Evolution in Claude Monet's garden
Sunday, August 28, 2005
The Manufactured Debate between ID and Evolution
Intellectual design or ID is the grandchild of the famous watchmaker analogy dreamed up by a clergyman – William Paley in 1802. He wrote that if one came upon a watch in a field one would marvel at the intricate and complex mechanism and that it must have been guided and produced by an intelligent being. Therefore the fact that complex organisms exist is evidence for the existence of God.
But along came Charles Darwin who had studied Paley’s writings yet saw instead that from innumerable random mutations in the DNA that makes up an organism’s genes one mutation may result in the improvement of an organ’s function which would increase its chances for survival. For Darwin evolution largely reflects the combined action of these random mutations and natural selection repeated over billions of years resulting in incremental improvements. These improvements produce organisms that were “exquisitely adapted” to their environments and would look like they were designed. Evolution is not “just one possible explanation of life,” it is THE explanation of life and the foundation of our modern life. Creationism was junk science in the 70’s and in its metamorphosed form of ID it is still junk science.
There is no debate because good science does no debate with bad science. Evolution has been proven over and over again, scientists are now just squabbling over minutiae (such as the reason why the peppered moth evolved dark color). ID will never be proven because no research can be or has been conducted at all due to the fact that it is not science but faith. Faith or mysticism is the unreal, that which must be believed blindly. The true object of ID is to save religion – to save God from the onslaught of science and knowledge. “Mysticism is the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one’s senses and one’s reason” (Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World – Philosophy Who Needs it by Ayn Rand).
Although ID accepts parts of evolution today, they claim that God designed the first atoms or the first cell, depending on who you read. But it is really the last gasps of magic and mysticism from a bygone era. Statistically 1.3 million kids drop out of school between the eighth and twelfth grade and the rest are bored or can barely read or write. Two thirds of students applying to colleges are unprepared to do college level work. To bring ID into the classroom would be a terrible detriment to students who are poorly educated and not prepared intellectually even for this gasping, small dragon of ID. Their minds filled with non-concepts such as egalitarianism, environmentalism, global warming, multiculturalism how can they possibly grasp the complicated concepts that make up evolution and then compare it to a hoax such as ID that comes dressed up as science. ID is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Ayn Rand wrote in her article The Age of Mediocrity: “To claim that the mystics’ mythology, or inventions, or superstitions are as valid as scientific theories, and to offer this claim to the unformed minds of children, is a moral crime. But to the extent that a child trusts his teacher, he would be inclined to accept him on faith and to doubt his own mind….”
How can America survive and thrive with citizens that do not have confidence in their ability to think and reason? Each new step forward from discovering new cures for Alzheimers to finding the right set of equations that will propel man to the stars is based on a foundation of scientific reasoning that scientists can have confidence in not faith.
There is no debate, there is no controversy and there is no questioning of the grand theory of evolution among scientists and there has not been debate for decades. Without the underpinning of evolution there would be no modern science. Fields such as Comparative Biology, genetics or immunology simply would not exist. We would have no pharmaceutical companies producing antibiotics for bacterial diseases, vaccines for measles, mumps and polio or drugs to help AIDS sufferers and diabetics. We would not have surgeons performing heart or liver transplants. In sum there would not be any integration of knowledge only descriptions of things; no connections, only disintegrated snippets of data. We would still be in the 19th century wondering in amazement, with Paley, who the designer of that intricate clock was. The question is – in the 21st century, why are we still wondering?
But along came Charles Darwin who had studied Paley’s writings yet saw instead that from innumerable random mutations in the DNA that makes up an organism’s genes one mutation may result in the improvement of an organ’s function which would increase its chances for survival. For Darwin evolution largely reflects the combined action of these random mutations and natural selection repeated over billions of years resulting in incremental improvements. These improvements produce organisms that were “exquisitely adapted” to their environments and would look like they were designed. Evolution is not “just one possible explanation of life,” it is THE explanation of life and the foundation of our modern life. Creationism was junk science in the 70’s and in its metamorphosed form of ID it is still junk science.
