The recent upheaval in Egypt highlights the true nature of democracy. A year and a half ago, Egypt's elections swept Islamist President Mohamed Morsi into power and handed the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood huge victories. In December, 2012, an Islamist constitution was approved by a two to one vote. This was a continuation of the trend ignited by President Bush's "Forward Strategy for Freedom," which was really a forward strategy for democracy, not freedom. The result; Islamists have swept into power all over the region, with the implicit legitimacy engendered by elections. The biggest loser, as recently noted by Ralph Peters; freedom. This disaster was predicted by Yaron Brook and Elan Journo in 2007 in The Objective Standard with their essay The "Forward Strategy" for Failure.
As the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson notes in Egypt's Dark Future:
It is clear that Morsi wanted to make Egypt a more religious, less pluralistic society than it was during the Mubarak years. The rights of Coptic Christians and other minorities were under assault. To Egyptians who are young, secular and middle class — those who poured back into Tahrir Square, cellphones in hand, tweeting their rage to the world — Morsi’s government must have been a nightmare.
There are important lessons to be learned from the Egyptian fiasco.
Under democracy, the majority has absolute rule. With the false veneer of legitimacy accorded by elections, the Islamist majority initiated force against the non-Islamist minority by attempting to impose an Islamist theocracy—an Islamist dictatorship. Under democracy, minorities have no way to fight back against majority tyranny except through retaliatory force. So, those minorities whose rights were under assault took to the streets in mass protests, culminating in the military takeover.
Proponents of democracy are between a rock and a hard place. Robinson is one, and he struggled to make some sense of it all. He condemns the military coup d'etat, expresses strong disapproval with Morsi's "power grab," while lauding the democracy that led to the upheavals—"
When vast throngs of self-proclaimed 'moderates' took to the streets to protest the way Morsi was governing, the generals could have made clear their support for Egypt’s new democratic order, however flawed."
However flawed! But it was this same "democratic order" that threatened the minority with theocratic suppression, leaving them no choice but to revolt.
Robinson notes that irreconcilable differences will make it hard to produce a stable government:
Like it or not, the Muslim Brotherhood is the best-organized political force in the country. Under Mubarak, the group was banned. Egypt’s new military-backed rulers claim to want to include Islamist parties in the government, but as a practical matter they’re going to have to repress the Brotherhood in some way to keep the group from winning again at the polls.The Brotherhood might choose to fight with bullets rather than ballots. Or it might just bide its time. Either way, a huge chunk of Egypt’s population will be unreconciled to the new government — and bitterly resent the way it came to power.
Such is the unavoidable nature of democracy. The choice is not flawed vs. unflawed democracy. The choice is democracy or freedom. How do you reconcile with a Muslim Brotherhood that believes its electoral victory is a mandate to impose tyranny? When rights aren't protected, the losers will always be threatened or frustrated, leading to never-ending turmoil.
I left these comments:
"The rights of Coptic Christians and other minorities were under assault" by an elected Islamic government and a majority-imposed Islamic constitution. Why is a military dictatorship any worse than an Islamic theocracy? Because the Islamists were elected? All events in Egypt prove is that democracy—absolute majority rule—is cut from the same cloth as any tyranny, including a military dictatorship.
There is only one alternative to any form of tyranny—a constitutionally limited republic based on inalienable individual rights.
Yes, democracies and constitutional republics both entail elections. But that similarity is superficial. Fundamentally, democracies and free societies spring from opposite philosophic premises. Under democracy, the individual is without rights, and subordinate to the majority or dominant political bloc; which means, the state. In a free society, the state is subordinate to the sovereign individual, and exists solely to protect his rights to his life, liberty, and property.
In fact, America's democracy crusade of the last dozen years has led to a broad rise in authoritarian governments at the expense of freedom. It's time to recognize the true nature of democracy, and begin supporting freedom instead. Elections should never be put first. We should never support elections in any country until iron-clad constitutional protections for individual rights are in place, so that the individual can never be alienated from his rights by vote.
As Ayn Rand so succinctly put it, "Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law."
Related Reading:
The "Forward Strategy" for Failure by Yaron Brook and Elan Journo
Iraqi Democracy vs. Freedom
Rights are Inalienable, not an Electoral Privilege
To the shame of a nation that was founded on the principle of individual rights and the rule of objective law—"a government of laws and not of men"—Apple Inc. was found guilty of "conspiracy" to "fix prices."
What was their "crime?" According to The Los Angelos Times' Alana Semuels:
In a trial that lasted three weeks, federal prosecutor Mark Ryan argued that when it entered the e-book market in April 2010, Apple offered publishers a way to fight back against Amazon by raising the prices of e-books. Prices went up shortly thereafter, and Apple negotiated 30% of the profits.
