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Bad Arguments Against Censorship: "Better Democracy"

April 28, 2008 by · 3 Comments 

Seeing distinctions everywhere there is not a difference, Canada’s collectivist establishment is desperate to take down the governing collectivist “Conservatives“, and to replace them with the “natural governing party”, the collectivist “Liberals“. They hope thereby to achieve the titanic victory of doing away with the arch evil of redistributing wealth via tax credits to the “poor”, and instead redistributing wealth via righteous tax increases to the “rich”.

Enter Gerry Nicholls, the former chief of the National Citizens Coalition in Canada whose columns now appear in Canada’s major dailies from time to time. In one of his columns, published in the Edmonton Sun on April 23rd, he had the right proposal:

…we should scrap all these election gag laws…

Cutting his rationale down to the essential quotations:

None of this is good for democracy.

That’s why we should scrap all these election gag laws designed to regulate political spending and to muzzle free speech.

[…]

Democracy works best when there is a free marketplace of competing ideas.

(emphasis added).

I want to address Gerry’s rationale but, before doing so, let us try to understand it a bit better.

I begin with Gerry’s use of the word “democracy”. Given how utterly corrupted the meaning of the word democracy has become, it is not entirely clear what concept Gerry is referring to when he uses the word “democracy”. Arguably, the best solution in this case is the process of elimination.

Consider first Gerry’s “minarchist” (as in: “the government that governs least governs best”) libertarian streak. Like many others, minarchist libertarians regard life, liberty and property as inalienable rights; as things that cannot be trumped by the whims of the majority. Therefore, it is extremely doubtful that, by “democracy”, Gerry is referring to “majority rule”.



“Damned to Repeat It: Part I – Libertarianism”

Consider next the idea that “democracy” is a concept that refers to the source of a government’s powers. When used in this way, democracy refers to the idea that governmental authority stems from man, upon whom the facts of reality impose morality. It is doubtful that, by “democracy”, Gerry is referring to the source of a government’s power because the existence/non-existence of a “marketplace of ideas” is as possible in a theocracy (which regards god as the source of a government’s power) as in a democracy.

As I see it, that leaves one likely inference: by “democracy”, Gerry means “elections”. This is a definition of democracy shared by countless talking heads, journalists, and political junkies, and by those who convinced George W. Bush that setting up elections in Middle East countries is the same as making those countries democratic. Although Gerry is free to respond to this article with a correction, I must conclude that when Gerry says that “Democracy works best when there is a free marketplace of competing ideas”, what he really means is that “Elections work best when there is a free marketplace of competing ideas”.

Now, let us consider what Gerry means by a “free market” in this context. In a free market of goods and services, every person gets what he pays for and pays only for what he gets. In a free market of goods and services, one would get only the election commercials one paid for, and would pay only for the election commercials one got. However, Gerry is not referring to a free market of goods and services: the issue here is not, for example, whether regulations have given one television network an unfair advantage over another. Gerry is referring to a free market of ideas competing for the minds and ballots of voters.

Now, forgive me, but I think Gerry is just talking loosely. Too loosely. In fact, I do not believe Gerry really even means “free market of competing ideas” when he uses the term. If he does, I do not believe he has thought it through very well.

Gerry is not alone, however. The reference to a “free market of ideas” is a common libertarian practice. It would not surprise me were I to discover that that practice owes its genesis to the fact that libertarianism is a movement that was spearheaded not by philosophers, but by pro-capitalist economists (such as Murray Rothbard). To the man with a hammer, every problem is a nail and, to a libertarian economist, every philosophical issue is an aspect of the free markets vs. central planning debate. However, applied to the situation of voters weighing arguments during an election and voting accordingly, the analogy proves to be flawed. In a free market, every individual gets the product he pays for with his dollars. In contrast, in an election, an individual does not get the idea he voted for unless the majority of other individuals voted for the same idea. In truth, even that is wrong, because the majority of people do not really vote for ideas: they vote for parties (especially for parties that have no ideas). Therefore, when Gerry writes “free market of competing ideas”, he is either wrong, or he does not really mean it.

