Gus Van Horn and Myrhaf do this already - calling it Around the Web and Around the World Wide Web respectively. I would’ve loved to follow their footsteps, but I find “Caught On The Net” to be much more … snappy. So, Welcome to Caught On The Net 000!

1. Presidential Elections and the Supreme Court

Thomas Sowell has a must-read article at Capitalism Magazine that should make you think twice about who to vote (or not vote) for this coming presidential election: what kind of judge do you want sitting on the Supreme Court for the next generation. Here’s an excerpt:

Recent momentous decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court have been decided by 5 to 4 votes, including the votes of justices appointed by presidents who are no longer living– Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed by President Ford, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, appointed by President Reagan.

Whoever is elected to the White House this November is expected to appoint two or three new members of the Supreme Court– justices who will be making major decisions affecting the future of American society, long after that president is gone.

Your children will be living during the lifetime tenure of those justices, and your grandchildren will be living in a world shaped by the precedents that those justices set.

[...]

This is especially important to be kept in mind by voters who are thinking of venting their frustrations by voting for some third-party candidate that they know has no chance of being elected.

I don’t know whether that was supposed to make it easier to decide or whether it just adds another variable to an already complex problem. Good luck!

2. More on Wasted Votes

Diana Hsieh of NoodleFood recently received an invitation to join the ranks of a supposed “Objectivist Party” from a masquerading Objectivist. Unaware of his true nature as a Libertarian, she responded  with a “No, Thanks” and a strong argument against the senseless voting for unelectable political parties that Thomas Sowell just mentioned above:

The problem with American politics today is not that Americans are looking for an Objectivist candidate but [that] the major parties will only run statists. The majority of voters are reasonably satisfied with their choice between left-wing and right-wing statists on Election Day. Objectivists must work to change the culture toward secularism, reason, egoism, and individual rights. Only then can we expect better politicians to mount a credible campaign, let alone win elections.

That cultural change will be felt within the major parties — so long as Objectivists don’t sequester themselves into political irrelevance in their own unelectable political party. If Objectivists (and sympathizers) demand that the major parties court their vote, then political change for the better is possible.

[...]

Today, if the small but growing number of Objectivists and sympathizers gravitate to an Objectivist political party, the Republicans and Democrats could safely ignore us for decades to come, knowing that they’ve already lost our vote. That’s a license for more statism, not less.

George Santayana said that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Make sure you read her whole response for the history lesson.

3. I Told You So?

Staying true to their nature, the Communists have decided to only allow limited access to the internet to foreign journalists during the Beijing Olympic Games. Via The New York Times:

BEIJING — The International Olympic Committee failed to press China to allow fully unfettered access to the Internet for the thousands of journalists arriving here to cover the Olympics, despite promising repeatedly that the foreign news media could “report freely” during the Games, Olympic officials acknowledged Wednesday.

Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages [...].

The restrictions, which closely resemble the blocks that China places on the Internet for its citizens, undermine sweeping claims by Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, that China had agreed to provide full Web access for foreign news media during the Games. Mr. Rogge has long argued that one of the main benefits of awarding the Games to Beijing was that the event would make China more open.

Well, so much for that! Compromise between good and evil, anyone? As far as I’m concerned, the IOC deserves no less for giving moral sanction to what is, arguably, the most repressive country on Earth.

4. Strange Priorities

If you’re a “drowning-in-freedom” Westerner, that is. China really is outdoing itself in more ways than one lately in preparation for the Olympics. Via The Associated Press:

BEIJING - Polishing up Beijing for the Olympics has extended to telling residents what not wear, with the city government advising against too many colors, white socks with black shoes, and parading in pajamas.

The advice, on top of campaigns to cut out public spitting and promote orderly lining up, was handed out in booklets to 4 million households ahead of the Olympics, an official said Thursday.

[...]

There should be no more than three color groups in your clothing, [the etiquette booklet] advises, and wearing pajamas and slippers to visit neighbors, as some elderly Beijing residents like to do, is also out. It recommends dark-colored socks, and says white socks should never be worn with black leather shoes.

This just gives a whole new meaning to the term “Nanny State”! It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. What does this say about Chinese culture, however? That is, as a society more concerned about presenting its citizens to the outside world as obedient but fashion conscious cogs than as free and individual men and women capable of making their own decisions.

Sink your teeth into this excerpt from Obama’s recent speech to the 2008 graduating class of Wesleyan University:

[...]There’s no community service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s.

But I hope you don’t. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, though you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all those who helped you get here, though you do have that debt.

It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in America’s story.

