What Is This?

[Xanadu]

I found this on the net, and remembered that someone here had the same name as the person described.

Who is this guy?

http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/speicher.html

[Travis P.]

A good, intelligent person. Look up his posts and judge for yourself Steven's character. There is no reason to doubt his honesty.

This webpage is full of a bunch of useless information, IMHO. Anyone who calls Peikoff a second rate mind doesn't know what he's talking about. The site doesn't even deserve being linked to, in my opinion.

[Betsy]

Who is this guy?

http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/speicher.html

Chris Wolf is someone who is vehemently opposed to moral judgment, the Ayn Rand Institute, Leonard Peikoff, Andrew Bernstein, and my husband Stephen Speicher.

See the "FAQ" Chris Wolf has authored at http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/.

[Xanadu]

thanks for clearing this up. They are all morons over there.

[source]

I find Stephen's posts illuminating. His words, however, may sound like a whip to someone who was shown to be completely wrong on the subject by his reply. Learned that first hand, lol.

Also, I think that sometimes his posts could do with a little clarification. But nonetheless, I don't find Steven dishonest. I don't know what happened on the newsgroup in question, but from the FAQ I read, Wolf isn't a person I'd trust.

His attacks on Leonard Peikoff and the ARI seem to have become his daily life. His website I'd describe with one word only: "whining." Don't know why he's doing that. Maybe someone (like Stephen) "whipped" him too hard. Pun intended.

[Spearmint]

See the "FAQ" Chris Wolf has authored at http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/.

wow, thats pretty rabid.

In particular I noticed these:

http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/peikoff/green.html

http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/peikoff/moro.html

two articles, where he completely savages Peikoff over something he said, before offhandedly mentioning at the end that on both occassions Peikoff had the integrity to admit he made a mistake, and publically apologised as soon as he was corrected. When you're talking in a live action format such a radio-show, it's fairly likely that you're eventually going to screw up and say something you later regret. The only real problem would be if a person didn't admit to his mistakes, and declined from both apologising and trying to learn from them. The attack on Greenspan did seem like a very stupid mistake by Peikoff, since he knew fine well that he didn't have the required context to comment, but he admitted this later and I can only assume that he hasnt repeated the mistake, since theres no other screeds by Mr Wolf regarding similar incidents.

Out of interest, are the 'other sides' of the Reisman (and related) stories available anywhere?

[Betsy]

Out of interest, are the 'other sides' of the Reisman (and related) stories available anywhere?

There's really not much to say since the Reisman's own public statements speak for themselves. Their own statement of the facts and how they interpret them can be seen as evidence that they were in the wrong.

They complain that they were publicly accused of immorality, but the only ones who went public -- VERY public -- about the matter were the Reismans and their supporters. When asked to comment, the principals at ARI referred to it as a private disagreement and said no more.

The Reismans and their supporters, however, send out mailings almost every month, containing what you read on Chris Wolf's web site, to every one of the hundreds of people on the Reismans' mailing list. Their postage bill must have been enormous.

I used to meet socially once a month with other Objectivists at a local restaurant and a frequent topic of conversation was "Did you get the Hate Mail of the Month?"

[Spearmint]

There's really not much to say since the Reisman's own public statements speak for themselves. Their own statement of the facts and how they interpret them can be seen as evidence that they were in the wrong.

I was more meaning things like this:

http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/peikoff/sweden.html

http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/sos/index.html

it sounded like a fairly irrational attitude, but from the tone of the rest of the articles on page, I assume that Mr Wolf was leaving things out, or misrepresenting the facts.

[Travis P.]

Just to make it clear, if the entire context of my response didn't, my comment "A good, intelligent person" was intended for Mr. Speicher. I may have misread the comment "Who is this guy?" as being directed at Speicher (the target of the article), not the guy who wrote it.

[Betsy]

I was more meaning things like this:

http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/peikoff/sweden.html

http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/sos/index.html

Those were two of the "Hate Mails of the Month" mailed out to the Reismans' mailing list.

Most of the people, other than the Reismans, who authored the various mailings had a close relationship with them -- some were business associates and some were Dr. Packer's therapy patients -- but all were given access to the Reismans' jealously-guarded mailing list.