So, I agree with the principle behind checkingpremises.org, but I am not sure about their specific applications to DH.
Here’s the thing, imagine that I start a web-site that is “against all evil”. Then, imagine I name you, Thomas, and an example of an evil person. Would you say “I agree with that site, in principle” ?
In a post above, I listed the concrete examples that you gave for “subjectivist Objectivists”, and asked if you thought DH fit your own concretes. In essence, you’ve said she does not. Now, in contrast to this, the essay titled “Subjectivist Objectivists” on the CheckingPremises site says the following: “Dr. Hsieh seems to be the central [subjectivist objectivist]”
Obviously, the author’s concept of “subjectivist objectivist” is not the same as yours if he holds DH to be “the central one”. So, there is no real sense in which you agree with the principle he is espousing. The words may be the same, but the meanings are different. For instance, I would not say that I agree with Mother Teresa’s because she praises good and denounces evil, and so do I.
Yes, that site does not dwell on Diana alone. They cover the Brandens and Kelly and Diana. However, for the first two we’re given links to old stuff, and the only two (relatively) substantial posts talk about Diana.
In a post above, I listed the concrete examples that you gave for “subjectivist Objectivists”, and asked if you thought DH fit your own concretes. In essence, you’ve said she does not. Now, in contrast to this, the essay titled “Subjectivist Objectivists” on the CheckingPremises site says the following: “Dr. Hsieh seems to be the central [subjectivist objectivist]”
Like I said, I need to re-think through the issue as it relates to DH.
However, in my laundry list of things not compatible with Objectivism, it is not holding those concretes per se that would make one a subjectivist, but rather holding onto those ideas in spite of the fact that it can be shown not to relate to reality and not relate to Objectivism specifically. Methodology is the key, not the conclusion. The bad methodology led one to those false conclusions, and Objectivism is primarily about objectivity – of arguing from the facts in a non-contradictory manner.
OK, time for a really big apology to Diana Hsieh. I went back and re-listened to the podcast in question (for about the third time) and also re-read that portion of her rebuttal to critics, think I misunderstood her statements about the court deciding that the brainless child could not reason, and therefore could be euthanized. Somehow, I took her statement to mean that the court grants us rights. She also clearly states that she thinks it would be immoral to eat them, though the “dark humor” of human baby baby-backed ribs (brought up several times) was misunderstood by me as her endorsement of actually eating them, especially since it went into having them in grocery stores and farms. I misunderstood her arguments several times.So,for that, I do apologize to her (since she is on oo.net and evidently listening it). But I will also send this note to her via email. Diana, I do apologize. It may very well have been my revulsion of eating human babies that led me to mis-interpret what you were saying.
I appreciate the correction and apology. However, I wish that you’d realized this months ago, when I repeatedly told you that you were grossly misrepresenting what I’d said in the webcast. Unfortunately, at this point, you can’t un-do the damage that you’ve done to me by spreading this awful lie about me to countless unknown people on various corners of the internet.
Still, I’m relieved that this won’t be an issue any longer, and I appreciate the public correction. That’s something.
Still, I’m relieved that this won’t be an issue any longer, and I appreciate the public correction. That’s something.
Well, it is definitely true that I should have made sure I was right about your actual position before spreading false ideas about you, which is why I offered the apology. It is understandable that it doesn’t heal things between us. As to various corners of the internet, it was only on FaceBook and oo.net, which is bad enough, but I did post the apology to FB, here, and on Dan Edge’s blog regarding that controversy.
I’m not sure how much of a following I have, so I’m not sure how much damage I did, but it certainly makes the point that one ought to know what one’s intellectual opponent is actually saying before being against them.
You ought to do a lot more than that. People who paid attention to you back then may not be doing so any more… in particular the people who de-friended you over Checking Premises. Figure out who has in fact listened to you and proactively find them and tell them you were wrong on an individual basis.
Yeah that’s a lot of work, but you did a lot of f*ckup.
