The American Spectator

So how about this business idea for LeBron James — encourage all of the seniors in the top basketball programs to drop out of school, en masse, when the buzzer sounds on their final regular season game. Have them stay together as teams for a nationally televised tournament promoted by a LeBron James for-profit organization. Round up some sponsors and pay the players generously from the proceeds. For most of them, it will be their only professional experience.

Any players who chose to stay in school could represent their institution in the NCAA tournament.
— Dan Martin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

CAPITALIST PIGS
Re: Lawrence A. Hunter’s Switching to the Tune of the Times:

Mr. Hunter’s article is another call to the American people to wake up and stop Prince Obama and his followers, but it is also a reminder that some of the greatest enemies of capitalism are capitalists themselves. 

Frank Keating pursued his perceived rational self-interest both as a private citizen and as governor; that the two pursuits are diametrically opposed does not mean that Keating could not find profit from championing one position then its mirror image. In fact, that is exactly what he did. The same can be said for Chip Kahn. Both men did so to pursue monetary gain above all else. In a purely capitalistic system, this is the most rational pursuit of all. (The Ferengi would love these guys!) But even the Father of Capitalism himself, Adam Smith, would clearly find fault with the jujitsu on policy that these men performed. He would not fault them on a purely economic grounds. No, he would fault their actions on moral grounds. (Please see Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiment for his call for a strong stance on moral action.)

The fault of these men, and others like them, is not the pursuit of one’s interests, but their lack of vision. Aristotle found virtue in pursuing self-interests, as did Ayn Rand, but Rand was limited in her scope of what is in one’s self-interest. She would not have found moral fault with Keating and Kahn; Rand’s philosophy was an amoral, and from that perspective, the damage that was done to others would not be her primary concern. But to act logically is act for the one’s long term interests. To see the long term, one must have vision. People who have no moral bearing, who lack the sight to see their actions are like ripples on a pond often do themselves a great disservice: they do not pursue self-interest rationally; in fact, they act counter to those interests: they poison the well for themselves and those who come after.

Giving ammunition to your enemies is not rational; you have given the enemy tools to destroy what you value. People like Maddoff, Kahn and Keating are capitalists to their core. Yet their actions become the very chimera that socialist use to wrap their attacks on capitalism so that the populace will accept the overreaching of the government. Time after time, the Left has launched attacks based on “greedy capitalist” actions. Only when capitalists denounce the folly of short term gain at the expense of the innocent do we defang socialists. This is exactly what Mr. Hunter’s article does. 

Mr. Hunter precisely diagnosis the problem. With pinpoint accuracy, he points out that capitalism must attach itself to a moral system. The general readership of The American Spectator, and the majority of Americans, balance their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness with the Judeo/Christian ethos. This balance has made America a light unto the world. This balance gives us the moral authority to lead by example. 

Capitalism is not a system of morality; it is an economic systems. A moral system is needed to be grafted to it. Or as it was said by a better man than I, “Man cannot live by bread alone.”
— Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

VICTIM OF THE LAW
Re: Hans von Spakovsky’s The Tragedy of Supremely Bad Law:

I have been injured by the drug being used IV also. It burned the deep veins in my right arm and I cannot return to work as a surgical technologist, which I did for 25 years. I am not on Social Security, but have applied and now wish to file a lawsuit for the loss I have suffered. My injury involved veins, which is just as devastating, as I cannot do many things I used to do. Not to mention the depression over the loss of my job. Will there be a class action against the company…as I know one lady whose arms and legs were involved, along with a big hole in her upper arm from the drug eating through the vein. Any information you have or might wish to share would be of great value, in order to move forward with my complaint.
— Pamela Erlandson
Houston, Texas

TAKE ME DOWN TO DEAR OLD CUBA

Take me down to dear old Cuba
Where plantations of coffee and sugar thrive.
Where slavery’s alive and well
And health care has gone to hell
And each day’s plan du jour is to survive.

Let me shake hands with the Castro brothers.
And praise their stewardship of their island home.
Their people long to be
In the land just across the sea
But from their communist paradise they cannot not roam.

On second thought, I’ll stay in the good old USA
And breathe the air of liberty the free American way.
— Mimi Evans Winship