AlanCFA2001

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About AlanCFA2001

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    Alan Charbonneau

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  1. Wow! After reading your post, it just dawned on me that Leonard Peikoff and Libertarian Party have the same initials! Coincidence?
  2. It took years of hard investigative journalism, but it was worth it! Now, like Ayn Rand finishing Atlas Shrugged, I'm not sure exactly what to do next. I thought about having an affair with a woman 25 years younger than me, but my wife is not enamoured of the idea (damned traditionalist!).
  3. Thanks - the silliness of the Valliant book and some of the nonsense at NoodleFood is truly mind-numbing. One person there, commenting on the split with Rand, said that Rand "never trusted" Nathaniel and Barbara Branden (I can't find the quote, so it is possible that it was made at some other anti-Branden site). Diana Hsieh writes about hearing Nathaniel speak about Objectivism: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2006/03/my-...nd-barbara.html Nathaniel Branden, the man declared by Rand herself as her "intellectual heir", the man to whom Atlas Shrugged was dedicated, the man who lectured and wrote about Objectivism with Rand's blessing, had a grasp of Objectivism that was "superficial at best"? I would have loved to include that in my parody but I could not find a way to make that any more of a parody than it already is. Diana Hsieh must know more about Objectivism than Ayn Rand did if her judgement about Nathaniel's "grasp of Objectivism" is more accurate than Rand's judgement was. Glad you had some giggles. Alan
  4. Glad you guys liked it. I prefer subtle humor, but the source material of my paraody was itself a parody of investigative writing so there was only room for subtlety of the Three Stooges variety. Alan
  5. Ok. My initial deadpan response was meant to be humorous, not to drive a philosophical stake in the ground. Leonard writes that "There are men other than criminals or dictators to whom it is moral to lie. For example, lying is necessary and proper in certain cases to protect one’s privacy from snoopers". Since Lenny does not fall into the criminals or dictators categories, I was joking that such would only leave the third category of snooper to justify Rand's lies to him. Frankly, as MSK wrote, I think that it was wrong of Rand to lie to Leonard, but it is not that big of a deal to me. I just think that it is silly for Leonard to come off with high moralistic proclamations and give Rand a pass either explicitly (if he has justified her behavior to himself) or implicitly (he does not feel that she was justified, but will not pubically state so).
  6. There are people in this world who, believe it or not, do not call themselves Objectivists and yet would still not need anybody to tell them that if a maniac with a bloody knife showed up at their door they should not feel obligated to answer him fully and honestly. After suffering through 50 or so pages of The Ominous Parallels, I opted not to pursue the taped courses or Leonard's other writings. As to whether he wrote about "snoopers" before or after PAR, the questions remain: does Leonard justify Rand lying to him about the affair with Branden because she considered him a "snooper", does he justify it on some other basis, or does he think that it was not justified? I do not know the answer, but it must be one of these three if he had given the subject any thought. Do you know the answer? BTW, Leonard is not my enemy and I do not think that he had sex with swamp creatures (a little French kissing is not sex).
  7. Good point. Perhaps Peikoff thinks of himself as a "snooper" and he justifies Rand's lies to him on that basis. I can't read minds (else I'd post at NoodleFood), but that seems to be a reasonable guess. Alan
  8. Does that mean that Rand considered Peikoff a "snooper"?