Stuart Daw - Individuals for Freedom

Democrats and the "religious left"

It used to be quite simple to categorize Democrats. As my father used to say, "socialism is a disease of the weak in the mind that affects the down-at-the-mouth." But every group, no matter how hapless, needs leadership to give it the cohesion it needs to be effective and relevant.

And thus the Democrats had and still have their "eggheads," the left wing "intellectuals" who teach our young that because humans can't know anything for certain, that everything is relative, including moral values, all we have left is our admittedly irrational emotions to rely on. But at least there was no official religious dogma to lend those ideas a certain, if mystical consistency.

That has all changed with the recently arrived phenomenon, the Church of the Warming Globe. A faith that outstrips in wild irrationality any of the traditional world religions, that very condition puts it in good standing to do to Western Civilization what religion did to the Roman Empire. Once Justinian was able to close the last of the Pagan schools, the Christian faith took over as the repository of all knowledge, and the world plunged into a centuries-long abyss of darkness, ignorance, disease and despair.

So now the electorate has a choice within both political parties -- Republicans between their religious right and semi-capitalist, pro individual rights element, and Democrats with their religious left and socialist traditionalists. A McCain vs Obama contest this fall is a depressing prospect for America, for both are committed to destroying Western Civilization, albeit, as William Buckley might say, more through inadvertence than by intellection.

Forty five years ago when I first read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged I and many others felt the battle was essentially over, that the rational would triumph, that no longer need we fear for mankind, a mankind that now had a moral/intellectual compass to guide it to a rational and happy future.

Alas, it didn't happen as anticipated, for the social system was to deeply immersed in the ideas spread by the entrenched intellectuals in academia that it is turning out to be a long-term proposition. But it is not hopeless. In fact, the next few years may be defining ones in that the likely debacle following the election of either McCain or Obama will result in a public recognition of the need to return America to its original status: The Nation of he Enlightenment. What were we enlightened about? The power of reason, and the rejection of mysticism, the unknowable, the ineffable, and a return to confidence  (not faith) in the power of science and its source, the human mind.

God and the Founders

A responder to my post on religion tries to make the usual connection between the Founders and Religion, that they were all religious, and Christian to boot.

Some were, and most professed to be, but there is sufficient evidence to conclude that the dominant trend among them was Deism. God, in effect, made the universe and then took an extended holiday, and hasn't been heard from since.

Heaven, Is There One?

A highly intelligent friend called yesterday, and in the conversation happened to mention a close relative who had apparently led a somewhat troubled life, but who had recently become very religious, and who seemed transformed into becoming a much happier, more contented person.

My friend had found it difficult to have her relative explain the process of how this transformation had taken place, and could she validate it by a process of  applying reason to the facts of reality? We agreed that in such a case, its probably better not to try.

It's one thing to discuss such questions with someone who likes to deal in the realm of ideas. In such a case it might be productive in helping someone you hold as a high value in your life to "see the light." But in the words of the old saying, where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.

Any attempt to switch someone from faith to reason, when happiness for that person hangs in the balance, is probably an unkindness. For happiness is the proper condition for mankind right here on earth, in this one, precious life he or she has to live. Why screw it up?

Elmer Gantry Obama

Until last evening I hadn't realized that I had never stopped to listen to what Obama was actually saying in his stump speeches. Beyond noting his style of shouting meaningless platitudes, I never seemed to feel any need to look into the essence of what he was trying to convey.

But last night I "hung in there" and lasted through his entire diatribe, and suddenly I realized who it was that he reminded me of. It was Burt Lancaster playing Elmer Gantry in the 1960 film of the same name. I swear Barak must be emulating the Lancaster style of portraying the classic demagogue. Only Barak isn't play-acting. He's serious.

And most interesting was the adoring mob yelling affirmations to every short incantation Obama shouted at them. Hallelujah! It spite of his having really said nothing, people left the venue with the excited feeling they had just heard it from the 21st Century Messiah, and by God they're going to vote for him, abandoning their erstwhile heroine. I can see why. To hell with substance. As an orator in the battle between two preachers, Obama wins hands down.

