Values Debate

UPDATE: 7/11 @ 3:40 PM
The Washington Post reported today that the values rhetoric is heating up on the presidential campaign trail. Of course, after reading the article it became quite clear that "values" has been mysteriously transformed into "partisan nitpicking of every errant quote or association ever made by the opposing party." But moving beyond the Post's faulty coverage, am I the only one who thinks that if Kerry wins the values debate, the election will be a snap? Kerry's main flaw (aside from being percieved as a distant and aristocratic) is that he is seen as a Massachusetts hyper-liberal. However, the liberal economic message has proven popular in the past, especially in the "conservative" south. Democratic strategists have long been confounded that poor southerners constantly are willing to outweigh their own economic interests in favor of making a statement on the culture war. But if Kerry can convince a chunk of southern voters that his "values" aren't out in left field somewhere (and he's been trying with his "life begins at conception" schtick), that will let his economic message shine through and put the Bush campaign in some serious trouble. Its an uphill fight though.
NEW:
The Washington Post wrote another article on Kerry's new values push. And like the old one, it focuses on the more extreme part of Kerry's allegations (Bush is a liar) rather than the values-debate that Kerry actually has a chance of winning (that is, Edwards' brilliant critique of Bush's policies helping wealth and harming work). Hooray for objective, non-partisan analysis!

The Politics of Osama-hunting

Anyone who observes the Bush administration has noticed the subordination of policy to politics. I've always been of the persuasion that the incessant politicking of both political parties is disgusting and harmful to the overall good of the nation. But even the most avid partisanship should be outraged by this.

Disgusting.

More on Hegemony

Some more arguments on hegemony I've recently stumbled upon:

Aggressive US "imperialist" interventions designed to remake other countries in the US's image have bad results.
John Judis, Visiting Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Int'l Peace writes in the July/August 2004 edition of Foreign Policy:
"Neoconservative intellectuals candidly acknowledge that the United States was on an imperial mission, but insist, in the words of neoconservative Stanley Kurtz, that imperialism is 'a midwife of democratic self-rule.' Yet, in the Philippines in 1900, South Vietnam in 1961, or Iraq today, imperialism has not given birth to democracy, but war, and war conducted with a savagery that has belied the U.S. commitment to Christian civilization or democracy. Abu Ghraib was not the first time U.S. troops used torture on prisoners; it was rampant in the Philippines a century ago. Although nothing is inevitable, the imperial mindset sees the people it seeks to civilize or democratize as inferior and lends itself to inhumane practices. The British used poison gas in Iraq well before the idea ever occurred to Saddam Hussein." (emphasis added)

Downfall of United States polarity will likely lead to "apolarity" which will devastate the world (think of the Stephen Rosen analysis I referenced in my first hegemony post which can be found in my archive here)
Niall Ferguson, Herzog Professor of History at NYU's Stern School of Business writes in the July/August 2004 edition of Foreign Policy:
"Unfortunately, the world's experience with power vacuums (eras of 'apolarity,'; if you will) is hardly encouraging. Anyone who dislikes U.S. hegemony should bear in mind that, rather than a multipolar world of competing great powers, a world with no hegemon at all may be the real alternative to U.S. primacy. Apolarity could turn out to mean an anarchic new Dark Age: an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic plunder and pillage in the world's forgotten regions; of economic stagnation and civilization's retreat into a few fortified enclaves."
For debaters, the impacts that Ferguson draws are tremendous:
"The worst effects of the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. The wealthiest ports of the global economy--from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai--would become the targets of plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East. In Latin America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S. religious orders. In Africa, the great plagues of AIDS and malaria would continue their deadly work. The few remaining solvent airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? "

One argument I loved running when I debated was that the US should encourage the rise of a second great power (preferably Europe) that would provide a "second solution" to global problems. For example, America could take on problems that needed a firm, military solution, and Europe could tackle problems that required a more subtle, diplomatic tact. Unfortunately, direct support for this argument was difficult to find. However, Parag Khanna of the Brookings Inst. wrote an interesting article in (of course) the July/August 2004 FP outlining the strength of Europe's unique approach (he amusingly terms it "metrosexual") to international problems. He writes:
"The United States conceives of power primarily in military terms, thus confusing presence with influence. By contrast, Europeans understand power as overall leverage. As a result, the EU is the world's largest bilateral aid donor, providing more than twice as much aid to poor countries as the United States, and it is also the largest importer of agricultural goods from the developing world, enhancing its influence in key regions of instability. Through massive deployments of 'soft power' (such as economic clout and cultural appeal) Europe has made hard power less necessary. After expanding to 25 members, the EU accounts for nearly half of the world's outward foreign direct investment and exerts greater leverage than the United States over pivotal countries such as Brazil and Russia. As more oil-producing nations consider trading in euros, Europe will gain greater influence in the international marketplace. Even rogue states swoon over Europe's allure..."
"From environmental sustainability and international law to economic development and social welfare, European views are more congenial to international tastes and more easily exported than their U.S. variants. Even the Bush administration's new strategy toward the 'Greater Middle East' is based on the Helsinki model, which was Europe's way of integrating human rights standards into collective security institutions. Furthermore, regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Mercosur, and the African Union are redesigning their institutions to look more like the EU. Europe's flashy new symbol of power, the Airbus 380, will soon strut on runways all over Asia. And the euro is accepted even where they don't take American Express."

US (or anyone else's) intervention in foreign conflicts tends to prolong the conflicts and make peace less likely.
Edward Luttwak, Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, writes in the July/August 1999 issue of Foreign Affairs (ooh, a change up!)
"[A] cease-fire tends to arrest war-induced exhaustion and lets belligerents
reconstitute and rearm their forces. It intensifies and prolongs the struggle
once the cease-fire ends-and it does usually end. This was true of the
Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49, which might have come to closure in a matter
of weeks if two cease-fires ordained by the Security Council had not let
the combatants recuperate. It has recently been true in the Balkans. Imposed
cease-fires frequently interrupted the fighting between Serbs and Croats
in Krajina, between the forces of the rump Yugoslav federation and the
Croat army, and between the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in Bosnia. Each
time, the opponents used the pause to recruit, train, and equip additional
forces for further combat, prolonging the war and widening the scope of
its killing and destruction. Imposed armistices, meanwhile-again, unless
followed by negotiated peace accords-artificially freeze conflict and perpetuate
a state of war indefinitely by shielding the weaker side from the consequences
of refusing to make concessions for peace. " (emphasis added)
This is an article I think everyone should read. It isn't long, its superbly warranted, and it really makes you think.

Bruce Bartlett on Clinton Economics

Bipartisanship is such a rare thing these days, its nice to see an ideologue cross to the other side for once, at least temporarily. Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett of the National Center for Policy Analysis had this to say on Clinton's economic policy, including the rare admission that (gasp) it was alot wiser and more effective than President Bush's death by tax-cut.

There is a God.

John Edwards is Kerry's VP Pick

UPDATED: 7/7 @ 2:50 PM
So its John Edwards after all. I for one like the pick, considering my #1 choice (Bill Richardson) took himself out of the running. I think Edwards helps much more in a VP role than as the presidential candidate. My thoughts on the impacts:

1) Bush has to actually work to win the south. I think he'll still win it, but Joe Trippi says (and I agree) Kerry's chances are now drastically improved in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Ohio (who's southern portion votes like the south).

2) Bush's hard campaigning in the south will exert a significant influence on the senate races there. Tight races are present in NC, SC, LA, GA, and FL among others. Those are considered tough holds for the democrats (who are stuck defending open seats in all of them). Whether or not Bush helps or hurts his GOP allies depends alot on how his campaign is going.

3) Edwards will see alot of action not just in the south but in the Midwest and rustbelt, where his more folksy charm and background will go over better than the aristocratic Kerry. Kerry will spend most of his time in the Northeast and West coast, where his liberalism isn't a liability, and in areas where his military credentials shine through (such as the southwest).

4) Kerry's economic message will be a restatement of what Edwards ran in the primaries, that Bush's economic practices reward wealth over work and that the middle class faces a heavier tax burden than it did before the Bush administration took office.

All of these bode well for the Kerry campaign as the Bush administration continues to the flounder. And if Edwards can inject some life in the staid Kerry campaign, then his choice will be wise indeed.

SOME MORE ANALYSIS:
The Powerline Blog has responded to the selection of Edwards with skepticism that it will help Kerry at all. First, they quote Hugh Hewitt saying that the selection of Edwards demonstrates that they care more about political convienance than helping the country, alleging that Edwards doesn't have the heft to be president in the event a crisis strikes. I think that one, its a bit rich of the right to be alleging that the Democratic VP has inadequate FP experience to lead when their PRESIDENTIAL candidate had virtually no experience in that field until this year. No ones denying that the FP heft of the Kerry/Edwards ticket falls squarely on the Kerry side of the line. At the same time, it only falls on one side of the Bush/Cheney ticked too. And I think that Edwards has shown himself to have "good instincts" on the matter (which powerline alleges is all that matters anyway).

Then they state that Edwards popularity with independents is overstated, as there aren't many independents that vote in the Democratic Primary and independents who vote in the democratic primary aren't really all that independent! This would be a valid critique if it wasn't for the fact that the democratic primaries aren't the only election Sen. Edwards has ever ran in. North Carolina isn't exactly friendly terrain for democrats in 1998 or today, and winning an open seat there seems to require a strong appeal to independents, centrists, and Reagan Democrats. This all seems to suggest that Edwards' percieved strength in this area is more than the innane speculation of some liberal talking heads and actually grounded in the realities of Edwards strong stump speech, good instincts, and gift for connecting to voters and "regular people." Bush's "compassionate conservative" shill in 2000 shows how effective that strategy can be no matter how stridently the opposition tries to label you an extremist (even when they're right!).