I totally disagree with that project. I posted it to three public places, and I also made it into a FaceBook Note, which I can refer to if anyone is curious about my position. There is no way I can hunt down everyone who may have been involved in that thread on FaceBook, and while DH did say that wasn’t her position, no one else went through the trouble of listening to the podcast first-hand and telling me I was wrong until this thread a few days ago. In other words, most of my readers did not think it was such a big deal, which rather floored me. A few did, and they are still FB friends and I mentioned the issue twice. There is no need to contact the CP persons, since they do not hold the position that DH advocated eating brainless babies anyhow, they have different concerns about her methodology.
I was trying to find a direct quote from Ayn Rand on keeping the Communist Party out of the United States, since they advocated overthrowing the government with force (and actually acting on it would be a high crime, treason for an American citizen and espionage for foreigners); however, I couldn’t find it just yet. I did, however, come across an interesting quote regarding smear campaigns and double standards specifically related to the Communist Party and its affiliates in the United States:
“The Communist Party openly advocates the overthrow of the government by force and violence, but an individual member, who knew it when he joined the party, is not presumed to share this view, unless it is proved that he personally advocated it. Yet a rightist is presumed to share the views of an organization on the basis of a mailing list or a panel discussion.” [from “The Disfranchisement Of The Right” The Ayn Rand Letter]
In other words, the fact that Raul, the former head of the NYC Mosque project, is not to be presumed to share the views of radical Islamic Totalitarians, who want to take over the world by force and destroy the United States in the process, even though he studied under them and clearly associates with them whenever he can. If he were serious about rejecting Islamic Totalitarianism, then he should come right out and condemn them as being evil and not want to run a mosque in their name and their policies, and would totally disassociate himself from them. But we don’t see even “moderate” Muslims doing this. They say it is crazy to fly an airplane into a building and killing 3,000 Americans, but they won’t say it is evil and disassociate themselves from Islam in the name of rationality and civilized behavior. This is considered to be a smear campaign against Islam means peace advocates.And yet, the radical Muslims are free to condemn anyone living under a capitalist or even a semi-free country, and are not considered evil by the Main Stream Media.
In her HUAC testimony, Miss Rand held that the US government could not stop communist propaganda [during times of peace], but that they could investigate any and all communists, since they advocated the use of force to overthrow the government. She held that this would not be a violation of either free speech or the right of association or any other right, because the government’s job is to protect American’s from acts of force. And this was during the time when the Soviets had not even attacked us physically, like flying airplanes into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon.
In time of war, I do think it is appropriate to stop enemy infiltrators into the USA, which means preventing the building of a mosque near their destruction sight for the purpose of spreading radical Islam or Islamic Totalitarianism. So, I completely agree with Dr. Peikoff on this issue.
Well, your list of examples of the “subjectivist objectivst’s” ideas, (converted to bullet-points) is:
Most folk who are arguing with you in this thread would agree with your list. Of these, it’s easy to agree that sophism is wrong, but not so easy to agree on whether some particular argument is sophist. (And on modern art, Jonathan13 may disagree). Anyhow, in general it’s a fair list. So, let’s agree that “objectivists” standing up for these positions are the ones we’ll call “subjectivist objectivists”.
Surely, you’re not claiming the Diana Hsieh supports libertarianism, anarchism, determinism, sophism or god. If so, would you agree that she is not a subjectivist-objectivist if we use your list as a razor?
Well, kudos to you for correcting yourself. And, using this standard, shouldn’t you say, kudos to Diana for correcting herself? Instead, you say she deserves “scorn”?
Scorn? For what… for taking the risk of standing up and saying stuff to and among other Objectivists, and occasionally having the spontaneity backfire by mis-speaking or by not thinking something through, and then having to walk back something she said? Surely heaping scorn on such a person is a grave injustice.