So??? These companies negotiated voluntary agreements in an effort to maximize their profits through voluntary trade with consumers. No one was forced. There was no guarantee that the higher prices would stick, and be profitable. That they did and were is proof of good business judgement, not criminal behavior. This is called competition in a free market—a free market being a market that is free from physical coercion.
Free, that is, until the government intruded. "The Plaintiffs have shown that Apple conspired to raise the retail price of e-books and that they [presumably consumers] are entitled to injunctive relief. A trial on damages will follow," U.S. District Judge Denise Cote wrote in her opinion. "Apple was a knowing and active member of that conspiracy. Apple not only willingly joined the conspiracy, but also forcefully facilitated it."
But there was no force involved, except in what the government is doing (George Orwell, are you listening?). These were voluntary agreements among the companies. Consumers voluntarily paid for the e-books, and got the e-books they paid for. There was no fraud or force involved. Yet, the government will now forcibly seize money from Apple, under the legalese guise of "injunctive relief" and "damages," and presumable turn it over to consumers who were not harmed in any way, shape, or form.
No consumer is entitled to any particular "low" price for any product. Producers are not entitled to any particular "higher" price. Prices are set in the market by voluntary agreement of buyers and sellers. Apple did not, and can not, "fix" prices. It offered products for sale at a price it believed would be advantageous to itself. Consumers paid a price that was advantageous to themselves. Apple's judgement prevailed, and the higher prices "stuck." What the government is doing—allegedly on behalf of consumers—is attempting to forcibly override the market and fix prices according to its own whims. If what Apple did was fix prices, then every trade is based on fixed prices, and every business is guilty of it.
The only criminal here is the government. Employing the grotesque premises of antitrust, the government has turned innocent producers into criminals, branding them as "conspirators." This moral and legal inversion is not consistent with a free and just society. It is consistent with tyrannical government.
Related Reading:
Antitrust Prosecution of Apple is Rotten
Barbara Straniero's Mistaken Understanding of "Free Market"
The Abolition of Antitrust by Gary Hull
3 Things Everyone Needs to Know About the Apple Antitrust Case by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins
Google is not a monopoly, as the NJ Star-Ledger claims in Google's Growing Monopoly. A true monopoly entails the ability to forcibly forbid competition. The editors write:
Just 14 years old, the company has become a $200 billion behemoth and borders on a global internet monopoly. Beyond search — where Google owns 70 percent of the U.S. market, 95 percent in Europe — its domination includes video (YouTube), mobile (Android) and web browsing (Chrome, Firefox). It’s challenging Facebook (Google+), selling smartphones and laptops (Chromebook), and is working on computers worn as glasses and wristwatches. In the United States, 76 cents of every online ad dollar goes to Google.
Yes, Google is a great company. Their growth to $200 billion was achieved by successfully competing in the market, not by hiding behind legal protection from competition. That's not what the editors want you to conclude, of course. They want you to cower in fear of the "behemoth" Google--a behemoth created by free consumer choice.
The editors also hint darkly against "this monster," which it accuses of "invading users' privacy" and "scraping of personal information from home WiFi networks." Maybe there's something to it, but that is a legal matter that has nothing to do with the issue of monopolies.
There is only one institution that can create true monopolies--the government. That's because only the government has a monopoly on the use of physical force, by means of its law-making powers which people are compelled to obey under threat of armed assault by government agents. No private company has that power. The US Post Office, for example, is a true monopoly: No other company is legally allowed to compete with it in first class mail.
If the editors were truly concerned about monopolization, they would focus their attention on the government's growing abuse of its lawmaking monopoly, which is increasingly used to violate rights of innocent people rather than prosecute criminals and protect rights. They would use this year's 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve System to call for its elimination. It destructive monopoly over the monetary system is entrenched by legal tender laws.
The editors would also be beating the drums for an end to the destructive government "public" school quasi-monopoly, which gains its "customers" and stifles competition by compulsory taxation and compulsory attendance laws.
They would fight against the government's growing monopolization over healthcare, including their beloved ObamaCare with its myriad boards and committees wielding the power to decide who gets what kind of health care and health insurance and when.
And don't forget the local electric utility and, as noted, the US Post Office.
If the editors are truly concerned about privacy issues and information gathering and how it is used, it should recognize that the government is the elephant in the room that we all should be worried about. Unless Google uses its information for criminal purposes like extortion or blackmail, it has a moral right to profitably "leverage" its information gathering prowess as it sees fit, so long as its information gathering techniques do not violate rights (this is a complex legal matter).
Leave Google alone. It has done nothing wrong but successfully compete in the freest market in the world--the internet. When people decide that they would be better off patronizing some other company or venue, Google's "monopoly" will disintegrate as fast as IBM's dominance in mainframes dissolved in the face of the personal computer revolution.
