Thoughts on Safety

A friend of mine recently renovated his apartment in New York. It was a gut job; the contractor peeled off the walls and removed the floors. After peeling off the surface layer, what did my friend find underneath? He found improperly braced sub-floors; no fire-stopping had been installed between his apartment and his neighbors; support columns were not covered with flame-resistant material; and insulation wasn’t put in around the windows, to name just a few deficiencies.

In the building he lives in, substandard pipes broke in the winter and flooded his apartment. Exterior wall coatings were improperly applied and leaked. Parapets were reinforced with interior-grade (not exterior-grade) wallboard and rotted.

There is an understandable explanation for how this happened. The developer of his building, a conversion of an existing 100 year old commercial building to residential use, went bankrupt during the recession of the early 1990s. He went bankrupt midway through the work on my friend’s building. So, in the midst of a recession and an awful real estate market, an unwilling bank had to take over and finish the job. They did a lousy job.

In a capitalist marketplace, there are bad actors. This developer clearly wasn’t a top-notch developer. He lacked the financial depth and customer base to survive the recession and went bankrupt. Good riddance. Capitalism continually cleanses out bad actors. He is not building anymore or, if he is, he is operating on the fringes.

But the question remains, where were the city inspectors during all this? Many of the conditions my friend discovered during his renovation and undoubtedly many, many more that are still hidden from view, are subject to the thousands of pages of city, state, and federal rules that govern construction. Many of the conditions my friend discovered are explicitly governed by laws designed to promote fire safety. The installation of fire-retardant material that can slow a fire’s spread between apartments, and fire-proofing support columns so that they don’t buckle under the heat of fire (as the columns of the World Trade Center buckled), are clearly within an inspector’s purview. Inspectors, by law, must regularly visit construction sites. Why didn’t they catch these potentially life-endangering failures?

My friend got a clue as to the answer. City inspectors also regularly visit renovation jobsites in New York. One day, as I happened to be in his apartment, a city electrical inspector showed up. A fat, slovenly, surly, disrespectful, and barely literate thing showed up at the door. As the new floors had just been laid down and polished, the project supervisor politely asked him if he could take off his shoes. “No, I don’t do that,” the inspector said. So, he asked, could he wear “booties” that workers wear so they don’t harm finished floors? Same answer.

So, while the slob thudded his way through the apartment to the nearly finished kitchen, he said, “You need a new outlet there.” That was that. I kept my mouth shut, because I knew that if I said anything, it would only anger the inspector and that would not help my friend who was trying to get his renovation done, on time and under budget. I almost spoke up because when I looked around the kitchen, I saw, literally, dozens of outlets. Underneath the cabinets, my friend had installed strips of outlets, spaced one foot apart. There were dozens of outlets in the kitchen, way more than could be needed to meet the minimal requirements of some construction code.

But I kept my mouth shut. So did my friend, and so did the project supervisor. All of us undoubtedly had the same thought on our minds. Keep our mouths shut, put up with this jerk, and wait for him to leave so that the real work could get done.

Now, when I think about the construction cranes that have recently fallen over in New York, I think of that city inspector. A representative of an industry association on television said that the problem is not that there are an insufficient number of inspections. The problem is that the inspectors need more training. Really? Does more training address the root of the problem?

When the city inspector left my friend’s apartment, I asked the project supervisor if he would ever hire a man like that city inspector to work as an electrician. He said that, as a rule, people who become inspectors are the bottom of the barrel. They are the unemployables that private industry would never hire. They become city inspectors because that is the only place they can get work. In fact, one employee his company had to fire became an inspector. Now he must deal with that fired, disgruntled ex-employee, who has the enforcement apparatus of the state to back up his incomprehensible (and possibly vindictive) demands. (Undoubtedly, there are some good inspectors out there, but the failure to demand good work inherent in government employment ensures that they are few and far between.)

When I think about my friend’s apartment renovation, I ask myself what is it that ensures quality and competent work. Is it the presence of city inspectors, or is it something else?

Then I consider how my friend chose his contractor. He interviewed many contractors, he got recommendations and checked references and, most importantly, he visited their work. The work of the contractor he chose spoke clearly. The way the floor boards were tightly joined together, the walls were perfectly smooth and properly finished off, the way all the details matched in a beautiful whole, and the politeness and quiet competence of the men and women he spoke with gave him the answer he needed. His careful effort in selecting the best contractor for the job paid off. The result is a beautifully renovated apartment.

My friend’s rational self-interest is what led to that good outcome. Because he wanted to live in a nice apartment, he selected a good contractor. Then it was the contractor’s good judgment that created a quality product. The pre-renovation apartment he moved into, built in the early 1990s, had been inspected, like all buildings in the city. Those inspections did not prevent a bankrupt developer and a desperate bank from doing a pitiable job finishing the building.

No, it was the lack of self-interest on the part of the developer who went bankrupt that led to his actions. If he had cared for himself more, he would have run his company better, and would have survived the recession. In contrast, consider the firm that my friend chose for his renovation work. It is over 20 years old. It has survived two recessions and it has never laid off an employee. Work comes to them in good times and bad because they are good at what they do.

Capitalism is the system that rewards contractors like the one my friend chose. It is the system that unleashes self-interest to flourish. By the same token, capitalism is ruthless at weeding out the incompetent and the immoral, like the sloppy developer who went bankrupt after doing such a poor job with the building conversion in the early 1990s.

An entire army of city inspectors will never ensure safety. Yes, it will “gum up the works” by wasting the time and energies of good people like the contractors who did such a marvelous job on my friend’s apartment, but it will never ensure safety.

So what will make sure that we live in safe buildings and those disasters like the cranes toppling over in New York City are rare occurrences? More city inspectors are not the answer. There is only one answer, and no one (at least nearly no one) is talking about it.

Criminalizing Work

In an addendum to the recent federal raids on illegal immigrants around the country, 270 of them have been sentenced to five months in jail for illegally using identity documents to obtain work. The Orwellian nature of their “crime” stems from the fact that they fraudulently used those documents in the first place because of the federal law enacted several years ago requiring employers to verify that their workers are legal residents. In order to comply with the first unjust law, the workers forged or fraudulently used documents. For that they were prosecuted.

The judge stated his position very simply, “I don’t doubt for a moment that you are good, hard-working people who have done what you did to help your families.” “Unfortunately for you, you committed a violation of federal law.” So, according to the judge these people’s actions hurt no one and, in fact, helped their own families. In that sense, the actions of these immigrants were no different than anyone else who earns his living. But, all of that is irrelevant. All that matters is that they broke the law, however unjust.

The judge must enforce the law, but the promulgation of unjust laws and the brutish mentality that pursues enforcement of laws as ends in themselves is the mark of creeping fascism. A favorite tactic of a dictatorship is to promulgate so many restrictive laws that simply to live, one must break the law. That is what these (largely) Guatemalan immigrants have done. In seeking to live through work, they broke the law. For that, they are to be severely punished.

“’My family is worried in Guatemala,’ one defendant, Erick Tajtaj, entreated the federal district judge who sentenced him, Mark W. Bennett. ‘I ask that you deport us as soon as possible, that you do us that kindness so we can be together again with our families.’”

Godspeed, my Guatemalan compadres, and may you one day return to more welcoming arms.

Preservation Equals Destruction

A rather unusual, ugly building built in 1964 is to be preserved at all costs. So says the unanimous ten member board of New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. In a decision yesterday, each member of the Board stood up to defend the preservation of this building and eight others that comprise the polyglot assortment of buildings of St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Greenwich Village. St. Vincent’s wants to raze their collection of old buildings and build a modern hospital and a condominium tower in their stead. By selling land to the condominium developer, they plan to offset part of the $1.6 billion cost of their hospital redevelopment.

But none of this is to be. The ten member board and their allied activists, such as Andrew Berman, who heads the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, have nearly absolute authority over real estate development in vast swaths of New York City that are designated “landmark districts.” And they use their authority, in nearly all instances to “just say no” to any development at all. Occasionally, a new building is allowed to go up, but only if it is replacing a building that has collapsed due to old age and neglect, and only if the new building is built to strictly blend in with the old buildings surrounding it. Like envious neighbors, the adjacent buildings’ height and appearance get to graft their tired, old faces onto the shape and form of any new building that goes up. If the Landmarks Commission is successful, the new building will look old; its façade will represent the state-of-the-art in building construction, as it existed 150 years ago.

