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While The Hangover, which got a 4 star rating from my favorite magazine, THE WEEK (UK version), is often funny, it is also just a tad too gross, at least for me. Tibor

"Where the Truth Lies" is a bit too racy for just anyone but otherwise it is a pretty good who-done-it and the most animated movie with Kevin Bacon in it I have seen.

The Nonsense of "A new world order"

Tibor R. Machan

Business Week reports--July 6, 2009, page 8--that Roger Altman, Deputy Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, now CEO of an investment banking boutique (Evercore Partners), has, like President Sarkozy of France, concluded that it's the end for capitalism.  As Business Week tells it, Boltman wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine that "The era of laissez-faire economics is over, and statism, once discredited, is making a comeback--even in the U.S.  Also out of vague is globalization."

Yes, Virginia, there are still many grown up people who believe that there has been rampant laissez-faire economics around the world, especially in the United States of America and especially during the last few decades.  Business Week's account of Bolton's opinions also seems to accept, without any skepticism, that statism is something novel while the laissez-faire is old.

Sadly this is all wrong.  Statism has been the norm for thousands of years, what with countries throughout history being ruled from top down and with their economies being managed as if they were firms instead of societies.  It is only in the last 400 years or so that the classical liberal idea of a relatively free economy has caught on here and there, and even then mainly in the rhetoric of various, sometimes admittedly prominent academic economists, not in the public philosophies of nations. To its credit, Business Week does suggest that any move away from globalization is going to prove to be "an especially hard toll on developing nations." It might have added the plain historical fact that prior to the emergence of the halting policy of very partial laissez-faire most of the world lingered in utter poverty.  Apart from the rulers and their minions, few people had any wealth to speak of.  Only in the most recent and brief period of history has the limited measure of global free trade managed to bring forth prosperity for ordinary people who are constantly being badgered about it, what with all the denunciation of commercialization, greed and such in light of some degree of enthusiasm for this new development.  Statism, which has retarded not only commerce but nearly every decent human endeavor way in discernibly brutal ways, has been the norm, just as one of the few--relatively speaking--prominent champions of laissez-faire, the late Milton Friedman observed.  And Thomas Jefferson made it clear to that governments tend to expand in power and freedom tends to be in retreat more than not.  

So, the point to get clear on, is that the current retreat from the small measure of laissez-faire around the globe and, especially, America, is quite routine.  Such reactionary developments do not deserve to be designated as the dawning of "a new world order." Properly put, these developments would be a return to the miserable political economies that have dominated the world for over centuries but with a few short periods of relief here and there.  And such statism has usually been promoted by those in the ruling classes, like Mr. Altman, who see in it the makings of a rightly ordered universe.  It is the idea that you and I and all people ought to be in charge of their own lives and ought to pursue our various projects freely, in voluntary cooperation instead of as regimented by these rulers, that is new.  

But those who insist on directing the rest of us even when no one asked them to, have no interest in getting the historical facts right.  The idea of laissez-faire economics arises from the long suppressed and struggling idea, finally asserted by the American Founders, that no one may rule another or, as Abraham Lincoln put it, that “No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent.”  The rulers, of course, would not hear of this, in large part because living by that principle would deprive them of the opportunity to rule.  (This, more than anything else, is the source of anti-Americanism in the midst of the world's upper classes, given that America is closely linked to the idea Lincoln gave voice to, even if in reality it hasn't followed that principles by a long shot!)

Bob Hessen sent this to me. Quite good. Tibor Machan holds the R. C. Hoiles Chair in business ethics and free enterprise at Chapman University, Orange, CA. His collection of columns (unproofed) may be found at http://tibikem.spaces.live.com/blog/ ----- Original Message ----- Friday, June 26, 2009 3:33:05 PM Message From: Bookman3@aol.com Subject: British tribute to Ayn Rand Attachments: Attach0.html 1K <Bookman3@aol.com> British tribute to Ayn Rand 31K ************** Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000005)

