MAIN POINTS THE O’ISTS / ARI HAVE MISSED ABOUT AMERICA’S EROSION:

[Jacob Smith]

Given below are the main points of my argument with O’ists / ARI. Most of these points are hap-hazardly spread in my dialogue with an O’ist. I have brought them to order below. The argument happened because he read a series of my FB-Posts listed at the end of this article, one of them challenging the POTUS and All Americans. Everything was normal, he praised my Challenges – but all hell broke loose after he saw the words “modifying Christianity”, as if I was releasing Satan on America – blasphemy, heresy had happened, God and religion were vitiated.     The rest is described in the article below, which also includes my other complaints about O’ists.

 

Legend: FFs, FF-C, FF-Govt          --       Founding Fathers, FFs’ Constitution, FFs’ Government

hi-fi -- small groups of conservative, free-market etc intellectuals and think tanks like Objectivists (O’ists), Austrian economists, C4L (Ron Paul), Libertarian & Constitution Party, Cato, Heritage etc

 

Gist of the present argument arising out of my phrase “modifying Christianity”: O’ists also vote every two years (Senate/House/POTUS); they vote for one of the two parties. Temporarily we will keep aside the somersaults / contradictions in Dr. Peikoff’s political guidance I have reproduced in my FB-Post No 57 (PS: Alan Greenspan’s example just added). But O’ists do select one of the two parties, and they may be changing parties in every election based on party policies, candidate’s abilities, past record etc. Given the political atmosphere, it will not happen that any candidate will fully align himself with O’ism; in fact he will be seeking popular vote, so he will be far away from O’ism. And yet O’ists will be selecting the least evil of the two parties as per their thinking. I am also doing the same in my own way and my argument is that Christian-libertarians are better than Dems because of the points given below, and once democracy / welfare state is exposed as the villain, as the cause for the present fall, America will likely return to her founding times!     

O’ists consider Christians / Libertarians as bitterest enemies, don’t allow any mention except negatively. I have quoted Presidents Pierce and Cleveland about govt refusing purified water to citizens, charity to those affected by natural calamity, FFs’ policies leading to the “Wall of Separation between the Church and the State” – who achieved such a hands-off govt? Predominantly Christian-Libertarians! When Ayn Rand cried on seeing the shores of America for the first time, what was the significant factor? Sea-shores exist all over the earth – these shores belonged to predominantly Christian-Libertarian Americans! When she said in her article “Rights of Man” that 19^th century America was the most civilized (moral) society ever to have lived on earth, who were those people? When she cried, she needed them, they didn’t even know her till far later after the novels – without them she too was nothing.

All others, whether genius (Einstein, Ayn Rand, Von Mises etc), not-genius but intelligent people (like Asian computer professionals) or even thieves and beggars as illegal migrants, entered America afterwards – the most difficult task of foundation-work, building civilization in uncharted jungles, building the great New World, was done by brave men who were predominantly Christian-Libertarians and at the same time die-hard individualists! They got vitiated because of intellectuals’ inability to analyze democracy and welfare state.

Genius brings progress, not ordinary people; but genius is weak, murdered in most places on earth, and needs protection of “enlightened” mass of citizens, which America gave to AR. As part of being loyal to your own philosophy, you can strongly criticize them, it serves the purpose of cleansing, improving, refining, betterment, adding positive to America (and just as an aside: were you allowed to criticize in Russia / Germany from where you fled?) – but not to acknowledge their virtues and to consider them as bitterest enemy is in AR’s own words moral embezzlement! IF NECESSARY, I WOULD HAVE TOLD THIS EVEN TO AR; if she thought that only genius mattered and human ballast (the phrase she used in “For the New Intellectual”) was nothing, she should have developed and shown her genius in Soviet Russia itself and not cried on American shores. (She also said that rights are available to man from nature, as his nature – see to what extent they are available beyond the US of A.) Enlightened mass is a COLLECTIVE ASSET, to be given its due – and they are also not asking for more – waiters, porters, helpers, police, soldiers are living (and even dying) as what they are, with thanks to the genius who has ensured more payment to them as compared to an independent minded genius (Rational Egoist) in third-world countries! But their collective value is much more than ordinary people elsewhere on earth, and has to be acknowledged – they were predominantly Christian-Libertarians when AR needed their protection.

