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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Government Found Guilty of Assaulting the Economy

By David Holcberg (International Herald Tribune, October 11, 2008)

You don’t have to be a professional detective to realize who the main culprit is in today’s financial crisis. The government’s fingerprints are all over the crime scene.

The government had the motive (the widely lauded goal of promoting “affordable housing”); it had the means (the Fed’s control of interest rates and the money supply, Fannie and Freddie, the federal Community Reinvestment Act, the “too big to fail” bailout policy); and it had the opportunity (courtesy of voters who think the government should have the power to regulate and interfere with the free market and manage our entire economy).

Of course, the government can’t be arrested or put in jail, no matter how damning the evidence against it. But we should not shy away from pronouncing the “Guilty” verdict.

Protect Citizens

By David Holcberg (USA Today, October 13, 2008)

No law should place the well-being of whales above that of humans. Even if, as environmentalists allege, the use of sonar threatens the lives and health of marine mammals, no law should prevent the Navy from using this crucial military technology.

The fundamental purpose of government in a free society is the protection of the individual rights of its citizens. If the Navy judges that sonar experiments off the coast of California are “critical to the nation’s own security,” and that they might increase its ability to detect such potential military threats as hostile submarines, it should do these experiments. Our national defense and our very lives may depend on it.

This attack on our Navy’s ability to defend us from foreign threats is yet another example of environmental laws being used to sacrifice our interests for the alleged “rights” of animals. Once again, environmentalists are showing whose side they are on, and it is not humanity’s.

Islamic Totalitarianism’s Threat to Civilization

Islamic Totalitarianism’s Threat to Civilization

What: A panel discussion about the nature of Islamic totalitarianism and how to defeat it. A Q&A will follow.

Who: Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Dr. Wafa Sultan, outspoken critic of Islam

Where: HIB (Humanities Instructional Building), Room 100, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697

When: Monday, October, 13, 2008, at 7 pm

This event is open to the public. Admission is FREE.

Description: From the Iranian hostage crisis to September 11 to the London subway attacks to the Iraqi insurgency–it is clear the West faces a grave threat from a committed enemy. Conventional wisdom holds that the enemy is a rogue group of fanatics, who have hijacked a great religion in order to justify their crimes. It tells us there is no way to permanently eliminate these violent groups, that we have entered an “age of terror” and that we must give up the desire for a decisive victory . . . but is the conventional wisdom right?

Bios:

–Dr. Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and a recognized Middle East expert who has written and lectured on a variety of Middle East issues. Dr. Brook has served in the Israeli Army and has discussed the Israeli-Arab conflict and the war on Islamic totalitarianism on numerous radio and TV programs, including FOX News, CNN and a C-SPAN panel of experts on terrorism.

–Dr. Wafa Sultan is a secular Syrian-American writer and thinker, best known for her participation in Middle East political debates, widely circulated Arabic essays and television appearances on CNN, FOX News and Al-Jazeera. She named the Islamic threat to the West as “a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose.” Her outspokenness has brought her both threats and praise. Dr. Sultan is currently working on a book to be titled “The God that Hates.”

For more information: e-mail media@aynrand.org

Protect Private Property: End Smoking Bans

Washington, D.C. – The Washington state Supreme Court ruled recently that the state’s smoking ban applies not only to businesses open to the general public, but to private clubs as well.

“It is bizarre that in a free country public officials are deciding the smoking policies of private businesses,” said Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Those decisions rightfully belong to business owners. Smoking bans, whether in private clubs or privately owned businesses open to the public, are a violation of property rights.

“Supporters of smoking bans claim that the government must protect consumers and employees from the alleged dangers of secondhand smoke. But they are already protected: no one can force them to patronize or work in an establishment that allows smoking. Smoking bans don’t protect the unwilling from smoke–they merely abrogate the rights of business owners.

“These bans should be disturbing to anyone who values freedom. If the government can trample on private property rights in the name of dictating people’s health choices, then smoking bans are only the beginning. Indeed, we are already seeing bans on trans fats, and even proposals to revoke the business licenses of fast food restaurants that serve overweight people.

“It’s time to end this trend and recognize the right of businesses to use their property as they see fit.”

Abolishing the Housing Welfare-regulatory Apparatus

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Abolishing the Housing Welfare-regulatory Apparatus
By Alex Epstein (Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2008)

Bert Ely is right that the Fannie-Freddie implosion “must spark fundamental rethinking about how best to finance American home mortgages.” But while his proposals, such as “covered bonds,” may have some merit, he misses the fundamental point.

