Ed Hudgins

Heart, yes! But I loved The Martian, as you know from my review. My favorite line was when, after outline all the impossible challenges, he said “I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this!”

Michael – Thanks for your thoughts!

Debate candidates indeed are in a rhetorical event and attempting to persuade audience members, some members who are honestly seeking to discover who best fits their beliefs, others who already have their minds made up and simply want to have their beliefs reaffirmed and cheer for their guy.

I suggest that if candidates held beliefs similar to ours, they could use their rhetorical skills along the lines I suggest in my Republican Party Civil War book to seize the moral high ground. They could interlace with the answers these and similar points:

1) It’s your life! You should make of it what you want. You don’t need to justify yourself to government, society, your neighbors or anyone. That’s what it means to have a right to “life.”

2) We owe each other respect, not goods and services.

3) We’re responsible adults, so let’s refuse to be treated like helpless children. Aren’t you insulted by paternalist politicians who think you’re too stupid to run your own life, to wipe your nose or tie your shoes?

4) Take pride in your productive achievements. You’re a creator, whether you nurture a child to maturity or business to profitability; whether you write a song, poem, business plan or dissertation; whether you lay the brinks to a building, design it, or arrange for its financing. Treat government creeps who want to mess with your creations, the children of the best within you, the way you’d treat anyone who would mess with your real children. Tell ‘em if they lay a hand on your children you’ll tear their frigging heart out!

5) Don’t let yourself be guilt-tripped into sanctioning your would-be destroyers. Tell ‘em to go to hell!

6) Fight for a society based on a harmony of interests rather than surrender to one based on conflict and force.

If candidates used this kind of moral rhetoric, they would dominate the debate, get their message across loud and clear, and leave their statist opponents stuttering, pathetic, incoherent messes!

Trump-less GOP Debate Still Missing Moral Principles

By Edward Hudgins

January 29, 2015 -- The Iowa GOP primary debate wasn’t only missing Donald Trump—mercifully. It was also missing a discussion of the fundamental principles of government and the country’s—and Republican Party’s—real underlying moral crisis.

The Donald’s absence from the stage of the January 28 matchup eliminated some of the distraction of his personal attacks on the other candidates, clearing space for more serious discussion. Sadly, the event was much like the ones that went before, part recitation of talking points and stump speech lines, part food fight.

There were occasional bright spots. Jeb Bush was asked an odd question about a private veteran’s charity accused of wasting money and whether he, as president, would police such charities. Bush rightly highlighted the recent Veterans Administration scandals. He not only said he’d fire those responsible for the incompetence that had led to the deaths of veterans waiting for treatment. He also said he would “give veterans a choice card so that they don't have to travel hours and hours to get care if they want to go to their private provider.” Choice, what an idea!

Rand Paul was asked about whether body cameras for police, especially in places like Ferguson where racial tensions are high, would protect both police and citizens. Paul not surprisingly agreed. But he added that “a third of the budget for the city of Ferguson was being reaped by civil fines. People were just being fined to death. . . . If you're living on the edge of poverty and you get a $100 fine or your car towed, a lot of times you lose your job.” Paul should be congratulated for highlighting the fact that tyranny can be found at all levels, and in many seemingly mundane government practices.

The fiercest Republican-on-Republican verbal violence came between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio over immigration. With film clips of their past contradictory statements, the Fox News moderators provoked the fight. But it was instructive to hear the verbal gymnastics as the two GOP Latinos attempted to explain the intricacies of their evolving views on the issue, while they each claimed not to have evolved at all.

Their mano-a-mano also helped explain, for better or worse, part of Trump’s appeal. There are nuances to the immigration issue. If you’re for a more open immigration policy—read Jeb Bush—you still understand the need to deal with millions of illegals who are already here. Both Cruz and Rubio made such tries in the past, but now fight with each other, trying to distance themselves from what should be viewed as past virtues in order to appear as hardcore border hawks. To some viewing this sorry spectacle, hearing Trump unapologetically—and foolishly—declare “deport ‘em all” might seem refreshingly clear.

Chris Christie captured the sentiment of those trying to follow the intricacies of legislative maneuvering when he said, “I watched the video of Senator Cruz. I watched the video of Senator Rubio. I heard what they said. . . . I feel like I need a Washington-to-English dictionary.”

Moderator Chris Wallace introduced a segment of the debate promising questions on “the role of the federal government.” That should have been the most important discussion of the evening. It wasn’t. The questions concerned specific policies.

What was missing was a discussion of the fundamental principles defining what government should and should not do... (Read further here.)

Glad you and your son liked the film! It really does communicate a moral message about attitudes toward life better than most philosophy essays you'll ever find!

