now that imposing even the right way to live is morally and politically wrong, intolerable. But when the wrong ways are being forced on people, that's even more vicious.
Throughout the globe there are many regimes that live by the one-size-fits-all approach and the worst dictatorships in history, ancient and modern, have be guided by such a fallacious political ideal. The regime of Sparta, no less than those of Nazi and Communist countries more recently were, was motivated in large part by this misguided outlook on how human beings should live in their communities.
Of course, thinking that there is nothing that humans have in common is also misguided. Yes, all people have basic rights and when regimes fail to acknowledge this, they can go very wrong along this opposite line of thinking. Some people, for example, think that the mere diversity of cultures around the globe and throughout human history means that everything is relative, there are no universal principles such as human rights or ethics. And there are common goals and purposes suited to some of us but not others—such as joining a bridge club or playing golf or watching football or tennis or, more seriously, becoming experts in disciplines such as physics, biology or economics. More or less large groups of people can share what is right for them to do, what is good for them in their lives, without everyone doing so.
Indeed, both the individualism that rejects one-size-fits-all policies and the communitarianism that tends to promote it need to be rethought. Both have a place in human affairs and it is best to get it right how they make themselves evident in our own lives.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Thomas Friedman's Love of FDR's Statism
by Tibor R. Machan
In a recent column I made the point that "With the Democrats back in power in Washington, it is not unreasonable to suppose that securing and expanding FDR's list of rights—as distinct from those laid out by the American founders in the Declaration of Independence—will once again dominate the federal government's agenda." And almost so as to bear out my prescience, Thomas Friedman, the well known author and columnist for The New York Times, produced an essay that explicitly champions drafting a list of "rights" in the spirit of FDR's "second Bill of Rights" or The New Deal. As Friedman would have it,
“The right rallying call is for a "Green New Deal." The New Deal was not built on a magic bullet, but on a broad range of programs and industrial projects to revitalize America. Ditto for an energy New Deal. If we are to turn the tide on climate change and end our oil addiction, we need more of everything: solar, wind, hydro, ethanol, biodiesel, clean coal and nuclear power—and conservation.” (The New York Times, 1-19-07)
And Friedman quite rightly tells us that "To spark a Green New Deal today requires getting two things right: government regulations and prices." Which is to say, he recommends that we become a planned society, with government doing the planning and the rest of us compelled to comply. This, oddly, at the same time as Friedman acknowledges that "Neither the White House nor the Democratic Party seems to grasp that the public and business community are miles ahead of them on this energy/environment issue." That pretty much admits that government is inept and bogged down in bureaucratic slow motion on matters that require intelligent planning, something evidently carried out with some success by the private sector.
This is especially important when it comes to environmental matters since the major obstacle to making adjustments here, as in so many other areas of social life, is the tragedy of the commons. When public spheres are involved—and they are increasing by leaps and bounds these days—there is no hope for prudent conduct from those who have an interest in the outcome. Instead, the various special interests that drive public policy decisions eagerly grab whatever advantage they can, via the political and bureaucratic process, with very little concern for how to deal with the long run.
Back in the days of the Soviet Empire what was so evident to anyone who visited that part of the globe was how ineptly the Soviet system dealt with environmental problems. Government planning simply will not deliver the desired results, in part because the knowledge needed to prepare for the future is lacking in centers of state power and because of the pressure to suit short-term interests.
The opposite is the case with the private sector. If property rights are clearly specified, those who own property will far more likely keep their eyes on the future, even promote their own precautionary measures so as to keep what they own productive and avoid destroying the property of their neighbors who could sue if this isn't done properly. Indeed, just the opposite of what Friedman is advocating is necessary so as to cope promptly and effectively with environmental hazards. What is needed is more vigilant privatization.
Placing responsibility for the care of the environment into the hands of private agents is the way a society best copes with the future. Unfortunately Friedman & Co. are so captive of the governmental habit that they cannot grasp this. In Friedman's case this is especially perplexing, since he has written on the merits of globalization—in his book, The World is Flat—as far as problem solving abroad is concerned.~ He ought to be first in line to reject government meddling—which is to say collective decision making and coercive planning—and urge turning to the private sector when it comes to how a free society ought to prepare for the future.