Giving Gerry the benefit of the doubt, what he really means is not “a free market of competing ideas” but: the absence of censorship. I do not think I have mischaracterized his argument – “Democracy works best when there is a free marketplace of competing ideas” – when I strip it of ambiguous jargon and loose metaphor to translate it plainly as: elections work best in the absence of censorship.

Assuming my translation is correct, I agree with Gerry that election finance laws impose an instance of censorship, and I agree that election finance laws should be scrapped. However, I submit that Gerry is entirely wrong when it comes to his rationale for scrapping election finance laws. As with all matters of government policy, the essential and defensible rationale for striking down election finances laws is: such laws are contrary to the survival and happiness of human beings.

The facts of reality – including facts that pertain to the nature of man – are such that no man can achieve his own happiness if he is prohibited from acting upon his own rational decisions. Freedom, properly defined, is control over ones own life, liberty and property. Without freedom – without that control – the rational decisions upon which a mans survival and happiness depend cannot be acted upon. Without freedom, a man’s mind is, in effect, paralyzed. An unfree rational man is the functional equivalent of a newborn baby or, worse, a vegetable. His survival is dependent upon the whims of those who feed, house and clothe him. And, though he can be relieved of pain and suffering, his happiness is impossible, because happiness is the result of a personal achievement: the successful pursuit of ones rationally-chosen values. Such achievements require freedom.

The role of government is to ensure that each individual is not deprived of control over his own life, liberty or property without his consent. By so defending freedom, a government defends human life.

Fining or imprisoning a person for spending his own money on a perfectly peaceful service – message distribution – is a deprivation of a person’s freedom; in particular, it is a deprivation of a person’s control over his own property. Such deprivation is wrong not because it prevents elections from working best and not because it is thought to be unneeded, but because it opposes and undermines the living of a rational life; of a human life.

Elections can work better in the absence of censorship, but that is only because the absence of censorship makes rational thought, discussion and action possible…possible, but – contrary to what Gerry implies – not inevitable. If, in the absence of censorship, nobody bothers to think rationally, elections will not – by any rational standard – work any better than they do under conditions of censorship. Irrationality cannot intentionally cause anything good because it cannot intentionally cause anything at all. If all ideas and discussions during an election are irrational, irrationality might cause “democracy” to be worse in some sense or another, but the censorship of some irrational expressions will not: adding more irrational arguments to a debate does not a better democracy make.

Phi Beta Kappa

April 25, 2008 by · 1 Comment 

While getting ready for work today, I had a chance to listen to Dr. Leonard Peikoff‘s most recent podcast about the philosophy of Ayn Rand (Podcast #13). In it, Dr. Peikoff was asked:

What is the purpose of philosophy?

He encapsulated his answer with the first sentence of his reply:

Phi beta kappa: philosophy as the guide to life.

Intrigued, I did a bit of quick googling, and discovered the following, which I now share with you.

Phi beta and kappa are, of course, the Greek letters Phi, Beta, and Kappa, respectively. In this context, phi beta kappa is an acronym for the words: philosophia biou kubernetes.

Philosophia is, of course, a word that means philosophy. Philo translates to “love”, and sophia to “wisdom” or “knowledge”. Thus, you will normally see philosophia and philosophy defined as “the love of knowledge” or “the love of wisdom”. However, philosophia actually refers to the activity or practice of obtaining knowledge, not merely to the passive loving of it.

Biou is a reference to life.

Kubernetes is a reference to the helmsman or ruler of a ship; to that which steers ones course.

Combined with biou, kubernetes, we have a reference to: that which is life’s guide. Combined also with philosophia, we have a phrase that means: the pursuit of wisdom is life’s guide. More succinctly: philosophy is life’s guide. Thus Dr. Peikoff’s answer that the purpose of philosophy is to guide ones life.

All of which suggests a great vanity plate for your car: FI B8A KPA

Last one to the licensing kiosk is a rotten egg.

Ayn Rand, in Respect of "Respect"

April 20, 2008 by · 5 Comments 

I today received a message from a youtube viewer, who wrote:

I just came across the work of Ayn Rand. What is the explanation of Ayn Rand about what the word respect means.

I replied as follows:

I don’t believe Ayn Rand gave the word any definition that is peculiar to her philosophy. She pretty much used the word in the various ways it is defined in dictionaries.