USA: Tibor Machan, 70, honored at Porterville Flag Day ceremony . PORTERVILLE, California / [ http://www.recorderonline.com/news/honors-41851-ceremony-machan.html ]The Porterville Recorder / Community / June 15, 2009 By Alex K.W. Schultz, The Porterville Recorder Tibor Machan doesn’t scoff at the idea of liberty. He’s worked too hard to do so. “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” Machan said. “You can never just sit on your laurels and expect it to be available.” Machan was the guest speaker during Sunday’s 28th Annual Flag Day celebration. The 70-year-old Machan, who was smuggled across the Iron Curtain from communist Hungary in October 1953, spoke of the American people’s inalienable rights. “The point of the American Republic is you and I are free to live our own lives,” said Machan, who taught philosophy from 1986 to 1996 at Auburn University in Montgomery, Ala. “This is so unusual, considering the history of American politics.” Machan said he was inspired to come to the U.S. by reading American novels. The current Chapman University professor lived in Munich, Germany, for three years before landing in America in September 1956 when he was 17 years old. He now knows the value of freedom. “You always have to go and guard against those who want to rob you of the liberty for various, marvelous or lousy goals,” he said. “It makes no difference what the goals are. Liberty is the most important thing in a community.” Click [ http://www.recorderonline.com/sections/article/gallery/?pic=3&id=41851&play=1&start=5 ]View picture gallery The one-year-old flag at Save Mart was retired Sunday and replaced by new stars and stripes. This year’s Old Glory was donated by Save Mart Supermarkets and Smith Enterprises, Save Mart Manager Rick Cutler said. Porterville Elks Lodge representatives raised the new flag while Yvonne Fiori sang the national anthem and hundreds of red, white and blue balloons were released into the sky. “It looks real nice, doesn’t it?” master of ceremonies Ed Flory said to the crowd as Old Glory danced in the wind. American Legion Post 20 members burned the old flag. A rifle salute was presented and followed by Denver Tate’s playing of “Taps.” “This is our town,” Mayor Cameron Hamilton said. “This is what we’re about.” Hamilton was presented the Community Service Award by Alta Mira Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution for “serving this community diligently.” “To me, Flag Day and Veterans Day are probably the most premier things we do in Porterville,” Hamilton said. “These people who come out and gather for this and Veterans Day are doing it because we love our country and the people who serve.” Robert and Josie Carabay attended the celebration with their three granddaughters: Larissa Chavez, 13, Mia Carabay, 5, and Sofeeya Carabay, 4. “They put on a real good program,” Robert Carabay said. “They had a real good crowd, too.” Josie Carabay echoed her husband’s sentiments. “I think this event is important to the community,” she said, “because we need to respect our flag.” [rc] Copyright © 2009 Freedom Communications, Inc.

The Trick of Conscription

Tibor R. Machan

Most Americans seem to think it is so quaint to be taken to be a member of the huge American family or team or tribe.  Btu it is a trick.

Being a member of some group immediately creates obligations other members may impose.  Team members must contribute to the team’s efforts.  Club members must pay dues. Family members must do chores.  And so on it goes.

In most instances, however, one joints groups of one’s own initiative, without being forced into membership.  Apart from the draft, most Americans aren’t familiar with forced labor, with being conscripted.  They do not look upon paying taxes, for example, as having their resources confiscated.  Most take it as a kind of fee for services.  And quite a few actually claim that taxation is voluntary, never mind that it isn’t.

The trick of getting burdened by innumerable obligations that certain self-appointed leaders spell out and enforce has to do with selling millions of people on the idea that their lives belong to the nation or clan or tribe, not to them.  Never mind that this goes squarely against the American Founders’ idea that everyone has an unalienable right to his or her life.  We are now in the era of a supposed second bill of rights which FDR concocted and which makes us all into conscripts.  We are forced to serve and on terms we have but a little bit to do with.  Certainly the idea of the consent of the governed, the consent of the taxed and taxed and taxed again and again, has disappeared from public discourse.  Instead no one is asked for his or her consent now; just being born makes one part of a team, with all the attendant duties.

The best description of this comes from the French father of sociology, Auguste Comte, who wrote two hundred or so years ago:

"Everything we have belongs then to Humanity…Positivism never admits anything but duties, of all to all. For its social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of right, constantly based on individualism.  We are born loaded with obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries.  Later they only grow or accumulate before we can return any service. On what human foundation then could rest the idea of right, which in reason should imply some previous efficiency?  Whatever may be our efforts, the longest life well employed will never enable us to pay back but an imperceptible part of what we have received.  And yet it would only be after a complete return that we should be justly authorized to require reciprocity for the new services.  All human rights then are as absurd as they are immoral.  This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are entirely."