Religion and the Republicans

The Republicans, as evidenced by the current nomination process, suffer from a split personality. The so-called "fusion" of its three elements, the religious, the economic and the military, has always resulted in an uneasy relationship between them. And it is manifested in the Party's weird behavior when in power.

Reagan cut taxes, but didn't have what it takes to deny the Democrat's pretended concern for the helpless, unwashed masses. The result: spending way beyond that which the Dems wouldn't have dared to do if they had been in control of the White House.

Bush also cut taxes but, saddled with the same philosophic view of life as Reagan, couldn't control spending either, and with the same result. The problem: you can't mix free market economics, which works, with egalitarianism and socialism, which does not.

Philosopher Ayn Rand explained this dilemma perfectly, as quoted in the most recent issue of IMPACT, published by the Ayn Rand Institute. "In politics, Ayn Rand upheld freedom and individual rights. But as she pointed out, religion, and mysticism more broadly, make freedom impossible." And "Thus Ayn Rand was adamant: religion must be replaced by a secular, rational, pro-man, individualist society."

But until that happens, the Republicans, who often sound good in economics, strike out when their economics bumps up against their ethics, the ethics of self-abnegation and sacrifice. Maybe they should first push for laissez-faire economics, then, after the inevitable success of that, go out into Arizona desert (maybe led by McCain), strip off their shirts and march around flagellating themselves like the medieval saints (or some present day Muslims).

McCain and Religion

There are many reasons for rejecting candidate McCain, the nice man and war hero, including his much discussed disrespect for the First Amendment and his pro-socialist leanings in economics, immigration, etc.

But it is interesting if not too surprising to note that his Republican opponents  have not made an issue of McCain's religion. I am not referring to the fear among some of the public about candidates such as Huckabee or Romney and their faiths, but to McCain's much more dangerous religious denomination.

The objection to religion is based on the principle that a devout adherent in the White House might not make judgments by the application of reason to the facts of reality. Rather he might fall back on the mystical insights of his particular faith. Then why do those who object to McCain on other grounds not dwell on a much more dangerous threat to the nation, represented by the religion in which McCain has taken his vows?

The religion I refer to is what has become called by some, The First Church of the Warming Globe. America, the beneficiary of the ideas of the functionally secular Founding Fathers, has survived the influence of religions that have been so destructive of human progress in the past, but now faces its greatest threat, the mystical madness of so-called climate change.

To be charitable about it, McCain may be just pandering to a section of the electorate for their votes. But that makes him no less dangerous once his marker is called in by those whose policies, if enacted into law, would strike at the heart of an industrial, prosperous, happy America. Don't take the chance. Don't vote for McCain.

Global Warming? COOL IT

Coffee and the New Church of the Warming Globe
Stuart Daw © 2007

The coffee business does not live in a vacuum (pardon the expression). Some things happening in the world around us can have a major impact on our lives, personal and corporate. One such movement that will be having a profound effect is what has become known as global warming, and by some others, more cynically, as the New Church of the Warming Globe. These latter people act as though the whole issue is funny, and it might be, except that it is being taken seriously by people who are not funny at all – many politicians, the UN, and most of the major media. That makes it dangerous, for even if it weren’t true it provides them with yet another way to increase government control over out lives. And yet, if they are right, we simply can’t ignore the possible consequences.

Is it fair to ask with what degree of certainty one should believe what one hears on either side of this hotly debated issue? We must be sure, for the future of Western Civilization hangs in the balance. Communism has lost its credibility after a century of countless attempts and untold human suffering, but some elements in society are undoubtedly still anxious to find another way to increase the power of the state over the freedom of the individual.

