This Week on the Web (May 19 – May 25)
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Quote of the Week:
The idea of Jimmy Carter calling ANY President a bad one, much less THE WORST one, is darkly comical. Actually, it's just plain comical, other than for the fact that life or death issues are at stake when it comes to a President of the United States. I could list a longer, and more deeply fundamental, list of grievances against President George W. Bush than Jimmy Carter ever could. President Bush has not, like Jimmy Carter, been a complete pacifist; but he has, like Jimmy Carter before him, badly bungled protecting our nation from the likes of terrorist-sponsoring Iran and Syria, choosing instead to focus all our military energy and "moral capital" on Iraq. It was, we can now see, a tragic error, in part because it gives rise to criticisms such as Carter's, from a pacifist and anti-American point-of-view, that the United States should never dare defend itself, militarily, at all. Actually, I think I'll just hold this as one more strike against George W. Bush. His lousy leadership caused me to reflect on the much more wretched, miserable and dangerous era of Jimmy Carter.
- Michael Hurd
NEWS
Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq
Guardian
Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.
[…]
The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat. "We expect that al-Qaida and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus's report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush's controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements]," the official said.
[…]
US officials now say they have firm evidence that Tehran has switched tack as it senses a chance of victory in Iraq. In a parallel development, they say they also have proof that Iran has reversed its previous policy in Afghanistan and is now supporting and supplying the Taliban's campaign against US, British and other Nato forces.
Tehran's strategy to discredit the US surge and foment a decisive congressional revolt against Mr Bush is national in scope and not confined to the Shia south, its traditional sphere of influence, the senior official in Baghdad said. It included stepped-up coordination with Shia militias such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi as well as Syrian-backed Sunni Arab groups and al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, he added. Iran was also expanding contacts across the board with paramilitary forces and political groups, including Kurdish parties such as the PUK, a US ally
COMMENTARY
What We Owe Our Soldiers This Memorial Day
Alex Epstein, Capitalism Magazine
Every Memorial Day, we pay tribute to the American men and women who have died in combat. With speeches and solemn ceremonies, we recognize their courage and valor. But one fact goes unacknowledged in our Memorial Day tributes: all too many of our soldiers have died unnecessarily--because they were sent to fight for a purpose other than America's freedom.
The proper purpose of a government is to protect its citizens' lives and freedom against the initiation of force by criminals at home and aggressors abroad. The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizens' lives, and thus to do everything possible to protect the rights of each to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. This absolutely includes our soldiers.
Soldiers are not sacrificial objects; they are full-fledged Americans with the same moral right as the rest of us to the pursuit of their own goals, their own dreams, their own happiness. Rational soldiers enjoy much of the work of military service, take pride in their ability to do it superlatively, and gain profound satisfaction in protecting the freedom of every American, including their own freedom.
Soldiers know that in entering the military, they are risking their lives in the event of war. But this risk is not, as it is often described, a "sacrifice" for a "higher cause."
Rachel Carson's Genocide
Keith Lockitch, The Ayn Rand Institute
On May 27, environmentalists will celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson, the founding mother of their movement.
But Carson's centenary is no cause for celebration. Her legacy includes more than a million deaths a year from the mosquito-borne disease malaria. Though nearly eradicated decades ago, malaria has resurged with a vengeance because DDT, the most effective agent of mosquito control, has been essentially discarded--discarded based not on scientific concerns about its safety, but on environmental dogma advanced by Carson.
The crusade against DDT began with Carson's antipesticide diatribe "Silent Spring," published in 1962 at the height of the worldwide antimalaria campaign. The widespread spraying of DDT had caused a spectacular drop in malaria incidence--Sri Lanka, for example, reported 2.8 million malaria victims in 1948, but by 1963 it had only 17. Yet Carson's book made no mention of this. It said nothing of DDT's crucial role in eradicating malaria in industrialized countries, or of the tens of millions of lives saved by its use.
Instead, Carson filled her book with misinformation--alleging, among other claims, that DDT causes cancer. Her unsubstantiated assertion that continued DDT use would unleash a cancer epidemic generated a panicked fear of the pesticide that endures as public opinion to this day.
But the scientific case against DDT was, and still is, nonexistent.
Opportunity Knocks; But Don't Answer
Michael Hurd, DrHurd.com
I saw a quote of presidential contender John Edwards the other day. The quote essentially stated that he wanted to "give average Americans the same opportunity to succeed that I had." This is more or less what all candidates for high office say. What does it actually mean? In other words, how can some politician "give" anyone--"average" or otherwise--an opportunity?
In a political context, the only thing that enables opportunity is freedom. Other than the "freedom" to impose force or fraud on others--that is, to violate the rights of others--there should be no restrictions on individuals to pursue their dreams and to develop their talents. If I thought for one second that John Edwards meant, by his statement, that he seeks to expand the freedom of individuals to do so, then I would support him as a standout candidate. Of course, he supports no such thing. Instead, he wants to restrict the freedom of doctors and patients to provide/receive medical care by having the government control it more than it already does. (He calls this "universal coverage.") He wants to increase the amount of income that wealth producers give to the government, thereby inhibiting these wealth producers from (a) enjoying what's rightfully theirs and (b) most likely investing it in businesses that keep capitalism expanding and going. (He calls this "investment.") He, like his cohorts in both parties (who only vary in degree and specifics), wants to restrict numerous freedoms while calling it "expansion."
