THE LEPERS OF OBJECTIVISM


Barbara Branden

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Robert, in particular, and all, of course...

That is definitely the show. I'll never forget it. I think I was even taping it but it was so awful I taped over it.

One thing there is, it looked like LP was either not mindful of preparation for a media interview, or maybe he just didn't care. Who knows? It was a fiasco, it was an embarrassment. It's so infrequent that AR related people really get a good media shot. Maybe they caught him unawares. I think if I weren't ready, couldn't be ready, I would've politely declined--that would have surely been better vs. what came out.

A good media coach would've stopped or corrected that in a heartbeat.

Barbara, I understand your point vis-a-vis "misguided." But, see, that is the peaceful position. My choice is to focus on the good in people, give him the benefit of the doubt, as they say. I want to, such as it is, send him the message that I look for better in the future. Scolding doesn't get one too far. Like NB said (he's said it different ways, I am trying to quote accurately from hearing him): "No one has ever reached the heights of glory by being told that he or she is rotten." So, what can I do other than to hope for better? He is, in fact, sorely misguided.

I said before-- I find that often, people who make these edicts have never experienced the pain of true violence. You learn something from that. Same as learning to fight...if you have taken a good smack-down, you know the terrain.

MSK-- Any true philosophy or religion is one of peace. Consider the source/nature of violence.

best,

r

EDIT, upon contemplation:

One could say that the bar was set by terrorist activities, 911. True, to a point. But, violence begats violence. Pretty soon, everyone runs "amok." It is very difficult on a visceral level to not let violence trigger more of the same.

"Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0)

amok 

–noun 1. (among members of certain Southeast Asian cultures) a psychic disturbance characterized by depression followed by a manic urge to murder.

–adjective 2. amuck.

—Idiom3. run or go amok. amuck (def. 3).

Also, amuck."

Edited by Rich Engle
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Robert Campbell: I also saw that O'Reilly Factor appearance by Peikoff, and was simply appalled -- not just by what he said, but by his eye-popping, strident-voiced demeanor. He looked completely out of control, a real moonbat.

If you are saying radical things, you shouldn't LOOK and SOUND like a wild-eyed nutcase in your demeanor.

That evening was a p.r. disaster for Objectivism.

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Stephen,

You make an interesting question when you ask about the following principle:

It is better that enormous numbers of innocent Iranians be killed collaterally than that one American soldier be killed.

Do you have any thoughts about that issue? Is Peikoff's principle morally sound?

I have not done some real heavy thinking on this issue, but what comes immediately to the surface is the following:

1. Attribution of equal shares of blame to a large group of people in demanding they all forfeit their lives as individuals.

2. Human life is scalable into "good human life" and "lesser human life."

3. We are not human beings as a primary. We are Americans as a primary, and metaphysically, this is a superior type of human being.

Boy, does all that smell like racism, especially the scapegoating variety. And, as Rand stated, racism is the lowest form of collectivism.

Punishing one person in equal measure for the wrongs of another person flies in the face of all that is rational.

This leads to your question about ensuring that not one American soldier be killed by massive slaughter of a group of people. The error in this thinking presupposes that we are the ones killing that soldier. We are not. and, frankly, neither are the civilians under discussion. There are some really evil bastards who are killing our soldiers and they are the ones who need to be taken out. Killing civilians to punish them is neither moral nor practical.

The real moral point that is completely overlooked with this kind of collectivist thinking is that we need to fight ideas with ideas and guns with guns.

Something just dawned on me. If a person thinks philosophy is a form of "programming" a mind, he will inevitably think that a religion like Islam has brainwashed an entire people to the extent that they cannot be "programmed" further. So the best solution is to blast them off the face of the earth. They are hopelessly rotten and beyond cognition. Ultimately, he thinks of philosophy as a method of controlling people's minds. (And guess who he imagines to be the controller?)

If we think of philosophy as a set of principles for use by human beings - all human beings - and that all human beings possess volition and can think for themselves, then we know that rational thought can be used to sway people.

Islam is a formidable intellectual foe. There are about a billion and a half people under its sway. As intellectuals, we should be analyzing its strengths, not just pointing a finger and proclaiming "altruism" and "jihad" all the time. We only convince ourselves. We certainly do not convince them. We should try to understand what are the mechanisms in Islam that convince people and offer better ideas on that level, in language they can understand. I have great faith in human beings. Not all Muslims will be convinced that way, but enough can be to make a difference. There are cracks all over the place in Islamic societies.

