Peikoff on the Ground Zero Mosque

[9thdoctor]

(However, I now live in Florida, where PBS is dumbed down a bit from Northern California. They don't think the redneck hillbillies with massive dental problems and a truck up on blocks in their front yard would appreciate middle to high brow British stuff, so they show a lot less of it.)

Uh-oh, I’m not sure this state’s big enough for the two of us. But alright, sounds like you’re not in South Florida, and at least you still don’t know what I look like.

BTW my top 11 didn’t include any documentaries, so add in just about anything by David Attenborough (Life of Mammals is great), Terry Jones’s history programs (try The Crusades), Michael Palin’s travel programs, Connections (James Burke), Civilisation (Kenneth Clark), and the best of them all, The Ascent of Man (Jacob Bronowski). Netflix is cheap, that's the way to go.

[Martin Radwin]

The proposed "Cordoba Center" near Ground Zero has been talked about for a while. Many have made clear that they really don't want a 15-story mosque sitting so close to where the Twin Towers fell. The issue was not new when Peikoff decided that the time was ripe to bloviate.

One big correction: it’s not going to be a Mosque, but a community center. Does Peikoff get anything right? http://www.cordobainitiative.org/

(1) If they are not jihadis or Islamic triumphalists, Imam Rauf and his supporters should have had the sense not to try putting their mosque right across the street from the site of a 9/11 massacre. (If, on the other hand, they are jihadis and Islamic imperialists, they deserve to be publicly exposed as such.) And people of New York City, including the relatives of the Muslims who died in the Towers, should employ public demonstrations and boycotts against the mosque should the project go forward. It's substantially worse that the convent that the Catholic Church wanted to build at Auschwitz.

I disagree with you here. I don’t accept the premise that this is in bad taste, rather I think it represents defiance of the view that Islam was “responsible” for 9/11. I’ve come to like the idea. I’m not familiar with the Auschwitz example, but assuming the idea was to turn the actual camp into a convent, knowing that this place would long be a destination for Jewish pilgrimage, I see major differences.

This is a very good point. This whole idea that building the center in this location is such a horrible thing to do is based on the idea that the people building the center are somehow either responsible for the 9/11 attacks or at least think that the 9/11 attacks were somehow justified. Were this the case, one could certainly argue that building the center there would be a pretty loathsome thing to do. But there is no evidence I have seen to indicate that at all. So one is only left with the argument that the whole of Islam as a religion is somehow responsible for the attacks, thereby making it unacceptable for an Islamic center to be built there. This is the ultimate in collective blame and punishment, blaming an entire religion for the actions of 19 men.

There is an element of incredible hypocrisy about this entire incident. The US launched an unprovoked, murderous war against Iraq, which has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the creation of millions of Iraqi refugees, along with huge numbers of Iraqi widows whose husbands have been killed during the war and subsequent occupation. Iraq has been devastated by this war, all justified by a series of ridiculous lies told by our rulers. One of the most obscene aspects of this war was the construction of a brand new embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad, dubbed "Fortress America".

Here is a description of this new embassy from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Embassy,_Baghdad

"A new embassy, which has been referred to as Fortress America[8], opened in January 2009 in the Green Zone in Baghdad.[2] The embassy complex comprises 21 buildings on a 104 acre (42 ha) site, making it the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy in the world.[9]

It is located along the Tigris river, west of the Arbataash Tamuz bridge, and facing Al Kindi street to the north. The embassy is a permanent structure which has provided a new base for the 5,500 Americans currently living and working in Baghdad. During construction, the US government kept many aspects of the project under wraps, with many details released only in a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report.[9] Apart from the 1,000 regular employees, up to 3,000 additional staff members have been hired, including security personnel.

