Michelle

Almost everything along the lines of gender or sexuality tends to be spotty for Rand. You'll note her opinions of female presidents and homosexuals.

That's right.

But suppose..............................

But suppose what?

xray:

"This would be like saying jelly beans are among the "best foods" for people just because I happento like them."

No, that is not a proper comparison[simile*] as it is disparate as to degree.

Adam

*A simile is a figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced with the word "like" or "as".[1] Even though similes and metaphors are both forms of comparison, similes allow the two ideas to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas metaphors compare two things without using "like" or "as". For instance, a simile that compares a person with a bullet would go as follows: "John was a record-setting runner and as fast as a speeding bullet." A metaphor might read something like, "John was a record-setting runner. That speeding bullet could zip past you without you even knowing he was there."

I am not trying to be picky, just giving you some last cover as to your language difficulties.

Not trying to be picky either, but your elaborations on rhetoric have no bearing on what I wrote.

For doing a comparison is by no means limited to using the "simile" as figure of speech.

Example of a simile: "John is stubborn as a mule".

Example of metaphor: "Jim got phone call from his old flame yesterday."

Whereas I pointed out that Michelle erroneously claimed her subjectve preference of a fictional character (Dagny Taggart), to be an objective value judgement ("one of the best role models for women you'll find in literature"). Again, the absence of entity identity can be observed. Role model for which woman? For example, a woman active in the ecologist movement may vehemently disapprove of a character like Dagny who is a figurehead of unbridled capitalism.

It is aways subjectve value to whom and why - the old story.

That's why I added that Michelle's inference is about as valid if someone inferred from their personal preference of jelly beans that they are among the best foods for people.

You're right. I shouldn't have said "female role model." Dagny Taggart would be a fine role-model for men as well.

For those who share Rand's ideological values and personal peferences maybe. What about those who don't?

"Good", "fine", are mere subjective value judgements. There is no absolute "good" or "fine".

For example, IF a reader approves of a person blowing up buildings because a contract has been breached, THEN what Roark did is "good" in this person's eyes. IF a reader approves of Rand's ideology and other prefercnes, THEN he/she is likely to approve of her fictional heros and heroines too. However you slice it, you'll land at the doorstep of subjective value.

The difference is between objective value and subjective tastes. I might say that jelly beans are the best food in the world because they're my favorite-tasting food, and this would, of course, be a purely "subjective" valuation. Taste varies.

However, vegetables are objectively superior as food to jelly beans, and most other "food" products.

So it would not be in error to say that vegetables are among the best food for people.

Moreover, you say that Dagny would not be a great role-model for an environmentalist. However, the existence of a good "role-model" presumes that objective standards exist. You cannot say that any one person is a good example to model yourself after if (as you seem to think) no objective standards exist.

Of course, this is again you revealing your anti-conceptual mindset. You cannot see beyond the concrete to the level of principles. A role-model is judged by the abstract nature of their personality. To say "Roark is a good role-model" does not mean that "Roark is a good role-model only for aspiring architects." Dagny would probably be a good role-model for anybody, because she embodies the qualities of self-confidence, determination, rationality, independence, and purposefulness. A role-model shouldn't be someone who you emulate in every way down the purely subjective aspects of their life. Let's use a religious example again. How many Christians are carpenters? Some, but probably not the majority. Christ is the Christian role-model. Christians seek to become "like Christ." This does not mean that they seek to become carpenters and eventually get nailed to a piece of wood. It means that they try to apply Christ's values to their own life - values of brotherly love, mercy, and altruism.

How much of Rand's work would be left standing if we removed all that is dependent upon the illusion of categorical identity?

I'd say almost all of it.

Rand's gender essentialism conflicts with her technical epistemology on numerous levels. This has been acknowledged repeatedly. Read "Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand" for more on this. I don't know any Objectivist that would apply a methodologically collectivist form of analysis to gender issues (and if they did, they'd be in error).

You seem to think that you have discovered some "fatal flaw" in Objectivism, and that this invalidates every one of her arguments, and you seem to be jubilant about it.

Sorry to disappoint you, but "disproving Objectivism" requires a lot more than pointing out an instance wherein which a philosoPHER injected her sexual fantasies about being ravished into her philosoPHY (note the emphasis).