This is the public philosophy now in vogue, being propagated by President Obama and Co.  And it is a vicious, enslaving thing, this is, certainly foreign to the unique American political tradition.

The reason many are hoodwinked by it all is that of course any self-respecting human being realizes that joining with other people is a fine and dandy thing, indeed, provided those other people are themselves decent folks and fully respect one’s human rights to one’s life, liberty and property.  In other words, if these fellows do not kill, kidnap, or rob one, they are usually swell company.

But what we are having foisted upon us now is not the idea of voluntary cooperation but of conscription.  And that is a no-no.

I am not sure how these thuggish people will be resisted—there are too many of them these days, sadly.  But they must be resisted.  They have no authority to bully us around.  And I for one will keep agitating against their perverse agenda so long as I have the energy to do so. 

Taxes, Greed and Prudence

 

Tibor R. Machan

 

        Never mind the attempt at intimidation by some, like the Nobel Laureate Woody Clark, claiming that if you work to reduce or let alone to abolish taxes, you are greedy.  You are not.  You simply have a common sense understanding that there is something basically amiss with a system that coerces you and millions of others to part with your resources for services that would appear to be either hardly needed or, where need, capable of being funded without using force.  Moreover, not only are you not guilty of the vice of greed.  You can take pride in your practice of the virtue of prudence.  Because what this moral virtue requires of us all is that we make sure we and those we are responsible for are well taken care of.

 

        So, for example, check ups at the doctor and regular workouts are a function of prudence, as is brushing your teeth regularly and driving the roads carefully.  (That famous financial firm featuring the rock of Gibraltar as its logo isn't called Prudential by accident.)  We should all, especially if we have families and other intimates to care for, be prudent, which includes taking good care of our resources. So, then, not permitting the tax collector to raid these is clearly one instance of being prudent, not being greedy.  The more of your resources you can keep from the extortionists, the more praiseworthy you are!

 

        Of course there are the apologists for this reactionary public policy, one that really belongs in the age of feudalism when the population was taken to be beholden to the royal family and its goons. The justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr., is supposed to have said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization and since he was a smart and powerful American justice, many think what he said must clearly be a pearl of wisdom.  (Actually, the source of the statement is a bit obscure.  Holmes is said, by Justice Felix Frankfurter, to have "rebuked a secretary’s query of 'Don’t you hate to pay taxes?' with 'No, young fellow, I like paying taxes, with them I buy civilization'.") In any case, the sentiment is way off.  It is not just a ruse but a paradoxical one at that.

 

        Civilization, if one can sum up its nature in just a few words, means relating to our fellow human beings peacefully, respectful of their dignity and sovereignty, never using them against their will.  This is what distinguished civilized folks from barbarians throughout human history.  But when we  focus on governments it becomes evident that these agencies have routinely managed to circumvent the principles of civilization simply because a minimal portion of their work is quite useful, the portion that America's Founders so clearly pinpointed in the Declaration of Independence.  This is where governments are assigned the role of securing the rights of the citizenry, the sole purpose for which the institution exists. 

 

        So what Holmes is supposed to have said is quite wrong--taxation is a major subversion of the principles of civilization, principles which are supposed to guide us all toward dealing with one another peacefully, not through extortion.

 

        Ah, but you will not find this view widely discussed, let alone championed, among academics, even historians of ideas, let alone public officials, the majority of whom live off this extortionist device, just as the king and his minions used to with impunity, in most parts of the world and in America back before the Revolution demoted them all to mere citizen status!

 

        So, if you have come by your resources, your wealth, honestly, have no shame when you also work hard not to let the government rip you off.  Yes, of course, legal services--courts, the police, the military and such--need to be paid for but not by this means. Extortion is how organized criminals come by their "income."  It isn't supposed to be the method of public finance of a genuinely free society.

