Gay Marriage and Individual Rights

[Note: An updated version of this essay is available on my other blog, Principled Perspectives. Thanks.]

In my Introduction to this blog, I wrote:

“[T]he only real guide to understanding human events, their relationships to one another, and where they may lead us, is to discover the fundamental philosophical and moral principles that drive them: hence, the title of my blog. Discovering them is not always an easy task, but with Objectivism as my frame of reference, that is what I aim to do as I analyze and opiniate on today's events.”

Ayn Rand wrote: “Abstractions as such do not exist: they are merely man’s epistemological method of perceiving that which exists—and that which exists is concrete.” Since abstractions as such do not exist but are merely mental tools for understanding reality, they must be logically relative to concrete events and facts. Otherwise, they are merely “floating” … disconnected from reality and thus useless. Since my blog is based on the premise that abstract ideas drive human events, my task is to validate my principles with reference to today’s issues.

Put another way, my blog is about concretizing abstractions. The number one abstract principle that is my driving passion is the concept of individual rights. That abstract reference point is the focus of this post’s analysis of a very controversial subject. It is also a good demonstration of why we need to make full use of our uniquely human conceptual faculty (i.e., our powers of abstraction), and why without abstractions we are essentially “flying blind”.

On January 6, 2010, the Same-Sex Marriage bill went down to a resounding defeat in my rather liberal state of New Jersey. This result should not have happened, and is a case study on the wrong way to advocate for anyone’s rights. On 1/6/10, the New Jersey Star-Ledger foresaw the defeat, pinning the blame on “political missteps”.

For a change, I agree with the Star-Ledger. The Gay Marriage ban should have been lifted in New Jersey. I agree with the Editors’ stand, but not their murky logic … the source of the cause of the defeat.

The failure was not political, but philosophical. A look at the Editors’ logic exposes the cause of the inability of so many politicians to take a firm stand – the “soft supporters [who] may run for cover”. The Editors lament this spectacle and ask: “How did this bill become such a long-shot in a state where most polls show solid support, and where the Democratic governor and leaders of both houses supported it?” It was indeed a long shot. The bill was defeated by a heavily Democratic State senate by a decisive 20-14 margin (with three abstentions). Why? We need to take a look at the Star-Ledger’s own reasoning.

I am sometimes asked a question such as: “Do you support or oppose gay marriage?” This question misses the point. The question is, does anyone have the right to employ the government’s power of legalized physical force to prohibit two people of the same sex to forge a marriage contract? I firmly and unequivocally believe the answer is no. My personal opinions are irrelevant here. Upholding the right to same-sex marriage no more indicates my support for gay marriage than my defense of a woman’s right to her own body indicates support for abortion; or my defense of the First Amendment indicates support for pornography among consenting adults; or my opposition to Affirmative Action indicates support for racial discrimination.

The basic issue is individual rights, the inalienable sanction to take the actions necessary to achieve one’s long-term goals, well-being, and happiness – so long as those actions don’t involve the violation of the same rights of others. Since rights are held equally and at all times by all people, the state’s legal sanction of a marriage contract between any two consenting adults must necessarily include same-sex couples, if the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause means anything. Of course, a private institution like the Catholic Church has every right to refuse to sanction gay marriage. But it has no right to trample the rights of others who disagree.

My opinions aside, it’s hard to see how a marriage between two gay people violates or presents a threat to the rights of anyone else, as would be the case between, say, the parties in a Mafia hit “contract” or the perpetrators of a fraudulent Ponzi scheme. Since the freedom of contract is derived from the right to life and liberty, the burden of proof is on the anti-gay marriage side to validate its stand. It hasn’t - and in fact cannot, do so.

Yet, it won the day in New Jersey.

When the issue is defined properly, there are no “soft supporters”. Broad abstract principles leave out personal judgements on how one feels about the concrete issue involved. When one declares his allegiance or opposition to an abstract principle, he offers a yardstick by which others can judge his stand on a virtually unlimited number of concrete issues. The principle of individual rights, properly understood, leaves no room for “flirting with both sides”, “winks and nods”, or “hiding”. The Editors demand to “learn where each senator stands on gay marriage”. The proper question is: “Where do you stand on the principle of individual rights?” Each legislator’s answer to that question leads logically to a specific vote on the gay marriage bill, since it is essentially a vote on individual rights. But modern politicians on both sides of the ideological divide recoil against principled stands on any issue.