There is no debate because good science does no debate with bad science. Evolution has been proven over and over again, scientists are now just squabbling over minutiae (such as the reason why the peppered moth evolved dark color). ID will never be proven because no research can be or has been conducted at all due to the fact that it is not science but faith. Faith or mysticism is the unreal, that which must be believed blindly. The true object of ID is to save religion – to save God from the onslaught of science and knowledge. “Mysticism is the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one’s senses and one’s reason” (Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World – Philosophy Who Needs it by Ayn Rand).
Although ID accepts parts of evolution today, they claim that God designed the first atoms or the first cell, depending on who you read. But it is really the last gasps of magic and mysticism from a bygone era. Statistically 1.3 million kids drop out of school between the eighth and twelfth grade and the rest are bored or can barely read or write. Two thirds of students applying to colleges are unprepared to do college level work. To bring ID into the classroom would be a terrible detriment to students who are poorly educated and not prepared intellectually even for this gasping, small dragon of ID. Their minds filled with non-concepts such as egalitarianism, environmentalism, global warming, multiculturalism how can they possibly grasp the complicated concepts that make up evolution and then compare it to a hoax such as ID that comes dressed up as science. ID is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Ayn Rand wrote in her article The Age of Mediocrity: “To claim that the mystics’ mythology, or inventions, or superstitions are as valid as scientific theories, and to offer this claim to the unformed minds of children, is a moral crime. But to the extent that a child trusts his teacher, he would be inclined to accept him on faith and to doubt his own mind….”
How can America survive and thrive with citizens that do not have confidence in their ability to think and reason? Each new step forward from discovering new cures for Alzheimers to finding the right set of equations that will propel man to the stars is based on a foundation of scientific reasoning that scientists can have confidence in not faith.
There is no debate, there is no controversy and there is no questioning of the grand theory of evolution among scientists and there has not been debate for decades. Without the underpinning of evolution there would be no modern science. Fields such as Comparative Biology, genetics or immunology simply would not exist. We would have no pharmaceutical companies producing antibiotics for bacterial diseases, vaccines for measles, mumps and polio or drugs to help AIDS sufferers and diabetics. We would not have surgeons performing heart or liver transplants. In sum there would not be any integration of knowledge only descriptions of things; no connections, only disintegrated snippets of data. We would still be in the 19th century wondering in amazement, with Paley, who the designer of that intricate clock was. The question is – in the 21st century, why are we still wondering?
Saturday, August 27, 2005
The Middle East: The La-La Land of Truth Inversion
“Observe what the absurdly named “peace process” has consisted of. The Palestinian Authority and its Arab neighbors deliberately keep the Palestinians in misery, indoctrinate them with anti-Semitism, and sponsor terrorism against Israel. They then blame Israel’s “occupation” of territories won in a war of self-defense (and crucial for Israel’s security today) for the Palestinian’s misery—and blame the Palestinians’ misery for Palestinian terrorism. The solution, they convince Israel and the West, is more land, loot, and power for the “downtrodden” Palestinians—money which the Palestinian leadership uses to fund more attacks on Israel.” (Israel’s Deadly Appeasement Process Continues (www.capmag.com).
The removal of the Jewish settlements in Gaza and with it any Israeli presence in this territory is a sad reminder of the bizarre times we live in. It took six days for the Israeli army to capture Gaza, the West Bank, Sinai and the Golan Heights during the 1967 Middle East war – a war which by the way was NOT started by Israel. Ironically it took the Israeli army six days to remove residents from 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the West Bank.
Reading the comments from Arab leaders is an interesting exercise in truth inversion. Rafiq Husseini a Palestinian presidential chief of staff stated after the pullout: “This is a momentous and very important point in history for us. But now we want to start building.” They want to start building? Who was stopping them? It certainly was not the Israelis who at every step were willing to live side by side with their Arab neighbors. The stopping was done by the same Palestinian leaders backed by Terrorist organizations who knew that if the Palestinians prospered that would be the death blow to their fantasies of an Islam dominated world.
Mr. Husseini also stated that the Israeli withdrawal was “a very important step toward liberation and freedom and independence”. Liberation? It will be an important step when the Palestinians are liberated from their terrorist masters that have every intention of continuing the present state of Palestinian misery and poverty.
