HAPPY NEW YEAR

May your 2023 be prosperous, healthy, and fulfilling.

Pursue Your Happiness. It's your moral right.

Christmas the Secular, Christmas the American

Can non-Christians celebrate Christmas? Many do, and why not? I’m an atheist and I have no problem celebrating Christmas, even though it has no religious significance for me.

Christmas is a religious holiday for many, signifying the birth of the Christian icon Jesus. But as an American holiday, Christmas is and, by our own Constitution, a secular holiday. That makes it a holiday for everyone. People are free to celebrate Christmas according to any meaning they choose.

But this goes beyond the Constitution. I am indebted to philosopher Ayn Rand for showing that, philosophically, Christmas can’t be strictly a Christian holiday. In answer to the question of whether it is appropriate for an atheist to celebrate Christmas, Rand observed:

Yes, of course. A national holiday, in this country, cannot have an exclusively religious meaning. The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion: it is good will toward men—a frame of mind which is not the exclusive property… of the Christian religion.

This makes perfect sense. Neither Christianity nor any particular religion can have an exclusive claim on morality. “Good will toward men” is not a monopoly of Christianity.

I am also indebted to the framers of the U.S. Constitution. As the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." In 1870, Congress made Christmas a national holiday. This means that anyone who claims, as one NJ letter-to-the-editor wrote, that Without Jesus Christ you can't have Christmas, that person is repudiating the U.S. Constitution. A national religious holiday in a secular nation founded on the principle of separation of church and state (religious/conscientious freedom) is a logical impossibility. Since to have a secular government means to have one that is neutral with regards to the fundamental conscientious beliefs of all of its citizens, an American national holiday by definition cannot be religious.

In fact, what we today call Christmas originally didn't have any connection to Jesus at all, writes Onkar Ghate in U.S.News & World Report:

Before Christians co-opted the holiday in the fourth century (there is no reason to believe Jesus was born in December), it was a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, of the days beginning to grow longer. The Northern European tradition of bringing evergreens indoors, for instance, was a reminder that life and production were soon to return to the now frozen earth.

The Romans celebrated the Winter Solstice with the holiday Saturnalia. In Northern Europe, the holiday was called Yule.

Indeed, as philosopher Leonard Peikoff observes over at Capitalism Magazine, the leading secular Christmas symbol - Santa Claus - actually contradicts some standard Christian tenets:

Santa Claus is a thoroughly American invention. ... In 1822, an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem about a visit from St. Nick. It was Moore (and a few other New Yorkers) who invented St. Nick's physical appearance and personality, came up with the idea that Santa travels on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, comes down the chimney, stuffs toys in the kids' stockings, then goes back to the North Pole.

...Santa implicitly rejected the whole Christian ethics. He did not denounce the rich and demand that they give everything to the poor; on the contrary, he gave gifts to rich and poor children alike. Nor is Santa a champion of Christian mercy or unconditional love. On the contrary, he is for justice -- Santa gives only to good children, not to bad ones.

When Congress declared Christmas a National Holiday, in 1870, Christmas ceased being a strictly religious observance and became a secular holiday. A legal religious holiday in a nation dedicated to freedom of religion and conscience is a contradiction. (The Founders used the terms “religion” and conscience” interchangeably. They understood religious freedom to include the freedom not to believe in or practice any religion—in effect, not just freedom of religion, but freedom from religion as well.) Being a national legal holiday, Christmas can have non-religious, non-Christian meaning just as validly as a Christian meaning. It’s a matter of individual preference. Otherwise, what’s the point of freedom of conscience?

So, regardless of your personal beliefs, go ahead and enjoy Christmas on your own terms.

On that note, let me extend to everyone a hearty wish for a joyous, safe, and thoroughly non-contradictory…

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Related Reading:

How the Welfare State Stole Christmas, by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins

Don't Need Christ to Celebrate Christmas

Why Christmas Should be More Commercial—Leonard Peikoff

The Real Meaning of Christmas: What Would Jesus Teach Today?

