What to Resolve This New Year

What to Resolve This New Year

By Alex Epstein (January 1, 2009)

Given the devastated state of many Americans’ finances, our New Year’s resolutions will take on greater significance this year. To “get out of debt” was often a casually stated goal to be set as midnight approached and forgotten soon after; today it is rightly recognized as a fundamental necessity of life.

Unfortunately, the New Year’s commitment to self-improvement is widely viewed with cynicism–in part because New Year’s resolutions go so notoriously unmet. After years of watching others–or themselves–excitedly commit to a new goal, only to abandon the quest by March, many come to conclude that New Year’s resolutions are an exercise in futility that should not be taken seriously. “The silly season is upon us,” writes a columnist for the Washington Post, “when people feel compelled to remake themselves with New Year’s resolutions.”

But this attitude is false and self-destructive. Making New Year’s resolutions does not have to be futile–and to make them is not silly. Done seriously, it is an act of profound moral significance that embodies the essence of a life well-lived.

Consider what a New Year’s resolution consists of: we look at where we are in some area of life, think about where we want to be, and then set ourselves a goal to get there. We are tired of feeling chubby and lethargic, say, and want the improved appearance and greater energy level that comes with greater fitness. So we resolve to take up a fun athletic activity–like tennis or a martial art–and plan to do it three times a week.

Is this a laughable act of self-delusion? Hardly. If it were, then how would anyone ever achieve anything in life? In fact, to make a New Year’s resolution is to recognize the undeniable reality that successful goal-pursuit is possible–the reality that everyone at one time or another has set and achieved long-range goals, and profited from doing so. Indeed, not only is it possible to achieve long-range goals, it is necessary for success in life. To make a New Year’s resolution is also to recognize the undeniable reality that secure finances, rewarding careers, and romances do not just happen automatically–that to get what we want in our lives, we must consciously choose and achieve the right goals. We must be goal-directed.

Unfortunately, a goal-directed orientation is missing to a large extent in too many lives. It is all too easy to live life passively, acting without carefully deciding what one is doing with one’s life and why. How many people do you know who are in the career they fell into out of school, even if it is not very satisfying–or who have children at a certain age because that’s what is expected, even if it’s not what they really want–or who spend endless hours of “free time” in front of the TV, since that’s the most readily available form of relaxation–or who follow a life routine that they never really chose and don’t truly enjoy, but which has the force of habit?

Too often, the goal-directedness embodied by New Year’s resolutions is the exception in lives ruled by passively accepted forces–unexamined routine, short-range desires, or alleged duties. It is the passive approach to happiness that makes so many resolutions peter out, lost in the shuffle of life or abandoned due to lost motivation. More broadly than its impact on New Year’s resolutions, the passive approach to happiness is the reason that so many go through life without ever getting–or even knowing–what they really want.

It is a sad irony that those who write off New Year’s resolutions because so many fail reinforces the passive approach to life that causes so many resolutions–and so many other dreams–to fail. The solution to failed New Year’s resolutions is not to abandon the practice, but to supplement it with a broader resolution–a commitment to a goal-directed life.

This New Year’s, resolve to think about how to make your life better, not just once a year, but every day. Resolve to set goals, not just in one or two aspects of life, but in every important aspect and in your life as a whole. Resolve to pursue the goals that will make you successful and happy, not as the exception in a life of passivity, but as the rule that becomes second-nature.

If you do this, you will be resolving to do the most important thing of all: to take your happiness seriously.

 

 

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Bush’s Pro-Democracy Strategy Is Pro-Terrorism

Washington, D.C. – The acts of war by Hamas against Israel are precisely what people should expect from Bush’s so-called democracy strategy in the Middle East.

The administration campaigned for elections in the strongholds of various Islamist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that it should have worked to destroy. In the Palestinian territories, Bush insisted that Hamas be allowed to participate in the 2006 elections–and the jihadist group won a landslide. Thanks to that political victory, Hamas gained an unearned legitimacy for its vicious war to exterminate Israelis and Westerners. Winning power with the aid of their enemy confirmed for these Islamists that the West will abet its own destroyers.

America’s self-defense entails crushing Islamic totalitarianism–not ushering its jihadists into political office and galvanizing them to redouble their war against us.