Brant - Hope you enjoy the movie! I assume you've also seen the prequels. The links at the end of my review--which does not contain spoilers--are to my reviews of those earlier films. Cheers!

Pretty confusing post there Brant, much more confusing than the politics of Star Wars. If you don't want to see the movie, don't. If you don't want to read my review--or any other--don't. If you don't want to post about why you don't want to see the movie or read the review, don't Or if you want to post about why you don't want to see or read or post, do. Whatever. Who cares?

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (movie review)
by Edward Hudgins

December 22, 2015 -- If you liked the original Star Wars trilogy, as I did, grab your popcorn! You’ll no doubt enjoy the sequel, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But be prepared to discover political confusion in the Star Wars universe. (No spoilers ahead.)

Star Wars heroes and humor

The Force Awakens recycles plot elements, scenarios, reveals, bar scenes, Death Stars, and surviving characters from the original trilogy created by George Lucas. Thus you’ll have a feeling of familiarity that might have you asking, why couldn’t director J.J. Abrams come up with something original?

Fortunately, he includes most of the spirit and humor from the originals in the sequel, and it’s great to see Han Solo and Chewbacca in action again. The two new good guys, Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John Boyega), aren’t initially fighting for high ideals. They just want to survive. Rey is a poor scavenger on a desert planet who longs for her lost family. Finn is a storm trooper who, in his first battle, decides he doesn’t want to kill innocent women and children, so he defects. But these two rise to the occasion when faced with the conflicts of a wider world. Abrams’ characters here channel some of Lucas’s use of the insights of Joseph Campbell, who explained the archetypes of heroes in myth. Rey and Finn are doubly archetypical, reflecting the epic heroes of myth and the heroes of the original trilogy at the same time.

Political confusion in a galaxy far, far away

You don’t go to a Star Wars movie for political commentary, but politics has been central to the franchise. Unfortunately, Abrams offers confused politics and misses a chance to offer something really interesting and thought-provoking.

Of course, in the prequels, Lucas wasn’t as exactly clear, either, as he traced the fall of the Galactic Republic and the rise of the repressive Galactic Empire. Secessionists wanted to break away from the Republic. But why? Their ranks included a Trade Federation, Banking Clan, Commerce Guild, and Corporate Alliance. Were they free marketeers trying to avoid Republic regulations—good guys!—or corrupt cronies—boo, hiss—who wanted to use political power to suppress competitors?

What does stand out in the prequels is that the Republic falls due to the abdication of power by the Galactic Senate and concentration of power in the hands of a Chancellor—secretly an evil Sith Lord—in order to fight foreign wars or internal enemies, real or manufactured. Lucas makes parallels both to the fall of the Roman republic and the rise of Hitler in Germany.

Wasn’t the republic restored?

The original trilogy had clear political lines just as it had clear good guys and bad guys. The Empire was evil, ruled over by the Emperor with the aid of Darth Vader. Han Solo was a smuggler, striking a blow for free trade! The Empire is overthrown by plucky rebels who favor a republic.

In Abram’s sequel, it seems like the victory of the Rebellion over the Empire at the end of Return of the Jedi never happened. It is 30 years after Luke Skywalker, Leia, Han, and the gang presumably restored the Republic. In the film’s opening crawl we’re told “Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed. With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE.” We then see First Order storm troopers, led by a Darth Vader wannabe named Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), attacking the Resistance. We later learn that the First Order wants to destroy the Republic because it supports the Resistance. What’s the relationship between the Republic and the Resistance? What’s the First Order’s real beef with the Republic? Who knows?

Two archetypes of revolution

Overthrowing tyrants can provide good plot fare for movies, but in the real world what comes after the revolution is even more interesting. Here we have two archetypes... (Continue reading here.)

Yes, consciousness raising means promoting them to take pride in their achievements and never let themselves be guilt-tripped!

I argue that we need a Human Achievement Alliance to explicitly raise achiever consciousness, celebrate achievement, promote value creation, and change policy. Achievement is undermined in the culture, in many of our institutions, and by government. We need to go on the offensive!

Will Banning Genetic Engineering Kill You?

By Edward Hudgins

December 3, 2015 -- One headline reads “British baby given genetically-edited immune cells to beat cancer in world first.” Another headline reads “Top biologists debate ban on gene-editing.” It’s a literal life and death debate.

And if you care to live, pay attention to this philosophical clash!


Genetic engineering is on an exponential growth path. In 2001 the cost of sequencing a human-sized genome was about $100 million. By 2007 the cost was down to $10 million. Now it’s just over $1,000. Scientists and even do-it-yourself biohackers can now cheaply access DNA information that could allow them to discover cures for diseases and much more.