Being an Ayn Randist, I am not endorsing Christianity, out of question – and as far as Libertarianism is concerned, I have read only a little bit about their theories – but I believe that the clue to FFs’ achievement was their major policy which was close to libertarians. It was based on reason only, but in govt-formation it made individualism the most important parameter, not reason – remember important point that this was limited to as far as govt-formation is concerned, not beyond. Reason for this is the way intelligence is spread in society, called as the Normal Curve, which the FFs took into account, while O’ists do not – this is an important lapse on the part of the O’ists. Because of Protestant Christianity even the lowest level people had become individualists, and reason was exercised by people as per their ability, men going ahead as per their capability without hindrance, and others following, which made America so very great.                     O’ists think the lowest people should understand / adopt their theories, else they are the bitterest enemies, while their own cadres expressed foolishly wrong opinions to oppose me in gangs!                This normal curve, the fact that lower strata needs different treatment, can give rise to problems which have to be catered to, are points which don’t even strike O’ists, or they don’t admit them. A huge number of people (hundreds of millions) at the lower levels of the social pyramid cannot understand any hi-fi philosophies like O’ism and require one of the two mass philosophies referred to below.

In essence, I am not making any real modification to Christianity except attracting productive people to my analysis of democracy and welfare state, conveying to them the evil of CHARITY VIA GOVT in a uniquely new manner, and rallying them to go back to FF-C; I am not equipped to modify Christianity because I have not studied it enough! IT IS ALSO A WAY OF HIGHLIGHTING LIBERTARIAN-CHRISTIANS’ CONTRIBUTION TO BUILDING AMERICA! Not mentioning it is moral embezzlement.

PS: . IMPORTANT POINT missed in the above: Libertarians too have existed since Greek times, GW was an ardent fan, often got the drama CATO played! Though FFs were predominantly Christians, their solution was closer to Libertarian! Libertarians should be included in the above.                   I remember having read though I cannot give the reference at the moment, Ayn Rand calling them as Libertarian-hippies with the addition that they copy O’ism’s politics (capitalism) without accepting O’ism’s metaphysics and epistemology – this is not exactly correct – like John Locke, FFs etc, Austrian economists too have roots of Libertarianism, individualism etc in Greece and Rome, have European theorists like Bastiat in 18^th and 19^th centuries – in fact it is known that AR learnt a lot from Von Mises and others! As AR admitted, FF-Govt was the most moral govt because it was the most capitalist!                   I would have overlooked AR’s over-stepping as negligible, but for the punks – what is the punks’ standing to continue the same attitude?                This happened in the entire interaction with the O’ist Punk because he shifted all argument (i.e. purposely neglected the important points in my write-up) to a single point of contention, that of Christianity.

These are the reasons why AR’s opponents (as I came across in Tea Parties and other places) claim that she did not bring anything new, it is all there in the FF-C! (This is the other side of the coin of hi-fi fighting as bitterest enemies, benefiting evil. All individualists should know the end-result of their fights.)

Other than NOT analyzing democracy / welfare state, not taking the Normal Curve of spread of intelligence into account is another major drawback of O’ists. They consider their’s to be fool-proof philosophy, “shining ethics” etc (this also applies to other hi-fi like Libertarians) – if they investigate the question that if people buy Ayn Rand’s books in millions then why are they not subscribing to her philosophy in the same numbers, why don’t O’ists matter in elections, then they are more likely to get answers to America’s fall, to the actual socio-political situation in America. They talk too much about reality, but are divorced from it because they don’t take into account these points.      

 

Where things went wrong? While calling 19^th century America as the most civilized society on earth, Ayn Rand also briefly refers to the so-called “economic bill of rights” enunciated by the Democratic Party Platform (DPP) of 1960 – this is such a daring, huge looting on the part of welfare-statists that it requires entire books to explain it properly, not the mere partial article she dedicated to it – no communist has ever dared to openly make such demands from productive people to bestow upon parasites. (In fact the New Deal based on looting via Currency Inflation, perhaps even Woodrow Wilson’s idealism, required better books exposing democracy / welfate state – what we got was books on capitalism, which would not solve the problem!) It was her followers’ function to work on DPP-1960’s massive jump and explain it to productive Americans. If they had ever tried to investigate, they would have realized that the Republic imperceptibly changes to Democracy, doles vote block is formed, and then doom! They would have found that the US is mimicking the Roman Republic / Empire exactly, and that this was the problem to be investigated / resolved. Plato had already shown, even if not described to the required extent, how the fall would unfold – if they are so much into philosophy / intellectuality, this should have told them they are not on the right path. Emancipated lower strata taking over, starts the end game. Even now, after huge erosion making it look like everything is lost, they are still not analyzing democracy / welfare state, but merely harping on capitalism on one side and Christian-libertarians as villains on the other! No attempt to teach the lowest strata about their pet-favorite “reason” but merely keep arguing with middle-classes and above.

