BASIC PRINCIPLES BOOK ANNOUNCED

[jriggenbach]

That the lecture “The Neurosis of the Intellectual” is missing from the book would not be a problem for my use, but the substitution of “something he wrote in the 80’s” would be. Does this book call out all things changed or added, if any, in the lectures after the end of Branden’s association with Rand?

They were put out on LP's in the early 70's, I know someone who has a set. So there couldn't be anything from the 80's.

I'd be interested to see a real conceptual concordance between Branden's course and Peikoff's.

A quick addendum to my earlier post: the something in the book that is from the '80s is the essay "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand," which is clearly identified as an epilogue to the book and is not presented as one of the original NBI lectures.

JR

[Dennis Hardin]

That the lecture “The Neurosis of the Intellectual” is missing from the book would not be a problem for my use, but the substitution of “something he wrote in the 80’s” would be. Does this book call out all things changed or added, if any, in the lectures after the end of Branden’s association with Rand?

They were put out on LP's in the early 70's, I know someone who has a set. So there couldn't be anything from the 80's.

I'd be interested to see a real conceptual concordance between Branden's course and Peikoff's.

Well, actually, the final chapter in the book is based on a lecture Branden gave in 1982--The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand. But this chapter is entirely separate from the original NBI lectures. Branden just wanted to offer his current perspective on Rand and Objectivism.

One key difference between their approaches is that Branden is a psychologist, so that much of the material in his lectures represents a kind of integration of philosophy and psychology. An obvious example is Branden’s discussion of how people repress and drive underground, not the worst within them, but the best. NB managed to convey the emotional spirit of a “benevolent sense of life,’ whereas Peikoff addressed the issue purely on an intellectual level. In Peikoff’s lectures, as I recall, he let Edith Packer handle any psychology-related topics. To his credit, Peikoff realized he was totally out of his league when it came to psychology.

[Guyau]

.

Thank you each one for your responses. I’m going to get this book.

Dennis’ observation in the second paragraph of #127 fits with the difference concerning psychology in the Rand-concurring Objectivist writings of Peikoff and Branden. I personally liked the shift away from having so much psychology (dynamic psy) on center stage of Rand-approved Objectivist presentation that occurred after the split. But then, I was a philosophy minor, and of philosophy I always wanted more, more, more (though with cog psy informing epistemology, physics informing metaphysics, . . .).

I’m going to also get the collection of The Objectivist. I have the Newsletter. Some of the material in Branden’s The Psychology of Self-Esteem (1969) is taken from his writings in those earlier publications. In chapter VII “The Nature and Source of Self-Esteem,” there is such material to which is attached a footnote: “For a partial anticipation of this concept of self-esteem, see Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York, Random House 1957), pp. 1018, 1056–57.” I’ll be able to check to see if such divisions of credit are given in the original publications.

I expect there is generally more than one way, some conflicting with others, of developing implications of Rand’s philosophy for special disciplines (philosophy of logic; psychology; biology; physics; economics; law) or of developing implications of those disciplines for refinement or reevaluation of Rand’s philosophy. That is at least partly because additional propositions must generally be taken for premises beyond Rand’s propositions to make such developments.* Binswanger had one way of developing Rand’s commerce between biology and value-theory. Lennox took issue with that way; he had an alternative way of developing that commerce. Kelley had one way of developing the situation of benevolence within Rand’s ethics. N. Branden took some issue with that way; he had another way, going back to his essay in The Objectivist on the visibility principle.

*An example would be my “Universals and Measurement” in which modern measurement theory is used to draw new implications of Rand’s epistemology for metaphysics; Rand did not have that knowledge of measurement theory—some of it was not even discovered until the late '80's—or mathematics more generally.

[9thdoctor]

Thank you each one for your responses. I’m going to get this book.

I suggest you email Roger Bissell to send you the corrected index.

[RightJungle]

You can always go to the Branden Web site and e-mail him your questions about the book. He responds to e-mails.

Edited September 5, 2011 by Mary Lee Harsha

[Robert Campbell]

Stephen B,

I helped out a little with the transcribing on these lectures.

A few of the AA recordings were of NBI lectures as given before a live audience (they generally don't sound very good; one that I transcribed was washed out and slightly sped up).

The rest were rerecordings, obviously made in an empty studio, from old scripts. There are none of the changes that you would expect if Nathaniel Branden were redoing them in 1970 or 1971.