With construction beginning in mid-2005, the original target completion date was September 2007. "A week after submitting his FY2006 budget to Congress, the President sent Congress an FY2005 emergency supplemental funding request. Included in the supplemental is more than $1.3 billion for the embassy in Iraq..." An emergency supplemental appropriation (H.R. 1268/P.L. 109-13), which included $592 million for embassy construction, was signed into law on May 11, 2005. According to the Department of State, this funding was all that was needed for construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.[10] Construction is being led by the Kuwaiti firm First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting.[11][12][13]

The embassy has extensive housing and infrastructure facilities in addition to the usual diplomatic buildings. The buildings include:[9]

Six apartment buildings for employees

Water and waste treatment facilities

A power station

Two "major diplomatic office buildings"

Recreation, including a gym, cinema, and a swimming pool

The complex is heavily fortified, even by the standards of the Green Zone. The details are largely secret, but it is likely to include a significant US Marine Security Guard detachment. Fortifications include deep security perimeters, buildings reinforced beyond the usual standard, and five highly guarded entrances. [citation needed]

On October 5, 2007, the Associated Press reported the initial target completion date of September would not be met, and that it was unlikely any buildings would be occupied until 2008.[14] In May 2008, US diplomats began moving into the embassy.[15] The embassy still does not have enough fortified living quarters for hundreds of diplomats and other workers, a problem which has run into 2009."

So, after the US government launched a war that killed all of these people and almost destroyed their entire country, it had the nerve to build this monstrosity of an embassy for all of the conquered Iraqis to look upon. I wonder just how all of these Iraqis struggling to survive, who have had friends and family killed in the war, who have watched their country systematically destroyed and then occupied by tens of thousands of US soldiers, must feel as they pass this monument to imperial arrogance, knowing that their occupiers inside the compound have access to water and waste treatment facilities, a power station, a gym, a cinema, and a swimming pool, while most of them don't even have regular access to electricity.

This is an obscenity greater than anything that any Muslim group could ever build near ground zero. At least the Muslim group, even if they were sympathetic to or even outright supportive of the 9/11 attacks, were not directly responsible for them, unlike the US government, which is directly responsible for the devastation of Iraq, which has killed hugely more people than were killed in the 9/11 attacks. I wonder just how many of these screaming objectivists, who are so indignant about the idea of a Muslim center being built near ground zero, have ever even stopped for just a second to consider just what our own government has done to the people of Iraq.

Martin

[Robert Campbell]

ND,

I'd previously seen Cordoba House described as a mosque. In the New York Times, even.

There are a lot of rooms in 15 stories. Not a one is to be used for Friday prayers led by Imam Rauf or one of his assistants?

Islam as a whole was not "responsible" for 9/11. But there are distinct strains in the religion, including passages in the Qur'an and many hadith, that can be used and have been used to justify wars of conquest and subjugation against non-Muslims. The 9/11 attackers drew on these strains for inspiration. Isn't there a stronger connection between certain passages of Islamic scripture and flying planes into the World Trade Center than, say, between certain lyrics to songs on the Beatles' White album and "creepy crawling" into people's houses before murdering them in gruesome fashion so as to hasten the Apocalypse?

Suppose a (non-Salafi) imam wanted to open a mosque with adjoining "interfaith center" on the site of the Chabad House, or one of the hotels that was targeted when the 10 Pakistani terrorists went around Mumbai slaughtering people. Would you consider that project in good taste?

I don't think aggressive jihad can be rejected out of hand as unIslamic, any more than belief in Hell can be dismissed out of hand as unIslamic. If Imam Rauf wants to preach to the faithful against aggressive jihad (or, for that matter, against literal belief in Hell) I wish him the best. But he should pick another location. Manhattan's a good-sized island, for starters, and New York City has four other boroughs.

That said, I don't believe Imam Rauf and his backers should be prevented by law or military force from building their center, unless they're in cahoots with Lashkar-e-Taiba or some other gang that has committed violent acts.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Martin,

The US embassy in Baghdad can fairly be described as an imperial installation.

Even so, how does it compare—in expense, overbearingness, or any other negative attribute you wish to name—to the guilded palaces built and maintained all over Iraq at the command of Saddam Hussein?

Maybe more to the point here, have the American contractors knocked down any mosques or bulldozed any shrines in the process of constructing it?

Robert Campbell

PS. I have not researched Imam Rauf in any depth. The Wikipedia article on him, to the extent that it can be trusted, indicates that he has hedged his condemnation of the 9/11 attacks.

[9thdoctor]

I'd previously seen Cordoba House described as a mosque. In the New York Times, even.

Indeed, Bloomberg even referred to it as such. They present his statement and then correct him on the website linked above, that’s how I learned about it.