But the greatest inversion of actions and consequences was when the Israeli foreign minister Mr. Meir said: “We disengaged the people from the land in the Gaza Strip and the northern part of the West Bank. Now it is the Palestinians’ turn to disengage themselves from violence and terror.” For every action there is a logical reaction. For every cave-in to irrationality there is only more irrationality. The terrorists have learned in the past that violence and murdering innocent Israelis pays. In August 2005 they learned that patience and continued violence will give them land.
Facing the truth and telling it like it is, is a necessary component to winning anything in life and much more so when a war is being fought. In the 20th century we won WWII because we openly called the Japanese evil and Hitler a monster. Then we took the necessary actions to bring them down. The Islamic terrorists are our 21st century evil. Let us not call what happened in Gaza this month a step toward peace. It is a step toward the self sacrifice of Israel - their doom. True freedom-loving people around the world should be saddened by Israel’s capitulation, the only bulwark of freedom and democracy in a sea of irrationality and evil.
The removal of the Jewish settlements in Gaza and with it any Israeli presence in this territory is a sad reminder of the bizarre times we live in. It took six days for the Israeli army to capture Gaza, the West Bank, Sinai and the Golan Heights during the 1967 Middle East war – a war which by the way was NOT started by Israel. Ironically it took the Israeli army six days to remove residents from 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the West Bank.
Reading the comments from Arab leaders is an interesting exercise in truth inversion. Rafiq Husseini a Palestinian presidential chief of staff stated after the pullout: “This is a momentous and very important point in history for us. But now we want to start building.” They want to start building? Who was stopping them? It certainly was not the Israelis who at every step were willing to live side by side with their Arab neighbors. The stopping was done by the same Palestinian leaders backed by Terrorist organizations who knew that if the Palestinians prospered that would be the death blow to their fantasies of an Islam dominated world.
Mr. Husseini also stated that the Israeli withdrawal was “a very important step toward liberation and freedom and independence”. Liberation? It will be an important step when the Palestinians are liberated from their terrorist masters that have every intention of continuing the present state of Palestinian misery and poverty.
But the greatest inversion of actions and consequences was when the Israeli foreign minister Mr. Meir said: “We disengaged the people from the land in the Gaza Strip and the northern part of the West Bank. Now it is the Palestinians’ turn to disengage themselves from violence and terror.” For every action there is a logical reaction. For every cave-in to irrationality there is only more irrationality. The terrorists have learned in the past that violence and murdering innocent Israelis pays. In August 2005 they learned that patience and continued violence will give them land.
Facing the truth and telling it like it is, is a necessary component to winning anything in life and much more so when a war is being fought. In the 20th century we won WWII because we openly called the Japanese evil and Hitler a monster. Then we took the necessary actions to bring them down. The Islamic terrorists are our 21st century evil. Let us not call what happened in Gaza this month a step toward peace. It is a step toward the self sacrifice of Israel - their doom. True freedom-loving people around the world should be saddened by Israel’s capitulation, the only bulwark of freedom and democracy in a sea of irrationality and evil.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Going Nuclear – Destroying Middle Eastern Sourced Terrorism
Nuclear power is now being touted as the clean, secure and steady source of energy needed for our Internet age. Finland has just built its fifth plant and the protestors were marching with signs declaring “Greenpeace go home”! Amazing. Forty seven power plants have started up or are under construction since 2000 in Asia alone. China has plans for 100 new power plants and India for eight. Russia is also considering nuclear power.
Things even look positive for the clean energy in the United States as well. President Bush designated Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for nuclear waste. In addition plans for six new reactors are slowly moving along in Maryland, Louisiana, Mississippi and New York, and Mr. Bush has signed into law an energy bill which includes protection for power companies against regulatory delays for the six US reactors.
With all the terrorism coming from the Middle East one must ask why they haven’t stopped the oil flow to the West. This would certainly be a sure fire way to shut us down. The reason is that oil is their only product. They have no other product, inventions or ideas to offer anyone. The Arabs did not even know what to do with the oil until the western oil-men showed up and found, drilled and shipped it.
So what does all this western money do for the Middle East besides allowing all those Saudi Arabian princes to live the high life? It goes to feeding, clothing and brain-washing their young into becoming terrorists. Get it? If the West were oil independent, at least from the Middle Eastern oil, their revenue for supporting Islamo-nihilism would dry up.