I am not at all a Christian, my point is: All individualists can join hands with Christians only for the sake of govt formation, provided they take it back to FF-Govt – Christians are even today predominantly individualists. Beyond that you can continue your development, strong criticism of Christianity etc – on the other hand, welfare state is a total no-no because by definition it is anti-individualism. In fact to call welfare statists as anti-individualists is too mild. (Even today the DPP of 1960 is unbelievable)! they are the most evil kind of looter-dacoits the earth has ever produced; their politicians are the most evil murderers – if intellectuals had properly analyzed and exposed them, productive Americans would have issued threats of civil war long time back and stopped their activities; else they would have been hanged! this is the biggest case of intellectual default (O’ists are a part) over entire history of mankind! It is very urgent to correctly expose democracy and welfare state as the highest evil, which should bring Christians back to FF-C – that is the real solution to America.                                    SO MUCH O’ISTS CRITICIZE EVERYBODY ELSE OTHER THAN THEMSELVES, LET US LEAVE ASIDE THEIR SOLUTIONS LIKE DR. PEIKOFF QUOTED ELSEWHERE (PS: GREENSPAN ADDED), BUT WHERE ON EARTH DO THEY EXPECT TO BUILD A BETTER SOCIETY / COUNTRY? IF AMERICANS, WHO ARE BUYING AYN RAND’S NOVELS IN MILLIONS, EVEN NOW THE MOST ENLIGHTENED SOCIETY ON EARTH, REJECT THEM, WHO ELSE ON EARTH WILL ACCEPT THEM? LET THEM ACCEPT NOW THAT THEY ARE MISSING SOME POINTS I HAVE BROUGHT OUT, LET THEM GIVE ME A CHANCE AS POTENTIAL, NOT RED CARPET, NOT ENDORSEMENT, BUT JUST A CHANCE AS A POTENTIAL!

 

OK, I will give in some more detail, the difference between “enlightened” and actual human ballast, i.e. masses in undeveloped, communist etc countries – supposing AR had remained under the Soviets and not migrated, what would have been the effect – leave alone Atlas Shrugged, the crowning achievement coming at an advanced stage in her life, far prior to that, the moment she showed any signs of an independent, individualistic mind – not even that – as soon as she showed in her behavior that she was not mentally attuned, was not in harmony with the surrounding society, she would start suffering till either she adjusted, or she died! The dictator in Kremlin would never know that a worm was being crushed at the bottom by the system, by the hierarchy, because hundreds of thousands get adjusted to the system, else slowly perish. The dictator’s assistants are spread from topmost point to the bottom-most along the length and breadth of society to ensure that “reason”, O’ists’ pet-favorite, is nipped in the bud. If you read it correctly, this action is continuously going on in We The Living! (In the long lecture after Cortlandt, this is what Toohey tells Keating about Roark’s condition in “unenlightened” societies.) People like Ayn Rand (Newton / Einstein type) are too, too, too very far away in intelligence as compared to the lower levels – the difference is too much. To expect ordinary people to understand difficult mathematical, philosophical, scientific etc concepts, is foolishness! But till they are individualists, and allow you – what nonsense “allow you”? – they are the ones who ENSURE that you too get your rights, till then THEY ARE A BIG VALUE, TO BE HANDLED / TREATED ONLY IN A PARTICULAR MANNER, AND NOT AS TRASH, FOOLS ETC – not as human ballast but as ordinary but “enlightened” people! You actually have to live even in seemingly better countries like India to understand their value, understand why so many of third world countries are too eager to migrate. Now the erosion of American society has progressed too far, there is a chance of Americans soon changing to “unenlightened”, but as of now they are good; intellectuals are defaulting! To allow civilization to perish just because one claims oneself to be superior / holy, without any effort to use world’s most enlightened society, is definitely a moral crime!      