Decisions about how best to finance mortgages should not be made by politicians or by editorial page columnists — they should be made by individuals in a truly free mortgage market, where lenders are free to lend as they choose and reap the full consequences of their decisions. The problem with the current system is not that borrowers and lenders have been unaware of more sensible financing options, but that implicit bailout guarantees have made reckless, shortsighted lending options more appealing. Abolishing the housing welfare-regulatory apparatus is the only “fundamental reform” that will do.

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The Resurgence of Big Government

PRESS ADVISORY
AYN RAND CENTER FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
555 12th Street NW, Suite 620 N, Washington, DC 20004

September 8, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Resurgence of Big Government

Who: Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk analyzing the reasons for the resurgence of big government in America. A Q&A will follow.

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

When: Thursday, September 18, 2006, at 7:30 PM

The public and media are invited. Admission is FREE.

Summary: America entered the 21st century riding a wave of prosperity brought on by two decades of increasing economic freedom–yet our current decade has seen an explosion in the size and reach of government. Today we hear from all sides that the source of our economic troubles is capitalism, and that the solution is more regulation, more controls, more government.

In this talk, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, will discuss why Americans began to embrace free markets during the ’80s and ’90s–and why this trend could not last. He will argue that capitalism had proved itself to be the only economic system capable of achieving lasting prosperity, but that a crucial failure on the part of capitalism’s defenders made the resurgence of big government inevitable.

Using our current housing and financial crisis as a case study, Dr. Brook will show how the inability of capitalism’s advocates to provide a moral defense of self-interest and the profit motive–essential characteristics of capitalism–led Americans to view government intervention as the cure for economic disasters allegedly brought on by “market excesses” and unrestrained “greed.”

Finally, Dr. Brook will show how Ayn Rand’s revolutionary morality of rational egoism completes the case for capitalism and thereby makes possible a permanent end to big government.

Bio: Dr. Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. A former finance professor, he has been published in academic as well as popular publications, and his opinion-editorials appear in major newspapers. He is frequently interviewed on national TV and radio. Dr. Brook lectures on Objectivism, business ethics and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

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

Dr. Yaron Brook is available for interviews now and after his talk.

Contact: Larry Benson
E-mail: media@aynrandcenter.org
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

Freedom First

Washington, D.C. – John McCain has made “Country First” the theme of his presidential campaign. In response, Barack Obama declared that “I’ve got news for John McCain. We all put our country first.”

“I’ve got news for both candidates,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, “Both the left and the right have been ‘putting the country first’ for decades–and that’s the problem.

“When McCain and Obama call for ‘putting country first,’ they are not simply asking us to love our country. They are urging us, as McCain once put it, to place service to the nation above the pursuit of our own values and happiness. This is collectivism, the doctrine that the individual exists to serve society and that his interests should be sacrificed to those of the group.

“This is the exact opposite of America’s founding ideal. In the American system, it is the government, not the individual, who is the servant. The government’s role is to protect our individual rights so that each of us is free to pursue our own lives and happiness. No group–not even society as a whole–can force us to sacrifice for its ends.

“Tragically, for the better part of a century, America has been moving away from the individualist ideals of the Founders and toward collectivism. Just consider the crushing tax burden we all suffer under to fuel an endless list of welfare entitlements in the name of the ‘public good.’ Or consider the policies McCain and Obama promise to enact if elected. To take just one example, instead of leaving business owners free to hire and trade with whomever they wish, McCain says we must protect ‘our’ jobs from foreigners coming in to this country, while Obama says we must protect ‘our’ jobs from foreigners outside the country–both ignoring the fact that those jobs don’t belong to ‘society’ but are created by the very individuals whose rights are being sacrificed.

“None of this is compatible with the individual’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Instead of leaders who ‘put country first’ we need leaders who will put freedom first.”

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.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

California Children Still Considered State Property

Court’s decision that homeschooling is “permitted” in California is a hollow victory for parents.

By Thomas A. Bowden

In a decision being widely hailed as a victory for parental rights, a Los Angeles County court has confirmed, grudgingly, that homeschooling “is permitted under California statutes.” In so ruling, the court reversed an earlier decision that ordered the parents of “Rachel L.” to send her away to a public or private school, where she could get a “legal education.”
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Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights to Open in Washington, D.C.

Irvine, CA – The Ayn Rand Institute is preparing to launch its new public policy and media center, the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, which will open later this year in Washington, D.C. The Center’s Web site has already been launched, and can be visited at http://www.aynrandcenter.org/.

The Ayn Rand Center is named after author and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982), who is best known for her novels “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” and for her original philosophy Objectivism.
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