Indeed, the more I think about it, the more similarities I see between Cheney and Kerry, and Bush and Edwards. Cheney/Kerry are both relatively unlikeable, with strong foreign policy experience and a reputation (deserved or not) of being stalwarts of the more extreme wings of their respective parties. Bush and Edwards, by contrast, focus on their appeal to "regular people" and charm far more than their resume. The only major difference is that while Bush is a weak orator and when he does speak, speaks in platitudes, Edwards is a gifted speaker who was lauded for the strong, specific campaign platform he issued in the Primaries. I almost wish Kerry would debate Cheney and Edwards would debate Bush.

Corner vs. Debate Link: Round 2

Again, you can see her original post here. Since she intertwined her responses into my postings, her lines will remain in all caps while mine will stay in normal format when I quote her posts.

First of all Meghan, thank you for your prompt response. You'll note I actually have 3 (counting this one) posts on Ayn Rand and Objectivism, I'm curious as to your thoughts on the first one. And I apologized for the Fountainhead/Atlas mistake on the Skouksen card, that was my mistake, not the author's. Moving on...

It is fitting that Rand starts her defense with a romanticized, but mythical view of history. THE LAST TIME I CHECKED, FIRES BEING LIT AND WHEELS BEING INVENTED WASN'T MYTHICAL AT ALL. I DO BELIEVE THOSE THINGS HAPPENED. WHILE IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO ASCERTAIN THE EXACT ORIGINS OF THESE INVENTIONS, I FEEL CONFIDENT THAT RAND DID NOT PULL THE STORY ROARK PAINTS OUT OF YOU-KNOW-WHERE.

Give me a little credit here Meghan. The "myth" I am referring to is not that fire was created, it was the myth of the "Heroic Theory of Invention" that is explained and refuted in the Diamond card below.

AND YET, AREN'T WE LOOKING AT WATT'S PARTICULAR ENGINE? I THINK SO. AND WHILE IT MAY HAVE BEEN BASED OFF OF NEWCOMEN'S ENGINE, WATT'S ENGINE WAS DIFFERENT AND REQUIRED INDIVIDUAL, ORIGINAL THINKING. AND JUST BECAUSE NEWCOMEN HAPPENED TO COME UP WITH HIS OWN ENGINE FIRST DOES NOT MEAN, FOR ANY REASON, THAT WATT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO INVENT WHAT NEWCOMEN, SAVERY, PAPIN, HUYGENS, AND OTHERS DID...

Are looking at Watt's particular steam engine? I'm highly doubtful, I would HOPE that we've managed to improve on it in the past century and a half, just as Watt improved off Newcomen (etc etc). And while PERHAPS Watt would have been able to build his own steam engine without Newcomen's influence, we have no way of knowing and the fact remains that Watt's invention DID directly flow from Newcomen's. Hence the point I was making is that invention still has a strong social aspect involving many people, not just the creator who takes eventual credit.

While Ms. Rand is undoubtedly correct that many societies have opposed and oppressed their inventors, this does not change the immense value and importance of society in facilitating inventions either. THIS SEEMS TO BE AN OXYMORON. Had society maintained itself as a collection of isolated tinkermen, we'd be lucky to invented much at all. THE PHRASE 'NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION' SEEMS TO RING A BELL. DAVID ASSUMES HERE THAT A SOCIETY COMPRISED OF ISOLATED TINKERMEN IS A BAD THING. HE PROVIDES NO WARRANT AS TO WHY THAT'S TRUE, AND ASSUMES THAT HAVING A SMALL AMOUNT OF INVENTIONS IS ALSO A BAD THING.

I don't see the oxymoron at all. Some society's oppress. Some society's don't. Sometimes SOME of society oppresses while others don't. There are innumerable permutations of the situation, Rand's one size fits all history doesn't fit the facts. Next, assuming that the creation is a good thing (which Rand does herself way at the top when she talks about how our creation of fire, weapons etc has allowed us to survive, then it follows from Rand's own analysis that more creation is better as it gives us more routes and options in the eternal quest to conquer nature. Accordingly, the warrant to my claim "isolated tinkerman bad" is from the Diamond card, which implicitly shows "isolated tinkerman fail, cooperative tinkerman succeed."

This makes for far better prose than it does for an argument. People "think" for each other all the time. BUT IT'S THE ACT OF THINKING THAT IS UNIQUELY THEIR OWN. WHILE THEY MAY "THINK" FOR ONE ANOTHER, THEY MUST TAKE THE INIATIVE TO DO SO. Any invention which is multi-disciplinary (IE, most) MOST - YET HE DOES NOT PROVIDE US WITH AN EXAMPLE will most likely require various experts contributing their knowledge on specific areas of study to the greater whole of the invention.

No one is alleging a hive mind here Meghan. I'm only pointing out the cooperative nature of invention which Rand suppresses in her fetishization of the individual. Multi-displinary inventions? How about Space ships (rocketry, metallurgy, physics, and computers at least)? Fiber optics (more physics, computers)? Smelting (chemistry, metallurgy)? Loveless' spider thingy :)? Carbon-dating (anthropology, archeology, chemistry, biology)? The list goes on. And of course, considering the nerdy reputation of many tinkerers, often times they need to enlist the aid of another to build the thing after its been designed!

LOOK AT BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, OR ANY RENAISSANCE MAN FOR THAT MATTER. THEY WERE TRAINED IN A VARIETY OF FIELDS AND UNDERSTOOD MANY DISCIPLINES. I AM CONFIDENT THAT THEY WERE CAPABLE OF INVENTING THINGS WHICH COULD BE TERMED 'MULTI-DISCIPLINARY.' AND REMEMBER, IT IS THESE RENAISSANCE MEN LIKE BEN FRANKLIN THAT WE CAN EASILY CALL TO MIND AS GREAT MEN.

Renaissance men are very rare, and are getting rarer as the depth and breadth of knowledge increases expoentially. Whereas renaissance men were the wave of the past, specialists are the wave of the future. People with tremendous expertise in one area, working together to do things that none could do alone. Watch "Lorenzo's Oil" for example, or look up how Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA (that's right, Watson AND Crick).

BUT WASN'T IT HE WHO ORGANIZED HIS COHORTS TOGETHER? WHO TOOK THE INITIATIVE TO ACTUALLY ACT UPON GETTING HIS INVENTION CREATED AND REALIZING THAT HE COULD NOT DO IT ALONE? HE MAY HAVE RELIED ON OTHERS BUT IT WAS NOT IN THE SENSE THAT RAND TALKS ABOUT NEGATIVELY. Indeed, Jim West says himself "Loveless kidnapped two chemists, that means there's gonna be explosives. He's got a metallurgist, so there's gonna be heavy armor. And he's got...the world's foremost specialist in hydraulics. Which means, whatever it is, it's gonna move." The work of many minds all going into the creation of one invention. ONE INVENTION WHICH WAS THOUGHT OF BY ONE MAN - REGARDLESS OF HOW IT CAME TO BE. DAVID WILL SAY THAT THIS NEGATES RAND'S PHILOSOPHY. HOWEVER, LOVELESS DID NOT RELY ON OTHER MEN. DAVID WILL SAY THAT RAND BELIEVES THAT NOTHING IS WORTH HAVING IF IT NEEDS TO BE ACHIEVED BY A RELIANCE ON OTHER MEN. AND YET LOVELESS'S END MOTIVE - GETTING THAT STRANGE SPIDER MAN OVERRODE ANY OTHER DESIRE OF HIS, AND HE BELIEVED IN HIS INVENTION SO MUCH SO THAT HE WAS WILLING TO EMPLOY THE HELP OF OTHER MEN.

Ok, you clearly haven't seen the movie (which is a shame, as its quite funny, I highly recommend it). 1) Loveless didn't "employ" or "organize" the scientists, he kidnapped them. Slight difference. Two, he was dependent on the scientists in every real sense: without them, he couldn't have built his spider! That's a dependency no matter how much bobbing and weaving you try and employ. Three, the end goal wasn't really the spider, it was the destruction of the United States and the resale of it back to Europe so he could make a fortune and retire. But I digress.

This is where Rand gives a nod to the impacts of others in the creative process. But far from being ancillary or tertiary to the process, the dialogue and exchange IS the process. BUT RAND BELIEVES IT'S THE END PRODUCT OF THINKING - SOMEONE ELSE'S THINKING - THAT ULTIMATELY IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN BE SHARED AMONG HUMANS. BUT PEOPLE DON'T SPONTANEOUSLY SHARE THINGS. THEY MUST MAKE THE ORIGINAL, INDIVIDUAL EFFORT TO DO SO. So long as no man is the world's foremost expert on every subject, the need for social interaction and presumably the preservation of social models which ALLOW for such interaction is essential. YET MAN MUST POSSESS THE DESIRE TO GO OUT AND SHARE THINGS THAT HE KNOWS.

No one is disparaging the individual's role in all of this, Meghan. I'm an individualist too y'know. I just don't fetish them like Rand does. Individuals need to think to invent. Individuals also need to share their thoughts to invent. I don't understand why this is so hard to grasp.

Again, this is little more than clever wordplay. First of all, reasoning minds CAN (and often do) work under coercion. COERCION DOES OFTEN PRESSURE MINDS TO ACT IN MANY WAYS. BUT ULTIMATELY, IT'S ONE'S DECISION TO CHOOSE HOW TO ACT. THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS WORLD - BESIDES BEING DEAD - THAT DICTATES HOW ONE OUGHT TO LIVE. Many artists in the Middle Ages created masterpieces while under the knowledge that failure could result in death.