Instead Friedman, along with all the other statists in this country and elsewhere, see some problem and immediately turn to government for help. This is why they love FDR's New Deal and his Second Bill of Rights, since both of these are basically no more than the transference of the variety of private ways of coping with the future to the one-size-fits-all, guaranteed-to-fail public or collectivist approach.
by Tibor R. Machan
In a recent column I made the point that "With the Democrats back in power in Washington, it is not unreasonable to suppose that securing and expanding FDR's list of rights—as distinct from those laid out by the American founders in the Declaration of Independence—will once again dominate the federal government's agenda." And almost so as to bear out my prescience, Thomas Friedman, the well known author and columnist for The New York Times, produced an essay that explicitly champions drafting a list of "rights" in the spirit of FDR's "second Bill of Rights" or The New Deal. As Friedman would have it,
“The right rallying call is for a "Green New Deal." The New Deal was not built on a magic bullet, but on a broad range of programs and industrial projects to revitalize America. Ditto for an energy New Deal. If we are to turn the tide on climate change and end our oil addiction, we need more of everything: solar, wind, hydro, ethanol, biodiesel, clean coal and nuclear power—and conservation.” (The New York Times, 1-19-07)
And Friedman quite rightly tells us that "To spark a Green New Deal today requires getting two things right: government regulations and prices." Which is to say, he recommends that we become a planned society, with government doing the planning and the rest of us compelled to comply. This, oddly, at the same time as Friedman acknowledges that "Neither the White House nor the Democratic Party seems to grasp that the public and business community are miles ahead of them on this energy/environment issue." That pretty much admits that government is inept and bogged down in bureaucratic slow motion on matters that require intelligent planning, something evidently carried out with some success by the private sector.
This is especially important when it comes to environmental matters since the major obstacle to making adjustments here, as in so many other areas of social life, is the tragedy of the commons. When public spheres are involved—and they are increasing by leaps and bounds these days—there is no hope for prudent conduct from those who have an interest in the outcome. Instead, the various special interests that drive public policy decisions eagerly grab whatever advantage they can, via the political and bureaucratic process, with very little concern for how to deal with the long run.
Back in the days of the Soviet Empire what was so evident to anyone who visited that part of the globe was how ineptly the Soviet system dealt with environmental problems. Government planning simply will not deliver the desired results, in part because the knowledge needed to prepare for the future is lacking in centers of state power and because of the pressure to suit short-term interests.
The opposite is the case with the private sector. If property rights are clearly specified, those who own property will far more likely keep their eyes on the future, even promote their own precautionary measures so as to keep what they own productive and avoid destroying the property of their neighbors who could sue if this isn't done properly. Indeed, just the opposite of what Friedman is advocating is necessary so as to cope promptly and effectively with environmental hazards. What is needed is more vigilant privatization.
Placing responsibility for the care of the environment into the hands of private agents is the way a society best copes with the future. Unfortunately Friedman & Co. are so captive of the governmental habit that they cannot grasp this. In Friedman's case this is especially perplexing, since he has written on the merits of globalization—in his book, The World is Flat—as far as problem solving abroad is concerned.~ He ought to be first in line to reject government meddling—which is to say collective decision making and coercive planning—and urge turning to the private sector when it comes to how a free society ought to prepare for the future.
Instead Friedman, along with all the other statists in this country and elsewhere, see some problem and immediately turn to government for help. This is why they love FDR's New Deal and his Second Bill of Rights, since both of these are basically no more than the transference of the variety of private ways of coping with the future to the one-size-fits-all, guaranteed-to-fail public or collectivist approach.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
My Monarchical Temptation
by Tibor R. Machan
As I watched The Queen, one of the best movies I've seen recently, I thought about just how much I detested monarchies. That's how it started. After all, what are monarchies but the subjugation of millions by one individual, a queen or king, sometimes with certain restraints built in, sometimes hardly any? Not all that different from a dictatorship, except kings and queens usually dress in fancier garb and live in far plusher abodes. But in principle monarchs are even more powerful than most dictators, seeing as they claim their earthly power to have been handed to them by God. And when a monarch reigns in consequence of having inherited his or her position, there is hardly any check on whether one of them is out-and-out nuts.
