Category Archives: Atlas Shrugged

A fundamental insight to be gleaned from studying aid to developing countries is that healthy institutions lead to healthy economies; countries with undeveloped or corrupt institutions invariably have struggling economies.

Even countries with prodigious supplies of natural resources do not benefit if they do not have strong institutions. Wealth is extracted, it flows to a few individuals, and then to other nations. Most citizens remain impoverished.

What sets flourishing nations apart is the mediation of wealth creation and distribution by healthy institutions. Schools, universities, government, laws, courts, banks, churches, media, families, libraries, service clubs, hospitals and neighborhoods all serve, when functioning properly, to bring people together in a common cause, protect people from exploitation, and provide opportunities for developing and exercising gifts and talents.

IIn the 1970s and 80s, institution was a bad word, especially among liberals. The movement to reform society, to make it more just, less racist and sexist, was pursued through rejection of the establishment. Traditional ways of doing things were suspect simply because they were traditional.

The modern conservative movement rose in response to the liberal reforms of those years. People like William F. Buckley and George Will advocated incremental change when needed, but not wholesale rejection of traditional forms of society. Conservatives tended to be pro-business, pro-religion, pro-family and pro-education. They supported traditional moral values: honesty, courage, faith, humility, hard work, duty and self-sacrifice.

That all changed during the past decade with the rise of the Tea Party. The Tea Party rejected traditional conservativism and replaced it with profound distrust of institutions of all forms.

The intellectual and historical underpinnings of the Tea Party movement can be found in the writings of Ayn Rand, in books like Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead and The Virtue of Selfishness. Rand criticized institutions, especially government institutions, because they restrict personal freedom. She believed society is best served by allowing individuals to pursue their own paths and not requiring them to put their own interests aside for the sake of the common good.

Rands influence on contemporary American politics is far-reaching. Prominent politicians like Rand Paul (who is named after her) and Paul Ryan shaped their early careers in light of her philosophy, and others such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and business leaders John Mackey and Mark Cuban have acknowledged her inspiration as a factor in their success.

But Rands influence is not to be measured by the number of disciples, rather it can be seen in the profound changes in attitude we are witnessing in society today.

It can be seen in the growing antipathy toward government in all its forms, in the disrespect shown toward professionals in education, journalism and health care, in the rise of conspiracy theories, in the decline in church membership and service organizations, in the antipathy toward science, in the glorification of the violent hero, in the prominence of the cynic.

But there is another, albeit smaller, movement in America today, a movement started by a contemporary of Ayn Rand named Robert Greenleaf.

In 1972, Greenleaf wrote an essay entitled The Servant as Leader in which he expressed an attitude diametrically opposed to Rands Objectivist philosophy. That essay gave rise to the Servant Leadership movement, a movement encouraging the development of individual talents not for self-interest but to serve the common good. He believed this was best done by working diligently to ensure that core institutions are healthy and ethical.

In The Institution as Servant he wrote:

This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.

Greenleaf understood that when core institutions are weakened, it creates a void filled by the cult of the personality. Instead of society working slowly and consistently to fix its problems with long-term solutions, it tends to chase after a succession of quick fixes proposed by whoever happens to be most persuasive to the masses at the time.

That is precisely the situation in which most third world countries find themselves mired; it is the situation toward which America seems to be heading.

It is unfortunate that there are no strong conservative voices in American politics today. As a result, we have no political party that seeks, first and foremost, to protect and sustain core institutions as the foundation of democracy.

But there is hope. As long as we have a critical mass of people who believe in the common good, who are willing to sacrifice some of their own interests for the sake of others, who are willing to teach others children as if they were their own, and who are willing to share their vision for positive future, there is hope for a healthy, flourishing, ethical society.

Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University. He also is a member of the Tribunes editorial board.

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Richard Kyte: Institutions can bring people together - La Crosse Tribune

While Republicans in the Senate work out how to take health insurance away from millions of Americans, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., turns his attention to the other great crusade that animates his career: tax cuts. Tuesday afternoon, Ryan is giving a speech to a friendly audience of lobbyists at the National Association of Manufacturers, in which he will lay out his vision for the next phase of the great Republican project, once health care is (one way or another) out of the way.

Ryan may not be the hard-nosed, number-crunching policy wonk he's often portrayed as in the press, but he is certainly a man of substantive beliefs. Unlike his Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell, who plainly has no sincerely felt goal other than acquiring and holding power, Ryan has policy changes he desperately wants to see. Among them, only destroying the safety net can rival his deep and abiding wish that America might ease the burden of taxation under which our country's rich, super-rich and corporations suffer so unjustly.

According to excerpts of his speech released in advance, he'll tell his audience: "We need to get this done in 2017. We cannot let this once-in-a-generation moment slip." While cutting taxes might slip into 2018, Ryan is basically right. It may not be quite a once-in-a-generation opportunity, but it only comes along when Republicans have unified control of government which they might only have until 2018.

