Author: prodos (page 9 of 12)

July 16, 2010

P J O’Rourke: On the Wealth of Nations

P J O'Rourke On The Wealth of Nations

Presented with the kind permission of The Independent Institute

A talk given by P. J. O’Rourke on February 09 2007.

Excerpt from transcript …

… there is this core of simple clarity to The Wealth of Nations. Smith argues three basic principles. And by plain reasoning and plentiful examples, very plentiful examples, he proves them.

Even intellectuals should have no trouble understanding Smith’s ideas. Economic progress depends upon three individual liberties.

The pursuit of self-interest, the division of labor, and the freedom of trade.

Now Smith’s first, and in many ways, most brilliant insight was that there was nothing inherently wrong with the person pursuing his or her self interest.

Now this, of course, doesn’t sound like news to us. Or rather, it sounds like everything that’s in the news, because these days, altruism itself has a press agent. Because it certainly is somebody’s self interest to be a celebrity, and Bob Geldoff has figured out a way to stay one. And so Al Gore. But the pursuit of self-interest didn’t used to be regarded in that way.

Religious leaders, philosophers, people in political control, used to tell everybody to just suck it up. Subjugate your ego, bridle your ambition, sacrifice yourself to the Church, to the feudal structure, to the principles of philosophy. And we bought that.

We bought that because we didn’t really have any control over our self-interest anyway. And if we were slaves, or serfs, and most of us were, we didn’t really even have a self to call our own that we could be self-interested in. In a doghouse of ancient and medieval life, asceticism made us feel less like dogs.

But by Adam Smith’s time, in 18th-century Britain, ordinary people were beginning to get some control over their own destinies.

And this didn’t please a lot of philosophers. It didn’t please a lot of religious authorities. It didn’t please political authorities. And the fact that it didn’t please these people angered Adam Smith. And we think of irony as being a modern tone.

But Adam Smith was perfectly capable of using irony, and did so in The Wealth of Nations. He said, “This is improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people. Is this to be regarded as an advantage or as an inconveniency to society?”

July 14, 2010

The Friedrich von Hayek Interviews (9 parts)

Friedrich von Hayek (1899 - 1992)

Presented courtesy of the Pacific Academy for Advanced Studies, Universidad Francisco Marroquín

Armen A. Alchian, May 1983:

The idea of capturing visually and orally the personality of Friedrich von Hayek, 1974 Nobel laureate, was so attractive that when the Earhart Foundation agreed to fund such an arrangement, the Pacific Academy for Advanced Studies was proud to undertake the pleasant task.

No attempt was made in these interviews to restate or review Hayek’s staggering intellectual accomplishments or his influence on contemporary understanding of social, political, and economic events. Nor is this introduction the place to recount them.

Either you know of the man’s contributions or you do not. If the latter is true, then I suggest you read some of his books, the most popular lay book being The Road to Serfdom.

A series of conversations with Hayek was conducted in a television studio.

… Seeing (Hayek) gives a reliable picture of his personality and traits: calm, imperturbable, systematic, questioning, uncompromising, explicit, and relaxed. It is the personality of the man that was sought, and the video and audio record helps capture it faithfully.

The economist has only to grieve that similar tapes do not exist for Adam Smith or David Ricardo.

What a treat if one could see such a record of those men, a treat such as is here made available to future generations.

Incidentally, it was and still is the hope of the Pacific Academy for Advanced Studies to obtain such interviews with all the Nobel laureates in economics — or at least all except those two who have experienced the inevitable. As for many desirable things, the costs are still insurmountable.

So, here is the man, alive and influential, whether this be read in 1984 or in the inscrutable future years of 2034, 2084, or, hope of hopes, 2984.

Here are represented the visions and beliefs of a group of people in 1978. See and hear their manner of expression, their subtle prejudices and misconceptions, fully apparent only to people a century from now.

Perhaps we in 1983 will be envied, perhaps we will evoke sympathy. Whatever it may be, if not both, here is the personality, appearance, and style of Friedrich von Hayek, a man for all generations, who believes mightily in the freedom of the individual, convinced that the open, competitive survival of diffused, decentralized ideas and spontaneous organizations, customs, and procedures in a capitalist, private-property system is preferable to consciously rational-directed systems of organizing the human cosmos — a judgment that distant future viewers and readers may more acutely assess.

