Uncommon Sense

The Good Objectivist - Part Two

2012-02-19T00:32:00.000-08:00

OBJECTIVISTS TOGETHER

Within the Objectivist movement, like any movement, we have a wide and diverse range of opinions. That is to be expected. Man is not omniscient, knowledge is not automatic, and we have free will.

But from the way some of us negotiate our differences of opinion, a newcomer might imagine that Objectivism teaches that man is omniscient, that knowledge is automatic, and that one's free will is to be relinquished to authority.

This has to change.

Once the new Objectivist has escaped mine fields like the materialist and spiritualist creeds of his youth, and climbed over the barbed wire of his first experiences with Objectivists, he may imagine himself finally in a sunlit field of non-contradiction and rational interaction. In large part, this is the case. Once a person has grown into the philosophy to a certain degree he can relax. Once a certain general understanding is achieved, he starts to meet all kinds of fantastic, wonderful people.

And we are fantastic. Really. I do not mean these posts to be an indictment of all Objectivists, or even of most. We are friendly, thoughtful, morally conscientious, kind and loving. We work hard, have great lives, and work to stop the evil in this world. A man can get used to basking in the sunlight of this sort of community, and feel free, finally, from intellectual mine fields and barbed wire.

But over time, he learns that there is another danger.

Some things are radioactive.

There are a handful of issues over which Objectivists can easily clash and break with each other. People try to avoid them, paper them over or compromise on them, but inevitably they are asked to choose sides, and are often vehemently denounced if their view differs from what is expected of them.

Let's examine five of these issues and see if we can find a common thread.

#1) What is Objectivism?

#2) Who speaks for / owns Objectivism?

#3) Who is an Objectivist?

#4) Who can an Objectivist work with?

#5) Do you work with/admire/tolerate/know a particular individual?

Hmm -- A lot of this seems to be about intellectual territory. Territorialism, Authority, and Group Loyalty. Ew. Not pretty.

Before I delve into these let me put on my hazmat suit to protect myself from radiation. This should be unnecessary, but this is what we're driven to:

"I, Richard Gleaves, do solemnly swear on a stack of first edition signed copies of Atlas Shrugged that I do not sanction the work of David Kelly or any member of The Objectivist Center. I do not have dealings with Nathaniel or Barbara Branden, and I recognize they have engaged in unjust actions against Ayn Rand. In addition to these, Appendix A contains a notarized list of personalities, positions, and organizations that I renounce. This is to be considered my position in all matters, public and private, and no sanction of the works of any other individual is to be implied by my writings below, which I hereby affirm are my own independently arrived conclusions. (Signature on file.)"

Did that seem kind of silly to you? It does to me too. It's nonsense. Worse than nonsense. It's pernicious and vacuous nonsense. But that is, in spirit, what we're demanding of each other in the name of free and open inquiry, a love of reason, and intellectual independence.

Let's examine the issues I raised above, and why they are radioactive.

Ayn Rand

#1 "What is Objectivism"?

This should not be an issue to any reasonable person.

Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand (conceptually)

& Objectivism is the writings of Ayn Rand (concretely).

Objectivism is a human construct, an ideology that Rand devised, articulated, and codified into a code of values and virtues.

Because life is conditional, a code of some sort is necessary to anyone who chooses to live. But: Rand's code is not "in reality"-- there is no "Objectivism" out there Platonically in the physical world which she discovered fully-formed like a new continent. Objectivism is a sequence of logical conclusions reached from the study of reality; i.e., from the study of man, the facts of his nature, and the requirements of his life. This is important to remember-- that Objectivism is not metaphysically given. It is (wo)man-made.

Which means: In any conflict between Objectivism and reality, by the very principles of Objectivism you have to choose reality. Reality is always primary.

The philosophy was devised and concretized by Rand, promulgated by her associate Nathaniel Branden in the 1960s, and systematized by Rand's heir Leonard Piekoff after her death. But, even if approved by Rand, secondary works are only studies of her thought, not her thought itself. Nothing written by any other person except Ayn Rand should be properly considered "Objectivism".

However, all writings or commentary by others (derivative of her work and achievement) may be granted the modifier "ObjectivIST" if they are reasonable interpretations, i.e. develop new implications that do not evade fundamentals of Rand's thought, something each individual mind must decide for himself. "Objectivism" is a NOUN-- a thing, in this case a particular set of ideas. "Objectivist" is an ADJECTIVE-- a descriptive modifier, in this case for people and writings influenced or derivative of Rand. A strawberry is red but it is not itself "redness", if you take my meaning.

What does this mean in practice? That Objectivism is a closed system, but Objectivist thought is an open process of discovery and application. People constantly bicker past each other on this issue, evading the difference between the system and the body of derivative works. Your derivative works can be objectivist, but they will never be Objectivism.

Why is this controversial? Two reasons. First, people don't want anybody spreading lousy ideas and passing them off as Rand's, and secondly because, frankly, Ayn Rand is an industry. Ka-ching! We're all capitalists. That's wonderful. But, truly, anyone who publishes on Rand besides Rand is not publishing ObjectivISM, no matter how much more money he can make if he convinces you it is true. Various "ObjectivIST" work may be excellent and praiseworthy, but all such work derives from an underlying wellspring with only one Fountainhead.

#2) "Who speaks for / owns Objectivism?"

This is a related question. We're all for property rights. How do we defend the rights holder of a philosophy? There's two issues here: the ideas and the writings.

NO ONE owns Objectivism qua philosophy, any more than anyone owns relativity qua physics.

As a legal and moral matter, concepts are not to be considered property. E=MC²is Einstein's creation, but Stephen Hawking does not pay royalties when he uses it. Concepts are not property, though one must credit their discoverer. The justice owed to Rand is that she forever be recognized with gratitude for her accomplishment in the realm of ideas. But the ideas are not her property. Once you understand them and adopt them, they are your ideas-- they are the things you think and believe. All that is required of you is that you do not pass yourself off as their discoverer, any more than you pretend to be the inventor of internal combustion when you drive a car.

And what of Rand's actual writings? That is a property rights issue. As I said above, she discovered, articulated and codified the philosophy. Therefore, she owned the concrete expression of her thought (such as journals), and the final product in the form of a book. The writings were Rand's property, and she left them to her legal heir Dr. Peikoff, who has since sold dramatization rights etc. Some people have bought various documents. Some journals and preparatory writing have been donated to the Library of Congress. In the case of the novelette Anthem, the copyright has lapsed in the United States. So the answer is that Dr. Piekoff owns some Objectivism, and others own other bits. Some bits are owned by nobody. It is spread around in private and public hands.

So who speaks for Objectivism?

I do, of course.

So do you.

#3) Who is an Objectivist?
Every writer has interpreters, starting with the first individual who reads their work. When I see someone's error, I can point to Rand's own writing and, in a sense, I am speaking for Rand. I speak for Objectivism. We all do. Hopefully every day and loudly! Some of us may command greater respect than others, but there is no authority. Any man who tells you to accept his authority on Objectivism over the evidence of your mind is ignoring the fundamental teachings of the philosophy! Every man must look and see with his own eyes and mind. This is so crucial. A man who claims to be an authority over your mind is-- by that very fact-- unfit to teach you anything. The search for authorities to be in charge of a philosophy is the fundamental error that drives cult-like thinking. So the proper answer on this issue is that we all speak for Objectivism, some with greater credibility than others.

And credibility is something which self-interest should drive each of us to weigh very carefully.

In my opinion, Leonard Peikoff has the greatest credibility to speak on Objectivism. But Objectivism allows him no authority over and above anyone else's judgement. No one can think for me, just as (in Galt's words) no pinch-hitter can live my life. No matter what a man's accomplishments, I cannot substitute his convictions for my own.

Various organizations have sprung up to promulgate and spread Rand's ideas over the years. I am partial to the Ayn Rand Institute, and I'm particularly fond of Yaron Brook there. But why do I admire people at ARI? Because they have earned it. They have earned credibility, but they are not authorities. They are intellectual vendors, and I am a satisfied customer.

This distinction is crucial to how I personally deal with other objectivist people. If someone is partial to The Atlas Society or some other group I don't agree with, I don't insist they change their view. I explain why I think their group is not credible, and that is sufficient. If they do not see it the same way I do, that neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg (as Jefferson put it.) One can't demand loyalty. It has to be earned. I can't earn loyalty for ARI any more than I can earn fans for Peikoff-- each must do that themselves. I adore ARI, but if someone else does not adore them I merely think they are missing out on superlative value. Similarly, I admire and respect Dr. Peikoff, and if someone else does not I merely think they have failed to see the virtues and value of the man. Poor them for missing out, but I do not consider them an enemy, and I still consider them Objectivists.

#4) Who can an Objectivist work with?

My answer: anyone.

This is a question of hierarchy and context: your hierarchy of values and the context of the relationship.

If I were on fire, I would be thrilled if Nathaniel Branden came running by with a garden hose.

If my car were stalled, I would accept Barbara Branden's offer of jumper cables.

If Obama could be defeated via door-to-door canvassing in Ohio, I would march house to house with the entire membership of the Atlas Society if it would deny the president a second term.

The only question that should matter is whether you are pursuing a rational value or not, and whether the association implies sanction beyond the immediate purpose of the association. Fortunately, it is much harder to give sanction than most people suppose. To sanction ideas with which you disagree requires that the offending ideas be voiced in your presence and that you fail to register disagreement. That others hold mistaken ideas is not your concern, only whether they express them. Fortunately, I have never met an Objectivist who wasn't absolutely willing to speak up and disagree at a moment's notice, so I suspect that sanction occurs far less frequently than is supposed.

#5) Do you work with/admire/tolerate/know a particular individual?

This question is bandied about all the time in Objectivist circles, thanks to confusion on the four issues above.

Quite a few Objectivists congregate on Facebook, for example, and often the call goes out from one person or another that Miss X has been found to hold idea "Y", or that Mister Z associates with a Branden or that Mrs. Nobody must be shunned. Often this is voiced in "me or them" language: "if any of you are friends with Mr. Untouchable you can defriend me now!!"

It gets pretty annoying.

Leaving aside the peculiarities of Facebook (which labels one's acquaintances 'friend', and doesn't unfortunately allow a hierarchical division such as best friend, friend, acquaintance, all the way down to 'guy who posts those cat cartoons I like'), how should you respond if someone questions who you associate with? Is it their right? Is it rational behavior?

It is rational to judge a man by what values he holds, and friends can be a clue to a man's hierarchy of values. But they can only be a clue.

A man who adores the writings of Nathaniel Branden, David Kelly or Chris Sciabarra (or whoever) may still be a friend, if we both admire Atlas Shrugged, or share a love of Mozart or for Italian cinema. Friends share your values, but not necessarily ALL your values. What cannot be tolerated is an attack on the things you love. A friend that attacks your values may soon become an enemy. But I could be friends with a fellow Star Wars geek who hated Rand as long as he kept his antipathy to himself and didn't voice it in my presence, and no sanction of his anti-Rand ideas would be implied by the association.

It is nearly impossible for me to tell as a third person what relationship two other people have. There is a certain granularity in relationships which only those in them will understand, and it is difficult to make judgements about how close two people actually are and what has passed between them.

Does this mean a man's friends tell you nothing about him? No. But they do not tell you everything, either. So those who judge others based on associations should be very careful to exercise proper justice, and to avoid blanket assumptions.

What to do if someone presents you with an ultimatum over an affiliation, friendship, or other association? No one can choose your friends for you, or dictate who you value. Dagny Taggart fell in love with the man who was working to destroy Taggart Transcontinental. Howard Roark loved a woman who spent each day sabotaging his commissions. If you see value in another person, pursue that value, and be prepared to defend your choice if questioned. BUT-- never throw someone over based on a secondhand reason. If you see a value in someone, that is cause enough to pursue an association, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Many Objectivists start these fights thinking they are doing good. Unfortunately, most are committing the error of imagining that the moral stature of a man is determined by the opinions held by his friends. It is tribalist/collectivist, and is as false as saying that you can judge a woman's character by the sins of her sorority sisters.

But what if it's YOU that's getting attacked, and someone is trying to destroy you or your reputation?

That is the subject of the eventual Part Three of this series: The Schism-minded Objectivist.

The Grand Metaphor

2011-03-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

Today, some random musings on theology.

Is it possible to create a rational theological system? Would anyone even want to? What purpose would it serve?

Sometimes I wonder if the human mind needs some sort of Grand Metaphor for understanding the world -- not philosophy, which is a practical science, but rather a sort of Poetry of Existence, the contemplation of which makes simpler the nature of life.

Sometimes, I refer to a Grand Metaphor of my own. Let me share it. It's a sort of rational deism, and is open to anyone who observes existence.

What was at the beginning of the universe? There's no way to know. Perhaps the big bang is the beginning, perhaps we live in a daughter universe embedded in a vast cosmos of prior universes -- and perhaps our universe will give birth to children of its own. We have no way of knowing. But it stands to reason that somewhere in the distant reaches of time was the first entity. Some might call it God, but it is a mistake to anthropomorphize it. We cannot ascribe any mind to it, or any purpose to it. It didn't have a personality or a plan. We are most likely talking about an inanimate subatomic string -- the first thing that wove itself from nothing; the first entity that was and from which the rest follows. I'm not talking about a subjective consciousness at the root of existence, I'm talking about an objective Thing. Whatever the first thing was, it was.

I think of it as a creative particle.

Metaphorically, this particle, the first individual anything, is the prime mover of all that came after. Think of the burst of creation that followed. The story of the universe is the story of a creative individual -- coming into existence, and blazing forth in glory and unending invention. The invention is not willed -- like I said, there's no way to assume a plan to it --but as a metaphor for contemplation I find it satisfying to think that the universe owes its magnificence to the first thing that Was: the Fountainhead, if you will. The first entity with identity, the first that expressed causality.

Why bother with all this mumbo-jumbo? After all, that first thing was at the very least billions of years ago -- it isn't around to look at and it doesn't pass down laws of morality.

But doesn't it?

Ethics flows from the nature of existence. If the good is to exist as the kind of thing you are, to preserve ones self and live by production -- isn't that the very likeness of the God I'm speaking of?

And evil -- if evil is to pursue death, and if the death of the individual comes when it is subsumed into some collective mass -- isn't that the very image of the universe as well? Isn't the life of the universe one of outward motion, of endless particularization? And doesn't destruction for the universe consist of a falling in -- a black hole in which every existent is collectivized into a common death?

To live as one with the universe is to live in its image -- as a creative individual entity expanding through its life -- creating, producing, existing and, through motion, staying aloft against the pull of inertia and conformity -- defying the gravity of the mass and the cold death of uniformity.

That is a metaphor I find deeply satisfying, and one which even gives me some small comfort when I think of the end of my life. Even the universe will end, someday, when it exhausts its creative potential and draws itself into quietude.

How nice to know that it and I are in this together.

The Christian Nation

2011-01-29T02:15:00.000-08:00

More and more, commentators like Glenn Beck and politicians like Newt Gingrich invoke the sentiment that America is a "Christian Nation". This is an unusual concept for those of us who revere the founders, because their writings contain lines such as this one:

[T]he Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion - Treaty of Tripoli

So who are we to believe? Socialist Progressives surely fight the idea of a Christian Founding, and Conservatives seem hell-bent to push the idea at every turn. There are thousands of articles, blogs and discussions on the web pro- and con- about the historical validity of the question. Both sides quote particular founders out of context to push their side of the agenda. Neither side budges an inch. I'm no historian, and neither are most Americans. So what's the answer?

I think we're going about the question wrong. It is impossible and non-objective to try and gauge the personal convictions of men who lived 200 years ago. Even if their letters were replete with paeans to mysticism (which they aren't) it would tell us nothing about their true motivations. Trying to argue this point historically is not going to convince anyone, I'm afraid. We need to take a different approach.

First we need to ask-- IF America were a Christian Nation, what would that mean? Why is it an important question at all?

How do we define a "Christian Nation"?

Is it a nation composed primarily of Christians? If so, Italy is certainly a far more Christian nation than the US. The United States is about 78% Christian, if you believe the polls. Italy is 93%. Panama is 99%. Mexico is 95%. So does the "Christianity" of a nation dependent on its demographics? If so, then this "Christian nation" idea is nothing more than tribalism and racism. It says, essentially, that no matter the form of the government-- whether it be a monarchy, a republic, a theocracy, or a dictatorship-- if that nation is composed primarily of Judeo-Christian peoples then that nation is "Christian". By this standard, in world history we have seen many bloody and murderous "Christian nations" that none of us would want to live in. Israel creates much of its own troubles by being a tribalist country-- insisting on its own "Jewishness" when all that is required is that Israel be a nation that protects all citizens equally. But the tribal or racist standard is corrupt and pernicious wherever it's applied. And if this is a numbers game, I cannot imagine that Conservatives see America as being of lesser moral credit and stature as Hugo Chavez' Venezuela, which is 98% Christian. So we must conclude that a "Christian Nation" is to mean something else in this context besides a mere numbers game.

So, do we define a "Christian nation" as being "founded on Christian principles"? Okay. Which principles are those and what does it mean? First, let's define "Christian principles" as all that which was taught or preached by Jesus in his ministry. Is that not broad enough? Okay-- let's say it is all that was taught by Jesus, his disciples, the church fathers, the Catholic Church, the Protestant churches, and every other denomination of Christianity prior to 1776.

Here is the Sermon on the Mount. I think it may be considered representative of the best Jesus' teachings:
http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=91693103

Where will anyone read within this a doctrine of individual rights, separation of powers, a bicameral legislature, ANY of the distinctive features of the American political system?

The Pump and Dump

2011-01-29T01:44:00.000-08:00

Where money is concerned, men are widely irrational. They fear to lose it, and they fear to gain it, they fear to have less than the man next to them, and they fear to have more -- lest they become a victim of theft or fraud. Ironically, it is these irrational fears and hungers that make markets so very easy to manipulate and which account for most of the losses people suffer in business. Blinded by fear or irrational greed, people make mistakes and get duped. Whether it is the con man who claims to have an inside scoop or the Nigerian prince on the Internet, scammers count on your desire for the unearned and your fear of loss. They know how to manipulate you.

Manipulation is practically the only game on Wall Street these days. As the 60s generation comes to uncontested power and the last vestiges of the 50s wane, a rash of irresponsibility and fraud has enveloped our financial world. As the generation of Father Knows Best rides off into the sunset, the generation of Woodstock smashes and grabs for immediate gratification without consideration of the future.

Easy money is the name of the game, and this mentality extends to the very top of our economic and political power structure.

I believe we are witnessing the biggest heist in human history. When we read stories of Quantitative Easing, inflationary and deflationary fears, bank bailouts, deficits, fiscal reform, World Bank, IMF, G20, Keyesianism, commodities pricing, etc we throw up our hands in confusion and bewilderment-- too intimidated by the arcane complexities of credit default swaps and derivative markets to form certain opinions or make decisions about the future. What the hell is going on? We can sense it's phony and someone somewhere is pulling the strings, but we have no legend for the map, no key to make sense of it, no Rosetta stone to translate the business page into plain english.

Unless we know where to look.

As I've written earlier in this blog, I have been trying to understand the financial collapse and the subsequent actions of the government. I fear a dollar collapse in the future. But I too have had trouble understanding exactly what our officials are up to until recently-- now I have a theory as to what's going on.

There are very few ways, really, to manipulate a market. You can buy low and then drive a financial instrument up in price, or take a short position on something and drive it down. That's really it. All profits are made on the differences in value you can predict or generate. In the small-cap penny stocks, manipulators have been at it for decades-- spreading rumors to drive a stock up, and then unloading it to the investors that buy on the rumor. The smart money is in the know, gets out early, and pockets profits. The dumb money comes in last, and is left holding the bag.

Understanding this dynamic, the dynamic of penny stock manipulation, is the Rosetta stone to understanding the magnificent heist going on at the national level.

Our Fed policy is indistinguishable from a pump and dump scheme.

Let's first look at how a pump works.

IMAGINARY COMPANY: EXCELSIOR OIL (EXCO)

#1) THE COMPANY
Let's say you want to rip people off with a pump and dump scheme. You first need a company. Not to say that you need actual production-- all you really need is a name, an address, and proper paperwork (preferably spread across several jurisdictions just in case-- Las Vegas and Delaware are popular.) For the purposes of this discussion, let's say you create the imaginary company of Excelsior Oil. You might give your company some assets, maybe legitimately purchase a few oil leases. Maybe you get the rights to some experimental drilling equipment. Or maybe it's all a fiction and the company headquarters is your Mom's basement. Doesn't matter, as long as people believe in it.

#2) THE STOCK
SEC regulations are very lax. You can get your "company" publicly traded with no trouble. You may have reporting requirements etc, but these can be evaded or you can meet the basic requirements with bookkeeping tricks etc. No one really bothers to check financials anymore. Let's say you get 100million common shares issued publicly-- to be traded as EXCO on the largely unregulated Pink Sheet market. BUT-- at the same time you also issue your officers another stock EXCR which are "restricted" shares convertible at their discretion. You have to report these, but very few people in the general public will know what's up and what to look for-- even if they pull copies of your SEC filings. These EXCR shares are key.

#3) THE IPO
So you offer your shares on the market, and let's say you sell them at .01 apiece. If you sell all 100 million shares of EXCO, you've immediately made a capitalization of $1 million dollars for your troubles (usually it's far less, but I'm using round numbers). What happens then? Well, ordinarily you would be expected to start showing profits, production, earnings etc but remember you're not really going to drill those wells -- you're a stock manipulator not a real company. Remember EXCR? You convert those shares and create another 100million common stock EXCO, releasing those secretly to your insiders. Maybe the public holders see a sudden dip, maybe not.