A ‘War on Christmas?’ No: A War on non-Christians

Opposing NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban is about Protecting Free Speech, Not Merely the Progressive Agenda

In Overriding dark money bill will cripple progressive groups, grassroots organization says,New Jersey Star-Ledger guest columnists Phyllis Salowe-Kaye and Marcia Marley rightly argued against a “dark money” bill that would force disclosure of private donors to political advocacy organizations. They make the valid point that such forced disclosure would amplify the power of the political class to dominate political discourse.

Unfortunately, they don’t argue from principle, only from partisan ideological motives.They call for favoring advocates of their Progressive liberal agenda, while stifling opponents’ ability to dissent.

Opposing NJ’s ‘dark money’ ban is about protecting free speech--everyone’s free speech, including “trade associations” and “powerful corporate interests.” 

So it’s a shame that Phyllis Salowe-Kaye and Marcia Marley have narrowed the issue down to merely protecting the Progressive agenda. 

But that’s exactly the point of freedom of speech, and thus the protection of donors’ privacy. Nobody’s political agenda should be exempt or “protected” from public scrutiny, dissent, opposing opinions, or accountability. Nobody’s political ideology or agenda should ever be the government’s job to protect. The government should protect everyone’s freedom to express their views equally and at all times.

By advocating forced disclosure on political donors of differing political views, Salowe-Kaye and Marley are exposing their, and more broadly Progressives', authoritarian impulses. They are explicitly and brazenly suggesting targeted government restrictions on free speech so as to protect and advance the Progressive agenda. In doing so, they inadvertently provide powerful evidence for why so-called  “dark money” should never be banned.

Related Reading:

Murphy’s Veto of NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban Should Be Unconditional

The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech--by Kimberley Strassel, especially Chapter 2, “Publius & Co.”

Kill New Jersey’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban

NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Bill an Attack on Intellectual Freedom

NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Bill is an Assault on Free Speech

The Anti-Free Speech Fallacy of ‘Dark Money’

N.J. AG Confirms: State’s Disclosure Law is about Stifling Political Accountability

Why Free Speech and Spending on Speech are Inextricably Linked

On the Respect for Marriage Act

Congress has passed the  Respect for Marriage Act, and it will become law upon President Biden’s expected signature. In Bill protecting same-sex, interracial unions clears Congress

Mary Clare Jalonick reported for The Associated Press,

The legislation would not require states to allow same-sex couples to marry, as Obergefell now does. But it would require states to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed and protect current same-sex unions if the Supreme Court decision were overturned.

This is a preemptive act, in case the same-sex marriage right recognized in Obergefell v. Hodges is overturned. As I wrote on Facebook, This is a very good bill, in my view consistent with Federalism and the 14th Amendment. 

The 14th Amendment states that 

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [my emphasis]

Note that U.S. citizenry supersedes state citizenry, in terms of “privileges or immunities,” i.e. individual rights. This Amendment, one of the so-called “Civil War Amendments,” was a monumental advance for individual rights. The U.S. Constitution now made explicit what was implicit from the Founding—that no longer can any state violate the Federally guaranteed rights of any American, by, say, enslaving them, denying them the right to vote, or violating any other inalienable individual right. 

Of course, the Respect for Marriage Act is wholly unnecessary as long as Obergefell v. Hodges, the pro-14th Amendment SCOTUS ruling that nullified state laws banning same-sex marriage, is not overturned. But it is not at all certain that the SCOTUS will not overturn Obergefell given the horrendous anti-Constitutional reasoning behind the shockingly reactionary Dobbs ruling, which ignored the Ninth Amendment and 14th Amendments and violated the Constitution’s philosophic conscience, the Declaration of Independence, to overturn Roe v. Wade.

* [Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law on December 13, 2022, USA Today reported.]

Related Reading:

Gay Marriage and Individual Rights

ObamaCare and Gay Marriage Rulings: One Loss and One Win for the Right

In SCOTUS’ Draft Opinion Overturning Roe Abortion Ruling: Double Standards of Left and Right Exposed

Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty by Randy E. Barnett  

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty by Timothy Sandefur

Steve Jobs’ Rational Gratitude

No one can ever accuse Steve Jobs of humility. His inspired drive and vision was the moving force behind the Apple enterprise and the innovative products that have improved the lives of billions of people, and he was rightfully proud of what he accomplished. Jobs was living proof of the falsehood of Obama’s mean-spirited “you didn’t build that” mantra. “If you were successful,” Obama driveled, 

somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Obama is right about achievers who came before you, from teachers to political revolutionaries to road and bridge builders. But he’s cynically wrong that they made your achievements happen. 