While Ryan may not get everything he wants out of tax reform, he stands a very good chance of getting most of it. Republicans will move heaven and earth to pass something not because they feel pressure from their constituents Americans are not exactly crying out for tax cuts but because they believe in it. If we can't cut taxes on the wealthy, they ask each other, then why are we here? What's the point of having power if you don't use it for this? So here's what Ryan is proposing to do, per the speech excerpts:

- Lower income tax rates

- Reduce the number of tax brackets

- Raise the standard deduction

- Eliminate the inheritance tax (Big congrats to Donny Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Barron for not having to worry about paying taxes! Oh, and Tiffany she'll probably get something, too.)

- Eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is meant to ensure that the wealthy can't get away without paying anything

- Eliminate unspecified loopholes

- But keep the mortgage interest deduction and charitable giving deduction

- Cut the corporate tax rate

- Allow corporations to pay reduced taxes on profits they bring back from overseas

- Institute a border adjustment tax to favor exports over imports

Among these, only the increase in the standard deduction is aimed at the non-wealthy. As the Tax Policy Center wrote last year about an earlier version of this plan:

"Three-quarters of total tax cuts would go to the top 1 percent, who would receive an average cut of nearly $213,000, or 13.4 percent of after-tax income. The top 0.1 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $1.3 million (16.9 percent of after-tax income). In contrast, the average tax cut for the lowest-income households would be just $50."

While the figures for this latest iteration will vary somewhat, the essential idea will be the same. This is part of the Republican tax template going way back: Make sure that even lower-income people get something in your tax cut, even if it's tiny and the vast majority of the benefits go to the wealthy. Then you can say, "This isn't about the wealthy we're cutting taxes for everybody!"

There are differences among Republicans on some points. For instance, many of President Donald Trump's economic advisers don't like the border adjustment tax (which is essentially a big tariff on imported goods that would be paid by consumers), which means it will probably be dropped. But the good news for Ryan and Republicans is that even if cutting taxes for the wealthy isn't popular, it tends not to generate intense, concentrated resistance of the kind that makes members of Congress skittish about voting for it.

That's because unlike health care reform, taxes are not an issue where it's easy (or even possible) for citizens to see a direct harm Republican policies might do to them. If I take away your coverage or enable insurers to deny you coverage because of your pre-existing condition, you'll know that's bad for you. But if I give a tax break to the millionaires who live in that gated community on the other side of town? You may think it's unfair and you may not like it, but since it doesn't seem like it will have an immediate impact on you, you're much less likely to march in the streets or call your member of Congress to stop it from happening.

Furthermore, Ryan and the Republicans know that the public has virtually no historical memory, which enables them to make bogus arguments about taxes and convince many people that they're true. Why is it necessary to make these tax cuts? "Because this will create jobs," Ryan will say in his speech, according to the excerpts. "That is what this is all about: jobs, jobs, jobs. Good, high-paying jobs."

Just like all those millions of high-paying jobs that were created when George W. Bush passed a similar set of tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001 and 2003, which brought about the economic nirvana of explosive job and wage growth Republicans like Ryan promised the tax cuts would produce. That's what happened, right?

That's not what happened, of course just the opposite. But Paul Ryan is undeterred. He's a man of substance, but he's no empiricist. What experience teaches him about the world we live in is far less important than the dream that implanted itself in his heart when he read "Atlas Shrugged" as an impressionable youth. Whatever else does or doesn't make it through Congress, Ryan will get his tax cuts.

Washington Post

Paul Waldman is a contributor to The Plum Line blog, and a senior writer at The American Prospect.

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Paul Ryan can't wait to cut taxes on the rich and corporations - Chicago Tribune

The Fountainhead, part 1, chapter 9

Ayn Rand wasnt one for understatement. When she had a political point to make, she did it with all the subtlety of a big brass band. This makes it all the more noteworthy when she lets a controversial topic pass without comment. And one of those silences, the topic of todays post, is a surprising one.

It begins with the citys construction workers going on strike:

The strike of the building-trades unions infuriated Guy Francon. The strike had started against the contractors who were erecting the Noyes-Belmont Hotel, and had spread to all the new structures of the city. It had been mentioned in the press that the architects of the Noyes-Belmont were the firm of Francon & Heyer.

Through some plot machinations that arent important, Peter Keating attends a public meeting of the strikers and their supporters. The first speaker is a man named Austen Heller:

Keating looked up at the loud-speaker with a certain respect, which he felt for all famous names. He had not read much of Austen Heller, but he knew that Heller was the star columnist of the Chronicle, a brilliant, independent newspaper that Heller came from an old, distinguished family and had graduated from Oxford; that he had started as a literary critic and ended by becoming a quiet fiend devoted to the destruction of all forms of compulsion, private or public, in heaven or on earth; that he had been cursed by preachers, bankers, club-women and labor organizers; that he had better manners than the social elite whom he usually mocked, and a tougher constitution than the laborers whom he usually defended; that he could discuss the latest play on Broadway, medieval poetry or international finance; that he never donated to charity, but spent more of his own money than he could afford, on defending political prisoners anywhere.