Yet throughout human history some monarchs have been other than sheer tyrants, sometimes even relatively benign and benevolent rulers. So what's better, being ruled by a mob that's supposedly the majority of the politically involved, or by someone who by tradition may in fact uphold certain standards of decency and prudence?
Of course, the Queen of England is but a ceremonial, if rather expensive, monarch today. How such a title can even survive in the 21st century beats me—calling someone "Her Royal Highness" has got to produce guffaws whenever it is said out loud, does it not? The whole enterprise has to resemble something on the order of a fairy tale or Disney story, with everyone knowing full well that there's nothing real to correspond to the funny language. Yet millions in the UK want to hang on to it all. But then people everywhere seem to have a penchant for living with myths in preference to reality!
Of course, when Helen Mirren plays your monarch, it may be very tempting to fall for all the sham. She is such a superb actress and when her persona is infused in the character of the Queen, it is a very promising illusion. Given how messy the alternatives to monarchy have managed to turn out nearly everywhere—just compare George W. Bush with Elizabeth II—this idea of Helen Mirren being in charge of things has something going for it. Especially as the movie depicts her.
The American founders wanted to get away from monarchy because they held that we were all endowed with unalienable rights and so none could justly claim to rule anyone else. As Abraham Lincoln spelled out the point, "No man is good enough to govern another without that other's consent." So all that talk about subjects is pure bunk. But the American founders offered up a genuine improvement to monarchy, namely, a constitutional republic that severely limits the scope and power of government. They did not, however, count on the insidious influence of the age-old governmental habit, which reasserted itself in America despite all those brilliant sentiments expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. What they spawned, sadly, turned out to be a pseudo-democratic empire, with mob rule and the reign of bureaucrats.
What with the resulting tyranny of a bunch of those petty bureaucrats and the politicians in whom people still have the ancient faith that they will fix everything for us, considering the old monarchy doesn't feel so bad, at least not when its embodiment turns out to be Helen Mirren. With her in real power, maybe someone like Tony Blair could be kept in line.
Alas, as things stand, the Queen is little more than a costly figurehead, so I doubt very much that the monarchist system would be an improvement on our depressing regime. For awhile, during the last couple of decades, there was at least the promise of improvement across the globe, in the direction of greater liberty; today, however, the venerable Freedom House is reporting that the regime of individual liberty is on the decline around the globe.
Yes, it was a desperate fantasy on my part, thinking that a monarchy might improve matters. But then Ms. Mirren can turn a man's head even at her current age!
by Tibor R. Machan
As I watched The Queen, one of the best movies I've seen recently, I thought about just how much I detested monarchies. That's how it started. After all, what are monarchies but the subjugation of millions by one individual, a queen or king, sometimes with certain restraints built in, sometimes hardly any? Not all that different from a dictatorship, except kings and queens usually dress in fancier garb and live in far plusher abodes. But in principle monarchs are even more powerful than most dictators, seeing as they claim their earthly power to have been handed to them by God. And when a monarch reigns in consequence of having inherited his or her position, there is hardly any check on whether one of them is out-and-out nuts.
Yet throughout human history some monarchs have been other than sheer tyrants, sometimes even relatively benign and benevolent rulers. So what's better, being ruled by a mob that's supposedly the majority of the politically involved, or by someone who by tradition may in fact uphold certain standards of decency and prudence?
Of course, the Queen of England is but a ceremonial, if rather expensive, monarch today. How such a title can even survive in the 21st century beats me—calling someone "Her Royal Highness" has got to produce guffaws whenever it is said out loud, does it not? The whole enterprise has to resemble something on the order of a fairy tale or Disney story, with everyone knowing full well that there's nothing real to correspond to the funny language. Yet millions in the UK want to hang on to it all. But then people everywhere seem to have a penchant for living with myths in preference to reality!