And it might be useful to recall other instances when masses of people latched onto an idea, only to find it simply wasn’t true. So in our own attitudes toward new concepts, do we follow the various gradations of knowledge, as in: Is it possible to happen, given what I know now? Is it likely to happen? Am I reasonably sure it will happen? Am I certain, based on all the irrefutable evidence that it will happen?

History has been rife with instances of large ideas that were embraced by entire peoples, only to be proven false. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), the German mathematician and astronomer who discovered the laws of interplanetary motion (elliptical, as opposed to circular orbits), defied the conventional wisdom of his day and proved it wrong. His contemporary, Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642 the Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, was imprisoned by the church for the heresy of saying the world was round, defying the “settled science” of the time.

And so, in the case of a serious question arising that affects our lives in any major way, we owe it to ourselves and the social system in which we live to ask the right questions before forming a fixed opinion. And we need to be wary of those spreading fear as a tool to further personal goals.

So we should be careful in accepting not just the usual frightening predictions of mass flooding and wild, unpredictable storms and crop failures, with people starving in the streets, for there are many other, seemingly disconnected ideas emanating from this trend. The very day of this writing, entertainer Sheryl Crow has decreed that we all must restrict ourselves to just one little square of toilet paper per lavatory visit, without informing us as to just how this is to be policed. Another element in society warns us that bees are becoming extinct, and that without bees to pollinate plants, there will be no plants and no food. Still another, immediately following a story about bananas being a wonderful element in the human diet, says that bananas will be extinct by 2013, because there is only one strain, that strain is dying, and science has been unable to generate another one.

Ironically and unfortunately, just one of the unintended consequences of all this is that the Third World, which stood to be the main beneficiary of future industrial growth, and from which we get the coffee we love, will likely suffer the most from the unevenly applied regulations demanded by the “New Church of the Warming Globe.”

A coffee trade magazine is hardly the place to hold forth on the myriad complexities of this issue. Sufficient to say, it does not represent “settled science.” It is not aeronautics, where a rocket to the moon can be launched with great precision, based on a truly settled science. Climatology has yet to accurately predict the weather for next Tuesday, never mind 50 years from now. Empirical evidence shows the world has been much warmer than it is today and much colder too, and a one degree Celsius change over the past century is hardly a cause for panic.

For a very good bibliography on this whole subject, I recommend the reader click onto www.schnittshow.com and then on “Global Warming.” This is the web page of a talk show host who has accumulated some 145 items by genuine scientists not on the payroll of some entities demanding certain conclusions.

You might ask, “What has all this to do with coffee?” You can’t separate the coffee business from the rest of the social system. Goodness knows what weird regulations might come forward impacting it. Coffee roasting takes energy. And think of the energy needed to bring coffee from origin to Canada, and of the electricity needed for brewing it. And all this at the subjective whim of people with the power to shut down or limit any industry they so wish.

And we should try to influence the pragmatic business people who capitalize on this kind of thing to line their collective pockets, while saying to heck with the long-range consequences. Just one recent case is Folgers, introducing a “stomach friendly” coffee, meaning coffee with lower acidity. Strangely enough, they have been selling coffee for many decades already relatively low in acidity, i.e. robustas and (unwashed) naturals as opposed to high grown washed arabicas. In other words, high grown coffee with a higher acidity makes the better cup. Besides, there is some doubt as to whether coffee really has a negative effect on the tummy anyway (I stand proudly as an inveterate coffee lover with a rather used, but sound stomach).

Coffee is the drink of the optimist, the winner, the realist who knows that happiness is the proper condition for human beings right here on earth. Should we allow ourselves to be “Gored” by those who may try to undermine it, and the rest of world around us? I would welcome hearing personal opinions on this issue from those in the trade. (stuartdaw@aol.com).

PROPER USE OF FORCE

A friend emailed me a few days ago, having to do with an article written by a scientist regarding war, and how admirers of philosopher Ayn Rand would react to that message, with the implied question as to what political party is favored by Objectivist politics. Here is his exact question:

"All this from a physicist, a man of science, but again they were and are instrumental in creating atomic and nuclear bombs. Interesting reading, it provided more insight into the minds of other “big brain” people. Are followers on Ayn Rand considered 'hawks'?"

