RightJungle

Selene, I appreciate your knowledge of the national election details - very helpful.

You're probably right about the attempt being made by the Dems and GOP to ignore the evidence that the people have ideas that are trending toward Liberty. But, we are onto them and ready to hold their feet to the fire. As far as ideological forces at work is concerned, the Tea Partiers in Iowa talk constantly about "free markets and limited government" – not strictly ideologies,but a sort of bold heading way of talking that wasn't taking the state by storm four years ago the way it is now. Inconsistencies abound, but overall, there is improvement. I talk all the time to whomever will listen about the need to dig into the foundational philosophical principles so that the gains can be sustained and expanded in the next round of elections. Some of my compatriots agree, many do not, but a wedge driven provides the beginning of a fulcrum. You're also right about the churches continuing to pontificate, but Richard Dawkins has published The Greatest Show on Earth and it is being read by kids and adults who know in their guts that the preachers are mistaken. I'm still amazed when I hear someone say that evolution isn't true or that dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time, but I think that the number of those who truly believe that is shrinking. As you do, I think the big thing is getting the Objectivist/Austrian message out. I brought up the subject with my Objectivist meet-up group and they are ready to talk about the rational self-interest that is served through political activism from the Objectivist point of view. I see the need to question every move of every level of either government or parties that aim to violate the rights of some people for the sake of other people. We need to challenge vague buzz phrases before they permanently take root in the minds of those who are concerned about the right but don't have the time or the reference points to see what is right or wrong about those buzz phrases and group think points. Yesterday the Iowa Tea Party groups got together for "The Spirit of 1776 Summit" and guess what. The spirit is still strong even though these people are worn out from campaigning and town halling. They are ready to keep on keeping on. You don't have to worry about these people falling back asleep – they are wide awake and ready to hold their newly elected governments accountable for every move they make. Here is Iowa, we even have an agreement with the new governor Branstad to meet monthly with the Tea Party members to discuss concerns and issues. One thing about the media: remember when they were first talking about the Tea Partiers as if they were really astro turf? During this election period the Tea Partiers became a major force that the media and everyone else except the GOP itself is now taking seriously. There are some incredible winners in the Tea Parties and they are being adamant about not becoming star-struck leaders when they know the importance of individuals working together. The times, they are changing and if the responsible thinkers, including all the objectivists and thee and me, keep doing our part to illuminate the philosophy that is the foundation of the hard sciences, psychology, the praxeological sciences of politics, economics and other categories of human action, things will never be the same. I hope you are associated with a Tea Party group – it will keep your spirits up and your own hope alive. Re-districting – Oh yeah!

Good reporting. Thank you for the effort. It made it easy for me to get a good picture of what's going on.

AHA! I'm not the only one wondering about how a judge becomes an "activist" and "legislates from the bench." Here is a link to another person asking (and answering) those questions, too. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080515135808AAchAnw I don't feel so dumb now. Not really smart - but not so dumb either.

Whoever said that you shoudn't discuss sex, politics, or religion, just might have had something there. I sure didn't expect my topic to raise so much dust. I do, however, appreciate the passion with which all of the commentators have addressed the meaning that my post had for them. And thank you, Michael, for stepping in and calming the discussion down. I should have been more clear about what was motivating me to seek Objectivist opinions on the topic. The two issues that have been bothering me for the last several months of the political battles waging here in Iowa were: (1) Laws that apply to some people, but not to others of apparently similar circumstances,(Rodney203 seems to have made it clear that the government involvement itself is at the root of the problem, but...). (2) The uproar among Tea Party and Republican Party members over "activist judges." I had read the Iowa Supreme Court decision about the "marriage protection" act that was passed by the state legislature, and I couldn't find something that looked like activism in their decision. I don't understand how judges at any level can be "activist judges". What does that mean they do? It also worries me that the legal process of ensuring that the judges in Iowa continue to do their job well is being decided by a simple majority vote every so many years. Is there a deeper issue that I am missing? Those who are trying to block gay marriage are demanding that the state legislature let the people of Iowa vote (the issue is called Let Us Vote (LUV)). I get nervous about democratic voting being applied to anything more important that where we go for lunch. This cry to Let Us Vote sounds like Let Us Dictate. Is there something here that I'm not understanding? To confuse the issue even more, the majority leader in the legislature is refusing to let the request to vote on the marriage issue come to a vote in the legislature and is providing no explanation of his decision process. Ultimately my thinking turns to the fear that our state government will start violating my rights, even more than they already do, because they've gotten away with violating the rights of those gay and lesbian couples who want to marry each other. I've spent enough time in Tara Smith's Moral Rights and Political Freedom, as well as in the world, to come to honestly believe that my love of Liberty requires that I love the Liberty of every individal on the face of the earth, within the normal restriction of "as long as they do not violate the rights of others." In addition, the implications regarding the public's judgement of the supreme court members seem to threaten my ability to trust that the best available judges are being appointed or that they are able to be true to their own integrity in the face of such a threat. I know that terrorism and economic collapse carry way more weight in the line up of the problems facing us, but this state level conflict contains the seeds of what is at the root of even the worst of our problems - namely that I (and possibly others) am not thinking clearly enough about it. That is why I bring these things to the Objectivist forum. I know that all of you are thinking at your own unique level and that that can be helpful to me.