Almost everything along the lines of gender or sexuality tends to be spotty for Rand. You'll note her opinions of female presidents and homosexuals.

I can't sympathize with being intimidated by the size of ATLAS. I've been reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky since I was 13.

Michelle,

Yes! Being able to "show" what you're talking about in words feels great ('specially when you have some talent to do them!). I do this when I'm writing notes in class--drawing out little doodles to help me focus on what concepts mean.

I had a really compact version of Atlas that had minuscule print when I first read it (it was about 700 something pages). Now that I have a larger version, it is much easier re-reading Atlas. If you can, try and find one of the paperbacks that's the 1000+ version of it. Bigger text=easier to read. Try it out in chunks; think of it like a series of books all compacted into one big edition .

I still do some sketches for a story when it involves an odd/complex setting or if I'm trying to emphasize the physicality of a character. They work until the production notes are finalized, at which time I throw them away.

Good lord! My portable paperback of ATLAS (third copy: I re-read my first two copies so often that they just fell apart, so I got a nice hardcover edition for home reference) is 1000+ pages in tiny Bible print. I can't imagine how small the font on your copy must be.

Yeah, I have a friend in Canada who told me all about their wonderful universal healthcare system.

Interesting article by Michelle Malkin here.

I've never been much of a fun of short stories - too little character building, etc, etc. But, after reading Anthem, it changed my mind.

Curious if 1984 was a derivitive of sorts from Ayn's story...

~ Shane

Rand's Anthem is extremely derivative of We.

Oh? Does one stop being a lady when one no longer attends Sunday School?

How am I to answer that since I can't know what subjective connotations you associate with the term "lady"?

Feel free to list them here so I can get an idea.

I didn't say one should adopt fictional role-models. I said: Dagny Taggart is one of the best role-models for women that you'll find in modern literature

This is a typical subjective value judgement: you are projecting your personal preferences into "women", assuming that your idea of an 'excellent' female role model matches theirs.

This would be like saying jelly beans are among the "best foods" for people just because I happento like them.

You're right. I shouldn't have said "female role model." Dagny Taggart would be a fine role-model for men as well.

Michelle:

I love that train photo, but when you threw out the Kip Chalmers name, I said to myself, where do I know that name from? As if it were in the real world. I did a quick search and that was the number one that popped up.

"As to the lighter note: I'm aware, but it is more in reference to the motive power symbolized by railroads themselves, not so much a reference to Dagny's railroad. And it is a very nice picture, isn't it?

Or you could be a little bit wicked and think of it as a representation of the last ride of Kip Chalmers."

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: from romantic fallacy to holocaustic imagination

Modern Age, Fall, 2004 by Thomas F. Bertonneau

A coterie of gangsters begins to complain, as though the inconvenience stemmed not directly from their own sustained depredation on the economy and circumvention of the law but from inimical powers. The chief miscreant, Kip Chalmers, has come from the gang's Washington headquarters to take over a satrapy in California. Like all the other villains in Atlas he talks as though his libido were a divinity itself demanding instantaneous appeasement on every occasion. With the diesel out of commission, however, and with only a coal-fired steam locomotive available, the eight-mile-long Winston Tunnel stands as an insuperable material obstacle between Chalmers and his goal. The railroad people timidly explain this. Chalmers explodes: "Do you think I'll let your miserable technological problems interfere with crucial social issues? Do you know who I am? Tell that engineer to start moving if he values his job." (57)

All competent personnel having long since severed links with the Taggart Trans-continental, those still on the job are the ones who have, in Rand's recurrent and pejorative phrase, adapted themselves to the prevailing conditions. None wants to thwart Chalmers because to do so would put one at risk of becoming a "scapegoat." (58) They conform to the novel's ambient, semi-voluntary, self-abnegating unanimity under coercion. Hitched to a coal-burner, the Comet heads toward the Tunnel.

