THE LEPERS OF OBJECTIVISM

[Rich Engle]

Shayne thinks the main problem in life is all the poseurs:

All of the evils of the world can be traced to people who characteristically do this. All of the good can be traced to people who characteristically take due care before pronouncing in thoughts, words, and deeds their certainty about some matter.

Well, they're definitely a pain-in-the-ass; always have been, always will be. But they're not responsible for all the evils of the world. Osama Bin Ladin, for instance is an educated man, he chooses his words carefully. But theres that whole megalomaniac problem and such...

There are definitely intelligent evil-doers. You can be intelligent and still a murderous psychotic, no?

But I do think you're onto something. It's this ivory tower crap out of people like Biddle and now I guess Brook that makes life more difficult to live. And again, chickenhawks, I say. I wonder what he'd say if we went ahead with his fiendish masterplan, with the caveat that one of his kids or wife or whatever had to be on ground zero.

Of course, with these guys they might continue to say yes anyway.

Chickenhawks, though. Like I said earlier, they know nothing of catastrophy and pain. They couldn't even take a bitch-slap in a bar, fer chrissakes!

rde

If it has professor patches, 50/50 Vegas odds I'm going after it.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Christian,

Sorry if there was any insinuation on my part about feigning knowledge. I don't think you ever intended that on any post I have read and I don't think you would ever do that.

Michael

[sjw]

I think the focus on a couple one-line quotes is misplaced.

Along these lines: Has anyone at this site recognized the *good* that is in the Brook/Epstein article? Its target, Just War Theory, is a valid one, and most of the arguments they make are valid. They only go off track late in the article. (Biddle on the other hand seems to mostly have picked up on the bad parts).

Shayne

[sjw]

I still hold that you and Christian are both good guys.

Well I know I am ;) None of my comments are intended to say someone is a "bad guy"; I'm just responding to what's been posted.

On the issue of feigning knowledge, I not only agree, I got half-way through composing a song in Brazil about a father singing to his newborn son and promising to never teach him what he himself doesn't know. I might try to do something with this in English later as the theme is extremely important. I have seen a lot of people not only feign knowledge, they teach what they don't know and start making it up when they get stuck.

I was just in Philadelphia thinking about how I'd rewrite the bit about "we hold these truths to be self-evident", and came to the conclusion that a revised Declaration of Independence would include some statement about never promoting something in government without being certain first. Taking personal risks based on personal ignorance is one thing; passing laws without knowing for sure they are valid is quite another.

There's a lot more to say about this, but let me just say that I think your parenting idea is very wise.

There is a danger in Objectivism with this. It is called "thinking in principles." There is nothing wrong and a lot right with thinking in principles, but not if that is the only thinking a person does.

I think I agree with what you mean here, but "thinking in principles" does not mean "thinking only in abstractions". Binswanger said it well when he said: "Concretization is not an aid to thinking, it *is* the thinking." You're right that many Objectivists think only or mainly in floating abstractions.

Shayne

[sjw]

Shayne thinks the main problem in life is all the poseurs:

Not quite.

Well, they're definitely a pain-in-the-ass; always have been, always will be. But they're not responsible for all the evils of the world. Osama Bin Ladin, for instance is an educated man, he chooses his words carefully. But theres that whole megalomaniac problem and such...

There are definitely intelligent evil-doers. You can be intelligent and still a murderous psychotic, no?

I intend a much broader scope, and it most definitely includes Bin Laden. You'd say that he acts with certainty based on false premises, no?

Shayne

[Barbara Branden]

Once we begin killing people for their ideas, should we not move from Islamites to environmentalists? After all, it is environmentalists who have stopped us from the wide use of atomic energy, and thus have helped enrich the oil-producing Islamist countries that are our enemies. And I'm sure we could find reasons to move from environmentalists to many other ideological groups. Why, once we started, there would be no stopping us until only Objectivists were left -- and damn few of those.