Following repeatedly repeated because of the punks’ insistence, wrong twists, superior attitude etc: Maintaining your unique, separate identity, developing and spreading your work including strongly criticizing others (Christian-Libertarians in this case) is DIFFERENT from CONDITIONALLY supporting them in the formation of govt, condition being that they take it back to FF-Govt. No marriage, no merging is involved here, no need to get hyper-sentimental like the O’ist-punks, but emphasizing that democracy / welfare state is the most important enemy. BUT conditional support too is not enough – MORE IMPORTANT PART IS ANALYZING DEMOCRACY / WELFARE STATE SO AS TO RALLY THE INDIVIDUALISTS TO GO BACK TO FF-GOVT.

 

Even O’ism is not a panacea because of simple reason: fight between good and evil is eternal, and O’ists are not the perfect “Masters of Reason” they assume to be. Not low-level punks but important people in their cadres assertively make foolish comments. Apart from Dr. Peikoff’s political views (and Greenspan), see the other examples of important O’ists I have given. (So also one need not consider Ayn Rand as infallible.)

 “Masters of Reason” attitude, intransigence etc is allowed to Ayn Rand because of her achievement, not to others.         Every year universities the world over produce thousands of intellectuals; being in that profession doesn’t give O’ists the right to do what I describe herein. You may be doing some good work, BUT: may be evaluating it far beyond its actual value; I will tell you a secret about it – the posh office, the huge salaries, the big houses, luxurious vacations, the bank balances etc that you enjoy along with the work you do (which means the tension-free life you live, the conditions under which you work) is a gift to you from the likes of John Locke, so that you can easily point out his lacks / short-comings, derogate him. This is like the statement in AS, “The rest is a gift to you from Rearden!” Try to be in fugitive Locke’s shoes, or even in present day semi-free India, then you will realize the value of their works! It’s easy to analyze, criticize, denounce those people – but you are standing on their shoulders, their achievements have made things possible for you. To evaluate them, one needs to understand their background, what they had inherited against what you have, what they added vs what you are adding over your inheritance.

One reason why I stretched the argument about Christianity: To check the O’ist’s arguments as they unfolded -- apart from merely harping on Christianity out of my several important points, the punk came out with only one big contradiction which I have highlighted – because of my 15-16 years’ experience with O’ist punks I was expecting more.            Another reason was to check whether other important punks come in to gang up -- only Hermandez gave one like. Later Michael Liebowitz (writes books, articles, interviews ARI top brass) and his associate Xenia Loannou sent friend requests to “improve” my thoughts by accepting her group’s thoughts, see quote elsewhere.                          Also: I don’t remember most names seen in the past, many claimed to have been directly in contact with Ayn Rand, some studied under her etc. Some of the names seen in last 1-2 years are James Stevens Valliant, Peter Schwartz, Craig Biddle, Michael Liebowitz, Stephen Hicks, Robert Tracinski, Keith Weiner, Jim Ashley etc on the many forums I visited – plus Hermandez, Steve Margolis contacting me from ARI etc.                  BUT: when I encountered ideas like Aristotle as mill-stone to civilization (O’ists ganged up to support the post-graduate saying this against me), Hermandez praising the “great” United Nations, Xenia’s advice that I accept her group’s thoughts etc, nobody made an opposing comment!                     And everywhere I saw people ganging up, using contradictions just for the sake of opposition, fallacies, stony silence as reaction to my good article, etc, which I have described elsewhere.               This answers the question why derogation and self-boasting seen in my comments -- several years’ experiences on O’ist-forums led to the doubt, whether O’ism improved people or produced fools who are called as nut-cases and shunned by most of America – but: I will add that such people are part of society: some people with half-baked knowledge do play that role, more of them gathered under O’ism perhaps because the novels, the characters etc gave them extra confidence to behave that way.      Point is: O’ism is a difficult philosophy, more so for lower strata, so it’s enough even if the lower strata are only individualists.                 Contradictions, sometimes even lying, were so much part of their ganging-up that the only answer I found fit was derogation and self-boasting.

(*PS:               A lot can be written about the topic below but here only the following is reproduced because I incidentally came across it while writing this article. It is from one of the Ayn Rand Forums on FB, see file “p – O’ists and others”.

Original Post: Ayn Rand was probably as narcissistic as her followers - or worse. The "virtue" of being selfish and to hell with anyone else.

