AlanCFA2001

Alan Greenspan should have known it is irrational to smoke a tuna sandwich when you are hungry, even if the government said so by proving it with statistics! Now, today, LP admits, finally, that if Ayn Rand were still alive, today, she would not smoke tuna sandwiches! Geez!

--Brant

Wow! After reading your post, it just dawned on me that Leonard Peikoff and Libertarian Party have the same initials! Coincidence?

Alan, you found me out. Mea Culpa!

Anonymous

It took years of hard investigative journalism, but it was worth it! Now, like Ayn Rand finishing Atlas Shrugged, I'm not sure exactly what to do next. I thought about having an affair with a woman 25 years younger than me, but my wife is not enamoured of the idea (damned traditionalist!).

Excellent work!

(Much laughter suppressed to enable self to continue typing...)

What is telling is that those who have read Valliant's book can vouch for the fact that the actual silliness of the book is no less than that of this send-up!

Alfonso

Thanks - the silliness of the Valliant book and some of the nonsense at NoodleFood is truly mind-numbing. One person there, commenting on the split with Rand, said that Rand "never trusted" Nathaniel and Barbara Branden (I can't find the quote, so it is possible that it was made at some other anti-Branden site). Diana Hsieh writes about hearing Nathaniel speak about Objectivism:

During the seminar itself, I was favorably impressed by Branden's intelligence, insight, and consistency with my (limited) understanding of Objectivism. (Later, once I knew more, I realized that his grasp of Objectivism was superficial at best.)

http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2006/03/my-...nd-barbara.html

Nathaniel Branden, the man declared by Rand herself as her "intellectual heir", the man to whom Atlas Shrugged was dedicated, the man who lectured and wrote about Objectivism with Rand's blessing, had a grasp of Objectivism that was "superficial at best"? I would have loved to include that in my parody but I could not find a way to make that any more of a parody than it already is. Diana Hsieh must know more about Objectivism than Ayn Rand did if her judgement about Nathaniel's "grasp of Objectivism" is more accurate than Rand's judgement was.

Glad you had some giggles.

Alan

Glad you guys liked it. I prefer subtle humor, but the source material of my paraody was itself a parody of investigative writing so there was only room for subtlety of the Three Stooges variety.

Alan

> does Leonard justify Rand lying to him about the affair with Branden because she considered him a "snooper"

Alan, I don't know. It's not a major enough issue with me to burn up any more neurons about it. There is too much focus on trying to find feet of clay in one's Oist opponents...or trying to erect timelines...or trying to do other personality or gossip type things beyond simply applying the ideas to improve one's life.

Ok. My initial deadpan response was meant to be humorous, not to drive a philosophical stake in the ground. Leonard writes that "There are men other than criminals or dictators to whom it is moral to lie. For example, lying is necessary and proper in certain cases to protect one’s privacy from snoopers". Since Lenny does not fall into the criminals or dictators categories, I was joking that such would only leave the third category of snooper to justify Rand's lies to him.

Frankly, as MSK wrote, I think that it was wrong of Rand to lie to Leonard, but it is not that big of a deal to me. I just think that it is silly for Leonard to come off with high moralistic proclamations and give Rand a pass either explicitly (if he has justified her behavior to himself) or implicitly (he does not feel that she was justified, but will not pubically state so).

Guys, you're completely off on this!! Haven't any of you taken P's taped courses? And his famous example of the maniac with the bloody knife who comes to your door and wants an honest answer to 'where are your childdren'.

An eagerness to dislike everything about Peikoff leads to the absurd and cynical manufacture of the idea that he said this only because of (or after) PAR.

Actually study Peikoff before speculating or accusing him of every possible sin from eating too much breakfast cereral to having sex with swamp creatures.

There are people in this world who, believe it or not, do not call themselves Objectivists and yet would still not need anybody to tell them that if a maniac with a bloody knife showed up at their door they should not feel obligated to answer him fully and honestly. After suffering through 50 or so pages of The Ominous Parallels, I opted not to pursue the taped courses or Leonard's other writings.

