On Trump and Government Scientists

In Another Trump environmental outrage that was under the radar, the New Jersey Star-Ledger blasted the Trump Administration’s new policy on the hiring of scientists for the federal Environmental Protection Agency:

Even before he pulled the plug on the Paris Climate accord, there was an equally chilling assault on science waged by President Trump.

It was orchestrated by Scott Pruitt, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency who recently decided that the agency responsible for protecting the environment and human health should be recast as a steward for the fossil fuel and chemical industries.

Accordingly, Pruitt fired some scientists who were not on board with this new mission.

The Board of Scientific Counselors is an 18-member panel that is tasked with meeting once a year to review the EPA's research and development efforts related to tracking global warming - no use for that - and protecting air and water purity.

But nine of them were sacked by Pruitt, leaving 13 of the 18 seats vacant, and his plan is to replace them with scientists from the private sector who oppose government regulation of those industries.

My emphasis. Translated, this means that only “scientists” that promote the Left’s climate catastrophism dogma are welcome at the EPA. Those who differ with, dissent from, or oppose the climate catastrophist agenda are “climate deniers” or industry shills and not to be considered.

I left these comments:

Industry scientists may be biased? Fair enough. But why should we assume that the integrity of the fired scientists is beyond dispute? Scientists can just as easily be biased against business and free enterprise. Government policy should not be shaped by them, either. Statists always recoil whenever anyone considers unregulating, as if regulations are good, simply because they are government regulations. But what if the motive is anti-business or anti-prosperity?

That said, pollution is one thing. Climate change is something entirely different. Climate science has become the God of the Left’s environmentalist religion. Environmentalism is based on the faith-based notion that nature is inherently “pristine” and any human action that upsets some precarious and perfect “balance of nature” is by that very fact immoral and catastrophic. There is no evidence of that. Nature is tumultuous and resilient. Furthermore, nature is brutal, not pristine, to humans. That’s why humans must alter the environment through science, productive work, and technology in order to live and prosper. Thus, environmentalism is anti-humanist and immoral for putting “pristine balance of nature” above human well being. Merged with Leftist socialism, you have a perfect storm of tyranny: Humans are changing the climate. Therefore, by that very fact of change, human activity must be shackled and controlled by a supreme central authority, which of course—like the eugenicists of a century ago—has the unassailable stamp of approval of science behind it.

But science is not an authority. It is meant to inform with knowledge, and always be open to challenge and dissent. Here, the dishonesty as a tool of the Left is on display. For proof, consider this Star-Ledger statement: “His EPA puppet suggested that global warming is not related to human activity, despite 97 percent of scientific studies affirming that link.” I watched Pruitt’s press conference after Trump’s Paris withdrawal speech. Pruitt clearly stated his position: The climate is warming, and humans play a role. How much of a role is inconclusive.

Pruitt’s position is consistent with the much-exploited 97% consensus. It’s a broad, essentially meaningless consensus as it applies to government climate policies. That’s why Pruitt soberly stated that these facts do not automatically indicate any particular policies that must be adopted.

The general consensus doesn’t tell you whether drastic statist action to radically alter human economic activity is the way to go, or if free market pro-growth policies that enable humans to adapt and grow prosperous are the better way to go. Ronald Bailey, in his book The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty First Century,” analyzes many studies that indicate that it is much less costly and much better suited to human flourishing to adapt to climate change than to drastically alter the economy to try to slow down the warming. Progress would in turn make it much easier to develop and deploy the innovative technologies that would be needed should climate change become a serious problem down the road.

Climate change is real. Climate catastrophism is pure speculation, not scientifically demonstrated. But pro-humanist, pro-free market, pro-prosperity solutions are anathema to the Left. Hence the smear mongering, wild exaggerations, and blind dismissal of dissenters. The Left favors drastic action, like the “Clean Power Plan,” which is worse than Germany’s catastrophic “clean energy” scheme that brought energy poverty to so many Germans and now has Germany building new clean coal plants to compensate, while saddling the country with a $100 billion “green energy” boondoggle.This is the same Clean Power Plan under which the state AGs for Clean Power are trying, in true fascist fashion, to throw “climate dissenters” into prison.

Science is invoked by environmentalist statists like religionists invoke God—as a Final Authority to end debate, silence dissenters, and as a tool to push an anti capitalist (i.e. anti-freedom) transition to socialist statism by means of energy industry controls. It’s a breath of fresh air to finally see the statist narrative of the climate change theocrats challenged. Kudos to Trump on his Paris Accord withdrawal.

Related Reading:

‘Climate Denier’: The Leitmotif of the Climate Propagandist

Who is the Real ‘Science Denier’?

Politics, Science, and National Unity

Anti-Concept ‘Science Denier’ Exposes Climate Witch Doctors’ Fear of Rational Counter-Argumentation

America’s ‘Science Problem,’ America’s Ideology Problem

What Word Comes to Mind from the New Government Climate Report? Nonobjective

Still Peddling the “97%” Myth

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

I posted the following answer:

Ayn Rand observed:

The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.

Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible.

Why impossible? Think of the psychology that altruism leads to in practice. If my first duty is to live for others, then not only am I putting the one life I’ll ever have “on the back burner”; by logical extension I must conclude that it is other people’s first duty to live for me. Put more directly, each of us has no moral responsibility to support ourselves materially or spiritually, because that is other people’s responsibility. On the contrary, each of us has a moral right to other people’s time, effort, and property, because it is their responsibility to support us. In other words, altruism turns us all into predators, where any person with an unfulfilled need, unsatisfied want, or penchant for bad behavior can rightfully demand that other people fix his life. In practice, then, every person represents a threat to everyone else. What measure of kindness, good will, or respect is possible in a world where each of us is surrounded by moochers and predators? What measure of kindness, good will, or respect is possible under a moral code that encourages, as an ideal, that each of us to become a moocher or a predator?