Due to decades of ever escalating Middle Eastern terrorism we are finally waking up to the fact that energy independence is a good thing. These are the logical steps, in order, which might occur were the West to totally rid itself of Arab oil.
1. The West goes nuclear.
2. The infidel cash-flow from the West to the Middle East dries up.
3. Islamo-terrorist training, therefore, cannot get funded.
4. Middle Easterners cannot live off the dole and must start producing and earning a living by becoming entrepreneurs, discoverers, inventors and thinkers (most of all).
5. Terrorism decreases and possibly ceases because people are too busy earning a living.
6. Middle Eastern governments welcome Western ideas and investments.
7. Middle Easterners become less religious, more secular and finally step into the 21st century.
As a famous 20th century philosopher once wrote: “Evil, not value, is an absence and a negation, evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us….In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit”. (For The New Intellectual by Ayn Rand).
Our dependence on Middle Eastern Oil for the past 90 years has allowed the irrational and evil to prosper. It is time for the good to stop our compromise with evil. Until some new source of energy is discovered by the free West we do this by going Nuclear.
Things even look positive for the clean energy in the United States as well. President Bush designated Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for nuclear waste. In addition plans for six new reactors are slowly moving along in Maryland, Louisiana, Mississippi and New York, and Mr. Bush has signed into law an energy bill which includes protection for power companies against regulatory delays for the six US reactors.
With all the terrorism coming from the Middle East one must ask why they haven’t stopped the oil flow to the West. This would certainly be a sure fire way to shut us down. The reason is that oil is their only product. They have no other product, inventions or ideas to offer anyone. The Arabs did not even know what to do with the oil until the western oil-men showed up and found, drilled and shipped it.
So what does all this western money do for the Middle East besides allowing all those Saudi Arabian princes to live the high life? It goes to feeding, clothing and brain-washing their young into becoming terrorists. Get it? If the West were oil independent, at least from the Middle Eastern oil, their revenue for supporting Islamo-nihilism would dry up.
Due to decades of ever escalating Middle Eastern terrorism we are finally waking up to the fact that energy independence is a good thing. These are the logical steps, in order, which might occur were the West to totally rid itself of Arab oil.
1. The West goes nuclear.
2. The infidel cash-flow from the West to the Middle East dries up.
3. Islamo-terrorist training, therefore, cannot get funded.
4. Middle Easterners cannot live off the dole and must start producing and earning a living by becoming entrepreneurs, discoverers, inventors and thinkers (most of all).
5. Terrorism decreases and possibly ceases because people are too busy earning a living.
6. Middle Eastern governments welcome Western ideas and investments.
7. Middle Easterners become less religious, more secular and finally step into the 21st century.
As a famous 20th century philosopher once wrote: “Evil, not value, is an absence and a negation, evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us….In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit”. (For The New Intellectual by Ayn Rand).
Our dependence on Middle Eastern Oil for the past 90 years has allowed the irrational and evil to prosper. It is time for the good to stop our compromise with evil. Until some new source of energy is discovered by the free West we do this by going Nuclear.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Moral Self-Confidence - Have We Lost It?
"The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life"... (Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged).
Hand wringing and mea culpas abound on this the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Buy why do we cry? We are cozy in our beds at night, with tummy full and a roof that does not leak. We did not cry or hand wring in 1945 as this 21 year old second Lieutenant related: “We learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, and for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.”
“We were going to Live”. Powerful words coming from a boy who knew that the Japaneses were expected to fight to the death. Lives did not mean much by the Japanese moral code of the day as it hadn’t for centuries. Pride and victory were everything for these agressors.
So Fat Man and Little Boy ended the Japanese dreams of conquest by terrorism and death. They surrendered unconditionally – Hirohito was allowed to remain a figurehead emperor. General Douglas Macarthur proceeded to institute democratic reforms and wrote their constitution. He was the boss in Japan and made sure that the people were westernized. The result of Macauthur’s PC, tough guy stance and demands? Prosperity and peace for the Japanese for the past 60 years!
We have this very important lesson reminding us every anniversary, if nothing else, that the good (the West for all you peaceniks) can only triumph over evil (Japan and Germany in 1945) if the good is willing to go all the way – no compromises and mealy mouth begging.