Michael

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MSK,

Wonderful.

I believe there is definitely something that can't be easily turned around the second you start the pigeonholing. Basically, this is a simple thing, it's called "prejudice."

It's probably the main catalyst of all human violence.

best,

r

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Michael, you wrote:

Biddle and the SLOPPERS are not just preaching wholesale slaughter of civilian people. Read the Biddle posts again.

He is preaching a war of conquest - of territorial expansion.

I read them, and I don't think this is an accurate reading of Biddle's blog post.

Biddle is right in line with Yaron Brooks et al, who are arguing that we should attack and deal with Iran for the same reasons and in the same way that we dealt with Japan in World War II. We were attacked by Iran (actually numerous times since 1979, including on 9/11, either directly by them or with their financial aid), and the Saudis did expropriate the oil fields developed non-aggressively by Western oil companies. We should destroy the Iranian regime and discredit their ideology and do so with a minimal loss of American lives, occupying them if necessary to get them going in with a more rational, rights-respecting system. There is nothing in this that implies "territorial expansion." But it most definitely does entail "conquest," i.e., destroying the enemy and ending their regime and its ideology's credibility.

I strongly suggest that OL'ers go to the Ayn Rand Bookstore website soon (TBA) and listen to Yaron Brooks' Sep. 12 2006 talk on America's failed foreign policy. He discusses this issue at length, both in the talk and in the QA session that follows. He is most emphatically NOT arguing for "territorial expansion." Just DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY. Which Bush et al are nowhere near achieving, because of the altruistic way they are fighting the Iraq war, not to mention attacking the wrong enemy in the first place.

Let me say it again: listen to Yaron's talk in its entirety. Do not ASSUME that you "know" he (and Biddle) favor war for territorial aggrandizement. Stick to the facts, please!

I reiterate that Objectivism is NOT a philosophy of peace -- or war -- any more than it is a philosophy of love vs. hate or non-violence vs. violence. As Ecclesiastes says, there is a time for all of these things, and you cannot say that one time is normal and another is not.

What you can say is that irrational hatred (e.g., hatred of the good for being good) or aggressive wars (e.g., wars of territorial expansion) are evil. But to say that Objectivism opposes war per se is no more true than to say that Objectivism opposes violence or hatred per se. (Sorry, Rich. Although violence does beget violence, violence in defense against violence is not evil or wrong, but instead profoundly moral and right, as long as it is appropriately directed.)

The concept of "peace" is being used as an anti-conceptual package deal. (As is the concept of "non-violence.") I am distressed to see people undercutting their case against the vicious excesses of the ARI proposals by tossing the term around as if it were a fundamental that cannot be denied, all for the sake of topical rhetoric. Islam is a "religion of peace" that has been hijacked by the Islamic totalitarians has become: Objectivism is a "religion of peace" that has been hijacked by Randian warmongers. It makes great rhetoric, but it's fuzzy Objectivism at its worst. (Sorry Robert B. and Michael.)

REB

P.S. -- I saw the O'Reilly broadcast with Peikoff foaming at the mouth, and I, too, was appalled. There has never been a better case for putting him out to pasture. At least Yaron is able to make the case calmly and clearly, without sounding like Hitler's nephew.

P.P.S. -- Stephen Boydstun, I don't know what to say about weighing the lives of thousands of innocent civilians against one American soldier. I'm glad it's not my choice to make. I do know that people in World War II were helping the Allies locate bomb targets in their own countries, knowing that they might be killed in the process; they wanted the Allies to bomb their country into oblivion, or at least submission. How much more repressive does the Iranian regime have to become before their masses of supposedly "liberal" and "Westernized" people would stand up and do the same, begging us to come and destroy their vicious ruling regime? This is what truly innocent people would do, in my opinion -- that, or get out and not be a party to their country's deadly policies. But to just stand by and be a passive human shield? Please don't kill me in order to kill him? Understandable, but not courageous or innocent, in my opinion.