The original NBI tapes, as you may have heard, were withheld by persons who sided with Rand and Peikoff after the break. Their whereabouts, if they were not destroyed, are known to a handful of people at most.

Keeping original NBI lecture recordings out of circulation (or encouraging allies and subordinates to withhold them) is one of the very worst things that Leonard Peikoff has done.

Robert C

[9thdoctor]

Keeping original NBI lecture recordings out of circulation (or encouraging allies and subordinates to withhold them) is one of the very worst things that Leonard Peikoff has done.

I attended a Lyceum conference in the mid 90’s, the speakers were Gary Hull, Andrew Bernstein, and Richard Salsman. I’m about 95% sure Yaron Brook was there, it was his organization, and I vaguely remember meeting him. Well over 100 people attended. During one of the question periods someone asked for advice concerning the Branden lectures, specifically, that a local library had the tapes, and what should be done? Gary Hull said that complaints should be lodged, requesting that they the tapes be removed and replaced with a Peikoff course. He went on to suggest the questioner should buy and donate the Peikoff tapes. Naturally, he worked in wild denunciations of Branden. No one protested, and by this time I’d already worn out my welcome so I didn’t bother raising my hand. Besides, what could one say?

[Dennis Hardin]

Stephen B,

I helped out a little with the transcribing on these lectures.

A few of the AA recordings were of NBI lectures as given before a live audience (they generally don't sound very good; one that I transcribed was washed out and slightly sped up).

The rest were rerecordings, obviously made in an empty studio, from old scripts. There are none of the changes that you would expect if Nathaniel Branden were redoing them in 1970 or 1971.

The original NBI tapes, as you may have heard, were withheld by persons who sided with Rand and Peikoff after the break. Their whereabouts, if they were not destroyed, are known to a handful of people at most.

Keeping original NBI lecture recordings out of circulation (or encouraging allies and subordinates to withhold them) is one of the very worst things that Leonard Peikoff has done.

Robert C

Robert,

Those of us familiar with Branden’s association with Academic Associates in the early 70’s will recall that Ayn Rand and her attorney, Henry Mark Holzer, took legal action to stop Branden from selling recordings of his lectures on Objectivism. My guess is that she claimed that Objectivism was her intellectual property and he no longer had the right to speak for her. The court shot her down and basically found that she had no case.

At that point, Peikoff was simply doing as he was told. Since her death, of course, Peikoff has done everything he could to rewrite the history of Objectivism as she would have preferred—history, facts and truth be damned. Some of the horrendous things he has done would, unfortunately, have had Rand’s blessing—and that would likely include anything relating to the Brandens.

[Dennis Hardin]

Keeping original NBI lecture recordings out of circulation (or encouraging allies and subordinates to withhold them) is one of the very worst things that Leonard Peikoff has done.

I attended a Lyceum conference in the mid 90’s, the speakers were Gary Hull, Andrew Bernstein, and Richard Salsman. I’m about 95% sure Yaron Brook was there, it was his organization, and I vaguely remember meeting him. Well over 100 people attended. During one of the question periods someone asked for advice concerning the Branden lectures, specifically, that a local library had the tapes, and what should be done? Gary Hull said that complaints should be lodged, requesting that they the tapes be removed and replaced with a Peikoff course. He went on to suggest the questioner should buy and donate the Peikoff tapes. Naturally, he worked in wild denunciations of Branden. No one protested, and by this time I’d already worn out my welcome so I didn’t bother raising my hand. Besides, what could one say?

If Peikoff was Rand’s Saint Peter, Hull could have been her (and Peikoff's) Simon the Zealot. If Peikoff said “Jump!,” Hull would ask “How high?”

I once invited him to attend a discussion group I was running in Los Angeles back in the 80’s. I was very open about being a supporter of David Kelley in his dispute with Peikoff. Hull gleefully pointed out a relatively minor (but valid) misstatement in Kelley’s The Art of Reasoning, offering that as self-evident proof that Kelley’s entire book was worthless.

Needless to say, he never attended my discussion group.

[jriggenbach]

Needless to say, he never attended my discussion group.

I, by contrast, cannot imagine a more monstrous evil than refusing to attend Dennis Hardin's "discussion" group (punctuated, I'm sure, by frequent intervals in which Dennis jumps up and struts around the room expressing his moral outrage at this or that triviality). On second thought, maybe it's equally evil to attribute individual rights to life and property to residents of countries Dennis Hardin wants to bomb.