Some people decry the bomb as an evil thing. False! It is a good thing if it keeps America safe. Oh – some will say – the atom bomb kills hundreds of thousands in an instant and more die later of radiation. Yes, true. But is that worse than a million of our 18-25 year olds dying and maimed over five years with bullets and explosives? I don’t see the difference. There is no contest. The two bombs were a good that allowed boys to return home, Japan to prosper and become a member of the community of free nations and eventually for the evil empire, the Soviet Union, to die.
Evil nations exist because they are populated by many evil people or at least many people who hold the wrong ideas. The Japanese are a prime example of a people who wholeheartedly took up the nihilistic cause of expansionism and subjugation at whatever cost.
Wrong ideas lead me to the present. With the Islamo-terrorists, if we do not revisit WWII and relearn those lessons – the main one being that the west possessed moral self-confidence that we somehow lost over the past 60 years - we will be doomed to failure and an atomic bomb will one day and soon - devastate us. Do we deserve to be bombed? I don’t think so.
We must as a nation and individually decide whether we are the good. And if we are the good then we will maybe regain our moral self-confidence. With confidence in our being on the right side we will do the right thing concerning the Islamo-terrorists – annihilate them by doing whatever it takes. If that means dropping a bomb on Iran then so be it.
The following is a quote from Ayn Rand in Galt’s Speech in Atlas Shrugged and reprinted in “For the New Intellectual”.
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist".
Right now President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are the men in the middle. They are blanking out the truth that we are fighting rabid religious terrorists and that they mean what they say and aim to get what they want - a paradise of Islamic fundamentalism on earth.
Clouds gather while the West fiddles with evasions and half truths. Just as the Japanese finally understood our moral courage and certainty (not bargains and appeasement), so we should deal with moral courage and certainty with these nihilists for whom death is everything. We are a culture of life and goodness on earth. Our continued existence depends upon our regaining our moral self-confidence and recognizing evil for what it is and wherever it is.
Hand wringing and mea culpas abound on this the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Buy why do we cry? We are cozy in our beds at night, with tummy full and a roof that does not leak. We did not cry or hand wring in 1945 as this 21 year old second Lieutenant related: “We learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, and for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.”
“We were going to Live”. Powerful words coming from a boy who knew that the Japaneses were expected to fight to the death. Lives did not mean much by the Japanese moral code of the day as it hadn’t for centuries. Pride and victory were everything for these agressors.
So Fat Man and Little Boy ended the Japanese dreams of conquest by terrorism and death. They surrendered unconditionally – Hirohito was allowed to remain a figurehead emperor. General Douglas Macarthur proceeded to institute democratic reforms and wrote their constitution. He was the boss in Japan and made sure that the people were westernized. The result of Macauthur’s PC, tough guy stance and demands? Prosperity and peace for the Japanese for the past 60 years!
We have this very important lesson reminding us every anniversary, if nothing else, that the good (the West for all you peaceniks) can only triumph over evil (Japan and Germany in 1945) if the good is willing to go all the way – no compromises and mealy mouth begging.
Some people decry the bomb as an evil thing. False! It is a good thing if it keeps America safe. Oh – some will say – the atom bomb kills hundreds of thousands in an instant and more die later of radiation. Yes, true. But is that worse than a million of our 18-25 year olds dying and maimed over five years with bullets and explosives? I don’t see the difference. There is no contest. The two bombs were a good that allowed boys to return home, Japan to prosper and become a member of the community of free nations and eventually for the evil empire, the Soviet Union, to die.
Evil nations exist because they are populated by many evil people or at least many people who hold the wrong ideas. The Japanese are a prime example of a people who wholeheartedly took up the nihilistic cause of expansionism and subjugation at whatever cost.
Wrong ideas lead me to the present. With the Islamo-terrorists, if we do not revisit WWII and relearn those lessons – the main one being that the west possessed moral self-confidence that we somehow lost over the past 60 years - we will be doomed to failure and an atomic bomb will one day and soon - devastate us. Do we deserve to be bombed? I don’t think so.
We must as a nation and individually decide whether we are the good. And if we are the good then we will maybe regain our moral self-confidence. With confidence in our being on the right side we will do the right thing concerning the Islamo-terrorists – annihilate them by doing whatever it takes. If that means dropping a bomb on Iran then so be it.