Let Them Fail

By Amit Ghate

Everywhere today politicians are blaring that they must save America’s financial institutions, alleging catastrophic risk to the economy were any to fail. Paulson and the entire Bush administration, in a discernible panic, are now pouring $700 billion into the big banks, having already bailed out AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns to the tune of $300 billion.

Capitalism doesn’t work, they declare, but fortunately the government is here to rescue us.

Sadly, they have it all backwards. The credit crisis is just more evidence that whenever the government supplants the free market and attempts to “manage,” i.e., control, the economy–disaster ensues.
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No Copyright Exceptions

By Thomas A. Bowden (New York Times, October 28, 2008)

Re “Copyright and Politics Don’t Mix” (column, Oct. 21):

Lawrence Lessig’s proposal for copyright reform commits the same error as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Both take for granted that lawmakers should be carving up speech into political, commercial, artistic, and other categories, and then offering different legal protection according to how society values the output.

But speech is speech, and the individual speaks by right, not permission. Just as political speech deserves full First Amendment protection, it deserves full copyright protection as well. Media outlets that profit from disseminating political statements should have ready access to procedures for enforcing their property rights against YouTube or other infringers. That’s not censorship; that’s justice.

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Frontline Heats Up Global Warming Alarmism

Washington, DC –On Tuesday evening, PBS premiered Heat, a Frontline documentary exploring the economics and politics of climate change. After travelling the world interviewing corporate CEOs and political leaders, Frontline correspondent Martin Smith argues that a “huge and concerted push from government” is necessary to prevent a major catastrophe.

But according to Keith Lockitch, fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights: “A huge push from government on climate change would be a major catastrophe.

“One thing the documentary shows pretty clearly is the repeated failure of government economic intervention–especially in the form of policies aimed at centrally planning energy production, such as government subsidies for corn ethanol. These have distorted world food markets by diverting billions of taxpayer dollars away from investments that market participants would have freely chosen and into the production of corn for burning up in our gas tanks, with the resulting distortions to world food prices causing food riots and starvation.

“Government policies aimed at severely restricting carbon emissions would inflict a major blow to the economy. Industrial-scale energy is an indispensable, life-saving value, and currently there is simply no practical way to produce abundant carbon-free energy. Nuclear power could generate substantial amounts of electricity, but environmentalists have consistently fought it tooth and nail. And even nuclear can’t fuel the internal combustion engines of the world’s 800 million oil-powered vehicles.

“The more important point is that there is no need whatsoever to restrict carbon emissions,” said Lockitch. “The scientific jury is still out on the extent of man’s contribution to global warming. But even if we are causing large-scale changes to the climate–this is not a planetary emergency. If individuals on the free market can smoothly absorb the major transitions that occurred in moving from the horse and buggy to the automobile or the rapid population growth that accompanied the Industrial Revolution, they can adapt to large-scale climate change. The freer we are from the burdens of government intervention, the more we can continue to produce wealth, economic growth, and the means of adapting to whatever changes occur, if any.

“The irony is that the very policies that people are pushing for in the name of fighting global warming–such as a massive expansion of government control over the production and consumption of energy–would severely reduce our ability to cope with nature. This would inflict upon us an economic catastrophe far worse than anything the climate could deliver.

“The real threat we face is not the possibility of large-scale changes to the climate, but the much more dangerous possibility of drastic government policies enacted in the name of climate change.”

Dr. Lockitch has a PhD in Physics from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. His writings have appeared in publications such as the Orange County Register and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Jail Time for Blasphemy Under Religious Constitution

Washington, D.C. –“The 20-year jail sentence for blasphemy handed down to Sayad Kambakhsh in Afghanistan this week is the kind of outrage to be expected under any constitution that enshrines Islam as the state religion and the Koran as the supreme law of the land,” said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

A council of mullahs acting under court authority had originally decreed capital punishment for Kambakhsh, a 24-year-old journalism student charged with possessing anti-Islamic books, starting un-Islamic debates in class, and downloading and distributing Internet articles saying that Muhammad ignored women’s rights. That death sentence, which was endorsed by Afghanistan’s upper house of parliament, has now been overturned on appeal.