As to whether he wrote about "snoopers" before or after PAR, the questions remain: does Leonard justify Rand lying to him about the affair with Branden because she considered him a "snooper", does he justify it on some other basis, or does he think that it was not justified? I do not know the answer, but it must be one of these three if he had given the subject any thought.

Do you know the answer?

BTW, Leonard is not my enemy and I do not think that he had sex with swamp creatures (a little French kissing is not sex).

Alan,

I believe that Ayn Rand never thought of disclosing her affair with Nathaniel Branden to Leonard Peikoff, for the same reason that Dagny Taggart never thought of disclosing her affairs with Francisco d'Anconia or Hank Rearden to Eddie Willers.

Good point. Perhaps Peikoff thinks of himself as a "snooper" and he justifies Rand's lies to him on that basis. I can't read minds (else I'd post at NoodleFood), but that seems to be a reasonable guess.

Alan

One of the ironies, of course, is that Ayn Rand lied to him about the affair. He didn't learn about it until after her death.

Does that mean that Rand considered Peikoff a "snooper"?

PARC for Dummies

Introduction

Hi.

My name is Jimbo Valliant. I wrote a book about Nathaniel and Barbara Branden and their books. My book was called The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics. People like to call it P.A.R.C. for short. Some people on ARI-friendly Internet forums really liked the book. But the ones that read it complained that they could not understand the big words I used and the subtle and complex ideas in the book. In fact, when some of the folks on a couple of the forums like NoodleFood and Solo Passion heard that there were big words in the book they did not read it at all. That did not stop either group from praising it as a great book, but still, I thought it might be nice if they understood what I wrote. Hopefully, this Dummies edition will do the trick. I am also working on an audiobook for the Diana Hseih, Casey Fahy and Lindsay Perigo fans, most of whom can’t read. I hope you like my book.

Jimbo Valliant.

About the Author

Jimbo Valliant – Class of 1995

Here is my high school yearbook photo! I know the hair looks funny now, but it was in fashion then. Honest!

The Lies of Barbara Branden

Barbara Branden’s “biography” of Ayn Rand starts off with a lie. Branden claims that Rand grew up in Russia in the early part of the twentieth century and that the country was so poor all the people could afford to eat was sorghum and beets. She then makes the silly claim that little Alissa Rosenbaum, the girl who would one day become Ayn Rand, “hated”* beets.

* For my Russian readers, here is the translation: Свеклы? Yuck!

This is completely false. I read all of Rand’s private journals and in them she wrote that she *loved* beets.

So we can plainly see that this was obviously a lie told by Barbara Branden to portray Ayn Rand in the worst possible light—“Rand, the beet-hating Rooskie.” Shocking, but true!

Branden continues her twisted tale. She writes that when little Alissa grew up she left Russia, telling her friends “I will be successful in America. Someday I will be more famous than Elvis.” Obviously, this is another lie. Nobody could hope to be more famous than Elvis, not even in 1926!

Barbara Branden next tells us a preposterous tale filled with unsupported allegations that she hopes we will be stupid enough to believe. That Alissa, now in the United States, moved to Hollywood to write movie scripts and novels and, while she was there, she said “good morning” to Cecil B. DeMille. Like hell she did!!!

Good morning? Where was it morning? Was it morning in Guam, in Paris, in Los Angeles? No answer is given because the question is not asked!!

Good? What was good about it? Again, no answer is given. Indeed what is good? Is it to be anything that a subjective, whim worshipper like Ms. Branden might mention? Is it a list of concrete examples that overlooks the objective function of man’s mind as his primary tool of survival? Hah! Good morning indeed! Shame on Barbara Branden!

Shortly after she got to Hollywood, Alissa had changed her name to Ayn Rand. Barbara Branden tells us that she got her name from a typewriter!

