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Dr. Peikoff on which party to vote for: GOP or Democrat

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Politeness should not be used as a substitute for directness. However, as far as I am concerned, I was being both polite and direct.

Well, if you think this sentence (below) is very polite, there's nothing more i can say to you about that, Thomas.

Look, if you don't understand things the way Dr. Peikoff does, fine -- go by your best judgement; but don't go around claiming that because you don't understand something then Dr. Peikoff must be a rationalist or must be making a rationalization.

Note also that you apparently equate "understanding things the way Dr. Peikoff does" with "understanding something", which i think is the reason you cannot easily conceive the obvious impoliteness of your statement. Why are you so convinced that if someone disagrees with Dr. Peikoff then that person has NOT understood what Dr. Peikoff is saying - is this based on a principle i've missed? Why is it inconceivable to you that someone can indeed fully understand him and yet STILL disagree with him? It is an obvious fallacy to say that since people on this and other forums evidently did not think deep enough about the issue before first commenting, that therefore everyone who commented (against Dr. Peikoff) did not think deeply enough about it. There could be some people who have had years to think about his position, you know, perhaps because they have been exposed to it (essentially) even before he wrote his article?

As for your invitation to anyone interested in ideas to tell you if you are wrong, i think that is not the issue: your initial invitation was for us to JUDGE whether you were justifiably banned, not whether you are right in supporting Dr. Peikoff's position.

And, finally, have you considered the possibility that YOU have not understood what the critics of Dr. Peikoff (on this statement) are saying? Do you think it is fair (or even right), for example, to say that everyone who did not vote Democrat - including, i presume, Tranciski, the Speichers, etc - does NOT understand Objectivism? Why shouldn't I, a student of Objectivism, therefore be justified in avoiding the web sites of these gentlemen since i would like to learn Objectivism from people who actually understand it?

Do you need more hard evidence or are you still doubting, Thomas?

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[Parsed down]Why are you so convinced that if someone disagrees with Dr. Peikoff then that person has NOT understood what Dr. Peikoff is saying - is this based on a principle i've missed? Why is it inconceivable to you that someone can indeed fully understand him and yet STILL disagree with him?

Do you think it is fair (or even right), for example, to say that everyone who did not vote Democrat - including, i presume, Tranciski, the Speichers, etc - does NOT understand Objectivism?

I don't think Dr. Peikoff is the standard of deciding if someone understands Objectivism or not. To do that, one would have to understand Ayn Rand's works and then make a judgement on that basis, including judging whether or not Dr. Peikoff understands Objectivism -- and more broadly, is he rational. So, yes, I think it is possible for people to understand Dr. Peikoff and yet still disagree with him. It's possible to understand what Ayn Rand has said and still disagree with her. I mean using your own rational judgement.

However, the debate, at least in the early stages, was not focused on philosophic fundamentals; which indicated that Dr. Peikoff's statement was not understood.

President George Bush made this election a referendum on the War on Terror, especially a referendum on what's going on in Iraq. He needed to be told NO! Don't stay the course! Either win this war or get the hell out of it. And I think that is what the American people were saying to him.

In other words, I don't think the American people were voting for more socialist statism; they were voting against President Bush and his cronies. Unfortunately, I'm not sure one can draw an extension from that and say that the American people were voting against faith based initiatives, which would be why Dr. Peikoff was against Bush.

If the people who were against Dr. Peikoff could come up with a principled philosophic statement of why President Bush and the Republicans should be supported, then they would have something. But I don't think they did that. So, in that sense, they didn't show that they understood that the world is moved in terms of philosophic fundamentals; and in that sense they don't understand Objectivism.

To be clear, I think a lot of them do understand Objectivism (to various degrees) -- most of them are not novices; but they were very wrong on this issue. They were especially wrong to attack Dr. Peikoff as if he didn't know what he was talking about; which is what they were saying when they called him a rationalist or saying that he was involved in a rationalization.

