Jonathan David Leavitt

Michael, I cannot understand how you can say that Obama has good intentions for this country in his heart, or that “he sees himself as belonging to the same American family as his political enemies.” Is that the family of Louis Farråkhan, of Bill Ayres, of the Reverend Wright? Is that the family that is selling Israel down the river and sanctioning the terrorist-organized and carefully-coordinated uprisings in the Arab World? This is the man who stands before the American public and tells one barefaced, blatant lie after another -- the man who surrounds himself with and seeks the advice of only the radical left and worse -- the man who pays American taxpayers’ money to subsidize offshore drilling by Brazil, but expects America to continue functioning by the grace of windmills – who is further enslaving the medical doctors on whom our lives depend -- who redistributes the earnings of the producers so that the non-producers will continue to vote for him – the man who is spending and manipulating the greatest country on earth into helplessness and ruin --the man who speaks of ':social justice" " but never of freedom. ... I could go on and on, but you know the facts probably as well as I do. . What on earth would Obama have to do to convince you that he and George Washington do not belong to the same American family-- that he is, at best, a cheap Chicago left-wing politician who cares only that he get re-elected to a position he is grotesquely unequipped for -- yet doesn’t take even that position seriously enough to read Economics 101. Barbara I agree with Barbara Branden, whose critique of Obama is well thought out and articulated. My impression, based on the speeches that Obama has given, especially abroad, is that Obama views himself as a citizen of the world, of which America is only the place he was born by chance, and on his personal balance sheet between whatever good things America has done (if any) versus slavery, racism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, greed, and — yes — selfishness, he appears to believe America has done more bad than good. Of course I can and will never know what Obama really thinks about America and his own role as an American citizen, because I believe he is an epistemological relativist, who has some core values based on faith (similar to the values of Jeremiah Wright), and whose secondary values are derived from feelings. If I am a kook for having and expressing the aforegoing opinions, so be it. —Jonathan

Many thanks for the links. George.. I haven't followed them all yet, bit I found what I was looking for. So, we have, in effect, Kant saying, "To the gas chambers, go!" OK. Rand, then, was misrepresenting him? Where, I wonder, did she get the idea that Kant set out to destroy the efficacy of man's mind? So, at one end of the spectrum, we have a continuum of evil, with Kant at the extreme maximum-evil end. (Yes, a continuum at the end of the continuum. I meant that.) On the other end of the larger continuum, we have moral subjectivism, where good and evil are not valid concepts, in fact, where valid concepts are not valid concepts. I will refrain from calling Kant evil until I have read and digested all of his works in the original German, a project that is not among my plans for this year or next. However, I will insist on calling the Obamacare bill evil, without reading all 2000+ pages. Well, perhaps not evil, but sort of bad. Very bad. Fair enough. Am I sounding civil now, Mr. President?

Thanks for your speedy reply. As a US President, Obama certainly appears to be incompetent. As a manipulator of the levers of the Executive Branch in order to serve his ideological ends, I have less question about his competence. As to Obama's pragmatic nature, it seems to me that he will do what he can to get re-elected, and to sound like a centrist if necessary, but I am skeptical that his ideology has budged. I hadn't thought too much about the strength of the office of the Presidency. I have more concerns about the strength of Congress members to transcend their long and demoralizing history of finding clever ways to make ever more imaginative compromises between food and poison. As to your earlier posts, I had a shock of realization that I can come across as a hater. I am surely a strong disliker of Bolshevism in its past and current forms, and those "Masters of Deceit" who cover their Bolshevik tracks. If I upset people on a website called "Objectivist Living" I obviously sound irrational, and therefore I need to find ways to tone it down without compromising my beliefs. Is there a thread on this site about Ayn Rand's famous characterization of Immanuel Kant as "The Most Evil (Evul?) Man Who Ever Lived." I'm curious how that was received here. Jonathan

JDL, you have just now put up some choice kooky stuff that will come up on Google. Stuff like that can be easily cited as propaganda and hate-speech to sway independents. Michael Point well taken about Google and hate-speech. In comparing Obama and OBL I failed to specify with respect to what. That is a subject that I understand, but will not follow up with here at this time. And, I didn't think about Google at all. Perhaps I have become too discouraged recently about the effectiveness of our checks and balances. Jonathan

Which is why I find deliberate obfuscation of facts particularly annoying.