I do see the validity. Lest you think that I'm ignoring this....I'm not. I'm working it over - that is trying to grasp and integrate the notion that marriage laws are government interference in our lives rather than being relationship enhancing for all members of the family, which is how I was thinking about it. I'll be back when I've gotten that thinking task a little further along. Thanks for your post. I would welcome any help on this that others have to offer.

I don't know how the rest of the country is doing, but here in Iowa we have voted against the State Constitution and against the right of a particular group of people to pursue their own happiness. If Ayn Rand was alive today she would be rolling over in her grave. I'm basing that on Tara Smith's description of the single rights obligation that we all have to each other - namely to respect those rights even when we see others doing something that we would rather they didn't do, but that didn't involve violating the rights of others. Here is what "We the People" accomplished. We returned most of the incumbents to office (including Boswell who voted for Obamacare), exceptions being the governor and a few State Legislature seats. We also voted to throw out three of our Supreme Court Justices based on the lie of "Judicial Activism". What the judges did: They determined that a law that was passed by the legislature to limit marriage to one man and one woman was unconstitutional on the basis of the "equal protection of the law" clause. Somehow a lot of people got the idea that the judges had themselves put gay marriage into law. They didn't. They just said that gay men and lesbians had the same right to marry as the heterosexuals in Iowa, BECAUSE OF THE EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE. Then Bob Vanderplatts started a "Throw the Judges Out" campaign. The judges were from both Democratic and Republican persuasions and were unanimous in their decision. The anti-gay marriage groups made sure that everyone understood that this was "judicial activism". Part of their argument was that a wealthy homosexual from Colorado had dumped a whole lot of money into campaigning for Gay marriage in Iowa. What that money was supposed to have bought, I'm not sure. All I know is that no one in the legislature, nor the Governor made any attempt to stop the marriage license applications. I'm pretty sure that given the Court's ruling that would have been illegal or unconstitutional or something. So because of this one issue, these judges are out and now the Democratic governor has the job, if he chooses to pursue it, of appointing new judges. If he doesn't, the new pro-life, anti-gay marriage Republican governor will have that task. I wonder what the result will be. If you all hear about this, the vote was 54% no and 46% yes on retaining the judges. There are only 3 million people in the entire state, so figure around 1.55 million either didn't understand the issue, or don't want homosexual marriage in Iowa. However, they still haven't been given a chance to actually vote on that. Here's another weird thing. There was on the ballot a constitutional amendment about funding an ecological issue. But the legislature is apparently blocking the attempt to put the gay marriage issue on the ballot as an amendment. I think Iowa may have just punished three judges for what the legislature did. I wonder what kind of men and women will become Supreme Court justices in this state. Here's something even weirder. Every ten years the people can vote to hold a constitutional convention. Some anti-gay groups were hoping to get this convention so they could amend the constitution to allow only one man, one woman to marry. Guess what? The state voted 67% to 33% to NOT call for the constitutional convention. Confusion reigneth. Anyone from a state for which you feel the pride of accomplishment? Anyone think that I've misunderstood the Objectivist way on this subject?