For an Ayn Rand protagonist, Austen Heller is unusual. He went to Oxford even though Randian heroes usually scorn higher education and is cultured and sophisticated even though Randian heroes are usually aggressively uninterested in culture. Youd almost think him a villain, but hes unquestionably on the side she considers right:

and we must consider, Austen Heller was saying unemotionally, that since unfortunately we are forced to live together, the most important thing for us to remember is that the only way in which we can have any law at all is to have as little of it as possible. I see no ethical standard to which to measure the whole unethical conception of a State, except in the amount of time, of thought, of money, of effort and of obedience, which a society extorts from its every member. Its value and its civilization are in inverse ratio to that extortion. There is no conceivable law by which a man can be forced to work on any terms except those he chooses to set. There is no conceivable law to prevent him from setting them just as there is none to force his employer to accept them. The freedom to agree or disagree is the foundation of our kind of society and the freedom to strike is a part of it.

I love that thrown-in unfortunately. He hates having to see or interact with other human beings. If only we could each have our own desert island, this would be a perfect Objectivist world.

But more importantly: Austen Heller, the libertarian, supports the workers strike! Thats surprising by itself, but whats more surprising still is who hes there in company with.

The next speaker is Ellsworth Toohey, whos somehow a celebrity to this crowd even though he hasnt done much other than write a book about the history of architecture. The mere announcement of his name gets thunderous applause:

Ladies and gentlemen, I have the great honor of presenting to you now Mr. Ellsworth Monkton Toohey!

He knew only the shock, at first; a distinct, conscious second was gone before he realized what it was and that it was applause. It was such a crash of applause that he waited for the loud-speaker to explode; it went on and on and on, pressing against the walls of the lobby, and he thought he could feel the walls buckling out to the street.

When Toohey finally speaks, Rand tells us, he holds the crowd spellbound with his oratory (because the devil has a silver tongue):

and so, my friends, the voice was saying, the lesson to be learned from our tragic struggle is the lesson of unity. We shall unite or we shall be defeated. Our will the will of the disinherited, the forgotten, the oppressed shall weld us into a solid bulwark, with a common faith and a common goal. This is the time for every man to renounce the thoughts of his petty little problems, of gain, of comfort, of self-gratification. This is the time to merge his self in a great current, in the rising tide which is approaching to sweep us all, willing or unwilling, into the future. History, my friends, does not ask questions or acquiescence. It is irrevocable, as the voice of the masses that determine it. Let us listen to the call. Let us organize, my brothers. Let us organize.

All Rand characters wear their politics on their sleeves, and this talk of renouncing self-gratification or the voice of the masses is a sure giveaway of a villain. But this leads into a fascinating contradiction.

As well see shortly, Austen Heller will become one of Roarks few friends and also the man who gives him his first and most important commission. Clearly, hes on the side Rand expects us to agree with. On the other hand, Ellsworth Toohey is an insidious advocate of collectivism. As a rule, whenever such a character says something in an Ayn Rand novel, were supposed to boo and hiss. But Heller and Toohey both support the strike!

For a reader of Rands oeuvre, this is disorienting. Normally, every moral issue in her books is binary black and white, with the good guys and the villains lining up on equal and opposite sides. To have a fearless individualist and a soulless socialist on the same side of a political debate is something I cant recall seeing anywhere else in all her writing.

The only way I can explain this is as a particularly glaring example of how Rands views changed and hardened. It seems likely that when she wrote The Fountainhead, she didnt view labor organizing as an important political issue. She saw nothing untoward in having both heroes and villains support unions, each for their own reasons. (Later in the book, well see another good character give an endorsement of collective bargaining.)

By the time she wrote Atlas Shrugged, this had changed. In that book, labor unions are another tentacle of the socialist octopus, and their only purpose is to impede heroic businessmen from doing what they want to do.

Of course, theres nothing inherently bad or unusual about a persons opinions changing over time. It happens to all of us. The evolution of Rands view on unions is worth noting only because she insisted it never happened, that she was ideologically flawless from the beginning and stayed that way throughout her life. But her own writing testifies to the contrary.

Image credit: Tony Werman, released under CC BY 2.0 license

Other posts in this series:

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The Fountainhead: Hooray for Unions - Patheos (blog)

Thomas Edison inspires Navicure Chief Growth Officer Kermit Randa Atlanta Business Chronicle Most influential book: Atlas shrugged. Fantastic book that everyone should read no matter their political perspective. We used it as mandatory reading for new hires at one of my previous companies. I recommend it to people all the time. Favorite ...

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Thomas Edison inspires Navicure Chief Growth Officer Kermit Randa - Atlanta Business Chronicle

A famous epigrammatic nugget of wisdom appears in The Leopard, Lampedusas great novel about a noble Sicilian familys fortunes: If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. I thought of the novel as I was driven up to Gstaad during last weeks heatwave. Disembarking in Geneva, I felt I was back in Nairobi, circa 1970, on my way to Mombasa and a romantic interlude among the elephants and wildebeest. The old continent now looks like Africa, especially in airports and public spaces. But things will have to change if we want things to stay the same, I told myself again and again.