Generally speaking, to “respect” is to look at or acknowledge the existence/identity of something (e.g., to “respect”/identify the fact that a man is a man and that, because of what that implies for the rational pursuit of ones own happiness, it is wrong to take his life, liberty, or property without his consent…even if his views/beliefs are utterly irrational).

In some, but not all contexts, the word “respect” means, also, to hold a thing in high regard; to value it. In this latter sense, an Objectivist would (for example) “respect”/value rational egoism, but not altruism or irrational egoism (e.g., hedonism).

In yet another context, “respect” means “concerning” (as in “With respect to his politics, he is black and white. With respect to his ethics, he is many shades of gray”) or “manner” (as in “…the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect.”)

I’m not trying to be obtuse. Perhaps you can give me the context in which you mean the word “respect” to be used?

Cheers,

Paul

With "Property Rights" Advocates Like These, Who Needs Tyrants?

April 15, 2008 by · 2 Comments 

In recent years, a group of land owners (mostly farmers) in Ontario, Canada has – largely under the former leadership of an electrician named Randy Hillier – become a voice deemed by the media to be worthy of news coverage. On the surface, the Ontario Landowners Association appears to be in favour of government ceasing to violate their property rights. Their signs – which can be seen all over the Ontario countryside, posted to farm fences, particularly in Eastern Ontario – read: “This is our land. STOP. BACK OFF GOVERNMENT”.

Former OLA chief Randy Hillier wearing
a tee-shirt version of the sign found
on many farm properties in Ontario.

Approximately a year ago, Hillier resigned from the management of the OLA and used his popularity among members and supporters to win himself the nomination of the Progressive Conservative (PC) party in Ontario. Many advocates of property rights were perplexed by the move, given that the PC party historically (but with the brief exception of the leadership of Mike Harris) has been Ontario’s most substantively socialist/collectivist party. It introduced the Human Rights Code, rent controls, and the provincial income tax; it banned private health insurance and set up a tax-funded government monopoly on health insurance, etc.. Rather than conclude that Hillier has given up on advocating property rights, it would appear more accurate to conclude that Hillier’s expectations are merely naive, and that he believes he can (presumably with some ongoing assistance by the OLA) transform the “red tory” PC party into a party that is in favour of government that defends rather than violates, property rights.

That he is likely to fail in his effort to turn a pig’s ear into a silk purse becomes even more obvious when one considers the decidedly mixed bag of political wants held by members of the OLA. At times, the mutually exclusive nature of these wants has become high-profile. For example, when the OLA clogged the traffic arteries of Toronto’s core at and around the Ontario legislature, the media did live radio interviews with the many people driving their tractors to the event. There were indeed some libertarian-sounding property-rights advocates among those interviewed, but such members were decidedly mixed with farmers that wanted something akin to tax-funded subsidies for failing agricultural ventures, etc. (Interesting aside: the effort to get headlines by creating a traffic jam and storming the legislature grounds with tractors got overshadowed in two ways: 1. a competing farmer association [probably supportive of the governing Liberal party] pulled the exact same stunt one week earlier, and 2. when the OLA did it, a man pulled up in a truck, babbled incoherently, poured gasoline on himself, and lit himself on fire…guess which story got the bigger headline? It makes one wonder how many “Thank-you” and “Job Well Done” cards the man received from the Liberals).

All of which brings us to the news today that the OLA is – loudly, and with a press release – threatening to “clear cut” 100 square kilometers of wooded land in Eastern Ontario. According to today’s pre-fab report by the Canadian Press (you know the sort: printed in newspapers of every stripe; just add a headline, print it in your newspaper, and pretend that you are still a source of news), the threatened clear cutting relates to a law which violates property rights so as to protect endangered species:

If an endangered bird is found on someone’s property, [the OLA’s Jack] MacLaren says their property values plummet and they can no longer use part of the land for farming.

“Ah”, you might infer, “the OLA is objecting to the endangered species legislation, saying that it violates their property rights”. Well, sadly, no. The Canadian Press explains that:

[McLaren] says that’s not fair because the government doesn’t offer to compensate those landowners.

