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Roe v. Wade: Forty Years Later [podcast episode #01]

Sunday, January 20, 2013 by

On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court handed down the decision on the landmark case of Roe v. Wade. With a 7-to-2 majority vote, the court struck down state bans on abortion, prompting a national debate that continues forty years later.

That decision — as well the subject of abortion itself — remains divisive. Activists on both sides debate whether and to what extent abortion should be legal, how the Supreme Court shapes the law on issues of constitutionality, and the role of morality and religious views in the political sphere.

On this episode of Eye to Eye, ARI’s new podcast, hosts Jordan McGillis and Amanda Maxham sit down with Dr. Onkar Ghate, ARI’s senior fellow, and Tom Bowden, legal analyst, to discuss the political, legal and moral questions surrounding abortion.

Some of the topics covered include:

  • Ayn Rand’s view on abortion and the Roe v. Wade ruling
  • The legal basis for the Roe v. Wade decision
  • The state-level attempts to undermine Roe v. Wade
  • Abortion and individual rights
  • The labels “pro-life” and “pro-choice”
  • “Personhood” amendments
  • Ayn Rand’s view on the nature of sex
  • Health care, abortion, and contraception
  • Abortion and the Tea Party movement
  • The separation of church and state
  • The morality of abortion
  • Objective legal interpretation
  • The future of the Roe v. Wade decision

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Listen to or download this episode (Duration: 44:16 — 20.3MB)

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Posted in Culture, Government & Policy, Podcast

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Religious terrorism escalates in atmosphere of appeasement

Wednesday, September 19, 2012 by

Just a couple of days ago, I posted on the Ayn Rand Institute’s track record of exposing how the West’s weak responses to Islamic attacks on freedom of speech encourage further aggression.

Now we have news from Iran that the bounty on Salman Rushdie’s head has just been increased, from $2.8 million to $3.3 million:

“I am adding another $500,000 to the reward for killing Salman Rushdie, and anyone who carries out this sentence will receive the whole amount immediately,” said Hassan Sanei, the [Iranian religious] foundation’s head, in a statement carried by the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA).

Let me remind you of some of the consequences to date, according to Wikipedia, of the fatwa on Rushdie’s life:

  • A man using the alias Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh accidentally blew himself up along with two floors of a central London hotel while preparing a bomb intended to kill Rushdie in 1989.
  • Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the book The Satanic Verses, was stabbed to death on 11 July 1991. Two other translators of the book survived attempted assassinations.
  • Ettore Capriolo, the Italian language translator, was seriously injured in a stabbing the same month as his Japanese counterpart.
  • Aziz Nesin, the Turkish language translator, was the intended target in the events that led to the Sivas massacre in July 1993, which resulted in the deaths of 37 people.
  • William Nygaard, the publisher in Norway, barely survived an attempted assassination in Oslo in October 1993.
  • In Belgium, two Muslim leaders who opposed Rushdie’s death penalty were shot to death.
  • Two bookstores in Berkeley, California were firebombed.
  • Five bookstores in England were firebombed.
  • Twelve people died during rioting in Bombay.

What is the moral status of an American government that turns aside and does nothing when a foreign power permits a multi-million reward for an innocent individual’s murder to be increased with a public announcement?

For our view, read “Religious Terrorism vs. Free Speech,” an essay by Dr. Leonard Peikoff from1989, when the Rushdie fatwa was first issued. Some of the contextual details have changed, but not the principles or the urgent need for action when the principle of freedom of speech contained in the Constitution’s First Amendment comes under attack.

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Posted in Foreign Policy

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Ayn Rand Institute’s warnings on the dangers of appeasement

Friday, September 14, 2012 by

Here we go again: More bloody violence from the Middle East, more angry threats from Islamists, more appeasing whimpers from the White House and the State Department—it’s like a movie on an endless loop, one that we’re condemned to watch over and over.

Except that we have a choice. There’s a way out of this theater of horrors—a way to win this supposedly unwinnable war—and the Ayn Rand Institute has been talking about it for many years now. In articles, op-eds, lectures, panel discussions, blog posts, letters to the editor, and press releases, we’ve been warning about how Western appeasement of Islamist aggression encourages further aggression.

Take a look at the list I’ve compiled, at the end of this post. It’s a track record of consistent commentary that explains current events overseas and offers practical, principled solutions. With the recent spike in attention to Ayn Rand’s ideas on domestic issues, fueled by vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s admiration for some of her writings, perhaps there’s now a better opportunity for the Institute’s message on appeasement in foreign policy to gain a hearing.