Part of one comment: There’s nothing new under sun, there is no philosophy or “ism” that will work for everyone all of the time. Even the great Alan Greenspan who was part of Rand’s inner circle has admitted that trying to follow Rand’s economic theories played a role in the economic collapse of 2007. Does any one human being really have the universe sorted?    Unquote          I have more about Greenspan in my published book – here he seems to be holding Ayn Rand responsible for the crash of 2007.

My comment: OP is controversial, led to lot of pro and contra arguments on that forum, I simply neglect it. But the OP and the quoted comment lead to an inference that O’ism is neither panacea nor easy to practice, and individualism is a better parameter for basis of govt. But no matter what the controversies, I will continue considering Ayn Rand as personal goddess for saving my life, and practice her philosophy in my own way, not ARI or O’ist-punks’. I never address her as Rand, only as Ayn Rand or Miss Rand; AND YET: I would have told all the above to her – she recovered my mind which was irrecoverably chained at the bottom of cesspool due to fanatic religious upbringing, but once recovered, it will always work on its own!

 

Snip copied to file “p – O’ists and others” –

On 01Sept2023 Michael Liebowitz asked on the forum “The Official Ayn Rand Group”:

For Objectivists: Are there any ideas of Ayn Rand’s with which you disagree? If so, which ones?

I thanked Michael saying that I wanted an opportunity to post the present article against O’ists, not AR. Nick Jonson commented on it, to quote: Nitin Desai Yes Objectivism's abject impotence in culture and politics needs addressing. Unquote

Part of my answer: O'ism is not impotent; it is not correctly being used! Ayn Rand's philosophy becomes too high level of intelligence for the masses that have a huge influence on socio-political life. Thanks

 

There is no doubt that Ayn Rand has given a treasure to mankind / civilization – many libertarians admit it and even Christians, though she has strongly criticized Christians even in Atlas Shrugged! Questions are whether she admitted their contribution to her development, and so also the undeserving punks who assume monopoly over her work. Ayn Rand’s is a mixed response of calling America as the greatest country of reason etc, as well strongly denouncing Libertarians and Christians, but understandable because of her fundamental work – the punks on the other hand deserve slaps.

Further: For a long time I didn’t get chance to study Ayn Rand personally, and much after 2000 when I got some hold of the internet, I didn’t take too much interest – but obviously because of my relation with her, some information did creep in. I believe she also had problem with friends, with so many coming in and getting thrown out. Perhaps she became intolerant with so many hobnobbing after her success, BUT: difference in intelligence also must have mattered, despite they being upper strata! With many high-level O’ists like Peikoff, Greenspan etc failing at critical points, O’ism is definitely a difficult philosophy, and the world’s complexity is more so! AR’s friends was her personal matter, so no further comments -- govt on the hand surely needs to take into account substantially low intelligence of an overwhelming majority of men and world’s complexity, and individualism is the best parameter to base it on!

 

So also AR is not the first atheist in history, the way the O’ists assume in their behavior, like I said above that all hell broke loose as soon as the punk saw the phrase “modifying Christianity” – atheism predates Christianity by more than at least 500 years, and atheists were found all over the known world of that time, even in India it was an independent school of thought. Well-known example is of the Epicurean Paradox denying the supernatural, because of which the Jews hated them. When Christianity took over Rome, Hypatia the Greek mathematician was torn apart limb by limb because she called Christianity as fables. That is enough about atheists being ancient. Important point is that in modern times atheists have increased heavily even in as undeveloped countries as India – so even if one joins hands with Christians for the purpose of forming FF-Govt only, over period of time, reason will penetrate deeper into society, except that it is a time-consuming process, and for buying time FF-Govt is the best alternative.         The most important issue at the moment is to undo democracy / welfare state which are almost taken over by the ever-increasing parasites and proceeding to the abyss much faster than the efforts of all the individualists. If this doesn’t happen soon, everything will be submerged into the fast approaching Dark Ages of nuclear times, God knows what will escape its destruction. Mob action will be equally disastrous, rational egoists will suffer same fate as Greek Mathematician Hypatia.