Barbara

P.S. I was more on the mark than I realized in my talk on "Objectivism and Rage," when I discussed the fallacy of the belief in "evil ideas."

[reason.on]

Compare & Contrast

The following quotes are from Brook's discussion of "Just War" theory.

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues...-war-theory.asp

"In the case of our refusal to take or threaten military action against the leading sponsors of Islamic terrorism, we see the true meaning of the restrictions of Just War Theory regarding when a nation can go to war, and how it must fight. A nation that will go to war only as a "last resort," in response to a "just cause," with "good intentions"—and once it goes, employ "proportionality" and "discrimination"—is a nation that will endure unnecessary risks and even mass death before going to war. And even if it goes to war, it will fight with both hands tied behind its back. Just War Theory, to summarize, is the application of the morality of altruism to war. It holds that the citizens of an innocent nation are not ends in themselves, but means to some "higher" end. In today's version, it claims that the citizens of an innocent nation can "defend" themselves—as a means to realizing the goal of sacrificing themselves to the needs of others (including those who are in fact their enemies). This is not a right to self-defense, but a "duty" to practice altruism.

To the extent that Just War Theory is practiced, it leads to unnecessary fear, suffering, and death visited on innocent nations—and to the rise of evil movements and regimes—all while it claims to be virtuous and practical.

Because it purports to support self-defense while actually forbidding its preconditions, Just War Theory is uniquely dangerous. Unlike pacifism, it is eminently plausible to today's Americans. Americans will not accept en masse a theory that explicitly forbids them self-defense against their evil enemies. But they will accept a theory that claims to endorse both self-defense and the altruistic morality that they have grown up believing is the ideal. They do not realize that it is either–or."

[snip]

"Once the basic egoist view of morality and government is understood, the egoist view of war follows readily: The sole moral purpose of war is the same as the sole moral purpose of any other action by a proper government—that is, to protect the individual rights of its citizens. Every moral issue pertaining to war must be judged by this standard—and only by this standard."

[snip]

"To fight and win a proper war of self-defense requires two basic courses of action: (1) objectively identify the nature of the threat and (2) do whatever is necessary to destroy the threat and return to normal life, with minimum loss of life and liberty on the part of the citizens of the defending nation"

[snip]

"As for what to do about any given threat, egoism gives the crucial sanction, in enemy territory, to kill and destroy whomever and whatever needs to be killed and destroyed in order to end the threat to the victim country. Such a policy, contrary to Just War Theory, upholds both the principle of justice and the principle of individual rights. Depending on the circumstances, legitimate targets can include the leaders, soldiers, and civilians of the enemy nation."

[snip]

"Any true freedom fighter caught in America's fire understands the nature of the situation his nation has put us in, supports our cause, hopes for the best, and blames his government and fellow citizens for the danger he is placed in. He recognizes the principle that any innocent deaths in war are the sole moral responsibility of the aggressor nation."

It seems to me that Brook is arguing that in terms of self-defence the egoist and by proxy the egoist's governemnt is morally obliged to ONLY act in his own "self-interest", while ingoring the interests of everyone else (including those who are in fact not his enemies). Further, according to Brook, to consider the interests of anyone else (enemy or not) when self-defence is on the line is to practice self-sacrifice, and therefore altruism; "it is either–or"

Considering that Brook envokes Rand's work as the foundation of his arguement, I'd like to post the following from a discussion of Just War theory on A2, where GHS posted a quote from one of Rand's letters to Hospers, the contrast is illuminating:

"Now, the extremely important issue of 'Traditional Egoism.' You write: 'Traditionally, egoism has meant acting for one's self-interest only, and ignoring the interests of everyone else.' Then you describe the 'traditional egoist' and ask me in what sense I call myself an egoist. Observe that the description you give (the traditional view of egoism) is a description of 'Attila': it assumes that one judges one's self-interest by the narrowest range of the immediate moment, without any context, without any concern for past or future, for standards, principles, means or ends, without any *reasons* behind one's choices, actions, or decisions...."