The real question is: is targetting civilians necessary to ending the war -- and, not incidentally, preventing even more civilian deaths, not to mention the deaths of American combat personnel in an invasion force? I think there is no question that the bombing of H and N in Japan in 1945 was absolutely necessary. Up until that point, there had been suicide bombers (Zero pilots, etc.) who were willing to give their lives, as long as they thought the cause they were fighting for had a realistic chance of success. But once the regime was shown to be impotent and bankrupt -- it could not protect the people against those big bombs -- it was all over. (And as Yaron said, what's the difference between killing 100,000 people with one big bomb or 100,000 little bombs? They're just as dead either way. The main difference is that it's much less likely any American military personnel would die in delivering the one bomb than the 100,000.) The regime collapsed, and Japan surrendered. And guess what? There was no more suicide bombing after the surrender of Japan. And we did not commit "territorial expansion." This may be what we are faced with in Iran -- or not. I don't know. But if it is, I would support it, as I do what we did in Japan. (As for violence begetting violence, I don't recall Japan doing anything worse to us than kicking our asses in the auto and electronics industries. :-)

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Roger,

We disagree on two fundamental points. Read part of the the Biddle quote again. I'll give it below.

Notify the regime in Saudi Arabia that it got lucky and has the option of not being obliterated; that we are prepared instead to seize "its" oil fields and sell them to private industry, in part to pay for the campaign against Iran, and in part to return the fields to private industry where they belong; that it has 24 hours to turn the fields over to our agents...

If seizure isn't de facto territorial expansion, I don't know what is. Just because it doesn't become a state doesn't mean that the government of the USA will not rule. Who are "our agents" he is talking about? You said "Stick to the facts, please!" Well, I read that statement. That statement is a fact and it doesn't need a whole lot of "interpreting" to arrive at some "real meaning." It's pretty darn clear.

The other disagreement is one I am becoming familiar with when dealing with ARI arguments, lack of precision and pushing a statement by someone so far in one direction that is not recognizable anymore.

For instance, you say "Objectivism is not a philosophy of peace - or war..." and completely miss the point, going off into a tangent. Objectivism is a group of principles to guide man's understanding and choices, including coexistence among humn beings. Its overwhelming focus presumes peaceful coexistence when groups of humn beings are involved. War is only dealt with in a minor capacity. That is what is being stated - not what you imply (that peace is a philosophical fundamental all of a sudden).

The ARI/SLOPPERS are putting the focus on war and collectivism. They are restricting individual rights to mean "American individual rights" only, not a philosophical principle, and not just "defeat the enemy." They are now suggesting to kill massive numbers of a population for shock value.

The error I mentioned is even clearer - and explicit - here:

But to say that Objectivism opposes war per se...

The only person who ever said that idea anywhere on earth that I am aware of is you. And that was right here just now. I never said it. I have not read anything in Robert B's writings that says that.

I stand by what I wrote - with the full meaning as I meant.

Incidentally, Japan had a formal organized army engaged in a war of conquest and territorial expansion. Islamic terrorists like Al Queda are isolated ad hoc organizations operating independently of governments. This context needs to be considered with deployment of nukes. The only exception is Hezbollah and Hammas(ad hoc-wise, not nuke-wise). Isreal's recent actions were entirely proper since they both represent the people by popular vote.

(Edit - I just occurred to me that this post might sound aggressive on a personal level. It is not meant that way. I feel very strongly about these issues and try to be as precise as I can. I am sure that is where you are coming from, too.)

Michael

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I invite a rereading of "The Roots of War," in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Don't think my view is any different than Rand's. I thoroughly endorse what she said in that essay, and my view of the desire for peace is exactly in the sense she meant it.

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Roger,

In answer to my question, you replied:

"I don't know what to say about weighing the lives of thousands of innocent civilians against one American soldier. I'm glad it's not my choice to make. I do know that people in World War II . . ."

I don't know the answer either. The context in the War in the Pacific leading to the atomic bombing of Japan was different than the context in the Korean War. MacArthur wanted us to use atomic bombs against the Chinese rather than sacrifice our troops on the ground. Was MacArthur morally right in the sense that it would not be morally wrong to exercise that option? I'm not sure in a context such as the Korean War context.

Michael,

I know that your remarks on this issue are very exploratory. Thanks for your thoughts, tenative though they may be.

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Barbara, thank you for pointing out that there are a sizable number of Iranians who bravely advocate for reform and against their theocratic oppressors. I also remember the massive demonstrations of support in Iran for the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks. This outpouring was both spontaneous and genuine.