Well, casting aside the effect of mind-altering substances (Truth serums for example) in coercing people to act outside of their "free will," this is a remarkably, well, cynical view of what freedom means. I definitely prefer the Berlin definition (read my other post). I don't think coerced freedom is freedom at all. But let's take your argument at face value. You just claimed that no one is actually taking your freedom if you are coerced to act (by, say, threat) b/c its still ultimately your choice. Fine, that means ANYTHING in a Randian world is justified including slavery b/c technically I'm not taking away their freedom (they have the CHOICE to run away, even if it means they'll be shot). Meghan is going to respond that its not ok b/c its a dependency, but at the point where we agree that slavery is a "free" interaction (B/c the slaves can still make a break for it) it falls under the same category as the "free" contraction of labor that Meghan says is ok and DOESN'T count as "dependency" in an Objectivist world. She can't have it all ways. And as showed throughout all my posts, coercion and dependency come in many ways, some more direct than others (the environmentalism example I gave in other post, to name one). Rand creates an arbitrary line, but its just that, arbitrary, and falls apart under cursory examination.

Any artist who makes a commissioned piece has to subordinate their preference to the clients preference. WHICH IS WHY ROARK IN THE FOUNTAINHEAD NEVER ACCEPT COMMISSIONED PIECES. HIS CLIENTS SOUGHT HIM OUT AND THE CLIENTS THAT HE AGREED TO WORK FOR LET HIM WORK ON HIS OWN TERMS. WHEN IT DIDN'T HAPPEN - WELL, READ THE FOUNTAINHEAD TO FIND OUT HOW ROARK REACTED WHEN HIS TERMS WERE COMPRISED. An architect (as Roark found out) needs for his designs to meet certain criteria spelled out by the client. AS ROARK FOUND OUT? PLEASE READ THE FOUNTAINHEAD BEFORE SAYING THAT HE 'FOUND OUT' ANYTHING. I DO BELIEVE HE TAUGHT EVERYONE ELSE A LESSON - AND A DAMN GOOD OBJECTIVIST LESSON TOO. And for the vast majority of artists and inventors, without a client or patron, there is no creation at all. AND THE IMPACT OF YOUR ARGUMENT IS...?

In the real world, Roark would wither away and die for lack of money (read the Skousen article). Roark is living in a fantasy world that would collapse in approximately 20 minutes if it had to obey conventional economics (again, read the Skousen article).

This is what I was referring to when I talked about the paradoxical (SIDENOTE: ISN'T PARADOX DEFINED AS "TWO SEEMINGLY CONTRADICTORY IDEAS THAT ACTUALLY ARE TRUE"?) nature of Objectivism, preaching an opposition to enslavement while mandating a series of prescriptive behavioral norms. Who is Rand to tell me what my own mentality should be? SHE DOESN'T. SHE JUST EXPECTS YOU TO FOLLOW YOUR OWN, THUS KILLING TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE - 1) GETTING THE NOTION ACROSS THAT IT'S YOUR 'BEHAVIORAL NORMS' TO FOLLOW AND 2) YOU'RE STILL ACTING SELFISHLY IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO BE AN OBJECTIVIST - THIS IS HOW SHE GETS PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND HER PHILOSOPHY. While the slaves condition is evil because he didn't choose to be in that position, the altruist forms his life plan freely and in absence of coercion. At the point where Rand terms that lifeplan immoral, she is saying that man must not live in his own vision but in her own vision, a vision of selfishness. That's as oppressive a dogma as any I've heard. ACTUALLY, DAVID, RAND'S PHILOSOPHY IS THE ONLY ONE WHICH DOESN'T TELL YOU WHAT MORALS TO HAVE BESIDES ONE - VALUE YOURSELF ABOVE ALL ELSE. EVERY OTHER DOGMA IN EXISTENCE REQUIRES MUCH, MUCH, MUCH MORE OF YOU.

Paradox (par-eh-doks), n....3. A statement that is self-contradictory in fact and, hence, false. (from Webster's dictionary, the 2nd definition is yours which is also valid but not the only one).
Does Mill's dogma require more than that? I'm not sure...it certainly constrains my actions less than Rand's does. Rand is an oppression of the mind, while I might be able to do anything I want, I'm not allowed to think anything I want (for example, I have to think any action I take is for me, not for others. That's a restriction, and one I reject.). Yes, maybe one could justify any "altruistic" action just by saying "oh, its b/c I want to do it," but some of us don't think along those lines, and don't want to, and Rand doesn't give us that option. Hence, the restrictive dogma.

But yet even this can be inverted. We tend to value inventions based on some sort of teleological standard, that is, based on the value they have to our society. OR TO OURSELVES, MORE IMPORTANTLY. INVENTORS DON'T WORK BACKWARDS AND SAY: HOW DO I BENEFIT SOCIETY? THEY SAY: HOW CAN I BENEFIT MYSELF THROUGH THIS INVENTION AND PERHAPS AS AN ADDITIONAL BENEFIT GET SOME PEOPLE IN SOCIETY TO BE BETTER OFF? Rand herself implicitly acknowledges this by continually referencing the inventions that have had giant, positive impacts on our lives. THE LIVES OF THE INVENTORS. SHE DOESN'T MENTION SOCIETY MUCH AT ALL. AND WHEN SHE SAYS "POSSIBLE BENEFICIARY" SHE FIRST AND FOREMOST MEANS THE CREATOR HIMSELF.

Not always true ("necessity is the mother of invention," remember?). We built the A-bomb because the government decided it would be good for society (to win a war), and thus we went off and did it. Some inventions obey the reverse framework, some don't. Again, Rand's creating a false, one-size-fits-all history.

She talks about fire and weapons for hunting, but (correctly) ignores the stick figure I created when I was five. Why? Because the great inventions satisfy needs, they allow us to survive when we otherwise would perish, thrive when we otherwise would die. A society that has no need, has no need of inventions. And to the inventor that invents something that cannot be given to anyone, I say "who cares?" and society would tend to come down on my side, I think. AT LEAST THE MAN WHO INVENTED FIRE WAS WARM THAT FIRST NIGHT, CORRECT? HIS IDEA HAPPENED TO BE POPULAR AND CAUGHT ON - AND THOSE PEOPLE ACTING SELFISHLY DECIDED TO JUMP ON THE BANDWAGON AND START THEIR OWN FIRES AS WELL. THEY TOOK THE PERSONAL INIATIVE TO IMITATE THE ORIGINAL CREATOR BECAUES THEY LIKED WHAT THEY SAY (OR LIKED WHAT THEY FELT, IF WE'RE STILL ON THE FIRE/WARMTH ANALOGY).

This is entirely non-responsive. I was making a point about how Rand herself prioritizes inventions based on their societal worth, and doesn't seem to care about the stupid inventions (like my stick figures). Hence, the end point still stands, "A society that has no need, has no need of inventions."

This is a strawman argument if I've ever seen one. No man or women wishes for affliction on others so they can be the superhero, sweeping to the rescue. Instead, people operate in a little world Rand might like to visit termed reality. In reality, there is suffering, whether we like to admit it or not. Having come to terms with that truth, and recognizing that suffering is bad, we are under the obligation to ask, how should we deal with it? The answer varies depending on how you ask, (ISN'T IT: WHO YOU ASK?) but Rand misguidedly pre-empts the question by pretending that suffering only matters if we make it matter, and that by ignoring it ceases to be relevant. IN RECOGNIZING THAT SUFFERING EXIST, WE RECOGNIZE THAT THE ALLEVIATION OF SUFFERING - AS I'M SURE MOST PEOPLE WOULD AGREE IS THE MOST POPULAR COURSE OF ACTION REGARDING SUFFERING - ONLY COMES WHEN PEOPLE SUFFER. YOU CANNOT CURE SUFFERING UNLESS THERE IS SUFFERING TO BE CURED, WHICH CATCHES THOSE WHO WISH TO ALLEVIATE SUFFERING IN A VICIOUS CYCLE. A world with no suffering is better than one with it, even an altruist would admit. But in a world with suffering it is better to alleviate it than to ignore it. In such a world, the role of creators can't be ignored. But the role of those who distribute the creation, who give it life and meaning, can't be disparaged either.

The best attack you made on that paragraph was my grammar mistake (good catch!). Aside from that, this is blatantly ignoring the hierarchy I gave you in the last section (World with no suffering > world w/suffering and people aid > world w/suffering and people ignore it). Since this syllogism seems to elude you, allow me to rephrase it.
IF Suffering exists, THEN one should attempt to alleviate it. If the "IF" statement is false, then the "THEN" statement is irrelevant. But since the "IF" statement is true, the "THEN" statement becomes operative. That we might agree that it would be preferable that the "IF" statement is false has no bearing on the actual veracity of the statement. You are (or more correctly, Rand is) committing a basic "is/ought" fallacy.

There are at least three unwarranted assertions in that paragraph. First, that independence directly correlates with talent. RAND HERE IS TALKING ABOUT TALENT IN THE SENSE OF SELF-FULLFILMENT. THE MOST TALENTED INDIVIDUALS ARE THE ONE WHO SEIZE THE THINGS WHICH THEY ARE GOOD AT AND BECOME THE BEST AT THEM. Second that independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. IF YOU BELIEVE ANYTHING ABOUT OBJECTIVISM (WHICH NO MATTER HOW MANY IMPLICATIONS OF DAVID'S YOU MIGHT AGREE WITH, YOU PROBABLY BELIEVE A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE INHERENT SELFISHNESS OF MEN - SELFISHNESS IN A GOOD SENSE!) YOU'LL AGREE THAT WHILE IT MIGHT NOT BE THE ONLY GAGUE, IT'S THE ONLY POSSIBLE WAY TO ACHIEVE VIRTUE - WHAT'S THE POINT OF HAVING MORAL CODES IF WE DONT' CONSTRUCT THEM OURSELVES?

Ok, but talent can be defined in many ways by many people. Read some Derrida, or post-structuralist authors, words don't have static meaning like that, "talent" can also mean effectiveness at fulfilling a societal objective or external goal, for example. I don't know how many people believe that the inherent selfishness of man is a good thing (We haven't all bit from the poisoned apple yet!), but regardless, that's just a silly statement. While I happen to agree that moral codes should be majority self-constructed, both of us are in a distinctly minority position. Christianity and organized religion especially are examples of constructed moral codes meant to constrain action. Indeed, since the point of a moral code is to provide right/wrong guidelines for conduct (and presumably to stop us from doing "wrong" even if we'd want to), most people would ask the opposite question: "what's the point of having a guide to conduct if you create it for yourself?" Its silly for the same reason that letting, say, the movie industry police itself is silly, if they were going to act morally they wouldn't need to be policed at all, and if they aren't going to act morally then they'll just immorally create a conduct code that facilitates their immorality.