In the coolness and quiet of the mountains one can think clearly about important things, such as ambition and lack of it, or the conundrum of whether one declines to try out of a false sense of decorum, or just plain laziness. Personal doubts aside, right now the great question seems to be the economic inequality generated by capitalism and free enterprise, and the egalitarian drive bursting out in anti-capitalist demonstrations and militant rage, as in London this week. Mind you, the impression I got from looking at British television was that Jeremy Corbyn had won the election, and that the Tories, in a fit of pique, had allowed the fire at the Grenfell estate to get out of hand and burn Africans and Muslims alive. Talk about the power of the idiot box and the irresponsibility of leftie hacks.

Britain now resembles Central America, where the loser, immediately after an election, declares it null and void and demands a repeat performance. What is the difference between John McDonnells call for a million people to take to the streets and a banana-republic electoral losers call for civil disobedience? The temperature, I suppose. Never mind. My social schedule is rather full, starting next week, and I thank the Almighty that I no longer go to Ascot to keep company with glorified hairdressers and other such nice folk.

I know, it sounds snobby as hell, but Ive had it with this smouldering class resentment in Britain. We will always have differences in looks, intelligence and bank accounts, and if that causes outraged shrieks among do-gooders and phonies, too bad. Such is life. Immediately after the last world war, with all the large pleasure boats having been requisitioned by the warring states, I walked about the various marinas in the south of France and saw only tiny sailing boats or fishing vessels. Shipyards didnt start to build pleasure yachts until well into the 1950s. Hence all bathers looked the same, although I do remember King Farouk being held up by two flunkies on account of his weight. Then the yachts began to appear, separating the men from the boys. And the men did get to pick up women while the boys kept to their swimming. Life, after all, is unfair, and a man with a yacht has a better chance of picking up a tart than a man whose only asset at sea is his bathing suit.

Am I going all Ayn Rand on you? God, I hope not. She was too awful a woman, an arch capitalist and a man-eating cougar if ever there was one; not the most attractive of females. She did for selfishness what the saints did for altruism, and then some. But she had some very good points. When she was asked by her publisher to cut John Galts speech in Atlas Shrugged a long paean to runaway capitalism and individualism she snapped, Would you cut the Bible?

Rand was committed to the idea that capitalism was the greatest way of organising society ever invented, having experienced hunger and oppression and the loss of all her family wealth in St Petersburg to the communists. Once in the land of opportunity, Rand changed her name from Rosenbaum and took to wearing a dollar-sign pin to make sure people knew of her love of capitalism. The one problem Rand had were the businessmen she met. They did not match up to the bermenschen of her imagination, or those she created in her fiction. In fact, Rand had no more reverence for real capitalists than fellow intellectuals did. At the end, her individualism owed more to Nietzsche than to Adam Smith, but never mind. We could use someone like her in the capital this week, especially when the militants rage up and down central London screaming Tory scum and other such intellectual put-downs.

I suppose the best medicine for those consumed by rage against the system would be a bit of collectivism la North Korea. The Corbynites have never seen collectivism up close. This is why Poles and Hungarians and others who suffered so under communism have such adamantine confidence in the free-enterprise system. And it is why we would have the last laugh if, God forbid, people such as Corbyn ever came to power and turned this green and pleasant land into one of misery and poverty. But enough of thinking seriously. Time for a drink, and perhaps more than just the one.

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Where's Ayn Rand when you need her? - Spectator.co.uk

During a speech before the National Association of Manufacturers, June 20, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) pledged to lower taxes and streamline the tax filing process. (The Washington Post)

While Republicans in the Senate work out how to take health insurance away from millions of Americans, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) turns his attention to the other great crusade that animates his career: tax cuts. This afternoon, Ryan is giving a speech to a friendly audience of lobbyists at the National Association of Manufacturers, in which he will lay out his vision for the next phase of the great Republican project, once health care is (one way or another) out of the way.

Ryan may not be the hard-nosed, number-crunching policy wonk hes often portrayed as in the press, but he is certainly a man of substantive beliefs. Unlike his Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who plainly has no sincerely felt goal other than acquiring and holding power, Ryan has policy changes he desperately wants to see. Among them, only destroying the safety net can rival his deep and abiding wish that America might ease the burden of taxation under which our countrys rich, super-rich and corporations suffer so unjustly.

According to excerpts of his speech released in advance, hell tell his audience: We need to get this done in 2017. We cannot let this once-in-a-generation moment slip. While cutting taxes might slip into 2018, Ryan is basically right. It may not be quite a once-in-a-generation opportunity, but it only comes along when Republicans have unified control of government which they might only have until 2018.