Recently, for example, baby Layla Richards [at right] was diagnosed with leukemia. But when none of the usual treatments worked, doctors created designer immune cells, injected them into the little girl and the treatment worked. She was cured.

But there have been concerns about such engineering for decades; indeed, precautionary guidelines were drawn up by a group of biologists at the 1975 Asilomar conference in California. And now, at a joint conference in Washington, D.C. of the National Academies of Medicine and Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, a cutting-edge genetic engineering tool known as CRISPR-Cas9 came under attack because it can be used to edit the genomes of sperm, eggs, and embryos.

National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins argued that the children that would result from such editing “can’t give consent to having their genomes altered” and that “the individuals whose lives are potentially affected by germline manipulation could extend many generations into the future.” Hille Haker, a Catholic theologian from Loyola University Chicago, agreed and proposed a two year ban on all research into such manipulation of genomes. Others argued that such manipulation could lead to “designer babies,” that is, parents using this technology to improve or enhance the intelligence and strength of their children.

These arguments are bizarre to say the least.

To begin with, there is virtual universal agreement among religious and secular folk alike that from birth and until a stage of maturity at which they can potentially guide their lives by their own reason, the consent of children is not needed when their parents make many potentially life-altering decisions for them. Why should this reasonable rule be different for decisions made by parents before a child is born?

And consider that the principal decisions with gene-editing technology would be to eliminate the possibility of the child later in life having Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases, cancers, and a host of other ailments that plague humanity. Is it even conceivable that any rational individual would not thank their parents for ensuring their health and longevity? Isn’t this what all parents wish for their children? Why would anyone deny parents the tools to ensure healthy children? How much continued misery and death are those who would delay genetic research or ban this new technology inflicting on parents and children alike?..... (Continue reading)

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Explore:

*Edward Hudgins, “How anti-individualist fallacies prevent us from curing death.” April 22, 2015.

*Edward Hudgins, “Google, Entrepreneurs, and Living 500 Years.” March 12, 2015.

*Edward Hudgins, “Global Warming and Reckless Precaution.” September 20, 2013

*Edward Hudgins, “FDA Stopping the Genetics Revolution.” December 11, 2013.

*Sam Kazman, “Better Never?” April 22, 2010.

*William R Thomas, “Transhumanism: How Does It Relate to Objectivism?” June 29, 2010.

"My All American" (movie review)

By Edward Hudgins

November 25, 2015 -- Sports is an arena in which individuals can excel in physical prowess and skill as well as in moral character. Both are on inspirational display in a new film, My All American, based on the true story of University of Texas Longhorns football Coach Darrell Royal (Aaron Eckhart) and star safety Freddie Steinmark (Finn Wittrock).

Freddie is a Colorado boy in the 1960s who loves sports. His father (Michael Reilly Burke), a Denver cop, could have been a great athlete if not for an earlier injury. Dad pushes Freddie hard in practice, but this is not some “father and son in conflict” story. Freddie wants to excel! He does so on his high school football team, but because of his short stature, he can’t find a college that will offer him, from a cash-strapped family, a football scholarship.

But his high school coach calls him to the attention of Coach Royal who is determined to turn his Longhorns from mediocrities into champions. Freddie is flown to Austin with teammate Bobby Mitchell, who really is the big guy with the seemingly better chance of making the team. But Royal has seen films of Freddie playing. He thinks that this tough and determined young man is just what his team needs. He offers both Freddie and Bobby scholarships. When Freddie returns to Colorado and tells his father the news, we see the love and pride of a parent on full display.

Training in Texas is grueling. Coach Royal explains that “Football doesn’t build character. It eliminates the weak.” The film follows Freddie, a rising defensive star, and his teammates as they attempt to win their way to a national championship.

It also follows Coach Royal’s attempt to use a new offensive strategy, the triple option, as a path to victories. For non-football fans, think of the game as a very physical version of chess. Strategy and judgment count. Are his players smart enough as well as strong enough to pull it off?... (Continue reading here.)

On Viewing 2001: The First Transhumanist Film
By Edward Hudgins

November 19, 2015 -- I recently saw 2001: A Space Odyssey again on the big screen. That’s the best way to see this visually stunning cinematic poem, like I saw it during its premiere run in 1968. The film’s star, Keir Dullea, attended that recent screening and afterward offered thoughts on director Stanley Kubrick’s awe-inspiring opus.

He and many others have discussed the visions offered in the film. Some have come to pass: video phone calls and iPad tablets, for example. Others, sadly, haven’t: regularly scheduled commercial flights to orbiting space stations and Moon bases.

But what should engage our attention is that the film’s enigmatic central theme of transformation is itself transforming from science fiction to science fact.

From apes to man

The film’s story came from a collaboration between Kubrick and sci-fi great Arthur C. Clarke. If you’re familiar with Clarke’s pre-2001 novel Childhood’s End and his short story “The Sentinel” you’ll recognize themes in the film.