None of this will suit the managers of St. Vincent’s. Their new building must be larger than the surrounding buildings. Its façade cannot hide the state-of-the-art life-saving machinery that it will house. To save human lives, St. Vincent’s new building must be large, new and modern, each attribute of which is despised by the ten members of the Commission. Like berobed priests of a dead religion, these modern-day ascetics have the power to impose their worship of the old on the rest of us. They can destroy, both the property rights of St. Vincent’s and the lives of all those who would have gained health by using the facilities of a new, modern hospital.

Preserve dead things by destroying new things and life. That should be the motto of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Exploit-the-Earth Day

Guest column. Reprinted by permission.

On April 22, Celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day

By Craig Biddle

Because Earth Day is intended to further the cause of environmentalism—and because environmentalism is an anti-human ideology—on April 22, those who care about human life should not celebrate Earth Day; they should celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day.

As I wrote for The Objective Standard’s “Exploit the Earth or Die” campaign:

Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.

Exploiting the Earth—using the raw materials of nature for one’s life-serving purposes—is a basic requirement of human life. According to environmentalism, however, man should not use nature for his needs; he should keep his hands off “the goods”; he should leave nature alone, come what may.

Environmentalism is not concerned with human health and wellbeing—neither ours nor that of generations to come. If it were, it would advocate the one social system that ensures that the Earth and its elements are used in the most productive, life-serving manner possible: capitalism.

Capitalism is the only social system that recognizes and protects each individual’s right to act in accordance with his basic means of living: the judgment of his mind. Environmentalism, of course, does not and cannot advocate capitalism, because if people are free to act on their judgment, they will strive to produce and prosper; they will transform the raw materials of nature onto the requirements of human life; they will exploit the Earth and live.

Environmentalism rejects the basic moral premise of capitalism—the idea that people should be free to act on their judgment—because it rejects a more fundamental idea on which capitalism rests: the idea that the requirements of human life constitute the standard of moral value. While the standard of value underlying capitalism is human life (meaning, that which is necessary for human beings to live and prosper), the standard of value underlying environmentalism is nature untouched by man.

The basic principle of environmentalism is that nature (i.e., “the environment”) has intrinsic value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of the requirements of human life—and that this value must be protected from its only adversary: man. Rivers must be left free to flow unimpeded by human dams, which divert natural flows, alter natural landscapes, and disrupt wildlife habitats. Glaciers must be left free to grow or shrink according to natural causes, but any human activity that might affect their size must be prohibited. Naturally generated carbon dioxide (such as that emitted by oceans and volcanoes) and naturally generated methane (such as that emitted by swamps and termites) may contribute to the greenhouse effect, but such gasses must not be produced by man. The globe may warm or cool naturally (e.g., via increases or decreases in sunspot activity), but man must not do anything to affect its temperature. And so on.

In short, according to environmentalism, if nature affects nature, the effect is good; if man affects nature, the effect is evil.

Stating the essence of environmentalism in such stark terms raises some illuminating questions: If the good is nature untouched by man, how is man to live? What is he to eat? What is he to wear? Where is he to reside? How can man do anything his life requires without altering, harming, or destroying some aspect of nature? In order to nourish himself, man must consume meats, vegetables, fruits, and the like. In order to make clothing, he must skin animals, pick cotton, manufacture polyester, and the like. In order to build a house—or even a hut—he must cut down trees, dig up clay, make fires, bake bricks, and so forth. Each and every action man takes to support or sustain his life entails the exploitation of nature. Thus, on the premise of environmentalism, man has no right to exist.

It comes down to this: Each of us has a choice to make. Will I recognize that man’s life is the standard of moral value—that the good is that which sustains and furthers human life—and thus that people have a moral right to use the Earth and its elements for their life-serving needs? Or will I accept the notion that nature has “intrinsic” value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of human needs—and thus that people have no right to exist?

There is no middle ground here. Either human life is the standard of moral value, or it is not. Either nature has intrinsic value, or it does not.

On April 22, let the world know where you stand. Don’t celebrate Earth Day; celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day—and let your friends, family, and associates know why.

Dae Jang Geum, My Hero

[Note: This review contains spoilers. For a shorter review, without spoilers, please look here.]

Dae Jang Geum ("Jang Geum the Great") is both a historical person and the title lead character in the Korean television drama series of the same name. Jang Geum was a historical figure about whom little is known in Korea during the 16th century reign of King Jungjong. What is known is that she was the first female royal court physician. She was the first -- and only -- woman to serve as the king's personal physician. She has been acknowledged in Korean history by a designation few get, and virtually no women: "The Great." With that title, she stands alongside such great Korean leaders as King Sejong the Great, who instigated the Korean Renaissance of the 15th century, and sponsored the creation of Hangul, the simplified alphabet that enabled literacy to become widespread in Korea.

Dae Jang Geum the television drama comprises 54 hour-long episodes. The author of the series, Yeong-hyeon Kim, draws on history and then fills in the gaps to tell the story of Jang Geum, who begins her life as the daughter of a noblewoman cast-out from the palace and the royal palace guard who gave up everything to be with her. They live in hiding, the father as a modest blacksmith, and the mother who keeps house and teaches young Jang Geum her secrets of cooking and medicine.

One of the early scenes in the series is of young 5-year old Jang Geum begging her parents to teach her to read. Her parents are afraid to do it, for fear that Jang Geum will give away their noble backgrounds, and put their lives in danger. But Jang Geum persists and her parents begin to teach her.

Jang Geum makes a mistake one day when some constables mistreat her father and she yells out proudly to them that her father is a royal guard and they have no right to touch him.

Her mistake sends her father to prison, and she and her mother must flee.

From this troubled beginning, young Jang Geum makes her way to the palace, where her mother once worked, and enters the court as a trainee in the royal kitchen. In the class society of ancient Korea, as an orphan Jang Geum is considered the lowliest. But despite the torments of some of her schoolmates and jealous teacher, Jang Geum persists, and she learns to cook in the top kitchen of the land.

The scenes of Jang Geum and the other "kitchen ladies" cooking are something of beauty in terms of the colors, smells (you can almost smell the food!), and the incredible dedication with which the food is made. Jang Geum is taught by her wise teacher, Lady Han, that the kitchen is not a place for palace intrigue. Nothing must compromise the integrity of the food and the meals that they prepare for the royal family.

Even as a young apprentice, Jang Geum shows a mind that works differently than her peers. She investigates everything in a methodical manner. She tests various ingredients, and even different types of water for their various food properties. She discovers the source of spoilage when vegetables mysteriously become bad. She learns how to "draw a taste," that is make tasty, healthy meals by mixing ingredients in ways that have never been tried.

Jang Geum must fight those who stand for tradition every step of the away. Yet she persists.

Eventually, through many plot twists, Jang Geum finds herself cast out of the palace. But even when she is banished to a a small island off of Korea's southern tip, she continues her pursuits with dedication.

Eventually, Jang Geum finds her way back to the palace and becomes a physician lady. The position has lower status than court kitchen lady, but it is her way back in. It is as physician lady that we see Jang Geum's mind fully at work. As a physician, she is a scientist. She conducts field trials and medical research to find out the truth. At every step of the way, she is pitted against the traditionalists, who insist on doing things a certain way because they were always done that way, or because that is how it is written down in some ancient Chinese medical texts. She is pitted against the nobles, who retained their titles by privilege. Yet she persists.

Although many oppose her, Jang Geum has loyal friends along the way, including the man she falls in love with. At the end, she defies all historical precedents and risks everything to save the life of the king.

There is so much to love in this series: Jang Geum the little girl who shows kitchen ladies decades older than her how to properly sterilize water. Jang Geum the apprentice kitchen lady who stands in for her kidnapped mentor and prepares dishes by herself for the king and queen in a food competition. Jang Geum the fighter who will not rest until she avenges those who killed her mother. Jang Geum who is loved so deeply by the court scholar who would kill an army if he had to to save her life. Jang Geum the "lowly" court physician who will risk not just her own life, but even the lives of everyone she loves, to save the king. Jang Geum the scientist (in a day when there were none) who relentlessly asks why, and looks to natural evidence for answers.

I love Jang Geum the hero, the scientist, the little girl and grown woman, in this series.