July 13, 2010

John Yoo: Executive Powers – from War to Waterboarding

John Yoo of American Enterprise Institute speaks with Peter Robinson of Hoover Institution

Presented with the kind permission of Hoover Institution

December 18 2009: John Yoo is a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

From 2001 to 2003, he served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department of President George W. Bush.

Professor Yoo is the author, most recently, of Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush.

Yoo, who played a significant role in developing a legal justification for the Bush administration’s policy in the War on Terror, reflects on the controversial legal and policy positions taken by the Bush administration on interrogating captured terrorists after 9/11.

Beginning with a discussion of the war powers of the executive branch, Yoo asserts, “Today’s conflict over presidential power does not truly arise over whether the authorities in question exist, but whether now is the right time to exercise them,” addressing the fundamental questions at the heart of the debate over “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

As a strictly legal matter, does water boarding amount to torture, as the current Justice Department regards it? And are we safer because the Bush administration made use of enhanced interrogation?

Finally, Yoo challenges the wisdom of the Obama administration’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal court in New York City.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Wikipedia

On 13 November 2009 US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi will all be transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for trial. He also expressed confidence that an impartial jury would be found “to ensure a fair trial in New York.”

On 21 January 2010 all charges have been withdrawn in the military commissions against the five suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks being held at Guantanamo Bay. The charges were dropped “without prejudice” – a procedural move that allows federal officials to transfer the men to trial in a civilian court and also leaves the door open, if necessary, to bring charges again in military commissions.

In February 2010 Fox News reported that the legal counsel of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the legal counsel of several other captives, was halted without warning. The attorneys had made the trip to Guantanamo in the usual manner—a trip that requires advising authorities of the purpose of their trip.

However, upon their arrival in Guantanamo, they were informed they were no longer allowed to see their clients. They were told that letters to their clients, telling them that they had travelled to Cuba, to see them, could not be delivered, as they were no longer authorized to write to their clients. Camp authorities told them that since the charges against their clients had been dropped, while the Department of Justice figured out where to charge them, they no longer needed legal counsel. Camp authorities told them that, henceforward, all access to the captives had to be approved by Jay Johnson, the Department of Defense’s General Counsel. Fox reported that during earlier periods when the charges had been dropped the captives had still been allowed to see their attorneys. Fox claimed that questions they asked camp authorities lead to the captives’ access to their attorneys being restored.

On 1 February 2010 White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told CNN that “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to meet justice and he’s going to meet his maker. He will be brought to justice and he’s likely to be executed for the heinous crimes he committed”.

The White House spokesperson’s statement has been criticized as violating the principle of the presumption of innocence and has been characterized as egregious by an attorney of Guantanamo Bay detainees

FTV/Hoov: 12.18.09

July 13, 2010

Richard Epstein & John Yoo on Civil Liberties vs National Security

Peter Robinson interviews John Yoo & Richard Epstein

Presented with the kind permission of The Hoover Institution

10.29.06: Peter Robinson interviews Richard Epstein & John Yoo, who debate where should we draw the line between civil liberties and national security in the “war on terror”?

Are we even at war, and if so, what are the constitutional limits to presidential war powers?

Has the Bush administration gone too far in the electronic surveillance of citizens and the coercive interrogation of suspected terrorists and enemy combatants?

Richard Epstein and John Yoo, both widely regarded as strict constitutional constructionists, take decidedly different positions on these questions.

FTV/Hoov: 10.29.06

July 12, 2010

An Inconvenient Truth … or Convenient Fiction?

Al Gore is super serial. Man Bear Pig must be stopped!

Presented with the kind permission of the Pacific Research Institute. Special thanks to Kelly Gorton.

This documentary explores the issues and misconceptions raised in former Vice-President Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

An Inconvenient Truth … or Convenient Fiction? presents an alternative to the climate extremism that is popular with Hollywood and other pessimistic enclaves.

“We must wonder whether climate change should eclipse other environmental issues to the extent that it currently does,” said Dr. Steven Hayward, author of the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators: 2007 Report, senior fellow at PRI, and F.K. Weyerhaeuser fellow at AEI.

“The language of ‘skeptics versus alarmists’ has put the issue of climate change into a straightjacket, leaving little room for a reasonable middle ground, or for people who believe our reach exceeds our grasp, in science and especially policy.”

July 12, 2010

Not as Good as You Think: The Myth of the Middle Class School

Presented with the kind permission of the Pacific Research Institute. Special thanks to Kelly Gorton.

Not as Good as You Think: The Myth of the Middle Class School shatters the myth that “good” schools are found in “nice” neighborhoods.