The following is a quote from Ayn Rand in Galt’s Speech in Atlas Shrugged and reprinted in “For the New Intellectual”.
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist".
Right now President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are the men in the middle. They are blanking out the truth that we are fighting rabid religious terrorists and that they mean what they say and aim to get what they want - a paradise of Islamic fundamentalism on earth.
Clouds gather while the West fiddles with evasions and half truths. Just as the Japanese finally understood our moral courage and certainty (not bargains and appeasement), so we should deal with moral courage and certainty with these nihilists for whom death is everything. We are a culture of life and goodness on earth. Our continued existence depends upon our regaining our moral self-confidence and recognizing evil for what it is and wherever it is.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Thank you Founding Fathers!
Calling the high court's June 23 ruling "misguided" and a "threat to all property owners," Mr. Riley said, "A property rights revolt is sweeping the nation, and Alabama is leading it." The backlash against the judicial ruling has not received much attention in the national press, although legislative leaders in more than two dozen states have proposed statutes and/or state constitutional amendments to restrict local governments' eminent-domain powers.
It is remarkable that our Supreme Court would vote the way it did in an important a case as Kelo versus New London. This is the now famous case where the local government declared eminent domain on 15 property owner holdouts for the purpose of starting a development plan that would afford the city of New London a new source of tax revenue.
But on second thought it’s not really so remarkable – is it…. The fact is that there is very little understanding of the term “individual rights” and why we have them, in America at least…
I agree with the Objectivist definition of Individual Rights: A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. The basic right of course is a man’s right to his own life.
But if man has a right to his own life then how is he to sustain that life? By permission? That is a slave’s condition of existence. Anybody with eyes can see of course that man sustains his life by owning the product of his effort which we call property. Therefore, without the right to keep that property there can be no life. Think about it. If you cannot be sure that your house is yours or that the food you just purchased is yours, or that the car you drive to work with is yours, then you cannot live. If at any moment the government can decide to seize your property then HOW CAN YOU LIVE?
Just because the majority ruled 5-4 in the Kelo v New London case in favor of the taking of private property does not make it right. Would you like it or agree with your local government to come into your home and declare that they need the ground where your home stands on to put up a business that would produce more taxes? No of course not – you’d say that’s ridiculous.
Ayn Rand, my favorite philosopher stated it quite succinctly:
“Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave”.
So I want to thank some very special people who foresaw the abuses of government: Our Founding Fathers – in particular John Adams and Thomas Jefferson for having the wisdom and creativity for designing our three branches of government in such a way that they were independent from each other and each would serve as a control for possible abuses by the other two.
John Adams, our second president seemed adamant when he wrote that “Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty…The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
It is remarkable that our Supreme Court would vote the way it did in an important a case as Kelo versus New London. This is the now famous case where the local government declared eminent domain on 15 property owner holdouts for the purpose of starting a development plan that would afford the city of New London a new source of tax revenue.
But on second thought it’s not really so remarkable – is it…. The fact is that there is very little understanding of the term “individual rights” and why we have them, in America at least…
I agree with the Objectivist definition of Individual Rights: A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. The basic right of course is a man’s right to his own life.
But if man has a right to his own life then how is he to sustain that life? By permission? That is a slave’s condition of existence. Anybody with eyes can see of course that man sustains his life by owning the product of his effort which we call property. Therefore, without the right to keep that property there can be no life. Think about it. If you cannot be sure that your house is yours or that the food you just purchased is yours, or that the car you drive to work with is yours, then you cannot live. If at any moment the government can decide to seize your property then HOW CAN YOU LIVE?
Just because the majority ruled 5-4 in the Kelo v New London case in favor of the taking of private property does not make it right. Would you like it or agree with your local government to come into your home and declare that they need the ground where your home stands on to put up a business that would produce more taxes? No of course not – you’d say that’s ridiculous.
Ayn Rand, my favorite philosopher stated it quite succinctly:
“Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave”.
So I want to thank some very special people who foresaw the abuses of government: Our Founding Fathers – in particular John Adams and Thomas Jefferson for having the wisdom and creativity for designing our three branches of government in such a way that they were independent from each other and each would serve as a control for possible abuses by the other two.
John Adams, our second president seemed adamant when he wrote that “Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty…The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)