"An egoist is a man who acts for his own self-interest. This does not yet tell us what his self-interest *is.* On what ground is it then assumed that an egoist does or must judge his self-interest by the arbitrary whim of the moment? On what ground is it assumed that his interests are antagonistic to or incompatible with the interests of others? On what ground is it assumed that human relationships have no *personal* value to a man and that an egoist must be indifferent to all other human beings? On what ground is 'Attila' supposed to represent the archetype of egoism -- and why is 'Attila's' view of self-interest taken as *the* view and the essence of self-interest?"

"As you see, the 'traditional' concept of egoism is a 'loaded,' groundless, unwarranted, unjustifiable package-deal: purporting to define only the basic motivation of a man (self-interest), it then

proceeds to prescribe the specific concretes allegedly representing man's self-interest -- and thus substitutes the concrete values of 'Attila' for the abstraction 'self-interest.'"

"I certainly maintain that an egoist *is* a man who acts for his own self-interest and that man *should* act for his own self-interest. But the concept of "self-interest" identifies only one's motivation, *not*

the nature of the values that one should choose. The issue, therefore, is: *what* is the nature of man's self-interest?"(*Letters of Ayn Rand,* pp. 553-4).

RCR

[Brant Gaede]

Can Yaron Brook`come up with a "Just War" theory that eschews genocide? If so, can the anti-genocide principle be extended to "deliberating targeting civilians?"

--Brant

Edited October 22, 2006 by Brant Gaede

[sjw]

Barbara & RCR,

I agree that they went too far, but they're right to be critical of the war philosophy the Bush administration is adhering to, and their criticism is for the most part right on the money.

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I agree that they went too far, but they're right to be critical of the war philosophy the Bush administration is adhering to, and their criticism is for the most part right on the money.

Shayne,

One thing should be very clear throughout all this discussion. The Bush administration's war philosophy is one thing. Advocating the killing of people for holding ideas is another. This is not simply a matter of degree in criticizing war philosophy. This is a whole other philosophical animal.

And on Bush's war philosophy, his actual war philosophy is quite good. Both Afghanistan and Iraq fell in record time with minimum lost to American life. His post-war (or occupation) philosophy is terrible.

Michael

[sjw]

One thing should be very clear throughout all this discussion. The Bush administration's war philosophy is one thing. Advocating the killing of people for holding ideas is another. This is not simply a matter of degree in criticizing war philosophy. This is a whole other philosophical animal.

I totally agree. I should have mentioned that.

And on Bush's war philosophy, his actual war philosophy is quite good. Both Afghanistan and Iraq fell in record time with minimum lost to American life. His post-war (or occupation) philosophy is terrible.

What I'm referring to is what the Brook/Epstein article was arguing against in roughly the first 2/3 of it. Namely that, contrary to "Just War Theory", we are not morally required to take great risks at loss of life on our side in order to prevent loss of innocent life on their side.

This is where they were right but also why they were so wrong: They properly argue that it is immoral to require of ourselves to take great risks of defeat and loss of our own lives in order to prevent innocent deaths on the other side, but also in effect argue that it is immoral to take even a minimal risk or cost in order to prevent loss of innocent life. Clearly they don't want innocents to die, but by their method of thinking (simplistic deduction from principles) they could not figure out a principled way out, so they in effect said: To hell with innocents.

Has anyone at OL posted the principled way out? On the face of it it I take it that it seems like a slippery slope to many; that there's only a pragmatic balancing of our lives vs. theirs possible. A few years ago I posted the proper approach to the old SoloHQ and Bidinotto and several others agreed with me about it, perhaps I'll share it here. If anyone thinks a good solution was posted to this forum I'd appreciate a link.

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Shayne,

If you can find your former thoughts on this, I would love to read them (although I admit I cringe at the designation "the principled way out"). I have a feeling they will make a lot more sense than what the ARI people have done so far. I didn't understand the request for a link, unless you meant that you didn't know where your posts were anymore.

