Dr. Curry testifying on the President’s UN Climate Pledge. From the blog What’s Up With That.
Last week What’s Up With That, a great website for those who are skeptical about the alarmist claims about catastrophic man-made climate change, posted a story about the testimony of Dr. Judith Curry before the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology as part of their hearing on the President’s UN climate pledge.
One of the ideas that struck me early on when I started studying Objectivism was the position Ayn Rand took in regards to the “public interest,” a concept she found to be invalid. She saw that there is no such entity as “the public,” there are only individuals. To claim that there is some public interest which we must consider ahead of an individual’s interest is to say that some individuals have a right to sacrifice the interests of others to their own. I find
One fact of today’s world that I see all around me is that government intervention, force, leads to more and more government intervention, more force. The government creates a program to protect the prices a farmer receives for his goods, forcing people to pay above market prices for the goods. This program has the effect of raising food prices which necessitates a program to help those who can no longer afford the more expensive food, forcing people to pay more in taxes so that money can
On our porch a couple of years ago. We didn’t take our feeders in early either.
One sure sign of spring here in north-eastern Vermont is the frequent reminders from state and local officials to bring in your bird feeders. This is probably a common thing in any northern state at this time of year. The reason is that with the snow melting and temperatures rising, the bears are beginning to stir and will soon be out looking for food after their long winter nap. One of their favorite foods, especially this early when there isn’t a lot to eat, is black oil sunflower seeds,
I think I will be continuing with a lot of quotes from Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist as his writing is full of quotable passages that are as relevant today as they were when he wrote them more than 100 years ago.
In today’s selection, he discusses the negative effect that government welfare programs have on the people.
I ought to show that all great uniform systems–clumsy and oppressive as they must always be in their rude attempt to embrace every part
In the book Auberon Herbert: Writings of a Reluctant Anarchist Herbert discusses a wide range of topics. At one point he discusses the rise of insurance which, while existing in one for or another for quite some time for business, was becoming available to individuals as well.
But the matter goes far beyond the range of what exists at present. No man can foresee today the full development in the future of the system of insurance. If it is allowed to grow naturally, without disturbance from the
Today’s quote comes from Ayn Rand’s essay “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business” from Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Leading up to this quote, she describes what economic and political power are and in this quote defines the difference between them.
Now let me define the difference between economic power and political power: economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward,
I currently am doing some thinking and researching for a future post and as a part of that I am rereading sections of Ayn Rand’s Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. In particular I am focusing on the essay titled “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business.” In this essay Ayn Rand points out that while protecting the rights of minorities is almost universally supported, this principle is applied in a most discriminatory manner. If you are a business owner.
The entire essay
If we stop changing the environment…we will die.
This is another great talk from Yaron Brook, this time from ELITE (Latin American School of Engineering, Technology and Business) in Bogota, Colombia. While much of the talk will be familiar to those who have watched videos of Dr. Brook’s talks in the past, this had a bit of a different slant as it had an emphasis on applying the rational principles of self-interest to entrepreneurial
Today’s quote also comes from Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarachist. I find the title to be a bit of a misnomer as Herbert wasn’t an anarchist but rather was a firm believer in a limited form of government. In his view a proper government would not try to do everything for the citizens, but rather protect the rights of the citizens to act as reason dictated. That is the sense that comes across in today’s quote.
We need not have great state departments,