What a lie! There has never been a typewriter called “Ayn.” The real story about her name is that she chose Rand because it was an anagram of her favorite new American word “Darn,” as in “Those Darn altruists don’t know Kant from Shinola.” She became so famous after her novel We the Living that the Rand Corporation chose its name from her! That’s a fact, but Branden suppressed this evidence in order to downplay Ayn Rand’s influence on the world!

Enter the Demon

When Rand was living in Los Angeles, she met a young man named Sataniel Branden. Ok, that wasn’t his real name, but it should have been! Sataniel began to spend lots of time with Rand. He married Barbara Branden, Ayn married Frank O’Connor and everybody moved to New York.

(It took awhile, but eventually they all got there.)

Branden states that Rand wrote several more novels. Well, at least she got that part right. Rand wrote The Fountainhead and the lead character in the novel was just like Gary Cooper. Well, not exactly. But anyway, the guy was an architect and his name was Roark. Many years later, Ricardo Montalban would portray Roark in a television show. The show was loosely based on The Fountainhead. Very loosely based. I think the character “Tatoo” was supposed to be both Peter Keating and Ellsworth Toohey kinda rolled together. But I digress…

It is at this point that Sataniel Branden writes in Judgment Day that he attended NYU, started NBI, collected some IOUs and, FYI, tried smoking some E.I.E.I.O. Branden claims that he was an Objectivist, that he loved Rand, and that after a few years, Rand went bonkers on him (or words to that effect).

Sataniel Branden said: “She became like a

Medieval Pope, excommunicating her loyal followers”

Barbara Branden said “it was like the Stalinist purges”

Alan Greenspan said “I’m hungry. Does anybody have a tuna sandwich?”

All of these lies betray Rand. Sataniel says that he did not tell Rand about his young girlfriend because he was afraid that Rand would be jealous. Hah! I have read Rand’s journals and Rand herself suggested that Sataniel have an affair with Leonard Peacock.

That also should put an end to stories that she was homophobic.

The Brandens are so Unfair

Of course, as we all know, Sataniel did not have an affair with Leonard. This upset Lenny, who felt slighted. He is as fully sexed as any man and as recently as 2003 proudly proclaimed “When it comes to sex, I can hold my own!” (I’m not sure that quote came out the way he intended).

The Brandens have continued to smear poor Leonard and they want to claim that Mr. Peacock has, himself, continued in Rand’s footsteps and excommunicated Objectivists who were not “pure enough.”

They even included a supposed photo of the

excommunication of an Objectivist from Iraq.

This is an obvious fake since real Objectivists do not wear black hoods, but a pastel model approved by Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz.

Mr. Peacock has been also been downgraded by the Brandens in their memoirs. He was an important man in Rand’s life and he wrote a complete treatment of Objectivism that’s just as good as it would have been if Rand had written it herself. Trust me on this.

Murray Rothbard was another critic of Rand. He wrote “The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult” and he publically ridiculed Rand and her followers in that paper. But privately, he told me that he made it all up, that none of it was true, and that Snowball destroyed the windmill. Trust me on this. Diana Hsieh is another person slighted by the Brandens; she is not even mentioned in either of their books!

Conclusion

Well, I think that I have done a pretty good job of demolishing the web of lies told by the Brandens and Rothbard in their 3-way conspiracy against Rand. They tried to portray Rand as a judgmental, rigid, unfeeling, emotionally repressed tyrant. That is not true of Ayn Rand. It happens to be true of Diana Hsieh and other rationally passionate keepers of the flame, but it is NOT true of Ayn Rand!

I hope that I included enough pictures so that my friends at the sundry ARI-friendly Internet forums don’t get overwhelmed by this massive tome (“massive tome” means “big book” for the elucidation of the comprehension challenged).

Thanks for reading.

Your loyal Objectivist (“Objectivist” with a capital “O”),

Jimbo Valliant