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Asking Permission to Live
Within the confusion surrounding the immigration issue is a crucial moral question
Much has been said about the recent Arizona law that requires police to verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally. Critics argue the law is vague, unconstitutional, and will lead to racial profiling as police try to enforce it. Defenders respond that it is simply a means to enforce the rule of law – if people are committing crimes, shouldn’t the police be empowered to bring them to justice? On its face, there seems to be a conflict between two compelling cases: the rights of citizens on the one hand, and the rule of law on the other.
The issue has become a confusing maze of seemingly unrelated aspects. A short list would include racial profiling, police-public relations, federal versus state jurisdiction, drug smuggling, employment of undocumented workers, untaxed welfare benefits, and social impacts on immigrant families. Consequently, our media pundits and politicians offer up uncertain, inconclusive attempts at solutions.
Despite this, the Arizona law has done something clarifying: The chilling image of a police officer demanding proof of citizenship from a person they “suspect” of being illegal has reminded us of the fact that all one has to do to break the law is to have been born in the wrong country. What the papers in question represent is the fact that even the most peaceful, hardworking, and good-natured person is considered a criminal simply by lacking the permission of the federal government to pursue his peaceful, hardworking life in the United States.
But there is no rational basis for such policies, and never has been. America’s founding doctrine of freedom rightly framed a society where no man is causelessly presumed a threat to his neighbor. So long as one respects the freedom of others, he was to be granted the same. Unfortunately, that idea was distorted and replaced by the contradiction that still persists today: that a nation literally born of immigrants considers outsiders criminals until and unless they are granted legal permission to breath, walk, and work inside our borders.
Fundamentally, there is only one thing to say about the issue of immigration: the very existence of the term “illegal immigrant” is a disgrace. Immigration is a legitimate human activity fully consistent with individual rights. Provided he poses no objective threat to anyone else, any man who wants to work or live in America should have his freedom respected by our government—not violated by it. Politically, this means a policy of open immigration, where immigrants are able to register with the government upon arrival in order to properly participate in the legal system and receive protection of their rights. So long as a would-be immigrant poses no clear threat by entering the country (for example, by having a criminal background or an infectious disease), the government imposes no obstacle to entrance. Immigrants would then be free to live their lives as any other resident, bearing full responsibility for earning their own livelihood. (Read more about open immigration here.)
The other issues–racial profiling, legality, alleged economic impact—only serve to distract from the crucial question that the Arizona law prompts us to confront: what has a man done wrong by standing on an American street without permission?
On The Road to Ever-More Government Control
A California county recently banned fast-food restaurants from including toys in their kids' meals. The goal of this new ban is to reduce rampant obesity in today's youth by breaking "the link between unhealthy food and prizes." On the face of it, the effects of this ban seem trivial: so what if there are no longer any toys with meals?
But however petty this law may seem at first glance, its implications are anything but. If we accept the underlying premise of this ban, that it is proper for the government to outlaw practices with which it disagrees in the name of what's "best" for us, then the debate is no longer about whether the government should control our lives; it is merely a question of how much.
Our lives are comprised of a constant series of decisions, ranging from the foods we should eat to the careers we pursue to the relationships we choose to have, any number of which it might be asked: is that a healthy choice? Is that really best for you? If we accept that it is the government and not we as individuals who decide the answers to these questions, there is no logical end to how intrusive the government may become in order to purportedly protect us or our children from obesity or any other real or alleged harm.
If kids' meals should not include toys, then maybe McDonald's should be banned from having playgrounds because these might attract children to eat there. Or maybe the company's mascot, Ronald McDonald, should be banned because he appeals to children. Or perhaps fast food restaurants should not be allowed to paint their exteriors with bright, cheerful colors but instead must look drab (like cigarette cartons and ads are forced to do). And maybe banning fast food restaurants in general would be a good idea since they're not healthy for anyone, as has already been done in other California towns.
