MarkH

See Alfred Landé’s critiques and recommendations in: From Dualism to Unity in Quantum Physic (1960) New Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (1965) Quantum Mechanics in a New Key (1973) And a series of articles he wrote in the American Journal of Physics. Then a book by Carver Mead (which is not consistent with Landé): Collective Electrodynamics (2002) An Objectivist who has written about Quantum Mechanics on various Internet forums is Travis Norsen. (There are others but I don't recall them offhand.)

Were held by whom? Not by Aristotle but rather by people he never knew or would have approved of. It wasn't Aristotle the man who, centuries later, held back science. Another point, regarding his science rather than how the medieval scholastics treated it: It's best to compare a man's work with what came before, not with what came after.

I don't think these have been mentioned: Oatmeal (one minute). A variety of uncooked beans (cook them yourself). Popcorn. Vitamins (mailorder, say Puritans Pride) Have a friend who belongs to Sam's Club. (I don't mean eat the guy, ask him to buy stuff for you.)

From an interview with Ron Paul 28 June 2007: rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.muckrakerreport.com%2Fid447.html

I wrote: >> [Ron Paul]’s not perfect, but reasoning ... >> ... 1. Libertarian bad. >> ... 2. Ron Paul Libertarian. >> ... 3. Ron Paul bad. >> is the sort of rationalistic nonsense that >> [undeservedly] gives Objectivism a bad name ... . DarkWaters asks: > Suppose that we replaced "libertarian" with nazi ... > would you still agree that this line of reasoning > is bad? Let me explain. "Nazi" (root: "national socialism") is fairly specifically defined. Even granting some ambiguity, all the senses of "Nazi" are bad. On the other hand, "libertarian" (root: "liberty") is not well-defined. Properly construed "liberty" is a good word, and in fact many good people call themselves politically libertarian. The trouble is, there are some nutters who call themselves libertarians too. DarkWaters suggests I was saying: > ... we should not judge individuals based on > their openly stated philosophy. My point was that calling someone a "libertarian" is meaningless unless you go into the real world details. I say judge individuals based on those details, not on a label that's been demonized by Peter Schwartz. In the case of Ron Paul, I pretty much like the details. Peter Schwartz would have you believe that all libertarians are like Murray Rothbard. That's his problem. I wrote: >> Ron Paul isn’t perfect, but we are not talking perfect >> here, we are talking good and best. Recall that Ayn >> Rand once supported Barry Goldwater for president >> ... and he was far more un-ideal than Ron Paul Bob Kolker disagrees, calling Dr. Paul "poor and dreadful" and slinging the generality: there are no good politicians. It looks like some here disagree in the case of Dr. Paul.

Lazlo Walrus wrote > The fact that Paul writes for Lew Rockwell’s site ... Dr. Ron Paul doesn’t write for Lew Rockwell. He does, evidently, allow Lew Rockwell to reprint the articles (with possibly changed titles) he writes for his own website. It’s like a syndicated column, only non-commercial. See www.house.gov/paul . I don’t like Lew Rockwell either, but glibly calling him a pacifist (for opposing the Neocons?) is less than studied criticism. Mark

The Guru Kid wrote: > When one tries to discover the motive of a crime > (say murder), they are not trying to blame the > crime on the victim. [Ron Paul] thinks that bad > U.S. foreign policy ... explain the terrorists > motives. It is the reason why terrorists hate America. and Aleph_0 replied: > If it were ... the reason why terrorists hate > America, why are so many of them middle-class > and rich educated men? If we translate “hate America” into “hate the U.S. government for propping up the Saudi monarchy, propping up Israel (especially militarily), inadvertently blowing up a commercial Iranian airliner while supporting Saddam in the war against Iran, later defending a brutal dictatorship (namely Kuwait) against another (Iraq), later blockading Iraq, etc. etc. and mucking around in the Middle East generally" then a good reply to Aleph_0 (assuming what he says is true, it’s the first I’ve heard of it) is rhetorical: Why not? Indeed, why not _especially_? It’s not that Osama bin Laden and his ilk are the good guys, but those who support what the U.S. government has been doing in the Middle East the last fifty years are not the good guys either. 9/11 was an incredibly stupid way to fight the U.S. government’s hated foreign policy, but as ‘The Guru Kid’ pointed out, one can understand the motivation for the crime. If you engage in a war – say by furnishing Israel with bombs and bombers to drop them – don’t be surprised when you eventually get treated as a combatant. This “they hate us because we are free” is Neocon propaganda that should be laughed out of any discussion.