You write: "Are these students and other Iranians like them the people we should be nuking? We should be helping them in every way possible, helping them to break free of their tormentors, as we helped so many other courageous rebels in Eastern Europe when they were struggling to to break free of their Communist tormentors."

I couldn't agree more.

Mick

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> [is it] better that enormous numbers of innocent Iranians be killed collaterally than that one American soldier be killed. [stephen B]

This is a false alternative, especially with the loaded adjectives 'one' and 'enormous'.

It's not how collateral damage occurs. It's not the choice which presents itself in reality. It's one of those academic philosophy style extreme false alternatives that you encounteer in philosophy classes. No that Stephen is doing this, but they try to suck you into debating the kinds of floating abstraction, contextless questions which do not occur in the real world.

Rand discussed very briefly what's wrong with using this kind of head-scratcher in "The Ethics of Emergencies" as opposed to thinking in an empirical, inductive, Aristotelian manner about what *the actual war might look like*.

Another (more extreme) example to illustrate the philosophical mistake involved in even -asking- the question: "Suppose you had to kill everyone on earth so you could survive..."

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Phil,

As I understand it, Biddle's proposition is to shock and awe on a massive scale through widespread indiscriminate slaughter of Iranians by nuking them - and by intimidation of the rest of the surrounding countries with threat of the same - so not even one American soldier will run the risk of being killed. Also, he advocates formally seizing vast tracts of the territories for good measure.

You are probably correct that in today's world, this is not a viable alternative. (It also has low chances of success with terrorists. Can you imagine what the lives of American soldiers would be worth on seized lands and oil fields? Don't think Biddle doesn't know this - he does - which makes his proposition even more despicable.) But in tomorrow's world, should another attack of Islamic terrorism hit a high-profile target with numerous lives lost, it could start to gain some ground. Crowd hysteria is very hard to control once it gets rolling.

One good thing about all this, though. Rand noted once somewhere that the American character had a characteristic - it was slow to anger, but once angered, it was very decisive in acts of war. (Vietnam was an obvious exception, but there was no national anger either.) I think another part of the American character is a well-deserved pride in being morally superior to terrorists - and being willing to die for that value.

Michael

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Barbara and Michael:

Do you not think that the “leapers of Objectivists” are such a very small minority so as not to even give notice to them? That is, don’t you think that most all Objectivists share a reverence and true understanding of individual rights, [including property rights] success, rationality--but some merely have disagreements as to how best to protect those ideals and even how to implement them?

What’s more, these “Objectivists” cited, could it not be argued that they are not even really Objectivists? And as a matter of fact, that is?

Victor

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Victor,

"Really Objectivists?" Good Lord! What on earth is that in this context? Every one you talk to will tell you that others are not "really Objectivists," but they are instead.

If we adopt and advocate the fundamentals of Rand's writings, philosophically, we are all Objectivists - even them. That might not be a form of worship or denomination, however, like "them" would have it.

I don't see any problem with Barbara's present reaction. For a long time she has been publicly called the vilest of names for the pettiest of reasons by the acolytes of this denomination of Objectivism. Now this very same denomination of Objectivism is preaching - gleefully preaching (at the start, not so much now) - indiscriminate nuking of an entire civilization, targeting places where women and children group, because they are scared shitless.

Are you asking for tolerance from Barbara?

:)

Michael

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Michael,

Well, I have a pretty clear idea of what an Objectivist is, and I can’t account for other people’s ideas on the subject --and so I stand alone. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But here’s an example of what I mean: You believe in God—or any variant of the supernatural? Not an Objectivist. You think that a woman should be president. Good, it’s a non-essential. You advocate a controlled economy? One that clearly violates rights—not an Objectivist. You like rock music, not classical. Who cares?

But it's not based on my 'sez-so.' A millionare church going venture capitalist Marxist? How?

This is a basic idea, and I think it is all very reasonable.

Victor

PS

As to your question about Barbara...sure. Sounds good. :)

Edited by Victor Pross
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Victor,

I have an article coming on who is an Objectivist that should be interesting, but we already have a lot of good discussion on it in several threads in About Objectivism.

Do you really think Barbara should turn the other cheek and show mercy to those who constantly crucify her when they present a morally despicable agenda to the public?

Should she appease them?