Might I suggest changing the OLA’s sign a bit: “This land is our land. STOP. Back off government...unless you come with gifts of money taken forcibly from other people“.

This is yet another example of people wanting “freedom for me, but not for thee”, and it all results from wanting freedom for the wrong reasons. The rightness of defending ones control over ones own land is properly founded on the necessity of that control if one is to use the land in accordance with ones own rational decisions about its use. In other words: property makes it possible for one to live a rational (hence productive and happy) life. Asking for “compensation” from the government in exchange for the violation of ones own property is not a call for freedom. It is a call to push the costs of tyranny onto someone else’s shoulders. It is not a defence of property: it is a call to tax others and hand the loot over to landowners; it is a call to violate other peoples property; it is a sanctioning of government violations of property; it is a call for the government to protect landowners from the effects of tyranny, by imposing additional tyranny other others.

If the OLA is successful in their bid to loot other Ontarians, one can only hope that they spend a few bucks on a copy of Atlas Shrugged (and that they actually read it), so that they can realize, before it is too late, just how badly they are defeating their stated goal.

Just Right About Environmentalism

April 10, 2008 by · Leave a Comment 

My good friend Robert Metz is entering the second year of his call-in talk-radio show “Just Right”, which airs on CHRW Radio, 94.9 FM (note: every show he has ever done is archived and can be listened to online here).

Today, he had an excellent show (click here to listen to it) about the unholy alliance of Canada’s Liberal Party and Al Gore. I rarely have the chance to listen live, but I managed to do it today. Bob was referring to environmentalism as a religion, and I just had to call in to share with him some key excerpts from a dilly of a speech given by the leader of the Green Party of Canada a couple of years ago (I call in about 20 minutes into the show, in case you are trying to find it).

She opens with a lament that man was kicked out of the Garden of Eden for eating of the tree of knowledge, and that that knowledge has allowed man to over-consume earth’s “limited resources” by means of evil industrialization (boo, hiss). She closes with the hope that we’ll give up on industrialization, and return to a more “spiritual” (read “mystical”) state of child-like ignorance that will allows us to return to the Garden of Eden. What’s worse: she talks about the “location” of the Garden of Eden, which leads me to believe that she actually believes there to have been such a place.

I had no idea what Bob had planned for the show but, in a stroke of amazing coincidence (I’m not being sarcastic), it turns out that I called in just before his next audio clip (Bob breaks up segments of his show with topic-relevant, typically educational audio clips from television programs) : John Stossel interviewing people who idolize the idea of eliminating human technology and living ‘at one with the land’. You have got to hear the clips, in which some of the tree-house dwelling interviewees tried to explain the illogical exception they made for things like telephones and plumbing.

Environmentalism. If it is not a religion, it is no less anti-enlightment.

The Anti-Conceptual Mentality

March 28, 2008 by · 1 Comment 

Many of you have no doubt spent hours, days, weeks or years talking with people who seem to be unphased by any argument, no matter how logical. You know the sort:

  • “My party, right or wrong”: this guy will continue to support and vote Progressive Conservative even if it becomes the official Ontario organ of the KGB. There’s no reasoning with him. People wonder if he is mentally challenged, or simply dishonest.


  • “My leader, right or wrong”: this guy killed millions during world war II.


  • “Damned immigrants. They’re ruining this country”: this guy is referring to the simple and irrelevant fact that his next-door neighbour’s skin colour is different from his own.


  • “We’re all libertarians, even if we have different reasons for being libertarians. We all value liberty, but for our own reasons”: this guy will soon be a member of the Liberal or Conservative parties, and will say that he has “grown up” and “learned the importance of compromise”.


  • “It’s our heritage, and I’d fight and die for it god dammit!” – this is the next human rights commission sacrificial lamb.


  • etc.


Well, for those with the intellectual means, and with the desire to make sense of what seems like insanity, the following essay is arguably going to change your life. It is arguably one of Ayn Rand’s finest, and it is probably my favourite. Read it, read it again, and then sit back in wonder at Rand’s brilliance: “The Missing Link”.

P.S., I have no idea what arrangements may or may not have been made to facilitate reproduction of the essay. In any event, the essay is best appreciated when read in the context of the book from which it is drawn, Philosophy: Who Needs It . At $6.95, it’s a must-buy.