The supporting characters are also larger than life. Her buffoonish step-father, who secretly spies for her, at the risk of his life. Her fearless doctor-mentor on Jeju Island who was awed even at Jang Geum's courage. Min Jeong-Ho, the court scholar official, who cannot love her by law, and yet stands by her through every crisis. Lady Han, her mother-figure and mentor, whom Jang Geum supported and gave strength.

Even the evil characters are larger than life. Lady Choi, who will relentlessly fight to preserve her family's legacy of serving the royal kitchen. The merchant Choi, who seeks to preserve his business empire based on his monopoly of food trade with China. Choi Keum Yang, who is Jang Geum's equal in the kitchen, but tragically loves the same man Jang Geum does.

I highly recommend this series. You can watch it with English subtitles. Occasionally, the translations don't do full justice to the Korean, which is a beautiful, poetic language, although you can almost always figure out the meaning in context. If you have a Korean-speaking friend, corral him or her to watch it with you. But that is not necessary to thoroughly enjoy this Eastern treasure.

Global-Warming Authoritarianism

Reprinted with permission from the Ayn Rand Institute. My comments follow.

February 20, 2008.

Irvine, CA--Many people are calling for drastic political action to cope with climate change. But the authors of a new book, The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy, go much further, claiming that global warming can be effectively dealt with only by "an authoritarian form of government."

In an article promoting the book, co-author David Shearman praises China's recent ban on plastic shopping bags, expressing special admiration for its authoritarian quality. "The importance of the decision," he writes, "lies in the fact that China can do it by edict and close the factories."

"Views like this reveal an ugly and ominous aspect of the political frenzy surrounding global warming," said Dr. Keith Lockitch, a resident fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Though easy to dismiss as overwrought and atypical, such views expose a very real authoritarianism underlying the calls for action on climate change.

"While few global-warming activists are willing--as Shearman is--to come out in favor of openly dictatorial policies, the kinds of laws and regulations that activists do call for will hand a comparably frightening degree of control over our lives to politicians and environmentalist bureaucrats.

"In one form or another, every minute of our every day involves the emission of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas claimed to be the cause of climate change. Every moment we spend running our computers, lighting our homes, powering countless labor-saving appliances, driving to work or school or anywhere else--we are using industrial-scale energy to make our lives better.

"But global-warming activists want our use of the fossil fuels that provide the major source of that energy to be strictly controlled by the government and severely curtailed, no matter the harm that causes.

"Despite the constant assertion that global-warming science is 'settled,'" Lockitch said, "it is far from certain that we face any sort of catastrophic global emergency. But in the name of 'saving the world' from unproven threats, such activists want to impose a draconian regimen of taxes, laws, regulations and controls that would affect the minutest details of our existence. Their solution to their projected 'environmental disaster' is to impose an actual economic disaster by restricting the energy that powers our civilization and subjecting its use to severe political control.

"Let us not allow panic over the exaggerated claims of climate alarmists to deliver us into the hands of would-be carbon dictators."

************************************************************************

Galileo Blogs comments:

This is an excellent editorial that captures the essence of what is wrong with those who want to curtail human emissions of carbon dioxide in order to stop the alleged threat of global warming. In essence, it would create an "actual economic disaster" to stop the potential and not yet proven disaster of global warming.

Moreover, it can only do so by imposing dictatorial controls over our daily lives. This is so because "every minute of our day involves the emission of carbon dioxide." How can a government restrict our activities in such an intimate manner without assuming dictatorial powers?

This fight against global warming will enslave us and impoverish us to achieve its purported goal.

The proper image of our future, should the global warming dictators be successful, is Bangladesh, a poor and authoritarian country where thousands of people die every few years from floods. Contrast Bangladesh with Holland. Thousands of Dutch have lived below sea level for hundreds of years, yet they are safe from floods, protected today by a multi-billion dollar system of dikes, high-tech sensors and dams. However, the real protection of the Dutch against floods is their wealth. The Dutch can afford to protect themselves from floods.

Their relative freedom is what makes the Dutch wealthy. In contrast to the freedom and wealth of the Dutch, and the protection they offer against floods and other natural threats, the coming global warming dictatorship will only ensure that the entire world becomes like Bangladesh.

Where would you rather live?

Making Socialized Medicine Real

This Canadian patient of that country's system of socialized medicine offers a warning to Americans. It will happen here, unless politicians learn that Americans don't want it.



(HT: Truth, Justice and the American Way)

This Is Not Capitalism

Yesterday, Google began an effort to lobby government to forcefully prevent Microsoft from acquiring Yahoo. Over the weekend, Microsoft had announced an offer to acquire Yahoo. The offer price was a generous one, amounting to a 61% premium for holders of Yahoo stock. This is a serious, attractive offer for Yahoo shares by a serious, deep-pocketed acquiror. Yahoo investors would receive either cash or stock in the new combined company.

Google wants to step in between this pending marriage-by-choice between Microsoft and Yahoo's shareholders. How do they intend to do it? Are they going to offer a higher price? Are they going to attempt to persuade Yahoo's shareholders that the deal is not in their interest?

No.

Google's first stop wasn't to its bankers to make a better offer to Yahoo shareholders or to its public relations experts to make the case to shareholders why the acquisition was not in their interest.

Google's first stop was to Washington. Google immediately instructed its lobbyists to concoct arguments against the merger that would persuade congressmen and regulators to scuttle the deal. This type of "persuasion" hardly costs Google anything. For the price of some hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbyists' fees, fees that legally bribe congressmen in the form of campaign contributions, wine-and-dine them over dinners and soirees at expensive restaurants or through more nefarious contributions to designated "charities" and honoraria for "speaking engagements," Google can scuttle the potential Microsoft-Yahoo deal on the cheap. Certainly for a lot less money than having to top Microsoft's $42 billion offer for Yahoo.

Google will wrap all of this in some sort of argument about how a Microsoft-Yahoo combination will hurt "the public." That argument is expensive hogwash concocted by mercenary economists and lawyers. Even if Microsoft and Yahoo merged, their combined market share in Internet search would be a fraction of Google's. Google is the big gorilla in Internet search (a position they did earn legitimately) and they would remain the big gorilla even after a Microsoft-Yahoo merger. (Actually, it doesn't matter what Microsoft-Yahoo's market share would be. Even if it would far exceed Google's, it represents no harm to anyone. Such market share was earned in the marketplace and would have to be defended in the marketplace.)

Google earned its impressive leadership in Internet search and advertising by aggressively offering a more valuable service than its competitors. I use Google everyday and I marvel at the elegance and power of how they make the Internet useful to me. Google earned their position, but instead of keeping it through further entrepreneurship, they will use the same method the Mafia uses to keep its "market share": the pointed end of a gun.

The fact that this gun is legally held by the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission or by the Speaker of the House does not change its nature.

Capitalism is the system based on the opposite principle to the Google principle used against Microsoft and Yahoo. Capitalism is not based on force, but on voluntary trade. It is based on a person's right to his own life and the corollary of that right, his right to property. No one has the right to violate another's rights through the use of force.

That is exactly what Google wants to do. It wants to use the government's policing power to violate the rights of Microsoft's and Yahoo's shareholders to associate or not as they see fit.

Remember that Google's actions, in their essence, are no different than a Mafia chieftain who hires a street gang to tear up and destroy businesses that refuse to pay him protection money.

This is not capitalism; this is hooliganism.

Ignorant Billionaire Fashions Noose

Karl Marx once said, “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.” Bill Gates has been selling long stretches of that rope lately. In his speech today at the World Economic Forum, a gathering of leading businessmen, politicians and aid officials, Bill Gates said, “We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well.” He went on to exhort fellow business leaders to devote their personal time and energy to finding ways of helping the poor.

Admittedly, Gates calls on executives to serve “a twin mission” of “making profits” while simultaneously “improving the lives of those who don’t benefit from market forces.” Just how businessmen are to make profits in regions, such as the Third World, that have essentially outlawed market forces is not explained.

Gates’ premise in these statements is that capitalism serves only the rich. Moreover, capitalism, on its own, is incapable of benefiting the poor.