In earlier instances we have observed how Rand's sacrificial imagination can betray itself by a stylistic discrepancy. So it is again with the Tunnel incident. Rand always editorializes, but she rarely editorializes in such a way as to arrest the action of the story or to jolt readers out of their suspended disbelief. Something important must be at stake to compel Rand to insert the authorial passage that interposes just before the Comet, flaring and smoking, enters the lethal bore: "It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them." (59) Indeed they are not guilty--by the legally normative standard of justice which Rand putatively upholds in Atlas Shrugged and which she accuses her antagonists in the novel's grand conflict of repeatedly and egregiously violating. Just as Rearden is guilty of no particular demonstrable moral or legal infraction at his trial, except his competence, so are the passengers on the Comet--excluding, let us say, Kip Chalmers and his retinue--not guilty de jure of any proven legal transgression, as none has enjoyed due process.

Who are the unnamed "those" in Rand's sentence who "would have said," absent a hearing by the rules, that, no legitimate sentence could in the moment attach to the fated ones? We can name them as any readers who at this point in the narrative might feel uneasy about what Rand proposes momentarily to execute in her role as author, she who makes things happen. Note how the passive inflection, "happened," in the sentence, as though the event could boast of no agent, dissimulates a great deal: primarily it would dissimulate the author herself, were she not, in the writing of the utterance, betraying her manipulative and determining presence. The luckless ones must be made out as guilty. Rand must demonstrate that the random passengers have sinned sufficiently to substitute for the known "looters."

I'm actually surprised I could recall the name so easily. The guy appears in only a few of the book's pages, and I haven't read ATLAS SHRUGGED in years. Most likely his name has become attached to the symbolic catastrophe of the Tunnel disaster.

It has to be one of my favorite scenes in any work of literature. Almost any other writer would have merely described a train wreck, but Rand suffuses it with philosophical power, thus making the scene all the more dramatic. Through the various descriptions of the passengers on board, Rand demonstrates how bad premises which run against the nature of reality ultimately lead to chaos and death when put to the reality test. Kip really isn't solely responsible: he is merely the straw which breaks the camel's back. Rand demonstrates how almost everyone on that train had a hand in the invisible chain of cause-and-effect which would lead to their doom.

The only truly innocent people on that train were the children, who became victims of their parents' irrationality. It is the innocent who suffer most.

I am fairly certain this is why Rand included children on that train in a novel where children are otherwise almost entirely absent.

Youtube took this down.

Here's a link to the video in full on the BBC News website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/review/7965394.stm

The anti-conceptual mindset is in full force here with these people.

In fact it was the first time I read any Ayn Rand. I had heard of her and new she was an author but didn't know much else. A coworker of mine, Jen, told me she just read a book that I had to read too. She (my co-worker, not Ayn) was cute, intelligent and funny and I had a huge crush on her so I did. Alas she turned out to be a lesbian but that is a story for another day. Anyway, one day at work she came up to me and said she read a book that was so awful that I just had to read it. I figured no way could it be as bad as she was saying and it was very short so I figured what the heck and read the whole thing that night. Well, needless to say it was awfull beyond my dreams. I have often told other people of this horrible book and how they need to read it too but no one will. I guess only Jen and I shared the same interest in awful works of fiction. Alas, if only she was staright....

PS-I started reading it again on the forum and yep-its as bad as I remember!

Thank you for posting it and have a great day!

It isn't one of her better books.

Did you object to the idea behind it or to the pseudo-archaic style?

The founders of modern libertarianism (whether or not they liked being a founder) were Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged), Murray Rothbard (Man, Economy, and State), and Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State, and Utopia).

Aren't you forgetting Hayek and von Mises, two of the most influential thinkers of the last century?

As I recall, Hayek’s views were better suited to conservatism than to libertarianism. But I have not studied such things in many years. Here is one fairly recent paper concerning Hayek and libertarianism: Mere Libertarianism: Blending Hayek and Rothbard by Daniel Klein.

Von Mises was not a libertarian in the modern sense of the term, as noted here.

The economics of Von Mises was entered into the modern movement (1960’s forward) mainly by Rothbard’s text. Rothbard was a proponent of individual rights, whereas typically, economists are utilitarians. The two perspectives can be harmonized to some extent with game theory.

Your argument against von Mises in that thread is weak.

It is beside the point anyhow. Von Mises added far more to free-market economic theory than Rand ever did. To include Rand and exclude von Mises because you dislike his support for the draft is ridiculous.

Same goes for Hayek.