What is that message? It’s indicated in an early passage from the 2009 book by the Institute’s foreign policy fellow Elan Journo, Winning the Unwinnable War:

          Facing the Islamist onslaught, our policymakers aimed, at most, to manage crises with range-of-the-moment remedies—heedless of the genesis of a given crisis and the future consequences of today’s solution. Running through the varying policy responses of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton there is an unvarying motif. . . . Our leaders failed to recognize that war had been launched against us and that the enemy is Islamic totalitarianism. This cognitive failure rendered Washington impotent to defeat the enemy. Owing to myopic policy responses, our leaders managed only to appease and encourage the enemy’s aggression.

And no, the long-standing policy of appeasement didn’t stop with Bill Clinton. Here’s a passage from “Obama Whitewashes Iran” (op-ed, 2009):

Obama’s appeasing diplomacy re-enacts the disastrous policy of the past. Our policymakers evaded Iran’s character as an enemy, and by rewarding its aggression with bribes and conciliation, they encouraged a spiral of further attacks.

No, Bush was no exception to this trend. After 9/11 his administration invited Iran—the leading sponsor of Islamist terrorism—to join an anti-terrorism coalition (!). Talk of an axis of evil was quickly abandoned, and Washington backed the European scheme to bribe Iran to halt its nuclear program.

Our continuing appeasement of Islamist aggression has clear implications for America’s near future. If Washington declines to change its policies, we can expect (1) government intimidation and censorship of those who expose Islam’s evils, for the sake of appeasing Muslim sensibilities; (2) failure to protect American citizens, at home and abroad, against fatwas and other violent Islamist reprisals, and (3) more deaths of American soldiers, and more military expenditures, stemming from increased entanglement in the Middle East.

The Institute’s commentaries on this issue deserve to become part of the ongoing debate over Mideast foreign policy. Here are just a few:

1989 (re-released in 2006): Religious Terrorism vs. Free Speech (op-ed on the fatwa against Salman Rushdie)

1997: Iraq: The Wrong War (op-ed)

1998: Fanning the Flames of Terrorism (op-ed)

2001: “Peace” Process: Israel’s Path to Suicide (op-ed)

2001: End States Who Sponsor Terrorism (op-ed, published as a full page ad in the New York Times; an earlier version was published as an ad in the Washington Post)

2001: The Immorality of a “Compassionate War” on Terrorism (op-ed)

2002: America Is NOT Winning the War (article)

2003: 9/11—Two Years Later: Why America Is Still Losing the War (video lecture)

2003: America vs. Americans (video lecture)

2003: The Timid War on Terrorism (op-ed)

2004: The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest: A Moral Ideal for America (book)

2005: “Muslim Opinion” Be Damned (op-ed)

2005: Neoconservatives vs. America: A Critique of U.S. Foreign Policy Since 9/11 (video lecture)

2006: The U.S.-Israeli Suicide Pact (op-ed)

2006: Free Speech and the Danish Cartoons (video panel discussion)

2006: The Fear To Speak Comes to America’s Shores (op-ed)

2006: America’s Foreign Policy: Self-Interest vs. Self-Sacrifice (video lecture)

2006: The Cartoon Jihad: Free Speech in the Balance (op-ed)

2006: The Twilight of Freedom of Speech (op-ed)

2006: Why We Are Losing Hearts and Minds (op-ed)

2007: The Road to 9/11: How America’s Selfless Policies Unleashed the Jihadists (video lecture)

2007: Totalitarian Islam’s Threat to the West (video panel discussion)

2007: The “Forward Strategy” for Failure (article)

2007: Washington’s Make-Believe Policy on Iran (op-ed)

2009: Iran’s fist, clenched tighter (blog post)

2009: Obama Whitewashes Iran (op-ed)

2009: Surrender in book on Mohammad cartoons (blog post)

2009: Winning the Unwinnable War: America’s Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism (book)

2010: South Park and self-censorship (blog post)

2010: Draw Mohammad, risk your life? (blog post)

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Posted in Foreign Policy

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The “Ayn Rand vs. Jesus Christ” Campaign

Tuesday, July 5, 2011 by

Over at the American Thinker, Dr. Harry Binswanger, a member of the Ayn Rand Institute’s Board of Directors, writes:

The American Values Network, a left-wing group, with considerable funding by George Soros, has launched a media blitz under the banner “Ayn Rand vs. Jesus Christ.”  As an Institute founded by Ayn Rand’s heir and devoted to advancing her philosophy, Objectivism, we would like to respond.  Since this is an issue Rand faced repeatedly in her lifetime, our response is basically to let her speak for herself.

Read the whole thing here.

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Posted in Ayn Rand, Culture

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Power Hour Episode 3: Earth Day with Onkar Ghate

Friday, April 1, 2011 by

On Earth Day, we’re told that we should take stock of our impact on our environment. The assumption, of course, is that it’s bad—that we are, to use the common phrase “destroying the planet.”