#4) THE PUMP
Now it's time to make money. You take your 1 million and go to a shady market maker-- they certainly exist-- and arrange for him to pump the stock. Such firms are expert price manipulators. They can drive the stock price up by colluding with others-- trading the stock back and forth to drive it higher, releasing newsletters full of exclamation points and breathless adjectives to their subscribers ("Hot new penny stock" "Fast Cash" "Don't miss out!"), releasing bogus trumped-up "news" about your eminent directors and imminent partnerships or some any-second-now breakthrough in crude production-- maybe a combo of all of these.

The shares go shooting up.

#5) THE DUMP
As new investors buy the stock, your insiders are unloading their secret shares. Maybe they sell at thirty cents, maybe forty, maybe a dollar a share-- it all depends on how good your pumper is and how much you could pay him. Your initial investors make a profit too so they don't complain unless they hold the shares too long. Because eventually your insiders have made their money. And they tell the market maker there is no need to support the price any longer. The shares crash, the people who held too long or bought at the top are wiped out. There's no one buying, volume dries up, and they are stuck with worthless shares in a worthless company which they can't pass on to anyone else.

They're called the bagholders.

Now what would those 5 steps look like at a national level?

IMAGINARY NATION: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

#1) THE COMPANY
You can think of the United States as the company. It has limited production, runs entirely in the red, and has been running as a bankrupt for decades. People believe it to be strong and sound, though, which is crucial. It is unimportant for the purposes of the pump whether we're talking an economic powerhouse or a two-man operation in a basement. As long as people believe it to be a real economic entity, the stage is set.

#2) THE STOCK
What is the stock on a national level? In the US, our stock is the dollar. The Federal Reserve is printing the common stock of the United States in enormous quantities. They can do this on their own authority-- there is no SEC for them. Where is all this money going?

#3) THE IPO
Like the EXCR registered shares in the Pump above, the Fed is giving millions of shares-- largely in secret and without public accounting-- to insiders, friends, and co-conspirators. All of these dollars, though, are not allowed into the system. You can think of them sitting in Scrooge McDuck-style money bins at Goldman or JP Morgan. The banks are not loaning because to do so would increase the velocity of the money. In the pump scheme, the secret converted shares could not be immediately sold without crashing the "real" common stock market. Similarly, allowing all the secret dollars into the system would cause huge inflation and devalue everyone's holdings. So the insiders either sit on them or, more likely, they put them where they know they will be valuable-- in gold or silver.

#4) THE PUMP
But some of the new dollars do find their way into the equities markets, and the Fed's constant buying of treasuries does support the bond markets and allow for endless stimulus spending. So the economy starts to be pumped up by all this bogus money indirectly. As the market rises, you hear new voices chiming in from media outlets (Bloomberg, etc, controlled by insiders) saying the economy is getting better. Or you have a push to declare "recovery summer" on the political front. But the US is not gaining productivity. If people spent 10% more on milk than last year, you can't consider that a real increase of value if what's driven it is a 10% increase in the price thanks to inflation. The numbers will go up as prices go up, just as stocks will rise as more fake money flows into the system. It is in the insiders' and the politicians' interest to trick you into thinking you have a robust economy. It's like a trainer pumping adrenaline in the heart of a racehorse. They're not doing it for the sake of the horse, but because they have very large and precarious bets on the race.

#5) THE DUMP
Okay, there's several things to keep in mind. What is happening in the rest of the world? Because the dollar is the global reserve currency, central banks worldwide hold large positions. Think of them as fund managers holding shares of EXCO. They start realizing that they are holding shares in a pump and dump. It is in their interest to unload them. As the dollar inflates, we start to see inflationary price increases around the globe-- Egypt is rioting because of food costs. Tunisia falls. China is experiencing inflation. Everybody is. Eventually they have to dump the dollar for their own survival. And a global dump of the dollar is the crash at the end of this particular pump and dump scheme. We know that it's coming eventually. The housing bubble made it a mathematical certainty. No austerity measures can reverse this 14 trillion in debt. America will lose its credit rating and its global reserve status. Count on it.

And they are counting on you to be the bagholder.

2008: HATCHING THE SCHEME?
I believe that in 2008 when firms began falling the powers that be saw that there was no avoiding a dollar collapse. Instead, they began a pump and dump scheme to enrich the banks and the insiders. They pumped trillions more into the already inflated money supply and gave it to their friends. These banks never released the cash into circulation to create jobs. Instead, they began buying commodities. Now, with exuberance coming back to the stock market, the large banks will start to unwind their stock positions as best as they can as small-fry investors, speculators, grandmas and whiz kids start gaining confidence in stocks again. When the dollar collapse comes, it will cream the financial markets. The average American will be the bagholder. Classic pump and dump.

The insiders will have used printed dollars to buy commodities and inflation-protected assets. The politicians will have a crisis upon which they can capitalize and push more global governance and controls upon us. America will lose its standard of living, while the lot of other nations will be largely improved-- a redistributive result that is much desired in many circles. A new global reserve currency will come into effect-- either the Yuan, the Euro, or a new reserve fashioned from the IMF's SDR basket will be the new standard. Perhaps this will be called the Bancor after John Maynard Keynes' 1944 design.

As the dollar collapses globally, we will see massive hyperinflation. Banks that are unconnected to the administration will fail. The FDIC will be on the hook for deposits, requiring more money printing to cover the obligations. Failed banks will be seized by the FDIC, recapitalized by the treasury, and cronies of the administration from Goldman or Chase will be placed in charge (already happening). Food shortages will be commonplace. The responsible American with savings will be wiped out. The irresponsible will see the real value of their debts dwindle. We will be unable to maintain our empire, and the dollar will revert to a mere national currency-- no longer a global powerhouse.

People will rush to safe havens. Gold will soar, and the insiders will be further enriched.

This is, I fear, what we're dealing with. That's why they aren't making serious cuts-- they are stepping on the accelerator. A dollar collapse is coming, and they are counting on you to be the bagholder.

I hope this post helps you protect yourself, or at least gives you food for thought about the nature of the social system under which we are living.

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The Extinction Event

2011-01-02T18:18:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

I haven't posted in my blog in months, for the reason that I have been completely occupied on a major project for a South Korean theater company. I just completed a libretto of a new musical for them. Now that the holidays are over, I'd like to look forward to 2011 and, if I can, warn people about what may be on the horizon.

Do you have the same sinking feeling that I do that something very fundamental has changed in the Western (ostensibly) capitalist nations? Reading the newspapers, following politics, listening to the news, do you not feel an increased sense that things are... phony? We are being lied to. I don't really have any doubt anymore. And I think the reason for the lies is that the lies are actually necessary to stave off disaster. We are being lied to by our governments because, if we knew what was really going on, it would actually create the crisis. What we are facing is an economic meltdown-- and keeping us in the dark and happily spending and going into debt is one of the mechanisms that is staving off the inevitable.

Now, I don't usually blog on financial issues. Hell, I'm a broke playwright. What do I know? But I do have some history to share. I used to be a stockbroker a long time ago, and I parlayed that into a job at Morgan Stanley as an executive assistant. I rose very fast and found myself as E.A. to all the top executives. I worked with the CFO, the CEO, the Presidents, the Chief Legal Officer-- all the top guys. I got to (literally) rub shoulders with major bigwigs. Here's me and Bill Clinton:

And I had a unique vantage point from which to watch the events of 2007-2008.

What did I see?

I saw fear. I saw scrambling. I saw a panic. I scheduled a lot of emergency meetings. I printed up a lot of handouts. I organized folders crammed full of confidential information. And I made a lot of mental notes: I decided I wanted to understand Credit Default Swaps and Mortgage Backed Securities and the like-- I decided I wanted to learn the specifics of the financial collapse. I didn't set out to learn finance or banking-- hell, I can't balance a checkbook. But I did set out to understand-- just from simple curiosity-- what in the world I had seen and lived through.

After Morgan Stanley fired me (and a lot of other people) I found I had plenty of time to research.

At first, I thought I would write a play about what I'd seen. So I started reading books like "Too Big To Fail"-- delighted when I found names and faces I knew and had worked with: Colm Kelleher, Walid Chammah, John Mack-- or men I had scheduled meetings with like Paulson and Geithner and Dick Fuld. It is an interesting cast of characters.

But I really didn't grasp a lot of what I was reading, and I lost interest.

Until Fall of 2009 when I started to glimpse some new questions. The Obama administration began piling on stimulus and deficit financing. I had started to play stocks to make spending cash, and I started to follow stories like the CIT bankruptcy-- started to try and understand credit markets and the like. I followed federal seizures of banks for a while. I started to realize just how bad of a state the economy was in. I started to research how various markets were being manipulated.

I called my mom in November 09 with a warning: "I think you should buy silver. All you can. The silver market is being manipulated and has a larger upside than gold. I'm scared that something bad is going to go down."

She, of course, scoffed. And, after silver dropped from 17.50 in November down to as low as $14/oz by March '10, she was saying thank the lord she hadn't listened to me. And I shut up making recommendations.

But I continued to follow stories and do research. This past Summer I heard a commentator mention "quantitative easing" being on the horizon. So I started looking into that-- the Federal Reserve would be announcing a $500billion+ scheme to buy treasuries by printing money. When? The day after the election.

All my hairs stood on end. The timing was so suspicious-- I had to understand. Silver had crept back up to $21 or so. I called mom again-- "Look, silver is going up and I think it might explode after this QE thing is announced." she didn't listen, but I put my little cash in mining stocks.

And since November, Silver has shot up to over $30 an ounce.

But why? What is going on?

Guys-- I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but we are facing something like an extinction event. This is like what the asteroid did to the dinosaurs.

I feel I have to warn any readers of this blog (all two of you) that a currency crisis is imminent. Commodities are shooting up even as house prices are going down. Treasury yields had an unusual spike in the past month. And the administration is spending like mad-- as if to rape the treasury while there's still a treasury there to be raped. The Pentagon is wargaming civil unrest and economic collapse. Also, bill after bill has been passed-- establishing control of food, finances, practically everything including the air we breathe. With an incoming Republican congress, there will be a convenient scapegoat on whom to blame the collapse-- "those greedy Republicans who insisted on their tax cuts for the wealthy" will be the fall guys. I think that's the only reason Obama went uncharacteristically over to the GOPs side.

The fuse is lit, and the big day is coming.

I don't know about timing, but what we need to watch is the treasury markets. A sell-off in treasuries, either domestic or international, will likely precipitate a panicked rush into commodities. It will catch everyone unawares, it will crash the stock market, and it will cost America the reserve currency status that has made our consumption (not production) society possible.

I will blog further about the pending collapse, its aftermath as I imagine it, and my attempts to convince my mom to get out of securities and bonds and into more hard assets. If this situation is new to you, let me recommend an article that lays the case out better than I can.

How Hyperinflation Will Happen

All best. Be smart. And take care of yourselves.

Do We Love Life?

2010-09-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

"Americans love Life. We love Death. That is the difference between us."
- Osama bin Laden

This is the core of the matter. This is the issue. And it's something the attackers knew full well while we in America still struggle to evade and deny it. So here's my rant for today, the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks:

Do we?

Do we love life?

After the attacks, millions across the nation proclaimed that they wanted the Twin Towers rebuilt taller and stronger before. To do so would have been an act of defiance: defiance of pain and suffering and a profound statement that we intend to keep living and loving our lives. Today, Ground Zero remains a vacant lot where two mighty skyscrapers once stood. The proposed 'memorial' is imagined not as a productive edifice rising into the sky, but as a pair of useless reflecting pools underground. Toss into the mix proposed 'cultural centers' to help us understand the Islamic viewpoint, and a supposed 'Freedom Tower' (a name which has been dropped as offensive) designed by an inept postmodernist architect whose design is unworkable and which has snarled the entire site with lawsuits and government agency gridlock.

Do we love life?

After the attacks, millions shouted that they wanted the gloves to come off, that we were ready to fight a war with righteous indignation, to bring down the evil that was threatening our way of life. Today, years after our meek strike in Afghanistan which scattered Al Quaeda, Bin Laden is still at large and still presumably planning attacks. Our foray into Iraq was presented not as a strategic move against a known enemy with the goal of boxing in such terror sponsors as Iran, but as a push to "Bring Democracy" to the poor Iraqis who suffered so much under Saddam. Operation Infinite Justice morphed into Operation Iraqi Freedom as if justice for our dead was just too selfish. And did we create a freedom-loving Republic in Iraq with a constitution of secular virtues and individual rights? No- we created a new Islamic Republic and Iranian satellite. Meanwhile, Iran grows stronger, we're vulnerable, our borders are still open, and our President is persecuting the CIA.

Do we love life?

The World Trade Center was an edifice of CAPITALISM. Within its walls, men and women went to work pursuing their dreams- creating more efficient ways to allocate capital and goods from less-productive sectors to more productive sectors of the economy (the OPPOSITE of welfare redistribution). They were killed for showing up to work, for sitting down at desks, using their minds, and selfishly, joyously making life better for themselves and their families. That's why they were murdered. That's why Bin Laden and the rest of them hate us -- why they attacked in 1993 and again in 2001. I say this proudly: the World Trade Center was an arrogant, selfish, glorious symbol of strength, pride and productivity. Eight years later, Obama proclaimed 9-11 to be a day on which we should rededicate ourselves- not to dreams of greater prosperity- but to the following:

"On this day, and every day, it is incumbent on each of us to uphold those ideals that our enemies were - and are - so eager to destroy: To serve others and give back to our communities."

Of course, because self-sacrifice is SO alien to Islamic suicide squads, isn't it?

Do we love life?

Do we still want to achieve, to build, to reach for grandeur? Or is our national character to become one of "selflessness" where every spine is bent and head bowed to whatever is weak, suffering and "needy"? Are we to allow men and women to live, or are we going to regulate, tax and "nudge" them into a socialist straightjacket? Are we a rational, independent, secular, forward thinking, ambitious, proud nation -- or an emotionalist, consensus-seeking, Marxist/religious, backwards, meek welfare state of appeasers, bleeding hearts and crooks? Osama bin Laden called many times for a religious altruist socialist remake of the world. Between our Republicans and Democrats he may get his wish.

No wonder we haven't been attacked again. We've stopped being a threat and we're now doing by choice what the terrorists inflicted on us by force: we're sacrificing our proud stance, bending our foreheads to the ground, and apologizing for our existence to every scummy dictator on earth.

So, one last time: Do we love life?

Do we?

I just don't know anymore.

-Richard Gleaves

Racism, by Ayn Rand

2010-07-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political signiﬁcance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical forces beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the speciﬁc attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

The respectable family that supports worthless relatives or covers up their crimes in order to “protect the family name” (as if the moral stature of one man could be damaged by the actions of another)—the bum who boasts that his great-grandfather was an empire-builder, or the small-town spinster who boasts that her maternal great-uncle was a state senator and her third-cousin gave a concert at Carnegie Hall (as if the achievements of one man could rub off on the mediocrity of another)—the parents who search genealogical trees in order to evaluate their prospective sons-in-law—the celebrity who starts his autobiography with a detailed account of his family history—all these are samples of racism, the atavistic manifestations of a doctrine whose full expression is the tribal warfare of prehistorical savages, the wholesale slaughter of Nazi Germany, the atrocities of today’s so-called “newly-emerging nations.”

The theory that holds “good blood” and “bad blood” as a moral-intellectual criterion, can lead to nothing but torrents of blood in practice. Brute force is the only avenue of action open to men who regard themselves as mindless aggregates of chemicals.

Modern racists attempt to prove the superiority or inferiority of a given race by the historical achievements of some of its members. The frequent historical spectacle of a great innovator who, in his lifetime, is jeered, denounced, obstructed, persecuted by his countrymen, and then, a few years after his death, is enshrined in a national monument and hailed as a proof of greatness of the German (or French or Italian or Cambodian) race—is as revolting a spectacle of collectivist expropriation, perpetrated by racists, as any expropriation of material wealth perpetrated by communists.

Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement. There are only individual minds and individual achievements—and a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiated masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.

Even if it were proved—which it is not—that the incidence of men of potentially superior brain power is greater among the members of certain races than among the members of others, it would still tell us nothing about any given individual and it would be irrelevant to one’s judgment of him. A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race—and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin. It is hard to say which is the more outrageous injustice: the claim of Southern racists that a Negro genius should be treated as inferior because his race has “produced” some brutes—or the claim of a German brute to the status of a superior because his race has “produced” Goethe, Schiller and Brahms.

These are not two different claims, of course, but two applications of the same basic premise. The question of whether one alleges the superiority or the inferiority of any given race is irrelevant; racism has only one psychological root: the racist’s sense of his own inferiority.

Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge—for an automatic evaluation of men’s characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment—and, above all, a quest for an automatic self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem).

To ascribe one’s virtues to one’s racial origin, is to confess that one has no knowledge of the process by which virtues are acquired and, most often, that one has failed to acquire them. The overwhelming majority of racists are men who have earned no sense of personal identity, who can claim no individual achievement or distinction, and who seek the illusion of a “tribal self-esteem” by alleging the inferiority of some other tribe. Observe the hysterical intensity of the Southern racists; observe also that racism is much more prevalent among the poor white trash than among their intellectual betters.

Historically, racism has always risen or fallen with the rise or fall of collectivism. Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to “society,” to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacriﬁce him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force—and statism has always been the political corollary of collectivism.

The absolute state is merely an institutionalized form of gang rule, regardless of which particular gang seizes power. And—since there is no rational justiﬁcation for such rule, since none has ever been or can ever be offered—the mystique of racism is a crucial element in every variant of the absolute state. The relationship is reciprocal: statism rises out of prehistorical tribal warfare, out of the notion that the men of one tribe are the natural prey for the men of another—and establishes its own internal sub-categories of racism, a system of castes determined by a man’s birth, such as inherited titles of nobility or inherited serfdom.

The racism of Nazi Germany—where men had to ﬁll questionnaires about their ancestry for generations back, in order to prove their “Aryan” descent—has its counterpart in Soviet Russia, where men had to ﬁll similar questionnaires to show that their ancestors had owned no property and thus to prove their “proletarian” descent. The Soviet ideology rest on the notion that men can be conditioned to communism genetically—that is, that a few generations conditioned by dictatorship will transmit communist ideology to their descendants, who will be communists at birth. The persecution [34] of racial minorities in Soviet Russia, according to the racial descent and whim of any given commissar, is a matter of record; anti-semitism is particularly prevalent—only the ofﬁcial pogroms are now called “political purges.”

There is only one antidote to racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, laissez-faire capitalism.

Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.

It is not a man’s ancestors or relatives or genes or body chemistry that count in a free market, but only one human attribute: productive ability. It is by his own individual ability and ambition that capitalism judges a man and rewards him accordingly.

No political system can establish universal rationality by law (or by force). But capitalism is the only system that functions in a way which rewards rationality and penalizes all forms of irrationality, including racism.

A fully free, capitalist system has not yet existed anywhere. But what is enormously signiﬁcant is the correlation of racism and political controls in the semi-free economies of the 19th century. Racial and/or religious persecutions of minorities stood in inverse ratio to the degree of a country’s freedom. Racism was strongest in the more controlled economies, such as Russia and Germany—and weakest in England, the then freest country of Europe.

It is capitalism that gave mankind its ﬁrst steps toward freedom and a rational way of life. It is capitalism that broke through national and racial barriers, by means of free trade. It is capitalism that abolished serfdom and slavery in all the civilized countries of the world. It is the capitalist North that destroyed the slavery of the agrarian-feudal South in the United States.

Such was the trend of mankind for the brief span of some hundred and ﬁfty years. The spectacular results and achievements of that trend need no restatement here.

The rise of collectivism reversed that trend.

When men began to be indoctrinated once more with the notion that the individual possesses no rights, that supremacy, moral authority and unlimited power belong to the group, and [35] that a man has no signiﬁcance outside his group—the inevitable consequence was that men began to gravitate toward some group or another, in self-protection, in bewilderment and in subconscious terror. The simplest collective to join, the easiest one to identify—particularly for people of limited intelligence—the least demanding form of “belonging” and of “togetherness” is: race.

It is thus that the theoreticians of collectivism, the “humanitarian” advocates of a “benevolent” absolute state, have led to the rebirth and the new, virulent growth of racism in the 20th century.

In its great era of capitalism, the United States was the freest country on earth—and the best refutation of racist theories. Men of all races came here, some from obscure, culturally undistinguished countries, and accomplished feats of productive ability which would have remained stillborn in their control-ridden native lands. Men of racial groups that had been slaughtering one another for centuries, learned to live together in harmony and peaceful cooperation. America had been called “the melting pot,” with good reason. But few people realized that America did not melt men into the gray conformity of a collective: she united them by means of protecting their right to individuality.

The major victims of such race prejudice as did exist in America were the Negroes. It was a problem originated and perpetuated by the non-capitalist South, though not conﬁned to its boundaries. The persecution of Negroes in the South was and is truly disgraceful. But in the rest of the country, so long as men were free, even that problem was slowly giving way under the pressure of enlightenment and of the white men’s own economic interests.

Today, that problem is growing worse—and so is every form of racism. America has become race-conscious in a manner reminiscent of the worst days in the most backward countries of 19th century Europe. The cause is the same: the growth of collectivism and statism.