The idea of individual rights is much broader than any single concrete issue, and it is sometimes not readily apparent how to apply it to some particular concrete issue. Disagreements concerning practical application can and do arise among people who hold, and understand, a given principle. But first, the principle must be clearly identified. By evading it, the debate was focussed narrowly on homosexual marriage. This forced the politicians to declare whether they are for or against “gay marriage” and by implication homosexuality as such. But as I stated above, that is not the issue. It should never have come down to that. The senators should have been obliged to take a firm, either/or stand on the paramount question – Do you support or oppose the number one Founding principle of America, unalienable individual rights?

The debate wasn’t properly framed, so it went down to resounding defeat. The supporters such as the “gay rights” group Garden State Equality are partly to blame here. By basing their argument on the premise that they are fighting for “gay rights” rather than the broader principle of individual rights, they undercut their own case by in effect fighting for what one correspondent called “SPECIAL rights”. Fromexperience wrote:

“Marriage is not a right -- civil or otherwise.
In five state and DC, homosexuals have been legislatively "awarded" SPECIAL rights through SSM. Those civil unions and domestic partnerships available ONLY to ss couples are ALSO special rights.”

Marriage is a right, but it’s true that marriage is not a fundamental right. It is a derivative of the foundation of all rights – the right to life. As long as the issue is gay rights, the supporters are vulnerable to this line of attack. Fromexperience is correct that rights are not “special” or “legislatively awarded” or applicable only to gays. But he evades the fact that they are unalienable … i.e., based upon the provable metaphysical facts of reality and thus inseparable from man qua man, and possessed equally by each and every individual. That includes the right of free association, which includes contractual freedom, including marriage contracts. The government’s role is to enforce those contracts, equally. Defending the SSM bill on this proper basis explodes fromexperience’s argument, because to deny an unalienable right to anyone is to deny the same right to everyone … including the contractual right to heterosexual marriage.

It’s obvious why not only liberals but also conservatives ignore, evade, and refuse to explicitly endorse the principle of unalienable individual rights. The implications for both would expose each side to a withering critique of their entire agenda. Adherence to principle cuts through the fog of pragmatism, and obliterates any chance of having one’s cake and eating it too.

For the liberal, it becomes necessary to explain why gays should have the right to freely contract with each other in marriage but not with their health insurance company. If abortion is a medical procedure that should be decided solely between a woman and her doctor, the basic logic behind Roe v. Wade, then why shouldn’t that same line of reasoning (non-interference by government) apply to all issues regarding healthcare? If the government has no right to force a woman to bear a child or deny gays the right to marry, then why should that woman or that gay person be forced into any government-run “insurance” scheme like Medicare, or forced to buy a policy full of state-mandated coverages or submit to an “individual mandate”, or be denied the right to refuse to pay for emergency room visits by uninsured people?

Likewise, for conservatives, it becomes necessary to explain why international free trade is good with regard to material goods, but not to people (immigration). Why is it wrong to force people to fund the latest liberal welfare scheme, but OK to force them to fund Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives? And why is it wrong to restrict freedom of speech, except to demand that the FCC crack down on “obscene” material in the media?

The inconsistencies are manifest on both sides, if the principle of individual rights is the yardstick to measure the validity of one’s stand on concrete issues. But the Star-Ledger wants to have it both ways. Thus, the Editors defend the gay marriage bill with vague references to “civil” rights or “gay rights”, as if rights are privileges bestowed by society or possessions specific to some group. By evading the exact nature of rights, the advocates of this bill can uphold Gay rights but not medical rights. I offer into evidence the Star-Ledger’s support for the totalitarian "Affordable Health Care for America Act", or HR3962 (and the Senate’s incarnation of ObamaCare), a massive rights-violating monstrosity that makes a mockery of its support for NJ’s SSM bill. If the Editors were to base their call for passage of the Gay Marriage Act on the proper grounds, they would logically have to oppose those healthcare “reform” bills. Both issues are tethered to the principle of individual rights. But since the Editors don’t really support the actual rights of gays (just “gay rights”) there is no need to reconcile those contradictory positions.

“Unprincipled inconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”, to paraphrase Emerson, who got it exactly backwards. Of course, one must be consistent based on the right principles … i.e., ideas consistent with objective, concrete reality. And it’s not always easy and sometimes hard. Loyalty to principles often means defending or advocating that which runs contrary to one’s personal convictions. Think of Voltaire, who once said in defense of free speech: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.” The preservation of freedom demands nothing less than that kind of conviction. That’s what’s been in play in my mind, as I grappled with this issue in recent years. I have always thought of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. That hasn’t really changed. But, over the years, I’ve had to rethink my stand on certain political issues in order to bring them into line with my passionate belief in the rights of the individual. Gay marriage is one. I was against its legalization, but eventually came to support NJ’s 2002 domestic partnership law and 2006 civil union legalization.