In the film we see a pre-human species on the brink of starvation, struggling to survive. An alien monolith appears and implants in the brain of one of the more curious man-apes, Moonwatcher, an idea. He picks up a bone and bashes in the skull of one of a herd of pigs roaming the landscape. Now he and his tribe will have all the food they need.

We know from Clarke’s novel, written in conjunction with the film script, that the aliens actually alter Moonwatcher’s brain, giving it the capacity for imagination and implanting a vision of him and his tribe filled with food. He sees that there is an alternative to starvation and acts accordingly. The aliens had juiced evolution. Kubrick gives us the famous scene where Moonwatcher throws the bone in the air. As it falls the scene cuts ahead to vehicle drifting through space. Natural evolution over four million years has now transformed ape-men into modern technological humans.

From stars to starchild

In the film, astronauts discover a monolith buried on the Moon, which sends a signal toward Jupiter. A spaceship is sent to investigate, and astronaut Dave Bowman, played by Dullea, discovers a giant monolith in orbit. He enters it and passes through an incredible hyperspacial stargate. At the end of his journey, Bowman is transformed by the unseen aliens’ monolith into a new, higher life form, an embryo-appearing starchild with, we presume, knowledge and powers beyond anything dreamt of by humans. He is transhuman!

Kubrick and Clarke are making obvious references to Nietzsche’s ... (Continue reading here.)

Today's massacres in Paris harken back to the January Jihadist attacks and remind us that the war of the savage versus the civilized is ongoing.

Brant - Blah blah was just to keep from repeating all you said. So it sounds like we might be in agreement!

Ed

(Cheerful, on the upper side of age, but young at heart man!)

Brant - War, bad world, blah, blah, blah. Okay, but I'm not sure where you contradict my points.

In any case, I like Rand Paul but don't think he'll win. The GOP will probably get a Rubio or Cruz, maybe Fiorina as VP. Trump would be bad in any case. If he doesn't win in the general election, we have Pres. Hillary. If he does win, his policies in many cases are wrong and the adverse consequences would be fast in coming. Looking for a path forward, I would hope a Republican president, other than Trump or Carson, would give priority to domestic issues where their policies are far better than the status quo.

What would really constitute fundamental change in the long run is if a president made crippling the current crony system, which is supported by Republicans and Democrats, a priority. Fiorina was harping on this idea before she jumped into the race, so maybe she as VP could head up that effort. (Of historic interest: Under the generally awful Bush Sr., the Council on Competitiveness under VP Quayle actually did important work on deregulation and market liberalization. Too bad Sr. didn't make that a priority rather than raising taxes and slapping on new environmental regulations.)

And, of course, a GOP president would do well to offer the optimistic vision of the world as it can be and should be that will to attract and inspire folks, especially young people, and counter the pessimism of the culture, paternalism of the Democrats, and generally old man grumpiness, "Get off my lawn you kids" kvetching of some libertarians and conservatives, some found--shockingly!--even on this very website!

Brant - Not sure how your original criticism is in fundamental conflict with what I wrote. I never said freedom is not important; indeed, I've promoted it for decades along with its moral foundations. And in this piece I highlight what's at stake and suggest that this is a crucial way to promote and excite people about the importance as well as the moral nature of freedom in a country where so many people are comfortable with limits on their liberty and government taking care of them. freedom. I end my piece with "policymakers of whatever party must get out of the way and allow individuals and new technologies to flourish in freedom."

And in many other pieces posted on these pages I've argued that a good way make Millennials--who are cynical about so much but who love technology and want to start the next Facebook, Apple, or Uber--advocates of individual liberty is by focusing on the potential for a fantastic, non-fiction future. This approach also highlights the centrality of reason and achievement. Simply standing on a streetcorner or in the blogosphere repeating the word "freedom" over and over hasn't worked as well as we'd like.

As I posted elsewhere, just in the past few days we have a story of "Algae engineered to kill cancer cells & leave healthy cells unharmed." http://www.sciencealert.com/algae-has...

And here's another one one on "Scientists breached blood-brain barrier for 1st time to treat a brain tumour." http://www.sciencealert.com/scientist... This is important also because it opens the way both for nanotech and chemical cures for brain ailments.

These are achievements that should be trumpeted and celebrated. It's this vision of the world as it can be and should be that candidates should hold up as our possible future if the country remains free.

Techno-future, yes! This is the positive vision of the world as it can be and should be, a vision that should excite and inspire people on the one hand and, on the other, infuriate them because politicians are robbing them of that future. Freedom is always "about" something, about what we want to do and to have. And to have a prosperous, fantastic, non-fiction future save for politicians getting in the way can strongly motivate individuals to fight for freedom as well as its moral prerequisites.