Rand was good at popularizing libertarian ideas, but this does not make her an essential figure in the development of libertarian theory.

Michelle,

Whether one supports the military draft is not beside the point concerning the question of consistency with libertarianism. It is square on the point; anyone who supports military conscription is not a libertarian. The issue of conscription is not some peripheral issue. It is a direct and total infringement of the liberty of the individual conscripted.

How much one contributed to free-market economic theory is not entirely beside the point concerning the question of consistency with libertarianism. But it is not square on the point, because free-market economics and libertarianism are not entirely the same thing.

A lighter note: Dagny’s locomotive was a diesel-electric. The one in your photo is not, but I like it anyway.

What label can be applied to him is beside the point. Call him a conservative if you like. Or a duck, if you wish. But he is indisputably one of the great innovators when it came to libertarian economic theory.

I stand by my original argument: Von Mises contributed more to libertarian theory than did Rand. This is natural. She was a writer who popularized libertarian ideals in her fiction and philosophy. So it would be profoundly incorrect not to include Von Mises and Hayek on any list of the great 'founders' of modern libertarianism. And it is also improper to include Rand in there.

I can imagine Ayn Rand rolls in her grave every time she is called a libertarian.

As to the lighter note: I'm aware, but it is more in reference to the motive power symbolized by railroads themselves, not so much a reference to Dagny's railroad. And it is a very nice picture, isn't it?

Or you could be a little bit wicked and think of it as a representation of the last ride of Kip Chalmers.

On one hand, it is too bad this happened.

On the other hand, he's a pretentious little twit.

quote name='Michelle R' date='16 July 2009 - 02:22 PM' timestamp='1247772152' post='75386']

Xray, you should hide your excitement about this topic a little bit. It's indecent.

You sound a bit prim, Michelle. "Indecent", lol. Are we in Sunday school here?

Ayn Rand's gender hierarchy is also evident in her novels, surely you won't dispute this?

But it looks like bringing this up always causes vehement emotional reactions.

That said, Dagny Taggart is one of the best role-models for women that you'll find in modern literature. She is not "subservient" to the men in the novel. Most of Rand's hero-worship rubbish is left out of ATLAS SHRUGGED, anyway.

Dagny Taggart is a subservient hero worshiper if there ever was one. Remember how for example she voluntarily offers her services to John Galt as his "cook and housemaid", feeling the "eager, desperate, tremulous hope of the a young girl on her first job: the hope that she would be able to deserve it."

Remember Rand explicity said she had modeled Dagny after herself, so it was only natural that she would make her a hero worshiper too.

As for the male heros in her novels - they all were more or less recreations of "Cyrus", a fantasy adventure story hero Rand got infatuated with as a young girl, mixed with traits of "Leo", the unresponsive real-life object of her desire.

Have you read Barbara Branden's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand"?

As for picking role models from fiction: do you think this serves to develop one's individuality?

Oh? Does one stop being a lady when one no longer attends Sunday School?

Cut the pseudo-psych. Dagny is certainly not "subservient." John Galt, to Dagny, is the perfect man. And this perfect creatures saves her life. Of course she's going to be respectful and slightly awed in his presence, and offer her services to him. Or are you one of those people who thinks that domestic activity degrades a woman? It's not like she becomes his loyal housewife (although, if this is what she wanted, what would there be wrong in that?). She sets about rebuilding her railroad at the end of the novel. Dagny is not subservient or docile.

My reaction to John Galt would be a bit different. I'd be feeling around his head for the battery case.

I didn't say one should adopt fictional role-models. I said: Dagny Taggart is one of the best role-models for women that you'll find in modern literature

Ahh that is why Galt is such a stud he is battery operated...however, I think you have to search a little lower for the battery package. B)

I mean he's a robot. Of all the men in ATLAS SHRUGGED, he is the only one who never gives me much of any kind of impression. Oh great, he's perfect. Whoopee! I'd take a hottie like Francisco over Galtbot 2000 anyday.

Also, Aristotle's views, as deplorable as they are, were still superior to the views expressed by Plato in The Little Red Book The Republic

The ideal city of The Republic was mostly an exercise in political fantasy, for his final thoughts try the Laws, which in many respects was even worse.