Third, that there is no standard of personal dignity except independence. NONE of these are supported by anything except Rand's meta-myth that one can create independent of a social context. I would instead assert a doctrine that is freer than Rand's intellectual enslavement: that one creates their own dignity, that that dignity can come in the form of self service or in the service of others, and that neither Rand nor anyone else can disparage the moral code that one freely comes to for him or herself. The only obligation one has to others is to allow them the freedom to come up with and live their own code, free from your interference. THIS SOUNDS COMPLETELY, COMPLETELY RANDIAN TO ME. COMPLETELY. John Stuart Mill > Ayn Rand any day of the week. While the altruist is a slave to others, the egoist is a slave to him or herself. What's needed is a moral code that doesn't enslave anyone to anything, and Objectivism isn't it.

Nope, its my man John Stuart Mill. The distinction comes in the form of less intellectual restrictions and a more comprehensive def. of liberty (The Harms Principle). Its not Randian because Rand would object to the "service of others," only allowing it in the context of serving oneself. Since Mill would allow both "service to others" and "service to self" (so long as in taking either action you don't violate the Harms Principle), his philo is freer than Rand's is.

This is flat out false. First of all, rulers do create something, namely, they create the reality of the state they rule. WHERE'S THE WARRANT FOR THIS? THEY CREATE WHAT THEY THINK OUGHT TO BE THE NORM FOR ALL STATES. Second, most rulers (or at least the tyrannical ones) aren't really dependent on their subjects at all. They usually have enough wealth and power that they can buy whatever they need through "free" contracts, though they might choose not to. BUT THEN WHY DO THEY WANT TO RULE? WHY DON'T THEY JUST BE WEALTHY AND POWERFUL AND LEAVE IT AT THAT? BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO FULFILL THEIR DESIRE TO RULE THROUGH THE SUBJUGATION OF INDIVIDUALS, THUS BECOMING DEPENDENT UPON THEM. They are not living for their subjects, they live for themselves and their subjects are valuable to that end OF THE SELF. This may violate Rand's tenant to not use men as means, but it doesn't make the tyrant less of an egoist. They just are egoists that Rand finds distasteful. NOT DISTASTEFUL - BUT ALTOGETHER IMPOSSIBLE. THEY ARE NOT EGOISTS ACCORDING TO THE RANDIAN DEFINITION.

They create state via passing laws, enforcing laws, etc.. I thought that was self-evident. They might want to rule b/c they know that, while they COULD be reasonably powerful and wealthy just sitting there, they can be even more wealthy and powerful by being oppressive and cruel. The Randian definition, as far as I can see it, is "an egoist is an egoist when its convenient for me to label it an egoist" b/c I can't see ANY other linking thread through her arguments. The tyrant is no more dependent on his subjects (and probably less so) than the inventor to his builders, or the creator to his cohorts.

THE APPEAL TO SELF-INTEREST COMES AT THE SELF-INTEREST OF THE RULER, AND IT'S THE INDIVIDUALS WHO DECIDE TO ACTUALLY GO AHEAD AND DO THINGS SUCH AS KILL, MURDER, ROB, AND RAPE THOSE OPPORESSED.

But it was in the self-interest of the German's to take that action. If I'm a German, I'm unquestionably better off now that I have the Jewish farmland next door, and the Jewish painting brightening my living room, and the Jewish life savings in my bank account. Self-interest is an inadequate check on rights violations.

I would point out that Rand is lying, again, but it just seems redundant at this point. Pop quiz: when would you prefer to live? In 1890, Industrial Revolution America, when the Gospel of Wealth and social darwinism lead to much the same conditions as Rand proposes? AS LONG AS I DIDN'T GROW UP WHEN PROHIBITION WAS AROUND THEN I'M A-OK WITH WHATEVER DECADE YOU SLAP ME WITH. Or today, where morality is deigned to include service to others, where we laud the patriots who gave their lives for our country, where corporations are expected to behave honestly and serve humanity and not just the bottom line? PROVE TO ME THAT WE LIVE IN THIS SOCIETY. BECAUSE I HONESTLY DON'T THINK WE DO.

Hmm, well then you're more stoic than I thought. But while we don't live in the ideal era YET, we're at least closer. We DO honor our soldiers today, and we do have outrage when we hear that Shell helping kill off natives in Indonesia, and we do get pissed off upon finding out that companies are dumping toxic chemicals in our water (ever seen "Erin Brockovich?"). We aren't there yet, but I think we're moving in the right direction. But if you'd rather live in an 1904 world than a 2004 world, be my guest.

SURE THE ROBBER BARON MAY HAVE BEEN DEPENDENT ON OTHERS. BUT I'M NOT CLAIMING HE WAS AN EGOIST AT ALL. NEITHER DOES RAND. ONLY INDIVIDUALS LIKE ROARK - WHO DON'T WORK FOR THE END OF ACCUMULATING MONEY (LIKE THE ROBBER BARONS) AND WHO WORK FOR NOTHING BUT THEIR OWN SELF-EDIFICATION AND ENJOYMENT - ARE ABLE TO BE CALLED EGOISTS.

The point of showing the dependency of the robber barons was to point out that everyone is dependent (see also the environmentalism example I gave in my other post). There is not a single totally independent person in the world, nor can there be one. Its just not possible.

The Cynical Defense of Objectivism

My friends at The Cynic's Corner have posted a defense of Objectivism (or more accurately, reprinted Rand's own defense of her brain child) as the very first entry on their site. You can find the post here. I'm going to reprint parts of it along with my thoughts:

"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.

It is fitting that Rand starts her defense with a romanticized, but mythical view of history. While we like to overstate the impact of a few visionary geniuses, in reality most inventions are the collective work of a series of great men and women. Jared Diamond, Professor of Physiology at the UCLA Medical School, writes in his Pulitzer Prize winning book "Guns, Germs, and Steel"

The commonsense view of invention...overstates the importance of rare geniuses, such as Watt and Edison. That 'heroic theory of invention,' as it is termed, is encouraged by patent law, because an applicant for a patent must prove the novelty of the invention submitted. Inventors thereby have a financial incentive to denigrate or ignore previous work.
[...]
In reality, even for the most famous and apparently decisive modern inventions, neglected precursors lurked behind the bald claim 'X invented Y.' For instance, we are regularly told, 'James Watt invented the steam engine in 1769,' supposedly inspired by watching steam rise from a teakettle's spout. Unfortunately for this splendid fiction, Watt actually got the idea for his particular steam engine while repairing a model of Thomas Newcomen's steam engine, which Newcomen had invented 57 years earlier and of which over a hundred had been manufactured in England by the time of Watt's repair work. Newcomen's engine, in turn, followed the steam engine that the Englishman Thomas Savery patented in 1698, which followed the steam engine that the Frenchman Denis Papin designed (but did not build) around 1680, which in turn had precursors in the ideas of the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens and others...Similar histories can be related for all modern inventions that are adequately documented.

While Ms. Rand is undoubtedly correct that many societies have opposed and oppressed their inventors, this does not change the immense value and importance of society in facilitating inventions either. Had society maintained itself as a collection of isolated tinkermen, we'd be lucky to invented much at all.

But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act--the process of reason--must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man con use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

This makes for far better prose than it does for an argument. People "think" for each other all the time. Any invention which is multi-disciplinary (IE, most) will most likely require various experts contributing their knowledge on specific areas of study to the greater whole of the invention. For those of you who have seen the movie "Wild Wild West" you know of what would be an incredible invention (if it wasn't fictional), Dr. Loveless' giant mechanical spider. Now, while Dr. Loveless is without a doubt an evil genius, there is no way he could have done all this himself. Indeed, Jim West says himself "Loveless kidnapped two chemists,
that means there's gonna be explosives. He's got a metallurgist, so there's gonna be heavy armor. And he's got...the world's foremost specialist in hydraulics. Which means, whatever it is, it's gonna move." The work of many minds all going into the creation of one invention. Fascinating.

We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the nest step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.

This is where Rand gives a nod to the impacts of others in the creative process. But far from being ancillary or tertiary to the process, the dialogue and exchange IS the process. So long as no man is the world's foremost expert on every subject, the need for social interaction and presumably the preservation of social models which ALLOW for such interaction is essential.

The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.

Again, this is little more than clever wordplay. First of all, reasoning minds CAN (and often do) work under coercion. Many artists in the Middle Ages created masterpieces while under the knowledge that failure could result in death. Second, reasoned minds can and often do subordinate their vision to other considerations. Any artist who makes a commissioned piece has to subordinate their preference to the clients preference. An architect (as Roark found out) needs for his designs to meet certain criteria spelled out by the client. And for the vast majority of artists and inventors, without a client or patron, there is no creation at all.

The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality--the man who lives to serve others--is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.

This is what I was referring to when I talked about the paradoxical nature of Objectivism, preaching an opposition to enslavement while mandating a series of prescriptive behavioral norms. Who is Rand to tell me what my own mentality should be? While the slaves condition is evil because he didn't choose to be in that position, the altruist forms his life plan freely and in absence of coercion. At the point where Rand terms that lifeplan immoral, she is saying that man must not live in his own vision but in her own vision, a vision of selfishness. That's as oppressive a dogma as any I've heard.

Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution--or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary.