But as fromexperience notes, those laws represent “special rights” and are thus untenable. This has led me to full support of the legalization of same-sex marriage. It is the only stand consistent with the principle of individual rights and of our constitution.

Regardless of what one personally believes about it, the overriding principle relating to gay marriage points unequivocally to only one conclusion – same-sex couples have the same unalienable rights to contractual freedom as heterosexual couples. The law should recognize that fact.

It’s not always easy acting on principle. It often puts one’s political opinions at odds with one’s personal values and morals. Announcing one’s fundamental beliefs … wearing one’s moral principles on one’s sleeves, so to speak, as I do on this blog … exposes one to the judgement of others by one’s own standards. This is as it should be. One way to avoid that personal responsibility as well as the inevitable (and proper) judgements of others is to simply run from abstract principles, and declare that anything goes on the whim of any moment or issue. That’s the tactic employed by both sides in this debate, including the Star-Ledger Editors. This “pragmatic” approach enables political factions and pressure groups to battle in a domestic civil war, each vowing to grab some political or economic advantage at the expense of others based upon some newly minted group “right”.

But it should be remembered that we owe the very existence of our America to a revolutionary group of men who pledged “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” on a radical set of political principles to forge history’s greatest and most moral country ever. Principles are crucial. That is why the principle of individual rights must be placed at the political center stage. It is the means of stemming the aggression of rights violators who seek to impose their own moral judgements on others. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law. Put another way, the abstraction “individual rights” is the means of stopping anyone from taking the concrete actions of physically preventing a survivor from inheriting the pension benefits of his same-sex deceased partner or another from visiting his same-sex partner in a hospital … i.e., from signing a concrete marriage contract.

The concrete gay marriage bill failed for lack of a proper defense – the abstract moral concept of individual rights.

What's the Cause of the "Bubble Economy"?

In Forever blowing bubbles: Have we learned anything from market crash?, the New Jersey Star-Ledger laments the bubble economy:

So here’s a question on this first trading day of the new decade: Has the smart money learned from its mistakes and gotten any smarter? Not so you’d notice. The Associated Press reports that some analysts believe new bubbles already are forming. As the Federal Reserve keeps the borrowing costs low — in hopes of reviving investment in job-producing businesses — traders are using the easy credit to bid up prices on stocks, both here and abroad, and on gold.

“They’ve put out the biggest punch bowl in U.S. history and people are guzzling from it,” Haag Sherman, chief investment officer at Salient Partners in Houston, told AP.

The Editors blame "wizards of Wall Street" ... again.

I've left the following rebuttal comments:

So the government’s own Federal Reserve Board is again flooding the economy with fiat money and forcing interest rates down to well below market levels “in hopes of reviving investment in job-producing businesses”. And then we’re supposed to be appalled that the fast-money crowd crawls out of the woodwork to guzzle at the punch bowl. The “smart money” is placed at a competitive disadvantage in the face of the massive paper profits, as sound judgement is eroded and undermined by the perverse Fed-induced market incentives.

Money, especially paper money, is not wealth nor is it the source of wealth creation. The individual human mind is. Productive people must be free to think and act upon their own judgement, to take the risks and its consequences, and reap the rewards of success. That is how a growing economy is established. A sound currency and monetary policy is a requirement of a strong and robust economy. So are economic freedom and free markets. Today we are moving away from both. The Fed can “push on a string” from here to eternity with its inflationary policies, but if actual people of ability and ambition won’t step up and produce actual goods and services, we’re going nowhere.

What we are witnessing today is the inverse of the successful 1980s Reagan policies of “tight money” (i.e., a relatively competently run Fed) coupled with reduced government economic interference. Reaganomics was a far, far cry from laissez-faire capitalism, but the mild regulatory restraint, the sharp income tax rate reductions, and the return of a reasonably sound currency were enough to unleash productive individuals to pursue profit, resulting in tremendous real wealth creation and “investment in job-producing businesses”. The result was a simultaneous downtrend in inflation, interest rates, and unemployment amidst a generation-long economic boom.

Today we have dollar destruction coupled with the Obama Administration’s war on economic success, brought about via a massive expansion of the regulatory state, huge impending tax hikes, demonizing of wide swaths of American industry, the virulent new anti-trust activism, etc. Productiveness is hampered and speculation is encouraged. What result would one logically expect? A bubble economy and falling living standards.

As to the “wizards of Wall Street” building bubbles on top of bubbles, it was the explicit policy of the federal government to expand homeownership at any price that caused the housing boom and bust. The quick-buck “wizards” were simply tagging along for the “easy credit” profits.