In spite of the clamor for racial equality, propagated by the “liberals” in the past decades, the Census Bureau reported recently that “[the Negro’s] economic status relative to whites has not improved for nearly 20 years.” It had been improving in the freer years of our “mixed economy”; it deteriorated with the progressive enlargement of the “liberals’ ” Welfare State.

The growth of racism in a “mixed economy” keeps step with the growth of government controls. A “mixed economy” disintegrates a country into an institutionalized civil war of pressure groups, each ﬁghting for legislative favors and special privileges at the expense of one another.

The existence of such pressure groups and of their political lobbies is openly and cynically acknowledged today. The pretense at any political philosophy, any principles, ideals or long-range goals is fast disappearing from our scene—and it is all but admitted that this country is now ﬂoating without direction, at the mercy of a blind, short-range power-game played by various statist gangs, each intent on getting hold of a legislative gun for any special advantage of the immediate moment.

In the absence of any coherent political philosophy, every economic group has been acting as its own destroyer, selling out its future for some momentary privilege. The policy of the businessmen has, for some time, been the most suicidal one in this respect. But it has been surpassed by the current policy of the Negro leaders.

So long as the Negro leaders were ﬁghting against government-enforced discrimination—right, justice and morality were on their side. But that is not what they are ﬁghting any longer. The confusions and contradictions surrounding the issue of racism have now reached an incredible climax.

It is time to clarify the principles involved.

The policy of the Southern states toward Negroes was and is a shameful contradiction of this country’s basic principles. Racial discrimination, imposed and enforced by law, is so blatantly inexcusable an infringement of individual rights that the racist statutes of the South should have been declared unconstitutional long ago.

The Southern racists’ claim of “states’ rights” is a contradiction in terms: there can be no such thing as the “right” of some men to violate the rights of others. The constitutional concept of “states’ rights” pertains to the division of power between local and national authorities, and serves to protect the states from the Federal government; it does not grant to a state government an unlimited, arbitrary power over its citizens or the privilege of abrogating the citizens’ individual rights.

It is true that the Federal government has used the racial issue to enlarge its own power and to set a precedent of encroachment upon the legitimate rights of the states, in an unnecessary and unconstitutional manner. But this merely means that both governments are wrong; it does not excuse the policy of the Southern racists.

One of the worst contradictions, in this context, is the stand of many so-called “conservatives” (not conﬁned exclusively to the South) who claim to be defenders of freedom, of capitalism, of property rights, of the Constitution, yet who advocate racism at the same time. They do not seem to possess enough concern with principles to realize the they are cutting the ground from under their own feet. Men who deny individual rights cannot claim, defend or uphold any rights whatsoever. It is such alleged champions of capitalism who are helping to discredit and destroy it.

The “liberals” are guilty of the same contradiction, but in a different form. They advocate the sacriﬁce of all individual rights to unlimited majority rule—yet posture as defenders of the rights of minorities. But the smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

This accumulation of contradictions, of short-sighted pragmatism, of cynical contempt for principles, of outrageous irrationality, has now reached its climax in the new demands of the Negro leaders.

Instead of ﬁghting against racial discrimination, they are demanding that racial discrimination be legalized and enforced. Instead of ﬁghting against racism, they are demanding the establishment of racial quotas. Instead of ﬁghting for “color-blindness” in social and economic issues, they are proclaiming that “color-blindness” is evil and that “color” should be made a primary consideration. Instead of ﬁghting for equal rights, they are demanding special race privileges.

They are demanding that racial quotas be established in regard to employment and that jobs be distributed on a racial basis, in proportion to the percentage of a given race among the local population. For instance, since Negroes constitute 25 per cent of the population of New York City, they demand 25 per cent of the jobs in a given establishment.

Racial quotas have been one of the worst evils of racist regimes. There were racial quotas in the universities of Czarist Russia, in the population of Russia’s major cities, etc. One of the accusations against the racists in this country is that some schools practice a secret system of racial quotas. It was regarded as a victory for justice when employment questionnaires ceased to inquire about an applicant’s race or religion.

Today, it is not an oppressor, but an oppressed minority that is demanding the establishment of racial quotas. (!)

This particular demand was too much even for the “liberals.” Many of them denounced it—properly—with shocked indignation.

Wrote The N. Y. Times (July 23, 1963): “The demonstrators are following a truly vicious principle in playing the ‘numbers game.’ A demand that 25 per cent (or any other percentage) of jobs be given to Negroes (or any other group) is wrong for one basic reason: it calls for a ‘quota system,’ which is itself discriminatory. . . . This newspaper has long fought a religious quota in respect to judgeships; we equally oppose a racial quota in respect to jobs from the most elevated to the most menial.”

As if the blatant racism of such a demand were not enough, some Negro leaders went still farther. Whitney M. Young Jr., executive director of the National Urban League, made the following statement (N. Y. Times, August 1):

“The white leadership must be honest enough to grant that throughout our history there has existed a special privileged class of citizens who received preferred treatment. That class [36] was white. Now we’re saying this: If two men, one Negro and one white, are equally qualiﬁed for a job, hire the Negro.”

Consider the implications of this statement. It does not merely demand special privileges on racial grounds—it demands that white men be penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial discrimination. But perhaps his grandfather had not practiced it. Or perhaps his grandfather had not even lived in this country. Since these questions are not to be considered, it means that that white laborer is to be charged with collective racial guilt, the guilt consisting merely of the color of his skin.

It does not merely demand special privileges on racial grounds—it demands that white men be penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial discrimination. But perhaps his grandfather had not practiced it. Or perhaps his grandfather had not even lived in this country. Since these questions are not to be considered, it means that that white laborer is to be charged with collective racial guilt, the guilt consisting merely of the color of his skin.

But that is the principle of the worst Southern racist who charges all Negroes with collective racial guilt for any crime committed by an individual Negro, and who treats them all as inferiors on the ground that their ancestors were savages.

The only comment one can make about demands of that kind is, “By what right?—By what code?—By what standard?”

That absurdly evil policy is destroying the moral base of the Negroes’ ﬁght. Their case rested on the principle of individual rights. If they demand the violation of the rights of others, they negate and forfeit their own. Then the same answer applies to them as to the Southern racists: there can be no such thing as a “right” of some men to violate the rights of others.

Yet the entire policy of the Negro leaders is now moving in that direction. For instance, the demand for racial quotas in schools, with proposals that hundreds of children, white and Negro, be forced to attend school in distant neighborhoods—for the purpose of “racial balance.” Again, this is pure racism. As opponents of this demand have pointed out, to assign children to certain schools by reason of their race, is equally evil whether one does it for purposes of segregation or integration. And the mere idea of using children as pawns in a political game should outrage all parents, of any race, creed or color.

The “civil rights” bill, now under consideration in Congress, is another gross infringement of individual rights. It is proper to forbid all discrimination in government-owned facilities and establishments: the government has no right to discriminate against any citizen. And by the very same principle, the government has no right to discriminate for some citizens at the expense of others. It has no right to violate the right of private property by forbidding discrimination in privately owned establishments.

No man, neither Negro nor white, has any claim to the property of another man. A man’s rights are not violated by a private individual’s refusal to deal with him. Racism is an evil, irrational and morally contemptible doctrine—but doctrines cannot be forbidden or prescribed by law. Just as we have to protect a communist’s freedom of speech, even though his doctrines are evil, so we have to protect a racist’s right to the use and disposal of his own property. Private racism is not a legal, but a moral issue—and can be fought only by private means, such as economic boycott or social ostracism.

Needless to say, if that “civil rights” bill is passed, it will be the worst breach of property rights in the sorry record of American history in respect to that subject.

It is an ironic demonstration of the philosophic insanity and the consequently suicidal trend of our age, that the men who need the protection of individual rights most urgently—the Negroes—are now in the vanguard of the destruction of these rights.

A word of warning: do not become victims of the same racists by succumbing to racism; do not hold against all Negroes the disgraceful irrationality of some of their leaders. No group has any proper intellectual leadership today or any proper representation.

In conclusion, I shall quote from an astonishing editorial in The N. Y. Times of August 4 [1963]—astonishing because ideas of this nature are not typical of our age:

“But the question must be not whether a group recognizable in color, features or culture has its rights as a group. No, the question is whether any American individual, regardless of color, features or culture, is deprived of his rights as an American. If the individual has all the rights and privileges due him under the laws and the Constitution, we need not worry about groups and masses—those do not, in fact, exist, except as ﬁgures of speech.”

An Open Letter to John Galt

2010-06-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

September 2, 2012

To: Mr. John Galt

Twentieth Century Motor Company

201 W. Front Street

Starnesville, Wisconsin 53177

Dear Mister Galt,

It has come to my attention via newspaper reports that you have recently performed the first test of a remarkable motor, which promises to revolutionize our energy sector. As it has been explained to me, you've succeeded in overcoming a challenge in theoretical physics that has heretofore seemed insurmountable. I'm told you've produced, as a commercial device, a motor capable of drawing power from static electricity in the air. Congratulations on your achievement. I cannot overstate the importance of this invention to the future of the nation. It is of the future that I wish to speak.

As you know, British Petroleum's accident in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago has wreaked enormous havoc. The resultant oil spill has been used as a pretense by our President to shut down all deep water drilling platforms. Though this situation was to be a "temporary moratorium", it has become open ended. Oil continues to blacken American beaches, and so the pretext remains for keeping our wells inert. The recent revelations about President Obama's financial relationship (Through Mr. Soros) to Brazilian Oil Company Petrobras does not seem to be making much difference politically, and the loss of the drilling platforms to Hugo Chavez' Citgo will likely make reconstituting America's drilling impossible even as it strengthens the People's State of Venezuela.

Those damages pale, however, compared to the adoption of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act (APA) of 2010. Otherwise known as the "Cap and Trade" plan, this act promulgated by the administration (and supported by the National Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Center for American Progress etc), has truly crippled our nation. In 2011 alone, energy bills have necessarily skyrocketed as congress has mandated emissions limits on all producers of electricity.

The intent of the APA legislation was originally to address "Global Warming" but, once that became a less viable cover story, it was pitched to America as a way to transition from "suicidal grey capitalism" to a "green economy". High energy rates, we have been told, are a "necessary sacrifice" in order to provide an "incentive structure to innovation"-- i.e. in order to force the market to innovate technologically if human life is to continue. A man will spend $10 a gallon (equivalent) to move his car by solar originated electricity if the only alternative is $20 a gallon gasoline.

Now we are on the verge of collapse, our factories are silent. Our air may be clean but our children are starving. Our jobless crowd the streets, standing in line for Federal largesse. Our borders are threatened by the oil-dictatorships that have grown fat on our folly. The lights are going out on this, the last vestige of Western civilization. The only thing that can save us is your engine, so I'm making this urgent request of you:

Dismantle it.

I beg you: take a sledgehammer to every coil of that motor, bend its rotors, crush its cylinder, mangle it beyond reconstruction. Take every paper that contains the secret of your discovery and burn it. Swear your co-workers to secrecy, destroy your achievement, and walk away. Please, for the sake of your own love for existence and in the name of justice: Dismantle it.

And leave us to rot.

I know this may seem like a bizarre request, but America is starting to learn, you see. It is learning the connection between the actions of its leaders and economic destruction. They are beginning to hear a death rattle in the call for "shared sacrifice". The masks are coming off. They are seeing the corruption, the obfuscation, the hatred of achievement, of ability, of success. Americans are starting to understand that their leaders are not rescuing them from disaster, but deliberately leading them to it. They are starting to rediscover the ideals of individualism, reason, constitutional government, rights and reality. They are starting to grow up, as thinkers and citizens. They will reach a tipping point soon, and make a final choice.

There is only one person that can stop the country from finally rejecting the Marxist/Fascist political philosophy that has brought sacrificial ovens and economic destruction to every continent upon which it has been tried. There's only one person that can rescue and vindicate the plans of President Obama and his minions: You.

YOU can save them. By bringing your motor to market. By flooding the world with cheap clean electricity. "See?", President Obama will say, "I told you I knew best." Even as he mops his brow with relief over his unexpected reprieve. You will buy them a decade, or a year, or a week, in which to further enslave and confuse us.

Yes, Mr. Galt, your motor could save the world from collapse. But the world does not deserve saving. Not as it is. Let us rot. Until we learn our folly. Until we learn to say "no". Until we rediscover liberty. May that day come quickly.

With gratitude for your achievement,

Mrs. Frank O'Connor

10000 Tampa Avenue

Chatsworth, CA 91311

PS-- I hear Ouray is lovely this time of year.

Obama vs. Giuliani

2010-06-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

Imagine that it is November, 2001.

Lower Manhattan is smoldering. The site of the World Trade Center is still burning. Very little has been done to rescue anyone injured or trapped. A few groups wander around sweeping dust from one side of West Street to the other, but the rubble itself is still burning. Lower Manhattan has been evacuated and police barricades keep everyone from crossing south of Houston street. After 54 days, the smell of death is toxic and reaches all the way to Pennsylvania.

The fire commissioner has been begging the administration for men, for trucks, for water, for triage centers, for communications, for a place where people can get centralized information. Families are tacking pictures of their loved ones on random walls: "Have you seen this man?" "Have you seen this man?" No help is forthcoming.

Mayor Giuliani has been having a lot of fun, though. He took in a few Broadway shows. He took Judith to a baseball game. He's been making the rounds of cigar bars and had a special concert at Gracie Mansion with Barbara Streisand and Cher.

He is taking political heat for all of this, of course, but his response is that he didn't create the tragedy Al Quaeda did. He can't do anything to stop the hatred bubbling out of the Middle East. George Bush is to blame for that, and until he solves it, we're just going to have to bear the brunt of the attacks. What do people want from him? He can't go down and lift the rubble by himself. He can't put out the fires with his bare hands.

But, he assures us, he's been on the job from day one. Ever since the planes hit, he has expected Al Quaeda to clean up the mess and he promises to hold them fully responsible and fiscally accountable in court. He even went to one of the funerals and stood in the rain. Ruined a pair of nice shoes.

Why should HE have to give daily press conferences? HE didn't cause the mess.

He has issued a ban on all new building in Manhattan until we figure out what caused the Trade Center to collapse. He's permanently closed the stock exchange.

He's built a nice sturdy fence around the site, and his administration has been hard "at work" doing environmental studies about the impact of the rubble on the quality of life in Battery Park City.

He's terribly sorry that the police and firefighters have had no resources to put out the toxic fires or recover the bodies of their dead comrades, but he intends to "kick some ass" real soon. Real. Soon. Once he figures out why the situation has become so dire. In the meantime, it just underscores how vitally he needs you to vote him a third term. And how about those Yankees?

What would you say?

Have you seen this man?

Parable #9: The Navigation System

2010-05-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, a young man walked into his local electronic store to purchase a GPS navigation system for his car. He was assured by the salesperson that the Navigon 2100 was the ultimate in directional technology. It was time-tested, infallible, and never made an error. "How do you know it's good?" asked the young man. The salesman smiled and said- "I just know in my heart. Anyone who truly knows electronics will tell you that what I say is true". The young man didn't want to be exposed as ignorant (he prided himself on being technologically minded) and so he purchased the Navigon 2100 and installed it the next day.

On his first drive, the young man set out to the grocery store. It was a Friday afternoon at rush hour. The Navigon proclaimed "Turn right at the next intersection". He complied, and found himself turning the wrong way onto a one way street. Cars rushed towards him, he veered, and pulled into a vacant lot, mud splashing his passenger windows.

Hmm. He thought. I hope the salesman kows what he's talking about. I must have done something wrong or misinterpreted the directions.

On his second drive the next day, he set out for his girlfriend's house. The Navigon piped up "turn left here" and, though he was certain the direction was wrong, the young man complied. He found himself on a dead end back street, lost, and found that the Navigon had no further advice to give. He spent that whole saturday backtracking his route. After much trial and error he found his way back home.

This is ridiculous, he thought, and that night he tore the Navigon off of his dashboard and took it back to the electronics store. "This system is exactly backwards!" He shouted. "Everything it tells me is the exact opposite of what I know I should do! It's going to get me killed!". The salesperson sneered "You just don't understand electronics."

The young man left the store, determined to never make the same mistake again.

The next morning he went to church. He was told that the teachings of Jesus were time-tested, infallible, and never made an error.

How do you know? He asked the preacher. "I just feel it in my heart." Was the reply.

And the young man went out into the world with his Bible in hand. It told him to love his enemies, forgive those who stole from him, to sacrifice his values, to spurn money, to feel guilty about sex, to give up, to be meek, to 'consider the lilies of the field' and not be productive. He was taught that pride goeth before the fall, that this life was a veil of tears to be suffered through, that death was the true aim of life and that happiness after death was the greatest goal to be achieved. He listened, and turned away from this life and towards the next. He turned away from joy, veered from success, avoided pleasure, backed away from self-esteem, gave the right of way to others, yielded to authority, and found himself at the end of his life at a dead end having never reached any destination.

Hmm. He thought. I hope the preacher kows what he's talking about...

And he never saw the connection.

-Richard Gleaves

The Ten Commandments and American Life

2010-05-14T15:37:00.000-07:00

I'm constantly told that the Ten Commandments somehow underlie our moral and judicial system, but has anyone really thought about this? What are moral commandments and how can they be the basis of our laws?

First of all, the term "moral commandment" is itself an oxymoron (like "wireless cable", "standard options" or "nondairy creamer"). Morality involves ethical choice, not mere obedience. If a man wants to murder, but abstains not out of respect for life but out of fear of hell-- because it is "commanded" by authority-- that does not make him a good man. It makes him an evil man who is too scared to engage in his evil. If a man wants to sleep with other women and obeys the "commandment" out of fear of punishment and not because he loves his wife, that doesn't make him a good husband it makes him a lousy husband who prefers sexual dissatisfaction and heaven over sexual gratification and hell. So, first of all, I think the idea of "commandments" in morality is ludicrous. Commanded, by whom? For what? Validated by what argument? How is one to judge context? A proper understanding of morality as a code of values accepted by choice is incompatible with any authoritarian grab-bag of arbitrary edicts and directives.

Now, to the commandments themselves. Even if you were to grant religion and a commandment-based morality (and I don't)-- which commandments do you go by and how are they to be implemented? You may not know, but there are two sets of "commandments" in the Hebrew bible. http://www.youngausskeptics.com/2008/12/what-two-sets-of-ten-commandments-is-there-just/

You have to choose one to call the "Ten Commandments" now.

So we must be selective and ARBITRARILY choose the more popular "standard" set. AND we are already arbitrarily choosing the commandments over every other passage, law, commandment and recommendation in the christian bible as well as arbitrarily choosing the christian creed above every other religion past or present, over every ethical philosopher, over the teachings of Shakespeare or the writings of Homer or Euripedes-- again, arbitrarily.

So-- we have settled on the popular ten. What are they and what does it mean to "base our laws upon them"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
1 "I am the Lord your god-- you shall have no other Gods before me". Okay-- if that is a basis for law, then the implementation of it would be to forbid everything that god forbids. Therefore, implementing the first commandment honestly would mean no other god but Yahweh the Lord of the bible shall be worshipped or tolerated in the United States. Religious pluralism is against God's commandments. Jews can stay, so can muslims. ALL OTHERS MUST LEAVE. They are criminals. They are lucky if we let them leave. The punishment for an apostate (murtad) in Islam is death.

2 "You shall have no graven images or idols"
So we must now hack down the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, Mount Rushmore, take all pictures off of the money. The Oscars have got to go, and every public statue of Jesus also. It is not in keeping with God's will. All crucifixes in the United States are hereby banned. For good measure, we must also forbid showing Mohammed on "South Park".

3 "You shall not take the Lord's name in vain"
This should lead to the immediate arrest of all living people that were involved in the making of "Oh, God", "Oh, God: Book II", or "Oh God, You Devil" (this means you Larry Gelbart & Carl Reiner!). Every person who says goddamit!, Jesus Christ!, or fucking christ on a cracker! whether toe-stubbed or not, shall be put to death in the United States.

4 "Remember the Sabbath Day"
We tried to make this a law for many centuries. Read "The Crucible" in which the hero is accused of witchcraft because he plowed his field on the Sabbath. Here's a long list of other statist attempts to impose this commandment:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law

5 "Honor your father and mother" again, how is this to be implemented as the basis for law in the United States?
We know how they implement it in the middle east http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2010-04-01/news/honor-thy-father-the-inside-story-of-the-young-muslim-woman-honor-killed-by-her-father-because-he-believed-she-d-become-too-americanize What if your parents are monsters? Certainly they exist, and certainly there are cases where the moral thing to do is to denounce and disown your parents and the evil they commit, just as it is sometimes moral for parents to renounce children if they do great evil.

6 "You shall not murder" here's an example of a good ethical rule (finally) six commandments in. But do we need God to command this? Murder is wrong because it destroys man's life which is the standard of all moral values. In an Objectivist list, this one would come FIRST. That it comes sixth here is testament to the low regard for human life in the Abrahamic religions, and how they place it beneath and secondary to concerns of faith and obedience to god and submission to your parents.

7 "You shall not commit adultery" how do we implement this in law? Jesus said that if you think of adultery you have committed it. So if we base our laws on the bible, is every man who thinks of unmarried sex at any time committing a crime? Is adultery punishable by jail? Why, if it is heinous enough to be condemned by god in the commandments (obviously worse than slavery, which isn't in the top ten) is adultery not an offense punished by criminal law in the united states? In the islamic world they are consistent. We aren't.