But yet even this can be inverted. We tend to value inventions based on some sort of teleological standard, that is, based on the value they have to our society. Rand herself implicitly acknowledges this by continually referencing the inventions that have had giant, positive impacts on our lives. She talks about fire and weapons for hunting, but (correctly) ignores the stick figure I created when I was five. Why? Because the great inventions satisfy needs, they allow us to survive when we otherwise would perish, thrive when we otherwise would die. A society that has no need, has no need of inventions. And to the inventor that invents something that cannot be given to anyone, I say "who cares?" and society would tend to come down on my side, I think.

Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer--in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man's body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.

This is a strawman argument if I've ever seen one. No man or women wishes for affliction on others so they can be the superhero, sweeping to the rescue. Instead, people operate in a little world Rand might like to visit termed reality. In reality, there is suffering, whether we like to admit it or not. Having come to terms with that truth, and recognizing that suffering is bad, we are under the obligation to ask, how should we deal with it? The answer varies depending on how you ask, but Rand misguidedly pre-empts the question by pretending that suffering only matters if we make it matter, and that by ignoring it ceases to be relevant. A world with no suffering is better than one with it, even an altruist would admit. But in a world with suffering it is better to alleviate it than to ignore it. In such a world, the role of creators can't be ignored. But the role of those who distribute the creation, who give it life and meaning, can't be disparaged either.

Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

There are at least three unwarranted assertions in that paragraph. First, that independence directly correlates with talent. Second that independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. Third, that there is no standard of personal dignity except independence. NONE of these are supported by anything except Rand's meta-myth that one can create independent of a social context. I would instead assert a doctrine that is freer than Rand's intellectual enslavement: that one creates their own dignity, that that dignity can come in the form of self service or in the service of others, and that neither Rand nor anyone else can disparage the moral code that one freely comes to for him or herself. The only obligation one has to others is to allow them the freedom to come up with and live their own code, free from your interference. John Stuart Mill > Ayn Rand any day of the week. While the altruist is a slave to others, the egoist is a slave to him or herself. What's needed is a moral code that doesn't enslave anyone to anything, and Objectivism isn't it.

Rulers of men are not egoists. They create nothing. The exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

This is flat out false. First of all, rulers do create something, namely, they create the reality of the state they rule. Second, most rulers (or at least the tyrannical ones) aren't really dependent on their subjects at all. They usually have enough wealth and power that they can buy whatever they need through "free" contracts, though they might choose not to. They are not living for their subjects, they live for themselves and their subjects are valuable to that end OF THE SELF. This may violate Rand's tenant to not use men as means, but it doesn't make the tyrant less of an egoist. They just are egoists that Rand finds distasteful.

The 'common good' of a collective--a race, a class, a state-- was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism?

Again, this flips cause and effect. Tyrants appeal to altruism because the majority of humans feel that altruism is a proper barometer of good. No tyrant is so foolish as to actively justify his actions on a basis that most people find evil. If people began to view egoism as the proper measure of morality, then tyrants would adjust accordingly. I can see it now: "The Jews are taking up room, money, food, and land that could be used for Germans. You, as a German, have the obligation to drive out (kill, murder, rob, rape) the Jews to better your life and your families." Oppression via appeal to self-interest. Sound familiar?

Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else's. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.

I would point out that Rand is lying, again, but it just seems redundant at this point. Pop quiz: when would you prefer to live? In 1890, Industrial Revolution America, when the Gospel of Wealth and social darwinism lead to much the same conditions as Rand proposes? Or today, where morality is deigned to include service to others, where we laud the patriots who gave their lives for our country, where corporations are expected to behave honestly and serve humanity and not just the bottom line? Did Rand's turn of the century paradise yield a greater respect for humanity? Was the working man considered the equal of the Robber baron? Did we actively oppose the blatant oppression of blacks, chinese, jews, and others? Was the environment respected? Were other people respected? The answer is clearly no. And yet, the Robber Baron, admitted or not, was dependent on others. He was dependent on the men who joined the army, risking their lives to protect his factory. He was dependent on the worker, who toiled in atrocious conditions and oppressive environments so that his family might have food. The dependency of man is inalterable, all that changes is whether we suppress it or elevate it so that it can be used to serve all, not only the privileged few.

Ayn Rand, who's very presence in our country is the result of the altruism of numerous families who helped smuggle her out of Russia, creates a distorted world in favor of a false agenda. To quote an anoynmous debater, Rand's arguments "are like a baby penguin. They're cute and everything, but they just won't fly."

Objectivism and Ayn Rand

One of my friends (who just started her own blog, The Cynic's Corner) has just suffered a relapse into Objectivism, the philosophy created by Ayn Rand that is characterized by a rejection of altruism.

Objectivism is flawed on several levels. First of all, its logocentric, though that applies to virtually any comprehensive philosophy. However, the hostility Objectivism has to external authority makes this an especially fatal flaw. Rand cannot simultanously claim that one must be free to live ones life as one choices while at the same time making prescriptive codes of conduct and/or feelings. I have the right to give to charity, and I have the right to feel guilty if I don't! At the point where I am forced to not to do either of these things, I'm merely a slave to a dogma Rand finds more preferable. Ayn Rand is at best the rich conservative's John Stuart Mill. Second, its unsustainable. While Objectivism purports to support unbridled capitalism (and has been lauded for it by numerous conservative/libertarian pundits), the philosophy actually doesn't support capitalism at all. Professor Mark Skousen of Columbia University Business School remarks that

Roark [the protagonist in "Fountainhead"] denies a basic tenet of sound economics--the principle of consumer sovereignty. When the dean of the architectural school tells Roark, "Your only purpose is to serve him [the client]," Roark objects. "I don't intend to build in order to serve or help anyone. I don't intend to build in order to have clients. I intend to have clients in order to build." (1994:14) This bizarre, almost anti-social, attitude sounds like a perverse rending of Say's Law, "supply creates its own demand," or the statement made in the film Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." But supply only creates demand if the supply can be sold to customers; and people come to a new baseball field only if they want to play or watch. Supply must satisfy demand, or it becomes a wasted resource.

Most capitalist authors argue that the system requires social input because the freedom of contract necessarily requires the consent of all involved party's. Christian Michel of the Acton Institute writes "Once again, if a price is paid, it is not necessarily the one that the buyer or the seller had expected to obtain at the start of the negotiation; thus, as in any social relationship, the wishes and the interests of others must be acknowledged." However, Rand seems to view the social aspect of business affairs as a necessary evil that accomponies a "free" life. Her ideal man, Roark, lives in a distorted reality that doesn't hold up in the real world. Skousen continues "The fact that Howard Roark represents the ideal man in Ayn Rand's novel and the fact that she denigrates other characters in The Fountainhead who "compromise" with client's demands suggest that Ayn Rand is philosophically in denial when it comes to comprehending the nature of business. She denies the very raison d'etre of capitalism--consumer sovereignty."
Third, Objectivism only holds up under a very narrow, deontological view of freedom. Isiah Berlin points out that "Freedom is not simply freedom of action but also freedom from the consequences of the action's of others." Rand's major limit on one's freedom of action is that you can't use other humans as a means, only as an end of themselves. Thus, I can't for example rob someone because that's using him as a means to my enrichment. However, a comprehensive view of freedom has to take into account the inadvertant ways where our actions constrain others. The easiest example is Environmentalism. A Objectivist businessman would be acting perfectly morally in clearcutting giant tracts of rainforest that he owns to sell to the market. As long as he owns the land, he isn't, in a Objectivist sense, doing anything wrong. However, the environmental damage that such an action can take has harms that extend throughout the world. Furthermore, the people who are most vulnerable to environmental catastrophes are the poor and disadvantaged, as they can't afford the expensive protections and technologies the rich have to shield themselves from environmental damage. The likely consequences of such environmental degredation on the global poor is immense. The reduction of trees will lead to desertification, which in turn hurts substinence farmers. Air and water pollution will cause an increase in disease and a reduction in life expectancy. Global warming will raise sea levels, having catastrophic results on seaside and island nations (the Pacific Island state of Tuvalu is estimated to be underwater in 50 years). Environmental refugees will cause instability and increase overcrowding in cities. Herman E. Daly, Senior Economist in the Environment Department
of the World Bank writes in POPULATION, TECHNOLOGY AND LIFESTYLE: THE
TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABILITY

"Increasing Northern incomes at the cost of Southern sustainability will lead to global insecurity. It will result in an increase in "environmental refugees" fleeing human made disasters, poisoned water, air, and soils, soil erosion, and desertification."

The list goes on in on. All of these have drastic and real impacts on people's life, liberty, and freedom. All are also entirely inconsequential in an Objectivist state. There is a fundamental myth behind Objectivist philosophy, and that is the false distinction between Public and Private. There are virtually no actions that one takes that are devoid of a public consequence. Thus when Rand argues that one shouldn't act for others or use them as an end, she makes an arbitrary judgment on which actions are sufficiently rooted in the other to qualify. The end result is that taking an extra minute to help an old lady cross the street is viewed as more invasive than precipitated massive species loss and environmental destruction through logging. Somehow, I'm not convinced.

Rules for Hamdi's Hearing?

I'm sure someone who is far more well-versed in Constitutional Law can clarify or correct me on this, but I'm confused on the process for the hearing regarding Hamdi's status as an 'enemy combatant.'

A lot as been made of Justice O'conner's declaration that the rules for such a rehearing don't have to be as stringent as those for a normal criminal trial, for example the presumption might shift to the government and there might be looser evidentiary standards (hearsay evidence for example). However, that view only commands the agreement of 4 members of the court (O'Conner, Rehnquist, Kennedy, and Breyer). Two members of the court (Stevens and Scalia) adapt a "try him or release him" tact, and of course Thomas agreed with the government that Hamdi shouldn't be able to have a hearing at all. The interesting opinion is Justice Souter's (joined by Ginsburg). They disagreed with O'Conner that there is enough justification to hold Hamdi in detention, however they concurred in judgment because "[s]ince this disposition does not command a majority of the Court, however, the need to give practical effect to the conclusions of eight members of the Court rejecting the Government's position calls for me to join with the plurality in ordering remand on terms closest to those I would impose." He caveats though, that "It should go without saying that in joining with the plurality to produce a judgment, I do not adopt the plurality's resolution of constitutional issues that I would not reach. It is not that I could disagree with the plurality's determinations (given the plurality's view of the Force Resolution) that someone in Hamdi's position is entitled at a minimum to notice of the Government's claimed factual basis for holding him, and to a fair chance to rebut it before a neutral decision maker...nor, of course, could I disagree with the plurality's affirmation of Hamdi's right to counsel...On the other hand, I do not mean to imply agreement that the Government could claim an evidentiary presumption casting the burden of rebuttal on Hamdi...or that an opportunity to litigate before a military tribunal might obviate or truncate enquiry by a court on habeas." (emphasis added).