The logical consequence of banning toys in kids' meals is the government's ever-increasing control over what foods a restaurant can sell, how it can sell them, and what we as consumers can eat. This means that someone who usually eats healthy foods but likes to occasionally bite into a juicy cheeseburger may no longer have the choice to decide whether he can do so. This decision will be left up to the government. Or a mom who on occasion purchases kids' meals for her child for the convenience of an easy and quick bite may no longer have the luxury of deciding to pursue that option. Uncle Sam will decide what any parent feeds his child.
There are those who will scoff at this "slippery slope" argument. But if these predictions seem too speculative, remember that the laws of today were the parodies of yesterday. Back in 1994, many people thought it was absurd for tobacco companies to argue that anti-smoking legislation opened the door to regulation of food. Sixteen years later, here we are. Where will we be in 2026? Once a legal principle is established and increasingly entrenched—as this law will further entrench the principle that government should control our food choices—history shows us that the implications of such a principle will be carried out over time.
This nation was rightly founded on the premise that we have the right to exercise our own choices, even when our decisions might be mistaken or when others disagree. If companies want to offer toys with their kids' meals, even if these meals may be considered unhealthy, they should be free to do so. Likewise, parents should be free to decide whether they want to purchase such meals for their children. And of course, those that oppose such practices should be free to advocate their opposition.
What the fast-food toy ban does instead is sidestep all of these freedoms and paternalistically impose a course of action on law-abiding Americans. Our government should not be making these choices for us under the ostensible goal of doing what is in our "best" interest. We should be able to decide that for ourselves.
Photo by Flickr user noodlepie.
Celebrating 5 Years of The Undercurrent
Five years ago this month, The Undercurrent released its very first issue. We’ve come a long way since then.
Here is the untold story how the The Undercurrent came to be.
For years, Objectivist campus clubs have come and gone. Some of them have even had their own local publication. But once the leader of a club would graduate, the club would typically disband.
In the early part of the last decade, one of the most successful Objectivist campus clubs was the University of Toronto’s. Their publication, The New Intellectual, attracted attention across North America for the quality of its articles and design. One of us, then a graduate student at the University of Illinois, caught notice of TNI, and worried that it would suffer the same fate as so many other campus club publications over the years. He contacted TNI’s editor and wondered if he was interested in collaborating on a grander-scale version of that paper, one that would reach students across the continent and outlive the passing of local clubs. By the fall of 2004, we had assembled other Objectivist friends from Toronto, the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, Tufts, and Boston University to join our new project.
The beginning was rocky. Learning how to edit collaboratively was a huge challenge, especially when we first wanted to make the paper a monthly publication. As it turned out, this was totally unsustainable. But we did cut our teeth meeting deadlines, as we managed to turn out three issues in the spring 2005 alone, and then another four in the 2005-2006 school year.
Over the years, TU gradually matured. If you look over our back issues, you’ll see the sophistication of our writing and the esthetics of our design gradually improve. You’ll see the length of the paper expand from 8 to 12 pages, the list of advertising campus clubs double, and the distribution numbers go from 8,000 copies of the paper to over 40,000 copies. As of 2010, we will have distributed papers at 60 different schools throughout North America.
And we like to think we’ve made a difference. During the controversy over the Danish cartoons of Muhammed in 2006, we printed a flyer reproducing the image of the prophet and encouraged students to poster it wherever we distributed papers, out of solidarity with the targeted cartoonists. For the first Tea Parties during the spring and summer of 2009, we produced a special edition of our paper to educate protesters dissatisfied with the creeping statism of the Obama administration.
When TU began, the staff was composed entirely of students. Since then, we’ve graduated and moved on in life, to become teachers, lawyers, and businessmen. Some of us have even married each other! But many of the core staff from the beginning are still involved in one way or another with the paper.
