Guest: Alan Schaeffer

… President of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State talks about why the state – by its nature – should not and cannot control education. Schools should be owned and operated privately.

• What is the purpose of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State website?
• What problems are intrinsic to a publicly run education system?
• Conformity and uniformity in education as inevitable in a government school system.
• About Horace Mann, the father of the American state school system: what did he believe a public education system would accomplish? The influence of the Prussian education system on Mann’s educational ideas.
• The purpose of public education is not education but “schooling??. How is true education different from schooling?
• Consciousness versus coercion.
• What is the “Alliance for the Separation of School and State” an alliance of?
• Before Horace Mann began to campaign for compulsory public education in Boston, what percent of the children were not getting a formal education?
• Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations about literacy in the USA before compulsory schooling.
• A surprising quote from Horace Mann.
• Does the Alliance claim that the State usurps the parents’ rights?
• How was state schooling sold to the American Public?
• What were the “Philadelphia Bible Riots”?
• Quote from the Communist party regarding compulsory state education.
• The mind frame of social control and power versus the mind frame of freedom.
• The effect of the conventional wisdom passed on to the populace by state schooling.
• Undermining the politically weak.
• How large is the public education budget in the USA?
• Vested interests.
• Distinguishing “capitalism” from “capitalists” and from “fascism”.
• Freedom, coercion, truth, and untruth.
• A crucial educational problem of the “common school”: avoidance of discussion on areas in which we disagree.
• “Critical Literacy”
• “Multiculturalism” and “tolerance”

Listen, download or podcast this interview (mp3)

Guest: Australian politician, Sophie Mirabella, Liberal Party of Australia.

Topics covered included …

• Why be a politician? To give a voice to the majority – who are under-represented and treated with contempt by the ruling left-wing elites.
• Journalists see themselves – and are significant players, influencing public debate. But overwhelmingly from a left-wing, collectivist position.
• Sophie Mirabella’s passion for policy development.
• How does a politician win votes and stay in power whilst not wrecking the country?
• The problem with bureaucratic advice, politicians absolving themselves or responsibility for consequences of bad policies. Politicians can lack the intellect to grasp policy consequences. Then there are the usual human flaws and failings.
• Corrupt politicians can last for ages, yet one who makes an innocent error is taken to the cleaners.
• Sophie has copped flak from the media, mainly because of ideological differences.
• Press gallery in Canberra as an “in club” who consider themselves participants (activists), not just reporters.
• Journalists bred by leftie/collectivist Universities.
• Lack of diversity of opinion across the media and academia.Media busily pushes left-wing barrows rather than examining facts.
• Sophie comments on her boycotting of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s fraudulent Sorry Day event. Why didn’t more Liberal and National Party members join in?
• Predicts disastrous future effects on Australian Aborigines of the Rudd “Apology”.
• Issues: Anthropogenic Global Warming? The science is NOT settled. AGW, as a hysteria that’s taken on a life of its own. There are politicians on both who actually do not accept AGW, but go along with it, anyway. Scientists with alternative views being ignored.
• Issues: Carbon Tax, Carbon Emissions Trading: They stem from very flawed premises. Implementation will have adverse effects on economy and on industries. Sophie says of Emissions Trading: “It’s not something I would have instituted,” but believes it will now happen, and that she can not prevent it.
• Issues: The American alliance. America as the leader of the Free World. Most significant cornerstone of Australia’s foreign policy. Australia is a key ally. Despite Labor’s anti-American ranting and raving, they end up supporting the American Alliance. We are in the midst of a worldwide clash of cultures. United by a common hate – the United States – the left aligns itself with the “Islamo-fascists.”
• Disturbed by anti-Americanism amongst today’s youth.
• America’s great tradition of vigorous debate continues and is one of the most exciting aspects of America, in Sophie’s personal experience. Praise for American think tanks. When it comes to debate and discussion, no other nation compares to the USA. America stands out.
• Regarding Australian think tanks, Sophie Mirabella says there is “extraordinary room for improvement.”
• Issues: Israel. Strong supporter. Considers Israel a speck of light amongst the darkness. Israel as a very convenient whipping horse. The depth and scope of debate that occurs within Israel, isn’t found in neighboring states.
• Recommended reading and favorite political leaders. Ayn Rand, a favorite. Also: John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine, Milton Friedman. Politicians: Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
• There are no heroes in politics.
• The shunning of non socialist or communist thinkers at University when Sophie was a student and activist.
• Issues: Flat tax? Supports a flatter taxer system. People are better able to decide how to spend their money, than government is.
• For limited, smaller government.
• Receiving the Melbourne Capitalism Award™ 2008 by Sydney Kendall.