Using available data on school performance and interviews with parents, students, principals, and school reformers, Not as Good as You Think confirms every parent’s silent fear: that their financial sacrifice and investment in an expensive home in a “good” school district is not yielding the achievement results needed to get their kids into good colleges and good jobs.

The film takes audiences on a tour of America’s best neighborhoods — from posh Orange County, California to the hotbed of innovation, Silicon Valley, to the lush green hills of Tennessee — to reveal that schools in America’s middle class and affluent neighborhoods are not adequately preparing kids for higher education, or worse, operating under widespread corruption.

The film also contrasts the American public school system with that of Sweden’s, a socially progressive country that allows parents, at the government expense, to choose any school that fits their children’s need — private or public — no matter the parents’ income.

Studies show that parents are willing to purchase houses well beyond their means for what they believe is an opportunity to send their children to “good” public schools. Not as Good as You Think shows that buying a home in an expensive neighborhood doesn’t necessarily buy a “good” public school.

The book (on which the film is based) found that in nearly 300 schools in middle class and affluent neighborhoods in California, more than half of the students in at least one grade level performed below proficiency on the California Standards Test (CST)—the statewide test that assesses student grade level knowledge.

Moreover, in some school districts, investigations have found cases of widespread corruption and financial mismanagement.

Many of these schools are located in California’s most affluent areas including Orange County, Silicon Valley, and the Los Angeles beach and canyon communities.

Not as Good as You Think was the first-ever study to evaluate student performance in schools located in California’s middle-class and affluent neighborhoods.

While this study focused on California, its findings received national recognition.

In California, Lance Izumi and Vicki Murray briefed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s top advisors, state legislators, legislative staff, and key education policymakers. As a result, for the first time in six years, five school choice bills were introduced in Sacramento. The historic number of bills included an opportunity scholarship, a disability voucher, and a safe schools voucher.

July 11, 2010

Steven F Hayward: Deconstructing The Left

Steven F Hayward

Presented with the kind permission of American Enterprise Institute and thanks to Young America’s Foundation

July 20 2007: Steven Hayward talked about liberal political values and the appeal of liberalism to portions of the electorate.

He also talked about countering progressive political arguments with conservative ideology.

Stephen Hayward is the author of Greatness: Reagan, Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders, published by Crown Forum.

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July 11, 2010

John Bolton: Obama Administration Undermining American Sovereignty

Barack Obama giving his Cairo Speech

Presented with the kind permission of Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute

March 30 2010: Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton spoke about Obama administration national sovereignty policies.

In his remarks he said he believes the administration’s foreign policy is damaging U.S. sovereignty.

Among the topics he discussed were international efforts to combat global warming, U.S. policies regarding terrorism detainees, and the International Criminal Court. He responded to audience members’ questions.

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July 10, 2010

Steven F Hayward: Greatness – Reagan, Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders

Stephen Hayward: Greatness: Reagan, Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders

With thanks to Ashbrook Center & C-SPAN for this video

Nov 10 2005: Steven F Hayward talked about his book Greatness: Reagan, Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders, published by Crown Forum.

In his book, the author compared the leadership skills of Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill. He explained that the two conservative figures had a lot in common, including their stance on national defense, their evolution from Left to Right politically, and their gift for communicating with the public.

Mr. Hayward explained that Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech defined the beginning of the Cold War while President Reagan’s “tear down this wall” demand defined its end.

Following his presentation, Mr. Hayward responded to questions and comments submitted by members of the audience. Mr. Schramm introduced the speaker and moderated the question segment.

July 9, 2010

Sir Martin Gilbert: Winston Churchill’s relationship with the Jewish People

Winston Churchill and the Jews, by Sir Martin Gilbert

Presented with thanks to Claremont Institute and with the kind permission of C-SPAN, Book TV

Nov 02 2001: Sir Martin Gilbert, author of numerous books including, The Jews in the 20th Century: An Illustrated History, talked about British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s relationship with the Jewish people.

The author said that Churchill was an advocate for Jewish equal rights and an opponent of anti-Semitism.

He also described Churchill’s role in the formation and subsequent developments in the Middle East.

The author said that Churchill kept a vigilant watch on the treatment of the Jews during World War II and attempted several times to mitigate the situation of the Jews under control of the Nazis.

It was Churchill’s suggestion that a refugee camp be established in North Africa for Jewish Europeans fleeing the Nazis.

After the presentation the author answered questions from members of the audience. (1 hour)

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