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
Objectivists At War
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