This premise is dangerously wrong. A clear-headed reading of economic history, a clear understanding of economic science and, most importantly, a proper understanding of philosophy, will prove the correct point. Economic history tells us that capitalism is the only system that radically lifted the standard of living of the poor, such that today’s poor in Western, industrialized, semi-capitalistic countries are far wealthier than even the rich of the Middle Ages or ancient times. Their lifespans have more than doubled, they have comforts such as air conditioning and heat and entertainments such as television and the Internet that no one could have imagined in ancient times. These advances did not materialize out of thin air. Rather, they were the result of capitalists who made billions by inventing and selling the life-enhancing and labor-saving devices that improved human lives, such as vaccines, mass-produced automobiles and food, and electricity. High on this list is the benefit of mass-scale, low-cost computing that Bill Gates himself helped to pioneer.

Economics tells us that all wealth must be created by profit-seeking businessmen, or at the very least by self-interested individuals pursuing their own benefit. Without profits, businessmen lack both the incentive and the means to create. Factories are not built out of thin air, nor are salaries paid out of thin air. The accumulated capital borne of profits pays for the creation of factories and the goods those factories produce.

Bill Gates is also ignorant of philosophy. Philosophy teaches us that certain conditions are required for men to exert the effort required to produce goods. Specifically, production depends on having secure property rights, which means the right to make an unlimited profit. Together, philosophy and economics teach us that one man’s gain is another man’s gain, if everyone deals with each other through the principle of trade. This means that no one can use force to steal the wealth of another. Underpinning the right to property and the principle of trade is every person’s right to his own life, which means the right to use his own mind to produce the things he needs, without interference from others.

Bill Gates is not explicitly calling for stealing the wealth of the rich in order to give it to the poor. He hopes, somehow, that businessmen can serve “a twin mission” of “making profits” while simultaneously “improving the lives of those who don’t benefit from market forces.” But isn’t that what businessmen already do today, at least to the degree to which countries respect property rights and allow them to earn a profit?

What Bill Gates is calling for, without explicitly naming it, is for businessmen to give away their wealth and personal energy the way he has to corrupt Third World countries where it is all but impossible to earn a profit. Where businessmen can serve the twin masters of making a profit and helping the poor, they are doing it already. They do it simply by selling their goods for a profit. Isn’t that what Coca-Cola or McDonald’s or Microsoft (to name three products widely enjoyed by both the poor and rich in Western societies) are already doing in Europe, the United States and Japan?

Capitalists are not selling products in Africa because they are subject to the arbitrary vagaries of dictatorial governments that will steal their wealth at every opportunity. They will steal their wealth through arbitrary and confiscatory taxation, nationalizations, inflation and, endemic throughout the Third World, Mafia-style extortion and bribery demanded to do business. Property rights are an unheard-of concept in the Third World. They are violated every day, egregiously, with one consistent result: massive poverty and frequent episodes of death due to disease, starvation and mass murder.

The only cure for all this is one thing: capitalism. But capitalism is what Bill Gates is setting out to destroy whether he intended to or not. Bill Gates is destroying capitalism by smearing it with the Marxist falsehood that it only serves the rich and does not help the poor. Bill Gates cited a laundry list of books that have influenced him, some of which are quite good, such as the writings of the economists Adam Smith, Julian Simon and Hernando de Soto. However, the one author who best explains the roots of capitalism, and therefore the roots of prosperity, is the one not mentioned: philosopher/novelist Ayn Rand. I would commend to him, at a minimum, her novel Atlas Shrugged, and her collection of essays, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, if he wishes to learn what it truly takes for individuals and societies to become wealthy.

What Bill Gates doesn’t get is that wealth is only created through the productive efforts of businessmen. Businessmen and everyone who benefits from their products – i.e., all of us -- need capitalism, the system based on the recognition of the right to property and its root, a man’s right to his own life. Bill Gates just doesn’t get it, and the world is poorer as a result.

Bush Bulbs

Back after a holiday hiatus, I will comment on Bush Bulbs. Hat tip to Gus Van Horn for coining the phrase to refer to the anything-but-incandescent bulbs that we must legally use after incandescent bulbs become illegal in 2014 under the energy bill just signed by President Bush.

I will leave aside reference to the utter lack of moral principle that Bush, a man who at one time opposed the Kyoto Treaty on global warming, displays now that he embraces the environmentalist agenda and enacts legislation that begins to make our lives just a little bit (at first) more nasty, brutish and short.

I will not dwell on the violation of my property rights, my freedom to spend my money as I want to on the things that I value, that is represented by Bush Bulbs.

I will mention just how lousy these bulbs are.

They do not work in dimmer fixtures, which I recently installed throughout my apartment.

They do not turn on quickly.

Their spiral shape is ugly.

Their light is cold and disturbing, reminding me of a sterile office. This is not the feeling I want when I am in my home.

They are extremely expensive.

Their light flickers.

It causes headaches in some people.

The bottom line is that I don't want them.

I tried them once, way before legislation was passed to make them obligatory. That is when I discovered most of these unpleasant characteristics. I am not alone in my opinion, as evidenced by their paltry market share.

But, even if everything about them was great, what is most disturbing about Bush Bulbs is that I am forced to use them.

It is in a shower of small infringements of my freedom such as this one that I will find myself one day drowning in a society that is not free. The American Revolution was fought over stamp taxes and tea duties. But was it really? Our forefathers understood that a government that has the power to dictate even the smallest part of our lives has the power to direct all of our lives.

Bush Bulbs mean not just lights out for incandescent bulbs. Bush Bulbs mean lights out for freedom.

A Thanksgiving Day GUEST COLUMN

Thank You

by Dr. Michael J. Hurd of DrHurd.com:

Most are thankful to God. I am thankful to man -- specifically, to those individuals who (over the centuries) have created the countless things I need for survival and enjoyment: automobiles, plumbing, mass produced food, medicine, electricity, computers, televisions … the list is endless. I know who many of those inventors are, and I can see, feel and enjoy the benefits of their inventions in my daily life. There are many inventors whom I don't know about -- some of them unsung heroes who never obtained the credit they deserve -- but whose contributions to the wealth and comfort around me are evident all the same.

Most feel that the proper expression of thanks is faith -- in what is not exactly clear, just "faith" in some unknown and never-named source or entity. My expression of thanks is expressed through something entirely different: reverence for reason.

Reason represents the best of the human spirit. It is a capacity that virtually all human beings possess to one degree or another. Yet it can only be exercised through choice. The computer I type on now, the lights which illuminate my office, the health I enjoy -- all of these came into existence because of countless choices made by different individuals at different times in history (coupled with many of my own choices, and the choices of those close to me). From Thomas Edison to the less well-known heroes (in business) who market and distribute products in our (semi-) capitalistic system -- I am grateful and thankful to them all. I am thankful not that they exercised faith or went to church or worshipped a mystical entity -- or spent a few hours at a soup kitchen, feeding the homeless -- but rather that they chose to use their intellects in a way from which I (and many others) could benefit.

Life -- and all that life has to offer -- is the ultimate reward of goodness. Goodness enhances life; it does not destroy or take away from it. Anything or anyone who contributes to life -- my life, your life, or life in general -- deserves thanks. I understand that my benefit was not their goal -- instead, their work and its rewards were their goals. Their quest for financial and/or intellectual profit was, quite properly, their goal. I like it when people are selfish in this sense. The more selfishness people possess, the more (in the exercise of that self-interest) they create and produce. That's the means through which the world becomes a better place.

I look around my office, around the country, around the world, and I see the best and the worst of mankind. I wonder if at any time in history we have seen the presence of such heroic genius and unspeakable evil on one and the same planet. I feel love and gratitude when I look at the benefits of rational, productive, and capitalistic civilization. I despise only those who seek to destroy it. My enemy is the last person I would ever love; I only seek his annihilation -- from my presence, if he's not violent, and from existence, if he is.

I don't want to live in a world with more humility, more "compassion," or more faith. The platitudes most of us will hear today are unbearable. I will not turn on the television and listen to the Pope, the President, or the local homeless shelter manager preach them. This is why I offer you the opposite message: I want to live in a world with much less faith, humility and selflessness, and much more reason, productivity, and quest for profit (material, intellectual, or both). Let reason, freedom, and material prosperity flourish -- and the rest will follow.

If only others shared these ideals, how different the world would be. How much our enemies would fear us, rather than spit upon and seek to destroy us.

Nevertheless, I am delighted and grateful that I live in a world where reason and capitalism and rational self-interest have gained as much ground as they have. For this I am indeed thankful -- though only to those who, through their own choices, helped make it possible.


Re-posted by permission.