Of course, when Helen Mirren plays your monarch, it may be very tempting to fall for all the sham. She is such a superb actress and when her persona is infused in the character of the Queen, it is a very promising illusion. Given how messy the alternatives to monarchy have managed to turn out nearly everywhere—just compare George W. Bush with Elizabeth II—this idea of Helen Mirren being in charge of things has something going for it. Especially as the movie depicts her.
The American founders wanted to get away from monarchy because they held that we were all endowed with unalienable rights and so none could justly claim to rule anyone else. As Abraham Lincoln spelled out the point, "No man is good enough to govern another without that other's consent." So all that talk about subjects is pure bunk. But the American founders offered up a genuine improvement to monarchy, namely, a constitutional republic that severely limits the scope and power of government. They did not, however, count on the insidious influence of the age-old governmental habit, which reasserted itself in America despite all those brilliant sentiments expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. What they spawned, sadly, turned out to be a pseudo-democratic empire, with mob rule and the reign of bureaucrats.
What with the resulting tyranny of a bunch of those petty bureaucrats and the politicians in whom people still have the ancient faith that they will fix everything for us, considering the old monarchy doesn't feel so bad, at least not when its embodiment turns out to be Helen Mirren. With her in real power, maybe someone like Tony Blair could be kept in line.
Alas, as things stand, the Queen is little more than a costly figurehead, so I doubt very much that the monarchist system would be an improvement on our depressing regime. For awhile, during the last couple of decades, there was at least the promise of improvement across the globe, in the direction of greater liberty; today, however, the venerable Freedom House is reporting that the regime of individual liberty is on the decline around the globe.
Yes, it was a desperate fantasy on my part, thinking that a monarchy might improve matters. But then Ms. Mirren can turn a man's head even at her current age!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Very Soft on Islamic Terrorism
Tibor R. Machan
The New York Times magazine has a feature called “QUESTIONS FOR,” and the other day it was “the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens,” now named Yusuf Islam (as of his conversion to Islam), who was being questioned by Deborah Solomon. Solomon is your typical left of center cultural and political egalitarian, favoring multiculturalism in most cases, but even she seemed to be a bit annoyed with Mr. Islam’s answers when she pressed him on Islamic terrorism.
Noting that “government officials in various countries have tried to link [Mr. Islam] to extremist groups, including Hamas,” Solomon asked him “What do you think of Hamas?” Wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Islam dodged the issue by asserting, “That’s an extremely loaded question.” Was it?
I dispute that and it seems even Ms. Solomon did because her comeback was, “Can you try to answer it?” At that point Mr. Islam said, “I have never supported a terrorist group or any group that did other than charity and good to humankind.” That, of course, was not an answer to Ms. Solomon’s question, which was, “What do you think of Hamas?” And, moreover, maybe Mr. Islam believes Hamas is a charity group and/or it does “good to humankind” so it should get a pass even if it perpetrates terrorism. We will never know because he dodged the question.
In a follow up exchange Solomon pressed even more: “So would you say you have contempt for a terrorist group like Hamas?” And Mr. Islam proceeded to evade the issue when he replied, “I wouldn’t put those words in my mouth. I wouldn’t say anything on that issue. I’m here to talk about peace. I’m a man who does want peace for this world, and I don’t think you will achieve that by putting people into corners and asking them very, very difficult questions about contentious issues.”
When this is our example of a moderate Muslim—and Mr. Islam tells us that if he isn’t “an example of that,” who else would be—then the chance of reaching some accord with Islam is very small indeed. Imagine a Roman Catholic who tried to whitewash the child molestation that has been perpetrated by many priests recently or who said he wouldn’t say anything on the issue of the Holy Inquisition, claiming that it is a very contentious issue. What is contentious about it? Where is the debate about its merits versus demerits? It’s pretty much a slam dunk. That’s the same with the Nazi’s Holocaust, the Communists’ gulags, or South African Apartheid. Anyone who considers these open to alternative contentions—as if the jury were still out about whether they were examples of the worst of human conduct imaginable—simply isn’t worth listening to, maybe even featuring in a prime spot in The New York Times Magazine.