I want to make some quips, but I do not want to be disrespectful. Here's another gem from that site: Objectivism gives Atheism a Bad Name The founder is a guy named Marc Perkel. Here is his official website: Marc Perkel. If you go there, you can find some informative articles by him on Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, his runs for public office, marijuana, oodles of other stuff, and my favorite, "Finding Sex on the Web - How to get laid on the Internet." Back to the Church of Reality site, here is his page The Biography of the Founder. If you want some history, here is the start of the How it got Started page: Cool dude in a loose mood, baby... This guy has received a 501( c )( 3 ) tax exempt status from the IRS for his church. I bet he will make a fortune. Michael About those quips. Please make those quips. A great deal of truth resides in your humor.

Michael, This is kinda funny. I was messing around on the net and came upon the Carl Rove phrase "reality-based community", looked a little further and discovered: (drum roll) "The Church of Reality." How about that? Google and ye shall find. This ought to provide the closure that this thread needs.

Thanks, Jerry. I had not even thought about how Sunday O Services could be used as weapons. I don't really intend to do anything with it. I've got a project or two to work on so I won't be at loose ends. Thanks for your sympathy (empathy?). Right now I'm going through a little separation anxiety of my own. I don't attack my friends head on about religion, I just keep asking them to try to keep it separate from government. But your warning about where that can lead needs to be taken seriously. Truth be told, I miss some of my rowdy friends. I want to close out for the week with the following: The source of my referral to Hegel and Beck came from his "Insider Extreme" show about Divine Providence. The Divine Providence History Class is taught by Dr. Peter Lillback, the author of "George Washington's Sacred Fire", which Beck held up on his show, but I did not buy because.... Dr. Peter A. Lillback is President and Professor of Historical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary located in Philadelphia. He quotes the Declaration of Independence in his beautifully soothing speaking voice: "With Firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence...." - this meant that all of those founders who signed the Declaration of Independence believed that there was some notion of God's involvement in Human History"..."That all they had was a prayer, that God was a God of Just People and that in his Providence he intervened on behalf of those who were seeking to do his will. In that Providence we see many many experiences in American History that show that God was at work." Lillback then tells about the time Washington and his army were trapped by the British and how the British stopped the fight to get a good night's sleep only to wake the next morning to a fog bank that stayed in place until the last American soldier had escaped the trap. Says Lillback: "America is here today because of a Providential fog bank that came at just the right moment in time.." He then asserts that many other such events occured during the Revolutionary War. Then he pulls out a dollar bill and tells how the eye at the top of the pyramid is "God the Father, the agent of Providence (the agent? then there's something higher than God?), smiling on America, rescuing the country"...and that "the continental congress chose the symbol of the Pyramid because they wanted the nation to last" as had the Egyptian Pyramids and that "it showed God's many signal..(couldn't understand what he was saying).. of Divine Providence on behalf of the American Cause. And it means that he has smiled at our undertakings." Lillback also wrote the book "Wall of Misconception" about the idea of the separation of Church and State. "In Wall of Misconception, Dr. Peter A. Lillback examines our nation's historic understanding of and the founding fathers' intention in the relationship of our Constitution to matters of faith, ethics, and morals, taking into account the historical and biblical context as well as the concept's relation to today's culture. This is both the layman's and professional's definitive guide to the separation of church and state and indeed, the separation of God and government." "...an important book and a must-read." Judge Charles W. Pickering, Sr. Retired, US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals "How often have you heard it stated on TV, in the press, or at the water cooler that "the wall of separation between church and state" are words taken right out of the US Constitution? In fact, the First Amendment to the Constitution - what is popularly referred to as "the establishment clause," the only part of the US Constitution that even deals with religion and faith - contains no reference whatsoever to a "wall of separation," or, for that matter, any sort of wording including the phrase "separation of church and state." the only words in the US Constitution concerning this topic are found in the First Amendment, where it is written, "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." That's it. Yet these sixteen words have been elaborately interpreted by some as having a meaning that has no basis in the founders' intentions or historic records. (This emphasis on the First Amendment to the Constitution is ignoring Article VI: ....The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution, but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.") "Where then has this mountain of contention come from, resulting in a "wall of misconception" between church and state, and indeed between God and government? (It comes from Article VI) The phrase "wall of separation" was coined by Thomas Jefferson in his private 1802 letter of response to the Danbury Baptist Association, wherein he reaffirmed the federal government's intention to protect the public's rights of conscience to believe and practice their faith without fear of interference from government." ( Ihaven't looked that up lately.) "Several prominent citizens' rights organizations will contend that this purported wall is being routinely breached by people of faith, yet others will assert that any action by the government to impede an individual's right to pray in school or at a public event, to display a Christmas tree in public, or to say "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is itself a Violation of the First Amendment." "US Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in a court opinion that "The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history... It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned."" (And this is where things get hairy. A Supreme Court Justice? Zounds.) Source of quotes on the books: http://www.providenceforum.org/wallofmisconception What has happened here in Iowa: We had a good candidate for the 3rd district Congressional rep who lost the nomination to a male bimbo, I think in part because the 912ers adopted him and had him sign the 912 pledge, etc. The relatively sane may have shied away because of that. Brad Zaun, the Republican has come out as supporting an amendment to our state constitution to stop Gay Marriage and define marriage as one man/one woman. He has also supported banning all abortions. These issues are far more important to Iowa's fundamentalists than our moral rights and political freedom are. Maybe my concern about these campaigns on social issues are a waste of time and energy. Maybe after all is said and done, it won't really change anything here. All I can do is vote for the legislators who don't want to deal with these social issues. I will vote for Eric Cooper, the Libertarian candidate for Governor because it just doesn't matter to me if the Democrat or Republican wins. Might as well vote for someone who knows what his principles are and why. Anyway, back to the Hegelian connection. I thought that Hegel's thoughts on God's habit of choosing favorite nations to support sounded a lot like Lillback's claims. I suppose the only connection between them is that similarity and nothing else of any importance. As for the wrangling among Objectivists - Branden was once asked how many different schools of Objectivism exist. He said, "How many Objectivists?" I've been taking my lead from his attitude. Objectivists can afford to disagree as long as they keep coming back to relying on the authority of Reality. If they don't, well, just one more thing to worry about. The thing that I think is missing from Objectivism is probably based on our lack of omniscience. Outsiders may expect that of us - that's their problem. It would be nice if we could all agree to accept that about ourselves, then we wouldn't have to treat every little deviation from ARIan orthodoxy as if it was a mortal sin. Thankfully, most of us don't anyway. In my Objectivist group we have Rand fans, Peikoff fans, and then there's me. I'm the only one in the group who reads or listens to the Brandens or Kelley or Tara Smith (oh, one of them has heard her lecture on non-objective law.) But we keep looking forward to our meetings and enjoying the interaction. So, that's it for the week-end for me. I'll be back Sunday night for more enlightenment and, cough, cough, entertainment.