The Republic, The Statesman, and The Laws really all need to be read within a short period of time of oneanother to get the fullest sense of Plato's political philosophy.

It is The Republic that we get the fullest sense of the tyrant's soul in Plato, however.

quote name='Michelle R' date='16 July 2009 - 02:22 PM' timestamp='1247772152' post='75386']

Xray, you should hide your excitement about this topic a little bit. It's indecent.

You sound a bit prim, Michelle. "Indecent", lol. Are we in Sunday school here?

Ayn Rand's gender hierarchy is also evident in her novels, surely you won't dispute this?

But it looks like bringing this up always causes vehement emotional reactions.

That said, Dagny Taggart is one of the best role-models for women that you'll find in modern literature. She is not "subservient" to the men in the novel. Most of Rand's hero-worship rubbish is left out of ATLAS SHRUGGED, anyway.

Dagny Taggart is a subservient hero worshiper if there ever was one. Remember how for example she voluntarily offers her services to John Galt as his "cook and housemaid", feeling the "eager, desperate, tremulous hope of the a young girl on her first job: the hope that she would be able to deserve it."

Remember Rand explicity said she had modeled Dagny after herself, so it was only natural that she would make her a hero worshiper too.

As for the male heros in her novels - they all were more or less recreations of "Cyrus", a fantasy adventure story hero Rand got infatuated with as a young girl, mixed with traits of "Leo", the unresponsive real-life object of her desire.

Have you read Barbara Branden's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand"?

As for picking role models from fiction: do you think this serves to develop one's individuality?

Oh? Does one stop being a lady when one no longer attends Sunday School?

Cut the pseudo-psych. Dagny is certainly not "subservient." John Galt, to Dagny, is the perfect man. And this perfect creatures saves her life. Of course she's going to be respectful and slightly awed in his presence, and offer her services to him. Or are you one of those people who thinks that domestic activity degrades a woman? It's not like she becomes his loyal housewife (although, if this is what she wanted, what would there be wrong in that?). She sets about rebuilding her railroad at the end of the novel. Dagny is not subservient or docile.

My reaction to John Galt would be a bit different. I'd be feeling around his head for the battery case.

I didn't say one should adopt fictional role-models. I said: Dagny Taggart is one of the best role-models for women that you'll find in modern literature

there are politicians with zero integrity and educators who are moral giants, but, by and large, the mythology of the noble educator lifting the ignorant masses from the great swamp of ignorance is liberal heroic fantasy, and fits like a glove the leftist notion that the majority of people are stupid swine who are unable to manage their own affairs and need to be controlled.

I think Aristotle essentially had the right idea with his Golden Mean: all things in balance.

Except, ironically, that Aristotle's own political views, tended to the "majority of people are stupid swine who are unable to manage their own affairs and need to be controlled":

We should not think that each of the citizens belongs to himself, but that they all belong to the State. (Politics Book VIII) Not to mention his belief that some people--women, slaves, aliens--did not rate even as citizens, and that some people were "by nature" slaves.

Yes, well, you should read what he has to say about gravity.

You take the good and leave the bad.

Also, Aristotle's views, as deplorable as they are, were still superior to the views expressed by Plato in The Little Red Book The Republic

You ever watch a movie where they've hired a model to play a role, and he parrots the lines, but you can see that no gears are turning in his head as he speaks?

Hannity is like that. He seems to parrot lines he knows a Republican is supposed to say, and does it smoothly, but I'm not sure if he actually understands what he is saying. He seems like nothing more than pretty face to me.

I'd give Hannity a little more credit than that. The thing that bugs me about him is that when he has time to fill, he sometimes has a hard time thinking of anything original to say so he comes off sounding like a salesman that is repeating his sales pitch for the hundredth time.

As to Limbaugh, your comparison is accurate. However, I can sympathize with a plumber and not with Limbaugh and his fans for a few reasons:

1) A plumber does hard and dirty work (my uncle is one) and can be excused a few tacky jokes or comments. Limbaugh makes tacky jokes AND comments all of the time while sitting around talking into a headset.

2) A plumber is not paid a multi-million dollar contract to make those tacky comments.

