LP In Arkansas

[NIJamesHughes]

I was looking at the LP website for arkansas and noticed a link to ARI in the links section, and It made me think "there may be hope for them after all." I have read "LTPOL" by Peter Schwartz and I agree with the article. What I am curious about is if you have a group of people who are interested in liberty, but have no philosophic basis for that liberty, if a person a a group of people with in that group can refute the mistaken premise AND provide a proper foundation for the idea of liberty won't the Objectivist's win? Ayn Rand said that in a compromise between two parties with the same ideas the most consistent will win. Arn't Objectivists the most consistent defenders and promoters of Liberty?

I understand that capitalism has had defenders whose philosophy was not consistent with capitalism yet we still use that word and work to defend it.

Edited October 9, 2005 by NIJamesHughes

[DPW]

What I am curious about is if you have a group of people who are interested in liberty, but have no philosophic basis for that liberty, if a person a a group of people with in that group can refute the mistaken premise AND provide a proper foundation for the idea of liberty won't the Objectivist's win? Ayn Rand said that in a compromise between two parties with the same ideas the most consistent will win. Arn't Objectivists the most consistent defenders and promoters of Liberty?

Check your premises. Objectivists and libertarians don't share the same ideas. You said you read Peter Schwartz's article: then you'll remember his conclusion. "The truth is, however, that Libertarianism deserves only one fundamental criticism: it does not value liberty."

[BlackSabbath]

This is what you are up against with Libertarians:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadA...le.asp?ID=19727

The Right’s Left Turn

By Jacob Laksin

FrontPageMagazine.com | October 5, 2005

In late September, as throngs of placard-wielding protestors were descending on the nation’s capital, Lew Rockwell, the nominally libertarian proprietor of the website LewRockwell.com, was holding forth at an anti-war rally convened by the far-left Alabama Peace and Justice Coalition (APJC).

That the APJC’s rallying cry – “Spend money for human needs, not war!” – was of questionable accordance with principled libertarianism’s aversion to government largesse, didn’t seem to phase Rockwell, who joined a roster of speakers with an altogether different view about the proper role of the federal government. . . .

[Edited to remove text of entire article. Posting entire articles violates forum rules. If there are different brief passages you would like to highlight, please let me know and we can get those in here. Matt]

Edited October 10, 2005 by Groovenstein

[BlackSabbath]

And try this little gem:

http://www.mises.org/story/1123

"The crucial political question concerned the direction the country would take in the future--pushing headlong into the welfare-warfare state or returning to founding principles--just as the country faced this same question in 1989 at the end of the Cold War. In 1948, the key domestic question concerned the uses of federal power for purposes of social planning and redistribution. On the international front, the Marshall Plan had already been passed, shocking many in both parties who had a principled opposition to foreign aid and international management on this scale. And Truman and his advisers were already embroiling the US in a Cold War against Russia, a government that had been a close US ally only a few years earlier. "

Supposed capitalist supporters berating a US president for being too tough on Russia, under Stalin?

More epistemological chaos: http://www.mises.org/story/1916

"It's not always easy being a free-market thinker and a Catholic. On the one hand, you have centuries of economic thought going for you — a rich tradition of scholarship starting largely with Aquinas and culminating in Leo XIII's condemnation of socialism in the 1870s.

But on the other, you have several authoritative papal documents published since then that endorse various aspects of the modern welfare state, as part of a developing "Catholic social teaching." You also have modern Bishops allying themselves with a huge range of statist causes, and variously claiming that all the faithful should back wealth redistribution and government paternalism.

What should you do?"

Be an atheist and an Objectivist!

[Dismuke]

What I am curious about is if you have a group of people who are interested in liberty, but have no philosophic basis for that liberty, if a person a a group of people with in that group can refute the mistaken premise AND provide a proper foundation for the idea of liberty won't the Objectivist's win?

Your premise here is that if one is sufficiently logical and consistent and has the better argument that others will have no choice but to eventually come around to your way of thinking. That is not true. Some people are impervious to logic and have nothing but contempt for consistency.

Ayn Rand said that in a compromise between two parties with the same ideas the most consistent will win. Arn't Objectivists the most consistent defenders and promoters of Liberty?

Again, your premise here is mistaken: you are assuming that Objectivists and Libertarians share the same ideas. Very often they do not. In fact, the principle expressed in that quote of Ayn Rand's you referenced explains precisely why the Libertarian movement has taken up common cause with Cindy Sheehan, John Kerry and Al Queda in their shared nihilistic lust to see the United States get its "comeuppance" in the eyes of the rest of the world. The most consistent ideas DO win - which is exactly why the very worst elements in the Libertarian movement have, since 9-11, moved it towards the subjectivist/nihilist Left and not towards Objectivism.

The fact that Objectivists and Libertarians both claim to value something called "liberty" - well that would mean that they have something in common only if both sides agreed as to what constitutes "liberty" and why it is a value. In fact, both sides take very different approaches and positions on the very thing which they allegedly have in common.

Now as to your question about winning over people within the Libertarian movement - I will be the very first to admit that decent, well meaning people are sometimes attracted to the more reasonable sounding writings of the less offensive Libertarian types and might, as a result, be attracted to the movement. I was such a person when I was in my late teens. If you encounter such people and you think that they are intellectually honest and well meaning, they are worth an effort at persuasion. But the absolute worst place to do it from is within the ranks of some sort of Libertarian organization because that would imply that there is some sort of common ground.

Most Libertarians are very much aware of the existence of Ayn Rand and of Objectivism - so it is not like they need to be exposed to it. One does not have to study Objectivism for very long to learn that Ayn Rand expressed nothing but contempt for the Libertarian movement and that Objectivists want nothing to do with it. If a person is intellectually honest and finds himself in a position of simultaneously regarding both Objectivism and Libertarianism to be of value, then he will probably make an effort to seek out information about the Objectivist position on the matter. The very best thing you can do for a Libertarian that one encounters and has respect for is to, in a non-pushy and non accusatory way, explain exactly why you will have nothing to do whatsoever with that movement and identify the fundamental issues involved. The person may not see it all at once - but over time, as he observes others in the movement, perhaps some of what you said will start to ring true.

Attempting to reform the Libertarian movement from within on grounds that you both support "liberty" would be about as effective as attempting to reform the animal rights movement from within on grounds that you both support "rights." In both cases, all you would accomplish is to give both of those movements a degree of credibility and benefit of the doubt that they do not deserve.

I understand that capitalism has had defenders whose philosophy was not consistent with capitalism yet we still use that word and work to defend it.

That's because there is absolutely no danger of Objectivism being equated with or construed as making common ground with others, such as religious conservatives, who also claim to support capitalism. Religious conservatives do not go around equating themselves with Objectivists and assert that, since both sides say they are for "capitalism," either approach is equally valid, that it is just a matter of subjective preference and that we are all after the same end. Libertarianism makes exactly that assertion and to have anything to do with it is to implicitly accept their "big umbrella" approach towards the achievement of something called "liberty" where there somehow exists common ground between the deranged rantings of the Cindy Sheehan ilk and the philosophical writings of Ayn Rand.

This is what you are up against with Libertarians:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadA...le.asp?ID=19727

There are also these kooks: The Libertarian National Socialist Green Party: http://www.nazi.org/ Hippies, Nazis and environmentalists - at least they recognize the common bond between them. Too bad more of the American people do not see how interchangable such movements really are.

Edited October 10, 2005 by Dismuke