From the Editor, Spring 2010

This issue of The Objective Standard begins our fifth year of publication, and 2010 is shaping up to be our most exciting year to date. A few items of note:

TOS is now on more than four hundred newsstands, and this number is increasing steadily. Look for us in Barnes & Noble, Bookstar, Hastings, and other bookstores and newsstands nationwide.

Subscriptions to the journal are now available on Amazon.com’s Kindle Reader. (Although single issues of TOS have been available on Kindle since last May, subscriptions became available only a few weeks ago.)

Beginning this May, all new and future TOS articles and reviews (including those in this issue) will be available in MP3 audio format, which can be played from our website or downloaded to a computer or audio device. These recordings will be sold both à la carte and via subscription. Several sample articles are already available for free on the Audio page of our website.

And, of course, TOS will continue delivering a steady stream of in-depth cultural and political analysis from an Objectivist perspective.

As to the contents of the issue at hand, “Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech in America” by Steve Simpson analyzes the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, surveys the relevant history of campaign finance laws in relation to the Court’s decision, and discusses the significance of the ruling for the future of free speech.

“Government-Run Health Care vs. the Hippocratic Oath” by Paul Hsieh identifies and concretizes various ways in which government interference in health care precludes doctors from honoring their promise to use their best judgment in treating their patients.

“The Virtue of Treating People Like Animals: Why Human Health Care Should Mirror Veterinary Health Care” by Sarah Gelberg shows that although veterinary and human medicine are extremely similar in terms of quality of care, the freer market for the former makes it substantially more affordable and accessible than the latter.

“The Practicality of Private Waterways” by J. Brian Phillips and Alan Germani shows how the establishment of private waterways, and the protection of property rights therein, would solve myriad pressing problems, from water pollution to depleting fish stocks to disputes about rights-of-way.

“Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Taught People To Feed Themselves” by Audra Hilse tells the story of a little-known scientist whose independence, innovations, and passion for his work spawned an agricultural revolution that saved hundreds of millions of people from starvation.

And “Making Life Meaningful: Living Purposefully” (which is chapter 5 of my book Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It) identifies and concretizes the principles by means of which one can fill one’s life with meaning and joy.

The books reviewed in this issue are: Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (reviewed by Heike Larson); Winning the Unwinnable War, edited by Elan Journo (reviewed by Grant W. Jones); Why Are Jews Liberals? by Norman Podhoretz (reviewed by Gideon Reich); Capitalism Unbound, by Andrew Bernstein (reviewed by Ari Armstrong); Essays on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, edited by Robert Mayhew (reviewed by Daniel Wahl); The Sparrowhawk Series, by Edward Cline (reviewed by Dina Schein Federman); Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall (reviewed by Daniel Wahl); Your Inner Fish, by Neil Shubin (reviewed by David H. Mirman); and Newton and the Counterfeiter, by Thomas Levenson (reviewed by Daniel Wahl).

Enjoy the issue—and your spring!

—Craig Biddle

About Craig Biddle

Craig is cofounder and editor of The Objective Standard, cofounder and director of education at Objective Standard Institute, and executive director of Prometheus Foundation. He is the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It; Rational Egoism: The Morality for Human Flourishing; and the forthcoming Moral Truths Your Parents, Preachers, and Teachers Don’t Want You to Know. He is currently working on his fourth book, “Thinking in Principles.”

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