3) When people hear a plumber make a tacky joke or comment, they laugh politely and brush it off. They don't hail him as their spiritual leader.

4) A plumber's job is to fix pipes and such, not to sit around making tacky comments.

I can see that the tacky comments bother you. I don't blame you. When I was your age, I wouldn't have listened to Limbaugh or Hannity either. When I first heard Limbaugh -- when I was 30 or so -- I couldn't stand him. He absolutely rubbed me the wrong way. Among other things, I couldn't stand listening to someone that could be so non-serious about issues that I thought were serious. And there was the tacky, uncultured aspect of his demeanor as well. I'll still flip him off if he gets too far off track or too ridiculous -- I'm the kind of person that has a hard time watching sitcoms like The Office because I can't stand to watch people act so stupidly. But, I have heard him give a very passionate defense of freedom from time to time with no funny business and no tackiness. And there were a few weeks near the beginning of this year when he would mention Rand almost every other day. So I give him some leeway. But he is an acquired taste, sort of like drinking beer.

Darrell

It's just my evaluation. I might be wrong. But Hannity's face just looks... poised and empty.

As to Limbaugh, not everything that comes out of his mouth is bad. I actually rather enjoyed his CPAC speech. But, from what I've heard of him, the bad overwhelms the good. I'll grant that he has his moments, but positioning him as the voice of the Republicans? The spiritual leader of the Republicans? You could do worse, I suppose, but you could also do far, far better.

Generally a good list. I can't possibly imagine what you could see in Hannity or Limbaugh, though. I would add Larry Elder and Walter E. Williams to that list.

Your additions are good ones. I would have added Walter Williams, but his name escaped me when I was writing my post. Larry Elder is another good addition.

I don't listen to Hannity that much any more. He sometimes grates on my nerves. He is sort of like a used car salesman.

Listening to Limbaugh is sort of like discussing politics with your plumber. But he is really a good exponent of freedom when he gets serious. He knows Rand and he "gets it" when it comes to freedom. Of course, he's not much of an intellectual and he is sometimes purposefully a jerk. I think he likes "tweaking" the liberals and that is why many of his listeners listen. But, he also does a lot of research on the day's news, so he knows what issues are hot and who is doing what behind the scenes. That is what interests me. Even Objectivism gets boring if all you do is read the same philosophical points over and over again. I like news about what people are doing, not just what their opinions are, and he provides that.

Some other talk show hosts sometimes provide news and content too. Hugh Hewitt often has a full slate of interviews of politicians and pundits and I like listening to them first hand, rather than reading a story about what they said later.

Darrell

You ever watch a movie where they've hired a model to play a role, and he parrots the lines, but you can see that no gears are turning in his head as he speaks?

Hannity is like that. He seems to parrot lines he knows a Republican is supposed to say, and does it smoothly, but I'm not sure if he actually understands what he is saying. He seems like nothing more than pretty face to me.

As to Limbaugh, your comparison is accurate. However, I can sympathize with a plumber and not with Limbaugh and his fans for a few reasons:

1) A plumber does hard and dirty work (my uncle is one) and can be excused a few tacky jokes or comments. Limbaugh makes tacky jokes AND comments all of the time while sitting around talking into a headset.

2) A plumber is not paid a multi-million dollar contract to make those tacky comments.

3) When people hear a plumber make a tacky joke or comment, they laugh politely and brush it off. They don't hail him as their spiritual leader.

4) A plumber's job is to fix pipes and such, not to sit around making tacky comments.

Ragnar!! Good lord, Jonathan, I didn't realize you were delusional as well as dumb. My mistake.

Ginny

I think he was joking.

Darrell, there is one thing you've said in this thread that I must agree with absolutely. You said: "Most real conservatives are staunch defenders of freedom in every area except, perhaps, abortion. The squishy Republicans are the ones willing to sell us down the river because they're really closet liberals." Now, despite my distaste for partisan rhetoric, this pretty accurately describes my disgust for these "conservatives" who talk about the "evils" of "Big Business." It's so irritating. They romanticize "small business," but apparently once you begin making real profits you've lost their support. Just another concession to the anti-business mindset plaguing American politics recently.

I absolutely agree. We need some Republicans/conservatives that are willing to stick up for big business. Only industrial scale capitalism will provide us the comforts we want and need -- not to mention the right of business people to grow their small businesses into big businesses.

