At the Center, April 2001

In February, TOC staff member Timothy Richmond had letters published in the Wall Street Journal and the New Republic. Both letters were written in response to articles concerning the current debate over the estate tax. Richmond's letters reflected the morality of wealth and the injustice of a tax system that so often penalizes people for their success. He wrote, "Proponents of the estate tax seem blind to the concepts of wealth as a dynamic symbol of honest, long-term success." Further, Richmond said, "Rather than taxing [inheritance], we ought to applaud it." Too often, policy debates ignore the moral questions that they raise, and trample roughshod over individual rights. Richmond's letters, like those of other Objectivists, help to point out that the moral aspects of public policy are really the most important aspects.

On March 21, TOC executive director David Kelley spoke to a group of San Francisco-area Objectivists at a reception hosted by Raymie Stata and Kimberly Sweidy. Kelley's lecture offered a preview of his forthcoming summer seminar course, "The Perennial Questions of Objectivism." Focusing on those issues that seem to inspire endless discussion among the philosophy's adherents, the course aims to show why they have been so problematic, and show what additional evidence would be required for them to be resolved.

Susan McCloskey's article in the December 2000 issue of Navigator, "Why Johnny Can't, Like, Write," has received a good deal of positive attention from free-market advocates around the country. School Reform News, a publication of The Heartland Institute, ran an article about McCloskey's piece in their March issue. Additionally, the April edition Redefined, the newsletter of the James Murray Society, will feature McCloskey's article in its entirety. Says the society's Steve Cook: "The quandry, as [McCloskey brilliantly observes], is that public education has exchanged its role as 'instructor' for one of 'protector.' The hand-wringing over fairness working in tandem with the preservation of self-esteem creates an environment where learning is forced into a secondary role."

Navigator routinely sends articles to public scholars, commentators, and opinion-makers across the country. The reception given McCloskey's article is a positive sign that Navigator's voice is being heard.