I agree with you that the ARI people do not want innocents to die, but arrived at the "to hell with the innocents" approach through oversimplification - just as those against the ARI view certainly do not want American soldiers to die.

There is one fundamental item in the mix, though, that should not be forgotten: the tribal element.

The military is essentially a political organization and serves the political purpose of protecting a society (or country, nation, social organization, whatever one wants to call it). The ARI arguments I have read so far elevate the military to a metaphysical status, where its sole purpose is to protect some people, say Americans, as a collective, not as a nation of individuals, and it is a mechanism not really made up of human beings - only of Americans. That's the metaphysical part - making "American" substitute "human being" existence-wise.

So to ARI thinking (according to what I have read so far), in war, only politics exists as fundamental. Metaphysics, epistemology and ethics don't go out the window, but they are reduced to being valid only for a collective (Americans). Thus it is proper to kill all people without provocation when they belong to another tribe if our tribe believes there is a threat from anyone in the other tribe.

What bothers me about all this is not that there are a few misguided souls running around talking this stuff. It is the fact that if someone in power absorbs these ideas, he puts them into practice. This has happened with other ideologies that used tribalism with high-falutin sounding justifications. And reality - especially about human nature (which still needs a lot of work in Objectivism) - always kicks in. Organized power can and does grow from such observations as the ARI ones, but the result is always vastly more brutal and unjust that what was preached.

Almost all recent dictatorships have noble motives at base, not wholesale slaughter, repression and poverty. But that's what you get when all bets are off force-wise with a moral sanction for a tribe. Reality will not be denied, not even for good tribal intentions somewhat based on Rand's ideas.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Shayne: "They properly argue that it is immoral to require of ourselves to take great risks of defeat and loss of our own lives in order to prevent innocent deaths on the other side, but also in effect argue that it is immoral to take even a minimal risk or cost in order to prevent loss of innocent life."

I agree with you that this is their posiition. But I'm not at all sure that the abandon with which some of them, doubtless not all of them, dispose of innocent lives -- in mosques and schools, and during the day when the most people would be present -- indicates that "they don't want innocents to die." Rather, they seem to be saying that there are no innocents in an enemy nation, and that we must kill people of alien ideologies.

Yes, I am interested in seeing what you consider a principled approach to the problem.

Barbara

[L W HALL]

This is where they were right but also why they were so wrong: They properly argue that it is immoral to require of ourselves to take great risks of defeat and loss of our own lives in order to prevent innocent deaths on the other side, but also in effect argue that it is immoral to take even a minimal risk or cost in order to prevent loss of innocent life. Clearly they don't want innocents to die, but by their method of thinking (simplistic deduction from principles) they could not figure out a principled way out, so they in effect said: To hell with innocents

This is the wall that many of us wind up running into; to what extent do we go to try and avoid the death of innocents in an aggressor nation. I don't see anyone calling for the senseless slaughter of our troops in order to save innocent lives, however, I do see many calling for a reasoned approach to how we deal with these same innocents in wartime.

I would also like to read your proposal, Shayne.

L W

[reason.on]

Shayne: "They properly argue that it is immoral to require of ourselves to take great risks of defeat and loss of our own lives in order to prevent innocent deaths on the other side, but also in effect argue that it is immoral to take even a minimal risk or cost in order to prevent loss of innocent life."

I agree with you that this is their posiition. But I'm not at all sure that the abandon with which some of them, doubtless not all of them, dispose of innocent lives -- in mosques and schools, and during the day when the most people would be present -- indicates that "they don't want innocents to die." Rather, they seem to be saying that there are no innocents in an enemy nation, and that we must kill people of alien ideologies.

I agree with what BB has written here. To summarize again, it appears to me that Brook is arguing that when we ask the question, "what are the ethics of war", the only moral response ought to be, "what ever actions should 'objectively' spring from 'self-interest'". There is little or no consideration for WHAT is in one's self-interest, only that IT (self-interest, the abstraction itself) must be pursued. As such, in terms of self-defence, anything goes, and the rights of innocents are at worst non-existent, and at best not within the realm of "objective" consideration (as Brook goes to considerable trouble to explain).