No, you made that happen. If you didn make the effort, take the risks, do the thinking, it wouldn’t have happened, all of those prior achievers notwithstanding. They can bequeath to you their legacies. They cannot make your business happen. 

But Jobs is on to something, as you’ll see. While we all individually DID build that, however great or modest our productive achievements, it is also important to recognize that, while doing our building, we stood on the shoulders of the prior achievements of many many other productive people, both living and long dead--and we should be grateful to them. Jobs expresses an incontrovertible truth: Progress is hierarchical, with productiveness built upon prior productiveness, which was itself built on prior productiveness, ultimately traceable back to man’s emergence from the cave. If some Stone Age thinker hadn’t discovered how to harness fire, where would we be today? Still in the Stone Age.

With that, here is the wisdom of Steve Jobs:

From the Steve Jobs Archive

This e-mail by Steve Jobs to himself right before his death, which I just discovered, captures the spirit of the sentiment I am expressing here. It is NOT an “I didn’t build that'' message of any kind. Knowing what I have learned about Jobs—according to his excellent biography Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader, by Brent Schlendler—Jobs is expressing rational gratitude to the many achievers upon whose shoulders he was enabled to do the great things he did. Indeed, no one could ever accomplish what Jobs did by any means other than his own initiative, effort, risk-taking, and thinking. We, all of us, inherit the legacies of those who came before us. But everyone doesn’t automatically become Steve Jobs, or anyone, other than what we make of ourselves. Jobs hits on something we should all remember and take to heart.

Related Reading:

Ayn Rand Anticipated Obama's "You Didn't Build That" Outrage

Obama’s Way vs. The American Way by me for The Objective Standard

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice by Craig Biddle for The Objective Standard

“You Didn’t Build That”—Obama’s Ode to Envy by Ari Armstrong  for The Objective Standard

Contra the NY Times, a SCOTUS Case Does Not ‘Pit Gay Rights Against Religion’

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which a merchant’s refusal to service a gay wedding against Colorado’s law forbidding business from discriminating against people based on sexual orientation. As the New York Times reported,

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on Monday [12/5/22] in a First Amendment battle pitting claims of religious freedom against laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

A web designer in Colorado, Lorie Smith, said she was happy to create graphics and websites for anyone, including L.G.B.T.Q. people. But her Christian faith, she said, did not allow her to create messages celebrating same-sex marriages. A state law forbids this kind of discrimination.

According to the New York Times, this is a Case Pitting Gay Rights Against Religion. 

But it is no such thing. The web designer, Lorie Smith, has the fundamental right to live by her own conscientious convictions, just as the gay couple does by marrying each other. The gay couple, however, does not have the right to force Smith to service their wedding against her will. 

So, there is no conflict of rights. Smith is violating no one’s rights. She does not have the power to prevent the wedding, or to prevent the gay couple from getting the service from another designer, or doing it themselves (if they are capable), or, for that matter, of having the wedding ceremony.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor, the Times reports, objected that the same premises would, “in essence . . . enable discrimination of all kinds. So there is no line on race, there is no line on disability, ethnicity, none of the protected categories,” Sotomayor observed. In essence, she’s right. But such discrimination, though morally despicable, would be a private matter between free individuals. Discrimination should only be banned for the government in the execution of its laws and policies. It is not up to the government to legally bar private discrimination. That is up to private individuals acting in their capacity as members of the culture. Social pressure, such as public shaming through free speech and press, marginalization, isolation, and boycotts of the offending enterprise, or simply ignoring the discriminator is the way irrational, immoral discrimination  is opposed and minimized. America could never have been racially segregated without government force, in the form of Jim Crow laws. Culture alone could not do it. Indeed, racists turned to law to enforce segregation in the South because they couldn’t impose it privately and voluntarily. This is not to say racism didn't exist. It is to say racism doesn't have the power without government force. It is no accident that the color barrier in major league baseball was broken in the North, by private individuals from both the National and American leagues: There were no Jim Crow laws to forbid it.