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If the people who were against Dr. Peikoff could come up with a principled philosophic statement of why President Bush and the Republicans should be supported, then they would have something. But I don't think they did that. So, in that sense, they didn't show that they understood that the world is moved in terms of philosophic fundamentals; and in that sense they don't understand Objectivism.
I'm sure most of the so-called "anti-Bushites for Bush" would agree that the world is moved by philosophical fundamentals. I'm also sure they would agree with statements such as:
  • if one allows the religious guys to keep dictating policy, they will keep taking more
  • if Bush pursues the war the way he is doing, we will gain little of nothing and give war a bad name
  • the Republicans have done little or nothing in the area of free-markets: look at their record on MediCare, No Child left behind, Immigration

In essence, the "anti-Bushites for Bush" would agree with most anti-Republican and anti-Bush statements.

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In any event, the die has been cast and we'll now get to see how an even larger helping of socialism tastes. The American people have given control of the House to Nancy Pelosi and the Senate appears to be headed for Democratic control as well. I expect that Harry Reid will become the leader there.

Frankly, I'm depressed.

On a brighter note, the people of Michigan supported a referendum that will outlaw affirmative action. :thumbsup:

Edited by gags
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One of the things that really has been bothering me about these elections lately is how much stock has been put in control of the federal government. I think that particularly in terms of economic issues, the federal government ought have no power and the State governments extremely little, if any. All the Socialists have to do is gain a majority in the legislature and get either a linguini spined fiscal moderate like Bush or another Socialist and half of your yearly earnings are up for seizure.

But as I stated before, all of this hinges around the educational system, both the Republicans and the Democrats are largely educated by IV league schools. What is the status of the efforts to get Liberty and Property rights properly taught in academia?

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What is the status of the efforts to get Liberty and Property rights properly taught in academia?
First there have to be professors who are competent and willing to do so: they are in short supply. Simply having an interest and academic ability to teach the stuff doesn't usually suffice, since you also have to have students willing to take such courses, and they are in oddly-distributed supply (there might be a sufficient client base in business, but not in philosophy or literature). If there is no supply and no demand, it's not possible to teach such courses.
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First there have to be professors who are competent and willing to do so: they are in short supply. Simply having an interest and academic ability to teach the stuff doesn't usually suffice, since you also have to have students willing to take such courses, and they are in oddly-distributed supply (there might be a sufficient client base in business, but not in philosophy or literature). If there is no supply and no demand, it's not possible to teach such courses.

What about writing more literature and getting it out into the private sector. I know that both the Ayn Rand Institute and the Ludwig Von Mises have been making some progress amongst the populous, I being one of them as both Ayn Rand and some of the Libertarian writers caused me to drop my Republican affiliation and rethink my support for people like John McCain. Will it be Ayn Rand's books that bring forth these profesors? I don't mean to sound negative, but I don't know that I will see the kind of America that I think we all want to see here in my lifetime, and I'm only 26 years old.

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What about writing more literature and getting it out into the private sector.
Certainly. But if the question is about teaching certain courses in academe, what you're saying is that maybe it's not important to get such courses taught at universities, and the same effect could be accomplished outside of any organised educational system. For a concrete short-term goal such as opposing a particular tax bill or opposing a new law banning smoking, that's probably the most effective thing to do. The problem is that the lesson doesn't seem to generalize, for example the public doesn't generally seem to be able to see the similarity between funding public housing with a new tax, versus funding a new stadium with a tax, versus funding a new road with a tax. If the public were more generally inclined to engage in a bit of overt philosophy and to actually look at the consistency of their ideas, that would be great. For the most part, though, I think people hate this mentally hard stuff that they don't get, and they will only do it when they have no other choice. The only time that arises seems to be in school (that plus the fact that 16-22 year olds -- i.e. the bulk of those in school -- seems to be particularly open to actually using their minds). Since I think there is a role for a systematic higher education in civilized society, I think it is worthwhile to work on the problem of demand. It would help too if the demand were active rather than passive -- if students would actually act in a way that means "This is what I want, I will give you my money if you give me what I want" rather than the post hoc system where we look to see what product sold and what didn't sell and cancel accordingly. Your point about the basic fact of elected officials -- not so many high school dropouts, lots of college educated people -- is quite correct, and that's why it's probably still important to work on the college crowd as well, since one of them could end up being president in 30 years.
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I agree, sometimes I am just amazed at how insurmountable of a task it would be to combat this cult of unreason. I've often wondered how my philosophical inspiration Thomas Aquinas managed to escape accusations of witch-craft and heresy when he advocated for Aristotle's inception into western civilization. Perhaps it was the fact that he was such a respected member of the dominant power at the time, people took him on trust because he was one of them. I wonder if part of the solution would be a Republican or a Democrat actually embracing a rational philosophy in a run for office.