Hence, while 6 justices agree that Hamdi needs the ability, at hearing, to claim his innocence of the charges against him, only 4 agree that the rules for such a trial should be changed to favor the government as the plurality opinion suggests. Another four (counting Stevens and Scalia) believe that any trial that does occur needs to obey normal rules of procedure. Since a majority couldn't be reached on the the second issue, will the trial court default to normal rules of procedure or take O'Conner's plurality viewpoint? At the very least, O'Conner's view does not create precedent, taking away one of the few areas of solace for conservatives worried about the implications of this ruling on the War on Terror.

Supreme Court Rules on Detention of 'Enemy Combatants'

The Supreme Court handed down three cases that struck at the core of our constitutional scheme of government and insured that, at least to some degree, the actions of the US in the War on Terror will be bound by rule of law rather than the whim of the executive. The cases are Hamdi v. Rumsfeld , Al Odah v. US and Rasul v. Bush (consolidated), and Padilla v. Rumsfeld. The latter was dismissed on a technicality and didn't decide much in the way of substantive issues. However, the Hamdi and Al Odah/Rasul cases are extremely important in dictated how our war on terror will proceed. All the cases can be found at The Legal Information Institute.

In Hamdi's case, the court ruled that, while the detention itself was authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), Hamdi still has the right to challenge his detention and contest the facts against him. Quoting Foucha v. Louisiana "Freedom from bodily restraint has always been at the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause from arbitrary governmental action." I think a quote by Herbert Packer, former Professor of Law at Stanford University, from his book "The Limits of Criminal Sanction" also is very pertinent:

"The combination of stigma and loss of liberty...is viewed as being the heaviest deprivation that government can inflict on the individual. Furthermore, the processes that culminate in these highly afflictive sanctions are seen as in themselves coercive, restrictive, and demeaning. Power is always subject to abuse-sometimes subtle, othertimes...open and ugly. Precisely because of its potency in subjecting the individual to the coercive power of the state, the criminal process must...be subjected to controls that prevent it from operating at maximal efficiency.

Though clearly the government has a compelling interest to protect the United States from aggressors and detain those who cause us harm, the court remarked that "as critical as the Government's interest may be in detaining those who actually pose an immediate threat to the national security of the United States during ongoing international conflict, history and common sense teach us that an unchecked system of detention carries the potential to become a means for oppression and abuse of others who do not present that sort of threat." The court, in my view, struck the proper balance, holding that the executive can detain enemy combatants but still has some obligation to prove in an adversarial setting that they fit within that category. This is especially important in Mr. Hamdi's case, as his father claims he was in Afghanistan for humanitarian aid purposes, and was not in Afghanistan for long enough to receive military training (we haven't heard from Mr. Hamdi himself because he is being held incommunicado by the government). Perhaps former Chief Justice Earl Warren put it best in US v. Robel, "It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile."

The second set of cases (referred to collectively as the Rasul case) deals with the jurisdiction of American courts to here challenges from Guantanamo Bay detainees of their detention. This case is in certain ways more important than Hamdi, as unlike in Hamdi the prior precedent seemed to lean against the detainees. In the 1950 Supreme Court case Johnson v. Eisentrager, the court dealt with a case brought by German citizens captured in China, convicted of War Crimes in Nanking, and incarcerated in occupied post-war Germany. The court ruled that as these areas all fell outside of US jurisdiction, there was no standing to sue in that case. In that case, the court remarked that:

We are here confronted with a decision whose basic premise is that these prisoners are entitled, as a constitutional right, to sue in some court of the United States for a writ of habeas corpus. To support that assumption we must hold that a prisoner of our military authorities is constitutionally entitled to the writ, even though he (a) is an enemy alien; (b) has never been or resided in the United States; (c) was captured outside of our territory and there held in military custody as a prisoner of war; (d) was tried and convicted by a Military Commission sitting outside the United States; (e) for offenses against laws of war committed outside the United States; (f) and is at all times imprisoned outside the United States

, and concluded that no right to habeas corpus existing in such a situation.

In Rasul, Justice Stevens distinguished from Eisentrager on several grounds:

Petitioners in these cases differ from the Eisentrager detainees in important respects: They are not nationals of countries at war with the United States, and they deny that they have engaged in or plotted acts of aggression against the United States; they have never been afforded access to any tribunal, much less charged with and convicted of wrongdoing; and for more than two years they have been imprisoned in territory over which the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction and control.

Furthermore, the court noted that Eisentrager had been modified significantly by following decisions. In Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, the court made a core revision to how it viewed Habeas Corpus claims. It now held that the writ acted on the person holding the prisoner, rather than the prisoner himself. Thus, since the people who were responsible for the detention of the prisoners in Guantanamo were within the jurisdiction of US courts, the prisoners now had standing to sue where such law did not exist at the time of the Eisentrager decision.

What's important to note in both of these cases is what they DON'T do. They don't prevent the president from detaining illegal combatants. They expressly cast aside the possibility of wars conducted under the threat of litigation. The courts holding in these cases is limited only to forcing the US to ascertain that those they imprison have committed a crime. In making these rulings, the courts put an important check on the President's power to bypass the court system and the bill of rights under the pretext of national security.

Gay Marriage

Maggie Gallagher wrote an article for the National Review where she lauded Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's testimony on Capital Hill against Gay Marriage. I think its important to dissect the article and the argument, considering that Gallagher claims its the "single most eloquent and articulate defense of our traditional understanding of marriage I have heard from an American politician."

Romney testified:

"Given the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. . . Should we abandon marriage as we know it and as it was known by the framers of our Constitution? Has America been wrong about marriage for 200 plus years? Were generations that spanned thousands of years from all the civilizations of the world wrong about marriage? Are the philosophies and teachings of all the world's major religions simply wrong? Or is it more likely that four people among the seven that sat in a court in Massachusetts have erred? I believe that is the case."

First of all, with regards to religion at least, the claim is inaccurate. Buddhists have expressed no problem whatsoever with gay marriage. While politicians like to equate the Judeo-Christian(-Muslim if they're feeling inclusive) tradition as a complete representation of the religious mainstream, millions of southeast Asians would beg to differ. Second, as marriage is different in a legal vs. a spiritual sense, its possible for everyone to be right. That is, the legal implications of marriage are defined based on constitutional and statutory law, which mandates equality amongst all people, including (as the Supreme Court has reminded us in Romer v. Evans and more recently in Lawrence v. Texas) Gay people. Thus, the benefits of civil marriage have to be open to all people regardless of sexual orientation. And while yes, technically homosexuals can still marry (just of the opposite sex), forcing them into such an arrangement raises all sorts of separate moral issues (what about the partner who is faced with a spouse that isn't attracted to them? Is sex outside of marriage ok in this case? Etc). Merely asserting that this issue was resolved a long time ago doesn't resolve the issue today.

"Marriage is also for children. In fact, marriage is principally for the nurturing and development of children. The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother."

Though marriage also provides an environment for raising children, Gov. Romney would do well to brush up on his facts. There is no social science research that suggests that homosexual parents fare worse in raising children than heterosexual ones, indeed, the American Academy of pediatricians writes in its policy statement on the matter

The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes that a considerable body of professional literature provides evidence that children with parents who are homosexual can have the same advantages and the same expectations for health, adjustment, and development as can children whose parents are heterosexual.

Most studies that conservative "family" groups cite have rhetoric along the lines of "studies show that children do better when they have a mother and a father." Why don't they just say "studies show kids with gay parents do worse"? Simple: that's not what the studies are reporting on. The social science research that is being quoted here compares TWO PARENT homes with SINGLE PARENT homes, not gay couples vs. straight couples. The evidence in the latter comparison is very limited, but at the moment the experts seem to be in consensus that, given the reality of children in situations where their parents are in a homosexual relationship, the largest possibility of psychological harm comes in the form of that union having no possibility of being recognized.

The advocates tell us the skies have not fallen in Massachusetts; nothing has changed, they assure us. Romney points out that small things have already begun to change, foretelling the bigger, sadder changes to come. First, the marriage licenses change so they no longer read husband and wife but "Party A" and "Party B." The Department of Health insists that birth certificates also change. The line for mother and father becomes "Parent A" and "Parent B."

Horrors upon horrors! I can see the crumbling of society already. What proud new mom, upon seeing their child's birth certificate, will be so incensed on being labeled "parent" as opposed "mother" that they will say "That's it! This baby isn't worth it any more!"? I honestly can't see how a slight linguistic adjustment is any way linked to the gloom and doom rhetoric of Gallagher and her ilk.