 

About mass philosophies: Details are available in FB-Post No 56, here I have to keep it brief – there have been only two of them, religion and communism – they are necessary for the masses because masses cannot understand hi-fi. Both the philosophies have kept most of the earth uncivilized, but Protestant Christians, particularly the Anglo-Saxons, became “enlightened” after Acquinas, and contributed to whatever civilization mankind ever reached (which is eroded today). So acknowledge FFs’ achievement via Christianity, no moral embezzlement. They achieved the level where you can strongly criticize them, elsewhere that is not allowed!

Why minorities make revolutions and why O’ism will not do so (see details in the above FB-Post) – O’ism will not matter, AR’s name / novels will be used by Christians / Libertarians (note that welfare statists know that they cannot afford to touch Ayn Rand except as villain, are enemies by definition, and are well aware of it, while Christians & Libertarians use AR for their own purposes which the O’ists don’t like) – BUT: as I said, whether the outcome will be good or bad will depend on whether they have an analysis like mine which will take them back to FF-Govt, else dark ages.

Important à Also see list of points nobody else has handled except me – point no K titled “WHAT THE BOOK DISCUSSES – AMERICAN MISCONCEPTIONS, DEFICIENCIES, NEW KNOWLEDGE ETC” in FB-Post no 56 – exposes important misconceptions of Americans, deficiencies of the original Republic, negatives of both the parties, and analyses / exposes democracy, welfare state, UN etc in never-before manner.                 About unity among individualists: may see pt no 3 above 3. G in part2

Even with ARI, I was looking at whether they considered me to be a potential and gave only that much of a chance; not endorsement, not red-carpet, but a chance to show my writing and then give final judgment.

The reader will get lot more information about my writing and also what kind of O’ist punks are roaming the intellectual streets, in my above mentioned FB-Posts. Peikoff and Greenspan are the tops who got criticized a lot, but see the arrogant behavior of the other O’ists.

More points (some of them important), details etc about the above topic will be supplied to interested people.

 

LIST OF FB-POSTS WHICH LED TO THE ARGUMENT WITH THE O’IST

 

FB-Posts were submitted even to ARI, and I will also send this article to them. (Some changes made later, not uploaded on FB – among others, important new Challenges to Rep-Conzs are incorporated.) – all posts are close to the top of y FB-Account, but have to scroll down to reach to them.

PS: FB-POSTS ARE LOCKED AT THE MOMENT BECAUSE OF SOME ISSUES / OBJECTIONS – I CAN OPEN THEM ONLY AFTER A FEW DAYS, BUT SOME OTHER ARRANGEMENT CAN BE MADE IF PEOPLE SHOW INTEREST.

 

FB-Post no 51            Dtd 20 Oct 2022

US EXPANSIONISM, THE EVIL ROLE OF THE UN, AND THE NECESSITY FOR INDIA TO CHANGE

Will the UN World-Government destroy civilization?

 

FB-Post no 52                       Continued from FB-Post no 51            Dtd 20 Oct 2022

US EXPANSIONISM, THE EVIL ROLE OF THE UN, AND THE NECESSITY FOR INDIA TO CHANGE

Will the UN World-Government destroy civilization?

 

FB-Post no 55            Dtd 11 DEC 2022

CHALLENGES TO POTUS (and to ALL Americans)      -- not latest, but gives enough idea

 

FB-Post no 56            Dtd 11 DEC 2022

PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIANITY – LOCKE - AYN RAND - VON MISES WILL NOT SAVE AMERICA

MODIFYING CHRISTIANITY ON LINES OF MY BOOK WILL SAVE

 

FB-Post no 57            Dtd 06 JAN 2023

HI-FI COMMENTS ON MY FB-POSTS 51 to 56            AND                   COMMENTS ON COMMENTS

partial review of Dr. peikoff’s political views versus mine

 

[Doug Morris]

Unfortunately I did not have time to red your entire post.  Even what I did read would probably take a long time to unpack.   Here are three points to start with.

O'ists do not have to vote for a major party.  We can also sit out the election or vote Libertarian.  I have done a lot of the latter.  Ayn Rand herself advocated the former in at least one case.

The strategy is not to make everyone an O'ist.  It is to win over enough intellectuals so that Objectivist thinking will dominate public discourse, in which case the social ballast will be guided accordingly.  This will take a long time.

Many people who read Ayn Rand's novels do so for the story and/or the feeling.  It takes work to get the philosophy out of the novels, which most people don't do.

