Category Archives: Objectivism

Update VI: The Swine (AKA The State) Are AWOL

Canada, Europe, Healthcare, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Liberty, Natural Law, Objectivism, The State

The excerpt is from my new, WND column, “The Swine (AKA The State) Are AWOL.” If you miss the column on WND.com, you can catch it weekly on Taki’s Magazine, the following day. It’s now up. (May 2)

“Whether they are armed with bombs or bacteria, stopping weaponized individuals from harming others—intentionally or unintentionally—falls perfectly within the purview of the ‘night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory,’ in the words of the philosopher Robert Nozick. …

“A well-policed barrier is the definitive, non-aggressive method of defense against these ailments and afflictions. You don’t attack, arrest, or otherwise molest undesirables; you keep them at bay, away.”

“Libertarian and leftist protest over any impediment to the free flow of people across borders is predicated not on the negative, leave-me-alone rights of the individual, but on the positive, manufactured right of human kind to venture wherever, whenever.”

Read “The Swine Are Loose,” (Taki title) to learn what “the quintessential ‘Renaissance woman,’ the late, dazzling, Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Ph.D., Esq.—expert aviator, health-care policy analyst, marksman, and musician—had to say about “the effects on the health system of the bleeding Southwestern border.”

Update I (May 1): I don’t think I’ve made any dogmatic statements about Objectivist thinking per se. What I will say is this: From all warring Objectivist sources, I’ve read oodles about waging war on the world, but very little that is coherent about stopping the Third World from invading the US.

As I wrote in 2004, “Inviting an invasion by foreigners and instigating one against them are two sides of the same neoconservative coin.” I have seen no evidence that “real” Randians have departed from this neoconservative perversion.

Yes, some Objectivists say borders ought to be protected against dem terrorists, but has any dared to venture that defending the country’s borders may have more than just a security dimension?
By all means, enlighten me (with citations/links, please).

The title of my near-complete book manuscript, Into the Cannibal’s Pot, is meant as a metaphor, and is inspired by Ayn Rand’s wise counsel against prostrating civilization to savagery. I have no doubt she’d have been appalled by the free-for-all on the border with Mexico — and not just because of the possibility of infiltration by a couple of malevolent Muslims.

By all means, provide links to a coherent, Rand-stamped, non-neoconservative view of immigration that does not focus exclusively on security to the detriment of cultural components, which are as essential to the survival of American liberty.

Update II: I don’t buy the allegation that views on immigration among Objectivists are shaped by the validity/legality of Ayn Rand’s visa. Rand was not swayed by positive law. Likewise, Objectivists would—or should—argue from the natural law.

Update IV (May 2): The Hispanic influx into the US is unprecedented. Writes my WND colleague, Vox Day:

“To describe the discourse concerning the mass inflow of foreigners that has taken place over the last 29 years [as] ‘the immigration debate’ is to use a misnomer. What has taken place since the 1980 U.S. census is nothing less than a mass migration of the sort that irretrievably transformed historical civilizations everywhere from Hellenic Greece to Moorish Spain. In 1980, the number of Hispanics living in the United States was 14.6 million. In 2008, it was 45.5 million. Hispanics now account for 15 percent of the total population, and because they are the fastest-growing population segment, the census bureau expects their numbers to increase by a further 67 million by 2050.”

Update V (May 3): Sigh. “The Swine Are AWOL (Or Loose)” was not complicated, at least not to the sensible, straight-thinking.

* The dread diseases delineated in the column happen to hail not from the first world, but from Latin America, with which we have an open border.
* The state has a minimal duty. It is not to “control disease” or test every human being crossing the border, but to enforce a border.
* Currently about a million, poor, deprived, and often depraved, ill people cross over each and every year into the US. By enforcing the border, so that far fewer get through, the number of locals killed or sickened by criminals or carriers will be reduced. Not eliminated; reduced. Is that simple logic unclear? I don’t think so.
* This policy should not be egalitarian, naturally. Canada and Europe are first-world destinations. The diseases making a come-back in the US do not come from North America or the Continent. We have a contiguous border with the first-world Canada, and the third, or second-world Mexico. We do not share a border with Europe, naturally.

Update VII (May 4): Jack writes:

Hi

Seems that the comments are closed for this item, so will send just one of the citations/links you asked for.

Within the narrow confines of the original article, I thought it was in writing but the only reference I could find was Yaron Brook stating that people carrying infectious diseases is one of the groups that would be excluded from coming into the country. (Bottom of the page, last video, within the first minute.)