This whole thread reminds me of the Peikoff Rape thread. When people are speaking extemporaneously, in the ring, so to speak, even if they are professional philosophers with something of a duty to accuracy in their thoughts, they’re still human and their previous opinions simply must be held in mind when deciding if your own understanding of what they said in the spur of the moment is a reasonably accurate representation of what was actually going on in their minds. If you get to the point where Leonard Peikoff advocates rape and Diana Hsieh advocates eating babies, look back at their record and actually check your premises before you check theirs. If they have what appear to be contradictions in their thoughts, feel free to ask for clarification, but when you assume the worst and the worst is almost patently absurd, your accusations say much more about you then they do about them to anyone caring enough to listen.
In other words, the fact that Raul, the former head of the NYC Mosque project, is not to be presumed to share the views of radical Islamic Totalitarians, who want to take over the world by force and destroy the United States in the process, even though he studied under them and clearly associates with them whenever he can. If he were serious about rejecting Islamic Totalitarianism, then he should come right out and condemn them as being evil and not want to run a mosque in their name and their policies, and would totally disassociate himself from them.
Hang on. Will you please provide your source on how “[Rauf] studied under [islamic totalitarians] and clearly associates with them whenever he can,”? Also, in regard to this line, “If he were serious about rejecting Islamic Totalitarianism, then he should come right out and condemn them as being evil and not want to run a mosque in their name and their policies, and would totally disassociate himself from them,” I am pretty sure I saw somebody post a link to him being interviewed on TV where he stated he rejected that stuff, but I must admit I’m having trouble finding it again now. If whoever posted it before sees this and can point me back to their post again I would really appreciate it.
I am pretty sure I saw somebody post a link to him being interviewed on TV where he stated he rejected that stuff, but I must admit I’m having trouble finding it again now.
Post 135 links to the interview. I’ve not seen the video myself yet, though.
Hang on. Will you please provide your source on how “[Rauf] studied under [islamic totalitarians] and clearly associates with them whenever he can,”? Also, in regard to this line, “If he were serious about rejecting Islamic Totalitarianism, then he should come right out and condemn them as being evil and not want to run a mosque in their name and their policies, and would totally disassociate himself from them,” I am pretty sure I saw somebody post a link to him being interviewed on TV where he stated he rejected that stuff, but I must admit I’m having trouble finding it again now. If whoever posted it before sees this and can point me back to their post again I would really appreciate it.
I provided a link to a long investigation byPJ Media regarding Rauf, and his associations with radical Islamic Totalitarians is well documented. “However, Rauf directly contradicted his conciliatory behavior [claiming he was against 911] with a firebrand interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. Terrorism, he stated, will end only when the West acknowledges the harm it has done to Muslims.” He makes references to WWII and to the US supporting dictators against Muslims, though he doesn’t mention that Islamic Theocracy of Iran is far worse, if freedom is his standard.
Read that link to the interview. It isn’t apparent that he thinks such actions are proper, just that it seems he can understand why some would be angry (though not necessarily approving of what they may do about that anger) and expects that the same kind of (what he hopefully acknowledges as bad) responses are likely to keep happening (even though they shouldn’t) as long as things pretty much stay the same.
It is absurd to think that the Muslims (radical Muslims) ought to still be so angry at the fire bombings of Dresden during WWII (in which the Muslim population of Germany sided with Hitler because he was against the Jews), that they would attack the USA as if the war is still going on. I’ve heard similar things from radical Muslims that take the fight all the way back to the Christian Crusades!
And this is being said by those who routinely riot and try to kill as many Westerners as they can when a Koran is said to have been burned, including four Americans just this week in Afghanistan when it was reported that a Koran was “accidentally burned” on our military base in Kabul. It’s just absurd to think that such mentalities are keeping some sort of rational context for the harm done to Muslims by the USA over the past 60 years.
The anger cited in that link isn’t about the WWII stuff, that was just citing other stuff America had done before that involved civilian targets. The anger he is talking about is about the stuff mentioned like support for dictators where these people live during their life times. I’m not saying anything about whether he is right or not about anything to do with those people’s motives, if that kind of thing has anything at all to do with it, but I am saying there is another explanation for his words than that he is agreeing with and cheering on the acts of terrorists.