Hands Off Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds, the former San Francisco Giants slugger who has hit more home runs than any other professional baseball player in history, faces jail time for lying to federal prosecutors about his alleged use of steroids. The use of steroids to build up one's muscles and thereby become a more powerful athlete is illegal. Many would argue that steroid use invalidates the achievements of Bonds and the other athletes who have used them. That is not the point here. Whether steroid use invalidates a sporting achievement is strictly a matter between the sports associations, team owners, the players, and their fans. It is a private matter for these parties to sort out themselves, not a criminal governmental matter. (It may involve the government if Bonds violated a contract and there are lawsuits among the affected parties. However, that would be a private dispute being adjudicated by the courts, not a criminal matter.)

The Bonds prosecution is just one more instance of the government assuming de facto ownership of our bodies. Can I ingest a drug of my choosing that my doctor and I believe can treat a rare cancer? No, unless the drug manufacturer invests many tens of millions of dollars to pass bureaucratic hurdles set by the Food and Drug Administration. Can I choose my own medicines, including antibiotics, to treat myself? No, under the prescription laws I must first pay a doctor to make that decision for me. Can I eat foods containing "trans fats" at a restaurant in New York City? No, because the city has banned such foods on the premise that I am incapable of making such choices for myself.

As government officials now make many of the basic decisions affecting our health and well-being, Americans have become infantilized. No longer are we sovereign adults who exercise self-reliance and self-responsibility to govern our own lives. The government makes such choices for us. We now live as children, not free adults.

Every person owns his own body by right. If you own your own body, this includes the right to put any substance you choose into it. If it is illegal for Bonds to make such decisions regarding his body, then his body is no longer his; it now belongs to the government.

If the government owns our bodies, by implication not only can it tell us what we can and cannot put into them, but also what we can do with them, such as whether we can have abortions.

Our freedom will only be restored if each of us individually, fully and without limitation, owns his own body and such ownership right is fully and completely recognized by the government. True ownership of our own bodies means we can do what we want with them, so long as we do not harm another person.

Barry Bonds has hurt no one, except possibly himself, by allegedly taking steroids. That is his right. It is true that Bonds is technically being prosecuted for lying to federal investigators, not steroid use as such. However, he should not have been questioned about steroid use in the first place. Morally, ingesting steroids or any other substance is not a crime.

I say to the government: hands off Barry Bonds. Hands off his body, and hands off mine. I own my own body and have a right to use it as I please.

Frozen Faces and Frozen Minds

The facades of New York's buildings are like faces. Behind those faces are the minds of the architects and engineers who built them and the minds of the businessmen and residents who work and live in them. Those facades -- the face of the city -- have changed remarkably over the past 125 years. Before the first steel skyscrapers were built around the turn of the last century, building heights were practically limited to not much more than ten stories, and typically much less. Four to six stories was most common.

Despite the emergence of skyscrapers, walk around many streets of New York and, apart from the sight of cars parked on the street and people dressed in modern clothes and talking on their cell phones, you could still swear you were in the 1880s.

That 1880s vista has been frozen in place throughout much of Manhattan by New York City's "landmarking" laws. Those laws ban nearly all construction in the large and growing landmarked zones of the city. If any building is to be allowed, it must be a clone of existing building styles. Although some construction ends up getting built on a vacant lot or at the site of a building that must be razed because it is ready to collapse, no new tall buildings are ever permitted. The rare new building in these landmarked zones, as a rule, must be short and blend in with its ancient surroundings.

The city's landmarked neighborhoods often possess a certain charm. In fact, the Landmarks Commission seeks out the charming neighborhoods to landmark. As of this writing, there are 45 landmarked zones in Manhattan. In addition to the landmarked zones, 1100 individual buildings have been landmarked. While it is difficult to say what percentage of Manhattan's 23 square miles is now essentially off-limits to development, one can get a sense of this number by looking at the sheer size of some of these landmark districts:

The Greenwich Village Historic District (established 1969) covers 86 city blocks.

The Upper East Side Historic District covers 57 city blocks.

The Upper West Side Historic District covers 51 city blocks.

The Tribeca Historic Districts cover 49 city blocks.

The Ladies Mile Historic District covers 19 city blocks.

The Noho Historic District covers 14 city blocks.

These are some of the larger districts. 45 of them now encompass much of Manhattan. New districts and buildings are being added every year.

Interestingly, the formation of these districts tends to coincide with a rise in property values of the frozen regions. Each new landmarked building or neighborhood in New York diminishes the potential supply of new places to live and work. As a result, the value of existing property tends to go up.

New Yorkers who already own property feel wealthier because the value of their property has gone up. Moreover, they marvel at the charming neighborhoods of the city that have been preserved seemingly in perpetuity for their enjoyment.

All of this comes at a price. That price is the violation of their property rights. What of the New Yorker who wants to sell his building to a developer who wants to put up a skyscraper on that land? It is forbidden. What if the owner of a crumbling 1880s-era building wants to replace it with a modern, comfortable building with central air, well-insulated walls and skylights? He can't do it, unless the building he lives in is in imminent danger of collapse. In fact, city officials may require him to install expensive bracing to keep his ancient brickpile aloft. If even expensive retrofitting can keep his building standing, he must employ those methods before he will ever get permission to tear it down or simply let it collapse. If one looks closely, you can see these teetering braced, nearly-ready-to-collapse buildings around the city.

One person's beautiful historic landmark is an uncomfortable, expensive to cool and heat, dreary building to another. Some find 1880s row houses beautiful. Others prefer a gleaming 100-story skyscraper. Regardless, the real debate is not about building esthetics. It is about rights. By what right does one person forbid another the disposition of his property as he sees fit?

Economically, as one would expect, violations of property rights are not without consequences. In the case of New York, as its neighborhoods become expensive "Disneylands for adults" as an unknown commentator described it, businesses and people are being priced out of the city. As the city becomes an uneconomic place to live and work, businesses and people leave the city, or simply do not move here in the first place.

This is not a new trend in New York. The rise of landmarking parallels the rise of other destructive policies that have made New York an expensive place to be for businesses and people. Rent control, imposed at the end of World War II, has made New York's housing the most expensive in the country. Clever and grasping taxes such as taxes on commuters and city taxes on the global earnings of corporations have led most of the Fortune 500 companies that were headquartered here as late as the 1960s to flee the city long ago. To pay for a city-run welfare program including the largest program of free and subsidized municipal public housing in the country, New Yorkers pay the highest taxes in the country, including a combined city and state top marginal income tax rate of 13%. The city's top rate kicks in at incomes that would be considered "middle class."

Like all actions, these actions have consequences, even if they are not obvious to some right now. Eventually, a tipping point will be reached, when the costs of being here become too great. When that day arrives, the owners of their landmarked residences in their charming neighborhoods may find that their property values are falling, instead of rising. They will find that their charming neighborhoods have become less so, now that graffitti is spraypainted on walls and gangs of unemployed hooligans (who live in city housing projects) terrorize them with crime.

New York is, or should be, a city of skyscrapers. Freeze it with landmarking laws and eventually the faces behind those frozen facades will begin to have one expression on them. That expression will be terror.

"We Are Fighting for the Rule of Law"

On the evening news last night, a Pakistani lawyer spoke these words as explanation for why hundreds of Pakistani lawyers were fighting policemen on the streets of Lahore and other cities in Pakistan. Conservatively dressed, black suited and tied lawyers threw rocks at policemen armed in riot gear who fought back with tear gas and truncheons.

The lawyers were outgunned. Lawyers do not make good soldiers. Used to fighting with words, their rocks were paltry weapons against modern riot gear. Armed in their proper suits and ties to battle in a courtroom, their uniforms were no match for the shields and handcuffs of the riot police. Scores of attorneys were arrested.

The riot was prompted by the actions of General Musharraf, the ruler of Pakistan, to assume dictatorial powers by dissolving the Supreme Court and Parliament, and closing private newspapers. The general also proceeded to install his puppets on the Supreme Court. So far, he has only found enough sycophants for just 5 of the 17 Supreme Court seats. One way the lawyers have said they will fight is by not participating in sham court proceedings headed by cronies appointed by the general.

A lawyer is the essential agent of a society of laws and not men. A lawyer and the courtroom he works in is a forum dedicated to the principle that force shall be governed by reason. Yesterday, we saw the supreme example of the inversion of this principle. Lawyers themselves are being bludgeoned by unrestrained force.

