obsequiosity76

Quick! Who can name at least one article by Ayn Rand--or let's say a speech she once gave at, um, Yale?--the very title of which should call into question Betsy's parsing of "some religions" from others? You know, the kind of thing that should be on the tip of the tongues of Objectivists with decades of experience!

Thank you, Burgess. Of course that is what I meant. Thank you for paying attention to the wider point of the debate, which is precisely what I've been accusing other people of failing to do. Likewise, Capitalism Forever responds to me by saying: Again, people need to pay attention to the wider context! I claimed Limbaugh had no intention of opposing religion, because I was making the wider point that even if he were secretly Objectivist (a best case scenario for Betsy's case), it wouldn't matter because what is needed today is for secular conservatives to oppose religion. Because the religious ones are trying to bring religion back *into politics* and that trend will continue unless the better conservatives speak out. Yet Rush and the allegedly better conservatives don't do this.

Nobody's saying we should just attack religion and provide no positive alternative! Why does Betsy keep pretending otherwise? The only reason this issue came up was because Mr. Swig noted that Limbaugh sure as hell isn't quoting the anti-religion stuff AR wrote. Betsy changed the subject by turning it into a question of how much and with what emphasis she attacked religion. But how did we get to evaluating Limbaugh? Because someone challenged Betsy's idea that there was some vast new movement of non-religious conservatives. Betsy listed a bunch of conservatives she thought were like this. Noumenalself posted links demonstrating the religiousity of most of them. Betsy ignored this and focused just on Limbaugh. And how did we get to the question of whether there is some big new non-religious right wing movement, in the first place? Because way back in post #93, Betsy responded to the allegation that we should look at the principle driving each movement, not isolated concretes from each movement. Interesting how we've come back to isolated concretes again (Limbaugh and Betsy's speculations about what really drives him). This is not the way to have a debate. Somebody should pay attention to the *point at issue*. I submit that even if Limbaugh is an Objectivist-in-hiding, it means *nothing* about the larger question you guys have been debating about. He may be the most popular right wing talk show host, and he may even exercise influence. But if he's not combatting the rise of the religious right, what does it matter? For all that's been said about these allegedly non- or sub-religious conservatives, *no one* has been able to refute the quite obvious fact that there is a major movement among the conservatives to bring religion *back*. If secular conservatives don't oppose this, or offer secular alternatives, who do you think's gonna win? And besides, Mr. Swig has given plenty of interesting evidence that someone like Limbaugh has no intention of opposing religion, because he actually is religious himself. And no amount of Betsy's ARBITRARY speculation about what she thinks *really* drives Mr. Limbaugh can uncover the EVIDENCE that Mr. Swig has provided. No amount of speculation, no matter how much CAPITALIZATION she uses.