Diplomacy Encourages North Korea’s Belligerence

Washington, D.C., May 28, 2009–In reaction to North Korea’s explosion of what appears to have been a nuclear device and its launching of long-range missiles, Elan Journo, fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, said America should stop appeasing North Korea’s dictatorial regime and face up to the enormous threat it poses.

“The US should stop rewarding North Korea for its aggression.

“North Korea has become a significant threat precisely because we have appeased it for years with boatloads of oil, food and money.

“The pattern of America’s suicidal diplomacy is clear: the North threatens us, we respond with negotiations, gifts and concessions, and it emerges with even greater belligerence.”

According to Mr. Journo, this cycle of appeasement was made possible by the fact that our political and intellectual leaders cling to the amoral fiction that North Korea shares the basic goal of prosperity and peace. “This fantasy,” said Mr. Journo, “underlies the notion that the right mix of economic aid and military concessions can dissuade North Korea from its nuclear ambition. It evades the fact that the North is a militant dictatorship that acquires and maintains its power by force, looting the wealth of its enslaved citizens and threatening to do the same to its neighbors.

“Years of rewarding a petty dictatorship for its belligerent actions did not disarm it, but helped it become a significant threat to America.

“There is only one solution to the ‘North Korea problem’,” concluded Mr. Journo: “the United States and its allies must abandon the suicidal policy of appeasement.”

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Sotomayor Unqualified for Supreme Court

Washington, D.C. – May 27, 2009–“Judge Sonia Sotomayor is unqualified to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States,” said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. Sotomayor was nominated yesterday for the seat being vacated by the retiring Justice David Souter.

“What disqualifies Judge Sotomayor,” said Bowden in his new commentary at the Voices for Reason blog, “is a judicial philosophy that explicitly rejects objectivity and impartiality. She has declared that ‘the aspiration to impartiality is just that–it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact’ that ‘our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions.’

“Elsewhere in her 2001 speech titled ‘A Latina Judge’s Voice,’ she noted that judges are typically unable to ‘transcend . . . personal sympathies and prejudices’ and that ‘gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.’ She also stated that ‘there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives.’

“Referring repeatedly to her ‘Latina soul’ and ‘Latina identity,’ Sotomayor rejected the view often expressed by the Court’s first female Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, that ‘a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.’

“On the contrary, Sotomayor said, ‘I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.’

“This is a blatant endorsement of subjective emotional decision-making, which has no place on the Court and will swiftly corrupt what’s left of its integrity,” said Bowden.

“The Supreme Court has a solemn duty to interpret and apply the Constitution. That is an intellectual task requiring ruthless objectivity–which, contrary to Judge Sotomayor, is not an illusory ‘aspiration’ but a requirement of justice.

“A conscientious judge strives to banish all emotional influences from the decision-making process. But here is Judge Sotomayor declaring herself helpless to resist–indeed, even welcoming–the influence of personal intuitions that cannot be grasped or shared by persons of another gender or ethnicity.

“Although Judge Sotomayor has many of the tools necessary for service on the Supreme Court–judicial experience, intelligence, legal knowledge–she has adopted a philosophy of judging that makes all of those qualities irrelevant.

“The Senate Judiciary Committee should expose Judge Sotomayor’s dangerous judicial philosophy, and the Senate should vote to reject her nomination.”

Over a Million Ayn Rand Novels in Classrooms This Year

IRVINE, CA, May 18, 2009–As part of its mission to promote Ayn Rand’s ideas in today’s culture, during this school year the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) shipped 350,000 free copies of Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged to high school teachers across North America. Adding these books to those sent in recent years, and which remain in classrooms today, ARI estimates that more than 1 million students studied Ayn Rand’s novels in 25,000 classrooms this year. More than 32,000 teachers and 1.4 million students have participated in this program since it began in 2002. The program is funded through the generosity of ARI’s contributors.