I must say in regards to the issue of President Bush, the man is all but finished, he tried to pander to the mixed economy and the mixed philosophy that it comes from and he will now be punished. I saw the man during his press conference and I thought for a moment that Peter Keating had actually risen out of the realm of fiction and became our president. Utterly pathetic. :thumbsup:

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I think there is one aspect of how to rate Bush regarding theocracy that hasn't been mentioned in this debate. He and his staff had total control over what kind of government to set up in Iraq, and they made sure that two religious groups would be represented as a central part of that government: the Shiites and the Sunies.

So, instead of setting up a limited government to help secure individual rights, he made sure the Muslims would be represented qua Muslims. Of course, he doesn't think Islam is the problem, or that religion qua religion is the problem, despite the fact that the attacks of 911 were done for religious instigation. He keeps saying that Islam is a great religion and doesn't have the foggiest idea of why religion qua religion is anti-freedom; which he doesn't get even after all of the insurrections in Iraq are being motivated by religionists.

Those guys setting those roadside bombs don't want freedom; they especially don't want us to have freedom. And they keep saying that and Bush keeps not hearing the message.

As proof of this inability to get the message, he thinks the message of the election is that he ought to work with the Democrats to form a bipartisan government. And he practically gave the Democrats everything they wanted in his speech. If he was a man of principle and his back was against the wall, after the election is when he should have said: "I'm not going to back down. I am right and I know it!" Instead, he caved, including handing over Rumsfeld's head on a platter!

With friends like him, who needs enemies?

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I think this is really the key question. Historically, the Republicans have supported economic freedom, but they are cashing that value in. The decision has to be comparative, so it's unimportant whether the Democrats are socialists if the Republicans are being equally bad socialists. The best case scenario for the Republicans would be if there were a balancing of the threat from the religious right against the threat from the economic left, and you had to chose economic hell versus personal freedom hell.

This has been a very interesting debate on tactics, strategy and ultimately philosophy. I remain not entirely convinced on the Peikoff argument, but am waiting until I finish DIM to make a complete for/against decision.

What has as of yet been unclear to me is how a "gridlock" situation is more helpful - mostly because I'm unclear how it will be a gridlock. How propping up an I ideology in any way thwarts an M ideology. The I ideology of the democrats has been in decline since it started suffering defeats in 1980 with Reagan, but have the Democrats examined their philosophical base internally and changed course? Hardly. I'm unconvinved that a sidelined Republican party will do the same as many claim.

Congress will move forward in areas where there is ideological overlap, and that is only in one place: statist policy. If Republicans unaided can implement a boondoggle pharma benefits program for medicare based on a flawed philosophy of "compassion" imagine what we'll get with a more compassionate congress.

My biggest concern still comes from that fact that, as much as we have an M ideology internally corrupting, we have an external M ideology which at this time is philosophically unchecked. While I see the wreckage of an altruist foreign policy in Iraq, it is clear our external enemies see this political shift as the outcome of OBL's original prediction based up on our Viet Nam strategy.

