jriggenbach

Right! You're not getting it! Realizing this can be an important first step, GS! Helpfully, JR

So, George, are you enjoying the intellectual chaos that is typically unleashed by people who (1) don't understand the difference between physics and metaphysics ("physics is the fundamental science that studies nature, or in other words reality") and (2) pay no heed to any potential difference between what they can observe and what's actually there? Good luck! JR

On his radio program today, Rush Limbaugh commented on the straw poll victory of Ron Paul at CPAC. An exasperated Rush said that any convention where Ron Paul was voted the favorite was not attended by "true conservatives." Then Rush grunted. Ghs George: Rush is a conservative who is also a Republican. He is no libertarian the way we define it. The "straw poll" stunned a few folks because of the third party scare. His argument is that a third party would only divide resources and votes. Right now, today, he is absolutely correct. The difficulty in getting on the ballot in all fifty states needs: 1) money; 2) field forces' and 3) expertise. I do not believe we have sufficient time to run a wave of third party candidates. This year, we have to basically dig in and get rid of as many incumbents as possible. You do not get these types of opportunities very often. Lesser of lots of evils, but this year that is the way it is in my opinion. Adam As Glenn Greenwald says, "The very idea that a political party dominated by neocons, warmongers, surveillance fetishists, and privacy-hating social conservatives will be a party of 'limited government' is absurd on its face." As is any suggestion that such a political party represents a "lesser of evils" for libertarians. As Robert Higgs put it over on History News Network today, "conservatives will be ever ready to spill the blood of any and all foreigners, for any reason or none at all, and . . . they will always support the invasion of their neighbors' personal affairs, to make them 'virtuous' at gunpoint. No alliance between libertarians and these uptight, bloodthirsty people is conceivable." JR

Glenn Greenwald's very astute piece on the GOP, the tea parties, and Ron Paul. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/21/libertarianism JR

Peter has no arguments, Michael. His abject stupidity renders him incapable of formulating any such thing, just as his hopeless ignorance renders him incapable of putting together anything that could reasonably be described as an "interpretation" of historical events. Helpfully, JR

Indeed, Chris, happy half century! JR

This is your delusion at work. A conservative is an almost pure statist. A conservative is, for all practical purposes, identical to a fascist. And the Republican Party is and always has been the principal enemy of individual liberty in this country. JR

In other words, you would rather pretend that your worst enemies are actually your allies, because that makes you feel good. I see. Good luck with that. JR

Adam: Where did you get the hilarious idea that "[c]onservatives support the 1-10 amendments"? Was it, for example, Ronald Reagan's fervent support for freedom of speech that led him to create the Meese Commission on "pornography"? And if ""[c]onservatives want lower taxes," why is it that conservative politicians consistently and predictably raise the overall tax burden (though they may muddy the waters a bit by reducing this tax or that tax in the process)? Could it be that you're listening to the libertarian rhetoric conservatives employ to win elections and ignoring what they actually do in office? JR

There are examples where she did, Aristotle and Aquinas come immediately to mind. I think she saw Hayek as an immediate threat, however, and there’s the difference. She advocated the full separation of state and economics, he accepted compromise on this principle, and was a well respected figure on the contemporary Right. And she probably thought he should know better. For full disclosure, I read The Road to Serfdom in college, and recall that in the introduction he specifically says he favors a mixed economy. That’s all the Hayek I’ve read, I thought it was a great book. As for how Rand could have been a better person, she bore the burden of genius, allowances must be made. Sounds border line Randroidish, but there it is. A hilarious anecdote comes to mind, there was a taped lecture by Edwin Locke I heard once, I think it was on Animal Rights, it was definitely given to an Objectivist-only group, where at the end he traces the evolutionary development of humans, so Homo Habilis to Homo Erectus etc. and after Homo Sapiens Sapiens, he added, facetiously, Homo Randus, whose genius we’ve only begun to understand. Something like that, meant as a joke. Otherwise it would be really embarrassing. Yes, there was vigorous laughter and applause, far be it for me to suggest an ARI audience took it literally. The majority of them, that is. "[Hayek] was a well respected figure on the contemporary Right . . ." Hayek was never a part of the Right, for reasons he explained admirably in his essay, "Why I Am Not a Conservative." Would that more Objectivists would read it and see in it the folly of their belief that conservatives are in any sense our allies. JR