Ron Paul’s stand on abortion is unfortunate, but as a practical matter it’s as irrelevant as Ronald Reagan’s was. Anti-choice is an idea whose time has gone. The public is overwhelmingly pro-choice, and so is the Supreme Court. (His position on abortion seems to be minor compared with his support of more or less laissez-faire economics and an America First foreign policy.) I wouldn’t fail to support Ron Paul for president just because of his anti-choice comments. He’s not perfect, but reasoning like this: ... 1. Libertarian bad. ... 2. Ron Paul Libertarian. ... 3. Ron Paul bad. is the sort of rationalistic nonsense that gives Objectivism a bad name (undeservedly so, it’s only allegedly Objectivist). Ron Paul isn’t perfect, but we are not talking perfect here, we are talking good and best. Recall that Ayn Rand once supported Barry Goldwater for president (against Johnson) and he was far more un-ideal than Ron Paul. Mark

$$$ wrote: “To stay [in Iraq] tempts Iran and Syria to meddle in Iraq’s affairs, which can be used [by the Bush Administration] as more justification to engage them [iran and Syria] in war. Iraq was and is the right move.” Amazing first sentence, even assuming the premise. Creating justification for a war is something a monarchy of Old Europe would do, not to mention more recent totalitarian states.

The argument (paraphrasing): “Because Iraq was a dictatorship therefore it was a danger to the U.S., a danger so great Iraq needed to be invaded right away.” is surely fallacious. If it were valid, the U.S. would have to invade several dozen other countries besides Iraq. Let’s see: China, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Pakistan, Cuba, Haiti ... but you can make your own list if you don’t like the start of that one. Your list will encompass a good deal of Asia, Central and South America, and Africa. (Don’t be fooled by “republic” in a country’s name, or “elections” in its political process.) “... I want proof that [1] deceit was used to start this [iraq] war, [2] by the Neoconservatives, and [3] that deceit is part of their philosophy.” These are old and well-documented stories by now. For how the Administration – which [2] was advised by neocons like Perle, Wolfowitz, Ledeen, etc. – was [1] less than honest with the American public about its reasons for invading Iraq, Google: pentagon + “office of special plans” For how [3] deceit is part of the neocons’ philosophy, Google: neoconservatives + “leo strauss” Of course not all the items these searches bring up are reputable, but there are plenty of reputable ones that make the case. “... it looked like in 2002 and 2003 that the West was going to stop giving Iraq money. ... for Iraq to survive, it had to get money from other sources, such as selling either chemical weapons, or nuclear weapons. Who would they sell it to? The terrorists, of course (which Saddam had a close relationship to).” That Saddam was involved with the 9-11 terrorists is the biggest lie of the Administration’s run-up to the Iraq invasion. Saddam had nothing to do with al Qaeda or 9-11. And at that time Saddam had no chemical or nuclear weapons to sell anybody. And Saddam had no motivation to attack the continental U.S. And even if he hated the U.S. he wasn’t such a fool, being a relatively fixed target himself, as to do it. So far about 3,000 American soldiers dead, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, in both cases about five times that many maimed for life, hundreds of billions of Americans’ dollars gone forever, America’s reputation for decency in tatters ... the Iraq War may be the greatest military disaster of all time. It did destroy Iraq though, which is what the neocons wanted.