Well, well. I think OBL is almost certainly dead. Could al-Qaeda and Admiral Doenitz have a reason to lie about the death of their heroes? Yes, but IMO it's doubtful they did. Ditto, the Pakistanis who harbored OBL. Now, about where Alinsky stands on the spectrum: Pol Pot failed, and Gaddafi has at best another ten or fifteen years. Alinsky's shining moment in history is right now, and I am not convinced yet that a Gingrich, a Mitch Daniels, or a Tim Pawlenty is going to defeat the sock puppet in the 2012 election. Another four years of The One wouldn't be good, even if he is nowhere near Torquemada or Vlad the Impaler on the "evul" spectrum. As for me, where do I stand on the "kook" spectrum?

You regard Obama as more evil than bin Laden? Wow. I’m disinclined to start defending him, I’m basically with Woody Allen’s character Alvy Singer, who said of politicians that ethically they’re a notch below child molester, so I’ll just register disagreement and leave it at that. I tend to think about politicians as a notch below the herpes virus. However, BHO is not really a politician. IMO he's a sock puppet for a neo-Bolshevik faction, which includes Soros. (If the word "faction" sounds too conspiratorial for your taste, try "religion.")

For me, there is no joy at Bin Ladin's reported death. He was (or perhaps still is) the George Soros of Al-Qaeda funding, but, assuming that he died in the SEALS raid, or years ago, he is survived by much more evil people, not the least of whom is the Football-Spiker-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama. One thinks of Bin Ladin as the ultimate evildoer only because his reputation was puffed up by the press. He was just one more Muslim fanatic. The thousands who died in the spectacular attack by Muslim fanatics on the Twin Towers were war casualties. The war is being waged by an alliance of "Leftists" (Neo-Bolsheviks) and Muslim fanatics against Americans. We may be losing the war as I write this. Although the SEALS reportedly carried out their mission in a spectacular and admirable manner, the follow-up, reportedly dumping bin Ladin's body into the ocean, was an obscene exercise in obstruction of justice. Hitler had his body burned in order to keep the world from knowing his ultimate fate with certainty. It was not al-Qaeda, however, who ordered the destruction of the physical evidence of bin Ladin's death: it was the titular head of the "Democrat" political party. Ultimately, I do not care whether bin Ladin is living or dead, or how many Americans are stupid enough to vote for Obama in 2012 because of the SEALS Abbottabad mission. What I do care about is the fact, reported today by the Rasmussen Poll, that 48% of likely US voters approve "somewhat" of an Alinskyite totalitarian who is deliberately destroying the American economy. Compared to him, an Arabian moneybags is or was small potatoes indeed.

The real issue, IMO, is not defending borders but defending the States from election fraud. The "Democrat" party wants to pack the polls with non-Americans who vote for their candidates because their vote is purchased with freebies.

True enough, realism it may be, but not Romantic Realism. The one time I heard him speak, it sounded as if he found the banality itself important. The interpretation in my blogpost was mine, not Bechtle's. However, I find his work engaging, and I like it, because of his use of light, and because of his focus on the iconic treasures of the lower middle class, a bungalow and a big car. Vermeer, praised by Rand, also considered banalities important, and painted for the middle class. I consider Vermeer a greater painter than Bechtle, but I still like Bechtle.