30 Wrongs Don't Make a Right (Prayer in the Legislature)

February 19, 2008 by · 2 Comments 

My response, published here, to John Oakley’s article in yesterday’s National Post (possibly, Oakley’s article was only on the online version of the paper):

The issue here is not about whether people say prayers before engaging in the legislative process. The issue is that some people want prayers said aloud, and as part of the official ceremony of legislating.

Given that such people are not prevented from praying, the only plausible motivation for having everyone say a prayer aloud and in unison is: for the state to declare that it officially reveres an alleged supernatural being, and that it is guided by – or obedient to – the ethical commandments allegedly made by said being.

Adding more prayers, from different faiths, would have the effect of having the state declare that it reveres several/all supernatural beings, and is guided by/obedient to the ethical commandments allegedly being made by all of those beings. It would be impossible actually to set one moral compass simultaneously in accordance with the conflicting dogma offered by differing religions, and even many who would want multiple prayers know this. The only possible and achievable goal of praying to multiple alleged gods is: to declare that, in making law-making decisions, the legislature will consider supernatural commandments to be a source of knowledge about what policies should and should not be adopted.

Perhaps owing to most Christians’ allowance that one should render only unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, rational investigation of the facts of reality has been possible in the west, and knowledge and wealth have grown relatively well. However, the possibility of rational thought and free action arose despite, not because of, religious beliefs and public chanting of the Lord’s Prayer. In the east, where religions have been less tolerant of rational, independent thought, the growth of knowledge and wealth has been relatively slowed or completely stunted. As proponents of eastern religions move to Ontario, it is more important than ever that Ontario’s government declare that it is not under, accountable to, or obedient to, anyone’s alleged supernatural being. If, instead of simply removing all official chantings of religion from the proceedings of our legislature, we add more prayers from more religions, we will be officially sanctioning the notion that our government must comply with the whims even of alleged supernatural beings who forbid rationality, who condemn knowledge as a forbidden fruit, or who condemn wealth creation while praising self-sacrifice.

If we want Ontario to remain a place in which everyone is free to think as they wish, and to engage in consensual activities of their choice; to dress and eat and express themselves as they wish; to think for themselves, and to question aloud both alleged authority and dogma; to engage in rational efforts to discover knowledge and develop technologies; to pursue their own happiness; if that is the sort of Ontario we wish to retain, then we must make it clear to people of all faiths that our legislature’s “moral compass” is not set or determined by anyone’s religious beliefs. We cannot simultaneously make such a declaration and maintain the practice of praying aloud to one or more allegedly supernatural beings.

At the same time, it seems reasonable for those who are about to regulate our lives to take a moment to reflect on the gravity of what they are doing. A minute or two of silence would facilitate that purpose quite well, and should replace the saying of any prayer or any public recognition of the allegedly supernatural.

Paul McKeever, B.Sc.(Hons), M.A., LL.B.

Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario

www.freedomparty.on.ca

Irreverence In Support of Rationality (Hence, of Life)

February 15, 2008 by · 2 Comments 

Arutz Sheva yesterday published a news story saying that Danish police had arrested three Muslim men suspected of plotting to murder Kurt Westergaard, who drew one of the 12 Muhammed cartoons to which enemies of reality, reason, self and consent responded with acts of violence in 2005. It said that 15 Danish newspapers, and one Swedish newspaper, had responded to the arrests by republishing the cartoon drawn by Westergaard (the famous bomb-in-a-turban cartoon). The Ayn Rand Institute’s Elan Journo is calling upon US newspapers to republish all 12 of the cartoons, as a statement that the USA opposes censorship.

In assessing that call to action, it is important to consider the nature and root cause of the violence in which some people engaged after the publication of the cartoons. That many Muslims found the Muhammed cartoons insulting, rather than funny, is perfectly understandable: the cartoons were a condemnation of the things that they consider to be values and virtues; things they revere. Similarly, the violent response of some Muslims to the mocking of Muhammed was founded, essentially, on their reverence for their beliefs.