“We need to identify who the enemy is in Iraq, and how much of a threat they are to the United States interests to its people.” Identify the enemy? There is – and never was – any physically threatening enemy of the United States in Iraq. The United States as in here at home in America. ... How account for three thousand U.S. servicemen killed and ten thousand maimed for life? They were sent there by lying neoconservatives to destroy Iraq. Deceit is part of the neoconservatives’ philosophy. Parenthetically, what military power Iraq had, though no threat to the U.S., was given to it by the West, primarily the U.S.

Thales, Those of us with no first hand knowledge of Saudi Arabia must rely on reputable reporters to find out what’s going on there. Robert Tracinski’s TIAdaily comment, quoted by you, relies on a July 10, 2002 Pentagon briefing (described in the Washington Post) entitled “Taking Saudi Out of Arabia” given by Laurent Murawiec, at that time a Rand Corporation analyst and still a member of the Hudson Institute. Murawiec is a neoconservative, not a reputable reporter. The Hudson Institute is a neoconservative think-tank. The final slide he projected at his Pentagon presentation is an example of neocon nuttiness: ... “Grand strategy for the Middle East ...... Iraq is the tactical pivot ...... Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot ...... Egypt the prize.” To be perfectly frank, I don’t want Egypt. Neoconservatives have an agenda superceding truth – the justifications for the Iraq War being a prime example of their deceit. They can’t be trusted to describe Wahhabism accurately because they will always paint Arabs in the worst colors irrespective of the facts. Since Murawiec is associated with these people I don’t trust him. (And I wouldn’t trust Tracinski either.) The truth about muslims is bad enough without exaggerating. You can find disgusting war-mongering things in the Bible. It would be unjust to focus on these parts and say “Look what disgusting warmongering creeps all these christians be.” Yet some people do just that regarding the Talmud and Judaism. Their method should not be imitated when considering the Koran and Islam. I suspect Wahhabism is no different from fundamentalist Christianity: the vast majority of its adherents are harmless (except to themselves), and then there are the fanatics who are not. The notion that Wahhabism is little different from fundamentalist Christianity is upheld by some people whose reputation or credentials indicate that they, unlike Tracinski, may know what they’re talking about. The BBC article linked to at the end of this post is probably closer to the truth than Tracinski’s paragraph. Gary Leupp, a professor at Tufts History Department, is mentioned many places on the Internet, praised and vilified. He may be wrong or exaggerate in the opposite direction, but I’d trust him before I’d trust neocons like Murawiec above, or those at the National Review, or at FrontPageMag. Who then is a reputable reporter about Wahhabism? The problem is finding an “expert” we can trust. I’m still looking. But I wouldn’t trust the neoconservatives if they said the sky was blue, and in this case they may be saying it’s orange. The Saudi monarchy is probably promoting Wahhabism for the same reason Napoleon promoted Christianity in France: to keep the masses docile and obedient. It’s an old story: The Count said to the Priest, I’ll keep them poor and you keep them stupid. Thales wrote: I have real doubts that the Shah was worse than a socialist. No need to have one doubt about it. I gave a thumbnail sketch in my previous post and there are plenty of reputable articles on the Internet fleshing it out. The Iranian people did not rise up against their parliamentary socialist system, instead the coup against it was instigated by the CIA, which intentionally installed the Shah as dictator. And the Iranian people did rise up, eventually, against the brutality of the Shah. The uprising got hijacked by a Shah faction led by Ruhollah Khomeini. The CIA ultimately – if stupidly – helped install an islamic theocracy in Iran. You (Thales) continue: Socialists are very brutal, and what replaced the Shah was far worse again. Of course the first part, before the comma, is not always true. A country can possess a substantial amount of socialism without barbarism: France, Sweden, the Pilgrims, etc. And in the Middle East, socialism is a step forward, not – as in the U.S. and Europe – a step backward. Your second part – “what replaced the Shah was far worse” – that is, worse than the Shah – sluffs over the fact that the Shah was far worse than what the CIA overthrew to install him. (And you might flesh out why Ruhollah Khomeini was far worse for the Iranians than the Shah. When you get that low it’s hard to make distinctions.) Here’s the BBC article about Wahhabism: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1571144.stm “In daily life, the Saudi religious establishment – the ulema – have imposed strict segregation of the sexes, an absolute prohibition of the sale and consumption of alcohol, a ban on women driving and many other social restrictions. “The rules are enforced by the ‘mutawa’, or religious police, who patrol the streets and shopping centres on the look-out for anyone breaking the rules.” This is too bad, but it’s not “I hate Americans because they’re free. I think I’ll go over there and blow myself up.” David, I had asked: Are there any reputable references showing that the Iranian government helped bin Laden execute 9-11? You answered by talking about Iran creating “a terrorist milieu.” This is rhetoric when I want explicit facts. It’s doubtful such facts exist, because if they did then, given the Bush Administration’s obvious desire to do a “mission accomplished” in Iran, the Administration would be proclaiming the Iranian government’s 9-11 participation to the skies night and day at rock concert volume. Instead all we hear is “Nuclear bomb some years from now.” The Administration is silent about the fact that Iran right now, unlike Iraq in 2003, really does have an arsenal of viable chemical weapons. It has had them for many years. But that fact doesn’t fit what the neoconservatives call their “created reality.” There are obvious things the U.S. should do before Iraqing Iran is even considered. Fast, easy, inexpensive things – indeed we’d keep a lot more of our money if we did them – described in my earlier posts #39 and parts of #38 about desire, means, and success. Stop involving ourselves in other countries’ wars, become energy independent from the Middle East—and in general stop aiding and trading with dictatorships, and above all clean up the massive criminal corruption in our government as described by Rodney Stich in Defrauding America and other books. I’ve quoted Randolph Bourne before but his pithy observation is worth repeating: “War is the health of the State.” Usually war is unhealthy for you and me. War is the absolute last option.