Michael, Amazingly, I have sometimes thought that an Objectivist "church" meeting on Sunday mornings with inspiring Objectivist songs to sing, and a tweny minute message on this week's concerns would be a good idea. How that gets done, I don't know. Maybe that would create the reprehensible club that Jerry talked about in his latest post. I asked a musician in book club about writing Objectivist music and he listed off names like Chopin, Mozart, et al. Point taken. But I want songs that say what Objectivists think in a poetic, moving way. I attend a monthly Objectivist meet-up and we talk to each other through e-mail on anything that comes up that motivates us to respond. I really like this little group. We all disagree about all kinds of details, but we keep coming back to the core ideas to find "solutions" to the disagreements. It isn't so much a moral flopping around problem that I see - it is more the relief from the exhaustion of interacting with people who are not aware of this way of thinking that drives the need for socializing with people who sort of agree with you. I say sort of because Objectivists, happily, think for themselves, which makes for stimulating conversations. Another aspect of that is that church is like theater - it is structured with Act 1, Act 2, denouement. It is meant to affect your emotions. Having your emotions affected can be enjoyable, the deeper the thinking the deeper the emotions. I would just like to hear the message address today's issues from the Oist POV. Objectivism is meant to help us discover how to live HAPPY lives, after all. Thank you for your thoughtfullness.

