Ninth Doctor

Like the beginning of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1? Never mind, just busting your chops.

If he didn't pay the tax, he can't take it to court, that's the idea. Ayn Rand included this as one of her suggestions for how government could be financed by voluntary means. It’s basically the same as the Stamp Tax that inspired (partly) the American Revolution. Nowadays you pay one at the State level when you buy Real Estate. The trouble with it, in principle, is how does Government enforce a monopoly on enforcement of contracts? Disputes often go to private arbitration, it's cheaper (no wonder). Think of how you dispute a charge to your credit card. Beyond that, there’s the implication that, to be enforceable, a contract would have to be provided to the Government when executed. Imagine the privacy nightmare. I think we could get around that with encryption, but that wasn’t around in Rand’s day.

I’m afraid this is going to come across as rather pedantic, but changing keys a lot does not make music atonal, nor does throwing in a dissonant chord here and there. I only listened to half of each of your selections, so maybe there’s some actual atonality in there somewhere, but I didn’t hear anything on the level of what Richard Strauss was writing circa 1900 (e.g. Elektra), music which is also not atonal. Compare a bit of Strauss, here vigorously pushing the limits of tonality, to Schoenberg, the genuine article. Anyway, you’re evocation of five year olds banging on pots and pans pretty well captures my feeling towards your selections. Chacun à son goût!

I read Catcher in the Rye at 13, and the Bible cover to cover at 10. I knew someone, the son of Objectivist parents, who read AS at the age of 9. He said he read it on the sly, his parents didn’t want him reading it that young. I think 18-19 is the right age, but that’s when I read it so I have a kind of bias.

I think a good book for Rand fans to check out is A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. Uninformed detractors point to characters like Gordon Gekko of Wall Street as an embodiment of Rand’s ethics, I say Jean Paget is a better choice. She sets out to improve the lives of the people who once saved her life, with intelligence and through productive work. You’d be hard pressed to call her an altruist, her motivation is too well spelled out. Too bad the last quarter of the book peters out, because the first half is just terrific. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Town_Like_Alice

Looking back on my experience of 8th grade, I’d say so. 13 year olds are nuts.

First, Roark is not a static character, note that it’s not till past the halfway point that he starts identifying the “principle of the Dean”. Second, Rand’s own attitude towards individualism related to clothing. I’m pretty sure you’ll find her comments here: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_apollo I can’t recall a quote right now, but she heaps scorn on hippies and discusses the subject of expressing individuality through clothing. Even if the material I’m thinking of isn’t in this lecture, it’s two hours very well spent. Rand was rarely funny, so you're in for a surprise.

The Bidinotto piece speaks to my earlier point about the open/closed question having more to do with institutional insularity than any important philosophical disagreement. If you’re a philosopher, you do philosophy, whether your conclusions are consistent with Objectivism or not. David Kelley did a lecture inaugurating IOS (now called the Atlas Society), in it he goes through the concepts that are unique to Objectivism. Start at 28 minutes in. http://www.atlassociety.org/founding-atlas-society I’m suggesting that if you make some new integration or other type of contribution that you think should be considered part of Objectivism, it ought to arise out of these ideas that are specific to Objectivism. It’s all pretty debatable though, and we need some examples to hash this out. I said “sex is good” is shallow, as in trite, or uninteresting. It’s like saying clean air and healthy food is good. While St. Paul might disagree, I don’t consider it a very controversial or insightful point.

This thread led me to dig out and restart the second Illuminatus! novel. It has quite a few snide references to Ayn Rand, and a hilarious parody of Atlas Shrugged called Telemachus Sneezed. I got through it and I'd say I enjoyed it, but I can’t recommend it with much enthusiasm.

I suggest you make a beeline to this essay: http://mol.redbarn.org/objectivism/writing/RobertBidinotto/UnderstandingPeikoff.html Look, one can easily say Rand was for Reason, and I used Reason to arrive at a conclusion not found in Rand’s writings. On what? Anything, I can’t think of a good example at the moment, but it shouldn’t be too hard. “Sex is good” is rather shallow, don't you think? My point is, there’s nothing Objectivism-specific about such an insight, and if there is something new that you think is Objectivism-specific, how do you show that that is the case? By reference to Rand's writings, in which case, the point is either not new, or if it is only hinted at, you’re open to the charge of Biblical prophecy quest.