While Ryan may not get everything he wants out of tax reform, he stands a very good chance of getting most of it. Republicans will move heaven and earth to pass something not because they feel pressure from their constituents Americans are not exactly crying out for tax cuts but because they believe in it. If we cant cut taxes on the wealthy, they ask each other, then why are we here? Whats the point of having power if you dont use it for this? So heres what Ryan is proposing to do, per the speech excerpts:

Among these, only the increase in the standard deduction is aimed at the non-wealthy. As the Tax Policy Center wrote last year about an earlier version of this plan:

Three-quarters of total tax cuts would go to the top 1 percent, who would receive an average cut of nearly $213,000, or 13.4 percent of after-tax income. The top 0.1 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $1.3 million (16.9 percent of after-tax income). In contrast, the average tax cut for the lowest-income households would be just $50.

While the figures for this latest iteration will vary somewhat, the essential idea will be the same. This is part of the Republican tax template going way back: Make sure that even lower-income people get something in your tax cut, even if its tiny and the vast majority of the benefits go to the wealthy. Then you can say, This isnt about the wealthy were cutting taxes for everybody!

There are differences among Republicans on some points. For instance, many of President Trumps economic advisers dont like the border adjustment tax (which is essentially a big tariff on imported goods that would be paid by consumers), which means it will probably be dropped. But the good news for Ryan and Republicans is that even if cutting taxes for the wealthy isnt popular, it tends not to generate intense, concentrated resistance of the kind that makes members of Congress skittish about voting for it.

Thats because, unlike health-care reform, taxes are not an issue where its easy (or even possible) for citizens to see a direct harm Republican policies might do to them. If I take away your coverage or enable insurers to deny you coverage because of your preexisting condition, youll know thats bad for you. But if I give a tax break to the millionaires who live in that gated community on the other side of town? You may think its unfair and you may not like it, but since it doesnt seem like it will have an immediate impact on you, youre much less likely to march in the streets or call your member of Congress to stop it from happening.

Furthermore, Ryan and the Republicans know that the public has virtually no historical memory, which enables the GOP to make bogus arguments about taxes and convince many people that theyre true. Why is it necessary to make these tax cuts? Because this will create jobs, Ryan will say in his speech, according to the excerpts. That is what this is all about: jobs, jobs, jobs. Good, high-paying jobs.

Just like all those millions of high-paying jobs that were created when George W. Bush passed a similar set of tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001 and 2003, which brought about the economic nirvana of explosive job and wage growth Republicans like Ryan promised the tax cuts would produce. Thats what happened, right?

Thats not what happened, of course just the opposite. But Paul Ryan is undeterred. Hes a man of substance, but hes no empiricist. What experience teaches him about the world we live in is far less important than the dream that implanted itself in his heart when he read Atlas Shrugged as an impressionable youth. Whatever else does or doesnt make it through Congress, Ryan will get his tax cuts.

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Paul Ryan's passionate call to cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations - Washington Post (blog)

When the Supreme Court handed down Citizens United, most people decried the end of campaign finance reform or rejoiced at all the Obama is a criminal ads they could buy with the backing of kooky billionaires. But the decision also erected a signpost marking the path that most defines the Roberts Court: the provisions of the Bill of Rights are for making money. That corporations are people has reached the point of clich, but theres a reason Roberts started issuing all his oaths of office on a dog-eared copy of Atlas Shrugged when no one was looking.

So when Simon Tams case reached the Supreme Court, we all knew what was going to happen. Tam, a member of an all Asian-American band called The Slants, challenged 15 U. S. C. 1052(a), which sets standards for trademark protection to bar marks that disparage or bring into contemp[t] or disrepute any persons, living or dead. Tams group believes their use of a known slur against Asians and those of Asian descent is an act of reclamation and not one of disparagement.

An interesting factual challenge wouldve considered Brandeis Brief style the expanding body of academic work on the nature of linguistic reclamation and delve into whether the facile neutrality imposed upon words like disparage in the application of the statute improperly excluded valuable expressions from the financial protection provided by a federal grant of intellectual property protection. That would have been a fascinating dive into the changing meaning of language and the problems inherent in interpreting terms in legal texts from a cemented perspective of whiteness.

As would someone just pointing out that the statute is unconstitutionally vague which is the right answer! and calling it a day. But the Court decided to drop an ode to how fundamental rights really only matter as long as theyre about making money, because after all, the business of America is business.

It wasnt a pretty opinion. Professor Crouch said of the opinion that the Courts logic is largely incomprehensible. But the real nut of the opinion can be found in the opening paragraphs of Justice Alitos majority opinion:

We now hold that this provision violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. It offends a bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.

Good point! Except no one was trying to ban any speech here. But other than that basic, foundational fact, this is a good point.

What the statute did authorize the USPTO to do is to say, The government wont grant a federally registered trademark with no bearing on your state and common law rights to protect marks for marks that offend. That aside is critically important. An unregistered mark is not some kiss of death to protecting an intellectual property right, and nothing about this statute sought to interfere with that. There are advantages in having the federal government maintain a list of registered marks, but registration is not the source of trademark protection.