 

 

[human_murda]

4 hours ago, Jacob Smith said:

Being an Ayn Randist, I am not endorsing Christianity, out of question – and as far as Libertarianism is concerned, I have read only a little bit about their theories – but I believe that the clue to FFs’ achievement was their major policy which was close to libertarians.

I'm not American (and not completely familiar with American politics), but this sounds like recycled conservative+libertarian talking points from 2016.

Christianity isn't individualism for low IQ people. White Christians are a vote bank created by Republicans. Republicans spend billions of dollars peddling White-Christian identity politics and narratives, including but not limited to:

1)    Crap about how Judeo-Christian values built Western civilization, which was supposedly completely disconnected from Eastern civilizations.
2)    Racial arguments for discontinuing welfare: this include claims about how certain populations have innate deficiencies and how leftists will rip-off White people with an endless pit of welfare (and this need for welfare can never be fulfilled because the deficiencies are innate)
3)    A more politically correct version of the above involves replacing race with racial culture (resulting in claims like “Black culture leads to poverty”, which is mostly bullshit). Some variants of this narrative claim that race leads to the creation of a racial culture. The usual implication is that “White culture” is the right culture.
4)    Claims about how multiculturalism will destroy America, since it’s not consistent with “White Christian culture”.
5)    White genocide, possibly mediated by Jews, leading to the destruction of White culture and America.
6)    Any opposition to White identity politics or “Whiteness” is White genocide.
7)    Opposition to White identity politics is also supposedly a euphemism for Communist / anti-Capitalist politics (since “White culture” = Western civilization / capitalism = America) and will lead to the destruction of America.
8 ) Leftists are spreading the Gay and destroying Christianity and hence, America.
9)    Leftists are also the “real racists” since they don’t believe in deficiencies of a race or racial culture and will destroy America with their affirmative action ways, which is another form of White genocide.
10)    Immigration from non-European countries will probably also destroy America.
11)    Academia and cultural Marxism are destroying traditional gender/racial roles, deplatforming White Christians and eventually destroying America.
12) White Christians are special and necessary for the future of "Western civilization". Or, as the White kids say these days: "you cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else's babies"

Republicans stroke the egos of White, Christian people and in return, they vote Republican. White atheists who are dumb enough to believe that some stone age religion is necessary for the future of America may also peddle the same narratives. Also, not all these narratives are coming from republicans. Narrative 2) is probably funded by libertarians. Libertarians are pushing a narrative that some populations have some innate deficiencies in order to try to get some welfare schemes removed.

The fact of the matter is that Judeo-Christian values didn’t build America. It was capitalism and wealth that gave a voice to Christians. Christians didn’t create the Republican Party. The Republican Party created and molded White, Christian people as their vote bank (and no, you're not going to get your individualist utopia by voting with Christians). If they had spent billions of dollars trying to mold left-handed people as their vote bank, you’ll be writing essays about how left-handedness is essential for the future of Western civilization.

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by human_murda

[Doug Morris]

2 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Unfortunately I did not have time to red your entire post. 

Spelling correction: "red" should be "read".

 

[Boydstun]

 

"God bless the inventor of the Pill!" —Ayn Rand

 

[Boydstun]

Jacob,

I don't see why you made this post in the sector for political philosophy. It seems that what you are addressing in the post concerns political activism, and there is a separate sector at Objectivism Online for that.

Concerning your thoughts on political activism, have you ever seen a group or a movement among pro-capitalist Christians favoring a political alliance with Objectivism? All I have noticed is a few individual politicians, such as Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz, who like to convey warmth towards both Christianity and Objectivism in order to pick up votes for themselves from both groups.

Or are you suggesting that if the pro-capitalist Christians would get over the atheism of Objectivism and the Objectivists would get over the theism of Christianity, then an effective alliance between the two against the welfare state could happen? (And against other improper jobs of government, such as disaster relief?)

Do you have quotations from any of the Founding Fathers championing individualism? The American War of Independence was not a war over independence of individuals from the state, but a war for independence of these former colonies from the British state.

Protection of individual rights in America has come about, so far as it has, not only by contributions of the Founding Fathers. (Further)

Edited September 10, 2023 by Boydstun

[Eiuol]

21 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Unfortunately I did not have time to red your entire post. 

This "article" is an amalgamation of posts from different conversations put into one undifferentiated mass. There is no coherent point, it is just rambling.