It’s not hard to see, when you think it through, where a moral “ideal” that says everyone is responsible for everyone one else, but not himself, ultimately leads. Altruism—properly understood, as I believe Ayn Rand does—is a corrupt, predatory moral ideology that leads to all kinds of destructive personal, social, and, ultimately, political consequences.

It is important to understand that Rand’s understanding of altruism is derived from Auguste Comte, the 19th Century philosopher who coined the term. To Comte, altruism is an uncompromising, absolute duty to “live for others” in every circumstance and at all times, always putting the interests of others above one’s own, no exceptions: “[F]rom every point of view,” Comte wrote, “the ultimate systematisation of human life must consist above all in the development of altruism.”

You don’t have to take just my word for it. In Altruism in Auguste Comte and Ayn Rand by Robert L. Campbell, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 7, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 357–69, Campbell quotes Herbert Spencer, who “rejected ‘pure’ or ‘perfect’ altruism as perverse.” Spencer critiques Comte as follows:

Mark the consequences if all are purely altruistic.


First, an impossible combination of moral attributes is implied. Each is supposed by the hypothesis to regard self so little and others so much, that he willingly sacrifices his own pleasures to give pleasures to them. But if this is a universal trait, and action is universally congruous with it, we have to conceive each as being not only a sacrificer but also one who accepts sacrifices. While he is so unselfish as to yield up the benefit for which he has labored, he is so selfish as willingly to let others yield up to him the benefits they have labored for. To make pure altruism possible for all, each must be at once extremely unegoistic and extremely egoistic. As a giver, he must have no thought for self; as a receiver, no thought for others. [My emphasis]

Does this state of affairs sound like a prescription for good will among people?

This absolutist concept of altruism created by altruism’s founder obviously clashes with the mushy way the term is commonly used, which mixes self-sacrifice [Comte-ism] with self-interest driven generosity—a mixture Rand referred to as a “package deal” and which she viewed as corrupt. Some people might think that the mixture is workable. But Rand saw this package deal as akin to mixing poison in with one’s food—altruism as poison for human morality.

Whether out of deceit or ignorance, Rand has been vilified as an enemy of social harmony because of her anti-altruism. This is grossly dishonest and unjust. Rand opposed altruism precisely because it is incompatible with social harmony, which depends on universal respect for each person’s moral right to pursue the values his own life depends on. Agree with Rand or not on the merits, but fairness demands that one understand precisely what Rand was attacking when she attacked altruism. It is the undiluted, literal, pure altruism of Comte to which Rand refers, and the influence of which Rand seeks to unpackage from human morality. With this in mind, I do not believe that Ayn Rand was wrong about altruism.

Related Reading:

Is Science Catching Up to the Objectivist Ethics?

"Give Back" is a Sinister Ploy to Guilt Achievers Into Giving Up What They Have Earned

Is It Now ‘Respectable’ to be a Moocher?

The Worship of Need: The Path to Communism

Our Pick-Pocket Nation

Bezos Should Focus On Running His Company

Auguste Comte on altruism

The word "altruism" (French: altruisme, from autrui, 'other people', derived from Latin alter 'other') was coined by Auguste Comte, the French founder of positivism, in order to describe the ethical doctrine he supported. He believed that individuals had a moral obligation to renounce self-interest and live for others. Comte says, in his Catéchisme Positiviste,[2] that:

[The] social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth these obligations increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service.... This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are entirely."

Related Viewing:

The saga of The Twentieth Century Motor Company in Atlas Shrugged, in which the company founder’s heirs took over a profitable business and implemented the Marxist/Altruist principle, “From Each According to His Ability, to Each According to his Need.” Parts one, two, and three.

* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

You can also reply to other users’ answers.]

Dueling Letters: Pollution vs. Climate Ideology

A pair of letters in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, Swallowing sewage? Experts take opposite sides, pits then-NJ governor Chris Christie’s Department of Environmental Protection commissioner Bob Martin against the campaign director of environmentalist activist group Clean Water Action David Pringle. The letters were responses to a NJ Star-Ledger editorial When you swallow sewage at the Shore, thank Trump. You can read both letters here. I focussed on Pringle’s bait-and-switch:

Barnegat Bay, Ocean County and its people have been especially put in harm’s way by these weakenings and, more broadly, the climate denying and delaying policies of the Christie administration.

I left these comments, slightly edited:

This statement completely discredits Pringle’s case. As a layman, I simply don’t trust it. Why? Because he is mixing two separate issues into one package deal—pollution and climate change policies.

Pollution is a legitimate concern that should be addressed. The government has a role through objective anti-pollution laws. Climate change, on the other hand, has become a rallying cry for the anti-industrial, anti-reliable energy (hydro, nuclear, fossil), anti-capitalist, anti-business agenda of the ideological environmentalism movement.

Actual pollution is a threat to humans, so policies to fight it are good for humans. However, policies to “fight climate change” are harmful to humans, because they in essence hamper economic and industrial progress and thus harm humans’ ability to protect against natural dangers, to clean up the air, land, and water, and to flourish. Environmentalism is, as the name implies, motivated not by human well-being but by preserving “pristine” nature from humans. They seek to minimize human impact on nature. This is a direct attack on man’s means of survival, which is the freedom to transform the danger-filled natural world into a man-made environment conducive to steadily improving human life through technological-industrial development. Nature in its pristine, undeveloped state is wholesale death for humans.