Federal trademark protection flows from the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce, and in light of the broad grant of power the Framers gave the government here, its entirely reasonable for the government to impose limits on what marks it gives the imprimatur of nationwide recognition, in the interest of regulating the market. This isnt banning someone from expressing a disparaging view. Its not even banning someone from making money off a disparaging view. The statute barred the federal government from inserting itself into a potential dispute between someone trying to make money off a racial slur and someone trying to make bootleg products to make money off that same racial slur. And, as already discussed, it doesnt even stop someone from suing the bootlegger.

And its in this reasoning, adopted by the majority in a rather fractured decision, that really draws a straight line from Citizens United where the right to express a political opinion metastasized into the right to buy the most access for a propaganda blitz. To the majority of this Court, what interests them about Free Speech isnt protecting the right of individuals to express unpopular or even offensive opinions. When it comes to protecting protestors arrested and bullied for speaking out especially if they do it in front of the Supreme Court this Court isnt eager to lend a helping hand. But if they can spin the hyperbole wheel and transform a government regulation that makes it ever so slightly more difficult to make money into a ban on speech, theyre right there for you. Thats the Bill of Rights this Court wants to build caselaw about.

If only those wrongfully convicted death row prisoners could find a pecuniary justification for staying alive.

(Opinion on the next page.)

Joe Patriceis an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free toemail any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him onTwitterif youre interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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Supreme Court Confirms The Bill Of Rights Is Just About Making Money, Strikes Down Trademark Disparagement ... - Above the Law

Uber is in turmoil. Soon after former Attorney General Eric Holder's investigation into the company's alleged culture of sexual harassment and misconduct was completed, CEO Travis Kalanick announced he is taking a leave of absence. During a meeting to discuss Holder's findings, board member David Bonderman made a sexist comment. He resigned Tuesday night. Meanwhile, the company was recently hailed for losing just $708 million in the first quarter of this year.

It's probably a good time to consider what Uberthe most valuable private company in the United Statesactually is, and what's happened to it. Uber was the rare startup that so quickly became ingrained in our culture that it's hard to remember a time without it. But Uber today also represents the worst of Silicon Valley, modern business, and capitalism: Its first mover status has conferred it a too-big-to-fail status that it doesn't deserve and that we no longer need.

Thankfully, we have a perfect case study that proves we don't need Uber. Just over a year ago, Uber (and Lyft) voluntarily left the city of Austin, Texas after the city had the audacity to ask the rideshare companies to require their drivers to submit to government background checks, which is what taxi companies in most cities have to do.

Austin did not immediately fall back into the clutches of evil taxi companies. Instead, the vacuum Uber and Lyft left was filled by local startups and nonprofits

The experiences of that city is instructive: Austin did not immediately fall back into the clutches of evil taxi companies. Instead, the vacuum Uber and Lyft left was filled by local startups and nonprofits such as Fasten, Ride Austin, Fare, Wingz, Arcade City, and the Austin Underground Rideshare Community. Getting a ride in Austin today isn't any different than it was before Uber and Lyft left town. Same drivers, same riders, same smartphones, same traffic.

Uber and Lyft continue to hemorrhage their funding in an existential game of chicken that pushes fares lower with subsidization from Silicon Valley's venture capitalistsa high stakes gamble that bets human drivers can be automated out of existence before VC pockets empty completely. Meanwhile, Austin's startups have realized that connecting driver to rider might be good enoughmost people just want to be able to hail a ride from the comfort of the bar while it's raining outside.

By design, Uber's trajectory has always been one designed to crush the competition and capture as much power and money as is possible without consideration for its social costs. In Uber's early days, Kalanick subscribed to an Ayn Rand-ian Libertarian ideology, telling the Washington Post in 2012 that Washington DC's taxi and limo regulations were reminiscent of the regulatory mess depicted in Atlas Shrugged. Kalanick and his friends now say he's backed away from the "libertarian" label. A 2015 Fast Company profile noted that "the only ideology Kalanick subscribes to is contrarianism."

If your founding theory is more-or-less "the rules don't apply to us," it's little surprise that Uber has apparently paid little mind to established norms about workplace respect.

Uber long ago stopped being a company whose fundamental purpose was to connect local drivers with local passengersinstead, it has become a political powerhouse that ignores local and state regulations and lobbies their way out of trouble later. Rather than comply with local law in Austin, Uber and Lyft forced through state-level legislation that superseded Austin's local regulations and allowed the companies to return to the city.

"The people designing our technology are not our people"

Uber's decisionsthe self-driving car research, the ignore regulations now, lobby away the problems later tactics, the selling of rides below market value to drive out competitionall make sense as a capitalistic endeavor designed to maximize long-term profits. But for the average driver, rider, or city, Uber is not a good actor. Drivers just want to earn some extra pocket money, and riders just want to get home, ideally without the moral quandary that comes with supporting a company that is perennially wracked with controversy.

The good news is that many people are realizing there's no particular reason why we can't replace Uber with a systems that favor the human over the dollar. At the Left Forum in Manhattan earlier this month, a panel of people seeking to make technology work for people laid this out plainly.

"The people designing our technology are not our people," Samir Hazboun of the Highlander Research and Education Center, which studies social movements and educates activists, said at the forum. "They're against us."