Each school year ARI distributes promotional flyers that offer free classroom sets of Ayn Rand’s novels to English and language arts teachers, department heads and principals, as well as selected counselors and high school administrators. “This offer,” said Marilee Dahl, ARI’s Education department manager, “is available to both public and private high schools throughout the United States and Canada.”

“Each teacher who requests these books,” explained Ms. Dahl, “receives a classroom set of the novels, along with a teacher’s guide, lesson plans and information about ARI’s annual Anthem, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged essay contests. We also offer phone and e-mail support to teachers, as needed, to facilitate their teaching of the books in their classes. The response has been fantastic and a very positive sign for America’s future.”

More information on the Free Books to Teachers program is available at the Ayn Rand Institute’s Web site.

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To interview Ms. Marilee Dahl or for more information on ARI’s educational programs, please contact: media@aynrand.org

Atlas Shrugged Triples in Sales

Irvine, CA, May 12, 2009 – Reports from trade sources indicate that consumer purchases of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged have tripled in the first four months of 2009 compared to the first four months of 2008.

According to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, “The tripling in sales of Atlas Shrugged is remarkable, especially considering that in 2008 a new all-time record in annual sales of the novel was established with more than 200,000 copies sold in the United States.”

As Dr. Brook pointed out, “Annual sales of Atlas Shrugged have been increasing for decades to a level not seen in Ayn Rand’s lifetime. Sales of the U.S. paperback editions averaged 74,000 copies a year in the 1980s, 95,000 copies a year in the 1990s and 139,000 copies a year in the current decade. After reaching an all-time high during the novel’s 50th anniversary in 2007, another new high was reached in 2008 and an even higher mark is expected for 2009.”

More than 6,500,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged have been sold to date.

“As America faces a devastating economic crisis fundamentally caused by government policies, it is a hopeful sign for the future that increasing numbers of concerned Americans are turning to Atlas Shrugged and discovering Ayn Rand’s original morality of rational egoism and her uncompromising defense of laissez faire capitalism.”

CO2 Restrictions Threaten Human Life

CO2 Restrictions Threaten Human Life

Washington, D.C., April 30, 2009–The Environmental Protection Agency’s “finding” that carbon dioxide emissions endanger “the health and welfare of current and future generations” is absurd, said Alex Epstein, analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. According to Mr. Epstein, the real danger to Americans’ “health and welfare” is policies designed to fight global warming by throttling energy sources that emit CO2.

“Carbon energy has been and remains vital to the industrial society that has doubled human life-expectancies, and, among a million other benefits, enables us to cope with all manner of changes in climate.

“Right now,” Mr. Epstein pointed out, “carbon-based sources of energy produce the most, cheapest energy, period—while sunshine and wind gusts, despite decades of subsidies and propaganda, produce an expensive 1 percent of our energy.

“If scientists and entrepreneurs can discover and implement superior sources that happen not to emit CO2, at better prices than today’s energy sources, great. But whether that happens or not, we need to recognize that our ‘health and welfare’ depend on free markets producing industrial-scale energy above all else—and that anyone who tries to shut down life-giving coal plants and oil rigs, in the name of avoiding bad weather, is an enemy of humanity.”

 

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Supreme Court Abets the FCC’s War on Free Speech

The Supreme Court Abets the FCC’s War on Free Speech

Washington, D.C., April 28, 2009–Today the Supreme Court ruled in FCC v. Fox that the FCC can continue to fine broadcasters for “fleeting expletives.” According to Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights:

“The Court failed to address the basic constitutional question in this case: are the non-objective ‘indecency’ laws that permit the FCC to dictate what Americans can say and hear on the airwaves consistent with the right to free speech? The answer to that is: absolutely not.

“The Supreme Court has defined ‘indecency’ as speech that ‘depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities and organs in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards.’ But which Americans count as part of the community? Why are they king? And how are broadcasters to divine the community’s supposedly shared standards?

“As the history of the government’s anti-indecency regime has shown, these questions are unanswerable. The only way for broadcasters to play it safe is to engage in self-censorship, cutting any material regulators might declare indecent.