The environmentalists’ non-impact standard of value leads them to judge human activity as bad simply because it changes something in the natural world. Hence, climate change is bad to the extent humans may contribute to it, even if the change is mild and manageable and the benefits are enormous to human life. Human-caused climate change is bad, they hold, simply because it’s climate change, even though the harmful effects of the change are minimal or nonexistent and the benefits of the human activity causing it are enormously beneficial (e.g., reliable economical energy from fossil fuels) and the climate change itself has important positive benefits (e.g., more CO2 equals more plant growth).

This same standard of non-human induced change also calls into question their anti-pollution proposals. How many pollution control regulations actually pass proper cost-benefit analysis? Regulations that produce minimal or inconsequential pollution control benefits often impose maximum harm to individual freedom and livelihoods. Those should be reviewed and rolled back. But notice that environmentalists’ knee-jerk reaction is always to support new regulations and oppose any rollbacks. This fits perfectly with their non-impact standard.

As I said, the packaging together of pollution and climate change destroys the so-called “clean-water advocate” case, because of the standard that implies—minimizing human impact. A better standard by which to measure environmental issues is to maximize human flourishing while minimizing only impacts objectively determined to be negative to human well-being. By definition, that implies a constant review of pollution laws and a reform or rollback of laws that objectively do more harm than good. I don’t trust that Pringle sees it that way.

----------------------------------------

Environmentalists like to label anyone who disagrees with their policies as “climate deniers.” In fact, they are the real deniers: They seek to deny humans the capacity to change the natural world, including the climate, to human betterment.

Related Reading:

What Does Climate Change have to do with Pollution? Nothing

EPA Cuts in the Climate Change ‘Fight’ Means More Money to Mitigate Real Pollution

A Humanist Approach to Environmental Issues—Alex Epstein

The planet has never been a safer place for humans to live—Alex Epstein

The Collectivist Argument for ‘Net Neutrality' Doesn't Fly

A New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial, Net neutrality under attack by corporate hacks, drew this reply from “Jessica” to my opposing comment (See S-L—'Net neutrality too valuable to lose now.': No, Internet Freedom too Valuable to Lose, Ever):

the reason the government is involved is because the internet is a utility and must treat all comers the same. If they're toll Lanes on the internet it will stifle growth and give those with big bucks the advantage over smaller companies and leave the consumer paying more. More for a service that costs several times what people in other countries pay and delivers a far slower service to US customers than what foregin countries provide their citizens. I pay $47.00 a month for the slowest service available 10mb/s and it rarely ever gets close to being 10mb/s. 

We need net neutrality to keep the US competitive to the world around us.

I left this reply to Jessica, edited for clarity:

“[T]he internet is a utility” is an arbitrary assertion, driven by entitlement and greed of “consumers” and political cronies and the power lust of politicians, to justify monopolistic control by government. And that’s the point: net neutrality is a means to an end. Utilities are government enforced monopolies. Utilitization of the internet is likely the goal of net neutrality statists. But it is unjust and economically stupid to grant certain ISP companies monopoly status over certain regions, like electric companies, thus giving complete control of the internet to the government. These monopolies are beholden to the political class. It’s bad enough when it comes to electric utilities. It’s particularly dangerous when it comes to the internet, because who controls the internet controls a huge slice of the intellectual life of the country.

Collectivism is the moral escape hatch whenever one wants to justify running roughshod over other people’s lives, property, and rights. Countries don’t “provide” anything. A country is a society of individuals and individual associations. Individual producers and groups of individual producers (companies) offer and provide through investment, work, and trade. To say “the country provides” is to invite aggressive government coercion into private lives and the commandeering by the political class of private property. Citizens of a moral country don’t permit that. Collectivism holds that the center of moral concern is the group, not the individual. Collectivists speak of the group not as as collection of sovereign individuals but as an entity separate from and superior over the individual. The ISPs aren’t “the country.” They’re mere individual associations, of no consequence if “the country” wants to “provide” some good or service or “utility.” Who is “the country”? Anyone who claims to be—in this case, Jessica. Who is not the “country”? The owners and investors of the ISPs. That’s the collectivist gimmick.

It’s true that net neutrality stifles investment and thus innovation. It’s wrong to think government regulators are consumer welfare-driven and absurd to think ISP companies are out to gouge their own customers. The exact opposite is true: Regulators are beholden to politicians, political factions, and special interests. Private companies must ultimately satisfy customers. A government that forces ISPs to “treat all comers the same” is itself violating that principle where it truly counts—equal protection of the law. What happens when a single customer starts eating up vast amounts of an ISP’s capacity, to the detriment of the rest of an ISP’s customers? That’s what Comcast faced about 10 years ago. An ISP must be free, as a matter of law and morality, to charge the “data hog” more to, for example, finance increased capacity to meet the demand—or restrict its usage to protect its other customers’ access to the network. An ISP must be free, as a matter of moral right and law, to prioritize its users and manage its network capacity utilization. It must be free to evolve its network and respond as markets change and evolve, not as bureaucrats dictate. A net neutrality straight jacket cripples its ability to do so, thus crippling innovation. [In fact, as Andrea O'Sullivan points out at Reason, Obama’s 2015 “Open Internet {net neutrality} Order” didn’t actually forbid ISP’s from treating different traffic differently. It put the FCC in charge of dictating those differing treatments. In other words, “net neutrality” is not about net neutrality. It’s about government control]

