Peikoff on the Ground Zero Mosque

[9thdoctor]

Time to dust off the lepers thread, Peikoff’s podcast released today is exclusively a discussion of the “ground zero mosque”, and it defies quick summarization.

[George H. Smith]

Time to dust off the lepers thread, Peikoff’s podcast released today is exclusively a discussion of the “ground zero mosque”, and it defies quick summarization.

What an epistemological train wreck that podcast is. Peikoff throws in a kitchen sink of "arguments" and never connects anything. By his reasoning, the U.S. government could imprison most Muslims in America without trial, as "passive" supporters the 9/11 attack, and it could destroy every mosque. The location of the latter would be irrelevant.

The ending is unintentionally funny, if grotesquely so, as the younger voice comes on to clarify matters. In advocating that any ground zero mosque should be blown up, Dr. Peikoff meant only that the U.S. government should blow it up; this should not be undertaken by private individuals. (So much for Peikoff's passing reference to Roark.) Blowing up private property, it seems, is a proper function of government. We wouldn't want to have anarchy, after all.

Has Peikoff always been this nuts, or has he gotten worse with age?

Thanks, Ninth, for getting my day off to a crappy start.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

I really can't take or find the time to listen to anybody's podcast, but if Roark had designed a mosque and Christians changed it into a church---Kaboomy!?

--Brant

aesthetics rule: you can do it for your art

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Peikoff's rant can be understood if we see his premise: The USA government is at war with Islam.

Then his points fall into place.

The trouble is the USA government is not at war with Islam. Peikoff may want it to be, but it isn't. A continues to be A.

How's that for checking a premise?

I'm not in favor of the mosque being built near ground zero, but nothing is gained by developing an argument based on a false premise. It comes off as a rationalization for bigotry.

And to be honest, given the vast hatred Peikoff communicated, I'm not so sure it isn't. Calling innocent Muslims "irrelevant," falsely claiming that there are no fundamental divisions within Islam, etc., including a call to not present him with such outrage again so he won't have a heart attack, are very typical of bigotry.

Part of a very effective technique (which is used in bigotry, but not only bigotry) is to throw out a small bone of reasonableness on an issue so that a whopper dealing with the same issue can be presented without being contested. He does this, too. It's an interesting exercise to listen to the podcast again and watch for it.

Michael

btw - Let's make sure that we understand that part about a private person blowing up the mosque. If anyone is thinking about privately blowing up the mosque, Peikoff does not condone it because he does not condone private people blowing up mosques. The blowing up of mosques is up to the government, so please, if you are thinking of blowing up the mosque, understand that private people are not supposed to blow up mosques. In fact, get that thought of blowing up mosques out of your head. Nobody should even think about blowing up mosques.

Just don't think about it, then you won't want to do it...

(He's such an amateur at these covert persuasion things... )

[George H. Smith]

Peikoff's rant can be understood if we see his premise: The USA government is at war with Islam.

Then his points fall into place.

If Peikoff really believes this, then he should call for the imprisonment or exile of every American Muslim, or at least the "vast majority" who he claims gave "passive" support to the 9/11 attacks. Does Peikoff advocate this?

Has Peikoff ever expressed an opinion about FDR's internment of Japanese Americans during WWII? Given Peikoff's jumbled collectivist logic, it seems he would approve of that measure.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

I haven't listened to Peikoff's podcast yet. I had forgotten Biddle's horrifying policy of bombing madrassahs and mosques and my opposing thread that Barbara linked to. What strikes me in glancing through the thread on Solo is the intellectual tendency of the 'wolfpack' over there supporting Biddle and opposing my takedown of him - Mr. Mazza, Weiss, Perigo, Boaz, and others. Once an Oist faction classifies you as an enemy, they let their emotionalism take over and fail to read carefully what you are saying, even if it's made simple. Self-inflicted blindness:

"Submitted by Philip Coates on Tue, 2006-09-19 16:14.

> Do you believe a government has the moral right to do everything in its power to protect its citizens? Biddle, Peikoff, and ARI (generally) answer "yes" to this last question. Barbara Branden, Coates, Hudgins, and TAS (generally) answer "no."

Dan, I don't think that's accurate for BB, H, and TAS. It's certainly not in my case.

My view is that we are MORALLY REQUIRED TO DO EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO PROTECT OUR CITIZENS. And I would be surprised if BB or H think any differently. That doesn't mean one supports irrational military or strategic proposals which don't actually target threats.