Always beware of candidates who seek to "expand" your "opportunity." A mommy or daddy can do this while you're growing up, or contemplating college. But that's about it. It's the job of politicians to expand and protect freedom--nothing more, and nothing less. These days, we mostly need expansion of freedom...not expansion of what they call "opportunity."
In Defense of Price Gouging
Galileo Blogs
Yesterday the House of Representatives passed a bill outlawing gasoline “price gouging.” Violators would face penalties of fines as high as $150 million or prison terms of up to two years. Price gouging is defined as “taking unfair advantage” or charging “unconscionably excessive” prices for fuels. What is unfair advantage? How does one measure when a price is unconscionably excessive? There is no answer.
This is bad law. First, because it is non-objective. Because no objective definition of price gouging is provided in the law, a gas station owner or oil company can never know when it is breaking the law. There is no way to comply with a law when the crime cannot even be defined. More ominously, a non-objective law becomes a tool to terrorize in the hands of unscrupulous government officials. The businessman is told that he must obey the bureaucrat or face punishment, a punishment he cannot defend against because there are no objective standards. This is a tool of tyranny. Incidentally, this is also the nature of antitrust. Like this anti-gouging measure, antitrust law is completely non-objective.
The other reason why this law should not be passed is because it is anti-capitalist. It attacks the heart of the market economy, which is the price mechanism. Prices work to harmonize the interests of buyers and sellers when they are allowed to freely rise and fall.
Sarkozy's task
George Will, Townhall.com
Arson is a form of commentary favored by the French left, so at least 1,000 vehicles were torched by disappointed supporters of the Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal after she was defeated 53-47 by Nicolas Sarkozy. Last spring, rioting was the left's economic argument when the government proposed, then retreated from, legislation that would have made it somewhat easier for businesses to fire younger workers in the first two years of employment. The idea behind the legislation was that employers would be more likely to hire workers if it were not a legal ordeal to fire them. The rioters were, of course, mostly young.
France's unemployment rate is 8.7 percent, nearly double the U.S. rate of 4.5 percent. Among persons under age 25, a cohort that supported Royal, the rate is 21.2 percent, and is apt to stay there unless Sarkozy can implement reforms that irritate rioters.
Sarkozy has a mandate from an 84 percent turnout. Seen, however, in the flickering glow of smoldering Peugeots, his chances of fundamentally reforming France seem fragile, and his idea of fundamental reform -- he remains an ardent protectionist -- seems pallid. Nevertheless, his attempt merits Americans' attention because he is confronting, in an especially virulent form, a problem that is becoming more acute here. The problem is the cultural contradictions of the welfare state.
Chavez to Enslave Louverture's Ghost
Gus Van Horn
In an irony so blatant only generations of "Progressive" education could hide it from the general public, Hugo Chavez -- the man who has essentially transformed Venezuela into a giant plantation -- is backing a film about Toussaint Louverture, who led an 18th-century slave revolt in Haiti.
To summarize: A studio operated with funds expropriated from Venezuelans will make a film about a slave who revolted against his servitude -- in the name of rousing world opinion against the only civilization in human history, the West, to have abolished slavery!
To top that off, the black American director who plans to help him is not just oblivious to the irony, but is showing through his own actions so far that something more fundamental than Louverture's story has been "wiped clean" from our "historic memory": the difference between freedom and slavery.
It may be true that most Americans do not know about Toussaint Louverture, but I would wager that just as many are unaware that it was largely through the efforts of the British Empire during the nineteenth century that slavery -- a nearly universal practice all the way up to that time -- was essentially abolished throughout the globe
The notion that the story of Louverture's struggle for freedom is somehow an indictment of the West is possible only by a massive dropping of context, including not just that it was the West that abolished slavery in the first place, but that there are some, like Chavez, who want to bring it back, only calling it "freedom" this time.
Yes. Slavery was once practiced in the West, but this was a massive contradiction to the Enlightenment principle that men should enjoy the freedom to pursue their own happiness. In fact, it was eventually this better principle that won out.
Far from helping us to remember this important aspect of our history, Chavez would prefer, in a sense, to re-enslave Louverture in the service of his desire to promote the fiction that slavery -- and not freedom -- is the defining attribute of western civilization and that, by implication, the universal slavery of socialism -- in the forms of massive theft, censorship, and oppression -- somehow represents freedom.
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Other links
The Ayn Rand Institute
The Objective Standard
Capitalism Magazine
4Commonsense.net
OpinionJournal.com
Junk Science
Activism Humor
The Intellectual Activist
Web Logs
Principles in Practice– Principled commentary on cultural matters and current events from “The Objective Standard”
Cox and Forkum – Political cartoons and commentary
Noodle Food
The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid – Donald Luskin
Dollars and Crosses – CapitalismMagazine.com
Rule of Reason – The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism
4CommonSense
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