The Editors are right to sound the warning bell. We’re heading for an economic calamity that will make the housing meltdown look like a warm-up. Yet, in classic style, the Editors fail to draw the obvious conclusion. Instead, they invert cause and effect, blaming the effect while giving the cause a virtual pass because after all, the Fed is guided by “hopes” – which apparently excuses anything.

The long-term solution is to move in the opposite direction toward free markets, capitalism, individual rights, and limited government. The best place to start is to phase out and abolish the Fed. We’ve had enough of its catastrophic failures.

The Star-Ledger laments the bubble economy, but refuses to see the culprit.

Some Fairness Toward Ayn Rand, From an Unlikely Source

The liberal Huffington Post, of all places, has published a relatively fair-minded piece on Ayn Rand, entitled The Real Rogue Warrior: Ayn Rand, Not Sarah Palin, by Michael Shermer. Here are a few excerpts:

"Despite the media frenzy surrounding Sarah Palin's autobiographical Going Rogue, the real rogue warrior making a political conservative comeback today is not Palin, but the Russian immigrant turned champion of American conservative principles, Ayn Rand.

"You can no more understand the right without Rand than you can understand it without Buckley, Goldwater, and Reagan. The dismissal of Rand by both the left and the right as mind candy for college kids is fatuous. It may be true that many of us (myself included) were first introduced to Rand in college, but that's when most of us are introduced to most of the philosophical and literary figures in history. So what?

"What are Rand's principles and which of her books should you read to understand the modern conservative movement? Start with Atlas Shrugged. According to a survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month club, readers ranked it #2 behind the Bible as the most influential book they had ever read. It is a murder mystery, not about the murder of a human body, but of the murder of the human spirit."

I addressed, in my comments below, Mr. Shermer's erroneous (in my view) contention that modern conservatism is a good surrogate for Ayn Rand's ideas. Though he did his best, Mr. Shermer doesn't seem to have a firm grasp of the many fundamental differences between Objectivism and conservatism. There are, too be sure, many areas of agreement, as well, especially in economics (although few, if any, conservatives would embrace full laissez-faire capitalism, or the separation of state and economics). That she is decribed as making a "political conservative comeback" is an indication of how much must still be learned about her.

There are some other errors in this piece, such as this quote from Burns:

"Rand intended her books to be a sort of scripture, and for all her emphasis on reason it is the emotional and psychological sides of her novels that make them timeless."

"Scripture" is an odd, and utterly wrong, description of a philosophy that has as a prime fundamental tenet to think for yourself.

Her books do have powerful emotional appeal, but if that is mainly what one gets out of her writing, then you're likely to ... as they say ... "outgrow Ayn Rand".

All in all, though, this is a decent piece that captures the the reason for Ayn Rand's enduring relevance.

Here are my brief comments:

Thank you, Mr. Shermer, for a pretty good article, although the appropriate term to describe Ayn Rand is not rogue, but radical. You make a crucial point all too often forgotten: “Criticism of the founder of a theory does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the theory.” I agree that Sarah Palin (who I am not a fan of) cannot hold a candle to Ayn Rand.

It should be pointed out that many people of various political persuasions in what today passes for the American "Right" - from conservative to libertarian to Republican to "Tea Partyers" - cherry-pick aspects of Rand’s ideas for their own purposes, while ignoring the rich depth of her comprehensive philosophy. Also, a large swath of American Conservatism abhors Ayn Rand for her secularism, social “liberalism”, and the challenge she hurls at Judeo-Christian morality through her ethics of rational self-interest.

You’ll learn little about Objectivism (Rand’s philosophy) by listening to conservatives. So, take some advice from an Objectivist husband, father, and grandfather who never “outgrew” Ayn Rand. If you’re seriously interested in understanding Rand’s enduring appeal, you’ll just have to study her works yourself, and exercise a cardinal virtue of the Objectivist ethics – your own independent judgement.

E. J. Dionne on the "Win for Government"

On Election Day, a win for government, by E.J. Dionne.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Excerpts:

Here's a story you may have missed because it flies in the face of the dreary conventional wisdom: When advocates of public programs take on the right-wing anti-government crowd directly, the government-haters lose.

This is what happened in two statewide referendums last week that got buried under all of the attention paid to the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey. In Maine, voters rejected a tax-limitation measure by a walloping 60 percent to 40 percent. In Washington state, a similar measure went down, 57 percent to 43 percent.

They lost in part because opponents of the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights measures (known as TABOR) did something that happens too rarely in the national debate: They made a case for what government does, why it's important and why cutbacks in public services can be harmful to citizens and the common good.