Suppose a (non-Salafi) imam wanted to open a mosque with adjoining "interfaith center" on the site of the Chabad House, or one of the hotels that was targeted when the 10 Pakistani terrorists went around Mumbai slaughtering people. Would you consider that project in good taste?

My initial reaction to the NY one was that it was in bad taste, so I do know where you’re coming from. I seem to be the only one here in favour, so I know my view doesn’t resonate so well. Rather than compare to something in India, where there’s such a history of religious violence, try this analogy: Imagine a Christian denomination that favors abortion rights. They want to build a church near a clinic where an abortion doctor or two was murdered. Some pro-choice advocates object to it, and Peikoff’s minions say all Christian churches should be closed/bombed.

[Martin Radwin]

Martin,

The US embassy in Baghdad can fairly be described as an imperial installation.

That's an understatement! Given the death and destruction that the US government has brought to Iraq, to create an armed fortress like this in Baghdad, filled with luxuries for the American occupying force that most Iraqis could never even hope to enjoy, while the Iraqis must live in comparative squalor -- that just constitutes insensitivity and sadistic cruelty on a cosmic scale.

Even so, how does it compare—in expense, overbearingness, or any other negative attribute you wish to name—to the guilded palaces built and maintained all over Iraq at the command of Saddam Hussein?

The Green Zone where the US embassy was built was, as I recall, in the area of Hussein's largest palace. But, to answer your question, Hussein's palaces were probably even more loathsome. But how exactly is this relevant? The fact that Hussein was a brutal, loathsome dictator who built these hideous palaces, is this somehow supposed to justify what the US government has done in Iraq and the imperial embassy it has built? Further, Hussein was at various times an ally of the US government, including during the Iran - Iraq war.

Maybe more to the point here, have the American contractors knocked down any mosques or bulldozed any shrines in the process of constructing it?

Robert Campbell

No. But they were paid by the US government, which committed far greater destruction in Iraq of people and property than the 9/11 attackers could ever have hoped to achieve. And how is this relevant? As far as I know, the people who wish to build the Cordoba Center had no responsibility whatever for the 9/11 attacks and have never knocked down any shrines or committed any other acts of destruction of property. If there were evidence that they had, they presumably would have been arrested by now.

PS. I have not researched Imam Rauf in any depth. The Wikipedia article on him, to the extent that it can be trusted, indicates that he has hedged his condemnation of the 9/11 attacks.

I have not researched him either, other than quickly clicking on the link provided by Ninth Doctor. If, indeed, he or his group have attempted in any way to justify the murders that occurred from the 9/11 attacks, then the construction of the center would certainly be a proper subject of moral outrage. But, as I indicated in my previous post, even if they have tried to justify these murders, the construction of the center would constitute, from my perspective, less of an outrage than the construction of the US embassy in Iraq. The embassy was built by the same government that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. As far as we know, Imam Rauf and his group have never killed anyone, on matter what their political or religious beliefs.

Martin

[anthony]

Just because I like playing round with "what-ifs?", here's a different angle.

How about if in years to come, when Cordoba House has been around for a while, New Yorkers point at it proudly, and say "There's our symbol of 9/11!" ?

Essentially saying - we can go to hell and back, but will not compromise our freedoms: of assembly, freedom of religious belief, freedom of speech, and rights to property.

However - let anyone who presumes by this, that the USA has become a pacifying appeaser, be very, very, careful!

It would be a wonderful twist, (given lemons?, make lemonade!) that is not entirely off the wall considering the hard-headed realists that New Yorkers are, imo.

Most importantly, it would convey the

fearlessness,'business as usual' confidence, and high principles, that are all admired about the US by many in the outside world.

Tony

[Rich Engle]

(However, I now live in Florida, where PBS is dumbed down a bit from Northern California. They don't think the redneck hillbillies with massive dental problems and a truck up on blocks in their front yard would appreciate middle to high brow British stuff, so they show a lot less of it.)

Alright, where are BOTH of you monkeys at? I'm in Fort Myers.

Yeah, the cultural life is, er, "different." Although we do have a pretty nice fine arts academy here. I think they teach both kinds of music: country ~and~ western.

rde

You Know It's Bad When You Are Shopping For Ukuleles.