I also think that with his essay Brook has not only misapplied egoism in his foreign policy prescriptions (tending more towards the "Traditional Egoism" that Rand so despised), but also attacked little more than a straw man of Just War theorists and their work. After all, is not Brook simply presenting what be believes are the objective conditions and methods for a "just war"?

RCR

[reason.on]

I previously posted a Rand quote that ghs had posted over on A2 in a similar discussion on just war theory.

I'd also like to post some excellent comments that ghs made with regard to this very topic (also on A2), George's remarks provide not only some conceptual clarity, but also provide various jumping off points for further reading--and again I'd like to note that the contrast with Brook's treatment is illuminating.

There are several major traditions of just war theory. The one most relevant to our interests is what I call the "individualistic" tradition, whose most influential proponents were the 17th century philosophers Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf. In calling this tradition "individualistic," I am not referring to conclusions or doctrines per se, but to a method of analysis. This method consisted of beginning with the rights of individuals and then ascertaining what an individual may properly do in self-defense. Since philosophers in this tradition generally agreed that all rights are ultimately individual rights (Pufendorf and others noted one major exception to this that needn't concern us here), it followed that no government may properly take actions during war that would, in principle, be improper for individuals to take in a "state of nature."

Although this basic method is sound, it presents certain theoretical problems for modern libertarians -- most notably the assumption that nation-states may be regarded as sovereign individuals relative to other nation states. Hence a lot more work needs to be undertaken by libertarians to develop a satisfactory theory of just war, although there is much of value in the work of our predecessors that we can draw upon.

Unfortunately, many Randians agree with Brook and Epstein's dismissal of this entire tradition as "altruistic," which is an egregious misrepresentation. For now, however, I will merely note what 17th century just war philosophers were dealing with as a practical reality. Here is a vivid excerpt from the account of the Thirty Years War by Will and Ariel Durant, in their book, *The Age of Reason Begins* (1961):

"There were not two armies but six -- German, Danish Swedish, Bohemian, Spanish, French; armies manned largely by mercenaries or foreigners having no attachment to the German people or soil or history, and led by military adventurers fighting for any faith for a fee; armies fed by appropriating the grains and fruits of cattle of the fields, quartered and wintering in the homes of the people, and recompensed with the right to plunder and the ecstasy of killing and rape. To massacre any garrison that had refused to surrender, after surrender had become inevitable, was a principle accepted by all combatants. Soldiers felt that civilians were legitimate prey; they shot at their feet in the streets, conscripted them as servants, kidnapped their children for ransom, fired their haystacks and burned their churches for fun. They cut off the hands and feet of a Protestant pastor who resisted the wrecking of his church; they tied priests under wagons, forcing them to crawl on all fours till they fainted with exhaustion. The right of a soldier to rape was taken for granted; when a father asked for justice against a soldier who had raped and killed his daughter, he was informed by the commanding officer that if the girl had not been so stingy with her virginity she would still be alive."

It is estimated that over one-third of Germany's population perished from the Thirty Years' War; many of these people died from the famine and plague that typically followed on the heels of warfare. Again quoting the Durants:

"Thousands of fertile acres were left untilled for lack of men, draft animals, or seed, or because peasants had no assurance that they could reap where they had sown. Crops were used to feed armies, and what remained was burned to prevent the feeding of foes. Peasants in many localities were reduced to eating hidden remnants or dogs, cats, rats, acorns, grass; some dead were found with grass in their mouths. Men and women competed with ravens and dogs for the flesh of dead horses. In Alsace hanged offenders were torn from the gallows to be eagerly devoured; in the Rhineland exhumed bodies were sold for food; at Zweibrücken a woman confessed to having eaten her child..Many [towns] were reduced to half of their former populations. Great cities were in ruins..Epidemics of typhus, typhoid, dysentery, and scurvy ran through the terrified population and from town to town. Spanish troops passing through Munich left a plague that in four months carried off 10,000 victims."