Promotions on this show …

• Buy a book for a buck @ iLOVEprodos.COM – including books by Ayn Rand and Thomas Sowell
• For supporters of Capitalist Ideals: Get your very own, beautiful, easy-to-use THINKER TO THINKER™ blog.
• Celebrate Capitalism™ campaign.

Click here to listen or download this interview (mp3, 7.5 MB )

Guest: Marvin Steel
CLICK HERE to see more of this Artist’s work online

Photo of the Artist

Topics covered include:

• The non-inspirational side of the Artist’s work. The necessary skills and training.
• With the support of his mother, how Marvin started training as an Artists at the age of six.
• In 1957, training in Spain at the Royal Academy of San Fernando.
• Learning the dark, moody character of Spanish Art. Learning to paint fast
• Marvin Steel’s Theo Van Gough phase and identity crisis during his youth.
• Growing up with Flamenco music, culture, dance, associated culture.
• Gypsy, Jewish, Arabic, and Indian influences within Flamenco.
• Mastering glazing, and being the self-taught, including spending many, many years painting and studying the human body – female and male.
• Why, these days, Marvin Steel avoids looking at other people’s paintings. Looking at the subject you’re interested, rather than what other Artists paint.
• Technical precision versus capturing the spirit and sense of movement of a dancer and his or her “personality” – and especially the sense of drama.
• The traps which other “Flamenco” artists fall into.
• Painting a bad Flamenco performer can lead a painter astray.
• The structure of Flamenco dancing, rhythms (“compas”), and music. Getting “wild” within the structure.
• Playing Flamenco guitar.
• Discussion of some of the paintings depicted below.
• Motivated by fun and enjoyment.
• The way audiences respond to Flamenco performances.
• How many painters copy details from photographs and end up with something that is “meaningless.”
• Forthcoming exhibits.
• Doesn’t paint to sell, but has sold almost everything.
• The difficulty of tearing himself away from his work.
• 200 or more sketches and paintings over the last year.

The following images show some my favorite Marvin Steel paintings and sketches, and include those which were mentioned during this interview.

The titles of these paintings were chosen by me, for the purpose of easy reference during the show, and are not necessarily those of the Artist.

Bulerias

Antonio Carrion

Gypsy guitar player

Manuela Carrasco Moonlight

Nino Jero

Pepa Y Maria

Pco de Valdepenas

Carmelilla Raimundo y Aurora

Samara Carassco

Allegria

Young girl

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Click here to listen or download this interview (mp3,

Guest: Viv Forbes from the Carbon Sense Coalition

Global Warming skeptic: Viv Forbes
Carbon Sense Coalition, Queensland, Australia

Just back from the Heartland Institute’s 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York, Viv Forbes who runs the Australian based Carbon Sense Coalition, spoke on PRODOS Worldwide about why he rejects the hysterical “consensus” on Global Warming.

Topics covered include …

How Carbon and Carbon Dioxide has been vilified and demonized by Global Warming alarmists.

The stupidity of designating Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant – because it isn’t.

How much Carbon Dioxide is there in the atmosphere? Where does it come from?

The earth’s oceans as “the lungs of the planet”.

The “beer test” for understanding how CO2 is absorbed or emitted by H2O (water).

What would happen if Carbon Dioxide was doubled or tripled? And what happens when you add “more blankets”.

Water vapor as the primary greenhouse gas.

The real “debate” is about the politics – not the science.

Global Warming and “consensus” myths promoted by the Sierra Club.

The Earth’s warming and cooling seems in fact to be within the bounds of natural – not anthropogenic variations.

Two types of scientists: The model builders and manipulators versus the real scientists who measure actual temperature and carbon dioxide evidence.