The Fourth GOP Debate: Sounding a Small Techno-Future Note

By Edward Hudgins

November 11, 2015 -- The fourth GOP presidential primary debate is worth noting in part because Marco Rubio sounded a note on the topic of our techno-future, which should be a central theme for all the candidates. Sadly, the note did not grow into a symphony.

Marco Rubio: minimum wage means minimum jobs

Rubio observed that “If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than a machine. And that means all this automation that's replacing jobs and people right now is only going to be accelerated.” Putting aside for the moment the ambiguous meaning of the word “replacing,” let’s note that it is best for businesses to decide how many humans versus machines to employ based on free-market prices rather than on prices distorted by governments. When governments drive up the cost to employ workers, fewer workers will be employed.

The line for which Rubio got the most attention concerning jobs was, “I don't know why we have stigmatized vocational education. Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.” Given that authoritarian, anti-reason leftist philosophers dominate academia, the fewer of them warping the minds of young people the better. But what is needed is philosophers who promote freedom and reason.

Rubio later picked up an aspect of our techno-future when he noted that “We are living through a massive economic transformation. . . . This economy is nothing like what it was like five years ago, not to mention 15 or 20 years ago. And it isn't just a different economy. It's changing faster than ever. . . . It took the telephone 75 years to reach 100 million users. It took Candy Crush one year to reach some 100 million users.... (Read further.)

The Third GOP Debate: Candidates Eat the Media
By Edward Hudgins

October 29, 2015 – Edward Hudgins explains that the big losers of the third GOP debate were the CNBC questioners and the pretentious faux-journalists in general who were eaten alive by the candidates. Oh yes, and a few terrible ideas were crushed as well!

Start with stupid questions

Carl Quintanilla's first question to the candidates was, “What is your biggest weakness?” The answer to that weak question should have been, “Not immediately calling bullcrap on you!” Most candidates ignored the question and made opening statements.

When John Harwood asked Donald Trump, “Is this a comic-book version of a presidential campaign?” he was no doubt echoing what many people think. But questions about the defects of Trump’s policy proposals would have done more to make that point.

Becky Quick seemed too lazy to come up with original questions. She asked Carly Fiorina the same question from previous debates about her tenure at Hewlett-Packard and asked Trump the same question about his four Atlantic City bankruptcies. It was like tuning in for a sequel and getting a rerun instead.

Candidate bites media

(Continue reading here.)

Steve Jobs Movie Review
By Edward Hudgins

October 22, 2015 -- If you’re a fan of Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder and digital age revolutionary, you might find Steve Jobs the movie a bit hard to take. It shows the worst of the man.

If you’re a fan of Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the screenplay portraying the complexities of his subject, you’ll probably love this new film from director Danny Boyle.

If you celebrate human achievement, you’ll wish the movie gave us more of what made Jobs a worthy subject of a movie to begin with.

The film is in three acts, each taking place backstage just before major product launches: for the Mac, in 1984; the Cube, from Jobs’ post-Apple company NeXT in 1988; and the iMac, after Jobs returned to Apple in 1998. Each act focuses on his relationships with people central to his life.

Audiences familiar with Jobs’ very public life or its treatment in Walter Isaacson’s biography Steve Jobs and the movie The Pirates of Silicon Valley will not find new revelations in this film, but will find spoilers in this review...

(Continue reading here.)

The First 2015 Democrat Debate: Ignorance Wins

By Edward Hudgins

The audience for the first Democratic presidential primary debate was not just the party faithful. It was the low-information voters. And ignorance won, not Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

All of the candidates—Lincoln Chaffee, Martin O’Malley, and Jim Webb, as well as Hillary and Bernie—offered the next big handful of economy- and morality-rotting goodies from the welfare state candy bag—more government spending (the buzzword is “investment”) in infrastructure, jobs, green energy, education, you name it.

It is disheartening that in every election the Dems make the same “give us more money” argument, confident that short attention spans will head off the obvious question: “What happened to the money you asked for in the last election and the one before that, promising our problems would be solved? Why haven’t our problems disappeared? Why have your solutions failed?”

Let’s just look at education. Over the past 25 years local, state, and federal education spending has gone up at least by 40 percent in real, inflation-adjusted terms. But test scores by all measures have remained flat. The Democratic candidates’ answer to the problem? Pretend like none of the ineffective spending in the past ever happened and seek more money.

All the Democratic candidates promised to forgive student loans or somehow lighten student debt. They also promised “free” college tuition for all—specifying, of course, that it would not actually be free because “the rich” would pay for it in higher taxes. Sanders made a revealing admission—which we knew already—while making his case: “A college degree today . . . is the equivalent of what a high school degree was 50 years ago.”