Hamas is a terrorist group. No reasonable doubt about that. If Mr. Islam cannot bring himself to acknowledge and condemn this, his values are unquestionably perverse and if he is our prime example of a moderate Muslim living in the West, well we need to be very much more vigilant about the dangers of Islamic influences here than most people seem to realize.
The book I have been studying recently, the extremely well researched Islamic Imperialism by Efrim Karsh (Yale, 2006), makes no bones about identifying Islam itself, as interpreted by the “prophet” Mohammed, as an aggressive movement, bent on conquest and the coercive conversion of non-believers wherever these are possible to achieve. The fact that for many years we haven’t seen much of this side of Islam in the West only suggests that the opportunity to conquer and covert was missing. With the rise of oil-based riches and with some of the mistakes made by the West regarding Middle Eastern affairs, the situation has changed. The Islamic world has recovered its core aggressive character, with some Muslims going so far as to perpetrate and others to silently stand by relentless terrorism wherever they see a chance to do so.
I am no supporter of the war in Iraq and believe that, all things considered, it is probably not the place where an effective response to Islamic terrorism could be undertaken. Indeed, it was probably a highly counterproductive strategy to invade Iraq since it gave some tiny measure of legitimacy to Middle Eastern, mostly Islamic, anger against the USA, although of course that could not have been behind 9/11, which occurred way before the US invaded Iraq (as distinct from assisting Kuwait in the early 90s).
The bottom line, as I see it, is that a great many Muslims are either out and out bent on conquering the rest of the world or complacent about their extremist and currently dominant fellows who are bent on doing just that. It may then be wise and prudent for us all in the West to make every effort to resist an invasion on the part of such aggressive and complacent Muslims.
Maybe that is the lesson that comes out of Ms. Solomon’s disturbing interview of Mr. Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens.
Tibor R. Machan
The New York Times magazine has a feature called “QUESTIONS FOR,” and the other day it was “the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens,” now named Yusuf Islam (as of his conversion to Islam), who was being questioned by Deborah Solomon. Solomon is your typical left of center cultural and political egalitarian, favoring multiculturalism in most cases, but even she seemed to be a bit annoyed with Mr. Islam’s answers when she pressed him on Islamic terrorism.
Noting that “government officials in various countries have tried to link [Mr. Islam] to extremist groups, including Hamas,” Solomon asked him “What do you think of Hamas?” Wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Islam dodged the issue by asserting, “That’s an extremely loaded question.” Was it?
I dispute that and it seems even Ms. Solomon did because her comeback was, “Can you try to answer it?” At that point Mr. Islam said, “I have never supported a terrorist group or any group that did other than charity and good to humankind.” That, of course, was not an answer to Ms. Solomon’s question, which was, “What do you think of Hamas?” And, moreover, maybe Mr. Islam believes Hamas is a charity group and/or it does “good to humankind” so it should get a pass even if it perpetrates terrorism. We will never know because he dodged the question.
In a follow up exchange Solomon pressed even more: “So would you say you have contempt for a terrorist group like Hamas?” And Mr. Islam proceeded to evade the issue when he replied, “I wouldn’t put those words in my mouth. I wouldn’t say anything on that issue. I’m here to talk about peace. I’m a man who does want peace for this world, and I don’t think you will achieve that by putting people into corners and asking them very, very difficult questions about contentious issues.”
When this is our example of a moderate Muslim—and Mr. Islam tells us that if he isn’t “an example of that,” who else would be—then the chance of reaching some accord with Islam is very small indeed. Imagine a Roman Catholic who tried to whitewash the child molestation that has been perpetrated by many priests recently or who said he wouldn’t say anything on the issue of the Holy Inquisition, claiming that it is a very contentious issue. What is contentious about it? Where is the debate about its merits versus demerits? It’s pretty much a slam dunk. That’s the same with the Nazi’s Holocaust, the Communists’ gulags, or South African Apartheid. Anyone who considers these open to alternative contentions—as if the jury were still out about whether they were examples of the worst of human conduct imaginable—simply isn’t worth listening to, maybe even featuring in a prime spot in The New York Times Magazine.