In his essay on NoodleFood, Paul Hseih proposed a possible senario for quick descent into theocracy, which was based on a nuclear attack on the US touching off a religious right backlash and surge to power, in the name of "getting serious" with the external threat. While I know that this is not the only senario possible, it is unclear to me how the probability of this happening is in any way changed by the current political structure being what it is. As such it is unclear that my immediate vote makes a difference in this respect. (You could run any other senarios to see if this holds). Iran getting nuclear weapons capability is a pivotal point (sort of like queening a pawn in chess, it changes the power structure of the game). While I don't think that we were on the 100% correct course to stop this before, I am pretty sure that we will steer away, not toward the proper actions now. So Paul's senario is still a very real possibility and maybe even a stronger one. This is my key concern. If someone can develop a senario for "near term theocracy" that doesn't involve an external threat, I'd like to test it.

As I have said before, and so far, in my listening to DIM, I agree with Peikoff's assessment of the philosophical forces in play. My continued thought is that the forces in play, are in play and will not change drastically until we have a strong academic surge of Objectivist thought. That is what we should be focusing our attention on together rather than being divisive about how we voted this week. In short, I think we are more powerful focusing on our ideas together, rather than on our votes, apart.

I welcome comments, but will refrain from strong conclusions myself until I have more data. This is just to raise concerns I have at this point. Interested to know how others feel.

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Congress will move forward in areas where there is ideological overlap, and that is only in one place: statist policy. If Republicans unaided can implement a boondoggle pharma benefits program for medicare based on a flawed philosophy of "compassion" imagine what we'll get with a more compassionate congress.

While unfortunately true, I guess the point is that at least it won't be religious-statist policy because that does not overlap.

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... in that sense they don't understand Objectivism.

To be clear, I think a lot of them do understand Objectivism...

Thomas, I’m afraid we have now reached that point in the debate where I have to accuse you of something. I don't think you are as intellectually independent as you would like to believe. But i could be wrong. Let's see ...

You say “in that sense” they don’t understand Objectivism. Then in conclusion you say, “let me be clear, [they] do understand Objectivism”. What this means is that they ESSENTIALLY do understand Objectivism (even if there is a “that sense” in which they don’t). Well, if there is a sense in which they do not understand it, and yet they ESSENTIALLY do understand it, then that sense is obviously a minor - rather than ESSENTIAL - sense.

Dr. Peikoff, on the other hand, believes that the “sense” in which they do not understand Objectivism is an ESSENTIAL one. And therefore (after discussing that sense), he says in conclusion, unlike you, that they DO NOT understand Objectivism.

So,

1. Either you are right or Dr. Peikoff is right (about the people in question).

2. If you agree with Dr. Peikoff, then you do not agree with yourself.

3. If you do not agree with yourself, then you are not independent.

4. If you do agree with yourself, then you also do agree with the people who did not agree with Dr. Peikoff on that point, which means you either did not understand them or you did not understand Dr. Peikoff; or you are simply rationalizing your blind support for Dr. Peikoff.

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[Regarding an earlier post]

You say “in that sense” they don't understand Objectivism. Then in conclusion you say, “let me be clear, [they] do understand Objectivism (to various degrees)"

Black diamond, give it a break. Or was it mere convenience that you left out my parenthesis when you quoted me?

I'm acknowledging that it is possible to have knowledge of a certain field, such as philosophy or Objectivism, and yet not have fully integrated it.

There was a philosophic reason to reject the conservatives -- namely their inability to ground freedom in secularism (i.e. reason and reality), and due to that, their desire to see church and state united. Now, had they just not grounded freedom rationally and had not attempted to unite church and state, then they wouldn't have been so dangerous. But they did do that, and therefore had to be rejected -- rejected philosophically and politically.

If you don't understand that, then you need to work on your integrations.

Or let me put it this way: To the extent you don't understand that, it is to that extent that you don't understand Objectivism.

You know, it's not as if a secular grounding of individual rights does not exist. And it's not as if the Conservatives have not been preaching for many years now that freedom comes from God. Maybe it's time we took them at their word -- if there is no reason to uphold individual rights (in their view), then they won't uphold individual rights. And they haven't, so we need to reject them -- and especially reject them as a viable alternative to the Liberals; because they aren't.

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thomas,

you have not understood anything i said in my last post. i will try this one more time and then, if you still insist on taking this in the wrong direction, i will "give it a break".

