A member wrote:

The burden of proof is on him who claims to know.

Yes, I cover this in How We Know. I think the articles published under Ayn Rand’s editorship, in her publication, are correct. But there is no need for a distinction between “positive” and “negative” propositions. If you get rid of that invalid distinction, it comes down to: an assertion needs support; an assertion made without evidence is arbitrary and is to be dismissed.

It’s not as though when someone comes up to you and says, without having evidence, “Donald Trump is in the pay of the Mafia,” that you have your cognitive position changed in any respect.

To know, even to know that something might be the case, is to have formed a valid mental product; it takes the means of doing so. Evidence is that means. No evidence, no means of cognition. No means of cognition, no cognition.

The positive/negative distinction does apply to acts of consciousness: not accepting an idea (a negative) isn’t an act at all. It’s the commitment of your consciousness that needs justification. The not making of that commitment isn’t a disguised commitment.

Atheism is not the belief in non-God. It’s not a belief in anything; it’s the rejection of belief.

The usual way of defending atheism is wrong. The defense is not: “I don’t need a reason to accept atheism, but they need a reason to accept theism.” The deepest explanation is: atheism isn’t a belief; it isn’t something you accept. Atheism is the refusal to accept nonsense stories.

It’s not that atheism asserts a negative about the world; rather, it’s that atheism is a negative about consciousness—i.e., about accepting something.

Analogy: you don’t need a reason not to buy a given good; you need a reason to buy it.

The defenders of God and the arbitrary are like salesmen who say, “You have to prove to me you shouldn’t buy this.”

P.S. You might think that there’s a case for atheism: aren’t there contradictions in the very concept of God?

But that relies on the rejection of the arbitrary. Otherwise, the theist simply says: “How do you know your argument doesn’t have a mistake?” and “It seems contradictory to you but after you die, you’ll see that it makes sense from a divine perspective” and “Omnipotent, omniscient being is only one conception of the Transcendent; how do you know that there aren’t other conceptions that are consistent?”

If you accept the principle that some propositions (“positive” or “negative”), can be accepted or hypothesized without rational grounds to do so, you are lost.

Look up my more careful formulation of this in How We Know, pp. 278-290.

By the way, it was Shrikant Rangnekar, my writing coach, who suggested the idea that the burden of proof is on the one who makes an assertion–i.e., to asserting per se.

ICE exercises arbitrary, uncontrolled power

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If we've become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny.

A Reason piece by Eric Boehm should give pause to anyone still under the illusion that a Republican majority in Congress serves any useful purpose when it comes to protecting economic freedom, let alone expanding it:

The first of the two key House votes this week came on Tuesday night, when lawmakers narrowly voted to clear the way for resolutions directly challenging Trump's tariff powers, as Reason's Jack Nicastro detailed. That was followed by a vote on Wednesday to disapprove of tariffs on Canadian imports -- the first of what could be several similar resolutions brought to the floor in the coming weeks and months.

Opponents of the tariffs technically won both votes, thanks to a small faction of Republicans who broke ranks. But the margins were so thin that a presidential veto seems inevitable and likely insurmountable.

"This is a fruitless exercise and a pointless one, and I'm disappointed in it," Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R -- La.) said shortly after the second vote.

If it were a pointless exercise, the blame does not lie with the six Republicans who voted to end the tariffs on Canada. It lies with Republicans like McClintock. [links removed, bold added]

McClintock (R-CA) is a self-described "tariff skeptic" who, like many other Republican representatives, nevertheless voted against both measures.

The rest of the piece will be informative for people who haven't paid much attention to the havoc tariffs are wreaking on the economy, or the fact that this administration has all but admitted they are harmful, and yet won't quit them.

On that latter point:

"Reports of tariff carve-outs offered to win votes against the tariff resolution and of discussions about rolling back the steel and aluminum tariffs are both clear signs the Trump administration is increasingly aware of the damage its signature tariff policy is doing," noted Erika York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation.

[We also see] what little regard the executive branch has for Congress. The Constitution vests trade and taxing power with the legislative branch. Trump's use of emergency powers to set tariffs on imports from Canada (and lots of other places) is subject to serious constitutional questions. But even against that backdrop, the administration views Congress as caring so little about its power that lawmakers can be easily bought off. [links omitted, bold added]

The only reason this independent voter saw for usually voting for Republicans was that I viewed them as more likely to support or enact policies that protected or expanded economic freedom. Absent that, and faced with the obvious prospect that this party isn't going to do anything to contain the lunacy of our President, why on earth should I do anything but vote Democrat this November?

-- CAV