 

        The fact that in the course of emerging from centuries and centuries of oppression via a great varieties of rulers--Caesars, Pharaohs, Czars, kings, and even democratic majorities that disregard individual rights--much of the world is still sticking to taxation as its way of funding its legal systems doesn't make that right, any more than the fact that there was slavery and still is serfdom in many places makes those right.  The task of civilized people with a concern for the quality of their system of government must be to discover and implement ways of funding legal systems in a bona fide civilized fashion, without taxation.

 

Heaven is where: The Police are British, The Chefs are Italian, The Mechanics are German, The Lovers are French and It's all organized by the Swiss. Hell is Where: The Police are German, The Chefs are British, The Mechanics are French, The Lovers are Swiss and It's all organized by the Italians.

Communities for People, not Ants

Tibor R. Machan

No sooner does one speak up in support of individualism than some clever folks will accuse one with wanting to isolate individuals, to destroy human community life. But this really is bunk and is either a misunderstanding or an out an out attempt at distortion.

Just because human adults require independence of mind and a sphere of personal authority, which is secured by protecting their basic rights, it doesn't mean at all that they do not greatly benefit from community life. There is little that's more satisfying to human beings than one or another kind of association they can forge with their fellows. Think of marriage, family, company, team, chorus, orchestra, and on and on with the myriads of ways people come together and make the most of it.

Alas, there is one way of forming communities that is simply unsuited to people, namely, coercively, when they are herded into groups they do not choose based on their own understanding and goals. That is very much what prisons are, involuntary communities, and the only reason they are supposed to exist is to house those among us who refuse to live peacefully with their fellows.

No defense of individualism except the crudest sort omits the fact that when individuals come together much of what makes their lives worth living is made possible by their togetherness. And, yes, at first we are involuntary members of one community, the family, at least until we grow up and have reached the age of free choice. That, indeed, is what parents and guardians ought to aim for when they raise children, to prepare them all for becoming competent, loving, responsible and adventurous independent adults.

Yet forcibly grouping people immediately undermines this by depriving the young of their opportunity to hone their skills at making decisions for themselves, decisions that are usually quite unlike the decisions others need to make. That's because we all are unique in many respects, all the while that we are also much alike. As one of my favorite philosophers Steve Martin put it in his novel, The Pleasure of My Company, "People, I thought. These are people. Their general uniformity was interrupted only by their individual variety."

Of course much of this is evident from the history of the more Draconian and brutal attempts to make us all one, such as those witnessed in the twentieth century but also back in ancient Sparta. But sadly too many people keep holding on to the vision of human associations without remembering that the "human" must be very closely heeded when one embarks on these. Human beings, more than anything else in the world, are individuals, with minds of their own which however much they learn from others must get into operation from their own initiative. While other living beings are pretty much hardwired to do the right thing by their nature, our nature is that we must learn what that right thing is and then embark on doing it of our own free will. This, mainly, is the source of everyone's individuality, while, of course, our physical constitution pretty much duplicates itself in every one of us (although even there a great deal is unique to everyone).

You might forgive me for bringing in a bit of personal history here but I do have some experience to draw upon here, namely, of having lived under communism for much of my early years. And my father was an avid fascist, supporting the Nazis all his life. And neither of these recommends itself for a promising human community life. Nor do any of the communities that try to go just a bit in their direction, figuring they can somehow square the circle.

Human communities are indeed marvelous but only when they do not squash the human individual. When they do, when they try to compromise the principles of individualism, look out. They will try to lie and cheat and bamboozle since only that way can coercive community life be made credible. They will emphasize the fabulous goals and forget about the vicious means by which they propose to reach them, like conscript armies or schools or any other collective endeavors do which we aren't asked but are forced to join.

The Collectivist Trick

Tibor R. Machan

There is an unforgettable scene in the classic film, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), starring Peter Sellers, Sterling Hayden, George C. Scott and a host of others. At one point one of Sellers' characters, the mad scientists with the heavy German accent, is making a presentation and while doing so his right arm and hand engage in movements, as if these were not part of Sellers at all but had an independent will. The arm keeps shooting out to give the Heil Hitler sign and it needs to be restrained by the other arm. The character is clearly internally conflicted and the arm is damaged.