8 "You shall not steal" again, we have a good ethical teaching with no moral content. Why shall we not steal? What constitutes stealing? If a Marxist says "property is theft" is property stealing? No? How do we know? How do we prove to him what is objectively true? Where is the instruction manual for these ethical teachings? Is there really NO reason not to steal besides fear of hell?

9 "You shall not bear false witness" a sensible teaching. But, again, it raises the question: why is this a commandment and "thou shalt not enslave your neighbor" is not? And how do we institute this one in law? If I lie to a third party about my neighbor is that punishable? Are gossips to be stoned to death? The punishment for false witness in Islam is 80 lashes. I look forward to seeing Palin introduce that to Congress.

10 "Thou shalt not covet"
All advertisers shall be buried to the neck and stoned with cans of Campbell's Soup.

I honestly do not know how any reasonable or educated person can look at this list and find hardly anything in it that is praiseworthy or moral. Most of it (the first half) is demands for submission and obedience, which any American of self-esteem should reject. The rest, to the degree that they are sound moral principles, are barely the outlines or rough draft of a moral philosophy. They may have been revolutionary 2,000 years ago, but at that time so was indoor plumbing.

What would an America honestly governed by the Ten Commandments look like? In all essentials, like Sharia law in a muslim theocracy. Apostates, adulterers, those who dishonor their parents, who make images of the prophet, who work on the sabbath etc would be punished, and the few sound ethical teachings would be subservient to the will of Yahweh and his worship.

The Ten Commandments can never be the foundation of individual rights and liberty-- they can only be the pretense by which those values are destroyed.

-Richard Gleaves

Parable #8: Morgan Stanley

2010-04-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

Morgan Stanley sat on a wall

Morgan Stanley had a great fall

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Could put Morgan together again.

But they damn well shouldn't....

-Richard Gleaves

Parable #7: The Boy Who Cried Racist

2010-04-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time in the small fishing community of Sodom-on-the-Potomac, a woman gave birth to a very unusual child.

Some babies are born a bit blue, some run a bit red. But as the doctor lifted this infant by its legs and raised it to the morning light, its mother could see this child was a deep, lovely shade of... violet!

Some would even say ultraviolet, so startling was the boy's skin.

When the doctor spanked the child, another attribute was revealed-- a stentorian set of lungs:

"Waaaaahhhh!!", it yelled. "WAAAAAAAAH"!!

As the boy grew, both his color and his lung power became more vivid. His mother learned to give the child anything he wanted, from the smallest trifle to lavish parties, otherwise he would stamp his little purple feet and scream:

"AHHHHHH!!! I WANT I WANT I WANT!!!!! GIVE ME!!!"

This is how the child got his name: More.

More grew to be a strapping young man. Well fed, of course, and tall for his age. He would strut up and down the street admiring himself in the plate glass of the neighbor shops, then saunter through whichever doorway he chose and walk out with whatever he liked. Without paying.

It was so easy.

You see, the people of Sodom-on-Potomac were easy to manipulate, for the town possessed a shameful secret: racism. The town elders had built on land stolen from the indigenous green skinned people with the labor of slaves imported from the land of the plaid folk. Their descendants naturally felt remorse for this shameful history, despite the fact that it occurred five thousand years before. They felt acute guilt for it and were keenly conscious of practicing any injustice on a person of differing skin. The Sodom-folk (never call them the other name) were decidedly beige themselves, with a tendency towards burnt umber-- vaguely the color of toffee or toast--- so, with his skin of violent violet, More stuck out like a bright bruise upon the body politic.

The people gave him what he wanted, when he wanted, lest anyone make the horrid accusation...

"Racist!" said More, when he was seven and the local druggist refused to let him read a comic book off the rack.

"Racist!" said More, when he was nine and the umpire called a strike against him.

"Racist!" said More, when he was thirteen and didn't like his haircut.

"Racist!" said More, when he was fourteen and his teacher requested an overdue assignment.

"Racist!" he shouted, when he was sixteen and the girl he liked laughed in his face.

"Racist!" he shouted, when his mom told him to clean his room.

"Racist!" he shouted, when he wanted to ride shotgun.

"Racist!" he yelled, when he was turned down for a job.

"Racist!" he yelled, when he lost his first election for town council.

"Racist!" he yelled, when the voters threatened to vote someone else in as mayor.

And that's how More succeeded. He got his comic book, his trophies, his mohawk, his A+.

He got laid, got hired, got rich, got famous, and got elected to high office. On the strength of one little word.

He did as he pleased when he pleased. He tripled the budget, emptied the treasury, threw parties for himself, passed laws to punish his enemies, and generally answered to no one. He trusted that the magic word would solve all problems, and in the face of every adversity he cried it out, bellowing with his magnificent bullhorn of a voice: RACIST!!!

Until Les came along.

Leslie Teabagger was a pixieish waif of a girl from another town over the hill. Her people did not believe that the sins of the fathers were visited upon their children. They did not feel guilt for the evils perpetrated by long-dead ancestors, for those who were dust could not possibly reflect on those that were flesh.

She moved into Sodom-on-the-Potomac during More's tempestuous second term. She moved into a house down by the fish hatcheries, where she began work.

Within a week on her new job, she had seen corruption, cronyism, distortions of law and common sense. She saw regulations that had no purpose but to please the whim of the mayor. She saw utter nonsense, manipulations and theft perpetrated by bureaucratic bullies. And, everywhere, unprecedented waste.

She was appalled.

Leslie saw that Mayor More was destroying his city, and she decided to do something about it.

So she picketed City Hall.

Alone, she trudged back and forth before the marble steps. She carried a picket that read "Stop the Insanity" on one side and "Limited Government Now" on the other. Back and forth she went, hour by hour, as a crowd gathered to watch.

After some time, she was joined by others. A few picketers became a dozen, then a hundred, then the square was teeming with protestors.

Mayor More heard about the situation from an aide. A crowd of protesting townsfolk? It was astonishing! But no matter. He could deal with them easily.

He strode out onto the steps of City Hall.

He looked down and the seething mass of protestors, smiled, and inhaled....

"Racists!" he yelled.

"Boo!" they yelled back.

Yelled back? How could this be? Perhaps they had not heard?

"Racists!!" he shouted, more loudly.

"Boo!!" the crowd responded, just as before.

This was inconceivable. The secret, magical, wonderful word had never failed him before! He had but to whisper it and the world would crumple to his will! What had happened? Why were the people not cowed?

"RACISTS!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. "RACIST! RACIST! RAACIIIISTS!!!!"

And More's voice finally broke.

He went silent, having stripped his vocal cords. His hand went to his throat. His powerful voice was gone.

The mayor sagged and dropped onto on the marble stair, looking up helplessly at the angry toffee-brown faces of the townsfolk.

The people parted, and a figure emerged from amongst them...

The Mayor gazed-- for the first time-- upon Les, the Teabagger woman who had defeated him, and he understood how she had done it...

He found the answer in her proud stance... in the way she held her head defiantly against the blue sky...

He found the answer in her guiltless smile....

... and in her beautiful violet skin.

--Richard Gleaves

Parable #6: The Bowing Chicken

2010-04-13T17:07:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time in a small white farm on the edge of the frontier, a chicken was voted leader of the barnyard. She was a particularly fine chicken: robust and cheerful, with smooth orange and white feathers. Her sharp little beak was particularly adept at pecking small seeds out of the dust, and she was well liked and admired by both the other chickens and her fellow animals.

The old dog that had previously been barnyard leader took her aside on her first day.

"Chicken," he said, "the most important job in this barnyard is to protect yer fellow animals from predators. The farmer built a nice fence around the property, but now 'n then some varmint'll get in and try to make off with one of the young 'uns. I figgered the best thing was to set a watch every night. The horse took the first shift, and the cows the second and..."

"Cluck cluck cluck!" said the chicken. "You're not the leader anymore, dog. Elections have consequences. I'll be making the decisions from now on. If varmints are attacking us, I'll know how to deal with them!"

"How, then?" asked the dog.

"Reason, of course! Just like when the pigs wanted to eat Horse's corn! I reasonedwith them. And now everything is fine."

"It ain't the same! A fox ain't a pig. And a wolf ain't a horse. They don't live on a farm with reasons and rules. They're wild beasts!"

"Cluck cluck cluck" said the hen, "Go back to your doghouse and let someone smart run things!"

The dog wagged his head sorrowfully, his jowls flapping, and loped off to his little doghouse to chew an old bone.

The chicken skittered about the yard, giving orders. "Cluck cluck cluck!" she sang, "Everybody work! Make your eggs and cheese! So say I: the barnyard ruler. I do what I please!"

And the little farm obeyed.

The sun sank low on the frontier plains. The animals climbed under their straw and went to bed. The chicken flew to her roost at the tippest-top of the old white barn and tucked her head under her wing.

"Baa!" came a sudden bleat, just as the moon cleared the farmhouse roof. "Thief! Thief!"

"Cluck cluck cluck!" cried the chicken, and she flew down to the sheep corral. "Why are you bleating, you foolish sheep?"

"There! There! By the bushes! A baa-baa-burglar!!"

The chicken trundled over to the bushes and, in the moonlight, saw a raccoon attempting to climb back through the fence. His arms were full of cabbages and carrots, and he was having difficulty.

"Halt, thief!" she said "You will drop those things now!"

"Who says?" said the raccoon, his beady little eyes narrowing behind his mask.

"I, the ruler of the barnyard!". She tried to sound impressive.

"I don't wanna. I got twenty hungry babies in a log by the river. We got nothin'. Why should you guys get dese lettuces? We're starving. We need these carrots more den youse do! I'm taking dese carrots and dese lettuces."

The chicken cocked her head.

"That sounds reasonable." She said. "Oh, noble raccoon. Let me apologize for the farmer's greed. We need to share with our fellows and redistribute the barnyard's bounty. My apologies for our selfishness". And then, with an impressive flourish of her wing, she bowed low before the raccoon.

Then she raised her head. The raccoon the carrots and the lettuce were gone.

"You shouldn't a' done that. Now the farmer will have to sell our eggs and milk."

The chicken turned to see the old dog frowning at her. He turned about and loped into the night.

The next day, the chicken strutted about the barnyard.

"Cluck, cluck cluck!" she sang. "Everybody work! Make your eggs and cheese! So say I: the barnyard ruler. I do what I please!"

And another day passed on the farm.

That night she was dreaming of sunflower seeds when "Neigh!" a deafening cry broke the night!

"Cluck cluck cluck!" She cried, and flew to the stable. "What has happened?" she asked the horse.

"A fox! A fox has been in the henhouse! And he's been drinking the milk!" the old nag whinnied.

She turned and saw a red-tailed fox scurrying through the window, his arms full of eggs.

"Halt, thief!" she cried "You will drop those babies now!"

"Who says?" said the fox, his tail curling into a question mark.

"I, the ruler of the barnyard!". She tried to sound dangerous. She puffed up the feathers on her chest.

"But I was ruler first!" said the fox, wiping a milk mustache from his upper lip. "This was once an open field where the foxes played in the grass. We were at one with nature. Until the evil farmer kicked us off our own lands! These eggs are reparations, until we are given the right of return!"

The chicken cocked her head.

"That sounds reasonable." said the chicken. "Oh handsome fox, let me extend my apology for the suffering the evil farmer has inflicted upon you. Take our eggs and milk with my blessing!" She raised a wing and bowed low to the ground. When she raised her eyes, the Fox and the eggs were gone.

"Foolish chicken!"

She turned to see the old dog in the stable doorway.

"Now the farmer will have no lettuce, no carrots, no milk and no eggs. He will have to kill one of us and send us to market."

And the old dog loped away.

The next day was chaos on the farm. Raccoons came and went, taking everything they could. The foxes were nesting in the old hound's doghouse. Worst of all, two little piglets had been taken for slaughter.

The smell of blood hung thickly in the air. The chicken perched high on a fence post, and called an impromptu press conference.

"Cluck cluck cluck!" she sang. "Everything is bad! Work hard just the same! I inherited this mess. So the dog is to blame!"

The animals mobbed the old hound, picking him up and carrying him away.

"You're making a mistake!" He barked. "There's blood in the air! Something will smell it! Something bad will come tonight!"

The animals heaved and– with a yip!– they threw the dog over the fence. He was never to return.

And a crimson sunset descended on the tiny farm.

In her perch high above, the pompous little chicken tried to sleep. She thought about the warning of the old dog. Was she being foolish? Should she put a watch on the farm? Was there really a danger? She couldn't imagine how the world could be all that dangerous. She had lived all her life in a neat little barnyard. She'd been pampered and spoiled. She'd never faced hardship or battle. The dog and horse and the cow and the other strong animals were just dumb brutes. They chose force when reason was obviously the better alternative.

She wondered now, might the world be wild after all- somewhere beyond the furrowed fields and neat little hogpens- a wild, wild world?

She put her head under her wing and drifted to sleep.

Sometime after midnight, cries erupted all around the barnyard! Animals were bleating and running, scurrying and leaping! They honked and snorted and mooed!

"Wolves!" they cried! "Wolves!"

The little chicken didn't know what to do. She fluttered down, jumping from place to place, wings over her eyes. She caught a glimpse of grey fur, saw hulking forms pouncing on defenseless creatures. She saw a sheep stamping her hooves in terror as she was devoured.

The night was full of growls.

"Cluck cluck cluck!" she dithered. "Oh dear, oh dear!" she hid in an overturned barrel, peeking out through the slats. She trembled as a long grey snout appeared at the opening, and feral eyes glinted in the moonlight. She was about to be eaten!

Then she heard a moo from above and she saw a hoof flash out- knocking the wolf aside! Through slats in the barrel she saw cows and horses forming a defensive ring around the other animals. She heard the blast of the farmer's shotgun.

She heard the voice of the old dog!

"They're on the run! Everybody stick together. Watch the young 'uns! Those wolves can't get us now! No thanks to that stupid, stupid chicken!"

Her feathers on end, she scrambled out of the barrel and perched on top.

"This isn't MY fault!" She cried. "The dog has brought the wolves upon us! He is staging a coup!"

"A coop?" asked the dog.

"A coup! A rebellion. A mutiny! The dog is a radical extremist! This is a plot to take over our barnyard! You– You just don't like chickens!"

"This has nothin' to do with likin' chickens! This is yer fault! Don't you get it? You stupid piece of unplucked poultry! You can't negotiate with wild things!"

"You can so!" Said the chicken. "Watch!" and she fluttered over the fence and out of the barnyard.

As she landed on the other side, the chicken stopped and looked around. She'd never been off the farm before! The world outside was dark, gloomy. The moon shone down on tangled weeds and muddy ditches, on thorny brambles and gnarled branches that reached down as if to snatch her away. Yellow eyes peered from the dark.

"Cluck cluck cluck!" she murmured to herself. She didn't like the world one bit!

Then the Great Wolf appeared.

He padded from the shadows towards her, stopping a foot away. He was muscular, immense, grey, scarred and ragged. She could feel his hot breath.

The chicken cocked her head.

He looked reasonable.

"Oh, noble wolf!" she said, ignoring his rows of teeth. "I am here to apologize for offending you. Too long has the farm shut out your great people. Too long have we been selfish and stubborn– never seeing the wolf's side of things! Let us open a dialog in hopes of reaching a mutual agreement to mutual interest. All animals are brothers and it is my greatest wish that we live together in peace and friendship!"

And, with a flourish of her wing, she bowed low before the Great Wolf.

The last thing the chicken ever knew was the sensation of teeth on the back of her neck...

© Richard Gleaves 2009-11-16

Parable #5: The Golden Suit

2010-03-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time..

in the land of Potoma (which sat between two rivers in a country I've forgotten on a continent that has subsequently been lost), there lived a clever tailor named Samuel Turkey. Sam Turkey made exquisite suits the like of which were rarely seen. The fabric shimmered, the lapels were perfectly sharp, they were always cut just right in the leg and broke exactly as one expects a perfect suit to break. A Sam Turkey label in a suit guaranteed quality.

One fall, the Emperor of Potoma came to see Sam. His retinue crowded into the tailor shop, parting as the man himself stepped from his long black limousine and sauntered inside, waving to the small crowd which had formed on the street.

Barack, the Emperor of Potoma, was always perfectly dressed. He wore dazzling robes, a smart fur hat, and his fingers glittered.

"I'd like to commission a suit from you" he said to Sam. "A suit the likes of which the world has never seen. It will have gold braid and silver lapels. It will be seamed with rubies and sapphires. It will be woven with platinum thread. I will wear it to the annual ball. Have it completed by a fortnight hence."

Sam Turkey bowed low at this great honor. He spent the rest of the afternoon taking the royal measurements. He did not see the Emperor again. The men of the treasury arrived the following day with all the precious metals required. As Sam stitched and sewed this miracle suit, they kept a careful eye.

As the night of the ball came closer, Sam's work on the suit became more intense. He lined it with rare silks, he embroidered tiny images of Potomac history onto the cuffs, he soaked it in the subtlest of fragrances. Then he gave it a pressing and, for good measure, used a nonabrasive silver polish on the buttons.

On the night of the ball, it was complete. Sam Turkey laid the suit carefully in a box and took a smart pumpkin carriage up Pennsylvania Avenue to the palace. He marveled at the preparations. A small orchestra was tuning beside the dance floor. Flowers festooned the tables, long tapers were set in sconces and awaited the match.

Barack was in his private quarters, still in pajamas, lounging like a cat on silk pillows. He faced a long mirror and, as Turkey entered, it became clear that the Emperor was blowing kisses to himself.

The Emperor was far less impressive in his pajamas than he had been in his flowing robes at the tailor shop, Turkey decided. Without the distraction of the magnificent clothes, one could see that the Emperor was in fact a quite ordinary man; he was greying, lined, a little scrawny, and overall not much to look at. But such thoughts were not to be pursued.

"My Emperor, I have brought the suit as requested!"

"Suit? Oh yes the suit. Well, show it to me then."

Sam unboxed the suit. It caught the fading rays of the sun outside. It sparkled. It shimmered. It set tiny prismatic sparks rotating about the room.

"I don't like it." said Barack.

"But why?"

"You dare question your Emperor? If you must know, it is far too magnificent. It will distract from the magnificence of myself. Keep the suit. The gold of its construction shall be your payment."

And, with this, Barack returned to his reflection and paid the hapless tailor no more mind.

Turkey was stunned. TOO magnificent? Whatever could that mean? He slipped the suit on a hangar, put it over his shoulder, and stepped from the room glumly.

The ball was underway. The people of Potoma were decked out in their finest. Feathers bobbed. Medals glinted. Chenilles and chiffon shifted under the lights. Military boots dueled with high heels on the polished dance floor. It was a magnificent celebration.

Then Sam Turkey stepped into the room.

The orchestra played a fanfare and began to play "Hail to the Emperor" the traditional tune for the head of state. Thinking Barack must be entering behind him, Sam turned and began to bow. But no one was there.

Was the room bowing to Sam Turkey?

No, not to him. To the suit!

All eyes were on the magnificent suit that he carried on his shoulders. As Sam stepped into the crowd, men saluted smartly, women curtsied.

The Emperor's Wife led Sam out onto the dance floor for the traditional first dance. She held the empty sleeve as if it were her husbands arm and she and Turkey spun in circles as the orchestra played "The Mirror Song" from the popular operetta "The Feigned Prince".

As the crowd clapped, Sam looked with wonderment at their faces. They had no idea that the empty suit he held was not their Emperor- so dazzled by it were they. They raised glasses in a toast, and Sam raised a sleeve in salute.

"Stop!" cried a voice. Barack the true Emperor appeared at the top of the marble stairs. He wore his usual robes, thrown back over his shoulder. He pointed a long, accusing finger at the hapless tailor. "Traitor! How dare you impersonate me? How dare you dance with my wife! Guards! Have that man executed!"

Barack strode menacingly towards Sam Turkey. But suddenly guards stood between the two men, blocking the emperor's way. Weapons rallied to Sam Turkey's aid.

"Who is this madman?" came a soft voice at Sam's side.

The Emperor's wife (whose name was Clarissa) was clutching the sleeve of the magnificent suit.

"I am your husband!" cried Barack.

Clarissa leaned her soft cheek on the golden lapel.

"My husband is here" she said. "Take the fool away."

The guards bowed to their Empress and crowded around Barack, seizing him. His tasseled shoes lifted from the polished marble.

"No!" he was heard to cry. "You don't understand! THE CLOTHES HAVE NO EMPEROR!!"

And then Barack the Vain was gone.

For centuries since, the Kingdom of Potoma has been ruled by the sons of Sam Turkey, who act as chief advisors to The Golden Suit.

The Suit itself lies still on the throne, empty as it has always been, waiting till the day that time and tarnish free the people from their bedazzlement...

© Richard Gleaves 2009-12-10

On Pedophile Priests

2010-03-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

They're in the news again.

What is a rational person to make of these scandals -- are they corrupt perversions of Catholicism? A symptom of society's ills?

Or do they tell us something about the Church-- something unpleasant, something that we suspect and fear might be true?

I think it's time we stopped being squeamish about this issue and shone some healthy sunlight on what's actually going on.

The hallmark of a spiritualist philosophy like Catholicism is hatred of the material -- wealth, success, the body in general and sex in particular. The Church creates the pedophilia problem through two mechanisms: unearned self-esteem and repression.

The most glaring question is "why is it always BOYS"? Where are the priests molesting little girls? After all, despite pernicious myths, heterosexuals comprise the vast majority of sexual abusers. So why are the altar boys the ones that are always fleeing for their lives?