“And once the government becomes the enforcer of ‘community standards,’ no speech is safe. How long until the courts start rubber-stamping the Bible Belt’s efforts to suppress the theory of evolution on the grounds that it many find it offensive, or that it supposedly corrupts young minds and undermines community values?

“The government must stop telling Americans what we can say and hear on the airwaves. Sadly, the Supreme Court failed to take this opportunity to protect our constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech.”

 

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How to End Piracy in the High Seas

How to End Piracy in the High Seas

Washington, D.C., April 20, 2009–In a dramatic rescue operation a week ago, U.S. Navy Seals succeeded in freeing Capt. Richard Phillips from captivity by Somali pirates.
 
According to Elan Journo, analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, even though the operation was successful, it did not teach the pirates the appropriate lesson, as evidenced by news of a pirate attack on another American-flagged ship, the Liberty Sun.
 
“The pirates have not been deterred,” said Mr. Journo, “because we have emboldened them for years through an entrenched policy of passivity and accommodation–and the freeing of Capt. Phillips was unfortunately just one halting step in a better direction.
 
“What we need–in response to piracy as well as other foreign threats–is an across-the-board reversal in U.S. policy. When, for example, it became clear more than a year ago that the waters off the coast of Somalia are a playground for pirates, the minimum that Washington should have done was to lay down an ultimatum to the pirates to leave Americans alone or else–and lived up to it.
 
“The substance of that warning: if any American vessel is captured by pirates, we will use military force to destroy every last pirate base in Somalia. When such a threat of retaliation is made fully credible, it can be sufficient to deter would-be aggressors. If any dare test us, then we must unapologetically respond with force.
 
“When America has once again earned a reputation as a power that none dare cross,” Mr. Journo concluded, “we won’t have to worry about pirates.”

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Obama Evades Government’s Role in the Crisis

Obama Evades Government’s Role in the Crisis

Washington, D.C., April 10, 2009–In an op-ed published this week by Canada’s Financial Post, Alex Epstein, analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, argued that “In calling for a massive increase in government control over the economy,” Obama “has evaded the mountain of evidence implicating the government.”
 
The primary cause of the current crisis, explained Mr. Epstein, was “drastic attempts by the government to control the housing and financial markets–via a Federal Reserve that cut interest rates to all-time lows, and via a gigantic increase in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s size and influence.” Through these entities, Epstein pointed out, “the government sought to ‘stimulate the economy’ and promote homeownership by artificially extending cheap credit to home-buyers.”
 
But, Mr. Epstein noted, Obama did not mention the Fed, Fannie, or Freddie even once, during his recent 52-minute speech to Congress. “Not once did he suggest that government manipulation of markets could have any possible role in the present crisis. He just went full steam ahead and called for more spending, more intervention, and more government housing programs as the solution.”
 
But the “fundamental solution to our problems,” said Epstein, is “to disentangle the government from the markets to prevent future manipulation.” To achieve that, Epstein concluded, we need to consider “pro-free-market remedies such as letting banks foreclose, letting prices reach market levels, letting bad banks fail, dismantling Fannie and Freddie, ending bailout promises, and getting rid of the Fed’s power to manipulate interest rates.”

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Supporters of Smoking Bans Are Ignoring a Crucial Danger

By Don Watkins (Santa Monica Daily Press, March 23, 2009)

Referring to my March 12 op-ed criticizing a proposal to further restrict smoking in Newport Beach, Jack Neworth accuses me of ignoring “the reason for smoking bans–the dangers of second-hand smoke.” But it’s the supporters of smoking bans who are ignoring a crucial danger: the danger of allowing the government to violate private property rights.

Is second-hand smoke obnoxious? Some of us think so–just as some of us think certain kinds of music are obnoxious. Can second-hand smoke pose certain risks? Perhaps–just as certain foods may put us in danger of developing various diseases. Property rights protect our ability to make these kinds of assessments, and thereby pursue our health and happiness. If you abhor second-hand smoke, for instance, you can refuse to allow smokers into your home or your restaurant.