Though the founders of the paper are no longer students, we still maintain our focus on college campuses, and are constantly on the lookout for fresh young college talent. We’re still committed to our roots: to spreading Ayn Rand’s ideas on college campuses, where we first became enchanted with these ideas, and where they must continue to spread if today’s students are to have a future.
Essay Contest on the Moral Foundations of Capitalism
The recent financial crisis has commonly been blamed on capitalism. Ruthless greed for profits, many say, led the financiers on Wall Street to carry out careless business practices that fattened their pockets but harmed those of us on Main Street. But is capitalism really that- a merciless system that allows a few individuals to step on many others for profit? Or is it a political system with a strong underlying moral foundation that has been deliberately misrepresented by its opponents? And if capitalism is based on moral principles, what exactly are these principles?
These are some of the questions posed in the first ever essay contest issued by The Objective Standard, a quarterly publication of scholarly articles on Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. The first place winner of this contest will be awarded $2000 and the opportunity to have their winning essay published in The Objective Standard. It is open to students and non-students alike, and anyone who values capitalism is encouraged to contribute. Essays must be submitted by August 15. More information can be found at http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/essay/
Additionally, if you are interested in the contest or unfamiliar with Ayn Rand’s thoughts on capitalism, we suggest checking out a copy of her Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, a collection of her essays on the subject.
The Great Health Care Squabble: A Battle of Ideas?
Are those who oppose health care reform simply racist? Or perhaps just trying to fill their unemployment-related free time? Two articles recently appearing in the New York Times offer just such accounts of what motivates the Tea Party protesters and other vocal opponents of the new health care legislation
In “The Rage Is Not About Health Care,” columnist Frank Rich argues that racism and white conservatives’ “fear of disenfranchisement” are the real motivators behind this recent upsurge in opposition. In “With No Jobs, Plenty of Time for Tea Party”, Kate Zernike blames economic adversity.
At a glance, the two arguments share little in common. But they are identical in one important respect: both explanations divert our attention away from the content of the dissenters’ objections concerning the new law. The arguments avoid any reference to protesters’ concerns, for instance, about the government’s encroachment upon individual liberty, its coercion of insurance companies to offer financially crippling policies, or the moral indecency of subordinating individual choice to collective will—and point, instead, to whatever ulterior motives or in-group biases they can scrape up to explain the protesters’ opposition.
Unfortunately, many of those on the Right resort to similar tactics—from Republican Senator John Boehner’s argument against the health care bill primarily on the grounds that it “def[ies] the will of the American people” (an argument that can just as easily, and just as meaninglessly, be countered by President Obama’s claim that the health care bill is “a victory for the American people”), to Tea Party activists’ emotionally charged appeals to “time-honored” tradition and even, in a few cases, incitements of mob-like violence and vandalism amongst their fellow protesters.
These unreasoning, argument-by-pressure-group tactics, which equally characterize both sides of the debate, shrink what should be a battle of epic moral and philosophical proportions down to the size of a petty tribal skirmish. That is, rather than engage in a battle of ideas, the opposing sides often sidestep the task of providing intellectual support for their claims, focusing instead on irrelevant features of their opponents’ respective demographic groups.
A properly-reasoned debate, on the other hand, would be primarily concerned with asking and answering the basic philosophical, moral questions upon which any legitimate policy would rest. Questions like: should health care be considered a right, like freedom of speech and the right to the ownership of property? On what factual basis? Should the government be allowed to restrict the freedom of individuals to benefit the “public good”? Is there even such a thing? Do companies, as groups of individuals, have the right to offer services at a profit as they judge best, or are they properly considered servants of the public?
Amid the intellectually hollow group-think of today’s rivaling political parties, there exists an opportunity as well as a desperate need: questioning minds are starved for answers grounded in objective, independently observable evidence. This need became palpable as multitudes of indignant Americans spoke out in furious (but, for the most part, intellectually empty) protest against the passage of the health care law. If those enraged Americans would speak out, not in blind fury, but in clear-sighted, solidly reasoned intellectual protest against the health care law and all it implies, they would be unstoppable—for they would have no real opposition.