Look, i can agree with everything you are saying about Republicans and their wrong philosophy, but this does not follow that i must also agree that THEREFORE this means they should have been voted against - if i have fully integrated Objectivism.

My simple objection here is equating a difference in political assessment to a difference in philosophical integration abilities. How are you moving from one to the other? this is all i want to know.

You have no evidence whatsover that at this stage the Republicans have the ability to SUCCESSFULLY introduce a theocracy (as opposed to earlier elections, for example, when Rand voted Republican). It might even be true that things have become worse, but this is not enough evidence that we have now reached that critical time when everything else has to be put aside to focus on this threat alone. What if there are factors in American society that can only make Republicans successfully create such a theocracy only in 3000 years' time? should everyone make this a primary issue NOW even if they think that such a threat is so far off in the future (in being successfully implemented)? What gives you superior knowledge about the timing of fighting this threat as a current primary concern?

But look, even if you are right about this, why would anyone who does not agree with your superior sense of timing on this issue necessarily be judged as lacking some integrations of Objectivism, or understanding Objectivism, or whatever? WHY CAN'T THIS JUST BE A DIFFERENCE IN POLITICAL JUDGMENT, and not one of a philosophical (and moral) character, as if anyone has disagreed with the philosophical premises undergirding the discussion or indeed their application in political life? I might, for example, think that this should be the major issue in 2065 and not now (in 2006): who are you to say that anyone who does not see it as the main issue NOW does not understand Objectivism to that degree? I suspect that you cannot answer that question without any appeal to authority, which is why you keep engaging in your strawman.

if you can't answer the question i am asking (instead of the one you are creating for me), then perhaps i do need to give it a break.

Edited by blackdiamond
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[Parsed down]

My simple objection here is equating a difference in political assessment to a difference in philosophical integration abilities. How are you moving from one to the other? this is all i want to know.

WHY CAN'T THIS JUST BE A DIFFERENCE IN POLITICAL JUDGMENT, and not one of a philosophical (and moral) character, as if anyone has disagreed with the philosophical premises undergirding the discussion or indeed their application in political life?

Politics is a branch of philosophy; and a rational politics has been written about in the Objectivist literature at length. This rational politics hinges on the concept of individual rights and grounding them in the nature of man and the requirements of him being able to use his mind to further his own personal life without the threat of physical force being used against him. The evils of religion have also been written about at length; especially the idea that one needs to ground one's ideas on the perceptually self-evident and using logic to organize one's observations, which religion qua pseudo-principle rejects. In short, one cannot have a mystical metaphysics and a faith-based epistemology, while at the same time claim to uphold individual rights; because it can't be done.

President Bush and his fellow Conservatives have shown that by basing their arguments not on reason but on faith, that our individual rights will not be upheld. Not only did the Conservatives not roll back the damages done by the Liberals; they added even more damages of the same type and set up Federally funded faith-based initiatives. In other words, those Conservatives who voted for those measures or did not vote against them were saying, at least in effect: "Yes, this is what we want. We want more government intrusion into business (which the Liberals already gave us) and we want more government intrusion into your private life by forcing you to pay for an ideology that we are pressing, whether you agree with it or not." And the ideology they want to push is faith; i.e. anti-reason.

And I think that is what makes this the turning point in history.

Had the Conservatives merely "gone to the left" to "reach center" in order to get votes, well...that would simply be more of the same ole politics as usual. It's disgusting, but it wouldn't de-rail us. Having the government get involved in supporting one faith or another -- i.e. Christianity versus Hinduism, for example -- would de-rail us; and at the root of our somewhat Enlightenment culture.

At this stage of our culture, which is already teetering away from reason, we do not need to be pushing for anti-reason; especially on the part of the government which is supposed to be upholding our individual rights based on reason and reality.

It was time for them to go before they did any permanent damage. And it will be interesting to see if the Liberals turn back the faith-based initiatives.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A little late to the thread... But I finally got a chance to read through it all & wanted to address a couple of points.