The transformation of mother and father into "Parent A" and "Parent B" is the model of the paradigm shift now underway in Massachusetts. The distinctive features of the union of male and female are going to have to be removed from our notions of marriage and family. The experience of same-sex couples will become the new norm for family life, because the "unisex" idea that gender has no public significance is the only model that can be construed as "inclusive" of both opposite-sex and same-sex unions. The result is not neutrality but the active promotion of a new unisex ideal, in which the distinctive features of opposite-sex relations will be submerged, marginalized, cast to one side, and redefined as discrimination in order to protect the new court-ordered public moral standard of the equality of same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

Again, Gallagher seems to feel that legal openness precludes the possibility of anyone having an alternative view on a subject. Of course the Gay Marriage movement is itself a refutation of this standard, as gay couples certainly were fervent, legal rules notwithstanding, that they should be considered married. So while the legal paradigm may shift in favor of the inclusive "unisex" mentality Gallagher abhors, there is still plenty of room for individuals, churches, and organizations to hold true to beliefs of gender role separation. Unless the government actually ENFORCES unisexuality upon the entire populace (which would entail, among other absurd things, mandated equal childcare time between mothers and fathers), no one is forcing Gallagher to change anything about her life, views, activities, or mindsets at all.

The change has begun: The needs and desires of a tiny fraction of adults in alternative families are becoming the basis of a new moral norm. Anyone who departs from it risks thundering denunciation from self-righteous elites who are no longer satisfied with tolerance and civility — living with our deepest differences — but wish to impose their vision of morality on the majority.

What on earth is the imposition? Its not like gay couples are going to be setting up camp in your living room. Gay couples are asking for nothing BUT tolerance and civility, tolerance of their relationship's existence and the basic civility of not making these relationships official legal abominations. It seems to me that it is Ms. Gallagher who can't stand to live in a society that respects the "deepest differences."

Liberal Media Bias?

A new study by Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo purports to provide a definitive proof of a "liberal media" bias.

The gist of the study is that they measure the amount of times specific "Think Tanks" are cited by newspapers, and also measures how often those same think tanks are cited by congressman. A think tank that is cited by conservative members of congress (via ADA rankings) is labeled "conservative," one cited by liberal members is labeled "liberal." The study found that newspapers cited the liberal institutions at a far higher rate than the conservative ones, and thus concluded that there is a systematic media bias.

At first blush, its a compelling argument. But the flaws in the analysis are numerous. Joel Jacobs remarks on a few of them:

SOURCES CONSIDERED
To reach a fair conclusion about media bias, one would ideally consider all media. There are almost ten thousand newspapers in the country, mostly local. The study considers three papers, all national. There are thousands of magazines that have some political content. The study considers NONE. 22% of Americans get their news from radio; the study considers no radio sources. There must be hundreds (perhaps thousands) of television news sources, mostly local. The study considers three. Thousands of blogs and other Internet information sources; study considers one.

Certainly, studying all media sources would be difficult or impossible. Barring that, a responsible researcher would be obliged to study a number of media outlets that is significant enough, and representative enough, that one could safely generalize. The authors do not even attempt to argue that they have studied a representative sample. Given the absence of radio, magazines, and local media (which is where, I believe, most people get their news), it's hard to call this list representative. If the New York Times is liberal, but most smaller papers are conservative (which is plausible given that conservative chains like Murdoch and Hearst own a great many papers), then there's no overall "liberal bias."

TIME PERIOD

Though the study claims to cover quite a large time period, the data at the end reveal that the analysis of newspapers is limited to the GW Bush years. (And, as noted below, the data for the remaining media outlets are too limited to be useful.) The problem with concentrating on a period when there was a Republican President and a Republican Congress (or at least House) is that it's the government that, by and and large, is making news. Thus, a typical story might have a government official announcing or explaining a policy, and an "independent" source (perhaps a think tank) giving the other side. Most people would consider this sourcing (Administration says X, Think Tank argues Y) to be balanced. Under the study's methodology, though, this would be a "liberal" bias, because only think tanks are considered.


DATA USED

An overall conclusion about bias requires consideration of a number of components:

1. What stories media cover.

2. How prominently they cover them (e.g. putting anti-administration stories on the front page or at the "top of the news," and burying pro-administration stories on p.27 would be a liberal bias).

3. What facts are presented in the stories.

4. What sources the stories rely upon.

5. What positions the media's editorials espouse.

Even on its face, the study addresses only one very small piece of #4. The majority of sources that the media rely upon are not think tanks at all, much less the 200 "think tanks" (I'm sure the American Association of Retired Persons would be surprised to learn that it's a think tank, BTW)
. Considering only citations to these few organizations (and not other organizations, political leaders, academics, etc.) is like, well, a doctor saying "You're healthy because your hair looks ok."

The data are so limited as to be useless. While they don't show any overall bias, they do suggest that the media studied just don't cite think tanks all that often: in many cases not even every day. USA Today cited think tanks about 400 times in about 240 days. I don't read USA Today, but let's assume 30 political stories a day. That would mean a think tank is cited in only about 6% of stories. (The percentage would be lower if multiple think tanks are sometimes cited in a single story.) How can you generalize from that?

Similarly, CBS and ABC cited "think tanks" less than 100 times per year. Figure, what, seven political stories per night (I don't watch TV news either), and 260 days a year of nightly news (do they broadcast on weekends?) That's 1,820 stories a year. Again, think tanks are not even an issue for the vast majority of stories, so it seems an obscure variable to focus on.

OTHER EXPLANATIONS

Another problem with the study is that it ignores other, equally plausible explanations for the data. Consider the possibility that the Republicans in Congress are more right of center than the Dems are left of center. Assume further than many of the think tanks (or at least the ones whose names come up a lot) are relatively centrist. One would expect Dems to cite the think tanks more, and the study would then classify the think tanks as "liberal," which would throw the other results off. I'm not trying to prove this theory, just to point out that a good study must rule out explanations other than its preferred conclusion, and this study doesn't do that. It is at least possible that one party relies on relatively unbiased organizations more than the other party does (who knows, maybe it's the Republicans, but if true, it undercuts a key assumption of the study).

One must approach critically a conclusion that, the authors admit, they were expecting to reach before they even started the study. Media bias is a very difficult subject to study, and I just don't think this study comes up with anything that supports broad conclusions.

Mr. Jacob's second area of analysis in "Data Used," (on placement of stories) is especially interesting to me. I've seen numerous examples where stories that I think should be front page news are relegated to the back pages or omitted entirely. Often, this happens when a story isn't seen as fitting the "narrative" that has already been set up for the parties involved. For example, articles detailing the Bush Administration intense effort to undermine Homeland Security efforts in the post 9/11 era are virtually impossible to find because President Bush has effectively made his "tough on terror" persona the narrative that news stories had to fit within to be seen as mainstream. Jonathan Chait wrote a superb article in The New Republic back in 2003 detailing this very phenomena.

[E]ven when the mainstream media reports on Bush's efforts to limit homeland security spending, they still accept his basic assertion that homeland security is his top priority. Take, for instance, this Washington Post story from October 19, 2002:

[T]he White House appears to have put more emphasis on holding the line on overall spending levels than on winning the spending increases it has sought. The president's high-stakes demand for fiscal discipline in areas he has not emphasized has jeopardized his top priorities. In limbo are billions of proposed dollars to secure the nation's ports and skies, defend against bioterrorism. ... Instead of funding those proposals, lawmakers voted this week to keep federal agencies running at current spending levels until Nov. 22, leaving town with the non-military side of government practically operating as if Sept. 11 never happened. Yet White House spokesman Ari Fleischer sought yesterday to paint the impasse as a Bush victory.

Isn't it just a bit odd that the president would work tirelessly to scuttle his own "top priorities" and then revel in their failure?

Part of this is due to the way newspapers are set up. The New Republic wrote on October 31st 2003:

A Bush announcement is the province of the White House press corps, whose reportage is generally deemed the most newsworthy. Legislative arcana is the turf of less prestigious congressional reporters. So, when Bush announces a new, "compassionate" initiative, the story makes a big splash on the evening news. When it dies in Congress, the story ends up in the back pages of the newspaper.

The reverse is also true, once a narrative gets fixed in the public mind the media will often exaggerate it well beyond its logical bounds. The same (October) TNR article continues:

Once the news media has settled on a perception of a political figure, it becomes nearly impossible to dislodge. One reason is that the evidentiary standards for a piece of "news" drop if that news seems to fit a preconceived pattern. In 1988, for instance, reporters decided that GOP vice-presidential nominee Dan Quayle was stupid. Quayle certainly was not a brilliant man, but plenty of politicians with equally mediocre minds do not have their intellect savaged the way Quayle did. Part of the reason Quayle couldn't shake his reputation was that any tiny gaffe he committed became national news.

.

Finally, the last major problem with the Media is an effort for TOO MUCH non-partisanship, to the point where they don't dispute blatant falsehoods. TNR gives the example of the treatment of Bush's tax cut proposal on the campaign trail:

Democrats cited analyses--using models developed by nonpartisan economists at the Treasury Department--showing that Bush's tax cut would give more than 40 percent of its benefits to the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers. Bush responded with an analysis of his own showing that his tax cut would give a mere 22 percent to the top 1 percent. But Bush's analysis--or, more precisely, his economic flunkies' analysis--arrived at this number by excluding the elimination of the estate tax and the top income tax cuts, the very elements that most benefited the rich. In other words, Bush's "analysis" was a deliberate and obvious sham. But the press treated it as legitimate. As The New York Times reported, "the richest 1 percent of taxpayers would get between 22 percent and 45 percent of the tax benefits, depending on how the calculations are done."

At some point in time, one has to wonder when this myth of a liberal media will die. Are there some stories with a liberal slant? Sure. Are there some stories with conservative slants? Absolutely. If anything, the problem with the media is their willingness to go along with preset story lines even when the facts don't justify them. This ends up unfairly tagging all Republicans as heartless, rich white men and all democrats as soft hearted, pacifist pseudo-communists. If the media started reporting things as they are, rather than as the storyline says they should be, maybe this problem will start to go away.

NFL Nationals

Though this blog emphatically ISN'T about my personal life, I do feel the people who competed/placed at NFL Nationals deserve some recognition.
Champions:
-LD Debate-
Jed Glickstein, Edina HS, MN
-Congress (Senate)-
Matt Futch, Nova HS, FL
-Congress (House)-
Josh Weiss, Lake Brantley HS, FL

Also, special shoutouts to Adam Gaya (third in Senate); Julia Kamentezky, who's name I can't spell and who FINALLY made it home (4th in House); Matt Turetzky (3rd in house); Chris Meyers (semis in Senate), and Greg Ihrie and the Entire Myers Park team.