Thales referred to: “... the jihad meme combined with the postmodernist meme that has brought this war on us.” Not sure what a meme is, but anyway, there are three aspects to 9-11: the desire to harm America, the means to do it, and the success of the attempt. First the desire: Some Arabs and Persians may appreciate that they are better off because of the U.S. But some of them focus on the harm the U.S. has done: Propping up dictators like the Shah of Iran, Saddam in Iraq, the Emir of Kuwait, the Saudi monarchy; and participating in Middle East wars like Iraq vs. Iran, Iraq vs. Kuwait, Israel vs. its neighbors. In this way the U.S. helps fanatics acquire and maintain a following. If you participate in a war don’t be surprised when someone on the other side wants to retaliate. He’s ripe for recruiting by a bin Laden type. Any Pakistani-Arabic-Persian fanatic will be more, not less, inclined to attack the U.S. because the U.S. nukes Iraq, or Bush forgets the “democracy crap” (quoting a U.S. official) and sets up a military dictatorship there. As for the means of a would-be enemy like bin Laden to inflict harm: The previous post mentions the fact that the U.S. helped make bin Laden a menace by supporting Pakistani intelligence, and how we pump money into Middle Eastern dictatorships by buying their oil. In so far as states are dangerous, not just rogue fanatics, note that for years the West has been training Middle Eastern scientists and engineers, and for years selling their governments military arms and equipment – frequently bought with foreign aid we gave them. Removing the desire is within our power, and so is substantially lessening the means. Again, 9-11 was the act of rogue fanatics – to be precise, the attempt of 9-11. The success of that attempt, to get to my third point, was due to unbelievable corruption within our government. See the books by Rodney Stich: http://www.DefraudingAmerica.com . They are amazing. Like the desire, removing that corruption is also within our power. Islamic states or their fanatics are a danger to us primarily because we have made them a danger. We have met the enemy and primarily he is – not us – but our own corrupt government. Correct these problems first and then worry about Iran, if it’s necessary.