Is that what a "real Objectivist" should do?

Michael

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Is that what a "real Objectivist" should do? That's what you ask? I don’t think it’s of a philosophical nature, but one of bad manners and is a matter for Emily Post. This is a tongue-in-cheek fast reply. How could I answer a question like that? In that, why would I proscribe what she "should" do? What nerve I would have.

But I wouldn't...speaking for myself. No, sir. [unless that person made a public apology and if I believed in that person's sincerity].

Edited by Victor Pross
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Roger,

I just did what Robert Bidinotto implicitly suggested and reread "The Roots of War" by Ayn Rand. I found an interesting paragraph that sums up whether Objectivism is a fundamentally a philosophy of peace or not. I was surprised by Rand's use of the phrase "fundamentally opposed to war."

Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force from social relationships. By the nature of its basic principles and interests, it is the only system fundamentally opposed to war.

Laissez-faire capitalism is a fundamental part of Objectivism. To be fair, she also mentions right to self-defense on a national level and even nuclear weapons. Rand's main identification of the roots of war, however, is statism supported by a tribalistic mentality.

Apropos, do you happen to see a tribalistic mentality around somewhere in the Objectivist subculture? One screaming bloody murder?

:)

Rand wrote the following paragraph from the same essay with a different context in mind (Korea and Vietnam) and she was criticizing pacifists who condone dictatorships, not Objectivist nuke-mongers preaching slaughter of unarmed target groups, but it falls so much in line with what we are discussing that I cannot resist giving it. Our whole context has changed, too, with a new factor, organized terrorism on a worldwide scale, in addition to statist governments.

It is true that nuclear weapons have made wars too horrible to contemplate. But it makes no difference to a man whether he is killed by a nuclear bomb or a dynamite bomb or an old-fashioned club. Nor does the number of other victims or the scale of the destruction make any difference to him—and there is something obscene in the attitude of those who regard horror as a matter of numbers, who are willing to send a small group of youths to die for the tribe, but scream against the danger to the tribe itself—and more: who are willing to condone the slaughter of defenseless victims, but march in protest against wars between the well-armed.

I am aware that some of this is apparently ambivalent with what I have been saying, but look deeply into the concepts, not just the similarities, and see if it doesn't fit.

Michael

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A phrase occurred to me in my sleep, but it hit me so strongly that it deserves a separate post.

The message that Biddle and all those who propose nuking large portions of a population is sending to dictators and the rest of the world is the following:

We sanction your statist government's right to attack its unarmed population so long as you do not attack us. And don't worry about slaughtering your unarmed innocent citizens. In the name of Objectivism, we will do it for you.

Michael

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Roger,

I just did what Robert Bidinotto implicitly suggested and reread "The Roots of War" by Ayn Rand. I found an interesting paragraph that sums up whether Objectivism is a fundamentally a philosophy of peace or not. I was surprised by Rand's use of the phrase "fundamentally opposed to war."

Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force from social relationships. By the nature of its basic principles and interests, it is the only system fundamentally opposed to war.

Laissez-faire capitalism is a fundamental part of Objectivism. To be fair, she also mentions right to self-defense on a national level and even nuclear weapons. Rand's main identification of the roots of war, however, is statism supported by a tribalistic mentality.

Apropos, do you happen to see a tribalistic mentality around somewhere in the Objectivist subculture? One screaming bloody murder? :)

"The Roots of War" was written in 1966. In 1967 Rand wrote "The Wreckage of the Consensus," in which she said: "When a nation resorts to war, it has some purpose, rightly or wrongly, something to fight for--and the only justifable purpose is self-defense." (p. 224, emphasis added)

If you re-read the passage from "The Roots of War" in its full context, it is clear that it implies that laissez-faire capitalism, in being "fundamentally opposed to war," nonetheless also supports war for the purpose of self-defense. Laissez-faire capitalism opposes war precisely when and because "men...are free to produce." When we are free to produce, we "have no incentive to loot;" we "have nothing to gain from war and a great deal to lose." Both ideologically and economically, a man who is free to produce is a man whose "interests are on the side of peace." (p. 38, also see p. 37)

But that is precisely the situation in which we are NOT living today. We have been under attack by Iran since 1979 (the long string of incidents in which U.S. military and civilians have been attacked and killed is shocking when you see it in sequence) -- and the property of American citizens (oil production and distribution facilities) was expropriated earlier than that in Saudi Arabia.

