Irvine, CA--An active-duty soldier has sued the Department of Defense, alleging discrimination by the U.S. Army on the basis of his atheism. Specialist Jeremy Hall claims that, for example, he was ostracized by Christian soldiers when he refused to hold hands around the table and join in a Christian prayer at Thanksgiving. His federal lawsuit asserts he was also kicked off the promotion track for lacking religious faith.

"This lawsuit highlights one aspect of the insidious process by which the religious right's 'faith-based' agenda is corrupting American institutions," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "In the faith-friendly atmosphere of the Bush administration, religionists are taking big swings at the wall of separation between church and state. The allegations in this suit are consistent with recent controversies over evangelical proselytizing at the Air Force Academy and mealtime prayers at the Naval Academy.

"The military is duty-bound to actively shield its soldiers from ostracism and persecution such as that alleged in Specialist Hall's suit. Servicemen, like all Americans, are legally and morally entitled to exercise freedom of thought, which includes the freedom to accept or reject religion according to their own best judgment.

"In their interactions, soldiers should be required to cooperate based on their common values--a patriotic commitment to America's self-defense and to carrying out the specific tasks that goal requires. Religious dogma only undermines such rational cooperation, as centuries of faith-based warfare and persecution demonstrate.

"The religious right must be put in its place before it irreparably damages the wall between church and state. Americans are entitled to expect that the military, the courts, and the President will unite in protecting the First Amendment rights of all citizens. That means opposing, not promoting, attempts to inject religion into American institutions such as the armed forces."

Over the years, many statements have been falsely attributed to me, but this is the first year in which a whole column has been made up and circulated in a chain letter on the Internet, claiming that I wrote it.

Letters, phone calls and e-mails from readers around the country have asked me if I wrote a column saying that Barack Obama is not an American citizen. The answer is "No."

Many of my readers have been savvy enough to tell that the style of the phony column is not mine, but checked with me just to be sure.

What is puzzling about all this is that some people would take seriously a chain letter on the Internet saying what some columnist-- any columnist-- is supposed to have said, and would pass that on without knowing whether it was true or false.

Nothing is easier than to check someone's column as it appears officially on the Internet. Among the places where my columns can be checked on the Internet are the archives on my own website: www.tsowell.com.

What is also puzzling is why some people find it necessary to make up false statements and attribute those statements to someone else.

If they think that the person they oppose is wrong-- and why else would they oppose him?-- then why is it necessary to make up something, when they can just show that what he actually said is wrong?

Making something up is a confession of both intellectual and moral bankruptcy.

Here are some observations I did not think appropriate to include in Part IV of these commentaries on Barack Obama, or which I omitted for length considerations.

In the New York Magazine, “Money Chooses Sides,” note the composition of the photograph that accompanies it. I do not think it is accidental. I do not know if the photographer (or even Obama himself) intended the tableau, but of all the pictures doubtless taken of the event, this was the one selected by the magazine’s editors to illustrate Obama’s influence. Their motive may have been mockery of the guests or unintended adulation of Obama. That is irrelevant. The picture captures the essence of Obama’s appeal.

Obama seems to descend the stairs, microphone in hand, looking very preacherly as he brings the “gospel” to the mortals below. All the mortals gape up at him with undisguised worship, as though he were indeed a messiah or savior, and are hanging on his very word. Remember that these are all Park and Fifth Avenue millionaires there by RSVP. A good political cartoonist could render the photograph to show Obama in Moses-like robes, one hand raised with an instructive finger pointed in the air, the other arm cradling two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments of socialism (the words, however, would be fuzzy and nearly illegible).

The only person not gaping at Obama is George Soros, seated directly behind Obama’s left. He looks vaguely bored but also smugly content with what he is hearing and with the undivided attention of the other guests.

Then, another point I did not dwell on, for I wished to leave the reader to make his own inferences, is why so many wealthy people are throwing their money and support behind Obama. Basically, and this is connected to his making them feel good, it is a form of penance for and expiation of the “sin” of wealth, not unlike that being performed by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. This picture was taken long before Obama “resigned” from Jeremiah Wright’s church, but one cannot help but suspect that he and his campaign managers were consciously but subtly instituting the Obama Church of Hope, Change, and Salvation.

I end this postscript with a brief excerpt from Book II: Hugh Kenrick, of the Sparrowhawk series (pp. 115-116). Political and charity events to raise money from the wealthy and the politically influential are nothing new. The place is London, the time, 1755:

Bucklad House had undergone lengthy renovations, and the Pumphretts wished to mark their completion with a concert, to which were invited a list of London worthies. Lady Chloe, wife of Sir Henoch Pannell…was the mover behind this event. A donation of five guineas per person was levied, the receipts to be given to Lady Chloe’s own organization, the Westminster Charity for London Waifs. “She’s doing her penance early,” confided Sir Henoch with sly derision to friends in the Commons who had been invited to the concert, “so that she may enjoy the rest of the season without the encumbrance of conscience. She is essentially a moral woman.”

Irvine, CA--In two recent decisions, the Supreme Court has determined that blacks and over-40 workers may sue for “retaliation” under federal employment discrimination laws.