I would venture to guess that of all the non-American, non-muslims in the world a majority think that the U.S. meddles in foreign countries, that the Jews ought not to have landed up in Palestine which was Arab land, that the CIA ought not to have engineered a coup in Iran and later supported the Shah and his Savak, etc. I would not be surprised to learn that a huge number of non-muslim Americans also think these things. I know for sure that a fair number of people who love Ayn Rand and Ron Paul do think stuff like that. It is quite valid to say that these people are wrong, and that their ideology is essentially anti-American. However, it is a huge step from there to thinking they want to attack the U.S.
Our foreign policy is not rational, in that we do not deal with other countries on a strictly pro-American interest basis. However, this does not mean that we should not meddle the way Ron Paul believes. And I would most definitely separate out the Libertarians from the Objectivists on this issue. But sure, these people do not come to the conclusion that America ought to be attacked by Muslims who feel like we have injured them in some way, though Ron Paul sympathizes with this attitude. The question is, what is the mentality of those who do claim that America ought to be attacked and destroyed because of our foreign policy? Some of them claim that we support dictators over the Muslims, but note that those same radical Muslims *do* want a dictatorship, only they want it based on the Koran rather than secular rule (such as Iraq with Hussein and Egypt with Mubarak ). So, they are not seeking freedom by any stretch of the imagination. And if they are going to riot every time Islam is “insulted” (like accidentally burning the Koran, which someone probably threw in the garbage on our base in Kabul), then the only way to deal with them is by force – and it doesn’t matter if we support a dictator to do that or institute a more American style government where they would be shot for rioting. At this point, at least six Americans have been killed over the Koran burning incident, and they want to overrun our base in Kabul and kill everyone inside. They need to be shot at the gates and told to act rationally or else. That anyone would sympathize with them is just gross irrationality.
The question of what we actually should or shouldn’t do in regard to foreign affairs from an Objectivist stance (IE, the correct one really) is aside from the matter. The point was not that people in the middle east are or are not justified in anger at the US over activities in their territory, just that the quotes from the guy show he does believe the anger is at least something he can understand and that he expects it to remain a fuel for terrorism as long as it lasts. Nothing about that though necessarily (and in fact, I’d say it is pretty unlikely considering other statements) shows he approves of terrorist tactics in response to that anger. That is the key point, that the source you gave saying he contradicted his claims of being opposed to terrorism does not actually show any such contradiction. So a source has been provided for him saying he does not support terrorism, including the attacks on 9/11, and there is not a source so far at least showing otherwise. You had stated that this Rauf guy, if he really opposes terrorism and Islamic totalitarianism, should denounce these things and it looks like he has in fact done so. The lack of condemnation of those things you had given as a reason to believe the mosque he was heading was going to be used to advocate violating rights of Americans, and that that was something that just could not be tolerated, not right now. So presently it looks like at least one of your reasons for believing that particular mosque is some unusually strong den of evil is not holding up. This is something which I think you had cited as some context being dropped by others and thus leading to them rationalizing.
There is other evidence against Rauf in that link I provided and if one keeps in mind Ayn Rand statements about joining the Communist Party and therefore endorsing the violent take-over of the USA and can be investigated as protection, then at a minimum in peace time, then Rauf could be investigated and kept track of due to the fact that he associates with those who do want to take down America with force (regardless of his explicit statements) and being an Imam advocating an ideology that says the infidel ought to be killed. However, we are not at peace, we are at war, so the rules change a bit. Unfortunately, we do not have an explicit declaration of war (say against Iran for being an Islamic Theocracy who pays for terrorism around the world), and so I am not sure what can actually be done about Rauf legally. With a formal declaration of war, I could see where he could be put on trial for treason, and hence his project could be shut down.
As to shutting down Ron Paul’s office because he is a sympathizer with the enemy, same conditions apply. He most certainly has disqualified himself as being President if we had a rational culture; and his foreign policy would be a disaster for the United States.
If whoever posted it before sees this and can point me back to their post again I would really appreciate it.