Category Archives: Articles

Relatively long articles by me on various issues.

Education, Climate Change and Inequality: The Assault on Reason

Every living creature has a means of survival. Plants have roots and leaves to gain nutrients and energy. Birds have wings to seek out food while escaping predators. Predators, such as lions or wolves, have speed, instincts, claws and fangs with which to chase down and consume their prey. While man cannot survive by any of these methods he does have his own means of survival- his rational faculty. His reason.

Ayn Rand sums it up this way in The Virtue of Selfishness:

Man cannot survive, as animals read more

How to Violate Everyone’s Rights: Build a Stadium

Soccer star David Beckham is seeking to bring professional soccer back to the Miami, FL area by building a stadium for his team in the city’s downtown. In any such large-scale development, the rights of property owners are among the first casualties, regardless of whether the property owner is in favor or opposed to the development or even if they are not involved in the development at all.

If they are in favor of the development, they can be prevented from using their property as they see read more

If You Care About the Children, Privatize Education

Record numbers of towns, in all parts of the state of Vermont, have rejected school budgets this year in protest over ever rising property tax rates and education costs spiraling out of control. In St. Johnsbury, the town where I work, residents recently voted down their school budget for the third time.

Those who support the increased school budget often attempt to characterize their opponents as people who hate children or do not care about the future of the town. Comments such as ” It’s read more

Obama – A Man of Strong Whims

It will come as no great surprise that human beings are not omniscient. We have no automatic knowledge of what is good for our survival and what will lead to our destruction. Unlike animals, which survive on instinct, human beings must use their rational minds to produce all that we need to live. We must form abstract principles based on past observations of reality which we then apply to the new situations we encounter in order to survive as human beings. Without principles every situation would read more

Put People First? – Part 2: Some Restrictions Apply

In part 1 I looked at how Put People First means putting some people, the pressure group of the day, ahead of others. I will now take up what it means for people taken to mean human beings.

Another cause advocated by the Put People First groups is environmentalism. It should be made clear at the outset that by environmentalism it is not meant simply a desire for clean air and water which are obvious values for man. Rather it is the idea that nature as such has an intrinsic value separate from its read more

Put People First? – Part 1: Your Results May Vary

Signs with the slogan Put People First are common in Vermont, especially in election years. The signs give one a hazy sense of advocating for the little guy struggling against some faceless corporation. Such slogans are vague and undefined and few people take the time to try to understand their exact meaning. To clarify their meaning, we must look at the issues that the organizations that post the signs stand for.

Organizations that put up these signs are often advocates of “economic read more

Money in Politics, Part 2: Who is Selling What to Whom and Why?

money in politics

Image found at http://adamfriedman.org/

As was pointed out in part 1, spending money on the spread of ideas is not a problem as long as force is not being used to promote or restrict them. On the other hand, using money to obtain some quid-pro-quo is potentially an issue, but likely not for the reason usually given. I include in this category not only spending on elections read more

Money in Politics, Part 1 – The Spread of Ideas

Election season approaches, filling the media with observations and predictions of the dire effects of “big” money on our political process. One can hardly avoid the claims that Citizen’s United is destroying democracy, SuperPACs are corrupting the process , or billionaires are using their vast wealth to change the laws. But is money really a problem in politics or is it a symptom of something more fundamental?

Ideas and knowledge are crucial elements in politics and the primary read more

Bad Ends and Immoral Means – Part 2

 Part 1

Before getting started, I need to define two terms which are often used inappropriately:

Morality is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions, determined by the standard of that which is proper to man—in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy his ultimate value which is his own life.

Rights are a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. In other words, what must a man be left free to do to survive as a man in society read more

Bad Ends and Immoral Means – Part 1

In January Vermont legislators, including at least one Republican, introduced a bill of “economic rights” which  includes provisions for raising the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour and compelling businesses to provide a minimum of 1 hour of paid personal time per 30 hours worked. The purported goal of the bill is to provide people with more money, thereby stimulating read more