And how could I forget my muslim sistah, Rasheed!

Reagan's Legacy

I'm abit behind on the bandwagon here (give me a break, I started the blog today!) but I think Reagan's death represents a unique oppurtunity to reflect on the legacy of Reaganism which now dominantes the Conservative Right. A wise man once said that Reagan was "Easy to hate but impossible to dislike," and that may be true (I was too young to feel Reagan's impact directly). However, Reagan's undeniable influence over American politics is still being felt today, and in the face of an outpouring of efforts by politicians of every stripe to align themselves with "Reagan's legacy," its important to examine what exactly that is.

The Washington Post pointed out on June 9th that Reagan's economic policies are responsible for our current budget deficit predicament, culminating in VP Cheney's famous quote "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Did Reagan actually prove that? Well,the article points out

The fiscal shift in the Reagan years was staggering. In January 1981, when Reagan declared the federal budget to be "out of control," the deficit had reached almost $74 billion, the federal debt $930 billion. Within two years, the deficit was $208 billion. The debt by 1988 totaled $2.6 trillion. In those eight years, the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation.
To some economists, the impact was clear. Interest rates rose in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the economy slowed, then slipped into recession, and productivity barely advanced. Americans feared their nation had slipped into the shadows of Japan and Germany.
Reagan's "economic policy . . . was a disaster," University of California at Berkeley economic historian J. Bradford DeLong wrote this past weekend on his Web site. "The tax cuts made America a more unequal place, and the deficits slowed economic growth in the 1980s significantly."

The problem with these deficits isn't just economic. Professor Niall Ferguson of New York University's Stern School of Business notes that America's massive military might is underwritten by foreign capital, largely European (including the reviled French) and Japanese. 'This could make for a fragile Pax Americana if foreign investors decide to reduce their stakes in the American economy, possibly trading their dollars for the increasingly vigorous euro,' he writes. (Quoted from the Straits Times, May 5 2003, "Even an Imperial Colossus Needs Friends and Allies"). The problem of deficits is that they make the US dependent on whoever we owe the money too. We see the same sort of problem with our trade imbalance with Japan, and our betrothel to OPEC even when we know that our oil money is flowing directly into the hands of terrorists.

Reagan also unfortunately contributed to the deep polarization of America. If Reagan re-energized the Republican party, it was by exploited racial tensions in the south to convert the Dixiecrats permenantly (everyone, especially african-americans, knows how he kicked off his presidential campaign with a ringing endorsement of "states rights"). In addition, Reagan's adminstration's first response to the AIDS epidemic was to mock gays and lesbians. Finally, Reagan's political base was a significant realignment from the traditional Republican stronghold. Businessmen of all stripes and "Rockefeller Republicans" were replaced by neo-conservatives and religious activists. The rise of Reaganism can be seen as the direct cause of the fall of the centrist wing of the Republican party.

Reagan's values also represented the epitome of "politics over principle." It could be said that Reagan had no principles at all aside from acceding to the popular will. The New Republic wrote on January 9th 1989

"Critics of Reaganism have to come to terms with this fact. Reagan's greatest political skill was his obedience. Conservatives who puzzle over why he failed to cash in his popularity chips for real policy changes have simply gotten it the wrong way round: Reagan produced the policies for the popularity chips. When Americans wanted him to cut taxes, he did so. When they wanted him to stand up to the Soviets, he obliged. When they hankered for détente, he offered them Geneva, then Reykjavik, and finally Moscow. The only crisis of his presidency came when he traded arms with people Americans profoundly distrusted. Even then, like a nervous, otherwise exemplary employee caught engaged in creative accounting, his instinct was to tell his bosses--and to believe--that he hadn't done it.
On almost all the issues on which Americans disagreed with him, Reagan caved. On social conservatism--on abortion, women's rights, affirmative action--he yielded to popular edginess. Even acts of daring were by popular demand: Grenada an attempt to push the polls up after the Lebanon debacle; the Libya raid an attack on an enemy no one could support. Only on protectionism and Central America did Reagan resist the ratings, and even then it was spirited retreat. When real presidential conviction met real congressional opposition and public indifference (over the contras), Reagan's instinct was to push the matter out of politics altogether--and leave it to the devices of Poindexter and North."

Iran-Contra was, by far, the worst example of the type of moral duplicity made in the Reagan administration (and who's ghost seems to be the best manifestation of the "Reagan Legacy" in the W. Bush admin). Selling weapons to an arch-enemy in order to undermine democracy in Latin America. Reagan miscalculated (he thought the US would support the contras as generic "anti-communists"), but the effort was clear: Even democracy itself could be sacrificed in order to look "tough on communism." Today, the Bush administration prostrates itself to such illiberal nations like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Russia, and others in order to bring the maximum rhetorical force to its claims its fighting terror.

This is not to say the Reagan was the sum of all evil in politics. Reagan undoubtedly had a significant role in ending the cold war, he made people proud to be American's again, and for all his faults he did seem to make a geniune effort, as has been often said, "to make sure his adversaries never became his enemies." However, a proper reflection on Reaganism needs to include its faults as well as its glories, and the fact remains that Reaganism is a dangerous political ideology that caused far more harm than good.

Hegemony

One of the purposes this blog was created for was to share some of the best arguments I've heard on various issues, for use both by the general populace and by debaters. Those who debated with me knew that one of my favorite issues was US Hegemony. Posts such as these, which seek to provide various arguments on a broad topic area, will be updated frequently (or whenever I find a new article I find particularly compelling). So, without further ado, some of the best arguments, statements, claims, etc on US hegemony.

Lee Kim Chew wrote a superb article in the Straits Times on May 5 2003 that makes alot of good points. I especially like the quote from Josef Joffe

'The aim should be not only to prevent but also to pre-empt hostile coalitions by undercutting the reasons for their formation. The point is to make other powers willing participants in the American system.'

Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay of the Brookings Inst. write in the New York Times on May 10 2003:
"An empire built on international cooperation, alliances, and law...is the only way to reassure countries fearful of American dominance and to keep them from using their diplomatic and economic power to contain the United States. As the Iraq war underscored, the United States' great power enables it to act alone and still achieve many of its goals swiftly and effectively. But over time such a unilateral exercise of power will breed more and more resentment abroad to the point that other states may decide to work together to obstruct the chosen American course. Then the United States could stand alone, a great power frustrated in the pursuit of its most important goals."

Benjamin Barber, Professor of Civil Society at the University of Maryland and author of "Jihad vs. McWorld" writes in his article Declare our Interdependence!
"Yet nations that have long cherished their independence, or recently struggled to achieve it, are learning the hard way that there is neither freedom nor equality nor safety from tyranny - nor security from terror - on the basis of independence alone. In a world in which ecology, public health, markets, technology, and war affect everyone equally, interdependence is a stark reality on which the survival of the human race depends. Where fear rules, and terrorism is met by shock and awe only, neither peace nor democracy can ensue...
Where once nations depended on sovereignty alone to secure their destinies, today they depend on one another. In a world where the poverty of some imperils the wealth of others, where none are safer than the least safe, multilateralism is not a stratagem of idealists but a realistic necessity. The lesson of 9/11 was not that rogue states could be unilaterally preempted and vanquished by a sovereign United States, but that sovereignty was a chimera - that HIV and global warming and international trade and nuclear proliferation and transnational crime and predatory capital had already stolen from America the substance of its cherished sovereignty well before the terrorists displayed their murderous contempt for it on that fateful morning."

New York Times Columnist Thomas L. Friedman as spoken of the "Godzilla Effect" in Foreign Policy. This occurs when the global hegemon (IE, the US) acts in such a manner as to make other nations feel that they don't have any influence in the international system, especially over decisions that directly impact their daily lives. When that mood becomes prevelant, countries tend to take actions to make their voices heard, and in a situation where the dominant power has virtual total control over political, economic, conventional military strength and communicative channels, that response tends to come in the form of terrorism. Not only that, but the immense conventional power gap between the hegemon and those who wish to resist it means that terrorists are unlikely to contain themselves to "traditional" guerilla warfare. Rather, they will seek to use Weapons of Mass Destruction, nuclear, biological, and chemical, to equalize the playing field so as to make the US view them as a true and viable threat. Already, rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, fearful of what happened to WMD-less states such as Yugoslavia and Iraq that became victims of US military intervention, have become more aggressive about obtaining WMDs and accelerrating pre-existing programs. They view these weapons as the only true check against an otherwise omnipotent United States which does not feel constrained by international law, multipolarity, or even the UN.

These all are arguments for increased US multilateralism and the rejection of the Bush administration's neo-conservative, unilateral tendencies. However, hegemony has its defenders. Zalmay Khalizad of the RAND Inst. writes in the Spring 1995 edition of the Washington Quarterly
"A world in which the US exercises leadership would hold tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more receptive to American values--democracy, free markets, rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such a nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, US leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the world to avoid another cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange."

Though the dangers of continued US Hegemony have been expounded on at length by liberal commentators, abandoning US hegemony holds significant risks as well. Stephen Rosen writes in the Spring 2003 edition of National Interest
"The US could give up its imperial mission...This would essentially mean the withdrawal of US troops from the middle east, Europe, and mainland Asia...But those who are hostile to us might remain hostile, and much less afraid of the US after such a withdrawal. Current friends might feel less secure and, in the most probable post-imperial world, would revert to the logic of self-help in which all states do what the must in order to protect themselves. This would imply the relatively rapid acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran...and perhaps Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and others. Constraints on the acquisition of biological weapons would be even weaker than they are today...The costs of such a world...would not be small. If the logic of American empire is unappealing, it is not at all clear that the alternatives are that much more attractive."