First issue: Unearned Self-Esteem. The priests in question are obviously homosexuals of SOME stripe. Why have they gone into the priesthood? The answer lies in the church's own teachings about homosexuality. They preach that it is evil and so any true believer who nevertheless grows up gay is going to have both a spiritual dilemma and an existential crisis. He will hate himself, and he will be unable to "come out" to a Catholic family. He will overcompensate and become an ever more fervent disciple of Christ. He will need a cover story as to why he does not have a girlfriend or a wife. A celibate priesthood is tailor-made to absorb gay catholics. By becoming priests, they become sources of PRIDE to their family, not shame. They are relieved of the burden of feigning heterosexuality, and they may believe their souls have been saved from everlasting torment. Looking in the mirror at their vestments, they feel a self esteem they had lacked as closeted and miserable gay teens.

And life is good for a while.

Second issue: Repression. Hatred of the body is unnatural and self-destructive. Celibacy is perverse and unwholesome. A lifetime without physical contact or intimacy will ultimately warp a personality. Sexual desire does not go away with self-denial, quite the opposite. I suspect many celibate priests are obsessed with sex and sexual fantasy and sublimate it into overeating or self-injury or other compulsive behaviors.

And sometimes they just can't take it anymore.

A child is an attractive sexual partner to such people not as a child per se, but as something that can be controlled, intimidated and silenced. Their fear of exposure as homosexuals is so great, and yet their need for human contact so dire, that many seem to express their sexuality only with those who can be strictly controlled and manipulated. I suspect that prostitution and perhaps bestiality are also common for the same reason. (I read a story recently on a Vatican male prostitute scandal HERE)

I think you can see from this brief sketch how the unnatural, pernicious and inhuman teachings of Catholicism (in particular) create unnatural, pernicious and inhuman behavior in its practitioners. And is that such a surprise?

The solution? The abandonment of priestly celibacy, of the perverse hatred of sexuality (specifically of homosexuality), and an alignment of religion with reason and human nature. Let people live and love in a guiltless, natural, honest and honorable way, and you would stop creating pedophiles.

It ain't gonna happen.

In order to see the beauty in sex (or in wealth) the church would have to abandon it's spiritualism, embrace reason, and espouse an ethics of rational self-interest rooted in the nature of man. It would have to be the opposite of what it is now. Think about this and the implications it has for the rest of the church's teachings.

I see organized religion as far more disturbed and "sinful" than the philosophies and lifestyles it typically condemns. I give it absolutely no moral credibility.

Religion has demonstrated time and again its incompatibility with human happiness. In its zeal to twist the natural into a guilty secret, it looses a horde of pathetic and victimized neurotics upon our innocent world.

--Richard Gleaves

Parable #4: The Parable of the Octopus Man

2010-03-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, a young man named Quincy got sick.

It wasn't anything serious, just a head cold-- a minor bit of sniffles. Every reputable doctor he visited told him to go home and drink fluids and sleep and he'd feel better within a few days. But, because Quincy was a hypochondriac, he continued searching until he found someone who told him what he wanted to hear.

"You are dying!" shouted Dr. Lyndon.

"I am?" Quincy asked?

"Oh, yes. You need my ministrations immediately!" and he pulled out a bottle marked MEDICAID. "Swallow this, and I'll have you right where I want you... um... I mean, you'll be right as rain!"

Quincy paid Dr. Lyndon a few hundred billion dollars and went home. That night, he took his first spoonful of MEDICAID. And, sure enough, after he'd slept a few days and had some fluids he did feel better!

And so, after that, he took a spoonful of MEDICAID every time he had a cough, or a cramp, or a bit of a chill. Strangely, these symptoms were coming on more and more. And he noticed something else-- he was growing suckers on his toes! In fact, his legs seemed to be becoming more like, well, tentacles!

He brought this unpleasant fact up to Dr. Lyndon, and was assured that it was the fault of the evil drug companies. He insisted that Quincy give up Dimetapp, Halls and Sudafed and rely on MEDICAID exclusively. Quincy agreed, and took out another hundred billion dollars.

Years went by. Quincy suffered from all sorts of ailments. He was constipated, and his arms hurt. He had constant headaches, sore throat. Perhaps even a touch of leprosy. But worst of all, his lower body had become entirely that of an octopus. Sometimes at night he would wake up to feel the tentacles around his own throat-- as if his octopus half intended to strangle him in his sleep.

And the pain!He didn't feel as if he had always been an octopus-- it didn't feel natural-- along his waist was a festering, creeping wound where his human torso was attempting to reject his octopus limbs. Like a badly performed transplant, his two halves were at war with each other-- neither able to accept the others existence.

He slithered into Dr. Lyndon's office. The old doctor peered through his spectacles and scratched his chin.

"I don't know what to make of it." he muttered. "What do you think, nurse? More MEDICAID?"

Nurse Obama inspected the problem."Oh, no, doctor. The problems are FAR too severe for that!" She said. "I recommend a fundamental transformation."

"A fundamental transformation?" gasped Quincy. "What do you mean?"

"We have to turn you entirely into an octopus!" Obama said.

"I agree." Said Lyndon. "MEDICAID isn't working, and it's better to do something instead of doing nothing."

"But..." stammered Quincy "Can't I just go back to being a man? Why don't I stop drinking the MEDICAID?"

"WHAT" shouted both at once.

"That's impossible!" Said Obama. "You're implying that MEDICAID did this to you, you ungrateful thing?"

Lyndon put a wizened hand on Quincy's shoulder. "The MEDICAID is the only thing keeping you alive, son. Let us do the operation. Let us transform you. Or you will surely die."

And so, because he was a hypochondriac, Quincy agreed to a fundamental transformation.

He was wheeled into the operating room to meet Specialist Pelosi and Anesthesiologist Reid. Lying under the hot lights of the operating table, Quincy heard a voice shouting in the distance.

"Don't do it! Don't do it! For the love of..." the voice was cut off by a slamming door.

"Let's go!" said Nurse Obama, cheerily, and Quincy inhaled the anesthesia.

And they went to work-- cutting off all the parts that were still human, and replacing them with pure octopus.

Hours later, the transformation was complete. Quincy was fundamentally transformed into a perfect octopus! His limbs were strong, with powerful suckers. He had a beak that could easily crush small businesses. He had beady little eyes fit for a tax collector. His whole body glistened a beautiful SEIU purple. Not a trace of humanity or reason was left in him.

And he was never sick again because, that night, Lyndon, Obama, Pelosi and Reid went to the home of Dr. Roosevelt, the inventor of the procedure; they celebrated late into the night, toasting their success-- stuffing their happy faces with caviar... and champagne...

...and fried octopus.

-Richard Gleaves

The Good Objectivist - Part One

2010-03-09T12:50:00.000-08:00

It is time for some proper introspection and self-examination in the Objectivist community. We are at a crossroads in human history. Liberty is under daily attack. We are truly living in the pages of "Atlas Shrugged".

Yet in our world there is no John Galt. There is no valley we can escape to. We do not have a separate society in which we can find shelter.

We do have a separate society-- a thriving Objectivist movement with untold members. But shelter? Can anyone find shelter in the society we've created?

Not the way we're operating it.

A disturbing pattern has emerged over the years.

We hear constant reports of individual Objectivists jockeying for positions of respect within the movement not by productive effort (i.e. not by contributing to the body of literature or spreading ideas effectively), but by serving as gatekeepers or protectors of ideological purity.

This is an unusual concept for Objectivists to embrace. In practice, it does not mean honesty (i.e. fealty to truth), or integrity (i.e. fealty to one's own values) but loyalty (i.e. fealty to a person, a group or a creed). It is expressed in terms of loyalty to Ayn Rand, loyalty to her designated heirs, or loyalty to a particular Objectivist ideological position. This assumes of course that Rand and her heirs have earned a particular person's loyalty (I believe they have earned it from me as I judge the work of the Ayn Rand Institute to be excellent) or that the ideological position has earned one's conviction -- that it has convinced you.

What, then, does it mean to harangue a young Objectivist into declaring fealty to a particular organization, or to declare you will break with him if he does not hold a particular ideological position that has not yet convinced him, though it may have convinced you?

Are you not asking for him to accept your authority in intellectual matters? But if he does so, he has abandoned a fundamental tenet of Objectivism -- his intellectual independence -- his integrity. If he does not do so, you propose to deprive him of your association and, if you choose to blacklist the person, of the association of others -- of the very people who might actually change his mind. You offer him a choice between ~either~ accepting on faith a position or fealty he does not understand ~or~ losing any opportunity to understand!

Understand me: You may be right, but it is your job to convince the other person, not his job to accept blindly.

Let us put ourselves, for a moment, in the shoes of a bright, eager young person who has just read Atlas Shrugged. He is stunned by the vision that Rand offers. His mind is swimming with questions. He burns to know. He is a potential ally, a potential friend, a potential fellow fighter in the cultural battle to be waged between between ethical egoism and the self-sacrifice morality of altruism. He could become the vote that defends your liberty, or the industrialist that improves your life, or the friend you've always hoped to find: a person who shares your values, and our fight.

He finishes the novel, and wants to know more. He wants to understand what he has read. He reaches out to his friends and family. He tries to explain about the ethics, but they come back with arguments about duty and self-sacrifice that he is not prepared to answer. They tell him he's getting involved with some "cult". They ridicule him and punch holes in his reasoning. It's easy. He has had mere weeks or months to master a new argument. Everyone else in the culture comes armed with bromides and slogans with which to slap him down: "Don't be selfish!""That's true for you but it's not true for me!""You want the poor to starve!""You hate government!""That sounds good in theory but it doesn't work in practice!"

He needs allies. He needs people of whom he can ask hard questions. He needs a space in which to argue, to learn, to make mistakes. He needs shelter and encouragement. He is not an automatic Objectivist. He is not an automatic Philosopher. He is not an automatic Intellectual. If he's never been trained in logic, or paid attention to the field of philosophy, he will not come armed with words like "epistemology" or with concepts like "is-ought" or with an understanding of what constitutes a logical fallacy. He may not even understand the core ideas. He may be surfing on an emotional reaction to the grandeur of the books. Maybe no one has even taught him to think in principles before. Like Helen Keller finally understanding "wa-wa", our hypothetical young person (or OLD person) may be discovering a whole field of discovery that he had never even imagined looking into. Most people ARE contemptuous of moral issues-- they treat morality, in Rand's words as:

"a phantom scarecrow made of duty, of boredom, of punishment, of pain, a cross-breed between the first schoolteacher of your past and the tax collector of your present, a scarecrow standing in a barren field, waving a stick to chase away your pleasures."

And they are right to feel this way if they've never heard a rational alternative to the creeds around them. They should be contemptuous of morality and ideas, given the rotten maxims of our traditional codes.

This is the context, this is the culture that ALL of our new allies and friends will be coming from. They will be staggering to Objectivism with wounds inflicted by all the nonsense of church and community, every contradiction and species of claptrap from communism to Christianity and down the line. They will come to us staggering across an intellectual minefield, weaving to avoid every conceptual booby trap laid to attack their independent spirit -- they will stagger to us -- holding out only to collapse heroically in the arms of a Fellowship of Reason -- their destination reached, at last.

And are they welcomed, supported, given the admiration and congratulations they have earned? Are they accepted happily as a student and a friend?

No. They are attacked and pushed away by the very people they have searched the Earth to find.

They are attacked for their intellectual independence -- for the very quality of mind that safevouched them through the battlefield of postmodern and religious society. They are attacked for their lack of understanding, which was the motivating force behind their desire to find Objectivists. They are attacked for their associations and affiliations when most have merely clutched the first chance at fellowship that was offered them. They are attacked on message boards, banned, denounced; they are ridiculed; they are made to feel the horror of the inexplicable. They are expected to have loyalties to values they've not even discovered yet, as if values were intrinsic and not chosen.

They come to us for the sanction of reason, and are turned away irrationally and cruelly.

I find this to be a moral outrage.

This is how a new Objectivist should be greeted into our company:

“[Dr.] Akston smiled. `What does this look like to you, Miss Taggart?’ He pointed around the room.

“`This?’ [Dagny] smiled suddenly, looking at the faces of the men against the golden sunburst of rays filling the great windows. `This looks like . . . like that dream you imagine in childhood, when you think that some day, in heaven, you will see those great departed whom you had not seen on earth, and you choose, from all the past centuries, the great men you would like to meet.

“`Well, that’s one clue to the nature of our secret,’ said Akston. `Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be left waiting for us in our graves – or whether it should be ours here and how and on this earth.’

“`I know,’ she whispered.

“`And if you met those great men in heaven,’ asked Ken Danagger, `what would you say to them?’

“`Just . . . just “hello,” I guess.’

“`That’s not all,’ said Danagger. `There’s something you’d want to hear from them. . . . Miss Taggart, you’d want them to look at you and to say, `Well done.’ She dropped her head and nodded silently, head down, not to let him see the sudden spurt of tears to her eyes. `All right, then: Well done, Dagny – well done – too well – and now it’s time for you to rest from that burden which none of us should ever have had to carry.”

-Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

That is what newcomers are hoping to find, but that is not what some Objectivists are striving to be. Instead, many of you are striving to be individual gatekeepers, each pushing the uninitiated from the gates of heaven. You are not acting as the welcoming fellowship of some new Atlantis, but rather acting as gossipy, petty, mean little St. Peters guarding our pearly gates with vindictive haughtiness.

And if heaven is denied them, where else is left to go?

Some valid philosophical issues are in play, and also some important values which DO need to be protected. I fight daily on behalf of Rand's legacy, I correct misrepresentations whenever I find them, I support the organizations such as ARI that have earned my trust, and I stay true to the ideas I have accepted as true. But in my dealings with others, particularly new or "mixed" Objectivists, I believe that context-dropping leads to serious errors of judgement. Therefore, I try to judge others not merely by their words but also by their actions over a period of time with an eye towards establishing their respect for individual rights (which is a precondition of civilized interaction) AND towards defining the mental processes in which they habitually engage. I watch new people not for deviations from established dogma, but for any failing to exert proper mental effort. I watch for evasion, obfuscation and deceit. I try to convince them to value that which I value, but never to coerce them to accept my assertions on faith. That is what they are trying to escape from. I will not inflict it on them.

What we should look for is not loyalty (which is a value to be earned) but honesty, justice and integrity (which are virtues to practiced). We should encourage these virtues, as well as the virtue of pride in every new mind we encounter. We should embrace the optimistic eagerness that looks to find potential value in every man, and the joy in discovering a fellow traveler or fighter in the war against unreason.

We need to be flame-spotters in the world. We need to find the sparks of intelligence, fan them and protect their blaze.

And nothing gutters a barely kindled spark like a blast of hot air.

--Richard Gleaves

Parable #3: The Parable of Auguste the Monk ~or~ "Hang together, boys!"

2010-03-09T11:00:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time, in the high cliffs of Northern Turkey, lived a monk named Auguste and his band of Holy Brethren. They possessed the grandest monastery in Turkey, with high battlements and fortifications, on the tippest top of a dangerous crag so high that enemies could be seen coming from miles around. The barbarian hordes had no hope of breaching this mighty castle, and the monks, their treasured scrolls, and golden chalices were kept safe for generations.

Auguste became leader of the group in his 40th year. He was a wise man, well versed in every aspect of the holy scriptures. Of the 100 monks in the Monastery of the Cliff, Auguste was easily considered the purest.

Until Davide came along. Davide insisted that the holy literature was incomplete, that the Revelation was ongoing, and that the monks must scan the heavens and their hearts for new wisdom. Nonsense! Cried Auguste-- the Word was complete, or else nothing could be certain. With regret, he banished Davide from the monastery. Davide and his followers fled to the hills, where they scanned the heavens in vain for some missing truths. Their numbers dwindled and their names are now lost to time.

Some of the remaining monks had been friends of those who had gone. Some were not convinced that the split was necessary. Some did not find the matter in question to be particularly important, for weren't both groups servants of the Word? But Auguste silenced this dissent, insisting that solidarity and purity be maintained.

But the squabbling continued.

Some monks abandoned their faith altogether. Some lost their fervor. Some warred with other monks. Young initiates who had expected to find a sanctuary of tranquil holy men were known to turn back at the gate and return to their homes and hearths, never to pursue the Word again.

Yet Auguste's mania for purity continued, and further splits occurred:

A Monk named Christian developed a new theory about the origin of the scriptures. He was banished. Then Ferdinand the bald wrote an illuminated manuscript depicting the prophet as a mortal man. He was excommunicated. Intense young Nicholai designed a model of the universe that conflicted with an established interpretation of holy writ. He was kicked to the ecumenical curb.

With each purge, more students, followers and believers left the Monastery of the Rock. Students of Christian settled in France, Nicolai's men dispersed to Italia, Ferdinand's to distant Spain. Without the security of the monastery, each group was ultimately overwhelmed by the hordes of Europe and lost forever.

Auguste realized: his ideology was pure, but his brotherhood had become as a drop of wine in a glass of water. They had no impact on the wide world. The soldiers of the Word were lost to each other. He wept.

But he possessed a vault of scriptures at the Monastery of the Rock! And those scriptures were direct holy writ from the source of all knowledge. They were uncorrupted, unaltered, eternal! Auguste and his remaining five monks would bring the Word into the future incorruptible and imperishable!

Then the barbarians came.

There were no monks to man the battlements. There were no monks to fire the cannons. There were no monks to bar the doors. There were no monks to carry the water. There were no monks to save the burning scriptures. There were no monks to protect Auguste himself from the King of the Barbarians.

And, ultimately, there were no monks at all...

--Richard Gleaves

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately" - Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence

The Fundamental Questions - PART ONE

2010-02-24T06:23:00.000-08:00

My entry for today is on the subject of the things I believe and why I believe them. I'd like to post this as as statement of the context I'm working within. This is a philosophic post, but that doesn't mean it's not open to reason and debate -- I hope this can start some discussion. This is a summary of the Objectivist position with links to illustrative passages from Rand's fiction and non-fiction.

METAPHYSICS

1) The basics -- these concepts have to be accepted as they are axiomatic (Definition of Axioms) and underlie any act of thought including having a conversation.

I exist. (You exist. We exist.) I (you/we) possess consciousness
The universe which we perceive is real, and our senses are valid.
Contradictions do not exist in reality and are only possible in human thought
Logic, to be true, must be non-contradictory, and to reach a contradiction indicates an error in thinking.

**If you do not accept any of these things, there's no point in trying to have a conversation.**

2) Fundamentals -- truths that are non-axiomatic

Existence is primary, my consciousness perceives and does not create reality. We must respect the primacy of existence
Things exist whether I observe them or think of them -- my mind does not control reality.
Facts are facts. Wishing does not change reality. My emotions are responses to facts, not a means of knowledge. Tears don't change reality.
Everything that exists is an entity of a specific nature with specific attributes- every entity acts in accordance with its nature according to causality.

**If you disagree with these, we can discuss and I can prove you wrong, by asking you to demonstrate the ability of your mind, tears or wishes to change physical nature or by asking you to demonstrate an entity that does not act in accordance with its nature**

EPISTEMOLOGY

1) What is our nature? Ayn Rand on Man

Human beings are conceptual entities, able to form abstract concepts by observing reality. We encode our observations in symbol and in spoken language and word. Our concepts, to be considered true, must correspond to reality.
We are physical beings that are born, change and that cease to exist upon death. If anyone has evidence of an afterlife, reincarnation, past lives, ghosts, etc, please provide it with the understanding that these concepts are as open to examination as any others.
We are individual (literally "Non-dividable"). If you saw one of us in half, you do not have two people, and you do not have one person anymore only a corpse.
We are not collective: All groups of individuals are merely figures of speech -- thirty human beings are simply thirty individual human beings: a million people who share skin color are not a monolithic 'race' they are only a million people with one shared characteristic out of many. They would not think with a collective brain or digest with a collective stomach. All beings are individuals and any characteristic such as color, ethnicity, national origin, sexuality, system of belief is secondary to that fact.
Individuals possess free will, which amounts to the ability to focus the mind and act on one's judgement or to unfocus, drift, and evade both reality and the necessity of action.

**If you disagree with the first, please demonstrate that we are not conceptual without using concepts. If you disagree with the second, please demonstrate some non-physical soul, explain what a soul consists of, or demonstrate the existence of anything else that is similarly non-matter or non-energy. If we are not individuals and are instead some sort of collective, please prove it by storing calories on your body when I eat cookies. If you have no freedom of will, there is no point to the discussion as you have already made your mind up and nothing I say will make a difference to you. I would say go away, but you have no freedom of action either.**

Any disagreements so far?

ETHICS

I’d like to now turn to morality, which is an urgent human need but often misunderstood. What is morality? Where does it come from? On what concepts does it depend?The roots of morality involve the nature of human life and the necessity of choices. We established above that man is a physical being that lives and dies, that man has the faculty of free will, and that man is a conceptual being, not a being with automatic knowledge but a creature that must observe and learn. We also established that he is an individual.

1) What is morality and why do we need it?

The fundamental alternative of all living beings is life or death.
All life requires a specific course of action i.e. the pursuit of values (nourishment, shelter, etc)
Man is a living being, but unlike a plant or animal he has free will.
Man, therefore, must choose to value and sustain his own life. He must discover and pursue the values that his life actually requires. He is free to choose his own destruction, or free to choose to pursue life to the fullest. For a rational being to do either consistently requires a code of values by which to gauge his actions and make further choices.
A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

***To refute this, please explain what else necessitates morality except the conditional nature of life (Would an indestructible robot need to be moral?) If your moral code comes from religion, why must morality be accepted on faith? Is there no rational case to be made for your moral beliefs? If morality is all about one’s relations with others, does it have nothing to say about man’s life when alone? ***

To pursue life, is to pursue life as that which you are.
In order to properly identify a code of values, Man must understand his own nature.
Man is a thinking, conceptual being and his mind is his basic tool of survival.
Therefore, all that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good, that which destroys it is the evil.