Let us assume that the people who committed these massacres, rapes, and other atrocities acts were fighting in a just cause. Does it follow that they could do anything to further their victory, such as rape, on the grounds that such atrocities might demoralize an enemy or contribute to their victory in some other way? If you answer "no" to this question, then you will need a theory to justify your answer. Specifically, you will need to show how a just end does not authorize any means that might further that end.

I'll have more to say about this later.

Ghs

RCR

[sjw]

If you can find your former thoughts on this, I would love to read them (although I admit I cringe at the designation "the principled way out"). I have a feeling they will make a lot more sense than what the ARI people have done so far. I didn't understand the request for a link, unless you meant that you didn't know where your posts were anymore.

Yes, you're right to cringe; "principled way out" isn't how I feel about it, it's how I imagine they do, or at least, how they ought to given their hideous answer.

When I asked for a link, I was asking for a link to something on *this* site that someone else might have written that you thought was a good answer here. I was wondering if anyone knows of anything that addresses the issue properly (RCR's post that quoted George was good to help highlight the problem).

There is one fundamental item in the mix, though, that should not be forgotten: the tribal element.

Very good point. A comprehensive reply to Brook/Epstein should include the points you are making; my intent has been to focus on what I see as the root issue, the positive solution to the problem they in the end failed to solve. But if I'm right that this is the root issue, it certainly doesn't excuse or make irrelevant these other points you are bringing up.

Shayne

[Philip Coates]

> Whether one is drunk -- or is speaking off-the cuff or in haste-- one doesn't say the opposite of what one believes.

Barbara, I disagree:

One simple example might be if someone says "Emotionally, I would want to kill anyone wearing a Bin Laden t-shirt" and someone (not dishonestly, but sloppily or with poor memory) repeats it a week later simplifying it to ...or simply not having heard the beginning word of the sentence as "I would kill /one might kill anyone wearing a Bin Laden t-shirt."

It can be as simple as a noisy room or lecture hall!

In criminal law it's the unreliability of eyewitnesses principle...that's a source of error at the "receiving" end. There is also the "transmitting" end. There are many ways either speakers oversimplify or overstate. It's just been my experience throughout life that things one is told can often get garbled. And "ear-witnessess" frequently don't get things in the form of a word-for-word, verbatim quote...days later.

(Or state something as an angry "rant" or venting. I remember Peikoff doing this once in his home with regard to an Objectivist philosopher who was a good friend of his...I don't want to say who it was, but his initials are Harry Binswanger..saying he should be taken out back and shot. No one took him literally...he was venting.)

By contrast, with regard to the original subject of this thread, I *can* judge Biddle's statement about boming all mosques and madrassas in the entire country of Iran because i) he put it in writing, ii) he'd been asked and repeated it .... but with regard to the Brook quote, I will wait till I've read his Objective Standard formal, writen position. (I presume he addresses this in the piece he and Epstein wrote?)

---

Because it's very relevant to some of these issues, I want to post my original essay "The Hostage Principle" here...but I don't know how to start a thread, so I posted it on SOLO.

Can anyone tell me how to -start- a thread of my own on OL?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Can anyone tell me how to -start- a thread of my own on OL?

Down at the bottom - on the right - beside the button marked "Add Reply," there is a button called "New Topic." That is the button that makes new threads start.

If you post a new thread here in Articles, it goes through screening. If you don't want that to happen, you can put it in "Politics" or "Chewing on Ideas" or some other place and it will go up immediately.

If you are merely looking at the list of threads in a section like "Articles" or "Politics" or "Chewing on Ideas," and not in a thread, the "New Topic" button is on the right, but in two places, not one. One place is top right and the other is bottom right.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

In response to Michael's post 389 (you can see that I have a lot of catching up to do)...