[Rich Engle]

Peikoff: "I have to say emphatically and without any trace of hyperbole: Christianity *invented* Totalitarianism."

There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge.

--Hunter S. Thompson.

[9thdoctor]

Just because I like playing round with "what-ifs?", here's a different angle.

How about if in years to come, when Cordoba House has been around for a while, New Yorkers point at it proudly, and say "There's our symbol of 9/11!" ?

That’s pretty much my attitude. And if you don’t agree (and I mean instantaneously!) then you know nothing about rights, Objectivism, benevolent universe, or New York. And I don’t want to talk about it!!

Alright, where are BOTH of you monkeys at? I'm in Fort Myers.

South Florida.

Peikoff: "I have to say emphatically and without any trace of hyperbole: Christianity *invented* Totalitarianism."

There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge.

--Hunter S. Thompson.

I took that quote from the OCON twitter feed, so there was no context provided. One of the points Christopher Hitchens brings up in his debates with religious apologists (see YouTube) is that Christianity invented the idea of “thoughtcrime”. For example Jesus’s claim that lusting after another woman is to commit adultery in your heart. I think the answer to that is good old fashioned hypocrisy, Christians have ever practiced that. Hitchens has to reify hell to really make the criticism work. He usually works in the statement “at least you can fucking die and escape North Korea”, so by this reasoning Christian totalitarianism is an order of magnitude worse than any terrestrial dictatorship. In any event, Peikoff’s statement is not necessarily a cock-up, it depends on the context he said it in. My initial reaction was also "Oh brother..."

[Philip Coates]

> Alright, where are BOTH of you monkeys at? I'm in Fort Myers.

South of Tampa. The only good thing about this location, is I can go to Disney World for the day.

[PDS]

As far as I can see, Leonard Peikoff is solely responsible for the bloody-minded ruckus among the Ayn Rand Institute crowd.

The proposed "Cordoba Center" near Ground Zero has been talked about for a while. Many have made clear that they really don't want a 15-story mosque sitting so close to where the Twin Towers fell. The issue was not new when Peikoff decided that the time was ripe to bloviate.

My two cents on the Cordoba Center:

(1) If they are not jihadis or Islamic triumphalists, Imam Rauf and his supporters should have had the sense not to try putting their mosque right across the street from the site of a 9/11 massacre. (If, on the other hand, they are jihadis and Islamic imperialists, they deserve to be publicly exposed as such.) And people of New York City, including the relatives of the Muslims who died in the Towers, should employ public demonstrations and boycotts against the mosque should the project go forward. It's substantially worse that the convent that the Catholic Church wanted to build at Auschwitz.

(2) Legal action against the project is appropriate only if Imam Rauf or his financial backers are working with terrorist organizations such as Hamas. I don't know whether they are. If you've got proof, bring it forward.

(3) Zoning laws, as my brother the civil engineer has been heard to say, "delay the inevitable on behalf of the connected." As a rule, libertarians favor their complete abolition. Suppressing the mosque through zoning and land use controls isn't the way to go.

(4) Leonard Peikoff's podcast is not merely a farrago of seriously bad arguments in service of a bigoted end. It is nigh-conclusive evidence that he should suspend podcasting, at least until his health improves. The guy has always had a streak of batshit craziness. It has become more pronounced since 1986. But now something that looks like incipient dementia is interfering with his ability to inhibit the craziness.

(5) The whole ARIan setup, institutionally and culturally, depends on obedience to Pope Leonard the One and Only. (Judging from his recent remarks on intellectual heirdom, it will stop with him; he is conspicuously uninterested in apostolic succession.) Hence the lemming-like behavior from Ed Cline et al. Having endorsed an alleged set of principles that would require them to commend Franklin D. Roosevelt for ordering the confinement of the Japanese-Americans to concentration camps, nay even require them to commence the aerial bombardment of universities across the land, they have forfeited their claim to be defenders of individual rights.

(6) It must be dawning on some of the ARIans that, when Peikoff passes from the scene, the Estate of Ayn Rand will no longer be under of the control of an "intellectual heir," or even of a person who cares to anoint or sponsor any such heir. Yet gaining or keeping their places in the Estate/ARI universe has always depended on currying Peikovian favor and steering clear of Peikovian displeasure. When he is gone, will they be rewarded for serving him? Will there be anyone to whom they can transfer their servility, and from whom they will receive credit for their years of faithful compliance?