In Maine, one ad featured several taxpayers warning about what less government would mean in practice: "Our school budgets have already been cut. This would mean even less money for our classrooms. . . . Community health centers could be cut. People rely on them, especially now." A sympathetic-looking man then appeared on the screen to add: "My wife relies on our home nurse visits. What will we do?"

Here are my comments:

Zemack wrote:

One of the gimmicks statists use to promote their authoritarian agenda is to frame the important issue of the role of government as ... for or against. Thus we get catch phrases such as “the right-wing anti-government crowd”.

Of course, what today passes for the “Right” is a diverse array of frequently antagonistic elements such as Conservatives, Libertarians, and Religious Rightists. But that aside, the purpose of painting anyone who advocates any rollbacks or even restrictions on the further expansion of government power as “anti-government” is to obliterate any acknowledgement of the proper purpose and limits of government. So let’s get some clarification here.

A government is a unique institution. It and it alone possesses a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. This is as it should and must be. The apprehension and prosecution of domestic criminals and the protection of the nation from foreign military aggressors is the job of government (among certain other functions relating to human association), and that requires the organized use of force. No civilized society can exist without a government. Without government, society would quickly degenerate into mob rule and chaos. Government is a necessary good.

At the same time, government’s status as a vehicle of physical coercion also makes it the gravest threat to its citizens. To alleviate that potential threat, a government must be strictly contained, or limited. What standard defines the nature of those limits? The principle of inalienable individual rights. What is the method for implementing those limits? A constitution. This is the original American system. Rights, it should be remembered, are a guarantee and a sanction for freedom of action within the context of social organization (such as the right to freedom of speech, religious practice, and the earning and use of property). Rights are not an automatic entitlement to “home nurse visits” or any other product or service that must be provided by others.

So the choice is not, as Mr. Dionne suggests, between pro- and anti-government positions; or between a government of unlimited powers and anarchy. The choice is between a government limited to the protection of the rights of its citizens and a predatory government that is a tool of any political party, special interest pressure group, or voting block to be used to extract economic privileges at the expense of the rights and property of others.

The “win for government” is a loss for the revolutionary American system. Our nation - which was founded upon the principles of individual rights and limited, rights-protecting government – has degenerated into a chaotic political free-for-all of power-seekers competing for temporary control of the reigns of government’s unique powers of legalized coercion. The winner is any one or group laying temporary claim to the title of representative of that mystical historical siren song of all those who seek forcible domination over the lives, property, and productive work of others … the common good.

Today, the role of our government is being progressively inverted. Instead of protecting our lives, freedom, and property, it has become a major violator of our rights. Instead of protecting us from criminals, it is increasingly using its unique powers for what amounts to legalized criminal activities. I submit into evidence the former Bush Administration and the current runaway statism of the Obama Administration – especially the 2000 page House blueprint for totalitarian control of American medicine.

Growing government power and the consequent loss of individual liberty is a trend that has been going on for more than a century in America. Today, our government is breaking free of all constraints of the constitution and the rule of objective law. If not reversed, the consequences will be dire. Americans desperately need to rediscover the principles of individual rights and the proper role of government.

Where's the "Milestone"? Where's the "Change".

The New Jersey Star-Ledger has lauded the House of Representatives for its passage of the 1990 page health care "reform" bill, HR3962. They're calling it a Health care reform milestone!

It's no such thing. Here are my comments:


We’ve all heard the story of the fireman who starts fires, so that he can be the first on the scene to “save” lives and property. Well, in regard to American health care, the government is that fireman.

For the past 75 years, ever-increasing government interference into health care has led to a steady escalation of problems. The solution to the problems has always been more government interference. This has been mainly led by the openly socialist Democrats, but too often supported by Republicans (ex. – the HMO Act of 1973, SCHIP in 1997, and Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit).

The Editors themselves cite several examples of government-created problems. But once again, they don’t draw the obvious conclusions.

“When crisis hits, they land in emergency rooms, where steep costs drive up the health bill for all of us.”

Why do people who are unwilling or unable to pay their own way “drive up the health bill for all of us”? Because the government forces hospitals and doctors to treat all comers even if they can’t or won’t pay, whether the hospitals want to provide charitable care or not. This forces them to raise rates elsewhere, and causes states to tax the rest of us to subsidize the hospitals.

“For millions of middle-class families, the loss of a job has meant a loss in coverage.”

And exactly who created this absurd situation? The government did, by creating the third-party-payer health insurance system through its tax and regulatory policies, tying our insurance to our jobs.

“[The current bill] also ends the most obnoxious games that insurers play, like banning people with pre-existing conditions and imposing lifetime spending limits.”