But by the same token, you must recognize others’ right to allow smoking in their home or restaurant. That means if the owner of your favorite diner wants to let customers light up, you can voluntarily choose to tolerate the smoke, try to persuade the owner to change his policy, or take your business elsewhere–but you can’t force him to comply with your views. To be free to act on your own judgment, you have to leave others free to act on theirs.

While supporters of smoking bans may cheer today, they should keep in mind: there is no telling what voluntary activity a government that rejects property rights will ban tomorrow.

The Real Meaning of Earth Hour

By Keith Lockitch (March 23, 2009)

On Saturday, March 28, cities around the world will turn off their lights to observe “Earth Hour.” Iconic landmarks from the Sydney Opera House to Manhattan’s skyscrapers will be darkened to encourage reduced energy use and signal a commitment to fighting climate change.

While a one-hour blackout will admittedly have little effect on carbon emissions, what matters, organizers say, is the event’s symbolic meaning. That’s true, but not in the way organizers intend.

We hear constantly that the debate is over on climate change–that man-made greenhouse gases are indisputably causing a planetary emergency. But there is ample scientific evidence to reject the claims of climate catastrophe. And what’s never mentioned? The fact that reducing greenhouse gases to the degree sought by climate activists would, itself, cause significant harm.

Politicians and environmentalists, including those behind Earth Hour, are not calling on people just to change a few light bulbs, they are calling for a truly massive reduction in carbon emissions–as much as 80 percent below 1990 levels. Because our energy is overwhelmingly carbon-based (fossil fuels provide more than 80 percent of world energy), and because the claims of abundant “green energy” from breezes and sunbeams are a myth–this necessarily means a massive reduction in our energy use.

People don’t have a clear view of what this would mean in practice. We, in the industrialized world, take our abundant energy for granted and don’t consider just how much we benefit from its use in every minute of every day. Driving our cars to work and school, sitting in our lighted, heated homes and offices, powering our computers and countless other labor-saving appliances, we count on the indispensable values that industrial energy makes possible: hospitals and grocery stores, factories and farms, international travel and global telecommunications. It is hard for us to project the degree of sacrifice and harm that proposed climate policies would force upon us.

This blindness to the vital importance of energy is precisely what Earth Hour exploits. It sends the comforting-but-false message: Cutting off fossil fuels would be easy and even fun! People spend the hour stargazing and holding torch-lit beach parties; restaurants offer special candle-lit dinners. Earth Hour makes the renunciation of energy seem like a big party.

Participants spend an enjoyable sixty minutes in the dark, safe in the knowledge that the life-saving benefits of industrial civilization are just a light switch away. This bears no relation whatsoever to what life would actually be like under the sort of draconian carbon-reduction policies that climate activists are demanding: punishing carbon taxes, severe emissions caps, outright bans on the construction of power plants.

Forget one measly hour with just the lights off. How about Earth Month, without any form of fossil fuel energy? Try spending a month shivering in the dark without heating, electricity, refrigeration; without power plants or generators; without any of the labor-saving, time-saving, and therefore life-saving products that industrial energy makes possible.

Those who claim that we must cut off our carbon emissions to prevent an alleged global catastrophe need to learn the indisputable fact that cutting off our carbon emissions would be a global catastrophe. What we really need is greater awareness of just how indispensable carbon-based energy is to human life (including, of course, to our ability to cope with any changes in the climate).

It is true that the importance of Earth Hour is its symbolic meaning. But that meaning is the opposite of the one intended. The lights of our cities and monuments are a symbol of human achievement, of what mankind has accomplished in rising from the cave to the skyscraper. Earth Hour presents the disturbing spectacle of people celebrating those lights being extinguished. Its call for people to renounce energy and to rejoice at darkened skyscrapers makes its real meaning unmistakably clear: Earth Hour symbolizes the renunciation of industrial civilization.

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