(7) Diana Hsieh is looking a couple of moves ahead, but only a couple. Her objective seems to be to install herself as a mini-Peikoff, issuing mini-fataawa to the faithful until she spots the opening for elevation into the major leagues. But what will be her institutional base, unless Peikoff is planning to confer Ayn Rand's unexpired copyrights on her? Why will anyone defer to her once Leonard Peikoff has departed? Will her carefully guided subservience to him bring her respect in the post-Peikovian era? Or will she widely loathed by her one-time colleagues?

(8) In his unended quest to prove his undiminished authority, Peikoff whipped up this conflict. Dependence on his personal authority has been an essential feature of the Ayn Rand Institute from its inception. It is a terrible flaw in their organizational culture, and the ARIans deserve to experience every unpleasant consequence of it.

(9) The internecine unpleasantness is distracting ARIans from such "worthy" projects as chortling over the wished-for demise of The Atlas Society. La Hsieh was running down the TAS website not so long ago. TAS has now inaugurated the new site—with not a word of comment from her. I expect she's been too busy dodging incoming from Amy Peikoff to notice what TAS is doing, or even to wonder for exactly how many more years Amy Peikoff's opinion will carry weight in Rand-land.

Robert Campbell

I cannot claim to know the motives of the people you mention, but as a long time reader of Noodlefood who was recently bounced for making a comment about Peikoff that DH didn't like, I think your assessment of DH misses the mark. She is more obsessed with working out and her eating habits and her cute cats than you give her credit for...

Peikoff is truly an embarrassment. I distinctly remember telling an Objectivist friend in 1985 that Peikoff would bounce Kelley some day. He told me this was impossible. He is now an ARI-approved scholar at the various OCON events.

The most alarming part of Peikoff's recent podcasts (Mosque and political flip flops, especially) is his lack of self awareness about his pronouncements that "who are Objectivists" or who "understands Objectivism". Does he not realize that he is implicitly conceding the premise of the famed Fact and Value? If he can flip-flop in under two years on the Republicans creating a totalitarian Christian theocracy (and recall that he said that those who disagreed with him in 2006 didn't understand Objectivism either), then it seems to me David Kelley can declare victory in that war, assuming it ever had to be a war, which, by the way, it didn't.

[Brant Gaede]

> Alright, where are BOTH of you monkeys at? I'm in Fort Myers.

South of Tampa. The only good thing about this location, is I can go to Disney World for the day.

My brother used to hand out free Disneyland tickets to acquaintances when his father-in-law was CEO and got zilch thanks.

--Brant

trying to get a cheap and illogical purchase on a Phil criticism

[BaalChatzaf]

Peikoff: "I have to say emphatically and without any trace of hyperbole: Christianity *invented* Totalitarianism."

There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge.

--Hunter S. Thompson.

Apparently L.P. knew little or nothing about Sparta. Sparta made Stalinist Russia seem like a pleasant interlude.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

Here in Germany, a property owner always has to get a building permit from the community, and I suppose it is the same in the US.

That is, you can't just erect a 100 feet high statute of e. g. Christ or Ayn Rand on your property.

The mosque debate adressess highly controversial issues and what makes the current discussion additionally complicated is the schism in Objectivism. Rand chose Peikoff as the heir to her estate. He is the keeper of the grail, so to speak, the guardian of the doctrine.

Peikoff's claim of Objectivsm being a closed system is in perfect alignment with Rand's position.

Any speculation as to whether Ayn Rand would have turned in her grave over what he said in the podcast is moot since we have no way of knowing whether she would have approved or not.

For to Rand, property rights had no inviolability status. Danneskjöld's sinking of ships are clear vioalation of property rights. As is Roark's dynamiting the building.

It looks like to Rand, for those who hold the "wrong" values, property rights can be "out".

Essentially saying - we can go to hell and back, but will not compromise our freedoms: of assembly, freedom of religious belief, freedom of speech, and rights to property.