Increasing numbers of our citizens are NOT left "free to produce" by the Iranians and Saudis -- i.e., are killed, kidnapped, and looted by those governments. Our interests, as Americans also in danger from the actions of these governments, are NOT on the side of peace with those governments. Instead, it is clear that the U.S. must do something decisive about those countries, before they do more and even worse things to American citizens. We are and have been in a state of war with those countries. We just haven't declared war on them yet!

So, to answer your (rhetorical?) question properly -- are some Objectivists engaging in tribal mentality war mongering -- I would first have to identify whether the folks "somewhere in the Objectivist subculture" are advocating that (1) we attack Iran and Saudi Arabia for the purpose of looting their wealth, and (2) that this attack is an initiation of force/war, rather than for the purpose of self-defense, in response to attacks on our rights by those countries.

Iranian wealth has never been an issue, so far as I know. But the Saudis? Their wealth? I don't think so. It's not looting if wasn't theirs to start with. It's restoring it to its rightful owners, the U.S. oil companies that peacefully developed it, before it was seized from them by the Saudis.

Initiation of force? Who started it? And who has been supporting it with money, intelligence, and logistical support since the 1970s? Not the U.S., but Iran. Iran is the spiritual and material fountainhead of the Islamic totalitarian attacks against the U.S. and others during the past four decades.

All of this tells me that we need to separate the question about whether the proposal for war itself is a just one from the question about whether the kind of war strategies being proposed are just. I'm inclined to think that a war with Iran (and possibly Saudi Arabia) is necessary and proper -- and more than inclined to think that the proposed deliberate, selective bombing of schools and mosques is unnecessary and improper.

That said, I would give the Iranian government 48 hours to surrender (and innocent civilians to move to safety), and then I would nuke Teheran and Qum. Heavy leafletting of the "liberal," "Westernized" population, to give them a chance to rise up against their leaders and take down the regime from within -- but if they don't take responsibility (or at least get out of Dodge before H-hour), they go down with the regime.

I'm sure the "tribalist warmongering Objectivists" would think my proposal too namby-pamby. If so, they can kiss my ass. I'm not into blitzkrieg genocide. Just nice, garden-variety, fair-warning devastation. Oh, yes, and victory over the Islamo totalitarians, who have been waging a piecemeal war against us for nearly 40 years, and who have stated their intention to destroy us and Israel first chance they get.

REB

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I have to smile. Tehran has a population of 14 million people. 48 hours?

Are you thinking about goats and camels and long trains of people on foot in the desert?

No, because I don't think the population of Teheran is so stupid or passive as to allow their regime to invite this catastrophe on them by refusing to surrender. They're not French after all. (Do you hear me, Nick Otani? :-)

REB

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Roger

I just did a bit of investigating on the Saudi Oil fields and my hunches were absolutely spot on - and guess by whom of all people? Chris Sciabarra. Please read this article on the Saudi Arabia oil field thing written by Chris.

Here is how American companies have "peacefully" developed such "property" in foreign countries (and I have seen this from the inside). They bribe the hell out of whomever is in power. They get a monopoly. They set up business.

The root of the property rights you are defending is the right to obtain monopolies through bribery and maintain them through government protection (also paid for with bribery) - because that is exactly what happened in Saudi Arabia. (Guess what other monopoly/bribery monkey-business has been done with infrastructure construction and operation? The situation is really, really ugly on all sides. Objectivists need to do a reality check on this because making constant sweeping moral denunciatory statements based on that kind of history - and ignoring it - turns the philosophy into a laughingstock of double-standards.)

And, like Chris mentioned, the major US players are all still in the game over there and they are all still making oodles of cash. Do you know of any one that went bankrupt because of the expropriation? Gimme a break! Here is a paragraph from his article I linked above:

I’ve long argued that U.S. companies short-sighted enough to enter into contracts with foreign governments like those of the former Soviet Union or Saudi Arabia—which had/have a poor history of upholding private property rights—should not have the right to hold American taxpayers and lives hostage to their stupidity. “We” do not have an obligation to bail out Western oil companies whose property was “expropriated” by the House of Sa’ud. A cursory look at the history of oil development in Saudi Arabia would show us, in any event, that the Western oil industry has been in bed—“embedded” if you will—with their ‘expropriators’ from the beginning. Nothing much has actually changed since the Saudi government ‘took over’ the oil by successively increasing its share of the Arabian-American Oil Company (ARAMCO); U.S. administrators, technicians, and personnel are still firmly in place and U.S. oil companies like Exxon-Mobil remain at the forefront of all new oil exploration in the country.