"We need to control the technology, we need to own the internet, we need to design it for what our needs are"

Uber and Lyft may soon reign again in Austin, and Uber will likely survive its current turmoil. But the question we should all be asking ourselves is simple: Why? Why do we need Uber? Its technology was innovative several years ago, but much of the software has been open sourced or reverse-engineered now, and the most important partthe human driversUber never owned nor cared to employ. We use Uber because of pure inertia, because of its first mover status, because its app is slightly less clunky than its local competitors, because it has substantial political clout, because its rides are (temporarily) subsidized.

Uber started a revolution, but it need not be a lasting regime. All these years later, Uber is still essentially just an app. And not a particularly complex one.

"We need to control the technology, we need to own the internet, we need to design it for what our needs are," Alice Aguilar, of the Progressive Technology Project, said at the Left Forum. "They're telling us what they want and we're doing it. But we can use these tools in a way that's appropriate for us without it leading to the demise of our work and our communities."

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We Don't Need Uber - Motherboard

BY GENNA RIVIECCIO|The phrases Ayn Rand and sought after for a revival dont exactly go fit together naturally. Especially in the era of Trump, when Randian political extremism in art is more feared and frowned upon than ever. Nonetheless, the Lincoln Stegman Theater in North Hollywood dares to take on the polarizing figure through a medium shes less known for: Playwriting.

Starting June 3 and running through June 18, the authors seldom-staged Night of January 16th will present Darryl Maximilian Robinson in the role of District Attorney Flint. Originally produced in 1934 (under the title Woman on Trial,) the play garnered positive reviews in part due to its engagement with the audience as interactive participants in the jury of the aforementioned trial.

The play will be imbued with a fresh take by The Emmanuel Lutheran Actors Theater Ensemble (ELATE), featuring Robinson as a prosecutor heavily invested in the case of The People of The State of New York vs. Karen Andre. Karen Andre, of course, is the secretary to business magnate Bjorn Faulkner (on whom Match King Ivan Kreuger was based.) Rands murdered character is based less on a single real person as the overall ambitious and fatally appetitive nature of the businessman in American culture something that remains more resonant than ever in the current Reign of Orange Terror. Arguably the most detrimental character flaw in any man of power is his weakness for women, and Karen proves no exception, with her dual position as secretary and lover making her a force to be reckoned with in Faulkners life. Indeed, it rather sounds like Abel Ferraras Body of Evidence borrowed a lot of ideas from this play.

Directed by Jeff Zimmer, who also collaborated with Robinson for Tad Mosels Impromptu, the play will be given the revival it deserves after so long being forgotten in favor of some of Rands other, more controversial work (chiefly, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.) Plus, for good Shakespearean measure, actresses in roles traditionally played by males will include Gerrie Wilkowski as Judge Heath, Therese Hawes as the writing expert, Chandler, and Lisa Cicchetti as the medical examiner, Dr. Kirkland.

There would probably be no pleasing Rand with any reinvented version of her original work, as, at the time of the plays production, she ended up getting involved in a legal battle with the producer, Al Woods, who not only made numerous alterations Rand did not approve of, but also funneled a chunk of her royalties in order to compensate the very script doctor she never wanted. But ELATE might just have been able to bring a nod of approval from the stalwart playwright/author by intending to stage the play off of the definitive 1968 version of her script. And, best of all, they plan to keep intact the most inventive aspect of the play: the involvement of the audience as the jury.

See more here:

Ayn Rand's Controversial Play Gets a Queer Makeover - ?

Every few years it seems, Australia manages to churn out another solid indie band or artist that manages to make headlines with a stunning debutso its understandable if youre having trouble keeping up. However, it would be criminal to continue overlooking one such act that made its damn-near flawless debut in 2015 withThe Positions, a gift from the aptly named and soulfully riotousgroup Gang of Youths. Comprised of a tightly knit group of five close friends and led by the songwriting prowess ofDavid Leaupepe, the band executes its impassioned songs with a strenuous balancing of poetically dense lyricismand equally complex sonics. Mincing no words and giving listeners a voraciously intimate encounter with his own struggles and demonsof whichLeaupepe is admirably open aboutthe band mingles bittersweet hopes with crushing realities, while also refusing to engage in any cultural glorification or romanticizing of such griefs.

Their songs are chock full of personal anecdotes, withLeaupepe giving little glimpses into his own life and emotions that are somehow dually personal as they are universal. Its also hard not to notice that nearly every second of their longer than average songswith the exception of a few instrumental crescendosis filled with the frontmans singing. He just doesnt stop, and frankly, you wont want him to.

Im not exactly a soft-spoken, reserved person, Im pretty fucking loquaciouson a good day,Leaupepe says with a laugh. On a bad[day] Im downright fucking yappy.

