redfarmer

I haven't and I don't think I would want to. Without even seeing the book, I would venture to say it uses the same mentaility as the Christians who claim science and secular humanism are religions. Essentially, they attempt to redefine the term religion so that a person doesn't necessarily have to believe in a god or gods to be a religion.

I agree. Someone on the forum recently quoted Ayn Rand from a question and answer session in which a girl had told Ms. Rand that she didn't think she could be an Objectivist since she liked Beethoven. Ayn Rand told her that liking Beethoven had nothing to do with being an Objectivist. The same people criticize Ayn Rand for excluding the Brandens from her circle of friends yet they won't acknowledge the fact that she had a right to associate with whomever she wanted to. I mentioned to one person making such an arguement that Ayn Rand was friends with Mickey Spillane, a Jehovah's Witness. They never had an answer for me as to why she could associate with someone who was openly in defiance of her philosophy if she "excommunicated" everyone from her life who didn't agree with her. I can only imagine the evasions this person went to in order to accept this contradiction.

It's interesting to note that the points you bring up are not necessarily the points we are being judged on. Michael Shermer, in his article, "The Unlikeliest Cult in History," (originally printed in Skeptic magazine and reprinted in his book, Why People Believe Weird Things, lists the following guidelines for determining if an organization is a cult: Shermer, however, does not tell why these set of guidelines and no others are indicitive of cults. They appear to be arbitrary rules set up with no basis in reality. He also bases his arguments and his judgements soley on the writings of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. It is interesting to note that these are almost the exact same guidelines by which fundamentalist Christians judge a group to be a cult.

The only war I know of that Ayn Rand directly opposed was the Vietnam War. In fact, she wrote an entire essay on it ("The Lessons of Vietnam" in The Voice of Reason). In the same essay, she hints at the fact that she may not have fully approved of World War I or the Korean War but she never outright says she disapproved of them. I've never seen a quote that even suggested she may have disagreed with World War II. I've heard this claim made several times but have never seen a quote used to back it up. If you could provide what Mr. Long uses as evidence, I would be very interested.

I don't understand from your article: how do you think climate change is related in anyway to the tsunami disaster? This has been one of my biggest problems with the U.S. government giving aid to other countries (besides the fact, of course, that they are using money extracted forcefully by their citizens): the money is seemingly given with no strings attached. I believe it was the Chineese who first said, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime."

Welcome back Dave!

The problem is you may be reading too much into the word visibility. That may be part of my question that needs to be answered: how do THEY define the word visibility?

I will concede that my example of the Objectivist lawyers was not a very good one. However, I can think of several reasons why I, as a gay Objectivist, may want a society of gay Objectivists to fall back on: namely, the opportunity to meet like-minded people for dating. Let's face facts: it's easier to find love when you're straight than when you're gay. If you're attracted to a woman and you're straight, all you have to do is tell her you're interested and she'll either reciprocate or tell you she's not interested (if she's honest). In a perfect world, that would be how it would be for gay people as well. However, I know from personal experience that we live in a world where many people are irrational and telling the wrong person that you're attracted to him can get you killed. (I was an editor for a small e-zine a year ago when just such a thing happened. My colleague and I were the first to report on the story.) The alternative right now is cruising gay bars, gay coffee shops, gay clubs, etc. Frankly, the majority of people I have seen there are people that I would not want to be friends with, much less date. Of course, there's always online personals. That's like finding a needle in a haystack, though. So, I'm looking for a solution to my dilemna. When I saw the Rattigan Society, I thought that it might be my solution. However, I refuse to give my sanction to a group until I find out more about them. Thus, my question. Edited because I forgot to capitalize one of my 'o's in Objectivist.

Yes, Happy Birthday Ayn Rand! What suprised me today was that the crossword puzzle in my local paper, in honor of her birthday, used the words "Ayn Rand," "Atlas Shrugged," "Saint Petersburg," "The Fountainhead," and "Red Pawn" as answers in the puzzle. I did suprisingly well on it today. I wonder how many people who aren't fans of her got the obscure Red Pawn reference, though.

How do you figure that is collectivism any more than a society of Objectivist lawyers (which there is one)?

There's actually a seperate topic on this subject: http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=396

I was looking through the Objectivist sites listed on Yahoo! and found The Rattigan Society listed among them. The summary listed for them on Yahoo! stated their goal is to raise visibility of gay and lesbian Objectivists. Upon visitng their site, however, I find that they have very little to say about who they actually are. One article seems to endorse the films Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life and The Passion of Ayn Rand equally as well as a book by Chris Matthew Sciaberra. Yet, in their links section, they link only to ARI and not TOC. I was curious if anyone else knows anything about the philosophy of this organization. Are they tolerationist or not?