A number of people on this thread are equating two different things:

i) being opposed to indiscriminately bombing all mosques and madrassas.

ii) being unwilling to -ever- kill innocent people as collateral damage or in a hostage sitaution when *we must act* against terrorists or against Iran because of a mortal threat.

I can't make it much simpler than that."

Edited June 28, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If Peikoff really believes this, then he should call for the imprisonment or exile of every American Muslim, or at least the "vast majority" who he claims gave "passive" support to the 9/11 attacks. Does Peikoff advocate this?

George,

This is another issue that makes me think of bigotry. No one would be able to profess massive imprisonments and exile in a free sodiety and be taken seriously.

But...

If that were to happen, would Peikoff be outraged or glad?

My bet is that he would be glad.

Just like blowing up mosques.

If a private person were to blow the thing up, Peikoff might say he does not condone it, but my bet is that he would be silent and glad. And then wonder how the government managed to use the event to grow even more oppressive--probably think about altruism or collectivism or religion or something...

("First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out...")

Michael

[Greybird]

Some who post at this site have both properly decried Peikoff for suggesting such collectivist atrocities, and uncritically supported neoconservatives and other warmongers who would love nothing more than to see the ten million people of Tehran turned into radioactive glass.

The contradiction is theirs to deal with. Is this kind of excuse-making for the U.S. regime somehow more objectionable when it's coming from Objectivists? (Or those who assert they are?) I would say that it's to be decried when coming from anyone.

And, yes, George, Peikoff has always been this morally and epistemologically inept, certainly since Rand's death, as a single searching glance at that intellectual absurdity of his called "Fact and Value" reveals.

Edited June 28, 2010 by Greybird

[Backlighting]

Peikoff's voice annoys me as much as the meaning of what he preaches.

[George H. Smith]

Peikoff's voice annoys me as much as the meaning of what he preaches.

It's difficult to whine and sound authoritative at the same time, but Peikoff gives it his best shot.

I love the way that Peikoff insists that anyone who disagrees with him about the Ground Zero mosque doesn't understand Objectivism. Such declarations are, I suppose, the royal prerogative of the heir to the O'ist throne.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

Yikes! I just listened to the podcast. I remember Peikoff as a much more perceptive philosopher than this, and defend the brilliant and important courses of the seventies and early eighties and in many cases where he had Rand's help and vetting.

(Where he repeatedly gets into trouble is on emotional, journalistic, concrete 'news' type issues that anger him where he attempts to apply valid ideas invalidly and lacks detailed understanding of concretes and context: Kelley, concrete issues of morally judging particular thinkers, war on terror tactics and strategy. And perhaps some others that don't come to mind at the moment.)

He makes some good points in the podcast about a long history of appeasement, that the U.S. as far back as the fifties should have used force to prevent the nationalization of the wells and oil properties of the oil companies. And he makes another good point that this sort of quaking appeasement has made the Islamofascists and their regimes bolder and launching attacks that have steadily killed more and more people.

But just because you have let yourself be walked over by a bully in the past doesn't mean that you, in bottled up rage, then try to make up for lost time by taking a knife to everyone in his family as a delayed reaction. Misapplying philosophy, P. attempts to apply the 'ethics of emergencies', wartime ethics in this case to a peacetime situation very different from finding yourself shipwrecked on the shore of a fenced off private island. The need to 'defend ourselves' against terrorism does not even remotely apply to the government 'blowing up' buildings in the heart of New York City.

Should a mosque be built on the site of ground zero? Absolutely not.

Can you believe the claim that this is intended as a 'symbol of peace'? That's not what such a building symbolizes at that location. It symbolizes appeasement: we can plant a flag where our co-religionists murdered you in the name of that religion. You want a symbol of your religion, build it in Queens or Midtown or the East Village.

One way to prevent the mosque there might be for private citizens to announce well in advance a boycott of any real estate company that would sell such a piece of land for that purpose. That would actually be effective. Not waiting for it to happen then indulging in Peikoff's throwing around of munitions or high explosives.

Edited June 28, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Brant Gaede]

I got thru the first 6 mins then my computer shut the podcast off with no input from me. It was interesting that he conflated the Suez crisis with Eisenhower orchestrating the overthrow of the Iranian government a few years earlier.