ISP’s are vital parts of the internet. We should be thankful for their massive and continuing investments to keep up with consumer demand, innovative content, and constantly changing markets, and provide the superhighway for all of the internet content. Who will make these investments when their “reward” will be to turn control over to government bureaucrats and keep their networks dumb and stupid? At the very least, government controls will stifle would-be competitors, large as well as small who might otherwise be able to fill a market niche ignored by the big ISP guys. The government-imposed inability of ISP’s to manage their own private networks by their own judgment for the benefit of their customers and profit is the real threat to innovation and competitive pricing. Their rights should be protected as much as consumers and the Netflixes of the world, and all should be free to contract voluntarily to mutual advantage—or not—and none should be able to use the government as the hired gun to gain special economic advantages at the expense of others. If the Apples, Netflixes, and Googles don’t like what the existing ISPs offer, they are free to start their own. They can certainly afford it.

Related Reading:

NET NEUTRALITY VS. INTERNET FREEDOM—Alex Epstein

Note to Net Neutralityists: Be Careful What You Wish For

Why ‘Net Neutrality’ Drives the Left Crazy—Tunku Varadarajan for the Wall street Journal

Related Viewing:
NET NEUTRALITY NEUTERS THE INTERNET—Interview with Steve Simpson, the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of legal studies.

Marxism is Malevolence and Hate. So How Do We Kill It?

I “shared” Yuri N Maltsev’s Facebook post, featuring a shipwreck named the Karl Marx. Maltsev’s caption read, “Still so many passengers on this ship:.” I posted the following commentary on my page:

Marxism doesn’t die because so many people think the world owes them a living; or look to blame others for their own failures; or are envious of others' achievements; or are the lowest of the low, so hateful that they'd rather see other people fail than to themselves succeed—people who resent the responsibility of living, and look to take their frustrations out on everybody else. Every society has people like this. Plenty of them. That's what Marx appeals to. That’s why Marxism will always rise again from the dead, and always be a threat to honorable people and free societies, will always be an evil decent people will need to beat back again and again.

Can Marxism ever be buried forever--a stake driven through its heart? After all, as C. Bradley Thompson observes in a talk to FEE, “Marxism is the philosophy of malevolence and hate. It is from beginning to end a criminal activity. It begins with theft and it ends with murder.” Yet, Marxism keeps vampiring back. Why?

True, hateful people will always exist to provide a “market” for Marxism. But I believe there’s more to the puzzle--the fact that many good people unwittingly provide moral support for Marxism. As Ari Armstrong has observed, too many people, including sincere anti-communist conservatives, continue to believe that “Marxism is ‘good in theory but not in practice.’” NO! Marxism is murderous in practice precisely because it is evil—morally evil—in theory. Only when we connect the practical dots to the moral dots—when the very mention of the term Marxism invokes the same revulsion in the secular realm as hell inspires in the religious realm—will we have a chance to bury Marxism for good. And that won’t happen, in my view, until the moral revolution begun by Ayn Rand is finally complete.

Related Reading:

Why Marxism—Evil Laid Bare--C. Bradley Thompson for The Objective Standard

On Marxism’s 200th Birthday

Related Viewing:

"Why Marxism?" An Evening at FEE with C. Bradley Thompson

The saga of The Twentieth Century Motor Company in Atlas Shrugged, in which the company founder’s heirs implemented the Marxist principle, “From Each According to His Ability, to Each According to his Need.” Parts one, two, and three.

QUORA: What does it mean in economics when there is growth in a state’s economy? Why should the economy always be growing?

QUORA *: What does it mean in economics when there is growth in a state’s economy? Why should the economy always be growing?

Here is my answer:

What we call “the economy” is the cumulative sum of all individuals engaged in productive work and trade under a common political system. Economic growth essentially equates to a general rise in the productivity of that productive work, which over time results in a rise in the general standard of living. If a rising general economic quality of life is the standard, then we should want a growing economy, with its consequence of more and better business, entrepreneurial, and job opportunities; more and better consumer products; more and better savings and investment opportunities; etc. Of course, a substantial level of individual intellectual, political, and economic freedom is essential to achieving a growing economy.

Measuring economic growth has proven to be problematic. The Bureau of Economic Analysis, a division of the United States Department of Commerce, reports on the economy in two ways. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures “final output”--that is, finished goods and services. Gross Output (GO) measures total economic activity in the production of new goods and services, which includes all of the economic activity that goes into producing the finished goods and services. GDP is the more commonly reported statistic, even though GO is considered a more comprehensive and much more accurate measure of the economy. But neither is perfect.

Related Reading:

New, Revolutionary Way To Measure The Economy Is Coming -- Believe Me, This Is A Big Deal--Steve Forbes

This Labor Day, Celebrate Intellectual Labor

The Job Creators: Santa Claus Government or Private Business?

The "Hoarding" By the Rich Fosters Widespread Prosperity

Mazzucato’s Fantasy: The “Courageous, Entrepreneurial State”

* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:

[Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

[You can also reply to other users’ answers.]

QUORA: What does Ayn Rand think about vitrues [sic] such as charity, selflessness, and friendship?

QUORA *: What does Ayn Rand think about vitrues [sic] such as charity, selflessness, and friendship?

I left this answer:

I’m not going to pretend to be able to read Ayn Rand’s, or anyone’s, mind.

But as a believer in Rand’s philosophy, which she named Objectivism, I can tell you what I think.

