Tom Bowden — VOICES for REASON

I originally started this post by writing: “Apple and Adobe are at war.” But they’re not—not yet, anyway. At this point—as long as antitrust authorities stay out of the way—Apple and Adobe are engaged in economic competition, not war.

The disagreement between the two companies centers on the place of Adobe’s Flash technology on Apple’s mobile products such as the iPhone, iPod, and iPad.

Much of the Internet’s video was created with Adobe’s proprietary Flash software, but those videos won’t play on Apple’s mobile products. Why? Because Apple refuses to allow Flash and has effectively barred developers from creating “apps” using Adobe’s software. CEO Steve Jobs has a 1,671-word explanation of Apple’s policy here. It’s filled with evidence that keeping Apple’s products Flash-free will enhance operational speed, battery life, security, and error-free functionality. Adobe disagrees.

Putting the technicalities aside, my point is this: It’s Apple’s prerogative to set the terms for software development on Apple’s own products. Disagreements among competitors are settled on the free market by persuading individual customers that a particular product will satisfy their own needs. Over time, technologies succeed or fail accordingly. Gasoline engines win, steam engines lose. VHS tape wins, Sony Betamax tape loses. CDs win, cassette tapes lose. Some businesses make money, others go bankrupt.

Now, however, news reports indicate that a real war is about to break out between Apple and Adobe—not with guns and bombs, but with the politer kinds of physical force that government regulators wield: fines, penalties, and jail terms. Adobe, it is rumored, wants to force its way into Apple’s devices by threat of prosecution for violating America’s antitrust laws.

Will antitrust enforcement give Adobe the revenues it couldn’t earn on a free market? Stay tuned …

Image: WikiMedia Commons

If John McCain had been elected in 2008, a woman’s legal right to procure an abortion would be in grave danger right now.

Remember, McCain ran for president on a campaign promise to select judges who agree that Roe v. Wade is “a flawed decision that must be overturned.” Before the 2008 election, there were already as many as four votes to overturn that decision (certainly Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and possibly John Roberts and Samuel Alito). Now add the two successors that McCain would have selected (to replace retiring Justices David Souter and John Paul Stevens), and voila! A strong majority, ready to sweep aside Roe v. Wade, could be in place on the Court.

The fact that the nation has been spared such a “McCain Court” is perhaps the only reason to be glad that President Obama is in office at this critical juncture. To his credit, Obama made clear his support for abortion rights during the campaign. And just recently, speaking about the search for a successor to Justice Stevens, Obama said: “I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women’s rights.” Read the rest of this entry »

Every once in a while, the news contains a little gem that illustrates how peacefully and rationally people can get along when they respect each other’s property rights.

Here’s the background: A real estate developer in California had been making plans to erect houses on Cahuenga Peak, the barren hillside where the famous “HOLLYWOOD” sign was erected back in 1923 (ironically, to advertise a real estate development). The sign, of course, is a cultural icon, evoking the sunny and glamorous city where the film industry flourished. “The Hollywood sign represents the dreams of millions,” said Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. “It’s a symbol. It is as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. It represents the movies.”

Historical preservationists knew that the planned housing would spoil the wilderness setting that has long been part of the Hollywood sign’s appeal. But instead of demanding that a government agency block the development, the sign’s fans raised money privately and bought the surrounding land, all 138 acres of it, from the developer. It cost them a bundle: $12.5 million. But it was worth it to the donors—including Hefner, who gave the last $900,000 needed to push the fund-raising over the top. And the developer’s property rights were not violated in the process. Read the rest of this entry »

In choosing a successor to retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, President Obama is preoccupied with the Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That’s the case upholding a corporation’s right to spend its own money speaking out during political campaigns.

Obama has made no secret of his disdain for that decision. Justice Stevens authored the dissent in that case—the dissent that Obama wishes had been the majority decision. Stevens argued at length for sustaining the power of campaign finance regulators to throttle corporate speech.

Speaking in the Rose Garden recently, Obama said he’s searching for “someone who, like Justice Stevens, knows that in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.” In short, Obama wants Citizens United to be overturned, and he’s looking for a new Justice who will be as steadfast as Stevens was in opposing corporations’ rights. Read the rest of this entry »

In response to a recent post called “Who cares about the doctors?” I received several thoughtful comments, including two that recounted poignant personal stories. As you read this first comment, ask yourself whether ObamaCare and the whole federal-state medical regulatory system treats physicians with the respect they deserve:

My wife did a mid-life career change from power systems engineer to doctor (ER). It was a family decision. We put our own savings and investments on the line to bet on her ability to take our family to the next level of success in America. We did this willingly, as free people intending to enjoy the fruits of our labors. When I look back at the amount of time, sacrifice and work it took from all of us, most of all my wife, to get to this point, the action of the Obama administration is breathtaking in its sense of entitlement to her labor and its arrogance in assuming that the doctors will go along.

Most doctors already willingly donate their time, money and labor to treat the poor. When it is no longer their decision where to apply their labor, then we have lost the country.

But of course, it’s not just the Obama administration that displays a “sense of entitlement to her labor.” For decades, both political parties have displayed “arrogance in assuming that the doctors will go along.” Now the question is: Will doctors keep “going along,” or will they start standing up for their rights? Listen to another physician expressing a sense of personal loss: Read the rest of this entry »

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the CEOs of both Google and Verizon have endorsed that portion of the FCC’s new National Broadband Plan that calls for “making high-speed Internet connections available to all Americans.” Oh, and by the way, the executives agree it should be accomplished with “minimal government involvement.”