Personally, I think Smith’s action is despicable. Ancient religious dogma is no justification for bigotry. And yes, a SCOTUS decision in Smith’s favor could have ramifications far beyond this case, involving all laws infringing the private right to discriminate. Forcing business owners to serve customers it chooses not to is involuntary servitude, a form of soft slavery. The 13th Amendment explicitly outlaws such servitude, as it should—regardless of how that Amendment has been miss-interpreted and/or ignored to justify the outlawing of private discrimination.

To be sure, Smith’s lawyers have narrowly defined her case as one of freedom of speech. The Times explains:

At the heart of the case the Supreme Court is hearing on Monday is a First Amendment principle that the government cannot force people to express ideas against their will, and how it applies to a website maker who wants to be able to sell wedding site services to heterosexual couples but not same-sex couples — despite a Colorado anti-discrimination law.

Under what is known as the compelled speech doctrine, the First Amendment’s free speech protections extend beyond generally keeping the government from suppressing people from saying what they want: It also generally bars the government from compelling people to express things they do not want to say.

That the First Amendment supports the ban on compelled speech is certainly of monumental importance. But the broader principles behind Smith’s case go beyond religion and free speech.. Why should only religious objections be considered? Religion has no monopoly on moral values. More broadly, freedom of association, also explicitly guaranteed by the First Amendment—and the related freedom of contract—is clearly at stake here, as much as freedom of religion/conscience and speech.

There is a lot at stake in this case, and it will be interesting to see how the Conservative-dominated court decides and, more crucially, its reasoning. But one thing is certain: The case does not involve any conflict of rights. The solution is the consistent, equal application and protection of the individual rights of all. Thomas Jefferson eloquently identified the heart of the rights issue: "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."

Offensive? Definitely. Outrageous? Absolutely. But Lorie Smith is neither picking anyone’s pocket nor breaking anyone’s leg. Put another way, she is initiating neither fraud nor force against gay couples. The gay couple incurs no injury for Smith not agreeing to providing the service they requested. Indeed, the shoe is on the other foot: It is they, and the anti-discrimination law in question, are the one's who want to inflict injury on Smith, violating her rights. *

Jefferson uttered those words in the context of defending religious liberty rights. But the principle applies to all fundamental inalienable rights. Gay rights are not at issue here. Gay rights were at the heart of the fight to overturn laws banning gay marriage. There is no gay “right” to force involuntary servitude on a web designer, or anyone else.

* [It should be noted that the gay couple is hypothetical. Smith has not actually launched her business yet, CATO reports, and has not actually refused to service any gay wedding.]

Related News Coverage, presented only as an FYI:

Supreme Court seems to side with web designer opposed to same-sex marriage by Robert Barnes for The Washington Post, 12/5/22

Web designer’s case may impact same-sex marriage itself by Taylor Jung for NJ Spotlight News --[This headline is highly misleading, to put it mildly. Whatever the ruling, the case will not impact the institution of same-sex marriage in any way.]

Supreme Court Debates Whether Web Designers Can Be Forced To Make Gay Wedding Pages by Scott Shackford for Reason

Related Reading:

Freedom, not Laws, is the Answer to Defeating Bigotry

Individual Rights is the Solution to the Gay Marriage Conflict

Gay Marriage, Freedom of Association, and Equal Protection of the Law

Does rescinding laws banning private discrimination make a moral statement in support of bigotry?