In response to that reverence, many have claimed that, in a free society, “nothing is sacred”. However, that is an incorrect assessment. Moreover, the absence of censorship laws in a free society is not properly founded upon the notion that nothing is sacred, or that nothing should be revered.

A rational person might rightly show irreverence for the irrational, but it would be wrong for the rational person to mock or make light of his own values and virtues. A rational person, by implication, reveres reality, reason, self, and consent.

Consider for example that, during a question and answer period following a lecture in 1976 by Dr. Leonard Peikoff, author/philosopher Ayn Rand – an Atheist – stated that:

Humor is the denial of metaphysical importance to that which you laugh at. The classic example: you see a very snooty, very well dressed dowager walking down the street, and then she slips on a banana peel. … What’s funny about it? It’s the contrast of the woman’s pretensions to reality. She acted very grand, but reality undercut it with a plain banana peel. That’s the denial of the metaphysical validity or importance of the pretensions of that woman.

Therefore, humor is a destructive element – which is quite all right, but its value and its morality depend on what it is that you are laughing at. If what you are laughing at is the evil in the world (provided that you take it seriously, but occasionally you permit yourself to laugh at it), that’s fine. [To] laugh at that which is good, at heroes, at values, and above all at yourself [is] monstrous. … The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.”

It follows that, when it comes to calls for censorship or the punishment of “sacrilege”, it is wrongheaded for the opponent of such laws to respond by condemning reverence itself. A society full of individuals that revere nothing – hence, that value nothing – cannot become or continue to be free. Freedom requires the reverence of that which makes human life possible: rational thought and action.

When considering how to respond to the call for censorship and anti-sacrilege laws, one should start at the beginning, philosophically: at the level of metaphysics and epistemology. One must remain cognizant of the fact that no person can take direct control of any other person’s thought process, no matter how much force he has at his disposal; that nobody can be forced to revere anything, whether rational or irrational. The sovereignty of every individual’s thought process is the key fact not recognized by the irrational individuals who demand censorship; who demand laws against “sacrilege”. Their aim, ultimately, is to make others revere what they revere by means of coercive physical force; to somehow make others adopt irrational beliefs by making it difficult to physically express rational ones. They are demanding the impossible, and they need to realize it, for all of our sakes.

Therefore, it is important that the government of a free country, in response to such demands, stand on the side of rationality by recognizing the fact that it is irrational to try to make people revere anything by means of coercive physical force. Government takes that stand both when it refrains from censorship and when it defends every person from those who would use force to prevent the expression of any opinion, whether rational or irrational, reverent or irreverent.

However, it is not enough for government quietly to be on the side of rationality. That loyalty must be demonstrated from time to time if the governed are to recognize that their government stands on the side of the rationality upon which human life depends. When it comes to the issue of free speech, one of the most convincing demonstrations of a loyalty to rationality is a government’s response to irreverence. This implies the necessity, from time to time, of the governed putting government to the test in full public view by being irreverent.

Thus, to express my support of reality, of reason, and of human life and personal happiness; to condemn the alleged plot to murder Kurt Westergaard for his irreverence; to carry out my part in demonstrating that the Canadian government takes the side of rationality; I am answering Elan Journo’s call by republishing, in my blog, the twelve cartoons. To the same ends, I would encourage others to do the same or, in the alternative, to publish something that demonstrates an irreverence for that which someone else (anyone else, not just Muslims) reveres.

Environmentalism's Attack on Reason, Individualism & Capitalism

February 8, 2008 by · 1 Comment 

Climate change environmentalists deny that they are motivated by their well-documented opposition to capitalism. Question their motives, and you will often find yourself accused of being ignorant, of being on the take, of being like a Nazi, or of being a criminal.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to question their motives. To know what they would do to society, one needs simply to understand the essential nature of their arguments for restricting or banning the use of technology.

To light a fire, decontaminate water, erect a shelter, bake a birthday cake, or build machines that increase human productivity and broaden human opportunities, requires humans to act in accordance with the facts of nature. To do so requires that someone achieves knowledge of those facts. Only rational thought – a strictly logical process of thought about that for which there ultimately is physical evidence – makes it possible for human being to obtain knowledge of the facts of nature. A belief not supported by physical evidence, or not resulting from ones own rational process of thought, is not knowledge.