There is some hope for even an Islamic-infused society like Pakistan when scores of its lawyers, some of them trained at top British universities such as Cambridge, will fight for the rule of law. In the long run, reason and the rule of law that is its application in civil society, will always win. However, in the many years between now and that long run in Pakistan, we will see who wins the battle of the streets in Pakistan: the lawyers, the dictator, or the Muslim radicals at their doorstep.

A Shotgun Blast for Competition

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin J. Martin, has announced that all contracts between owners of apartment buildings and cable providers for exclusive service in their buildings will be nullified. The chairman's blast of his regulatory shotgun, if upheld by the courts, will shred thousands of contracts across the land.

The justification for this assault on the sanctity of contract and property rights is "competition." Somehow, by denying apartment owners the right to negotiate terms with cable companies for service in their buildings, the chairman will be enhancing competition among cable companies. Exactly how this will transpire is not clearly stated. He doesn't have to explain it, since the real justification for his action becomes clear when he says, "cable prices have risen about 93% in ten years," and adds that high cable prices disproportionately affect low income people, particularly Hispanics and blacks, who more often live in apartment buildings.

So, the real reason for this contract shredding has nothing to do with promoting an undefined "competition," but with a desire to forcefully transfer wealth from apartment owners and cable companies to politically favored pressure groups.

The doctrine of altruism states that the purpose of a man is to live for others. He does not have a right to his own life. The shredding of these cable contracts is altruism enforced by the cruel hand of regulation. To hell with property rights if it means providing HBO for less to poor people. The appeal to "competition" is an afterthought thrown in as a meager attempt to justify this action.

Unsurprisingly, not only is the FCC chairman's action immoral, but it will not "help" the poor or anyone else. The key to understanding this is the observation of the cable industry association that "cable companies were often granted exclusive rights to buildings after agreeing to make major capital investments in upgrading systems." Thus, a principal reason for these exclusive deals is so that apartment owners can negotiate with cable companies to pay for the wiring of their buildings. A wiring upgrade means higher bandwidth, and therefore more channels, faster Internet service, and enhanced telecommunications service. Strike down the exclusive deals and you cut out future wiring upgrades and the enhanced services it brings.

Unfortunately, in a literal sense the FCC chairman is correct. His action will reduce the cost of cable service, but the apartment residents will be getting exactly what they pay for: slow Internet speeds, fewer channels, fewer telecommunications options. In other words, they will get cheap service that is lousy.

In direct opposition to fostering "choice" or "competition," the FCC's action will be taking away the free choices of customers and cable companies to get the level of service that they mutually agree to and want. Instead, the FCC chairman singlehandedly interposes himself between these thousands of voluntary agreements and declares, wittingly or not, that no one shall have relatively expensive and high quality cable service.

Competition is an anti-concept. Used by the FCC chairman, it only refers to competition on price, but in an unfettered market competition exists on more dimensions than just price. There is competition in innovation, competition in quality and variety, and competition in price. The chairman of the FCC, by allegedly promoting price competition, is actually destroying competition, if that term has any meaning at all.

He does all this to hand out the goods, goods that aren't his to hand out. Such is the nature of pressure group warfare and the thinly veneered legalized lawlessness it spawns in a mixed economy.

Man Versus Mussels

The city of Atlanta, Georgia, is running out of water. Despite this, the Army Corps of Engineers has ordered that sufficient water flows be drained out of Lake Lanier, the city's main reservoir, to keep alive the fat threeridge mussel located in Florida's Apalachicola River, some 350 miles away.

While the water level of Lake Lanier is poised to fall below the lowest level it set in 1981, a mandatory 3.2 billion gallons of water are drained each day from the lake to meet the requirement of the Endangered Species Act to keep the endangered mussel alive.

Officials estimate that Atlanta will run out of water in three months unless man takes precedence over mussels, and the water flows are stopped.

To place man above the mussel is illegal under the law. The Endangered Species Act is clear. All species are to be protected at any cost. Only one species is dispensable: man.

The citizens of Atlanta (and all men) only need one idea to protect them from this deadly mussel: man's right to his own life. If man has rights, animals cannot. If man has rights, his interests always come first and this absurd battle of man versus mussel could never arise. This incident illustrates very clearly that for man to survive, he must be completely free to alter nature for his own benefit.

When man's needs conflict with nature, as it must, man must always win: for man to drink, the mussels must die. Man's life depends on his right to his own life being inviolable.

There is a secondary, albeit crucially important idea that the citizens of Atlanta also need: property rights. If profit-seeking, private companies had owned the lakes and rivers and had been supplying water to Atlanta all along, instead of the government, it is unlikely that such a large, fast-growing city would have become so dependent on the smallest watershed in Georgia for its water supply. Even without the deadly mussel, Atlanta was probably vulnerable all along to drought simply because its water supply is so small relative to the city's size. A private company makes money by supplying water and has every incentive to actively develop and maintain adequate water supplies. City politicians do not have the same incentive, thus Atlanta's precarious position.

In conclusion, remember these lessons, Atlantans (and all Americans): your right to life and your right to property are the weapons you need to protect yourselves from all external threats, foreign and domestic. Without those rights, even a tiny, inedible mussel can crush you out of existence.

On Doctors and Veterinarians

Several months ago, my beloved cat started vomiting frequently and losing weight. I took him to our vet, who recommended a sonogram at the nearby animal hospital. I brought him there the next day and got the bad news. The sonogram showed that he had an enlarged small intestine. The most likely cause was lymphoma. Further tests revealed the bad and (relatively) good news. It was lymphoma, but it was the least virulent form and should respond well to treatment.

The first step was surgery to remove the tumorous mass centered on the lymph nodes in his small intestine. That was done the next day. Unfortunately, complications ensued and a second surgery was required three days later. Our cat is 12 years old, and the two surgeries back-to-back on his intestinal tract nearly killed him. His entire digestive tract shut down and it was touch and go whether he would make it. All told, he spent 13 days in the hospital.

Today our cat is doing fine. He is gaining weight, his old adorable behaviors have returned, and he looks cute as hell wearing little red sweaters that my girlfriend made for him from old T-shirts to hold his feeding tube in place. (He'll have that tube for a while longer to easily administer medicines, even though he is getting all his food by mouth now.) He now sees the hospital's oncologist every three weeks, and those visits should stretch out further if he continues to respond well to chemotherapy, as he is doing now.

We are hopeful that our cat will be with us for several more years. If he had not gotten treatment, the prognosis for survival was a few weeks.

I am very thankful to our veterinarians, and tell them that frequently. Our cat not only got top-flight care every step of the way from them, but also from all the hospital nurses who drew his blood, administered medicines, cleaned and petted our cat, and gave him toys and treats during his stay in the hospital. Even the receptionists were kind and thoughtful, hustling to bring our cat his special fuzzy bed that we brought him when he was in the hospital. On two occasions, our veterinarians gave us their personal cell numbers to call them if we needed help with the cat's care after he came back home.

We are so thankful to our vets and gladly paid their bill. We wanted to send them a thank you and acknowledge everyone who cared for our cat, and asked for a list of everyone who worked on our cat in some capacity. Over 50 people were on the list.

Contrast this with my visits to my personal physician. I have a great personal doctor. He is always on time, and demands that his patients show up on time. His father was a doctor. As an avid runner, he is in excellent physical shape himself. He is serious, extremely knowledgeable, thoroughly competent.

His practice is closed. No one who is not already a patient can get in to see him. It has been closed for some years. I have been seeing him for ten years.

When I see him, I pay a $10 or $20 copay (I can't remember which). It is chump change compared with the value of the services he provides. After all, it is my life.

When I see him for my annual exam, I get about ten minutes of his time. He has a pleasant office where he will briefly consult with me after he briefly gives me my examination. I am thankful for those ten minutes.

One time, my insurer screwed up its payments to him. My doctor blamed me, and I caught myself blaming the insurance company. Later, even though it was clear that the insurance company was at fault, I apologized for the mix-up. After all, I am the one responsible for paying my doctor's bills. Am I not?

I have a great doctor. I feel lucky. I value his ten minutes. Out of pocket, he is a hell of a lot cheaper than my veterinarian. He is a bargain, isn't he?

Come to think of it, he has never given me his cell number.