Warming drives Carbon Dioxide. Carbon Dioxide does not drive warming.

New evidence regarding solar magnetic activity, and cosmic radiation and the effect on clouds. Low level clouds are the key to understanding warming and cooling – not Carbon Dioxide.

Cargo cult mentality of IPCC’s politicized scientists.

The “Greenhouse religion.”

Greens consider humanity a blot on nature.

Pseudo scientific scare mongering of the past.

The huge international network of global warming skeptics.

Surviving as a skeptic – being maligned, being forced to resign or forced to shut up.

About a recent book, The Chilling Stars by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder which investigates the role of cosmic radiation and solar activity (in particular the sun’s magnetic activity), and their effects on clouds in influencing global warming and cooling.

The millions of dollars of funding that Carbon Sense Coalition receives from Exxon, Big Tobacco, Big Oil sponsorship (just kidding!)

Big Business is getting into carbon emissions trading, pursuing “protected profits”.

Viv Forbes rejects the view put forward by libertarian John Humphreys (in a policy monograph for the Centre for Independent Studies, founded by Greg Lindsay) that a “revenue neutral” Carbon Tax would result in “no economic costs”.

However does argue that a Carbon Tax would be less bad than emissions trading because the public will like it less and claims it is less likely to entrench vested interests (Prodos: I disagree with Viv Forbes on this).

Some more useful links

Some facts about greenhouse and global warming
By Steve Milloy, JunkScience.com

3 articles by Gerard Jackson on the destructive effect of a Carbon Tax

PlanetMars is offering a prize for the biggest carbon footprint

Listen to speeches by Global Warming skeptics and critics from Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change. CLICK HERE

Click here to listen or download this interview

Guest: Jussi K Niemela
Online from Finland, Human Rights Activist, Rock band lyricist

So, you want to be a racist?

But you’re not sure where to start?

I know how you feel. It’s not easy. And it’s highly unpopular these days!

But in this interview with Finnish anti-racist activist, Jussi K Niemela, PRODOS Worldwide provides you with lots and lots of useful tips on how you can be a racist.

Or, if you can’t hack that, then what about helping out anyhow? Pave the way for racists. Become a racialist.

It’s your choice! Take your pick!

Here are two samples. Treat them as a test. Or a goal to strive for.

If your goals are modest you can aim to be a soft racialist.

A supporter of statements like these by Finnish blogger, Mikko Ellila – who, by the way refers to himself as an Objectivist and even had a letter reproduced on Leonard Peikoff’s website [or click here for a screenshot] – which Dr Peikoff subsequently removed.

“European culture and modern Western society have been produced by white people.

“… For the Africans, looting, rape, nepotism, corruption, clan warfare, superstition and impulsive homicide are business as usual.

“If Africans come to form the majority in a country outside Africa, the country turns African.

“In the United States and in Canada, negroes behave bearably only when in clear minority.

“The surrounding white society – on the one hand with its coercive apparatus consisting of the police, the prisons, armed self-defence of the populace, and vigilantes in the KKK vein, [ ... ] forces negroes to adapt to Western culture.

” … black Americans are basically Africans living in America, which means that areas dominated by them are like African isles in the midst of a sea of a white European society.

“… If legislative power were held by black people themselves, they would not pass similar laws, and would not try to uphold them.

“Negroes only abide by the laws of white society when concretely forced to do so, with stern discipline.

“Come laxity, and the African biological characteristics of the negroes once again manifest themselves in their behaviour.

” … Biology is destiny.

” … Humans are biomass, shaped by their genes and subject to certain biological laws.

” .. Importing negroes into Europe lowers the average level of intelligence of the European population because negroes have a lower median IQ than whites.

” … If all the nonwhites living in Europe today were to move back to their respective countries of origin, crime rates in Europe would fall by tens of percentage points.”

Too soft for you?

Okay, try going to the borderline between racialism and racism.

Here’s Jeff Berry of the Klu Klux Klan being interviewed by Liberator.net …

The Klan began in 1865 ? It was a fraternal organization that helped widows and children after The Confederate War. The Klan settled disputes concerning personal property, like getting back land, clothing, and gold. It had nothing to do with Blacks.