In regard to the environmentalism of the Democrats, I would like to point out that their environmentalism has not been integrated into an explicit philosophy the way Christianity has been in regards to the Republicans.

Yes, they have: Nihilism. Rand covers this explicitly in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution.

The Republicans simply cannot fight Islam because they share with it their fundamental principles - faith, sacrifice, statism, etc.

This is inaccurate. Consider the Crusades of the Dark Ages. The Christians and Muslims waged war off and on for a couple hundred years. The Catholics & Protestants of Ireland (and other places) have been at each others throats for years. For the last 1500 years Muslim "denominations" have been actively trying to kill each other.

All these groups share "fundamental principles - faith, sacrifice, statism". What is missing from - and absolutely essential to - this formulation is that modern, American Republican (and Democrat) politicians, intellectuals & leaders are disarmed by their acceptance of the irrational poison of Kant & Hegel.

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  • 2 months later...
The following quote came up on the HBL. It's from Leonard Peikoff in 1992:

"I want to stress at this point that the above is Peikoff's recommendation for November, not Ayn Rand's or Objectivism's. A philosophy is a view of the universe; it does not back candidates. There can be legitimate differences among people of the same philosophy in regard to political tactics and strategy. So please think the issues over and judge for yourself. I have merely told you how (and why) I propose to vote in November--if I can."

How does this reconcile with:

"In my judgment, anyone who votes Republican or abstains from voting in this election has no understanding of the practical role of philosophy in man’s actual life—which means that he does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism, except perhaps as a rationalistic system detached from the world."

I don't understand what needs reconciling. In Peikoff's latest election comment he did not claim to be speaking for Ayn Rand or Objectivism. He claimed that, in his judgment, those who vote Republican or abstain do not understand the philosophy.

When has Peikoff ever said that a man's election choices indicate nothing about his understanding of philosophy?

Also, it is true that: "there can be legitimate differences among people of the same philosophy in regard to political tactics and strategy." But that doesn't mean there are always legitimate differences. I think that Peikoff is saying that, for the time being, voting Republican is no longer a legitimate choice for Objectivists.

You may agree or disagree with Peikoff, and you may call him names or not call him names, but I don't see how you can say that he is being inconsistent.

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My problem with the statement is the following:

Isn't it possible that one has great understanding of Objectivism but doesn't understand American politics? or the nature of the Religious Right?

(Please note: I am not claiming that it is inconsistent to understand Objectivism and the Right and vote Republican.)

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I agree with LaszloWalrus. Assuming for the sake of discussion that Peikoff is right in his judgment of American culture (I think he is), there is a third option he does not list. One could thoroughly understand Objectivism, be completely moral and honest, and also entirely ignorant of the nature and influence of the religious right. I suggest reading the book Kingdom Coming by Michelle Goldberg to remedy this last problem. Though at times painfully liberal, it is a good collection of facts revealing both the nature of the nasty philosophies of the religious right, and the (extensive) influence those philosophies have.

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Isn't it possible that one has great understanding of Objectivism but doesn't understand American politics? or the nature of the Religious Right?

I think Dr. Peikoff had this covered with the following fragment that I have put in bold:

"In my judgment, anyone who votes Republican or abstains from voting in this election has no understanding of the practical role of philosophy in man’s actual life—which means that he does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism, except perhaps as a rationalistic system detached from the world. "

Not recognizing the nature of the Religious Right and their influence on the Republican Party is arguably being out of touch with reality.

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I think Dr. Peikoff had this covered with the following fragment that I have put in bold:

Not recognizing the nature of the Religious Right and their influence on the Republican Party is arguably being out of touch with reality.

Either that, or you could be an Objectivist living in a completely different country, who just doesn't know much about American politics. I don't think that fact alone makes you a rationalist...

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No, of course it doesn't. The situation here in the US is that we have a Republican Party increasingly dominated by religionists. The Democrats on the other hand are a bunch of pathetic amoral leftists. It's really a choice between the lesser of two evils at any given time.

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