Convenient Falsehoods

A British judge ruled that Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," could not be presented as factual in British public schools because it contained nine material falsehoods. (In an interim ruling, he had identified eleven falsehoods, but combined several in his final decision.) Here they are:

• The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

• The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.

• The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.

• The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.

• The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

• The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age. The Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.

• The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.

• The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.

• The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

A judge is not a scientific expert and a courtroom is not the proper place to resolve scientific disputes. However, it just takes an educated person and a little bit of research to see through Gore's propaganda. Thankfully, British standards call for checking the veracity of teaching materials used in their public schools if those materials are represented as factual. I doubt that has ever happened in the United States.

Children and adults everywhere are exposed to the blatant lies of Gore and other supporters of the view that man-made emissions of carbon dioxide must be stopped in order to "save the planet." The only danger the planet needs saving from are the global warming fear-mongers who seek to throttle man by hamstringing the industrial civilization our lives depend on.

I suggest that the Nobel Committee carefully review the judge's full decision. If the committee members have integrity, they cannot award Gore the Nobel Peace Prize unless they are able to convincingly refute with evidence the conclusion of the British High Court.

Anti-Immigrant Jackboots

The sounds of anti-immigrant jackboots can be heard in different parts of the land. In Long Island, immigration cops kick in doors and arrest 186 Hispanics. Ostensibly to look for gang members, the raids also nabbed American citizens who were forced to defend the authenticity of their citizenship papers. One woman, who is a legal resident, said that "having people burst into her home and breaking doors reminded her of when she lived in El Salvador. 'There, it's the Death Squads and here it's immigration', she said."

Earlier this year, immigration cops arrested and deported 1,297 workers at meat processing plants who were here illegally.

In Los Angeles, again partially to nab gang members, 1,327 were arrested in the largest raids of its kind, and 600 of them have already been deported.

Workers and long-term residents are being lumped in with gang members, herded off to jail, and imprisoned while they await deportation.

When a state rounds up people in mass sweeps, the innocent and "guilty" alike, it has moved closer to statism. I am not Hispanic, so the day when I have to defend my right to be here to a skeptical, orders-following immigration cop who questions the authenticity of the documents I am compelled to show him, is further away. But how much further? And what will it be like to live in a country where fellow residents, Hispanic or not, are rounded up in raids to be processed for deportation, or simply humiliated for living here?

The rights of immigrants to live in this country is parcel of the individual human right to life that all of us possesses, whether we are immigrants ourselves or merely the son or daughter or descendant further removed of immigrants. When we violate the rights of immigrants to live here peaceably who have committed no crimes other than to violate the unjust laws against immigration, we are cutting away at the right to be left alone that all of us possesses. We are empowering the state to become ever more the police state.

Respecting an immigrant's right to live here is respecting our own right to life.

A Tale of Two Grids

Airplanes are stuck on the tarmac, waiting to take off. The weather is clear and open, but the invisible traffic lanes in the sky are improbably congested. Planes wait for hours, passengers get frustrated, they call their congressmen, and the airlines get blamed.

An overloaded electric transmission line sags and touches a tree in Ohio. It shorts out and a cascade of overloaded lines radiates eastward, across into Canada, and down into New York City, blacking out everything in its path. First Energy, the utility in Ohio who owned the power line that triggered the blackout gets blamed. Fifty million people are without power.

What is the connection between millions of man-hours of air traffic delays and millions of people suffering power blackouts? The answer is an ossified grid.

The air traffic control system and the transmission grid are both stuck in the 1950s. Very little innovation or new investment has improved these systems, while the other parts of these industries, the airplanes and the power plants, have grown apace to keep up with demand that has doubled and re-doubled since then. As people travel more by air and use electricity ever more widely, the grids have became increasingly overburdened until breakdowns – massive delays and blackouts – are now commonplace.

A common element ties these two grids together, and it is not strictly government ownership. The air traffic control system does belong to the federal government; it is operated by the Federal Aviation Administration. However, the long distance transmission grid is largely owned and operated by private electric utilities. The common element is not government ownership as such, but government control. Both grids, whether nominally owned by the government or not, in all essential decisions are operated by the government. Both are effectively government-controlled and operated.

The air traffic control system is stuck with ancient technology. As recently as the 1990s (and possibly still true today), key systems such as the TRACON radar in Long Island that controls the majority of international traffic entering the Northeastern United States, still used vacuum tubes. The invisible air traffic lanes that get congested in clear skies are air traffic routes that were devised in the 1950s and never updated. Air traffic controllers operate as members of a surly union that went on strike in the 1980s and had to be fired.

Satellites using global-positioning satellite (GPS) technology that could permit air traffic to go anywhere, using the entire sky as its "road,” have not been tried. An integrated system that ties airplanes' onboard radars into a central grid, permitting planes to travel closer together, has not been tried.

Government ownership of the airports complicates the problem. Airports are not managed to efficiently optimize takeoffs and landings and to integrate the schedules of all of the airlines. This can be accomplished very simply, and without any form of centralized control, through pricing. If airports were operated by private owners, those owners could set fees for landing slots that bring supply and demand into equilibrium at every point in the day. High landing fees during peak times will ensure that airlines do not over-schedule flights. They will schedule as many flights as the airport can handle, and no more, with the market price for those slots guiding their decisions.

When the airlines were ostensibly deregulated in the late 1970s, only the owners and operators of the planes themselves were freed from government controls on the pricing of airfares and on the scheduling of their routes. The rest of the infrastructure that makes the airline industry work, including the air traffic control system and the airports, remained in the hands of government. The government operators of this vital infrastructure have not kept up with the growth of the deregulated airlines. The government run air traffic control system and the airports have ossified. Growing delays on the tarmac have been the inevitable result.

The power grid suffers from similar problems. Although the transmission grid remains nominally in private hands, every important decision concerning the operation of that grid is dictated by government officials. All important decisions of pricing, construction of new lines, and even the permissible level of profit, are dictated by government boards that require many years of expensive hearings for the utilities to make any significant changes. The expense of such bureaucratic sclerosis and the lack of the opportunity to make a free market profit – in other words, the lack of an incentive to innovate – have conspired to stall grid construction. As a result, expansion of the grid has not kept up with the growth in electricity demand. It also means technological ossification, as the grid fails to use modern computerized technologies to operate more efficiently.

The grid today operates largely as a mechanical system using 1950s-era technology. In the same manner that water flows downhill, electricity travels solely down the path of least resistance. New technologies, such as solid state electronic control circuits to regulate power flows, are very seldom employed on the grid. These technologies can make the grid work more efficiently, driving more power through existing lines, more reliably, preventing problems in one area from cascading into large-scale blackouts. Such control circuits would have prevented a transmission line failure in Ohio from cascading until it became the 2003 Northeast Blackout.

A private owner competing to maximize profits does not run his business in such a lazy, slipshod manner as today’s utilities. The utilities in Ohio and elsewhere are legal monopolies, insulated from competition by law. For every one of their major operating decisions, they must ask permission from a dis-interested bureaucrat.

Like slaves, the regulated utility monopolies move slowly and at every opportunity look to shirk responsibility.

When slaves were freed, they could use their minds to pursue their self-interest. For the first time, they could aggressively and eagerly advance their own lives in a manner that they alone determined.

The only answer to air traffic delays and power blackouts is a similar abolition. It is the abolition of the shackles of government control. It is the freeing of the human mind to creatively come up with better ways of managing the grids. Government should simply get out of the business of air traffic control and the operation of the airports. Let private, profit-seeking individuals enter this business and watch them aggressively build out and innovate this infrastructure to keep up with the growth of the airlines.

Government should also simply get out of the business of managing the electric transmission grid. Recognize the true ownership right of the utilities that today ostensibly own the grid, and then get out of the way. Profit-seeking individuals will build new lines, run existing lines more efficiently with new technology, and the whole grid will more reliably and cheaply transmit power. Blackouts will not completely go away, just like airplane crashes and delays will not completely end. Human errors and natural disasters will happen, but human ingenuity will be free for the first time to make the system work at its best in reality.

Welfare



The caption says,

When you love strangers so much that you're willing to have government steal money from another stranger to help them out.

I can't say it any better.

Thank you, Truth, Justice, and the American Way for capturing the essence of welfare.

What Is Religion For?

Dr. Michael Hurd in his Daily Dose of Reason quotes actress Kathy Griffin at the recent Emmy Awards:

"A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus."