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

Unsurprising, but never enough so with him to stop the motion sickness.

Let us not forget one of his other creme-de-la dumps, on national television:

[George H. Smith]

Unsurprising, but never enough so with him to stop the motion sickness.

Let us not forget one of his other creme-de-la dumps, on national television:

Leonard Peikoff accomplishes the impossible in this interview: He makes Bill O'Reilly look reasonable.

O'Reilly dubs Peikoff "Dr. Strangelove." That about says it all.

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At 37 seconds into this clip, as Strangelove pounds his right arm, you will see the Russian ambassador crack a smile. This is framed in the video, but I first learned of it while working with George C. Scott while he was narrating my KP tapes on the American Revolution. I had a lot of time to talk to Scott about his movies. He mentioned that Peter Sellers improvised much of this scene, and many of the actors almost broke out laughing. Although Stanley Kubrick noticed the grinning of the actor who played the Russian ambassador, Kubrick regarded the scene as so funny that he didn't want to reshoot it.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

I noticed the grin watching the movie. I thought it was perfect. Sort of a play off the idea that our Germans are better than your Germans: Yeah sure, look at your German nut case.

--Brant

Sterling Hayden really went to town in that movie, but nothing beat Slim Pickens riding that bomb

General LeMay scared the Soviets shitless; they knew what he was capable of because he had already done it to Japan

what was pathetic about the Cold War was how the USSR was so locked into the idea of keeping up with the US and matching us move for move--hence missiles in Cuba, race to the moon, "we will bury you," the Vietnam proxy war--and eventually they couldn't keep up and keep up enough internal viciousness to keep going as such

Edited June 28, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Rich Engle]

It Must Be Done:

EXHIBIT A:

EXHIBIT B:

The Bloodline is Finally Revealed.

Edited June 28, 2010 by Rich Engle

[Dragonfly]

I listened to Peikoff's podcast, and surprisingly I didn't find it as bad as I'd expected. He turns out to be less dogmatic about absolute property rights than many of his devoted followers, like that Hsieh woman. That makes it very funny, she must already have had problems with Peikoffs volte-face with regard to his election fatwa (and her silence on that subject was one of the most deafening things in the world), but in this case she had just vehemently defended the right of the muslims to build a mosque on the site of ground zero and now her guru tells her a few days later in fact that she doesn't understand Objectivism! Ha ha ha! Impossible for her to revert on her previous stance, so she was forced to disagree politely with Peikoff (do I see a new schism in Objectivism emerge?).

I agree with Peikoff that the US government should just refuse permission to build that mosque, there is no need to be officially at war to do that. But then he goes over the top by claiming that the government should bomb the mosque out of existence when they should nevertheless go ahead with building it. That is cheap rhetoric based on primitive emotions (like nuking unthreatening countries out of existence). There isn't any need to "bomb" that building, if you deny permission to build it, there isn't much violence needed to enforce that prohibition if necessary. But Peikoff is probably dreaming of a Fountainhead bombing made real. BTW, he sounds old on this podcast in comparison to his DIM talks, his voice has become shaky and tremulous, or was it perhaps suppressed rage?

[9thdoctor]

as the younger voice comes on to clarify matters. In advocating that any ground zero mosque should be blown up, Dr. Peikoff meant only that the U.S. government should blow it up; this should not be undertaken by private individuals.

Maybe he was worried about personal liability if someone went out and actually did it. This points to the possibility that he has an editor, someone to advise him against saying utterly insane things. I like the line “blowing up of a building, mentioned near the end, is an action, like all foreign policy issues…” Since when is NY a foreign territory? Is a mosque like an embassy?

Has Peikoff always been this nuts, or has he gotten worse with age?

I’d have to think about it, but my quick answer is yes and yes.

Thanks, Ninth, for getting my day off to a crappy start.

I subtitled the thread “Holy Crap!”, don’t say you weren’t duly warned. Granted, the last time I pointed OLers to a Peikoff podcast I warned everyone to “bind your skull with thick padding before listening”, but then it was a humorous case. I’m only now starting to find the humor in today’s rant.

I'm not in favor of the mosque being built near ground zero, but nothing is gained by developing an argument based on a false premise. It comes off as a rationalization for bigotry.