I'm my opinion, the self-styled Left has appropriated the terms Left and Right from the French Revolution in order to avoid calling themselves what they really are, Communists and Fellow-Travelers. I prefer to call them Bolsheviks, since today's "Left" is basically an amalgam of Marxism, Leninism, and Frankfurt School "critical theory." Instead of calling their opponents "reactionaries" and "counter-revolutionaries," they smear them as "right-wing." Fascists, as the term was used by Mussolini, are not quite the same as Nazis, i.e., "national" socialists, but both are variants of socialist collectivism. I see no benefit from calling Nazis and Fascists "right-wing." This then brings us to the Bush policies of bailout and suspension of civil rights. The former, in my opinion, is pure fascism. Extension of civil rights to foreign assassins and saboteurs who are making a declared war on the USA seems absurd to me, even if not sanctioned by a foreign state, but suspension of civil rights of US citizens is unjustified given the current refusal of the government (neither Bush nor Obama) to clarify who our foreign enemies are. Aiding and abetting a foreign enemy is treason, a crime falling under US law, with no suspension of civil rights before conviction. In my opinion, Major Nidal Hassan, the US Army psychiatrist who allegedly massacred his comrades in arms in the name of Islam, should be charged with treason as an agent of Iran, a declared enemy of the United States, but is entitled to a fair trial. In my opinion, the sooner we stop mollycoddling the Bolsheviks and their Fellow Travelers by calling them Leftists, the better. And, no, Thomas Jefferson was not a right-wing extremist.

Although I listened to jazz since high school, I recently rediscovered it as "emotional fuel." I was thinking about 1959, the year I graduated from high school, when friends introduced me to some of the musical technicalities of the art form. (Yes, it's art.) Reminiscing a few months ago, I started researching jazz on the Internet, and found that it was a major year in jazz history, with the emergence of West Coast "cool" jazz. There are two more pertinent facts: During the pre-election and post-election period of 2010 I began to become very demoralized listening to radio debates (conservative rants, mostly) and I would switch to the jazz station which rapidly recharged my so-called benevolent universe sense of life. I stlll listen to conservative rants, but I can't take them in the higher doses I used to enjoy, and jazz is always a welcome alternative. The third fact is this: a few days ago I re-read "Art and Cognition" in The Romantic Manifesto. I was appalled. I will summarize my reaction by saying there was some baby and a lot of bath water. No glue in any work of art? Not even the rabbit-skin glue used by the Old Masters to prep their canvases? Photography is not a tool for making art? Anything not photo-realistic and created with brushes and paint, can't be called art? And no whim! Not even a little eensy-weensy smidgen of whim, so you'd hardly notice? I've mentioned in other posts that I like Picasso. I have good reasons for liking Picasso, and I will write about that some other time.

I merely googled Robert Bechtle, than clicked on the Images link on the left side of the page, and came up with this. I hope it works on the forum: lots of Bechtle images. Please notify me if it doesn't work. Beware: some of the images are not of Bechtle's paintings or prints.

A point well taken. Ayn Rand wrote repeatedly that Bolshevism functions as a form of fascism, while trumpeting altruist propaganda in the name of Marxist egalitarianism. I have written about this in several blogposts, the first under my own name, and the second under the name of Liberty Rant: http://www.doublesquids.net/coffeeblog/archive/theright.html http://impeach-them-all.org/Archive/Red-DiaperFascist.html

I use "bin-AL" to describe Bechtle's work, and "BANE-ul" to describe the comedy of that most sphincteresque of purported but unfunny comedians, Jon Stewart. (Just kidding, actually, but the pronunciation variants are interesting.)

Glad I piqued your interest, and I'm eager to hear your thoughts on my five-year-old blogposts. The Crown Point works tend to focus on the Sunset area of San Francisco, which has sparse vegetation and conveys a more wistful, Hopperesque look. Bechtle images are not easy to find on the Internet. The ones I describe in the blogpost have been painted from slides Bechtle took of East Bay bungalow neigborhoods, such as Albany and Oakland. In many of these the car in front of the house, is the focus of attention. In my opinion, the car in these paintings functions as an avatar for the heroic human figures hijacked by the Social Realists, Communists, and Nazis. No hybrids, BTW, appear in Bechtle paintings, to the best of my knowledge.

Jazz is not Rachmaninoff, yet some aspects of it, in my opinion, may fulfill the criteria for music according to Ayn Rand's views. Most jazz comes from 20th century "tiddly-wink music" (show tunes), improvised upon and developed by skilled musicians, conveying a "benevolent universe" sense of life. There are, however, left-wing political jazz, and anti-conceptual chaotic jazz. I am not aware of anything Ayn Rand wrote about jazz, but if she did, I would like to read about it. She did, I know, advocate tap-dancing, which is a dance form emanating from the jazz tradition.