On this month’s Power Hour—my podcast/Internet-radio-show on energy issues—I bring in philosopher Dr. Onkar Ghate, a senior colleague of mine at the Ayn Rand Center, to question this assumption, and many other assumptions about the relationship between human beings in our environment. Dr. Ghate discusses everything from the political, philosophical, and religious origins of modern environmentalists (the leaders of Earth Day) to the Japanese nuclear situation to how industrialization has positively impacted our environment to the danger of “moderate” environmentalist policies.

I’ve read a lot about environmentalism over the years, and I sincerely believe that Dr. Ghate’s explanations in this podcast are some of the best, clearest explanations of environmental issues available anywhere. Make sure you listen to this interview at least once before Earth Day.

For more information on Power Hour, as well as other commentary on energy issues subscribe to my newsletter “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Energy” by sending an email.

Download “Power Hour with Alex Epstein,” Episode 3: Onkar Ghate

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Posted in Ayn Rand, Business & Economics, Government & Policy, Science & Environmentalism

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“I’m an atheist, and I love Christmas.”

Monday, December 21, 2009 by

That’s the intriguing start to an essay by Onkar Ghate, senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (and Voices for Reason blogger), in the latest issue of U.S. News & World Report. The magazine invited him to address the “con” side of this debate: “Have the Holidays Become Too Secular?”

His answer, in essence, is that the true meaning of Christmas is secular, not religious. “Christmas in America is not a Christian holiday,” Dr. Ghate writes, explaining the paradox this way:

Christmas’s relation to goodwill leads many to believe the holiday inseparable from Christianity, allegedly the religion of goodwill. But the connection is tenuous. A doctrine that tells you that you’re a sinner—that you must seek redemption but cannot earn it yourself—and that Jesus, sinless, has endured an excruciating death to redeem you, who doesn’t deserve his sacrifice but who should accept it anyway—can hardly be characterized as expressing a benevolent view of man.

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Posted in Culture

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Rescuing spirituality from religion

Thursday, September 17, 2009 by

worshipThe Wall Street Journal recently commissioned Karen Armstrong, author of numerous books on religion, and Richard Dawkins, author of numerous books on evolution and atheism, to answer the question: “Where does evolution leave God?”

What I found most interesting about the exchange was an issue that neither discussed explicitly, but which lurked just beneath the surface of their answers: the fact that religion has co-opted the entire realm of the spiritual.

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Anti-abortion’s religious roots

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 by

The fact that Dr. George Tiller was gunned down in church tragically highlights a central fact in the ongoing abortion controversy—that laws against abortion are products of religious faith.

There is no secular, rational basis on which the law could declare a first-trimester fetus to be a human being. It doesn’t take a degree in medicine to understand that such a fetus is a biological part of the pregnant woman’s body. Though a fetus has the potential to be born as a human being, the realization of that potential depends upon the woman’s continued willingness to nurture the growing fetus in her body up to the moment of birth.

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Posted in Culture, Government & Policy

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Obama follows Bush in funding religion

Thursday, February 19, 2009 by

President Obama is getting well-deserved flak from some of his staunchest Democratic supporters for continuing the Bush Administration’s funding for so-called faith-based programs.

This slickly produced White House video conveys Obama’s perspective on the programs. He identifies himself with the “people of faith” and says that his faith-based program is part of a national “mission of love and service” that will allow us to “fulfill our highest purpose as beloved children of God.”

Of all Bush’s benighted, faith-based policies–remember his ban on funding stem cell research, and his frantic attempts to elevate a brain-dead woman named Terri Schiavo to martyr status?–his creation of a White House office to fund religious organizations was one of the most disgraceful. As my colleague Alex Epstein wrote in 2004:

Bush’s justification for Faith-Based Initiatives reveals their actual purpose: “Welfare policy,” he explains, “will not solve the deepest problems of the spirit. . . . No government policy can put hope in people’s hearts or a sense of purpose in people’s lives. That is done when someone, some good soul, puts an arm around a neighbor and says, ‘God loves you, and I love you, and you can count on us both.’” In other words, the government is bankrolling religious organizations because they “help the needy” not only materially but also spiritually–by exposing them to religion.

But exposing people to religion is something the government should absolutely not be doing. Funding of faith-based initiatives is part of a larger faith-based attack on rational government and violates the First Amendment.

Obama should do two things immediately: (1) Announce a halt to all federal funding of religious organizations, and (2) affirm that the United States government is a purely secular agency.

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Posted in Culture, Government & Policy

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Faith is anti-science

Thursday, February 19, 2009 by

I wrapped up my speaking tour of the South last Thursday by giving my Darwin talk at UNC, Charlotte. It was a very nice way to celebrate Darwin’s 200th birthday, although nobody brought any cake, unfortunately. I even managed to attract a few student supporters of “intelligent design,” which made for a lively Q&A session after the talk.

One audience member asked an interesting question, which I thought was worth blogging about. He asked, in essence, why can’t creationism coexist with evolution? Aren’t they just two different perspectives on the same question, each with its own merits?

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Posted in Science & Environmentalism

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