“Pre-existing conditions” is a government-created condition, thanks to the aforementioned third-party-payer system, which forces you to find another insurer when you lose or change jobs – a situation that would not exist in a free market in which the patient/consumer actually owns his own policy. Did you ever wonder why you never hear of people losing their life insurance coverage because they contracted a life threatening illness or lost a job? It’s because people own their own policies, and they are guaranteed renewable. By contractual agreement, which is enforceable by the courts, the insurer cannot drop you as long as you pay your premiums (which is your responsibility, not your neighbor’s or other taxpayers).

Terms of contracts - such as “lifetime spending limits”, if any – are a matter between the insurance company and the customer. In our current system, the third party makes those decisions. Insurance companies can’t “impose” anything, at least not in a free market where there is real contractual freedom and competition (which, by the way, the government now forbids). They can only offer products for sale, which the consumers (which should be individuals spending their own earnings) are free to reject or accept. The most successful insurers in a free market would be those that are best at tailoring their products according to the needs and pocket books of the customers they seek.

Of course, if you don’t protect yourself and get sick, you must pay for your care out of pocket. You have no right to expect others to pay for it through government mandates on pre-existing conditions. But first, we need the freedom to take responsibility for our own lives, which only a free market can provide.

We need to get rid of the kinds of draconian government coercion that is crippling health care in this country, and restore the freedom of patients, providers, consumers, and insurers to contract directly and voluntarily with each other. Government has no right to dictate the contractual terms. Individual rights and personal responsibility are two sides of the same coin.

A true debate would begin with an examination of how we got to where we are today. Instead, we get an insane 2000 page blueprint for coercion to “fix” the problems created by government itself, and which is designed to ultimately fail, paving the way for a single-payer health care dictatorship.

The mawkish concern for the uninsured and the janitors and the “children [who] don't get the preventive care” is just a cover. The architects of this bill, and their supporters, are after power, and nothing else.

There’s no “milestone” here. There’s no “change”. There’s just another marker on the road to totalitarian government control of American medicine

Ayn Rand Misrepresentations @ Wake Forest

A sophomore at Wake Forest University has published an article in the campus newspaper entitled Objectivism conflicts with humanitarian spirit. The author, Matt Moran, dives headlong into a criticism which conflicts with the truth about Objectivism. He then engages in a lengthy dialogue with correspondents in the comments section, though he ignores mine. He repeats every conceivable argument for socialism and tyranny one can think of.

Mr. Moran is clearly a Marxist and a collectivist. He makes many false claims about what Ayn Rand allegedly stood for, such as that she “exhibits a worship of … corporations”, “envisions, unregulated corporate capitalism” (as opposed to laissez-faire capitalism), and “glorif[ies] the wealthy and show[s] contempt for the poor”.

Politically, Mr. Moran is an unabashed statist. He advocates pure tyranny, in the form of democracy: “I consider a moral social system to be a system which benefits the majority.” If the majority benefits from the enslavement of a racial minority, as in the pre-Civil War south, that presumably is all right.

At one point, he declares that the “government (i.e. not a dictatorship) as the tool of a society, reserves the right to tax people to fulfill other social needs and goals.” The contradictions in that statement are obvious.

On what basis does government have a “right” to redistribute anyone’s property and earnings to others? What about the rights of the individual victims of government confiscation? It’s either/or. Either individuals possess rights that are protected by government, or the government has the “right” to do whatever “society” pleases, at the behest of whatever voting block happens to seize control of the “tool” of state. Either a country is free, it is a dictatorship, or it is an unstable mixture of freedom and dictatorship (a mixed economy).

And in another comment: “If you don’t (sic) want welfare to exist, …the poor will either die or work bad jobs for bad money.” In other words, the “poor” are incapable of improving their own lives in a social setting of individual freedom. So, they must be enslaved to a benevolent socialist dictatorship “where survival and basic goods are guaranteed [by whom?]" so they can achieve “the maximization of creative potential[!]”. This society of slaves, slave masters, and profiteers on slavery represents freedom, and humanitarian concern for the poor! One cannot imagine a more contemptible example of “contempt for the poor”.

Mr. Moran’s comments are full of moral equivocations and relativism, floating abstractions (ideas disconnected from reality), rebellions against nature, anti-concepts, context-dropping, etc., etc., etc. I’ve given just a few examples. Other correspondents have called him on many of his absurdities.

Objectivism, of course, is the only intellectual force that defends both the political and moral rights of the individual to his own life, liberty, property, and pursuit of his own goals, values, and happiness from all human predators.

And this conflicts with the humanitarian spirit! Freedom is Slavery!