JR

Edited September 5, 2011 by Jeff Riggenbach

[Brant Gaede]

Those of us familiar with Branden's association with Academic Associates in the early 70's will recall that Ayn Rand and her attorney, Henry Mark Holzer, took legal action to stop Branden from selling recordings of his lectures on Objectivism. My guess is that she claimed that Objectivism was her intellectual property and he no longer had the right to speak for her. The court shot her down and basically found that she had no case.

I don't think any court ever got involved with any of this--just lawyers this and that had a chat.

--Brant

[Dennis Hardin]

Those of us familiar with Branden's association with Academic Associates in the early 70's will recall that Ayn Rand and her attorney, Henry Mark Holzer, took legal action to stop Branden from selling recordings of his lectures on Objectivism. My guess is that she claimed that Objectivism was her intellectual property and he no longer had the right to speak for her. The court shot her down and basically found that she had no case.

I don't think any court ever got involved with any of this--just lawyers this and that had a chat.

--Brant

You may well be right about that.

Here's a prior OL discussion on this same issue:

Who Owns Objectivism?

[Philip Coates]

> Dennis Hardin's "discussion" group (punctuated, I'm sure, by frequent intervals in which Dennis jumps up and struts around the room expressing his moral outrage at this or that triviality)... [Jeff R, #135]

The group was called "Forum for the New Intellectual". It was held in a bank meeting room in West L.A. I attended it for a number of years once a month.

Everyone got a chance to be heard in rotation and everyone was respectful, polite, and serious in discussing controversial issues such as the Kelley vs. Peikoff issues. Even people like myself and Betsey Speicher -- who had polar opposite views on this matter, never engaged in personalities, moral condemnations, shouting matches, name-calling or psychologizing.

A lot of articulate people consistently offered intellectual arguments and expected others to do the same in good faith. (I don't remember much if any snarkiness or pettiness or holding of personal grudges.)

Part of the reason this worked so well for so long is that Dennis moderated and ran the whole thing calmly, patiently, and respectfully of everyone's viewpoints. Far from "strutting", he didn't try to dominate the affair or take more air time as moderator than anyone else*, as I recall.

*something I could not say of Betsey as a community club leader.

And it was a good, serious-minded group with a number of attendees who have gone on to become well known including Bryan Caplan and John McCaskey.

Edited September 6, 2011 by Philip Coates

[Roger Bissell]

Several brief notes:

1. Yes, I made a typo earlier, when I said Branden's Basic Principles were put on LP's in the late 1980s. It was the late 1960s, as someone pointed out above.

2. Here is a little more precision on the date Academic Associates produced and began distributing the Basic Principles LP's. During the spring of 1969 (my junior and final year at Iowa State University), one of the couples in our Objectivist discussion group bought the LP set and played them at their home, one per week, during the late winter and spring of that year. So, AA really jumped on the project in a hurry. It was definitely prior to 1970 or 1971.

3. Stephen, and anyone else considering a purchase of Branden's "The Vision of Ayn Rand," please feel free to request the corrected version of the index to the book. The index in the book is completely useless, since the pages given for each entry are approximately 5-10 off in most cases. (I begged "them" not to "make" me do the index, but "they" insisted, so I agreed, under duress and only after much protest. But honestly, I didn't screw up on purpose. <sigh>) For anyone who needs it, my email is rebissell@aol.com

4. Finally, yes, some lectures have been substituted for ones NB couldn't get permission to use, or that he didn't want to include (viz., "The Neurosis of the Intellectual," which had great personal relevance to me, but which I can see is not of the same general level of relevance to the series as the other substituted lectures) -- but no, there is ~no~ revision of the material in the Branden lectures (as might have been suggested by my typo about the date the LP's were produced).

REB

[Dennis Hardin]

> Dennis Hardin's "discussion" group (punctuated, I'm sure, by frequent intervals in which Dennis jumps up and struts around the room expressing his moral outrage at this or that triviality)... [Jeff R, #135]

The group was called "Forum for the New Intellectual". It was held in a bank meeting room in West L.A. I attended it for a number of years once a month.