All knowledge is the result of rational thought, but not all rational thought results in knowledge. Novel observations and the discovery of new evidence sometimes change the logical mind’s conclusions: what was originally thought to be knowledge may prove eventually to be false belief. That is why scientists never conclude further inquiry is unwarranted. However, the fact that a lack of the appropriate data – or the fact that a lack of knowledge has led someone to consider immaterial facts or irrelevant evidence – does not change the fact that knowledge cannot be achieved except by rational thought.

Those at the forefront of efforts to have the government fight “climate change” ultimately take issue with that assertion. They tell us that, because rational thought sometimes leads us to erroneous conclusions, rationality is dispensable, worthless, or even harmful. Knowledge of the facts of nature, they erroneously or falsely imply, can and should be obtained with faith, consensus, or illogic.

In 2005, Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May gave a speech which began with a quote from Bertrand Russell: “Ever since Adam ate the apple, man has refrained from no folly of which he was capable…”. She lamented that, since the commencement of the industrial revolution, humans have “…taken the life-giving, life-creating, life-nurturing systems of Planet Earth and pushed them into reverse.” Making it clear that she believes the Garden of Eden actually to have existed – she, for example, refers to the “location of the Garden of Eden” – she concluded with a hope that “we can re-write Russell’s History of the World to say that humanity rejected folly and that we returned to the Garden”. Taken to its logical conclusion, May’s message is a demand for an anti-human atrocity. Her belief, founded on faith, is that the fruit of rationality – knowledge – leads us always to sin, so we must outlaw productive thought and action, return to a state of naked ignorance, and have a supernatural being provide for us when, where, how, and to the extent that he wants to.

With his foundation’s website, geneticist turned CBC TV personality David Suzuki spreads the falsehood that the “…Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is universally recognized as the world’s most authoritative voice on the science of climate change” (emphasis added). You will not find scientific reports on Suzuki’s web site, but you will see lots of talk about “consensus” that man’s use of technology is causing catastrophic global warming. Suzuki’s implicit message is that a belief is knowledge if an alleged majority of allegedly credentialed people say so. Galileo and Einstein would undoubtedly beg to differ.

In his self-promotional flick “An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore points to a genuine historical correlation between changes in global temperature and changes in CO2 levels. He implies that changes in CO2 drove the temperature changes with which they were correlated. At least, this is a logical fallacy, because correlation does not prove causation. At worst, it is a lie, because the data he claims to have presented to over 1000 audiences actually shows CO2 levels to change hundreds or thousands of years after the temperature changes with which they are correlated. Encouraging us to accept logical fallacy or plain lies as a means of obtaining knowledge, he is discouraging rationality.

The victims and foot soldiers of Hume, Kant and Hegel frequently can be heard to say “We have to cut CO2 emissions because we simply cannot risk the possibility of a man-made CO2 global warming catastrophe in the future”. To those who deny the possibility of knowledge – or who are too lazy to achieve it – rationality is no virtue. In a misguided attempt to avoid perishing in the distant future, such people would have us all chop off our heads in the present.

The west’s standard of living is highest precisely because western governments have done a better (though hardly good) job of shielding individuals from such irrationality; of ensuring that people are free to conduct themselves rationally and productively, hence consistently with the facts of nature. Western governments have better defended every individual’s control over their own life, liberty and property. To that end, they have also been better at separating irrationality and state.

When a government succeeds in defending rational conduct from irrational restrictions of individual freedom, the result is a capitalist society: a wealthy and happy society in which trade is governed solely by consent. When a government founds its decisions on faith, alleged consensus, or logical fallacy, it merges irrationality and state, fails to defend rational conduct, and undermines every individual’s ability to live and pursue their own happiness. The political result is a collectivist society: a society condemned to rationing, misery and premature death, in which trade is governed not by consent, but by coercion.

It makes no difference whether May, Suzuki, Gore and the others are consciously anti-capitalists, or whether they are simply well-intentioned irrationalists because their expressed or implied disregard or hatred for rationality necessarily implies a condemnation of capitalism and an endorsement of collectivism. However, more fundamentally, their assault on rationality implies a condemnation of human life; of life that depends upon rationality. To the extent that our governments appease these Romantic Savages of the Endarkenment, humanity’s survival on this earth is imperiled.