2) Every man is the proper beneficiary of his own moral action.
Just as it is proper for a plant to seek the sun, or for an animal to pursue a meal, it is proper for man to pursue his own chosen values, to achieve them, to thrive and enjoy his life. The purpose of life is to live it. The reward of life is to enjoy it.
***Is animal subsistence is a proper standard? Can we devise a code of values for man that ignores his defining characteristic: his rationality? This is technically a morality of “enlightened selfishness”, but what is eating, breathing, laughing etc for if not the continuance and enjoyment of your OWN life?***

This concept of morality erases the distinction between “right and wrong” and “true or false”- if your purpose is to live life successfully, and reason demonstrates that a course of action is proper to meet this end, then the moral choice is to choose that which furthers your life and values: i.e., to choose life over death, gain over loss, production over consumption, heath over disease, success over failure, food over poison, joy over suffering. Far from being the kind of self-indulgent "selfishness" it's usually portrayed as, this is the most difficult and profoundly heroic of all tasks -- discovering your personal potential and striving for it, achieving your joy, creating your own vision of the highest possible.

As an example of this philosophy in action, imagine the following. A man starts out his life as a healthy, active being. He chooses irrational behavior: smoking, eating junk, drinking, heroin, inactivity and sloth. His arteries clog, his body deforms, he inches ever closer to physical failure and death. This is not selfish behavior, rather it is self-destructive and everyone recognizes it as such, yes? Now, imagine the same man choosing a more rational course of action: he accepts the facts of existence, the objectivity of his own nature, and the requirements of his proper physical function. He chooses to quit smoking, eat healthy foods, put the bottle down, kick his heroin habit, start working out. His body becomes stronger, he gains energy and vigor, he becomes the picture of health and vitality. He has accomplished by will effort and self-discipline the hardest, most demanding transformation of his life- a transformation requiring ruthless severity and long-range thought. And he has succeeded. Yet, by the standards of most moral codes, such a man is morally neutral -- he has merely acted in his self interest. No applause, please -- that is only for the man who sacrifices his self interest to others, yes? The achievement of health and life leaves the Christian and collectivist moralizers cold -- it has no moral significance whatsoever. Why?

Imagine a man who sets out to achieve a career- who chooses late hours over going to bed early, who puts ten times more effort and ingenuity into his work then is required to just ‘get by’, who wrings from his own mind every ounce of clarity, rationality and competence he can muster- and who achieves his dreams spectacularly. He watches the opening night of his first play, or the ribbon cutting at his first factory, or the first wheat of his harvest, and knows he has done something good, grand, heroic. Yet, most moral codes ignore this man too- he’s just acting in his self-interest. He will only be ‘moral’ in their eyes when his play brings joy to others, or when his factory lifts their burdens, or when his wheat fills their stomachs not his own. Why?

I’ll talk about the various moral codes and their implications in Part Two. But I’d like to leave you with one more example to chew on.

Imagine a man who has health and an active mind. He is not the victim of any outside force such as a totalitarian government, etc. He chooses to evade effort, to never think about anything difficult, to ‘go along’ with others, to coast, to do what ‘feels right’. He laughs at schoolwork, envies kids who do better, becomes violent, indulges his taste for alcohol or drugs, makes irresponsible sexual choices, runs up debts, refuses to pay bills, loses his home, his friends, and ultimately cannot support his own life without outside assistance and charity. What do the traditional moral codes say about this man? Why, he is the needy and the suffering for whom the two men described above must sacrifice if they wish to be considered moral. That he has made himself needy is immaterial -- the onus of traditional codes is for others to support him -- not on him to become self supportive.

Then imagine that this man goes up into the mountains and lives in a cave. He has no material possessions left, no ambitions, no personal dreams or desires. He turns off his mind, meditates, and tries to ‘join with the universe’ -- i.e to erase himself from existence by an act of will. What is he then, by the traditional codes? Why, a saint.

If you destroy yourself a little -- you're a bum. If you destroy yourself a lot -- you're a saint.

Does this seem right?

I submit to you that the traditional moral codes are inversions of the code of life- they are moralities of death and must be abandoned for mankind to survive and move forward.

-Richard Gleaves

Parable #2: "The Empty Throne"

2010-02-22T06:18:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Vespucci, the people rose as one to defeat their king. King Erba had been an unpopular and ineffective King. Like most Kings, he had ascended to the throne by riding the robes of his father. But the people found that genetics do not bestow wisdom.

After several unfortunate wars with neighboring kingdoms, destructive mismanagement of the treasury, and years of embarrassing behavior, King Erba was finally toppled from power. He returned to his villa in southern Vespucci to live in quiet (though opulent) retirement. The people thanked heaven that the King was gone and that he had not succeeded in destroying the kingdom. Fortunately for Vespucci the powers of the king, while great, were not without bounds.

But the throne was now empty.

After a year of struggles, in which many men and women sought to become the new king, the people rose and proclaimed Giacomo Benedetto king of all Vespucci. Benedetto was as unlike Erba as can be imagined. Sun-kissed and handsome, wise and benevolent, a great orator and a leader of men. Under his benevolent rule the wounds suffered under King Erba might be healed. But so great were these wounds that Benedetto himself despaired that he would ever be able to repair things.

The people decided that Benedetto could be trusted with wider powers. The crisis justified the change. Benedetto was given total control over the treasury, over the lives of all citizens. He was given control over their futures, over their children's care. Benedetto the benevolent could be trusted with all details of life -- from the diameter of a wagon wheel to the amount of salt in a stew -- power to command legions of knights, catapults, battering rams, hot oil and sharp steel. Power to override any objections, power to overturn the law, power over breath, heartbeat, sinew and thought.

And Vespucci prospered. Wise Benedetto fixed everything. A generation lived in peace and harmony. A statue was erected in his honor in the center of the capital -- it stood as a shining beacon -- a heroic golden hero dazzling in the sun.

Then Benedetto grew old, and went home.

And the throne was empty.

After a struggle, the young son of King Erba gained power. A resentful and angry young man, he had worked for years to avenge the overthrow of his father. He hated the people of Vespucci with all his heart, but hid his motives behind a fixed smile and an easy charm. He took the throne and all the powers which had been granted it. He took control over every facet of life, over every breath and over every mind.

And Vespucci was destroyed, for who could withstand the unchecked might of the king?

Years later, an old man walked through the crumbled remains of what had been the capital. He brushed past ragged beggars, the sick, the wounded, the ignorant and maimed populace. He walked to the statue of Benedetto that still remained on its pedestal in the central square. Moss grew on it now, and the gilt had peeled away.

"Power does not accumulate to the King," the old man thought, "it accumulates to the throne -- and when the King leaves, the throne is empty..."

And the old man hung his head in shame.

-by Richard Gleaves, copyright 2009

Charity vs. Welfare

2010-02-22T05:10:00.000-08:00

I was reading an article on politics and got tired of seeing another writer proclaiming the self-evident need for the government to engage in "charity"-- but does it? When a government makes payment to individuals, is that really "charity"? I have to say no. In, fact, it is the opposite.

When the government helps someone, it is not "charity"; it is "welfare" or "the dole". Charity is voluntary. Welfare is coercive redistribution. Voluntary action and coerced action are opposites -- you cannot use Welfare and Charity interchangeably, since they are actually mortal enemies.

Let me give you an example. If I see that my neighbor is hungry, I have two choices: I can help him or not. If I choose to help him, I engage in charity. What governs my choice? My estimate of his worth and the degree to which I feel his suffering is an injustice. If his house burnt down or someone robbed him, if he had some unfortunate illness, or if the factory that employed him was shut down for its carbon footprint -- if he was a victim of some circumstance not of his own making and was working to get out of it -- I am likely to choose to assist him gladly.

This assistance is not my grudging performance of duty, but my benevolence and love for my fellow men -- which I feel to the degree of their personal virtue and the closeness of our relationship. However, if I see that my neighbor drinks away his paycheck, destroys his property through indifference and negligence, can't hold down a job because he doesn't show up or is incompetent -- if I see that he slept through school, never cracked a book and is generally a no-good jerk -- my choice is likely to let justice take its course and not to stand between him and the consequences of his own actions.

In this way, voluntary individual charity reinforces virtue among citizens.

Even charity must be paid for, and the payment is personal virtue.

You earn charity by deserving it.

Welfare does not consider the character of the recipient. Rather than providing payments to those that only suffer unjustly, welfare provides payment without the requirement of virtue and often to those who do not rate assistance at all. Often, welfare even denies payment to those who show too much productive ability and not enough "need". The less you deserve welfare, the more likely you are to get it. In true Kantian fashion, it dutifully gives values away without payment of any kind. Welfare is the epitome of sacrifice -- and the opposite of justice.

We have implemented a system by which my neighbor demands charity as his right, as his due. He demands not only cash in an emergency but payments year round and lifelong -- from universal pre-K to "free" health care to food stamps to corporate bailouts. Corporate bailouts are a logical consequence of the welfare state; The powers we gave to the government to assist "the poor" are the same powers that are used for welfare to corporations with political pull. The tax laws instituted to help the American indigents also enable wealth to be taken for the unearned benefit of foreign indigents and friendly dictators alike. We've violated property rights, and so our system has become a game of who can grab the most before he is voted out and replaced with the opposing gang. You can't have corporate welfare without individual welfare. You cannot violate property rights for the poor without also violating them for the strong. Once a principle is violated, anything goes. This is the reason why, in America, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer: they are each subsidized, giving an unfair advantage to the powerful and an incentive towards dependancy to the weak.

But the issue isn't only practical, it's primarily moral.

Government "charity" goes over the heads of the individuals who earn and produce -- it invalidates their judgement about who is deserving and who is not. It FORCES some men to involuntarily sustain the lives of others. It forces me to support and sustain people I don't know and will never know. It is indifferent to my values and contemptuous of my consent. It takes my cash and gives it to some recipient I can never judge. I will never know if I am involuntarily supporting a potential friend or whether my money is being funneled to someone who is standing on street corners preaching the destruction of everything I love.

Welfare is diametrically opposed to the principle of justice, which is why that is the very word the left adopts and distorts; "social justice" is a thing altogether different than true justice. It is an attempt to get for men by force what they could not get voluntarily. It enables my crooked and lazy neighbor to get from me at the point of a gun the wealth and services I would never give him otherwise. It enables him to go on being crooked and lazy without end, without consequences, without facing moral judgement from the people who are supporting him.

The vaunted "safety net" is not protection from physical harm, it's a protection from moral consequences. It allows a man to have his needs met without accepting responsibility for his own life. It's worse then outright theft; a burglar at least acknowledges that I own my property and that he is engaged in thieving -- he sneaks around, hopes I won't catch him, and grants that the police have the right to capture him, punish him, and return my property to me. But the welfare recipient claims his loot by right -- he's not stealing bread, assisted housing or health care from me directly and so does not acknowledge it as theft. He receives it safely laundered through the magic of having it extorted from me by a third party, the taxman.

He is absolved of considering me at all -- whether that money could buy me an extra meal or my children's education or pay for my funeral -- he doesn't have to care where the money came from or to consider my needs -- only to proclaim his own needs and demand assistance by right. He doesn't have to look me in the eye and ask for help. He doesn't ask my consent at all. He doesn't have to think of where the money came from; whether I worked overtime to earn it, whether it was my inheritance or whether I saved it penny by penny through a lifetime of scrupulously competent labor. The welfare recipient doesn't have to consider me in the slightest -- I am safely offstage, out of sight, out of mind. I am not present to judge him, to question him, to estimate his worth. He takes my money without having to deserve it. He takes my money without even the necessity of having to say "thank you".

That is the whole motivation and result of your government programs: to remove ever more freedom, gratitude, justice, consideration, friendship, judgement, morality, virtue, and reason from this world: to enable lazy men to evade the fact that things in this life are ultimately paid for by work, by virtue, by ambition and thought. To take with guns what justice will not render.

I suggest you rethink the nature of charity and ask yourself whether the government is actually helping people or whether it is corrupting the concept of "charity" and hurrying the destruction of everything good, benevolent and just in this world.

-Richard Gleaves

My first reading of "Atlas Shrugged"

2010-02-22T04:38:00.000-08:00

My friend Michael Robbins gave me a paperback copy of "Atlas Shrugged" at the end of freshman year at SMU -- 22 years ago. I had been reading Sagan and such since I was 12 or so and always arguing against the religious nonsense in North Texas. He thought I'd like it.

I hated the first page.

I disliked the first 50 pages.

I was tolerant of the next 100 pages.

Somewhere around the running of the Galt line I started reading paragraphs out loud to family. By the end of the first week the remnant motor was found, the oil fields were on fire and I was angry at the world and confused about adults and what they were up to -- terrified at what seemed to be the hopelessness of the situation. Shortly after I was sad as a grey pall fell over the characters -- as doom seemed to crowd in and the motors were turning off. In the second week I was dreading turning the next page -- the book seemed a litany of disaster, of collapse -- people were dying, tunnels were collapsing, incompetence ran the world. Dagny and Hank seemed to be doomed last flickers of a dying light. I hated the book again.

Then in week three the light of a sunrise struck the wings of a mysterious fleeing plane, I was thrust into a completely different universe. I started part Three of the book with the feeling of -- as Rand describes Francisco's laugh -- the first sight of spring among glaciers. I was meeting giants. I was meeting heroes. I was in a world that was real, that was possible, that was mine. And I began to UNDERSTAND.

Not just the many inscrutable mysteries that had hounded the plot and the characters to that point. I started to understand why I had been the person I was for as long as I had been. I started to understand years of questioning, arguing -- I started to realize that the thousands of questions I had been asking my entire life were not random scattershot things but my systematic response to an irrational world. I started glimpsing answers to questions I had given up on. Like Quentin Daniels at the blackboard when Galt sweeps the equations away and writes a few symbols -- it was not the answer I was seeking but a whole new realm of potential inquiry i'd never glimpsed.

By the time Dagny stood on a obscure runway watching the cross of that plane disappear back into the darkness of sunset, I felt that she and I were on a journey together that would set the course of a lifetime's thought.

I despaired, became angry, became appalled as the world of the novel became dark again. But i saw the darkness as a necessary prelude to a new beginning.

And then I got to THE SPEECH.

The speech was too long -- too hard -- too much. The author started giving me answers to things I hadn't even questioned yet. Answers to things I didn't even know were problems -- too many answers -- too much information. But what I could grasp of the speech changed me as a man and as a citizen.

By the time I staggered to page 1100, I was worn out. I felt as though I had been taken like Dante to heaven and to Hell -- to Purgatory and Paradise- and then dumped back into life at the end. Like some prophet given a vision out in the desert -- left only with the message and a burning desire to tell people what I knew.

I don't think everybody would have this reaction. My mom didn't. My sister didn't. Most people don't. I think the difference is this: if in ancient times you gave a Mac with photoshop to a merchant in Brittany or Germanica he would be delighted with such a tool to do banners, signs, the occasional illustrated Bible, etc. But if it happened to find someone who was already burning with dissatisfaction, who wanted to change art, who was stymied by having only tempura and oil and stretched canvas with which to express himself... To that man you give the unmatchable gift of a flexible and unparalleled technology with which to become the artist he already longed to be. Objectivism, for me, was the mental technology I had been waiting for to answer the questions I had already spent a lifetime fighting to answer.

For that gift, and for the person I was able to become thanks to it, I will always be thankful to Ayn Rand and her innovative achievements.

-Richard Gleaves

The Pursuit of Happiness

2010-02-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

Think of something in your life you would like to improve. What springs to mind? Your physical condition? Your financial situation? Your career? What have you always wanted to achieve? Have you wanted to write a novel? A symphony? Ever dreamt of climbing a mountain or swimming the English channel?

Think of an action you would like to take that would lead you to one of these goals. To get into shape you need to hit the gym. To improve your finances you need to make a plan. To write a novel you will need to learn technical issues such as plot construction or style. To write a symphony you need to learn how to read music. To climb or swim you will need to acquire muscles and stamina.

As a mental exercise, choose a goal and picture some process of getting there.

Now, picture a moral action. Picture yourself 'being a good person'. What, to you, does that entail? Are you helping a beggar in the street? Are you volunteering? Recycling? Taking care of a relative?

I would be willing to place a bet that if you pictured a 'moral action' it was NOT the same action that you had visualized in example #1. I would also bet that when you picture yourself 'being a good person' you pictured yourself interacting with others, while in example #1 you saw yourself alone.

Is it possible to be moral in and of yourself? What is the moral status of an entirely 'selfish' action like self-improvement? This is the question that we must answer first. If achieving our goals is self-serving, if time spent on becoming better is time stolen from the service we owe to others, we will feel perpetually guilty about pursuing our dreams.

We hear it all the time: "I want to exercise but I can't take the time from my work" "I wanted to be a singer but I had a family to support" "My dad wanted me to inherit his business, so I put my own dreams on the back burner". Many people put others before themselves and feel pride in doing so, even when the result is dashed dreams and resentment all around. This may manifest itself in large life-altering ways, such as the man who sacrifices his medical career to help raise a disabled brother. Or it may manifest itself in small things, such as a wife who cannot study for her G.E.D. because she has to get dinner on the table.

The moral codes we learn as children and attempt to live by as adults are antithetical to achievement.

There will always be someone who needs your ingenuity, your hard work, your time and resources more than you do. Even if you are without parents, husband, wife, children or friends, you will still have neighbors who need assistance, strangers in foreign lands who need your help, multitudes around the globe for whom you can sacrifice every desire or dream, to whom you can give away every resource you may ever possess, and for whom you can slave away every moment of your mercifully brief days.

Would it be moral to do so?

Even on the smallest scale, is it truly moral to deny yourself your human potential, to squander the possibility of your own greatness, to renounce your dreams and happiness? Is it moral to squander talent, to put blinders on vision? These are questions we're going to have to answer.

Some might say that the moral justification of self-improvement is so that one may be of better service to others. Let's consider this. Why does a man spend hours in the gym building impressive shoulder muscles? Is it on the off-chance that he will be able to render a service to others, like lifting a truck from on top of an old lady? Does personal pride, health, sexual attractiveness, etc have nothing to do with it? Why does a person spend years studying music, mastering orchestration, texture, timbre, harmony and counterpoint? Does he justify all that effort by hoping that some depressed audience member might hear his symphony, have his mood lifted and therefore avoid suicide? Does a desire to bring into concrete life some inner vision of his own never enter into it?

We're not used to questioning the moral status of these actions. It is not a part of the culture to do so. Why is moral status important? Because morality- our sense of right and wrong and the rules that drive it- is the subconscious agent that provides our emotional fuel.

A man who seriously doubts his moral right to take rational action for his own benefit will always be hindered in his ability to achieve. His confidence will always be low, his drive will always be less, he will question, doubt, and provide himself with excuses to quit. He will be less enthusiastic, have less pride in his outcome, and this will undercut his every choice.

The first step to embracing a different moral code is to realize that morality is not some boring duty to be accepted unenthusiastically, but that it's is a vital tool for achieving and prospering in this life -- if it's the right morality. Accept a morality of ethical self-interest, and you will find your confidence returning and your dreams, at last, to be realizable.

Stop being the enemy of your own life. Live without fear, and learn that you have a moral right to the pursuit of happiness.

Richard Gleaves

What the hell is an Objectivist?

2010-02-20T16:46:00.000-08:00

I've thought for some time that I should write a little explanatory note about Objectivism, why I largely agree with it, and why I recommend it to others and write essays to demonstrate it's applicability to our current situations.

Objectivism is the formal name for the system of ideas developed and advocated by the Russian-American author Ayn Rand who lived from 1905 to 1982. The ideas were originally presented in fiction, first in 1942's The Fountainhead and then in the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged. Rand spent the remainder of her life giving lectures, publishing articles, and proselytizing her world view in such diverse places as Playboy Magazine, the Donohue Show, and the Ford Hall Forum. Since her death, a great body of explanatory and further work has been done, with the most concentrated efforts being on systematizing the philosophy and applying it to current events and various issues.

here's the Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_rand
http://www.aynrand.org/

Now, I understand that some folks might stop here and say "A Novelist?" doesn't that smack of L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics and stuff like that there? And I have to honestly say yes it does. Believe me, I would absolutely love it if the ideas I hold were handed to my ancient forefathers by an angel or scratched in stone by some ancient greek with too much time on his hands. I'd prefer it if I learned the philosophy at my mother's knee or heard it in some sanctioned organization like at a church or in school. But, look. I'm not a dumb guy. I'm actually quite bright. And when I see truth I recognize it no matter where it may be found.

What are the truths I found in Objectivism?

That the world is knowable.
That ethics and morality are provable in reason.
That man has a right to exist as an individual.
That freedom and liberty are requirements of man's life and must be protected
That heroism and joy are to be celebrated in art
That it's good to love your life

Now, it's near-impossible to get into the validation and details of the position in a short note, but I can give you the essence of her universe: Ayn Rand applies reason to joy and finds they are not mutually incompatible.