Jerry and Michael, You two have gone beyond the call of duty here and I hope you continue in this discussion as it is being very helpful to me to hear your ideas from your POV of familiarity with Rand's work. I have a very well defined reason for believing that Objectivism holds the answers to how to solve our country's problems - not because the philosophy has foreseen the details of all of our problems, nor provided an off the shelf answer to all of our problems, but because it has provided us with the fundamental guidance to make reality the final authority in our judgments. Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Barbara Branden's lectures on Efficient Thinking, the entire body of Nathaniel Branden's work, the rationality of the science of econonmics developed by Ludwig von Mises, Tara Smith's in-depth studies of Rand's philosophy - all of this and much more that has been done by many more thinkers has given us all we need for a do over that we CAN get right this time. Mary Lee

Thank you both for your responses. I respect your thinking, which is why I posted this here. Selene, I am glad to know that he did read the book. The truth is that I don't really have any feel for what ADD would fell like or how it affects a person's thinking and behaviour, although I can get pretty scattered sometimes myself. I sometimes feel incredibly distressed by the religious educators that Beck invites to share his bully pulpit. It is making it harder for me to get our local Tea Partiers and 912ers to understand issues such as: The state of Iowa's constitution is meant to limit the state government's power, not target individuals such as: Homosexuals who want to marry, or the women's right to abortion issue, or the plan to vote out the judges who only ruled according to the state constitution on gay marriage - they did not make a law (legislate from the bench), they stopped a law. I was responsible for a session at "The Spirit of 1776" summit planned for November 6 in Des Moines, IA. I asked David Kelley if he could do the session, but he was booked. I asked Stephen R.C. Hicks if he could do the sessions on the history of the founding fathers and the constitution and he accepted my invitation. Then one of the other people with a little more power in the group nixed Hicks and got someone from the American Majority to come - claimed he was motivated by their wilingness to do it for free. I would have paid Hicks's fee myself! I spoke with the group members about what Hicks could do, but all they could say was that "we need to get back to our Christian Principles." This is a Patriot group - not a religion. This is starting to sound like a whine -and it is. It is just that I would like to help the situation in this country, but I am losing my effectiveness in the local patriot groups because I want to focus on Government and Economics - not religion. In fact, everyone in the local groups have stopped communicating with me on a personal level (I still get organization e-mails of course). The only exception is my Objectivist meet-up group and a "proud non-Christian" who is politically active in the area. Michael, you are right that Beck always says "think for yourself" - and I do - and I have e-mailed him about a dozen times about various things that I thought were relevant to what he was saying on his shows - no response from him. And yes, I know a lot of people talk to him. However, he has called people who sent him non-controversial e-mails full of emotional, intellectual sloppiness. What am I - chopped liver? Well, I was away from O-L for quite awhile this summer and fall - studying and doing a little travelling. I will try to get into this site a little more often as it usually cheers and inspires me. Again, thank you for your thoughtful responses to my post.

Sorry to be so ignorant - but would you give a brief explanation of what "PARC Epistemology" is?

Michael, I just wanted to know what PARC epistemology is. Sorry that my post didn't finish.

The Beck U Class on Divine Providence in the Insider Extreme Section is very puzzling. I have watched Beck talk about Atlas Shrugged (although his use of "Where is John Galt" rather than "Who is John Galt" may be indicative of his neglecting to actually read the book) and yet, he apparently believes in Divine Providence which is a close match to how I understand Hegel's philosophy about God picking nation favorites. This is just one of many contradictions that I am seeing with Beck. Is anyone else amazed at how the man can bounce from highly effective champion of American or Political History to the incredibly illogical pronouncements of his educators?

Jerry, I just noticed your mention of "Philosophers of Capitalism" by Ed Younkins and got to thinking about how I sometimes randomly follow trails (when I could have done better with a back country map). It was while reading this book that I first became aware of Tara Smith and, as others have already said, while her books adhere tightly to what Ayn Rand said, her steady, scholarly treatment of her subjects has enormous appeal to me. I'm taking a lot of information from this thread to build a reading list for a couple of new students of Objectivism and I this thread has shown some major gaps in my own reading.