Quite ironic that many believers who demand freedom of religion are not concerned with freedom when it comes to how they treat their children. In Christianity, these are baptised, i. e. assigned to the religion with no free choice on their part. In Judaism and Islam, they are simply born into the religion; in both religions, circumcision is performed on males, which is a violation of physical integrity performed on individuals having neither the mental capacity to assess what is going to be performed, nor the right to refuse.

I have not researched Imam Rauf in any depth. The Wikipedia article on him, to the extent that it can be trusted, indicates that he has hedged his condemnation of the 9/11 attacks.

As Imam, he of course believes that everything in the Koran is the direct word from his god. It would interest me how he thinks this (and the Sharia law) can be reconciled with democratic rights in a modern society; TIA to anyone who provides reliable sources offering quotes by Rauf on that.

Edited July 8, 2010 by Xray

[Robert Campbell]

You know, if Imam Rauf agreed to undertake the following activities at Cordoba House, he could put a big gilded dome with neon accents on top of the 15 stories—and I would withdraw all of my personal objections to his building plans:

(1) An "interfaith" symposium on the 12 Danish Muhammad cartoons, cartoons to be displayed during the discussions and published in any book or articles that came out of it.

(2) Public commemorations of recent victims of violent jihadist actions, such as Daniel Pearl.

(3) A series of frank public discussions of tough issues in shari'a, such as: jihad as a communal duty, the death penalty for apostasy, the death penalty for homosexual acts, cutting off a hand as the prescribed punishment for theft, legal disabilities imposed on women, dhimmi status for non-Muslims and its attendant legal disabilities, regulations governing slavery, and the prohibition against lending money at interest.

To be fair to Imam Rauf, even if these activities were acceptable to him personally, he would need considerable guts to undertake them. For instance, in the wake of Yale University Press's refusal to publish the 12 cartoons in a book that purported to be about them, Imam Rauf might have well-founded apprehensions about his personal security were he to underwrite activity (1).

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Any speculation as to whether Ayn Rand would have turned in her grave over what he [Peikoff] said in the podcast is moot since we have no way of knowing whether she would have approved or not.

Xray,

It's speculative—obviously.

But not moot.

For instance, Rand is on record (Philosophy: Who Needs It Q&A, 1974) condemning the confinement of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during World War II—an action that, she tartly noted, was done at the command of a "progressive liberal" President.

The arguments put forth in support of Leonard Peikoff's position by Ed Cline and Amy Peikoff (Dr. Peikoff himself is so addled on the podcast that it's frequently hard to discern what his arguments actually are) imply, at a minimum, that confining Japanese-Americans to concentration camps was a proper action during World War II, and confining all Muslim Americans in concentration camps wouldn't be such a bad idea today, what with there being a war on.

Robert Campbell

[Martin Radwin]

For to Rand, property rights had no inviolability status. Danneskjöld's sinking of ships are clear vioalation of property rights. As is Roark's dynamiting the building.

It looks like to Rand, for those who hold the "wrong" values, property rights can be "out".

It's really amazing that you can come onto this forum, make all of these posts about Rand and objectivism, and so obviously have no idea what you're talking about. You display less comprehension of Rand than any reasonably intelligent person who actually spent fifteen minutes reading her.

Property rights were most certainly considered inviolable by Rand. She considered them to be an absolutely essential aspect of human existence, and a bedrock of all individual rights. She made this point repeatedly in both Atlas Shrugged and in her later non-fiction writing.

Regarding Danneskjold's sinking of ships, these were government ships, carrying supplies paid for by the looted taxation of its subjects. As such, government had absolutely no legitimate property right in these looted goods. Property rights apply to property that is obtained legitimately, not property looted from others. Rand made it a point that Danneskjold never attacked private ships or even, for that matter, government ships involved in legitimate defense, since Rand regarded defense as a legitimate role of government. Your comment shows that you have absolutely no understanding of the libertarian theory of property rights.

Regarding Roark's dynamiting of the building, I actually happen to agree with you about that. Even though the government was in breach of contract by altering the building without permission, the contract was signed with Keating, not Roark, so Roark had no standing. Furthermore, even if the contract had been signed with Roark, blowing up the building would not constitute a legitimate act of recourse for a breach of contract. Rand wrote this in the 30s and 40s, long before she had a fully developed theory of property rights.

Essentially saying - we can go to hell and back, but will not compromise our freedoms: of assembly, freedom of religious belief, freedom of speech, and rights to property.