David wrote: “... Iran ... has created a terrorist milieu which enables specific terrorist attacks and terrorist-supporting countries ...” Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, ... all have been involved in terrorist attacks against other countries in that region of the world. But not against the U.S. on U.S. soil, except for Pakistan on 9-11. I’m not sure what you mean by creating a terrorist milieu if it doesn’t include Pakistan as the major participant. 9-11 was the worst terrorist attack in recent (post WWII) history against any country. Clearly Pakistan is very important. I don’t follow how Yaron Brook and Leonard Peikoff harp on Iran and never mention Pakistan. Thales wrote: “Rogue fanatics would be nothing more than weak gangs if not for state support.” Focus on the particular rogue bin Laden. The prosperity of the Middle Eastern region, such as it is, enabled him to become rich. And that prosperity was due in large part to the United States. We pump money into Middle Eastern dictatorships by buying their oil. Government restrictions on American industry (nuclear power, oil drilling locations, etc.) prevent us from becoming substantially, even totally, independent of that oil – as Inspector pointed out. And before it’s over the Iraq War will have cost us over a trillion dollars, a thousand billion dollars, money sucked out of private sources, including industrialists and including innovators in energy production. The U.S. CIA makes Pakistan much more dangerous by supporting its intelligence agency. This is where bin Laden himself came from. With U.S government help Al Qaeda was set up to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Later that same Al Qaeda expanded and turned against the U.S. Our own state helped bin Laden in the two ways above. This is worth repeating because it’s easily within our power to end such help to future bin Ladens. End this help first, then worry about the danger of Iran or whatever. “Al Qaeda was financed by donors in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, in fact, pushed, and still pushes, this fanaticism.” Not Saudi Arabia as a state, just the opposite. The Saudi monarchy loves the material aspect of the U.S. – it makes billions off the U.S. and that enables it to rule. That the U.S. props up the Saudi monarchy is one reason Saudis who oppose the monarchy, fanatics though some may be, hate the U.S. It’s true that U.S. installations in the Middle East have been victims of terrorist attacks. But what were we doing there in the first place? What on earth were American Marines spending our money and risking their lives in Lebanon in 1983 for? Not for any benevolently selfish reason. It was pure and senseless sacrifice. “... Hezbollah is basically a wing of the Iranian army. They finance them to the tune of 200 million dollars a year. They took American hostages in 1979.” Regarding the last – the American hostages taken in Tehran in 1979 – then some background is in order. American history vis-a-vis Iran didn’t begin in 1979. In 1953 the U.S. CIA instigated a coup d’etat in Iran that overthrew the socialist parliamentary government, ultimately installing a dictator, a man calling himself “the Shah of Iran.” This thug was supposed to be friendlier to U.S. interests, and the U.S. government supported him with foreign aid. But to the people of Iran the Shah was far worse than the government the U.S. helped overthrow: the Savak secret police, torture and murder of dissenters, etc. – tens of thousands of Iranians, perhaps millions, were killed during his regime. Eventually there was a popular uprising groping to end the oppression. This uprising got subverted by a Shah faction led by Ruhollah Khomeini, who ended up replacing the Shah as dictator in 1979. Unlike the Shah, Khomeini was a radical Islam type and called himself the Ayatollah. The Americans you mention – U.S. diplomats to the Shah and their support personnel – were kidnapped a few months after the revolution by Iranian students angered at the U.S. And can you blame them for their anger? The Iranian government then took the hostages from the students, released most of them and kept 52 until, when Reagan was elected, it released them as well. Look up “October Surprise” and “Reagan” for more information. Ayatollah Khomeini was the direct result of the CIA’s meddling. We “assist” Iran and get Khomeini. We arm Saddam against Iran (1980s) and get an armed Saddam. We help Pakistan train bin Laden and get al Qaeda. And certain elements within our government love it. Rudolph Bourne, even if a socialist, said it best: “War is the health of the state.”