“In 2006, mobs of clerics were clamoring for the death of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan whose ‘crime’ was converting to Christianity,” Bowden said. “And now, Sayad Kambakhsh faces two decades in jail unless an international outcry embarrasses Afghanistan’s government into lifting the sentence.

“Criminal punishment of blasphemy is fundamentally unjust and outrageous, and ad hoc protests offer no long-term solution. If Islam’s stranglehold on Afghanistan’s government is to end, that nation must adopt an American-style constitution protecting individual rights, including freedom of speech and religion. The strict separation of church and state erects an institutional barrier to religious persecution, as American history shows.

“But a nation that exalts mystical dogma and tribal allegiances cannot be expected to think in such terms. ‘The guy should be hanged,’ said an 18-year-old student at the American University in Kabul, at the time of Kambakhsh’s death sentence. Added a Muslim cleric: ‘He should be punished so that others can learn from him.’ For such people, freedom is an intolerable obstacle to the overriding goal of enforcing Islam.

“When the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan, its stated policy was to promote ‘democracy.’ That policy has now achieved its exact aim. The Afghan government reflects the democratic will of the people. The people want to punish blasphemers, and their constitution allows them to do so lawfully.

“Bush’s policy was based on his delusional belief that Afghans are as freedom-loving as Americans. But what they truly value is religion. Sayad Kambakhsh is living–at least for now–proof that religion injected into government is hostile to freedom.”

Mr. Bowden is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, focusing on legal issues. A former lawyer and law school instructor, who practiced for twenty years in Baltimore, Maryland, his op-eds have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Daily News, and many other newspapers. Mr. Bowden has given dozens of radio interviews and has appeared on FOX News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes.

McBama vs. America

Who: Craig Biddle, editor and publisher of “The Objective Standard”

What: A talk examining the presidential candidates’ platforms and showing that their aims are at odds with the American ideal of individual rights. A Q&A will follow.

Where: Hilton Costa Mesa, 3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA 92626

When: Wednesday, October 29, 2008, at 7:30 pm

Admission is FREE.

Description: While John McCain and Barack Obama struggle to distinguish themselves in terms of particular promises, it is crucial for Americans to recognize that these candidates are indistinguishable in terms of fundamentals.

In this talk, Craig Biddle, editor of “The Objective Standard,” examines the candidates’ platforms, identifies essential similarities among their proposals, and shows their aims to be manifestly at odds with the American ideal of individual rights. Mr. Biddle then zeros in on the purpose of government presumed by the candidates’ goals, shows this purpose to be an expression of a particular moral philosophy shared by these men and by most Americans, and demonstrates that this morality is the root cause of the abysmal alternative we now face. Finally, Mr. Biddle specifies the moral principles that Americans must grasp if we want to generate future candidates who will return government to its proper purpose of protecting our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.

Bio: Craig Biddle is the editor and publisher of “The Objective Standard” and the author of “Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It.” In addition to writing, he lectures and teaches workshops on ethical and epistemological issues from an Objectivist perspective.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrand.org.

The Road to Fascism

Washington, D.C. – The government has announced that it plans to use $250 billion to buy ownership stakes in various U.S. financial institutions. According to the New York Times, nine major U.S. banks have already been forced into the program.

“The chief executives of the nine largest banks in the United States . . . were each handed a one-page document that said they agreed to sell shares to the government, then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said they must sign it before they left. . . . ‘It was a take it or take it offer,’ said one person who was briefed on the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. ‘Everyone knew there was only one answer’”–even though at least one institution, the relatively healthy Wells Fargo, wanted to say no.

According to Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, “In herding banking executives into a room and making them an offer they couldn’t refuse, the Paulson regime took its latest and most disturbing step yet on the path to state control of the economy.

“If fascism means coercive state control over nominally private property, then there is no more chilling sign of creeping fascism in America than government’s encroachment on the lifeblood of the U.S. economy–its financial institutions. While the government assures us it will be a ‘passive investor,’ merely funneling cash into the banking system rather than dictating how banks function, this is a lie. Not only does the money come with strings attached–such as restrictions on executive compensation, dividend payments, and the types of investments banks can make–but politicians are already promising a web of further controls. As John McCain recently noted, ‘We will not merely inject billions of dollars into companies and walk away hoping for the best. We will require that those companies be reformed and restructured until they are sound assets again, and can be sold at no loss–or perhaps even a profit–to the taxpayers of America.’