This scene comes to my mind a lot when I encounter not only popular politicians but also sophisticated political theorists who insist that we all belong to some collective being--the nation, state, culture, ethnic group, humanity, or the people. That's because when one thinks of human individuals in this collectivist fashion, their own conduct--the actions they take on their own independent initiative--are seen by such collectivists as out of line, just the way the Sellers character's arm was out of line. And when that happens, individuals must be put in their place as servants of the collective just as Sellers' arm had to be!

For many centuries the battle between individualism and collectivism has underpinned the more particular political controversies evident everywhere around the globe. Do you own your own life--do you have an unalienable right to to as it states in the Declaration of Independence, following the ideas of John Locke and some other classical liberals (although not all that many)? Or do you belong to the group--family, neighborhood, community, nation, etc., as for example was enthusiastically argued by the father of sociology, the French Auguste Comte and is being argued today by such communitarians as the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and the American sociologist Amitai Etzioni, among many others?

Why bring this up now? Because the dominant political thinking in America and indeed many other places has pretty much given up on the quintessentially American idea that you and I and the rest of us have an unalienable right to our lives. President Obama, for example, is an avid supporter of the ideas of his former Chicago Law School colleague, Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein, in championing what is known as Franklin D. Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights, in opposition to the Founders' original bill which is draw from the Declaration.

 

In that original bill the rights all citizens, indeed all human beings, are supposed to possess are prohibitions on other people who may wish to intrude on one's life without one's permission. That is what the right life is, a prohibition of murder. And the right to liberty, a prohibition of assault, battery, kidnapping, rape, etc. And the right to property, a prohibition of robbery, burglary, trespass, and other kinds of takings without the owners' permission.

The Second Bill of Rights, in contrast, lists rights to other people's works, time and belongings, such as, say, the right to health care or a minimum wage or a paid vacation. All these, often called "entitlements" (even while of course that begs the central question), would treat citizens as part of a group with unalienable obligations to the rest of the group. And since this is a fantasy if taken literally, the thesis amounts to claiming that some people, allegedly speaking for the various groups to which we are supposed to belong--which have prior claims on us, prior to ourselves--get to call the shots as to how we ought to live our lives, what and who we must work for, support, feed, etc.

Now if individualism is even remotely right, these so called entitlements or new rights turn out to be fraudulent, tricks by which to promote involuntary servitude, period. But if collectivism is correct, in any of its forms, then the claims made upon our lives, work, time, property, and so forth can all be treated as dues we owe! (Even then, of course, it doesn't follow that anyone is authorized to enforce those duties, but never mind that for now.)

 

And that is why the individualism versus collectivism dispute is so vital and remains the most important one, disguised only with some difficulty as being about loving one's country, humanity, family, other people, the poor, etc. No. Those are all pseudo issues. The real one is to whom does the individual human being belong?

Mini Business Ethics & Freedom

 

Tibor R. Machan

 

In matters of ethics one is best equipped to understand when one is close up.  Politics is different, as is law, although one reason for having courts is to hash out cases with all the details on view.  Otherwise misjudgment lurks nearby.

 

A recent incident brings to light how business ethics bears on our day to day affairs and how it is really impossible to handle these the way so many people, especially politicians and bureaucrats, would like to, namely via government regulation. 

 

Someone near me found a TV repairer on the Internet and set up an appointment, after trying to make sure the repairer knew a thing or two about the set in need of work.  The repairer asked that he could come out on Sunday and it was agreed that that would work out fine.  Between 11 AM and 1 PM was the window for the visit. 

 

By noon it was evident that something went astray--the repairer got lost or met with some mishap. But once reached by phone it turned out he wasn’t lost or anything.  He was just delayed for reasons the customer didn’t need to know.  But he would be there by 2, latest.  By 3:30 PM another call went out but only a voicemail system answered it.  The customer indicated some irritation with having to wait so long without being informed as to the new time or the cause of the delay.  At 5 PM the repairer finally called saying the deal is off, he will not be there to fix the set, period.

 

Now there is and should be nothing illegal about what the repairer did, anymore than there is or ought to be anything illegal when people fail to keep their promises.  Still, failing to keep a promise can be quite costly and in this case the cost was that the customer had to just sit and wait and wait while a lot else could have been done, errands taken care of, etc., instead.