Prodos: Did you know that? I bet you thought the KKK were a political and racial terror group!

… The reason The Klan is in existence is for equal rights.

We’re not against Blacks.

We are not a Hitler group. We are not a White supremicist group. We are Christian, White separatists.

And what does all this “equal rights” and non-hate come down to? When Liberator.net asked:

“Should people be handled differently based on race?” Jeff Berry replied “No.”

Actually, the full answer was:

No. But I believe people should breed within their own tribe.

We’ve gotten this far. Hell! Why not take the plunge?!

Come on, here’s a little something for you from Wyatt Kaldenberg from White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.)

A Nigger radio station from Los Angeles was broadcasting a preacher’s speech …

… The Nigger claimed that this meant the death of the White Race. More and more White women are refusing to give birth to the White man’s babies.

… The survival of the White Race is the paramount issue of our age …

… Most of the intellectuals in the [White Aryan] Resistance are bogged down in the defensive position of Holocaust Revisionism.

They feel that we need to argue with the Jews over how many scum-bag criminals can fit in an oven.

Prodos: Sorry to interrupt but here’s a really cool graphic from the American Nazi Party!

Sorry Wyatt, you were saying ? …

… I don’t know, nor do I care, how many Jews died in the Holocaust.

If Hitler did kill six million Jews, I won’t lose any sleep over it. The Jews have been kicked out of nearly every civilized nation on Earth.

If the Jews weren’t so evil, people wouldn’t kill them.

If any one is to blame for anti-Semitism, Hitler, and the Holocaust, it’s the Jews.

If the Jews weren’t so damn anti-White, there wouldn’t be a need to kill them.

… However, I do care that the Jews attack my people with the fury of a rabid wolf. For the 5,000 years of hate crimes the Jews have inflicted upon the White race, Adolf Hitler would have been justified in killing 6 million Jews.

Do you really need to say anything more about the Holocaust? If Hitler killed 6 millions Jews, then this proves there really is a God.

If Hitler killed 6 million Jews, then it was an evil necessity, and I hate the Jews for making the Holocaust necessary.

Hitler was a kindly Uncle, provoked into action by Jewish wickedness …

A bit off-topic, but interesting anyway.

PRODOS Worldwide will show you how to orient and educate yourself to become proficient in your bigotry and proud of your skin color! You are White, aren’t you?

If not, perhaps you’d be me more comfortable with Louis Farrakhan‘s Nation of Islam?

Louis Farrakhan with Fidel Castro, March 1960.

We’ll get you started … on the road to racism!

Click here to listen, download or podcast this interview
(mp3, 13 MB.)

Resources …

Mikko Ellila blog in breach and to be disabled
(Includes many excellent comments and useful links by Jussi K Niemella, debating racialists and racists.)

Blog discussion on racism and racialism
(With more comments, debates, and links by Jussi.)

Are Blacks genetically LOWER in intelligence and HIGHER in psychopathy than Whites?
(A lengthy article by PRODOS examining many of the most common racialist and racist

The IPA’s (Institute of Public Affairs) Chris Berg and Andrew Kemp say they’ve found it!!

Their cover story for the March 2007 issue of the IPA Review is called Islam’s Free Market Heritage and sets out their arguments, their evidence, their sources.

But when I checked on all these I got a very different picture!

I’ll present my own findings shortly.

On this show, I invite you to listen to what economics writer, Gerard Jackson from BrookesNews.com, has to say about the history of free market thinking and whether or not …

… Adam Smith was “simply picking up where Ibn Khaldun [a 14th century Muslim scholar] left off”.

… as the IPA Review reports.

Or whether the Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation, whom the IPA Review recommends, and who on their site quote George Bernard Shaw saying:

I believe that if a man like him [Muhammad] were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it much needed peace and happiness.

… are in fact busily “fostering … Islamic liberalism”.

Is there something wrong with this picture?

Click here to listen, save, or podcast this interview

Guest: Sonja Bernhardt, creator of the controversial Screen Goddess IT Calendar.

One of Sonja’s Glamour Geeks?sends the scallywags scurrying.?Here’s one of the images from the Screen Goddess IT Calendar. The model is a real live IT industry woman! Fearless and fun-loving!