"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." -- Matthew 5:5 The rest of it is his invention, and a very good saying if I do say so myself.

I don't know if I was doing it before but I didn't start because of you. I just started doing it because I was creating my signature one day (I went for months without one) and decided that was one thing that should be in it.

I knew there was a reason Batman has always been my favorite hero in comic books! Batman and all of his allies (with the exception of Azrael and crossover allies) are self-made heroes! I had never thought of it that way but that must be what I always saw in him! Now I really can't wait until Batman Begins comes out.

If you reread that section, I believe you'll find that Dagny had been following Galt's plane in her own plane. Her plane accidentally came in contact with the holographic projection which obscurred the gulch. The projection caused her plane's engine to stop and she crashed. Galt brought her to his house in the gulch to save her life.

I'm getting this error message: "The chat applet is currently having intermittent connection problems. Meanwhile, you can use your favorite IRC client to connect to #AynRand on us.undernet.org"

That's more trouble than most sane people are willing to go to just to read a post. Take this thread for example. A total of 55 users have (so far) posted a total of 189 posts. If every user took your suggestion and started storing posts off site, that would amount to opening new windows 189 times just to read this thread in its entirety. I don't know about everyone else, but if I had to do that, I'd just go over and start posting on another forum. LOL, I thought I was the only one who remembered those books. They were insanely tedious, weren't they? Edited to fix quote

What you are suggesting essentially amounts to this: A person is reading a book. Suddenly, the book says turn to page 73. Then when you get to page 73 and read a paragraph, it says to turn back to page 33. Then, you read page 33 and it tells you to turn to another page. No one would buy a book which is authored like this. Why would someone read a forum post which is like this?

Rothbard is easier for any rational person to dismiss. The fact that his later writings are so different from anything Ayn Rand wrote is a sign that the falling out may have been over more than just a wife. The Brandens, particularly Nathaniel Branden, on the other hand, are not so easy to dismiss considering the content of their books. Nathaniel Branden seemingly writes very rationally and, at first glance, seems to still be in adherance to the principles of Objectivism. It would be very easy for a person to read his claims against Ayn Rand and think, "Oh, maybe she did have a tempor tantrum." Please don't take what I have said in the last paragraph to mean that I, in any way, endorse Nathaniel Branden. On the contrary, his mere affilliation with David Kelley was enough to make me seriously question him long and hard. The stories I hear of his infamous childish behavior seem only to confirm what I had long suspected: the man is far from telling the truth and will probably never tell the truth. This is quite a shame. His writings could have been valuable if he had a little more integrity.

My sentiments exactly. One of the most frustrating things for me in talking with people has been the constant quoting of the Brandens to "prove" Ayn Rand formed a cult. It's been frustrating that ARI, and Peikoff in particular, have chosen to remain virtually silent all of these years. I'm glad that someone has finally written a book against the Brandens.

No, I meant to say what I did. I disagree. If a compnay or industry were to adopt their own company (or industry) wide rules and regulations, that would be perfectly moral. Companies and industries can and should adopt such laws. However, when the FDA steps in and tells someone what they have to do, this is government initiation of force and is completely immoral. It's the same difference as if a company adopts a policy of non-discrimination as opposed to a governement adopting a non-discrimination law (i.e. the Civil Rights Act, various "fairness" laws across the nation).

It's interesting you say this. I started drinking coffee and coffee drinks in seventh grade. At the time, I wanted to drink these drinks in order to wake up and feel focused. However, I quickly discovered that my body seems to have a natural immunity for caffeine. I can drink several cups of coffee before going to bed and still fall to sleep immediately. I do, however, have a relatively low tolerance for alcohol. It was so bad that when I turned 21, I used to get drunk off one beer. I learned fast, even before I became an Objectivist, that if I want to drink, I have to really learn my limits and drink in extreme moderation. (When my friends ask me why I don't get drunk with them anymore, I tell them the truth: I hate the feeling I get when I'm drunk.) Of course, I got off on a tangent but my point is this: in my experience, different stimulants affect different people's bodies in different ways. There is no right and wrong answer as to how much is too much. Each person has to assess that on their own.

I'm not familiar with any of the lectures you mentioned. However, the one I have been looking forward to getting and which is now in the mail, is How to Be an Impassioned Valuer by Andrew Bernstein. You may want to look into this one as well since you mentioned you had a hard time with long term goals.

I won't dismiss Stove out of hand, but the fact he is anti-evolution does make me question him. Do you know his position on religion?