A passage from another Spillane send-up: I went through the door into his outer office. His secretary was there. "Next time open the door before you come through it, big boy," she spat. JR

Ooh snap! One upmanship at its best. I think it was My Gun is Quick that ends something like: “And he was still screaming when I pulled the trigger.” I can’t remember exactly. How about this closer: Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognised who it was. Queue the Final Jeopardy music. It's pretty obvious. That's from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, of course. The last line of My Gun Is Quick is, in fact: He was still screaming when I pulled the trigger. How about this for the opening passage of a satirical send up of Spillane, written at the height of his popularity: I'm Mike Hammer. I don't take slop from nobody. Like this guy. He ankles up to me on the street. He opens his big ugly yap, and says, "Pardon me. Have you the correct time?" So I kicked him in the mouth and his teeth dropped all over the sidewalk like marbles. Like I said - I don't take slop from nobody. JR

That was a horrible book. I'm afraid you're right. I haven't read it for over 40 years now. --Brant If you guys are talking about the book I think you're talking about - Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury - the correct closing line is: "It was easy," I said. JR

Brackett Omensetter was a wide and happy man. He could whistle like the cardinal whistles in the deep snow, or whirr like the sky 'white rising from its cover, or be the lark a chuckle at the sky. He knew the earth. He put his hands in water. He smelled the clean fir smell. He listened to the bees. And he laughed his deep, loud, wide and happy laugh whenever he could—which was often, long, and joyfully. There was a man named Lessingham dwelt in an old low house in Wastdale, set in a gray old garden where yew-trees flourished that had seen Vikings in Copeland in their seedling time. Lily and rose and larkspur bloomed in the borders, and begonias with blossoms big as saucers, red and white and pink and lemon-colour, in the beds before the porch. Climbing roses, honeysuckle, clematis, and the scarlet flame-flower scrambled up the walls. Thick woods were on every side without the garden, with a gap north-eastward opening on the desolate lake and the great fells beyond it: Gable rearing his crag-bound head against the sky from behind the straight clean outline of the Screes. Later that Summer, when Mrs. Penmark looked back and remembered, when she was caught up in despair so deep that she knew there was no way out, no solution whatever for the circumstances that encompassed her, it seemed to her that June seventh, the day of the Fern Grammar School picnic, was the day of her last happiness, for never since then had she known contentment or felt peace. He doesn't know which of us I am these days, but they know one truth. You must own nothing but yourself. You must make your own life, live your own life and die your own death . . . or else you will die another's.

Tell me: how exactly is "the heroin pusher" (that is someone who sells a drug the State has banned from the market to customers willing to buy it at his prices) a "parasite"? I'd call him a businessman - specifically, an unlicensed pharmacist. JR

(1) Of course he can reason by analogy if he wants to do so. Why can't he? (2) He is not reasoning by analogy in the sentence you responded to. He's doing exactly what he said he was doing - offering a couple of examples of his (rather elementary) point. JR