Important issue number 1: Test the ideas for truth and value Important issue number 2: Develop one or more vehicles for presenting the ideas Important issue number 3: Market the ideas via the developed vehicles What I would want to see happen: Talking heads on every news or talk show talking about these ideas. Facebook sites for the ideas. Blogging all over the web about the ideas. Possible cause of the increase in people identifying as conservative is the fact that Atlas Shrugged is considered the 2nd most influential book behind the bible. Even if you haven't read the Bible you know about the 10 commandments, etc. from the culture and from the movies made about it. AS is succeeding without any movies. Possible proof of the power of ideas? Boy, I hope that that is not just wishful thinking. In my capacity as an IT project manager, I was responsible for developing programmers and other techies. The activity proceeded this way: (1) recognize the potential of the mentee, (2) teach him/her everything you think they need to know as fast as possible, Pay attention to feedback to make sure that your mentee is happy with the direction in which you are leading him. When your mentee knows it, or can do it better than you do, you have succeeded. (3) When your mentee is ready, assign other experts who know their subjects better than you do to the mentee to ensure continued growth, (4) be willing to let go of the mentee and send him on to other positions or other organizations where he can continue to progress.

Dan said, I think that, at minimum, a fist fight would break out. Your "Why would a competing police force side with one side or another?" doesn't make sense to me. Didn't Mary and Michael have some sort of loyalty contracts with their competing police forces? Wouldn't the police force chosen by and supported by Mary back her up? This discussion is based on Mary and Michael both being the citizen of a single nation state. The rest of the paragraph, as well as the "a little context" paragraph is outside of this discussion because they don't seem to be relevant to my analogy. Dan said, I would really appreciate it if you would avoid a phrase like "Objectivism's deeper principles". If you are referring to the non initiation of force principle then you need to bring in the rest of the principle which is that the only proper use of force is in retaliation against the use of force – so, yes it is compatible if you realize that the only way a competitive government can arise is by taking over (initiating force against) a geographical piece of the original geographical area and its inhabitants. An understanding of this fact is what led to Texas, for example, reserving the right to secede from the union at a later date. Yes, on the grounds that the definition of a government is that is has exclusive jurisdiction in a geographical area. If competing legal entities were possible within that land, if the laws contradict each other they are no longer objective. Again, only under the monopoly can objective law exist. This can be answered by simply pointing at the U.S. code of laws itself. The fact is that the U.S., England, France, et al have many objective laws on their books. You could ask – are all of the laws in the U.S. code objective? The notion that any law, objective or not, is accidental is unanswerable. Of course these days our government doesn't always know the contents of it's laws, but…… Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden pointed out the loop holes in the constitution. Judge Narragansett began closing those loop holes with "the congress shall pass no laws abridging the freedom of production and trade…." The U.S. Constitution was the answer to the problems in the Articles of Confederation that was described as being too close to anarchy. It took until 1791 to be ratified because some states weren't so sure they wanted to trust a strong central government. But, they finally get the Bill of Rights added, so they went with it. Yes, from the beginning there were disagreements about how the Constitution was to be enforced. However, during the early years of U.S. history, the country's economy grew very rapidly in the absence of regulations and onerous laws. The U.S. was never a fully Capitalist system but it was more Capitalist at its beginnings and up until the late 1800's than it is now. The problem there was the founders not understanding the economics of Capitalism as well as they did the concepts of Individual Rights. O.K. You got me here. I don't know what "mainstream Objectivist minarchism" is. Given that Objectivism and Libertarianism are not synonymous, I don't see why you started the History paragraph with that conceptual association. Suffice it to say that the validity of the constitutional limits were proved by the results achieved over those years in spite of being denigrated by the Progressives and slowly eaten away at by those who didn't understand or want to abide by them. Do you think that individuals enjoyed more political and economic liberty under the Articles of Confederation than they do under the U.S. Constitution? Remember that the states were all printing their own money, making their own laws about immigration, slavery and property inheritance, writing their own treaties with foreign countries, etc.. The power of the constitutionally limited central Federal Government needs to apply to all of its citizens equally across the entire geographical area. (This hints a little at what is wrong with the Sovereign Native American States sitting in the middle of the country.) Objectivism has not produced a fully detailed system of political philosophy, but it has produced a principled framework for it. Ayn Rand herself expressed an expectation that those who came after her would continue to build on that framework and would create the system of laws that would keep us free. Again, I would appreciate it if you would not mix Objectivism and minarchism. We will lose the clarity of our discussion if we try to address multiple philosophies as if they were identical. I am participating in Objectivist Living because it is about Objectivism. If some of us want to contrast Objectivism with minarchism, that's fine, but I wasn't looking to do that.