Everyone got a chance to be heard in rotation and everyone was respectful, polite, and serious in discussing controversial issues such as the Kelley vs. Peikoff issues. Even people like myself and Betsey Speicher -- who had polar opposite views on this matter, never engaged in personalities, moral condemnations, shouting matches, name-calling or psychologizing.

A lot of articulate people consistently offered intellectual arguments and expected others to do the same in good faith. (I don't remember much if any snarkiness or pettiness or holding of personal grudges.)

Part of the reason this worked so well for so long is that Dennis moderated and ran the whole thing calmly, patiently, and respectfully of everyone's viewpoints. Far from "strutting", he didn't try to dominate the affair or take more air time as moderator than anyone else*, as I recall.

*something I could not say of Betsey as a community club leader.

And it was a good, serious-minded group with a number of attendees who have gone on to become well known including Bryan Caplan and John McCaskey.

Thank you, Phil. I really appreciate it. You made my day.

Wasn’t it great to be able to discuss serious ideas without being interrupted by pathetic, disturbed children throwing verbal spit wads? Behavior that would have been acutely embarrassing in a group of twenty adults is now openly displayed on a webforum for all the world to see.

[jriggenbach]

Wasn't it great to be able to discuss serious ideas without being interrupted by pathetic, disturbed children throwing verbal spit wads? Behavior that would have been acutely embarrassing in a group of twenty adults is now openly displayed on a webforum for all the world to see.

I know, Dennis. It is extremely embarrassing for all those of us who have to share this board with you - your strutting around expressing your moral indignation about how few Muslim civilians the U.S. government is murdering, that is. Your doctrine about how the murderer can just announce that someone else - the people who provoked him - is responsible for the murders - well, it's comical in a macabre sort of way, I suppose. But surely this can't be what you describe as "serious ideas"?

Best,

JR

[jriggenbach]

> Dennis Hardin's "discussion" group (punctuated, I'm sure, by frequent intervals in which Dennis jumps up and struts around the room expressing his moral outrage at this or that triviality)... [Jeff R, #135]

The group was called "Forum for the New Intellectual". It was held in a bank meeting room in West L.A. I attended it for a number of years once a month.

Everyone got a chance to be heard in rotation and everyone was respectful, polite, and serious in discussing controversial issues such as the Kelley vs. Peikoff issues. Even people like myself and Betsey Speicher -- who had polar opposite views on this matter, never engaged in personalities, moral condemnations, shouting matches, name-calling or psychologizing.

A lot of articulate people consistently offered intellectual arguments and expected others to do the same in good faith. (I don't remember much if any snarkiness or pettiness or holding of personal grudges.)

Part of the reason this worked so well for so long is that Dennis moderated and ran the whole thing calmly, patiently, and respectfully of everyone's viewpoints. Far from "strutting", he didn't try to dominate the affair or take more air time as moderator than anyone else*, as I recall.

*something I could not say of Betsey as a community club leader.

And it was a good, serious-minded group with a number of attendees who have gone on to become well known including Bryan Caplan and John McCaskey.

If I remember correctly, it was about ten years ago, in San Francisco, that I invited Phil to come over one evening for a meeting of a discussion group that had been founded around ten years before that by the economic historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel. We had one or two other Ph.D.s in the group - the psychologist Michael Edelstein pops to mind - and even the non-Ph.D.s were highly intelligent people. The group met once a month to discuss a book or journal article we'd all read. I had thought Phil might like to join us. But, alas, it didn't work out. I think the problem was, fundamentally, that we (the members of the group) were libertarians, and I'm sure you can imagine the rest for yourselves. Most of us were nihilists, and several of us were into throwing spitwads at anyone who spoke in a dignified and serious manner. We mocked and lampooned such people, calling them "puffed up" and other childish names. Worst of all, we were neither benevolent nor civil. For example, if you can believe this, not a single one of the males among us had ever addressed any of our female members as a "cunt" (pronounced to rhyme with the last name of the eminent 18th Century German philosopher Immanuel Cunt) - not one of us!

Needless to say, Phil found this nihilistic, boisterous, disrespectful atmosphere not much to his liking, and he never attended another of our meetings.

Nostalgically,

JR

[George H. Smith]

I formed a book discussion group in Bloomington a couple years ago, but, given the intellectual climate around here, I only invited my Bichon (Jazz) to attend. This limited-membership book club has worked out very well. I read passages from books and comment on them, while Jazz listens attentively. The only distraction is when Jazz decides to take a time out to lick his balls.