9-11 was the act of rogue fanatics, and not – as Leonard Peikoff and others claim – an act of war by some country like Iraq or Iran. Certainly not Iraq, whose government had nothing to do with al Quada, and as for Iran, unlike the U.S. apparently the Iranian government helped bin Laden only after the attack. Are there any reputable references showing that Iran helped bin Laden execute 9-11?

When was the Bush Administration’s goal in Iraq ever self-defense? Regarding the “the U.S. will look weak if we leave now” argument (not quoting anyone in particular): The U.S. should care about reality, not what other people think. The fact is that in this kind of war, a “4th generation war” on foreign soil where the enemy, however primitive its weapons, feels that it’ s defending its own soil, the U.S. is weak. William S. Lind, who writes for Military.Com, has analyzed this weakness in detail. See his articles at http://www.Military.com/Opinions/0,,Lind_Index,00.html The U.S. is strong in that it could carpet any country on earth with nuclear bombs and destroy most everything there. Apparently some people would do that to Iraq, though Iraq never was a threat to the U.S. and any threat it is now was created by the U.S. Our government creating or propping up enemies then going “Augh! an enemy!” is a cycle seen many times before. I’m sick of this. And I’m sick of rewarding con men in our government with yet more money and power.

That’s not quite fair to TIA Daily. Mr. Tracinski does praise the Republicans a lot, but if we asked him “Are you in favor of total government control over our lives?” he’d probably answer “Uh ... no. Just what are getting at?” or something like that. He is indeed eager to give up important civil rights in the name of war. But then so is Yaron Brook, and I gather you are comparing the two. Another point. Bradley Thompson’s article explains how the Republicans are no better than the Democrats economically, even worse. But there are other considerations in comparing the two. Where does he say vote Democrat in the next election? You refer to Yaron Brook’s lecture “The Morality of War” in support of voting Democrat in the coming election. It’s true that Dr. Brook castigates the Bush Administration, and by implication Republican’s in general. But his criticism amounts to: The Administration is not prosecuting the war ferociously enough. Given that the Democrats may well prosecute it even less ferociously, how does his talk support Dr. Peikoff’s recent statement? Not sure which Objectivists you mean, but “apologists” sounds derogatory. Yet by your own statement they criticize the war as a “half-war.” Yaron Brook’s current position is that the Administration was right to invade Iraq but now they should exit and invade Iran, that to stay in Iraq setting up a democracy is what is altruistic. What troubles me is that you ignore, even invert, recent Objectivist history. Look in the aynrand.org archives around the years 2002 and 2003. Yaron Brook and many others at the Ayn Rand Institute lobbied for that war, big time. Setting up a democracy in Iraq is indeed something like “love your enemies,” but the Iraq War can hardly be called loving the enemy when it meant killing tens of thousands of them and maiming for life several times that many. And why were they the enemy? Regarding Dr. Peikoff’s recent statement, they trash the mind that taught them. Not that Dr. Peikoff is above criticism. He’s made mistakes and deserves reasoned criticism. Regarding Yaron Brook and Robert Tracinski (who is still a guest writer at ARI) even a fire lit under him, figuratively speaking.

Liriodendron Tulipifera, “... as for the (eventual) merge of environmentalism and religion (i.e. Christianity), I believe that day has already come.” Michael Crichton makes that point too. He’s given speeches about environmentalism, go to http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/index.html then choose the first speech: "Fear, Complexity, Environmental Management in the 21st Century" and then the fifth: "Environmentalism as Religion." Michael Crichton is certainly no student of Ayn Rand, but he’s still worth reading. An iconoclast, sort of like Sinclair Lewis. I like his essays and speeches better than his fiction though.