Gay Marriage: The Right to Voluntary Contract, Not to Coercive “Contract” by me for The Objective Standard

'Religious Freedom Restoration' Laws and Tim Cook's Misunderstanding of America's Founding Principles

The False Alternative of Religious Rights vs. Gay Rights—Michael J. Hurd

‘Bigotry Motivated by Religion is Still Bigotry’—True, but Still an Individual Right

Court Violates Cake Baker’s Right Not to Serve Gay Weddings—Ari Armstrong for The Objective Standard

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

Two Views on Religious Exemptions from Anti-Discrimination Laws

Kim Davis vs. Liberty Ridge Farm

Title 2: Government vs. Private Action

Court Should Strike Down Compelled Speech In Website Design Case by Walter Olson for CATO

Reply Responses to QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’ - 4

I received numerous comments on my QUORA answer to Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism? The following comment inspired a (partial) response from me:

William Delouvrely commented:

To me, and I could be wrong, there is a basic problem with Ayn Rand. Let me assure you that “I have not always been wrong.” (Churchill quote).

Ayn Rand and her followers have the habit to see everything in a purely ‘yes or no’, ‘black or white’, or ‘extremely correct or totally wrong’ frame of mind. The great majority of humans do not live and do not want to live within such a ‘permanent logic or bust’ standard. This is not a ‘wobbly mealy-mouthed argument’. If you can imagine it, in Ayn Rand’s world there is no room for feelings, kindness, for music, poetry, art and theater, because don’t all these distract from the ‘purely rational 100% productivity only, no jokes, no laughter, no good times allowed’ systemic standard that must be applied to all people of all ages, or else my philosophy is wrong, and we can’t have that as I always must be right, at all costs, no matter the human costs, no matter the consequences.

Do I still make sense, as I am trying to climb down into the rabbit hole of Randian logic?

In one way, to put a lighter spin on it, Ayn Rand is the philosophical personification of Jerry Seinfeld’s ‘Soup Nazi’. Wham, bamm, no soup for you!

In another way, the harshness that is shown by devoted, harsh, zealous, uncompromising followers of such political fashions as Nazism, Capitalism, Communism, as well as by militant & irrational proponents of any and all world religions & cults, all that points to the paranoid and super-logical world view espoused by Ayn Rand.

Do you want to live in a world like that, where a three year old might be expected to already be a productive member of society, and a seventy-five year old is expected to work until she croaks while at work? Well, me neither.

I remember that old Greek riddle: “What animal is this? It walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs at nightfall?” The answer is of course, the human being, as it crawls on all four as a toddler, in the morning of life, on two legs at noon in the productive time of life, and on three legs (two legs and a cane) near the end of life. Ayn Rand would not have guessed it. Or would she?

Which gets me back to the beginning, where I said something like ‘well, I haven’t always been wrong’.

I’ll say that a civilized society cannot exist without a certain degree of altruism, which of course has to be counter-balanced [sic] with a degree of reason and willingness to assert oneself. Just taking without giving is as unsustainable as only giving without taking. 

There, now I am going to shut up.

My emphasis.

I do not know where this Mr. Spock depiction of “Ayn Rand and her followers” comes from. His is just another complete strawman, which I will not waste my time responding to. Just the fact that he equates Nazism and Communism with Capitalism shows that Delouvrely does not know what he is talking about. But Delouvrely does close with a point that requires a response for the benefit of serious readers of this site. Here is my reply:

“Just taking without giving is as unsustainable as only giving without taking.” 

Rand most emphatically rejected that premise as a false choice. In fact, she convincingly argued that that “choice” is really two sides of the same coin. I made this point clear in my answer above. 

The alternative to that false choice that Rand posited is the trader principle—the win-win relationship.

Relationships need not be win-lose or lose-win, necessarily  involving both an exploiter and a victim. People can get better together, with each neither taking without giving or giving without taking. The values exchanged can be material or spiritual, or a combination of both. But the ideal human relationship Rand promoted would leave each side better off.

Related Reading:

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

Reply Responses to QUORA: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’ — 2

Reply Responses to My Answer regarding QUORA: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’ - 3

This Quora Answer Shows Why Ayn Rand Was Right About Altruism

QUORA: Is Ayn Rand's 'Selfishness' 'the middle between altruism and selfism?'

Books to Aid in Understanding Ayn Rand's Rational Selfishness

QUORA: ‘Did Ayn Rand support the idea of giving to charity or donating your own money to help other people?’

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

QUORA: ‘What do people misunderstand about Ayn Rand's ideas?’

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."