Growing up, I found myself in profound disagreement to just about everything I heard. I constantly asked why- I didn't understand how people took religion seriously, I was always pointing out the contradictions in what people did vs. what they professed to believe. My loves were music and science. I sang all day and read Carl Sagan all night.

In college, a friend noticed my argumentative questioning of everything and loaned me Atlas Shrugged.

Here was a kindred mind. Atlas is a story set in an America being slowly strangled by an encroaching government and a revolution by the great minds of the nation- specifically, a moral revolution. Now, every fiction writer presents their personal philosophies in their works, even if by implication, but here was a fiction writer who was also an original theorist- telling a story of the world and its essential moral dilemmas- in which the dominant philosophies worked themselves out to their logical ends, showing them for what they are. Here was someone who saw all the same implications and contradictions I always had, and proceeded to challenge and answer them.

I found more insight in The Fountainhead, the story of a creative artist (an architect) who struggles to maintain personal and artistic integrity over a lifetime of work. It was for me as a composer and artist a profoundly personal novel.

Over the years I've read all of Rand's nonfiction and found, on issue after issue, a clear consistent point of view. I've never found in twenty years a major issue on which i disagreed. Now, on many minor issues, I have. For example, I disagree with her views on gender roles of men and women (it is a fairly minor issue- she's right on the basics- the equality of the sexes, etc but there is a strain of male chauvinism that's offputting in a woman)

So here I am- a member of a distinctly minority viewpoint in this world. I've come by my ideas honestly and independently. I apply my philosophy to life and am always looking for contradictions in my thinking- I've not found many, though there have been some.

I don't feel like a member of any cult- i don't pay money to any central organization. I don't attend any official meetings unless there's a lecture I'm interested in. There's no dues, no 'church'. I'm essentially just a lifelong student who has found in a particular author an immensely valuable resource for clear and original thinking on profound issues. I think of Rand as an innovator- not the final word by any means, but even if she did not discover the WHOLE Truth she has made a huge stride towards discovering it. Someday someone will come around with a deeper and wider theory then Rand's. If I read such a writer and he convinces me, I will be a student of his.

I've sketched the broad outlines above, but let me now explain the most crucial element of the philosophy, which is its moral code. Rand's essential insight is that there's no real distinction between moral questions and questions of fact. If your purpose is to create an object such as an automobile, you are bound by the laws of physics and the potentials of metals and plastics and fuels etc. You can't make it go fast by giving it square wheels or filling its tank with diet coke. Every rational goal requires a rational process to achieve it- a process of identifying the facts of reality, breaking the goal down into discrete steps, and then proceeding to follow those steps to reach an end. Your mind at each step performs a rational process: true or false.

In morality, your purpose is the living of life as the type of being you are, and your goals and actions are subject to the same rational evaluation as any other purpose: right or wrong? Rand sweeps aside the supposed distinction between right/wrong and true/false and presents morality as a code by which to live as a rational being. Can you live by theft? True or false? Is honesty a value? True or false? Is freedom a value? True or false? Is force justifiable? True or false, etc. She derives an internally consistent philosophy built up from observation of the nature of man and the world. She presents morality as a TOOL, not a burden. A source, not of commandments and condemnations, but of premises and principles for living a happy productive life.

The moral code she derives is one of individual independence, essentially the moral code implied by Jefferson's political right to the "pursuit of happiness"- every man as an end in himself and all cooperation between men as mutual trade to mutual benefit.

I'd be glad to discuss the philosophy in greater detail than this short sketch, and I probably will elaborate more eventually, but I thought I should put this much out there as a short introduction. If this intrigues you, I obviously recommend the source- I'd start with Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead. At the very least I hope I've explained my own interest in these ideas and what I find so intriguing.

Cheers

-Richard Gleaves

Parable #1: "The Dinner Roll" or "Dinner at the White House"

2010-02-20T09:02:00.000-08:00

Note: This parable of mine in praise of property rights has, ironically, been reprinted without attribution all over the web. It's now been read by millions and pops up regularly as e-mail spam etc. Here it is in its original form.

DINNER AT THE WHITE HOUSE by Richard Gleaves

Once upon a time, I was invited to the White House for a private dinner with the President. I am a respected businessman, with a factory that produces memory chips for computers and portable electronics. There was some talk that my industry was being scrutinized by the administration, but I paid it no mind. I live in a free country. There's nothing that the government can do to me if I've broken no laws. My wealth was earned honestly, and an invitation to dinner with an American President is an honor.

I checked my coat, was greeted by the Chief of Staff, and joined the President in a yellow dining room. We sat across from each other at a table draped in white linen. The Great Seal was embossed on the china. Uniformed staff served our dinner.

The meal was served, and I was startled when my waiter suddenly reached out, plucked a dinner roll off my plate, and began nibbling it as he walked back to the kitchen.

"Sorry about that," said the President. "Andrew is very hungry."

"I don't appreciate..." I began, but as I looked into the calm brown eyes across from me, I felt immediately guilty and petty. It was just a dinner roll. "Of course," I concluded, and reached for my glass. Before I could, however, another waiter reached forward, took the glass away and swallowed the wine in a single gulp.

"And his brother Eric is very thirsty." said the President.

I didn't say anything. The President is testing my compassion, I thought. I will play along. I don't want to seem unkind.

My plate was whisked away before I had tasted a bite.

"Eric's children are also quite hungry."

With a lurch, I crashed to the floor. My chair had been pulled out from under me. I stood, brushing myself off angrily, and watched as it was carried from the room.

"And their grandmother can't stand for long."

I excused myself, smiling outwardly, but inside feeling like a fool. Obviously I had been invited to the White House to be sport for some game. I reached for my coat, to find that it had been taken. I turned back to the President.

"Their grandfather doesn't like the cold."

I wanted to shout- that was my coat! But again, I looked at the placid smiling face of my host and decided I was being a poor sport. I spread my hands helplessly and chuckled. Then I felt my hip pocket and realized my wallet was gone. I excused myself and walked to a phone on an elegant side table. I learned shortly that my credit cards had been maxed out, my bank accounts emptied, my retirement and equity portfolios had vanished, and my wife had been thrown out of our home. Apparently, the waiters and their families were moving in. The President hadn't moved or spoken as I learned all this, but finally I lowered the phone into its cradle and turned to face him.

"Andrew's whole family has made bad financial decisions. They haven't planned for retirement, and they need a house. They recently defaulted on a subprime mortgage. I told them they could have your home. They need it more than you do."

My hands were shaking. I felt faint. I stumbled back to the table and knelt on the floor. The President cheerfully cut his meat, ate his steak and drank his wine. I lowered my eyes and stared at the small grey circles on the tablecloth that were water drops.

"By the way," He added, "I have just signed an Executive Order nationalizing your factories. I'm firing you as head of your business. I'll be operating the firm now for the benefit of all mankind. There's a whole bunch of Erics and Andrews out there and they can't come to you for jobs groveling like beggars."

I looked up. The President dropped his spoon into the empty ramekin which had been his creme brulee. He drained the last drops of his wine. As the table was cleared, he lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. He stared at me. I clung to the edge of the table as if were a ledge and I were a man hanging over an abyss. I thought of the years behind me, of the life I had lived. The life I had earned with a lifetime of work, risk and struggle. Why was I punished? How had I allowed it to be taken? What game had I played and lost? I looked across the table and noticed with some surprise that there was no game board between us.

What had I done wrong?

As if answering the unspoken thought, the President suddenly cocked his head, locked his empty eyes to mine, and bared a million teeth, chuckling wryly as he folded his hands.

"You should have stopped me at the dinner roll," he said.

Copyright May 31st, 2009 by Richard Gleaves

Why shouldn't we have Universal Healthcare?

2010-02-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

My fundamental objection to universal health care philosophically is this: it denies the fact that life is not automatic but is a continuous course of self-directed action. It denies that life is a value that must be earned by effort- you cannot get away with living without providing through effort the preconditions for your own survival. No one has a right not to die, only a right to pursue life. I can CLAIM a right to be cured of some disease I catch, but if I catch it on a deserted island, who will be able to provide me with the cure I claimed by right? I can claim I have a right to be cured of cancer, but what if other men have not discovered that cure for me? Is there such a thing as the right to charity? The rights to goods? The right to services? What right do I have to any value I do not invent, create devise, or trade for myself? If it is wrong to take shoes I desire by shoplifting them under my coat, why is it right to have a third party (the government) take them on my behalf?

The issue involves the nature of rights; Are rights negative claims to freedom of action or positive claims to the property of others?

What is a 'right'?

Ayn Rand:
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.

Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.

The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.

The fundamental right is the right to life- which means freedom from force and the ability to take all necessary actions to protect and enhance your own life as long as you don't violate with the rights of another. Productive work is necessary to live by the nature of reality- since man does not get his sustenance and physical needs met as manna from heaven, he must create the physical values necessary to sustain himself by work. He must produce at least what he consumes. If a man is insufficiently productive to provide his own needs, he must live off of the productive work of others- if he does so with their consent, fine. That's sharing, cooperation, love, benevolence, charity. When he does so without their consent that's parasitism, theft, fraud, compulsion, violence and is evil: a violation of the precondition of rights- that you cannot exercise them legitimately by violating the rights of others.

Property rights are the recognition of the right to life. If man needs food and material goods to survive, and he provides them by his own effort, those goods are to be considered his rightful property.

Advocates of UHC claim, in essence, that because people "need" health care it must be provided by force if it cannot be obtained on the open market.

But why is "need" a superior claim to "property"?

If someone has failed to produce more then he consumes, he will be "in need". He can bring that need to the attention of someone who has been sufficiently productive, and ASK for that need to be met. The other person, because his productivity has produced his own values (food, clothing, shelter, money) can CHOOSE to offer his surplus to meet the needs of the other person (note: to offer more than his surplus would be to put himself "in need"). This is how all beneficial, kind and non-sacrificial human cooperation takes place. Such cooperation protects and acknowledges the rights of everyone involved.

Now, if a person is "in need" (it doesn't matter if it's through no fault of his own or through laziness, etc) and instead of asking, he FORCES the other person to meet that need, it is an immoral act, no matter what form that force takes: be it fraud, direct theft or indirect theft.

Note also that when someone initiates force in order to have his need met, he also can easily take more than that person's surplus goods because the owners estimate of his own needs is not taken into consideration and so create a second person "in need". If that person resorts to force against a third person, you can see how this can potentially create an endless chain of all men using force against all men. This is life not by production, trade and voluntarism, but by mass looting.

If I get cancer and cannot provide for my own needs, I can request charity from others legitimately. If they love me (if I've shown them my personal virtue and value), they will help- not out of pity, out of justice to their own values. If they hate me (if I've been a jerk or whatever), they won't. If these are my only options, I have an incentive to be virtuous and kind towards others throughout my life, so as to earn the affection on which I will have to depend in an emergency. Perhaps I have not developed any friendships or relationships with others because I've been a jerk or dickwad to everyone- or everyone sees that i'm "in need" not because of forces outside my control, but because I didn't plan, didn't produce, smoked 3 packs a day when I knew the risks and essentially created my own emergency. Nobody I know is willing to help me. What are my options? Do I swipe my buddy's wallet? Do I have some third party drain my mom's bank account? Do I pull a gun? Do I FORCE my brother, sister, friend or acquaintance to help me? If I do, will they be more or less likely to love me and want to help?

I think if you put it into personal terms it's easy to see that the answer is no. I have no right to initiate force and violate my friends' rights. I can try to change their mind through persuasion or virtuous action, or I can appeal to strangers.

Some people will establish charities out of respect for human life in general. Who? Most likely those with the greatest productive surpluses: the "rich". Historically, the great producers (the Carnegie's, the Mellon's, the Gates') have been great philanthropists. They were virtuous, however, for creating the wealth (which was hard) not for giving it away (which only requires a checkbook).

So, turned away by the people who know me, I go to an organized charity established by someone with great productive surplus who can thereby afford to risk his money on my future virtue. So not only is it in my interest to be virtuous and to cultivate friendships, but it is in my interest to demonstrate civic virtues: to make sure that I respect productive work, that I push for no law chaining men down to mediocrity, that I work for a social system that allows as many men as possible to rise as high as possible. If I am not productive myself, I will have a chance in life by allowing those that are productive to amass as large surpluses as they can. It is their surplus I will be dependent upon in an emergency. If I live by envy and hatred, i will not want anyone to rise higher than I do, and I will work to see them cut down to size. But I will pay for my own hatred when I need to ask help of such men and they are no longer there.

These men must also rise by their own effort- a free system does not allow anyone to violate the rights of others. No 'Robber Barons' are possible without laws that enable them. Note: to the degree Carnegie, Mellon and Gates use government force to amass their fortunes, they are mixed if not actually evil. I am operating on the assumption that equivalent men (on whatever scale) would arise in a free market economy.

So a system of voluntary charity gives me what incentives? It encourages me to be virtuous, kind, deserving, to develop friendships, demonstrate responsibility, encourage productive ability and to establish a system of laws that allow for and encourage the greatest amount of productive achievement in the society at large. It is in my self-interest to pursue these values. It is on these that I will depend if I get into trouble.

Would anyone like to project what the opposite system would encourage? I don't have the stomach for it. All I can say is read the paper, and look around you at what has become of your culture and your fellow men. We are about to enslave every man to every other man in a system devised to make "need", not rights, the driving principle governing 1/7th of the entire economy. Before you act to advocate such change, take the time to at least consider the ideas above and give them your attention with your fullest and most honest clarity of mind.

-Richard Gleaves

Of Hammers and Healthcare: Understanding the Nature of "Rights"

2010-02-20T08:43:00.001-08:00

Once Upon a Time, America reached a fork in the road....

Franklin D. Roosevelt
“The Economic Bill of Rights”
Excerpt from 11 January 1944 message to Congress on the State of the Union
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

Fifty-five years later, what was a radical rethinking of our founding principles is considered common wisdom and uncontroversial dogma. More and more people believe that the "right" to these material objects is, in fact, the implementation of the Jeffersonian ideal.

"How can we have a right to live," they say, "without having the right to the food and medicine we require to live?"

"How can you have a moral right to life," they ask, "without being given the practicalvalues required to live it?"

Hence the "Economic Bill of Rights"

But this view of rights is not only impractical it is also, as I will demonstrate, entirely immoral. This supposed view of rights, so commonly held, is the mechanism by which our actual rights are being destroyed.

Thomas Jefferson

"Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights" --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:441

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."--Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134

"Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty" --Thomas Jefferson: Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376

"What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals." ---Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:455, Papers 15:393

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.

I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. I'm an Objectivist. To paraphrase the Declaration of Independence, I hold these truths to be rationally demonstrable: that men live, that they survive by the use of their minds, that they must work and produce to sustain their lives, that it is good for them to live self-sufficiently as morally autonomous individuals, and that the political expression of this hierarchy is the concept of 'rights' which are sanctions of action in a social context.

Man survives by use of his mind, and so he must be free to act on his own judgment. What is true of one man is true of all- so we must respect the rights of others. Political philosophy recognizes that we each have a delimited sphere of non-conflicting freedoms.

What must be banned from society is the initiation of physical force by one man against another. All rights therefore delimit the sphere of action in which each man has the right to function without force or threat of force.

The right to life is the right to BE- to live free from destruction: to not be robbed, beaten, tortured, coerced, defrauded.

The right to liberty is the right to ACT- not to be detained, held, imprisoned.

The right to property is the right to EARN- to possess the results of your actions without confiscation by force.

The right to PURSUE happiness is just that- the right to pursue those values that, by your rational judgment, will give you pleasure, happiness, joy.

Let's examine a different philosophy of rights- the modern idea that a right is a claim to an object or action that must be provided to the claimant.

Immediately, it begs the question- to be provided BY WHOM?

Instead of a delimited sphere of non-conflicting freedoms, this view of rights establishes a set of overlapping claims- things that each man may demand of other men.

In my view, this is a fundamental error in politics. It was introduced as a philosophical principle relatively recently in America- with FDR. It's philosophical roots go back further.

This view of rights actually invalidates and destroys the legitimate rights I list above.

What does it mean to have a "right" to an object (or service)?

Let's pick an object at random and imagine what it means to claim a right to the thing.

"I've got a Right to a HAMMER!"
Don't I? After all, I require shelter and I can't build a house without a hammer, so let's assert that each man, by virtue of his need, should be given a hammer with which to build.

Given -- by whom? Men aren't born with hammers. They don't exist in nature unless you count a rock which you could bang something with. But we're not talking about rocks, we're talking about a manufactured item called a hammer.

How do you implement the '"right" to this object? If I have a right to a hammer, who will provide me with one? The only answer is "those who possess hammers". (We might call them the "hammer-rich"). How did those people get the hammers? Since hammers are a manufactured item at some point no hammers existed anywhere. Someone had to invent the hammer, show others how to make them, trade the hammers, etc. Those who have hammers today amassed them either by making them, purchasing them, inheriting them, or stealing them.

If they made the hammers, they exerted the effort to smelt the metal, carve the wood, and assemble the hammer. By my view of rights, they own their own effort and the product of that effort.

If they bought the hammers, someone else may have exerted the effort of creation but the current owners still had to produce values- they had to grow wheat which they traded for the hammers or provide services which they exchanged for the hammers.

If they inherited the hammers, then the current owners did not exert the effort by which the hammers were originally bought, but someone did- and that person expressed their own right to dispose of their property as they chose. This same situation applies to any circumstance in which the hammer is given as a gift or as charity- the owner is exercising his property rights by choosing to give away the item.

If they stole the hammers, they violated the rights of others by force.

So by what right do you claim a hammer for yourself? You are not requiring yourself to exert any effort by which you earn the hammer. You're not manufacturing it or earning it by trade. No one is choosing to give you a hammer as inheritance. You are not receiving it voluntarily as a gift or as charity. You are claiming it by right!

You are claiming the right to the unearned property of others. You do not fall into the category of maker, earner or inheritor of the item. You merely demand it. And, if you establish this hypothetical right as a political principle, you expect the government to provide it to you.

But the government is not a manufacturer of hammers, or of anything. The government may absorb productive businesses by nationalization, but they cannot run them -- compulsion and innovation are incompatible. The government is that organization which is established to have the legal monopoly over the use of force in a geographical area. If you live in a free society, that government would be delimited to the defense, not the violation, of rights. But we are not talking about the system ofnon-conflicting rights I describe. We are talking about the implementation of your political idea: that the government must provide a different kind of "right" -- not the freedom of each man from each, but rather that the government must enforce those claims that each man may make on other men.

The implementation of your "right to a hammer" means that the government will take a hammer from some other person who possesses it and give it to you. So you are not the maker, earner or inheritor of the item- but instead fall into the last category -- you will have a hammer by theft.

You are not getting your own hands dirty. You are not taking the item you want directly by pulling a gun, by threatening some man's life or liberty, by denying him his right to pursue his own happiness and to enjoy his own property. You are demanding that the gun be pulled on your behalf by a third party.

The implementation of a "right to a hammer", in practice, requires that the government act as your agent to violate the life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness of some other man of its choosing- to steal his property and convey it into your possession. Each right that you claim in this manner, requires such a violation.

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation" will necessitate violating the rights of the owners of those industries, shops, farms and mines to enter contracts and hire only by voluntary choice.

"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation" will necessitate violating the liberty and property of those who do not choose to pay more than has been voluntarily contracted.

"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living" will necessitate violating the liberty and property of the distributors and consumers who do not wish to pay more for products then they are worth.

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad" requires the creation of anti-trust law, which is subsequently used by government to extort and control industry, to distort and violate the free market, and to deny the rights of property, freedom of trade and contract. It destroys justice, which is objective, and enshrines "fairness" imposed by the subjective whim of a government bureaucrat. (Monopolies, by the way, are only possible when the government intervenes. A government takeover of the entire health care industry would make the largest 'monopolistic' corporate merger look like nothing in comparison)

"The right of every family to a decent home" required violating the liberties of lenders, distorting markets, and eventually brought the financial industry to collapse.

"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health" violates the property rights of the taxpayers who must pay against their will, the doctors who cannot set their own prices and contracts, and gives the power of life and death to an omnipotent state.

"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment" requires the violation of the rights of the young, the well, the cautious, and the employed.

"The right to a good education" produces state-run indoctrination that is neither good nor educational.

Every "Economic Right" you demand sets the government in motion to violate the rights proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. Every cash transfer into your pocket is taken from someone else or is funded by printing money which is not backed by any physical commodity but is asserted to have value by the government. Yet, even then, each printing is funded by someone's productivity somewhere- either in current generations or else is passed on as trillions of dollars in obligations foisted on someone's children or grandchildren.

By declaring "Economic Rights", you establish a system, not of mutual independence where all values are received by mutual trade, but a system by which men are forced into gangs- each gang pressuring the government for his own share of the loot they demand by right which must be grabbed by force of arms off of some other citizen disarmed by law.

Note that the only man who is safe in this system is the man who produces nothing. In your system, the more a man works, the more he produces, the more he is a target. The greater the effort, the greater the ingenuity, the greater the wealth, the more a man is expected to provide to others without compensation. He is punished to the degree of his ability. The higher he rises, the greater his punishment.

The men who are safe are not the men of ability, but the men of need. The less you produce, the less you work, the more indigent and self destructive and debased you become, the more needs you have. If need is the standard, then the man with less than nothing is the King of Society.