That being the case, have the mostly government-owned and -operated schools done such a poor job that you need a college degree to get the knowledge high school once offered? Certainly, greater knowledge is needed than high school provides for more jobs in our advanced economy. But employers complain that high schools often fail to teach the basic skills the way they once did, and that such skills must now be sought from college grads. And 20 percent of incoming undergrads need to take remedial courses to make up for what they didn’t get in high school.

The candidates all complained about the high cost of college. They ignored the fact that colleges in part set their prices based on the level of financial support they know students can get from the federal government. In other words, government loans help drive up the college costs. They also ignored the fact that most students attend public colleges, and that these are government entities. As such, they tend to be immune from market forces, the same forces that have brought down the costs and increased the quality of everything from supermarkets to smartphones.

But maybe bringing these facts and figures into Bernie’s fictional world wouldn’t have mattered anyway. After all, Americans educated in this failed system aren’t very good at math.

Perhaps the most shocking segment of the evening came when all candidates save Webb argued that the lives of 87 percent of Americans don’t matter. This was in response to the question, “Do black lives matter, or do all lives matter?”

Four candidates answered “black.”

The answer, of course, was cowardly. It pandered to black racists who are polarizing the country. But worse, it failed to address the real problems of inner-city blacks. O’Malley observed that when he was mayor of Baltimore, the city was “burying over 350 young men every single year, mostly young, and poor, and black.” He didn’t mention that most were murdered by other blacks. He didn’t mention that his party has controlled the city for five decades.

He and the other candidates correctly argued that the criminal justice system is in need of serious reform. But it is the welfare state that all these Democrats support that has caused the moral degeneration that makes so many inner-city neighborhoods and schools crime-ridden hell-holes. It is the welfare state that teaches poor people that they are helpless and must look to government largess, handed out by political elites, for their sustenance. And it is welfare state regulations that make it difficult or impossible for poor individuals to find jobs or become self-reliant entrepreneurs.

A major theme of socialist Sanders that has struck a deep core with voters is denouncing what he calls “capitalism.” He argues that big businesses use political pull to enrich themselves and impoverish the rest of us.

But he conflates the crony system with real free markets. In a crony system political power rather than the ability to sell to voluntary customers is the coin of the realm. That system should be denounced by Republicans and Democrats, Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street alike.

In a real free market, government does not favor one enterprise and industry over another. But Sanders, like the other Democrats, still wants political power to determine who gets what. Only the Democrats want to be the deciders. And it is the fact that government can help enrich one sector—“green” energy—or destroy another—coal—that causes businesses to invest in lobbying and play the political game in the first place. The alternative to the crony system offered by the Democrats is an authoritarian, dictatorial system.

Sadly, most Americans do not know the difference between the crony system and free markets. And Republicans had better understand that they cannot expect to win hearts, minds, and elections simply by denouncing the Democrats as socialists. A recent survey found that among young people 18-29 years old, 49 percent have a positive reaction to the word “socialism” while 43 percent react negatively. By contrast, 46 percent react positively to “capitalism” while the word leaves a bad taste in the mouths of 47 percent.

The first 2015 Democratic debate showed that, if elected, any of that party’s major candidates will lead, in effect, an Obama third term.

And it showed that Republicans have their own education challenge: to educate voters about which system and policies will allow more opportunities for individuals to prosper by running their own lives, and which will further enslave and impoverish them.

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Hudgins is a senior scholar at The Atlas Society.

Explore:

William Thomas, ”Democrats Stand for Socialism.” August 11, 2015.

Edward Hudgins, “Bernie Sanders, Socialism, and the GOP.” July 19, 2015.

Edward Hudgins, “Baltimore Riots as Criminal Culture Writ Large.” April 30, 2015.

I could have noted a lot of things if this weren't a short piece. I have a whole book in which I note a whole lot more and many speeches that do the same. And I've written a lot of pieces on immigration and related issues. See the links on the Atlas Society website or look up my pieces here in the Ed Hudgins corner.

The Civil War Within the GOP
By Edward Hudgins

In New Hampshire—the primo primary state!—the Republican Liberty Caucus’s annual conference is a battlefield in the civil war within the GOP. With over 700 activists attending, does this indicate that the liberty faction is winning in the battle for the soul of the party?

GOP’s demographic decline

First, the context. The GOP is in long-term demographic decline. In 2004, some 44% of Hispanic-American citizens voted for George W. Bush, while in 2012 only 27% went for Romney. Hispanic citizens, who accounted for 17% of the population when Romney ran, will represent at least 30% by 2050. Bush received 43% of 18-29 year-olds, compared to Romney’s 37%. But these voters tend to be socially liberal--for example, strongly supporting same-sex unions--and will become more allergic to the GOP.

