Lawrence Edward Richard

Oh thank you for the warning. The business that doesn't pay enough will never retain quality staff and will not provide suitable financial value for people to put the effort in. I prefer not to be served by poor quality incompetents. Why exactly do you think that employees will give their all and their loyalty to an exploitative employer? Charity? Altruism? During Covid my employers have had the loyalty and diligence of our team because we are paid fairly and treated well. We are all on message as to what we want to achieve and individual excellence is recognised and rewarded. I think you are working under the mistaken belief that A. I haven't read Atlas Shrugged. I have. B. That anyone who is an egoist and subscribes to some of Rand's ideas must necessarily agree with you. C. That a workers wage is somehow something that can be rock bottom and that the lack of sufficient value from some employers in trade with their employees (effort expended and work and thought for £s) will not lead to the medium to long term death of that business as their business will be poor quality. Unless they are paying in experience and training their employee needs to find a better job? I don't agree with you. The question isn't whether I am a troll, I am not. It is whether you are Objectivist and Egoist enough to be able to live with that fact. Yes I enjoy Rand's books and her philosophy is useful in my goals but unless you are looking for an echo chamber for people who think as you do and nothing else then it doesn't encourage debate or indeed any point in a forum or discussion at all. I'm fine with being banned since my conscience is entirely clear that I wasn't seeking an argument and simply called it as I saw it. Hopefully you will live. Go ahead. Do it. I've met some lovely people on here and really enjoyed their posts and poetry but feh, you called me a troll, unlike the tightass failing employers you are so keen to support put your money where your mouth is. In fact I'm gone. I will save you the trouble. Its not worth my time. I thought Boydstun was charming incidentally and want to reassure him I wasn't seeking crap but here it is.

It's ridiculous that her job pays that poorly. If they can't afford decent quality well paid staff maybe they shouldn't be in business? Rearden shouldn't subsidise Boyle and employees are not there to bankroll and prop up unviable businesses.

It was always going to be the case where if Lockdown was effective then people would ask if it was ever needed at all. The same people would ask if it was necessary if it wasn't effective right? So what is the specific set of circumstances wherein Lockdown would be OK by these people?

That’s beautiful. You have obviously found love as I have. The one person who thinks with you and imagines, dreams, and does. It’s true too that sometimes people become binary minded. I was reading something privately today and then my wife came out with a keyword from it. I don’t think I believe in telepathy but shared values, experiences, and thinking perhaps? When we are apart something is missing. I have tried to write poetry myself but it was not good. I think the best poet of the last 100 years was R.S. Thomas. Maybe you have read some of his? I can only give a couple of his as examples of what I like but cannot create. Evans BY R. S. THOMAS Evans? Yes, many a time I came down his bare flight Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen With its wood fire, where crickets sang Accompaniment to the black kettle’s Whine, and so into the cold Dark to smother in the thick tide Of night that drifted about the walls Of his stark farm on the hill ridge. It was not the dark filling my eyes And mouth apalled me; not even the drip Of rain like blood from the one tree Weather-tortured. It was the dark Silting the veins of that sick man I left stranded upon the vast And lonely shore of his bleak bed. R. S. Thomas, “Evans” from The Poems of R. S. Thomas. Copyright © 2001 by Kunjana Jaikin. Reprinted by permission of Kunjana Jaikin. . I have been lucky enough to visit R.S. Thomas churches where he was a Vicar or Rector in North Wales. When he came to retire he thought the church would look after him in his old age. They didn’t. When he retired he burned his cassock on the beach in Aberdaron. I read some of his poetry on that beach and recorded myself doing it while our children played. Also his old church where his wife and son are buried has a nice little tribute room above it. http://exploringnorthwales.blogspot.com/2016/07/opening-of-rs-thomas-room-at.html?m=1 Although R.S. was a clergyman I think he struggled to make sense of the point of life. I don’t know what would have happened if he’d met Rand. I mean seriously it would be like Hobbit getting together with Darth Vader and Ronald McDonald to make a tribute single. Another piece of poetry I hugely enjoyed was the transliterated version of The Green Knight by Simon Armitage. I’m not such a fan of his own stuff but that book is a fantastic read and well worth the buy. Of course my hobbyhorse In Our Time did an episode about that poem and Armitage was one of the panel discussing it. It’s on YouTube. Thank you for sharing your work, which always takes courage even when it’s good.