Charity is neither a moral duty nor forbidden. To the extent one’s charitable time or money is given to promote one’s values, is non-sacrificial (does not harm more important of one’s values), and one can afford it, charity is virtuous. But it is not a major virtue and should not be the primary focus of one’s life. Needless to say, charity should never be coerced, as in a government welfare program.

Selflessness is not a virtue. It is a vice, because it means self-sacrifice, or denial of self. It is fundamentally dishonest, since honesty means fidelity to the facts of reality. Selflessness is dishonest because it means precisely the denial of the facts of one’s own needs, wants, and values. Worse, to be selfless is to betray one’s values; to obliterate one’s integrity. Objectivism holds that self-sacrifice, properly understood as the giving up of a personal value for something you value less, or not at all, is always immoral; a position with which I wholeheartedly agree. To avoid confusion, I must stress that selfishness, the opposite of selflessness, does not preclude doing for others whom you value, such as a friend or spouse--or even a stranger--so long as doing so does not come at the expense of making one’s own life worse--that is, of ignoring or betraying more important values. People one cares about are values, and a person of honesty and integrity doesn’t betray one’s values. Betrayal is an act of selflessness.

Friendship is not technically a virtue. But it is unequivocally a major value, because it is unequivocally selfish. A friendship is a bond with someone whom you value and who values you, and whose absence in your life would make your life less fulfilling. Friendship is not only a luxury. It is the type of win-win companionship that is a necessary contribution to a flourishing life.

Related Reading:

Books to Aid in Understanding Ayn Rand's Rational Selfishness

* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:





Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]





You can also reply to other users’ answers.]

The Spectator’s Devious Equivocation of Rand’s Benevolent Egoism with Nietzsche’s Predatory ‘Egoism’

Via For the New Intellectuals, I discovered an article Why do Tories love Ayn Rand? in The Spectator. From this article by Alastair Benn:

Rand promoted a cult of amoral selfishness and ruthlessness that is certainly not conservative in any traditional sense – certainly not Burkean, but quite emphatically Nietzschean.

It’s certainly true that Rand’s ethics is not conservative. The rest of the statement is not mere ignorance: That would be too generous. It is an outright lie. “Amoral”; “ruthless”; “Nietzschean”? A “cult?” Rand’s selfishness, the Objectivist Ethics, is the exact opposite, being grounded in Observable facts of reality, defended logically, and thus open to rational scrutiny--unlike religious ethics, which come at you in the form of unchallengeable commands from a being said to be above reason. Which is the cult morality, and which isn’t? Benn, and the editors at The Spectator, I’m sure, know--or should know--better. Shame on them.

Amoral and ruthless certainly applies to Nietzsche, who advocated a predatory, zero-sum concept of egoism that applies only to “the strong,” and expressed socially in the win-lose master-slave relationship. Rand’s “rational selfishness” is a benevolent egoism, applicable to all, and expressed socially in the win-win trader principle and equality of individual rights. They couldn’t be more opposite in theory or in their political implications.

It’s not a secret what these two philosophers advocated. Rand’s view is readily available in her fiction and nonfiction. Her views have been thoroughly contrasted by scholars. Check out Stephen Hicks, Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand in The journal of Ayn Rand Studies, or John Ridpath, Ayn Rand Contra Nietzsche in The Objective Standard.

As to conservatism, I would argue that their Christian ethics of altruism is ruthless and predatory. According to Christianity, need is the standard. If the world owes you simply because you need it, then who is ruthless, the Christian or the Objectivist, who believes that what you earn is morally yours, not the needy’s who wants to take it from you? Amoral? That would be altruism.

I suspect that conservatives in general don’t want to sincerely portray Rand’s concept of selfishness for fear that it would blow Judeo-Christian ethics out of the water. That fear has consequences, as it is a major reason why the allegedly pro-capitalist conservatives keep losing to the socialist Left.

Related Reading:

Ayn Rand Fear @ The New Republic

Does Evil Come From ‘Threatened Egotism’?

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

Gary Moore vs. Ayn Rand: Or, the Battle for America's Soul

Basic Cancer Research Funding: Don’t Forget Pharma

The New Jersey Star-Ledger ran a guest column by Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, the executive director of the political activist group New Jersey Citizen Action, titled “N.J. needs to fund critical research.” (The piece ran on May 13, 2018. As of this writing, it has not been published online.)

Salowe-Kaye opens her article with:

Four years ago, I shared my story about how our family, like nearly every other family in New Jersey, has been touched by cancer. My mother had lung cancer, my father had bladder cancer, and three of my four grandparents died of cancer. My husband of over 40 years has leukemia.

In 1985, I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer usually found in the extremities of black males over 50. I was a 38-year-old white woman, and the malignant fibro sarcoma was growing in my head. It still is. And then in 1998, I got breast cancer from a completely different tumor.

So in our house, we definitely care about cancer research. But we’re not unique, as this issue is personal for everyone and there are thousands of stories that can be told.

She then goes on to complain about state government cuts to funding for the New Jersey Commission for Cancer Research (NJCCR). Former governor Chris Christie had previously cut $10 million, subsequently restored. But current governor Phil Murphy cut state funding altogether.

Salowe-Kaye’s article coincided with President Trump’s announcement of new federal policies designed to bring down prescription drug prices. (See The Trump Plan To Reduce Prescription Drug Prices Will Have A Major Impact and President Trump's Plan to Lower Drug Prices Spares Pharma Industry for different takes on the plan.) Trump had previously smeared the pharmaceutical industry as “getting away with murder” and called for federal price controls on drugs masquerading as “direct price negotiations between Medicare and pharmaceutical companies.”