Here is my commentary, taking Matt Moran to task on one of his points:

Mike Zemack October 11, 2009 5:19 pm

By focusing in on Ragnar Danneskjold, the pirate character in Atlas Shrugged, Matt Moran reveals himself to be less than honest. He writes:

“Among the more impactful quotes in Atlas is the manifesto of a pirate named Ragner Danneskjold.

“This Dane steals from government ships in order to refund the taxes of wealthy individuals and states.

“Somewhere in one of Rand’s many sanctimonious speeches, Danneskjold steals from the undeserving poor and gives to the deserving rich’ in a sick twist of the Robin Hood story. This is, I kid you not, an action that Objectivism celebrates. Normally I would find it refreshing to listen to someone who thinks Americans are not selfish enough.

“However, I consider Objectivism and other philosophies that glorify the wealthy and show contempt for the poor to be sufficiently dangerous to warrant constant opposition.”

Mr. Moran is getting sloppy here. The encounter between Danneskjold and Reardon takes up some 13 pages (572-584, 11th printing, 1957 addition), and nowhere do the words he quotes appear. If he actually read the book (which is doubtful) and wanted to accurately report on the meaning of Danneskjold’s character and purpose, he would have stated the exact quote and the context and full meaning of it. Here is the passage to which he probably refers, which appears “somewhere” on page 576, along with further selected excerpts from Danneskjold’s statement for context and understanding.

“I’m the man … who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich.

“I have never robbed a private ship and never taken private property. Nor have I ever robbed a military vessel – because the purpose of a military fleet is to protect from violence the citizens who paid for it, which is the proper function of a government. But I have seized every loot-carrier that came within range of my guns, every government relief ship, subsidy ship, loan ship, gift ship, every vessel with a cargo of goods taken by force from some men for the unpaid, unearned benefit of others…

“It is said that [Robin Hood] fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those who had been robbed, but that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived. He is remembered, not as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became the justification … for that foulest of creatures – the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich – whom men have come to regard as a moral ideal.”

If Mr. Moran were to present an accurate portrayal, he would realize that Rand is here upholding justice – that you deserve what you earned but not what you haven’t. Rand condemns not the poor, but the “thieving” poor who exist off of a lifetime of government handouts; not the rich but the productive rich. A full understanding makes it plain that – and this is one of the clear messages of the book – Rand is defending the property of any human being, on any economic level, who earns his own keep – and condemning all moochers, rich as well as poor, such as the wealthy parasites who are the villains in AS.

Rand also does not condemn charity as such, but coercive charity and the phonies – the “double-parasites” – who seek the unearned prestige of practicing “humanitarianism” with other peoples tax money under the “halo of virtue” called altruism. Altruism, as Rand has proven for anyone with the courage and independence to question the accepted “wisdom” of the ages, does not mean benevolence, good will, or true compassion. Instead, it is a moral code that enshrines the unearned as a moral absolute, thus fostering envy, the entitlement mentality, resentment of achievement, and predatory collectivism – cancers that are slowly consuming this country.

Mr. Moran’s article is riddled with inaccuracies and irrelevancies, belying his statement that “I have, to date, tortured my eyes with Atlas Shrugged, the Fountainhead, Anthem, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness.” I have addressed one of them. There’s nothing wrong with criticism, of course. Unfortunately, his criticism of Rand comes at us not from a standpoint of understanding, but from a somewhat Marxist narrative.

Objectivism stands up for every individual person’s right to his own life (rational selfishness), not the right to prey on others for his own ends. It is, first and foremost, a comprehensive set of philosophical principles to guide the individual in his personal endeavors and in his relationships with others. As such, Objectivism provides a moral defense of individualism, capitalism, and America’s founding ideals as laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Ayn Rand is, I firmly believe, America’s last Founding Father because of her philosophic achievement. I urge everyone to study Objectivism and decide for himself. I’m confident that he will learn that Objectivism is a truly humanitarian philosophy.

Lessons of 1929

The New Jersey Star-Ledger has posted an editorial on 10/29/09, entitled Stock market crash anniversary: Lessons unlearned. They wrote:

"In the years that followed [1929], economists, politicians and Wall Street’s overpaid optimists assured one and all they’d learned from the orgy of greed and excess. It wouldn’t happen again. The Feds had saved the system and put new regulations in place to prevent a repeat. Trust us, they said. And in our ignorance, we did.

"Over time, the lessons of 1929 were made to seem irrelevant and outdated, especially in the go-go economic climate of the 1980s. Layer by layer, 1930s regulations were stripped away. Under pressure from Wall Street, free-market fundamentalists and their acolytes in the press, deregulation was promoted and accepted — by Democrats as well as Republicans — as vital in the emerging global economy.

