Archive for October, 2002

Bates v. State Bar of Arizona (USSC 1977)

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9 years ago
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“The key to professionalism, it is argued, is the sense of pride that involvement in the discipline generates. It is claimed that price advertising will bring about commercialization, which will undermine the attorney’s sense of dignity and self-worth. The hustle of the marketplace will adversely affect the profession’s service orientation, and irreparably damage the delicate balance between the lawyer’s need to earn and his obligation selflessly to serve. Advertising is also said to erode the client’s trust in his attorney: Once the client perceives that the lawyer is motivated by profit, his confidence that the attorney is acting out of a commitment to the client’s welfare is jeopardized. And advertising is said to tarnish the dignified public image of the profession. “
Commentary coming soon…

Sinful Pleasures

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9 years ago
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I remember a bully from my childhood who liked to beat up smart kids because he had no confidence in his academic ability, and violence was the only way that he could dominate his classmates. However, the bully was not the only person who had trouble keeping up: I constantly struggled to do well in my math classes — but unlike the bully, I felt no need to take my out frustration on my classmates. Instead of being jealous, I worked harder on my assignments until I was ahead of my class.
The bully in every jealous person is like the one from my childhood: instead of being inspired by high-achievers, he feels envy and even hatred towards them, shutting off any possibility of accomplishing anything great himself in the process. A bully sees the achievements of those around him as mocking his failures, and he hates successful people because they are everything he has decided he could not be. Unlike the bully, the self-confident high-achiever is the exact opposite — he accomplishes great things not out of jealousy, but out of a desire to fulfill his dreams. Great inventors do not try to match their peers, but to do the best they can: the Wright brothers invented a plane, Thomas Edison a light bulb, and Gordon Moore a microprocessor instead of a better bike, lantern, or vacuum tube. In short, there are two kinds of men: the self-confident high achiever who does great things, and jealous, self-hating bully who wishes nothing more than to see the high-achiever fail.
[From a letter to the editor I wrote in response to "Sorrow So Sweet: A Guilty Pleasure In Another's Woe, " a NYT article.]

Disney Socialism

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9 years ago
in

I just finished watching the 1998 Disney movie “A Bug Life” and despite my hopes to the contrary, I was reminded how pervasive socialist ideology has become in absolutely everything Disney produces. I have come to expect collectivist overtones from Disney’s regular programming, but the extent to which its animated films are full of socialist indoctrination is simply disgusting. Unlike most liberal media companies, Disney produces more than the usual “multicultural” garbage but actually inserts Marxist ideology into the plot of its animated children’s movies.

“A Bugs Life” has all the elements of the topical Disney presentation of the class struggle: the proletariat, represented by the worker ants, the bourgeoisie, represented by the grasshoppers, the greedy slave-driving boss, represented by the “boss flea” in charge of the flee circus. Famous lines include [as I remember them]: “if the ants only realized that they outnumber us a hundred to one, we would be finished!” and “you’ve committed the ultimate sin: you put yourself before the colony!” If that were not enough, the flea-boss frequently explains “let’s go, there’s money to be made!” as he denies his worker’s request for a raise and proposes a routine where one the bugs is burnt to a crisp. Meanwhile, the movie makes it a point to show the ant-queen diligently joining the worker ants in their work, as she and Flik, the hero repeatedly explain “I care for the colony!” I’d like to say that Flik is at least a creative non-conformist, but the movie makes a point to show that none of his ideas are self-inspired, and all of them come to fruition only by collective effort.

Not surprisingly, the movie ends with the defeat of the overclass, as the revolutionary hero Flik inspires the ants to rise up and ensure that the ants get to keep all the “surplus” grain they collect by their collective effort. Compare this plot to “Antz,” a Dreamworks SKG release, which featured an ant who questioned his role in the ant collective and championed individualism and private ingenuity.

This review may be four years late, but Disney has clearly continued its tradition of promoting Marxist ideology in movies such as “Monster’s Inc.” where the villain is a factory owner who is found torturing little children (Can those capitalist pigs get any worse??) and is replaced by one of the factory workers by a .government agency. In general, everything Disney touches display several common elements: the subjugation of the individual to the collective, the rejection of all selfish motivations as immoral, the worship of authority figures, the proposition that all cultures and values (other than capitalism) are equivalent, and of course, the duality between the greedy capitalist slave-drivers, and the hardworking workers of the collective, who almost always rise up and show the evil capitalists who’s boss.

I’d point out some other examples of Disney socialism, but I do my very best not to support Disney in any way, and if you care about self-interest, and freedom, I strongly suggest you do the same.

Social Unsecurity

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9 years ago
in

A flash movie on the DNC website shows Bush pushing a senior off a cliff –the consequence of privatizing social security. Apparently, letting people decide what to do with their own money is the same thing as murder to liberals.
Bush

I would remind the sane reader that social security is in fact much more insecure that any stock market — after all, if you had invested in the stock market five years ago, you would have made the horrible loss of 0% interest, whereas social security payments are not only guaranteed to pay 0% interest, but are inflexible, unfair, untransferable (at death), and likely to break down, as the Ponzi scheme of the millenia unravels and millions loose as the so-called “lock-box” turns out to be empty.
Not to mention that social security is welfare socialism at its finest.

More Censorship

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9 years ago
in

In yet another example of censorship by so-called liberals, an order of ARI fliers titled In Moral Defense of Israel sent to the University of Toronto Objectivist Club for a speech have been denied by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, which claimed “The following goods [the pamphlets] have been detained for a determination of tariff classification as they may constitute obscenity or hate propaganda.”

To read the whole story, see this.

USA Today: Scandals lead execs to ‘Atlas Shrugged’

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9 years ago
in


In case you missed it, USA Today had a cover story on Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged, which was not all positive (it fell into the typical Attila vs Mother Theresa dichotomy) shows the growing influence Ayn Rand has on the world.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

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9 years ago
in

“Just days after a spelling error-ridden memo outlining Barbra Streisand’s political views on the pending Iraq war is faxed to congressional leaders, the artist finds herself in another highly-embarrassing turn: Streisand recited made-up Shakespeare lines before thousands at Sunday’s National Democratic Gala in Hollywood…
..Streisand received a standing ovation before walking onstage at the Kodak Theater, plus repeated ovations during her performance of song and lecture.
To make her case not to go to war against Iraq, Streisand quoted extensively from William Shakespeare — but the quotes were from a William Shakespeare hoax that has been circulating on the internet!…
..”I find George Bush and Dick Cheney frightening,” Streisand continued. “Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft frightening… I find bringing the country to the brink of war unilaterally five weeks before an election questionable – and very, very frightening…”

[story from Drudge]

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