The movie: The Edge The scene: Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins after the plane crashed and before the grizzley has started tracking them. Anthony Hopkins: "Do you know why men die in the wilderness?" Alec Baldwin: "No." Anthony Hopkins: "Because they give up." Another movie: Galaxy Quest Jason Nesmith: "Never give up... never Surrender" 'Nuff said, Phillip?

It's getting late, so I won't respond to your whole reply, but, "Objectivist jargon" interests me. Since I've only just recently started talking to other Objectivists I didn't realize that we had a jargon that we need to eschew. What would be the class of concepts that you think of as Objectivist jargon and why would it be something that you want to avoid?

Michael, I must have missed a couple of those things on the blackboard and leaped to the conclusion that all Beck was talking about was what was on the blackboard. Sorta short sited, huh?

No you don't. I can think of another involuntary physical reaction. This reminds me of a story from AR's childhood, when her mother gave away her favorite toy. It's in the Heller bio. Not weep as weeping in the movies, but actually weep over such a dreadful representation of fatherly love and wisdom.

Phillip, This subject is very important to me right now because I really want to be able to sell Objectivism in my community. The fact is that while I am quite familiar with the work of Rand and the Brandens, I'm a remarkably poor communicator of these ideas. Being ex-IT, I'm probably a perfect example of your egghead Oist. I've never taken an interest in marketing and now need to do so. I've taken some leadership training but only just enough to play the role of project manager on IT projects. From your post so far I've gathered that I need to take a course at AERI (here comes number 1 - does that mean Applied Economics Research Institute? or Arts Education Research Initiative?) Several "Leadership Institutes" pop up. Are we talking about the one found at http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/training/ ? There is a grass roots training class there. Actually I had signed up for grass roots training through a group from Minnesota, but apparently there was not enough interest to bring them back to Iowa for further training sessions. Anyway, I need to know what exactly the focus of the Leadership Institute should be. I tried to organize one event that I thought was important for teaching the evils of totalitarianism and even with careful planning, if it could go wrong it did go wrong, cost some advertising money that was not well spent and drew only 30 people. I've been reading around in George Reisman's Capitalism for a couple of years now. I think it's wonderful. I didn't realize that it was selling so slowly. He provides a CD Rom so that you can get away from the giant book once in awhile. What about the self inflicted damage with regard to Ayn Rand's non-fiction? I was compacent and unwilling to learn further, but now I really need to do that. I have an opportunity to do a little internet radio time and I really don't want to mess it up. The entrepreneur who is making this possile is a storehouse of excellent info and I intend to take every advantage of that. In the meantime, I am open to any directions that you might want to point out to me. While I await your response to this, I will get started with my project and try to work smarter. Thanks.

Here's an all time non-objectivist favorite: "Our Vines Have Tender Grapes" starring Edward G. Robinson Description: "An endearing and quietly rhapsodic slice of Americana about a single year among the Norwegian immigrants in a Wisconsin farm town, Our Vines Have Tender Grapes enthralled 1945 audiences and critics with its timeless joys. Told from the viewpoint of little Selma (Margaret O'Brien), the film explores grand childhood adventures: making friends, a pet calf, Christmas, a terrifying trip down a flood-swollen river, a barn fire and a ride on a circus elephant's trunk. In a change-of-pace role, Edward G. Robinson is a revelation of wisdom and compassion as Selma's father, leading a fine cast that illuminates the profound power of everyday triumphs and sorrows." The deciding scene was the one where his daughter wants to continue to use her brand new roller skates, but the crafty little boy demands that she let him have a turn "right now". Edward, loving non-objectivist father that he is, makes her give, permanently, the skates to the little boy. Supposedly that taught the little girl generosity, which she played out later when she gave her only calf to a farmer whose barn has burned. You've gotta weep over that one.