And while we're at it, we should advocate for the complete abolition of the antitrust laws, whose sole purpose is to empower government control over private business, penalize success and ability, and enable less successful competitors to gain by government force what they couldn't legitimately gain in the marketplace. The editors worry about "the impunity with which Google does business." The impunity with which government wields its power is the real danger.
Related Reading:
My published letter-to-the-editor: Google not a Monopoly
What Are the Search Results When You Google 'Antitrust?', by Thomas A. Bowden
Antitrust Prosecution of Apple is Rotten
Apple followup: Barbara Straniero's Mistaken Understanding of "Free Market"
A proposed New Jersey Law would ban anyone from buying cigarettes until age 21. The NJ Star-Ledger editorialized in support of this law. I left the following comments, opening with a quote from the editors:
"Die-hard smokers cry 'freedom' when new restrictions are proposed. But ask the middle-aged smoker who just paid $9 to feed his pack-a-day nicotine addiction: How free do you feel?"
One wonders if the editors can even define freedom. What does the "free" in freedom mean?
Freedom is the moral right of an adult to act on his own judgement without forcible interference from other people, including people in their capacity as government officials, so long as his actions don't violate the same rights of others. Freedom is the state of being free from the initiation of physical force.
Banning smoking for adults 18-21 is an attack on their freedom, and by extension freedom generally. It is the initiation of physical force by government officials on defenseless private citizens. This proposed law is therefor immoral and wrong and contrary to American ideals.
As to that sloppy reference to the middle-aged smoker: Yes, he is free, because he voluntarily chooses to buy that pack of cigarettes, addiction or no. He is unfree in one sense, though; the taxes imposed on the sale of that pack, which is money extorted from him by force as a price of exercising his freedom to act on his own judgement.
Related Reading:
Rights are Inalienable, not an Electoral Privilege
Ayn Rand's Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society by Craig Biddle
Individual Rights the Ayn Rand Center
The enduring truths codified in the Declaration of Independence, the philosophical blueprint for the constitution and this nation, are under assault by statists.
Leonard B. Rosenberg, a William Paterson University political science professor, argues in America's Past is Not Its Destiny that "
to return to the values exemplified by our Founding Fathers," we must "reinstitute slavery," "rescind women’s suffrage and equal rights," and accept a return to state-sanctioned religion and religious persecution.
Rosenberg does not completely dismiss the Founding Fathers, just their essential accomplishment. He reserves praise for the Founders by implying there willingness to compromise on anything and everything by intentionally creating a "living constitution." He writes:
The Founding Fathers were indeed remarkable men. They crafted a remarkable document that — with a few amendments, numerous judicial interpretations, some significant executive orders and changing attitudes on right and wrong — still functions in an entirely different environment. But these remarkable men were just that — men. They were no more able to see the future than we are. And as all of us are, they were trapped by their age, self-interest and circumstance.
I left these comments:
It should be remembered that America inherited slavery, the plight of women, and religious strife and persecution. These ancient historical forces could not be wiped away in one fell swoop at America's founding.
Yes, the Founders had to make unfortunate political compromises to ensure the birth of the new nation. And yet, the founders managed to erect the philosophical and constitutional framework that would eventually wipe away slavery, bring legal equality for women, and ensure peaceful coexistence among religious sects. This is their monumental achievement.
Against a backdrop of statism as the historical norm, the principles of inalienable individual rights and government as servant and rights-protector created a nation that, for the first time in history, intentionally subordinated the state to the sovereignty of the individual.
It is these "values exemplified by our Founding Fathers," rather than slavery, women's inequality, or politically-empowered religion, that we need to restore--this time with full consistency.
The Founders were not at all "trapped by their age ... and circumstance," nor needed omniscience, to adopt these universal truths as the foundation upon which their nation would be built. Jefferson's wisdom should not be misconstrued. The Founders would never have approved of a "living constitution" as a means of abandoning those fundamental principles and gradually returning to state supremacy and the newest incarnation of that ancient evil--the slavery of all to all under collectivism. We ignore the Founders' values at our peril, lest the world's past becomes America's destiny.
Rosenberg evades the distinction between the immediate concrete circumstances of a given time and the evolutionary nature of abstract ideas. It takes time--sometimes decades or even centuries--for ideas to take hold. By blurring that distinction, and dropping the historical context in which the constitution was forged, Rosenberg seeks to discredit the ideals that forged this country, without even mentioning those ideals. He is condemning the Founders' values without a hearing, by equating them with a snapshot of history, and then smearing those who would "return to the values" of the Founders as essentially wanting a return to plantation slavery.
It is not a condemnation of the evils America inherited, but the obliteration of the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that Rosenberg is really attempting to accomplish. We who fight to stem and reverse the statist tide in America must not let Americanism's enemies get away with such trickery.