If I could leave a comment on the article, this is what I would have said:

Anyone concerned about basic cancer research funding should be very concerned about the pharma-bashing going on in Washington. As Ayn Rand has observed, “

The professional businessman is the field agent of the army whose lieutenant-commander-in-chief is the scientist. The businessman carries scientific discoveries from the laboratory of the inventor to industrial plants, and transforms them into material products that fill men’s physical needs and expand the comfort of men’s existence.

The pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies are the field agents of the cancer research scientists. Basic research is a vital starting point, but in and of itself does nothing for cancer patients. The pharma companies do the years-long investment, risk-taking, and work to transform the research into real cancer treatments. Remember that the Scientific Revolution led by Isaac Newton didn’t begin to yield benefits to consumers until the rise of the entrepreneurial businessman under capitalism a century later.

The threat of price controls coming to America, as well as damaging patent attacks, threaten these companies’ ability to fund their vital work. Unlike government grants, private companies must get their funding from prior products sold in the voluntary market. They can’t simply seize it through taxes. Problems in the pricing system exist, to be sure--thanks to all of the market infringements imposed by the regulatory welfare state (such as the existence of government programs like Medicare, which drives a wedge between the producers of medical products and the consumers, thus short-circuiting the crucial function of free markets). But the worst “solution” is to blame the pharma companies, especially in view of the price controls imposed in most other countries.

The pharma companies have a moral right to price their products, and take advantage of their limited patent protection, according to their own judgement. As observed, we’re all touched by cancer. At 69 years, I’ve had my share of personal encounters with cancer. We just lost a close friend after a 3-month battle. As such, I believe anyone concerned with basic research funding should be doubly concerned about the vital link between this research knowledge and the patients--the pharmaceutical,biotech companies--and the growing political attacks on this vital industry.
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On the issue of allowing Medicare to “directly negotiate drug prices,” the idea is a sham. Medicare is a coercive monopsony. A monopsony is the buyer's equivalent of a monopoly. Medicare, having taken over the market for drugs for the senior market, has a dominance not achievable in a free market., It’s enormous buying power was achieved at the point of a gun, via its taxing powers and forced conscription of every American into the program. Having commandeered its enormous monopsony power, it is disingenuous, to be polite, to claim that you can have genuine negotiations between Medicare and private companies.

In effect, Medicare would be able to dictate prices. Allowing “direct negotiations” is back-door price controls, an immoral and economically destructive abuse of government power. True, private companies can say no if Medicare demands too low of a price. But then, where would the companies sell their products, given Medicare’s takeover of such a large segment of the drug-makers’ market? What repercussions would be forthcoming from other powerful government agencies, such as the antitrust, FDA, or IRS branches of government--not to mention the wrath of business-hating political statists in Washington--in reprisal for saying “no” to Medicare’s pricing demands? It would be like “negotiating” with a Mafia boss.

Related Reading:

On Mylan’s EpiPen Pricing Controversy

Merck- Villain or Victim?

A Qualified Kudos to Frelinghuysen for His ‘NO’ Vote on Offshore NJ Drilling

A House vote on an energy bill included an amendment to kill all funding for a new federal five-year drilling plan, a move that would have effectively led to an end to all offshore oil and gas drilling. NJ Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, voted no on the bill even though he personally supports banning drilling off of the NJ coast (probably for pragmatic political reasons, at least in part).

As Jonathan D. Salant reports for the New Jersey Star-Ledger:

Efforts to keep the Atlantic Coast closed to offshore oil drilling -- something pushed by advocates of the Jersey Shore -- came up for a vote this week.


Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, New Jersey's most powerful House member, voted no.


And the bill failed to pass a key House committee.

The House Appropriations Committee, which Frelinghuysen, R-11th Dist., chairs, voted largely along party lines against an amendment by Rep. Chellie Pingree, who wanted to ban the Interior Department from spending any money on a new five-year drilling plan.

Frelinghuysen said he doesn't support drilling in the Atlantic, but neither does he support the way Pingree proposed to ban it.

"My opposition to drilling off the coast of New Jersey is well-known," Frelinghuysen said. "The Pingree amendment to the Interior appropriations bills was far too broad in that it would have prohibited drilling off all coasts, even where drilling is currently allowed."

My emphasis. This is an indication of what we will face should Democrats once again gain control in Washington. It’ll make the Obama reign of 2009-10 look downright moderate!

Salant goes on:

Environmentalists saw it differently.

"Representative Frelinghuysen has passed up a chance to protect Americans from Trump's extreme offshore drilling plan -- which he has said he opposes," said Franz Matzner, director of federal affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"His vote instead helps pad oil industry profits, and abandons the beach communities who'll bear the risk of oil spills, along with every citizen who'll experience the effects of the extreme weather made worse by increasing carbon pollution."

I left these comments:

We must keep proper perspective. Reliable, large-scale energy is vital to human life. Energy powers every other industry, including the NJ tourism industry. Reliable energy is vital to protecting us from extreme weather: Today, we enjoy a level of protection that people throughout human history up until the last century and a half never had. Worldwide deaths due to extreme weather has fallen by over 98% in the past century. Even if the climate catastrophists’ wild speculations about more extreme weather ends up to have a modicum of truth, what humane person would advocate, as a solution, a return life to the days when droughts brought famine? Fossil fuels are getting cleaner-burning all the time, thanks to ever-advancing anti-pollution technologies. (That's why anti-fossil fanatics have adopted the “carbon pollution” mantra. But as anybody with a kindergarten level of science knowledge knows, co2 is not a pollutant.) Those who want to stop fossil fuel development, such as the quasi-religious, totalitarian Environmentalists, are inhumane in the extreme.