Here’s an item from Inventions.org’s?Female Inventors section:

“Any girl can be glamorous,” Hedy Lamarr once said. “All she has to do is stand still and look stupid.”?

The film star belied her own apothegm by hiding a brilliant, inventive mind beneath her photogenic exterior.

In 1942, at the height of her Hollywood career, she patented a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance that was two decades ahead of its time.

The glamorous -?in a definitely NOT stupid looking way – Heddy Lamarr is one of the women who inspired Sonja Bernhardt’s project.

And here’s another woman who inspired it.

Not really an actor but a novelist and philosopher – and screenwriter – by the name of Ayn Rand – the arch defender of Capitalist Ideals.

Here’s what our guest, Sonja Bernhardt, writes about Ayn Rand writing about Marilyn Monroe.

On one of the most famous Screen Goddesses of them all, female novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand wrote that Marilyn Monroe projected “the joyous self-flaunting of a child or a kitten who is happy to display its own attractiveness as the best gift it can offer the world and who expects to be admired for it, not hurt.”

In this interview PRODOS?Worldwide speak with Sonja Bernhardt, an IT – information technology – professional, and the creator of the Screen Goddess IT Calendar – which features real life female IT professionals – posing for what is definitely not your usual girlie calendar.

Nor?is it your usual, drab, ethereal way of promoting the Land of Geeks and Nerds.

Her new calendar has caused a stir across the fuddy-duddy IT industry.

She’s a bad girl, but I like her. And I think you will too!

Topics covered include …

Some of the fuddy-duddy responses Sonja has gotten?about?her Screen Goddess IT Calendar.?(Here’s one. Here’s another. And another!)

Are the fuddy-duddy comments mostly coming from the general public or the commentariat?? What did PRODOS discover about the “Tall Poppy Syndrome”?

How has the calendar been misrepresented by the media? What is the serious reason behind the calendar, and why was the movie theme chosen??How difficult was it to find enough women employed in IT to pose for the calendar?

Why is the calendar a 15-month calendar? Having fun while making a difference.?Is there something wrong with admiring beauty?? What’s “naughty” about this calendar??Geeking oneself down.

The financial objective of the calendar.?The bland corporate and academic sectors.?The beauty of simplicity and elegance. What makes a woman glamorous??How did Sondra incorporate her admiration for Ayn Rand into the calendar?

The multi-levels of the calendar. Sexiness. The disingenuousness of “political correctness”?.?Future IT calendars. Portraying women as “integrated people”??Pride.

You can find out more about Sonja Bernhardt and her smart, sexy, fun calendar at: ITGODDESS.INFO

Listen, download, or podcast this interview

Guest: Dr Mark Durie, Anglican Minister in Melbourne, Australia.

In a feature article by Mark Durie in The Australian, Islam: Creed of the Sword, I was amazed to read the following:

At one point Christ says:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

This is sometimes cited as evidence for Jesus’ militancy, but the statement occurs in an extended passage where Jesus is advising his disciples on the inevitability of persecution.

The sword he refers to is the one that will be raised against them.

I had always assumed that Matthew 10:34 was an explicit endorsement by Jesus for using the sword – promoting religion through violence.

So I invited Mark Durie to come on the show to discuss this matter some more – along with other cases that I had always assumed proved that Christianity endorsed coercion of some sort.

Topics covered include …

The meaning of Matthew 10:34.

The contrasting responses of …

…. Christians and …

… Muslims when their religion has been publicly insulted.

The meaning of Luke 22:36 – “He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.?? How does Dr.Durie account for this verse? What is the context of Jesus’ statement?

Reading the core texts of Islam: what picture of Mohammad do they draw?

The bad history of Christianity – the Crusades. How do they compare to and contrast with Islamic jihad? Were the Crusades primarily an aggressive or defensive war on the part of the Christians? How did the theology that developed during the Crusades lead to a departure from the Christian scriptures?

The influence of the pre-Christian Viking spirit and Norse religion on the Crusades. The difference between how Christians and Muslims draw on their religions in times of war.

Were Christians allowed to continue practicing Christianity in Islamic lands? What options were open to those conquered by Islamic warriors? How does Christianity respond to apostates? How does Islam respond?