 

Now with thousand of this kind of malpractice quite a lot of losses could be chalked up, not to mention the irritation.  So the temptation often arise to bring in some kind of law enforcement.

 

But the customer here was, in effect, asking for the mess since there was no reason to just accept the repairer’s word in the first place.  And even if that was all that was convenient, there is still some kind of recourse through an outfit such as the Better Business Bureau.  So, clearly, brining in any kind of legal authority would be (a) unjustified and (b) impractical.

 

There are zillions of these minor mishaps in commerce, often easily seen as the fault of one or another party to a verbal deal.  And that is to be expected, after all, in multilayered commercial relations, where tripping up is possible on so many fronts. Nor is this the case only with commerce!  The way to cope here, however, isn’t to empower government officials, who are themselves just as capable and even more likely to misbehave as are the parties to all the deals that are mismanaged. 

 

The customer in the above case cut the losses and went on to get service elsewhere.  And that is just what these minor or even major business ethics infractions need, not some bureaucracy that is teaming with busy bodies who pretend that they can rectify matters in these kinds of instances and even far worse ones, despite being way removed from the cases and needing to pay attention to their own problems.  (This is the gist of what James Buchanan’s and Gordon Tullock’s public choice theory teaches!)

 

Sometimes those who defend the free market--or freedom in general--overstate the promise of these, as if perfection would always emerge from free men and women going about their affairs without government intervention and regulation.  That promise is unjustified and is due mainly to the fact that many economists who support free markets do not believe in objective values, in anyone being able to tell right from wrong, good from bad.  It’s all subjective, they believe.  And then, of course, nothing wrong can happen so long as people act freely and interact voluntarily.  But this is a very mistaken idea.

 

Freedom does not promise perfection by a long shot.  But those who insist on perfection are themselves being irrational and fail to realize that bringing in governments just makes things worse, in the main.  That’s because governments use coercive force from which human affairs very, very rarely benefit!

Catering to Altruists

Tibor R. Machan

In a speech presumably addressing “the Muslim world,” President Obama tried to be quite critical of American culture while making hardly any mention of some of the Muslim World’s outrageously immoral legacy. Let me for now not focus on how accommodating Obama managed to be toward the Muslin countries, many of which make no bones about being, for example, officially misogynous and awfully crude about punishing so called criminals. Nor is it worth discussing now how Muslim countries treat homosexuals. While America the terrible, the one Obama appears to believe is in constant, relentless need to apologize for itself, is always put on the defensive, the Muslim world seems to be getting a pass from Mr. Obama even regarding its most barbaric practices. It is really annoying to have the president of the United States of America carry on this way.

In this speech Obama said that as president of the USA it is his duty “to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear” and that “Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.”

But wait just a minute. Sometimes stereotypes are actually accurate, especially when they are about people in a very homogenous society. It was not altogether insulting when during the Third Reich people formed a very unfavorable image of Germans as such. Sure there were exceptions but as a rule the Germans were then a very disagreeable, ugly lot. Sitting by and even taking active part while 6 million Jews are being exterminated by one’s leader--Fuehrer--lends itself to people thinking badly of you, of all of you, in fact. So sometimes stereotyping makes very good sense.

Just think of how often the early European immigrants to the Americas are now seen as vicious invaders who treated the natives with nearly universal brutality. Is that some “crude stereotype”? Or maybe it is in fact the truth, generally, with only occasional significant exceptions?

Then consider, also, what Obama thinks is a nasty stereotype of America, “a self-interested empire.” To start with, empires have no selves--they are not individual human beings, no collective entities. Empires consist of some rather few rulers in a country, ones who take advantage of their position to bully others around the world. Often this bullying is anything but self-interested--most often it is perpetrated as an intensely altruistic mission, one aiming to export only good thing to other lands. It is usually such altruism that leads to the policy of building empires, even if some elements of empire building do flow from a country’s rulers’ interest to benefit themselves.