Assemble all your mental strength and ignore the doublespeak for a minute. There is something very condescending and insulting being insinuated here. First, that living my life the way I choose, pursuing my own goals and happiness and wanting to improve my own lot in life not only has no moral merit, but is a moral defect that “betrays a poverty of ambition”. Second, which is really preposterous, is that the mere fact of someone being a public “servant”  makes him morally superior to those who are not. [Pay a visit to the Post Office and report back on who is the real servant.]

The intended argument here is that  a social worker, or thuggish bureaucrat, or favor-peddling congressman is intrinsically morally superior to the actually productive businessman. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t remember the last time I was satisfied with an act of Congress. And since he doesn’t legally rob me of half my earnings and never forces me to act at the point of a gun, I find my local grocer to be of better service to me than any current member of Congress. And as long as we’re measuring moral worth according to social utility, I still consider my grocer to be more useful to “society” than the IRS or once again, the entirety of today’s Congress. No offense to grocers, of course.

What is saddening, and indeed very frightening, is that virtually everyone buys into the poisonous philosophy of Altruism. No one safe Objectivists can present a principled and flawless defense of your right to be selfish; that is, of your unalienable right to your own life, liberty and property.

I remember enjoying fireworks over the Hudson River just two weeks ago. I couldn’t help but notice another spectacle: that for almost everyone present, Independence Day was about just that - fireworks! Flags were waving and everyone was wearing red, white and blue, yet no one seemed to be mindful of the fact that the independence that was being celebrated barely exists anymore and is in serious threat of extinction this very year!

Americans certainly have a poor roster of leaders “public servants” today. It’s not often mentioned, but this sorry state of affairs is only a reflection of the the political mindset that dominates the voting population- that is, a self-righteous sense of entitlement. And this is the other side of the altruist coin: the expectation that others must toil for your benefit just as you are expected to toil for theirs.

In practice, this means lacking any semblance of self-reliance, a total rejection of responsibility and a convenient predisposition to falling hook, line and sinker for the bait of any ambitious demagogue “public servant” - who’s merely preaching to the choir. Case in point:  our tragic but very predictable current mortgage crisis and the seemingly baffling, mysterious and simply inexplicable popularity of Barack Freakin’ Obama.

[After leaving office, former members of Congress] find it quite convenient to associate with other former members of the opposing party and start a lobbying firm. What might have appeared to be contentious differences when in office are easily put aside to lobby their respected party members. Essentially no philosophic difference of importance exists — it’s only a matter of degree and favors sought, since both parties must be won over. The differences they might have had while they were voting members of Congress existed only for the purpose of appealing to their different constituencies, not serious differences of opinion as to what the role of government ought to be. This is the reality of bipartisanship. Sadly our system handsomely rewards those who lobby well and in a bipartisan fashion. Congressional service too often is a training ground or a farm system for the ultimate government service: lobbying Congress for the benefit of powerful and wealthy special interests.

This article from the Washington Post, though a bit old, offers greater (financial) perspective on the subject as well. Don’t miss it.

Religious people stubbornly lack the ability to recognize that everything about God is one gigantic contradiction. Instead of having anything to do with evil, Diana Hsieh has undeniable proof that high prices, being part of God’s plan and will, are the greatest good we could ever wish for. It goes as follows:

…as an omniscient being, God must be already perfectly aware of the high price of gas. As an omnipotent being, he must be capable of lowering gas prices. Since he’s all-benevolent, he wouldn’t allow gas prices to remain as they are if that was an evil. Ergo, high gas prices must be all for the best.

Can’t argue with that, can you? This, in fact, has opened my eyes to the fact that for anyone who believes in an all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful and all-[insert favorite attribute here] deity, it is impossible to logically admit in the existence of any kind of evil since everything is part of God’s will, which is all-good.

Don’t believe me? The Holocaust is considered by many in our society to be the greatest act of evil ever committed. Just recently, a sermon from televangelist John Hagee (a former endorser of John McCain) has surfaced which essentially makes the claim that Hitler was nothing but an instrument of God’s omnibenevolent will.

This twisted view of the nature of good and evil is rather commonplace; just look up Fred Phelps or the Reverend Pat Robertson.

“It is philosophy that makes man understandable to man, explains human nobility, and shows man the proper road. The first defect appearing in any nation that is headed toward decline is in the philosophic spirit. After that deficiencies spread into the other sciences, arts, and associations.”

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“Philosophy is the escape from the narrow sensations of animality into the wide arena of human feelings…In general, it is man’s becoming man and living the life of sacred rationality. Its aim is human perfection in reason, mind, soul, and way of life….It is the foremost cause of the production of knowledge, the creation of sciences, the invention of industries, and the initiation of the crafts.”

Go here and prepare to be shocked. You’ve been warned!