My response: Good question, James. I can't speak officially for Objectivism, the "Followers of Ayn Rand," as you call them. But I think I have a pretty good grasp, a fair understanding of Objectivism. Objectivists can't be type cast regarding modern US politics, as they have a clear cut, specific philosophy which, when understood, makes one grasp why they can't be called either Republicans or Democrats.

It depends on what issue is involved. Generally speaking, Objectivists lean toward Republicans as often being right in the field of economics, but very often wrong in the field of human rights. They view Democrats as having some good ideas in human rights, but being almost always wrong in economics. Ironically, although Republicans spout off about being for the free market, when in office they spend like crazy, piling up the national debt. Why, is the question.

Republicans haven't the balls to put their money where their mouth is, because the Democrats have the majority of the electorate on their side in the field of ethics. And that is the ethics of altruism, the idea that it is okay to sacrifice those who produce the nation's wealth to those who do not. So a Republican like Bush may preach economic conservatism, but in practice he's afraid the Dems will scream blue murder if he tries to cut so-called "benefits" for various groups in society that represent votes.

And the "religious right" of the Republicans wants to control our personal lives in matters like birth control, what we see in movies and other of the media, etc. The Dems on the other hand generally like to give us freedom in our personal lives, while failing to have learned the economic lessons of history, that the only way to produce wealth is not by hand labor, but by a process of thought, the application of reason, and capital investment. They think you can rob the producers of their wealth, not connecting the dots, not seeing that without the producers there would be no wealth to distribute.

Objectivists reject all forms of religion. This is crucial, and it is why Rand, if she had to make a choice, seemed to dislike the Republicans more than Democrats. She knew that if it was not for religion, and that if reason ruled the world, there would likely be no more wars, with the benefits to all nations that this would mean.

But to answer your question about, "are Objectivists hawks," on that issue they stand firm on one principle --an individual's rights to his own life and property, which are sacred, and that extends beyond individuals to the country itself. Any other country that violates or threatens to violate the U.S. needs to be dealt with. If they have committed the mortal sin of initiating force against us, then we become hawks. Objectivists have no inhibitions about that, and all we have to do is realize that in WW2 we had no such qualms. That's what would be hard for today's youth to understand, how we could kill 100,000 Japanese in a few hours and immediately end the war.

Japan, the backward county that had been the enemy, became prosperous and one of America's best friends. So why wouldn't we do the same thing to Iran, if we can prove the threat that country poses to western civilization? What has happened to us that we have lost the resolve to do what is necessary to save our civilization? The answer can be found in the field of ETHICS, and unfortunately the dominant ethics in America today is ALTRUISM, the insistence on self sacrifice, even if it means sacrificing the whole nation on the alter of religious fanatics, the moral savages in the Middle East.

Two things to remember in this regard: A people, the potential "collateral damage" of conflict, in the long run is responsible for its government, and while it is morally wrong to initiate force or commit fraud against a person or a whole country, it is quite proper to retaliate against such force. In today's situation, it is clear that retaliation to Muslim aggression is in order, and with whatever force is required.

Pope Poops on the Good Life

The following is another good offering from the Ayn Rand Institute, this time by Dr. Yaron Brook on our friend, the Pope. In this regard I recommend a book by Professor Peter Bauer of the University of London, titled Western Guilt and Third World Poverty, in which he demonstrates that the more colonialized the people of Africa, the better their existential state. The deeper into the bowels of Central Africa they lived, the less civilized and livable were their lives.

"In his forthcoming book, the Pope claims that the West, in its pursuit of earthly prosperity, has "plundered and sacked" Africa and other poor regions. "We see how our lifestyle, the history that involved us, has stripped them naked and continues to strip them naked," he writes.