While 59% of white evangelicals supported Romney, this is little comfort to the GOP. Some 29% of citizens 50-64 years old fall into this category, while only 11% of young people do. Indeed, fully 35% of them have no religious affiliation. Tomorrow’s voters will be much more secular.

Two factions or three?

Against this reality, most commentators make out the conflicts within the GOP to be between establishment Republicans who are “pragmatic” and want to win future elections, and purer right wingers, who are unrealistic, often intolerant ideologues, scaring away voters.

But in fact there are three factions, showing the battle to be much more complex.

Establishment Republicans

Establishment Republicans, while critical of the welfare state, generally want to reform it rather than repeal it. They advocate rolling back many economically burdensome regulations and simplifying if not radically reforming the tax code. But they do not question the fundamental premise that government is responsible for helping people with either direct aid or targeted policies. This is why they speak of “saving” Social Security, Medicare, and the like. Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and John Boehner best represent this faction. They tout their creds at getting things done rather than making utopian speeches.

Nearly all establishment Republicans pay lip service to socially conservative policies—banning abortions and perhaps same-sex marriage, and certainly defunding Planned Parenthood. But these are not their priorities. This puts them in conflict with the second GOP faction.

Extreme social conservatives

Extreme social conservatives give priority to their values agenda that usually involves limiting freedom. For example, they would deny same-sex couples the liberty to marry, even though this freedom does not limit the liberty of social conservatives. They usually push a religious agenda demanding, for example, that symbols of their faith—a manger scene, the Ten Commandments—be displayed on government property. Their latest pinup girl is Kim Davis, the Kentucky government clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because it violated her religious convictions, never mind her oath to the Constitution. (Would these conservatives celebrate a pacifist Quaker who refused to issue gun licenses?)

Establishment Republicans usually consider conservatives who give priority to social issues embarrassments who lose elections: Remember Todd Aiken and Richard Mourdock, who lost Senate races in Missouri and Indiana, respectively, because of their misinformed statements about abortion?

Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum best represent this faction and, in these two cases, they actually favor government management of the economy in the name of “family values.”

The liberty caucus

This brings us to the faction found in the Republican Liberty Caucus. Libertarians and Constitutionalists—many also social conservatives—understand that America itself is in a civil war between makers who live by producing goods and services to trade with their fellows, and takers who use government to steal from productive individuals. In our corrupt, crony system, political power--not free markets or merit--determines who gets what. In the end, the system that punishes achievers will run out of victims and collapse. To prevent this, radical change is needed.

Is there hope?

So is there any way for the GOP civil war to end with a unified party? Possibly.

Some establishment Republicans actually are social engineers on the right and wouldn’t do away with the welfare state even if they could. Others believe deep down that radical change would be best, but think that it is politically impossible. Yet it is impossible in part because they refuse to take a stand against the system.

They see many libertarians as impractical utopians. And it is true that the system can’t be changed overnight. But it can be changed in the long run if these establishment Republicans put their political skills into educating the public, getting elected, and pulling together coalitions to make radical changes.

Extreme social conservatives are morally wrong in their attempts to limit liberty, a practice they denounce when liberals try it on them. And, in any case, they must understand that if they give priority to the wrong battles—battles they’ll likely lose—government will continue to expand, overspend, strangle economic opportunity, and limit their autonomy to live by their values. We will all become even more dependent on the state for mortgages, medical care, retirement income, you name it. If you think the Common Core is bad, that it's making our children stupid, wait until the government goes after home schooling.

To win future elections and to save the country, the GOP must unite behind a consistent freedom agenda. It must reach out especially to the young tech entrepreneurs who value achievement and prosperity, love their work, are socially liberal, and will sooner or later run afoul of government regulators. The GOP must become a modernist party, offering a positive vision of a future as it can be and should be, if only individuals can be free!
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Hudgins is a senior scholar at The Atlas Society.

Explore:

Edward Hudgins, editor, The Republican Party’s Civil War: Will Freedom Win? 2014.

Edward Hudgins, “The GOP 2015 Second Debate Rundown.” September 17, 2015.

William Thomas, “Donald Trump: A Know-Nothing for the 21^st Century.” August 31, 2015.

Edward Hudgins, “Bernie Sanders, Socialism, and the GOP.” July 18, 2015.

OK! See it!

The Martian
Movie Review
By Edward Hudgins

October 2, 2015 — The Martian, from director Ridley Scott, is an exciting film about an astronaut stranded on the Red Planet. It celebrates the heroism that comes from human reason. And it points to what it will take for humans in coming decades to make Mars a new home for humanity. With the film coming on the heels of NASA’s confirmation of liquid water on the Martian surface, that home could be closer than you think!