“The Paulson shakedown is the latest in a rapid-fire series of government bailouts and interventions over the last several months. Our leaders claim that this virtual takeover of markets is economically necessary. But it was government control of financial markets that spawned the financial meltdown in the first place: an inflationary boom brought on by the Fed’s easy-money policies, a campaign to promote home ownership that encouraged risky loans, regulations that pushed banks to become dangerously over-leveraged, etc., etc. The response to the crisis should be to restore freedom and to disentangle government from the economy. Instead, the same mentality and the same central planners that created the financial crisis are being given far wider reign to manipulate and distort markets. We must tell our government to reverse this fascist course–now.

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel, CNN, CNBC, and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

Ayn Rand Saw This Coming

Washington, D.C. –“Despite overwhelming evidence that government policies caused the current financial crisis, Congress is blaming businessmen,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “What’s worse, the capitalists who have been shackled with unprecedented regulatory burdens are unable to defend themselves morally. Though the events are different, this pattern of abuse and submission is straight out of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

“The cycle starts with government intervening into the economy and imposing regulations and controls on business. This distorts the free market, leading to economic dislocations. When the problems caused by these distortions inevitably follow, everyone blames the free market and its greedy capitalists. The proposed solution? More government controls. Over the years, conservative critics of creeping government have repeatedly exposed this illogic but have always been helpless to explain why the cycle keeps repeating, decade after decade.

“The pattern keeps recurring because businessmen are willing to take the blame. From capitalism’s inception, its defenders have been morally disarmed by the widespread view that self-interest is morally suspect, and disinterested service to others is a moral ideal. So each new spate of controls has been grudgingly accepted as a fair price to pay for society’s toleration of the selfish pursuit of profit.

“Atlas Shrugged depicted a society in economic collapse due to this recurring cycle, and today’s parallels are obvious. Government manipulation of money, credit, and lending standards over several decades caused the mess we’re in. Now, the offered solution is more of the poison that sickened the economy–more bailouts, more cheap money, more government-guaranteed loans, and above all, more regulations.

“This chronic cycle will not end until businessmen accept that their production of profit is neither immoral nor amoral–it is the capstone of moral virtue. Once they shrug off the role of scapegoat, businessmen can demand with moral certitude that government punish fraud and enforce contracts but refrain from interfering with voluntary trades among consenting adults.

“When America’s markets are finally free of all coercion–in other words, when laissez-faire is achieved–financial crises such as the one we’re experiencing will never happen again.”

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

Unions Tout "Free Choice," Except for Employers

Washington, D.C. – If Democrats gain control of Congress this November, they are likely to enact some version of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which would revamp the way employees choose whether to endorse a labor union. Under current law, employees vote anonymously. But under the new scheme, they would vote with signed cards, open to union inspection, showing each employee’s name and vote.

“Even by Washington standards, this proposal is high hypocrisy,” said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “This misnamed law claims to promote free choice for employees, but where’s the freedom for employers? Companies are forced by law to recognize and bargain with any union approved by a majority of employees–no choice allowed. Why is nobody speaking up for their rights?

“In a free society, the law would recognize the absolute right of companies and employees to deal with each other on an entirely voluntary basis. That means an employer would be free to bargain with workers individually, or through a union, as the parties’ economic self-interest dictates.

“Opponents of the proposed law fear, with good reason, that unions would intimidate anti-union workers into casting pro-union votes. But such problems arise only when government grants unions special privileges. In an unregulated labor market, if union promoters resorted to intimidation, a company would boot them from the premises, just as it would any employee, vendor, or visitor who introduced threats or violence to the workplace.

“The Employee Free Choice Act, if enacted, will obviously allow unions to target employees who can be pressured into voting yes. But the proper response to this transparent scheme is not merely to reject it, but to begin repealing the various labor laws that deny free choice in bargaining.”

Mr. Bowden is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, focusing on legal issues. A former lawyer and law school instructor, who practiced for twenty years in Baltimore, Maryland, his op-eds have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Daily News, and many other newspapers. Mr. Bowden has given dozens of radio interviews and has appeared on Fox News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes.

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