"Contrary to the Pope's statements, the Third World is not impoverished because of Western 'exploitation,'" said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "It is impoverished precisely because it has failed to embrace Western ideals--the very ideals rejected by Christianity.

"The root of the West's prosperity is its distinctive values of reason, science, and capitalism. Rational minds, free to pursue material prosperity, have produced an explosion of wealth and technology--from electricity to automobiles, from medicines to personal computers--that has improved our lives and extended our lifespan.

"It is obvious that the third world has failed to embrace these values, and has instead remained mired in mysticism and tribalism. But Christianity rejects them as well; it teaches us to scorn science and earthly success in favor of prayer and religious asceticism. As Jesus counseled his followers, 'Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.' It is bizarre to suggest that the solution to the third world's rampant poverty is a philosophy that idealizes poverty.

"In rejecting the preconditions and goal of prosperity, the Pope makes it clear that his aim is not to see the Third World advance--it is to condemn the West for its commitment to improving and enjoying life on this earth.

"Those who desire better lives for themselves and their families should reject the Pope's immoral message and embrace the values of reason and freedom."

Global Warming 4

The Intellectual Activist credits Wesley Pruden with having coined the phrase First Church of the Warming Globe, giving environmentalism the status of a religion (see the Michael Barone column).

Barone explains: Like all religions, this one has its daily rituals of devotion and submission. There are those who sort their garbage five times a day, in the name of "recycling." That is different from Muslims who bow toward Mecca five times a day? And like all religions, this one has its zealots who attempt to take their religious seriously, adopting a lifestyle of monastic asceticism and mortification of the flesh.

He includes this story in the New York Times about a couple who are experimenting in living a life with no "carbon footprint" or environmental "impact"—a life of monastic purity, according to the strictures of the First Church of the Warming Globe.

But of course this, too, is a sham. "No impact"? They're still taking advantage of running water and modern sewage and sanitation. They won't drive a car—but they live in Manhattan, a metropolis whose very existence is made possible by a massive industrial infrastructure. And they won't use toilet paper, but the husband has a book contract and the wife works (get this) for BusinessWeek. Remind me: what are books and magazine made out of?

Yes, this couple is living a miserable, dirty little life of self-imposed poverty in their Fifth Avenue high-rise apartment—but that is only the smallest down payment on the human misery demanded by a truly consistent devotion to the religion of environmentalism.

The article in the March 22 New York Times by Penelope Green, "The Year Without Toilet Paper," descrobes: A sour odor hovered oh-so-slightly in the air, the faint tang, not wholly unpleasant, that is the mark of the home composter. Isabella Beavan, age 2, staggered around the neo-Modern furniture—the Eames chairs, the brown velvet couch, the Lucite lamps and the steel cafe table upon which dinner was set—her silhouette greatly amplified by her organic cotton diapers in their enormous boiled-wool, snap-front cover.

A visitor avoided the bathroom because she knew she would find no toilet paper there….

Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella's parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.

Mr. Beavan…needed a new book project and the No Impact year was the only one of four possibilities his agent thought would sell. This being 2007, Mr. Beavan is showcasing No Impact in a blog (noimpactman.com) laced with links and testimonials from New Environmentalist authorities like treehugger.com. His agent did indeed secure him a book deal, with Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and he and his family are being tailed by Laura Gabbert, a documentary filmmaker and Ms. Conlin's best friend….

The dishwasher is off, along with the microwave, the coffee machine and the food processor. Planes, trains, automobiles and that elevator are out, but the family is still doing laundry in the washing machines in the basement of the building…. And they have not had the heart to take away the vacuum from their cleaning lady, who comes weekly (this week they took away her paper towels)….

Ms. Conlin….said she saw "An Inconvenient Truth" in an air-conditioned movie theater last summer. "It was like, 'J'accuse!' " she said. "I just felt like everything I did in my life was contributing to a system that was really problematic." Borrowing a phrase from her husband, she continued, "If I was a student, I would march against myself."…

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