“I’m not gonna die!”

The Martian is based on a novel that author Andy Weir originally published himself online and offered as a free download. The author and the film take care to be as scientifically accurate as possible in the context of a fictional offering.

The movie opens with the third crew to land on Mars rushing back to their landing craft ahead of a sudden sandstorm that threatens to destroy it and them. (In reality, Mars’s thin atmosphere would mean such a storm would annoy rather than kill. But then there’d be no story!)

Unfortunately, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is struck by debris from some destroyed communications equipment and blown away. Sensors indicate his suit’s seal has been breached, meaning his oxygen has escaped and he’s likely dead. The rest of the crew takes off without searching for his body to avoid being killed themselves. They begin their sad, year-long journey home after informing the world of the tragedy.

But Watney is alive! The breach in his suit was sealed by blood and the debris lodged in his side. He gets back to the habitat the astronauts had used as their base. But his future still looks grim. He is out of contact with Earth and his shipmates. The next Mars mission is not scheduled to arrive for four years and will land 3,000 kilometers from where he is. He has nowhere nearly enough food rations to survive that long. But he declares, “I’m not gonna die,” and we see his mind at work in the video logs he makes of his efforts.

Intelligence for survival

“Let’s do the math!” he says as he figures out that he must grow three years’ worth of potatoes on a frozen planet where nothing grows and find some way to water and fertilize his crops. But he’s a botanist and he declares, “Mars will come to fear my botany power!” He converts part of the hab into a makeshift greenhouse. Human waste—what the crew left in its short visit and what he will produce in the years ahead--will be his fertilizer. The water will come from a jury-rigged setup that extracts it from other substances at hand in the hab.

Watney contemplates how to get his tractor, which needs batteries recharged every 35 kilometers, to trek a hundred times that distance, how to carry enough supplies for that journey, how to contact Earth, and many other challenges. And he declares, “I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this!”

Director Scott does not give us wishful thinking, mere muscles, unconvincing machismo, or deus-ex-machina miracles. He gives us intelligence as the key to survival.

Will they succeed?

Meanwhile, back at NASA, satellite photos show activity at the hab, meaning Watney is alive. Scientists on Earth observe him trekking out into the desert and guess, correctly, that he’s searching for a decades-old Pathfinder probe to try to revive its old radio system, which he does. Now they can communicate.

But Watney’s farming efforts are cut short by an accident, and NASA’s plan to send an unmanned resupply ship does not go as planned. The one slim hope, which NASA opposes, is for his shipmates to swing around Earth rather than land as they’re supposed to and return to Mars to rescue him. Will they do so? Will they succeed?

Optimism, intelligence, ingenuity

Many elements of The Martian are familiar from other movies. Gravity (2013) gave us drifting in space, trying to return to a ship. Apollo 13 (1995) was a film version of real-life astronauts with a disabled spacecraft trying to get home safely from an aborted lunar mission. The Martian, like Apollo 13, gives us a vision of the heroic that comes from the same source that allows humans to travel to other worlds to begin with: the human mind.

Some might think that a film about the how hostile Mars is to human life would discourage people from ever wanting to go there, much less live there. I disagree. Humans are explorers and achievers.

In 1996 Robert Zubrin published The Case for Mars, outlining an innovative plan for getting to the Red Planet for a fraction of the cost of a NASA mission. He founded the Mars Society, which runs conferences and simulations of Mars missions in the arctic, in preparation for the real thing. Other groups such as Explore Mars have sprung up in recent years. Other innovative mission models have been proposed, including one from Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. And Mars One proposes to send settlers to the Red Planet on one-way trips, to be permanent occupants. Private entrepreneur Elon Musk founded his rocket company SpaceX with the goal of establishing permanent settlements on the Red Planet. And NASA’s confirmation of water on the surface of Mars opens further possibilities for future colonies.

The Martian is an uplifting film that does not minimize the challenges of life; indeed, Watney explains that he knew going in that space travel was dangerous and that he could be killed. But he says that once you acknowledge that you might die, you deal with the problem at hand and the next and the next. This is humanity at its best. Damon as Watney gives a fine performance. His character must keep up his optimism—without maudlin emotionalism or self-deceiving bravado. He must demonstrate intelligence and ingenuity. In all this we see the best of the human spirit!
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Hudgins is a senior scholar at The Atlas Society.

Explore:

*Edward Hudgins, “The Spiritual Significance of Mars.” April 4, 2010.

*Edward Hudgins, “From Apollo 11 to Martian Missions.” July 18, 2013.

*William Thomas, “Review of Interstellar.” December 3, 2014.

*Edward Hudgins, “Four Facts for Human Achievement Day.” July 20, 2015.