Although these frequent interruptions can be annoying, I understand Jazz's behavior. If I could lick my own balls, I would probably never read a book.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Wasn't it great to be able to discuss serious ideas without being interrupted by pathetic, disturbed children throwing verbal spit wads? Behavior that would have been acutely embarrassing in a group of twenty adults is now openly displayed on a webforum for all the world to see.

I know, Dennis. It is extremely embarrassing for all those of us who have to share this board with you - your strutting around expressing your moral indignation about how few Muslim civilians the U.S. government is murdering, that is. Your doctrine about how the murderer can just announce that someone else - the people who provoked him - is responsible for the murders - well, it's comical in a macabre sort of way, I suppose. But surely this can't be what you describe as "serious ideas"?

Best,

JR

Jeff,

Although you don't get along with Dennis online, I suspect he is one of those people you would like a great deal if you knew him personally. I spent quite a bit of time with Dennis in earlier years, and I found him highly intelligent, reasonable, and a pleasure to be around.

Ghs

[Robert Campbell]

Roger,

Thank you for the more accurate date on the Academic Associates LP recordings of Nathaniel Branden's lectures.

This means that the re-recordings done from old scripts were all carried out within a few months of The Break.

Those of us familiar with Branden's association with Academic Associates in the early 70's will recall that Ayn Rand and her attorney, Henry Mark Holzer, took legal action to stop Branden from selling recordings of his lectures on Objectivism. My guess is that she claimed that Objectivism was her intellectual property and he no longer had the right to speak for her.

Dennis,

However the matter was resolved, no one who refused to return recordings of NBI lectures from the lecturers was compelled to produce them.

And it isn't just Nathaniel and Barbara Branden's lecture recordings that were hidden away.

As far as I can tell, every one of Leonard Peikoff's NBI-period recordings has also gone disappearo.

Robert Campbell

[Martin Radwin]

Wasn't it great to be able to discuss serious ideas without being interrupted by pathetic, disturbed children throwing verbal spit wads? Behavior that would have been acutely embarrassing in a group of twenty adults is now openly displayed on a webforum for all the world to see.

I know, Dennis. It is extremely embarrassing for all those of us who have to share this board with you - your strutting around expressing your moral indignation about how few Muslim civilians the U.S. government is murdering, that is. Your doctrine about how the murderer can just announce that someone else - the people who provoked him - is responsible for the murders - well, it's comical in a macabre sort of way, I suppose. But surely this can't be what you describe as "serious ideas"?

Best,

JR

Jeff,

Although you don't get along with Dennis online, I suspect he is one of those people you would like a great deal if you knew him personally. I spent quite a bit of time with Dennis in earlier years, and I found him highly intelligent, reasonable, and a pleasure to be around.

Ghs

George,

Dennis has made it quite clear that he is an enthusiastic supporter of the U.S. government's foreign policy of fighting multiple non-defensive wars and ongoing occupations which have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people abroad. Oh, he might disagree with some of the specifics, such as believing that the U.S. government should have gone to war with Iran and murdered several hundred thousand Iranians rather than several hundred thousand Iraqis. But in terms of agreeing with the basic policy of murdering innocents abroad and justifying this as somehow being within the realm of legitimate self-defense, Dennis has made his position quite clear. He has also enthusiastically advocated torture as a justifiable U.S. government policy, despite the horrenous ethical and practical consequences of this policy, which is now a standard part of U.S. government behavior around the world.

Now, for all I know, Dennis may be a really nice guy in person. But this raises a rather interesting question. Just how abhorent do a person's ideas have to be before the issue of whether or not he or she is a really nice person becomes irrelevant?

Martin

[Roger Bissell]

I formed a book discussion group in Bloomington a couple years ago, but, given the intellectual climate around here, I only invited my Bichon (Jazz) to attend. This limited-membership book club has worked out very well. I read passages from books and comment on them, while Jazz listens attentively. The only distraction is when Jazz decides to take a time out to lick his balls.

Although these frequent interruptions can be annoying, I understand Jazz's behavior. If I could lick my own balls, I would probably never read a book.

Ghs

I hear you, George, and I certainly identify with your Bichon buddy, Jazz.

His behavior brings to mind how I cope with my own plight as a semi-retired jazz musician in a fairly moribund music business. Being at least semi-sociable, I enjoy playing music with others, at least from time to time. But when, as often happens, there is simply no session or club work and not even a rehearsal group meeting in order to play recreational music, I often have to resort to playing with myself.