Related Reading:
July 4, 1776: Words that Will Never Be Erased
The Fourth of July is a national holiday that, to me, stands far above all of the others. It represents the greatest political achievement in world history. More than that, the birth of the United States of America represents a towering and unprecedented philosophical achievement. America, born of the Enlightenment, is the first nation founded on the principle that man the individual has a fundamental, natural right to his own life, and that government’s responsibility is to protect that right…that the people act by right, while the government acts by permission.
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
So opened the document signed by a small band of revolutionary intellectual activists leading a fledgling nation fighting against the most powerful Empire in world history. Above are the most radical words ever written as the foundation for a nation. For the first time in human history, a government was to be the servant of the people, by conscious design and on principle. “The people” were understood to be, not a collective, but a collection of sovereign individuals recognized as possessing unalienable individual rights. America was the triumph of reason, which was understood to be a faculty of the individual. The government would now be charged with the task of protecting every individual’s freedom to act on his own sovereign, reasoning mind … as a matter of unalienable right.
The birth of America was the culmination of Mankind’s long tortuous philosophical journey that began with Aristotle, and continued through his rebirth via Aquinas, the Renaissance, the Age of Reason, and the Enlightenment. Tribalism was to be swept into the dustbin of history, along with “The Divine Right of Kings” and all manner of omnipotent ruler. Men would be set free from the forcible domination of other men.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence, America’s Founding Fathers, were almost violent in their radicalism. Standing up against the tide of history, with only the winds of the ideas of John Locke and the Enlightenment thinkers at their backs, this unique group of intellectuals took action. Indeed, the ideological violence of the ideas to which they pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor turned to armed rebellion. The rest, as is said, is history.
America’s Founding was flawed in many respects - the failure to eradicate the ancient evil of slavery being the most obvious and most egregious. The anti-slavery forces simply did not have the strength to defeat that vampire, and so slavery had to be accepted into the young nation. But the moral groundwork had been laid – that all men are created equal – and the fate of the slave states was sealed. 89 years after the signing of the Declaration, America’s Founding ideals caught up with them. Some have pointed to America’s early acceptance of slavery as proof of its basic depravity. In fact, the defeat of slavery represented one of America’s finest hours, and a testament to the formidable power of its ideals. America’s Founding was the most monumental political achievement in world history.
America is currently backsliding from its Founding ideals. As America goes, so will go the world. But, the words of July 4, 1776, have been written, and will never be erased. Proof of the power and viability of individual liberty is written across the brief span of the past 237 years. The ideas of reason, egoism, and capitalism have been unleashed. The philosophical foundation for a second Renaissance and American rebirth has been laid, and the final rout of statism is tantalizingly close.
“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
By making that pledge, those great men of 1776 declared that they would accept no substitute for the ideals in which they believed. Against widespread skepticism in the New World, and ridicule and scorn across England, they laid it all on the line for those ideals. They would succeed or perish. That utterly uncompromising stand gave us the United States of America. The least we could do is pledge to uphold those principles, to roll back the compromises that are undermining them, and to accept no substitute.
Happy Birthday America.
As we approach Independence Day, it is worth considering the contention of many religionists' that America was founded on religious fundamentals--specifically, on Judeo-Christian values. Without religion, they contend, the alternative--an atheistic state--leads directly to systems like Nazism or communism.
But is this true? Contrary to religionists' claims, the Founding Fathers of America sought precisely to separate religion from the state, and create a Lockean, Enlightenment state. They were not primarily Christians. They were primarily champions of reason.
So, what about the supposedly atheistic states of Nazism and communism?
In Penny Nance's Strange Bedfellows, Ari Armstrong explains that Nazism, like religion, is rooted in emotionalism (faith), not reason. He quotes Andrew Bernstein from his debate with Dinesh D'Souza titled Christianity: Good or Bad for Mankind? to make his case.
In Communism vs. Atheism, Yaron Brook explains why communism, too, is fundamentally no different from religion. Communists, like the Nazi's, were mystics. Communists, explains Brook, simply replaced God with "the proletariat." The proletariat, like God, was seen by the communists as a mystical, higher power to which the individual must be subordinated.
To Christianity (or Judaism, Islam, etc.), the communists and Nazis were atheists because they rejected the Christian God. But, Nazism and communism are not atheistic in the broader, more fundamental sense. Religion, communism, and Nazism are all fundamentally the same: They are all rooted in mysticism.
The only antipode to mysticism is reason, which means the only antipode to communism, Nazism, or a religious state is a nation based on reason--a country like the United States of America at its founding. This is because, as Bernstein points out (quoted in Armstrong's piece):
The real struggle in human history is not religion versus secularism; that’s only one example of it. The real struggle in human history is reason versus unreason, or rationalism versus irrationalism—those who support the mind and those who oppose it.
Related Reading:
Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers by Brooke Allen