Then there is the plain fact that America is not being stereotyped when understood as a country that welcomes a certain kind of self-interest on the part of its citizenry. After all, the American Founders were very fond of everyone’s right to the pursuit of happiness, something that can properly be regarded as selfish. I for one make no secret of my desire to live a happy life and, thus, to be significantly selfish, though not to the point of intruding upon my fellows, ripping them off, demanding that they live for me, something many altruists appear not to mind doing.

That, by the way, is what’s so disingenuous about altruists--they advocate that other people think not of themselves first but of them! Just a pretense at generosity, then, not the genuine article which is actually the feature of those who seek happiness and are glad that so do others!

When I was ready to escape Europe, especially communism, a major reason was that in the West and in America, especially, there appeared to be a public policy afoot based on the belief in everyone’s basic right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--all rather selfish things, if you ask me. A country that makes this its official public policy rather than some phony “ask not what you can do for yourself but what you can do for your country,” is truly user-friendly for its population. And so I gladly accept that stereotype about America, despite our current president’s cavalier belittling of this aspect of the country.

Finally, for now, why is it the president’s job to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam or America or anyone else? Is the president our moral guide? Is he our parent whose job is to cultivate ethics in their children? Not at all--he is the presiding officer of the federal government, period.

It is pathetic how perverse an idea of political leadership guides this new president. He should back off already.

Politics as Fantasy

 

Tibor R. Machan

 

It began with Socrates and his pupil Plato who in that world famous dialogue, Republic, set out to discuss human excellence. In the process Socrates used an analogy, the perfect or ideal society. It was easier to study than the individual human soul. (We do this when studying chemistry, for example, and we use huge plastic balls to stand in for atoms and such, tiny entities we cannot study directly.)

 

One point Socrates is supposed to have made, according to Plato, is that this ideal society they sketched wasn't meant to be some blueprint for people to try to implement. It was more like a model and was supposed to play the same role, as a means to emphasize what's important to keep in mind as one thinks about politics. For example, while Socrates spoke of a philosopher king, that was to stress the importance of human reason in forging policy not the need for some actual super-person, a king.

 

But that point has been widely misunderstood for centuries--and indeed there is some ambiguity in the dialogue, so disputation on it is to be expected. Too many folks have taken Socrates and Plato to have wanted us all to strive to implement an ideal society. Since, however, their purpose wasn't that at all but ultimately to sketch how human beings should live, what should guide their conduct--namely, careful thought one would carry out sometime (maybe way) before the conduct in question--the numerous attempts to implement the ideal society had to fail.

 

Indeed, some very sophisticated students of Plato's works defend the position that the main teaching of the Republic is that politics can have only a limited function in making life good for people. What they need to do is to direct themselves--their own lives and those of their fellows who will consult them--thoughtfully and not wait for some king or government to figure things out. The capacity of politics to do good is very minimal by this account.

 

If this is indeed the teaching of Socrates and Plato, it oddly anticipates the teaching of the American Founders. They also believed that human happiness or success in life must be an individual and social but not primarily or even mainly a political feat. Which is why they wrote that government's role is to secure our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of our happiness, nothing more than that. But this lesson has been rejected by too many people since time immemorial. They keep seeking total salvation from politics and we are back to this again, with the leadership of President Barack Obama. He apparently shares the ideas of The New Republic magazine's erudite modern liberal columnist, Leon Wieseltier, who just recently wrote that "contrary to what [Americans] have been taught for many years, government is a jewel of human association and an heirloom of human reason; that government, though it may do ill, does good; that a lot of the good that government does only it can do; that the size of government must be fitted to the size of its tasks, and so, for a polity such as ours, big government is the only government...etc."

 

This kind of thinking is extremely hazardous. It exemplifies the valuable but often forgotten cliche, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." It does this with nearly the same tendencies in matters of politics as did the efforts of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and a host of others throughout human history who wanted to implement the prefect plan.

 

By aiming to do everything for us, by pretending to have the answer to innumerable questions, Mr. Obama is facilitating the ruin of the great project of the Founders, as well as of Socrates and Plato, namely, to restrain oneself when assigning tasks to governments, to bureaucrats, to politicians and to all their eager beaver little helpers at prestigious universities and publications.

 

Not unless we return to heed to teachings of those folks who knew how limited the capacity of politics is for improving on human life will we have a good chance at a decent life and society.