Replying to softwareNerd ... Historically, at least since I’ve been politically aware anyway, Republicans talk the good-talk – free enterprise, American flag, etc. -- and undermine America with socialism piecemeal. Oddly enough the good-talk helps them get away with it. The Democrats talk the bad-talk – national healthcare, welfare, etc. – and try to give us this stuff in big lumps. They don’t get away with it, or only slowly. Here are two reasons, I think, why the Democrats don’t succeed as they wish. More than the Republicans they call things by their right names, and thus the public – which really is groping for smaller government – is on the defensive. The other reason is that frequently the President and Congress have been of different political parties, so there has been a tendency to gridlock (this of course applies to both parties). Here’s Milton Friedman, when he and his wife were interviewed recently for the WSJ, in praise of gridlock: Now many people today think that’s a minor issue. What they worry about is being killed by Muslim fanatics, and they believe the neoconservatives – for such are the Republicans these days – will protect them. But the neoconservative methods have been a total disaster, and though the Democrats haven’t a clue, the Democrats can’t be any worse and in some respects are sure to be better than the neoconservatives. The Military Commissions Act – the “Torture Bill” -- probably wouldn’t have passed had the Democrats been in control of Congress. Torture, far from “saving American lives,” is destroying them, short term and long. Alleged confessions and alleged information obtained under torture is totally worthless. A culture of torture in our government’s foreign policy will eventually be reflected in its domestic policy. The very same arguments that Alan Dershowitz -- and sadly many Objectivists -- use to promote torture in foreign policy apply without change to domestic policy, that is, your local police. During a White House radio interview a week after the MCA was passed Vice President Cheney said: Therefore get those Democrats back in charge. Torture is barbaric, suitable for barbarians, not people of the Enlightenment. You don’t defend yourself from savagery by sinking to the level of savages.

Diana wrote regarding Dr. Peikoff's statement (I've added links to the Ayn Rand Bookstore for her two references): Can anyone show any of these individuals, especially Yaron Brook, agreeing with Dr. Peikoff? Not necessarily mentioning his particular statement but promoting its conclusion: Vote Republican in the congressional elections of 2006? I can't find any of them doing this, but I may have missed it. Criticizing the neoconservatives over certain details is not the same as Dr. Peikoff's conclusion. Yaron Brook, as head of the Ayn Rand Institute, would have to speak carefully because, as Kyle noted, under 501c3 the Ayn Rand Institute itself cannot explicitly promote a political party or candidate.

Why would you understand that? He refers to "the coming election" and not the 2008 election. By the way, in my last post I should have written "congressional elections" instead of "national election."

Before I criticize Dr. Peikoff's statement, I want to distance myself from people who have said things like -- to paraphrase -- "LP is wrong because only someone who is demented would say such a thing." You don't have to give Latin names to this to see how silly it is. I also disagree with GreedyCapitalist, who wrote: "I don’t understand how Dr Peikoff could have failed so grossly to consider the evidence and been so disrespectful of his peers." A bit milder than "senile at only 75" but the fallacy is the same. Here's my criticism. Bush's alleged theocratic programs, particularly the "Faith Based Initiatives," are a fraud. Like Napoleon, who was no christian but promoted christianity to foster docility in the masses, Bush hands out the money furnished by Faith-based Initiatives to buy political favor. Unlike Napoleon's program, there's little religion in it. Consider this MSNBC review of the book Tempting Faith: The administration uses "Faith-based Initiatives" for political graft like every welfare program since welfare program number one. There is nothing theocratic about it. If the christians started to vote democratic their Faith-based handouts would evaporate overnight. Bush is after power, not christianity. It could be argued: Small difference, vote against this power. OK, but don't call it a theocratic state. Dr. Peikoff's conclusion is right even if for the wrong reason. In the national election -- and that's what he was talking about -- vote Democrat, even though (as he put it in the 1988 election) you must force your arm to pull the lever. The neocons' loony foreign policy is destroying America far faster than the Democrat's loony economics, which doesn't differ much from the Republican's loony economics anyway.