Dr. Hurd then comments:

People are frightened by much more than Griffin's seeming snideness about Jesus. I think they're much more terrified at the possibility that she's right: That people are the authors of their own destiny, for better or worse. Let's be honest. Wasn't it this idea that religion was designed to extinguish?

My answer to Dr. Hurd's question is: that is exactly what religion was designed for.

Observe how cheaters, drunks, liars and crooks of every stripe are drawn to religion, Christianity in particular. Of course, those are the obvious ones. The less obvious ones are those who just don't try too hard to pursue their values. They seek out Christianity for the moral anesthesia it provides. Numb to the full reality of their abnegation of self, like a stuporous drunk they stumble through life in mediocrity until they die.

They raise their arms to praise Jesus. Indeed.

On one occasion many years ago I was dragged to a fundamentalist Christian service. What a motley crew they were who sold their souls to the two-bit preacher. Now I know why the church and everyone in it looked so cheap. Afraid of the responsibility of living, they eagerly sold their souls for chump change to the first con artist who came along who told them that everything really would be okay.

Grim Reaper to Descend on Manhattan

On Tuesday, "President" Ahmadinejad of Iran will again enter U.S. territory, ascend to a podium paid for more by the United States than any other country, part of an institution protected by New York City police officers and New York City taxpayers, and insinuate his Holocaust-denying, Jew-hating, Western-civilization denouncing ghoul-of-Hades voice from beyond the grave to an audience of pampered bureaucrats in a light, air conditioned auditorium on a prime piece of Manhattan real estate, overlooking a vista of green gardens and inspiring river and city views.

The obstacles against his entry into the heart of capitalist, individualist, selfish America were cleared two millennia ago by the peace-loving "philosopher" who teaches us to love our enemies and sacrifice ourselves to our tormentors.

While we endure our spiritual sacrifice on Tuesday, I will look away from Turtle Bay and towards the Empire State Building, the tallest building left standing in Manhattan.

Greenspan Argues Against the Fed

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has not explicitly argued against the Federal Reserve Bank or any other central bank, except in his long-ago essay on gold in the collection of essays entitled Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. As Chairman of the Fed for 18 years, I find it unlikely he has contemporaneously and explicitly disavowed the institution he helmed for such a long period of time.

Nevertheless, he did make quite an effective, albeit unintentional, argument against the Fed on his 60 Minutes interview Sunday night. The interviewer asked whether he was to blame for the sub-prime mortgage crisis by making credit too easy. Greenspan said that he was aware at the time that questionable mortgage credit was being extended by banks, but he admitted he was unaware how pervasive it was or how impactful on the economy. He just didn't see the problem as it was developing.

That is his argument against the Fed, whether he realizes it or not. No central banker, no matter how good, can possibly hold in his mind all relevant information to centrally manage the money supply and credit of an economy. Such is the fallacy of central planning. It doesn't work in banking, just as it has never worked in any other area of an economy. The collapse of Communism is proof of that. So is the failure of the centrally managed parts of our mixed economy, such as public schooling and public housing.

Greenspan is smart, but no single man or woman is smart enough to be a central planner.

Musings on Taxation

I posted a version of this post in answer to a question about the "Fair Tax" on Dr. Hurd's blog. The questioner asked whether voluntary taxation is feasible. If not, is the Fair Tax a good alternative?

A cultural sea-change must occur first that will make limited government politically feasible. Then, voluntary financing of government could emerge. It is a worthy topic to consider now, but it is a backburner topic given that it will be many decades before it could even be attempted.

Regarding the idea of a Fair Tax, it is a contradiction in terms. No tax is fair because it involves the forcible taking of one person's property to give to another. Moreover, a more efficient or "fair" form of taxation (if it were possible) will not make government smaller. Quite the opposite is likely. It will be viewed simply as another source of revenue by government officials. Currently, there is no federal consumption or sales tax. Impose one as the Fair Tax would do, and the other taxes will not go away. Government will simply have obtained a new method of extracting money from us, with the result that they will find it easier to spend more of our money.

Government will get bigger, not smaller. I think it is important to resist any new mechanism of taxation. If our current system of income taxation is inefficient, great. That inefficiency in collecting taxes will limit the size of government. I would rather government were truly limited on a principled basis. Until that is possible, even a crude check on government from an inefficient form of taxation is desirable.

Getting back to the idea of voluntary financing of government (I hesitate to use the word "taxation" since it implies coercion), there are two important points to remember:

(1) A small government that focuses on protecting our rights -- i.e., the police, the courts, the jails and the military, and nothing else -- would be very small indeed. Even in today's messed up world where our military and prison systems are unnecessarily large, all of these functions probably consume under 5% of GDP. If we had no irrational laws such as the drug laws that account for more than half of our prison population, and if we had an assertive defense that vanquished our enemies instead of appeased them in endless, expensive wars, these expenditures in a laissez faire society would be much less. I suspect that all of this apparatus of government would consume less than 2% of GDP. This is a very tractable amount to be voluntarily financed by Americans.

(2) Without coercive taxation, destructive regulations, and the theft of our incomes for welfare payments, Americans in the future will be far, far wealthier than they are today. Just as today's technological achievements, such as antibiotics, the internet and jet travel, would be barely believable science fiction to an American of the 19th century, America of the laissez faire capitalist future would be even more highly unimaginable science fiction to Americans today. (Note that all of the achievements I mentioned happened despite a high level of government intervention in the economy. Imagine the unleashing of human ingenuity that would occur if government stayed out of the economy.)

Financing the essential functions of government for such wealthy people of the future would be an afterthought that Americans would voluntarily and easily do, without any sacrifice to themselves.

Finally, I will add a third point. Voluntary financing of government does not necessarily or exclusively mean donations of money to government. Most, if not all, of the expenses of government could be financed through the payment of fees for certain services where that would be practical. In particular, I could imagine a fee paid if parties to a contract want government to stand behind it with their enforcement powers. For example, if you sign a contract to buy a house and you want access to the courts for enforcement, you pay a 2% fee on the transaction. This is a voluntary payment for an essential government service. This principle can be extended to cover many other activities and functions of government.

Also, in a free, entrepreneurial society, imagine the ingenuity that could be applied to solving the problem of financing the (small) government. One idea I particularly like is corporate or individual sponsorship of pieces of government. Sponsor a jail, and you get to name it. Better yet, sponsor a battleship or a missile and you get to put your name on it. Heck, if I knew our missiles would be used to defeat the Muslim terrorists, I would love to have my name on that missile (assuming I could afford it!). I would be a good Dr. Strangelove. I would not be on the missile, but my name would be, as it arced across the sky on its way to Tehran or a terrorist training camp...

Okay, enough dreaming for now, but today's dreams are the beginnings of tomorrow's reality.

Nuclear Fun

This is the new television advertisement from Areva, the French maker of nuclear power plants. This is great pro-capitalist, pro-business, pro-technology, and pro-cheap energy propaganda. It quickly and effectively makes the connection between production and enjoyment. You start with the uranium mine, process the uranium, and produce electricity from it in a nuclear reactor which, in turn, powers the dancing floor and the cool music the couple is dancing to.

Most (ignorant) people think electricity comes from a wall outlet, and know nothing more about what makes it possible. This ad, in a few seconds, connects the electricity in the wall outlet all the way back to the nuclear reactor and the uranium mines that make it possible. It also reminds us that electricity powers the good life that we all enjoy.

Truthful, clever propaganda that validates a complicated technology feared by many. Every time I see this ad on TV I want to dance.

Christian Warfare

To visualize the principle of "turn the other cheek" in practice, in warfare, read this article (link below) from the Washington Times. It describes a first-hand account of American soldiers in Afghanistan, sent on a mission behind enemy lines, and confronted by rules of engagement that are based on the Christian principles of "turn the other cheek" and "love thy enemy." Our Christian President has imposed these rules on our soldiers. "Killed by the Rules" could be more broadly stated as "Killed by Altruism." Altruism is the philosophical belief that you must sacrifice yourself to others. It is the philosophical root of Christianity, and the root of this policy.

Our political leaders extol the virtue of sacrifice. See its results on the battlefield.

The alternative to altruist-Christian suicide is Objectivism, the philosophy that validates the morality of rational self-interest. We have the strongest military in human history. If we do not learn that it is moral to defend ourselves, we will never use that military properly. We will keep turning the other cheek until we can no longer do so.

*****

Hat tip for article.