I'm satisfied, at this point, that Yaron Brook actually said the two sentences that he was quoted as saying.

He's had an opportunity to deny saying them, when he was asked specifically by Lindsay Perigo, and he hasn't taken it.

I would still like to know what the fuller context of his statements was. But, in the absence of a recording of Brook's lecture, I doubt this will be obtainable.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

In response to Michael's post 389 (you can see that I have a lot of catching up to do)...

I'm satisfied, at this point, that Yaron Brook actually said the two sentences that he was quoted as saying.

He's had an opportunity to deny saying them, when he was asked specifically by Lindsay Perigo, and he hasn't taken it.

I would still like to know what the fuller context of his statements was. But, in the absence of a recording of Brook's lecture, I doubt this will be obtainable.

Robert Campbell

Perigo was given permission by Brook to "paraphrase" what he told him privately, but Linz has decided not to as a "waste" of his time. This after a post making fun of various people, including myself. As a humorist he should stick to name calling, even though he was almost funny.

--Brant

Edited October 26, 2006 by Brant Gaede

[L W HALL]

Perigo was given permission by Brook to "paraphrase" what he told him privately, but Linz has decided not to as a "waste" of his time. This after a post making fun of various people, including myself. As a humorist he should stick to name calling, even though he was almost funny.

I suspect his last response was nothing but a smokescreen, and they were hoping the matter would simply fade away. I made my feelings on the initial reply Linz put up obvious, and I have not changed my mind any since then.

L W

[sjw]

The real irony here with ARI is that they are proposing military solutions to what is really a philosophical/political problem.

Even in Iraq I think we could handily win, if we were concerned not merely with military issues but with philosophical/political. Surely there have to be good elements in Iraq, people who just want to live their lives in peace. Yet instead of giving moral support to those who want to pursue life, we quibble over who we're handing dictatorial power over to and when, demoralizing those who should be our allies; we promote the farce of "democracy" instead of individual rights.

Americans are morally disarmed and paralyzed, and therefore impotent at the sort of activism that would be required to properly exit from Iraq, leaving it with a proper government. A proper government would require a constitution based on individual rights and sweeping education and culling out local citiziens who believe in individual rights for government posts, and enticing businessmen (potential and actual) to help by promising them an environment they can prosper in. It would require philosophers to practice what they preach and help convince those who want life to do what's necessary to stop the forces of death.

What's happening in Iraq is something of a microcosm of what's happening in America: special interests clamoring over how they are going to spend confiscated funds, religious zealots clamoring for government power, government mandated monopolies... we are in no position to change a foreign government for the better as ours slides into something more and more corrupt than what the Founding Fathers set up.

If ARI had any sense and wanted to fix things, they'd spend more time painting and selling the vision I'm hinting at above and less time trying to tell the military how to do its job. But ARI has no vision, they just react to what they see on the news. They have no vision in part because they interpret Ayn Rand as telling them to stay out of politics, so they skip that step and go straight to military tactics. In that sense they are less philosophical than the Libertarians they criticize.

Shayne

[Laure]

Really good post, Shayne. I agree.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The real irony here with ARI is that they are proposing military solutions to what is really a philosophical/political problem.

Dayaamm!

It feels damn good to hear an Objectivist talk about fighting ideas with ideas in the Middle East.

After reading so much of the military bluster coming from ARI and the supporters of its military outpourings, I have recently had the feeling that I was living in a Dali painting. I don't know how he would portray it, but in the ARI world, ideas have become impotent to change people, so those with the wrong ideas must be eradicated with bombs and bullets. If only the ARI people realized how much they disrespected Ayn Rand this way.

(btw - I realize Shayne was talking about post-war occupation, not pre-war or war. The fact is that the USA military was resoundingly successful in dismantling the Iraqi military capacity, so it did its job and did it well. The present growing occupation failure - including what ARI preaches - is that now the military is charged with doing the work of intellectuals. What a cop out!)

Michael