This is true in principle and it is being demonstrated in practice the world over. It was the cause of the fall of the Soviet Union, and is the black rotten core of every collectivist system that preaches "From Each according to their Ability, to Each according to their Need"

Now, I don't think that those of you who advocate Universal Health Care want any of this or know that this is the only means by which your ends can be accomplished. I don't think you’re consciously advocating a collectivist slave society or anything of the sort. You are, on the whole, kind people acting out of benevolence and according to a generally accepted (though mistaken) premise. But whether you know it or not, whether you want it or not, whether you'll admit it or not, a slave society is what you're advocating in principle and what you will enshrine in practice. It is merely a matter of degree and time.

As soon as any man can claim an object as a right, the government will begin to expand into a tyranny. Once the principle is violated and the government turns from the defender into the violator of rights, the path is set and- twisty though the road may be- it leads to total slavery of every man to every other with the government holding the whip. That destination is inevitable unless the principle of rights is restored.

Bad rights drive out good rights.

In less than sixty years, the entire political underpinning of the American System has been subverted and reversed. At this rate in sixty more years (probably less) we will be a dictatorship.

We are on the road to hell, my friends. Let us turn back to that fork in the road and reconsider the path we've been taking.

-Richard Gleaves

Note: What I have to point out to my Republican friends (I am not a Republican but an Objectivist) is that the moral teachings of the Christian religion are in direct conflict with the view I have presented above. The degree of your religiosity is what disarms and unmans you. You cannot preach for capitalism while teaching that each man is his brother's keeper. It is one or the other. While you are free to act on your religious convictions privately to motivate your personal charity, once you inject your moral view of the necessity of self sacrifice into the political realm, that morality will undercut your every defense of rights. Obama practices the secular version of what you preach in your religion. He merely makes compulsory what you hold to be merely obligatory. I invite all Republicans who are Christians for the sake of the next world to become Objectivists when speaking of this world. A philosophy of reason and rights is what is needed now, and a rational defense of individualism. One's personal convictions about the soul and it's judgement after death are just that- personal. They are not justifiable in reason and faith is not open to public debate. As we see from theocratic nations abroad, nations that cannot justify their principles in reason are condemned to impose them by force. In order to work and deal with each other as rational beings, we need an objective framework upon which we can all agree. Objectivism is a secular moral system teaching the virtue of rational self-interest. If you would like to be well armed in the political arena, this is the pro-life morality you must espouse in the political realm. I invite you to look into it.

To my Democrat friends, I am in complete sympathy with those of you who are Democrats because you believe in equality for all. The Republican views on such matters as gay marriage etc have been abhorrent- but they are views that come from their religion, not from reason or an understanding of rights. The "center way" we are searching for will involve the recognition of individual rights for ALL people. It also requires the recognition that no one has the right to use the government as a piggy bank- not the poor, and certainly not the rich. Crony capitalism is an evil and is practiced by both parties, though as practiced by religious republicans (who preach one thing and do another) it has the added reek of hypocrisy. The solution is freedom and reason. Let's work together to achieve them. Thank you for your time and attention, all. RG

The Emotionalism of "Universal Healthcare" Supporters

2010-02-20T08:36:00.000-08:00

As I write about the current debate in Congress and our President's push for Health Care reform (Or "Health Insurance Reform" or whatever poll-tested phrase is current this week), I'm struck by how often I hear the following.

Quote verbatim from an old college friend:

Following this line of thinking, those who cannot afford health care though they have jobs and are working people, they and their kids by the way can drop dead from untreated illnesses. They don't deserve unearned health care. Don't be a thief, uninsured people. Drop Dead. When your philosophy or viewpoint shows such a blatant disregard for your fellow person, the philosophy should be revealed and discarded.

Now, this is from someone that has known me twenty years, who should know that I am not a hateful or cruel person. Yet, because I write against the idea of a Government takeover of Medicine, I am to be considered a callous human being who does not care for my fellow men- why? Why are the two things supposedly linked?

Note the emotionalism involved: this is the same technique we see on the Republican side on issues like Abortion or the Death Penalty. (I called out my GOP friends on the way they imply all mothers who get abortions are "sluts" and how all men on death row are "dogs"- it's the use of hyperbolic language to denigrate the enemy of your position and, in logic, is known as the "Ad Hominem attack"- attack the man not the ideas). Now, in the health care debate, those without reasoned arguments of their own on the left will call all opponents "mobs" "nutters" etc who want people to "drop dead" and the loons on the religious right who have no intellectual argument of their own will start screaming "death panels" etc.

And my friend wants to paint me as actively seeking the death of the poor... hmm...

I don't want anyone to die. I would love to see the poor stop being poor, find employment, wealth, love, friendships, happiness, all the values of life. I would love to see the disabled and dispossessed find comfort and security, for the innocent to be avenged, for the good to be recognized and win. I want nothing but the best in life for my fellow men.

I simply do not believe it is my responsibility to give it to them.

What's stopping people from having the best in life? Is it me? I don't think it is. I don't hold down the poor, I'm not infecting them with diseases and denying them opportunities to improve their own situations. I challenge anyone to find a single instance in which I have violated the individual rights of any poor person anywhere- interfered with their pursuit of happiness, stolen from them, gotten in their way in any fashion.

The only actions I've taken is to defend my own property from them. I don't vote for redistribution from my pocket into theirs, I don't vote to give the poor charity with money stolen from my neighbors. Let me put it this way- I don't feel guilt about the poverty of others, and I don't feel frustration at the success of others. Each of us own our own lives.

Is this what makes my friend eye me as an immoral monster?

If I owned a small convenience store, and someone walked in, pulled a gun, and demanded cash out of my register- does it really matter to me whether that person were wearing a Brooks Brothers suit or rags? Does it matter whether he is robbing me to feed his stomach or to buy a Picasso? No. The need or wealth of the thief does not change the immorality of the act.

Now, most people would say that if I pulled a gun from beneath the register I would be within my rights to shoot a thief protect my property. Why is that? Why is it morally defensible to kill to defend one's property? Because the right to self defense is the right to protect ones self from the initiation of force. The thief is INITIATING (starting) the use of force against me. I am justified in using force in return.

Here's a recent news story with an example of a similar situation
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08152009/news/regionalnews/id_shoot_again_if_i_had_to_184655.htm Was Charles Augusto wrong to use lethal force to protect his property? No? But I'm sure the four men who robbed him were poor. I don't imagine they were the evil rich. Didn't he have a moral duty to allow them to take whatever they deemed they needed? No. He had every right to defend himself from the initiation of force.

Now, imagine that those four men had, instead of robbing Charles Augusto, merely stayed home and waited for a law to pass whereby Augusto's register would be tapped for an extra $400 once a year and each of them would have gotten $100 each in welfare payments. How is this any better than if they robbed him at gunpoint? They still get $100 each out of the register, and Augusto is robbed. The politicians pat themselves on the back for the "good work" they're doing, at the "compassion for the needy" they're showing. But what have they done except engage in legal theft?

Now, what if when the 4 guys attacked Augusto their motive was to get money for medicine- one of them, say, had diabetes and would die without insulin. Would that fact give them the moral right to engage in the robbery? Does that end justify that means? If they were staging the robbery to buy medicine, would you gasp in horror when Augusto blew them away or would you still say he had every right to do it? I don't believe that anything justifies loading a gun, pointing it at the head of another human being and saying "give me the cash out of the register". I don't care if you have diabetes, cancer, a heart condition, need it for medicine, for recreational drugs, for beer, to buy paint for your house, to send your kids to college, to pay for your maid, to keep your business from failing, to save the country from 'systemic risk', to put a man on the moon or to stop the rise of the oceans. Nothing justifies violating the mind of another man by putting your gun in his face except self-defense- meaning: unless he brings it upon himself.

Nothing changes if a politician passes a law saying that $400 must be taken from Mr. Augusto to pay for 4 $100 insulin injections for one of these guys. It's the exact same situation- Mr. Augusto has a right to live his own life.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. If Mr. Augusto started writing on his facebook page that he didn't want to be stolen from to pay for diabetic hoodlums, I'm sure someone would jump on him saying he was a callous man who didn't care about human life. Why does he have a right to defend himself from illegal theft (robbery) but is a moral monster when he disparages legal theft (welfare/redistribution)? In the first case, HE killed the guy when defending his property and in the second place DIABETES killed the guy. Why is it moral to shoot someone in self defense but immoral to refuse to allow a man to survive by victimizing you? I don't think it is. In both cases it's perfectly moral for Mr. Augusto to say the four men that want his money have no right to it, haven't earned it, and shouldn't be allowed to touch it.

What throws people off is this idea that somehow if the government engages in it (if it's legal) it's not theft. Usually they'll say because we've democratically voted to take Mr. Augusto's money and give it to the four men, he must abide by our will. The majority rules.

OK- let's see. Imagine we've got Mr. A, a congressman, and the four guys. The congressman says, let me know what you want. Mr. Augusto raises his hand and says "I want to keep my own property"- the four hoodlums raise their hands and say "We want Mr. Augusto's property". Majority rules, and once again Mr. Augusto is getting his pocket picked. It makes no difference!

If the government engages in an immoral act, the act is still immoral no matter how many people vote for it.

"See," I can hear my detractor howling, "you don't care if people live or die!"

Actually I do care. I think most people do. The mistake you're making is to think that Mr. Augusto (or I, or anyone) must either submit to be stolen from or else he is unfeeling and uncaring- that the choice is either submit to your duty to serve others or be branded a moral monster. But are the choices really to be a property owner and be evil or to be a victim and be moral?

No. My detractor completely overlooks the third option: cooperation. If the four men have a friend dying of diabetes why is their only option to steal to get his medicine? Let's assume that neither they or their sick friend is in a position to earn the money they need. Have they considered ASKING for help, first of all? Could they go to the shopowner, explain the situation and ask for his charity? Could they work out some deal whereby he would loan them the money with the understanding they would pay it back? If Mr. Augusto is not convinced, the next shop owner down the street might be- or the man after him. There are a million scenarios whereby those who have needs that they cannot meet by their own effort can secure the VOLUNTARY assistance of those with resources.

If you are someone who cares about a cause, CARE ABOUT IT. If you care about the plight of the poor put the time and the effort in to convince others of the correctness of your view, the importance of saving lives, seek voluntary donations, build coalitions, put ads in papers, change minds. Help doctors to make more money so they're economically able to provide more services as charity. Get the guns of government out of the way of the free market. Work to make the situation better by securing voluntary funding, voluntary action, voluntary support. If you do this, you will have deserved the respect and admiration of every man. Why? Because you will have demonstrated by your actions your love of life, your respect for your neighbors, and that you cared enough about other people's free will to CONVINCE rather then FORCE their participation in your crusade.

If you want to pass all the work off onto some new government program, to soothe your personal conscience about the plight of the poor without taking action yourself- don't be surprised when your fellow men call you on it. When you try to get our cooperation not by convincing us, not by securing our voluntary cooperation, but by FORCE- you will achieve the opposite of respect and admiration. Why? Because you will have demonstrated by your actions your contempt of property rights, your contempt of reason, your lack of respect for your neighbors' free will, and will have demonstrated that you are more comfortable wielding a government club then securing agreement.

Some men come out with ideas to help the poor and uninsured that DON'T involve violating individual rights:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html Such men are boycotted, shouted down as 'regressives' and accused of being uncaring by self-important little leftists who want to believe that theirs is the only moral solution and that the gun of a bureaucrat is the only practical solution. But do they ever address the ideas?

Charitable giving is the act of giving money, goods or time to the unfortunate, either directly or by means of a charitable trust or other worthy cause. Charitable giving as a religious act or duty is referred to as almsgiving or alms. The name stems from the most obvious expression of the virtue of charity is giving the objects of it the means they need to survive.

Some people want more than what they can get voluntarily. They don't have the arguments, don't care to find the arguments, that would convince others to join in of their own free will. Out of laziness, moral superiority, and contempt for others- assuming they know better how mankind's money must be spent and to what use human lives lives should be dedicated- they go to the government and turn it from an organization protecting individual rights into an organization violating individual rights. In the name of the 'common good', they blindly perpetrate widespread evil.

And when someone calls them on it, they say "you just don't care for your fellow men"- an emotionalist tactic that counts on unearned guilt and ad hominem accusations to stifle the debate. An accusation that would be more appropriately directed to the mirror.

THERE's your moral monsters.

-Richard Gleaves

The Monticello Statement

2010-02-20T07:53:00.000-08:00

First, let's be clear what Objectivism is NOT. We are not conservatives. We are Radicals for Capitalism.

It has come to my attention that Conservative Leaders from across America intend to unveil "The Mount Vernon Statement" on the eve of the Conservative CPAC conference. That statement is intended to be a declaration of principle for Conservatives going forward, and is an outreach request to Tea Party Members to support Conservatives in the 2010 Congressional Elections.

Quoting Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, "There is something here for everyone". And indeed there is. This one page document is to be a grab bag of political expediency: populism mixed with religion mixed with national security issues mixed with corporatism mixed with a few rare bits of principled fiscal sanity.

But nowhere in this document will you find a path to reclaiming the true principles which created this nation. You will find lip service, of course, but Conservatism has been the ideology of the right for decades. It has never defeated the left. Statism has increased. We slide leftward. Why would anyone think that NOW this movement has the answers?

American principles are actually anathema to a large swath of Conservative leaders, who try to base Individual Rights on ideas diametrically opposed to them.

Let me be clear. Conservatism as an Ideology is incompatible with our founding principles. For all of their talk about the founders and their ideals, Conservatives do not possess a coherent foundation from which to defend freedom. It is not their fault. They mean well. But have you noticed they are always astonished when their fine words and jingoism bring nothing but an increase in state power? Have they EVER truly rolled back government?

Have you ever wondered why? Let me tell you.

"The priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Out of respect to Mister Thomas Jefferson, I would like to call this "The Monticello Statement". I beg every lover of liberty to give me a moment of their time and to think through these issues deeply.

The Founding Fathers were radicals. Individualists. They were descendants of men who fled from the two greatest sources of tyranny in the Old World: both the secular tyranny of an unfettered king, and the sacred tyranny of religions in possession of state power. The Constitution they built ensured that no one could destroy the freedoms of the individual, which they identified as the Rights of Man.

These rights were not inventions of religion, but discoveries of reason.

No religious order, creed or system ever gave rise to the idea of individual rights. They were identified by Secular Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke.

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism were all in profound disagreement with the idea of individual freedom. Religious tyranny was the norm for man before the 18th Century. A thousand year "Dark Age" had been the prior result of religious rule by the Catholic Church. The United States is in no way founded on some previously unknown religious teachings. Quite the opposite.

The American Founding involved the discovery of new principles. The Founders wereinnovators. And their achievement is not properly understood today.

There were two views of the origin of rights even at the founding. Some men such as Jefferson or Paine held that rights were preconditions of human existence, that they were required for man by virtue of his nature as a rational living being. They saw rights as preconditions of living -- as self-evident facts to be identified and then respected.

Other, more religious, Founders accepted rights as a gift from the Divine. They saw rights as something "extra" granted by heaven, and so retroactively read "rights" into the teachings of their faith as if the discovery were not something radical and new, but as if it were part of a long tradition. Those were the first "Conservatives".

Together, these two strands of thought were joined in Jefferson's artful phraseology: "The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God", and in his use of the non-denominational "Creator" (unusual in a time when the usual language would read "Endowed by our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God" etc.)

These two strands of thought have always been with us. But these strands are inherently in conflict, even though they came together temporarily to create our nation. Rights can either be justified in reason OR they must be taken on faith.

I hold that to base one's argument for rights only on faith is a concession that reason is on the side of freedom's enemies. Conservatives seem to agree and are rushing to embrace the opposite of reason, a righteously blinkered anti-intellectualism.

Conservatism breaks the balance between faith and reason established at our founding and embraces the religious foundation of rights as the only argument. Conservatism does not speak of nature, of reason, of facts. It doesn't deal in philosophical proof, only in cultural intimidation and assertions. Conservatism has become anti-intellectual, contemptuous of thinking people, proud of how little it questions, quick to lionize the least informed as somehow "more real" than intellectuals. Conservatism, in its rejection of reason, has become a blind inert thing content to name call and demonize. It has become expert at criticizing liberals, and completely impotent at offering its own solutions. It has allowed the Progressive and Statist left to overrun the country by increments, by accepting and practicing the very same fundamental ideas as the left. In it's fervor to denounce the tyranny of unfettered state power in support of leftist ideology, it has turned a blind eye to the potential tyranny created by placing that same power in service to old-time religion.

Conservatives preach that limited government is necessary not because men are noble enough to be trusted with self-government, but because men are too sinful to be trusted with dictatorial power. They preach liberty while inserting the state into the most intimate and personal arenas of American life: the bedroom, the deathbed, and the doctor's office. They preach morals while wallowing in drug, sex and corruption scandals. The odor of hypocrisy permeates the Conservative Movement.

What is it to be "Conservative"? It is to retain the status quo. It is to concede implicitly that Progressivism is the future, that Socialism makes sense, that Communism is a moral ideal, yet to act as foot-dragger in the name of "Tradition" or "The Past", or because one has the "wisdom" to see that man is too evil to be trusted with that much power.

At the root of conservatism is a contradiction: a religious morality of self-sacrifice is offered as a justification for Jefferson's "Right to the Pursuit of Happiness"!

The ethical revolution of the founders has been abandoned.

Please understand this point.

Liberals preach the sacrifice of the strong to the weak in the same manner as do the religious prophets, and Conservatives agree in principle, differing only in degree. They cannot stand up for the "selfishness" of capitalism without abandoning their ethics of self-sacrifice. They allow liberals to preach that the good is service to others, and merely bicker over to what degree the morally obligatory is to be forced versus volunteered. But they do not object to the moral view of man as an object of sacrifice to the needs of others. They can't. They have to straddle multiple contradictions -- preach the morality of Jesus while hypocritically cutting help to the old, infirm, and weak; Preach capitalism while extolling the lilies of the field; Push for tax reductions while rich men struggle to reach heaven like camels through the eyes of a needle.

They must agree with liberals on the moral questions, while asking for policies that are immoral by their own standards. Which side is more consistent and convincing?

To accept the morality of self-sacrifice to others is a complete capitulation to the communal view of society and is what ultimately has destroyed our individualist system. THAT is the ultimate cause of the slide leftward. Conservatives embrace religious ethics, which do not respect (or allow) rational self-interest or Individualism. You cannot preach self-sacrifice and capitalism. The attempt to do so has destroyed our system through default. No one defends man's moral right to pursue his own rational self-interest, and you cannot defend a political right if you hold it simultaneously as morally evil.

This fundamental contradiction must be addressed if we wish to save the Republic.

Look at the Mount Vernon Statement's language:
"[Constitutional conservatism] recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue." (emphasis mine)

Can you see the contradiction here? The implication is that self-interest and virtue are mutually incompatible and opposed. On that foundation, none of man's selfish, personal rights (to his own liberty, life, property, thoughts etc) can be defended politically.

Conservatives claim that their "Mount Vernon Statement" is a "Line in the Sand" to Progressivism. And that is all that Conservatism has ever offered - lines in sand, to be swept away by the first liberal on fire with an inspiring vision of communal glory.

Enough writing in sand!

Conservatism has done nothing but discredit capitalism and to aid and abet Progressivism for the last half century. What is needed today is a rebirth of that other, neglected, thread of the Founder's thought: Reason and the Rights of Man. We need to reclaim our rational understanding of Americanism and restore the intellectual foundation for freedom, particularly the ethical foundation ofenlightened self-interest.

Let us raise secular reason to its rightful place again. Let us agree that in the public square we shall use arguments, not assertions. Let us return religion to its rightful place as a personal matter that pertains to one's own spirit and its relationship with the universe, which is subjective and not to be enforced by laws and regulations. Let each man tend his own soul, just as we expect him to tend his own business.

Let us fight for man's right to the pursuit of happiness in THIS life, NOW, and leave the next life to the theologians.

It has come time to abandon the ideology of "Conservatism" and embrace something even more radical: Individual Liberty in all its forms. There should be no more divisions such as "Social Conservatives" or "Economic Conservatives" etc, but rather one unified movement. It is time, finally, to break the false dichotomy of "materialism" vs "spiritualism" that split our country apart and to embrace Reason and Individual Rights.

It is time for the rise of the Capitalist Intellectual.

Please give this issue some thought. Here is a statement of principles that I hope we can unite around.
http://www.principledpatriots.us/

I invite every Tea Party member to investigate these alternate ideas by visiting the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.http://www.aynrand.org

Time is running out. Reason demands that we change, even if it requires we let go our preconceptions. Conservatism has failed to secure our liberties, not because it has never been tried, but because it is a false ideology.

It is time to forge a new path.

Richard Gleaves

UNCOMMON SENSE

2010-02-20T07:45:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

Welcome to the inaugural post of my personal blog "UNCOMMON SENSE"

What's it all about? I'm an Objectivist, a student of the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I intend to apply the philosophy to current events, and speak my piece when the world goes rotten.

Who am I? I'm a NYC playwright, composer and lyricist. I'm the creator of the "John Galt speaking" series on YouTube. I'm a descendant of Revolutionary War soldiers, a student of history, and an admirer of the Founding Fathers. My favorite has always been Thomas Paine. He was a rabblerouser, a hellraiser, an atheist, a lover of liberty, and a man willing to stick his neck out.

Those were the times that tried men's souls; These are the times that challenge men's minds.

In the twenty-first century it is the "Common Sense", the mainstream, the stagnant swamp of American intellectual life that is the problem. "Uncommon Sense" is what we need now -- i.e., radical, new ideas.

I hope my blog can play a small part in spreading them.

Richard Gleaves