I was wondering if anyone else who follows Rand's work has come across any life affirming words that occurred to THEM rather than Rand? For example I occasionally come up with phrases that help my clients or I try to help clients with in Drug and Alcohol Addiction Services. Do you have any you are proud of?

The argument that she was only there to protest the war didn't go down well but was actually the truth. It didn't go down well. Now given the attached https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jane-fonda-pows/ do we really think its a good idea to be within 100 miles of a Nazi except to fight them?

I just wish he hadn’t appeared on Fox News suggesting pancaking Iran was a viable option to use fear to keep the rest of the Islamic Terrorists and their backers off America and the West. It reminded me of the plans they had with the superweapon in Atlas Shrugged or the Death Star. ‘Fear will keep the systems in line. Fear of this battlestation.’ That was the first clip I found of Mr. Peikoff when I looked on YouTube and it wasn’t a good one. I’m looking forward to listening to the one you’ve posted today to hear a thinker at their best.

Thank you for this.

If I was protesting and people rocked up with swastikas then I would either tell them to leave or would leave myself. It isn't they don't have the RIGHT to be there. It is that I would not want to be lumped in with them by the general populace. Its not a good look.

I'd like to add this to discussion of this resource as In Our Time is a magnificent resource and it is worth the listen. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9hf Enjoy. I am listening now while I work.

Good job Covid is caused by 5G and doesn't spread through groups of people together in public. I mean then they'd be in real trouble.

I do not for moment believe we have reached the point where the sacrifice needed to move to an idealistic scheme run by Libertarians whom I don’t count myself in with, is equal to the opportunity there is simply by virtue of working hard in the UK as I do now. I rather like my Country as it is as well you know. It might not be Objectivist but it is allowable to simply be happy with where one lives. You add up the good and bad and say to yourself ‘well that’ll do.’ I totally agree with your points and I wish you and your partners well, it sounds a bold experiment. I’m just not sure that living in a society that follows one specific point of view above all others is all that important. So long as men of virtue and character, and industry exist worldwide I will I hope be privileged to know of them and to hopefully work for and with them. We aren’t in Atlas Shrugged and the rewards are still there.

God knows. Bring people together in a crowd and you switch off a a load of brain cells.

Hello Boydstun Nice of you to say hello and the friendly feedback. I became in as much as it is my main consideration in rational argument and used in my Substance Misuse Worker career an Objectivist in 2019 after reading the Fountainhead around Easter of that year. I picked it up in a Charity Shop in North Wales and cherish this battered old book. NO other book has given me so much beauty. I forced my way through Atlas Shrugged over a long period. I remain unconvinced grand political theories and live in much cherished social housing and value my NHS. For a while after reading Fountainhead and beginning Atlas Shrugged I couldn't understand why I kept coming back to a book that said to me (left wing as I was) such shocking truths, or why I found Dagny so beautiful and Hank and Eddie so relatable. In the end I gave in to the fact that beauty exists and to try to treat everyone like they have goodness and good intentions is futile. It also made me value people around me a lot more for their virtues. The joke is in any conversation I have with my wife, who doesn't read Rand at all, she MAKES RAND'S arguments as if Rand has possessed her. I find her very beautiful anyway, but when I hear her passion when she speaks about right and wrong it is gorgeous. I had to accept in the end that what I loved turned out for too long to have been told to me rather than realised by me.

I agree with what I'm reading here, for me it is aspirational not actual. In terms that I was 39 when I read the Fountainhead and I'm 40 now. I am late to the game.