REB

[Roger Bissell]

Roger,

Thank you for the more accurate date on the Academic Associates LP recordings of Nathaniel Branden's lectures.

This means that the re-recordings done from old scripts were all carried out within a few months of The Break.

Yup. Probably during the fall (and early winter?) of 1968.

Those of us familiar with Branden's association with Academic Associates in the early 70's will recall that Ayn Rand and her attorney, Henry Mark Holzer, took legal action to stop Branden from selling recordings of his lectures on Objectivism. My guess is that she claimed that Objectivism was her intellectual property and he no longer had the right to speak for her.

Dennis,

However the matter was resolved, no one who refused to return recordings of NBI lectures from the lecturers was compelled to produce them.

And it isn't just Nathaniel and Barbara Branden's lecture recordings that were hidden away.

As far as I can tell, every one of Leonard Peikoff's NBI-period recordings has also gone disappearo.

Robert Campbell

Peikoff's early course, "Objectivism's Theory of Knowledge" would be a gem, even to the (probably) considerable extent it's been superceded by material in his later courses. But he doesn't approve of his (excellen) doctoral dissertation either, so it's not surprising there are lectures he'd rather not have see the light of day.

I think that NB's lectures on Objectivist psychology would also be great to listen to and/or read, even though (again) much of them have been absorbed into "The Psychology of Self-Esteem" or would need (to meet NB's standards) considerable re-writing.

But again, the shiny nugget I would like for someone to come out of hiding with and to provide to avid NB fans is "The Neurosis of the Intellectual." That one would even today be helpful, therapeutically, for folks out there in the Movement.

Maybe once all the principals have passed away, the lurkers who still have listenable tape copies (dare I hope for transcripts?) of the unavailable lectures will make them available in some form.

REB

[George H. Smith]

George,

Dennis has made it quite clear that he is an enthusiastic supporter of the U.S. government's foreign policy of fighting multiple non-defensive wars and ongoing occupations which have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people abroad. Oh, he might disagree with some of the specifics, such as believing that the U.S. government should have gone to war with Iran and murdered several hundred thousand Iranians rather than several hundred thousand Iraqis. But in terms of agreeing with the basic policy of murdering innocents abroad and justifying this as somehow being within the realm of legitimate self-defense, Dennis has made his position quite clear. He has also enthusiastically advocated torture as a justifiable U.S. government policy, despite the horrenous ethical and practical consequences of this policy, which is now a standard part of U.S. government behavior around the world.

Now, for all I know, Dennis may be a really nice guy in person. But this raises a rather interesting question. Just how abhorent do a person's ideas have to be before the issue of whether or not he or she is a really nice person becomes irrelevant?

Martin

If I had to remain perpetually angry at people with whom I have serious disagreements, I would have very few friends left. JR and I would never have remained friends for the past 40 years, since we have some serious disagreements about natural rights, war, and other topics. For example, I took a lot of flak from JR and other anarchists on Atlantis II when I supported the invasion of Afghanistan (with qualifications) shortly after 9/11.

I didn't merely say that Dennis is a "really nice guy in person." The fact that he is a reasonable person is much more important, in this context. I didn't like JR's reference to Dennis supposedly "strutting around." Expressing one's opinions with confidence does not qualify as "strutting." If it did, then both JR and I strut as much as anyone on OL, and probably more.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

One more thing....

If debates between anarchists and minarchists over foreign policy rarely go anywhere, except into the proverbial brick wall, this is largely because these two factions typically view the current U.S. government from radically different perspectives. As I put it in a debate with Bob Poole many years ago: Minarchists view the U.S. government as a garden of flowers overgrown with weeds, and they want to eliminate the weeds so only the flowers remain. Anarchists, in contrast, view the U.S. government as a garden of nothing but weeds, period.

This issue is far more complicated than this metaphor suggests, and I find myself as critical of my fellow libertarian anarchists on some issues, especially war, as I am of minarchists. I wrote my article, "Thinking About War," over three years ago, because I hoped it would spark serious discussions by anarchists and minarchists alike about a number of difficult and complex problems that attend just war theory. But, so far as I can tell, my call for a more serious analysis fell on deaf ears.

Ghs

http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/library/ThinkingAboutWar.html