Is America Still the Land of Opportunity?
Writing in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman applauds a recent event honoring the finalists of Intel’s national science talent search, a contest that recognizes promising American high school science students. Friedman notes the high number of finalists of Chinese and Indian descent and reminds us that it’s our willingness to welcome immigrants that allows such talented youth to flourish in our nation.
Friedman argues eloquently for the value of immigration. “If you need any more convincing about the virtues of immigration,” he says, “just come to the Intel science finals”. It’s the American system that makes such achievement possible. In Friedman’s words, “when you mix all of these energetic, high-aspiring people with a democratic system and free markets, magic happens.”
Indeed, it does. Friedman’s example, however, leaves ambiguous what precisely it is that immigrants bring to our country. While they certainly bring intelligence—even the groundbreaking intelligence that the kids in Intel’s contest represent—intelligence is not the primary trait that captures the soul of those who come to seek a new life in America.
Immigrants demonstrate many virtuous traits—from the courageof the Cuban refugee who escapes home in a raft hoping to begin anew in a better world, to the perseveranceof the Sri Lankan doctor who has to wait tables while he earns a license to practice in the US. The hallmark quality of the American immigrant, however, is industriousness. The overwhelming majority of immigrants come to America because they want the opportunity to work. The American dream is not the dream of a free lunch, but of the chance to earn for oneself and one’s family a higher station in life.
America, the land of opportunity, has always been a beacon to those seeking the opportunity to work, live freely, and rise to the highest heights that their effort can take them. Are we still that land?
At a time when jobs are scarce, however, many are clamoring instead to turn America into the land of safety nets, a place where the ambitious are harnessed to provide money and food and health care for everyone else, a place where an American citizenship is regarded as a claim to be given the rewards of the American system without having to earn them.
Underneath the question of immigration reform, we face a deeper question: Is America still that nation that in past generations opened its arms to foreigners, inviting them to demonstrate their industry and earn their just rewards? Do we still hold that in this nation, we do not care about an individual’s lineage or heritage, but care only if he is honest, industrious, and freedom-seeking—and if he is, recognize him as American in spirit, whether he was born in Texas or China, New Hampshire or Zimbabwe?
Thomas Paine, writing in 1776, welcomed the immigrant:
O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe, Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her as a stranger and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
Do we still care to prepare such an asylum—a land of opportunity, a place where the industrious are given the freedom to produce great values and profit by them, and to enrich all of our lives in the process?
Photo by rickz on Flickr.
What Goes Around, Comes Around
In courting government power, Google faces its wrath
Net neutrality advocates argue that the government should force large network service providers like AT&T and Comcast to charge all of their customers the same rate, regardless of the bandwidth they consume. While no one would defend forcing restaurants to offer only a fixed price, all-you-can eat menu to every customer, that is essentially what the many prominent corporations and politicians who support net neutrality are proposing to do with Internet service. Among these proponents is Google, which maintains a public
policy blog heavily geared toward arguing that it should be illegal for one broadband customer to be able to pay for better service than another.
Google’s targets are now using the same tactics against it. AT&T has complained to the Federal Communications Commission that Google is violating net neutrality principles by restricting calls made through its Google Voice service (Google currently blocks calls from small rural areas that carry a high connection fee). And those who want favorable treatment from Google’s search engine are now calling for the FCC to force Google to feature their websites more prominently.
What’s Google to do? In advocating for net neutrality laws, it has endorsed the idea that business decisions should be determined by politicians, not by individual companies dealing freely with one another. It has forsaken the idea that businesses should be allowed to operate free from government interference, and as a consequence must now engage in the only recourse: making as many friends in Washington as possible.
This competition for the government’s favor is one of the hallmarks of a mixed economy (a system combining free markets with government restrictions). The proper solution to this mess is not to put more control in the greased hands of politicians, but to remove government coercion from the equation and allow a free market to operate. A company should have no weapon but its own ability to compete through honest production and trade.