The persecution of heretics under Christianity. Were the IRA Christian terrorists? The Pope’s speech regarding violence in Islam: what was the essence of it?

“Direct Action??. Today’s trend toward nihilism. A connection between the early Christians and the Greek tradition. When did Islam “lose its way??? The danger of stereotyping. The Islamic view of “peace”.

From my intro to this show:

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m still flying high on the Pope Benedict’s 9/12 speech.

5 years and one day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the Pope quoted 14th Century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, saying to an educated Muslim:

Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

Despite the many reports claiming the Pope had blundered, I believe he was right on target – at two levels.

First of all this speech was an invitation to the Islamosphere to renounce violence. But what did we see?

We saw the most ardent supporters of the “Religion of Peace” rioting and pledging to murder the Pope.

Second, and at least as important was how the Pope identified one of the most crucial issue of the 21st Century: That morality and violence are incompatible. Not just religion and violence, but morality and violence.

Read his speech carefully, and you’ll see that I’m right.

In fact the Pope went one step further. So let me add a third point. The Pope backed up his position by invoking the Greeks – the founders of democracy, debate, open discussion, and REASON.

Here’s a quote from Ayn Rand which I believe is relevant:

Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history’s brilliant eras; whenever it fell, so did mankind.

And that’s why I believe that the Pope may well have done a “Thomas Aquinas”.

Thomas Aquinas, the man who reintroduced Aristotle to the West.

By invoking the Greeks, the Pope has raised Aristotle. By raising Aristotle, he has helped the world to get back on track and to rediscover reason, life, and liberty.

So, as an Atheist, let me just say: God Bless the Pope!

Listen, download or podcast this interview

Guest: Adrian Morgan, writer with WesternResistance.com

In this interview we explore the violent reaction across the Islamosphere to the 9/12 speech of Pope Benedict XVI – made a day after the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorists attacks on the United States.

The Pope’s speech was no “blunder” as some have claimed.

And the Pope’s “apology” was not a retraction.

Some excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s 9/12 speech:

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read [ ... ] part of a [ ... ] dialogue carried on – perhaps in 1391 [between] Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.

The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion“.

According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.

But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war.

Without descending to details [ ... ] he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness [ ... ] on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying:

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached“.

The emperor [ ... ] goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable.

Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.

“God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably … is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”.

… Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?

I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God.

[ ... ] This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, [ ... ] with logos. Logos means both reason and word – a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason.

… The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance.

… The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur – this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time.

“Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God“, said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor.

It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures.

Listen, download, or podcast this interview

Guest: Australian Free Market Economist, Gerard Jackson

Australia’s newly created Fair Pay Commission is soon to make its first decision on what will be Australia’s minimum wage.

The Commission says that it will adopt a “consultative” approach with all stakeholders and will be independent of government. By law, the government is not allowed to reject Fair Pay Commission decisions.

The Commission hired Professor Phil Lewis to:

Undertake a survey over-viewing recent Australian and international research on minimum wages.

Professor Lewis has recently expressed his personal views as to what he saw as the effects of increasing the minimum wage. Namely, MORE unemployment.

Topics covered include …

ACCI – Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Chief Executive, Peter Hendy, says that the ACCI has decided to:

… move away from the ideological conflicts that have consumed it during past wage cases in the Australian Industrial relations Commission.

What does this statement mean and what’s wrong with the ACCI’s position?

What does sound economic theory say about raising labor costs above the marginal value of labor’s product? The ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions) wrongly claims recent research has falsified this theory. Why is the ACCI so ineffective in challenging the ACTU?

Do wage rates in excess of the inflation rate cause unemployment? Does the free market …

violate human dignity unless this is well-defined and enshrined in law or custom

… as the Ian Harper, head of the Fair Pay Commission has claimed?

What is the “effective minimum wage??? Under what conditions do minimum wages cause unemployment? Under what circumstances do they not cause it? Who flat-out denies the link between the effective minimum wage and unemployment, flying in the face of the evidence and lying about the existence of numerous studies that show otherwise? What does “marginal productivity theory?? say? Do increases in real wage rates cause unemployment according to this theory?

Listen, download, or podcast this interview