"The 1929-2009 parallels don’t end there. Post-1929 Wall Street’s leaders fought regulation fiercely; likewise their current-day descendants. Whether it’s regulation of derivatives (the value of which few buyers or sellers understood), higher bank capital requirements, or protection for consumers, Wall Street’s current captains of capitalism are against it.

"Will they win Congress to their side? When have they not? There’s much talk of the need to tighten the reins on Wall Street, especially the trading of billlions [sic] in securities backed by such uncertain assets as mortgages and credit card debt. But legislation remains stalled.

"In this country, Paul Volker has sounded the "too-big" warning. And he’s called for reinstating Glass-Steagall. Volker’s the guy who broke the 1980-81 inflationary recession and set the stage for a generation-long economic expansion.

"Maybe we should listen. Beats laying another egg."

Here is my commentary:

Posted by zemack
October 29, 2009, 8:09PM

Substitute the words “Wall Street” with the name of any ethnic group, and the injustice and bigotry implied in the use of that scapegoat become obvious. Throw in the undefinablely vague bogeymen “greed and excess”, and you’ve got the classic one-two punch beloved of all statists. That’s all they need to whitewash the real causes of the litany of economic catastrophes listed by the Editors.

The Fed’s excess money and credit expansion and then contraction fueled the stock market bubble and crash of the late 1920s. The crash, however, did not cause the depression. The market began to recover almost immediately, just like after the much larger 1987 crash. But unlike 1987, the rally ensued until mid-1930 when the Smoot-Hawley tariff act, the first of a series of disastrous government attempts to “save” the economy, was enacted. As the farm economy subsequently contracted, bank after bank collapsed under the weight of anti-branching, anti-diversification rules and other incompetent banking regulations. The Fed-engineered 30% shrinking of the money supply, massive “public works” projects that further drained capital from the economy, massive tax hikes, etc., etc., etc, crushed the economy. The Hoover-Roosevelt Depression was on. The power-hungry, mad economic scientists of the FDR administration, building on the policy foundation of the statist Herbert Hoover, then embarked upon a crippling array of actions that stretched the depression right through the end of WW II. If ever there could be proof of the failure of government economic intervention, this period of American history is the poster child.

But as the Editors say, we haven’t learned much. The S&L fiasco was brought on by the grossly misnamed Federal Deposit “Insurance” Corporation, a socialist-like scheme that promotes risky bank lending while draining responsible banks, their depositors, and taxpayers who bail them out (the so-called privatization of profits and the socialization of losses).

The current crisis is unequivocally “made in Washington”. Deregulation? Who controls money, the raw material of the banking industry? Who sets reserve requirements, interest rates, accounting standards, and every other conceivable aspect of finance? Exactly what regulatory authority did the government rescind during the alleged “deregulation” wave of the past quarter century? Repeal of Glass-Steagall is the only thing the Editors can point to, and it was not even culpable in the meltdown. Regulation actually increased on the banks (remember Sarbanes-Oxley?).

“Captains of capitalism”? Where does anyone see capitalism? The financial sector is the most heavily regulated American industry, operating under the thumb of a central bank money monopoly. The fed, in fact, is once again the prime culprit. Led by a central planning statist masquerading as a “free market fundamentalist”, the Fed pursued extraordinarily easy money policies without which the basic cause of the recession, the housing bubble, couldn’t have happened. As always, excessive risk-taking is merely a consequence of incompetent Federal Reserve policy. Fannie & Freddie, the FDIC, the CRA, the government’s very own “Too big to fail” policies, and the Clinton/Bush affordable housing crusades, among other things, did the rest.

As to Paul Volcker, I disagree on reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. The diversification enabled by its repeal fosters stronger institutions. What should be repealed is the government’s bailout addiction, which encourages to big to fail “mastodons of the market [like] JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs…” As to Volcker being “the guy who broke the 1980-81 inflationary recession and set the stage for a generation-long economic expansion”, the Editors conveniently forget that he caved in to election year pressure from the Carter administration in the spring of 1980, abruptly reversing course and setting the stage for an even worse “second dip” in the recession. As BanditGuy points out, it was President Reagan who gave Volcker political cover to return to some semblance of sound monetary policy, at great political cost to himself.

Some vague notions of “Wall Street” and “greed” are all the Star-Ledger editors have to hang their hats on. Everywhere one looks, one sees the hand of government intervention making a mockery of free markets. The real lessons of the past century are a history of catastrophic government policies creating economic havoc, with freedom and capitalism getting the blame, leading to more government controls, and so on. The current Washington assault on individual rights, the constitution, the rule of law, and the remnants of free markets is a continuation of the same disastrous trend, “on steroids”.