We must understand the full risk context. The risk of lack of reliable energy far, far outweighs the risk of potential spills. Fossil fuels are the best and most progressive energy source we have today. Yes, fossils have drawbacks, as does every energy source. But the risks of ending fossil fuels would be truly catastrophic. Technological progress may, and probably will at some point, arise to replace fossil fuels as the main driver of industry. But that could be decades or even centuries away. Until then, pro-life = pro-fossil fuels.

Kudos to Frelinghuysen for his “no” vote. I just wish he were pro-drilling, not just pro-drilling off the other guy’s coast, but not off NJ.

Related Reading:

Atlantic Off-Shore Oil Drilling: Who Really Benefits?

Obama’s Not Anti-Fossil Fuel Enough for Hard-Core Environmentalists

The BP Gulf Disaster: the Proximate vs. the Ultimate Cause

Fossil Fuels and Climate Change: Remember Life Before Them

Prosthetics Violinist--Thanks to Courage and Capitalism

From the Washington Post: A 10-year-old Virginia girl without a hand wanted to play violin. Now she can:

Dressed for the occasion in a red dress and a headband with a white, glittery flower, 10-year-old Isabella Nicola picked up her violin.

But this was no recital. And Isabella is no ordinary violin player. The fifth grader from Alexandria, Va., was born without a left hand and part of her forearm.

That hasn’t stopped her. Her mother, Andrea Cabrera, always instructed her not to say “I can’t,” but to say “I can’t yet.”

Now, thanks to five George Mason University bioengineering seniors — Yasser Alhindi, Mona Elkholy, Abdelrahman Gouda, Ella Novoselsky and Racha Salha — who used 3-D printing technology to create a prosthetic bow arm for her, she’s begun training on an instrument that challenges even the most adroit musicians.

They call it the VioArm.

Kudos to Isabella for her determination and courage. And Kudos to the scientists, engineers, businessmen, and investors of the hi tech industry for giving these entrepreneuring George Mason University students the tools to turn their idea for the VioArm into reality. Determination, courage, reason, and capitalism is an unstoppable combination.

Related Reading:

Serviceman Who Lost Leg Carries Woman Across Finish Line—Thanks to Prosthetics Industry

Koni Dole: Loses a Leg, Shines in Football Anyway

QUORA : ‘What things make you like Ayn Rand?’

QUORA *: ‘What things make you like Ayn Rand?’

I posted this answer:

I never met Ayn Rand. So, personally I have no opinion about her. But if the question refers to the ideas of Ayn Rand, there are three main, interrelated things I like about Ayn Rand’s ideas, listed in ascending order of importance. These are not the only things, but among the most important to me.

Politics: I was first attracted to Ayn Rand when, in browsing through a bookstore with some friends in the 1960s, I happened to pick up a book titled “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” by someone named Ayn Rand. I began reading the Introduction, which contained the phrase “Objectivists are not ‘conservatives.’ We are radicals for capitalism; we are fighting for that philosophical base which capitalism did not have and without which it was doomed to perish.”  As a teenager already leaning pro-capitalist, my interest was aroused. Rand identified this “base” in the form of a moral defense of the individual’s inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, the Founding principles of America as outlined (or implied) in the Declaration of Independence and which constitute the germinating seeds of capitalism.

Personal: I subsequently came to realize that Rand’s Objectivism—the name she gave to her philosophy—was much richer than a social/economic system. Objectivism is first and foremost a wonderful personal philosophy to live by--a philosophy drawn from the observable facts of human nature. She called Objectivism “a philosophy for living on Earth.” I call it a Philosophy of Life before Death, to clearly distinguish it from my Catholic upbringing. She demonstrates scientifically that, contrary to conventional (and outdated) moral “wisdom,” it’s morally right to live for yourself--an ethics that rejects both altruism and the conventional understanding of “selfishness,” which she proves constitute two predatory sides of the same moral coin. She called her ethical system rational selfishness, and named it the Objectivist Ethics. Socially, rational selfishness is the basis for peaceful coexistence with others because it fosters mutual respect and thus a non-predatory, live-and-let-live worldview. This individualist philosophy underpins Americanism, which embodies capitalism, because in order for people to live their lives for themselves--that is, in accordance with their own personal values, judgement, and goals--they need the individual freedom and liberty rights promised in the Declaration.

Thinking: She taught me the practical principles of how to think rationally and logically, and apply these principles to real life issues. Thinking properly, and independently, is the first requirement for human beings. Embodied in proper thinking is an understanding of the important roles of our emotions and of our subconscious mechanism.

Related Reading:

Atlas Shrugged – America's Second Declaration of Independence

Introduction to Objectivism

Philosophy: Who Needs It

The Objectivist ethics

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* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

You can also reply to other users’ answers.

QUORA: '[W]hy do we ignore all the examples of capitalism failing, like the major divide between the wealthy and the poor in the US?'

QUORA: People will often use Venezuela as an example of socialism not working. But why do we ignore all the examples of capitalism failing, like the major divide between the wealthy and the poor in the US?

I posted this answer:

Whatever other “examples of capitalism failing” the questioner has in mind, the “major divide between the wealthy and the poor” is not one of them.

Economic inequality is indicative of capitalism’s greatest virtue; that people are free, through work and trade, to individually prosper as far as their ability, ambition, values, goals, personal circumstances, and moral character will carry them.