"My world of human beings had perished; I was utterly alone in the world and for friends I had the streets, and the streets spoke to me in that sad, bitter language compounded of human misery, yearning, regret, failure, wasted effort. Passing under the viaduct along the Rue Broca, one night after I had been informed that Mona was ill and starving, I suddenly recalled that it was here in the squalor and gloom of this sunken street, terrorized perhaps by a premonition of the future, that Mona clung to me and with a quivering voice begged me to promise that I would never leave her, never, no matter what happened. And, only a few days later, I stood on the platform of the Gare St. Lazare and I watched the train pull out, the train that was bearing her away: she was leaning out of the window, just as she had leaned out of the window when I left her in New York, and there was that same, sad, inscrutable smile on her face, that last-minute look which is intended to convey so much, but which is only a mask that is twisted by a vacant smile. Only a few days before, she had clung to me desperately and then something happened, something which is not even clear to me now, and of her own volition she boarded the train and she was looking at me again with that sad, enigmatic smile which baffles me, which is unjust, unnatural, which I distrust with all my soul. And now it is I, standing in the shadow of the viaduct, who reach out for her who cling to her desperately and there is that same inexplicable smile on my lips, the mask that I have clamped down over my grief. I can stand here and smile vacantly, and no matter how fervid my prayers, no matter how desperate my longing, there is an ocean between us; there she will stay and starve, and here I shall walk from one street to the next, the hot tears scalding my face."

Speaking of mystery novelists, John D. MacDonald included a brief, unflattering comment on Rand in one of his Travis McGee novels of the 1960s. JR

Ayn Rand is a character in L. Neil Smith's The Probability Broach. I also vaguely recall, in college, reading a series of satirical spy novels master-titled The Man from O.R.G.Y. by Ted Mark, about a spy named Steve Victor who spent most of his time bedding beautiful damsels. In one of these novels, Steve infiltrates an underground sect of Ayn Rand devotees. I can no longer remember whether Rand is identified by her actual name, or if it's merely obvious that that's who the author is talking about/satirizing. JR

". . . one has to assume that Cameron is not unhappy with being ambiguous, and so is, ultimately, dishonest. No?" Not necessarily. Some artists employ ambiguity to convey two or more meanings simultaneously and to suggest that these different meanings are not, at root, irreconcilable. JR

I more than appreciate the refrence. However, the "death of the author" theory is one I, to some extent, disagree with. Whilst Lit Crit might believe focussing on author intentions is a fallacy, Lit Crit is also full of people that argue Jane Austen promoted slavery and argue that all literature produced up until now is a mere rationalization for white male christian capitalism. Of course not all Lit Crit is like this. I'm simply saying that merely because its called the "intentional fallacy" by Lit Critics, that does not automatically mean reference to repeatedly expressed author intentionality is a fallacy. I admit, more than one interpretation of a text can be derived. But it is perfectly legitimate to look at "the message the author was attempting to convey" even if said message didn't get through to every audience consciousness clearly. This reminds me.... Im thinking I'd start a semi-serious, semi-comedy thread about Libertarian/Objectivist readings of mainstream pop culture... would be kinda funny. The works says what it says. What the author supposedly intended it to say is irrelevant. Get over it. JR

There's an essay you might want to read sometime. It's called "The Intentional Fallacy" by W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley. You may find it an eye-opener. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_fallacy JR

Incorrect. The "ph" is still used in German, for example in: Physik, Alphabet, Geographie, Phänomen, Phosphor. In general in words of Greek origin, although these can sometimes be also written with an "f" (Photo or Foto, Phantasie or Fantasie). I should have written, "There is no 'ph' for 'f' sound in German, outside of a relative handful of words adopted whole (including spelling) from other languages." JR

Mary Lee - Thomas Sowell is a real world economist. He is brilliant, and he writes very well. He is at his best, actually, in his works on history. PARC is an abbreviation for The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, a book self-published a few years ago by an insufferable Los Angeles-area lawyer named James Valliant, who argues that everything Nathaniel and Barbara Branden have ever said about Ayn Rand is a self-serving lie. And, by the way, Hitler's first name is spelled "Adolf." There is no "ph" for the "f" sound in German. Best wishes, JR

No to all. The only correspondence I've had with Jim Valliant was last summer over the Wikipedia business. (Side note to Brant: Holly did most of the Wikipedia editing, and he was extremely ill, in the hospital several times.) Ellen Ellen, you write that James Valliant was "extremely ill" and "in the hospital several times" around six months ago ("last summer"). What was the problem? Terminal self-importance? JR