Hamas is a terrorist group. No reasonable doubt about that. If Mr. Islam cannot bring himself to acknowledge and condemn this, his values are unquestionably perverse and if he is our prime example of a moderate Muslim living in the West, well we need to be very much more vigilant about the dangers of Islamic influences here than most people seem to realize.
The book I have been studying recently, the extremely well researched Islamic Imperialism by Efrim Karsh (Yale, 2006), makes no bones about identifying Islam itself, as interpreted by the “prophet” Mohammed, as an aggressive movement, bent on conquest and the coercive conversion of non-believers wherever these are possible to achieve. The fact that for many years we haven’t seen much of this side of Islam in the West only suggests that the opportunity to conquer and covert was missing. With the rise of oil-based riches and with some of the mistakes made by the West regarding Middle Eastern affairs, the situation has changed. The Islamic world has recovered its core aggressive character, with some Muslims going so far as to perpetrate and others to silently stand by relentless terrorism wherever they see a chance to do so.
I am no supporter of the war in Iraq and believe that, all things considered, it is probably not the place where an effective response to Islamic terrorism could be undertaken. Indeed, it was probably a highly counterproductive strategy to invade Iraq since it gave some tiny measure of legitimacy to Middle Eastern, mostly Islamic, anger against the USA, although of course that could not have been behind 9/11, which occurred way before the US invaded Iraq (as distinct from assisting Kuwait in the early 90s).
The bottom line, as I see it, is that a great many Muslims are either out and out bent on conquering the rest of the world or complacent about their extremist and currently dominant fellows who are bent on doing just that. It may then be wise and prudent for us all in the West to make every effort to resist an invasion on the part of such aggressive and complacent Muslims.
Maybe that is the lesson that comes out of Ms. Solomon’s disturbing interview of Mr. Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
So Bush Takes Responsibility
by Tibor R. Machan
In his most recent effort to make some sense of America's involvement in the messy war in Iraq, President George W. Bush asserted that "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me." So, what about it?
Ordinarily when someone makes a mistake and accepts responsibility for it, what follows is a sincere effort to make amends, to rectify what was done badly, to repair the damage, to compensate those who were harmed by the mistakes made, etc. Just think of your or my mistake of, say, driving our cars into someone else's. Even if this were really just a mistake—not necessarily negligence and certainly not intentional—we would be required to right the wrong we did. This is why we have insurance, although most of them come with a deductible and so the damage would have to be paid for by us. Or the rates would rise.
If we got into more severe jams, taking responsibility for them would amount to even more serious measures.~ Fines, even jail time, often accompany such assignments of responsibility—just think of what is likely to happen to the Enron executives convicted recently.
Is there anything along these lines involved in President Bush's claim that "the responsibility rests with me?" Or do these words have no concrete implications when used by our president? Is he going to resign? Is he going to pay damages to the families whose relatives perished in this insane war?
Maybe what the president's version of accepting responsibility teaches us is that political rhetoric is thoroughly corrupt. Politicians like Mr. Bush do not mean what they say, but rather use words and sentences to pretend to us that they, like the rest of us, are aware of the requirements of morality. But it is just a ruse—it is all pretense, nothing real.
That, in turn, has some vital implications for all of us citizens of the country where these politicians perpetrate their subterfuge: We need to learn not to trust them.
It is not just Mr. Bush, of course, who engages in this type of empty talk. All the Democrats who claim that they are helping out the working people in American by raising the federally mandated minimum wage are in the same boat. They are really not helping anyone at all. When wages are raised artificially, by government edict, the result includes rises in prices as well as loss of jobs for those whose labor isn't worth the mandated price. All of this is bad for workers, the opposite of what promoters of the minimum wage raise claim. But they make the claim because it sounds good, not because it is true. So, once again, trust must suffer and citizens must learn this. If they paid attention, they would. Unfortunately, most people are busy with their lives and haven't the time and skill to double-check all of what the politicians and their cheerleaders in various forums of discussion claim.