Quite ironic that many believers who demand freedom of religion are not concerned with freedom when it comes to how they treat their children. In Christianity, these are baptised, i. e. assigned to the religion with no free choice on their part. In Judaism and Islam, they are simply born into the religion; in both religions, circumcision is performed on males, which is a violation of physical integrity performed on individuals having neither the mental capacity to assess what is going to be performed, nor the right to refuse.

Regarding circumcision, I once again happen to agree with you. I have always considered it to be a totally unjustifiable violation of the child's rights to surgically alter him without his consent. This is a barbaric practice that has been carried out for thousands of years without any medical justification, just because it is a long standing tradition rooted in religious superstition.

Regarding your other criticisms of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, for parents considering their children to be members of their religion without the children's consent, this is just plain silly. Unless physical coercion or the threat of physical coercion is employed by the parents, the children are free to reject their membership in their parents' religion at will. They can unassign themselves any time they wish. And I say this as someone who is an atheist. You might as well argue that children's freedom is violated because they are taught many other things by their parents that they might subsequently reject later in life, such as the silly belief that government is a good institution deserving of their support.

Martin

[9thdoctor]

(1) An "interfaith" symposium on the 12 Danish Muhammad cartoons, cartoons to be displayed during the discussions and published in any book or articles that came out of it.

(2) Public commemorations of recent victims of violent jihadist actions, such as Daniel Pearl.

(3) A series of frank public discussions of tough issues in shari'a, such as:

Man, you set the bar pretty damn high! How about hosting a lecture series with Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Salman Rushdie? Y’know, Pope John Paul II did a lot of apologizing for Catholic history, why not? I’m ready to be amazed. I bet you will see (2), and watered down versions of (3). Forget (1).

[Philip Coates]

I like Robert's three points.

They are wider than this particular issue. They should be - incessantly - requested worldwide of any and all muslim organizations, mosques, and organizers who claim to be civilized and peace-loving.

Edited July 9, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Brant Gaede]

Martin, Rand would never have given up that climax to The Fountainhead. She might have written it somewhat differently if considering your objections, but the housing project was a goner. In real life she would simply tell the architect it was a no-no or expressed some sympathy for him after the fact while stating he was wrong. She might then write a play about it condemning society--or a novel.

--Brant

[Martin Radwin]

Martin, Rand would never have given up that climax to The Fountainhead. She might have written it somewhat differently if considering your objections, but the housing project was a goner. In real life she would simply tell the architect it was a no-no or expressed some sympathy for him after the fact while stating he was wrong. She might then write a play about it condemning society--or a novel.

--Brant

Brant,

I suspect you're right about that. Rand's concept of art is, after all, a selective recreation of reality, not a naturalistic representation of the world exactly as it is. The explosion of the housing complex made for one hell of a climax to the novel. It was done for dramatic purposes to illustrate the theme of the novel. As far as I know, Rand never wrote subsequently that Roark was justified in making this choice from her ethical perspective as an objectivist. If I am wrong about this, and she did indeed attempt to argue in her subsequent non-fiction writing that this action was justified according to objectivist ethical principles, please correct me and cite the passage where she wrote this.

Xray loves to take isolated passages from Rand's writing and then draw absurd conclusions from these passages, without considering the wider context of Rand's writing. Thus, based on this passage, which admittedly involved an action by Roark not consistent with respect for property rights, she concludes that Rand did not consider property rights to be that important. Never mind all of the other things that Rand wrote contradicting this conclusion.

By the way, Roark was also violating objectivist principles by designing the housing project in the first place, because it was, after all, a government housing project. Perhaps Xray should have argued that, based on this section of the novel, Rand was obviously a believer in the government building housing projects.

Martin

Edited July 9, 2010 by Martin Radwin

[Brant Gaede]

Never mind Xray; she's a believer in socialized medicine; oblivious to the doctor as a slave.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Perhaps Xray should have argued that, based on this section of the novel, Rand was obviously a believer in the government building housing projects.

Martin,

I think you just now gave her an idea...

Michael

[Rich Engle]

X-Ray is, for sure, a seeker. Not always a bad one, but perpetual...

It's like this one...

One way or another, she will always be there...

rde