ForLeaupepe, his lyrics are one-half of the lifeblood of Gang of Youths existencewhich sounds like maybe a redundant thing to point out, until you actually listen to his lyrics, which to his and the bands credit, are actually quite intelligible for all their guitar riffs and thundering percussion. Then once youre done listening and singing along, go look them up, seriously, its the kind of literary snippets you might dive into in an English course. Itd require an essay to dive into all the nuances here, but songs like Magnolia, Poison Drum, and The Diving Bell, emit a beauty through Leaupepes choice words alone. And of course, it doesnt just happen by accidentin fact, the effort is quite strenuous at times.

Its a struggle for me to get anything out because Im sort of in this period of my life where Im starting to care a lot more about what people think about my work, and that can be distracting and hard. But I always have to temper it with a sense of authenticity to myself, authenticity to the kind of shit I want to make, and the kind of thing I want to leave behind on the earth when I die,Leaupepe explained. What I think is most authentic to me is I want to write lyrics that are meaningful to me, potentially meaningful to others, and sound beautiful. When I read a book Im looking for beautiful writing that speaks to me in some way, even if its simple and minimalist or dense and verbose. I just want to speak to people in a way thats life-affirming.

In many ways, according toLeaupepe, sub-par lyricism has found its way into our entertainment, and he refuses to contribute to the degradation of an art form he is so passionate about. Acknowledging that sounds harsh, as he puts it, he also genuinely believes that for people who arent interested in lyrics, theres melody and music to keep them entertained, while for people who are, there are themes, concepts, complexity, and density for them as well. But even so, for the former, Gang of Youths has more than a few hot licks, catchy hooks, and gorgeous soundscapes to keep even the most casual of listeners caught by their ear.

One of the first things youll realize as you listen toThe Positions for the first time is that the songs opener, Vital Signs, is a seven-minute journey that entreats you to everything. Its a veritable journey of emotional release thats unraveled simultaneously throughLeaupepes lyrics and the bands various melody changeslike some high-strung drama in four acts, their songs change and evolve alongside their themes. Like his lyrics,Leaupepe and company have deep running ambitions and expectations for the very notes they play. As someone who was once apart of the hardcore punk scene in Australia,Leaupepe refered back to how such bands managed to communicate a wide range of emotions and all these sides of humanity, using solely a two to three minute hardcore punk song as a conduit.

I can respect that and I think thats really admirable, weve just chosen not to do that. Weve decided that we want different moods and different sides of our musicality to come through in order to embody the vast scope of human experience,Leaupepe says of the way they arrange their songs. The songs on our records need to reflect the vast array and litany of human emotions and experiences. We need to reflect all the sides of humanity, not just the ones that rock super hard.I want to reflect the emotional environment I was in when I wrote a particular song, what the song was about, through the sonics.

WithThe Positions now aged two years and now on the road for an exhausting bout of touring that sees Gang of Youths traversing the most of North America in the span of two weeks, Gang of Youths have returned with two new singles. Atlas Drowned and Let Me Down Easy, the bands introduction to the tumultuous nature of the past yearpolitically, socially, culturally, take your pickare as poignant as they are ruthless. Between obvious references to the rise of polarizing and divisive movements, as well as an allusion to last years Paris terrorist attacks,Leaupepe and company avoid getting into the messy specifics of political alignment and instead aim for its larger implication for the individual, the people listening to their songs, and the soul.

Shouting, spitting, cussing, and foaming at the mouth,Leaupepe tackles a philosophy of irrational self-interest that has stricken our society in Atlas Shrugged, its title a well-prepared pile-driver rather than a subtle dig at Ayn Rands novel and monument to rational egoism Atlas Shrugged. Its rare to see any artist in any genre so willfully name drop the likes of Rand and Nietzsche in the explanation of a song, but thats exactly whatLeaupepe did in an Instagram post when the song was releasedbut more so than the broad, overarching themes and philosophies that inspired it is the bands ability to make it not only digestible, but so potently personal.

Gang of Youths at Constellation Room Photo: Steven Ward

With all this accentuated energy going on behind the scenes and in the studio, for a band whose unapologetic zeal for life roars through effortlessly in their baroque-rock anthemsits perhaps understandable that their live shows are absolutely insane. Personally, Ive only seen Gang of Youths once in the Constellation Room in Santa Ana. The room was decently filled and my defining memory is ofLeaupepe dancing on the bar counter (the man shakes his hips and howls like the most on-key demon in existence) and jumping into the crowd to dance and twirl fans. They were one of the top five acts Ive ever seen live and itd honestly be a disservice to your very soul to not see them on their current U.S. tour.

Every show we attack in the same wayI mean it comes from our attitude towards life, attacking life with a sense of ferocity and engagement. It doesnt matter how big the fucking room is, it doesnt matter how many people are in there when you believe in the power of an artform its unifying and emancipatory power you cant help but be excited, a serious and passionate Leaupepe explains. Everybody in this band desires to be the very best at what we do.

Gang of Youths will be playing the Echo this Thursday. Tickets are still available here. For more information on their tour and to stay up to date on future release visit their Facebook and website.

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More here:

Interview: David Le'aupepe of Gang of Youths talks his uncompromising devotion to beautiful lyrics - Grimy Goods (blog)