Pardon me? Do these guys read the newspapers? The whole nation just witnessed what happens when government creates a new entitlement, and it sure ain’t “minimal government involvement.”

When Congress decided to make health insurance “available to all Americans,” the result was a sprawling bill that imposes unprecedented government controls on the health insurance industry. And of course, this entitlement mentality has a long history (think Medicare, Medicaid, and the prescription drug program) that demonstrates how controls breed controls.

And that’s the way it has to be. Once everyone agrees on any new entitlement—I don’t know, something like “making high-speed Internet connections available to all Americans”—then government must become involved. Why? Because the very essence of an entitlement is a claim by those who lack a value against those who have earned it. And government is the only agency that can enforce such a claim.

If the top executives of giant cellular and Internet companies can’t see that contradiction in their own op-ed, how can they hope to defend their companies from creeping regulation? What’s at stake here is the freedom that has allowed these industries to innovate, profit, and flourish—while more regulated parts of the economy stagnate.

Image: WikiMedia Commons

Amid the clamorous debate over health care, how much have you heard from the doctors? Very little. Nobody’s particularly interested in what they have to say. It’s taken for granted that they’ll always be there when you need them.

These are the forgotten men and women of American health care. They stand to one side, mostly silent, while self-important politicians noisily debate how to allocate “access” to health care. These legislators hold showy “summit” meetings of “stakeholders,” where doctors are outnumbered by the poor, the uninsured, the already-sick, the health insurers, the drug companies, and big corporations like Walmart. In this political universe of warring pressure groups, no tiny minority can expect to have much influence—even the minority that provides the services everyone is clamoring for.

Since professional organizations like the American Medical Association won’t rise to their members’ defense, it falls to the rest of us—those whose very lives may depend on a physician’s skill and dedication—to consider some pointed questions our leaders won’t ask: Read the rest of this entry »

We’re told that ObamaCare aims to make health care more affordable to more people, but in fact it threatens the rights of everyone involved in health care—doctors, patients, and health insurers—and thus the future of the industry.

Before Congress greases up yet another ramp on the already slippery slope toward socialized medicine, let’s pause to identify those endangered rights and some of the destructive consequences.

• Insurance companies are profit-making businesses, not social welfare agencies. They have the right to charge premiums that reflect actual risk. But ObamaCare would force them to cover almost every American—no matter how sick they already are, no matter how bad their health habits, no matter how high the cost of their exotic treatments–and to raise everyone’s premiums accordingly.

• Doctors are morally entitled to regard themselves as profit-making professionals, not public servants. They have the right to charge fees that reflect the value received by all parties to the transaction. But ObamaCare, by driving down permissible fees, will force physicians into a deadly conflict of interest: Either lose money by doing everything necessary to meet patients’ needs, or make money by satisfying some minimum bureaucratic standard.

• Patients are sovereign individuals, not particles in a social organism. They have the right to buy all the health care they deem necessary and can afford, without apologizing to those who can’t afford it. But under ObamaCare, patients will have the moral status of beggars at a soup kitchen who must uncomplainingly accept whatever gruel from the health-care pot happens to land in their dish.

Let ObamaCare be seen for what it is: yet another offensive in the long-running assault on individual rights in medicine.

Image: WikiMedia Commons

“The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy on behalf of a Supreme Court majority in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. He was referring to the speech bans that since 2002 have muzzled corporations under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

No more. The Citizens United decision struck down the ban, not only liberating America’s corporations to speak out during campaigns but also unleashing a torrent of commentary, both praising and denouncing the Court’s actions. As the heated debate gets hotter, a timely panel discussion is slated for Tuesday, March 16, in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights and the Institute for Justice.

“Citizens United and the Future of Campaign Finance Law” will feature a lively debate among three lawyers who filed briefs on opposite sides in the case, and an academic expert on the history of free speech. I’m fortunate enough to be moderating the event, which will review the case in historical context, evaluate its merits, and look to the future. One crucial issue on the table is whether such regulations should survive at all.

Read the rest of this entry »

“On Jan. 21, poor Justice Holmes must have turned in his grave.”

So writes Mimi Marziani in the National Law Journal, lamenting the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, issued on Jan. 21, 2010. That’s the controversial case holding that corporations have a right to speak out on political issues without being censored.

What’s the connection with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who died back in 1935? Well, Holmes spent much of his long career arguing against the idea that the U.S. Constitution is a bulwark of liberty, a barrier to governmental infringements on individual rights. So Marziani is right that Holmes, if he were alive today, would have dissented in the Citizens United case—just as he dissented more than a century ago in the case forever associated with his name, Lochner v. New York. (In that 1905 case, the Court struck down a maximum-hours law for bakers.)

In fact, Marziani says, there’s a direct parallel between the two famous cases. Citizens United, she asserts, is “Lochner’s 21st century equivalent.” Why? Because both cases were driven by a conviction that the Constitution should be interpreted where possible to protect people against the awesome power of government to violate their rights. Along with Holmes, Marziani believes that the Constitution is agnostic on the relationship between individuals and the state. Read the rest of this entry »