Cheers
Jack

Improving Nature The Randian Way

Britain, Gender, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Objectivism, Reason

I have a heroic Randian friend in the UK—you have to be a lager-than-life character to make vast fortunes in that Fabian climate. When he’s not negotiating mega-million pound acquisitions, he partakes in long-distance Triathlons—qualified for the World Championships last year, and aims to do so again this year.

He said this today:

“If men had to do this [childbirth], all the resources in the world would have been put into getting the process easier, for sure.”

This is so great—just up Mercer’s logical lane—because, he, at once, 1) acknowledge the great hardship of childbirth. And 2) man’s general superiority—on the facts of it—and drive to streamline and innovate that which is imperfect.

This is just up Mercer’s logical and inspirational alleys: The Man wants to improve on nature. In this realm, nature sucks. If not for technology, I have no doubt I’d have died in childbirth. An awful business.

Objectivists At War

Just War, Objectivism

Ilana:
It has been years since I last read your articles, an unfortunate blunder on my part! Thank you for your clear unswerving thinking about the nature of just war, the injustice of American military adventures, the bloodcurdling totalitarianism of radical jihadists, and the ugly spectacle of Objectivists embracing the authoritarianism of the neo-conservatives.
For years, I have referred to myself as a “small o” objectivist, because I concur with Rand’s ideas about the logical primacy of reason to ethics; about morality as values proper to living in accordance with one’s nature, both as an individual and as a human being; and about capitalism as the only moral economic system. However, I shudder at the thought of being associated with neo-objectivist enforcers of cosmic “justice” and democracy. So I’ll have to devise some other label: classical individualist or objectivist libertarian or crank Austrian.
It is sad and amusing to read the attacks by “Objectivists” on Rand fans who oppose non-defensive American wars. One in particular holds forth like a Catholic Cardinal, beseeching his followers to avoid the snare of various subtle “philosophical errors” that supposedly delude those who disagree with him.
When one defends the view that non-interventionism is eminently practical for Americans, one of the Cardinal’s Cronies opines that “rationalists” are often forced into defensive mode, whereby they engage in throwing logically disconnected facts and figures at their opponents for the purpose, not of enlightenment, but of obscuration! This is a clear case, according to the Crony, and seconded by the Cardinal, of a “snowjob.”
Whew!
Your writing is a blizzard of clear thinking!
Yours truly,
Mark Humphrey

Live Free or Die Hard: Geeks As Gods

Film, Hollywood, Objectivism, Technology, The Zeitgeist

I enjoy Bruce Willis, but even he can’t be expected to make a pathetic script and characters come alive in the latest “Die Hard” flick.

“Live Free or Die Hard” is studded with familiar Hollywood clichés:

The future of the US—and hence the free world—lies in the capable hands of unkept, dirty-looking, young 20-something computer geeks.

Older men like Willis may be muscular and heroic, but they are essentially dumb—devoid of the young’s brilliance, something they keep chanting. What’s more, everything about them is so yesterday—the music they like, the sort of parents they are; it’s all just crap, deserving of the hissing contempt of the young.

The shallow progeny has no idea dad’s daily drudgery includes many a heroic feat. Only when dad nearly dies rescuing the young bitch’s worthless behind does bitch decide to take on his last name.

This admittedly is the staple Hollywood pabulum. You’ve seen it in every single film and TV series: youngsters sneering at their parents, dishing out dirt, telling the parent—dad predominantly—how worthless he is. For his part, instead of cutting off the viper’s funds, dad grovels on his belly begging for some crumbs from the imperious offspring’s metaphoric table.

Yes, these are undying Hollywood themes, but that doesn’t mean they’re not as sick-making each time they’re encountered.

I watched the film with two technologically savvy “older” men (aged 42 and 52 respectively), who’re rather competent at problem solving. As much as they (and I) love action films, nothing about the special effects was believable.

Perhaps most ludicrous is Hollywood’s mythical, infantile conception of computers. Seat a PC savvy type—provided he’s young, of course—in front of a random monitor, and, evidently, there’s no end to the information he or she can squeeze from the thing, including to intercept a fighter aircraft flying above.

Don’t these people consult anyone who actually works in the business?

The usual useless idiots will try and extract heroic symbolism from this sorry script. Resorting to symbolism is subjective—to project one’s own infantile projections onto a cultural product is certainly an intellectual cop-out. Objective merits are what ought to count first and foremost in the assessment of all such products.

Consider a good review of “Live Free or Die Hard” as the litmus test for the stupid reviewer.