Consider, also, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's claims that spending huge sums on health insurance for everyone in California is a great idea, that it will improve health care for the citizenry and that it can be paid for without raising taxes. All of this is a ruse, presented not because it is true but because it sounds good. Something for nothing is always a nice fantasy but a fantasy, nonetheless.
In a corrupt political system, one that has departed systematically from the path of limited government—one dedicated to the single just cause governments may pursue, namely, the securing of our rights—politicians routinely engage in prevarication. They must mislead instead of communicate because what they are doing is fraudulent. And if we listen closely to what they say and watch what they do, this becomes evident enough.
President Bush said the responsibility for the mistakes in connection with the war in Iraq rests with him but he will do nothing that would be required if he really meant what he said. If a friend or colleague did this, he or she would earn contempt. It is time these politicians, too, earn the very same from us, namely, contempt.
by Tibor R. Machan
In his most recent effort to make some sense of America's involvement in the messy war in Iraq, President George W. Bush asserted that "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me." So, what about it?
Ordinarily when someone makes a mistake and accepts responsibility for it, what follows is a sincere effort to make amends, to rectify what was done badly, to repair the damage, to compensate those who were harmed by the mistakes made, etc. Just think of your or my mistake of, say, driving our cars into someone else's. Even if this were really just a mistake—not necessarily negligence and certainly not intentional—we would be required to right the wrong we did. This is why we have insurance, although most of them come with a deductible and so the damage would have to be paid for by us. Or the rates would rise.
If we got into more severe jams, taking responsibility for them would amount to even more serious measures.~ Fines, even jail time, often accompany such assignments of responsibility—just think of what is likely to happen to the Enron executives convicted recently.
Is there anything along these lines involved in President Bush's claim that "the responsibility rests with me?" Or do these words have no concrete implications when used by our president? Is he going to resign? Is he going to pay damages to the families whose relatives perished in this insane war?
Maybe what the president's version of accepting responsibility teaches us is that political rhetoric is thoroughly corrupt. Politicians like Mr. Bush do not mean what they say, but rather use words and sentences to pretend to us that they, like the rest of us, are aware of the requirements of morality. But it is just a ruse—it is all pretense, nothing real.
That, in turn, has some vital implications for all of us citizens of the country where these politicians perpetrate their subterfuge: We need to learn not to trust them.
It is not just Mr. Bush, of course, who engages in this type of empty talk. All the Democrats who claim that they are helping out the working people in American by raising the federally mandated minimum wage are in the same boat. They are really not helping anyone at all. When wages are raised artificially, by government edict, the result includes rises in prices as well as loss of jobs for those whose labor isn't worth the mandated price. All of this is bad for workers, the opposite of what promoters of the minimum wage raise claim. But they make the claim because it sounds good, not because it is true. So, once again, trust must suffer and citizens must learn this. If they paid attention, they would. Unfortunately, most people are busy with their lives and haven't the time and skill to double-check all of what the politicians and their cheerleaders in various forums of discussion claim.
Consider, also, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's claims that spending huge sums on health insurance for everyone in California is a great idea, that it will improve health care for the citizenry and that it can be paid for without raising taxes. All of this is a ruse, presented not because it is true but because it sounds good. Something for nothing is always a nice fantasy but a fantasy, nonetheless.
In a corrupt political system, one that has departed systematically from the path of limited government—one dedicated to the single just cause governments may pursue, namely, the securing of our rights—politicians routinely engage in prevarication. They must mislead instead of communicate because what they are doing is fraudulent. And if we listen closely to what they say and watch what they do, this becomes evident enough.
President Bush said the responsibility for the mistakes in connection with the war in Iraq rests with him but he will do nothing that would be required if he really meant what he said. If a friend or colleague did this, he or she would earn contempt. It is time these politicians, too, earn the very same from us, namely, contempt.
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