If you want to dive in, here’s a good place to start: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=776&view=findpost&p=7197 I’m sure a lot of the links are dead, but a little Googling and you’ll do fine. While I like the imagery, I don’t think it’s applicable. By what means is something new uncovered? If an idea isn’t spelled out clearly enough already then how do you know you’ve interpreted it correctly? It smells of Biblical prophecy quest to me. Ah, point taken. Just how did I come up with that court testimony image? Apparently you have a defective dictionary. I “sanction” David Kelley, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden…how’s that? Recently on another thread I acknowledged that I voted for Harry Browne in 2000. The Libertarian candidate. As opposed to "sanctioning" Bush or Gore. Uh oh, I guess now my goose is cooked, huh? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pound%20sand One tries to be genteel, not to offend… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSXVH63PEDk&feature=related Damn, your dictionary is so defective I may as well be speaking Martian to you. Grok? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor?show=1&t=1314490964

You regard Jennifer Burns as dishonest? As in, if she gave testimony in a rape trial, you’d discount what she says because she’s just a liar through and through? For my part, I just think her book is shallow, though it has some interesting anecdotes. It wasn’t a total waste. I gather you didn't look at the analysis of Locke's piece. I recommend, specifically, the posts by Neil Parille and Don Klein. http://www.solopassion.com/node/8185#comment-93946 In other words, I’m mindful of context? I didn’t use the term “opinions”; I must say you do very well arguing against points no one ever made. According to Harry Binswanger? It would surely be easier to provide the list, and I’ll tell you which names to delete. Do you have any idea what the expression “pound sand” means? I’m doubting it. I’ll be happy to explain that. The OL thread I mentioned earlier had posts by a young lady who signed on to OL, who then, I gather, learned of its moral status. She changed her signature to say “Available on ObjectivismOnline.net”. Soon after I first logged on here, I did a post on a thread discussing esthetics, where Ed Cline’s opinion on something came up. I provided a link to an article of his critiquing the film Amadeus, and gave my opinion of his work in general using a term that is admittedly opprobrious. This post was deleted, and I received an email from a moderator saying this was my first warning. I replied asking for an explanation, what rule I’d broken, whatever, and I never got a reply. Granted, this isn’t quite something out of Kafka, but I was none too pleased. So, I switched from “Prandium gratis non est”, my OL signature, to what you see now. You’re the first person to mention it. Since then, the only posts I've had deleted were from a flame war I had with a holocaust denier and anti-Semite.

I’m familiar with it. http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7429&view=findpost&p=117544 I didn’t think much of Jennifer Burns' book, if you look up Jeff Riggenbach’s critique I recall being in agreement with it. But this does nothing to establish that she’s dishonest in what she says she observed about the editing of Rand’s journals. Induction? Propositions? Please summarize in your own words what hypocrisy you think I was referring to. I wouldn’t call it agnostic, since in Objectivist parlance that term means you not only don’t know, but you can’t know (concerning the existence of God). On many philosophic issues one can say definitively whether a given position is consistent with the philosophy of Ayn Rand. On others, no. For example, “balls roll” is a “first level concept”? Certainly not, that’s a readily demonstrable contradiction with Ayn Rand’s own words, very easily cited. OTOH, (sorry this is a non-philosophic example, it’s all that comes to mind at the moment) would Ayn Rand have endorsed Clinton for President in 1992? On the grounds that Bush was soooo bad (as Peikoff did)? Note, she endorsed Nixon in 1972, after the wage and price controls debacle she denounced in her 1971 FHF talk. Given this fact pattern, I’m “agnostic” on the question. I was invited to post here by two of the moderators, who signed on to OL seemingly for that purpose. I had posted a comparison of the rules of this forum to those of HBL, claiming they were substantially the same. I was told that this is not the case. I have never joined HBL, I simply don’t pass the loyalty oath test, so I can’t compare directly, however I will say I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the treatment I’ve received here. It seems you disapprove, well, what can I say but: go pound sand.

Ah, very well then, to clarify: those that have the power to publish books purporting to contain the words of Ayn Rand have changed those words. In some cases, e.g. the Journals, the unedited originals are not publicly available and the testimony of scholars who have seen them, I referenced Jennifer Burns above, is all we have. She writes “After several years working in Rand’s personal papers I can confirm Sciabarra’s discovery: the published versions of Rand’s letters and diaries have been significantly edited in ways that drastically reduce their utility as historical sources.” In other cases, such as the Q&A material, the original recordings (most of them) have long been commercially available, so comparisons are possible and patterns to the changes can be detected. In the context of an open/closed system debate, all this serves to do is demonstrate the hypocrisy of certain closed system advocates. For my part, I don’t think much of the whole debate. If you equate Objectivism with Philosophy, then of course it’s an open system. If, instead, it’s strictly the philosophy of Ayn Rand, then no, but then its study is like attending a museum exhibit. Can/should we speak of Objectivism the way one speaks of Kantianism? There was a philosopher, I’m drawing a blank on which one (Fichte?), whom Kant expressly rejected, yet today he is considered a Kantian. I say leave the judgements of the next century to the next century. For now, I think this debate mainly serves to maintain the insularity of the ARI crowd. Don't bother to examine a folly—ask yourself only what it accomplishes. Ellsworth Toohey