Using the US military to recapture that kind of property is most definitely a war of territorial expansion.

I also think you are missing the main point of Rand's essay, "The Roots of War." You don't just stop supporting a statist government by bombing it. You stop doing business with it. Period. You certainly don't bribe dictators and their staff for monopolies.

Where are the ARI people saying, "Let us shut down our businesses immediately"? They are not saying that. And yes, they are interested in - and preaching - territorial expansion.

I am not against dismantling statist governments by military force. As Rand said, they attack their unarmed population. Now some are supporting attacks on the world and they have to be stopped. I have no doubt the days of this government of Iran are numbered.

But let us have a reality check. We don't nuke innocents to defend gross hypocrisy. ARI might preach that crap. I don't.

Michael

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Christian: "Viva la rabbia! Bombs away!" But of course.

Phil: You wrote that the question of whether "it is better that enormous numbers of innocent Iranians be killed than that one American soldier be killed" -- is a false alternative. That "it's not the choice which presents itself in reality." Thanks. You beat me to it.

Victor, you asked if these "lepers of Objectivism" aren't such a small minority that they can be ignored. If it were merely the Solo poepole who held this position, I would say they certainly should be ignored as the lunatic fringe of Objectivism. But apparenty a great many ARI people also sanction the lepers' view -- as evidenced by Craig Biddle and his ARI staff of writers. And ARI has a public face; unfortunately, it is seen by many -- and by a substantial element in the media -- as the face and voice of Objectivism. Because of this, it should not be ignored; it should be denounced as anthithetical to Objectivism.

You also asked if I think that most Objectivists share the same ideals and merely disagree about how to implement them. It's apparent to me that many who call themselves Objectivists -- and I'm speaking here of people within the Objectivist movement -- have psychological rather than philosophical reasons for some of the positions they advocate, and that, in such cases, psychology trumps philosophy. For instance, I do not see how advocating the nuking of millions of innocent people can be interpreted as even a wrong-headed commitment to the sanctity of the individual and to rational self-interest. Or how airbrushing "enemies" out of existence can be interpreted as even a wrong-headed commitment to honesty and integtrity. I could go on and on with a llist of such examples, which I intend to do in an article I'm writing on the subject.

As for Objectivists who are outside the movement, my feeling is -- although I don't have hard evidence for it ---that the more intelligent and thoughtful among them probably do share, in a generalized sense, the actual ideals of Objectivism.

Michael, thank you for defending my lack of "tolerance." Let me say that, as you know, I am endlessly tolerant of misunderstandings of Objectivism, of disagreements with it, etc; but I have not an iota of tolerance for those who attempt to translate Objectivism into a philosophy of hate and destruction, into an outlet for their own venom and inadequacies. In my talk on "Objectivism and Rage," I attempted to explain some of the philosohical and psychological reasons for such translations, but I did not say that they should be tolerated. They should be exposed and refuted.

Barbara

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Roger: "The problem with Craig Biddle et al is not that they advocate war, or even the killing of large numbers of people (which is what war does), but that they advocate the deliberate targeting of non-combatants. It's one thing to incur civilian deaths as collateral damage in wartime, but it's quite another to deliberately aim at them because they are teaching or learning the ideas that some carry out in violent, rights-violating action. There is no such thing as a thought crime--and thus no such thing as deserving punishment for holding the wrong ideas. I thought Objectivists all understood this."

Agreed.

Roger: "The real question is: is targetting civilians necessary to ending the war -- and, not incidentally, preventing even more civilian deaths, not to mention the deaths of American combat personnel in an invasion force? I think there is no question that the bombing of H and N in Japan in 1945 was absolutely necessary. Up until that point, there had been suicide bombers (Zero pilots, etc.) who were willing to give their lives, as long as they thought the cause they were fighting for had a realistic chance of success. But once the regime was shown to be impotent and bankrupt -- it could not protect the people against those big bombs -- it was all over".

Well said.

Barbara

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