In the case of CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries, a Cracker Barrel restaurant manager was fired for leaving the store safe open overnight. He sued for retaliation, alleging he was really being punished for having previously complained about racial discrimination against a fellow employee. The Supreme Court decided that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 allows such a retaliation claim. In the other case, Gomez-Perez v. Potter, the Court held that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act grants older workers a similar right to sue.

"These decisions erect new obstacles to rational employers whose goal is to market good products and services," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "Most Americans think discrimination laws simply stop irrational employers from making decisions based on race, age, or sex when those factors are irrelevant to performance. In fact, however, such laws burden all employers by jacking up the costs and risks of hiring the so-called protected classes, such as minorities, women, and disabled or older workers.

"Any employer who disciplines, demotes, or fires a protected worker must be prepared to prove, to the government's satisfaction in a court of law, that the decision stemmed entirely from legitimate business reasons. Given the huge number of employment decisions made every day, the costs associated with maintaining evidence of those decisions' validity are staggering.

"A protected employee can file a charge of discrimination with little or no evidence. Then the burden of proof--along with attorneys' fees, lost employee work time, and the risk of large monetary awards, including punitive damages--falls on the employer. Predictably, therefore, employers end up giving preferential treatment to members of the protected classes.

"Outlawing retaliation clothes the protected classes in yet another layer of legal insulation. An employee whose bad performance puts him in danger of discipline or discharge need only make a complaint of discrimination as a 'pre-emptive strike.' Now if his employer fires him, he can cry 'retaliation' and drag his boss into court, without further evidence of wrongdoing.

"The ever-present threat of discrimination and retaliation suits prevents rational employers from acting on their own best thinking about who is most fit for a job. Congress should address the continuing injustice of laws that encourage irrational discrimination in the name of preventing irrational discrimination.

"The best weapon against irrational discrimination is a free market, in which those who act on their stupid prejudices are shunned and lose out on talented minority, female, or older employees. The solution is not to make hiring such employees a nightmare."

In The Fountainhead, novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand fully dramatizes the moral theory of rational egoism--the theory which holds that it is each person's responsibility to choose his goals and values by use of his independent reasoning mind; and that it is his right to pursue these goals in quest of his own selfish, personal happiness. Put another way, conscientious adherence to one's best rational judgment is the only appropriate means by which to live a fully human life--and success, creative achievement and personal happiness are its proper goals and ends. The theme of the novel is the virtue of independence in thought and action: the crucial importance of deriving your values and standards by the exercise of your own best judgment, as opposed to blindly following the judgment of others; and then pursuing these values consistently and indefatigably, as opposed to betraying or compromising them in practice. Dr. Bernstein explores how the plot and conflict of The Fountainhead convey this theme, including a detailed, in-depth analysis of the five major characters in the story--Peter Keating, Ellsworth Toohey, Gail Wynand, Dominique Francon, and the hero Howard Roark.

Who: Andrew Bernstein, professor of philosophy and speaker for the Ayn Rand Institute
What: A talk and Q & A examining The Fountainhead and explaining Ayn Rand's morality of rational egoism
Where: University of Maryland, Arts Building, Room 2309, College Park, MD
When: May 1, 2008, at 8 pm

Admission is FREE and open to the public.

Dr. Bernstein is a visiting professor of philosophy at Marist College; he also teaches at SUNY Purchase (which selected him Outstanding Teacher for 2004) and formerly at Pace University and at Marymount College (which selected him Outstanding Teacher for 1995). Dr. Bernstein lectures regularly at American universities and appears frequently on radio talk shows. His op-eds have been published in such newspapers as The San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Washington Times, Los Angeles Daily News and The Houston Chronicle. Dr. Bernstein is the author of three Ayn Rand titles for CliffsNotes: Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead and Anthem. He also authored Penguin's Teacher's Guide to "The Fountainhead," and The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire.

In 1969 Ayn Rand's Ford Hall Forum talk, "Apollo and Dionysus," addressed the nearly simultaneous events of Woodstock and the first lunar landing. Employing Greek mythology's god of the sun and god of wine, she compared the awe-inspiring accomplishments of NASA's Apollo space program to the famous three-day concert that has come to exemplify the counterculture of the 1960s and the "hippie era." Almost four decades later, Dr. Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, reflects on her words and explores the implications of how American culture since Woodstock has valued individualism relative to collectivism and civilization relative to primitivism.

Who: Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A Ford Hall Forum talk that will consider how the opposing forces of reason and emotionalism have manifested themselves in American culture in the four decades since Woodstock, with special focus on the rise of religion and environmentalism. A Q&A will follow.

Where: Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington Street, Boston, MA

When: Thursday, May 8, 2008, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The public and media are invited. Admission is FREE.

Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and is a contributing editor to The Objective Standard. A former finance professor, he has published in academic as well as popular publications. He is frequently interviewed in the media and appears weekly on the new Fox Business Network to debate and discuss current economic and business news. His columns and opinion-editorials are published on forbes.com and in many major newspapers. Dr. Brook lectures on Objectivism, business ethics and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.