Articles

American Christians calling for censorship based on religious beliefs should look to Saudi Arabia for an indication of what faith-based government means. There, government recently sentenced “prominent Saudi blogger [Raif Badawi] to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam,” Fox News reports.

If Iranian women “remove their veils in public, they can receive 70 lashes or 60 days in prison,” reports Vocativ. Regardless, some Iranian women “have taken to Facebook to post photos of themselves veil-less.” On Twitter, the movement is known as (translated) “stealth freedom.” Best wishes to these courageous women as they challenge such insane, faith-based, barbaric practices.

Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs succeeded in large part because they passionately, selfishly loved what they were creating and marketing—books and music, respectively—and they developed innovative ways to deliver the products to consumers who love them too. Here’s to passions, profits, and the people who pursue them.

The Johnson Wax buildings, as they are commonly called, offer a great example of how a company’s architecture can be integral to its identity. The S. C. Johnson company has always been extremely proud of its Wright-designed buildings, and the buildings’ design has helped shape the identity and culture of the company over the years.

Quiz shows such as Jeopardy! highlight the amazing capabilities of contestants to remember varied, esoteric facts and to recall them under enormous pressures of time limits and high-dollar competition. Viewers witness the power of the human mind to function at extremely high levels in a competitive setting, and many who watch draw inspiration to improve their own minds.

Was American evangelist Franklin Graham an outlier when, because of this Christian faith, he endorsed the Russian government’s censorship of speech (in his case speech pertaining to homosexuality)? Unfortunately, no. Russia has, under Putin, vastly expanded government censorship of speech—and more American Christians have endorsed Russia’s censorship.

Because human beings survive fundamentally by using their reasoning minds to produce values, they need the freedom to act in accordance with their judgment; therefore they need a government that protects them from the only thing that can stop them from acting on their judgment: initiatory force.

Fractured political control may in some ways be slightly less-bad than centralized political control. But the only approach consistent with individual rights and with the aim of quality in education is to remove political controls from education entirely and thus to enable a free market in education to thrive.

Although it is not surprising that a thug such as Putin would want forcibly to silence speech he opposes, it may surprise some that a revered “gentle” Christian such as Graham seeks to do so too. However, Graham’s support for censorship is consistent with the tenets of his religion.

What makes it possible for individuals so passionate about something so specialized as importing, roasting, and selling coffee to be able to devote their lives to delivering the perfect cup? Such specialization is made possible by the enormous productive output of a relatively free economy and the complex division of labor such an economy supports.

Rights are objective (fact-based) principles, so the Bill of Rights is properly understood to protect man’s objective rights. Only a legal theory based on objective meaning can explain, for example, why laws forbidding blasphemy violated rights two centuries ago and why laws restricting political speech violate rights today.

Regardless of whether Zubrin is correct in his assessment of the degree to which Russian influence is slowing European shale gas development, his warning that “If Europe’s fuel supplies remain under Russian control, the continent is doomed to fall under Russian domination” should be heeded.

Rowe is right that “happiness does not come from a job,” in the sense that getting an idealized job will not automatically make you happy. But, in a deeper sense, happiness does come from a job, in that working in a productive career you love is a fundamental source of joy in life. Rowe’s own approach to work demonstrates this.

Philosophy professor Jason D. Hill has written a beautiful article, “Jamaican, Gay and Ayn Rand Made it OK,” about how Rand’s books and philosophy helped him to think clearly about his life and his sexual orientation, and to pursue his goals and happiness with passion and pride.

The fundamental debate is not whether the costs of prohibiting marijuana outweigh the benefits. The fundamental debate is whether consenting adults have a right to decide what to do with their own bodies and property, and whether government has a right to violate individual rights in the name of “public health” (or anything else).