Freedom Requires a Better Defence

February 6, 2008 by · Leave a Comment 

{My op-ed, below, appeared on the Western Standard shotgun blog on February 6, 2008. NOTE: this is the first time that I have shared with anyone, in writing, this particular definition of “freedom” (i.e., freedom as control). Prior hereto, I have disclosed this definition, and explained its significance, only to my close friend and colleague, Robert Metz (founder and president of Freedom Party of Ontario). I will explain the significance of this definition in great detail in a forthcoming essay (or book chapter).}

The only thing worse than not defending freedom is defending it so poorly that ones audience is left thinking maybe freedom is not defensible. Consider Ezra Levant, who is currently responding to a human rights complaint for his allegedly “offensive” publication of the famous Mohammed cartoons.

Ezra condemns our human rights commissions’ procedural and evidentiary standards for not being court-like. He thereby implies that censorship would be acceptable did our commissions have court-like standards.

Ezra says censorship is wrong for this reason: we have (he submits) a long history of laws that disallow it. In other words: our laws (allegedly) against censorship are just because they are old. Yet the argument that “old law is just law” implies that we should still have laws that facilitate slavery in Canada, that give only propertied men the vote, and that make it illegal to open your store on Sunday.

Ezra condemns the addition of speech to the original list of things regulated by human rights commissions. He thereby implies that he has no objection to human rights laws concerning employment and housing. Our human rights laws typically cannot prevent someone from denying a person a job or an apartment so long as the reason for the denial is not known to be one prohibited by human rights legislation. Thus, in effect, Ezra’s position is this: nobody should prevent Ezra from saying that a another man’s religious beliefs are dangerous but, if Ezra utters such an opinion, he should lose the freedom to deny that man a job or an apartment. In short: shut up, or put up. That is clearly a self-defeating defence of “free speech”.

To be rational and effective, the advocacy of freedom must be founded upon the material facts of reality.

A human being must obtain values (such as food and shelter) if he is to survive. To obtain values, a man must choose to engage in rational (hence productive) thought. His mind must maintain control of his actions so that his rational decisions will result in the production of values. His mind must remain in control of the values he produces if he is to use them for his own survival and happiness. That control – the control of ones own actions and property – is freedom.

If a man does not think rationally (i.e., if he is irrational), he can live only by obtaining values from someone who does think rationally. If others do not give the irrational man values for free, he can obtain values from others only without their consent; only by interfering with their control of their own actions or property; only by enslaving or expropriating them; only by denying others their freedom.

No amount of rational thought can preserve a man’s life if he lacks freedom. For that reason, the violation of a rational man’s freedom is a threat to his life. Because the irrational man depends upon the rational man’s production of values, the irrational man’s violation of the rational man’s freedom is also a threat to the irrational man’s life. Thus, the life of an irrational man is a murder-suicide in progress. Were a whole society of men consistently to attempt live as irrational men do, the result would be (and, historically, has been) mass death.

It is physically impossible to make another man think rationally, or to prevent him from having racist, sexist, or other irrational beliefs. However, one can make life possible for a rational man by preventing irrational men from violating his freedom. Thus, in a society that values life rather than death, a government’s role is not to compel individuals to think rationally but to defend every individual’s freedom.

When government performs that role well, life and happiness are possible to a rational man because his mind maintains control of the production and use of his values. In contrast, when government increasingly passes and enforces laws to violate freedom, government becomes an ally of irrationality and an enemy of life; it gradually ceases to be a government.

Ezra’s human rights complainant considers Ezra’s silence to be a value. Ezra will not consent to provide the complainant with that value. Were the complainant to obtain that value by physically gagging Ezra, the government would rightly use force against the complainant to restore Ezra’s freedom because life requires freedom. For the government to obtain that value for the complainant by means of force is wrong because life requires freedom.

Ezra’s legal case is, he says, his stepping-stone to the making of a political case. If, in the political realm, he drops his ineffectual legal arguments for freedom, and demands freedom on the ground that it is an indispensable requirement of his life, he will become an asset to the advocacy of freedom, rather than a liability to it.

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