Good observation. American Motors, of course is defunct. The title of the painting, from the gallery, "'58 Rambler [1967] Artist: Robert Bechtle [American, b. 1932] Size: 30"x32" / oil on canvas" 1967 was the year Stalin's daughter defected to the USA. This link shows other events of that year just prior to the 1968 world-wide "anti-industrial revolution." Middle-class prosperity was banal. In 2011, unemployment is now banal.

I'm a (relative) newbie here myself, and GeekGirl, I agree with you in your support of the original topic thread. I believe that the key political issue now is support for the Constitution. During the past two years, especially the last, the "Democrat" party has passes legislation, which if ignored, amounts to a Bolshevik (New Leftist) takeover of the USA. The details are buried in the thousands of pages of hidden levers of power. That legislation is blatantly unconstitutional, but well-crafted from the viewpoint of flouting any fragile Supreme Court majority who would declare it so. The "Tea Party," named by a stock trader, has given the statist mass media a label for supporters of the Constitution, to be smeared endlessly as "right-wing," racist, and violent. I am personally appalled that those once close to Ayn Rand, whatever their reasons, prefer to quibble over solutions to the "problem of induction," whatever that means, and to leave the battlefield to religious or semi-secular "conservatives," whose philosophical premises are based on Locke, Hobbes, Hume, the Vatican, and the Book of Mormon, as the sole defenders of the Constitution. However, not all post-Randian thinkers are in lock-step regarding the battle against neo-Bolshevism and its Soros-fueled propagandists who quote Popper's "open society." From time to time I read polemics from self-described Objectivists criticizing the nameless leftist writers of law and their sock puppet Obama. Sure, the conservatives are wrong on many counts, but to quote the mass murderer Mao Zedong in a rare moment of agreement with him, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," at least in this instance. The United States of America are fighting for their life. The Bolshevik/Kantian cancer has metastasized, and in my opinion, Rand's philosophical ideas are the most likely chemotherapy to work over the long run. They must be tested on the 50 patients, and not kept sequestered away by an "Objectivist" establishment which views itself as the FDA of ideas.

Nope.

Here is an image of a Bechtle painting:

Looking at some of the art in this section, and recalling that Rand appreciated clarity in painting and called her art "Romantic Realism," I remember having posted two articles about the San Francisco painter Robert Bechtle: Robert Bechtle's religious art Robert Bechtle Part Two At the time, I was not thinking in Objectivist terms, and was working from my own mixed-premises sense of life; but it has been interesting to revisit what I had written. At this time, I would like to believe that Bechtle was celebrating the "benevolent universe" sense of life which permeated California at the time he painted these scenes. The ever-present automobile indicates, to me, Bechtle's respect for man's productivity, mobility, and freedom. A man of mixed premises, Bechtle, I believe, used "banality" as a cover to get his art past the left-wing critics, and although currently out of vogue, he is generally considered historically one of California's better artists. Another link for Bechtle (Wikipedia).

Thanks for the clarification. I find that everyone I've encountered on the site so far seems to be interesting, altruist mystics though they might be.

Of course it was the Mafia. The commie Mafia, specifically. Under the the direction of LBJ. Look who became President immediately after the shot from the grassy knoll.

There are a whole host of masochists here. Skeptics, contrarians, socialists, materialists with inconsistent math fetishes, pacifists, conspiracy theorists, borderline racists, Unitarians, even, until recently, a "libertarian" Mohammedan convert who only advocates jihad against targets such as Israel, not indiscriminately. In Xray's case, she confesses she cannot express in her own words what a stolen concept is, or why it is important. As for being an altrust - maybe - but I'd be surprised if she stands up for any principle. On occasion these people do post interesting comments. It is the orthodox among us you really have to worry about. And the prancers. Gee, whiz. As Obama would say (or was it Bush?) "it looks like America." Prancers? Yikes!