Darrell

It has almost become a sin to sympathize with anything "big." Free trade? Apologist for Big Oil. Capitalism? Apologist for Big Business. We don't like Big things in the Soviet States of America. We like little things. Little people. God bless the little people and their little businesses and their little lives. How dare anyone think of reaching beyond the little people.

More specifically, a 'prevent the slope from becoming slippery' argument, but I see your objection.

Now, you said: "but in my view, just about any Republican is better than just about any Democrat." Really? Call Bill Clinton what you like, but federal spending actually grew less under him than under either of the Bushes. What does it say when a "tax-and-spend" liberal is doing better for the country than a Republican? It points to the fact that the Republicans gave up defending freedom years ago. They kept the rhetoric, but the records say otherwise. We haven't had a good "viable" Republican candidate since Reagan.

I won't vote for a Democrat or a Republican because they're a Democrat or a Republican. I'll vote for the one who has the superior record of defending freedom (or who will do the least amount of damage to freedom). You can play these partisan games if you like. I won't.

Christian Nationalism is a label invented by opponents to describe real tendencies and small movements in the Christian community. Not all opponents of mysticism are "lefties," you know.

PS: Real "conservatives" are unprincipled. To be a conservative is to support the status quo. A conservative in a communist country would be a communist.

That said, you mean real defenders of capitalism and freedom. Most of them seem to have become libertarians.

I would like to help reform the GOP and make right the political right. But we can have no illusions about what the Republicans have become.

Hell, the only reason the left has gotten its collective foot in the door recently is because so many Republicans have helped to destroy our economy and have gotten involved in so many scandals that people don't trust them any more.

Supporting the status quo is one definition of "conservative," but the conservative movement in this country is identified with a generally pro-freedom stance. People like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Mark Steyn, Michelle Malkin, Thomas Sowell, etc., are explicitly pro-freedom in their philosophy. Many of them call themselves "Reagan" conservatives. I guess that's what I'm talking about. I'm also talking about organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, and National Review, for example. Of course, I prefer people and organizations that are more explicitly pro-freedom, but I can live with the modern conservative movement. Have you ever visited townhall.com? Not all defenders of freedom are libertarians you know.

The problem with being non-partisan is that the party governs. The individual doesn't. Yes, you can have the Congress and White House controlled by different parties, but within the Congress, if the Democrats are in charge, you get Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, etc., whether you want them or not.

Darrell

Well, yes, they are called conservatives here. It is funny: the libertarians took the name in the seventies because liberal had already been hijacked by the left. Go to Europe, however, and the meanings are reversed: libertarians are "democratic socialists" (isn't that an oxymoron?) and liberals are proponents of freedom.

Generally a good list. I can't possibly imagine what you could see in Hannity or Limbaugh, though. I would add Larry Elder and Walter E. Williams to that list.

Yes, non-partisan activism and voting is a huge problem for me, for the exact reason you mention. I cannot, in good conscience, call myself an independent. I'm not. I'm a supporter of capitalism. I have principles. But I just can't, in good conscience, call myself a Republican either. I disagree with party-line Republicans on almost every social issue, and I feel their economic views are usually not free market enough. I cannot call myself a libertarian, either, because I do not share their paranoid distrust of government and dreams of anarchism. Government is good and proper when it is properly controlled.

Darrell, there is one thing you've said in this thread that I must agree with absolutely. You said: "Most real conservatives are staunch defenders of freedom in every area except, perhaps, abortion. The squishy Republicans are the ones willing to sell us down the river because they're really closet liberals." Now, despite my distaste for partisan rhetoric, this pretty accurately describes my disgust for these "conservatives" who talk about the "evils" of "Big Business." It's so irritating. They romanticize "small business," but apparently once you begin making real profits you've lost their support. Just another concession to the anti-business mindset plaguing American politics recently.

Xray, you should hide your excitement about this topic a little bit. It's indecent.

That said, Dagny Taggart is one of the best role-models for women that you'll find in modern literature. She is not "subservient" to the men in the novel. Most of Rand's hero-worship rubbish is left out of ATLAS SHRUGGED, anyway.