It seems to me that if you define Objectivism as the philosophy of Ayn Rand, the only way for any of these ubiquitous morons you reference to change it would be to change Ayn Rand’s words. The two gentlemen you name don’t have that power. However, it has been amply demonstrated that those who do have that power have actively used it, some say abused it. Ironic, no?

I finished it. Ghate was simply awful. God awful. I didn’t hear him present the NIOF principle, or explain what are the proper functions of government per Objectivism, and why. Maybe I missed it, someone please point me to the right place in program. I’m too disgusted to listen to it all again. “Senior Fellow”? You have to be kidding me.

I added a comment on the piece, but it's way at the bottom so here it is for your convenience: "Ms.Kennedy doesn’t acknowledge, much less address the reasons for Ayn Rand’s position on the proper functions of Government. This piece is just white noise." Here's a link to the radio debate that inspired the article: http://interfaithradio.org/node/1713 I'm a few minutes in and Ghate isn't impressing me, so we'll see.

I think the Declaration of Independence covered this ground pretty well. Your hypothetical sounds quite a bit like Great Britain, are you thinking of the royal family? You want to nationalize Buckingham palace? How about giving Scotland and Wales their independence?

It’s the Holy Spirit working through me, to inspire you to be more Christ-like. Now back to the OP. When I was running an Objectivist campus club we brought Andrew Bernstein to speak, and he did something on heroism, I can’t think of the title right now. The first questioner after the lecture did a speech on how heroism is all in vain because of death. After I don’t remember how many minutes Dr. Bernstein interrupted him saying “alright, enough, now does anyone have a real question”. The guy was stunned, and started talking again, and Bernstein cut him off saying “when your dead, your dead, so what, that’s not what I’m here to talk about!” It was a pretty memorable moment, without the sound of Bernstein’s vocal delivery (he sounds like he could have been a character in Goodfellas), I’m not sure the story comes across with the right flavor.

What did Jesus say about the mote and the beam? And how about the love your enemies, and do good to those that harm you bit? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s no heavenly reward waiting for you! Meanwhile for chuff, we have today’s Dan Quayle award:

You don’t even say what your experience with the “Objectivist Movement” consisted of, or what you don't approve of. FWIW, you sound like you’re really full of it. “Ma gavte la nata…It’s Turin dialect. It means, literally, ‘Be so kind as to remove the cork.’ A pompous, self-important, overweening individual is thought to hold himself the way he does because of a cork stuck in his sphincter ani, which prevents his vaporific dignity from being dispersed. The removal of the cork causes the individual to deflate, a process usually accompanied by a shrill whistle and the reduction of the outer envelope to a poor fleshless phantom of its former self.” Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, pp 494-495 He doesn't merit a Beatles send off.

Since your hypothetical includes an “everyone agrees” proviso, the question then has to be: who’s asking? Are you asking as a prospective foreign invader?

Geez, this one’s for the birds. Or, rather, it’s one for Ornithology. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18UVdNoiMA4&feature=related Remember though, what goes around comes around, do unto others etc. Do you ever make typos?

You come on an Objectivist board to say a certain type of market should be abolished? By abolished, don’t you mean by initiation of physical force? Or do you mean people shouldn’t invest in stocks, and you’re going to lead by example? I think you’ll find most, maybe even all people here will agree that a market for hit men should be abolished, and kiddie porn is probably in the same category. That’s about it, if you’re for Objectivism, you’re for free markets.

If you read her biography you’ll find that she studied Christianity at quite some length in school. She got one of those few slots allotted to Jews in an upscale gymnasium, and they required study of Russian Orthodox doctrine as part of the deal. She is said to have been able to recite doctrinal formulas from memory decades later. Her named philosophy mentor from the time was as much a theologian as a philosopher. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Lossky After emigrating, she is known to have argued religion with Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and even William F. Buckley. Did she have a "flawed understanding"? Here's a question for you, according to Athanasius, did Arius have a flawed understanding? According to St. Augustine, did Pelagius have a flawed understanding? How about Calvin vs. Luther vs. Erasmus? Just who does get it right, and how do you demonstrate they're right? They sure as hell can't all be right.