Here’s another way of thinking about the ground zero mosque: It will serve a function comparable to the “human shields” Iraq used in the first gulf war. Whatever is built at ground zero is going to be a target for future terrorist attacks, however if there’s a mosque there, the risk of collateral damage would serve as a deterrent. If they could get some rare relics to house there it would make it an even better deterrent. I realize Muslims aren’t as attached to relics as Catholics are, but imagine if they had the arm bone of the prophet, something major like that, would a fanatic be willing to blow that up? On the other hand, if I were a terrorist, I might choose the mosque site as the place to set off a dirty bomb, it would have great symbolic resonance I think. In any event, I don’t see it as any great victory for Islam or terrorism to have a mosque built at ground zero. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. It's a high profile victory for property rights that will get international attention.

Check this out, even Comrade Sonia disagrees(!!). And her brethren are lining up with her, each fitting in something to the effect that “much as I respect Dr. Peikoff”, otherwise there’s not much difference to here. Note that at 10:45 he says to those who disagree: “you haven’t a clue what property rights, or individualism, or Objectivism is saying”, so this is 2006 all over again, but the cheerleading squad is perceptibly diminished.

Finally, I can’t help wondering how much dialogue Peikoff has ever had with actual Muslims. “I don’t believe the great majority of Muslims are innocent”.

[Jerry Biggers]

"And, now for something completely different:"

The lecture given at the 18th Annual TAS Summer Seminar in 2007: "Outreach by Objectivists into the Muslim Community," by Prof. Omar Altalib

Apparently, Drs. Peikoff and Altalib have a completely different idea of what kind of "outreach" should be made!

Edited June 28, 2010 by Jerry Biggers

[Barbara Branden]

George asked: "Has Peikoff always been this nuts, or has he gotten worse with age? "

Yes, George, he has always been this nuts, but there used to be people around him who would throw fits at some of his atrocities, and who had the clout to stop him from uttering them publicly. (He once came roaring into my apartment in New York, after having witnessed demonstrators protesting the Vietnam war, to announce that it would be morally proper to machine gun them all. )

Barbara

[Philip Coates]

During the all those years that I was regularly around him, took all those private seminars and in all those giant ballrooms at the McAlpine Hotel, he was calm, logical, reasonable, well-informed. I never heard him say anything remotely like machine gunning protesters. In fact what impressed me was how careful his reasoning was.

I have to hope he was just blowing off steam. That's even worse than the mosque. But it's not worse than advocating nuking Tehran or attacking Iranian mosques and madrassas. So maybe he just has a very loose and 'flexible' conception of the ethics of emergencies.

Jesus H. Christ!!!!!

[Rich Engle]

I got it wrong, I admit it. It is a twins-separated-at-birth thing. It all makes sense now. Let's try again:

EXHIBIT A

EXHIBIT C (THE MONEY SHOT)

Edited June 29, 2010 by Rich Engle

[CNA]

This is off the subject of this thread. I watched the video of Dr. Peikoff and I have a few quick questions based on my observations of him. For one, he looks like he's in pain, either medically or just emotional pain and being in that state. Does anyone here know if he has Parkinson's Disease? I noticed a few characteristics of possible tell tell signs of it. I haven't listened to what he actually said in that interview. I actually hit the mute button and just wanted to observe him without hearing him. Although I am not familiar with his speech patterns over the years; such as, if his speech has changed over the years, become more rapid, monotone, and other issues related to speech that are associated with Parkinsons. Dementia is also a common characteristic in later stages but he doesn't seem to be in later stages, unless heavily medicated which is also a possibility for some of these symptoms and watching him; ie, eye movements, blinking, a few facial ticks, etc. It's a debilitating disease but given some here are saying in essence "He's not quite all there," I'm just a bit curious if anyone knows of any potential medical problems he may be having.

Angie

[9thdoctor]

For one, he looks like he's in pain, either medically or just emotional pain and being in that state. Does anyone here know if he has Parkinson's Disease?

The video is from 2001, it’s not very recent. Perhaps he was in emotional pain, 9/11 had that effect on many. I’ve listened to most of his podcasts over the last couple years, and while he sometimes gives goofy answers, I think he’s too lucid to be suffering from dementia. That’s my non-medical opinion, FWIW.

EXHIBIT A

Rich, I’m all for on-topic mockery, but the pictures making fun of the way Peikoff looks, they’re not funny, and they just dumb down the thread.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Angie,

From my experience with artists, I vote for stage fright.

Michael