Prospering through work, no matter how great or modest the level of wealth, comes not to the detriment but to the benefit of others. Prospering involves trade, and trade involves a win-win outcome—the mutually beneficial exchange of value for value. It necessarily follows that personal betterment involves the betterment of everyone one trades with. The level of a person’s earned wealth correlates to the value added to the economic lives of others. To become wealthy is to create the most value for the most people. It’s a fact—and you can see this all around you—that the primary path to wealth under capitalism is to cater to the needs and desires of “the masses.” Any attempt to equalize economic outcomes necessarily involves cutting down and destroying individuals according to their productive ability, ultimately spreading poverty, not the wealth. That’s why the first victims of socialism are the poor, and the second victims are the soon-to-be-poor middle classes—because productive achievement is progressively cut down in the name of economic equality.

It’s true that in today’s world, some people get wealthy through government favors. But that’s the result of today’s mixed economies, not capitalism, which forbids government economic favoritism. The bottom line is that socialism fails because compulsory economic equality is built into its DNA. Capitalism succeeds because economic inequality flourishes.


Related Reading:

What is Capitalism?--Lead essay of the book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand

QUORA: 'How is becoming a billionaire even possible, chronologically?'

Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader--Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli

The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire--Andrew Bernstein

Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality--Don Watkins and Yaron Brook

Atlas Shrugged--Ayn Rand

Economic Equality vs. Political Equality: Which is Your America?

Tara Smith on Religious Exemptions to ‘Generally Applicable Laws’

I believe, and have argued, that carving out religious exemptions to laws is wrong on both constitutional and fairness grounds. (See my links below.) I’m pleased to say that my position has validation from an important legal scholar, Tara A. Smith of the University of Texas at Austin.

In a 2016 paper, Religious Liberty or Religious License? Legal Schizophrenia and the Case against Exemptions, Smith distinguishes between valid exemptions to specific laws, such as for minors and felons, and invalid exemptions such as regarding specific beliefs of selected groups, like religious groups. Here are selected excerpts from Smith’s conclusion:

I hope to have shown that the notion of religious exemptions is profoundly misguided—confused in concept and destructive in practice to the objective Rule of Law. A legal system holds the authority to coerce compliance with its rules strictly as a means of accomplishing a specific mission: the protection of individual rights. That is its reason for being. Accordingly, this singular function is the ultimate standard by which to measure the propriety of all of a legal system’s actions and policies. Because a person’s religion does not alter his rights and does not alter his responsibilities to others’ rights, however, it should have no bearing on how the legal system applies its rules. Belief in a god gives a person no more rights than the atheist next door. Correspondingly, it warrants no “accommodation” from the legal system.

Such Janus-faced instruction—Do not discriminate on the basis of sex, unless you are a Catholic organization; Do not carry weapons, unless you are a Sikh; Do not disobey the law, unless it happens to be a law that we do not actually care about very much—fractures the legal system’s integrity and cripples its ability to fulfill its function. For when a legal system bends its rules to cater to consciences, it is not catering to rights. It is no longer serving its mandate. When the enforcement of law is customized to fit different citizens differently like carefully tailored suits, we no longer have the Rule of Law and we no longer gain the protection that it provides.

Related Reading:

On Mandatory Vaccinations, Protect Everyone’s Right to Object, Not Just Religionists’ Rights

Arizona Governor's "Religious Freedom" Veto Was the Right Move

Two Views on Religious Exemptions from Anti-Discrimination Laws

Vaccine Exemption Bill Violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments, Fairness

Is RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993] unconstitutional? By Sasha Volokh

[A]s a first-principles matter, I’m not wild about the idea of religious exemptions, and find them to be in strong tension with my Establishment Clause sympathies.

[I]f I’m right, the solution isn’t necessarily to invalidate RFRA. It could be to extend RFRA to apply to deeply held secular convictions.

Self-Esteem, not Other-Esteem, is Vital to Teaching

A short letter appeared in the New Jersey Star-Ledger on May 7, 2018 that included this excerpt:

Tuesday [5/8/18] is National Teachers Day. As a retired teacher, I remember teachers feeling great joy in getting recognition from parents, administrators and students. In fact, a study indicates that recognition is the most important of all human needs.

The letter was written by a teacher named Joseph. I emphasized that sentence because a person whose most important need is to seek the approval of others is not equipped to teach children.

Gaining recognition and esteem from others is of course great to have. It can be pretty lonely without it. But that’s when you need self-esteem--the self-recognition of one’s own worth--the most. If one’s sense of self-worth is primarily tied up in others’ judgement, that is not a psychologically healthy state. And that is not a good place for a teacher to be.

The most fundamental purpose of education is to teach a child to think independently, which requires the self-confidence to rely on his own judgement regardless of what others think or recognize. Another primary purpose is to instill in the child a love of learning, so she can become a self-learner. This is important because most of what a person learns occurs outside of any classroom, and self-learning also requires independence and the self-confidence to go it alone: Thinking, after all, is the most selfish of human attributes because it’s the one thing that no one can do for you.

It’s not that recognition is not important. It is, in that it provides added fuel for the soul. It’s that a person’s self-confidence should be strong without the external recognition, not dependent on it; indeed, dependence is lack of self-esteem.

A teacher for whom recognition and praise from others is his most important need is not equipped to properly educate a child, for whom fostering an independent self-confident adulthood should be the primary goal. Self-esteem, not other-esteem, is vital to proper teaching, because self-esteem is the most vital of all human psychological needs.

Related Reading:

Pseudo Self-Esteem vs. the Real Thing

Tenure and Self-Esteem--Part 1

Tenure and Self-Esteem--Part 2

Related Listening:

Yaron Brook on Self-Esteem