Final Spring 2010 Edition
The Undercurrent is proud to present the final Spring 2010 print edition in PDF form, now for your viewing here!
We're very excited about this issue, and finalizing the document means that we are very close to shipping these out to college campuses all over North America. If you're interested in distributing this edition, order now. If you need financial support for your campus, don't hesitate to contact us at contact@the-undercurrent.com.
Now Taking Orders for the Spring 2010 Print Edition
The newest issue of The Undercurrent (TU) is now available to order, and will arrive on your doorstep at the beginning of March! The Spring 2010 Edition will have a distinctive, exciting focus: the nature of virtues.
Articles in this issue will focus on virtues such as productivity and integrity.
Start your year off right by placing your order at http://the-undercurrent.com/order today, or e-mail your name, address, and the number of copies you would like to contact@the-undercurrent.com.
The Undercurrent is sold at or below our cost to print and ship the papers. Here are the prices for the Spring 2010 issue (including shipping and handling):
250 copies $26.50
500 copies $50.00
750 copies $71.50
1000 copies $95.00
1500 copies $131.00
2000 copies $181.00
If you would like to hand out copies but cannot afford to do so, please let us know. We may be able to find a donor to sponsor your distribution efforts. Don’t hesitate to send a request by e-mail to: contact@the-undercurrent.com
On the other hand, if you have no time to distribute, we would greatly appreciate a donation. We’ll use your donations to fund student distributors in your local community or region of the country, or to support deserving distributors in other locations. For more information about donating to The Undercurrent, please visit http://the-undercurrent.com/donate or e-mail us at contact@the-undercurrent.com.
Last year was a remarkable year for both TU and Objectivist movement generally. Over 64,000 copies of TU were distributed and over 500,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged were sold in 2009. With your help we hope to do even more in 2010.
Campus Media Response: Individuals Exercise Freedom of Speech through Corporations
Court ruling favors corporate interests
The Badger Herald, January 25, 2010
Editor:
Chelsea Lawliss asserts that corporations have no right to freedom of speech because a “corporation is a collective entity and, by default, a machine that runs on the fuel of self-interest.” On the contrary, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion notes that a corporation is run by individuals, including those who promote its political positions. He is right: a corporation just is a group of individuals freely associating with each other, and the free speech rights of a corporation derive from the free speech rights of these individuals.
In the majority opinion, Kennedy rebuts the assertion that a corporation is a rightless legal fiction. He demonstrates that a newspaper, such as the New York Times, is published and controlled by a corporation, but is exempt from the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law because of some groundless aura that surrounds a newspaper. The paper, however, is not staffed by machines, but by humans who express their opinions every day and who are paid by the corporation to write what they think.
What fundamental distinction is there between a newspaper and any other voluntary association of individuals, except in its product? None, argues Kennedy. Newspapers are no more special than any industrial or business organization. Their business is to report news and to take sides on issues, but the expression of opinions on issues is not inherently their exclusive domain or expertise. Indeed, is it not in a newspaper’s self-interest—not unlike another corporation’s—to express its opinion and attempt to influence an election?
Citizens United, which was being persecuted by the Federal Election Commission, is a voluntary association of individuals—no different from a newspaper—who agreed on a specific issue and spoke through that association. They were exercising their freedom as thinkers and citizens.
Intellectual freedom, wrote novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, “cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.” Political freedom includes the right to speak, and the right to hire representatives—corporate or otherwise—to speak on one’s behalf.
Regards,
Edward Cline
Williamsburg, VA
757-645-2107
Guest writer, The Undercurrent
(Author: First Prize, Whisper the Guns, and the Sparrowhawk historical novels)
If you would like to receive regular email updates with suggested approaches to writing your own CMR posts, please subscribe to the CMR email list or visit the CMR information page
Photo credits: 1, 2, 3.
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